Victoria 3 - Dev Diary #49 - Graphics Overview

[Zhetone]

Looks horrible, like a game from 2006. Also, a christian named Ali? What?

please show an example of a mid-2000s game that looks just like this

 

[luxfelix]

I could not disagree more. Even ignoring the aesthetics and whether the new way looks good or not, it introduces a big issue to map readibility.

See, before on the world map it was all about country's map color. Every nation had its own and occupation was shown as overlapping colors. When you saw two countries fighting, just at a glance you saw very literally which nation is encroaching on the other's territory. You wouldn't need to know anything about the conflict or the countries involved to have a broad idea how the war is going, it was all on the map, clear as day.

Replacing old stripes with flags results in the player needing to know how the flags of warring nations look like, for the occupation visuals to be of any use. This is a problem, because:
1. Country flags are not visible directly on the map, not like country colors - the player has to manually use other UI elements to check the flags and then remember how they look like. If one doesn't have all the flags of all the nations perfectly embedded in his memory, he has to manually decode what the occupation visuals are showing, by clicking through menus, looking for who is involved in the war and what do their flags look like. That's additional busywork that wasn't required before and feels like a huge step back.
2. Flags change throughout the game, as governments of nations change. The players will either need to meticulously keep up with these changes, or it's back to checking the flags every time you see a new war on the map.
3. When many nations are involved in a war, before with stripes it could lead to a big unreadable mess of variously-colored stripes. It was already an issue, but with this new system it will be 100x worse.

I don't see how the new way is an improvement over old stripes, in any way. Not even in the aesthetics department, personally I find the flag spam ugly as hell, completely unintuitive and looking very out of place.

Stripes are a good and time-tested method of showing occupation, both in real maps and video games. Don't change things just for the sake of changing them. Please add an option for stripes visual, or at the very least make sure it will be possible to mod them back in.

Idea -- this could be the best of both worlds or the worst as a failed compromise, though here we go:

What about incorporating an animated fading swipe (think slow flag flapping motion) that moves diagonally and alternates between the occupying nation's national color (traditional) and the new flag (either in the current diagonal stripes or as one giant non-repeating graphic)?

The impression that I'm trying to convey is that of a flag marching across contested territory (which may or may not also fulfill the role of the flaming front graphics as well).

In any case, I certainly appreciate the community and team's discussion.

 

[Mauer]

A minor grammatical point, which may be moot because the localization is likely moddable: “Therevada Burmese Farmers” and “Sunni Oromo Aristocrats” is the more idiomatic order; the other order just sounds…off. It’s not incorrect, exactly; it just doesn’t sound right.

Then why is it Roman Catholic and not Catholic Roman?

 

[Morrowind3]

Then why is it Roman Catholic and not Catholic Roman?

"Roman Catholic" is the name of the christian denomination, where "Roman" is a descriptor of Catholic. Not a culture + religion, so it's a misleading comparison even though 'Roman' is technically a culture.

That being said, I don't really agree with him either. "Catholic German Farmer" or "German Catholic Farmer" both sound equally fine to me. I'd probably just use one or the other depending on which I would emphasize, and as in this area culture became more important than religion, I'd go for German Catholic Farmer in v3.

 

[wilcoxchar]

A minor grammatical point, which may be moot because the localization is likely moddable: “Therevada Burmese Farmers” and “Sunni Oromo Aristocrats” is the more idiomatic order; the other order just sounds…off. It’s not incorrect, exactly; it just doesn’t sound right.

I'm guessing since the culture is more important and relevant to gameplay than the religion of each POP, that's why the culture goes first so the most important things for the player are first and last on the interface instead of being less visible in the middle.

 

[Kyoumen]

Would the clothing change later on once the nation becomes recognized? i.e. Japan and Siam ones

If not, then it would probably be better to reuse the western ones for Siam instead of the Kongbaung clothing they got right now (example below is King Rama IV/Mongkut of Siam and King Norodom of Cambodia respectively)
View attachment 848344View attachment 848345

For other pop types, Mainland Southeast Asia (with the exception of Vietic ones who're closer to Chinese sphere cultural-wise) i.e. farmers and such can reuse the Indian clothing sets rather than using the western ones like the WIP pic above. On the other hand, Maritime Southeast Asia could probably use whatever the Ottomans got as Songkok/Cepi/Kopiah were based on the Turkish Fez.

Yes, but this is also Mongkut:

Although many people wore Western dress, especially in photos and portraits, for pragmatic reasons in this period, I'd prefer non-Western dress to be used (provided it's reasonably historical).

 

[great lakes]

Interface for the politics, showing various different elements
View attachment 848034



French heir
View attachment 848046

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i remember posting ages ago to ask about the french dynasties, and I'm glad to see the first little bit of caring about them. is there anything more to them then names of parties? the struggle between the Legitimist, Orléanist, and Bonapartist monarchists, and also the republicans, was a big part of 19th century french history, and it should get its due regard.

 

[neptune927]

This looks amazing! Can't wait for it to come out! one question though. Will you be adding in historical figures that don't come in until very late in the Victorian era? for example Hitler, Stalin, Roosevelt, Wilhelm II and the others? if this goes until 1936 they should be added right?

 

[Onlyherefortheconverter]

I could not disagree more. Even ignoring the aesthetics and whether the new way looks good or not, it introduces a big issue to map readibility.

See, before on the world map it was all about country's map color. Every nation had its own and occupation was shown as overlapping colors. When you saw two countries fighting, just at a glance you saw very literally which nation is encroaching on the other's territory. You wouldn't need to know anything about the conflict or the countries involved to have a broad idea how the war is going, it was all on the map, clear as day.

Replacing old stripes with flags results in the player needing to know how the flags of warring nations look like, for the occupation visuals to be of any use. This is a problem, because:
1. Country flags are not visible directly on the map, not like country colors - the player has to manually use other UI elements to check the flags and then remember how they look like. If one doesn't have all the flags of all the nations perfectly embedded in his memory, he has to manually decode what the occupation visuals are showing, by clicking through menus, looking for who is involved in the war and what do their flags look like. That's additional busywork that wasn't required before and feels like a huge step back.
2. Flags change throughout the game, as governments of nations change. The players will either need to meticulously keep up with these changes, or it's back to checking the flags every time you see a new war on the map.
3. When many nations are involved in a war, before with stripes it could lead to a big unreadable mess of variously-colored stripes. It was already an issue, but with this new system it will be 100x worse.

I don't see how the new way is an improvement over old stripes, in any way. Not even in the aesthetics department, personally I find the flag spam ugly as hell, completely unintuitive and looking very out of place.

Stripes are a good and time-tested method of showing occupation, both in real maps and video games. Don't change things just for the sake of changing them. Please add an option for stripes visual, or at the very least make sure it will be possible to mod them back in.

I'm not necessarily a huge fan of replacing the stripes with flags for occupied territories but the change is not that a big deal IMO. To address your first and second points - Keeping abreast of the ongoing changes within countries and polities is like a major part of this time period, even a little before this time period but especially starting from this time period (and something that is still important in today's geopolitics too) due to the reduced communication times as empires became global and hence so did empire and nation building. Keeping track of government changes in all countries big and small should be a pivotal part of this game so I don't see it as a huge problem if the player has to check up on flags a few extra times. It will only make for a more immersive game. That being said, I do agree with you that hopefully there will be an easy/quick/intuitive way to do this (maybe a "War Score" ticker with the flags at the top or bottom (like in CK3). As for your third point, the most straightforward fix could be by simply only using the flag of the leading country of a coalition on the map. Ultimately, there's no clear solution to this anyway and flags won't really make much of a difference in terms of mess compared to stripes either.

 

[Captain Frakas]

French heir
View attachment 848046
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Ferdinand Philippe de Orléans is an impossible spelling in French. Before a vowel or a mute aitch, the preposition de is shortened d', so it becomes Ferdinand Philippe d'Orléans.

 

[Captain Frakas]

Then why is it Roman Catholic and not Catholic Roman?

Because Roman is a plain adjective while Catholic is a nominalized adjective standing for "Catholic [faith]", which, hence, functions as a noun.
It is the Catholic [faith] which is Roman, not the reverse.

In "Therevada Burmese Farmers” and “Sunni Oromo Aristocrats”, "Farmers" and "Aristocrats" are the (plain) nouns.

 

[Nitan17]

I'm not necessarily a huge fan of replacing the stripes with flags for occupied territories but the change is not that a big deal IMO. To address your first and second points - Keeping abreast of the ongoing changes within countries and polities is like a major part of this time period, even a little before this time period but especially starting from this time period (and something that is still important in today's geopolitics too) due to the reduced communication times as empires became global and hence so did empire and nation building. Keeping track of government changes in all countries big and small should be a pivotal part of this game so I don't see it as a huge problem if the player has to check up on flags a few extra times. It will only make for a more immersive game. That being said, I do agree with you that hopefully there will be an easy/quick/intuitive way to do this (maybe a "War Score" ticker with the flags at the top or bottom (like in CK3). As for your third point, the most straightforward fix could be by simply only using the flag of the leading country of a coalition on the map. Ultimately, there's no clear solution to this anyway and flags won't really make much of a difference in terms of mess compared to stripes either.

It's not an enormous deal, but it's still requires manual checking, stripes did not.

It's just, no matter how I look at this, the flag spam doesn't do anything better than stripes, and some things it does worse. I don't get why it was changed, it doesn't even look good!

 

[K. V. K.]

They look really lovely! A question about the cities, though: are the houses able to change appearance depending on the population's culture? And maybe also based on how wealthy the pops living there are? It reminds me a bit of how the little houses around the settlements changed their appearance as the town grew wealthier in TW Empire, and I think it could be a nice touch seeing your cities getting transformed over time, a bit like how Paris turned from a medieval town at the start of the century into a great city at the end of it!

 

[luxfelix]

They look really lovely! A question about the cities, though: are the houses able to change appearance depending on the population's culture? And maybe also based on how wealthy the pops living there are? It reminds me a bit of how the little houses around the settlements changed their appearance as the town grew wealthier in TW Empire, and I think it could be a nice touch seeing your cities getting transformed over time, a bit like how Paris turned from a medieval town at the start of the century into a great city at the end of it!

Based on dominant local culture, primary national culture, or some combination based on proportions of cultures present?

 

[withche.07]

Trade in the Dardanelles Strait
View attachment 848041

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This is middle eastern art in Anatolia and Konstantiniyye (name of the period). It is WRONG!
This is how Anatolian architecture looks like:

I took some more old town photos from Antalya:
View attachment 368470 View attachment 368471 View attachment 368472 View attachment 368473 View attachment 368474 View attachment 368475 View attachment 368477 View attachment 368478 View attachment 368479 View attachment 368480

Home - Best Tourism Villages

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www.unwto.org

Perfect example of Turkish architecture in Ottoman era. Something needs to be done with it.

View attachment 838517

Please fix this before release cause its terrible and unfitting. @Max_Art

 

[withche.07]

Odunpazarı, Eskişehir

Kaleiçi, Antalya

Art in screenshot for Anatolia and Gelibolu/Dardanelles are completely irrelevant. @Max_Art

 

[withche.07]

Old pics/videos from Konstantiniyye mainly straits @Max_Art

Archives from 1800s- early1900s:

galata kulesinden | Eski İstanbul Fotoğrafları Arşivi

1880s pic:

1878

 

[Nostalgium]

Rome and the Vatican
View attachment 848042​

Something that's puzzled me for a long time, since it's so consistent in all Paradox games bar Imperator, but isn't Rome predominantly on the southern bank of the Tiber river? Yet the vast majority of PDX games puts the city center on the northern bank, with barely, if any, presence on the south bank.

 

[luxfelix]

Something that's puzzled me for a long time, since it's so consistent in all Paradox games bar Imperator, but isn't Rome predominantly on the southern bank of the Tiber river? Yet the vast majority of PDX games puts the city center on the northern bank, with barely, if any, presence on the south bank.

You're right.

For the portion of the Tiber flowing from North to South, the Roman Forum is on the East bank whereas the Vatican is on the West bank of the river.

(As the river arcs to the sea, that would then mean Rome is predominantly on the Southern side.)


Maybe games taking place during Papal States made sense for them to put capital on the opposite side?

 

[Axe99]

Cheers for the DD Max, and all the extra info - Vicky 3 looks very, very visually appealing from my angle

That is a very nice idea, we're always looking to add new life to the map and currently only have big seagulls and vultures and we'll see what we're able to do!

For a random thought, Flying fish or whales breaching at sea could be cool? Done in moderation of course.

Alright, to walk you through my train of thought here; I am very aware that diagonal stripes have been used as visual language for a long time, my intent with the flags where to try to steer away from them by actually providing visualization of the country taking the territory in question. The diagonal angle we currently have for the flags was a way to still have some kind of resemblance of the old, since upon implementation of the new system and horizontal flags we thought people might have an easier time understanding the new visual language better with some elements that are familiar. Still, I think having flags instead of just stripes in country colors is a big improvement and if people are scarred by the old diagonals then we could look into adjusting it.

A random thought, but what happens if two countries with similar flags are at war? Is there the potential for this system to become confusing?

For a maritime-themed pic, we know from the naval DDs that at the very least pre-dreadnoughts will be represented on the map, so here's a pic of one - the French battleship Charlemagne, with the characteristic high superstructure and extreme tumblehome that was reflected in many French (and Russian) battleships of the time, as well as the thick "military masts" that were used for a brief period.