Paradox outlines vision for March of the Eagles in developer diary

It's the early 1800s.

It's the early 1800s. You're an innocuous European country reaping the Industrial Revolution's benefits to your populace and industry. Suddenly, a diminutive Corsican boy rolls in with a lot of horses and loud explosions to disrupt your Good Times. Yep, it's the Napoleonic era, and it's the setting for Paradox's upcoming March of the Eagles. The developer posted a diary entrysummarizing the design direction of your future strategery.

"We like to think of all of our games as one big family, so, think of March of the Eagles as a love child with a lot of parents," Studio Manager Johan Andersson wrote. "It has the war focus from Hearts of Iron, the time frame and visuals from Europa Universalis, and victory conditions similar to those you've seen in Sengoku."

Andersson also talked about implementing the same level of detail in map design found in other Paradox games. "For a game in the Napoleonic era, there needs to be enough space to maneuver your armies, but small enough that you don't end up with units on a company level," he explained. "What we have created is a map of about 2,800 provinces covering Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. What you will see is different in March of the Eagles is that not every province is an actual city providing manpower and tax. Only a few are. The rest are basically locations for armies to maneuver on."

Lastly, Andersson stated Eagles' goal was a portrayal of "how war changes nations and the revolutionary power of conflict." To accomplish this, players can control smaller states embroiled within the wars' various turmoils - a carryover feature from previous Paradox games - but Andersson warned the inherent difficulty in attaining victory against big-fry nations.

"What we want to create with March of the Eagles is to recall the ambitions of the European countries of the era," he said. "And we want to create the fluidity of alliances and coalitions that constantly change, all to take down the dominant power or strengthen oneselves."

March of the Eagles doesn't have a firm release date yet, but Paradox plans for an early 2013 release.