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 ♥♥♥♥♥ 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.