Grand Strategy Victoria 3

[thesecret1]

Purely on a gameplay level, the developing history should largely mirror real history but with a small chance of deviation. So you get "those" games where Germany never forms or the Confederates take over the US. It shouldn't be the norm and during an average game history should unfold as it did, discounting player intervention.

Darkest Hour works this way, and is an amazing game.

 

[Axioms]

Purely on a gameplay level, the developing history should largely mirror real history but with a small chance of deviation. So you get "those" games where Germany never forms or the Confederates take over the US. It shouldn't be the norm and during an average game history should unfold as it did, discounting player intervention.

Right now historical development in Vic3 is just random and massively held back by the AIs ability to industrialize.

Okay but what you are asking for requires significant railroading.

 

[Axioms]

But not me. I want every game to be unique, different, and interesting.

If you rely on generic mechanics, every game will be the same. Imperator relied on this approach, the result being that playing a Greek city state and a celtic tribe in northern scotland was practically identical, because they both relied on the same set of generic mechanics.

Well the problem is that the game doesn't simulate what made the different societies different. So of course it feels the same. How else could it be?

Solution to that would cause accusations of racism.

Disagree. You could differentiate the experience of different societies quite a bit without necessarily making different groups objectively better or worse.

 

[Axioms]

Purely on a gameplay level, the developing history should largely mirror real history but with a small chance of deviation. So you get "those" games where Germany never forms or the Confederates take over the US. It shouldn't be the norm and during an average game history should unfold as it did, discounting player intervention.

Darkest Hour works this way, and is an amazing game.

But HoI is a special case and also DH is heavily scripted.

 

[thesecret1]

Purely on a gameplay level, the developing history should largely mirror real history but with a small chance of deviation. So you get "those" games where Germany never forms or the Confederates take over the US. It shouldn't be the norm and during an average game history should unfold as it did, discounting player intervention.

Darkest Hour works this way, and is an amazing game.

But HoI is a special case and also DH is heavily scripted.

Yeah, but I have nothing against scripting. DH shows what generic mechanics and scripted content are for quite well, actually. Mechanics provide the gameplay, scripts the content (the goals you have in the game). If you stripped all the various events and decisions from DH, it'd lose most of its charm.

 

[Axioms]

Purely on a gameplay level, the developing history should largely mirror real history but with a small chance of deviation. So you get "those" games where Germany never forms or the Confederates take over the US. It shouldn't be the norm and during an average game history should unfold as it did, discounting player intervention.

Darkest Hour works this way, and is an amazing game.

But HoI is a special case and also DH is heavily scripted.

Yeah, but I have nothing against scripting. DH shows what generic mechanics and scripted content are for quite well, actually. Mechanics provide the gameplay, scripts the content (the goals you have in the game). If you stripped all the various events and decisions from DH, it'd lose most of its charm.

Ah okay, so you're on the other side of the debate.

For me scripted stuff is like narrative rpgs. I could just read a book.

 

[thesecret1]

Ah okay, so you're on the other side of the debate.

For me scripted stuff is like narrative rpgs. I could just read a book.

Without narrative, the history part becomes irrelevant. I could just play a 4X like civilization and the like. It'd also give me a lack of any objective in the game – if I play a country in EU4, I tend to go for the various historical objectives it had (whether it acheved them IRL or not) and enjoy the challenge in obtaining them (and if a scripted event fires to drop some flavor regarding it, even better). What's there to do in these games without this sort of roleplaying? Simply blob endlessly towards world conquest? I always found that to be insufferably boring.

 

[Axioms]

Ah okay, so you're on the other side of the debate.

For me scripted stuff is like narrative rpgs. I could just read a book.

Without narrative, the history part becomes irrelevant. I could just play a 4X like civilization and the like. It'd also give me a lack of any objective in the game – if I play a country in EU4, I tend to go for the various historical objectives it had (whether it acheved them IRL or not) and enjoy the challenge in obtaining them (and if a scripted event fires to drop some flavor regarding it, even better). What's there to do in these games without this sort of roleplaying? Simply blob endlessly towards world conquest? I always found that to be insufferably boring.

I mean, in practice you aren't achieving their historical goals the way they did, nor are you dealing with their setbacks or limitations. So for me the historical aspect falls flat.

 

[Average Manatee]

Purely on a gameplay level, the developing history should largely mirror real history but with a small chance of deviation. So you get "those" games where Germany never forms or the Confederates take over the US. It shouldn't be the norm and during an average game history should unfold as it did, discounting player intervention.

Right now historical development in Vic3 is just random and massively held back by the AIs ability to industrialize.

Okay but what you are asking for requires significant railroading.

Not really, the great powers who end the game are roughly in line with the same great powers who start the game, excepting the consolidation of Germany and Italy and the specific exception of Japan becoming the only non-european GP. It's not like EU4 where lots of different GPs arose from minor status (Russia, Germany, Scandinavia, US) and fell back down again (Spain, China, Ottomans). For the Victorian era therefore all that's really necessary is for the AI to play reasonably competently, which should ensure that most of the GPs who start the game on top stay on top. Right now the AI plays awfully and either randomly implodes their own nation or gets stuck in fruitless death wars. At the very least the fruitless death wars should be a 20th century thing (does anyone play that long?)

 

[Axioms]

Purely on a gameplay level, the developing history should largely mirror real history but with a small chance of deviation. So you get "those" games where Germany never forms or the Confederates take over the US. It shouldn't be the norm and during an average game history should unfold as it did, discounting player intervention.

Right now historical development in Vic3 is just random and massively held back by the AIs ability to industrialize.

Okay but what you are asking for requires significant railroading.

Not really, the great powers who end the game are roughly in line with the same great powers who start the game, excepting the consolidation of Germany and Italy and the specific exception of Japan becoming the only non-european GP. It's not like EU4 where lots of different GPs arose from minor status (Russia, Germany, Scandinavia, US) and fell back down again (Spain, China, Ottomans). For the Victorian era therefore all that's really necessary is for the AI to play reasonably competently, which should ensure that most of the GPs who start the game on top stay on top. Right now the AI plays awfully and either randomly implodes their own nation or gets stuck in fruitless death wars. At the very least the fruitless death wars should be a 20th century thing (does anyone play that long?)

Strong disagree. Prussia, the Ottomans, the US, and so on are not established great powers in 1836. There's tons of other in transition powers that could flip any old way, too.

 

[Average Manatee]

For Prussia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_modern_great_powers

It became a European great power under the reign of Frederick II of Prussia (1740–1786)

USA was already an economic great power by 1836, and the Monroe doctrine was over a decade before

Ottomans were generally considered a declining power by 1836, either not a GP or close to losing it. No argument there.

There's tons of other in transition powers that could flip any old way, too.

Which, exactly?

Spain making some kind of come back I could see.

China having mildly good luck to stay together instead of multiple civil wars that kill hundreds of millions could (this is the one nation for which V3 AI's constant fuckups is actually appropriate).

Maybe something like Argentina or Brazil could have become a south american hegemon.

Don't see many other contenders. It's not like Benelux or Poland or Yugoslavia was going to be a GP even if they managed to unite and stay together. Scandinavia just had too low population during the timeframe to be relevant at anything. Muslim world was pretty incapable, you'd need some absurdly good luck to see something like an Egyptian or Persian GP. I don't see India reasonably breaking free from the UK and even if it did I doubt it'd be projecting any kind of power during V3's timeline.

 

[AwesomeButton]

or the Confederates take over the US.

Bad example. This particular branch never had a chance.

Right now historical development in Vic3 is just random and massively held back by the AIs ability to industrialize.

I think it's very vaguely on a right track but there is a lot of work to be done improving and balancing the AI. I still can't say I have much time in the game, as much of my playtime of 1.6/1.7 is spent in the first 10-15 years of the game's timeframe.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Purely on a gameplay level, the developing history should largely mirror real history but with a small chance of deviation. So you get "those" games where Germany never forms or the Confederates take over the US. It shouldn't be the norm and during an average game history should unfold as it did, discounting player intervention.

Darkest Hour works this way, and is an amazing game.

Because it's a mod that they began selling separately.

 

[AwesomeButton]

For me scripted stuff is like narrative rpgs. I could just read a book.

Anecdotal evidence - as a kid I learned a lot of kid-level history from games, not least thanks to replaying a lot. Much more than I would re-read a book. So games have their place as an educational tool, even when not designed with education in mind. Imagine the effects when designed this way, and when not designed to educate with an agenda.

 

[Fedora Master]

I think it's very vaguely on a right track but there is a lot of work to be done improving and balancing the AI. I still can't say I have much time in the game, as much of my playtime of 1.6/1.7 is spent in the first 10-15 years of the game's timeframe.

I think every update of the game had some sort of gamebreaking AI bug. Nations never building ports, having 0 Market Access as a result. Nations not moving their armies. Nations never attacking anyone, or attacking willy-nilly. Before those are fixed, talk of historicity is futile Im afraid.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I think it's very vaguely on a right track but there is a lot of work to be done improving and balancing the AI. I still can't say I have much time in the game, as much of my playtime of 1.6/1.7 is spent in the first 10-15 years of the game's timeframe.

I think every update of the game had some sort of gamebreaking AI bug. Nations never building ports, having 0 Market Access as a result. Nations not moving their armies. Nations never attacking anyone, or attacking willy-nilly. Before those are fixed, talk of historicity is futile Im afraid.

That's true. I'm not familiar with the whole story, because I didn't touch the game for about a year two years after release, but the latest was a drop in aggressiveness, followed by a spike in aggressiveness after hotfixes.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

For the events and script focused take, I think For The Glory + AGCEEP was probably the farthest it concept was taken.

I think the best mid-way between both was Magna Mundi, which both had the mechanics (as much as it could anyway) and the scripted events to make them work.

For mechanics-focused, CKII is probably peak.

I think the problem of the scripted events approach is that you have no idea what happens next. Which may be a desirable outcome in certain cases, but in others you're essentially playing your game at the mercy of events which arrive at paces and causes unknown. Which is realistic to a certain level (sometimes, shit just happens), but then you start wondering if that thing you meant to do is actually working and is going to trigger.

I think stuff like JE/Focus Trees/Missions are meant to provide a path/context to what you CAN do. So, say, if you're playing Savoy, you know you can turn into France.

Personally how railroaded/sandboxed the game is, I think it should depend on game by game and even scenario date. Say, Hearts of Iron. By 1936, World War II is pretty much locked in. Its gonna happen, some details may change, but the fundamentals are pretty much set. Meanwhile, in Victoria, the Mexican-American War is pretty much locked-in with minor details to change, but the American Civil War is decades away - its probably going to stay still happen, but may be averted. And a lot of details are up for grabs.

And then you have EU and CK.
I think the Turko-Mongol invaders are an example of Pdox pretty much giving up and letting script take the wheel, recognizing they can't properly model that yet.

One cool idea for the more railroady games is to have a "historical" setting.

As for the less railroady, long-time games like CK and EU, I think they should have scenario-date early events with more rails, but as a rule, the moment the game starts, things should start changing, because the player character is there and acting.

That said, wherever you are pro scripting or sandboxing, one can never go wrong with deeper mechanics.

 

[Axioms]

For the events and script focused take, I think For The Glory + AGCEEP was probably the farthest it concept was taken.

I think the best mid-way between both was Magna Mundi, which both had the mechanics (as much as it could anyway) and the scripted events to make them work.

For mechanics-focused, CKII is probably peak.

I think the problem of the scripted events approach is that you have no idea what happens next. Which may be a desirable outcome in certain cases, but in others you're essentially playing your game at the mercy of events which arrive at paces and causes unknown. Which is realistic to a certain level (sometimes, shit just happens), but then you start wondering if that thing you meant to do is actually working and is going to trigger.

I think stuff like JE/Focus Trees/Missions are meant to provide a path/context to what you CAN do. So, say, if you're playing Savoy, you know you can turn into France.

Personally how railroaded/sandboxed the game is, I think it should depend on game by game and even scenario date. Say, Hearts of Iron. By 1936, World War II is pretty much locked in. Its gonna happen, some details may change, but the fundamentals are pretty much set. Meanwhile, in Victoria, the Mexican-American War is pretty much locked-in with minor details to change, but the American Civil War is decades away - its probably going to stay still happen, but may be averted. And a lot of details are up for grabs.

And then you have EU and CK.
I think the Turko-Mongol invaders are an example of Pdox pretty much giving up and letting script take the wheel, recognizing they can't properly model that yet.

One cool idea for the more railroady games is to have a "historical" setting.

As for the less railroady, long-time games like CK and EU, I think they should have scenario-date early events with more rails, but as a rule, the moment the game starts, things should start changing, because the player character is there and acting.

That said, wherever you are pro scripting or sandboxing, one can never go wrong with deeper mechanics.

Well they have to script the Mongols because suppose they actually added the map all the way to China, but then the sandbox ends up with the Mongols not spawning at all.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

Well they have to script the Mongols because suppose they actually added the map all the way to China, but then the sandbox ends up with the Mongols not spawning at all.

Pretty much, yeah. The mechanics simply aren't there yet to make steppe nomads always snowball into large Nomadic Empires and Tribal Confederacies. Which is a pity because "Large Steppe Empire" is a repeating pattern that happened constantly in the Steppe since before Christ

 

[AwesomeButton]

Which is a pity because "Large Steppe Empire" is a repeating pattern that happened constantly in the Steppe since before Christ

Coding a generic game mechanic to provide for a specific scenario is too costly, even if it's a scenario that repeats once in a few centuries. Generic mechanics that cover recurring scenarios that repeated multiple times over a (relatively) narrow timespan, for different global players: colonization, industrialization, power blocks.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

Which is a pity because "Large Steppe Empire" is a repeating pattern that happened constantly in the Steppe since before Christ

Coding a generic game mechanic to provide for a specific scenario is too costly, even if it's a scenario that repeats once in a few centuries. Generic mechanics that cover recurring scenarios that repeated multiple times over a (relatively) narrow timespan, for different global players: colonization, industrialization, power blocks.

It's not a mere "specific scenario". The dynamics of Eurasia from before Christ to until Russia broke the Tartar yoke, were strongly dictated and changed by the rise and fall of the Steppe Dwellers. Tribal confederacies snowballing into large hegemonies of Steppe Nomads and Semi-Nomadic Conquerors who then start rolling over nearby civilizations, is something that has been happening for thousands of years and has strongly shaped the development of the World-Island. Scythians, Cimmerians, Sarmatians, Xiongnu, Gokturks, Huns, Hephthalites, Rouran, Kara-Khitai/Liao, Avars, Magyars, Bulgars, Seljuks, Ghaznavids, Mongols, Timurids, Dzungars... it's a constant pattern that keeps happening over and over, and only stopped when large gunpowder armies became a thing among the settled civilizations.

This has strongly shaped the rise, development and fall of almost all the great civilizations in Eurasia. The shadow of the Steppe Dwellers, for long millenia, loomed large over the settled civilizations of Eurasia.

Essentially, if your game spans somewhere from the time of Alexander to the 1600s, your game needs to be able to portray the significance of the Steppe Dwellers. Angry horse-riding dudes raiding and invading from the Eurasian steppe to your territory is a big deal.

 

[AwesomeButton]

if your game spans somewhere from the time of Alexander to the 1600s

Which game is that though.

I know all that, but it doesn't change anything about what I said. It's a recurring scenario but it repeats rarely enough to not need its own mechanic.

 

[Axioms]

Which is a pity because "Large Steppe Empire" is a repeating pattern that happened constantly in the Steppe since before Christ

Coding a generic game mechanic to provide for a specific scenario is too costly, even if it's a scenario that repeats once in a few centuries. Generic mechanics that cover recurring scenarios that repeated multiple times over a (relatively) narrow timespan, for different global players: colonization, industrialization, power blocks.

It's not a mere "specific scenario". The dynamics of Eurasia from before Christ to until Russia broke the Tartar yoke, were strongly dictated and changed by the rise and fall of the Steppe Dwellers. Tribal confederacies snowballing into large hegemonies of Steppe Nomads and Semi-Nomadic Conquerors who then start rolling over nearby civilizations, is something that has been happening for thousands of years and has strongly shaped the development of the World-Island. Scythians, Cimmerians, Sarmatians, Xiongnu, Gokturks, Huns, Hephthalites, Rouran, Kara-Khitai/Liao, Avars, Magyars, Bulgars, Seljuks, Ghaznavids, Mongols, Timurids, Dzungars... it's a constant pattern that keeps happening over and over, and only stopped when large gunpowder armies became a thing among the settled civilizations.

This has strongly shaped the rise, development and fall of almost all the great civilizations in Eurasia. The shadow of the Steppe Dwellers, for long millenia, loomed large over the settled civilizations of Eurasia.

Essentially, if your game spans somewhere from the time of Alexander to the 1600s, your game needs to be able to portray the significance of the Steppe Dwellers. Angry horse-riding dudes raiding and invading from the Eurasian steppe to your territory is a big deal.

I don't think this is particularly true. The migrations early on were largely driven by climate change. The steppe wasn't particularly an issue for the Romans or even the Greeks.

 

[Hace El Oso]

If you're dealing with a smaller-than-global map, CK2, Total War, etc. already did that correctly which is with huge doomstacks of alien invaders coming in from off the borders of the map. Making them comprehensible, human, negotiable, playable all diminish their service to the game and actually strays from the historical perception of them at that time.

With a global map it should probably be done the same way, except they are an opaque region of negative space within that world. Victoria III at launch leaned in that direction, I have no idea how it has changed (for the worse, naturally).

 

[Fedora Master]

Reading the forums is hilarious. Half the people have essentially given up, the other half is still coping hard. I love "muh realism" arguments when something mechanically completely goes wrong, too. Because videogames should be unfun and stupid.

International trade, one of the defining features of the era, just doesn't work. You can't create an import trade route for something and expect the AI to accommodate you. In fact, if you're building things among your subjects you aren't going to gain ANY benefit because it's simply not possible to coax the AI into building more RGOs for you and the game can't understand export demand. All you end up with is a state full of unprofitable buildings.