Victoria 3 - Dev Diary #94 - Dawn of Wonder

[Silens]

I don't think manual decisions are a good idea for this.
However, tying that to government forms and possibly IG support sounds doable and realistic.

Player agency is important, so I think that not giving a choice about a (merely visual) change is as bad as having no say in it, as it is now. What if someone wants to keep the old uniforms while having a modern government form? Or doesn't want to enter the European-style military traditions, but rather have US-style uniforms based on the ingame relationship to the US?

I want the choice, because it's my nation and my military and I get to decide what troops they're using and what military tradition they should follow, regardless of my government system. I really don't like it when the game makes choices for me; isn't that the reason why people look forward to 1.5 so much? Because they get more freedom of choice in military matters?

 

[yurcick]

Player agency is important, so I think that not giving a choice about a (merely visual) change is as bad as having no say in it, as it is now. What if someone wants to keep the old uniforms while having a modern government form? Or doesn't want to enter the European-style military traditions, but rather have US-style uniforms based on the ingame relationship to the US?

I want the choice, because it's my nation and my military and I get to decide what troops they're using and what military tradition they should follow, regardless of my government system. I really don't like it when the game makes choices for me; isn't that the reason why people look forward to 1.5 so much? Because they get more freedom of choice in military matters?

This could be taken to the point of absurd.
What if I want my Soviet generals to have Amerindian plumages? Who are the devs to stop me? Add a decision for this!
I want my Sokot cities to look like they're built in Scandinavia and I want it now!
Et cetera.

Personally, I think that making the game and changes in it organic is more important than agency. Although specifically for fashion, which can really be influenced by country leaders (especially in case of military uniforms), I wouldn't die on that hill.

 

[lachek]

I don't think that adding more light settings and visual objects is a right direction of development in current state of the game. I would remind that the performance issues in Victoria 3 are still not fixed. Even PCs that meet recommended requirements, suffer heavy lags (or sudden freezes, at least) in the second half of Victoria 3 timeframe. Many players are using mods decreasing or completely removing all those small trains and chimneys - just to make the game playable.

As far as I know, dynamic lights and shadows use a lot of video memory. So, on many PCs these upcoming changes will have to be disabled, or they will break the game completely, since no one can play with 10 fps.

The performance question is totally legit! From what I gather from speaking with artists and tech leads here though, any additional performance implications for DoW come only from the lighting on gfx entities like vehicles and lighthouses, since these require separate particle emitters. Buildings aren't affected by this at all, they just change appearance without adding new emitters. The artists have also taken performance into consideration when designing the lighting effects, keeping them as high-performing as possible and combining them with other particle effects where this has been an option, f.ex. the dust effect coming off the horse cart is combined with the lighting effect.

Regarding dynamic lighting, sun position, etc this has always been in the game (since you can rotate the camera around it's necessary regardless) so there should be no new performance implications here at all.

We're also looking into, with support from the Clausewitz engine team, more aggressive culling of VFX emitters when they're not on-screen or when the player is zoomed out. This will greatly help us with implementing more alive military visuals later on, but will also help with performance for the whole game's gfx.

So it's not been my impression (either from a theoretical technical perspective nor experiential - my dev PC is running a 2060 card, so not exactly top of the line) that DoW adds a lot of gfx performance overhead. I don't think we need to worry much on that point, but thanks for asking the question!

 

[Silens]

This could be taken to the point of absurd.
What if I want my Soviet generals to have Amerindian plumages? Who are the devs to stop me? Add a decision for this!
I want my Sokot cities to look like they're built in Scandinavia and I want it now!
Et cetera.

Personally, I think that making the game and changes in it organic is more important than agency. Although specifically for fashion, which can really be influenced by country leaders (especially in case of military uniforms), I wouldn't die on that hill.

Is it really that absurd to give a choice to modernize uniforms in a game that is about modernizing all aspects of a nation? If playing games for many years has tought me one thing, it's that it usually doesn't work to remove player chocies and have the AI guess the player's intentions.

Adapting westernized military uniforms has many historic precedents, it was specifically something that was decided from the top and didn't change in an "organic" fashion, as you put it.

There is actually a mod that already has that, I just had to remove it, because it broke things (made all agitators naked for some reason). Would be nice to not rely on mods for something that has a historical basis. That's all there is to it.

 

[Lazy Sorcerer]

Actually I would argue that the stars and zodiac signs do kind of fit historically. As much as the Victorian era was an age of science and technology, it was also an age of strong interest in the occult (Spiritualism, Theosophy, Aleister Crowley, etc.), so the motif does sort of work.

That's like saying a modern age game should have a Scientology, essential oils and paleo diet focused texture pack.

I can't really figure out a country-neutral art pack that would satisfy me, but it's saying something that out of all the Grand Edition DLCs I am getting de facto for free (since GE is equivalent in price to the base game + Spheres of Influence) the best one is the music pack.

 

[Nawolith]

To be clear on this, Sphere of Influence - the name of the expansion - will not reintroduce SoI's from V2 (we already have shared markets and subjects), but a whole new system of influencing other nations around the world with both soft and hard power, and will let you customize the nature of your "sphere" and how it influences the countries in your sphere, alongside a host of other improvements to diplomacy. The same goes for foreign investments, it's a substantially more simulation-y approach compared to V2's implementation that will add a whole new layer to the economic system. And both these features will be fundamentally free, with the paid expansion adding a bunch of extra options to both systems. I think you'll be happily surprised.

When looking at the coming improvements to military, i believe that from SoI onwards this game is at the spot where it ought to be. But of course there is lots of room to expand upon still!

 

[guiskj]

@lachek thank you for a quite clear explanation of why Art Packs make sense in the grander picture of Vic3 development.

Would you be able to share your opinion on the other part of this debate, which is less about "why art?" and more about "why so little art?"

I think the art in the pack is really high quality and the theme selector is really nice with its ability to mix and match things (best idea honest)

But I can't shake the feeling that there is just not enough there... The two examples the few the most jarring for me are the clothes and buildings in the pack. To be given just four of each feels so random, like this was leftover stuff. If you are going to offer clothing as part of the pack, then offer many pieces... This sprinkle of art just feels odd.

I want to emphasize again that the art that is in the pack is quite nice... I just needed more of it to make a DLC worth it. Art DLCs, imo, suffer from needing to clear a bigger bar of perceived value to me exactly because they add nothing to the gameplay.

Having said that, I do look forward to more Art Packs, specially more maps and themes. I just won't ever pick them up at full price if it continues to be this amount of content.

 

[Parz]

To be clear on this, Sphere of Influence - the name of the expansion - will not reintroduce SoI's from V2 (we already have shared markets and subjects), but a whole new system of influencing other nations around the world with both soft and hard power, and will let you customize the nature of your "sphere" and how it influences the countries in your sphere, alongside a host of other improvements to diplomacy. The same goes for foreign investments, it's a substantially more simulation-y approach compared to V2's implementation that will add a whole new layer to the economic system. And both these features will be fundamentally free, with the paid expansion adding a bunch of extra options to both systems. I think you'll be happily surprised.

I'm going to take a chance that you're feeling like giving out some hints. Will the Sphere of Influences cover relationships amongst equal partners, like a bunch of smaller states banding together, or by design will it only cover one state like Great Britain bringing others under it's control?

 

[BrotherJonathan]

As someone who bought the season pass knowing that one of the DLCs was a cosmetic pack, I'm not disappointed. My expectation was that it'd be very minor (maybe a few unit models), but you do get a fair amount of stuff for what is usually their smallest DLCs; pretty looking day night cycle with glowing buildings/vehicles, new paper map, a few new clothes, new cosmetic wonders. The day night cycle especially feels very appropriate for a game which covers a period of rapid technological advancement including the invention of electricity. I'm looking forward to panning over the world and seeing which countries have electric street lights and which are still on coal.

Honestly I think the art team have done a good job with all this, although I appreciate that some people care much less about the visuals.

I also like that they seem to have really put a lot of effort into the day/night cycle, as opposed to just slapping a blue tint on the map and saying "this is night". It seems to be a lot smoother than the one in Hearts of Iron, which I eventually had to turn off because it gave me headaches.

 

[Antigonid1]

So the biggest feature of the second updates of Victoria 3 is.. *check notes* a day and night cycle (that was in Hoi4 from day one (and most people disable it anyway))... hahahaha and it's a paid feature ? HAHAHAHA I mean guys... come on... Vic 3 is already dying and you do this

 

[TitaniumMan91]

As someone who bought the season pass knowing that one of the DLCs was a cosmetic pack, I'm not disappointed. My expectation was that it'd be very minor (maybe a few unit models), but you do get a fair amount of stuff for what is usually their smallest DLCs; pretty looking day night cycle with glowing buildings/vehicles, new paper map, a few new clothes, new cosmetic wonders. The day night cycle especially feels very appropriate for a game which covers a period of rapid technological advancement including the invention of electricity. I'm looking forward to panning over the world and seeing which countries have electric street lights and which are still on coal.

Honestly I think the art team have done a good job with all this, although I appreciate that some people care much less about the visuals.

That's where I'm at. I don't buy the art packs unless they come in a sale pack, but I knew I'd be buying the first expansions so neat, I get an art pack. The theme selector alone is worth it, love the new on map art and the new graphical changes sound interesting. Would I buy it without the preorder bonus? Probably not, but the world doesn't exist solely to cater to my tastes and preferences, either.

 

[grommile]

So the biggest feature of the second updates of Victoria 3 is.. *check notes* a day and night cycle (that was in Hoi4 from day one (and most people disable it anyway))... hahahaha and it's a paid feature ? HAHAHAHA I mean guys... come on... Vic 3 is already dying and you do this

This feels very close to a deliberately malicious reading of this dev diary.

I'm not in any hurry to buy this (I'll see how patch 1.4 feels before making any purchase decisions), but I heartily endorse the labour relations and project management attitude displayed by Paradox towards their art teams in this dev diary.

 

[Sbrubbles]

This is nice and all but the real question is: what the heck is this guy holding? A golf club? A ladle? What?

 

[Antigonid1]

This feels very close to a deliberately malicious reading of this dev diary.

I'm not in any hurry to buy this (I'll see how patch 1.4 feels before making any purchase decisions), but I heartily endorse the labour relations and project management attitude displayed by Paradox towards their art teams in this dev diary.

I dont mind the art stuff, what I mean is, when a game has had a disappointing launch and has a low player count, the good move would be to make such small art update free and promise a new dlc free for the expansion pass buyers and to increase the value of the product to show confidence that it will be supported in the long run

 

[Parz]

I dont mind the art stuff, what I mean is, when a game has had a disappointing launch and has a low player count, the good move would be to make such small art update free and promise a new dlc free for the expansion pass buyers and to increase the value of the product to show confidence that it will be supported in the long run

The idea that a free art pack would appease those players who are upset with the game seems very silly to me. It's more likely that the exact same few people who are complaining about a paid art pack, would instead argue that paradox are trying to 'cover up shortcomings of the game with meaningless assets'.

This is doubly true because paradox *are* releasing free updates addressing areas players actually have problems with.

The real issue is that some portion of the community just don't value the art packs. Giving it to them for free would not move the needle at all.

 

[funkyfreshrat]

Even though it has stopped, a nice pocket watch is nice to have and the Taino sun god statue is both cute yet somewhat ominous, what is that black smoke emanating from it sporadically?
View attachment 1015641​

I'm late to the thread but I am supremely excited and happy seeing a zemi appear as part of this theme, I probably won't change from using it once it releases because of it. The Taino get so little attention in the one Paradox game they are represented in, EU4, so it is a really pleasant surprise to see anything related to them appear here. Can I place a request to have also have a version of the 'Taino Statue' Table Object without black smoke for the theme? Personally I am a little put off by there being a supernatural aspect to the idol, it feels like an unnecessary effect for it to have so it would be nice to just be able to use an alternate version.

EDIT: Related suggestion.

 

[krokobone]

I have to say I'm a bit disappointed that this pack is one of the DLCs included in the Grand Edition. Even for a simple cosmetic art pack, I would have appreciated content more closely aligned to the historical theme of the game. This way I don't really see the point of including this art pack at all.

 

[Samolub]

View attachment 1015647​

This V3's Greenwich looks nicely ​

 

[Loco_HUN]

One thing that has nothing to do with this (xd) But I think is important:

When u release the patches, I'd like to know if u've been working on a crucial element, which is all about army movements, geography and obsticles.

Let's say you are Chine, fighting japan and Korea. U have a military front in korea, but Japan can support Korea with troops. What happens, if I as China, have naval supremacy, and when the war breaks out, I blockade the seas around korea, while japan didn't transport a single troop from home islands to Korea before war breaking out. Now I have the Seas blockaded, which means Japan shouldn't be able transport troops to Korea via troop movement comamnds. Or at least if they do, those troops should be intercepted and sunk (and stackwiped).

Question is, will it work how I jsut described, or will japan be able move them somehow despite China controlling the waters? Same with naval landings btw, once I landed, and I want to transport troops to the hq i created, but enemy moved ships to the sea, whill those transported guys will be raided/ denied the transfer?


Other exemple with land:
Scenario:
-Uk and The benelux, is at war woth Prussia and Russia:
-Uk naval invades Germany and cuts it in half from Pomerania-berlin-to saxony kind of line. Austria is not in the war and the seas are fully controlled by britain. SO for Russia (and potential german armies in east prissia) There is a wedge between them, and the rhineland, and a front on the German-Dutch border.

Question: If I as Russia want to send troops to a Rghineland HQ or to the dutch, german front, Will I be just able teleport them to rhineland or the dutch front like before, with visuals showing on the map them simply walking trough the land the UK has occupied in berlin, Or will they, idk, Stop on the front at berlin, or maybe idk, still move trough that wedge, but be intercepted and lose troops, or be caught in a battle?

I think this is a crucial element that determines how tangible/ abstract armies still are.

 

[Meriador_]

i do think I'd like the day-night cycle to have an option to pause when the game is paused, and move at the speed of play, which doesn't seem to be the case. Ideally I would want to set it so that "noon" and "midnight" correspond to the two solstices, aesthetically, and that doesn't seem possible with the current options.