14 DAY TRIAL // Paradox Interactive voice, hot on the heels of the Hearts of Iron 3 announcement, that they are developing an expansion for their most recent launch Europa Universalis: Rome, a grand strategy game which spans the history of the Roman Empire. The expansion will be called Vae Victis and will sell for just 9.99 dollars when it launches close to the end of 2008.
Paradox have a history of providing excellent support for their games, with comprehensive patches to address most major bugs and with expansion packs which are reasonably priced and provide extra depth to the original game. Europa Universalis III and Hearts of Iron 2 are both now much better games than they were at launch.
Johan Andersson, who is the head of development at Paradox Interactive, said that "Most of our releases take on a life of their own after release thanks to more than 100,000 active fans on our forums. Expansions like Vae Victis allow us to add a whole new dimension to the original game while giving gamers a chance to probe further into those elements of the game that they have expressed most interest in".
The main idea of the expansion is that the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire were pretty much shaped by great men, governors, generals, diplomats and spies. EU: Rome has not succeeded in translating this into the game completely and Vae Victis is supposed to add more social interaction, Senate power and goals for individuals, plus more diplomatic options.
The game has improved pretty much since launch through patches, with 1.3 making it a lot more interesting. Combat has been balanced and the way barbarians work has been tweaked. If I were to re-review the game now, I would give it a better grade than when it was initially launched.