Sourcecode for Victoria available!

[unmerged(61634)]

Is there any chance of fixing blockades so that blockaded countries can't access the world-market? Do you plan to make it so that countries can adopt isolationist, closed-border policies?

I think the second question is the most important, because countries like China are not properly represented right now. The wars with GB and other European powers don't completely make sense unless the game represents that China refuses proper access to its markets. Invading China, although easy for the European empires, doesn't give you the option to open markets, or gain trade benefits, or do any of that sort of thing. In fact, at any and every point of the game, you can trade just as easily with China as you can with Great Britain.

Right now, China's approach to the world market is identical to that of any other country. The only way you can fiddle with things is to toy with tariffs, but that is an internal issue in this game.

 

[Hardstuff]

A genocide button! Put an army to a province and press it, and it will make all minorities revolt. Ah i'd love it.

I knew you were crazy, but there's the proof.

 

[Searry]

And Paradox will veto that idea faster than you can say "ethnic cleansing" :wacko:

Paradox does not support the depiction of such actions in games, hence why they are not included in Hearts of Iron. Similar guidelines will most likely have to be followed by outside developer teams.

Quite stupid. It's just a game.

 

[Pietercornelis]

what impact would this have though? even in the mid-1800s you are having the development of a world marketplace for goods, one that is impacted by the cost of transport to get goods in and out, but the direction of economic integration in this period was definitely towards a global marketplace, where the value of resources were determined in global centers like London and New York.

I agree with you about the price determination, but the economic productivity of a province depends not only on it's own (local) railroad, but also on the possibilities to get the products to the world market.

For example, imagine that in 1840 Afghanistan would be blanketed with high level railroads. In-game this would lead to a large raise in (factory) production, while in real-life this raise wouldn't nearly be as large because there would be large problems both in acquiring raw materials and in delivering products to the world market.

[EDIT] What I would also like is the possibility to get save-games to save POP-sizes down to a single person, not rounded to the nearest 100. This would make it much easier to play for shorter periods of time and still experience population growth.

 

[Gen. Skobelev]

What I would also like is the possibility to get save-games to save POP-sizes down to a single person, not rounded to the nearest 100. This would make it much easier to play for shorter periods of time and still experience population growth.

Oh yes please. That rounding is so annoying.

 

[shasla6]

Is there any chance of fixing blockades so that blockaded countries can't access the world-market?

The way the world market is accessed must be changed in general. Otherwise, landlocked countries will actually be rewarded for their remoteness regarding blockades.

 

[Tempelridderen]

Does this mean that it will be possible to have lots of new culture tags? And religion and state tags??

 

[unmerged(90903)]

Yeah it would be cool to have some kind of "accessibility to market" modifier. The factors influencing this could be things like:
-coastal province
-near a river
-rail connections (not just at the state level)
-state policy
-...

It could also be used to better represent subsistence farming, with goods not leaving the state/nation. Seems like a very hard thing to balance though :wacko:

 

[OHgamer]

Some very good ideas in the last several posts, and many of those are already on the list of things I am planning to consider. (I've been in the planning stages for several months, and actually years if you include beta testing periods and things that were proposed but not included for various reasons)

I will caution everyone that should I undertake this process, I can not guarantee that the expansion that will be created will be, to quote Mary Poppins

"Practically Perfect In Every Way"

in terms of what every potential player would want their "Perfect Victoria" to be like.

Some things may in testing just not work well, or end up being bad for gameplay. Other ideas may be so complex in terms of number-crunching needed that they will have to be dropped because most computers today would experience severe gameplay slowdowns due to it.

So while all the ideas suggested are great, keep in mind that ideas that look great on paper may indeed not be executable in code, or may be exectuable in code but create absolutely horrible gameplay.

 

[OHgamer]

Quite stupid. It's just a game.

It's Paradox policy. Don't like it, play another company's games.

 

[Gen. Skobelev]

It's just a game.

Except Victoria is not "just a game." It is something far more important and meaningful for us.

 

[ComradeOm]

Any ideas OH on whether you'll be taking a serious look at completely reworking the POP system... or is that large task best left to a full sequel?

 

[OHgamer]

Any ideas OH on whether you'll be taking a serious look at completely reworking the POP system... or is that large task best left to a full sequel?

I think that will depend on the nature of the beast once a look at the source code and its complexity is possible.

My guess is that because it is such an integrated element of the base game, it would be a major, major undertaking to try and do something completely different with the POP system. There may be ways to streamline the current system, but a complete overhaul of its very nature might just be something that has to wait for a full sequel, because unravelling the spaghetti of all the connections where the current POP system is used could be a lot more painful, for potentially few positive results and quite significant time needed to make sure all areas affected by such a radical redesign would bring.

 

[unmerged(90903)]

I think that will depend on the nature of the beast once a look at the source code and its complexity is possible.

My guess is that because it is such an integrated element of the base game, it would be a major, major undertaking to try and do something completely different with the POP system. There may be ways to streamline the current system, but a complete overhaul of its very nature might just be something that has to wait for a full sequel, because unravelling the spaghetti of all the connections where the current POP system is used could be a lot more painful, for potentially few positive results and quite significant time needed to make sure all areas affected by such a radical redesign would bring.

Yeah thought so, this POP thing is a good example of a faulty, complicated system that nevertheless brings satisfying results, both in terms of gameplay and balance, and which is therefore not always wise to change.

 

[Hardstuff]

Well, just one thing came to mind right now. Can the roads upgrade be seperate to the railroads? When I get to the highest level of rail tech, it's odd to see it all replaced by roads instantaniously - rail was still an integral part of many nations well into the former half of the 20th century. If they're seperate, then they can both have an affect yet just be seperate. If this can be done, then I suggest also further road upgrades - as they developed too, as the rail network. The more you increase road 'coverage'/upgrade, this would then decrease the efficiency given by rail (simulating a declining transport medium) while increasing that of road - yet giving other benefits too, as to not make the road upgrades useless.

 

[Cinéad IV]

A few of the things I have been considering.

- Implimentation of the Clio map. I'd say this is priority number 1.

- Some mechanism to auto-promote small percentages of POPs would be fantastic, as it would massively reduce the amount of micro-management inherent in running a large economy.

- Remove the ability for a player to reinforce troops at sea/in encircled provinces.

- A more accurate representation of naval warfare would also be a major improvement. Naval supply lines would be brilliant, making it more difficult (and expensive) for a given nation to colonise places like Africa and East Asia.
Naval blockades should literally blockade a nation's ability to get supplies from anywhere, not just their colonies.

- Making rivers actually count for something would be good.

- The world market could be done with an overhaul. A landlocked nation at war with her neighbours should find it incredibly difficult to import anything. A modification of client states so that a master gets, say, half the client's produce, as opposed to nothing.
Maybe access to the world market should = having a seaport, or good relations with someone who does. Gives landlocked nations an incentive to fight their way to the coast, or be nice to the local great power.

- More accurate simulation of colonial governments will be brilliant. This is probably something that can be done easily enough if we get more tags. With unlimited tags, we could give every civilised nation it's own "Africa Company" or "Asia Company" with which to take on the world. These could be annexed as the trend goes towards centralised government in the later game.

- An end to colonial wars. Yes, I've exploited them as much as the next person, but for the sake of accuracy they need to go.

-A prestige penalty for players who declare war on nations with whom they have good relations.

Of course, this is just a wish list, but hey, a man can dream, eh?

 

[Hardstuff]

A- The world market could be done with an overhaul. A landlocked nation at war with her neighbours should find it incredibly difficult to import anything. A modification of client states so that a master gets, say, half the client's produce, as opposed to nothing.
Maybe access to the world market should = having a seaport, or good relations with someone who does. Gives landlocked nations an incentive to fight their way to the coast, or be nice to the local great power.

I agree with literally everything you said, but on this, maybe relations with neighbouring states should influence the market for you - efficiency in transport and costs, the friendlier you are with your neighbours, then it would influence (in a small way, nothing big unless at war) the price of goods - if relations are 200, you might get a small discount, at -200, well your neighbours might want to interrupt your trade, causing prices for you to increase slightly.

 

[OHgamer]

Well, just one thing came to mind right now. Can the roads upgrade be seperate to the railroads? When I get to the highest level of rail tech, it's odd to see it all replaced by roads instantaniously - rail was still an integral part of many nations well into the former half of the 20th century. If they're seperate, then they can both have an affect yet just be seperate. If this can be done, then I suggest also further road upgrades - as they developed too, as the rail network. The more you increase road 'coverage'/upgrade, this would then decrease the efficiency given by rail (simulating a declining transport medium) while increasing that of road - yet giving other benefits too, as to not make the road upgrades useless.

I'd actually rather consider shifting it to a broader "transport infrastructure" so that upgrading roads and railways (and maybe adding something at the end like airports, in the US there was a massive building of airfields in the 1920s).

And another idea would be a "communications infrastructure" separate from transport, that would focus on things like a postal system, telegraph network, electrical grid, telephone network, radio station network..things like that.

and on another topic, something will be done with blockades and access to WM during times of war.

 

[TsarAlexanderII]

To OHgamer: Will you be able to keep us updated on the changes that are being implimented and the progress of the expansion while your working on it or would you prefer not to? I think I speak for all of us when I say we'll be dying of curiosity.

 

[unmerged(42723)]

OHGamer: So when can we start pestering you with suggestions?

Seriously, do you plan it to be something like an open project with people giving lots of input before you start (or while you're working at it) or is it more that you already have a clear idea what to change and want to limit yourself to this. Don't get me wrong, I could fully understand if you'd go for the latter option since it's probably quite a task and impossible to implement all ideas given by users anyway. I'm just curious how you'll proceed with this