Why "states"?

[Leoreth]

Why are the higher level aggregations of provinces called "states" in Victoria?

I know that this is an established term in Vic2, and has since then been ported into EU4 as well. But why? I cannot think of any major power at the time that divided their territory into entities named states. Besides the obvious outlier of the USA, of course (and some Latin American countries that emulated it). But why should game terminology based on a form of government/territoriality that was only really practiced by what was at best an ascendant power during the 19th century? To me, "state" suggest some kind of republican and federal form of government, and that is dissonant with the predominant form of government in the game, monarchies of various flavours. This isn't even a Eurocentrism thing, the term is even less applicable to African or Asian nations.

The devs have shown that they are willing to change the name of established game terms that have misleading names (e.g. decentralised instead of uncivilised). Can we consider this here as well?

I'm sure a more neutral term can be found. For example, I would prefer a plain "region" instead. Or to be a bit more radical, call the higher level entity "provinces" and the smaller component entities "districts". With how granular the current provinces have become, province feels overly generous for them and a much more appropriate term for entities of greater area.

 

[LoyalistRedcoat]

Top level subdivisions have all sorts of names. Some countries even call them "republics" or "nations". At some point you just have to pick one.

 

[Markusw7]

Decentralized states are not the same thing as uncivilized states so there is no change of misleading names. The majority of what are decentralized states in Victoria 3 didn't even exist on map in Vic 2. Changing the name from "state" which all Victoria players know to "districts" doesn't change a damn thing.

 

[Leoreth]

Top level subdivisions have all sorts of names. Some countries even call them "republics" or "nations". At some point you just have to pick one.

Yes. So you should pick the one that is the most neutral, or at least compatible with the greatest selection of examples. "State" does not satisfy either.

Changing the name from "state" which all Victoria players know to "districts" doesn't change a damn thing.

Most players coming to Vic3 will have never played Vic2 because almost nobody has played Vic2, relatively speaking. Pandering to a minority shouldn't drive naming decisions.

 

[Fallofthepurple]

But why? I cannot think of any major power at the time that divided their territory into entities named states. Besides the obvious outlier of the USA, of course (and some Latin American countries that emulated it).

Germany was also divided into States.


Its also not relevant really because the term „States“ in-game is purely just there for the player as a signifier. It does not imply anything about the actual organizational nature of the territory at hand. While I personally wouldnt mind if it was called anything else it helps having uniformity throughout games i.e EU4 & HoI4 when it comes to terms.

In that sense the comparison to „Civilized/Uncivilized“ is a bit moot because that one has gameplay and irl implications.

 

[kviiri]

Many people coming to Victoria 3 are new to the franchise: Pdox grand strategy games got a lot of new players from EU4 and HoI 4, both of whom use the "state" terminology. Consistency with these might be seen as more relevant than consistency with Victoria 2.

It's not like this nomenclature is the only "lie-to-children" Paradox uses frequently. "Province" is also used to mean an atomic unit of land for military presence, rather than its meaning as a low-level administrative unit.

 

[Leoreth]

Germany was also divided into States.

Prussia was divided into provinces, and seen itself as a "state".

Implications like this are why I believe the term state is unfortunate. It leads to wrong assumptions. It also manifests in some otherwise strange dev decisions, such as making the territory of every modern US state a "state" in game terms.

Many people coming to Victoria 3 are new to the franchise: Pdox grand strategy games got a lot of new players from EU4 and HoI 4, both of whom use the "state" terminology. Consistency with these might be seen as more relevant than consistency with Victoria 2.

Yeah, it's unfortunate that the poor choice of words has since been thoughtlessly copied into other Paradox games. It's even less fitting in EU4.

 

[kviiri]

Yeah, it's unfortunate that the poor choice of words has since been thoughtlessly copied into other Paradox games. It's even less fitting in EU4.

I feel a bit tempted to disagree, because I think these kinds of abstractions are often necessary to efficiently communicate game-level concepts that don't necessarily exist in the real world. But I think overall you're right in the sense that "state" is one of the worst words to, pardon the technical term, "overload", seeing as it's already a very overloaded word in its normal usage. Maybe some other term would indeed be better.

 

[Fulbert]

Back when Vic2 was still in development, I'd translate the dev diaries for a local Pdx grand strategy community. One time, I happened to mistranslate the word "state" as "country" and... yeah, that led to some confusion and embarassment. So maybe the argument to change states into something else is reasonable. It's just... what alternative would you suggest? There is definitely no universal word that would fit any country in the world, and using country-specific terms would probably confuse things even further.
Province is already reserved for those smallest pieces of land that comprise states. What else? The UK was huge in the time period, so county? Maybe land, after Germany? District? Region? Territory? Nothing really seems to fit all that well, tbh.

 

[Grim Deadman]

Aside from the significant QWERTY effect that has already been noted by some posters, I think that you have to consider that a state has necessary political meaning to it, and will be involved in the electoral laws - hence the nomenclature.

So, while the reasons off keeping the status quo are obvious, the reasons to change the name are much less so.

 

[johnty5]

Top level subdivisions have all sorts of names. Some countries even call them "republics" or "nations". At some point you just have to pick one.

This is the answer right here.

You could call them any number of things - but, whichever one you choose, it'd seem weird for certain geographies.

 

[johnty5]

Yes. So you should pick the one that is the most neutral, or at least compatible with the greatest selection of examples. "State" does not satisfy either.

What do you think would be a neutral term to use? What would you use?

 

[Lord Canterbury]

What do you think would be a neutral term to use? What would you use?

I vote for Bailiwick.

 

[BBBD316]

Australia is also divided into states, just to add a nation that develops in the time period.

 

[Skales]

Had I been designing the game from scratch, I would probably go for something like Region. But since State is the established terminology in all Paradox games, I would just keep it that way, since it isn't really that important.

 

[grandad1982]

Many people coming to Victoria 3 are new to the franchise: Pdox grand strategy games got a lot of new players from EU4 and HoI 4, both of whom use the "state" terminology. Consistency with these might be seen as more relevant than consistency with Victoria 2.

It's not like this nomenclature is the only "lie-to-children" Paradox uses frequently. "Province" is also used to mean an atomic unit of land for military presence, rather than its meaning as a low-level administrative unit.

Lie to children, Pratchett?

 

[Benjamintf1]

I would prefer a plain "region" instead

Region is already used in these games for larger regions.

 

[Spartakusbund]

It does make things confusing when you want to use “state” as a shorthand for nation but are worried that people might think you mean the local administrative region instead.

 

[Alfred Dreyfus]

Federal countries should use the term "State", and unitary countries should use another term: area, region, territory, province, whatever.

In Europe we generally understand "State" as the country, the government: the French State, the Spanish State, the Italian State, etc.

 

[Nostalgium]

I'd have liked to see something like the Region > Province > City division from I:R, but that's only because I prefer the sound of "Province". I definitely and infinitely prefer "State" to "Region" - Region is even especially ill-suited to Victoria 3, in which we already know States can be as small as one port, which is hardly a "Region" by any stretch of the imagination. 'State' is comparatively nebulous and vague, so can be used for very large (Sibir, Tibet) areas or very small (East Prussia, Hong Kong) entities.

But I would've generally preferred Province. Sounds more Imperial.