For years, every Paradox game-related stream or video I’ve seen has had “where’s Victoria 3?” and “Viccy 3 when?” in the comments underneath. The grand strategy sequel was finally announced last year, more than ten years after the release of Victoria 2, and now we have a release date as well: October 25th. What will people put in the comments underneath Paradox game trailers now? Hop below for the answer (and a release date trailer).
Here’s the trailer:
And here’s the answer: they’ll put complaints about DLC and bugs in the comments. Plus ça change.
If you don’t know, Victoria is another of Paradox’s grand strategy games, this time focused on simulating the social and economic machinery of the Victorians. There’s war, sure, but you’ll generally spend less time on the battlefield than in Europa Universalis, and more time pulling economic levers and twirling diplomatic knobs. Although that didn’t stop me, in my role as adviser, recommending a war with the Netherlands when Alice was playing a preview build last week. She invaded Denmark instead:
War is a risky move in Victoria 3, because it can be expensive and demoralising. Surprisingly, however, I won my war very quickly. It was just something that happened while I continued running Sweden. War needs keeping an eye on, but if you have a strong-ish military before going in, and, crucially, all your target’s allies are indifferent or too far away to join in, your odds are okay. So a) the region of Denmark that had Copenhagen in it was now Sweden and b) the war super-charged my economy.
Victoria 3 has bragged a lot about its “deep social simulation”, and Alice found it advanced enough that her country hummed along without leadership quite nicely. I’ve never played a Victoria game before but I’m looking forward to messing with its simulation in a couple of months when it releases via Steam.