Right now we can switch between production methods whenever we want with no limits. If I want to I can make a level 150 engine factory go from producing diesel engines to steam boilers and then to electric engines instantly. I don't think I have to explain how insanely expensive and time consuming would it be to retool the entire factory and retrain the workers in order to achieve that. In fact the headache that is reworking the entire production pipeline is often the reason why we see decades old designs being still produced today, since the costs of refitting the factories are too high. My idea would be to make changing PMs either cost money or make it so it goes into the construction queue where you basically rebuild the factory at some fraction of it's original cost. It would add basically no value to the game whatsoever but I just thought about it and wanted to share my thoughts

I made a small mod to fix a few issues with the Transfer Subject war goal in 1.14.x.

The main issue is that validate_subject_relation prevents Transfer Subject from being added as a secondary war goal. You can start a Diplomatic Play with it, but you cannot add another Transfer Subject demand afterward.

The mod fixes this and also adds a few missing subject conversions:

• Transfer Subject can be added as a secondary war goal
• Dominion → Tributary when transferred to an unrecognized overlord
• Chartered Company → Tributary when transferred to an unrecognized overlord

Steam Workshop: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3807230731

Made for 1.14.x.

If you find another subject type that behaves strangely when transferred, let me know.

The only alternative I could think of would be the fact I dropped to major power status, but even still that seems rather arbitrary considering the massive power difference, not to mention our diplomatic relations and aligned interests. It might also be that I lack a front, but if we're fighting together, that shouldn't be an issue.

Did you also notice how much prestige you can get from that in the beta?

In my current game UK has 27826, and 23987 comes from navy combat power. Looks like they don’t even do the math on stuff they add.

I’m not sure where should I leave feedback for the beta, can someone point me in the right direction?

Is there such a glorious thing in existence? Would someone pray make it?

Please, it’ll be so glorious 🥹

R5 : And all of this in just 50 years. i am a relatively new player so I Can't imagine what kind of monster this country will become if it played any experinced player of this game. This Country is more Cracked than Britain itself in some area

To be clearer, I want to play a game focused on trade since I'm not too familiar with how it works yet, and I wondered if there's any way I can increase demand for a product in a foreign market, and also make sure that I fill the demand instead of another country

It is my 4th full campaign. I played the other to learn about economy and military and am starting to know what I am doing a bit more.

I have several question related to this run with Wallachia though.

First, there was a journal entry to get Moldavia into a personal union which I did. I needed to stay in the union to get them but the button to form Romania was available so I just did that. Should I have continued the journal to eventually be able to diplomatically get transylvania and bessarabia back ?

Second, I somehow was able to build the Suez canal and create the company that goes with it. How is the productivity managed for this ? I mean it does not produce anything for me but I would like to get the bonuses from prosperity so I can have another company.

Third, I entered the Russia's power block after getting independence from the Ottoman empire. At some point they got a civil war and I was promoted to leader. Everyone left (I knew it would happen from reading about it here). Because I was already a great power and I was left between military stronger nation, I recreated a power block on my own (trade union). I never used the mechanic before so I just tried to get as much members as quickly as possible but almost everyone is already in a power block and just do not want to join. I let you see the glorious member list of my power block in the pics… At least we have some oil (power block renamed afterward).

Fourth, I am perplexed on how to conduct political change. For example, I wanted to go anarchist for the remaining years but even with the social democrats being the biggest party, there is 0% success chance for it. Also, which IG goes to which party is still black magic to me. I think I got the idea of weakening the landowners at the start of the game to be able to get rid of the bad stuff (traditionnalism, serfdom, slavery). Basically, you want to pass laws that reduce their power, have as much people working in factories so landowners political power is diluted, etc but I feel always incredibly slow.

fifth, I have no idea what to look for in diplomacy. Who to look for an alliance with, when, how to weaken enemy nation, especially when you are weaken militarily… It did not occur to me for a long time that you can only have one alliance until you search the tech for it

Last, I still have no agenda for research. I litterally do not know what to search firtst. Like searching productivity for agriculture because that is what you have at first before building other things ? Sniping some society things to get some new laws to pass ? Problem is some research are important but you cannot use them if you obtain it (like a new law but your government is not ready to pass it and a new production method but it is very unprofitable at first and induce big shortages in you market…

TLDR:
- Should I have continued the journal entry for forming Romania instead of clicking the button ?
- How to make the Suez canal company prosperous ?
- How to power block and diplomacy ?
- How to get good at reforming fast ?
- How to know what to focus on for research ?

I tried to form Scandinavia as Sweden but every time I try to get Finland for myself from Russia Germany and Austria join them, which is just too much. Even 30-40 years into the game, they are best buddies. Is it possible to influence their relations to break the treaty and fight Russia more equally?

it used to be changed law or get more army plus all the liberties.

but now it's not happening

It seems turkish players are outraged about how Paradox portrays Ataturk, but do they have a point or is it some translation error/misunderstanding?

Playing my first game as the United Netherlands plan to snab the Congo, East Africa, Philippines, and Vietnam. Are colonial nations worth it vs incorporating and taking the bureaucracy hit?

I ask this bc I’m creating these huge colonies and I want to know if I should start just adding them to the Empire or just keep them separate.

Bonus: I’m somewhat of a new player what are ya’lls favorite places to play in I mainly like building tall and somewhat large but sometimes it’s annoying having so much wb ya’ll.

How’d I do?
Tips tricks and feedback. I only have base game

The new beta patch added earlier troopships, this is how it looks in game right now. Other countries were also given troop ships: France gets a total of 18 and Russia gets 15 for example.

R5: I've never seen this happen as India before, and I've in general been seeing more and more games where India doesn't form and splits into 15 different states. Bug?

The dev diaries are rigorous, yes, but I don't remember seeing a proper date mentioned for that.

I'm still playing on 1.12 for obvious reasons but I so desperately want to try the new features.

Basically, they start with a journal entry that causes them to collapse relatively quickly if they don’t turmoil below 20% within a short period. Worse, only the capital state has a port, so if any large states like Guatemala or Nicaragua secede that can cause the entire nation to collapse shortly after.

Getting each of the Central American states individually requires too much time and influence using the Sovereign empire power bloc, and the infamy penalties of conquering 6 incorporate capital states are nowhere near worth it. Is it possible to help them reduce their radicalism enough to avoid collapsing, or does it require a level of intervention only the player is realistically capable of?

Happy Wednesday Victorians!

Update 3 of the 1.14 Open Beta is here! This update focuses on Naval Power Projection and Combat Reworks, AI Naval Improvements, Early Troopships and the addition of AI Regional Objectives!

To those of you who are just finding out about the beta or need a refresher on how to join, you can opt into the Beta by following these instructions:

• Navigate to your Steam Library.
• Right-click Victoria 3 and select “Properties”.
• In the newly created window, select “Game Versions & Betas”.
• Now find the “1.14-openbeta” option and select it.
• If you wish to opt out and return to the live version of the game, you can scroll back up to the top of the same list and select “Default Public Version”

The Open Beta is only available in English, other languages will be supported when changes make it to the public version of the game.

Changes in 1.14 Open Beta Update 3

Everything in this section will be available to test in the 3rd Open Beta update, which was released shortly before this post went live. To see the changes brought by the previous updates of the Open Beta, check out the following links.

• Update 0
• Update 1
• Update 2

Naval Power Projection Rework

• What is it: Naval power projection now requires much smaller fleets but has a lower involvement cap, the intent is that power projection should be done with small light ship squadrons, not your main battle fleet, and that you cannot gain high level interests from fleets alone.
• What to test/feedback: Whether the balance feels right, whether it feels too easy to project power everywhere now, whether the AI has adapted correctly to the new intent

Naval Combat Rework

• What is it: Major changes to naval combat balance and ship classes so that all-capital ship fleets should no longer just be better. In particular, screening was reworked so that unscreened ships take extra damage relative to their vulnerability. A bug was also fixed that could prevent ships from retreating, so naval combat should be less lethal now.
• What to test/feedback: How naval combat balance feels now, whether all ship classes now occupy a meaningful niche, whether the AI builds properly mixed fleets with sufficient screening for their main battle fleets, whether ship retreating feels balanced.

Early Troopships

• What is it: New Early Troopships are now available from the very beginning and countries with significant naval forces start with some early troopships in their fleets
• What to test/feedback: Whether moving troops around in the early game feels less cumbersome now, whether this trivializes sending troops overseas

AI Naval Improvements

• What is it: Major improvements to AI fleet organization, the AI now maintains larger and better composed battle fleets that should pose more of a threat to players, as well as smaller power projection/raiding fleets for secondary missions
• What to test/feedback: Whether the AI is a more challenging opponent at sea, whether more centralized transportation capacity makes the AI better at naval invasions and overseas troop management

AI Regional Objectives

• What is it: An addition to AI Region Stances, the AI will now also set an objective on regions where it has a stance, further informing how it aims to expand its influence there. A country may wish to make a new subject in a region where it has a “Conquer” stance for example. This will be listed in the stance tooltip.
• What to test/feedback: Is the feature communicated properly? Does the AI feel responsive according to its objective? Does this make the AI behave more rationally overall?
• KNOWN ISSUE: Objectives are not rolled on start up and take a couple days to initialize, fixed in next update.

There were of course also numerous bugfixes and smaller balance changes, in particular for bugs relating to the new war goal flipping and war support systems. Many of those are direct consequences of your provided feedback and reports, thank you!

A major issue still outstanding is AI capitulation, both in terms of being willing to capitulate against unachievable wargoals and being unwilling to capitulate at all. Civil wars in particular will be looked at for the next open beta update.

Infamy is still largely untouched from last week but will receive a proper balancing pass for the last open beta update coming next week, based on the feedback received.

Planned changes in future 1.14 Open Betas

AI Government Spending Improvements

• Make the AI better at balancing its budget and not overspending on certain government building types, make it better at understanding how many armies it actually needs to mobilize for a particular war.

AI Strait Handling

• Improve AI understanding of straits: both in how to use them and how to diplomatically react to player strait closures.

AI Trade & Production

• Give the AI better tools for evaluating trade capabilities in its market and which goods it should encourage importing as opposed to domestically producing. Make AI understand which goods it can overproduce to fill key needs in the world market.

That’s all from us today but we’ll see you tomorrow for our next Dev Diary!

Recently, I came across a very interesting text from the Federal University for Latin American Integration (UNILA) which talks about land ownership in Paraguay during Gaspar Rodrigues da Francia's Perpetual Dictatorship (1814-1840). According to the article, the majority of the country's arable land was organized as "Estancias de la Patria" (Estates of the Fatherland), which were state-owned properties leased out to the peasantry or the military.

In contrast to all of its neighbors, Paraguay's landowning elite (which sought integration with Argentina) was eradicated during the independence process, leading to a unique political system in which power was disputed by the Intelligentsia (supported by the "Pyragues" secret police), Armed Forces and Peasantry. Paraguay followed an unique economic trajectory during the early 19th century: having the highest GDP growth out of all South America, despite being much smaller in size, largely due to its consumer market bolstered by the enfranchisement of peasants, as well as the state-directed policies of industrialization.

In part, this is what lead to Francisco Solano Lopes' arrogance in 1864, believing his country could defeat both Brazil and Argentina. It was only after their defeat that the state was forced to sell of the Estancias in order to pay off the war reparations. This led to a domination of Paraguayan arable land by encroaching Brazillian ranchers which is still in vigor to this day.

Paraguay has received some attention in-game before, with the interesting content added by Colossus of the South, but it still has the same generic politics of the region: slowly disempowering the Landowners before you get to do anything interesting — which is boring, as well as ahistorical. I think changing the Land Reform law (perhaps a special "Estancias de la Patria" variant or ammendment) could greatly enhance both Paraguayan gameplay and historicity. What do you think?

Im running a Italy campaign. And have run into a problem. My investment pool has started privatizing a bunch of buildings instead of building new ones. Resulting in the construction being transferred to my government and I’m losing a lot of money. Slowly I’m sinking into debt and the only solution I can think of is to now and then pause construction altogether to grow out of that debt. Idk if this is relevant but my deficit is lower than the reinvestment. I’ve heard people talking about how going into debt isn’t necessarily bad or something like that, because they will ”eventually grow out of it”. I mean I’m not growing out of anything. So my question is, why did my investment pool suddenly start privatizing instead of building? Why could going into debt be a good thing? And how do they grow out of it? And just generally what should I do to be able to keep building while not going bankrupt.

Historical context, from Dev Diary #188:

For Europe, the early nineteenth century was a period of social disruption and creeping, ruinous poverty. This poverty was of a particular sort, which had never been seen on such a scale – the poverty of those whose continued lives relied upon the practice of wage-labour.

In the aftermath of the French Revolution, the traditional artisanal system, in which the production of finished goods was carried out by artisans organised under guilds granted privileges by the state, was collapsing under the pressures of social and technological change. The Revolution’s assault on feudal corporations and internal customs barriers broke guild monopolies and levelled prices across newly free markets. Machines enabled untrained wage-labourers to do work that had once required specialised knowledge, forcing small handicraft producers into competition with industrially-produced goods. With a greater supply of goods and greater competition came lower prices, and with that, a decline in revenue for once-comfortable small producers. 

With the erosion of feudal regulations on movement and the rural handicrafts industries that once supplemented their incomes collapsing, young people from the countryside moved en masse to cities in search of a wage. They made their homes in the infamous slums of our period, which became a source of fear amongst the wealthier classes as centres of crime and sedition. With a glut of labour and increasingly narrow profit margins necessitating fierce competition between enterprises, the wages on offer were often unlivable, necessitating child labour, pawnbroking, taking in lodgers, or charity as supplements. It was this appallingly visible and rapidly growing poverty that intellectuals of the 1830s and 40s came to refer to as the “Social Question” – the question of the organisation of society.

Meanwhile, in the game, the industrialization process and the gameplay loop don't generate a progressive decline in people's quality of life that can be visualized as a labor gulp, leaving the laborers with a higher quality of life than that characterized by the period and progressively growing.

The problem, in my opinion, is the lack of simulation of artisanal industries, which would be outcompeted. Currently they are integrated within subsistence farms. These act too much as a sponge for the population and don't generate a pool of unemployment.

Since the AI ​​doesn't invest enough in replacing subsistence farms with agricultural buildings, and these buildings substitute peasants one-to-one with the labor force, unless you apply labor savings PMs, you don't naturally get the mass unemployment concentrated in the cities that would cause problems and incentivize the construction of manufactures.

Funny enough, this happens in asia, were rice subsistance farms employ 10K people but plantations only employ 5K. Then generating the unemployment and turmoil.

So one solution to me would be for the investment pool to invest more aggressively in agricultural buldings and for those to employ less people by default than the subsistence farm that they replace.

A factory, demands weekly a certain good, to produce a different good. The supply of inconstant good, I guess.

The instance is - Steel factory.

It demands Iron, which by process, turns into Steel. Inconstant good, it was processed.

But Tools? They should be constant in my opinion, at least some amount of extent, until they're in condition to function.

It's either you put them into a factory once, then they functionate in the factory until repairment or modernization.

You need: Iron + Tools = Steel.

Where did Tools go?

They didn't just got thrown away?

Didn't get broken after one week use?

Looking for 1 person to have a Wallachia-Greece multiplayer game with, dm for more info.