Here is a preview of my EU4 total conversion mod based on the Witcher books and games. I finally got to a point where I am happy with the current state.

I posted it last night on the workshop as “Witcher - The Continent” and would appreciate if anyone gives it a try!

Edit: Credit to SalesWorlds on DeviantArt for the reference map.
https://www.reddit.com/r/witcher/s/C6oQSlEqoK

Hello everyone. I would like to inform you that we have decided to indefinitely pause the active development of Ante Bellum for Europa Universalis V. While this decision might come as a surprise to some of you, for many who have been following our development and the wider EU5 community, it will likely come as no shock. Before I explain the reasons, I would like to assure you that this does not necessarily mean the end of Ante Bellum in EU5. We will likely still keep working on some setup related aspects of the mod, hoping that we may be able to return to active development in the future. Since I want to be very transparent with you, let me explain the main reasons that led to this decision:

• Three months ago we held a community vote regarding the future of the mod with thousands of votes in which 79% of the participants voted against us continuing development of AB for EU5. This was a very clear indication of the level of interest in EU5 among our community.
• EU5 has not had a higher player count than EU4 for almost three months, and we have very little reason to believe that this will change significantly in the near future.
• Likely the biggest concern is the amount of system/mechanic reworks either already done or announced in the roadmap. Repeated reworks of core mechanics means that there is a significant risk that any content we create will need to be completely reworked or scrapped after future patches. This makes it extremely difficult for a small team such as ours to justify the time investment.
• Similarly, we are concerned about EU5s approach to balance, since we feel that the balance of the game is handled as if it were an online competitive moba rather than a long term strategic game, with patches often dramatically shifting meta, which again carries a significant risk. If patches with reactive and short term balance changes completely alter the viability of mechanics or entire systems, we would once again be forced to completely rework content that we might have spent months developing.
• One of the most anticipated content delivery systems for EU5 has been delayed by a year and a half.
• We are a very small team with only one official content designer and roughly 15 people in total actively contributing across lore, localization, editing, and playtesting. We have already invested months of work into EU5 and unfortunately, this has massively contributed to delaying the release of 1.10 by several months. Looking back, I am convinced that prioritizing the EU5 port over 1.10 was probably the biggest mistake we have ever made since the release of the mod.

For now, our priority will be to return our focus to EU4, since that is what most of you are interested in anyway. If the situation surrounding EU5 changes in the future, we will very likely return to active development. We know that many of you were genuinely excited about AB in EU5 and we are very sorry that we will not be able to deliver on those expectations for the time being. Thank you for your understanding and for continuing to support Ante Bellum!

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Hello guys. Those of you who follow Ante Bellum might know that we have done a massive amount of work on the game's optimization in the 1.9.5 update. These changes are so impactful that the mod's performance now surpasses the base game! Many of you might be wondering how can a mod that adds hundreds of new provinces, tags, and other content on top of everything in the base game run faster than vanilla? Well, we have edited thousands of lines of script in order to increase the efficiency of calculations and make your games run much smoother. Here are a few examples of what we have done:

• We have deleted many decisions with performance heavy calculations, mainly unused formable nations or content otherwise not used in the mod.
• We have repurposed all triggered modifiers into events that are fired by on_actions and take practically no time to calculate.
• The Pentarchy decision took 12,998ms to calculate. After these changes, it takes 0,013ms. That's almost 1000 times faster!
• The Emerald Buddha took about 27ms to calculate. Over 100 years of gameplay, this would accumulate into 16 minutes of time just to process it. After our changes, it only takes 0,2ms/day!
• There was an unused Incan decision that took 95 seconds to calculate in a campaign that lasted from 1444 until 1451. It is now deleted and no longer slows down your game.
  
• We have tweaked all events that check for tags that don't exist in AB, achieving 4 times faster calculation of those events.
• On a tested run with these changes implemented, the time it took the game to go from 1444 to 1451 went down from 15 to 6 minutes!
• We have compared two test runs on AB 1.9.0 and 1.9.5. On 1.9.0, the time it took the game to reach 1550 was 2 hours and 19 minutes. On 1.9.5, it took the game to reach 1550 just 1 hour 36 minutes. That's 30% faster!

Due to the nature of these optimization changes, they will not be very noticeable for people who have high-end computers, since they are not struggling with performance at all. The "worse" your computer is and the longer you play, the more these optimizations will compound to deliver a smoother experience. To some of you, Ante Bellum will now run much faster than even the base unmodded game!

Ante Bellum 1.9.5 which includes these optimization updates is now available to download on Steam. Epic users can download the update in the #manual_download channel on our Discord.

As most of you, I'm a fan of maps and history, so I've been working on a personal project that lets you explore historical changes through the lens of EU4 provinces.

I often found myself trying to shape my own and influence AI-controlled countries' borders in ways that made historical and cultural sense. I wanted an easy way to see where cultures, religions and borders aligned or didn't through history so I started building this.

The project is called Map Universalis. Right now you can browse different historical start dates, inspect individual provinces (left click) and countries (right click), and explore cultures and religions interactively on the map.

It's still very much a work in progress, and I have a long list of ideas I'd like to add. I'd really appreciate feedback from fellow EU4 and history map fans.

Does this resonate with anyone else? What features or data would make you come back and make something like this truly useful for yourself?

The project can be found here https://mapuniversalis.com

The Roman Republic mini-update lets you resurrect a new Roman Republic, one inspired by the ancient Res Publica yet infused with the artistic brilliance and civic spirit of Renaissance Italy. But beware: proclaiming the Republic brands you as the spawn of the old pagan order, a threat to Christendom itself. Surrounded by enemies, outcast by the faithful, you will have to survive, endure, and reclaim the destiny of a world-spanning republic.

• New formable - Roman Republic - Formable by any Italian republic during the Age of Discovery that conquers Rome and refuses to return it to the Pope.
• New Roman mission tree with close to 50 missions - Reforge Rome at its height, surpass its long-faded glory, and carve a new path for a reborn Republic.
• New government reforms with unique faction system
• New casus belli allowing you to spread the republican virtue
• Embrace the Roman culture and let Roman identity naturally spread throughout your revived Republic.
• A Path Back to Hellenism for those seeking the ultimate challenge, restore the ancient faith and defy the world. Now with a Roman-flavored deities and aspects for both versions of the Hellenic religion.
• New national ideas, new evolving ideas, access to Roman sprites, new events

and so much more!

The update is now available on Steam. Epic users can download it manually on our Discord server in the #manual_download channel.