Hey everyone, we now present the first developer diary for March of the Eagles, a new game from Paradox Development Studio!To be frank, this game will be a much more focused experience than you might be used to from games developed by Paradox Development Studio (PDS). It takes place in a short time period and the game is all about warfare with set victory conditions.So even though it will look a lot like Europa Universalis or Crusader Kings, March of the Eagles (MoTE) is a smaller but still very fulfilling experience. Small time frame, and a small price even, but the gameplay itself will be as expansive and challenging as you have come to expect from us. Just because the stage is small, that doesn't mean the performance can't fill the house...We like to think of all of our games as one big family, so, think of March of the Eagles as a love child with a lot of parents. It has the war focus from Hearts of Iron, the time frame and visuals from Europa Universalis, and victory conditions similar to those you've seen in Sengoku.And, strangely enough, some of the ideas we had for March of the Eagles (like coalitions) have found their way into Europa Universalis IV. See how nicely all of our games play together?When you design a wargame like this, you need a map where the warfare of the time-period can be performed. For a game in the Napoleonic era, there needs to be enough space to maneuver your armies, but small enough that you don't end up with units on a company level. What we have created is a map of about 2,800 provinces covering Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. What you will see is different in March of the Eagles (MoTE), is that not every province is an actual city providing manpower and tax, only a few are. The rest are basically locations for armies to maneuver on.Just like in Hearts of Iron or Sengoku, the focus of March of the Eagles is on the major players. You can play as a minor state if you like – we know how much you guys love the freedom to play tiny German bishoprics – but if you do, the best you can usually hope for is to end up on the winning side of the great war raging around you. As one of the eight great powers, however, you have the chance to establish your dominance at sea and on land, making yourself the most powerful nation in Europe.When designing a game you have a goal of what you want to achieve with a game. What we want to create with March of the Eagles, is to recreated the ambitions of the European counties of the era. And we want to create the fluidity of alliances and coalitions that constantly change, all to take down the dominant power or strengthen one-selves.If we were asked to describe what this game was about, except for the obvious answer (Napoleon!), we'd say that March of the Eagles is about how war changes nations and the revolutionary power of conflict. You lead a nation and it will be transformed in a short but chaotic decade. This will be a new way of experiencing the wars of this era, with a deeper understanding of how Napoleon's brilliance and France's new mass armies forced the rest of Europe to catch up.We'll be back every week with details on the game, but here is a small screenshot of the Russian-Austrian border...