Vaarna_Aarne
Notorious Internet Vandal
Alright, got to halfway point in an Austria campaign, time for some impressions:
Overall, I'm much more positively taken than with A House Divided. For one thing, the expansion doesn't BREAK anything (as you might remember, I was *pissed* with how AHD broke population growth), and secondly it's got a lot more meat on its bones than AHD.
First things that caught my attention were that the AI is releasing dominions all over the place (in fact, I think the only reason UK doesn't release India is because the Portuguese release India first as just Goa), and secondly that the newspaper is a really nice touch, I'll tell more about it later. In terms of Crises, they are not as likely to happen at flashpoint as you might expect. So far, Romanian nationalists have triggered a Crisis at Siebenburgen states some six times now, and it never starts building up due to no one picking up the cause. I suspect this is actually how the vast majority of Crises in the gameworld are cut in the bud. One notable thing that happened though was that UK and USA had a full Crisis over Washington state, which USA conceded to the British without a fight, so there's definately more potential for war than before. It seems that the best way to avoid Crises is to play suck-up to everyone (currently I've got 200 Relations with Germans and Russians, having focused my efforts first on conquering Switzerland before moving on to Balkan expansion in Bosnia and Serbia).
The newspapers are my favourite little neat thing in it, hands down. They add a nice touch of information in an immersive manner to the game (I'm not sure yet if your relations are also more actively modified now), but also have a nice selection of good lulz on slow periods when there's no news to be had. For example, I got a story about "a gentleman cow going on a rampage, killing 23 people before a passing chimneysweep decapitated the gentleman cow", and once I got a story explaining all this lulz going about, detailing the arrest of an Irish-man, a Pole, and a Prussian who were linked to a shadowy cabal that fabricates outrageous stories and passes them off as real news.
The biggest improvement however is in the economy and military systems though, which are what make HoD heads and shoulders above AHD as an expansion: The ticking warscore is excellent, preventing wars going on forever and allowing for a more defensive, calculated playstyle. My first real war was a fight against France and Ottoman Empire over Bosnia, and in contrast to how these usually work it was NOT a pain in the ass as I occupied Bosnia and could focus my forces on the intense defensive fight until French decided "fuck it, keep that shit" after some seven months of fighting. Army composition isn't changed largely, nowadays it just means the basic stack is going to be 4/4 infantry and artillery with 2/2 Engineers and Dragoons. Still, the performance difference between combined arms stacks and old school spam stacks is staggering, and makes Mobilization much less powerful. I'm not sure, but it also seems that the POP -> Troops rate has been lowered from previous as well, since the war I waged was fought in a much more mobile environment than before, nobody having over a hundred brigades at beck and call even after Mobilizing. Naval matters haven't come up yet, I'm focusing purely on Europe this campaign, so it's land all the way.
Of course, there seems to be much less need for colonies anyway. The global economy actually seems to WORK now, I am not in screaming shortage of every goddamn thing I'm not personally producing (THE WORLD IS ENDING HOW CAN THIS SHIT BE FIXED AT LAST). In fact, I briefly had Laissez Faire and only THREE factories out of my thirty or so went bankcrupt! I haven't checked the numbers closely yet, but it seems that focusing industry based on local RGOs actually pays off now better than focusing on population centres. Of course, it's still so far so good. Come 20th century and we'll see if Total Fucking Disaster (tm) happens as usual.
Rebels are also less common now. It's 1868, I'm an Absolute Monarchy, and I can count the number of Jacobin revolts I've manhandled with my fingers. Which is to say, I've had three Jacobin revolts (in fact, I've had more Nationalist revolts, at five of them), and there are a lot less brigades involved in rebellion now (so no "WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE" style revolts of several hundred brigades involved). I find this great improvement, as it does mean that you aren't required to go with democracy as the sole competetive option.
PS: One thing that the expansion DID fuck up though was getting Austro-Hungarian Compromise decision. I mean goddamn it seems impossible to get 5 Consciousness!
Overall, I'm much more positively taken than with A House Divided. For one thing, the expansion doesn't BREAK anything (as you might remember, I was *pissed* with how AHD broke population growth), and secondly it's got a lot more meat on its bones than AHD.
First things that caught my attention were that the AI is releasing dominions all over the place (in fact, I think the only reason UK doesn't release India is because the Portuguese release India first as just Goa), and secondly that the newspaper is a really nice touch, I'll tell more about it later. In terms of Crises, they are not as likely to happen at flashpoint as you might expect. So far, Romanian nationalists have triggered a Crisis at Siebenburgen states some six times now, and it never starts building up due to no one picking up the cause. I suspect this is actually how the vast majority of Crises in the gameworld are cut in the bud. One notable thing that happened though was that UK and USA had a full Crisis over Washington state, which USA conceded to the British without a fight, so there's definately more potential for war than before. It seems that the best way to avoid Crises is to play suck-up to everyone (currently I've got 200 Relations with Germans and Russians, having focused my efforts first on conquering Switzerland before moving on to Balkan expansion in Bosnia and Serbia).
The newspapers are my favourite little neat thing in it, hands down. They add a nice touch of information in an immersive manner to the game (I'm not sure yet if your relations are also more actively modified now), but also have a nice selection of good lulz on slow periods when there's no news to be had. For example, I got a story about "a gentleman cow going on a rampage, killing 23 people before a passing chimneysweep decapitated the gentleman cow", and once I got a story explaining all this lulz going about, detailing the arrest of an Irish-man, a Pole, and a Prussian who were linked to a shadowy cabal that fabricates outrageous stories and passes them off as real news.
The biggest improvement however is in the economy and military systems though, which are what make HoD heads and shoulders above AHD as an expansion: The ticking warscore is excellent, preventing wars going on forever and allowing for a more defensive, calculated playstyle. My first real war was a fight against France and Ottoman Empire over Bosnia, and in contrast to how these usually work it was NOT a pain in the ass as I occupied Bosnia and could focus my forces on the intense defensive fight until French decided "fuck it, keep that shit" after some seven months of fighting. Army composition isn't changed largely, nowadays it just means the basic stack is going to be 4/4 infantry and artillery with 2/2 Engineers and Dragoons. Still, the performance difference between combined arms stacks and old school spam stacks is staggering, and makes Mobilization much less powerful. I'm not sure, but it also seems that the POP -> Troops rate has been lowered from previous as well, since the war I waged was fought in a much more mobile environment than before, nobody having over a hundred brigades at beck and call even after Mobilizing. Naval matters haven't come up yet, I'm focusing purely on Europe this campaign, so it's land all the way.
Of course, there seems to be much less need for colonies anyway. The global economy actually seems to WORK now, I am not in screaming shortage of every goddamn thing I'm not personally producing (THE WORLD IS ENDING HOW CAN THIS SHIT BE FIXED AT LAST). In fact, I briefly had Laissez Faire and only THREE factories out of my thirty or so went bankcrupt! I haven't checked the numbers closely yet, but it seems that focusing industry based on local RGOs actually pays off now better than focusing on population centres. Of course, it's still so far so good. Come 20th century and we'll see if Total Fucking Disaster (tm) happens as usual.
Rebels are also less common now. It's 1868, I'm an Absolute Monarchy, and I can count the number of Jacobin revolts I've manhandled with my fingers. Which is to say, I've had three Jacobin revolts (in fact, I've had more Nationalist revolts, at five of them), and there are a lot less brigades involved in rebellion now (so no "WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE" style revolts of several hundred brigades involved). I find this great improvement, as it does mean that you aren't required to go with democracy as the sole competetive option.
PS: One thing that the expansion DID fuck up though was getting Austro-Hungarian Compromise decision. I mean goddamn it seems impossible to get 5 Consciousness!
when your flagship gets 4 kills and you get to watch the enemy fleets disengage and get wrecked in the process.
