Just Sort of Sitting Around

[Darthclimo]

I didn't really notice this too much as I was learning the intricacies of the economy, but now I have an understanding of how it works, I'm just sort of building buildings and sitting around. I'm playing as Belgium and, granted, I've not got any further than 1840, but it doesn't really feel like I'm doing anything. Don't get me started on South Africa, it takes over a year to build a building. Is this sort of like the pre-war phase in HoI4 -- which let's be honest is a lot more exciting -- and I need just be patient and wait for the game to "open up"?

Can someone convince me? I feel like I'm getting bored or it's lacking depth or something. I'm trying my damnest to enjoy it.

[nanda.ag]

It depends if that's what you are doing then thats it ha ha right now it's all too easy to buddy up potential threats so if you just sit around you just sit around

[The Doctor]

You could try playing as another country. Belgium is good for learning the ropes and they can do a decent job colonising but I wouldn't want to play them beyond that.

Austria, France, Prussia, the USA, Japan, China just for starters and if you want a bigger game, the UK or Russia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty7qO_RCnWA

[lord_zbyszko]

The smaller the country the more you need to take the initiative to shake up the world. Nothing is stopping you from doing nothing for 100 years. It's up to you to accomplish something. If you want a more exciting playthrough pick someone like Ottomans or one of the Italian minors, you'll have neighbors that are out to kill you. You've only played 4% of the game, I promise you you don't understand most of the game yet :D

[Gronk]

very little is going to change by playing other countries.
my last game as russia i "finished" the game at close to 3b eco, with something like 600m pop. I missed the mark on egalitarian society by half a % literacy (i was at 89.5%)
once you get past 1b something odd happens, all other countries are starting to tank eco. a gb with 1b eco dropped down to 150m, france for most of the game at the top dropped to 200m.
started by building lumbermills for 20 years, then whenever a resource was at the top of the market, added 50 or so of whatever that was. struggled a bit with food for a bit. In the sense that nobody wanted to eat anything but i had to get rid of my subsistence farms for the "goal"
so i had about twice the eco of the rest of the world combined ...
my prestige was at more than the rest of the world combined ...
the #2 country had an army projection that was about 1/10th of mine ...
i had about 200000 convoys which i couldn't use, because the game would crash every time i opened the trade screen or tried to cancel an unprofitable trade route.
every 3 months or so a country would declare "cut down to size" on me, i would add a bunch of wargoals and then they would back down.
every 5 years i attacked china for the central asia achievement.

and i have to say, there was not a single point in that entire playthrough i didn't just sit around waiting for something to happen.
i thought at one point that i would face an exciting civil war, what with 70% radicals, but nope ...
i was also sitting at a comfortable -5m/week, without any consequences.
The last 30 years or so i had the game on fast forward, doing chores and checking every once in a while my construction queue.

if anything i would say the only countries interesting to play are small/tiny countries. but its no less just waiting to see if anything happens

[The Doctor]

What am I missing? All Paradox grand strategy games are essentially just sitting around waiting for things to happen. Every single one of them - you make a few decisions and wait for a while and then make some more. Watching the long-term outcomes of your decisions is part of their charm as well as the emerging gameplay.

The only one with any real 'action' is HOI4 and that's only if you micro the armies yourself and don't allow the AI to execute your battleplans. Otherwise, you're just sitting around waiting for stuiff to happen, techs to complete, factories to assign, divisions to build blah blah blah. That's the fun of HOI too.

CK3 is a Role Play game but again, you're just assigning people to missions and waiting and when there's a war, you just watch as numbers fly into the air while two sprites duke it out. There's no adrenaline pumping action to be found in a PDS grand strategy game that is not in Victoria 3.

The economic buildings, trade decisions, the Diplomacy, the warfare and the socio-political management IS the game.

[nanda.ag]

Originally posted by The Doctor:

What am I missing? All Paradox grand strategy games are essentially just sitting around waiting for things to happen. Every single one of them - you make a few decisions and wait for a while and then make some more. Watching the long-term outcomes of your decisions is part of their charm as well as the emerging gameplay.

The only one with any real 'action' is HOI4 and that's only if you micro the armies yourself and don't allow the AI to follow your battleplans. Otherwise, you're just sitting around waiting for stuiff to happen, techs to complete, factories to assign, divisions to build blah blah blah. That's the fun of HOI too.

CK3 is a Role Play game but again, you're just assigning people to missions and waiting and when there's a war, you just watch as numbers fly into the air while two sprites duke it out. There's no adrenaline pumping action to be found in a PDS grand strategy game that is not in Victoria 3.

The economic buildings, trade decisions, the Diplomacy, the warfare and the socio-political management IS the game.

Yeah my thoughts exactly when I read above post, couldn't have said it better myself

[Gronk]

so let's look at some of the good grand strategy games out there ...
Florry playing EU4, boring? um ... nope, far from it. Even the "waiting bits" don't last 20 hours.
Watching a bunch of civ5 mp games (these days, thanks lekmod) ... great, you can't just sit around greeding everything, because there is not enough time to do everything. Even vanilla civ5 on deity, a struggle
Terra Invicta (not necessarily "deeper" than vicky3), lots of buttons to click, things to check.

How about Distant Worlds 1 and 2? Yeah sure 2 struggled with bugs and slow performance, so out the gate, maybe an even worse experience for users than Vikcy, but definately no sitting around.
Shadow Empire ... gl just sitting around, or even skipping a few turns to get that research done or whatever.

EU was modeled after a very good board game (you can still see most of the board in EU1), and while my personal favorite of the line was EU2, all EU games are "here is stuff you can do". Sure you can hit the fast forward button, and as an isolated country you may get away with 400 years ff...
but in Vick3 there arent any "develop this or develop that". Staying at Monarchy the whole game doesn't change the "make sure your construction queue is full, building the thing at the top of the market". And thanks to the (btw. very good) automation you can assign 500 buildings, go away at speed 5, and when you come back you are #1 ...

[nanda.ag]

Originally posted by Gronk:

so let's look at some of the good grand strategy games out there ...
Florry playing EU4, boring? um ... nope, far from it. Even the "waiting bits" don't last 20 hours.
Watching a bunch of civ5 mp games (these days, thanks lekmod) ... great, you can't just sit around greeding everything, because there is not enough time to do everything. Even vanilla civ5 on deity, a struggle
Terra Invicta (not necessarily "deeper" than vicky3), lots of buttons to click, things to check.

How about Distant Worlds 1 and 2? Yeah sure 2 struggled with bugs and slow performance, so out the gate, maybe an even worse experience for users than Vikcy, but definately no sitting around.
Shadow Empire ... gl just sitting around, or even skipping a few turns to get that research done or whatever.

EU was modeled after a very good board game (you can still see most of the board in EU1), and while my personal favorite of the line was EU2, all EU games are "here is stuff you can do". Sure you can hit the fast forward button, and as an isolated country you may get away with 400 years ff...
but in Vick3 there arent any "develop this or develop that". Staying at Monarchy the whole game doesn't change the "make sure your construction queue is full, building the thing at the top of the market". And thanks to the (btw. very good) automation you can assign 500 buildings, go away at speed 5, and when you come back you are #1 ...

Actually I did sit around alot in distant world both 1 and 2 as I said above these kinds of games depends alot on what you do, if you just sit around then you just sit around.

[Fenrir]

I think the difference between waiting around in Vicky3 vs EU4, as an example, is passive vs active waiting.

In EU4 when I'm "waiting" for things to happen I'm also participating in the game. I'm looking at the new world judging how I should place my next round of colonists relative to the other colonial powers. I'm monitoring the movements of religious war doom stacks, making decisions based on where they are movign and where my troops are moving/seiging. Maybe I need to hire some emergency mercenaries and rush them over to help the siege of Paris. I can poke around through extensive diplomacy screens, enabling and disabling diplo actions in an effort to convince Provence to be my vassal before France attacks them and takes them. I'm simultaneously ordering the construction of trade buildings in contested trade regions, sending privateers to stir up trouble in carribeans for me, maybe cause Tortuga to spawn so I can ally them and help them take away the Spanish grasp of the seas.

In Vicky 3 I'm basically just watching progress bars on buildings and then saying "ok my lumber yard is up and running. Now I can order a tool factory. Ok my tool factory is done now I can order iron mines. Ok my iron mines are done now I can order steel mills. Oh look now I can safely reform the government. Lets move some liberals over to the left so I can have a decent percentile chance of enacting a child labor protections. Ok now that's g oing to take years to do anything and I can't really interact with it in too many meaningful ways so I guess I'll just go order a vehicle factory. Oh boy only 20 more hours until I can dominate the market for train engines.

One of these is engaging and full of action. The other is just poking upgrade buttons and waiting for a dice roll to determine whether or not babies get to stay home fro mthe coal mines today.

[The Doctor]

If that's how you play Vic 3, well, yes, that would be pretty boring. You might come back and find you're bankrupt when you come back though. You're being very reductive when describing this particular game while demonstrating a liking for the same in otehr games, perhaps because you're negative about it for some reason.

There are plenty of buttons to click and things to check in Vic 3, far more than therer are in Terra Invicta. Good game BTW. There's a massive amount of time waiting for stuff to happen in both DW1 and 2. (Bothe excellent games although 2 is taking a bit longer to get into good shape - even longer than most PDS games) I've played hundreds of hours of both and most of that time is inputing clicks and waiting.

Online multiplayer is always going to be more exciting as well as you're generally on a timer and have to take your turns quickly. I would imagine that Vic 3 would be a blast played with other folks too.

And watching a streamer is a form of entertainment all of its own. If you have an interest in a game, watching a streamer play it is usually fun and not boring. Of course, it would be if you didn't like the game or just think watching streamers play a game you could be playing is a waste of time.

I played EU2 more than either EU3 or 4 but it was just the same if you're going to be reductive to this degree, click and wait.

There's plenty to develop in Vic 3 as well.

I don't doubt you're bored, frustrated or angry, but none of that makes any sense because every game you've described is the same when judged reductively to the same extent so why don't you just come out and say what's really bothering you?

[nanda.ag]

Originally posted by Fenrir:

I think the difference between waiting around in Vicky3 vs EU4, as an example, is passive vs active waiting.

In EU4 when I'm "waiting" for things to happen I'm also participating in the game. I'm looking at the new world judging how I should place my next round of colonists relative to the other colonial powers. I'm monitoring the movements of religious war doom stacks, making decisions based on where they are movign and where my troops are moving/seiging. Maybe I need to hire some emergency mercenaries and rush them over to help the siege of Paris. I can poke around through extensive diplomacy screens, enabling and disabling diplo actions in an effort to convince Provence to be my vassal before France attacks them and takes them. I'm simultaneously ordering the construction of trade buildings in contested trade regions, sending privateers to stir up trouble in carribeans for me, maybe cause Tortuga to spawn so I can ally them and help them take away the Spanish grasp of the seas.

In Vicky 3 I'm basically just watching progress bars on buildings and then saying "ok my lumber yard is up and running. Now I can order a tool factory. Ok my tool factory is done now I can order iron mines. Ok my iron mines are done now I can order steel mills. Oh look now I can safely reform the government. Lets move some liberals over to the left so I can have a decent percentile chance of enacting a child labor protections. Ok now that's g oing to take years to do anything and I can't really interact with it in too many meaningful ways so I guess I'll just go order a vehicle factory. Oh boy only 20 more hours until I can dominate the market for train engines.

One of these is engaging and full of action. The other is just poking upgrade buttons and waiting for a dice roll to determine whether or not babies get to stay home fro mthe coal mines today.

In Vicky 3 while waiting for things to happen I can look at my market judging what buildings to add to quequ or which building to move up the queue or should I create trade routes to import the deficit. Planning my next diplomatic play whether to increase or decrease relations. Or declareing interestes in new regions to import goods I'm racking or market for my exports. I can poke around political system and bolster or suppress igs in preparation for next major reform etc

See? I can also write a paragraph about Vicky 3. features using action words. It's just that you are not engaged with the mechanics game offers and just sit around which you can do in both EU4 or distant world too . So like I say if all you do is sit around then that's it. Maybe this is not a game for you guys

[*s*t*a*r*s*]

My Belgium start circa 1846.

Passed laws: Colonial exploitation, dedicated police force, public health insurance (tough one to get through but worked out in the end).

Institutions: Colonial affairs lvl 2, education, lvl 3, law enforcement lvl 3 (working to lvl 5), health system lvl 2 (working to lvl 4).

Declare interest in east Africa Zanj, establish colony in the province called Kikuya which is Kenya, before France does, create ports and railway here to gain more infrastructure and market access. Then take Zanzibar from Oman later.

Make lots of coal mines iron mines lead mines and logging camps, make industry that can use them then export the goods en mass. Wheat farms and livestock ranches to feed your populace and not import food.

Government admin to 7 in Flanders and at least 3 in Wallonia to begin with, don't bother making construction centers yet. Services and luxury furniture consumption tax, government wages and military wages max.

Start the Nile river expedition with explorer general/admiral in journal tab. Improve relations with every major around you first then bankroll Lubeck to gain an obligation from them. As for technology I always choose prestige ones first and then production. You have no real military threats to begin with, Netherlands dislikes you but they won't declare on you, yet. After a while see if you can liberate Luxembourg from them, that will make things in Europe spicy.

[Gargantus]

My answer might be a bit on the short side, but on my recent Belgium playthrough, the fun started around 1860 - I became a major power and then I've noticed that I got my grand strategy game back. Also, actually I had three belgium playthroughs, the last one was after 1.05 - the last one feels like the most interesting, great britian dropped their trade agreement with me from the beginning and I had to try to build up otherwise. Very fun game.

[Gronk]

maybe i am just using the wrong words.
If Vicky was TaB (there are billions) and there were no waves, no day limit, no way to control the military but still be able to build sawmills and such.
That would be V3 in its current form. You don't have to do anything, if you do, you just clear the map faster. Even if you simply fast forward from spawn, you will eventually win (with rangers on chase). There isn't even a way you cannot win.
Some games have tight winning conditions (EU boardgame, TAB, ...) and some just leave it open for you to do whatever you want (EU4).
You can do nothing, sit around and wait for whatever the automations are to do whatever they do.
Unlike all other games however, there is nothing in V3 that you can do to make things better, faster, nicer, because everything starts and ends with the eco. And yes, its an eco simulator. But there are a lot of city builders that have engaging game loops. There are grand staretgy games that allow you to do things, make a better world, even role play (ck3).
Some games force you to tradeoff at certain points, war now or build a bigger army, wait a bit then attack. So there is downtime (and waiting). In V3 there is only downtime. The density of meaningful player decisions is less than in your average summer blockbuster movie ...

[nanda.ag]

Originally posted by Gronk:

maybe i am just using the wrong words.
If Vicky was TaB (there are billions) and there were no waves, no day limit, no way to control the military but still be able to build sawmills and such.
That would be V3 in its current form. You don't have to do anything, if you do, you just clear the map faster. Even if you simply fast forward from spawn, you will eventually win (with rangers on chase). There isn't even a way you cannot win.
Some games have tight winning conditions (EU boardgame, TAB, ...) and some just leave it open for you to do whatever you want (EU4).
You can do nothing, sit around and wait for whatever the automations are to do whatever they do.
Unlike all other games however, there is nothing in V3 that you can do to make things better, faster, nicer, because everything starts and ends with the eco. And yes, its an eco simulator. But there are a lot of city builders that have engaging game loops. There are grand staretgy games that allow you to do things, make a better world, even role play (ck3).
Some games force you to tradeoff at certain points, war now or build a bigger army, wait a bit then attack. So there is downtime (and waiting). In V3 there is only downtime. The density of meaningful player decisions is less than in your average summer blockbuster movie ...

Like I said in Victoria 3 your decisions do have the impact in fact quite alot, it's just you either ignored it or failed to see it. I got it I also cannot connect with EU4 for the longest time it was just stare at the map simulator for me and I still can't connect with distant world series. It's ok the game is boring for you but it's not for me 🙂