[/p]
Negotiations
[p]Negotiations is a new system in which the player can offer something in exchange for an interest group to support – or at least stop stalling – the current law enactment. It functions essentially as an enactment event on demand, giving players the ability to load the dice and turn enactment in their favour.[/p][p]At last a chance to even the odds on difficult law enactments.[/p][p][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/40579353/36dab5a234583c02fb51a8d363f017cde0842d15.png"][/img][/p][p][/p][p]To be more explicit, negotiation can do one of the following: [/p]
- [p]Convince a neutral Interest Group to support the law, adding to enactment chance.[/p][list]
- [p]Note: Interest Groups not in government who support the law do not contribute to enactment chance in Victoria 3. One must move them into the government first. [/p][/*]
[/p][p]Whom to speak to first is actually a tactical decision, as making lots of promises will lower Amenability until you complete them.[/p][p][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/40579353/4b9f5e6cc83b9092a48ef8b8856d6d920ef80636.png"][/img][/p][p]A popup tooltip on hovering over an IG.[/p][p][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/40579353/66a599c4d7fa6bff15eec8930b576811b1f964a3.png"][/img][/p][p][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/40579353/95eaec45121c02a91e54b3875b04a0f5720e1c87.png"][/img][/p][p][/p][p]Other Amenability factors include boosts for ruler's popularity, various laws (e.g. secret police gives a boost), and modifiers - especially from having existing promises still outstanding. Interest Groups are also particularly keen to negotiate if they think it will make no difference anyway.
[/p][p]Based on Amenability, there are four levels of negotiation:[/p]
- [p]<25 Amenability: The Interest Group will not negotiate at all. [/p][/*]
- [p]25-49 Amenability: Negotiations will be difficult. Expect doubled costs and requests.[/p][/*]
- [p]50-74 Amenability: Negotiations will be pragmatic. Standard costs and requests.[/p][/*]
- [p]75-100 Amenability: Negotiations will be collaborative. Halved costs and requests.[/p][/*]
[/p][p]Let us just say that if an IG somehow inherits a portion of the treasury in the form of non-descript subsidies, contracts and gifts, this will increase their political strength in the future. The public may be less than enthused if some do-gooder reporter were to ever publish the facts.
[/p][p]Likewise if, by pure coincidence, the Interest Group finds itself suddenly in prominent positions all over the nation's bureaucracy, this will only give them opportunities to expand. Also don't expect them to actually do any bureaucratic labor. Afterall, isn't the point of these couchy government positions, where you can't even be fired, to stick your feet up and relax?
[/p][p]Working too hard for the government only makes everyone else look bad. Besides, trying to really improve the country… you'd be at it all day! (I say all this as an ex-public-serviceman myself). [/p][p][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/40579353/41bee48b4d722f0f40ef060047cb746541e00ec1.png"][/img][/p][p][/p][p]Other than that, there are a variety of promises that can be made to the Interest Group. These will spawn a Journal Entry, with severe consequences for failure.
[/p][p]Interest Groups will tend to ask for changes that benefit them specifically: For example, the Armed Forces know full well that their own political strength will increase when the nation grows its army.[/p][p][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/40579353/d3b75442ded103cf18a2a5a24ae025c2c3066947.png"][/img][/p][p][/p][p]Always read the fine print.[/p][p][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/40579353/a76b433c897376a5350bb996e9118c01189ba2ec.png"][/img][/p][p]The Journal Entry includes buttons to admit the promise was a hoax all along, so we can all come to terms with the state of politics. Players can also announce delays, increasing the timeout for a slight cost to approval. [/p][p][/p][p]Lastly, negotiation is almost entirely powered by script, so modders are free to add more options and tweak balance to their heart's content.[/p][p][/p]
New Production Methods
[p]On a more serious note: While Victoria 3 has always contained slavery, we previously didn't have any model for the exploitative practices that continued after slavery was banned. Our new plantation production methods, while still by no means perfect, are a step closer to representing the relationship between colonisation and the exploitation of plantation labor post-slavery, and also the violence of slavery itself in the few places it remained. [/p][p][/p][p]Plantations now have a higher mortality rate in general, and generally employ more people. There is differentiation between different plantations, with sugar in particular being the most deadly. This is particularly true to Cuban history during this era, where slaves were expected to be replaced after ten years. [/p][p][/p][p]Slavery will unlock a plantation's Violent Treatment production method, which represents the most brutal practices during the colonial era. Otherwise, if a country has no liberal laws, especially labor laws, the Exploitative Practices production method also boosts production at the expense of the workers standard of living and mortality.[/p][p]See below a comparison of the sugar and coffee plantations exploitative production methods, though note, as always, that the final numbers are likely to be tweaked for balance purposes.
[/p][p]Sugar was infamous as the most deadly plantation crop. [/p][p][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/40579353/f4fc4e2d23f89b703ff8dafe93d82e12fc8023d7.png"][/img][/p][p]All plantations have access to the new Working Conditions group, though each has different numbers to reflect differences in the crops.[/p][p][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/40579353/0ee8fa9a3f0a641b0bf45c4611cc6936247a384c.png"][/img][/p][p][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/40579353/f4e9cf0639db9ec956643e7a57147c75c86f959c.png"][/img][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/40579353/8eb2e136b509278a0f8d346122c1db72f18d8b63.png"][/img][/p][p][/p][p]Depending on the area in question, coffee also had a reputation for brutal working conditions. [/p][p][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/40579353/a92a45527b14371aee706cb4db89c280de766a4e.png"][/img][/p][p][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/40579353/497439c4f1375adf6e4b8c575a8831c90f3e74c8.png"][/img][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/40579353/61120e3246343a68199e3002f83677a7b82e4ae6.png"][/img][/p][p]In general too, plantations tend to employ more people and output more goods. This makes them more construction efficient and advantageous to the weaker economies with lower wages, even when not using the exploitative production methods. This is to model the reasons behind why plantations were placed in the parts in the world with the least wages or workers rights.
[/p][p]These changes to plantations also should shift the economic balance in a way that models the reasons the colonial powers were driven to create colonial administration to oversee the production of valuable cash crops. By putting these colonies under their own charters, instead of using the metropole's laws to the letter, a double-standard system was created where local exploitation could continue even whilst labor reform was underway in European cities. [/p][p][/p][p]In terms of gameplay, this will make more profitable to release colonies as their own subject, or give them to companies to manage through a Colonization Rights charter.The nations with slavery from gamestart, such as Brazil and Cuba, will have a harder time moving away from slavery, and their landowners will feel a more destructive blow to their profits as slavery ends. All in all, this will create more historically accurate simulation.
[/p][p]There are two major counterbalance points to slavery as well: First of all, the Slave Trade and Legacy Slavery Laws now come with -25%, -10% Influence penalties respectively, representing the diplomatic costs to maintaining these internationally illegal operations. [/p][p][/p][p]Secondly a new Slave Revolt movement has been created. Slaves will now launch full secessions or revolutions. Having a large army will help keep such revolts in check, unless you intentionally want to side with the slave revolt and cause a Haitian style revolution. [/p][p]
[img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/40579353/1d38559302aac75bb8d8ec026cd2251793591604.png"][/img][/p][p][/p][p]If a nation loses their overlord's military support or doesn't keep their army up to size, the slave revolt movements can be deadly as more radical slaves join the movement over time.[/p][p][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/40579353/5f2611993a44c959438ec544c701ef80b9f2a11b.png"][/img][/p][p]
[/p][p]On a happier note, there are also new production methods to represent the manufacturing and technical developments that accompanied Sugar production, which assisted Cuba's eventual banning of slavery in earnest.
[img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/40579353/5a6c5e19549c15ae49eb48070aa278fa52e759e6.png"][/img][/p][p][/p][p]Likewise, Tobacco has unique Production Methods symbolising not only its manufacture, but its unique revolutionary history. Cuban tobacco workers, rolling cigars from dawn to dusk, had the idea that it might be nice for a person to read to them while they worked. They chipped in their own wages to pay a man to stand at a lector and read to them. Stories sure, but also news. And then, inevitably, workers' news, and the writings of the Cuban Independence movement.
[/p][p]Cigarette rolling machines did much to transition the world from pipe smoke to modern cigarettes, though handrolled Cuban cigars have never gone out of fashion. [/p][p][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/40579353/58ae062c426e0137cbd095d78a1e4a982e8902fc.png"][/img][/p][p][/p][p]Lectors improve the quality of life of the workers, but all that time to talk and think might give them… ideas. [/p][p][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/40579353/37ad266f409778c6b742a6776dd9f402f6d290ec.png"][/img][/p][p][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/40579353/28c163c60781744b18ce2417da802079c9d65b3c.png"][/img][/p][p]Wouldn't it be nice to listen to music on the wireless while we worked? [/p][p][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/40579353/76fe08bad40d889371e6e77707fb70ed57012424.png"][/img][/p][p][/p][p]That's all from me today. Now I'll hand over to Vicka who'll talk about the new ability to add fine print to laws through Law Amendments. [/p][p]
[/p]
Amendments and Other Free Additions
[p][/p][p]Hello. This is Victoria, Narrative Design Lead of Victoria 3. Today, I will be covering the other free content updates and additions coming in Update 1.12, starting with the new Amendment system. Please note, as ever, that any screenshots attached are from a work-in-progress build, and certain elements may not be final.[/p][p]
[/p]
Amendments
[p]Circa 1836, the qualification to vote in French elections was governed by the Charter of 1830. Under this constitution, men who paid 200 francs or more in direct tax were eligible to vote, a class which encompassed only 0.5% of the population. This small electorate, which excluded nearly the entire middle-class, was one of the leading grievances that led to the fall of the July Monarchy in 1848. It has hitherto been represented as Wealth Voting under our law system.[/p][p][/p][p]At the same time and across the Channel, the British voting franchise was governed by the Reform Acts of 1832. These laws, through a system of various property and rent qualifications, created an electorate which encompassed approximately 15% of the male population of the British Isles. The passage of the Reform Acts was considered a great victory of the liberal movement, and arguably averted revolution in Britain through incorporating the middle-classes into politics to a degree unseen in continental Europe. These laws have hitherto also been represented as Wealth Voting.[/p][p][/p][p]From a technical perspective, it is entirely correct to represent both laws as Wealth Voting. Both represented the political ambitions of the middle-classes at the time of their passage, both gate suffrage behind abstract wealth rather than property ownership, and neither quite fits into what we refer to as Landed Voting or Census Voting - yet their specifics are obviously different. What, then, is a manul to do?[/p][p][/p][p]Enter Amendments.[/p][p][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/40579353/e7511bf267a46dab97592b1669108f3f549d143f.png"][/img][/p][p][/p][p]Amendments are our system for the modularisation of laws. They may be added to laws by event during the enactment process, coming into effect upon the law’s successful passage. Additionally, some countries, such as the aforementioned France, may start the game with amendments on their laws.[/p][p][/p][p]Some enactment events that previously granted flat enactment success chance will now add Amendments to laws, adjusting the effect of the law once enacted in return for securing the support of certain interest groups.[img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/40579353/b41ddef3c4ee146dd633f60b3fc082e202d7a3b4.png"][/img][/p][p]Pictured: The Tenant Farmers law now faces no opposition from the Shogunate, but will exert a heavier tax burden upon the freshly-freed peasants.[/p][p][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/40579353/8d630779c33f19b881c88acb916d91b0494b8438.png"][/img][/p][p][/p][p]All amendments have a parent law, much like the Law Variants added in Update 1.9. Interest Groups inherit their stances on an amendment from their stance on this parent law. If an amendment has been enacted long enough ago, and there is more clout in government opposing it than clout supporting it, one may repeal the amendment, removing its effects from the law.[/p][p][/p][p]Pictured: The Church of Norway has taken a bold stance against hitting children with sticks.[/p][p][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/40579353/8493fcbeee558ec860bf6ea95b95441463bac6de.png"][/img][/p][p][/p][p]We have implemented several dozen amendments that may be amended to laws over the course of enactment, and some more appended to countries’ laws at game-start. Attached are some interesting examples.[/p][p][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/40579353/a556758f2fbfd4dc4627213528533d8715928ef9.png"][/img][/p][p]We hope that this system will make the choices made during the law enactment process much more meaningful, and open the door for much more country-specific flavour in the future.[/p][p]
[/p]
Regencies
[p]In Update 1.12, political power has been age-restricted. Countries where children formerly served in the position of Head of State are now ruled as Regencies, with a designated Regent ruling in their place until their age of majority.[/p][p][/p][p]Pictured: Spain, at game start, is now ruled by Queen-Regent María Cristina de Borbón, with Isabella occupying the slot usually reserved for Heirs.[/p][p][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/40579353/8a800b09f4ba2e1f488a156aff0b7bde4b1c3d2e.png"][/img][/p][p][/p][p]If, over the course of the game, a monarch’s ill-timed death leaves a child on the throne, a regency must be assembled. When assembling a regency, one may choose from a selection of Politicians to serve as Regent, with the interest group represented by the monarch-to-be receiving a bonus to its political strength in the duration. Whilst a regency is ongoing, a country’s legitimacy will suffer, and enacting laws will take slightly longer.[/p][p][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/40579353/808d3ae83ecdf7267756a12d35377b6a216c4c42.png"][/img][/p][p]Once the monarch-to-be has reached the age of majority, they will be coronated, and the Regent will step down from their position.[/p][p][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/40579353/5dbb49bf4ac8668e0ca3b11d8a2ead3c8d4565e9.png"][/img][/p][p]“Hold on,” one might say, “isn’t María Cristina the starting Regent of Spain? How did her position come to be occupied by His Highness Captain General Baldomero Espartero, Viceroy of Navarre, Prince of Vergara, Duke of la Victoria, Duke of Morella, Count of Luchana, and Viscount of Banderas?”[/p][p]This is quite a good question, and its answer will be revealed in a future dev diary.[/p][p]
[/p]
Electoral Clientelism
[p]As I was sitting in the office’s library, reading about the Spanish Provisional Government of 1868, I was struck by a sudden bolt of inspiration. Enchanted by this vision, I proceeded to run downstairs and immediately implement it. The result of this burst of energy is the Electoral Clientelism amendment, our means of representing the systematic electoral fraud that characterised Spanish, Portuguese, Brazilian, and Latin American politics of the period.[/p][p][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/40579353/99c5159487cc772c2952165d7ebfc6b8d71a2476.png"][/img][/p][p][/p][p]This system of fraud went by many names, the most common being the Spanish caciquismo and Portuguese coronelismo or mandonismo. Historically, it functioned through networks of clientelism in rural regions, with local communities granted certain incentives by a political boss, known as a cacique \[as in Spain] or coronel \[as in Brazil] in return for voting in certain ways. The local caciques were typically enmeshed in a network of informal power that included local government officials and members of the dominant political parties. It is this system that facilitated the Spanish turno and Portuguese rotativismo of the late nineteenth century, within which major political parties shared power through alternating terms in government.[/p][p][/p][p]These systems are notable as a symptom of the peculiar political situation of the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking worlds of the time. In his analysis of the nineteenth century, historian Eric Hobsbawm posited caciquismo as a result of the Latin American political system being more advanced than the economy it was based upon. Historian and sociologist Benedict Anderson, in his analysis of cacique democracy in the Philippines, came to a similar conclusion, pointing at the heavily provincial and agrarian nature of the Filipino economy enabling the swift capture of democratic institutions by the rural oligarchy. Electoral clientelism of this type is notably common in political systems that mix voting rights with a widely illiterate and impoverished populace. The expansion of voting rights in Spain marked a corresponding increase in the scope of electoral clientelism, with the era immediately following the advent of universal suffrage contemporary with the height of the caciquist system.[/p][p]The Electoral Clientelism amendment gives one the ability to decide the result of an election, at the cost of an escalating penalty to legitimacy. When a country with this amendment has an election, an event appears, allowing one to either rig it in favour of a certain party, or abstain from any coordinated election-fixing effort. When all parties cheat equally, one may assume that the result is roughly fair.[/p][p][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/40579353/5667735323ba463d89a824ba59d659c6ae979aa7.png"][/img][/p][p]If one chooses to rig the election, one will receive a modifier decreasing the country’s legitimacy, modified by the country’s Free Speech law. This modifier will increase in intensity over time. If one has Right of Assembly, rigging one election may grant -5 legitimacy, whilst rigging three in a row will grant -15. Abstaining from rigging the election will reduce this penalty, and grant progress towards abolishing this system.[/p][p][/p][p]Unlike most other Amendments, the Electoral Clientelism amendment may be inherited by any law that permits for voting. For example, if Brazil begins the game with Electoral Clientelism on its Wealth Voting law, and enacts Landed Voting, this amendment will automatically be added to its new voting law. If one wishes to remove this system, one must refuse to make use of it for five elections in a row, after which one may choose to rid one’s country of it for good.[/p][p][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/40579353/0224dc65394dbf714ade6dffcb5dbace33e61e53.png"][/img][/p][p]At the moment, the Electoral Clientelism amendment affects the electoral laws of all countries with the Age of Caudillos Journal Entry, as well as Portugal, Brazil, Spain, and all of her colonies. It would be very inaccurate, however, to state that these countries were the only ones to experience systemic election-fixing within our time frame. We are presently working on developing a more generalised system of electoral fraud - watch this space for more developments in the field.[/p][p][/p]
[p][/p][p]That is all this time!
[/p][p]Hello, Pelly here to let you know what is up next for dev diaries!
[/p][p]Modding was meant to be in this dev diary but now, you lucky Victorians, you get two dev diaries next week, one on Modding on Monday and a look at narrative content for Spain on Thursday! [/p][p]
We also have a Christmas Sweater available as part of the Paradox Christmas Collection from Pixel Merch! To keep you warm, and looking like a very cosy Industrialist![/p]
