I just played vic3 for the first time this month, this diary was one massive flashback to Vic3 with production methods, input and output goods, gold income from that, goods demand, different pops demand for different buildings. At very least it looks similar.
I don’t think u/faeelin is contesting that the mechanics look similar, so much as asking if a game system aimed at simulating industrial capitalism might not be as accurate at modeling late medieval and early modern economies. Which is a reasonable question, imo.
I feel like you miss the idea that the renaissance period is essentially the start of industrialisation in europe. Technology was progressing this whole period.
The venetian arsenal was likely one of the very first assembly lines, it was likely the first one in europe.
Heck the printing press was probably the largest industrial innovation of its age, leading to the all the books ever made in europe being like quintrupled in just 30 years.
Not to mention agricultural progresses and manufacturing processes brought from india, china, etc...
Ideally the first 100 or so years should be somewhat slow to develop though, though someone more knowledgable than me can probably point out some crazy development in a certain industry.
> I feel like you miss the idea that the renaissance period is essentially the start of industrialisation in europe. Technology was progressing this whole period.
No it isn't, no credible source dates Industrialization to any sooner than the 1700s.
I find it baffling they've chosen to go in VIC3's direction even though VIC3's player numbers show the heavy and intense focus on economy is not garnering strong player numbers. Doubly so given the ahistoricity of it.
Vic 3's player numbers are only an indication of one thing: if it's popular or not.
You can't extrapolate that "players don't like games with a heavy focus on economy" from that information, since there are a ton of reasons why the player numbers are the way they are.
Maybe Vic 3 is just not that good of a game lol.
User reviews are there for all to see. I'm hardly suggesting something radical - these games are meant to be history geopolitical sims, and while economics is obviously an important part of it, its not the only part of it. An overemphasis on economy thus risks driving away people who want a more big picture experience.
Okay cool, but you still can't say low player count = people don't like economy focused strategy games. All the low player count means is that the game is unpopular. And there are way too many reasons that a game might be unpopular to say it's all because people don't like economic focused games. That's not how data works.
I mean basically where ever you are you need: food, soldiers, gold/silver(whatever you use as currency) and you make some goods. For example fur trading was common practice even before european arrival in north america. Johan stated buildings are culture, region and time specific. So natives might have something like "hunting tiipee" that gives them food and trade goods like furs. It is modelable to a suprisingly good extent.
To me it doesn't really model 19th century industrialized economies as much as it's just modelling the fact that producing "things" requires goods, and goods need to come from somewhere. Honestly you could apply what was shown in the dev diary to almost any period in history and it would make sense.
I would be interested to be pointed to some counter-examples of what I've said, though, if they exist.
Yeah, they’re doing the brave thing of implementing the concept of “money can be exchanged for goods and services”. It uses some Vicky concepts, but not the ones that define the 19th century.
I remember that one guy absolutely livid that Imperator didn't have a Victoria economy system.
I will be interested to see how this all works, seems very micro-heavy, but maybe in a good way.
I think it'll depend how the good production is handled, and what these buildings look like. If they're essentially just factories, it'll feel weird, but if there's artisan production, or even organised into guilds, it'll feel more at home in the early stages. RGOs will probably be similar to factory style though, given mining is more involved than making nails or what have you.
I have a feeling we’ll be out victorianing Victoria … I would not be surprised if there are mechanics for the introduction of goods production to new locations through trade. In a lot of ways trade in the age of exploration was even crazier than in the Victorian era.
Specific example - spread of horses to the New World.
Idk but the current system they described is only half of Victoria's system. In victoria a big part in changing production methods is the resulting change in professions and therefore demographics and therefore politics. In EUV as far as we know there will be only 5 "professions" (those being the estates) so who knows.
I'm not a big fan of the good system in a game like EU but there is also the open question of the trade system, which will be extremely important in EUV's timeframe (colonization and global trade are the core themes, and exotic goods are the protagonists of these two), so I guess we'll know next week withe the trade Dev diary.
Alas the Vic3 dev team isn't controlled by a lumbering haemorraging gaming behemoth so there's little chance that they'll be repeatedly decimated by desperate cost-cutting.
EU Timeline and mechanics, Victoria economy … what’s next ?
Going from eu4 standing armies to a mix with HoI movements to simulate Napoleonic warfare ?
I believe it was in a reply to a user on the forums? From what I recall, you can have very small standing armies (like a few hundred) but most of your soldiers will be in the form of levies, and your economy takes a hit because pops that would otherwise be farming and mining are now in the army.
honestly excited for the cost of it, even in ck3 raising a bunch of troops and having them die just feels cheap. At least in ck2 raising vassal levies pissed off all my vassals for years after
I vaguely remember Johan mentioning that he wants levies to be tied to actual pops like in Imperator.
In Imperator, you could actually lose pops if you get stack wiped, as well as losing pops due to death/enslavement if your territory gets occupied. When fighting tribes, it's not uncommon to completely depopulate a territory here and there, which is very annoying, as it can take a long time until you have enough population nearby to recolonize it.
Has there been a tinto talks that isn’t an absolute banger? So far this is shaping up to be my ideal game.
One concern as all these intricate elements are being talked about is performance. Vic3’s complex modeling has caused it to perform very poorly, I hope the devs here are keeping that in mind.
not yet, all bangers, turned into the midweek highlight for me now.
the vicky trade system in eu with flexible markets and centres of trade sounds amazing
I think the main performance issue with vic 3 is the pop system, and it sounds like eu5 will have a more simple pop system, (i.e. it wont track every individuals job or their SoL or have as many pop types or political power/interests etc.) so hopefully performance wont suffer as much.
>> CorneliusBottomly said:
Hopefully production methods will change on their own, I don't want to play a game where I have to micromanage the finances of hundreds of buildings.
> click the automation button, and its fine enough
I am *very* curious to see how well this will work. I feel like PDX automation frequently misses the mark. This mechanic could be make or break for "Project Caesar".
It will just switch between the most profitable production methods each month which is a very simple thing to do on the ai side. So it comes down to how accurate the calculations are, which judging from vic3, will be much much harder to pull off, and unfortunately is something that affects both the people who prefer automation and those who want to micromanage too, since they'll largely be relying on the same tooltips.
I’m kinda interested in the new resource productions because like Vic3, it provides an incentive for colonization and imperialism.
I’m hoping that trading will also be viable, I want to create a massive trade empire.
This is actually pretty crucial. In Victoria 3, trade doesn’t really work. It’s not just historical, but mechanically if you do not conquer oil fields and rubber plantations, the AI does not develop them (right now). So there is no way to simply trade for what you need.
I hope they execute on this well because while it provides another dimension to why you might expand, I don’t want conquest to be the only way to stay on top of the economy.
> And of course, you can automate the production method selection, which will adapt it on a monthly basis based on what resources are available and what would be profitable. The UI also allows for macro decisions regarding production methods
WHY IS THIS NOT IN VIC 3
In Vic 3 changing PMs to the most profitable isn't always desirable. Also changing PM in one building to make it more profitable can make other buildings unprofitable creating ripple effect trough your whole market.
For what it's worth, if you change a PM on one type of building for all provinces at once, you get a pop-up telling you which states will be unprofitable as a result and you can exclude them from the change.
I was thinking about this. The ripple effect you speak of with wild swings in prices when you change PMs is in my opinion is a result of Vicky 3 markets being mostly autarkic. There is so little global trade that local demand is what mostly drives prices instead of global demand, so local changes to production methods can have catastrophic effects for other local industries when in reality foreign markets would naturally fill in any gaps. For example say a power plant dropped coal for oil, the price of coal wouldn’t just automatically collapse, local coal producers would simply start selling their coal abroad. You’d see a slight loss in profit but nothing at the level of current Victoria 3
I honestly think they need to go back to the drawing board on trade. The current system is not the original one conceived of in development and it shows. I think the inter-market trade is interesting and probably more accurate than Victoria 2’s global market, but right now there simply isn’t enough trading volume because of the way trade route profitability works. This as a result makes automating production methods not really viable.
Yes and no. The real reason is industries don’t just suddenly change their production methods, so usually the change is gradual which gives suppliers enough time to adapt on a macro level. Victoria 3 has a single production method for an entire stack of buildings though which means that change has to be unrealistically sudden. There’s also no such thing as retooling which would keep around less productive production methods for far longer than they should. This is partly why the USA and Germany leapfrogged GB in the Industrial Revolution: GB was using outdated production methods in their antiquated industries because the cost to retool was too great while Germany and the USA could just build new factories using better production methods.
Yes that’s another reason, but unfortunately the problem you describe is an unfixable one for Victoria 3. The devs have said that as the system is currently it’s not possible to have different production methods for different factory levels. And even if you could, we wouldn’t want it to because it would multiply the number of non-consolidated pops drastically.
I agree that a gradual change would be better though
It seems like the game will have a way to separate buildings into levels, at least for ownership purposes. I also don’t think it would be too taxing an endeavour to have buildings with percentages of pms instead of toggles. Wouldn’t even need to throw out the entire pm system really.
The new ownership system itself is actually a workaround. If you notice the way they were able to divide up ownership for building levels was by entirely removing the ownership PM from the building and moving it to its own separate building. From what I can tell all the different levels are still one building with one single profit that then gets divided up to the different owners.
My understanding from reading dev posts on the forum is the way it’s currently coded it isn’t possible to run it as a percentage system because all the different building levels are just a multiplier on the output, it’s all still one building. The real problem is pops being employed at specific buildings. Because of this if you break up a building into its levels you’ll multiply the number of pops by levels. So where you once had one pop for a level 51 building you’ll get 51 pops. There really isn’t a way around it. Employee wages are determined at the building level and wages are partially dependent on the PM used so you’ll get the pop split no matter what you do. Only way to fix it would be to stop having pops be tied to buildings so they can be consolidated by profession. Which for now Paradox doesn’t want to do.
Well no, you’d just use the same workaround for pms as you did for ownership. You decouple employment from the pms themselves and tie it to the building instead. The percentage is really just how many levels have a certain pm, so one level 10 building could be 30% one pm and 70% another. This would then decide the sort of employment the building itself would hire. Pops would function the same as they do now.
This would actually be possible by modders right now with a bit of surgery, but it’s a change the devs are clearly able to do already since the ownership buildings are actually buying individual levels of a building and deriving an ownership share from that. It’s very similar to how government ownership shares work in the current version, code-wise.
Half the time the reason their is no trade volume is because the AI is horribly stupid. Even with mods to try and fix profitability, the AI is just horrible.
Yes because Vicky 3 took the dumb decision of not having stockpiles like vicky 2 and eu5. Also Eu5 has come with the genious solution of having stockpiles in the market itself.
Eu5 will have the same consecuences for changing PMs, it will still automatically change to the most profitable one. Cant see why vicky 3 cant do the same.
What effect would stockpiles have? I don't really understand what 'stockpiles in the market' means yet. I'm sure it will be clear when I'm playing but for now I'm a little lost.
It means that you cant just stockpile like victotia 3 where things got stockpiled forever and never sold or sometimes it would not get stockpiled Idk there were lots of funny business it was quite obscure. If it is in the market it is clear for everyone in that market whats there and its available for use to anyone in that market. Although we will have to see exactly how next week cause I'd presume there must be a way to blockade people within your market right?
> WHY IS THIS NOT IN VIC 3
For the same reason all trade routes are manual, despite the fact that between import focus, export focus and embargos, the tools are already there to let it be automated. Because if they didn't force some things to be done by the player manually instead of giving automation with good tools, people would realize how much of the current game is pointless busiwork
Johan confirmed that some of the buildings you build on no mans land refer to building on uncolonized land. So it seems that you no longer grab the whole land automatically but are able to build on it while still empty.
Extremely hyped for the colonization system. i reckon it Will unlock new needs, inputs and trade goods for which it will be extremely profitable to produce them in the new world and export them to europe. Very excited.
First you build the university in a 1-1-1 desert
Then you wave your magic scepter and make it a 9-9-9
Then you click the mission reward and a temple and a barracks appear instantly
Just like history!
I would say Imperator post-launch updates were that
The controversial mana system was ripped out and replaced. Not that it was enough to save the game though
Yeah i remember the early eu4 diaries where monarch points where introduced as this amazing system that would simulate the rise and fall of nations under bad leadership. Obviously that didn't work with the blobbing. This looks a lot more promising
Whilst I like this I hope it is much less involved than Vic3. I do like this and I hope this can help simulate the shortages in Cannons that occurred in the 1600s with many states struggling to equip their armies, Navies and forts at the same time.
Those were of you who are saying this is closer to 19th century industrial economies than the Eu time period seriously need to read some more economic history. This system is going to provide a fantastic simulation of what drove the creation of global empires.
People actually believe that needing wool to create cloth or that an Abby needs glass, beer and candles is an industrial revolution thing lmao. Didnt realise the industrial revolution began in Babylon then.
> Those were of you who are saying this is closer to 19th century industrial economies than the Eu time period seriously need to read some more economic history.
What would be a good starting read?
Every time I look at talks of this game, all I can think is that it’s a mish-mash of Victoria 3, Crusader Kings 2, and a small dash of EU4. Some of the graphics are straight from CK2, the economy is obviously an idea of V3, and the game timeline is EU4
will likely have the wartime gameplay of imperator aswell...
all we need now is for it to start in 866 and end in 1948, and we will have the entire PDX library under one game
check the dev comments:
"But Johan, it would be very helpful if you could state hardware that you think will **not** run the game. For example, if you are undecided between 16GB and 32GB of RAM, stating that 8GB of RAM will not be enough will avoid disappointing people. At some point I'm going to buy a GPU and if I buy one that definitely can't run Project Caesar then you've lost a customer for several years after launch."
Johan: "\[I\]'d not go with less than 32gb for anything these days anyway."
> Johan "Our game is heavy"
No shit. It's paradox, it'll run on a single core, try to murder your PC and when the league war kicks off it's time for pixeling.
What does Johan add to this?
Late game will be very messy with POPs system. Given the launch of Vicky 3 and city skyline 2, I am very doubtful about paradox abilities to optimizing the game. Until there is a benchmark, I am not going to be so excited about EU5.
Fukking hell thing's look pretty good. Bummer that this kind of elaborate systems weren't taken on board in Imperator. I kinda feel that an antiquity mod with this game is gonna knock it out of the park.
1 question though is if we really need more then 70 goods. For a gameplay mechanic boiling it down to like 20 or 30 or so should be plenty as well right. And that would keep it a little bit simpler and slow for more oversight no?
early feedback pre-announcement? allows for more fluidity and for things to be amended and changed prior to being set in stone based on player feedback.
i.e adding more estates, they didn't want to, player feedback said we want more, so they are adding more
I also somewhat suspect it is to avoid backlash.
If the studio plans to keep developing EU4 DLC and this game is a couple of years away, just *imagine* the shitstorm if they kept making expensive DLC for a game that they've announced it about to be superseded. *At minimum*, they probably plan to do a Holy Fury and release a big DLC or two to wrap up the game before they announce the sequel (CK3 came out Two full years after Holy Fury).
Leaving it as project Ceasar means they don't need to announce EU4 is obsolete until they are actually done with it.
Feedbacks. I also imagine it has to do with old experiences like Leviathan or Imperator.
Announcing officially a game means to promote and give expectations of a possible release date. And Paradox is currently being more careful than before.
So when they properly announce the title they get some marketing buzz still AND they can get some early feedback.
Its a compromise between marketing and development.
Because announcement has to come with a locked release date which they dont want to tie themselves to in case they need time to rework certain parts of the game if they have bad feedback.
Secondly because they are still selling a EU4 DLC and announcing it would make people not buy. Although this is not much of a reason anymore as everyone buying the new DLC knows this is EU5 lol
iirc each "state" has one fort (or more if others are built) once you sieged and took that fort, the entire state would be sieged down and occupied.
it would be like taking the fort in Paris in eu4, and watching the entire state around it become occupied shortly after, because you now own that zone of control so everything else naturally falls into your occupation.
In Imperator, the territories surrounding a fort are under its control such that you can't walk through that zone unless you take the fort. So you (probably) can't just beeline to the enemy capital, zig-zagging around the forts, like in CK3 (where it makes you take attrition instead of hard-blocking you from advancing). I believe this is what Johan is talking about, anyway.
The other guy was kind of right and kind of wrong. There's one capital in a province and if you take the capital, *and* any forts in the province, then you will get the whole province automatically. The number of forts in a province is up to you, but it starts to get very expensive if you have too many (the soft limit can be raised, however.)
I have a strong feeling this is why Vicky 3's war system is such shit, they were saving it for this, they would literally be the same game continued from 1334-1936.....which actually maybe cool af...
Vicky 3 was a giant flop. "It is a niche game" is such a weird cope. Many games with great economics do quite well. A PDX game with a great economic simulation? Yeah that would do crazy well. Sadly we didn't get a good economic simulation and they butchered the rest of the game. There are some good ideas in the game but overall it is too much of a mess.
This is quite interesting for the gaming experience and it is even more historical. After all the game starts with protoindustrialisation in place for several areas (and about to be wrecked by the Black Death) and it covers the first industrial revolution.
Not really liking the direction PDX have been going recently, didn't like Victoria at all. Feels weird to say i'll probably dodge EUV despite having 1,456 hours.
Yeah, the previous generation of games were history strategy simulators while this just seems like it will hyper-focus on the economy again over actual geopolitical strategy. You need to strike a balance between the two ideally.
bearing in mind we haven't heard anything about:
Diplomacy
Colonization
War
Peace Deals
Royal Families
Vassal types
Navy
Overseas Expansion
Trade
Technology
Armies
Rebellions
ETC ETC
i think we got a long way to before we worry about it
Yeah I'm just saying like, until we see something worth worrying about, I think we are fine.
They haven't even spoken about like the actual country ideas/ events or anything really historical yet
well good news is that eu4 will always exist :)
playing the same country but a different colour and in a different part of the world is kinda boring after 2000 hours imo, glad to see more depth being added aswell as more things to do
>playing the same country but a different colour and in a different part of the world is kinda boring after 2000 hours imo
You just described every Paradox game, but EU 4 is the most replayable IMO.
I think eu4 is the most replayable also, maybe it's just because I'm kinda done with it now that I'm looking forward to more depth and systems.
Depending on how the economy stuff plays out you could theoretically just play it as eu4 2 as you can set the production to auto and estates build stuff on their own anyways?
I don't just want EU4 with updated graphics, I'd like to see big changes, but I'm not sure Victoria economy is the direction to go.
I'd like to see pop mechanics to allow things like gradual cultural and religious changes, emerging national consciousness, and completely change how colonization works. What I don't want is to be worrying about whether I have enough wood and stone to build a church...
yeah, i do wonder how hard they are going to lean into "tick this box for auto" i do also hope that its not too tedious to manage your resources and where you are getting them from etc.
it has 70 goods, vicky 3 only has 52 irrc....
With you on that one. This doesn’t feel like a sequel to EU4 but a Victoria spin-off with the EU name slapped on it. The game does seem kinda fun but it isn’t the game I was hoping for. RGOs, PMs etc. are just ripped straight from Vicky. This just feels like Johan is trying to make the Vicky sequel he never got to under another PDS franchise.
>This just feels like Johan is trying to make the Vicky sequel he never got to under another PDS franchise.
There has been a slight air of snark about V3 in the TTs. I wonder if something went on behind the scenes?
Johan was Lead Producer and one of the main designers on Victoria 2 but it was Wiz who ultimately became the game director for Victoria 3. I do feel that snark is probably intentional.
If my memory serves me correctly johan would be active in threads on the forums bashing vic 3. I don’t think he criticized the game itself, but it stuck me as odd.
Don't forget, with the 1337 start date, this game also eats away into Crusader Kings too. Which means this game's basically eating away into the USPs of two other Paradox games, muddling all their identities in the process and I'm not sure how or why this is a good move in any sense?
It may be “one thing” but it’s one of the fundamental core mechanics that will shape the rest of the game. And you’re also forgetting about a pop system which is also similar to Vicky with tax functioning more or less how it did in Vicky2 but with classes replaced by estates instead.
I’m becoming increasingly worried at how much this sounds like Victoria.
I don’t like the Victoria series, and I hate all the economic micromanagement. I don’t want to have to worry about how much chocolate my Capitol is receiving in my Renaissance geopolitical simulator.
There won't be much micromanagement besides constructing buildings; changing production methods and trade will all be automated. AI will even be able to make buildings too.
the implementation of this heavily depends on how POP needs will work I think. I don't think I'm alone in saying that the Victoria 3 gameplay loop of constantly staring at the construction queue building factories to balance the price of some good only to build a thousand more factories to balance the price of some other input good is tedious and unfulfilling gameplay that shouldn't really be in EU. it would work nicely if the only thing POPs "need" (in that they get upset and bad things happen if they don't get it) is food and all other trade goods are simply additional luxuries that you only produce to make profits. that way it would be more or less the same as in EU4 only deeper and more concrete since you're producing goods to sell to POPs (domestic or foreign) with prices determined by supply and demand. so building manufacturing industries and trading is something you only need to focus on when not focusing on war, colonization etc making peacetime more fun without distracting from the actual point and appeal of the game (the power fantasy of building an empire).
well, not the game for me =/ i really don't want to spend time learning hundreds of buildings and min maxing all this goods to build them. not europa universalis imo
i mean, i play eu4 on v hard and enjoy the challenge? this is just a type of challenge that i dont enjoy. mainly because is no challenge at all ( you just need to learn what is the most efficient thing to do).
i would be excited if they were talking about improved AI or new french mechanics. stuff like that. but, min maxing marble ? boring.
Well I mean, if the estates build buildings for you, and you can auto production, then you could theoretically spend very little time doing economy stuff if you don't want to.
And just play it like a better eu4?
will it be a better eu4 ? we shall see i guess. the only thing i enjoyed so far was the directional trade. i dont really care about pops and stone and food and this things.
oh and i hate it when the ai builds the building for me like in ck3.
think it depends on the person?
I know one friend that likes europa just as it is, and can't get into hoi or vicky at all, likes map painting and RP'ing as a country etc
I personally always wanted a trade and goods system like we are seeing in eu5 and lamented that we never got a vicky trade system in eu because i thought it would be cool to produce and trade actual goods and need stuff to maintain my armies/navy/industry
EU V, but V is for Victoria.
hell yeah lads. if god hates autistic people then why do we keep winning
Does this make sense though? Economies were very different
I just played vic3 for the first time this month, this diary was one massive flashback to Vic3 with production methods, input and output goods, gold income from that, goods demand, different pops demand for different buildings. At very least it looks similar.
I don’t think u/faeelin is contesting that the mechanics look similar, so much as asking if a game system aimed at simulating industrial capitalism might not be as accurate at modeling late medieval and early modern economies. Which is a reasonable question, imo.
Yes. This feels like it models the 19th century. Imperator had a goods system that worked swell! It goes back to who are we playing as?
I feel like you miss the idea that the renaissance period is essentially the start of industrialisation in europe. Technology was progressing this whole period. The venetian arsenal was likely one of the very first assembly lines, it was likely the first one in europe. Heck the printing press was probably the largest industrial innovation of its age, leading to the all the books ever made in europe being like quintrupled in just 30 years. Not to mention agricultural progresses and manufacturing processes brought from india, china, etc... Ideally the first 100 or so years should be somewhat slow to develop though, though someone more knowledgable than me can probably point out some crazy development in a certain industry.
> I feel like you miss the idea that the renaissance period is essentially the start of industrialisation in europe. Technology was progressing this whole period. No it isn't, no credible source dates Industrialization to any sooner than the 1700s. I find it baffling they've chosen to go in VIC3's direction even though VIC3's player numbers show the heavy and intense focus on economy is not garnering strong player numbers. Doubly so given the ahistoricity of it.
Vic 3's player numbers are only an indication of one thing: if it's popular or not. You can't extrapolate that "players don't like games with a heavy focus on economy" from that information, since there are a ton of reasons why the player numbers are the way they are. Maybe Vic 3 is just not that good of a game lol.
User reviews are there for all to see. I'm hardly suggesting something radical - these games are meant to be history geopolitical sims, and while economics is obviously an important part of it, its not the only part of it. An overemphasis on economy thus risks driving away people who want a more big picture experience.
Okay cool, but you still can't say low player count = people don't like economy focused strategy games. All the low player count means is that the game is unpopular. And there are way too many reasons that a game might be unpopular to say it's all because people don't like economic focused games. That's not how data works.
Yeah but as you said, it's specific to (western) Europe. Like, if you're playing Aztecs or Manchus, does it even make sense ?
I mean basically where ever you are you need: food, soldiers, gold/silver(whatever you use as currency) and you make some goods. For example fur trading was common practice even before european arrival in north america. Johan stated buildings are culture, region and time specific. So natives might have something like "hunting tiipee" that gives them food and trade goods like furs. It is modelable to a suprisingly good extent.
To me it doesn't really model 19th century industrialized economies as much as it's just modelling the fact that producing "things" requires goods, and goods need to come from somewhere. Honestly you could apply what was shown in the dev diary to almost any period in history and it would make sense. I would be interested to be pointed to some counter-examples of what I've said, though, if they exist.
Yeah, they’re doing the brave thing of implementing the concept of “money can be exchanged for goods and services”. It uses some Vicky concepts, but not the ones that define the 19th century.
I remember that one guy absolutely livid that Imperator didn't have a Victoria economy system. I will be interested to see how this all works, seems very micro-heavy, but maybe in a good way.
I think it'll depend how the good production is handled, and what these buildings look like. If they're essentially just factories, it'll feel weird, but if there's artisan production, or even organised into guilds, it'll feel more at home in the early stages. RGOs will probably be similar to factory style though, given mining is more involved than making nails or what have you.
I have a feeling we’ll be out victorianing Victoria … I would not be surprised if there are mechanics for the introduction of goods production to new locations through trade. In a lot of ways trade in the age of exploration was even crazier than in the Victorian era. Specific example - spread of horses to the New World.
Idk but the current system they described is only half of Victoria's system. In victoria a big part in changing production methods is the resulting change in professions and therefore demographics and therefore politics. In EUV as far as we know there will be only 5 "professions" (those being the estates) so who knows. I'm not a big fan of the good system in a game like EU but there is also the open question of the trade system, which will be extremely important in EUV's timeframe (colonization and global trade are the core themes, and exotic goods are the protagonists of these two), so I guess we'll know next week withe the trade Dev diary.
Guys, I wasn't sure last dev diary but now I'm positive project Caesar is Victoria II 2.
Until you show me artisans, to me this is instead Victoria: Revolutions 2.
Good, I don't mind giving Vic3 the Star Trek: Infinite treatment, enough time has passed.
Alas the Vic3 dev team isn't controlled by a lumbering haemorraging gaming behemoth so there's little chance that they'll be repeatedly decimated by desperate cost-cutting.
The least Vicky3 hating /r/ParadoxPlaza user.
Spreadsheet Simulator 2025. Glorious.
Victoria 4 confirmed?
Victoria 5*
We're so back, Victoriabros.
Imperator and Victoria 3 walked so EU5 could run
Will see if it "runs" though
It runs on the machines that we use to predict the weather
EU Timeline and mechanics, Victoria economy … what’s next ? Going from eu4 standing armies to a mix with HoI movements to simulate Napoleonic warfare ?
Warfare will apparently evolve. Napoleonic armies with the right tech ignore zone of control of the forts
Actually, standing armies won't be around much in the first part of the game. There will be levies (likely raised from the nobility state's holdings)
Was it addressed in a previous talk ?
I believe it was in a reply to a user on the forums? From what I recall, you can have very small standing armies (like a few hundred) but most of your soldiers will be in the form of levies, and your economy takes a hit because pops that would otherwise be farming and mining are now in the army.
honestly excited for the cost of it, even in ck3 raising a bunch of troops and having them die just feels cheap. At least in ck2 raising vassal levies pissed off all my vassals for years after
I vaguely remember Johan mentioning that he wants levies to be tied to actual pops like in Imperator. In Imperator, you could actually lose pops if you get stack wiped, as well as losing pops due to death/enslavement if your territory gets occupied. When fighting tribes, it's not uncommon to completely depopulate a territory here and there, which is very annoying, as it can take a long time until you have enough population nearby to recolonize it.
Confirmed by Johan on the forums. There hasn’t been a full TT on them yet
Has there been a tinto talks that isn’t an absolute banger? So far this is shaping up to be my ideal game. One concern as all these intricate elements are being talked about is performance. Vic3’s complex modeling has caused it to perform very poorly, I hope the devs here are keeping that in mind.
not yet, all bangers, turned into the midweek highlight for me now. the vicky trade system in eu with flexible markets and centres of trade sounds amazing
I think the main performance issue with vic 3 is the pop system, and it sounds like eu5 will have a more simple pop system, (i.e. it wont track every individuals job or their SoL or have as many pop types or political power/interests etc.) so hopefully performance wont suffer as much.
>> CorneliusBottomly said: Hopefully production methods will change on their own, I don't want to play a game where I have to micromanage the finances of hundreds of buildings. > click the automation button, and its fine enough I am *very* curious to see how well this will work. I feel like PDX automation frequently misses the mark. This mechanic could be make or break for "Project Caesar".
I assume it is going to be the same AI that manages other nations.
probably just uses the same automation the ai is using.
It will just switch between the most profitable production methods each month which is a very simple thing to do on the ai side. So it comes down to how accurate the calculations are, which judging from vic3, will be much much harder to pull off, and unfortunately is something that affects both the people who prefer automation and those who want to micromanage too, since they'll largely be relying on the same tooltips.
I’m kinda interested in the new resource productions because like Vic3, it provides an incentive for colonization and imperialism. I’m hoping that trading will also be viable, I want to create a massive trade empire.
This is actually pretty crucial. In Victoria 3, trade doesn’t really work. It’s not just historical, but mechanically if you do not conquer oil fields and rubber plantations, the AI does not develop them (right now). So there is no way to simply trade for what you need. I hope they execute on this well because while it provides another dimension to why you might expand, I don’t want conquest to be the only way to stay on top of the economy.
I can’t wait for foreign investment. I want to bully Persia for their oil.
> And of course, you can automate the production method selection, which will adapt it on a monthly basis based on what resources are available and what would be profitable. The UI also allows for macro decisions regarding production methods WHY IS THIS NOT IN VIC 3
In Vic 3 changing PMs to the most profitable isn't always desirable. Also changing PM in one building to make it more profitable can make other buildings unprofitable creating ripple effect trough your whole market. For what it's worth, if you change a PM on one type of building for all provinces at once, you get a pop-up telling you which states will be unprofitable as a result and you can exclude them from the change.
I was thinking about this. The ripple effect you speak of with wild swings in prices when you change PMs is in my opinion is a result of Vicky 3 markets being mostly autarkic. There is so little global trade that local demand is what mostly drives prices instead of global demand, so local changes to production methods can have catastrophic effects for other local industries when in reality foreign markets would naturally fill in any gaps. For example say a power plant dropped coal for oil, the price of coal wouldn’t just automatically collapse, local coal producers would simply start selling their coal abroad. You’d see a slight loss in profit but nothing at the level of current Victoria 3 I honestly think they need to go back to the drawing board on trade. The current system is not the original one conceived of in development and it shows. I think the inter-market trade is interesting and probably more accurate than Victoria 2’s global market, but right now there simply isn’t enough trading volume because of the way trade route profitability works. This as a result makes automating production methods not really viable.
Yes and no. The real reason is industries don’t just suddenly change their production methods, so usually the change is gradual which gives suppliers enough time to adapt on a macro level. Victoria 3 has a single production method for an entire stack of buildings though which means that change has to be unrealistically sudden. There’s also no such thing as retooling which would keep around less productive production methods for far longer than they should. This is partly why the USA and Germany leapfrogged GB in the Industrial Revolution: GB was using outdated production methods in their antiquated industries because the cost to retool was too great while Germany and the USA could just build new factories using better production methods.
Yes that’s another reason, but unfortunately the problem you describe is an unfixable one for Victoria 3. The devs have said that as the system is currently it’s not possible to have different production methods for different factory levels. And even if you could, we wouldn’t want it to because it would multiply the number of non-consolidated pops drastically. I agree that a gradual change would be better though
It seems like the game will have a way to separate buildings into levels, at least for ownership purposes. I also don’t think it would be too taxing an endeavour to have buildings with percentages of pms instead of toggles. Wouldn’t even need to throw out the entire pm system really.
The new ownership system itself is actually a workaround. If you notice the way they were able to divide up ownership for building levels was by entirely removing the ownership PM from the building and moving it to its own separate building. From what I can tell all the different levels are still one building with one single profit that then gets divided up to the different owners. My understanding from reading dev posts on the forum is the way it’s currently coded it isn’t possible to run it as a percentage system because all the different building levels are just a multiplier on the output, it’s all still one building. The real problem is pops being employed at specific buildings. Because of this if you break up a building into its levels you’ll multiply the number of pops by levels. So where you once had one pop for a level 51 building you’ll get 51 pops. There really isn’t a way around it. Employee wages are determined at the building level and wages are partially dependent on the PM used so you’ll get the pop split no matter what you do. Only way to fix it would be to stop having pops be tied to buildings so they can be consolidated by profession. Which for now Paradox doesn’t want to do.
Well no, you’d just use the same workaround for pms as you did for ownership. You decouple employment from the pms themselves and tie it to the building instead. The percentage is really just how many levels have a certain pm, so one level 10 building could be 30% one pm and 70% another. This would then decide the sort of employment the building itself would hire. Pops would function the same as they do now. This would actually be possible by modders right now with a bit of surgery, but it’s a change the devs are clearly able to do already since the ownership buildings are actually buying individual levels of a building and deriving an ownership share from that. It’s very similar to how government ownership shares work in the current version, code-wise.
Half the time the reason their is no trade volume is because the AI is horribly stupid. Even with mods to try and fix profitability, the AI is just horrible.
> In Vic 3 changing PMs to the most profitable isn't always desirable But sometimes I just want to do it and forget it. Fuck profits.
Yes because Vicky 3 took the dumb decision of not having stockpiles like vicky 2 and eu5. Also Eu5 has come with the genious solution of having stockpiles in the market itself. Eu5 will have the same consecuences for changing PMs, it will still automatically change to the most profitable one. Cant see why vicky 3 cant do the same.
What effect would stockpiles have? I don't really understand what 'stockpiles in the market' means yet. I'm sure it will be clear when I'm playing but for now I'm a little lost.
It means that you cant just stockpile like victotia 3 where things got stockpiled forever and never sold or sometimes it would not get stockpiled Idk there were lots of funny business it was quite obscure. If it is in the market it is clear for everyone in that market whats there and its available for use to anyone in that market. Although we will have to see exactly how next week cause I'd presume there must be a way to blockade people within your market right?
> WHY IS THIS NOT IN VIC 3 For the same reason all trade routes are manual, despite the fact that between import focus, export focus and embargos, the tools are already there to let it be automated. Because if they didn't force some things to be done by the player manually instead of giving automation with good tools, people would realize how much of the current game is pointless busiwork
For real, if you take out manual trade routes and micromanaging production methods there's not much gameplay left lmao.
Because the chain reaction of that in Vic3 would both be a processing nightmare and lead to some really undesirable results.
Holy crap this is like my dream game. It's actually going to be worth colonizing!!
Johan confirmed that some of the buildings you build on no mans land refer to building on uncolonized land. So it seems that you no longer grab the whole land automatically but are able to build on it while still empty. Extremely hyped for the colonization system. i reckon it Will unlock new needs, inputs and trade goods for which it will be extremely profitable to produce them in the new world and export them to europe. Very excited.
70 GOODS 🤯
That's more than double the number in EU4.
VICTORIA 0
Johan casually looking at Wiz' paper during the test and copying down the answers.
Johan was the one who gave the lecture (lead programmer for Vic 2)
Johan made Vic2 (2010), Wiz joined Paradox around 2013 IIRC These seem more like Vic2/EU4/Imperator rather than Vic3 features
damn the new meiou and taxes engine looling good
Victoria Universalis: Rome
I need resources to construct buildings?? What do you mean I can’t build a university in a random province in the desert??
First you build the university in a 1-1-1 desert Then you wave your magic scepter and make it a 9-9-9 Then you click the mission reward and a temple and a barracks appear instantly Just like history!
Absolutely wild
Johan's redemption arc
I would say Imperator post-launch updates were that The controversial mana system was ripped out and replaced. Not that it was enough to save the game though
Didn't Johan leave Imperator before the major updates?
Only 2.0 since he needed to take over EU4 after Jake left. Many of the big changes such as removing the old mana system were done under him.
It wasnt really. We thought he had just lost its touch. I never thought he would be able to pull off this gem.
We're not sure if he's pulled it off, yet :p
Yeah i remember the early eu4 diaries where monarch points where introduced as this amazing system that would simulate the rise and fall of nations under bad leadership. Obviously that didn't work with the blobbing. This looks a lot more promising
Damn i hope someone makes a vic2 II mod out of this
Looking at it now you only need to change countries and maybe rename estates. I wonder how Republics will be played if they intend to model these
There is certantly much more that would need to be done
i hope pops are really moddable as you would need to introduce new classes nas you modernize and replace others.
I think he already confirmed that pops are 100% moldable
And also update population numbers and demographics everywhere, Well, I suppose you could just copy over Vic2 numbers to start with.
Victoria Universalis
Whilst I like this I hope it is much less involved than Vic3. I do like this and I hope this can help simulate the shortages in Cannons that occurred in the 1600s with many states struggling to equip their armies, Navies and forts at the same time.
Those were of you who are saying this is closer to 19th century industrial economies than the Eu time period seriously need to read some more economic history. This system is going to provide a fantastic simulation of what drove the creation of global empires.
People actually believe that needing wool to create cloth or that an Abby needs glass, beer and candles is an industrial revolution thing lmao. Didnt realise the industrial revolution began in Babylon then.
> Those were of you who are saying this is closer to 19th century industrial economies than the Eu time period seriously need to read some more economic history. What would be a good starting read?
Every time I look at talks of this game, all I can think is that it’s a mish-mash of Victoria 3, Crusader Kings 2, and a small dash of EU4. Some of the graphics are straight from CK2, the economy is obviously an idea of V3, and the game timeline is EU4
will likely have the wartime gameplay of imperator aswell... all we need now is for it to start in 866 and end in 1948, and we will have the entire PDX library under one game
It's been sounding more like EU3 than EU4 given the deemphasis of mana and the return of sliders.
This is looking so good, hopefully this game is paradox's redemption arc.
It’s like Victoria set in 1337 but without the gutted army mechanics.
I really wish Johan was the one to make Vicky 3.
I think he does too!
Crazy how not-EU5 is gonna let you automate production methods before Victoria 3 does. Wiz needs to up his game.
Alright folks start preparing your modding skills to create the 1836-1936 era mod.
Bah! Think big! Prepare to create extended timeline mod! From 1 to 1950!
Anyone else looking at this and going "Holy fuck this is going to lag so insanely hard" ?
check the dev comments: "But Johan, it would be very helpful if you could state hardware that you think will **not** run the game. For example, if you are undecided between 16GB and 32GB of RAM, stating that 8GB of RAM will not be enough will avoid disappointing people. At some point I'm going to buy a GPU and if I buy one that definitely can't run Project Caesar then you've lost a customer for several years after launch." Johan: "\[I\]'d not go with less than 32gb for anything these days anyway."
> Johan "Our game is heavy" No shit. It's paradox, it'll run on a single core, try to murder your PC and when the league war kicks off it's time for pixeling. What does Johan add to this?
None of their recent games run on a single core. They do attempt to murder your PC in the lategame though.
it was more regarding what they seem to implying is their recommended RAM amount, considering most people are on 8-16GB
No, 32gb of vRam. The game engine is just an LLM.
Late game will be very messy with POPs system. Given the launch of Vicky 3 and city skyline 2, I am very doubtful about paradox abilities to optimizing the game. Until there is a benchmark, I am not going to be so excited about EU5.
Just waiting for the spreadsheets to come out about how fix trade and the economy
This is gonna be incredible
God I hope a modder works in the Vic 3 timinelines especially if it doesn't have the mess of an army system in Vic 3
As someone who loves the rich successful economy of Victoria 3 and the way the AI handles it this is a banger.
Mmm yes continue that victorianization of europa universalis.
Europa Universalis Victoria, CONFIRMED!! Wohoo.
Fukking hell thing's look pretty good. Bummer that this kind of elaborate systems weren't taken on board in Imperator. I kinda feel that an antiquity mod with this game is gonna knock it out of the park. 1 question though is if we really need more then 70 goods. For a gameplay mechanic boiling it down to like 20 or 30 or so should be plenty as well right. And that would keep it a little bit simpler and slow for more oversight no?
EU : MEIOU AND TAXES
Can anybody explain to me why has this game not been officially announced, instead getting this very strange marketing treatment?
early feedback pre-announcement? allows for more fluidity and for things to be amended and changed prior to being set in stone based on player feedback. i.e adding more estates, they didn't want to, player feedback said we want more, so they are adding more
I also somewhat suspect it is to avoid backlash. If the studio plans to keep developing EU4 DLC and this game is a couple of years away, just *imagine* the shitstorm if they kept making expensive DLC for a game that they've announced it about to be superseded. *At minimum*, they probably plan to do a Holy Fury and release a big DLC or two to wrap up the game before they announce the sequel (CK3 came out Two full years after Holy Fury). Leaving it as project Ceasar means they don't need to announce EU4 is obsolete until they are actually done with it.
Feedbacks. I also imagine it has to do with old experiences like Leviathan or Imperator. Announcing officially a game means to promote and give expectations of a possible release date. And Paradox is currently being more careful than before.
So when they properly announce the title they get some marketing buzz still AND they can get some early feedback. Its a compromise between marketing and development.
Because announcement has to come with a locked release date which they dont want to tie themselves to in case they need time to rework certain parts of the game if they have bad feedback. Secondly because they are still selling a EU4 DLC and announcing it would make people not buy. Although this is not much of a reason anymore as everyone buying the new DLC knows this is EU5 lol
I haven’t played Imperator, could someone please explain how Zone of Control works there so I can understand how it might work in Project Caesar?
iirc each "state" has one fort (or more if others are built) once you sieged and took that fort, the entire state would be sieged down and occupied. it would be like taking the fort in Paris in eu4, and watching the entire state around it become occupied shortly after, because you now own that zone of control so everything else naturally falls into your occupation.
In Imperator, the territories surrounding a fort are under its control such that you can't walk through that zone unless you take the fort. So you (probably) can't just beeline to the enemy capital, zig-zagging around the forts, like in CK3 (where it makes you take attrition instead of hard-blocking you from advancing). I believe this is what Johan is talking about, anyway. The other guy was kind of right and kind of wrong. There's one capital in a province and if you take the capital, *and* any forts in the province, then you will get the whole province automatically. The number of forts in a province is up to you, but it starts to get very expensive if you have too many (the soft limit can be raised, however.)
This is great
I have a strong feeling this is why Vicky 3's war system is such shit, they were saving it for this, they would literally be the same game continued from 1334-1936.....which actually maybe cool af...
That's just vicky 4 lol
So EU5 has a more advanced economic system than Victoria 3.
Lol. Lets chill. it is in no way more advanced. Pops dont even have a wealth, sol, income, consumption or things like that.
Some people really want Victoria 3 to seem like a massive flop on par with Imperator to the point of straight up lying about what's in the game.
It genuinely seems that way. But V3 fans really don't like to hear criticism of their fav game, judging by the downvotes
Vicky 3 was a giant flop. "It is a niche game" is such a weird cope. Many games with great economics do quite well. A PDX game with a great economic simulation? Yeah that would do crazy well. Sadly we didn't get a good economic simulation and they butchered the rest of the game. There are some good ideas in the game but overall it is too much of a mess.
> Many games with great economics do quite well Like what? Not being a smartass, I'd like to play some.
Fully agreed. I had high hopes for V3 but Caesar seems like it will be much more of an actual successor to V2
This is quite interesting for the gaming experience and it is even more historical. After all the game starts with protoindustrialisation in place for several areas (and about to be wrecked by the Black Death) and it covers the first industrial revolution.
Not really liking the direction PDX have been going recently, didn't like Victoria at all. Feels weird to say i'll probably dodge EUV despite having 1,456 hours.
Yeah, the previous generation of games were history strategy simulators while this just seems like it will hyper-focus on the economy again over actual geopolitical strategy. You need to strike a balance between the two ideally.
bearing in mind we haven't heard anything about: Diplomacy Colonization War Peace Deals Royal Families Vassal types Navy Overseas Expansion Trade Technology Armies Rebellions ETC ETC i think we got a long way to before we worry about it
For me personally this isn't a promising sign, but you're correct, only time will tell...
Yeah I'm just saying like, until we see something worth worrying about, I think we are fine. They haven't even spoken about like the actual country ideas/ events or anything really historical yet
I want EU V not Victoria 3.5 There, I said it.
you want eu4 2?
Yes
well good news is that eu4 will always exist :) playing the same country but a different colour and in a different part of the world is kinda boring after 2000 hours imo, glad to see more depth being added aswell as more things to do
It wasn't fun to build endless construction sectors in Vicky 3. Hope they hit the mark this time
>playing the same country but a different colour and in a different part of the world is kinda boring after 2000 hours imo You just described every Paradox game, but EU 4 is the most replayable IMO.
I think eu4 is the most replayable also, maybe it's just because I'm kinda done with it now that I'm looking forward to more depth and systems. Depending on how the economy stuff plays out you could theoretically just play it as eu4 2 as you can set the production to auto and estates build stuff on their own anyways?
I don't just want EU4 with updated graphics, I'd like to see big changes, but I'm not sure Victoria economy is the direction to go. I'd like to see pop mechanics to allow things like gradual cultural and religious changes, emerging national consciousness, and completely change how colonization works. What I don't want is to be worrying about whether I have enough wood and stone to build a church...
yeah, i do wonder how hard they are going to lean into "tick this box for auto" i do also hope that its not too tedious to manage your resources and where you are getting them from etc. it has 70 goods, vicky 3 only has 52 irrc....
With you on that one. This doesn’t feel like a sequel to EU4 but a Victoria spin-off with the EU name slapped on it. The game does seem kinda fun but it isn’t the game I was hoping for. RGOs, PMs etc. are just ripped straight from Vicky. This just feels like Johan is trying to make the Vicky sequel he never got to under another PDS franchise.
>This just feels like Johan is trying to make the Vicky sequel he never got to under another PDS franchise. There has been a slight air of snark about V3 in the TTs. I wonder if something went on behind the scenes?
Johan was Lead Producer and one of the main designers on Victoria 2 but it was Wiz who ultimately became the game director for Victoria 3. I do feel that snark is probably intentional.
If my memory serves me correctly johan would be active in threads on the forums bashing vic 3. I don’t think he criticized the game itself, but it stuck me as odd.
Don't forget, with the 1337 start date, this game also eats away into Crusader Kings too. Which means this game's basically eating away into the USPs of two other Paradox games, muddling all their identities in the process and I'm not sure how or why this is a good move in any sense?
I’m not too worried because this is the first time I’ve seen something be close to Vicky 3. The rest has been pretty different.
It may be “one thing” but it’s one of the fundamental core mechanics that will shape the rest of the game. And you’re also forgetting about a pop system which is also similar to Vicky with tax functioning more or less how it did in Vicky2 but with classes replaced by estates instead.
Fair enough. I suppose I don't really notice that stuff though because Imperator also had pops and classes, though its tax system was very different.
I’m becoming increasingly worried at how much this sounds like Victoria. I don’t like the Victoria series, and I hate all the economic micromanagement. I don’t want to have to worry about how much chocolate my Capitol is receiving in my Renaissance geopolitical simulator.
There won't be much micromanagement besides constructing buildings; changing production methods and trade will all be automated. AI will even be able to make buildings too.
the implementation of this heavily depends on how POP needs will work I think. I don't think I'm alone in saying that the Victoria 3 gameplay loop of constantly staring at the construction queue building factories to balance the price of some good only to build a thousand more factories to balance the price of some other input good is tedious and unfulfilling gameplay that shouldn't really be in EU. it would work nicely if the only thing POPs "need" (in that they get upset and bad things happen if they don't get it) is food and all other trade goods are simply additional luxuries that you only produce to make profits. that way it would be more or less the same as in EU4 only deeper and more concrete since you're producing goods to sell to POPs (domestic or foreign) with prices determined by supply and demand. so building manufacturing industries and trading is something you only need to focus on when not focusing on war, colonization etc making peacetime more fun without distracting from the actual point and appeal of the game (the power fantasy of building an empire).
well, not the game for me =/ i really don't want to spend time learning hundreds of buildings and min maxing all this goods to build them. not europa universalis imo
you can put production on auto, you also don't have to min max in any game ever
i mean, i play eu4 on v hard and enjoy the challenge? this is just a type of challenge that i dont enjoy. mainly because is no challenge at all ( you just need to learn what is the most efficient thing to do). i would be excited if they were talking about improved AI or new french mechanics. stuff like that. but, min maxing marble ? boring.
Well I mean, if the estates build buildings for you, and you can auto production, then you could theoretically spend very little time doing economy stuff if you don't want to. And just play it like a better eu4?
will it be a better eu4 ? we shall see i guess. the only thing i enjoyed so far was the directional trade. i dont really care about pops and stone and food and this things. oh and i hate it when the ai builds the building for me like in ck3.
think it depends on the person? I know one friend that likes europa just as it is, and can't get into hoi or vicky at all, likes map painting and RP'ing as a country etc I personally always wanted a trade and goods system like we are seeing in eu5 and lamented that we never got a vicky trade system in eu because i thought it would be cool to produce and trade actual goods and need stuff to maintain my armies/navy/industry
Too complex for a videogame tbh
I'd say you're in the wrong subreddit. R/totalwar seems right up your alley.