Victoria 3 - Dev Diary #16 - States

[mrgamerlion]

Is it possible for major powers to divide states into two without any consideration for anything but politics? An example would be Britain, as we had a habit of dividing states into two without any consideration for cultural boundaries, which arguably led to a lot of instability across the world

 

[EntropyAvatar]

We don't have province mechanics on this level - nothing is built on the province level. The state does know if a Pop is in say, the city or the countryside, and we can potentially do things like splitting off the entire urban population into one state in a partition if that state contains the entire city, but we haven't really gone deeply into partition mechanics as of yet.

How does this interact with stability of building representations on the map? Like if I build an iron mine, and the game renders that in a certain province. Later that province is taken, but the original owner still has most of the "iron-mine-compatible" land. Does the iron mine go to the owner of the new smaller state or does the iron mine get drawn at a new location?

How are railroads and other buildings divided when a treaty port is formed?

 

[Tuskin38]

One of the picture captions mentioned that Pennsylvania contributed a star to the American Flag, so will the American Flag be dynamic like HOI4?

That was answered on Page 2, yes it is dynamic.

 

[Kondtok1]

Can only rubber, gold and oil be hidden? Other resources, such as iron, cannot be discovered in the future with more advanced technologies? This is strange. Many mineral resource, in theory, can be discovered in the future.

Written with the help of an online translator, my English is bad.

 

[Strager]

How is the Washington DC/Virginia/Maryland dynamic modeled under this? Historically, DC was formed from parts of both states and later some was ceded back to Virginia. Is it possible to merge territory from different state regions together or split a state ((Virginia/West Virginia split in 1863 and the Carolina split of 1712 (a little before the games timeframe) come to mind here)) into more than one?

 

[Valentin the II]

What is the logic for developing new urban centers in states with no previous urban centers (think Sibiria)? Can multiple urban centers develop in a state? How? I would assume 1 scenario is when it is split, but are there any others?

 

[ZircomSkull]

If for example Prussia gets bavarian rhineland, will bavaria be able to recover only the territory they lost or they will necessarally get the whole thing ? in other words are the split parts of a state scripted only to show up from the start (they desapear completly once someone has everything) or are they constant throughout the game ?

And will you be able to split it in a different way ? for exemple, a player as the netherlands carving the rhine would be the same as the previously mentioned bavaria ?

 

[Mythox]

the game is very promising !!! soo much details and sooo much options .... a complex game is a fun game !!! =)

 

[CharlieFox]

Unincorporated State: A state that is owned but only very lightly administered by the country, such as frontier states. Unincorporated states do not incur any bureaucracy costs but only pay certain taxes (such as Consumption Taxes), get no benefits from national Institutions and have reduced InfrastructureColonial State: A state that is considered to be an overseas colony. Works similarly to an Unincorporated State, but also gets increased immigration at the expense of even lower Infrastructure.

I am curious about unincorporated and colonial states.

What does it mean to have less infrastructure? Do colonial and incorporated states have an infrastructure cap (i.e you cannot build as many levels as an Incorporated state) ? Or is Infrastructure build on such states less eficient?
Also, are states on semi independent colonial subjects considered colonial states (e.g is Canada stuck with lower Infrastructure as long as it is a subject of UK? )?

 

[Nerdman3000]

Is there a possibility of forming a Incorporated State that historically was never formed? Like if I played the United States, can I form a state that almost existed but was never formed historically, like Jefferson, Franklin, or Deseret?

 

[Obeliskkai]

My question is this.

There are three types of state. Incorporated, unincorporated and colonial.

This implies there is to be a progression, that a given player will want to amass enough bureaucracy that they can incorporate all regions under their control.

With unincorporated regions this makes sense, they are areas that can become a part of your homeland given time and settlement (e.g. the Western US).

However, I am worried that I will be expected to run colonial states in the same way and ultimately end up with them as fully incorporated parts of the homeland.

I would prefer the option to set up fully fledged colonies if i control enough colonial states in a region as an alternative to ultimately incorporating them and handing those states over to that colonial administration to control on my behalf rather than treating far flung areas the same as my homeland states.

Are there different ways of interacting with colonial states, or is the expectation going to be get enough bureaucracy and then incorporate them?

 

[wisecat]

Nice Dev Diary, but we always want more information

1. Will it be possible to set separate taxation levels / incentives for states? For example lower income taxes to encourage industry development?
2. Will other state-specific laws be possible?
3. If buildings are built on State level - how will they split if part of state is conquered / occupied?
4. Will bridges be separate or special types/ units of infrastructure?
5. How will the rivers (their infra bonus) be split if different countries control different shores?
6. Will it be possible to build international bridges (or keep them after a state is split)? IRL a bridge across Rhine in Breisach benefits both France and Germany.
7. You have shown an icon representing "discoverable resources" - when does this icon becomes visible?
8. Will historic landmarks and natures' wonders be represented in game / on the map? Will they give any benefits to controller?
9. You have mentioned that state borders cannot be modded / changed ATM. What about great historical Canals? Or is creation of Suez / Panama canal zones special hard-coded cases?

 

[johns781]

We know what Pops are in which Buildings, we know where the different city hubs are in the state, and we can reasonably compute which province a given number of levels of a building might be in. What this means is that we can determine as-needed which Pop "might" be in which province. This is then used to determine which Pops, building levels, etc go where in case of a split.

This saves us from tracking the mostly-useless information of which Pop is in which province at any given time, which would bloat the game a lot, but still lets us approximate it as needed. Otherwise we'd have to, for example, split a single Peasant Pop of 1 million people into 50 Pops of 20,000 people each if those Peasants are equally spread across the state, even though by our game rules they could all pack up and take another job in the same state tomorrow.

How would this account for some individual provinces having different cultural makeups, for example Albanians in western Macedonia.

 

[EntropyAvatar]

I would prefer the option to set up fully fledged colonies if i control enough colonial states in a region as an alternative to ultimately incorporating them and handing those states over to that colonial administration to control on my behalf rather than treating far flung areas the same as my homeland states.

In the previous DD, there was a comment that Cuba is it's own nation with different slavery laws, in some kind of colonial subject relationship with Spain. So it seems what you are asking for is in the game. I think newly-acquired colonial state might eventually get incorporated or might turn into it's own nation depending on circumstances and player decisions.

 

[Alfred Dreyfus]

Perpignan will be part of a French State Region, or will be part of the Spanish State Region of Catalonia?

 

[RedRalphWiggum]

This could lead to some interesting anomalies - Belfast, for example, would universally be considered part of the Irish homeland in this era, yet the majority of its inhabitants considered themselves British. Similar situations could arise with Russia and Ukraine and Byelorussia

 

[Benjamintf1]

`All Pops living in the Capital State have increased political power.`

I know this is a continual source of confusion and frustration in paradox games. Specifically, things where the mechanically, a rule shouldn't apply, but the term for that rule has been historically used for a thing. With that said, historically speaking, DC has been the political capital of the us while also being famously disenfranchised. How will this be handled in vicky 3?

stuff about homelands and claims

Am I understanding correctly that claims have more international recognition and are easier to be revoked and homelands have more internal/revanchist effects whether or not they're recognized by the international community?

 

[dav77-b]

View attachment 758587

It’s Thursday again and that means it’s time for another Victoria 3 dev diary! Today’s dev diary is going to be a little bit different in that it will mostly be about collecting and further explaining the various mechanics that tie into States. There might not be a whole lot of new information here for people who have been closely following the development, but we feel it’s important to put all this information in the same place and clarify a few points.

So then, onto the topic of States. States, as we have previously touched on, are the main political-geographical unit of Victoria 3, where pops live and buildings are built. Before we proceed it will be useful to understand the difference between States and State Regions. A State is always controlled by a single country and its borders are dynamic (can change over the course of the game, including being created and destroyed), while State Regions can contain 1 or several States and have static borders (unchanging throughout the game). If a single country owns all provinces within a State Region, there is no practical difference between these concepts. But if more than one country owns provinces within a single State Region, they will each control individual States within it.

For example, the State Region of Rhineland is a predetermined set of provinces on the border of France that in 1836 contains two States: Prussian Rhineland (actually just called Rhineland because it contains more than half the land in the region) and Bavarian Rhineland (called Bavarian Rhineland to distinguish it from the Prussian parts), a concept that we call a Split State. Over the course of the game, which exact provinces make up the State Region of Rhineland will never change, but the States might. If France was to conquer the Prussian Rhineland, there would of course no longer be a Prussian Rhineland but a French Rhineland, and if Prussia were to conquer the Bavarian Rhineland, the entire State Region would be unified into a single Prussian State.

Political control of the State Region of Rajputana is split between numerous Indian Princes, none of which control enough of the region for their part to be considered Rajputana proper.
View attachment 758588​

In addition to political ownership, there are a number of conditions that can apply to a State that affects the local population and economy. First of all, there is something called Incorporation Status, representing a State’s political status within the country that owns it. The different Incorporation States are as follows:

• Incorporated State: A state that is a fully integrated political unit in the country. This state incurs full bureaucracy costs, pays all forms of taxes required by the government, and gets the benefit of all national Institutions.
• Unincorporated State: A state that is owned but only very lightly administered by the country, such as frontier states. Unincorporated states do not incur any bureaucracy costs but only pay certain taxes (such as Consumption Taxes), get no benefits from national Institutions and have reduced Infrastructure.
• Colonial State: A state that is considered to be an overseas colony. Works similarly to an Unincorporated State, but also gets increased immigration at the expense of even lower Infrastructure.

It is possible to Incorporate any Unincorporated/Colonial State as long as you have the Bureaucracy that would be needed to properly administer it, but this can be a rocky process - while the increased costs kick in immediately, the benefits (taxes, institutions and so on) are only gradually phased in over time. The time it takes depends on how easy it is for your country to integrate the local population - it would be a lot more difficult for Britain to incorporate an Indian state than it would be for them to incorporate the Falklands, for example.

Other conditions that can apply to a State include (not an exhaustive list):

• Capital State: The political capital of a country. All Pops living in the Capital State have increased political power.
• Market Capital: The economic capital of a country. Has increased Infrastructure and Migration Attraction.
• Turmoil: A State that has too many political radicals (as a percentage of population) will experience Turmoil. A State with Turmoil suffers penalties in the form of increased Tax Waste and reduced Migration Attraction. These penalties can be reduced by investing into the Police institution.

Pennsylvania is an Incorporated State, contributing both taxes and a star on the flag to the United States of America.
View attachment 758589​

States can also inherit certain conditions from their State Regions, including:

• State Traits: As explained in the Infrastructure dev diary, these represent a wide variety of geographical features that have an impact on the economy, infrastructure and/or population of the entire State Region.
• Claims: A State Region can be claimed by a country that does not currently own it but are broadly considered to have a legitimate reason to think that maybe they should. We’ll come back to this when talking about diplomacy and war.
• Homelands: Every Culture has one or more State Regions that most people in that Culture consider to be their natural homeland. This does not consider the views of anyone else outside that Culture (ie, the Swedes don’t get any say in which State Regions the Russians consider to be their homelands and vice versa), and has certain effects that we will go over in later dev diaries.

Guano was a central pillar of the Peruvian economy in the mid-19th century, and a war was even fought over control of the Chincha Islands between Spain and Peru (the icon for this particular State Trait is a placeholder)
View attachment 758590​

As mentioned all the way back in the dev diary about Buildings, States are limited in which Resource Industry Building Types they can support and how large these can get. For example, the degree of Iron deposits in a state limits how many levels of Iron Mine you can build there. These resource limits are actually a property of State Regions, which is dynamically allocated to the States in the region based on how large of a share the State holds.

It’s worth noting that this proportion isn’t just based on the raw number of provinces owned. As an example, potential for Fisheries are distributed according to the amount of coastline a State has in the State Region, while Arable Land land can be heavily weighted by the amount of Prime Land is in each State. While not applicable everywhere, Prime Land is something we use in states where there is a clear division between fertile and non-fertile land - control of the Nile should matter a lot more to a State in Upper Egypt’s Arable Land than control of the surrounding desert, for example.

It’s also possible for a State Region to contain Discoverable Resources. These are resources such as Oil, Gold or Rubber that are either not known about or not considered exploitable at the start of the game, but may be discovered and exploited at a later point. Certain technologies will affect both which resources can be discovered and the actual chance of said resource being discovered. All of this functions in a weighted random fashion, so while the chance of there being a Klondike gold rush at some point during the game is high, it probably won’t happen exactly at the same date it did historically.

There may or may not be gold in them hills!
View attachment 758592​

Alright then, that’s all for today! Next week we’ll be continuing on the topic of Politics as I explain how Migration works.

Can we have a configurable setting for things like resources spawns? (Historial, Historical random (default), Total random).

 

[Alfred Dreyfus]

There are some ways in which States can be partitioned, the main one we have in game right now is Treaty Ports but we're also considering the possibility of partitions along cultural lines.

Yes, please give the option to annex only provinces, based on culture, religion, cores, etc.

 

[Ololorium]

We know what Pops are in which Buildings, we know where the different city hubs are in the state, and we can reasonably compute which province a given number of levels of a building might be in. What this means is that we can determine as-needed which Pop "might" be in which province. This is then used to determine which Pops, building levels, etc go where in case of a split.

This saves us from tracking the mostly-useless information of which Pop is in which province at any given time, which would bloat the game a lot, but still lets us approximate it as needed. Otherwise we'd have to, for example, split a single Peasant Pop of 1 million people into 50 Pops of 20,000 people each if those Peasants are equally spread across the state, even though by our game rules they could all pack up and take another job in the same state tomorrow.

This system sounds OK, but...

we're also considering the possibility of partitions along cultural lines.

I can't understand how would splitting states along cultural lines work in that case. It could work somewhat if one culture is primarily holding urban jobs and the other is mostly rural, or if one culture Pops mostly work on fisheries and maritime industry, but in other cases I can't really imagine how that would work.