And part of that is, in fact, because Victoria tries to do everything. You may like that it does so, but that means that it's going to do each of those things less well.
Personally, I'm not sure what actual benefit there is in trying to model exactly which goods go where--it seems like a hopelessly complex task doomed to break down at some point. I know Naselus disagrees, and likely so would everyone who enjoys the economic model... I'm just not sure how that makes Victoria a better game about the era. Regardless, I'm sure Paradox would never get a single answer from the fans as to where it should focus its effort. I just think they need to decide.
Actually, I've thought a little about how you'd implement things like supply lines and flow of goods, and it's actually a fairly quick graph implementation, which uses shortest path algorithms that we already see for traversals of militaries and so on. It's not difficult or slow to implement, and the shortest paths are recalculated every now and again, and if we get a VicIII on multiple cores, it won't be a big slowdown.
The benefits are adding supply lines and price differentials to trade, which makes protectionism a viable policy, as well as blockades mattering in war, as well as allowing regional competition (buying all your cloth from China shouldn't be a thing: Britain's mills ought to be able to outcompete them in Europe from the game start, simply because of shipping costs), as well as focussing on local supply chains for all your goods.
Why it makes sense for the era: Britain's interests in the era have a very key focus: maintaining trade routes to India. They need this. India bankrolls the empire, almost by itself, and everything would cave in the moment India's trade is threatened. This is why we see an aggressive prevention of Russian access to the Indian ocean, through the British-Afghan war in the 1870s, designed to buffer Russia from India. This is why Suez becomes such a big deal. At the moment, in VicII, it's a convenience. In history, it was a project of inestimable importance, and one which Britain exerted itself to build and maintain its control over well into the 20th century. British trade with India and naval trading supremacy is
so important that it creeps into literally
every aspect of British foreign policy, which undoubtedly then becomes the world's foreign policy. This isn't modelled at the moment, because there's no process where cash crops, such as cotton, or opium, get on a boat in Calcutta, or Hong Kong, or Osaka and then sail to London, or Liverpool, or Hamburg, or New York, through the Suez or Panama canals. There's literally no reason to maintain a strong naval presence globally, except for a couple of ports in Africa for later colonisation. There's no reason to maintain a large navy, even at the expense of individual unit strength, except for military points. Historically, the expenditure on the navy was a matter of enormous importance to Britain, and to any global colonial power (IE, everyone but the US, Germany and Russia), precisely because it safeguarded this flow of goods around the world.
Germany collapsed in WWI because they couldn't import things. They had the infrastructure to keep materiel flowing to the fronts, and prioritised this, but their civilian drafts prevented the sort of agricultural production that they needed to maintain their civilian populations, and they had a revolution. They were retreating after the battle of Amiens, and were reaching the end of their abilities, but they still weren't actually beaten at the front. Germany collapsed from within. This almost happened to Britain as well. The difference? Britain managed to import enough food, through naval superiority.
We see through exceptionally basic analysis of the period that naval superiority is important precisely because of the flow of goods, which the game doesn't model, and thus it misses out on a colossal aspect of the period in terms of interests of great powers, such as Britain, and international relations. If this isn't an "actual benefit" I'd really quite like to know what is.
On the period: I'm quite happy for 1821-1929. The period is about the colonisation of the world by Europe, the industrial revolution, the rise of democracy and socialism, and the fall of monarchies. It opens in 1821 because we need to close the Napoleonic wars quite cleanly, and it sets the prelude for the period: Russia and Britain are the really strong powers, France has just been beaten, and all the tensions that we see creep up again and again are all still there. If anything, France being a republic is probably quite an important facet, but French republicanism can also be included (not quite hardcoded, but something a player would have to work
hard to avoid). Britain is sort-of industrial, and has the colonial presence it should have.
Why 1929: the Great Depression and the rise of Fascism in Germany is something that leads very very smoothly into HoI-type politics, and the prelude to WW2. I don't think we can really go further than 1929 because of how the depression completely reshapes the world. If you went further, you'd have to include until ~1960. War changes so much in the period 1821-1960 that I don't think it's realistic or even plausible that we can have a game that covers both world wars. We also have to start moving to a post-industrial society in the 1960s, which is again something too big for the game to do. We also wrap up in 1929, as opposed to earlier, because we have given space for WW1 and the social and industrial impact that has, as well allowing for the rise of the USSR and autocratic communism, which shapes the period to come (in much the same way that the French Revolution and US' independence sets up the period to come). We also start to get the fall of Britain, which is a nice facet to close on, especially for a game named Victoria.
