Victoria review!

[Nikolai]

The first English language Victoria review has been posted!

Graphics: 8 - The graphics are good, but there are opportunities missed in making them a little more indicative.

Sound: 8 - A great soundtrack, otherwise a good assortment of function sounds.

Interface: 9 - Generally outstanding; deep tooltips save a lot of manual-searching. Everything in the info windows is hot-clickable, leading to multiple control layers and a nice combination of utilitarian and esthetically pleasing UI.

Play Issues
Solo Play: 10 - Hail to the Queen! As world-conquest games go, there is no equal.

Replayability: 10 - You can play every state on Earth in the 19th Century. A deep list of events keeps even the same country's play from becoming repetitive.

Multiplay: 9 - The best in the series, but the nature of the game is such that it's hard to find a game speed that is not too slow while things are developing, and too fast when things are happening, despite a clever multiplay pause feature that helps a lot.
Documentation: 6 - Instructions are adequate if skimpy, and the game could definitely use an extensive tutorial.

Learning Curve: 6 - If you've played EU, EU2 or HoI, this would probably be a 9; for anyone else sometimes the nearly-limitless courses of action can be paralyzing.

Other: +0.5 for the period, a game like this is so long overdue.

Pro: Everything, but particularly flexible and powerful diplomatic and tech systems. The novel inclusion of POPS adds a needed dynamic to the domestic aspect of the game.

Con: The richness can seem like complexity, and even for very experienced players there is no "quick" game of Victoria. Make sure you buy your significant other something nice before you install it.

Thew reviewer also mentions that Paradox will make a EU2-->Vickie converter, but no date is set.

[ravagon]

A big to everything. I hope that converter isn't too far off.
That soundtrack had better include "Rule Britainnia" though.

Now I just have to stop drooling on my keyboard.

[General Ludd]

I think he's being a little generous in the graphics, multiplayer, and learning curve department.

Not that I've played it, of course... but I've seen the screen shots to know the graphics aren't the greatest (I'm really not a fan of the terrain map). And I've played the other paradox games enough to know that they aren't that suited to multiplayer (regardless of their stability) - certainly not enough to warrant a 9, in any case. And I've also played enough of the others to knowthat their learning curve warrants 'more' (less) than a 6 - particularily since Victoria is bringing in so much new stuff.

[ravagon]

Re: Victoria review!

Originally posted by Johan
NO

NO

NO
Mutters something about ideas brought public without asking ME!

Hmmm ... something tells me that the 'converter' may not be quite so close ...

[Daveracher]

Re: Re: Victoria review!

Originally posted by ravagon


Hmmm ... something tells me that the 'converter' may not be quite so close ...

methinks never
i think the reviewer got confused with CK

[mowers]

Originally posted by Osweld
I think he's being a little generous in the graphics, multiplayer, and learning curve department.

And I've played the other paradox games enough to know that they aren't that suited to multiplayer (regardless of their stability) - certainly not enough to warrant a 9, in any case.

No offense but thats ignorant Cr*ap.

There are literally thousands of people who have been playing EU MP and hundreds are still playing 2 years after the game was released.

Many of the games have 20+ people in them at the same time and go on for months without flagging.

EU2 has 59,011 posts for MP alone and we have deleted around 10,000 on top of that.

Now. In comparison I look at Civ II, Civ III and Call to Power MP sites here and they have a grand total of
only 38,387 posts. Thats from a game that has a history that simply dwarfs EU and has infinitely greater publicity.

I've personally spent hundreds of hours playing EU MP and nothing I've ever seen comes close in terms of depth, skill or sheer fun.

Its just not even a competition in comparison. Even if you dont compare the two EU1 & 2 have been massive sucesses for MP play. You may not like paradox’s MP but you cant say that they are not suited to MP. Its just incorrect, otherwise what on earth have thousands of us all been doing for two years?

Paradox took MP to a new level, taking up the baton where the civ series left off and revolutionised MP.

[adi321]

Originally posted by mowers
EU2 has 59,011 posts for MP alone and we have deleted around 10,000 on top of that.

I agree with most of your post mowers.

But the 'we' part had me rolling on the floor.

[ravagon]

Originally posted by mowers

EU2 has 59,011 posts for MP alone and we have deleted around 10,000 on top of that.

Now. In comparison I look at Civ II, Civ III and Call to Power MP sites here and they have a grand total of
only 38,387 posts. Thats from a game that has a history that simply dwarfs EU and has infinitely greater publicity.

That may be a little misleading as most of the on-topic fora here are archived fairly often.

[Main_Brain]

Its more about Concentration paradoxplaza is the Official well supplied Board. There are few other EU [b]Boards[b/] arround.
Civ is more divided. Civfanatics CGN etc.

Nevertheless are the Paradox Games pretty nifty at MP.
My First Vix Game will 'prolly be MP ;=)

[mowers]

My post account analysis isnt a good indicator or measure of success as pointed out. But that we managed to get that far indicates that MP was a success.

Where the games have traditionally been weak is in SP. Paradox have created such complex models that an accompanying level of AI is impossible short of a major injection of resources which this tiny team of swedes dont have.

I think what is amazing about paradox is that they are still releasing patches for their games 18 months down the line, not bug fixes but game play improvement patches. There is great commitment to this game and its wonderful to be part of it.

Whether Victoria is a success or not in MP we will see. I've my doubts but I still have high hopes, its a big old game and easily the most ambitious to date. It drastically moves away from the traditional wargame, but I know that paradox will do their best to ensure that its a top notch MP game.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by mowers

Many of the games have 20+ people in them at the same time and go on for months...

Exactly.


It takes an immense amount of time and co-ordination to play it multiplayer, hence why it does not lend it self to it.

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by Osweld



Exactly.


It takes an immense amount of time and co-ordination to play it multiplayer, hence why it does not lend it self to it.

..but that's enough complaining about Civ 3, lets talk about Victoria!

[General Ludd]

Why compare it to civ 3? (rotten) apples and (rotten) oranges.


TBS games aren't anymore suited to multiplayer then Victoria, but they do atleast have the advantage of being able to play PBEM games, which are nice for a leisurely (and very long) game - It's also more appealing for the roleplayer types like me, since you can take your time making diplomatic messages and communications.

[adi321]

Well a lot of people on the paradox forums would disagree that you can't be diplomatic or play long campaigns in the paradox games in multiplayer.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by adi321
Well a lot of people on the paradox forums would disagree that you can't be diplomatic or play long campaigns in the paradox games in multiplayer.

Of course you can play long games. That's all you can play. But not leisurely, atleast not like you can in PBEM. First of all, EU is a realtime game, and you can't keep pausing it like you might in singleplayer, because there's a dozen other people there and the game wouldn't go anywhere if it was constantly paused. And then when you're not playing it, you're trying to organize a time when everyone can be on at the same time, or looking for people who didn't show up. It's a sort of long, drawn out, franticness.

And yes, you can roleplay aswell, but really only between sessions. otherwise you have to do it all in realtime which I personally think is awkward for that kind of roleplaying.