14 DAY TRIAL // 
I love the grand strategy titles created by the teams at Paradox Interactive and they capture a significant part of my free time, but I do have one rather embarrassing secret to share: I tend not to play any kind of tracking nation in Europa Universalis IV and I am little bit ashamed about it.
The game, which was launched in 2013, is a very deep simulation of how the world existed in the Middle Ages and allows players to select their favorite country and then use diplomacy, combat, money, religion and covert action to try and make it a great power.
The player is free to create his own narrative and his own goals in Europa Universalis IV, which can make the first few games with any country feel a little aimless. But as the player explores the depth of any nation, he will find a variety of scenarios that he will want to explore.
Wealth of Nations, as the name implies, is designed to make the economic and mercantile aspects of the grand strategy experience more appealing, with a host of new options for those who want to see their treasuries bulging with gold and do not care as much for long wars and the capture of enemy provinces.
Trading powers have always felt a little under-represented and tend to disappear in about 100 years or so, but the new expansion is designed to make keeping them alive worthwhile for their neighbors.
I’ve played a few games as Venice, the most important representative of the group, with the 1444 start and I am happy to report that the faction has the ability to grow, develop well and even manipulate much larger countries to do its bidding.
Players who are interested in using trade to their advantage need to carefully select the techs and the national ideas that can improve their merchant numbers and increase their effectiveness, even if that means an army that’s never as powerful as it should be.
The new piracy actions for fleets are also great, especially in the confined spaces of the Mediterranean and the general flow of goods and money across the continent is better represented in Wealth of Nations.
Prospering as a trading-focused power is still hard to do, especially when massive wars break out and the player is forced to honor an alliance, but I’ve found that the experience can be very fun and engaging, which has not been the case in the base version of Europa Universalis IV.
The new content for the game also introduces changes to the way diplomacy works, to the concepts around naval battles and to the religious aspects of the title.
There’s also a huge list of balance changes that were added with the 1.6 patch for Europa Universalis IV, affecting all the nations in the game, which will make the entire experience feel new even for those who have spent tens of hours with it.
Wealth of Nations does not introduce any sort of graphics enhancements to Europa Universalis IV, but the Clausewitz engine still looks great and the user interface does a superb job of giving players a lot of information at a glance in order to then allow them to steer their nation in the direction they want.
Some small tweaks have been implemented, but the biggest changes introduced in the expansion are linked to the core gameplay and not to the actual look of the grand strategy title.
The sound design is also largely unchanged and I still tend to fire up some classical music while playing Europa Universalis IV, but there are also plenty of music packs for the various cultures offered for those who appreciate the soundtrack.
Since Wealth of Nations was launched, the team at the Paradox Development Studio has delivered a hotfix that changes some mechanics that the fans saw as broken and the company promises that a larger patch will be delivered soon to fix any remaining issues.
Paradox has said that it has long-term plans to continue supporting Europa Universalis IV, which probably means that at least one more expansion is in the works.
Wealth of Nations adds quite a bit of both major and minor changes to the grand strategy experience and can make the game feel fresh for even the most experienced long-term fan, which makes it a worthwhile investment, especially for those who have already sunk around 100 hours into the game.
