Victoria 3 - Dev Diary #6 - Interest Groups

[orko2020]

Would, say, a Hungarian Aristocrat still be disenfranchised under the Austrian Empire? Or would the upper classes of marginalized groups work a little differently?

 

[Vernichtere]

Would, say, a Hungarian Aristocrat still be disenfranchised under the Austrian Empire? Or would the upper classes of marginalized groups work a little differently?

I assume that it depends on it. The pops can be split. Some of the Hungarian aristocrats can be integrated, some cannot.

 

[MacRobert]

Love all of it so far, but how parliaments and governments are modelled will really sell me on this being better than the Vic2 party system. Can’t wait for the Laws DD!

 

[aantia]

Public Schools will provide more literacy/be more expensive but there are more side effects (like Devout attraction, IG approval, etc)

Please don't use the ridiculous Americanism of calling state schools public schools, though. It's incredibly confusing, on top of being anachronistic!

 

[Stein14]

Can the view of a leader of an IG also become part of the view of the IG and after his death (or whatever) remain part of the view of the IG? Or in other words, can the views of an IG change permanently?

 

[Anony1200]

One thing that'd be nice to see would be relationships between different groups. For example: Artisans (or what became of Artisans, anyway) in their presumed Luddite interest group would just automatically despise any Industrialists, the lower class might come to hate the Religious class (see: Mexico near the end of the period), the intelligentsia might start to hate the Working Class if they don't support their values, so on- but then, on the other hand, say, the commoners might grow to appreciate the Armed Forces more after a successful defensive war/a successful effort against an unpopular rebellion.

Then from there, they'd work against the opposing group (occasionally supporting laws that don't benefit them, or even hurt them a bit, as long as they help/hurt the other group more, for example), be more likely to support/oppose the other group's ideologies in the future, and, in certain situations, perhaps might take the streets not to fight the government, but specifically to fight the opposing ideology group members (luddite mobs, redshirt vs blackshirts in the interwar, etc).

Perhaps even there could be a "fear factor" going on that could change powerful groups' ideologies. If untold masses of the people (especially Armed Forces members!) come to hate a certain group, they would then be more likely to adopt popular positions or support certain reforms to try and keep their necks out of the stockade- especially if the government's support for them waned.

Not only would that be a good way to model relations between people in the country a bit better than just ideology support vs ideology support, it'd give the player a good way to see in some capacity how popular a government focused around a certain interest group would be, and probably help in the formation of political parties, with blocs coming together both in support of the groups they like and rejecting those they hate. It'd also mean, since conditions would be different, late-game politics would evolve fairly naturally in a distinct way, which'd be good for replays.

 

[Lorehead]

Please don't use the ridiculous Americanism of calling state schools public schools, though. It's incredibly confusing, on top of being anachronistic!

There’s nothing anachronistic about it. The term was in official use at the time, and well before, such as in the Western Land Ordinance of 1785. I’m sorry if you don’t want them to use any American English. I’m sure that’ll be moddable.

 

[8816boo]

1. How different will the desires of different IGs be from country to country? For example historically Southern aristocrats in the USA supported slavery, whereas British aristocrats generally did not (and vice versa with having a monarch). Can these change over time, for example would a monarchist USA eventually be able to create pro monarchist aristocrats?
2. Will we have the same interest groups regardless of government? For example will we still have the landowner IG in a communist country?

 

[wilcoxchar]

Please don't use the ridiculous Americanism of calling state schools public schools, though. It's incredibly confusing, on top of being anachronistic!

Public schools in the US are publicly owned and publicly funded. It's not Americans that use the term wrong.

 

[Tomray94]

Yea, I don't think the Pious group is really accurate. I think it plays into the whole "Religious people are anti-science" stereotype to a worrying degree. Hopefully none of the other ideologies are like that!

I second this. A better system would be:

Support: Religious Schools
Indifferent: Private Schools
Disapprove: Public Schools

or

Support: Religious
Indifferent: Public/Private
Disapprove: No Schools

It honestly astounds me because it is ahistorical and paradox probably has many people tasked with historical research for their games.

In the pre-enlightenment world, there were schools subsidized by the state, which would be handed over to the church when they could not be sustained economically, this functioned as a system of public/religious co-ownership in many ways, with a reduction of subsidies leading to private ownership and patronage as well, in certain cases. There were, also, private tutors and private schools of sort (not quite what we have today, but privately-owned regardless). This means that all forms of education here existed before 1836. The church did not seem to have that many objections to state or private education, at least in the countries I have researched (Republic of Venice and a small number of others). Private education would also mean that religious schools could operate through private funds, like many of them do now, so why would they object to either of these?

On another note, this option has never been some exclusionary choice during the timeframe of the game. By the end of the games timeframe, there were countries that had all three types of schooling, so shouldn't it be possible to choose more than one? This only makes some sense if we are talking about the predominant system, I still find it a bit lacking to be honest.

 

[SignedName]

In America at least, the Pious should actually be in favor of Public Schools. In fact, Religious Schools would be a matter of controversy among Pious Protestants in the Victorian Era, as they were largely maintained by Catholics for Catholic immigrant communities.

 

[Spartakusbund]

I second this. A better system would be:

Support: Religious Schools
Indifferent: Private Schools
Disapprove: Public Schools

or

Support: Religious
Indifferent: Public/Private
Disapprove: No Schools

It honestly astounds me because it is ahistorical and paradox probably has many people tasked with historical research for their games.

What’s ahistorical about it exactly? Debates over whether the church or state should have authority over schooling was common. Keep in mind, this is one particular ideology’s stance on the issues. Not all Clergy IGs will necessarily be Pious.

In the pre-enlightenment world, there were schools subsidized by the state, which would be handed over to the church when they could not be sustained economically, this functioned as a system of public/religious co-ownership in many ways, with a reduction of subsidies leading to private ownership and patronage as well, in certain cases. There were, also, private tutors and private schools of sort (not quite what we have today, but privately-owned regardless). This means that all forms of education here existed before 1836. The church did not seem to have that many objections to state or private education, at least in the countries I have researched (Republic of Venice and a small number of others). Private education would also mean that religious schools could operate through private funds, like many of them do now, so why would they object to either of these?

On another note, this option has never been some exclusionary choice during the timeframe of the game. By the end of the games timeframe, there were countries that had all three types of schooling, so shouldn't it be possible to choose more than one? This only makes some sense if we are talking about the predominant system, I still find it a bit lacking to be honest.

I assume you can read “Religious Schools” as “Only Religious Schools.”

 

[Spartakusbund]

In America at least, the Pious should actually be in favor of Public Schools. In fact, Religious Schools would be a matter of controversy among Pious Protestants in the Victorian Era, as they were largely maintained by Catholics for Catholic immigrant communities.

Not all Clergy IG (which will certainly have its own unique name in the US) will be Pious, though. But I agree, it would be nice for the complicating factor of non-primary religious POPs into the system. I made a reply about that earlier in this thread.

 

[Cora Giantkiller]

In America at least, the Pious should actually be in favor of Public Schools. In fact, Religious Schools would be a matter of controversy among Pious Protestants in the Victorian Era, as they were largely maintained by Catholics for Catholic immigrant communities.

This is a good argument in favor of a Catholic and a Protestant Pious interest group, at least in America.

 

[Tomray94]

What’s ahistorical about it exactly? Debates over whether the church or state should have authority over schooling was common. Keep in mind, this is one particular ideology’s stance on the issues. Not all Clergy IGs will necessarily be Pious.

I assume you can read “Religious Schools” as “Only Religious Schools.”

The reality of the pre-enlightenment age was a status quo where there were religious, state, and private schools co-existing, sometimes being both religious and private or religious and public. Were there discussions about who should shoulder the burden of education more? I am sure there were. The practical reality is not a monopoly of only one though and the game ought to reflect the reality of 1836 at game start.

As for your second point, can someone point me to a country where only religious schools existed? because that sounds absolutely unlikely to me, except for maybe some Islamic countries.

EDIT: this is an incredibly broad topic that differed from country to country, so the generalized discussion we have here is bound to miss some nuance, but I know for a fact that some countries had all three or two combined and that is all I can say with certainty.

 

[Lorehead]

Yea, I don't think the Pious group is really accurate. I think it plays into the whole "Religious people are anti-science" stereotype to a worrying degree. Hopefully none of the other ideologies are like that!

There was religious opposition to state schools in England during the period, but it wasn’t that. One way of looking at it, through the prism of “interest groups,” was that the Church of England wanted the government to fund instruction in the established state religion. However, members of other religions were opposed. This stymied efforts to create publicly-funded education for twenty or thirty years, until an electoral reform in 1867 increased the representation of the lower classes, who were more likely than the upper classes to be Catholic or Nonconformist. This enabled a new Liberal government to pass the Elementary Education Act 1870, which introduced state schools with non-denominational Christian religious education.

 

[LordLoko]

"Confucian" as ideology? Considering how often it's been put down as a religion, that's an interesting development. Or is this just broadening the "ideology" to what is commonly also considered religion? Like, would russian church have "orthodox christianity" as their "ideology"? And this also implies that there's more granularity to ideology than V2's application of reactionary-conservative-liberal-socialist-communist to pretty much everything, which is kinda nice.

You really want to open the can of worms if Confucionism is considered a religion, philosophy, thought system or whatever?

 

[Tomray94]

if I had to suggest a system to model schooling more accurately, I would say the devs should remove religious schooling from the list and either:

1) Add a different category for "religion in schools", where someone can choose religious, secular, and strictly atheist (with secular being the ability for both types of schooling to exist)
2) Make the religious aspect of schooling governed by the attitude of the country towards religion. State religion would mean implicitly religious education in all schools (or all state schools), Religious Pluralism would mean all religions present would be taught, and Secularism/State Atheism could mean strictly non-religious/anti-religious education.

 

[Spartakusbund]

The reality of the pre-enlightenment age was a status quo where there were religious, state, and private schools co-existing, sometimes being both religious and private or religious and public. Were there discussions about who should shoulder the burden of education more? I am sure there were. The practical reality is not a monopoly of only one though and the game ought to reflect the reality of 1836 at game start.

As for your second point, can someone point me to a country where only religious schools existed? because that sounds absolutely unlikely to me, except for maybe some Islamic countries.

EDIT: this is an incredibly broad topic that differed from country to country, so the generalized discussion we have here is bound to miss some nuance, but I know for a fact that some countries had all three or two combined and that is all I can say with certainty.

I agree with you that reality is more nuanced than can be encapsulated in three discrete categories (None, Religious, and Public, assuming those are the only three options (safe bet they aren't)). But it's a videogame. It needs to make abstractions.

And debate over the degree to which religious institutions should be in charge of education was a huge debate in the 19th century.

 

[brycecon]

As much as i love these dev diaries, i am starting to realise that the reason for them is that Paradox have literally nothing else to throw to the masses, yet the release for this game is a long, long, long way in the future.