Victoria 3

[Syt]

So I took my Russia game to 1899. Anbeeld's AI is great at making sure the AI economies stay competitive and don't collapse because they decide to get rid of all their ports. But I guess that also means that some countries become maybe a bit too easy for human players?

[Syt]

If anything, I'm vastly underperforming, because I have 585 million sitting in my investment pool, and only 1500 construction.

[Syt]

Beta 1.2.1 is out. I haven't tried the beta yet, but overall the feedback has been positive. I will probably give it a go this weekend.

The AI seems much better at handling its economy. Also, the "private" constructions seems a good step forward but may need a bit of tweaking to make it a bit more transparent. I briefly checked the 1.2 release last weekend as Japan, but didn't get far before a crash (and also, developing Japan's economy is even slower now, even though I got very lucky with pushes for political reform ... also, I may have overlooked that Japan had no navy when I declared war on Korea.  ). The interface is much improved IMO, with sevearl QoL features provided by mods added to the game. Still room for improvement but so much better. Message settings are in, but they mostly seem to provide what tweaking the message settings file in a text editor does (so no choosing a proper popup for a message that doesn't have a popup created for it yet; can only use a "toast"), but better than nothing.

Two of the biggest economy changes are the autonomous building by your capitalists/landowners etc. (can be enabled/disabled in games rules). Based on your economic law, the investment pool is used by private actors to queue buildings. So in agrarian economy, they will build farms etc. They largely use the "normal" AI scripts for that, and it seems to mostly work well.

Another huge change aorund this is that turmoil now decreases construction efficiency. What it means in practice is that if you have areas with high radicalism (recently conquered territory, areas with low/dropping standards of living, angry interest groups ... ) resulting in turmoil it will slow down construction and can stop it all together.

I like this change, but since building stuff to increase SoL is one of the main ways to combat radicalism, it will make it a lot harder to take care of it - I have to check myself if it's too much of a roadblock now; I wouldn't want them to give the player too many ways (or only one way) to deal with this and make it too easy (or a simple if X then Y player decision), but it should also still be possible to crawl back out of it. It wil for sure make Springtime of Nations, or enacting unpopular laws with tons of opposition a lot more difficult. Heck, it might be better to just let a revolution trigger in such a case going forward? But it might make you look more into political reforms as an alternative to combating this issue. I wish they added a military option (besides violent oppression) to deal with turmoil, though. In many countries of the era, the army was used to keep down low level insurgencies (which turmoils is meant to represent I assume); it would add a wrinkle to have to keep an army mobilized to deal with it (with the costs that means) - it could suppress the effects of turmoil, but not lower radicalism, so it wuld give you a (possibly expensive) band aid while handling the situation.

[Zanza]

The game is significantly improved with the 1.2 beta. Definitely worth another round if you only played after launch.

[HisMajestyBOB]

And it's on sale on Steam too. Kinda tempted.

[Syt]

I've been playing a lot with the beta in recent weeks (with One Proud Bavarian's tweaks, many of which made it into the patch) - finished full games as USA, Russia, Belgium, Japan and currently doing Britain. It's what the game should have been at launch.

Economy works a lot better (autonomous building helps a lot with the micro, but depending on economic law can also strengthen existing "rich" people - I had a fair bit of struggle dislodging the landowners in Russia and Japan for good).

Wars make more sense (AI is more active/aggressive, and no "stuck" wars without fighting any more). Combat seems a lot less random and involves more troops (depending on size of fronts). Front splitting/merging can still be improved, but a lot less troublesome IMO. You can set a strategic goal for each theater that the leaders will go for. Generals for commanding battles are chosen more carefully (e.g. defensive leaders on defense etc.).

You can press more than one wargoal during diplo plays as "primary" for extra infamy - so even if the opponent backs down - which happens far less often - you get all primary goals you asked for. Allies won't join your enemies during diplo plays any more, and AI powers joining opposing sides seems to make more sense.

Some nations start with claims on colonial areas, to prevent others poaching them (Canada/US border, South America, Japan) without forcing them to abandon the claim in war. Country events have been cleaned up/improved (US Civil War, China turmoils, Ottomans, unifications) or added (Russia going for Asian territory from Qing).

Tech progress has bee slowed down significantly (some of it compensated by tweaking existing journal entries - like those for getting a level 5 building with 90% workforce - that can give you a headstart on follow up techs).

Wage mechanics and employment have been revamped to make more sense (and keep people poor longer). There's more political demands for laws.

Diplo still could use more improvement (scheduled for 1.3), and the game can still be a bit easy if you min/max, but it's a far cry from what it was. I wish trade could be automated a bit more.

But overall really, really enjoying it.

[Solmyr]

I've been playing a lot with the beta in recent weeks (with One Proud Bavarian's tweaks, many of which made it into the patch)

Is that the Open Beta Tweaks mod on Steam? Does it work with the current live version?

[Syt]

Only use it if it's been updated yesterday or today. Most changes are part of the patch.

[The Minsky Moment]

Going to get back to this now that 1.2 is out officially.

[Zanza]

I am currently playing as Two Sicilies. Very good basis to make the GDP line go up as all resources needed are available.

I expected to get the Italian minors by just influencing them, but so far I could just get some to join my customs union. I cannot bankroll so far as I do not have the tech yet (next in pipeline). When launching a unification play, they all abandon me.

As I needed lead, I conquered Attica. Later conquered the rest of Greece and then defended against a separatist insurrection.

My politics and laws is completely stagnant. The land owners are the only party in government, including the king. I have passed one law in 15 years or so and cannot really make any progress here. Let's see how that will develop...

Innovativeness is also weak, but easier to rectify than politics. 

[Syt]

I'm playing as Republic of GB by now (1900). It feels very much like easy mode now, because I deciced to go for a bit of a conquest spree - I first annexed the Canadian, South African and Australian colonies, got a headstart on colonizing Africa and otherwise snatching up nations in Africa, plus adding Indian vassals. Got a treaty port in Japan. Also had super-Germany form (Germany had been formed by Austria-Hungary, creating a big grey blob in Central Europe, minus my protectorates of Hamburg, Bremen, Oldenburg and Hanover. Netherlands, Mexico and Portugal are protectorates. Keeping my infamy low I managed to avoid any major gang-ups by other powers up till the point I was too strong for them to pose much of a threat. Though I did try to help Mexico in the 1840s to fight the US, and I didn't have enough power yet and had to accept humiliation.

Decided to dismantle Germany and eliminate them as a threat by forcing them to release Prussia, Austria and Bavaria - this created terrible border gore (not helped by Austria + Bavaria being released as one ... ?). Also, forced France to release Occitania and Brittany. I have 1300 trench infantry battalions, plus 1300 reserves, an 800+ strength fleet and have reached the point, I think, where "Infamy is just a number". Having access to copious amounts of oil, rubber and opium surely helps.

I'm integrating all my states now (had done so first with the "original" colonies you start with), and still run a 25k bureaucracy surplus after switching to telephone switchboards in my government admin buildings. All while running a 100k budget surplus at maxed admin and military wages and average taxes (plus porcelain tax), multiculturism, total separation of church/state and universal suffrage. I think I will add Egypt/Persia to the Empire, and the Eastern US + Alaska (and dismantle much of Russia).

That said, I found other countries much more challenging - as Japan I was struggling to kick out the Shogunate and didn't catch up technologically to the top power (GB, France, Germany) till 1936, though I did manage to bully Russia who still had peasant levies to get my formal recognition. I did enter quite a few wars where I had to eat the loss when other major powers joined or where my troops weren't as strong as I'd hoped them to be.

As Russia it took me forever to dislodge the landowners and church from power - the autonomous building slows things down there. Landowners are much more likely to invest in agricultural businesses, which feeds into their power base.

[Syt]

Finished my GB game. I had wanted to do the economic hegemony achievement, but one of the goals requires you to push the price for coal, iron and steel to 25% below avg. price ... which is incredibly hard to impossible at the moment.

So I mostly tried to conquer as much of the world as I could, but I did get the Anarchy in the UK achievement for turning the UK into an anarchist commune.

I generally don't go for world conquest (and I surely was inefficient - could have exploited more enemy pacts/alliances to skip truce timers, could have been more aggressive before I had snowballed too much, could have snatched up more minors etc.; grabbing pieces of China was a great boost to making sure my factories have enough labor; I would have like to "clean up" Europe's borders more and I wished I could have taken more of the US. ). I had 4B GDP in the end, and 1.2B population (many in incorporated states), 2000 battalions of troops (plus 6000 in reserves) and 1200 fleets. I was the only Great Power left, Russia and Occitaine were Major Power, and the rest were Minor Powers and lower.

Overall it was fun, but I think I prefer playing less "paint the map" (except through customs unions ...  )and lean more into "realistic" behavior. Also, having such a big economy makes the game really, really lag a lot, much more than running a smaller country and less going for mega-wars.



https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/2063250888823241095/3BBC6F06872DA25DF944F06D2A50D103E0A463AA/

[Syt]

Oh, and one annoyance - battles tend to drag too much at the end. According to devs, the combat resolution currently looks at the number of troops, and when the losing side is dwindling, it removes troops from the winning side to "preserve" them, which leads to pretty drawn out turns with only a few hundred losing defenders taking a long time to clean up. They promise to fix this for 1.3.

[Syt]

Well, I finished a Qing game while running a feverish cold the last few days.

The huge size and population means you don't have to expand much (I gobbled up only Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim, plus Borneo and the Moluccas). Otherwise I only focused on internal development.

I allied GB and then dow'ed Austria to become recognized. Besides that I fought no wars against Great Powers (except if some ally called me in).

There's a mechanic where if you fail 5 of a list of conditions Qing can fall apart - however, they can all only trigger once, it seems. The first time I had a secession movement it counted as a failed condition, the second time it didn't.

I didn't quite catch up to the Western powers in tech, and I spent a lot of time building up administration to handle the huge population/collect taxes. Also, it took a while to get landowners/religious groups whittled down. I got parliamentary system via fluke, and royalists with high radicalism kept trying to start revolutions. So I would placate them for a while pretending to re-instate monarchy till the revolution bar simmered down a bit, then stopped enacting the law - rinse/repeat till the political movement disbanded and I finished "stamping out the monarchy".

I think I'm really done for now. I've got hundreds our hours out of this, but I'm at the point where if you know how to get your economy going, how to avoid nasty wars (and get useful allies/protectors at the start) and expand judiciously, the game is a bit on the easy side unless you set yourself some limitations (running an authoritarian slave state focused on agriculture in South America, maintaining the ancien regimes of Russia/Austria or something).

[Zanza]

Still playing my Italy game. It is 1890 now and I have the largest GDP in the world. Prestigewise I can compete with France for #2, but not yet with UK. My country is rapidly growing from immigration and I conquer colonies around the globe. Innovativeness is still middling, limited by my alphabetization. I had passed all liberal laws in the 1870s or so, even women's suffrage recently.

The game is fun, but not as varied as Stellaris or EU4. You can also see that in the player base at Steam. I guess they will develop a bit further, but then do an Imperatir ending.