Victoria 3 - Dev Diary #116 - The Art of Sphere of Influence

[PDX_H4n1baL]

Absolutely loved the art, but could you please consider joining country flags under the same model, or something of the sort, to avoid displaying the same leader multiple times in the power bloc “top nations” screen?

Both the Tsar of Russia and the King of England appear twice in the images you provided, and I can already imagine the monstrosity of a power bloc with 5 nations under one single ruler…

Ahhh, the beauty of having to use WIP screenshots for Dev Diaries
This has been fixed since and will not appear like that on release.

 

[PDX_H4n1baL]

Am I the only one to find the Subjects menu too clunky? It looks like the early Trade menu, and I don't think it will be navigable when I have 10+ subjects. I hope for a more condense grid-like display like subjects menu of EU4.

Personally, I think it works fairly well. We will certainly gather feedback on it though once the update releases and then see if we need to add something like a condensed version as you say or if there's other wins we can find to improve it further.

Besides that, I love the art for the Great Game, and the new characters and buildings. Keep on the good job.

Thanks!

Also, the term 'Seoul' was not used as a proper noun back then but was a general noun for capital city. I recommend changing the Company name to 'Hanseong Electric co.' for more historic immersion.

The company name ingame is actually "Hanseong Jeongi Hoesa". This is a case of the historic reference image being out of sync with the name, but that's because there's not really another good image for it from back then.

 

[Oglesby]

Since there's been a lot of questions regarding the variety and fantastical elements of Statues and Emblems our intent was to show how far you could push things, but rest assured that you can still create much more natural and historical looking results. We think that this allows both more traditional looking ones as well as a bit more fun and colorful ones.

Here are some more examples:

I think the problem I am having is that the existence of the emblems and monuments appears out of place.

Did the British Empire, Rossiyskaya Imperiya, or Devlet-i'Aliye run under a different banner or coat of arms other than that of the principal member? (Is there at least on option to use the flag of the principal memeber as the emblem?)

Did the Metternich system or Zollverein use specific symbols?

 

[PDX_H4n1baL]

Will the trade-type power bloc really be called "Trade Union" now? That could cause a bit of confusion since it can also mean labor union and is used this way in the game already.
In an earlier dev diary it was called "Trade League", which seems to me to be a better term.

Also, will the current Customs Unions be replaced by Trade Union/Trade League power blocs, or will they exist separate from power blocs?

It will be called "Trade League".
I think this was a case of a part of our documentation not being updated which led to Max referring to it as "Trade Union". My bad.

Customs Unions are gone as a separate pact.
Power Blocs are now the only way to create one, either with the Trade League identity or the Market Unification principle.

 

[PDX_H4n1baL]

Hi there, More Unique Companies Dev here. Is there any way you could confirm which companies will be in the update. From the image alone, I could already make out 5 companies that are already included in my mod and will have to be changed in accordance with the update. The others don't have text on their images.
It would greatly help me in trying to get the mod ready for the full release of Spheres of Influence.
Thx in advance,
W4RPER

Də Afḡān Nasājī Šerkat
Iranian State Railway
Tashkent Railroad
West Ural Petroleum Company, Limited
Šerkat-e Etteḥādīya-ye Welāyat-e Šemālī
Bongāh-e Enḥeṣār-e Ṣāderāt-e Taryāk
Šerkat-e Eslāmiya
MM. Nicolas Portalis et Cie.
Hanseong Jeongi Hoesa
Kirgizian Mining Joint Stock Company
Persshelk
Perskhlopok
Moscow Irrigation Company
Arthur Guinness Son & Co. Ltd
Oriental Development Company
Turkish Petroleum Company
Anglo-Persian Oil Company
National Iranian Oil Company

These are all companies that we are adding with the release. Hope the list helps

 

[Arbus]

Have you been reading many of the dev diaries prior to this? The point of this mechanic is largely about great powers competing for soft power in smaller countries, which was an extremely prolific feature of the time period. I somewhat doubt the point of this mechanic is going to be for representing blocs of multiple great powers.

Yes I have, and maybe my example was not the best but the point still stands. Great Powers expanded their influence through their own national symbols, not an abstract pan-national entity. And subtle differences are fine, like a medal, or sword or cape, sure, but a giant "skull statue with a top hat" the size of the Eiffel Tower in the middle of my city, kind of breaks the immersion is what I'm saying.

 

[greywulfos]

Yes I have, and maybe my example was not the best but the point still stands. Great Powers expanded their influence through their own national symbols, not an abstract pan-national entity. And subtle differences are fine, like a medal, or sword or cape, sure, but a giant "skull statue with a top hat" the size of the Eiffel Tower in the middle of my city, kind of breaks the immersion is what I'm saying.

Fair enough. You might, admittedly, be able to just use your own flag for the expansion of your power bloc (for instance, I doubt the British Empire will have a symbol that isn't the Union Jack). I think using generic statues is also probably a better idea on that front because you don't need to create 3D national symbols for every tag on the map.

I'm personally not that huge on the statues to begin with - it's a feature that feels very Royal Court in that it seems largely there to just have a cool looking 3D model - but I understand why they work the way they do.

 

[Oglesby]

Fair enough. You might, admittedly, be able to just use your own flag for the expansion of your power bloc (for instance, I doubt the British Empire will have a symbol that isn't the Union Jack). I think using generic statues is also probably a better idea on that front because you don't need to create 3D national symbols for every tag on the map.

I'm personally not that huge on the statues to begin with - it's a feature that feels very Royal Court in that it seems largely there to just have a cool looking 3D model - but I understand why they work the way they do.

Did you look at what Max Art linked (the message was in regards to soften the pattern but included emblems) here

<snipped and linked to get to original image>

Here is part of the image

None of the four are using their flag and two of them are empires.

The only one that is close to the banner is the Devlet-i'Aliye, though the stars are different between the banner and emblem.

 

[Dimo87]

Də Afḡān Nasājī Šerkat
Iranian State Railway
Tashkent Railroad
West Ural Petroleum Company, Limited
Šerkat-e Etteḥādīya-ye Welāyat-e Šemālī
Bongāh-e Enḥeṣār-e Ṣāderāt-e Taryāk
Šerkat-e Eslāmiya
MM. Nicolas Portalis et Cie.
Hanseong Jeongi Hoesa
Kirgizian Mining Joint Stock Company
Persshelk
Perskhlopok
Moscow Irrigation Company
Arthur Guinness Son & Co. Ltd
Oriental Development Company
Turkish Petroleum Company
Anglo-Persian Oil Company
National Iranian Oil Company

These are all companies that we are adding with the release. Hope the list helps

Very happy that you've separated the Anglo-Persian and National Iranian oil companies.

 

[Stug_Life]

Can you change your power bloc? For example if you start as a Sovereign Empire as Britain or France can you switch over to Trade League or any of the others?

 

[Rabid]

Də Afḡān Nasājī Šerkat
Iranian State Railway
Tashkent Railroad
West Ural Petroleum Company, Limited
Šerkat-e Etteḥādīya-ye Welāyat-e Šemālī
Bongāh-e Enḥeṣār-e Ṣāderāt-e Taryāk
Šerkat-e Eslāmiya
MM. Nicolas Portalis et Cie.
Hanseong Jeongi Hoesa
Kirgizian Mining Joint Stock Company
Persshelk
Perskhlopok
Moscow Irrigation Company
Arthur Guinness Son & Co. Ltd
Oriental Development Company
Turkish Petroleum Company
Anglo-Persian Oil Company
National Iranian Oil Company

These are all companies that we are adding with the release. Hope the list helps

Perhaps understandable given the DLC's focus, but even so I was not expecting so many new companies specifically for Persia! I love the idea of having both "native" and "non-native" companies for the same region / industry.

 

[PDX_H4n1baL]

Can you change your power bloc? For example if you start as a Sovereign Empire as Britain or France can you switch over to Trade League or any of the others?

No you cannot switch identity after creation.

 

[Ofaloaf]

Are the Late-Game Military uniforms universal, and will be applied to any and all nations (that research, I presume, trench infantry)? Additionally, my personal question is whether or not you folks are giving the Japanese Emperors a new outfit too, since the current one is both inaccurate to real life and doesn't look very grand. You've already depicted Meiji on the cover art, with the correct type of outfit, so I figure you might have changed his appearance also?

&

Love the quality and detail of this new art!

1. Will other Great Powers benefit from these new assets in any way (e.g. modern 20th century uniforms)?

2. Can similar military uniform assets perhaps be added for the French in Voice of the People to make that DLC better value?

The late-game military uniforms are used generically for a broad swathe of countries, generally if they've got European aesthetics. There's some additional unique variants in there—I slipped in my own take on a Spanish-American War-era USA uniform—but there's not special versions for every country.

I enjoy working on these sorts of things personally and might have a crack at putting together more variants; it would be fun to get a late Meiji-specific uniform in.

[snip]

also, this is Persian soldiers in 1800s
View attachment 1130319

You mean a little something like

?

Hey there and thanks!
Could you tell us why does new Russian soldiers skin has Prussian helmets?

A lot of countries were big into the pickelhaube then! Nicholas I was a fan of them and commissioned a major general to fashion a Russian one in 1835, although it was 9 years until his design was completed and introduced. It was widely used until the 1860s, so you see it a lot in imagery of the later bits of the Russo-Circassian War and the Crimean War.

Totally agree, there is way too much space wasted. I did a quick mockup in paint and reduced the height per subject by one third without removing any information. And I still think it could and should be even more compact.View attachment 1131832

Your mockup is a lot worse. It is way too busy and cluttered, and unlike Paradox's orientation, it leaves very little space to consider how localization into other languages affects the length of the text. Not good design at all.

Wilcoxchar raises a point that's very important to keep in mind — we don't just release our games in English. I've had localization folks here tell me that the rule of thumb for German specifically is that it'll use up twice as many characters as English, for example. Translating our games into more languages means we have to consider how the layout will fit together in every language we support, and that means (in part) that we have to provide enough space that the thing still works in every language.

 

[Swamphill]

Wilcoxchar raises a point that's very important to keep in mind — we don't just release our games in English. I've had localization folks here tell me that the rule of thumb for German specifically is that it'll use up twice as many characters as English, for example. Translating our games into more languages means we have to consider how the layout will fit together in every language we support, and that means (in part) that we have to provide enough space that the thing still works in every language.

As I alluded to in my response to Wilcoxchar: if the country rank is removed (you really don't need to be told that Finland is a grand principality in this view) and the subject interaction "Impose law" is put where it belongs: with the other subject interactions, you will find that all the other text strings will get the same horizontal space in my mockup as it has in the original design.

Yes, I understand that "Impose law" is put where it is because it expands to fill the width of the interface with the law matrix. If a good solution to that cannot be found in the subject interaction menu one might consider letting the entire subject interaction menu expand similarly instead. That would require different assets which is way beyond my paygrade.

 

[Gigliovaljr]

The late-game military uniforms are used generically for a broad swathe of countries, generally if they've got European aesthetics. There's some additional unique variants in there—I slipped in my own take on a Spanish-American War-era USA uniform—but there's not special versions for every country.

View attachment 1133051

I enjoy working on these sorts of things personally and might have a crack at putting together more variants; it would be fun to get a late Meiji-specific uniform in.

Could we see other special late game uniforms you have?

 

[Immortal_Soldier]

You mean a little something like

View attachment 1133052 ?

Thanks for the effort it's good enough for me but that white cloth that is like an X could be added too
The whole uniform was part of the Franco-Persian alliance from 1807 to 1809 when Napoleon Bonaparte wanted to have an extra front to fight Russia but it was short-lived when France allied with Russia and focused on Europe fronst but the uniforms stayed that is why it looks like french soldier uniforms also you have it in your art for Persian kings throne in the post
Thank you for your consideration

 

[Loco_HUN]

Since there's been a lot of questions regarding the variety and fantastical elements of Statues and Emblems our intent was to show how far you could push things, but rest assured that you can still create much more natural and historical looking results. We think that this allows both more traditional looking ones as well as a bit more fun and colorful ones.

Here are some more examples:

Much Better! Why not show these too with the skull and the squid? Would have given more clue about things.

 

[Olauron]

Much Better! Why not show these too with the skull and the squid? Would have given more clue about things.

There were some statues in the Power Blocs DD (Indian and Apollonian, I would say ).

 

[Rachidelson]

Will this DLC be bringing soundtracks? I always look up to them in every PDX game

 

[styroler]

I like the power blocs influencing the types of clothing and appearances of the characters in the nation, but I do hope there is a bit of diversity of it too. Much of the art and clothing shown is what you would expect when roleplaying as a great imperial power such as Russia or the United Kingdom, with their capes and sabers and knighthoods and such, but what if I’m playing a workers cooperative or a facist dictatorship. Would such appearances still be relevant to my characters? Or would they feel out of place. I would like to know more of what kind of diversity is there in depicting realistic representations of that society. It would be cool if the styles changed depending on the national situation, so that a trade unionist led workers commune showed it’s loyalty to the power bloc with party pins for instance, and fascists might wear some sort of armband or military uniform.

On a similar note I would also be interested to see if there is a cultural diversity amongst the power blocs as well. We saw European led power blocs with nations such as the Ottoman Empire displaying their influence. If a non European nation leads the power bloc though, might there be other cultural influences as well? Do characters in a Japanese led power bloc for instance wear Samurai Swords? Or perhaps noblemen in a Chinese led power bloc might wear Guanmao? I’m sure it’s not quite so extensive at this point, since such ideas would likely be topics for an upcoming regional flavor pack, but they certainly are considerations to discuss.

Ultimately I only leave my concerns due to a hope that spheres of influence in Victoria 3 fixes my biggest issue with them in Victoria 2. In Victoria 2, no matter what nation you were playing, your interaction with spheres always felt the same. You could be playing a communist Latin American nation and you would still get in game events with localization and tooltips which described you as a European colonial power. In Victoria 3, if I’m building the International power bloc and facing off against the British Commenwealth, I want to feel that my power bloc and my opposing Power bloc have clear fundamental differences, rather than our leaders wearing different color swords and capes.