Salutations great leaders
We are happy to announce that the winners in the Mini-After Action Report/Let´s Play Contest for Victoria II: Heart of Darkness has been chosen.
So have a cup of tea and relax while you read about your fellow politicians glorious world of politics in the Victorian age!

Remember, there is no gambling like politics...

The winners are (in no particular order)... *drumroll*

Green Abbot with Montrose, Moncreiffe and Munroe - A Tale of Scotland Very engaging story telling making it impossible to not see it to its end

hazardiusam with Scandinavian Kolonisering (love the mix of languages there :P) A very nice layout! Actually managed to conquer a major part of Africa!

BobM with Defender of Islam Well written and interesting with a muslim nation

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Hello everyone, I hope you are enjoying playing Heart of Darkness. I thought I should do a little dev diary for our modding community and to highlight new things. Naselus of Pop Demand Mod fame and all-around nice guy did a little modder review of the game already here if someone wants more reading after my diary.

The two biggest new areas that are moddable are the new battle plans and the newspaper system.

Battle plans
All you need to start modding this system is referenced from battleplans\bp_settings.txt. It lets you add new drawing tools and icons if you want to add more ways of drawing plans or add more colors.

Newspapers
The newspaper system has extensive support for modding. Its a bit too big to explain in detail here, so if you are interested check out this post where I uploaded documentation for it.
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Salutations great leaders,
the time has come to take action!
It is truly a bloody job running a country,
But at least you are lord and master of all your survey and answer to no one but yourself.
No, wait a minute… You aren't... Because of those damned people (aka pops).

Mini-After Action Report/Let´s Play Contest for Victoria II: Heart of Darkness.
Hear our humble request to let others to share your glorious world of politics!

So how do you to enter this Mini-After Action Report contest, you might ask?
1. Write a mini-AAR/Let´s play!
Tell the tale of your glorious nation's rise to power, or fall from grace,
in 40 lines of text or 4 minutes of video. Short is sweet.
2. Post your clever contribution in this thread before May 3rd.
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"Heart of Darkness has quite a few improvements and new mechanics and it’s a worthy purchase for any player who is interested in dominating Europe and the world during the XIX and the early XX century.
With Victoria II, the improvements aren’t necessarily front and center, but as time progresses, they come to light and increase the depth of the experience."
http://www.softpedia.com/reviews/games/pc/Victoria-II-Heart-of-Darkness-Review-346881.shtml
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Ladies & gentlemen,
if you wish to try Victoria II or wish to introduce your friends to the world of politics, now is your chance!

The Victoria franchise is 75% OFF on Steam:
http://store.steampowered.com/sub/15...r=1_4_4__104_4

Remember, there is no gambling like politics.

cheers,
regina
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Ladies & Gentlemen,
the time has come to take action!
We are very happy to let thy know that Victoria II: Heart of Darkness has been make available to the people!

It is truly a bloody job running a country,
But at least you are lord and master of all your survey and answer to no one but yourself.
No, wait a minute… You aren't... Because of those damned people!
So, let’s enter the glorious world of politics!

We do recommend that you consider purchasing the Victoria II: Heart of Darkness expansion here:
http://www.victoria2.com/game-info/buy-the-game

Read the manual here:
http://www.paradoxplaza.com/in-game/v2/Victoria_II_Heart_of_Darkness_Manual.pdf

Oh, and if you haven´t played Vicky2 before, now is your chance
- because the previous games and expansions are currently on 75% off on some online retailers to celebrate the release of the expansion!

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Expand Your Empire and Compete Against Other Colonial Powers in Latest Expansion

Real estate is valuable because God isn’t making any more, so if you’re the leader of a growing industrial empire you need to move fast to stake your claim. Victoria II: Heart of Darkness, the second expansion to grand strategy franchise Victoria II—a political simulator where the population reacts to your decisions—has officially released today.

Get Victoria II: Heart of Darkness here:
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/...t-of-Darkness!

View the Victoria II: Heart of Darkness release trailer here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqWwJjRhb30


Victoria II: Heart of Darkness offers a competitive and cutthroat colonization experience, and introduces new crisis mechanics that forces the Great Powers to pay attention to seemingly quiet corners of the world. A revised naval system fills in the gaps between ironclads and dreadnoughts and the customizable newspaper feature guarantees that you can follow major developments half a globe away.

Dominate the Victorian Age—an era of dramatic politics, rapid transformation of technology, colonization and military force—and seize weaker powers to advance your national destiny. The world can be yours in a new experience published by Paradox Interactive and crafted by Paradox Development Studio, creators of the critically acclaimed Crusader Kings II and upcoming Europa Universalis IV.
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So, Vicky2 got a second expansion. And why not? It’s Paradox Development Studio’s best game, and if it doesn’t have the appeal of individual personalities of CK, the scope of EU or the hardcoreitude of HoI, it more than makes up for this by simulating some important stuff. You know, like the population, politics and the economy.

So, as much as I loved it, I can admit it was lacking in some areas. I felt the map changed far too little in the century long span of the game. Colonisation was, frankly, pretty boring. Naval combat was largely irrelevant. And I kept finding myself harping on about a lack of immersion. Different countries played the same. Communist Mexico and Fascist Persia had little to distinguish them other than the colours on the map.

So, when I saw the feature list for Heart of Darkness, I was pretty happy to say the least. Rather than giving you a breakdown of how each mechanic works, I’m going to give the perspective of an avid but ignorant fan who doesn’t know how each and every part of the game works, buts knows whats he likes whens he sees its.
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Hi guys, since the expansion Victoria II: Heart of Darkness releases tomorrow I thought we should run a Q&A thread during the day.
So if you have any questions to us the devs or one of the beta testers - post away!

Brief description:
Victoria II: Heart of Darkness, the second expansion for the grand strategy/ political simulator Victoria II focuses on the Scramble for Africa as you compete with other colonial powers and experience international crises which require Great Power mediation if the world is to avoid war. Read all the devdiaries here: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?671476-Victoria-II-Heart-of-Darkness-Developer-Diary-Archive

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*Pun very much intended.

This will be the final update for the beta AAR, with the game's release coming on April 16. Don't worry: I'm sure I'll probably write an AAR or three for HOD sometime in the future.

Disclaimer: All the numbers you see in this update are not necessarily the numbers you will see in the final game.
Let's get to it!

The USA calls me into a war against France (over Senegal). I'm thinking at the moment that, hey, this would be a great time to get in some naval combat and show it off! The French disagree and cheat by using their army. I get smacked around pretty hard (it turns out these army things are pretty neat) and the cowardly French navy stays in port. However, while the war is going on, I get an important invention:
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A bit later than late, but this is unfortunately the last chapter of this series.

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Read the developer diaries for Victoria II: Heart of Darkness here!
Read interviews about Victoria II: Heart of Darkness here!

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Victoria 2: Heart of Darkness Beta AAR: War. War never changes?

Hi, there's one part of the coming expansion I am particularly excited about, and when at the end of the development cycle the time came for us humble but tireless betatesters to come out of "the mines" and write for the community, that's what I chose to showcase in my beta AAR.

Many suggestions from the forum about land combat were heard and this part of the game has undergone vast changes in tech and balance. I think it'll be great prep before you get to play Heart of Darkness to find out what you're getting into. If you still wonder whether we need four types of cavalry – this is the AAR to read – and where a case will be made that yes, indeed we do.
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Nobody expects the Spanish expedition! AAR Part #1 is here.

It's time for the second update to this AAR! There'll be a little bit of naval stuff in this update, but that'll come more in the next update. We're focusing purely on colonization and the scramble for Africa in this update. Now, as I stated earlier, I restarted the game to take advantage of a new build that fixed some important bugs. Here are the major changes:

-- UK allied with me in 1861
-- Russia enforced a Humiliate War Goal on the UK as part of a crisis (I was not involved; this was during my war with Johore).
-- I took the lead in one of the crises to free Poland; I'll do this again in a later update, so you can see how crises work if you're the man (or woman) in charge.
-- Germany hasn't formed (and neither has NGF) in this timeline, as it did in the previous update.

Now, on to the actual update!
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A bit delayed today, because of my illness during the weekend. But here it is!

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Read the developer diaries for Victoria II: Heart of Darkness here!
Read interviews about Victoria II: Heart of Darkness here!

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When I found out that I'd been accepted to be a beta tester for Victoria II: Heart of Darkness, I was obviously ecstatic; I am even more ecstatic that they've allowed me to write a beta AAR for this wonderful expansion!

For those who haven't read my AARs, I'm Avindian. I've written a number of Vicky 2 AARs (both vanilla and AHD), including two tutorials. This AAR will be a little different, in that it will focus mostly on the new mechanics from HOD. I may do a full tutorial AAR some time after the game is released. (To those reading my current AARs, production of those will continue as well!)

Overall, this AAR will be much shorter than ones I've done in the past, and I'll skim over a lot of what happens. I'm going to be focusing on colonization, the new naval mechanics, and to a lesser extent diplomacy. Another tester is going to be doing an AAR on the ground combat, and of course there is also Svip's superb beta as well. (Three AARs for one beta... I wonder if that's a record?)

Let's get to it!
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Hey everyone!
Here I will gather interviews and previews for Victoria II: Heart of Darkness, so be on the look-out!
Pre-order the expansion here: http://www.victoria2.com/game-info/buy-the-game
cheers,
regina

NEW! Hardcore facts about Heart of Darkness
AV: The developer diaries have mentioned that there is a colonial influence race when multiple countries try to colonize an area. What actions can a player take to speed up their own colonization, or hamper the colonization efforts of others?
DB: It all comes down to how many colonial points you are willing to use in Heart of Darkness. At the most basic level, it’s a bidding war. Can you really afford to throw more and more points into this one area instead of picking up less-fought-over states? You need to decide how many points you’re willing to invest for your pretty borders. On the other hand, getting into a colonial race with someone speeds up the generation of war justifications, so you could always whip one up and then just fight them for the colony afterwards. Unlike in previous versions, the presence of troops in the area doesn’t speed up the colonization process, but it does further speed war justifying.
Find out more: http://www.avault.com/features/hardc...eart-darkness/

NEW! Victoria 2: Heart of Darkness interview live at PC Gamer
“The second expansion for Paradox’s 19th/20th Century global grand strategy sandbox, Victoria II, is set to release in just a couple weeks. It’s bringing improvements to just about all of the game’s rabbit-hole-deep systems, from naval combat to colonization to the complex, dynamic economy and politics. We had our secret police round up Game Designer Chris King to ask about all of these changes, which you can read more about in the official developer diaries.”
http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/04/06/victoria-ii-heart-of-darkness-interview/

NEW! Getting the lowdown on Victoria II: Heart of Darkness at Destructoid
I've been seeking new challenges recently, though, and after Paradox announced a new expansion to Victoria II, Heart of Darkness, I decided to spend more time with the complex political and economic simulator. I'm glad that I did, because it's really got its hooks in me now.
With the Heart of Darkness' release drawing ever closer, I had a chat with designer David Ballantyne to get the skinny on the latest expansion.
http://www.destructoid.com/getting-the-lowdown-on-victoria-ii-heart-of-darkness-250883.phtml

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Read the Newspapers and Prepare for International Crises
NEW YORK – April 5, 2013 – Welcome to the Victorian Age, an era of rapid transformation of technology, politics and business. Victoria II: Heart of Darkness is the second expansion to Victoria II, a political simulator where the population will react to your decisions based on their political awareness, social class, and their willingness to accept or revolt against their own government.

In this first video developer diary, project lead Dan Lind introduces you to the upcoming expansion’s newspaper system, as well as the new feature International Crises.
Watch the video developer diary here:


Watch the video here: http://youtu.be/hyVi1J_UrtE

Watch the live stream highlights here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tVwwgLdeG8
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It's time for some more of the Austro-Ulm saga!

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Read the developer diaries for Victoria II: Heart of Darkness here!
Read interviews about Victoria II: Heart of Darkness here!
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NEW YORK – April 2, 2013 – Nothing makes an empire feel complete like building a railway from Cairo to the Cape, but to do that you need to keep control of everything in between. Victoria II: Heart of Darkness will introduce new ways for you to grab and hold colonies in the mad scramble for Africa.The new expansion to Paradox Development Studios’ classic 19th century grand strategy game is coming to PC on April 16, 2013 and will be available on major digital delivery platforms for $19.99.

As a bonus to those who pre-order Heart of Darkness, select retailers will be offering a Victoria I Complete—a gold edition of the original title that started it all—for free. Other retailers will offer 75% off Victoria titles, including Victoria II and Victoria II: A House Divided, with any pre-order of Heart of Darkness. To see a list of retailers and pre-order Heart of Darkness, please visit http://www.victoria2.com/game-info/buy-the-game
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