Victoria 3 is part of April’s Humble Choice.
“Paradox Development Studio invites you to build your ideal society in the tumult of the exciting and transformative 19th century. Balance the competing interests in your society and earn your place in the sun in Victoria 3, one of the most anticipated games in Paradox’s history.”
As usual, there was a leak about which games would be in this month’s Humble Choice before it was officially released. However, since it is April, I guess we were all fooled as only one game actually made it into this month’s bundle (Fashion Police Squad). When I had seen the leaked line-up, I had not been excited – from the reactions I had seen, I was in the minority. When I saw the actual games, I did get excited. I hope that everybody has recovered from the April Fool and that there are others who appreciate the games offered as much as I do!
Victoria 3 had been on my wishlist for a long time already. The game usually costs 49.99 € which I was not willing to spend, though. I love Crusader Kings 3, but I just wasn’t certain I would also love Victoria 3 because the game has a different focus. And even after getting it as part of the bundle, I wasn’t sure whether I would love it or not.
When I told my husband that for this month’s bundle, I chose to play and write about Victoria 3, he only grinned and said “ambitious”. I should have known better having played several hundreds of hours of Crusader Kings 3 and there is still so much that I don’t really know about that game! I opened Victoria 3 expecting to find a tutorial that is as easy to follow as the one in Crusader Kings 3 felt for me – but it’s not. I found it tedious to not only get a tutorial objective, but having to open it and manually click on either “How do I do that?” or “Why should I do that?”.
Paradox also released several tutorial videos. But I only saw that after starting with a series of videos from a German streamer who I like a lot. If you understand German, then I can highly recommend his videos as they are very easy to follow and he is very well structured! I watched the videos while I had the game open, so that I could do the same clicks and read through everything myself.
Now I am playing the game on my own. I started with the in-game tutorial and finally understood what it wants me to do! There is still some guidance after a while, but I am mostly off doing what I think is right or helps my country, Belgium. I have just colonized a tiny little country in Africa – mostly because I need cheaper sugar and the guidance tasks told me to colonize something. I have three regions now from two different countries in Africa. My neighbour, the Netherlands, was much faster in colonizing and snatched up most of the country from under my nose. In the meantime, however, I successfully changed the law in my country so that women are at least allowed to own property. Unbelievable that this was the reality only 200 years ago…
When I first started Victoria 3 and saw the interface and tried to understand and follow the tutorial, I just wanted to get back to Crusader Kings 3. In fact, I was glad that I hadn’t bought Victoria 3 before because I was certain this wasn’t a game for me. Now, after watching the tutorial videos and finally starting to understand what I am supposed to do, I really love this game! It is different in that the ruler doesn’t matter much… He’s a guy. He has an heir. That is all that I know. It is more important which political parties are active in your country and how strong they are! I have my own agenda in that I want to get rid of child labour as early as I can and, of course, I would love to get women the rights they deserve. So, I was glad when there was an opportunity to get the Intellectuals into my government as they are much more aligned with my goals than some other political parties. I also like that I am slowly growing my country by adding a colony – but here, we don’t just declare war left and right in order to grab more land like I usually do in Crusader Kings 3. It is much more about laws and the country’s economy and trying to make your population happy – or not riot against you, at least.
So basically, what I am trying to say is that if you like games like this, where there is no one goal to achieve in order to win the game (you can set your own goals but the game doesn’t give you one), when you’re willing to read tooltip after tooltip and don’t mind searching the internet for more information, and if you like worrying about your country’s economy as well as society, then Victoria 3 may be something for you! I, myself, am really happy with this month’s bundle as I probably wouldn’t have gotten Victoria 3 otherwise! But of course, I have only scratched the surface of the game and I am certain that there is still much more left to discover for me – good and bad, I guess, seeing how the game’s reviews are sitting at Mixed with only 66 % positive. Most of the recent negative reviews are about multiplayer issues, though, which do not concern me as I only play this game on my own.
One caveat if you’re a completionist: The store already lists DLC for 61 € (39 € if you buy the expansion pass). And I am sure that this won’t be all. This month’s Humble Choice only gives you the basic game and a 20 % voucher off the Expansion Pass which can be used in the Humble Store until June 2024.
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