Victoria 3: is it worth buying?
Finally, we are very close to the launch of the new title from Paradox Interactive! But is it worth buying Victoria 3?
The title has been known to fans of large-scale strategy games for a long time, but one question remains: is it worth shelling out the money?
In this article, we’ll talk about its positives and negatives to help undecided people clear their doubts.
Read also: The 16 best multiplayer games for Android!
Victoria 3: what is it?
Based on world history from the period between 1836 and 1936, the game is the newest addition to the renowned Victoria series.
Its announcement has been awaited by the community for many years since the release of the last DLC from its previous version, Victoria II, in September 2013.
Like its predecessor, Victoria 3 (Vic3 or Vicky 3 for the ones in the known) offers us a complete map of the world, with a complex political landscape rich in choices.
It is possible to establish broader voting rights in Sweden, reform tax laws in Brazil, and abolish slavery in the United States without starting a civil war. The game offers a wide variety of choices that allow us to reconsider what our reality would be like today if history had taken different directions.
The player can choose to invest in all these grand ambitions or just focus on industrialization and trade and establish a strong economy for their nation of choice. There’s always something to build on during Vic3 sessions.
Railway networks to transport iron ore, universities to encourage innovation and national scientific production and more ports to import and export precious resources.
There is also no lack of construction options that allow the extraction of raw materials or that offer some logistical advantage, such as loggers, barracks and farms.
Victoria 3: a building simulator?
The Victoria series games, however, are not limited to construction simulators. According to the game’s creative director, Martin Anward, Victoria 3 is a game about agency.
No matter which nation you choose to lead, it will always have a diverse community with its own goals, abilities and challenges to its exercise of power.
As your nation’s circumstances change over time, these groups will find ways to band together or come into conflict.
Understanding how much power you have and how much you need to cooperate with these groups is essential to being successful in the game, no matter what your goals are.
For example, in the course of a match, you may switch to a more efficient filing process for government officials to expand your tax capacity and make your work more efficient. For that, more bureaucrats and officials are needed – but the education system you have is non-existent and more than half of the country is illiterate!
It is possible to build public schools and displease aristocrats and members of the clergy, powerful and influential groups in the country, making the approval of this project almost impossible in the short term.
Victoria 3: content and gameplay
There’s a flood of content in Victoria 3, and the developers put on a show of accessibility in its interface.
The new lens system provides multiple shortcuts, allowing you to quickly access data from trade, military, politicians and more.
Expanded accessibility doesn’t stop there. Paradox has also made great strides in tutorials in Victoria 3. When you start a new game, the game prompts you to choose an objective.
In addition to the goals of economic dominance, military supremacy, or egalitarian society, there is also the goal of learning to play.
In this mode, you can select from four suggested starting countries or choose your own, the game will provide you with a constant supply of tasks to complete via the journal tab.
When playing with the “learn to play” objective, the journal menu will also guide you step-by-step on how to perform each task and give you a good reason to do so, but only if you ask for it.
The first objectives include buttons that say “show me how” and “tell me why”, along with another button that lets you skip a specific lesson altogether.
Victoria 3: freeform tutorial
Anward also says in an interview that the design of the Victoria 3 tutorial is an attempt to resolve some issues raised by the community a long time ago.
The team wanted to prevent players from feeling “stuck” in an experience without much agency and to allow players to choose whichever nation they wanted.
The company’s past games forced players to start somewhere specific, like Ireland, Italy or Spain, for example.
Victoria 3: journal menu system
Using a journal menu system that works with any nation also frees the team from having to completely rewrite the tutorial every time there is any significant update. This makes the tutorial a persistent and accessible tool.
This system works in conjunction with the notification system introduced in Crusader Kings 3 to make learning Victoria 3 the smoothest process ever in a Crusader Kings game.
If you’ve played Hearts of Iron IV or Crusader Kings 3 for a while, you’re naturally at an advantage over newbies.
For more experienced users, having the option to skip some of the basics means that the ‘tutorial’ mode in Victoria 3 is still worth playing, and you can jump right into the parts that teach you new concepts.
Victoria 3: military and diplomacy systems
There is still not much information about the diplomacy system and combat mechanics of the game, as we are still days away from the official launch. While I’m personally excited about Victoria 3’s new approaches in both spheres conceptually, the lack of further information from the developers is disheartening.
The diplomatic actions displayed almost always seem to function as countdown timers to war rather than opportunities to resolve a crisis in another way;
However, this may be due to the limited circumstances in which such actions took place during the developers’ showcases.
As explained by Paradox itself, the player has no direct control over combat units in Victoria 3, and this is certainly already considered a controversial issue for the community.
Playing as the United States, it is possible to fight the Civil War on two fronts, but the player’s role in it is simply to appoint generals and assign them to the fronts where troops are most urgently needed.
It’s a system that makes sense thematically, leaders of nations are not often concerned with the operational command of individual brigades and divisions.
In practice, however, it can leave players with little to do other than build new weapons factories and seek out the best international deals on cannons and battleships.
Personally, I don’t see it as a problem, but as another variable to deal with in the constant evaluation of factors to be dealt with in the decision-making process that governs the fundamental structure of the game.
Victoria 3: the impact of war
Testers have complained that the wars fought were so small and short that they never felt any real economic impact from them.
However, Paradox recently announced that making war costly has been one of the main goals of the Victoria 3 project.
We’ll be looking forward to seeing how bigger and longer conflicts can impact the economy when players finally get access to the launch version.
In the testers’ experiences, however, the cost, both in terms of treasure and lives, was inconsequential.
Victoria 3: visuals and economy
Victoria II veterans like us might be a little shocked at how much more abstract commerce becomes in the new version.
Trade routes between nations can only be open or closed, there is no need to worry about the amount of goods your country is importing or exporting;
Market demands will determine the quantities you will be shipping.
Seems more like a pretty smart move to me.; It’s one less thing to do, simplifying the decision-making process.
Simultaneously, this move produces a more believable simulation of an import/export-focused economy.
Victoria 3: a tester’s questions
There are things testers report they wish were easier to find in Victoria 3;
For example, a concise list of open trade routes or a way to quickly open a country’s information panel when looking at one of its component states.
Testers also reported that they wanted the build queue to appear even when they selected a state where no build was in progress.
These are complaints that are offset, according to the same testers, often by the number of pretty smart design decisions.
These choices combine to make Victoria 3 a surprisingly enjoyable experience.
Despite our charm for Crusader Kings 3’s beautiful paper map and pictorial landscapes, and even more so for the community-created designs for the game. The beautiful forts and cities of the A Game of Thrones project and the incredible visuals of Elder Kings 2 are fine examples.
Victoria 3, however, is considered by testers to be Paradox’s most visually appealing game to date.
Victoria 3: surprising visuals
It is reported that you can almost feel the zephyrs of the ocean breeze as you zoom in to see its coastal cities like Stockholm and Boston.
Autumn leaves swirl as the train leaves Brussels on its way to Luxembourg, and zooming out reveals another beautifully illustrated paper map. Cartographic details updated in real time and labeled in an imposing surveyor font make up the map.
The presentation, from the map to the user interface, is a visual feast of pleasant semiotics, according to testers.
Victoria 3: tested version vs. final version
Although the tests of Victoria 3 were some time ago, we are aware that the version played by the testers is being improved and still had some obvious problems.
There are lines of code in place of location at some points and text displaying the message “player should never see this”.
Still, the preview was encouraging. The Victoria 3 development journals published since last year have painted an extremely ambitious picture of a very innovative global strategy game.
Part of the community likens the game’s development to a cathedral, built from mutually dependent systems that come together to provide a unique experience.
In our case, we started the production of this article with huge doubts as to whether the game would be worth the hefty current price, a reflection of Paradox’s latest pricing policies. This caused the price of their products to almost double.
Victoria 3: is it worth buying?
É o primeiro jogo da Paradox da leva mais recente que possui uma interface inteiramente na nossa língua nativa, o Português do Brasil.
It’s the first Paradox game in the latest wave that has an interface entirely available in multiple languages, such as Brazilian Portuguese, French, German, Spanish and more!
Wherever you are from, its likely you can celebrate, because the game’s menus are completely localized in some of the most spoken languages in the world.
A characteristic of what involves Paradox games is the optimization of the game to make it possible for modifications created by the community (the infamous mods) to be enjoyed by players.
Modders (mod makers) have been organizing a convention for two years to present their mods to the community and showcase their work.
For example, there are Crusader Kings 3 modding teams. There’s a Game of Thrones modding, full game conversion, based on the G.R.R. Martin universe, and also the Elder Kings 2 modding team, based on The Elder Scrolls game series. Lots of mods going around!
According to the latest development journal, we can expect tools and code optimizations that make it easy to create community-driven modifications.
It’s noticeable the attention that Paradox developers gives to the modding community, which offers free additions that are seen by many as highlights of the company’s games.
Victoria 3: in conclusion
We were still resolute in our indecision, despite already knowing the biggest highlights pointed out by the testers.
The mod support, the localization to a lot of languages and the progress towards mechanics and accessibility in the game didn’t convince us that the game was worth the price charged.
So we decided to open one of the gameplay demonstration videos made by the developers themselves.
We were impressed by the beautiful artwork of the loading screens and the extremely similar interface to Crusader Kings 3. Then we came across it, an almost imperceptible little gem, but incredibly valuable to us.
The random nation button was present, in all its glory.
This button will allow you to skip the entire indecision phase that many players find themselves in several times in the company’s games.
When faced with so many interesting and different options, we had a hard time deciding, so it’s nice to be able to focus directly on an arbitrary decision made by a machine.
This allows you to discover scenarios that you would never explore if you decided for yourself or asked other members of the community.
In summary: yes, it’s worth buying Victoria 3. But for the less passionate, I advise waiting for a promotion.
There are frequent promotions on Steam, so watch out for them!
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