• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

King

Part Time Game Designer
11 Badges
Dec 7, 2001
12.504
30
48
  • Crusader Kings II
  • Deus Vult
  • Europa Universalis III
  • Europa Universalis: Rome
  • Sengoku
  • Victoria 2
  • 500k Club
  • Crusader Kings II: Holy Knight (pre-order)
  • Europa Universalis III: Collection
  • Hearts of Iron II: Beta
  • Victoria 2 Beta
When we began to design Victoria 2 we thought back to the Victoria’s release. One of the problems was the epic cycle of bankruptcy at the start as your economy slowly crashed. Now by 1.04 this problem was pretty much solved but we drew one very important lesson from this. You need a functioning economy for the game to be fun.

They say that money makes the world go round, and when it comes to Victoria nothing is truer. To be able to enjoy the game you are going to need money, in Victoria 2 you need your POPs to have money so you can tax them and this means that you need a working economy. This factor pushed us towards a bit of economic conservatism, insert in contemporary analogy here, because after all if the game ain’t fun you won’t be playing it.

For those of you who did not really play Victoria, let’s have a quick run down of the economic system and how it functioned. At its base you have Resource Gathering Operations (referred to as RGOs). These represent things like farms and mines and produce goods without any inputs. Then you have factories that take inputs from either RGOs and/or other factories and turn them into other things. Then you have a world market that acts as a central clearing house for buying and selling goods.

So this is basically what we were doing. However there was a tragic scene in the office last week. Sometimes you can’t find the words to describe it so you steal someone else’s:

“Where nothing ever grows
No rain or rivers flow
Do they know it's Christmastime at all?”

Now if you ignore the fact that in 1836 most of Africa does not know it is Christmas time for religious reasons we had a global crisis. There wasn’t enough Fish produced to feed the world. Now we figured we could either hold a charity concert or rebalance the economic system a bit. When we decide what to do we’ll let you know but for the moment times are tough. Although on a more a serious note, this is the joy of improving interfaces, it makes it a whole lot easier to work out if things are actually working the way you intend them to. The sooner you can get the basics right the sooner you can move on to adding things.

Which comes to the second reason why we chose to keep the economic system at its base similar. If you think back to the first developer diary I mentioned that we initially starting talking about ideas for a second expansion to Victoria, well the idea was that this would focus very heavily on economics. We felt that there was still a lot mileage in improving the original Victoria’s economic system without having to reinvent the wheel. Now we have mentioned things like unemployment and artisans and these we will return to in future developer diaries but that is it for the time being.

Here is another random Screenshot that you may or may not like.
 

Attachments

  • vic2_alpha_dec011.JPG
    vic2_alpha_dec011.JPG
    631,2 KB · Views: 23.678
  • 1
Reactions:
Well, I'm kinda glad it won't be too radically different. I am looking forward to seeing what tweaks and changes you will make. It seems the world market will remain - will there also be country-to-country deals? I'm assuming that blockades will now be possible, too?
 
Glad to see that economic system is being improved. Nice DD. Thanks for updates. I just hope there will be less micromanagement of it, as it was the thing that turned me a bit down in the Vicky/Ricky.
 
Well, I enjoy economy in Vic1, however I didn't really like the buying goods system (state pays for goods to feed industry). Plus I hoped for national-international market and services added.

Can you give us some more information how the system will work, please?

EDIT: 2questions about the screen:

- country flags are in the form of a wheel, HoI-like. I hate it with passion. Will it stay this way?
- Units are large dolls rather then formations. Will it be matter of player choice? Or, at least, will it be editable?

Apart from that, graph is nice, I really like it.
 
Well, I kind of enjoy economy in Vic1, however I didn't like the buying goods system (state pays for goods to feed industry). Plus I hoped for national-international market and services added.

Can you give us some more information how the system will work, please?

Not yet
 
Well, I kind of enjoy economy in Vic1, however I didn't like the buying goods system (state pays for goods to feed industry). Plus I hoped for national-international market and services added.

Can you give us some more information how the system will work, please?

Yeah, no offence King but this DD really tells us nothing...
 
Well, I'm kinda glad it won't be too radically different. I am looking forward to seeing what tweaks and changes you will make. It seems the world market will remain - will there also be country-to-country deals? I'm assuming that blockades will now be possible, too?

Indeed - some form of blockade feature and bilateral trade and customs treaties would certainly be good to factor in, as these were all very very important in interantional relations in the period.
 
Great! I thought the economy alone made Vicky worth playing, besides the historical flavor. Comes from a student learning economics of course :D

I would hope for a realistic approach of Demand and Supply, and a working market. The global market idea was and is great. May the invisible hand of the market be with you.
 
EDIT: 2questions about the screen:

- country flags are in the form of a wheel, HoI-like. I hate it with passion. Will it stay this way?
- Units are large dolls rather then formations. Will it be matter of player choice? Or, at least, will it be editable?

Apart from that, graph is nice, I really like it.

Thanks for answer first (well, kind of...'not yet' :rofl:), what about these two questions, please?
 
Yeah, no offence King but this DD really tells us nothing...

+1.

It's understandable that you are not ready to talk about the economic system yet. But then, why make the DD about it?
 
The world market is still there, even though there wasn't really one until the end of the period? That's a bit sub-optimal. I'd prefer regional markets for each continent. Is that what the comments about Africa and fish are meant to indicate? A mechanism that let's uncivilized countries trade only with neighbours or protectors might be a good substitute, though.

But the most important question is: Will the world market still buy everything, even if there is hardly any demand? And will it still sell your stuff to your mortal enemies?
 
+1.

It's understandable that you are not ready to talk about the economic system yet. But then, why make the DD about it?

Well first off, not all Diary readers are actually familiar with Victoria so giving them a Victoria economy basics would be quite nice. Also I am bit disapointed that none of you noticed that thanks to our improved interface we are already spotting balance issues that made it into Victoria 1.0.
 
- country flags are in the form of a wheel, HoI-like. I hate it with passion. Will it stay this way?

yes, it will look that way as it looks great.

- Units are large dolls rather then formations. Will it be matter of player choice? Or, at least, will it be editable?

no, we want to have good looking soldiers to feel more like victorian era game.

kinda like tin soldiers on a big map.
 
I'm pretty happy with the DD, nice screeny, and it's good to know you're not ripping the heart out of the economics system :)
 
Well first off, not all Diary readers are actually familiar with Victoria so giving them a Victoria economy basics would be quite nice. Also I am bit disapointed that none of you noticed that thanks to our improved interface we are already spotting balance issues that made it into Victoria 1.0.
:confused::confused::confused: but we don't know anything at all about the interface?

On the plus side, I loved the economic model from V1 so I'm happy it's more-or-less being kept, and the coast of Ireland is, to all intents and purposes, perfect. I can almost spot my house on it.