• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Showing developer posts only. Show all posts in this thread.

Wizzington

Game Director (Victoria 3)
Paradox Staff
41 Badges
Nov 15, 2007
12.738
149.449
  • Hearts of Iron II: Armageddon
  • Rome: Vae Victis
  • Victoria 2: Heart of Darkness
  • Victoria 2: A House Divided
  • Sword of the Stars II
  • Sengoku
  • Europa Universalis: Rome
  • Victoria: Revolutions
  • Europa Universalis III Complete
  • March of the Eagles
  • Majesty 2
  • Magicka
  • Heir to the Throne
  • Arsenal of Democracy
  • Crusader Kings II
  • Darkest Hour
  • Europa Universalis III Complete
  • Deus Vult
  • East India Company
  • Europa Universalis III
  • Divine Wind
  • For The Glory
  • Hearts of Iron III: Their Finest Hour
  • Hearts of Iron III Collection
  • Prison Architect
  • Shadowrun: Hong Kong
  • Shadowrun: Dragonfall
  • Shadowrun Returns
  • Stellaris: Humanoids Species Pack
  • Stellaris: Synthetic Dawn
  • Stellaris - Path to Destruction bundle
  • Stellaris: Leviathans Story Pack
  • Stellaris Sign-up
  • Stellaris: Galaxy Edition
  • Stellaris: Galaxy Edition
  • Stellaris: Galaxy Edition
  • Mount & Blade: Warband
  • Magicka: Wizard Wars Founder Wizard
  • Crusader Kings II: Holy Knight (pre-order)
  • 500k Club
  • Victoria 2
16_9.png

Double Happy Thursday! As is customary after each major update, today we’ll be returning to the future update plans, which we last went over in Dev Diary #124. Just like the previous times, we’ll be going over what changes and improvements we have planned for the game in future free updates such as 1.9, 1.10 and beyond.

Once again we will be talking about the same key four improvement areas of Military, Historical Immersion, Diplomacy, Internal Politics as well as Other for anything that falls outside those four categories.

Just as before, I’ll also be aiming to give you an updated overview of where we stand and where we’re heading by going through each of these four categories and marking on each one with one of the below statuses:
  • Done: This is a part of the game that we now consider to be in good shape. Something being Done of course doesn’t mean we’re never going to expand or improve on it in the future, just that it’s no longer a high priority for us. Any points that were already marked as Done in previous updates will be removed from the list, to avoid it growing unmanageably long, but you can look at the older dev diaries (#79, #89, #102 and #124) if you’re interested in what was done previously.
  • Updated: This is a part of the game where we have made some of the improvements and changes that we want to make, but aren’t yet satisfied with where it stands and plan to make further improvements to it in future updates.
  • Not Updated: This is a part of the game where we haven’t yet released any of our planned changes/improvements in any currently released updates but still plan to do so for future updates.
  • New: This is a planned change or improvement that is newly added, i.e. wasn’t present on the list last time we went over it
  • Reconsidered: This is a previously planned change or improvement that we have reconsidered our approach to how to tackle from previous updates. For these points we will explain what our new plans are, and change the list appropriately in future updates.

For the final bit of repetition: Just as before we will still only be talking about improvements, changes and new features that are part of planned free updates in this dev diary. I will also remind you that this is not an exhaustive list of the things we are going to do, and that something being ‘Done’ doesn’t mean we’re not going to bugfix, balance or make UX improvements to it afterwards. Alright then, onto the dev diary proper.

image1.png

Military​

New:
  • Make sure that supply is an important and meaningful part of the military system that can win or lose you wars.
  • Tweaking and improving the frontline system to eliminate excessive front splitting and troop teleportation once and for all

Not Updated:
  • Making navies more important for projecting global power and securing control of coasts.
  • Adding a proper system of military access and finding solutions for the other remaining rough edges in the frontline system.
  • Turning individual ships into proper pieces of military hardware that can be built, sunk and repaired rather than just being manpower packages.
  • Adding a system for limited wars to reduce the number of early-game global wars between Great Powers

Historical Immersion​

Done:
  • Tweaking content such as the Meiji Restoration, Alaska purchase and so on in a way that they can more frequently be successfully performed by the AI, through a mix of AI improvements and content tweaks

Updated:
  • Going through the base game Journal Entries and events and making improvements and additions to ensure that they feel meaningful and impactful for players to interact with
    • As always, we’ve updated some of our older Journal Entries for 1.8 and will continue to do so in future updates.
  • Adding more country, state and region-specific content to enhance historical flavor of different countries
    • Also as always, this is something we continue to do each update and which I will keep on this list as it remains an important priority.

Diplomacy​

New:
  • Improve on the Treaty Port mechanic and create more ways for countries to cooperate, compete with and exploit others using trade
  • Improving the war support system to be much clearer UX-wise about what is needed to contest wargoals, and less all-or-nothing in terms of when countries are on track to capitulate

Not Updated:
  • Make declaring and holding onto diplomatic Interests a more rewarding and challenging aspect of global empire-building
  • Allowing peace deals to be negotiated during a Diplomatic Play instead of only having the option to give in

Internal Politics​

Done:
  • Find a better solution for the ways ideologies appear, attract followers and create support for reforms than the current RNG-heavy leader ideology system.
  • Have discrimination not be a purely binary status and reflect forms of discrimination aside from what’s written in the law, as well as making assimilation into a more meaningful mechanic in the process.

Updated:
  • Adding laws that expand on diversity of countries and introduce new ways to play the game
    • In 1.8 we added Caste System/Social Hierarchy laws to make India more accurate and flavorful.

Not Updated:
  • Turn legitimacy into a more interesting mechanic, where the strength of a government depends on their successes and failures, and highly legitimate governments can’t simply be ousted at a whim but have to be undermined first.
  • Introduce a concept of national pride which can increase or decrease depending on a country’s actions and which ties directly into legitimacy.

Other​

Not Updated:
  • Find a way to deal with the excessive fiddliness of the trade system in large economies, possibly by allowing for autonomous trade based on your laws in a similar way to the autonomous investment system.
Updated:
  • Improve on Companies by turning them into actual actors in your country that can own/expand buildings and interact with characters/politics.
    • In update 1.8 we made Companies into more distinct entities with headquarters and ownership of specific buildings. We plan to continue to develop these entities in the future and tie them into more systems.

As per usual I’m not able to make specific promises about when all these improvements will come out, but I can say that the next update (1.9) is going to be quite a large update that should tackle several points on this list, and that two particular focuses for it will be Trade and Improvements to the Frontline system. For a bit more detail on the latter point, I refer you to last week’s dev diary where I went over what I consider to be the most pressing issues with the frontline system, all of which we’re aiming to fix or at least improve for 1.9.

Right then, that’s it for today, and in fact, a wrap for 2024. I’ll be back on January 16th to give you a retrospective on the entire year, what we think went well, what we could do better in the future, and see if I can’t find some fun dev moments from the year to share with you as well. See you then!
 
  • 130Like
  • 28Love
  • 7
  • 1
Reactions:
This comment is saved for developer responses!
 
  • 2
  • 1Like
Reactions:
I know it's just a roadmap but, do you already have ideas on how to deal with the "not yet updated/new" items ?
Generally we at least have some sort of napkin design or broader idea of where we want to take the point, yes. Sometimes we have an indepth design we just haven't had time to implement yet.
 
  • 17
  • 6Like
Reactions:
Hey WIzz, do you have a ballpark target for 1.9? Is it more a Q1 25 dream or more Q2/3?

Have a great holiday break and looking forward to all dev diaries and improvements in the coming year.
Can't give any details on when it's coming out but it's a big update so it'll be a bit of a wait.
 
  • 19
  • 8Like
Reactions:
It's a good list, two comments. I don't see anything about Germany on here, this remains somewhat of a mess much of the time.

On trade, I hope part of the larger rework is to make external trade a viable strategy for obtaining goods. Because right now it just isn't, you cannot generally trade in large enough numbers (beyond the crazy fiddliness of the system, which I'm glad you are addressing) and so if you have a goods shortage, the only real way to address it in a satisfactory manner is to produce or extract them yourself.
This is absolutely something we're aiming for with improving trade. Both making it more viable compared to autarky, and making competition for export/import much more of a thing.
 
  • 41Like
  • 5Love
  • 2
  • 1
Reactions:
Why are you so hesitant to add an economy pillar?
"Other" looks clumsy.
If we replaced "Other" with "Economy" we wouldn't have any place to put something that didn't fall into one of the five categories. I guess we could consider having six categories though!
 
  • 22Like
  • 5
  • 3
  • 1Love
Reactions:
The inclusion of more trade-related points in the road map gives me hope, and I am very happy that it will be reworked already in update 1.9. It is perhaps one of the most undertone aspects of the game at the moment, but with some adjustments it can become a flagship. Two curiosities:
a) Will the launch window for update 1.9 be approximately between February and March, or at the end of spring?
b) I really appreciated the rework of the political movements, now well integrated with the simulation. Phase two is missing: greater differentiation between autocratic forms of government and those that provide voting rights. Will there be progress on this topic in 2025? For example, IGs occupying seats in parliament after elections, negotiations between interest groups and government, a rework of the political party system, the introduction of ordinances/executive orders/repeatable laws…? Thank you for your hard work this year. I wish you the best for 2025!
For the next update we don't have any major ambitions for politics, though we are of course going to be tweaking and iterating on our existing systems as we usually do. I'm sure there will at least be some improvements to the Political Movement System in 1.9, just don't expect any major reworks. As far as the rest of 2025 goes I can't really give any specifics right now.
 
  • 21
  • 7Like
Reactions:
Is it safe to give away the scope of the changes to warfare? Like the current system being swapped or mixed with the HoI4 battle plans? Is such a change feasible?
The plan is to build on and improve the system that we have, not to rework it from the ground up. We will definitely draw some inspiration from HOI and other games when we do so, however.
 
  • 45Like
  • 5
  • 3
  • 1
Reactions:
Hi Wiz,

when will we get any news on future expansion passes? Is an expansion pass planned? Will we get another standalone Immersion Pack before the next Expansion Pass?

Have a great Christmas!
At the moment I unfortunately can't tell you anything about Expansion Passes except that we will for sure do more Expansion Passes in the future.
 
  • 16
  • 5Like
Reactions:
Hi, I cannot wait for 1.9 I hope that military rework include adding fortresses - am I right? and what about ship rework? Do you take inspiration from players suggestion for future changes?
The scope for military improvements in 1.9 is more focused on fixing the issues with front splitting, teleportation, military access and so on rather than doing any major additions to the system. I definitely think we'll add fortifications in the future though.
 
  • 19
  • 10Like
  • 1Love
  • 1
Reactions:
Are there any more patches/hotfixes planned for 2024, or is 1.9 the next planned update overall?
At the moment we have no plans for additional hotfixes in 2024 unless something critical comes up. We'll assess whether to do another update to 1.8 after we get back from the holidays.
 
  • 15
  • 3Like
Reactions:
I am looking forward to the Trade updates. It seems like trade became much weaker with the MAPI change. These days I tend to build industry based on mineral deposits (coal, iron, sulfur, lead).

I have been having fun playing France in 1.8.3. The political movements are a big improvement in terms of more legible and coherent political pressure. Also, the building registry is amazing!
The design we have for reworking trade should fix the MAPI issue if it works as planned (it's in prototype stage right now).
 
  • 15Like
  • 5Love
  • 5
Reactions:
1.10 after 1.9? is that how decimal works?
It's how software versioning works. 1.9 is not 19 10ths, it's the 9th update to the 1st major release.
 
  • 9
  • 5Like
  • 1
Reactions:
Still, thinking of 2.0 is tempting.
What would you change if you weren't constrained by engine limitations?
Engine limitations honestly isn't a big constraint on us except maybe for certain graphical features. CPU limitations is always going to be our biggest roadblock.
 
  • 10Like
  • 7
  • 1
Reactions:
Are there any plans to let countries join on-going wars or add war goals as a war escalates? Also, are there any plans to add content for the Great War or some kind of crisis system?
Long term yes, short term no. This has to be done in such a way that it doesn't completely invalidate the diplomatic plays or makes it utterly unpredictable who will be your enemies in a war.
 
  • 12Like
  • 6
  • 3Love
Reactions:
Still no news about Germany and Italy not forming properly?
In our internal handsoffs they tend to form around 50-75% of the time. There are certainly improvements that can be made but it doesn't seem to us that they don't form at all.
 
  • 23
  • 11
  • 5
  • 1Like
Reactions: