Victoria 3 - Dev Diary #73 - Open Beta and Update 1.2 overview

[lachek]

Good afternoon,a great DD and very happy for the music player.However,a few questions regarding the beta:
1)Will we have a code to enter on steam for it in order to access it or we will just have to switch it like for the older versions for example?
2)Will the other languages be localized or the bêta will be English-only initially?
Thanks for any replies about this.

No code will be necessary, you will be able to just switch to the branch.
Regarding localization it's a mixed bag. Most things will be localized, but some things might only show properly in English.

 

[lachek]

Can we get more info on the changes to trade route profit calculation or is that still WIP?

It's using post-trade market prices now, so will be operating on the exact same basis as local industries.

 

[lachek]

Hi! With regards to more realistic modeling of GDP - does this mean you will deduct the inputs from the GDP calculation? I remember a reddit post, which explained why current calculations are very overstated.

Exactly! This way resources economies operate on the same playing field with manufacturing economies that also produce their own raw materials. The latter type is heavily favored (unfairly so) in 1.1.2.

 

[lachek]

Have I missed strategic objectives in a previous dev diary, or has that not been discussed yet?

We will dedicate a later dev diary to this.

 

[DebbieElla]

Yeah it's an unfortunate bug in the forum software! We prep the DDs in advance, and the system doesn't always update to the correct time after we publish them.

 

[Wizzington]

Does this only mean an increase of it in the Americas or also a decrease in India and East Asia? If so, how are subsistance farms handled now?

If it will all be explained in another developer diary, I am fine waiting .

It means both, we've made a special rice paddies subsistence farm that can take twice as many employees which has allowed us to drastically reduce the amount of arable land in China.

 

[lachek]

Sounds pretty good, especially strategic objectives! Nice to see that feedback was heard.
I assume improvements in AI can lead to a bit better world balance, like, russia not imploding in every game anymore?

Absolutely, but every change we've made to AI or balance could also lead to worse world balance, which is a big reason why we feel the beta is so important!

 

[lachek]

Great changes! And will the techs queue and more battles per front be added in 1.2, as mentioned in game jam dev diary?

Tech queueing, yes. Multiple battles per front was added as an experiment in the Game Jam and will not be turned on by default, as it introduces complications with the design (e.g. more generals = more win, which is not a dynamic we want). We all want multiple battles per frontline to be a thing and remain committed to trying to solve these design problems. In the meantime, you can try out multiple battles for yourself by changing a define in the configuration files, or installing a mod that does it for you.

 

[lachek]

I'm looking forward to the trade rework (both the mechanics and the UI).

The big gap in the list of changes is any changes to how IGs work (other than how they group into parties). Plus no simulation of horses in the game (pre railway techs just need labourers, but don't need extra food or anything for animal based transportation).

Interestingly 3 beta releases, at 2 per week sounds like the beta will be going for 2 weeks or less than half the time until the next patch.

Exact dates of the subsequent releases aren't confirmed but we're actually aiming for 1 / week, with a longer period between the last beta update and the live release. The reason for this is because we need to freeze the build for final testing a bit ahead of release.

 

[lachek]

I am a little concerned I haven't seen anything about making it less of a chore to manage a nation with thousands of construction points, or to make it so outnumbering your enemy on a front means you outnumber them in battles - those are the main game issues for me.

Fingers crossed they've been worked on but not mentioned, or they're made better by other changes.

We're working on the balancing of battles right now actually - changes should be in for the second beta release - and numeric advantage is one of the things we're tweaking and balancing.

Managing a nation with large amounts of construction will be made easier naturally due to Autonomous Investment. We're also introducing a quality-of-life feature that help you manage production methods in recently conquered or recovered states.

 

[lachek]

"In-game music player". Nice! Did I miss this in previous Dev Diaries?

No, most of the things on this list are announced for the first time today.

 

[lachek]

How much of the content in this journal will be implemented in the game in the beta version released on February 8th?

All of it. It may be a little rough around the edges, which is what the beta is for, but everything listed in the image posted will be in the beta on Feb 8th.

 

[lachek]

Exciting times! A while back, the possibility of a "reverse sway" mechanic -- basically, here's what you could offer for me to join your war -- was mentioned. Did that idea ever pan out? Of all the features that have been brainstormed in these DDs, that one sticks with me as one that could be a massive improvement to the diplomacy experience.

It won't be in patch 1.2, sadly. It's still something we're passionate about and are looking into adding in the future.

 

[lachek]

Regarding migration, have you considered making it so that cultural migration only causes emigration in homelands of that culture? It's very odd when, for example, an Afro-American migration caused by turmoil in the USA results in Afro-American pops living in Canada migrating to Haiti.

A number of changes along these lines have been made to the mass migration mechanic in 1.2 actually, yes.

 

[lachek]

Out of curiosity, is there any chance that you could add vineyards as a new type of plantation that only produces wine?

Keeping up with the price of wine always results in me building an absolutely absurd amount of wheat farms all set to wine production, and that always ends up absolutely tanking my price of wheat. I'll regularly have wheat over 10% below market price while wine is 20-30% above market price. It's personally rather confusing to me that there are special, separate plantations for tea and coffee, which are entirely luxury drinks, but not for wine, which is also a luxury drink.

Not for 1.2, but splitting out Vineyards into its own Plantation-type building is something we're looking into for the reasons you mention.

 

[lachek]

Does mods will need an update for the tech tree update or will the game adjust automatically new modded techs to the new interface?

The game should adjust the tech trees accordingly! Our tech trees aren't always the easiest to parse visually compared to other games that custom craft them (something we're hoping to improve on eventually), but the benefit of them is that you can add any tech in anywhere and the tree will automatically adjust.

 

[lachek]

rather than adding new type of plantations/building... why not change so the player can balance amount of output (with a ledger or something). so if you want a plantation to produce 100% and no wheat, it should be able.

this should also be added for every building that has 2 types of output good.

also, there should generally be less type of buildings, or atleast we should be able to group them somehow rather than have a long list of buildings to scroll down to. quantity of buildings (or anything really) doesnt equate quality, rather it is the gameplay that gives quality.

iron/coal/lead etc should be grouped, food sources (farms) like wheat, rice etc etc should be grouped, opium and other plantations should be grouped. consumer goods should be grouped etc etc

Because it would introduce an absolutely insane amount of micro to manually set sliders of PM distributions on individual buildings.

We're considering different solutions to the industrial good output substitution problem long-term, but at the moment balancing the system we have is better.

 

[lachek]

I vaguely recall a dev saying that yall were looking into modifying the colonization system to account for claims in 1.2, to help stop the sort of sillyness the current game has in places like Hokkaido and the Alberta/Montana area, etc. Should I expect to see that in the patch, or has that been pushed back?

That's going to be in the update (and the beta).

 

[lachek]

Great!) looking forward to patch 1.2!
I am glad that the redevelopment of arable land in the world has finally passed.
Since we are talking about separate plantations for growing grapes. Can we expect sugar beet plantations to appear as well? For the same reason as stated above.

Sugar beets have a really interesting history I'd love to represent in the game, but I think it's better served as something other than a distinct building, personally.

 

[KaiserJohan]

Out of curiosity, is the infrastructure for the message settings part of the engine or specific to Vic3? In other words, how easy/difficult would it be to port the system over to CK3?

Game specific