Victoria 3

[Zanza]

I hope the game will be updated long enough to get such content Packs at least for all the major nations.

[Syt]

I accidentally started a new game. I only wanted to check OPB's tweak mod, and a more flavor events mod, and ended up playing till 1904. 

In a premiere, I played as Prussia and formed Germany for the first time in any Victoria game. Yeah, yeah, I know.

Did it almost entirely diplomatically - only had to go to war to liberate Schleswig and Holstein, and to later integrate Oldenburg and Baden.

One of the biggest changes in the tweak mod is the revamp of colonization. Each step of investment in the colonial institution allows you to grow one colony. So if you have only 1 point in it, you can grow one colony, if you have it maxed at 5 you can grow 5. This stops early colony spam/racing quite well. Additionally, once you grow your colonies to a certain size, you get a claim on the whole state. Overall, this slows down colonization a lot while also creating (mostly) better colonial borders. Till the 1870s there were still big chunks uncolonized, by 1904 there's a few crumbs left. Nice.

Speaking of colonies - if the Dutch East Indies become independent in this mod, there's a big chance they fall apart (like British Raj). It happened in my game, so suddenly there was a mad rush between me, Russia, Netherlands and Spain for all the newly available real estate.

I didn't play around with the land ownership laws - Germany has tenant farming, and there's not really much reason to change that.

The mod also improves a bit on the springtime of peoples events, making them more likely to happen, and also adding chances for national revolts (I had Lithuanians rising up in East Prussia, I saw Hungarians, Czechs, and Italians try to break free from Austria).

I've also seen some national uprisings in the Balkans against the Ottomans (I think there's increased chance after they fail the Tanzimat), but without outside help they have small hope of success. The oppressed people migrate to my Germany, though, so no complaints.

Admittedly my biggest challenge was internal politics. I moved from National Supremacy to Racial Segregation quite quickly, and also got lucky with a political movement for universal suffrage, but then it became stagnant for a while. My monarch was landowner/pacifist (with church/traditionalist heir), so not including them in government gave big legitimacy penalties. Also, dedicated police force bolsters Petite Bourgeoisie by 10% per level of the institution. I often ended up with unacceptable governments, because there was no ideological viable combination that represented both voters and monarchy. It was frustrating, but also entertaining to try and cut that knot - but mostly it made me wish for the next patch. If I had reactionary groups in power I just stopped enacting laws for a while. It should be interesting in the new patch to have them suggest and insist on laws (or, if they're powerful, angry, and in government, try a coup).

In the end I got a parliamentary republic by:
- rolling back protected speech to censorship (to appease conservatives, so they don't radicalize when I remoce the monarchy)
- switching to secret police (again, to appease conservatives)
- using my authority to suppress the conservatives (the secret police helping a lot)
- purging the general ranks (I had a long, long, long streak of Junker/Rural Folk/Church traditionalists/royalists to overcome)

With the conservatives/reactionaries now out of government, we can re-introduce protected speech and get rid of the secret police

Our neighbors in France had lost a war against Britain, in the wake of which Algeria, their Carribean holdings and Corsica became independent. They later tried to re-take Algeria (which was now dominion, since I owned most of NW Africa) - I managed to sway Britain to join, and I ended up cleaning out a few French colonies I had claims on (see above), but - more importantly - force them to release Occitania, crippling them in Europe.

Unfortunately, the game speed at this point in the game is now pretty bad

[Zanza]

In a premiere, I played as Prussia and formed Germany for the first time in any Victoria game. Yeah, yeah, I know.

That's probably half my Victoria games. 

[Syt]

Tried again today, game ran faster again - maybe memory leak? Or maybe just too many wars going on. By 1933 I was well ahead of the curve (almost 30k prestige, about 3x that of GB), but I decided to call it quits here, because my protectorates had one after revolution after another, and sending my mobile infantry to help them all the time became way too tedious. I did manage to dismantle Austria almost completely, and Russia partially. France had a revolution during my invasion, so I supported the commies and had them join my market, too.





I hadn't paid much attention to the Americas, so I was a bit surprised when the US asked to join my customs union.

[Syt]

Playing as Brazil, currently in 1905. In my bid to unify South America, I suppose kicking out France is next. I managed to sway Germany and the US to help kick out Spain (against promises to liberate Catalonia, and abolishing slavery). US and British holdings will be tricky, though.





Also, it seems the Ottoman AI managed to complete the Tanzimat (they're #8 Great Power behind me).

[Syt]

Overview of the free patch content:

[Tamas]

Definitely sounds like steps in the right direction.

[Zanza]

Sounds good. Looking forward to play it.

[Tamas]

So if I bought the collectors edition am I getting this one free?

[Zanza]

Yes. I already have it in my Steam library.

[Tamas]

Yes. I already have it in my Steam library.

Thanks, indeed I can see it in my library as well, neat.

[Tamas]

I was philosophising. My second biggest gripe with the game (after the total disconnect between diplomacy and internal politics) is the super-stable multi-ethnic states, Austria and the Ottomans in particular.

One thing I have been experimenting with is making it easier for secessionist rebellions to form and progress. I think this definitely helps although can become silly if made too easy - still the revolts themselves are seldom successful. But I think it helped with channeling unrest into secessionist movements instead of obscure political movements, which I feel is more realistic for these countries.

Then I was thinking, maybe I am a little unfair to the game. Was there a single case in this period where a secessionist revolt succeeded on its own, or even that it got enough traction to have a great power intervene on their behalf? I don't think so. Both Austria and the Ottoman Empire was dismantled as part of peace treaties, in case of the Ottomans it was several wars over decades. So maybe what I should also try is making the AI more likely to choose releasing of nations as its war goal, IDK.

Anyways it feels like the game isn't THAT far from making this aspect work, it definitely has the building blocks, and will have one more with agitators (who will not be involved with secessionist movements for now, I know), but that kind of makes it more frustrating because it feels I could mod it to my liking if I could figure it out.

[Syt]

OPB's mod adds radicalism to discriminated ethnicities, esp. during springtime of peoples, IIRC.

[Tamas]

I must say I am looking forward to returning to the game when this lands on Tuesday.

[Zanza]

Looks like they accidentially leaked two more DLCs at Steam:









Looking forward to the diplomacy enhancement. I guess the graphics pack is nice too, not sure if that's still part of my pre-order.


Edit: Not accidentally leaked, but officially announced:



Q1/2024 is far away still...