Victoria 3

[Syt]

Had started a Holstein game "to see how it goes." 

After breaking from Denmark I was GB's protectorate (joined them for protection after leaving Danish personal union, and for their sweet, sweet market). I had Schleswig-Holstein, Jutland, Hanover, Friesland, Hamburg and Brunswick, plus large chunks of Africa and all of Arabia.

Prussia had morphed into NGF and declared unification war on Bavaria. First time I missed that it was unification war, so I just opted out. Prussia stomped Bavaria and annexed them and me - game over.

Ok, I thought, maybe me being neutral was counted as implicitly "accepting" Prussian rule, so I loaded a previous save and joined the war. My armies had few issues with the Prussian enemy, but since Bavaria at this point was a single province with few troops, they surrendered before I could crush Prussia. And of course I was not allowed to fight on and instead was - again - annexed.

I had not supported any German unifier during the game. I was not able to call in GB's help in any way (since I wasn't the target of the play). And I feel that the unification war goal should not resolve when the main target capitulates (have it be annexed, but let the others fight on ... ).

I guess the lesson I learned was that if I play a German minor every again I will need to crush Prussia, or not be a protectorate (as protectorate you can't rise above minor power, and when unification triggers, all minor powers and below get absorbed) to make sure they can't launch unification plays and simply click "game over" for me.

[Zanza]

They should just give players the chance to say no regardless of any other rule. It is a SP game after all.

[Tamas]

Absolutely, but this thing also highlights the big gaping hole of the diplomatic/foreign political situation not affecting domestic politics at all, bar a few events.

By all means the player should be able to stay independent, but it would then start to look incredibly stupid that they then would not face internal pressures to join a unified Germany.

[Zanza]

That's true. No real interaction there between those two systems.

[Syt]

I went back to an older save. Built up more military and declared a play to force NGF to release Prussia. I manage to get GB to join as NGF has easily 2-3x my troops, and slightly more modern ones. GB (as my protector) become war leader. And do nothing. Zero. Zilch. They let NGF stomp over their colonies, and leave me to fight them alone, while mobilizing 2 (in words: two) battalions out of almost 600. And then they just White Peace at some point.

[Syt]

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/victoria-3-dev-diary-80-law-enactment-and-revolution-clock-in-1-3.1577105/

Dev Diary on rework of law enactment. Breaking it up into three phases and adding a setbacks mechanic should counter much of the randomness of it at the moment. You can get up to 2 setbacks per phase with each resetting the law's odds (instead of potentially going negative), the 3rd setback in a phase will make the law fail. Stopping to enact a law for any reason will take it off the agenda for 2 years.

Also, removing exploits (starting/stopping laws to keep political movements appeased without giving in) is good. I like the idea of IGs in government petitioning for laws furthering their interests. In practice it was too easy to have a government that only supports laws you don't like to ensure high legitimacy and then just having them not trying to pass any laws at all and wait around for shifts in power and/or useful political movements. This way you need to be much more conscious about who you actually want to have in government while also maintaining stability.

And making revolutionary movements more interactive (40 new events according to DD) is also a good move.

[Tamas]

Thanks Syt, that is looking very promising. Also I think I have now entered the usual Paradox territory with Victoria 3, where I am holding off playing for months because of the new patch announced.

[The Minsky Moment]

Those censorship laws seem a bit overboard.

[Syt]

Last week's dev diary covered some of the new laws coming:

Land Ownership laws is the big ones, but there's also One Party State, State Atheism, a technocrat state, and, a bit silly IMHO, a law that disbands all non-basic industry and turns you full agrarian.

This week, announcing Immersion Pack "Voice of the People":

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/victoria-3-dev-diary-82-voice-of-the-people.1578723/

Adds agitators (e.g. Leon Trotsky, Sun Yat Sen, Susan B Anthony) that can be exiled (or invited), and based on a dev comment down the thread, you can also assassinate them ...

Agitators are a new kind of character that rally your pops to support Political Movements that align with their Ideology. Agitators will shake up your internal politics, acting independently of their Interest Groups. Amplifying power from below, Agitators serve an opposite function to Interest Group Petitions which reflect the demands of the political elite. Depending on how your goals align with theirs, Agitators might be a painful thorn in your side or a valuable ally to your political agenda.

Very much in favor of this.



Agitators will come with the free update, though it seems some interactions will be limited to the add on.

Main focus of the paid content will be French flavor, though - more journal entries, decisions, etc. Let's face it, it's a mission tree in sheep's clothing.

The team's definition of Immersion Packs:

Immersion Packs are envisioned as content-driven and art-heavy, with mechanical features that support this content and make the world come to life. As the title implies, Immersion Packs are about immersion. You can expect them to contain plenty of narrative content like Events and Journal Entries, major visual updates, and light but impactful new mechanical features and systems reworks. Immersion Packs will be themed around one country or region of the world, and this is where the bulk of narrative content and art will be focused and take inspiration from. These new mechanical features and systems reworks will be mostly contained in the free update that will be released alongside the Immersion Pack - everyone gets the feature, but Immersion Pack owners will also get all the bells and whistles. In the case of Voice of the People, Agitators will be a free feature while certain interactions (such as Exiling characters) will be included in the Immersion Pack.

[Zanza]

Sounds good, both the free update and the immersion pack. I hope they get enough revenue on the game to keep going for a few years building stuff.  I enjoy the time period.

[Syt]

[Syt]

OPB (over)analyzing the Dev Diary, trailer, and screenshots on Steam, and I'm getting way too excited (and worried whether the AI will be able to handle agitators and the revised legislation/movement/revolution mechanics properly ). 

[Tamas]

OPB (over)analyzing the Dev Diary, trailer, and screenshots on Steam, and I'm getting way too excited (and worried whether the AI will be able to handle agitators and the revised legislation/movement/revolution mechanics properly ). 

You know the answer to the AI question already.

I like OPB but he is very prone to being carried away and dreaming things into things.

[Syt]

Yes, I try to ignore those tangents of his

(though tbf he might also look at it from a perspective of potential mods )

[Syt]