Hello again! We have kept working on A House Divided after its release and other than bug fixes we have gotten some fun new stuff in as well. I can't cover all we have done in this diary, but I will highlight the biggest tasty parts.
Great Wars
One of the things people have been missing in Victoria II is wars with some weight to them. World War 1 class weight for example. Once the new Great Wars are unlocked (1870+) they are possible and have their own special rules:
Interface Improvements
If you check the picture above showing a great war you will notice little arrows under the warscore progress. These show the value of added goals for each side and gives you an idea how much warscore you have to accumulate for the AI to accept all your goals. We also added tooltips in the diplomacy view giving you an idea of another country's army and naval technology levels:
The factory build interface also has a new neat information tooltip which show you an estimation on output value vs input costs to give you an idea if this type of factory is worth buying:
The output value turns red if the margin for profit is very small (5%) as you will probably want to actually be able to pay your workers salaries.
New Nations
We are adding a few releasable/formable nations that you can try out:
Arabia - A pan-arab union state. You can limit yourself to a fairly historical Saudi Arabia type affair, but you gain cores on all Arab nations when forming this state, so you can also carve out a massive caliphate if you prefer. Arabs are also now their own culture group, separated from Turkish.
The Poland-Lithuania Commonwealth - Poland isn't in a happy situation in the V2 era, so why not restore it to the height of power? The PLC is now the union tag for Polish and Lithuanian cultures. Although this means Krakow can no longer form Poland, we hope the PLC makes up for it.
The United Baltic Duchy - Another new nation in Eastern Europe, the UBD is a union of the Baltic states (Minus Lithuania). Perhaps united they can stop Russia from re-absorbing them?
Belarus - The final new nation in this area. Belarus/White Russia is entirely landlocked. Historically, they were briefly independent between the two world wars until becoming part of the newly formed USSR.
Gran Colombia - For a brief time after gaining independence from Spain, Colombia encompassed much of northern South America, and under the right circumstances they can do so again now! Forming Gran Columbia will also grant some cores on your neighbors, giving you the chance to re-take the entire "New Granada" area.
AI Improvements
Improvements have been made across the board, but main focus has been war, wargoal selection and alliances. For peacetime the AI is now much more competent at taxing its population so poor nations will be much better at educating their people while strong nations get a better economy - making them much stronger rivals. Great Power AIs will also be a bit more hesitant to form alliances early on in the game leaving more room for players in secondary countries.
So when do we get to play with this stuff?
Right now if you are feeling adventurous! There is a public beta patch out where you can try the new stuff here: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?597906-AHD-2.3-Public-Beta-Patch
It also has a full detailed changelog with all the changes included.
Great Wars
One of the things people have been missing in Victoria II is wars with some weight to them. World War 1 class weight for example. Once the new Great Wars are unlocked (1870+) they are possible and have their own special rules:
- Any war with 2 or more great powers on each side will become a Great War.
- Reduced cost on wargoals (infamy, warscore etc), so many claims can be made and enforced.
- You can not white peace from a great war. losers have to surrender which is effectively a cut down to size wargoal making the AI pretty reluctant to do so.
- Any great power can intervene in a great war if they have positive relations with one of the sides so they escalate easily. This is not the same intervention as for regular wars as no status quo wargoal is added. You are intervening to lend your strength to one of the sides.
Interface Improvements
If you check the picture above showing a great war you will notice little arrows under the warscore progress. These show the value of added goals for each side and gives you an idea how much warscore you have to accumulate for the AI to accept all your goals. We also added tooltips in the diplomacy view giving you an idea of another country's army and naval technology levels:
The factory build interface also has a new neat information tooltip which show you an estimation on output value vs input costs to give you an idea if this type of factory is worth buying:
The output value turns red if the margin for profit is very small (5%) as you will probably want to actually be able to pay your workers salaries.
New Nations
We are adding a few releasable/formable nations that you can try out:
Arabia - A pan-arab union state. You can limit yourself to a fairly historical Saudi Arabia type affair, but you gain cores on all Arab nations when forming this state, so you can also carve out a massive caliphate if you prefer. Arabs are also now their own culture group, separated from Turkish.
The Poland-Lithuania Commonwealth - Poland isn't in a happy situation in the V2 era, so why not restore it to the height of power? The PLC is now the union tag for Polish and Lithuanian cultures. Although this means Krakow can no longer form Poland, we hope the PLC makes up for it.
The United Baltic Duchy - Another new nation in Eastern Europe, the UBD is a union of the Baltic states (Minus Lithuania). Perhaps united they can stop Russia from re-absorbing them?
Belarus - The final new nation in this area. Belarus/White Russia is entirely landlocked. Historically, they were briefly independent between the two world wars until becoming part of the newly formed USSR.
Gran Colombia - For a brief time after gaining independence from Spain, Colombia encompassed much of northern South America, and under the right circumstances they can do so again now! Forming Gran Columbia will also grant some cores on your neighbors, giving you the chance to re-take the entire "New Granada" area.
AI Improvements
Improvements have been made across the board, but main focus has been war, wargoal selection and alliances. For peacetime the AI is now much more competent at taxing its population so poor nations will be much better at educating their people while strong nations get a better economy - making them much stronger rivals. Great Power AIs will also be a bit more hesitant to form alliances early on in the game leaving more room for players in secondary countries.
So when do we get to play with this stuff?
Right now if you are feeling adventurous! There is a public beta patch out where you can try the new stuff here: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?597906-AHD-2.3-Public-Beta-Patch
It also has a full detailed changelog with all the changes included.
I hope some mod adds them though
