Victoria 3 - Dev Diary #102 - What’s next after 1.5

[RedRalphWiggum]

WRT to making events like the Alaska Purchase happen more often, I feel like the solution should be more systemic rather than limiting it to a journal entry. We should be able to purchase economically minor states from friendly nations who have no use for them without being limited to whichever prescriptive options the devs chose to code in. There are so many examples of minor colonies and the like being sold off or potential sold off in this time period I think it would be a worthwhile addition.

There's already a state trading system, ideally they could just change it to allow for you to offer up a hard cash down payment rather than a state of your own. Russia chose to sell Alaska because they had little economic use for it, they knew they could not defend it in a war, and they would rather the friendly US have it than their rival the Brits. Factors like this could be translated into the AI's potential willingness to accept any such offer. And if the devs are really worried that the players might exploit it, they could had a hard stop that the AI will never accept such an offer if the territory in question has over X GDP or Y population.

For example, I did a Quebec into Canada playthrough recently. And while it was very good fun, one thing that annoyed me is that there was no way for me to acquire Newfoundland, Alaska, or Turks and Caicos without console commands or declaring unwinnable wars, despite the fact that these were all very plausible potential concessions during the game's timeframe. And rather than forcing the devs to code in a prescriptive journal entry for every potential peaceful land swap like these in the game, a systemic solution could handle them all much easier.

For the work that would require, and the myriad things that could and would go wrong, I think JEs are a better option.

 

[TripleAgent]

I concur with this sentiment! I have been a strong critic about the game but I’m really enjoying 1.5 as it is and optimistic for the future of Vic 3 if all this can come to fruition.

One of the things I really hope that can be tied to the discrimination mechanic is separatism, in particular separatist parties and the idea that having mass numbers of ethnic groups would really jeopardise ur empire. Would it be possible if the developers can look into this as part of the eventual update to that, such as maybe Revolution diplomatic plays available for separatist parties?

It is partly why huge empires like Austria etc just remain so strong till the endgame.

Agreed. I think that a lot of the work taking this game from good to great is going to depend on making internal politics a bit more interesting and messy and linking those aspects of the game to the international aspects (huge spikes in radicalism and opposition support when a war goes badly, landowners/industrialists pushing for colonization for agricultural expansion or cheap labor, etc.) I think that aspect, getting the systems to interact with each other in a more realistic way, will put the game over the top. Hopefully in the next year they'll be able to make progress towards that!

 

[Woifee]

Want to say I love the way how the PI communicates with the customers and fans.

 

[McSaucy4418]

This also gets at how weird sea node-based convoy escorts are. Conceptually, when escorts are enabled on a route a convoy should form with its escort at one end of the route and they should travel the whole route together. The escort doesn't actually care about the vast area of a sea node because it's only ever covering the tiny patch its convoy is currently in.

But since afaik goods don't exist in Vic 3, only rates of goods, the game can't represent things like "every x (days/weeks/months) a new convoy leaves from the source of this route with that many (days/weeks/months)' worth of goods, escorted by whichever portion of the escort fleet was available at that port at that time, and y (days/weeks/months) later those goods arrive at the other end, less any portion sunk along the way, then the escort returns to pick up a new convoy" so we're stuck with this weird numerical abstraction of what a convoy even is.

I don't know about convoys in the game's time period but even in the early years of WW2 (when naval range, communication, and logistics were significantly improved over the previous century) convoy escorts actually did operate more like sea node escorts. In the Atlantic escorts were only provided near the British and American coasts and convoys were on their own across most of the ocean (to predicably disastrous results).

 

[Avald]

• Have discrimination not be a purely binary status and reflect forms of discrimination aside from what’s written in the law, as well as making assimilation into a more meaningful mechanic in the process.

Very glad to see finally some distinction here. Considering how conversion just outright ignores this and allows everyone to convert, I hope to see some distinction here, seeing as there is such a thing as folk religion, tied to a people and not open to outsiders, such as was the case with shintoism.

Hopefully also has a 3-tier system, where pops are outright discriminated and never accepted, discriminated, yet pushed towards assimilation or fully accepted with no assimilation necessary. Similar to the historical case of switzerland, where all 3 ethnicities (germans, frenchmen and italians) were outright encouraged to not assimilate to the point where some german towns, wanting to join the confederation, were not accepted, because otherwise the delicate balance would have been broken. I don't expect things to get that detailed, but at least the option for no assimilation, while fully accepting a culture would be nice.

EDIT: Forgot to mention migration: it would be nice to see more control over who gets to migrate and who doesn't, right now it leads to a situation where you either have migratory controls and only accepted pops migrate in and out, or you don't and then everyone migrates in and out, no "discriminated pops can go out, can't come in" or anything like that possible.

 

[Taniwha]

Has the team given any thought into the problem with 'small wars?'

Right now, colonial wars are started by the central government in the metropole- which rarely happened in real life. The role of colonial governors or local settlers or merchants in starting wars regardless of the policy of the government is completely overlooked. This means that if you're a player, you get vastly more control over your expansion than any power in history- every conflict is started by you, at a time and place of your choosing. This simply didn't happen- and it goes against the broad design goals of the game which seem to be focused on giving the player agency but not total control.

A much bigger problem is that colonial powers are easily able to commit vast numbers of troops anywhere in the world, at little cost, little attrition, to win easy victories- and do it again and again.

In the 1850s, Parliament was so frustrated at the cost and logistical difficulties of managing British West Africa that there was almost a vote to withdraw almost entirely. In 1881, the South African Republic beat a small British force and won the First South African War, and Gladstone decided it wasn't worth pouring in troops to win. After the Mahdi defeated Gordon, it took a decade to get to the Battle of Omdurman.

None of these events could happen in Victoria 3 right now- and I don't meant that they're not adequately represented in events, I mean that the design actively works against them. There is never any cost to the player to sending vast amounts of troops to crush non-recognised powers. That means that a: colonial powers almost always vastly outnumber their enemies, which rarely happened; b: the role of local allies is completely neglected, without which European colonial empires simply wouldn't exist; c: colonial wars are won very, very quickly, instead of often taking years or decades to win. The British had to keep 20, 000 troops in New Zealand at its peak, which the government thought was a pointless expense it wanted to end as quickly as possible- but here, you beat an Iwi within a couple of months and then withdraw troops back to Britain.

Right now, absolutely none of the historical, economic, military, or governmental pressures to slow down imperial expansion are present. If you want Interest Groups to take an interest in diplomacy, this is key- the German middle classes should be pushing you to conquer Namibia or New Guinea, even though you won't get anything out of it and you're risking annoying Britain, for example.

There were incentives to expand, sure. But right now the game completely fails to model the realities of colonial conflict, expansion, diplomacy or management.

 

[TripleAgent]

Has the team given any thought into the problem with 'small wars?'

Right now, colonial wars are started by the central government in the metropole- which rarely happened in real life. The role of colonial governors or local settlers or merchants in starting wars regardless of the policy of the government is completely overlooked. This means that if you're a player, you get vastly more control over your expansion than any power in history- every conflict is started by you, at a time and place of your choosing. This simply didn't happen- and it goes against the broad design goals of the game which seem to be focused on giving the player agency but not total control.

A much bigger problem is that colonial powers are easily able to commit vast numbers of troops anywhere in the world, at little cost, little attrition, to win easy victories- and do it again and again.

In the 1850s, Parliament was so frustrated at the cost and logistical difficulties of managing British West Africa that there was almost a vote to withdraw almost entirely. In 1881, the South African Republic beat a small British force and won the First South African War, and Gladstone decided it wasn't worth pouring in troops to win. After the Mahdi defeated Gordon, it took a decade to get to the Battle of Omdurman.

None of these events could happen in Victoria 3 right now- and I don't meant that they're not adequately represented in events, I mean that the design actively works against them. There is never any cost to the player to sending vast amounts of troops to crush non-recognised powers. That means that a: colonial powers almost always vastly outnumber their enemies, which rarely happened; b: the role of local allies is completely neglected, without which European colonial powers simply wouldn't exist; c: colonial wars are won very, very quickly, instead of often taking years or decades to win. The British had to keep 20, 000 troops in New Zealand at its peak, which the government thought was a pointless expense it wanted to end as quickly as possible- but here, you beat an Iwi within a couple of months and then withdraw troops back to Britain.

Right now, absolutely none of the historical, economic, military, or governmental pressures to slow down imperial expansion are present. If you want Interest Groups to take an interest in diplomacy, this is key- the German middle classes should be pushing you to conquer Namibia or New Guinea, even though you won't get anything out of it and you're risking annoying Britain, for example.

There were incentives to expand, sure. But right now the game completely fails to model the realities of colonial conflict, expansion, diplomacy or management.

On this note, one potential solution I had thought of is potentially a sliding manpower cap depending on some calculation, potentially including the value/location of the wargoals being pursued, population, size of the total armies, unrecognized status, etc. Presently, if the UK and France want to dispute an African colony, we get effectively a World War in the 1850s. It also would be nice if fighting is limited to a certain theater unless there are wargoals in another theater; in the above, if the UK and France were fighting over Senegal, they should be limited to fighting in Africa, but if the UK also demands Normandy, it should open up more widespread European fighting.

 

[BlueSpaceCanary]

I don't know about convoys in the game's time period but even in the early years of WW2 (when naval range, communication, and logistics were significantly improved over the previous century) convoy escorts actually did operate more like sea node escorts. In the Atlantic escorts were only provided near the British and American coasts and convoys were on their own across most of the ocean (to predicably disastrous results).

I could definitely be wrong, but my understanding is that further back it leaned more in the other direction for basically the reasons you identify there: coordinating a rendezvous on the other end was a lot harder pre-radio and pre-modern logistics. Now that I think about it I don't think they were particularly large convoys though, I think it was more like a handful of merchant vessels with some weapons themselves and maybe a single small naval vessel?

You know, actually, I'd love to just stick some cannons on my convoy ships hauling fertilizer across the Atlantic. I can't imagine anything going wrong there

 

[Cramoxis]

Super news. I heard that the migration system will be touched in 1.6, as it stands with several gameplay of the USA, I struggle really hard with migration (after the fix about a bug and increase on migration values to compensate that) and so does the workforce.

 

[Blastaz]

Should just come out with it and label that list:
Done,
Doing,
To Do,
Interrupt,
Blocked.

 

[Allan Nonymous]

@Wizzington, please add legislatures/different government election systems. This game really needs them, both for historical immersion (i.e. the issues with American presidents), and because they would add a lot more flavor to the game. It would be especially nice if there could be different ethnoreligious interest groups (i.e. catholics vs. protestants) and more fleshed out political parties (which could have their own "partisans" like IGs have members).

 

[Troyen]

I find a lot of the UX around the 1.5 military to be confusing. Of particular notice are the lack of right-click support for common actions and some unintuitiveness such as:

• Declare strategic objective, if one already exists. You have to know to first cancel the existing strategic objective and only then is the option to declare a different state a strategic objective available. Why not allow me to designate a strategic objective, and if one already exists, cancel the old one automatically?
• Deploying a formation to a front. For some reason you have to actually click the checkmark on the front window that pops up instead of simply selecting a formation and right-clicking the appropriate front.
• Mass-assign orders to all generals in a formation. Took a long time to figure out how to change attack to defense orders on the 1.5 system coming from the pre-1.5 experience. I'm so used to having specific armies for defense and others for offense, so a right-click "defend/attack" this front to assign front and set all generals in that formation to the order was missing. Fine-tuning individual generals to specific orders can happen later, but it'd still help if you need to swap 3-4 generals from offense to defense or vice-versa if the war situation changes.
• Explanations over why certain units can't be upgraded into other types. I can upgrade Man O' Wars to Ironclads but I can't upgrade Ironclads into Dreadnaughts even though stats-wise it looks like a direct upgrade. The game doesn't explain why, it just disables the upgrade button and says you can't upgrade.
• Raid convoy orders and sea node assignments automatically persist even after conflict ends, despite your armies heading back to HQ automatically. I guess there are reasons you may want to permanently park your fleet in a sea node somewhere, but it's equally possible you'll just forget your fleet isn't at home.
• The ability to mass-assign mobilization/supply options to all your troops. It's nice that I can customize certain goods and extra supplies to particular formations, but the majority of my assignments I'd want to apply to every formation. Would be especially helpful for large countries.
• What my expected manpower replenishment rate is (or most recent replenishment rate). This could be relegated to a tooltip, but it'd be nice to be summarized somewhere. I can kinda manually figure it out but that requires visiting each barrack supplying a formation and looking at their hire stats. Given that manpower questions seem to be common, making it easier to make the connection between training rate, pop availability, and manpower supply more clear would help.

I haven't attempted a naval invasion in 1.5 yet, though I have seen a fair number of questions asking how they work on reddit. So possibly some UX improvements could help there as well.

 

[TK3600]

Any plan on increase national succesion movements, like spring of nations?

 

[mwyeoh]

I feel that if you do implement some sort of 'automatic trade route' mechanic, it should be restricted only to countries/markets you have a trade agreement with

 

[Sir Boots]

Seeing that the next update will be polish/bugfixing improvements, I hope that some of my polish/bugfixing recommendations will make it into this update! I have put them below and hope they can be looked into!

1. Disabling the muting of the game OST when an event pops up
Currently, every time there is a "Gold Rush!" or "Factory Accident" type of event (among others) the background game OST is muted while the event is active. As I found this broke the "flow" of the soundtrack, I disabled the "musical stingers" option in the game settings, only to find that this only disabled the event music, but not the muting/muffling of the game OST. Adding in an option to reverse the muting/muffling of the game OST in addition to the musical stingers would be greatly appreciated.

2. Please do not hide state modifiers when building
Last night, I was playing as Russia and wanted to build logging camps in states with the logging throughput state modifier. However, when I opened up the lens and selected the logging camp, all state modifiers on the map disappeared and I had to de-select the lens in order for the state modifier to reappear, then remember where each modifier was while building logging camps in the correct states. Thus, I would like to suggest that state modifiers do not disappear on the map when selecting buildings and building them. Thank you.

3. Please add a religious mapmode
I was playing the game last night and I realized there was no religious mapmode in the game! There is a culture mapmode that ties into religion, but no way to view the distribution of religion in your Empire itself. Adding this feature into the game would be a big help as religion is obviously a big part of history!

 

[TripleAgent]

On a related note, can we please have a revision of the Gold Rush events (and the similar ones for rubber and oil)? Playing my Mexico campaign, by 1900 half the events I'm getting are just those and it's super annoying to have to click through, especially when I'm on higher speeds between wars. I'd gladly give up some autonomy and make it a stealth modifier or decree or something rather than an event as is.

 

[relytor]

• Have discrimination not be a purely binary status and reflect forms of discrimination aside from what’s written in the law, as well as making assimilation into a more meaningful mechanic in the process.

I've been thinking a lot about the law system. I love the entire concept, much better than EU's Government Reforms or the system in Stellaris, for instance. But, I feel the system is too black and white, to fixed. Discrimination is a good example of this. I thought of a few ways that I think could help with this.

A law should be passed as Constitutional or Legislative, or just be designated as Traditional. Traditional means it has never been explicitly legislated by the government, while Constitutional is written into the Constitution of a country (if they have one). Passing a traditional law into legislative should be very easy, though legislating a change to a traditional law more difficult. Traditional laws can change automatically with strong support, though this should be quite rare.

This would also add in a Constitution. Any laws written into the constitution would be marked as constitutional. They should be more difficult to change, and require a political movement and/or strong support to even attempt to change.

States can then have a De Facto laws tab, stating which laws they actually follow. States with more conservative pops may take time to change their De Facto laws to newly passed laws. Constitutional laws are much more likely to be followed, while changes to Traditional laws take longer to be followed. States with high turmoil may change De Facto laws to those better supported in that state.

I feel this system would help with discrimination, while being flexible enough to cover other areas as well.

 

[chief117]

good stuff, the game progressed at fast pace imagine in a year from now

 

[Searry]

You mustn't be even playing the game if you think the military is nearly ready to be fun and playable after 1.5 was rushed. You finally made the old system work by the end of 1.4 so you must finish polishing the new one before you do go do anything fancy and new.

What you also did was make the game unplayable in terms of performance by the 1890s when in 1.4 it was still possible to play the game in the 1910s before it became too painful.

Otherwise you did a good job with the patch. I just hope you would spend more time with each patch before rushing them out to the public so the players won't have to suffer from the consequences.

 

[Kipsta]

if anything it needs a re-balance, I've had AI give up their territory for wars they can win on their own

Oh I right I mixed up the meaning of reverse swaying. It's when you offer help, yeah it allows some pretty fun cheese.