Who exactly is the Historian behind Europa Universalis IV\Paradox Interactive?

[mateusbarbosa17]

This game is historically guided, right? there are things that can be improved, but this is game is huge. It literally materialize what I study in college and it give me a way to become a researcher. Paradox matured me profissionaly. I will be eternally grateful and I would love to work for they, but I don't see any reference for History research at paradox jobs list. You know how I can take an opportunity?

 

[bokorthedust]

Sometimes it's Wikipedia, sometimes one(more?) of the content designers has a history degree/background in history IRC. But it's a mix of those two.

 

[The Norman Yoke]

It varies from dlc to dlc, best is to try and access all the dev diaries and see what got updated in which patch, who wrote the dev diary, and who put their pet project in game

 

[Oporto]

Sometimes it's Wikipedia, sometimes one(more?) of the content designers has a history degree/background in history IRC. But it's a mix of those two.

Yeah, and seems that Wiki has 2/3 portion in this mix lately. Although, sometimes, not even this resource is consulted.

 

[vvvasi]

EU4's Content Design Coordinator, the wonderful @Pavía, holds a PhD in medieval history - so you are correct that it's an important skillset in developing the game.

To answer your question about working for Paradox, I would recommend you sign up to be notified of future opportunities on the Paradox careers portal. If you're interested in working for Paradox Tinto, relocating to Spain may also be in your future.

 

[SaintDaveUK]

In Tinto (and I think any Paradox studio, though I might be wrong) we don't have anyone whose sole task is historical research, but historical research is an important skill that we look for in almost every role.

This is expecially true for what we call "content designers". They are typically the ones who are expected to do the most historical research for things like events, missions, or the country setup. However such people also need good game design skills to turn that research into fun gameplay, and good technical skills to script it into the game.

Every role does some research though: artists need to know which hats to draw for X culture in Y era (and if they had beards), programmers need to know if their improvements to the system they are implementing makes historical sense, leadership needs to direct the games on a path that feels historical.

So, while we are unlikely to need a pure historian at Tinto, it is something that would help your application for other roles.

 

[Pavía]

Just on top of what vvvasi and SaintDaveUK, even if there are some of us in Paradox have a previous professional background as Historians, it's just one of the possible skills in the skillset, and not only for Content Design but also for other disciplines.

What a lot of us share, in any case, is the passion for History, starting from Johan himself.