Proposal(s) for Victoria 3

[peer-LAN]

I wish that Victoria 3 will focus mainly on
German Confederation

German Confederation - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

And the political system of the Frankfurt Parliament https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_Parliament and if possible the Napoleonic Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleonic_Wars the
French First Republic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Convention.

 

[Gurkhal]

New suggestion from me.

Power Double Standards (I couldn't find a better word)

I've been reading and thinking some more about the Russo-Japanese War and its surrounding events.

So I suggest that Great Powers and Secondary Powers could, when warring with an equal or higher ranked Power, walk into the territory of states that are not Great Powers or Secondary Powers. The idea is that when this happens the state with ignored borders get a choice to either resist with force or stand down. This could also come for an Infamy cost that represents public and diplomatic blowback against such a violation of borders.

Resist with force creates a war with the Power that walked across the border and also offer a chance to seek an alliance with the states at war with this Power.

If you stand down you lose alot of prestige and other stuff like increased militancy, loss of legitimacy, support for the parties in the government and so on. And the Power that you stand down towards drastically increase their influence over you, as well as can use you ports and territory for supply lines and you can be blockaded and such by the other side, even if not at war.

The basic idea of this would be to make wars more unstable, as new combatants can easily be drawn in, while also making it desirable for smaller nations to play the diplomatic game more as to shield them from expedient occupation by a nearby Power engaged in a major war.

Historical Examples: My main examples are the Japanese invading Korea in 1904 to secure bases for a war with Russia fought in, unless I'm wrong, formally Chinese territory occupied by Russia, with civilian population being treated pretty horribly in the war between Russians and Japanese.

And of course Germany waltzing into Luxemburg and Belgium in 1914.

 

[Luckierexpert]

I wish that Victoria 3 will focus mainly on
German Confederation
View attachment 650873

German Confederation - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

And the political system of the Frankfurt Parliament https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_Parliament and if possible the Napoleonic Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleonic_Wars the
French First Republic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Convention.

I think that working with the German confederation will be a mechanic in Victoria III but I'd have to say that Paradox would probably need to put a decent amount of effort into it to stop it just turning into another pre-emperor update EU4 HRE mechanic, which was frustrating to work with. Victoria II does an ok job with it by representing it as Austria and Prussia's competing spheres but leaves out some of the nuances (like Denmarks involvement) and can make it too much of a easy win for either power (I.e, whichever nation wins the brothers war is likely to form Germany), leaving the more minor German powers with little room to manoeuvre.

On top of this (and this may be a controversial opinion) but I feel that if there is a unique mechanic for the German confederation, the option to form Germany should be moved to that and that you should be able to form Germany if you have the majority of German Cores, either as one nation or with loyalty to you (so you don't need Alsace-Lorraine), which can stop the more gamey Strats to prevent Germany forming by either supporting France to the bitter end or by randomly annexing a chunk of North Germany. I feel this can be better for the game (as from what I've seen German Pan-Nationalism would have resulted in a unified German state at some point, with or without the war with France) but could also give a path for more minor German states (like Bavaria) a path to form Germany.

 

[Supersotamies]

i dont have any clue if this has been suggested but i would like the playing time to be increased by 50 or maybe even almost 100 as there could be cool things done. representing warfare evolution might be a problem tho.

 

[Luckierexpert]

i dont have any clue if this has been suggested but i would like the playing time to be increased by 50 or maybe even almost 100 as there could be cool things done. representing warfare evolution might be a problem tho.

It has been suggested before. I can only express my view, as plenty of people agree with you but I feel that 1816 should be the earliest date, as it marks the end of the Napoleonic era and the establishment of the concert of Europe (which the crisis system is based off). I don't think trying to cram the Napoleonic wars in along with the Victorian era, WW1 and the inter-war years (1918-1936) would be a good idea, as you would effectively have to ignore or have locked away many of the unique mechanics and ideas of the Victoria Series (sphering, crises, the focus on free trade over mercantilism, a focus on internal politics). 1816 would start the game in an era of (relative) peace in Europe with a number of interesting events about to occur (French invasion of Mexico, continued declarations of independence in South and Central America from Spain, the election of President Monroe (which begins the Monroe Doctorine in US foreign relations), the formation of the Kingdom of the Two Sicily's, ECT).

 

[Kovax]

It has been suggested before. I can only express my view, as plenty of people agree with you but I feel that 1816 should be the earliest date, as it marks the end of the Napoleonic era and the establishment of the concert of Europe (which the crisis system is based off).

Agreed. Any earlier and you've got to include all of the drastic changes that Napoleon made, or were made as a result of his antics. That's enough for a game in itself, and the outcomes of several conflicts during first few years of the game would have the potential to make the political map almost unrecognizable, changing the flow of the game entirely. While that's not necessarily a bad thing in a game, it makes it FAR harder to write and program. In addition, V2 already has more enough trouble handling the transition from linear warfare to trench warfare, right up to just before the dawn of blitzkrieg and maneuver warfare. Expanding it even further in either direction just complicates matters even more.

Personally, I'd rather see a separate game take over in the early years of the 20th Century, and have a WWI and interwar game that runs from around 1900 or so to 1935. The longer the game runs, the more chances the player has to totally sidetrack history into something the developers are going to have trouble accounting for.

 

[Tomray94]

Internal Politics: I want more reforms and more options between them, as well as more reforms which will not be incremental. Electorate reforms should also have options for specific pops to vote only, like military leaders only, religious leaders only, military/religious leaders and military personnel/religious personnel (more on that below).

Dynamic Political Parties: they should be more dynamic, shaped by their ideologies of course but also the conditions surrounding them (if a pro-war/protectionist/planned economy/atheist communist party takes control of Russia for example, countries that like Russia or are in its sphere of influence might see their communist parties adopting closer stances to that party in an attempt to achieve similar success), this system will make politics less predictable and more realisitic I would say, showing that the alt-history stuff that can happen actually has an effect on the game. Of course for this to happen, the stances would need to be greatly expanded. The names for the parties could still be taken from a pool of historical names but appear randomly and with dynamic stances that might differ from their historical counterparts (except for maybe the first party of each ideology which could just be the first party of that ideology as it appeared in the history of that country). This could even be an optional gamemode for those who want the historical parties strictly, like the options in CK2 and HOI4.

Dynamic Reform Stances: Instead of static enact/revoke stances. The parties could also have a sort of support meter. For example, a conservative party might be okay with granting the lowest form of unemployment subsidies but might be entirely against any healthcare funding. If militancy is high enough, it might force them to conceed to the lowest possible amount of healthcare or to back an increase to unemployment subsidies that is 1 change higher than their previous support limit, but no further. Effectively, apply the militancy mechanic to every issue and for most parties. The more ideologically rigid movements (fascism/communism) would have the added benefit of not really caring about militancy and would need a really high amount to be forced to back down on an issue and only 1 point down or up incrementaly.

Radicals instead of An-Caps: Anarcho-liberals as they function at the moment should be replaced by the historical radical whig and jacobin-like movements they are meant to represent instead of anachronistic anarcho-capitalists they end up being. Effectively more radical liberals in their outlook, not as supportive of social reforms as socialists but not as relunctant as liberals. leftist liberals effectively. There could be some sort of oligarchic ideology to represent something similar to the current anarcho-liberals but I can't think of anything specific.

More government types: Oligarchy should a government form that represents systems where multiple executives rule in a council that is elected only by some strata of society (I cannot quite figure out mechanics to make it stand out from just wealthy vote only democracy - I guess if only the wealthy can vote then this government is in charge and it becomes a democracy if the laws expand the voting franchise), it would be comprised of that specific class' ideologies. Military dictatorship should be possible, with officer pops and even soldier pops being the electorate (again depending on the franchise law). Presidential Dictatorship should be modelled more closely to the republican dictatorships of EU4 and be effectively an one-party state for ideologies that are not communism/fascism/radicalism, it should come about in the same way as its EU4 counterpart, a democracy is eroded to the point where it shifts to it. There could even be a theocracy goverment to represent certain middle-eastern political movements and the government of several european countries, like some of the clerical states of the former HRE and the Papacy. The electorate for them would be clergymen or even a new "high priestood" pop. Each Party could even have an best government stance which would make it easier to switch to that government or would even lead to coup events where that party tries to overthrow another and take power if there is enough militancy in their supporters.

Dynamic Ideologies: The ideologies we know today as liberalism or communism or conservatism are not set in stone and back then they were just being formed and many of their thinkers either left them to found new movements (like many communists now being seen as anarchist thought leaders or many liberals being considered proto-socialists) or didnt gain enough traction within their movements to shape them in the direction they wanted. This might be a bit too ambitious even with modern technology but maybe the ideologies could shift based on the circumstances and the thought leaders forgotten by history or considered secondary could become the primary influencers of their movements and cause a radical shift in the ideology compared to how we know it now. I consider this my most ambitious idea here, if this system ends up too complicated then my other suggestions would suffice.

These are the ones I can think of right now, if I happen to think of any others I will come back to the thread. If anyone thinks they have an idea to make these better or wants to discuss this, please quote me and tell me.

 

[Luckierexpert]

Personally, I'd rather see a separate game take over in the early years of the 20th Century, and have a WWI and interwar game that runs from around 1900 or so to 1935. The longer the game runs, the more chances the player has to totally sidetrack history into something the developers are going to have trouble accounting for.

That could work but I'd worry that you'd have few people play past 1920, as most people would come for WW1 and not really be willing to wait the remaining 60% of the game without the prospect of a payoff at the end. Most paradox games start in a period of relative peace and end in a period when a large war occurred, often the largest at the time (the crusade of Varna for CK, the napoleonic wars in EU, WW1 for Victoria, WW2 for HOI, endgame crisis for Stellaris, etc). I think Victoria III could do the Great War justice but you'd need to overhaul the combat system to model the changes in warfare from the Napoleonic wars to WW1.

 

[The Gentleman Bastard]

New suggestion from me.

Power Double Standards (I couldn't find a better word)

I've been reading and thinking some more about the Russo-Japanese War and its surrounding events.

So I suggest that Great Powers and Secondary Powers could, when warring with an equal or higher ranked Power, walk into the territory of states that are not Great Powers or Secondary Powers. The idea is that when this happens the state with ignored borders get a choice to either resist with force or stand down. This could also come for an Infamy cost that represents public and diplomatic blowback against such a violation of borders.

Resist with force creates a war with the Power that walked across the border and also offer a chance to seek an alliance with the states at war with this Power.

If you stand down you lose alot of prestige and other stuff like increased militancy, loss of legitimacy, support for the parties in the government and so on. And the Power that you stand down towards drastically increase their influence over you, as well as can use you ports and territory for supply lines and you can be blockaded and such by the other side, even if not at war.

The basic idea of this would be to make wars more unstable, as new combatants can easily be drawn in, while also making it desirable for smaller nations to play the diplomatic game more as to shield them from expedient occupation by a nearby Power engaged in a major war.

Historical Examples: My main examples are the Japanese invading Korea in 1904 to secure bases for a war with Russia fought in, unless I'm wrong, formally Chinese territory occupied by Russia, with civilian population being treated pretty horribly in the war between Russians and Japanese.

And of course Germany waltzing into Luxemburg and Belgium in 1914.

I like the idea of double standards in geopolitics for Great Powers and the rest even more broadly than just in wars. I think generally speaking it should be more difficult to become a GP, since the existing powers don't want the status quo to be threatened by pesky upstarts. Maybe increase all infamy costs progressively as you start edging closer to parity with existing great powers.

 

[Gurkhal]

A board game I have, "The Tide at Sunrise", about the Russo-Japanese War got me thinking a little the rail roads in Victoria II. Now, these do affect troop movement but to perhaps ease the use of these I have an idea.

Use of Railroads

My suggestion is that railroads in themselves do not give faster movement for troops moving along them, or just a small increase as I don't know how much faster you can march on railroad track as opposed on a normal road.

However...

What railroads could provide is the ability to do strategic movement with land units and so move them a great speed across long distances. Hence a unit would need to be either by a railroad and then get a "Rail Movement" icon to press and then set to what province with uninterrupted railroad connection under the players control and where no battle is raging at present. And then at quick speed the unit would move there as long as the line was uninterrupted with railroad connection and control by the player.

To add to this one could add a dimension of Railroad Capacity which would determine how much goods in peace and troops in war could be moved about on the railroad at the same time. And yes, overloading the railroad with troop transport trains would make the trains carrying goods back and forth have less ability to move their cargo with effects for industry, consumtion, export and import and so on.

 

[Ekcrbe]

Not that I have many aspirations for this thread to be anything other than whistling in the wind, but I did have a recent thought on infamy changes. I think Vic 2 is basically right in its treatment of infamy as being a global rather than regional value, as it fits the modernizing and globalizing world of the era better than EU4's culture-, religion-, and distance-dependent aggressive expansion system would. But there is still room for improvement (as with all things a decade on—and I'm sure a hundred variations on this theme have come and gone throughout this thread).

Foreign affairs would be a position each country has that modifies the infamy that country gains toward every other county based on those countries' actions. Thus you could hit the infamy limit with each foe at different points, not based on geography, but based on their willingness to intervene against your nation according to their own politics. This would obviously require keeping track of bilateral infamy values between every pair of tags, as with AE.

Each political party would have a natural foreign affairs stance to use when in office, but the current policy could be changed through a quasi-reform (not permanent, but only as long as that party remains in power) based on the established reform system.

The could be a mix of generic and historically-inspired stances, e.g.:

• Colonialism — Increased infamy for colonial CBs; the colonialist nation wants to compete for colonial territory
• Continentalism — Decreased infamy for colonial and opposite-hemisphere CBs, as the continentalist nation has few colonial ambitions (I'd like a more neutral [less eurocentric] term for this)
• Appeasement — Decreased infamy for all CBs; think inter-war Allies leading up to the Munich Agreement, at the end of the game's timeframe
• Traditionalism — Increased infamy for secondary powers, decreased infamy for great powers against secondary powers; the traditionalist wants to maintain the current balance of power and prevent new great powers from emerging
• Hegemony (only for #1 GP) — Increased infamy for all CBs; the hegemon seeks to contain all other nations in the world
• Monroe Doctrine (USA, or other democratic New World GP) — Increased infamy for CBs by Old World nations against New World nations, decreased infamy for CBs against Old World nations

The are probably more categories to be had as well, but that's a draft of what came to mind.

 

[Gurkhal]

I think Victoria III could do the Great War justice but you'd need to overhaul the combat system to model the changes in warfare from the Napoleonic wars to WW1.

On this I am both optimistic and pessimistic. Opptimistic because with the short time span and the experience of Victoria II there seems to be more of a chance for some kind of Great War to develop in the later stages of the game. But I am also pessimistic in that Victoria is primarily not a war game like Heart of Iron and so I don't think that the Great War would be so well developed as it could be with a game of its own.

 

[Metalwood]

That could work but I'd worry that you'd have few people play past 1920, as most people would come for WW1 and not really be willing to wait the remaining 60% of the game without the prospect of a payoff at the end. Most paradox games start in a period of relative peace and end in a period when a large war occurred, often the largest at the time (the crusade of Varna for CK, the napoleonic wars in EU, WW1 for Victoria, WW2 for HOI, endgame crisis for Stellaris, etc). I think Victoria III could do the Great War justice but you'd need to overhaul the combat system to model the changes in warfare from the Napoleonic wars to WW1.

Vic 2 already simulates both Napoleonic and ww1 combat almost perfectly. The problem is the ai does know how to change been the two.

 

[Metalwood]

The most important thing I want for Vic 3 is for there to be a few mechanics as possible. EU4 is dragged down by the sheer number of mechanics stapled on to shaky mechanics. For Vic 3 I just pray that there will be a simple set of core mechanics, infamy, prestige, industry score, military power, and that all side mechanics are self-contained. On top of that not too many side mechanics. Please Paradox if you read this understand, what makes vic2 good is its simplicity. Its drawbacks are caused by a lack of polish and a lack of flavor. Look to the Historical Project Mod for what I think Vic 3 should strive to be.

 

[Luckierexpert]

On this I am both optimistic and pessimistic. Opptimistic because with the short time span and the experience of Victoria II there seems to be more of a chance for some kind of Great War to develop in the later stages of the game. But I am also pessimistic in that Victoria is primarily not a war game like Heart of Iron and so I don't think that the Great War would be so well developed as it could be with a game of its own.

Thats a good point, Victoria has always excelled more in non-warfare, although that is also riddled with issues. I'd argue the crises need a better system, as currently it allows for obnoxious demands (like a crisis for Poland where France basically demanded I release most of my eastern holdings as Russia, except Poland) or that it just goes to war every time, with a recent Germany game I played having several world war level conflicts, including 1 Great War, just from crises going bad pre 1914. On a similar note (although this may be reserved for a Victoria III dlc (really getting my hopes up)), I'd argue that the crisis system should stop once a Great War has happened, as WW1 was the straw that showed the Concert of Europe wasn't fit for purpose, with a League of Nations possibly popping up (with its own areas to play around with). This could also be good as a testing ground for a UN mechanic, if Paradox eventually make a Cold War grand strategy game.

 

[Deliberus]

Vic 2 already simulates both Napoleonic and ww1 combat almost perfectly. The problem is the ai does know how to change been the two.

Napoleonic yes, WW1 hell no

 

[Gurkhal]

Here's an idea regarding the economy I decided to throw out there. That is that perhaps it could be possible either through reforms or some customizable system to shape a country's economic system?

Customizable economic system

The idea is that there are three ways to organize an economy; capitalism, planned and guilds and that the player can decide on which. Capitalism is the one that can grant the most effeciency while also more easily provocing militancy and increasing gulfs within society. Planned is the domain of the micromanager and can both work, and not work, depending on the micro-skills of the player. While guilds gives the lowest productivity but provoces less militancy than capitalism and doesn't require as much micromanagement as planned would do.

Almost no system would be 100% of anything but instead be a mix leaning one way or another. And naturally parties, or factions, in power would be more or less eager or restricted based on their party plattform.

 

[deannnkid]

Here's an idea regarding the economy I decided to throw out there. That is that perhaps it could be possible either through reforms or some customizable system to shape a country's economic system?

Customizable economic system

The idea is that there are three ways to organize an economy; capitalism, planned and guilds and that the player can decide on which. Capitalism is the one that can grant the most effeciency while also more easily provocing militancy and increasing gulfs within society. Planned is the domain of the micromanager and can both work, and not work, depending on the micro-skills of the player. While guilds gives the lowest productivity but provoces less militancy than capitalism and doesn't require as much micromanagement as planned would do.

Almost no system would be 100% of anything but instead be a mix leaning one way or another. And naturally parties, or factions, in power would be more or less eager or restricted based on their party plattform.

The problem with this is that it excludes state capitalism as if it is separate from capitalism itself. And rather than guilds it would be trade unions because guilds are anachronistic. I think it should be laissez-faire, interventionism, state capitalism, planned economy (which actually is just another type of state capitalism in which the state is the sole corporation essentially whereas state capitalism in Victoria is when the state helps corporations and works over them to organize them, and then perhaps economic democracy in which individual workers or trade unions control the economy which would be even worse for the player than laissez-faire because it gives even less control over the economy to the central government ie the player.

 

[Tomray94]

The problem with this is that it excludes state capitalism as if it is separate from capitalism itself. And rather than guilds it would be trade unions because guilds are anachronistic. I think it should be laissez-faire, interventionism, state capitalism, planned economy (which actually is just another type of state capitalism in which the state is the sole corporation essentially whereas state capitalism in Victoria is when the state helps corporations and works over them to organize them, and then perhaps economic democracy in which individual workers or trade unions control the economy which would be even worse for the player than laissez-faire because it gives even less control over the economy to the central government ie the player.

I believe that guilds here are meant to represent the difference between the "state capitalism" of reactionary parties, which was based on old pre-industrial revolution economic status quo of rural landowners and city guilds, and the state capitalism of fascists, which is pretty accurately represented in Vic II as far as mechanics go.

I do think there should be a meaningful distinction between laissez-faire and state capitalism though.

 

[Gurkhal]

The problem with this is that it excludes state capitalism as if it is separate from capitalism itself. And rather than guilds it would be trade unions because guilds are anachronistic. I think it should be laissez-faire, interventionism, state capitalism, planned economy (which actually is just another type of state capitalism in which the state is the sole corporation essentially whereas state capitalism in Victoria is when the state helps corporations and works over them to organize them, and then perhaps economic democracy in which individual workers or trade unions control the economy which would be even worse for the player than laissez-faire because it gives even less control over the economy to the central government ie the player.

It actually don't mean that. I don't mean that there would be only three systems but there are three main systems from which to implement, or not implement, aspects from. State capitalism would thus be a mixture between Capitalism and Planned with perhaps a sprinkle of Guilds within it.

The basic idea is thus that the player could customize, as Paradox seems to move in the direction of, their system as opposed to take a whole package one way or another. To my knowledge most economical systems are not theoretically pure but a mix of theory, ideology, practicality and ad-hoc solutions. This idea is meant to simulate that reality, as I understand it.

I believe that guilds here are meant to represent the difference between the "state capitalism" of reactionary parties, which was based on old pre-industrial revolution economic status quo of rural landowners and city guilds, and the state capitalism of fascists, which is pretty accurately represented in Vic II as far as mechanics go.

I do think there should be a meaningful distinction between laissez-faire and state capitalism though.

'

Very much so. The industrial revolution reached different parts of the world at different times and for example in my country the guilds were not abolished and a, kind of, free market and excercise of trade, until in 1864.

Not to mention that I am a little attracted to the idea that you could devise a system as opposed to take on a whole package at once.