Image via Paradox Interactive

Victoria 3 Update Patch Notes 1.2

From adding new economic laws, to having your very own in game music player.

Alex Garcia

Published: Mar 20, 2023 11:12 am

The latest update in Victoria 3 is set to go live on Monday, March 13th, at 10:00 a.m. CET. From adding an in-game music player, to introducing a plethora of improvements, patches, and bug fixes. While the major updates coming alongside this patch have been shown off in the open beta version of the game. As Victoria 3 is a game about leading countries through the early 1800s to the late 1900s, tweaks to A.I. systems and more will surely help the game improve over time. Let’s reform the government and take a look at Victoria 3 update patch notes 1.2.

Victoria 3 Update Patch Notes 1.2

Due to the vast amount of fixes and updates introduced in this update, we won’t be detailing every small and minute bug fixes. Those looking for the full list of patch notes, can check out part 1 and part 2 of the changelog that developers Paradox Interactive have released.

Features

Autonomous Investment: when the game rule is enabled, Pops will automatically start new private construction projects based on available funds in Investment Pool
Buildings can now have Government Shares, which will pay money (or subtract losses) directly into the treasury relative to building profits and government ownership share
The investment pool is now disabled under Command Economy. When Command Economy is enacted, all funds in the investment pool are seized for the treasury and all private construction projects are turned into government construction projects.
Added new economic law Cooperative Ownership, which requires Council Republic and now unlocks Workers’ Co-ops production methods instead of Council Republic doing so directly
Strategic Objectives that can be designated by the player, encouraging Generals to capture specific states
Command Economy now makes it so all private sector buildings have only government shares, and only pay out government dividends
In-Game Music Player
Defeating a Native Uprising no longer instantly annexes them, but instead creates a Colonization Rights pact which speeds up colonization of that country for 5 years
New Lens interaction and context menu options to reset the Production Methods of a state, building, or building type to national standards
New Journal Entry, Decisions, and events pertaining to Russo-Chinese Border conflicts, the Beijing Treaty, and the Chuguchak Protocol
Complete overhaul of the Taiping Rebellion / Heavenly Kingdom event chain, including a new Journal Entry and event, a custom government form, historical characters, unique Interest Groups, new law setup, and plenty of fixes and balance changes
Markets now have a Land Trade Capacity, which allows trade routes between adjacent markets to trade a limited number of goods without needing to use convoys

Improvements

Trade Routes now trade using market price, rather than a computed difference between pre- and post-trade prices. Trade routes now cannot be profitable unless the price is lower in the exporting market than in the importing market.
Secondary war goals added in a Diplomatic Play can now be locked in at the cost of Infamy and Maneuvers, causing them to be yielded if the target backs down
Numerous improvements to battle initiation, including picking which units should be involved and how many units each side can bring
It is no longer possible to colonize a state where another country both has a claim and maintains an interest, unless you also have a claim there
Several claims have been added to colonizable regions where other powers should not be able to start colonies, such as Hokkaido for Japan
Worldwide rebalancing of Arable Land, with land generally reduced in Europe/Asia and generally increased in the Americas
When a Native Uprising starts, they now only get conquer wargoals on states in state regions where the Native country owns land, instead of all adjacent states
We now print a list of any missing DLC or mods when attempting to load a game, but let you try to load the game anyway
Low Legitimacy is now communicated through an Alert (or an Important Action, depending on the severity)
Added a Game Rule for whether Investment Pool is autonomously used by pops or directly controlled by the country

Interest Groups are now much more likely to spread out across multiple available parties, reducing the risk of ideological incoherence within parties
Maintaining additional Convoys in excess of what is needed now provides a bonus to Trade Route Competitiveness
Unrecognized Powers now get a special Journal Entry for becoming Recognized during the Hegemon objective
Colonial Clash event now triggers considerably less aggressively
Notifications can now be dismissed in Observer mode
Naval Invasions are no longer limited to using Admirals and Generals from the same HQ, but can use Generals from any HQ with coastal access
If a front is resolved, any Generals at that front will now only automatically reassign themselves to a nearby front if it will take at most 30 days to reach it. In case of travel durations longer than that, the General will instead Stand By in their current location
Battles currently in progress no longer get manpower reinforcements from newly trained servicemen. Reinforcements will arrive once the battalions leave their current battle.
Battle Conditions now have a chance to update after having been active for several days, ensuring the tides can turn during battles
The Offense/Defense bonus enjoyed by Colonial Uprisings has been halved

You now get to choose to recruit one of 3 (instead of 2) Generals and Admirals
Certain Diplomatic Plays such as Annex Subject are no longer blocked by having too good Relations with the target
Interest Groups will no longer forget all about slavery as soon as it’s abolished, but will retain their former ideals for some time
New Alert for when a country does not produce enough construction to fully utilize the money coming into its investment pool
Farmers and Shopkeepers now reinvest a small portion of their earned dividends into the Investment Pool
Only slave states can now revolt with the Confederate States of America, and only free states with the Free States of America
When the American Civil War breaks out, USA now gets claims on all states of the seceding country, and the seceding country gets a Revoke All Claims wargoal
Unincorporated states now cost less Infamy and Maneuvers to claim than incorporated ones
Reduced Fertilizer production from Intensive Grazing Ranches
The most powerful Interest Group in a party is now considered the Party Whip, letting them moderate the impact of ideological incoherence among groups that do not agree with them

GDP is now measured by subtracting the cost of input goods used in manufacturing, which is more true to life and doesn’t unfairly rewards manufacturing economies over resource economies
Buildings will now raise wages only if they have considerable profits and they have employees below minimum expected Standard of Living, or if they have reasonable profits, are trying to compete for labor, and have <50% employment
Buildings will now lower wages or lay off employees if they are running a deficit and have <50% cash reserves, or if they have minimal profits and employees have a Standard of Living >33% above the minimum expected standard
Generals will now be more aggressive and consistent about pursuing war goals, even when those war goals are far away
Improved national dissolution events for China and India
Revolutionary or Seceding countries are no longer able to engage in Colonization, as this would cause orphaned colonies upon their destruction
Auto-Expand trigger conditions have been altered to ensure very expensive buildings don’t block new buildings from being added
First Aid Production Method now requires Liquor and Fabric rather than Opium, while Opium is only required by Field Hospitals PM
When a country splits due to a revolution, any gold reserves or debt it has will be split between them in accordance with GDP. When one country annexes another in a revolution, gold reserves / debt will be recombined.
It is now possible to use the Take Treaty Port wargoal on a treaty port where you already own part of the state even if the holder is of higher or equal power rank

Earnings prediction when expanding buildings has been made less confusing by only displaying the earnings of the prospective level and ensuring Economy of Scale is factored in
Serfdom now reduces the amount of Infrastructure states get from their population
Junior countries in a Customs Union will now get Trade Centers for their own trade routes
Investment Pool contribution balance revisions to ensure the pool can be relevant for all countries and to not radicalize investors when they increase their investments
Command Economy now requires Autocracy or Oligarchy to enact
Postal Savings technology now increases the efficiency of Shopkeeper and Farmer investment
Council Republic now increases the Clout of the Trade Unions instead of the Political Strength of Farmers and Machinists
If the outcome of a battle would result in a tiny pocket with its own irrelevant front, it will be handed over to the winner instead, reducing the number of fronts created in wars overall
Rebalanced employment numbers, trade volume and economy of scale for Trade Routes to work better with market price trading
Added a warning for negative productivity trade routes

Improved overall profitability of Vineyards
Laissez-Faire now disallows any downsizing of private sector buildings
Unacceptable legitimacy level now slow down the enactment of laws
Righteous legitimacy level now impact enactment speed a bit less
Mass migration targets are now selected in two steps, first country then state, increasing the reliability of migration waves to the new world
Mass migration targets are now established by culture + country rather than culture only
Mass migration should now only occur from states considered homelands for that culture
Mass migration target limits based on cultural turmoil removed, replaced by a cooldown per culture + country pair from a specific country
Limited emigration to a percentage of the state’s population + a percentage of unemployed Pops in the state each week
Adjusted some countries’ cultural tolerance setup to encourage more new world migration

The Competitiveness of a trade route now increases the longer it’s been established, making it harder for new routes to compete on limited supply
Rebalanced pop growth, including secondary factors like dangerous working conditions, to achieve stronger and more historically accurate compound pop growth
War Exhaustion from occupation now scales in a non-linear fashion against the amount of territory occupied, so that occupying just a small portion of a country now does not have much impact but fully occupying them still has a huge impact
Provinces are now selected for new battles according to more relevant parameters (e.g. distance to war goal)
Particularly severe goods shortages are now signaled to the player as Alerts rather than Important Actions
Italian and German flags now look different depending on which country formed them
Slower tech progression but with tech boosts from Journal Entries and events (from “Open Beta Tweaks” mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)
It is now possible to take Treaty Ports from Isolationist countries and trade with their market if you hold such a port
War Exhaustion from casualties is now scaled off military size rather than population size and increases by the relative amount of battles lost by a country’s side of the wa
Colonizable Pacific Islands now have the Severe Malaria trait to discourage early colonization

Western Australia, New South Wales and Japan now start with Colonial Resettlement
Anarchism now requires the Cooperative Ownership economic law to be enacted, and disables all other economic laws
Interest Groups with a Slaver leader are now virtually guaranteed to join the Democrat Party while the ‘Great Slavery Debate’ journal entry is active
Interest Groups with an Abolitionist leader are now virtually guaranteed to join the Republican Party while the ‘Great Slavery Debate’ journal entry is active
Missouri Compromise now also gives additional voting power to Aristocrats and Farmers
Each level of Trade Route now generates a base number of Trade Center levels, and then one additional Trade Center per level, in order to better balance against sharper decline in per-unit profit from market price trading
“Protect Domestic Industry” tariff focus now gives a greater increase in export tariffs
“Encourage Exports” tariff focus now gives a greater increase in import tariffs
Very unhealthy characters may now die young
Industrial Barriers event has been rewritten to be more balanced and engaging

Music track now resets when exiting the game to the Main Menu
Command Economy no longer enforces mandatory subsidies, since deficits are covered by the treasury due to government shares anyway
Buildings will no longer raise wages to attract new employees if no qualifying employees exist
Increased radicals from being below minimum Standard of Living (from “Open Beta Tweaks” mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)
Poor pops are now more politically engaged at high literacy (from “Open Beta Tweaks” mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)
It is now possible to use “Revoke Claim” war goal to revoke claims that are not on your own states, e.g. colonial claims
Workers in unincorporated states are now generally paid lower wages, especially if they are discriminated and/or you have the ‘Colonial Exploitation’ law
Decentralized Nations no longer have Serfdom law active by default
“Independence” war goal now only requires you to hold your own capital in order to contest the war goal, rather than having to occupy your former overlord’s capital
Console command “tweak debugworldpopulation” can now be used to log many interesting annual global statistics as .csv and Elasticsearch data

Agrarianism now allows whaling, fishing, logging and rubber plantations to be funded by the investment pool when using Directly Controlled Investment game rule
All workforce pops in Worker Co-ops now have an equal ownership share
Defeating the Shogunate in a Civil War will now complete the Meiji Restoration
Trade Routes will now always increase their size so long as they can maintain at least £10 productivity, and always decrease their size if they are unable to maintain at least £3 productivity
Markets are now considered adjacent if they have any land adjacency, not just if their capital areas are adjacent
Improved balance for Political Movement start chances
High and Very High taxation levels now slightly reduce the Pop attraction of the Interest Groups in power
Revolutionary uprisings now select their participating states with more precision
Changed completion conditions for the Declare Interest tutorial to lower the barrier for low-Prestige countries
Conscript troops and standing armies now have the same statistics when the same Production Methods are active

Whaling Stations now have a Simple Whaling Production Method that produces mostly Meat
Whaling Stations and Fishing Wharves now have Ownership Production Methods that are better aligned with other Resource industries
Arms Industries and Munition Plants now have Automation Production Methods
Indus Valley and Good Soil state traits now also include bonuses for Plantations
USA gets a claim on Texas from Manifest Destiny (from “Open Beta Tweaks” mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)
Construction Industries now have increased Laborer mortality (from “Open Beta Tweaks” mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)
Arc Welded Construction is now less efficient (from “Open Beta Tweaks” mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)
Rebalanced Radical gain in Subsistence buildings due to Expected Standard of Living
It is now much rarer to get an Obligation from Bankrolling a country
Russia now starts with Propertied Women law instead of Legal Guardianship

Party leader Popularity now has a much lower impact on Election Momentum
Decision to convert Japan to Shintoism now requires a less restrictive Church & State Law, and when taken, will instantly convert 40% of pops in the capital + 20% of all Japanese pops nationwide
Road Maintenance Decree now provides a boost to “Infrastructure from Population” instead of flat Infrastructure
Pops will no longer mass migrate away from a state to such an extent that it completely empties out all non-slave pops
Increased casualties generated by Offense/Defense compared to manpower
Reduced the throughput penalty Decentralized Nations are subjected to from 30% to 10%
If slavery is abolished and a civil war is then launched to restore it, the pro-slavery rebels will now re-enslave discriminated laborers working in agricultural buildings in former slave states instead of just accepting de facto abolition
Rebalanced start conditions to ensure several countries no longer start with negative weekly income
Subsistence buildings can now have the Government Run Production Method
Andrew Jackson now starts the game with Slaver ideology

Britain now starts the game with more agriculture and textile industries
Russia now starts the game with even more agriculture in Ukraine
Calling in a country to a Play by using an Obligation now costs 10 Maneuvers instead of 20
Rebalanced number of provinces conquered in battles
USA event option that annexes the Indian Territory will no longer be selected by the AI if the Indian Territory is controlled by a human player
The Suez and Panama Canal surveys now take less time to complete
All releaseable countries (e.g. Sudan, Inca) are now centralized
Transcaucasia is now a recognized rather than unrecognized nation
Ottomans now start with Line Infantry tech and some barracks with it active (from “Open Beta Tweaks” mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)
Ottomans now start with a longer truce with Egypt (from “Open Beta Tweaks” mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)

Tanzimat: Army Reform no longer requires expanding the army to 250 units, only 150 (from “Open Beta Tweaks” mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)
Germany & Italy now get a bunch of claims on unowned states when formed (from “Open Beta Tweaks” mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)
Heavenly Kingdom event will now trigger at Standard of Living <10 instead of <7 (from “Open Beta Tweaks” mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)
Bolivian event option that annexes Peru will no longer be selected by the AI if Peru is controlled by a human player
Improve Rank tutorial is now adapted to not auto-complete for Unrecognized countries
Tanzimat: Literacy requirement reduced from 35% to 20%
Very small pops that would otherwise be merged into larger pops will now remain intact if they are likely to have recently arrived to their state via migration
Western Australia now has a Claim on New Zealand instead of on New South Wales
Clicking on either the Unhealthy Economy or Stockpiling Gold Important Actions will now open the Budget panel
FMOD audio middleware updated to 2.02.03

Lower effect of Standard of Living on Qing for opium obsession, and higher for having lost opium wars (from “Open Beta Tweaks” mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)
Reformed Mughal is now Muslim (from “Open Beta Tweaks” mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)
India doesn’t get any Iranian cultures as primary (from “Open Beta Tweaks” mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)
Britain now starts with additional Declared Interests
“Visitors from Colonies” event now has a longer cooldown before it can reoccur
Colonization of a claimed state will not be blocked if the country with the claim can’t reach the state
English: fixed a broken reference to concept_subsidizing in Trade Route tooltip
No more Scottish people in India at game start (from “Open Beta Tweaks” mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)
British Gambia now starts with a Port, ensuring it’s not isolated from the British market

A.I.

AI will now never remove the last level of port in a state
AI will now refrain from constructing more ports than it could support financially
AI “Bravery” is now renamed to “Recklessness”
AI will now better balance its forces between defending home HQs and sending troops to overseas fronts
Technologies now have scripted AI weights to fine-tune the AI’s decision making when selecting new research
High Recklessness will now cause the AI to overestimate its military strength in Diplomatic Plays, thereby increasing Confidence
AI is better at responding to political movements (from “Open Beta Tweaks” mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)
AI is now less likely to back down in diplomatic plays where there are numerous primary demands arrayed against them, especially if they will be annexed on backing down
Tweaked unification AI strategies to make the AI better at using the journal entry systems to absorb minor countries
AI will no longer downsize government buildings while in a civil war

AI will now hire enough Generals to effectively garrison their HQs (e.g. to repel naval invasions)
Ensured wars between AI countries do not stall due to neither side ordering their generals to advance
AI is more keen to do reforms to avoid civil war, especially if a subject (from “Open Beta Tweaks” mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)
AI now values institution spending higher and in accordance with its Strategies
Improved AI’s ability to manage Infrastructure levels across their market
Improved AI’s ability to reform its government to maintain reasonable Legitimacy levels
AI will now handle their Generals better, ensuring they are assigned to advance or defend fronts as is appropriate
Adding more primary demands now increases sympathy for opposing side
AI now sets tariff policies on goods according to their interests
AI should no longer offer or accept a white peace when the odds are overwhelmingly in their favor

AI now values the war goal of revoking Treaty Ports more consistently in Diplomatic Plays
AI no longer gets stuck in a spiral of low infrastructure due to underemployed railways
AI is now better at prioritizing construction and usage of Logging Camps
AI will not try to form Germany/Italy until they have nationalism (from “Open Beta Tweaks” mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)
AI, including the Autonomous Investment AI, now correctly assesses the effects of Economy of Scale when determining where to expand a building
Countries will now tend to maintain Generals on stand-by in important coastal HQs to protect from naval invasions
A revolutionary country that has already won the revolution will now be willing to make a white peace with remaining countries in the war
AI is now less likely to take sides in diplomatic plays without a good reason to do so
Fixed a bug that was causing DIPLO_PLAY_BOLDNESS_WEAK_ARMY_FACTOR not to be included in the calculations, AI should now be more likely to back down and less likely to intervene in plays if their own army is very weak
Reduced the overall aggression levels of the AI, as it was overtuned to compensate for (now fixed) bugs listed below

AI is now more aggressive against ideological enemies, and a bit less aggressive against ideological allies
AI is now generally better at constructing peace deals that might end up ceding wargoals to both sides
AI now has an improved understanding of which wargoals are more important than others to press and not have pressed on themselves
AI is now less random about who it has sympathy for in a Diplomatic Play, and more inclined to support allies and subjects
Fixes a bug where AI was miscalculating countries that are likely to declare neutrality as potential enemies, causing it to be far too passive with starting plays in regions with a lot of interests
AI is now less inclined to overbuild railroads in states that have free infrastructure
Fixed a bug where AI Generals were getting stuck on fronts
AI should no longer get into a state where it constantly moves generals back and forth between fronts
AI is now better at understanding how lucrative Gold Mines are
The AI must now wait for a cooldown period before resending an offer the player rejected

Fixed a bug that caused AI peace desire from military strength to be reversed
Fixed reversed check in achievable wargoals that was causing a country that was winning to peace out too early
Fixed a bug where the AI did not understand that potential allies may not be able to join them due to truces and launched potentially suicidal plays as a result
Fixed a bug where allies of the initiator could sometimes ignore truces with the target
AI now looks at the relative power of the two sides’ militaries when deciding how much it wants to make peace
AI will now never abandon allies and subjects in diplomatic plays where they’re not actually at risk due to very weak enemies, etc
AI should now understand Construction Efficiency maluses better and use this knowledge while queueing new constructions
AI is now much more interested in using Automation methods, particularly when the cost of the needed goods is low
AI should now be unwilling to invest in ports if it already has a lot of free convoys and the port wouldn’t connect any new states to its market
Fixed an inconsistency in AI memories where sometimes it was tracking time by days and other times months

Fixed an issue where Generals standing by in non-home HQs were considered to be garrisoning their home HQ
AI now completes expeditions more regularly
AI now places higher importance on conquering land-adjacent states
AI is now more aggressive against Council Republics if they are themselves not a Council Republic
AI is now more aggressive against countries with radical economic laws (Worker’s Co-ops and Command Economy) if they themselves do not have a radical economic law
AI values obligations from irrelevant countries less (from “Open Beta Tweaks” mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)
Russia is better at expanding in Central Asia (from “Open Beta Tweaks” mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)
AI should now be better at establishing Electrics Industries in the mid-game
AI may now choose event option with AI weight 0 as a fallback if all other options are disabled due to failed trigger
AI is now less willing to agree to peace if there are wargoals their side is likely to achieve through capitulation that aren’t part of the peace

Increase AI’s tendency to be neutral in native uprisings
“Powerful Protectors” diplomatic approval malus is no longer applied when the powerful protector is the country making the offer
USA is now much more keen to map the western frontier (from “Open Beta Tweaks” mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)
Italian minors are more aggressive about pursuing unification (from “Open Beta Tweaks” mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)
AI will no longer demand Treaty Ports or Open Market war goals from countries in their own market
AI will no longer demand an Open Market if they already have or are demanding a Treaty Port of the country in the same Play
AI now considers plentiful gold reserves to be less important for deciding when to peace out
Fixed a bug that made the AI reluctant to side against secessions due to risk of spreading when they should actually be reluctant to side with them
European Powers will not take full states in China while Fragile Unity is active unless another European Power has already done so (from “Open Beta Tweaks” mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)
British India will not rebel, to avoid being shattered (from “Open Beta Tweaks” mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)
Increased Britain’s recklessness in the Opium Wars a bit

Interface

Complete overhaul of the Trade Routes panel, adding several different views and options to filter, sort, and manage them
Message Settings control panel can now be used to customize the behavior of notification types, including pausing the game in single player
Rebindable hotkeys
Individual notification types can now be toggled to automatically pause the game in singleplayer
The Population panel now breaks down Pop Consumption and Taxes by strata
Loyalists and Radicals tooltips now reports which Professions and Interest Groups they can be found in
Convoy balance is now prominently displayed in the top bar (for countries with a coastline)
Certain mapmodes now switch with a (configurable) fading animation rather than instantly
New layout for map interaction panel with minimal buttonification, permitted easier tooltipping and navigation in each entry
New, better performing construction UI element below the time controls to distinguish private from government construction

Journal Entry panel can now display its progress as a progress bar, and display all conditional triggers (success/fail/timeout) as well as the effects that would happen
There is now an Important Action for when a Decision is available for you to take
Map Interaction List layout has been changed to improve tooltip usability
Literacy map mode
Infamy map mode
Global population map mode
Goods in specific markets can now be pinned and tracked in the Outliner
Lens bar icons will now take up the entire width of the screen depending on resolution, rather than always 15 per row
All characters, not just Generals and Admirals, can now be pinned to the Outliner
Production Methods now display a short summary of what they do without having to read the tooltip (inspired by the Visual Methods mod by FUN)

Morale for each side is now displayed on the Battle list item in the Front panel
A more compact variant of the Front map marker is now shown if a side doesn’t have any troops there
Diplomatic Action map interaction list now shows a column for “Will Accept” / “Will Accept with Obligation”. Inspired by “Deal or No Deal? Diplomatic UI Expanded” mod by Luk_Zloty
Numerous improvements to notifications such as price reports, mobilization, and declared interests to reduce notification spam
Shortcut Ctrl+B now pauses/unpauses the construction queue
It is now possible to see a tooltip breakdown of a side in a battle ended up with the number of initial units they did
C is now a shortcut for the “Confirm” action, such as default event options
Notification Feed items now animate properly and remember their states
Heatmap colors and values have been updated to make them easier to read, especially in states with low concentrations of something (Inspired by “Practical Heatmaps” mod by Ronin Szaky)
State images now include animated visual effects

Control buttons for Main Menu, Vickypedia, Message Settings, and Music Player in the top right corner now have tooltips
Diplomatic Action tooltips now list correct values for any potential income transfers involved in the pact
Institution tooltips now display their actual, scaled effect due to the investment level, not just the per-level values
Buildings under construction are now excluded from Productivity comparisons
The Expand Building map interaction list now display the amount of available Peasants and Unemployed in the state
The 4 most consumed goods are now displayed in Pop Lists (Inspired by “Visible Pop Needs” mod by Apprehensive-Tank213)
Interest Group panel and tooltip now displays their number of Loyalists and Radicals
The Pop’s number of Loyalists and Radicals are now displayed in Pop Lists
Details on the Investment Pool is now displayed in the Buildings / Construction tab
The “Map List” is now referred to as “Ledger”, and includes a mapmode dropdown

Expand Building map list panel now includes information on state Infrastructure and Labor
Total Pop Size is now displayed on the Overview tab as well as the Economy tab in the Pop panel
Ongoing Naval Battles are now accessible through the War panel
Conscript troops are now illustrated by an image suitable for their Production Methods
When starting a Naval Invasion, the number of Battalions and current Mobilization level is now displayed for each General
The meter on the Battle panel will now more reliably track the progression and predict the outcome of a battle
Currently unavailable Diplomatic Plays are now shown on the country panel in a special section, making it easier to determine why they’re unavailable
Expand Building map list panel now display Taxation Capacity instead of Productivity when building Government Administrations
Convoys tooltip now turns into a paged list after 10 items instead of potentially expanding to fill the whole screen
Interest Groups will now show their Approval when pinned to the Outliner

The names of Battle Conditions are now displayed alongside their icons
Clicking the High Tensions alert will now open the Diplomacy interface instead of doing nothing
Total population per strata is now shown on the Population panel and Standard of Living tooltip
Literacy is now tracked over time and can be displayed in a chart
The effects of Turmoil on Construction Efficiency is now more clearly signaled in the Construction Queue
Front panel header now provides a navigational link to its Diplomatic Play even if it has not yet become a War
Attempting to form a low Legitimacy government now produces a warning confirmation box
Demoralized Manpower is now displayed on the Battle panel
Standard of Living Factors tooltip now includes impact from Pop Consumption
Added the Show More button to see the full breakdown of chart legends on the State Population tab as well

Improved explanation for why a state’s Market Access is suffering
Improved Bureaucracy Usage tooltip on State and Pop levels
Notification rebalancing to decrease the frequency of the worst offenders
Tooltipping the “Tariffs Paid” value now produces a proper nested tooltip rather than an unlocalized string
The endgame screen is now clearer about the fact that it’s possible to continue playing past the end-date
Goods Consumption factors are now added to the reasons for Radicals/Loyalists tooltip
“Involved in conflict” map mode is now switched to be the default only once you have taken a side in a Diplomatic Play
Pop Needs tooltip is now more readable
Generals and Admirals are now more open about which HQ they belong to
Battle tooltips now include Manpower metrics as well as Battalion/Flotilla numbers
The Journal Entry and Player Objectives outliner widgets are now more compact
The Convoy Cost tooltip on the Trade Route item now produces explanatory information when it is zero
Very long player names will now elide properly with a trailing ellipsis in the outliner
Goods tooltip “Go To Details” button will now navigate to the relevant detail panel depending on if a state/market context exist or not
New game concepts for the terms “Popup”, “Feed”, and “Toast”
Stray newlines are now omitted from Production Method tooltips

Performance

Overhaul of Construction Queue related code to optimize performance and improve Autonomous Investments
Optimized country trends to reduce memory usage
Optimized Pop Need caches to reduce memory usage
Optimization of Trade Route map interaction code to eliminate lag spikes
Reworked the Outliner Construction Queue to be considerably faster when many buildings construct at once
Optimized building map markers when constructing buildings in a state with a lot of Turmoil
Optimizations to pollution VFX particle counts
Improved performance when adding new buildings to the bottom of a very large construction queue
Increased the cutoff for what qualifies as a very small pop that should be merged into larger pops for performance reasons

Art

Building Power Plants now cause a representative building model to appear in city hubs
Whaling Stations now have unique Production Method icons
Smoke plumes produced during and after battles have been visually enhanced
The presence of a Mass Migration Target in a state will now increase the number of Horse & Carriages on the roads
Revised table shader for improved lighting, tweaked transition between table and background
Flamethrower VFX is now improved when observing from different camera angles

Localization

Korean: Fixed placeholder text in Downsize Building tooltip
Chinese: Ensures tooltip for Interest Group Pop Attraction works even when a different delimiter than colon is used
Polish: typo that caused an unlocalized string to appear is now fixed in REVOLUTIONS_PROGRESS_TOOLTIP
Polish: concept_budget_construction_goods no longer generates errors
Fixed a reference to unlocalized key concept_promoting in the Interest Group tutorial
Fixed a reference to unlocalized key sepoy_mutiny for the war between East India Company and Hindustan
English: fixed a typo in DIPLOMATIC_ACCEPTANCE_NO_CUSTOMS_UNION
Polish: Fixed a missing space in the date string between the weekday and the month

Modding

New UI function MakeScope available for all UI types with a corresponding scope type, letting modders add scripted GUIs, access saved variables and modifiers in UI script, etc
Journal Entries can now define scripted buttons with custom triggers and effects
Diplomatic Plays can now be scripted with unique Relations requirements rather than being contingent on the same define
New effect set_ruling_party added
AI Strategies now have improved script comment documentation
References to unlocalized text in GUI script will now throw errors
Building group inheritance has been reworked to ensure overridden settings will always supercede default ones across the hierarchy
There is now a “governments” history step after Interest Group/Party setup but before elections that can be used to more precise political setups
New on-actions: on_secession_start and on_secession_end
Console command “investment_pool” will add money to investment pool
was_formed_from = TAG trigger added to check which country definition a new country was originally
New flag definition for a potential USA formed by Michigan
New script effect set_available_for_autonomous_investment to allow/disallow autonomous investment for certain building types in particular states
Diplomatic Plays can now be scripted with settings on whether starting wargoals should generate Infamy
Added new defines for fine-tuning of casualties caused by manpower vs casualties caused by Offense/Defense
remove_war_goal effect is now allowed to remove the last wargoal from a diplomatic play or war

Be sure to take a look at the full list of patch notes to see what exactly has been tweaked and fixed. But overall, from UI improvements to tweaks in performance, the Victoria 3 update patch notes 1.2 are sure to perk the ears of any strategy player. And it seems that the reviews are reflecting these changes, with recent reviews being in the mostly positive area.

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Author

Alex Garcia

Alex Garcia is a freelance writer for Gamer Journalist. Since joining the team in October of 2022, Alex has been covering news and writing guides from all corners of the gaming industry, with a proclivity for covering games such as Destiny 2, Vampire Survivors, and Honkai Star Rail, along with testing out the latest gacha games. In addition to his background in content creation and eSports, you'll find him streaming the latest AAA/Indie game titles on his Twitch in his off time, with a sprinkle of competitive FPS games every now and then (CS: GO, Valorant).