So what you're saying is to definitely not try playing this piece of shit game again?
I don't know, man.
Some of the recent changes I quite like, others like those I described are just ?????????.
2 steps forward, 2 steps back.
I definitely wouldn't recommend this at full price.
I'd say without mods, you can get 20-30 hours of fun out of it. With mods you can probably double that.
If you already spent that time and hoped for the game to be radically better: Nah, don't think that'll ever happen.
Some flaws are too deeply ingrained in this game to ever be resolved.
The biggest issue was already said quite a few times here: Lack of actual choices.
I mean, sure, theoretically you could do a ton of different stuff. But there's always a fairly clear best choice to do.
Grain is super expensive and people are rioting about it. What are you gonna do? Will you solve the issue for profit or will you make more steel instead which you don't even need right now?
There's almost always this "most glaring issue right now" you'll be chasing. Not doing so is just a terrible idea.
Theoretically, you want this piece of land. You could make a diplomatic move for it. But in practice, everyone around can just randomly get involved in the conflict directly. So in the end, unless you are a major power, diplomatic moves are pretty pointless.
Theoretically, you can "sway" other nations during diplomatic plays. Has anyone, in practice, ever seen a thumbs up in that swaying screen, unless you are a major power? I'm 20-30 hours in, never played a major power and have never seen the possibility to sway anyone my way, even if everyone in the region was at least "cordial" with me.
What the point of improving relationships with other factions is? Honestly, I don't know. I guess making them less likely to target you with diplomatic plays?
In other words, you do have some more freedom as a major power.
Outside of that, you really can't do shit, as chances are, other nations "around" or major powers with an interest in the region will get involved in minor disputes they shouldn't reasonably have any interest in.
Laws, likewise, have almost always the "best way" and anything that might sound interesting in theory (such as a "modern" but slave-based society) are just worse in every regard.
Turning the game into "how close can you get to Great Britain in laws & society". There isn't really a viable alternative.
Techs are pretty much the same thing. Most of them unlock automatically anyway due to spread, the rest is "which one of these historical re-enactments do I want to go for first".
There isn't really branching going on. You can't really do stuff like "focus on mil/social/production" only because there are fairly strong dependencies.
RTS games are the same, of course, with there almost always being a best course of action.
But in RTS games, you generally have to react to what the enemy is doing. Try to do some predicting, etc.
In Vicky 3, the enemy is just playing the same "follow UK society & tech, try to keep up", there are no "counter plays" here.
Once you figure out you should prepare for upgrades before actually clicking the "upgrade" buttons (for example, have enough access to iron before clicking the cannery upgrades for food industries, etc.) - which btw the game makes
annoyingly hard to look up due to there not actually being goods or stockpiles, only buy/sell orders - you basically got your economy down, now you are only going "through the motions".
The only choices in my playing of three different nations, where I felt the choices were actually mine and not just the game giving me a "you would be dumb not to do this" were:
- Colonization, in that you can choose where you want to colonize. Not colonizing is possible, but you'd just be gimping yourself
- Some law/government choices didn't seem strictly better/worse at first glance
- Which major power to align with or if you wanted to stay mostly neutral
You know how EU4 or HoI4 have these mission trees that are tailored to the different nations (especially with mods)? Or Stellaris with its way to customize your faction over time via traditions & ascension perks? All of these games allow you to somehow make your faction "yours" to some degree.
I don't believe there's any such thing in Vicky 3.
The game is the same for every nation, always, with the only difference being where on the tech & access road to the goal you start and of course at what economy size you start. The only differences in playing come from you becoming better at the game and not repeating last run's mistakes.
