Happy Bonus Dev Diary Wednesday everyone! Now that we’ve wrapped up the 1.14 Open Beta and are in the process of integrating it into 1.15, I wanted to post a dev diary to briefly summarize the more significant changes we ended up implementing in 1.14 that will be first experienced in 1.15 for those of you who did not participate in the Open Beta. 

Some of these changes were already explained in Dev Diary #185[forum.paradoxplaza.com] so I won’t go into too much detail here but rather focus on what if anything ended up changing from the implementation as described in the first Open Beta version. So without further ado, let’s get to the changes:

These are headline changes from the first Open Beta and were extensively described in DD#185[forum.paradoxplaza.com]. Ultimately, both of these features landed pretty much as described, though we had to do a lot of balancing and tweaks along the way as the rework naturally created all sorts of bugs and edge cases.

The one major change that we did to the system in the final Open Beta was to try out automatic dropping of uncontrolled war goals (intended to fix the problem of the AI capitulating war goals the enemy had no way to really contest), but with the feedback for this clearly showing it was the wrong solution for the problem, we’ve reverted that change and instead focused on alternative and less drastic approaches.

Tangentially related to the war goal rework, the Release Country war goal was changed in 1.15 so that it now requires a minority movement with at least 50% activism, meaning you can no longer simply release Occitania infamy-free unless there’s some Occitans that actually want to be independent. During the Open Beta this also had a popular support requirement, but that turned out too restrictive and has been dropped.

To ensure you can still carve up countries for the sake of naked imperialism, we have added a new war goal called ‘Release as Subject’, which works exactly like Release Country except it turns the new country into the holder’s autonomous subject. Unlike Release Country however, this war goal generates significant infamy given the whole naked imperialism angle.

You can still “liberate” Occitania, though the infamy incurred from kneecapping France might make you think twice about doing so

Hiring & Wage Tooltips

This was also described in DD#185[forum.paradoxplaza.com] and based on the feedback seems to work as it should, so it ended up fully unaltered from the first Open Beta version.

The infamy costs of war goals were overhauled from the ground up by grounding everything in a ‘State Infamy Cost’ that is primarily based on the state’s share of global GDP and population. Infamy costs were generally drastically lowered for low-value states and drastically increased for high-value ones. 

Taking the Home Counties from Britain is now a major international incident, while seizing an unpopulated and undeveloped island should elicit little reaction. Infamy cost reductions were added to the psychology line of technologies so that you have a more free hand in the late game.

A game rule was also added which lets you adjust the base infamy values up or down based on how much map-painting you want your campaigns to contain.

The new State Infamy map mode shows the base infamy costs of all states from the perspective of a prospective conquering country. Differences in infamy cost can now be quite drastic.

This was described in DD#185[forum.paradoxplaza.com] and implemented as stated, but has naturally been the subject of extensive iteration over the Open Beta on what the AI should consider a target of conquest. The final Open Beta ended on the ‘too aggressive’ end of the scale, so we’re in the process of reigning it in before release (ie, no more France wanting to conquer the entire British Isles because you closed Gibraltar).

Regional stances (the strategy that the AI wants to pursue in a particular strategic region) is something we added in 1.13 but which were rather underutilized up until now. In 1.14 we have made these much more important in driving AI behavior. They now act as a genuine limiter, so the AI will not pursue territorial expansion in regions where it does not have a Conquest-oriented regional stance, for example. 

The AI also now has regional goals against specific countries that spring from regional stances - for example, the Protect stance can result in a goal to defend a specific country in that region which makes it much more likely to intervene on behalf of the target country if it’s under attack.

The region stance tooltip now provides quite a bit more information - we’re still planning to add exact information regarding who the United States is Currying Favor with here.

Military Pathfinding Rewrite

The travel network that armies and fleets use to find their way around the map was rebuilt from the ground up to be fully province-based. Most of this is invisible, but it means units now follow the actual geography far more closely, and pathfinding should be much more consistent and much less buggy.

Naval transport missions and invasions got a thorough round of fixes in the Open Beta:

• Armies that are split up to fit onto transports now join back together once they land. 

• If a transport is cancelled, interrupted or the fleet is given a new mission partway through, the troops left behind regroup at their headquarters instead of idling in a port.

• Orders that would cancel a transport now ask for confirmation first, so a misclick on the map no longer derails an entire operation.

You can now also decide what a fleet does once it has delivered its troops: sail home or stay where it is. All this comes along with a bundle of smaller fixes so that the overall naval transportation experience should be much more reliable and much less frustrating.

On a related note, we also added a new ship class called ‘Early Troopship’, which is available from the very earliest naval tech and gives you a decent option for transporting large numbers of troops in the era of sail.

The new transportation popup, with more options and better information

A long-requested feature, stationing in subjects, was also implemented during the Open Beta. Put simply, you can now station armies and fleets in your subjects even during peace time.

Naval combat got a significant balance pass during the Open Beta, to try to make sure that every ship class is useful in its niche:

• Capital ships now have a higher firing rate to make them the best damage-dealers, but take far more damage if unscreened, relative to their vulnerability score.

• Screening is now much more important due to the vulnerability-adjusted damage, so having an adequate number of cruisers to protect your capital ships is vital.

• Torpedo ships are now key to exploiting holes in enemy screening and taking down capital ships that open themselves to hostile fire.

Utility modules were also rebalanced try and ensure that no single module is best in every situation. Finally, ships are now more eager to retreat when damaged or facing hopeless odds rather than fighting on to the last sailor.

The AI's approach to organising its navy was overhauled in the Open Beta, so it now builds and fields fleets with a clear purpose:

• The AI keeps one to two battle fleets and light squadrons for patrol/raiding duties instead of spreading its ships across many similar fleets.

• In general the AI groups far more of its ships into the battle fleets so that it can be a serious threat to player fleets.

• Coastal defense ships, monitors and submarines are grouped into special fleets of only their own ship category (coastal defense+monitor or submarine) and only undertake missions they are genuinely suited for.

Naval power projection was reworked in the Open Beta so that you no longer need the entire British navy out on the high seas to generate interest. Small squadrons of light ships are now sufficient, though the cap for how much involvement you can get from navy power projection was cut in half.

The interfaces for some of the naval features from 1.13 were in serious need of improvement, so our UI team used the Open Beta as an opportunity to make considerable improvements to various naval interfaces such as naval mission information and information about sailors/crewing.

The AI is now far more engaged with the ship transfer treaty article. In addition to having a much better idea of which ships it actually wants to buy, it also creates ships-for-cash treaties where it tries to sell off its obsolete ships to countries that might be able to use them, at discount rates.

The Open Beta introduced extensive changes to how the AI handles the straits from 1.13:

• The AI now measures how much each country depends on a strait, for both trade and naval access. They look at the impact a strait closure would have on them both in terms of being fully blocked and creating the need for long detours.

• Closing a strait or charging high tolls now lowers relations with the countries that depend on it over time.The degree to which relations are damaged and how low they fall depend on the severity of the closure/tolls and the degree of dependence the country has on the strait.

• The AI can now start diplomatic plays to enforce strait treaties, such as demanding a toll exemption if your tolls are hurting them.

• The AI now looks at the potential diplomatic fallout closing a strait or raising a toll would cause before deciding whether to do it.

Prussia now gets a little upset with a Sweden that locks them into the Baltic

Before, all trade between two world market hubs would always flow along the same route. This was changed in the Open Beta to make the flow of trade in the world feel more realistic:

• Trade between world market hubs now spreads across sea routes of similar length. For example, trade between China and Europe now flows through both Malacca and Sumatra straits.

• Toll re-routing was tweaked so a small toll increase similarly will not cause all trade to take an alternative route. Large toll increases may still collapse trade through a strait completely when there are viable alternatives.

Subjects now have both the will and the means to backstab their overlord if it’s in their perceived interest to do so:

• A subject with high Liberty Desire can now attack its overlord in the middle of a conflict where said subject is not a target of the enemy war goals. Doing so will automatically pull it out of all the overlord’s plays/wars and start its own play for independence or autonomy. This option is available to both player and AI subjects, and AI subjects will use it when they see an opportunity for victory.

• When an overlord faces a revolution, its subjects no longer automatically side with the government, but can choose to side with the rebels if they feel it’s in their interest to do so. Autonomous subjects can even sit out the civil war entirely.

A number of changes were made to boost the AI’s economic performance in the Open Beta:

• Numerous bugs in the hiring logic were fixed, resulting in stronger overall economic growth for players and AI alike.

• The AI now actively manages its government and military wage levels based on factors such as budget, reserves, radicals and civil war risk.

• The AI logic for decrees is now much more sensible. For example, it will place agriculture-boosting decrees in its most agriculturally productive states, and education decrees where illiteracy actually affects the most people.

• The AI no longer overrates demand for local goods, fixing one of the causes of the infamous infinite railway spam bug.

• Several issues causing the AI to be unable to reduce its military spending were fixed, addressing one of the causes of AI cyclic bankruptcy.

• The AI now expands construction much more aggressively when its construction capacity is insufficient to tap its investment pool.

On top of these changes, we are also actively looking into the outstanding points on AI Trade & Production that did not get done in time for the last Open Beta, so there will likely be a few more improvements here in the full 1.15 update.

Last but not least, this is a change coming to 1.15 that did not make it into the Open Beta but was made possible due to some backend changes made when improving AI strait handling: Multiple World Market Hubs per Market Area. Since the earlier teaser got a few people confused, it’s worth pointing out that this is not submarkets but rather just an extension to an existing mechanic.

So what is then? Put simply, it is the ability for a single Market Area to trade with the world market through more than a single port. A Market Area, for those not familiar with the term, is a single chunk of contiguous land in a Market where all states are connected by land borders or crossings. For example, the British Market is divided into many such Market Areas like the British Isles, India, Canada and so on, while all of Russia (except Alaska) makes up just a single Market Area since it’s all land connected. 

Since each Market Area has a single World Market Hub which trades through a single port, this means that the entirety of Russia handles all of its imports and exports through St. Petersburg, which not only feels bizarre but also makes its Black Sea ports and the Strait of Bosporus far less important than they actually were historically.

Enter Multiple World Market Hubs. Market Areas that are either sufficiently large, or which border different ‘sea basins’ (the piece of internal architecture I alluded to above, which divides the world’s seas into chunks separated by straits), can now have up to four World Market Hubs, each with its own corresponding trade port. Hubs can be created and destroyed dynamically as conditions in a Market Area change, but are usually quite stable. For a new hub to be created, the chunk of states that it would be assigned must contain at least one Trade Center and one port, so as to avoid creating pointless splits. This is the reason the Russian Far East does not start with its own hub at the very beginning of the game.

At the start of the game, the Russian Market Area is split into the hubs of Ingria, Kherson and Arkhangelsk.

States within the Market Area will be allocated the nearest hub as their default hub, and Trade Centers will usually trade through said default hub. However, if the default hub’s world market access is reduced, for example as a result of a blockade or a strait closure, it is possible for a state to fall back to trading through another hub. A state that uses a fallback hub in this way will suffer a world market access penalty based on how distant the fallback hub is. Effectively, states will use whichever hub gives them the best world market access, and usually this will be their default hub.

The Bosporus is no longer devoid of trade in 1836

Besides trade, this system also impacts port connections - overseas territories will connect to the nearest World Market Hub of the capital market area, so a United States with a west coast hub does not need to route a theoretical Hawaiian port connection all the way around Cape Horn before the Panama canal is built.

Though it’s all the same ‘sea basin’, the United States is nonetheless large enough to be split into multiple hubs and Louisiana is now the proper center of cotton exports.

There are of course many tweaks, changes and bug fixes in the Open Beta that did not make this list but which will be rolled into the 1.15 change log. Before I end this dev diary, I just want to take a moment to properly thank all the Open Beta participants for all the testing, feedback and bug reporting - you guys have been incredible and have really let us get a lot of things done in a relatively short amount of time. Thank you very much, and I hope we can find the time to do another update like this in the future!

The Open Beta branch will remain available on Steam until around a week before the release of 1.15, and before we put a proper wrap on things I will go through all outstanding feedback and bug reports to see what we want to look into addressing in the future.

That’s all for today, but join us again tomorrow for Victoria’s Dev Diary covering the narrative content coming to some of the non-Russian countries and cultures featured in State and Revolution.

Salutations Victorians

We have decided to push back the release of the Dev Diary focused on the content for non-Russian countries and cultures in State and Revolution which was originally intended to be released later today. We apologise for the delay and will release this Dev Diary next Thursday (8th October).

The reason we are postponing the release of this Dev Diary is simply that the developers most suitable to write about the content of the Dev Diary are busy working on State and Revolution itself.

With that said, this means the next Dev Diary you should get your hands on will be the bonus Dev Diary mentioned in yesterday’s Open Beta Update[forum.paradoxplaza.com]. It will release early next week and will summarise the changes made due to your feedback in the Open Beta, as well as a look at the new Multiple World Market Hubs feature.

Happy Wednesday Victorians!

Update 4 of the 1.14 Open Beta is here! This update further refines some changes made in previous Open Beta updates such as further infamy and naval balancing, as well as newer additions such as war goal expiry and capitulation, improvements to AI resource expansion and more!

To those of you who are just finding out about the beta or need a refresher on how to join, you can opt into the Beta by following these instructions:

• Navigate to your Steam Library.

• Right-click Victoria 3 and select “Properties”.

• In the newly created window, select “Game Versions & Betas”.

• Now find the “1.14-openbeta” option and select it.

• If you wish to opt out and return to the live version of the game, you can scroll back up to the top of the same list and select “Default Public Version”

The Open Beta is only available in English, other languages will be supported when changes make it to the public version of the game.

Everything in this section will be available to test in the 4th Open Beta update, which was released shortly before this post went live. To see the changes brought by the previous updates of the Open Beta, check out the following links.

• Update 0[forum.paradoxplaza.com]

• Update 1[forum.paradoxplaza.com]

• Update 2[forum.paradoxplaza.com]

• Update 3[forum.paradoxplaza.com]

War Goal Expiry and Capitulation

• What is it: In wars lasting over 2 years, war goals that stay uncontested for 12 months are dropped. AI countries now capitulate when clearly defeated, and wars should no longer drag on forever at 0% war support.

• What to test/feedback: Whether long wars now end more naturally, and whether the war goal dropping system feels fair and the timers feel appropriately long.

Infamy Rebalance

• What is it: Infamy was rebalanced: large, rich states and reunification wars cost less, claims and Psychology technologies reduce it further, and a new game rule scales it up or down.

• What to test/feedback: Whether expansion feels appropriately costly and reunification wars achievable, whether infamy still feels over-tuned by default.

Naval Balance Follow-up

• What is it: Obsolete ships can no longer fully exploit unscreened fleets, torpedo craft now correctly punish early ironclads, and navy prestige is back in line with fleet strength.

• What to test/feedback: Whether modern fleets are properly invincible to wooden ships now, whether naval combat in general feels balanced

Straits: Smarter AI and Trade Routing

• What is it: AI strait controllers now weigh toll income against the harm and anger a restriction causes, and affected countries push back through treaties and diplomatic plays more often. Hubs will now also be more likely to re-route trade to avoid excessive tolls.

• What to test/feedback: Whether AI strait closures, tolls and the reactions to them feel appropriate, whether the diplomatic penalties for tolls and closures are correctly scaled.

AI Expansion and Diplomacy

• What is it: The AI values states more for scarce resources like oil or gold and primary-culture pops, incorporates more of what it takes, and no longer starts diplomatic plays over war goals it barely wants.

• What to test/feedback: Whether AI diplomatic plays and war goal selection feels more rational. Whether valuable resources are weighted enough.

Journal Entry Adjustments

• What is it: A large number of journal entries were adjusted to account for the new war goal flipping system so they don’t end prematurely or incorrectly.

• What to test/feedback: Whether there is still content that breaks as a result of war goal flipping, whether journal entries seem to work correctly in general.

Naval Transport and Invasions

• What is it: Further improvements to the naval transport management system. We believe it should now be in a stable and reliable state.

• What to test/feedback: Whether sea transports now behave predictably and consistently.

Stationing in Subjects & Subject War Fixes

• What is it: Armies can be stationed in your subjects' states. Freeing or taking a subject mid-war no longer leaves its land occupied by allies or ends the war unexpectedly.

• What to test/feedback: Whether defending subjects and mid-war changes of allegiance feel smooth, whether stationing in subjects works well or can get your armies stuck.

Unfortunately we ran out of time for further improvements to the economic & trade AI for the last open beta update, but despair not! It will still get done, just for 1.15 and its post-release updates. We will of course also generally fix bugs and make tweaks and balance adjustments to all 1.14 changes before we release it as part of 1.15 - the final open beta does not reflect the final state of 1.14!

We are planning a bonus dev diary sometime next week which will summarize all the important 1.14 changes as they will land in 1.15, and where we will also show off a feature that happened as a result of 1.14 experimentation but which also did not get done in time for the final open beta: Multiple world market hubs per market area!

More information on this tantalizing market area screenshot of Russia will come in next week’s bonus DD.

That’s all from us today! Thank you for participating in the Open Beta, the feedback gathered has been invaluable to the team!

Hello, and Happy Thursday. Today, Mike and Victoria will be talking about the content for Russia contained within Update 1.15 and the State and Revolution Immersion Pack. There's a lot to go over, from Romanovs to Revolutions, so buckle up as we go through some of the major Russian content coming up! Additionally, please note, as ever, that any screenshots attached are from a work-in-progress build, and certain elements may not be final yet.

Russia starts with specific law variants that shape its nature as not just as an empire, but as a Tsardom- built atop a mix of traditional and Enlightenment practices.

Russia is not a feudal country in 1836, and hasn't been since the days of Peter the Great. The reforms of Peter and his successors have created a state that has done away with boyars and centralized power within the imperial government, giving administrative duties to the military rather than a hereditary aristocracy and outright abolishing the role of the patriarch in the Orthodox Church, turning the church into just another branch of the Russian government. Russia is autocratic, but its government is not simply a relic of a bygone era- it has a variety of effective institutional tools at its disposal to enforce its will.

Internally, Russia has established a variety of laws and institutions to keep an eye on its own people. The Napoleonic Wars only ended a generation prior, and the Decembrist Revolt is within living memory of every politician, so the state has given itself the tools it thinks it needs to suppress dangerous talk. Secret police maintain networks of informants to feed them steady streams of information, allowing them to keep an eye on individuals they deem particularly threatening to the state. This is combined with broader policies regarding nationality, with the state eager to turn the burgeoning nationalist movements to their advantage by promoting Russian nationalism while suppressing the nationalist thoughts of non-Russian peoples within the empire.

These tools are coupled with one last trick in the Russian Empire's arsenal: the Cossack Hosts. Cossacks have been both a major thorn in the side of the state and an effective arm of the state, and in the 19th century their usage as tools of establishing the state's presence along the frontier and wherever the state deems it necessary to suppress dissent would boom, as Russia pressed deeper into Central Asia and Siberia and as unrest began to grow in the western provinces.

These are powerful tools for the state to use in 1836, but they still depend on leaders making the right calls in the end- the autocracy's power is not absolute. Let's see how else the emperor can muster power, shall we?

The Emperor and Autocrat Journal Entry, part of State and Revolution, is a container for the ambitions of Russia’s tsars, remaining for as long as the monarchy does. Through successfully completing their ambitions, the tsars will acquire the ability to wield their Imperial Fiat to issue powerful Ukases, or imperial decrees.

Imperial Fiat is gained both by completing this Journal Entry’s agenda items and foreign policy items in the Ruler of the East category. It may be wielded to promulgate a variety of Ukases, which will aid the tsars in pursuing their vision for the country. The effects of Ukases can range from reducing the Fervor of certain cultures at the cost of radicalization, to improving the effects of certain decrees. Moving off of the Autocracy law will weaken the effects of the Ukase.

Each historical tsar, as well as Alexander II’s firstborn son Nicholas, will have a unique primary agenda containing several agendas based on the aspirations of their reign. These agendas may be completed once certain conditions are fulfilled, progressing the primary agenda. Completing a sufficient amount of these agendas will conclude the primary agenda, granting a sizable sum of Imperial Fiat.

In addition to their primary agenda, each tsar will have several agenda items drawn from a pool of thirteen. Which agenda items may be drawn depends upon the situation of the Empire and the ideology of the tsar. For example, if the Empire has been democratized, a reactionary tsar may draw an agenda to dissolve the Duma and crush all resistance to such a measure.

In addition to the tsar's own agendas, each Favorite appointed by the tsar will provide their own agenda item, tailored to their ideology and personality, making the Favorite's influence felt in matters of national policy.

Hey folks! Let's talk about The Revolution, the other key part of State and Revolution. Victoria 3 already has revolutions, of course, but when it comes to Russian history, there's one history which becomes The Revolution- 1917. That's actually two revolutions, the February and October Revolutions, and that's also glossing over the 1905 Revolution which preceded it, but when The Revolution comes up for discussion, the pop history idea of it is squarely focused on 1917. Let's go over what that is and how we square that with the gameplay mechanics of Victoria 3.

The first thing to get is that the historical outcome of the Revolution- the rise of the Bolsheviks and the formation of the Soviet Union- isn't a fixed thing, nor the sole inevitable outcome of the Russian Empire's decisions. The revolutions, both the 1905 revolution and the February and October Revolutions of 1917, were in reaction to specific conditions and specific triggers. In 1905, a radicalizing liberal movement, the shock of Russian defeat in the Russo-Japanese war, bloody suppression of opposition gatherings, and military mutinies, all came together to spark uprisings across Russia. Faced with a united opposition, Tsar Nicholas II was forced to concede to numerous liberal demands, including an elected duma and universal suffrage, in a document known to history as the October Manifesto. Nicky haaaated these reforms, and actively worked to undo them as soon as he felt he could. In the meanwhile, many Russians thought that they had just fought in The Revolution, and harkened back to the main Revolution they understood- the French Revolution of 1789. Crowds sang La Marseillaise, and wore cockades in the style of French revolutionaries. Ilya Repin's famous painting 17 October 1905 captures this vision of a mass bourgeois revolution, of middle class crowds dressed in red, white, and blue, cheering in victory.

Repin's 17 October 1905

But of course, that wasn't the end of Russian history. In 1914 some Austrian dude was shot in a side street, and Europe decided that now was the time that millions must die. The Russian Empire, as a key part of the Entente, was deeply involved in World War One, but despite some significant numbers on paper, it failed to defeat Germany and the other Central Powers by Christmas 1914, and found itself mired in the same bloody warfare as everyone else. By this time, Nicholas II had managed to defang the liberal duma, and reclaim much of the autocratic power he had exercised before 1905. This was bad for him in two ways: firstly, it meant that by reassociating the government with himself personally, the failures of the government became the Tsar's failures. Secondly, Nicholas II wasn't a skilled politician or skilled commander. Russia fought and fought and fought ineffectively for three years, wearing down men, wearing down supplies, and wearing down the Tsar's standing. Small strikes in March 1917 (still February in the Julian calendar Russia used at the time) rapidly snowballed, leading to mass protests, general strikes, riots, and rifle fire. In about two weeks, the government collapsed, the Tsar abdicated, and the Duma now organized a provisional government- this was it, then, this was The Revolution, right?

Nope! The abdication of the Tsar hadn't made World War One end, or end food shortages, or address any of the other unrest that had led to the end of Romanov rule. The Provisional Government still had to do something to justify itself. The tsarists might have been knocked out for the moment, but there was still another opposition out there- the socialist radicals. The Social Revolutionaries, the Bolsheviks, the Mensheviks, the Anarchists were all still out there, bolstered if anything by the end of tsarist suppression. When the Provisional Government decided that it must reaffirm Russia's alliances with the Entente and recommit to the war effort, the left grew stronger. When disgruntled officers made attempts to coup the government, the left grew stronger. Every misstep the Provisional Government made, every failure to cement its legitimacy, strengthened the position of the revolutionary left. An issue of "dual power" developed, where the liberal Duma and socialist workers' councils both directed. Finally, in November (October according to the old calendar), tensions reached a boiling point, a Bolshevik uprising kicked off in Petrograd (St. Petersburg), soldiers stormed the Winter Palace, a collective regime of peace and love was declared, and the Russian Civil War kicked off.

How do we translate all this into Victoria 3? We have some constraints, and some gameplay focuses to keep in mind. World War One's role in the 1917 Russian Revolution is that it undermined the Tsar's popularity, tanked the economy, exhausted the populace, and made it that much easier to radicalize everybody. Victoria 3 has ways for governments to lose popularity and legitimacy; we don't need to shoot at Austrians in order to make the tsarist government weak. The historical 1917 Revolution is also very late in the game's timeframe- there's so many possible divergences in history that could have happened by then in Victoria 3 that banking on the historical events that led up to the revolution occurring in the game are fantastically low. That, of course, is when Richard Nixon influenced the design.

There's a fantastic choose-your-own-adventure sort of browser game, ''The Campaign Trail', with a scenario about Richard Nixon's 1972 reelection campaign called 'More Than Ever'. When you start the scenario as Nixon, the Democratic candidate for the presidency hasn't been nominated yet- Nixon's opponent is a nebulous 'The Enemy', but as Nixon pursues different policies, the Democrats settle on a specific direction based in opposition to whatever direction Nixon has decided to go, and depending on the specific policies Nixon has chosen, different Democratic politicians can become the Democratic candidate for president in 1972. I wanted to apply that idea here; the Russian Revolution shouldn't always be predestined to be a liberal revolution and then a communist revolution- it should develop in dynamic opposition to Russia's rulers and policies.

Even before the Revolution first appears as a journal entry, the game starts to keep track of some factors, including the ideologies of the country's past and present rulers. These factors determine if the Russian government is generally 'conservative', 'liberal', or 'socialist'. The preliminary revolutionary opposition is then the largest ideological group that isn't the government's group, and the most popular opposition leader from within that ideological group becomes the leader revolutionaries look to for inspiration. If and when the Revolution kicks off from a political movement gaining enough popularity and militancy to challenge the government, that ideological group will take over Russia, and the revolutionary leader's specific ideology will be used to reshape the laws of Russia. Minding who is popular among the opposition, finding ways to position the government to reorient the opposition in specific ways, all become great ways to influence and shape the ways the Revolution might appear.

Forcing the Revolution to immediately track things in 1836 leads to some funny moments

Of course, that's not the end of it- that first Revolution essentially has created the Provisional Government. Now the new revolutionary government has to secure its hold on power and establish its legitimacy- and even if the old government's ideology has been discredited, the third ideological camp, the smaller of the two old oppositional ideologies, is still around and causing trouble. If the Provisional Government can't keep Russia together and keep its popularity up, that second opposition may just attempt to stage a coup and kick off a real civil war. Outside the core of the country, disaffected nationalities may also rise up in opposition to the shaky new government, and wayward generals may become adventurous warlords. The Revolution is only the start of a new stage in Russia's history- a period of instability,  fragmentation and consolidation, and an open question of who will become the new Russia.

Before the Revolution asks what Russia can become, there's the question of who is Russian. In 1836, Russia is a multiethnic empire, home to countless peoples of different languages and different faiths, just as the ideas of nationalism are about to sweep the world. The idea of 'Official Nationality' was something formulated during Nicholas I's rule in 1833, just before game start, declaring 'Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality' as the three pillars of the tsarist state. Nationality there is Russian nationality- officials recognized something of the power of nationalism, and wanted to ensure that Russian nationalism would be strong enough to keep the empire together.

Russification, then, was of paramount importance for the Russian Empire. The western frontier was split between different areas of non-Russian nationalities all influenced by their own ideas of nationhood and power, and the Russian government saw in that a threat to itself. Promoting Russian identity and making the people of these regions see themselves as Russians first was of paramount importance. If the government succeeded, its fears of separatism and of nationalism tearing the empire apart could be abated, at least a little. If the government failed, though, then the grim specter of Poles, Finns, and Latvians happily celebrating their own identities would shake the vision the government had of Russia's future, radicalize the opposition, and damage the tsar's legitimacy.

Opponents of the regime don't have to be tolerated. You are the State! You own Siberia! It's right there! An easy way to deal with dissidents without making them martyrs is to simply exile them into Siberia. If someone is too popular, leading too many people towards some revolutionary ideal you don't like, just send them away!

And who cares what happens to those oppositional voices while they're in the wilderness? They entered with some wacky ideas, and they might end their exile with some wacky ideas. Maybe those ideas are different from the ones they started their exile with, but they were already opponents of the government, so why worry about the details? Surely nothing bad can happen from giving exiled dissidents a lot of spare time and opportunities to communicate with other dissidents, far away from the watchful heart of the empire.

Surely nothing bad can happen.

The tsar is the leader of the nation, and he has all the tools at his disposal to ensure Russia remains steadfast in its loyalty, its identity, and its ideology. Whatever dissident ideas might be muttered in coffeeshops and reading groups can be swiftly dealt with, and can surely pose no real threat to the established order.

And that's all for now, folks! Thank you for reading. Next week, Victoria will cover the content included in State and Revolution for non-Russian countries and cultures.

Happy Wednesday Victorians!

Update 3 of the 1.14 Open Beta is here! This update focuses on Naval Power Projection and Combat Reworks, AI Naval Improvements, Early Troopships and the addition of AI Regional Objectives!

To those of you who are just finding out about the beta or need a refresher on how to join, you can opt into the Beta by following these instructions:

• Navigate to your Steam Library.

• Right-click Victoria 3 and select “Properties”.

• In the newly created window, select “Game Versions & Betas”.

• Now find the “1.14-openbeta” option and select it.

• If you wish to opt out and return to the live version of the game, you can scroll back up to the top of the same list and select “Default Public Version”

The Open Beta is only available in English, other languages will be supported when changes make it to the public version of the game.

Changes in 1.14 Open Beta Update 3

Everything in this section will be available to test in the 3rd Open Beta update, which was released shortly before this post went live. To see the changes brought by the previous updates of the Open Beta, check out the following links.

• Update 0[forum.paradoxplaza.com]

• Update 1[forum.paradoxplaza.com]

• Update 2[forum.paradoxplaza.com]

Naval Power Projection Rework

• What is it: Naval power projection now requires much smaller fleets but has a lower involvement cap, the intent is that power projection should be done with small light ship squadrons, not your main battle fleet, and that you cannot gain high level interests from fleets alone.

• What to test/feedback: Whether the balance feels right, whether it feels too easy to project power everywhere now, whether the AI has adapted correctly to the new intent

Naval Combat Rework

• What is it: Major changes to naval combat balance and ship classes so that all-capital ship fleets should no longer just be better. In particular, screening was reworked so that unscreened ships take extra damage relative to their vulnerability. A bug was also fixed that could prevent ships from retreating, so naval combat should be less lethal now.

• What to test/feedback: How naval combat balance feels now, whether all ship classes now occupy a meaningful niche, whether the AI builds properly mixed fleets with sufficient screening for their main battle fleets, whether ship retreating feels balanced.

Early Troopships

• What is it: New Early Troopships are now available from the very beginning and countries with significant naval forces start with some early troopships in their fleets

• What to test/feedback: Whether moving troops around in the early game feels less cumbersome now, whether this trivializes sending troops overseas

AI Naval Improvements

• What is it: Major improvements to AI fleet organization, the AI now maintains larger and better composed battle fleets that should pose more of a threat to players, as well as smaller power projection/raiding fleets for secondary missions

• What to test/feedback: Whether the AI is a more challenging opponent at sea, whether more centralized transportation capacity makes the AI better at naval invasions and overseas troop management

AI Regional Objectives

• What is it: An addition to AI Region Stances, the AI will now also set an objective on regions where it has a stance, further informing how it aims to expand its influence there. A country may wish to make a new subject in a region where it has a “Conquer” stance for example. This will be listed in the stance tooltip.

• What to test/feedback: Is the feature communicated properly? Does the AI feel responsive according to its objective? Does this make the AI behave more rationally overall?

• KNOWN ISSUE: Objectives are not rolled on start up and take a couple days to initialize, fixed in next update.

There were of course also numerous bugfixes and smaller balance changes, in particular for bugs relating to the new war goal flipping and war support systems. Many of those are direct consequences of your provided feedback and reports, thank you!

A major issue still outstanding is AI capitulation, both in terms of being willing to capitulate against unachievable wargoals and being unwilling to capitulate at all. Civil wars in particular will be looked at for the next open beta update.

Infamy is still largely untouched from last week but will receive a proper balancing pass for the last open beta update coming next week, based on the feedback received.

Planned changes in future 1.14 Open Betas

AI Government Spending Improvements

• Make the AI better at balancing its budget and not overspending on certain government building types, make it better at understanding how many armies it actually needs to mobilize for a particular war.

AI Strait Handling

• Improve AI understanding of straits: both in how to use them and how to diplomatically react to player strait closures.

AI Trade & Production

• Give the AI better tools for evaluating trade capabilities in its market and which goods it should encourage importing as opposed to domestically producing. Make AI understand which goods it can overproduce to fill key needs in the world market.

That’s all from us today but we’ll see you tomorrow for our next Dev Diary!

Hello again folks! We're here to talk about some of the new changes and additions that will be coming into the base game when the Update 1.15 releases alongside State & Revolution on October 22nd.

Looking at the list, it turns out that we have a whole bunch of things to talk about, from the history of Poland to mystery goods and everything in-between!

So let’s get into it!

The cultural setup in southern Russia and the Caucasus in The Great Wave (left) and in upcoming State & Revolution (right)

You can't make a big picture without small details, and we have plenty of details to work out! One of the fascinating aspects of the Russian Empire during this period is the plethora of peoples who pervaded every province in the place. Working on the pack gave us an opportunity to implement some revisions and refinements in places like the Caucasus, where we were able to break apart the old 'North Caucasian' culture into more specific groups like the Ossetians and Dagestanis, and differentiate the Crimean Tatars from the more eastern Tatars of the Volga-Ural region.

We've also reworked the setup in the Russian Far East, consolidating the state layout while also improving the cultural diversity of the region.

The Russian Far East! It has larger states now.

In this more consolidated set of states, the former 'Siberian' culture, representing native peoples of Siberia and the Russian Pacific, have been split up into more specific groups, such as the Chukchi and Evenki peoples. As Russia solidified its empire, these peoples, as much as the peoples of Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, had to face the challenges of national identity and survival as settlers and cultural policies left their mark on Russia east of the Urals.

But these aren't the only changes we've made to the map!

We haven't forgotten Poland! Poland was in a tricky spot in 1836. Historically, Poland had been whittled down over the 18th century, from its heights as part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to the three partitions of the late 1700s, culminating in its joint annexation in 1795 by Russia, Prussia, and Austria. A Polish uprising in 1806 led to the creation of the Napoleonic Duchy of Warsaw in 1807, but this new Polish state came to an end when Napoleon was finally defeated. In its place, a new "Kingdom of Poland" was established in 1815, ruled by the tsar of Russia and therefore in personal union with the Russian Empire. Since this Polish state was created by the Congress of Vienna, it's historically been referred to as "Congress Poland."

Since Congress Poland was theoretically its own state, it had its own constitution, its own laws, and its own autonomous status, but Tsars Alexander I and Nicholas I were staunch autocrats and reactionaries, and strove to reduce Poland's autonomy and less-autocratic laws whenever they could. This already led to one uprising in 1830, which led to a decline in Polish autonomy, and another uprising would occur in 1863 known as the January Uprising, resulting in another loss. The defeat of the January Uprising led to such a further decline in Polish autonomy that while on paper Poland continued to exist as a separate state, in practice Polish autonomy was such a non-entity that mapmakers regularly depicted Poland as simply part of the Russian Empire by the late Victorian Era.

Poland in 1829 and 1892, according to Europe en 1829 by Conrad Malte-Brun, and a portion of Europe in 1892 as depicted in "Library Atlas of Modern Geography", published by D. Appleton & Co.

This was Poland's historical fate in the Victorian era; already a reduced puppet, over the course of the 19th century it was slowly silenced, its liberties stripped away, its movements to regain autonomy defeated again and again. Only with the Russian Revolution and Civil War did Poland re-emerge as an independent state. But! Poland does not have to follow this path if things play out differently- but to go into detail about that is a story for another dev diary. For now, let's go over to Lino. Hi Lino!

Greetings and a Happy Thursday, Lino here with an interjection about another feature we’re delivering with the free 1.15 Update alongside State & Revolution.

For quite a while we had wanted to do something with this feature, and honestly there’s not a better time to do it than alongside a pack about Russia.

I’m talking about winter.

With 1.15, we’re introducing a Cold system that will bring some peril to adventures in the snow.

So how does this work? Based on the time of year, the Cold impact increases or decreases for states and more importantly sea nodes across the globe. This is different for every region, depending on where on earth they are of course. Some states will have some amount of permanent Cold, and some states will never experience Cold. Naturally, we’ve also taken into account the northern and southern hemispheres difference.

When the Cold impact value is above a certain threshold, it can have negative effects on a couple of things.

Let’s start with the fundamental one, the impact on ships and their movement. If a sea node’s Cold value is high enough, it starts slowing down ship movement speed, up to the point where ships barely move at all when they’re enclosed by ice.

So be mindful at what time of the year you send your ships through the Baltic for example. A ship will immediately be slowed down when entering a node affected by severe enough Cold.

The slowed movement of ships has two major follow-up consequences. The first is the impact on Supply for military land units that are supplied through a sea node which is affected by ice.

In that case, the number of needed Supply ships increases by 50%. This value is, as always, a work in progress value and is subject to change, but it should give an idea of where we think this should go roughly.

With 1.15, the Cold value in states themselves does not have an effect on the Supply of units present there yet, but we have thoughts on how to expand this in the future. That would require a more comprehensive solution though, which is why this was not feasible for this update.

The last effect that the Cold has is the impact on trade. Trade Centers whose state is connected to a sea zone affected by severe Cold will have a significantly reduced Trade Capacity, which will hinder their ability to conduct trade of course.

So shifting some trade towards an area with less winter problems might be a good idea if you’d like to avoid this becoming a problem.

Now, you may have noticed I’ve not shown anything visual in here. The reason being that with State & Revolution, you’ll get beautiful visual effects, not only for winter, but in fact for all seasons.

The Art team will showcase these beautiful visuals alongside the rest of the Art content coming with the DLC in a later Dev Diary.

So to make it very clear: The Cold system is going to be free, all visual effects will be part of the DLC.

With that I’m handing it over to Tunay.

Hello! Tunay here to introduce you to life on the frontier via a new feature exclusive to countries with an East Slavic primary culture: Cossacks!

As a group, Cossacks were initially a mostly independent semi-nomadic peoples living on the Pontic steppe situated at the edge of imperial control between Muscovy, Poland-Lithuania, the various Tatar Khanates and the Ottoman Empire.

Their relationship with the Russian state first began via the employment of Cossacks as irregular units tasked with guarding the frontier against Tatar incursions in return for goods and privileges bestowed upon them by the state. Over time however as the reach of the central government extended further south and Russia's control over the northern Black Sea regions solidified, the Cossacks were subsumed into the apparatus as another cog in the machine.

By 1836 however, slowly stripped of their privileges and all autonomy, the Cossacks had essentially been reduced to a tool for Russian imperialism and this is how we chose to represent them in-game.

To that end, we have added a new map interaction that allows the establishment of “Cossack Hosts” in owned states. Should you choose to establish a Cossack Host in a state up to 20% of current (and future) available Arable Land in the state will be reserved by the new Cossack Host building much akin to Subsistence Farms which the Cossack Host mirrors in some aspects, including fairly marginal production of a wide variety of consumer goods and which exists in parallel.

In turn the Cossacks will provide you with a variety of “services” and while we are still balancing the exact numbers here the benefits notably include migration attraction, policing in the form of reduced state penalties from turmoil and colonial growth. Making them well suited for settling the untamed and wild frontier. Their presence however will also cause conflict with already existing local populations if they are not of a sufficient acceptance level, increasing radicalism from discrimination amongst minorities in the state. Lastly, only Pops of East Slavic heritage can work in a Cossack Host.

If you are playing as Russia you will start the game with a bunch of already pre-established Cossack Hosts.

The new Establish Cossack Host interaction handles establishment and removal of Cossacks

Cossacks also tend to be broadly supportive of the Monarchy, Peasant Proprietorship and most importantly the Church. This is largely symbolized by the new Cossack Movement which is a combination of the peasant and pro-monarchist movements and through which Cossacks will be able to make their voices heard within Russia. 

Once a Cossack Host is established however they cannot be removed again until at least 10 years have passed and the act of disbanding a Cossack Host will radicalize the population and also increase the activism of the Cossack movement, this latter effect stacks so should you wish to abolish them altogether you may want to carefully weight whether you slowly disband the hosts one by one or purposefully agitate to hosts into an uprising against you.

Lastly, should a state with an active Cossack Host switch hands the building is not removed but it will no longer grant its benefits. The new state owner will have to actively disband them and deal with the fallout of that action. The Cossack movement also tends to be a thorn in the side of any foreign occupier and may be prone to rebellion, allowing the establishment of independent Cossack-led states.

Is it Copper? Is it Cinnamon? Or is it processed Swedish fish pasta tubes after all?

Hey, it’s Lino again. Despite us really enjoying the speculation (and frankly the memes too), it’s time to finally lift the curtain on the previously teased new good.

(drumroll please)

It’s Copper!

Copper is a long-awaited (by some of you at least, you know who you are!) good that makes its entry into Victoria 3.

Being an important part of electrical and military production chains, its purpose is impactful and distinct enough that we felt it was time to introduce it.

We had toyed with the idea of introducing it with The Great Wave, as copper sheathing on ships was quite important during the time and also highlighted a pretty severe resource shortage that some countries like France had.

In the end, we lacked the time to do the full pass that we needed to do on resources, PMs, buildings and the research for it, which is why we’re doing it now instead. Similarly to the Cold addition, this ties a knot to the Navy update this way.

So, let’s talk about the use cases of Copper.

First up, we have a new production building of course. No longer will Copper mining have to be simulated alongside Iron and Lead.

Look at all that yummy looking Cinnamon Copper being produced here

With the new building and good, we of course also had to distribute the good’s resource potential across the world.

Let’s take a look at the distribution shall we?

Cornish miners won’t stop digging until they hear drums in the deep

Australia and Japan are both rich in Copper

A look at Copper distribution in the Americas

And what do you end up doing with Copper?

As previously mentioned, it is used in a couple of processes. One I’ve mentioned is the sheathing of wooden ships, meaning that those now consume some amount of Copper. If you own The Great Wave and the Ship Designer, you’ll see that both the medium, as well as the high level of Armor have the requirement, but you can get around it by setting it to low.

Yes, we are aware that the purpose was not to provide armor. Among the possible options, it was still the best fit.

Another one I’ve mentioned is anything electrical. Not only if the resulting products are, like telephones, but also if you use a Production Method (PM) that uses it, e.g. Rotary Valve Engines, or Electric Sewing Machines.

You will find a whole range of PMs now consuming a bit of Copper

Furthermore, Food Industries make use of Copper, in particular Pot Stills and Patent Stills will drive up Copper consumption by a fair amount.

Shiny copper tanks are the heart of any good brewery

Last but not least, the cannon production at the start of the game was still split between using Copper and Iron. We have added a set of PMs that allows you to switch between the two goods for the first models of weaponry, before requiring only Steel in the more modern ones.

Historically, both materials had their pros and cons. But both produced devastation and destruction.

We are curious to see how things play out with the introduction of Copper, and if there’s a measurable increase in saliva production when looking at its icon in the game now.

That's all for this week, folks! Next week we're going to go into more detail about what's happening in Russia in this upcoming DLC, with imperial Tsars and red stars struggling to define what the future of Russia shall be.

Happy Wednesday Victorians!

Update 2 of the 1.14 Open Beta is here! This update focuses on various improvements to Wargoal infamy rebalancing, diplomatic AI improvements, improved AI state values and radicals de-radicalising upon a state being flipped back to the original owner.

To those of you who are just finding out about the beta or need a refresher on how to join, you can opt into the Beta by following these instructions:

• Navigate to your Steam Library.

• Right-click Victoria 3 and select “Properties”.

• In the newly created window, select “Game Versions & Betas”.

• Now find the “1.14-openbeta” option and select it.

• If you wish to opt out and return to the live version of the game, you can scroll back up to the top of the same list and select “Default Public Version”

The Open Beta is only available in English, other languages will be supported when changes make it to the public version of the game.

Everything in this section will be available to test in the second Open Beta update, which released shortly before this post went live. To see the changes brought by the previous updates of the Open Beta, click here[forum.paradoxplaza.com] for the opening update or here[forum.paradoxplaza.com] for the first update.

Wargoal Infamy Rebalancing

• What is it: Complete rework of how infamy from wargoals is calculated. Infamy is now calculated against a state’s share of global GDP and population rather than a flat value, so that it scales properly throughout the game. It is also generally higher for very consequential states and lower for inconsequential ones (taking London gives a lot of infamy, Dutch West Indies not so much). Costs for non-conquest war goals were also rebalanced to be more appropriate to their impact.

• What to test/feedback: How wargoal infamy balance feels now, whether some wargoals generate too much or too little infamy.

Diplomatic AI Improvements

• What is it: First set of changes to the diplomatic AI in terms of things like war goal and treaty article selection. AI Strategies now also have a larger impact on diplomatic play support. A pass was also done on AI willingness to accept demands.

• What to test/feedback: Which areas of the diplomatic AI are in need of further polish and improvement.

Improve AI State Values

• What is it: Addressed numerous issues based on your feedback like Hawaii not being valued correctly, additionally did a first pass on broadening state values in preparation for a future update where we also more clearly show the difference between state value vs. willingness to actually go to war over a state, individual AI strategies now also modify state values

• What to test/feedback: Do AI state values feel reasonable? How readable are the individual factors?

War Goal Flipping De-Radicalization

• What is it: When states are flipped back and forth during a war, individuals radicalized by conquest are now de-radicalized when the state is taken back.

• What to test/feedback: Whether this works correctly, whether there are other serious balance issues with in-war state flipping.

Expand on AI Regional Stances

• Improve the impact and readability of AI Regional Stances by providing further guidance to AI nations via the addition of “mini strategies” called Regional Objectives which are drawn from different pools depending on the regional stance and situation in that region. This will be exposed to and help players develop a better understanding of their neighbors goals but also help the AI evaluate its current situation and progress.

AI Government Spending Improvements

• Make the AI better at balancing its budget and not overspending on certain government building types, make it better at understanding how many armies it actually needs to mobilize for a particular war.

Early Troopships

• Add early troopships to make transportation less of a hassle early-game

AI Naval Improvements

• Make the AI better at fleet management and overseas force projection. Find a good balance between spreading out fleets for power projection and keeping them consolidated to win naval battles.

AI Strait Handling

• Improve AI understanding of straits: both in how to use them and how to diplomatically react to player strait closures.

AI Trade & Production

• Give the AI better tools for evaluating trade capabilities in its market and which goods it should encourage importing as opposed to domestically producing. Make AI understand which goods it can overproduce to fill key needs in the world market.

That’s all from us today but we’ll see you tomorrow for our next Dev Diary!

Привет, and happy Thursday. This is Victoria, Narrative Design Lead of Victoria 3, and today I will be talking about Communism.

Please note, as ever, that any screenshots attached are from a work-in-progress build, and certain elements may not be final. Additionally, there is a great amount to cover, and my permitted word count is quite small. This diary will not be exhaustive, and will likely leave open questions. I will leave it to the audience to extrapolate, speculate, endorse or condemn one another’s interpretations, and so on and so forth.

In Update 1.15, we have taken a thorough look at every facet of our representation of socialism. This process included adding several new laws particular to Council Republics, refining the various socialist ideologies, reworking all existing Journal Entries related to socialism and the systematic path through which one may acquire a Council Republic, and adding some additional, broadly-available content. All of the reworks and additions covered in this diary will be free for those who own the base game.

Our aim for this rework was to represent the historical evolution of and difficulties faced by socialism. To establish – and preserve – a Council Republic is now more difficult than it was before, but also more enriching. To succeed in a socialist playthrough, one will need to develop the potential of the working class, first pushing them to revolution and then defending the state that they shall create.

Before we go into more detail, however, we must know what socialism is.

For Europe, the early nineteenth century was a period of social disruption and creeping, ruinous poverty. This poverty was of a particular sort, which had never been seen on such a scale – the poverty of those whose continued lives relied upon the practice of wage-labour.

In the aftermath of the French Revolution, the traditional artisanal system, in which the production of finished goods was carried out by artisans organised under guilds granted privileges by the state, was collapsing under the pressures of social and technological change. The Revolution’s assault on feudal corporations and internal customs barriers broke guild monopolies and levelled prices across newly free markets. Machines enabled untrained wage-labourers to do work that had once required specialised knowledge, forcing small handicraft producers into competition with industrially-produced goods. With a greater supply of goods and greater competition came lower prices, and with that, a decline in revenue for once-comfortable small producers. 

With the erosion of feudal regulations on movement and the rural handicrafts industries that once supplemented their incomes collapsing, young people from the countryside moved en masse to cities in search of a wage. They made their homes in the infamous slums of our period, which became a source of fear amongst the wealthier classes as centres of crime and sedition. With a glut of labour and increasingly narrow profit margins necessitating fierce competition between enterprises, the wages on offer were often unlivable, necessitating child labour, pawnbroking, taking in lodgers, or charity as supplements. It was this appallingly visible and rapidly growing poverty that intellectuals of the 1830s and 40s came to refer to as the “Social Question” – the question of the organisation of society.

The Social Question was not solely the domain of those we would now call the left. Karl Marx’s and Friedrich Engels’ Communist Manifesto, published in 1848, dedicates its third chapter to addressing other political currents which fought over this terrain – from what Marx and Engels referred to as the feudal socialists, who criticised the precarity of the wage system and sought to resolve the social question via restoring traditional paternal relationships, to the conservative or bourgeois socialists, who sought to alleviate social tensions via generalising property ownership and improving conditions under liberal society, to the petty-bourgeois, “True”, and “utopian” socialists. Whilst differing wildly in their content, all shared the desire to alter the organisation of society.

Until the late nineteenth century, the label of “socialism” retained this heterogeneous nature. It was the formation of mass socialist parties under the umbrella of the Second International that made “socialism” synonymous with “Marxism” in political parlance – and, even then, this was largely a European phenomenon. Across the Anglophone world, socialist parties such as the British Labour Party drew from the traditions of Christian socialism, Fabian reformism, trade-unionism, and radical-liberalism over Marxism. It would take until the Russian Revolution for Marxist socialism to eclipse its rivals outside of Europe – and, even then, this triumph was an incomplete one, marked by the fallout of the recent split between reformist and revolutionary socialists. We will go into more detail on this later, under “Reform or Revolution?”.

The socialism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century – Marxist socialism, or communism – is what Update 1.15’s socialist content revolves around.

To quote Karl Marx in The German Ideology:

“Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality \[will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence. “

The Marxist conception of communism was that of a movement – specifically, the movement of the proletariat. Starting from conditions then in existence – that of a class of wage-labourers, simultaneously responsible for the great majority of production and yet dependent upon selling their labour-power to an employer for a wage in order to survive – the Marxists centred their analysis around this class, and the political activities it engaged in as a result of its situation. Our model of communism, therefore, revolves around movements. A socialist society must emerge from the struggle of the proletariat, by the means of its political movement.

Under our new model for socialism, practice precedes ideological consciousness. The Trade Unions will no longer support a socialist system by default upon researching Socialism – for them to become ideologically communist, they must first be mobilised by an appropriate movement into carrying out a revolution.

Once a revolution that supports Factory Councils reaches sufficient Activism, the Factory Councils amendment will be added to the country’s currently active Labour Associations law. This amendment’s effects are similar to the Factory Councils law, increasing the strength of the Trade Unions and strengthening socialist movements. If Council Republic is enacted whilst a country’s Labour Associations law has the Factory Councils amendment, the country will automatically gain the Factory Councils law.

The Communist and Internationalist ideologies represent a radicalised Trade Unions, and favour several of the new revolutionary laws added in this update.

To enact Council Republic, a country must now have Factory Councils as either a Law or Amendment. This is to represent the historical means through which Council Republics came to be, as an outgrowth of assemblies of councils that emerged during a period of revolutionary activity.

To summarise the new method of achieving a Council Republic, a revolutionary movement activates the Factory Councils amendment, and radicalises the Trade Unions. From there, one may either attempt to enact Council Republic as a law and follow up with other revolutionary laws, or push the movement into civil war to achieve Council Republic and a large number of revolutionary laws at once. Any period of time under a Council Republic without certain revolutionary laws – Factory Councils, Communal Administration, and Revolutionary Guard –  will lead to increased Consolidation. We will provide more information on this later in the diary, under the “Attack or Defence?” section.

The socialism rework contains four new laws: Labour Suffrage, Extraordinary Commission, Communal Administration, and Revolutionary Guard. Applicable revolutions will start with several of these, depending on the movement type. Extraordinary Commission may be enacted by Council Republics that need a hand in defeating the White Movement – more information on that later.

Labour Suffrage represents the restrictions on political activity for the non-producing classes practised by the Soviet government in its early years. Under this law, exclusively lower-class pops and those involved in the state are permitted votes, with propertied pops being denied suffrage. In a country with a numerically large working class, this will tend to result in substantial success for the socialist or communist party.

The Extraordinary Commission represents a mass organisation dedicated to the repression of counter-revolutionaries, exemplified by the historical Soviet Cheka and the Lenin Boys of the Hungarian Soviet Republic. Levelling up the Extraordinary Commission will provide many of the effects of the Secret Police law, as well as decreasing the political strength and increasing the mortality of those pops which tend to oppose a Council Republic. Enacting the Extraordinary Commission also activates the Extraordinary Measures Journal Entry, which will also be covered later.

Abolition of the standing army and its replacement by a universal militia was a common demand of the social-democratic parties in the pre-WWI era, and briefly practised in the early days of the Soviet Red Army. Activating the Revolutionary Guard law will destroy the political power of the Armed Forces, at the cost of reducing the size of the standing army. Additionally, activating this law will purge the officer corps of non-revolutionary generals, replacing them with fresh-faced militia commanders loyal to the Trade Unions.

The Communal Administration law represents the mode of administration attributed to the Paris Commune by Marx’s The Civil War in France, and expanded upon in Lenin’s The State and Revolution. The Communal Administration law substantially reduces the power of Bureaucrats pops and increases Clerks' attraction to the Trade Unions, but makes Government Administrations require substantially more Clerks than any other Bureaucracy law. If enacted whilst literacy and qualifications are low, one may find it very difficult to replace the standing bureaucracy with the communal mode of administration.

The stances of the Communist and Vanguardist ideologies have been reworked. Rather than desiring welfare, they would instead like to overthrow the government.

To work out a clean line between the Communist and Vanguardist ideologies is not an easy task. The distinction between the two is largely a product of post-revolutionary historiography, rather than a clear distinction drawn within the period itself. One must contend with the question of intentionalism vs. circumstantialism – historians’ and political scientists’ attempts to define what is referred to as “Vanguardism” \[“Leninism” and its descendents] are coloured by the analysis of an existing political regime, whilst “non-Vanguardism” is characterised largely by works of political theory and reactions to the Soviet political regime from outside a position of power.

In the end, we decided to distinguish the two based on the conditions they must deal with – Vanguardists arise in countries with low labour productivity \[as approximated by GDP per capita] and large peasant populations, where the question of pre-capitalist forms and land reform are immediately relevant, whilst Communists arises in countries with high labour productivity and small peasant populations.

Vanguardists lack strict stances on Army Model and Bureaucracy, deferring to their Interest Groups on these issues. A Trade Unions Vanguardist will favour upholding Communal Administration and Revolutionary Guard, whilst an Armed Forces Vanguardist will favour abolishing the Revolutionary Guard in favour of a conventional army with Mass Conscription.

The Social Democrat ideology has been removed, and replaced with the more period-appropriate State Socialist ideology. State Socialists represent the reformist, statist socialist current that historically remained affiliated with the Second International parties in the aftermath of World War I, and is defined by a desire to achieve a socialist economy through reforming the existing state. Ferdinand Lassalle himself is now a Trade Unions State Socialist.

The generic Social Democratic Party has been redesignated as “Socialist”, and given a stylish new logo and pleasant red colour. Other parties have also found new colours – the Free Trade Party in Industrialists Orange, the Religious Party in white, and the Radical Party in a cool salmon pink.

In the Spring of 1914, nearly every parliament in Europe hosted a sizable delegation from the socialist parties of the Second International. The socialist movement was a strong and assertive factor in the daily lives of most working-class people, and a serious consideration for those who employed them. The socialist parties were affiliated with a complex network of trade unions, workers’ associations, press organs, and other civil society organisations, which fostered a strong sense of class identity in their participants. Six months later, they had thrown themselves behind the cause of nation and empire, and dispatched their constituencies to machine-gun each other on the fields of Ypres.

How did this happen? It is not a question of a few jingoistic politicians, nor the outcome of parliamentary votes. The course of history is rarely decided by something as legible and formal as the proceedings of parliament. A vote that conforms with the world situation is often treated as a cause in itself, and a vote that contradicts the world situation tends to be overwritten by reality – in content, if not in form. Despite Sweden’s neutrality in the First World War, the history of the Socialdemokratiska Arbetareparti closely mirrors that of the belligerent socialist parties. Likewise for the Italian Socialist Party, which maintained an anti-war stance, and expelled its pro-war members in 1914. The fate of the European socialist parties can be charted from the date of their foundings, and lay in an unanswered question at each of their hearts.

In Sweden, the period between the founding of the Social Democratic Party and the first World War is referred to as the “Heroic Era”. This was the era of the Second International, of mass workers’ movements largely unified behind a single workers’ party. Across Europe, this movement was referred to as “Social Democracy”, and its parties as the social-democratic parties. The German Social Democratic Party \[SPD] was an exemplar of this movement, and may be used as a convenient case study in what became of the Second International parties in the early twentieth century.

The party that would become the SPD was founded in 1875 as a merger of the German General Workers’ Association \[ADAV] and Social Democratic Workers’ Party \[SDAP]. The ADAV drew from the current of state socialism exemplified by Ferdinand Lassalle, whilst the SDAP drew from what was becoming known as the Marxist tradition. As a compromise between Marxists and Lassalleans, the party produced the Gotha Programme, best known for being the subject of Karl Marx’s Critique of the Gotha Programme. The Critique of the Gotha Programme centres around the programme’s lack of a qualitative break from the platforms of the liberal parties, and its treatment of the state as a neutral and independent body whose organs may be peacefully inherited by the proletariat by legal means.

Following the abolition of the German Anti-Socialist Laws in 1890, the SPD adopted the Erfurt Programme, a more radical programme which cast itself as the minimum required for the working class to win control of the political system. In the following years, a division in the SPD became apparent between those who considered the programme as a necessary precondition for revolution, and those on the “Revisionist” party right – exemplified by Eduard Bernstein – who believed socialism could be achieved without a need for revolution. The revisionists pointed to SPD’s role in legislation directly impacting the working class, as well as the immense gains in support that the party had secured in the period since the abolition of the Anti-Socialist Laws. In search of unity, the SPD centre under Karl Kautsky advocated for the party to maintain a policy of ambiguity on the matter of revolution, upholding it as a possible – but not inevitable – tactical measure to achieve socialism. Ambiguity on the question of reform or revolution, in practice, strongly favoured the maintenance of the Party’s current activities, which were reformist in content. The result of this was an official policy that condemned Bernstein’s programme in name whilst making it impossible to break from the conditions that had given rise to it. Come 1914, a party committed to its reforms was faced with the need to defend them against Tsarist autocracy, and voted accordingly.

The Reform or Revolution Journal entry tracks the evolution of this question. Once 25% or more of the world’s GDP is controlled by countries with a Socialist Movement or Party, the Reform or Revolution Journal Entry will become active. Whilst it is active, every country with a Socialist Movement or Party will contribute to shaping the international socialist movement. Populous countries will naturally be advantaged in this, but an especially powerful - or marginal - socialist movement may make certain countries count for far more or less than their population would suggest.

Pictured: The organisation of the SPD in Bavaria causes her to eclipse the much larger North German Federation.

The strength of socialism in a country corresponds to the amplitude of its contributions to either Reform or Revolution. Whether a country will contribute to Reform or Revolution depends upon the particular conditions of her socialist movement - a socialist party that has entered a governing coalition outside of a revolution, and refuses revolutionary measures such as Factory Councils will contribute strongly to Reform, whilst a movement that is organising an insurrection will benefit Revolution.

If a war breaks out between more than 50% of the countries involved in this Journal Entry, the trend will multiply rapidly. For example, if the international socialist movement is generally reformist, such a war will cause a rapid Reformist victory, whilst a drift towards Revolution will swiftly turn the world Revolutionary.

The outcomes of this Journal Entry have consequences for the entire world. Upon a Reformist victory, the Socialist Movement will split between Socialists and Communists, unlocking the Communist Movement and Communist Party, the Socialist Movement will lose its revolutionary ideologies, and the ideology of the Socialist Movement will change to State Socialist.

Conversely, if Revolution wins, the Socialist Movement will become radicalised worldwide, changing its core ideology to Revolutionary Socialist and avoiding the historical split between Communism and Socialism. Moderates will flee the socialist parties and movements, reducing their attractiveness to non-socialist Interest Groups and less radical Pops.

In Update 1.15, a Council Republic will become engulfed in conflict from birth. Once the Council Republic law is enacted, all anti-socialist ideological movements in the country will amalgamate into the White Movement, which will immediately seek to bring about its downfall.

Additionally, non-socialist countries will quickly take notice, and reactionary forces within their governments will lobby for intervention against the newborn socialist state. Now-hostile foreign countries will be strongly inclined to break treaties and launch embargos or Regime Change diplomatic plays.

The immediate threat presented by the White Movement and foreign interventionists is not the only thing a new Council Republic needs to worry about. Upon establishing a Council Republic, one will receive a set of new Journal Entries, centred around the State and Revolution Journal Entry. This Journal Entry centres around another important question in the history of socialism - in the face of a hostile capitalist world, should the state seek to consolidate itself in defence, or dedicate itself to revolutionary confrontation of the world order?

For as long as the State and Revolution Journal Entry is active, a Council Republic will face diplomatic penalties proportional to her current level of Confrontation. High Economic Confrontation will lead to higher loan interest rates and decreased Trade Advantage, whilst high Political Confrontation will lead to increased diplomatic hostility from non-socialist countries. These threats may be dealt with in one of three ways – the fall of the Council Republic, her consolidation and relative normalisation with the capitalist powers, and the revolutionary overthrow of the world capitalist system and instatement of a Socialist World Republic.

Whilst this Journal Entry is active, one will find new political forces developing in one’s country. If the political strength of Bureaucrats reaches a sufficient threshold, the Intelligentsia will reorganise into the Nomenklatura, with Ideologies favouring the rapid Consolidation of the state against her enemies.

As before, the Armed Forces will be reorganised into the Red Army, which now has a new set of ideologies. The Red Army will favour harsh measures to ensure discipline amongst workers and defend the revolution against its enemies, whilst maintaining a strongly internationalist outlook.

For as long as Confrontation remains high and certain revolutionary laws remain active, the proletariat will flex their muscles to enact their preferred laws, and remove officials and commanders they dislike.

In general, the Trade Unions will support the maintenance of all revolutionary, Confrontational laws, whilst the Nomenklatura and Red Army will support various measures to Consolidate the state as needed. 

In addition to State and Revolution, a Council Republic will gain the Social Revolution Journal Entry. This Journal Entry represents the emergence of new social views as the revolution remains underway. Excessive Consolidation will lead to this Journal Entry failing, and the Internationalist ideology being removed from the Trade Unions and Red Army, whilst succeeding it will make these ideologies permanent.

If one is having difficulties with one’s economy, and pressure towards Economic Consolidation is increasing, one may instate the Five Year Plans – a scheme to rapidly industrialise a backwards Council Republic.

After activating the Five Year Plan, one must first draft it, and then seek to complete that draft. For each additional target added to the plan, the rewards become stronger, but the penalties for failure will also become more dire.

If one finds the requirements too taxing, an overly-ambitious central planner may commit some creative accounting to save their career – so long as no one notices.

To defend the Revolution, extraordinary measures may be necessary. If the Extraordinary Commission is enacted, a Council Republic will gain the Extraordinary Measures Journal Entry. For as long as this Journal Entry is active, marginalising certain Interest Groups will lead to them falling in with the party line for as long as the Council Republic remains intact.

As one final note, we have added some additional events revolving around the man himself – Karl Marx, or whoever else fills his place.

And that is all. Thank you for reading. Next week, I will hand the mic over to Mike, who will possibly not be talking about Communism. One never knows with these things.

Happy Wednesday Victorians!

We originally did not intend to have a hotfix for the Open Beta, but our fix for hiring that went out in yesterday's update[forum.paradoxplaza.com] did not totally resolve the issue. As such, we don’t want to leave you another week without this issue being resolved so we decided to go ahead with a hotfix! 

• Fixed an issue that occurred where buildings would lower their hiring rate despite the fact they can hire employees.