VICTORIA III - Available now!

[solops]

I have zero expectations given the trend of Paradox lately, but I will say they are at least saying the right things so far and Wiz is the only person I'd even remotely trust to do a decent job. The fact that there's no mana and no mission trees already removes two of the biggest knocks on modern Paradox design philosophy. My gut tells me the game will still pale in comparison to Vic 2 and I'd highly recommend not pre-ordering. Paradox really needs to learn to not take customers for granted and if they want my money then they'll have to knock this one out of the park on release. No more pay $60 and wait 3 years for another $100 in DLC, patches, and mods to flesh out the game.

Having bought Paradox games for almost 20 years, I'm pretty much done with the studio but I look forward to seeing the reviews on this after it drops. Until then it's not worth the time following given how many bridges they've burned.

+1
Well said. Paradox titles are no longer day 1 must buy for me.

[Old TImer]

"I'm a bit worried that they're going to try to sanitize much of the history in order to appeal to present day morality and avoid controversy now that they're publicly traded."

This exactly!

[al_infierno]

"I'm a bit worried that they're going to try to sanitize much of the history in order to appeal to present day morality and avoid controversy now that they're publicly traded."

This exactly!

The newest dev diary has my hopes up that this won't be the case.  It looks like the game will include a detailed and historically authentic slavery system.

"Through our Pop system we are trying to represent every individual human on the planet from 1836," wrote Anward, "so what statement would we be making if we simply wrote all enslaved individuals out of history, or reduced them into an abstract set of modifiers?"

I like how, in addition to pops, this game looks to be including characters similar to the Crusader Kings series.  Screenie below taken from the PCG article.



https://www.pcgamer.com/victoria-3-devs-on-handling-slavery-in-a-historical-strategy-game/

[fran]

That slavery is represented makes sense. I would think as time marched on you would get penalized, or incentivised not to continue with slavery as a late-game mechanic.

[fran]

I would consider this a day one purchase. I enjoy the fact that I would be forced to take a VIII non-military route to be successful. And in doing so make use of non-military game mechanics, where if it's the purely military focus, I would have naturally concentrated on.

Similar to CK3 focus on intrigue, spymaster actions.

[Destraex]

"I'm a bit worried that they're going to try to sanitize much of the history in order to appeal to present day morality and avoid controversy now that they're publicly traded."

This exactly!

Exactly my thoughts as well.
Although I am after an economic simulator I am less interested in a political one though. I don't mind the war.
I wonder why politics is not covered more as a first person sort of deal in these games.

[JasonPratt]

Necro thread... ARIIIISE!

1836 to 1936, just as we hoped. Epic WW1 simulator with lots of buildup, reborn! 

(WW1 not guaranteed and probably not well implemented if so.)

[fabius]

I'm curious and hopeful for how the new war system will pan out

A few years ago I'd have wanted more control of individual units. But years of AI woes leads open to more abstraction

[W8taminute]

All the cool kids want Victoria III for all the WW1 aspects of it.   8)

[CJReich46]

Interesting. I'll wait and see on this one. I have yet to even crack open EU IV.

[al_infierno]

Didn't Vicky 2 have a Great War system?  Is the expectation that the WW1 system in Vicky 3 will be different?

[SirAndrewD]

Didn't Vicky 2 have a Great War system?  Is the expectation that the WW1 system in Vicky 3 will be different?

Considering how massively the game seems to be abstracting and sidetracking war, I wouldn't heavily count in Vicky 3 making the Great War a focus.

[glen55]

Necro thread... ARIIIISE!

1836 to 1936, just as we hoped. Epic WW1 simulator with lots of buildup, reborn! 

(WW1 not guaranteed and probably not well implemented if so.)

You hoped for an 1836 start, does EU 4 go to 1836 now? Did they mention an EU4-V3 converter?

[JasonPratt]

Re 1836 start: it was more of the 1936 that we hoped for; and understandably they wouldn't kick off with the Nappy wars, and would have to start reasonably past those. I recall Vicky2 starting around then, too, but I haven't played it for a while and I'm too lazy to go look yet not too lazy to write rambling posts on a message board while correcting my speling.



Ditto EU4, I recall it goes farther than I was expecting, but I can't recall if that includes up to V2's start.

Didn't Vicky 2 have a Great War system?  Is the expectation that the WW1 system in Vicky 3 will be different?

Oh, it has SO MUCH Great War that the game often breaks out into three or four late game wars that it's eager to label as Great Wars!

Without the affectionate sarcasm directed toward the game: it has... period-appropriate kit wars during and past the time period (out to the nominal start for HOI). The Great Powers can get involved in these wars fighting directly against each other naturally. Is it World War I? .....answer unclear, try again later.

To be fair, the 80 years prep (and there wasn't a shorter scenario for it, focusing on WW1's direct setup and execution) naturally tends to diverge so much toward the end of the game period, that it might be difficult to even intentionally set up something recognizable as "World War I". A player can hardly get the ACW and other pre-20th century wars to trigger off recognizably, though the code is ready to recognize something as being those-wars.

[al_infierno]

^ Thanks for the clarification, I only vaguely remember Vicky 2 but I do recall really weird "Great Wars" happening in the 1890s, to the point that two or three had usually occurred by 1914 ???