All pops in Victoria 3 have various needs and require goods to fulfil them. What a pop needs is determined by their wealth level. Wealth is built up over time if a pop earns more in wages than they are spending on goods.

They do not need all goods, and any combination of goods from each category can be bought to fulfil the need. (With a different value depending on the item's base price.)

Every good- with exceptions- can only fulfil up to 80% of a need.

Some goods have a different minimum or maximum level at which they can fulfil a need. For example, a maximum of 40% of the Basic Food need can be satiated with Meat, the other 60% needs to be another good. A minimum of 5% of the Household items must be Furniture, your people can't just sit on glass and paper. Electricity can fulfil 100% of your pops' heating need.

Some goods also have a weighting, which is a multiplier that determines how much pops will prefer it over another good in the same category. This weighting is also affected by cultural obsessions and taboos.

All the exceptions to the 80% rule and default weighting are noted below, under each category.


At the moment this is not made very clear by the game, and you have to dig through multiple tooltips to find this information. That's why I've organised it into this handy guide, sorted by the wealth level of the pops who buy them.

I've made this graph to help visualise the different pop needs by wealth.

Wood (max 60%), Fabric (max 60%), Coal (max 60%), Oil (max 60%), Electricity (weight x2, max 100%)

Liquor (max 60%), Tobacco (max 60%), Opium (max 60%)

Meat (weight x0.5, max 40%), Fruit (weight x0.5, max 40%)

Furniture (minimum 5%) Paper (weight x0.5, max 40%)

Services (weight x0.1)

Tea (max 60%), Coffee (max 60%), Wine (max 60%)

Luxury Clothes (minimum 5%, max 40%), Luxury Furniture, (minimum 5%, max 40%), Porcelain (minimum 5%, max 40%), Radios (max 40%)

Services (weight x0.1), Transportation (weight x0.1)

Meat (max 40%), Fruit (max 40%), Groceries (max 40%), Sugar (weight x0.5, max 40%)

Services (weight x0.05)