New Scenarios Booklet: PDF + Print-on-Demand
Shorter Scenarios, Wilder Ideas, Playing as a Realm in the New World, and more!
The TL;DR version is that we have a new scenario booklet that you can get as a PDF, and optionally as a Print-on-Demand booklet delivered by DriveThruRPG. To learn how, scroll a bit further down.
For those interested in knowing a bit more about the background story, you can read on:
The Past
So, before we go into the details of the booklet itself, we will talk a little bit about the HOWs and WHYs. How we are making this new content available, and why we are doing it like this. To do that, we need to take you back to 2020 for a minute …
In a way, it almost seems like a decade ago already, but even if the pandemic and everything that came with it – such as congested hospitals, lockdowns, remote workplaces, and restrictions – is hopefully now a thing of the past, there is no doubt that it had an impact that is still felt by many, Aegir Games included.
As you may remember, the pandemic hit just a few months after this Kickstarter campaign had ended. We didn't want to complain too much at the time, because we knew that there were a lot of people who suffered much worse than we did. Also, while we were hit with challenges, like sky-rocketing freight costs (as we explained in Update #27), hard-hitting currency exchange rate fluctuations, Brexit-issues and stricter import VAT regulations in the EU, we knew that there was no one to blame for all of this – least of all our backers!
So, even if we took note of the numerous other Kickstarter projects that went back and asked their backers for more money for shipping, we really wanted to avoid doing that. Instead, we hoped that you might forgive us for spending some more time on development than we had anticipated, especially once you got the final product.
We believe that was time well spent in the end, as it meant we were able to fine-tune and playtest a lot of things better. And as you can see, the ocean freight prices also, thankfully, went back down a little during those extra months of development work. But even if we avoided the peak, with prices up to 10 (!) times as high as in pre-pandemic times, we still ended up paying far more than we could reasonably have expected back in 2019.
The Present
Enough of that! Now, after having had the joy of seeing people play and react to the game during the past 10–12 months, we know that many of you would already love to see MORE, more content, more variants and variations, and more scenarios for different Realms and player counts (without the need to replace human players with Bots). The survey told us that you want to see many other things as well, but we figured that this would be a good place to start.
So, we put together a Bonus Scenario Booklet and called it, ta-da!, Scenarios III. It contains 8 new scenarios that can be played with Europa Universalis: The Price of Power (most of them require the Deluxe Edition or Fate of Empires). The scenarios are a mix of ideas we had that came close but did not quite make the cut for the two initial scenario booklets, fan-made scenarios submitted for the scenario competition or more recently, and some new ideas that were born out of the wealth of feedback gathered since the game's release. Those old ones got a new polish to bring them up to date, and a sprinkle of spice to make them fresh, and the new ones were tested on TTS and at the Aegir HQ.
The Product
Long story short, we didn't want to go asking for money without giving anything back, and this booklet is the result.
https://www.aegirgames.com/r/fYz : On the product in the webshop, you can choose your Supporter Level which determines how much you will pay – Level 1 will be selected by default. On the product page you can also read more about the scenarios included in the booklet and see some preview images.The Scenarios III PDF is available on a pay-what-you-want basis (at a minimum of $1 USD + your local VAT) from our new webshop. Soon after your order has been submitted, we will create a link/code for you to download the PDF from DriveThruRPG.com.
You will also get a link/code to get the print-on-demand booklet at cost (paying only for printing and shipping) from the same site. DriveThruRPG.com have printing partners in the US and the UK and your shipping address will determine where the booklet gets printed. Customs and/or import VAT fees may also apply, depending on what country you live in.
Our print-on-demand product sample arrived just before the weekend, and we think the print quality is very good.
The Point
The idea is that backers can pay as much as they are comfortable with to get access to the new scenarios. We will be very grateful should you decide to support us with a bit extra, but that is entirely up to you.
Should you choose to do so, that will be a most welcome contribution to softening the blow of the increased costs that we experienced during the pandemic and the process of making the game, and also help us move our focus fully to the task of creating more new and exciting content for the game.
Here is a big thank you to everyone in the community who contributed to the booklet, and to everyone of you who decide to support us!
DELUXE EDITION: limited stock available!
Also available from our nice-looking, new Web Site, which you can still find at www.aegirgames.com, is a small new batch of Deluxe Edition copies. We didn't have the budget to print a whole lot, so they are in fact selling out very fast!
Expanding the Horizon
Some of you might already have seen this banner at Essen or popping up in some discussion on our Discord server. We are just putting it here now as a little teaser here for what will be the topic of the next Update: the upcoming Expansion, called Defying Destiny. Let's just say that we have plans for Q2, 2024 …
