The first Victoria 3 patch is out now, and while it’s labelled a hotfix, the changes it makes could hardly be more significant. Patch 1.0.4 makes adjustments to the way certain interest groups view key issues of the day in the grand strategy game, how revolutions begin organising, the impact of government wage adjustments, and debt slavery – and that’s just scratching the surface.
Internal politics have gotten some of the most consequential changes in this first Victoria 3 patch. To date, it’s been suspiciously easy to avoid sparking a civil war in the United States by abolishing slavery, and Paradox has increased the radicalism of the movements both to preserve and to abolish slavery across the board. This applies to other government principles laws as well, so you should find that these major reforms will be significantly more fraught going forward.
You’ll also find more progressive political movements springing up throughout the game, but that’s coupled with an increased effect on law passage from movements to preserve – so, more people will want change, but the forces in power will make it harder to pass the laws they want.
Revolutions will start organising when radicalism reaches 50 rather than 100 from now on, although it’ll still have to reach 100 before the revolution actually begins.
Reducing government wages will now have a negative effect on your nation’s prestige, and if you cut military wages, training will slow down. The Petit-Bourgeoisie will also take particular note of this, since that group now cares about government wages.
Debt slavery works a bit differently after this patch. It can now effect pops up to wealth level 9, but in reduced numbers for each wealth level up to that point. That caps out when slaves account for 20% or more of a state population. The number of pops who can enter debt slavery each week has been reduced from 5% to 0.5% of a state’s population.
The Victoria 3 team has also adjusted the production of subsistence farms so that nations in Africa do not start the game with pops whose quality of life is at starvation levels.
Another nice change is that the revenue prediction tooltip that appears when you’re looking at potential buildings to construct will now provide more accurate (and thus, useful) estimates.
On the diplomatic side, Victoria 3’s AI has gotten some tweaks to make it more likely to get involved in diplomatic plays, and less likely to back down when they do. The AI will also try harder to sway other nations to its side when it’s outmatched, and during war, it will focus more energy on conquering contiguous areas. Native uprisings have gotten a boost to their combat effectiveness, particularly when they’re fighting on defence.
In the official patch notes, there’s also a line that reads “Fixed typos in several defines.” Paradox doesn’t go into detail on this count, but it could cover a lot of weird behaviour players have observed in Victoria 3 – recall the poor AI in Aliens: Colonial Marines that was caused by a misspelt word in a particular string of code.
Check out our Victoria 3 cheats and console commands guide for all the ways we’ve found to break the game, or for more basic info, consult our Victoria 3 trade and Victoria 3 diplomatic plays explainers – they’ll get you on the road to world domination in no time.