Victoria 3 - Shape a grand tomorrow

Hello Victorians of the Reddit variety!

Today we have an Q&A about Sphere of Influence and Update 1.7! Ask us about the upcoming expansion releasing on the 24th of June!

With us we have the fine folks of the dev team, including:

• Mikael Andersson - u/PDXMikael- Lead Game Designer
• Alex Hesseborn - u/pdx_alexh - Game Designer
• Anna - u/pdx_sosanna - QA
• Hansi - u/PDX_Lufthansi - Content Designer
• Victoria - u/AcresOfAsteraceae - Lead Content Designer
• Lino - u/PDX_H4n1baL - Lead Game Designer
• Pelly - u/pelhamds - Community Manager
• and more!

Answering questions until 16:00 CEST!

EDIT: Thank you everyone the Q&A is now not answering questions!

Wine is in great demand in the early game, and in the late game - even more so.

Actually, when you build a wine estate, and then let a group of peasants go to work, they become rich, and then they will buy a lot of wine. It sounds like an infinite loop: lack of wine - build a wine estate - lack of wine again

In short, the current version of pop demand is very unbalanced, wine has surpassed gold and opium and become the second most valuable commodity in the game. The first place is still oil.

Playing as Morocco. Alcohol demand is suspiciously high for a commodity that is deemed as haram. What on earth is happening? Am I missing something?

How can slavery be established in a European power? For example in Russia or Britain where slavery is forbidden from the start.

I just think slavery is good and I want to accept debt slavery in the game.

Enter Switzerland: the perfect n00b sandbox nation. Recognized minor power, two states, completely blank slate diplomacy, good literacy, good workforce reserve and profitable economy. But there's more! You get a troubled government and impoverished population giving you something extra to figure out. Safe margins to dick around and find out how to run a country without getting overwhelmed. I'm having a much more gay time with this than tutorials.

With the recent releases of Update 1.7 and Sphere of Influence now behind us, we are curious about what some of your favorite changes have been? Have you been enjoying the building of Power Blocs and using them on the international stage? Or have you been diving into the new expanded list of diplomatic and economic actions to climb the ranks of power?

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Please share below!

Everyone wants a World War mechanic in the game, and I feel like there is no better pairing, for Flavour and Mechanics, than the Balkans and the Great War.

Main Ideas for the DLC:

• Great War Mechanic - When four or more Great Powers are in a diplomatic play a Great War is activated, then all war members can add Wargoals.
• Infrastructure - should be at the very core of the Industrial revolution and Victoria 3. The invention of the locomotive revolutionized mass transportation, enabling the movement of materials essential for industrial production and, crucially, for Great Wars. Vast armies required efficient logistics to be supplied with food, clothing, armaments, ammunition, and medical equipment, all made possible by railways. I'm envisioning a logistical system where rivers, railways, and roads spread through countries, distributing materials from ports, resource sites, and factories to consumers and frontlines.
• Armament and Munition production should be as fleshed out as hearts of iron production, with more emphasis on the logstical and resource side of things. Also make it so that Armies cannot fight effectively without being supplied (maybe add stockpiling if it makes sense)
• Nationalism, Culture and Religion
• Events for The Crimean War, Russo-Turkish War, Balkan Wars, The Great War and the aftermath

What else should the DLC contain?

Played on both sides of the equation a number of times and it looks like unless the vassal is a country like Dutch East Indies which can quickly dominate its overlord in terms of economy, prestige and military power, increasing liberty desire to eventually declare independence is not something that happens.

The economic dependence mechanic is the main culprit here (at least in my plays), as it applies a large enough bonus to easily keep the vassal down for perpetuity.

Anybody have any instances of them or their vassal gaining their independence through the liberty desire mechanic?

On all nations I play, I keep getting to around 1840 with a non+stop skyrocketing GDP by getting these and using them to fuel my construction sector, but not sure what to invest in afterwards.

Build furniture and sh*t? guns? build fine art so i can sell them and buy guns?

It looks like you actually have to invade the homeland of the country you are fighting against, even if what you're fighting for and where you are fighting doesn't logically make that a sensible thing to do.

My colonial wars against Spain and Portugal for example (separate occasions/games) basically never end because their "war weariness" or whatever it's called (war score?) never go below zero. I literally occupy their entire colonial possessions and dominions, defeat all their armies they send my way, but because I don't invade their homeland (or an incorporated state), their war score never goes below zero so we get stuck in this perpetual cycle of them offering white peace and me rejecting them.

The colonial war mechanic from Victoria's 2 needs to make a comeback it looks like.

Currently there is a major unintended effect of the new support independence mechanic that makes you automatically lose the war.

If you get other countries to support your independence then declare an independence war, supporting countries will be automatically called to your side during the opening moves of the diplo play. This means your overlord is NOT forced to add demands on you. They can instead add demands only on the supporters. Meaning you will drift below 0 war support even if you are not occupied, since there are no war goals against you. Resulting in you capitulating automatically.

This is a major problem for subject nations compared to 1.6 where the opening moves of the diplo play didnt have other participants so overlord had to add a primary war goal on you like decrease autonomy or war reps.