How To Play Victoria Universalis: Vicky2 in EU3
1. Ideologies
In the world of EU3, Religion plays a central role. In Victoria Universalis, EU3's religion system has been completely reworked to instead model ideologies. The ideologies are defined as follows:
Liberalism
- Liberal ideology
- Conservative ideology
Traditionalism
- Traditionalist ideology
Socialism
- Socialist ideology
Liberalism represents classical European liberalism of the 19th century, a dueling system between conservatism and liberalism. Traditionalism represents both the uncivilized Itqas and monarchies, as well as civilized European monarchies and new world reactionary republics. Socialism- that doesn't appear in the game world until later- represents proto-communism, socialism and all collectivist ideologies.
Ideologies represent the dynamism of your population. Province ideologies will shift along a continuum, depending on the ruling ideology and how happy the population is with the government. A happier population will tend to change their ideologies to favor the ruling one, while a dissatisfied population will tend towards the opposite.
Every country has three "factions", depending on the ideology group. This represents Victoria 2's ability to change country name and flag depending on government type. The difference here is that multiple factions can appear at once, representing the internal power struggle a country can go through as well as coup d'etats, civil wars and civilian insurgencies.
2. Population happiness
In Victoria Universalis, your population responds to your decisions and actions as ruler of your country. These happen through dynamic events, as well as other actions one can take. These events resemble the random events from Victoria 2 and Europa Universalis III, with choices one can take to react to crises and occurrences in the country. These events have been completely rewritten to be difficult choices, and oftentimes what appeases the masses might not be the best choice for the government.
During the time that your population is happy and supportive of the government, you may see mass ideology switching towards your government ideology as the masses happily toe the regime line- but during the time that your population is angry, the opposite will happen.
Many difficult transitions and feats- such as transitioning to democracy, keeping together a crumbling multiethnic country, and more- will be greatly helped by a supportive population.
3. Governments
The plethora of EU3 governments have been simplified into two government types: A dictatorship, and a democracy. (Victoria 2's complex governmental system has been replaced by the religion-based ideology system seen above).
Both come with their perks and drawbacks.
A dictatorship is, of course, a more stable option for a regime that allows the ruler to have a bit more flexibility in taking care of affairs outside the realms. The population is kept under control, there is not as much internal meddling and there can be long periods of stability under dictatorships. However, during periods of transition, it is extremely likely that dormant elements of the military will immediately rise up and try to install themselves as the next dictator-for-life. This can galvanize the oppressed masses to rise up in revolt, which can lead to a devastating situation. Furthermore, as the decades tick by, social consciousness of the world will rise, and a dictatorship will be less and less feasible. Eventually, it becomes very easy for dictatorships to be toppled as the world trends towards democracy.
A democracy is by nature chaotic, with frequent elections that need babying by the government lest they result in contested results and bloodshed. Civil wars may occur at times when the opposition refuses to recognize the election results. A free parliament means much more quibbling that the player must sort out. Furthermore, there's always the chance that a party with a different ideology gets voted in, pulling the country in directions that the player might not want.
4. Sliders
Sliders in Victoria Universalis have been upgraded from their basic EU3 function. Instead of being a race to one side, the player must use the sliders to gently craft government policy. Slider position has a real, tangible effect on government and can easily be pushed to one side or the other depending on the choices one takes via event.
The three most important policies one must take into account are: Centralization-Decentralization, Aristocracy-Plutocracy, and Serfdom-Freesubjects. The first represents how tight of a control the government has on the nation, the second is similar to the EU3 implementation and the third represents the human rights level of the country.
Governments are changed not by the press of a button but by the gentle nudging of sliders and policy changes. A dictatorship that becomes too open-minded or decentralized may run the risk of transforming into a democracy, but this process can be extremely destabilizing and can come at a great cost. Elements within and outside may want to maintain the status quo and prevent transitions. Consequentially, a democracy that finds itself too centralized- representing an authoritarian regime- may see itself slipping into dictatorship.
Uncivilized countries, as you'll see below, are exempt from this system for reasons soon explained.
5. Civilized and uncivilized countries
Just like in Victoria 2, there are civilized and uncivilized countries. Furthermore, civilized countries are broken into "eastern" and "western" countries, the latter being slightly more technologically advanced than the former, although this gap quickly closes as the game advances.
Uncivilized nations are traditionalist, cannot diplomatically interact with the civilized world, and must westernize into the "eastern" technology group in order to ascend into a civilized status.
In order to westernize, the player must slowly centralize the fledging state as far as possible. Westernization can also occur after some time, but the amount of time it takes for an uncivilized country to westernize is always decided by how centralized it succeeds in becoming.
European powers may attempt to subvert the traditionalist monarchy for their own gain. Sometimes, the spread of liberalism results in an uncivilized liberal statelet- which pleases the European missionaries, merchants, traders and landowners. These countries can westernize much faster but are easily exploited by their European masters. Regardless, it's up to the player to decide how they want to approach westernization. They may even choose to reject all western influences and lock themselves away to guarantee stability.
6. Colonization
In EU3, colonization happens somewhat dynamically through the use of colonists, which is a type of official a country gains and sends to empty provinces in hopes of claiming them as their own. In Victoria Universalis, colonisation is still dynamic, but has been replaced with a much more complete system of decisions and events.
Unclaimed territories at the game start include the Oregon territory, Patagonia, large swathes of Oceania, most of Africa, and a plethora of islands spread out across the world. Some of these regions will be colonizable with event chains, representing the outward expansion of private citizens and pioneers that was already occurring by the start of the game. The United States, for example, can easily colonize the great American interior without much hassle as hordes of free citizens move inland, manifesting their destiny.
Other territories, however, will require much effort from the player to colonize. First, a player must load an army onto a boat and physically move their army to the empty region they hope to colonize (in a region that includes more than one province, any province in the region is acceptable). Then, once the army is settled in place and any battle with natives over, the player will have a choice to roll the dice and attempt to convert their standing army into a local colony. Attempting a colonization costs money, and the chance of success is based off of the "life rating" of the province and the player's naval technology. If a colonization fails, the local troops will be wiped out by the natives.
Beware, as AI countries can also colonize in much the same way. If you absolutely want to lay claim to that island or territory, make sure you are ahead of other countries when it comes to naval technology, and have enough money left aside to roll the dice many times. Having large amount of transports participating in the operation will help as you constantly ferry new armies to the territory in an attempt to colonize it.
7. Economy
We come now to the final and most complicated aspect of Victoria Universalis, which is the economy. The new economic system has not been totally scrapped and built from scratch, but instead builds off of the existing EU3 system by adding a large amount of depth and realism.
In the Victorian era, the central economic theme of the times was the transition into the industrial revolution, the transition of a rural workforce to an urban one, and the appearance of factories. Much like in Victoria 2, factories now play a significant role in Victoria Universalis' economy and are crucial to bolstering your economy.
The population of a province is considered poor when there is no local factory to provide jobs. The tax income of the province takes a severe hit, as the local economy suffers from lack of liquidity. The presence of a factory in a province means that workers are receiving a wage and spending money into the local economy, un-handicapping the local tax rate. As such, it's crucial to un-handicap as many provinces as possible in order to start earning money through taxation. Note that an uncivilized country CANNOT own factories.
There are two main types of economies in Victoria Universalis. The two economic systems synchronize with the existing ideological system and represent both "free-market" capitalist economies, tied to liberalism, and planned economies, tied to both socialist and traditionalist ideologies.
In a liberalist ideology, a free market exists, meaning that the state itself cannot directly build factories. Rather, capitalists and private companies will ambiently decide to open factories in certain provinces based on a long list of country and province conditions. The state will not pay the hefty price of opening factories, although they can spend money locally to attempt to attract industry. The private company will pay the factory's wages, empowering the local community. However, based on much of the same ambient factors, factories may go out of business and close without warning. The government can choose to bail out factories at a hefty price, which comes with its own downsides.
The list of ambient conditions that a factory is affected by includes:
- The kind of trade good in the province
- Owner's tech group (Eastern vs Western)
- Coastal province
- Presence of a center of trade
- Looting/scorched earth
- Local revolt risk
- Owner's prestige
- Owner's ideas (certain ideas, like Smithian economics, encourages factory growth)
- Owner's loans
- Owner's wartax
- Owner's blockade percentage
- Local blockade
- Owner's Inflation Status
- Whether citizens are globally happy with the government or not
- Owner's ideology
- Local ideology
- Population amount
- Presence of factories in neighboring provinces
- Is capital
- Certain other buildings (like constable, university)
- Owner's stability
- Presence of security forces in province to maintain law and order
- Local instability, battles or sieges
- Owner's government type
- Owner's government policy (plutocracy, decentralization, innovation, freetrade, serfdom encourages free-market factories while centralization and mercantilism encourage state factories)
- If the government has previously bailed out the local factory
In a planned economy, present in traditionalist and socialist countries, there are no private companies who may open and close factories of their own accord. Instead, the responsibility of building factories lies with the government. The upside, however, is that although the government must foot the initial investment, state-owned factories provide their income directly to the government coffers. Profit scales with provincial base tax and is collected at the beginning of every year. Privately-owned factories may also be forcibly nationalized after a revolution or civil war, providing an alternative from having to build every factory from scratch.
With profit comes responsibility, however, and it is the state's responsibility to manage the factory's profitability. Influenced by many of the above factors, state-owned factories may also become unprofitable. Unprofitable factories will incur a net loss at the year's end, scaling with base tax. When the economy and local situation is correctly managed, unprofitable countries usually return to profitability quite quickly.
When the economic situation is dire, unprofitable state-owned factories may be sold off for some quick cash and to stop the loss of ducats. However, factories are quite expensive and take a while to build, making this option one of last resort.
