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

[zanga]

Very cool! Although it sounds contradictory “monopolies” and “efficiency boost” in the same sentence

 

[47pik]

Is that all??? In a year and a half of development, there will be only one major change in the game, and then not the entire economy, but only trade. I have no words how this can be done.

Free patches are not DLC. They can’t sell fundamental reworks. Notice how the big trade rework explicitly isn’t a feature of the Charters of Commerce DLC?

Season 2 -> premium content only

And premium content by nature cannot be fundamental system reworks.

Of course there isn’t mention of navies. Those updates are confirmed to be free.
Same for non-JE national pride mechanics - confirmed to be a free patch (probably that comes out parallel to the Balkan DLC).

 

[Dark_Edge725]

Hoping for Dr Jose Rizal and Philippine Revolution with the Iberian pack

 

[cylordcenturion]

first off, i like the trade rework, i have long found the current system tedious and not fun, this isnt exactly what i had in mind but its pretty close and im looking forward to it.

secondly i appreciate the promise of warfare bugfixes.
however the problem does not lie in the warfare itself, the frontline splitting and teleportation, these are all minor frustrations which are relatively easily managed. the problem is the peace negotiation and war support system, it magnifies all other problems. it takes any other small problem or setback and turns it into a major issue and pain point. and its not because of a bug, its a fundamental problem with the system working as designed.
there are so many different ways that this can be improved and in many different directions. rather than make an extremely long winded comment on this topic (yes far far longer than it already is), I will propose what i consider to be the absolute bare-minimum flex-tape "just-make-it-work-for-now" fix: an abandon war-goal button. a button which will remove one of your wargoals from consideration. this does not fix the system, it just smooths the single roughest edge to tolerability.

As it stands, my prediction for the release of the update is: i will play 1-2 games, run into the massive pain-point that is the war support system, feel upset and frustrated with the game, realise that i shouldnt be "playing" a game that makes me feel less happy than not playing it and drop the game until the next update. i love vic 3, i hate that it hurts me. please, i am asking earnestly, rework the war support and peace-deal system to be more flexible and forgiving. i do not know how to convey further that i legitimatly care about this.

thirdly: Can market regions be used to handle the problem currently facing local goods? (especially electricity) i consistently delay researching electricity, use it minimally once i do, and often end runs not too long after it becomes too important to easily ignore. its just such a pain to deal with it individually in each state, as it functionally shuts down your ability to manage PMs at a national level. is it possible in the engine to make a given good spread within a market region but not to other market regions in the same market.
it feels really weird to know that market regions have just... been a thing all along. people, myself included, were arguing back and forth about local electricity for ages with no end in sight. so many different ideas werer proposed, argued and shot down, when this market region thing seems like a perfect happy compromise solution. sure powering london from scotland isnt "really" realistic for the time period but its way way better than the sillyness that was powering london from beijing. and reducing the number of marklets you need to manage power for from almost all of your states individually to less than 10 would be an unbelievable relief to the tedium of lategame play.
alternately, is there a plan to make the UI significantly, (like 3 orders of magnitude) better when dealing with local goods? its bad, i hate it, i stop playing when i have to interact with it too much, i dont even like thinking about it.

fourth: what is the state of progress on tidying up the political movements system? there's still some jankyness around the transition there especially in regards to revolutions. for example traditionalist/reactionary movement B picking up and starting a revolution supported by the same interest groups that just lost a revolution with traditionalist/reactionary movment A. and its now possible for a revolution to "be happening" in near perpetuity turning the previous "no downsizing" rule intended to prevent cheesing revolutions into sonmething that can cripple a campaign for years. i feel like the revolution events should alwasy push a revolution to one end or another, raising/lowering radicalism, or raising/lowering support, if you end up in one perpetually then its your fault for juggling back and forth.

last: is there any intention to make interactionswith specific ideologies a more prominant part of gameplay? i.e. encouraging pops to support the market liberal ideology directly rather than an interest group with a collection of idologies or a movement with specific stances on laws. then pops choose theior IGs and movemnts based on their support for an ideology rather than just their social class/job?

 

[cylordcenturion]

regarding diplomatic treaties, will treaties be a specific thing or a generic one.
right now your diplomatic relations are a collection of yes/no relations
britain has "a truce" with Qing. britain has "investment rights" with Qing.
will there be specific treaties so: the treaty between briatin and Qing is named "the treaty of ___" its terms are: britain has investment rights. term2 term3 the treaty will end on date_x. etcetera

 

[Sietrin]

I strongly feel that trade rework will down the road lead to some kind of logistics rework to get rid off the arbitrary MAPI and tying it up directly to infrastructure, this paired with proper trade system will finally make Vicky 3 objectively better than VIcky 2

 

[Geredis]

One of the biggest issues of the game as I view it is the percentage spread, as a fractional relation. The range has always been-25% to 175%. I understand the theory behind it. With a +/- 75% swing. However, the way that purchasing power works in these cases, a thing costing 75% more is less impactful (for good or ill) than something that costs a full 1/4. Remember, at 25%, you can buy 4 of an item for the same base (100%) price. At 175%, you can buy about .57 units for the 100% base price. And the price gap means that provided you can provide just enough that you aren't really worried about the profit malus for the inefficiency unless it suddenly becomes unprofitable.

Is there any intent to acutally itemize/inventory production chains, or at least widen the gap so that things become truly and totally prohibitively expensive in certain circumstances? Ideally honestly, the sky should be the limit for the upper price, if you're going to keep ratioing the orders for price points. Either that, or move to a V2 style economy with proper stockpiles.

 

[Arizal]

Now, you may be asking “What is a Mechanic Pack”? It is a pack aimed to provide mechanical immersion at a lower price than an Expansion due to lower focus on the narrative content. This allows us to provide a deeper mechanical immersion, while extra flavour will be included in an additional Immersion Pack within the same Expansion Pass 2.

This is all I ever wanted : mechanical packs.

Now what torns me is that the nationality inside Austria and the succession wars in Spain and Portugal are done as standalone mechanics, which I would have hoped would have been mechanics as well. I hope those countries won't feel too railroaded, because I hoped to play Austria after a "nationalism" expansion. Done right, maybe it'll strike a balance, though.

 

[Desseabar]

This is all I ever wanted : mechanical packs.

Now what torns me is that the nationality inside Austria and the succession wars in Spain and Portugal are done as standalone mechanics, which I would have hoped would have been mechanics as well. I hope those countries won't feel too railroaded, because I hoped to play Austria after a "nationalism" expansion. Done right, maybe it'll strike a balance, though.

I think they said that there's going to be updates to national fervor in the Balkans pack, so there's definitely still other mechanical updates coming.
Besides: we got hints about the discrimination rework for PoE, but we didn't know it was coming with a DLC pack until the last minute. It's reasonable to expect a few secrets hidden up the devs' sleeves.

 

[Teutonic_Knight_2000]

If they want to make additional cosmetic DLC, let it be the newspapers known from Victoria 2.

 

[Revolution 11]

It begins!

I have to say, I’m abit uneasy with mechanics packs. These look like very important and brilliant mechanics that should be in the base game rather than something that should be bought, especially when it seems to be vital for the game.

Also, apart from Charters of Commerce, am I right to say that there is no major expansion pack adding mechanics etc? That is quite disappointing if so. I was hoping for more mechanics and contents being added other than charters of commerce, like proper navy ships etc. would there be other major mechanics in the roadmap that will added over the course of the year?

Finally, in terms of Monopolies, would there be negative downsides of handing ur industry over to 1 company?

Yeah, it feels like internal politics is still pretty lackluster, despite the welcomed changes to Discrimination and Lobbies. The Austria DLC should have mechanics to fix this.

It feels egregious that we have to resort to unbalanced mods like Better Politics just to get a more engaging internal politics game loop. These mods add complexity by having more of everything instead of actually better mechanics. Not an ideal situation.

 

[Nidzoni]

Honestly, for me, a long-awaited flavor for the Balkan nations. I just doubt what the struggle over who is on the throne will mean for Serbia, because in essence, the game itself dictates a fast pace that if you want the fastest progress, the goal is usually to get rid of the monarchy. Not necessarily, but in most cases it is. The difference in the policies of the two dynasties was reflected in both external and internal political terms. The Obrenovićs leaned more towards Austria and ruled more autocratically, focused on the independent development of Serbia, while the Karađorđevićs saw the Russians as partners, advocated a constitutional monarchy, and were the bearers of the idea of unifying the Slavs. Also in 1835, the Sretenje Constitution was adopted, the first modern constitution of Serbia, inspired by the liberal and democratic ideas of the French Revolution. Given the ideas it carried, it was a threat to the surrounding empires that Serbia was moving towards complete independence and that these ideas could cause unrest among their populations due to the lack of rights they had at the time. Under pressure from Austria, Russia and the Ottoman Empire, Serbia was forced to withdraw the constitution 55 days after its adoption and was subsequently given the so-called. "Turkish Constitution". And so on...
Given that this is the one-time love that Serbia will get in this Paradox title, I would like it to be significant and good, at least to attract players who have not yet wanted to try playing this awakening nation and prepare that powder keg on the Balkan.
Also, there is a bunch of questions about launching the Balkan war, but since I can't even assume how it will look, I will wait dedicated dev diary.
I want to get the complete pass but I haven't decided yet to buy, because I don't have any information about the DLC that's most important to me.
Will there be info about that DLC before the special offer for the pass expires?

 

[gurufabbes]

Is the happy thursday meant today or next week?

 

[PDX_Pelly]

Is the happy thursday meant today or next week?

The next dev diary will be in the middle of April, so we will see you then!

 

[Fadu]

Will there be any changes to research?
As a nation without access to the sea, I don't like having to research ports and ships to avoid getting a penalty for military research.
I would prefer a larger distribution across 5-6 trees. I would also appreciate being able to focus on one tree while reducing progress in the others.

For the government, I would like a more flexible design, perhaps similar to Stellaris with council positions. So that there isn't just one large bonus from the leader, but several smaller ones from the appointed individuals.
For example:
5 council positions.
Military
Development
Culture and Homeland
Economy
President

Depending on the government system, the positions are filled based on the faction strength. (Selection of various personalities from the faction)
The personalities then no longer have very high bonuses (-50% infamy decay) but rather moderate, small bonuses.


have a nice day

german edit:
"Wird es Änderungen zur Forschung geben?
Als Nation ohne Meerzugang finde ich es nicht gut, dass ich Häfen und Schiffe forschen muss, um keinen Malus für die Militärforschung zu bekommen.
Ich würde eine größere Aufteilung auf 5-6 Bäumen besser finden. Außerdem würde ich es begrüßen einen Fokus auf einen Baum setzen zu können, bei reduzierten Fortschritt in die anderen.

Für die Regierung würde ich mir ein flexibleres Design wünschen, vielleicht ähnlich wie bei Stellaris mit den Ratsposten. Sodass es nicht nur einen großen Bonus von dem Anführer gibt sondern mehrere kleine von den eingesetzen Personen.
Als Beispiel:
5 Ratsposten.
Militär
Entwicklung
Kultur und Heimat
Wirtschaft
Präsident

Je nach Regierungssystem werden die Posten je nach Fraktionsstärke besetzt. ( Auswahl von verschiedenen Persönlichkeiten aus der Fraktion)
Die Persönlichkeiten haben dann auch nicht mehr sehr hohe Boni ( - 50% infamy decay) sondern moderate kleine Boni.
"

 

[Toni Martoni]

Very happy to see the game continue to improve. I will certainly buy the Chartes of commerce expansion.

 

[chrism2012]

Thanks for all the new info about your road map.

Just a quick request to the devs regarding the National Awakening immersion pack, for Austria:
Look at the HOI4 - Kaiserreich mod, and the focus tree and events for Austria (and especially against the Hungarian half of the empire), leading to the United States of Greater Austria.
THIS IS THE WAY!

Your current take (v1.8) for Austria-Hungary is wrong! Thank you.

 

[Komunistof]

Please Northamerican DLC next: Canadá, Quebec, United States, Confederate States, Mexico and Central America please

 

[Komunistof]

Also please make it so you an buy industries privately owned by manor houses and financial districts of your puppets so they get economally dependent on you. Also please add the Danubian State for the Austria DLC, really bothers me that it is not formable by Austria.

 

[Will Steel]

Devs, please fix the Command Economy law. It doesn't allow nationalization of farms (even after having Collectivized Agriculture law), and it sometimes results in broken, randomly disappearing companies for some reason, with them there is constantly reappearing and disappearing capitalist pops (which shouldn't even exist in a command economy - companies should be run by state).

At the very least, there should be a "State-run Farms" law or something to create a command economy equivalent for agriculture at least.

It also creates a lot of late-game problems, like -

• being unable to build the kind of farms needed in a state, because all agriculture slots are already taken up by other buildings (inability to adjust farmland makes isolationist communist or military dictatorship gameplay just painful)
• being unable to demolish farms to free up workers for factories or other industries

Ironically, interventionism allows more control over economy than command economy does, because at least that way you can buy up and demolish farms. That's just weird.

Mentioning this because we are about to get more things for the economy, and yet this big economic glitch exists for an entire year now.