Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[The_Explorer]

I'm gonna save $100 and buy this packaged with DLC in a year or so.

I probably should have done this tbh. Its only a bit worth it for me, but...hmm...

The game is a 6/10 for me. If I add a bunch of mods that fix/add stuff, then its an 7.5/10

So this is my thoughts after 50+ hours

I'll start with the pros

Personally, I LOVE their is no micro war (still war just don't direct it), every single game in existence always has war, blood, guts, killing, in it (ok maybe a tiny slight exaggeration there, I can count on two hands games without combat that have popped up on steam (that I've personally seen) in the past 2 years that aren't combat focused. Not including the dumb trashbin NSFW games, I don't count those. But I can't think of an actual game for...hmm...for grand strategy lovers...that doesn't have combat or war. Anyway, finally a grand strategy that is what I am looking for. Economics, society, politics I guess (though plenty of that going around in real life so thats not really exciting anymore in a game right now anyway) and a focus on growing populations and cities. Its pretty much an economic city builder for me. And no, no actual "city builder" compares to this. Victoria 3 you can grow pops into the multiple millions, and have real cities with "real" pops and cultures and plays better than any city builder I've played since simcity 4.

Actually I take that back as far as "no grand strategy without combat". Aurora4x is a grand strategy that actually plays similarly, if you turn off all the enemy AI and make sure no AI pops up from exploring, you don't have to fight ever. Well like I said, I can count them on one or two hands

Anyway actually that was two pros in one above, city building that is the best city builder since simcity 4 (sorry cities skylines fans, personally don't like that game whatsoever) and no war. Probably my two favorite parts of the game that hold it up a lot.

Cons...well there is one HUGE con that takes away all the fun of the game. It almost ruins the whole game tbh.

Every single nation plays exactly the same, no flavor, no differienting mechanics, nothing. Want to play Zulu? They don't play as an animist tribe of zulus, they play exactly the same as england. Want to play east india company? Well ok this one has (some) unique stuff, but in the end almost no flavor and...no matter what nation you play...you do the same exact build order, same exact research (which there is very little of btw), same exact everything, as every other single nation. There is very little of everything actually.

Every other con I can personally think of is minor compared to that (well one medium/large con is the game is pretty offfensive). But will list them anyway. Migration bonuses can go up to literally 1000+%, its stupid. Also why would abraham lincon go fascist and commit murder and then lead the CSA against the freedom loving part of the US? (yes that happened in one of my games). And uh...why would...why would africans keep slaves of africans...if new africa forms or you release them as US...they uh...become well I'll just put it this way...kanye west.......I mean sorry but thats almost too much. There is too much nonsense in the game, and some of it actually goes too far where it probably would be cancelled by (old) twitter before the elon musk takeover.

But some stuff that happens with some of the leaders and nations is actually pretty offensive tbh.

But mostly for me, the game lacks far too much content that makes nations fun to play, because every single nation is exactly the same. And there is not enough of everything. Obviously can be fixed with DLC...but...if it goes the imperator route, the game just lacks too much and won't ever succeed.

With that, I'll end it that...mods already have added and fixed a lot. New research, new buildings and stuff. Fixed the unrealistic resource distribution (well attempt to fix it, still trying mod out) and a bunch of stuff. So in longterm...there is mods for that I guess lol. Its a far healthier modding community than imperator was early on in the same time period. I remember imperator was really dead for mods in comparison (same is true for CK3 actually, that modding scene is pretty dead). I compare all paradox modding scenes to EU4, stellaris and HOI4. All the others are dead in comparison to those (even at release the others were dead). We'll see if victoria 3 remains as modded as it is, but its off to a good start.

[axiomsofdominion]

I'm pretty happy with Vicky 3. Because I didn't buy and because it is in an adjacent market to my own project.  Both CK3 and Vicky3 being mediocre is a good source of potential players for every other grand strategy game.

AotSS
Stellar Monarch 2
Distant Worlds 2
Grey Eminence
Axioms Of Dominion

All benefit from Paradox really whiffing hard. Imperator of course was also a big failure. I'm actually sad about that one cause I bought it and the final V2.0 was actually a solid 7/10.

[LuuBluum]

I'll agree that there's definitely a lack in any sort of regional flavor. The number of region-specific events for this game are... sparse, to say the least. Which, of course, isn't all that surprising; just look at the DLC model for CK3. All regional content. I imagine Vicky3 will be approached the same way.

Which, I suppose related to the above, mostly just motivates me to maybe actually go and start working on my own thing . Think Crusader Kings, but if you made it turn-based, took out the map, and made it so that you don't actually magically know people's opinions of you or their personality traits. Character interactions aren't just a way for garnering positive opinion; they become the mechanism for which you figure out just who that person is. After all, it rather helps to know whether or not a vassal is a coward before relying on them to show up for war. Or whether or not that vassal offering to help out during a war is doing so out of a sense of loyalty or a sense of aspiration and expects something in return.

[axiomsofdominion]

I'll agree that there's definitely a lack in any sort of regional flavor. The number of region-specific events for this game are... sparse, to say the least. Which, of course, isn't all that surprising; just look at the DLC model for CK3. All regional content. I imagine Vicky3 will be approached the same way.

Which, I suppose related to the above, mostly just motivates me to maybe actually go and start working on my own thing . Think Crusader Kings, but if you made it turn-based, took out the map, and made it so that you don't actually magically know people's opinions of you or their personality traits. Character interactions aren't just a way for garnering positive opinion; they become the mechanism for which you figure out just who that person is. After all, it rather helps to know whether or not a vassal is a coward before relying on them to show up for war. Or whether or not that vassal offering to help out during a war is doing so out of a sense of loyalty or a sense of aspiration and expects something in return.

The problem for Paradox is their game isn't deep enough to represent different societies systematically. So you need 3-4 special hardcoded mechanics per society type. Now for their wallets that isn't a problem since that means you can just toss on some b-tier music scores and some unit and portrait art and call it a culture pack or nation pack or w/e and charge $10.

[The_Explorer]

So I been playing GFM victoria 2.

And ok wait...I'm skipping ahead...its not really fair to compare an extremely old mod to a newly released game? I guess...tbh I think thats a bit of a cop out (though I can partly agree with it in some ways, but...), a newly released game should be better than decade+ old game mod or no mods. but whatever, some people don't agree with that. To me, if a game is old even with mods and its still better...then the newer game no point in getting (or if I did it was a waste of money). Like I fail to see the point in playing something with less stuff. But hey thats just me I guess. I said something like that somewhere (not here) and got so much hate lol. I like newer games though, I thought oblivion was a massive step forward from morrowind (personal opinion). Even if morrowind had a bunch of mods, I liked oblivion a ton more as an example.

I played vanilla victoria 2 for a few hours (I did this yesterday too). And even without mods...its uh...a lot better. More to do. More realistic. A lot more...well more of a sim I guess. Its fun still. And all the nations I've briefly tried are fun to play.

Victoria 3 I can't find anything fun with the nations I usually like because they are all carbon copies of each other.

And GFM takes victoria 2 up to 100x (well maybe, it sure adds a TON of stuff) lol.

[LuuBluum]

To be fair, Victoria 2 is more realistic because 99% of the economic "simulation" is extreme amounts of railroading to force specific outcomes. As far as I can tell, Victoria 3 has none of that. Not to say it doesn't have issues, though.

[Malus]

I strongly disagree that Vicky 2 is better than Vicky 3. (Well, the performance is better, I guess.) They're both easy (bordering on trivial) but V3 has more levers to pull and manipulate and the systems are actually *working* (ignoring a few bugs which I'm sure will be fixed sooner rather than later). Vicky 2's economy model is just busted, as in, it actually does not function as designed, described, or intended. At least in V3 when you're in debt, your interest payments actually go to the pops who loaned you money instead of getting deleted!

The diplomatic play system is the most impactful change, and it's a good one. You can just bully smaller countries and take what you want without even fighting a war, or persuade great powers to join your regional conflict by offering concessions, etc. I had a fun Texas run where Great Britain helped me steal a few states from Mexico (in exchange for a treaty port on the west coast) and this let me then join their customs union, which let me leech a bunch of immigrants and propel my economy through the stratosphere. Probably my biggest complaint is that it's just way too easy to snowball out of control in V3: after a certain point your economic growth goes basically exponential (which is not entirely unrealistic given the time period, but the issue is that other countries don't seem to be able to optimize as well as the player, so they get left in the dust.) Small countries (provided you can secure a source of immigrants by either becoming a protectorate or joining a customs union) can industrialize absurdly quickly and it's a feedback loop: the more population you have, the more you can raise your standard of living (by building the right factories), the more people want to immigrate, the more you can build, and so on -- and this works as pretty much any starting nation. Still, PDX games have never been difficult once you've figured out their systems, so I'm not going to hold it against Victoria 3 in particular.

I'm optimistic for future content updates to flesh out particular regions (and something to deepen subject relations: at the very least, not being able to invest in other country's industry is a pretty big omission) and I'd like to see them add more production methods, factories, resources, etc, to allow countries to specialize more (it's too easy to achieve total autarky, especially early, before you need opium, rubber, or oil). Maybe some kind of more autonomous trading, too, although I don't dislike the current system which gives you a lot of control over which goods you're importing and exporting (and, importantly, solid feedback on how each trade route affects the price of the relevant goods for each market.) It is deeply satisfying building up a navy and then completely starving a country by sinking its convoys. Sure, occupying countries in Vicky 2 and then just farming their militancy up to max was great, but clicking on Italy and seeing that their standard of living dropped off a cliff since you parked your fleet in the Straits of Gibraltar -- now that's *exquisite*.

[The_Explorer]

I strongly disagree that Vicky 2 is better than Vicky 3. (Well, the performance is better, I guess.) They're both easy (bordering on trivial) but V3 has more levers to pull and manipulate and the systems are actually *working* (ignoring a few bugs which I'm sure will be fixed sooner rather than later). Vicky 2's economy model is just busted, as in, it actually does not function as designed, described, or intended. At least in V3 when you're in debt, your interest payments actually go to the pops who loaned you money instead of getting deleted!

The diplomatic play system is the most impactful change, and it's a good one. You can just bully smaller countries and take what you want without even fighting a war, or persuade great powers to join your regional conflict by offering concessions, etc. I had a fun Texas run where Great Britain helped me steal a few states from Mexico (in exchange for a treaty port on the west coast) and this let me then join their customs union, which let me leech a bunch of immigrants and propel my economy through the stratosphere. Probably my biggest complaint is that it's just way too easy to snowball out of control in V3: after a certain point your economic growth goes basically exponential (which is not entirely unrealistic given the time period, but the issue is that other countries don't seem to be able to optimize as well as the player, so they get left in the dust.) Small countries (provided you can secure a source of immigrants by either becoming a protectorate or joining a customs union) can industrialize absurdly quickly and it's a feedback loop: the more population you have, the more you can raise your standard of living (by building the right factories), the more people want to immigrate, the more you can build, and so on -- and this works as pretty much any starting nation. Still, PDX games have never been difficult once you've figured out their systems, so I'm not going to hold it against Victoria 3 in particular.

I'm optimistic for future content updates to flesh out particular regions (and something to deepen subject relations: at the very least, not being able to invest in other country's industry is a pretty big omission) and I'd like to see them add more production methods, factories, resources, etc, to allow countries to specialize more (it's too easy to achieve total autarky, especially early, before you need opium, rubber, or oil). Maybe some kind of more autonomous trading, too, although I don't dislike the current system which gives you a lot of control over which goods you're importing and exporting (and, importantly, solid feedback on how each trade route affects the price of the relevant goods for each market.) It is deeply satisfying building up a navy and then completely starving a country by sinking its convoys. Sure, occupying countries in Vicky 2 and then just farming their militancy up to max was great, but clicking on Italy and seeing that their standard of living dropped off a cliff since you parked your fleet in the Straits of Gibraltar -- now that's *exquisite*.

I guess my main complaint is just lack of content and the rest is nitpicky stuff kinda like I said. I actually think victoria 3 performs better than 2 though, 2 performs pretty bad.

[The_Explorer]

So I'm not overly negative today.

I've been extremely enjoying this mod, even if its quite out there and not historical at all lol

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2879827434

[Great Order]

OK, can someone explain to me how battles work? I've been invading Persia and every time I try, I lose. I have more men and a greater offensive score than their defensive score. Despite this, they're routinely mopping the floor with me.

[Malus]

OK, can someone explain to me how battles work? I've been invading Persia and every time I try, I lose. I have more men and a greater offensive score than their defensive score. Despite this, they're routinely mopping the floor with me.

Morale is super important. The offense/defense scores don't seem very relevant (well, if you outmatch them 2-to-1 or something then it starts to matter, and 3-to-1, you start to win even outnumbered, but if your offense is 45 and their defense is 30 or so then that's not going to make a big difference). Battles can be kind of RNG heavy, and sometimes you just get unlucky with your generals engaging into fights where they're outnumbered (even though you might have more local forces). The techs and traits that increase your replenishment (field hospitals, etc) are the key to winning these kinds of slogs. The thing to keep in mind is that troops engaged in combat don't heal up, so the real advantage to having more troops is that you have more reserves who can be receiving reinforcements while you're constantly engaging into the same stack of enemies who are slowly but surely losing morale. Eventually you'll reach a point where you're fighting troops that are at like 20 or 30% morale and you'll just crush them, and then it's smooth sailing from there. Especially early-game before the techs/production methods that increase replenishment, if you have superior numbers you can pretty much always grind them down.

The thing is, (and this is doubly true late-game) battles are extremely defender sided. So you have to be prepared to take losses and wear them down through attrition, or you have to bait enemies into engaging you. You can do some kind of annoying micro where you set your troops to attack, wait for the bar to reach 99%, then switch to defend. Then when the enemy attacks into your stack, you win the defense, and then immediately switch back to attack and engage the weakened army before they've recovered. This strategy is pretty effective if you're roughly equal strength and stuck in a stalemate. Also, troops out of supply will rapidly lose morale and their attrition rate will go to 100% which will let you advance the front without even fighting them, so if you have the ability to do a naval invasion behind enemy lines and cut them off from their ports or a land path to their capital, then you can just steamroll. Besides that, just taking out ports can be good for denying them their trade goods that they require to keep their soldiers at full morale -- though the front system obviously makes it difficult to direct exactly what you want captured.

Some other tips, make sure your armed forces are at +10 loyalty so you get the +30% offense/defense boost -- if you already have an advantage, this can push you over the edge and make it actually count. Generals are important, and one general with tons of troops is better than three or four with your forces split (except you do lose a good deal of flexibility -- but on a soldier-for-soldier basis, they're stronger.) Having a local arms industry is essential (you can usually keep them profitable during peace time with some export routes, but otherwise, start subsidizing them before you go to war) and establishing a tech advantage -- and having the production to actually keep your armies fully supplied with the new goods they require -- will let you punch far above your weight. Make sure your conscription centers are also using your latest production methods too, not just your barracks. Besides that, make sure your soldiers are in good supply. Be aware that attrition is unavoidable and will kill more soldiers than battles, so make sure you can replace troops faster than they're dying -- the military training decree is useful here. It's not enough to simply have superior forces at the start of the war, you need to be able to keep the meatgrinder going full speed for the whole duration.

[MaxTheFox]

Game is OK. Can't really say more, it could be better but it's a fucking Paradox game at launch, don't expect it to be a masterpiece, that's gonna happen in a year or two.

Also GFM is a recent mod. It also makes my computer slow to a crawl so that's that. But it's still a good mod.

[Great Order]

I think Vicky 3's got a couple of major issues as far as I'm concerned. Even for Vicky, a lot of data's quite opaque simply by virtue of being impossible to locate because it's nested in a nested box that's nested in another nested box.

The other issue is the one that's been raised before: Each nation's basically the same to play as. Just needs more events, maybe even a little bit more railroading, some more formable nations (because I find having nation-specific goals helps), some nation-specific buffs/debuffs based on historical events.

[Shooer]

OK, can someone explain to me how battles work? I've been invading Persia and every time I try, I lose. I have more men and a greater offensive score than their defensive score. Despite this, they're routinely mopping the floor with me.

Battles start before the war by trying to destabilize your opponent's economy.  Namely, trying to remove their access (or just raising the costs of) sulfur or steel/iron.

They can't fight you with better numbers and guns if they don't have bullets or guns.

[The_Explorer]

Sorry for my overly negative posts yesterday, I try to be more upbeat. The political situation in the US is actually rather getting to me :|

Anyway, I actually enjoy Victoria 3 more despite what I said yesterday. Got into a war in victoria 2 and went "oh now I remember why I always stopped playing victoria 2." lol. I actually think victoria 3 has a lot of good features and mechanics, just lacks content which can be fixed with updates. Maybe the war system can be improved. But the thing is, the game has a good foundation imo. I know its getting rather heated reviews and stuff, but its foundation is solid. Though I can see its probably gonna rely on DLC to make things a lot better.