Happy Thursday and welcome back to yet another Victoria 3 development diary. A few weeks ago I went over the changes we’re making to Political Movements in update 1.8, and promised a followup going more into how this impacts Civil Wars and particularly Secessions. As you might have guessed by the title, this is precisely what we’ll be discussing today, along with a bit more detail on Political Movement Radicalism, where it comes from, and how it ties into Civil Wars.
As I went over in the aforementioned Dev Diary, Political Movements have a Radicalism value going from 0-100%. More specifically, this is two values: The current value and the target value, with the current value drifting towards the target value over time. The target value is calculated from a number of factors, including:
- Which laws you have enacted or are in the process of enacting (if the movement’s core ideology has a stance on them)
- How many radicals and loyalists are members of the movement
- Other factors specific to a particular movement type. For example, a Cultural Majority movement might be upset if the ruler of the country isn’t of one of your primary cultures, or a Pro-Slavery movement might be upset if they perceive that Slave States are not receiving their fair share of government building construction, particularly for the army.
A side note is that we’re currently thinking of renaming ‘Political Movement Radicalism’ to ‘Political Movement Activism’ as we feel this better describes how the system works now, but this isn’t done yet so I will continue to refer to it as Radicalism for the moment.
The Abolitionist Movement in the USA is currently ‘Passive’, but drifting towards ‘Agitating’ due to the Legacy Slavery law, the fraction of Slave States versus Free States in the country, and a smattering of Radicals among the movement supporters
I already went over the different Radicalism thresholds and their effects, so I won’t repeat myself there, but instead focus on the highest radicalism threshold (currently called ‘Rioting’, but we’re probably going to rename it) where Civil Wars become possible. While this isn’t technically all that different from before, what is different is that all civil wars are now started by Radical movements, including Secessions.
What this means is that the previous system we had for Secessions, where they just randomly start when a culture has high turmoil, is completely and utterly gone from the game. Instead, Movements can ignite a Civil War that is either a Revolution or a Secession. Whether a radical movement starts a Revolution or a Secession depends on the Movement Type and the specific circumstances in your country, so I’ll list a few examples of how we currently envision this to work (the exact details may change before release though):
- Cultural Minority movements will generally always try to Secede if they can
- Royalist Movements will generally always launch a Revolution if they can, but might Secede under very specific circumstances (see below)
- Pro-Slavery/Anti-Slavery Movements will usually launch Revolutions, but under Legacy Slavery (ie the American Civil War situation) will tend to secede instead
- Religious Minority movement might launch a Revolution to change the State Religion if they have broad enough support, but otherwise would Secede
Whether a Movement is able to start a Civil War doesn’t solely depend on their level of Radicalism. For one, in order for a Revolution to start, there must be at least one Interest Group willing to side with the Political Movement. The precise conditions for when an Interest Group sides with a Revolution are still being tweaked, but right now we’re thinking along these lines:
- The Interest Group must be influenced by the Movement (ie be able to get character ideologies from it)
- The Interest Group must be Angry
- The Interest Group must be at least somewhat ideologically aligned with the Movement (ie, Landowners led by a Slaver wouldn’t join an Abolitionist uprising)
Secessions, on the other hand, never pull in Interest Groups directly, and so one of the conditions under which a Secession could happen is when a Movement is extremely radical but unable to garner any Interest Group support and decide to instead break off and make their own country with their own Interest Groups. As an example, the Royalist movement in a Republic flight find the overall support for restoring the monarchy is so weak that they try to create a breakaway Kingdom in whatever region they are still able to garner support in. This may of course not make sense for all movement types, so we’ll have to decide on a case by case basis for each.
The American Pro-Slavery Movement is rising up, taking the Slave States with them in their attempt to secede from the union. Note that the tooltip/UI here is very WIP!
Another part of Civil Wars that has changed considerably is state assignment, ie which precise states rise up against you. Previously, state assignment worked according to a few basic rules:
- For Revolutions, a fraction of states would rise up based on Movement Support (frequently this would be ‘everything but the capital’ if the movement was strong enough)
- For Secessions, a fraction of cultural homelands would rise up based on level of turmoil (usually, all of them)
- For Revolutions, only Incorporated states could rise up
- The Capital could never rise up
All of these rules, including capital immunity, have been tossed out the window. Instead, the precise configuration of states depends heavily on the type and support of the movement, and where its support comes from. For example, a movement with high Military Support will tend to get more of the states with Barracks/Naval Bases, while a movement backed by a large portion of the population would gain a greater share of states overall. In other words, if you stack all the barracks in your capital, and then proceed to anger the military, then well… that capital is likely going to be on the other side of the war in the coming scuffle. Unincorporated States are now also able to take sides, so that Revolutions aren’t just a concern in the metropol anymore.
Overall, just like the Political Movement Rework overall, the new system relies a whole lot less on blunt same-for-everyone rules and much more on precise scripting and rule-setting (all of which is of course fully moddable) for the different movement types, allowing us to create much more interesting and immersive mechanics for the different movements, what they want to achieve, and what they are willing to pick up a rifle to fight for. We are also aiming, overall, to have less inconsequential civil wars going on, but to try and increase the danger and unpredictability for even large countries when they do happen.
The Royalist Movement, giving up on Britain as a whole, are instead trying to create a breakaway monarchy in the north (note that dynamic secessions are also still WIP, so don’t read too much into the name and other details here)
Alright then, that’s all for today, but do join us again next week, when Alex will tell you all about Famines and Harvest Conditions. See you then!