Victoria 3

[Syt]

The 1.12 free patch video on YouTube had an interesting tidbit I missed - the Carlist Wars are going to be special: a limited kind of "guerilla" war, with no fronts (?, IIRC) and battles generating slower. They say it's only the Carlist War, but they consider it a test case for the future.

And for an "immersion pack" they're shoving in a lot of stuff - reworked coups, colonial administrations rework, law amendments, election meddling and voter confidence, ....

[Zanza]

Playing this with the latest DLC again. I suck at the game.  It's fun nevertheless. Trying my hand at Spain and failed against the Carlists.

[Syt]

Seen in an observer game:



Two things:
1. Independent Mordvin country in Russia.
2. Landlocked Mordvins are obsessed with ... Clippers.

[Syt]

Also, interesting mod:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3647628156

Victoria 3 is a solid base to represent the major shifts in the workforce organization during the era.
Though, some issues appears in both historical approach and gameplay simulation.

The most glaring one being the very fast "depeasanting", leading to a late game where workforce is scarce compared to the available economic capital. So private sectors tend to build enormous numbers of empty buildings.

On top of being an annoying gameplay effect, it is also historicaly innacurate since workforce was never truely a limiting factor of economic growth. On contrary, there was even phases of massive unemployment, that nearly never happens in the game.

An other one is how "labour saving production methods" (representing progresses in automation) are handled.

In game, when you pick more modern PMs, you usualy needs more pops of advanced qualifications (engineers etc) and the less you need simple laborers, and "labour saving PMs" sometime even remove completely the needs for those non-qualified workers.

It leads to a end-game society with an absurd number of engineers and nearly no labourers left.

Of course, it is hugely innacurate compared to History : In reality, the modernisation and automation leads to the need of less qualified workforce compared to the traditional society where production was handled by artisans (often highly qualified) guilds.

Automation, even if it needs some engineers and machinists (qualified laborers), leads to a general "proletarianization" of the workforce in general. It is due to various factors such as decompositing the industrial works in simple tasks.

But in general, the more the production is automated, the less qualified workforce is needed. The opposite of what the game is doing right now.

Last but not least, the "depeasanting" process happens in the game in a weird way since peasant somehow accept to be turned in laborers whenever a new industry building is completed. It is due to the base wages being a bit too high compared to subsistence revenues.

The present mod attempts to solve those shortcomings with the fewer and less intrusive changes as possible and should be very compatible with any mod (except for those attempting to do the same things)

Changes

• Increased the Working Adult Ratio from 25% to 30%
• Replaced the Working Adult Ratio modifiers from Trade Unions traits to avoid fluctuations due to politics
• Massively reduced employment needs from nearly all Production Methods, save for Plantations.
• Changed employment ratios and composition of nearly all Production Methods. There should be nearly about 50% laborers in any late PMs.
• Made Labour Saving Production Methods way more impactfull and consume less goods. Employment can be reduced to 500 workers per building lvl with Assembly Lines.
• Increased employment potential in subsistence farms
• Reduced starting base wages, including subsistence farming

In detail, the massive reduction of employment needs will at least double the time needed to "depeasant" your economy, and that's without accounting for other changes!

Also, the sector where the mechanization of the economy will be the most felt is agriculture. First thing being going from subsistence farming to "organized farming" will reduce employment requirement by one third, then, the process of agriculture's mechanization will reduce employment in this sector by 8 from era 1 PMs to era 5 PMs!

This alone will push literal hordes of underqualified people into unemployement and poverty, being then available for ruthless industrials, offering just enough wages to barely survive...

Yes, at least in the earliers parts of the game, this mod will turn the industrialization process into the hell it was for the working classes in the Victorian era!

A world where independant peasant and artisans are pushed out of their traditional jobs by the agricultural revolution and the automations progresses, then have the choice of starving in massive unemployment or accept miserable wages in the industrial sector and very little perspectives to ever access to the small "middle class"...

With that said, in terms of gameplay perspectives, this mod will add more challenges to the game since unemployment and poverty are now realy threatening for your society. If unchecked, political consequences can be devastating.