Paradox Interactive announced Conquest of Paradise which is the first expansion for Europa Universalis IV, the award-winning empire building and grand strategy game for Windows, Mac and Linux. Europa Universalis IV is a game where the player has the chance to lead one of many countries through the history. Players can change the history in the game with their actions and this means it is a game that allows the player to set their own goals. Do they want to shock the world with wars or do they want to create a huge trading empire? Nothing is set in stone and the player can decide on which route he will lead the country.

According to the Paradox news, with the new expansion Conquest of Paradise you will be able to send ships off to find and discover a new world. Players will be able to discover a completely randomized American continent. That reminds me a little bit to the game Civilization where players had the chance to randomize the game map before they started campaign. It is a very nice idea in my opinion to transport this idea over to Europa Universalis IV. According to the first Developer diary it seems to be an option. It looks like that you can but that you don´t have to randomize the world map.

In the expansion Conquest of Paradise you will also be able to play the Native Americans and Paradox does promise some exciting new gameplay mechanics like forming federations, new game events, ideas and buildings. They wrote that they will talk about the features in the upcoming Developer diaries.

They say that managing overseas colonies will be interesting as well. Larger ones will become free nations but they cam still remain your colonies. Paradox wrote that they will they will have a limited independence while they will help you with trade power and money. They can go their own route with colonizing, fighting the other American Natives but it could also happen that they will revolt against you to gain liberty. You might want to hinder them but this can lead to more problems.

That sounds pretty interesting as always. Paradox Interactive does really release great games. I enjoyed Europa Universalis II already pretty much. But Paradox does not stop to produce the best strategy games.

If you want to create your alternative history, then you might be interested in the release date of Conquest of Paradise. The expansion will be released in Janruary 2014. If you don´t own Europa Universalis IV yet, you will need it to play the expansion in January.

Find out more about Universalis IV on my blog or about Paradox Interactive and their great games.