The Semi-Official Victoria General Discussion FAQ

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Introduction to the original version of this FAQ

Seeing as there are a fair share of questions that get asked more than a few times about the game, I figured I'd take it upon myself to start putting together a FAQ for the forum, based on what I've seen myself in the game and upon what others have reported. In other words; much of this FAQ can be attributed to the people of the forum who have taken the time to share their experiences and thoughts about the game with the rest of us. I'd like to use this occasion to say a collective "thank you" to everyone for providing the info used in putting this FAQ together.

DISCLAIMER: I am not one of the developers, and my knowledge of the game is far from perfect, so do not take all things presented here to be undeniable truths. If you read things here that don't add up with your own experiences, feel free to voice it in an appropriate way, and I'll use it to keep improving and adding to the FAQ.

Note that this is the same FAQ as you can find on the Paradox Victoria GD forum. The intention is to keep these FAQs fairly synchronized, even tho' this one might be a bit moe volatile due to its' Wiki-nature and there may be things one place that haven't made it to the other (yet).

Rafiki


What is "Victoria - An empire under the sun"?

"Victoria - An Empire under the Sun" is the latest grand strategy title from Paradox Entertainment, covering the world 1836-1920.

From Paradox Entertainment's webpage describing "Victoria":

Guide your nation from the era of absolute monarchies of the early 19th century to evolve into a fully industrialized Great Power at the dawn of the 20th century! You must make sure that you stay ahead in wealth and strength, and skillfully manage the democratization process without disintegrating.

The focus of Victoria is on six different aspects, all interconnected, to provide a deep, yet easily accessible game-play; Diplomacy, Warfare, Economy & Industrialisation, Colonisation, Technological Development and Political Simulation.

How does Victoria compare to other (Paradox) games?

Here and here are discussions about what Victoria really is about and how it compares to other games, especially EU2 and whether or not to buy it.

Where can I get it?

You can buy it [www.gamersgate.com Here] as a download only version or Here as part of the strategy six-pack. You can also but the expansion on its own. The mac version can be found [1] here.

What do other people say about it?

This thread contains links to assorted reviews about the game. If you want to see what people are saying about the expanion you can look here and here

How do I know if I've been playing the game too much?

Not that it's possible to play the game "too much", but if you want to know some of the signs that you've been playing it a lot, take a look at this thread


Game mechanics

How do I load the game as a different country than the one I played previously?

When you're loading your save game, right click the flag of the nation you're playing and select the one you want to switch to in the drop down menu.

To change to one of the countries in the starting list (the flags seen when starting the scenario), you need to go into the multiplayer screen and change your computer's name.

You can also achieve this by modifying the savegame slightly, close to the top, where the start-countries are listed. Either remove the tag you want to play (by changing it) or switch which tag your computer is assigned to.

The game starts in 1836 and ends in 1920. Is there any way of changing this?

Yes there is. Some people have put together so-called "Unlimited Time Mods" that will allow you to change the start and/or end dates. Note that technologies and events have set start- and/or enddates, so playing outside the normal timeframe of Victoria will probably be less "eventful" than in the period 1836-1920(1936 in revolutions), unless that part is taken care of as well.

Several no time limit patches are available here

Where can I find patches for the game?

The latest patches are available from Paradox' download pages.

Currently the latest patch version is 1.04 or 2.01. There still contains some oversights so I'd recommend applying OHGamer's unofficial hotfixes. They can be found here for Victoria or Hotfix 6 : Posted 7 July 2007 for Revolutions.

Why can't I load a game from within the game?

During testing, it was found that if you loaded a game while in a game, data/information from the old game was brought over into the new game, which is A Bad Thing™. You'll need to exit your current game so you get to the start-up screen, and then load the savegame you wish to play.

Does the AI cheat in Victoria?

Not really. At "hard" and "very hard" the AI gets bonuses to its output from factories/rgo's, but that's about it. If you think the AI cheats, chances are that you are observing game functionality that you aren't aware of ;)

I have the Mac version of Victoria. Where can I go to get help with any technical problems I've got?

Interface

What do all these buttons, icons, symbols and boxes mean and do?

whyamihere has put togther a nice [2] that gives you info about the details in most of the screens in the game.

Economic matters

Other than generating income to varying degrees, what happens at different tax levels?

  • At less than 33% tax, MIL for the targetted POPs will decrease.
  • At more than 33%, CON will increase.
  • When the middle or high strata are taxed more than 55% and they are unable to buy the goods they need, they'll start devolving to poor strata POPs. Really high taxation can cause starvation if POPs cannot satisfy their life needs.
  • At higher levels (over 50%?), taxation can make people emigrate or accelerate existing emigration.

My budget shows a surplus, yet I'm losing money consistently. Why?

In order to have changes made in the Budget Window take effect, you have to leave the budget window. This is in the manual, BTW ;)

How do I go bankrupt?

You go bankrupt when your maximum possible income no longer is able to handle the interest on your loans. It doesn't matter what your current settings are, but if they are less than your current interest payments, it's only a matter of time before you go bankrupt. There are reports that prestige affects when bankruptcy hits, which can lead to cascading bankruptcies.

What happens when I go bankrupt?

A number of things happen:

  • Your debts/loans are written off (get deleted)
  • You take a prestige hit (between -300 and -900 methinks)
  • You lose half your factories
  • You lose all goods and resources currently in your stockpile.

Argh! What's up with these countless stock market crashes?

When you've selected "Meritocracy" in the "Aristocracy/Meritocracy"-choice and you have discovered "Stock Exchange (3002)", "Stock Market Crash (23000)" gets added to the random events that can occur. However, if you're skimping on the crime fighting, and have lots of corruption buildings (especially of the "immoral business"-kind) the likelihood of getting this event increases, potentially quite a lot.

So how can I avoid this event? You can delay researching "Stock Exchange" or "State & Government (4303)" a bit. The "Meritocracy vs. Aristocracy" invention will not trigger as long as you have a socialist government. Choose "Aristocracy" if you cannot cope with the event by then. When the crime fighting is sufficient, corruption should be under control and so should be "Stock Market Crashes" (or at least it's likelihood should be decreased). Later tech advances can reduce the chances of the event occuring, and even remove the event completely.

POPs and their concerns

How does clergy affect my POPs?

Regardless of how many and how large clergy POPs you have, other POPs in the same state are affected as follows:

  • Aristocrats, capitalists and officers: CON modified by +0.25
  • Clerks, craftsmen and other clergymen: No effect
  • Farmer, laborers and soldiers: CON modified by -0.25

The effects of this are cumulative; if you have several clergy, each one will provide this modifier. Also, it doesn't matter what culture and religion the POPs or the clergymen have.

How come my POPs have MIL 10? I thought I had been nice to them?

There are a lot of factors that influence the militancy of POPs. Even if you address their concerns in some areas, you might be neglecting other areas that have a greater influence on their MIL.

My general advice is to find your most militant POPs (e.g. by looking in the ledger, or even by looking at the ones who are rebelling), then look at their POP detail screen. If you hover your mouse over the MIL-thingy, you'll get a pop-up that shows all the modifiers for that POPs militancy, and might get a clue as to what's aggravating them.

There are also some nasty events that put your POP's militancy quite high. But usually they are followed by events that lower MIL after some time.

Some things that affect militancy are taxes ability to buy everyday needs and luxury needs.

My POPs aren't particularly militant, yet there is a significant revolt risk in my provinces. How come?

In addition to POPs' militancy, nationalism and War Exhaustion can cause revolts. In the case of nationalism, you'll see revolt risk in newly conquered provinces for 10 years after you've conquered them. The revolt risk starts big and gradually disappears.

What decides how extreme POPs are politically?

Victoria has a three pairs of ideologies; socialism + communism; liberalism + anarcho-liberalism; conservative + reactionary. The first is the moderate version, the second the extremist. A POP with low militancy will be moderate, but once MIL goes up, a POP will switch to the extremist version of "their" ideology".

In revolutions there is also Fascism which is caused by revanchism or cores under the control of a foreign power.

When do POPs merge?

POPs with a size of less than 10.000 may merge (and usually will) with another POP when the POPs share the same type, culture and religion. The size of the second may be well over 10.000, but the combined size may not be above 100.000.

When do POPs split?

When a POP reaches size 100.000, it will split into 2 similar POPs, sized 75.000 and 25.000. In revolutions when a POP reaches 40.000 the player may choose to manually split the POP.

How do I encourage immigration to my country?

There is a number of factors that influences this. Keep the following in mind:

  • Democracies get the most immigrants, constitutional monarchies get some and the remaining government types get none, or almost none.
  • Liberal or socialist ruling parties tend to get the most. Conservative parties get very little.
  • The minority policies of your ruling party matters. People will much rather go where they have the prospect of full citizenship rather than slavery. The religious policy matters too. People rather tend to go where their religion will not be oppressed.
  • American nations (the ones with capital province in the Americas) get a lot more immigrants than others. Nothing much to do about, other than being aware of. European nations get the least immigrants.
  • Plurality is a deciding factor too. The more plurality the better. Research Ideological thought early to fire plurality reducing events under a conservative government when you have no plurality and later you can get +50 in events when you have a liberal and socialist government.
  • Reforms help, especially if yours are at a high level, both in themselves and when compared to other nations'.
  • Make sure you have free slots in your RGOs and factories. Immigrants want to have somewhere to work when they arrive! Immigrants like high value resources like gold, iron, silk or sulphur and high province liferatings.

Industry and production

What is the difference between using craftsmen and clerks in my factories?

All other factors being equal, a clerk is more efficient than a craftsman. Their exact efficiency is based on your literacy rating and is calculated as:

Craftsmen: 0.5 + (literacy-ratio/2) giving a range of 0.5-1
Clerks: 1 + (literacy-ratio/2) giving a range of 1.0-1.5

In other words, at 0% literacy, clerks will be twice as efficient as craftsmen, while at 100% literacy, they will be 1.5 times as efficient.

Note that you have to have at least as many craftsmen POPs working in a factory as you have clerk POPs (size of POPs doesn't matter). Also, you can have a maximum of 2 clerks per factory level.

What is the best clerk-craftsmen ratio?

Clerks are more beneficial to you than craftsmen so you should aim the highest number of clerks possible (this is true for both the number of clerk pops and the number of population clerks contain). The problem is that you are limited in the number of clerks that can work, whereas you are not limited in the number of craftsmen, as long as you have free slots left of course.

The first rule is that you cannot add a clerk pop to the factory if there is not more craftsmen pops than clerk pops already. For example, the first pop you add must be craftsmen. The second pop can be either one, but if you have an unemployed clerk it will usually be used first. The third pop must be craftsmen, if you added a clerk second, or may be either one if you added craftsmen and so on. The number of craftsmen pops must be bigger by at least one for you to be able to add a clerk pop. If you cannot add a newly promoted clerk to the factory this is propably the reason. During the course of the game it may happen that craftsmen pops in the factory merge, leaving you with more clerk pops than craftsmen pops. This is WAD, you won't be able to add more clerks unless the first rule allows you to do so.

The second rule is that you cannot have more than two clerk pops per factory level (hence the 2:3 ratio advices). For example if you have a level 2 factory and ten pops to work in it, you can have a maximum of four clerk pops in addition to the six craftsmen pops. This is not the most efficient setup possible because you do can get five clerk pops out of your ten pops working there. You just need to overexpand the factory to level 3. This way the benefits of having clerks are maximized.

Answering the question, the best possible ratio is 1:1 (although there may be reasons - like controling migrations - to avoid having open slots).

How does POP allocation to factories work?

When you use the add/remove buttons for assigning POPs to work or stop working in a factory, it always makes sure to add the best POP and remove the worst POP first. "Best/worst" is in terms of efficiency, so if you e.g. have assorted POPs of the same size, a clerk POP will be added before a craftsman POP (under the limitations above), and a state-cultured POP will be added before non-state-cultured POP.

This means that if you have several factories in a state, make sure to fill up your most important factories first, before the less important ones.

How come I have such a hard time getting Machine Parts?

It's supposed to be hard. Machine parts are the key to industrialization and your strategy for getting them is one of the more important things you need to decide in the game. For more information, take a look at Machine Parts 101.

Machine parts are less important in revolutions as Capitalists can industrialise your nation. Sometimes its easier to promote capitalists than buy machine parts.

How does POP size affect production?

The base rule is that the larger the POP, the more it contributes to production. However, Victoria uses a tiered system to represent this:

POP size Contribution to production
Min Max
1 499 0.33
500 20.000 0.50
20.001 50.000 0.75
50.001 100.000 1.00

How does POP culture affect production?

POPs that aren't of one of your state cultures contribute half as much to production as the POPs that belong to one of your state cultures.

How do capitalists affect production?

Capitalists may contribute to the efficiency of factories in the state they're located in. The exact contribution depends on a variety of factors, but rule of thumb is that you'll need a capitalist headcount of more than 10-15000 to notice any difference. The bonus is capped at 50%. It applies to all factories in a state, not just one of them.

Note that the culture of the capitalists doesn't matter, and that the bonus depends on the total number of people in capitalist POPs, not the number of capitalist POPs.

Why aren't my factories producing anything?

There are a number of things that need to be in order for your factory to produce stuff. If your factory isn't producing anything, maybe it is caused by one of these things:

  • If your factory is in a state without a direct land connection to your capital, make sure you have enough convoys around to fulfill the convoy requirements (this might not be necsessary for land-locked states).
  • You have to have people working in the factory. If you have unemployed craftsmen (& clerks) in the state, assign them to the factory. If not, you need to re-assign POPs from other factories and/or convert POPs into craftsmen (& clerks). Note that it is possible for factory POPs to emigrate or suffer losses (when rebelling), and might disappear, potentially leaving your factory unmanned.
  • All factories have a set of raw materials they need. If one of them is lacking, the factory won't produce anything. You can easily use the ledger to check this, in addition to the factory details screen.

Also note that factories take some time (one or two years) to be built, so don't expect factories to start producing once you construct them; easily missed in the heat of the moment.

Colonies & states & provinces

How does colonization work?

To get a colony, you first have to build colonial buildings. You can only place colonial buildings in unclaimed areas, that are one or more of the following:

  • Next to the ocean.
  • Next to one of your finished colonial buildings.
  • Next to one of you provinces.

You also need to have access to a coastline, i.e. have provinces next to the ocean.

If its inaccessible, when you hover over the "build" button it will say "you do not have access to this province".

Your units aren't involved in colonization (unless you are doing it by "stealing" other nations' colonial buildings), so you don't need convoys available or any army in or navy next to areas you wish to build colonial buildings in.

The assorted colonial buildings have a cost, a certain number of £'s and some goods. The tooltip for the "build"-buttons will tell you what you're lacking (if anything). Note that contrary to what is the case for e.g. factories, you must have saved money to pay for colonial buildings, you can't go into debt to build them.

There can only be one building per province. So if someone already has a building there you cannot build in it. And if someone is in the process of building a colonial building, you cannot build one there, either.

To actually claim a colony (and turn it into "regular" provinces), there are a few approaches that might or might not apply to any given colony:

  • If the colony consists of 4 or less provinces, you need to have colonial buildings in all of them to claim.
  • If it has more than 4 provinces and you have at least one building of each of the four types, and other nations have colonial buildings in all the remaining provinces you can claim. For inland colonies, you can drop the Coaling Station.
  • If you don't have one of each type, you need to fill the colony with your colonial buildings, not letting other nations have any, in order to be able to claim.

Note that whenever you click on a province in an unclaimed colony, you first get the "state"-view of the entire colony. Click on any province in that colony to get to the province view, where you should see the assorted colonial buildings and their "build"-buttons.

In revolutions you need to have a port within a range to get colonists. The bigger the port the larger its range. You also need to be able to colonise provinces with that life rating. Machine guns and medicine help lower the life rating which you can colonise.

What are the differences between states and colonies?

  • You cannot build factories in colonies
  • The only troops you can build in a colony are of native or colonial quality, in states you get troops of regular quality.
  • The cost of reforms, education and police are 4 times higher in states than in similar colonies.
  • States cannot be targetted in colonial wars.

In addition, you may see more immigration (and less emmigration) from a province when it is part of a colony than what it would have as part of a state.

What are the criteria for granting statehood?

To grant statehood to a colony, it must fulfill one of these criteria:

  • It must be on the same continent as your capital, or
  • At least one of the provinces in the colony must have a majority of people belonging to one of your state cultures.

Military matters

At the start of the game, my manpower is (very) negative; why so, and what do I do?

At one point (patch 1.01?) manpower was changed so that standing armies deduct from the manpower total. However, the scenarios weren't updated to reflect this with an increase in the soldier POPs to weigh up for this, resulting in most nations starting with negative manpower.

In 1.04 changes have been made so that the starting standing army is covered by the number of people in soldier POPs. If you encounter the negative manpower problem during the game you may be doing something wrong. Also maintenance and defence sliders affect both the manpower limit and regeneration so you can go negative by setting them too low. When your manpower is negative you get no manpower regeneration. If your manpower is negative with both sliders maxed you need to convert more POPs into soldiers or disband existing units.

The AI units have a much higher morale than mine?!? (And related questions)

Peter Ebbesen has written an excellent FAQ on land units' morale and organization, that should be considered mandatory reading for anyone who wants to understand the combat system in Victoria. It's written for 1.01, but all the principles and most of the details apply to 1.04 as well.

Is there an overview of unit and attachment values/modifcators?

Yes, the FAQ forum contains such an overview.

If you are interested in 1.03 stats take a look here. You'll also find one overview here.

How can I reinforce all units in an army?

In the army overview screen, you have a small fist-icon in the upper right corner. Clicking it will reinforce the entire army, provided you have the manpower to do so. If you lack manpower, it will start at the top and reinforce as many divisions as possible till your available manpower is spent.

Many of the leaders I get are not very good, and seem to have more negative modifers than positive ones. What's the point with them?

This is an easy impression to get. However, if you compare your seemingly-not-so-good leader to the default/no-name/anonymous leader, you'll see that the last one has negative modifers in just about every field. In other words, assigning a leader with just a few negative modifers is significantly better than not assigning a leader at all.

On the other hand, a "yellow incompetent" (and similar leaders) is probably best kept away from any of your troops

What is "mobilization"?

In addition to your standing army, you can have a backup force to call on in times of need. The strength of it is measured by the numbers of divisions allocated to your mobilization pool, and you can increase and/or decrease the number of available divisions as you see fit (with some restrictions). Whenever you deem it necessary, you can call upon this backup force, and 3 months later, you'll have a number of plain infantry divisions to use in whatever way you like.

How do I change the size of my mobilization pool?

In your military overview screen, you'll find "increase mobilization" and "decrease mobilization" buttons in the bottom right corner. Which one is used for which should be fairly self-explanatory.

It costs 40 canned food and 40 small arms to increase your mobilization pool by 4 divisions, and after doing it you'll have to wait another 6 months before you can increase it further. Decreasing it doesn't cost anything and you can decrease your mobilization pool as often as you like (as long as you have anything left in it, of course).

There is a limit to how large your mobilization pool can be, based on the size of your population. You'll see this limit when hovering your mouse over the "increase mobilization"-button.

I'm playing an uncivilized nation. Can I have a mobilization pool?

Nope. Only civilized nations are allowed to have mobilization pools. You're stuck with your wool-armed irregulars.

What happens when I mobilize?

When you hit the "mobilize"-button, the divisions in your mobilization pool will be placed in your reserve pool and will be available for deployment 3 months later. At the same time, a share of your population (in the home-provinces of your mobilized divisions) is converted to soldier POPs, to support the new divisions.

NOTE! This will affect your production. It seems that people for the new soldier POPs will primarily be taken from farmer and laborer POPs, but if you have a relatively large mobilization pool, and/or relatively few farmer/laborer POPs, people will be taken from clerk/craftsman (or other) POPs.

What happens when I de-mobilize?

The opposite thing, basically. All your mobilized divisons are removed, and your mobilized soldier POPs are converted to laborers/farmers. It's important to note that even if people for the soldier POPs were taken from clerk or craftsmen POPs during mobilization, they will still be converted to laborers/farmers when de-mobilized.

How is my score calculated?

A full explanation of the scoring system can be found here here

What determines whether or not I can use the canals?

Once a canal has been built, any nation can send ships through it, as long as it is not at war with the nation controlling the canal's key province. The key province for the Panama Canal is Panama, while the key province for the Suez Canal is Zigazag. Note the distinction between controlling a province and owning it; "your" side in a war doesn't need to own the province, just control it.

Diplomacy

How do I annex other nations?

Peaceful annexation à la EU2 is not possible in Victoria.

When it comes to military annexation, there is a difference between civilized and uncivilized nations. Uncivilized nations can be annexed no matter how large they are (as long as you occupy enough of it), while civilized nations having a size of 4 provinces or larger cannot be annexed under any circumstance; you'll need to reduce them to three provinces or less first.

How many provinces is it possible to get in a peace deal?

Contrary to what the manual says, it is possible to get more than 3 provinces from a civilized nation in a peace deal. So far, I haven't heard of any specific limit, other than what's mentioned above, concerning annexation.

What determines how much prestige I lose when declaring war?

  • If the target has -100 prestige or less then it costs 1 prestige to attack them.
  • If the target is close to or higher than your power level it will cost less than 100 prestige to attack them.
  • If the target is far weaker than you, but has greater than -100 prestige it will cost 100 prestige to attack them.
  • In V1.02 and onwards the hit for breaking a peace treaty is 100 prestige.

What is "badboy"?

"Badboy" (BB) is a measure of how "naughty" the other nations consider you to be. It will increase when you e.g. conquer provinces you aren't entitled to (= non-cores) or annex uncivilized nations, and it will decrease over time and when you grant independance to parts of your nation (=releasing satellites)

How can I see how much "badboy" I've got?

Press F12 to open the console, enter "badboy", et voilà! Doesn't work prior to 1.03, tho'.

How can I see how much "badboy" other nations have?

In-game, you can't. You have to peek inside the savegame if you want to know this.

What is a "badboy"-war? When do they occur?

A "badboy"-war will occur when your neighbours get fed up with your imperialistic behaviour and declare war on you to "punish" you. The exact point at which this happens is hard to determine, since relative military strength is taken into account. If you're strong enough, you might never see a "badboy"-war.

How do I get the AI to sell me provinces?

There are a few steps you need to take to ensure your province purchasing proposals will be accepted:

  • Make sure you have very good relatios with the other country, usually +160 at least. if you do this, the cost should be fairly cheap, especially if you load up the bid with techs.The better the relations,. the better the chance for success.
  • Make sure your badboy isn't too high. Even if they love you, they usually won't trade anything--and especially not land--if you're being seen as an aggressor state.
  • Make sure the majority of the population of the province you're trying to buy isn't the other state's national culture.

Every nation has national cultures, living in "core territories", which are that country's main citizens. The number varies. For the Prussians, it's just North Germans; for the Germans, it's both North and South Germans. For the Austrians, it's South German, Czech, Hungarian, and Slovene. For the Russians it's Russian, Byelorussian, and Ukrainian and Uralic. The exact national cultures for each country can be found in the save file.

In order to buy national cores or provinces that contain a majority of that country's national pop, you have to offer extravagant amounts of money. Usually more than 1 million pounds. However it is doable.

But, on the other hand, you can easily buy non national culture provinces. In one game as Prussia/Germany in the GC, I have purchased all of Austria's non core territories, all of Russia's non core territories, as well as having taken over Denmark, much to the chagrin of my multiplayer partner.

What is a "satellite"?

A "satellite" is a nation that considers another to be its master. The satellite is independent, with control of its economic and political matters, but it can't declare war freely nor enter alliances with nations other than its master.

How do I create a satellite?

During the peace resolution of a war, the loser can be made the satellite of the winner. This requires a warscore of 70 (but may actually be higher/lower than this, due to other factors in the peace resolution equation).

Outside of war, you can release satellites via your diplomacy screen. The selection here is based on which year it is (compared to contents of revolt.txt), which provinces you control and that the satellite-to-be doesn't already exist.

Which benefits do I get from creating satellites?

If a nation is satellited as part of a peace resolution, the master will receive all provinces it has claims to that the satellite controls, even to the point of the satellite keeping nothing but their capital.

A peacefully created satellite will reduce your Badboy rating proportionate to the number of provinces the satellite is given.

Which long-term gains do I get from satellites?

  • Masters gain prestige based on the standing of their satellites.
  • Satellites have an "ever-lasting" defensive alliance with their master, and masters have military access to their satellites.
  • Satellites tend to have good relations with their masters, so it's unlikely they'll declare war on you. (Nice solution to bothersome enemies.)
  • Satellites can act as buffers between you and nations you don't want to border.

How can I get rid of satellites or get rid of my satellite status?

You can't get rid of a satellite, but you can declare war on it by cancelling the alliance and the military access you have. It will still remain your satellite, tho'.

If you are a satellite and wish to change that, you have to declare war on your master and not lose that war (either winning or getting a white peace).

A succesfull revolution, for either master or satellite, ends all alliances, including satellite status, between countries.

What is a "dominion"?

A "dominion" is pretty much like a satellite, except that they have a full alliance with their masters, rather than just a defensive alliance.

In events, there are separate commands for making/releasing a dominion, but when it comes to releasing satellites via the diplomacy screen, it seems to depend on if the state that the releases new capital is in has been granted statehood or not, statehood meaning the the releasee will be a satellite, "colonyhood" that it will be a dominion.

How do prestige and badboy affect diplomacy?

If you have negative prestige, you won't be able to open negotiations with other nations.

If you are starting to rack up badboy points, other nations will be a lot more hesitant to deal with you, and you'll have to offer more to close diplomatic deals. The effect is gradual, but you'll definitely start noticing it when you pass 25 badboy points.

How can I get provinces for my allies as part of peace deals?

When you suggest peace-deals, you cannot set aside provinces that will go to your allies; you can only get provinces for yourself. The only way your allies can get provinces is if you give them to them afterwards. Note that you will keep any BB for provinces gained in the peace-deal even if you choose to pass the provinces on to allies afterwards.


Technology and research

How does research work, actually?

In the research screen, you'll normally be given a choice among 5 technologies. After having selected one of them, there are 2 things you need to do to get it:

  • You must allocate 9 or 10 Research Points (RP) to it. In revolutions a tech can cost 14RP if it is in the late game. Usually these will be taken directly from your RP pool, keeping it at zero. Only when your current research has gotten all its' RP will you start accumulating a surplus in your RP pool.
  • You must spend at least a year researching it. The countdown for this will be suspended if you haven't yet allocated all the necessary RP and currently have a negative RP pool. Note that techs that cost 9 RP will only take 90% of a year to finish.

Getting a technology is only half the fun. You also have inventions that may (or may not) grant you benefits. Inventions work like events, usually having one or more technologies among their prerequisites. For details about the assorted technologies and inventions, I recommend consulting [3].

Why can't I select research in a certain field?

Firstly, if you have a research establishment other than Traditional Academic, it changes how your options for research are picked from the assorted research fields. Details about this are in the manual (page 43 in the English version).

Secondly, some of the techs aren't available until certain dates, e.g. some of the later army techs. If you have reserched all techs in a field except the ones that aren't available yet, you won't see any techs available for research in that field, nor be given options from other fields to compensate. Consult the Techtionary for details about when techs become available for research.

How does the game pick research projects to choose from?

The information below is based on the Traditional Academic Circle, which is the default setting when you play a grand campaign.

Each tech area is divided up in 5 application areas, with 5 applications each. When the game needs to pick a new researchable application, it takes one of each tech area, if available. At first, this may appear to be totally random, but in reality it isn't.

The game simply cycles through the five application areas for each new research program. It uses some sort of internal index value, derived from the amount of research programs completed, which iterates through the 5 application areas. So, if for the current research project it picked from the first application area for each of the tech groups, your next pickable tech applications will all come from the second application areas, and after that the third application areas, etc.

So, to give an exampe, let's take the industry tech tree to get to our interchangable parts, which for all intends and purposes is one of the most important techs around, as it lets you produce machine parts.

  • appl. area 1: water wheel power - practical steam - high and low pressure steam engine
  • appl. area 2: publishing industry - mechanical production - interchangable parts
  • appl. area 3: mechanized mining - clean coal - cheap iron
  • appl. area 4: experimental rail - early rail - iron rail
  • appl. area 5: basic chemistry - medicine - inorganic

Let's say we are Austria, and starting a GC. We have 26 starting techs, and so, like clockwork, the game picks the researchable tech applications all from the second application areas, which for our industry focus here is the mechanical production tech. The only deviation is the navy tech tree. There the choice is Fire Control Systems, but that's only because the Steamers tech from the second area is non-researchable yet, as it needs the Battleship Column Doctrine from the first area, which we haven't got yet.

Right. If you pick the mechanical production now, then your next available choice will become the clean coal, followed by early rail, and medicine. That was area 5, so it resets to area 1 after this, and thus we end up with a choice for High and Low Pressure Steam Engine. That's another prerequisite for our Interchangable parts. Pick it, and the Interchangable Parts will follow as next in line.

Now, what happens if you don't pick the suggested Mechanical Production as first tech to research? Well, being the thoroughly dependable scientists, the choices neatly rotate in sequence, thus we end up with the first available tech in area 2 five research projects later. Then, and only then, will the Mechanical Production be available to pick again. And thus we have pushed back getting the Interchangable Parts for five consequetive research picks, which is at least 5 years.

Same goes for High and Low Pressure Steam Engine. Fail to pick it when the choice is offered, and you have to wait an additional 4 times before the choice is offered again.

I've researched all the prerequisite techs for an invention, but still, it won't trigger. Why is this?

Inventions can be a bit tricky. All inventions have a startdate indicating the earliest possible date that it will trigger. They also have a deathdate, after which they become much more likely to trigger. Also, tho' unconfirmed, countries with negative prestige seem to have a harder time getting inventions to trigger.

My Research Points suddenly went negative. How did that happen?

When you initiate a technology trade, you will pay 9 or 10 RP for each tech you get. If that is more than you have, your RP total will become negative, and might stop your own research for a while until it no longer is negative. Note that if the trade was initiated by someone else, you don't need to pay the RP cost.

Why do some techs cost 9 RP and others 10?

Depending on your national value, some techs might be cheaper than others:

  • National value Order - Army & Navy techs cost 9 RP.
  • National value Liberty - Culture, Industry & Commerce techs cost 9 RP.
  • National value Equality - All techs cost 10 RP

Modifying Victoria

What can I change myself in Victoria?

Short story: pretty much everything

Long story: scenario setup, events, unit characteristics, production specifications, technology effects and relations, leaders, graphics (to a certain extent), political parties, all in-game text (including names of places and people). And more

Where can I find information on how to do it?

Furthermore, the Scenarios and modifications forum is the place for asking questions and getting tips on how to modify the game.

An excellent set of guides can be found on this wiki

Are there any mods made for the game? E.g. like C.O.R.E and AGC/EEP?

Yes. The Victoria Improvements Project is the largest mod project for Victoria, and has already produced a great number of additional events and other additions/changes to the game, with lots more under development.

There are also other mods, addressing specific areas or aspects of the game. Take a look in the User made scenarios and mods-forum to find these. There, you'll also find tools to help modifying the game.

Other things

What do I need to do in order to become civilized?

Main article: How to bring civilization to the uncivilized

China, Persia, and Japan have nation-specific event chains that (can) civilize them.

Any uncivilized nation can become civilized if they achieve certain criteria. These vary depending on which version of the game you are playing. In Vanilla Victoria, you need:

  • A prestige rating of 100,
  • An industrial rating of 50, and
  • A military rating of 10

All these must be true at the same time. (So it doesn't help if you've had prestige >100 if you've since fallen below that before you were able to fulfill the other two criteria.)

In Revolutions, you need another 25 industrial points and another 15 military points.

VIP lowers the numbers (to 10 prestige and 6 military points) but requires that certain techs be researched and the 'Ministerial Gov't' event have fired.

I'm playing revolutions and my question isn't covered

Try here. It's an excellent resource for Revolutions-related questions.

I can't find an answer to my question here; what do I do now?

First, you can do a search for it on the Paradox forums. Lots of questions have been asked and answered before, so it's worth taking a look for it.

You can also simply ask the question yourself. People at the forum tend to be friendly and helpful, and chances are you'll get an informative answer out of it

When doing so, please keep in mind a couple of things:

  • Make sure that you have read and understood the [[forum:544261|general forum rules}] as well as the Vicky-specific ones.
  • There's a better chance of getting the answer you're looking for if you post it in the appropriate forum; if it's e.g. about modifications, post it in the "scenarios and modifications forum".


ck:Frequently Asked Questions hoi2:General Gameplay FAQ

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