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Victoria 3 - Dev Diary #4 - Goods

Happy Thursday and welcome back to yet another Victoria 3 dev diary, this time on the subject of Goods! Goods are a core economic feature of Victoria 3, just as they were in previous Victoria games, and come in a wide variety of types. Also, as in previous Victoria games, the manufacturing of Goods (by Pops in Buildings) is how the vast majority of the wealth in Victoria 3 is created.

Fundamentally, a unit of Goods represent a quantity of a certain type of natural resource, manufactured good or intangible service and come attached with a price tag. This price varies both in base (a single unit of Tanks is pricier than a single unit of Fabric) and in actual market value, as the prices of Goods change depending on supply and demand.

A selection of goods that are bought and sold in the British Market.

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There are four broad categories of Goods: Staple Goods, Luxury Goods, Industrial Goods and Military Goods. Of these, Staple/Luxury Goods are mainly consumed by Pops, and Industrial/Military Goods are mainly consumed by buildings, but there are no hard rules here - you will find Buildings using Luxury Goods and Pops purchasing Industrial Goods when and where it makes sense for them to do so.

Staple Goods are everyday goods that Pops need to live, such as food to eat, wood to heat their homes, and clothes to wear. Staple Goods tend to be purchased in vast quantities by poor and middle class pops, with richer pops generally eschewing them for luxury variants.

Grain - possibly the most Staple of all Staple Goods!
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Luxury Goods are the things that Pops do not necessarily need but definitely want, such as fine foods, luxury drinks like Tea and Coffee, or fine clothes made from chinese silk. Luxuries tend to be more profitable to produce than Staple Goods, but depend on having a customer base with money - a poor factory worker isn’t going to be buying a whole lot of mahogany cabinets.

You can never have too many painted Ming vases, I always say.
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Industrial Goods are goods such as Iron, Coal, Rubber and Lead whose main purpose is often to be converted into other, more profitable goods. Securing a steady supply of vital Industrial Goods is crucial to Industrialization and growing the GDP of your country.

Tools are essential to the operation of many industries.
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Military Goods are goods such as Small Arms, Ammunition and Warships that are used by military buildings to arm and supply the armies and navies of the 19th century nations. The more technologically advanced the army or navy, the more complex (and expensive!) Military Goods they will need.

I’m told that soldiers tend to perform better if they’re given ammunition for their guns.
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We’ll be returning to the topic of Goods in later dev diaries when discussing related mechanics such as Markets, Pop Needs, Goods Substitution and Cultural Obsessions... but for now, I bid you adieu for a while, as next week Mikael will provide you with a dev diary about something we’ve been teasing for some time now - Production Methods!
 
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Could we have an option to instead show the % of how (un)profitable a good is instead of just a silver/gold (maybe bronze as well) coin icon? There shouldnt be to many Vicky 3 players that dont like numbers and percentages and prefer pictures...
 
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Wondering if there are tractors in the game, as vic 2 simulated them with a production bonus when the invention and research was finished... if there are tractors as goods instead of bonuses could we have a Soviet Union shifting massive amounts of resources to building tractors to improve agriculture and thus making farmers more productive. Does this also apply to specific tools in general needing to be consumed by farming pops or mining pops to be more productive... idk if it would be done by slowly over time a pop wants more machinery by getting used to it, for example British ppl getting used to drinking tea as the game progresses... or is it through a different mechanic like inventions that give bonuses to production.

Thank you its looking good so far, I want to know more about in depth economics and how pops react to a players decisions
Tractors are a thing.
 
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The biggest question I have is what happens when you cannot meet your POPs/Buildings/Government's need for a certain good? If you run out of ammunition in your country is it just super expensive? Or can you actually run out of bullets for your guns?
 
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You can do this by importing cheap foreign grain or subsidizing your agriculture, we did discuss having a direct way to subsidize goods but we felt the mechanics we have did the same thing in more interesting ways.

That means I could also buy the world market through a huge financial effort by my country in the event of a global famine and let the rest starve to death, but feed my Pops well?
 
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Could we have an option to instead show the % of how (un)profitable a good is instead of just a silver/gold (maybe bronze as well) coin icon? There shouldnt be to many Vicky 3 players that dont like numbers and percentages and prefer pictures...
The Bronze/Silver/Gold is essentially that but with an icon slapped on top of it. Should be trivial to replace with text in a mod :)
 
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Tractors are a thing.
I imagine using tractors or not in your agriculture will depend on the production method of your farms, correct?
 
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what is the info given in the 2 "production methods" tabs? especially the munitions plants one seems to be interesting. will there be different sub goods of ammunition where you have percussion caps and explosive shells be different goods. or are they different ways you make the "ammunition" good. or what exactly?
 
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Is there a limit to the number of goods that mods can add? It is painful working with the 64 limit on my regional market mod for Victoria 2.
Strongly doubt there is a technical limit or atleast not one so close to the base game number.
 
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Thank you for the answer! Another question comes to mind now.

Can goods become "obsolete"? Either in the sense they are no longer produced in the game, or are simply to unprofitable to be made?
 
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The Bronze/Silver/Gold is essentially that but with an icon slapped on top of it. Should be trivial to replace with text in a mod :)
Maybe still do it as a tooltip?

Also, I'd like to up a question that somebody else made about Innovations in logistics (and lack thereof) making certain goods tradable (or not) across longer distances (e.g. meat from Argentina to Poland before the invention of refrigerators)
 
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Has the idea of more than one good per province ever been explored? Past or present...
There are no such limits in Victoria 3. A state can contain potentials for every single building in the game if you were inclined to create such a super-state. There is no such state in the game, but it would be technically possible under the systems we have.
 
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