Victoria II's second expansion announced, Heart of Darkness implements exploiting Africa for prosperity

While initially revealed at least week's Paradox convention, the official announcement for Victoria II's new expansion Heart of Darkness hit today. As implies in the title, the new expansion will allow players to delve into deep Africa, where gamers can exploit both lands and people for their own prosperity. Rather too close to history, no? Coming to PC in March, Heart of Darkness will deliver exactly what Victoria fans want -- more.

Here's a shortlist of features to be found in Heart of Darkness, according to Paradox:

• New colonization system that emphasizes competition between expanding powers and the possibility for minor disputes to escalate into crises
• New naval system with greater detail in battles, including gun ranges and positioning, and more types of ships to bridge the gap between ironclads and dreadnoughts
• International crises that will test the resolve of Great Powers and force them to decide what price they will pay to maintain their prestige. As a smaller power, stir up crises to force the world to pay attention to your grievances.
• A newspaper system will allow you to track all the most important events in your world instead of relying on the game log. With over 60 papers to choose from, find those that will tell you what you really need to know.

As another grand strategy title that's well beyond my capacities as a gamer, I have a distrustful respect for titles like Victoria II. Terms like international crisis, naval and colonization system, and so on sound like exciting features to me, but there's too wide of a disconnect between what they sound like and how that translates into gameplay. Still, as I said before, mad respect for those who have invested themselves in the game's depth and complexities.

Victoria II's Heart of Darkness expansion will be available in March. Or perhaps you're more of a Crusader Kings II fan, because there's more of that coming as well. It's good to be a grand strategy player right now.