Fun fact: My review of Victoria for Computer Games Magazine was the first review I was ever paid for.

Chris King’s opening developer’s diary for Paradox’s upcoming Victoria 2 tries to explain the thinking behind making the game in the first place, and the reasoning is still a little unclear to me.

There are two main reasons for this, first up was Victoria Revolutions. Now it itself it wasn’t a blockbuster, those of you who follow game sales charts will notice it wasn’t quite able to shift games like World of Warcraft or the Sims of the top of the charts, but as an expansion it had its following. So one idea bounced around was a second expansion to Victoria and ideas were generated. All this came to nought because as a company we decided to not work with the old engine again, but the ideas remained.

So the first reason is that they had all these ideas left over from another expansion and wanted to do something with them.

Meanwhile the new engine is cranking out games and the code base for the new engine is steadily expanding. With this foundation projects that we did not consider possible a few years ago suddenly became doable. So when it came to decide which game to do after Hearts of Iron 3, there were these ideas sitting around for an expansion to Victoria. These ideas looked pretty cool but more was going to be needed. However, here was the kernel of what we believe is a great game. The rest is history.

And the second reason is that the new engine means that they have an excuse to put these ideas into place.

I imagine the future developer diaries will have a lot to add to this post by unveiling just what ideas were so pressing that they had to see the light of day, still, as a rationale for developing a game, “because we can” is necessary condition but not really sufficient. Is this just a matter of adding things that they thought of while Victoria: Revolutions was still a going concern or is there a real attempt to address the many issues that kept Victoria one of the “niche-iest” of their stable of niche titles?

I should really reinstall Victoria and see how well I am remembering my issues with it. But here are some of the challenges facing King and the Paradox team as they move forward:

1) The Pax Britannica: Though there were certainly some major wars in the short century covered by the series, this was not a period typified by repeated great power conflict. Britain held the counterweight to pretty much any action on the continent, and military energies were more likely to be directed against colonial populations or a nation’s own citizens. But for strategy gamers, the military option is often the most attractive – we have been conditioned to be empire builders, and not just lording it over distant colonials.

2) Domestic Relations: Much of the conflict in the Victorian Age was domestic. You had a Civil War in the USA, of course, but you also had revolts, rebellions, unification movements, fights for liberalization, the continuing March of the Enlightenment and counter-Enlightenment forces, etc. The first Victoria had a quite sophisticated political model that was sadly buried under layers of menus and numbers whose relationships to each other were never as clear as they should have been. To its credit, Paradox is much better at UI and transparency now than they were five years ago. This is the time period perfect for the Decision model that the developer introduced in EU 3: In Nomine.

3) Industrial Revolution Tycoon: Victoria: Revolutions made some major steps in reflecting the rapid expansion of railways and factories in this period. There were still problems with the trade market system. In general, however, the construction of a fine furniture factory in Victoria was still less interesting than building a road to a gold mine in Civ 4. How do you make the corporate and scientific transformation of the period as fascinating as the political stuff? Paradox never quite managed it but considering how integral this material is to the game, they should come up with something besides the promise that your Uhlans will be able to cross Poland by rail if they need to.

4) White Man’s Burden: The scientific and technological revolution made the colonization of Africa and imperial wars in the Far East possible. But here, Paradox faces the same problem of history that it always does. The player knows how and when the century ends, so they move very quickly and end up settling Deepest Darkest Africa by the 1850s when the big scramble was decades later. The player also knew the rules for colonization better than the computer opponents so it was generally pretty easy to squeeze an enemy out. Then there’s the anomalous position of India in this era – the crown jewel of the British Empire was de jure independent but under the protection of the East India Company until the Indian Mutiny.

5) The time frame: The core problem is that this is a game that takes place over less than a hundred years but sees remarkably rapid change. Napoleon could move his armies only a little more quickly than Alexander the Great. Foch had taxis, trains and steamships. Your nation evolves from largely agrarian societies to urban middle class nations that offered the possibility of upward mobility and the resultant demands for power sharing. But because the time frame is so compressed, you can’t do the gradual approach available to the centuries long EU, Rome and CK games. (Hearts of Iron also sees rapid change in weaponry in a short period, but that’s a game where it’s all about the war so it’s easy to do. No need to deal with women working in factories or the legacy of the New Deal or Chinese government dysfunction.) But you also need to balance the effects of the rapid changes to forestall the runaway winner problem.