It’s been a while now since the last Europa Universalis 4 DLC. The most recent pack, Third Rome, came back in June and nothing official has been announced since then. That said, the steady stream of Paradox Development Studio’s development diaries about the game have revealed that a free new patch, 1.23: The Persia Update, and a new DLC are on their way. To save you the trouble of reading nearly a dozen diaries (although if you want to, go for it!), here’s what we know about the upcoming Europa Universalis 4 update. Spoiler alert: the update is generally centered around the Middle East.

Changes To The Middle East

First off, the next DLC and the associated free patch 1.23 will deliver a huge number of changes, many if not most of them specific to the Greater Middle East. Many parts of the region are expected to gain new territories and new states to expand the historical feel of the region, which hasn’t gotten a major update in years. From the first announcement, changes in the new patch include:

• A revamped Southern Arabia Peninsula, including six new playable countries and the formable country of Yemen
• More provinces in Central Arabia, the Hejaz, and Eastern Arabia/Oman, including new states like Medina
• A retooled Egypt, with more provinces around the Nile and less access between the Nile and the Red Sea
• New Arab tribal federations in Syria

The second announcement focused on the Caucasus region:

• A development boost for the Caucasus region
• More minor powers in the Southern Caucasus, and more detail for both the Black and White Sheep federations
• Georgia is divided in two from the start to represent a civil war between two sons of the previous king
• Various new provinces and states in the Georgia region
• Slightly more powerful Anatolian Turkish minor states, which can form the Sultanate of Rûm if they can defeat the Ottomans

The third announcement centered on Persia:

• In a major change, the Timurid Empire has been promoted to Empire rank, but now consists of a smaller Timurid heartland and a large number of vassal states. On the death of the first ruler Shah Rukh, many of these are likely to become rebellious and try to break free—or to conquer the Empire for themselves.
• New playable states in Western Iran, which include independent Timurid states that don’t owe fealty to the Empire but can claim it for themselves
• “Many” new provinces in southern Iran along the coast
• Over a dozen new playable states in Iran region

The update will also add five new trade goods to Europa Universalis IV: Gems, Paper, Glass, Incense and Livestock. See here for a map of many of the new trade goods.

All the map changes will come in the free patch. In addition, the Qara Qoyunlu and Aq Qoyunlu (the Sheep Federations) will feature a new government type, the Tribal Federation, shared with a few Arabian tribes. They’ll also both get their own set of National Ideas. In addition, the Ottomans will lose their cores over provinces in the Turkish minor states not under its control. In addition, several of the new Persian states will get their own National Ideas, and the small nation of Ardabil—historically the core of the future Safavid Empire—will gain special bonuses, including the Feudal Theocracy government type, to help achieve its destiny.

It’s not immediately clear whether these last sets of changes will be in both the patch and the DLC or just the DLC.

Features In The Next EU4 DLC

Even though Paradox has not revealed the name of the next DLC, they’ve shared some of the paid features that won’t be included in the free patch. These include:

• Army Drilling, a new feature that provides continuous training for armies during peacetime if you don’t reduce military maintenance
• A new Professionalism level for armies that reflect how modern an army is, boosted by drilling, hiring generals, building military structures, and not using mercenaries. Higher professionalism gives bonuses to damage and movement speed, while lower professionalism makes mercenaries cheaper and more available.
• Armies gain extra abilities as overall professionalism increases. These include the ability to build temporary supply depots in hostile provinces, restore the garrison of a city, return disbanded units to the manpower pool, halve the price of generals, and suffer less morale damage for reserves.
• New Trade Policies allow merchants to choose between boosting profits in a node, improving relations or aiding in the construction of spy networks in their node, or granting a combat bonus in certain nodes.
• As a Trade Policy, Muslim nations will be able to create Centers of Religion in nodes they control a high portion of in order to spread Islam into new regions
• A reinvented Piety system for Muslims now features a gradient between Legalism and Mysticism, with new events and bonuses in both directions
• New Muslim Schools of Law are predetermined for all Islamic nations, with accompanying bonuses and dynamic relations between the schools based on dynamic in-game wars

That’s all so far—but honestly, that’s quite a lot of content for a DLC that doesn’t even have a name yet. There’s no release date for Europa Universalis 4 1.23: Persia Update or the accompanying DLC yet, but it seems like an announcement can’t be too far off. And it also looks like a much bigger content update than Third Rome… so it’s time to start getting excited.