Europa Universalis 4: Conquest of Paradise out next month, Native American gameplay detailed

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Paradox Interactive announced that its Conquest of Paradise expansion for Europa Universalis 4 will release on January 14. The expansion, which focuses on the discovery of the American continent, also overhauls how you play with the Native American nations, as Paradox Development Studio Manager Johan Andersson details in this first developer diary video.

One significant addition in the expansion which will also be unique to Native American nations is a parallel Native advancements track. Since EU4 nations outside of Europe advance along the technology path slower, they have less to build and develop, which overall makes them less interesting to play. The Native advancement track fixes this by awarding you with unique bonuses like a tracking improvement, which improves how your troops fight, the ability to demand diplomatic relations, and other ways to spend your resources.

The most interesting gameplay element here is the Natives' ability to migrate from province to province. While the expansion adds 10 unique and greatly beneficial buildings North Native American can build, it also offers a path which doesn't focus on infrastructure at all. As long as you only have one province, you can abandon it, along with all your buildings, and start over in another province. You lose what you've invested in that province, but gain a huge power boost from migrating. Conceivably, you could play as a small, powerful, nomadic nation that is always on the move (it would be cool to see Paradox add similar changes to the nomadic Steppe hordes as well).

As we reported in November , there's plenty of new things for you to do in the Conquest of Paradise even if you choose to stick to one of the European nations. "We wanted you to have the option to really explore a brand new continent," writes EU4 project lead Thomas "Besuchov" Johansson. "So for the first time ever in a Paradox Development Studio game, you can now choose to discover a completely randomized American continent. Therefore, when Columbus sets sails across the ocean, he might just find some nice islands that he can use as a stopover on his route to India or something completely different."

You can find more details in the video below and on the official Paradox forums .