Ages Reformed was voted the #1 Most Popular Steam Workshop submission for Europa Universalis 4 in December 2022 and January 2023. It was also featured in a mod spotlight by the company that made the game, posted on steam and on the game’s forums.

First a little bit about the game I made a mod for. Europa Universalis 4 is a grand strategy game from Paradox Interactive, a Swedish company and the maker of well-known titles like Stellaris, Crusader Kings, Hearts of Iron, Cities Skylines, and Victoria.

EU4 focuses on the historical time period between 1444 and 1821 and players may choose to play as any nation in the world. Players develop their nations and roleplay the expansion of their country, conquering their neighbors, engaging in royal marriages, espionage, trade, cultural and religious conversion and a ton more. I love EU4 because I love history and EU4 is a big history simulator!

The EU4 modding scene is very active, and modders have made thousands of mods for the game with notable complete overhauls such as: Anbennar a Fantasy World (with orcs, elves, magic, etc), World of Warcraft Universalis, Elder Scrolls Universalis, Lord of Universalis (Lord of the Rings), Ante Bellum (an alt-history overhaul), and many more. Some have changed the start date and overhauled the setting but kept things grounded in the real world like 1356 (a mod that starts in 1356 and not 1444) and Imperium Universalis which starts in 612 BC, a great way to play a history simulation game based on the ancient world (and learn some ancient geography), or Extended Timeline, which starts in 2AD and goes on to 9999AD!

Modders have changed everything in the game, from simply changing a single icon for the laughs to complete overhauls like those mentioned above.

My interest in modding the game was to improve the play experience for most players by improving one of the core mechanics most players are familiar with, the great Ages and Age Objective feature. During normal play, there are 4 historical ages that a player progresses through: Age of Discovery, Age of Reformation, Age of Absolutism, and the Age of Revolutions. During each age, as a player fulfills objectives, they gain a resource called “splendor” which can be used to unlock buffs for their nation. You have an incentive then to monitor which objectives are unfulfilled and try to fulfill them, getting more splendor and thereby unlocking more buffs, also called abilities.

Ages Reformed improved this feature in numerous ways.

Firstly, it more than doubled the amount of abilities or buffs a player could choose to spend their splendor on. For example, in the base game you can choose 1 of 7 buffs and there are 4 nation-specific buffs available if you play as one of those four nations. In Ages Reformed, each age has 18 buffs to choose from and none of them are nation-locked. They’re available for all nations.

Secondly, in the base game you can complete up to 7 objectives. However these objectives weren’t always accessible. For example, European, African, and Asian nations all share an Age of Discovery objective called “Discover America”. I kept this objective in, but replaced it with a more accessible objective for nations which had no hope of completing it during the time period, like a land locked Asian steppe nation. In addition, each age features an additional objective for 8 in total and many of the objectives have been changed for a more engaging experience.

Third, fulfilling objectives no longer simply provides splendor, they now provide small buffs. For example, fulfilling the Age of Discovery objective to “Develop your Nation” will give a +20% modifier to institution spread in your country.

Fourth, some of the abilities themselves now offer stacking permanent modifiers. Choosing diplomatic abilities for example will provide a small buff in the first age, that gets bigger if you select another diplomatic ability in the second age, and again in the third age.

Lastly, the art and UI has seen a big improvement. Each age picture has seen a switch from the cartoony recreations in the original to touched-up historical paintings that capture the essence of the age. Each painting has information available to be read about it by hovering the mouse cursor over a question mark in the bottom right of the painting. One of the most visually striking artistic changes in Ages Reformed is that the objective images change depending on which region of the world you’re playing as or which religion is your nation’s official religion. If you’re playing as an East Asian nation for example, you’ll see East Asian cities in city objective icons, East Asian ships in ship objective icons, and the religious objective icons will be unique based upon if your nation follows Shintoism, Buddhism, or Confucianism.

I loved making Ages Reformed, and I am happy that so many people rushed to download it and play it after it was released. There have been 22,000+ subscriptions from EU4 community members as of this writing in August 2024.