#Victoria 2 tanks series

If you ever wondered why it seems like most societies in the past held a fairly high opinion of war and those who performed war, this is why the pacifists, generally speaking (there are doubtless exceptions to everything) did not survive. The only sure thing is that failing to violently expand, failing to engage in ruthless conquest, sets a state up inevitably to be a victim of the states that do.Р”Р„s a result, this creates an international system of dog-eat-dog competition where war is normalized and societies essentially compete in the degree that they can successfully militarize themselves and their resource base. But precisely because every state is doing this, most efforts to raise new military power leave states no more secure, because they are matched by all rivals (this is called the security dilemma or, more colorfully, the РІР‚ВRed Queen effectРІР‚в„ў). Consequently each state, in looking to survive, is always looking to expand in order to gain more military power in order to be more secure. The most efficient way to maximize military power is for the state to expand, absorbing new peoples and new productive resources (which in a pre-industrial context, is almost entirely about large amounts of agricultural land) because productivity in society is very low, absorbing new lands and peoples РІР‚вЂњ even at very low efficiency (say, from tax resistance) РІР‚вЂњ is much more effective than attempting to increase domestic productivity. Since the best route to survival is military power, states seek to maximize their military power at nearly all costs. Those states seek first and foremost to survive. The world consists of states which are not restrained by any meaningful laws (at least against aggressive warfare). We need to start by reviewing the situation as it stood in EU4 (or EU3), not only because that provides a set of baseline expectations most Victoria players ( II or III) will have but because it also generally reflects the conditions present at the start of any given VickyII game. You wonРІР‚в„ўt see this anymore, since I think everyone also plays with the second expansion, Heart of Darkness. Subscribe! The loading screen for A House Divided, the first expansion to the game. And if you want updates whenever a new post appears, you can click below for email updates or follow me on twitter ( for updates as to new posts as well as my occasional ancient history, foreign policy or military history musings.

We have spent all of our last post building factories so we can churn out a lot of things which go РІР‚ВboomРІР‚в„ў so letРІР‚в„ўs go ahead and set some of them off! Or РІР‚вЂњ perhaps РІР‚вЂњ not.Р”В«ut first, as always, if you like what you are reading here, please share it if you really like it, you can support me on Patreon.

As weРІР‚в„ўll see, Victoria II has its share of war, but perhaps the most interesting part of its treatment of war is how it РІР‚вЂњ perhaps alone in the Paradox catalog РІР‚вЂњ has a set of emergent mechanics which openly question the efficacy of war in achieving aims, either for individuals or for the state. Consequently, in all of ParadoxРІР‚в„ўs titles, war is a central activity (although perhaps less central in Victoria II than in any of their titles, but then the fact that war consumes 2/5ths of the tech tree should tell you РІР‚Вless centralРІР‚в„ў does not mean РІР‚Вnot central.РІР‚в„ў). It is also an expected convention of the genre in that it is a theme that players expect from strategy games. The military-diplomatic game is the most consistent element in ParadoxРІР‚в„ўs titles and the one set of mechanics that appears in all of them. This week, weРІР‚в„ўre going to turn to how Victoria II treats war and peace. That pop-centric design is going to matter this week as well, precisely because of the way it reorients the player to think about people instead of merely thinking about states when assessing the value of various actions. We also discussed how Victoria II is unique in the Paradox catalog for being a game centered on РІР‚ВpopsРІР‚в„ў РІР‚вЂњ that is on population РІР‚вЂњ more completely simulated and more necessary to the player than other games. Last week, we looked at how Victoria II handles its central, defining theme, the industrial revolution, and the mechanics it employed.

#Victoria 2 tanks series

This is the second part of a three part series ( I) examining the historical assumptions of Paradox InteractiveРІР‚в„ўs 19th and early 20th century grand strategy game, Victoria II.