Can we do the unthinkable? This video explores the idea. Victoria 2 is everyone’s favourite game, but Paradox doesn’t care for it; they departed drastically in the sequel and took the franchise in a bizarre anti-war, building queue simulator direction. Despite having a great vision, Vic2 suffers from many flaws, exploits and bugs that Paradox couldn’t fix. Would it be possible to reverse engineer the game and create our own Open Victoria 2?
While I introduce the idea, I also mention a couple of other similar games which are in development, so check out Symphony of Empires & Bismack 1. I also provide a brief history of Paradox’s track record of licensing out their engine to development teams of modders to make games, such as Darkest Hour and the not-so-successful East vs West. The best case study for a successful open-source remake or a game is OpenTTD. If we can replicate that in any way, then this will be amazing.
I want to hear what everyone thinks of this idea. Nothing is set in stone yet, and if we do go ahead with this, it’s a long hard road. But it really brings me hope because of all the possibilities.
Links & Sources:
OpenTTD: https://www.openttd.org/
Symphony of Empires: https://symphony-of-empires.com/ (webpage contains a link to their discord)
Bismarck 1 discord: https://discord.gg/zsgdrgxwcJ
Schombert’s video that I used: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsIqWxIvkvk
Schombert’s OpenV2 github: https://github.com/schombert/Open-V2
Victoria 2 Lord of the Rings mod: https://github.com/The-Third-Age
A New Sun Will Rise Vic2 mod: https://discord.gg/3uzDjHn
Zombie’s dice roll mod: https://github.com/ZombieFreak115/Vic2-Roll-Changer/
EU4 dev diary in question: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/europa-universalis-iv-development-diary-28th-september-2021.1492744/
Vic3 dev diary showing splashing water: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/victoria-3-dev-diary-69-feature-game-jam-part-1.1561276/
Music, in order of appearance:
Symphony no. 6 Tchaikovsky
OpenTTD main theme “Journey”
“The RAF” Hearts of Iron 2 soundtrack
“Johan’s Waltz” Vic2 soundtrack
“Rise and Fall of Evil” Hearts of Iron 2 soundtrack
Symphony no. 5 movement 2 Tchaikovsky
“Inventions” Vic2 soundtrack
“For God and Queen” Vic2 soundtrack
Channel membership link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4n1nJMC_kwDLM9-tm-zXjw/join
Second channel for stream archives: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChQcjjK7eudLt7tIi-XsaZw
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SpudgunOfficial
Discord (you can find links to Victoria 2 multiplayer communities): https://discord.gg/3ZvPFAk
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SpudgunO
source
Paradox is in urgent need of competition
That would honestly be so amazing. Vic 2 is – even with all of its bugs & problems – one of my most liked video games of all time, and Vic 3 seems to have gone – like you said – to a completely different direction. I'm not a modder myself, have no knowledge of coding, but this call for this project is something I support wholeheartedly! Let's go, Open Vic 2!!
Recreating the bugs is probably more work than it's worth. Given that Vicky 2 still runs on modern operating systems it's not really necessary as a preservation effort.
The fact that spud isn't a 38 year old man is very surprising
idk if this means anything to anyone but I remember someone recreating Victoria 2 for mac which was how I played the game originally since I didnt have a pc then. I dont think it was open and I cant find it anymore since it was 32 bit and I cant find it online anymore but if you can find the dev who remade it then this could help a ton for this open project. Like I remember it said in the mac store page something like "This is an unoficial port for Mac I made based on the PC version and Paradox was ok with me selling it here since they had no plans to sell the game on mac anyways" or something.
When paradox is so shit that modders have to make their own game just to have fun.
while i never followed them closely the remakes of SS13 are interesting
hopefully you guys have more luck 😃👍
a comment for the algorithm
Cool!
I think that shombert had done a lot of work already, please continue that!
we need this so much
I wouldn't exactly call Pacifica one of the "brightest minds" of the HOI4 modding community
Remininding me of some early MOBA shenanigans, but not quite sure … Blizzard can you help me out ?
I can't put into words how much I sympathize with this vid, even though I'm not a viccy 2 enjoyer. One of the crucial points you excellently convey between the lines of your video is that Paradox has grown into a soulless, horrible company that is not at all to be trusted in any way, essentially the EA of Grand Strategy Games.
I'm not a patreon but do want to shout out Wolferos who is working on a game Fields of History. The lad made a famous hoi4 mod 'The Great War' which was very popular in the early days of hoi4. While the mod wasn't a huge overhaul, the way he played around with the ingame numbers to transform a WW2 game into a trench warfare simulator was actually very impressive for the limited tools he had available, so that gives me high hopes for his owm release (even if such a project is on a way different scale).
Good fortune to all the Paradox content modders out there, you put in invaluable work enhancing everyone's game experience to heights Paradox could never dream of (quite literally as they lack the creative talent to do so).
I have become somewhat interested in programming, since grand streategy doesnt require that good of a grapghics card to actually make, so my PC can run games like it, I thought of trying to create something like Crusader Kings, just more historically accurate to the middle ages than what paradox makes.
Eh moving stacks isn't necessarily better I'd say that it's a pretty bad system as well and micro is the most boring part of Victoria 2
hearing this made my day better
oos
ah magna mundi… i remember.. he wanted to punish players for going off the rails… for conquering land that was not historical. the "soulslike" of map painters… if you want to make a game to punish players for playing it.. You are doing it wrong…
Let's call it Victoria 2.5
I know someone was working on open HOI3, since base game is so buggy now and buckling under its own weight, but is the deepest HOI game so far.
Now this sounds amazing and is something that I've even thought of doing every once in a while! I've sadly never modded Vic2 but tbh, I'd love to join in on this!!
I would throw down some money for the project
Have you tried contacting contacting the original developer? I think no one of the old development teams is still at paradox.
openmw is also a great example where they modded IN multiplayer to a non multiplayer game. i think this is a wonderfull idea.
Damn, this is something I really wish I could help, sadly idk shit about coding and etc, but as a gradstudent in geography I guess I could def help with the game design adjusts and ideas
16:09 "Ah, so that's why Vic 3 turned to shit the way it did. Now I'm starting to understand everything, perfectly. That should've been a red flag right there and then."
These takes never get old lul
Wait you also were born in 1997, shesh we are old.
Way back in 2016, me and a couple of friends actually tried to remake vicky from scratch, since the desync and overral QoL issues were unbearable for us sometimes.
we never got really far, life got in the way, but we did made an actual globe world, that was sick
we had some really great QoL ideas and how to implement them, macro building, on-the-fly modding and world/save editing, network changes etc, looking back it really had a lot of potential.
I will say, making even the smallest of things was a draconian task, at least for us at the time (being 17yo learning programming in high school courses). Good luck to whoever attempts an open vicky2, its going to be an insurmountable amount of work.
On one discord server there is guy who is making ww1 themed game with vic-like economy and something from HOI4 on godot.
The Clausewitz Engine is the single biggest thing holding back the Paradox titles. They’re too lazy to fix the engine and they don’t want to invest in developing a new one. Likely because Cities:Skylines has become their bread and butter over Grand Strategy Games so they just don’t dedicate any resources to the genre anymore. Paradox has become too corporatized, and Vic 3 is the latest example of their attempt to do another Imperator:Rome and get more money.
as long as i can save convert id like it
That HOI2 Music…
Fond memories!
i love the vic2 in terms of economy and politics but i cant play due to the pain of going to war. i only got about 100 hours in with about half of that being in "spectator". if there is one thing i would like to see in a open vic game would be a war system closer to eu4(4k hours of my life gone).
I definitely want this to happen. My friends bought me HOI 4 and EU IV but I have never been able to get into those games. I keep finding myself back at Vic 2 replaying countries and expanding my empire.
If we want this community to succeed, I think you should immediately start building a Discord and Reddit. Lay down the infrastructure to hold the troops. And then enlist the help of larger creators, the more who know the more who can join. We don't need PDX, the barrier of entry to game development is gone, and communities have the means of coordination unlike ever seen before. I wish you and all of us luck.
I feel your pain. Programmers are smart… but they don't play the games they design enough to know how the human element fits into all of this. They end up having to depend on game designers and play testers to tell them what to do, but depending on who is the project lead, and the constraints put in place by the financiers, it often isn't enough.
I've been really into the Hell Let Loose development, and Black Matter and their new owners Team17 have no idea what they are doing. But there's nothing I or anyone else can do to help them.
wait, you're only one year older than me?
i like vic 3, and while i know most people dont i do think a similar kind of internal politics screen could make an open victoria really good. not exactly the same (fuck legitimacy) but the ideas of different interest groups / political parties and laws could be really cool
Paradox has become the new EA/Ubisoft and the fanboys keep sucking its boots. It's truly sad to see. Regardless, amazing video! Keep it up
I have on and off being working on my own victoria 2 "clone" for a few years. You can find it on my github. Currently i mostly have only the economy working. Map modding is kind of half done, and a map view is non-existent. I have some sliders too for controlling tarrifts, taxes and solder wages.
I agree with you and I do think it would be cool to see but it would take so much work and is just kinda sad honestly.
I held onto the idea for a while of a hybrid – one that takes some of what works with Victoria II and merges it with some of what works with Victoria III. And would that make a game that more realistically represents the life of a nation from 1836-1936? Probably. But would it be more fun, especially as a multiplayer experience? Hell no! This actually seems like a really great idea for giving Victoria II the chance to do what it does best – be a board game like experience where nations compete with each other have the highest score at the end of the industrial era.
Victoria 3 was a real gut check for me like damn paradox why you gotta do us like this
What’s the story about the Portuguese dev put in a institution?