Victoria 3

[The Minsky Moment]

I feel they could try to make specialized economies more feasible. As is, often the optimal way to play is aiming for autarchy. It would be neat if international division of labor was more of a thing, or investors would see the potential of producing for export.

Generalist Gamer just released a Youtube video that goes into detail on this very subject.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5CWaVKLAoE

It's definitely an issue: during the timeline covered by the game, the share of GDP accounted for by international trade rose from 5 to 15%.  That isn't being simulated at all by the game.

The advantages given to overland trade routes are basically backwards; even in the age of rail, sea was and still is almost always more efficient. Same with how MAPI is implemented - the impact is spread evenly across a country, except if there is special river access.  In reality, coastal areas with ports were strongly tied to market whereas interior areas were not unless they had unusually good transport connections. Coastal areas in different countries should often trade more easily with each other than with interior areas in their own country.

As an example - see this map of British coal trade in 1864. https://www.loc.gov/resource/g3201h.ct007672/?r=-0.016,-0.155,1.111,0.818,0

Most of the British coal exports went to western Europe, with leading recipients including France, the Netherlands, Belgium, German states (the "Hanseatic" cities), and northern Italy.  Many of these countries had substantial coal deposits of their own or could access it overland within country or custom union. But for example in France, coal production was concentrated at this time in the Loire basin, in the west and south of the country.  Iron production was in the east and north.  It appears in some cases it was more efficient to import coal by sea from Britain through Dunkirk than to shlep it overland. 

Another significant recipient of British coal was the Russian fleet at Kronstadt, it was far easier to get coal shipped from British ports then from the Russian interior.

Vic 3 as currently set up doesn't replicate this kind of trading pattern.  Improvement of shipping tech allows you to change PMs to produce more convoys but what it really should do is decrease transport costs for goods.  There really should be a kind of "race" between transport cost improvements between shipping on the one hand, and rail/canal on the other, with shipping almost always ahead for areas around or near big ports.  if this were done properly it would also create a more meaningful distinction between free trade and protectionist laws.

[Syt]

Sorry, Minsky, for not replying sooner - agree with you on the points mentioned. The shipping cost is a factor in the game to some extent IMO. You have the rail transport production methods for most buildings, but unless you invest heavily into railroads in those states, and make sure it's reasonably cheap (i.e. provide engines at a reasonable cost, which means massive expansion of coal/iron/steel industry) it seems it's rarely worth making the switch from horse-drawn to rail in the production methods. In my US game I leaned heavily into it and was able to pull it off eventually (a lack of employable workers also helped, of course), but it's a major effort. It should be, but with transport being a local resource it also becomes very micro heavy (switching PM in one state but not the other).




I've been playing two games with this mod: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3161758017

BIS aims to mitigate needing to lead your country in one direction only in order to 'swerve' to your true political goals. And to allow a cultural legacy in which ideas can lead to further development and even entrench itself against unorthodox opposition. While also maintaining reactionary effects to the world, like unhappy IGs going to more extreme views or losing wars leading to particular views on jingoism or pacifism.

The Problem:
In vanilla, the chance for many leader ideologies to be selected depends on your current laws being totally opposed to it. This is to promote high volatility and dynamism where ideologies emerge when "relevant", i.e. as a reaction to the current political landscape.

The problem is this results in some ideologies being difficult to attain without cheesing your laws to 'zig-zag' to it and neglects the development of a cultural legacy in political thought. In vanilla, ideas like humanitarianism are unlikely to appear in egalitarian countries, and only interest groups in illiberal, backwards countries will find themselves led by humanitarians. Most leader ideologies work this way.

The Solution:
This mod adds three game rules for leader ideologies, modifying the weights to encourage a less reactionary or entrenched political landscape.

Game rules make the mod highly customizable so you can control how each ideology behaves. The default settings are some of my preferences.

Leader ideologies are chosen by a weighting system, which start at 100 and are added to or subtracted from based on different factors:

'Vanilla'
makes no changes to vanilla weightings. Weights listed are for comparison purposes and are likely not the only weights; check the Victoria 3 wiki[vic3.paradoxwikis.com] for full information. Any weights listed there but not here are present under all rule sets.

'Less Reactionary'
typically halves the reactionary weight values.

'Entrenched'
often increases chance if relevant laws are already enacted, particularly for content Interest Groups 'in government'. Can also reduce chance if there are no/few active laws supporting this ideology (i.e. opposing ideologies are entrenched and new, unorthodox ones are met with resistance)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/15lretyB7Rc_SYGiXIsDeN6TXW9jkOUzuPzMehqZrBVE/edit?usp=sharing

Modified leader ideologies include:
Nihilist, Republican, Radical, Feminist, Pacifist, Jingoist, Social Democrat, Communist, Vanguardist, Ethno-Nationalist, Market Liberal, Authoritarian, Protectionist, Humanitarian, Positivist, Land Reformer and Enlightened Royalist.

(some ideologies are left untouched such as fascism because their essence is inherently reactionary)

Compatibility
Overwrites the included ideologies, so will not be compatible with any other mod that also edits anything about an existing ideology.

Played one game as Piedmont => Italy and one as US. As Italy I set everything to "Less Reactionary" and for US I went with the recommended default (which leaves some on vanilla and sets I think "enlightened monarchy(?)" to "entrenched".

It was definitely a lot harder to get "the good laws." As Italy, the Petit Bourgeoisie was hard to get out of power, and the country became increasingly nationalist. In the end I had strong movements to enact Ethnostate and oppressive freedom of speech laws.

As US I ran into a similar case - the PB became and remained quite powerful (along with industrialists), though in that case the populace leaned hard towards isolationist technocracy.

It was definitely a different experience. Better? Hard to say.

[Solmyr]

As US I ran into a similar case - the PB became and remained quite powerful (along with industrialists), though in that case the populace leaned hard towards isolationist technocracy.

Historically correct but for 2024.

[grumbler]

So, I tried a game of Vic 3 as Japan (since I was just getting back into it after taking six months or so off while they tweaked) and found the changes interesting but also frustrating.  The idea that early economies have to be largely state-based is a step forward, as it prevents the concentration of industries that the early versions of the game encouraged. 

Now, things feel like they end up more realistic-looking, but at the cost of being not much fun to implement.  There are some production loops like iron mines needing tools to produce meaningful amounts of iron, but the tool workshops needing the iron before they can produce the tools the iron mines need.  Until the workshops create the demand for iron, the mines won't hire miners. Until the mine hires miners, the workshops won't hire workers to make the tools. So the player has to selectively (because in the early game there's not much cash) subsidize the mines until they produce some ore, and then stop subsidizing them to subsidize the workshops to make the tools, and so on back and forth until the two buildings reach the point that they are self-sustaining. That's more micromanagement than I want.  we see similar loops with Sulphur mines and explosives.

Japan isn't heavily involved in diplomacy, but the diplomatic system seemed broken from the outside of it.  Relations with the UK were always amiable or better, but the UK's attitude towards Japan swung randomly from protective to aggressive, with no perceivable cause other than the improving relations between Japan and France/USA.  I avoided alliances with any of the powers because I didn't want to get dragged into a war with the UK, and in fact have reached 1860 with no diplomatic plays against Japan.

In domestic politics, things seemed to work out pretty historically acceptable.  Japan settled into an agrarian economy with bits of government-sponsored industry and low radicalism/high legitimacy because of the near-uniformity of the population and subsequent lack of significant discrimination.  I am surprised that the local landowners don't mostly pick profitable agricultural buildings for their investments.  They seem to mostly just randomly select between unprofitable industries and profitable industries or resource extraction.

The fact that investors can use their funds to privatize all the profitable government-financed buildings for a tiny fraction of their construction cost seems weird to me.  I had to prohibit privatization in all government-owned buildings to keep the central budget afloat.   The flat privatization fee of $50k, whether privatizing a steel mill that cost $750k to build r a rice plantation that cost $200k to build seems badly off.

I had to laugh at myself when, in response to the low tax rates in the Japanese provinces, I built about a half-dozen administrative centers.  They didn't seem to be resolving the problem - they were, in fact, making the budget worse.  I then looked into things and discovered that each Admin center produced $5k additional taxes at a cost of $10k in paper and labor costs.  Oops!  Maybe those are for later in the game.

I can't deny that it's been fun, however, even with the micromanagement it sometimes required.  I'll probably take this game to 1900 or so, to see what happens.  That's if I can avoid a war with the UK when they switch to berserker mode.

[Syt]

In case of Japan - yeah, getting your economy up and running can be a bit of a struggle. It's easier if you're a nation with access to trade, because then at least you can usually import some of the deficient goods from the market (maybe not enough to satisfy need completely, but at least enough to get you going, and maybe earn some tariffs on the side).

For tools, you can start with crude tools which only need wood, but it's only half the production of what wrought iron tools, so it's a slow start either way.

And yes, admin overhead cost is a real pain. "I want these institutions, but I need more admin power for that ...." and then you look at the price for paper and the government payroll and weep. In the beginning having a bit of a deficit is not the worst thing, and the government admin techs (especially telephones if you can get them produced in quantity) are absolute game changers, plus the techs that reduce the effect of population size on admin cost. Additionally, buttering up the Petit Bourgeoisie can be worth it, because one of their buffs when they're happy is 10% increase of admin.

[Syt]

Some weirdness from recent games.

In one game, CSA stayed independent (happens way too often, and there should be a re-unification event chain if the Confederates get rid of slavery), abolished slavery, and Sherman became their chancellor in the 1880:



In a different game, things got weirder.

The South also abolishes slavery, and in the 1890s Harriett Tubman is chancellor (woke Confederacy!):



A little further down the line, Mexico loses states, the CSA becomes a theocracy, and the USA gave Florida away to Liberia.




In my (modded) USA game mentioned above, Russia became an Orthodox Republic and spent much of the game warring with Prussia (I occasionally intervened but mostly stayed out of Europe, Africa and Asia to focus on the Americas). Also, loads of colonial insurrections in Africa - I did not get involved in any of those.



However, I did actively help in shaping the Balkans every time someone rebelled against the Ottomans. Though the Brits and Greek later did stuff without me.

[Syt]

I just hope they figure out a way that revolutions are something other than civil wars in terms of mechanics. I feel the turmoil mechanic could be part of it - tbh, I rarely pay attention to turmoil numbers. Instead of splitting the country, maybe give a chance of player losing control of a state based on turmoil. Tie state events to turmoil. Cerate devastation based on turmoil. Using police to suppress turmoil effects should increase affect other states - increase radicalism of pops who are the main radicals in the turmoil state. Once you lose control of too much of the country, give the option to fight (civil war) or acquiesce (change of government and laws).

Losing control could be counter-acted by stationing armies and trying to lower radicalism/turmoil.

[Razgovory]

The picture of Harriet Tubman as leader of the Confederacy didn't come out right.

[Syt]

Apologies.

[Valmy]

If Harriet Tubman came back from the dead and ran for an office in the South NOW I am not sure she would win, much less be head of government in the 19th century.

But maybe this is some kind of alternative history where the African-Americans took over.

Though how dare Harriet Tubman be called a grifter!

[Barrister]

Harriett Tubman, leader of the Confederate States of America.

On the one hand that is the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen in a game that tries to have some claim to historical accuracy.

On the other hand - I kind of want to play games were such a thing might be possible, too.

[The Minsky Moment]

Even worse than Tubman being Chancellor (sic) of the CSA, is that she has the trait of "grifter".  Dude, that's just wrong.

Anyhow, from the screenshot it looks like CSA is very small (10 battalions and in the Spanish market). It might help to see them on the map.  It could be that the "CSA" is just a breakaway black majority enclave.

[Syt]

Even worse than Tubman being Chancellor (sic) of the CSA, is that she has the trait of "grifter".  Dude, that's just wrong.

Anyhow, from the screenshot it looks like CSA is very small (10 battalions and in the Spanish market). It might help to see them on the map.  It could be that the "CSA" is just a breakaway black majority enclave.

The map in my previous screenshot shows the CSA. It's the one where the US gave Florida to Liberia.

[The Minsky Moment]

Yeah that's not right.

US politics is pretty badly broken as a general matter, at least as of 1.7.  It's probably not going to be fixed until a country specific DLC is released.

[Syt]

JFC. As France, I had Persia as my protectorate, following a war I joined on their enemies' side, all going swimmingly, and the Persians are good little subjects.

Until ....

I ally Britain. Not a week later, Persia starts a play on Britain to return a state they have claims on. Britain reacts by declaring war goals on 5 of their heartland provinces, including the capital.

I can't join on Britain's side, because Persia is my protectorate and Power Bloc and I can't join wars against them. I can't join on Persia's side, because I can't cancel the alliance with Britain for another 7 months.

Only option would be to abandon Persia and then see what I can steal when Britain and I stomp them.

Still, I feel the Persian AI didn't think this through.