Victoria II: A House Divided

Victoria II: A House Divided

Developer	Paradox Development Studio
Publisher	Paradox Interactive
Engine	Clausewitz Engine
Released	2 February 2012
Genre	Real-time grand strategy
Modes	Single-player, Multiplayer
Platforms	Microsoft Windows, OS X

Victoria II: A House Divided is the first expansion for Victoria II. It was announced by Paradox Interactive on 8 June 2011 at the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2011 as an expansion pack with an aim on "[improving the] political and economical aspects of the game, with focus on the American Civil War era". It was released on 2 February 2012, although it is currently only available for purchase by download. On 30 March 2012, Virtual Programming released the OS X port of A House Divided. It includes:

Major features

• Economics:
  • Trade goods have more detailed information to assist with decisions regarding the best factories to build
  • Railroads are now more expensive and terrain dependent (e.g. no more maximum railroads throughout the desert)
  • Foreign investment in building infrastructure and factories in other countries can strengthen their ties to you and provide a market advantage
  • Countries can invest in projects being done by local capitalists

• War:
  • War justifications can be used to create a Casus belli on your target and reduce infamy
  • New starting point in 1861, allowing players to experience the US Civil War from the start
  • Rally points are available to manage new unit construction (both naval & land)
  • Military leaders can gain prestige, providing morale and organizational bonuses (moving leaders to different armies causes a prestige reduction)

• Politics:
  • Party loyalty is a new national focus that can help influence elections
  • Civilization now has various new reform paths, including new reform types (military & economic)
  • A new system of popular movements that can be appeased or suppressed, but if ignored, will become the revolutionaries of tomorrow
  • New decisions including the ability to spread political ideology
  • China is now divided into cliques, known as substates, allowing for more interaction in the Far East.
• Diplomacy:
  • To make management of Spheres of Influence easier, maximum influence now deducts from your strongest competitor

• Interface:
  

  The Main menu screen of Victoria II : A House Divided.
  • Several new map modes (RGO, Density, Nationality, Spheres, Supply limit, Party loyalty, etc.)
  • Outline view on the main screen shows the status for various actions such as influencing, nation focus progress, battles, etc.
  • A new message filtering has been created, allowing player's to create flags to only receive messages from countries the player is interested in
  • Changes to unit organization screens to make unit management easier in the late game
  • Terrain changes including impassable mountainous regions and railways speeding up troop movement
  • General changes to make it easier to handle factory maintenance, setting national focus, etc.

Dev diaries

Main article: Developer diaries

All developer diaries about the A House Divided expansion.

No.	Title and Link	Description	Date
15	Keep the good times rolling	Naval Rally Points, Auto-split units for transport, Attachable units, Visible country borders, Promotion/demotion/migration rework, Tech AI Improvements and New modding format.	2012-02-10
14	Mapmodes	Mapmodes for RGO output, Population density, Nationality, Spheres of influence, Supply limit, Party loyalty, Migration, Civilisation level and Relations.	2012-01-13
13	Christmas Special!	A mini dev diary.	2011-12-20
12	Investing in Projects and Interface Improvements	Production, National Focuses and Recoloring.	2011-12-16
11	Rise of the Noble Savage	Military and Economic reforms for uncivilized nations and westernization.	2011-12-09
10	The Great Game, Communism and Decisions	Changes to influence and flavor names for wars.	2011-12-02
9	Popular Movements	Reform and rebel movements.	2011-11-25
8	Foreign Investment	New tab added to show overview of investments.	2011-11-18
7	This is my rifle, this is my gun!	Leader Prestige, New Sprites, Late Game Improvements and Mobilization Changes.	2011-11-11
6	China	New Chinese Substate system.	2011-11-04
5	Message system	Pop-ups, notification icons and other messages.	2011-10-28
4	Party Loyalty and National Focus	New Party Loyalty mechanic and improvements to National Focus interface.	2011-10-21
3	War Justifications	New system for declaring war.	2011-10-14
2	Railroads and Tradegoods	A new screen added along with changes to economics and terrain affected railroads.	2011-10-07
1	A House Divided	Title announced.	2011-09-30

Reception

Reviews
Reviewer, Publication	Date	Score	Comment
Joshua Derocher, Destructoid	February 18, 2012	8/10	It offers enough new content to make one play through enjoyable, and it has enough depth to make you want to come back for more. If you own Victoria II, you would have to be crazy to not want to pick up this expansion. If you don't have Victoria II, now would be a good time to start playing it.
Andrei Dumitrescu, Softpedia News	February 17, 2012	9/10	Fans of the European theater of XIX history should not feel abandoned as the designers at Paradox Interactive have made sure to add a number of overall improvements and new mechanics to A House Divide, with effects that are clearly visible when using the old 1836 starting date.
Kyle “Yamagatchi” Crawford, GameAspect	February 28, 2012	7.5/10	With the addition of the expansion, I see a highly enjoyable game with a great art style and decent sound track being held back by a plague of awkward user interface and usability problems. I couldn’t recommend this game to everyone (the whole genre is very much a niche market anyway), but if you enjoy large-scale strategy games, or even just fancy trying out something new, you could do a lot worse than Victoria II (as long as you get the expansion!!!)
Aggregators
Compiler		Score
Metacritic		76

Further reading

• Developer Diaries & more