• 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 - Dev Diary #92 - Companies

16_9.jpg
Hello and welcome back to a new round of Victoria 3 dev diaries! Today we’re going to be talking about Companies, a new free feature being added in the 1.5 update, which will be available to test and feedback on in the first version of the 1.5 open beta.

As we have previously mentioned, one of our major focuses for the 1.5 update is to improve the replayability and challenge in the core economic gameplay loop, and the main purpose of the Companies feature is to do just that by encouraging countries to specialize in certain industries and develop competitive advantages against other nations. Companies are also intended to add more flavor and differences in gameplay between different nations, as well as giving players more of a reason to care about prestige and their position in global national rankings.

Before I go into the nitty-gritty, I should mention that this dev diary is going to be focused mainly on the Companies feature in the form that will be available in the first open beta release, with a fairly narrow focus on achieving the above design goals for economic specialization, flavor and prestige. However, Companies is a feature that we consider to have near limitless potential for expanding on and hooking into more parts of the game, so I’ll wrap up the dev diary by mentioning some of the ideas we have for building on this feature in the future. Also, please note that this is very much a feature under development, so expect placeholder/WIP art, names, numbers and interfaces!

But enough preamble, let’s get into the details. Companies are national-level entities that are established by a country, with each country being able to support a certain number of companies based on factors such as technology and laws. The vast majority of countries will not start with the ability to support any companies, but will need to reach a certain level of society tech before their first company becomes available.

Each Company is associated with a certain set of building types, for example a Company specializing in metal mines might be associated with Iron Mines and Lead Mines, while a more agriculturally inclined company might instead be associated with certain types of plantations and/or farms.

To establish a company, you need to have the technology and resource potential to construct at least one of their associated building types - it’s currently possible to establish companies without having any of their associated buildings built, though this is something we will be actively looking for feedback from the open beta on how it feels, as it’s something of an immersion versus gameplay question. Flavored companies (more on those below) have other more specific requirements to be established in addition to these basic requirements.

A selection of potential candidates for Sweden’s first company: Combine of Fisheries and the United Forestry Conglomerate are immediately available, while the buildings of Wine & Fruit Inc are… not so suitable to the Swedish climate and hence will only be available if Sweden acquires some warmer lands with potential for those resources.
DD92_1.png

Once established, a Company will have effects on all buildings of their associated building type in their parent country. These effects are twofold: They increase the throughput of the buildings, as well as the construction efficiency when constructing new levels of the associated building types. The degree by which companies boost their associated buildings is partially scaled based on the Prestige ranking of their parent nation, with the 3rd-ranked nation gaining a larger boost than the 4th-ranked nation and so on. While somewhat abstracted, this is meant to represent competitive benefits the company enjoys from the international status of their home country. The purpose of this effect as a game mechanic is to give players a direct economic reason to care about their overall prestige ranking versus other nations.

It’s also worth noting that in conjunction with this change, we have increased the base construction cost of all buildings and, through the change to local pricing, somewhat lowered the base economic efficiency of most buildings. The overall intent is that the baseline economy should be less efficient, with companies allowing countries to make up the difference in select areas, providing the incentive for specialization and competitive advantages mentioned above. However, one exception to this is that base construction production was increased from 5 to 10 to ensure the baseline slowdown of construction did not make small nations entirely unviable to play.

While the majority of the construction efficiency increase from companies does not depend on your prestige ranking, Sweden’s relatively high placement on the global scoreboard does give its companies an additional edge.
DD92_2.png

Established Companies also have Productivity and Prosperity ratings. Productivity is simply the average Productivity (yearly average earnings per employee) of all its associated building levels. This is compared against the global average Productivity of all companies in the world, with companies that are doing better than average gaining Prosperity over time, and companies below a certain threshold (which is lower than the threshold for gaining Prosperity) losing it instead.

If a Company reaches 100 Prosperity, its Prosperity modifier will activate, granting a company-specific bonus to its parent nation. This is intended to add an additional dimension to the selection of companies - do you simply want to focus on whatever resources are going to be most profitable for your nation, or aim to build up a specific industry for the bonuses it can give you? As an example, a player that is planning to play a particularly aggressive campaign may want to focus on building up an arms-industry related Company for the military advantages it can grant.

The Agricultural Development Society is doing well enough compared to other companies that its Prosperity is increasing, which will please the Rural Folk once Prosperity hits 100.
DD92_3.png

As we hinted at earlier in the dev diary, Companies come in two varieties: Standard and Flavored. Standard Companies are ones that are available to all nations unless replaced by a Flavored Company, while Flavored Companies tend to be restricted to a certain culture and/or geographical region. For example, a North German nation that owns certain parts of the Rhineland will have certain historical German companies available to them.

Flavored companies are mostly historical (but not always, as sometimes we have to go a bit alt-history), with a set of building types based around their real-life historical business focuses, and tend to have stronger or more interesting prosperity bonuses than the standard companies. Flavored companies may sometimes replace very similar Standard companies, but this is the exception rather than the rule, most Flavored companies do not replace Standard companies.

Alright, that’s the general gist of what Companies will look like when you first get your hands on it in the 1.5 open beta. As I mentioned at the beginning though, there is a lot of places we envision taking this feature in the future, so here are a few examples of that, though you definitely shouldn’t expect all of this be in scope for the 1.5 update:
  • Having companies ‘level up’ beyond just a single prosperity bonus, possibly in a way that ties into diplomacy/rank and replaces the current company bonuses from prestige
  • Having pops, specific buildings in specific states, Interest Groups, and/or characters more directly associated with Companies instead of them just being a national-level entity
  • Companies having political and/or geopolitical ambitions (for example, a certain fruit-company might wish to create some, ahem, fruit-focused republics)
  • Multinational companies that aren’t limited to a single country

I’ll sign off by leaving you a bonus screenshot of the first companies added to the game in the earliest iteration of the feature. Sadly, neither Björnmetall nor Martin’s Fish Tank Emporium will be available in the 1.5 version of the game.
DD92_4.png
That’s all for today! Join us again next week as we go over what other additions changes you can expect to be coming in the 1.5 open beta, with a particular focus on the military. See you then!
 
  • 125Like
  • 70Love
  • 51
  • 13
  • 4
Reactions:
WOW unbelievably exciting, yous are really taking this is the direction ive been hoping, I can really feel the depth of the underlying vision you have on the game
Not sure how it adds depth to be honest. It feels like a sidecar feature- you meet the criteria, hit the button and an abstrac bonus is applied. It's not embedded into game's mechanics.
 
  • 21
  • 3Like
  • 2
  • 1
Reactions:
Productivity is simply the average Productivity (yearly average earnings per employee) of all its associated building levels. This is compared against the global average Productivity of all companies in the world, with companies that are doing better than average gaining Prosperity over time, and companies below a certain threshold (which is lower than the threshold for gaining Prosperity) losing it instead.
The Productivity is compared against 'all companies in the world', why not all companies in the market you are in? What if a company was established in an Isolationist country or a very remote market almost nobody has trade routes with?
 
  • 6
  • 1Like
Reactions:
I hope companies take full advantage of the foreign investment features. Having them as a slightly contrived extra bonus to productivity is fine but their, um, international implications are what would truly make them excel. If only as a moneydump for when we reach the economic ceiling in the early 1900s.
 
  • 4Like
  • 2
  • 1
Reactions:
Are there any downsides to having a company? Right now it seems just bonuses so the player would always want to ma out the company slots. Maybe so that owner-pops that work in the company's building types would have increased political strength?
 
  • 7
Reactions:
Not sure how it adds depth to be honest. It feels like a sidecar feature- you meet the criteria, hit the button and an abstrac bonus is applied. It's not embedded into game's mechanics.
It surely is a layer for further developement, depending on how it will connect with Buildings, Pops, Characters & Diplomacy.
 
  • 7
  • 2Like
Reactions:
Are there any downsides to having a company? Right now it seems just bonuses so the player would always want to ma out the company slots. Maybe so that owner-pops that work in the company's building types would have increased political strength?
A disadvantage of having a monopoly should be that they can start influencing prices in the market beyond supply/demand. A transportation/logistics monopoly will completely wreck the cost of transportation and could be a huge burden to your economy. That's why Standard Oil came to be as they started using pipelines to bypass gouged transportation prices. Honestly I am surprised that 'pipelines' is not a better production method for oil fields that doesn't use a transport good.
 
  • 5
Reactions:
I hate how some companies will have arbitrary bonuses over regular one. This just undermines further Victoria 3 state goal to be a socio-economical nation gardening simulation.

Additionally it confirms my impression the devs do not know what they are doing with this game.
 
Last edited:
  • 9
  • 5
  • 1Like
Reactions:
I don't know how I feel about having the base construction cost increased. The game already feels slow enough (though it may be because of the lag), especially with some buildings taking aaaaages to build. I even made a mod halving all construction costs, because it felt too slow. So reading that you intend to even increase the base cost makes me a bit confused.
 
  • 6
Reactions:
Not sure how it adds depth to be honest. It feels like a sidecar feature- you meet the criteria, hit the button and an abstrac bonus is applied. It's not embedded into game's mechanics.
Indeed, there must be a counter effect of having a powerful company.
Like we look at estates in EU4 : you have powerful effects, neat ! sweet bonuses ! However they're now powerful and they must not be upset !
This way, having a company in a special place is a strategic investment. You know the pro and have to manage the cons.
 
  • 7Like
  • 4
  • 1
Reactions:
It's a cool mechanic and I saw the comment about them maybe more representing sectors so to clarify:

Is this mechanic meant to be explicitly capitalist in structure, or could it also represent syndicates? And potentially other structures like guilds and merchant families, though those are less period-relevant.

Asking for anarcho-syndicalist reasons.
 
  • 3Like
Reactions:
Would love to see a financel market as well where shares of corporations would be traded. Makes way more sense with international corporations. Also failing corporations cry for bail outs in time of crisis.
 
  • 4Love
  • 2Like
  • 2
  • 1
Reactions:
Is there any intention to allow for companies to have any degree of autonomy regarding imports/exports or the like? While the state might have certain interests in imports/exports, the company should as well in order to ensure the lowest prices for its personal use, and also exporting to only the highest profit-centers once a suitable quota of domestic sales have been resolved. Basically, will companies have their own corporate markets that act, functionally independently of the wider market, or are is all of their productivity tied wholly to national market prices?
 
  • 5Like
  • 1
Reactions:
Flavored companies are mostly historical (but not always, as sometimes we have to go a bit alt-history), with a set of building types based around their real-life historical business focuses, and tend to have stronger or more interesting prosperity bonuses than the standard companies. Flavored companies may sometimes replace very similar Standard companies, but this is the exception rather than the rule, most Flavored companies do not replace Standard companies.
I would certainly love it if a lot of ahistorical, but historically plausible, flavour content was in the game at some point. I am one of those people who hates the idea that our own path of history is "the logical one", while sandbox games like this are perfect for exploring other cool things that could have been.
 
  • 2
  • 1Like
Reactions:
I've been waiting for a mechanic like this. Nice work. I think it would be a cool feature if companies that get very powerful, that they become their own state like the East India Company or at least influence interest group clout.
 
  • 3Like
Reactions:
I believe this will need a lot more integration into the other game mechanics to be a worthwhile addition. But this has reminded me how it's such a shame that new companies no longer have badass names like Rheinmetall or Chrysler, instead they get silly names like Alphabet or Amazon. Raytheon renaming themselves to RTX is a goddamn tragedy.
 
Last edited:
  • 3
  • 1
Reactions:
I would certainly love it if a lot of ahistorical, but historically plausible, flavour content was in the game at some point. I am one of those people who hates the idea that our own path of history is "the logical one", while sandbox games like this are perfect for exploring other cool things that could have been.
Paradox games are way too on rails for that though. The only thing that is a sandbox is the colors on the map.
 
  • 5
Reactions:
Established Companies also have Productivity and Prosperity ratings. Productivity is simply the average Productivity (yearly average earnings per employee) of all its associated building levels. This is compared against the global average Productivity of all companies in the world, with companies that are doing better than average gaining Prosperity over time, and companies below a certain threshold (which is lower than the threshold for gaining Prosperity) losing it instead.
Does the size of the company have any effect on its Prosperity? If I'm reading this correctly a company with one building with £20 profit per worker will be rated as more Prosperous than 100 buildings with £15 per worker.
 
  • 4Like
Reactions:
Is there a Prosperity cap, and if so, is it exactly at 100?

A lot of systems where you get a bonus after leveling something to the max have the problem that a short-term system shock makes you lose the bonus. For example, level 5 Federations in Stellaris would de-level for a couple weeks any time you took a major federation action like a rule or membership change because there was no buffer to absorb the cohesion shock and corresponding -XP that was ultimately going to stabilize a month or two later. They eventually fixed this by allowing you to earn up to 100 XP above the level 5 threshold (a small overcap bonus but enough to prevent short-term disruptions).

Similarly, in Vic 3 we have this issue with strategic interests awarded by naval bases where a brief dip in operating efficiency for a week (due to hiring changes) can make one of your declared interests be canceled.

Hopefully if 100 is the maximum Prosperity score, we can earn a bit of a 'Prosperity buffer' or whatever it is so that one or two bad weeks doesn't immediately disable the bonus, and we avoid having bonuses flitter between being enabled and disabled multiple times a month.
 
  • 3
  • 1Like
Reactions: