Hello Victorians!
Today is not only free Update ‘Blackcurrant’ 1.6!
We also have an update about the Expansion Pack, Sphere of Influence, and a surprise free pack for all players!
First up, the free Trains Bonus Pack! Choo Choo!
The power and potential of steam transportation is brought to new life for Victoria 3 in Trains Bonus Pack.
In this bonus pack, free for download for all Victoria 3 owners, players will see new models of classic train engines from the dawn of rail transport to the years of the iron horse, when the expansion of railways across continents signaled a new age and a smaller world.
This free pack includes a total of ten new 3D models of train engines traveling across the game map.
Five Experimental Trains:
- The Planet (Great Britain)
- John Bull (America)
- Saxonia (Germany)
- Cherepanov (Russia)
- Le Continent (France)
Five Engines from the mid-century:
- GNR Stirling Great Britain)
- Jupiter (America)
- Südbahn Class 23 (Germany/Austria)
- Class G (Russia)
- 120 Ouest (France)
The appropriate train models will appear both in their country of origin and in other countries with relevant ties to them, such as subject nations.
We also have resident train expert Mike, talking about why we picked these trains. For only a brief 11 minutes!
Eagle eyed viewers may have noticed one of these in motion at the end of the 1.6 Update video.
To see these trains in-game, make sure to go to the Steam page and activate the pack!
Now for news about Sphere of Influence!
Releasing on the 6th of May 2024, Sphere of Influence is now available to pre-order or if you are looking for the best deal possible? Check out our Expansion Pass, including Sphere of Influence! Alongside this, we have more information about the Expansion below.
Put your diplomatic skill to the ultimate test in Sphere of Influence, a new expansion to Victoria 3. Pull other nations into your orbit through diplomatic skill, economic leverage or straightforward bribery. Build a durable international faction of like-minded governments, pursuing goals for a common good or the glory of your power.
Paradox Interactive’s grand strategy simulation of the Victorian Age offers new ways to impose your will on the world. A coalition of reactionary powers can form blocs to work against the threat of liberal forces in other nations. Use your economic might to co-opt or coerce other regimes, spreading the banner of your ideology wherever your fleets might sail. Resist or embrace domestic pressure to change your traditional foreign policy, as your interest groups organize into lobbies that push you to build new coalitions of power.
Sphere of Influence adds many new actions and systems to illustrate the quick moving nature of diplomatic relations in this dramatic era, including new content specifically about The Great Game - the decades long competition between the British and Russian Empires for pre-eminence in North India and Central Asia.
Features of Victoria 3: Sphere of Influence include:
- Fierce Competition: Use your Prestige to become a Great Power and create your own Power Bloc! Dominate other nations in a diplomatic arrangement to pursue common economic or ideological goals, whether promoting open trade around the world or spreading specific values to other nations.
- Power Bloc Customization: Choose the identity and principles of your loose alliance, whether it be a group promoting ideological concerns like the Comintern, or an economy-oriented bloc pushing for cross-border market integration like the Zollverein. You can even customize colors and emblems for your bloc!
- “The Great Game”: New events, journal entries and decisions inspired by the Russian and British rivalry in Central Asia, and a new Objective - you can play as any of the powers central to that conflict, including Persia and Afghanistan. A newly redrawn map highlights the many competing interests in this frontier between empires.
- Foreign Investment: Invest in the economic development of countries outside of your direct influence, making a profit from their financial success.
- Nationalization: Start a Diplomatic Play to seize foreign assets in your country and prevent your wealth from going overseas.
- Subject Interactions: Adjust the payments from your vassals and protectorates, meddle in their internal politics and more!
- Interest Group Lobbies: Domestic interest groups will pursue foreign policy objectives, promoting amicable relations with some countries and hostility with others, or even influence the development of friendly lobbies in other nations.
- Power Bloc Monuments: Build majestic monuments to emphasize your bloc’s influence and domination over world events.
- New Historical Flavor: New historical characters and companies, most centered on the Great Game content, as well as more events, new journal entries, Lobby related content, new clothing and event art.
Without Sphere of Influence players will be able to use foreign investments in their subjects. Players with Sphere of Influence will be able to form mutual Pacts with other countries to allow foreign investments there, and there is a Power Bloc Principle to allow foreign investments within the Bloc.
More information will be released in Dev Diaries, with the first diary on Sphere of Influence to be released on the 14th of March, this will be an overview of the upcoming diaries and more information on the Expansion Pack itself.
But first we will have the last diary on 1.6 on the 7th of March (tomorrow). See you then!