• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

Victoria 3 - Dev Diary #69 - Feature Game Jam (part 1)

16_9.jpg


Hello again and happy Thursday! Today I'm going to tell you about a new dev team initiative we ran last week, after we had locked down the final 1.1 build - the Vicky 3 Feature Game Jam!

We know from experience that some of the best features and aspects of our games come from passionate developers acting on their own initiative to build what they want to see in the game. Sometimes this is a high-impact tweak to some UI element, other times new game content like new events or building types, or even some under-the-hood improvement to the game engine. For the Game Jam, we challenged devs to join up into cross-disciplinary teams and make the coolest feature they could think of in a week's time, with prizes for the team that could make the highest impact on the game. Here are some of the things they came up with!

Please note: only a few of these features will be included in 1.2, and there are no guarantees any of them will ever make it into the game or its future expansions. Some are cool prototypes that would take too much work to implement, while others may need a lot more supporting code or content to work as a standalone feature. Consider this a peek behind the curtain of what our team is experimenting with and what type of things might come in the future.

First up, we have team War Never Changes, with a set of experimental enhancements to the military system!

-----------

Hi, I’m Guilherme, one of the programmers! During this game jam, Nik - one of the designers - and I decided to team up to explore potential improvements for our military system. Because of that, we haven’t implemented many new things, but we did dig up things that could be potentially improved. For example:
  • Combat units on a front each have a 20% chance of suffering 5% - 15% casualties from attrition each week, an average of 2% casualties per week from attrition alone. This sounds like too much.
  • Generals are currently selected for battles mainly based on their total number of battalions. We should probably check their manpower and morale instead, and/or maybe their traits.

On the actual implementation side of things, we did a few things we thought would be fun to try out. Such as having simultaneous battles in a front:

DD69_1.png

As a game jam hack, I just made it so when battle advancement progress reaches 100% we spawn up to 2 battles in different states, as long as you have at least 2 advancing generals. This is funny and a bit chaotic, but turns out this might introduce other issues as it affects the rhythm of war and also gives the advancing side some advantage: if they win one of those battles they capture a bunch of provinces; if the defending side wins one of those, welp, they just won’t lose a bunch of provinces.

We also added the ability of locking province captures to the same state as the battle province, which again, is fun as it looks more like a well planned military invasion, but currently has the effect of capturing whole states most of the time.

DD69_2.png

All in all, I really appreciate how this game jam gave us the opportunity to explore all sorts of potential improvements for Vicky 3. We certainly can improve many things, but we need to be very careful as our systems are interconnected and small changes in one system can have a big impact in other parts.

-----------

Hello, my name is Nik and I am the second half of this Game Jam experiment. As stated above I am a designer on the team. My goal going into this Game Jam was to see what quality of life could be added/explored for the game without needing to rework many systems. Primary goals I had going into this week were:
  • Communicate information to the player more readily
  • Reduce some of the pain points that frustrate myself and other player
    • War Exhaustion ticking
    • Attrition
    • Equipment Modifiers
    • Generals and Troops selected for Battles

As stated above by Guilherme, one of the primary goals of this was to experiment with the idea of multiple battles. I personally wanted to experiment with the idea that the length of the front would determine the amount of battles taking place across it and that battles should be spread out and only take place one per state to attempt to avoid player frustration of battles potentially canceling each other out.

Another goal was to attempt to increase the information that the player could easily see. First goal was to include the advancement bar of the opposing side to the Front tab so it can be seen there as well.

DD69_3.png

Additionally, I wanted the player to have more information on the battle screen. For this we added a demoralized count for units. We noticed it might be confusing for the player to see that they started a battle with 15k troops only to see that they have lost the battle, but only showed that 3k died and 6k were wounded, but at the end of the battle it shows that you have 0 troops remaining.

DD69_4.png

I wanted to look at the ticking of war exhaustion as I felt like losing one province could sometimes have a massive impact on the effect of the war exhaustion. There is a lot I would like to do with this system in the future, but for now I focused mainly on lowering the values of these numbers while increasing the impact the loss of men has on a country's war exhaustion.

The equipment Adjustment Modifier can be irritating at times, and added to prevent people from just turning their army on and off again, without penalties. I have now made it so the penalty is worse for the primary PM, but all other PMs will now have a smaller one, that will affect you as a whole but should not inflict as much pain as before when switching.

Another area I wanted to improve was which generals and troops were selected for certain battles. Often inferior allied troops and their generals would take the battle and tie the front down. There are now additional checks to increase the chances of a General being picked based on his traits, as well as the PMs of the troops under his command.

-----------

The changes this team made to various aspects of warfare will be made available in 1.2, but (likely) with multiple battles limited to single states turned off by default. If you'd like to experiment with multiple battles and/or state-limited battles you'll easily be able to change some defines in the script files to do so, or download a mod that does it for you. In the interim we will use this team's work to test and attempt to balance multiple battles per front to see if we can make it a viable feature for the future, without accidentally introducing game-destroying metas like "whoever has the most generals win".

Next up, team Cookie Clicker, consisting of our VFX artist, Sean. His addition adds visual effects when you interact with certain parts of the terrain:

DD69_5_FULL.gif

Improving the interactivity of our map is something we're interested in exploring further, and we will use this as a prototype for future exploration in this area!

Next up was some prototype work on more advanced resource potentials:

-----------

Hello everyone, Paul here to talk about the project I was working on for the Vicky 3 Feature Game Jam. This project was titled “Breaking Ground” because it's both related to resources and is an exploratory prototype of what could be done in the future. I took the discoverable/depletable resource system that we utilize for resources like Oil/Rubber/Gold and attempted to apply them to Logging/Mining/Fishing and other normally “capped resources” in game.

Forestry is by far the most fleshed out of the prototypes I built this week, so we will talk about that one. The intention is that forests of the world are all accessible at game start (there is no hidden undiscovered resource) but can suffer from depletion, in this case deforestation.

Deforestation is dependent upon a few things, the higher techs you utilize for base production increase the chance of the resource to be depleted. If it is depleted the logging camp is replaced with a “clear cut" building which can still produce lumber but at a heavily reduced rate. There is also the intent of adding where this mechanic can be utilized to better represent natural and man-made disasters which have affected resource procurement.

Deforestation is shown by clearcut camps which produce resources at a greatly reduced rate
DD69_6.png

Now why a separate building instead of a modifier? Well it's a prototype and the system lends itself well to that, since it's what we do with gold fields to gold mines. A different building is also a clearer indication to the player of these events (as opposed to a modifier on the building itself), it also makes it where production methods are available, and the profit calculations are different so that you more easily see the employment changes. Lumber Camps will also have new production methods to manage their extraction, decreasing depletion chances at the cost of throughput, while depleted camps have the ability to enable conservation efforts to try and mitigate the loss of resources that have already occurred.

An example of resource management a player can enact to prevent deforestation, or embrace it for much needed throughput bonuses
DD69_7.png

On a personal level, I think it adds to the mindset of the time. What do I care about 2 levels of deforestation and their inability to produce? I have 40+ levels of lumber left, this is the price of progress! Seeing the rate of balance between the two buildings shows the cost of advancement or progress of industrialization as you wish to see it. Also it allows us to easily measure deforestation and tie that into events and Interest Group reactions.

There’s plenty of places we can go with this, the Conservation Movement of the 18th and 19th centuries, tying industrialization with actual ecological effects that will upset IGs and affect pops. This is not meant to be a complete feature unto itself but a means of making a more realistic narrative to the game. Early industrializers might run afoul of deforestation and poor resource management, and will seek other markets to alleviate this effect, much like we have done historically. Can you keep the balance of man vs nature in effect, or is that even truly your concern when you are facing extreme radicalization and you need to meet the needs of your pops at any cost?

An example of the resource management a player can enact on clearings, Do you let nature take its course, get involved, or just keep exploiting what you can?
DD69_8.png

What about Whaling/Fishing and Mineral Resources? Here I look to follow the Forestry model where resources are available but can be depleted due to overutilization - as the fisheries of the world were very much subject to the tragedy of the commons.

The difference is as tech scales, the effect of fishing scales not only in depletion but in range. I am experimenting with having the actions of a neighboring nation affect the resource potential of its neighbors. Overfishing in Great Britain can cause knock-on effects to the eventual depletion of the Fisheries of Iceland and Canada/US. The scale of these effects are still very much in a prototype stage. This applies to both fish and whaling industries.

Where Fishing Industries differ is the potential to maybe do aquaculture back at home. My research is showing that it's slightly out of our historical timescale but it's technically a possibility. The world started ramping up aquaculture in the 1950’s to 1960’s but that was in response to the decrease in fish population, who’s to say if an ahistorical Victorian era that goes hard on world fish supplies might need to invest in these technologies a few decades early?

Mineral Resources are primarily focused around discovery over the potential of being depleted. At the start of the game a fair chunk of resources will be available for exploitation, but most will be hidden and require discovery and exploitation to be started. Mines will have the chance to discover new resources as they start excavation down below. These efforts can be expedited by resource exploration PMs, increasing the educated labor force requirement and likely a more modernized set of inputs. In this way, mineral deposits are still greatly important but there is an investment potential in them, the longer you hold and develop a resource - the more you may get to access. For example, you cannot gain all levels of coal in Wales with just hands and picks, some of that is going to require modernization.

-----------

Finally, Mike surprised us all by not doing anything at all with trains this time. We're not exactly sure what he's up to, but whatever it is I think it emphasizes the point in the beginning that there are absolutely no guarantees any of this will make it into the game as-is, now or in the future! If any of you have theories of what this might be all about, please give the rest of us a clue in the comments below.

DD69_9.png


DD69_10.png


DD69_11.png

Next week we will look at the remainder of the Game Jam entries, and that will be the last dev diary of 2022 as most of the team heads out for winter holidays, returning mid-January. Until then!
 
  • 91Like
  • 31Love
  • 16Haha
  • 7
  • 6
  • 3
Reactions:
You should not expect the core mechanics of fronts to change in 1.2, but we are hard at work trying to resolve some of the edge cases and bugs that make it difficult to manage at times. Most of the reports we've received relate to naval invasions and/or multiple small fronts in tiny areas. It's very common that these reports misattribute the behavior to intentional mechanics or missing systems when they're actually logic errors, so we're treating these as bugs and limiting improvements to UX rather than changes to the core design (which tend to cause far more problems than they solve), such as custom-drawn fronts.
It would really just help if fronts would be joint if a larger power is involved I think, aka Russia andn Austria fighting Prussia wouldn't join into one front but Krakow would join into Austria's front.
 
I can't think of this as anything else than management noticing the huge failure regarding state of vic3 on release and post release and deciding to pull devs from other teams to show -anything- to the community, with obligatory le epic meme at the end.
 
  • 9
  • 6
Reactions:
I can't think of this as anything else than management noticing the huge failure regarding state of vic3 on release and post release and deciding to pull devs from other teams to show -anything- to the community, with obligatory le epic meme at the end.
As devs stated, they all have personal time to work on such things, and they did that in their personal allocated time
 
  • 7
  • 3
  • 1Haha
  • 1
Reactions:
That's not a bad idea, but that wouldn't solve the problem of the different PMs - so, for example, someone could stockpile "reserves" under a cheap PM, then flick to an expensive (but more effective) PM at war start. This is even more of an issue for ships, we don't want navies suddenly turning from sailing ships into dreadnoughts overnight (noting that, maluses aside, this is exactly what they do now - it's some impressive transmutation! However, the maluses associated with it are a trap for players and a challenge for the AI).
Stockpile could be limited by PM. Like simple PM give you 5k stockpile per level, while advanced PM give you 500k limit per level. If your army PM not use ammunition, riffles and cannons you not stockpile them.
 
  • 1
Reactions:
Sorry, I made it self-translated, some things may be unclear)

So, the first party in Vic3 has ended. General summary - yes, it's a bit damp now, but the base for DLC is excellent. Although even now, after the patch, the game is quite playable. Below is the specifics:

1. It should be noted that somewhere before 1860-70 I just learned to press buttons, so there was no special development. Only then I realized what I needed to do, although I had a lot of experience in Vic2. But, the developers did everything very friendly, in the end I figured it out even without training.

2. Wars & Battle - I liked the idea. This is how it should be in the Vic, without moving the men and painting the map. Moreover, it is clearly shown how serious wars kill the economy. The main drawback is the inconvenient interface of generals and fronts. Flipping through these endless lists with a misunderstanding of where he is is as inconvenient as possible. It feels like it will be finished. I would proceed from the same logic of the fronts, and not from the generals. That is, to bring fronts to the army and attach generals there is a good example in HOI. It is necessary to increase the convenience of crew management, because there are different technologies, and to go into each general opening a bunch of menus - for def & atck.

2. The main failure so far is not war, but diplomacy. It is almost useless. Although, the idea of interests and games is very cool. That's the way it should be. But because of the poor variability, it still looks sad and not always logical. For example, in order to annex a puppet, it is necessary to worsen relations, not improve them. what is the logic?. Out of habit, I used to Eurupe's logic to the maximize relations and did not understand why I could not - the interface does not particularly prompt. Also, the puppets themselves are meaningless by nature. In Vic2, you could at least build them so that they could mine something there and contribute to the economy. Here they are stupidly eating and at one point you just want to get rid of them so that your market is not killed. Apparently also on DLC. Although I really liked that you can really develop without rashes. I captured Central Asia itself just for the sake of the achievement, so I wouldn't climb - I also got a hell of a bad boy for it. In general, it is good that the current results are almost without wars. Only I got into Southeast Asia for rubber, because the computer could not start its production in any way.

3. The economy is made interesting. I like recycling related to the availability of markets. But after the construction of a small number of naval bases, the entire market is already available. I would do it tougher so that there would be a greater restriction. Contractual ports are a good idea with access to the market, but at first it is not at all clear, and then it is not particularly profitable, because see point 2 there is almost nothing they can offer. There is a systemic problem - the population can grow very quickly, and basic resources are not needed at first, and then very limited, so it is not possible to provide everyone with goods in full. And the game turns into a race for the possession of the basic resources - sulfur, rubber and oil. Moreover, it is by possession, because the computer does not really pump them at home. And they were still not enough even for my relatively small country. As if this does not reflect life even at the beginning of the twentieth century, when the basic resources - coal, iron, etc. were already sufficiently available. In the late game, interest also decreases - you are already building factories in packs of 30-50 pieces.

There are also not very strong penalties for the shortage of goods. I would tighten it up. And there is not enough visualization of the production chain in the form of organizational charts with an indication in pieces of goods and their movement (where how much goes). Without this, balancing a large country becomes difficult due to a banal inconvenience.

4. The population, which is the essence of the game, is almost not felt at all, except for concern about the standard of living. I would increase their role in politics and requirements. A different culture is not noticed at all. Although the base is very good, apparently there will be DLC on culture. I used to be happy with every clerk, but now you don't even look at what kind of education there is, what is his height.

5. The approach to colonization has become better, I like the idea. How the area is slowly being colonized is very good. But more conflicts with other powers and the complexity of the process are missing. In the same Vic2, it was an event, but here it is commonplace. It feels like it will change.

6. It feels like all countries are very similar in general (although I don't have much experience here). There is not enough individuality. As well as the forms of government - in general, it makes no difference to you and the population - a monarchy here or a republic with universal suffrage. In Vic2, it was much better with this - the difference between a market economy and public administration is cardinal. The idea of laws is good, but somehow I would like to feel more difference too.

7. There are some chips laid down for the future - I paid for the reduction of pollution, although xs what does it affect - I did not see in any window.

8. The decisions were made as inconveniently as possible. It was only in the 1900s that I guessed where they were. No notifications about their availability appear, I found it completely by accident, trying to figure out how to build Suez.

But in general, the game has already come out good and exciting. Excellent.
 
Last edited:
  • 5Like
Reactions:
The mechanic for resources was very good, both for forests and minerals. The same should be true for oil. I also miss tech to be able to use new resource places or to increase to local accessible mine level depending on type.
 
  • 1Like
Reactions:
Working on an absurd dino meme is still a waste of time, no matter if it's personal time or not.
That dinoposting may be useful for modders - he would trainpost instead if he wanted :p

Lets say I would want to make mod where there is custom culture and religion, where everyone converts to.
So instead of 200 cultures ingame you have exactly one culture and religion in game.
It would be fantasy race like Reptlians or Blorg with fitting names and flavour.

You can replace all homelands, cultures with British and their religion to make game run faster now - less unique pops to process.
 
  • 1
Reactions:
Here we are, years after the game is in development and it’s just now being discussed that maybe more than one battle per front line is a good idea?

the whole stack less front lines thing can work, but not at all like in its current iteration.
 
  • 6
  • 4Like
Reactions:
Working on an absurd dino meme is still a waste of time, no matter if it's personal time or not.
Time spent honing a skill you will use in your job is not wasted, even if the content you create in that time is not suitable for inclusion in your employer's product.
 
  • 5
  • 1
Reactions:
Google probably weren't the first, but they were one of the best known for this sort of practice. Many large and very successful software firms (and some less successful ones) have the regular practice of giving employees time for personal pet projects, "hackathons" and similar creative time. This is a creative industry and not only do you get a happier, more motivated team, these experiments can result in some very valuable insights to how products can be approved. PDX ought to be applauded for doing so. Stifling the creativity and imagination of what are highly passionate and skilled individuals is not a good use of their time.
 
  • 6
  • 1
Reactions:
Google probably weren't the first, but they were one of the best known for this sort of practice. Many large and very successful software firms (and some less successful ones) have the regular practice of giving employees time for personal pet projects, "hackathons" and similar creative time. This is a creative industry and not only do you get a happier, more motivated team, these experiments can result in some very valuable insights to how products can be approved. PDX ought to be applauded for doing so. Stifling the creativity and imagination of what are highly passionate and skilled individuals is not a good use of their time.
I am all for the practice. I feel it is an odd time to showcase it. Also I think promoting the practice as a way to come up with new features is odd.
 
  • 6
  • 1Like
Reactions:
Hi, I’m Guilherme, one of the programmers! During this game jam, Nik - one of the designers - and I decided to team up to explore potential improvements for our military system. Because of that, we haven’t implemented many new things, but we did dig up things that could be potentially improved. For example:
  • Combat units on a front each have a 20% chance of suffering 5% - 15% casualties from attrition each week, an average of 2% casualties per week from attrition alone. This sounds like too much.
Interesting to note that for the Mexican-American War, 2%/week is almost exactly correct, at least on a macro level. ~75,000 US troops, 89 week war, 11,500 deaths from disease.

Overwhelming deaths from attrition should be the norm, not battlefield deaths.
 
  • 1
Reactions:
We need a way to transfer generals between strategic theaters.

I am playing France right now, and I have a brilliant general in Vietnam. I only recruited him because I wanted political support for his party. The colony has been secured by a large navy and decent garrison.

Now I am fighting a major war in Europe, and that general should be leading large armies at home, not wasting his talent leading poorly equipped 30-battalion colonial militia on the other side of the world.

I want a way to transfer him to a theater of my choice. At some cost and time limits, but this should be a feature nontheless.

Have you considered adding something like a Field Marshal? The war leader could appoint one capable general, who is present there, to "lead" the front, and he could either dictate if everyone is on the offense, defense or able to choose a stance for themselves.

It happens too often that I take a superior defensive position and remain passive, for the one and only purpose to tie down enemy troops. Nothing more. When I have the advantage at that front, and that's a common scenario, the enemy usually also goes into defense mode. But then my allies/subjects come in and throw their 10 batallions of farmers against 500 batallions of Skirmish Infantry with Shrapnel Artillery. Over and over again.

I wish I could tell them to stay still or just bugger off, or have a Field Marshal commanding all troops on that front, who could force a common stance on that front.

I always thought of a "marshal" character as a good suggestion. In a different way. For example, a "marshal" could be a higher ranking character that commands armies/fleets across multiple strategic regions (and sea zones), and regular generals/admirals are put under their command and obey orders. Kinda like HoI4 field marshals, but different.

Like for example, a British marshal in India (IRL Herbert Kitchener before WW1, for example) could command armies from entire India and its (ideally 4) strategic regions. Instead of manually micromanaging 8-9 full size armies that British India can easily generate, you could give orders to the marshal and he'd handle the forces himself. Or continue to micromanage if you wish, marshals aren't mandatory.

Combine this with the idea that players should be able to assign 'operational zones' to armies (like "defend Upper Egypt" or "invade the Levant region"), prioritize attack targets and defense goals, the marshals would run a front relatively well.

Paradox would need to focus on the AI, but once set, the system would work nicely.

Marshals on the sea (grand admirals?) would be able to control entire sea zones, instead of having to manually micromanage each node and fleet. They could be assigned to cover an entire sea zone of multiple nodes, and they would shuffle the fleets accordingly.

Like for example, instead of manually dealing with the clickfest tedium of ordering my admirals from Vietnam + Indonesia + Oceania + 2 admirals in India to manually raid the 5-6 sea nodes leading out of China and Korea, I could just put them under command of the "Far East Fleet" marshal. Then I'd simply order the marshal to to run blockade on the Pacific coastline of East Asia. This is why every European empire in this era had a "Pacific/Far East" fleet.

There are many precedents for this idea. In WW1 for example, August von Mackensen commanded the German forces in the Balkan theater, while Max von Spee commanded the German East Asia Fleet (both with units from numerous armies/squadrons). Edmund Allenby led forces British forces from Egypt, Sudan, Mediterranean and parts of reinforcement units from India IIRC. And there are even better examples in WW2. "Marshal" characters in the game can thus represent the finale stage of military career, where they commandan entire zone for great powers they belong to. Kinda like HoI4 field marshals, but different.

Marshals in general would prevent front-splitting mess and bordergore by keeping troops consolidated, make naval warfare actually playable in late game when you have numerous fleets, divide and distribute air forces properly where needed (air forces should be their own late-game thing instead of simple battalion attachments IMO), and cut off the tedium and clickfest.
 
Last edited:
  • 2Like
  • 1
Reactions:
The testing grounds for new ideas is a good thing. So if I may be so bold - here is my own idea for testing: law enactment system rework.

Set it as a progress bar, like a journal entry for Grand Exhibition. Base progress step is 100 points per month with an end goal of 6000 points – that is 12 months * 5 years. The logic of these number goes like this - since the base game have base 10% chance with checks every 180 days (twice a year basically), it gives a total of 10 checks in 5 years to reach 100%, if the system was additive. And 100 instead of simple 1 point is here to make it easier to change the actual progress with modifiers .

Modifier is simple: total supporting IG clout adds points to resulting monthly progress and total opposing one subtracts. Possible additional modifiers – reduce by half if the IG is outside government; IG happiness; IG radicalization; how strongly they support or oppose the change. And the end result in terms of points per month would be further modified by legitimacy and authority, much like it is now. As a big bonus, maybe make it possible to sway the IGs that are indifferent – by tax cuts, promotions, etc. Sprinkle the process with events – again, just take the current ones for now.



Law enactment is a hotly debated topic here, the opinion basically splits in half, judging by the ratio of likes and dislikes for posts about the system. So while I personally strongly oppose (-2 modifier) the current system for its ability to pass first try (10%) super-important law like cultural divide in Austria, serfdom in Russia, monarchy in Japan and such – I’m not completely sure the progress-type is such a good idea either. Which is why the testing would be greatly beneficial.

Anyway, sorry for the wall of text. This system was on my mind lately, I even considered trying making a mod, but can’t quite figure out how to properly extract IG clout for the modifier to be applied. And even if I did, it would be a crooked plywood box of journal entries, badly glued together by spit and inept scripting…
 
  • 1
Reactions:
The idea of a game jam was cool and I think would be a good idea for the community to engage with in the future, I wish there would've been more information and support for moddability for the game before the end of the year! There is still a huge problem with the lack of scoping for scripted guis in the game, since there is no way to set a scope for a gui to act on! The fact that scripted guis can only be global effects prevents many opportunities for mods for vic3. I sincerely hope that the modding community won't have to wait too long to be able to tap into that extremely powerful tool for modding!
 
Will deforestation lead to increased farmland capacity a la clearing rainforest for palm oil?
Also, kind of interesting that there isn't a pm for wood ash as that was a big rwason for north American deforestion early on.
 
Last edited:
  • 1Haha
Reactions:
What you should probably think about is giving a chance (albeit a small one) to the side that is defending to capture some provinces (a smaller amount).

When we set the stance of generals, we are basically giving them orders on an operational level. That doesn't mean that there won't be small scale counter offensives, spoiling attacks, recon on force, attempts to take control of a more defensible position, exploiting a retreat of the enemy etc...

So, if defending side wins a battle they could get a chance of 5-10% or so to capture a province or two.