/games/ - Games

this game fucking sucks and that's okay because a dedicated team of autists are making an open source vicky 2

>>25552
>thinking vicky2 is better than vicky3
Vicky3 has problems, but it's nowhere near as janky and broken as vicky2. Vicky3's economy doesn't just permanently shit itself midgame for everyone except the great powers because it literally just runs out of resources.

Some of the systems in Vicky3 are just a straight upgrade over Vicky2. Take Westernization.

Vicky2: "Uncivilized" nations are populated by a bunch of ill tempered chimps that hate it when you give them roads, schools and land reforms that pulls them out of feudal serfdom because it goes against muh old ways. Your nation will sit permanently at near-maximum turmoil until these semi-human baboons fully embrace "Westernization" mentally and spiritually, at which point they suddenly see why not being a illiterate serf forever is actually a good thing and the turmoil vanishes. The only way around this is to embrace muh old ways and essentially trick your population into Westernizing, but it will take you the whole goddamn game to do so because your research will now trickle in at an absolute snail's pace. There is nothing you can do while you're Westernizing other than Westernize, it's a 100% waiting simulator.

Vicky3: As an "unrecognized" nation, you're a bit behind the times technologically and have a very antiquated government, typically dominated by an entrenched landowner interest group which completely dominates the state. The game revolves around slowly dicking over the landowners to get the reforms you need to modernize and eventually have a standoff with the Western powers to gain recognition.

>>25553
so meiji japan lol

>>25553
I dunno, Westernization (as poorly as it is framed) does make a lot of historical sense, with a lot of the lower and middle classes having a very clear realization of the prospects of capitalism leading to the loss of their societal position and monetary security leading them to want to revolt against its implementation, like a much more militant version of the Luddites. It's just that no Paradox game has any real way to model social unrest outside of open rebellion - which is especially funny considering its the fucking Victorian era, with the emergence of socialism, unions, strike-actions, ect. In Vicky 3 its just a single class of landholders which you oppose which is pretty ahistorical - craftsmen and upper-class but not landholding peasantry also had investment in the existing system and sought to uphold it, which shows how completely inflexible their "class but no politics" system is. The monolithic traits of a class in a given time completely determine their political outcomes when in reality there are always going to be multiple groups with different, conflicting interests even within the same class, something Vicky 2 models better. Also, you can speed up westernization through war, every conquest of another state brings you a lot of knowledge of westernization.

But really, the whole "Vicky 2 vs Vicky 3" discussion is retarded because everyone is comparing an idealized, modded Victoria 2 against Victoria 3, when in reality both Victoria 2 and Victoria 3 are pretty shit and are only redeemed in any real way through community modding efforts.
>>25558
Yeah, it seems like "Westernization" is heavily based around the Asian experience of it. You gotta remember that in Victoria 2 basegame there are incredibly few unwesternized nations. In Africa you have all of N. Africa and Arabia, then the Sokoto Caliphate, Ethiopia, Madagascar, and Zulu. In Asia you have the Qing + their substates, Japan, Punjab, various Indian minors (all with the same flavor), Korea, and a few SEA states. After that, there are very few uncivs - releasables like the Cherokee nation, Syria and Crimea, Hawaii, and some other small states. I'm almost certain there are more Westernized nations in the game than non-Westernized.

>>25552 (moi)
It's happening https://fbi.gov/CX24sxsc

1.2 beta looking pretty good so far. What say you, fellow gamers? My last game I had a lot of fun blowing up as porkie Belgium, hitting 40m pop without colonizing and then going commie.

>>26050
I've not played it but it looks like there are a lot of mods trying to bring back the mechanical diversity of Vicky 2 which is good. The biggest issue for me will still be the UI, which I think is almost unsalvageable hot garbage. Ultimately my biggest issue is ultimately going to be "even if it reaches mechanical parity with Vicky 2, its still just such an ass to play." It'll take something interesting for me to really consider it.

Personally I've been playing more CK3 with the Elder Kings mod, recently got disappointed cause there is no daedric princes mechanics yet.
>>25696
It's a neat project but this is the kind of stuff which takes years to make, so don't get super-excited for it coming out soon.

>>26085
I don't know what your fundamental problems with the mechanics are since I never played Vic2, but the upcoming 1.2 update looks really promising regarding the UX issues. The game's got a way to go but it seems like Pdx really are listening to fans and integrating existing mods in the game

>>26087
>>26050
First time Im hearing about it, will check it out. Honestly though I just want to see performance and game mechanics improved, was never bothered by the lack of flavor, and as much as the UI bothered me, I could stand it, because modders could help to alleviate those issues. Still, thanks for the heads up, will report my findings later
>>26085
>this is the kind of stuff which takes years to make
Definitely. I havent followed development yet knowing we're in the infancy stages but I sure am glad someones attempting it.
>>26087
>I don't know what your fundamental problems with the mechanics are since I never played Vic2
First of all, havent played in a while so maybe things have improved, but it just feels like a different game. I personally never micro managed my economy in V2, it was just one aspect of many in the larger GSG, whereas V3 tunnel visions on that one aspect so hard, to the expense of literally everything else, that is doesnt even feel like a GSG anymore. Sometimes I have an itch for that style of gameplay (its often compared to cookie clicker), but its not often
The game is so barren that, at this "early" (knowing the pace PDX moves at [looking at you CK3]) juncture it appears to be more of a shell to sell DLC through than a game,
and yes, after all of that, I probably sound butthurt, but idc really, picrel is the absolute state of my interest in gaming these days, so maybe im just being a grumpy old man. If people like it, im happy, at least the IP can live another day

>>26087
Aside from the UI?

The economy is heavily micro-focused while also not really having much interactivity, while making it so that factories can produce way more stuff than they actually tell you about so its hard to optimize without knowing all of the alternate production types ahead of time (and if the god-awful UI had a way to show you them, it was never evident). There are also a bajillion different farm types which I can only assume all accomplish the same thing, you could probably just condense them down into grain / fruit / cows / sheep, since they all feed into alcohol / wine / leather / cotton (and canned foods). Overall the economic system just needs a lot of optimization of production lines, since it was something that was always pretty clear in Vicky 2, where the most complex thing was like, making artillery or tanks. But really the economy is incredibly busted with the AI never growing its production or trying to compete for market monopolies, a lot of the time not even trying to pursue imperialism because Europe inexplicably has so many resources and they never build their economies tall enough to need to. It's like, they know the German migrant waves to the US were mostly German lumberjacks because they had literally scoured mainland Europe of all their trees, right? Why does everyone get to have the same lumber output as is possible in fucking Brazil?
The war mechanics are stupid both on the level of how they are waged but also how they affect politics, liberation wars as like, Serbia trying to rescue your own people from Austria will net you the exact same amount of political dissidents as if you had just conquered a random place. There is no greater socio-political context to wars. Forming nations is almost irrelevant cause you can enact a law which makes you accept all cultures anyways, so cultural acceptance of all the people in the Balkans as Yugoslavia does not matter like it used to, you can already just do that as Serbia. Really the entire politics/law system is very cookie-cutter and basically ahistorical, imagine like fucking 1840's America just reconsidering like "oh maybe we shouldn't be hyper-racist" and deciding against the Trail of Tears. It's all just so… incredibly odd, like they refuse to believe that there are social mechanisms which enforced these divisions for concrete political and material outcomes, instead believing its just "a few bad actors."

Of course those are just my top 3, there are always a load of smaller things that annoy me just as much when they show up.

Honestly just hate this game which is hilarious because I was doing the "victoria 3 when?" meme for years now
The main game play loop (making line go up) is tedious, everything else feels like it was haphazardly tacked on (literally true for the entire electoral politics aspect of it), and theres so little flavour that every country feels the same in a game with dozens of playable "characters".
Still, Im going to try the 1.2 beta now. Anyone have a country they find fun to play? I feel like I fucked up playing the Ottomans first because it turns out they have the most flavour

How are we feeling about 1.2 beta? I'm excited for 1.2.3. Looks like the game will be in a much better position for feature expansion after the update drops in 3 days.

>>26734
It's still in beta?

They're adding Max Stirner to 1.3

>>27681
uygha had blond hair and blue eyes

>>23655
It got horrible reviews because bugs. Its probably in same condition as Victoria 2 was when it was released. Going to consoooom it in maybe after a year.

>>27681
What the fuck man.

>>27865
honestly bugs aren't even the problem really, it's just flavourless and boring

i played as italy, when i won the revolution by 1932, i tried to get autocracy to make a true marxist-leninist country when this happened.

>>27866
Anarchists in the studio are huge memers. Don't recommend checking EU4's Dithmarschen mission tree if you're allergic.

>>27681
I'm sorry but if it isn't the Engels Drawing of Max Striner then it is a failure. If I had this game I would get a mod just to put that picture in, you can't put spook buster and make him not a drawing that we all memed for all these years.

>>27896
fascism is just communism confirmed

>>27900
Shitty bad copy of communism synchronized calisthenics is our thing so are the cool uniforms and bombast
Fucking plagiarists

>>27901
lol

>>27898
Dithmarschen is kinda stupid, but also lots fun. You gotta let anarchoids of the hook this once

1.5 open beta looks pretty good, I'm particularly impressed by the changes being made to military gameplay and the introduction of the local market mechanic. Combined with the upcoming colonialism rework in the first expansion (which is admittedly a while away) the game seems to be headed in an alright direction imo. Provided some much-needed flavor gets added too, it might actually be worth playing around this time next year. What do you guys think?

holy fuck this game. 90% of the game the labor unions clout is below 1 %. then towards the year 1900 they start to get a bit of momentum, so i look at the population groups they attract so that i can increase them and thereby increase their clout. i build a ton of factories and shit and just barely get them above 5%. then the next election the immediately drop back down below 3%. for some fucking reason a ton of them were attracted to the titborg interest group. wtf

>>31965
I mean their popularity doesn't even matter does it? You can just add them to the government anyway.

>>31965
you need to raise literacy with higher education institution levels and the Social Mobility decree, fully saturate your labor force with jobs so that there are no more Peasants, and change your production methods to ones that create more Machinists. Bolster the Trade Union IG too, once you've done all that they'll be at least 15% clout assuming your voting system isn't completely weighted towards wealth (or you have a voting system at all)

>>31966
most government types have a big penalty to legitimacy for including ideologically incoherent interest groups, and low clout makes it worse; plus, the clout of the IG is what determines how easy it is to pass laws the IG wants. if you're trying to pass Council Republic with a Trade Union with 3% clout, it'll have like a 3% chance to succeed each roll, 60% stall and 37% debate

>>32012
You can try to pass the bill until it fires a civil war and then win it or something idk thats what I did

to back the industrialist IG and institute lasseiz-faire and wealth voting is a deal with the devil. it may look like progress towards dethroning the landowners and church, but these fuckers entrench themselves and hold your government by the balls all the while crashing your economy with no survivors because part of your construction goes into "private construction" (aka construction of random buildings in random places) making it impossible to control prices of goods and keep industries profitable so that you can fill their cash reserves and increase your credit.

once victoria 3 gets way better war systems….why would i play hoi4 or even eu4 when vicky 3 exists. Especially since with vicky 3 mod support theres oging to be ww2 and 1600s-1700s mods? hmm

playing as mexico these dumbass commies force me to change from professional army to national militia or else they through a bitch fit (revolution). so i change to national militia, and of course, as soon as i do the USA declares war on me taking advantage of my massively downsized army

>>32711
If it is a matter of survival and you is threatened, crush them in revolution (if you dont mind reactionary IGs taking over your nation) it is somehow easier to beat the americans and the revolution with professional army than soloing the yanks with national militia (they have more pops and immigration)

Marx can't be even more base…

Is this game dead?

I've noticed modders dropping support for this game, and that's bad when all the AI mods are now out of date with the current version of the game. The AI is fundamentally broken.

Without mods, the diplomacy AI is going to make it so that you're randomly backstabbed by allies and great powers intervene against you randomly in diplomatic plays for no apparent reason. What's more, the AI has no clue how to run its economy, which can make snowballing really easy with a nation that has access to all the resources it needs, but also really difficult if you're a nation that doesn't, because you cannot import the resources you need for your economy because the AI likely isn't producing them. And I'm not talking about niche resources like dyes and rubber either. The AI regularly will let provinces producing key industrial resources like coal, iron and sulfur lie fallow the entire game. This means that not only is importing these goods expensive, you often literally cannot import enough of them and run a deficit anyway.

I hope that Sphere of Influence makes major changes to the AI or at least brings back the modders.

>>32917
I checked steam player count, its doing the worst out of all modern Paradox grand strategy titles, with exception of Imperator. So I really dont think Paradox is going to be investing greatly reworking core mechanics, which is the only thing that could fix this game.

>>27965
Class consciousness rising.

>>32919
depends anon the recent update boosted the average player numbers.
Meanwhile skylines 2 is rapidly falling to 3 numbers

>>32928
skylines 2 is approaching the 10,000 mark which is around vic 3 numbers
https://steamcharts.com/app/949230
https://steamcharts.com/app/529340

colonialism/imperialism is a broken strat. it's literally impossible to keep up with the world powers that in it. that's historically accurate for the time period. and because the game has a hard time limit there is not enough time in the game for the contradictions to come to a boiling point.

>>34381
>with the world powers that in it
that engage in it*

>>34381
Okay. Is there an issue?

>>34408
I was going to say maybe it should be longer, but here
https://www.old-games.com/download/4428/stalin-s-dilemma
Have this masterpiece