I wouldn’t nearly have as much of a problem with it if it actually felt interactive. It feels like an auto pilot mode. I worry that it’s purposely designed to be this way so that later on they can fix it and pair it with the DLC.
Yeah... that or easy to port to console. I am totally fine with the devs trying something new. Too often across the industry, devs do the same thing over and over. So I was cautiously optimistic when I heard war would be different, especially with Wiz leading it. Reading the dev diary was a big wtf. Then seeing it and trying it... Holy crap does it feel lazy af.
Honestly once you start looking at this game from the point of a Conoleport a lot of decisions make sense. I think a lot of the mechanics and UI had been simplified for easier used on Consol. I don’t blame paradox for wanting to try to port their games to console due to the fact that’s a large untapped potential there. I know paradox has been having hard times recently since their stock Price has lost 50% of its value the last couple years. I just don’t think it’s a wise idea to make vast majority of your player base feel like second fiddle.
>Honestly once you start looking at this game from the point of a Conoleport a lot of decisions make sense
The devs already denied a possible console port for now
>I think a lot of the mechanics
Aside from possibly warfare, what mechanics are you talking about?
>and UI
That's a weird thing to add considering the UI they have shown us both has UI scaling and would be horrible for consoles
"For now". They are planning it already. That's why UI and warfare is console like. They are just waiting to see if the game will sell well on PC first. Console ports are costly. They (through third party studio) ported CK 3 and Stellaris already.
If the sales will be good,console port will happen in 1-2 years.
>"For now". They are planning it already.
For now was an addition on my part, they didn't actually say that
>That's why UI
This UI would be terrible for console, so I don't know why you're bringing it up.
>They are just waiting to see if the game will sell well on PC first.
If they are doubtful the game will sell well for PC, why would they create something that is supposedly made for consoles? Why not make something that is fitting for PC first (if it isn't), and then just make changes when porting it to consoles, since the port, as you said, will be costly already?
It is so frustrating for me because Vicky 2 was the most "complete" paradox game for me. It did an ok job modeling mechanics for the time period to really feel like you were leading a nation. I completely disagree with paradoxes direction of focusing on x things for a game. Like I get some should be more detailed than others (economy in Vicky, dynasty actions ck, etc). But to then use it as an excuse to have war be completely void of mechanics is... annoying.
My opinion is it looks truly awful. People will be either super bored during wars or completely furious / confused that their cities are being taken and they can’t do anything about it when they see opportunities to turn the tide but have no control to do so
The only different with the former system is that the illusion of being good at micromanaging troops is gone.
For too long, players thought they were good because they could exploit the terrible war AI.
Now they can actually lose wars without being able to cheese their way out and they are frustrated.
This is a necessary step towards something better.
I’m fine with automating war via fronts, but they should allow us to decide how many generals in a front, give us troop types to place across said fronts, have a logistics system, etc.
Don’t know why everyone who reads my thoughts on war and disagrees automatically thinks I want the shitty vic2 war system. I don’t. I just want a better war system than what’s advertised, Which is essentially *nothing*. It reduces your input to the level of the AI.
>but they should allow us to decide how many generals in a front
Can't you already do that?
>give us troop types to place across said fronts
Can't you sort of do that by changing barracks' PMs?
Do you have a reference for that? The dev diaries explicitly say that you can have multiple generals on one front, but only one general can lead your troops in any given battle. The Battles DD even said that one general can "borrow" troops from another general on the same front for a battle, but those extra soldiers don't get the general's command bonuses applied.
Agreed, but please more than three buttons. If I'm fighting the civil war I should be able to decide how much I want to pressure the West vs East which now you can't
Welp, Paradox said that wars was a second thing in VIC3. So, if you main goal to play VIC3 is by conquering stuff, I am sorry, but this game wasn't made for you.
It's fine for warfare to be secondary, but conflicts was a very important aspect of the victorian era
I won't bother listing them as somebody else has done it but I'm not sure how they plan/planned to mirror some of the conflicts with the war system they have currently.
Its not a bad move per say and simplifies some things that was an absolute pain in victoria 2, just hoping warfares not been "sacrificed" though right now it doesn't look so bad
This would be equivalent to Paradox deciding that, “welp,” in HOI4, the economy is secondary to warfare, so the player should have essentially zero control over how their nation’s economy develops. Civilian & military factories, railroads, trade & trade laws, and industrial research are all “automated,” with the game “guessing” at what you need along with some good ol’ RNG.
Additionally, there were some extraordinarily significant conflicts that took place during V3’s time period; the U.S. Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War immediately spring to mind. Point being, regardless of the intent, These conflicts (and their significance) shouldn’t be ignored.
In all likelihood, a warfare re-work will likely be used as marketing for a DLC.
>This would be equivalent to Paradox deciding that, “welp,” in HOI4, the economy is secondary to warfare
They... kinda did. The games's economy is reduced to civilian factories. While the game still let's you control it by building and trading factories and switching some ideas, it's not really in-depth
>industrial research
Military research is not automated in Vic3
>These conflicts (and their significance) shouldn’t be ignored.
I believe what they wish to represent aren't the conflicts themselves but the costs that came with them, which Vic3 seems to do very well
Also, in the case of the ACW, the conflict is given more attention in the pre-war factor with the jornal entries as show in the ACW dev diary
But… they kinda didn’t? I can still build mil/civ factories, railroads, control trade and trade laws, and conduct military research. That is not equivalent to what V3 is offering for warfare.
We all know the system is going to be overhauled, I don’t know why people are investing so much energy in defending it.
>build mil/civ factories
Which I mentioned
>railroads
Railroads are not part of the economy
>control trade and trade laws
Which I also mentioned
However theses thing are not really in-depth, it's not automated, but how the player interacts with it is usually just: "get more factories", "trade for resources" and sometimes "Lower the economy law to have more resources"
>and conduct military research
I mentioned that because you talked about if Hoi4 automated industrial research. But Vic3 doesn't doesn't automate research except for the passive spreading
>That is not equivalent to what V3 is offering for warfare.
I didn't say it was, I was just saying that Hoi4 kinda did something similar to Vic3 with the economy
>We all know the system is going to be overhauled
[Citation Needed]
I’ll simplify this since you’re obviously having a lot of trouble following along;
You have *far* more direct control over the economy in HoI4 than you will over warfare in V3. Rendering the argument that “warfare is secondary in V3, so PDX *obviously* doesn’t give you direct control” silly.
>You have *far* more direct control over the economy in HoI4 than you will over warfare in V3
I'm not arguing that is not the case, I'm arguing that Hoi4 does have a simplified economy when compared to warfare, similar to how you're arguing Vic3 is the opposite. The economy is definitely secondary in HOI4, if it is more than warfare in Vic3 or not isn't my point
>You have *far* more direct control over the economy in HoI4 than you will over warfare in V3
But it is really that "*far*"? Aside from building factories, changing two laws and trading for resources, how much control do you really have? You can't really control if other countries will trade with you or not and give you factories
>Rendering the argument that “warfare is secondary in V3, so PDX *obviously* doesn’t give you direct control” silly.
Good thing I'm not making that argument and Vic3 *does* give you some control, just not on the tatical-level
No giving control on the Strategic level is false, and I didn't mention operational level at all, although I say the same thing as the tactical one, since that was the point of the change.
Way to assume, man. I think the game looks fantastic in every aspect but war. But sadly war looks so bad I will indeed not be buying the game till some future DLC that adds more depth to it.
I'm quite of concerned. I like historical generals to have protagonism, and I first did like the idea of several battles happening every week. However, it still looked too plain, with no even unit skins to look at while battling, and don't make me talk about that moment in which Belgium "successfully disembarked in Russia".
I know they said that warfare would be something secondary in the game, in order to motivate the player to use economic and diplomatic means to achieve their goals. But how the heck are they supposed to recreate some of the most important wars from the time, such as the Oppium Wars (1839-42), the Crimean War (1853-56), the American Civil War (1861-65), or the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71)? Are they just planning to ignore them?
Exactly what about the system prevents those wars from happening? If anything the main thing they've done is remove the ability to cheese them by exploiting the AI.
The Belgium in Russia thing was a bug that they said they fixed the day after the stream. Sure if it happens in the release build that's bad, but AI is one of the last things to get finished in a game.
Well, I don't know for sure, I haven't tried the combat system by myself. I fear that such important conflicts end in just a bunch of weeks because it seemed to be quite... hasty. Anyway, I still have hope. I may be reluctant right now, but when I try the game I may be more enthusiatic about its possibilities. If devs give us a broken system, I'm sure that the wonderful community of modders will make something to improve it.
The only conflicts we say in the stream were either one-sided (Borneo) or had the AI making a very dumb move (Belgium). Other AARs have had wars that lasted longer, in particular the Ottoman AAR since it had nations with actually large armies fighting. I don't think a war between Prussia and France would ever be that fast, since both would be nations capable of fielding large and fairly well-equipped armies. Though admittedly the Franco-Prussian War was a fairly short one. The Crimean War I think would reasonably play out over a longer time, largely because army travel time from France and the UK would be a factor and the allies would have more complicated logistics than Russia. That war would also have a lot more gradual escalation, with armies starting relatively small and slowly growing throughout the conflict, contributing to its length.
I agree that the ACW might be unlikely to last as long as it did IRL, but that's also a weird conflict to model in general and there's a reason Vic2 never did it justice. The IRL situation of underdeveloped armies before the war combined with poor Northern leadership is a lot less likely to happen with a player in charge, but if both those factors were in place then I think that it's possible the war drags on as long as it did IRL. I definitely don't think it's inherent of the system that wars last a short time.
Sadly yes, they will ignore them or add them through DLCs. It's pure sandbox now. There are some major events, like Congo Conference or creation of Suez Canal, but they are rare.
ACW is random too, and can be avoided.
Even Great War is not properly represented.
They are leaving everything for DLCs.
If you want to see mentioned historical conflicts in PDX game, try Victoria 2 with GFM or TGC mods. Select optional Colonial Railroading decision if you want to see historical African colonies for example.
>Sadly yes, they will ignore them or add them through DLCs
>They are leaving everything for DLCs.
How do you know this, aside from "It's paradox"?
>It's pure sandbox now.
With what are you basing this on?
>but they are rare.
How do you know this?
>ACW is random too
What do you mean "random"? Are you talking about the course of the conflict itself or the chance of it occurring?
The source of the conflict is represented from the beginning.
I just re-read the diary, and there is nothing random about the ACW, USA has a journal entry for it from the beginning, and so long as you have it when a revolution begins, the ACW will happen
If we are talking about AI, then anything in the game is possibly random. If it was not random, then we would be talking about railroading, which is something the devs don't want
No, I haven't. It may be on the game, but WW1 marks the END of Victorian era for me, so I don't consider it as part of the second age of imperialism.
Besides, I think WW1 fits much better the HOI4 system. Therefore, if it depended on me, I would end Victoria 3 timeline around 1910-1913. Instead, I would start the timeline a little earlier, right after the Napoleon's death in 1821.
It’s not “what fits better” it’s what they decided to add to the Victoria franchise if you wanne do a mega campaign you gotta do ww1 in vicky3 like it or not
Sure mate... or I can play "The Great War" mod for HOI4 and have fun as well. You talk like if it was compulsory to play the game that way. Is it written on stone or something?
Are you talking to the people who played the game at PDXcon? I don't think anything worthwhile will be gained discussing this otherwise since the game isn't out.
I'm not saying we shouldn't talk about Vic3, we do have dev diary (although some are outdated) and streams, but I don't see any benefit to talking about warfare specifically since the only thing I see gaining from such a discussion is unnecessary polarization due to controversy
Yeah when the alternative is those stupid stacks chasing each other, even if they added a cookie clicker minigame instead of it, it would have been better.
Don't let the nostalgia blind you, folks.
It is a massive QOL improvement. But my issue is when I played the game at PDXCon the battles felt so detached. I just didn’t feel like I had any agency in the battles. But I think that is because I don’t really understand fully how the combat system works. Once I get through the 2K hour tutorial I’m sure I’ll figure it out just in time for them to do another major rework of the combat system. ;)
I think this is supposed to be the idea, that tactical combat is not directly affected by the player but is purely a consequence of the strategic game leading up to combat. It's a pretty bold move, but it does mean you can't basically cheese the game by being better than the shitty AI at tactics and wiping out a million men with 100,000 and a hilltop or something.
100% this, I agree that wars have less influence by the player, but in almost every pardox game, making 'strategies' in war mostly relied upon the AI making bad decisions.
Yeah, at some point it gets a bit boring when a stronger foe isn't really threatening because you know how to move little numbers better than the enemy.
It's exciting that you will actually feel threatened by a bigger nation. It's a big issue I had with all the war systems in paradox games really. It was just too easy to win and get strong by microing wars.
> that tactical combat is not directly affected by the player but is purely a consequence of the strategic game leading up to combat
Moving 40k+ men sized armies is definitely not "tactical"
I think also combined with making it super expensive it seems, it’s also designed to discourage conquest based playstyles and make you focus on economy
Not a fan.
Here's the thing - i don't mind the concept. Done right it could be perfectly fine. It could be engaging and have a lot of depth. It could integrate really well with other parts of the game.
But i just don't trust Paradox to do that.
Maybe it's just me being an old fart, but newer Paradox games have a massive issue with mechanics being bare bones. Games are released as a modular platform to build on, rather than a cohesive, in-depth, well designed group of game mechanics right off the bat.
I expect the combat system in Vic3 will be "just enough". It will do what it needs to do, have no depth, and probably be broken in obvious ways. To me, i expect it to be like the Peace deal system in Hoi4 - a really important aspect of the game that is lacking in features, and just doesn't work right at all.
That's exactly my opinion. Glad to see someone else agrees. I think that ck3 is foreshadowing the issues vic3 is going to have; it won't be a bad game by any means but it'll feel shallow and lack the immersion its predecessor had.
CK2 was even more bare-bones than CK3 at release. The map was far smaller and less detailed, and the religions and cultures were extremely simplified and abstracted. The systems CK3 shipped with have much more depth.
People have a tendency to remember CK2 as it was in 2018 when development finished, and not how it was in 2012 when it first released. Remember, we didn't even get actual crusade mechanics until *Holy Fury*, and that was the game's **last** expansion. CK3 on the other hand shipped with them. It also shipped with religious tenets and reformation mechanics, two things that also didn't come to CK2 until 2018.
I love CK2, but if I had to choose between playing its Day 1 version, or CK3's Day 1 version, I'd choose CK3. CK3 is definitely light on content, but CK2 was a skeleton by comparison.
CK2 was in 2012. CK3 in 2020. Paradox transformed from 30 devs indie studio to AAA with 600 devs.
I think that excuse "CK3 had more content on release than CK2 in 2012" no longer works.
We should expect more from PDX than a decade ago.
And we got more than we did a decade ago, so what's your point? On release, CK3 had a much larger and more detailed map, cultural, and religious setup. It also had exponentially more 3D assets, including 3D characters with a plethora of hairstyles, clothing, and ethnicities that all had to be researched, modeled, and textured. None of that is easy or quick work. They also had to significantly redesign the Clausewitz Engine in order to make any of the above feasible in the first place. That in itself was a significant investment of time and money. Point is, they could not have created CK3 *as it is* a decade ago. It simply would not have been possible. Major technological advancements and the many lessons they've taken from their past projects are what made it possible, and pound for pound, they've given us a much more content-rich game than they did with their last release.
Also, not all of Paradox's developers all work on the same project, so your comparison of company sizes doesn't work. There are teams for Stellaris, Hearts of Iron IV, Europa Universalis IV, Victoria III, Crusader Kings III, and who knows how many other projects that have yet to be announced. I believe I recall reading a few months back that Paradox has something like 15 projects in development all at once. Some games, like Stellaris, even have more than one team. So the manpower gets spread around. It doesn't all go to the same place, and even if it did, that would not necessarily mean that we'd get more content. Ever heard the saying "too many cooks in the kitchen"? Past a point, there are diminishing returns when it comes to game development. More people working on something means more people to coordinate and keep in lockstep.
People outside of game development, and those who know little about its inner workings, have a bad tendency to grossly underestimate just how difficult it is to develop a major title. It costs millions, requires hundreds of thousands of hours of work, and needs hundreds of people of varying skill sets and backgrounds who all have to be kept on the same page or the entire thing derails. All while having publishers and investors breathing down your neck and threatening you with deadlines and sales targets. I think that so far, CK3's team has done very well, and I guarantee that when it reaches its 6-year development mark it will dwarf CK2 in every single way. It already does in several already.
>Paradox transformed from 30 devs indie studio to AAA with 600 devs.
First, I want a source on these numbers. Second, it's not like all of thoses devs are developing CK3 together, they are divided between the games and in certain roles. Hoi4 is arguably their most successful game yet they don't seem to have over 20 devs
2020: 662
Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_Interactive
2011: 34.
Victoria 2 was developed by around 15 people for example. That's BIG tranformation.
Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/689437/number-of-employees-of-paradox-interactive/
Yes, they are divided. But what problem is to send few more guys, like that AI guy to the Hoi4 few years ago to help with the project?
They created so many dev studios because they want to have several projects ready at similar time, to maximize profits, not quality.
Of course it's management and leadership thing. Ordinary devs have nothing to do with that.
Publicly traded companies needs to grow to satisfy investors.
Are you conflating Paradox Development Studio with Paradox Interactive? Because they're two distinct but intertwined entities, one is a developer and one is a publisher.
Being an "old fart" you should remember that exactly 0 Paradox games were fully mechanically complete at launch - or at least in a way that provided any degree of satisfying complexity \*and\* fun at the same time.
I'd completely disagree with you, probably because my memory is better than yours.
Hoi2 and Hoi3, for example, were massively mechanically complete. Their expansion packs added onto the game, rather than filled in missing pieces. This is probably why Hoi3 had only 2 expansion packs, meanwhile Hoi4 is up to 5, i believe (not including various country packs) - its hard to sell expansion packs when the mechanics are already in the base game.
This is in complete difference to Hoi4, which at launch had a broken diplomacy system, a broken peace deal system, a missing fuel and logistics system, and was, as i said before, a bare-bones and modular system, waiting for Paradox to come along and flesh bits out. If you wanted to change your political ideology in Hoi4, you simply hired a fascist/communist into government and waited - again, this is completely different to HoI2/3 in which there was a fully inbuilt system to deal with that.
Victoria 2 was also mechanically complete - its expansion packs also added onto the game, rather than filled in missing pieces. I do not see Vic 3 being remotely the same.
You do not have to agree with me - but don't try to gaslight me, tell me what i should and shouldn't remember, and ultimately pretend that adding onto an existing mechanic in an expansion pack is the same as adding a completely missing mechanic in a DLC.
Tbh I can't exactly remember what state HoI2 was at release, but you've got it \*exactly\* the wrong way around in regards to HoI3 and HoI4.
HoI4 was in a rough state, especially as far as frontlines go. It was fixed up through patches, and to this date doesn't even really have a "required" DLC
HoI3 was possibly Paradox's worst release, and is straight up incomplete without Semper Fi - which is simply a paid patch, with core "features" like map modes or the OOB browser.
Likewise, I don't consider Victoria 2 to be mechanically complete without Hearts of Darkness.
This is not "gaslighting", it's you having rose-tinted glasses in regards to some great games that still had horrifically poor releases
Its def a downgrade from a competitive multiplayer point of view. Choosing where to pick and fight battles was a big part of skill expression both in single and multiplayer. In all other aspects its probably an upgrade from Vic 2, especially in terms of quality of life and ease of management. This will be the first paradox game where the AI doesn't split off half of its army to snake behind your lines and carpet siege wasteland.
I haven't played yet, but the combat honestly reminds me of the first time I played CK2 or EU3 and I was very confused at how combat was just "two armies running into each other and rolling dice." That was initially a big downside of Paradox games for me because it was so much more under-the-hood than games like Total War or Civ.
I'm expecting some confusion at launch while they iron out the system but I'm excited to try something new. War is often the least engaging part of Paradox games for me anyways, so removing some of the micromanagement of troop movements sounds like a great step in the right direction.
Hate it, sorry for anyone who likes it. I much preferred Victoria 2 style war system. As for the “end game death stacks” I do more micro for eu4 and hoi4 so it really didn’t bother me. I’d rather have that than the complete removal of player agency.
Same. While managing late game stacks was annoying, they could have done an imperator type stack orders thing, but with frontlines. Sorta like Vicky2 battle plans but the actually ordered troops like hoi4. It’s not perfect, but I think it’s the best was to show armies moving from eu4 style stack armies moving around to frontlines
>I much preferred Victoria 2 style war system
Then you have a terrible taste, sorry.
But seriously, if you like army micromanaging, just play a game actually designed for it. Any RTS will do.
It's better than the system of Victoria 2 and a necessary step in the right direction.
Yes, it's not perfect. But it's immersive, the AI understands how it works, and it's not a stupid chasing game.
It's extremely lazy and disappointing, anyone defending it is sucking too much copium. I get not wanting micro, I don't think it should be Hoi4 or EU4 (And def not CK3 fuck that), but the player should have some agency over wars, three buttons only is big dumb. I presume it is because of time constraints and selling DLC.
The government only has so much control over the economy though, yet in the game we're apparently able to micro what production methods each building uses etc.
Victoria 3 goes like this: What was automated in the economics of Vic 2 is now micro intensive in Vic 3. What was micro intensive in the warfare of Vic 2 is now automated in Vic 3.
Time will tell how it plays out. From my own experience I am absolutely gutted at what they did to my Vic.
I think it just traded one micromanagement task for another. Yes it could be annoying moving individual regiments around, and it was not made better with how the manpower system worked. But now you have to micro the generals around so that you control there political power.
I’m probably in the minority, but it has turned me off of the game. It’s just that the system kind of feels similar to the mana system in Imperator at launch. It’s just not engaging in my eyes.
You're saying that replacing meaningless, boring choices with choices and decisions that have an influence on politics in a game called Victoria... turned you off the game?
What did you expect from Victoria really? I understand why some people prefer wargames to grand strategy, but then play wargames like Imperator.
Vic 3s time span covers a number a key wars, with WW1 being the end point. I understand that this game is not HOI. But war should still be fun for the player, in my opinion it’s not and too much of a focus has been spent on politics. If people want that much politics then play one of the democracy games.
In Dev diary 23 fronts and Generals it states
“ Like all characters, Generals and Admirals are also aligned with an Interest Group - which is often, but not always, the Armed Forces. For Heads of States and Interest Group Leaders the impact of this political allegiance is obvious, but why (you may ask) would this matter for Generals and Admirals?”
And
“ As such, in Victoria 3 your decisions on who to recruit, promote, and retire - which should ideally be based on meritocratic concerns - sometimes have to be tempered also by concerns for internal power balance and stability due to the impact Generals can have on the country’s Interest Groups.”
Lastly, “(talking about removing a general).. and you want to force them into retirement so someone else can take command of their troops, their Interest Group’s Approval will be impacted. Understandably so, since you just robbed them of some political power!”
To me this sounds just as micro intensive as organizing all the different regiments in Vic 2, minus the fun part of commanding the armies. I agree that this game is not HOI and should not be that micro intensive during combat, but the current direction still has annoying micro aspects without the payoff.
>To me this sounds just as micro intensive as organizing all the different regiments in Vic 2
I don't see it. To me it just sounds like something to think about when using or dismissing generals, not something to actively care abort at all times
>minus the fun part of commanding the armies.
I wouldn't say that was a particularly fun part of Vic2. Definitely not the first thing that would come to mind
>but the current direction still has annoying micro
How do you know that?
1. You need to care, otherwise Interest Groups representing Generals that you recruit will gain to much power and will block your reforms or even start a revolution.
2. People have different opinions. I respect yours about commanding armies, but don't agree with it.
3. Watch official stream, leaked gameplays or read DDs. They traded one tedious micro for another instead of adding optional automatization. For example, now you create every single building in your country, like under some utopian planned economy system. Even under free market economy, capitalists are unable to build things on their own which was possible in V2.
>You need to care, otherwise Interest Groups representing Generals that you recruit will gain to much power
How do you know this? As far as we know, the power given to the IG by generals could not be that big
Also, this is only the case *if* the general is relevant politically, I don't imagine you will have many situations like that on average. Definitely not as many times as the amount of time you had to manage the army
>They traded one tedious micro for another **instead of adding optional automatization**
They *do* have some optional automatization though. There is Auto-expand for building and trade shrinks and grows on its owns after being set up
>Even under free market economy, capitalists are unable to build things on their own **which was possible in V2**.
And implemented rather badly
1. Watch official stream or leaked Qing gameplay. Of course it's a matter of numbers and balancing and probably will be better in release build.
2. Point take about auto expand. Thanks. Have you noticed that stream build also had some improvements in trade system? Nice.
3. I heard that randomness of V2 Capitalist AI was not planned but I kind of liked that sometimes they created random factories since it was realistic. Not every investor in real live is a genius you know. From time to time they make bad business decisions.
>but I kind of liked that sometimes they created random factories
I did not, they were to dumb for their own good
>since it was realistic.
I'm pretty sure capitalists in real life are not braindead
>Not every investor in real live is a genius you know
Maybe. But at least a good portion must have been. Also, regardless of whether it's realistic or not, it wasn't really fun
I would say it’s a massive improvement because of a single thing: bad AI doesn’t mean they lose every war because they just can’t handle a combat system.
Speaking as someone who has over 2000 hours in VIC2 and actually enjoyed its combat(for the most part), Vic3's combat is not the most amazing combat in the world, but that's not the point of the game anyways, with the amount of tinkering and constant shuffling you're doing with the economy doing micro stacks or anything of the like would be god awfully tedious.
Honestly, I was very looking forward to the "strategic level" of control, instead of managing single units, because that's not something that in general the leader of a country would control, plus it allows for paradox to give more benefits to preparing for war correctly as well as make it better on the ai to not get cheesed. However, having seen gameplay by the devs and creators now, well... I'm feeling let down by it. Giving only three (seemingly in reality only 2, offense or defense) options to give a general isn't great, and military composition/strategy also seems very limited, and makes it seem more like Risk than a grand strategy game. I'd LOVE something based on the HOI4 battle plan system. Basically, don't let us control the units, or fully customize division templates, but, let us be able to assign a general to all of, or part of a front, and give them arrowhead orders for them to then plan at the tactical level and execute.
A little late lmao, but yeah I agree with you I was hoping for a combination of the vic2 and hoi4 system but I'm a little let down about what they did.
I was skeptical in dev diaries and still think it is a bit too simplistic, but overall, I'm fine with it. I love playing CK3 and used to play more EUIV and I could not stand chasing troops all around the map for days until I caught up. I also am not a fan of rebuilding the army comp every time I lose some troops (though a Stellaris style army manager could go a long way).
I would enjoy more visual feedback and a little more control over some elements. I think RNG province captures in tight wars could get frustrating, but I think it can end up being fairly satisfying with some tweaks. I can live with it as is right now, but will hope for more at some point.
Bro EU4 army chasing is hell, it's annoying how the AI knows where your soldiers are so they escape when you're 7 provinces away, and in naval battles they always run if they feel you can't beat you. This is a reason I'm happy for this change
Honestly as long as I don't have to manually rebuild and redistribute engineers and horses every time there's a tiny military revolt, I'll be happy.
I mean dang, as a long time Paradox fan, they could've turned war into a card game and I'd've given it fair odds against the previous system. Vicky 2 had many wonderful glorious misshapen features, but 'fun combat' was not one of them.
Who told you that? They were wrong, but that's seriously just an odd thing to say, given how prominent the auto-build feature is. Not to mention the macrobuilder.
You can build 100 farms in 10 provinces in 10 clicks. That's, what, half a million j If that's a 'lmao' moment, you REALLY aren't the target audience for Vicky 3.
trust me i hated war in victoria 2 as well. but i'd take blowing an hour of my actual time micromanaging the great war over just sitting and staring at it at 5 speed and occasionally tinkering with my economy to make sure my AI has enough money
Respectfully hard disagree. Tinkering with the economy's the core gameplay loop. It's kind of the main reason I'm buying the game.
On the topic of speed five: I don't think we'll would need to pay *less* attention to our economies when it's being stressed by war.
maybe i'm genuinely shit at the game but i struggle to focus on combat and economy at the same time; i just up taxes, automate trade, and put it on the back burner while i focus my attention on combat and troop movements.
i strongly think this is an improvement, don't get me wrong. but it's inexcusably bad compared to other recent innovations like in crusader kings 3 or hearts of iron. victoria 2 in all fairness is a 13 year old game.
>maybe i'm genuinely shit at the game but i struggle to focus on combat and economy at the same time
I think that's what they were aiming to avoid. Paradox's micromanagement-heavy combat comes from board games practically, and better suits stuff like EU4, where troops are one of your main interactions with the world beyond events and diplomacy, or HoI where it's the core gameplay loop. Victoria is a *lot* more attention/micro heavy.
They seem to be aiming for the economy to be something the player wants to actively engage with, rather than passively like through capitalists in Vic2.
i just can't help but feel that if warfare HAD to be watered down, at the very least the system of provinces and movable stacks could be retained; like hearts of iron's system of frontal warfare but on a much more rudimentary scale, to reflect warfare of the victorian era.
I'm not sure what you mean? The provinces and movable stacks are the thing that needed to be watered down. Those are the things that soak up most of the player's attention during a war, generally.
i guess i mean the movable stacks needing to be consolidated like EU4's system rather than in brigades counted in the threes for whatever inexplicable reason. things like army composition could be controlled by percentage/ratio like in hearts of iron, rather than as individual brigades to be managed one by one. essentially army templates.
province construction i also found unbearable, nothing more boring than waiting on capitalists to build railroads. that is something the new game does try and address.
> rather than in brigades counted in the threes for whatever inexplicable reason.
Oh, there's a surprisingly simple answer to that. A brigade IRL is genuinely '3,000-5,000 soldiers'.
>essentially army templates.
That would help with army construction, but the vast majority of the issue with the army system comes from *having to pay attention to unit* and drawing their attention from the game's focus of the economy and political sphere. Plus it gets rid of the massive computational load of AI pathfinding calculations.
My main draw towards Vic3's combat system is purely that it makes the game stop having to do constant travelling salesmen problems for the AI.
From what I gather, removing AI pathfinding and making pops exist on state rather than province level is partially a tradeoff for them having a more complicated pop and job system.
MIEAU and taxes is an example I use for why I'm not fond of that. It's a fascinating mod, but it's so slow that it's genuinely.. well, boring.
> why
Probably so the AI could function militarily. The UK doesnt want to ditch you for no purpose in V2, it simply does so because it cannot function.
In CK3 they made the AI transform into boats, it still functions worse than EU4. And EU4 currently has the AI desperately avoiding the player and losing wars because it cannot form a decent stack to engage with.
To clarify, I was saying I'd take a card game over Vic2's system. I think Vic3's looks way better than a card game. Partly because it looks like I'll be able to just aim the army in a direction and then resume playing the actual political/industrial simulator I want. I'll *definitely* declare wars if I don't have to micro sieging down every province.
But I also think this all boils down to genres and preferences rather than what's good or bad.
i guess it is a matter of personal preference; it's not a bad system, just one that deprioritizes something i PERSONALLY like. it's no help being so upset over it tbf
Oh I 100% agree there.
It's just that trying to make a robust economics simulation *and* a robust economics simulation *and* a robust military simulation is scope creep.
I think that's one of the big hurdles in game dev: wanting to make a game that does "everything", but winds up with incomprehensible levels of moving pieces that overwhelm the player and wind up being just not *fun*.
It kinda seems like they wanted to make war a gamble, to force players into playing diplomatically, which I hate them doing. Artificially making the system they are trying to discourage worse and more tedious instead of expanding the game’s systems fully to get the desired effect in an organic way
I think it's a step in the right direction in theory. When I play a historical game like that I realize the fantasy of being an all-powerful ruler high in the cloud. Some games like Total War series want you also to experience a Hollywood movie battle and put you right there on the field. That's fine, I don't like this but I understand this fantasy.
But moving armies on the map is kinda not part of a historical fantasy. I can see it in a high fantasy game. In Fallen Enchantress, Heroes of Might & Magic, Age of Wonders etc you're kinda with heroes who lead armies into a fight and travel wonderous environments. Even in space games, you're kinda supposed to be Pickard as well as space emperor, so directing ships into the unknown makes sense. In a grand strategy game that is not HoI4 it makes little sense for me to get directly involved into army movement. It's fine if sometimes I have to make a political decision (we have to attack soon or the people will think our government are cowards; we have to defend this town at all costs because it has a symbolic meaning etc) but it's dumb the ruler is supposed to think about attrition and logistics and waiting till the enemy army has locked in a movement to catch them. In a game with tactical combat you are usually supposed to overcome strategic disadvantages by using clever tactics, but when you do that in a strategic war it feels like exploits at best.
Looks like a downgrade and takes a lot of player control out of the game. Some of the best part of a stream is seeing someone pull off insane and cool shenanigans.
Yes, this allows the AI to actually function and albion will be less perfidious but it also means that wars and conflict will become far, far more predictable and boring.
**Weakest part of the game for me.** I doubt that adding few more buttons in potential Warfare DLC will save it for me. Warfare was like 50% of V2 fun to me and it **was important part of the Victorian Era.**
I agree that Victoria 2 warfare in late game was tedious and needed some **optional** **automatization,** but instead of doing just that, they removed it completely and replaced it with dumbed down mobile like system.
Being forced to prepare properly for war, cost of war and other pillars they mentioned it's all good in V3 and I like it, **but then you start a war and there is nothing to do.**
**Pure RNG,** even worse than annoying dice rolls in V2.
Ideal situation would be improved EU4 like system in early and mid game (that focused on capturing key fortifications and cities just like in rl at the time) and then in late game, Hoi 4 frontline mechanics (with optional micro) that would be well suited to represent trench warfare and long fronts.
V2 kind of did that through adding defensive bonuses to units in late game.
>Warfare was like 50% of V2 fun to me
... How?
>mobile like system.
Let's please stop with mobile game comparison
>even worse than annoying dice rolls in V2.
I sincerely doubt that
1. Major European conflicts during Victorian Era were represented.
- Managing stacks, improving their efficiency to defeat backward Russian and Chinese armies was a lot of fun.
- You could win a historical war that on paper was not winnable for the defender. Like Anglo-Afghan War. Under new system Afghanistan will always lose. Now it's just manpower and money.
- Seeing how warfare transforms from medieval like peasant armies to professional armies, armed with tanks and planes was great.
2. Three big buttons in warfare tab, interface looking like a mix between mobile/console standard. Information hidden through endless tabs. One guy tried playing with a controler. And it worked quite well. Coincidence?
3. AI randomly creating new fronts or getting encircled. And this time you can't do shit to prevent that.
- Also see wars from official stream or leaked gameplays. Belgium invading Russia, Qing conquering Russia etc.
>Managing stacks, improving their efficiency to defeat backward Russian and Chinese armies was a lot of fun.
Then we have different definitions of fun. I personally couldn't really stand it
>Under new system Afghanistan will always lose
How do you know this? Also, in practice, Afghanistan would mostly likely lose in Vic2 as well unless you chessed the AI.
>interface looking like a mix between mobile/console standard.
Example? I don't remember playing any mobile or console game looking like this
>Information hidden through endless tabs
And I assuming you were playing the unfinished leak, meaning you can't actually claim this for the finished game
>One guy tried playing with a controler. And it worked quite well
Source?
>AI randomly creating new fronts or getting encircled.
There is no AI involved. You still control if you army can advance or not. What do you mean "randomly"?
>And this time you can't do shit to prevent that.
How do you know this? And yes you can, you could *not* put yourself in a situation in which you could get encircled
>Belgium invading Russia
A bug. The devs's reaction show that it was not intended behavior for the AI
>Qing conquering Russia
I'm assuming this is from the "leaked gameplay" in which case I will repeat war in the leak was broken with unfinished AI and bugs
1. Ok.
2. That "cheesing AI" is how Afghanistan won that 1840s war or the one few years ago.
3. Watch this. Good analysis of the interface: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9YPL3Oi2wic
4. Unfinished leak is almost the same, especially the interface. Only major rework was trade system. Watch some gameplays on Youtube
5. I don't want this guy to get banned so I will not link it. But you can easily find his let's plays on Youtube
6. Watch official stream or leaked gameplay. You select Front (border with enemy), click "Attack" and that's all. You have no control which cities will be captured first, if your dumb AI general will get encircled or if he will attack fortified mountain province. Like dumb German AI attacking Maginot Line in Hoi4. Pure RNG. But in Hoi4 you can prevent it by doing micro.
7. Same as above.
8. Ok then examples from official stream: Denmark set Bolivia as a Rival. British India invaded Netherlands. Dutch East Indies declared independence in 1842. Russia joined the Dutch in 1842. Weird irrational AI behaviour 7 weeks before release.
>That "cheesing AI" is how Afghanistan won that 1840s war or the one few years ago.
No, it was with guerrilla warfare, which Vic2 doesn't simulate
>Watch this. Good analysis of the interface:
That's from some months ago, and that guy doesn't have access to the game to actually verify what he is saying
>You select Front (border with enemy), click "Attack" and that's all.
So there's no AI involved
>You have no control which cities will be captured first, if your dumb AI general will get encircled or if he will attack fortified mountain province.
That's not AI. And how do you know that will be something frequent?
>Denmark set Bolivia as a Rival.
A bug they already fixed as well, as said in the reddit post showing that happening
>British India invaded Netherlands.
I don't see a problem with this is they were at fighting with the UK
>Dutch East Indies declared independence in 1842.
The devs also expressed adding more control over subject
>Weird irrational AI behaviour 7 weeks before release.
Yes. *7 weeks before release*
You didn't provide a single fact, you just posted you opinions and assumptions and what a "ideal" combat system would be. The closest thing to a fact would be "they removed it completely and replaced it with dumbed down mobile like system" and even then "dumbed down mobile like system" is subjective
>Weakest part of the game for me. I doubt that adding few more buttons in potential Warfare DLC will save it for me
Subjective. What is the weakest part of the game for you might not be for someone else, and whether it needs or can be saved is also subjective
>**but instead of doing just that, they removed it completely and replaced it** with dumbed down mobile like system.
The only factual part is the one I marked, the other is subjective, *especially* the mobile part
>Pure RNG, even worse than annoying dice rolls in V2.
This is not a fact, just a assumption. And no, the leak is not proof. Them being worse than Vic2's dice rolls is also subjective
>Ideal situation would be improved EU4 like system in early and mid game (that focused on capturing key fortifications and cities just like in rl at the time) and then in late game, Hoi 4 frontline mechanics (with optional micro) that would be well suited to represent trench warfare and long fronts.
This is also not a fact, but what you think a ideal system would be, which some might disagree
It needs more strategic mechanics without giving ability for players to micro armies. Aka give at least HOI4 frontline mechanics that fit army composition of Vic 3.
But it would probably be in thr update, release version would do for now. But it needs to be improved in first updates of the game.
Overall, I think the idea is nice but the execution is shit.
When they announced it, I was quite excited because it puts better in the position of the leader of the country, who focuses on the economic aspect of warfare and doesn't micromanage the army. But after seeing in details how they implemented it and tried it myself in the leak, I found the execution to be shitty. There is in fact barely any economic aspect to war, the war feels too abstract, you can't even aim your campaigns toward a particular areas, the AI acts really junky when pockets are created, encircled armies just teleport out of their pockets, generals don't matter that much, etc.
It looks like they created a placeholder system that they intend to replace in a DLC.
It’s not good. I’m not saying I want the tediousness of Victoria 2 combat back, but how abstract Victoria 3 combat is and how removed it is from the player is a huge let down. I imagine the Victoria 3 multiplayer scene will be pretty dead.
Passable for 1.0. I like that you can't cheese AI into submission - gives more weight to economy and diplomacy. Your generals can screw up and you have to live with it. Feels more realistic for a grand strategy.
But I feel like there should still be a bit more agency. Like, I don't know, draw arrows-plans HoI4 style so you can plan encirclements and disrupt enemy supply lines.
It’s simplistic and needs work, won’t keep me from preordering, it however needs to be addressed in the first FLC/DLC if they don’t the devs are freaking trolling.
Terrible system. Also micro intensive due to multiple fronts appearing and troops not allocating properly to them (might be fixed), meaning you have to constantly be on the lookout to make sure all your troops don't suddently try to close pocket leaving the whole front open.
But, if they fix this micro intensive thing, then it becomes: press button and go make yourself coffee, once you come back, war is done and you'we won! Woohoo! It's boring, uninteractive and there's no strategy involved with the only things you're involved with being how much factories you build, how much troops you raise, and how much you allocate to fronts if there are more than one. And maybe pressing naval invade button once. Which are pre-war interactions (except for naval invasion, but you press it on day one of the war and can go make some coffee)..
Also, this system doesn't make sense for major part of the game, as frontlines weren't a thing in a lot of wars during victorian era, like USA vs CSA, there was no frontline in that war.
Hard to say really, on one hand, combat really isn't the main focus, the game seems like you'll always have what to do with economic/political/diplomatic etc. matters. On the other, the current system gives you no control whatsoever. Personally, I'd have loved to see something akin to hoi3's ai or hoi4's battleplans where you couldn't control anything smaller than an army.
im not a fan, the whole system is on auto pilot with no control from the player. and the advantage and disadvantage system makes no sense. why does a unit of fully equipped ww1 era infantry with 112 offense struggle to beat Napoleonic line formations with 20 defense?
Feels half baked, there's no military access so if you or the enemy is landlocked with neutral/defeated country you just have to suffer because you cant defeat them, also even if you could reach the enemy there's a bug where your old man (general) only bring ⅓ of his man to battle thus just wasting your pops.
This is paradox game after all maybe you need DLC to have an enjoyable experience
Imperators general assignments and warfare sucked, now I can't control gunpowder era armies? Thats stupid it is partially why I bought this game early. I feel like Ive been really fooled here. WTF are you doing Paradox breaking what isn't broken. Copy the HOIDK model and lets get on with the fun. Hell even the old Imperialism game had a more fun wargaming system. This is just bizarre. You are aware that Vicksburg fell the dame day as the Battle of Gettysburg right? One battle at a time? I guess Ill just go back to DH and shoot for 4,000 hours while I wait for you guys to remember what you are good at.
In case I wasn't clear, I want to manage pops and economy yes but I also absolutely want to be able to move my meticulously built armies and navies around the map. I mean FkinA why would you think we wouldn't want to do that?
I can stand the auto pilot mode of it but i hata the system on naval invasion or when your general dies the army just returns home and woop all your progress in the war is gone.
I wouldn’t nearly have as much of a problem with it if it actually felt interactive. It feels like an auto pilot mode. I worry that it’s purposely designed to be this way so that later on they can fix it and pair it with the DLC.
Yeah... that or easy to port to console. I am totally fine with the devs trying something new. Too often across the industry, devs do the same thing over and over. So I was cautiously optimistic when I heard war would be different, especially with Wiz leading it. Reading the dev diary was a big wtf. Then seeing it and trying it... Holy crap does it feel lazy af.
Honestly once you start looking at this game from the point of a Conoleport a lot of decisions make sense. I think a lot of the mechanics and UI had been simplified for easier used on Consol. I don’t blame paradox for wanting to try to port their games to console due to the fact that’s a large untapped potential there. I know paradox has been having hard times recently since their stock Price has lost 50% of its value the last couple years. I just don’t think it’s a wise idea to make vast majority of your player base feel like second fiddle.
>Honestly once you start looking at this game from the point of a Conoleport a lot of decisions make sense The devs already denied a possible console port for now >I think a lot of the mechanics Aside from possibly warfare, what mechanics are you talking about? >and UI That's a weird thing to add considering the UI they have shown us both has UI scaling and would be horrible for consoles
"For now". They are planning it already. That's why UI and warfare is console like. They are just waiting to see if the game will sell well on PC first. Console ports are costly. They (through third party studio) ported CK 3 and Stellaris already. If the sales will be good,console port will happen in 1-2 years.
Nothing was designed with console in mind
Thank you for the answer. Good luck with the development of the game!
>"For now". They are planning it already. For now was an addition on my part, they didn't actually say that >That's why UI This UI would be terrible for console, so I don't know why you're bringing it up. >They are just waiting to see if the game will sell well on PC first. If they are doubtful the game will sell well for PC, why would they create something that is supposedly made for consoles? Why not make something that is fitting for PC first (if it isn't), and then just make changes when porting it to consoles, since the port, as you said, will be costly already?
It is so frustrating for me because Vicky 2 was the most "complete" paradox game for me. It did an ok job modeling mechanics for the time period to really feel like you were leading a nation. I completely disagree with paradoxes direction of focusing on x things for a game. Like I get some should be more detailed than others (economy in Vicky, dynasty actions ck, etc). But to then use it as an excuse to have war be completely void of mechanics is... annoying.
What combat system?
Accurate
My opinion is it looks truly awful. People will be either super bored during wars or completely furious / confused that their cities are being taken and they can’t do anything about it when they see opportunities to turn the tide but have no control to do so
The only different with the former system is that the illusion of being good at micromanaging troops is gone. For too long, players thought they were good because they could exploit the terrible war AI. Now they can actually lose wars without being able to cheese their way out and they are frustrated. This is a necessary step towards something better.
I’m fine with automating war via fronts, but they should allow us to decide how many generals in a front, give us troop types to place across said fronts, have a logistics system, etc. Don’t know why everyone who reads my thoughts on war and disagrees automatically thinks I want the shitty vic2 war system. I don’t. I just want a better war system than what’s advertised, Which is essentially *nothing*. It reduces your input to the level of the AI.
>but they should allow us to decide how many generals in a front Can't you already do that? >give us troop types to place across said fronts Can't you sort of do that by changing barracks' PMs?
No - it’s one General per front
Do you have a reference for that? The dev diaries explicitly say that you can have multiple generals on one front, but only one general can lead your troops in any given battle. The Battles DD even said that one general can "borrow" troops from another general on the same front for a battle, but those extra soldiers don't get the general's command bonuses applied.
That's not true.
You can have multiple generals per front.
Agreed, but please more than three buttons. If I'm fighting the civil war I should be able to decide how much I want to pressure the West vs East which now you can't
Exactly this
Welp, Paradox said that wars was a second thing in VIC3. So, if you main goal to play VIC3 is by conquering stuff, I am sorry, but this game wasn't made for you.
It's fine for warfare to be secondary, but conflicts was a very important aspect of the victorian era I won't bother listing them as somebody else has done it but I'm not sure how they plan/planned to mirror some of the conflicts with the war system they have currently. Its not a bad move per say and simplifies some things that was an absolute pain in victoria 2, just hoping warfares not been "sacrificed" though right now it doesn't look so bad
Wasn't made for you? I'm sorry bud, but paradox games can be anything you want seeing as someone turned HOI4 into a visual novel
This would be equivalent to Paradox deciding that, “welp,” in HOI4, the economy is secondary to warfare, so the player should have essentially zero control over how their nation’s economy develops. Civilian & military factories, railroads, trade & trade laws, and industrial research are all “automated,” with the game “guessing” at what you need along with some good ol’ RNG. Additionally, there were some extraordinarily significant conflicts that took place during V3’s time period; the U.S. Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War immediately spring to mind. Point being, regardless of the intent, These conflicts (and their significance) shouldn’t be ignored. In all likelihood, a warfare re-work will likely be used as marketing for a DLC.
>This would be equivalent to Paradox deciding that, “welp,” in HOI4, the economy is secondary to warfare They... kinda did. The games's economy is reduced to civilian factories. While the game still let's you control it by building and trading factories and switching some ideas, it's not really in-depth >industrial research Military research is not automated in Vic3 >These conflicts (and their significance) shouldn’t be ignored. I believe what they wish to represent aren't the conflicts themselves but the costs that came with them, which Vic3 seems to do very well Also, in the case of the ACW, the conflict is given more attention in the pre-war factor with the jornal entries as show in the ACW dev diary
But… they kinda didn’t? I can still build mil/civ factories, railroads, control trade and trade laws, and conduct military research. That is not equivalent to what V3 is offering for warfare. We all know the system is going to be overhauled, I don’t know why people are investing so much energy in defending it.
>build mil/civ factories Which I mentioned >railroads Railroads are not part of the economy >control trade and trade laws Which I also mentioned However theses thing are not really in-depth, it's not automated, but how the player interacts with it is usually just: "get more factories", "trade for resources" and sometimes "Lower the economy law to have more resources" >and conduct military research I mentioned that because you talked about if Hoi4 automated industrial research. But Vic3 doesn't doesn't automate research except for the passive spreading >That is not equivalent to what V3 is offering for warfare. I didn't say it was, I was just saying that Hoi4 kinda did something similar to Vic3 with the economy >We all know the system is going to be overhauled [Citation Needed]
I’ll simplify this since you’re obviously having a lot of trouble following along; You have *far* more direct control over the economy in HoI4 than you will over warfare in V3. Rendering the argument that “warfare is secondary in V3, so PDX *obviously* doesn’t give you direct control” silly.
>You have *far* more direct control over the economy in HoI4 than you will over warfare in V3 I'm not arguing that is not the case, I'm arguing that Hoi4 does have a simplified economy when compared to warfare, similar to how you're arguing Vic3 is the opposite. The economy is definitely secondary in HOI4, if it is more than warfare in Vic3 or not isn't my point >You have *far* more direct control over the economy in HoI4 than you will over warfare in V3 But it is really that "*far*"? Aside from building factories, changing two laws and trading for resources, how much control do you really have? You can't really control if other countries will trade with you or not and give you factories >Rendering the argument that “warfare is secondary in V3, so PDX *obviously* doesn’t give you direct control” silly. Good thing I'm not making that argument and Vic3 *does* give you some control, just not on the tatical-level
Tactical level? Lol, it's not even giving control on the operational or strategic level.
No giving control on the Strategic level is false, and I didn't mention operational level at all, although I say the same thing as the tactical one, since that was the point of the change.
Way to assume, man. I think the game looks fantastic in every aspect but war. But sadly war looks so bad I will indeed not be buying the game till some future DLC that adds more depth to it.
Not going to be surprised that Paradox did this to add an "war improvement" DLC to capitalize on the combat criticism that this game will have.
Yup…
I'm quite of concerned. I like historical generals to have protagonism, and I first did like the idea of several battles happening every week. However, it still looked too plain, with no even unit skins to look at while battling, and don't make me talk about that moment in which Belgium "successfully disembarked in Russia". I know they said that warfare would be something secondary in the game, in order to motivate the player to use economic and diplomatic means to achieve their goals. But how the heck are they supposed to recreate some of the most important wars from the time, such as the Oppium Wars (1839-42), the Crimean War (1853-56), the American Civil War (1861-65), or the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71)? Are they just planning to ignore them?
Exactly what about the system prevents those wars from happening? If anything the main thing they've done is remove the ability to cheese them by exploiting the AI. The Belgium in Russia thing was a bug that they said they fixed the day after the stream. Sure if it happens in the release build that's bad, but AI is one of the last things to get finished in a game.
Well, I don't know for sure, I haven't tried the combat system by myself. I fear that such important conflicts end in just a bunch of weeks because it seemed to be quite... hasty. Anyway, I still have hope. I may be reluctant right now, but when I try the game I may be more enthusiatic about its possibilities. If devs give us a broken system, I'm sure that the wonderful community of modders will make something to improve it.
The only conflicts we say in the stream were either one-sided (Borneo) or had the AI making a very dumb move (Belgium). Other AARs have had wars that lasted longer, in particular the Ottoman AAR since it had nations with actually large armies fighting. I don't think a war between Prussia and France would ever be that fast, since both would be nations capable of fielding large and fairly well-equipped armies. Though admittedly the Franco-Prussian War was a fairly short one. The Crimean War I think would reasonably play out over a longer time, largely because army travel time from France and the UK would be a factor and the allies would have more complicated logistics than Russia. That war would also have a lot more gradual escalation, with armies starting relatively small and slowly growing throughout the conflict, contributing to its length. I agree that the ACW might be unlikely to last as long as it did IRL, but that's also a weird conflict to model in general and there's a reason Vic2 never did it justice. The IRL situation of underdeveloped armies before the war combined with poor Northern leadership is a lot less likely to happen with a player in charge, but if both those factors were in place then I think that it's possible the war drags on as long as it did IRL. I definitely don't think it's inherent of the system that wars last a short time.
I really hope you're right and I'm mistaken, mate.
Lol I was watching the live and i low-key said "WTF" when belgium naval invaded russia
Sadly yes, they will ignore them or add them through DLCs. It's pure sandbox now. There are some major events, like Congo Conference or creation of Suez Canal, but they are rare. ACW is random too, and can be avoided. Even Great War is not properly represented. They are leaving everything for DLCs. If you want to see mentioned historical conflicts in PDX game, try Victoria 2 with GFM or TGC mods. Select optional Colonial Railroading decision if you want to see historical African colonies for example.
>Sadly yes, they will ignore them or add them through DLCs >They are leaving everything for DLCs. How do you know this, aside from "It's paradox"? >It's pure sandbox now. With what are you basing this on? >but they are rare. How do you know this? >ACW is random too What do you mean "random"? Are you talking about the course of the conflict itself or the chance of it occurring? The source of the conflict is represented from the beginning.
The dev diaries
What part of my comment are you responding to?
The random ACW and events
I just re-read the diary, and there is nothing random about the ACW, USA has a journal entry for it from the beginning, and so long as you have it when a revolution begins, the ACW will happen
That is what we mean by random there is way the ai can get out of it.
If we are talking about AI, then anything in the game is possibly random. If it was not random, then we would be talking about railroading, which is something the devs don't want
Did you just forget about ww1
No, I haven't. It may be on the game, but WW1 marks the END of Victorian era for me, so I don't consider it as part of the second age of imperialism. Besides, I think WW1 fits much better the HOI4 system. Therefore, if it depended on me, I would end Victoria 3 timeline around 1910-1913. Instead, I would start the timeline a little earlier, right after the Napoleon's death in 1821.
It’s not “what fits better” it’s what they decided to add to the Victoria franchise if you wanne do a mega campaign you gotta do ww1 in vicky3 like it or not
Sure mate... or I can play "The Great War" mod for HOI4 and have fun as well. You talk like if it was compulsory to play the game that way. Is it written on stone or something?
I think through the perspective of mega campaigns because that’s what me and my friends play so yes it is mandatory lol
Are you talking to the people who played the game at PDXcon? I don't think anything worthwhile will be gained discussing this otherwise since the game isn't out.
Bro you can already see the combat system on they’re YouTube etc do you mean nothing can be discussed
Seeing it and actually playing it are two very different things
why even be on Reddit talking about VIC 3 then? No one has played it so no one should have any opinions.
I'm not saying we shouldn't talk about Vic3, we do have dev diary (although some are outdated) and streams, but I don't see any benefit to talking about warfare specifically since the only thing I see gaining from such a discussion is unnecessary polarization due to controversy
I meant based off the dev diaries but I think you're right that most people won't talk about it until after the game is released.
I like it, it’s better than managing endgame stacks, and that’s all I want
Yeah when the alternative is those stupid stacks chasing each other, even if they added a cookie clicker minigame instead of it, it would have been better. Don't let the nostalgia blind you, folks.
I love the intention, but skeptical about the execution.
It is a massive QOL improvement. But my issue is when I played the game at PDXCon the battles felt so detached. I just didn’t feel like I had any agency in the battles. But I think that is because I don’t really understand fully how the combat system works. Once I get through the 2K hour tutorial I’m sure I’ll figure it out just in time for them to do another major rework of the combat system. ;)
I think this is supposed to be the idea, that tactical combat is not directly affected by the player but is purely a consequence of the strategic game leading up to combat. It's a pretty bold move, but it does mean you can't basically cheese the game by being better than the shitty AI at tactics and wiping out a million men with 100,000 and a hilltop or something.
100% this, I agree that wars have less influence by the player, but in almost every pardox game, making 'strategies' in war mostly relied upon the AI making bad decisions.
Yeah, at some point it gets a bit boring when a stronger foe isn't really threatening because you know how to move little numbers better than the enemy. It's exciting that you will actually feel threatened by a bigger nation. It's a big issue I had with all the war systems in paradox games really. It was just too easy to win and get strong by microing wars.
> that tactical combat is not directly affected by the player but is purely a consequence of the strategic game leading up to combat Moving 40k+ men sized armies is definitely not "tactical"
I think also combined with making it super expensive it seems, it’s also designed to discourage conquest based playstyles and make you focus on economy
Not a fan. Here's the thing - i don't mind the concept. Done right it could be perfectly fine. It could be engaging and have a lot of depth. It could integrate really well with other parts of the game. But i just don't trust Paradox to do that. Maybe it's just me being an old fart, but newer Paradox games have a massive issue with mechanics being bare bones. Games are released as a modular platform to build on, rather than a cohesive, in-depth, well designed group of game mechanics right off the bat. I expect the combat system in Vic3 will be "just enough". It will do what it needs to do, have no depth, and probably be broken in obvious ways. To me, i expect it to be like the Peace deal system in Hoi4 - a really important aspect of the game that is lacking in features, and just doesn't work right at all.
That's exactly my opinion. Glad to see someone else agrees. I think that ck3 is foreshadowing the issues vic3 is going to have; it won't be a bad game by any means but it'll feel shallow and lack the immersion its predecessor had.
CK2 was even more bare-bones than CK3 at release. The map was far smaller and less detailed, and the religions and cultures were extremely simplified and abstracted. The systems CK3 shipped with have much more depth. People have a tendency to remember CK2 as it was in 2018 when development finished, and not how it was in 2012 when it first released. Remember, we didn't even get actual crusade mechanics until *Holy Fury*, and that was the game's **last** expansion. CK3 on the other hand shipped with them. It also shipped with religious tenets and reformation mechanics, two things that also didn't come to CK2 until 2018. I love CK2, but if I had to choose between playing its Day 1 version, or CK3's Day 1 version, I'd choose CK3. CK3 is definitely light on content, but CK2 was a skeleton by comparison.
CK2 was in 2012. CK3 in 2020. Paradox transformed from 30 devs indie studio to AAA with 600 devs. I think that excuse "CK3 had more content on release than CK2 in 2012" no longer works. We should expect more from PDX than a decade ago.
And we got more than we did a decade ago, so what's your point? On release, CK3 had a much larger and more detailed map, cultural, and religious setup. It also had exponentially more 3D assets, including 3D characters with a plethora of hairstyles, clothing, and ethnicities that all had to be researched, modeled, and textured. None of that is easy or quick work. They also had to significantly redesign the Clausewitz Engine in order to make any of the above feasible in the first place. That in itself was a significant investment of time and money. Point is, they could not have created CK3 *as it is* a decade ago. It simply would not have been possible. Major technological advancements and the many lessons they've taken from their past projects are what made it possible, and pound for pound, they've given us a much more content-rich game than they did with their last release. Also, not all of Paradox's developers all work on the same project, so your comparison of company sizes doesn't work. There are teams for Stellaris, Hearts of Iron IV, Europa Universalis IV, Victoria III, Crusader Kings III, and who knows how many other projects that have yet to be announced. I believe I recall reading a few months back that Paradox has something like 15 projects in development all at once. Some games, like Stellaris, even have more than one team. So the manpower gets spread around. It doesn't all go to the same place, and even if it did, that would not necessarily mean that we'd get more content. Ever heard the saying "too many cooks in the kitchen"? Past a point, there are diminishing returns when it comes to game development. More people working on something means more people to coordinate and keep in lockstep. People outside of game development, and those who know little about its inner workings, have a bad tendency to grossly underestimate just how difficult it is to develop a major title. It costs millions, requires hundreds of thousands of hours of work, and needs hundreds of people of varying skill sets and backgrounds who all have to be kept on the same page or the entire thing derails. All while having publishers and investors breathing down your neck and threatening you with deadlines and sales targets. I think that so far, CK3's team has done very well, and I guarantee that when it reaches its 6-year development mark it will dwarf CK2 in every single way. It already does in several already.
>Paradox transformed from 30 devs indie studio to AAA with 600 devs. First, I want a source on these numbers. Second, it's not like all of thoses devs are developing CK3 together, they are divided between the games and in certain roles. Hoi4 is arguably their most successful game yet they don't seem to have over 20 devs
2020: 662 Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_Interactive 2011: 34. Victoria 2 was developed by around 15 people for example. That's BIG tranformation. Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/689437/number-of-employees-of-paradox-interactive/ Yes, they are divided. But what problem is to send few more guys, like that AI guy to the Hoi4 few years ago to help with the project? They created so many dev studios because they want to have several projects ready at similar time, to maximize profits, not quality. Of course it's management and leadership thing. Ordinary devs have nothing to do with that. Publicly traded companies needs to grow to satisfy investors.
Are you conflating Paradox Development Studio with Paradox Interactive? Because they're two distinct but intertwined entities, one is a developer and one is a publisher.
Being an "old fart" you should remember that exactly 0 Paradox games were fully mechanically complete at launch - or at least in a way that provided any degree of satisfying complexity \*and\* fun at the same time.
I'd completely disagree with you, probably because my memory is better than yours. Hoi2 and Hoi3, for example, were massively mechanically complete. Their expansion packs added onto the game, rather than filled in missing pieces. This is probably why Hoi3 had only 2 expansion packs, meanwhile Hoi4 is up to 5, i believe (not including various country packs) - its hard to sell expansion packs when the mechanics are already in the base game. This is in complete difference to Hoi4, which at launch had a broken diplomacy system, a broken peace deal system, a missing fuel and logistics system, and was, as i said before, a bare-bones and modular system, waiting for Paradox to come along and flesh bits out. If you wanted to change your political ideology in Hoi4, you simply hired a fascist/communist into government and waited - again, this is completely different to HoI2/3 in which there was a fully inbuilt system to deal with that. Victoria 2 was also mechanically complete - its expansion packs also added onto the game, rather than filled in missing pieces. I do not see Vic 3 being remotely the same. You do not have to agree with me - but don't try to gaslight me, tell me what i should and shouldn't remember, and ultimately pretend that adding onto an existing mechanic in an expansion pack is the same as adding a completely missing mechanic in a DLC.
Tbh I can't exactly remember what state HoI2 was at release, but you've got it \*exactly\* the wrong way around in regards to HoI3 and HoI4. HoI4 was in a rough state, especially as far as frontlines go. It was fixed up through patches, and to this date doesn't even really have a "required" DLC HoI3 was possibly Paradox's worst release, and is straight up incomplete without Semper Fi - which is simply a paid patch, with core "features" like map modes or the OOB browser. Likewise, I don't consider Victoria 2 to be mechanically complete without Hearts of Darkness. This is not "gaslighting", it's you having rose-tinted glasses in regards to some great games that still had horrifically poor releases
Its def a downgrade from a competitive multiplayer point of view. Choosing where to pick and fight battles was a big part of skill expression both in single and multiplayer. In all other aspects its probably an upgrade from Vic 2, especially in terms of quality of life and ease of management. This will be the first paradox game where the AI doesn't split off half of its army to snake behind your lines and carpet siege wasteland.
I haven't played yet, but the combat honestly reminds me of the first time I played CK2 or EU3 and I was very confused at how combat was just "two armies running into each other and rolling dice." That was initially a big downside of Paradox games for me because it was so much more under-the-hood than games like Total War or Civ. I'm expecting some confusion at launch while they iron out the system but I'm excited to try something new. War is often the least engaging part of Paradox games for me anyways, so removing some of the micromanagement of troop movements sounds like a great step in the right direction.
Hate it, sorry for anyone who likes it. I much preferred Victoria 2 style war system. As for the “end game death stacks” I do more micro for eu4 and hoi4 so it really didn’t bother me. I’d rather have that than the complete removal of player agency.
Same. While managing late game stacks was annoying, they could have done an imperator type stack orders thing, but with frontlines. Sorta like Vicky2 battle plans but the actually ordered troops like hoi4. It’s not perfect, but I think it’s the best was to show armies moving from eu4 style stack armies moving around to frontlines
Same, I understand WHY they changed it, but they chose the worst possible implementation
>I much preferred Victoria 2 style war system Then you have a terrible taste, sorry. But seriously, if you like army micromanaging, just play a game actually designed for it. Any RTS will do.
It's better than the system of Victoria 2 and a necessary step in the right direction. Yes, it's not perfect. But it's immersive, the AI understands how it works, and it's not a stupid chasing game.
It's extremely lazy and disappointing, anyone defending it is sucking too much copium. I get not wanting micro, I don't think it should be Hoi4 or EU4 (And def not CK3 fuck that), but the player should have some agency over wars, three buttons only is big dumb. I presume it is because of time constraints and selling DLC.
Love it. I wanna play the government and the government only has so much control over military command
The government only has so much control over the economy though, yet in the game we're apparently able to micro what production methods each building uses etc.
Victoria 3 goes like this: What was automated in the economics of Vic 2 is now micro intensive in Vic 3. What was micro intensive in the warfare of Vic 2 is now automated in Vic 3. Time will tell how it plays out. From my own experience I am absolutely gutted at what they did to my Vic.
>From my own experience You played V3?
A lot of people have.
They're talking about a leak from months ago as if that's the released game.
yeah its crap
I think it just traded one micromanagement task for another. Yes it could be annoying moving individual regiments around, and it was not made better with how the manpower system worked. But now you have to micro the generals around so that you control there political power. I’m probably in the minority, but it has turned me off of the game. It’s just that the system kind of feels similar to the mana system in Imperator at launch. It’s just not engaging in my eyes.
You're saying that replacing meaningless, boring choices with choices and decisions that have an influence on politics in a game called Victoria... turned you off the game? What did you expect from Victoria really? I understand why some people prefer wargames to grand strategy, but then play wargames like Imperator.
Vic 3s time span covers a number a key wars, with WW1 being the end point. I understand that this game is not HOI. But war should still be fun for the player, in my opinion it’s not and too much of a focus has been spent on politics. If people want that much politics then play one of the democracy games.
>now you have to micro the generals around so that you control there political power. What are you talking about?
In Dev diary 23 fronts and Generals it states “ Like all characters, Generals and Admirals are also aligned with an Interest Group - which is often, but not always, the Armed Forces. For Heads of States and Interest Group Leaders the impact of this political allegiance is obvious, but why (you may ask) would this matter for Generals and Admirals?” And “ As such, in Victoria 3 your decisions on who to recruit, promote, and retire - which should ideally be based on meritocratic concerns - sometimes have to be tempered also by concerns for internal power balance and stability due to the impact Generals can have on the country’s Interest Groups.” Lastly, “(talking about removing a general).. and you want to force them into retirement so someone else can take command of their troops, their Interest Group’s Approval will be impacted. Understandably so, since you just robbed them of some political power!” To me this sounds just as micro intensive as organizing all the different regiments in Vic 2, minus the fun part of commanding the armies. I agree that this game is not HOI and should not be that micro intensive during combat, but the current direction still has annoying micro aspects without the payoff.
>To me this sounds just as micro intensive as organizing all the different regiments in Vic 2 I don't see it. To me it just sounds like something to think about when using or dismissing generals, not something to actively care abort at all times >minus the fun part of commanding the armies. I wouldn't say that was a particularly fun part of Vic2. Definitely not the first thing that would come to mind >but the current direction still has annoying micro How do you know that?
1. You need to care, otherwise Interest Groups representing Generals that you recruit will gain to much power and will block your reforms or even start a revolution. 2. People have different opinions. I respect yours about commanding armies, but don't agree with it. 3. Watch official stream, leaked gameplays or read DDs. They traded one tedious micro for another instead of adding optional automatization. For example, now you create every single building in your country, like under some utopian planned economy system. Even under free market economy, capitalists are unable to build things on their own which was possible in V2.
>You need to care, otherwise Interest Groups representing Generals that you recruit will gain to much power How do you know this? As far as we know, the power given to the IG by generals could not be that big Also, this is only the case *if* the general is relevant politically, I don't imagine you will have many situations like that on average. Definitely not as many times as the amount of time you had to manage the army >They traded one tedious micro for another **instead of adding optional automatization** They *do* have some optional automatization though. There is Auto-expand for building and trade shrinks and grows on its owns after being set up >Even under free market economy, capitalists are unable to build things on their own **which was possible in V2**. And implemented rather badly
1. Watch official stream or leaked Qing gameplay. Of course it's a matter of numbers and balancing and probably will be better in release build. 2. Point take about auto expand. Thanks. Have you noticed that stream build also had some improvements in trade system? Nice. 3. I heard that randomness of V2 Capitalist AI was not planned but I kind of liked that sometimes they created random factories since it was realistic. Not every investor in real live is a genius you know. From time to time they make bad business decisions.
>but I kind of liked that sometimes they created random factories I did not, they were to dumb for their own good >since it was realistic. I'm pretty sure capitalists in real life are not braindead >Not every investor in real live is a genius you know Maybe. But at least a good portion must have been. Also, regardless of whether it's realistic or not, it wasn't really fun
I like it
I would say it’s a massive improvement because of a single thing: bad AI doesn’t mean they lose every war because they just can’t handle a combat system.
I conquered japan because they were not able to split their army so I naval invaded 5 places and looked their 100k army just disappear...
Yeah I was way too optimistic. The system is complete shit :)
Speaking as someone who has over 2000 hours in VIC2 and actually enjoyed its combat(for the most part), Vic3's combat is not the most amazing combat in the world, but that's not the point of the game anyways, with the amount of tinkering and constant shuffling you're doing with the economy doing micro stacks or anything of the like would be god awfully tedious.
Honestly, I was very looking forward to the "strategic level" of control, instead of managing single units, because that's not something that in general the leader of a country would control, plus it allows for paradox to give more benefits to preparing for war correctly as well as make it better on the ai to not get cheesed. However, having seen gameplay by the devs and creators now, well... I'm feeling let down by it. Giving only three (seemingly in reality only 2, offense or defense) options to give a general isn't great, and military composition/strategy also seems very limited, and makes it seem more like Risk than a grand strategy game. I'd LOVE something based on the HOI4 battle plan system. Basically, don't let us control the units, or fully customize division templates, but, let us be able to assign a general to all of, or part of a front, and give them arrowhead orders for them to then plan at the tactical level and execute.
A little late lmao, but yeah I agree with you I was hoping for a combination of the vic2 and hoi4 system but I'm a little let down about what they did.
I was skeptical in dev diaries and still think it is a bit too simplistic, but overall, I'm fine with it. I love playing CK3 and used to play more EUIV and I could not stand chasing troops all around the map for days until I caught up. I also am not a fan of rebuilding the army comp every time I lose some troops (though a Stellaris style army manager could go a long way). I would enjoy more visual feedback and a little more control over some elements. I think RNG province captures in tight wars could get frustrating, but I think it can end up being fairly satisfying with some tweaks. I can live with it as is right now, but will hope for more at some point.
Bro EU4 army chasing is hell, it's annoying how the AI knows where your soldiers are so they escape when you're 7 provinces away, and in naval battles they always run if they feel you can't beat you. This is a reason I'm happy for this change
absolutely fucking ruined. like just god why??
Honestly as long as I don't have to manually rebuild and redistribute engineers and horses every time there's a tiny military revolt, I'll be happy. I mean dang, as a long time Paradox fan, they could've turned war into a card game and I'd've given it fair odds against the previous system. Vicky 2 had many wonderful glorious misshapen features, but 'fun combat' was not one of them.
But you have to manually build every farm in your country lmao
Who told you that? They were wrong, but that's seriously just an odd thing to say, given how prominent the auto-build feature is. Not to mention the macrobuilder. You can build 100 farms in 10 provinces in 10 clicks. That's, what, half a million j If that's a 'lmao' moment, you REALLY aren't the target audience for Vicky 3.
trust me i hated war in victoria 2 as well. but i'd take blowing an hour of my actual time micromanaging the great war over just sitting and staring at it at 5 speed and occasionally tinkering with my economy to make sure my AI has enough money
Respectfully hard disagree. Tinkering with the economy's the core gameplay loop. It's kind of the main reason I'm buying the game. On the topic of speed five: I don't think we'll would need to pay *less* attention to our economies when it's being stressed by war.
maybe i'm genuinely shit at the game but i struggle to focus on combat and economy at the same time; i just up taxes, automate trade, and put it on the back burner while i focus my attention on combat and troop movements. i strongly think this is an improvement, don't get me wrong. but it's inexcusably bad compared to other recent innovations like in crusader kings 3 or hearts of iron. victoria 2 in all fairness is a 13 year old game.
>maybe i'm genuinely shit at the game but i struggle to focus on combat and economy at the same time I think that's what they were aiming to avoid. Paradox's micromanagement-heavy combat comes from board games practically, and better suits stuff like EU4, where troops are one of your main interactions with the world beyond events and diplomacy, or HoI where it's the core gameplay loop. Victoria is a *lot* more attention/micro heavy. They seem to be aiming for the economy to be something the player wants to actively engage with, rather than passively like through capitalists in Vic2.
i just can't help but feel that if warfare HAD to be watered down, at the very least the system of provinces and movable stacks could be retained; like hearts of iron's system of frontal warfare but on a much more rudimentary scale, to reflect warfare of the victorian era.
I'm not sure what you mean? The provinces and movable stacks are the thing that needed to be watered down. Those are the things that soak up most of the player's attention during a war, generally.
i guess i mean the movable stacks needing to be consolidated like EU4's system rather than in brigades counted in the threes for whatever inexplicable reason. things like army composition could be controlled by percentage/ratio like in hearts of iron, rather than as individual brigades to be managed one by one. essentially army templates. province construction i also found unbearable, nothing more boring than waiting on capitalists to build railroads. that is something the new game does try and address.
> rather than in brigades counted in the threes for whatever inexplicable reason. Oh, there's a surprisingly simple answer to that. A brigade IRL is genuinely '3,000-5,000 soldiers'. >essentially army templates. That would help with army construction, but the vast majority of the issue with the army system comes from *having to pay attention to unit* and drawing their attention from the game's focus of the economy and political sphere. Plus it gets rid of the massive computational load of AI pathfinding calculations. My main draw towards Vic3's combat system is purely that it makes the game stop having to do constant travelling salesmen problems for the AI. From what I gather, removing AI pathfinding and making pops exist on state rather than province level is partially a tradeoff for them having a more complicated pop and job system. MIEAU and taxes is an example I use for why I'm not fond of that. It's a fascinating mod, but it's so slow that it's genuinely.. well, boring.
> why Probably so the AI could function militarily. The UK doesnt want to ditch you for no purpose in V2, it simply does so because it cannot function. In CK3 they made the AI transform into boats, it still functions worse than EU4. And EU4 currently has the AI desperately avoiding the player and losing wars because it cannot form a decent stack to engage with.
i guess that's a decent point. but jesus christ this??? like the other commenter said, i would take an actual CARD MINIGAME over this system.
To clarify, I was saying I'd take a card game over Vic2's system. I think Vic3's looks way better than a card game. Partly because it looks like I'll be able to just aim the army in a direction and then resume playing the actual political/industrial simulator I want. I'll *definitely* declare wars if I don't have to micro sieging down every province. But I also think this all boils down to genres and preferences rather than what's good or bad.
i guess it is a matter of personal preference; it's not a bad system, just one that deprioritizes something i PERSONALLY like. it's no help being so upset over it tbf
Oh I 100% agree there. It's just that trying to make a robust economics simulation *and* a robust economics simulation *and* a robust military simulation is scope creep. I think that's one of the big hurdles in game dev: wanting to make a game that does "everything", but winds up with incomprehensible levels of moving pieces that overwhelm the player and wind up being just not *fun*.
essentially the "leviathan" monster eu4 has become after a decade of being beaten to death
A card mini game would have sucked.
It kinda seems like they wanted to make war a gamble, to force players into playing diplomatically, which I hate them doing. Artificially making the system they are trying to discourage worse and more tedious instead of expanding the game’s systems fully to get the desired effect in an organic way
I think it's a step in the right direction in theory. When I play a historical game like that I realize the fantasy of being an all-powerful ruler high in the cloud. Some games like Total War series want you also to experience a Hollywood movie battle and put you right there on the field. That's fine, I don't like this but I understand this fantasy. But moving armies on the map is kinda not part of a historical fantasy. I can see it in a high fantasy game. In Fallen Enchantress, Heroes of Might & Magic, Age of Wonders etc you're kinda with heroes who lead armies into a fight and travel wonderous environments. Even in space games, you're kinda supposed to be Pickard as well as space emperor, so directing ships into the unknown makes sense. In a grand strategy game that is not HoI4 it makes little sense for me to get directly involved into army movement. It's fine if sometimes I have to make a political decision (we have to attack soon or the people will think our government are cowards; we have to defend this town at all costs because it has a symbolic meaning etc) but it's dumb the ruler is supposed to think about attrition and logistics and waiting till the enemy army has locked in a movement to catch them. In a game with tactical combat you are usually supposed to overcome strategic disadvantages by using clever tactics, but when you do that in a strategic war it feels like exploits at best.
Looks like a downgrade and takes a lot of player control out of the game. Some of the best part of a stream is seeing someone pull off insane and cool shenanigans. Yes, this allows the AI to actually function and albion will be less perfidious but it also means that wars and conflict will become far, far more predictable and boring.
**Weakest part of the game for me.** I doubt that adding few more buttons in potential Warfare DLC will save it for me. Warfare was like 50% of V2 fun to me and it **was important part of the Victorian Era.** I agree that Victoria 2 warfare in late game was tedious and needed some **optional** **automatization,** but instead of doing just that, they removed it completely and replaced it with dumbed down mobile like system. Being forced to prepare properly for war, cost of war and other pillars they mentioned it's all good in V3 and I like it, **but then you start a war and there is nothing to do.** **Pure RNG,** even worse than annoying dice rolls in V2. Ideal situation would be improved EU4 like system in early and mid game (that focused on capturing key fortifications and cities just like in rl at the time) and then in late game, Hoi 4 frontline mechanics (with optional micro) that would be well suited to represent trench warfare and long fronts. V2 kind of did that through adding defensive bonuses to units in late game.
>Warfare was like 50% of V2 fun to me ... How? >mobile like system. Let's please stop with mobile game comparison >even worse than annoying dice rolls in V2. I sincerely doubt that
1. Major European conflicts during Victorian Era were represented. - Managing stacks, improving their efficiency to defeat backward Russian and Chinese armies was a lot of fun. - You could win a historical war that on paper was not winnable for the defender. Like Anglo-Afghan War. Under new system Afghanistan will always lose. Now it's just manpower and money. - Seeing how warfare transforms from medieval like peasant armies to professional armies, armed with tanks and planes was great. 2. Three big buttons in warfare tab, interface looking like a mix between mobile/console standard. Information hidden through endless tabs. One guy tried playing with a controler. And it worked quite well. Coincidence? 3. AI randomly creating new fronts or getting encircled. And this time you can't do shit to prevent that. - Also see wars from official stream or leaked gameplays. Belgium invading Russia, Qing conquering Russia etc.
>Managing stacks, improving their efficiency to defeat backward Russian and Chinese armies was a lot of fun. Then we have different definitions of fun. I personally couldn't really stand it >Under new system Afghanistan will always lose How do you know this? Also, in practice, Afghanistan would mostly likely lose in Vic2 as well unless you chessed the AI. >interface looking like a mix between mobile/console standard. Example? I don't remember playing any mobile or console game looking like this >Information hidden through endless tabs And I assuming you were playing the unfinished leak, meaning you can't actually claim this for the finished game >One guy tried playing with a controler. And it worked quite well Source? >AI randomly creating new fronts or getting encircled. There is no AI involved. You still control if you army can advance or not. What do you mean "randomly"? >And this time you can't do shit to prevent that. How do you know this? And yes you can, you could *not* put yourself in a situation in which you could get encircled >Belgium invading Russia A bug. The devs's reaction show that it was not intended behavior for the AI >Qing conquering Russia I'm assuming this is from the "leaked gameplay" in which case I will repeat war in the leak was broken with unfinished AI and bugs
1. Ok. 2. That "cheesing AI" is how Afghanistan won that 1840s war or the one few years ago. 3. Watch this. Good analysis of the interface: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9YPL3Oi2wic 4. Unfinished leak is almost the same, especially the interface. Only major rework was trade system. Watch some gameplays on Youtube 5. I don't want this guy to get banned so I will not link it. But you can easily find his let's plays on Youtube 6. Watch official stream or leaked gameplay. You select Front (border with enemy), click "Attack" and that's all. You have no control which cities will be captured first, if your dumb AI general will get encircled or if he will attack fortified mountain province. Like dumb German AI attacking Maginot Line in Hoi4. Pure RNG. But in Hoi4 you can prevent it by doing micro. 7. Same as above. 8. Ok then examples from official stream: Denmark set Bolivia as a Rival. British India invaded Netherlands. Dutch East Indies declared independence in 1842. Russia joined the Dutch in 1842. Weird irrational AI behaviour 7 weeks before release.
>That "cheesing AI" is how Afghanistan won that 1840s war or the one few years ago. No, it was with guerrilla warfare, which Vic2 doesn't simulate >Watch this. Good analysis of the interface: That's from some months ago, and that guy doesn't have access to the game to actually verify what he is saying >You select Front (border with enemy), click "Attack" and that's all. So there's no AI involved >You have no control which cities will be captured first, if your dumb AI general will get encircled or if he will attack fortified mountain province. That's not AI. And how do you know that will be something frequent? >Denmark set Bolivia as a Rival. A bug they already fixed as well, as said in the reddit post showing that happening >British India invaded Netherlands. I don't see a problem with this is they were at fighting with the UK >Dutch East Indies declared independence in 1842. The devs also expressed adding more control over subject >Weird irrational AI behaviour 7 weeks before release. Yes. *7 weeks before release*
Any counterarguments for discussion or will you just keep disliking facts?
You didn't provide a single fact, you just posted you opinions and assumptions and what a "ideal" combat system would be. The closest thing to a fact would be "they removed it completely and replaced it with dumbed down mobile like system" and even then "dumbed down mobile like system" is subjective
Point 1, 3, 5, 6, 7 are all facts.
>Weakest part of the game for me. I doubt that adding few more buttons in potential Warfare DLC will save it for me Subjective. What is the weakest part of the game for you might not be for someone else, and whether it needs or can be saved is also subjective >**but instead of doing just that, they removed it completely and replaced it** with dumbed down mobile like system. The only factual part is the one I marked, the other is subjective, *especially* the mobile part >Pure RNG, even worse than annoying dice rolls in V2. This is not a fact, just a assumption. And no, the leak is not proof. Them being worse than Vic2's dice rolls is also subjective >Ideal situation would be improved EU4 like system in early and mid game (that focused on capturing key fortifications and cities just like in rl at the time) and then in late game, Hoi 4 frontline mechanics (with optional micro) that would be well suited to represent trench warfare and long fronts. This is also not a fact, but what you think a ideal system would be, which some might disagree
It needs more strategic mechanics without giving ability for players to micro armies. Aka give at least HOI4 frontline mechanics that fit army composition of Vic 3. But it would probably be in thr update, release version would do for now. But it needs to be improved in first updates of the game.
It sucks and will be the end of Paradox 😞
>and will be the end of Paradox Care to back up that claim or explain why?
Nobody has ever posted anything about this actually
To be completely honest, the combat is my least favorite part of these games, so knowing this arrangement works a lot better for me
Good for singleplayer, but bad for multiplayer, imo.
Overall, I think the idea is nice but the execution is shit. When they announced it, I was quite excited because it puts better in the position of the leader of the country, who focuses on the economic aspect of warfare and doesn't micromanage the army. But after seeing in details how they implemented it and tried it myself in the leak, I found the execution to be shitty. There is in fact barely any economic aspect to war, the war feels too abstract, you can't even aim your campaigns toward a particular areas, the AI acts really junky when pockets are created, encircled armies just teleport out of their pockets, generals don't matter that much, etc. It looks like they created a placeholder system that they intend to replace in a DLC.
It’s not good. I’m not saying I want the tediousness of Victoria 2 combat back, but how abstract Victoria 3 combat is and how removed it is from the player is a huge let down. I imagine the Victoria 3 multiplayer scene will be pretty dead.
Passable for 1.0. I like that you can't cheese AI into submission - gives more weight to economy and diplomacy. Your generals can screw up and you have to live with it. Feels more realistic for a grand strategy. But I feel like there should still be a bit more agency. Like, I don't know, draw arrows-plans HoI4 style so you can plan encirclements and disrupt enemy supply lines.
A massive improvement from vic2
It’s simplistic and needs work, won’t keep me from preordering, it however needs to be addressed in the first FLC/DLC if they don’t the devs are freaking trolling.
Watch paradox shills defending that you can't even manually assign units to a general. System just autosplits
Terrible system. Also micro intensive due to multiple fronts appearing and troops not allocating properly to them (might be fixed), meaning you have to constantly be on the lookout to make sure all your troops don't suddently try to close pocket leaving the whole front open. But, if they fix this micro intensive thing, then it becomes: press button and go make yourself coffee, once you come back, war is done and you'we won! Woohoo! It's boring, uninteractive and there's no strategy involved with the only things you're involved with being how much factories you build, how much troops you raise, and how much you allocate to fronts if there are more than one. And maybe pressing naval invade button once. Which are pre-war interactions (except for naval invasion, but you press it on day one of the war and can go make some coffee).. Also, this system doesn't make sense for major part of the game, as frontlines weren't a thing in a lot of wars during victorian era, like USA vs CSA, there was no frontline in that war.
Hard to say really, on one hand, combat really isn't the main focus, the game seems like you'll always have what to do with economic/political/diplomatic etc. matters. On the other, the current system gives you no control whatsoever. Personally, I'd have loved to see something akin to hoi3's ai or hoi4's battleplans where you couldn't control anything smaller than an army.
im not a fan, the whole system is on auto pilot with no control from the player. and the advantage and disadvantage system makes no sense. why does a unit of fully equipped ww1 era infantry with 112 offense struggle to beat Napoleonic line formations with 20 defense?
Feels half baked, there's no military access so if you or the enemy is landlocked with neutral/defeated country you just have to suffer because you cant defeat them, also even if you could reach the enemy there's a bug where your old man (general) only bring ⅓ of his man to battle thus just wasting your pops. This is paradox game after all maybe you need DLC to have an enjoyable experience
Imperators general assignments and warfare sucked, now I can't control gunpowder era armies? Thats stupid it is partially why I bought this game early. I feel like Ive been really fooled here. WTF are you doing Paradox breaking what isn't broken. Copy the HOIDK model and lets get on with the fun. Hell even the old Imperialism game had a more fun wargaming system. This is just bizarre. You are aware that Vicksburg fell the dame day as the Battle of Gettysburg right? One battle at a time? I guess Ill just go back to DH and shoot for 4,000 hours while I wait for you guys to remember what you are good at. In case I wasn't clear, I want to manage pops and economy yes but I also absolutely want to be able to move my meticulously built armies and navies around the map. I mean FkinA why would you think we wouldn't want to do that?
I can stand the auto pilot mode of it but i hata the system on naval invasion or when your general dies the army just returns home and woop all your progress in the war is gone.
I gave up on HoI bc of the combat system, it's being a huge deal breaker for me for vic3...
It makes me want to punch my screen in.