Heart of Darkness first impressions!

[sunsterson]

Tbh, I'm more interested in the a.i fixes.

Eg.
Usa taking cores back
Uk actually colonising any bit of Africa
France taking Algeria.( never happens in ahd)
Uk helping in a damn war.
No more endless wars over cored land. Looks at prussia and france.

 

[Slym]

I don't know if this is a HoD problem, a me problem, an Argentina problem, or just a vicky 2 problem I've never noticed before, but as Argentina I have WAY too many officers but nowhere near enough soldiers. I currently have 10/8 brigades, but 0.39% of my population as officers, and military spending at like 65%. Even with a NF for soldiers in my biggest state I can't seem to get enough.

 

[unmerged(209891)]

After a few games, there's no doubt in my mind that the definitive way to play Vicky 2 is still AHD with the A Pop Divided mod. Some of these new features could be cool, but the release version of this expansion has screwed up more things than it improved.

 

[Tsar Cannon]

All in all, I think this expansion is pretty good. The Crisis and Newspaper systems are fun. I haven't exactly tested the naval and colonial mechanics, though.

 

[SDSkinner]

Hey guys, I dont know why but I find it hard to believe that Paradox did not include (once again) an historical war (probably the biggest internal conflict in Brasil History) the
FARRAPOS WAR (1836-1846) between Brasil and Rio Grande do Sul Republic ( you know, where Garibaldi fought before he went back to italy) it is a Major flaw in this new expansion...I mean its not something that ruines the game but it´s like erasing part of history.
And I dont see anyone talking about it, It´s a bit strange for me...I know that there is Mods where we can play as Rio Grande do Sul Republic, but cmo´n Paradox!! seriously?
a 10 year war vanished? coming from Paradox its really very strange...

anyone has an explanation?

Btw it´s my first post ever! lol And I used to play EUII, for me still one of the best games paradox made

It is added in New Nations Mod.
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?592320-New-Nations-Mod-(For-AHD)

Why they don't have it in the base game? No idea.

 

[Valhallas Call]

If a GP has friendly relations with a nation, it can always intervene in that nation's wars, so long as the nation is 1) losing (-1 warscore), and 2) hasn't added any CBs of its own (so only in defensive wars). The GP will get a status quo CB preventing it from adding any extra CBs.

I see. Is this a new feature in HOD?

 

[Jaol]

I see. Is this a new feature in HOD?

It's been there since AHD at least. Can't remember from before that.

 

[EUnderhill]

It's been there since AHD at least. Can't remember from before that.

It used to be only "cordial" was required.

 

[Da-V-Man]

I am currently playing as Italy(Formed by Two-Sicilies), and it's about 1890. So far I'm enjoying it. Here are my observations:

• During the initial scramble for Africa there was a shortage of military goods (mainly artillery and steamers, but also canned food), which halted my colonial point gain.
• The actual scrambe was pretty scrambley this time around, with large portions being split between me(Italy), France, UK, with additional colonies claimed by Spain, Netherlands and the US. The AI has a death grip on states during a colonial race. There were a few that had over 30 guard points before they went one way or another.
• Winning battles is a lot more helpful in winning a war now, and even against European powers it is easy to decimate an entire army.
• I found myself researching techs from the commerce tree and naval tree sooner and more often than I did in AHD.
• I actually had a navy that consisted of more than just steam transports before 1870.
• You can still have a large navy as long as you have enough naval bases to support it.
• The Ottoman empire is being Crisis'ed into oblivion. Greece got one core back, Albania became independent, and now Bulgaria is fighting for independence
• Poland became independent from Russia through a crisis, something that never happened in any of my games before. I like it.
• I could not ally with my sphereling because they were already allied with France. Maybe they should break their alliance with a GP if they get sphered by another one.
• I like the plan system. It looks really nice and it's fun to come up with one. However, once I switched from T-S to Italy, I lost my current plan. Are plans tag specific?

 

[shakeled1]

The AI needs to work on when to pull out. There are like 5 states which Prussia/US/France/Britain are fighting over and have been since the scramble started. As Japan, I entered from Somalia with no competition and because the Western GPs are locked at like size 40 interests I've gained almost all of Africa. Sidenote: Denmark managed to start like 4 interests with no CPs

 

[Stefanos_P]

And now a gamebreaking bug where profitable factories don't pay salaries, making crafties, clerks, and capis starve when they shouldn't.
I could deal with all the other minor annoyances people posted already, but this is totally gamebreaking.

Shelving this untill a patch comes out, first time I regret giving PI my money...and last time I ever preorder anything from them in order to help (I even payed extra to buy it from the webstore)...

How this was overlooked by all the betatesters is beyond me...

 

[Think0028]

Loving it so far! Having a great time playing as Prussia with the AI changes, about to try out the colonization changes. Ticking warscore helped quite a bit with some European conquests, especially from the UK.

 

[Chamboozer]

Why can't we see whether or not the AI will accept an alliance offer in a multiplayer game? Is this intentional? It seems like a waste to have such a good feature be disabled in multiplayer for seemingly no reason.

 

[podcat]

Why can't we see whether or not the AI will accept an alliance offer in a multiplayer game? Is this intentional? It seems like a waste to have such a good feature be disabled in multiplayer for seemingly no reason.

well, there are some complicated technical reasons. AI is only run on the hosts computer so AI would have to be redone for this to work or add new ways where AI can be asked over the network.

And now a gamebreaking bug where profitable factories don't pay salaries, making crafties, clerks, and capis starve when they shouldn't.
I could deal with all the other minor annoyances people posted already, but this is totally gamebreaking.

Shelving this untill a patch comes out, first time I regret giving PI my money...and last time I ever preorder anything from them in order to help (I even payed extra to buy it from the webstore)...

How this was overlooked by all the betatesters is beyond me...

are you sure this is actually happening? can you post about it in bug forum with a savegame perhaps so we can take a look?

 

[Alsadius]

Colonial mapmode needs more info, and there needs to be a colonial info option for the sidebar. Keeping track of it, and not missing the dates to send improvements, is really hard right now. Also, there should be something to colonies other than simple colonial power, I think - everyone sends the same effects at the same times, so it's just a pure game of chicken for each and every colony. You can't even drop out of one to win another, because as soon as you do you're freeing up their points, not just your own. I'm not sure if I want colonization speed techs, money/resources invested, the ability to put national focus points back in, or what, but it feels a bit bare-bones right now - all it does is feed into the crisis system. Also, there should be better ways to split/merge dominions, or possibly have dominions merge themselves with other dominions(like Canada did a lot of in the 1870s IRL).

The crisis system is pretty nifty, though. Good way to get a lot of world wars going. I'm still not sure how exactly one starts a crisis, though - do you have to be a minor nation?

 

[atmafox]

Re the colonization: Yeah, I could use a button to automatically continue investing until I run out of points, on a given area. Alternatively, a notification option that I can set to "Popup and pause" when I have a chance to invest. Though I do get the feeling that I was able to do it faster as the game progressed... once I started taking the time to check the date and do it exactly on that date I won a few of the races (meanwhile, I'd kept the AI mostly tied up in a couple of games of chicken while I took 85% of north and west africa. >.> The AI will get really focused on one... and as Germany, with seven ports at max level for 1870, well, that's a lot of points. Even with raiders and ironclads for ships. So I could afford to keep the AI focused on one while I went on a spree elsewhere.

-Atma

 

[Phalanxia]

Hey guys, I dont know why but I find it hard to believe that Paradox did not include (once again) an historical war (probably the biggest internal conflict in Brasil History) the
FARRAPOS WAR (1836-1846) between Brasil and Rio Grande do Sul Republic ( you know, where Garibaldi fought before he went back to italy) it is a Major flaw in this new expansion...I mean its not something that ruines the game but it´s like erasing part of history.
And I dont see anyone talking about it, It´s a bit strange for me...I know that there is Mods where we can play as Rio Grande do Sul Republic, but cmo´n Paradox!! seriously?
a 10 year war vanished? coming from Paradox its really very strange...

anyone has an explanation?

Btw it´s my first post ever! lol And I used to play EUII, for me still one of the best games paradox made

I've been badgering Paradox about this for ages, and it's disappointing that they refuse to include it when Jan Mayen has been added. It's an exact contemporary of the Texan Revolution, and it's completely absent.

 

[KIMON]

Hello everyone..
Still not convinced if HOD is worth to buy...hearing a lot of things happening..i was planning to play russia on hard difficulty..but with all these problems with dominions,factories not paying salaries i wonder
if i should continue playing 'a house devided'...any advise? many thanks in advance!

 

[RedRalphWiggum]

Hello everyone..
Still not convinced if HOD is worth to buy...hearing a lot of things happening..i was planning to play russia on hard difficulty..but with all these problems with dominions,factories not paying salaries i wonder
if i should continue playing 'a house devided'...any advise? many thanks in advance!

There are some bugs to be fixed, but none game-breaking, most are rather specific. The dominion one is most visible (more of a balance issue than a bug), but I guarantee you can have a lot of fun playing it as it is.

 

[DBtotalwar]

Why do satellites not inherit your cultures like dominions?