Dev Diary #109 - Power Blocs

Hello and welcome to another Victoria 3 Dev Diary!
I’m Lino, a Game Design Lead on the project and today I will take you through one of the big features of the Sphere of Influence expansion: Power Blocs.

As Martin wrote last week, Power Blocs are multinational associations that are led by a Great or Major Power. They can take many different shapes, some of which I will showcase today. With your skills playing Victoria 3 (or rather: your skills picking Great Britain), you too should be able to lead one in no time, I’m sure!

Display of the most powerful members of a Power Bloc under Great Britain’s rule

But let’s get into the details, starting with some general aspects.

General

With Power Blocs, we are providing new and different opportunities for you to take control of one of these powerful empires, to assemble and customize your own Bloc, shape its effects on members to your liking and guide its expansion and struggle with other Power Blocs for domination over the region.

A country can only be part of one Power Bloc at the same time. That does not mean that a country is locked into a Power Bloc forever though. There are ways for them to leave and join another Bloc, if the conditions align or even for a Power Bloc to be completely dismantled.

Great Powers will generally have an easier time leading a Power Bloc than Major Powers, due to their higher budget of Influence which is part of the upkeep cost for Power Blocs.
Additionally there is a Cohesion penalty being applied to Major Powers leading a Power Bloc to reflect that they don’t quite have the authority or respect of others.
This fact and some other things we’ll get into later, should make the fight for the top of the Prestige leaderboards more rewarding and fun.

There will be some Power Blocs established at game start already, e.g. the Zollverein and the British Empire. You can start playing as Great Britain and you will already have a Power Bloc ready to go if you desire to do so.
But also playing as a regular member of any Power Bloc will feel different than being outside of them. While there are good reasons why you may not want to join any Power Bloc, there is also potential for powerful effects and cooperation with other members of the same Bloc.

Some of the Power Blocs at game start

I hear you have managed to cut off Austria’s leash and were able to unite Italy. Very impressive. Now you are ready to create your own new Power Bloc. Let’s look at that process, which starts with the customization.

Customization

When you form your Power Bloc, you can customize a few aesthetic things to make it look as pretty or crazy or as historic as possible - whatever floats your boat!
It starts with a name of course, I see you have called it “Venetian League”? Excellent choice.
It continues with the emblem. We’ve added a number of options for you to choose from to decorate your crest. For the color selection we have added support for a traditional color picker so that you have the full freedom to express yourself, be it pink, green or Prussian yellow blue.
You can also see that there is a selection for a Map pattern. This pattern will be displayed in the map modes that deal with Power Blocs and its color will be the same as your chosen primary color as you may have seen from the historic Power Blocs screenshot.

WIP Mockup of the Customization window for your emblem

In the next tab you can find the Statue customization window. Here you can shape the looks of the fantastic monuments which countries of your Power Bloc can build.
There’s a variety of pedestals, statues and accessories to choose from to demonstrate your Power Bloc’s might to the world.

Countries in a Power Bloc will be able to build them and profit from their effects, which can be something like Influence, Authority or similar effects, based on how you want to shape your Power Bloc. Of course the Game Rule for Monument effects will be expanded to include Statues if you desire to disable their effects, and build them just for their looks.

WIP Mockup for the customization window

One of the many majestic statues on the map

Another addition that will bring Power Blocs more into the 3D world is a set of new vehicles, depending on the style of your Bloc.
You will also find that parts of the clothing of country leaders in the Power Bloc will change. So for example you may see sabres, medals or sashes being worn by them.
Which accessories are going to be worn and which vehicle will drive on your roads are based on what Central Identity Pillar you pick for your Power Bloc. We will share more information on these assets in one of our upcoming Dev Diaries, dedicated to cosmetics - stay tuned!

This fancy cape could be worn by your country leader too

When you want to get from A to B while showing off

Speaking of Central Identity Pillars, let’s have a look at them to see what might interest you for the Venetian League.

Central Identity Pillar

Power Blocs revolve around a central set of values. These can range from bringing as many subjects as possible into their “glorious” empire (looking at you Great Britain and Russia), to a Bloc whose leader is interested in spreading their own religion throughout the world.

Identity Pillars change a few aspects of your Power Bloc:

• They provide a special ability to Power Bloc leaders, e.g. the Trade League Identity making everybody part of a customs union under the leader, or the Sovereign Empire letting the leader turn a member into a subject of theirs under certain conditions
• They define some “rules” for your Bloc, e.g. how Cohesion is gained (which we’ll talk about later)
• They can unlock groups of Principles which is what I’ll talk about next
• They define the rate at which you get Principle Mandates, which allows you to enact these Principles

WIP Selection of Identities

When forming a Power Bloc, you will have to pick one of these Identities before moving on to the next step. Trade League it is? Great choice.

Principles

Next up, you will have to choose your starting Principle. While Identities provide a central idea and a sort of rule set for your Power Bloc, Principles can provide more practical expressions of that.
Principles come in groups of three levels, generally providing different effects per level to all members of your Bloc. Some are beneficial for everybody, while others are particularly favoring you, their great leader.
The effects from Principles of higher tiers are always added to the lower ones. So if you have the tier 3 Principle of Defensive Cooperation unlocked, you also get the effects of tier 1 and 2.

WIP Selection screen, on release there are going to be more Principles to choose from

A WIP example of the three levels of the Defensive Cooperation Principle Group

Identities have one or more Primary Principle Groups which indicate a deeper connection to the Identity than most of the other Principle Groups.
You will be required to choose one of the Primary ones to form the Venetian League. Every additional Principle you pick at a later stage will grant a bonus to your Power Bloc’s Cohesion, which can be impactful. You can exchange it later on if you’d like, but you may have a very hard time doing so.

By having countries remain in your Bloc, you will unlock the potential to upgrade existing Principles or pick new ones with entirely different effects.
Each member of your Power Bloc contributes a number of points towards a Principle Mandate. The higher their rank, the higher their contribution.

Each Mandate allows you to either pick a new Tier 1 Principle if you have an open slot, upgrade one of your established Principles by one Tier, or switch a Principle of any Tier to a different Tier 1 Principle.

Principles Overview section

With the fancy customized look, the Central Identity Pillar and the first Principle picked, it is finally time to form the Venetian League.
Now all that’s left to do is send invitations. If at least one other country accepts, your very own Power Bloc is officially formed. Congratulations!

But how do you get other countries like the minors in the Austrian Bloc to join your Bloc and ensure they’re staying there so that you get more Principle Mandates?

Leverage

That’s what Leverage is for. Raising your Leverage to overtake Austria might be a challenge, but it might also be worth it since you’re weakening their Bloc at the same time as strengthening your own.

There’s a couple of factors that contribute to Power Blocs building up Leverage on a country, such as:

• At least one of the Power Bloc's members having an active interest in the country (a hard requirement for gaining Leverage)
• Positive relations and certain other pacts like Alliance or Trade Agreement
• Siding with target in Diplomatic Plays
• Lobbies for or against your country
• Economic dependence (which we’ll cover in more detail in a future Dev Diary, but which includes e.g. trade routes between the countries)

By default, Leverage will trend towards 0. So that means if you want to keep the Leverage you have on a country, say Switzerland, active or even increase it, you will need to engage with them in some form or another.

Keep in mind that conducting Diplomacy is harder for you, now that you’re part of a Power Bloc. Countries in other Power Blocs will feel intimidated and are less likely to agree to your proposals.
That would have been a good reason for you to stay neutral. Oh well, too late now!

There’s actually two values for Leverage. One that continuously builds up over time if you meet the requirements and another one, which is called Active Leverage that is the result of your own Leverage minus the next highest Bloc’s Leverage.
So for example, if you have built up 100 Leverage in Switzerland and the pesky Austrian Bloc has 80 Leverage on them, your active Leverage is only 20.

WIP Animation for Leverage map mode

If you manage to get enough active Leverage, you can invite Switzerland to your Bloc. The active Leverage your Bloc has on them determines their likelihood of joining your Bloc if you ask them nicely. Their good friends came gladly after all.
But what if they decline? Well, you can always apply a slightly firmer grip if they need it and threaten war with them to force them into your Bloc. This will cause an amount of Infamy though, depending on how much Active Leverage you have on them.

Even after integrating Switzerland into your Bloc, Leverage needs to be kept up. Otherwise it opens the door to another Power Bloc doing the same as you have done and convincing them to leave your Bloc and join theirs instead.

It looks like you have learned how to get more countries into your Bloc. It is prospering and growing it seems. But I feel you may have forgotten about something you had better keep in mind.

Cohesion

Cohesion is the measurement of how well the countries in your Power Bloc fit together. More than anything else it looks at the Identity to determine the target value which it will then trend towards.

There are some other things in the game that can generate or drain Cohesion though, e.g Principles providing a benefit or reducing it, actions that leaders or members can take, events etc.

Similarly to Legitimacy, the Cohesion value will be in one of five brackets, each having different effects on your Power Bloc. They are mostly around the gain of Leverage on members of your Bloc, but can even halt the progress of Principle Mandate generation.

WIP display of the Cohesion bar

Now the main problem that you are facing, is that Leverage gain on members in your own Bloc is affected by Cohesion which makes it harder to keep them around.

Most countries that you add to your Bloc will also reduce your Cohesion. The more countries you have, the higher the speed of unlocking the next Principle Mandate, but the more difficult it will also be to keep control over your member countries, potentially leading to them being pulled into a competing Power Bloc.

Kicking a less powerful member out might be worth it in order to restore balance. Similarly helpful could be picking a more generous Principle as your next one.

When you have found a way to stabilize your Bloc to comfortable levels, you should look for the next potential target to acquire.
Finding the balance between how many countries you can support to keep under your reign and where you invest your diplomatic resources is going to be key if you are leading a Power Bloc.
Maybe you should stick to Bavaria and Denmark as your next targets, on the other hand the contributions of a Great Power like France would bring might be worth it…

Power Struggle

So you managed to get France to join your Venetian League? Congratulations!
I’d like to point your attention towards France’s Prestige. Since it is more than 20% higher than yours, they have automatically initiated a Power Struggle. If they succeed in keeping that score up for a full year, they will assume leadership of the Venetian League, demoting you to a regular member. France might even want to rename your Power Bloc afterwards. Mon Dieu!

Let’s hope Power Blocs find a better end under your leadership once Sphere of Influence releases in May.

When that happens, note that there is going to be a core version of Power Blocs that is going to launch with the free update for all players, even if you didn’t purchase Sphere of Influence.
The free version allows you to pick the Trade League Identity, making it possible to recreate shared markets, whose functionality we’ve moved from a diplomatic pact into the Power Bloc feature. It also replicates the Sphering mechanics from Victoria 2 in a more natural way than subjugation or negotiating for Customs Union pacts, though of course Power Blocs take this even further with more mechanics and depth.
Part of the expansion for Power Blocs is all customization and the vast majority of advanced mechanics and effects like the other Central Identity Pillars, Principles and Statues.

That’s it for today. Next week, I’m going to tell you more about the changes to Building Ownership and what that enables you to do - Foreign Investment!

Overview for all upcoming Dev Diaries: