Victoria 3

Yes. It’s explained as a kind of abstraction of storage and market arbitrage, but there’s no time component. Supply can be below demand for arbitrarily long without negative effects other than price and the money leak. If the supply becomes too small relative to demand (currently set at 25%), then buyers get hit with a scaling production penalty.

Yeah me too.

A short DD on states today.

Hopefully there will be more details on exactly how resource and building distribution works in the blue comments.

There are quite a few clarifications down in the comments on that. Basically, it seems as though the game just computes those splits as needed based on available information. So amount of coastline is how it decides to split up fisheries and there is the concept of “prime land” that determines splitting things like farmland. Example given for that one was that controlling provinces containing the Nile will get you much more than controlling the desert provinces within the same state.

Wow, I’ve fallen behind on posting dev diaries:

I haven’t had much to complain about. These all seem like good evolutions/upgrades of previous systems. It seems that the next few DDs will stick to explaining the diplomacy system. It will be nice to see details of diplomatic plays.

Very curious about when they will start talking about the war mechanics. That’s one area they’ve been completely silent.

Maybe Vicky 3, will be post war, wargame :-).

I’m not sure I agree with this change.

The key difference between Relations here and in those games is that in Victoria 3 relations are bilateral , meaning that while in Europa Universalis France can have a relations of -100 with Prussia while Prussia has a relations of +100 with France, in Victoria 3 these two countries will always have the same Relations score towards each other.

An aggressive/badboy nation may have a generally positive view of its neighbors, but they would have a negative view of the aggressive country.

Although, I guess infamy handles this pretty well.

TAKE MY MONEY!

The number of “hoping to have time to add it before release” probably means it’s not, say, a year away.

Surviving the Aftermath is Nov 16th
Hearts of Iron DLC, No Step back is Nov 23th
So Victoria 3 should be Nov 30th.

That gives us Paradox fans a whole week to play the games, plenty of time.

With all the logistical issues in the world, they have have reserve the bandwidth, to download Victoria 3 before Xmas :-).

Looks like tomorrow’s dev diary will finally reveal where they are going on warfare. They’ve been almost completely silent on that so far.

Some of the earlier diaries had made me think they simply jettisoned the crisis mechanic from Vicky 2. I should have known better. They took the mechanic and made it more integral!

Launch date leak by Geforce something or other
image

Obviously an estimate, as it’s not even a Tuesday, and not that recent, as VTM2 is, hmm, TBD on another studio, but it’s a hint.

The theory I like is May 24th, Queen Victoria’s birthday.

Before I end this dev diary, I want to talk briefly about our most radical departure from other Paradox GSGs - the absence of units you move on the map, and why we chose to go in this direction. The main reason is simply that Victoria 3 is a game primarily focused on Economy, Diplomacy and Politics and we felt a more strategic approach to warfare mechanics fits the game better than micro-intensive tactical maneuvering.

It’s important to note that how this works differs completely from having AI-controlled units in our other GSGs, since in Victoria 3 armies you assign armies to fronts rather than provinces (navies of course work differently, but more on that later). We’ll be getting into the exact details of the mechanics for both armies and navies in the coming weeks.

I kind of suspected, with the way this was set up as a concept diary, that the concept would be a big departure.

This also ties into the general costliness of wars and the fact that you can achieve your ends through diplomacy - we want the ways in which an outmatched Victoria 3 player triumphs over their enemies to be clever diplomacy, well-planned logistics and rational strategic thinking rather than brilliant generalship.

I think this is a very strong point. Hopefully no cheesing the AI at the tactical level here.

I never understood why Paradox games have such detailed tactical battles that the player can’t affect or even really interact with. This new approach sounds much better.

Absolutely love it. This is how I’ve wanted warfare in all these games. Chasing armies around in EU4 really doesn’t add anything for me.

Also this:

Yes yes yes! EU4 is probably the most egregious offender for me here in how unimportant Navy is compared to Army in Paradox games.

I’m getting really excited for this one. Pretty much every dev diary has me nodding my head in agreement. While execution/implementation still remain to be seen, the design intentions all sound really good to me.

Completely agree

So you haven’t played as Byzantium then :)

There is definitely value in navies, for certain countries. Japan, Malaya, most mediterranean nations all have value for them. That said the value for blockades would be better suited to less warscore, more secondary effects. Devastation in particular is a largely negligible impact, having a blockade squeeze that more, and having that trickle into other loops would be good.

Hah! Not saying they’re useless and in a situation like that, definitely important. But I feel like as a whole Navy feels nowhere near as important as it should in a game taking place in that era. Even mechanically, Navy feels neglected!

A nation like England/United Kingdom feels so underwhelming (especially in the hands of the AI) due to that.

How am I possibly going to conquer the world as Luxumberg by 1900 without military units?
This sucks.

Actually, I’m quite happy if for no other reason than will be able to save me a ton of time, not have to go from speed 1 and 2, to speed 1 plus constant pauses as I micro my units,like I’ve done in HOI IV, Rome Imperator, and EU IV.

However, this puts immense pressure for Paradox to develop a truly competent AI that actually knows how to play the game rather than just, some half-asses, AI which you can make up for by giving the AI bonuses for production and military strength.

They clarified that it isn’t just AI controlling units that behave like the units in other PDX games but is designed from scratch for the strategic player manipulation. We’ll see what the details look like in the coming weeks.

Also, I went out of my way to read the responses to this dev diary rather than just the dev responses. Apparently the game is ruined now. At least for some part of the community. I really like the people who basically admitted there aren’t enough details to understand the new system but also they hate it. Lots of very positive feedback too, that’s just not as much fun.

Good suggestion i did the same.

This comment nicely expresses my opinion. That said I can easily someone like Tom, (and myself) getting all excited about the numerous system, and then realize the AI has absolutely no clue how to make strategic decision.

Programmers and Chess Grandmasters spent decades trying to teach computers about chess strategy before giving up and just using intelligent brute force to make a great Chess AI.

I think you’ll get a lot of backlash for this but I just want to say that this approach to warfare is IMO > 100% the right call and I can’t wait to see it implemented.

Old-style PDX warfare is fun and engaging until it isn’t. When you’re a small country fighting on a small front, you can micro your army easily. But once you’re getting bigger, and the fronts get longer (or, God forbid, you have to fight on several fronts) then the whole system collapses entirely. I’m super glad the warfare system won’t be the same for a game that’s supposed to simulate things like WW1, with its stationary fronts (like the Western Front) and, well, the fact it is a World War in the first place. It will absolutely make for a better game.