Ahead of its The Cossacks expansion release on Tuesday, Europa Universalis IV [official site] developers Paradox have pulled together all of the features the sixth major update has to offer in one handy developer diary. Expect improvements and more in-depth explorations of domestic politics, culture, diplomacy, and maintaining peaceful inter-territorial relations in exchange for a little coin. Running countries, eh? Easy when you know how.

I could listen to Paradox project lead Martin Anward talk all day, poring effortlessly over new details I just know are going to initially boggle my brain in practice. The latest developer diary aims to bring you up to speed with The Cossacks’ new features, wherein Anward talks at length about Estates – the expansion’s central feature which introduces power groupings that add internal politics to your countries – and the importance of keeping them on-side so as to avoid conflict and political and economic instability in your countries.

That said, it’s also important to avoid over-pandering to the wealthy elite so as to prevent any given Estate attempting to overthrow you. There’s also mention of Diplomatic Feedback – a new interface that allows you to control your attitude and relationship with the game’s AI, which can help build trust and increase the chance of forming alliances during, post an pre war. Culture has also been expanded, meaning you can now set secondary and tertiary cultures by way of geographic location. Typically, Anward goes into far greater detail and mentions a number of other less significant, but equally intricate, additions which you can catch firsthand here:



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Europa Universalis IV: Cossacks is due on Tuesday, December 1st.