Home Trending Latest threads New posts Developer diaries
Jump to latest Follow Reply
  • We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Victoria 3 12182 Bug Reports 8062 User Mods 552 Multiplayer 65 Suggestions 3295 Tech Support 953 After Action Reports (AARs)
Previous dev diary Next dev diary
Show only dev responses

Victoria 3 - Dev Diary #82 - Voice of the People

16_9.jpg

​
Good afternoon Victorians! It is with great pleasure that I can finally reveal to you our first Immersion Pack: Voice of the People. Voice of the People is the Immersion Pack promised by and included in the Grand Edition of Victoria 3, and will be released alongside the free 1.3 Update on May 22nd. Today’s dev diary will give you a feature overview for Voice of the People, as well as some words on our design philosophy for Immersion Packs and an update on our team structure.


DD82_01.png

Proudhon is one of many historical Agitators in Voice of the People, alongside other noteworthies such as Leon Trotsky, Sun Yat Sen, and Susan B Anthony.
​
Without giving too much away - we’ll be going more in depth on this next week - Voice of the People is named for its headliner feature: Agitators. Agitators are a new kind of character that rally your pops to support Political Movements that align with their Ideology. Agitators will shake up your internal politics, acting independently of their Interest Groups. Amplifying power from below, Agitators serve an opposite function to Interest Group Petitions which reflect the demands of the political elite. Depending on how your goals align with theirs, Agitators might be a painful thorn in your side or a valuable ally to your political agenda.

DD82_02.png

Mr Marx, having been unceremoniously booted out of his home country, is looking for a loving home.
​
Are you sick and tired of that one Agrarian Party leader with inexplicably high Popularity stealing votes from your cherished Liberals? Is there a Radical Agitator spreading dangerous ideas in your bastion of political reaction? Well I’ve got a solution for you: Exile. Inconvenient characters can now be expelled from your nation and driven into political exile, up for grabs for whatever nation wants to harbor your unpatriotic dissidents. On the other side of things, perhaps you feel like your nation needs a shakeup, and that Danish Anarchist Exile would be just the man for the job - you can peruse the list of available Exiles and invite them to your country as an Agitator.

DD82_03.png

Napoleon III went on to restore the French Empire in our timeline, but what would France look like under the House of Orleans or the Legitimists?
​
Vive la révolution! Vive la France! Voice of the People’s content and visual focus is themed around France, one of the greatest powers of the era and one of the most, in my humble opinion, in need of a healthy dose of content. In an upcoming dev diary we’ll be going into detail about what we have planned for France, but right now I can tell you that we’ll be tackling such weighty topics as the Paris Commune, the Dreyfus Affair, and the dynastic struggle for the French throne - including of course the return of the Bonapartes. We’ll also be covering the nation’s quest for territorial expansion both within Europe and beyond. With ample new Journal Entries and Events, playing as France will offer a much more immersive experience.

DD82_04.png

The map of the world has become some sort of Carte du Monde.
​
I think by now you’ve probably noticed that something is different in these screenshots. Voice of the People will add not only a beautiful baroque blue UI skin, but also a totally new French-themed paper map of the world - featuring my personal favorite art in the game, the Pacific Bread Centaur. On the character art side, we’ve added many new historical Agitators who will have their own unique appearance including outfits and props. And as if that weren’t enough, there’s even more to come in the dev diary on visual features in a few weeks' time.

DD82_05.png

This is the Bread Centaur. I will not elaborate.
​
I think I can state with confidence that devs and players alike share a love of staring at maps. We also really enjoy nitpicking and complaining about maps. While our content designers were busy making French content they noticed that there was room for improvement for the state region and city hub setup in the country. These aren’t the only changes to the map coming in 1.3 - most notably we’ve made major changes to Algeria which we’ll also talk about in a future dev diary.

DD82_06.png

Can you spot what else is different about France besides the borders?
​
I’d like to talk a bit about what an Immersion Pack entails for Victoria 3 and how we’ve decided which parts of the 1.3 Update will be free to all players and which will be exclusive to the Immersion Pack.

So far, everything we’ve talked about in the previous 1.3 Dev Diaries is part of the free update - the Revolution Clock, the changes to Law Enactment, and the new Laws for instance. These are reworks of existing systems and additions to them, exactly the kinds of changes that Paradox veterans might expect in a free update.

Immersion Packs are envisioned as content-driven and art-heavy, with mechanical features that support this content and make the world come to life. As the title implies, Immersion Packs are about immersion. You can expect them to contain plenty of narrative content like Events and Journal Entries, major visual updates, and light but impactful new mechanical features and systems reworks. Immersion Packs will be themed around one country or region of the world, and this is where the bulk of narrative content and art will be focused and take inspiration from. These new mechanical features and systems reworks will be mostly contained in the free update that will be released alongside the Immersion Pack - everyone gets the feature, but Immersion Pack owners will also get all the bells and whistles. In the case of Voice of the People, Agitators will be a free feature while certain interactions (such as Exiling characters) will be included in the Immersion Pack.

Time for a team update! Since around the game’s release, the Victoria 3 team has transitioned from being a project aimed at delivering a single product - Victoria 3 1.0 - to a team that can work on multiple updates simultaneously. We’ve divided ourselves into three sub-teams with different focuses, sizes, and fields of expertise. For instance the “Machinists” team was responsible for bringing you the 1.2 Update, and is defined by a focus on systems design and code-heavy tasks. Voice of the People and 1.3 is primarily the work of the “Academics” and “Artisans” teams, which focus on narrative design/scripted content and art respectively.

The teams tie in to our major post-release goals that we’ve talked about before: 1.3 and Voice of the People are focused on Internal Politics and Historical Immersion, which (very deliberately) lines up perfectly with the expertise of the Academics and Artisans teams. While the Academics and Artisans work on 1.3, the Machinists team is cooking up the next systems-focused update, which will include some long-awaited free updates related to our other post-release pillars. We’re far from ready to start talking about this now, but I can assure you it is exciting stuff.

I’m sure you’re excited to read more about Voice of the People, but that will have to be all for this week. Join me for next week’s dev diary, where I’ll be going into depth on the mechanical features: Agitators and Exiles - as well as unveiling a new (super moddable) way to interact with characters.

Voice of the People will release on May 22nd alongside Patch 1.3. Pre-orders available now with limited-time bonus content, also included in the Grand Edition!

Pre-order now!
Steam
 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • 140Love
  • 105Like
  • 39
  • 14
  • 8
  • 1Haha
Reactions:
Sort by date Sort by reaction score
Promethium555 said:
When did the idea of simulating politics at the pop level become "extreme"? Saying you disagree with it is one thing, but calling it "extreme" is bizzare considering it was the main way pops worked before Victoria 3 in games like Stellaris and Victoria 2.
Click to expand...
I think he meant extreme as in either politics get represented by the party/IG leadership or by the grassroots level. And he wanted something in between. Not extreme as in “radical”.
 
  • 2
Reactions:
I hope the future big expansion will focus on war mechanics. For such a DLC, the best nation would be Prussia and Germany - these DLCs could add a lot of content for both Prussia, united Germany and the rest of the German states - Bavaria, Saxony and Hannover in particular.

A nice option would also be the possibility of forming large military coalitions, similar to Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance.
 
  • 4
Reactions:
Jayvee94 said:
On the topic of the Fascist Party in game. If I understand correctly, it's TECHNICALLY not fix to an IG but to two "leader ideologies", Ethno-nationalist and Fascist.

In theory, every IG can join. However, some IGs are indeed more likely to join than others.

ETA: With the addition of new leader ideologies (the Three french monarchists ideologies), I would assume that the name of the parties would change accordingly.
Click to expand...

Correct, just recently the unionists in my savegame suddenly founded the Nazi party because the new leader of the IG was an ethno-nationalist.

This is also something that will hopefully be revised. At the moment, each IG can adopt a completely different ideology when the leader changes. Communists who become racists while the military forms the communist party.
 
  • 5
  • 2
Reactions:
Jimboy93 said:
Correct, just recently the unionists in my savegame suddenly founded the Nazi party because the new leader of the IG was an ethno-nationalist.
This is also something that will hopefully be revised. At the moment, each IG can adopt a completely different ideology when the leader changes. Communists who become racists while the military forms the communist party.
Click to expand...

I strongly disagree. I like this element of rng. And it's within historical plausibility. You know that Nazi means national socialist? There was also something like National Bolshevism. I see nothing wrong with trade unions leadership being taken by whats in game called ethnonationalist as long as it doesn't happen every time. Trade Unions being part of National Socialist party is also nothing suprising.
 
  • 4
  • 2
  • 1
Reactions:
Andrzej2 said:
I strongly disagree. I like this element of rng. And it's within historical plausibility. You know that Nazi means national socialist? There was also something like National Bolshevism. I see nothing wrong with trade unions leadership being taken by whats in game called ethnonationalist as long as it doesn't happen every time. Trade Unions being part of National Socialist party is also nothing suprising.
Click to expand...

But the term National Socialism is more propaganda than truth. It was not the case that the Nazis supported the workers in their fight against the capitalists. The term was only used to weaken the communists by stealing their voters.

There were quite a few supporters from the working class thats true. Out of 17 million voters, about 2.5 million were from the working class partys, but the majority of those remained loyal to either the SDP or the KPD. 6 million were previously non-voters and 7.4 million were from the middle class. I agree with you that it was entirely possible for former communist or social democratic voters to switch to the Nazis, but the party or interest group itself did not suddenly become Nazis.
But that is currently the case in VIC3

The fact that millions of votes depend solely on the characteristics of the IG leader then leads to these strange results.
 
  • 4
  • 1
Reactions:
Historically speaking, Bonapartists should endorse universal suffrage, not oppose it.
 
  • 2
Reactions:
Jimboy93 said:
Correct, just recently the unionists in my savegame suddenly founded the Nazi party because the new leader of the IG was an ethno-nationalist.

This is also something that will hopefully be revised. At the moment, each IG can adopt a completely different ideology when the leader changes. Communists who become racists while the military forms the communist party.
Click to expand...
I really don't see the problem here. If the trade union interest group is led by an ethno-nationalist leader, then sure they should support the ethno-nationalist party which would be the Fascist Party. And if the armed forces interest group is led by a vanguardist leader, then sure they should support a communist party. Why is this a bad thing that interest groups will support parties that share their at-the-time interess?
 
  • 4
  • 2
  • 1
Reactions:
wilcoxchar said:
I really don't see the problem here. If the trade union interest group is led by an ethno-nationalist leader, then sure they should support the ethno-nationalist party which would be the Fascist Party. And if the armed forces interest group is led by a vanguardist leader, then sure they should support a communist party. Why is this a bad thing that interest groups will support parties that share their at-the-time interess?
Click to expand...
Mechanically I completely agree with you but I also understand how it can feel very jarring when IGs can do a 180° turn because 5 years have passed and that means the IG must now roll a new leader and it just so happens that the Communist was replaced by an EthNat. leader.

I believe that this can very much be resolved even without mechanical additions (although those are always welcome) by exposing more information to the player but also further improving the conditions under which ideologies are rolled.
 
  • 2
Reactions:
Andrzej2 said:
I strongly disagree. I like this element of rng. And it's within historical plausibility. You know that Nazi means national socialist? There was also something like National Bolshevism. I see nothing wrong with trade unions leadership being taken by whats in game called ethnonationalist as long as it doesn't happen every time. Trade Unions being part of National Socialist party is also nothing suprising.
Click to expand...
It would certainly be surprising to the German trade unions that were violently suppressed by the Nazis and had their leaders sent to concentration camps.

wilcoxchar said:
I really don't see the problem here. If the trade union interest group is led by an ethno-nationalist leader, then sure they should support the ethno-nationalist party which would be the Fascist Party. And if the armed forces interest group is led by a vanguardist leader, then sure they should support a communist party. Why is this a bad thing that interest groups will support parties that share their at-the-time interess?
Click to expand...
I suppose the problem is that it's an incredibly simplistic, abstract, and unengaging model of politics. Some trade unions were certainly involved in fascist movements in some countries (Italy primarily comes to mind, and while I'm no expert I think also France?), but the idea that the entire body of trade unions ever shifted to just wholeheartedly endorse fascism is, well, let's say problematic. Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco all stamped out an independent trade union movement. They outlawed strikes and, to varying degrees, actively and violently supressed socialism. Trade unions mobilised against fascism (such as the Battle of Cable Street in the UK), or the parties most associated with them represented the main political opposition to fascism (the SPD and KPD in Germany).

Should POPs aligned with the trade union IG be able to support a fascist party? Absolutely, yes. Should the entire trade union IG just flip to backing fascism because a single "leader" has appeared with that ideology? Given at best in history the trade union movement in any country was divided over fascism, I think the answer is no. Surely that also overrides the idea that these IGs are institutions, movements, and large groups in society that ultimately have basic beliefs and existential issues (such as, say, their own right to exist!) that they shouldn't be moved from? What's the IG system even for if not to represent that?

Once again, we need a more complex political system. We need a greater distinction between IGs, ideologies, political leaders, parties, and the preferences of POPs. It's the only way to square this circle in a historically-fitting way. "RNG says trade unions have a certain single leader and are fascist now" shouldn't be how it works.
 
  • 6
  • 2
Reactions:
Promethium555 said:
Hearts of Iron 4 charged $20 for a dlc that added a completely new espionage system, along with content for France, Spain, and Portugual. And Guess what? That dlc wasn't even received that favorably. Victoria 3 is now charging a similar amount for a dlc JUST focused on France. I dont really like this trend. The free changes look good though I guess.


I said in another thread that political parties should have mechanics that give them agency separate from IGs for this same reason.
Click to expand...
HoI4 also charged:

  1. Full price for a focus tree for the Commonwealth Minors (So really only India had something worthwhile and arguably Canada) and lend-lease
  2. Full price for Axis Minors focus tree and the Czechs (Romania was like the only focus tree with any worth in it due to the switcharoo) and equipment conversion
  3. Full Price for the Chinese focus trees (Literally just the two because the minors had copy-pasted focus trees) and the more in-depth general mechanics and decisions
Let's not kid ourselves, only recently did HoI4 DLC became worth their price. Waking the Tiger was the first one due to the general system and the addition of decisions that led to a lot of really great mod additions, but the ones prior were fairly horrible for what they offered. That said Vicky 3 is better than HoI so far, because at least we don't have to pay for majority access to the new features.
 
  • 4
Reactions:
FluffayOne said:
HoI4 also charged:

  1. Full price for a focus tree for the Commonwealth Minors (So really only India had something worthwhile and arguably Canada) and lend-lease
  2. Full price for Axis Minors focus tree and the Czechs (Romania was like the only focus tree with any worth in it due to the switcharoo) and equipment conversion
  3. Full Price for the Chinese focus trees (Literally just the two because the minors had copy-pasted focus trees) and the more in-depth general mechanics and decisions
Let's not kid ourselves, only recently did HoI4 DLC became worth their price. Waking the Tiger was the first one due to the general system and the addition of decisions that led to a lot of really great mod additions, but the ones prior were fairly horrible for what they offered. That said Vicky 3 is better than HoI so far, because at least we don't have to pay for majority access to the new features.
Click to expand...
This honestly seems to be the trend with basically all Paradox games. Crusder Kings II didn't really hit its stride until Old Gods, Europa Universalis IV until Art of War, etc.
 
  • 1
Reactions:
Luinthoron said:
Any chance to finally be able to buy the entire expansion pass separately to get this? I obviously would have gotten the Grand Edition from the start, but sadly it was not available as a physical release.
Click to expand...
I guess I'll take the lack of reply and the fact that Melodies For The Masses has now also shown up as part of the expansion pass as a resounding No.
 
  • 2
Reactions:
  • 1
Reactions:
Hey, anyone got the screenshots?

I managed to get the most relevant ones myself
 

Attachments

  • Screenshot_20230426_212844.jpg
    Screenshot_20230426_212844.jpg
    897,6 KB · Views: 0
  • Screenshot_20230426_212957.jpg
    Screenshot_20230426_212957.jpg
    874 KB · Views: 0
  • Screenshot_20230426_213022.jpg
    Screenshot_20230426_213022.jpg
    918,1 KB · Views: 0
Last edited:
  • 3
Reactions:
So, what's the general reaction to the stream so far? I wasn't able to catch it. On Discord the reaction generally seemed neutral to positive. On Steam the entire discussion got derailed into two guys arguing about communism (as it usually does on that site).
 
  • 3Haha
Reactions:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back