Paradox Interactive has worked hard to make Europa Universalis IV, the critically acclaimed Early modern grand strategy game released in 2013 as complete an experience as possible, though it is inevitable that anything on such a scope would abandon some historical minutiae in order to get the game out the door.
EUIVs thriving community of modders, however, is more than willing to pick up the slack. However, aside from utility mods (such as graphical improvements or UI changes), most mods that you will find care less about historical verisimilitude and more about novelty or ease-of-play. This is all fine and good, playing as the Shire is always good for a laugh, but some of the games more scholarly players might prefer a more historically accurate, or at least relatively history-friendly, experience to satisfy their urges. Some players may be drawn to mods like these because they want to learn something new bout history. Others may want to resolve a niggling agitation that comes with knowing more than the game about your favorite obscure historical state. Others still may just want a new experience without any risk of breaking immersion. Regardless, here, in no particular order, are eleven of the best Europa Universalis mods that appeal to the history snob in all of us.
1. Historical Events Extended
The changes made by Historical Events Extended by Voffvoffhunden are rather self-explanatory: players will find themselves dealing with hundreds of new events throughout a campaign, almost all of which have been written to reenact specific historical events. These evens are littered with interesting, well-implemented pieces of historical trivia, with those taking place in and around Germany being particularly strong in their execution. I cannot name a cleaner solution to Europa Universalis's long-standing issue of the world's many political powers playing far too similar to each other without implementing a complete mechanical overhaul.
Caveat emptor: these events tend to be significantly wordier than those from vanilla.
2. Expanded Religions
Religion in Europa Universalis has always been remarkably bare, considering the vast influence it had in foreign and domestic affairs all around the world. The major religious powers in Europe and Asia were only ever meaningfully different when opposing faiths were forced to share a physical space, while the less popular faiths tended to have little to no flavor beyond the ease at which they become fodder for religious conversion. Expanded Religions by Spiderfist Island brings some much-needed complexity to the systems of religion, forcing players to always actively consider the boons and curses inherent in the melding of politics and theology. With Expanded Religions, the nature of a religion, as well as its similarities to related faiths, will have a significantly more dramatic influence on internal policy and foreign relations. It also adds a swath of new pagan and dharmic religions and religious events to compensate for the base game's rather significant dearth of content for in that area, each properly flavored and logically implemented.
Caveat emptor: this mod implements a system for many religions wherein there is a simple conversion process between denominations of a religious group, which doesn't make a particularly great amount of sense.
3. Veritas et Fortitudo
By far the most expansive and well-known item on this list, Veritas et Fortitudo arguably counts as a full conversion mod, though it styles itself as a "significant extension" of the base game. The scope of the mod is massive, covering a significant timeline expansion, more robust diplomacy, a lot of new flavor, and so much else more that can adequately be summarized here.
Caveat emptor: contains some explicitly impossible "alternate history" content, though only as an option, not as a requirement.
4. Typus Orbis Terrarum
Typus Orbis Terrarum by bizarcasm is specifically for geography nerds, both physical and political. The mod changes the world to use a new map projection, redraws provinces to match, uses a new heightmap, reworks rivers, adjusts the proportions of landmasses, and so forth. This is probably both the driest and the most faultlessly accurate mod on this list by its very nature.
Caveat emptor: while it isn't too buggy by the standards of a mod, those using Typus Orbis Terrarum has to deal with a lot more technical difficulty than one might expect from a mod with such a limited influence.
5. Expanded Native Tribes II
My personal favorite on this list, Expanded Native Tribes II by mahna mahna and RedWolf adds a large variety of new tribal nations to regions that were previously just listed as unclaimed, as well as adding new content for those tribes that are already represented. The tribes are primarily in the New World, though there are also changes to Australia and the islands around it. The writing for new events, decisions, and ideas is brilliant, successfully managing to be informative, memorable, well-realized mechanically, and, most of all, comprehensive. A lot of care has been put into providing unique content all throughout the world. Many native tribes have been given completely unique content, those that haven't have still been given more tailored content in the form of regional grouping rather than the base game's "native idea group".
Caveat emptor: a few unique native tribes have been implemented without any written flavor to go along with their mechanical changes, which was pretty noticeable in the hour or two I spent reading all the in-game content about each tribe in the world before actually starting the game.
6. Zubei's Flags - A civil ensign mod
Zubei's Flags by Pandelis is hands-down the simplest item on this list, no question. It changes the flags of over a hundred nations by a set of rules that the author feels best helps represent each nation, prioritizing civil ensigns over coats of arms, a flag from 1444 over alternatives introduced at other times, and so forth. Europa Universalis is a game that rewards being pedantic through its micromanagement, so some degree of pedantry seems appropriate when discussing how nations should be represented.
Caveat emptor: as is explained on the Workshop page, various flags look very similar, leaving some room for confusion and misinterpretation of events if one doesn't play close attention.
7. Expanded China Mechanics
Spiderfist Island's Expanded China Mechanics adds a lot of depth to the states in and around China. East Asia is already relatively well developed in EUIV, on par with the parts of Western Europe that never became colonial powers. This mod, therefore, makes playing a Chinese nation an extremely robust experience, with the amount of choice available to the player in any given campaign being absolutely grand. The writing also manages to match the tone and style of the normal game quite well, too.
Caveat emptor: contains multiple outlets for blatantly impossible alt-history, though it is all clearly marked and optional
8. Realistic Technology Groups
I'm a bit torn on Realistic Technology Groups by Alexander McLeay. The mod adds new technology groups to the game in order to make distinct certain influential nations, as well as creating new units for each of these new groups, alongside adding new trade goods and rebalancing artillery units. It both makes a new unique degree of strength to some nations to match the success of their real-world counterparts and adds much more content than one might expect from such a simple mod concept, but, by the same coin, it both enforces a near approximation of real-world history to a enough of a degree that it might actually reduce player agency and adds a lot of tangentially related content that might be better suited to becoming a separate mod. Still, this list is dealing with mods that maintain and enhance historical accuracy through their changes, and Realistic Technology Groups does this with greater success than I could ever have hoped. The real world was not balanced for gameplay purposes.
Emptor securus: the changes aren't so significant as to halt a determined player, though they are dramatic enough that benefited AI nations are sure to gain traction and dominance when dealing with other AI nations where there once was a chance of them failing to establish themselves.
9. Dynamically Cultured Music
The experience of playing Europa Universalis is, in my experience, often dry and slow enough that listening to your own audio will become a necessity during a long play session. Europa Universalis music is certainly produced well enough, but the repetition and the lack of adaptation to context can be grating. Dynamically Cultured Music, made by Feuerfuchs, resolves this in a way I haven't seen much of: rather than adding new tracks or replacing all the audio, this mod changes music depending on the culture and locale of the nation being played. This won't prevent some users from eventually switching to their own music, of course, but it certainly manages to extend the time listening to game audio while adding immersion, rather than detracting from it for the sake of more pleasant or repeatable music.
Caveat emptor: a lot of cultures have not had music of their own added yet.
10. HaREM: Heirs and Rulers Education Mod
HaREM by mate0815 adds a degree of agency and engagement to the fostering of heirs that were otherwise almost completely controlled by the fates, with the only rliable way to influence the traits of your leader or your heir by way of events related to succession crises. With HaREM, players can, to a somewhat literal degree, invest in the future of their line. Expending your various monarch points in order to better either your ruler or your heir is a feature I might expect Paradox themselves to implement.
Caveat emptor: the quality of a ruler has always been flavored as their inherent ability that exists regardless of training. A 2/1/6 represents a naturally military-focused personality, a 0/0/0 is mentally or physically unfit to rule, and so on. This mod, naturally, flies in the face of that idea.
11. Extended Vanilla Experience
Extended Vanilla Experience, made by Daniel, is, like Veritas et Fortitudo above, straddling the line between a full conversion and an extension mod. Regardless of what you'd prefer to classify it as, it dramatically restructures many of EUIV's mechanics, many in ways similar to those in the other mods in this list, with many others adding new features and utilities completely unique to this mod. This isn't just a literal aggregate of the other mods discussed, but it is ultimately similar enough that I can confidently describe this as the mod to get if you find all of these mods interesting but don't want to deal with potential compatibility issues.
Caveat emptor: Extended Vanilla Experience, clearly either drawing directly from or from the same mindset as many of the ten mods listed before it, has inherited a lot of the flaws of those mods, such as the issues with denomination-shifting and heir training.
An honorable mention to Autonym Empire - Native Language Names [Endonym] by mayaka, Korosuke of Ermor, and chris, as well as Purple Phoenix Arise by Dorimi, 1.17-compatible version made by Kainazzo. The former is cute, but falls apart in actual play as a result of both being massively confusing to use and rather incomplete considering the rarity of updates. The latter I appreciate as a result of my pro-Byzantine bias, but it strays so far from anything historically logical in some areas that it cannot justifiably be put in a list of realistic mods.
I am not in any way associated with the makers of any of the modifications displayed above. I have only ever experienced any of these mods coupled with certain utility mods, never with other major content mods, and never with a version of the mod that is outdated by the game's version number.
