We sat down with Europa Universalis IV project lead Thomas Johansson to discuss the first expansion Conquest of Paradise, development practices and more in this extensive interview.

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With this expansion the team has focused on the colonial aspect of the game fleshing out the native factions in North America and the gameplay for colonies, but perhaps most interestingly there is the option to randomise the landmass of the new world.

"The replayability with Europa Universalis IV is already great, because you can take all these different countries and it changes your game. And now it becomes even more like that [never progressing in the same way twice], especially in the nations on the Atlantic seaboard. They know what to expect. If you're England you know sort of how far it is to America so if you want to choose a colonial strategy you know how much you have to research, what you're going to do, and you know fairly well when it's safe and what direction to send them out. But if you have the random new world it's sort of up in the air. If you're lucky you can actually find a much short earlier route to the colonial game and get a headstart on the Spanish and the Portuguese. Or maybe it's the other way around you don't really know. So basically you have to adjust your strategy for the unknown," explains Johansson.

A big part of developing the game is playtesting and Johansson was to proclaim this the game the team had been playing the most from home while it was in development. The team also regurlarly partakes in multiplayer sessions that tend to get very competitive.

"After our multiplayer game I think Morocco has colonised large parts of South America so for some reason we've also put a lot of research intro Arabic colonial names."

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Europa Universalis IV: Conquest of Paradise is due out on January 14.