Victoria 3 - Dev Diary #28 - Flags

[EU3NOOB]

Give it enough time and "America" would start meaning "dirt".

Careful there, you might cut yourself on that edge...

 

[TheDungen]

I assume the yellow and red danish flag is if the danes are in charge? Will there be one if Sweden is in charge too? I really hope that's not the half red half blue one, because I got to say that is probably one of my least favourite flags of all time.

I prefer this one to either, though I would replace the göta lion with Sweden's lion and replace the three crowns with Finland's Scimitar Wielding lion.

 

[Prometheus_1]

There is no player override system for which flag to use at the moment. Both that and an in-game flag designer would be really neat, but I wouldn't consider either of those things priority for release.

As long as a flag and nation designer is in the next dlc I am fine .
Please consider also the converters from EUIV and to HOIIV.

 

[Republic of Mercury]

Careful there, you might cut yourself on that edge...

What? I'm saying that if you apply a name to our planet, then eventually that name will become synonymous with the material that our planet seems to be made of. If our planet got named "Chuck" for long enough, then eventually "A handful of chuck" would be the same as saying "a handful of earth".

 

[EU3NOOB]

What? I'm saying that if you apply a name to our planet, then eventually that name will become synonymous with the material that our planet seems to be made of. If our planet got named "Chuck" for long enough, then eventually "A handful of chuck" would be the same as saying "a handful of earth".

A "Handful of America" sounds beautiful.

 

[Yakdast]

hmmm

View attachment 786427
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Hi folks, welcome to another dev diary, and get hyped for what I know you're longing for: flags. I'm Ofaloaf, one of the designers on the game, and somehow they let me write a dev diary. Let's go!

Let's start at the beginning. What is a flag?

View attachment 786428
A flag is a thing of beauty.
​

A flag is a decorative design on a bit of fabric, often used to communicate something, such as a message or identity, to the viewer. In Victoria 3, all flags are flags associated with countries. They're neat designs that serve as visual shorthand for a state, and they just look pretty too, most of the time.

View attachment 786429
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In the Victorian era, what counts as the flag of a country was a bit… vague, depending on who you were asking. Some countries, like the United States and France, very clearly had a single flag that served as the national flag that everybody knew them by, but others weren't so clear.

Look - here's some period examples of what people considered Russia's flag to be:

Selection from 'The maritime flags of all nations', 1832, as seen on Wikimedia Commons
View attachment 786430

Selection from 'Pavillons et cocardes des principales puissances du globe d'apres des documens officials', 1850, as seen in the David Rumsey Map Collection.
View attachment 786431
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First thing that's noticeable is that it's not just one flag. The tricolor that is used as the Russian Federation's flag now was just one of several in use in the 19th century up through to the 1850s, as a merchant flag or civil ensign used to identify civilian ships in foreign ports. The Romanov dynasty's emblem is also used as a Russian flag, and then there's two naval jacks - the flags with the blue saltires or diagonal crosses stretching across them- which are also widely recognized. Eventually, the Russian government started trying to consolidate everything and issued a decree on June 23rd, 1858, proclaiming a single "state flag", a black-gold-white tricolor. In 1883, the white-blue-red "merchant" flag was officially accepted as a national flag to be used on special occasions, and in 1896 it wholly replaced the black-gold-white tricolor as Russia's state flag.

Man, ain't that a doozy of flags to pick from! How are we supposed to pick which one to use in Victoria 3? Well, good news there - we can use more than one flag! We got dynamic flags triggered by script!

View attachment 786433
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Any trigger which is valid for a country, like checking if a specific state is owned by the player or if a war is happening, can be used to trigger a different flag in the game. We've used that to spice up flag varieties in different situations - for example, a united Scandinavian monarchy has a different flag depending on whether the Danes are in charge or not:

View attachment 786434
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Spicy! And that's on top of just using the usual checks like governments, the number of states in a country, and so forth - right, yes, you probably want to see the stars in the American flag, don't you? I know I do. They do change based on the number of states in the Union.

I can taste the freedom.
View attachment 786435
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There's even some unique flags for when one country becomes the puppet of another. In some cases, a generic "oh no I am a puppet now" design is used for the puppeted country's flag with the "master" country's flag inserted as a canton in the upper-left corner of the puppeted country's flag, while in other cases a wholly unique flag is made for a particular combination of puppeteer and puppet.

View attachment 786436
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There's also a sort of fallback system, to provide flags for every polity even if we can't really settle on one particular design, or if they're feisty dynamic rebels, or what-have-you. Flags can be randomly generated, with particular triggers set so some flag elements only appear if a tag is of a particular culture, religion, or ideology, among other things.

View attachment 786437
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And, for the modders out there, it shouldn't be difficult for you folks to put together more flags if you want (and of course you want to make more flags, right?) - we use a system similar to the one Crusader King 3 uses for its coats of arms. France's default flag is a simple example of how the system works:

FRA = {
    pattern = "pattern_solid.tga"
    color1 = "blue"

    colored_emblem = {
        texture = "ce_tricolor_vertical.dds"
        color1 = "white"
        color2 = "red"
    }
}

All that's going on there is that a plain blue field is set as the background, and then a single graphical element with the central third and right third of the tricolor as colorable sections is slapped on top, with white and red respectively added in there to make a nice and tidy blue-white-red tricolore. Magnifique!

And to plug that bad boy into the game, all you need is a little scripting in another file that goes a little something like this:

FRA = { # France
    flag_definition = {
        coa = FRA
        subject_canton = FRA
        allow_overlord_canton = yes
        coa_with_overlord_canton = FRA_subject       
        priority = 1
    }
    flag_definition = {
        coa = FRA
        subject_canton = FRA
        allow_overlord_canton = yes       
        overlord_canton_scale = { 0.337 0.337 }           
        priority = 10
        trigger = {
            coa_def_republic_flag_trigger = yes
        }
    }
    [And so forth. Find more flags by playing the game!]   
}

You can create as many flag definitions as you like, and you can plug the same flag design into multiple definitions or make a unique one for every definition if you want to go insane scripting it all up. Triggers are straightforward to plug in (and you can script generic triggers if you don't want to write the same combination of checks over and over again). If you want to mod flags, there's a delightful amount of flexibility with this system.

So there you have it! We got flags. We got lots of flags! We got randomized combinations of flags that go on for days! You could script more flags if you really want to poke at the game's innards! Flags.

Now, as we march towards the Holiday season, the dev diaries are taking a bit of a break. We will be back in January with a brand new topic in our first dev diary for 2022. Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year!

hmmmmm yes the stars in the union always bothered me. I still remember the vicky 1 where it was unchanged despite changes in the state membership.

 

[DaJay42]

I'm very curious what, if any, alternative flags Switzerland gets, considering the (highly amusing) abominations they have in HoI4.

 

[PhilyFooFighter]

Could you provide some more examples of flags for counterfactual states and regimes? (By which I mean, can we get more flag-related dev diaries in the future?)

It is my bias that there always be at least a few counterfactual states/flags/regimes in Paradox games that paradoxically (no pun intended) get as much loving attention to detail as real or almost real ones, to delight the player and pay homage to the completely unknowable (to us) alternative histories and countries that we can only guess at.

(As an aside, I agree with those of you who have already commented as such that a custom flag editor at release would not be a waste of effort. Flags basically make Paradox games for me, perversely even more than mechanics.)

 

[Vityviktor]

The Generalisima, being a battle standard, would not really fit for a national flag. The other flag with the sacred heart of Christ and "dios patria rey" written on it could work well as a national flag.

Well, they said one of the scripts involving changes in flags can be whether the nation is at war or not, so maybe in some cases we would see battle flags being used by some countries (I know that's not how they work, but it's cool in any case).

 

[EU3NOOB]

hmmm

hmmmmm yes the stars in the union always bothered me. I still remember the vicky 1 where it was unchanged despite changes in the state membership.

That was how it was in Vicky 2 as well.

 

[Blindbohemian]

But what else should they be? I honestly hope there wouldn't be a theocracy with "grand mufti" like in early eu4. Caliphate or very modern islamic republic sounds more flavourful for me.

There were Imamates and sovereign Sufi orders in the world at the time Victoria III starts. There have been sovereign qadi-ruled states as well, which we’d call qadiates. What’s wrong with a mufti, exactly, as compared to caliphate or “Islamic republic” being the only religious governments Muslims could imagine?

 

[Al-Khalidi]

There were Imamates and sovereign Sufi orders in the world at the time Victoria III starts. There have been sovereign qadi-ruled states as well, which we’d call qadiates. What’s wrong with a mufti, exactly, as compared to caliphate or “Islamic republic” being the only religious governments Muslims could imagine?

Who says "only"? I say that caliphate is a viable option at that time with fundamentalists on the rise. Should be possible to appear.

 

[Blindbohemian]

Who says "only"? I say that caliphate is a viable option at that time with fundamentalists on the rise. Should be possible to appear.

Well, that’s not what you said. You said you hope that Islamic theocracies are called caliphates or Islamic republics. When I observed that would be silly and reductive you replied “what else should they be” as if the options were sharply limited.

The caliphate being a meaningful gameplay mechanic in Victoria III at all would be kind of weird and orientalist, it being the default for a theocratic Islamic state would be downright bizarre.

Furthermore, “with fundamentalists on the rise”? In the nineteenth century? Quite the opposite—this time period is the ascendance of secular humanism in the Islamic world.

 

[monpetitlys]

Well, that’s not what you said. You said you hope that Islamic theocracies are called caliphates or Islamic republics. When I observed that would be silly and reductive you replied “what else should they be” as if the options were sharply limited.

The caliphate being a meaningful gameplay mechanic in Victoria III at all would be kind of weird and orientalist, it being the default for a theocratic Islamic state would be downright bizarre.

Furthermore, “with fundamentalists on the rise”? In the nineteenth century? Quite the opposite—this time period is the ascendance of secular humanism in the Islamic world.

Oh yeah the fixation on the Caliphate has always set my teeth to edge. Caliphates make sense in CK where they’re relevant religious and political organizations, are relevant in small ways in EU4 but feel weird, and just feel gross to have around later than that

 

[Marco Dandolo]

Not that there are many options. Parma-Lucca & Two Sicilies are Bourbon, Tuscany, Modena, Lombardy-Venetia ara Habsburg, so with 2 extra flags would do it...

I think you underestimate the amount of Tricolore variants in the Risorgimento. The known tricolore-variant of Savoy was actually used in 1848 as ONE of these variants. It's just more than a coat of arms of the ruling dynasty. They mostly used the current flag as an element.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/eb/Flag_of_the_Republic_of_San_Marco.svg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e1/Flag_of_the_Grand_Duchy_of_Tuscany_%281848-1849%29.svg/1920px-Flag_of_the_Grand_Duchy_of_Tuscany_%281848-1849%29.svg.png

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe...of_the_Kingdom_of_the_Two_Sicilies_(1860).svg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/75/Flag_of_Italy_with_inscription_%C2%ABItalia_libera_Dio_lo_vuole%C2%BB.svg/800px-Flag_of_Italy_with_inscription_%C2%ABItalia_libera_Dio_lo_vuole%C2%BB.svg.png

 

[Al-Khalidi]

Well, that’s not what you said. You said you hope that Islamic theocracies are called caliphates or Islamic republics. When I observed that would be silly and reductive you replied “what else should they be” as if the options were sharply limited.

The caliphate being a meaningful gameplay mechanic in Victoria III at all would be kind of weird and orientalist, it being the default for a theocratic Islamic state would be downright bizarre.

Furthermore, “with fundamentalists on the rise”? In the nineteenth century? Quite the opposite—this time period is the ascendance of secular humanism in the Islamic world.

I believe there are some issues with english language, or rather reading comprehension here. Expressing hope that something can be called something does not necessarily mean other options should be excluded. I say it for the second time now, do you understand now or should I say it for the third time in some yet other words? Or perhaps you prefer to again tell me what I meant?
No one ever said there should be some "caliphate mechanics" so this part of your comment is not even worth responding. You are free to argue with whatever statements created in your head, ofcourse, but then kindly don't quote me please.
Last statement about secular humanism on the rise excluding fundamentalism on the rise is very silly - you again are free to express any opinion you like but please educate yourself in the topic if you count on being treated seriously. Most basic knowledge in the topic is that modern fundamentalist ideologies in the islamic world appeared during victoria timeframe. That it would be mutually exclusive with secular ideas emerging as well is something so absurd that it could be said only by someone not having even a basic understanding of this part of history, or tbh even history in general.

 

[Blindbohemian]

I especially wonder about whether getting a theocracy in ispamic country will make it called Caliphate or Islamic Republic..

So you were wondering if an Islamic country being a theocracy would cause it to be called a Caliphate or Islamic Republic, presumably hoping the answer is yes… but also, you now tell me, hoping that Islamic theocracies might also be called other things?

But what else should they be? I honestly hope there wouldn't be a theocracy with "grand mufti" like in early eu4. Caliphate or very modern islamic republic sounds more flavourful for me.

But what other things? Caliphate, you feel, is more flavourful. I read this as you suggesting there aren’t any good alternatives, hence I suggested some. I’m happy to take that on the chin as my parsing error. I’m uncertain what your problem is with a generic “grand mufti”, which would at least be better than “caliphate” as a generic name.

Am I to understand that what you are trying to express is that you’d like Islamic theocracies to be able to call themselves—but not to be called by default—caliphates? So they would need some kind of mechanism by which to change their name from “but what should they be called” to “caliphate”? Some kind of… mechanic? Associated with… caliphates?

No one ever said there should be some "caliphate mechanics" so this part of your comment is not even worth responding.

No, I am absolutely not to understand that, because you now tell me that you don’t want Caliphate mechanics. So let us return to what you’ve said:

Expressing hope that something can be called something does not necessarily mean other options should be excluded.

So you have now explained that you hope Islamic theocracies can be called caliphates (among other things) but that there are no mechanics by which they come to be called caliphates. This is incomprehensible to a native (and exceptionally fluent) English speaker. My attempt to parse what you’re saying got me to “he wants Islamic theocracies to be called caliphates”, which I’ve pointed out is a silly idea. If neither of my above best efforts to understand what it is you are trying to say have succeeded then yes, perhaps try a third time.

Last statement about secular humanism on the rise excluding fundamentalism on the rise is very silly - you again are free to express any opinion you like but please educate yourself in the topic if you count on being treated seriously. Most basic knowledge in the topic is that modern fundamentalist ideologies in the islamic world appeared during victoria timeframe. That it would be mutually exclusive with secular ideas emerging as well is something so absurd that it could be said only by someone not having even a basic understanding of this part of history, or tbh even history in general.

Victoria III is a game about states, in which you play as a state dealing with other states. Any historian of modern Islamic history, including myself, can tell you that the long nineteenth century was the heyday of secular humanism at the state level in the Islamic world. Salafism, Wahhabism and other fundamentalist ideologies were slinking around the fringes, but the dominant trend in the Islamic world was secular humanism. You would be hard pressed to name five states on the Victoria III map where fundamentalist Islamism was a powerful political force at any point in the period. Consequently your characterisation of the period as a period—

…with fundamentalists on the rise.

—is, at the very least, strange. Islamic fundamentalism only began to gather steam right at the end of the period. Or would you suggest EUIV should be designed with fascist nationalism in mind because Fichte was writing in the eighteenth century?

 

[Al-Khalidi]

So you were wondering if an Islamic country being a theocracy would cause it to be called a Caliphate or Islamic Republic, presumably hoping the answer is yes… but also, you now tell me, hoping that Islamic theocracies might also be called other things?

But what other things? Caliphate, you feel, is more flavourful. I read this as you suggesting there aren’t any good alternatives, hence I suggested some. I’m happy to take that on the chin as my parsing error. I’m uncertain what your problem is with a generic “grand mufti”, which would at least be better than “caliphate” as a generic name.

Am I to understand that what you are trying to express is that you’d like Islamic theocracies to be able to call themselves—but not to be called by default—caliphates? So they would need some kind of mechanism by which to change their name from “but what should they be called” to “caliphate”? Some kind of… mechanic? Associated with… caliphates?

No, I am absolutely not to understand that, because you now tell me that you don’t want Caliphate mechanics. So let us return to what you’ve said:

So you have now explained that you hope Islamic theocracies can be called caliphates (among other things) but that there are no mechanics by which they come to be called caliphates. This is incomprehensible to a native (and exceptionally fluent) English speaker. My attempt to parse what you’re saying got me to “he wants Islamic theocracies to be called caliphates”, which I’ve pointed out is a silly idea. If neither of my above best efforts to understand what it is you are trying to say have succeeded then yes, perhaps try a third time.



Victoria III is a game about states, in which you play as a state dealing with other states. Any historian of modern Islamic history, including myself, can tell you that the long nineteenth century was the heyday of secular humanism at the state level in the Islamic world. Salafism, Wahhabism and other fundamentalist ideologies were slinking around the fringes, but the dominant trend in the Islamic world was secular humanism. You would be hard pressed to name five states on the Victoria III map where fundamentalist Islamism was a powerful political force at any point in the period. Consequently your characterisation of the period as a period—

—is, at the very least, strange. Islamic fundamentalism only began to gather steam right at the end of the period. Or would you suggest EUIV should be designed with fascist nationalism in mind because Fichte was writing in the eighteenth century?

At this point it's clear you are arguing for the sake of arguing and I have better things to do than that so this answer will be the last and I hope it will let you find some peace.
Yes, I expressed hope that islamic theocracy could be called caliphate of... No, this does not mean that every islamic theocracy should be called that - I spoke about possible conditions. I deeply dislike "grand mufti" from eu. No, this does not imply any "caliphate mechanics" - unless you understand "mechanics" as a state being called in certain way. Idk what is incomprehensible for you here, I'm not willing to help you any further. Feel free to dedicate more of your time to try to grasp it.
I'm not interested in keeping discussing with you whether my idea is "silly" it's your opinion that you're free to have but you didn't support it with anything that would make sense. Discussing it further is a waste of time.
I'm not willing to debate with you on what was the dominant trend in islamic world - my point was that it's very basic knowledge that modern fundamentalism appeared and gained many followers - suits the definition of expression "on the rise" quite well (and no, I'm not going to discuss with you about what "on rise" really means). Analogy to eu and fascism is absurd and you should know it.
To sum up - sorry but your arguments don't make any sense to me and are just making clear that you just wanna argue for the sake of arguing and i'm sorry but this is not something I would find interesting. Goodbye.

 

[Blindbohemian]

At this point it's clear you are arguing for the sake of arguing

I do not argue for the sake of arguing.

I’m arguing because everything you’ve so far said in this thread has been based in reductive misconceptions and failures to understand Middle Eastern history—extremely common failures (so common they have their own name: “orientalism”), which have so far been a prevalent and even a dominant strand of discussions about representing the Middle East in Paradox games, resulting in weird representations throughout other Paradox titles. Reflecting bad (poorly understood, misconstrued) history makes history games bad, so I push back on nonsense suggestions and misconceptions such as the ones you’ve so far put forward.

 

[Txini]

I think you underestimate the amount of Tricolore variants in the Risorgimento. The known tricolore-variant of Savoy was actually used in 1848 as ONE of these variants. It's just more than a coat of arms of the ruling dynasty. They mostly used the current flag as an element.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/eb/Flag_of_the_Republic_of_San_Marco.svg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e1/Flag_of_the_Grand_Duchy_of_Tuscany_%281848-1849%29.svg/1920px-Flag_of_the_Grand_Duchy_of_Tuscany_%281848-1849%29.svg.png

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe...of_the_Kingdom_of_the_Two_Sicilies_(1860).svg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/75/Flag_of_Italy_with_inscription_%C2%ABItalia_libera_Dio_lo_vuole%C2%BB.svg/800px-Flag_of_Italy_with_inscription_%C2%ABItalia_libera_Dio_lo_vuole%C2%BB.svg.png

In fact I don't, but still 2 flags would do.