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Victoria 3 - Dev Diary #65 - Patch 1.1 (part 1)

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Hello and welcome to the second post-release dev diary for Victoria 3. Today we’ll be talking about the first major post-release patch, which we’re aiming to get to you before the end of the year. This patch (1.1) is going to primarily focus on game polish: bug fixing, balancing, AI improvements and UI/UX work, while the next major free patch (1.2) is going to be more focused towards making progress on the plans we’ve outlined in our Post-Release Plans DD by iterating on systems like warfare and diplomacy. With that said, there’s a few more significant changes coming in 1.1 as well, which we’re going to go over in this and next week’s dev diary.

The first of these changes is a rework of the interface for individual Pops, with a particular emphasis on improving the visualization of Pop Needs. In addition to the general overview, there are now separate tabs for Economy and Consumption, with Economy showing a more detailed breakdown of the Pop’s income and expenditure, as well as their top 5 Goods expenditures, and the Consumption tab showing a detailed breakdown of all their Goods expenditures, along with pricing information for the State and Market. We also plan to iterate on Pop Needs further in the future to give you a better idea of what your population needs are country-wide.

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The next significant change in 1.1 is a rework of Legitimacy: some frequent criticisms we have received about the political system in Victoria 3 is that Legitimacy doesn’t matter enough and isn’t clear enough about its effects, as well as that elections don’t have enough of an impact. This rework aims to resolve all those problems by making several changes: First, legitimacy, while still a number from 0 to 100, is now divided into five categories with differing effects, some of which will increase or decrease based on the actual number and not just the threshold:
  • 0-24: Illegitimate Government: This government is considered blatantly illegitimate by most everyone in the country. This legitimacy level reduces the approval of all opposition IGs, makes it impossible to enact laws, and generates a steady stream of radicals in increased numbers the lower Legitimacy is.
  • 25-49: Unacceptable Government: This government is generally not considered acceptable to the people of the country. Laws can be enacted, but opposition IGs will disapprove and radicals will be created over time, though in amounts less than in an Illegitimate Government.
  • 50-74: Contested Government: This government is considered to have somewhat shaky foundations. Opposition IGs will disapprove slightly but otherwise there are no ill or good effects.
  • 75-89: Legitimate Government: This government is considered proper and legitimate. Over time a small number of Loyalists will be generated, with increased numbers the higher Legitimacy is.
  • 90-100: Righteous Government: This government’s legitimacy is considered to be unassailable. In addition to generating Loyalists over time, enactment time for new laws is cut in half.

The way you gain legitimacy has also been altered in democracies, with the share of votes (rather than just clout) represented in Government now having a direct effect on Legitimacy, the degree to which depends on the laws - under more restrictive voting systems, Clout can still be more important than votes, but as more of the population becomes enfranchised votes grow in importance and under Universal Suffrage it should be virtually impossible for a government that doesn’t have the voters behind it to be considered legitimate.

Despite being the largest party in terms of Clout, the Whigs alone are not considered Legitimate due to only commanding 47% of the votes in the last election.
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Lastly for today, we’ve also made a balancing change to the Church and State and Citizenship laws - previously, the only balancing consideration for these laws was that less tolerance gave more Authority, which we felt was neither particularly balanced nor really a complete representation of the reasons that a country might want to discriminate against part of their population. To try and address this, we’ve made it so that by default, slightly more radicals are created by Standard of Living decreases than Loyalists from Standard of Living increases, but offset this with modifiers on the more restrictive laws that increase Loyalist and reduce Radical gain among the accepted parts of the population - the more restrictive your cultural/religious tolerance, the greater the effect on the part of the population that actually falls within it.

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That’s it for today! Next week we’re going to continue talking about Patch 1.1, which as I said at the beginning of the dev diary is planned to be released before the end of the year. We’re also still working on another hotfix (1.0.6) which should hopefully include some late-game performance improvements and other fixes and which we are aiming to release sometime next week.
 
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Because like a lot of Paradox GSG players, I never play Paradox GSGs in multiplayer.
I actually see what's your point. But I think the era where GSG was considered more of an SP genre is slowly over, the games came a long way, and an AI couldn't keep up with all the novelties, (it actually feels being dumber than for exemple in Eu 3).

The more recent titles (like Eu4 or Hoi4) show that the Mp gives these games a huge boost, for replayability, the AI is fine for grand strategy, but playing with real humans is the best for these types of games! And you can compare the older title's with newer one, one big difference between is the instability of the mp or lack of a big player base playing it, but even for those older titles, the small amount of players that are keep playing, a lot of that is indeed MP replayability.

This is true especially if you consider the mechanic changes with the AI, the newer the title, the easier it is to dominate the broken ai. So either one returns fo more mp action, or for game immersion and flavour, which vic 3 is lacking aswell atm.

Either way, those who are in for SP or MP demand updates, but I jsut suggest that bossting the MP can give that juice the game needs to stay afloat till the updates kick in.
 
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France does need to be nerfed, their growth rate is ridiculously high, and they usually are super stable politically for most of the game, with highest SoL in the world, which obviously should not be the case

If France gets 80 million population by 1900, I don't think a right solution is to make other countries also achieve their historical numbers doubled. The solution is to nerf France
Which will be handled by general balancing of other systems and methods which will result in nerfing France.
The trick is to not just nerf France but make the systems behave where they are disadvantaged and others see their value possibilities grow.

Everyone says to nerf France, I say I won't just "nerf france" and make them have a modifier that adds a negative and hampers them. I will get the systems to work better and with other nations being able to put up a challenge that will hamper them.
 
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I realize you're trying to make a buck here and only have so much to spend, but if something is always a bottleneck, maybe you need a bottle with a wider opening.
Adding more UX Designers is like increasing the highways between two cities, increasing supply also increases demand. Its never not going to be a bottleneck and hiring more UX Designers does little to alleviates the bottleneck only after they are onboarded and before the team fully adapts to tacking advantage of their access.
 
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Adding more UX Designers is like increasing the highways between two cities, increasing supply also increases demand. Its never not going to be a bottleneck and hiring more UX Designers does little to alleviates the bottleneck only after they are onboarded and before the team fully adapts to tacking advantage of their access.
I am not quite certain the analogy works here. Having a UI where people can easily find the relevant information (e.g., the vote share of each party) would lead to people wanting a good UI? and that's ... like ... a bad thing? Also, "we cannot hire people because that won't solve the problem instantly"... well, yes, and?

I am not sure what's the point here.
 
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Also, "we cannot hire people because that won't solve the problem instantly"... well, yes, and?
"Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later." – Frederick Phillips Brooks, Jr., The Mythical Man-Month.
 
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I am not quite certain the analogy works here. Having a UI where people can easily find the relevant information (e.g., the vote share of each party) would lead to people wanting a good UI? and that's ... like ... a bad thing? Also, "we cannot hire people because that won't solve the problem instantly"... well, yes, and?

I am not sure what's the point here.
You're coming in on the end of the conversation, I stated earlier in the thread that the attention of a UX designer on X is usually a bottleneck so progress on some fronts is delayed until when they are not busy assisting other matters.

Someone decided to be a bit smarmy as if we should just hire more UX designers and boom, problems solved. And I like a fool decided to be smarmy back.

No one is saying that UI is not important, but our UX Designers are heavily outnumbered by the rest of the development team which is why sometimes you see more progress in bugfixing and polishing of X instead of Y. And folks on the forums tend to make the assumption because we aren't throwing a fix of Y at you immediately, we don't agree its a problem, which is untrue.
 
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I wholly agree with your reply, would love to see countries like Britain, USA and Russia flourishing in game not regressing like they usually do - I understand its not one month work but hopefully some time next year. Best of luck!
Which will be handled by general balancing of other systems and methods which will result in nerfing France.
The trick is to not just nerf France but make the systems behave where they are disadvantaged and others see their value possibilities grow.

Everyone says to nerf France, I say I won't just "nerf france" and make them have a modifier that adds a negative and hampers them. I will get the systems to work better and with other nations being able to put up a challenge that will hamper them.
 
Is it possible to pin trade goods market price on the outliner? Show the price and request balance, and lead to the balance detail for fast import/export. Manage the mana of trade goods should be easier without always open and close the market tab. Most of time are building and GDP go brrr. High price warning can pin on outliner as well.
 
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The changes are nice, but i personally can wait for them even longer, those are not important things for now. What we really need as fast as possible is a performance patch or maybe even more than just one. Many can not play longer than 1870-1880 cause of the incredible slow down.

You should prioritize performance for now over absolutely everything else.
If you only played until 1870-1880 then you didn't experience the worst.

AI is stupid. In the late game, we have a snowball because of this. AI can't play, can't build, can't menage a country. For this reason, there are gigantic disproportions between the player and the AI in late game.
 
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You're coming in on the end of the conversation, I stated earlier in the thread that the attention of a UX designer on X is usually a bottleneck so progress on some fronts is delayed until when they are not busy assisting other matters.

Someone decided to by a bit smarmy as if we should just hire more UX designers and boom, problems solved. And I like a fool decided to be smarmy back.

No one is saying that UI is not important, but our UX Designers are heavily outnumbered by the rest of the development team which is why sometimes you see more progress in bugfixing and polishing of X instead of Y. And folks on the forums tend to make the assumption because we aren't throwing a fix of Y at you immediately, we don't agree its a problem, which is untrue.
Thanks for responding, apology for missing earlier discussion on the topic.
 
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AIUI pop consumption is based on standard of living, and can vary very wildly within each strata. Like if your Mechanists (I'm pretty sure they're Lower Strata?) are at SoL 15-20 in profitable factories, while your Peasants are at SoL 7-9, or if your Aristocrats are at SoL 20-25 while your capitalists are at SoL 35-50, they're going to have very different consumptions, to the extent that a strata-level overview might be worse than useless in informativeness. (Both of those divergences are things that happen routinely in my games.)
Hard disagree. The fact that there is so much variety in consumption across the strata is the exact reason I need a strata level data representation of consumption. If I am trying to intentionally move a strata upward I would much rather know what the overall strata consumption is, eg most bang for buck, than have to divine it by adding up 250 different pop groups. Like I said, the rollup is the ideal solution.

The divergence of one pop group isn't meaningful enough to make informed decisions. By the time SoL starts to matter peasants aren't really a thing, and getting a 25 SoL Aristocrat to 30 SoL isn't exactly an aim. So sure, it's currently difficult to target specific groups, it's kind of not worthwhile to do so most of the time.

The only time I care specifically about any individual pop group is turmoil/radicalization, but the way that works currently isn't primarily about consumption. While it would be great to have it show pop group breakouts, it shouldn't be the priority against national/strata data.
 
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As it is now, it´s not clear the Legitimacy how works, some "political parties" gives legitimacy, others substract it, with no clear indicator to the user.
Hover over the legitimacy bar and it'll break it down for you, it's pretty clear IMO.

Legitimacy is:
- The sum of clout of all IGs in government, multiplied by a number depending on your government form (e.g. 1.1 for Monarchy, 1.4 for Council Republic, etc.).
- Minus a penalty for the size of government: for each additional party and/or IG without a party you add, the legitimacy reduces by a base of 20 per previous one there. So the first party/IG has no penalty, the second is -20, the third is an additional -40 for a total of -60, etc. Presidential and Parliamentary republics reduce this, replacing 20 with 18 or 15, respectively. At least, I think this is the rule; I know the -20 for 2 and -60 for 3 parties are the right numbers.
- Plus the bonus for having the Head of State's IG in government, if you do: Government Principles will add a bonus for this ranging from 0 (Council Republic) to +20 (Monarchy), and Oligarchy or Autocracy will add another +25 or +30.
- Plus or minus other additions. All electoral distributions of power have a flat +20 legitimacy, for example. Taxes above and below normal give -5 for each level above or +5 for each level below, and there are random events and modifiers that give or take legitimacy as well.

If you're confused about why different parties add or subtract legitimacy, you're probably running into the second or third of those. A party containing the head of state's IG will add extra legitimacy that another party with the same clout won't, and the third party you add will usually subtract legitimacy where and equivalent-clout second party added it.

All of this was for 1.0.5, I haven't checked the 1.0.6 patch notes yet. And of course the 1.1 changes we're discussing will probably change all this.
 
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There is, actually. Just move to abolish serfdom while the shogunate is already unhappy. They will become angry, and quickly radicalize and start a revolution attempt with the samurai who will basically radicalize from the abolishment attempt whatever you do. If they lose the revolution they will lose a lot of clout and you can then pass several other reforms through to seal the deal.

I can't suggest going trhough that route unless you game the system and delete all the barracks in states other than Kansai to make them toothless, but it is an option.
oooo, you know, I've gotta try that!
 
Can you, like, next time you play this, check and report? Because that doesn't add up with how the legitimacy mechanics work. Or do you use some sort of "implement voting" strategy? Because that would make them add up.

Legitimacy for an absolute monarchy is:
Total clout of IGs in government times I think 1.1, maybe 1.2.
- size penalty: -0 for 1 IG in government, -20 for 2, -60 for 3, -much worse for more.
+50 if the monarch's IG (here, the Shogunate) is in government.
+/- 5-10 if you have taxes above or below normal.

So if you're still an absolute monarchy, then basically, if your second IG isn't at least 18% clout, adding them reduces your legitimacy instead of increasing it. Since the monarch's IG is the Shogunate and they're by assumption out of government, you don't have that +50 bonus, which is how you're supposed to actually get legitimacy in an absolute monarchy. Without that, you're basically limited to the legitimacy of your highest-clout IG, maybe plus another 10% if your second-highest is 25-30% clout. If your IGs are usually high teens or low 20s, which is what mine usually are, then you're not getting above 25%.

On the other hand if your strategy involves making elections happen, you get the +20 legitimacy flat that I think all voting systems have. Further, the size penalty for those laws counts parties, not individual IGs, so a single party's clout can be significantly above 20, and thus provide more legitimacy than their size penalty costs. That's the only way I can think of to get above 25% legitimacy or so while the Meiji Restoration journal entry is ticking.

(And of course, I think they alluded to changing how legitimacy is calculated, which might alter any or all of this.)
Usually by the time I switch to Intelligentsia and Industrialist, one has clout in the mid 20s and the other is high teens or low 20s. Legitimacy isn't great but it's decent enough, and other than laws taking longer to pass I haven't noticed any drawbacks to low legitimacy.

Also, to force laws though, especially early on, sometimes I'll wait until there's 1 day left before the check, and then kick out the shogunate (assuming they oppose it). As long as you have at least 1% legitimacy you'll get to the check, although it might take 7-14 days after going down to 1% legitimacy. Even if it doesn't pass, there will be little too no chance of stalling. It's really gamey, but I just wanted to make things go smoothly lol.
 
No, it is not. The stall chance is the same whether the IG is in government or not, so having an opposing party in governement while trying to pass something has no effect on the chance to stall. So only the enacment time will drop meaning you can try to get it passed faster.

The only limit here is that if the law proposal makes the IG angry (-10 or worse) they will refuse to participate and kick themselves out of the government possibly tanking your ligitimacy and thus your enacment time, but again the stall chance is unaffected.
That's not at all true, they only add to the check percentages if they're in government at the time. You can actually kinda exploit it by changing IG's around at three last moment. As long as you have at least 1% legitimacy it'll still tick over. I've done that plenty of times, although it feels really gamey so I might not say it as much in the future, for roleplay purposes.
 
thats definitely wrong. stall just depends on IGs in goverment.

pass chance = clout of endorsingIGs in gov (base chance) + changes through the enactment process (events, decisions, debate etc)
stall chance = clout of oppsing IGs in gov
advance = (base chance of passing - 2*stall chance)*some constant that seems to be 0.98 sometimes for some reason
debate = 100-pass chance-stall chance-advance
Oh, I just remembered, there's also some added stall chance if there's a movement against the law. I think they percentage is that is based on the number of radicals supporting the movement, but I could be wrong.
 
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I love the portraits! Please keep them! I want to see actual people in my population, not just a load of boxes and numbers.
Me too! It's the reason why I haven't been using the dense military mod, I like seeing my general's faces lol, and it helps me quickly find the one I'm looking for (sometimes). I wouldn't mind some of them being SMALLER though, or having a button to switch to a more compact mode where they're smaller.
 
And regarding the Meiji Restoration, it seems like everyone saying "yes you can get decent legitimacy during the 10-year wait" is doing it with a voting system. So, for those of us trying to do an autocratic Restoration, is it impossible to keep above 25% legitimacy? With the changes to legitimacy's effects, will it be impossible to last 10 years at that legitimacy without a civil war over something?
Yep, you can do it, it's just a little harder. Gotta keep undermining shogunate clout by passing laws, and using authority to boost Intelligentsia and Industrialists. Once the shogunate is down to the 20s in clout, you can kick them out relatively easily. Your legitimacy might not be great but it'll be decent enough to ride it out.
 
Adding more UX Designers is like increasing the highways between two cities, increasing supply also increases demand. Its never not going to be a bottleneck and hiring more UX Designers does little to alleviates the bottleneck only after they are onboarded and before the team fully adapts to tacking advantage of their access.
While true, sometimes demand will increase on its own and make a bad bottleneck worse. My town resisted expanding the 2 lane highway that passes through us for YEARS, decades even, using that reasoning, and in the end the only thing we could do was expand it to alleviate the traffic that was going to come through regardless.

I don't know if you guys are at that point or not, but it may come eventually.