Grand Strategy Victoria 3

[Deflowerer]

View attachment 42782

Focusing on cosmetics, this game is already dead.

That'll be 5.99 please

I wonder which obscure South American women leaders they'll introduce

All of them.

 

[thesheeep]

I'm actually having some fun with this right now.
No doubt the kind of game where things might stop being challenging at all once you understand all the things under the hood and then you're just LARPing.
So Victorian Stellaris, I guess, but hey, why not?

Anything related to war still seems to be utterly lacking, though. But I guess not completely broken anymore, as it was on release?

I had this truly bizarre situation as Sweden, where Lübeck was in my customs union and then for some reason United States wanted to subjugate them - truly insane development of events, I guess the AI only checks what "can" be done, not what would make any sense whatsoever.

Anyway, US sent their armies to their deaths trying to naval invade me. So far so good.
But it did the same to Lübeck and succeeded, of course.
I'd have gladly sent some of my troops to Lübeck for protection - but apparently there is no way to just park your troops in an ally's province for protection? That's a very odd oversight, I could only stand by idly while Lübeck was eaten alive by 'Murica

Equally comical were several situations where some interest group wanted me to enact a change, only to completely flip around a year or two later and oppose it
Historical emergent comedy generator.

Bonus question: Is there any way to get single provinces in my colonies from other countries without going to war?
It seems absurd that you cannot for example purchase a single province from a friendly nation (say, bankroll for a while in exchange) to reduce your border gore in Africa.

Bonus bonus question: Is there a mod that allows you to introduce (or re-introduce) slavery to Europe?
I'd love some villainous evil playthrough introducing slavery, full oppression, no rights whatsoever, etc. But it seems no interest group advocates for slavery, so it becomes impossible in vanilla.

 

[Fedora Master]

That's what Paradox makes now: Meme games. That is games that you play in order to take some meme screenshots of the the First Gay Native American President of the Confederate States or some shit, not because they offer interesting historical gameplay.

 

[thesheeep]

not because they offer interesting historical gameplay.

Honestly, I don't care much about "historical" gameplay. Very strict historical accuracy wouldn't be very fun to play.
However, I would indeed prefer it wouldn't go completely mental like it does right now.
A middle ground would be nice, the rest of the world going "mostly" historical, while I am the one that can go mental.

What happened to historical AI from HoI4? Is that just not a thing in Vicky 3?
Not that it was perfect, mind you, but it would somewhat keep the most insane stuff at bay.

There is this (Ultra Historical mod series):
https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=2918558673

Not something I'd want to use in my current state of "some ideas, still mostly grasping at straws", but it does sound somewhat interesting.

 

[Catacombs]

I'm actually having some fun with this right now.

Even with the shit war mechanic?

 

[Mortmal]

No doubt the kind of game where things might stop being challenging at all once you understand all the things under the hood and then you're just LARPing.

Enjoy it while it lasts; it won't be long. There are so few choices at the beginning and not enough depth; it will never have the immersive gameplay of something like EU4 or CK2, nor even Stellaris, which also has some good multiplayer fun to be had. This is easily the Paradox game I have played the least.

 

[thesheeep]

I'm actually having some fun with this right now.

Even with the shit war mechanic?

I think the basics of the war mechanics aren't even bad.

You get a general (or many), you give that general an army, you set that army to attack or defend a front.
A front has progress bars for each faction and when that bar fills, a battle spawns (in which each side is either attacker or defender). The outcomes of those battles move the front (or not, if an attack failed).
The actual battles happen without your interference, based on military stats.
Supply is handled via convoys, which seems fine, but I haven't looked into that much.
This actually works pretty well, IMO.
The interface isn't the best, but if I could mostly figure it out what's going on in under 12 hours, it can't be THAT bad.

But there are obvious pieces missing.
If the game does not recognize something as a front, or not as a front "for you", you won't be able to send troops there (such as my issue above just unable to protect Lübeck because there's no front for me).
There are "strategic interests" and you can place them, but I have not seen any effect from this whatsoever, if there is one, it's not obvious.
Your tech seems to have extremely little effect on your soldiers' stats, which is awkward as hell - at least there are mods to tackle that part.
There doesn't seem to be a way to tell the AI of your allies to do certain things. It hasn't been an issue for me yet, but I can imagine the AI can let you down big time.

Anyway, the biggest issue is not war itself, IMO.

It is the diplomatic plays, because of one big issue: War being pretty much the only outcome of diplomatic plays unless one side is much stronger and the other just gives in to the demands.
The way it works is one nation demands of another "do this/give me this" and then other nations who have an interest (an actual gameplay thing, which I mostly like) can weigh in on that, declaring their support for either side and they can be swayed if you are influential, etc. This is actually a pretty good idea, I like it.
But the outcome is practically always war, even if one side (+ supporters) completely dominates. "Hey, Netherlands, I want this tiny piece of your colony cause its like right in the middle of my own. I have half of Europe on my side." "Nah, bro, I'm willing to kick off WW1 ahead of time for this useless speck of dust in Africa with one banana plantation. I really, really need that banana."

It works on the assumption that the only leverage anyone could possibly have is armies.
There is no middle ground. No negotiations, no offers or counter offers, no threats of embargos, no "I'll give you cheap bananas for X years for it", etc. It's all just "do this, or war".
The only real influence you have on it is who might or might not join a side in the fighting.

As one result of this, I barely use diplomatic plays. Yes, I could probably win the resulting war and it would probably be the best thing to do from an efficiency point of view. But going to war (or threatening to) for every little shitty thing is so silly I can't bring myself to do it.

As another result of this, AI nations are at war so much with each other, it doesn't seem to have any real impact on their relations.
Remember how US attacked and tried to invade me? Five years later, they are my best buddies with a trade pact. Both of which they initiated. I mean, I'll take it, but it's whack.

 

[Fedora Master]

There can't be any other outcome because the PDX AI isn't exactly capable of being subtle. Same as the TW AI.

 

[thesheeep]

There can't be any other outcome because the PDX AI isn't exactly capable of being subtle. Same as the TW AI.

This is honestly worse than TW diplomacy.

In TW you can at least add stuff to the table to get something.
In Vicky 3, you can only "demand X", there are no negotiations outside of swaying other nations, and that swaying only really effects who fights in the eventual war (or not in case demands are just given)

I mean, they did this better in EU4 already.
Just assign a value to things and allow the AI to essentially make trades like "X value of this province for X value of that offer" and threatening war is just another possible "offer", but of course one with quite the downsides.
It would be much less complicated than for example the strategic logic when nations decide what goals to pursue.

 

[thesheeep]

Funny, 1.5 just came out and apparently allows diplomatic state trading, but who knows if the AI would actually ever accept, probably mostly for the two people playing this in MP.
And also stationing armies in specific states (not sure if that includes allies' states).
And more options to mobilization, like giving the (c)opium or upgrading/downgrading on the go.
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...-the-south-region-pack-now-available.1609767/

Not a bad patch for the war part, honestly.

 

[Space Satan]

Funny, 1.5 just came out and apparently allows diplomatic state trading, but who knows if the AI would actually ever accept, probably mostly for the two people playing this in MP.
And also stationing armies in specific states (not sure if that includes allies' states).
And more options to mobilization, like giving the (c)opium or upgrading/downgrading on the go.
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...-the-south-region-pack-now-available.1609767/

Not a bad patch for the war part, honestly.

It is bad. War are still random uncontrollable shit, with armies engaging randomly with zero concept of strategic or tactical advances. War is beyong saving right now.
Ironically, now, this autowar is EVEN MORE MICRO INTENSIVE than Victoria 2 or EUIV or HoIIV - and those faggots boastsed how their goal was to automate war as much as possible, down to a clash of clans level

 

[Average Manatee]

Ironically, now, this autowar is EVEN MORE MICRO INTENSIVE than Victoria 2 or EUIV or HoIIV - and those faggots boastsed how their goal was to automate war as much as possible, down to a clash of clans level

It just keeps happening, Paradox can't help themselves. They automate away something important "because we don't want to force players to spend all their time microing", then add superfluous shit to micro with that should only be present in a game with a much tighter scope.

In HoI4 you can now award individual units medals for battles that will improve their stats but you still can't order your fucking planes to bomb a specific province. Imagine being Hitler and spending all your time writing letters to soldiers and handing them medals but Goring won't listen to a thing you say and is doing his own random shit. Wait... that hits a bit too close I guess

 

[thesheeep]

War are still random uncontrollable shit, with armies engaging randomly with zero concept of strategic or tactical advances. ar is beyong saving right now.

I don't think it's that bad.
This isn't HoI4 where you can finely control where ever unit goes and what exactly goes INTO every unit. You instead control some surrounding variables and the rest just kind of happens on its own in Vicky 3.
Which I'm fine with.

If only the game wouldn't force me into a war for everything

It just keeps happening, Paradox can't help themselves. They automate away something important "because we don't want to force players to spend all their time microing", then add superfluous shit to micro with.

Yeah, that is a bit weird.
I wish they'd lean into that autowar idea a bit more, and just added some missing options (like stationing your troops in a province, which they did now add... with all the other stuff).

 

[Space Satan]

This isn't HoI4 where you can finely control where ever unit goes and what exactly goes INTO every unit. You instead control some surrounding variables and the rest just kind of happens on its own in Vicky 3.

This is exactly the reason why Victoria 3 is appealing to degenerate faggots and retards, who prefer mobile games.
So far Ai manages war fantastically, astronomically bad. You can play and win HoIIV with battleplanner alone - but you have an option to have direct control - Victoria 3 is an apotheosis of incompetence and devs chosen all the worst design decisions for it. Cookie clicker economy, autowar, zero diplomacy and anti-human UI.

 

[Fedora Master]

Much like Imperator this game will never be "good". It will remain a guilty pleasure/meme game. That's it. Don't get your hopes up of Paradox ever producing something worthwhile again.

 

[Space Satan]

Aaand after initial fanboyish euphoric moment of "This patch will fix everything" the reality slams hard. Even among true and faithful paradrones there are already complaints about performance being even worse, localprices being implemented in the worst way, still cookie clicker economy, braindead AI and, of course, defunct wars, where zulus beat Austria-France-Prussian alliance on the battlefield.

 

[Fedora Master]

The game seems even easier now somehow.

Frontlines are more broken than before. Can't even fight the Us-Mexico War without something breaking.

 

[what am i doing]

I downloaded the patch and opened the game to see what's changed. Saw the initial loading screen with the crowd celebrating women's suffrage, desire to even see the game declined considerably. Started a new game, splash art has a negro in the foreground when the art is depicting French troops - yes, they did have negro auxiliaries, but putting one as the focal character reeks of oikophobic leftism - and the next most prominent character looks like the sidekick from Disco Elysium; desire to even see the game declined to near zero. The game loaded. Saw the abhorrently designed UI, panned around the map a bit, closed the game.

 

[Fedora Master]

THEY KEEP DOING IT

 

[IDtenT]

Based. Kick them out!

 

[Fedora Master]

Looks like the AI is just as shit as ever at building anything. I was playing in the British Market and wood remained in extreme demand for 50 years.

 

[Fedora Master]

 

[IDtenT]

Free to play weekend, btw.

 

[thesheeep]

Looks like the AI is just as shit as ever at building anything. I was playing in the British Market and wood remained in extreme demand for 50 years.

Not necessarily an AI thing.
Wood is basically the base of... well anything, really.
Whatever you wanna do, you go down the dependency tree and chances are, there will be wood.

You basically have to pump out wood for the entire game to even have a chance to keep up with the rest of the economy and even then you'll likely fail because there are other things you need as well and you'll likely run into worker shortage before ever being able to have enough wood to have the resource be "cheap".

Of course, AI might suck at building selection anyway, but I don't think it is to blame for wood demand - the game might have overtuned the dependency everything has on wood.
Or not, because historically wood always was important.

 

[Fedora Master]

Normally the AI isn't good enough at exploiting more complex production chains but CAN build basic RGOs. This is the British Market, half the world is occupied working for it. If wood stays at a premium it makes playing smaller nations almost impossible since there's only so many logging camps you can make.

Hardwood also never became a factor on the market, implying the AI isn't building weapons manufactories either.