Victoria 3 was released in October by Paradox and I'm wondering what experiences people have had, if any. The economic simulation looks interesting to me, and I haven't (seriously) played any other Paradox titles. They implemented a warfare system that's quite different than their previous games, and depending on how they implement it the new system it might actually be ideal for me since I'd be more interested in the economic management anyway. I wanted to know if anyone here has experience with it, and do let me know if the studio has done any woke shit. I'm not very familiar with Paradox, and I'm perfectly willing to pirate if they're unethical.
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Warning: Mucho Texto below, sorry in advance.
I am sure you will get the negatives from other people who will come into the thread because the game does have quite the hatedom on this side of the internet. But as the resident Vicky 3 simp, allow me to give you my own opinions of it (ironically, I am playing it right this second and paused to make a post).
I will say that you may actually have a little bit of an advantage not being biased by Vicky 2 going into it.
Like you said, warfare was massive change over their previous games. And while I like the concept it is extremely hit or miss. When it works, it works great, but when it breaks, it breaks hard. I actually think it has the good bones of a system that can be improved, and there have already been mods that do just that, but we will see what becomes of it in the long term. But if you dont want to micromanage your wars because you are too busy with your spreadsheets, it is definitely what you are wanting for the most part.
The economic aspect is indeed where the game thrives, with most of your gameplay being around balancing your markets through either domestic production or imports (with exports to drive profits on excess, obviously). Many times, this will be limited by your own domestic situations as well. For instance, I am currently playing as Persia, and I have maxed out my logging abilities while still having a major deficient in my production. So I am looking around at other markets to buy up the logs I need to cover the shortfall.
I will say that it does somewhat misstep in that running a deficient doesnt actually cause direct negative consequences for your people like it did in Vicky 2 (ie: dont produce enough food, your people can starve), but it at least causes enough of a Standard of Living or Industrial Profit hit from extreme prices that it is in your best interest to prevent shortages.
Some people have complained about the fact that Capitalist will not auto-build their own factories in this game, but personally I always thought that them doing that in Vicky 2 was more of a pain in the ass than it was worth for any realism aspects because the AI was too stupid to make smart choices. To that end, I do think they sidestep the issue nicely in this one with the "Investment Pool", where Capitalist will pay into a fund that can only be used to pay for buildings. But when I play as highly Capitalist nations, the fund is usually so well-funded that I am effectively building for free because the Capitalist are paying for it all anyway. This on top of the fact that you can now harvest multiple resources from the same state makes it all worth it to me.
So the TLDR is that I do think it is a good economic sim, and I would recommend watching some gameplay if you are still not sold.
For Paradox themselves, I will stress every time their wokeness comes up: the company is quite aptly named. Because while their employees and their forums are extremely woke, the company has generally done a good job of keep the wokeness separate from their games. You can still shout Deus Vult! in Crusader Kings even after people said that was evil. Stellaris lets you genocide all Xeno scum, and in some builds even makes the genocide the optimal strategy!
In Vicky 3, I have seen some try and say that they gave a "woke" depiction of Africa because they use the same tech tree and are no longer called "uncivilized" by the game (in favor of "decentralized"). However, if this was supposed to be "woke" you would expect to see a non-player controlled African superpower naturally emerge since, after all, they are using the same rules as the rest of the world now. At this very moment in my game, in 1883, the best developed independent African nation is Sokoto, which has all of 2 textile mills and a furniture factory to its name and a literacy rate of 44%. Meanwhile, AI control Great Britian is rocking power plants, vast industrial complexes, and even Synthetic Dye factories (which are usually a late game building). And with about half of Africa already colonized, I dont think history is going to go much different than it did IRL for Africa. So much for those woke buffs.
Sorry for talking your ear off. Just wanted to get a solid argument out there.