Emperor Expansion Announced for Europa Universalis IV

Paradox Interactive has announced yet another DLC expansion for its already content-rich flagship grand strategy game in the form of Europa Universalis IV: Emperor.

Emperor is a full-blown expansion and not just another immersion or content pack. For those not keeping count, this is the 16th expansion since the game’s launch in 2013.

Releasing at an as-yet-unannounced date in 2020, Emperor brings with it a slew of new features to the game but, in particular, will focus on changes to gameplay for the Holy Roman Empire, the Papal States, and other Catholic nations.

In addition, Emperor will allow players more customization in regards to their kingdom’s internal affairs, a rework of the mercenary mechanic, and extensive changes to the world map itself, from France to the Balkans.

The full list of features included in Emperor are listed as:

• A Powerful Pope: Appoint cardinals, publish Papal Bulls and gather tithes. The Vatican and Papal Controller now have new abilities to sway the souls of Christendom.
• New Holy Roman Empire Systems: Imperial Incidents provide new challenges to the Emperor’s power and authority. Will your empire follow a course to a centralized monarchy or decentralized federation?
• Revolutions Revamped: The spirit of Revolution is a contagion that must be either embraced or vigorously opposed. Use the guillotine and revolutionary guard to enforce the new way of thinking.
• The Hussite Faith: Bohemia has an early game chance to embrace heresy and stand alone against the Pope until The Reformation.
• Hegemonies: If you accomplish great feats, you should expect great rewards. Seize the mantle of honor for accumulating great wealth and armies.
• New Missions: Over 20 new unique mission trees for a variety of European nations
• Defender of Faith: With great responsibility comes great power. Earn more bonuses for defending a major religion than for defending a small one.
• The Council of Trent and Counter-Reformation: Join other Catholic rulers to slow down the spread of the Reformation by making concessions to the unruly mob or harshly imposing the will of God.
• Provoke Rebellions: Risk a larger rebellion now while you think you can manage it instead of waiting for discontent to take its course.

As usual, there will be a significant free update released alongside Emperor, which will contain quality of life improvements and solve some of the bugs that have been present since the last expansion, Golden Century.

Paradox released a tonal announcement trailer alongside the news, which you can check out for yourself below.

It’s going to be a great year for Paradox fans, as a slew of updates and expansions were announced for existing titles back in October at PDXCon. The first of these, La Resistance for Hearts of Iron 4, was released on Feb. 25 and is available now.