Victoria 3 does for simulated economics whatCrusader Kings 3did for playing fuck, marry, kill with medieval popes.
These laws can have profound effects on the efficiency of your industries and your economy at large.
Coal is used in countless different industries in Victoria 3, and as such is in constant high demand.
But mining coal requires tools, another basic resource that is also in high demand.
If the price of tools rises too high, it can render your coal mines unprofitable.
HOWEVER, running a water-tube boiler requires you guessed it coal.
This is one simple example.
There are dozens of different industries in Victoria 3.
All are interconnected, influencing the price of the various goods they consume and produce.
Markets are further affected by a bunch of other factors.
If all this sounds complicated, then congratulations, you might read!
It’s a mightily intimidating system upon first encounter.
Fortunately, Victoria 3 is an excellent teacher.
These respectively guide you through the methods of performing a particular action, and the reasons for doing so.
It’s astonishingly reactive, too.
The scenarios this can lead to are often fascinating.
Sometimes it’s worth running your entire economy at a loss.
Played purely as an optimisation challenge, Victoria 3 is tons of fun.
But this is only a part of the game’s overall scope.
Alongside market forces, Victoria 3 also simulates political forces.
Maybe sticking with a monarchy is tolerable if you get a public health service out of it.
There will also be times when you have no choice in the matter whatsoever.
Pushing through new laws takes time, and will periodically trigger events where individuals rise to the surface.
Perhaps the Duke of Wellington gets caught in a brothel, damaging the reputation of the industrialists he represents.
As a game of political and economic craftsmanship, Victoria 3 is a resounding success.
Taking a country and shaping it how you want is tremendous fun.
The game is less effective when it comes to dealing with other countries, however.
Diplomacy is split between diplomatic plays (wars), and diplomatic actions (everything else).
There are tons of options in both, but they’re all fairly binary, one-on-one interactions.
You’re either entreating with another country, or declaring war on it for a very specific reason.
Warfare, meanwhile, is where Victoria 3 is at its least interesting.
In fairness to Paradox, this sounds like something that could very well happen in a nineteenth-century war.
From a play perspective, however, it’s not much fun.
There are a couple of other urchins in the works worth addressing.
The tech-tree mostly exists for gating purposes.
But the fact Victoria 3 makes building Lancastrian coal mines similarly compelling is a remarkable achievement.
