Players should not be able to choose which buildings are constructed under Planned Economy.

[EUnderhill]

You could place a NF for a "category" of factories, but each category included one "loser", along with a "winner" and one or two "middle of the road" choices. The AI seemed to build the "loser" 7 times out of 10, in the unlikely event that it built anything at all, and the "middle" option(s) 2 out of 10, so you rarely got what you actually wanted. Besides, the boost in odds was trivial, and there were far more important things to use your NF points for in most cases.

You didn't really need to be worrying much about factories until the promotion phase was done anyway.

 

[LoLuecoLueco]

 

[Ivashanko]

I've been pretty excited about Victoria 3 overall, but one feature that really concerns me is the ahistorical ability of the player to decide which industries get constructed under a planned economy. In real life, Lenin would not be personally deciding whether to build a lumber mill in Kamchatka; these decisions were left up to the relevant state planning agencies. Perhaps the player should be able to indirectly encourage or discourage certain industries, but the final say should rest with the central planners themselves. The ability to independently construct whatever buildings you want out of a magical "state revenue" fund totally destroys the historical dynamics that were so important to this period. If the player can just "choose" to build something like a luxury clothes factory, when an armaments factory would be objectively more useful, then historical verisimilitude is thrown entirely out the window.

I really hope the devs address this by allowing bureaucrat pops to decide on their own what gets built under planned economy, or at the very least punishing the player for constructing buildings that are not optimally useful to the government. If the player has the unlimited ability to construct whatever they want regardless of the opinions of central planners, then this will be just another arcadey resource management game instead of a real historical simulation.

This, but only semi-ironically.

I legitimately hope Paradox gives us the option to automate large nations' upgrades. Playing late game Russia is microhell otherwise.

 

[wthree]

This, but only semi-ironically.

I legitimately hope Paradox gives us the option to automate large nations' upgrades. Playing late game Russia is microhell otherwise.

Very much agree.
Micromanaging building construction is one of the least fun aspects of recent paradox games.

 

[Kovax]

Very much agree.
Micromanaging building construction is one of the least fun aspects of recent paradox games.

Micromanaging LATE GAME building construction is one of the least fun aspects; micromanaging EARLY GAME building construction lays the foundation for your nation, and can be very interesting. It just gets tedious after the 20th factory or so, and becomes an un-fun grind a couple hundred factories or upgrades later.

 

[FleetingRain]

You know what, I agree with OP.