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Victoria 3 - Dev Diary #1 - Pops

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Hello everyone! I’m Mikael, Victoria 3’s lead game designer - and oh boy does it feel good to finally be able to say that out loud! Today I have the pleasure to reveal some details about that one feature everyone thinks about when they hear “Victoria” - the Pops.

Pops were introduced in the very first Victoria game to represent your country’s population. Pop mechanics have since snuck into other Paradox titles like Stellaris and Imperator. But this in-depth population simulation is what Victoria is about, and we’re going to bring you a system with more depth than ever before!

In Victoria 3, Pops are the country’s engine - they work the industries, they pay the taxes, they operate the government institutions, and they fight the wars. They’re born, they die, they change occupation, they migrate. And they organize, get angry, and start revolutions.

Every Pop is visualized so you can see which demographic sports the best moustache. Note that Pop portraits are very much a work in progress!
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You, the player, might be in charge of the country, but you’re not in charge of the Pops and can’t manipulate them directly. Yet everything you do to the country affects them, and they in turn will react in what they perceive to be their own best interests. A large part of your game will consist of trying to sate your population’s appetites for material goods or political reform. But most actions you will take aren’t to the benefit of every Pop in your nation, and by making life better for one part of the population you may inadvertently upset another demographic.

The most important aspect of Pops are their Professions, which reflects the types of jobs it carries out in the building where they work. A Pop’s profession determines its social class and can affect its wages, political strength, what other professions it might qualify for, and particularly which political Interest Groups it’s prone to supporting (which you will hear lots more about in future Dev Diaries.) Some of the Pop professions you will encounter in Victoria 3 are Aristocrats, Capitalists, Bureaucrats, Officers, Shopkeepers, Machinists, Laborers, and Peasants. Investing in industries that provide job opportunities for the kinds of professions you want to encourage in your country is key to the “society building” gameplay of Victoria 3.

Every variation of Profession, Culture, Religion, and Workplace in the world gets its own unique Pop. At any given time this results in many tens of thousands of Pops in the world working, migrating, procreating, and agitating.
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The people that make up a Pop are distinguished into Workforce and Dependents. Members of the Workforce keep the buildings in the game operational and collect a wage from them in return. Those who cannot or aren’t permitted to be officially employed are considered Dependents. They collect only a small income from odd jobs and government programs.

Laws affect who is included in each category. At game start most countries do not accept women working and collecting a wage outside the home but by reforming laws governing the rights of women more Dependent Pops will enter the Workforce over time. By abolishing child labor, the amount of income Dependents bring home will decrease but will make it easier to educate your populace, increasing their overall Literacy. After a bloody war many Dependents of soldiers may be left without sufficient income, and you may decide to institute pensions to help your population recover.

In short: nothing in your country runs without Pops, and everything about your country affects those Pops, who in turn provide new opportunities and challenges during your tumultuous journey through the Victorian era and beyond.

I have oh so much more to say, but that is all for this week! You will hear much more from me in future Dev Diaries. Next week Martin will return to explain something quite central to the game - Capacities!
 
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Will we be able to chase unwanted PoPs out of the country? Many countries of this period pursued population screening policies and removed unwanted immigrants or minorities. Will we be able to turn some pops into slaves if we restore slavery?
 
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If DD is on Thursdays only then we need Thursday also on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday :cool:
It's time for a new calendar reform!
I am not certain if that helps. If Paradox accepts your demand to 'multiple Thursdays per week', it will create confusion as to which of them gets dev diaries. You should have set your initial demand in the diplomatic play to 'multiple dev diaries per week' instead. Even if the play is not resolved without resorting to arms, you should explicitly assign 'multiple dev diaries per week' as an additional war goal.
 
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Will our government be running a perfect census, so that we always know exactly the numbers and demographics of our population? Or will there be some uncertainty in the figures?
 
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This is awesome! Can't wait to see the Unification of Germany, founding of Austria-Hungary and American Civil War!
 
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I guess I'm the contrarian here. To be honest I seldom looked at the old population screen except when assigning my focus guys. You can't do anything nor can you change anything so honestly it wasn't useful. What was way more important was the government and politics screen.

I was hoping that V3 would allow us to target specific pops with specific laws or orders. I'm really disappointed in not being able to do this. We should be able to single out groups or types for extra benefits and others for "special treatment".
 
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The DD mentions mentions pops being divided by workplace, which I took to mean by type of building in a state. So machinists working in sawmills would be one pop and machinists working in steel mills would be different pop. So if say the steel industry was collectively owned and the sawmills weren't, the second pop would have a higher income based on receiving dividends (provided the steel mills were profitable).
i have found nothing that would point to that, and the previous game pop system would point to opposite, so it would reasonable to assume that that is not how it works
 
I guess I'm the contrarian here. To be honest I seldom looked at the old population screen except when assigning my focus guys. You can't do anything nor can you change anything so honestly it wasn't useful. What was way more important was the government and politics screen.

I was hoping that V3 would allow us to target specific pops with specific laws or orders. I'm really disappointed in not being able to do this. We should be able to single out groups or types for extra benefits and others for "special treatment".
Um, this is just the first dev diary you know. It doesn't cover everything you can do with pops. Maybe wait and see?
 
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Um, this is just the first dev diary you know. It doesn't cover everything you can do with pops. Maybe wait and see?
Except the dev diary cearly said this:

"You, the player, might be in charge of the country, but you’re not in charge of the Pops and can’t manipulate them directly. "

i think that's pretty clear and is in line with V2.
 
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Except the dev diary cearly said this:

"You, the player, might be in charge of the country, but you’re not in charge of the Pops and can’t manipulate them directly. "

i think that's pretty clear and is in line with V2.
I'm not so sure, he thinks there is "discrimination", which I don't know if this is given by the pops by themselves or specific laws can be enacted, for example, the cultural revolution (despite being 20 years after the game ends ), it is specifically it would be more by role-playing, because honestly no one would want to kill their educated population.

On another topic, is it me or the publication did not talk about the Clerks, did they confirm that they will not be there or did I just not say all the pops?
 
On another topic, is it me or the publication did not talk about the Clerks, did they confirm that they will not be there or did I just not say all the pops?
Clerks are now divided into at least machinists and shopkeepers it looks like.
 
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I'm not so sure, he thinks there is "discrimination", which I don't know if this is given by the pops by themselves or specific laws can be enacted, for example, the cultural revolution (despite being 20 years after the game ends ), it is specifically it would be more by role-playing, because honestly no one would want to kill their educated population.

On another topic, is it me or the publication did not talk about the Clerks, did they confirm that they will not be there or did I just not say all the pops?

I was thinking more along the lines of post 1900 when communists and fascists can take over. I would like to see some kind of choice to reduce, reeducate, forced out or simply removed choices against your enemies.
 
So no cultures at a provincial level, then? It's kind of sad how we won't be able to see where exactly the pops are, only what % of them is "Rural" or "Urban" in a pie chart of the state.
 
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