The strategy game Victoria 3 has received a new expansion and a free update on Steam. MeinMMO strategy expert Schuhmann has played the new update, which came with the DLC “Pivot of the Empire”, and it didn’t go so well.

What is new now: The new 10€ DLC “Pivot of the Empire” was released on November 21, 2024, and focuses mainly on India. However, it also brought many new game systems with update 1.80. For example, the way to exert political influence has changed, and the culture system has been completely overhauled.

So I thought: Okay, I’ll try my luck again with my usual favorites: USA, France, Russia, and Germany. My experiences with Victoria 3 are based on 650 hours of gameplay – I spent about 30 hours with the new version.

And the state bankruptcy looms forever

My relationship with Victoria 3: I have spent 650 hours with Victoria, and yet I just can’t get into the game. Because Victoria 3 is essentially a constant race against state bankruptcy, which arises when too much debt is incurred.

The game has about 543 nested game systems, but the most important thing is to invest as much money as possible into the expansion and growth of your economy so that you grow at maximum speed while just managing to avert state bankruptcy.

A state bankruptcy essentially means game over. While you can still cheat your way into bankruptcy, you generally want to avoid that. After all, you have your pride.

The good thing: You can keep incurring more debts as long as the economy grows fast enough. There is no debt brake – meaning no limit on how much debt you can incur per week – in Victoria 3.

Like Christian Lindner in real life, you hope for continuous technological progress in Victoria 3, which will fix everything – while social spending devours you.

Victoria 3 leads you from plow to tractor – and to ruin

What’s with the technological progress? Victoria 3 simulates the industrialization of society:

• At the beginning of the game, you cultivate the fields only with simple tools, ploughs, and scythes,
• later add railroads, fertilizers, and steam-powered machines.
• By the early 20th century, electricity, tractors, and super-fertilizers will be in full swing.

However, switching to a new technology is always a thing: Because the transition to the new technology initially costs money and time: Tracks have to be laid, productions have to be adapted, power plants have to be built. One hopes for a significant leap in revenue from such technological changes, but in reality, it first costs money.

What about social spending? In Victoria, you start in Germany as Prussia with a monarchy and the nobility as the ruling caste. The peasants earn practically nothing.

With technological progress, new population groups come to power. In Germany, the SPD forms as a workers’ party, and they make ever-increasing demands: They want absurd things like sick pay or protection for the poor – the health and education systems tear additional holes into the budget. A massive bureaucracy has to be built up.

This was my undoing: As Germany in Victoria 3, you are on a clear historical journey and on a war and diplomacy course:

• First, you have to somehow wrest the province of Schleswig from Denmark, you start as Prussia without a navy, and in fact, building one is also pointless. Meanwhile, you try to bring all the northern German states (including the stubborn complainers in Hamburg, Bremen, and Oldenburg) into your power block, the customs union.
• After that, you have to deal with Austria to at least establish northern Germany – and by deal with, I essentially mean a war of aggression.
• Then you go against France because you need to win Alsace-Lorraine and southern Germany to form Germany – which will more or less trigger World War I.

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I started with good intentions and wanted to budget wisely

This is how my last game went: I went into my last game already as a burned child: In the countless hours I spent with the new DLC, I had driven Russia and then France into ruin repeatedly. Only with the USA did I have a successful, albeit somewhat boring, game.

Because Russia and France have to be developed into a communist utopia; with the USA, it’s enough to rake in as much money as possible.

So I wanted to budget wisely with Germany. I spent so much time building the economy and colonizing Africa that I could only deal with Denmark late in the game.

By the time I was ready to attack France, they had transformed into a world empire and built a huge army, against which I kept breaking my teeth in complicated 20-front wars.

High taxes drive my people to revolt – and then they refuse to pay taxes

Ultimately, I redirected my now huge industry to produce war material, but to do so, I had to raise taxes.

Then I defeated France, but high taxes indirectly led to the collapse of the entire system because people take to the barricades with a declining standard of living. The problem then: If the dissatisfaction is high, people simply refuse to pay taxes, leading to state bankruptcy.

So you have to lower taxes, but that also leads directly to state bankruptcy – my huge army and the massive expenses for the social systems were too much for the economy. France was defeated, Germany finally established, but ruin was simply unavoidable.

Two years ago, I already wrote an article: “Since I started playing the new strategy game on Steam, I understand Olaf Scholz.” After 650 hours, I must say: Now I’m for the debt brake.

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