Victoria 3 - Dev Diary #64 - Post-Release Plans

[FluffayOne]

Not sure if it was asked yet but regarding warfare, does the increased data shown to players also means we can expect the ability to view how states are divided into provinces more easily and to see ahead of time what provinces have which terrain type? A map mode would work best for both, since otherwise granting more control to the player in where the armies will move might still result in a feeling of being scammed due to misjudging the terrain units will fight in and lose not because of any poor planning on their part but simply because the game didn't make it clear enough that the province they attacked was actually where the plains end and the forests/mountains/hills start.

Either way, loving this so far.

 

[TempestM]

The correct response to "there are thousands of games done in way A and few if any done in way B" is not "here's precisely one game in a completely different genre done in way B, why can't you be happy with that tiny piece of scrap?" It's extremely dismissive of the opinion of others and does not address the actual problem that there should be more games done in way B at all.

Your "there are thousands of games done in way A and few if any done in way B" is a bad argument in itself from the beggining. There were only two Victorias before this one and both are pretty old. So you might just say that there's "here's precisely one game like this" for both side. That's why you can't just dismiss all people who don't like new warfare like that

 

[PedroLuiz]

a ‘society builder’ that puts internal development, economy and politics in the driving seat​

constructive criticism: you got a little too caught up on the builder part and set the society a little apart

 

[TiagoJRToledo]

This in particular is always funny to me, because it really speaks to a very basic misunderstanding of design. Micro in warfare is not bad, if the intended primary focus of the game is around warfare. It is bad when it's not the focus of the game, because then all it does is get in the way of the intended primary focus of the game. It's why HOI has such a simplified economy, so the economy doesn't get in the way of the warfare micro.

Different games are allowed to be about different things and have different levels of detail in certain areas depending on what each one is focusing on

Completely abstracting warfare from a Grand Strategy game SET IN THE 19TH AND EARLY 20TH CENTURIES sure is a choice.

 

[wilcoxchar]

Completely abstracting warfare from a Grand Strategy game SET IN THE 19TH AND EARLY 20TH CENTURIES sure is a choice.

Yes. It's a choice they should've made a long time ago with Victoria 1, since the franchise has always been an economic grand strategy game and not a wargame. They just finally figured out how to actually do that and let the economic strategy stand out as the primary mechanic.

 

[allstarever]

Some stuff that I havent seen said yet

1. One government type that I kind of want to see which Id think is interesting is a sort of federation. Like the US before civil war would be Washington DC trying to wrangle all the states they have, which if theyre aligned by slave vs free states, a civil war can break out more easily, and after the civil war have the option to form a more centralized presidential republic, or if they fail the civil war the possibility of the US dissolving into independent countries. The US was still a political experiment during the time of V3, one that many thought would fail, and it wouid be more interesting to see the alt history. The North German Confederation and early Germany, Austria and Shogunate Japan would be good countries that could take advantage of this too. I guess in a more broader sense, there should be an option for subject countries to somehow get politically involved in their overlords. Gaining more subjects shouldn't automatically be beneficial. Like in real life, in the game there should be some sort of con that comes with it.

2. On a similar topic, I think there should be options to form a more independent realm of your lands that have their pros and cons, like colonies for example. Like with the previous point, being more centralized shouldn't automatically be better. There needs to be pros with decentralization too.

3. Markets also need more interconnectivity. Global financial events should be in the game but doesnt seem possible with the current way the market and trade systems work. Like we can't get the great depression. This would prevent the line go up cycle and make the eco gameplay more interesting.

4. More mapmodes would also be nice, like population or resources. Getting an overview of how much people are where would be nice to plan out your economy. Or knowing where certain resources are would help me diplomatically prioritize certain nations, either for trade or conquest.

5. More autocratic types of government should be able to "brute force" something in their society far more, and you lose those options the "freer" your society becomes. Such as forcibly relocating workers, etc. I think that might balance out the gameplay style

6. Draggable UI for the construction queue. I don't want to press the up button 60 times because I suddenly realize I needed to build something really quick

 

[Hero Of Olympus]

I’ve had a hand in this project since its earliest design inception, and have been Game Director of Victoria 3 since I left Stellaris in late 2018, ...​

When Wiz left Stellaris after making Megacorps and planetary and economy rebalance, I've already known it gonna be Vic 3.

 

[MasterPaw]

Maybe I'm just a stupid utopist, but while I understand wanting to make autocratic/nationalist play more interesting, I believe it makes sense that being more progressive is overall better. The setting of the game was a time of great social progress. It makes sense to me that such should be a goal for nations. Not overpowered, of course, but I'm not sure if making more "backward" politics "better" is all that much of a good idea.

That's mostly about for example the buffs like less radicals due to state religion. Once again it's clear that making such gameplay more fun and involved would be good.

People weren't conservative and opposed to what we now see as progress for no reason. So yeah, in order for that to be modeled, and not have every country following modern values at mid game, I believe there should be advantages of being conservative autocratic discriminatory and so on.
The change they suggested about State Religion giving loyalists goes that way
Also it would encourage rise of fascism late game, more diversity of governments and not make linear evolution to just more tolerant egalitarian democracy

 

[Fanstar1]

6. Lastly, at least for now, the single *greatest* failure of Diplomacy is that - once a DIplomatic play turns to War, it becomes *impossible* to intervene in it. Utterly contrary to historical realities, once two sides of a war square up, and the fighting starts, no one else can get involved. This leads to the hilariously a-historical failure of Texas Revolution, as a seemingly powerless US sits there and watches as Sam Houston gets his ass kicked repeatedly, or European Great Powers refusing to intervene in Prussia's offensive wars of unification, just as two examples. There absolutely, positively, *NEEDS* to be a way to get involved in political interests and conflicts post-hoc, and this needs to be a design *priority.*

The game represents the Texas revolution/war of independence pretty well to my knowledge (or at least as far as you can within game mechanics). The United States never got directly involved in the conflict, and the fact Texas even won it is really a fluke if we are being honest. Without the battle of San Jacinto, Texas would've been conquered by Mexico which probably was by far the most likely outcome of the war.

Also, I see pretty the AI pretty frequently involve themselves in Prussia trying to unify northern Germany, resulting in a number of major conflicts early on. I do agree generally with the point that there *should* be a way for countries to involve themselves in conflicts after they start; I'm just not sure these were the best examples to go with here.

 

[Merrivale]

I'm not going to copy/paste my entire suggestion I've posted numerous times over the past months, but to put it simply: on warfare, beyond setting strategic objectives for generals, being able to have multiple fronts in war with differing stances (and more detailed stances available than simply attack/defend) and more in-depth interaction with generals as unique characters who may or may not effectively carry out their given stances (someone like McClellan being told to attack for instance) would add to the strategic depth of warfare without violating your vision.

 

[TiagoJRToledo]

Yes. It's a choice they should've made a long time ago with Victoria 1, since the franchise has always been an economic grand strategy game and not a wargame. They just finally figured out how to actually do that and let the economic strategy stand out as the primary mechanic.

Imagine thinking that a Grand Strategy game set in the period between 1836 and 1936 shouldn't have an expressive, interactive and feature-rich warfare system.

Or maybe the Crimean War, the Oriental Crisis, the American Civil War, the Franco-Prussian War, the Opium Wars, the Great Game and World War I happened in another time period, in which case you are entirely correct! My apologies.

 

[Fanstar1]

Completely abstracting warfare from a Grand Strategy game SET IN THE 19TH AND EARLY 20TH CENTURIES sure is a choice.

While the warfare system absolutely needs a lot of work (and much better UI), I do think it was the right course to represent it in that way rather than how it was in victoria 2 and some other paradox games like EU. It's also somewhat disingenuous to call it "completely abstracting warfare" when that is simply not true; it is merely no longer the central focus that occupies most of a player's time like in other PDX titles.

 

[Emanresu]

​

The second area is historical immersion: While we have always been upfront with the fact that Victoria 3 is a historical sandbox rather than a strictly historical game, we still want players to feel as though the events unfolding forms a plausible alt-history, and right now there are some expected historical outcomes that are either not happening often enough, or happening in such a way that they become immersion-breaking. Again, in no particular order, some areas targeted for improvement in the short term:

• Ensuring unifications such as Italy, Germany and Canada doesn’t constantly happen decades ahead of the historical schedule, and increasing the challenge of unifying Italy and Germany in particular

Well. I think that there may need to be some improvement in the Canada section - as American AI tends to try to colonize Alberta and Saskatchewan (both of which are needed for the current confederation) and due to the fast colonization mechanic that they have, it is practically impossible for the HBC (you or AI) to claim ALL of Alberta in time to stop the Yanks from stealing from you. Honestly, I think the easiest solution is a similar situation with the Columbia District border - having the colonizable territory INSIDE of existing concrete borders - you still need to do it, but the chance the Americans will screw over the confederation will be none.

Plus this could tie in with making the confederation take longer. Maybe also add a requirement for all the states in the confederation to be incorporated states as well?

 

[TempestM]

Imagine thinking that a Grand Strategy game set in the period between 1836 and 1936 shouldn't have and expressive and feature-rich warfare system.

Or maybe the Crimean War, the Oriental Crisis, the American Civil War, the Franco-Prussian War, the Opium Wars, the Great Game and World War I happened in another time period, in which case you are entirely correct! My apologies.

"Remember all our brothers who fell in Great Diplomatic Play of 1914" (c)

 

[WeissRaben]

• The ability to expand your primary demands in a diplomatic play beyond just one wargoal (though this has to be done in such a way that there’s still a reason for countries to actually back down)

There is, I believe, a level of sophistication that isn't touched on by virtue of everyone adding every wargoal at once: that backing down should be a way to get out of trouble before the situation gets out of hand. If France demands Alsace-Lorraine back, and you're going through a rough spot and might not be able to fend them off, you might want to cave now, before they get weird ideas about natural borders at the Rhine. This is a fruit of the inflexible nature of wargoals: they are stated immediately and never change once war starts. This, of course, makes little sense: if what started as a minor spat over Alsace-Lorraine becomes a long and grueling war, then both sides are naturally going to call for harsher and harsher hammers to be slammed on the enemy's face.

What to do, then? Hard to say. My gut feeling is that combatants should be able to add wargoals during the war, but only as the populace radicalizes. Maybe there should be a "Jingoism" stat for your pops, like there was back in V2, and at some levels you should be able to expand the war beyond its original limits. Maybe this same stat should be tied to the original diplomatic play, too - an America without the ideal of Manifest Destiny going around will hardly want to conquer everything north of the Rio Grande and west to California from Mexico, after all.

This ties neatly into what I think is one of the greatest flaws of the diplomatic play system: that once the war has started, it's frozen in amber and nothing about it will change. Of course, this makes no sense: combatants are going to cajole and convince and pig-trade with other countries to get them stuck in. And this is very far from being a hypothetical: it's what historically happened. World War 1 had new players jumping in during the whole four years of conflict, often promised this or that reward (and back we go to the addition of wargoals).

So, what to do? Track jingoism of your population, use it as currency for the size of your original wargoals, then have it increase or decrease depending on how the war is going (ideally average jingoism should go up with losses and defeats, less so with victories) and be able to use it as currency during the war to add more wargoals - or use someone else's jingoism to promise something and drag them in. And this should happen especially in the latter part of the game, as the Concert of Europe is more and more forgotten - with stops at Nationalism, Pan-nationalism, Political Agitation, and Mass Propaganda (to make an example).

 

[wilcoxchar]

Your "there are thousands of games done in way A and few if any done in way B" is a bad argument in itself from the beggining. There were only two Victorias before this one and both are pretty old. So you might just say that there's "here's precisely one game like this" for both side. That's why you can't just dismiss all people who don't like new warfare like that

There's plenty of games for those of you who enjoy moving toy soldiers around and want to play a wargame. Not just Hearts of Iron, but previous Victoria games (unfortunately), Europa Universalis, Crusader Kings (though it looks like they're also finally trying to figure out how to make toy soldier warfare less of a distraction from the primary mechanics), Stellaris, all the Civilization games, all the Age of Empires games, Humankind, basically every computer strategy game out there, board wargames, even a lot of city builders keep trying to tack on toy soldier warfare for some reason including the Anno series... the list goes on.

Your way has unfortunately been done as the convention for how warfare is designed in strategy games for three decades with no real innovation. It's old and stagnant. Time to let people try something new. Yes, it might end up that your way of thinking goes from being 100% of the market to only 90%. Maybe even 75%! Oh no, your way still dominates the market by far, the horror! Oh no, another way of thinking might actually be popular and something people want, how dare!

 

[Rio]

Please keep historical railroading to a minimum! Or at least include a game option to keep the alt-history more, well, ALT-history instead of just history! I want every game to be different, not like you've left historical focuses on in HOI4.

Agree that maybe a EU like toggle would be best. I like historical bias, but not everyone does.
I think the ability to see armies (performance issues sound likely for some) and differing levels of results would also be best as a toggle.

On that very battlefield issue...
I am one of those 'don't need micro if I can at least TWEAK the general's stupidity in the right direction - which of course even if you COULD do that wouldn't make any difference if you can't see what he is doing until it is too late' players...

Yeah if Generalissimo Idiot is busy defending the marshes on the coastline until a land-locked, neighboring enemy marches over the mountains and goes for the capital such that my Idiot has to rush to meet him, fighting uphill in the most egregiously disadvantageous manner - I want to know/see/be able to influence that.


Without it, we are left without knowing what is happening, why it is happening, and whether, there aren't SERIOUSLY more important things wrong with warfare than what we can't SEE!

 

[Ottheinrich]

Looking forward to the improvements.

It would be nice, if I could manually assign the barracks to a General. Firstly I could create a specific Elite Army Corps, Secondly, I like nice even numbers on my Corps.

Maybe also the possibility to reassign Generals to another HQ would be a nice to have.

 

[DogTheBoss]

Would be nice if there was a way to peacefully annex puppets instead of diplomatic plays. Also, being able to colonize through a subject would be nice. Doesn't make much sense that I can't puppet an African minor to colonize land on the other side of them.

 

[crismac]

I just want to express my displeasure with the warfare system. I am glad you have acknowledged the issues, but I think you are making a big mistake by doubling down on this system. With all respect to the developers, I know you wanted to try something different and to focus on the economy, but this system is terrible and it ruins the game for me, and I assume others. I really wish I could refund at this point since it is obvious you will not compromise with the members of the community who want more from this aspect of the game.

It would be nice if they came up with like a toggle switch and design a more complex battle system of control, to benefit both types of players, but more than likely mods are going to be the only option here.