Victoria 3 - Dev Diary #83 - Agitators and Exiles

[Adwa]

Will the Exiled Agitator automatically flee to other countries?
Or will he simply go to some "NoWhere" and boringly wait to be invited?

 

[Claudius84]

Will the Exiled Agitator automatically flee to other countries?
Or will he simply go to some "NoWhere" and boringly wait to be invited?

The dev diary says "characters with no nation", so the latter.
I could live with that actually. I could headcanon that the character is travelling from city to city, living an anonymous life in various countries, without communicating with the governments there.

 

[MfgLuckbot]

So you can exile Agitators that are actively tearing your country apart? Shouldn't there be some "point of no return" at wich an agitator with a movement behind them got so powerful that trying to kick them out would simply lead to civil war?

Can exiling a character fail? Can they go into hiding temporarily and then returning more angry?

What about interactions with movements directly? Like for example in the springtime of nations the old regimes made the movement fizzle out by appearing to be open to compromise wich made the movement split into different camps wich supported or refused compromise. The game could maybe benefit from being able to suggest a law inbetween the desired one and the currently effective one (would also be a reason to actually enact legacy slavery before going for full emancipation)

 

[Sagrifizius]

Owners of Voice of the People can use the Grant Leadership Interaction to promote an Agitator to an Interest Group Leader, which replaces their Agitator role.

Are there restriction in place to curtail the potentially immense power (to shape the nation without meaningful resistance) this interaction offers?

 

[Samolub]

There are also some restrictions on which Exiles you are able to invite:

• Devout Agitators must always share your state religion. We don’t want Buddhist Theocrats agitating for a Protestant Theocracy!
• On a similar note, if you have the State Religion law all Exiles you invite must share your state religion.
• You cannot invite Exiles with cultures that are discriminated against in your country. This limits historically implausible scenarios where characters travel vast distances to become major political figures in societies that would likely not accept them.
• If you have Closed Borders, you are entirely prohibited from inviting Exiles.

Sounds good

 

[SeekTruthFromFx]

This DD gives me quite a bit of concern around direction of Vic3 that I did not have previously. This seems such a radical departure from any Victoria gameplay loop that I'm quite jarred reading it.

Victoria games have traditionally been about Pop management, while Vic3 at times floats with more factorio-esque building gameplay loop, the fact remained that you were influencing Pop promotion through those buildings.

The character driven approach here does not seem to align with Pop management. And instead seems to drive deeply into CK territory. I am locked in to this DLC (and the next) as an own of the Grand Edition, but I am quite unenthused by what is described here.

To highlight some concerns.


I'm sorry this feels very un-Victoria. In Pre-release DDs we are told we are playing the "spirit of the nation". Why would we be able to determine who are monarch (absolute or constitutional) is able to wed? I am strongly against this addition. This is not CK, and shouldn't try to be.


I don't understand the logic behind the "state" "spirit of the nation" etc being able to select who leads an interest group? This feels like another instance of eroding Pop influence.

I both disagree and agree strongly with you.

I respectfully disagree that adding characters is 'un-Victorian'. Any good storytelling needs characters and character development. Yes, we are telling a story about social movements and changes in populations, but without characters we will have a set of aseptic algorithms, not a story. The worst thing about V2 was that you could only directly interact with pops through National Focus, which did not represent any historical dynamic at all and was just an 'increase this number' button. Interacting with characters and responding to the way that they focus demands is a much more interesting and historical way to interact with social change.

And I think your analysis, while helpful, is missing a key distinction between V2 and V3. V3 does have non-character demographic segments, but unlike the earlier incarnations of Victoria they are Interest Groups, not pops. Like pops, IGs are social groups (not characters) that are not fully under player control and their size and influence depends (indirectly) on the buildings you construct and the laws that you pass. So V3 is giving you what you want, just using a different name and at one step removed, as it were.

However, your post helps me to see why I am lukewarm about today's DD and where I share some of your concerns about the direction of V3's development. The implementation of characters in this particular feature shows the downsides of allowing characters to are become somewhat adrift from pops. It appears that the properties of random Agitators (forget about scripted Agitators for the time being) will be set based on 'top-down', national factors such as Literacy Rate and Laws. Pops play no direct role in this. It's not a bad design, but it fails to exploit an opportunity that is latent in the Victoria design games.

In my opinion, characters should be members of pops as well as IGs, because that would enable players to tell richer and more realistic stories, enhance the connections between different parts of the game, and avoid some ahistorical outcomes. Let's illustrate this with a couple of French Agitators (to stay on topic).

One of the Agitators mentioned in the post is Victor Hugo, who as noted lived in the Channel Islands (which for game purposes are subsumed into Great Britain). In the game, this leaves him in Exile and essentially inactive. And that in this case, that is appropriate — Victor Hugo had essentially no historical impact on British politics. But would not be appropriate for all Exiles. With apologies for straying outside the time period, this contrasts strongly with the story ofJean Calvin. His exile in Geneva was his time of greatest influence on France. What was the different between them? Well, as a member of a French pop, M.Hugo was marginalized in British society. By contrast, Francophone pops were dominant in Geneva and the Devout were in government, so M.Calvin was able to influence society on, and as part of, its highest levels. And his influence spread easily across the border to the southern French people who were members of likeminded pops; the resulting social conflict tore France apart and it very nearly became a Reformed country, which would probably have had dramatic effects on world history.

EDIT: The conclusion to be drawn from the Calvin example is that if Agitators were members of Pops, then their own pop would join their Movement en masse, and pops with similar characteristics (same state, same nationality, same religion, etc.) should be much more likely to support the Movement. Likewise, exiling an Agitator should make their entire pop Radicals, so that having an Agitator in your giant St Petersburg steelworks is more of a problem than having an Agitator in a tiny Art School in the Channel Islands.

As well as influencing the way that characters operate, it would also be better if their attributes were set 'Pop-up' (if you'll excuse the pun!) rather than 'top-down'. If Russian pops are prosperous, then a random Russian Agitator should be less likely to be a a Vanguardist and more likely to be a Moderate.

 

[Oglesby]

Sorry if I misunderstood, but does the Agitator limit mean that an autocratic player can intentionally invite non-problematic exiles to the country, thus blocking dangerous ones from popping up, essentially removing all the threat from these kinds of Agitators?

The way I read it is that once you reach the limit you can no longer invite them but they can still be created, etc. This is a soft limit.

 

[Jorlem]

When Agitators appear in your country, their Ideology is determined both by the many factors that already influence which Ideology characters receive and also by whether they would have laws to agitate for. For example, the Feminist ideology supports Women’s Suffrage, so if you already have this law you will not get Feminist Agitators. Agitators are intended to be opponents of the status quo, fighting alongside the people for the change they want to see in the world.

Are Agitators inspired by the laws in nearby countries, or those in the same trade union? For example, if I have the Women’s Suffrage law, would that result in higher numbers of Feminist Agitators in other countries? Or once I’ve got, say, a Council Republic, can I use Agitators to export the Revolution?

 

[Darth_Siddius]

Will we be able to support agitators in different countries/specifically send agitators somewhere? Like it happened with Lenin, that the OHL recruited him from Switzerland and then sent him to Russia.

Also will we be able in that way to send agitators for independence into other countries to increase secession risk - and maybe even get an obligation from that country if the secession is successful? I imagine it would be interesting in a war with big empires like Austria, Russia or UK, if we could disturb them like that.

Or maybe we get some throne pretenders that we can install in certain countries, turning them into some sort of low-level puppet or it becomes member of your market or something similar like that?

There's so many cool possibilities with this feature in particular!

 

[Oglesby]

Also, in adition to the radicalism cost, could exiling (and inviting) be made to cost authority? Authority seems like a natural resource to use on this, while at the same time I feel authority isn't given enough prominence in game. It would also impose a more natural limit on exiling instead of an artificial cooldown. And, as more democratic governments generate less authority, would make exiling naturally more part of an authoritatian play through.

So you are suggesting an on-going spending of Authority for exiling someone?

We do not have a bank of authority, but rather a spending limit.

 

[Onlyherefortheconverter]

This DD gives me quite a bit of concern around direction of Vic3 that I did not have previously. This seems such a radical departure from any Victoria gameplay loop that I'm quite jarred reading it.

Victoria games have traditionally been about Pop management, while Vic3 at times floats with more factorio-esque building gameplay loop, the fact remained that you were influencing Pop promotion through those buildings.

The character driven approach here does not seem to align with Pop management. And instead seems to drive deeply into CK territory. I am locked in to this DLC (and the next) as an own of the Grand Edition, but I am quite unenthused by what is described here.

To highlight some concerns.


While this will help event repetition that currently exists, I must admit event driven decisions and event narrative is not what I want from a Victoria game and makes me concerned from a directional perspective.


What is the rationale behind this? From a thematic standpoint I don't quite understand why I couldn't have more than 2 agitators in my nation? I guess an upside is that it encourages you to exile agitators you don't want since they take up slot?


I'm sorry this feels very un-Victoria. In Pre-release DDs we are told we are playing the "spirit of the nation". Why would we be able to determine who are monarch (absolute or constitutional) is able to wed? I am strongly against this addition. This is not CK, and shouldn't try to be.


I don't understand the logic behind the "state" "spirit of the nation" etc being able to select who leads an interest group? This feels like another instance of eroding Pop influence.

No idea why you're being hit with so many disagrees since all you've quite politely said is objectively true, at least for Victoria 2 (haven't played VIC1). Having said that - I don't think its impossible to reconcile characters and POPs in a Victoria game - the easy solution is to just spawn Agitators based on an unhappy/radical threshold for each major POPs group in your country instead of them just spawning randomly or by simply inviting exiled Agitators like this is the NFL draft or something. So I don't have any issues with characters, I wish we had more of them in the form of colonial governors etc, but I too am concerned with how weakly connected to POPs Agitators seem to be.

 

[wilcoxchar]

I like this so far.

One thing I hope agitators will do is make revolutions feel more revolutionary. I ran a few observer games and it doesn't really feel like a revolution is actually doing much when, say, a communist leading a revolution against a monarchy is keeping the monarchy intact and only fighting for a few smaller laws like higher wage subsidies. It seems like there are too few revolutions right now that are changing what I would consider the bigger laws - government principles, distribution of power, religion and culture discrimination, economic system, and slavery laws.

I also think another problem with countries not looking like they're changing might be the AI strategies not changing enough, especially when a new leader takes over or new interest groups become dominant. But that's a separate issue.

 

[Merovingio]

Will be our favourite Russian socialist terrorist Boris Savinkov? It seems to have some potential for an alt Russia *cough cough*.

 

[Claudius84]

One thing I hope agitators will do is make revolutions feel more revolutionary. I ran a few observer games and it doesn't really feel like a revolution is actually doing much when, say, a communist leading a revolution against a monarchy is keeping the monarchy intact and only fighting for a few smaller laws like higher wage subsidies. It seems like there are too few revolutions right now that are changing what I would consider the bigger laws - government principles, distribution of power, religion and culture discrimination, economic system, and slavery laws.

Would also be nice if multiple political movements "teamed up" in one revolution. Often the revolutionaries just changed 1 law in my games (which results often in communist kingdoms).
If they ever going to tweak the culture/secession parts of this game (like they say in this DD), it would be nice if secessionists and revolutionaries could join together in one revolution (like fighting for a communist Corsica or something).

 

[Kukumarro]

Will enacting a republic send the monarch and their heir into exile, rather than killing them? (Maybe if a republic is imposed through revolution, kill the monarch and send the heir into exile, or kill both if it is a council republic)

 

[Znikii]

Could we also expect once in the future (hopefully alongside those for national succession) for agitators that they would demand certain diplomatic plays? for example: if you have colonial exploitation law passed that an agitator would spawn for the conquest/puppeting of specific state/region; or for example, if your neighbour drastically differs in a legal organisation that there would be a chance for spawning an agitator that would push for a change of government intervention war?

 

[MfgLuckbot]

Will enacting a republic send the monarch and their heir into exile, rather than killing them? (Maybe if a republic is imposed through revolution, kill the monarch and send the heir into exile, or kill both if it is a council republic)

Honestly I'd prefer randomized fates over scripted by law. Socialist revolutions should increase the chance for dead monarchs, but never guarantee them.

 

[Mithrill]

In the future (no promises as to exactly when), we would like to overhaul our Nationalism/Secession systems and also give Agitators a role in national liberation movements. For this reason many significant and interesting figures that might have been solid Agitator candidates like Gandhi or Cao Futian haven’t been included in 1.3, as we feel we can do them more justice at a later time.​

Hooo boy, when this feature comes in, whoever occupies Poland will have so. Much. Trouble.

 

[Rabid]

I love what I'm reading, and the change to the exile interaction is excellent - I might just pick up the DLC purely to show support for this kind of approach and how important it is to keep any truly gameplay-shaping mechanics and interactions in the core game so that the DLC isn't essentially "pay to win".

With that said, I'm still mildly concerned that some of the options shown are going to make the political side of the game far easier to navigate, as well as making political changes in your country less directly attached to material conditions.

Currently, unless you get an IG leader with a particularly fortunate trait (be it either randomly or through one of the tiny handful of reliable ways to generate IG leader traits) you have to force political reform from the bottom up, building up the wealth and political power of the pops who support industrialists, intelligensia or trade unions, in order to allow enactment of the laws favoured by those IGs. This is often a fairly slow procress!

Agitators seem to offer an entirely different approach to building up support for new laws, and without some major restrictions or drawbacks it seems likely that they will make reform quicker and easier, which is a shame. I hope that there's more political changes to come, which we've not seen yet, to compensate for this. Powerful IGs should not just roll over a let a charismatic orator dictate politics which are entirely contrary to their own beliefs.

 

[nuarbnellaffej]

I’ve commented that without turning the game into CK, I wanted a bit more to do with characters so this is cool to see.