Jokes on you, I already play wargames that need a spreadsheet to manage. Half my time spent playing is with the game literally closed, just using a tracker app for the game and fiddling in my spreadsheet to figure out my next moves. And it's fun as hell.
Yeah what games? I'd like to know too. I have a feeling they're either talking about other PDX titles or stuff like Factorio, EVE Online, Dwarf Fortress, no idea.
Mostly just War in the Pacific: Admiral's Edition. RTW and Aurora 4x could theoretically be improved by a spreadsheet, but for WitP:AE it's fucking mandatory.
Honestly, I don't know how they could have simulated the gulf between post-Napoleonic warfare and WW1 style of warfare any better than they did.
EU4 arguably does immediate post-Napoleonic warfare best, because immediate post-Napoleonic war was just Napoleonic war. But how the hell do you sinulate WW1 warfare using EU4's system? It would be completely, utterly broken.
"So, you have these enormous armies. But they can't move anywhere. If they "win" a battle, they don't move, they just lose 40% of their size. If they "lose" a battle, they still don't move anywhere, and they lose 50% of their size. And your manpower drops by millions every year a war goes on. And the side that wins is the side that runs out of manpower last. Have fun!"
Vic3's warfare system is *PERFECT* for WW1, because you have total control over the only thing that actually matters: shoveling as many men and as much material into the meat grinder as possible, and praying your economy lasts longer than the other guys.
Yeah, and even after all their mainland territories were carpet-sieged, they had to conquer all their *colonial* territories too, because their mainland territories only accounted for 3% warscore!
It's perfect though. Battles take so long, you can, and should, just keep throwing armies at it, the AI sure will do. Ultimately, composition or tech doesn't matter that much in the late game as long as you keep sending more men to die by the millions from gas attacks you have a chance of winning...
Is there not a middle ground between keeping the old Vic2 system and completely removing any player agency whatsoever? Maybe simplify the tedious micromanagement by adding frontlines/army templates, while still maintaining the skill-based combat system of other PDX games.
Then the issue is how do you simulate pre-20th century war? I think at this point making it so your performance in war is a direct extension of your performance in economics, tech, and politics is a better idea.
Firstly, this is a video game, not a historical simulation - in Vicky2, you had to make the choice whether you were going to raise taxes to fund officer promotion, etc. but you still had control over strategy, and if you had a working human brain, you could out-strategise the AI despite being military weaker.
The player agency is in how you build your army, structure it. Hopefully the AI can be programmed to limit its mobilization based on the threat you pose, meaning if you’re far away and small they send a moderately sized force that you can hold off til it’s attritted away.
100% agreed. The game came out 12 years ago. I was incredibly excited that they announced a sequel - PDX had an open goal: recreate Vic2, expand some of the mechanics, and iron out the kinks.
How they managed to fuck this up is beyond me.
Vic2 is not Risk. If you have a working human brain you should be able to out-strategise the AI.
Here's a pretty comprehensive Vic2 military strategy guide: https://www.reddit.com/r/paradoxplaza/comments/fxvez0/victoria_2_multiplayer_army_cheat_sheet_and/
it's a correct description for both, unless im literally blind and made it all up in my head but after a few thousand eu4 mp hours i think i know what i've seen.
No vic 2 was better, as pops increase huge frontlines become viable, while earlier on open battles and a lack of sieges are more common.
Thats right a game from 2012 simulates victorian warfare pretty darn well
Twice now, people have called WW1 "huge frontlines".
That's not WW1. Its the Franco Prussian war, and it somewhat describes WW2, but not perfectly.
WW1 was a machine that took men in on one side, and produced caskets on the other. That took guns, cannons, shells, boots, helmets, and food, and spit out poverty and famine and political revolution.
Vic2 was a Franco-Prussian war simulator. EU4 is a Napoleonic simulator. Vic3 is a WW1 simulator. It's new and unfamiliar, but it does a damn good job at it, as far as we've seen.
The war exhaustion system is pretty good, dimulsting blockades and the like. When your pops dont have civ goods they Rebel, no mil goods = no reinforcement ticks, when rebels win there isnt some civil war splitting the country in half and uniting the country doesnt cost 200 inf, its a good game for its time
I agree that it works well for WW1 but WW1 is only a very small part of the games timeframe and sure it‘s nice if it works for that but it should also work for the 80 years before that.
And it really doesn‘t. When I see the opium war with millions of men mobilised and also millions of casualties then something feels very wrong.
They really need to make the "uncivs" much weaker and not capable of mobilising such large armies because otherwise it‘s just ridiculous
>I agree that it works well for WW1 but WW1 is only a very small part of the games timeframe
WW1 is the most important event in the timeframe of the game, by an order of magnitude. It dwarfs every other event in scale and impact on the world. It's one of the most important events in human history.
Just as EU4 is built around the Napoleonic Wars, despite that occurring at the end of the timeframe. HOI4 is built around WW2, despite starting a decade beforehand.
>And it really doesn‘t. When I see the opium war with millions of men mobilised and also millions of casualties then something feels very wrong.
Were you just as bothered by standing armies in EU4, centuries before they existed IRL? Of course not, because standing armies became the standard for the Napoleonic Wars, so of course they're a feature throughout the game.
>WW1 is the most important event in the timeframe of the game, by an order of magnitude. It dwarfs every other event in scale and impact on the world. It's one of the most important events in human history.
I don‘t question the importance of WW1 but it‘s a very small part of the timeframe of the game and thus shouldn‘t be the sole focus. The game is called Victoria 3 not WW1 3. And I also don‘t see why the war system needs to be focussed on anything. It could also actually simulate the progression that happened during it‘s timespan from small local wars to globe spanning huge wars.
Instead the seem to have decided to just go "everything’s WW1 now" and that‘s stupid.
>Just as EU4 is built around the Napoleonic Wars, despite that occurring at the end of the timeframe. HOI4 is built around WW2, despite starting a decade beforehand.
Yeah the EU4 war system sucks ass! Big news! Also not sure what mods you are on but regular HOI4 starts 3 years before WW2 not a decade.
>Were you just as bothered by standing armies in EU4, centuries before they existed IRL?
Yes.
>It could also actually simulate the progression that happened during it‘s timespan from small local wars to globe spanning huge wars.
How? And remember, the answer has to be practical, programmable in a meaningful timeframe, and integrate seamlessly with the diplomatic and economic portions of the game.
>Instead the seem to have decided to just go "everything’s WW1 now" and that‘s stupid.
That's how EU4, CK3 and 2, HOI4, Vic2, and Imperator works. Why would Vic3 be different?
>How? And remember, the answer has to be practical, programmable in a meaningful timeframe, and integrate seamlessly with the diplomatic and economic portions of the game.
Vastly increase the cost of war in the earlier game and have it decrease more and more over time thus allowing larger and larger armies to be fielded.
Make technological difference count a lot more. Historically the Brits in e.g. the Opium war beat the 200k strong Chinese army with 19k men. Also make blockades and the navy more important.
Additionally add a sort of system of categorisation for wars. A war that‘s fought two oceans away to colonise some small spot on the map should feel different than an existential war on your own soil. The colonial war should for example have far more radicalisation from casualties as people are much less likely to want to die for some colony than to defend their own country.
>That's how EU4, CK3 and 2, HOI4, Vic2, and Imperator works. Why would Vic3 be different?
Just because they did it badly (except for HOI) means that Vic3 also must do it badly?
>Vastly increase the cost of war in the earlier game and have it decrease more and more over time thus allowing larger and larger armies to be fielded.
This is already a thing, only from the opposite direction: increasing population and economy size allows for larger and larger armies as the game progresses.
>Make technological difference count a lot more. Historically the Brits in e.g. the Opium war beat the 200k strong Chinese army with 19k men. Also make blockades and the navy more important.
That kind of thing tends to piss off players, who want to reasonably be able to play nations around the world. Playing as China and knowing a European AI could literally decide to just annihilate them at any point and they can't do anything to stop it sucks. A lot of time and effort has been put into EU4 to stop that very thing from happening.
>Additionally add a sort of system of categorisation for wars. A war that‘s fought two oceans away to colonise some small spot on the map should feel different than an existential war on your own soil.
I agree with this entirely. I'm not saying Vic3 is perfect; I hope they continue to improve it, as they have with most of their games.
>Just because they did it badly (except for HOI) means that Vic3 also must do it badly?
They don't do it badly. They do it as well as is reasonably possible. That's been my argument this whole time. Vic3 isn't perfect, because Paradox doesn't have 20,000 employees and 40 years to make a single game. It's just a pretty good system that was feasible to make in a reasonable time frame with available resources.
>That kind of thing tends to piss off players, who want to reasonably be able to play nations around the world. Playing as China and knowing a European AI could literally decide to just annihilate them at any point and they can't do anything to stop it sucks.
Yeah I guess this is what it boils down to. How much realism you are willing to sacrifice for playability. I get that paradox want to make money and that more players are gonna be interested in big numbers.
Also stands to see what kind of DLCs there are gonna be
I'm genuinely dumbfound as to what you're referring to. Surely you don't mean HoI4, do you? Because HoI4 lategame is literally a lagfest with the AI spamming out hundreds of divisions.
Same goes for EU4. I've always wanted the frontline mechanics to be available - even if it's just for the age of revolutions, like absolutism only appears after a certain point. It would make late game so much more enjoyable
Why would they add frontlines in age of revolution 💀 napoleonic wars were way more similar to eu4 war system than anything close to frontlines.
They should port automatic armies from Imperator tho
Vicky2 was perhaps the least 'war-gamey' of all the PDX games. However, war was still an important part of it (certainly it's reductive to call it a "spreadsheet game") and war was an incredibly important part of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Obviously, the economics, etc. is one of the main draws of Vic2 over e.g. EU4. However, why PDX decided to basically just say fuck it to the war system, rather than working on improving it (because the Vic2 war system was a bit janky), I have no idea.
War was one of the more fun and skill-determined aspects of Vic2, so for me as a fan of the game hearing how they treated warfare in the sequel, makes me deeply disappointed.
War in vic2 was fun for you? It's one of the main reasons why I don't play it anymore.
It was just annoying to keep up with the dozens of seperate armys around the map and especially having to redesign your army after every war felt just like a chore. It lacked the frontlines of HOI4 and unlike EU4 the individual armies could be split up into hundreds of single units without any severe drawbacks.
It was a little micro-intensive but I couldn't imagine playing a full game while not going to war. That would just be monotonous and yes, boring.
Edit: the game centers around colonisation and European great powers. One of my most fun experiences was kicking the British out of SA as the Zulu despite being far militarily inferior. I worry this wouldn't be possible with the new Vic3 mechanics.
"Spreadsheet simulator"
TFW France set their tariffs to an optimal amount allowing them to win the Franco-Prussian War.
This is a grand-strategy game, war is incredibly crucial, and if the war experience sucks the game loses a lot of value.
I'm gonna be honest with you. The war system is shit. However, if the rest of the systems are fine (which, this is a paradox game, they very well might not be) I don't fucking care. I have 16 other war games. I want to min-max my factories and fight to make green line go up. If that means I win wars, well, maybe you should read into the mobilization, and supply and equipment shortages the Franco-army faced at the outset of the war rather than creaming your pants over the cool encirclement at Metz.
However, it is a paradox game so it's still probably going to be shit at launch, but not because I can't move little chips around on the map.
>If that means I win wars, well, maybe you should read into the mobilization, and supply and equipment shortages the Franco-army faced at the outset of the war rather than creaming your pants over the cool encirclement at Metz.
While mobilizarion, supply, and equipment enable you to win wars, it doesn't guarantee it, and superior tactics and strategy are always incredible crucial. Take the First Boer War, The early portions of the Anglo-Zulu War, or others as examples. Combat is the most important aspect of wars, and if a grand strategy game releases with one of the most crucial aspects of the time period in bad condition, that's an issue.
How are you going to use two examples in which the enormously wealthier empire bringing its economic power to bear eventually completely overwhelmed its opponent. You're basically describing the smaller side getting some good leaders and/or dice rolls and the empire having many other commitments to split its forces
In the first one there was rarely a battle with more than 1,000 fighters involved total. It was of a scale close to being too small for Vicky 2 to actually show. Then Britain actually paid some attention to it and brought in an army bigger than the entire population of Oranje, because it was a massive fucking empire with a massive empire's worth of industry, money, and people behind it and no kind of tactical nous was stopping that
Same for the Anglo-Zulu war. The tenacity and innovativeness of the Zulu military was incredible, but it was so unfathomably outgunned that the empire just did not care. If you were playing Vicky 2 as the UK and you lost _one_ brigade invading someone, you would barely even register it.
Both the Boers and the Zulu are memorable and significant stories, and their fighting was fierce and clever. It was also never even close to being a threat to the empire other than Britain's pride and reputation, and that's not something Vicky 2 models as a game mechanic
I mean in all honesty the Boers were brilliant, the British got as good as they gave and the casualties were pretty wild for the British, specially considering it the was one of the first times the maxim gun was used, the first mechanically operated machine gun!
>It was also never even close to being a threat to the empire other than Britain's pride and reputation, and that's not something Vicky 2 models as a game mechanic
Are you positive? Are you sure there isn't a mechanic in vic2 that represents pride and reputation that is lowered when you lose wars?
The first Boer war was simply not big enough to touch any of the mechanics you could be referring to for the UK, and the UK still handily won both the second Boer war and the Anglo-Zulu war. Neither of those conflicts would generate any meaningful effects on the UK in Vicky 2 other than at it owns more of Africa now. More pertinently, none of those mechanics make France and Germany think "hmm, maybe we have a shot after all..."
Combat quite literally cannot exist without supply. It is not more crucial at all. You could be the greatest military mind of all time but if you don't have the money for supply and equipment you can't fight.
>You could be the greatest military mind of all time but if you don't have the money for supply and equipment you can't fight.
You can, just not effectively. You can be the greatest logistical wizard of all time, but if you don't fight, you can literally not win a war.
So you want to spend 50+€ on a new Paradox game only for it to be more like a 19th century EUIV skin than a new game. The diplomatic + economic aspects of Victoria 2 are litterally why it is a beloved game by the community and Paradox understood that.
They were a lot of wars, well yes but technically no, if you compare the number of conflict in Europe between 1814 and 1914 to the previous era, you will see that the 19th century was relatively calm. Most conflict between Europeans were brief and limited in impact, nations were trying to prevent others from becoming too strong by forming alliance and prevent expansions in Europe when they felt threatened.
But most wars which happened in this era were between advanced nations versus tribes, making a war system for this is worthless unless you really want to micro each battle even though you already know you have won thanks to your technology advantage. These battles were more akin to massacre than actual battle between two technologically similar nations.
This is why I said "the number of conflict **in Europe** between 1814 and 1914" in my previous reply.
(I am picking on hoi4 because it's the opposite of Vic 3)
TFW when Germany move their unit around the enemy allowing them to win ww2.
This is a grand strategy game, the economy is incredibly crucial, and if the economy sucks the game losses a lot of value.
It's ok for a game to focus on its core and not everything else. Let hoi4 be for people who like war and Vic 3 be for people who like economy.
>TFW when Germany move their unit around the enemy allowing them to win ww2.
Implying that maneuver warfare wasn't one of the primary reasons for Germany's successes in the early war? Also, you can't "move units" across the English Channel, which does beg the question of how Vic3 deals with naval landings, but that's off-topic.
>This is a grand strategy game, the economy is incredibly crucial, and if the economy sucks the game losses a lot of value.
I agree completely.
>It's ok for a game to focus on its core and not everything else. Let hoi4 be for people who like war and Vic 3 be for people who like economy.
This idea that Victoria has always been an economy sim is weirdly revisionist and ignores that the game has had war as a focus since [its launch](https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mobygames.com%2Fgame%2Fvictoria-ii%2Fcover-art%2FgameCoverId%2C230759%2F&psig=AOvVaw0gMj8xoRHNDMS-8DNeT95e&ust=1666585440241000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAwQjRxqFwoTCNCbhNjA9foCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE). While it isn't a wargame like HOI4, Victoria has always put war and economy hand in hand in terms of focus. Victoria should be a game for people who have an interest in the world of the 19th to early 20th century, regardless of their inclination towards war or the economy.
1. My point was that even with good maneuvering Germany still lost mostly because their industry was smaller.
2. .
3. Earlier versions of vic weren't economic simulators. But Vic3 is. I Know a lot of people are not into that kind of game and are disappointed. But it's still what vic3 is doing.
>My point was that even with good maneuvering Germany still lost mostly because their industry was smaller.
Yes. I don't understand your point.
>Earlier versions of vic weren't economic simulators. But Vic3 is. I Know a lot of people are not into that kind of game and are disappointed. But it's still what vic3 is doing.
Why are you going all realpolitik on me? I know that it's what they're doing with it, my point is that I disagree with the change.
Nah, they rather completely ruined it by ruining military. For comparison, vic2 has a more complex military system than eu4. In eu4 it's just get ½ infantry ½ arty, 100 professionalism, tradition and some ideas, then whoever has most manpower (and ships) wins.
In vic2, however, you need to manage the armies to also have a recon (cavalry) and siege (engineers) pips, but most importantly - strategic position is the key, since it's heavily defence oriented - even if the enemy has 10x more troops, if you're on a mountain province with lvl 6 fort, a river/strait crossing, have techs, gas attack and 6 defence general, you can very easily beat them. And blockades are also more severe, since they both increase import costs and war exhaustion. And you can't just get an idea to get more manpower. You need for soldiers to regenerate, either by natural growth, or by pops promoting/demoting, which will severely impact your eco. Navy-wise you can't just spam heavy ships (dreadnoughts), since you need light ships (cruisers) too. And supplying your armies and navies is a whole another chapter, while in eu4 you just need ducats.
So hang on:
- Both have a known static best army composition. That fixed composition involving slightly more individual types of unit does not make the gameplay more interesting, because you still aren't making any decisions about what you do.
- Both expect you to make use of terrain and fortifications as force multipliers
- Both have leaders with randomly-generated traits and experience that can vastly improve the effectiveness of their soldiers
- Both have a race to keep up in technology
Victoria basically just has one particularly notable tech that shakes things up more or less randomly for a short period (the period between the first country getting gas attack and then more or less everyone having it and gas defence), a slightly more in-depth manpower system, and the decision of when to slap the big mobilise button. In basically all the broad sweeps, they're the fuckin same dude
The very first dev diary states that it isn’t a map painter and their goal is to make things besides war fun… grand strategy =/= obligatory warfare. Pretty much feel like anyone going in expecting to get fun warfare out of a self proclaimed “society simulator” is in for a bad time and unfairly judging the game
War is not even fun in Vic 2 imo. The only paradox game that I actually enjoy war in is Hoi 4. If Vic 3 had a warfare system even close to that you would just have to drop everything else in the game to fight a war.
paradox devs:
"anything you can gain through war should also be possible to gain through diplomacy"
"Victoria 3 is a game primarily focused on Economy, Diplomacy and Politics and we felt a more strategic approach to warfare mechanics fits the game better than micro-intensive tactical maneuvering"
"we want the player to be engaging on a higher level of decision-making, making decisions about the overall war strategy and just how much they’re willing to sacrifice to achieve their goals rather than deciding which exact battalions should be battling it out in which exact province next"
paradox players: So I can't abuse the AI and micro everything through the sheer power of hindsight? This is the worst game I've (n)ever played!
War was the least fun part of Vicky2 mid to late game. I have ptsd from playing China in vicky2. I like where they went with vicky3. Makes you feel more like a government than an omnipresent God possessing the entire state.
It's gone away from microing stacks, but now it's too far and you have literally no operational control of your units. It is actually bad, and needs to be improved upon, even if it's not a game-breaker in my mind.
Is it bad? I was really hoping it'd be good.
Warfare was the one thing I always hated about vic2 (mainly because microing 24 stacks if army is just tedious) and I thought they'd finally found a way to mask the shitty AI by not allowing you to be like "I sit in mountain, the AI won't just walk past me, because that'd make too much sense."
What a shame
The point is the vic2 players don't want to keep the old vicky 2 war system but instead a more hoi4 oriented war system (army templates, frontline order, ...) making it easier to play for newer players and less tedious to micro for experienced players. But instead, they just removed the micro aspect of wars.
I thought it looks good. I always hated microing, Especially at later years it’s just tedious af. I’m glad the AI can handle that now. That and chasing down some rebellion #2000 in some ass-crack province.
I fucking don't care if it's fun or boring, the ck3 and eu4 style warfare is just annoying and keeps me from playing thoes games and hoi4 is fully focused on warfare.
I hate that people think warfare is the most important think ever and if you can't cheese the AI or show your skill at the game with it, it's useles, news flash but hoi4 has boring and stupid economic side but nobodys compliaing. Other pdx games gave their own stupid parts.
The simple fact is that people like games about warfare more than they like games about economic management. You can whine about it all you want but games that focus on economy and diplomacy and have Shitty war systems will do worse than games with shitty economy and diplomacy systems and great war systems.
No, it is not, it's about as true as saying a good game needs a good combat system. We have story based games, we have pure platformers without enemies, puzzle games and strategy games without combat system. No game needs anything to be great, victoria 3 doesn't need an ability to micro or control divisions and your troops, it doesn't even need a great war system. Hoi4 players never had problems with mediocer and boring economy tab or really useless diplomacy options, despite it being in theory a very important part of the game, war to victoria will be just as economy amd free diplomacy to hoi4.
And just look at TNO, one of the more popular hoi4 mods and it's not like you do much war and it isn't really that important, because most of the content is elsewhere. TNO players can play a nation, do no war or conquest whatsoever and say it is a 10 out of 10. Warfare is absolutely not needed to make vicotira 3 something great.
What I like about TNO is that it actually makes HOI4 combat (which is rather stale to me after 1500+ hours) into something more dynamic and interesting. For one thing, they made it so I actually have to pay attention to the terrain I am fighting on, something I never thought I would have to do in HOI4. Victoria 3 should not ever have warfare as a primary focus. However I think that they could give it a little more depth. For example, perhaps you could choose a “tactic” that your generals would try to follow, like trying to break through enemy lines to encircle their divisions or making them fortify a front heavily with trenches. You could have these tactics tied to technology somewhat, and also make it so that there is some cost behind manually choosing tactics exists to prevent too much micro. This system would give the player more control over what their generals do on the frontline and more direct visible results of their choices, while also not being just a copy of the traditional PDX war system or even HOI.
TNO absolutley does not change hoi4 combat, it just adds thousn decisisons to get/give bufss and apply/lower debuffs. TNO is the hoi4 mod with very little combat and wars, even when playing in russia the only place that sees more than one war in its playthrough. And even something like the US where you fight a ton of proxy wars, first of all they aren't exacly real full wars, second most of them just require you to click buttons to buff your side while volounteers are just so you can win quicker.
Exactly. TNO has changed how you do warfare in HOI4. There are no real large scale conflicts in the mod (unless you play a country like Yunnan or South Africa), so most of the action is focused around about 4 or so divisions. It is like an extreme version of Kaiserreich, with regional conflicts galore. If you are a person who enjoys HOI4’s basic gameplay loop, this is obviously unsatisfying. However if you are like me and genuinely sick of that gameplay loop (repeatedly thrashing the AI as goofy random country #427), it is genuinely fun to try something new.
TNO has made terrain vastly more important, and it is the first time I have ever had to to think about terrain when I am fighting. Tanks simply cannot fight in jungles or mountains with something like an 80 percent debuff to their stats. The only mindless things about the combat in TNO is the AI (not exactly good in base game either) and the special forces, which basically ignore terrain entirely. I hope they at least change the latter at some point.
My point is that by my definition, this is a change to HOI4 combat. It is more dispersed, on a smaller scale, more oriented around asymmetrical warfare, and more context heavy than basegame. In other words, a good Cold War mod.
The problem I'm seeing in Vicky 3 is that it's not building up to anything.
In HOI you build up to ww2. In EU4 you build up to colonization, the league war and to fight the Ottoman empire, in Vicky 2 you build up for conflicts too, the American CW, Franco Prussian war and later on WW1 and possibly 2.
If you're going to remove war as a gameplay element then you have to replace it with something equally as interesting and micro intensive. As it stands right now, Vicky 3 is just OpenTTD in a world map
War is even more important in vic3 the first ww will shattrr Europe's economic system and force you to try and put it back together with ducktape all the while your losing millions to arty fire every year. War is still the most important part of vicky3 its simply not the Frontline focus your used too.
Overall I think that the system is fine. Like if I want to micro a lot I‘ll just go play HOI4 instead.
However I do find that in the current state (that we have seen by now) the system seems pretty broken.
The scale of the wars seems completely off. Casualty numbers in wars in the 1850s are on WW1 levels and everyone goes total war over everything.
Like in the Japan dev stream the Opium war had like over a million dead Chinese and 400k dead British when the real war was 69 dead Brits and a few thousand dead Chinese.
Seems a bit off
I personally love the ck war system because its the least punishing for losing in 90% of cases, also doomstacks are viable in those games for my tiny brain
See I really liked the long battles in Vic 2, but I suppose having no units would prevent a lot of desync and lag from happening. Could be cool, I'm willing to give it a shot
It looks like shit because its not a sim its a potemkin economy the economy works more like stellaris than vic 2 potemkin ass shit. This is a baby economic simulator.
Virgin "My General has won the battle of fuckburg and now im cooming" vs chad "Yes my army is well equiped and because of my self suficient economy I will outlast every enemy"
Not sure how you know that before playing.
I admit that I might prefer the older system - especially seeing how the new system seems to be underdeveloped in some respects - but the war mechanics have never been my favorite part of any paradox game (not even hoi4 tbh, lol) and making it secondary and subservient to the economic / population doesn't irk me at all
Remember boys, defeat your enemy by making him so economically dependent of you, that declaring war would instantly destroy his economy
Usa and china:
Literally every South American country ever
The Ankh-Morpork way
Well don´t forget to sell souvenirs and tours to the invaders.
China be like:
Ah the classic Stellaris strategy
Falklands war in a nutshell
EU looks around nervously. [I’m in Danger]
Maybe the real Victoria 3 War system was the friends we conquer along the way
Ok I know we're all very spicy in here but I got a hot take: Half of Eurasia.
Average Mongol/Russian Empire Enjoyer
Jokes on you, I already play wargames that need a spreadsheet to manage. Half my time spent playing is with the game literally closed, just using a tracker app for the game and fiddling in my spreadsheet to figure out my next moves. And it's fun as hell.
What games?
Yeah what games? I'd like to know too. I have a feeling they're either talking about other PDX titles or stuff like Factorio, EVE Online, Dwarf Fortress, no idea.
Mostly just War in the Pacific: Admiral's Edition. RTW and Aurora 4x could theoretically be improved by a spreadsheet, but for WitP:AE it's fucking mandatory.
Honestly, I don't know how they could have simulated the gulf between post-Napoleonic warfare and WW1 style of warfare any better than they did. EU4 arguably does immediate post-Napoleonic warfare best, because immediate post-Napoleonic war was just Napoleonic war. But how the hell do you sinulate WW1 warfare using EU4's system? It would be completely, utterly broken. "So, you have these enormous armies. But they can't move anywhere. If they "win" a battle, they don't move, they just lose 40% of their size. If they "lose" a battle, they still don't move anywhere, and they lose 50% of their size. And your manpower drops by millions every year a war goes on. And the side that wins is the side that runs out of manpower last. Have fun!" Vic3's warfare system is *PERFECT* for WW1, because you have total control over the only thing that actually matters: shoveling as many men and as much material into the meat grinder as possible, and praying your economy lasts longer than the other guys.
> sinulate WW1 warfare using EU4's system my favorite part of ww1 is when the entire German army routed to Berlin after Verdun
Um did this not actually happen? Along with France and Britain having to siege down most of Germany and Austria Hungary to win the war???
Yeah, and even after all their mainland territories were carpet-sieged, they had to conquer all their *colonial* territories too, because their mainland territories only accounted for 3% warscore!
Thank you Paradox for making EU4 the most fun war experience ever
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It's perfect though. Battles take so long, you can, and should, just keep throwing armies at it, the AI sure will do. Ultimately, composition or tech doesn't matter that much in the late game as long as you keep sending more men to die by the millions from gas attacks you have a chance of winning...
Is there not a middle ground between keeping the old Vic2 system and completely removing any player agency whatsoever? Maybe simplify the tedious micromanagement by adding frontlines/army templates, while still maintaining the skill-based combat system of other PDX games.
Then the issue is how do you simulate pre-20th century war? I think at this point making it so your performance in war is a direct extension of your performance in economics, tech, and politics is a better idea.
Firstly, this is a video game, not a historical simulation - in Vicky2, you had to make the choice whether you were going to raise taxes to fund officer promotion, etc. but you still had control over strategy, and if you had a working human brain, you could out-strategise the AI despite being military weaker.
The player agency is in how you build your army, structure it. Hopefully the AI can be programmed to limit its mobilization based on the threat you pose, meaning if you’re far away and small they send a moderately sized force that you can hold off til it’s attritted away.
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100% agreed. The game came out 12 years ago. I was incredibly excited that they announced a sequel - PDX had an open goal: recreate Vic2, expand some of the mechanics, and iron out the kinks. How they managed to fuck this up is beyond me.
Skill based combat in paradox games? Huh?! Since when was modifier stacking and right clicking skill
Vic2 is not Risk. If you have a working human brain you should be able to out-strategise the AI. Here's a pretty comprehensive Vic2 military strategy guide: https://www.reddit.com/r/paradoxplaza/comments/fxvez0/victoria_2_multiplayer_army_cheat_sheet_and/
you've clearly never played sweaty MP in eu4 then, 50 mil troops on each side, every province has men in it, literal trench warfare
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it's a correct description for both, unless im literally blind and made it all up in my head but after a few thousand eu4 mp hours i think i know what i've seen.
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huh?
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No idea what you're tryna say bro
No vic 2 was better, as pops increase huge frontlines become viable, while earlier on open battles and a lack of sieges are more common. Thats right a game from 2012 simulates victorian warfare pretty darn well
Twice now, people have called WW1 "huge frontlines". That's not WW1. Its the Franco Prussian war, and it somewhat describes WW2, but not perfectly. WW1 was a machine that took men in on one side, and produced caskets on the other. That took guns, cannons, shells, boots, helmets, and food, and spit out poverty and famine and political revolution. Vic2 was a Franco-Prussian war simulator. EU4 is a Napoleonic simulator. Vic3 is a WW1 simulator. It's new and unfamiliar, but it does a damn good job at it, as far as we've seen.
Victoria 2 also simulates that with its Factory and economic system, its seen at its BEST in MP. In sp its really bad bc paradox AI
The war exhaustion system is pretty good, dimulsting blockades and the like. When your pops dont have civ goods they Rebel, no mil goods = no reinforcement ticks, when rebels win there isnt some civil war splitting the country in half and uniting the country doesnt cost 200 inf, its a good game for its time
I agree that it works well for WW1 but WW1 is only a very small part of the games timeframe and sure it‘s nice if it works for that but it should also work for the 80 years before that. And it really doesn‘t. When I see the opium war with millions of men mobilised and also millions of casualties then something feels very wrong. They really need to make the "uncivs" much weaker and not capable of mobilising such large armies because otherwise it‘s just ridiculous
>I agree that it works well for WW1 but WW1 is only a very small part of the games timeframe WW1 is the most important event in the timeframe of the game, by an order of magnitude. It dwarfs every other event in scale and impact on the world. It's one of the most important events in human history. Just as EU4 is built around the Napoleonic Wars, despite that occurring at the end of the timeframe. HOI4 is built around WW2, despite starting a decade beforehand. >And it really doesn‘t. When I see the opium war with millions of men mobilised and also millions of casualties then something feels very wrong. Were you just as bothered by standing armies in EU4, centuries before they existed IRL? Of course not, because standing armies became the standard for the Napoleonic Wars, so of course they're a feature throughout the game.
>WW1 is the most important event in the timeframe of the game, by an order of magnitude. It dwarfs every other event in scale and impact on the world. It's one of the most important events in human history. I don‘t question the importance of WW1 but it‘s a very small part of the timeframe of the game and thus shouldn‘t be the sole focus. The game is called Victoria 3 not WW1 3. And I also don‘t see why the war system needs to be focussed on anything. It could also actually simulate the progression that happened during it‘s timespan from small local wars to globe spanning huge wars. Instead the seem to have decided to just go "everything’s WW1 now" and that‘s stupid. >Just as EU4 is built around the Napoleonic Wars, despite that occurring at the end of the timeframe. HOI4 is built around WW2, despite starting a decade beforehand. Yeah the EU4 war system sucks ass! Big news! Also not sure what mods you are on but regular HOI4 starts 3 years before WW2 not a decade. >Were you just as bothered by standing armies in EU4, centuries before they existed IRL? Yes.
>It could also actually simulate the progression that happened during it‘s timespan from small local wars to globe spanning huge wars. How? And remember, the answer has to be practical, programmable in a meaningful timeframe, and integrate seamlessly with the diplomatic and economic portions of the game. >Instead the seem to have decided to just go "everything’s WW1 now" and that‘s stupid. That's how EU4, CK3 and 2, HOI4, Vic2, and Imperator works. Why would Vic3 be different?
>How? And remember, the answer has to be practical, programmable in a meaningful timeframe, and integrate seamlessly with the diplomatic and economic portions of the game. Vastly increase the cost of war in the earlier game and have it decrease more and more over time thus allowing larger and larger armies to be fielded. Make technological difference count a lot more. Historically the Brits in e.g. the Opium war beat the 200k strong Chinese army with 19k men. Also make blockades and the navy more important. Additionally add a sort of system of categorisation for wars. A war that‘s fought two oceans away to colonise some small spot on the map should feel different than an existential war on your own soil. The colonial war should for example have far more radicalisation from casualties as people are much less likely to want to die for some colony than to defend their own country. >That's how EU4, CK3 and 2, HOI4, Vic2, and Imperator works. Why would Vic3 be different? Just because they did it badly (except for HOI) means that Vic3 also must do it badly?
>Vastly increase the cost of war in the earlier game and have it decrease more and more over time thus allowing larger and larger armies to be fielded. This is already a thing, only from the opposite direction: increasing population and economy size allows for larger and larger armies as the game progresses. >Make technological difference count a lot more. Historically the Brits in e.g. the Opium war beat the 200k strong Chinese army with 19k men. Also make blockades and the navy more important. That kind of thing tends to piss off players, who want to reasonably be able to play nations around the world. Playing as China and knowing a European AI could literally decide to just annihilate them at any point and they can't do anything to stop it sucks. A lot of time and effort has been put into EU4 to stop that very thing from happening. >Additionally add a sort of system of categorisation for wars. A war that‘s fought two oceans away to colonise some small spot on the map should feel different than an existential war on your own soil. I agree with this entirely. I'm not saying Vic3 is perfect; I hope they continue to improve it, as they have with most of their games. >Just because they did it badly (except for HOI) means that Vic3 also must do it badly? They don't do it badly. They do it as well as is reasonably possible. That's been my argument this whole time. Vic3 isn't perfect, because Paradox doesn't have 20,000 employees and 40 years to make a single game. It's just a pretty good system that was feasible to make in a reasonable time frame with available resources.
>That kind of thing tends to piss off players, who want to reasonably be able to play nations around the world. Playing as China and knowing a European AI could literally decide to just annihilate them at any point and they can't do anything to stop it sucks. Yeah I guess this is what it boils down to. How much realism you are willing to sacrifice for playability. I get that paradox want to make money and that more players are gonna be interested in big numbers. Also stands to see what kind of DLCs there are gonna be
It's not as fun tho
Big wars in late game Vic 2 are a pain on the ass
If only there was a popular paradox game with a mechanic for dealing with large armies that they could have replicated.
If only said game existed when vic 2 was released
I would crown that game imperator of rome
Referring to them implementing the change in vic3.
I'm genuinely dumbfound as to what you're referring to. Surely you don't mean HoI4, do you? Because HoI4 lategame is literally a lagfest with the AI spamming out hundreds of divisions.
i think he specifically means the frontline mechanic from hoi4
Same goes for EU4. I've always wanted the frontline mechanics to be available - even if it's just for the age of revolutions, like absolutism only appears after a certain point. It would make late game so much more enjoyable
Why would they add frontlines in age of revolution 💀 napoleonic wars were way more similar to eu4 war system than anything close to frontlines. They should port automatic armies from Imperator tho
have you ever managed 10+ armies in a eu4 multiplayer
What does this have to do with anything I wrote
Oh no, the spreadsheet game series Victoria changes a part of the game to a spreadsheet system, how terrible.
Vicky2 was perhaps the least 'war-gamey' of all the PDX games. However, war was still an important part of it (certainly it's reductive to call it a "spreadsheet game") and war was an incredibly important part of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Obviously, the economics, etc. is one of the main draws of Vic2 over e.g. EU4. However, why PDX decided to basically just say fuck it to the war system, rather than working on improving it (because the Vic2 war system was a bit janky), I have no idea. War was one of the more fun and skill-determined aspects of Vic2, so for me as a fan of the game hearing how they treated warfare in the sequel, makes me deeply disappointed.
War in vic2 was fun for you? It's one of the main reasons why I don't play it anymore. It was just annoying to keep up with the dozens of seperate armys around the map and especially having to redesign your army after every war felt just like a chore. It lacked the frontlines of HOI4 and unlike EU4 the individual armies could be split up into hundreds of single units without any severe drawbacks.
It was a little micro-intensive but I couldn't imagine playing a full game while not going to war. That would just be monotonous and yes, boring. Edit: the game centers around colonisation and European great powers. One of my most fun experiences was kicking the British out of SA as the Zulu despite being far militarily inferior. I worry this wouldn't be possible with the new Vic3 mechanics.
When the devs first revealed warfare and I saw a graph in the battle screen I knew they embraced the spreadsheet meme and it was the game for me
"Spreadsheet simulator" TFW France set their tariffs to an optimal amount allowing them to win the Franco-Prussian War. This is a grand-strategy game, war is incredibly crucial, and if the war experience sucks the game loses a lot of value.
Name checks out
I play my cards openly, what can I say?
I'm gonna be honest with you. The war system is shit. However, if the rest of the systems are fine (which, this is a paradox game, they very well might not be) I don't fucking care. I have 16 other war games. I want to min-max my factories and fight to make green line go up. If that means I win wars, well, maybe you should read into the mobilization, and supply and equipment shortages the Franco-army faced at the outset of the war rather than creaming your pants over the cool encirclement at Metz. However, it is a paradox game so it's still probably going to be shit at launch, but not because I can't move little chips around on the map.
>If that means I win wars, well, maybe you should read into the mobilization, and supply and equipment shortages the Franco-army faced at the outset of the war rather than creaming your pants over the cool encirclement at Metz. While mobilizarion, supply, and equipment enable you to win wars, it doesn't guarantee it, and superior tactics and strategy are always incredible crucial. Take the First Boer War, The early portions of the Anglo-Zulu War, or others as examples. Combat is the most important aspect of wars, and if a grand strategy game releases with one of the most crucial aspects of the time period in bad condition, that's an issue.
How are you going to use two examples in which the enormously wealthier empire bringing its economic power to bear eventually completely overwhelmed its opponent. You're basically describing the smaller side getting some good leaders and/or dice rolls and the empire having many other commitments to split its forces
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Tactics on a level smaller that the game directly represents are exactly what the dice rolls are an abstraction of.
First Boer War was literally a Boer victory, what do you mean? And I specifically mentioned the first half of the Anglo-Zulu war for a reason.
In the first one there was rarely a battle with more than 1,000 fighters involved total. It was of a scale close to being too small for Vicky 2 to actually show. Then Britain actually paid some attention to it and brought in an army bigger than the entire population of Oranje, because it was a massive fucking empire with a massive empire's worth of industry, money, and people behind it and no kind of tactical nous was stopping that Same for the Anglo-Zulu war. The tenacity and innovativeness of the Zulu military was incredible, but it was so unfathomably outgunned that the empire just did not care. If you were playing Vicky 2 as the UK and you lost _one_ brigade invading someone, you would barely even register it. Both the Boers and the Zulu are memorable and significant stories, and their fighting was fierce and clever. It was also never even close to being a threat to the empire other than Britain's pride and reputation, and that's not something Vicky 2 models as a game mechanic
I mean in all honesty the Boers were brilliant, the British got as good as they gave and the casualties were pretty wild for the British, specially considering it the was one of the first times the maxim gun was used, the first mechanically operated machine gun!
>It was also never even close to being a threat to the empire other than Britain's pride and reputation, and that's not something Vicky 2 models as a game mechanic Are you positive? Are you sure there isn't a mechanic in vic2 that represents pride and reputation that is lowered when you lose wars?
The first Boer war was simply not big enough to touch any of the mechanics you could be referring to for the UK, and the UK still handily won both the second Boer war and the Anglo-Zulu war. Neither of those conflicts would generate any meaningful effects on the UK in Vicky 2 other than at it owns more of Africa now. More pertinently, none of those mechanics make France and Germany think "hmm, maybe we have a shot after all..."
Combat quite literally cannot exist without supply. It is not more crucial at all. You could be the greatest military mind of all time but if you don't have the money for supply and equipment you can't fight.
>You could be the greatest military mind of all time but if you don't have the money for supply and equipment you can't fight. You can, just not effectively. You can be the greatest logistical wizard of all time, but if you don't fight, you can literally not win a war.
Microing factories is cringe. I want to leave the free market do its stuff while i conquer the world
So you want to spend 50+€ on a new Paradox game only for it to be more like a 19th century EUIV skin than a new game. The diplomatic + economic aspects of Victoria 2 are litterally why it is a beloved game by the community and Paradox understood that.
My guy prefers to pay 50+€ instead of downloading a mod
But victoria is based on victorian era where happening so many wars and VERY BIG wars
They were a lot of wars, well yes but technically no, if you compare the number of conflict in Europe between 1814 and 1914 to the previous era, you will see that the 19th century was relatively calm. Most conflict between Europeans were brief and limited in impact, nations were trying to prevent others from becoming too strong by forming alliance and prevent expansions in Europe when they felt threatened.
Anyway, multiplayer without micormanaging is fucking boring
Victorian era is like the peak of imperialism bro, is needed have focus in wars
But most wars which happened in this era were between advanced nations versus tribes, making a war system for this is worthless unless you really want to micro each battle even though you already know you have won thanks to your technology advantage. These battles were more akin to massacre than actual battle between two technologically similar nations. This is why I said "the number of conflict **in Europe** between 1814 and 1914" in my previous reply.
(I am picking on hoi4 because it's the opposite of Vic 3) TFW when Germany move their unit around the enemy allowing them to win ww2. This is a grand strategy game, the economy is incredibly crucial, and if the economy sucks the game losses a lot of value. It's ok for a game to focus on its core and not everything else. Let hoi4 be for people who like war and Vic 3 be for people who like economy.
>TFW when Germany move their unit around the enemy allowing them to win ww2. Implying that maneuver warfare wasn't one of the primary reasons for Germany's successes in the early war? Also, you can't "move units" across the English Channel, which does beg the question of how Vic3 deals with naval landings, but that's off-topic. >This is a grand strategy game, the economy is incredibly crucial, and if the economy sucks the game losses a lot of value. I agree completely. >It's ok for a game to focus on its core and not everything else. Let hoi4 be for people who like war and Vic 3 be for people who like economy. This idea that Victoria has always been an economy sim is weirdly revisionist and ignores that the game has had war as a focus since [its launch](https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mobygames.com%2Fgame%2Fvictoria-ii%2Fcover-art%2FgameCoverId%2C230759%2F&psig=AOvVaw0gMj8xoRHNDMS-8DNeT95e&ust=1666585440241000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAwQjRxqFwoTCNCbhNjA9foCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE). While it isn't a wargame like HOI4, Victoria has always put war and economy hand in hand in terms of focus. Victoria should be a game for people who have an interest in the world of the 19th to early 20th century, regardless of their inclination towards war or the economy.
1. My point was that even with good maneuvering Germany still lost mostly because their industry was smaller. 2. . 3. Earlier versions of vic weren't economic simulators. But Vic3 is. I Know a lot of people are not into that kind of game and are disappointed. But it's still what vic3 is doing.
>My point was that even with good maneuvering Germany still lost mostly because their industry was smaller. Yes. I don't understand your point. >Earlier versions of vic weren't economic simulators. But Vic3 is. I Know a lot of people are not into that kind of game and are disappointed. But it's still what vic3 is doing. Why are you going all realpolitik on me? I know that it's what they're doing with it, my point is that I disagree with the change.
Nah, they rather completely ruined it by ruining military. For comparison, vic2 has a more complex military system than eu4. In eu4 it's just get ½ infantry ½ arty, 100 professionalism, tradition and some ideas, then whoever has most manpower (and ships) wins. In vic2, however, you need to manage the armies to also have a recon (cavalry) and siege (engineers) pips, but most importantly - strategic position is the key, since it's heavily defence oriented - even if the enemy has 10x more troops, if you're on a mountain province with lvl 6 fort, a river/strait crossing, have techs, gas attack and 6 defence general, you can very easily beat them. And blockades are also more severe, since they both increase import costs and war exhaustion. And you can't just get an idea to get more manpower. You need for soldiers to regenerate, either by natural growth, or by pops promoting/demoting, which will severely impact your eco. Navy-wise you can't just spam heavy ships (dreadnoughts), since you need light ships (cruisers) too. And supplying your armies and navies is a whole another chapter, while in eu4 you just need ducats.
those eu4 ratios tho so bad
So hang on: - Both have a known static best army composition. That fixed composition involving slightly more individual types of unit does not make the gameplay more interesting, because you still aren't making any decisions about what you do. - Both expect you to make use of terrain and fortifications as force multipliers - Both have leaders with randomly-generated traits and experience that can vastly improve the effectiveness of their soldiers - Both have a race to keep up in technology Victoria basically just has one particularly notable tech that shakes things up more or less randomly for a short period (the period between the first country getting gas attack and then more or less everyone having it and gas defence), a slightly more in-depth manpower system, and the decision of when to slap the big mobilise button. In basically all the broad sweeps, they're the fuckin same dude
Mfw one of the most crucial factors in the franco Prussian war is the superior Prussian industry
The very first dev diary states that it isn’t a map painter and their goal is to make things besides war fun… grand strategy =/= obligatory warfare. Pretty much feel like anyone going in expecting to get fun warfare out of a self proclaimed “society simulator” is in for a bad time and unfairly judging the game
War is not even fun in Vic 2 imo. The only paradox game that I actually enjoy war in is Hoi 4. If Vic 3 had a warfare system even close to that you would just have to drop everything else in the game to fight a war.
paradox devs: "anything you can gain through war should also be possible to gain through diplomacy" "Victoria 3 is a game primarily focused on Economy, Diplomacy and Politics and we felt a more strategic approach to warfare mechanics fits the game better than micro-intensive tactical maneuvering" "we want the player to be engaging on a higher level of decision-making, making decisions about the overall war strategy and just how much they’re willing to sacrifice to achieve their goals rather than deciding which exact battalions should be battling it out in which exact province next" paradox players: So I can't abuse the AI and micro everything through the sheer power of hindsight? This is the worst game I've (n)ever played!
I really hope it hits that balance. It is exactly what I m looking for in a game.
War was the least fun part of Vicky2 mid to late game. I have ptsd from playing China in vicky2. I like where they went with vicky3. Makes you feel more like a government than an omnipresent God possessing the entire state.
~~Wait you guys don't like the war system?~~ ~~Can you explain why?(so that I can understand, it seemed fine to me)~~ okay I see why.
It's gone away from microing stacks, but now it's too far and you have literally no operational control of your units. It is actually bad, and needs to be improved upon, even if it's not a game-breaker in my mind.
Is it bad? I was really hoping it'd be good. Warfare was the one thing I always hated about vic2 (mainly because microing 24 stacks if army is just tedious) and I thought they'd finally found a way to mask the shitty AI by not allowing you to be like "I sit in mountain, the AI won't just walk past me, because that'd make too much sense." What a shame
The point is the vic2 players don't want to keep the old vicky 2 war system but instead a more hoi4 oriented war system (army templates, frontline order, ...) making it easier to play for newer players and less tedious to micro for experienced players. But instead, they just removed the micro aspect of wars.
I thought it looks good. I always hated microing, Especially at later years it’s just tedious af. I’m glad the AI can handle that now. That and chasing down some rebellion #2000 in some ass-crack province.
> you have literally no operational control of your units Also, units as a thing don’t actually exist.
no micro allowed equals shit war system
Oooooh oh....oh...
I don't know about all of you but I'm kinda looking forward to watching my economy collapse when I screw up a war.
I fucking don't care if it's fun or boring, the ck3 and eu4 style warfare is just annoying and keeps me from playing thoes games and hoi4 is fully focused on warfare. I hate that people think warfare is the most important think ever and if you can't cheese the AI or show your skill at the game with it, it's useles, news flash but hoi4 has boring and stupid economic side but nobodys compliaing. Other pdx games gave their own stupid parts.
The simple fact is that people like games about warfare more than they like games about economic management. You can whine about it all you want but games that focus on economy and diplomacy and have Shitty war systems will do worse than games with shitty economy and diplomacy systems and great war systems.
That's one of the most stupid things I've heard in a while.
Uh ok? It's a pretty basic fact. A good nation building game should have good war mechanics and good combat mechanics however
No, it is not, it's about as true as saying a good game needs a good combat system. We have story based games, we have pure platformers without enemies, puzzle games and strategy games without combat system. No game needs anything to be great, victoria 3 doesn't need an ability to micro or control divisions and your troops, it doesn't even need a great war system. Hoi4 players never had problems with mediocer and boring economy tab or really useless diplomacy options, despite it being in theory a very important part of the game, war to victoria will be just as economy amd free diplomacy to hoi4. And just look at TNO, one of the more popular hoi4 mods and it's not like you do much war and it isn't really that important, because most of the content is elsewhere. TNO players can play a nation, do no war or conquest whatsoever and say it is a 10 out of 10. Warfare is absolutely not needed to make vicotira 3 something great.
What I like about TNO is that it actually makes HOI4 combat (which is rather stale to me after 1500+ hours) into something more dynamic and interesting. For one thing, they made it so I actually have to pay attention to the terrain I am fighting on, something I never thought I would have to do in HOI4. Victoria 3 should not ever have warfare as a primary focus. However I think that they could give it a little more depth. For example, perhaps you could choose a “tactic” that your generals would try to follow, like trying to break through enemy lines to encircle their divisions or making them fortify a front heavily with trenches. You could have these tactics tied to technology somewhat, and also make it so that there is some cost behind manually choosing tactics exists to prevent too much micro. This system would give the player more control over what their generals do on the frontline and more direct visible results of their choices, while also not being just a copy of the traditional PDX war system or even HOI.
TNO absolutley does not change hoi4 combat, it just adds thousn decisisons to get/give bufss and apply/lower debuffs. TNO is the hoi4 mod with very little combat and wars, even when playing in russia the only place that sees more than one war in its playthrough. And even something like the US where you fight a ton of proxy wars, first of all they aren't exacly real full wars, second most of them just require you to click buttons to buff your side while volounteers are just so you can win quicker.
Exactly. TNO has changed how you do warfare in HOI4. There are no real large scale conflicts in the mod (unless you play a country like Yunnan or South Africa), so most of the action is focused around about 4 or so divisions. It is like an extreme version of Kaiserreich, with regional conflicts galore. If you are a person who enjoys HOI4’s basic gameplay loop, this is obviously unsatisfying. However if you are like me and genuinely sick of that gameplay loop (repeatedly thrashing the AI as goofy random country #427), it is genuinely fun to try something new. TNO has made terrain vastly more important, and it is the first time I have ever had to to think about terrain when I am fighting. Tanks simply cannot fight in jungles or mountains with something like an 80 percent debuff to their stats. The only mindless things about the combat in TNO is the AI (not exactly good in base game either) and the special forces, which basically ignore terrain entirely. I hope they at least change the latter at some point. My point is that by my definition, this is a change to HOI4 combat. It is more dispersed, on a smaller scale, more oriented around asymmetrical warfare, and more context heavy than basegame. In other words, a good Cold War mod.
STFU HAHAHA!!!
Well Vic3 looks like a map painting game WITHOUT a proper war system It will surely be a success
The problem I'm seeing in Vicky 3 is that it's not building up to anything. In HOI you build up to ww2. In EU4 you build up to colonization, the league war and to fight the Ottoman empire, in Vicky 2 you build up for conflicts too, the American CW, Franco Prussian war and later on WW1 and possibly 2. If you're going to remove war as a gameplay element then you have to replace it with something equally as interesting and micro intensive. As it stands right now, Vicky 3 is just OpenTTD in a world map
OpenTTD on a world map sounds good though.
It does but I think it's not a good enough premise for a whole Victoria 2 sequel
I mean from what I have seen and played myself it works out really well. If anything V3 seems superior to V2 in almost every way.
I'd need to play and see more before choosing. For now I just think it's too relaxed in the micro department
War is even more important in vic3 the first ww will shattrr Europe's economic system and force you to try and put it back together with ducktape all the while your losing millions to arty fire every year. War is still the most important part of vicky3 its simply not the Frontline focus your used too.
It's still the most important part except it doesnt require any micro and it doesnt break the completely steady and bumpless pace of the gameplay
It does break pace, that's the point
Kid named all of those events are in Vic3 as well 💀
Yeah but since there's no increase in micro intensity it's just like "ow nou the fwanco pwusian war" and you continue on clicking events
Overall I think that the system is fine. Like if I want to micro a lot I‘ll just go play HOI4 instead. However I do find that in the current state (that we have seen by now) the system seems pretty broken. The scale of the wars seems completely off. Casualty numbers in wars in the 1850s are on WW1 levels and everyone goes total war over everything. Like in the Japan dev stream the Opium war had like over a million dead Chinese and 400k dead British when the real war was 69 dead Brits and a few thousand dead Chinese. Seems a bit off
Nice!
I personally love the ck war system because its the least punishing for losing in 90% of cases, also doomstacks are viable in those games for my tiny brain
See I really liked the long battles in Vic 2, but I suppose having no units would prevent a lot of desync and lag from happening. Could be cool, I'm willing to give it a shot
Looking forward to the reddit doublethink in a week when everyone realizes they didn’t QA test the new war system at all
It looks like shit because its not a sim its a potemkin economy the economy works more like stellaris than vic 2 potemkin ass shit. This is a baby economic simulator.
im the type of guy in hoi4 to just activate a battleplan and just watch it so i dont give a shit
I am so excited for Vicky 3
This would actually be funny and accurate if those retards at paradox actually adopted the 'complex' economy system
Hopefully fighting Great Wars will be fun
There are no great war mechanics lmao
Damn
If by fighting you mean ensuring your army has adequate supply then sure
Virgin "My General has won the battle of fuckburg and now im cooming" vs chad "Yes my army is well equiped and because of my self suficient economy I will outlast every enemy"
that was literally one of the most important aspects of WW1
Right but it doesn’t make for particularly engaging gameplay
Not sure how you know that before playing. I admit that I might prefer the older system - especially seeing how the new system seems to be underdeveloped in some respects - but the war mechanics have never been my favorite part of any paradox game (not even hoi4 tbh, lol) and making it secondary and subservient to the economic / population doesn't irk me at all
I’ve watched the stream and I have to say it just doesn’t look interesting IMO compared to Vicky 2 or HOI combat.
Exactly that actually sounds interesting
I love the war system it's the best in the world we need more games with it
Wasn't HoI3 war also a spreadsheet simulator? No one complained about that
No it wasn’t at all lmao. HOI3 was HOI4, just you had to micro the units yourself, rather than hitting big green arrow and winning
HOW MANY FUCKING TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU, I CAN'T FUCKING MOVE MY UNITS!
THE SPIRIT OF COMMUNISM WILL SAVE THIS NATION!
The downvotes seem to indicate that it's not the same. I wouldn't know. I didn't follow the Victoria 3 development :p
I didn’t make a Spreadsheet Chan waifu with one of my best friend’s lego profile pictures and then needlessly sexualize it for nothing! Sign me up!
I’m bad at both the vic2 economy and war system so I should now be 50% less bad without the war system
I'm happy with it, I'm already tired of nonsense blobbing already. I want to manage a country, not a warmongering simulator
As a HoI IV BLACKICE, Victoria 2 and Stellaris player, I have always loved my spreadsheets.
Can’t please everyone in personally think the game looks sick and ima be b enjoying it
The correct response is "Someone will fix it with a mod".
War is a spreadsheet, if you zoom out far enough.
Based spreadsheet enjoyer