Victoria 2: A House Divided

It's once again time to discuss a Paradox Interactive game. And what better place and time is there to discuss Victoria 2 than now when the expansion A House Divided has finally been released!

Victoria 2 let you play a nation through the Victorian age and the early 1900s. The game take you from 1836 to 1936 and every nation on the map is playable. You can have a lot of fun uniting Germany as Prussia, expanding your borders south and west as the US, modernizing as Japan or keeping the darn gringos out as Mexico. The goal is always to finish as a Great Power, i.e. in the top 8. You have to always take care of your finances, make sure you're industrializing, and getting the goods you need to supply your armies. You also need to invest in education to make your people literate so your research goes faster. And never forget to enact both political and social reforms to appease the middle and working classes. Sure, Liberals and Socialists with all their demands of a fair and equal society can be annoying, everyone knows democracy is for pussies, but these pacifist Liberals and Socialists can radicalize and become Anarcho- Liberals and Communists, organize rebel militias and launch a revolution if you're not careful enough. And you should also remember to colonize Africa and conquer rich parts of Asia for all the great resources there. Imperialist FTW!!

Yes, Victoria 2 is a complex game and it take time to master it. But it is fun! Building your nation and guiding it through the 1800s is just so much fun. And then you always think: It could have gone even better if I had done differently. In my opinion Victoria II is one of Paradox Interactive's best games. So what does A House Divided add? It add popular movements that you can suppress, or let grow if you want to pass certain reforms quicker. These movements could be movements for expanding the voting franchise, to better the school system, to free the poor Croats from Austro- Hungarian rule. They can also radicalize and organize rebellions. So it's an interesting addition indeed. Another addition is a whole new westernization track for uncivilized nations. Uncivs no have their own reforms they need to enact to become modernized and able to compete with the Western Nations. We also now have rally points for armies, which is useful. And we can now manufacture casus bellis (reasons for war) which would give us a free war without precaution if we can manufacture them undetected. I have always been detected though, and forced to take the infamy hit anyways (if you're infamous enough all other nations will attack you, like in all other Paradox games, a bad boy never have it easy). There are also changes made to Russia (they industrialize slower now due to the "serf question") and Chine (China now has sub states, so they can't be sphered at once, and getting China in your sphere was always made you over powered, now you have to get all the sub states in your sphere too).

I'd say the changes in AHD makes it an expansion worth buying. I hope there will be more expansions in the future. AHD can be bought and downloaded from Steam, Gamer's Gate or PC Gamestore or any other Internet gaming shop really. You need the original Victoria 2 to play it. The only negative thing about the game is that there are still no focus on Africa. Africa looks too empty and most of the African kingdoms that existed and were conquered during the 1800s are not in and just represented as empty provinces you can colonize. Also, AHD added an 1861 scenario for the historical American Civil War, but there's no Taiping rebellion in sight!! Come on, in 1861 the rebellion was still in full swing. I hope the Taiping rebellion will be added in a patch. It was after all one of the most bloodiest wars in Chinese and World history.