Victoria 3 News

Hello Victorians! Hope everyone is having a wonderful Thursday!

This is the second part of the Art of Pivot of Empire showcasing the 3D art made for the Immersion Pack. If you are interested in having a look at the 2D art aspects of the DLC, I’d highly recommend having a look at Dev Diary #135!

In this Dev Diary we’ll be covering a bunch of the Characters and related assets, Table and Table assets, Indian Building Set and Harvest Conditions Map Effects.

[h2]Characters and Character assets[/h2]
We always try to take great care when it comes to representing any nation that we are covering when it comes to both the character DNAs but also the clothes they wear.

Jankoji Rao Scindia II

Maharaja Sir Duleep Singh

Pratap Singh

Sarojni Naidu

Our team also had the fantastic opportunity to once again commission Vicky 3 community member Galactic Cactus! He’s created a bunch of fantastic DNAs to further enrich the India experience!



[h2]Table and Table Assets[/h2]
As with the majority of our previous DLCs, we made a new table and four table assets for the player to personalize their playing experience. This time around, we also decided to add a new cloth for the coins to lay on since we’d grown tired of looking at the old one.

One thing to note with all the tables and table assets we make. In order to have them look as nice and realistic as possible, we do not light them at all in the engine. Instead, we bake the lighting in Blender, which is the environment team’s 3D software of choice. By doing this, we can make sure that the quality of the assets are significantly higher than what would ever be possible to do if they were rendered in real time. This does, however, limit us from being able to change the lighting of them, for instance during night time.

This time around, we decided to go for a wooden table, as we did for the Dawn of Wonder DLC. However, this one is more ornate, drawing inspiration from Anglo-Indian furniture.



For the table assets we always try to find things relating to the culture or region we are representing whilst not making anything similar to previous assets.

Yali Statue - A Yali standing on the back of a Makara.

Nettur Petti - A meticulously handcrafted jewelry box, designed following the principles of ancient architectural traditions.

Lovers Knife - Loving a rose is a beautiful story, picking it is another.

Hair Brooch - A splendid brooch for your hair and to strut around in front of your friends. Wearing it may be challenging.

Indian Coin Cloth - A regal damask with a collection of coins. Of course, we’ve also added a DLC coin! #Elephant #Collector

Indian Building Set
The building sets are always great fun for us to produce! We always try to push the quality of what has been released previously. However, we are a very small team of Environment Artists and there are a lot of buildings in each building set. We therefore try to always evolve our workflow by automating tedious time consuming tasks by creating scripts and putting our effort where we believe it matters the most.

Something the team did this time around was use the same shader that we do for the on map military units on certain parts of the assets so that every country gets their own flare.

City centerpiece and civic buildings - Cute

Farm buildings - We also added billboards that appear when buildings are owned by a company. The company logo then appears on the billboard. These have been added to the vast majority of other buildings in other culture sets as well.

Forestry buildings - On these the roofs change color dependant on the country colors, so they won’t always appear as dark and depressing as the screenshot.

Mining Buildings - Spot the minerals!

Factory buildings - Most factories have a unique 3D asset associated with it. Currently the Arms Industry and the Artillery Foundries use the same asset. The Chemical Plant, Synthetics Plant and Explosive Factory also use the same asset

Port buildings - Ports usually come in two different sizes to avoid the awkward look of a large platform with a single dock attached to it.

Bunch of hubs - Here you can see some of the color variations appearing on most of the buildings. Unfortunately, we unintentionally end up with quite a few buildings of certain types in some hubs. The stand outs being Barracks and Manor Houses. This is due to how the split states are set-up in Victoria, causing several different nations to spawn buildings inside of the same hub. This is especially prominent in India where there are such a vast amount of split states.

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[h2]Free Updates![/h2]
These are some things we wanted to share that are free as part of 1.8.

Portrait Lighting
We took the time to go over the portrait lighting. This is something we’ve wanted to do for quite some time but haven’t had the time for.



Harvest Conditions Map Effects
To represent the different Harvest Conditions as part of the Famine system introduced for 1.8, the team has been working on ways to represent them on the 3D map. Due to time constraints, we haven’t been able to visualize all of them for the initial release. We are however planning to do so through hotfixes. Below you can see some of the ones available on release.

Drought We added a shader effect to the ground to give a dryer look.

Flooding Puddles are added to the ground in order to visualize flooding.

Frost Snowy frost texture is added to the terrain and particles of snow roam the landscape.

Hailstorm Particle effects of large chunks of ice falling from the sky. Small bits of hail can be found scattered on the terrain as well.

Torrential Rain Now more places than Great Britain can have beautiful weather.

Positive For Pollination Surge, Moderate Rain and Optimal Sunlight we’ve added a more general shimmering effect to represent all three conditions.

And so we come to the end of the diary, next is the release of Pivot of Empire and Update 1.8 on the 21st of November, alongside the Changelog. As we have done in previous changelogs, we will also have new achievements shown in it!

Hello. This is Victoria, Narrative Design Lead of Victoria 3, and today I will be covering the narrative content that will be coming in Pivot of Empire. I will also be covering some important free features which I ran out of space to write about in diary #134.

Pivot of Empire is centred around British India, its progression from the East India Company to the British Raj, and the Indian struggle for independence. It also includes a selection of narrative content for the Sikh Empire, Princely States, and the Mughal Emperor in Delhi. Owners of Pivot of Empire will be able to experience a myriad of historical and alt-historical courses, from a revived Mughal Empire to an all-encompassing Company run according to the principles of Utilitarianism.

[h2]Imperialism of Promise[/h2]



During the early nineteenth century, many of the British East India Company’s administrators were influenced by the works of Jeremy Bentham, the founder of modern utilitarianism. The most notable of these figures is John Stuart Mill, who served as an East India Company administrator for thirty years, famously authoring a tract defending Company rule in the aftermath of the Indian Uprising of 1857. Following his return to Britain after the establishment of crown rule in India, Mill would become one of the most notable proponents of utilitarianism.

Utilitarian principles served as a crucial element in justifying British rule over India to the British populace. James Mill, father of John Stuart Mill and a noteworthy follower of Bentham, was a notable advocate for the British Empire in India, publishing The History of British India in 1817. The idea of India as a stagnant region which required the intervention of a dynamic foreign power to prosper was a common attitude amongst the British administration. In the eyes of the utilitarians, the purpose of the British administration was to rationalise the fundamentally irrational society of India. Ideology based around an imagined dichotomy between a dynamic, rationalist West and a stagnant, irrational East is a persistent theme amongst the European intelligentsia of the Victorian era, most often referred to as “Orientalism”.

Historically, the efforts of the utilitarians were primarily concentrated upon codifying and standardising various aspects of Indian society that had formerly gone unwritten. The traditional Indian reliance upon spoken agreement and personal meetings was anathema to the sensibilities of the British administration, who wished to establish absolute, uncontested control over Indian society whilst simultaneously remaining distant from their subjects. British India was characterised by the tension between the need to maintain Indian intermediaries to govern the subcontinent, and a near-total lack of trust in these intermediaries. In such an environment, the administration developed an obsession with paperwork, which it retreated behind in order to distance itself from what it saw as a chaotic and unpleasant society. This fixation is represented in-game through the traits and ideologies of the East India Company interest group, which was revealed in Dev Diary #134.

For much of its existence, the British administration was split between elements which wished to govern by making use of traditional Indian institutions, and those who sought to impose British systems of governance on Indian society. The utilitarian administrators of the East India Company, with their ambitious social reform programs and dreams of benevolent despotism, represented the latter tendency. The government of the British Raj immediately following the Indian Uprising [also referred to as the Sepoy Mutiny] largely represented the former.

The utilitarian administrators are represented by the Utilitarian ideology, which favours a variety of ambitious bureaucratic and social reforms. Utilitarians are connected to the Utilitarian movement, which may appear for any country with the English, Australian, or Anglo-Canadian primary cultures.



The East India Company has a Utilitarian movement at game start, which has a support base largely consisting of European bureaucrats and other Company officials. In a colony such as India, the Utilitarian movement has great difficulty attracting support outside of the administration itself.



If the Utilitarian movement acquires sufficient support amongst the members of an interest group, said interest group is said to be pressured by the movement. A pressured interest group gains the ability to generate leaders with the movement’s ideologies, as well as promoting agitators supporting this movement to leadership positions.



If the East India Company gets a Utilitarian leader, either through random generation or promoting a character such as John Stuart Mill, it will become immensely more receptive to various progressive reforms. However, the utilitarians are deeply unpopular with the Indian population, and their relentless drive to impose their vision upon society will deepen tensions between the colonial government and the Indian populace.



The presence of a notable utilitarian reformer within British India will trigger the Imperialism of Promise journal entry, which covers the efforts of the utilitarian administrators to realise their ideological goals. It will require an enormous expansion of the colonial bureaucracy to complete, as well as passing numerous reforms. These reforms are based on historical policies advocated for by the Company’s utilitarian administrators.

The Indian Penal Code of 1860, the first codified all-Indian system of law, was a utilitarian project incorporating various proposals by James Mill. Another utilitarian, Thomas Macaulay, served as one of the framers of both the Penal Code and the British Indian education system. Despite being drafted prior to the start of the game under Company rule, it took twenty-five years for it to be finalised and enacted by the government of the British Raj. The Penal Code nominally abolished slavery within India, although the practice remained widespread until the twentieth century.

Other notable utilitarian reforms in India include the abolition of Sati and the creation of the English education system under Lord Bentinck, and the legalisation of the remarriage of widows under Lord Dalhousie.



Historically, the projects of the utilitarians fell short of their goals, unable to overcome the contradiction between the administration’s desire for uncontested control and its unwillingness to trust non-Europeans. Despite their enormous bureaucracy, vast railway networks, and unparalleled capacity for violence, the British never truly managed to secure supreme political power in India. Outside of the employment of violent measures, their ability to effectively and sustainably govern India was relatively limited. The outbreak of the Indian Uprising in 1857 and the end of Company rule shifted the priorities of the British administration–the utilitarian outlook of reforming Indian society mostly fell out of fashion, and the Raj shifted towards a more conservative sort of administration that made greater use of Indian intermediaries and traditional institutions in its governance.



If one can complete this journal entry, however, they will have successfully realised the utilitarians’ vision for India–an all-encompassing bureaucracy devoted to codifying, rationalising, and anglicising all aspects of life across the subcontinent.





[h2]Indian Nationalism[/h2]



Once pan-nationalism is researched by British India, it will become eligible for the Indian National Movement. This is a unique political movement which represents Indian secular nationalist organisations such as the Indian National Congress. It has the Sovereignist ideology, which favours basic civil liberties, equal rights for native Indians, and policing laws that institutionally favour Indian landowners over the colonial government.

The Indian National Movement represents the more secular form of Indian nationalism that characterised organisations such as the Indian National Congress. India also has movements that represent the explicitly Hindu and Muslim nationalist movements, which will be addressed later in this dev diary under “Communal Divides”.



An astute observer may note that the movement cares about more than just law stances. Political movements may now possess scripted factors which adjust their Activism in various directions according to any condition one may think of. In the case of the Indian national movement, having a high liberty desire increases their activism, as does being a less autonomous subject type. If British India can achieve Dominion status, this will appease the Indian national movement just as much as possessing a favourable law will.

The Indian Home Rule journal entry represents the initial demands of the Indian national movement - improved status within the British imperial system, and later the granting of self-government to India. Whilst steps in the direction of self-government were taken historically, these measures were only implemented after the Amritsar Massacre of 1919 had turned the Indian nationalist movement towards full independence.



Whilst the Indian Home Rule journal entry is active, the government of British India will be able to petition the British government for permission to democratise its administration. The chances of success will be determined by the progress bar, which represents the level of trust that Britain has in India. Poor relations with Britain will harm its progress, as will famines or aggressive governments on either side.

Once the Home Rule journal entry appears, Britain will receive a journal entry interfacing with it. If the British AI feels that its rule over India will be threatened if reform is not carried out, it will be inclined to press these buttons, creating an Indian legislature and democratic elections for such.



However, if a civil war of any kind breaks out, or if the Activism of the Indian national movement rises above 50%, British soldiers will fire on the protestors, and India will be sent into a downward spiral.



Once the Amritsar Massacre occurs, all hope for reconciliation between British administrators and Indian subjects is over, and the only option left for the British authorities is to hold onto India for as long as possible whilst trying to avert civil war. The Indian Nation journal entry will persist until the Indian national movement is marginalised, or India has been granted independence.



If a civil war breaks out in India whilst India possesses the Indian Nation journal entry, Britain will be inclined to pull its agents out of India and either leave the subcontinent to collapse, or hand over governance to whoever the rebel leader is. The former option will create an absolute mess in the formerly British-controlled regions for the newly-independent Indian state to deal with, whilst the latter will give the revolt control over all of India.



A British evacuation does not always signal the end for the Raj. In some circumstances, the British administration may choose to take a third option, and ignore the British call for withdrawal.



Pivot of Empire also includes numerous events related to the Indian national movement, such as the famous Salt March and various other actions carried out by Indian nationalists against British rule.





[h2]Communal Divides[/h2]

Once you advance sufficiently into the game, and as ethno-religious identities start to emerge and solidify, you will have to contend with the growing issue of Hindu-Muslim intercommunal tensions. Juggling the political interests and desires of these two groups will not be an easy task, and you will periodically get events that complicate it even further.



As long as the Communal Divides journal entry is active, radicals from discrimination and attraction to religious nationalist political movements will be increased, so resolving the issue will quickly become a priority.



An Indian federation, wherein Muslim majority states will be granted autonomy will be one way to tackle the issue, but reneging on the promise of autonomy later on will result in massive unrest in your country’s Muslim population.




[h2]The Dravidian Movement[/h2]



The early twentieth century in British India saw the emergence of several popular movements opposing caste discrimination. The Dravidian Movement began in opposition to the dominance of Brahmins in the administration of the Madras Presidency, and eventually led to the establishment of caste-based reservations in Madras.

The British East India Company starts with the Caste Not Enforced law, to represent the yet-uncodified status of the caste system in the 1830s. Once the British Raj is established, the Caste System Codified law is automatically enacted, representing the efforts of British administrators to codify the caste system nationwide in the aftermath of the Indian Uprising of 1857. The incorporation of native Indians into the Indian Civil Service under the British Raj was, historically, enormously skewed towards Brahmins. This inequality sets the stage for the future Dravidian Movement.

The Dravidian Movement journal entry covers more than the historical Dravidian Movement. To expand the scope of this narrative from the Madras Presidency to all of India, we have wrapped several other historical anti-caste movements into this journal entry, such as the the Self-Respect Movement of Erode Venkatappa Ramasamy [or Periyar] and Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar’s “annihilation of caste”.



Whilst the Dravidian Movement is active, events pertaining to the struggle against caste discrimination will periodically appear in British India.




That's all we have the space to show off here, check out the rest on our forums!

Greetings Victorians and Happy Thursday!

This will be the first part of the Art of Pivot of Empire showcasing the 2D art made for the Immersion Pack, while part two, focusing on the 3D art, will be released in a couple of weeks. Like the previous Immersion Pack, a brand new interface skin and paper map have been lovingly crafted with a decidedly Indian flavor. Along with the new skins, we have 8 brand new event illustrations and many more icons to support the new features coming in Pivot of Empire. For both the UI reskin and the paper map, the artists have drawn inspiration from traditional Indian architecture, classical Indian paintings, and commonly used colors such as turquoise and saffron. Without further ado, let’s jump straight into the first topic - the new interface skin!

[h2]UI Skin[/h2]
There is so much inspiration to draw from the Indian culture with their rich and extremely long history. Instead of focusing only on one time period exclusively, we take elements from Indian art, architecture and ornaments throughout their entire history (up until 1936 of course) which adds the cultural touch that makes this interface unique. Inspired by the plethora of highly detailed stone carvings and historical monuments from India, we decided to use white stone as a base material for the interface. The ornate and heavier material is also quite different from previous interface skins. To contrast the off-white stone color, we balanced the warm tone with a turquoise fresco look on the headers.

We explored a combination of different materials, frames and colors.

This was a rock solid choice, I must say

There are several key motifs that we use for the interface skin, as well as the paper map (we will talk more about that later): flowery and plant patterns, mandala configurations and animals. Elephants have been a key element in many Indian art throughout history and there has been no better time than now to add elephants into the interface of Victoria 3! Another common animal featured in Indian art is the graceful peacock -we have incorporated these two creatures into the UI panels, combined with the other motifs mentioned. (Try to find out how many elephants are in the UI skin as well as the papermap!)

I think these animals are ‘relephant’ to the theme

Floral and plant patterns surround the elephant and the peacock.

[h2]Papermap Skin[/h2]
The paper map draws inspiration from many of the same sources as the interface skin but with a deeper focus on Indian paintings. Several key elements of Indian paintings are a flat look with limited perspective and a soft, almost watercolor like painting style. Like the papermap from Voice of The People, the illustrations depict key events and slice of life moments in history, but with a focus on India. The art team worked with the Narrative designers to come up with interesting moments on Indian nationalism, the relationship between India and Great Britain and general life in India in the Victorian age. It was truly not an easy task to narrow it down!



[Can you identify these key historical moments?]

A key element is the changing of the languages of text on the paper map UI skin when it makes sense. The last time we did it was in the Voice of The People, where we changed the names of the oceans and seas (and a few other elements) to French. This time is no exception, where we used the Hindi script for the text. There was much discussion between Narrative Design and Art on which Indian language to use. English was a strong contender since it was prominently used in British East India as well as today. Ultimately we settled on Hindi as it is the main language of India today and not using English adds more immersion to the map.

A simple change like this adds so much more immersion to the visuals!

We are also adding mountains and forests in the style of landscape art in classical Indian paintings. A new addition is the illustrations of key cities around the world in the Victorian Age, again, inspired by Indian art. The key cities also have some culture variation on them so you won’t see London represented by an Indian style city!

Cities, mountain ranges and forests dot the landmasses.

[h2]Event Illustrations[/h2]
If you haven’t noticed already, the 2D artists work very closely with the Narrative Designers on many aspects in Victoria 3. The event illustrations are no exception. Once the designers have come up with the theme of an event image as well as provide some references, the concept artist will start researching and finding even more references. He/she will also most likely have more questions for the Narrative designers and this will facilitate the next step, which is to brainstorm and provide thumbnail sketches.

Early sketches to determine the final composition

The Art Director will work together with me to provide feedback and decide on the final composition. In the example above (which is the Indian urban scene) we wanted to have a greater sense of scale since other illustrations are more zoomed in. Other urban scenes that were done previously were also quite up close and personal, showing more of the people on the ground. By taking a more zoomed out approach, we would also be able to show off the urban density and the masses.

Final Indian city illustration with the mood and tone we want to achieve.

As a general rule of thumb, we always try to come up with illustrations that can work for multiple events to increase the visibility of the beautiful new art. Overall themes for the event illustrations include the relationship between the Indians and the British, the cultural divide and tensions amongst the Indian population and the general life in India (rural and urban) during the Victorian age.

What new instructions from the British overlords this time?

Tensions are at an all time high.

A romanticized look at life in India in the 19th century

[h2]Icons[/h2]
With new features comes new icons. (of course existing features will also have new icons such as new laws and new companies) For this section, I would like to show the general process of designing a new icon set for the Acceptance feature coming in 1.8.

There are 5 tiers of Acceptance with (V) being Full Acceptance and (I) as Violent Hostility. With that in mind, here are three general principles for the Acceptance tier icons

1. The icons will show things/situations getting worse gradually
   
2. We want to use colors to represent each tier as well, with cool colors representing tiers (V) and (IV) and having a gradual shift towards red which represents tier (I).
   
3. As with general icon design principles, the silhouettes must be clear.
   

We explored various icon styles with the intention of adding more flavor to the tiers. For instances where the tier icons are displayed really tiny, we always have the numerical icons with the same color styles as mentioned above.

A more illustrative style perhaps or something a little more graphical

More exploration gave rise to the idea of continuity and consistent story telling between the 5 tier icons. Each icon will be represented by two characters ‘Tophat guy- a straightforward and iconic representation of the ideal citizen who has made it in life in the Victorian era’ and ‘Character 2’ - which changes every tier.

Exploring multiple variants. Truly horrible to have a person caged like an animal in Tier I

For Full Acceptance (V), we can see that ‘Tophat guy’ is shaking hands with ‘Character 2’ which is represented as a typical worker. For Second class citizen (IV) we can see the relationship has sort of soured and ‘Character 2’ is facing away from ‘Tophat guy’ who's giving him a thumbs down. While the ‘thumbs down’ sign can be hard to see, the pose makes the silhouette more distinct. For tiers (III) to (I), we can see a recurring theme and how ‘Tophat guy’ treats ‘Character 2’ worse and worse. In fact, ‘Character 2’ even loses any sense of identity and is just a silhouette of a person with no other distinct features.

[Final tier icons with the simplified variants as well as the Acceptance frame]

Icons were also created for Famines and Harvest conditions which is another new feature. However, no new style was needed and we reference the State trait icons to make the new Harvest conditions icons. Core principles for the Harvest Condition icons include a primary or dominant color and of course, distinct silhouettes!

Famine and Harvest Condition icons

The 2D art team have also created icons for existing features like Laws, Ideologies, new Buildings, new companies and new Achievements (which will be shown in a future Dev Diary.

Just some of the new icons for existing features.

And this wraps up this week’s Dev Diary! I hope you enjoyed the insights into what goes on with the creation of the 2D art for the Pivot of Empire pack! Next week we have Vicka detailing even more exciting narrative content coming for the game!

Hello Victorians, sorry for the...sanguine on the images today. Don't know what could be happening there.

We have a small additon today bringing a new game rule, as shown below.

[h2]Additions[/h2]

• Added new game rule to enable or disable fantastical/supernatural content. If this game rule is enabled, there is now a new character with some new events that can make an appearance during the real life months of October and November.
  

Have fun finding this character during this spooky time. Oh, Happy Halloween today as well.

[hr][/hr]

There will soon be a rollback to 1.7.6, available through the Beta selection menu as normal for our patches.

And as a bit of information: You can change game rules mid-game by clicking switch country then changing the game rules in the select screen!

Happy Friday, and welcome to our third and final Dev Diary for the Anniversary week! Before we get into the meat of the diary, we have an infographic showing the progress of free updates since release, visually shown in the look back at free updates video at the start of this week:


That entre is followed up with a delightful smattering of statistics from the game, can you see the difference in how many yellow Prussia’s there have been since last time?


That is all from me, Community Manager Pelly, I hope you enjoy the Dev Diary proper from Hansi and Victoria!

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Welcome, map affectionados, to this week’s map bonanza. I am Lufhansi, narrative designer and main map man on Victoria 3, and I will be your host for this evening.
As you might expect, Pivot of Empire’s narrative content for India will be accompanied by relevant map work, including new and reworked state regions, cultures, and countries for the Indian subcontinent. In addition to miscellaneous other, exciting additions that will be detailed further down. As always we got some ground to cover, so without wasting more of your time, let’s get into it:





[h2]South Asia[/h2]
If you find yourself thinking that India has too many tags already, this update may not be the one for you. To help illustrate the immense complexity of 19th century India, for Pivot of Empire we have added over 30 new tags to the 1836 startdate, as well as multiple new formables and releasables that these new nations can aspire towards, all with distinct identities and new flags. Former abstractions, like Orissa and Bundelkhand have been replaced by new princely states, and in Gujarat, Baroda is now simply the most important Gujarati state instead of the only one. The fan favourites of Garwhal and Manipur have made their debut, along with a slew of other states and nations, ranging from the the decentralised tribes along the Assam-Burma border in the north-east, to the British crown colony of Ceylon and the Sultanate of the Maldives in the south-west.


In the northwest, the Sikh Empire, now known as the Khalsa Raj, faces a somewhat different position compared to previous patches. In addition to grappling with the internal intrigues of the Lahore court—historically a source of weakness for the empire during its critical struggle against the British—it must also contend with a new, powerful vassal: the ambitious Gulab Singh of Jammu, who in 1836 finds himself preoccupied with suppressing a revolt in the newly conquered region of Ladakh.


Other exciting additions include the rump state of Satara, led by the last Chhatrapati of the Maratha Empire, and the once-mighty Mughal Empire, now reduced to the confines of the city of Delhi. Although the Mughals controlling more than their own palace grounds isn't entirely historically accurate, their newfound autonomy allows them to serve as a vehicle for narrative content.



India’s state regions have also been reworked and redrawn where deemed appropriate. We have tried to strike a balance between administrative borders fitting for the 19th century, and cultural borders better reflecting the ethno-linguistic makeup of the subcontinent, all the while trying to not divide the map into too many unwieldy state regions for gameplay-purposes. Notable changes include a new East/West split for Bengal, mirroring a similar division in Punjab, along with the addition of new state regions such as the Ceded Districts and Arakan, and a reshaping/redefinition of most pre-existing state regions.




We have also added a selection of new cultures to India to showcase the extraordinary diversity of the subcontinent, such as Hindustani, Chhattisgarhi, Naga, Deccani, Pathan, Lushai, and many more.


In a similar vein, India’s hub and spline system has been reworked from the ground up, which has seen the elimination of a lot of anachronisms and misplaced hubs. So to the valiant forum member that has championed the good cause of Jamshedpur for years now, you can now rest easy, knowing that we have finally fixed its location.

And should that not be enough, well good news, because with 1.8, Victoria 3 will now have:

[h2]Dynamic Renaming[/h2]


That’s right, it’s finally here. And what a version of it you will get! Most current dynamic naming in-game is decided by the owner’s cultures, the above examples being Turkish and Greek, but there are exceptions to this. For example, moving your capital to Edo as Japan will now rename the city to Tokyo, and the city of Bismarck, North Dakota, will be named Edwinton until the Iron Chancellor has actually made a name for himself, just to name a few.



And should none of the picks we have made be to your liking, then fear not! For hub and state names are now fully customizable in-game. Of course, we fully expect you all to be sensible and measured in your application of this newfound power.



For modders, it goes without saying that this is an incredibly flexible system, and we hope you will have a lot of fun with it going forward.

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Hello. This is Victoria, Narrative Design Lead of Victoria 3, and today I will be covering the free narrative content and political setup changes which are coming in Update 1.8. The paid content that will be coming in Pivot of Empire will be covered in a later dev diary.

[h2]Indian Political Setup[/h2]


Upon beginning the game as the East India Company, one may notice that the interest groups one must contend with are not those that they have become accustomed to. The EIC has been given a full suite of custom interest groups, designed to accurately represent the unique situation that finds itself in.

The most notable of these new interest groups is the East India Company interest group, representing European colonial interests within India. It has received a set of all-new ideologies and traits for this purpose, transforming it into a representation of the ideology, mindset, and interests of the British colonial administration. Upon the establishment of the British Raj, it will be renamed to the “Government of India”, but its ideology will stay essentially the same.



The new Colonialist ideology has been implemented in various places both new and old, with the East India Company as only one example. It is also used to make the Industrialists in colonial administrations support resource extraction rather than independent economic development. Their instrument in doing so is the new Extraction Economy law, which increases the efficacy of agriculture and resource industries whilst crippling the investment pool.

Most notably, Extraction Economy harms the native landowning classes’ ability to reinvest, representing the historical effects of the British Indian land ownership structure. The “Zamindari” system of land ownership was predicated upon the use of Indian landowners as tax collection agents for the British administration, under the expectation that the landowners could use their revenue for internal improvements. In reality, very few internal improvements were actually made, and Indian agriculture remained largely stagnant. Landowners’ estates were constantly partitioned, with chunks being sold at auction in order to make up for shortfalls in tax collection.



Whilst the Zamindari system was not the only system of land ownership put in place by the British administration, it was the dominant form in the Bengal presidency, and thus the most economically impactful. The other major land ownership system, the “Ryotwari system”, in which taxes were collected directly from individual peasants, is represented by persistent modifiers on southern Indian states which permit for greater self-ownership of agricultural buildings in these states.

Pictured: This land ownership setup allows for peasants in southern India to receive dividends from their plots, marginally increasing their base quality of life.

In order to represent the power structure of colonial India, British India will have one of two modifiers, depending upon whether the Company or Crown is in command. These modifiers greatly increase the political strength of bureaucrats and depress the influence of the Indian aristocracy, as well as making it nigh-impossible to create a legitimate government without the designated ruling IG in command. British India also has a custom rule for selecting its government - the leader of the Industrialists will necessarily become the next ruler of the country upon the death or removal of the previous one.



With the Industrialists transformed into a colonial bureaucratic nightmare, who will advocate for economically modernising India? Whilst the East India Company represents European colonial interests, the economic interests of the native Indian bourgeoisie are represented by the Bhadralok interest group. “Bhadralok” is a Bengali term which translates to “gentlemen”, and represents the moneyed upper classes which initially rose to prominence through collaboration with the EIC during their conquest of India. Whilst the majority of European capitalists gravitate towards the EIC, Indian capitalists will join the Bhadraloks instead.

Once it achieves independence, of course, India’s Industrialists will return to their normal role as the Indian industrial upper classes, and the Bhadraloks will once more represent exclusively the petit-bourgeoisie.

The Bhadraloks start with two ideologies that differ from the standard petit-bourgeoisie, Sovereignist and Modernizer. Fans of Colossus of the South may note that Modernizer is used for the Brazilian PB past a certain point - its use has been expanded to the PB across the Indian subcontinent.



The Sovereignist ideology replaces Patriotic, making the Indian PB support a lessening of discrimination and restrictions upon political expression. If India is to achieve independence, however, this ideology will immediately switch back to the default Patriotic. The Bhadraloks will not support a discriminatory British police state, but this does not mean that they oppose a discriminatory Indian police state. This ideology switching is used throughout India content, such as with the new Minoritarian Traditionalist ideology.

Pictured: I am pleased to introduce something we have been missing since release - hypocrisy mechanics.

The Minoritarian Traditionalist ideology prevents leaders from supporting State Religion if the country’s state religion does not match their personal religion. If the country’s religion ever switches to their personal religion, however, they will stop supporting secularism and immediately begin supporting State Religion again. These ideology switches are handled in on_actions, as well as various cases throughout the narrative content.

There are many other changes to pop attraction values and traits, but to go over the changes to every interest group in depth would, unfortunately, put me over the per-post image limit.

Finally, here is the new East India Company law setup.



Whilst the EIC possesses the Oligarchy and Caste Not Enforced laws, the institution of the British Raj following the Indian Uprising will lead to the enactment of Autocracy and Caste System Codified. This represents the centralisation of power in the Raj, and the efforts made by the colonial administrators of the 1860s to codify the Indian caste system into the modern, nationwide varna system.

[h2]The Indian Uprising[/h2]



In the year 1857, years of mismanagement by the British East India Company spiralled into an uprising which briefly rendered a third of the Indian subcontinent ungovernable. This uprising has been referred to as the Sepoy Mutiny by various British sources, and various names from the First War of Independence to the Great Rebellion by Indian writers. For the remainder of this diary, I will refer to it as the Indian Uprising.

The Indian Uprising was previously represented by the Avert Mutiny journal entry, which would spawn the Mughal Empire as a revolt if the EIC failed to complete various journal entries. In 1.8, this journal entry has been completely reworked.



The new Unstable Raj journal entry is available upon game start for the East India Company. All Princely States will have a more concise version of this journal entry, for the purpose of tracking the level of unrest in the EIC.

The stability of each Presidency within the East India Company is tracked with its own progress bar, which increases or decreases depending on various conditions. These conditions include taxation, the liberty desire of princely states within a given region, the presence of Utilitarian administrators [more on this in a future diary], state turmoil, and more.



What is a Presidency? Historically, they were the highest-level administrative units of colonial India. In-game, their borders are determined by the various Indian strategic regions. The Presidency concept details precisely which regions equate to which Presidency.




A major event chain which will affect the stability of the Presidencies deals with the cartridges issued to Indian sepoys. After researching Rifling, a rumour will begin to spread throughout the ranks of the Company’s soldiers about the nature of the cartridge grease. If mismanaged, this event chain can lead to a sharp decrease in the stability of the Presidencies.



If the stability of any Presidency drops too low for a period of 100 months, or if 25 years elapse without completing the Consolidate Colonial Rule journal entry and raising the Standard of Living of India to the requisite level, India will explode into rebellion.

Pictured: The Consolidate Colonial Rule journal entry has also been amended, removing the time limit and making some other quality of life changes.

The precise character of this rebellion depends upon which regions are most afflicted with unrest, as well as the Liberty Desire of various Princely States. If unrest is concentrated in the Bengal Presidency, the main drama of the rebellion will revolve around Delhi, and the bid of the mutinying sepoys to restore the Mughal Empire. Each Presidency possesses a major revolter - the Mughals in Bengal, Satara and the Chhatrapati of the Maratha Confederacy in Bombay, and the rebellious princely state of Kurnool in Madras.

With all of these factors, the Indian Uprising can possess endless permutations, from something similar to the bounds of the historical uprising…


…to a distributed revolt across multiple regions, encompassing various Princely States…



…to an apocalyptic collapse of British authority across the subcontinent.



If a Princely State possesses high liberty desire when the Uprising breaks out, it will have an opportunity to either join the Marathas or the Mughals, or try to forge its own path. Pledging fealty to either the Mughals or Marathas will make a princely state a vassal of the Emperor or Chhatrapati.



Once the shape of the uprising has been determined, a war will break out between a coalition of revolters and the British. In order to preserve itself, the East India Company must put down every revolter and restore their order to India.



If the British win, as they did historically, the British government will step in to reform the administration of India to ensure that this does not happen again. The East India Company will be reorganised into the British Raj, and much of its autonomy will be stripped from it.



However, what if the Indian Uprising is triumphant, and the British are driven from the subcontinent?



After losing to the revolters, the East India Company will be able to retreat to one of the three Presidencies, abandoning its holdings in all other regions. Alternatively, it may abandon India completely. Some possible outcomes from this event are below.


Once the British are gone, or reduced to a rump state hanging on to whatever they could hold against the revolt, the Indian contenders may shift to managing their newly acquired empires.

[h2]Interest Group Priority Cultures[/h2]

Astute observers may note that, in the above screenshot, the leaders of the EIC and Presidency Armies are European, whilst the leaders of every other interest group are Indian. Prior to 1.8, interest groups were only able to select leaders of primary cultures. This is no longer the case. Interest groups can now be assigned priority cultures, which will force characters of an interest group to have certain cultures, given a set of conditions.

Pictured: Leaders of the Industrialists interest group in India can only be British, Scottish, or Irish for as long as British rule persists.

This has enabled us to flavour the East India Company [Industrialists] and Presidency Armies [Armed Forces] interest groups as European, whilst the other interest groups represent various classes amongst the native Indian population.

[h2]New Subject Tracks[/h2]



In 1.8, two new subject types have been added, and the existing ones reconfigured into three separate “tracks”. Dominions now belong to a different track than puppets, and all tracks have two steps. Rather than needing to promote from a puppet to a dominion to a protectorate, puppets now directly promote to Protectorate.

Chartered Companies are a new subject type, which possess all of the autonomy of a Protectorate whilst paying a higher share of their income to their overlord. Examples of Chartered Companies include the Hudson Bay Company, East India Company, Russian-American Company, and chartered companies which may be established through African colonial administrations.


Pictured: All subject types as of 1.8.

In terms of narrative, Dominions and Colonies represent colonial governments of various types, whilst Protectorates and Puppets represent native-ruled states that nonetheless lack political autonomy. Tributaries and Vassals have remained unchanged.

Pictured: Colonies can now have subjects of their own, which means the Princely States stay safely connected to the Raj. Also visible here is a selection of new flags that we’ve added.

[h2]Corporate States[/h2]



Pivot of Empire and Update 1.8 are largely centred around the British East India Company, a massive corporation that acts as a state. We have also added a Corporate State law. These two things are completely unrelated.

Corporate State is a new Governance Principles law added in 1.8, designed to represent states such as the Federal State of Austria, Fiume, the Italian Social Republic, and Ireland, as well as the end goals of various late-19th century and early 20th-century political movements. The Corporate State law focuses around institutionalised class collaboration as the basis of the state. In this conception of society, different classes and professions can be likened to vital organs within a single body, all serving different yet equally important functions.

Corporate State is primarily supported by Corporatists and Fascists. It also serves as a “midpoint” for various ideologies, being more favoured than their least favourite governance principles, but inferior to their preferred governance principles. The enactment of Corporate State serves as an endgame to a fascist playthrough, much as Council Republic serves as the endgame to a communist playthrough.

Whilst enacting Corporate State, one may choose which groups that its corporatist structure will benefit, permanently improving the clout of the player’s choice of interest group for as long as the law is active.



In order to represent the historical fondness that certain strains of fascism have possessed for state-supervised workers’ cooperatives, the Corporate State law enables the Cooperative Ownership law. Enacting Cooperative Ownership under a Corporate State will empower the petit-bourgeoisie through funnelling dividends to Shopkeepers, benefiting the state’s most favoured demographic.

The journal entry formerly known as the Path to Fascism has also been completely reworked in 1.8, now mirroring the Spectre Haunting the World journal entry. If the growth of the fascist movement cannot be contained, they will launch a march on your capital, possibly seizing power in the same way that Mussolini did in 1922.



[h2]The London Conference[/h2]



The modern borders of Belgium and the Netherlands were only settled upon in 1839, through a process which involved every European great power. The historical result of the London Conference was the Treaty of London of 1839, a document which provided for the independence and neutrality of Belgium.

The London Conference journal entry will appear for European great powers in 1838-1839, and will permit each power to vote upon a desired settlement between the Netherlands and the newly independent Belgium. This conference can have various outcomes depending on how the Great Powers vote.

Pictured: Two of the possible outcomes.

There is more free content included in 1.8, but I have unfortunately exhausted the limit of images one can fit in a single forum post. The remainder awaits its discovery once the update is released.

And that is all. Thank you for reading. Next week, Kenneth will cover the new 2D art for Pivot of Empire.