Victoria 3 News

Hello and welcome to our Post-Release Plans update dev diary for 1.3. Just as we did in Dev Diary #79, in this dev diary we’ll be going over what changes and improvements we have planned for the game in future free updates such as 1.4, 1.5 and beyond. In the previous Post-Release Plans Dev Diaries we outlined four key areas of improvement for the game, which we’ll be sticking to for this one: Military, Historical Immersion, Diplomacy, and Internal Politics. The Other section is also still there for anything that doesn’t fall neatly into one of the four categories.

Just as last time, I’ll be aiming to give you an overview of where we stand and where we’re heading by going through each of these four categories and marking on each one with one of the below statuses:

• Done: This is a part of the game that we now consider to be in good shape. Something being Done of course doesn’t mean we’re never going to expand or improve on it in the future, just that it’s no longer a high priority for us. Any points that were already marked as Done in the previous update will now be removed from the list, to avoid it growing unmanageably long!
• Updated: This is a part of the game where we have made some of the improvements and changes that we want to make, but aren’t yet satisfied with where it stands and plan to make further improvements to it in future updates such as 1.4, 1.5 and so on. Note that this section will mainly focus on updates made in 1.3.
• Not Updated: This is a part of the game where we haven’t yet released any of our planned changes/improvements in any currently released updates but still plan to do so for future updates.
  
• New: This is a planned change or improvement that is newly added, ie wasn’t present on the list in Dev Diary #79.
  
• Reconsidered: This is a previously planned change or improvement that we have reconsidered our approach to how to tackle from previous updates. For these points we will explain what our new plans are, and change the list appropriately in future updates.
  

Finally, just like in the original Post-Release Plans dev diaries, we will only be talking about improvements, changes and new features that are part of planned free updates in this dev diary. So then, let’s get to the categories and see where we stand! For each point in each category that isn’t new to this update there will be a sub-point detailing our progress on the point so far.





Done

• Solving the issue of armies going home after Generals die during a war by adding a system for field promotion
  
• Field promotions have been added to the game in 1.3 to solve the most critical issue of armies simply going home. In the future we’ll aim to further improve this through changes to armies/navies and having defined successors for your commanders.
  

Updated:

• Improving the ability of players to get an overview of their military situation and exposing more data, like the underlying numbers behind battle sizes
  
• This is an area where we are continuously making improvements but where we still definitely have more work to do. A particular area of improvement we’ve identified is the need to more clearly be able to see a summary of a country’s military strength instead of just seeing unit counts.
  
• Increasing the visibility of navies and making admirals easier to work with
  
• As above, this is an area where we are continuously making improvements but still have work to do. In particular, we want to improve the sense of where exactly your navy is and what exactly it is doing.
  
• Finding solutions for the issue where theaters can split into multiple (sometimes even dozens) of tiny fronts as pockets are created
  
• We have mitigated this issue in update 1.2 by auto-closing small pockets and improving battle province selection but the issue still persists (particularly in wars with a large number of small countries) so further improvements are needed here
  

New:

• Adding a system for limited wars to reduce the number of early-game global wars between Great Powers
  
• Adding systems for organizing your generals and admirals into discrete armies and navies to allow more control over geographic positioning, military composition and unit specialization
  
• Adding more options for strategic control over your generals to allow for more ‘smart play’ in wars
  
• Adding more on-map graphics for armies and navies, including soldiers on the map
  

Reconsidered:

• Experimenting with controlled front-splitting for longer fronts
  
• After some internal design consideration, we have decided that this is not the best approach going forward - instead we will aim to solve the issues with long fronts by supporting multiple battles and improving the strategic options you have to direct your generals.
  

Updated:

• Tweaking content such as the Meiji Restoration, Alaska purchase and so on in a way that they can more frequently be successfully performed by the AI, through a mix of AI improvements and content tweaks
  
• Improvements to this were made in both 1.2 and 1.3 (the most significant being preventing journal entries such as Fragile Unity from being broken by revolutions) but we still have some work planned here, particularly to the Meiji Restoration and the willingness of AI countries to open up Japan.
  
• Ensuring unifications such as Italy, Germany and Canada don’t constantly happen decades ahead of the historical schedule, and increasing the challenge of unifying Italy and Germany in particular
  
• The German Unification received a significant rework in 1.3 to more closely follow the historical narrative, with other unifications planned to receive similar improvements in the near future.
  
• General AI tweaks to have AI countries play in a more believable, immersive way
  
• This is something we are continuing to work on in every update. Some tweaks and improvements were made in 1.3 but the biggest improvements here should come alongside planned updates to diplomacy.
  

Not Updated:

• Adding more country, state and region-specific content to enhance historical flavor of different countries
  

New:

• Going through the base game Journal Entries and events and making improvements and additions to ensure that they feel meaningful and impactful for players to interact with
  

Not Updated:

• ‘Reverse-swaying’, ie the ability to offer to join a side in a play in exchange for something
  
• More things to offer in diplomatic plays, like giving away your own land for support
  
• Trading (or at least giving away) states
  
• Foreign investment and some form of construction in other countries, at least if they’re part of your market
  
• Improving and expanding on interactions with and from subjects, such as being able to grant and ask for more autonomy through a diplomatic action
  
• Allowing peace deals to be negotiated during a Diplomatic Play instead of only having the option to give in
  

Done:

• Improving the mechanics of law enactment and revolutions to be more engaging for the player to interact with
  
• Law enactment and revolutions received a significant rework in 1.3 to behave in less random and more engaging ways, while also somewhat (intentionally) increasing the challenge involved in rapidly reforming your country
  
• Adding more mechanics for characters and giving the player more reason to care about individual characters in your country:
  
• Agitators were introduced as a new character type in 1.3 that directly interacts with political movements and serves to push more forcefully for political reforms. There are definitely more types of characters we want to add and more we want to do here in the future, but right now it’s not a high priority when compared to the other items on this list.
  
• Added Petitions to ensure the Interest Groups you add to your government has agency in demanding political change
  
• This was not previously on the list but is something we’ve added since we consider it a fairly significant change to internal politics.
  

Updated:

• Making it more interesting and ‘competitive’ but also more challenging to play in a more conservative and autocratic style
  
• New laws were introduced in 1.3 (such as One Party State) that makes late-game autocracies more viable, and the addition of Agitators means that conservative countries now face a greater internal push for reform.
  
• Adding laws that expand on diversity of countries and introduce new ways to play the game
  
• A number of new laws were introduced in Update 1.3, but there is definitely more we want to do in the future here
  

Updated:

• Improving Alerts and the Current Situation widget to provide more useful and actionable information.
  
• The Current Situation widget received a series of tweaks in 1.3 to give more useful and actionable information. In the future, we want to improve this further by giving the player much more custom control over the alert/current situation system similar to what we’ve done with message settings.
  

New:

• Increase the overall challenge in the economic core loop, as well as creating more clear mechanical differences between different countries and their starting positions in ways that encourage more economic specialization.
  
• Find a way to deal with the excessive fiddliness of the trade system in large economies, possibly by allowing for autonomous trade based on your laws in a similar way to the autonomous investment system.
  

So when can you expect these changes to reach the game? I can’t give specifics for any particular points but what I can say is that we are planning a large update with an extended open beta period in the second half of this year which will check off a considerable number of points from the list. In particular, that update will be aiming to tackle many of the points from the Warfare and Diplomacy sections of this list. I’ll end this dev diary by reminding you yet again that this list only covers changes and additions that will be part of free updates.

Well then, that’s all for today’s update. We will see you in two weeks for our next Dev Diary, on the 22nd while we work on 1.3.3!

Good day Victorians!

We will be hosting a Giveaway for 20 Displate and 5 Vinyl Soundtracks on our Discord from today until the 6th of June at 16:00! React to the message in #Discord-Giveaway to enter!


Victoria 3 has released 30+ Displates of our art, including events, loading screens and more! Immerse yourself in the Victorian age with the artwork and decorate the rooms of your room, while contemplating in your smoking jacket next to a coal fire...if one were so inclined.

Check out there Store here!



Remember! We also have the delightful sounds of our soundtrack available on Vinyl! Both the Victoria 3 Soundtrack, and the Melodies for the Masses music pack! A limited edition of 1836 for the Victoria 3 Vinyl and 999 for the Melodies for the Masses Vinyl!

Check out the Vinyl Store here!

Hello Victorians! We have deferred discussing our post-release plans until next week, as we felt there was another, more pressing topic to cover.

You were not satisfied with the narrative content included in Voice of the People, and neither are we. In particular, we see the following weak points in some of the Journal Entries included in the DLC:

• Too passive
  
• Not providing enough of a challenge
  
• Detached from the rest of the game's systems
  
• Not enough interaction with countries outside of France
  

We have spent the last couple of weeks going over what improvements we are planning to make for this content. We touched on it briefly in last week's diary but I will be going deeper into details today.

But first I want to mention when owners of Voice of the People can expect to see these improvements. An initial rollout is planned for June 26th alongside version 1.3.3 of the game, which will also contain some bug fixes and balance improvements. You can expect the remaining improvements in early Q3.

Our top priority is a revamped Divided Monarchists Journal Entry. Currently, it checks off all of the problems on the list above. Our intended rework looks as follows:

Rather than the player selecting their preferred dynasty, establishing a character with the right ideology in government, and waiting while engaging with the occasional event, there will be three separate tracks - one for each dynasty / ideology - that will increase or decrease independently of one another at different speeds depending on multiple factors, including what characters exists in the country but also what the player is actually doing with France. The intent is to ensure the player's preferred candidate is actually threatened by opposing ideologies, inviting you to plan ahead and do more character management. The new Character Interactions in Voice of the People, as well as the Agitator and Exile mechanics, will prove useful tools for this.

All events associated with the Journal Entry will be revised, with options that relate to the three dynasties differently. You won't merely be advancing or setting back "the monarchist cause", but rather advancing one of the dynasties while setting back the others, alongside other effects and tradeoffs.

In addition, we will be adding support for Journal Entries to confer country-wide effects while they're active. While the Divided Monarchists Journal Entry is in effect, a low Legitimacy government will result in much greater radicalism across France than before, which will encourage resolving the dynastic crisis sooner rather than later. A failure condition will also be added, resulting in France's collapse back into Republicanism.

Finally, once your preferred candidate sits on the throne, cementing their dynastic reign will require you to prove they're capable of effective rule, by adding more conditions you have to fulfill in order to resolve the Journal Entry successfully and in a reasonable amount of time. Failing to cement your dynasty may even result in another period of dynastic squabbling.

The revision to Divided Monarchists will be coming in the 1.3.3 patch.

Our second priority is the Natural Borders of France. Here, the main issue is that France's international aspirations have no direct impact on the nations affected, beyond perhaps becoming targeted in subsequent Diplomatic Plays. Our intent here is to add more international fallout from the actions France takes during this Journal Entry, with events for Prussia/Germany and perhaps other affected countries that both inform and give them options for how to deal with the situation.

We will also be addressing Haiti's debtor relationship with France, by adding a new Journal Entry that gives Haiti more options in how to resolve the situation.

We are aware that older narrative content in Victoria 3 also exhibits similar issues to the ones we're revising from Voice of the People. Assume and expect that we will gradually revise such content to higher standards in free updates.

Other ways in which we will improve Voice of the People include notifications, which will be looked over and enhanced to ensure appropriate parties are informed of relevant events outside their borders. For example, the Indochina crisis and the adventures of Garibaldi certainly made international news at the time, and if it's appropriate we're going to make sure you're informed of these and other events even when you're not directly involved.

We are also planning to do some additional work on AI related to Voice of the People content, specifically improving French AI handling of their Algerian colonies and the related Journal Entry, and improving the characteristic behaviors of the French AI while led by one of the three dynastic monarchs.

A few general improvements to Update 1.3 will also be rolled out on June 26th, alongside the bug fixes and balance improvements. One concern with the ability to invite exiles is that there's no indication there's someone new and recruitable in there without going to look all the time. As a first pass to addressing this we are going to notify you under certain circumstances when a character is exiled, so you get a heads-up that there's a reason to go check it out. The Industry Banned Law is also going to be revisited to ensure that even if it may be unlikely to lead you to economic prosperity, it at least fills a valid niche for a certain kind of country.

Due to its sandboxy, systemic nature Victoria 3 is not the easiest game to write historical content for, and we're still working on honing in on exactly what type of events and Journal Entries are the most fun for you to engage with. But that is no excuse, and you deserved better. Our greatest asset as developers is to be able to have this dialogue with you, and we deeply appreciate your constructive criticism. Our many learnings here will be carried forward to all future narrative content we write, where it will make for more challenging and fun gameplay in a world that feels more alive.

Next week we will return with the aforementioned update to our post-release plans, as well as more info about the open beta we are planning for later this year. Until then!

Good Day Victorians!

We just released a small patch, to address some issues in the current build of Victoria 3. 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!


- Fixed an issue where Divided Monarchists events could keep firing even after reaching 100 progress
- Fixed an issue where events could give you a second Napoleon III after already having one Napoleon III
- Reduced the impact of Agitator Popularity on Political Movement Support
- Safeguards added to hopefully prevent an issue where some mods could cause buildings to get duplicated in split states
- The “Shut the Door Behind You” achievement no longer requires Voice of the People to unlock
- Fixed the Anarchist ideology having duplicated stances on Economic System laws
- Fixed a texture streaming issue that caused the border between the paper map and the table to look blurry when zoomed out
- The Vox Populi achievement should now work properly
- Fixed an issue where Agitators would sometimes not join the correct Political Movement
- Fixed an issue where agitator supported political movements could repeatedly form and disband
- Agitator support tooltip is now shown correctly for Agitators with 0 popularity
- Radicalism of revolutionary political movements is now shown correctly in the outliner
- Fixed a bug where civil wars could break the Divided Monarchists Journal Entry due to incorrectly setting a variable
- The Paris Commune now inherits the Journal Entries and variables of France if it ends up victorious and annexes France
- Fixed NULL_OBJ being shown in event ‘Pébrine Outbreak’
- Fixed a typo in the event ‘When You Have a Hammer’
- Fixed incorrectly formatted text in the event ‘Devout Call For Intervention’
- Fixed an issue where the German Unification chain of Journal Entries did not work correctly for Lübeck
- Fixed an issue where the Schleswig-Holstein Question Journal Entry would incorrectly resolve without taking Holstein
- Fixed an issue where the German National Identity Journal Entry could complete before the Schleswig--- Holstein Question Journal Entry, potentially breaking the whole German Unification chain
- Fixed an issue where Max Stirner could end up spawning multiple times
- Fixed an issue where NULL_STATE entries could appear in the Construction Queue due to revolutions/secessions splitting states
- The AI now correctly understands how to resolve the Government Petition Journal Entry
- Fixed a localization issue with numerous triggers relating to unification where the name of the unification would not be shown
- Fixed an issue where some sound effects for free features such as Exile Agitator were incorrectly DLC locked
- Fixed an issue where exiling an Agitator would not remove their support from the Political Movement they were a part of
- Fixed a crash to desktop issue in the virtual file system
- It is no longer possible to colonize inland states that you do not border just because the state region they are a part of is coastal
- Fixed an issue where saving the game was blocked in certain languages when playing as a revolution due to country name formatting

Hello! It's going to be a short and sweet development diary today as we're all very busy working on… well, the stuff I'm going to be talking about today!

As you all know, Update 1.3 and Voice of the People launched a few days ago. It's a big update, particularly to the political subsystems in the game, and it hasn't been without some bugs and balance issues. We have already rolled out a fix for the bug that omitted newlines in Chinese localization (1.3.1). We have another set of bug fixes (1.3.2) in the pipe, scheduled for next Tuesday if all tests clear.This update should fix a number of issues on the list.

We are also working on cataloging and incorporating your feedback on the new Journal Entries and events into a future update. For example, we're planning on increasing both the interactivity and challenge of the Divided Monarchy Journal Entry. Stay tuned for more on when this update will be released!

Victoria 3's Immersion Packs are meant to enhance the depth of a particular aspect of the game. For Voice of the People, that aspect is political agitation and revolutions. France is a great country to showcase these mechanics with, and we also used French aesthetics for the wealth of new art also included in Voice of the People, but the intent is not to make it a "country pack". The new map, UI skin, and command room table are available even if you don't play as France, and with the theme selector we are rolling out with Dawn of Wonder (the Art pack coming in Q3 - more on this below) you will be able to customize which theme combinations you want. Historical Agitators appear across the world, and several of the new character interactions relating to Agitators as well as coups apply regardless which country you play. Rest assured we will be rolling out country-specific content in other expansion products and updates in addition to Immersion Packs.

After the release, we received feedback suggesting that Update 1.3 - released alongside Voice of the People - has had a greater impact than the DLC itself. This is partially because we needed to introduce a significant number of new events to support the new Agitators and revamp the revolution progression system. However, the main reason for this perception is our approach to DLC development, where we don't want to lock essential mechanics behind paywalls. Mechanics spread out over multiple DLC tends to fragment the community, makes mod management harder, complicates building new features on top of old ones, and can cause features to become unbalanced over time. As an example of this approach, based on your feedback, we elected to include the Exiles mechanic in the free update rather than the DLC to address concerns about future game balance. While there is a risk this reduces the perceived value of the DLC, it ensures that the core gameplay experience remains intact and allows for future expansion without limitations.

The Voice of the People DLC still offers a range of unique content such as new events, stunning artwork, and exclusive mechanics for owners. While we understand that the number of features and improvements in the free update can lead to a lower perception of value for the DLC, we do not believe that the answer here is to simply paywall more features. Instead, we will strive to learn and improve from the criticisms of the content in Voice of the People without compromising our principal focus, which will remain on the core gameplay experience.

On the topic of lessons learnt, in case you missed it, what was originally a pre-order bonus for Voice of the People - the Agitators Jules Brunet, Georges Clemenceau, and Alexis de Tocqueville - were made available to everyone who owns Voice of the People the day after release. We didn't realize quite how valuable these characters would be to you, so thank you for making it known how you felt about this and we hope these brilliant gentlemen will help improve your great nations!

Finally, a note about the more distant future. Many of you noticed that with the availability of an Expansion Pass to upgrade from the base game to the Grand Edition, two additional products for Victoria 3 were soft-announced: the aforementioned Dawn of Wonder Art pack, and Sphere of Influence, our first major expansion. We can't get into a lot of detail on these on the Steam pages yet and as a result I've seen a lot of speculation around them. There are a few things I'd like to clarify prior to the official announcement.

First off, yes, Dawn of Wonder will include a Day/Night cycle. It is super customizable (naturally you can turn it on and off, but you can also for example scale it to in-game time so a full cycle could take 1 day or 1 year depending on your preferences - or even sync it to your computer clock for cozy nighttime play) and looks terrific in action.

Side-by-side example of a landscape at midnight and noon respectively. There is of course a gradual transition period between these as well. On-map text gradients also change with the daylight cycle, to ensure sharp text contrast even during nighttime. All map objects have been updated to provide their own light sources, where appropriate - buildings, vehicles, and more.



It doesn't have any effect on the paper map view, of course, but if you enjoy watching and listening to your little towns while playing, it really makes the world come alive. The Day/Night Cycle isn't everything in the Art pack, there will also be a hefty assortment of the kinds of things we also included in the Voice of the People Immersion Pack (thus why a theme selector will also be included).

Secondly, regarding Sphere of Influence. As mentioned in the description, among several other features this major expansion will add Power Blocs, which lets you spread your influence across the world via soft power. I have spotted a few concerns that a Sphere of Influence mechanic that served this same purpose was already included in the Victoria II base game, so I wanted to clarify what this expansion actually contains.

Victoria 3's base game already has features to model the Sphere of Influence mechanic from Victoria II: subjects, and customs unions (in fact, it's not uncommon to hear players refer to forcing nations into customs unions or subject relationships as 'sphering'). Members in a customs union share a unified market but have no other diplomatic ties, while subject nations are also forced to participate in their overlord's market but have a number of diplomatic restrictions placed on them as well. The ability to influence, cajole, or dominate other countries to force them into your market / sphere is already something you can do in Victoria 3 using a mix of diplomatic and military tools.

The idea behind Power Blocs is to make a shared market merely one of numerous ways in which countries can cooperate with (or exploit) one another. The most fundamental of these, and the core mechanic itself, will be part of the free update delivered alongside the expansion. Much like with Voice of the People, we don't want to fall into the trap of making the base game on its own obsolete over time by locking key mechanics behind paid expansions. The various ways in which players can customize Power Blocs should help make different Great Powers more distinct, enhance interaction and dependencies between nations, make Influence and Prestige feel more meaningful, and so on. While some of these options will be in the free update, others will be in the paid expansion.

So then I hear you wonder, why call the expansion Sphere of Influence? Simple answer: it's a terrific term to describe what sorts of features it contains! It may evoke the memory of one beloved mechanic from Victoria II, but the expansion itself is intended to be a broad enhancement to diplomatic gameplay with a variety of features. And as always, the fundamentals will not be paywalled.

On that note, the Sphere of Influence expansion blurb also says that investing into foreign economies will be a feature, and there have been concerns that this means we're going back on our earlier promise of making foreign expansion available in a free update. To be clear, we are always going to allow for foreign expansion in your subject nations, with or without the Sphere of Influence expansion. The expansion will add a great deal more options to Power Blocs, foreign expansion, interference in other countries' politics, and much more - but the core systems will be in the free update, since that's how we keep them current and fresh and can build on them in the future.

The release dates for Dawn of Wonder and Sphere of Influence listed on Steam are placeholder dates until their respective announcements, but do roughly reflect reality. Sphere of Influence is scheduled for early 2024, to allow sufficient time to implement new features of considerable complexity, but that's not how long you have to wait for another major update! We are also planning for another major free update - with an open beta - before 2023 is over, similar in scope to our 1.2 release. Some of the improvements to the diplomatic gameplay we're currently developing for the update alongside Sphere of Influence is targeting this release rather than the one in Q1 2024. You will hear a bit more about that next week when we return to give you an update to our post-release plans!

I hope this has cleared up a few of your questions and concerns! In closing, we are very happy to see the big uptick in player numbers since Update 1.3 and Voice of the People, and we hope you are all enjoying your time with it!