The Historical Assumptions of Victoria II

[Jacob]

Brett Devereaux of A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry has just started a series on Victoria II: https://acoup.blog/2021/08/13/collections-teaching-paradox-victoria-ii-part-i-mechanics-and-gears/

I haven't actually read it yet (just about to start), but I reckon we should have a thread for discussing how wrong he is (or not), and any languishistic tangents.

[jimmy olsen]

I didn't see any major mistakes, just the one about pops representing the whole population rather than adult males (which by the time I read this he'd already corrected)

[alfred russel]

Two reasons Victoria sucked as a game:

-They created this massive and elaborate system that just didn't work. it was an awesome design but probably too ambitious.
-The politics of the developers were obvious and heavy handed. Communism sucks as an economic system, democracy is better than autocracy, an enlightened population is the key to success...all these things are embedded in the game engine and while non controversial today it kind of keeps you out of a 19th century mindset, as in the 19th century these were some of the great issues of debate.

[grumbler]

I think that Vic 2 worked to the extent that it demonstrated how frustrating it is as a player when the economic model decides what your capitalists are going to build, but how ineffective state control is.  I also liked the way a little education of your people was worse than ignorance, and how carefully a government had to be to thread the needle of enough freedoms to avoid revolt but not enough to create unfulfillable expectations.  It's the only game I can think of that had players appreciating the value of limiting the franchise.

[The Minsky Moment]

-The politics of the developers were obvious and heavy handed. Communism sucks as an economic system, democracy is better than autocracy, an enlightened population is the key to success...all these things are embedded in the game engine and while non controversial today it kind of keeps you out of a 19th century mindset, as in the 19th century these were some of the great issues of debate.

1. How many successful 19th century Communist economies can one name?

2. If, among the major powers in the latter part of the 19th century, we take Britain, France, and the US to be democracies; Russia, the Ottoman Empire to be autocracies; and Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Imperial Germany to be  in between, what conclusions could be fairly drawn about the advantages of democracy vs. autocracy?

3. What is the historical argument that states benefitted from limiting the education and enlightenment of their people in the 19th century?

[Tamas]

I think that Vic 2 worked to the extent that it demonstrated how frustrating it is as a player when the economic model decides what your capitalists are going to build, but how ineffective state control is.  I also liked the way a little education of your people was worse than ignorance, and how carefully a government had to be to thread the needle of enough freedoms to avoid revolt but not enough to create unfulfillable expectations.  It's the only game I can think of that had players appreciating the value of limiting the franchise.

Yes that was probably the intent and would have been great if it worked but it didn't. Any faint short-term disadvantage from zerg-rushing toward a late 20th century Scandinavian welfare democracy was easily offset by the grand benefits.

And to also address one of Minsky's points above: obviously, in terms of historic success, democracies and welfare states have won. Even after WW1 only democratic regimes (plus the UK ) survived the aftermath.

The problem comes from the game's simulation of the era it depicts. Austria (or Russia) did not refrain from modern reforms because they were evil entities oppressing minorities on general principle. They refrained because the ruling class didn't think they could remain ruling class if they did so. And incidentally, they were right.

If the needle-threading of balancing progress vs. keeping your country together was in the game like grumbler suggested, then this would be fine: you play a multi-ethnic monarchy you should be having a increasingly hard time playing through the game's period, and you should have a big but fun challenge of reforming in time without disintegrating in the process.

But that was never in Vicky 2 in practice, only on paper. Maybe one of the big mods achieved more with that, I haven't really played any of them. But with vanilla, whether you were France, Austria, Russia, or any other country, the way to dominance was as many electoral and human right reforms as quickly as possible, because there was next to no side effect of such a rush.

[Sheilbh]

2. If, among the major powers in the latter part of the 19th century, we take Britain, France, and the US to be democracies; Russia, the Ottoman Empire to be autocracies; and Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Imperial Germany to be  in between, what conclusions could be fairly drawn about the advantages of democracy vs. autocracy?

Also for interesting Victoria II countries: Japan. But I'm not sure where they sit.

3. What is the historical argument that states benefitted from limiting the education and enlightenment of their people in the 19th century?

So the game's from the perspective of a ruler - and I think it poses risk. Education and enlightenment were normally parts of modernisation projects that were necessary to survive, but created lots of internal instability and potentially made you prey to the imperial powers. So an educated/enlightend population is the key to success if you can get there (Meiji) but also, potentially, something that could expose you even more either externally or internally (Qing China, Egypt, Iran, arguably the Ottomans).

In every example I think it can and should be pretty fraught - modernisation normally didn't go well (off the top of my head Japan is the only example I can think of).

[Neil]

2. If, among the major powers in the latter part of the 19th century, we take Britain, France, and the US to be democracies; Russia, the Ottoman Empire to be autocracies; and Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Imperial Germany to be  in between, what conclusions could be fairly drawn about the advantages of democracy vs. autocracy?

I'd be very careful trying to draw conclusions too deeply from that.  'More democracy ≡ more prosperity' doesn't always hold up, and those countries had other points of commonality, like vast colonial empires primed for development and resource extraction, coupled with the early adoption of industrial techniques.  The political system wasn't irrelevant, but it wasn't the end all, be all either. 

[Valmy]

I thought Franz Joseph made some hay among the Socialists by sometimes presenting himself as the father of the little guy against the evil liberal capitalists? I could see the Habsburgs or Romanovs doing Bismarckian paternalistic things to stave off political reforms for sure.

[Sheilbh]

I'd be very careful trying to draw conclusions too deeply from that.  'More democracy ≡ more prosperity' doesn't always hold up, and those countries had other points of commonality, like vast colonial empires primed for development and resource extraction, coupled with the early adoption of industrial techniques.  The political system wasn't irrelevant, but it wasn't the end all, be all either.

And I think that is also reflected in the modernisation attempts. So a lot of those countries that tried to modernise (Japan, China, Iran, Turkey, Egypt) had intellectuals with competing views about the appropriate models because some went to study in France or the US or Prussia/Germany or Japan and learned different things from them.

In the case of Japan there was a conscious modelling of different bits of modernisation on different national systems to get the best from what they could learn, but that was also tried elsewhere if, perhaps, less coherently. That should probably be reflected - that there were these different approaches (French, British, Japanese, American, German).

[The Minsky Moment]

Also for interesting Victoria II countries: Japan. But I'm not sure where they sit.

I wasn't sure either.  Because AR's question focused on the 19th century specifically and because I don't think Japan was recognized as a great power peer until 1905, I dodged the issue.

3.So the game's from the perspective of a ruler - and I think it poses risk. Education and enlightenment were normally parts of modernisation projects that were necessary to survive, but created lots of internal instability and potentially made you prey to the imperial powers. So an educated/enlightend population is the key to success if you can get there (Meiji) but also, potentially, something that could expose you even more either externally or internally (Qing China, Egypt, Iran, arguably the Ottomans).

In every example I think it can and should be pretty fraught - modernisation normally didn't go well (off the top of my head Japan is the only example I can think of).

The game models that - "plurality" increases tech progress but also reform demand and revolt risk.

The problem is that the game doesn't make that revolt risk that difficult for the player because otherwise it would swamp the AI.  But the essential system design in is pretty sound.

[alfred russel]

-The politics of the developers were obvious and heavy handed. Communism sucks as an economic system, democracy is better than autocracy, an enlightened population is the key to success...all these things are embedded in the game engine and while non controversial today it kind of keeps you out of a 19th century mindset, as in the 19th century these were some of the great issues of debate.

1. How many successful 19th century Communist economies can one name?

2. If, among the major powers in the latter part of the 19th century, we take Britain, France, and the US to be democracies; Russia, the Ottoman Empire to be autocracies; and Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Imperial Germany to be  in between, what conclusions could be fairly drawn about the advantages of democracy vs. autocracy?

3. What is the historical argument that states benefitted from limiting the education and enlightenment of their people in the 19th century?

That those questions have consensus answers in the 21st century isn't my point.

In the 19th those questions did not, and the conflict around them was a theme of the time. I don't think 19th century autocrats, proponents of deeply religious education, or communists thought their philosophies were leading to stagnation or even ruin. The game mechanics make it tough to really role play proponents of anything other than liberal democracy.

[The Minsky Moment]

The game mechanics make it tough to really role play proponents of anything other than liberal democracy.

That's true but the design philosophy in Vicky has always privileged trying to get historically plausible outcomes over role playing aspects. 

[The Brain]

Of course any game that to some degree aims at historical simulation needs incentives for players to act (broadly) historical to be fully enjoyable. It's probably easier in a game where you play 19th century ideologies than a game where you play 19th century states (you could give victory points for spreading your ideology etc, but a state that has substandard ideologies will suffer). It's not like people in the 19th century were groping around in the dark either, the value of moderation and reasonably free enterprise (for instance) was known to non-kooks, the mechanisms behind this had been described in the 18th century (and parts of them even earlier).

[jimmy olsen]

-The politics of the developers were obvious and heavy handed. Communism sucks as an economic system, democracy is better than autocracy, an enlightened population is the key to success...all these things are embedded in the game engine and while non controversial today it kind of keeps you out of a 19th century mindset, as in the 19th century these were some of the great issues of debate.

2. If, among the major powers in the latter part of the 19th century, we take Britain, France, and the US to be democracies; Russia, the Ottoman Empire to be autocracies; and Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Imperial Germany to be  in between, what conclusions could be fairly drawn about the advantages of democracy vs. autocracy?

Well, Germany was a top tier country and Russia and Austria-Hungary were experiencing explosive economic growth before the war. If the war hadn't happened, it's hard to say who things would have went.  Austria-Hungary would probably still have fell apart, but would Russia have?