When Victoria first came out I gave it a shot - several, really - and found it far too complicated and unrealistic. I read OHgamer's helpful AAR, Power by Production, bought Revolutions, downloaded VIP:R 0.2 and used the AAR as a walkthrough to understand the game mechanics that kept me so puzzled. So far I'm still finding it a steep learning curve - I've had to restart three times so far - but it's just barely manageable.
So, from the perspective of a new player, I have a couple of suggestions to improve the game. If there are simple solutions I've missed, by all means point them out to me! I know Revolutions isn't likely to be patched, but I understand there are teams working on improving it with access to the source code, so you never know.
1. In the trade window, make the "trades" column easier to see at a glance whether a commodity is being bought or sold. The >50 <50 difference is not great and easy to miss. Making the color yellow or blue depending on direction, for example, would help a great deal.
2. In the trade window, allow commodities to be sorted by "red dot" status - bringing all commodities needed but lacking to the top. This is the main use I have for this screen and it would be a nice touch and save time.
3. It would be nice to be able to set the population at which a POP splits automatically.
4. In the ledger, the population screen is very useful, but it would be far more useful if clicking on a POP took you to that POP, or at the least that province. I find it hard to remember where the POPs I want are located (and sometimes hard to find them, especially in large countries). If that is not possible, mentioning which state the province is in would be extremely useful! As it is, I am not sure how to find a particular province, so I spend a great deal of time trying to track down a province with a particular POP to split. Already in the game, sorry.
5. The production screen would be far more useful to me if it included production down to one-hundredth of a unit, since so much of my early-game production is positive but under 0.5 units per day.
6. The production screen would also be much more helpful if it also showed consumption - that is, negative production (in red). This would make it much easier to determine your country's industrial needs (and imperialistic aims) at a glance. As it is now, the only way to tell if a good is being used by your country's factories is indirectly - to check if your stockpiles are going down, to survey each factory and remember what it needs (remember, beginner here!) or wait until you get a warning that your factories cannot continue for lack of supplies.
7. As a new feature, it would be nice to have a way to subsidize migration to a particular state or province (temporarily increasing its life rating). This has some historical precedents and would make it easier to move POPs from one province to another in your empire, rather than risking unemployed POPs deciding to leave your country rather than move to a state with empty factories. Not sure if this is what happens, but regardless, it's a slow process and annoying to see a POP sit there and do nothing as its cash reserves drop.
8. In the country states screen a total POP count is shown along with a tooltip which breaks it down into employment. However, it does not seem to show unemployed POPs; this would be nice.
9. Trying to maximize production of my most valuable exports, I clicked 'close' on a factory, then clicked 'open' again...or tried to. The mouse moved by accident and I clicked on 'delete' instead. There was no warning or "are you sure?" window, it simply erased the factory; this kind of second chance would be nice, given how valuable even a single factory can be in the early (or unmodded) game. Another option could be to have a short period of a few months in which the factory is being demolished where the player could change his mind and restore it for a nominal fee.
10. On the map, it would be helpful to see state borders shown in addition to province and national borders.
11. On the map, it would be helpful to have a "find province" button.
12. It's trivial, but I'd love to have a tooltip when you hovered over your power status, industrial power and military power rankings that broke it down for you a little more, e.g. "Military Power 32: 10 from technology, 5 from our leadership, 10 from infantry, 2 from our navy and 5 from our cavalry."
So, from the perspective of a new player, I have a couple of suggestions to improve the game. If there are simple solutions I've missed, by all means point them out to me! I know Revolutions isn't likely to be patched, but I understand there are teams working on improving it with access to the source code, so you never know.
1. In the trade window, make the "trades" column easier to see at a glance whether a commodity is being bought or sold. The >50 <50 difference is not great and easy to miss. Making the color yellow or blue depending on direction, for example, would help a great deal.
2. In the trade window, allow commodities to be sorted by "red dot" status - bringing all commodities needed but lacking to the top. This is the main use I have for this screen and it would be a nice touch and save time.
3. It would be nice to be able to set the population at which a POP splits automatically.
4. In the ledger, the population screen is very useful, but it would be far more useful if clicking on a POP took you to that POP, or at the least that province. I find it hard to remember where the POPs I want are located (and sometimes hard to find them, especially in large countries). If that is not possible, mentioning which state the province is in would be extremely useful! As it is, I am not sure how to find a particular province, so I spend a great deal of time trying to track down a province with a particular POP to split. Already in the game, sorry.
5. The production screen would be far more useful to me if it included production down to one-hundredth of a unit, since so much of my early-game production is positive but under 0.5 units per day.
6. The production screen would also be much more helpful if it also showed consumption - that is, negative production (in red). This would make it much easier to determine your country's industrial needs (and imperialistic aims) at a glance. As it is now, the only way to tell if a good is being used by your country's factories is indirectly - to check if your stockpiles are going down, to survey each factory and remember what it needs (remember, beginner here!) or wait until you get a warning that your factories cannot continue for lack of supplies.
7. As a new feature, it would be nice to have a way to subsidize migration to a particular state or province (temporarily increasing its life rating). This has some historical precedents and would make it easier to move POPs from one province to another in your empire, rather than risking unemployed POPs deciding to leave your country rather than move to a state with empty factories. Not sure if this is what happens, but regardless, it's a slow process and annoying to see a POP sit there and do nothing as its cash reserves drop.
8. In the country states screen a total POP count is shown along with a tooltip which breaks it down into employment. However, it does not seem to show unemployed POPs; this would be nice.
9. Trying to maximize production of my most valuable exports, I clicked 'close' on a factory, then clicked 'open' again...or tried to. The mouse moved by accident and I clicked on 'delete' instead. There was no warning or "are you sure?" window, it simply erased the factory; this kind of second chance would be nice, given how valuable even a single factory can be in the early (or unmodded) game. Another option could be to have a short period of a few months in which the factory is being demolished where the player could change his mind and restore it for a nominal fee.
10. On the map, it would be helpful to see state borders shown in addition to province and national borders.
11. On the map, it would be helpful to have a "find province" button.
12. It's trivial, but I'd love to have a tooltip when you hovered over your power status, industrial power and military power rankings that broke it down for you a little more, e.g. "Military Power 32: 10 from technology, 5 from our leadership, 10 from infantry, 2 from our navy and 5 from our cavalry."
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