So what's the overall opinion on Origins and Leviathan now?

[pdstanbridge]

Am I missing anything special with these two addons? Worth the investment now? Levi is still quite pricey, but Origins is ok.

 

[MachopPower69]

Probably how buggy and broken the games are, overshadowing the main features of the DLC's, including the prices along with it making it feel like the developers don't care about opinions and testing, just the money; which is literally developer meta these days (Minecraft with 1.19, PDX with post-1.30, EA with P2P, etc)

 

[Romanix90]

Ok so this is only my opinion based on my expiriance.

Origins - Mostly ads new events, fomable tags, new NI for Sub Saharan nations as well missions. I would say it's worth it, especially if you plan playing in Sub Saharan Africa. My opinion on Origins is positive

Leviathan - Now this one is mixed. It did ad bunch of new missions however it made colonization almost imposible because of natives. Most of the issues have being fixed by now. Features that i find helpful are Favors, Expand Infrastucture and Concentrate Development.

Do i recommend you these? Yes i do. Should you buy them? It's your money so you decide.

 

[Junuxx]

The content is okay and most bugs fixed. But I haven't gotten too much enjoyment out of it because of how sluggish the game is nowadays.

 

[zincpl]

Origins - basically if you want to play ethiopia, kilwa, kongo etc. it's a good idea, if not, just skip it

Leviathan:

• Ask for Favors: I think it's still a bit unbalanced, but adds interesting options
• New Regency Options: this is pretty handy but on rare occassion
• Specialized Colonial Nations: again, a bit unbalanced atm, but defo more interesting than before
• Concentrate Development: nerfed to the point of being almost absent aside from the first couple of wars
• Pillage Capital: ditto
• Expand Infrastructure: will be used a lot more in the next update, good for playing tall
• Centralize State: ditto
• Totemism: this is pretty cool, it's quite expensive to use, but fun
• Monuments: I think they add something to spend your money on mid game and a little strategic challenge of some provinces being worth more than others ... on the other hand they are 'magic buildings' and can be a bit immersion breaking from being too powerful imo.
  
  
  I wish concentrate and pillage were a bit more useful, but the main attraction is monuments and the tall play options - overall I'd say they add something interesting to the game but I wouldn't call it a top tier DLC unless you want to play tall games - for me it's a 'grab it on sale' affair.

 

[roxxin]

How bad is the performance impact with the current patch? Im still playing 1.30.6 and ignoring anything post Leviathan, but the recent AI DDs made me interested to update again, maybe when 1.34 is released. The new content of Leviathan, Origins and upcoming Scandinavia DLC seems fine. But what is the current state regarding natives, colonization, new combat, AI freezes etc. ? And how slow is the game in the 1700s?

 

[dualmaster]

How bad is the performance impact with the current patch? Im still playing 1.30.6 and ignoring anything post Leviathan, but the recent AI DDs made me interested to update again, maybe when 1.34 is released. The new content of Leviathan, Origins and upcoming Scandinavia DLC seems fine. But what is the current state regarding natives, colonization, new combat, AI freezes etc. ? And how slow is the game in the 1700s?

Performance is definitely sluggish on the latest patch, they really screwed up with adding too many provinces in regions like the Eastern US, East Indies, and Australia on top of the province bloat of Emperor.

For me, 1.33 is overall one of the least enjoyable patches in recent memory. Combat changes were awful - they completely destroyed the value of army quality and now you just pick quantity ideas every game because numbers is all that matters. And the fort spam is over the top - the AI needed to build more forts but the current state is just far too many and makes the game more boring. War is now a matter of picking Quantity ideas, then sending large stacks to slowly siege a billion forts while you sit there and watch siege progress tick up.

Hopefully 1.34 fixes the combat mechanics and makes war more interesting...

 

[iClipse]

Performance is definitely sluggish on the latest patch, they really screwed up with adding too many provinces in regions like the Eastern US, East Indies, and Australia on top of the province bloat of Emperor.

For me performance has been gradually increasing over the last few patches. Also recently upgrade my PC and on a somewhat decent computer performance seems decent. Have only played up until 1670 so far, but at this year it was already unplayable a few patches ago.

For me, 1.33 is overall one of the least enjoyable patches in recent memory.

For me it has been one of the most enjoyable, actually.

Combat changes were awful - they completely destroyed the value of army quality and now you just pick quantity ideas every game because numbers is all that matters.

I agree with this, but combat has nothing to do with Origins or Leviathan. Also, combat will be changed a lot for next patch. See corresponding dev diary.

And the fort spam is over the top - the AI needed to build more forts but the current state is just far too many and makes the game more boring.

Not just against you, but in general I find this very funny/ironic. People ask for a better AI. Now that they've upgrade AI and they don't constantly go in debt/bankruptcy, they actually build forts with their surplus money.... and wars suddenly became tedious. Investing in siege ability + actually use mil points to breach walls alleviates this problem a lot.

 

[pdstanbridge]

Okay chaps thanks for the advice. I think I will invest in Origins, but will leave Levi for the time being (especially as its expensive as it is).

I'm enjoying the current state of the game very much, but yes, there are bugs. I'm not sure if what I've seen regards colonising is a bug or not, but I send a colonist to a province which is empty, choose to build there, and within a few hundred days my colonist has stopped progress as there is an AI province there already. These chop and change all over the place, over time. It seems to be pure luck if I can get anywhere colonised at all. It's taken me 50 years plus to build in Australia, as an example, of having to chase empty spots all over the map. It's a bit weird.

 

[Guibou]

Most of the bugs are related to provinces and tags count, not features. Since those are in the free uptade, if you play 1.32/1.33, you will get all the negative of 1.31 but not the fun part. Just a heads up.

For exemple, the big problem with Native federation gets fixed by disabling conquest of paradise, not leviathan.

If you are still on 1.30 as you say, i'd wait until 1.34.1 where ALOT get fixed. Its only a few weeks away now. Lets you time to wait for a sale for the dlc, they add alot but at 50% off its where the value is at imo.

 

[pdstanbridge]

I'm playing 1.33 at the mo, according to the launcher.

 

[roxxin]

Most of the bugs are related to provinces and tags count, not features. Since those are in the free uptade, if you play 1.32/1.33, you will get all the negative of 1.31 but not the fun part. Just a heads up.

For exemple, the big problem with Native federation gets fixed by disabling conquest of paradise, not leviathan.

If you are still on 1.30 as you say, i'd wait until 1.34.1 where ALOT get fixed. Its only a few weeks away now. Lets you time to wait for a sale for the dlc, they add alot but at 50% off its where the value is at imo.

Yeah, I think thats a good advice, 1.34.1 or even later. I just read in the last posts some stuff that tells me that still not everything is just fine and on the level it was pre-Leviathan.

So I have to expect:
- performance hit
- combat and AI quirks (hopefully both solved in 1.34)
- colonization and natives still not working properly (?)
Anything else that is broken that was not in 1.30 ?

If colonization/natives are still not working properly, then I wait. I dont pay for DLCs to get a lesser game. Lets hope they get combat und AI right in 1.34, I appreciate generally that they try to improve, the DDs look very promising, but it seems right now that the unintended side effects of their changes are worse than the benefits.

1.30.6 works just fine and I still have a lot to explore. ;-)

 

[pdstanbridge]

So are you guys saying for the "best" experience I should downgrade to 1.30.6?

 

[roxxin]

So are you guys saying for the "best" experience I should downgrade to 1.30.6?

Well, I played on 1.30.6 through Castille and Portugal campaigns with a lot of colonization and I never had a colony canceled by native provinces. What you told about Australia looks like an completely broken basic game mechanic for me, if thats happening regularly. And I own all content DLCs until Emperor, so also conquest of paradise was active. So maybe you should give 1.30.6 a try. Another benefit: You can spare some money, you seem to have not bought the newest DLCs.

 

[pdstanbridge]

Indeed. I try and buy them, as I like the content usually but Levi was a massive disappointment at release and I didn't buy that after all the negativity. But it appears to be much improved since then. I'm not sure if colonizing is one of the bugs I've discovered but i'm guessing it is as I don't recall it acting like this before.

I will roll back for the next campaign I try.

 

[Guibou]

@roxxin @pdstanbridge

There's 3 different bug related to colonising atm.

1- if a nation migrate to a province while a colonist is on the way (not already established), the colonist gets canceled and theres no notification. This is not new, it's just that since 1.31 theres 10x more tribes in NA and Australia so it happens alot.

2- if a tribal federation unite under one banner, all the tribal land get annexed even if a colony is present on the same tiles. So your colony lose land without a say. This is new to 1.31 and will be fix in 1.34. My comment regarding conquest of paradise is to fix this bug. By disabling that DLC you get rid of federation and thus the bug. If you play 1.31, 1.32 or 1.33 with or without Leviathan this bug is present.

3- natives are overly agressive and attack colonial nation non-stop, if you are not baby sitting them, they wont ever grow. This is new to 1.33 (?) and will be fix in 1.34. In the meanwhile you can use the enforce peace on the native, but you need to keep forces around all the time.

Keep in mind that all these mostly affect NA so if you want to colonise the spice island, africa and SA go for it !

Combat and AI ajustement were presented in the DD's so they should be fix in 1.34. Still no word on performance to my knowledge other than vague ''it's better now and should run as good as 1.30.6''.

For the best performances ? some say 1.29 is the best in the recent patches. Some go as far as 1.14 but imo going back to that point is like another game. You lose alot of flavors too. Depends what you are able to tolerate.

 

[pdstanbridge]

Thank you! Informative. I had no idea to be honest, as I usually let my installs auto update.

 

[Blindbohemian]

Origins is fine. Kind of empty but whatever. Leviathan is strictly bad.

 

[pdstanbridge]

What about the AI debt spiral in 1.30.6? I can't remember if that was fixed before then or not. But that absolutely killed my games.

 

[EquilinT]

Leviathan:

• Ask for Favors: I think it's still a bit unbalanced, but adds interesting options
• New Regency Options: this is pretty handy but on rare occassion
• Specialized Colonial Nations: again, a bit unbalanced atm, but defo more interesting than before
• Concentrate Development: nerfed to the point of being almost absent aside from the first couple of wars
• Pillage Capital: ditto
• Expand Infrastructure: will be used a lot more in the next update, good for playing tall
• Centralize State: ditto
• Totemism: this is pretty cool, it's quite expensive to use, but fun
• Monuments: I think they add something to spend your money on mid game and a little strategic challenge of some provinces being worth more than others ... on the other hand they are 'magic buildings' and can be a bit immersion breaking from being too powerful imo.
  
  
  I wish concentrate and pillage were a bit more useful, but the main attraction is monuments and the tall play options - overall I'd say they add something interesting to the game but I wouldn't call it a top tier DLC unless you want to play tall games - for me it's a 'grab it on sale' affair.

You forgot the SEA unique stuffs, the reason i bought it despite all the bug screams. If one wants unique content for SEA then i'd recommend buying.