The Unpolished Gem – The Victoria 3 Review reviews

November 1, 2022



Victoria 3 is out and I have played it extensively. Let’s see how it holds up! I have a great many thoughts on the game after around 200 hours, but

Check out Victoria 3 here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/529340/Victoria_3/

Paradox Development Studio invites you to build your ideal society in the tumult of the exciting and transformative 19th century. Balance the competing interests in your society and earn your place in the sun in Victoria 3, one of the most anticipated games in Paradox’s history.

00:00 Intro
00:24 The Basics
00:52 The Population System
02:08 The Political System
04:47 The Economic System
07:56 The Internal Systems Summarised
08:16 Colonisation
09:21 The Diplomatic System
11:18 The Warfare System
15:26 Rating & Recommendation

#victoria3
#review

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33 Comments
  1. Victoria 3 is many things. After putting about 200 hours into the game, I want to give you a thorough review of its mechanics.
    Do you agree or disagree with my conclusions?

  2. Political system need a big rework. So many things that’s going wrong with it. For example in a game with France I had something that made me out of my rp so deep I wanted to reload the game: I had Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte leading the orleanist party… I assume it is because he is monarchist but how funny it was to watch him criticise the Bonapartist party…
    They need to work a bit harder on political history of main countries… in France there is no possibility to form the Second Empire with him.
    Furthermore, there is nothing in 1848 in Europe to simulate the springtime of the peoples.
    Revolutions appear only when we really want it so we have to destroy our country’s economy to make them happen…
    I also would like Paradox to create a DLC that deepens the political system with clear parliaments (with seats linked with regions political opinions) and clear gouvernements (Prime minister, most importantly if your country is a parliamentary monarchy).
    Anyway, political system is on my opinion the most broken thing of the game.
    I could also add the war/peace system: a shame that in a war Prussia invade Bavaria and with France I stand with Bavaria. Prussia beat Bavaria and annexed it and after that I kicked Prussian ass but Bavaria was not freed…

  3. As usual, I'm going to wait about a handful of patches and 2 DLCs before the game becomes easy to access and polished enough for new players like me (even if I have thousands of hours in CK, EU and stellaris)

  4. Two of the biggest issues that I have noticed people commenting on is the UI and its inability to properly work well without in-depth Victoria threes economy system is. Which the UI for Vicky 2 was far more manageable due to having so much more information in front of you. And the next thing I've seen is the war system. Lots of complaints about that.

  5. Might be the best paradox game released since eu4 honestly in my opinion.

  6. Well I think I found a bug, or perhaps just an unintended bit of stupidity myself in my current run. Landlocked nation. Cannot trade at all. Apparently because I don't have convoys, being land locked. I… am very frustrated as I literally have a trade partner right next door to me in Colonial France and yet cannot trade with them for the goods that are bottlenecking me like Sulfur. Things like that are really my only complaint in the game. And the fact that I'm not even sure if it's a bug or not…

    But overall? I kind of feel about it like I do about CK3. I think Victoria 3 on release is almost there. It's not a perfect game yet for what its trying to do. But it's like 90% along the way. And I really enjoy tinkering with different options, trying to see how even small changes can ripple through your government and those of your neighbors, etc.

  7. Damn, you really nailed it.

  8. I get their reasons and why they did warfare like they did but…. please for the love of God just bring back individual units I can micromanage

  9. The politics are a little too easy. I got US slavery abolished in 1839 and ended segregation before 1850. It's fun to imagine but its not very believable. The unrecognized powers are more challenging. Victoria 2 made my eyes bleed, but this game is very accessible even though it's so complex. 20 hours in I think I know more about how the game works than I do from the 1000 hours I played Hearts of Iron 4.

  10. This was a good review

  11. Reply
    Annoying smug anime avatar November 1, 2022 at 11:34 am

    Sellout.

  12. I won’t buy this game
    So much was lost, this isn’t Victoria anymore. The economic system is(was supposed to be) the heart of the game and it is no were close to the glory of Victoria 2. I won’t give Paradox 50 Bucks for ripping the heart out from the game.

  13. Wow, it looks laughably bad by the video footage…

  14. an unpolished turd…………………….

  15. as a ck3 and stellaris lover at 1:38 it makes very clear why I didnt buy vic 3. I was excited until I saw some in-game footage and then I just lost interest.

  16. I have a question for anyone who owns V3: What would you consider to be a better, or at least more enjoyable game; V3 or Crusader Kings 3? I currently own the latter and I am enjoying it immensely. Its in depth enough for me to tweak as I wish, but not so complicated that I haven't a clue how to play. I am considering buying V3, but my fear is that its going to be a sea or micromanagement menu screens that feel like a chore. I would love to start a communist regime in Russia or make a tiny desert nation a technological powerhouse, but if that means getting a Phd. in microeconomics it think I wouldn't enjoy it much.

  17. On day 1 I wasn’t very fond of it. Playing the Chile Tutorial on normal diff was too easy. I became a powerhouse and ended as #6. Had 2 revolutions but they were struck down quickly.
    Gave it another chance yesterday and sent Chile the full communist anarchist route. It was very fun.
    Now with Russia. It’s very different Start because you have a really big agrarian powerbase but it’s harder to liberalise. Aside from the wacky military and all around ai and diplomacy, the economy is good enough to entertain imho.
    Edit: also something weird: as communist anarchist Chile I warred Brazil to change their government to be similar to mine. After winning they stayed the same absolutist empire as before, only changing slavery to forbidden and a few institutions.

  18. Why other countries in Africa, for example, started with a technology tree Like them, like European nations in African countries at that time were not advanced

  19. Kinda discouraged to play this knowing into what multi cultural shitholes all our countries turned to anyway.

  20. I'm really interested in seeing what tutorial you played.

  21. just a lot of little issues and bugs and stuff. A political party won an election in my country but wasn't allowed to form a government because one of the igs supporting it was unhappy lol. I'm still having a blast.

  22. This is the most accurate and the fairest review so far.
    Victoria 3 is far from a bad game, it can be fixed for sure. This is nothing like Imperator at launch which needed major changes. Victoria 3 feels completely different from that experience. I don't think there's anything fundamentally wrong, just many bugs and weird quirks and UI problems.
    Well no, I think there's one thing that's fundamentally wrong and it's how heavy it relies on its own system. There's no scripted events and RNG seems almost non-existent apart from warfare. 99% of the peaceful game relies on maths and predictable results.

  23. It’s been out for 3 days and you already have 200 hours on it. Lol

  24. Feel like paradox tried too many changes in game design all in one game with not enough time to do so.

  25. The culture map oh my lord

  26. My other issue is that wars are extremely unpredictable. Going after a single german minor which doesn't have allies while playing as prussia often causes half of the european majors to intervene and cause a 20 year stalemate of a war. Also, certain nations have way too high an army count and others have way too low. Russia has comparable troop counts to the other majors, when in reality it should have a lot more. Austria has wayy too many troops, which makes forming germany really difficult. When at war troop counts are also a poor way to decide wars. I've had fronts where the advantage is supposedly 50% but my troops are still constantly losing battles and not doing anything. Other times the enemies would have half the troops that I do and the advantage would still be close to 0%. It makes going to war impossible.

  27. All I know is that I’m having fun. The economic experience pulls you in every direction and you have to make choices and probably won’t have everything. I wish the political and diplomatic systems were the same, not everything on the table. This would also help make revolutions more viable as a way to shake things up.

  28. The game is absolute garbage.

    – All have the same tech tree
    – Some third world nations start with a starving population that has time to read books and then they start industrializing????? How are they supposed to pump oil, that's just ridiculous.
    – The population is incredibly boring. What exactly should be done with the population? Exactly, nothing.
    – Even the diverse radicals have been removed.
    – What's the point of a democracy in capitalism if you can build everything yourself anyway, like a planned economy?
    – The wars are the absulute insanity. Teleporting great powers that vulture on every country, because the AI does not even think. Not to mention the defender's advantage.

    How can you play the game for more than half an hour without throwing up? Paradox buys influencers with sponsorship to promote this garbage. I just don't want this crap anymore.

  29. Wait, how do you pull another country out of a customs union?

  30. An unpolished gem can't be sold for 50€.
    Accepting a sequel which lacks parts from its predecessor and hoping for a future DLC and immediately stating "I'll surely buy it" is ruining the overall gaming industry.
    For this price, people SHOULD EXPECT MORE.

    One thing is delivering a sequel on parallel with its prequel and adding DLCs to support it.
    The other thing is delivering an empty (or shallow) game and sell its omissions because "people will surely buy them anyway".

  31. Garbage. No war, economy, politics.

  32. Tutorial? Hell will freeze over before I play a tutorial in a paradox game.

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