The Congo, latest patch and new version news - Historical Project Mod for Victoria 2: Heart of Darkness

I'm aware of the reported bugs with diplomacy in the first version of patch 3.04. However, there wasn't anything I could do about it since it was a problem in V2 itself. For the upcoming version of HPM though I managed to pin down a few problems.

The first one and quite an old one, a ghost CB bug. It happened in every game: NGF and then Germany formed and they were never, ever, able to ally with Austria/Austria-Hungary because of a casus-belli. The problem was caused by a humiliation_unificaiton CB given to Austria when NGF formed. The CB was invalid but Austria kept it anyway, for some reason, forever hating Germany without having a CB on them. That's fixed for now.

There's a few more problems, mainly dealing with rebels that could potentially cause a lot of trouble, that were fixed, as well as come events or decisions that could end broken.

Between that several tweaks and balances were made: factories save more money, distribute more money to their workers, the LR of SE Asia were changed from vanilla to allow pop growth, to name a few of them, but one of the most important changes was the overseas maintenance costs.

Before, each overseas province (defined in the game as a province in another continent without a land connection to the capital) at the beginning of the game costed around 0.6£ to the controlling country in supplies. The value is easily paid even by taxes in the sahara desert which made it mostly a symbolic value. Overseas maintenance now costs 10 times that value. So the UK used to start paying 106£ for its overseas provinces, now that value is 1006£. The objective is to make, at least some colonial provinces, unprofitable. Colonies are costly endeavors and maintaining a colonial empire consisting of nothing but isolated islands was a very cheap endeavor.

There's a small problem with the game definition of overseas province though. Sea straits (the one units can walk over and can be blocked by ships) count as a continuation, so the Gibraltar strait allows Spain to control all of africa paying absolutely no maintenance. Or Russia to stretch from Europe to Japan without paying anything. The same-continent limitation also creates a few problems for big continents, like Europe or Asia. The UK doesn't pay any maintenance for Heligoland, Gibraltar, Malta, Cyprus. Japan doesn't pay for anything for owning polynesia, India or Australia.

To solve that problem, two new continents were done. They work as de facto continents, but are treated as regions since they don't have a button to search in the diplomacy tab. Oceania - which encompasses Australia and New Zealand and Polynesia, which encompasses all of Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia. This means that any asiatic (or any country, with a few exceptions) power will have to pay overseas maintenance over these provinces. That's mostly OK because these regions contain just a potential tags, so missing them from the diplomacy tab isn't a big deal. The second change was a restructure of a few straits to try and avoid land connections and the Tangier Protocol to break Spain's land connection with Africa. This can be easily bypassed but it's a start.

There's still a few problematic regions, namely the british islands, the japanese ones and the caribbean. Ideally, each one would be its own "continent": the UK would have to pay maintenance for all its provinces outside of the islands, so would Japan, and so would any nation with provinces in the caribbean, including the USA. The opposite is also true, where any nation outside the islands conquering the UK would have to pay for the provinces there. Japan, thanks to one strait connecting Sakhalin to Asia, would still suffer the problem of not paying maintenance even if it was made a continent. Those are problems I didn't address yet and I'm still not sure on how to deal with.

The last big feature of this update is the fate of the Congo, an event chain SPs can trigger vying for the control of the Congo.

Qualifiable SPs can take the decision, which triggers a vote. If the requesting country gets enough votes, they will be given the Congo. Just as a reminder: the decision and event chain is not exclusive to Belgium, you just need to qualify for it. It is exclusive to european nations though.

Getting the Congo furthers the event, but you get it as a state under a personal union: controlled by the King.

Nations that hold any cores of the Congo will receive an ultimatum to give the provinces to the Congo. This can result in war. Colonizing the Congo before will also make the decision go away.

Each decision carries advantages or disadvantages. Running the Congo as a philanthropic endeavor is mostly for roleplaying purposes: the nation will keep being a puppet. Integrating it can bring retaliation from the GPs. Going for the historical option will allow you to rule the congo: people may die, you get money, aristocrats get rich.

Depending on how you run the country three different endings can happen. Beware though, too much philanthropic work and the Congo will be forever outside your reach, becoming a puppet for life. The other two options will always lead to integration: either the historical option or one ahistorically, with no infamy involved and only advantages. You need to balance administration and have a bit of luck to get it though, things can get out of hand quickly.

Finally, for the event chain to make some sense, I fixed the pops in the Congo. I changed a few of the "african minor" pops in their own cultures and adjusted the number of pops to the estimates of around 20 million people. Previously, the Congo started the region with 10 million people, which is the number after the Congo Free State was over, in 1924.

That's basically it. There's a few tweaks for the Congo event chain ahead and a word of warning: if you want to play as the Congo, make sure to not pick the philanthropic option. Next version you will be able to pick them without having to save and reload.

That's all for now. I have a few things like commentaries and messages to reply to, sorry if I took too long, I prefer to spend more time working on the mod than doing it. Here's the full changelog:

1. V0.3.2.2
2. Hotfix: Fixed Djibuti life rating, fixed Debar missing cores from a few nations, renamed western slavic minor to Wends, fixed a map glitch in the Rwandan border with the Congo.
3. -Merged 1780 - Tichit with 1781 - Walata. 1780 will be used as the Macedonian province of Debar.
4. -Increased the percentage of Albanians in Macedonia from 8% to 13%, so it's closer to the actual number based on the first census of the region.
5. -"Revolutionary uprising" event for China will now not happen if the tag is a Constitutional Monarchy or Democracy.
6. -Changed San Francisco LR from 30 to 45.
7. -Reverted events 14650 and 14660 back to vanilla standards from the old NNM standards. Fixed the vanilla events not properly adding the modifiers.
8. -Fixed a few modifiers.
9. -Added Georgian political parties names made by MCG.
10. -Changed Bhutan units GFX from Indian to Asiatic.
11. -Made Los Angeles the capital of the California region. Purpose is to make the city grow more.
12. -Fixed the Neuchatel Revolution event not checking if Neuchatel exists.
13. -Fixed "The Bosnian Issue" event checking the Ottomans own Nicosia instead of Sarajevo.
14. -Restored Work Hours and Safety reform benefits back to vanilla levels.
15. -You now need 3 years in bankruptcy to clear all loans, from vanilla 2 years.
16. -Factories will now save up to 10000£ in reserves, from old HPM 5000£ and vanilla 1000£.
17. -Raised the small debt limit (limit which you don't get a CB if the nation defaults) from 10000£ to 25000£.
18. -Changed the percentage of how much of the factory leftover profit they pay to the pops and capitalists from 30% to 40%.
19. -Changed Economical issues effects a little bit. Tied it more closely with import cost.
20. -Changed the Minimum Wage reform values. Now it's 0-40-80-120-160.
21. -Finished the Chinese Party names. Fixed the parties ending before 1936. Added one conservative party.
22. -Added a Mandate of Heaven modifier that reduces militancy in China. For now the getting/losing the mandate is the same as it always was since NNM. In the future I hope to make it more dynamic.
23. -Merged province 1714 - Bechar with 1720 - Timimoun. The province is used as Santa Rosa (Santa Rosa de los Pastos Grandes) to properly represent bolivian claims and chile/bolivia/argentina disputes.
24. -Changed Officers to happen in state capitals only.
25. -Added a decision to found the International African Association during the Berlin Congress - the first step to get the Congo. European Secondary Power countries with low infamy and non colonial (or not having african colonies) can make a bid for it. The European GPs at the congress (except for Russia and Ottomans) will vote in the question and if the requirer gets at least 3 votes, the congress will assign them the Congo. If any nation owns Congo cores, it will be required to hand them over or face war. Colonizing Kananga's state will make the decision disappear.
26. -World Wars will now only be enabled if Great Wars are enabled.
27. -Corrected Lan Xang starting part not existing, which also caused problems in converters.
28. -Balanced the event for the fate of the bourgeois after a communist revolution. Now letting them live makes them pissed and wields less money while killing them gives infamy and wields more money.
29. -Fixed a bug in patriot rebels and potentially in other rebel types too.
30. -Slavery isn't "next step only" anymore so a nation can go from slavery allowed to slavery outlawed and vice versa.
31. -Made a decision for Congo to move the capital to Boma.
32. -Fixed a few pops in Edmunston.
33. -Fixed a few problems in the Limburg/Neuchatel crisis. There's still some unresolved issues left.
34. -Changed Egg Harbor name to Camden.
35. -Added a tech school specific to Japan, added the ties in the technology files and added a decision for Japan to adopt the new tech school.
36. -Improved the vanilla tooltips for adding wargoals to explain a few situations better.
37. -Changed the Jingoism required for adding wargoals from 5% to 5.5%.
38. -Changed Bahrain Shias to be around 65% of the population
39. -Returned the caribbean islands to the vanilla west indies/lesser antilles. INtegrated the Leeward Antilles in the lesser antilles. Fixed the naval base position in Marigot. Changed St. Barths to Saint Barths.
40. -Fixed the Congo history files (several wrongs reforms like trinket health care and technologies while the country starts as an uncivs), fixed the country names (they will only be called Zaire if they are a presidential dictatorship, they will be called Democratic Republic of the Congo if they are a republic) and wrong flags (flag of zaire was used for republics, now it's only used for presidential dictatorship while the DPC is used for republics). Congo also start with all its pops as accepted.
41. -Fixed La Guarda Civil Madoz's Deamortisation for Spain events sharing the same localization. Improved the description, stopped them from using the same image and improves the effects of the event. Madoz's event now only fires if you have under 30K in the treasury. Disabled the event 37708 La Guarda Civil since it dealt with something already covered through events, thus being redundant.
42. -Carlist Spain can no longer establish the Civil Guard, as it doesn't make sense according to the decision's description.
43. -Stopped Congo from using the european unit models and changed it to use the african unit models.
44. -Fixed positions for Edson, Canada.
45. -Changed the Persian Fascist party religious policy from moralism to Secularized.
46. -Added a missing picture for the Italo-Turkish war event chain and fixed a potential CB/War that could secede provinces that Turkey didn't own in Libya to Italy.
47. -Added missing localization for national_provinces_occupied.
48. -Stopped the Gadsden Purchase happening if the treaty of Guadalupe hidalgo wasn't signed or if Mexico has any cores on your land. This will avoid Mexico losing cores in the middle of nowhere and will avoid the treaty unless you don't own any mexican core.
49. -Added an event chain for the Congo Free State. SP in europe can petition for the congo during the Berlin Conference, that's when the decision shows up. If you get it or not depends on the GPs votes and there's an event chain dealing with its destiny and exploitation.
50. -Fixed a bug that was causing Austria to have a ghost CB on NGF/Germany during unification and therefore made impossible for the two countries to ally with each other.
51. -Fixed Limburg and Neuchatel Crisis not ending properly if Prussia/NGF/Germany claimed the places.
52. -Fixed Montenegro army having no soldiers.
53. -Merged the Shilluk culture in the Luo culture.
54. -Changed African Minor culture color to a brownish color.
55. -Fixed Uganda pops. Instead of a sea of African Minor, it's majority Baganda in the south and majority Luo in the north. Made around 12% of the population sunni muslim. Based on modern data and Img.static.reliefweb.int and Upload.wikimedia.org
56. -Added the Lengu culture, representing the over a million speakers of En.wikipedia.org They reside primarily in Mungbane province of the Congo. Mostly based on the Ituri conflict.
57. -Fixed a few vanilla typos, including one in the heart of darkness event.
58. -Fixed Cartismo party not vanishing when the Partido Regenerador starts existing for Portugal.
59. -Added the Russian corridor in the caucasus.
60. -Added 10K Georgian sunni pops to Ardahan to represent the Laz. Based on Tc-america.org
61. -Restricted event 14700 to north america, south america, europe and australian nations who have a port.
62. -Reshaped Kustrin province.
63. -Changed 1377 - Tourane from its french colonial name to Da Nang. Reworked LR in Vietnam: before it was all 30 LR, now the LR varies between 40, 35, 34, 33 and 32 according to population density.
64. -Changed the asian minor pops in 1381 - Dong Quai from animist to sunni, to represent the Cham.
65. -Fixed Cambodia provinces having all LR 30 and basically no growth because of that. Based the LR on Sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu
66. -Fixed wrong effects in the vanilla event 4302 "Wealth Based Voting".
67. -Fixed the "Form Laos" decision firing a non existent event. Tweaked the decision to remove cores and changed naming for Laos so Laos is the standard name and Lan Xang is only for absolute monarchies.
68. -Fixes LR in Laos. Added a decision to move the capital to Vientiane. LR based on Media-2.web.britannica.com
69. -Fixed LR in Thailand, based on Sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu
70. -Readjusted LR in Malaysia with Upload.wikimedia.org
71. -Fixed LR in Burma according to Sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu
72. -Stopped the Sahel Jihad event from firing against sunni countries. The event will only fire against non sunni countries.
73. -As long as you have the CFS as a vassal you won't be able to get the dark continent invention. If you become a GP though, the restriction is lifted away.
74. -Stopped Chad being colonizable from Outer Hausaland.
75. -Fixed the LR in the Phillipines.
76. -During dismantlement, colonial regions will now be distributed in a per state basis rather than a per province basis.
77. -Fixed a few cases where a unusable "add to sphere" CB could be given.
78. -Merged the ruanda and rundi cultures in one culture: Banyarwanda.
79. -Changed the representation of the Bantu cultures in the east of the Congo from African Minor to Kingwana.
80. -Adjusted the pops in the Congo. It used to start with around 10M people now it starts with around 20M people. Adjusted pops, adding sunni pops, new cultures, Ruandi and other cultures based on S-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com Pop density was mainly based on Sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu while proportion was based on modern data.
81. -Added the Chokwe as a culture for the Congo and Angola. They represent also represent the Lovale. Distribution based on S-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com and Upload.wikimedia.org
82. -Changed the "GOLD_TO_CASH_RATE" from HPM's 1.0 back to vanilla's 0.5. This is the amount of money generated per gold unit.
83. -Changed PROVINCE_OVERSEAS_PENALTY from vanilla's 0.005 to 0.05. This will increase the costs of overseas provinces by increasing the amount of required goods, meaning colonial countries need to buy more clippers and steamers, increasing the production and consumption of these products as well as steel and others goods used in their production.
84. -Changed UNCIV_TECH_SPREAD_MAX and MIN from vanilla's 0.60 to 0.15 and from 0.15 to 0.10 for MIN. In practice, this means that uncivs that westernize later in the game won't start with a lot of free techs, they will have to research them.
85. -Changed tech_year_span from vanilla 140 to 150. Basically meaning that techs old techs get less cheaper as time passes.
86. -Changed how the "Integrate Albania" in Yugoslavia event works. It will give Yugoslavia Albanian cores if you own the provinces or if the owner is your vassal and it will give an ultimatum if the country that owns the cores is in your sphere.
87. -Added a decision for civilized countries with the capital in Africa or the Near East to get Djibouti if they border them and fulfill the requirements.
88. -Added two new "continents" to act as regions: Polynesia and Oceania. Since the number of nations covered in these territories is small and due to engine limitations, these regions will have no buttons in the diplomacy screen. The main purpose of these new regions is to even out influences in these regions away from Asia and guarantee that overseas maintenance is paid.
89. -Removed the two Aden to Africa sea straits.
90. -The only sea strait across Gibraltar connects Tangiers to Cadiz.
91. -Added a decision and events to deal with the Tangier Protocol.
92. -Democratic Arab Union will be called United Arab States.
93. -Hodeida will now start controlled by North Yemen, since according to En.wikipedia.org the province should only be conquered in 1849.
94. -Unciv reforms that lower militancy will only do so in non-colonial.
95. -Extinguished Dry Grassland and added Steppe and Savanna terrain types.
96. -Adjusted Terrain in SA that should be savanna and in africa, according to Nsf.gov
97. -Safari events only happen in Savanna terrain now.
98. -Fixed Awsa spelling to Asaita.
99. -Fixed typos and inconsistencies in the budget screen tooltips.
100. -The Asaita province was changed from mountains to desert, to represent the Afar depression and the Danakil Desert.
101. -Fixed Somalia terrain according to Eoearth.org
102. -Fixed terrain in Kenya according to Upload.wikimedia.org and Eoearth.org
103. -Reshaped Nairobi, Nakuru, Kisumu, Lodwar, Garissa in Kenya to follow natural features and Kismayo in Somalia to follow rivers. Fixed Seychelles name being too small.
104. -Reshaped Mwanza, fixed its terrain, fixed it having a naval base.
105. -Fixed Tanzania terrain based on Upload.wikimedia.org and Eoearth.org
106. -Fixed Uganda's terrain based on Eoearth.org
107. ____________________________________________________________
108. V0.3.2.1 Beta
109. -Fixed a bunch of wrong localizations in the USA/Mexico.
110. -Adapted the Deseret Irredentist decision to the new provinces in the USA.
111. -In light of the recent AI rework and taking into account the fact that Oceania has 4 tags, changed the Middle East continent from using the South America slot to use the Oceania slot. Adapted all modifiers accordingly. Hopefully this will also help the USA AI focusing on south america before going over the world for influence.