Greetings! We come bearing tidings of an exciting future! First and foremost: as of today, all owners of the EU4 Starter Edition will receive the DLC Common Sense for free.

At the same time, EVERYONE can now go to our Steam Store page and download the “Rights of Man”, “Art of War”, “Common Sense” and the “Digital Extreme Upgrade” DLC’s for free! This is in preparation for next week, when we will merge all above mentioned DLC’s into the base game for everyone by default.

Please note that trying to load a save from before using these DLC’s will break it. This is why we have announced this initiative a month in advance[forum.paradoxplaza.com], so you can choose to start the game with or without these DLC’s active. If you wish to continue an old save without these DLC’s active after October 17th, you can revert your game version to 1.37.4 (https://pdxint.at/rollback)

But that is not all! Just as we promised, we also want to make it easier for you to complete your collection of EUIV Expansions and Immersion Packs - so the Ultimate Bundle is now heavily discounted! If you are an Europa Universalis IV veteran, your discount on Steam will be even higher - as the price will be lowered by the cost of DLCs you already own.

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/22085/Europa_Universalis_IV_Ultimate_Bundle/

If you are looking to either get EU4 for yourself or your friends, or enhance your experience, now is the best time!

Hey all! Ryagi here to help showcase Aevum Lupi Bicipitis with experienced modder and lead dev on ALB, Trappist-1E. We've had a streak of covering these huge map mods, and this one really encapsulates that alt history "Ooooo cool new map!" feeling.

If map mods are not your thing, worry not, we'll get back to looking at more than just big map mods for future spotlights. For now though, lets allow Trappist to take it away and show off what ALB has to offer!

------------

Hello, I’m TRAPPIST-1E, one of the lead developers of ALB, and I’m here to present my mod. It’s an alternate history mod, featuring an overhaul of the map from Ireland to Cathay! The main focus is on alternate migrations, leading to the Slavs ending up in Scandinavia and Central Asia, Muslim Byzantines, and more!

You can read a more in depth overview of the mod’s setup here {ENLACE ELIMINADO}https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.reddit.com/r/eu4/comments/1d4dxrf/introducing_aevum_lupi_bicipitis_an_althistory/&sa=D&source=editors&ust=1728050440702129&usg=AOvVaw2w-MJ78HBukGCvvLUQqfr9'

The mod is also based upon a series of maps by u/ilcubosperantista on Reddit, which can be found here: {ENLACE ELIMINADO}https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.reddit.com/r/imaginarymaps/comments/xdz7u3/the_realms_of_a_different_europe_in_1315_aevum/?rdt%3D58899&sa=D&source=editors&ust=1728050440702837&usg=AOvVaw1ZJ2wD93V9TPjsLD77Sd0b'

We’ve overhauled almost the entire map, from Ireland to Cathay (no, not the one in Russia) and even reworked pretty much the entire province map in Europe and the Near East.
Rhomania is the Byzantine Empire, the premier nation in the Eastern Mediterranean. In 1444, though it’s facing hard times, though through its mission tree they may fight decadence and reconquer the empire. Soxony is the successor of West Rome and the Kingdom of Soissons, and it is facing a large vassal revolt that may spell their doom.
As migrations have reshaped the face of Europe, the culture map looks radically different. Key to note is the Norse in Britain, now called Biono, that have migrated there after Scandinavia fell to the Slavs.
Of course, with such radical changes, religion is wildly different as well. The Indictian and Impotian churches have split off from Catholicism, with Manichaeism also becoming a major religion in the near east.
ALB has a variety of religions, as seen above. All have received unique religious mechanics, from holy sites to icons, and more.

Protestantism is gone, as well as reformed. In their place is Wycliffian, a sort of general reformist faith. It is actually not a new creation, being first founded as a reformist movement by the Anglo-Saxon scholar Johanes Wycliff in 1390. The Kongrevy of Saxony and the surrounding states adopted it, but a strong Catholic backlash happened, and the Wycliffian Wars began. A series of crusades were fought that forced the Wycliffians back, until even Saxony fell and all the followers of Wycliff were sent into hiding. However, as the Pope grows corrupt in Rome, and more and more speak out against the church, the followers of Wycliff may make a resurgence across Europe.
Arianism is a dying religion, only being present in Iberia and Germania, specifically among the Germanic states. Arianism functions much like it did in real life, and ingame has recieved custom mechanics! ! You gain Arian Fervor to spend on various actions, which is earned passively and through converting provinces.
Additionally, Impotian and Indictian have Patriarchate and Holy Site mechanics respectively.
We currently have over 35 mission trees, as well as unique national ideas for nearly every tag on the map. Of special focus are the aforementioned Rhomania and Soxony; Pruthia, leader of the Germanic Confederation; Saxony, premier power of the east; Siescheng, last heir of Guo Hong, and Molise, emperor of the Holy Italian Empire.

You may be wondering about the last two, and I can offer explanations. In this timeline, the HRE is in Italy, becoming the Holy Italian empire. They are headed by Molise as the emperor.
Siescheng is the heir of Guo Hong, this timelines replacement for Genghis Khan. He was an exiled Chinese warlord that conquered most of Eurasia for the Empire of Ten-Thousand Armies. Their mission tree leads them to establish dominion over most of Eastern Europe and rule it through a vassal swarm.
(It’s part one because their vassals have their own subject-focused mission trees!)

Here is Soxony’s mission tree, with the early game featuring recovering from their disaster. The disaster is the Sygirdom Revolt, where all their vassals may rise up against them. They also have a unique gov mechanic about empowering their fellow Impotian nations.
Saxony’s mission tree is also quite large, leading them to conquer most of the east and establish a personal union with Valtea. They have also received a unique estate: the Knight Lodges!

And finally, because a mod featuring so many Roman claimants would be incomplete without some expansion of vanilla’s Rome content, the Roman Empire mission tree!
These are just some of the 35 nations with content in 1.0. However, the mod isn’t complete yet. Currently in-development is the 1.1 update, Western Dawn, which shall give new and updated content for every nation in North Africa and Iberia, as well as expanding some content in the Americas.

Of special focus are the formables of Iberia, Herkulia, and Africa. Iberia is for any Iberian nation, and has a sizable mission tree, as well as a government mechanic inspired by the German cultural integration mechanic, where you turn all of Iberia into your culture group!

Herkulia is formable by the nations of Raklion, Bettia, and Mauria, and is something of a Portugal-equivalent in its playstyle. Its mission tree is very heavy on colonialism and navy, with tons of upgrades to trade companies along the way!
Finally, we have Africa, the Southern Roman Empire. It is formable by any nations of the African culture group (in North Africa) and is the largest in this update so far, with a focus on reviving the Roman Empire and spreading the Indictian faith.
We’re not stopping at 1.1, however. Below is a little teaser of what is to come . . .

[expand type=details]
[/expand]

Anyways, that’s all I have to share for now. Thanks for sticking around and listening to me for this long, I hope you’ll go check out the mod on {ENLACE ELIMINADO}Steam. For further teasers for future updates and just to chat about the mod, we have a {ENLACE ELIMINADO}discord! Thanks again, and see you!

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3288644137

------------

Cheers to Trappist for covering ALB! It's great to see such a variety of content/map overhaul mods like this and others we have covered flourishing. If you're like me, you may end up loading up many of these mods to have a quick look around, only to find yourself actually doing a playthrough of them :p

Next time we'll be covering the winners of Modathon season 3! And if you've seen our Modathon season 2 spotlight[forum.paradoxplaza.com], you know modders have some spicy things to show off. Thanks for reading!

The second episode of the OPM podcast is upon us!
In this episode we're visited by none other than the lovely Chewyshoot bestowing us all with his knowledge of YouTube, the smell of gas, modding and more!

Hello again! Ryagi here to bring you yet another overhaul for EUIV. Overhaul mods are by definition some of the most ambitious projects to undertake for any mod team. And Atlas Novum is no exception, broadly touching almost every major game mechanic in EUIV, provinces, government reforms, techs, institutions, units and more! Taking inspiration from some of Grandfathers of EUIV modding such as Beyond Typus, MEIOU & Taxes and more.

So, lets sink our teeth into this huge project with the help of lead Dev Amyzonis, presenting Atlas Novum!

---------------------

Howdy! My name is Amyzonis and I am the lead developer of the mod Atlas Novum, a project that has been in development for the past six years.

What is Atlas Novum?

Described by some as EU4.5, Atlas Novum is a total overhaul of the game. Our development process has been to focus on reworks in three distinct phases: mapwork, mechanics, and content. Thus far only the mapwork has been completed in its entirety, though mechanics are rapidly approaching completion as well. Once those two aspects are done, we will consider the mod to be in a feature-complete state, and focus our efforts entirely on content.


Originally based on the Typus projection from our partners at the eponymous Beyond Typus mod, Atlas Novum has gone on to vastly outstrip its older brother in terms of provincial detail. As the main endeavor over the past six years, our massive overhaul of the map stretches the entire breadth of the world, adding in thousands of new provinces. Moreover, this includes new sea tiles for all of the world's oceans and historically navigable rivers (Rhine, Danube, Don, Volga, Congo, Zambezi, Ganges, Yangtze, Columbia, Mississippi, Laurent, Hudson, Amazon and the Paraná). Some rivers can only be fully accessed and navigated with the completion of expensive and laborious canalization projects.

Our process for mapwork has involved extensive research into the early modern world with reliance on scholarly sources, and we’ve sought to represent reality as best we can. Following this, we’ve reflected many landforms as they once were, from the yet unsunken Uthlande and the unbroken landbridge of Rama Setu, to the historical coastline and basin of the Yangtze river. While we don’t achieve the density and border gore of our friends over at Voltaire’s Nightmare, many areas are still delightfully complex in both provinces and the nations that own them.

For length reasons we couldn't share the mapwork examples in this post, however you can find a full list of examples on the forum version of this mod spotlight here![forum.paradoxplaza.com]


As mentioned earlier, we’ve reorganized terrain into twenty-two distinct types, based on biome and topology. Each terrain is classified by a type: Fertile, Productive, Rugged, Alpine, and Barren. Europe, East Asia, and North America easily have the largest supply of fertile and productive lands, but marginal types can still support a modest population or serve as effective defensive barriers to invading armies. Each terrain type serves as a source of both Carrying Capacity and Infrastructure Limit to the province in question. Carrying Capacity represents the maximum population a province can support, whereas Infrastructure Limit represents the maximum level of infrastructure that can be built there.

We’ve also introduced twenty-five Climates, which are roughly based on 1900 Koppen-Geiger readings. These climates are categorized along two axes — one for heat, the other for humidity. Their nomenclature was developed to reflect this while ensuring easy readability and player understanding. (Yes, Tinto, I have a simplified 9 and 16 climate setup for Project Caesar if you happen to be interested).

Each climate type provides a certain amount of carrying capacity to a province, and this amount can vary based on climate change. Major historical volcanic events and the Little Ice Age can cause dramatic shifts in fortune for your population as the carrying capacity and productivity of the land changes beneath their feet…

Finally, you will find forest modifiers present in many provinces. These can range between three sizes: Sparse, Abundant, and Dense. Forests belong to one of six types that can be grown or cleared as needed: Broadleaf, Needleleaf, Coniferous, Bane, Rainforest, and Laurel. Be careful though, as fully deforesting a terrain type which is defined by the presence of trees — Woodlands, Taiga, or Jungle, for example — will result in a nasty deforestation modifier. However, this modifier will disappear in time, so it can be worth enduring it if some trees are getting in the way of your plans.

While development was a solid addition to EU4, its abstractness and “clicky” gameplay always bothered me. To that end, we reworked development into Wealth, Infrastructure, and Population. Wealth and Population will grow organically, based on local factors such as trade good price, level of infrastructure, carrying capacity, logistics cost, and civilization level. Development growth is checked at the end of every year. The formulae for growth of these two values can be found below, and you will notice that they are rather complex affairs. To increase Infrastructure, you must invest two Wealth and wait for it to be constructed, with the opportunity cost that no other buildings can be constructed during that time. While development doesn’t need to be micromanaged, it may serve you well to pay special attention to a few of your most precious provinces and manage them according to your desired outcomes.

Atlas Novum adds nearly two thousand new cultures (2,299 in total currently) and a dozen new religions, including a minority system.

Cultures have largely been designed around historical linguistics; after all, it's difficult to share a culture with someone that doesn’t speak the same language. There are notable exceptions to this rule, however.

While religions have not been a priority up until now, we have still added a number of new faiths. Moreover, we have recolored existing religions to correspond with colors for which they are historically associated.

Minorities come in three sizes: small, significant, and large, and can be either cultural or religious. The cultural and religious acceptance of a given minority will affect their impact on your provinces, just as unaccepted cultures and religions do in vanilla. Cultural statuses can range from integrated to enslaved or expelled, with consequential effects. There can also be secondary minorities present, which can only be one size: small, but are there to represent notable independent cultures or religions. Moreover, minorities can grow and shrink, as well as migrate and resettle throughout your lands. Whether it be Turkish settlers entering Rumelia, Moriscos leaving Iberia or Romani migrants shuffling around throughout Europe, every game ought to have something interesting happen culturally.

Another critical aspect to cultures are “assimilated” or “settler” cultures. Should the province in question meet certain conditions, it will begin to transition to a new culture within your culture group, most of which aren’t present at game start. For example, long-term Venetian control of Crete will spawn the Italian culture of Candian. This system likewise functions in the context of colonialism. Iberian cultures are liable to transition into Brazilian, Platinean, Mexican, Colombian and more. Not every culture group has unique cultures for colonialism and assimilation, but it is an area we are eager to expand as time goes on.

Finally, while it does not currently affect gameplay, every culture group and religion group now belongs to a “family”. For example, the French, Occitanic, Iberian, Arpetan, Italian, and Romanian groups all belong to a broader “Romance” family. While purely aesthetic at this time, this serves to better inform the player of their peoples’ relation to the broader world.

We’ve also overhauled government reforms and estates. Countries begin with all of their tiers of reforms preselected, with progression occurring within each tier. Natives have 6 tiers, tribes 8, and theocracies, monarchies, and republics 10. Moreover, we have a ‘corporate’ type planned at some point in the future.

Estates have also been entirely reworked, in large part inspired by our partners over at MEIOU & Taxes. To start, we added 3 new estates to all theocracies, monarchies, and republics, those being: the Court/Council, the Bureaucracy, and the Military. We’ve further reworked the way that estate privileges work. Now, they are divided into two types: Rights and Privileges. Every nation starts with their privileges preselected, like government reforms, and upgrading them can often be an involved and complicated endeavor. At this time, we’ve reworked the Nobility, Clergy, and Burghers into this new design, but more region specific estates are still yet to be done.

Atlas Novum includes a complete overhaul of technologies and institutions. Technology has now been broken up into 46 different levels, separated by fifteen-year increments. There are now sixteen different institutions, with the first seven already present at game start.

Indented technologies are there to differentiate various different technological starts among our myriad of technology groups.

Institutions will not necessarily spawn in the prescribed start location, though they are likely to emerge in a place with similar conditions.

52 Technology Groups

• Golden Gears: Western, Latin, German, Nordic, Han
  
• Blue Gears: Eastern, Greek, Russian, Balkan, Caucasian, Anatolian, Mashriqi, Maghrebi, Persian, Indian, Tibetan, Japanese, Indochinese, Malesian
  
• Silver Gears: Sahelian, Guinean, Cushitic, Zanji, Nyanzan, Congolese, Nomadic, Uralic, Kanata, Mississipian, Mesoamerican, Andean
  
• Bronze Gears: Bantu, Khoisan, Siberian, Papuan, Aboriginal, Oceanic, Eskaleut, Athabaskan, Cascadian, Californian, Great Basin, Great Plains, Aridoamerican, Caribbean, Isthmoamerican, Amazonian, Chacoan, Brasilian, Patagonian
  
• Easter eggs: High American, Chthonic

Units
Since we overhauled technology, it only made sense to likewise redo units. Land units now belong to one of eight types: Offensive Infantry, Defensive Infantry, Ranged Infantry, Offensive Cavalry, Defensive Cavalry, Ranged Cavalry, Light Artillery, and Heavy Artillery. As technology progresses and gunpowder becomes ubiquitous, ranged infantry and cavalry merge with their offensive and defensive counterparts. It must be noted that many technology groups do not have innate access to horses or gunpowder, and will be locked out of units requiring them — regardless of technology level. In order to gain access, a nation must either control a province producing the trade good in question, or control at least 5% of the global trade in that good.

Naval units have been similarly redone. To better reflect their role, Galleys have been renamed to Littoral Ships. Now, everything from the simple Canoe to globe-spanning Battleship are part of our roster.
There are several new subject types to contend with - fiefs, domains, confederates and paramountcies. Fiefdoms represent the various feudal relationships existing at game start. While they aren’t particularly useful, they can be easily integrated after the Age of Discovery has passed. Domains represent a multitude of different overlord-subject relationships that center on a common ruler. Domains function as “unbreakable” personal unions, and while their bonuses aren’t particularly powerful, they can expand the influence of their liege significantly. Confederates represent states in an equal partnership with their ‘overlord’. Groups of confederates can be a force to be reckoned with in their own right. Finally, paramountcies — though temporarily disabled — are a unique vassal type for native and tribal governments.

Atlas Novum adds over one hundred new trade goods, each with dynamic prices determined on supply and demand — a system which is adapted from the Stock Market Mod. Many vanilla trade goods have new art, either custom made for our project or adapted with permission from the Trade Goods Expanded Mod.

Each trade goods price is determined by its supply and demand, which in turn can be affected by the Economic Access modifier. China, for example, has a unique modifier that greatly limits its effect on trade good prices, reflecting its burgeoning internal market. Though this is a global market, supply and demand for goods from the Old World will not affect the New — and vice versa — until the Columbian Exchange has happened.

Trade goods in Atlas Novum belong to one of four types: Immature Unrefined, Mature Unrefined, Immature Refined, and Mature Refined. Take note, most of the Mature Refined goods do not exist at game start. Luckily for you, with the requisite technology and trade good inputs, you may change a province’s trade good as needed. In particular, gunpowder is sure to be a highly sought-after good for strategic purposes, though making a new source of gunpowder production requires owning provinces that produce Niter and Sulfur.


Six years ago, this mod was originally focused on mission reworks for the colonizing powers. While we felt that we had done excellent work at creating in-depth mission trees, there was a problem: they were simply too long. Portugal alone had a mission tree of over 300 missions, and this greatly lagged an already slow gameplay experience. So, we took some inspiration from the modular system of Imperator Rome, with a twist: you can have two ‘modules’ selected at any one time. Now, our new mission modules are a standard 4x5 in size and you are no longer limited to just “one” general objective. Want to focus on developing your homeland while colonizing Brazil? With this system, that is now a distinct possibility.

Green missions are required to complete the module, whereas teal missions unlock optional modules. I must further note that while these missions are playable, they are still not complete, as indicated by their placeholder icons.

When you finish the necessary missions in a module, you will complete it, and be able to select a new module to follow. Some modules are optional, others can only be unlocked via certain ahistorical missions, while still others directly follow those which you have just completed. It should be noted that content has not been our immediate priority up until now, and currently only the initial Portuguese mission modules are available for general consumption. However, now that we are entering a feature complete state, content development will become our primary objective, with mission modules being our main vehicle of delivery.

Called “Monuments” in vanilla, we’ve added over a hundred new Wonders & Great Projects representing significant monuments and geological features, as well as a dozen new canal projects. Additionally, many of these have been reworked to nerf some of the most excessive national modifiers, such that their impact is not out of proportion with their importance.

These Wonders fall into three categories: Historical, Legendary, and Mythological. The existence of each of these categories will be customizable at game start. While historical Wonders will be present in every game you play, the location and occurrence of legendary and mythological wonders is left up to the player. Legendary wonders are poorly-attested, if not outright fictitious locations, such as the Seven Cities of Gold or Atlantis. Mythological wonders are fantastical in their conception, such as the everlasting Fountain of Youth or eldritch R'lyeh.
Starts
Atlas Novum has a myriad of initial options as well as multiple starts to fine-tune your game experience.

• Reparata Varna or “Revenge for Varna” is our standard start.
  
• Satus Latius or “Expanded Start” is an expanded start with additional tags.
  
• Plus Ultra or “Further Beyond” is the start for those of you looking for maximum border gore and PC temperature.
  
• Maiora Imperia or “Major Empires” is a reduced tag start intended for lower power computers and multiplayer games, though it is a little under-maintained at the moment.

We also feature a number of options available upon initialization of the game to further customize your experience. They are currently divided into two main categories, to be expanded further at a later date:

• Custom Rulesets, which is currently a placeholder, but will allow you to select between things like climate type (Historical, Hothouse, Ice Age, &c), disease virility and mortality, and Great Project & Wonder types.
  
• Alternative Histories, which are functional (though presently lacking content) and are split between region removals and custom setups.
  
  • Region removals include:
    
    • Tabula Rasa - No Afro-Eurasia tags
      
    • Seiuncta Beringia - No Americas tags
      
    • Anahuac Inhospitalis - No Central or South American tags
      
    • Invia Darien - No South American tags
      
    • Nul Insulae - No Oceania tags
      
    • Exculto Populo - No native or tribal tags
  • Custom setups imagine alternative scenarios for the New World based on apocryphal evidence or theorized settings including:
    
    • Absit Rome - Rome located in Mesoamerica
      
    • New Zion - Mormons located in Mesoamerica
      
    • Hawaii Nui - Polynesian colonists along the Andes
      
    • Vinlandic Perseverance - Vikings still residing in Newfoundland
      
    • Ard Majhulah - Arabic explorers in Brazil
      
    • Zheng He’s Eighth Voyage - Chinese colonies in South California
      
    • Third Odyssey - Byzantine refugees in the Chesapeake *cough Elysia cough*
      
    • Sunset Invasion - A massive High American technology Mesoamerica
      
    • Chthonic Awakening - currently a placeholder for some… unnatural cultists worshiping long-slumbering eldritch Gods
      
    • We have some further ideas for Mali, Irish/Welsh, Ancient Egyptian, and Phoenician starts, but implementation is low priority compared to historical content…

Though Atlas Novum has been in development for over half a decade, I must warn that it is still in beta. Occasionally, icons may be placeholders, mechanics in need of revision, or content missing. Updates to the Github Mirror on Steam can be hot code and subject to bugs or balance issues. This is a necessary consequence of active development, and we can only improve the project with your input. Thus I highly encourage your participation on our Discord server. Anyone wishing to contribute is welcome, and we’re always looking for new members of any experience level.

Also, while EU4’s optimization and performance has improved significantly in the past few years, it must be said that this is a sizable mod. It will inevitably run more slowly than vanilla, though perhaps not as slowly as some other overhaul mods that exist on the workshop. The startup and first few years of the game are likely to be a crawl, but speed should pick up considerably as you play. Moreover, with the expanded internal mechanics at your disposal, you may wish to use this slower pace to better explore, customize, and develop your nation.

Thank you for your attention, and thank you to Ryagi and Paradox Interactive as a whole for providing this space to share our labor of love with you all! I very much hope you enjoy what we have put together thus far, and look forward to continuing to develop the project with your input in the future!

Please check out Atlas Novum over on the Steam Workshop, or follow its development on the Atlas Novum Discord Server[discord.gg]. We are a very active and close-knit community that welcomes your feedback!

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Thanks for joining us for this spotlight, we hope you enjoyed the look into Atlas Novum presented here :) Atlas Novum is still in constant and active development, and we believe it will stand the test of time for EUIV mods! Be sure to check it out.

For our next spotlight we'll be hosting Aveum Lupi Bicipitis (Or just "ALB" if you prefer not to summon a demon) for some more alt history mod fun. As usual if you have any suggestions for spotlights do let us know! See you next time.

Greetings all!

We are aware that our latest patch seems to have been causing some issues - this was obviously not our intention. We should have responded quicker to your concerns, and for failing to do so we are sorry. Thank you to all of you whom helped your fellow gamer to rollback game version and other workarounds.

Save games should be unaffected by this hotfix. although no guarantees can ever be given.

As always, please report any issues in our bug report forum[forum.paradoxplaza.com] or submit a support ticket[support.paradoxplaza.com]

Hotfix 1.37.4 Patch Notes

###################
# Bugfixes
###################
- Fixed a bug not allowing to split boats into two navies with reorganize window outside of harbors while the game is unpaused as the window disapped when a day passed.
- Fixed land unit types being changed while teching up.
- Fixed a CTD with countries being full annexed by a 3rd party while at war
- Fixed a CTD with auto peace deals
- Removed a cooldown on AI leaving coalitions.
- Moved the separatist sentiment delay to immediate
- Fixed the button to call allies to wars.

Finally the day is here!

Welcome to the very first episode of our new Europa Universalis podcast! In this pilot episode our hosts Ryan and Lia are picking the brains of Will "BigBoss" Samelis - Content Designer at Paradox Tinto!

Hey everyone - Today we released patch 1.37.3, containing about 170 fixes. The patch is mainly focused on fixing King of Kings and Winds of Change content. Fixing CTDs, Diplomacy and Warfare related issues.

As always, please report any issues in our bug report forum[forum.paradoxplaza.com] or submit a support ticket[support.paradoxplaza.com]. Keep in mind while these changes shouldn't affect 1.37.0/1/2 save games too profoundly, as usual we can't 100% guarantee stability with saves. So it is recommended that you roll back to 1.37.2[forum.paradoxplaza.com] before continuing any ongoing campaigns!

###################
# Interface
###################

# Other
- Hovering over the river crossing icon in province view will now highlight all other provinces with river adjacencies.

###################
# Usermodding
###################

# Other
- Added the on_expanded_infrastructure_removed on_action.

###################
# Script
###################

# Decisions
- The "Form Great Yuan" decision now removes the Altaic cultures from being accepted.
- Georgia can no longer move the capital to Constantinople if the province is not inside a state.
- The "Form Austria-Hungary" administrative technology requirement has been changed from 20 to 18.
- "Adopt Aztec Traditions" now highlights the province of Mexica and provinces owned by Aztecs.
- The “Transfer Nitra” decision is no longer visible if the Slovakia area is directly owned.
- The "Unite with the Iberian Crown" decision is now only visible if Castile or Spain are not subjects and they are valid Personal Union targets.

# Events
- Separatist sentiment event now has a cooldown of 180 days to discourage keeping the event open instead of clicking the option.
- Elections no longer trigger the "Mummification of the Dead" event.
- The Aztec event “Deites of Nahua does not list the National Unrest for Quetzalcoatl option tooltip.
- The Dutch event “The Throne of England” now properly checks for DLC on the first option.
- The Dutch event “The Thorne of England” now properly spells “Man Of Wars”.
-The Dutch event "The Throne of England" event now grants a naval reformer advisor.
- “The Great Council of the Low Countries” can only fire for Burgundy now.
- The “Mongol Peace” event removes previous modifiers and grants “Pax Mongolica” modifiers.
- The event "Mongol Peace" now clarifies that only future rulers will gain the Conqueror trait.
- Yuan released through the Timurid Event "Yuan Campaign" now inherits technology and ideas from its overlord.
- Changing the culture group to Gothic Germanic with the “The Court of Alexis” event, will now change the culture of the ruler and heir as well.
- The event "Independence of the Egyptian Eyalet" will now always trigger if Egypt is not an Eyalet under the Ottomans.



# Ideas
- Greater Armenian ideas are now properly assigned if the country does not have Armenian ideas.

# Missions
- Aztecs, Mayan nations, and Cusco now receive generic American missions without "Winds of Change" DLC.
- Random New World tags can no longer randomly get missions of specific American natives.
- The Mayan "Punish the Invaders" mission event preview now informs about the ability to convert the player technology group to High American.
- The "Expansion of Tenochtitlan" mission now has alternative rewards if the City of Tenochtitlan modifier is already present.
- The mission "Fall of the Isles" for the Sunset Invasion Tree will only highlight the Stonehedge province if the player owns 25 provinces in Britain except the one with the Stonehedge.
- The mission "La Rose et le Lys" for the Sunset Invasion Tree will only highlight Paris if the player owns 15 provinces in France excluding Paris.
- The "Iberian Windmills" mission for the Sunset Invasion Tree will only highlight Madrid if the player owns at least 15 provinces in Iberia excluding Madrid.
- The “Aztec Roads” mission will no longer spill out if the player has an estate with a long name.
- The mission tree no longer breaks when forming a Nation with High American Tree as an Aztec, Mayan, or Incan nation.
- Removed the ability for non-Cusco tags to see the tooltip informing of the Machu Picchu upgrade after the "Ground Shaker" mission
- The Dutch mission "Tales of Gold and Spice" now has an improved tooltip fixing an issue with the highlight.
- The Dutch mission "Question of the Confederation" now grants rewards properly.
- The Dutch mission "Ending the Sound Toll" requires to be the Netherlands.
- Duch Mission "Ending the Sound Toll" will no longer display the country's name for the "Diplomatic" way of completing the mission.
- Forming another nation as Bohemia no longer breaks the Bohemian mission tree.
- The Austrian mission "The Imperial Border" now takes into account HRE member subject provinces.
- The Austrian mission “Defeat the French” does not create new regiments as soon as the player converts France into a personal union.
- The Austrian mission "Iberian Relations” has an alternative trigger if Castile and Spain do not exist.
- The Hungarian mission "Weaken Austria" is now completeable when Austria is a subject of Hungary.
- The Italian Mission "Befriend Ethiopia" now has a fallback in case no Christian nations exist in the Horn of Africa.
- The German mission “Industrialize Rhineland” requires only 250 of development in Rhineland instead of 500.
- Forming any country that does not have any branching missions while allowing the preview for branching missions active will now remove the preview buttons properly.
- Horde missions now grant claims needed for the mission "Ending the Divine Wind".
- Horde missions now grant claims needed for the mission "Hermit Ender".
- Tatar missions now give claims on Tibet.
- The Moghulistan and Tatar mission tree now contain claims on Tibet.
- Horde mission "Into Iran" now gives claims on Persia.
- The Mongol mission "Tumu Crisis" now gives claims on Manchuria.
- "For the Horde" Hordes’ mission no longer says that it will rename the Clergy estate into the Shamans.
- The Mongol mission "Heart of Persia" now mentions the Persia Region instead of just Persia to avoid confusion.
- The Horde mission "Into Egypt" now has alternative rewards in case the player is not able to raze.
- The Horde mission "Siege Beijing" no longer gives duplicate claims for Mongols.
- The Hordes mission "Cross the Caucasus" effect now properly displays Legitimacy equivalents.
- Horde Mission "Opening the Dragon's Gate" no longer requires to directly own Ningxia.
- The Tatar Mission "Unify the Great State" can now be completed if the Mongol Empire is formed before the Golden Horde.
- Yuan mission "Emperor's Guard" now checks for Sino-Altaic cultured provinces.
- The Hormuzi/Omani mission "Arabian Thalassocracy" now has alternative rewards in case the player is already a Thalassocracy.
- The mission "Exploiting the Coffee's Secret" for Ormuzi/Oman now properly highlights the provinces if the player owns them.
- The Omani mission "Forts of Oman" now requires to have ownership of the province of Nizwa.
- The Omani mission "Indian Ocean Supremacy" now gives Monthly Arabian Mercantilism.
- The Omani mission "Indian Ocean Supremacy" no longer removes the merchant from the "Far East Company" modifier.
- The Hormuzi/Omani mission “The Overseas Outpost” mission now properly checks for DLCs and adds the effects for Trade Companies and Center of Trade if are unlocked.
- The Omani mission "Indian Ocean Supremacy" does not contain any more unnecessary dash marks in the tooltip.
- The "Befriend the Shah" mission of Hisn Kayfa no longer costs 50 of each monarch's power.
- Purple Phoenix Byzantine Missions "Restore the Pentarchy" and "The Eternal City" accept subject-owning provinces.
- The “Overthrow the Turkomen” mission for Armenia now discovers the Khorasan region instead of Persia, since Persia has already been fully discovered.
- Byzantium formed by Morea can keep its mission tree and can utilize branching missions.
- Theodorian mission "Basileus of the Balkans" no longer shows Great Projects reward if Leviathan is not enabled.
- The Theodorian mission “Return to Gothic Ways” is now applied properly to future provinces.
- The Theodorian mission "Russian Aristocracy" no longer shows both conditional rewards as completed.
- The Theodorian mission "Rival Genoa" no longer shows favors if the player does not have the correct DLCs.
- The Theodorian mission "A Merchant's Family Home" no longer keeps the Greek variant of Gothic culture if the player decides to change the Gothic culture to the Germanic one.

# Modifiers
- The Austrian province modifier "Hungarian Nobility Privileges" no longer gives global maluses.
- The Hungarian province modifier “Austrian Nobility Privileges” no longer gives global maluses.
- The Austria modifier "Bulwark of Catholicism" can’t be obtained twice.

# Setup
- The Theodorian Privilege “Italian Coastal Influence” is no longer present in the setup if the player does not have the Winds of Change DLC.
- Ala al-Dawla is now mentioned as a grandson of Gawhar Shad.

# Other
- Sunset Colonies can now declare their own wars.
- The Aztec Estate Privilege "Arm Lesser Nobles with Macuahuitl" is no longer removed when switching to High American Technology Group.
- Declare War for a Sunset Colonies no longer has unlocalized text.
- The Great Project “El Escorial” cannot be rebuilt after completing the "Iberian Windmills" mission.
- Old World Nations and Mesoamerican Tributaries no longer can have Mesoamerican Tributaries.
- The Austrian Government Reform “Great Council of Mechelen” has a proper localization in the confirmation window.
- The Dutch Goverment Reform “Seven Provinces” lists all the relevant modifiers.
- The “Dutch Revolt” disaster no longer requires less than 3 Stability for it to progress faster
- The Venician Government reform “Venetian Government” is available if the player forms Italy as Venice.
- "Rekindle the Hussite Wars" aspect of faith is no longer visible when Winds of Change DLC is disabled.
- The Timurids' privilege "Promote Ijazah" now prevents the estate from losing loyalty when seizing land.
- The “Mongol Brother Realms” subject type has an improved tooltip explaining that it does not cost any diplomatic slots.
- The Keshigs Mercenary company no longer costs Army Professionalism.
- The Keshigs Mercenary company no longer takes 15% more fire damage.
- Propagate Religion can now be maintained without needing a dominant religion if you use the Arabian plutocratic government's ability "Empower Religious Propagation”.
- The Turkoman Government reform “Modernized Turkoman Federation” is now also available for republics and theocracies.
- Theodorian Government Reform “Russian Mercenary Guard” has a proper localization in the confirmation window.
- The Theodorian diplomatic action requirements for “Recruit Foreign General” are now displayed properly.
- Armenian Government Reform "The Sparapet Office" has a proper localization in the confirmation window.


###################
# Bugfixes
###################

# CTD
- Fixed a CTD when selecting a big amount of treaties in a peace deal.
- Fixed a CTD with missing submission_to_emperor triggered modifier.
- Fixed a CTD with “Restore dependency” casus belli.
- Fixed a CTD with automatic transportation and attached boats.
- Fixed a random new world CTD connected with areas.

# Warfare
- Units are no longer allowed to attach if they are movement-locked.
- Fixed an issue with attached units getting their movement canceled during a battle.
-Fixed incorrect display of force limit in different places.
- Fixed automatic army transportation bug with boats going to the wrong province.
- Fixed military view not showing leader traits in some cases.
- Fixed a monthly sailor gain overflow issue.
- Made pathfinding want to move through neutral territory more often in certain situations.
- Fixed boat attaching system not working.

# Diplomacy
- Vassals can no longer create Heathen Royal Marriages.
- Declaring war on the subject of a guaranteed nation now correctly calls in the guaranteers of the overlord.
- Vassalazing a nation that unconditionally surrendered in an offensive war will no longer make said nation stay in the war.
- Fixed missing tooltip for AI acceptance of a call to war when declaring on own tributary who is allied to another tributary.
- Fixed an uncommon issue for the “Sending gift” action being blocked without any reason.
- Removing a guarantee with treaties now properly creates a truce between the two nations.
- Fixed mission localization for declaring war on Incorporated Personal Union subjects.
- Annexed tags no longer retain their siege objectives.
- Fixed issue with the war declaration screen not showing the overlord of a tributary who in turn is the overlord of a vassal player is attacking.
- Signing a peace with a Mesoamerican vassal's overlord will no longer end the war with the subject if the subject was the war leader.
- Personal union-like subject types now correctly transfer over when their overlord becomes a junior partner in a personal union
- Allies now take into consideration land given to them in separate wars when calculating favors given/lost.
- Releasing a nation as a country with reformed native religion makes the new vassal also have the religion reformed.
- Coalitions now don't suddenly disband after reloading a save.
- Coalition members now leave them after reaching low AE.
- Countries with elective monarchy can no longer break their personal unions established in a succession war with ruler elections.
- Releasing a new nation now sets their unit types correctly.
- Full annexing a country now correctly gives negative liberty desire to your subjects if they were given land.
- Fixed incorrect description of modifier to enable transfer vassals treaty.
- Fixed a rare issue with nations not being able to declare wars because of a pending call to war action against a nonexistent country.
- Vassals no longer retain vassal independence support when they are transferred over after a war.

# AI
- AI subjects will not try to invade when set to a passive stance.
- AI now correctly takes into consideration PU seniors of an overlord of a vassal they want to attack.
- AI will no longer desire the land of others' vassals more than if the overlord owned that land.
- AI will no longer break a royal marriage after claiming a throne.

# Other
- Changing the religion of the HRE emperor to one from a different religious group will no longer dismantle the HRE immediately.
- HRE religious peace is now not locked behind Art of War DLC because it can be achieved by passing reform ”Proclaim Erbkaisertum” as well.
- Changed the tooltip for enforcing religious unity in HRE action to say that the actor will receive a CB on the recipient.
- Missing Art of War DLC will no longer hide the HRE religion icon.
- Fixed broken localization for the “Dismantling the Revolution” tooltip.
- Austria can no longer form Austria-Hungary while at war to prevent other bugs related to tag switching at war.
- Pronoias no longer give land to other nations when integrated.
- Tagging into different countries now correctly updates the leader list if there is only one leader in the country.
- Landlocked countries can get knowledge sharing again.
- Fixed technology screen changing the Institution map mode even when not going into the Institutions tab.
- Fixed constructions getting delayed in some specific situations in capitals and trade node capitals.
- Fixed incorrect flag being shown in text for colonial nations.
- hire_advisor and define_advisor effects are no longer limited to advisor level 3 if Cradle of Civilization is on.
- Setting holy order via an effect triggers abandonment and establishes the effects of those orders.
- Country Center of Trade modifiers now correctly get removed and added when a country loses or gains provinces.
- Scripted diplomatic actions now get updated correctly in the diplomatic window.
- Interesting countries now correctly change to new tags when another nation forms a new country.
- Revanchism now gets distributed according to the core development lost.
- Prestige penalty from signing a separate peace deal no longer takes into account only individual war score against War Leader.
- Colonies now don't need a port to allow their overlord to colonize next to them.
- Increased rate at which parliament seats are assigned if more than half of the seats is missing.
- Fixed custom ui error log spam.
- Limited amount of vassals Doom-using countries are getting.
- Previously granted permanent claims are now correctly awarded to the tag that was destroyed and re-formed.
- Fixed on_thri_yearly_pulses not firing.

Hey Folks! Ryagi here, today we take a brief dive into a nightmare, but not just anyone's nightmare. It's Voltaire's Nightmare! That's right! We're finally getting along to covering this classic EU4 mod. What took us so long? Well, gotta keep some of those classics in your pocket for a rainy day you know? Anyway, with pleasantries out of the way, lets get into the meat and potatoes on this mod, brought to you by the Voltaire's Nightmare dev team as a whole:

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Hello everyone, we are the development team for the mod Voltaire’s Nightmare.

Voltaire’s Nightmare has evolved quite a bit over the years — it originally emerged in 2016 with the idea of creating something like ‘Iaponia Universalis’ for the Holy Roman Empire, which is to say, replacing the entire world map with an ultra-detailed HRE. Taking this chaotic world of tiny lordships, abbacies, and republics as our starting point, we have expanded the scope of the mod to cover everything from Ireland to Iraq and a full timeline from 1054 AD to 1871 AD.

While Voltaire’s Nightmare deliberately tries to preserve the flow of EU4’s core vanilla gameplay as much as possible, this ‘zoomed in’ map allows for a level of detail in provinces and countries that couldn’t be captured by a traditional map mod, and we’ve added plenty of new religions, cultures, techs, units, governments, ideas, monuments, events, and missions to flesh out this expanded world beyond just the addition of nations.

Every religion in Voltaire’s Nightmare has some kind of custom mechanic. This could be something as simple as a unique set of Personal Deities, but we have also re-used most vanilla religious mechanics from outside the zone of the mod’s map to let you experience things like major incidents in the history of the Nestorian church or modernization reforms in the multiple pagan faiths of the Caucasus. It’s up to you whether you want to try playing as a Cappadocian Iconoclast destroying icons, a Dalcassian Lollard fighting off Crusades, or perhaps even revive the religion of Ancient Egypt and become a Coptic Napoléon.

Since Voltaire’s Nightmare covers such a vast timeline with hundreds of added nations, we thought the best way to give you a snapshot of the mod would be to highlight just a few scenarios from the 1054-1444 period that might pique your interest.

Empire of China mechanics from “Mandate of Heaven” have been retooled for the Kievan Rus, allowing you to expand and manage your appanages and ultimately form either Ruthenia or Russia. In 1054 the Rus are split between only a handful of major principalities, but as time goes on the Rus Princes will have to deal with the infamous Rota system of collateral succession and the fragmentation of their patrimonies into an ever-finer network of small fiefs — to say nothing of the looming arrival of the Mongols.

One of the more intriguing countries in Voltaire's Nightmare is the semi-historical nation of New England. A handful of medieval sources allege that a group of Anglo-Saxons led by Earl Siward of Gloucester departed England after the Norman Conquest and sailed to Constantinople to join the Varangian Guard. As reward for their service, the Byzantine Emperor Alexios Komnenos later rewarded these Anglo-Saxons with a strip of land located on the shores of the Black Sea. There, surrounded by heathens, they established a colony and embraced a piratical lifestyle in exile. New England is just one of several special Pirate Nations you can play as in Voltaire’s Nightmare.

Another interesting setup to play is the Kingdom of Jerusalem after the First Crusade. The Kingdom is divided into many minor baronies and also holds loose control over the larger Crusader states like Antioch in the north. Among these special subjects are the famous Hospitaller Order and Templar Order, protecting the flanks of the Holy Land through a network of fortresses. Hidden in the Syrian mountains, there is also the opposing Order of the Assassins, who seized control of several remote valleys after being expelled from Aleppo for their heretical beliefs. There's a lot going on in this region with many different religions and political entities to explore — including the possibility of launching your own Crusade with help from across the Catholic world.

While the Reconquista is almost complete by 1444, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries we find a much more dynamic Andalusia that could be united by any Christian or Muslim power. To the south, the collapse of the Caliphate of Córdoba in 1031 has created a patchwork of minor emirates known as Taifas. Among these Taifas are the Taifa of Dénia, ruled by former Slavic slaves, the Shia Taifa of Málaga, and the Taifa of Córdoba, a republic formed in the Andalusian Caliphate’s old capital. In the north, the familiar Christian monarchies are consolidating their power to strike against the weakened Taifas. The one thing giving the Taifas some breathing room is the Tierra de Nadie, a strip of uncolonized provinces around the Duero River which represents the devastated borderland that had been left almost uninhabited on account of the constant warfare between the Christians and Muslims.


We hope you enjoyed this little look into the world and features of Voltaire’s Nightmare. To really get a sense for the mod, we suggest you try to explore the timeline yourself and see if anything sticks out to you. Maybe you could be the first player to start at the height of the French Empire in 1812 and manage to conquer the whole map before 1871?

For the last few years we have mostly been adding flavor to the mod rather than new map content, but one of these days we might just get around to filling out Persia…

In the meantime, you can also check out Voltaire’s New Nightmare, an associated mod that returns to the original ‘HRE only’ premise (albeit in much better quality than the 2016 version).

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I imagine many of you won't have trouble finding Voltaire's nightmare, and indeed may have it downloaded in your mod folder already. But just incase, be sure to check out them out here:

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=684459310

And now that this series has officially proven to be a success we plan on keeping a much stricter schedule with uploads! You can expect a new mod spotlight once every 2 weeks, on Fridays. As usual let us know if there are any mods you'd like us to cover, or indeed reach out if you yourself might be interested in showing off some modding work. Whether in progress or published. Until next time!

Hey!

We are happy to announce the integration of FOUR essential DLCs into the Europa Universalis IV base game: "Rights of Man", "Art of War", “Digital Extreme Upgrade” and "Common Sense". That’s right - all current and future EUIV players will receive these four DLCs absolutely free of charge! And you won’t even need to do anything to receive them!

So far, the first three of these DLCs were a part of the "Starter Edition" - but we decided to add the fourth one to the mix to enrich the core experience of EUIV even more. Once this initiative is launched on October 17, all of these DLCs will be automatically included with the base game purchase, enhancing your gameplay experience right from the start.

In order to celebrate and honour constant support from our community, everyone buying the base game before October 17 or already having it in their library will receive these four DLCs for free once they are integrated. In this way we want to reward our fans for their ongoing engagement with Europa Universalis IV.

Are you a new player, wanting to give EUIV a try? Then don’t waste time and take advantage of our ongoing Steam sale and get Europa Universalis IV for just $9,99 to benefit from additional DLCs after October 17, when they will be automatically unlocked.

And what if you are a seasoned veteran, who already has the base game plus the 4 DLCs mentioned above? Well, we are preparing a special treat for you - on October 17 we will lower the price of the Ultimate Bundle and introduce a brand new Starter Edition. Keep in mind that DLCs you already own will reduce the price of the Ultimate Bundle even more, making it the best way to finally complete your collection!

[expand type=details]

1. Why are we doing this?
Europa Universalis IV has been with us for over a decade now (time flies!) - and during this time we continuously supported it with hundreds of free updates and dozens of DLCs. Over the years, it has become apparent that "Rights of Man", "Art of War", “Digital Extreme Upgrade” and "Common Sense" are the go-to choice for new players, while most veterans consider these DLCs to be an integral part of EUIV experience. It’s about time for us to recognize that officially - and make sure that both newcomers and experienced leaders can enjoy Europa Universalis IV equally from the get go. And is there a better way to do that than giving out these DLCs for free?

2. Why have you decided to make 4 DLCs permanently free?
For many years, "Rights of Man", "Art of War", “Digital Extreme Upgrade” and "Common Sense" were considered to be a quintessential set of DLCs that every Europa Universalis IV player should get. We now want to recognize this officially - so even more players can enjoy the features included in these expansions from the start.

3. I already own the base game. How does this affect me?If you own the basic Europa Universalis IV game, but not all of the expansions now being bundled with it, additional content will be unlocked for you for free. If you own all of the content included in the new base game, nothing will change for you.

4. Does this even apply if I buy the base game at the current lower sale price?
Yes! You can take advantage of any lower price between now and October 17 to buy the base game and then download the free expansions when they become available.

5. Is this change going to be rolled out on all platforms?
Yes! We are planning to update the base game to include all four DLCs listed above regardless of which platform you are playing on: Steam, Epic, GOG or Microsoft Store.

6. Will there be any refunds or rebates for people who already bought these games at full price?
No, there will be no refunds, rebates or credits towards future purchases based on previous purchases of Europa Universalis IV or its additional content. This being said, if you bought one of the listed DLCs recently, make sure to double-check the refund policy of the platform you are playing on (for example, Steam has a 14-days refund policy).

7. How does this change to the Base Game affect the Starter Edition and Ultimate Bundles?
The content of the Starter Edition will be adjusted to include different expansion packs, as some of the starter expansions are now free. The Ultimate Bundle will see a decrease in price.

8. Will my base game save files break after this change?
If you currently don’t own one or more of the DLCs to be included in the new base game, it’s likely that your current save game will break once this change is made on October 17. That’s one of the reasons for which we are letting you know about free unlocks more than a month in advance - so you can finish your ongoing campaign just in time.

9. What if I don’t want these DLCs?
DLC content can be disabled through the game launcher before clicking "Play", under the section "DLC". Alternatively, if you're launching the game through Steam, you can also disable DLC via Steam's in-built DLC manager.

^ Edit regarding FAQ #9. The above statement is no longer accurate, after deliberation and testing the 4 DLC added on October 17th will be "baked" into the basegame and as such cannot be disabled. This is due to potential issues regarding the game's checksum and crossplay. Note: Players on Steam will still have the option to rollback to the previous patch, prior to the baked in DLC content coming on October 17th.

Have a question that isn't answered here? Feel free to post here or over on our forum post[forum.paradoxplaza.com] and we'll try and get back with you!
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