Hey Folks! Ryagi here, today we take a brief dive into a nightmare, but not just anyone's nightmare. It's Voltaire's Nightmare! That's right! We're finally getting along to covering this classic EU4 mod. What took us so long? Well, gotta keep some of those classics in your pocket for a rainy day you know? Anyway, with pleasantries out of the way, lets get into the meat and potatoes on this mod, brought to you by the Voltaire's Nightmare dev team as a whole:

----------------------------------

Hello everyone, we are the development team for the mod Voltaire’s Nightmare.

Voltaire’s Nightmare has evolved quite a bit over the years — it originally emerged in 2016 with the idea of creating something like ‘Iaponia Universalis’ for the Holy Roman Empire, which is to say, replacing the entire world map with an ultra-detailed HRE. Taking this chaotic world of tiny lordships, abbacies, and republics as our starting point, we have expanded the scope of the mod to cover everything from Ireland to Iraq and a full timeline from 1054 AD to 1871 AD.




While Voltaire’s Nightmare deliberately tries to preserve the flow of EU4’s core vanilla gameplay as much as possible, this ‘zoomed in’ map allows for a level of detail in provinces and countries that couldn’t be captured by a traditional map mod, and we’ve added plenty of new religions, cultures, techs, units, governments, ideas, monuments, events, and missions to flesh out this expanded world beyond just the addition of nations.

Every religion in Voltaire’s Nightmare has some kind of custom mechanic. This could be something as simple as a unique set of Personal Deities, but we have also re-used most vanilla religious mechanics from outside the zone of the mod’s map to let you experience things like major incidents in the history of the Nestorian church or modernization reforms in the multiple pagan faiths of the Caucasus. It’s up to you whether you want to try playing as a Cappadocian Iconoclast destroying icons, a Dalcassian Lollard fighting off Crusades, or perhaps even revive the religion of Ancient Egypt and become a Coptic Napoléon.





Since Voltaire’s Nightmare covers such a vast timeline with hundreds of added nations, we thought the best way to give you a snapshot of the mod would be to highlight just a few scenarios from the 1054-1444 period that might pique your interest.




Empire of China mechanics from “Mandate of Heaven” have been retooled for the Kievan Rus, allowing you to expand and manage your appanages and ultimately form either Ruthenia or Russia. In 1054 the Rus are split between only a handful of major principalities, but as time goes on the Rus Princes will have to deal with the infamous Rota system of collateral succession and the fragmentation of their patrimonies into an ever-finer network of small fiefs — to say nothing of the looming arrival of the Mongols.


One of the more intriguing countries in Voltaire's Nightmare is the semi-historical nation of New England. A handful of medieval sources allege that a group of Anglo-Saxons led by Earl Siward of Gloucester departed England after the Norman Conquest and sailed to Constantinople to join the Varangian Guard. As reward for their service, the Byzantine Emperor Alexios Komnenos later rewarded these Anglo-Saxons with a strip of land located on the shores of the Black Sea. There, surrounded by heathens, they established a colony and embraced a piratical lifestyle in exile. New England is just one of several special Pirate Nations you can play as in Voltaire’s Nightmare.





Another interesting setup to play is the Kingdom of Jerusalem after the First Crusade. The Kingdom is divided into many minor baronies and also holds loose control over the larger Crusader states like Antioch in the north. Among these special subjects are the famous Hospitaller Order and Templar Order, protecting the flanks of the Holy Land through a network of fortresses. Hidden in the Syrian mountains, there is also the opposing Order of the Assassins, who seized control of several remote valleys after being expelled from Aleppo for their heretical beliefs. There's a lot going on in this region with many different religions and political entities to explore — including the possibility of launching your own Crusade with help from across the Catholic world.





While the Reconquista is almost complete by 1444, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries we find a much more dynamic Andalusia that could be united by any Christian or Muslim power. To the south, the collapse of the Caliphate of Córdoba in 1031 has created a patchwork of minor emirates known as Taifas. Among these Taifas are the Taifa of Dénia, ruled by former Slavic slaves, the Shia Taifa of Málaga, and the Taifa of Córdoba, a republic formed in the Andalusian Caliphate’s old capital. In the north, the familiar Christian monarchies are consolidating their power to strike against the weakened Taifas. The one thing giving the Taifas some breathing room is the Tierra de Nadie, a strip of uncolonized provinces around the Duero River which represents the devastated borderland that had been left almost uninhabited on account of the constant warfare between the Christians and Muslims.


We hope you enjoyed this little look into the world and features of Voltaire’s Nightmare. To really get a sense for the mod, we suggest you try to explore the timeline yourself and see if anything sticks out to you. Maybe you could be the first player to start at the height of the French Empire in 1812 and manage to conquer the whole map before 1871?



For the last few years we have mostly been adding flavor to the mod rather than new map content, but one of these days we might just get around to filling out Persia…

In the meantime, you can also check out Voltaire’s New Nightmare, an associated mod that returns to the original ‘HRE only’ premise (albeit in much better quality than the 2016 version).

----------------------------------

I imagine many of you won't have trouble finding Voltaire's nightmare, and indeed may have it downloaded in your mod folder already. But just incase, be sure to check out them out here:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=684459310

And now that this series has officially proven to be a success we plan on keeping a much stricter schedule with uploads! You can expect a new mod spotlight once every 2 weeks, on Fridays. As usual let us know if there are any mods you'd like us to cover, or indeed reach out if you yourself might be interested in showing off some modding work. Whether in progress or published. Until next time!

Hey!

We are happy to announce the integration of FOUR essential DLCs into the Europa Universalis IV base game: "Rights of Man", "Art of War", “Digital Extreme Upgrade” and "Common Sense". That’s right - all current and future EUIV players will receive these four DLCs absolutely free of charge! And you won’t even need to do anything to receive them!

So far, the first three of these DLCs were a part of the "Starter Edition" - but we decided to add the fourth one to the mix to enrich the core experience of EUIV even more. Once this initiative is launched on October 17, all of these DLCs will be automatically included with the base game purchase, enhancing your gameplay experience right from the start.

In order to celebrate and honour constant support from our community, everyone buying the base game before October 17 or already having it in their library will receive these four DLCs for free once they are integrated. In this way we want to reward our fans for their ongoing engagement with Europa Universalis IV.



Are you a new player, wanting to give EUIV a try? Then don’t waste time and take advantage of our ongoing Steam sale and get Europa Universalis IV for just $9,99 to benefit from additional DLCs after October 17, when they will be automatically unlocked.

And what if you are a seasoned veteran, who already has the base game plus the 4 DLCs mentioned above? Well, we are preparing a special treat for you - on October 17 we will lower the price of the Ultimate Bundle and introduce a brand new Starter Edition. Keep in mind that DLCs you already own will reduce the price of the Ultimate Bundle even more, making it the best way to finally complete your collection!

[expand type=details]

1. Why are we doing this?
Europa Universalis IV has been with us for over a decade now (time flies!) - and during this time we continuously supported it with hundreds of free updates and dozens of DLCs. Over the years, it has become apparent that "Rights of Man", "Art of War", “Digital Extreme Upgrade” and "Common Sense" are the go-to choice for new players, while most veterans consider these DLCs to be an integral part of EUIV experience. It’s about time for us to recognize that officially - and make sure that both newcomers and experienced leaders can enjoy Europa Universalis IV equally from the get go. And is there a better way to do that than giving out these DLCs for free?

2. Why have you decided to make 4 DLCs permanently free?
For many years, "Rights of Man", "Art of War", “Digital Extreme Upgrade” and "Common Sense" were considered to be a quintessential set of DLCs that every Europa Universalis IV player should get. We now want to recognize this officially - so even more players can enjoy the features included in these expansions from the start.

3. I already own the base game. How does this affect me?If you own the basic Europa Universalis IV game, but not all of the expansions now being bundled with it, additional content will be unlocked for you for free. If you own all of the content included in the new base game, nothing will change for you.

4. Does this even apply if I buy the base game at the current lower sale price?
Yes! You can take advantage of any lower price between now and October 17 to buy the base game and then download the free expansions when they become available.

5. Is this change going to be rolled out on all platforms?
Yes! We are planning to update the base game to include all four DLCs listed above regardless of which platform you are playing on: Steam, Epic, GOG or Microsoft Store.

6. Will there be any refunds or rebates for people who already bought these games at full price?
No, there will be no refunds, rebates or credits towards future purchases based on previous purchases of Europa Universalis IV or its additional content. This being said, if you bought one of the listed DLCs recently, make sure to double-check the refund policy of the platform you are playing on (for example, Steam has a 14-days refund policy).

7. How does this change to the Base Game affect the Starter Edition and Ultimate Bundles?
The content of the Starter Edition will be adjusted to include different expansion packs, as some of the starter expansions are now free. The Ultimate Bundle will see a decrease in price.

8. Will my base game save files break after this change?
If you currently don’t own one or more of the DLCs to be included in the new base game, it’s likely that your current save game will break once this change is made on October 17. That’s one of the reasons for which we are letting you know about free unlocks more than a month in advance - so you can finish your ongoing campaign just in time.

9. What if I don’t want these DLCs?
DLC content can be disabled through the game launcher before clicking "Play", under the section "DLC". Alternatively, if you're launching the game through Steam, you can also disable DLC via Steam's in-built DLC manager.

^ Edit regarding FAQ #9. The above statement is no longer accurate, after deliberation and testing the 4 DLC added on October 17th will be "baked" into the basegame and as such cannot be disabled. This is due to potential issues regarding the game's checksum and crossplay. Note: Players on Steam will still have the option to rollback to the previous patch, prior to the baked in DLC content coming on October 17th.

Have a question that isn't answered here? Feel free to post here or over on our forum post and we'll try and get back with you!
[/expand]

Hello Europa Universalis music enjoyers (Presumably most of you?). Ryagi back to wrap up our anniversary week with another mod spotlight. And yes that also included wrapping up what have been almost daily announcements here on steam ;D Anniversaries are a busy time!

For this spotlight, we are covering an entire collection of mods, rather than just one mod. The name "Utopia Music" is ubiquitous within the EU4 modding scene for good reason, and he may not even need an introduction to some of you. But incase you haven't heard of Utopia or the work they've done, we're going to introduce them anyway.

Take it away Runite/Utopia.

------------------------

Hello everyone!
Do you like free stuff? Do you like headbanging and playing in ironman mode? Do you like the EU4 soundtrack and wish there was more of it? I have just the solution for you!


Some of you may know me as Utopia, and I compose music for all of your favourite EU4 mods. My work has ranged from Ante Bellum’s Original Soundtrack, to Anbennar’s iconic main theme, to an epic Third Odyssey Christmas ballad. And not to mention: two official music packs for Europa Universalis IV! (Tenth Anniv. & HRE Music Pack)

I am also the creator of the Music Mod Creation Tool, which is an online tool that can generate a basic music mod for most mainline Paradox Interactive Games.

So, let’s take a look at some of the music I’ve made. And then I’ll give you a little look behind the scenes of the music-making process, using my Roman-themed Christmas song, We’re Going Back, to demonstrate.


Original Music Mods is a collection of music mods (surprise!) that together add nearly 100 original orchestral music tracks to the game. Every single one of these tracks has been composed by me specifically for Europa Universalis 4 or one of the Community’s modding projects. And, each track is painstakingly contextualised to the game, to maximise your audio immersion.

There is music to drive the marching drums of war and power your grandest conquests, and there is music to soothe the troubled soul and inspire the quiet harmony of peace. Under the glory of music Kings, Queens and Emperors will rise; Warlords and Chieftains will reign supreme; and decadence will set your enemies adrift. Such are the stories that my music can tell as you play the game.

So, let’s have a look at some of the music available!


The premier European music mod. Adds 24 new tracks. Each major culture group in Europe receives a peace theme and a war theme. The themes will only play when you interact with a culture (i.e. if you are at war with France you will hear France’s war music). Also includes a bonus theme for Rome if you can keep Byzantium alive.

Steam | Paradox Mods


Music for Viking enjoyers. Adds 8 music tracks inspired by and focused on the Nordic countries. You will hear this music if you are active in, and around, Scandinavia. A highlight is the jubilant and celebratory “Coronation of Gustavus Adolphus”.

Steam | Paradox Mods


Composed for the Ante Bellum mod. Adds 16 music tracks to the game. Explores the tension and conflicts between the Christian and Islamic religions in the 1400’s, as well as internal strife and decadence. In vanilla EU4 the music is contextualised primarily around region and religion. The main theme is powerful and sets a dark tone for the world, whilst the epic “Legacy of Seljuk” adds a layer of menacing foreboding to the artillery of the Ottomans.

Steam | Paradox Mods


Piano-based peacetime music. Adds 10 music tracks to the game that are relaxed and calming in nature. Plenty of piano and lightweight strings, in comparison to my usual brass-heavy scores. This music is generally contextualised in-game to peacetime.

Steam | Paradox Mods


The ultimate collection of miscellaneous music tracks and main themes from across various EU4 mods. Currently adds 27 music tracks to the game and is continually updated whenever new music is released. Includes various music tracks from Anbennar, Third Odyssey and Ante Bellum, as well as main themes for mods such as Extended Timeline and Imperium Universalis, plus a couple of Christmas-themed music tracks! The music is all contextualised depending on the theme of the piece.

Steam | Paradox Mods

By now you might be thinking: all of that music is pretty cool, but how did you make it?
The journey from idea to published music is a long and slow one, and whilst I won’t bore you with the woes of everyday musician life, I thought it could be interesting to take a little look at some of the key parts of the process.
For this demonstration I will be using one of my recent releases “We’re Going Back”, which is an epic-style Christmas song about Byzantium, sung by vocalists Ian Martyn and Nagisa.



One of the first steps in the composing process is to find inspiration and come up with some ideas. This can be a simple melody or riff, a rhythmic beat or special harmony, or occasionally something more nuanced and complex. The right idea can set the tone and pace of the overall piece, so it’s important to spend time thinking about what the music represents and the story it’s trying to tell.

For We’re Going Back the scope was clear from the beginning: I wanted to write a Christmas song based on the Third Odyssey mod. This meant I was able to draw upon the musical themes and ideas of the existing main theme, Back to the Motherland. What an epic foundation to build from!


There’s no such thing as a good idea or a bad idea, nor too many or too few. Generally, I sit at my piano for hours recording ideas until I strike something that I feel really resonates with what I’m trying to achieve. Most of the time I’m creating background music, so things need to be somewhat mellow, even when intense, and should blend in well with the game’s existing music. In the case of a main theme I take much more liberty to explore ideas that will make the music stand out on its own. For a Christmas song it’s all about making something more lighthearted.

Now, have a listen to the first idea I came up with when I first started working on We’re Going Back. Do you notice any similarities to the Third Odyssey theme? Any differences?





I’ve simplified the main fanfare at the end of Back to the Motherland, shifted into a different timing and… added lyrics?! Yes! It’s a Christmas song and when I thought about what the Elysians of Third Odyssey might wish for, a longing “Constantinople” came to mind. This then quickly gave rise to the idea of writing a Michael Bublé style Christmas love ballad about Byzantium.

Usually, I spend a lot of time in this exploratory phase, where some ideas will grow and others will falter. But from the beginning I’m vibing with the concept I’ve come up with for We’re Going Back. It’s unique, catchy and to the point: demonstrating the melody, harmony and rhythm that can then be developed into a much larger orchestral arrangement later. It will also be fun to write some lyrics and vocals!

Great! We’ve found an idea that we like. But we need to turn it into a proper song. Now the real work begins!

There’s a few ways to go about this, but generally I find myself taking one of two approaches:

• Plan out the entire song, defining different melodies and rhythms through different sections, all on one or two instruments (often piano). Then start working through to orchestrate it and bring in the other instruments where needed.
  
• Orchestrate the current ideas and then see where the music feels naturally inclined to go next. A “make-it-up-as-you-go” approach.

For We’re Going Back, I mostly followed approach 1. It’s going to be a “pop” song and those generally have a clearly defined structure (verse, chorus, bridge etc). Melodies are also simpler and more repetitive, which makes it easy to quickly map out the main segments of the song. I can leave some gaps to dream up some instrumental sections later. But alas, lyrics! This is a new challenge. Let’s take a look at the first outline I made for a verse and chorus.




A new key signature! The melody and harmony are fairly close to the final version. The rhythm is basic and the lyrics are something. Now we just repeat this a few times and we’re done right? Well… it is just a piano, so that’s a bit bland. There’s not even a vocal line yet. I don’t think Michael Bublé would be impressed. It’s time to orchestrate.

I do all of my composing and orchestrating in music notation software (Sibelius 8). This allows me to accurately transcribe note-by-note exactly what I want each instrument to do, and can play it all back to me at will. If that sounds laborious, it is! I usually allow 8 hours to compose 1 minute worth of music.
I spend a lot of time listening to this virtual orchestra and adjusting sounds and melodies and ideas to maintain a smooth flow of music and balance out different sections of music. After all, it would be a bit overwhelming if the entire piece was an over-the-top punchy orchestra from start to finish. Adding variation to the tone, pace and theme of the music can keep things interesting and allow opportunities to advance the musical story that’s being told. In the case of We’re Going Back that also means development of the vocals and what the lyrics are conveying.

Next is an excerpt from the full 3 minute orchestrated draft that I went on to create from the ideas we’ve explored.



Christmas songs are fun to write because I can use instruments that would typically lie outside the scope of EU4’s music. I managed to sneak some synths into the 10th Anniversary Music Pack, but in We’re Going Back I’ve kept it modest with some saxophones and guitars. Together they provide a smooth jazz feel to back the vocals in the verse, bringing my original “romantic ballad” idea to life. The orchestra then picks up in the chorus, bringing the epic triumph of the Third Odyssey music in to underscore just how momentous the idea “bringing Rome back” would be. The result is a pretty awesome mashup of genres!

But we also have the vocals. And we can see now there are two vocal lines: one female and one male. Duets tend to make great love songs, but where did this idea come from? Well, a bunch of men thinking about Rome would be a meme. So by turning the song into a duet I could frame it as representative of the people, rather than an individual. That also opened up the opportunity to use more musical techniques on the vocal lines. For the lyrics I had one aim: to guide the music from the inklings of an exiled Elysian dream into an epic Roman reality, in true Third Odyssey fashion.

But even through this there is still experimentation to be had. Ideas come and go. As I build out the full piece, in all of its orchestral glory, sometimes hard decisions have to be made. Or sometimes I get stuck at a point and try a couple different options. The end of a piece is often one of those things. Here’s the original ending I wrote for We’re Going Back:




Okay. Cool. Sounds moody, I guess. Maybe a little melodramatic? Quite a sudden ending really. Let’s be real, it’s not great. They’re going back to reclaim Constantinople, where’s the epic Third Odyssey fanfare?! Alright, alright, I understand… time for another revision.

So, the revisions are done and the orchestration is complete. The music is finished, right? Not yet! Once the composition of the entire piece has been completed it’s time to move into the production phase. This is where the mixing and mastering magic happens to give the music more depth and realism. Besides, we haven’t done any singing yet!

If you thought writing every note one-by-one was tedious, let me introduce you to a whole new level of suffering. In the production process I introduce an entire second layer of the orchestra using a much more vibrant and diverse set of orchestral sounds. But increased flexibility means more work is required to configure each and every note the way I want. That’s right, track-by-track, note-by-note, I crawl through the entire piece again, this time focusing on sound balance, special effects (e.g. synths or niche instruments), and adding more presence to the sound.

Let’s do an audio comparison shall we?

(WGB: #5 - Production)

We’re Going Back was the first project I mixed in Logic Pro! Here’s what it looks like:


Notice how there’s more lines of trumpets compared to what we’ve previously seen? Every instrument can be played in many different ways, and each one I need manifests itself as a new line in the software. This can easily balloon larger pieces to over 100 lines of instruments - that’s a lot to keep track of and balance all at once!

Now we also need to get the vocals in there. I can’t sing very well, but fortunately I have access to people who can. A massive shout out to Ian Martyn and Nagisa for taking on the challenge! I sent them sheet music, audio files, lyrics and various other resources, and they did a perfect job creating audio recordings for both the male and female lines. The eagle-eyed among you will notice that the vocal lines are completely flipped from the original orchestration in the final version of the song; that switch happened after I received the recordings and decided where things worked best.



Once I’ve worked through the entire piece, and gotten lost countless times in all the tools that Logic Pro has to offer, it’s time to do the final mixing. This is generally a bunch of final adjustments applied globally to the entirety of the music piece, to prepare it for release and general listening. Volumes are equalised, reverb is added, and anything outlying is squashed by the compressor.
And once that final mix is bounced and ready to go… well then I can finally kick back, relax and enjoy my new piece of music, right? I wish! By the time the music is complete I’ve heard it at least a hundred times already. So instead I get to enjoy it vicariously through the community once I have released it to the world. And don’t even get me started on artwork, social media and marketing…

Wow! I hope that was some interesting insight for you. If you’ve enjoyed any of the music, or are curious to discover more, feel free to check out my YouTube channel, explore my Spotify or pop in and say hi on my Discord server.
And, of course, don’t forget to jump over to Steam or Paradox Mods and add all of this music to your Europa Universalis IV experience!

Thanks for having me.
See you in Utopia!

- Runite Drill



------------------------

Thank you Runite! Europa Universalis wouldn't be what it is without the music behind it. We're all lucky to have Runite bringing high quality soundtracks to our favorite mods. That about rounds out our spotlight this time around. But if you want to hear more from Runite be sure to check out the music collection on Steam and his other channels linked above.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2240429843

We also recently released an amazingly silly collaboration with Runite and many content creators. It's available over on our newly launched Europa Universalis Youtube Channel, Hunting Accident!

Be sure to check it out if you haven't already:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCQQP0ZW42M

Until next time o/

In celebration of the game's 11th Anniversary, we are finally launching a dedicated Official Europa Universalis YouTube channel!


We have a plethora of EU content planned for the main channel. When it comes to main channel content, our priority will be focusing on quality over quantity. Some examples of main channel content we have planned:

• Dev talks
  
• Trailers and gameplay
  
• Podcasts
  
• Historical themed Documentaries
  
• And more!

For more regularly scheduled content on the channel, we also have our YouTube shorts which might include:

• Gameplay tips and mini tutorials
  
• Short dives into community made events or content
  
• Mini nation spotlights
  
• Fun miscellaneous EU themed content

We invite you to check out some of the content we already have posted over on the channel, be that our Grandest Lan Documentary, our YouTube shorts, and of course our Channel trailer which you can view below:



Be sure to subscribe and stay tuned there for any and all EU video content! If you have any suggestions for what sort of content you'd like to see on the channel also feel free let us know in the comments below.

Who can you count on to protect your most treasured possessions? Who will dependably arrive in the nick of time to save your other plushies from danger?

You can always count on this plushy platypus musketeer to protect your national honor, as well as add a little élan, panache and other fancy French words to your collection.

Equipped with a musket, a sword and a dashing hat, this official Platypus Musketeer Plushie for Europa Universalis adds some historical color to your shelf, with a fierce look befitting his enigmatic - even paradoxical - species.

Brought to you in collaboration with Makeship. We are very excited to get this dapper little guy into your hands. And just in time for the the 11th anniversary of the game's launch! 🎊

Grandest Lan is a 100 player, 3-Day Multiplayer Campaign with custom rules to encourage role-playing with the backdrop of gripping EU4 gameplay. Grandest Lan is suitable for players of all skill levels, managed by game masters, tech specialists and a veteran events crew.

Hosted and run by TurboLarp, and covered by Paradox, players organize themselves into teams of 3, and take control of a single nation. This team will work together utilizing cunning strategy, including a great deal of real time, real life diplomacy with other teams. The entire building is reserved for our use, so everyone you meet will be a part of the experience. Enjoy the historic location as well as the very modern kilometers of cables and dozens of computers.

Thanks in part to the roleplay focus of the event, no EU4 multiplayer experience is required to participate in Grandest Lan. Although strategy does play a role, teams can "respawn" as another nation upon death or request, and this allows for some unique roleplay to occur. Want to come back as a one province minor who collects heirlooms from other teams? Go for it! TurboLarps Game masters have ensured the lan is focused on a fun roleplay experience and is not intended to be a competitive environment.

The event also features various miscellaneous activities within the castle itself! Some of the previous years activities included blacksmithing lessons, archery, and a fan favorite... firing muskets!



And for those of you who love stats and maps... (You are reading an EU4 announcement after all)
Here is a rundown of how the actual gameplay for Lan 2023 went:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8FydODBpTk

Grandest Lan is of course returning for 2024! Whether you are looking to spectate... or maybe even join the Lan itself, Grandest Lan 2024 takes place from October 31st - November 2nd.

Below are the pickable nations for Lan 2024, the nation selection process has not yet begun which means all of these are still up for grabs for this years teams:



Naturally, such a large scale multiplayer event requires some tweaks and balance changes. You can see some of these below. Keep in mind these are subject to change between now and the Lan itself, as game masters continue to craft a quality exprience.



Tickets are limited, but still available as of posting! Grandest Lan is a once in a lifetime experience, and definitely something worth considering for those of you who have the opportunity.

We understand travelling to Poland for this sort of the experience is out of the question for many. So as with previous years, for those that are interested but won't be attending, we will be covering the event as it runs from October 31st - November 2nd through various means.

Welcome back to another Mod Spotlight! Unfortunately this one was far too gargantuan to fit into a single steam post. (We tried). So the full version including a map and mission tree overview can be found over on our main Forum post

We'd encourage you to check it out if you want to hear more about the specific starts IU has to offer. Otherwise, enjoy the rest of the post!


Imperium Universalis is a mod a lot of the EU4 community likely has heard of or seen at least once, but despite all the years and major rewrites of the mod, we are still around and being worked on!

But for those that don’t know about Imperium Universalis, it is a mod attempting to depict Europe, North Africa, and most of Asia from 612 BC up until about 200 CE, encompassing the Achaemenids, Macedon, Mauryan Empire, and even the first Chinese dynasties. To do this, the mod is very, very different from vanilla in many key ways, although certainly not the most.

Before getting to those key differences, overviewing the map itself is more important.


In 612 BC, the world is incredibly divided, with regions that saw previous stability falling into chaos as civil wars, upstart nations, and new religions come to dominate them. The Assyrian Empire is facing a losing war against the upstart Babylon, having lost Nineveh the day the mod begins. In Anatolia, Scythians and native Anatolians are vying for dominance as the Median empire looks on, and in the east, China is in the middle of the Spring and Autumn period - the old Zhou dynasty has mostly collapsed, but various Hegemons vie for power, claiming to protect what's left of the Zhou. However, if the region becomes consolidated enough, the Warring States period will begin, ushering in a new era of chaos...


IU features a long list of dates to play from, although some do not have as much content as we’d like. Generally, the earlier the startdate, the more content and balance there will be. I will explain notable startdates and the specific content they are meant to display further within the spoiler. If you want a start without waiting for many buildings or other milestones to unlock via tech - you should probably start in 474 or 490!

It’s time to get into more specifically how the mod plays out, in-game.


IU features a custom pop system, with 3 classes of population: Upper Class, Commoners, and Tribal/Rural pops. Upper Class grants more wealth and goods, Commoners provide decent wealth and goods but also manpower, and Tribal/rurals grant more manpower but less wealth.
These pops will grow naturally over time to their respective Cap, determined by Buildings, Terrain, Center of Trade, Monuments, and various other modifiers.


In addition to changing Development, IU naturally also changes the buildings from vanilla, featuring many more buildings, in many more categories. These buildings range from regular tax-collecting buildings, to bathhouses, and to apothecaries, and everything inbetween. Alongside these, we also feature unique buildings, granting powerful bonuses to those rich enough to build them.


We have many more Institutions to fit with our extended playtime as well, progressing from Writing, Coinage, and Siegecraft, all the way to Blast Furnaces, Advanced Irrigation, and Engineering. These Institutions have a wide range of effects, and their spread is more, well, spread out, in areas well developed enough to receive them. There’s no silk road yet to transport knowledge, so you’ll have to invent it in your own area over time.


IU contains 8 ages throughout its timeline, and these ages contain MANY more abilities than vanilla, to account for the various polities and empires that may exist at any given age. The first few ages last about 80-90 years, but they begin lasting longer as the ages pass. The expanded GUI here is thanks to the creator of the Ages Reformed mod, MDoulos. (You can check out his spotlight on Ages Reformed here)


The entire world has been reshaped religiously, with there not being any huge blobs of “Animist” or some other generic Pagan religion. Each region has at least one, or multiple, religions to represent local customs and beliefs, many of which having some mechanic. These mechanics are typically cults, or other deity worship.


Government types have seen some reformatting, with Theocracies being reused to represent Oligarchies instead. Playing as tribals will typically take a lot longer to reform out of tribalism than in vanilla, but tribals also receive strong bonuses if they find themselves in a war with a more organized nation. Republics, and Monarchies are generally as in vanilla, but all gov types have seen reforms fully overhauled.


Government reforms have been fully changed from vanilla, with there being 14 Republic tiers, 14 Oligarchic tiers, 15 Monarchy tiers, and 11 Tribal tiers. Some tier reforms are shared between government types, but there are always specific tiers that add government specific bonuses. Republics and Oligarchies, of course, can adjust their term limits, along with all being able to choose from various bonuses. Tribals, get the choice to reform into the 3 other gov types, or stay tribal if they wish.

The Economy in IU is much more tuned than most other mods, with modifiers and mechanics in place to both make certain playstyles somewhat more lucrative, and nerf those same playstyles if they become excessive.

One of these more lucrative mechanics, is that when you Annex a nation, either through war, or through diplomacy, you attain their Treasury. This means annexing a few OPM’s can net you enough cash to fund a few Manufacturies in your homeland. This however, has a downside. Done excessively, or without checking, your Inflation can begin to skyrocket if not checked.

As seen in the above image, Inflation will increase on its own without anything holding it down, and if you go beyond 4%, even Economy Ideas won’t bring it back down to 0%. Paying it down with ADM Mana, is also increased in cost, making Inflation a threat to your expansion if you take too much in wars.

There are some decisions to counteract Inflation from ruining your run, as well as bankruptcy heavily decreasing it, so it is recoverable. These will come at their own costs, though, but not taming Inflation will be much worse.


As with any mod or game representing this era of history, slavery, in many forms, was abundant. From state-owned slaves, to pseudo-serfdom, there were many variants of this. To try and represent the vast possibilities and gradients, we have a slaves estate, which holds the laws governing the rest of the mechanics for slavery. Beware though, having too many, will lead to intense unrest and other negatives.


The population of Slaves will increase or decrease over time depending on the laws set in the Estate, and the amount Liberated will join your regular Population in your provinces over time. Slaves can either exist ambiguously and add to your global Slave Production, contributing to global Goods Produced %, or be placed in Provinces with an appropriate Manufactury, or a Production building, directly increasing goods there.

Placing Slaves can be incredibly lucrative in provinces with Urban Population, and a valuable Trade Good, for example. It may be worth your Slaves for these provinces and letting others contribute to the global modifier, but that’s up to the player. You can, of course, distribute them in all your Provinces, but you will get a much lower global Goods Produced modifier.

The amount of slots per province will be increased by the production building (1 per level) and the manufactory, if your Slave Estate laws allow for that type to be used.


Admin stress is the main driver behind this balancing, and it works through a modifier that begins applying at 400 development, and increases every ~400 development after, for 12 levels. The modifier lowers income modifiers, while increasing corruption, which the player is meant to pay off with cash, further limiting their treasury.

With Admin Stress, the player will find their treasury empty if they mismanage their economy, expand before they’re in a good situation, or take too much non-valuable land for themselves. It is manageable if you pace your expansion as tech and your country develop, but rushing expansion before your economy is ready will cripple you, and perhaps lead to a collapse, or at least shrinkage


But, that’s just stuff that exists in the 3.1.2 version. We have been hard at work, and although we are not close to a release, there are many things that have been added or improved upon.
[expand type=details ]

There’s a lot of changes too small to be given their own section, but too impactful to go un-noted. So, I’ll list some of those here:

Decisions, have all been given icons and colours to help make it easier to identify which are which and of those, what ones may be useful to you.

Hegemonies have been reworked to fit the theme better, being easier to achieve, leading to countries that were Hegemons attaining them more realistically.

Many flavour events have been added across the globe, an example being the Volscians getting an event to purchase a city from Tarquinia. 2 Provinces have also been added near Volscia. Can you spot them?

Army Professionalism has been entirely reworked, partly inspired by MEIOU, to work as an equilibrium. Balanced by many things - Idea groups, Government type, Government Organization, Decisions - it will go up & down over a game depending on actions and routes taken.

Along side this, the Slacken Recruitment button has been changed to impact the new system properly, and be slightly more impactful after disabling.

AI will now place slaves in its provinces, albeit they are not as smart as players with using them.


Socii have also seen another full overhaul, with the major annoyances with the old system flattened over. Dissatisfaction now works as a custom gov mechanic, allowing the player to see at a glance where they’re at. This also means that the modifier increases linearly instead of in steps, stopping sudden changes in liberty desire.

Along with Dissatisfaction being a bar, 3 new minor bars are present, representing Administrative, Diplomatic, and Military leverage over your Socii. Accompanying these are 3 buttons. Calling your Socii to wars will work as the normal button does but for all Socii at once, just a time-saver. The other 2 do new things. The 2nd, “Enforce Roman Rule”, will allow you to annex one Socii regardless of the current Socii Ratio. The 3rd, “Overenlist Socii Troops” gives an Estate Privilige to the Socii Estate that will lower reinforcement manpower costs for your army, alongside taking 10% of each Socii’s manpower.

The Socii Estate has many other privileges I won’t go over here, but many of them will require parliament issues to be passed. They buff either the Socii, Socii and your provinces, and some may penalize Rome slightly in favor of granting the Socii some privilege.

Some other notable Rome changes are:
The name of Rome will change more throughout the early parts of a game to reflect the current situation.
An event has been added early in the mission tree to colonize Circeii.
Some events are now present for Punic-Roman early relations.
Romanization is locked behind Parliament Issues.
Definitely more.



Anatolia now begins even more chaotic than previously, with central Anatolia now more divided. Upon Scytheni’s invasion of Cimirria, the Lydians will get an event to invade and subjugate Phrygia, alongside a powerful modifier for expansion, turning it into a buffer state between the two powers. At the conclusion of the Assyrian collapse, should Babylon win, Cilicia gains independence.

The Scytheni can then attempt an invasion of Cilicia, which they will likely fail in, or more likely; Media will invade the Scytheni and swallow the majority of them whole, leaving the northern coast to splinter into independent states.

Alongside Anatolian changes, the Caucasus has had a 2nd go-over and has been adjusted with different countries, cultures, and a new religion in the area.


There have been an immense amount of small QOL changes, or balancing changes, to China. I cannot cover all of these, but I can note the biggest ones. Such as, the eastern coastline, and all rivers in China, have been adjusted to be more accurate to sources depicting the era. Including redirecting and thinning the navigable rivers, more rivers have been added all across China, no longer having areas barren of rivers where there should be.

The Papacy mechanic has also been integrated properly into China, with new images, sprites, and some of its interactions being reworked to do different things.

Unifying China should be much less tedious also, as the decision’s requirements are no longer tied to owning every single Chinese religion province.

And last, but definitely not least, something that may come far, far in the future…


IU’s pop system is something the mod has kept for a very long time - and while this rework would not do away with having a pop system, it would see IU’s completely supplanted by something much better for performance, and that would allow us to represent many more things, with much better accuracy. With help and permission from the Atlas Novum team, we have adapted their pop system, and building array, to fit within IU.

In its current implementation, 1 pop represents 1,000 people, instead of the previous 1 to 10,000. This allows us to better represent the disparity between Rural and Urban provinces much better, as EU4 doesn’t much like having 1 dev provinces all over the place.

The other 2 dev types, no longer represent any population types. Upper class, tax, is now representing Wealth, a cumulative approximation of, well, the amount of wealth in a province.
Commoners, Production, is now Infrastructure, which will increase province ‘Civilization’; required for upgrading certain buildings, along with increasing Population and Wealth growth.

Along with allowing more granularity in population, this system removes the RNG that plagued the old population systems, and you can now see - and predict - exactly how much your population is growing in each province. Wealth, also grows autonomously, but you can manually invest in a province’s Wealth or Infrastructure.

I won’t go further indepth, as the implementation of this system is VERY, VERY early, and I’m not sure how much will change as it goes further into development, or even when that will properly take place. You will have plenty of the old pop system to enjoy, if you prefer that. It will still be optimized and taken care of until and if this system becomes polished enough to work, but accommodating both systems at the same time would sadly be impossible.
[/expand]
Imperium Universalis is a truly huge mod, and there are many things I wish I could’ve gone over in this spotlight, that I didn’t have time or room for. Perhaps there will be another, or we will make Dev Diaries for them, or something similar. Of course, we always post frequent teasers on the IU Discord, and you can get the mod just about anywhere.

3.1.2 Steam Workshop (Main Page)

Development Build Steam Workshop

Paradox Mods Development Build

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=679204773

Hey all! Ryagi here, this time we're back to our roots with these Mod spotlights, giving a platform for those don't already have one. Today we're covering The Rise and Fall of Empires. A simple but effective mod made by Dante that aims to create a less blobby playstyle, for both players and the AI.

I'll let Dante explain what what his mod is all about, enjoy!




Greetings, Emperors, Consuls, and Caliphs!

I’m Dante, and today, I’m thrilled to introduce you to The Rise and Fall of Empires. This overhaul shifts the focus from mindlessly blobbing to strategic empire management and stabilization. I hope that with this spotlight, I give you an insight into my creative process and a deep dive into the mod's features.

The mod includes a revamp of the effects of being over your governing capacity, while actually providing bonuses for remaining under the capacity in the form of administrative buffs, as displayed below.



This was the cornerstone of the mod that I built off for the rest of its development. To contribute to governing capacity challenges, I reduced the capacity that you get from technology and increased the governing capacity for provinces with separatism and unaccepted cultures. I then asked myself,

“What are some more ways to reduce the player and AI’s tendency to become unrealistically large?”

To start, I thought of separatism and Rebels. In vanilla, Dealing with rebels is essentially a game of whack-a-mole, and once you deal with one stack of rebels, the entire area is essentially pacified. To make this more challenging and involved, I aimed to make rebels more similar to Pretenders.

I started by enabling their ability to retreat and reinforce, meaning you need to exert more effort in dealing with them. Then, I enabled the ability for them to recruit new units upon occupying a province and had them give double the separatism.



The problem with this new feature is that you would end up with scenarios like this, where rebels would spiral into enormous hordes of revolting separatists.


A simple fix for this would be to only recruit new rebel units in provinces greater than 12 dev.

After tweaking this system, I started tweaking other values, like making civil wars more challenging, or adding buffs and nerfs to various terrain types. One of the most significant edits I made was to defensiveness. I increased the default defensiveness of all coastal provinces by 50% but added a feature where blockading a province would negative this defensiveness increase.

The goal is to make it so you need a more active naval presence to take on a fortified coastal fort, such as Venice. Obviously, coastal towns will be more resistant to sieges as they can simply ship in more food and supplies by sea.



In addition to coastal defensiveness tweaks, buffs have been applied to mountain and highland defensiveness, the former of which also has a buff to fort maintenance. This was done to make well-known mountain barriers more important in warfare, such as the Pyrenees, Carpathians, and the Caucasian mountains.

In the mod, I also entirely rework the spread of institutions. In addition to adding institution spread debuffs to Mountains, Deserts, and Steppes, I made every institution require the previous one to be embraced, and halved the institution growth from improving development. These are simple changes, but lead to a much more realistic technological situation and higher tech disparity between distinct and isolated geographic areas.


A screenshot from roughly 1625 illustrating the institution disparity

Another item changed in Rise and Fall is the effects of development.

Regarding development, I made quick changes to the per-development bonuses that you get from each type. Those bonuses are illustrated in the image below:



What this ends up doing is making large centers of development more powerful, and making it so specialization of development is more meaningful.

Lastly, I would like to go over one of the newest features of the mod, released in the 1.1 update. This is a disaster called National Decay, which I created to illustrate the collapse of extremely overextended nations. The goal was to create a situation similar to the Ming collapse but amped up the severity. The biggest difficulty was to balance this so it wouldn’t happen so often that it would ruin the player’s game, or happen to every AI, but often enough that it still presents an obstacle to blobbing and sprawl.



I won’t bother explaining all of the requirements to fire the disaster in detail, but generally, it happens mid-late game for nations with more than 500 development in unaccepted culture provinces outside the home region, as long as they are not overseas. The full disaster details are visible on the right.

The disaster gives a short period for the player to try and avoid it by increasing manpower level or releasing vassals and accepting cultures to avoid the requirements. Otherwise, the disaster is effectively unavoidable, as your civilization has gone past the point of no return. When the disaster fires, it will give the same debuffs as Low Mandate for China, in addition to an insane amount of national unrest.

Why is the unrest so high? Mainly to overcompensate for the -100% unrest from recent uprisings, as I had issues where the AI would always be able to kill all of the rebels.
An example of a before-after collapse can be seen below, with the Ottoman’s former extent traced in gold.


This is a collapse spurred on by the AI. The player might be able to avoid this through creative use of accepted cultures, exploit/concentrating development, or culture conversion.

This wraps up the overview of my thought process in creating my mod, The Rise and Fall of Empires. If you’re intrigued, don’t hesitate to check it out on the Steam Workshop.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3279567235

Happy ruling!


Thank you Dante! This one was relatively Short and Sweet, but the gameplay implications of these anti blobbing mechanics are intriguing, so this mod is definitely something to try out if you not super into the sport of watching nation names get bigger and bigger.

As usual, if you have any suggestions for these spotlights, or maybe even want to throw your own hat into the ring we encourage you to reach out to us via Discord or here on the Forums. All are welcome whether you want to show off a classic EU4 mod, or are a tiny mod who hasn't even hit the steam workshop yet.

I wish you all a wonderful time creating, browsing and playing your favorite mods. We'll be returning with another spotlight in early August. Till next time!

Map painters! We suspect you love all strategy games big and small, whether that's conquering the world, or managing a small group of survivors. That's why this year Europa Universalis 4 is taking part in Tacticon! TactiCon is a digital convention hosted on Steam celebrating strategy video games, and those that enjoy them.

If you are interested in picking up EU4, or any EU4 content now is a great opportunity, with savings as much as 70% off
https://store.steampowered.com/app/236850/Europa_Universalis_IV/


And say hello to our other strategy game friends!

It’s Steam Summer Sale time, which means up to 90% off various Paradox titles!




With the winter's chill a bygone memory, and summer's bounty overflowing - now is the time to build your nation to its greatest potential.

Enjoy 70% off EUIV’s base game, and up to another 70% off selected DLC & bundles! 💪

https://store.steampowered.com/sub/977591/

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/22085/Europa_Universalis_IV_Ultimate_Bundle/