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Victoria 3 - Dev Diary #27 - Technology

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Welcome back to another Victoria 3 development diary! Today we will talk about something we’ve already had to touch on in numerous previous dev diaries, as it is a topic crucial to every part of the game: Technology.

The Victorian era saw revolutionary progress in three major areas: industry, military, and politics. The rise of automation and free enterprise brought about the promise of immense material wealth for anyone willing and able to put in the work. Military technology - on land, at sea, and eventually even in the air - progressed so rapidly it could render a nation’s centuries-old doctrines obsolete overnight. And along with these material changes came a fundamental reorganisation of the societies themselves - sometimes by redistributing power from the ancient noble regimes to benefit the common people, and at other times by reigning such democracies in through entirely novel power structures made up of bureaucrats, business magnates, or populist autocratic strongmen.

These three revolutions are represented in Victoria 3 through three distinct tech trees: Production, Military, and Society. Within each tree, the many technologies your country will discover through each game are organised such that each tech both requires one or several others and leads to one or several others. Modders might be interested to know that each tree automatically rebuilds and reorganises itself whenever changes are made, to make it pain-free to add, remove, or change the tech trees without having to tinker with tree layout or static image files.

To research Shaft Mining, which permits the construction of mining industries, you need both Enclosure (which permits private ownership of land) and Manufactories (which lets you establish basic industries that make finished products). Shaft Mining itself leads to Prospecting (which increases your chance of discovering new resources), Steelworking (which lets you build Steel Mills), and the Atmospheric Engine, a building-sized early steam engine employed to pump water out of mine shafts. Industrialised countries start the game with most or all of these technologies.
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Production technologies are all about increasing your economic capacity in various ways. These tend to be very concrete inventions, such as Cotton Gin which increases the output of Cotton Plantations and Dynamite which can be employed for increased yields in all kinds of Mines. On some occasions they are more abstract, such as Enclosure which is a prerequisite for construction of modern, privately owned farms and ranches or Shift Work which more effectively utilises labor in your manufacturing industries. Production technologies also include advances to Railways, and some even unlock Goods unknown at the start of the game such as Rubber, Electricity, and Automobiles.

Military technologies improve your army and navy. These consist of a mix of new weapon technologies, doctrines, and ways of organising your Servicemen and Officers. Rifling lets you switch Production Methods from Muskets to Rifles in your Arms Industries, increasing their Small Arms production. Trench Infantry, once employed in your Barracks, organises your Battalions for trench warfare, which requires greater access to Small Arms but establishes a more reliable supply of manpower and causes fewer provinces to be lost when territory must be yielded to the enemy. The naval part of the tree is mostly dedicated to the invention of new ship types, but also includes a few new naval strategies that unlock or improve the effectiveness of certain naval Orders as well as upgrades to civilian Ports to improve your Supply Network and trade capacity.

Society technologies are all about new ideas for organising society. These include ideas pertaining to politics, finance, and diplomacy to name a few. Democracy permits the enactment of various voting franchise Laws as well as Republican principles of governing. Pan-Nationalism is a requirement for forming certain larger countries, and leads to Political Agitation which both makes your population more politically active and also gives you more Authority to deal with them. Several political ideas in this tree also unlocks specific Ideologies which may appear from that point on alongside new Interest Group Leaders and shake up the political landscape you had so carefully tuned, such as Feminism and Anarchism. Just as techs in the Production tree often unlock Production Methods, Society techs often unlock Laws - or Ideologies that can lend support for Laws previously thought utterly absurd by the political establishment.

In addition, Society technologies include improvements to your country’s financial system, such as Central Banking which increases your capacity for minting new currency and unlocks the Diplomatic Actions to Bankroll a country or Take on their Debt, as well as new forms of Institutions like Central Archives that unlock the Secret Police Law / Institution and leads to Identification Documents.

We are aiming for roundabout 175 of these technologies in the game on release, split up across the three trees. Many countries will start with 20-30 of these technologies already researched, as their starting economies, legal systems, militaries, and diplomatic relations rely on them. On average, leading edge countries will discover perhaps one new technology per year, though this pace can vary greatly from country to country.

An early part of the Society tech tree that deals mostly with finance and diplomacy. While a pre-industrial country might want to prioritise crucial Production technologies, missing out on elementary Society ideas that let you adjust Relations or perform effective International Trade is inadvisable. A rapidly developing country without allies could easily fall under the influence of an ambitious Great Power.
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Embarking on the research of a new technology is a simple matter of clicking on the tech in the tree you’d like to focus on, and time will take care of the rest. But time is perhaps your most precious resource in Victoria 3, since falling behind your neighbours could be a death sentence - or at least might force you to cede your right to self-determination. The pace at which your research progresses is therefore of the utmost importance.

The rate by which countries develop new technologies is measured by Innovation. All countries start with a small amount of Innovation capacity. Those countries who can afford to do so can construct and fund University buildings, which employ Academics and Clerks to boost Innovation and thereby speed up the pace at which a country discovers new things.

Another way to improve research speed is to ensure the Industrialists, Armed Forces, or Intelligentsia are satisfied with the state of the country, as this will cause the effective cost of Production, Military, and Society techs respectively to drop. If only one of these groups are pleased with the society you’ve built, this will incentivize focusing your research on that tree since it’s relatively advantageous. As a result, a country with a large army and Laws favouring Patriotic, Loyalist, and Jingoist Ideologies would also progress faster in their Military technologies, though they may fall behind on Production and Society.

The amount of Innovation you can use to actively research your chosen technology is capped by your country’s Literacy. Even if your Universities are top-notch, your country’s ability to effectively incorporate new learnings will be hampered by a poorly educated population. Those countries who aim to be the guiding light of global progress must maintain a solid primary school system in addition to Universities that carry out their research.

Mexico is evidently on the fast-track of becoming the innovative powerhouse in the Americas, but its current Literacy rate doesn’t quite support making full directed use of the Universities they’ve built - for now.
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Literacy is a product of a Pop’s Education Access. If a given Pop has 30% Education Access, over time 30% of individuals in that Pop will become Literate. The pace by which this value changes is dependent on the birth- and death rate of the Pop, since this sort of learning happens mostly in the early years.

A Pop’s Wealth provides it with a base level of Education Access, and Wealth often varies substantially depending on Profession, making higher-paid Professions have greater Education Access. However, Literacy is often a limiting factor to a Pop’s ability to Qualify for those jobs in the first place, so relying solely on Wealth for Education Access could severely limit your country’s social mobility and opportunity for economic growth. This is where your school system comes in.

The main source of Education Access comes from the Education Institution, which must be established by a Law and can be run by either the religious authorities, the private sector, or by a public administration depending on your school system Law. Each of these systems have their advantages: a religious school system keeps your priesthood strong and helps ensure unity of faith; a private school system works just peachy for Pops with high Wealth levels and ensures the working class don’t get strange ideas; and a public school system lets you enact mandatory schooling for children and encourages cultural assimilation.

A country’s Literacy is simply the percentage of their Pops in Incorporated states that know how to read and write at any given point. This means that if the most educated people in your society decide they’ve had enough and move abroad, your average Literacy will drop, to the benefit of the other country. If a war utterly devastates the backwaters of your nation and slaughters the hundreds of thousands you conscripted to defend it, your average Literacy might increase.

After the Texan Revolutionary War, these Clerks found themselves once again subjects of Mexico. While they currently all know how to read and write, their offspring are unlikely to enjoy the same benefits. Mexico has no formal school system in place and their Wealth doesn’t buy much of an education. To add insult to injury the Catholic Church Interest Group in Mexico is currently spreading Pious Fiction to ensure the children aren’t led astray by heretical ideas. The next generation of Clerks are unlikely to qualify to follow in their parents’ footsteps.
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All technology is organised into Eras, which are rough estimates of progress through the game’s timespan. Anything in Era I is considered pre-1836 technology, going back as far as the very idea of Rationalism to the invention of Steelworking. Era II ranges from the start of the game to around the 1860s - Railways and Percussion Cap ammunition both belong here (though some countries did have railways a little earlier than 1836; this is not an exact science). Era III runs from the early 1860s to the end of the 1880s, and includes Civilizing Mission as a justification for colonisation and Pumpjacks, heralding the rise of the oil industry. Era IV from late 1880 to the early 20th century includes both War Propaganda and Film, both which might make it easier to justify the horrors which are to come in Era V - including Battleships, Chemical Warfare, and Stormtroopers. Era V also sees truly modern civilian inventions such as the Oil Turbine to make Electricity from Oil and Paved Roads to improve your national infrastructure.

The Eras act as an indicator of roughly where you are at in a given tree, but also serves a role in ensuring that rushing a certain late-game technology is difficult. Not only do technologies in later Eras take more innovative effort to research, but each technology you have not yet researched in that tree from previous Eras makes it harder and harder to make progress. This means techs aren’t unlocked on specific years in Victoria 3, and there is never a hard block preventing you from making your Universities develop technologies earlier than they were historically invented. But keep in mind that it’s a less efficient use of time and resources, so ensure that acquiring that technology ahead of everyone else is actually crucial for your strategy, as it will not come easily.

Trying to take a shortcut from the Atmospheric Engine (Era I) through Water-tube Boiler (II) and Rotary Valve Engine (III) straight to Combustion Engine (IV) so you’re able to manufacture Automobiles in the mid-1800s is certainly possible given enough money and grit, but would be far from the best use of your resources. Even skipping a few Era III Production techs before going for the Combustion Engine could easily yield this 30% time penalty, the difference which might buy you a whole Era III tech. Besides, you might want to research Rubber Mastication and set up a few Rubber Plantations before you start building Automobiles, unless you want your factories to be wholly dependent on foreign rubber for the tires...
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The final yet crucial point about technological development is that government funding and steering of national research is not the dominant way most countries are exposed to new ideas. For each of the three categories of technology (Production, Military, and Society) there is always one technology that is spreading in your country. Which exact tech that spreads to you in each category is out of your hands, but it will always be something in your current technological Era which has already been invented elsewhere.

The speed by which technology spreads to you is highly dependent on your population’s Literacy. In addition, any Innovation you generate in excess of the Literacy cap is funnelled into improving tech spread rate. In other words, oversizing your Universities compared to your school system can assist in catching up to the rest of the world but can never be used to get ahead of the others.

Technology spread is also affected by your Freedom of Speech Laws. Stricter censorship provides you with more Authority but hinders the assimilation of new knowledge throughout your country. This is often to your detriment but could also very well be exactly what you intended! The downside of having a well-educated population is that they get exposed to foreign ideas more easily, and some of those ideas might not be what you had in mind. A bit more state control over what people are allowed to talk about can help keep your population focused on the ideas you want them to know about.
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The technology system in Victoria 3 is meant to shape and change the game as your campaign evolves. While a few techs apply straight bonuses to various attributes of your country, the primary function of most techs is to unlock new actions, options, and even challenges. Very often, discovering a new technology doesn’t have any immediate effect on your country but gives you new ways to run your country and new tools in your toolbox. The introduction of new inventions and ideas can also act as a catalyst for emerging situations in your country, with certain parts of your populace demanding these new developments be adopted - or shunned. Much of this is driven by the Journal system which we will talk more about in a few weeks, but before that we will cover another feature of crucial importance to grand strategy games - Flags! See you next week!
 

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Doesn't the passive accumulation of new technologies through tech spread incentive a country to beeline straight to key technologies because they will backfill other techs? Of course this is mostly a balancing issue, but if the "ahead of time" tech penalty isn't harsh enough then this may be the optimal way for some countries to research if their "tech spread" is good enough.

For a quick example, see HOI IV. Researching a heavy tank (before the tank designer rework), was considered paramount and people would rush it ahead of time 4-5 years just to get it faster than opponents and begin mass production. 4-5 years ahead of time had severe tech penalties but was still deemed to be worth it because it was a game winning move.

I could see something like this happening with say WW1 chemical warfare. If I'm able to get WW1 chemical warfare in the 1890's (and assuming it's potent and a gamechanger like it should be), this may be the Vicky 3 situation of the HOI IV problem.

Thank you.
 
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On the other hand, different tiers of infantry units just need more Small Arms, Ammunition, etc (based on the idea that quantity equals quality for many goods), so the ability to produce new firearms (increasing your output of Small Arms) is decoupled from your ability to use those firearms (which tends to be framed as an organizational of doctrinal shift rather than one specifically based on armaments)
This sounds a bit sad - since in the new warfare system, big part of players' agency is ensuring his armies are well equipped - there really is no way that a country could even the odds of difficult war by buying a tone of super advanced rifles and artillery from a friendly neighbour?
 
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It looks to me like in the screenshot, the government has the policy that gives that -10% literacy, and if I had to guess it would also increase conversion rates. So when it's government policy, I think it'll affect the literacy of protestant pops.
Ok, it looked to me like a punishment for having an angry Interest Group.
 
Does era-based tech spread mean that even underdeveloped countries get tech spread based on the year? For example, as Dahomey in 1900, can Battleship technology spread even if you haven't researched any Era V techs yourself?
No, the prerequisites for getting tech spread is:
- you must theoretically qualify to research it yourself (i.e. you have all the prerequisite techs)
- it must be researched by someone else in the world already
So unless you already have the prereqs to research Battleships, you're not going to be getting tech spread in it. The actual year absolutely never matters at all, the Eras are guidelines for what to expect and not based on exact dates.
 
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I wonder how the technology that is spreading through your country is chosen? Maybe it could be influenced by what you have in your country, so one with lots of mines would be more likely to have mining technology spread in it, because there would be a lot of mine owners who would pick up those ideas from elsewhere.
That would be awesome, the more mines in your country, mining technology is discovered faster
 
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The Yankee/Dixie split is already bad enough, let's not make things worse.
I agree that Texan is unnecessary as a discrete culture but Yankee/Dixie is certainly appropriate. Looking at contemporary foreign accounts like Tocqueville I think it's a distinct enough gap in identity that it's comparable to an Englishman vs an Anglo-Canadian.
 
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This is a balancing question so it's a bit hard to answer definitively at this point in development, but I can elaborate on intent: if there's a significant discrepancy between two armies' military capabilities, this discrepancy can be made up by superiority in numbers in some cases but it's highly situational, depending on the Generals involved, terrain fought in, focus on offense vs defense, and so on. The biggest factor that would benefit the French in this situation is dynamic battle sizing and combat width mechanics, which makes it much less likely the French would be outnumbered and assaulted 20:1 in any given battle, making it possible for a small detachment to stand their ground or even conquer territory.

If the question is more about how rapidly countries tend to catch up to the forerunners in terms of technology, that also varies a lot - most of the countries that start at a disadvantage get most of their tech development from spread, but also start with low Literacy and in some cases severe lack of Freedom of Speech, which slow down the rate by which they develop. They're also unlikely to be able to afford well-staffed Universities as a result of their low industrial development and regressive taxation systems. But if a country can overcome these early limitations somehow they can certainly catch up to the global technology leaders.

Finally, it bears mentioning that in Victoria 3 most technologies give you more options, not global buffs - and those options usually cost you something. So it's rarely the case that acquiring military tech just makes your army better, you have to implement and pay ongoing costs for the upgrades, too. If you want to compete with the Great Powers you can't just rely on passive assimilation of their innovations.
Hmm, this sounds a bit like modern military system will not be such a big advantage as historically where literally you could capture a fortress defended by 20 times larger force in undeveloped countries. I hope I won't have to send an army of 100k to control Siam..
 
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A suggestion: It would be very interesting if there were a link between the migration of certain pops and the spread of technology.When scientists, an engineer or an officer migrate, they also take their knowledge with them. There could be an event that could be triggered when a migration wave from a country with more techs to a country with less techs takes place. The type of migrating pops could determine which technology is passed on. In this way, radical ideologies could also spread to countries where they are still unknown. In my backwoods country of Latin America, communism may be unknown, but if many communist workers migrate, it would be logical for them to remain loyal to their ideology in their new home.
Since migration only takes place either within markets (and I definitely think there should already be a bonus to tech spread if another member of the market has the spreading tech) or in mass migrations, you could do this a lot more simply by just giving a bonus to a tech spreading if there's a mass migration from a country that already has that tech to your country. And this could be modulated by the professions of the pops moving or (more simply in my opinion) keeping track of the average literacy of the immigrant pops and changing the bonus based on that.
 
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So if countries usually start with 20-30 technologies, and cutting edge countries discover about 1 per year (as you said), and there are ~175 techs, does that mean that even an advanced country will only get about 2/3rds of the techs before game end? And a country that starts off in a bad spot may not even get the majority of the techs? That seems odd.
It might be a little faster than that, but the intent is that only the powerful Major and Great Powers will be able to fully complete tech trees by game end and will need to make hard decisions about which Era V techs to focus on when during the tail end of their campaign. A great many countries will acquire less - maybe not less than 50% due to the effects of tech spread in the latter half of the game, but perhaps around 60-70%, yes.
 
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What level of technology can a country that puts no effort into advancing literacy or building schools expect to reach? Will a central African state with no import of ideas from outside its borders have steel working and atmospheric engine in 1900?

This is basically a question asking how passive the system is, trying to get a vague idea of the pace. It’s impossible to have any opinion without a sense for it.
Steelworking and Atmospheric Engine by 1900, almost certainly, yes. We're thinking of ways to model tech spread in very isolated (or Isolationist) countries with virtually zero contact with the outside world, but at the moment we make the assumption that all centralized countries have some sort of contact with the outside world and is exposed to all kinds of ideas. Whether they would like to or can afford to implement them is another matter.
 
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I really wish all techs researched by others could spread (not just 1 per sector), but potentially with very large malus. For example, if the only nation that knows tech X is your bitter rival, it would take a loooooong time. On the hand, if Finland manages to join the world stage and has liberal trade laws and good literacy rate, it makes little sense that only 3 techs spread from friendly Sweden.
 
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Does capturing a province with a certain production method enabled by tech do anything? Like increase research rates for that tech or automatically research that tech?
 
Does historical universities have their own name? Like Harvard instead of University in Massachusetts
No :( We will however look into player-named buildings (and other entities) post-release, we love the idea and want it in the game but it comes with some unexpected complexity we don't want to risk at the moment.
 
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Is the tech tree zoomable, so we could at least pretend that we are able to comprehend and easily use modded one with 347 different kinds of screw techs?
 
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What determines which technology will be spreading to your country?

And if there are bonuses to spread for specific techs (I certainly like this idea, e.g. getting a bonus to the spread of Cotton Gin because buddy + neighbor has it), then it'd be disappointing for it to be random (like Cotton Gin never getting randomly chosen), then I think the best way to do it would be to have the tech that's the cheapest/has the biggest bonuses always be the one that's spreading (and randomly among the leading candidates if more than one tech is tied for the best choice). So you'd never really get screwed over by the RNG of discounted techs randomly not spreading to you.
 
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Is it possible to research all technologies and gain 100% literacy by the end of the game?
Also do any nation available to players can achieve that, or some have to rough start to hope for something like that happening?
 
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This is substantially better than Victoria 2 in terms of manual tech progression, but I can't help but feel that the random spread mechanics leave something to be desired.

I would like if a revamped version of inventions came back; I dislike when the primary driver of technology is conscious player choice, and taking it partially out of our hands is good. So a player would fund basic research into a topic, and then various groups off-screen would iterate on it to produce specific applications based on your literacy, what industries and resources you have, and the inventions of your peers.
 
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How is it that education access based on wealth doesn't increase literacy? What do the rich people learn before learning how to read and write that they're "educated" but at the same time illterate?
Where are you seeing that it doesn't increase literacy?

It's not great for your country's average literacy because most of your pops aren't wealthy, but for those pops, it should be plenty.

(In the Texan Clerks screenshot their literacy is dropping because they're lower-middle-class clerks and their wealth is only 7.)

Would it be possible to mod the game to remove direct research, and handle all tech spread through osmosis?
Not on its own, because tech spread is only for researched techs. Somebody has to develop it the hard way first before it can spread.

with some ability to direct high-level abstract ideas ("organic chemistry") but the adoption of inventions that actually change behaviour ("oh wow - petrol!") stemming from co-dependencies with other technologies and a healthy dollop of random chance.
I strongly disagree about the amount of randomness - there's nothing fun or engaging about sitting there waiting for the game to give you the thing you know it's going to give you eventually - but I agree that there should be more of a relationship between the state of your nation (industry, military, and politics) and your research. Relatively few people are out there doing random science experiments to see what happens - they're trying to solve real problems happening for real people, so the kind of nation you have should determine the problems you're facing, and that should determine the solutions your scientists are able to come up with.

What elements can we expect to change visually over time? We have been told about trains chugging along around the map, but will POPs' clothing change? Will the uniforms of soldiers change? The change from 1836 aesthetics to 1935 aesthetics is quite dramatic, after all.
I think this came up last week and the response was that it was out of scope for launch but might be in the future. I think for launch they're prioritizing pop aesthetics for different cultures, which I think we can agree is a broad enough scope for any team. :D

On the other hand, different tiers of infantry units just need more Small Arms, Ammunition, etc (based on the idea that quantity equals quality for many goods), so the ability to produce new firearms (increasing your output of Small Arms) is decoupled from your ability to use those firearms (which tends to be framed as an organizational of doctrinal shift rather than one specifically based on armaments).
Put another way, even though you can import or use, say, American Civil War-era rifled muskets, that doesn't mean you have tactics that are appropriate for them. You might be stuck organizing your troops along more Napoleonic lines, with presumably dreadful results, until/unless your people have a breakthrough.
 
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