Victoria 3 - Dev Diary #129 - Discrimination Rework

[Lamartine]

Is the delay between passing an accepting law and the change in pop attitudes set in stone, or can it vary?

On the one hand, yes there are societies where the law led to to attitudinal change within 10 or so years. On the other hand, the 14th and 15th amendments were ratified in 1866-69 and yet one hundred years later, African Americans were still being treated with Violent Hostility, to use the terminology of the new acceptance mechanic.

 

[PDX_H4n1baL]

Will the level of acceptance be global or based on pops?

Acceptance is Pop based. A French Pop living in France will most likely have a different acceptance than one living in Persia (assuming the French are not the primary culture).

 

[Desseabar]

Imperator had a system by which enfranchised pops became more and more disgruntled as more cultures became integrated that could potentially be mirrored here

Maybe moving toward less discriminatory laws makes primary culture pops more prone to radicalization from SoL decreases and more likely to support discriminatory laws. That way you could have a situation where as long as the economy is moving smoothly less discrimination is accepted by those cultures but as soon as the economy worsens (boom bust cycles when) they become increasingly discriminatory to perceived outsiders

This way acceptance becomes something with the existing benefits but can also intensify destabilizing events

We already have the PB interest group that prefers discriminatory laws – would this double-count with that? I think it ultimately depends on how the new laws adjust interest groups and how the cultural movements work.

Basically thinking from a gameplay and balance perspective:

Multiple equal cultures (e.g., Austria-Hungary)
+ More pops can contribute to the economy
+ Less government intervention
- Incumbent cultures don't like "upstart" cultures getting on equal footing, so you might see pro-discrimination unrest
- Dysfunction: bureaucracy costs from translation of equal cultures, lingua franca challenges in the military (Austria-Hungary)

Assimilating cultures (e.g., USA)
+ More pops can join educated jobs on equal footing
+ Incumbent cultures prefer assimilation than equal footing
- Cultures are unhappy about forced assimilation and want to be treated equally
- Requires conscious government intervention to promote culture

Discrimination (e.g., uh, everywhere)
+ makes incumbent cultures happy (Dixie doesn't want Afro-American pops to be
+ Discriminated pops are cheaper labor
– Discriminated pops can't contribute much to consumption or educated jobs
– Discriminated pops more likely to try and secede
– Discriminating against certain cultures might invite foreign intevention (e.g., if Dai Nam prosecutes Christians, France wants to intervene to protect them, and the same for Christians/Slavs in the Ottoman Empire).

 

[PDX_H4n1baL]

I am divided on this change. You seem to have mostly taken the feedback to heart that discrimination/acceptance is currently too binary - and from that perspective the rework addresses the issues that people had quite well. However, there are other problems with the system that are also frequently discussed that remain unaddressed. So while I am happy with every change mentioned here, I am also concerned that you now consider discrimination "fixed" and that the chances of seeing them addressed are lower than before.

I think we barely ever consider something fully done/fixed, but rather "good enough for a while, but has potential for future updates". For example in 1.5 we reworked the Military. We do not think our work there is done. We're still delivering improvements for it and 1.8 is going to contain some QoL changes for example.
Similarly, the discrimination rework allows us to do more cool stuff in the future. Some of this will take a long time, some of it will likely be shipped within the next few major updates.

My main issue is the question of why would I be interested in interacting with this system. The old system was simplistic and not very interesting. But the reason it was not interesting isn't just that it was simplistic, it was also that there was not much to think about. Acceptance is good and discrimination is bad, so your goal is to accept as many pops as possible by passing progressive citizenship laws. Restrictive citizenship isn't really an option unless you are roleplaying, because the other bonuses they provide are not really worth considering. More importantly, they do not capture why many nations stuck with restrictive citizenship laws.

The problem is that none of that basic formula has really changed. Now acceptance is more gradual but it is still not very interesting because I still want there to be as much acceptance as possible. Taking the most negative perspective, you could even argue that a complex ignorable system is worse than a simple ignorable system. I think the game is still missing an answer to what the benefits of a more exclusionary society are beyond nice to haves like "more authority".

Agreed, we would like to have more good reasons to have the restrictive laws. We're adding some modifiers with 1.8 (e.g. high acceptance pops in these laws will generate more loyalists and less radicals), but personally I'd also love to take this further in the future.

Secondly, I feel like there are a few missed opportunities. I am thinking particularly about non-incorporated states and institution access. It seems that being a non-incorporated pop is a sixth status you can have that is independent of your acceptance status and affects a bunch of other things such as the mentioned institution access. I would much prefer if instead these were folded into the system described in the DD. Obviously, pops in non-incorporated states would have a much harder time gaining more acceptance (i.e. a cap or strong negative modifier) but it would help making the system more streamlined and also let acceptance modify things currently dictated by incorporation. For example, depending on the laws, second class citizens would get a lowered benefit from institutions.

Likewise, it's a little disappointing that the game still only considers discrimination as a source of radicalism for the discriminated pops. It makes sense that being institutionally discriminated radicalizes pops. But history bears out that the presence of discriminated pops can also radicalize accepted pops, i.e. racism. That should be especially true in tough economic conditions (job competition) or when pops that long time accepted pops think should be discriminated suddenly are being accepted. Even with the change to make it take some time before the benefits of being accepted kick in, the game still fundamentally takes the stance that once the state decides that a certain pop is accepted, everyone who has been accepted before suddenly agrees. That's a huge oversight considering how (even successful) expansions of civil rights actually played out.

Again we're in agreement. We'd love to go deeper into cultural strife areas in the future that would impact both sides. But that's something that we'd needed a lot more time for.

Regarding the complicated UI, I am wondering if the decision to make things granular has gone a bit too far. I think it's wrong to see this as just a UI challenge but would instead question if the thing the UI is trying to represent is too complicated in itself.

For example, does a law need to define from scratch what each acceptance level does? I think it would be much simpler to understand if there was a base effect for each level, and to give a law only modifiers for these effects. For example, let's say we have a -10%/-20%/-30% base wage modifier for Cultural Erasure/Open Hostility/Violent Erasure. Then it should be sufficient to give a more discriminatory law a +50% wage modifier based on discrimination modifier and the values would change to -15%/-30%/-45%.

That's exactly one of the things we're planning to do. The image has a disclaimer right above that says we will tackle this display.

I would also question if the numerical values i.e. 0-100 acceptance are really needed anymore. Wouldn't a +1 level of acceptance be good enough? Right now the system is: acceptance value determines acceptance level determines modifiers that are also modified by law. I think it would be preferable to cut out one level of indirection. You could still keep the gradual timer that a pop needs to upgrade from one level to the other, once it qualifies.

I do see your argument and overall I personally do like making fewer, but more impactful decisions. But in this case specifically I'd tend to disagree, because the number of acceptance levels is too small while being too impactful at the same time.
Being able to compose a variety of factors contributing to a total value that determines which status you end up with gives you a lot more flexibility to design a somewhat balanced system given the restrictions of the system as they've been outlined. It's much harder to make a call on whether to add +1 level of acceptance onto a law or not, than adding a +10 which gives half a level.
Also given something like the decaying penalty to acceptance, you'd need to define good thresholds for when one of the two levels of penalty disappears and such. It's all a bit too restrictive in this case in my opinion.

 

[MobiusXIV]

Looks like the Sikh Empire is back on the menu... I think? I look forward to seeing how Sikh Pashtuns and Muslim/Hindu Indians fair in practice in the Sikh Empire with these mechanics.

 

[NGASAK]

Nice idea
I'm adding it to our list of things to discuss, but can't make any promises.

I know that you “already have alot on your plate”, but that’s something that should come out with the rework if we want meaningful impact on multiethnic empires, because otherwise current rework won’t change much about Austrian hegemony for example

 

[Jake Dust]

Are the thresholds close to final? It seems from the image that 50+ acceptance leads to full acceptance, which might mean all Europeans would just accept even more freely then they do in 1.7: e.g. Prussia would accept Polish pops with national supremacy.

 

[Rabid]

Are the thresholds close to final? It seems from the image that 50+ acceptance leads to full acceptance, which might mean all Europeans would just accept even more freely then they do in 1.7: e.g. Prussia would accept Polish pops with national supremacy.

I don't think that graphic is saying what you think it is, it's saying that (roughly) 50% of british pops are in the "fully accepted" bracket (I think!)

 

[gurufabbes]

Fascinating. Just hope this is done right.

You can see that we are not only reworking the system to fit the new vision, but are also expanding on it with new effects, besides the Acceptance value itself. From simple statistical changes like the tax burden per acceptance status to rules for who can work in government buildings or serve in your military, we have added a decent amount of new things to the laws.
Another factor that determines a Pop’s Acceptance value is the age of the Pop’s cultural community in their state. An immigrant Pop that is "fresh off the boat" will not be as accepted as that of another culture which has been there for 30 years already. No matter what your laws say, your Pops will need some time to get used to the new faces in their neighborhood–but, eventually, the new arrivals will reach the Acceptance value which the laws have determined for them.

Very good. This should emulate the long path towards citizenship of newcomers, and honestly I really think this part should be difficult.
which leads me to the next point.

When 1.8 comes out later this year, Pops will be able to assimilate and convert to any culture or religion that would provide them with a higher acceptance value, even if it is not the primary culture or state religion. There is a minimum assimilation value difference that needs to be crossed in order for them to be eligible. For example if their current Acceptance is at 25 and the minimum assimilation value difference from the Citizenship law is defined at 50, their target’s culture Acceptance would need to be 75 or higher in order for them to assimilate.
This still looks at cultures that are present in the same state, so if none of them have a value of 75 or higher, the assimilation could not happen. The assimilation process may also still be forbidden by laws, e.g. under all laws it is currently not allowed for members of the lowest status to assimilate at all. Similarly, Pops of the highest status also do not assimilate in the current setup, as they already possess enough rights and privileges to enjoy a good life.

This is what potentially gets me worried.
Assimilation of newcomers from the other side of the world was notoriously difficult EVERYWHERE in the world at that point in time.

The USA may have had assimilation, but as Black History will attest, some who had been there since its founding were not fully "accepted" in the same way as newcomers from other European countries within one generation. Notable: People who had the same names as everyone else, same religion, arguably the same culture, relegated to the outskirts of society even after over a hundred of years due to legacies such as their outward appearance and legal obstacles left over from slavery.... (to simplify things).

If this is going to be automatic without taking other issues into consideration, then the historicity will suffer considerably.

I am sort of afraid, depending on how the system is calibrated, that you'll end up memed occurences of Polish farmers emigrating to the Empire of Japan, and then becoming assimilated within a generation. This would be utterly ridiculous.

I like what you're doing here, but leaving an i for caution while also a like in a way.

 

[Jake Dust]

I don't think that graphic is saying what you think it is, it's saying that (roughly) 50% of british pops are in the "fully accepted" bracket (I think!)

Ah, thanks! I was reading as if it were like the legitimacy graph, and not as a "histogram" of the population, which makes much more sense in hindsight.

 

[Phosphorus15]

Are there any plans to change state incorporation speed according to how accepted/not accepted a culture is nationally?

 

[Diskianterezh]

Cultural homelands provide a small bonus to a Pop's cultural acceptance, but that's about it for now. See my other replies for potential future additions.

I don't really understand why would cultural homeland would increase acceptance.
Indeed, with the system it may counter the desire for migration from low acceptance - after all, they're in their homeland, so it sound logical that they would not leave their home - but why discriminated pops in their homeland could not have instead more incentives to create secessions ?

Looks very good, i just want to understand the vision here.

 

[Anonim97]

Figure.09: WIP list of effects. This is definitely going to change - we’re looking at solutions to make it more readable for release.
View attachment 1192945​

How about grouping these effects by the level, rather than in order?

Something like:

• For Pops in Cultural Erasure Acceptance Status:
  • +5% Assimilation;
  • +10% Radicalism increases;
  • -30% Political Strength;
• For Pops in Open Prejudice Acceptance Status:
  • +15% Assimilation;
  • -20% Political Strength;

And so on and so on...

This way it would look much clearer, I think.

 

[Debout]

This looks great, just one terminology nitpick: when you say "second-rate citizen" I really think you mean "second-class citizen"

 

[SpiritRiven]

Is this system going to take to account, let's say, Russia conquering a far out overseas territory where pops in that territory are the majority and are facing discrimination however there isn't the presence of otherwise accepted pops by the state?

How is that going to be handled?

 

[True Pods]

View attachment 1192943​

Happy Thursday Victorians!
It’s me, Lino and in today’s Dev Diary I’m going to walk you through the upcoming changes to one of the game’s central society features, namely the discrimination system.

Until now, discrimination was always binary in Victoria 3. A Pop either was discriminated against or they were not. This has led to a fairly one-dimensional feature where there’s not a lot of variety in what Pops can be experiencing. It also has made it hard for us to add harsh consequences to discriminated against Pops since it would have affected so many Pops around the world.

So we are taking some steps to make that more interesting. First of all, we’re saying goodbye to talking about discrimination. Instead, we are introducing the opposite, Acceptance.
Each Pop will have an Acceptance value between 0 and 100. This value is determined by the Pop’s country’s laws, in particular the Citizenship and Church & State groups which play the biggest role here. There are other laws that will have an impact, but we are going to talk about those in a later Dev Diary.

Primary cultures are clearly the points of authority when it comes to Acceptance values
View attachment 1192944​

As you can see, the old rules of cultural similarity still apply in the new system. Now though, instead of being immediately accepted if the culture shares a heritage trait, they will gain a high acceptance value bonus for example. This allows a broader range of acceptance, from the cultures that are facing violent hostility to the primary cultures who will always have the highest acceptance value.
The religious impact is changed to provide a bonus if a religion shares a trait with the state religion.

This brings us one step closer to the full picture, but we’re not quite there yet. The Acceptance value actually determines which Acceptance Status a Pop has. There are five possible Statuses, ranging from Full Acceptance to Violent Hostility, which will be used in order to apply consequences to the Pops in question.

Figure.09: WIP list of effects. This is definitely going to change - we’re looking at solutions to make it more readable for release.
View attachment 1192945
​

You can see that we are not only reworking the system to fit the new vision, but are also expanding on it with new effects, besides the Acceptance value itself. From simple statistical changes like the tax burden per acceptance status to rules for who can work in government buildings or serve in your military, we have added a decent amount of new things to the laws.
Another factor that determines a Pop’s Acceptance value is the age of the Pop’s cultural community in their state. An immigrant Pop that is "fresh off the boat" will not be as accepted as that of another culture which has been there for 30 years already. No matter what your laws say, your Pops will need some time to get used to the new faces in their neighborhood–but, eventually, the new arrivals will reach the Acceptance value which the laws have determined for them.

“Have you seen the looks they gave us? By myself, I couldn’t stay here, but with you by my side I know I will make it.”
View attachment 1192947​

Of course you can still improve your Pops’ situation by enacting more progressive laws. These provide higher acceptance bonuses to cultures. For example Ethnostate doesn’t grant any bonus to cultures that share a non-heritage cultural trait with your primary culture, but National Supremacy grants +25 acceptance if they do.

Alright, so you passed Multiculturalism, but you didn’t think your Pops would immediately hug and welcome the people they were despising yesterday, did you?
Law enactments that increase a Pop’s Acceptance value will suffer from a penalty much the same as the newly established cultural communities, which will decay over time. This shows the establishment of these new laws quite well and delays the full effectiveness of the more progressive laws.

Another thing we are changing is conversion and assimilation (so that your Pops can escape from the undesirable lower statuses of Acceptance).
When 1.8 comes out later this year, Pops will be able to assimilate and convert to any culture or religion that would provide them with a higher acceptance value, even if it is not the primary culture or state religion. There is a minimum assimilation value difference that needs to be crossed in order for them to be eligible. For example if their current Acceptance is at 25 and the minimum assimilation value difference from the Citizenship law is defined at 50, their target’s culture Acceptance would need to be 75 or higher in order for them to assimilate.
This still looks at cultures that are present in the same state, so if none of them have a value of 75 or higher, the assimilation could not happen. The assimilation process may also still be forbidden by laws, e.g. under all laws it is currently not allowed for members of the lowest status to assimilate at all. Similarly, Pops of the highest status also do not assimilate in the current setup, as they already possess enough rights and privileges to enjoy a good life.

All of these changes require a fairly substantial rework of our interface. A lot is currently still in development and is coming in pieces, so you will have to discover it on your own, but I still wanted to provide you with a faint idea of what’s coming.
The Cultures panel has been renamed to Society, which fits better since it also includes Statuses and Religion. The acceptance statuses are listed in a new tab, providing an overview of what percentage of Pops falls under which status and who exactly that is.

WIP interface showing the breakdown of acceptance statuses in your country
View attachment 1192948
​

In the end, we hope this feature rework will enhance your experience with regards to managing your Pops and that it will show much more variety in the Pops’ lives. Especially on the lower end of the spectrum, you should see a lot more consequences, as sad as that is.
This rework is an important step for us, since we can make better use of this system in future narrative content too, and we also have some ideas for future mechanical changes that require this rework as a foundation.

That’s all for today. Next week, on October 3, I’m handing it back to Martin again, who will provide some more information on what we’re doing with civil wars. That should be an interesting one, be sure to check it out!

With this rework will homeland still negate assimilation or will pops in a homeland state be able to convert to other cultures as well?

 

[Fenneru]

Thanks for the kind words!
Living in cultural homeland will improve acceptance. Apart from that, there are only the penalties described in the Dev Diary from recently appearing in a state and law enactments.

This would mean for example that African-American pops would be less discriminated in the Southern states than the Northern ones because the Southern ones are set as their homelands. That's obviously very wrong.

 

[BrotherJonathan]

The different levels are nice, but everybody was expecting societal discrimination the state just can't do anything about.

This system is still 100% driven by laws, with just a timed decay modifier slapped on top.

I see your point, but I also feel that what you propose, while accurate, could very rapidly become annoying and unfun.

For example: "You've chosen to play as the USA! Congratulations! You're going to get a bunch of pop-ups for race riots every other year for the entire game that you can't really do anything about!"

Obviously this is an extreme example, but I still think that taking too much control away from the player would basically just turn diversity into an annoying semi-permanent debuff, basically the opposite of the current problem.

 

[Merrivale]

Acceptance is Pop based. A French Pop living in France will most likely have a different acceptance than one living in Persia (assuming the French are not the primary culture).

Thanks but I'm not sure that addresses what I was asking, I didn't really frame it well. Is acceptance a flat rate across one country, or does it vary by state based on the mix of pops inside that state? And do pops within one state give varying levels of acceptance to other pops (like African-American pops having different levels of acceptance from Yankee and Dixie pops)?

 

[wilcoxchar]

​

When 1.8 comes out later this year, Pops will be able to assimilate and convert to any culture or religion that would provide them with a higher acceptance value, even if it is not the primary culture or state religion.

I hope this is restricted to cultures of the same heritage, so that for instance African culture pops in the US are converting to African-American instead of Yankee.