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Victoria 3 - Dev Diary #2 - Capacities

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Hello and welcome back to another Victoria 3 dev diary! Today we will be talking about three of the four of the main ‘currencies’ of the game - namely Capacities (the last being Money, which we’ll of course come back to later).

We mentioned in the very first dev diary that there is no ‘mana’ in Victoria 3, and since this dev diary is about the game’s “currencies”, I want to be clear on what I mean by that. When we say there is “no mana” we mean that the resources in Victoria 3 arise and are spent in clearly defined ways that are parts of the simulation, not from an overly abstract concept or vague idea. There is, of course, some degree of abstraction involved (all games are abstractions after all), but we want all the game’s currencies to be strongly rooted in the mechanics and not feel arbitrary.

But enough about that and onto Capacities. What exactly are they?

Well, for starters, calling them currencies is actually not accurate. Capacities are not a pooled resource and are not accumulated or spent, but instead, have a constant generation and a constant usage (similar to for example Administrative Capacity in Stellaris), and you generally want to keep your usage from exceeding your generation. Each capacity represents one specific area of your nation’s ability to govern and is used solely for matters relating to that area.

As mentioned, Capacities are not accumulated, so excess generation is not pooled, but instead there is an effect for each Capacity which is positive if generation exceeds usage and quite negative if usage exceeds generation - a country that incorporates territories left and right without expanding its bureaucratic corps may quickly find itself mired in debt as tax collection collapses under the strain!

Bureaucracy represents a nation’s ability to govern, invest in and collect taxes from its incorporated territory. It is produced by the Government Administration building, where many of a nation’s Bureaucrats will be employed. All of a nation’s Incorporated States use a base amount of Bureaucracy which increases with the size of their population, and further increased by each Institution (such as Education or Police - more on those later!) that a country has invested in. Overall, the purpose of Bureaucracy is to ensure that there is a cost to ruling over, taxing and providing for your population - administrating China should not be cheap!

The Swedish Bureaucracy is currently a bit overworked and the country could certainly benefit from another Government Administration building or two.
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Authority represents the Head of State’s personal power and ability to enact change in the country through decree. It is generated from your Laws - generally, the more repressive and authoritarian the country, the more Authority it will generate - and is used by a variety of actions such as enacting decrees in specific states, interacting with Interest Groups and promoting or banning certain types of Goods. Overall, the purpose of Authority is to create an interesting trade-off between more and less authoritarian societies - by shifting the distribution of power away from the Pops into the hands of the ruler, your ability to rule by decree is increased, and vice versa.

The Swedish King has more Authority at his disposal than he is currently using, slightly speeding up the rate at which laws can be passed.
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Influence represents a country’s ability to conduct diplomacy and its reach on the global stage. It is generated primarily from your Rank (Great Powers have more Influence than Major Powers and so on) and is used to support ongoing diplomatic actions and pacts, such as Improving Relations, Alliances, Trade Deals, Subjects and so on. Overall, the purpose of Influence is to force players to make interesting choices about which foreign countries they want to build strong diplomatic relationships with.

Sweden has plenty of unused Influence and could certainly afford to support another diplomatic pact or two!
influence.png

That’s all for today! Join us again next week as I cover something yet another topic that’s fundamental to Victoria 3: Buildings. See you then!
 
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Baneslave said:
CK2 definitely had manas. Prestige and Piety, for example. Being able to build tribal buildings with Prestige is pretty darn fantastical. "I am famous conqueror! Simsalabim, new barracks appear shall here! The price I paid is that I am less famous now."

And Victoria 2 had same problem that Victoria 3 will have with Tax Efficiency suddenly dropping as Social Reforms are instituted. (We instituted Public School System, which increased amount of Bureaucrats required which instantly dragged Tax Efficiency downwards. Doesn't make sense that tax collectors suddenly moved to be teachers, but that is acceptable level of abstraction, IMO.)
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Prestige definitely does have a mana-like character to it, but it's not like you just spend the prestige and suddenly new barracks appear (unless you have the `instantbuild` cheat enabled). Essentially the point of spending prestige for tribal buildings is that you strongarm people into initiating a tribal institution, and your heroic aura takes a hit because you're acting like a thug. It's not perfect, but it's not completely divorced from plausibility.

Regarding V2 drop in tax efficiency, it makes no sense that tax collectors suddenly become teachers, because they'd have to become priests, which they do not. It's just that part of your bureaucratic machinery has to be moved from the internal revenue service into the department of education, to use an US metaphor. I agree that this is still an acceptable level of abstraction, though.
 
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Looks pretty awesome!
 
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Baneslave said:
And Victoria 2 had same problem that Victoria 3 will have with Tax Efficiency suddenly dropping as Social Reforms are instituted. (We instituted Public School System, which increased amount of Bureaucrats required which instantly dragged Tax Efficiency downwards. Doesn't make sense that tax collectors suddenly moved to be teachers, but that is acceptable level of abstraction, IMO.)
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Tax collectors deciding to become teachers is not what's going on. and thinking it's that simple really shows a big lack of understanding in how government and bureaucracy works. Instituting a public school system is more than just hiring teachers. It means hiring staff to draw up a standardized curriculum, managing an entire extra education budget and department now that it's under the purview of the state, hiring and monitoring school administrators, extra contracting projects for school construction and maintenance, etc. And yes, tax efficiency will fall because you have civil servants who previously were managing accounting in the revenue service moving to managing the books in the education department since they already have the experience, or policy staff who previously would be drawing up tax code now having to draw up an education policy instead. Not to mention with public education at this time you have government employees needing to spend extra time and money going out to rural towns to inspect schoolhouses and ensure schooling is being done properly, and making sure teachers and school staff are getting paid, which means more and better paid government staff is required overall. It's not just about the direct tax collectors and teachers, the whole point of "bureaucracy" is inherent in the name, it's about the government staff and civil service behind the institution. That's what is primarily hurting in its efficiency and why you need more bureaucrats, not the direct front line employees.
 
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wilcoxchar said:
Tax collectors deciding to become teachers is not what's going on. and thinking it's that simple really shows a big lack of understanding in how government and bureaucracy works. Instituting a public school system is more than just hiring teachers. It means hiring staff to draw up a standardized curriculum, managing an entire extra education budget and department now that it's under the purview of the state, hiring and monitoring school administrators, extra contracting projects for school construction and maintenance, etc. And yes, tax efficiency will fall because you have civil servants who previously were managing accounting in the revenue service moving to managing the books in the education department since they already have the experience, or policy staff who previously would be drawing up tax code now having to draw up an education policy instead. Not to mention with public education at this time you have government employees needing to spend extra time and money going out to rural towns to inspect schoolhouses and ensure schooling is being done properly, and making sure teachers and school staff are getting paid, which means more and better paid government staff is required overall. It's not just about the direct tax collectors and teachers, the whole point of "bureaucracy" is inherent in the name, it's about the government staff and civil service behind the institution. That's what is primarily hurting in its efficiency and why you need more bureaucrats, not the direct front line employees.
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You think too much for the level of abstract in Vicky II.
I love this game, but it's just "more social reform = more bureaucrats" and a average efficiency of % of them.
 
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The game need some level of abstraction, if not you will need to pause all the time and you will need a complete life to play a game from 1836 to 1936.

Probably the admnistrative buildings can have some local state effect to encourage to you to disperse them over your nation.
 
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I'll have to try the system to determine how different this is from monarch points.

The whole building of buildings thing has me concerned too, I prefer indirect levers of power.
 
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TheDungen said:
I'll have to try the system to determine how different this is from monarch points.

The whole building of buildings thing has me concerned too, I prefer indirect levers of power.
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Buildings are pretty much a much more grounded in reality version of national focuses. Instead of magically getting mroe bureaucrats in a state you build a building and the lack of workforce brings qualified pops to promote/change profession to the desired proffession. Way better mechanic then NF's in my opinion and you need some ways to manipulate your pops.
 
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Rhazzaz0r said:
Buildings are pretty much a much more grounded in reality version of national focuses. Instead of magically getting mroe bureaucrats in a state you build a building and the lack of workforce brings qualified pops to promote/change profession to the desired proffession. Way better mechanic then NF's in my opinion and you need some ways to manipulate your pops.
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Indeed. Perhaps the problem is that they are called buildings. They really represent state-owned institutes or departments or laboratories, which the central (or the regional) government does set up and build. They may be collected at a single building or spread over several physical locations, but this is naturally a place where the abstraction comes in.

Regardless, setting up State institutions in order to direct development is a time-honoured tradition and it's perfectly reasonable to use in Victoria.
 
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Maybe I'll tell you what was discussed earlier. But I must tell you my view on a possible system of bureaucracy in Vic 3. As far as I understood, if in theory, you capture Australia for Sweden, then many regions with a small population will join. Then, if Sweden does not have a surplus in bureaucratic points, then you will receive a debuff in collecting taxes throughout the country? As for me, this is wrong. If you capture something, then low administration should only be in newly captured lands. The metropolis should not suffer much from the newly conquered lands. It would be much more logical and realistic if there were administrative efficiency in each separate region.
 
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No, the admin cap only applies to incorporated territories. We don't know how unincorporated territories are handled yet.
 
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Ojodeaguila said:
The game need some level of abstraction, if not you will need to pause all the time and you will need a complete life to play a game from 1836 to 1936.

Probably the admnistrative buildings can have some local state effect to encourage to you to disperse them over your nation.
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Strictly speaking, given running a nation involves oodles of individuals, a very detailed simulation could take much, much longer than one life to play :)
 
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Axe99 said:
Strictly speaking, given running a nation involves oodles of individuals, a very detailed simulation could take much, much longer than one life to play :)
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"Life is too short for Victoria 3, but that is the fault of life, not Victoria 3"
 
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Hopefully the devs will focus more on implementing interesting choices that actually matters rather than trying to figure out how to avoid an outcry from the "mana" haters. That does not look like it is the case so far. Looking at what gives/costs capacities in the screenshot this looks like a very uninspired mechanic. If the capacties are actually important they will most likely railroad players into a meta where only some government types are used (authority).

25% of the influnce in the screenshot appears to come from what I presume is a randomly generated ruler trait. You can call the mechanics whatever you want, but if that is the case you still haven't understood why a lot of players dislike "mana". It is also the reason I consider the usage of the term "mana" to be more harmful than "mana" itself, it removes focus from what people actually dislike about mechanics such as EU4 monarch points.
 
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lachek said:
It's not clear just from this screenshot, but Freedom of Assembly is a law in the Free Speech category of Laws, which "culminates" in Protected Speech. As the most liberal Law in this category, it grants no Authority, while more repressive Laws (like Freedom of Assembly) do. In isolation from the rest of the game, of course that means it looks like granting your people rights increases your Authority but that is actually the opposite of what is happening.

Also, this is of course not the only thing Free Speech Laws govern, there are other effects of the Laws as well which provide trade-offs to your country, but this is the only effect it has on Authority.

The reason why Road Maintenance uses Authority is because it's a decree (one of many different types) issued in a state to its population, and doesn't cost the government anything other than the Authority to ensure its people are following its directives. This is a pretty early-game solution to maintaining a good market connections in a few states at a time, more effective means of leveraging your economy to ensure cohesion between your states tend to emerge later in the game, freeing your Authority up for other things like suppressing your political opponents (or, you know, granting your people more rights, if that's how you want to go about it.)
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so who take the cost of maintenance? city walls and other public constructions are maintained also by authority? why no option to give them money for the work?

on bureaucracy, education using more bureaucracy than law enforcement? how is? if there is bureaucratic cost for education, for military and merchant fleet and navy too?

and 'influence' in politics, internal and external, is money, pressure, persuasion, conviction. i dont know what influence is in game but it appears vague, abstract, unfactual
 
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mPne said:
so who take the cost of maintenance? city walls and other public constructions are maintained also by authority? the state has its penalties and rewards to get people do what it will, it has armies and police agencies and money, it may do much. i sense that maybe ye will to lessen and shackle this might of violence

on bureaucracy, education using more bureaucracy than law enforcement? how is? if there is bureaucratic cost for education, for military and merchant fleet and navy too?

and 'influence' in politics, internal and external, is money, pressure, persuasion, conviction. i dont know what influence is in game but it appears vague, abstract, unfactual
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The truth is that we still have no information, but if I had to guess I think that it is still the Treasury which pays for it. The difference being that we need to pass through some hoops to get projects through Parliament so we can do them without tying up Authority capacity.

How would that mechanism work? No idea, but maybe we'd check how "popular" any given piece of infrastructure would be with the government IGs, and if we get 50% + 1 we can enact it "normally", or perhaps "democratically." Otherwise we drain Authority (confront the Tyranny mechanics in Imperator: Rome republics). The "popularity" would reflect how much the IG expects to benefit economically or socially from the given project. For example, a railroad to an important province will generate lots of internal trade and thus GDP, while a railroad into the Arctic Circle would generate no trade in the short term but might trigger development of the Arctic provinces in the medium term, so the player might want to push it through with Authority.

Compare the US government subsidising the Transcontinental railroads before the first California gold rush: There was nothing to be found on the West, but after the railroads came, the development happened, and today (for now) California is one of the largest single-state GDPs in the US. It was the result of an Authority play within a non-autocratic nation.
 
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