Victoria 3 - Dev Diary #33 - Decentralized Nations

[Ofaloaf]

Goodness, there's a lot to reply to!

We know that if you click on another centralised nation in V3, you get an information panel showing the leader, government, population etc. Will it be the same for decentralised nations?

Yes! You can click on a decentralized nation and get further information on population statistics, government, and so forth.

Very nice DD and an extremely promising development.

As always - questions:
1. What about places that genuinly had zero or almost zero population before some developed country claimed them (its mostly small islands in Pacific, but they can be valuable basing points for navies)?

2. Can you "absorb" a non-centralized nation without colonizing, through diplomatic plays? For example if US completely surrounds Sioux Nation territory and includes them into their market - will there be an option for a peaceful annexation or maybe protectorate?

3. Likewise - will decentralized nations be able to start any diplomacy besides anti-colonial uprisings? It would be especially interesting if they could ask for protectorate/colony status from other nations - for example the same Sioux feel threatened by USA, but have better relationship with Canada - could they ask Canada to become their protectorate/colony?

4. Can a developed nation foment uprisings in colonial territories of another nation? Without this the "Great Game" would largely be impossible to simulate.

1. We ended up just associating those islands with the closest nearby inhabited islands, so several Polynesian realms are more widespread than is properly historical.

2. No, the Sioux will not willingly surrender autonomy no matter how many goods the United States send their way.

3. No, part of what makes a decentralized nation functionally different from a centralized one is the lack of an active foreign policy, or much of any organized and directed policies. The Nyamwezi of East Africa do not exchange ambassadors with Oman, and the Pawnee are not centralized enough for any protectorate to stick. If you go through the records of treaties arranged between the US and various native nations, many of them have notes like "Part of the tribe refused to be governed by this act and it had to be repealed later", because there isn't a central authority that can make these things stick.

4. Any pops in a country can be agitated through internal mechanics we've discussed in other DDs, like turmoil, standard of living, and the like. Generally speaking, though, we don't intend to have a system at release for directly influencing the pops of other countries, whether they live in a decentralized nation or a centralized state.

Will the Seminole be represented as a centralized country who start at war with the US, or will they be a decentralized country in the process of being colonized, with an active native revolt? There could be arguments either way, but I do think they ought to be represented in some way at least.

The Seminole is something I've personally angsted over and flip-flopped on repeatedly. At the moment, the Seminole are not in as a decentralized nation, but if a good design gets hashed out I hope we'll have a chance to implement the Seminole on the map prior to release.

Do decentralized nations ever become centralized if left alone or if they successfully drive off colonial powers? If they win against a colonizer do they just fall back into their decentralized ignorance or do they try to actively prepare for the next potential colonizer in some way, even if not through centralizing?

This might be a bit too much of a lift for it to be included at release but I’d love to eventually see something along these lines.

Decentralized nations will not be centralizing on their own at release.

Do decentralized nations get flags? Historical or generated?

Historical flags can be scripted, but I believe nearly all of them are generated at this point. It's hard to get something that works and fits the period- there's not even a modern-day flag for the Fang people, for example.

How will New Zealand be represented at game start? Will iwi be represented as numerous decentralised nations?

The iwi have been consolidated largely into the Ngai Tahu and Ngati Toa, those two being the two most prominent iwi at the end of the Musket Wars as I understand it. North Island, moreover, also has the United Tribes and some colonization by New South Wales- an image was shared on Twitter earlier this week of the setup, and I noticed a lot of people assumed the NSW bit was directly British-controlled because it's a British puppet and takes on its color because of that.

 

[Ofaloaf]

Lots of questions about decentralized nations becoming centralized I see, but I'm curious about the reverse: can a centralized nation become decentralized? How would you go about doing that, if so?

No, there's no way for a centralized nation to become decentralized.

This has been my biggest complaint about the EUIV colonial system, so good job fixing this before it became an issue. How exactly do the mechanics of colonizing work though? That wasn't explained well in the previous Dev Diary, and we learn now that there will be no regions of the world that start uncontrolled. If I am playing as the US, do I just select a state region that still has decentralized nations in control of part of it, then push a button to start the colony? Is a colony ever considered "finished" and stop taking up part of the colonial resources, or do all unincorporated states take up a permanent part of your colonial pool, unless they become incorporated?

Colonization is done on a state-by-state basis. It's started with a fairly straightforward process like you describe, but as colonization progresses, so does tension, so the more of a state region is colonized, the more likely it is that it'll blow up and decentralized nations will fight directly against the colonizer. Depending on the circumstances, this is either a speedbump or a serious challenge. If a country's at peace and doing just fine, a war against a single decentralized nation is no major hurdle, but I've seen games where the US continued to intrude into Native American territory even while at war with the British, resulting in a Sioux uprising succeeding, regaining the lands lost to the US in earlier colonization.

There's no real "colonial" pool- unincorporated provinces just eat up more bureaucracy, from the same bureaucratic pool that other things draw from for their own maintenance.

That's because there is no developer post outside of the op yet.

I was celebrating a friend's birthday after work yesterday.

What about great powers? Can we use this mechanic on decentralized great power provinces like Ottoman Algeria?

The Ottomans aren't decentralized, even if they fail the Sick Man of Europe content we've written. They're more liable to be subject to very direct forms of imperialism, but not colonization in the same way decentralized nations experience it.

Thanks very much for your response. Understand that NZ's a pretty minor part of the map, but the iwi names Ngāi Tahu and Ngāti Toa really do need a macron over the a; they're different letters, are pronounced differently, and significantly change the meaning of the word in Te Reo.

So noted! Not punching in a fix immediately right now just because of work priorities, but with the next opportunity to punch in some fixes I'll make sure this gets addressed then.

 

[Ofaloaf]

If the decentralized nation cannot be "centralized" by the player, how will they be able to survive, especially considering that the great powers will get more and more advantage with military and administrative development as time passes?

Decentralized nations can't also be played by the player, so that particular challenge is not currently a major design consideration.

Could we get some clarification on this - Will already colonized areas with large Native populations be able to revolt and gain independence if the circumstances are right? For example those other Sioux lands, or the other Cree lands in Canada?

They're still pops, and pops do pop things like revolt. On a pop-by-pop basis, there is no mechanical difference between a pop that is culturally Comanche and a pop that is culturally Polish. In the same way that a Polish pop, if it is sufficiently angry and part of a non-Polish realm, may support a Polish nationalist uprising, a Comanche pop might also revolt if it's sufficiently angry.