Could not agree more. I do not know whether it is due to a "home field advantage" or because Paradox got more experience working on DLCs over the years but this is just magnificent. Due to time restrictions I could only play as Gotland yet and had a blast raiding my way across the Baltic Sea. Performance is much better for me, certainly even better than the mentioned 10-20% increase. It is more like 30%, but that may have to do with my "unique" setup. I play the game on a Win10 installed through Bootcamp on a 2016 Macbook Pro. It is NOT designed for gaming that is for sure.
Some general remarks on the DLC/update for anyone who is sitting on the fence. By boosting the PLC region the DLC makes the game more balanced in a lot of ways. 100 years into the game, and I do not see a mega Russia or an end-game Ottoman Empire. Sure they still grow, they can still beat their opponents, but the rate at which they do so is more reasonable. Baltics are action packed to the brim, there is something going on all the time, and I love it. It can rival the HRE or any other content-packed area in the game right now, there really is either a war, a scripted rebellion, a huge event, or new states being formed every single year. Its interactions with the rest of Europe too seems to be more fleshed out. Hard to put these into word honestly, one must see it in action to understand it properly. AI is superb, England is an actual ally now, fighting with all its might in Europe, quite the sight I must say. They are also more aggressive in general, which keeps one at their top game. Last but not least, though I am not into colonization myself (shocker, I know) AI is handling it much better than before. 100 years in and they already made a good progress in South America and the Caribbean, as should be the case. Natives are still quite problematic but that is a pet peeve, at least for people like me who only visit the Americas when they are really bored of diplomacy, trade, and warfare back at home. Oh, how could I forget government reforms. I think the single most important update this time around was them, and they bring so much flavour to the game. I said this before and I am going to say it again, though Paradox's DLC policy has its fans and "not so fans" as long as this quality is assured, there is still SO MUCH that this game can make use of without destroying the engine, or making the game unplayable in any way. Government reforms are always welcome, formable nations are super fun, missions trees of this quality would be God-send, in short content that does not bother the engine much is awesome and I would pay more for such treatments of Middle East, Steppes, South America etc. Thank you for all your hard work!
