Victoria 3 - Dev Diary #144 - Charters of Commerce & Expansion Pass 2

[StivKobra]

Reading up on more things about this DLC, I am interested in the different types of South Slavic states mentioned. We already know of Yugoslavia, but Illyria is something I don't have much knowledge of. From what I've read about the DLC, you can create a Serbian-led Yugoslavia, like it was historically, or do a new Illyrian type of union created by Slovenia/Croatia. I am not sure how the current mechanics of the game would reflect this. The State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs was a republic, sure. But not much is known about the system of governance, considering that the country didn't exist for long before being unified with the kingdom of Serbia. But I am worried about the marketed two different types of unions being just flavor for roleplay instead of something more meaningful.

I think that this game could really do with some federal mechanics. The question of the type of South Slavic union was mainly about federalization, the degree of autonomy the constituents would have, how strong would be the federal government, things like that. Going from unitary to a confederate state is a model this game could really use. This could emulate the actual creation of Yugoslavia and what it was turning into. The country went from a unitary one to parliamentary chaos, then a dictatorship which brought "federalism" through Banovina system (a unique type of federalization law for Yugoslavia, maybe?), to actual federal state by creating a unified Banovina of Croatia (which had a good degree of autonomy), and then if you ignore the historical events (occupation and partition of Yugoslavia) could have Banovina of Slovenia and Serbia, as it was planned. And finally, the Socialist Yugoslavia which was federated even more, even turning into a basically confederacy by the time Tito died with the "collective presidency" and each republic within Yugoslavia acting on its own. Which territory and which federal entities should also be a point of concern in the gameplay. So without the laws regarding the federalization, I can't see Yugoslavia or Illyria being more than just flavor, rather than different mechanics. But the key thing would be "what constitutes this constituent". You have Austria-Hungary, a dual monarchy. We know which land was part of the Austrian crown, we know which of the Hungarian crown. There was even a proposed South Slavic crown. It needs to be emulated in a way where you can see which state/territory belongs to which constituent (if you are federal at all). There was a mention of companies being their own "countries". Well, federal entitites could be their own "countries" as well. You could play as the Austrian part of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, while Hungary would be an autonomous entitiy within your country, which could change its laws, ask for greater autonomy within the empire, etc. Both Yugoslavia and Austria-Hungary would greatly benefit from this.

Speaking of federalization and territory divide, and I've been talking about this in comments of different YouTube videos and on Reddit so I might as well bring this here as well, the states really need some subdivisions. I really respect how Victoria 2 had states divided into provinces, and you could go to war for a specific province, not the whole state. Each province also had its own type of good to produce and its own terrain type, which brought even more strategy into consideration. States in Vic3 are way too big to be just generalized like that. I know the game already has "hidden" provinces, and you can use console commands to annex just certain small tiles, so there's already a framework set up for that. My suggestion would be to divide states into provinces which are actually visible, with their own borders, which are then divided into the small hidden "tiles" we already have in the game. You can go to war and occupy certain provinces. I could just go to war for a coal producing province,or that one sulfur province. Austria wanted to annex just some bordering municipalities from Serbia in case they won WW1. The First Balkan War had Serbia hold a part of Northern Macedonia, all of it after the Second Balkan War, and then annexed a bit more territory from Bulgaria after WW1. You can't really emulate any of this without some heavy scripting. How to divide Macedonia is the reason why the Second Balkan War started. As the period of history which would involve the Balkan Wars and WW1, these are some key things that probably should be addressed and give the player agency without being railroaded. Maybe by playing as Serbia I want to give Bulgaria most of Macedonia so I wouldn't have to fight them in the Second Balkan War and WW1? Speaking of Federalization, maybe I want to, as the kingdom of Yugoslavia, to give Macedonians their own Banovina? These are just many of the things that could make the idea of creating a South Slavic union actually fun. But I can't see it without some kind of federalization mechanic and state subdivisions. The easiest solution could just be "add more states", sure, so I might as well take that over states that are, honestly, way too big without any subdivisions.

Overall, I am hopeful for the whole expansion pass, althuogh cautious about National Awakening. There seem to be some grand promises there, but I don't want to be excited too much about the Balkan DLC only to be disappointed, because there is already a very good mod that has made the whole Balkans extremely fun to play, with their own unique mechanics, one of them also being the feud between the two Serbian royal dynasties.

 

[inVit]

I am out... I had gigantic hopes related to this game. I admit that the bait worked perfectly on me. However, the infatuation period has long passed and unrefined defects are disturbed too much. Looking at the slow pace of introducing updates, strange decisions of updating the game, not interesting DLC, high product price,
It's still hard to approach with enthusiasm. This is too much, and the quality that follows promises does not compensate for it in any way.

If you look well, you can see that there is only one DLC in this "expansion pass", but the price is like 3 DLC ...