Hello, and Happy Thursday. This is Victoria, Narrative Design Lead of Victoria 3. Today, I am returning with the other designers to cover the free narrative content and miscellaneous improvements coming in Update 1.10. The paid content contained in National Awakening will be covered in a later dev diary.
The Springtime of the Peoples
In 1848, a wave of revolutions spread across Europe, toppling the post-Napoleonic order in a matter of months. Formerly absolutist regimes convened National Assemblies, and enacted broadly democratic constitutions. A Republic was declared in France, the King of Prussia appeared before a crowd of Berliners wearing the tricolour cockade of the German nation, and the Austrian Emperor signed off on every document the radical Hungarian delegation placed in his hands. By the end of the year, these constitutions were revoked, the National Assemblies shuttered, and the Hungarian and Italian nationalists locked in a hopeless struggle against Austrian and Russian forces. All that remained of the triumphs of 1848 was the abolition of serfdom in Austria, the end of absolutism in Denmark, and a counter-revolutionary French Republic under Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte.
The failure of 1848 haunted European liberalism throughout the nineteenth century, fading only once it became clear that traditional conservatism was a spent force. In time, liberalism would have its victory, but it would be one gained through reconciliation, not through barricades and gunsmoke.
To properly represent this great upheaval, we have updated the Springtime of the Peoples Journal Entry. Once an applicable European country experiences a revolution from a movement categorised as Liberal or Socialist, the Springtime of the Peoples will activate for all European countries that have researched Egalitarianism.
For the purpose of the Springtime of the Peoples [and related content], political movements are categorised under the loose umbrellas of “liberal”, “socialist”, and “conservative”. Precisely which movements are capable of activating the Springtime of the Peoples are available in convenient tooltips.
Whilst the Springtime of the Peoples is active, political movements in general will have increased Activism, and various liberal political movements will have greater pop attraction. We have also changed the completion and failure effects. The Springtime of the Peoples now lasts three years – if a country can survive three years without suffering a revolution, or manages to keep all liberal movements suppressed for one year, the Journal Entry will conclude in a conservative victory.
To better represent the course that the revolutions of 1848 tended to follow, this Journal Entry gives revolutionary movements the ability to immediately seize power, provided certain conditions are met. If an applicable movement becomes Insurrectionary whilst a country’s capital state has over 10% Radicals, barricades will go up in the capital, and the revolutionaries will make a grab for power.
Such a revolution will immediately result in a revolutionary victory, bringing the Revolution into its precarious second stage.
If the Springtime of the Peoples Journal Entry represents the circumstances that swept revolutionaries into power across Europe, Red Summer represents the circumstances that, historically, proved to be their doom. To understand why this was the case, one must take a closer look at the social base of these revolutions.
The Revolutions of 1848 marked the last great joint revolutionary endeavour between the European bourgeoisie and proletariat. They occurred in the context of absolutist regimes which were experiencing capitalist economic development, yet had largely failed to offer the bourgeoisie access to the halls of political power. Political institutions were centralised in capital cities which had grown swollen with workers freshly arrived from the countryside, now immiserated by mechanisation, food shortages, and poverty wages. As urban poverty rose, the “social question”, from which the word “socialism” is derived, became increasingly salient. It is precisely this question that the liberal revolutionary regimes failed to solve, breaking the alliance between classes at the crucial moment.
Each country’s Revolution typically followed a similar course of events. Protests, led by members of the middle-classes and granted momentum by the working classes, would escalate into the construction of barricades to block the movements of troops. Facing the prospect of further violence, besieged monarchs would typically agree to appoint liberal ministers, convene a National Assembly, and enact a constitution. The liberal ministers, generally representing the middle-class section of the revolutionary coalition, would find themselves simultaneously pressed by radical demands to solve the “social question”, and the resistance of the conservative establishment. Their failures to address the problem of poverty typically led to more radical uprisings. Former supporters of the revolutions, now threatened by the prospect of further social chaos, fled into the conservative camp, providing the means for the conservative military and aristocracy to dismiss the liberal cabinet and abrogate the new Constitution. The exception is the separatist revolutions in Italy and Hungary, where these coalitions were saved from their own contradictions by the pressing threat of the Austrian military.
To summarise: once the coalitions of 1848 seized political power, the contradictions between the demands of middle-class liberals and working-class radicals became immediately clear. These contradictions spiraled into violence, prompting those who desired social peace to turn against the revolution, and cutting its feet out from under it.
The Red Summer Journal Entry has two progress bars, the first representing the revolution’s entrenchment, the second the gathering counter-revolution. If the counter-revolution reaches 100%, the revolution will be crushed, restoring the Distribution of Power, Free Speech, and Internal Security laws a country had at the beginning of the Springtime of the Peoples.
Pictured: This Journal Entry’s name changes to match the current season. Here it is in its winter coat.
The revolution gains progress through having high Legitimacy, the support of Liberal and Moderniser movements, the clout of the Intelligentsia, and having marginalised Landowners and Armed Forces interest groups. The counter-revolution gains progress through having the Monarchy law, the clout of the Landowners and Armed Forces, the presence of an active insurrection or rebelling subject, or an absence of liberal Interest Groups in government. The counter-revolution is hindered by having insurrectionary conservative political movements – if the conservatives are the ones causing trouble, this allows the revolutionaries to present themselves as the guarantors of stability.
Pictured: In the field of political science, we refer to this as “taking an L”.
In addition to the Liberal and Conservative outcomes, there is the Radical outcome. If one can abolish the monarchy whilst maintaining a legitimate Radical or socialist government, one can crush the counter-revolutionaries and save the revolution.
To ensure that Europe has a good amount of radicals during the buildup to the Springtime of the Peoples, we have added a new Journal Entry representing the European Potato Famine, an Europe-wide epidemic of potato blight which led to the 1840s acquiring the moniker of “The Hungry Forties”. It is this blight which caused the Great Famine in Ireland, which led to upwards of a million deaths.
The Hungry Forties Journal Entry is activated by a critical mass of European states having the Disease Outbreak harvest condition. For as long as it lasts, the Journal Entry will further increase the prevalence and intensity of Disease Outbreaks in Europe.
Pictured: In the case that this Journal Entry appears in a decade other than the 1840s, its name will change to what is appropriate.
National Liberalism
Readers of last week’s dev diary may remember a German National Movement making a cameo. The German National Movement is one of three new culture-specific movements coming in Update 1.10 – the German, Italian, and Yugoslav [or Illyrian] National Movements. All of these movements have the National Liberal ideology, and exist to help facilitate the unification of the German, Italian, and South Slavic states. In the case of Germany and Italy, it replaces the Cultural Majority and Radical movements. In the case of the South Slavic states, where the Yugoslav/Illyrian movements often clashed with more exclusive nationalist movements, it instead competes with them for supporters.
The National Liberal ideology blends the Liberal, Radical, and Ethno-Nationalist ideologies. It tends to favour laws that are conducive to increasing the Fervour of a country’s primary cultures, such as Public Schools and the more exclusionary citizenship laws. It also favours the extension of civil liberties, and opposes the Guild System. The latter will be covered later in this diary.
These National Liberal movements will be important for the unification of Germany and Italy moving forwards. Rather than immediately switching towards a pro-unification footing, the willingness of German or Italian states to unify their respective nations is now dependent largely on the level of pressure the German or Italian National Movements exert upon its Interest Groups in government.
The Risorgimento Journal Entry has also been updated to revolve around the Italian National Movement.
Labour Associations
With each update, we strive to make the world of Victoria 3 slightly more miserable. Update 1.10 has already brought us ethno-nationalism, potato famines, and Austria – now, it brings us labour policy.
The Labour Associations lawgroup pertains to trade unions, guilds, and the legal status thereof. Historically, many states became more lenient on the matter of trade unions over our period, beginning it with harsh legal restrictions on unions and ending it with either a legally enshrined right to associate or an official relationship between state apparatus and labour establishment. The gradual warming of the state towards trade unions contributed to both the parliamentary influence of unions and the deradicalisation of the labour movement.
This lawgroup seeks to mirror this trend. In general, as one enacts more permissive labour legislation, the clout of the Trade Unions Interest Group increases, and its chances of generating radical characters declines. In addition, the Labour Movement becomes more attractive to pops, at the expense of the Socialist, Anarchist, and Communist Movements.
The Guild System law represents the pre-modern system of merchant and craft guilds. Under a guild system, skilled craftsmen and artisans are organised into organisations which regulate the practice of their trade within a given territory. Typically, non-guild members were forbidden from practising a given trade, greatly reducing social mobility. As the guild system is contrary to the principle of free exchange, its abolition was a demand of many liberal movements of the time. Whilst much of Europe had abolished or weakened the guild system prior game start, several countries, such as Austria, retained it in some form.
The Guild System places 25% of urban buildings under the ownership of their workforces, increases the political strength of Shopkeepers, and sharply reduces Qualifications. Corporatists, Traditionalists, and the Petit-Bourgeoisie are typically in favour of the Guild System, whilst market-inclined ideologies, the Industrialists, and the Trade Unions are in favour of its abolition.
Combination Acts represent a total ban on labour associations. Typically, these took the form of holding workers who gathered with intent to raise wages or improve working conditions liable for criminal conspiracy. A historical example of these laws is the British Combination Act of 1799, or the Le Chapelier law of Revolutionary France. The former was repealed and replaced by the Combination Act of 1825, whilst the latter was abolished in part under Napoleon III in 1864.
The Combination Acts law decreases the clout of Trade Unions and the pop attraction of the Labour Movement, whilst increasing Radicals from Political Movements and the pop attraction of the Socialist, Anarchist, and Communist movements. In addition, if this law is active, the Trade Unions will be more likely to generate characters with radical ideologies, such as Nihilists, Communists, Anarchists, and Vanguardists. Combination Acts is the preferred law amongst Industrialists and Market Liberals.
Anti-Strike Laws represent a situation in which labour associations are legalised, but strikes and collective bargaining are restricted. An example of these laws is the British Combination Act of 1825, which is in effect in Great Britain at the start of the game. The situation in the United States is also best characterised with this law – the conventional legal wisdom at the time was that strikes could be subject to legal penalties.
Anti-Strike Laws serve as a mid-point between Right to Associate and Combination Acts – less prone to radicalise labour, but also less controversial with anti-labour ideologies.
The Right to Associate law represents the right to strike and form unions being legally recognised. A historical example of this law is the British Trade Union Act of 1871 or the Waldeck-Rousseau Law in France. Laws instating the right to associate typically contributed to the cooling of relations between the state and the labour movement.
This law is favourable to the Trade Unions and Labour Movement, increasing their clout and pop attraction whilst reducing Radical gain and the likelihood for the Trade Unions to generate characters with radical ideologies. This law is typically favoured by Reformists, Social Democrats, various communist ideologies, and Trade Unions themselves.
The Corporatised Unions law represents various arrangements in which labour unions become either de jure or de facto arms of the state. Two historical examples of this law are the nationalisation and reorganisation of trade unions into organs of the state in fascist Italy and corporatist Portugal, and the forced amalgamation of all trade unions into the German Labour Front under Nazi Germany. Less extreme examples include the close relationship established between the American state and major trade unions under the auspices of the National Industrial Recovery Act and National Labor Relations Act in the 1930s, and the institution of tripartism in the Nordic countries.
The Corporatised Unions law is unlocked by the Corporatism law, and serves as the most effective means of deradicalising the labour movement – so long as one can maintain a prosperous country. Corporatising one’s unions increases both Loyalist gain from standard of living increases and Radical gain from standard of living decreases, decreases attraction to Socialist, Anarchist, and Communist movements, and increases the chance of the Trade Unions generating Corporatist characters. This law is typically favoured by Fascists, Integralists, and Corporatists, with the Trade Unions Interest Group considering it preferable to being banned.
As always, these laws come with a selection of new events for their enactment. Below, one can see an interesting temporary alliance that may come from seeking a more permissive Labour Associations law.
Balkans Political Setup
In Update 1.9, we added Law Variants, a type of law which inherits their ideological stances from other laws. These create a great potential for country- and region-specific laws, which we have taken advantage of in Update 1.10.
One of the most common requests pertaining to the Ottoman Empire is to represent the historical Millet System, a system of ethno-religious autonomies under the authority of the Ottoman Caliph. Our interpretation of the Millet System grants increased acceptance to Abrahamic religions whilst discriminating heavily against others. It also includes the effects formerly granted by the Cizye Tax modifier – a religious tax, and a malus to conscriptable battalions.
The Austrian starting laws have also been updated. Here, one may see two law variants – Crownland Diets, and Manorialism. Crownland Diets is a slightly more flavourful variant of Hereditary Bureaucrats which grants less political power to Aristocrats, whilst Manorialism occupies a space between Serfdom and Tenant Farmers.
Pictured: The new starting laws of Austria.
In 1781, Emperor Joseph II passed the Serfdom Patent, which sought to abolish serfdom throughout the Habsburg lands. After 1781, peasants throughout what would become the Austrian Empire possessed the freedom of movement and ability to seek alternate employment, but retained feudal obligations to their landlords. These obligations included the robot, a period of forced labour for one’s landlord. The abolition of the robot was the central demand of the peasantry during the 1848 Revolutions.
Countries with Manorialism have the Corvée Labour Production Method active on their Subsistence Farms, which reduces subsistence output but grants a minor increase to construction efficiency in states with an abundance of Subsistence Farms. This modifier represents landlords renting out forced peasant labour for one’s construction projects.
The Manorialism law is active across the Austrian Empire and Danubian Principalities at game start.
Speaking of the Danubian Principalities, they, too, have received new political setups.
Pictured: The starting laws of Wallachia and Moldavia.
In 1836, the legal status quo in the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia was largely determined by the Regulamentul Organic, or Organic Regulation. These laws were a sort of pseudo-Constitution imposed by the Russian Empire in the aftermath of the Russo-Turkish War of 1828, and established a system in which the Princes of Wallachia and Moldavia would periodically be elected by an assembly of boyars.
The Organic Regulation law relates to a new starting treaty between Russia and the Danubian Principalities – the Treaty of Adrianople, in which the Danubian Principalities commit to Organic Regulation and several other concessions in return for Russian support for their independence.
The last new law variants we shall cover are those of Montenegro. At game start, Montenegro is a rather strange country – more of a collection of tribes atop a hill than an organised state. These tribes sustain themselves largely through raiding the territories of the Ottoman Empire. To best represent this system, Montenegro has two unique laws – Women in the Fields and Šef Paternalism.
Pictured: The starting laws of Montenegro.
With the men of Montenegro largely occupied with fighting, the women of Montenegro are left to do the hard labour. The Women in the Fields law represents this arrangement – nearly the entire male population of Montenegro is available for conscription, whilst the women spend their days working both in the home and in hard agricultural labour. Historically, the population of Montenegro remained relatively stagnant for much of our period, a phenomenon that can be attributed both to extremely high mortality rates and this unique gender arrangement.
The Šef Paternalism law represents the means through which the plunder gained from raiding is distributed amongst Montenegro’s tribes. With Montenegro’s lack of industry and arable land, this traditional system of distribution is necessary to sustain its population.
The Grand Collapse
The Grand Collapse is a new Journal Entry for the Ottoman Empire, representing the dissolution of the Empire following a particularly great catastrophe. The Grand Collapse becomes available if the Ottoman Empire has not successfully completed the Tanzimat, and either enacts some form of Republic or experiences a revolution after becoming Unrecognised.
This Journal Entry serves as a timer to the demise of the Ottoman Empire. Its buttons contain options that may assist one in escaping the terrible fate that awaits when the timer hits zero.
One may note that, if the Tanzimat is not completed, the Ottoman Empire becoming a Republic is incompatible with its continued existence as an Empire. The Ottoman Empire was a multinational dynastic state, with no single national identity to draw upon. Given the Empire’s structure in 1836, there could be no such thing as an Ottoman nationalist. The project to construct a unified Ottoman identity embarked upon by the men of the Tanzimat in the 1870s sought to change this, but the project was ultimately brought down by the loss of much of the Ottoman Balkan territories. In a world where the Tanzimat outright failed, this project would certainly have less traction than it did historically, and there would be no chance for the Ottoman Empire to survive the transition from dynastic state to nation-state.
If one cannot complete it before the timer runs out, the Grand Collapse will trigger, and the Empire will shatter into pieces. Turkey will be left as a Parliamentary [or Presidential] Republic surrounded by freshly independent countries.
The Megali Idea
The Megali Idea was previously represented by the Greek Nationalism Journal Entry. In 1.10, this Journal Entry has been reworked. The Journal Entry now features different paths of expansion centralized in one place, from the Megali Idea to pursuing the title of Eastern Rome. Based on ambition, these paths are connected to different levels of risk and reward.
If Greece chooses to pursue the Megali Idea, and has made some progress on realising it, it will receive an event that allows it to escalate its ambitions. Pursuing the title of Eastern Rome will raise Greek infamy, and change the requirements for completing the Journal Entry.
The rewards for this Journal Entry depend upon the level of ambition pursued by Greece, with more ambitious goals granting larger rewards. However, failing the Journal Entry will have correspondingly larger penalties. Pursuing an ambitious interpretation of the Megali Idea and going into debt may have ruinous consequences for the Greek nation.
Matter of Hungary
In keeping with Update 1.10 and National Awakening’s focus on Austria and the Balkans, the Matter of Hungary Journal Entry for Austria has received a complete rework. This Journal Entry includes two powerful interactions for managing the Austrian Empire, and lasts until either the conclusive pacification of the Hungarian lands or the enactment of the historical Austro-Hungarian Compromise.
Historically, the Austrian Empire considered numerous solutions to the problem of restructuring the Empire. The majority of these will be covered in the diaries where we go over the contents of National Awakening. The two available in this Journal Entry – and, thus, in the free Update, are pursuing the integration of the Crown Lands and the Dual Monarchy.
The Integrate the Crown Lands button becomes available if the Liberty Desire of all Austrian Crown Land subjects is below 25. It annexes all Crown Land subjects directly into Austria, reducing the Empire to a single tag. However, this option does not resolve the Journal Entry. To annex Hungary is one thing, but to resolve the question, one must hold it.
If one chooses to Integrate the Crown Lands, and this goes poorly, one may decide a compromise is in order. The Establish the Dual Monarchy button enacts the historical Austro-Hungarian Compromise, reorganising the Empire into a personal union between Austria, or Cisleithania, and Hungary, or Transleithania.Taking this decision will immediately complete the Matter of Hungary Journal Entry, at the cost of forgoing German unification and greatly increasing Hungarian autonomy.
Pictured: If Hungary does not exist on the map when this button is pressed, this button will restore it to life. This allows one to chain from integrating the crown lands to the Austro-Hungarian Compromise, if needed.
When organising Austria-Hungary, one may also decide the fate of Croatia. Will Croatia continue to be partitioned between Austria and Hungary, or will it be placed fully under the auspices of one of the crowns?
Pictured: Three configurations of the Austrian Empire that are possible through making use of this Journal Entry.
For as long as this Journal Entry is active, the secession of Hungary presents a clear and present danger to the stability of Austria. If Hungary can manage to secure its independence, the other crown-lands are certain to follow.
Now, I will turn things over to Hansi and our guest star – Mike – to cover the map work coming in the free update.
Map Rework
Map friends rejoice! As always, the upcoming free update will come along with a series of adjustments to the map. Old state regions have been adjusted, and new added to better make the map reflect the political and demographic situations of the 19th century.
The historical region of Bukovina has been separated from the state of Moldavia and granted a Ukrainian homeland, and to the South, Albanian-majority region of Kosovo is now its own state region.
The state of Silesia has been split into an Upper and a Lower part, with the Upper starting as a split state divided between Austrian Silesia and the Prussian province of Upper Silesia. Serbia, rather than being split into a Southern and Northern part, is now divided along an East/West axis, with the River Morava dividing the two, and with the Ottoman split state in Western Serbia corresponding approximately to the Bosniak-dominated region of Sandžak.
The erstwhile state regions of Western and Eastern Slovakia have been turned into Slovakia proper and Ruthenia, here displayed with their Hungarian-language dynamic names.
The region of Sulvalkia has been transferred from the state of Vilnius to Lithuania, better reflecting the ethnic situation at the time, and enabling more historical borders. And last, but not least, and after much mucking about, we have finally corrected the border of Saxony by granting the area of Hoyerswerda to Upper Silesia.
On top of the changes depicted here, there will be other, smaller adjustments in state population makeup, resources, and pop_types, of which there are too many to comprehensively go over here.
Pictured: The new culture map of the Balkans and beyond, let's see if you can spot the differences.
East Africa
East Africa has been largely untouched since release, but the sharp-eyed among you who play more of Paradox Interactive's full offering of games may have noticed that the Swahili Coast is being added to the map of Crusader Kings in its upcoming DLC, All Under Heaven. The attention given to East Africa there opened up an opportunity to use some of the same resources to revisit East Africa in Victoria 3, leading to improvements along the historic Swahili Coast and north into Ethiopia.
The coasts of modern-day Kenya and Tanzania have received the most attention. No more will Kenya have a tantalizing open coast that can be colonized early and turned into an aesthetically-unpleasing blob! The coast is now fully covered by Oman's colonial holdings and the smaller states of Mombasa, Witu, and the Sultanate of Tungi down in northern Mozambique. Preserving this line of centralized coastal states is vital if Zanzibar emerges mid-game from Oman via Oman's starting Journal Entry. This challenge is given extra difficulty due to Oman and Zanzibar now having Ibadi as their state religion, at odds with the predominantly Sunni Swahili population of the East African coast.
Zanzibar's task, given by Journal Entry if it splits from Oman, is to keep colonizing powers out of the East African coast until it has consolidated power by becoming recognized or by fully controlling the East African interior. If it fails, and powers from outside Africa manage to penetrate the interior, then Zanzibar's claims of sovereignty will fall apart and the realm will collapse. This fail state essentially reflects its historic fate after the German explorer Carl Peters managed to undercut Zanzibari claims in what's now Tanzania, triggering a race between Germany and Britain to carve up a series of colonies, and leaving the Sultanate of Zanzibar as little more than a rump British protectorate until it became part of Tanzania in 1964.
North of the Swahili Coast, Ethiopia has received attention. The starting layout of the land has been revised – Qwara, the birthplace of future-emperor Tewodros II, is now its own player in the fading days of the Age of Princes. Oromo, Amhara, and Tigray principalities vie for control, and should any one of them succeed in reuniting the core of Ethiopia, they will still have to colonize their own frontiers in the south and east before a revived Ethiopia can expand further.
Mainland Southeast Asia
Indochina has also received an update! Albeit smaller in scope, it includes notable changes to the starting geopolitical setup in the region, as well as the inclusion of the Champa people who are native to the south, and also represent a catch-all group for many of the now-decentralized highland people.
Cambodia now begins the game as a highly rebellious puppet of Dai Nam and to that end has received a new dynamic name. Generally speaking, more dynamic names have been added for the states and hubs across the region – including support for French names where applicable.
The embattled frontier between Siam and Dai Nam has also been restructured to better represent the ever-shifting borders in this region at the start of our game’s timeframe. Vientiane – the former capital of Lan Xang – as well as the land around the Mekong river remain under Siam's control, while lands further inwards, including the Xiangkhoang Plateau, have been granted to Dai Nam at game start.
Some hubs, roads and railway routes have also been rearranged, including uplifting Huế to be the new capital of Dai Nam.
And that is all. Thank you for reading. Next week, we will cover the first batch of paid narrative content contained in National Awakening.