Victoria 3 and the "Rest of the World"
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- Опубликовано: 28 июн 2024
- I was given early access of Victoria 3 to review it, and I thought it best to use that opportunity to discuss my last video on the game and how the game met, failed to meet, or exceeded my expectations in its presentation of history, as well as discuss some of the comments I got, and some generalized concerns of the genre and Paradox, historically. This is far more game analysis than review, so look elsewhere if you want an out-of-ten rating or a gameplay discussion.
Thanks Paradox for giving me some new font files to use c:
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The previous video:
• Victoria 3 and the Dec...
And, for now, for a review, there's a (ugh) 5 hour stream VOD:
• Victoria 3 Impressions...
I might upload a trimmed version at some point, but that might be tedious to make.
______________
Intro: 00:00
Addressing Critique 03:07
Those who do not know history 06:55
Are doomed to repeat it 10:03
Westernization 12:40
Conclusion 17:24
Outro 20:21 
Игры
Historicity is a really difficult problem because of the nature of history. There is an innumerable number of events that would have drastically changed its course had they played out even slightly differently, and yet it equally appears to be utterly dominated by seemingly unbreakable historical trends.
I'm working with a mystery youtuber on a video about alt history, and I'd like to include a little bit of a discussion about that line I briefly mentioned between "alt" and "fantasy" and how we even conclude where it is.
@@Rosencreutzzz looking forward to it
Like multiple civilizations seemingly set on industrializing and never doing so, history is never a set path and bends, flows, and then decideds to just stop when seemingly it would continue, assuming said road isn't completely wiped out by a disaster setting it back by who knows how long/far
@@Rosencreutzzz Mystery alt history youtuber? Gee, I bet his name definitely doesn't rhyme with Shmody
based reimu pfp
I agree that the Westernization mechanic was too binary and simplified but the current method in Vic 3 has the exact opposite problem where playing Madagascar or Japan is a no different experience than playing Blegium. I don't think The Kingdom of Kongo could have immediately begin building factories and railroads in 1836 without any outside help, but that is what Vic 3 is saying to us now.
Madagascar is a very interesting point too since the Merina Kingdom during this time frame actually did attempt to industrialize under the harsh rule of Ranavalona I, but this resulted in wide spread death and depopulation of almost 50% of the islands inhabitants. Vic 3 completely removes any sort of social hardships or struggle and reduces things to simply an 'empircal' lense probably does even more harm than 'Westernization' since by game mechanics room temperature gamers will get the impression it was simply 'laziness' and 'lack of will' that lead to their stagnation and subjugation. Which ironically was what many of the colonizers thought initially too.
They can't do that, buildings aren't factories they become factories with tech and resources that most nations don't have for decades. Madagascar can neither trade nor build even the simplest of buildings at game start, let alone use any industrialized production methods and I doubt Kongo is any different.
Laborers making tools out of wood in a workshop are not craftsmen and mechanists in a factory.
@@Afronautsays Even then (ignoring the railroad thing) it still has the issue of showing research and knowledge being a simplified linear process. Could the kingdom of Kongo somehow independently develop industrial techniques in 100 years with no European Advisors? Probably not, it was never done and certainly not during the time frame. Scientific invention and advancement isn't just getting all your smart people and putting them in a room and the more smart people you have the more technologically advanced you are.
Japan doesn't realy play like belgium does it, the work you need to do to remove samurais is a pain for japan . and the problem with african powers is that theyr ruling forces never realy tried to make a motor , or to use trains because they were more interested in staying where they were. they had contact with europe, they kniw they existed and were doing things but they had other focuses (mostly be the good old conservative and try realy hard to make things not change) .
they could have . evryone could have done anything europe did. but they didn't. China was in the past one of the most advanced nation in the world, they had metal working 1000 years (don't quote me on that , its something different but it has to do with a more advanced way to work metal ) before evryone else , and they did nothing with it because they embraced conservative ideology .
victoria 3 is not about repeating history , but simply living an alternate history . evryone had the resources and the way to do anything europe did. europe science took elements from all over the world, exatly as any nation could have done.
Have you actually played Japan or Madagascar?
going from Prussia to Japan has been a wildly different experience as every bit of tech has to be rationed, with bureaucracy shortfalls just about everywhere even into the 1860s where I am now and poor literacy hampered by serfdom, money is tight as taxation is poor and with poor literacy and low funds research is difficult,
building a railway took British war reps and into the 1860s, while I'm still on Napoleonic army doctrine with a measly 60~ battalions
> Madagascar is a very interesting point too since the Merina Kingdom during this time frame actually did attempt to industrialize under the harsh rule of Ranavalona I, but this resulted in wide spread death and depopulation of almost 50% of the islands inhabitants
One of my Yemen runs went this way. Another was conquered by britain. Again and again I failed. The eighth run, however, industrialised and united the entire Arabian peninsula, eventually reclaiming the bits the Ottomans and Egypt swiped too. The Kathiri sultanate became a minor world power and a progressive force for women's rights... whilst still remaining a religiously backed monarchy.
It is EASILY possible to fail, over and over, and the small historical footnote nations in the game need to put in a LOT of work, handled in a skillful and measured way, to catch up.
I really should have set it to premiere at 18:36 CEST, but I didn't think of that til now.
I downloaded it whilst watching and decided to finish the video before starting the game, yet again, a really good video. A lot of people I know have been super sceptical about this game along with a lot of people who had early access and I always insisted that it is important for Paradox and all other game developers to take risks and experiment and this video really helped articulate the games vision as a materialistic one - one which fits very well as a game about industrialisation - as apart from the other paradox games.
I am a historian of the Islamic world (as a profession), and I have to say, I very much agree with your takes and appreciate the content being made on this.
Thanks
a wider historical perspective could be really fun for games like these. the problem is implementing them and making the other countries, government types and cultures feel different and unique. which in my opinion vic 3 fails at. the only difference I felt was starting location recourses and tech level. and warfare was reduced to a war being a slider bar. no real input or strategy. just bash your armies into the enemies. who ever has the most troops and tech wins. fight ww1 style and defend until the enemy is worn down then attack. but I am sure they can fix all this with dlc down the road. perhaps they will add in more government mechanics and warfare mechanics. something to make a united states with its open economy play and feel different than japan's isolationist imperial economy. or british world spanning economy.
First I’ll say that I while I’d like to largely avoid “war discourse” I do think the lack of input is a small shame, but I don’t think there was much strategy to V2- that maybe they could borrow a *few* things from HoI but that this shouldn’t become a “war game”.
That said, I do also agree that the countries can feel a bit in distinct at times, but your particular example is an interesting one. Japan was isolationist because if it’s relative self sufficiency- so it doesn’t actually have much to gain from a global market that doesn’t include very nuanced and specific goods and things the West had to offer… and it also means Japan has no immediate incentive to open up, like in real life and the West would want to force them into a market for the sake of consumption and extraction.
Isolation does play different with the absence of trade but it doesn’t *feel* all that different in the end and maybe that’s something that needs work.
Same Paradox bullshit, release a half finished game, and pay for 4-5 DLCs to get a somewhat fleshed out game.
@@SSSandhu13 chill. You completely ignore the fact that paradox game players will literally play only that game. Yes, after dlc the game is a few hundred books, but tell me the last time you played an $80 game for 1000 hours
I don't endorse their monetary model, but it is a fact that I have more hours in EU4 than Liz Truss had at being Prime Minister of the UK, so... I do sometimes put it in perspective.
@@Rosencreutzzz As a Vicky 2 Multiplayer Enjoyer, there is a good amount of strategy involved. Shape, stack comp, tech difference, army cycling, encirclements, Attacking vs Defending in both Land and Sea Combat, Terrain, and General/Admiral management are all tactical considerations in Vicky 2 Warfare.
Operational considerations include the state of the front, how many troops each side has, how much am I and my enemy going to reinforce, what is the org and supplies of my brigades? What will winning this side of the front do for the other side of the front further down the line. How will losing a stack do the same? How am I going to Guerilla warfare/siege him down? How are my ships going to beat his navy and blockade his coasts?
Strategic considerations include the Military Industry you have developed, how much the world's goods are going to my I or my opponent. How is my enemy and my War exhaustion affecting my war effort? How is mobilization going to affect my factories if all the craftsmen are fighting? What allies can I call upon to help in this war, and how will this affect the truce timers? Do I even want any allies in this war? By doing this war by myself will I get dogpiled mechanically by truces by another rival group of alliances? How are the other nations around this nation I'm at war with feel? Are they scared? Defiant? Lukewarm? Or just want "a piece of the pie" so to speak? Are people I let watch this war with Vision Alliances telling my opponent of my movements? Are people in the voice chat sabotaging my diplomacy? When should I peace out? How do I convince my opponent I have won/he has won, enough?
I can go on. But there was plenty of strategy.
Oyo has same tech as the British Empire, didn't know they knew how to mine oil there
Games just broke.
Bruh really? How did they not notice that
@@markb8426 Or you just bad at it
Fascinating video! I just completed a masters degree on the historiography of the Ottoman Empire, and I found myself thinking a lot about while watching your video. One point in particular was the concept of "modernization" or "westernization".
In the 2000s onward, many Western Ottomanists were pushing back against the idea that the Ottomans experienced a societal "decline" starting in the 17th century just because they didn't pursue a policy program that mirrored Western examples of success (colonial expansion and rapid industrialization). They reimagined this period as one of transformation instead. As Europe drifted towards absolutism, the Ottomans decentralized. Why? Their answer was that the Ottomans were meeting their specific MATERIAL needs. The Ottoman Empire was a multi-ethnic and multi-confessional one. Decentralization was deemed the best option, and so it was implemented as policy.
I think your video touches on a great thing about Victoria 3; it's not about "winners" and "losers". Ottoman decentralization and the consolidation of Prussia/Germany should be considered together and represented in game comparatively rather than competitively. I hope this trend continues, and thank you for the great video!
The "Sick Man of Europe" narrative always seemed a bit weird to me considering that when the Ottoman Empire actually faced European armies in battle they utterly trounced them. Gallipoli was one of the bloodiest defeats for the Entente in the entire war. The only area where the Ottoman Empire was driven back were the ones where there were indigenous revolts who did not use European tactics and like a bit of skirmishing in Iraq. Otherwise the Ottoman Empire held up much better than both the Austrian and Russian Empires, unlike those two it didn't completely collapse and shatter, it was only forcibly broken up like Germany was but Turkey was able to survive just fine and maintain all of it's core territories.
The Ottoman Empire loosing territory to nationalist uprisings in the Balkans really means nothing when literally every empire in this period lost territory to nationalist uprisings. It gets overemphasized way too much.
@@hedgehog3180 Ottomans were repeatedly bashed by the Russian Empire though, constantly losing territories to it. If other European powers did not interfere, the Russians could have probably taken Constantinople and eventually dismantle the Ottomans.
Gallipoli was poorly planned, even more poorly organised and unsupported. The Ottomans suffered numerous defeats in the middle East at the hands of British and the Russians.
Poland-Lithuania also had such material needs, and also got split up and dismantled by neighbouring centralized states over multiple wars. It was a failure of Poland as a state to take away power from local nobility, thus failing to pool resources as efficiently as Russia, Prussia and Austria.
Ottomans experienced societal decline because the tasks at hand were vastly out of Ottomans' leadership competence. They couldn't produce required leadership because they were backwards politically, economically and socially. Same happened to Russia and Austria as well, with both beating up Ottomans while being barely better than Ottomans and being next targets on the chopping block for Britain and France and Germany. Russia after Revolution managed to drive colonizers back, Turkey also managed to (with Soviet Russia providing lots of help, actually) under Ataturk.
With new leadership in place, both countries became better off. Societal decline was due to half-artistocratic governments clinging to power and beating up progressive movements - in part because all those movements were sponsored by the Entente with the aim of dismantling and colonizing those countries.
@@hedgehog3180 Gallipoli was kinda outside of the Ottomans "sick man of Europe" period, but the Ottomans actually did lose to European armies repeatedly for most of the 19th century, were constantly having to purchase things from outside to maintain a sense of moderness, and Turkey very nearly didn't survive and it was kind of a miracle that they weren't carved up between Greece and the various colonial powers in the 1920's
I mean the ottomans tried to colonize parts of Asia... And they were also in Africa...
I still think victoria 3 is a very eurocentric game, ironicly enough it even misses a lot of the interactions between european powers as countries that were conquered by them or fell into their spheares of influence.
First what you mentioned of all nations having the same tech (which still happens in vic3) and a lot of mechanics still being the same for everyone (based off Europe).
Secondly it still ignores the diplomacy often involved in colonization, often colonization didn't involve direct conquest but threaties for either protection, economic deals, Eropeans straight up taking advantage of corrupt leaders, etc.
Third this maybe considered part of point one, but the fact they simplified a lot of mechanics of vic 2 (specialy the economy) means that what made some societies more succesfull than others doesn't exists. Even if the game tries, the fact most societal structors are reduced to interchangable types ignores how detremental some types of goberments were to their societies (how even after independence we still kept a raw material export base societies here in latin america for example).
I know some of this will probably be fixed through dlc and stuff (tho considering paradox's record with latin america, I have my doubts about weather we will get an expansion), I just think you probably gave the game a little too much praise for adding decentralize nations without any of the complexity of colonization or the autonomy some kept after it, at least the east india company and Canada have autonomous regions within them I guess.
Yeah there needs to be some kinda diplomacy options with decentralised nations. Because many were still nations and so drawn up treaties bargained with had skirmishes etc. with the european powers all the time.
Although considering the shocking state the diplomacy is in between the states im not surprised this isnt there...
The fact that the Devout IG has the "Go forth and multiply" trait says quite a bit about just how eurocentric it is. They did add some flavour with country specific ideologies, but they could have done a lot more than just have stances on political be slightly different. Does not nearly have the same impact, as when you get different bonuses for playing a country with a non-european religion.
I really enjoy the nuanced way you look at history in games; you provoke some great questions about how we approach history, particularly when it comes to perspectives or lens as you would say. For someone like myself who isn’t academically educated in the field I find the topics of you interrogate fascinating.
Your videos never disappoint! it's always great to know that there are Paradox fans out there that see things with a more critical lens.
I genuinely cherish having been able to even find out they existed. Forums and reddits are lighthearted enough you don’t get a vibe (or just focused on mechanics and prices, which is fair) and online creator communities go from countryperson tier memery…to discord’s that have to be nuked twice a year because they’re just too toxic.
When I made the first video about a history game with an academic lens I was genuinely confident it would just get exclusively “it’s a game no one cares” responses and that would be it.
I’m glad to have been proven wrong.
@@Rosencreutzzz one thing ive noticed about playing paradox games, and it is from a anecdotal source of just myself so take with that what you will, but it has awoken in me a true love for history i didnt know i had. I legitimately almost failed my history courses, but these games have truely awoken a passion in learning history. EUIV actually taught me a lot, an example, i didnt know that the Qing dynasty was formed after Jurchen tribes unified and formed the "manchu" identity. It was also the most enjoyable experience i had in that game. CK2 lead me to learn alot about how the English language and culture formed and developed.
I think a lot of people are like me, or were already avid history fans, resulting in the experience you had in this discussion.
Learning about the rise of the Manchu at a college level, like with that attention to the depth of the situation, it was the first time I really heard about it and it's like such an engrossing and dramatic story and all the events that surround it, the rebellions, the "opening the gates" all of it, so...just... cool, in the end. Needless to say, the Jurchen tribes are on my short list of "countries to try out now that a significant patch has dropped" for EU4
the dreaded femboy-nazi dichotomy
I never understood why the Victoria games start in 1836. Like I know that places it close to the eponymous ruler's coronation, but I've always felt like the natural starting point for the time period would be 1815, immediately after the Congress of Vienna.
I would somewhat argue for somewhere like 1821-2 for a few reasons, one being EU4 and making the bridge from EU to HOI more complete is nice. But the real big reason is that the spanish empire dissolving is a genuinely crucial balance concern. Spain holding on to its overseas empire and having to simulate that rapid disintegration would be a big deal for the game. I mean, we're talking the difference between Spain having Cuba and Puerto Rico in the New World vs an avg of like 1.3 continents worth of land (though no entire single continent)
The devs stated that its because of things like the collapse of the spanish empire, texas independence and greek independence just being too hard to balance and make work properly in gameplay to happen consistently enough.
Love these discussions about games and history.
Also I have to say, the videos have been getting noticeably better. Not to say they weren't good before, just that they're better now.
It's funny that I, at the time, thought I'd hit a plateau of sorts, before I even had music backing, and now I see that as important, and even when I don't use it, there's so much cleaner audio anyway. I don't even feel like I was arrogantly asserting the early stuff was perfect, I was just somehow genuinely blind to the way it was lacking. Now when I watch, say, the Civ and Humankind video I'm like "oh my god what is this weird pausing and the mouth noises aaa"
My main problem with Vic 3 is that the spice of nation gameplay is too bland, like, every nation gets the same tech tree, and even tho there are thousands of buttons, most of the time they're useless, and I won't get started on the army and the combat approach to the ai controlled Frontline.
Perhaps the dream pie in the sky Paradox GSG is one in which the map and foreign countries are portrayed in a biased centric view to wherever you are. Europeans see Africa as "Uncolonized land." Africa sees Africa as a dense network of complex politics and history like in CK3. A Europe player interacts with a colonization minigame that, in the same multiplayer lobby, has major impacts on the fully fleshed Africa simulator of an Africa player. Similar design changes for China and the Americas would make this the ultimate GSG.
We don’t have a ton of historical record but like… okay so what if instead of a quirky Sunset invasion role reversal… they just did the historical event in that same ominous way.
Precolumbian record of the new world is scarce, and I know that would get in the way, but the idea alone of having western invasion be this like…cataclysm the way CK (rightly, I’d say) treats the Mongol invasions and the Aztec joke dlc thing.
Granted the game kinda loses a bit of magic with the gift of foresight cause you wouldn’t just be playing as some kingdom against another, working with a map and having no idea that eventually your eastern seaboard was going to get *very* encroached on.
Knowing the bare bones history of it changes how you play it- I can’t play CK2 in a Slavic land and not be like agnostic of the fact that the Mongols *will* happen eventually.
And that turns the idea into like a… prepping game? It’s just not quite the right setup for that experience.
Sinocentrism is often a more fun formula for an early historical game (in the era of Imperator or CK) than a Eurocentric one because of how much earlier Chinese historiography developed
I think the thing that the current struggle of traditionalism vs modernism that the game misses is how modern quickly becomes the new traditional - the history of the Ottoman empire and Russia are two places where we can see a new modern become the forbears of tradition in rapid succession leading to the nation progressing in leaps and finding themselves in extended periods of neo traditionalism, and the only real difference between one succeeding and one crumbling was opportunism
I disagree. Sinocentrism if anything amps the same problems Eurocentric models provide. You have cultures like the Mongols, Viet, Thai and Japanese portrayed as savages who only become civilized by Chinese influence.
I've been thinking about how you might simulate something like that. I imagine it as a "culture" being composed of "traditions". Each tradition would represent something that a given people considers "normal", and traditions would rise and fall in response to material conditions. For example, a culture wouldn't have the "daily commute" tradition, unless the people of that culture had access to rapid transportation technology, that allowed them to travel long distances on a daily basis.
But a culture possessing traditions could also encourage the adoption of further traditions. For instance, if a people was used to having limited living space, their culture might develop a tradition to reflect that. But that could also lead to people being used to living in high-density apartment blocks, creating a further tradition. And that could lead to people being very used to being surrounded by strangers on a daily basis, creating a further tradition. All of which could psychologically distance these people from people from a different culture, where having a surplus of living space, living in low-density housing, and knowing everyone in one's community was the norm.
I imagine it operating like a neural network, where different traditions would be linked together by weighted associations, and the presence or absence of traditions could pull a culture in one direction or another. And you could use it to simulate cultural divides among social classes within a single country. What rural farmers think is normal would probably differ greatly from what urban factory workers think is normal. Same for poor people versus rich people, or privileged majorities versus abused minorities. But it could also allow people from different countries to find common ground, because their cultures might have the same traditions despite developing in isolation.
I have no idea how this could be actually implemented in a game, but I think it would be very interesting if attempted.
@@AssasiCraftYogUscus They may just mean "more fun" in the sense of novelty. We don't often get games, much less historical strategy games, that ground the player in a specifically Chinese perspective.
This is another amazing video!!! Thank you so much for analyzing these games from an alternative perspective!
I am pretty sure that paradox made African nations unplayable is because they want to make it into dlc and make heaps of money out of it
yeah thats what he said in the video
there's this hip new thing call capitalism.
One thing about the map in 1836, why is Australia claimed in all parts except the south west bit? The colony that became Perth was started in 1829, but the interior of Australia was still largely unexplored well into the 1850s. Strange decision.
Could say exactly the same about large parts of Canada and Alaska too.
I found you by the original video yesterday and it's nice to see this one was equally high quality
I think you could try to model “running” a decentralized nation by expanding the interest group system and using to represent the largest tribes, petty kingdoms, and influential factions of a people. I could game play revolving around try to get these different groups to agree to work together in order to get anything done, or supporting a power warlord and trying to get them to conquer the region. Maybe you could even have a “threat” where the more a big nation postures against you the more willing the disparate peoples will be to form a united front against them.
Only reason it’s not a Eurocentric game to me is because Europe is just as lacking in flavour as every where else lmao
This is my first time watching one of ur vids but I really enjoyed how well thought off was ur points and how much of a deep thinker and ponderer you are. unlike alot of of pdx tubers who are either trying to be edgy or are too lazy to get out of their comfort zone like making a byzantium campaign for the 500th time
To be fair , the merging between france and uk during HOI IV was legit.
it wasn't supposed to last more than the war and was also ask by degaulle to chruchill before the french armistice .
it was a real thing , but neither degaulle or churchill was stupid : they know it was gonna fail but give some moral bost for a time .
Paradox makes Eurocentric games and there’s Nothing wrong with that. They make games for people interested in European history
Also how is it eurocentric if minor African nations are as literate and capable of production as minor European nations, in the colonial era...
@@squaeman_2644 I mean in the sense that their games are clearly centered around European history. I’m not saying that they consider europe above everyone else,. Just that europe is the main focus.
@@borginburkes1819 ah perhaps I misunderstand the term eurocentric, or it's been given a negative connotation...
This was an awesome video! I especially appreciate the line around 12:25 - "there's a whole world of history out there to be learned". Too often, I've seen people argue that African history in particular is just "boring" and "irrelevant", which to me speaks to the idea that these people haven't actually looked into much African history. Sure, there aren't as many sources out there, and pre-colonial Sub-Saharan Africa wasn't AS relevant politically or technologically as Eurasia, but Africa was more intertwined with the goings-on of Eurasia than you might expect, and there are certainly plenty of fascinating and entertaining tidbits out there. Anyone trying to argue that Ethiopian history isn't an absolute ride just doesn't know what they're talking about. That's not to say that you have to personally enjoy African history, of course - maybe it just isn't your thing! But the history of any location is going to look boring if you only have a shallow and limited understanding of it. (Which is probably part of why the USA's grade school history classes are considered so infamously boring.)
I'm not an expert on African history by any means, but I HAVE been on an African history kick lately (binging lots of JSTOR articles mostly) and it's fun to talk about these things, so if you'll have them, here are my takes on African states being "pointless" or "ahistorical" in Victoria 3:
First off, while some state like the Zulus conquering the world from 1836 is pretty decidedly ahistorical, I would personally say that the idea of practically any given African state SURVIVING the Scramble for Africa is 100% reasonable. Even ignoring Ethiopia's particular scenario (Ethiopia had particularly strong pre-existing ties with European powers combined with excellent terrain, though they'd also been ravaged by a good century and a half straight of war by the time Italy rolled up), plenty of African kingdoms and chiefdoms at least partially survived the Scramble for Africa as protectorates. For example, Uganda is sort of just a fancy conglomeration of Buganda, Bunyoro, Toro, and Ankore (with Buganda in particular taking a central role), and Rwanda and Burundi got pretty much the same benefits as Buganda except as German protectorates instead. Botswana pretty much came into existence when a coalition of Tswana chiefs appealed to the British for protectorate status if I'm correct, Lesotho launched a successful pseudo-rebellion (maintaining protectorate status rather than annexation) that the British simply didn't care to try and destroy, and Eswatini survived intact through a combination of weird messy land deals and one REALLY skilled diplomat (the queen-mother Labotsibene Mdluli). In addition, several nations managed short-term successes against colonial powers or even had notable opportunities to modernize - for instance, Bornu (while it was decisively past its prime) was reasonably well-connected and well-established as a state, and the warlord Rabih az-Zubayr who finally conquered Bornu in 1893 even made serious attempts to modernize his army by making deals with the British, and was able to hold off French expeditionary forces multiple times before they finally came together (which, due to the controversial and messy anture of the campaign, wasn't necessarily guaranteed to happen). Was Rabih az-Zubayr (or the other Bornu leaders before him, if he'd failed to conquer the kingdom) guaranteed to fall? Maybe, maybe not. But I think it's not entirely within the realm of possibility that one or more of those West African nations could have modernized at least enough to hold their own, or played the British and French off of each other, or gone the "protectorate" route while still maintaining or even increasing their power. There's even at least one example of an African nation "uncolonizing" itself - in the late 1600s, Portugal had all but established hegemony over the Mutapa kingdom in Zimbabwe, establishing forts and trading outposts, controlling the succession of the kingdom, and even having all mineral rights ceded over to them. But then the Rozvi, a more militaristic group from the south (that MIGHT have risen out of Butua? Zimbabwean history sources are particularly messy), conquered the region, beat the Portuguese several times in a row, curbed Portuguese influence in the region, and ended up taking on Mutapa as a vassal - and the Portuguese NEVER recovered it. Granted, this was partially due to the fact that Oman seized the Swahili Coast not long after, and the Rozvi eventually fell to a Zulu breakaway group which in turn eventually fell to Cecil Rhodes (all of which is a fascinating story in its own right that didn't necessarily have to end in complete colonization - that Zulu breakaway leader was actually fairly competent), but it does at least demonstrate that circumstances COULD have allowed African states to resist colonization especially in places without heavy European military.
I also don't think that the idea of an African state modernizing from 1836 is entirely unreasonable, either - after all, the Scramble for Africa hadn't happened yet (and the specifics of the Scramble could have varied quite a bit), so European powers could definitely have made the decision to give their support to African powers and screw over their rivals rather than just agreeing to cooperate on carving up a continent. While Africa hadn't modernized, many nations had the OPPORTUNITY to modernize, and there were some attempts to - Merina was mentioned in another comment, and I mentioned Bornu above, but I'm sure there are other examples out there. Africa doesn't seem to have had full-on gunsmithing fields, but several West African states had small-scale gun repair programs and were producing their own powder, so it feels like they could have at least STARTED producing their own weapons. Full-scale industrialization is another matter entirely, but with close enough ties... maybe for some of the larger/better-connected states? Probably not, honestly, but I'd hardly call that a dealbreaker if the goal is survival rather than world conquest.
As for whether those decentralized nations are worth simulating... I'd say absolutely, because it makes the Scramble for Africa more nuanced and interesting than just "free land, come and get it". Sure, almost all of Africa eventually fell to the Europeans, but the "how" of that process varied wildly from state to state and even from tribe to tribe. Each individual group's circumstances, leadership, and colonial opponents determined not only how conquest took place, but the nature of the colonial possession afterwards. Even if the game was still just a "Scramble for Africa simulator", wouldn't you then want the Scramble for Africa to have as much depth, accuracy, and potential intrigue as possible?
And this is all, of course, ignoring the elephant in the room: the Scramble for Africa was by no means guaranteed to happen by 1836. It was LIKELY, sure, but it was by no means a certainty that Europe would come together and peacefully decide to conquer all of Africa, especially not under the exact same circumstances that it happened in real life. The Napoleonic Wars had happened and encouraged the pursuit of peace in Europe, but the Crimean War, for instance, hadn't happened yet. Germany hadn't been united yet. Even the philosophies that eventually drove Europe to colonize Africa hadn't fully crystallized yet. With more time, better luck, or more proactive or forward-thinking policies, I'd argue that most moderately centralized African states (in other words, most of the states deemed "centralized" on Vicky 3's map and then some) could have survived and at least started to catch up with Eurasia. The only real exceptions would probably be those which had already been torn to shreds by the effects of the slave trade (Luba and Lunda), or were already likely to be targeted for conquest/vassalage (the Jolof kingdoms and Kongo, for example), and even then, one good leader or some new invading force could have changed the entire dynamic of the region. Perhaps states like the Rozvi which were known for the material wealth of their lands were also doomed to be targeted eventually, but that's a bit harder to say, considering they'd also have had more leverage in diplomacy. What's more, a lot of regions of Africa (such as West Africa, the Congo and the Great Lakes) were in active periods of change and development at the time (new powers rising and new ideas spreading), so it's possible that they could have put up more of a fight or grown more prosperous if things had just gone a bit differently or certain people/groups had been given a bit more time.
And finally... the idea that practically all of pre-colonial Africa was in the stone age is hilariously wrong. Even relatively isolated and decentralized chiefdoms were using metal LONG before the 1800s, and almost everybody at least had access to firearms by the time the Europeans rolled around. Certainly many of these places were decentralized and undeveloped, but "stone age people living in huts" isn't all that applicable to most of Africa.
tl;dr - not only is the idea of African nations resisting colonialism not completely ahistorical (especially if you count willing protectorates), but there are several examples of African kingdoms resisting colonialism for a time and attempting to modernize (even if most were eventually unsuccessful). With slightly different circumstances and the right person (aka the player) in power, conquering the world would certainly be out of the picture, but surviving and sticking around seems entirely feasible to me. And as for those decentralized states, well, colonization took place under surprisingly diverse circumstances in real life from conquest to conquest - reflecting that in-game with unique states that actually do things and can pose a bit of a challenge makes things both more interesting and more realistic.
I think that this video is a really good example of seeing the good and trying to point the way forward on a normally less cared for issue within these communities.
If only we got a good game. Vic3 suffers very similar issues as Imperator, including nations feeling the same. It shows the one aspect i feel is missing from this video: execution.
It is not enough to base a game in a good, fitting concept such as vic3 does with materialism. It must feel engaging to be involved with these systems and they must feel different in the gameplay than each other.
Many bring up the issue of making wars less engaging, and while i agree that is one way to view the failure, following in the ideas in this video i think it may be more correct that vic3 failed to make engaging with a dynamic system based in a nations population fulfilling.
The greatest tragedy from this is that all the efforts to make the game represent history in a different and probably better way is wasted thanks to a lack of honest introspection when designing the game. Or even a lack of listening to critic. Blindness dooms design. If only paradox would stop wearing a blindfold...
Talking specifically about your example of the Taiping, agree with what you're saying in that section and think it's a wonderful point, but I do personally think that the Heavenly kingdom still has big problems with portrayal in Vicky 3. Obviously something a lot of people are seeing right now is it cropping up in the far west where that wouldn't have a chance of happening(and instead would be much better served by local rebellions of cultures like the Hui, Uighurs, etc.), but even in regards to the "Christian-ness" of the Heavenly Kingdom it has issues. Namely that, the vast, vast majority of the actual body of the Rebellion likely didn't even know of the Christian ties of the rebellion, let alone actually follow the new religion and instead were just hitching a ride on what was at its core a Han Nationalist rebellion against the Manchu's.
Additionally the Christianity of the actual leadership in game is quite iffy frankly, and I definitely don't think it should be classed as Protestantism in game or anything. I think it's highly likely that if the Taiping rebellion actually succeeded they would have cast off their Christian influences eventually, much like how the Red Turban rebellion against the Yuan started as a quasi religious movement before those ties were cast off as the finish line was in sight. I suppose alternatively you could argue a victory and the need of foreign powers to treat the Taiping as legitimate would instead turn the Taiping more standardly christian as they engaged legitimately with them, but I find that less likely, and think there should be a chance of it or something at best.
Considering how xenophobic the Taiping rebellion was especially towards Europeans, going out of their way to try and kill any presence of them, I agree with you. The fact that Europeans were Christian, would have caused a lot of issues in accepting any Christianity, no matter how watered down and syncretized it was, as it was in the Taping rebellion, where the leader basically went all "I am the Son of Heaven, but Heaven is (Christian) God".
Very well put together video, great job keep it up!
This video is great. Great analysis
Victoria 3 is the most Eurocentric game paradox has ever released, and they released ones literally called "Universal Europe"
how so?
@@Threezi04 Firstly, the whole theme and vibe of the game is just industrialism and Europeans getting richer and being happy. Secondly, the game's removal of a separate unwesternised nation set of mechanics reduces a playthrough of, say, Japan to just being exactly the same as the west. (the video talks about that one.) Thirdly, many people argue for the de-emphasising of war and emphasising of economics because they claim the 19th century was the most peaceful the world had ever seen - a view that is shockingly ignorant of imperialism, wars that happened in Africa and Asia, particularly China which saw some of the bloodiest wars in the history of mankind.
@@SpudgunOfficial Thanks for the taking the time to explain, you make a good point. Love your content btw.
How is it eurocentric? This is clearly trying to pander so as not to be seen racist. African states have the same literacy as minor European nations? And the way they portray the civil war is like that of a child...
@@squaeman_2644 I get you, they definitely tried to do all that but they ended up being eurocentric in ways they didn't intend to a ludicrous degree in the ways I pointed out
So I would say we are both right!
Excellent analysis and not just about the game.👍
The fact that both the 'western' and 'non-western' countries having the same 'western' starting point on a tech tree sounds kind of eurocentric to me!
They don’t. The non west is generally an entire tier behind, which includes access to even creating things line universities, but I suppose one could argue that all the tech folds into being the same, which is part of that whole iffy issue of discerning “westernizing” from “modernizing”
But I’m not wholly certain there’s an easy (or at least not terribly convoluted) way out of it from a design perspective. Vic 2 had an idea but I think it fell flat.
@@Rosencreutzzz i am just going on what little I have seen so far, happy to be proved wrong. I feel that say the middle if central africa should be hidden by fog of war for the europeans as they had little idea if any what was going on there until they started exploring. Like wise the states in central africa should have a very little idea what is going on in europe or US eastern sea board.
Fog of war is interesting, because it only really exists in EU4 even though the whole point of things like expeditions and "the Heart of Darkness" was the abject absence of a Western understanding of what was there. The world wasn't globalized in its knowledge of peoples and their places in geography til pretty late on, and it is pretty interesting that that's not represented here, even though there's a button to initiate a quest for the source of the Nile, etc.
@@Rosencreutzzz very good point, after all the Gorilla was first described scientificaly in 1847 and the first complete specimens were only returned to europe in 1861!
Due to how colonization works I hope decentralized playability comes WAY later
As someone who has studied history this is an excellent thoughtful exploration of Victoria. Have you thought about making a discord to encourage more discussions like this for fans of paradox games who are historically aware.
The system isn't perfect yet of course, I have seen mention of a case where Zulu has an absurdly high literacy rate due to the way it is calculated. I don't think it's quite there of modeling nations all around the world, but that's par for the course for these games.
I do still think that the game system are still very western and in some cases too rigid for my taste. I'd prefer a system similar to CK3s religion and culture for the interest groups for example, where they are built out of multiple traits and interests instead of having the same ones every time. The game will probably change a lot anyway, so I'm looking forward to what they will do with it.
this is the smartest recommendation on politics in this game I've heard. Bravo.
A CK3 style ideology system is brilliant and itll be easy to do considering they've done it before
I haven't played CK3 but from watching let's plays I don't really have a great impression of the religion and culture system. I kinda dislike the idea of turning culture into just a bunch of traits that get combined in certain ways, that feels too generic to me. Sure cultures might have things in common but usually they do it in their own way, Scandinavian seafaring traditions are completely distinct from Polynesian, Greek or Phoenecian seafaring traditions and they're all distinct from each other. They used different materials, organized themselves in different ways, navigated differently and conceived of the sea in vastly different terms, even if they all had wide reaching explorers, vast sea trade networks and colonized land via the sea they're also so different that they can't be considered the same thing.
Like to me the thing that systems like this fail to account for is that differences in culture, religion, and ideology aren't just being better or worse at certain things. They're a fundamental difference in how that society functions and what sort of incentives exist in it. A Feudal society simply just doesn't have a profit incentive like a capitalist one does, a Buddhist society does not have a centrally organized church like a Christian one does and so on. It's not just changing how the game works so to say it's changing the game itself.
@@hedgehog3180 I meant this more for gameplay purposes to make it more interesting. It certainly can't perfectly Model every aspect of various cultures, but that's pretty much going to be the case anyway for the majority of playable factions.
Hey, I've never seen any of your videos before, but I just want to say as someone currently in their MA for history, wow. Your discussion on the loss of an accurate history for indigenous peoples really hit something close to home for me as a historian currently focusing on the formation settler-colonialism in Western Canada. This was an incredibly thoughtful and well-written video, and reminds me of what I want out of my "history" games. Thank you!
You're swinging it around but you miss the ball here. Obviously having a populated Africa is way better than a blank one.
It sounds like you're asking for some sort of over-rationalised Acemoglu and Robinson development simulator but at the same time want to insist that every nation should be flavourful. Seems a hard circle to square. The whole "west is the best" angle is also unnecessary.
Ultimately much of the world lacked rule of law / agency / executive structures such that engaging with the mechanics of the game fails to make any real sense. Sometimes it just makes sense to hard code into the game that crazy don't happen
I agree with the idea that it's the structure of the game that holds back the historical accuracy of whatnot, i always found it frustrating that in eu4 the institution of the printing press is needed in China when as film everything ive been able to find about printing press and China was that they did have the invention there it just want practical with their writing system i mean have you ever seen the nightmare of a Chinese typewriter? It scars me thinking of ever using it. Saying China was held back because they have a a connection with their thousands of years of history by any literate commoner being able to read ancient documents is kinda nuts and probably wasn't true.
The institutions are still very much western centric, however, the printing press represents less the idea of "we can now print lots of books" and more "now the lower classes can be more educated and communicate between each other thus lowering the lasting power of centralised governments". Most events I get involving the printing press in EU4 are my people starting to get ideas against my government, which, well, technically speaking by accident it becomes a still very much good fit for China: the people there were very diverse, however historically one or another group forced themselves into power much to the disdain of others: not much different from a priest deciding to tell the Pope to go suck it, just in this case, it's more the Emperor himself who needs to be concerned about the wider proliferation of information.
However, China was a massive exception compared to the rest of the world, maybe India is the only place where you would see a similar impracticallity of the printing press being used, not sure, not too familiar with indian language systems.
But the institutions are a somewhat step up compared to the previous system of westernisation, where china would inevitably fall behind unless they got really lucky: even if you managed to wrangle China into becoming a nation more powerful than any western power by one means or another
Trade also suffers from eurocentristic depictions: all of it ends in western Europe, and yes, while technically that was the most developed part of the world by around the end of the game's timeframe, if you are a resurgent mongol empire and you turn the entirety of the three endnodes into little more than a barren wasteland out of spite, there would be no geographical reason for trade to continue going there, likely the middle east would take over as a commercial center of the world, and failing that, maybe even India's north or Persia
But mechanically with the game design, you cannot make a "one system accounts for all" type of deal
Very good thoughts! Thanks for sharing
that was a delight to watch, thank you
Another amazing video, last one was beyond great too! Definitely earned my subscription!
I think if anything ends up hurting Victoria 3 in the long run, it’s going to be dissatisfaction with the developer’s choice to focus the war system on The Economy and Diplomacy instead of moving units around a map. I like this change for this game in particular, but a lot of people seem to hate it, and that could kill Vic 3 before it has time to fully flesh out everything else in the game that is currently lacking.
Super excited for this!
Great analysis of the in game mechanics concepts and limitations. Looking forward to some gameplay to in the future, maybe outside the nations everyone is already playing to walk us through this analysis with examples.
Love your Vic content, would love to see more from you
Great video
History is full of near misses that would have made the world unrecognizable to modern society. You briefly talked about it but I think it is the most important point you could make as far as the topic of historicity goes. It’s utterly bewildering to me when people are dismissive of a nation outside Europe coming to power.
AMERICA is THE shining example of a “backwater” country rising superpower status practically overnight. So many things had to go right in order for the US to get where it got. Had any of those things not gone the Americas way the country would not exist in the same capacity. Who’s to say Ethiopia, Qing or India wouldn’t have been able to experience the same rise.
Yeah, like, I know there are books upon books that try to do what Guns Germs and Steel does on some level and like “explain away” why countries didn’t do what the West did and all that, but… sometimes I think we don’t have an answer cause there just… isn’t one? Like there’s a weird presumption to those books that the Western Path is some ordained natural trajectory of human progress, and then from that people extrapolate stuff like “oh well then… it must be THIS factor that dampened the *objective progress* of [nation]”
And I don’t know if I buy it most of the time. Or conversely it’s like, someone has a pet theory there was one specific thing that “held [country] back” and… if that *is* the case, well that’s a sign of exactly what you’re saying- if one factor was different maybe Sokoto would have pulled a Japan.
Partly related: I’ve got a little of this expanded on from a weird angle in the next video, but the game does have some implicit railroading factors that aren’t just the consequence of a nation’s circumstances, and they largely have to do with elements of border continuity.
"AMERICA is THE shining example of a “backwater” country rising superpower status practically overnight"
I'm sorry, what??? At no point in it's history was America a "backwater". It was either the second or third nation in the world to start industrializing after Great Britain and possibly modern day Belgium. Even prior to independence, it had one of the highest literacy rates and standards of living in the world. In other words, it was already more "advanced" then 90% of Europe.
If we want to examine an "unlikely backwater" rising to power, we ought to look at Japan, the only non-Western nation in the entire world to do so in this period. Even then, upon closer examination, Japan had a lot of things going for it. Prior to being opened up, Japan had very high literacy rates and life expectancy - more than many European nations in fact. Even though it was on paper isolated, it still maintained contact with and was very much interested in the outside world, such as Western technology via Rangaku (Dutch learning).
@@AngrySnail-wg7zs I'm kind of conflicted right now because on one hand I love you're japan example. I hadn't thought of it at the times and you're absolutely right to bring it up. However, I'm also overwhelmed with the feeling of confusion and bewilderment as well.
I studied American history in university. Not even the most Pro-American text books ever stated that early America was more advanced than Europe. I'm also confused about your literacy numbers because the only sources I see with numbers that high are specifically talking about the New England area.
"It was either the second or third nation in the world to start industrializing"
I don't know why you think this hurts my argument. My argument would be outright false if this were not the case... if you thought my comment was saying America didn't have absurd potential you misunderstood the point I was making.
What does "backwater" even mean to you? What would you call America in 1776 or 1836? If you trying to tell me that the literal beginning of the country was some kind of industrial superpower I'd like to know where you come from.
@@kingjamestres All of you are making an ignorant assumption that it is economic/industrial development that leads to a nations overall development. In reality, it's more down to cultural/political reasons.
America succeeded, much like South Africa, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, because they were very much British. And were coming from western culture/society. That does not mean they were more 'advanced' as people, but as a culture/political system they definitely were. Or at least, they lended themselves more to the development of power.
To put it another way: if you were to take a thousand Europeans/Americans on one island, and a thousand people from more tribal societies onto another. The 'western' colony would see far more success than the other. Culture has a great degree of impact on how development takes place. Hence why nations like the US, Australia, and Canada saw success. And why we see a lot of cultural/political similarities between Japan and the West.
@@pagatryx5451 how can the cultural/political aspect (as you phrase it) can separately take predominance over the economic/industrial aspect, in a way in which the latter doesn't matter as much as the former? I mean, the material conditions ("economic/industrial") are what generated the immaterial conditions ("culture/politics") in the earliest ages of humanity. And since history began, you can argue that the two aspects generate and modify each other simultaneously, but its really weird to declare predominance of either of them.
And about your island example, what a mess. If the island were just wilderness, probably the "tribal" people would have a better chance of surviving before anything else, than the europeans. Both of them would succeed more in a environment more alike their native ones. But yeah, either way, one's advantage is due both to material and immaterial reasons.
I think the impact of the peace of Westphalia on European institutions/states is heavily underemphasized, as it's essentially one event (that could've went very differently) that influenced so much. Many aspects of that system were then forced on just about every corner of the globe via colonialism.
So I'd love to see more mechanics for countries outside Europe to reflect a 'Westphalian' moment for these states.
Perhaps a trait based system (kinda like Civ 5's religion system? Or Stellaris' faction creation system?) where various mechanics representing a whole range of different institutional/economic/governmental/legal forms (not just from the 'left-right' or 'conservative/progressive' scale of traditional European ideologies) could be selected to create an alternate system of governance to be promoted.
Perhaps this could lead the non-European nation to attempt to promote it's unique system of governance (peacefully or otherwise) among other nations, gaining various influence or prestige bonuses etc. This could maybe see a more conservationist system of governance try to assert itself globally or regionally against the encroaching influence from the more materialistic system of governance of the industrial West. Or perhaps a system of governance where commonplace Western financial mechanisms were forbidden or an alternative mechanism was used entirely (E.g. maybe no loans, perhaps even an entirely different method of resource distribution) or maybe that a very ascetic/spiritual outlook dominates people's desired quality of life policies. It would be like a contest between different systems of ideas (perhaps a more advanced sphere/market system).
I think it could give an opportunity for non-European states to have a larger impact, get more flavour and it could add so much replay value for those states. But I also think it's probably waaaaay too complicated to be implemented :(
Would be cool imo
welcome back man!
It's good to be back in the history game world for a bit. I've got like ~2-3 videos in that realm planned so far, but I'm gonna bounce in and out of it again.
Can't ever let people not experience content whiplash, you know.
It does look strange to see the same tech-tree among all nations in Victoria 3, even small tribal nations have the same research capability at the start of the game as European nations.
I agree about the tech tree and to some extent the research, but I don’t know if there’s an effective way around it that doesn’t just reproduce the incredibly static elements of groups that EU4 had. I think sheer population could contribute more to tech a little, as with avg living standard- starving people don’t have time to invent a new kind of steam engine- even if “necessity is the mother of invention”, that said, they do start behind a fair bit and lacking the tech to make universities does provide a speed bump on top of the other ones that are just squarely placed in the social organization category, like serfdom.
i think it's certainly not the worst way things could be represented for a time where european hegemony and global trade was already in place, and significant numbers of influential political figures in non-european/eurocolonial countries had already begun to understand their path forward as being following a european model in some way (the ruling factions in hawai'i, the sikh empire, the five southern tribes of north america, and egypt had already begun seeing "westernizing" as a necessity, and prominent members of the ruling classes in qing and japan believed in doing the same). it's certainly far less egregious than having a one-size-fits-all approach to technology in classical afro-eurasia.
I disagree that Vic2 had a mainly materialist lens. To me Vic2 is all about pops, it's a crude but effective representation of how societies developed. Societies that held onto slaves and serfs suffered because they were locking out people from being more productive to the economy. Increasing literacy makes your people work better and "promote" to a better social class. Technological improvements make your farms more efficient but leave people unemployed who you find work for in the factories as craftsmen.
The thing I love about Vic2 is by the end of the game you can see the transformation you've had on your society. Resources are important but it's pops, and by extension people, that are at the heart of Victoria 2.
Actually, their Map of Africa is horrifically Inaccurate.
i personally always find it interesting how our own realities can be nothing but our perspective.
if you see someone taking a handbag and they are black, and you are oif that mindset, then you just saw a handbag being stolen.
if you see a black man picking up a handbag for an old lady and you are so inclined, you just saw a young black man helping an old woman.
and i think that history being written by the victors, also has this effect, i know paradox do a lot of research but they cannot cover it all, nor look at history from an unbiased lens as there are so many perspectives and so much dominance of history from the victors that this is impossible for anyone to do.
paradox games for me are like true life movies.
they are based on true events rather than true events, thank you for making this video :)
I rather swallow my tongue rather than participating in another west Vs the rest discussion. What does interest me is your remark on the difference between modernization vs Westernization. from my point of view it comes down to what modernity means, our current modernity was born in the industrial fires of, well industrialization which was predominately dominated by western powers and thus modernization in inextricably link to the western identity that industrialization was born in. If we look at it that way, the economic power the west accumulated through the age is what let them to impose their cultural values, like ending slavery, western clothing, etc. Under this conception if the tools of the next age are produced by, for example china, it would be the west playing catching up to a new chinese modernity, and thus Chinanization.
Glad they really fixed this by making the entire world just as shallow
i read an essay a while ago in Tickner's IR from the Global South Perspective that talks about global developments like industrialization or so-called westernization as cultural exchange moreso than imposition. there would have been no modernization or democratization in europe without resources, ideas, traditions, and technologies obtained from the new world, asia, africa, etc.
Yeah it's definitely a fascinating framing that, I would say, also has that differend crisis to it-- we don't exactly have record of these as exchanges. Even famous stories like the American Pilgrims and Thanksgiving are framed not as Native knowledge saving them so much as "taught them how to fish" which kind of...undersells the importance. Because of course Europe had "fishing" so this localized instance somehow doesn't count as sharing knowledge. And there's something to be explored in that, I'd say.
Phenomenal video.
As I was listening, having not played Vicky 2 but the other paradox games since eu iv/CK 2, I wanted to originally say maybe the "modernization" is more a materialist question whereas the "westernization" is a more social and political question. The problem even there is that I still don't think there's enough variety even in western nations for various laws and I somehow doubt all of the various social systems are exclusively western. Maybe it's more around something like the political systems exclusively? regardless I'm having a ball with Vicky 3. Japan is the easiest to learn the econ system with hands down
Amazing video!
Ideal video length. 👍
I mean, African Coutnries in Eu4 are pretty much equal to europeans most of the times (in the sense that they have the same tech levels nowadays/these patches) and they still get conquered most of the time. Idk exactly why
Military units are better in Europe, most institutions start in Europe, African AI doesn’t play in a way that properly competes with Europeans. There’s probably more but I can’t think of them.
Yeah, like, the AI isn't gonna dev spam for anything than to occasionally get an institution they've already got the ball rolling on, and certainly not pursue action to try and *spawn* something flat out, like a Korea player getting colonialism, etc.
And that gets into that weird conversation about how we don't actually want AI that are player tier competent on some level...but that's probably for another day.
Not ahistorical many ppl pike the Portugese saw Benin or Oyo as equal to their realm in much of the early modern era.
Also countries in Africa don't need to worry about Giants next to them as much as European ones do...
I think this is a video that any paradox fan should watch. As someone who played Vicky 2 loads while still a teenager, a lot of these realisations about implicit biases in the game come only now. In EUIV it’s easier because to some extent issues were fixed with DLC’s making you think about the way they were originally done. Your argument for the move to leave thoughtlessness behind when making new games and thinking about the biases strikes close to home, as new young fans will again consume them likely long before they consider these things and hopefully will be more poised to see the world’s multiplicity. Great stuff!
Give an example of a problematic bias given to us in EU4 or Vic2 that isn't...correct?
The question of progress is one of the most important in my opinion. I just always think of China's, for lack of a better term "cultural suicide" by moving away from a weak, people based, non-hereditary government based on merit that was basically a Chinese take on democracy in the Song Dynasty to Napoleonic-esque absolutist autocracy in the Ming, to finally a feudal, hereditary kingdom during the Qing dynasty. This led to one of the fascinating events in History where the Chinese actually abandoned many advancements only for them to be brought back in 20th century after being gone for almost 1000 years. This implies what would be considered "reactionary" was actually progress.
If you have not already, I would strongly recommend researching the Song dynasty, as it is the closest a non-western country got to modernization and holds the best clues as to what a non-westernized modern country. It remains the only pre-industrial country to see sustained and noticeable rise in per capita income. I find it interesting what things aligned and what did not. The biggest things that aligned were the loss of hereditary titles, an increase in wealth per capita, and the relative decline of absolute authority (yes, they were technically a monarchy, but the emperor was more of a figurehead who was supposed to serve as an example to follow more of actually doing anything, an example of this is how is the fact that emperors frequently stepped down after failing).
0:18
Hey, I made it into a video for the first time :D
Circumstances could have been better, but I suppose making someone reveal their true thoughts is good enough.
I look forward to see how the game develops over time. It’s less scripted than 2 so allows much more freedom for the player and events to play out
But this freedom leads to way too many stupid implausible outcomes. Do you actually enjoy having Russian Africa? Do you enjoy having Prussia never form Germany in 100 years? Some AI railroading is definitely necessary.
@@mushriks I like seeing things be different when I play compared to Vic 2 where it would almost always be the same without mods that added more options.
Be me
Be from the United States.
Only play the United States in history games when I'm asked to because I know my own history and I have trained to play that country a lot because I expected to be asked to play it.
Always play something besides the US any chance I get in single player.
Problem is, they made nearly modern armies in Egypt but Ottomans had like ancient warriors at the start of the game. This is kinda bs
Egypt under Muhammad Ali Pasha had a much more modernized army thanks to military reforms with the help of the French and the British while the Ottomans had abolished the Janissaries, and were able to end their reactionary influence over politics and the military, less than a decade before the game started
I appreciate your video. I really want to enjoy Victoria 3, and hope the DLC (especially the free updates) will address the wishy-washy nature of the world politics. I want Paradox to import more of the individualize national modifiers to each nation that they have on file from EU4. I want the different government types to FEEL like a different government. I feel like EU4 feels like a map painter and nation builder, CK3 feels like character/story builder. I had wanted Victory to be a bureaucrat and systems builder. I realize I'm too late for it to feel like the depth and grit of economic and tech that Victory 2 had, so I'm hoping that the flavor journeys of EU4 and CK3 will be on the horizon.
I really think they should take CK3 inspiration in how boldly that they allowed Vikings to feel different in all play styles from the Caliphates.
Yeah playstyles are one of my biggest concerns with the game, truth be told. I'm one of the like, ten people out there who, while I didn't play LF economies in Vic 2, really appreciated the *concept* of them, of how your economy ran in such a different way. I don't like how economic models are reduced to modifiers and implied labor/ownership methods, as much as tweaking industries is fun. I'd rather have command economies actually feel distinct.
That said, there are some implicit ways these economies have to be structured, and I do really like the absence of a magical omnipresent global market, that self reliance as an ex colony/market-subject is something to be earned and prepared for. That change is positive. I know why they changed capitalists, because everyone hated the LF parties and disempowerment (someday a video will focus on this idea) but I almost feel like it was a retreat from one of the most interesting elements of Victoria 2.
Something I disagree with is your focus of the player as the state when a more accurate framing would be the player is selective elements of the nation. The reason why in hoi4 you can go down paths of rebellion in focus trees or control every unit or choose who becomes president is because you don't just act as the state you act as the army and in events and focuses the people in order to choose how history goes. Similarly from my understanding you have quite a bit of control of the economy in Vicky3 no matter your economic system which means in part you play as capitalists. You aren't a physical presence in these games but rather a force influencing the countries direction via various levels.
Saying you play as "capitalists" isn’t accurate to vic3 since you can play with a command economy.mSaying you’re the "power that influences and control the economy" looks more accurate to me
I’ve said before that one plays as “the spirit of a Nation” and I know it’s a bit more abstract than being the state itself but you’re definitely in a role of player autocracy. You’re quite right the player is something other than The State, and my wording should have probably heartened back to Player Autocracy, and maybe even the example of how Hoi 4 anarchy is…a weird lil homunculus thing that doesn’t quite play right.
I should probably talk about Player Autocracy outside of just half exploring it in the vic 2 video at some point.
Needless to say I think about the subject of player (dis)empowerment and role in games like this a lot. It’s an interesting weird meta topic that deserves its own space.
@@Rosencreutzzz There is a great blog series on "Teaching Paradox Games". I think ue is right when he says the unit of analyses in most of these games are the state, and esentially play as them. Controlling units and such is probably do with the need for player agency in my opinion.
History runs into two problems when it's discussed by living people:
1. History is written by the winners.
2. The winners are considered normal within the present.
And wherever something is normal, it's defended tooth and nail, because it triggers too much cognitive dissonance to properly challenge a norm that we believe.
I submit that a large segment of mass media, including commercial video games, are sold on a promise of reinforcing norms, subtle and not: "the bad guys are definitionally bad, the good guys just have to work out a few bad apples" and "the rise and further rise of the chosen one" are particularly popular fantasies in gaming that can sidestep questions about what it means to be a good guy faction or to gain power by simply never presenting a problem. And in terms of whether games are quality information for life, vs being vehicles to assign credit to a hegemon, the problem is incredibly deep because it deals with games as works of philosophy.
Simulations of people in games, from individual NPCs up to nation-states, are rife with hard edges where the design has to pick a normalizing dynamic to have an interaction in the simulation instead of a cutscene. But if the NPC is just a signpost, they have no agency; if the player can kill them, then the conversation branches into what the consequences should be, if any. If they can be won over with gifts and attention, the resulting transactional dynamic is systematically dissected by the player. All possible answers to the question of what people in the simulation are capable of are potentially distorting, for the same reasons why different historiographies can only be lenses on the truth, not its essence.
This has been a problem from the very beginning of "simulation" of human things like election polls, economic allocation, etc. and can be traced even farther and farther back down the philosophical family tree to basic theories of war and trade; putting a bunch of stats on stuff defines the nature of the game. In-game explanations of "the rest of the world" are damned in that sense: either they're generally compatible with the simulation framework(thus, if the sim is designed carefully, 19th century pan-African industrialization can be explained in the same way that if you just happened to have omniscient information, you could go rob a bank right now and get away with it cleanly), or they're an inscrutable other and given Westernization points, ensuring that they snap tightly into a popular set of norms, but without really any exploration of "but how far off were they from actually accomplishing such a thing, really".
IMHO what makes most works of media interesting lies in how much they explore and explain chaotic behaviors by adding or removing emphasis to certain themes and elements. So I'd rather get the Vicky 3 we have where some impossible things are possible, because it's a little more exciting to observe, for the same reason that it's a little more exciting to see Mario jump three stories high than to give him a realistic jump height; that makes the gameplay be more focused on being "about jumping" or "about industrialization".
What about resource distribution. for example the Argentine pampas. You can walk for days, and only see flat fields. But no, Japan has over 3 times the amount of arable lands.
Yeah, it's also not great, and they selectively change things to alter power potential. I guess something could be argued though about what arable means, or is supposed to approximate. And that's to say little of map projections and how those distort our colloquial understanding of a country's size. It's most likely an issue of wanting Japan to embody the "destiny" of being a dense nation.
This video is fantastic. Thank you for your perspective. I have been loving the controversy around this game
I do think the Devout interest group should have different ideologies based on the religious traits of a faith though, it feels really weird for certain religions to have a very stiff patriarchal clergy when that wasn't always the case.
Yeah, I felt that when playing Korea and the clergy wasn't just like perma pacifist aligned or something.
@@Rosencreutzzz Mhm. I think individual leader traits can overwrite default IG ones but it still feels weird for that to not be the default for them
I'm gonna be honest, I will buy the game to play my country and make it his most powerful historical version possible.
But it's a little difficult because I'm uruguayan.
Hopefully immigration mechanics are equally broken as they were in Victoria II.
Immigration is way more powerful than before, a little cheat is to become a protectorate of uk
I spent like one fourth of my time in vic 2 trying to make Uruguay a metropolitan mega city with a higher population than Brazil lol
oh it's even more broken,
multiculturalism + total separation and you can get targeted with a mass migration every like, 2 months
@@elfelon9465
“a little cheat is to become a protectorate of uk”
- definitely not the uk
I definitely agree that Vichy 3s representation of Africa, but i will defend vichy 2s representation from a technical standpoint. Victoria 2 was not made by the Paradox of today. It was rushed out of a failing company with minimal resources. The tech used was waaaaaay behind what we have today. To represent Africa in a way similar to V3 would simply take too many resources. Im sure there was a meeting that came to the conclusion that making a proper in depth system representing Africa was just not worth it compared to the effect it would have on the rest of the game. Even when mods add the smaller states in, the only way they can get them to be colonized through Victoria 2s framework is through a very railroady series of events. The game just isnt capable of it without major work on the source code. The game already struggles to accurately depict the African states it does have, with the north African states often just having a state or two bitten out of them and then are ignored and Sokoto oftentimes just being sphered by someone and left completely untouched for the rest of the game. This sort of thing is through all paradox games, like how completely neglected Scandinavia was and still is in Hoi4 due to it being not that relevant.
That being said V3 is waaaaay too loose with its ability to have whatever random county become a world economic superpower.
Good Video
"Westernisation" is completely fine mechanics for me. Another way to tune it would perhaps be an "Western awareness" mechanics where diplomatic actions and market access instead of technology is gated behind "Westernisation".
I think its *very* possible to still play vic3 as a Scramble For Africa Simulator but good luck when you have Britain and France with Expert Colonial Administrator Leader Traits, because thats the only impediment to playing it that way not the existence of Decentralized nations.
I'm a European (Lived in Italy, UK, Austria, Netherlands), but in eu4 I play almost exclusively outside europe (almost only multiplayer). I started as a Timurid main, then became Jianzhou/Oirat main, lastly i specialized on Bahmanis. I think persia, SA, SEA and EA are the most interesting regions in eu4, especially since mandate of heaven (but before that still, to a lesser extent!).
In (vanilla) Vicky2 i've played a lot as punjab, qing and japan, but the latter is the only one that can be really played without a headache or in multiplayer; because of that, i've played some in europe too - mostly italian irredentism. But the americas are interesting too there!
I've been trying vicky3 lately, but i can't say much yet
i feel like there is also a problem with the definition of things
what is progressive in one place might be conservative in another place
characters or groups that might be considered moderate or even traditionalist from an American perspective might be considered radicals from the perspective of southeast asia for example
Nice dude, good video. Put a lot of my thoughts into words.
Merging UK and France? 'Dieu et mon droit' is the justification. The French throne is rightful property of the British monarch! (From the British perspective)
UK is the finest example of a French colony succeeding over time, we can thus have faith in African and Asian former colonies
@@Deus_Galicus except the UK wasn't directly ruled by France so it's not quite the same.
@@catmonarchist8920 Sorry, I meant puppet state, I'm so silly sometimes
@@catmonarchist8920 yeah it just got taken over by a French duke
I would still argue that all countries today are westernized. Even though things could be done differently, the methodologies are from those developed in Europe following the Greeks and Arabs.
It really is like how the whole Europe is heavily influenced by Christianity although each region has its own flavor due to various reasons.
Great video! Love your stuff
There were not states in sub-saharan Africa that were as centralized or organized as complexly as those along the Rhine. That’s a vast overstatement. They did not have the technology that would have allowed such a thing.
Outside of Ethiopia, there were no formal systems of writing, which would make the task of running a state apparatus as complex as the 19th Century Netherlands, Belgium or Germany impossible.
There were states in Sub-Saharan Africa, and the level of organization varied considerably. Some states, like Dahomey and Oyo, were relatively complex by the standards of the region, in that they had forms of taxation, a paid monarchical retinue, and most importantly, an active system of trade, particularly in slaves, but none of the states had anything like the sophisticated bureaucratic apparatuses that were present in Western Europe. Nor did they have the developed economic institutions which had been present in the West for many centuries, and in China for longer than that.
It would be unfair to deny that no formal states existed in Africa prior to the period of European contact, but it’s also just incorrect to allege that they possessed institutions anything like as sophisticated as the European states.
I will note many peoples started adopting writing systems in africa around this time. This should be represented in some way, especially with how many african nations adopted arabic script for instance and changed or altered it
18:18 "materialist approach to history" 👀👀👀👀👀
From Feudalism to Capitalism to _Council Republic_
I think the fundamental issue that Victoria 3 (and your video) has it that it has basically become a denial of History in its attempts to not be Eurocentric and in terms of gameplay this kills the game.
Every nation in Victoria 3 is a viable world conquest playthrough. Now, the same CAN NEARLY be said of Victoria 2 (Based Krakow WC) however playing as a small irrelevant nation in Vic 2 is hell. You really are at the mercy of the Juggernaut. To put it bluntly this is fucking stupid. I am all for breaking the wheel, my favorite Vic 2 game of all time was my own Krakow into Poland into PLC game. My favorite TAG's in EU4 are all small underdog nations that usually get annexed a few years after game start in the real timeline. BUT in those game's if the AI wanted to just kill me it could. My Krakow and Byzantium runs could have been stopped at any moment by a powerful AI nation, and many of them have been. One time as Byzantium fucking Aragon annexed me. ARAGON. In Victoria 3 I have NEVER felt like I am in danger even as the weakest and most irrelevant nations because by the time anyone takes notice of me, I'm so damn powerful I can land troops in London and capitulate the British Empire as literally anyone. Vic 3 is the easiest Paradox game to date.
At 13:38 you state what Paradox SAID, 'different gameplay for different nations', unfortunately that doesn't match up with reality because in Victoria 3 EVERY nation is the same. And I suspect that if we do get *different* gameplay for decentralized nation it will be different like how EU4 *technically* has different native mechanics when really, you're just interacting with the same mechanics in a slightly different way. As it stands playing as Japan or playing as Britian is the same. Which is a failure to describe history. And is also incredibly boring. Vic 2 (I cannot believe I am saying this) did it better for Japan. The various mods only make it better with multiple sub-states and a proper civil war. Vic 3 has nothing for Japan. Literally fuck all, and they start with all the technology that IRL caused a fucking civil war. Like WTF. Japan did not just happily adopt Western tech and methods even AFTER the Meiji Restoration, to the point that their British trained Naval Officers basically had to beg and plead with their Traditionalist counter parts to fix scurvy. I've written a whole ass paper on the changes in the diets of Japanese sailors from the 1860's up until WW2. Shit's interesting as fuck. Clicking a button and getting the same tech as Westerners is as shallow as your Imperator example.
Literacy rates are fucking insane, with EVERY nation (including the Euro's) having massively inflated literacy rates compared to Vic 2 which already had massively inflated literacy rates.
But ultimately this all serves gameplay, and the gameplay is shit. It's bland, repetitive, overly simple, and the game is one of the ugliest ever made with modern graphics. It's a damn shame.
Yeah hit the nail on the head... Reality is ignored for the sake of modern politics. And any attempt to question modern politics is made by conflated examples like "Look at this guy who mentioned genetics". You already know that you're being invited into a fair discussion when refusing to agree with them puts you in the same camp as the eugenicist in their eyes.
There IS a reason why Europe invaded Africa and not the otherway around and that was because they had the more 'developed' political system to do so. Had Africa had reached our level of political development first, that would have given rise to technological developments and the onset of colonization on their end, and it's a bit more complicated than a roll of the dice in regards to how this development took place. One such example being the geographical differences such as the abundance of easily accessed 'strategic' resources in Europe to kickstart this early development.
If you want to talk about games with enough alt-history that a non-eurocentric gamemodel is viable you need to go back further in time to make more sense of it. EU, for example, starts at an early enough date that an African empire forming to rival the European powers is very much viable. As is the case in Asia. Is it perfectly reasonable histroically? Not really. But it's much more reasonable than an African superpower forming in the mid 19th century.
With the attempt to please everybody by following the current political agenda, people are blinded to see that there are differences among humankind. I am not saying this to undermine some groups of people and glorify others, I am telling the bitter truth. We have become so conscious with ourselves and our sense of what is right that we would prefer to demolish anything that reminds us of it, just to not seem rude. And these deferences are not only determined by genetics, as some racists, driven by hatred, would say, there are many aspects to it. History of humanity itself is so fragile, any small difference in it would bring us to an altered result. There is no way of saying it right, anything you say in that regard would just be labeled as anything terrible that comes to a mind, but people are different, even in their own groups, but there also are factors superior to the distinctions that make them a group. There are groups of people who are smarter, others may be stronger, more flexible, some might have better abilities in art, you get the point, acknowledging this will not make you a horrible person, when you will accept this you will not have to use it with malice. If we try to avoid mentioning this thing just to be kind to everyone, it will not change how the world works. There's a reason why Europeans were able to conquer the world, and it's not just genetic "SUPERIORITY" as some would say. It's crazy to think about, because we will never be able to count all the factors and reasonings for how and why everything turned out as it did. The least I can say is that, with no amount of flattering delusion, no one will be able to change how nature works. Species are the way they are for a reason, for the sake of survival. How many people... No, how many living organisms died just to change and adjust to the surroundings is the most astonishing question to think about. Life is hard, life isn't fair, but the only people who survived their journey without giving up were able to beat it.
I feel like I just got cornered at a bar by a Grad student
I think the best evidence to support the conclusion that more effort must be undertaken to give an accurate model of history is by listening to the armchair ideas of paradox fans.
One of my friends is an unironic monarchist.
I am sorry, but politically speaking I have never come across a fanbase with so many monarchists. I would be in no way surprised that there are people who internalised the lenses into their very perception of world history.
I appreciate Victoria 3 in attempts to present a... "dialectical materialist", view of history. Because history is decided by the totality of circumstances of the people that live in society. Not just kings or rulers.
I think that's moronic. Has your monarchist friend ever made any attempt to progress national politics back into a state of monarchism? If not, why does it matter? He obviously doesn't care enough to do anything about his so called beliefs.
It's a game. Games should not be made with any attempt to influence political beliefs.
@@pagatryx5451 Perhaps they aren't trying to influence people's politics but it is very much possible. And it is a fact Devs do have their biases and how they choose to portray history can effect the way people perceive or understand history.
Yes its a video game but video games are not immune to influence, look at Hollywood for instance, look at the cod series and how friendly they are with the US military and their policies.
But some games do present a political message, and that's okay. Look at the Ukrainian games that are about killing Putin or a game such as Papers Please which certainly does have political morality with in its very DNA.
Anyway as for my monarchist friend. No of course not, we are both quite youthful and just barely entering the workforce. But he does say some nihilistic things so that's his idea of advocacy for monarchy. But notably he says he will vote to remain under the monarchy we have. (We're Aussies), but no he isn't a constitutional monarchist... He is an absolute monarchist. 🫤
@@captain-chair In the case of Australia anything would be better than a republic. A new republican constitution would just be full of liberal degenerate ideals anyways, even the status-quo is better than that.
@@mushriks Depends on the government. I would like to hope the Liberals stay down for a very long time. They don't deserve power ever again for the bs they have pulled.
Plus we as a player knowing what did historically happen gives us an unfair advantage in changing it. We know not to be too worried about the ottomans unless the AI gets very unlucky but would contemporary greeks have really been chill militarising a bit and then going on the offensive? We know the cycle of absolute bullshit Iran has been through and we know how to solve it... whilst being an extremely powerful influence over whatever nation we're playing. We have information and power that no human in these countries ever had, so of course we're going to be able to use it to do things that have sketchy historical plausibility. And even some things that were flat out impossible. And that's okay. It's not something paradox should design their game to counter.
Right now (in the release version), basically the entire world gets colonized way too quickly and thoroughly.
I’m like how eu4 does it. I feel it is both historical and fairly fun. There were definitely centralized kingdoms and empire during the Victorian era like the Oyo or Kongo empires, but there were also vast area of land that were sparsely populated and really weren’t governed. Give these states a chance to westernize, but also allow for colonization of land uncontrolled by them.
As far as historicity goes, as long as there is historical evidence for a people to be in the time and place the game portrays then they should be in the game. If we do not know who was their leader, make one up as long as it does not wildly different the history we do have. For example, I don't mind putting in a formidable African nation on the ivory coast if one existed, just don't make them lead by matriarchal monarchy that is actively trying to build a capitalist powerhouse.
Its a rather interesting topic. On broader scale what it shows is a similarities between "paradox" games eolution and development of our society itself. Just like decades ago was acceptable to invade nearby countries or segregate other people by their skin colour, believes or opinions, the same way in Victoria 2 did not took the matter of cultural or religion into account. It was simply a limitation in that game. And of course, the only way to become a great power, for countries outside Europe, was to expand and conquer neighbour countries, instead of expanding economically and culturally.
What we see here is not a matter of developers being simply ignorant and propaganding their "agenda" in to the game. It's the mechanics of the game prograsing and evolving. I guess just like us, developers wants to make game more enjoyable, emersive and fun to play. Unfortunately, I don't think that the issues, that author mentioned in this video would be solved instantly, maybe even not in Vic 3. But what I can say for sure that next paradox games would be even more deep and complex in economical and cultural aspects!
Do you think adding nations as Oyo that start with 40% literacy and 10+ western technologies researched like "Urbanization" and "shaft mining" in 1836 is somehow a good addition? There is nothing unique with these African decentralized nations, they are just as plain and flavorless as European nations.
I'd say the biggest problem with Vic 3 so far (aside from the numerous mechanical ones like nonexistent diplomatie, abstract warfare system, AI economies going full on china or remaining at their 1836 level and generally being empty of actual content) is the lens employed by the developers, from Scandinavia forming in all the games I've played, to situations where my political system gets taken over by feminism in 1865, to the entirety of Europe having the trade unionists in power by 1870, it's clear that the biases of the developers had a hand to play in those elements, hell, in two of my game, the USA ends up electing a women before the turn of the century, if that's not too far for you, i don't know what is.
Long story short : thanks paradox for railroading players into playing reactionaries, because what's the point of being ahistoricaly progressive if everyone is as well.
You should read the temeraire series by Naomi novik
Maybe in vicky 4, we can move from ditching euro centralism to ditching markets and money
Based.
>genetics
Bruh seriously had 0 idea of how history worked
good
My thing ?
Unifying the most shitty region in the game