Are we going to have to wait for 10 DLCs to get flavor content for the 10 most important countries of the game?

[realCuervo]

It seems to me to be the Paradox's current business model.

 

[Splorghley]

When SCS started putting out DLCs for American Truck Simulator one state at a time, people were apoplectic based on some bad back-of-the-envelope maths that suggested it would take SCS decades to cover the entire Union. What SCS did instead was beef up their content teams, ramp up their release schedule, and as a result are now entering a steady flow of lovingly made, highly detailed per-state DLC. This worked really well: Utah feels completely different from Arizona, because it was made by a team that worked intensely on Utah. It is infinitely preferable to lumping both in some "generic American desert" pack.

If Paradox does the same - starts pumping out local DLC that truly do justice to a small area - I'd be thrilled, and probably blow a lot more money at the end of the day than if they release some generic "Western Europe" pack, after ten months, that covers a dozen countries, none of them particularly well.

In the last ten years Paradox has been on an 'abstraction' drive, where they prefer generic systems to regional ones. In general, this was necessary, and is an improvement. But the pendulum has swung way, way too far on this now, and those abstract systems have become lifeless. They desperately need local idiosyncrasies and local flavour. It's hard to see how you could go much bigger than France without losing that focus.

It's just about the right size, the right focus, and the right timing for a flavour pack, imho. I expect to be more excited about the actual expansion (and some news on the inevitable war / diplomacy reworks), but I'm defs in the market for this too. And I say that as someone who's yet to even try a France game.

 

[Richard Dolder]

In the last ten years Paradox has been on an 'abstraction' drive, where they prefer generic systems to regional ones. In general, this was necessary, and is an improvement. But the pendulum has swung way, way too far on this now, and those abstract systems have become lifeless. They desperately need local idiosyncrasies and local flavour. It's hard to see how you could go much bigger than France without losing that focus.

Definitely, they were overly using events as a crutch for what could be done via systems.
Now I prefer only systems, and I accept that some things will be lost in my "only systems" worldview, and i'm glad the events and local flavor crowd are getting their stuff. But I'm also very glad by locking it to expansions it isn't going to mingle with the core systems and be used as a crutch, that the only way the british empire dismantles is because events force it.

Would have liked more unique IGs per nation though without DLC.

 

[Nirmara]

Not every major nation should get a dedicated immersion pack but France certainly deserves one. It was an anti-status quo great power up until the Versailles treaty seeking to expand its territory or its influence, and unlike most other nations, this wasn't done on a regional scope but on a truly global one.

This made France one of the main drivers of events during the first part of the XIX century. Just to give a few examples, France was the main cause or was heavily involved in the following:

• Was one of the first nations to embrace the industrial revolution.
• Made major scientific and cultural contributions.
• The February Revolution acted as the trigger of the Sprint of Nations.
• Napoleon III involvement in the Ottoman Empire led to the Crimean War, the first war between major power of the post-Vienna settlement.
• Intervene in Mexico and tried to put a puppet King on the throne.
• Participated in the 2nd Opium Wars and those that followed.
• Was heavily involved in the Italian and German unification.
• Built the Suez Canal.
• Made the first attempt to build the Panama Canal.
• Created the 2nd largest colonial empire of the Era with colonies on every continent.
• Was one of the main power during World War One.

France basically acted as a significant portion of the player base does. Even if one does not play France, it's one of the few nations that has the potential to influence pretty much any other nation in the world. Let's hope this will be reflected as well.

 

[Panagean]

When SCS started putting out DLCs for American Truck Simulator one state at a time, people were apoplectic based on some bad back-of-the-envelope maths that suggested it would take SCS decades to cover the entire Union. What SCS did instead was beef up their content teams, ramp up their release schedule, and as a result are now entering a steady flow of lovingly made, highly detailed per-state DLC. This worked really well: Utah feels completely different from Arizona, because it was made by a team that worked intensely on Utah. It is infinitely preferable to lumping both in some "generic American desert" pack.

If Paradox does the same - starts pumping out local DLC that truly do justice to a small area - I'd be thrilled, and probably blow a lot more money at the end of the day than if they release some generic "Western Europe" pack, after ten months, that covers a dozen countries, none of them particularly well.

In the last ten years Paradox has been on an 'abstraction' drive, where they prefer generic systems to regional ones. In general, this was necessary, and is an improvement. But the pendulum has swung way, way too far on this now, and those abstract systems have become lifeless. They desperately need local idiosyncrasies and local flavour. It's hard to see how you could go much bigger than France without losing that focus.

It's just about the right size, the right focus, and the right timing for a flavour pack, imho. I expect to be more excited about the actual expansion (and some news on the inevitable war / diplomacy reworks), but I'm defs in the market for this too. And I say that as someone who's yet to even try a France game.

Not knowing very much about American Truck Simulator, it strikes me that this is may have worked well because each state in ATS functions independently of every other state. Lions of the North and regionally-specific overpowered DLC in EU4 showed that because of the way everything interacts in PDX GSGs, overbalancing one region can negatively affect the rest of the game. My biggest concern in Voice of the People is actually the reverse: VotP will introduce the mechanics that help France follow its historical route of "underperformance" 1836-1936 (going from 2nd great power to...4th or 5th?), meaning that without VotP Europe will continue to feel wildly ahistorical.

My other two big concerns are that, first, this sets the precedent that "historicity" (that is, gameplay inspired by deep and specific historical research, which can but does not automatically have to be railroady) is something we're going to have to pay for. At the moment, Victoria 3 to me does not particularly feel like a game closely linked to its historical period at more than an explanation over a rushed lunch kind of way ("Yadda yadda, aristocrats becoming factory owners...inevitable rise of trade unions...smart people good religion bad...proletarianism? Oh yes, rising demand, changing goods, colonial resources, labour reduction...war as an industrial factor, don't worry about it...you got that?"), and that's a shame, because that feeling of historicity is a big reason I play PDX games over (say) Civilisation or Total War, and was a big pull to me for V2.

The last big concern is that this isn't probably the first big area of work I would have done to "fix" internal politics and ties the political simuatlion closer to the Great Man-ism the devs said they sought to avoid, which seems likely to piss off both the Dialectical Materialist crowd and the emergent pop politics crowd.

I am glad, though, that most of the mechanical stuff seems to be coming in the free patch. Good on them for listening to community feedback that the game doesn't yet feel "complete".

 

[Splorghley]

My other two big concerns are that, first, this sets the precedent that "historicity" (that is, gameplay inspired by deep and specific historical research, which can but does not automatically have to be railroady) is something we're going to have to pay for. At the moment, Victoria 3 to me does not particularly feel like a game closely linked to its historical period at more than an explanation over a rushed lunch kind of way ("Yadda yadda, aristocrats becoming factory owners...inevitable rise of trade unions...smart people good religion bad...proletarianism? Oh yes, rising demand, changing goods, colonial resources, labour reduction...war as an industrial factor, don't worry about it...you got that?"), and that's a shame, because that feeling of historicity is a big reason I play PDX games over (say) Civilisation or Total War, and was a big pull to me for V2.

I agree.

As I see it these days, Paradox' job is to put together sturdy skeletons - solid core game loops - which I flesh out with mods and occasional DLC.

You could say these are very low expectations for full price games, and you'd be completely right. I used to drop money on Paradox games quite happily. Now, I do so much less happily, and increasingly not at all.

But I'm trying to be pragmatic here. I can yearn for the moon and all the stars, but I will only be disappointed. If they get the core loop right, I can work with that. If they don't, I cannot. I can flesh Austria out with events and decisions. I can't fix 'war', or 'diplomacy' as core game mechanics.

I will support the game for so long as I feel like they're trying to get that core loop right, and I do feel that - more than any other Paradox team - the V3 folks understand where the game is lacking. We're not there yet, but I'm still quite hopeful that V3 will manage to get that sturdy skeleton in place.

Would I have preferred for it to have been there on release? Sure. Will I still be around in two years, if the skeleton is not there by that point? Probably not. But, for now, I'm still aboard this ride.

 

[heliostellar]

I’m not sure I like the Immersion Packs being focused in a single country.

Right now the game is empty of specific country flavor and we are gonna have to wait years to get at least the 10 most important countries some flavor.

Yes

 

[Panagean]

I agree.

As I see it these days, Paradox' job is to put together sturdy skeletons - solid core game loops - which I flesh out with mods and occasional DLC.

You could say these are very low expectations for full price games, and you'd be completely right. I used to drop money on Paradox games quite happily. Now, I do so much less happily, and increasingly not at all.

But I'm trying to be pragmatic here. I can yearn for the moon and all the stars, but I will only be disappointed. If they get the core loop right, I can work with that. If they don't, I cannot. I can flesh Austria out with events and decisions. I can't fix 'war', or 'diplomacy' as core game mechanics.

I will support the game for so long as I feel like they're trying to get that core loop right, and I do feel that - more than any other Paradox team - the V3 folks understand where the game is lacking. We're not there yet, but I'm still quite hopeful that V3 will manage to get that sturdy skeleton in place.

Would I have preferred for it to have been there on release? Sure. Will I still be around in two years, if the skeleton is not there by that point? Probably not. But, for now, I'm still aboard this ride.

Yeah fair - I am probably only on this train for the length of the pre-order DLC which I rather foolhardily got, as the core loops just aren't really to my taste (see long post in my signature if you're interested) and I seem to seriously disagree with some design decisions the devs made in politics, war and the centrality of pops. Still, I'm prepared to share your pragmatism for a time, and also to keep being irritating and irritated about the stuff I'd like to see in the game. I'm also concerned that the modern constant-patch cycle makes it harder for a few definitive vanilla+ mods like HPM to properly emerge, so - we see!

 

[Aliquam]

It seems to me to be the Paradox's current business model.

This plus aimed direction towards memes (Glitterhoof, incest, le based mr lenin leading revolution, bread centaur etc.) and waste of enormous resources on developing 3D models.

 

[nuarbnellaffej]

You will have to wait for 10 generous free content patches.
See you in three years.

Yea something about seeing the word “free” every time they reference an upcoming patch gives me a weird vibe. Like they are doing us a big favor supporting the game, it’s a bit of signaling that’s really not needed. Gamers know the difference between patches and DLC.

 

[Ulf91]

I would expect to see some nations get separate packs and some get "bundled" e.g. it would be problematic to make separate packs for Prussia and Austria because of how interconnected their history was with each other and with Germany as a whole. On the other hand, I would expect Russia to get its own pack, because of how much internal stuff was going on, that didn't have that much spillover to other great powers.

I hope so, but the history of france and prussia are also is connected on wery importend points. Like the Lothringen Question or the paris commune. The Paris Commune was established while the war with prussia. The same war after Germany was formed... I ask me how they would make france at some point weak enough that rebels take the capital and hold against the rest of france.

 

[gustavotoniato]

No

 

[FryFroFella]

That is because you are lumping all concerns of that type into single complaint of "lack of flavour".

If we lump all concerns about economy into one single complaint, it would easily surpass lack of flavour. Ditto for many other areas of the game.

Now, I would agree that there is a lack of flavour but the way to deal with it is throught expanding the mechanics of the game.

Let's imagine that naval bases had range that affects warfare and colonization - suddenly you have a very different situation regarding Africa. If you're playing Russia, you can't really throw your weight around in Africa and colonize just as well as Britain and France, for example. There's some flavour right there.
If straits were close-able, power projection outside Black Sea for Russia is limited. So, you have to get Ottomans on your side or take control of Constantinople.

Stuff like that would add depth and flavour to the game.

I am fully aware that a lot of people want new decisions/journal entries/events for specific countries and such DLC's will happen, I just hope devs don't allow themselves to think that those DLC's are replacement for depth.

For example, I want better mechanics to represent dealing with internal turmoil while trying to modernize. I don't want Japan DLC that adds some unique things and solves it for Japan, while I'm still gonna be stuck with old, poor mechanics if I choose to play Siam.

Excellent post, this is exactly the issue with dividing out "flavor" and mechanics. Flavorful text and events are nice, dont get me wrong, but getting a text box with a prestige bonus after building x amount of Arms Industries doesnt make me feel like I'm playing as a modernizing Japan (etc) on its own. But in the absence of any flavor text or Journal Entries at all, I could still feel much more immersed in the idea of modernizing Japan if the gameplay around development of industry, reform of politics, and establishment of diplomacy was well integrated and Japans starting position by those metrics was appropriate. It makes me think of the way guerilla warfare is represented in something like HOI4: an event telling you its happening with a number attached. Sometimes that's good and fine for things that arent the focus of the game but are still fun or immersive to acknowledge, but Journal Entries have the potential to plug the holes V3's historical strategy gameplay just well enough to leave them unaddressed while still leaving the actual gameplay lacking in important areas.