I unfortunately haven't found time for the original game yet, so I'm not sure if this feels like something the developers could potentially do. But watching the trailers and looking at the screenshots of this new game, I was wondering if they were deliberately putting in references to this year's presidential election in the US?

The duchy is looking for a new ruler, and apparently there are two main "parties". On one side, there is a female candidate criticised for her aggressive war politics, and spending a lot of money on diplomatic relations while the duchy itself is not doing well economically. On the other side, there is a male candidate who is apparently saying "strange things", wants to build a wall around the entire duchy and make people fear each other.

Then, the game is released exactly one week before the presidential election. And you could even argue there's some similarity between the names of the candidates: "Kleinstein" and "Clinton", and "Tropfen" and "Trump". Unless the parallels in the people are reversed, of course.

I think that would be a fun thing to do. On the positive side, reminding people that there's nothing new under the sun, and politicians have always come up with these kinds of crazy ideas and dealt with the same crises. On the negative side, pointing out that we might not have really progressed that much since the Middle Ages…

it totally sounds like it, theres tavern rumors speaking about fighting the russians (moscow tzardom), how the "trump" has a hat made of a bird's nest, a dog or "straw" (wig) and so on. Kinda lame to be honest, the previous game had much better stories but i havent reached too far to draw any conclusions on how good this game is.

Definitely play the original campaign before attempting Blood of November. The latter game has a much higher challenge rating, so you will want some experience going in to it. The story is supposed to be a fun poke at the U.S. election. The main game and expansions have a more traditional mythic quest story to them.