評論

• gamedeal user

  Oct 26, 2022

  “Before you try to build trains and guns, maybe try feeding your population”
• SlySkydiver

  Oct 26, 2022

  So Vicky 3 is here, what about it? Well Victoria 3 is a society builder game, and despite what some might say it is a fairly deep and connected game in some but not all areas. More on that in a bit. When it comes to economics, Victoria 3 is not a realistic interpretation of Victorian economics at all, but neither was Victoria 2. What Victoria 3 does right with it's economics is making them all connected and giving the feeling of growing and developing a real economy in the era which goes a long way considering this is all the game currently has to offer in most cases. When you start you will usually begin by building many different buildings to help your economy grow, researching technologies to get laws that you can pass to get more buildings or techs to change production methods to help grow your economy. It's a fairly interesting gameplay loop and it can at times be very rewarding when the game itself works as intended. Victoria 3 is a gem in the way that it makes itself appear like a very deep and complicated game, and don't get me wrong, in some aspects it is. However the game constantly falls short just as you are starting to get deep into it. While I was playing I kept finding myself running into many things that seemed odd, or were just very bland. An example would diplomacy. On first sight it seems very deep, especially when tied into the diplomatic play system and how the AI can react depending on the situation. However after about 12 hours of game time it's clear that the diplomacy is Ok and best and very shallow at it's worst. When dealing with other nations, mostly in diplomatic plays, there are only a few ways to get them involved. The primary way being diplomatic obligations. What are these? Well imagine Prussia is about to go to war with Denmark, the Danes naturally don't want to get rolled by the Prussians and their chances of winning on their own seem slim. So they tell the French, "Hey, I'll owe you... something if you help." More likely than not, if you didn't whore yourself for good relations with the French (which many times still isn't enough) France will, without hesitation or care in the world, throw itself into the fray, sending waves upon waves of men crashing upon your borders. "Oh? You withstood the professional army? Well I guess I should just sur- SIKE HERE COMES THE CONSCRIPTS BABY, TOTAL WAR FOR MY DANISH BROTHERS!!!!!" Do not misunderstand me, the Victorian era was an era were maintaining the balance of power was very important to the great powers, and this was sometimes done by force as we can see with the Crimean War. However to the extent that I am seeing in game? Where every war I fight is a life or death war where conscripts must be raised even if it is for a nation as small as Denmark? In many cases in real life the balance of power was upheld by pen and paper. Just look at the 1878 Treaty of Berlin. For as deep as diplomacy is meant to be and the fact that war is supposed to be the "last resort" in many cases it feels like the only resort. There is no real deep diplomatic dealings you can do with other nations outside trade agreements, there is no diplomatic dealings to settle a war before it begins. There is nothing, it is so bare bones it's almost laughable that they marketed it as if it were "deep". This sadly isn't all though. Let's have a quick fire off to see what else is wrong with diplomacy, war diplomacy and war itself. AI constantly backs down from diplomatic plays, even if their very independence is threatened. This also goes for native uprisings and revolutions. (I once took Greece as the Ottomans without firing a shot. Likely story.) AI will throw anything and everything at you for the smallest most insignificant nation in existence. War is not properly explained. Generals constantly enter battle with smaller amounts of troops than the enemy, even if you field the larger overall army. Modifiers are poorly explained and usually put deep within hidden menus such as why your men enter battle with lower moral etc. Terrain and seasons are very bland. As far as the game is concerned it is always summertime so there is no debuffs to movement in say Winter in the Italian Alps, Spring in Russia, etc. None of that matters it's just random modifiers assigned when the battle starts. You cannot add wargoals mid war. You cannot give allies land before, during, or really after wars. You cannot join wars in progress. I feel like I don't have to explain why this is an issue in a game set during the Victorian era. Lack of any real diplomatic options whatsoever when it comes to discussing peace, preventing wars, or modifying the outcomes of wars Treaty of Berlin style. Very very shallow. You essentially see a nation with a green thumbs up and say "I CHOOSE YOU!" There is no scramble for Africa. No treaties. Nothing. AI barely if at all colonizes. Revolutions of 1848? What are those? Never happened. Never seen Hungary revolt yet, haven't see any semblance of turmoil at all during the so called Spring of nations. This brings me to something else. This game is in desperate need of some railroading. The Japanese Empire almost never forms, the Ottomans are replaced by Egypt almost as soon as the oriental crisis as none of the GPs get involved at all, even if you have high relations with them in most cases. It's clear the devs somewhat intended this with events but it just doesn't happen. American Civil War is never normal. Most times the CSA is just the US East Coast. Taiping Heavenly Kingdom more often than not is spawning in the most ISLAMIC parts of China. And do you know why this happens? It's because these "rebellions" are meant to fire off where ever this in unrest. Yea, I'm sure you can see the issue with this as well. The border gore is outside of this world thanks to the lack of railroading. I have seen several times where the British just let the Chinese ban opium. Revolutions, when they do actually happen, are actually pointless as they only change one or two laws. They are never actually true radical revolutions. If the USSR ever forms it is always because of silent reform that the Tsar must essentially do himself. The railroading doesn't need to be 100% like hoi4 historical AI. But it's clear that this Vicky 3 AI is dumb as rocks and clearly needs someone to hold it's hand. Hell, I got so tired of watching the Ottoman's get eaten entirely by Egypt that I had to install a mod for it. ON LAUNCH DAY. There is no late game content essentially. Nothing. The world just kinda. Does it's thing. No Berlin Conference. No Colonial conflicts, no NOTHING. The game just goes. And it just does. And it makes me very sad. I can safely say that after engaging with this game, the steps they took for war were a massive over correction and there needs to be at least a small amount of micro. If not that at least of the love of god make the diplomacy deeper in regard to these things, please. This game launched as a foundation as many people say, but is the foundation even really there? I was constantly supportive and excited for this game only be given... absolute mid. This game does a lot of things better than Victoria 2. But the thing is that Victoria 2 has been around for 12 years and it has mods, it has things that make it a deeper experience that has grown on people for over a decade. And it's like Paradox didn't even care about at least trying to make seem like a preferable alternative to Victoria 2 at launch. I am literally, on day one, praying that there are some mods soon that can turn this into a better experience than what I've unfortunately gone through so far. Conclusion? Did I spend $80 on this game? Yes. Am I sad about? No. Will I keep playing this game? Sadly. Hopefully PDX can patch it up. Or at least the modders. Personally I don't think this game will be abandoned. There's too much at stake for them to do that. At least that's what the cope in me is saying.
• gamedeal user

  Oct 27, 2022

  I'm enjoying it. But its got those trademark Paradox bugs. If you want a flawless experience, buy the game in 6 months with a discount.
• Boots

  Oct 27, 2022

  This is really hard, because I love the idea of an economic game that doesn't focus on war. With effort and ten years, this will be the greatest Paradox game of all time. For starters, I initially loved the new war system, however, after playing with it, I now agree with its detractors that it's way too simplistic and lacking any real depth. The meta is to simply raise all your armies and make sure they all have better tech and numbers than your enemy. Fronts are created randomly, and I have no idea how troops are assigned along the front line. I disliked Victoria II's micro-management of armies, but this game takes it too far in the other direction. Simply porting over the frontline and battleplans mechanics from Hearts of Iron IV would work perfect for this game. On the other hand, the economy involves too much micro. Even as a capitalist country, you're a command economy as you build - Every. Single. Building. (Even setting it to auto-build merely expands existing buildings, and doesn't actually "build" any new ones in different provinces.) The only difference between capitalism and communism is that maybe some of the money used to build things may come from the capitalists as well, thus reducing the total cost to build it. But the impetus on building things is on you. For a game about creating a dynamic economic system and simulating the lively social changes and pressures of the 19th century, the game feels very dead. You're not reacting to the pops more as the pops are reacting to you. Governments and politics are a joke, as you can add or remove interest groups willy-nilly with no real consequence; thus your "opposition" immediately becomes your ally. Therefore, paying attention to who wins an election is pointless as you can simply change what a party believes in after it is already in office. Likewise, the game suffers from a bunch of small issues that individually don't matter much, but taken together add up to feel very half-baked and incomplete. Cities are named after people or places decades after the actual start of the game, or simply placed in the wrong geographic place. Borders are likewise oversimplified or outright wrong. West Virginia is a state of America at game start, even though West Virginia didn't exist until the American Civil War nearly thirty years after game start when it broke off from Virginia. Likewise, the ACW is nonsensical, with states like New York joining the Confederacy. I understand wanting the game to be dynamic, but this is too much. (The game already tracks Free States vs Slave States, so why not include a simple modifier that makes Free States way less likely to secede?) Other countries, such as Japan, China, or Russia make extremely ahistorical and "memey" decisions and their AI is likewise braindead and lacking any initiative. Things like Abraham Lincoln being president at 28 (legally you cannot be president until you are 35) or random events that I suspect are supposed to make each playthrough more unique currently treat the subject matter like a joke. (Abraham Lincoln shouldn't be a serial killer because of a random event!) This game needs to treat its subject matter more seriously and reduce the amount of "joke" events that make real political leaders and historical figures bumbling bafoons or cartoon characterizations like in Crusader Kings 3. For a game that includes racism and slavery, the use of random events and modifiers with real historical figures is a jarring contrast that cheapens the impact of the world it intends to portray. In terms of length, I found two hours had passed and I was already 50% through the game. That's way too fast. Because of a lack of deep systems, the game feels like its running on ultra-easy mode. The solution isn't to give the AI unfair buffs and cheats on harder difficulties, it's to make the game more complex and deep, thus making the pace of gameplay slower and more methodical. Currently, it somewhat reminds me of an iPhone clicker game. The UI is fresh, but I hate the new "lenses" feature and wish for the old mapmodes that I could check on a whim. I strongly dislike having everything be on the bottom of the screen as well. I currently have to click on too many buttons in too many panels to get to what I want to see. While I suspect this will be fixed with updates and DLC's, the game feels shallow, and lacks unique content and depth for the regions and countries involved. I do believe that if Paradox doesn't abandon this game like it did Imperator, all these issues can be fixed. But man, that's a lot of issues, and that's gonna take a lot of time.
• Tenshi

  Oct 28, 2022

  Paradox and its fans are on damage control trying to claim these negative reviews aren't genuine. The game is broken on a fundamental level. Important aspects like stockpiles or inflation are absent from the game. The economic part of this game is tedious and requires an absurd amount of micromanagement. Which is made even worse because of the abhorrent UI. Paradox apparently lacks the technology to let you simply have two windows side by side, so expect yourself to have to be opening and closing menus constantly. I'm not even kidding when I say that's 90% of this game. It's not an excel spreadsheet simulator. It's like everything you want to look at is placed in a separate cabinet and you are constantly opening and closing them one at a time to do anything. And the funny part is I like the economic side. Playing as Japan and slowly industrializing and balancing you're economy is crazy fun. But that's completely absent from the majority of play throughs because you're usually stuck in some massive British market with endless goods for whatever you want. There are game play decisions made that are so baffling I can't tell if its a bug or an intended "feature". Like raising your tax efficiency being a net negative to the budget. Or the fact that major nation statistics like literacy or arable land being hilariously wrong. You know how nations like Japan went to war to acquire resources their home nation couldn't support? Well good news Paradox got all the numbers wrong so you're probably going to be able to spam all the coal, iron, and whatever crops you need regardless of the geographic location. The warfare is as broken as everyone said it was going to be. The front system is a joke. Islands sit on their hands with their screen flashing them about their "generals doing nothing" and asking them to assign them to a front... but no fronts exist! Only to have their enemy invade their lands and create a now undefended, previously non existent front that they of course instantly win. Oh and good news, combat width still exists but because tile combat is gone this applies to massive states that hold millions of people... but can't support a few thousand soldiers. Oh and ports aren't needed for supply. Wanna invade an island halfway across the world with no ports? Well good news! Distance doesn't exist and your units will simply teleport. Invading Japan as the UK is just as easy as invading Portugal even if they have no ports for you to supply your units from. Oh and this "distance doesn't exist" also applies to colonialism so enjoy the fact that America and easily take New Zealand, just as easy and cheap as if they were finishing off Oregon! I could go on for ages. This is an unpolished mess of a game from a developer with no self respect or pride with fundamentally broken game play decisions made by out of touch developers who are probably going to charge you DLC to "fix" it in the future.
• Blarz

  Oct 29, 2022

  don't buy yet, wait for dlc/patches the economy is ok but a lot of the core mechanics and ui feel really unfinished. also there are game breaking bugs and the ai is terrible. best to save the interest for when its actually good. i regret buying it so soon.
• jdub

  Oct 29, 2022

  early access game. see you in 3 years.
• gamedeal user

  Oct 29, 2022

  Like paying full price for a house but just getting a "good foundation" instead. So far, this game is boring, tedious, and without flavor. Consider buying later, after a few hundred dollars worth of DLC comes out.
• gamedeal user

  Oct 29, 2022

  Look, if you're a masochist like me who owns every Paradox game and most of the DLCs, no review of Victoria 3 is going to affect your purchase decision. You're going to buy it, play for hundreds of hours, and then complain about how much it sucks to anyone who'll listen. This review isn't for me or people like me. This review is for people who haven't played Paradox games extensively, and saw this on Steam and are checking the reviews to see if it's worth buying. If that describes you, I do not recommend buying Victoria 3 in its current state. This is for a pretty simple reason: Victoria 3 is embarrassingly unpolished. I'm writing this review a few days after release with 31 hours played. In that time I've encountered an enormous number of bugs, poorly balanced design choices, bizarre and stupid AI, repetitive events, insufficient flavor for even the largest countries, and major mechanics (like diplomacy and war) that are so bare-bones I can only describe them as downright incomplete. If Paradox were still a humble indie studio releasing $20 games developed by a dozen people, I wouldn't be so hard on Victoria 3. But Paradox is a major publisher who priced this game at $50 ($80 if you bought the Grand Edition) and released it despite it clearly needing several more months of balancing and bugfixing. This isn't the first time they've done this, and they clearly haven't learned their lesson from Imperator and Leviathan. So if you're not sure whether you want to buy Victoria 3, heed my words: DON'T. Spend your time and money on a game that's actually finished, and wait at least a few months to see if this game gets fixed.
• Calumari

  Oct 29, 2022

  I reckon the way I feel about this game is the same way that those who never played ck2 feel about ck3. Pretty good, but no idea what it's missing.