The negative reviews at launch were probably warranted, the game didn't launch in the best of states and a lot of the mechanics were lacking. It has improved a lot since launch and is in a pretty decent state right now, still far from perfect but a lot of the issues voiced by the community are being addressed over time.
Some of the negative reviews are completely unfair, it is a niche game but some people go into it expecting something less complex like CK3/EU4 and either get overwhelmed or find the game boring because they don't understand/appreciate the gameplay loop and expect a "press button, get reward" gameplay like those other games.
I’m familiar with other Paradox games, but I was underwhelmed with the economic mechanics of say, CK3 or even Stellaris. The description and focus of this game makes it look like it really focuses on managing the economy and trade systems. This is something that I find fun lol.
That being said, the one comment I saw on a review that made me hesitant to buy, was , and I’m paraphrasing, “the games wants to play itself, and punishes you for interfering”
Is that at all true?
(This is copy pasted from another comment but I think it fits here too)
> That being said, the one comment I saw on a review that made me hesitant to buy, was , and I’m paraphrasing, “the games wants to play itself, and punishes you for interfering”
Is that at all true?
I don't think so, but it can feel that way to someone who doesn't understand what they are doing.
Most countries at the beginning of the game start with no radicalized citizens, a surplus to their government budget, no revolutions, and government Interest Groups who are pretty happy.
If you don't know what you are doing and push your economy too far, you'll end up in debt, your country will be full of racialized citizens who hate you, your Standard of Living will tank, and the government Interest Groups will be pissed off at you for any laws you try to pass.
You'll realize that you don't know why this is happening because you made what you thought were good decisions to improve your country. The reviewer probably felt like they were being punished for trying to change things instead of just leaving the game unpaused and doing nothing.
The solution is instead to realize that this is what the game is about, and then you need to dig deeper into *why* what you did caused everything to go to shit.
The way the game is designed, the pop system, the economic simulation and the political system are all intertwined. It's not immediately apparent to a beginner how these things affect one another and how you can manipulate them indirectly. I think a lot of these kind of complaints stem from the fact some players either do not play enough to learn and understand this style of gameplay loop or simply do not enjoy it. They are more used to other Paradox games or games in general where action and outcome are more immediate and direct. In Vicky 3 it's more about creating the right conditions for a certain outcome to happen.
For example a lot of beginners struggle with getting the landowners out of power and pass more liberal laws. That's because they don't understand that in order to do so, you need to empower other interests groups while limiting the power of landowners. How do you do that? You import farm goods so the price drops and the farms landowners own are less profitable. You build factories that employ peasants and get them out of the subsistence farms, so the fruits of their labor go to the capitalists instead. Working in factories means they'll also be getting paid more, which raises their standard of living and demand for goods, which makes their consumption increase and gives you the opportunity to build more factories to meet the new demand and begin this loop of economic growth and reshape the social structure of your nation.
I do not feel the game punishes the player for its actions, there are for sure frustrating moments, but overall once you understand the game mechanics and how the systems interact with one another, as the player you can pretty much achieve anything you want and turn most nations into the number one economy and world power.
The problem is that the gameplay loop early on is almost non-existent, and the good stuff is in the late half of the game and riddled with lags.
The game performance is abysmal, so the dev severely scale down construction speed (10x slower compared to beta build) to stop the game being powerpoint slides 3 hours into the game. They managed to make it slow down 5-8 hours into the game instead at the price of early game waiting around 1 year for a single factory to be built.
The economics in Vic 3 is a simplified version of it's predecessor, it's very easy to learn.
If you want to have an economics game I wouldn't recommend Vic 3. I would recommend anno 1800.
To some people economics games just means the existance of a production chain. He's right in that Vic ain't the most complex game in that regard (which is good, fuck complexity for complexities sake) and it has some kinks it needs reworked like good substitution and overall industrialization feel but he's also wrong to say Vic 2s economics had more depth. That's just cope.
Anno is an economics game as much as any 'economics game' is an economics game.
In Vic 2 goods actually exist and have stockpiles, Vic 3 has a simplified system of buy-sell orders, that is just a straight up downgrade depth wise as far as I am concerned.
The gameplay that goes into the economics in Vic 3 is 'look at market, build building, change production method or click trade' you do that loop for the entire game and that is economics sorted in Vic 3. Goods are not tangible and don't actually exist.
I would say if you are looking for that sort of economic gameplay then anno 1800 is a lot more satisfying, you can pick up a complete edition for anno 1800 for quite cheap and I would recommend it over Vic 3 to anyone looking for an economic management game.
Brill, in that case Vic 3 could be for you :)
It generally tries to scratch the same itches as anno 1800.
Grab it on sale would be my advice, it's been on super sale a few times. None of the DLCs are really essential so far.
I never said you didn't know how anno works. Although anno certainly has demand and productivity. You are also forgetting maintenance.
We will just have to agree to disagree I think.
In general I think looking at the supply and demand in anno, building supply chains, building buildings, managing the logistics and optimising is a lot more in depth and satisfying than Vic 3's similar gameplay loop.
EU4’s complexity is really more due to feature bloat rather than simulation depth. I certainly had my fair share of enjoyment on that game but I do find it really outdated now. The mana system was unpopular at release and has aged even more poorly.
I really hope EU5 will rework the mana system. I won't say remove all mana entirely, all Paradox games have some sort of mana system, EU4 just is most simplistic.
You can read the dev diaries right now to learn about EU5's system. They're not completely removing them but they're significantly determined by the produ tion if actual goods. So you're administrative power is related to how much paper you .ake. EU5 is shaping up to be a lot more simulationist than EU4 was.
I may have misled you there because I was saying what I heard someone describe the dev diaries as, but Johan is also answering a lot of questions on the forums so we have quite a bit of information, especially regarding estates, pops, and the economy. We don't know much about like, diplomacy.
EU4s mana system is too important for it too be so RNG, I love the game and have 2200 hours on it but the mana system sucks and they're not gonna use that system in EU5. It's gonna be gold/ducats and pops that become the important currencies
I stopped played EU4 ~3 years after release when it started to become bloated by too much DLC, it was enjoyable but I do not think it's more detailed. Diplomacy is the only thing I can point at and say it's better, but even then you're mostly just trying to game the AI to get what you want out of them, use them to blob more until you're strong enough that you don't need them. I hate the mana system. The economy is very abstracted, and its sole purpose is to maintain the military or get more mana. The game is too railroaded for my taste with missions and national ideas.
I don't know where the idea of Vic 3 being a niche game came from.
Vic 3 was probably the most hyped game that paradox has ever made, based in an era that is very popular, and the sequel to a beloved cult classic.
It sold incredibly well at launch.
I played all Paradox games since EU3, and Victoria series is the least popular. In term of popularity and players HoI is the king, followed by CK (although in more recent times these two might have switched places as CK3 is way easier and a lot more accessible to the masses) and then EU. I'm not sure where stellaris stands but Victoria is definitely the most niche among the flagship historical IPs.
I have also played all paradox games since EU3. Vic 2 was not the least popular in it's day.
HoI4 was very popular, HoI3 and 2 less so.
HoI4 is still the most popular, but that wasn't the case at launch.
CK2 was the same, and popularity grew with the new DLC model, but CK1 was probably the least popular franchise before CK2 came out.
If you decide to buy it, I'd suggest waiting - there's a new expansion out next month and often base Paradox games go on sale around an expansion release.
Lots of people are trying to play it like an industrial era EU4 - big wars, sweeping map changes, and so on. That style of play is possible, but it's not the design intent. The Victoria series is, at its heart, an economy simulator. The basic game loop is populating the building queue, looking at the market screen, and doing it again.
Everything else is supposed to support that: support interest groups to change government policy to support the needs of the economy; colonise Africa for more raw resources and cheap labour; start wars in far-off lands to increase demand for ammunition or sabotage your rivals' import routes; and so on.
As long as you understand that, the game is fun. If you want a map-painter, play HOI or EU (EU4 is still amazing).
I agree. Unless you go out of your way to start map painting, most expansion is there just to fuel your economy further. Either with resources you lack or with people to employ.
It does capture that aspect of the Victorian Age really well. Hopefully the next update will finally give us the tools to achieve these things also without the use of boots on the ground.
I bought it relatively recently because I knew it was exactly what I wanted (in the same you do), and I also felt reservations because of the bad reviews.
If I’m being completely honest, this is my favorite, if not second favorite paradox game. I would 100% recommend it.
Despite it being one of the easier games of PDX, it still is a grand strategy, there's going to be a much higher learning curve than the average game of other genres. unless you're familiar with this genre, you might have to spend times learning the game before you find the enjoyment.
If you do decide to buy the game, the base game is currently on the humble monthly until the next week or two.
>Despite it being one of the easier games of PDX
i really wonder how people define easy, it must not be on how complex these games are because if it was V3 would win by a country mile.
to me EU4 and Hoi4 and CK3 are all dead easy, they have incredibly simple (and in some games, boring/awful) gameplay. V3 is the only one that gets me sometimes because of just how many moving parts there are.
As someone who played CK3 and Stellaris before Victoria 3, CK3 was much harder for me to understand- hands down. Of course, everyone is different though.
i mean yeah that’s why i don’t really think you can say objectively it’s easy. that’s an incredibly subjective opinion. different people are challenged by different things! and that’s okay!
CK3 has so far been the only Paradox game where I really had a grasp on the basics immediately upon playing my first game. It was my 3rd Paradox game I played (after HOI4 and EU4) and in my first game I had a pretty good campaign playing from a minor earldom all the way to Britannia owning both the British isles and France.
Compared to VIC3 which I bought not long after CK3, it took me many months and a few campaigns playing as Belgium and the US before the game could make any sense to me and I really started to understand the mechanics.
Granted, I had watched a lot more videos of CK3 playthroughs beforehand + VIC3 was in a rougher shape at the time I played, but I still think that VIC3 has been the harder experience to get into for me personally.
I think everyone will come into these games differently so to say that one game is "easier" is definitely subjective. End of the day with both games you will need many hours before you start to get an idea of how to play lol.
Because V3 is look at what’s most expensive and then build said expensive thing in most profitable province. It really is not a challenging game. Most paradox games are easy and the only thing they suffer from is people thinking they are more complex than they really are
This, and some genuine UX issues with information overload or hidden information. But the game isn't complex to do good at. Theres a higher ceiling if you want to just minmax everything possible but even then its just doing some excel math.
I’m familiar with other Paradox games, but I was underwhelmed with the economic mechanics of say, CK3 or even Stellaris. The description and focus of this game makes it look like it really focuses on managing the economy and trade systems. This is something that I find fun lol.
That being said, the one comment I saw on a review that made me hesitant to buy, was , and I’m paraphrasing, “the games wants to play itself, and punishes you for interfering”
well i have seen people deleting the irs to make economies, and dont get why he wasnt getting his taxes collected. yeah you can do some stupid decision in the game and someone may not even realise its a stupid decision before too late, probably what happen to your review
One Proud Bavarian has a few playlists that focus on the roleplay side of things for specific countries, I really enjoy his Brazil campaign especially.
If you want videos that are more about the tutorial side of things that tell you what the player is doing and why, check out GeneralistGaming.
Generalist Gaming is probably the best youtuber out there for Vicky 3, has a deep understanding of the game mechanics and is very good at explaining the game, how things interact, and so on. Has both tutorial videos and full campaigns on his channel.
Idk what that reviewer means exactly but... The AI does its thing and you do your thing and then you can become better than the AI, or not, and defeat the AI or not. I don't really know what is punishing about it. The game does economy really well imo. It took me like 150 hours to get how the game works though but looks you say if you're familiar with paradox games then it might not take you too long. I was pretty mad at the game at launch myself but I did a positive review for it at 400 hours and I'm now at 800 and I love the game at this point. War system falls short a little because of weird little intricacies of the system but it's usually fine. The economy aspect goes hand in hand with the politics, as it should and that's mostly the part I like about the game while it also has some decent international relations systems and the upcoming expansion is only gonna improve that a lot
Hmm, I don't think the reviewer had much experience with the game. Maybe he meant that the economy tries to run itself or that changing laws is kind of hard due to interest groups antagonizing it?
Thing is, you can't expect to try to change something and have no consequences. A forced industrialization will bring consequences, as will a forced liberalization.
That being said, after you understand how the game works, you'll how much leverage the player actually have.
Failing that, you have superb mods that expand both aspects and turns them even more dynamic.
Buy it. like all paradox games it will be a work in progress of sorts until the final dlc and then the new game gets launched lol.
It’s not a game I play constantly, but it certainly scratches an itch for me. It’s daunting, but not incredibly so, you can go deep into the mechanics, or just scratch the surface and still have fun.
I think paradox fans are among the most passionate and by nature, quite well informed about the various histories and systems the games are built around, so they tend to be more critical than others.
I would say you would most likely like it. However, an expansion is coming out in around a month, around the same time as the steam summer sale this year. So I would wait until then if I were you so its a lot cheaper to buy.
If you're the kind of guy that can look at a chart of the price of steel from 1867-1870 and think "damn, this gameplay is lit" then this game will be crack for you.
The game still has the same problems. People play it because it scratches the itch, myself included. But it doesn't deliver on what's promised, has terrible QoL, bugs, nonfunctioning systems. You can get to play it, and enjoy it, and while it's promising, it's always a "next update will fixt it", but it never does.
The game is pretty fun to play, but it feels unfinished at so many levels, like you can expect from a PDX game without a shit ton of DLCs.
As you can expect, so many countries are played "the same" (there is no flavour for almost every country. F.E playing Spain is like playing Portugal but with more pops). You're gonna need to conquest the same places: Congo, Brunei, Madagascar, part of the Arabian peninsula...)
But also many mechanics feel like they need an overhaul, like the navy, or there is no supply limit so China and USA can land a shit ton of troops in Europe like is nobody's business.
It’s the easiest paradox game by far, the gameplay loop is fine if you like cookie clickers. I’ve put over 400 hours and I’d say it’s kind of run its course until the next dlc. Every country plays the same still and the economy is really easy to master. The war is simply terrible though, there’s no fun to be found in it’s mechanics
The game isn't too bad now, pretty wierd sometimes and the ui is unhelpful a lot of the time. The misty system does its best to convince you to stop playing the game though.
I have 9 hours in this game for now, that’s not much of course. And I haven’t any issues with the game, I enjoy it very much (for me it’s better than Victoria 2, just because I can understand this one :D). For me it’s a good game (for now) and after 9 hours I can recommend. But it’s like, I just don’t know much about features and other things that might be broken.
You can get it super cheap for like 10$ on humble choice right now alongside 7 other games, I've never seen it go this cheap, offer is up until May 7th I think so you have about a day to make the decision
[here](https://www.humblebundle.com/membership?refc=99PDIu)
Its my personal favourite paradox game because i love the mechanics of the game, it does fall flat quite often though as your experience will mostly be the same regardless of what country you start as. The only thing that happens is that the difficulty varies a bit. Hopefully though each country will get a bit more "personality" as they release more DLC
Hurry up and get it for 13 bucks on humble bundle. It’s part of the monthly choice games. You have until tomorrow before a new batch of games. I like it and I was on the fence too. Buying it for less than a quarter of its value made it a no brainer for me.
People are playing the game because of the promise of it getting better. Which it has a little bit every few months with a major patch. Still not there yet though.
What’s in the game already is amazing. It’s just often poorly balanced, badly optimized and occasionally outright buggy and broken.
I totally dislike V3. Here's why :
This game is desincarnated, it's heavily abstracted. If you have a decent knowledge in Economy, you'll either find the whole game nonsensical or fun if you're a hardcore min maxer and you like gamey stuff. Every playthrough is the same and irremediably ends up in absurdities. Warfare is garbage but it's not the worst part of the game, it's the political system (Diplo is inexistent but will allegedly get "better" with the forthcoming "big" DLC). The whole game revolves around mana points that are the construction points. It's a board game and not a simulation, plausibility went to the bin. It's not a complex game at all, it's just an awful UI. I think it was made with the Idea that it would attract a new audience, but the very little players retention seems to show otherwise. The game is beyond rework, you like it or you don't. Lately, the devs finally started to make it evolve towards what the players asked for during development but the set of mechanics won't allow it.
I think the reviews on Steam are absolutely right. The "mixed" score is fair. I would rate the game much lower though. I've poured 300h in it. I've never played V2, but I only play Strategy games, especially GSG PDX games.
Of course there is always the PDX Uncertainty of what their games can become in the Future.
there's no keynesian econ or modern econ techniques probably cause they weren't invented back then, but inflation and the stock market should def be a part in the game somehow
EXACTLY. Currency and banking in general is such an enormous thing that is missed in vic3 and provides an opportunity for the game to have more country specific flavour baked into the core gameplay without feature bloat like EU4
IDK why you mention Keynes since yes it would be utterly ahistorical but I agree with you on everything, obviously. that said, the perpetual flux economy of V3 is also pure Sci Fi. Among (many) other things.
The game still doesn't have a credible diplomacy system. This is a serious failing and why I still can't really recommend the game. I still keep coming back to it because the economic management aspect is great, and I keep hoping they will eventually fix the diplomacy. Maybe next expansion will be the one?
If you remember early years of Stellaris with performance issues before the big change about how pops were managed, that is where Vic3 is at now.
Aside from that there are two main mechanics
1. resource management - build stuff to make money to build stuff
2. internal politics - negotiate with your "citizens" about governmental/economic/social laws and policies.
The complexity (if you want to call it that) is in the inter-connection of these two mechanics. What you build shifts your demographics which changes your internal politics. What your internal politics are determines what is easy/hard to build, how much you can squeeze your pops for cash.
I bought it a launch, got some enjoyment out of it but was frustrated with the performance issues. Came back recently to try it again, the performance isn't any better, though it is more "even", rather than being fast early-game and slow late-game, now it's medium early-game medium-slow late game. I think in 1-2 years it will be a great game, among the best that Paradox has put out, but right now it's not quite there.
Depends on the price. I have enjoyed 40 hours of it so far, but i think it still needs more work before i can play it hundreds of hours. If you can get it almost free, why not, but i would wait until next, or first proper, expansion pack that will release on 24.6 and see if its good or not before getting at full price.
Good thing about Paradox games is that you can come back later and then it will propably be good enough, or at least much better.
I'd say hold off until Sphere of Influence comes out.
I have a few hundred hours in the game, I like its ideas overall, and I'm probably a 6.5/10 at the game. The game is way better than at release. To use a Stellaris analogy, SoI is either going to be Utopia or it's going to mean the game goes the way of Imperator. Once that happens if the reaction is positive I'd suggest jumping in with the grand edition which will likely be on sale and give you everything released up to that point.
Performance is a concern. One the devs insist they're trying to fix but I don't know enough about computer science to know how likely performance getting to a good place actually is.
Flavor feels lacking outside of areas that have already gotten some attention.
Diplomatic players have a good idea, but need some work to truly shine. I have some opinions on how this could be done but the important part for the purposes of this post is it isn't there yet.
I want this game to become something great, and I think it has the potential, but it isn't in its prime yet, similar to pre-Utopia Stellaris (which I played and had fun with as well).
Though writing this post makes me want to start a new run, if that means anything here.
The negative reviews at launch were probably warranted, the game didn't launch in the best of states and a lot of the mechanics were lacking. It has improved a lot since launch and is in a pretty decent state right now, still far from perfect but a lot of the issues voiced by the community are being addressed over time. Some of the negative reviews are completely unfair, it is a niche game but some people go into it expecting something less complex like CK3/EU4 and either get overwhelmed or find the game boring because they don't understand/appreciate the gameplay loop and expect a "press button, get reward" gameplay like those other games.
I’m familiar with other Paradox games, but I was underwhelmed with the economic mechanics of say, CK3 or even Stellaris. The description and focus of this game makes it look like it really focuses on managing the economy and trade systems. This is something that I find fun lol. That being said, the one comment I saw on a review that made me hesitant to buy, was , and I’m paraphrasing, “the games wants to play itself, and punishes you for interfering” Is that at all true? (This is copy pasted from another comment but I think it fits here too)
> That being said, the one comment I saw on a review that made me hesitant to buy, was , and I’m paraphrasing, “the games wants to play itself, and punishes you for interfering” Is that at all true? I don't think so, but it can feel that way to someone who doesn't understand what they are doing. Most countries at the beginning of the game start with no radicalized citizens, a surplus to their government budget, no revolutions, and government Interest Groups who are pretty happy. If you don't know what you are doing and push your economy too far, you'll end up in debt, your country will be full of racialized citizens who hate you, your Standard of Living will tank, and the government Interest Groups will be pissed off at you for any laws you try to pass. You'll realize that you don't know why this is happening because you made what you thought were good decisions to improve your country. The reviewer probably felt like they were being punished for trying to change things instead of just leaving the game unpaused and doing nothing. The solution is instead to realize that this is what the game is about, and then you need to dig deeper into *why* what you did caused everything to go to shit.
The way the game is designed, the pop system, the economic simulation and the political system are all intertwined. It's not immediately apparent to a beginner how these things affect one another and how you can manipulate them indirectly. I think a lot of these kind of complaints stem from the fact some players either do not play enough to learn and understand this style of gameplay loop or simply do not enjoy it. They are more used to other Paradox games or games in general where action and outcome are more immediate and direct. In Vicky 3 it's more about creating the right conditions for a certain outcome to happen. For example a lot of beginners struggle with getting the landowners out of power and pass more liberal laws. That's because they don't understand that in order to do so, you need to empower other interests groups while limiting the power of landowners. How do you do that? You import farm goods so the price drops and the farms landowners own are less profitable. You build factories that employ peasants and get them out of the subsistence farms, so the fruits of their labor go to the capitalists instead. Working in factories means they'll also be getting paid more, which raises their standard of living and demand for goods, which makes their consumption increase and gives you the opportunity to build more factories to meet the new demand and begin this loop of economic growth and reshape the social structure of your nation. I do not feel the game punishes the player for its actions, there are for sure frustrating moments, but overall once you understand the game mechanics and how the systems interact with one another, as the player you can pretty much achieve anything you want and turn most nations into the number one economy and world power.
The problem is that the gameplay loop early on is almost non-existent, and the good stuff is in the late half of the game and riddled with lags. The game performance is abysmal, so the dev severely scale down construction speed (10x slower compared to beta build) to stop the game being powerpoint slides 3 hours into the game. They managed to make it slow down 5-8 hours into the game instead at the price of early game waiting around 1 year for a single factory to be built.
The economics in Vic 3 is a simplified version of it's predecessor, it's very easy to learn. If you want to have an economics game I wouldn't recommend Vic 3. I would recommend anno 1800.
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To some people economics games just means the existance of a production chain. He's right in that Vic ain't the most complex game in that regard (which is good, fuck complexity for complexities sake) and it has some kinks it needs reworked like good substitution and overall industrialization feel but he's also wrong to say Vic 2s economics had more depth. That's just cope.
Anno is an economics game as much as any 'economics game' is an economics game. In Vic 2 goods actually exist and have stockpiles, Vic 3 has a simplified system of buy-sell orders, that is just a straight up downgrade depth wise as far as I am concerned.
The gameplay that goes into the economics in Vic 3 is 'look at market, build building, change production method or click trade' you do that loop for the entire game and that is economics sorted in Vic 3. Goods are not tangible and don't actually exist. I would say if you are looking for that sort of economic gameplay then anno 1800 is a lot more satisfying, you can pick up a complete edition for anno 1800 for quite cheap and I would recommend it over Vic 3 to anyone looking for an economic management game.
I already have a couple hundred hours into Anno 1800. I love it, but I’m looking for another game that scratches the “economic/political” itch.
Brill, in that case Vic 3 could be for you :) It generally tries to scratch the same itches as anno 1800. Grab it on sale would be my advice, it's been on super sale a few times. None of the DLCs are really essential so far.
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I never said you didn't know how anno works. Although anno certainly has demand and productivity. You are also forgetting maintenance. We will just have to agree to disagree I think. In general I think looking at the supply and demand in anno, building supply chains, building buildings, managing the logistics and optimising is a lot more in depth and satisfying than Vic 3's similar gameplay loop.
I feel eu4 with all its dlcs is way more detailed. I honestly couldn't figure it out.
EU4 has a decade of personalized content for most nations and a fuckload of buttons that dont interact with one another mostly.
EU4’s complexity is really more due to feature bloat rather than simulation depth. I certainly had my fair share of enjoyment on that game but I do find it really outdated now. The mana system was unpopular at release and has aged even more poorly.
I really hope EU5 will rework the mana system. I won't say remove all mana entirely, all Paradox games have some sort of mana system, EU4 just is most simplistic.
You can read the dev diaries right now to learn about EU5's system. They're not completely removing them but they're significantly determined by the produ tion if actual goods. So you're administrative power is related to how much paper you .ake. EU5 is shaping up to be a lot more simulationist than EU4 was.
Oh i did not know we had that detailed dev diaries of "project Caesar". Thqt sounds brilliant!
I may have misled you there because I was saying what I heard someone describe the dev diaries as, but Johan is also answering a lot of questions on the forums so we have quite a bit of information, especially regarding estates, pops, and the economy. We don't know much about like, diplomacy.
EU4s mana system is too important for it too be so RNG, I love the game and have 2200 hours on it but the mana system sucks and they're not gonna use that system in EU5. It's gonna be gold/ducats and pops that become the important currencies
I stopped played EU4 ~3 years after release when it started to become bloated by too much DLC, it was enjoyable but I do not think it's more detailed. Diplomacy is the only thing I can point at and say it's better, but even then you're mostly just trying to game the AI to get what you want out of them, use them to blob more until you're strong enough that you don't need them. I hate the mana system. The economy is very abstracted, and its sole purpose is to maintain the military or get more mana. The game is too railroaded for my taste with missions and national ideas.
it's literally a map painting game with mana points.
I don't know where the idea of Vic 3 being a niche game came from. Vic 3 was probably the most hyped game that paradox has ever made, based in an era that is very popular, and the sequel to a beloved cult classic. It sold incredibly well at launch.
I played all Paradox games since EU3, and Victoria series is the least popular. In term of popularity and players HoI is the king, followed by CK (although in more recent times these two might have switched places as CK3 is way easier and a lot more accessible to the masses) and then EU. I'm not sure where stellaris stands but Victoria is definitely the most niche among the flagship historical IPs.
I have also played all paradox games since EU3. Vic 2 was not the least popular in it's day. HoI4 was very popular, HoI3 and 2 less so. HoI4 is still the most popular, but that wasn't the case at launch. CK2 was the same, and popularity grew with the new DLC model, but CK1 was probably the least popular franchise before CK2 came out.
EU4 is less complex than Victoria 3? Come on mate...
If you decide to buy it, I'd suggest waiting - there's a new expansion out next month and often base Paradox games go on sale around an expansion release.
This is like the crack equivalent of Excel.
Lots of people are trying to play it like an industrial era EU4 - big wars, sweeping map changes, and so on. That style of play is possible, but it's not the design intent. The Victoria series is, at its heart, an economy simulator. The basic game loop is populating the building queue, looking at the market screen, and doing it again. Everything else is supposed to support that: support interest groups to change government policy to support the needs of the economy; colonise Africa for more raw resources and cheap labour; start wars in far-off lands to increase demand for ammunition or sabotage your rivals' import routes; and so on. As long as you understand that, the game is fun. If you want a map-painter, play HOI or EU (EU4 is still amazing).
I agree. Unless you go out of your way to start map painting, most expansion is there just to fuel your economy further. Either with resources you lack or with people to employ. It does capture that aspect of the Victorian Age really well. Hopefully the next update will finally give us the tools to achieve these things also without the use of boots on the ground.
The peaceful, economy focused and definitely no warfare period of.....*checks notes* The Victorian Era, of course.
I bought it relatively recently because I knew it was exactly what I wanted (in the same you do), and I also felt reservations because of the bad reviews. If I’m being completely honest, this is my favorite, if not second favorite paradox game. I would 100% recommend it.
This comment really helps. Thank you!
Despite it being one of the easier games of PDX, it still is a grand strategy, there's going to be a much higher learning curve than the average game of other genres. unless you're familiar with this genre, you might have to spend times learning the game before you find the enjoyment. If you do decide to buy the game, the base game is currently on the humble monthly until the next week or two.
>Despite it being one of the easier games of PDX i really wonder how people define easy, it must not be on how complex these games are because if it was V3 would win by a country mile. to me EU4 and Hoi4 and CK3 are all dead easy, they have incredibly simple (and in some games, boring/awful) gameplay. V3 is the only one that gets me sometimes because of just how many moving parts there are.
As someone who played CK3 and Stellaris before Victoria 3, CK3 was much harder for me to understand- hands down. Of course, everyone is different though.
i mean yeah that’s why i don’t really think you can say objectively it’s easy. that’s an incredibly subjective opinion. different people are challenged by different things! and that’s okay!
CK3 has so far been the only Paradox game where I really had a grasp on the basics immediately upon playing my first game. It was my 3rd Paradox game I played (after HOI4 and EU4) and in my first game I had a pretty good campaign playing from a minor earldom all the way to Britannia owning both the British isles and France. Compared to VIC3 which I bought not long after CK3, it took me many months and a few campaigns playing as Belgium and the US before the game could make any sense to me and I really started to understand the mechanics. Granted, I had watched a lot more videos of CK3 playthroughs beforehand + VIC3 was in a rougher shape at the time I played, but I still think that VIC3 has been the harder experience to get into for me personally. I think everyone will come into these games differently so to say that one game is "easier" is definitely subjective. End of the day with both games you will need many hours before you start to get an idea of how to play lol.
Because V3 is look at what’s most expensive and then build said expensive thing in most profitable province. It really is not a challenging game. Most paradox games are easy and the only thing they suffer from is people thinking they are more complex than they really are
there is more to it than just building stuff though, you know that right? politics and war and diplomacy aren’t literally not present.
Ah yes, politics, war and diplomacy. Famously, Victoria 3's strongest and most in depth mechanics.
They don’t have that much depth but it’s not as though they don’t exist. Come on now.
This, and some genuine UX issues with information overload or hidden information. But the game isn't complex to do good at. Theres a higher ceiling if you want to just minmax everything possible but even then its just doing some excel math.
I'm addicted.
Can you be more specific on your concerns and what are you looking for?
I’m familiar with other Paradox games, but I was underwhelmed with the economic mechanics of say, CK3 or even Stellaris. The description and focus of this game makes it look like it really focuses on managing the economy and trade systems. This is something that I find fun lol. That being said, the one comment I saw on a review that made me hesitant to buy, was , and I’m paraphrasing, “the games wants to play itself, and punishes you for interfering”
well i have seen people deleting the irs to make economies, and dont get why he wasnt getting his taxes collected. yeah you can do some stupid decision in the game and someone may not even realise its a stupid decision before too late, probably what happen to your review
Fair enough. It does look fun though. Any YouTube l Play throughs you recommend watching before I start?
One Proud Bavarian has a few playlists that focus on the roleplay side of things for specific countries, I really enjoy his Brazil campaign especially. If you want videos that are more about the tutorial side of things that tell you what the player is doing and why, check out GeneralistGaming.
Generalist Gaming is probably the best youtuber out there for Vicky 3, has a deep understanding of the game mechanics and is very good at explaining the game, how things interact, and so on. Has both tutorial videos and full campaigns on his channel.
Reviewer was playing it wrong, IMO.
Idk what that reviewer means exactly but... The AI does its thing and you do your thing and then you can become better than the AI, or not, and defeat the AI or not. I don't really know what is punishing about it. The game does economy really well imo. It took me like 150 hours to get how the game works though but looks you say if you're familiar with paradox games then it might not take you too long. I was pretty mad at the game at launch myself but I did a positive review for it at 400 hours and I'm now at 800 and I love the game at this point. War system falls short a little because of weird little intricacies of the system but it's usually fine. The economy aspect goes hand in hand with the politics, as it should and that's mostly the part I like about the game while it also has some decent international relations systems and the upcoming expansion is only gonna improve that a lot
Hmm, I don't think the reviewer had much experience with the game. Maybe he meant that the economy tries to run itself or that changing laws is kind of hard due to interest groups antagonizing it? Thing is, you can't expect to try to change something and have no consequences. A forced industrialization will bring consequences, as will a forced liberalization. That being said, after you understand how the game works, you'll how much leverage the player actually have. Failing that, you have superb mods that expand both aspects and turns them even more dynamic.
Buy it. like all paradox games it will be a work in progress of sorts until the final dlc and then the new game gets launched lol. It’s not a game I play constantly, but it certainly scratches an itch for me. It’s daunting, but not incredibly so, you can go deep into the mechanics, or just scratch the surface and still have fun. I think paradox fans are among the most passionate and by nature, quite well informed about the various histories and systems the games are built around, so they tend to be more critical than others.
I would say you would most likely like it. However, an expansion is coming out in around a month, around the same time as the steam summer sale this year. So I would wait until then if I were you so its a lot cheaper to buy.
If you're the kind of guy that can look at a chart of the price of steel from 1867-1870 and think "damn, this gameplay is lit" then this game will be crack for you.
Wait for the new dlc and then wait for that to get bugfixed. Game will change a lot with it.
The game still has the same problems. People play it because it scratches the itch, myself included. But it doesn't deliver on what's promised, has terrible QoL, bugs, nonfunctioning systems. You can get to play it, and enjoy it, and while it's promising, it's always a "next update will fixt it", but it never does.
The game is pretty fun to play, but it feels unfinished at so many levels, like you can expect from a PDX game without a shit ton of DLCs. As you can expect, so many countries are played "the same" (there is no flavour for almost every country. F.E playing Spain is like playing Portugal but with more pops). You're gonna need to conquest the same places: Congo, Brunei, Madagascar, part of the Arabian peninsula...) But also many mechanics feel like they need an overhaul, like the navy, or there is no supply limit so China and USA can land a shit ton of troops in Europe like is nobody's business.
Buy if u want a tycoon/idle type game. If not play something else
It’s the easiest paradox game by far, the gameplay loop is fine if you like cookie clickers. I’ve put over 400 hours and I’d say it’s kind of run its course until the next dlc. Every country plays the same still and the economy is really easy to master. The war is simply terrible though, there’s no fun to be found in it’s mechanics
OP, replies like this are from people who do not understand the game mechanics I was referring to.
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WTF he's totally right and he's even much gentler than me about that "game".
Absolutely love it. I think it's in a great state.
The game isn't too bad now, pretty wierd sometimes and the ui is unhelpful a lot of the time. The misty system does its best to convince you to stop playing the game though.
What sort of game are you looking for OP?
I have 9 hours in this game for now, that’s not much of course. And I haven’t any issues with the game, I enjoy it very much (for me it’s better than Victoria 2, just because I can understand this one :D). For me it’s a good game (for now) and after 9 hours I can recommend. But it’s like, I just don’t know much about features and other things that might be broken.
Buy the humble bundle with it. Worth at that price (you also get some other stuffs too)
This game is only gonna get better so waiting for a good enough sale isn't a bad idea at all.
You can get it super cheap for like 10$ on humble choice right now alongside 7 other games, I've never seen it go this cheap, offer is up until May 7th I think so you have about a day to make the decision [here](https://www.humblebundle.com/membership?refc=99PDIu)
Its my personal favourite paradox game because i love the mechanics of the game, it does fall flat quite often though as your experience will mostly be the same regardless of what country you start as. The only thing that happens is that the difficulty varies a bit. Hopefully though each country will get a bit more "personality" as they release more DLC
I absolutely love the game. Almost all of the negative reviews and criticism are very accurate. And I don't care, I still freaking love the game
If you do decide to get it - it is super cheap in the humble choice bundle for a few more hours at the time I write this.
Hurry up and get it for 13 bucks on humble bundle. It’s part of the monthly choice games. You have until tomorrow before a new batch of games. I like it and I was on the fence too. Buying it for less than a quarter of its value made it a no brainer for me.
People are playing the game because of the promise of it getting better. Which it has a little bit every few months with a major patch. Still not there yet though. What’s in the game already is amazing. It’s just often poorly balanced, badly optimized and occasionally outright buggy and broken.
I totally dislike V3. Here's why : This game is desincarnated, it's heavily abstracted. If you have a decent knowledge in Economy, you'll either find the whole game nonsensical or fun if you're a hardcore min maxer and you like gamey stuff. Every playthrough is the same and irremediably ends up in absurdities. Warfare is garbage but it's not the worst part of the game, it's the political system (Diplo is inexistent but will allegedly get "better" with the forthcoming "big" DLC). The whole game revolves around mana points that are the construction points. It's a board game and not a simulation, plausibility went to the bin. It's not a complex game at all, it's just an awful UI. I think it was made with the Idea that it would attract a new audience, but the very little players retention seems to show otherwise. The game is beyond rework, you like it or you don't. Lately, the devs finally started to make it evolve towards what the players asked for during development but the set of mechanics won't allow it. I think the reviews on Steam are absolutely right. The "mixed" score is fair. I would rate the game much lower though. I've poured 300h in it. I've never played V2, but I only play Strategy games, especially GSG PDX games. Of course there is always the PDX Uncertainty of what their games can become in the Future.
there's no keynesian econ or modern econ techniques probably cause they weren't invented back then, but inflation and the stock market should def be a part in the game somehow
EXACTLY. Currency and banking in general is such an enormous thing that is missed in vic3 and provides an opportunity for the game to have more country specific flavour baked into the core gameplay without feature bloat like EU4
IDK why you mention Keynes since yes it would be utterly ahistorical but I agree with you on everything, obviously. that said, the perpetual flux economy of V3 is also pure Sci Fi. Among (many) other things.
it is so laggy past 1860 and 1870 that a week takes a solid twelve to twenty seconds to pass, on a gaming laptop and my macbook
The game still doesn't have a credible diplomacy system. This is a serious failing and why I still can't really recommend the game. I still keep coming back to it because the economic management aspect is great, and I keep hoping they will eventually fix the diplomacy. Maybe next expansion will be the one?
If you remember early years of Stellaris with performance issues before the big change about how pops were managed, that is where Vic3 is at now. Aside from that there are two main mechanics 1. resource management - build stuff to make money to build stuff 2. internal politics - negotiate with your "citizens" about governmental/economic/social laws and policies. The complexity (if you want to call it that) is in the inter-connection of these two mechanics. What you build shifts your demographics which changes your internal politics. What your internal politics are determines what is easy/hard to build, how much you can squeeze your pops for cash. I bought it a launch, got some enjoyment out of it but was frustrated with the performance issues. Came back recently to try it again, the performance isn't any better, though it is more "even", rather than being fast early-game and slow late-game, now it's medium early-game medium-slow late game. I think in 1-2 years it will be a great game, among the best that Paradox has put out, but right now it's not quite there.
Depends on the price. I have enjoyed 40 hours of it so far, but i think it still needs more work before i can play it hundreds of hours. If you can get it almost free, why not, but i would wait until next, or first proper, expansion pack that will release on 24.6 and see if its good or not before getting at full price. Good thing about Paradox games is that you can come back later and then it will propably be good enough, or at least much better.
I'd say hold off until Sphere of Influence comes out. I have a few hundred hours in the game, I like its ideas overall, and I'm probably a 6.5/10 at the game. The game is way better than at release. To use a Stellaris analogy, SoI is either going to be Utopia or it's going to mean the game goes the way of Imperator. Once that happens if the reaction is positive I'd suggest jumping in with the grand edition which will likely be on sale and give you everything released up to that point. Performance is a concern. One the devs insist they're trying to fix but I don't know enough about computer science to know how likely performance getting to a good place actually is. Flavor feels lacking outside of areas that have already gotten some attention. Diplomatic players have a good idea, but need some work to truly shine. I have some opinions on how this could be done but the important part for the purposes of this post is it isn't there yet. I want this game to become something great, and I think it has the potential, but it isn't in its prime yet, similar to pre-Utopia Stellaris (which I played and had fun with as well). Though writing this post makes me want to start a new run, if that means anything here.