Summary
- Project Caesar aims to improve upon Europa Universalis 4 with a new UI, fresh start date, and more engaging gameplay mechanics.
- The game should introduce sub-province locations, a better development system, and a more interactive trade network.
- Performance improvements and the addition of "pops" (populations) will enhance the player experience in the next Europa Universalis game.
The Europa Universalis franchise by Paradox is a top-rated historical strategy game series where players take the reins of various world countries during the Renaissance and beyond. Europa Universalis 4 has seen a slew of different DLCs, each adding various things to the game world in the form of new mechanics and strategies for old countries.
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A poorly kept secret is the development of Europa Universalis 5, codenamed Project Caesar, as the next-gen successor to the extremely long-lived Europa Universalis 4. Project Caesar aims to be a big improvement over its predecessors, taking everything Paradox has learned from prior entries and even other franchises by the studio to make the best EU yet.
1 Simple And Effective User Interface
Essential For Both Beginners & Veterans Alike
Europa Universalis 4 is a massive, sprawling game with dozens of complex mechanics - and often interactions between those mechanics. The trouble is, the user interface for EU4 is creaking under the strain of dozens of patches and alterations to game mechanics forced into a user interface it simply wasn't designed for.
EU4 has a bit of a reputation for being hard to learn, and its user interface is part of the problem. More recent Paradox strategy games such as Crusader Kings 3 have implemented a newer, more responsive UI that offers players in-game tips while playing. Project Caesar looks set to implement a similar thing, along with other changes to UI which should make the games easier and more fun for old and new players alike.
2 New Start Date
New Options And A Different Feel
A new start date offers a different playing field for old veterans of the Europa Universalis franchise, giving players the chance to try out all-new strategies with countries that often didn't make it to Europa Universalis 4's 1444 start date.
The proposed 1337 start date for EU5/Project Caesar presents players with some very different situations for popular countries such as England or France, giving the game a fresh new feel - and the chance for all new countries to make it big.
3 Mechanics To Avoid Blobbing (Or Make It More Fun)
Keep The Challenge Longer
Some of the best fun in any game is the climb to the top, and that's true for the Europa Universalis franchise as well. But as many players find, it's all too easy to become too big to fail, and often the fun ends there. With some more (well thought out) mechanics to avoid blobbing, where players can turn into super large countries - or even face super large countries - the fun could continue until the very end.
Although part of the fun is in growing the country, many players find the challenges of running a large nation to be tedious more than fun. Some blobbing is inevitable, but it doesn't have to be boring.
4 Lose The Mana System
No More "Make It Better" Buttons
Although the monarch points system in Europa Universalis 4 gets the job done, many players find it to be annoying or overly abstracted. Although players can simply hit a button to instantly improve many things in EU4, from the progress of rebellions to the stability of the country and even the economy of a province, some players find it unsatisfying.
Project Caesar has apparently done away with much of this system, replacing it with slower and less abstract systems designed to simulate something a bit closer to how things would really work. This should offer players new strategies when it comes to solving the classic problems facing countries in the Europa Universalis franchise, giving a fresh new feel to the gameplay.
5 Better Peacetime Mechanics
Something To Do While The Truce Timer Ticks
Although much of the game is about war and conquest - along with managing conquests and cultures - the next EU game could benefit massively from a bit more to do during peacetime. In other words, those times when war isn't possible - no matter how much players would like it to be.
Victoria 3: Best Laws To Enact
Victoria 3 contains a variety of laws for players to potentially enact. These laws tend to be the most beneficial.
Although it doesn't need to copy Victoria's economic and governance gameplay in its entirety, Project Caesar could improve on its predecessors by introducing some elements from the Victoria franchise such as laws and more fleshed-out government mechanics.
6 Better Province/Location Granularity
More To Conquer And More To Manage
Although the map for Europa Universalis 4 has changed considerably since its release, with many new provinces being added by various patches, the overall design philosophy has remained the same. This approach has served the game well, but some players have noticed that the province system can result in weird border shapes or lead to strange situations during wars.
The new approach of Project Caesar/EU5 to include many more locations at a sub-province level, including the ability for armies to move through locations, gives a new layer of tactical thinking to the problem as well as gives map painters more to work with.
7 Better Development System
Simulated Prosperity
The development system added many years post-launch was a godsend to players, allowing them to finally improve provinces economically and militarily. This meant smaller, less prosperous countries in real-world history could improve throughout the game, allowing all sorts of new player-driven stories to happen.
But the development system is just a kind of monarch point sink, and there could be a much better way to simulate the development of a province over time than simply pushing a button to make it better. A new entry to the series should try to improve the development system.
8 Addition Of Pops
Literal People Power
The question of population in Europa Universalis 4 is one that's never really addressed directly, although it's referenced many times in some of the game's systems in a rather obtuse way - as a country's "manpower." But manpower doesn't derive from actual populations and it's an abstract system.
Like the popular economic strategy game Victoria 3 and its predecessors, EU5/Project Caesar will include "pops," a representation of populations that live in the game world. The addition of pops to the EU franchise should offer a whole new kind of gameplay, with the potential for many more interesting stories to be told.
9 Dynamic Trade Networks
More Interactive Trade System
Trade in EU4 can be a complex system to get to grips with, but at its core, it's all very abstract. There are trade goods and trade nodes, but they don't actually do much in the world. People don't use fish to feed themselves, nor is wood used to build things.
The trade nodes and their directions are fixed, without being able to be changed throughout a game. This means that the three "end nodes" where all trade flows will always be where the trade goes, even if a completely unexpected country somewhere totally out of the way becomes a massive economic powerhouse. Project Caesar could fix that by giving a purpose to trade goods and introducing a more dynamic trade system.
10 Better Performance
Late Game Shouldn't Be A Drag
Most Paradox strategy games suffer with late-game performance thanks to the large number of things simulated and the increasing complexity of the game world over time, but late-game performance issues are still a major drag. From months that take whole minutes to pass by to wars that bring the whole system crawling to a stop, it's fair to say that performance issues can kill an otherwise fun game.
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For Project Caesar to shine, it has to address performance issues. Paradox has done some good work with performance in games such as Stellaris and Victoria 3, both of which feature pops and complex resource interactions, so there's a good basis for Europa Universalis 5 to be even better.
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