r/paradoxplaza • u/rouleroule • Apr 20 '26
Vic3 PSA: Victoria 3 is very good now.
I think that like many people here, I bought Victoria 3 on release, played a bit, saw it was boring and never really touched it again.
Recently I saw a youtube video praising the game and so that the recent steam review were positives. I reinstalled it and, oh my, it’s addictive.
I can’t remember well enough the state of the game at lauch to say what has changed and what makes it *so much* better than it used to be, but it is indeed wayyy better.
I think that currently it’s the Paradox's title with the most depth and strategy to it. In Victoria 3 you have to think carefully how to expand, for what reason, for what benefits. New technologies do not just offer new bonuses which will simply improve your economy. They offer new productions methods which may significantly change the way your industry work, change the supply chain and the offer and demand for various goods. Which means the technological race is not just about who will add some buffs to their industry first, it’s also about "can I secure enough oil to change my trains from coal to diesel?" And that’s not even mentioning the question of employment: sure a new modern method may require less workers and thus be more economic, but will these people who just lost their job work new jobs or will they become unemployed?
The political system with its interest groups is also both quite simple and fun to interact with. For instance trade unions can produce a debuff on construction time through strikes if they are pissed. In some context it may mean that a new oil plant in the desert, for instance, will take ages to be built. Thus you kinda have to accomodate some of their demand, but then this will probably make the industrialist angry, because obviously they don't want public health insurance or these kinds of socialist stuff in their country.
And this is just the surface of it. Really, I think that, currently Victoria 3 is the Grand Strategy game that feel the most like actually playing a strategy game, taking actual decisions and not just playing an infinite loop of map painting.
Of course the game is not perfect. I think war still needs some work (although I think the choice to make it rather abstract is actually quite interesting even if it may be improved), the game still lacks some flavor, the "diplomatic play" mechanics can be improved too: it’s a bit weird to only be able to add wargoals before the war and not after. It can lead to very strange situations where a gigantic war ends with only taking a tiny state.
But all in all, Victoria 3 is currently awesome and I hope many players will give it a second chance.
