A Game of Great Potential — But Where's the Challenge?

[Ajax1k]

Good day to all forum members and fans of the wonderful game Victoria 3.

Last night I finished a campaign as Great Britain and would like to share a few thoughts.

Despite the fact that the latest update — which introduced diplomatic agreements — is genuinely the best one so far, there’s still quite a bit of work to be done. I’ll try to keep my reflections as concise as possible.

1. The AI is still very weak​

This is especially noticeable in the late game, and the contrast is even stronger when compared to other Paradox games. In many situations, the AI doesn’t understand who it should be competing with and why. Most importantly, it often fails to properly assess the value or feasibility of participating in diplomatic plays.

A simple example: while playing as Great Britain, I had around 500 regular battalions (not counting puppets and junior partners) and the world’s largest navy (around 400 ships). Yet I received a diplomatic play from France demanding the transfer of some colonies. At that time, France had only about 170 regular and 170 conscript battalions, and around 130 ships. The result was a predictable disaster for them.

Also, during my expansion into Africa, other nations kept interfering — for example, I was annexing minor states in Uganda, and suddenly Mexico or Italy would intervene… and, of course, be utterly crushed. The AI can't even do basic math comparing battalion numbers, let alone evaluate whether it’s worth picking a fight with certain countries.

Sometimes Russia would get involved against me, often demanding a regime change in Ceylon. That specific diplomatic demand might deserve its own topic — but in my opinion, it's absolutely useless. I’d suggest either teaching the AI how to use it properly (which is a big challenge) or just removing it altogether.

I understand that I was playing as the strongest country in the game, but playing as other nations doesn’t feel much better — the AI just doesn't understand how to challenge or compete with the player.

Look at other Paradox titles: in Europa Universalis, coalitions form against a growing player. Neighbors demand the release of nations or seize provinces during moments of weakness. In Crusader Kings, as soon as your army is weakened, everyone with a claim jumps at the opportunity. This kind of challenge is what makes a game exciting.

I truly believe Victoria 3 could be an ideal game — even with minor flaws — if it had strong, competitive AI.

2. Diplomatic plays still need work (especially with the new agreements)​

Take, for example, the “monopoly company” demand. You can add it, sure — but you must first demand something else to make it available? That feels clunky.

While playing, I asked myself: if the game tried to simulate World War I, what would each side's war goals be? Could it even happen at all under the current system? Who would actually fight, and for what?

It seems to me that the game could benefit from distinguishing local and global conflicts. A world war between great powers could end with something like a peace conference, where victors — depending on their contributions — get to set a list of demands. Meanwhile, smaller, regional conflicts shouldn’t draw so much international attention.

This idea has been mentioned in the dev diaries before, and I hope it’s still being developed.

3. Colonization needs to be reworked​

The first thing that comes to mind is limiting the number of simultaneously colonizable regions based on your colonization institution level. It would also make sense to automatically gain a claim on a region being colonized — this could help reduce awkward, ahistorical border shapes.

Alternatively (or additionally), dynamic events could trigger colonial rivalries that might lead to war between two countries colonizing the same region.

You could expand this into a new type of diplomatic play — "Colonial Contest" — with a front limited to the colony in question. In areas like malaria zones, the Sahara, or deep jungle, you could limit the number of troops that can be deployed effectively — which would be historically accurate.

In real life, even by the late 19th and early 20th century, there were still African regions being colonized — even Germany managed to establish some presence. So perhaps colonization in the game should be slower or more expensive.

Also, diplomatic plays against decentralized nations feel pointless. I’d remove them completely and replace them with event-driven tension systems, with possible colonial setbacks if local hostility rises. Right now, these diplomatic plays against decentralized states are just annoying and feel like unnecessary busywork.

Important: The Netherlands should not start the game with the colonization institution. In the 19th century, their expansion was focused exclusively on Indonesia, which should be handled by the Dutch East India Company mechanics. The fact that they consistently try to colonize the Windward Coast, Mauritania, or Ivory Coast in every game is a bit immersion-breaking.

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Thanks if you’ve read this far. These are just my thoughts, written while still under the impression of finishing my game.

 

[cyberrb25]

2. Diplomatic plays still need work (especially with the new agreements)​

Take, for example, the “monopoly company” demand. You can add it, sure — but you must first demand something else to make it available? That feels clunky.

I had done a revision of the Diplo play that proposed something like the Article into the Diplomatic play, so the current mechanic wasn't as much a delayed War declaration as it would make the war start a (possible) consequence of the agreement falling off. They did do the Treaty mechanic, and tied having Treaties work as Diplo Play demands, but they became a bit too disjointed.

It would help if, in the making of a treaty, if after a proposal sent to the other side and the other side changing the prospects or outright denying it, you could use it as a Causus Belli.

To explain the process a bit:

1. Great Britain sends a Treaty to Japan that mandates Japan to offer a Treaty Port in Kyushu and, in exchange, Japan gets to receive Opium and some money, for 20 years.
2. Japan declines the Treaty.

After 2, Great Britain can decide to change the articles, but if they believe their Treaty proposal is right, to enforce it as the terms of the Diplo Play. From there they could decide to include some more stuff as new terms, and the original Treaty itself would have the Infamy the articles would be given (maybe balanced so the result would be the difference in Infamy cost, minus a reduction modifier for it being a Treaty proposal).

While playing, I asked myself: if the game tried to simulate World War I, what would each side's war goals be? Could it even happen at all under the current system? Who would actually fight, and for what?

With this, I do think the best way to simulate WWI without it being hardcoded into just a GB vs Germany war (of which there would need to be a Germany, for starters) would be to expand the Power Bloc to have more Bloc diplomacy in the game. That way, you could nudge the game towards making Bloc-to-Bloc relations to worsen over time, and at the end, the Blocs would end up at war between each other.

If you do it, especially if you buff the Ideological Union to be more desirable, make it possible to change the types of Power Bloc available, set up the Tensions mechanic and tweak some stuff (like Religious Blocs of different Religions to have very bad relations to each other, e.g), you could have the etchings to recreate WWI. Now, the way to make the Diplomatic Play's war goals get good enough (save a "dissolve Power Bloc" demand and/or have Humilliation+ being limiting the Army capacity) would need some work.

And the other stuff, being that we need Peace Conferences and the Diplo Play still works as the table is also on my OG proposal, but also the devs did talk about revamping it in a similar way.

 

[GreyOgre]

Most of your points are true, bit I will add that if you're seeking a challenge, you probably shouldn't pick the richest, most powerful and most technologically advanced nation on earth

 

[realCuervo]

Now start a game around the Victoria Lake instead of the Great Lakes.

 

[Helmut von Dandy]

Last night I finished a campaign as Great Britain and would like to share a few thoughts.

 

[IsaacCAT]

i would recommend you try the following game rules:

Game rule - Victoria 3 Wiki

vic3.paradoxwikis.com

AI behaviour versus players: Harsh
AI agression: harsh
Loyalties Grace Period: none

UK at the start of the game has a great advantage that is not difficult to keep for almost all game with the default settings. With this settings you might find that other nations are able to catch up with you as everyone is trying to be the next Empire on earth.

 

[Metz]

I think more in depth internal politics would help. Give interest groups multi leaders with different ideologies depending on their size so they compete internally. More law types and types of taxes. This would add more not only more challenges but more tools at ones disposal to play with.

Regarding colonization, it should be slightly more slower at the beginning but then speed up in the mid game. Colonies should also be slightly more expensive to maintain, meaning you need a strong well developed economy to fully colonize large areas.

 

[Ajax1k]

I see that some people were confused by the fact that I started my campaign as Great Britain, as mentioned in the original post. Of course, I've played as many other countries — including smaller nations. In fact, this was probably my first time playing as Great Britain, and I was expecting a tough challenge from the other great powers. Instead, the game disappointed me and only reinforced my overall opinion about the weakness of the AI, as I already described above.


I consider myself a fairly casual player, and I honestly expected the AI to easily outplay me.


Before this, I had campaigns as Orange, Paraguay, Brazil, Sweden, the Netherlands, Portugal, Oman, and Kafiristan — I even managed to get the Josiah Harlan achievement, even though I don’t use any exploits or cheesy strategies.


You can start as almost any country and you’ll see a similar pattern: the AI reacts very weakly to what you do. In my games, even when other countries did respond to my actions, their diplomatic demands were laughably minor — like gaining investment rights in a small subject, or changing a regime in the same place. That’s just not the kind of pressure that can slow down a rapidly growing player country.


As I’ve already said — these are just my personal, subjective thoughts and observations.

 

[marmot01]

The better off your starting position, the more difficult to measure success. It's a testament to the game's complexity that it prompts you to do some geopolitical analysis and think about what kind of world you want if you are playing as a great power.

 

[Citizen Caen]

I somewhat agree that AI doesn’t react enough to players actions. I know I’ve gotten away with things like Russia conquering Persia, that in real life would have faced immediate intervention by the rest of Europe. But that’s a difficult thing to balance, we’ve also had patches where the ai intervenes in every irrelevant war and people hated that just as much, so I try to give the devs some leeway on this topic.

However I will also echo others that it’s an unfair test to use the games strongest country to demolish the AI. AI Britain on its own tends to beat up the entire world and runaway with the prestige rankings, often getting around 10,000 prestige when the closest ai is around 5,000. Why would you think that’s a fair test in a players hands?

In my last game as Russia, I had a really interesting experience where AI Britain went over the 100 infamy Cap around the 1850s/60s that started a world coalition to dismantle them. Japan, France, Austria, United States, and Russia vs British Empire.

If you can believe it Britain actually fought it to a stalemate. Britain had a navy stronger than everyone combined which made it impossible to land on. They were also dropping naval invasions all over the world, which the coalition struggled with. We couldn’t necessarily intervene everywhere because our army supply would be cut by the British navy, and what should have been a beat down became a slog, as Britain picked off all the under defended colonial territories of the coalition. I was pretty impressed. And it taught me just how important the Navy is now with supply actually mattering.

 

[Ajax1k]

In my last game as Russia, I had a really interesting experience where AI Britain went over the 100 infamy Cap around the 1850s/60s that started a world coalition to dismantle them. Japan, France, Austria, United States, and Russia vs British Empire.

If you can believe it Britain actually fought it to a stalemate. Britain had a navy stronger than everyone combined which made it impossible to land on. They were also dropping naval invasions all over the world, which the coalition struggled with. We couldn’t necessarily intervene everywhere because our army supply would be cut by the British navy, and what should have been a beat down became a slog, as Britain picked off all the under defended colonial territories of the coalition. I was pretty impressed. And it taught me just how important the Navy is now with supply actually mattering.

A very unusual situation — I’ve never seen anything quite like it.

Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned that I was playing as Great Britain, and people got too focused on that. If I hadn’t said which country I played, perhaps more attention would have been paid to the core of the issue. After all, I could have written this after any of my recent games — the British campaign was just the final straw. But the pattern is largely the same when playing other countries too.

Think about how things go in similar situations in other Paradox games: when your country grows too strong, alliances and coalitions form around you. You’re pressured into releasing conquered territories or even entire nations — in other words, the AI tries to weaken you. It seems to recognize that you’re becoming too powerful and reacts accordingly.

I only wrote this after that particular campaign because I got the strong impression that the AI in Victoria 3 has no understanding of the fact that the player is gaining more and more power — and it simply doesn't respond to it. And again, this feels like a typical scenario for almost any country you choose.

And if the player is playing as Great Britain, then the AI should be even more active in opposing and competing with them — otherwise it ends up completely sidelined from the flow of the game's history.

 

[Citizen Caen]

A very unusual situation — I’ve never seen anything quite like it.

Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned that I was playing as Great Britain, and people got too focused on that. If I hadn’t said which country I played, perhaps more attention would have been paid to the core of the issue. After all, I could have written this after any of my recent games — the British campaign was just the final straw. But the pattern is largely the same when playing other countries too.

Think about how things go in similar situations in other Paradox games: when your country grows too strong, alliances and coalitions form around you. You’re pressured into releasing conquered territories or even entire nations — in other words, the AI tries to weaken you. It seems to recognize that you’re becoming too powerful and reacts accordingly.

I only wrote this after that particular campaign because I got the strong impression that the AI in Victoria 3 has no understanding of the fact that the player is gaining more and more power — and it simply doesn't respond to it. And again, this feels like a typical scenario for almost any country you choose.

And if the player is playing as Great Britain, then the AI should be even more active in opposing and competing with them — otherwise it ends up completely sidelined from the flow of the game's history.

I understand the crux of your point leaving aside playing as GB. But you know as I write this the top thread in this forum is titled:
“What's going wrong with the diplo play/war system that's leading to constant world wars?”
So which is it? Is the AI too passive or is it too eager to total death war?

IMO it’s both, because the current system has a lot variance to how the AI behaves and it has no sense of proportionality in its responses. It’s either All or Nothing. AI Great Britain fighting a death war with the French to defend Madagascar is just as bad as AI Great Britain and France doing nothing to stop Austria from forming Super Germany.

What I think is underlying this discussion is that the infamy system is insufficient to Model 19th Century Geopolitics.
Britain and France didn’t intervene in the Crimean War because Russia had bad PR. Ottoman’s had just as bad if not worse reputation. They intervened to try and maintain the balance of power.

And I think that’s where we should lead this discussion to. Brainstorming some kind Concert of Europe system. Where the Great Powers track each others performance and try to check each other from being too powerful. If one great power start to pull ahead the other Greats should team up to put them in their place. This also means they only intervene if the war is major, if it’s pointless colonial war that does nothing for the balance of power, these should not cascade into world wars.

 

[Ajax1k]

I understand the crux of your point leaving aside playing as GB. But you know as I write this the top thread in this forum is titled:
“What's going wrong with the diplo play/war system that's leading to constant world wars?”
So which is it? Is the AI too passive or is it too eager to total death war?

IMO it’s both, because the current system has a lot variance to how the AI behaves and it has no sense of proportionality in its responses. It’s either All or Nothing. AI Great Britain fighting a death war with the French to defend Madagascar is just as bad as AI Great Britain and France doing nothing to stop Austria from forming Super Germany.

What I think is underlying this discussion is that the infamy system is insufficient to Model 19th Century Geopolitics.
Britain and France didn’t intervene in the Crimean War because Russia had bad PR. Ottoman’s had just as bad if not worse reputation. They intervened to try and maintain the balance of power.

And I think that’s where we should lead this discussion to. Brainstorming some kind Concert of Europe system. Where the Great Powers track each others performance and try to check each other from being too powerful. If one great power start to pull ahead the other Greats should team up to put them in their place. This also means they only intervene if the war is major, if it’s pointless colonial war that does nothing for the balance of power, these should not cascade into world wars.

I really like your idea of a "Concert of Europe." I don't know how feasible it would be to implement, but I think it's a very interesting concept.