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Unstable, bizarrely overly complicated

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 7 / 13
Date: February 09, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Victoria is another game by Paradox using the same engine used for EU, EU II, and Hearts of Iron. I enjoyed EU II and Hearts of Iron, so I was looking forward to trying Victoria.

EU II and Hearts of Iron are incredibly complicated, but in a good way. It's a strategy gamers delight to tinker and play with the micromanagement of your military and economy. But Victoria adds levels of complexity that seem to have no value. In addition to managing hundreds of provences, units scattered across the globe, and relations with hundreds of countries -- all things you do in EU II and Hearts of Iron -- Victoria adds a bizarre, complicated commodity trading system with workers and factories to produce these trading goods. You can put it on computer control, which means it adds little to the game, or manage it yourself, which is incredibly unpleasant.

Although EU II and Hearts of Iron were known for being buggy and unstable, Victoria is substantially worse. With the latest patch levels, I'm still getting crashes frequently and seeing a lot of oddities that don't seem like the game is functioning properly. The bug reporting forums at Paradox are filled with complaints.

It's unfortunate, but I'm giving up on Victoria. If you want to try a game in this series, I'd recommend Hearts of Iron. For WWII history fans, it's a delight, even with it's remaining bugs. But skip Victoria. It's bizarrely complicated and entirely too buggy to be enjoyable.

The most entertaining game I've played in my life

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: July 20, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I've played the vast majority of Paradox games, and many of them are honestly a mixed bag even after all of the patches. While Europa Universalis II eventually became an extraordinary game, the Hearts of Iron series is simply not a good fit with the engine. Victoria, on the other hand, is exactly the ridiculously complex and open-ended strategy game I've been waiting for my whole life.

Two notes for consumers not used to Paradox:
1. Always get the latest patch before playing
2. There is a vast fan community that has constructed sites explaining any question you could possibly have with these games. The best of these are the relatively recent wikis that have been set up (linked from the paradox forums). Read them.

More of the same from Pardox

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 18 / 73
Date: November 14, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Paradox games is probably best known for Europa Universalis II, a game that is sometimes fun to play for short periods but that is fatally flawed in longer games (mostly because of the "unrest" factor, but also because the game is too locked in to actual historical events).

Last year Paradox used the EU2 engine to produce a global WWII grand strategy game, Hearts of Iron, which is also fun to play but still seriously flawed (many reviewers have commented on the gameplay problems and sheer bugginess of HOI). In Victoria, Paradox uses the same engine yet again to cover the "Victorian" era.

A grand strategy game of this period is not a bad idea. But the EU2/HOI platform is just not the best way to go about this. For some reason, the designers seem to love having the world broken up into hundreds of teeny tiny little provinces. This was an OK mechanism in EU2, where you are usually focused on a relatively small geographic area. But for a globe-spanning Empire game, this province-based system is just a big headache, too crowded and cluttered. Paradox really needs to re-think their system and come up with something fresh; either hexes, a zone-less system, or something else novel. What looked kind of cool 5 years ago looks very stale now.

There are also sure to be lots and lots of bugs. Even now, a year or so after the release of HOI, there are still dozens of known bugs, some of them serious, that haunt the game. The player community always tries to brown-nose Paradox to keep on their good side so that they will continue to release more patches, but their patches often introduce even more bugs. Pay a visit to the Paradox website and check out the bug forums for their other games. Judging from their past performance, it will be many months before this game is patched up enough to be considered playable.

Intense Strategy

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: September 23, 2005
Author: Amazon User

If you like intense, drawn out strategy games, this game is for you. The game is demanding in that you must manage many elements to become sucessful, such as trade, production, research, army and navy development, and an overall strategy for victory. The learning curve is probanly two hours, and once learned, Victoria will provide many hours of entertainment.

Assuming you're an OCD history buff strategy gamer, this is heaven for you.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: March 30, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Vicky is one of my favorite strategy games of all time. It isn't just an 'expand and conquer' game - it's a century long (with the Revolutions expansion) gaming challenge of guiding your chosen nation through the Imperial era. Vicky is *hard* - you'll need to read the rulebook, play some test games as either Sweden or Brazil, and probably Google yourself some online help. That should get you skilled enough to run your economy.

Once you get past the steep learning curve, you've got years of potential gameplay here. Take control of Sweden, recover Finland from Russia, bring Denmark into union and form the nation of Scandinavia; a Great Power, but still weaker than the major powers. Try and avoid the Civil War as the United States. See if you can unify a stronger Germany or Italy than what happend historically.

If you get really attached to your Vicky game, you can export it into Doomsday, and take your nation through the thirties and forties ...

frustratingly unplayable

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 15
Date: December 24, 2004
Author: Amazon User

the concept of the game is great! half the stuff you can let the AI do for you concerning econimics, trade, manpwer, military leaders, et al. but some basic stuff like changing from army to navy management cant be done! or seeing and possibly retreating from certain territories under atack! to heck with diplomacy if you cant do these basics forget it!

I TOLD YOU SO!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 59
Date: June 30, 2004
Author: Amazon User

You see, I told you so in my early post this game would be less than $15 within 6 months. I've been playing games for 35 years and I know a FLOP when I see one, and knowing PARADOX's ways, I knew the game would be a flop out of the box. It's just not that great of a game like the man fanboi's that rushed here and posted how great of a game it is. That's why is "SAVES" to listen to outsiders who will give critical and "honest" opinions of the game based on "mechanics", "manual", "tutorial" and general bugginess like I do when these new games come out. I have the ability to play the games and return them when they are flops, many people do not. Thus I can give fair and honest reviews of these games and not be BIASed like the man fanboi's that have posted below me.

Those who listened to me, you can now see the savings I told you about. I still predict and even lower price in another few months, but, for the less than $10 now, for those that like this particular time period and since they've finally FIXED the game and it works as it should have out of the box, it's a worthy purchase. Personally I have no interest in this time period except for games like Railroad Tycoon or Industry Giant II, those two games are much more FUN to play if you like more of a beer and pretzels type of finacial game, sure Victoria has some military efforts, but, they are so abstract and not really necessary for this type of game platform. Buy it with the pleasure of knowing you're getting a finished product and something of interest to you of this time period. And you can thank me for saving you some money. ;)

Victoria review

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 2
Date: September 13, 2005
Author: Amazon User

A really addictive game- LOTS of detail. Needs a better tutorial to walk you through all the features- but once you get it down...it is a wonderful waste of time!

Decent Game

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: December 01, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Alright, I'll admit it: I'm a Paradox fan. I have been ever since I took a leap and bought Hearts of Iron II on a lark. The game was so incredibly deep and historical and magnificent that it continues to entertain me. With that great experience, I decided to expand into other Paradox titles, and I began with Victoria: Empire Under the Sun.

So, regarding the game. If you want an easy game, this isn't it. If you want your typical real time strategy game, this isn't it. If you want to find a game you can learn quickly, this isn't it. If you are looking for a wargame, this isn't it.

The game is, at its digital little heart, a economic simulator wrapped in a package of a game. Economics will be your primary concern throughout the game. There are numerous other facets, including politics, diplomacy, imperialism, (a little) warfare, and country making, but all this pales in comparison to the amount of time you'll be spending attempting to manage your country's economy. Certainly, it could be argued that this is exactly what world leaders do, but it limits the entertainment of the game.

I'll confess, I'm a wargame buff. And that's why I loved Hearts of Iron II. This is definitely not a wargame.

And while I love depth, this game has so much depth it's smothering. When you combine this with little help manual-wise and absolutely no tutorial or learning campaign, you'd need rock climbing gear to surmount this learning curve.

In conclusion, if economics and history are your thing, have at it, otherwise, you might be better suited to some other game ... I know I am.

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