Victoria 3 - Dev Diary #50 - Living Map

[Wizzington]

Will a buildings be moddable? I mean the looks of them.

Yes, for sure.

 

[Wizzington]

Can we modders add new mapmodes with color_mode based on some script_value? (In ck3, we use "color_mode = baronies" and "set_color_from_title" effect to do that, which is quite troublesome。)

Mapmodes are scriptable but I'm not aware of being able to use script values in this way. I believe we use the same system CK3 does.

 

[Max_Art]

Minor point but European part of Constantinople is divided into two by a gulf called Golden Horn. Constantinople is on a peninsula within a peninsula with majority of the population then living within that smaller peninsula. You can see it here (don't mind the text it has some bizarre names):

Spoiler

Further, do the developers intend to add more architecture sets into the game in the future either as DLCs or with free updates? Because the current architecture set is vastly inaccurate for Ottoman architecture present in Balkans, Anatolia, Armenia and Levant. It is only accurate for Mesapotamia, Arabian Peninsula and Egypt.

Game is very pretty and I hope you will continue to update and detail it in future.

The intent from our end is to absolutely add more detail and uniqueness to certain cultures in the long run, we are very well aware that the 5 ones we currently have (for architecture and units) are fairly generic and look forward to do more in depth stuff later on!

 

[Max_Art]

Beautiful! So beautiful, in fact, that it took several minutes for me to load this page. Can we turn off the living map? It looks very graphics-intensive.

The graphic options for the game will be pretty varied depending on your preference and GPU, and while you can't turn off all the visual features you can certainly decrease them all in detail. When it comes to the overall performance though the simulation of the game is heavier than its graphics with how advanced it is.

 

[Max_Art]

It looks good, but it will run horribly for weak PCs. Can you add an option that can reduce details of a living map to at least low-poly things with low res textures? Or if that's hard, can you then please give some extra optimization polish, so that even weak PCs can squeeze stable 30 fps on at least one graphics setting set to High?

I happened to answer this in another reply, but yes the graphic settings will allow you to reduce the qualite of graphics immensly for a lower end GPU, but as I also stated the games' simulation is so advanced that it is more taxing than the graphics.

 

[Max_Art]

Looks great. Very beautiful and informative way to make the map look alive. Not a fan of the animations that pop up at every SoL change though, it takes a way from the serenity of the map, especially if it's something that happens frequently

With how serene that map generally is we wanted to do a few effects like the SOL to make it clear that things are happening in hubs (yours and others) to not only have things like big revolutions causing a visual change. In general I feel it gives a decent idea of how a country or state is doing just by seeing how the SOL is trending without clicking on anything.

 

[Max_Art]

Will a buildings be moddable? I mean the looks of them.

They should be, if not in mesh then in texture. The difficulty about modding their meshes would be that they all have set collision boxes to not intersect and clip with each other.

 

[Max_Art]

That's a 9.5 out of 10 for visuals! To make it a 10/10, are there plans to make the city layouts to fit the roads coming in? Right now the houses seem to pop right in the middle of an incoming road.

View attachment 850826

Yeah we've been struggling a bit with that, and hopefully we can find a way to remedy it, but I feel you!

 

[Max_Art]

Do you have an idea what the early period war models would look like? You've shown trenches which is kool but thats more for 1900+? Will there be a little man running around?

Other than that, great job with the physical map!

I've made the conscious to try to steer clear from actual little humans running around, in part due to the already tweaked scale we have for a lot of things in game but also due to the performance cost of animations of non-rigid objects like humans. When it comes to the early era Battle Units each of the 5 cultures will have their own lowest tier of infantry that are more or less civilian buildings used as cover for basic weapons.

 

[Max_Art]

My issue with the SoL icons is that they're too similar. It took me quite a bit to see the difference with the gifs standing side by side, in game I would hardly be able to distinguish them at all. Please consider adding a different icon/gif

Point taken, we will be able to make slight tweaks to them to distinguish them further. But as I've seen a lot of comments on these effect I would love to hear more concrete examples of what ideas you all have for it. To further showcase my intent with the current effect I can show the initial (old) concept I made for it:

 

[Wizzington]

And what happened to Characters DD?
Will we see it?

Yes, it'll just come later in the schedule.

 

[PDJR_Alastorn]

If there aren't paddle steamers on the Mississippi this game will be literally unplayable.

Sadly no brown water navies for release.
The Great Lakes Faction of the development team remains steadfast in their eventual inclusion.