AHD - What do you think?

[vanadio]

5/5

Very very good More realistic and balanced

 

[Beagá]

Evans makes good points. And yes Jutland usually is conquered by Prussia - but that´s still small fish compared to the french conquest of japanese Osaka that happened in my game, and in 1855 lol...

 

[Vozhd]

5/5
I loved everything so far, the better interface, the new mechanics for westernization, better management of revolts, etc.
The only thing that makes me scratch my head is that you still cant ask for individual provinces in the peace treaties.

 

[Turboflex]

I say 4/5 but I am a tough marker. A lot of solid interface and balance improvements.

One glaring hole/bug I found was something is wrong with pops in some african provinces. It's 1871 playing as Swedenand I just got my first colonies in central africa, and just gained a bunch of 20,000 to 100,000 africa soldier pops in some provinces around lake victoria like Kigali and Usumbura. This just kind of ruined my game, 2 african states added 50 brigades to my recruitment pool, shot me from #10 to #1 military score and I would basically be able to conquer all of Europe with this force.

For military balance I really like the way PDM mod handles it where you can only recruit irregular type brigades from non-accepted cultures. You shouldn't be able to ship massive hordes of front line units from African/Asian colonies to Europe.

 

[Archam]

5/5

What's good !
The interface changes : Just amazing, playing is so fluid now ! Everything is intuitive and easy, this is the best part of this expansion to me, and by far.
Westernization : it's now tactical and fun !
The fact that budget is actually important : it really adds something to the game, you have to look at it quite often and that prevents boredom during calm periods.
Performance improvements : always nice of course
The foreign investements mecanics : still a little obscure to me at the moment but the concept is great.
The new CB for communist countries : I can finaly expand the revolution, that was much needed !
The new main menu screen : the facebook and tweeter icons are more discreet, I would have prefered them gone but it's better.

What's bad :
The 1861 scenario : I don't care about it and will never play it, so to me it's a bad point.
The new loading screens : I don't like them, especially the one with Lincoln, it's hideous.

 

[WeissRaben]

4/5. It's fun, but the 1861 scenario...needs improvement, I'll say? Bugs everywhere. Once they will have been corrected, then full points will be my choice. But not now.

 

[GrafKeks]

What´s good:
-The Rally points: They´re simply fucking awesome
-The foreign investment: Thought it´d be rather lame according to the dev diarys, but it´s really good ( The AI doesn´t use it atm though? )
-The income nerf: I really like this guess there´s not much to talk about here
-Movenent system: Solid and much better than instant rebellions
-Techtree overhaul: Small but good ( Market structure is a must have now though, atleast for me )
-New civ-mechanics: Much better and more interesting than the old ones

Neutral:
-China nerf: I have to see it in action yet, I stopped adding China to my sphere in Vanilla, becaue I thought it would be fairer <:

Negative:
-Let´s be friends AI: It seems like the new AI really likes mass alliances and doing aggressive wars with their partners / When I was prussia UK and France helped me to puppet Switzerland Sardinia Netherlands ( This one was funny belgium and UK occupied their whole asia territority while I had to do nothing except for stomping their Land Units)
I actually don´t think this is really bad, but EU´s trust system could help out :X


This is by far the best paradox expansion released yet, it´s enjoyable out of the box ( only EUW was able to be enjoyable with no/the release patch until now). +This assured me to pre-order the next Vic2 expansion, which is after living through Semper Fi 1.0 a great achievement ( I love HoI3 though, don´t worry ).
I actually can´t think of much more things to say.
But here are some ideas:
I think the railroad system for mountains etc. should be changed they should be really, really, really expensive and should take a hell of time to build instead of the current system.
I still think there should be the possibility to automate more than there currently is I.e just like in HoI3 ( I don´t know how hard it is to port things in the clausewitz engine, but it should be easier than to make new things?)
Maybe a ministry system like in HoI or EU 3 would be nice.

I´m really happy about the new expansion and wish to thank the designers and testers
(I saw this thread earlier and after playing the expansion non-stop for 12 hours I just wanted to comment)

 

[Foxbyte]

5/5

The Good:

+New dynamic zoom is great. Scrolling feels smoother than ever.
+Rally points are a nice touch.
+I love the split China; now Vietnam is a strategic location for getting neighbour bonuses on -two- substates!
+Technology being cheaper over time gives my games a huge boost; I tend to play under-dog nations.
+Creating CBs makes the game feel a bit more... plotty, and dynamic. Plus hey, infamy discounts for waiting!
+Educational reform, yay! I'd love to see more reforms in the future, both social and political; maybe turning the abolition/libertine movements into reforms.
+Single click army creation. Sweet jegus that is a UI tweak that was -sorely- needed.
+More national focuses, and more sources of population for national focuses; countries like Italy just got a massive boost, and I support this wholeheartedly.
+New decisions screen is great, I can't wait to see what custom decisions for lesser-known countries people come up with! Especially me, I'm already working on updating the decisions I use for the USCA.
+Investing in capitalist projects. It's not drawing from the national bank [which would be a neat idea for Laissez Faire nations, since they can have a problem getting off the ground with zero factories] but it's an excellent feature nonetheless.


The Bad [mostly small gripes]:

-Uncivilized nations can see how much RP they have in their reforms screen, but civilized nations have to rely on the old method of highlighting the RP display. It should be listed in the technology screen, just to keep information easily visible.
-New economic model has broken down on me in the mid-to-late game a few times, with 80% of factories suddenly becoming unprofitable; perhaps artisans in China are more efficient than my factories? It's still a solid and welcomed rebalancing when it works, though.
-Political Movements don't seem to do anything if you have high militancy; they should boost the chance to push through reforms on top of militancy, not separately [in my opinion of course]. Also liberals no longer seem to support social reform at a 50% rate [and socialists to political reforms], making social reformation incredibly difficult.
-Leadership points are still very common, leading to a bloat of generals and admirals. General selection screen still can't be sorted by individual stats, such as Attack or Morale.
-Could we please have a screen for national statistics for non-military stats, such as RGO efficiency, total bonus to immigration attraction, and whatnot? Sort of like the notes on the bottom-left of the Military screen, but for non-military stats.
-AHD doesn't like windowed mode as much as base Vicky 2 does, I'm getting a choppy experience from time to time since I have two monitors [I'm playing AHD right now as I type this!]. A borderless windowed mode would be fantastic, but I won't hold my breath.


The Ugly:

I wish I knew more people that played this game, so I can gloat about my achievements in it to them; but playing AHD is counterpoint to making friends. Curse you, Catch-22! :rofl:

 

[zarinth]

4/5

-1 point for not having naval rally.

 

[guzz60]

I would really like to see a naval rally point. Also, colonial immigration is way too high.

Apart from that it seems like a huge improvement.
4/5

 

[The Starfox]

4/5 for me, I docked it because there were very few military improvements, whether it was to combat, or army management, to movement control (such as arrive at same time), and on and on.......

 

[Rangergxi]

Alot of these features are being derpy... Foreign investments... I CAN CLOSE FACTORIES I HAD NO PARTICIPATION IN AT ALL O_O
The AI also doesn't seem to use the feature at all.

still, 3/5

 

[Sakkura]

Alot of these features are being derpy... Foreign investments... I CAN CLOSE FACTORIES I HAD NO PARTICIPATION IN AT ALL O_O
The AI also doesn't seem to use the feature at all.

still, 3/5

If the AI doesn't use the feature, what is there for you to close that you didn't participate in at all?

 

[Rangergxi]

According to the "List thingie" no other countries are actually investing in anything. The factories I was able to close were factories actually made by the country I was investing in.

 

[Derp]

I'd give it 4/5. Really good overall, some issues and problems but for a Paradox new release it's pretty polished

 

[sodoma]

I want to know one thing before I buy AHD.
I had read that can build factories in other countries. For that? gives benefits to the player country?

 

[Hibernian]

I voted 4/5, it is an excellent expansion with many great features and I'm happy to pay for it (have got it, Steam just haven’t given out CD keys, so can't register yet), but there are just too many little issues to make it 5/5.

The moving of folders to Documents is a terrible idea and will cause ongoing problems for people not knowing where the hell their game files are (really what's wrong with keeping all files in one folder? It's worked for the last 20 years, why do games companies want to change it now!).

I think Victoria 2 will need at least one more expansion (hopefully focusing on military) in order to be the excellent game it deserves to be. Luckily I think people will be willing to buy it, I know I will.

 

[KingCharlesXII]

I would have given 5/5 if there were naval rally points to go with army rally points...

Ill change my vote if this feature is in fact included and I have just been too dull to notice it somewhere!

Something really needs to be reworked with warships and naval combat in general. Heck, France starts in 1861 with no ships at all. Naval rally points would be nice though.

 

[Kalelovil]

I want to know one thing before I buy AHD.
I had read that can build factories in other countries. For that? gives benefits to the player country?

This explains it:

So why would you want to give away your money? Having investments in another country gives you two benefits. First of all it works to slow down other countries influence gain and keep your sphere safer from tampering (this works the other way as well, you can start off with some investment to get an edge versus someone else in the race to put someone in your sphere). Secondly it decides how much of their market you get control over.
The way it used to work in Victoria II was that everything on your market would be under the control of your sphere master. Now this only true for uncivilized countries. Civilized nations let you control 75% of their market and second rank powers only 50%. The rest of the market control is dependent on investments, so if say you funded half of a second rank countries industry you can grab 75% of it, without investments you would only get 50%. The country's own industries count for this as well, so building up some industry and infrastructure will help you stay independent easier and keep you from being exploited.

 

[s1234567890m]

I voted 4/5, it is an excellent expansion with many great features and I'm happy to pay for it (have got it, Steam just haven’t given out CD keys, so can't register yet), but there are just too many little issues to make it 5/5.

The moving of folders to Documents is a terrible idea and will cause ongoing problems for people not knowing where the hell their game files are (really what's wrong with keeping all files in one folder? It's worked for the last 20 years, why do games companies want to change it now!).

I think Victoria 2 will need at least one more expansion (hopefully focusing on military) in order to be the excellent game it deserves to be. Luckily I think people will be willing to buy it, I know I will.

microsoft spazzing with games in program folder, also make a text file called userdir(in caps) in the game directory