The Nineteenth Century was a most remarkable time in world affairs. Every facet of human endeavor saw radical change. Economics, Politics, Science, and the Arts all intertwined and commingled in novel ways and changed the course of human events. Bracketed by the Napoleonic Wars and The War to End All Wars, the period that began at Valmy with set-piece battles between lines of troops using muzzleloaders and cavalry, came full circle to end on the blood-soaked battlegrounds of Flanders beneath chattering machine guns and swooping aircraft. Systems of banking and trade based on mercantilism and slavery disappeared in the face of industrialization and the telegraph. Societies built upon serfdom and Divine Right were attacked by anarchists and churned beneath the marching feet of Liberalism and the novel theories of fellows like Engels and Marx.
None of these changes was easy. Old systems and assumptions resisted change, sometimes bitterly.
The ossified agreements of the Congress of Vienna held for nearly a half-century, but the widespread popular revolutions by mid-century shook the Courts of Europe. The balance of power - long maintained by a neutralist Britain that saw France as its natural foe - teetered between France and the emergent Prussia-Germany while Britain grabbed possessions across the globe. At the beginning, both the former British colonies in America and the inward-looking Russia were insignificant. US troops couldn't prevent the burning of the White House by troops from Canada, and Russia was the only state in Europe that could still reliably lose to the Turks. By the end of the period, the military power of Russia and the economic power of the United States were irrefutable. In 1815, Germany and Italy (as unified states) didn't even exist, Japanese Shoguns were cheerfully hacking each other with swords, and Britain was mopping her brow after finally witnessing the defeat of the Corsican Ogre. A hundred years later, Japan had stunned the world with her surprise win at Tshushima, and the growing bellicose power of Germany forced Britain to form an Entente Cordiale with her centuries-old enemy.
The tremors of democracy, the deep-rooted reverbations of 1848, and conflicting national ambitions would combine inexorably to immolate the world in the most horrific conflagrations of human history. This was a century that cried out to be simulated for years, but even the most ambitious designers seemingly hesitated at the enormity of the task. Let's face it: the scope of events was so broad, the changes in the international system so deep, surely no system could approach the subject with any degree of comprehensiveness or realism?
Enter Paradox. You will probably recognize them as the fellows who hit the strategy market hard with Europa Universalis, a computer port of a very complicated boardgame popular in Europe. It was a stunning success. After a streamlined and expanded version came out as EU2, Paradox bent the same systems to the task of simulating World War 2 in Hearts of Iron, at which they succeeded admirably.
Victoria continues the evolution of this extraordinary game engine into a whole new period of history. They've left all traces of their boardgame roots behind, and have presented us with a game that fully uses the massive data-management capabilities of today's computers to comprehensively represent just about every aspect of events from 1835 to 1920. Diplomacy and the military feature heavily, of course - but Victoria also has sophisticated systems for economics, trade, industrial and technological development, and even domestic politics. (I'll jump ahead and tell you EU2 fans right away: Yes, Paradox has said they plan to produce a 'translator' app that will take the end-state from their EU2 savegames and use it to translate into a 'fantasy' starting-game for Victoria. It's not there yet, but they've said they'll do it, and nobody supports their games better than Paradox. If it's possible, I believe they'll write it.)
For those of you new to the series, you need to immediately go and buy EU2 from the bargain bin of your local software store. Until you do that, though, I'll review the general characteristics of the game system. Each player represents the guiding force for a particular state. Your map is the entirety of the world, divided into thousands of provinces and sea-zones. Uniquely to Paradox games, you can select and play any state in the world - even teeny single-province states. Extremely capable AI's play everyone else, each state having its own goals and talents, which makes for a very challenging game.
You are not the government, which can (and almost inevitably will) change based on popular opinion and civil war - but the state itself. The particular faction/party/family in power generally limits your freedom of action (a pacifistic government might put a low ceiling on your defense spending and research while it also places a high floor on your social spending), making it very important that you keep your population happy enough to maintain someone in power that lets you do what you want.
It's also a running-time game. Most strategy titles are either turn-based (allowing a player to carefully contemplate their next move) or "realtime" in which the clock runs continuously. Victoria is running-time: the clock ticks constantly but (in single player mode) you can scale it up or down, as well as pause time completely. This is a nice middle ground - players are somewhat forced to deal with events as they occur, but it recognizes that in a real life situation, players would have thousands of advisers and subordinates to execute policy decisions.
Running-time does present a problem for multiplayer; there are boring times when your enemies have all been conquered (or at least mollified) and the clock runs too slowly while you wait for some treaty-obligation to break open. There are frantic times when even the slowest setting doesn't allow you to manage all your units in a worldwide general war. Paradox has mitigated the latter through a neat mechanism allowing individual multiplayers to pause the game for at least 30 seconds; after that, anyone can unpause it. In a friendly game, this is exactly what's needed. In a cutthroat game with opponents you don't know, it's rare that anyone is interested in making sure you had the time to manage your empire properly. Personally, I find this a particularly appealing game-element. It seems eminently realistic that states have to prioritize their policy focus, not just their physical resources. In the same sense that the player can't manage everything at once, there are several instances in history where a state's concern for a specific region or conflict seems to have overwhelmed their ability to deal with even minor events elsewhere (the French in post-Fashoda Africa come to mind).
Prestige points determine the winner of the game (making you the Victor Victoria?). These are accumulated through expansion, economic and industrial development, and a dominant place in the balance of power politics in the world. Of course, Paradox wouldn't miss the chance to add atmospheric touches here to induce players to act like the Victorians - you also gain prestige points for building capital ships and strategic canals. Perhaps you too will get entangled in another Naval Race.
Characteristically, Victoria emphasizes diplomacy on a worldwide scale. This is justified; the Nineteenth Century saw the formulation of the first true extra-European norms for international behavior. The EU engine has always been notable for its diplomatic flexibility, and Victoria is a solid developmental step beyond that. The 'relational' diplomatic system (where every country has an individualized and dynamic relationship with every other state in the game, AI or human-played) has been aggressively expanded. You can negotiate over just about any relationship, access, or territory (or even trade claims for regions you don't control). It's a wise move to forestall another state's expansion in a colonial region by exchanging trading posts or colonial missions for cold, hard, cash or even technology. But be warned, this is no simplistic algorithm between the player and AI; other AI states are watching your diplomatic maneuvers carefully. Conclude a sweet deal for western Canadian territories from Britain and you might both be happy. However, the Russian bear who may have had planned expansion into that area with be happy with neither of you.
Of course a major aspect of your diplomatic relations with other Great Powers (as well as with the not-so-great ones) will be negotiating over such opportunities in the New World, the Orient, Far East, and Africa. Colonialism in the latter 1700's and early 1800's was still in its fledgling stages, but the colonial effort by the Victorian era was no longer simply a matter of flinging explorers and colonists to the winds, conquering natives, and planting the flag. By then it was a matter of watching these economic systems grow (or not) into client states which (by the reasoning of the times) would not only provide raw materials for the resource-hungry industries of the developed world, but in turn would become markets for the finished good produced therefrom.
Sure, there had been extensive networks of commerce throughout the Old and New Worlds since the 16th century, but they traded almost exclusively in luxuries and high-value/low weight goods. In Victoria you will manage the process as your state transitions from general self-sufficiency to a level of industrialization (and the concomitant luxury expectations of your citizenry) that forces you to participate in the worldwide economic system, or stagnate.
With the maturation of sailing technology, and moreso the development of steam power, commerce went mainstream. Suddenly clippers laden with grain were racing across the Pacific, and steam engines chugged across North America and Europe cheaply uniting raw materials with industrial heartlands, producers with consumers. Victoria has an extraordinarily robust and well-developed world market, where fluctuating surpluses and shortages of more than fifty commodities cause the market pricing and availability to be a source of constant opportunity and/or headache for the astute economics player. For those who aren't so interested in world-trade minutiae, Paradox's experience with helper AI's in HoI is well-employed: all world trades can be handled by a competent if not daring management helper AI.
This naturally ties in with industry. The expansion and development of your home industry is an immediate and pressing concern for any new player. Victoria has a Railroad-Tycoonlike resource model; raw materials are gathered in each province, and processed through factories into subsequent goods. These goods themselves can be combined with sufficient technological achievements to produce to the wares of the late Industrial Age. (For example, coal + iron = steel. Sulphur can be converted to fertilizer, fertilizer + ammunition = explosives. Steel + explosives = artillery.) This can end up being surprisingly complicated, and represents very well the interdependence of a modern technological economy.
The reference to Railroad Tycoon is deliberate; no industrial economy can flourish without a significant development of the infrastructure to support it. Victoria is naturally no exception. You will constantly measure the opportunity costs for much-needed railroad expansion against that "one more factory" - the first allows your economy to run much more efficiently (and not insignificantly, it allows more rapid relocation of military forces as well). The second might allow you to produce something like machine parts - desperately needed by less-developed powers and therefore very valuable - granting you more money for development over time. Which is better?
But it is in the concept of "POPS" (population units) that Victoria feels really different than previous EU games. In these, the population existed, but only as a money sponge; domestic taxation decisions were essentially a matter of "how hard can I squeeze before they revolt?" Victoria is entirely different. POPS make up the population of a province, and represent segments of your population. There are ten classes of POPS, from Aristocrat to Slave, each with different preferences and consumer good needs. Their goals can be political, religious, martial, or social, and will affect their support (or lack) of the current government. Is it worth infuriating your capitalists to make social reforms or workplace safety regulations? Or is better to court the wealthy taxpayers and risk disaffecting the underclass? You need to watch your polls, because each POP is rated for Consciousness and Militancy, showing how seriously they take their needs, and how aggressively they'll pursue them. Ignore your public and they may force unhappy changes on you.
It's not The Sims, certainly, but the POPS act almost like individuals in the system - seeking employment, supporting a government that makes them happy, and moving somewhere else (if possible) if they are unhappy enough. As you advance through the century, your population will undergo development hand in hand with your industry and economy; some will become clerks, some capitalists. Players need to attend to their populace (or keep them well-suppressed) or the resulting crises will consume all their attention and energy.
POPS add another rich element into the complex economics of Victoria. Their wealth allows them to purchase more goods from the marketplace, and the resulting money flow can (& will) be taxed to benefit a starving government treasury. These POPS will drive policy as well; as the POPS develop into middle and upper class types, they demand more sophisticated items like luxury furniture, fine clothing, wine, even opium - many of these must be purchased for high prices on the world market, or are only available in raw form in remote locations. Again and again, you are faced with decisions that will have far-reaching effects on your state and ultimately, the game. Do you spend precious cash buying these low-demand but expensive items from some other power, or do you spend your young men's lives quashing the natives and then keeping other great powers away? More than ever, the domestic policy a player follows can significantly affect future opportunities and even lead to civil war in a web of interrelationships that will keep you awake at night. It's no coincidence that The Economist (probably the world's pre-eminent economic and political journal) was founded in 1843. Victoria's economics engine does it justice.
One of the problems with the earliest versions of Europa Universalis was the almost-paralyzing number of choices, and the resulting pacing of events. This was a strategic model based on the real world, and that hasn't changed. While Paradox toyed with earlier visions of events and national goals that a player could choose to follow for more prestige (victory) points, in Victoria they realized that many government policies are the forced result of "lesser of two evils" choices. Players are confronted rather frequently with events and circumstances, usually with two or more choices whose consequences are shown in Paradox's usual excellent tooltips system (but not always). A lot of these events are random, and relatively generic; many are nationality-driven and contextually appropriate.
In a long game as the USA, my administrations (whose domestic policies I was trying deliberately to advance toward an early, peaceful elimination of slavery) were plagued with slave and abolitionist events. My westward push toward my Manifest Destiny was constantly checked by a need to spend huge amounts on industry and infrastructure in the slave states (trying to evolve the system out of slavery, rather than try to legislate it away and simultaneously invite civil war). Nevertheless, by the mid 1850's I faced a great deal of southern militancy and the threat of civil action (amply demonstrated by occasional risings) forced me to keep both a larger military than I wanted to have, and deploy many troops passively rather than aggressively in my western expansion.
The military element of the game is sophisticated and smooth. Like HoI, units are recruited by division and by function, with the application of support units like artillery or cuirassier brigades requiring more resources and money to build, but endowing the unit with greater capabilities. Colonial and native units are less reliable and effective (usually) but importantly cost much less - sometimes this is the deciding factor for an overstretched and strapped empire that can't quite afford the best everywhere.
Naval units are logically resource- and money-intensive, but they are naturally faster and critical in the race for overseas colonies. They are built in a method similar to ground forces, with a fleet being constructed of individual capital ships and flotillas of escort/support vessels. Naval units also are very dependent on technology; you can pretty much always build infantry and cavalry, and tech will help them to some degree. But naval units require a sustained and heavy investment in tech development, as some units can't even be built without the achievement of certain technological breakthroughs.
The technology system is a perfect example of Paradox's talent for constructing a neat mechanic that artfully finds the balance-point between realism and entertainment. On the one hand, you have utterly realistic games whose linear tech development represents the 'steps' that each of the real-life states passed through historically. In these cases, it's simply a matter of plodding along a predictable (and boring) sequence of discoveries. In other games, there is a more or less free-development of tech, where you have a broad range of choices that might in some ways be dependent on earlier developments. This is IMO better, but still not great. (I want to develop the Railroad, so according to this chart I have 5 steps to go.) Again, too predictable and end-goal oriented. Did anyone in 1815 decide to go with "Iron Artillery" because it was the shortest tech-path to Nuclear Propulsion?
At the concordant opposite end of the spectrum is the 'random tech' game; invest research points and every so often voila! a new tech appears. This is unpredictable certainly, but hardly representative of the ability of government policy to guide investment and direct research toward short-term goals.
Paradox has found an excellent and playable compromise. First, technological developments are broadly characterized as "army", "navy", "culture", "industry", and "commerce" and ranked in logical order - you won't be able to develop advanced steam engines before basic steam engines for example. Each state may select one research project for development at a time from a randomized list of five available choices. Further, what projects are available in this list of five is based on the country's Intellectual Establishment - representing the cultural focus of the country's research efforts. An "Industrialist" establishment will always have three choices from the Industry tech list, one from the Commerce list, and one selected randomly. You start with a historically-appropriate Intellectual Establishment, but you can change it periodically for a cost in victory points. Thus Paradox has found a way for players to guide their research development generally, while still offering them a degree of novelty and replayability in the actual applications being researched.
Of course, no game is perfect. Lest this sound more like ad copy than a review, I do need to touch on some of the things that could have been done better. The manual is anemic. While I imagine that a full and deep examination of all the functions and aspects of the game would fill a good-sized textbook, and while (I imagine) that most of the players will be familiar with either EU or HoI already, this doesn't obviate the need for something more useful than this. There is no tutorial, and one is desperately needed. You're not going to get much accomplished, but I recommend starting play with a very small state (I chose Texas in 1836, which isn't a great choice since it's in the midst of a war with a much-bigger Mexico…). This will give you a feel for the controls and displays, and some familiarity with the extensive ledger & reporting system that you will use frequently. Managing two or three provinces each with a couple of areas is far more doable than jumping right into managing Russia or (god forbid) Britain.
In terms of the graphics and UI, they have improved the overall look and added Victorian-era flourishes with restraint. Nonetheless, I think there remains an excessive level of micromanagement and clicking around, especially when your empire is sizable. I think more could have been done (and may yet be done) with the graphics to depict industries underutilized or capable of growth, but some of the provinces are so small that they beggar the ability of artists to convey meaning within their map outlines. But even with extensive keyboard shortcuts, initiating a general upgrade of a small region's raw material gathering operations can take thirty or forty (!) clicks.
A lot of players I've talked to simply play the Grand Campaigns, starting at the beginning and working toward the end. If you do this with Victoria, you are missing a big chunk of the game. My late-gold version came with four scenarios: The 1836 Grand Campaign of course is the first. The others are set in 1861 (naturally the focus is the US Civil war, but the consolidation of Prussia and her final ascendancy over Austria can also prove an interesting game), 1881 (covering the serious development of the colonial economic systems) and of course 1914 (World War I).
Victoria does not come with an editor per se, but like its predecessors all game information is easily accessible text and csv files. Modifications are therefore technically simple, but the scope of the game (requiring you to script in all the populations, etc. for thousands of regions) will prevent too much casual modding. I would expect that modifications will follow relatively quickly after the game's release.
Paradox has successfully combined their experience with simulating complex systems of economics, politics, and diplomacy from EU2, and their deep understanding of streamlining, helper AIs, and totally revamped technology & military systems from HoI. They have united all of these elements to turn the Victorian Era into a mature yet fresh strategy game.
The essence of Victoria is the complicated intertwining of many key factors of 19th-Century statecraft, each themselves deeply-nuanced and inextricably related to other subordinate themes. The natural child of two already-brilliant games (EU2 and HoI), Victoria is smarter, smoother, and even better-playing than its famous forbears. EU was really a game about European politics, religion, Machiavellian intrigue and the fight to grab overseas possessions. Victoria is more than "a strategy game" - it thoroughly models the development and expansion of these systems, and the maturation of the 'Great Powers of Europe' into truly global states. This was a time that witnessed examples of the most sophisticated relationships ever contrived by some of the greatest statesmen that ever lived. The period closed as Europe was immolated by the inability of mediocre politicians and bureaucrats to sustain the complex geopolitical ballet laid down before them. What about you: are you going to be a Bismarck, or a von Bulow? A Disraeli or a Napoleon III?
'Ave you 'eard o' the Widow at Windsor With a hairy gold crown on 'er 'ead?
She 'as ships on the foam -- she 'as millions at 'ome, An' she pays us poor beggars in red.
(Ow, poor beggars in red!)
There's 'er nick on the cavalry 'orses, There's 'er mark on the medical stores --
An' 'er troopers you'll find with a fair wind be'ind That takes us to various wars.
(Poor beggars! -- barbarious wars!)
Then 'ere's to the Widow at Windsor, An' 'ere's to the stores an' the guns,
The men an' the 'orses what makes up the forces O' Missis Victorier's sons.
(Poor beggars! Victorier's sons!)
-Rudyard Kipling, "The Widow at Windsor"
