Platonic Questions: CKII - The Republic

Last year's most impressive fratricide simulator, Crusader Kings II, receives another expansion today in the form of The Republic DLC. If you'd like to learn more about trading, nautical dominance, economic skullduggery and political corruption, you could either read several volumes of Serious History, or jog over to the Paradox forums where the designers are responding to questions right now. People are already saying things like, "Doesn't this cause problems with modeling the Hanseatic League?", and regarding the upcoming patch, "Could you provide more background about the 1.09 changes to bastardy/pregnancy?" How many games patch in 'changes to bastardy', eh?

The expansion should be live at 3PM CET and costs $9.99.