As the dust settles on Victoria 3’s successful launch, Game Director Martin Anward has shared a first look at the game’s roadmap, detailing a series of planned improvements that the team has in its crosshairs.
Victoria 3’s roadmap initially targets several areas that could benefit from improvements in free post-release patches coming in the near future. Although expansions are sure to follow at some point, “that is definitely not anytime soon,” according to Anward.
Victoria 3 2024 Roadmap
Sphere of Influence, the title’s first major expansion, is currently aiming for a 24th June 2024 release and is set to introduce Power Blocs, as part of a wider effort of enhancing diplomatic gameplay.
Sphere of Influence was initially scheduled for release alongside Patch 1.7 on May 6th. However, Paradox Development Studio’s Game Director, Martin Anward, confirmed that it will be delayed to allow for bug fixing and additional polishing. The team decided that it wasn’t ready for release and required more time to improve its quality.
“Both update 1.7 and Sphere of Influence contain several fundamental changes to how the game functions, particularly in the form of the Building Ownership Revision and Power Blocks, which has resulted in bugs, as well as balance and technical stability issues.” said Anward
“While we are happy with the features on offer in 1.7/Sphere, we simply do not believe that sticking to the original release date will allow us to deliver those features in a polished and balanced state, and we frankly do not want your enjoyment of them to be marred by excessive bugginess, crashes or general lack of polish.”
Sphere of Influence and Patch 1.7 for Victoria 3 will now launch on the 24th of June.
Victoria 3’s roadmap will likely evolve over time, meaning that things can shift and certain planned features might end up delayed or released earlier than expected.
Nevertheless, the game’s first post-launch patches seem to target some of the issues most often brought up by its player base and it will be interesting to see where things will head once they’re deployed.
Victoria 3 Roadmap 2022
The first iteration of Victoria 3’s roadmap prioritizes improvements to warfare, historical immersion, and diplomacy, alongside a handful of other things.
The title’s military system is different than those in other Paradox grand strategy games but players are currently having a hard time getting enough information about battles and certain concepts.
While the developer has “no intention of moving back towards a more tactical system,” it does plan to address interface-related complaints while deepening certain areas of warfare and giving players more control. Here are a handful of things that are currently being looked into:
- Addressing some of the rough edges in how generals function at the moment, such as improving unit selection for battles and balancing the overall progression along fronts
- Adding the ability for countries to set strategic objectives for their generals
- Increasing the visibility of navies and making admirals easier to work with
- Improving the ability of players to get an overview of their military situation and exposing more data, like the underlying numbers behind battle sizes
- Finding solutions for the issue where theaters can split into multiple (sometimes even dozens) of tiny fronts as pockets are created
- Experimenting with controlled front-splitting for longer fronts
Historical immersion also figures on Victoria 3’s roadmap following its launch. Although the game is built more as a historical sanbox, certain outcomes expected of its period aren’t happening often enough or in a way that sustains immersion.
To this extent, the team is looking into the following tweaks:
- Ensuring the American Civil War has a decent chance to happen, happens in a way that makes sense (slave states rising up to defend slavery, etc), and isn’t easily avoidable by the player.
- Tweaking content such as the Meiji Restoration, Alaska purchase and so on in a way that they can more frequently be successfully performed by the AI, through a mix of AI improvements and content tweaks
- Working to expose and improve content such as expeditions and journal entries that is currently too difficult for players to find or complete
- Ensuring unifications such as Italy, Germany and Canada doesn’t constantly happen decades ahead of the historical schedule, and increasing the challenge of unifying Italy and Germany in particular
- General AI tweaks to have AI countries play in a more believable, immersive way
The third major area targeted in the first iteration of Victoria 3’s roadmap is diplomacy. Although it has fewer glaring issues than the previous two, the developer intends to offer players more options when interacting with other countries, as follows:
- ‘Reverse-swaying’, that is the ability to offer to join a side in a play in exchange for something
- The ability to expand your primary demands in a diplomatic play beyond just one wargoal (though this has to be done in such a way that there’s still a reason for countries to actually back down)
- More things to offer in diplomatic plays, like giving away your own land
- Foreign investment and some form of construction in other countries, at least if they’re part of your market
- Improving and expanding on interactions with and from subjects, such as being able to grant and ask for more autonomy through a diplomatic action
Outside of these three areas, the developer has heard feedback on how difficult it is to get an overview of pops, their needs, standard of living, alongside their radicals or loyalist status and does plan to address it.
While players will always have control over the construction in their country, the team behind the game plans on “experimenting with autonomous private-sector construction and increasing the differences in gameplay between different economic systems.”
The late-game economy and the AI’s handling of resources like oil and rubber is also being looked at, while conservative and autocratic playstyles may become more “interesting and ‘competitive’ but also more challenging.” in the future.
Patch 1.1 ushers in the first of the planned changes above, focusing on polishing the experience.
Patch 1.2 brought a new slate of changes, including autonomous investment as a toggelable rule, tweaks to economic laws, alongside various UX improvements.
Victoria 3 2023 Roadmap
Roadmap as of March 2023.In March 2023, the team behind the game provided an updated look at Victoria 3’s 2023 roadmap, highlighting the areas from the original versions which had been covered, those that still need work, alongside new additions that will be added to the game later on.
There’s a new internal politics section, focusing on the enactment of laws, revolutions, and making individual characters more relevant, alongside a fifth “other” sections that contains planned changes which don’t fall under the four main areas covered by the roadmap.
These tweaks will gradually start making their way into the game with patch 1.3 and subsequent updates.
Victoria 3’s first post-launch DLC, the Voice of the People Immersion Pack, launched on May 22, adding the Agitator system, fleshing out the experience while playing as France, while also introducing new art.
Available both The Dawn of Wonder Art Pack is slated for a September launch, bringing with it a day/night cycle, alongside other unannounced features.
Roadmap as of June 2023.In June 2023, the developer provided an updated look at Victoria 3’s roadmap and the content targets for updates 1.4, 1.5, and beyond, highlighting areas that still need updating, have been reconsidered, alongside a handful of new additions.
In the latter camp, the team behind the game plans to add a system for limited wars, in an effort to have fewer early-game global clashes between Great Powers, as well as more options for strategic control over generals.
Stepping away from the military, it also aims to improve journal entries and events, making them feel meaningful and impactful to interact with.
Plans also include an increase to the overall challenge of Victoria 3’s economic core loop, alongside clearer mechanical differences between different countries, to encourage specialization.
One item has been reconsidered, and the developer won’t be experimenting with controlled front-splitting for longer fronts.
Its approach to solving the issues around long fronts will, instead, focus on “supporting multiple battles and improving the strategic options you have to direct your generals.”
Victoria 3 2024 Roadmap
With the Sphere of Influence expansion finally released, Paradox shared an updated Victoria 3 2024 roadmap in early July, highlighting the areas it is looking to improve in the future.
As indicated in the image above, military changes won’t be immediately prioritized but are, nonetheless, planned.
The developer is looking to make navies a bigger indicator of a state’s global power and turn individual ships into “proper pieces of military hardware that can be built, sunk and repaired,” while reducing the number of early game total wars between great powers.
A “proper” military access system also counts among the upcoming features while frontlines will receive further polish.
Historical immersion is one area that should see more immediate improvements in patches 1.8 and 1.9 thanks to improved journal entries, enhanced country historical flavor, and changes that help the AI more reliably succeed in events like the Meiji Restoration.
As far as diplomacy goes, Victoria 3’s 2024 roadmap includes a feature that allows peace deals to be negotiated during a diplomatic play alongside a desire to make diplomatic interests overall more rewarding.
In terms of internal politics, new laws that make countries more diverse while introducing “new ways to play” are set to arrive in patches 1.8 and/or 1.9.
Later, the developer aims to expand upon the legitimacy mechanic while adding a concept of national pride that’s directly linked to it.
The team also aims to make discrimination more than just a binary status while removing some of the randomness that currently impacts how ideologies behave over the course of a game.
Autonomous trade is also being considered as a solution for the “fiddly nature” of trade in bigger economies, while companies could become actual actors within states, able to own buildings and interact with political figures.
Victoria 3’s roadmap will likely evolve over time, meaning that things can shift and certain planned features might end up delayed or released earlier than expected.
Nevertheless, the game’s first post-launch patches seem to target some of the issues most often brought up by its playerbase and it will be interesting to see where things will head once they’re deployed.
For more on the game, read up on how to spot oil on the map and why stockpiling gold might not always be a good idea.
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