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Victoria II: Heart of Darkness review

Victoria II: Heart of Darkness review

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I reviewed Victoria II upon its release in 2010 after meeting with developer Johan Anderson at E3 that year. In the nearly three years since, I have easily put several hundred hours into the game (as I predicted in the review). The second expansion to the game, Heart of Darkness (as the literary reference in the title alludes to) focuses on the colonization of Africa. The two major overhauls in this expansion are to the colonization system and the new crisis system.

Colonization

The colonization of Africa was a major focus for the Great Powers in this time period, as it is in the game.  In the base game, colonization tended to be the first to get to the colony won. This is definitely not the case now. In Heart of Darkness you have a pool of colonial points that you spend to increase your influence in a colony. Each step you use to increase your influence in a colony (send expedition, send colonists, build a fort, etc.) gives you a “point.” You cannot claim a colony outright until you have three more points than any other nation. You also use your pool of colonial points to maintain colonies once you have acquired them—so you can’t claim everything right away. Your pool can be increased by technology, the size of your naval fleet, or by releasing other colonies as dominions (think Canada and Australia becoming dominions of the United Kingdom).

Changes to the naval system

Victoria II Heart of Darkness review screenshot

Naval combat

As mentioned above, your pool of colonial points is increased by the size of your naval fleet. The size of the fleet, however, now depends on the size of your ports. If you wish to be a player in colonization, you have to maintain a decent navy to do so. Along with this change comes a major overhaul in the naval combat system. The naval combat system in the base game was a major complaint of players, and the developers listened to these complaints and have implemented a system more like the system in the Hearts of Iron series. In combat, the individual ships have a speed and range stat, and once they close within firing distance they will pick a target and start to engage. This is really evident once you start getting WWI-class destroyers and battleships against the older Man O’ Wars and Frigates. The newer ships cost a lot more supply points, so you can’t build very many of them, but they’ll chew through any wooden ships that happen to still be around. Another new feature is torpedoes—and they work pretty much as you’d expect. You also can no longer build a huge stack of ships and wipe out anything in the ocean as there is a limit to the number of ships that can target an enemy ship.

Crisis System

The new mechanic of the Crisis System is the second major change in this expansion. The Crisis System can come up in two different places—the first in the colonial system, and if a specific colony is locked in a tie, the competition can develop into a crisis where a winner will be determined.  The other place a crisis can erupt is in a province that is claimed by two different nations. An example would be the Greek provinces that were part of the Ottoman Empire, or the Nueces Strip (the disputed boundary between the Republic of Texas and Mexico which eventually led to the Mexican-American war in 1846).

Victoria II Heart of Darkness review screenshot: Crisis

Crisis!

Once a crisis happens, all of the Eight Great Powers have to either pick a side or chose to sit the conflict out (albeit with a hit to their prestige if they chose to sit out). Once everyone has picked sides, one side or the other can choose to back down, or the conflict continues to escalate closer and closer to war. The leaders of each side can continue to offer diplomatic solutions to resolve the conflict without resorting to open warfare, but if all else fails—war it is.

All in all, this is a fantastic expansion and I have already sunk quite a bit of time into the game in the week or so that I’ve had it. It adds quite a bit to the game and makes it nearly brand new. I hadn’t played Victoria II in several months—since it’s been awhile since the last expansion, but this addition has definitely reignited my interest in the game. If you have any interest in the time period between 1835 – 1935 you should definitely pick this game up.

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