Grand Strategy Victoria 3

[LizardWizard]

Oh, and before you start speculating crazily about what is and is not in the game: No, there is no mana!

I don't believe that. Bet there'll be shitloads of mana and Wiz will just go "nuh-uh, this isn't mana, this is Points™". Abolishment of mana would mean return towards simulation over abstraction, yet that's complete opposite to the trend in Paradox games throughout the last decade, and I seriously doubt that Paradox is willing to go that route, or that it's even capable of it at this point.

Wiz isn't Johan tbh. Like honestly.

And objectively speaking, PDX likes money. They aren't aren't going to repeat Imperator's retarded mistakes.

 

[Silva]

Abolishment of mana would mean return towards simulation over abstraction, yet that's complete opposite to the trend in Paradox games throughout the last decade.

Imperator is an example of "simulation over abstraction" and it was released in the last decade, so there's hope.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

Why are the local savages off fist raising and not in the fields harvesting rubber all good and proper for the lord governor?

special event. sudden shortage of whips.

 

[Silva]

BTW, how is Stellaris and what can one expect from this "Wiz" dude ?

 

[Axioms]

https://www.reddit.com/r/victoria3/comments/nhzt1w/victoria_3_everything_we_know_so_far/

So this is all apparently in the works although some might get cut? I'm sure Paradox will ruin it somehow.

 

[Theodora]

I am sure Vicky III will present the better version of history in which Belgium treated the people of Congo with respect and kindness. I also wouldnt be surprised to see the African Kangz moving their massive armies armed with machine guns and artillery through their dense railway systems to launch an invasion of Europe.

There is no way this is going to be good.

Someone at pdxcon said they don't shy away from racism, slavery, etc. Thought you guys would learn something after the Deus Vult 'removal' being nothing more than a meme.

Imperator is an example of "simulation over abstraction" and it was released in the last decade, so there's hope.

Imperator's in a better state than most of their games, but people treat it like it's still 1.0 for some weird reason.

 

[RobotSquirrel]

I'm noticing a lot of missing mechanics from Vicky 2 and 1 which doesn't bode well.
We all just wanted a continuation of their original trend of taking Vicky 1's mechanics and art then refining them so they played smoother.
I see a lot of reinventing the wheel like Paradox always does and it never ends well for them.

I'm at least pleased to see that the Monarch is represented this time around.

 

[what am i doing]

The whole notion of interest groups is an improvement. That's something that I always thought would be nice to see; the parties / ideologies system in Victoria 2 wasn't bad per se, but it was very limited. Knowing Paradox I suspect it'll be implemented poorly, but it still seems like an improvement over the previous party system. The ideal implementation would be to combine it with a party mechanic so that you can have parties which are directed by interest groups, rather than just the groups on their own or just flat parties, but that might be something they'll have anyways.

One thing that bugged me a lot about Victoria 2 was how heavily trade was abstracted, and how having a mercantile economy (where you don't necessarily produce a lot of goods, but do ship large quantities of them; Denmark, Norway, and the Netherlands being good examples) wasn't really represented. I don't know if they're going to correct this or not, but I think it's something that would be a large improvement in terms of making peacetime gameplay more engaging, provided it was implemented well.

Edit: also, I don't see any indication of actual pops, just an overall population total and percentages. That's disappointing, but not surprising.

And objectively speaking, PDX likes money. They aren't aren't going to repeat Imperator's retarded mistakes.

I have full confidence in their ability to come up with new ways of shooting themselves in the foot.

 

[Harthwain]

Abolishment of mana would mean return towards simulation over abstraction, yet that's complete opposite to the trend in Paradox games throughout the last decade.

Imperator is an example of "simulation over abstraction" and it was released in the last decade, so there's hope.

Imperator was - in Johan's own words - "mainly a map painter" (he said the same thing about HoI series, by the way) where you had nothing to do during a peacetime.

In Victoria you didn't have to paint the map to be a successful state or to have an interesting game, because there were many societal and economical issues to deal with, outside of waging wars. Similar could be said for Crusader Kings: you didn't have to be constantly at war to be entertained, because there were interactions between various people all the time, meaning the world was always in the state of flux, which helped to keep things dynamic.

 

[Silva]

Edit: also, I don't see any indication of actual pops, just an overall population total and percentages. That's disappointing, but not surprising.

Someone over at reddit said there are Pops in place, yeah, only different ones from Vic2. I wouldn't mind they tweak the formula/make things a little different as long as the game essence is intact.

Imperator was - in Johan's own words - "mainly a map painter" (he said the same thing about HoI series, by the way) where you had nothing to do during a peacetime.

And yet it became one of the most interesting peacetime in the whole Pdox catalogue after 2.0. Which only shows how full of shit Johan was.

 

[Space Satan]

For fuck's sake even if V3 will be released as a shitty barebones it still will be magnificent because look what modders made out of EUIV and HoIIV. Look what mooders made with V2 with its next no none level of mod integration. Victoria 2 had ONE DLC that added some nigger shit and with years of improvement even if Paradox make total shit with developement it will be manageable with community modding. Victoria 2 had a lot of baby duck syndrome with praising economy and market forgetting that it was a mess.
I am fucking damn happy because it is a win-win for me as a long Victoria fan.

 

[Hellraiser]

Victoria 2 had ONE DLC that added some nigger shit and with years of improvement even if Paradox make total shit with developement it will be manageable with community modding.

AKSHULLY there were two Victoria 2 expansions, a house divided and heart of darkness (the nigger shit one I guess). The second greatly improved westernization mechanics, which was good if you wanted to play non-Nipponese gooks, plus it had colonization improvements that IIRC removed the arbitrary "must be a secondary power to colonize" limit allowing any civilized nation meeting realistic requirements (sufficiently developed infrastructure/investment, tech and proximity IIRC) to put the inferior tribal natives to good work harvesting rubber or precious metals. Tally ho labourers! The golden toilet seat factory needs raw materials to work with!

 

[Nutria]

In Victoria you didn't have to paint the map to be a successful state or to have an interesting game, because there were many societal and economical issues to deal with

Except that they're all about Swedish social and economic and political issues. They are not relevant at all to America or Iran or China or even other parts of Europe. It's kind of fascinating to see their perspective on the world, but just as a curiosity.

 

[fantadomat]

Can't wait for wiz to make the pops like in stellaris,where a province have x amount of pops and have to grow and shit,like in any generic 4x game. Oh it will be such a fun experience .

 

[Theodora]

The whole notion of interest groups is an improvement. That's something that I always thought would be nice to see; the parties / ideologies system in Victoria 2 wasn't bad per se, but it was very limited. Knowing Paradox I suspect it'll be implemented poorly, but it still seems like an improvement over the previous party system. The ideal implementation would be to combine it with a party mechanic so that you can have parties which are directed by interest groups, rather than just the groups on their own or just flat parties, but that might be something they'll have anyways.

Yeah. I can't help but be disappointed by the "removal" of parties, but the interests group thing is good design. The parties system was weirdly static and anachronistic, and there should be starts where political parties are banned anyway. I just hope, as you said, they get around to implementing parties some other way (somewhere like US seems strange without them).

Edit: also, I don't see any indication of actual pops, just an overall population total and percentages. That's disappointing, but not surprising.

Nah, it's definitely got pops. Dunno where you got that from. Someone at PDXcon:

• Full POPs like Victoria 2. Over a billion people are modeled individually, which will roughly double by game end, including Dependents. These represent non-working children and homemakers. Your laws, i.e. Child Labor laws, determine how much economic output your Dependents create and if they collect wages. So like, kids will still be counted as Dependents, but your wages from Dependents might go up (along with mortality rate.)
  
  
• Example POP types I saw (not exhaustive): Capitalists, Laborers, Machinists, Farmers, Shopkeepers, Engineers, Aristocrats, Clergymen, Officers, Bureaucrats, Academics, Servicemen, Clerks
  
  
• Standard of Living is mostly based on a POP's Wealth, which is determined by your sources of revenue minus your expenses. This can be a salary from your job, stipends and wages from dependents in countries where women and children can work (or if they're receiving welfare payments), and dividends from buildings you own. Increasing wages, lowering taxes, and increasing the supply of goods (thus lowering the prices and therefore the lifestyle expenses) will all generally raise Standard of Living. Standard of Living affects POP Loyalty and Population Growth.
  
  
• Capitalists work completely differently from Vicky 2. Capitalism isn't "Let The AI Do It Mode." Instead, Capitalists (and sometimes Aristocrats depending on your laws) invest profits from buildings they own into a new resource pool separate from state funds called the Investment Pool, which you can only spend on certain things based on your laws and economic system. So you are still personally directing the expansion of industry in a capitalist economy, with some restrictions.
  
  
• Every nation has a primary culture and state religion, with varying levels of acceptance for other religions and cultures based on your laws. Non-accepted POPs are paid lower wages (so have a lower Standard of Living) and are more likely to radicalize.
  
  
• In places like the US, discrimination is on a racial basis. This is based on your country's laws and can be changed. There are no culture groups, but cultures have traits like Heritage traits and Linguistic traits, and your laws will look at how alike or different those are to your main culture. So someone from England will be less discriminated against in American society. Someone from a different part of Europe will face some more discrimination than the Englishman but not too much. Someone from Africa or Asia will face a lot of discrimination.
  
  
• POPs can promote/demote and some types are more likely than others. Engineers and Shopkeepers are more likely to become Capitalists, for instance.
  
  
• Classes: Lower, Middle, and Upper strata. Determined by POP type. It mainly determines their wage level and taxation under uneven tax laws. Standard of Living goes all the way up to 100, which would be "Jeff Bezos level", but you generally won't see anything above 50 unless you're trying to break the game.
  
  
• If you have a system like worker-owned factories, you can get to a point where even the lower strata POPs in your country are richer by the late game than the capitalists were at the beginning.
  
  
• POPs can belong to Interest Groups, and these are the main forces that you must contend with to make changes to your society. Not all POPs of a specific type belong to the same Interest Group. i.e. Capitalists are likely to join the Industrialists interest group, but some of them might instead belong to the Devout.
  
  
• Literacy is back from Vicky 2, with your education spending determining what percentage of the country has access to education rather than just how fast it ticks up toward 100%. 100% Literacy will be very hard to achieve. Literate POPs can take certain jobs that illiterate ones cannot. It will be hard to get modern factories and government institutions up and running with low Literacy.
  
  
• Higher Literacy also affects your likelihood to join an Interest Group rather than being Politically Inactive, which sort of replaces the Consciousness system from Vicky 2. Uneducated laborers are more likely to stay out of politics. Likewise, ideas like Egalitarianism and Socialism will spread to your country faster if the lower classes are educated, which further increase political participation, expected minimum Standards of Living, and cause more attraction to groups like the Trade Unions among laborers. If the expected minimum Standard of Living goes up but the actual Standard of Living for those POPs does not, they will start to radicalize. So you can give them more beer and amenities to suppress class consciousness, is basically what it sounds like.
  
  
• Falling Standard of Living can generate Radical pops (replacing Vicky 2's Militancy system), while rising Standard of Living can convert Radicals to neutrals, or neutrals to Loyalists. Having more Radicals in a state generates Turmoil, which can affect the economy and lead to uprisings. Having more Radicals in an Interest Group will lower that group's Approval score toward the current government (and Loyalists in an interest group will do the opposite), which can lead to a civil war or revolution. Cultural discrimination can also generate Radicals.
  
  
• You can fund Police Institutions to reduce the local effects of Radicals. They don't go away, but they won't be able to cause as much trouble. You can also bring up the standard of living or change discriminating laws to deradicalize them. Or you can discriminate even harder and hope they decide to go live somewhere else.
  
  
• Enslaved POPs will be modeled. This is a historical simulation. They don't want to stray away from the parts of history that are horrific and pretend they didn't exist. They also don't want to pretend that it was a good idea. As an example, slavery is not a flat boon for your country, but it is very profitable for plantation owners, and those Interest Groups will fight against abolition because it's in their economic interest – they want to keep those unpaid wages for themselves and spend them on luxuries. You as the player will have to decide how to deal with those groups.
  
  
• At the same time, not every nation needs to be on a set trajectory toward liberalism. If you want to keep Russia an absolutist feudal serf state until the endgame, you can do that assuming you can deal with any radicals who want to change it. There is no assumed best path.

I like the sound of what I've read for the most part.

More on pops and IGs:

Spoiler

• There are a handful of "Templates" for interest groups that will be used in just about every country, but they can have different traits and desires. For example, Industrialists in Prussia are very pro-Monarchy, whereas in the U.S. that is very much not the case.
  
  
• Example Interest Groups we got to see: Industrialists, Landowners (called Junkers in Prussia, Landed Gentry in Britain, Plantation Owners in the US, and Scholar-Officials in Qing), Intelligentsia (called Literati in Qing), Devout (called Anglican Church in Britain and Confucian Schools in Qing) - they said this one specifically will change A LOT in ideology depending on the dominant religion of your country, Armed Forces, Rural Folk, Petite Bourgeoisie, Trade Unions
  
  
• Interest Groups have a set of Ideologies, as well as Traits that can be active or inactive at any given time.
  
  
• Interest Groups also have a leader with a portrait and traits.
  
  
• Ideologies can change over time (such as Trade Unions becoming more socialist). They will be stable for most of the game, but certain events, ideas, and leaders can cause them to shift. The leader of the Interest Group might be a socialist, for instance. They are still tweaking how ideologically malleable or fixed these groups should be.
  
  
• Prussian Industrialists have Monarchist (very upset if you switch to any non-Monarchy form of government), Individualist (Disapprove of most welfare/social security/government healthcare/public schools), Abolitionist (Don't like slavery), two others that we didn't get to see.
  
  
• If Ideologies are what an IG wants, Traits are what they can do for you. These traits will become active if the IG is loyal enough to your government. Kind of like how loyal Institutions provide bonuses in EU4. The one we got to see for the Industrialists was Job Creators, which increases the contribution to the Investment Pool by Capitalist POPs by 10% if their loyalty is at least 20.
  
  
• You can invite Interest Groups into your government. The ones that aren't part of your government will be in Opposition. You can never make everyone happy so you have to choose which groups to champion.
  
  
• Clout is how much influence an Interest Group has in your nation. In 1836, the main factors are Wealth, Status, and Workforce. If you liberalize your country you can offset this with Votes. When you hold elections, each Interest Group receives Votes from the enfranchised POPs that support it, which increases their Clout by a set amount per Vote until the next election. Various laws can tweak the political weight of Votes vs Wealth, or give more people Votes, though Wealth will always be a factor. So a truly egalitarian society will need to level the playing field in terms of wealth inequality in addition to democratic reforms.
  
  
• Not all POPs belong to an Interest Group at game start. Some of them are considered Politically Inactive.
  
  
• You can Suppress or Promote IGs directly using your Authority, which is an administrative capacity stat. More absolutist forms of government have more Authority, and so will have more control over the IGs in their nation, whereas democracies will be less able to combat or uplift the ones they prefer.
  
  
• Legitimacy is basically a check against inviting too many Interest Groups into your government. If you try to form too large of a coalition, your Legitimacy will tank. You also get Legitimacy from having the Interest Group your leader belongs to in the government – so as Prussia, we had to have the Armed Forces in the government, because they're the king's faction, or we would take a hit to Legitimacy. And that in turn makes it harder to ever pass any laws the military doesn't like. In a Presidential Republic like the US, you might have a different interest group represented by the head of state every election cycle, which dictates what you can accomplish during that term.

More on pops and markets:

Spoiler

• Prices of goods are based on Supply and Demand. It's not event-based with arbitrary starting prices like EU4. Full market simulation. POPs and Industries will place Buy orders while Industries will also place Sell orders for finished goods. There's a screen that lets you see what are currently the five most under-produced and the five most overproduced goods in your market, so you can set up trade deals or expand industries to meet demand better.
  
  
• Around 50 trade goods divided into Staples - Consumed by all POPs for daily needs, Industrial Goods - Consumed by industries to make other finished goods, Luxury Goods - consumed by POPs with higher Standard of Living, and Military Goods - Used to create military units including infantry, artillery, ships, and later tanks and planes.
  
  
• Production buildings have resource inputs and outputs, Throughput rating, and pay wages to all employed POPs. If their output can sell for more than their inputs, they will generate dividends that are paid to the owners and increase their Wealth. Otherwise, they will need to be subsidized or else they will fail. Each also has a personal cash reserve, presumably so it can run at a loss for a bit without subsidies.
  
  
• Production Methods affect how buildings operate. For instance, a workshop can be Privately Owned, belong to a Merchant Guild, Publicly Traded, Government Run, or a Worker Cooperative. This affects what kind of POPs are employed here, what wages they are paid, and who collects the dividends/profits. i.e. Privately Owned workshops will employ Capitalists who get most of the wealth generated with the workers getting only wages, whereas in a Worker Cooperative, the people doing the work own the workshop and split the Wealth it generates evenly.

 

[Harthwain]

Except that they're all about Swedish social and economic and political issues. They are not relevant at all to America or Iran or China or even other parts of Europe. It's kind of fascinating to see their perspective on the world, but just as a curiosity.

If by "Swedish" you mean "European" then I agree, but this is understandable, considering Europe is the most interesting theater for a lot of gamers and development time being limited, therefore forcing focus in certain places. I consider the game to be the best macroeconomic simulator to date, even with its issues. It's really a shame it took this long for someone to start looking into a continuation. On that note, I still miss East vs. West, because it looked like a spiritual successor to Victoria 2 mixed with Hearts of Iron 3, taking best parts from each.

 

[Preben]

Johan is now the forever "how to not do it" example.

At this point, this grandpa is just a liability. If Paradox is even a semblance of a regular corpo, Johan would be shuffled into some elevated but useless position where he can't fuck things up anymore. This is what supervisory boards are for.

So it's Wiz's game, right? Somehow I felt it under my skin after he left Stellaris for some unnamed project. Expect some more refined version of Stellaris' pop system.

• Enslaved POPs will be modeled. This is a historical simulation. They don't want to stray away from the parts of history that are horrific and pretend they didn't exist. They also don't want to pretend that it was a good idea. As an example, slavery is not a flat boon for your country, but it is very profitable for plantation owners, and those Interest Groups will fight against abolition because it's in their economic interest – they want to keep those unpaid wages for themselves and spend them on luxuries. You as the player will have to decide how to deal with those groups.

I actually like this, but can't stop but laugh at Paradox' hypocrisy seeing how they handled genocide and war crimes in HoI series.

Slavery in 19th century was already actively harming the societies in which it still persisted. As Hinton Rowan Helper of North Carolina wrote in his 1857 book The Impending Crisis of the South:

"Freesoilers and abolitionists are the only true friends of the South; slaveholders and slave-breeders are downright enemies of their own section. Anti-slavery men are working for the Union and for the good of the whole world; proslavery men are working for the disunion of the States, and for the good of nothing except themselves."

 

[vonAchdorf]

At this point, this grandpa is just a liability. If Paradox is even a semblance of a regular corpo, Johan would be shuffled into some elevated but useless position where he can't fuck things up anymore. This is what supervisory boards are for.

So it's Wiz's game, right? Somehow I felt it under my skin after he left Stellaris for some unnamed project. Expect some more refined version of Stellaris' pop system.

They retired him to Barcelona where he can play around in his own studio, but he's not leading on of the three mission critical big teams.

 

[Raghar]

So how would they simulate genocides, overpopulation leading to starvation, abuse by colonialists? Portugal stopped slave trading because UK said they would abolish alliance, and let Spain to eat Portugal. So for Portugal it was either infringing on rights of private companies, or die.

There was a lot of nasty stuff between years 1700 - 1900, and Paradox would have to simulate them to have decent game about industrial pre-automatization era.

 

[Preben]

At this point, this grandpa is just a liability. If Paradox is even a semblance of a regular corpo, Johan would be shuffled into some elevated but useless position where he can't fuck things up anymore. This is what supervisory boards are for.

So it's Wiz's game, right? Somehow I felt it under my skin after he left Stellaris for some unnamed project. Expect some more refined version of Stellaris' pop system.

They retired him to Barcelona where he can play around in his own studio, but he's not leading on of the three mission critical big teams.

That's hardly counts as retirement. They gave him a dedicated toy for maximum efficiency in fucking up Paradox' flagship game.

Seriously, whatever Johan touches turns into failure and trainwreck. He should have been sidelined years ago.

 

[Theodora]

I actually like this, but can't stop but laugh at Paradox' hypocrisy seeing how they handled genocide and war crimes in HoI series.

Yeah, I like HoI the least of their games because culture and religion are one of the most interesting aspects of these games to me.

I do sorta understand that the issues of the 20th century are more sensitive, given they're still in living memory (HoI4's fanbase doesn't help). But completely ignoring it just feels like the worst of both worlds.

 

[what am i doing]

[snipped long quote]

This does sound like it's generally going to be a lot of improvement, and if it all works as described then I would say it's good news. Personally, I'm not going to let myself get excited until the game's actually out and it turns out to work as described (and actually work, and not be a broken mess), simply based off of Paradox's track record. I also have kind of a gloomy outlook on the game's future as time goes by since they will doubtless be up to the usual jewish DLC bullshit, and in a game so (supposedly) complex, that's likely to be a disaster.

Some concerns I do have, currently:
Bureaucracy and Authority sound like mana. They claim they're not mana, but they were disputing the EUIV "mana" label for a long time, so those could end up being mana too. I hope they won't be.
Reading more details on Interest Groups make them sound a lot like Stellaris' political factions, which were shitty. I was hoping Interest Groups would be a sort of intermediary between pops and parties, and it sounds like that's not what they'll be.
The factory system seems like it's generally being improved, but the lack of automatic factory construction is not good. I would have preferred to see Victoria 2's system as far as construction, expansions, subsidies, etc goes, but with a bit more control over subsidies (such as only subsidizing and always subsidizing a few selected factory types, and never subsidizing others automatically), to avoid the tedium of manually building so many factories.

Now one thing that stands out to me as a huge improvement, mainly because it was a major source of irritation to me in Victoria 2, is the switch away from primary / accepted cultures to variations in terms of acceptance based on language or cultural proximity. I'm hoping this will mean that if you, say, blob into Prussia as the Netherlands, then the north west German pops, while not 100% accepted-culture-equivalent, will be almost on equal standing with your primary Dutch pops, due to speaking a very similar language and having a very similar culture. In Vicky 2 if you did this they would be just as un-integrated with your country as if you'd blobbed into Brazil.

 

[RobotSquirrel]

Over a billion people are modeled individually

Todd is that you? This doesn't mean anything till we see it. The pops might be overly simplified and abstracted.

Example POP types I saw (not exhaustive): Capitalists, Laborers, Machinists, Farmers, Shopkeepers, Engineers, Aristocrats, Clergymen, Officers, Bureaucrats, Academics, Servicemen, Clerks

Number one thing I'm concerned about. Because whilst its nice they're the same classes still you just know Paradox probably couldn't resist putting Stellaris' updated pop system into Vicky 3.
They better not have. The fact that they didn't show it is very annoying.

There are no culture groups

This is probably the most controversial change they made tbh. So its going to be one culture per province like all their other titles?. Not a fan of this change it seems like a simplification.

 

[Axioms]

[snipped long quote]

This does sound like it's generally going to be a lot of improvement, and if it all works as described then I would say it's good news. Personally, I'm not going to let myself get excited until the game's actually out and it turns out to work as described (and actually work, and not be a broken mess), simply based off of Paradox's track record. I also have kind of a gloomy outlook on the game's future as time goes by since they will doubtless be up to the usual jewish DLC bullshit, and in a game so (supposedly) complex, that's likely to be a disaster.

Some concerns I do have, currently:
Bureaucracy and Authority sound like mana. They claim they're not mana, but they were disputing the EUIV "mana" label for a long time, so those could end up being mana too. I hope they won't be.
Reading more details on Interest Groups make them sound a lot like Stellaris' political factions, which were shitty. I was hoping Interest Groups would be a sort of intermediary between pops and parties, and it sounds like that's not what they'll be.
The factory system seems like it's generally being improved, but the lack of automatic factory construction is not good. I would have preferred to see Victoria 2's system as far as construction, expansions, subsidies, etc goes, but with a bit more control over subsidies (such as only subsidizing and always subsidizing a few selected factory types, and never subsidizing others automatically), to avoid the tedium of manually building so many factories.

Now one thing that stands out to me as a huge improvement, mainly because it was a major source of irritation to me in Victoria 2, is the switch away from primary / accepted cultures to variations in terms of acceptance based on language or cultural proximity. I'm hoping this will mean that if you, say, blob into Prussia as the Netherlands, then the north west German pops, while not 100% accepted-culture-equivalent, will be almost on equal standing with your primary Dutch pops, due to speaking a very similar language and having a very similar culture. In Vicky 2 if you did this they would be just as un-integrated with your country as if you'd blobbed into Brazil.

Paradox has long had resources for doing things. This is fine. The distinction between resources and mana is that resources are generated by doing the thing they are about and are spent on improving doing the thing they are about. Mana is arbitrary time gated, as opposed to action gated, with no connection to what it does.

For instance prestige in Paradox games is generated by doing prestigious shit and piety is generated by doing pious shit. Then you use them in ways that create verisimilitude. Meanwhile bird mana is not increased by doing diplomacy things. It is increased by arbitrary and random "stats".

How do you generate bureaucracy and authority and how do you expend them?

 

[Axioms]

Over a billion people are modeled individually

Todd is that you? This doesn't mean anything till we see it. The pops might be overly simplified and abstracted.

Example POP types I saw (not exhaustive): Capitalists, Laborers, Machinists, Farmers, Shopkeepers, Engineers, Aristocrats, Clergymen, Officers, Bureaucrats, Academics, Servicemen, Clerks

Number one thing I'm concerned about. Because whilst its nice they're the same classes still you just know Paradox probably couldn't resist putting Stellaris' updated pop system into Vicky 3.
They better not have. The fact that they didn't show it is very annoying.

There are no culture groups

This is probably the most controversial change they made tbh. So its going to be one culture per province like all their other titles?. Not a fan of this change it seems like a simplification.

The real question is what it means to "model individually"? Do they have names and ages? Probably not right?