Victoria 3 - Dev Diary #10 - Infrastructure

[lachek]

Looks cool!

I wonder what the PH logo on the state screen means.

"Placeholder" That icon will change in the near future!

 

[Wizzington]

Cool, this seems to be improved from vicky 2.

Question: Will there be something for canals?

Canals will for sure be a thing, at least the major ones like Suez/Panama.

 

[Wizzington]

Seems pretty interesting, is the Danube and Rhine as well as the Meuse rivers giving infrastructure if not are we able to mod them in easily?

Our aim is for all major rivers to provide infrastructure in varying amounts, the Rhine and Danube for sure count.

 

[Wizzington]

Oh hey, quick question: will there be an infrastructure map mode? That seems like it'd be pretty useful

There is at least a mapmode where you can see market access of states, ie which are lacking infrastructure. We may add more infra related mapmodes depending on if we feel they fill a need.

 

[Wizzington]

Does Infrastructure have anything to do with international trade? Or is it a purely internal thing? If so, what mechanics are in place to provide limits to trade throughput between nations?

Infrastructure can indirectly impact international trade, but more on that in a later dev diary.

 

[Wizzington]

Infrastructure and all those economic stuff are fascinating ofc, but they would be much more interesting if I knew a tiny bit about some other aspects of the game, in other words - dev diary about diplomacy when

At the moment we're focusing on economy and politics but you shouldn't have to wait *too* many more dev diaries to start hearing about other areas of the game now

 

[Wizzington]

Is the market capital akin to trade capital in eu4, where it has a default location but can be relocated, or is it determined some other way? Or, do markets have assigned market capitals or something?

Market Capital is usually the political capital at start but can be moved. The US is an exception, starting with New York as their market capital instead of Washington DC.

 

[Wizzington]

Would be nice to know if for example cutting an enemy army from their infrastructure (by occupying relevant provinces) would force their surrender?

The intent is for infrastructure to play a role in warfare but I can't say more than that for now.

 

[Wizzington]

How expensive/difficult is it to have 100% market access in all states for most of the game. In Vic2 placing your factories in the same as inputs gave bonuses. In Vic3 this happens only with non-ideal market access, when factories can benefit from better local prices. Do you intend to incentivize such behavior in Vic3? Can an economy with not ideal infrastructure and factories close to raw material sources be more efficient than one with fully developed rail network and all factories in urban centers without regard to input location?

It really depends on how heavily you want to industrialize compared to how much you want to spend on maintaining infrastructure. A better alternative to just having the same level of railroad everywhere could for sure be to create pockets of heavy infrastructure and industrialization with weaker rail lines to the countryside where a focus on rural buildings means you don't need as much logistical support.

 

[Wizzington]

I know you’ve said that you didn’t want to add building minor canals in because it wasn’t worth the resources (for both the dev team and players), given that railroads would come in so soon.

If you end up adding an 1821 start date in a DLC, will you go back to that decision so we can get our canal building on?

If so, can you make it so the Eerie Canal spawns a bunch of crazy religious preachers (Joseph Smith for example) to model the Burned Over District?

It's not that I exactly don't want minor canals in the game, it's just that if we're to have them I don't want them to fill the exact same role as railroads. They should either be a precursor in an earlier start date, or to for instance be a cheaper alternative that is only available in certain places. We'll likely not have them for release though.

 

[Wizzington]

Will there be bottleneck system like in HoI4 supply? Can you connect 4 provinces with rail infrastructure of 10 through one and the same province, does it need to have rail infrastructure of 10 or 40?

The idea is that if you have a rail 40 state that has to go through a rail 10 state to reach the market capital, it will be indeed be bottlenecked to 10 and that remaining 30 will be wasted.

 

[Wizzington]

Why should it cost anything to move the market capital though? That is only an abstraction because calculating trade from every state to every other state (and in case a bottleneck arises an alternative route which might also have a bottleneck...) would slow the game down to a snailpace...

Moving your market capital doesn't cost anything per se, but it does create some temporary penalties in the market due to the resulting upheaval.

 

[Wizzington]

It has been announced that Victoria 3 will feature cost of transportation of goods, which is fantastic.

Do I understand correctly from todays dev diary that this will primarily be modeled by infrastructure costs and upkeep on a general level, rather then being part of an individual buildings profit calculation?

Yes, though Infrastructure isn't all there is to it, there is also the naval aspect which we'll go into later.

 

[Wizzington]

Will industries using goods produced in the same state have less infrastructure usage?

There is currently no such effect as we don't track exactly where individual units of goods go (see Market dev diary on that topic), though we could potentially apply some sort of a discount based on how much of a building's needed goods can be locally sourced. I'll give it some thought.

 

[Wizzington]

Will major american rivers provide infraestructure bonusses ? IE, Amazonas, Parana , Oronoco and mississippi ?

Yes

 

[KaiserJohan]

In the example of the Minsk railway, you say
This early Railway has rapidly become one of Minsk’s best employers, at least for Pops with the qualifications to become Machinists. Unfortunately few people do, so the Infrastructure production is not currently as high as it might be if the railway was fully staffed. Ticket prices, however, are sky high.

a) what in that image tells you that it's one of the best employers?
b) how do you know few people are qualified?
c) what tells you that the Infrastructure production is not as high as it could be?
d) how do you know the ticket prices are sky-high?

(some of these things may just be numbers that you're used to seeing, rather than what's displayed in the dialog)

a) The Green Arrows, Copper/Silver vs Gold Coins & Weekly Revenue tells you this building is doing great.
b) The little red pop icon at the end of the employment bar says this building has a hard time hiring people. Tooltipping over it tells you why (in this case, not enough qualified pops)
c) The input/output is scaled by current employed/max employed.
d) The gold coins in outputs