Vijayanagar

Ethiopia

Mesoamerica

The Mayas

Central America and the Carribean

Western North America

Eastern North America

Other Changes

Only a couple of weeks until Europa Universalis IV: Art of War comes out, so we’re down to the last little bits of information to pass out in Developer Diaries.The French Revolution and, to a lesser extent revolutions in other nations, have always been a feature of Europa Universalis IV, but Art of War features considerable improvements in these mechanics. Now, in the second half of the 18th century any country in Europe, not only France, that ends up in a rough condition may experience a revolution and become the revolutionary target. Beyond the Revolutionary name and flag, this nation will receive significant bonuses and a large score boost, which can make it dangerous to push a country too far in the era of revolutions.This nation becomes the target not only of revolution, but of monarchs around the continent who will want to stop it. The nations that are threatened by the revolutionary movement now have a new casus belli and an option in peace deals to dismantle the revolution. This way, order can be restored for a while, until another country takes up the mantle with a revolution of its own. Allowing the movement to go unchallenged can be risky for monarchs, since its mere existence causes concern among nobles across Europe and spreads unrest through revolutionary propaganda. The revolutionary target also has a casus belli of its own to spread the revolution to the world, putting countries that have not embraced the new liberty particularly at risk.Many of the primary features of Art of War are focused around the buildup and outbreak of the Thirty Years War, so the bookmark at the start of this conflict in 1618 has consequently been given some special attention for the expansion.Although starting out as small as it always did, with the Bohemian Revolt, the factors that would allow the war to escalate to a conflict spanning the continent were already in place in 1618; these are now represented in the bookmark. Centers of Reformation in Wittenberg, Stockholm, London, Zurich, Friesland and Lothian threaten to spread the Protestant and Reformed faiths to the Catholic nations who resist it at a time when Emperor is trying to ensure that the HRE remains Catholic. The Religious Leagues are not yet at war, but have formed with their early members on board with others eager to join. With Austria at war with one of the empire's electors, the day when these factions will go to war draws ever closer.As many parts of the world have become more detailed and divided, some countries that were previously in the game from the start have now disappeared off the map in favor of smaller rivaling powers. Many of these nations are not gone for good, however. By way of example of what we've been doing and are about to do, I'm going to first talk to you a little bit about the country called Tibet.In Europa Universalis IV as you have it now, Tibet is a potential power in the Himalayas. Its mountains and winters can erode invading forces. In Art of War, we’ve broken up Tibet, but the tag still exists. Tibet can now be formed by any tribe or kingdom which conquers the key provinces and has Tibetan culture, giving claims on the entire region.Likewise, the Manchu tribes have the opportunity to unite Manchu, a first stepping stone to the creation of the Qing empire. Similarly, many others nations do exist at the start of the game, but may be fractured at certain bookmarks or dates, or annexed by larger neighbors. As described the last development diary, formation decisions have also been added for several Maghreb nations: Morocco, Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli. These decisions allow them to be recreated by the available candidates.Ruthenians and Byelorussians can now also form Ruthenia, a nation with claims on a large area in eastern Europe, giving breakaway nations these cultures potential to grow to a major power if they manage to break away from their original countries. With the northern Andes are now no longer represented as a united Incan Empire, this task is also left to the player who chooses one of the countries in the region. Last but not least, Great Britain can now be formed from a union by both England and Scotland and Arabia has been added as a culture union for Egyptian, Syrian, Mashriqi and Bedouin cultures.Part of the effort to make the world outside of Europe come alive with the Art of War has been seeing to it that more countries get their own Dynamic Historical Events. The rising Vijayanagara empire faced different challenges than the declining empire of Mali or Morocco during the last years of Marinid rule. With DHEs aimed specifically at countries like these, we hope that they will now present different experiences to the player. Though the new events aren't exclusively aimed at the early game, adding historical events relating to the first part of the game's timeline has been a priority. This way, a player starting in 1444 will get a taste of what's unique about his or her chosen area of play from an early point.Here are some examples of what you can expect:By 1444, the Vijayanagara empire has spent a generation expanding its influence over southern India from its imperial core on the shores of the Tungabhadra river. While this expansion has strengthened the empire, it also means that the nature of the empire is changing. The newly acquired Tamil south is much richer than the imperial heartlands and politics in this region is dominated to a much larger extent by rich traders and merchant guilds.Vijayanagar's DHEs, will among other things, have them face challenges relating to how to handle the Tamils in the south. Should they be allowed to mind their own business or be kept more closely under control by the state? If these lands become too detached from the Imperial center there is a possibility that they may serve as a base for a power hungry grandee such as Chellappa Nayaka. On the other hand, if they are kept under too strict control there is a risk of immediate open revolts and economic decline, something the enemies of the empire in the north and west would surely not hesitate to take advantage of.As the game opens, Ethiopia finds itself in the middle of a golden age. Under the Solomonids, the kingdom has defeated many of its enemies and has acted to protect and even spread the Christian faith.Ethiopia's DHEs focus on the various attempts to centralize the Ethiopian state and the problematic relationship with Mamluk Egypt which, at the same time, is a natural enemy to the Christian Ethiopian kings and the Coptic Patriarch, head of the Ethiopian Church.A challenge later in the game will be how to cope with the Oromo migrations, a period when large groups of animist warriors and settlers moved into Ethiopia and the surrounding regions, leading to profound changes in Ethiopian society.Like the existing DHEs, the new sets vary from more involved chains, like how to handle a Moroccan palace coup, to smaller things like the land reclamation and spread of Islam in the Bengal Delta. Other countries that have received new DHE's at this point are Gujarat, Persia, Bengal, Mali, Bahmani, Morocco and Mewar.We now turn over the keys to Guillaume HJ, who has worked with this part of the map.Those of you who are in any way familiar with my past modding work might be a little worried now. I've been known to add a lot of provinces to North America. Some might even think "Oh God, he probably added an extra province to Connecticut and split Maine in five and made Long Island its own province"So please, set your mind to rest: Long Island didn't get a province.Now Maine and Connecticut, on the other hand…So why North America?Back when most of the North America map was designed for EU IV (well, EU III mostly), it was built as a map for five native tribes (who didn't colonize) and a few colonial powers. A limited number of states, with a limited number of provinces; it worked well enough. Then, Conquest of Paradise happened. A few extra provinces were added, but suddenly the old map had to cope with thirty-odd native tribes, diverse colonial nations, and the same old colonial powers. What was once a wide open map with lots of room for colonial games became very crowded, very quickly, and a little too often what would happen was one country gobbling up the whole coastline - not a very desirable result. On top of that, of course, Mesoamerica was still stuck with its old Europa Universalis III layout, which was always...not entirely historical.So, rather than just making a few quick fixes, slowing down native expansion and calling it a day, we overhauled North America, including Mesoamerica.Fans have been waiting for this one a long time, so it's the logical starting point. In 1444, there are two great empires on the rise in Mesoamerica (and no, Zapotec and Maya aren't it). To the east, centered on the valley of Mexico and led by Moctezuma Ilhuicamina, you have of course the Aztecs. They've recently solidified their triple alliance, and are now on the path of expansion. So far, their influence is limited to a vaguely crescent-like shape stretching toward the Totonac people and the sea on either side of the Aztec's hated rivals, Tlaxcala.To the Aztec's west, the valleys of lake Patzcuaro and Cuitzeo were united over the past 50 years or so, forming the Tarascan Empire, whose land cover more or less the inland portion of the present-day state of Michoacan. Their own ruler, Tangaxuan I, look to expand and solidify his realm. Perhaps the greatest obstacle in their way is the kingdom of Colima along the coast to the west, exerting influence over a large number of the local city-states.Further south, a wide variety of city states alligned with three major ethnic groups (Mixtec, Zapotec and Tlapanec) occupy the south-western coast of Mexico and the isthmus of Tehuantepec.For well over a century now the Mayans have been engaged in a power struggle between three great dynasties: the Itzas of Chichen Itza, the Cocomes of Mayapan, and the Xiu of Mani. Chichen Itza fell first, a century or more before the game begins, and as the game open Mayapan has just fallen as well.The Xiu, however, have failed to set themselves up as the new rulers of Yucatan, their influence limited to the western regions. Worse; their old rivals have survived the falls of their respective capitals, and while the Itzas have fled far to the south (where they'll remain independent nearly to the eighteenth century), the Cocomes survivors still hold great influence across eastern Yucatan from their capital at Sotuta. And they're holding a grudge...Beyond the Itzas, in the land of the highland Maya, the kingdom of the Kiche mayas is on the rise. Having left their old capital of Jakawitz, they now rule fro the great city of Q'umarkaj, stretching their influence toward the land of the Chontales Maya in Mexico, and across the highlands of Guatemala.These regions see no new nations; they're still blank and ripe for colonization. The big change is that there is now a lot more of these regions to colonize: the old six provinces between Guatemala and Panama is now thirteen provinces. Like many other regions, the aim here is to make sure claiming each individual colonial region is a much harder task, thus enabling a great deal of additional colonial competition.The Carribeans likewise have undergone some changes, with Cuba and Hispaniola both picking up a few new provinces to make the Carribean region more interesting to settle. We've also added some straits in the Lesser Antilles, making them a little easier to rule without having to constantly transport troops around by ship.Other than the Spanish presence around present-day New Mexico, there was very little colonial presence west of the Mississippia and Lake Manitoba until the late eighteenth century, when Russia (through Alaska), Britain (through the Canadian prairies), Spain (from California) and later America (through the Louisiana purchase) all tried to expand into the region. By and large, until the end of the EU era and beyond, this region was dominated by the Native Americans and the First Nations of Canada.Because of that, province borders in that region rarely follow modern political borders. Even the modern Canadian-American border was ignored in favor of approximating the Hudson Bay height of land; the historical border between Louisiana and Rupert's Land (the border changed to the 49th parallel only in 1818). We still approximated a few iconic borders (the Lone Star State, for one), but the general rule is that the borders follow native homelands and natural features rather than the nineteenth century borders of provinces and states.The predominance of the natives in that region also led us to expand the number of provinces in the Pacific Northwest and northern Alberta. These regions would have been extremely difficult if not downright impossible for westerners to settle on any sort of large scale in the game timeline (though they did see a number of trading posts). The Natives, however, had no such difficulties living in those provinces, and since they're the primary players on the plains and in the mountains, we felt the game would be better off with the extra provinces. As a result, we've opened a path to lake Athabasca in the north, and added the region of Fort Saint John (British Columbia's first settlement) and the Fraser river to the map.Of course, it's hard to talk about native predominance in the west without talking about playable natives. We already had a good set on the plains, but we felt there were some conspicuous absences. As a result, with Art of War, we added three new plains tribe: the Arapaho, the Kiowa and the Wichita. The Arapahos were one of the largest (in term of size of their territory) plains tribe, occupying much of the high plains in Colorado and the neighboring states by the nineteenth century, though at game start they,re a one-province tribe in the Red River valley. The Kiowa likewise would move a lot, starting in the high mountains of Montana, but eventually migrating southward to the Oklahoma/Kansas border. The Wichita, in opposition, were always a tribe of the Great Plains, living near the related Caddo along the Texas/Oklahoma border.Adding new natives also allowed us to fix a region that we unfortunately had to leave empty in Conquest of Paradise: the Pacific Northwest. Historically, it's home to some of the best known and most iconic native tribes (including the famous Totem Poles), but in the game it's all empty provinces. No more: Art of War adds three playable tribes to the region. In the south, the traders of the Chinook people now live at the mouth of the columbia river. Further north, along Pugget sound, you can take a shot at uniting the Salish people into a strong confederacy. Finally, much further north, you can now lead the fabled "Vikings of the Pacific Northwest" – the Haida people of the Hecate Straits.Unlike the West, there are no new playable nations in Eastern North America. Historically, it was the most fought-over piece of colonial real estate, with the French, the Dutch, the Spanish, the English and the Swedes all trying to get a piece of the american pie, and fighting one another (and fighting the natives) for it; it took over a century and a half for one of these countries to finally establish control over the region (and even then, Spain still had Florida). This means we wanted a lot of free room in that part of the world, to make it very hard, if not impossible, for a single country to lock down the region without fighting. Adding new natives would have meant less free room, not more ; and in any event we were mostly happy with the native distribution from Conquest of Paradise in that part of the world.How much free room, you ask? There used to be about 90 provinces east of the Mississippi and in Eastern Canada (Ontario eastward). It's now a little over 170, including more than 60 coastal provinces, rivaling western Europe for province density. It's our hope that this will make it much harder for any colonial power to try to lock down the coast.One thing we did not add is new colonial regions. We wanted the thirteen colonies, if and when they try to break away, to be a massive behemoth that's going to be hard to subdue, and we wanted the other colonial regions to feel much the same.We've made some tweaks and improvements to the cultural setup, adding a few new cultures and groups. We've also extensivey modified the distribution of arctic provinces in teh climate files ; the old map treated all of Canada and parts of the northern United States as Arctic while Moscow and most of Russia were temperate. Canada has now been brought in line with Russia, with only the northern parts of it having Arctic climate (which is how it is in reality).