1500
The world as it stood on the eve of exploration, reformation, and empire.
It places the player at the dawn of the sixteenth century, a world on the cusp of the Age of Discovery, the Protestant Reformation, and the rise of colonial empires. It defines the starting monarchs, the balance of power between European courts, the state of the Ottoman expansion, the fragmentation of the Holy Roman Empire, and the early colonial footholds held by Portugal and Castile. All scenario-specific events, decisions, and country-specific storylines branch from this single starting date.
- Game
- Europa Universalis IV
- Developer
- Paradox Development Studio
- Publisher
- Paradox Interactive
- Genre
- Grand strategy / Historical simulation
- Role in game
- Default starting scenario
Lore & Background
France, under the Valois dynasty, presses claims into Italy. Castile and Aragon, recently unified, look outward from the Iberian Peninsula toward the Atlantic and the newly charted western seas. The Ottoman Empire under the Ottoman sultanate stretches from the Danube to the Persian Gulf, its navy contesting Mediterranean trade. The Holy Roman Empire remains a loose confederation of hundreds of principalities, electors, and free cities, bound by the figure of the Emperor but divided by religion, rivalry, and local interest. Beyond Europe, the scenario captures a world in transition. Portugal has established a string of coastal trading posts along the African and Indian Oceans. Ming China presides over a vast but inward-turning bureaucracy. The Indian subcontinent is a mosaic of sultanates, kingdoms, and city-states. The Americas, though present on the map, are largely uncharted by European powers beyond the earliest Castilian and Portuguese claims. This is the moment before Columbus's voyages reshape European consciousness, before Luther's theses fracture Christendom, and before the global trade networks that will define the next three centuries are fully woven. It asks the player: from this precise configuration of power, faith, and ambition, what world will you build? Every trade node, every missionary, every colonist, and every treaty is a thread the player can pull to diverge from or reinforce the historical record.
In Their Own Story
The war room in Paris smells of beeswax and wet wool. A map the size of a dining table is unrolled across the oak, its edges weighted with iron candlesticks. The king's hand traces the coastline of the Iberian Peninsula, then stops at the tiny, ink-stippled islands someone has marked beyond the Atlantic. "They say a Genoese sailor found them," he murmurs, more to his chancellor than to the room. The chancellor, a thin man with ink-stained fingers, adjusts his spectacles. "We say nothing of it, Sire. Not yet." Outside the window, the bells of Notre-Dame ring the hour, and somewhere over the Seine a barge creaks under a load of salt. The world is still small. It will not stay that way long.
Reader's Guide
At the start, the major powers include France, Castile, England, Portugal, the Ottoman Empire, the Holy Roman Empire (led by the Emperor), Poland-Lithuania, Venice, and a long tail of smaller European, African, and Asian states. Ming China and various Indian polities round out the global board. The early game is dominated by exploration and the scramble for trade. Portugal and Castile are the natural leaders in charting new sea lanes, but any nation with the right technology and treasury can send explorers. Key early decisions include whether to pursue the Reformation (which begins in the 1510s–1520s), how to manage the HRE's elector system, and whether to expand into the Americas or focus on African and Asian trade networks. Mid-game branches diverge sharply. Religious wars reshape the European map. Colonial empires in the Americas and the Indian Ocean create new sources of income and new diplomatic tensions. The Ottoman question—whether it expands into Europe, holds, or contracts—alters the balance of power for decades. Players can pursue national ideas, complete country-specific tasks, and trigger events that mirror or depart from real history. The scenario reflects the broad historical arc of the early modern period: the Age of Discovery, the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, the rise of absolutist states, and the gradual shift of global power from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. Divergence is encouraged; a player can, for example, keep the HRE unified, prevent the Portuguese monopoly on the spice trade, or delay the Reformation by decades. The mechanical systems—trade, diplomacy, warfare, religion, colonization, and technology—interact to produce outcomes that can closely track or radically depart from the historical record.
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