With the release of EU: Rome and all the fun I’m having with Galactic Civilizations II: Twilight of the Arnor, I missed a bunch of news and updates about the upcoming expansion pack for Europa Universalis III. There are some major changes on the way and I think I’m more excited about In Nomine than I was for both Napoleon’s Ambition and Europa Universalis: Rome.

So let’s go through what we know and what we don’t.

1. The new mission system will be historically appropriate. If you played the original EU or EU2, then you probably remember their stupid mission system. It was an attempt to add some variability and short term goals into the game but was a failure because you would get some really strange demands. Things like “Keep the Poles out of Africa” or “Engineer a royal marriage with your best friend.” Easy victory points, there. Now some missions will be generated based on a national list of priorities and historical exigencies. This is one of many attempts to introduce more variability into how nations play, since the interchangeable nature of Poland and Portugal was one of the most common and legitimate complaints about the core game.

2. Rebels with a cause. By giving rebels something to fight for, and the possibility of greater strength or leadership, the decision of when and where to put down rebels matters. Some rebels will be limited to national borders, which means no more hoping that a huge rebel army will cross the border and attack your enemies. Traditionally, rebels have needed to take a lot of land to bring down a government, though, so I wonder how this will work for nations with large overseas empires. How would this work for English rebels in a nation that holds half of France? Will rebels get ships? This recent AAR shows that some rebels are religious insurgents, carrying a heretical faith with them. Anything that makes religious wars more likely works for me. To this point religious unorthodoxy has been a minor financial problem at most. You can negotiate with rebels, too, provided you have met certain conditions.

3. New colonial management issues. Colonies now grow on their own depending on national investment in colonial growth, giving options to those nations that want some colonial outposts but don’t have enough regular colonists coming in to pump that overseas population into the “city” category. This, of course, means a new expense on the ledger, a big challenge considering that they’ve also made the riches of colonies more difficult to reap. You now need a real navy to keep trade free from pirates or pillaging enemy fleets. No production income means that the money you’d usually spend on more colonists now has to go to the Admiralty. This as much as anything could slow down the race for America since colonies will now need some sort of protection in order to be worth the trouble at all.

4. Resources work. The prices of goods are now driven by a more appropriate supply and demand model. Blockades, occupation, the timeline and a plethora of other factors affect the value of goods.

5. A new map. More provinces in the Balkans, the Rhineland and low countries and South Central Europe. That means more countries, slower wars, and maybe an impediment to the blobbification of Europe. Still, even a few two province minor states can impede rapid annexation. And check out the pretty atlas screenshots in this thread.

6. Historical Events Are Back. Sort of. Only they are called Decisions. Provided you have met certain conditions, based on national standing or completed missions, you can enact decisions that are historically appropriate. Since these decisions don’t necessarily follow in a lockstep timeline, it doesn’t violate the new Paradox Credo that historical events are lame when you can see them coming from a mile away.

So we have more differentiation between nations, colonization as a strategy that may or may not pay off and higher stakes in managing rebellions. Plus an extended time frame.

You have to wonder how many of these changes are a response to player outcry and how many are things that were planned all along but difficulties in implementation slowed Paradox down. Many of these changes will make the game a little more difficult for newcomers, I think, but anything that makes the game feel more period appropriate plays to the strengths of the series.

No news on a release date yet. More information as it become available.