I like the excessive micromanagement of Victoria. It means you have something to do in the long stretches where not much happens.
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To be fair, for a Paradox game, Victoria is kinda short. A few hours will have me running through well over half a game, which is not the case with EU2 or Crusader Kings.
BTW, some of the last posts on the previous page (specifically the one by dharper) made me realise that the pop system should not be in the player's control, and that its best if, unless in a communist nation, the player have no control whatsover over the pop system and the conversion of pops into one thing or another. Labor/farmer pops trickle into soldier pops, clergymen, sometimes clerks, and rarely capitalists.
Clerk pops trickle into capitalists, laborers/farmers, sometimes clergymen, and occasonally soldiers.
Capitalists trickle into clerks, sometimes laborers or farmers. And so on.
Clerk pops trickle into capitalists, laborers/farmers, sometimes clergymen, and occasonally soldiers.
Capitalists trickle into clerks, sometimes laborers or farmers. And so on.
I have to disagree on this. POP should be more detailed (and improved though), as I already wrote. But than again I do not know how it does look like to manage such a huge empire as USA or Austro-Hungarian or China, since I prefer to play exclusively small countries and try to make them bigger but never as big as those upper mentioned.
Also the statement that state doesn’t have an influence who will be what - in real life, first is not correct, and second even if it would be, what the hell that has to do with the game? It’s a PC game not TOTAL simulation of real life.
What you do with the pops and how you handle them it’s crucial of what kind of industrial and economic structure you will have. What kind of political system and how big army you’ll get and how efficient that army would be.
What would be with the game playing without that, just moving the troops around and fight the neighbours. Well sounds fun if you are 16y.o. But that’s a large and very important customer target, so… Anyway that’s simply not for me. And we are all different. However as I said again, they will probably do everything opposite as I wish Victoria2 should look like (or maybe not, you never know with this Paradoxians
).
OH said:
An automated system would perhaps link different political policies to the degree and speed of POP promotion. For example, liberal parties would promote craftsmen POPs quickly, conservative parties a bit slower, and reactionary parties hardly at all. Literacy could be the determining factor where clerks and capitalists are concerned, and religious policy as regards clergymen. A militarist party would promote auto creation of officers and soldiers, though soldiers and officers (as state employees) should still be promotable manually, allowing a country to build as large or small an army as it saw fit in the event of a war. Communist or fascist governments would be able to promote and demote at will.
The numbers wouldn't be huge: maybe 250 craftsmen and 100 clerk POPs a month per factory would be auto-promoted under a conservative, interventionist government and 500/150 under a liberal, laissez-faire one. Factories could still be closed or deleted.
Basically, the only time the government would be concerned with POP promotion would be a) when the player wishes to expand his military and b) where a communist/fascist government has been elected, and can promote as it sees fit. That would be a much more accurate reflection of real life industrialisation in the 19th century.
Yes, this is sort of what I would like. One of the things I like about vicky is that you as a player have very little direct control over many things. You have to manipulate the system to get what you want in politics and so on. If this was extended to the POP system it would be great if political parties different issues and ideologies affected how fast factories were filled for example. If for example you had empty factories RGO workers would trickle in as you said. You could also enact In nominie style descisions that for example would increas this type of trickle but increas militancy for conseravtives for example. Victoria should be about slowly nudging things your way instead of total control (unless you are comunist of course
)
So what would players have to do anymore, if game handles both building factories and converting pops on its own? Setting some sliders? No thank you, I say. I want to have full control of my pops.
We already have EU and HOI series where we can handle our economy by setting sliders only. We need one more complex game than those. EU and HOI are mostly war games, Victoria is much more than that. This is why Victoria needs more detailed economic system. I don't say I wouldn't like the warfare improved for Victoria2 though.
Some people are complaining that government shouldn't have full countrol of the country, economy and pops. I have said this before and I am going to say it again. You don't need to think yourself as the government when converting pops. You can think you are the COUNRTY. You are playing as the society not as the king or government only.
We already have EU and HOI series where we can handle our economy by setting sliders only. We need one more complex game than those. EU and HOI are mostly war games, Victoria is much more than that. This is why Victoria needs more detailed economic system. I don't say I wouldn't like the warfare improved for Victoria2 though.
Some people are complaining that government shouldn't have full countrol of the country, economy and pops. I have said this before and I am going to say it again. You don't need to think yourself as the government when converting pops. You can think you are the COUNRTY. You are playing as the society not as the king or government only.
What I'm thinking is important is that conversion is not instantaneus and that party issues have a larger impact on POP conversion. I also think that socaial upheval should be larger for forced super quick conversion of your population, wich I rarley see in Vicky, though that could becouse its easy when you know the game...I love the industry model in Vicky, my number one reason for loving the game...however a more realistic supply and demand would be nice, so not every nation could become a super exporter and make money on goods stockpliing in the world market
I would love to have an automated pop splitter, if players didn't like it, just make it an option, like trade.
Pops is what makes Victoria a great game, I don't much care for teh EU 3 model for games, they become quite dull as you don't have nearly as much to do.
Someone mentioned it's unrealistic to have to change pops into clerks and assign them to factories, but is it?
Think about it, the gov has a new factory to run, so it's willing to pay for the education of people to go work it, and show them where it is. You can even imagine it (as i do) as private industry doing it, I just help out in my role as godemperor compelling my minions to do what is best and letting them think it's their idea.
Pops is what makes Victoria a great game, I don't much care for teh EU 3 model for games, they become quite dull as you don't have nearly as much to do.
Someone mentioned it's unrealistic to have to change pops into clerks and assign them to factories, but is it?
Think about it, the gov has a new factory to run, so it's willing to pay for the education of people to go work it, and show them where it is. You can even imagine it (as i do) as private industry doing it, I just help out in my role as godemperor compelling my minions to do what is best and letting them think it's their idea.
I like the pop system. What I don't like about it is the clickfest, for the four months I played Victoria a lot, I probably brought myself a decade closer to having to deal with carpal tunnel syndrome. I was just brainstorming a way around it.I have to disagree on this. POP should be more detailed (and improved though), as I already wrote. But than again I do not know how it does look like to manage such a huge empire as USA or Austro-Hungarian or China, since I prefer to play exclusively small countries and try to make them bigger but never as big as those upper mentioned.
Also the statement that state doesn’t have an influence who will be what - in real life, first is not correct, and second even if it would be, what the hell that has to do with the game? It’s a PC game not TOTAL simulation of real life.
What you do with the pops and how you handle them it’s crucial of what kind of industrial and economic structure you will have. What kind of political system and how big army you’ll get and how efficient that army would be.
What would be with the game playing without that, just moving the troops around and fight the neighbours. Well sounds fun if you are 16y.o. But that’s a large and very important customer target, so… Anyway that’s simply not for me. And we are all different. However as I said again, they will probably do everything opposite as I wish Victoria2 should look like (or maybe not, you never know with this Paradoxians
In a monarchy, yes, I guess. Maybe in a constitutional monarchy as well. But what is an aristocrat in the US?
People like the Roosevelts and the southern gentry are generally considered aristocrats. What should happen is that in a generation or two the bulk of your capitilists turn into aristocrats although there should be ways to encourage or discourage that. Obiously in Victoria II the aristocrats would do more, as they should be able to build factories and railroads they just wouldn't do it anywhere near as often as the capitilists would.
Having to click more doesn't make something more complex. I would prefer a system where there are many more variables, but change it in a direction where the player doesn't have to do everything after many steps.
Automation as it is mainly presented here isn't the answer, the mechanics are still the same beneath it, it's just letting the AI to do something I could do myself (and lets just forget about Paradox's record in providing successful AI automation).
So in the end the problem is only delegated and maybe I have given away major part of the game.
What the sequel needs is to incorporate the automation system to the soul of the game where the gameplay changes to have the player needing to be observant and react to changes and make the snowball roll so to speak. I have no problem about min-maxing, that's the addicting part in management/building games to get the last ¤1.1 or using the space most efficiently, but it can be done without having to convert size 1102 soldier POP to labourer POP to use in tobacco field and in turn change 1002 POP of some minor religion to eliminate assimilation currently working in the same field to soldiers to have most economical effect.
Take ANNO 1602 for example. In this game you build houses which increase your population. When you build a house it starts as a level 1 shack with a few pioneers in it. In order to get the level 1 pioneers to level 2 settlers you need to have constant supply of food and cloth, plus building materials for them to upgrade their house and an chapel nearby. When the requirements are met, the pioneers by themselves upgrade to settlers.
The point I'm trying to make that in Victoria you would still have to have all those materials in your warehouse AND manually click through every house to upgrade them, and if building materials are running out you would have to look for (relatively) dozens or hundreds of houses with the most population or richest people or whatever to get the most out of it. Too much unnecessary hinderance I say.
Automation as it is mainly presented here isn't the answer, the mechanics are still the same beneath it, it's just letting the AI to do something I could do myself (and lets just forget about Paradox's record in providing successful AI automation).
So in the end the problem is only delegated and maybe I have given away major part of the game.
What the sequel needs is to incorporate the automation system to the soul of the game where the gameplay changes to have the player needing to be observant and react to changes and make the snowball roll so to speak. I have no problem about min-maxing, that's the addicting part in management/building games to get the last ¤1.1 or using the space most efficiently, but it can be done without having to convert size 1102 soldier POP to labourer POP to use in tobacco field and in turn change 1002 POP of some minor religion to eliminate assimilation currently working in the same field to soldiers to have most economical effect.
Take ANNO 1602 for example. In this game you build houses which increase your population. When you build a house it starts as a level 1 shack with a few pioneers in it. In order to get the level 1 pioneers to level 2 settlers you need to have constant supply of food and cloth, plus building materials for them to upgrade their house and an chapel nearby. When the requirements are met, the pioneers by themselves upgrade to settlers.
The point I'm trying to make that in Victoria you would still have to have all those materials in your warehouse AND manually click through every house to upgrade them, and if building materials are running out you would have to look for (relatively) dozens or hundreds of houses with the most population or richest people or whatever to get the most out of it. Too much unnecessary hinderance I say.
I love the POPs I wouldn't be able to get into Vicky without them. The problem is that there is no button to mass-convert or mass-whatever with POPs, so countries like China are a bore to play. Oh, and I hate the "Split POP" button, I would find the game to be extremely more enjoyable without it (but I can't do without Rev either, so). If there's one thing I'd put into this game is the option for the player to kill that button.
I wouldn't be able to get into Vicky without them. The problem is that there is no button to mass-convert or mass-whatever with POPs, so countries like China are a bore to play. Oh, and I hate the "Split POP" button, I would find the game to be extremely more enjoyable without it (but I can't do without Rev either, so). If there's one thing I'd put into this game is the option for the player to kill that button.
Jaeger said:
Meanmanturbo said:
Meanmanturbo pretty much makes my point. If you want total control over your population, you should go for a totalitarian system of government. But in democracies, constitutional monarchies (and a lot of laissez faire absolute monarchies), you have hardly any say in the structure of your workforce. What you can do is set policies which will nudge your workforce in a general direction, promoting a certain path of development.
Jaeger said:
I beg to differ. In Vicky, the way I see it, I'm the government and the organs thereof. That's why, as a democracy, I can't decide which party comes to power or what social issues will dominate. My powers as the government are limited by the remit of my constitutional powers.
But even if the player simply represented "the society", how many societies have been capable of turning 50,000 illiterate grain farmers into educated officers overnight?
jamhaw said:
Under a constitutional monarchy or a monarchy, over a certain period of time a small proportion of ones capitalists could become aristocrats. These would represent the families like the Roosevelts in America or the Rothschilds in Britain.
And I agree that aristocrats should do soemthing other than just sit and consume. they should at least expand RGOs, and possibly finance the construction of railways/factories in a lesser capacity to capitalists.
As a good second best to Vicky 2 I would like a cold war game. This would like Vicky be largely about economy, politics and "colonial" warfare
So far, my favorite population system is Rome. To me it has the best features of Victoria's POPs without their needless complexity and micromanagement. There are still individual POPs, but each is exactly the same size. The game keeps track of population growth and migration down to a thousandth of a POP, but the player is not aware of it until a new POP appears. There are four types of POP, representing the different social classes, and each plays a different role both provincially and nationally. Each province has a population breakdown of cultures and religions, allowing for multi-cultural provinces and empires. Finally, shift between POPs is handled over long periods of time, such that you don't see slaves becoming citizens overnight, but with the right policies, they will gradually change. Much more realistic and much less micromanagement.
I fully expect to get pilloried for this, but that's how I see it.
Not pilloring you for this, because I agree, Rome has advanced in many ways the basic concept of the POPs that Vicky had while not making it so micro-managing.
When Paradox do eventually get around to making a 19th C game on the new engine (and I fully expect this to happen at some point - I can not imagine the developers leaving a one-century gap between the end of EU3 and the start of HoI3 given how popular converting from one game to the next in the chronlogy is among the player community), I would fully expect the POP system to be more like what Rome has currently and to have how you control the evolution of the populations be pretty similar. If we can combine the POP system of Rome with the Province numbers of HoI3 I think we'd have a system that would allow for most of the detail that the current Victoria POP system allows without all the headaches of management.