My Theory on why Vic 3 is so difficult for some people.

[YellowMoonshine]

(I haven't played the game)
I think Victoria 3 is misunderstood by many players. What I mean is that they find certain things unintuitive, not knowing the game has the exact feature they're looking for.

I've seen gameplay videos where people click on a state to build five times, instead of pressing alt/ctrl and then clicking. People saying that they dislike the (somewhere along the lines of) removal of map modes, not knowing there's a map mode button on the small lens icon beside the lenses. Videos where players incorporate states one by one, not knowing they can just open political lens, incorporate state, and select them on the list. People complaining about opening building menu after menu, probably not knowing they can right-click a building on the state tab and select options not visible in it, like subsidize and auto-expand.

Now, whether it is their inexperience or a really unintuitive design, I don't know. Maybe it is that some players expect a modern, accessible design with a mostly covering tutorial, and when they perceive Victoria 3 isn't that way, they form a negative opinion about that. In paper, I find Victoria 3's interface pretty intuitive, but that might change once I actually try the game and my opinion revolves about the design and most importantly how it works within the game loop.

They just ain't L33T gAmErS like us

 

[TheHostName]

(I haven't played the game)
I think Victoria 3 is misunderstood by many players. What I mean is that they find certain things unintuitive, not knowing the game has the exact feature they're looking for.

I've seen gameplay videos where people click on a state to build five times, instead of pressing alt/ctrl and then clicking. People saying that they dislike the (somewhere along the lines of) removal of map modes, not knowing there's a map mode button on the small lens icon beside the lenses. Videos where players incorporate states one by one, not knowing they can just open political lens, incorporate state, and select them on the list. People complaining about opening building menu after menu, probably not knowing they can right-click a building on the state tab and select options not visible in it, like subsidize and auto-expand.

Now, whether it is their inexperience or a really unintuitive design, I don't know. Maybe it is that some players expect a modern, accessible design with a mostly covering tutorial, and when they perceive Victoria 3 isn't that way, they form a negative opinion about that. In paper, I find Victoria 3's interface pretty intuitive, but that might change once I actually try the game and my opinion revolves about the design and most importantly how it works within the game loop.

You are absolutly right. The amount of times i was "yelling" at friends when they streamed something to me was numurous. I had to essentually tell them to slowly move the cursor to areas on the screen so they could find something to click on/create a popup. Anything they did was slow and infuriating. They didnt use the button to go back, probably because they dont know that its not a "close this ui" button, but a go back to where you previously were button. Not right cling on nations for easy diplo. They simply dont know any "tricks" nor do they take time to look and read the popups. The information about building multiple things with shift or alt can only be found if you wait on a button and read.

But these things dont solve the issues of the game, since even when people understand the game and its mechanics comes the realization: "Wait thats it? I thought this was deeper?" "or that is absolutly not balanced. I just banned slavery in 1840 as the US and didnt get a civil war" ....

 

[YellowMoonshine]

In my experience there is a tooltip for each Production Method that shows whether it will increase or decrease the employment levels of each Profession if you change to that PM. So the information is provided. And nested tooltips are clearly signalled as V3's primary way of providing information.

I'm not saying the UI is perfect; it's clearly got major flaws. But this particular example does not prove the point that's being made, as far as I can see.

That is true. However it only shows you how many jobs would be lost. But it doesnt tell you if they will be rehired somewhere else. Or if they will move to another class or whatever. Its up to the play to go to another screen, check those numbers against each other and against another number in another screen etc. Its a lot of clicking and squinting at charts and takes time to come to the conclusion the game could just tell you. It may sound like Im asking too much from the game but they have built a complicated system, they need to meet the player half way.

 

[TheHostName]

I see 3(now 6) dislikes in total on my and CassalettIVs comment in this thread about many players simply not knwing about shortcuts and tricks for getting fast to information.

Could you guys who disagree with this explain why you disagree?

​

 

[StenKilla]

I see 3(now 6) dislikes in total on my and CassalettIVs comment in this thread about many players simply not knwing about shortcuts and tricks for getting fast to information.

Could you guys who disagree with this explain why you disagree?

​

Someone already quoted your post but ill say that its not only that. What you brought out is certainly annoying and I wish game highlighted shortcuts and trick better.
But that is all surface level stuff. I played couple hours and was indeed left asking "is this it". The map and everything looks gorgeous but that's kinda it. Mechanics are clunky and frustrating. There is absolutely no flavor in the game. The IG are not very interested in what you are doing.
Ive been pushing my self to start a new playthrough but the thought of it makes me depressed. I know what clickfest awaits me and whatever country I pick its pretty much the same just with a different flag color.

 

[durbal]

I have never seen the point in taking a treaty port when I can just directly take what I need and accept all pops and religions to eliminate resistance to direct rule.

This is why they really just need to axe whatever bizarre concept they thought up with Multiculturalism. It basically shuts off an entire portion of the game.

 

[Bezborg]

When RGOs were set in stone in vic2, sphereing made sense. You substantially increased the goods produced assuming that your sphereling wasn't way behind on tech.

Now that RGOs have to be built, one of Vic3s main problems becomes apparent - the AI is incompetent and cannot build RGOs properly, leaving key goods under produced. This is why customs unions are terrible and the solution is just endless conquering - if I want to have oil in the midgame, I'm going to have to take borneo and Iraq and even Pennsylvania. Customs unions and markets are pointless. I have never seen the point in taking a treaty port when I can just directly take what I need and accept all pops and religions to eliminate resistance to direct rule.

Well said, and because I play only small countrire, this AI incompetence to manage basic resource supply males it seem to me thst it’s bettervto have trade deals than join a big market in a customs union… With a trade deal, at least I can fully control a number of free trade routes, but in a customs union I have hortible and insurmountable deficits of even the most basic things

 

[CassalettIV]

I see 3(now 6) dislikes in total on my and CassalettIVs comment in this thread about many players simply not knwing about shortcuts and tricks for getting fast to information.

Could you guys who disagree with this explain why you disagree?

​

My thoughts are pretty much what StenKilla said on the first part. That's why I said that players perceive the game to be unintuitive, despite the game seemingly serious efforts to be approachable and all. From what I've seen, the journal/mission based Learn the Game tutorial doesn't address this kind of interface navigation, so you can see why players, not ignoring but unknowingly, see the game interface as frustrating. Not saying that things couldn't be improved, though. One can read many constructive criticism about it around here.

I'm addressing merely the interface, as it seems other topics came up in this thread. I believe this game made a serious effort to be intuitive but perhaps came short in explaining how it is so.

 

[Sanvone]

Some really great and insightful replies so far

Vic 3 is a VERY different game than most of us are use to.

Before I get started I need to explain two terms I am going use. Completest and Zero-sum.

Completest is a person that wants to finish something. Think of the game Monopoly when you get the final land that gives you a Monopoly. Now you can build houses and hotels. Even better think of when you have Hotels on your property. You are done. You are complete.

The other idea is Zero-Sum. Again think Monopoly. When you pass go and collect 200 you get 200 and no one else loses 200. In a Zero-Sum game you would collect 200 only because someone else lost 200.

One of the issues I think people have with Vic 3 is it is not friendly to the the Completest and it is a Zero-Sum game. You are never done.

I, as someone who is a Completest, can deal with it, but it is not easy. I want to be done. When I research that technology I want to upgrade everything. In Vic 3 this is killer. Take Japan you would think spending some coal to improve production would be a good idea. However, it is probably better to build more tool workshops, and hire some more of your vast population, than to use coal and limit the number of employees.
This is not intuitive.

The other idea, that ties into it, is that Vic 3 is a Zero-Sum. Yes, you can do good over here, but then you will lose out over here.

This does not make Vic 3 a bad game. I am not saying that. In fact, I am greatly enjoying it. I am just saying is goes against some of the things that we have learned playing games over the years.

You're onto something but you kinda missed me on that distinction as those aren't exactly opposites. Completests sounds like someone who wants more pernament structure of gameplay loop with identifitable and solid goal posts/marks at each segment seperating phases of game. Part of it comes from your experience from previous games which was pounded into our gaming habits subconsiously into our egos. Many strategy enjoyers have sub-conscious expactactions of doing great because of their previous learned competence and thus dismiss alternative ways of playing after initial failure. Staunch anti-adaptation stances were personally observed in some niche titles but I also have some examples of triple A games which were meme'd and buried for some designs, which were criticised by majority but... were not understood and few people who could make them fun were witch-hunted by those game-communities for presenting evidence. It's tall order to acknowledge that something that seemed counter-intuitive is in fact correct/workable while your intuitive solution is also correct. I'm not saying this is the case of Vicky3 but the more I read about it here the more do I get that impression that maybe it is one of those games. Even if theorycrafting and min/maxing weird ways to play is my personal hobby it is dubious that it makes for great design philosophy as without a doubt people such as I are in minority (just think of good guide-makers, which usually sell you their works but it is not only datamined but also mathed out and tested in game examples as workable).

I would put those Completests in opposition to something called "Processer" if we are to stick with simple naming convention. Someone who doesn't care for easily visible markers of in-game progress as long as raw data is provided, because that person stick to fluid constant gaming loop which relies mostly on constant moment-to-moment calculations/decisions/analysis so that kind of information is too innacurate at this point of min/maxing. Game could alarm me about something that I will ignore because I know that it doesn't matter as I reach numerical turning point that not directly but indirectly puts me way ahead. It might seem like someone was losing and now all of sudden wins and thus used some bug often but I would puts many of such people into that category of "intensive in the moment play all the time". Also we have less issues with thing you call counter-intuitive because on one hand we resolved the problem to arrive into single black and white conclusion. Also intuitive is problematic when it comes to "economics" or "math". Many things in current day economy is quite absurd and most people would say it isn't intuitive. Most of what people call intuitive has nothing to do with intuition as it comes from knowledge/experience/habits of someone who actually went through hole process and has deep understanding of it, which had to be "dumbed down" for masses to understand. I just want to mention that it isn't black wide distinction - Completests seem better with healthy overall game progression feeling as "Processers" sometimes don't care about as long as they can interact with gameplay loop to extract even miniscule amount of what they want. IMO if you go too far in either direction you end up with niche game because either it is too energy intensive to decipher for most, or it turns out too shallow/easy to keep an audience.

Zero-Sum is also problematic. From what I've heard Victoria 3 is zero-sum in some areas but isn't in others. Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the world market the source of unlimited amount of goods even if price adjusts while no-one produces such goods. Cause I heard such critique. If that's the case then zero-sum design would just limit Victoria 3 to closed world economy. Your examples sound more like "alternative-cost" that some might not be ok with. It is important concept because the more it is limited the less player input matters (because there is no consequences or lost opportunities).

(I haven't played the game)
I think Victoria 3 is misunderstood by many players. What I mean is that they find certain things unintuitive, not knowing the game has the exact feature they're looking for.

I've seen gameplay videos where people click on a state to build five times, instead of pressing alt/ctrl and then clicking. People saying that they dislike the (somewhere along the lines of) removal of map modes, not knowing there's a map mode button on the small lens icon beside the lenses. Videos where players incorporate states one by one, not knowing they can just open political lens, incorporate state, and select them on the list. People complaining about opening building menu after menu, probably not knowing they can right-click a building on the state tab and select options not visible in it, like subsidize and auto-expand.

Now, whether it is their inexperience or a really unintuitive design, I don't know. Maybe it is that some players expect a modern, accessible design with a mostly covering tutorial, and when they perceive Victoria 3 isn't that way, they form a negative opinion about that. In paper, I find Victoria 3's interface pretty intuitive, but that might change once I actually try the game and my opinion revolves about the design and most importantly how it works within the game loop.

This somehow ties to what I want to mention. Each game has 2 distinctive phases of discovery. Initial and "reinvented". After launch many general gaming loops are identified, informations are datamined and paths of least resistance are found. Those are all correct but 9 times out of 10 many things are falsely flagged as behaviours to avoid without proper explanation. There are examples of not only PC games but also TCGs, which years after release of certain features/set releases would be redefined when it comes to their meta. UI often is to blame for that but also as they say perspective is everything. For example Rome 2 TW was the game that had initialy not so great UI and thus some systems were yeet'ed and deleted even though they offered interested options which most just didn't even realised were there. Even to this day 9 out of 10 guides for Rome2: TW dating for older versions of the game are plain wrong regarding important areas of game and still community treats them like a Bible. Could recreate evidence given game version, which would disprove it but would get me lynched/dismissed for such heresy... Because people over the decades have habits when it comes to strategy games and they don't want/have reason to change it.

 

[Xdevo]

My thoughts are pretty much what StenKilla said on the first part. That's why I said that players perceive the game to be unintuitive, despite the game seemingly serious efforts to be approachable and all. From what I've seen, the journal/mission based Learn the Game tutorial doesn't address this kind of interface navigation, so you can see why players, not ignoring but unknowingly, see the game interface as frustrating. Not saying that things couldn't be improved, though. One can read many constructive criticism about it around here.

I'm addressing merely the interface, as it seems other topics came up in this thread. I believe this game made a serious effort to be intuitive but perhaps came short in explaining how it is so.

If players are struggling to find button combinations, it is unintuitive. The alt/ctrl + click features for mass building railroads in Vic2 were pretty unintuitive (enough that I had to tell people that I'd played with for over a year), despite the tooltip saying such. This falls in much of the same problems.

My issue is that even if you do know button combinations, frequently the game hides options from you and you have to dig into the interface to find why. Sometimes things get buried in the interface because of the lack of popups (boy would I sure like to know if a nation breaks an alliance or leaves my custom unions). All of the events force you to click on them on the map to interact with them which turns out is easy to miss. I've had to explain to three different people (all of whom regularly play EU4, HOI4, and/or Stellaris) how many historical events are in the decision tab and that said tab is in the journal UI.

I can't really say the Vic2 UI was intuitive, or that any other game in the series has intuitive UI, but this sits at the unfortunate juncture of paradox's historical difficulty with UI and the modern obsession with large button, mobile-esque UI design, which means that they can't display nearly as much information without switching menus, scrolling, or drilling through tooltips.

 

[Orinsul]

I found it difficult because I skipped the tutorial, ignored all tool tips and jumped straight in to a hard country to play.
It's fun, I still don't know how half of it works (see ignored all tool tips), but I've worked it out pretty much.

I think it's probably hard to new people alongside your reasons for some things that you have to experitent with, like how to get enough access to market or tax collection, build too many ports/railways or government offices or not enough and it's profit the sweet spot is something you'll only know from experience and none of us have that yet?

 

[TheDungen]

There are shortages! Mid to late game I had to go on a military rampage to get oil because no one produced it except me.
I want more ability for communication between my customs union members and my puppets. i want to steer the economy not wait for the AI. Warfare already does that

There are shortages because you've overbuilt compared to global capacity. As for the oil prducing nations keeping the price high by keeping supply low... funny idea they'd never do that in reality. Ih wait they did, as recently as like a month ago.

The problem is i was promised not a map painter but somehow its a map painter. You cant interact with your subjects production so where do i get the stuff i need? by conquering small nations. Thats what AI loves to do very much in Africa - just gobble everything up

I mean africa is africa thats where that kind of expansion happened. the 19th century had loads of conquest at the expense of "primitives" it's conquest at the expense of other "civilized" states that it did not really do much.

I find endless expansion is still best. Even as Japan which has native dye and silk, I conquer through Thailand every game I play now that I’ve learned it. Need Opium, and even as a vassal or customs Union meme we they refuse to build Opium. Und then also throughout Indonesia for gold and other goodies…

As Papal States to be strong enough to fight for Italian Leadershup I conquered throughout Africa for prestige, money, GDP, and manpower.

Honestly tall is good but like most games, albeit with a few country specific exceptions, expansion is far better than peaceful building.

Exceptions are Russia (already huge poor population), Grossdeutschland (far more important to actually unify your industry. I often find I can’t catch up to France due to their head start and massive colonial empire), France (has everything it needs…), and maybe Britain.

Even as USA I’m joining French Customs Union then conquering throughout Africa and North America. Too much money and too many resources left on the table to do anything else.

Yeah I was talking about the core concept more than the way it works really, sure it cna use some improvement. That said blobbng in africa shouldn't really count because the scramble for africa is the one theatre where conquest relaly happened.

 

[TheDungen]

Do think the UI could've represented some details alittle clearer.

For example here, i wanted to find out my pop needs for my peasants, so that i could take measures to reduce their cost of living to improve their living standards. But specifically seeing the pop types needs is tucked away under multiple pop-up tip boxes. While in viccy 2, in the tax screen there was a pie chart right next to it that gave a overall view of all the pop needs being met.

View attachment 898740

I mean you could argue that its common sense or something that you're memorize overtime on what pop needs are required by pop type, generally i would have wiki pages open in google just to cross reference stuff in other paradox games. What i'm saying is, wouldn't have minded some of the pop needs being more clearly defined, but in time, i'm sure Viccy 3 Wiki will list all the needs by pop required and i'll just alt tab out mid game to check.

You can find it under standard of living too I think, in the top bar.

 

[TheDungen]

If you play that way then you will have a bad time, but what i find troubeling happens in any game of V3 i play. I dont go around and conquoer stuff to stay aflot or something. The other thing is that iam most of the time using conquest in some areas to get states with valuable resources. Indonesian celebes is an amazing state if you need dye. Bahrain is a good oil state same as omans part of the trucial states. ALso who intergrates states? I dont care about those people in Bahrain or Indonesia But maybe thats where the Eu4 player in some of them shines through.

Well overseas expansion is the name of the game in this period and shoudl be treated way diffrent than expansion in one's home region. In Vic2 we had the demand concession wargoal (+5 infamy) and the conquest (+22 infamy)/acquire state (+11 infamy) wargoals. Which were very diffrent in how much infamy they gave.

Oh you can?? Ah thanks!!

I'm not absolutly certain about that but someone else said it ina stream.

 

[anbory]

To use your example: would the player have chosen to improve production methods if he had known it would cause mass unemployment?

It's literally written in red when you choose production method.

 

[Zeleny_Drak]

Can you please explain why you 'need' to conquer these states to get these resources?

Why not just import them? So far I have not found any good that is not importable from somewhere or other, but I play slowly.

And even if's not importable, the worst that happens is that the price is high, isn't it? The good might be expensive, but there's no such thing as shortages.

I was part of the US market for 70 years as Liberia (I had to leave it as the Civil war fired in the 1900 and the Confederacy took everything east of the Mississippi leaving the US without a trading port). Coal was always in huge shortage because the US did not build almost any coal mines. I've joined the French market where coal is more available, probably because France starts with more coal mines but now it's 1920 and oil is completely missing. When I joined the market there was 300 oil available vs 4000 needed. Nobody is exporting oil. All the small states in Brunei are independent and sitting on undeveloped oil reserves. I had to conquer one myself, build the 14 oil rigs available and I'm now the second largest producer in the world. I did not solve anything for the French market as now the rate is 2400 vs 6000 needed.

You are probably not seeing this issues as you are in the early game, usually all the resources are available somewhere, the biggest issue is the newer ones that appear or become more valuable in the second half of the game.

 

[Zeleny_Drak]

There are shortages because you've overbuilt compared to global capacity. As for the oil prducing nations keeping the price high by keeping supply low... funny idea they'd never do that in reality. Ih wait they did, as recently as like a month ago.

That's not the case in my game. They are not keeping the price high by keeping the supply low, they don't have any oil production so it does not matter what is the price of oil. The supply is so low that my 14 oil rigs are the number 1 building in the world, the workers there are the richest in the world. The global production could double and would still not impact the price.

 

[Baldamundo]

Some people find Victoria 3 so difficult simply because it is a very complicated game! you don't need any elaborate explanations for that!

 

[StenKilla]

There are shortages because you've overbuilt compared to global capacity. As for the oil prducing nations keeping the price high by keeping supply low... funny idea they'd never do that in reality. Ih wait they did, as recently as like a month ago.

Are you serious right now?? Every time you reply to me all I see is massive coping. The supply is low because AI IS BAD AT BUILDING STUFF(no one even built oil rigs except me). There are shortages because AI IS BAD AT BUILDING STUFF. You should really keep your imagination in check.

I mean africa is africa thats where that kind of expansion happened. the 19th century had loads of conquest at the expense of "primitives" it's conquest at the expense of other "civilized" states that it did not really do much.

It supposed to be no war game but the AI is constantly at war! That was my issue. That kind of expansion happened but not in 1836!!! And about the conquests? Did Uk and France and whoever mobilize 300k men to roll around in the jungles of Africa? Are you really gonna cope and say "bu-but its realistic!".

 

[TheDungen]

It supposed to be no war game but the AI is constantly at war! That was my issue. That kind of expansion happened but not in 1939!!! And about the conquests? Did Uk and France and whoever mobilize 300k men to roll around in the jungles of Africa? Are you really gonna cope and say "bu-but its realistic!".

Here you do have a point. As I understand it they dialed up the AI agressivness in their last build and it seems they overdid it. the AI is litterally shooting themselves in the foot by being so agressive Prussia doesn't form because they keep getting high infamy which sets their progress back down to near 0.