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Dev Diary #46 - Political Parties

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Good evening! Today we are finally ready to talk in detail about Political Parties. This has been a much-requested feature for Victoria 3, and indeed the political world would feel a little empty without the Whigs and Tories going at each other’s throats. We’ve listened, and some months ago we revealed that we were indeed working on implementing this feature. Today we are ready to talk about how Parties will factor into the political landscape of the game.

In Victoria 3, a Political Party is an alliance between Interest Groups. They appear in countries that have Elections, and are absent in countries without them, differentiating the experience and mechanics of democracies from autocracies. Interest Groups must be added or removed from government as a single bloc, which means that you’ll need to make strategic decisions about the makeup of your government and deal with the consequences. The Liberal Party may for instance contain both the Intelligentsia and the Industrialists, who will both back your plans to move toward a free market economy but diverge on the issue of child labor. Sometimes an opposition Interest Group might decide that it wants to join a Party currently in government (or vice versa) - in this circumstance, the Interest Group will leave their old Party and be marked as “wanting to join” their new party. This won’t force any Interest Group into or out of government, but if you decide to reform your government under these circumstances you must treat that Interest Group as being a member of the new Party, bringing them into or out of government as a single bloc.

The Republican Party in the USA is made up of an alliance between the Industrialists and the Intelligentsia, primarily opposing the ruling Democratic Party which is constituted by the Southern Planters and Petite Bourgeoisie.
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Just as Parties ally together when you form your government, they also share their Momentum in Elections, which determines their votes. If for instance the fascist leader of the Petite Bourgeoisie joins the Conservative Party and is caught up in a political scandal, the whole Party suffers the electoral consequences. On the other hand, as the Landowners begin to lose their political relevance in an increasingly industrialized economy they might cling to relevance by attaching themselves to the rising Fascist Party, who may bring them Political Power from the votes the whole Party gains in the Election.

The Whig Party, consisting of a large number of opposition IG’s, has landed themselves in a corruption scandal. Rowland Hill, leader of the Armed Forces and prominent Reformer, may have seriously harmed the entire bloc’s election campaign.
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During the Election Campaign period (which as you’ll recall lasts 6 months before the final votes are cast), you’re likely to get events relating to the various Party’s campaign efforts that can have a major impact on Momentum. These events are inspired by the campaigns and scandals of the period, such as Gladstone’s Midlothian campaign and the whistle-stop tours that became popular in the USA.

There are 11 potential Political Parties that your Interest Groups can join. At any given time, any combination of these parties might exist or not exist. Parties emerge and disband dynamically, so the political landscape can be very different between countries and playthroughs. The following Parties can emerge throughout the course of the game:
  • The Agrarian Party
  • The Anarchist Society
  • The Communist Party
  • The Conservative Party
  • The Fascist Party
  • The Free Trade Party
  • The Liberal Party
  • The Military Party
  • The Radical Party
  • The Religious Party
  • The Social Democratic Party

Many of these parties are aligned primarily around a particular Interest Group’s core ideologies, which other IG’s may join under the right circumstances. The Liberal Party for instance is the natural home of the Intelligentsia due to their Liberal Ideology, but they may be swayed towards other Parties under various circumstances. Other Parties are aligned more strongly with Leader Ideologies that emerge throughout the game, such as the Communist Party and the Radical Party. Each of these Parties has a variety of dynamic names based on national, cultural, and religious factors - for instance in Great Britain the Conservative Party is localized as the Tories, while in the USA they are known as the Democratic Party.

Interest Groups (IG’s) may join a Political Party if they are not Marginalized and if their country has any of the Laws that allow Elections. Which Political Party an Interest Group will join is determined by a wide variety of factors, some of which I’ll list here:
  • IG’s with the Republican, Radical, Market Liberal, or Reformer Leader Ideologies are much more likely to join the Liberal Party
  • The Industrialists are more likely to be drawn towards the Conservative Party if the country has public healthcare or schools, or when voting laws allow the lower strata to vote.
  • Weaker IG’s might join the Agrarian Party alongside the Rural Folk in a push to abolish Serfdom. Scandinavian countries are much more likely to develop an Agrarian Party.
  • In a Council Republic, IG’s led by Anarchist leaders might leave the Communist Party if the country’s ruler is a Vanguardist.
  • When an IG with a Fascist leader becomes powerful, weaker conservative IG’s might join the Fascist Party in a bid to retain their political relevance.
  • If a powerful IG has a Social Democratic leader, weaker leftist IG’s may fall in line behind their more moderate cousins. Likewise, weaker Social Democrats might join a stronger Communist Party.

To summarize: in Victoria 3, Interest Groups band together into Political Parties for the purposes of elections and forming governments. There are many dynamic names and conditions that work to create plausible and flavourful Parties no matter which direction you choose to guide your country.

That’s all for today! Join us next week when Mikael will talk about the mechanics behind Religious Conversion and Cultural Assimilation.
 
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This comment has been reserved by the community team to gather up dev responses for ease of reading.

LucasG21 said:


Do party names change at all in-game (i.e. will the Whigs ever become the Liberal Party)? Can we rename parties?

Also, can we influence IGs to switch party?
It's possible for parties to change their names throughout the game, if the conditions for enabling a different name are met.

You'll have some degree of influence over this - we plan on exposing exactly why each IG has chosen their party, so you'll know what you need to do to get them to leave.

MrMineHeads said:


Ok but I do have a question, what happens when a particular issue has split support among a party in government. Let's take your example of The Liberal Party with both the Intelligentsia and the Industrialists whom are divergent on the issue of child labour. If you begin to pass a law outlawing child labour, what happens to the party? Does it split?
Your laws will be more likely to stall or be debated rather than advance when you reach an enactment checkpoint. Conflict within the government over the currently enacting law makes it a lot harder to pass that law.

aantia said:


I'm quite surprised there's no Labour Party on the list, since the birth of labour movements was rather a big deal in the period. Or is labour lumped in with one of the others, so if there's a strong enough labour IG it'll effectively take over one of the political parties and make that the de-facto Labour Party?
Labour parties are essentially Social Democratic parties. I believe that some countries will use "Labour Party" as their dynamic name for the Social Democratic Party.

Thure said:


How moddable is all of this?
Extremely. You can define new political parties, change the attraction and repulsion factors, add or change dynamic names, etc. You can mod every aspect of the party system.

mattkidd12 said:


So if the Conservative Party receives a majority of votes in a UK general election, can I, as the player, ignore the result of the election and put a Liberal-Anarchist-Social Democratic government in power?
You absolutely can, but your government will not likely be very legitimate!

Ninking said:


Will the government of an AI country affect its AI ambitions? I hope so, since a Fascist France ought to be more prone to conquer e.g. Belgium compared to if ti's agrarian :)
AI countries are strongly influenced by the IG's they have in power.
 
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Not a fan of the idea that political parties have to be treated as a bloc when joining the government. There should be the possibility to represent a situation where one wing of the party ends up being ascendant in the new government and the other wing(s) get sidelined or betrayed.

Edit: A more detailed explanation here.
 
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Good evening,very nice dd,really like the electoral events with corruptions of politicians.This is a major improvement compared to Victoria 2 where these types of event were not really present due to not having characters and rulers.However,To add to @CityDisk question,if it's the case,can the names for the parties be modded?
Thanks for any replies about this.
 
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Interest Groups must be added or removed from government as a single bloc
I think this should be "Political Parties", given the context.

I don't suppose you can talk a little more about Ideologies and which ones are permanently associated with particular IGs and which ones are dynamic (leader-based or otherwise)? They seem to play a large role in syncing up Parties with IGs, but I don't think we've heard much about them.
 
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There are 11 potential Political Parties that your Interest Groups can join. At any given time, any combination of these parties might exist or not exist. Parties emerge and disband dynamically, so the political landscape can be very different between countries and playthroughs. The following Parties can emerge throughout the course of the game:
  • The Agrarian Party
  • The Anarchist Society
  • The Communist Party
  • The Conservative Party
  • The Fascist Party
  • The Free Trade Party
  • The Liberal Party
  • The Military Party
  • The Radical Party
  • The Religious Party
  • The Social Democratic Party

Many of these parties are aligned primarily around a particular Interest Group’s core ideologies, which other IG’s may join under the right circumstances. The Liberal Party for instance is the natural home of the Intelligentsia due to their Liberal Ideology, but they may be swayed towards other Parties under various circumstances. Other Parties are aligned more strongly with Leader Ideologies that emerge throughout the game, such as the Communist Party and the Radical Party. Each of these Parties has a variety of dynamic names based on national, cultural, and religious factors - for instance in Great Britain the Conservative Party is localized as the Tories, while in the USA they are known as the Democratic Party.

Its a good start, and I appreicate that the IGs within the parties can shift about, but I do hope that, sometime after release, the parties can become a little more dynamic. In particular, in the US, while the Democrats were the more conservative (in Vicky terms) of the two parties throughout much of game's period, that was not entirely true. In particular, in the final 1/3 or so of the game's time frame, this started to change quite a bit. During the 1900s-1920s, both parties were re-aligning around just which one would embrass the Progressive movement (and what that meant) and it was ultimately the Democrats that more wholeheartedly did so, which de facto made the Republicans the Conservative party.

The Republicans didn't exist in 1836...

Good point! Another reason to hope for more dynamic parties!
 
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Its a good start, and I appreicate that the IGs within the parties can shift about, but I do hope that, sometime after release, the parties can become a little more dynamic. In particular, in the US, while the Democrats were the more conservative (in Vicky terms) of the two parties throughout much of game's period, that was not entirely true. In particular, in the final 1/3 or so of the game's time frame, this started to change quite a bit. During the 1900s-1920s, both parties were re-aligning around just which one would embrass the Progressive movement (and what that meant) and it was ultimately the Democrats that more wholeheartedly did so, which de facto made the Republicans the Conservative party.

Don't worry man, they'll be fleshed out in the future, just locked behind a DLC paywall of course!
 
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Ok but I do have a question, what happens when a particular issue has split support among a party in government. Let's take your example of The Liberal Party with both the Intelligentsia and the Industrialists whom are divergent on the issue of child labour. If you begin to pass a law outlawing child labour, what happens to the party? Does it split?
 
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In the example shown in the DD, the player takes decisions on behalf of the parties.

What is the purpose of that? Are the players influencing which IGs are in each party? I thought that the player was limited to decide which party was in the government.

If the player can influence the parties composition and the government composition, where is the element of surprise?

Is the player also able to influence the leaders of each IG? Can the player remove/kill those leaders?

It also seems there is no party leader, but a co-leadership with all the IG's leaders. Is that so?
 
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Good evening,very nice dd,really like the electoral events with corruptions of politicians.This is a major improvement compared to Victoria 2 where these types of event were not really present due to not having characters and rulers.However,To add to @CityDisk question,if it's the case,can the names for the parties be modded?
Thanks for any replies about this.
To add even further onto my statement as well as @magriboy0750 's will parties have emblems or some recognizable symbols? Maybe a randomly-generated flag that evolves over time?
 
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I think this is a pretty elegant solution though im a bit sad that different electoral laws dont seem to have made it into the game. Generally speaking I would be very happy if the political system was expanded upon down the line.

You mentioned that parties can have localization depending on the country that they are in, are they always predefined at game start or would it be possible for modders to change party names via triggers if certain conditions are met i.e time.
 
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"Each of these Parties has a variety of dynamic names based on national, cultural, and religious factors - for instance in Great Britain the Conservative Party is localized as the Tories, while in the USA they are known as the Democratic Party."


I didn't know that back in the day the US conservative party was the Democratic Party.
 
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Also, can we ban parties? This feels very important, especially for Oligarchic/quasi-democratic republics.

My first planned playthrough is as a Ind+Int combo, and I'd like to discourage the Intellectuals from joining any leftist parties that might appear.
 
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Not a fan of the idea that political parties have to be treated as a bloc when joining the government. There should be the possibility to represent a situation where one wing of the party ends up being ascendant in the new government and the other wing(s) get sidelined or betrayed.
Agree with Skales. Take for example, the Democrats come to power as an alliance of conservatives and industrialists wanting to rescue their country from a great depression under the leadership of a charming and inspirational leader, but that leader then decides to go hard for social democracy policies while in offer, why shouldn't those IGs have the chance to drop out of the party and then join an opposing party to try to put a stop to the political whirlwind they just unleashed...
 
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