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[Ampersand]

Now, I know that given the number of people here who enjoy the Paradox Grand Strategy Series, there must be at least a handful of other people following the development of this game. For those who are fans of the series, but were unaware that Victoria 2 was in the works, here's what I know about it.

• It's based on the Hearts of Iron 3 engine, meaning that there are a great many more possible provinces. The map and art style are completely reworked of course.
  
  
• The map was developed initially by a community member, ostensibly to eventually replace the Victoria map, and expand the number of available provinces by merging many sea-provinces and redundant land provinces. Paradox asked for permission to use it and modify it for Victoria 2, and got it.
  
  
• Many things are changed in terms of the initial state of the world to make it fall more consistently in line with reality. For example, the addition of the Artisan POP, which acts as a miniature factory. It produces things on it's own according to market demands, and available resources. These POPs are are common in pre-industrial nations. In the beginning, a nation like China has a higher industrial capacity than any in Europe simply due to such artisans, but is soon overtaken as the west industrializes.
  
  
• The interface has been reworked to actually not be utterly confusing.
  
  
• The role of the clergy has been expanded and generalized, no longer defined merely as Priests, but as Clerical Workers, including priests, educators, and other similar roles. Literacy is raised by them. Bureaucrats are also added as a pop. They collect taxes and spread social reforms to the province they're in. If they are absent in a province, it does not pay taxes and does not get the benefit of reforms, making undeveloped colonies expensive, and more likely to revolt.
  
  
• The economic system has been reworked. A lot of the no-brainer choices that are made at the beginning of the game are no longer so obvious. The developers called this Victoria 1's 'Liberal Bias'. It was always a good idea to fund Education to the highest possible degree, always a good idea to free the slaves and have universal suffrage, always a good idea to go for democratic governments, always a good idea to have a lot of social reforms. These decisions will not be so heavily balanced in one direction.
  
  
• The player will no longer be responsible for acquiring inputs for factories; the factories themselves are, and will shut down if they cannot turn a profit. Of course, the government can subsidize factories, and there are good reasons to do that. The first being unemployment; the unemployed may emigrate, and have a higher chance of rebelling. The other being that other factories may require the first factories output as an input, and have profits that cancel out the losses incurred by subsidizing the other.

This hardly touches on the number of changes made, but I can say that the game borrows a lot of ideas from the games made since Victoria. Namely, Hearts of Iron 3, and Europa Universalis 3, and it's expansion packs. I expect great things.

For those who haven't yet played a Paradox Grand strategy game, or find them too complex and difficult: This one may be the one to start with.

[Goron]

For those who haven't yet played a Paradox Grand strategy game, or find them too complex and difficult: This one may be the one to start with.

heh, which is the exact opposite of the original's relationship to the series.
Victoria was the one game I wished was my favorite Paradox game but just never reached that point because it was just too darn difficult to master...

But, I look forward to Vicky 2.

[Ampersand]

Yeah. I'm playing Vicky a lot lately, and I'm starting to get pretty good at it. After about five runs as the Republic of Texas that ended with ragequitting after my last division is steamrolled and Austin is taken, my Sixth ended with the Proletarian Dictatorship Texas as a Great Power, Mexico reduced to a single province, California, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico divided almost equally between the US, and Texas.

After Mexico was conquered and made a satellite, The US started making a lots of Guarantees of Independence to the Central American states. I had hoped to work down to the Panama Canal, but as strong as my military was, the US had numbers on me.

Since I'm playing with the Victoria Improvement Project, the Independence of Texas isn't difficult to secure, but Mexico can and will deny you the Treaty of Velasco 90 percent of the time. The difficult part of playing Texas isn't so much Dealing with Mexico as it is keeping the United States from helping you. If you ally with them and go to war with Mexico, The US will claim basically everything between Kansas and the Pacific Ocean, many of them considered Cores by Texas. Same thing if they Guarantee you, and Mexico declares war on you. If you want to get all the territory that belongs to Texas, you have to Deny the United States alliance, and declare war on Mexico before they declare war on you.

It also helps to Conquer Haiti basically as soon as the war with Mexico is over. It's the only Caribbean territory that isn't a European colony, and will basically triple your population.

Then, the second thing you want to make sure happens is get Anarcho-Liberals elected as soon as possible. They don't have all the policies you want (They're anti-military, and Laissez faire), but they declare a Presidential dictatorship soon after assuming power, so you can install Socialists for long enough to build a couple vital factories before permitting voting rights again.


Yeah, I've really over thought this.

[Servant Corps]

Wait, so you had a bunch of gung-ho capitalist form a dictatorship just so they can hand power over to Socialists? 

[Ampersand]

Yeah, so? The problem was the lack of capitalists, meaning that I couldn't industrialize until I had enough cash on hand to do it. I guess you could say it was the Texas Five Year Plan.

Although now I have a much better strategy for the Yucatan war. Since Mexico is allied with the Apache in VIP, it's possible to send your two starting calvary divisions through openings in the enemy line and get them to take the Apache Capital, which allows you to grab huge swaths of land away from the Apache. Strike a white peace with Mexico, and you've got most of the west, including half of California in your pocket from the get go. The only major problem there is getting Albuquerque, or Santa Fe from Mexico, otherwise the western provinces are completely cut off from Texas and left undefended.

[Goron]

Dammit Ampersand, you make my ... yearning to love the game even stronger...

[Ampersand]

You should see my current game. Mexico a Satellite, most of the western US in Texas' control, most of eastern Mexico under Texas control, 27 million citizens.

I'm kind of save scumming at this point, because, after all that expansion and conquest, the Sword of Damocles finally fell. That is to say, the US is apparently sick of my bullshit. with the second largest army in the world, 5 times my population, and industrial output. Suffice it to say, I need to think of a way to get around this.

[Ampersand]

Last post on my Victoria game, I swear. I'll make it more forgivable by posting more about Vicky 2 afterward.

I restarted the Texas game because no matter what I did, the US would declare war and completely mop the floor with me. Was too aggressive against Mexico, was seen as a potential threat. I took a different avenue this time. Instead of aggressively expanding into Mexico, I waited until the Texas Panhandle was conceded to Texas by the Cherokee, before declaring war and taking Albuquerque, Mexico's holdings in New Mexico. Mexico wouldn't concede them, so I pushed them harder, occupied more territory, and allied with the US.

Faced with a war against the US, Mexico conceded New Mexico and Arizona. But somehow, the Mexican Army managed against all odds to keep the US army from succeeding at all at their invasion. Peace is declared with the status quo in tact between The US and Mexico. Mexico holding all of modern Mexico, along with western Nevada and California. Texas, however, thanks to the Rhetoric of President Lamar's Destiny Party, lays claim to all of the south west.

Fast forward to the turn of the century, 1890's. Texas is ranked ninth in the world in terms of industrial capacity, military might, and prestige. Texas is facing a shortage however. Tropical hardwoods are not being produced fast enough globally to satisfy the demands of Texas' factories. Texas invades Venezuela, ostensibly to secure a portion of the northern Amazon Jungle, a rich source of such wood. Venezuela puts up a spirited defense, and quickly brings light to Texas' outdated navy, but soon collapses as more and more Texan soldiers make landfall. Venezuela offers nearly half of the nation in exchange for peace, and Texas accepts.

Twenty years later, the nation is rolling in money, and the population expands by roughly a thousand people every day due to immigration to the rich gold and silver mines in New Mexico. The first Tank factory in the world is built in New Mexico. Soon, an army of 100,000 men and 20,000 tanks is fielded in Arizona. Texas launches a gambit, the Californian Blitz. The massive army pours over the border, and secures the entire state in a matter of days. Mexico, stunned by the military might demonstrated, folds rapidly, unwilling to see such weapons brought south. They sign away all of their territory north of San Diego, as well as Baja California, and Buena Vista, despite the two massive gold mines in the areas signed away.

Texas eventually grows to have a population of over 90,000,000, and had higher industrial capacity than the United States, and secured a position for itself as a Great Power, surpassing the might and influence of Austria.

All this has got me thinking of Doing an LP. Perhaps, as Tibet.

On to Victoria 2.

New comments from the developers have indicated that my predictions were correct, they are drawing a lot of inspiration from their more recent games. In particular, the Heir to the Throne expansion for EU3. In Victoria, war was a little abstract. The benefits and costs of going to war were always the same, but in Victoria 2, they are implementing a system whereby the reasons you go to war are clearly defined and announced in all declarations of war. This means you no longer have to sit and wonder why the AI declared war on you, and will make the AI offer things consistent with your reasons for going to war in exchange for peace.

In a way, it's sort of reversing the old way. Instead of declaring war and then later defining what it will take to reestablish peace, you define your terms for peace at the same time you declare war, and the AI accepts the terms when it feels defeated enough.

[John Hopoate]

Vicky was good (with the addon and VIP) but Paradox's last two games (Rome and HOI3) were complete shit so I'm not getting my hopes up.

[mainiac]

Seeing the last developer diary really disappointed me.  I really, really, really, want a paradox game where diplomacy amounts to something more then the DF adventure mode drunken-meatshield-companions system.  I'm not saying that it's not nice to hear that the peace treaty system is getting a revamp Heir to the Throne style.  But this was the age of diplomacy and shifting alliances, the reasons for why great powers would align with each other and why they would support client states need to be included.

[Goron]

All this has got me thinking of Doing an LP. Perhaps, as Tibet.

I'd read it.
Even your little Texas writeup was enjoying.
I think Paradox games are some of the best possible for AARs.

[Ampersand]

I've done a few test plays of Tibet. I've read an LP for it to get a couple ideas, and did a little reading on other tactics before hand as well. I find it insanely hard. The only way to get off the ground is to almost instantly invade China, occupy the capital of it's satellite, and demand tribute for peace. This has to be done before the Opium war, or else, England, France, and Russia will defend china, and has to be done before China can move their armies to the border, else they'll occupy you quickly.

In VIP 3, their starting armies are rather large. Even as Irregular natives, they can over power you in sheer numbers if you don't strike before they have a chance to move them. Then you have to covert most of your population to soldiers or clergymen once income from china is secured, so you can build more divisions, and research at a less embarrassing rate. By the time you're out of money, and can freely invade China again, the Opium war will already be over, and you can't invade until the Indians revolt and you no longer share a border with British India. Once that happens, you can invade china. the Europeans will still declare war, but since you're landlocked, they can't actually do anything to you.

Yes, the only way to stand a chance as Tibet is to be insanely aggressive towards China.

Anyway, Hearts of Iron 3 was not complete shit. It just suffers from the same things the original Victoria suffers from; namely an inadequate interface, and poorly documented features. Beyond that Hearts of Iron 3 isn't so much a political simulator as much as it's a war game. Unfortunate, but true.

[Judas Maccabeus]

Ahhhhhhh yes.  Being a huge fan of the original Vicky (ridiculously complex and excessively detailed, but that's precisely my kind of game ) you can't imagine my glee upon finding out there was a sequel.  It's looking very good so far... we'll see, of course.  There's the fact that Paradox games are always rather buggy and messy upon release, after all (still very worth it, though). 

Now if only they'd get on a new version of Crusader Kings, then I'd be even happier.

[Gantolandon]

It seems they want to make the game with dynamic AI, which I consider a good thing. The event system was fun, but it was a real pain when the game started to be ahistorical. Then there was VIP where the modders tried to circumvent the engine's limitations, but they overdone it a bit (colonization system and some game-changing events). Then again, it's better they don't fuck this up...

[Ampersand]

I think most of the changes to colonization, particularly in north America, is that the old system made it ridiculously easy for, say, Texas, to take control of most of North America, or for Japan to take full control over all of the pacific. They made colonization of the Pacific islands impossible until 1860, I think. This has it's own problems. All these islands end up getting taken by Germany, and once, Japan took Hawaii. While carrying this stuff over to Hearts of Iron would have, suffice it to say, interesting consequences, it doesn't really make any sense.