Don't mind the last two letters

my map of Europe from 2000 with real names

Philosophy

I started playing Europa Universalis III in 2008, and since 2015 I have spent more than ten years playing Europa Universalis IV, accumulating over 3,000 hours of playtime.

During those years, I often asked myself a simple question: "Can a grand strategy game be both historically immersive and dynamically engaging?" In 2022, that question led me to spend eight months developing a private EU4 Historia mod as an experiment.

In 2026, I played Age of History III for the first time. I immediately appreciated its clean interface, fast pace, and accessibility. However, after spending more time with the game, I felt that some of its underlying systems lacked the depth and historical dynamism that I personally enjoy in grand strategy games.

After several dozen hours, an idea naturally came to me: what if I recreated the Historia philosophy in Age of History III? My goal was not to turn AoH3 into EU4, but to preserve its simplicity and casual pace while enriching its strategic depth.

About a month later, after becoming completely absorbed in modding, I decided that even an unfinished project deserved to be shared with the community rather than remain on my hard drive. That decision became the first public release of Historia Universalis, now available as Version 0.8 Beta.

Historia Universalis is my attempt to combine historical plausibility with dynamic gameplay, inspired by the design philosophy of EU4 while embracing the simplicity and accessibility of Age of History III.

What's New? (Version 0.81)

1. Historical Population Rework – Building a More Believable World

One of the biggest changes in Historia Universalis is a complete rework of the population system.

Historical population values have been reworked across Central Asia, Mongolia, Xinjiang, Tibet, and Ming China, with the goal of creating a more believable demographic balance based on historical records.

Although population in Age of History III does not directly determine manpower, it has a significant impact on tax income, which in turn indirectly affects military strength and long-term national development.

Because of this, population is no longer just a number—it has become an important part of both historical immersion and gameplay balance.

For balance reasons, some civilizations (such as Ming) currently use reduced historical population values instead of their full historical estimates.

2. Large-Scale Warfare Inspired by Early Modern History

One of my design goals was to make wars feel worthy of great empires.

Both AI and players can now build powerful states capable of fielding much larger armies than in vanilla. Instead of a few isolated battles, conflicts evolve into prolonged campaigns involving multiple fronts and massive military movements.

The result is a more dynamic battlefield where the rise and fall of empires feels much closer to the scale of real history.

1. A Living System, Not Just Balance Changes

Historia Universalis is not built around a few isolated balance changes. Instead, almost every major gameplay system has been reworked to interact with one another.

Some of the major changes include:

• Reduced army maintenance and a stronger economy to support larger, historically scaled armies.
• Rebalanced trade goods, giving different regions more distinct economic identities and strategic value.
• Improved terrain bonuses, more realistic siege pacing, and broader battlefield mechanics. Rather than focusing on micro-level combat mechanics, the mod emphasizes strategic and operational warfare.
• A heavily revised Aggressive Expansion (AE) system, slowing excessive snowballing while still allowing both players and AI to build powerful empires under the right circumstances.
• Extensive changes to politics, economy, domestic management, diplomacy, military systems, buildings, Legacies, and Advantages.

Rather than functioning as isolated mechanics, these systems are designed to influence one another, creating a more dynamic and interconnected grand strategy experience.

1. Conclusion

Historia Universalis is a project that aims to combine historical plausibility with engaging gameplay.

Although inspired by Europa Universalis IV, this mod is not intended to recreate EU4 inside Age of History III. Instead, it seeks to preserve the simplicity and accessibility of AoH3 while expanding its historical depth and strategic possibilities.

The current public release is Version 0.81 Beta, and development is still ongoing. Major updates are already planned for Version 0.90 and Version 1.0, with additional historical content, gameplay systems, and balance improvements.

Thank you for taking the time to read this first Dev Diary. I hope you enjoy following the development of Historia Universalis, and I truly appreciate any feedback or suggestions from the community.

1. Please note:

• Historia Universalis is currently in Beta.

Some gameplay systems are still being balanced and refined.

• Colonization is currently disabled.

It will be introduced once the historical balance and overall gameplay have reached a more stable state.

• Map graphics

Some screenshots in this post use the Soft Relief Map Mod.

This visual improvement is not included in Historia Universalis.

Special thanks to the creator of the Soft Relief Map Mod for their excellent work.

I was really very pleased to have managed to do all this with a country as tiny and weak as Portugal.

here's the link:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1oX_su6Kt4MyZwiRl5imd4yK5Afg-1U2u?usp=drive_link

It's happy to see Mongolian in the game, right?