I have actually read about Art of War for so long that I was very surprised the game was still same as ever when I launched it yesterday.

Omfg, auto transport?

About frigging time.

Just started reading this over the last week or so, very interesting so far, thanks for the recommendation. It's cool to see mentions of places like The Palatinate or Bavaria or Hesse or Saxony and know where they're talking about without needing to look at a map.

Yea I remember this feeling. If you enjoy history books with similar non-textbook narrative structure, I can also recommend The Northern Crusades.

Art of War released:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/310031/

$19.99, but someone in the reddit thread said that the code SLICKD-EALS22-OFFGMG works with Art of War on greenmangaming, making it $15.22. Apparently works with the base game and other xpacs too if you dont have them.

OOS

The new free patch released w/ AoW hosed the **** out of my save games. Which isn't a problem for me, because they were all old and I'll start a new game for AoW, but basically all the new provinces they added appear to, in an older save game, be uncolonized Terra Incognita. Amusing to see central Spain totally unoccupied on those maps.

Here's a screenshot from an 1821 game (where basically the whole world is colonized) that should give an idea of what provinces are new:



I'm pretty sure all the non-wasteland gray/brown TI areas (excluding the HRE which is my country ) are new provinces.

Yah that sucks. Code works for everything apparently, I never got Res Publica but just picked it up for $3.90

Let a day tick, it should fill em in

did it always show country size + base tax on the country select screen? Thats new right?

That's new. I personally won't pick up AOW, 20€ is way too much, but did get Wealth of Nations since it was -75% at GMG.

New GMG code:
SPOOKY-TREATS-GMG20X

This xpac is sick can't wait for mp

In the middle of an ironman tunisia run for sons of carthage, thoughts so far

Good:
Bunch of **** added to UI, random fav thing so far is when you hover the mouse over your cultures/accepted cultures it shows you the % of every other culture

New auto ship loading **** incredible. Oh, i need to get troops from sardinia to africa? Just 1 click.

Can designate transports for allied troops

Bunch new trade goods, new trade nodes, and no more stupid western europe node.

New events and event chains, even random ones like the price of fish dropping after the reformation

War reparations, 10% of income for 10 years for 10 war score

Can refund idea groups but you only get back 10% of the points spent.

Mothballing

Army templates

Unsure:
New rebel system has pluses and minuses. Seems to primarily function as a mil monarch point sink and a way to slow down expansion. If you just sink mil points into suppressing you can hold off rebellions pretty much indefinitely, or let them happen at opportune times. Can be pretty crippling early on if you try to expand too fast since rebellions can be like 2-3x your force limit and even if you defeat them are a huge sap on your manpower reserves.

New reformation, centers of reformation convert nearby provinces unless converted themselves

Bad:
Autonomy could be done a lot better, mainly colonies and vassals after integration. Currently overseas provinces can't go below 75% autonomy, which i guess could be ok, but colonies will never go below 50% autonomy no matter what, even if they aren't overseas and are right next to your capital. Big nerf to colonizing Siberia as Russia/Manchu/whoever, but also makes moving your capital to the new world pretty bad which ruins a lot of escape to the Americas strategies. Also, integrated vassal provinces start at 75% autonomy, which is higher than a just conquered province (50%). Makes no sense and makes it take a super long time to get full use from recently integrating provinces. I guess promoting Paradox wanting players to have vassals, with marches, various bonuses to vassal income, etc.

Setting objectives for allies seems broken. I set objectives for Morocco to take Gibraltar, instead they conquer Rome and Urbino.

i'm not a master gamer like you guys. i've been trying to get the Market Control achievement for so long, and i've come so close so many times (be trade leader of 7 strategic goods).. then the first playthrough on art of war goes like:

Hah

lol, awesome.

I either don't understand some of the new rebel mechanics, or happened on a bug with how they work. I started a game as one of the Manchu tribes, Yeren declared war on me, I took some of their provinces and vassalized the rest. The provinces I took have unrest, and eventually pretty large stacks of Manchu Patriot rebels pop up in each of them (like 10 units each, which was the size of my whole main army).

...and they just sit there. They're not hostile towards me. If I hovered over them, the icon that popped up had a rebel flag next to Yeren's flag - I guess that means that the rebels are supporting Yeren, but since Yeren is my vassal, they aren't agro vs me?

So they just sat there doing nothing. Interestingly, when Haixi and Korea later declared on me and Korea occupied a province, the rebels finally sprang into action and took it back for me, and attacked Korea's army (they ignored Haixi, probably because they're Manchu Patriot rebels and Haixi also has Manchu culture?). I couldn't take their combined armies though and had to ragequit. Might try uniting the Manchus again today.

Discount on steam for anyone who doesn't have the game yet. About 24 hours left

Edit: not on art of war

I am kinda stuck in my prussia campaign. I am only surrounded by catholic countries, and france is defender of the faith. So that means I can't go to war because I can never beat france.

I am now gonna try to diplo vassalize some small neighbours. After that I hope france isnt defender of the faith.

Finally got rid of the problem france. I found a war where they wouldnt defend as defender of the faith, but instead help me . Now I can finally destroy lithuania and poland.

Lots of crashing issues are not letting me waste all my time on this.

Picked this up for the steam discount. Quite a sweet game except for weird crashes (like when trying to send my merchant to Venice.)
Playing Ottoman, I found out what a pain in the neck being Defender of the Faith can be. Silly Grenada always wanting to take on Spain, Portugal and whoever their current allies are. Decided to drop the title as it's just not worth the constant hassle.
Other than that, seems like Ottoman is the game on easy mode, though. Gonna try a smaller nation next time around.

Yeah, this bug happened to me too (also in my manchu run to get the achievement), it has been fixed in the most recent beta hotfix.

Side note, if you start as the Shamanist Manchu tribe, and you reform the government before forming Manchu, you will have Muslim tech and units instead of Chinese. Combined with the -5% to tech costs from innovative idea group (which i took) and -10% costs from Manchu national ideas means you basically have Ottoman tech group while being surrounded by Chinese tech group countries. Also, the form Manchu decision converts you to Confucianism anyways so it doesn't really matter that you start Shamanist.

Played a few SP games now, some things I noticed:

Portugal is consistently the richest country in the world, by a lot. Most of this comes from it dominating the buffed Seville node, which grows to ridiculous levels since Portugal and Spain suck up all of the trade from Caribbean etc. Lisbon and Porto get center of trade/estuary bonuses while Spain only has 1 province with a trade bonus, and Portugal also often seems to take Tangiers which gives it another important CoT bonus. Also, Spain seems to often split its light ships between Genoa (where it has a ton of provinces and multiple bonuses) and Seville, which brings a ton of additional trade in from Seville but leaves Portugal with the majority of Seville's income because Portugal will dump its entire massive light ship fleet in Seville.

Lubeck node also seems buffed since it can pull trade from Mediterranean (and therefore the east) from the paths Ragusa->Wien->Rhienland->Lubeck and Ragusa->Wien->Saxony->Lubeck. All of the random Germany minors will put merchants in Ragusa, and with the transferring trade inland bonus combined with free trade power from transfers from traders downstream, they can steal a significant amount of trade from Ragusa, diverting it away from Venice. With Hansa's massive trade power in Lubeck, they are able to pull almost all of that stolen trade to Lubeck. The result is a buff to Hansa, but also a buff to everyone trading in Lubeck. If Hansa doesn't randomly die early they seem to often be the Protestant League leader since it appears that whoever the richest german minor gets that spot and Hansa is always the richest. Running a game on observe now, its 1470 and Hansa is the 4th richest in the world, almost double Venice's income, despite having 3 provinces. They are making ~35 from Lubeck.

Did Constantinople always only have outgoing to Ragusa? Might be part of the problem, iirc Constantinople used to also go to Venice directly? Also, new Aleppo node seems kind of pointless except to divert a bit of trade away from Constantinople and towards Alexandria where it can be stolen by Genoa/Venice/etc.

Alexandria also seems to have been partially buffed as it now gets trade transferred from the new West African and Ethiopian nodes, which while not especially valuable do add some additional monies. However, even though Aleppo can transfer to Alexandria too, Aleppo iirc has some provinces that used to go directly into Alexandria, but also some that used to go directly to Constantinople, so probably a net wash.

France also now has an end node, so now there is a total of 4 end nodes. Minor buff? But also the new diploannexation system hurts AI France early on, as it takes a while to get rid of its vassals since it gets the diplo reputation penalty after each annexation.

they're gonna add a bunch more impossible achievements **** this game

A Holy Trinity
As The Papacy, own Jerusalem and have Livonian Order, Teutonic Order and The Knights as Marches.

Switzerlake
Own 99 provinces as Switzerland, with no ports.

King of Jerusalem
Form Kingdom of Jerusalem as Cyprus or Knights.

Krabater!
Form the nation of Croatia and station a unit of cavalry in Stockholm.

Lion of the North
As Sweden, lead the Protestant League to victory against the Emperor.

Guaranteer of Peace
Guarantee the Independence of France, Ottoman Empire & Russia. (Note: This requires you to be more powerful than them in 1.9).

The Foremost Servitor of Jagannath
Start as Orissa, own all tropical wood provinces.

Bengal Tiger
Start as Bengal, own Samarkand as a core province.

Prester John
Start as Ethiopia, own Alexandria, Antioch & Constantinople

Auld Alliance Reversed
As Scotland, have France as a vassal.

Gothic Invasion
As Theodoro, own all Germanic culture provinces in Europe.

Kow-Tow
As Ming, have a subject from each religion group.

Barbarossa
As a Maghrebi nation, have 500 light ships privateering at the same time.

Georgia on my Mind
Conquer all three Georgias.

Albania or Iberia
As Albania, conquer Iberia and Causcasus.

The Spice must flow
Form the nation of Malaya.

Raja of the Rajput Reich
Conquer all of Germany as Nagaur.

The Sun Never Sets on the Indian Empire
Form Hindustan and own Cape, London, Hongkong and Ottawa.

Over a Thousand
Own 1001 provinces directly.

Draculas Revenge
Form Romania and conquer all of the balkans.