All That We Have Lost, A Comprehensive Comparison Of Victoria 2 And 3 And How Far Paradox Has Fallen 

"DLC Exploitation" is pretty much Paradox's entire market strategy. Pretty much everything they've put out has hundreds of dollars of DLC.

You even missed how Vic2 had a closed economy compared to Vic3. That means in Vic2 every good that was used had to be produced somewhere in the world (for example at the beginning you have problems getting Machine Parts, because only a limited amount is produced worldwide). In Vic3 every good is available at every number, just the price goes up. Goods are made in some 5th dimension and shipped to earth.

They quite literally could’ve released Vic II again with updated graphics, a few minor tweaks and new features, and people would’ve been happy. How do they mess up so horribly, so consistently?

My dad plays a lot of Victoria 2, he bought Victoria 3 and got it refunded winthin the 2 hours, his review was something like "When people would rather go back to playing the prequel, you've FAILED making a sequel". I had the same experience with Civilization 5 and 6.

*blinks at Abe Lincoln's stats card* Er... Lincoln was NEVER thought of as "intelligentsia". He was a lawyer, yes, and in fact very intelligent - and ALSO from the backwoods of Illinois, then considered a "frontier" state. He was routinely lampooned by his opposition as a rube or snake-oil salesman. The only people who thought of him as an "abolitionist" were Southerners, who routinely used it as an epithet. "Inspirational orator"? His Gettysburg Address was initially thought to be INSULTING because it was so short (this being an era when people came out to listen to politicians talk for literally hours at a stretch as a form of entertainment as much as anything else). Victoria 3 rates Lincoln as he is popularly seen by modern eyes - but virtually no one of his day would have used these sorts of descriptions while he was alive without being stared at by everyone else.

To rephrase my comment on Spudgun's video on the MP side of Victoria 3: The weirdest decision in Vic3 is that despite abandoning player input in the war system, there are still plenty of wars. It's almost like it's a lazy excuse to leave a massive mechanic blank and push the player into the needlessly complex factory system or the nakedly basic political system.

Dear Paradox, This year I was facing a difficult decision on wether I should buy Victoria 3 or Terra Invicta for Christmas but now you've made my decision so much easier and got me to spare my money! Thank you Paradox, it's the small gestures like these that count! ;)

I think for the most part Indie devs is where we need to look for any good games of any genre the big companies are worthless. I am certain that some Indie dev is going to make a spiritual successor to Victoria 2 that will be the Victoria 3 everyone actually wanted.

People defended CK3 being content scarce because CK2 had plenty of DLC, so what's Victoria's 3 excuse?

The most obvious symptom of Paradox's ideological capture seems to be the whole research and development thing. They refuse to admit that some countries are more developed and better at some things than other countries.

I feel like Arch only has one tone of voice. You can tell he's disappointed but at the same time he's speaking like he always does.

Didn't they put wiz in charge of it? The guy who kept removing feature after feature from Stellaris to cover up the fact that they broke the piss poor ai HE MADE!?

I can imagine some higher up at paradox saying: "African nations have different tech trees and start at a disadvantage? That's rascischt! YOU ARE FIRED!"

You saved me $50 and I appreciate it, thank you!

Victoria 2 has been my most played game. I understand its not perfect and there are weird quirks of the system But, it was fun. It felt like you really were back in Victorian times, conquering the world (or recreating old empires like Byzantium) , building your economy to support your army and population living standards along the way. And changing history. Victoria 3 is like someone took Vicky 2's old corpse, reanimated it, ripped the beating heart out, tossed the body down the stairs, and shamed everyone staring in HORROR at the grizzly display. Paradox just wants money the cheapest way possible, which means they'll use same bad strategies as mobile game devs.

My own little conspiracy theory: If the game sells they'll sell missing mechanics as dlc. If not they'll scramble to rework base game systems to attract players back.

There are some things I really like about the game. But it's a Victorian-era economy sim that does not simulate capitalism lol. Instead of simplifying the economy, I wish it build on what came before, how about capitalists creating actual companies, trying to compete with one another, trying to create products of a different price and quality, trying to create monopolies and trusts, maybe adding the ability of sectors of the economy to be nationalized, some having protectionism, and other others completely deregulated at the same time. To be honest, I did not have a problem with not being able to control each unit, I wanted a system that would make WW1 western front possible and I love that you are able to take everything you want without firing a bullet. I am still disappointed with the combat system we got, there are too few order types, wish we could give generals actual plans like ''take Paris by Chrismas''. Westernization was a slog in Victory 2, it was mainly waiting until you were allowed to have fun, but still think some form of it must be in the game. it's so important to the time period.

It appears that the Paradox dev team are making games for their project managers and bean counters, instead making them for their core audience. They are losing their indie spirit, which is a major problem that all successful game developers must face, and very few will find an answer for.

The slavery debate in this game is the most backwards, tone-deaf handling on the US Civil War I've ever seen. Fears about abolishing the slave trade is what CAUSED the Civil War! Lincoln was an extremely controversial president at the time to the point of his inauguration literally causing a real insurrection, one that persisted throughout his presidency. Arguably, his political campaign directly caused the war, and his presidency was wholly devoted to dealing with that conflict. Portraying him as a saint with no negative traits on the nation is stupid. Ending the slave trade early would have just triggered the Civil War sooner, not prevented it. This framing only makes sense if the player is by default on the side of the south and is getting them to eliminate the trade on their own. The north never would have forced a war to make the south give up their slaves, and the south wouldn't have started a war without feeling that their slave trade was threatened. The north went to war to keep the south from leaving the union, which in turn happened based on fears of slavery being outlawed, not because it actually was at the time. Lincoln made the war directly about slavery later, after it had already started.

I imagine there was that one guy in the office that got excited for Victoria three and he wanted to bring a lot of what made Victoria two great to this game as well, but the lead developers just looked at him and said "Your opinion doesn't really matter here because you don't understand marketing".

Paradox: *creates dogshit installment of beloved series* Arch: "And I took that personally."

Paradox is interesting. They let their original CEO go in 2018 replacing him with CEO Ebba Ljungerud who introduced wokeness, diversity, etc etc to a company making niche products. With growing competition in the indi and AA scene. In 2021 she is fired and they restore the original CEO back in charge of the company. Right now anything developed under her reign is going to be shit. Paradox Interactive won't become decent again until we purge the cycle of games she had developed.

Historical revisionism crosses a line for me. I like playing these games for the damned history

We should be grateful to Victoria 3 for showing us how great Victoria 2 is.

This is a romanticized version of how the game devs wished history had gone down. Reeking of equity.

I find the addition of diversity quotas in US and EU art depicting the previous centuries fetishistic at this point.

I always get paradox and creative assembly mixed. Because both release an early access game that need you to pay for at least 200$for updates if you want a full game (after few years of course)

"[Frederick Bester] the Paradox CEO had no faith an economic simulator would sell..." Because abstruse management sim games were never, ever a thing. Not for football, or trade, or anything like that.

REFUND Just as an amusing note about literacy in Zululand, isiZulu was first codified by a Norwegian minister in 1850 and the first publication in isiZulu was a bible in 1883. The related language isiXhosa was slightly earlier, a Scottish minister codified it in 1823. In short, at the start of the game the entire native population would be illiterate. It would be impossible for them to learn except by personal experience or word of mouth. Which is nothing to be ashamed of, in the scheme of human development the British were relative late comers to reading and writing, but certainly it was a major factor in their conquest. Just like the illiterate Britons didn't do particularly well against the literate Romans. Writing continued to be almost exclusively done in Latin for more than 10 centuries. Highly literate societies like Meiji Japan could, at great effort and thanks in part to the small but important trade connections between the Tokugawa Shogunate and the Dutch Republic in the city of Nagasaki, meant that Japan's intellectuals had quietly stayed abreast of western developments so that once modernization was encouraged rather than discouraged Japan could rapidly learn how to catch up. That said they were still dependent on the British for decades.

as a stellaris player seeing victoria 3 op africa and no westernization mechanics, its kinda like if they made stellaris 2 and make all primitive races being able to defeat your invasions and somehow having a high understsand of space engeneering because "primitive" will be the next nono word for the mass midia

The moment I saw that one of the main victory conditions was Egalitarian Utopia, I knew I would never even try to enter this series.

Give me a game that looks like Victoria 3 with the mechanics of Victoria 2 and some more fleshed out mechanics. I'll be very happy with that.

Also the access to the market in VIC2 was based on prestige... so you had to build up to get access to the goods. Now everyone gets access...

When I booted up Vic3 and the narrator said "It's Victorian' time" I knew I had made the right choice in pirating this game. Truly masterpiece by paradox

This sounds very similar to what happened to Sword of the Stars 2, though that suffered from both the devs and Paradox deciding to completely nuke a perfectly functional system they had created for the first game...for something immensely worse. I don't know why they would do that, if they had just built on top of it like they had with the expansions SotS 1 had but with prettier graphics and larger fleets people would've enjoyed it. I would've enjoyed it. Now it's "we're going to sell a shell of a game and fill it later with dlc".

You know this might sound elitist af but im going to say it. Victoria 3 feels like it was made for people that couldn't play Victoria 2 very well.

Hunter Gatherer Tribe with 40 population has entered the chat Hunter Gatherer Tribe with 40 population builds a university Hunter Gatherer Tribe with 40 population teaches Critical River Spirit Theory

Thing is, you could make a great Victoria 3 by improving the bad parts of Victoria 2 and leaving the good ones in. Make capitalists less random in their decision-making, so that they build factories that actually give the best possible profit margins. Make westernization more about implementing actual western social institutions. Make more, smaller provinces and historically accurate states. There are a lot of small touches to put into Vic2 to make it a nearly perfect Victorian simulator, but making this kind of Victoria 3 was not the right thing.

But Arch-Senpai, according to the shills the game was meant to be bad.

I wonder if they made it so simple so they can fill it up with dlc that will make it more like the game it should've been. Let's not forget it paradox

Why do I have a feeling that all the "changes" that were done, were motivated by a personal political views of the new developers and managers working on the project?

13:35 "Something invented in Germany will reach Nigeria the next day." Now if they substituted Nigeria for China then that'd be 100% realistic : D

It's an amazing thing that the many oral story telling traditions in Africa lends itself to such a robust and literate population. All those hours of memorizing spoken word over reading written accounts makes a culture that truly appreciates books!

Let’s all try and guess what the DLC will be called

Arch, please change your audio mixing. The background music feels like it's not in the background and it's making it hard to hear what you are saying

Its a pretty mobile game, NOT a Paradox game

africa is basicaly wakanda foreva in vic3

*whips slave* “Yea not a big fan of that Andrew Jackson fella, he’s a bit of a racist”

These people never even looked up the definition of "bigoted", they just us it as "disagrees with me and is evil"

The bigoted traits and forced diversity is so blatantly anti-white and anti-European. I did not expect Paradox to do it so openly.

now I want to play vic2

Yeah when I saw Spiff make a remote island the powerhouse of the world I knew the game had some leftie, "Everyone is just like everyone else!" nonsense baked into it.

Came for the analysis of two games I've never played but would like to as a result of being an EUIV player (well, I'd like to play Vic2 a LOT more than 3), stayed for the relatively rare, but much appreciated, anti-wokeness logical commentary. Earned yourself a sub.

Victoria 3 Wakanda edition

Welp, I'll be waiting for the industry crash and the rise of the indies

I don't think any game will be able to match Vic2's economy. Part of what made its economy so great was a mistake when switching the economy's code from an older program to a newer one. It didn't translate very well so it confused the devs, but was still functional. This means there is literally 0 people on earth who 100% understand vic2's economy. We have ideas of how it works, but that's the best we have. Sort of like the real world economy.

wait..... when you get a tech or whatever upgrade, you, the player... have to manually change ALL of the buildings tech?

Granted, I wanted an easier Vic 2. I’m always put off by the learning curve even though I worked out how to play EU4 and CK2. But this… I wanted a slightly easier experience, not someone holding my hand the entire time.

People wanted a better version of Vic 2 and instead they got well... shit.

Remember what one of the devs said in Dev Diary 0: "Everything is Political: Politics is at the heart of Victoria 3, and all major features should in some way tie back into the Pops and Interest Groups that form the core of the game’s politics." Its not so much about what is said, but what is implied by "Everything is Political', a popular catchphrase among who? Yes, you know who: the progressives. When I read this I got my spider-sense tingling, some voice in the back of my head warning me about this bullshit. I feel vindicated in my suspicions now: Paradox has been ideologically compromised.

Wakanda simulator

Victoria II was the first game I played in PC by accident, I remember looking at steam at 9 years old in 2013 and finding it. I’ve even playing it ever since-it got me into EU4 and CK2/3 also HOI4 It will what’s have a special place in my heart

Wokeness is performative narcissism

So warfare is basically just stellaris ground invasions, the part of that game players universally hate and what reworked or removed? Who thought that would be a good idea, atleast naval combat exists on stellaris.

Makes me proud to know I'm one of those Vic 2 players

@45:10 Its anti-white or anti-European. What those art pieces really mean to inform the player of, is that the Western world was always "Diverse and non-homogenic" in terms of demographics. You are supposed to belive is that the changing ethnic and racial demographics of The West that has been forced upon us for over 80 years since WW2, was always the case and was always a good thing for us(Europeans). Our homelands nerver really belong to us you see, we were never the "white" countries or European countries, we were always "multicultural". It is nothing but ideologically determined gaslighting and hatred. All for the crime of being better at building civilization then others. After all, if the Africans were so great? why did the Zulus not invent the machine gun or breach loading rifles so they could beat back the European colonizers? -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I think there is a resurgence of anti-Semitism because at this point in time Europe has not yet learned how to be multicultural, and I think we are going to be part of that transformation which must take place. Europe is not going to be the monolithic societies the once were in the last century. Jews are going to be at the center of that. It's a huge transformation for Europe to make. They are now going into a multicultural mode and Jews will be resented because of our leading role. But without that leading role, and without that transformation, Europe will not survive. - Barbara Lerner Spectre source: The Jewish Community of Sweden (September 12, 2010)" -------------------------------------------------------------------------- =Critical Race Theory Explained= Critical Race Theory (CRT) is an answer to the question: "Why did the Civil Rights Acts and Movements fail to end racism?" CRT is not merely a critique of society but a plan to revolutionize society. [CRT is based on two premises:] 1. Race is a "social construct" invented by White people, specifically to marginalize, exclude, and oppress non-white people. Therefore "Whiteness" is an "ideology." 2. White countries were founded upon the principles of "White supremacy" (excluding non-white peoples while supporting Whites) Therefore, "racism" is not an act of individual discrimination, but an ingrained "systemic" feature of all White civilizations. The conclusion is that White people "do not exist in reality" but are collectively guilty for "White supremacy" because all Whites benefit from unearned "White Privilege" CRT can be summarized as "the theoretical understandings of anti-white politics" [CRT proposes 3 main solutions:] 1. "Deconstructing Whiteness:" Telling White people that they do not exist, that race is a social construct, and that believing in race will somehow cause genocide. 2. "Decolonizing:" Removing White influence from Media, education, academia, etc. This involves rewriting history to be more "diverse" and "inclusive"(less white) 3. "Racial Justice:" Transferring wealth, territory, resources, and political power from White people to non-white people, as redemption from the original sin of "Whiteness." This process is frequently labelled D.E.I. "Diversity" [Replacing White people] "Equity" [Enforcing "Racial Justice"] "Inclusion" [Enforcing "Diversity"]

Thank you Arch. Many of your youtube peers I am subscribed to sold out to paradox. If any, mostly minimal criticism about the game. Its good to be able to rely on your integrity.

Another thing I noticed, when starting a game with Lower Canada, French Canadians are viewed as an accepted culture and not as discriminated culture. I'm sorry, my mom got refused service for being French in the 1970s in Montréal. So you can just imagine how funny I found it that my 1836 French Canadians where all lovingly included in the same group as the Anglos and only the native populations where discriminated against. Progressives seem to forget completely about oppression when the skin colour is wrong.

To rephrase my comment on the stream on twitch after the youtube one: It isn't that the borders on states on the map are 1:1 to CK3, it's that they merged certain duchies from CK3, usually the smaller ones, to create what would constitute states on the map in Vicky 3. It's not that they planted them directly, but that it looks like they're working off the previous model in some capacity. It's not like the borders between duchies in either game are entirely historically accurate either; they changed throughout history, which is why you can find conflicting maps about exactly where certain borders of certain polities ended. They seemed to have based the exact borders in many parts of Vicky 3 on where borders existed for many duchies/kingdoms/combinations of duchies in CK3. I noticed this while glancing at the UK on the map. By comparison, there's almost no resemblance to, for example, eu4, or hoi4. Eu4 itself has been changed many times on the county level, and it's completely different from where borders are in CK3.

Redditors are still coping and malding lmao. They are crying over this video so much it's so funny. They can't accept that the game is just shit

as i said in your pervious video on victoria, the only mechanic i did not really like was the pop management system, mostly due to how i never got used to it and how it affected my military by preventing active solders for replenishing due to a pop having changed to another class. its removal is however not worth everything that has been dumed down, especially not more than three times the price of vicy 2. in comparison to vicy 3, crusader kings 3 feels like a proper sequel despite everyting it has simplified.

We’ve been begging for Victoria 3 for so long and they insult us with THIS.

I'm also watching other people about Victoria 3. I can say is that there is a lot of Copium. Most saying the game is great... After getting a lot of DLC's in the future.

To be honest as soon as I got to see how the „realistic and great economy simulation“ actually worked, I got really pissed at all those idiots how claim it is one of the greatest eco sims of all time. One of the comments here already mentioned that vic2 had an actual supply and demands type good System. Plus all the points arch made. Having studied economics at university I had some good laugh at the steam Reviews (manly the german ones, which by the way have an average of 80% positiv). Oh and dont forget that there is no proper calculation of Inflation. XD But I am sure after a few 100€ worth of dlc it is going to be a somewhat decent to good game. Maybe. At least it is fun to follow this giant dumpster fire. XD

12 years, huh? Could it be that most of the people who made Vic 2 weren't the ones making Vic 3, hence not understanding the fundamentals of the game? Let's hope for them their game won't go down to oblivion like DoW3 did. Honestly, I wish Paradox DLC policy would go down at some point, to teach them a lesson.

If I wanted to play base Stellaris, I would play base Stellaris. In fact, its worse than base Stellaris

The picture on the right is a perfect example of "Socialist Realism", the only art style that was endorsed in the USSR.

I refunded Vicki 3 and bought the complete collection of 2.

Hearts of Iron IV was such a downgrade from III, it isn't surprising Victoria would get the same treatment.

Now I'm really excited about Victoria 2. Especially since it's currently on sale.

I love how Paradox learned from CA to silence most popular reviewers by NDA and "promotional material". Angry Joe after Rome 2 review was making a lot promotional content for CA. So he couldn't make reviews.

Woketoria 3. Anyway, back to vic2

Tbh paradox doesn't even make good games anymore. Even the newest dlc expansions are buggy or bad.

The Californication of all media continues unabated. There are BANTU slaves in Romania !!

What a great ad for Victoria 2. I'll pass on 3.

i feel no shame for pirating this game

So sick of shitty games and their delusions of grandeur. The political bend of Vicky 3 is very obvious despite how subtle and clever they thought they were being, you hit the nail on the head Arch.

Decadent times make decadent games.

i had Vic2 in my steam library since 2015(got it in a paradox bundle from humble). never played it till everyone said that 3 was a dumbed down version of 2. vic2 might not look great but yeah, it plays way better than anything i have seem from vic3. also, i love the runaway economy of capitalists doing their own thing.

20:48 No Arch no they did not.The romans had lot's of mines but the mines were actually pretty small since they couldn't mine too deeply due not having proper draining engines.And they didn't forgetabout it either since the first viable pumps usable in mines were invented during the middle age the romans did not have them.

The second game was made by men. The third made by those who will never be women.

It goes to show how modern paradox hates the common individual as they have crafted this game completely top down rather then from bottom up.

Silly Arch we haven't lost anything they just have figured out how much they are gonna charge for the DLC to get basic functionality back into the game

There’s a part of me that wants to believe a lot of these changes were made to give the game “mass appeal,” I.e. cater to the filthy casuals, but the more reviews I read, the more I see and hear, I’m pretty sure there must’ve been some political chicanery going on behind the scenes as well. I’m just not convinced it was entirely a-political to do away with the “uncivilized,” “westernization,” and certain aspects of the colonialism mechanics. I’m not even sure that you could label certain nations “uncivilized” these days without some blowback…..but that might just be me reading too much into it. It’s entirely possible they just messed up and/or have rigged the game to require paid DLC later down the line.

Victoria 3 simply transcended from "game that exploit (in-game) companies" to "(real) companies that exploit game" :>

sigh the ability to directly educate and promote your pops manually is huge that's not in victoria 3 the way the devs treat you they think you are to stupid to manage anything

14:10 it should be done by trade. 17:30 sorry arch I call BS on that. When the Portuguese introduced the Japanese to guns it was like a kid in a candy shop and the Japanese were obsessed with firearms for centuries. They knew how to use them and they continually traded with the Dutch for them. Also their army was extremely well drilled albeit it was neglected during the Edo period 32:46 Imperator 'rrrrome' has a decent warfare system albeit it is almost identical to CK2 except with the addition of supplies. Other than those 3 points, good video I agree with everything else you say.

The fact that Paradox is literally living up to its name will never not be goddamned fucking hilarious to me

I see one use for this game: To get into Victoria if 2 is too hard for you. It can serve as an onboarding experience.

Not even 15 years into the game, china has invaded and controlled all of continental france. Much immersion