By Matt Wolfbridge
Is Victoria 3 finally good after four years of post-launch development? Maybe? I think so? It depends.
For the uninitiated, Victoria 3 is the third installment in Paradox Interactive's Victoria franchise, a series of Victorian era grand strategy games focusing on economics. Haven't heard of it? You're not alone. Paradox's more popular titles like Second World War game Hearts of Iron IV and aristocrat breeding simulator Crusader Kings III reach far grander audiences. At the time of writing, Hearts of Iron IV boasts nearly 50,000 peak concurrent players over the last 24 hours. Crusader Kings III is about half as popular with just over 27,000 peak concurrents. Victoria 3? 6,800 and change.
But Victoria (or "Vicky" as fans call it) has never been as popular as its Paradox peers. The first Victoria game debuted so poorly back in 2006 that Paradox Interactive CEO Fredrik Wester publicly doubted the sequel would be profitable. He bet his hair that 2010's Victoria II wouldn't make money. And while he lost the bet (and his hair), Victoria II never enjoyed the breakout success of other Paradox sequels like Crusader Kings II or Europa Universalis IV. Ditto for Victoria 3.
Why though?
My knee-jerk reaction is to say: Victoria 3 is the most complicated game Paradox has ever created. But the Europa Universalis series, replete with game mechanics fleshing out its broad 400-ish year time period, are all complicated games. Their space game, Stellaris, is complicated, too. But that's what Paradox fans like. At least that's what I like. I started playing Paradox games in 2005 when I discovered Hearts of Iron II; its complexity is what drew me in. I'd grown weary of simple war games like Axis & Allies or Risk. I wanted a game with ample meaningful decisions to make that all added up to victory or defeat.
No, Victoria 3's relative unpopularity doesn't stem from complexity but perhaps due to how the complexity is manifested.
The Hearts of Iron franchise is the simplest: you move little men (or NATO counters for my HOI2 and HOI3 friends) around on a map. You win the war or you lose it.
Europa Universalis, for all its additional systems, still involves moving armies around on a map and expanding your empire. There's a reason the term "blobbing"– as in, an empire absorbing the world like a relentless blob–exists in the fandom's lexicon.
Crusader Kings breaks the mold in its focus on characters and narrative. Yeah there's little men on the map, wars, and territorial expansion. But players appreciate their playthroughs for the grandiose, Game of Thrones-esque scandals occurring in the kingdom throughout their dynasty's lifespan.
Victoria 3 bravely discards all three approaches and instead asks: what if we made a game about deficit spending?