Impressions from E3: Victoria 2

The one game developer that has gotten more of my money and gaming hours than any other is Paradox Interactive. I’ve played nearly every game they’ve ever developed and when Victoria 2 was announced towards the end of 2009 I awaited the game with great anticipation. Once I found out that Paradox would be on hand at E3 to demo the upcoming game I definitely circled that meeting on my calendar as the one that I was anticipating the most. When we got to the Paradox meeting we met with the Executive Vice President of Development Johan Anderson and he showed us the game. Since I had a basic understanding of how Victoria works from playing the first game he jumped right in and showed us some of the differences between the original and Victoria 2. Of all the major Paradox Series’ Victoria focuses most on keeping your people happy and on the economy of your country.

Your populace plays a huge role in Victoria 2. Each group has their own needs and desires and you can make decisions to either keep them happy (lowering taxes, enacting social and economic reforms, etc.) or you can completely ignore them. How they react and the effect it has on your game depends mainly on the type of government that you have. If you are a democracy, the population may revolt and vote to change the government if you ignore them (and possibly even try to stage a revolution if it gets too bad). However, if you are a Stalinist-leaning government you can more easily ignore the population.

The economic model has greatly changed in Victoria 2. This also depends on the type of governement that you have. If you are a capitalist nation, you do not have much control over what factories are built, but this is decided by the capitalists in your nation. They decide this based on the factors of supply and demand. However, if you are more towards the Stalinist end of the political spectrum, you can control exactly what is built and can even shut down factories that you do not want. No longer is the money in your economy magically generated—you decide on the tax rate, and that determines how much money goes into the national coffers. If your tax rate is too high your people won’t have the money necessary to buy luxuries to keep them happy (or in the extreme case, even food to keep them alive) but if you set the tax rate too low then you won’t have any money to pay soldiers, repay interest on past loans, send gifts to your allies (or enemies in war) or any of the other things that a country would want to do with their money.

The overall map of the game ranges from the zoomed out map of the entire world shown above (with major countries labeled right on the map) to zooming in all the way to specific provinces in your country to see factories, resources, and military units stationed in each territory. I definitely think the world map is very cool and it looks like a map that is from the Victorian Era. If you play as a militaristic nation, trying to control large sections of the map is a very satisfying prospect on the main map as you add your rivals’ territories to your own and literally wipe them off the map completely if you so choose.

In Victoria 2 you play more of a guiding hand over your population rather than having a direct impact over them like you did in the original. You no longer directly control how your population changes from unskilled laborers into clerks or factory workers (or eventually into capitalists who would strike out on their own to build new factories), but they promote (or devolve) into new types based on how happy they are in their current positions, or if they have extra time and money to improve themselves. If you ignore the population, they can move to other countries to look for better opportunities.

Technology research is also more of a guide than specific advancements as well. You can tell your scientists to research new industry, military or social ideas but specific advancements happen at random depending on your research levels. For example, if you research army military technology, you have the option to improve from Flintlock rifles that were prevalent at the beginning of the game, to machine guns and bolt-action rifles that started to come into play at the start of World War II.

At the end of your nation’s journey through the 19th Century you can even import your final save game into Hearts of Iron 3 and continue through the 20th Century. Victoria 2 releases on August 10 in North America and August 13 in the EU and is available in retail stores or via digital distribution from GamersGate or Steam. I know I will be getting this game and will look forward to the hundreds of hours that I’ll put into it—just like I have with the original Victoria.

Victoria 2 Main Features: