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Victoria 3 - Dev Diary #34 - Canals & Monuments

16_9.jpg

Good evening and welcome to this week’s Victoria 3 development diary! Today’s topic is Canals & Monuments, unique buildings with special inputs, outputs, and effects.

The Vatican City is the seat of the Catholic Church and a great asset to the Papal States in Victoria 3. As Europe developed and industrialized, the power of religious authority in national politics declined steeply but never lost its relevance. Can you change the course of history and renew the temporal power of the Pope?
DD34 01.png

Monuments are unique buildings only available in specific states, each with its own 3D model on the map. They make use of some of the more interesting aspects of the production methods system; just as buildings can output Goods, they can also output both national and local modifiers, Capacities, and effects on the pops working there. The Vatican City for instance outputs the Influence capacity as well as greatly increasing the political strength of the Devout Interest Group. Meanwhile the White House adds a multiplier to your national Bureaucracy output as well as increasing the amount of political strength Pops gain from votes. Not all Monuments are present at the start date. Some, like the Eiffel Tower, must be constructed, and Monuments are significantly more costly and time-consuming to construct than standard buildings. Monuments are subsidized by government funding, so if you decide that a Monument is unaffordable or that you aren’t interested in its effects (for instance if you as communist Italy no longer want to Church to wield so much power) you can simply defund them. On release we intend to have eleven different Monuments in total.

The Panama Canal links the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Finally completed in 1914 after decades of planning and construction, ships no longer had to take the long and treacherous route around South America to travel between the East and West. Yes, we can see the trees and houses in the Canal - we’ll fix it!
DD34 02.png

Like Monuments, Canals are unique buildings with a special set of inputs and outputs. But the true allure of constructing a Canal is that it allows you to create new connections between sea nodes, allowing ships to travel through the isthmuses of Panama and Suez. This significantly reduces the Convoy costs for trading and supplying armies across vast ocean distances, as well as your vulnerability to unscrupulous rivals trying to disrupt your supply lines.

We use the Journal Entry system to track the progress of your canal survey. Behind the scenes a variable is increased every month until the goal is reached, which triggers the completion event. The Journal Entry also acts as a reminder that you are spending a lot of Bureaucracy on this project, and that it will eventually be made available again once the survey is complete.
DD34 03.png

Constructing a Canal is far from trivial. Before any work can begin, an extensive survey of the region needs to be conducted, costing a hefty chunk of Bureaucracy for the surveyor for around 3 years. Either the owner of the state or a Great Power with an Interest in the region can conduct a survey. Any number of countries can potentially conduct their own surveys and compete to build the Canal themselves.

We’ve made the conscious decision to avoid starting wars or Diplomatic Plays through scripted content wherever possible, instead offering incentives for the player to start their own Plays and encouraging the AI to pursue Journal Entry goals. In this case, the player has the option to either gain a Claim on Sinai or to improve relations with the owner country, helping you along your chosen path but not locking you into a particular course of action.
DD34 04.png

Once you’ve completed your survey, the path diverges depending on whether you own the appropriate land. If you already own either a Treaty Port or the whole state region you can simply begin constructing the canal, but if not you’ll need to find a way to acquire it, either through monetary or coercive means. A Decision becomes available allowing you to purchase a Treaty Port in the appropriate State Region in exchange for a series of very large weekly payments, assuming you can convince the local rulers to part with the port. You might however decide that you’d rather keep your money and start a Diplomatic Play for a Treaty Port or the entire State Region (the former will cost you a lot less Infamy), which might lead either to a peaceful concession to your demands or to war.

And that’s all for today! Next week I’ll be handing you over to one of our Content Designers to talk about Expeditions and Decisions.
 
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This comment is reserved by the Community Team for gathering Dev Responses in, for ease of reading.

InvisibleBison said:
So monuments are going to have EU4-style magical effects. That's very disappointing. Hopefully we'll be able to mod them out.
Monuments work exactly the same way other buildings do, including employing Pops to produce their effects. They just happen to be unique. But just like other buildings, you can of course mod them (including out) to your heart's content.

MrMineHeads said:
Will we be able to see ships cross the canals?
Yes!

magriboy0750 said:
Good evening,great dd,however, i have a question:
How moddable monuments,their production methods,effects,modifiers and so on will be?
Thanks for any replies about this.
Exactly as moddable as any other building, which is extremely moddable!

InvisibleBison said:
The problem is with the national-scale effects, which don't seem to have any connection to the pops working at the building as far as I can tell. There doesn't seem to be any reason why owning and maintaining the building would cause the effect that it has. Why would the Ottoman Empire conquering Rome make the government more inclined to listen to the Devout IG? Why would the White House burning down make the entire federal bureaucracy permanently become significantly less efficient, or change how political power is distributed in the country? That's the sort of thing I was referring to as "magical effects". Victoria 3 is supposed to be about simulating society, and these sort of causeless changes strike me as being incompatible with that goal.
Great point! You're right that some of the current effects of monument-type buildings are perhaps unsuitable for the game's theme. As usual the exact numbers are WIP and we definitely appreciate the feedback. I hear you on the White House's national Bureaucracy multiplier for example - will rework this into a larger bonus to local Government Administration buildings instead.

On the other hand, some monument buildings ought to have national effects, as symbols of the nation's accomplishments or identity - the Eiffel Tower or the Hagia Sophia are good examples of these. And if the Ottoman Empire conquers Rome and don't want their Devout IG to gain additional political strength from having taken control of the Vatican, they (or anyone who controls it) can certainly burn it to the ground. It is just a building, and follow all the normal building rules. Monuments don't have any special powers to affect the country in non-immersive, "magical" seeming ways - if they do, we may have made a mistake, and mistakes can be easily fixed. :)

DanielPrates said:
@lachek I see you went with the same system as EU4 where monuments are all historic and predefined to their specific nations and places.

So, generic monuments anyone can build are out of question, outside of mods? Couldn't there be at least five or so so that any nation could havr a shot at having their own?
There are a many reasons for this:
  • Monuments are positioned manually on the map to ensure they fit into the landscape and city hubs. It would be virtually impossible to ensure the Statue of Liberty seamlessly meshes with every coastline unless we painstakingly went through every single coastal state and experimented with its placement there. This means doing this for all states (currently over 700) for all monuments in the game (currently 11) to ensure we place every single monument in the game in a unique position.
  • Many of these monuments are already in place at the start of the game. Nevertheless, if we did have a system where you could build the Eiffel Tower anywhere, then we ought to also have a system where you could build Vatican City somewhere else if you razed it. This means that for consistency we ought to be manually positioning the Vatican City in every single state even though it's unlikely to ever be built elsewhere.
  • Should countries be allowed to build duplicates? After all, if the White House gives such a sweet bonus then shouldn't France or China be able to build the White House too? At that point these buildings become not really special in any way - the White House becomes just a "Bureaucracy Multiplier Palace", the Eiffel Tower just a "Prestige Tower", etc.
  • Some of these monuments are ancient, like Angkor Wat, and are special for this very reason. While you might be able to destroy these in-game, the idea of rebuilding them just doesn't make sense. The idea of another country rebuilding them in another place doubly doesn't make sense.
As should be clear from the above, making monuments generic and buildable by anyone would not only take inordinate time and effort for the development team compared to what it adds to the game, but also cause them to lose a lot of their unique appeal and introduces many strange exception cases that also has to be dealt with. This means we were left with two options: historical monuments in predefined places, or no monuments in any places. We felt it would be a missed opportunity to not acknowledge the enormous feats of engineering countries often engaged in for prestige during this era, so we went with door number one.

Oglesby said:
Monuments feel like the "great people" of buildings and I thought that we were trying to stay away from a great-people history simulation.
As I see it, the trick with both monuments and characters is to sprinkle them into the gameplay for flavor and historical immersion, without making them so central and important mechanically that they start to dominate. Because yes you're right, we want to tell the story of the many social and economic forces that shaped our modern world, not about how some particular genius statesman or destined nation made the world their oyster. But it'd be a poor decision, I think, to leave them out of the game altogether!

Regarding Vatican City and how it grants additional power to the clergy regardless of state religion, it's mainly a result of the fact that we can't trigger a Production Method on religion - it's not a Law, or a Tech, or another Production Method. If time permits we might add that functionality, which would then easily let us change the behavior of Vatican City depending on the state religion of the controlling country.

$ilent_$trider said:
Also, can we get confirmation if owners of canals can restrict access to other nations?
It's functionality we do want to add, but haven't yet, so it's not something I can promise at release. There's a small bundle of potential mechanics oriented around control of narrow naval passages I'd like to explore, so I don't want to prioritize shoehorning in special mechanics only for canals that will rarely have an impact if we can create something more coherent and universally applicable instead.
 
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Good evening,great dd,however, i have a question:
How moddable monuments,their production methods,effects,modifiers and so on will be?
Thanks for any replies about this.
 
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Historically (to my understanding/vague memory), the Panama Canal wasn't the first choice for a Canal in Central America, with one through Nicaragua being considered before political circumstances made it unfeasible. Will it be possible to build the Nicaragua Canal instead of the Panama one?
 
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Good evening and welcome to this week’s Victoria 3 development diary! Today’s topic is Canals & Monuments, unique buildings with special inputs, outputs, and effects.

The Vatican City is the seat of the Catholic Church and a great asset to the Papal States in Victoria 3. As Europe developed and industrialized, the power of religious authority in national politics declined steeply but never lost its relevance. Can you change the course of history and renew the temporal power of the Pope?
View attachment 808266
Monuments are unique buildings only available in specific states, each with its own 3D model on the map. They make use of some of the more interesting aspects of the production methods system; just as buildings can output Goods, they can also output both national and local modifiers, Capacities, and effects on the pops working there. The Vatican City for instance outputs the Influence capacity as well as greatly increasing the political strength of the Devout Interest Group. Meanwhile the White House adds a multiplier to your national Bureaucracy output as well as increasing the amount of political strength Pops gain from votes. Not all Monuments are present at the start date. Some, like the Eiffel Tower, must be constructed, and Monuments are significantly more costly and time-consuming to construct than standard buildings. Monuments are subsidized by government funding, so if you decide that a Monument is unaffordable or that you aren’t interested in its effects (for instance if you as communist Italy no longer want to Church to wield so much power) you can simply defund them. On release we intend to have eleven different Monuments in total.

The Panama Canal links the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Finally completed in 1914 after decades of planning and construction, ships no longer had to take the long and treacherous route around South America to travel between the East and West. Yes, we can see the trees and houses in the Canal - we’ll fix it!
View attachment 808267
Like Monuments, Canals are unique buildings with a special set of inputs and outputs. But the true allure of constructing a Canal is that it allows you to create new connections between sea nodes, allowing ships to travel through the isthmuses of Panama and Suez. This significantly reduces the Convoy costs for trading and supplying armies across vast ocean distances, as well as your vulnerability to unscrupulous rivals trying to disrupt your supply lines.

We use the Journal Entry system to track the progress of your canal survey. Behind the scenes a variable is increased every month until the goal is reached, which triggers the completion event. The Journal Entry also acts as a reminder that you are spending a lot of Bureaucracy on this project, and that it will eventually be made available again once the survey is complete.
View attachment 808268
Constructing a Canal is far from trivial. Before any work can begin, an extensive survey of the region needs to be conducted, costing a hefty chunk of Bureaucracy for the surveyor for around 3 years. Either the owner of the state or a Great Power with an Interest in the region can conduct a survey. Any number of countries can potentially conduct their own surveys and compete to build the Canal themselves.

We’ve made the conscious decision to avoid starting wars or Diplomatic Plays through scripted content wherever possible, instead offering incentives for the player to start their own Plays and encouraging the AI to pursue Journal Entry goals. In this case, the player has the option to either gain a Claim on Sinai or to improve relations with the owner country, helping you along your chosen path but not locking you into a particular course of action.
View attachment 808269
Once you’ve completed your survey, the path diverges depending on whether you own the appropriate land. If you already own either a Treaty Port or the whole state region you can simply begin constructing the canal, but if not you’ll need to find a way to acquire it, either through monetary or coercive means. A Decision becomes available allowing you to purchase a Treaty Port in the appropriate State Region in exchange for a series of very large weekly payments, assuming you can convince the local rulers to part with the port. You might however decide that you’d rather keep your money and start a Diplomatic Play for a Treaty Port or the entire State Region (the former will cost you a lot less Infamy), which might lead either to a peaceful concession to your demands or to war.

And that’s all for today! Next week I’ll be handing you over to one of our Content Designers to talk about Expeditions and Decisions.

Can a canal have many co owners with different amount of shares?

Also, what exactly does a claim do?
 
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I assume modders will be able to create new monuments and canals, but will it be feasible to create new models for them? Edit to clarify: If you're able to divulge such information, what kinds of file types are we going to be talking about?
 
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It's nice to see that building canals will be more involved than EU4; it's especially nice to see that questions of sovereignty and control over canal provinces is a bit more nuanced than "own or have a puppet own it"!

That being said, I hope that the number of monuments is expanded at some point. There are tons of holy sites like Borobodur and the Shrine of Ife, for example, and places like the Zocalo or Haussmann's parks which represent the possibilities of state-overseen civil society.

Also, are you considering making whole cities into monuments? For cultural or economic hubs such as Venice or Kyoto I can definitely see the city itself becoming a symbol of culture and development.
 
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Good evening and welcome to this week’s Victoria 3 development diary! Today’s topic is Canals & Monuments, unique buildings with special inputs, outputs, and effects.

The Vatican City is the seat of the Catholic Church and a great asset to the Papal States in Victoria 3. As Europe developed and industrialized, the power of religious authority in national politics declined steeply but never lost its relevance. Can you change the course of history and renew the temporal power of the Pope?
View attachment 808266
Monuments are unique buildings only available in specific states, each with its own 3D model on the map. They make use of some of the more interesting aspects of the production methods system; just as buildings can output Goods, they can also output both national and local modifiers, Capacities, and effects on the pops working there. The Vatican City for instance outputs the Influence capacity as well as greatly increasing the political strength of the Devout Interest Group. Meanwhile the White House adds a multiplier to your national Bureaucracy output as well as increasing the amount of political strength Pops gain from votes. Not all Monuments are present at the start date. Some, like the Eiffel Tower, must be constructed, and Monuments are significantly more costly and time-consuming to construct than standard buildings. Monuments are subsidized by government funding, so if you decide that a Monument is unaffordable or that you aren’t interested in its effects (for instance if you as communist Italy no longer want to Church to wield so much power) you can simply defund them. On release we intend to have eleven different Monuments in total.

The Panama Canal links the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Finally completed in 1914 after decades of planning and construction, ships no longer had to take the long and treacherous route around South America to travel between the East and West. Yes, we can see the trees and houses in the Canal - we’ll fix it!
View attachment 808267
Like Monuments, Canals are unique buildings with a special set of inputs and outputs. But the true allure of constructing a Canal is that it allows you to create new connections between sea nodes, allowing ships to travel through the isthmuses of Panama and Suez. This significantly reduces the Convoy costs for trading and supplying armies across vast ocean distances, as well as your vulnerability to unscrupulous rivals trying to disrupt your supply lines.

We use the Journal Entry system to track the progress of your canal survey. Behind the scenes a variable is increased every month until the goal is reached, which triggers the completion event. The Journal Entry also acts as a reminder that you are spending a lot of Bureaucracy on this project, and that it will eventually be made available again once the survey is complete.
View attachment 808268
Constructing a Canal is far from trivial. Before any work can begin, an extensive survey of the region needs to be conducted, costing a hefty chunk of Bureaucracy for the surveyor for around 3 years. Either the owner of the state or a Great Power with an Interest in the region can conduct a survey. Any number of countries can potentially conduct their own surveys and compete to build the Canal themselves.

We’ve made the conscious decision to avoid starting wars or Diplomatic Plays through scripted content wherever possible, instead offering incentives for the player to start their own Plays and encouraging the AI to pursue Journal Entry goals. In this case, the player has the option to either gain a Claim on Sinai or to improve relations with the owner country, helping you along your chosen path but not locking you into a particular course of action.
View attachment 808269
Once you’ve completed your survey, the path diverges depending on whether you own the appropriate land. If you already own either a Treaty Port or the whole state region you can simply begin constructing the canal, but if not you’ll need to find a way to acquire it, either through monetary or coercive means. A Decision becomes available allowing you to purchase a Treaty Port in the appropriate State Region in exchange for a series of very large weekly payments, assuming you can convince the local rulers to part with the port. You might however decide that you’d rather keep your money and start a Diplomatic Play for a Treaty Port or the entire State Region (the former will cost you a lot less Infamy), which might lead either to a peaceful concession to your demands or to war.

And that’s all for today! Next week I’ll be handing you over to one of our Content Designers to talk about Expeditions and Decisions.
Nice to see these! But crucial question remains: will it be possible to CLOSE the canal for specific nation, a nation that you or your ally are at war with?
 
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Is it possible for a country to try to interfere with a GP that is surveying their land, or does the ability to resist only come up afterwards? Also, what happens if the treaty port is lost midway through construction? Could the country it is in pick up where the GP left off and continue the canal, or could a different GP, or would they need to start from scratch? Also, would they need to do their own surveys? (And relatedly, would the completion of a survey prevent any competitors from finishing their own surveys?)
 
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If you include mount rushmore you should give the U.S player the ability to choose their own presidents such as A.I generated presidents that were elected throughout a players playthrough. Might be a bit ambitious but nice flavor.
 
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Are monuments tied to nations, states or both?

For example, if the US lost Washington DC (or even moved their capital voluntarily), would they still be able to build the white house somewhere else? And if it can only be built in Washington DC, would whatever country conquered the state be able to build it there? Would they need to meet certain criteria?
 
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The canals look good, but I have some concerns about monuments; it seems like the things they model would be better represented as political institutions rather than monumental buildings. The Vatican for instance is reflective of the Catholic Church and its bureaucracy regardless of whether they're in Rome or, say Avignon. Likewise it seems rather farcical that a Protestant or Muslim power could conquer Rome and get the same benefits from the city, same goes for the White House.
 
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Love it very great. Thanks.

But 11 monuments seem a bit to few. We need more monuments, please double, then you have a quarter of what we would prefer
 
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So monuments are going to have EU4-style magical effects. That's very disappointing. Hopefully we'll be able to mod them out.
Monuments work exactly the same way other buildings do, including employing Pops to produce their effects. They just happen to be unique. But just like other buildings, you can of course mod them (including out) to your heart's content.
 
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Is it possible to restrict usage of Canals for someone? If not, the mechanics is a little flawed. Let's say I'm Egypt and I hate Italy, having my own designs for Horn of Africa once I modernize. But building Suez Canal, if I can't close it for them, gives my rival equal favour - access of their mediterranean ports to red sea. Very upsetting if true.
Also, is joint ownership of Canal possible? Like, Germans ask Egypt to build Canal, Egypt likes them and want to agree but without losing land?
 
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