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Victoria 3 - Dev Diary #0

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Hello everyone!

Yes, you’re seeing this right. No, this isn’t a belated April Fools joke. After all these years, and all these memes, Victoria 3 really is confirmed at last. I’m Martin “Wiz” Anward, the Game Director of Victoria 3, and it’s my absolute pleasure to finally be able to reveal what I have been working on since 2018 (around the time I stepped down as Game Director of Stellaris).

So what, then, is Victoria 3? I can start by telling you that it’s most definitely a proper Victoria game - namely a game with a core focus on Economy, Politics and Internal Country Management and with the iconic Victoria Pop system not just included as a core mechanic but made even deeper than in either of its predecessors.

Though Victoria 3 is its own game and not an iteration on Victoria 2, our ambition is to create a worthy successor that stays true to the core values of the Victoria series while using what have learned over the last decade in terms of making games more accessible - so that we can use that accessibility to build an even deeper game for old and new players alike!

Our vision for Victoria 3 is to create what we call a ‘Society Sim’ - a game that is first and foremost about the internal workings of the 19th-century country that you are playing and how its society is shaped over the course of the game. Politics, Economy and Diplomacy are the three most important parts of the game - Wars are of course a part of the game (just as they were a part of the Victorian age), but Victoria 3 is *not* a wargame or a game about map painting.

Loading screen from Victoria 3 - “The Crystal Palace”
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Oh, and before you start speculating crazily about what is and is not in the game: No, there is no mana!

Now, there is going to be a lot of dev diaries going forward to dig into the mechanics of the game, but to wrap up this dev diary I want to briefly touch on the four game design pillars that we have been following when designing and building Victoria 3:
  • National Gardening: Building, shaping, tweaking and evolving your nation is the first and foremost focus of the game. Events outside your country’s borders can naturally affect your country in significant ways, but the game should never rely on war to provide the main source of enjoyment.
  • Diplomatic Eminence: War is a continuation of diplomacy, and everything that is achievable by war should also be achievable through diplomacy (even if that diplomacy sometimes comes at the point of a gun).
  • Everything is Political: Politics is at the heart of Victoria 3, and all major features should in some way tie back into the Pops and Interest Groups that form the core of the game’s politics.
  • Era of Change: The Victorian era was a time of immense change politically, technologically, culturally, militarily and socially, and these changes should be reflected in the experience of playing a campaign of Victoria 3.

That’s all for this week, but we’ll see you next week, when we’ll be talking about the return of the Victoria Pop System and the introduction of Dependents.

We'll also have a lot more exciting news to share as we go, so make sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Discord, the Paradox Forums and the official Victoria 3 website to stay up to date.
 
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Interest groups > political parties. IMO. So keep it up.
 
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Flavius Anthemius said:
Interest groups > political parties. IMO. So keep it up.
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Sure, we will need political parties as well, at least for Parliamentary-style governments, but not all interest groups need map to political parties (for example, the Anglican Church) and some interest groups might be supported by more than one political party. But certainly, interest groups are the more general concept.
 
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The things i've heard and seen are fine honestly, I'm a bit scared you're going to "simplify" it a bit too much. But what we've seen is fine.
I am however, extremely worried that you will butcher the AMAZING political systems in place in vicky 1 & 2 for the sake of "Simplicity".

Edit: I also sincerely hope that historical events and somewhat historical accuracy will be a focus too.
 
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This is the best game reveal ever! I have longed for another game in my favourite PDS series for soooooo long. What is particularly positive is your commitment to those things that make Victoria great; the economics and the multitude of ways countries can affect each other apart from warfare. I always admired how Victoria 1 and 2 did a rather good job of explaining a materalist view of history and social change. It makes me very happy to see that this also seems to be true for the third installment in the series. Very much looking forward to this!
 
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NilsFabian said:
I have only one request...

Keep the memes that are so virulent in HoI IV to a minimum.
We don't need the father of Adolf Hitler to pop up everywhere

And I could live without reforming Byzantium
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The thing is in the 19th century the reforming Byzantium and moveing the capital back to Constanople had been a big real political dream and issue for new idependent Greece. The 19th century had been also the struggle between european nationalism and multicultura empires, like Russia, Austria Hugary and others. Not to forget in many areas in Eastern todays Turkey there had been a huge Greek Population until the 20th century. Also there were many riots and stuggles in this and Russia and other powers got always involved. And the "restoration" of Byzantium had been always been an issue for a huge political part in Greece back then. So it won't make any sense to ignore that real Life important Greek Interest Group from the 19th century. Because their agenda had a huge impact on the european policy towards the Ottomans.
 
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I hope I'm not late, will Gwadar be part of Oman instead of Kalat?
 
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I'm sure this has been asked already, but has a day of the week been chosen for Vicky3 to get dev diaries on? Since working from home began, "which PDX game get a dev diary today" has basically been the main signifier of which day of the week it is.
 
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Shadowstrike said:
I'm sure this has been asked already, but has a day of the week been chosen for Vicky3 to get dev diaries on? Since working from home began, "which PDX game get a dev diary today" has basically been the main signifier of which day of the week it is.
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"Is there will be going to have a dev dairy today?"
 
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Shadowstrike said:
I'm sure this has been asked already, but has a day of the week been chosen for Vicky3 to get dev diaries on? Since working from home began, "which PDX game get a dev diary today" has basically been the main signifier of which day of the week it is.
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They're not committing to a specific day of the week yet, just that they'll be coming out every week.
 
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wtrmute said:
Sure, we will need political parties as well, at least for Parliamentary-style governments, but not all interest groups need map to political parties (for example, the Anglican Church) and some interest groups might be supported by more than one political party. But certainly, interest groups are the more general concept.
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I agree that parliamentary governments would require political parties for immersion. But I think it's the interest groups that compose and support the political parties. In any case the relation between parties and interest groups is complex, and interest groups make a good compromise in that regard.
 
  • Diplomatic Eminence: War is a continuation of diplomacy, and everything that is achievable by war should also be achievable through diplomacy (even if that diplomacy sometimes comes at the point of a gun).
  • Everything is Political: Politics is at the heart of Victoria 3, and all major features should in some way tie back into the Pops and Interest Groups that form the core of the game’s politics.
2 great points. About point 1 in particulary i feel like vicky 2 didn do ""great"" for a reason: i mean, many things weren't achiable via war too. Getting a reasonable, factible and demanding way of achieve, f.i. using diplomacy to get the release of india from GB thats comparable of how much a war would demmand -from the player- and feels challenging, error-prone, risky and costly in the same way is very hard (that demmand, for instance, i think that requires the whole 100 war score or a little more, with what that means against a GP with allyes that you really can't defeat alone...). The expansion, with the crisis model, really improved the game in this sense.
 
Flavius Anthemius said:
I agree that parliamentary governments would require political parties for immersion. But I think it's the interest groups that compose and support the political parties. In any case the relation between parties and interest groups is complex, and interest groups make a good compromise in that regard.
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What that does miss though is the role of political ideologies/beliefs.

One nice thing about Vic 2 was the "debate" events that would sway the population to change their view on one issue or another. I think it'd be good in Vic 3 to have a similar system and sway different groups to different parties based off of what they care about.,

E.g. workers may care a ton about their wages. So one could either convince them that it would be most beneficial to them to vote for low taxes (so support party a), or to instead vote for wage subsidies (support party b).

On the other hand, they may not care at all about tariffs, and so debates about those issues won't motivate them one way or the other.

I guess it's hard to explain my idea, but it's more that interest groups would represent what issues those parts of the population care about, and parties would have to try to sell their platform as best for those groups. And if both parties don't sell it well, then that interest group may not bother to vote. So one could get a massive worker coalition for the liberals or for the socialists, or they just don't bother voting because both parties are terrible.
 
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will Victoria 3 be as "scripted" as Victoria 2?

because the victoria 2 events (USA civil war, crimean war, etc ...) are very scripted, and are not the result of own factor as EU4 could.
 
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