Victoria 3 News

Hello New Victorians joining us for the Free to Play weekend! Below, we have some new player advice, video tutorials on how to play the game, alongside some common terms used by the community!

[h2]Starting out Advice[/h2]
These are not exhaustive written tutorials on how to play just advice on these areas!

[h3]Suggested Starting Nations[/h3]

• Persia - nice spread of resources and pretty stable!
  
• Belgium - helps you learn trading, colonizing and more
  
• Japan - a fun nation, can be isolated letting you learn at your own pace
  

[h3]Politics[/h3]
Your political situation is affected by what country you start out as, however there are some broad strokes about what you generally want to do - pass laws to be able to move your country in what direction you wish to.

To do this you need to have an Interest Group in your government that supports these laws, this chance to do so is affected by the clout of the Interest Groups that support the Law. The more interest groups that support the law the easier it is to pass.

Remember, if an in Government Interest Group doesn't want the selected law to pass they can get upset and leave government and in extreme cases want to start revolutions. This can also happen with Interest Groups outside of government.

Changing laws can take time, mostly due to having Interest Groups that do not support the changes or needing technology to unlock certain laws. So, be aware you may take time to get to the goal you want!

[h3]Economy[/h3]
The backbone of a lot of other systems! Interest Groups are affected by the employed pops that work in buildings, which then affects the wealth, and indirectly the clout of the Interest Groups! For example, Plantations normally have a lot of Aristocrat pop types - who normally are attracted to joining the Landowner Interest Group, so by having more Plantations you give more pops wealth and likelihood to join Landowners! Look at other population types, by hovering over the orange concept text, and see what they like to move towards!

Otherwise, constructing buildings is the way to produce goods or provide a benefit. Goods are used in most places, for example:

• Pops use them for food, heating and other 'needs'.
  
• Buildings use them as input to make something. E.g. An iron mine uses tools to extract iron.
  
• Armies and Fleets use them with mobilization options and troops e.g. ammunition.
  

Construction is provided by a small amount naturally or, mainly, by construction centers!

Construction has two queues, government construction and private construction - the proportion of construction is decided by your Economic System law!

Transport, Services and Electricity are local good, i.e. they are only in those states when the building is build to provide them. This means you need to keep an eye on the needs for the states when building!

[h3]Diplomacy[/h3]
Large countries, called Great Powers, dependent on their strategies like to try to pull people into their market or control, so be careful acting around them as a smaller country. Keep an eye on their attitude and strategies, which can be seen in their diplomacy screen.

Being bankrolled can cause an obligation to appear which can be used to make you do something e.g. join a custom union.

During a diplo play you can sway other nations to your side by offering things to them e.g. obligation, transfering lad etc. This also applies to the AI offering this to you to join them!

[h3]Warfare[/h3]
(Check out the videos below to see them in action and explanations on them. )

Otherwise, key points for these are to make sure you have the ability to supply your formations and enough commanders to support them.

Different unit types have different statistics and roles, infantry are more defensive and cannons are more offensive.

Generals/Admirals need to be ordered to attack or defend from their formation.

You can recruit units for your formation via the formation itself not the military tab.

Conscripts come from your population and take time to recruit, opposed to normal battalions which are more regular troops and are always ready to be mobilized.

[h2]1.5 Specific Tutorials[/h2]
War is coming!
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

More War is Coming!
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Finance & Politics
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

What's new?
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

1.5 Update Overview Video
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[h2]Common Abbreviations[/h2]

• AF - Armed Forces
  
• ATT - Attack
  
• CTD - Crash To Desktop
  
• DD - Developer Diary
  
• DEF - Defense
  
• DP - Diplomatic Play
  
• GDP - Gross Domestic Product
  
• GP - Great Power
  
• IG - Interest Group
  
• JE - Journal Entry
  
• LF - Laissez-faire
  
• LO - Land Owners
  
• MAPI - Market Access Price Impact
  
• NGF - North German Federation
  
• OOS - Out of Sync
  
• PB - Petite Bourgeoisie
  
• PM - Production Method
  
• PMG - Production Method Group
  
• POP(s) - Population in game
  
• RF - Rural Folk
  
• RP - Region Pack
  
• SGF - South German Federation
  
• SoL - Standard of Living
  
• TU - Trade Unions
  
• UC - Urban Center
  

Other Resources can be found here!

Or, you can join our Discord Server and ask for help from our Helpers!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


https://store.steampowered.com/app/529340/Victoria_3/


New to Victoria 3?

Join our Discord Server and ask our Helpers for help, or look at our wiki and resources!

Hotfix 1.5.8 is now live! Please do not use this thread to report any new issues you discover - but rather file any bug reports in the bug reporting forum, thank you!

Bugfixes:

• Fixed a crash in CCombatUnit::GetModifierValueImpl
  
• Fixed a crash in the military formations manager
  
• Fixed a bug that would sometimes cause Transfer Subject war goals to not resolve as promised when a peace is signed or when a party gives in during a Diplomatic Play
  
• Imposing laws on your subjects now forces them to start enactment of that law as intended
  
• The Country panel's Domestic tab UI will no longer break when that country is in the process of enacting a law
  
• Fixed bug that prevented Quechua and South Andean subjects from being annexed
  
• Fixed a bug where military flags weren't visible if the Voice of The People DLC was not enabled
  

Interface:

• Added a player-configurable toggle for which Workforce number to show in the Expand Building Map Interaction (Jobseekers / Peasants / Unemployed)
  

Modding:

• Added a start_enactment effect
  
• Added an on_action for on_impose_law that will be overridden by on_impose if specified on the law type
  

Hello Victorians! It has been a few days since the release of 1.5 and the Colossus of the South region pack.

First of all, we would like to thank you all for the response to both 1.5 and Colossus of the South. The appreciation for the art, narrative content, UX changes, mechanics and more have been very much received.

We're also, as always, very appreciative for the feedback you've provided since release! Today we're releasing hotfix 1.5.8, which contains a few fixes and improvements including:

Bugfixes:

• Fixed a crash in CCombatUnit::GetModifierValueImpl
  
• Fixed a crash in the military formations manager
  
• Fixed a bug that would sometimes cause Transfer Subject war goals to not resolve as promised when a peace is signed or when a party gives in during a Diplomatic Play
  
• Imposing laws on your subjects now forces them to start enactment of that law as intended
  
• The Country panel's Domestic tab UI will no longer break when that country is in the process of enacting a law
  
• Fixed bug that prevented Quechua and South Andean subjects from being annexed
  
• Fixed a bug where military flags weren't visible if the Voice of The People DLC was not enabled
  

Interface:

• Added a player-configurable toggle for which Workforce number to show in the Expand Building Map Interaction (Jobseekers / Peasants / Unemployed)
  

Modding:

• Added a start_enactment effect
  
• Added an on_action for on_impose_law that will be overridden by on_impose if specified on the law type
  

This hotfix might already be in your hands by the time you read this! If not, it should be there within an hour or two.

We are currently working to address feedback we received at the tail of the Open Beta and after the full release. These changes will be coming in a future patch tentatively numerated 1.5.9, which will be compatible with current 1.5 saves. We're aiming to get this patch in your hands before the end of November, focusing on the following improvements:

[h2]UX, AI, and balance[/h2]

We're working on several improvements in these areas, mostly pertaining to military matters. A few things you can expect on the UI front in 1.5.9 includes:

Added a new Mobilization Tab to the Military Panel. It gives you an overview of the Mobilization Options for all of your Formations, and allows you to customize them.

We're also improving the signaling of how many units are currently "Under Recruitment" for a specific Formation in several places of the UI.





[h2]Convoy Raiding and Defense[/h2]
The naval warfare systems were revised in 1.5 to account for Fleet formations and precise locations. In most cases we have seen usability improvements from these reworks, but the convoy raiding rework resulted in a bit of a hodge-podge where legacy design goals involving uncertainty and risk-taking conflicted with the new precise locations and visualizations. As a result the convoy raiding system is quite hard to understand, and can also create notification spam sometimes. For 1.5.9 we're working on a revision that should be less chance-based, more easily understood, and revolving more around a push-and-pull in particular sea nodes than guesswork.

[h2]Borrowed Troops[/h2]
In the old system, generals on the same side on the same front would often "borrow" troops from each other for both offensive and defensive operations to ensure battles weren't too lopsided, particularly when one side had many and one side had few generals. Various aspects of the new system, such as formations pooling troops between different generals as well as multiple battles, make this behavior unnecessary and sometimes problematic for offensive operations, so it was removed (but retained for defensive purposes, since losing a front is bad for all involved parties). However, as some of you have noted, this can lead to situations where your AI-controlled allies perform reckless attacks against far superior foes, or where a player-controlled small army with a powerful ally has little agency.

To address this we're working on adding player-togglable support for troop borrowing / lending between formations on an army-by-army basis. In addition to fixing the reckless AI issues, this will let you more easily manage wars where you just want to supply your ally with some extra manpower or revoke access to your troops and go it alone if your ally sends their most bumbling fool of a politically appointed general to lead their charge.

[h2]Job Satisfaction / Jobseekers[/h2]
We introduced a new pop mechanic in 1.5.5 (Open Beta build) where pops will now evaluate how well they like their professional lot in life, based on a number of factors such as wage competitiveness, qualifications for other jobs, expected standard of living, and so on. The intent of this mechanic is two-fold: it gives you more information about where your pops are most keen to get access to new, high-paying jobs which can be used to inform construction decisions, and it acts as a filter on the employment mechanics for performance purposes so not every pop will need to be evaluated for all available jobs. We also intend on building further on this mechanic in the future, for example to inform the revised Migration system (which we launched alongside Job Satisfaction in Open Beta, but reverted for the 1.5.7 launch since it needed a bit more time in the oven).

We've discovered a few balancing and UX issues with Job Satisfaction since launch, which can in some situations make the mechanic quite frustrating and difficult to understand. Polishing away some of the rough edges in this system is a priority for the 1.5.9 patch.

[h2]Military Good Shortages[/h2]
In the military system used in 1.4 and prior, where your military was fully managed through buildings such as barracks, naval bases, and conscription centers, good shortages suffered by military buildings would translate directly into penalties to the combat units supported by those buildings. In 1.5.7, shortages have no direct effect on combat units' ability to fight, since they are now managed by formations rather than buildings and formations don't care about shortages.

While it's already the case that running a military on goods you have a problem supplying results in very high costs, we don't feel this is sufficient. For 1.5.9 we're looking to implement a system where formations "inherit" the shortages from their units' buildings, which will impact the Supply value of formations and thereby limit the Morale that units in those formations will recover. You will also be blocked from building unit types that require goods your market has no access to.

[h2]Bugs[/h2]
With a whole lot of content added in both Update 1.5 and Colossus of the South, a number of edge cases and non-game-breaking but still annoying bugs have been identified since launch. We're working our way down this list also.

[h2]Flamethrowers[/h2]
No commentary necessary.



We also have some other news today!

From later today the Victoria 3 base game is free to play for the weekend, from the 16th - 20th of November!

So, we hope you help out your fellow Victorians when they have questions about the game, direct them to game resources/knowledge and share the spirit of camaraderie around the Victorian age!

Our Discord server has a set of helpers on hand to help new players and our resources on YouTube, the forums and Steam to explain mechanics.

We will see you next time in the next dev diary, arriving in two weeks time on the 30th of November, with Martin talking about the past year and some of what is next post 1.5!

Enjoy the changes spread across warfare, politics, economy and more! As well as experiencing Brazil during a key era in history!

Read the Patchnotes: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/victoria-3-update-1-5-and-colossus-of-the-south-region-pack-now-available.1609767/

Also note that save games from 1.4 will not be compatible with 1.5, due to map changes and mechanical changes!