Released 14 Jun 2017
You know, I've never really played a game of Europa Universalis IV with anything other than the 1444 start-date. Starting from the beginning provides the most flexibility and long-term benefits in terms of shaping your nation, and the way in which EUIV works means it rarely feels repetitive, even if you choose the same nation every time.
Serial Number.txt Europa Universalis 4 Review 5593a673d3 If your response to that was 'God, no' then you're looking at the.About: Europa Universalis is a historical strategy game that simulates all aspects.Studio has shown that it understands grand strategy like no other studio.Aug 13, 2013.reviews for all games that receive a rubish. This item is a brand new and unused Europa Universalis IV Steam CD Key / Serial for Steam! Delivery is via our Autokey system. We offer both Standard Edition and Digital Extreme edition of this game! This is a russian CD Key. You must activate the key with a VPN. Once activated the game will function region free and in all languages. Europa Universalis IV Steam key is Paradox Development Studio’s strategy gem! It’s also the fourth game in the massive grand strategy series! The franchise has been continuously included among the best of its kind since the title’s debut with Europa Universalis back on October 20, 2000. The empire building game Europa Universalis IV gives you control of a nation to guide through the years in order to create a dominant global empire. Rule your nation through the centuries, with unparalleled freedom, depth and historical accuracy.
However, in order to fully test out some of the new features coming in the game’s latest expansion – Third Rome – I decided to fire up the 1308 start, the earliest one in which Russia exists as a formed nation. It was a bit weird, and if anything it made me think perhaps Paradox should have another pass at these to make sure the set-ups make sense. For example, there are new features in this expansion that make taking certain ideas as Russia rather pointless, and yet the 1308 start doesn't appear to have been altered in any way to reflect this. But I digress..
Unsurprisingly, Russia is the sole focus of Third Rome. This 'Immersion Pack' is one of the smaller DLC tiers – similar to Levithans from Stellaris, the also-releasing today Death or Dishonor for Hearts of Iron IV, and other cheaper expansions. Don't expect the game-changing features of Mandate of Heaven or Common Sense, but don’t count this one out either. Personally, I like Paradox’s new ‘formal’ system of smaller DLCs that target specific nations and/or themes, but it can mean they are highly niche propositions for players.
Let's breakdown exactly what Third Rome does:
Microsoft sql server for mac. Russia – The Big Bear has had several key changes made to the way it plays. For one, it automatically has the ‘Tsardom’ government type (which is the same level as ‘Empire’) which is connected to several new gameplay features.
For example, Tsardoms can now lay claim to entire regions, not just individual provinces, for 50% more spy network cost. Russia also gets three new Government abilities tied to the different monarch power branches. Depending on how much monarch you generate in a category each month, the ability meter will fill until you can fire it off. These are:
- Reform Sudebik: This Administration ability instantly reduces autonomy in all provinces by 10%.
- Support Oprichnina: This Diplomatic ability instantly reduces the progress of all rebel factions by 30%.
- Raise Streltsy: This military ability instantly raises 20% of your force limit in ‘Streltsy’ units, which is a new infantry unit-type that has +10% fire damage. The ability also lowers war exhaustion by -2, however the cost to raise stability is increased by the force-limit percentage that your Streltsy units take up. So, for example, raising 20% of your forcelimit as Streltsy increases the stability cost modifier by +20%.
The Russian Region (1444 Start) – The Russian region in general has been improved. As well as the new Tsardom government ranks, there are Veche Republics and Principality Governments as well. These Duchy-level nations come with their own specific bonuses, but allow access to the Russian government abilities described above. The area in general has been giving new provinces, and new nations have been put on the map (mostly as new starting vassals/potential vassals for Muscovy).
Russian Colonisation – Russia, and anyone with the ‘Russian Ideas’ tech tree have a new way to colonise that circumvents the need to take exploration or expansion ideas. It’s an ability called ‘Siberian Frontier’ that costs a little bit of diplomatic points to create a colony in an uncolonised region next to a city that can trace a route to the capital. This colony doesn’t cost anything in upkeep, and you won’t have to worry about native uprisings either, although other colony related events might still fire.
Orthodox Religion – The Orthodox Religion gets a bit of a face-lift, although not by much. Orthodoxy has always been a bit of a weird one in the context of the religious tensions of EUIV. As a nation you can’t change your religion to Orthodoxy willingly, although you can impose it on others. Furthermore, Orthodox provinces seem incredibly resistant to the reformation and aren’t really involved in that dispute. They’re just kind of there.
The new mechanics allow you to spend Patriarchal Authority in order to commission an Icon for the Church, which gives you pretty significant boosts across a variety of areas, depending on which Icon one you choose. Eventually the Icon will run out and you have to buy a new one, so much sure you try and keep your Authority high. A new way to get Authority is by consecrating a Metropolitan – States that are of an accepted culture, fully Orthodox and total more than 30 development can do this ability at the cost of a 10% increase in maintenance for an immediate +5 Patriarch Authority.
All in all, Russia is now a more efficient nation to play as in terms of long-term goals & expansion. Not needing to waste an idea Idea group on getting a colonist is a massive boon (which is why its irritating to see Russia start with it fully unlocked in 1308), and the new mass-claiming and religious buffs will make the Russian Bear a real force to be reckoned with. There are few non-Russia specific features, namely that Cossacks are now an official unit type and the Cossack estate has new interactions (provided you have the Cossacks DLC), and for anyone with Mare Nostrum there is a new ‘Press Sailors’ ability that allows you to take sailors from your colonial nations.
As always, we should probably also spare some words for the free patch that's accompanying Third Rome. Patch 1.22 is actually pretty tame as patches go, and mainly facilitates allowing people who aren’t buying into Third Rome to still enjoy the game. The new government types & events will be included with the patch, and they've been a lot of changes made to Diplomacy, Economy, War as well as some Idea groups being tweaked. It's a patch, and unless you spot a specific issue that’s been fixed, a lot of these tweaks will probably go unnoticed.
Scoring an expansion like Third Rome is a bit of an odd proposition. It's a very targeted pack that makes the thing it focuses on a lot better, but nothing much beyond that. The £8 packs are a lower tier of DLC that can only offer so much and rarely represent ‘must-haves’ if you don’t care for the subject matter. Sometimes, the free patch can steal the lime-light of the expansion but that hasn’t happened her either. To be honest, Europa Universalis IV is a game in its prime – updates like Third Rome are simply part of the never-ending process of keeping this Golden Age ticking over, and giving second or third passes to the few features that need it.
If you don’t really care about playing an easier-to-play Russia, you won’t find anything for you here, but it still does what it sets out to do fairly well. All in all, a job well done, and we look forward to the next one.
A minor DLC that does exactly what it says on the tin. Good at what it does, but if that's not what you're looking for then nothing to see here.
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The tenth major expansion for Europa Universalis IV is out, and the game isn't even four years old yet (that birthday is coming in August). Mandate of Heaven, released last Thursday, brought with it a new wave of features, mechanics and other changes to the continuing saga of this epic grand-strategy game of nations and empires.
To compliment this review, we've published a comprehensive guide to how Ages work.
As T.J. broke down for us in his recent DLC Buying Guide, Mandate of Heaven’s headline features mainly centre on new mechanics for key far-eastern cultures: The Chinese Empire has been overhauled and given new mechanics and a sub-game, nations with the 'Manchu' culture get a new way to raise armies, and the Shogunate in Japan has also been overhauled to better represent the political situation there. Confucian and Shinto religions have also been expanded and re-worked to give them more flavour and there is a new ‘Tributary’ system that can be used by any country with an 'Eastern' religion.
As far as region agnostic features go, the game is now divided up into different 'Ages', as well as the addition of a diplomatic macro interface. Other minor features such as Artillery Barrages and State Edicts are also present. In summary, Mandate of Heaven follows the trend of many past EUIV expansion where it focuses on one area or theme and builds around nations and cultures relevant to that headline topic. Ultimately, if you’re not interested in the history and flavour of the Far East, then this isn’t going to tick many boxes for you.
If you've never really played around much with the Far Eastern nations then you might not appreciate the differences at first glance, but through extended testing it’s clear to see that they’ve really tried enhancing the key culture groups in terms of the quality of the experience. Ming now has its own unique subgame that evokes a lot of HRE analogies; as the Emperor of the Chinese Empire you’re tasked with making sure you keep hold of the Mandate from Heaven. Instead of Legitimacy you have Meritocracy, which you spend on Decrees that give you 10-year boosts. Generating 'Mandate' also allows you to enact key reforms to help you run the Celestial Empire better. Generally, you want as many tributaries as you can get to follow you, and playing as Ming your job is basically to hold on to the status quo. The reverse is trying to pick the Empire apart from the outside, perhaps even take the Mandate for yourself.
Japan’s unique Shogunate system has also been re-worked – the most obvious change is that it’s now a lot easier to declare war on neighbouring clans through the 'Sengoku' war-goal. This only applies on other clans that you have a neighbouring province with, but it means you don't have to have a title claim. Your basic goal here is to try and gain enough power to become Shogun yourself and/or unite Japan. The Ashikaga clan start as the Shogun, with everyone else existing as a special type of Vassal under you. They don't take up relation slots, but you can still interact with them like a Vassal and even annex them. When you declare war for the Shogunate, all of your allies automatically join you regardless of how much they like you/the Shogun, and you'll be fighting against everyone else. Unique religion mechanics for Confucianism (for China) and Shinto (for Japan) round off these two culture groups, with the latter especially offering choices regarding Japan's historical isolationism.
Manchu is the last ‘targeted’ culture in terms of features. All of the Manchu culture nations get to raise a new type of army called ‘Banners’, which cost gold to replenish but don’t touch your manpower reserves. It’s not as sweeping or as interesting as China/Japan, but it provides additional tools to help you resist the stronger nations.
As mentioned above, anyone who has an ‘Eastern’ religion can have a new Vassal-like entity called a ‘Tributary’. This is a big feature of a Ming/China play-through, but I’ve seen other big eastern empires like the Timurids have tributaries as well. Hordes are also allowed tributaries. Essentially, if a nation becomes a tributary of yours, you can demand something from them each year; the main things being Gold, Manpower or Monarch points. They can refuse at any point, of course, and sometimes they can’t afford one thing so they send you another. They’re not obliged to come into any wars you declare, but they can call you into their wars. For example, I attacked a Timurids tributary as Ming, and the Timurids were called into the war to protect them. So far none of my Tributaries have called me into a war though.
The ‘Age’ system is probably the most game-changing in a general sense, but it’s also the aspect that’ll be hardest to evaluate. EUIV’s development history is riddled with instances of features/mechanics that, ultimately, haven’t really been needed or haven’t worked as intended. Some feel this way about Estates currently, while other things – like the ‘Western European’ Trade Node – came and went as they were found wanting. The Ages essentially divide the game into more formal segments, each one coming with its own rules and objectives. Nations can try to achieve objectives to gain benefits and generate ‘splendor’, which you can use to get buffs available in that age. If you achieve 3 objectives in any one Age, you can trigger a ‘Golden Age’ although this can only ever be done once.
This is ultimately an unproven feature at the moment. Given that my review focused on trying out as many of the new mechanics as possible, I didn’t actually progress that far through any one game. A nation can generate Splendor even if they haven’t completed any objectives, so unlocking the buffs is still possible but so far I’ve found them a bit lack-lustre. It does give you something to strive for if you’re absent any other driving force, though, which is never a bad thing. Their ultimate impact won’t be felt for a while – one needs to get through a game long-term to see how they start changing and defining strategy in those periods, and whether they clash with existing features. Sadly, this is not something I can give advice on this time around.
We’d be remiss if we didn’t talk about the free 1.20 Ming patch that released along-side this update, as has been the tradition with Paradox grand-strategy titles for a while now. I’d personally argue this is one of the more balanced free vs paid dynamics we’ve had in a while – the free patch includes mainly quality of life changes and some additions that allow for basic interactions with some of the premium features. Free virtual machine for mac. Overall it doesn’t seem that ground-breaking, but as always we’d recommend you consult the official patch notes so you have a clear idea of what comes free and what you have to pay for.
Mandate of Heaven is another solid Paradox expansion, although its worth is pretty much derived from how much you want to play in the East. The Ages are also very much TBD in terms of how they impact the game, especially since your interaction with them is limited if you don't buy Mandate. The macro-builder especially is a great Quality of Life improvement to streamline some of the more ‘grindy’ aspects of mid-game diplomacy. If you’re anything like me then you may be running out of interesting candidates to try in the ‘Old World’, so bringing the Far East countries up to par in terms of events, mechanics etc… is a great way to re-discover the game again.
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A great expansion, and quite well balanced with the free patch. If you want to head East then this is a must-buy.
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