As the greatest Paradox game so far, Victoria (I know it rocks, I betatest it
) is nearing release, I thought I post here a summary of features, written by a fellow betatester, Hortlund:
"Let me start with the population model.
Population is represented as POPs, a unit of 1-100 000 persons (true figure stated) and each will have a number of attributes as; ideology, militancy, (political) consciousness, workforce type, religion, culture etc.
Depending on occupation (there are 10 different pop-types, farmers, craftsmen, soldiers, capitalists etc) and social status, the pop will have a demand. A low-class pop will demand mostly basic stuff like food and clothes and furniture and some booze maybe, while a high-class pop will demand more luxury items like luxury clothes, and luxury furniture, and coffee, and wine etc.
A pop will be happy or sad depending on the current policies of teh government, and the current level of social reforms. You as player will be able to control these social reforms.
If a pop is not pleased, he might revolt or he might emigrate to another country where his needs can be met better. Take a look at the time period of the game, 1836-1920... lots of immigration taking place in that time period, something that is modelled in the game.
Then lets talk about the economy.
It evolves around the key features resources and industries. Basically the backbone of your economy will be your pops as they either gather resources (labourer pops) or manufacture stuff in factories (craftsmen pops). Factories need resources that they can get either from your own territories, or the resources can be bought from the world market.
Let me give you an example, this is how you make regular clothes:
Cotton or Wool (resources, gathered by labourer pops) => Fabric Factory (factory, manufactured by craftsmen pops) => Fabric (product)
Coal (resource) => Dye Factory (factory) => Dye (product)
Fabric + Dye (products) => Regular Clothes Factory (factory) => Regular Clothes (product)
Coming back to the pops. These regular clothes are demanded by most pop types to stay happy. Either you will manufacture the clothes yourself, or your pops will have to buy them from the world market. If your pops cannot get the clothes they want, they will become discontent.
Money...
The pops gets the money from trade. You as player tax them to earn cash for your nation..
If you tax them too hard, you will
a) make them distrust you.
b) make them unable to buy the goods they need, so they might emigrate or get more militant.
AND if they dont have enough money to buy things there will be less demand for goods, so prices will drop etc.. and lots more consequences.
On military:
Remember the manpower from EU and HoI? In vicky you have to convert pops to soldier pops in order for you to get more manpower. That means that if you want to have a large army, you might need to cut back on your factory workers. Suddenly you are faced with the problem "should I expand my army or my industry?"
Same with leadership, if you want good leaders, you need to convert some pops to officer pops. The more officer pops you have, the more leadership points you will have to spend on military leaders.
On diplomacy:
The diplomatic options are:
Declare War
Declare Colonial War
Offer Alliance (Lots of new options here)
Improve Relations
Send expeditionary force
Ask for military access
Ask for naval access
Demand cessation of colonialism
Guarantee independence
Open negotiations (claims, provinces, tech and money)
Lets take alliance as an example.
There are standard or purely defensive alliances. There is also the option to except countries from the alliance conditions...
I'm country A and I want to make a normal alliance with B but I don't want the alliance to be in effect if Country C should get involved in the war for some reason etc. etc.. So I make an alliance with the exception of country C. If me or B should go to war with C the alliance is not in effect.
Or I want a purely defensive alliance, i.e. only in effect as long as none of the countries in the alliance is the aggressor (starting the war).
Colonization:
Taking control of an unclaimed colony is a gradual process based on constructing or seizing colonial outposts. This may also be accomplished by Diplomatic means. These colonial outposts consist of missions, coaling stations, trading posts and forts. Only one building of each type may exist in a single province.
A colonial power may officially lay claim to an unclaimed colony if it controls one building of each type (exception: coaling stations can’t exist in landlocked colonies) in an area that contains no foreign troops. In effect, they seize control of the buildings of all other colonial powers, thereby worsening relations with those powers. If foreign troops are present they must first be defeated. A state of war always exists in unclaimed colonies. A nation may not station troops in a colony unless it has at least one building there.
You can demand that a country not colonize any provinces on a continent of your choice, preventing the selected country from building any colonial outposts there."
As you can see, the game is far more then a simple upgrade of the EU system. It's the first game that made me consider EU2 an obsolete nice little game.
I recommend you check out Paradox's forum
here , you can find two excellent AARs about the game.
One question: This is quite a lot of information. Have Hortlund really been allowed to say so much? That's really great!
