Victoria 3 News

Happy Thursday, it's time for more Sphere of Influence / Update 1.7 news!

One of the many benefits of being a Victorian-era Great Power is that you might get to lord over not just your own people, but other nations as well. Whether acquired through brutal conquest, colonial machinations, or willing subserviency, countries subjugated under your leadership can benefit your empire in a number of ways:

• they expand your market
  
• they provide you with a share of their Prestige
  
• they may compensate you with taxes in exchange for your protection
  
• they may join your wars
  
• etc.
  

This doesn't mean subjects will always just lie back and accept you exploiting them. Overlords that see their subjects as nothing but buffer zones and cash cows could in time come to learn that patience can run thin, leading to calls for independence. And in this era of nationalism, your subject declaring their autonomy could prove the perfect pretense for your worst rival to upset the balance of power.

We're introducing a number of enhancements to gameplay around managing your subjects, or indeed managing your own status as a subjugated nation if that's more your speed. These enhancements are meant to improve interactivity and AI responsiveness, while also introducing a number of quality-of-life features and highly requested additional mechanics. Some features below are available in the Sphere of Influence expansion, while others will come to everyone as part of Update 1.7.

[h2]Liberty Desire[/h2]
The first and most obvious feature you will encounter relating to your subjects in Update 1.7 is Liberty Desire, a measure of how pressing the issue of autonomy and independence is to the people (particularly the ruling class) in the subjugated nation. At high levels, an AI subject could become rebellious and might make some terribly rude demands of their overlord; at low levels, they will be complacent and cooperative, enabling their overlord to relax and maybe squeeze them a bit more, as they please.

For AI countries, Liberty Desire will strongly influence their strategy with respect to their overlord. Four additional AI strategies have been added:

• Break Free: the AI attempts to become independent from their overlord
  
• Increased Self-Reliance: the AI attempts to increase their autonomy and become less dependent on their overlord, but will not seek outright independence
  
• Maintain Autonomy: the AI wants to maintain their autonomy and relationship with their overlord just as it is
  
• Integrate with Suzerain: the AI wants closer integration with their overlord and will loyally comply with their wishes
  

But Liberty Desire is not just for the AI, it also informs what human players can do, and the level of Liberty Desire can have a direct effect on the country and its pops as well. The current level of Liberty Desire is visualized much like Legitimacy, as a tiered meter with different effects at different levels. Unlike Legitimacy it is never static - Liberty Desire is always either increasing or decreasing, the question is at what speed and what you (as overlord or subject) will do about it.

The British East India Company, with its largely self-sufficient economy and powerful standing army, could become a problematic subject for Great Britain unless relations and lobbies are kept in check, and concessions may have to be granted to keep them loyal to the crown.

A multitude of factors play into Liberty Desire, providing you with a lot of different strategies for how to keep it under control (or perhaps increase it, if you're the subject).

• Relations: obviously, high relations will lower Liberty Desire and vice versa
  
• Relative Prestige: the greater the difference in Prestige between overlord and subject the lower the Liberty Desire. The less autonomous your subject is, the greater the Prestige difference you need to maintain to depress Liberty Desire.
  
• Economic Dependence and Lobbies: explained in greater detail below
  
• Market Isolation or supply problems: if you cannot provide your subject with effective access to your market, they will be more inclined to demand sovereignty
  
• Change Rate scaling: the higher or lower Liberty Desire gets, the slower its rate of progression, giving you more opportunities to manipulate it with Diplomatic Actions (which we'll discuss soon)
  

[h2]Economic Dependence[/h2]
Another metric introduced in Update 1.7 is Economic Dependence, which measures exactly what it sounds like: how dependent country A is on country B's economy. Economic Dependence doesn't do anything directly, but feeds into other metrics such as Liberty Desire and the Cohesion of Trade League-type Power Blocs.

A major aspect of Economic Dependence is how much of the nation's economy is owned by the other country through foreign investments, either directly or through pop investors. If you want to make your subjects dependent on you, make sure you provide all of their good jobs.



If you do not share a market with the other country, the secondary aspect of economic dependence consists of the value of trade between your two nations. But in most cases where Economic Dependence matters, you do share a market, which introduces another few factors.

First off, the difference in GDP between the countries in the market has an impact.

But much more interestingly, how much your economy provides for the other nation's pops - and how much they are able to provide for themselves - is a crucial factor. As a market leader, you're considered to be providing anything the market member does not provide for themselves, in this case luxuries like Opium, Fruit, Luxury Clothes, and Tobacco.

The more you're able to provide for yourself, the more you can offset this factor. In this case, Columbia produces most of the Grain they consume, which is their dominant demand. As a result they more than offset the luxuries provided by membership in the British market.

As a result, from the viewpoint of Great Britain, if I want to increase Columbia's economic dependence on me I should consider producing an excess of the goods they aren't able to fully provide for themselves, such as Liquor. Thinking longer-term, I could also try to take measures to make their domestic staple industries unviable, making me the dominant supplier of (for example) Grain or Clothes or Furniture throughout the empire, while my colonial subjects' economies consists of producing cash crops for the benefit of my own people or industries.

Note that this part of the calculation is currently WIP and may be altered for legibility and consistency before release, but the principles will stay the same.



[h2]Lobbies[/h2]
In the Sphere of Influence overview we mentioned Lobbies, which are also crucial to keeping Liberty Desire under control across your empire. We will go deeper into Lobbies next week, but for now I can mention that subject nations will almost always have two Lobbies relating to their overlord: one of them a proponent of closer ties with the overlord, while the other is opposed to the overlord and devoted to independence. The relative power of these Lobbies depends on which Interest Groups support them, how powerful those Interest Groups are, and whether or not they are currently in government, which directly feeds into Liberty Desire as well.

As an overlord, with the Sphere of Influence expansion you will have some indirect influence over this by sponsoring the creation and maintenance of lobbies in other countries, which we will learn more about next week. As a subject, you have more direct control: if an Interest Group supports ties with your overlord, you can try to suppress them, remove them from power, even incite them to revolution and defeat them to keep your Liberty Desire high (though beware this could rouse your overlord into supporting their side!).

[h2]Subject Actions[/h2]
So as a subject, why would you want your Liberty Desire to be high? You actually probably don't want to keep it high, since it can mean less stability in your country (as reflected by greater risk of Radical generation, as people demand their freedom). But when your Liberty Desire has reached a high enough level, you can make demands of your overlord which are hard for them to ignore.

Increase Autonomy: previously available only as a Diplomatic Demand, you can now more gently request an increase to your autonomy when your Liberty Desire is high enough. Should the overlord decline this request the subject can demand full independence, so the stakes are quite high. If the request is granted, Liberty Desire will drop to much more manageable levels.

Demand State: if your overlord controls a state that is both adjacent or a homeland to you, directly or through another subject, you can demand they give you that state under certain conditions.

Request Payment Relief: you can request that your overlord reduce your payment burden. (Sphere of Influence only)

Request Support for Regime: a pact where the overlord provides overt support for your rule, granting you Legitimacy. This is reversible, so the overlord can grant this pact on their own if they wish. (Sphere of Influence only)

Request Knowledge Sharing: a pact where the overlord provides the subject with a tech spread boost, letting them catch up to the state-of-the-art quicker than usual. This is also reversible, letting the overlord display their benevolence unprompted. (Sphere of Influence only)

For example, you might wish to demand an increased level of autonomy, or relief from excessive payments.

Once one of these demands have been accepted your Liberty Desire will decrease, reflecting the diplomatic impact of the concession your overlord agreed to.

[h2]Overlord Actions[/h2]
Most of the new options are available for overlords towards their subjects, but follow the same principle - if Liberty Desire is low enough you can demand more from your subject, although this is likely to increase Liberty Desire and maybe even cause it to increase over time. Similarly, you can grant special privileges to depress Liberty Desire.



The following actions will be coming in Update 1.7 / Sphere of Influence:

Increase and Decrease Autonomy: when Liberty Desire is particularly low, the overlord can force a decrease to their subject's autonomy without making a Diplomatic Demand for it. Full annexation is possible only for Puppets / Vassals, and still requires a Diplomatic Demand.

Grant and Take State: a much requested feature, as an overlord you can now benevolently decide to grant territory to your subject. The state you select must belong either to you or another one of your subjects, and must either be adjacent to the subject or a homeland of one of their primary cultures (and in that case, it cannot also be a homeland for another subject that is adjacent, and therefore a better fit). Granting a state will of course reduce Liberty Desire, often by a substantial amount, especially if it's a homeland. Transferring a state from another subject will of course increase the Liberty Desire of the subject you transferred it from. In the case of Puppet or Vassal subjects, you can even transfer their states to yourself if Liberty Desire is sufficiently low (not their capital though).

Exempt from Service: for subjects that are forced to join the overlord's Diplomatic Plays, this pact lets overlords exempt the subject so they stay out of the conflict.

Grant Own Market: cuts the subject off from your shared market and makes them run their own. This could be useful in cases where you want your subjects to be a trading partner rather than fully integrated with your economy, limit migration, or reserve your convoys.

Reduce or Raise Subject Payments: for Subject Types that must pay a tax to their overlord, these "add-on pacts" allow you to either decrease or increase the amount paid in exchange for a change in Liberty Desire progress. (Sphere of Influence only)

Appoint Colonial Governor: lets the overlord select a new Head of State for the subject. The options the overlord has available depends on their laws vis a vis who the subject is - under some laws you could permit a local governor to take charge, while under others only hopefuls from the empire's capital are permitted. (Sphere of Influence only)

Evangelize: spreads the overlord's state religion in the subject, increasing conversion rates. (Sphere of Influence only)

A nifty cheat sheet to remind you of the effects of different subject types and compare between them has been added to the Subjects tab UI, where you also have easy access to the Liberty Desire values of your subjects, sort functions, and a list of the Overlord actions you can issue for each subject. If the symbols aren't self-explanatory to you, they're of course tooltippable!

[h2]Support Independence[/h2]
Support Independence is a new Diplomatic Pact, which a country can establish to commit to support another country's subject if they declare independence from their overlord. Once the Diplomatic Play has been declared, any supporters will automatically join on the subject's side. As a side effect this pact also increases Liberty Desire progression in the subject, so over time supporting a subject's independence may lead to greater autonomy if not full independence.

Supporting the sovereignty of your subject's rivals is a common strategy among aspiring imperialists, and subjects looking to become independent can also cozy up to other nations and ask for their support, hypothetically speaking of course.



[h2]Improved Imposition of Laws[/h2]
We introduced the ability to impose laws on your subjects in Update 1.5, but at that time the implementation was so rudimentary it was almost like an easter egg for the few who discovered it. In Update 1.7, you can now impose laws on your subjects directly from the Subjects tab.

When you start imposing a law, the other country will get an event where they can respond to the demand. They can choose to outright refuse, which they might do if their Liberty Desire is high or their chance of passing the law is very low.

You will now also be told what their chances of passing the law is before you commit to it.

They can also choose to start enacting it right away, giving them a +10% enactment chance for the duration, or deferring it until later. If they are already passing a law at the time you send the demand, they can choose to cancel their current law at no penalty in favor of your request, or wait until the time is right. While they're committed to enacting the law, they cannot cancel it until it's complete. They can however abandon the attempt, and may do so if they've made no progress after several years, but this will hurt relations with you.

As a player, your AI overlord may make these demands of you as well, and you have the same options to deal with them.

[h2]Conclusion[/h2]
These new interactions with your subjects (or your overlord), informed by the Liberty Desire metric, Economic Dependence system, and Lobbies, is meant to add more difficulty, depth, and interactivity to your imperialist projects - or as a subject, give you the ability to plan for your eventual independence. While most of these mechanics are available in Update 1.7, several of the new interactions are a component of the Sphere of Influence expansion. Some of the mechanics, such as imposition of laws and diplomatic actions limited to countries you have special relationships with, also integrate with the Power Bloc mechanics in Sphere of Influence to give you a more unified way of interacting with countries in your sphere, whether they're subjugated to you directly or merely in the same Bloc as you.

These features also add exciting new potentials for more targeted interactions with specific countries without cluttering up the lens interface where more generic actions are shown, permitting for more custom interactions between countries to be added in the future. Modders should also be able to make good use of the new options we've added to Diplomatic Actions, such as modifier support.

As mentioned earlier, next week Wiz will be back to go into more detail on Lobbies, and what they provide for the upcoming Sphere of Influence expansion. Until then!

Overview for all upcoming Dev Diaries:

Hello and welcome to another Victoria 3 Dev Diary!

After last week’s look at Power Blocs, we are going to take a look at another major set of changes that are going to arrive with Sphere of Influence and the free 1.7 update.

Namely, a revision of the Building Ownership system and what it allows us to do: Foreign Investment, a much requested feature which makes its debut in 1.7.

You will see that the changes we are making impact your visibility of ownership and the affected Pops throughout the game.

To understand all the mechanics we will be looking at an example country in the heart of Europe.

[h2]Ownership types[/h2]
It’s 1836. In Bavaria, a proud member of the Zollverein Power Bloc, all buildings are owned by the state or the workers themselves.

Capitalists, Aristocrats, and Clergymen no longer work in these buildings, and most of the Shopkeepers no longer work in production buildings directly. In addition, the Ownership Production Methods have been removed. Instead, ownership works on a per level basis, allowing a mixed ownership structure in the same building.

A popular Logging Camp it seems. Workers, a Financial District and a Manor House own a part.

In worker-owned buildings employees work for themselves basically. So any dividends they may accumulate, they split amongst themselves. This is the default at game start for many countries (not all) and is a state which you can more or less return to at a later stage of the game with the enactment of Cooperative Ownership, which will expropriate your privately owned buildings over time.

One major exception from the ownership situation at game start are subsistence farms which are owned by a new building we are introducing: Manor Houses.

Now they lounge around in luxury, instead of slumming it with the common folks in less refined taste buildings, we wouldn't want their shoes to be dirtied on a subsistence farm!
Manor Houses are able to own levels of other buildings, in our case at game start all the levels of Subsistence Farms in their own states. They pay their wages and dividends by collecting dividends from the buildings they own and distributing them among their employees.
What type and how many employees they have is determined by a limited set of PMs.

Clergymen or Aristocrats? You can’t get rid of both of them!

So you can see there are still jobs for Clergymen. What about the Shopkeepers and Capitalists?
Well, they work in the new Financial District buildings, which behave pretty much like the Manor Houses. They too have different employment PMs, can own levels of other buildings and pay their employees by collecting dividends from owned building levels.

Both new buildings expand automatically, depending on how many levels they own. For example if a new level of a privately owned factory is created, a corresponding new level of a Financial District is also generated.

All building levels that you construct are country-owned. Under certain laws, this status can change soon after they are finished constructing. Country-owned buildings come with reduced Economy of Scale bonuses and a bureaucracy cost for each level you own. But in return they can provide additional income based on the building’s dividends which partially get transferred to your treasury.

Not all buildings can be of any ownership type of course, for example barracks or government administrations will always be country-owned.

Summing up, there are now three types of ownership for any building level:

• Worker owned
  
• Privately owned (Financial Districts and Manor Houses)
  
• Country owned
  

If all buildings in Bavaria are owned by the workers or the country itself, how do the first Financial Districts appear, you may wonder!

The main way to get that to happen is the next point on our agenda.

[h2]Privatization[/h2]
Enter Privatization, whereby you allow country-owned buildings to be sold to Pops.

If you are short on cash, Privatization might help you

This makes it possible for your Pops to acquire them. Depending on the type of building you are privatizing, they usually get bought either by Aristocrats or Capitalists, using the investment pool’s funds.
If you don’t have any capitalists in your country yet, other Pops may step up though, using the investment pool’s funds to buy a building you put up for sale and become Capitalists in the process, which in turn leads to the first Financial District appearing.

The money will be transferred from the investment pool to your country’s treasury once that happens. The cost of buying a level is determined by its construction cost and is modified by most of the Economic System laws. These laws also affect the efficiency of these transactions, meaning how much money is lost as overhead and how much is being reinvested into the investment pool or the treasury.
One particularly interesting law is Laissez-Faire which upon enactment forces all your country-owned buildings to be put up for sale and will automatically do so for every new building level you construct. Similarly, enactment of other laws like Cooperative Ownership and Command Economy doesn’t immediately change the ownership of all buildings, but rather can start a process that can convert your economy over time.

Insert witty joke about the free market here

Now let’s take a look at how the different ownership model affects investments from your Pops.

[h2]Investment[/h2]
The existing logic for how the private investment pool works remains similar to before. So, different Pop types still have different priorities and they will look at factors like estimated productivity, available workforce etc.
When a building is about to be constructed by private investment, we randomly determine who is building it, favoring already existing Financial Districts and Manor Houses over creating new ones.

In a worker-owned economy, the private investment pool will continue to function, but they will only expand their own buildings, not create new ones.

An important fact with this system is that investments do not need to be local. A Financial District or Manor House can invest in any of your country’s states, including your colonies overseas.
This system will create a flow of money from the colonies to your homelands, a stronger centralization of wealth and power and it will end the status of colonies’ Pops making more money than your Pops at home.

Of course the non-local investments also come with some challenges with regards to other countries.

It looks like Prussia has heard about that option and has started investing in your country!

“First they took our chairs, then the tables we used to eat at. What’s next? Our beds?!”

[h2]Foreign Investment[/h2]
There are a few ways to acquire Foreign Investment Rights.

First of all, overlords can always invest in their subjects. This is part of the free 1.7 update and will allow you to do Foreign Investment where it matters the most, even if you do not own Sphere of Influence.

Then there are three diplomatic pacts which you can use if you have bought the expansion:

1. Mutual Investment Rights which allows both countries to invest in each other
   
2. One-directional Investment Rights in either direction, so you either demand to be allowed to invest in their country or offer another country to invest in yours
   

The [redacted] has been [redacted]. We shall see its effects on the 11. of April.

There is also a Power Bloc Principle group that deals with Foreign Investment which on Tier 3 has the consequence of being able to invest in any member country.

No matter how you got the Investment Rights, you and also your Pops will be able to invest in the target country. Private investment does consider foreign states as potential targets for their expansions, allowing them to build profitable buildings more easily.

As nice as it is that Prussia has invested in new buildings in Bavaria, I don’t think we can let them get away with diverting the profits to Berlin instead of our own population!

[h2]Nationalization[/h2]
Nationalization allows you to take control of foreign assets in your country. You cannot nationalize other countries’ assets as long as they possess Foreign Investment rights in your country.

Once that is no longer the case, e.g. if Bavaria left the Zollverein Power Bloc, you can peacefully nationalize their building levels in your country. For that you need to pay a sum of money from your treasury. Similarly to Privatization, the sum is determined by the construction cost + modifiers from laws.

You will also be able to nationalize your own Pops’ building levels, both worker-owned and privately owned, if you’d like to take ownership. Nationalization is not seen positively by the affected Pops of course and will radicalize them.

“We should compensate them to reduce the quarrels.”

But what if the Bavarian coffers are empty yet you still want to take over that juicy productive Furniture Manufacturies that is owned by Prussia?

Well, there is always an alternative.

“Pay them? I don’t think so!”

You can demand nationalization of a country’s assets in your country. If they accept, their building levels’ ownership changes to your country. If they don’t, you can try and enforce it as a wargoal. If you are successful, you will also remove their Foreign Investment Rights for your country in addition to taking control of their buildings in your country.

[h2]Building Registry[/h2]
To visualize all these new mechanics, we are introducing the Building Registry, which allows you a customizable look at your country’s situation.

All the building data one could wish for

This is a major new UI, that similar to the Census Data window, comes with a lot of functionality to filter the available data. Only show buildings outside your country? Sure. See all buildings that are owned by Pops and which are currently not hiring but not fully employed? No problem.

Lots of filter groups to browse through

We hope you find this as useful as we do. You can access it via the button on the bottom of the Buildings panel.

Really recommend pressing that button

[h2]Implications for the Directly Controlled Investment Pool Game Rule[/h2]
As you can imagine, this new system of ownership, geographic wealth extraction, and privatization/nationalization has far-reaching implications on the economic foundations of Victoria 3. It enables a lot of interesting dynamics we haven't been able to model until this time and adds a whole new dimension to your economic laws.

It also comes with the consequence of making the Directly Controlled Investment Pool game rule that we introduced with 1.2 (as a legacy alternative to the new Autonomous Investment system) impossible to maintain. In 1.6 and prior, if this game rule was turned on, the player would be directing all construction efforts. As long as there was money in the investment pool and the construction queue was building a privately-owned building, the cost of construction goods would be coming out of the investment pool first before being carried by the state budget. With the new rules for building ownership, investment rights, and so on in 1.7 this no longer makes sense - there's now a very clear distinction between a building project initiated by a private investor and the state, a potential source of conflict innate to both foreign ownership and the privatization/nationalization mechanics, and even differences between owners in different regions that cannot be represented if all construction projects were player-initiated.

Because of this it no longer makes sense for players to be in charge of both public and private investments simultaneously, and as such the Directly Controlled Investment Pool rule has had to be removed for 1.7 and beyond. While we can't support non-default game rules to the same degree as the standard options, removing a game rule completely is not something we'd ever do without good cause. We know that a smaller fraction of you favored this setting so we want to be clear with why its removal was a necessity to move forward with these improvements to ownership and foreign expansion.

[h2]Outlook[/h2]
I would like to end today’s Dev Diary by providing a short outlook for what these changes also enable us to do in the future.

The main thing here is affecting Companies.

The way we have reworked ownership allows us to create Company headquarter buildings which can then own specific building levels of industries they care about, determining its profitability from and providing their throughput bonuses only to these. While we cannot provide a concrete timeline for that change at this point, it is something we would like to tackle for one of our next free updates.

That’s it for today. Check back next week when Mikael is going to walk you through what changes 1.7 and Sphere of Influence brings to relations and interactions between Overlords and Subjects, including how these foreign investment mechanics relate to your grip over your extended empire.

Overview for all upcoming Dev Diaries:

Hello and welcome to another Victoria 3 Dev Diary!
I’m Lino, a Game Design Lead on the project and today I will take you through one of the big features of the Sphere of Influence expansion: Power Blocs.

As Martin wrote last week, Power Blocs are multinational associations that are led by a Great or Major Power. They can take many different shapes, some of which I will showcase today. With your skills playing Victoria 3 (or rather: your skills picking Great Britain), you too should be able to lead one in no time, I’m sure!

Display of the most powerful members of a Power Bloc under Great Britain’s rule

But let’s get into the details, starting with some general aspects.

[h2]General[/h2]
With Power Blocs, we are providing new and different opportunities for you to take control of one of these powerful empires, to assemble and customize your own Bloc, shape its effects on members to your liking and guide its expansion and struggle with other Power Blocs for domination over the region.

A country can only be part of one Power Bloc at the same time. That does not mean that a country is locked into a Power Bloc forever though. There are ways for them to leave and join another Bloc, if the conditions align or even for a Power Bloc to be completely dismantled.

Great Powers will generally have an easier time leading a Power Bloc than Major Powers, due to their higher budget of Influence which is part of the upkeep cost for Power Blocs.
Additionally there is a Cohesion penalty being applied to Major Powers leading a Power Bloc to reflect that they don’t quite have the authority or respect of others.
This fact and some other things we’ll get into later, should make the fight for the top of the Prestige leaderboards more rewarding and fun.

There will be some Power Blocs established at game start already, e.g. the Zollverein and the British Empire. You can start playing as Great Britain and you will already have a Power Bloc ready to go if you desire to do so.
But also playing as a regular member of any Power Bloc will feel different than being outside of them. While there are good reasons why you may not want to join any Power Bloc, there is also potential for powerful effects and cooperation with other members of the same Bloc.

Some of the Power Blocs at game start

I hear you have managed to cut off Austria’s leash and were able to unite Italy. Very impressive. Now you are ready to create your own new Power Bloc. Let’s look at that process, which starts with the customization.

[h2]Customization[/h2]
When you form your Power Bloc, you can customize a few aesthetic things to make it look as pretty or crazy or as historic as possible - whatever floats your boat!
It starts with a name of course, I see you have called it “Venetian League”? Excellent choice.
It continues with the emblem. We’ve added a number of options for you to choose from to decorate your crest. For the color selection we have added support for a traditional color picker so that you have the full freedom to express yourself, be it pink, green or Prussian yellow blue.
You can also see that there is a selection for a Map pattern. This pattern will be displayed in the map modes that deal with Power Blocs and its color will be the same as your chosen primary color as you may have seen from the historic Power Blocs screenshot.

WIP Mockup of the Customization window for your emblem

In the next tab you can find the Statue customization window. Here you can shape the looks of the fantastic monuments which countries of your Power Bloc can build.
There’s a variety of pedestals, statues and accessories to choose from to demonstrate your Power Bloc’s might to the world.

Countries in a Power Bloc will be able to build them and profit from their effects, which can be something like Influence, Authority or similar effects, based on how you want to shape your Power Bloc. Of course the Game Rule for Monument effects will be expanded to include Statues if you desire to disable their effects, and build them just for their looks.

WIP Mockup for the customization window

One of the many majestic statues on the map

Another addition that will bring Power Blocs more into the 3D world is a set of new vehicles, depending on the style of your Bloc.
You will also find that parts of the clothing of country leaders in the Power Bloc will change. So for example you may see sabres, medals or sashes being worn by them.
Which accessories are going to be worn and which vehicle will drive on your roads are based on what Central Identity Pillar you pick for your Power Bloc. We will share more information on these assets in one of our upcoming Dev Diaries, dedicated to cosmetics - stay tuned!

This fancy cape could be worn by your country leader too

When you want to get from A to B while showing off

Speaking of Central Identity Pillars, let’s have a look at them to see what might interest you for the Venetian League.

[h2]Central Identity Pillar[/h2]
Power Blocs revolve around a central set of values. These can range from bringing as many subjects as possible into their “glorious” empire (looking at you Great Britain and Russia), to a Bloc whose leader is interested in spreading their own religion throughout the world.

Identity Pillars change a few aspects of your Power Bloc:

• They provide a special ability to Power Bloc leaders, e.g. the Trade League Identity making everybody part of a customs union under the leader, or the Sovereign Empire letting the leader turn a member into a subject of theirs under certain conditions
  
• They define some “rules” for your Bloc, e.g. how Cohesion is gained (which we’ll talk about later)
  
• They can unlock groups of Principles which is what I’ll talk about next
  
• They define the rate at which you get Principle Mandates, which allows you to enact these Principles
  

WIP Selection of Identities

When forming a Power Bloc, you will have to pick one of these Identities before moving on to the next step. Trade League it is? Great choice.

[h2]Principles[/h2]
Next up, you will have to choose your starting Principle. While Identities provide a central idea and a sort of rule set for your Power Bloc, Principles can provide more practical expressions of that.
Principles come in groups of three levels, generally providing different effects per level to all members of your Bloc. Some are beneficial for everybody, while others are particularly favoring you, their great leader.
The effects from Principles of higher tiers are always added to the lower ones. So if you have the tier 3 Principle of Defensive Cooperation unlocked, you also get the effects of tier 1 and 2.

WIP Selection screen, on release there are going to be more Principles to choose from

A WIP example of the three levels of the Defensive Cooperation Principle Group

Identities have one or more Primary Principle Groups which indicate a deeper connection to the Identity than most of the other Principle Groups.
You will be required to choose one of the Primary ones to form the Venetian League. Every additional Principle you pick at a later stage will grant a bonus to your Power Bloc’s Cohesion, which can be impactful. You can exchange it later on if you’d like, but you may have a very hard time doing so.

By having countries remain in your Bloc, you will unlock the potential to upgrade existing Principles or pick new ones with entirely different effects.
Each member of your Power Bloc contributes a number of points towards a Principle Mandate. The higher their rank, the higher their contribution.



Each Mandate allows you to either pick a new Tier 1 Principle if you have an open slot, upgrade one of your established Principles by one Tier, or switch a Principle of any Tier to a different Tier 1 Principle.

Principles Overview section

With the fancy customized look, the Central Identity Pillar and the first Principle picked, it is finally time to form the Venetian League.
Now all that’s left to do is send invitations. If at least one other country accepts, your very own Power Bloc is officially formed. Congratulations!

But how do you get other countries like the minors in the Austrian Bloc to join your Bloc and ensure they’re staying there so that you get more Principle Mandates?

[h2]Leverage[/h2]
That’s what Leverage is for. Raising your Leverage to overtake Austria might be a challenge, but it might also be worth it since you’re weakening their Bloc at the same time as strengthening your own.

There’s a couple of factors that contribute to Power Blocs building up Leverage on a country, such as:

• At least one of the Power Bloc's members having an active interest in the country (a hard requirement for gaining Leverage)
  
• Positive relations and certain other pacts like Alliance or Trade Agreement
  
• Siding with target in Diplomatic Plays
  
• Lobbies for or against your country
  
• Economic dependence (which we’ll cover in more detail in a future Dev Diary, but which includes e.g. trade routes between the countries)
  

By default, Leverage will trend towards 0. So that means if you want to keep the Leverage you have on a country, say Switzerland, active or even increase it, you will need to engage with them in some form or another.

Keep in mind that conducting Diplomacy is harder for you, now that you’re part of a Power Bloc. Countries in other Power Blocs will feel intimidated and are less likely to agree to your proposals.
That would have been a good reason for you to stay neutral. Oh well, too late now!

There’s actually two values for Leverage. One that continuously builds up over time if you meet the requirements and another one, which is called Active Leverage that is the result of your own Leverage minus the next highest Bloc’s Leverage.
So for example, if you have built up 100 Leverage in Switzerland and the pesky Austrian Bloc has 80 Leverage on them, your active Leverage is only 20.

WIP Animation for Leverage map mode


If you manage to get enough active Leverage, you can invite Switzerland to your Bloc. The active Leverage your Bloc has on them determines their likelihood of joining your Bloc if you ask them nicely. Their good friends came gladly after all.
But what if they decline? Well, you can always apply a slightly firmer grip if they need it and threaten war with them to force them into your Bloc. This will cause an amount of Infamy though, depending on how much Active Leverage you have on them.

Even after integrating Switzerland into your Bloc, Leverage needs to be kept up. Otherwise it opens the door to another Power Bloc doing the same as you have done and convincing them to leave your Bloc and join theirs instead.

It looks like you have learned how to get more countries into your Bloc. It is prospering and growing it seems. But I feel you may have forgotten about something you had better keep in mind.

[h2]Cohesion[/h2]
Cohesion is the measurement of how well the countries in your Power Bloc fit together. More than anything else it looks at the Identity to determine the target value which it will then trend towards.

There are some other things in the game that can generate or drain Cohesion though, e.g Principles providing a benefit or reducing it, actions that leaders or members can take, events etc.

Similarly to Legitimacy, the Cohesion value will be in one of five brackets, each having different effects on your Power Bloc. They are mostly around the gain of Leverage on members of your Bloc, but can even halt the progress of Principle Mandate generation.

WIP display of the Cohesion bar

Now the main problem that you are facing, is that Leverage gain on members in your own Bloc is affected by Cohesion which makes it harder to keep them around.

Most countries that you add to your Bloc will also reduce your Cohesion. The more countries you have, the higher the speed of unlocking the next Principle Mandate, but the more difficult it will also be to keep control over your member countries, potentially leading to them being pulled into a competing Power Bloc.

Kicking a less powerful member out might be worth it in order to restore balance. Similarly helpful could be picking a more generous Principle as your next one.

When you have found a way to stabilize your Bloc to comfortable levels, you should look for the next potential target to acquire.
Finding the balance between how many countries you can support to keep under your reign and where you invest your diplomatic resources is going to be key if you are leading a Power Bloc.
Maybe you should stick to Bavaria and Denmark as your next targets, on the other hand the contributions of a Great Power like France would bring might be worth it…

[h2]Power Struggle[/h2]
So you managed to get France to join your Venetian League? Congratulations!
I’d like to point your attention towards France’s Prestige. Since it is more than 20% higher than yours, they have automatically initiated a Power Struggle. If they succeed in keeping that score up for a full year, they will assume leadership of the Venetian League, demoting you to a regular member. France might even want to rename your Power Bloc afterwards. Mon Dieu!

Let’s hope Power Blocs find a better end under your leadership once Sphere of Influence releases in May.

When that happens, note that there is going to be a core version of Power Blocs that is going to launch with the free update for all players, even if you didn’t purchase Sphere of Influence.
The free version allows you to pick the Trade League Identity, making it possible to recreate shared markets, whose functionality we’ve moved from a diplomatic pact into the Power Bloc feature. It also replicates the Sphering mechanics from Victoria 2 in a more natural way than subjugation or negotiating for Customs Union pacts, though of course Power Blocs take this even further with more mechanics and depth.
Part of the expansion for Power Blocs is all customization and the vast majority of advanced mechanics and effects like the other Central Identity Pillars, Principles and Statues.

That’s it for today. Next week, I’m going to tell you more about the changes to Building Ownership and what that enables you to do - Foreign Investment!

Overview for all upcoming Dev Diaries:

Salutations Victorians!

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Hello and welcome to the first Development Diary for the 1.7 update and Sphere of Influence expansion for Victoria 3. This Dev Diary is meant to give you a broad overview of the major Expansion and update features, which we’ll naturally go over in much greater detail in the next few weeks. As mentioned previously, all of this is scheduled to release on May 6th and you can pre-order Sphere of Influence right now.

[h2]Power Blocs (Sphere of Influence)[/h2]
Power Blocs are multinational associations that can be formed by high-ranking countries, and which take a variety of forms based on their Identity and Principles. Power Bloc Identities are set when they are formed, while Principles can be added and removed over time. Power Blocs are highly customizable in other ways, such as choosing their name and customizing their emblem, as well as creating custom statues to reflect the glory and reach of your Bloc.

A Power Bloc might take the form of a single Great Power and countries under its influence, a multilateral military alliance between several Major/Great Powers, or an economic cooperation with numerous countries in a unified market.

Power Blocs have Leverage on countries outside the Bloc (including members of other Blocs) and can use that Leverage to entice and cajole them into the Power Bloc. Being part of a Power Bloc comes with both benefits and obligations, and members are at risk of having their internal politics meddled with by the leader of the Bloc.

[h2]Interest Group Lobbies (Sphere of Influence)[/h2]
In Sphere of Influence, Interest Groups can now join Lobbies with specific foreign policy agendas centered around other countries. These Lobbies form organically as the result of a new system of Diplomatic Catalysts: A lobby friendly to Great Britain might form after the signing of an alliance with them, while a lobby hostile to Austria might spring up after being defeated by them in a war, all depending on a variety of diplomatic and political conditions at the time the Catalyst occurred.

Lobbies will try to promote or counter the interests of foreign powers and will help or hinder your diplomatic efforts based on whether your goals align with their own. Lobbies that are friendly to a specific foreign power can smooth the way for diplomatic agreement that would otherwise not be possible, but will oppose hostile actions and undermine any war efforts against that power, while unfriendly lobbies will try to hinder diplomatic efforts with the country of their ire but may create an opportunity for a key alliance with their rival instead.

In addition to appearing as due to Diplomatic Catalysts, Political Lobbies can also form as a result of certain events, like Social Democrats feeling the need to prove their opposition to Communism

[h2]Foreign Investment (Sphere of Influence)[/h2]
Foreign Investment makes it possible for both governments and autonomous private investors to construct building levels in other countries and enjoy the profits generated. To construct in another country, you need to have certain diplomatic pacts in place, or otherwise be part of a Power Bloc that allows such construction. If you do not own Sphere of Influence you will still be able to do Foreign Investment in your subjects.

[h2]The Great Game (Sphere of Influence)[/h2]
The Great Game is a major new content addition adding a new Objective and new Journal Entries focused on the historical Great Game that played out between Russia and Britain in Central Asia. The Objective can be played as either Russia/Britain or one of the other involved powers such as Persia, and which country you select changes the conditions required to ‘win’ the Great Game. The new Objective ties directly into numerous new Journal Entries such as Persia’s ambition to restore its hegemony over Afghanistan, most of which will be present even if the Objective isn’t selected and so will also drive AI behavior in the region.

As one of the Afghanistani minors, your most immediate priority will be to reunify Afghanistan and either restore the Durrani Empire or create something new

[h2]Subject Interactions (Sphere of Influence)[/h2]
Subject Interactions are a new group of Diplomatic Actions that can be done either by an overlord against their subjects, or by a subject against their overlord. These include actions such as Increasing or Decreasing Autonomy, changing the level of payments owed by a subject, appointing a new ruler, or allowing them to manage their own market. Certain Subject Actions, such as Increasing Autonomy or Granting Market Independence, will be available even to those without Sphere of Influence.

[h2]Building Ownership Revision (Update 1.7)[/h2]
The mechanics for Building Ownership are completely revised in the 1.7 update so that the owners of a building no longer have to work in that building, or even live in the same state - London-based Capitalists can now own buildings all over the world, and buildings can be selectively nationalized or privatized and put up for sale to interested investors, with the available options being restricted by which economic system a country is operating under. Additionally, buildings can now potentially have a different owner for each of its levels.

Instead of hanging around on the farms doing what could (God forbid) be considered ‘working’, the Aristocrats of East Anglia now stay in their Manor Houses and enjoy the proper leisurely pursuits of a countryside gentleman or gentlewoman

[h2]Liberty Desire (Update 1.7)[/h2]
Update 1.7 adds Liberty Desire for Subjects that restricts both which actions they can take against their overlord and which actions an overlord is able to take against them. Liberty Desire is calculated on a variety of factors, such as how intertwined the subject’s economy is with their overlord, and can increase or decrease over time. AI subjects will have a number of new diplomatic strategies influenced by their liberty desire, such as pursuing independence or remaining a subject but seeking greater autonomy from their overlord.

Owing to a relatively high level of Liberty Desire, Cambodia is pursuing a strategy of increased autonomy and self-reliance, but will not seek full independence yet

This is of course by no means an exhaustive list of everything we’re adding in Sphere of Influence and 1.7! There are new companies, new flavor events, more historical characters, new clothing and changes to the map, to name just a few. Since there is a lot to talk about, we’ll be releasing weekly dev diaries for at least the next couple of months!

That’s all for today. Next week we begin the deep-dives into 1.7 and Sphere of Influence, on the topic of Power Blocs!

Below you can see the Upcoming Dev Diary Schedule, so mark the dates down for when we go over your topics of interest!