On October 25, the strategy game Victoria 3 was released on Steam. MeinMMO author Schuhmann says: In other games, it’s about killing a dragon with a group of knights. In Victoria 3, it’s all about the gross domestic product and debts. So many debts.
If you grew up like I did, you learned a few things early on: Be respectful to women and elders, don’t eat yellow snow, and don’t get into debt.
From an early age, I was drilled to spend only as much money as one has – never more.
Having debts is hell. It’s actually strictly forbidden. One takes on debt at most once in a lifetime: If one builds a house, then it’s just okay.
But even then, debts only mean stress and torment: Because now you have to toil for years to service the building savings contract, and can only then go on vacation and sleep soundly at night when it’s paid off.
I would never have thought of buying a television or a mobile phone on credit: That’s the sure way to ruin and to Peter Zwegat, I knew.
That’s why it was a strange moment for me when the then finance minister Olaf Scholz announced that he was fighting the Corona pandemic “with the bazooka” by taking on incredibly many debts. The consequences of the energy crisis, he later said as Chancellor, he would tackle with the “double whammy”.
Okay.
The debts would then be repaid by “growing out of debt.” I could never understand what he meant. That changed once I started playing Victoria 3 on Steam.
This is the net new borrowing of Germany – you can see a “moderate” increase in 2020 and 2021.
More statistics can be found at Statista
Conquer the world, build a perfect society, become an economic power
Well, in the new strategy game Victoria 3, it’s all about debt and growth, at least if you choose this path. Victoria 3 gives you the choice at the beginning of how you want to play:
- If you want to establish the perfect state, with maximum freedom and equality for every citizen, then play as France
- If you want to engulf the world in war, tearing half the globe apart with tanks, play as Germany, that is, Prussia
- But if you want to rise to become the greatest economic power on the planet, choose the USA
Playing Victoria 3 as Prussia, is a strange feeling: The game lasts from 1836 to 1936, and anyone who is not completely dull knows why it is morally tricky to play with Germany during this time.
The game with the USA also deals with slavery and the displacement and extermination of the American indigenous peoples, but at least I don’t have to invade France over Alsace-Lorraine.
Essentially, the game with the USA focuses on economic growth: Your goal is to have the largest economy in the world by 1936.
You can, of course, grow calmly and financially healthy …
With the USA, you start small and the world is fine. You have 35 construction units available, meaning you can build two new factories within six months. That’s financially feasible, the numbers stay green, everything is good.
The capitalists in your country even help you keep the budget with investments. Investments are a double-edged sword:
- If nothing is built or at least nothing funded by capitalists, money accumulates in an investment pool
- When the pool is full, it leads to a deceptive sense of security, because the budget looks good
- However, once the pool is empty and the state has to finance everything itself, you are confronted with reality: debt
You have the choice:
- Build 2 factories and then sit idle in front of the monitor for 5 minutes watching the useless gold reserves rise, but there’s hardly any economic growth.
- But you can also quickly set up 6 new construction companies and then build 4 factories simultaneously: Thus, grow twice as fast. However, you will incur debt.
- You can also set up 12 new construction companies and then build 8 factories simultaneously. However, your budget will show a thick, red minus. Hmm!
“We’ll just grow out of debt”
Ultimately, playing Victoria 3 with the USA is all about growth and debt. Because the joke is: Debt isn’t that bad as a nation. You hardly notice it. You have to pay it off, but the numbers quickly become so immense that the interest barely matters.
The problem arises when the state of “default” occurs, meaning you are so heavily indebted that the bank no longer grants a loan – all construction projects stop and you have to do something.
Then, actually, only bankruptcy helps: All debts are wiped out, but you have to struggle with severe restrictions for the next 10 years.
The state of “default” occurs in Victoria 3 when the debt exceeds a multiple of the gross domestic product. This means conversely:
- The higher the gross domestic product grows, the higher the credit limit grows and the more you can go into debt.
National debt leads to taking the wrong path until the end
This leads to a very strange way of playing, because you actually know that things are going badly and that you are living beyond your means, but now you cannot possibly stop growing further, because then the bank will come:
- In the USA, it is common to go completely into debt while building the iron, coal, and steel industry. This forms an economic cycle that indirectly includes tools, engines, and explosives.
- This inevitably leads to the need for expensive infrastructure, such as ports, railways, and administration.
- This is a vicious circle because you constantly need more mines to keep raw material prices low, so that tools, steel, and engines remain at least somewhat affordable.
You quickly notice: I am doing nothing else but promoting this industry sector. Yet, historically speaking, we know where this focus on coal and steel has led the USA: to the “Rust Belt” and Donald Trump.
But you actually try to grow out of debt by simply doing more and more of what has already led you into crisis: There’s the feeling that I just have to extract more coal to lower the production costs of steel and continue to stimulate growth.
However, it would actually be the right decision to shift the economy to the production of luxury goods or damn it, just grow slower and healthier.
You then realize: Okay, something went wrong here, I am flooding the world with coal and lead. But historically speaking, I should actually be inventing Coca-Cola and building Hollywood – Where’s the switch for that?
But you also can’t stop now, because then the gross domestic product would stagnate, which has to grow, so that the credit limit continues to rise, which you are fully utilizing.
The glorious, brief moment when the budget turns green again
Victoria 3 reflects historical reality, and between 1836 and 1936 there were always inventions that significantly boosted production. So it is in Victoria 3 as well:
At some point, the promise of technological progress appears on the horizon: Suddenly you are working in the mines with nitroglycerin and dynamite, on the fields with fertilizers, and eventually even with tractors and electricity.
All of these are points where the output of factories, fields, and mines suddenly makes a huge leap, and for a tiny moment, you have a green budget again:
- Now would actually be the moment to lean back, reduce the debt, and maybe moderately expand the economy, take care of other industrial fields, perhaps build a few universities or open a new IKEA
Or … you establish even more construction companies and coal mines. I’ll just grow out of debt!
While playing Victoria, I felt that I understood the current political debates better:
- Like Christian Linder, I also hoped for “technical progress” that would suddenly solve the misery I had maneuvered into
- Like Olaf Scholz, I saw debt as not a big problem: As long as the gross domestic product rises, you actually grow out of it in Victoria 3
- Only for Robert Habeck did I not gain any additional understanding while playing Victoria 3. The game has nothing to do with environmental protection and climate crisis: I don’t even want to know what it would be like to live in my “USA” – with all the coal power plants and without Hollywood, universities, and Coca-Cola
In Victoria 3, everything revolves around the economy, while in Crusader Kings 3 it’s about heirs:
If you play Crusader Kings 3 correctly, you breed the “superman”
