Shipments departing the factory + PDXCON22 + Essen!

A container full of games, loaded onto a truck. Destination: Backerland (or our EU hub to be more precise).

First, a quick reminder that you can pre-order the game on our webshop, if you do it fast enough you’ll be able to get one of the last few Deluxe Edition copies on time to be shipped with the first wave of webshop orders! https://www.aegirgames.com/shop/

Keep yourself updated!
This is a copy of the Kickstarter Update #40
If you would like day-to-day updates about development. The place to go is Aegir Games’ Discord Server where there are daily discussions and playtesting of the game. There is also the BoardgameGeek page of the game, with nice images and forums about the game, Aegir Games Facebook Page, and a collection of Kickstarter Updates with in-depth information about the game development over the past years.

Gamers, Assemble!

Assembly was finally completed last week, and most of the shipments have now been picked up from Panda’s factory by the various shipping agents, including those bound for our European, Asian, and Australian hubs. We are awaiting the final confirmations and details on the US shipment, but it has been booked-in some time ago and should be off very soon as well.

Below, you can see some pictures of the assembly process and the assembled products.

Hello Scandinavia! Western Europe map boards in neat stacks.

Double-layered player mats in six colors

Event cards, with Trade cards and mini cards behind, all wrapped in plastic

More cards, ready to be put into the boxes

Lids being put on, content inside, check!

Packed in cartons and ready to be loaded into containers!

Ocean Freight Next

The next step is the ocean freight to the various hubs around the world. There will be one 40′ container going to the US, one going to the UK, and one going to Germany. Additionally, there are smaller shipments going to our hubs in Australia and China.

As soon as we have confirmation that the containers have been loaded onto their respective vessels we will provide you with the names of these so that those who wish can track their journeys across the oceans.

We were waiting to publish this update in the hope that we would be able to give you that information in this update, but we got the photos of the loaded containers on Monday and figured we had to share them now, so vessel details will have to wait until the next one. Based on the information that has been shared with us, however, we are still hopeful that the shipments can reach their destination hubs by the end of October.

Loving the net to hold them together and IN THE DARKNESS BIND THEM. This container is bound for the UK.

PDXCON22

2–3 September, Eivind went to PDXCON2022 in Stockholm. Here is the field report:

At the beginning of the month I had the great pleasure of traveling to Stockholm to demo EU:PoP in its final form to dedicated Paradox gamers and fans at PDXCON2022. Not only is Stockholm a beautiful city that I would visit any chance I have, but it was also a great opportunity to finally show off the final product to some of our patient backers, as well as introduce it to some new people. The venue had a great atmosphere, as you can tell, and we had the honor of being given a place in the throne room. Lighting could have been somewhat better, so you’ll have to excuse the quality of the photos!

Ready for the cavalry to come charging in.

The first group of players ever to have a chance to play the game in its final form. Lucky guys!

Several attendees got a chance to play through a demo Round of the Discovery and Reformation scenario (S1-01), the standard 4-player setup for Western Europe, and the reception was great. Both days, there were players playing until the venue closed for the night.

Great atmosphere, despite our “no drinks on the table” policy! (There may have been a few underneath the table though)

I met with some of the great members of our Discord server (be sure to join here if you haven’t already), and three of them set up the Enemy at the Gates scenario (S2-02), with PolandBot in the middle, for an epic game, starting Friday evening and finishing on Saturday. Rhal, who played the Ottomans, won with a total of exactly 100 Prestige at the end of Final Scoring, edging past Aglahir who, as Muscovy/Russia, finished second on 93 Prestige.

Enemy at the Gates in progress on table 2. Tables could have been a bitt bigger, but it worked out fine.

The Ottomans defeated the Mamluks in the end, and were thus able to snatch the victory from the Russians.

Johan Andersson, the main man behind the Europa Universalis video game series, came over several times to take a peek, ask questions, and to make sure I would send a copy of the game to his office once they arrive from China. Hopefully, he’ll enjoy it and recognise how much effort we put into doing justice to the spirit and gameplay experience of the PC game series.

Johan, the architect behind the Europa Universalis PC game series, admiring the game’s return to the tabletop.

On Sunday I had some time off, and took the opportunity to visit the great Sci-Fi Bookstore i “Gamla Stan” and another fantastic brick and mortar game store called Alphaspel, where they celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Swedish RPG “Drakar och Demoner” and got to meet one of my childhood heroes, artist/illustrator Nils Gulliksson, who graciously drew me a cool wizard on the spot. I also met our friend at Free League Publishing, Tomas Härenstam, there – and for those of you into RPGs, they are currently running a very successful Kickstarter campaign (10,000+ backers now) for a new edition of Drakar och Demoner, with an English edition named “Dragonbane”. It’s in its last 6 hours, so check it out before it ends! In the evening I got to hang out with my friend Mats at Paradox to play some games.

“Nisse” Gulliksson graciously posing for a picture and drawing a cool wizard in my book! Aside from being a fabulous illustrator and artist, Nils Gulliksson also happens to be the first CEO of Paradox Entertainment (the predecessor to Paradox Interactive), from back in the days when Europa Universalis 1 was made.

Monday morning I visited Ion Game Design’s studio/office space, and got to see where the magic happens and talk a little bit designer-to-designer, publisher-to-publisher. Go check out their amazing range of games if you haven’t already. They’re a few years ahead of Aegir Games, in terms of building their company and catalogue of games, so it was good to get some advice and see how they worked.

Jon Manker, lead designer at Ion Game Design, and myself, at their office.

My eventful Stockholm trip was then rounded off with a visit to the Paradox Interactive offices, before flying back to Oslo.

Come to Essen!

Missed out on PDXCON? Come see us at Essen Spiel at booth 5-I102, and try out the game in its final form!

And we would love some more love in the BoardGameGeek Essen Spiel Most Wanted ’22 if you haven’t had the time to click on until now.

https://bit.ly/EssenSpiel22Preview

If you follow us you have already seen it, but we still would love some more likes in the BGG Spiel 22 preview! We are currently ranked 13th in “Must Haves” of all entries on the list. Quite impressive for a heavy strategy game like this, but can we break into the Top 3?

You need to have a BGG account and hit the like button on the listing of Europa Universalis: The Price of Power (you can even thumbs up all the other games you like! what a bargain!) While you’re at it, click on “Must Have” and even rate the game if you have tried it on Tabletop Simulator, or just because you’d like it to thrive further!

It is helping us reach more people, and could potentially result in new Language Editions.

Europa Universalis: The Price of Power DD#28