Paradox Interactive is deservedly known as the originators of the grand strategy genre. What’s incredible is that they’re still churning out some of the best gaming content to this day—actually, their latest expansion packs and DLC have been on fire.
Europa Universalis 4 has long been known as Paradox Interactive flagship grand strategy title, with a veritable plethora of excellent DLC and immersion packs to support it over the years. And now EU4 players have something to get excited about once more—the latest expansion called Europa Universalis 4 – Lions of the North!
Like much of Paradox’s other grand strategy expansion packs, Lions of the North is all mainly focuses its development of a specific region of the world. This one is much more niche-oriented than say, the incredible Mandate of Heaven or Art of War DLC. To out it short—it’s going to be a must-have for players who like to focus on northern European countries.
Consequently, Paradox is also using the release of Lions of the North DLC to push out a series of comprehensive free content updates for all owners of the game. This article is dedicated specifically to paid content, of course, but base game owners needn’t worry about being left out in the cold.
The main elements of the Lions of the North DLC aims to offer more options to each of the featured nations. In line with previous DLC, this is accomplished by introducing a wealth of new Mission Trees across the board.
For instance, Each of the Baltic Sea nations will have a more robust selection of long-term goals to pursue, making it way easier for players to customize their run and progress organically. To say nothing of massively improved replayability.
In general terms, there are major new mission trees for 11 different nations, from Denmark to Finland. This also includes new features for the Teutonic Order, who need to choose whether to pursue religious zealotry or evolve into the great Prussian empire. Livonia and Courland, on the other hand, can choose between abject rivalry and modern secularization.
Paradox is attempting to give more options to you, the player. This means that Lions of the North players are expected to (hopefully) experiment and see where alternate history takes them. That is, after all, one of the major attractions of Europa Universalis 4.
For all of the folks out there who are interested, however, here’s what’s included in the Lions of the North DLC:
- Power maintenance and influence improvement Mission Tree updates for Denmark
- Breakaway Mission Tree updates for Sweden and Norway
- Zealotry vs secularization Mission Tree updates for Teutonic Order, Riga, and the Livonian Order
- Ambition Mission Tree updates for Poland, Lithuania, and the Commonwealth
- Various changes to existing Mission Trees for Gotland, Scandinavia, Finland, and Danzig
- All-new Estate Privilege and Government Reform features
- Introduction of the Swedish Carolean Infantry
- Introduction of the Polish-Lithuanian Winged Hussars
- 35 all-new army sprites for select regional powers
- 3 new pieces of Scandinavian OST
- 3 new pieces of Baltic-themed OST
In total, you’re looking at fairly substantial additions to the game. The potential issue, of course, lies in whether players end up using the featured nations or not. That is practically the main concern of the developers, especially since Paradox Interactive is adding a bunch of other stuff (hotfixes, optimizations, etc.) through the free hotfix.
This Northern European DLC certainly adds a lot more depth to the Northern and Baltic nations. It allows players to evolve their nations in ways they previously had no way of doing, making them all far more adaptive than ever before.
Paradox Interactive has gradually been filling out its roster of regional upgrades for EU4 and it’s quite fitting, seeing how the main game’s title begins with “Europa.” So get those gaming PCs ready for action!
SCORE: 9/10