Paradox has announced an expansion for Europa Universalis III. This August, Napoleon’s Ambition will move the clock up to 1820.
This announcement is interesting for a couple of reasons. First, throughout development of the core game, Paradox and its legions of fans maintained that expanding the timeline into the wars of Napoleon was a mistake in EU2, since the Renaissance political/military system could not capture the energy and transformative effect of the French Revolution. Stopping the game at 1792 made more sense.
Second, the upcoming expansion will put back a game mechanic that had been thrown aside in favor of greater sandbox play. History is back.
For those gamers looking for an even stronger historical experience, this option is the one. In addition to hundreds of new events, players will be able to see their rulers, leaders and advisors appear on the accurate historical dates.
When customers asked for this option back in November, they were told it was impossible. Now we know that impossible means “we haven’t figured it out yet.” I look forward to this change.
The most important change in the long run, though, will be the trade management. The ability to more tightly control trade in your empire will add an extra streak of meanness to multiplayer games.
Haha, well, could have seen this coming. Extending the timeline in a EU expansion is like adding new Civs in Civ… If you need new content it’s a good place to go, especially with a game that has so much in it already. Same with the historical events. It’s a good way to cash in on what people want. Not that that’s a bad thing of course, expansions are ideally good for both the company and the consumer. :)
I’m curious though how much the later-game stuff will tweaked to accomodate for the supposed issues the game would have had modelling the era in the core game. :)