Victoria 3

[Neil]

Maybe I'll finally give this a spin.  I loved playing as Austria and strangling Hungarian ambitions in Vic 2, so why not try the new experience?

I haven't read up on the dlc features to decide if it's worthy of my anticipation.

Sorry.  My love of history has made me unspeakably pro-Austrian in the travails of Eastern Europe. 

If it makes you feel better, all those Hungarians that I'm oppressing are named 'Orban'.

[Tamas]

 

[Syt]

Patch notes for next week's release with the big trade rework (hopefully it will no longer be required to go full autarchy with your economy, or wreck your economy if your overlord goes to Civil War etc., or goods magically transporting from Australia to London to Falklands). Plus changes to war systems, replacing much of diplomacy with a treaty system, adding more company functions (monopolies! prestige goods!) ...

[Tamas]

Very impressive but it seems the completely neutered political movements are untouched.

Their system rework ended up a very CK3ish one - very cool-sounding but because of the parameters used made absolutely toothless. In my 1.8 experience Austria only had any problem with any of them if you as a player actively worked at making them become strong and not even then, sometimes. Made me worried they are going into the ck3 direction of not even a sandbox but more like a canvass with some paint so you can create whatever you wants without a pushback

[Solmyr]

OPB started a roleplaying playthrough of Hudson Bay's Company.

[crazy canuck]

Maybe he can avoid bankruptcy

[Syt]

Interesting that he plays with Morgenröte (which adds culture, sciences and arts flavor and mechanics). I like it in theory, but I feel it's quite bad for performance. But if you want to invite composers, hunt for fossils, discover planets and chemical elements while chasing records in mountaineering or air travel, this is your mod.

[Syt]

Overall, the new DLC (esp. the trade and companies overhaul) is being received very well, though some smaller bugs yet remain to be fixed (likely next week), like AI being a bit hesitant to create treaties on their own while also very gung ho on conquest, or AI being a bit weak in maintaining enough merchant fleets.

[Solmyr]

Started my own playthrough with Morgenröte just yesterday, we'll see how it goes.

[Tamas]

I am really liking this update. I mean, Central Europe and the Balkans are still the rock solid bastions of political stability they have always been in the game (not true actually, they used to be less stable) but that aside the game feels livelier and I do NOT miss the trade micro.

[Tamas]

I am Austria, this is in 1903:



What happened was, I had been nimbling away at the Ottomans for decades since my economy kinda' sucked and I was slowly drifting out of being a Great Power and I wanted to compensate. Plus the Ottomans were doing constant gains in Africa until bumping into Britain. Prussia fizzled out with attempting to unify Germany (I beat them) and so I took the Southern German Confederation decision a while back.

Then in 1899 the Ottomans attacked me to take Bosnia and Montenegro back (latter being a puppet of mine). Britain and Greece joined me, the US joined the Ottos. It was a very WW1-ish gridlock on the Balkans with me only crawling ahead but the Brits made big headways in Mesopotamia (too bad for them, they only joined the war to get my single, half-ready African colony). Eventually the Ottos folded and I got Southern Serbia which I gifted to my subject Serbia.

This was in early 1902 and around the time of peace I slid out of being a Great Power. Saxony, to my complete surprise, declared war on me as a result not long after the Ottoman war ended, demanding not only German Leadership but Bohemia. Prussia joined them in exchange of Croatian independence, and my traitorous Moldavian vassals demanded independence as well. The latter I had my Wallachian puppets annex but I couldn't withold the combined Saxon (100 divisions wtf) and Prussian armies and they beat me completely. That triggered every German state bar Prussia joining Saxony in the NGF

Fun game.

[Syt]

Btw, someone pointed out that the map in the latest dev diary (release of DLC) posts a world map:
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/victoria-3-dev-diary-151-charters-of-commerce-update-1-9-now-live.1786787/

It seems to tease some changes as multiple people pointed out - different borders in SE Asia and Africa (probably to slow down some colonialism), but also this:



Which is probably hinting at this immersion pack:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3562730/Victoria_3_National_Awakening_Immersion_Pack/



Let's hope they can make this immersive, well balanced, and non-railroady

[Solmyr]

For the time being I've been using Gates of the Bosporus mod for Balkan chaos and flavor. It does a good job of simulating the Eastern Question and emergence of Balkan nation-states. Also has content for Orthodox nations in general.

[Tamas]

For the time being I've been using Gates of the Bosporus mod for Balkan chaos and flavor. It does a good job of simulating the Eastern Question and emergence of Balkan nation-states. Also has content for Orthodox nations in general.

I will check it out, thanks.

The DLC I am nervous about. Lots depend on it for my continued enjoyment of the game. 

Right now it feels like I am playing out an Orbanist Hungary scenario in the sense that there are lots of small movements opposing the state for various reasons but because they don't cooperate they are not a threat. To be fair I have been gradually doing political reform so by now Austria is a fairly liberal place. It's just that they never were a serious threat.

[Tamas]

For the time being I've been using Gates of the Bosporus mod for Balkan chaos and flavor. It does a good job of simulating the Eastern Question and emergence of Balkan nation-states. Also has content for Orthodox nations in general.

A Romanian Empire: Restore the Byzantine Empire as Romania with a fixed path to the Purple Phoenix

Oh FFS. A hard pass.