Victoria

This is a /v/ related article, which we tolerate because it's relevant and/or popular on /tg/... or we just can't be bothered to delete it.

This article is should be mostly about Victoria 2 because nobody cares about the first game underage b8 is too young to remember the first game

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Victoria: An Empire under the Sun is a Video game developed and published by Paradox Interactive. It (somehow) gained an expansion "Victoria: Revelationsolutions" despite being a commercial failure. Altrough the focus lies on Europe and somewhat the Americas, it is still possible to play as an Uncivilized nation like Zulu or Vietnam (just be prepared to wait the first half of the game for westernisation and pray that no Western nation eats you in the meantime). After the expansion the game had a few avenues for a nation to grow and be top dog, like a special event for Russia starting an early war with Ottomans, take Constantinople and all slavic population centers and becoming an utter beast.

Then came the Europe: The Game Electric BoogalooVictoria 2 is a strategy focusing on a period from 1836 to 1936 where you can play as any country in the world, but nothing will ever change. Ever.

The Game

Fun fact: People actually think, this is a strategy game. It is not. It is a numbers simulator with a overlay of moving units around to confuse people.

Both games are, albeit the second one much more designed to have Great Britain always as the worlds Big Dog, so don't even try to surpass it. There has to be a major fuck-up happening, if GB is not the Number 1 on the scoreboards and short from cheating, it's impossible to boot it out of top 3 unless it's a multiplayer redcoat shootout boogaloo. Victorias are also considered as one of the most railroaded games by Paradox, since GB will be always Nr. 1, the Union will always beat up the South (the American Civil War is hard-coded to happen, don't try to avoid it) and Prussia will rape the shit out of Austria and be the GROßDEUTSCHLAND!

On the other hand, those are the only Paradox games where it is not possible to make a world conquest, because the way the AI reacts to agressive expansion and how war goals operate. Instead, to win, you have to invest in things that give the most "prestige" and get caught into military build-up race for the sake of flexing muscles, rather than fighting wars. Victorias are also the only Paradox games where even in unmodded state, playing tall is not only possible, but encouraged on every step. Combat tends to get ugly, with WW1-style meat-grinder being a normal result and you should avoid it at all costs, unless the other side is armed with spears and swords. Speaking of meat-grinder, AI absolutely doesn't understand the concept of attrition or using any other force than all it has, so you can expect total, global mobilisation when, say, Brits decide to conquer some backwater in the Himalayas, shipping troops from all the far corners of Earth and quarter of them dying due to lack of supplies. But if you are major weapon producer, this is going to earn you piles of monies in no time.

The main body of the game is the economical-political part. You have the industrial revolution kicking in and this changes the whole world economy, as well as start making the peasants think for themselves once they have some free time and ask for elections(calculated under "consciousness"), while aristocrats and artisians are opposing any kind of change on principle. For various reasons, the game can also end up being straight /pol/ stuff, considering one of the main driving force in it is nationalism and construction of national identity as a way to justify or allow various actions, up and including "civilizing" those black people in the dark continent. You are guaranteed to end up angered one way or another, regardless of where you are on the political spectrum and what model of economy you consider valid. Oh, and don't forget fighting a bloody, brutal colonial war, because your economy absolutely must get that cattle or timber to survive and there is none left on the market once the big dogs did their shopping. No, not gold, oil or iron. Timber. Economic downrun is your worst nightmare, since unemployed and poor people are going to stage revolt or even a full-blown revolution, setting up their own government - and it's rarely something good nor a game over.

Only to recommend if you have a huge numbers-boner, 'cause that is what the game is in its core about. Due to general complex nature of the game as such and the fact it has to be finished prior to release with no room for DLCs, it's unlikely modern Paradox will even think about making Victoria 3. Which is a good thing.

Role-playing value

In baseline game, be it first or second one, there is close to none. You will be hard-pressed to prevent history from rolling as it did OTL, especially when Great Britain, France, Austria and Prussia are left to their own devices. The combination of short duration of the game (100 years, as opposed to 400-500 for Europa Universalis and Crusader Kings), opening setup and most importantly, technological and economical disparities mean that you will be most likely unable to deviate history too much and even while playing in best possible way, your results are going to be timid - as uncivilised nation just surviving will be an achievement by itself. And that without even mentioning hard-coded stuff.

However, if you go for mods, especially POP Demand Mod and anything that branches from it, the game is far less railroaded and non-linear, allowing some wiggle space. Things like managing to modernise Persia or Egypt, kicking Brits out of India (either as other European power or even Punjab), maintaining the Union in the Netherlands, preventing collapse of Chinese Empire (or reforming it into something more functional), Mexicans not getting their teeth kicked in American-Mexican War and so many more alt-history scenarios are open. Not due to the game being dumbed-down (quite the contrary), but because the mechanics are refined and adjusted to provide for other countries than "the big six" club of the UK, the USA, France, Prussia/Germany, Russia and Austria. Also, the "big six" themselves can be played differently and with far more detailed goals and options.

Some fun scenarios to try:

• As some city-state or otherwise irrevelant dot on a map, become Great Power, without fighting wars, colonising or doing anything that requires crossing your own borders - makes suprisingly engaging gameplay, as you have full focus on the political and economical part of the game. Hardmode: achieve Great Power status by prestige alone, which in this setup means being the artistic capital of the world.
• Unify Germany or Italy as any of the unlikely (or even impossible) candidates. Double down on trolling as the Ottomans and support anyone against the big unifier, such as France in 1870 Prussian war.
• As a non-European, participate, or even "win", scramble for Africa. Hardmode: prevent it as any of the native kingdoms.
• As either Persia or Egypt, implement the governmental reforms and show those Turks how to properly run the show. Or just don't get gobbled by Westerners.
• As Mexico, not only resist Yank incursions, but expand into "their" frontier. Ocean to ocean no more.
• Keep the United Provinces of Central America united, rather than imploding into bunch of banana republics. Make Bolivar proud!
• As any of the South America countries, become Great Power. Hardmode: play anyone else than Brazil and Argentina. Bonus round: exceed the USA in immigration flow (impossible to do in Vicky 1 due to hard-coded bonus)
• As either Russia or Austria reform your "empire" to actually be an empire, while either keeping better control of your population or make the countless ethnicities boiling for nationalistic uprising feel welcomed instead. Also, as Russia, don't get booted by commies or fascists. Hardmode: turn into a democracy.
• As Spain or Portugal, sort your shit internally and then work on your vestigal colonies. Hardmode: sphere and/or regain control of your former colonial empire. Bonus round for Portugal: make Pink Map real.
• As China, stop smelling your own farts and prevent being raped by Brits, French and whoever else joins the party. If you play your cards right, you can end up surpassing everyone by 1880s and just keep rolling from there, with your population allowing to easily outpace next top 5 economies combined. We are talking about enough factories to blanket Asia in a decade (while still running out of workplaces for your engineers) and grain exports to crash the price of worldwide foodstuffs while devouring every bit of coal and metal to crank out enough cars and machine parts on par with modern world.
  • In similar flavour, as either Korea or Vietnam westernise and survive as independent nation. Hardmode: become Great Power.
• As Netherlands, maintain the Union with Belgium and then work things out for peaceful co-existence, turning into industrial powerhouse to rival the UK thanks to combination of resources, workforce and rare colonial goods. Hardmode: restore the Republic.
• As any of the Boer states, survive, thrive, expand and eventually retake the whole Cape Colony, getting rid of British yoke. Hardmode: survive against Brits and Boers as independent Zulus till 1936.
• As Punjab, stay afloat long enough to get civilised and boot Brits out of (northern) India. Or ignore the Redcoats and instead go for Central Asia.

As you can see, the recurring theme is to beat the Perfidious Albion one way or another or prevent it from conquering your ass. And for obvious reason, the role-playing value greatly expands in multiplayer, since you can co-ordinate your goals with other players, even when playing against each other.

Protips

• Don't even bother playing without either Revolutions or A House Divided and Heart of Darkness expansions.
• Africa is full of uncivilized savages who need to be tamed by machineguns to get that sweet resources they are too stupid to process.
• If you've only ever played EU4, get ready to feel stupid.
• If you've played Victoria 1 and 2 for 1000 hours, still get ready to feel stupid.
• If you've never played a grand strategy, get ready to feel stupid. If you played them all...still get ready to feel stupid.
• If you've never thoroughly read the wiki, get ready to feel stupid. If you memorized the wiki of both games, get ready to feel stupid anyway.
• If you've considered state intervention evil, get ready to feel stupid.
• If you've believed in rationality of private investors, get ready to feel stupid.
• Either don't try to understand how the global economy works or go mad trying.
• Status Quo is God.

Mods

• VIP, or Victoria Improvement Project, is the biggest and most expansive historical mod for Vicky 1. Unfortunately, it railroads real-life history hard and while there are options for non-historical outcomes, there are pretty rare. It's still the best way to play Vicky 1, and Africa has the non-civilized parts formed into nations like Buganda, Teke, Zulu etc...
• The Vicky 1 part of the Paradox Hohenzollern. The whole mod is a result of one dude playing a marathon game, first regular Crusader Kings 1, then ported save in Europa Universalis 3, then porting the end result to Vicky 1, so the state of the world in 1800 is... quite different: Byzantines are still around and strong, most of Americas Jadakal is controlled by Muslim states (lead by powerful Mexico Mazula) originated from Iberian colonies, China is quite powerful and technologically advanced, while Europe is barely recovering from the recent revolutions caused by liberals and radicals from Iberia and France (which is in perpetual war with Occitania). It's not even some sort of fanfiction or alt-hist wank, just a result of a regular EU3 gameplay on ported saves. Nuff stuff.
• Pop Demand Mod: Perhaps the most popular mod, This mod adds dozens of new events, countries and decisions to the game. Many mods use it as a base.
• New Nations Mod: A lite version of Pop Demand Mod
• Death By Imerpialism: A PDM sub-mod, It takes everything in PDM up to eleven.
• New World Order: A mod that takes Victoria to the Modern age (and also the Cold War).
• Alternate History Balkan Mod: Pretty self explanatory.
• Concert of Europe: Changes the game start to 1821.
• Divergences of Darkness Pretty much the definitive Alternate History mod for Victoria.
• /GSG/ Vickymod: Based off of New Nations mod (NNM), It is like the Nega-PDM with 100x more genocide.
• Paradoxplaza Mod: A mod by the Paradoxplaza subreddit. It is based off of Vickymod.
• Historical Project Mod.