14 DAY TRIAL // 
Europa Universalis IV - The Cossacks makes a good case for getting rid of the nobility on a historical level, with the estate constantly pressing to get more territory and more power and never shying away from using armies and blood to take over the actual leadership of a country.
Burgundy is my new favorite nation to play as in the Paradox Development Studio grand strategy title, a nation in the middle of Europe that has the potential for greatness but needs good leadership and a bit of luck to achieve it.
Over many campaigns, I learned how to navigate the complexities of being a target but also a potential ally of France, England, and the current Holy Roman Emperor, but with The Cossacks, I might have to accept that the biggest threat comes from the interior.
I tend to like the bonuses that the clergy and the bourgeois offer, and that means my nobility has so far twice staged a coup and forced me into a 40-year period of recovery to get my fledgling Burgundy nation back on track.
There are multiple potential causes for player failure in The Cossacks, but each of them manages to feel interesting and unique, creating a lot of replay value even before taking into account the incredible range of start points and nations.
The new expansion for Europa Universalis IV introduces some other mechanics, some transformative, like revanchism, other more linked to flavor, like new options to deal with the natives and improvements to the random new world concept.
Story
Europa Universalis IV - The Cossacks allows gamers to create stories and to explore alternative outcomes as the entire series has done before, but the whole structure is moving, step by step, towards the Crusader Kings II end of the spectrum.
This means that there are more interactions than ever between countries and inside them, with more relevant actors that need to be appeased and coaxed to do what's best for their nations rather than for their self-interest.
Paradox has introduced plenty of new events that have a relatively small impact but can alter long-term strategies, and there are also new ways to make sure that policy towards other countries is carefully controlled, with more ways to get territory without fighting.
The quality of the writing in The Cossacks is not always impressive, but for both minor events and major choices, there are plenty of detail and data to help players decide how they want to push their nation forward.
Gameplay
Europa Universalis IV - The Cossacks does not introduce any major innovation to the core grand strategy mechanics of the title, but it does make internal politics more challenging and it improves the experience that gamers will have when playing the various steppe nations.
Paradox seems to be interested in making war less of a constant in the alternate histories that players are creating while giving them ways to develop a country and to interact peacefully with allies and even rivals.
The estates are the biggest new system for the expansion, groups that have both power inside a country and a degree of loyalty to the leadership and their confidence in how a nation is progressing.
The Cossacks themselves are present in only a handful of nations and have a relatively small impact, but the constant balancing act between the core of nobility, clergy and burghers quickly becomes crucial to core European nations because of the solid bonuses they can offer.
The new mechanics, coupled with province development and the new Favors element of the diplomatic system, keep the player very busy even if they are not engaged in any major conflict and in no shape to start one.
“Given my love for underdogs, I also thoroughly appreciate the new revanchism concept, which delivers a good set of bonuses for those nations that lose territory, guaranteeing that they have a fighting chance to take them back in the future.”
Paradox is also making it easier to deal with colonial wars, with colonization and trade development, and there are more options for cultural development for provinces.
The focus is still clearly on nations rather than on individuals, but there are plenty of options for interactions with many groups that often feel more important than long-term plans for world domination.
Europa Universalis IV - The Cossacks also has a solid Artificial Intelligence, able to create reliable alliances when it feels threatened and to take big nations like France or the Ottoman Empire right to the threshold of behemoths if it is not stopped.
The only aspect of the expansion that seems a little weird is the Favor system, which was supposed to bring clarity to the way two allied nations support each other but fails to do so, even if the rest of the diplomatic feedback is a great idea.
The Cossacks can still be daunting in its complexity at first, but anyone with even a passing interesting in Medieval history or classic strategy mechanics will be happy to spend time discovering its core ideas and then choosing a nation to guide towards any goals one can think of.
Graphics and audio
Europa Universalis IV - The Cossacks is a colorful, bright, detail-filled game that can deliver all the information a player needs to lead their nation if they ask for it, but it is also content to let them simply explore the world and see how the various nations deal with the challenges thrown at them.
I spent most of my time using the political mode and immersed in the different tabs and dialogue screens, and that means I often missed the variety of views that the game offers.
It's very much possible to get information from menus and messages, with plenty of options to organize them, but the grand strategy title also makes it easy to get details visually, using the wide range of included choices.
The Cossacks does introduce a major set of changes to the way provinces are grouped into areas and regions, making the map easier to understand, with a new naming system used to bring some clarity even when the empires and nations grow and colonize well outside the lines set by real-world history.
The music continues to be very much in tune with the theme of the title, and there's a lot of variety for those who have a weak spot for the sounds of the historical period.
Multiplayer
Europa Universalis IV - The Cossacks adds one big new feature for those playing against other humans, entirely free and optional, which makes sure that gamers who have lost a piece of their country are unable to ruin the rest of the campaign for all the others engaged.
The concept itself raises some interesting questions about interactions between players and how much agency they should have and whether there are limits to their freedom, based on liberty and enjoyment of others.
As always when it comes to grand strategy, the best way to engage with Europa Universalis IV in multiplayer is with a group of friends who have the skill and patience to see a campaign to its end, regardless of the way the alternate history treats them.
A new system of Victory Cards is also introduced to spice up matches and introduce some conflict after 1450.
The Good
- New internal politics system
- Improved diplomacy
The Bad
- Learning curve
- Favors system
Conclusion
This time around, players will have to deal with an improved system for trade goods, a new way to interact with Achievements, and development focused Cultural Union system.
The Cossacks also introduces a massive tweak to the random new world system that was part of the Conquest of Paradise content drop, and developers promise that the continents created are more realistic and make for more engaging play.
This most recent expansion for Europa Universalis IV adds a lot of new options to an already complex game, and as always, I believe that it's best for newcomers to first play the base experience and decide whether they love it or not and only then start exploring the extra depth.
