GamesCom 2012 Preview from Strategy Informer

[StrategyInforme]

http://www.strategyinformer.com/pc/europauniversalisiv/891/preview.html

Following Paradox’s recent announcement regarding Europa Universalis IV, I bet you’re hankering for more details, aren’t you? Well to stave off disappointment, we can say there’s not much else at this point in time. Given the fact that it’s still a year away, there was only so much Paradox could show off this time around… seeing what we talked about before in action was still pretty impressive. The game is pretty much playable right now, and the team at Paradox Development Studios is still in the process of filling in all the details. Trade, Religion and Diplomacy, for example, were ready to show but no other systems, so we’ll walk you through some of things they told us during Gamescom.

 

[CaptRobau]

Wow, there is a ridiculous amount of information in a very short article; all of it pretty exciting:

Paradox are toying with the idea of letting you cross frozen rivers or sea areas like they were land

Makes me want to play a northern country right away.

Anyway – you can place your merchants at key points along trade routes in order to divert money to your country, either by maintaining a trade office or building transit hubs.

Didn't know you could build transit hubs (realize it's in the Gamespot video, but hadn't noticed). Could transit hubs be the new name for centers of trade? If so, how would that work since the routes are apparently static.

specifically Religious Unity, which is a new concept. It’s basically the percentage of your country that follows the same religion, and you get various bonuses and penalties depending on the value, and these apply to few areas of the game. [...] The higher the religious unity you have, the more papal influence you have, which allows you to influence the voting more for things like active cardinals and which nations are in power as far as religion goes.

That sounds like a cool concept. Not revolutionary but a nice streamlining of how religion works.

There’ll also be Papal and Anti-Papal coalitions, for example, and you can also do things like enforce peace.

Getting really excited about the coalitions. Must be hell to balance that.

There are also no longer any rebels as a separate thing; including supporting a country’s rebels has also been integrated into the diplomacy interface.

I'm assuming that we'll still have rebel units walking around the map and that they mean that interaction with rebels has been better integrated into the interface/gameplay.

 

[Sleight of Hand]

I think the interface and coats of arms look pretty rough compared to CK II's, so I'm assuming they're place-holders, but I do like the sound of some of these new concepts.

I'm inclined to agree about the (very) premature announcement, though. It seems a strange decision to announce a game with almost nothing to say about it and apparently still at the (pre?) alpha stage.

 

[CaptRobau]

I don't think it's too early at all. They've already show/told us more stuff in a couple than a lot of other games that announce a year beforehand. Just take a look at all the stuff we already know in the Just the facts thread.

 

[Junuxx]

There’ll also be Papal and Anti-Papal coalitions, for example, and you can also do things like enforce peace. There are also no longer any rebels as a separate thing; including supporting a country’s rebels has also been integrated into the diplomacy interface.

Incoherent rambling that hardly provides any insight in the new concepts, sorry.

 

[smithy17]

Maybe trade routes are static in the short term but can change when someone builds a transit hub.

Presumably papal and anti-papal coalitions are similar to coalitions but occur in early-game instead and can only be directed by/against the pope.