It's not often that you see big studios immaculately, thoroughly and immediately learning from every released project, in order to then invest the knowledge gained in the bright future of new achievements. Victoria 3 is a powerful quintessence of all the best that Friv2Online Studio has to offer. One hundred and thirty paid DLCs are probably on their way.
If you are reading this review, then you probably know what land you are on and what, in fact, is going on here, but in case someone is not in the know: Victoria 3 is a global real-time strategy where you take control of a single country - in the course of your adoption of certain decisions, your state can (and most likely will) change politically, economically and socially.
Your task is to come up with what exactly your task is, because the game does not set any specific goals for the player; Over a hundred years of in-game gameplay, you are free to achieve what your indefatigable, power-hungry and/or equality-hungry soul desires.
Below we will try to take a closer look at how the third part of Victoria has changed and how it turned out, so expected by fans of "paradoxes" around the world. Spoiler - expectations were met... at least for me. Also, let's talk a little about how to play Victoria in general, if the genre is completely unfamiliar, and a huge world map, framed by a million buttons, puts you in a complete stupor. Are you ready, children? Yes captain. Forward!
Do you feel sparks of excitement and anticipation running through your fingertips when you hear words like "urbanization" and "construction sector"? You are kind of weird. Meanwhile, Victoria 3, after several hours of play, feels like an extremely successful hybrid of Crusader Kings III and Europa Universalis IV - the simplification and smoothness of the game mechanics of the first here is wonderfully combined with the complexity of the second, while not losing personal individuality.
Partly, of course, Victoria's uniqueness comes from a different "paradoxes" of the time period from other franchises, but mostly the originality of the game is based on the unrivaled depth of its gameplay mechanics - from trade and diplomacy to military and production.
At the same time, as mentioned above, layering is combined with smoothness: the developers arrange and link together various controls through cross-references so well that the monumental gameplay structure makes sense and becomes overgrown with landmarks shockingly quickly. It is somewhat reminiscent of exploring locations in Dark Souls - initially it is not clear where to rush and who to kill, but then, as you explore, the map comes together and, thanks to your own knowledge and open shortcuts, you can get anywhere at any time.
For example, if you want to reduce the cost of wood in the domestic market, then, thanks to quick links and tips, you can literally set up new logging operations, organize wood imports, impose a consumption tax on your unfortunate citizens on wood, and see if your decisions will be profitable from literally one window. … And so on. Every feature, every gameplay element is accessible from multiple angles and locations at once, which is incredibly useful and convenient in a game of this magnitude.
Also, while we haven’t yet gone too far into the details of the gameplay, I hasten to note a decent soundtrack and a very nice visual component - the art, as always with “paradoxes”, is simply wonderful, not pompous, but aesthetically warming the soul; the interface of Victoria 3 corresponds to the general structure of the project, namely, it rests at the junction of CK III and EU IV, very modern and lamp-like at the same time.
So, it sounds good, it looks good, it plays well. And it's hard to play. How difficult? Let's try to parse the process into details - as far as the dubious intellectual power of the author of the review will allow.
Before we begin our journey, I would like to make a few introductory notes:
1. Most of the information below can be learned in Victoria 3's very handy tutorial mode, where the game goes into incredible detail about every aspect of gameplay - not only will you be told what to press, but why you should press it. At the same time, you are not limited in any way in your personal initiative - even in the training campaign, you can do anything, get achievements, and the game, in which case, will point out your most critical mistakes and tell you how to fix them.
2. This is still a review, not a full-fledged guide, so here you will not learn how, for example, to achieve world domination or come to an equal society - at the same time, we will try to cover at least the basics and basic concepts with which you can start your undoubtedly successful path to... whatever you want there.
3. The author is very fond of global strategies. He also loves Call of Duty 4 multiplayer, but at the same time he has a positive K/D in it every fifty years. What I want to say by this - do not take my word as the ultimate truth, because a big fan does not mean a big expert. All of the following may be slightly less than completely wrong, so listen with caution.
Nice, got it right with the intro. Now to the point.
The main screen of the game is a map of the world, divided, as expected, into countries that participate in the gameplay. Each country is divided into several regions; each area has a unique set of values, such as the limit of possible production facilities. Some available gaming solutions apply only to certain areas, and not to the entire country: however, the consequences of these decisions, of course, will affect the entire state in the long run.
The world map may look different if you apply various “filters” to it - but more on that a little later.
Like any self-respecting grand strategy, Victoria 3 has some cool and hipster types of resources: bureaucracy resource, authority resource, influence resource and... money. Speaking of hipsterism: in these environments, your resources are not accumulated in the classic format - you work exclusively with a positive or negative balance. That is: if you want to buy a sawmill, you do not pay 1000 pounds - instead, the game immediately calculates the budget difference, and depending on the success of the enterprise, you get either 1000 pounds per week or -1000 pounds per week.
We repeat: no hard values - only a positive or negative balance. The game itself advises not to cling to a positive balance, because there are few positive effects from it - it is better to spend and develop. At the same time, the negative balance has severe, far-reaching consequences, so it is better to spend and develop wisely.
You will use the bureaucracy for such things as maintaining the state apparatus, conducting trade routes without trade agreements, supporting high-ranking military leaders, etc.
Authority goes to the adoption of laws, decrees and, if you want, total tyranny, you shameless face. Influence is spent outside of your country - any diplomatic interaction with other powers either spends this resource or increases it. Money - well, of course, money. Everything costs money.
A significant part of the gaming functionality is reduced to the very bottom of the screen, under the large five lenses - industrial, political, military, diplomatic and trade. These five lenses are the aforementioned "filters" - looking at the world map under them, you can quickly determine your and not your spheres of influence of one nature or another. Also, with the help of these lenses, you can see most of the actions available to you - laws that can be passed, goods that can be sold, countries that can be opposed, etc.
Remember that not every available option is good in the current situation, but also remember that some options may cause short-term damage, but will be extremely useful in the long run. You've been here for a hundred years after all.
On the left side of the screen, you will also find a million buttons - about half of them are purely informational. The same buttons that you can interact with are not necessarily unique in their purpose - if desired, some of their functions can be achieved through the same lenses. It will take ten years to describe each button separately, but, fortunately, there is no great need for this - as the game progresses, you yourself intuitively learn to understand them.
In the game, you move where your heart tells you and pay attention to the area in which you want to excel.
Establish production - like in Factorio, make a chain of raw materials and goods made from it, and then, not at all like in Factorio, profitably push these goods and buy yourself, I don’t know, a dozen new factories. Rush into legislation - achieve women's suffrage and try to withstand the pressure of disgruntled traditionalists. Start expanding everywhere - show territorial interests, colonize or simply capture subjects, and deal with the consequences of your ambitions. In the end, try to bring peace to the world through the right diplomatic games... Anything. The sky is not the limit.
Of course, a truly successful power dances from the balanced work of all available areas - that is, even if you are a wise pacifist, leaving the army "as is" is still not recommended, because the lack of military power can create leverage over you for competing states. And vice versa - even if you are only interested in militarism, you still need a decent production structure in order to earn money and provide a salary to soldiers. Focus your attention, but do not leave anything unattended, because it is precisely what you left unattended that is most likely to go wrong.
Remember that in most cases Victoria 3 will not allow you to slide into ruin without warning - at the top, to the right of the resource panel, a notification ball is lit, warning of the most obvious problems and crises of the nation. In turn, one of the many buttons on the panel on the left is the "Diary" - tasks may appear there, the completion of which can contribute to the development of the country... though not always in the direction you would like, so read carefully what exactly they offer you.
And in general, read more in principle - the game is full of tooltips, which have additional "tips in a tooltip", plus, Victoria has its own encyclopedia, and everything that you can and / or want to know will definitely help you in terms of gameplay. Of course, the game deftly reduces most of the numbers and concepts under several large unifying categories, which, in fact, can be limited, but the devil is still in the details - the real state success lies in micromanagement.
And finally - do not be alarmed if almost nothing happens on the map for a long time. As long as you set goals and they are slowly but surely moving towards fulfillment, progress is being made. As I already advised in the article about the Europa Universalis series, use your "free" time to click on all the buttons and tabs that catch your eye. Suddenly you will find where to spend an uncomfortablely high cash balance.
I've read quite a few previews praising the Victoria 3 - now it's not hard for me to guess why. I sincerely hope that the fans will like it as much as the critics liked it, because the game is just a complete delight.
Attention to detail, the sheer scale of the project as a whole - all of it creates a sense of epochalism, like a franchise, and the "paradoxes" themselves seem to have entered a new era of global strategy. An era in which they, in the meantime, successfully pull us along.
And frankly, I'm only too happy to follow them. Oh, by the way, sorry to mention it again... But can someone borrow for the next fifty thousand DLC for Victoria 3? After all, even in a new era, something must remain unchanged.