Europa Universalis 4: Leviathan will add options for diplomacy, and 'playing tall'

Central Thailand chooses to expand infrastructure on a Europa Universalis map

(Image credit: Paradox)

During the recent Paradox Insider event, Johan Andersson—the studio manager of Paradox Tinto, which opened last year—caught us up on what's coming with the forthcoming Leviathan expansion for Europa Universalis 4.

One of the things Leviathan will do is provide more options for those who play tall—underexpanding and developing the land you've got, whether because it's an interesting strategic challenge, or because you're surrounded by the HRE. To that end, Leviathan is adding options to Concentrate Development, moving it from outer territories to your capital and create a singular metropolis, Centralize State to decrease development costs, and Expand Infrastructure, to get multiple manufacturers going in a single province.

It's also going to flesh out diplomacy, building on the favors introduced in The Cossacks. Where before they accrued over time, eventually letting you call allies to join your wars, a new diplomatic action called Curry Favors will let you deliberately gain them to spend on more options, like abandoning allies, or damaging relations with a third party.

Andersson also mentioned the subscription plan for Europa Universalis 4, which will give subscribers access to "all current and future content" and will cost $5 a month. It'll be available on March 18.

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.