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Amazing Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 21 / 41
Date: November 06, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to rule a nation during the cultured Victorian era? I know I have, and now thanks to Paradox entertainment we all have our chance.

Running a nation is no easy business, but with many options available to you, why not give it a go? Ruling from the mid 19th century to early 20th century, it is possible to establish a colonial empire, gain land in the civilized continent of Europe, mayhap to save the decaying Ottoman empire?

This has to be one of the most fun games out there, and I think it will exceed even the acclaimed Europa Universalis series. It is INDEED a good purchase if you are a fan of strategy games or history.

It is also an excellent learning tool as if teaches 19th century history in an amusing game setting.

J.

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.

Best & most stable game from Paradox yet

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 27 / 34
Date: November 21, 2003
Author: Amazon User

The beauty of Paradox is that not only do they publish incredibly fun grand strategy games, but that their follow-up support towards their community is top-notch, you get real and direct answers from the developers and may even be able to influence the further refinement of the games through the use of patches.

This works better than it sounds, trust me, as Paradox give their old games *much* more support than other companies. EU2 is at version 1.07 and HoI at 1.05, and at least one further patch has been planned for both, resolving some of the still existing issues.

Now, as far as Victoria goes, this game definitely continues the long tradition of historically detailed environments where the player is free to make his own decisions, NOT necessarily according to history...despite the presence of historical events (which can be easily modded, if you find that something's not quite right), the game's flexibility can result in usually much more interesting situations than one would expect.

The engine isn't exactly equal to the old EU2/HoI one, as despite obvious similarities like the combat model and the overall interface, the developers have stated that there's a lot of new code and this can easily be proven not only because of the new features (the economic model, the POPs, the colonial model, etc.) but because of the tremendous improvement in stability.

Certainly, some players have reported crashes and bugs, but their number has been seriously reduced from the darker days of HoI, so if this aspect of the previous games turned you off, I'd advise you to please give Paradox another chance. Don't fall for prejudices.

In short, contrary to popular belief, Paradox has actually taken their time to polish this game *before* release, resulting in less CTDs and bugs than ever before. Again, this is no HoI.

As far as I know, the fact that the game map is divided into lots of provinces only showcases the attention to detail found in Victoria, and while I won't deny that micromanagement can sometimes get the best of the player (if you're not accustomed to Paradox games, for example) amid a so-called "continous time" simulation (not exactly real time, but not turn based at all), the existance of the "pause" and "increase/decrease game speed" features can surely be a lifesaver. Learn to use them often.

Victoria's AI isn't no slouch either (another innovation), as World Conquest is tougher than ever before, and you'll spend much more time developing your economy, industrialization, and in short, having a grand ol' time in the 19th Century.

This is an excellent game, admittedly not for everyone, but those that manage to immerse themselves in it will find a game that's much more than the sum of its parts.

My only complaint would be the "acceptable" manual, which while better than their previous ones, doesn't really cover as much as it should. The lack of a tutorial is sorely missed, because even if Veterans won't find this troubling, newbies might....still, if you have any questions, the excellent community that has been formed around this company and its games will help you find the solutions you seek.

Btw, it should be noted that, as the game was officially released on the 14th in Scandinavia and around the 18th in North America, the fact is that reviews written before either of the two previous dates are very likely just previews or speculation.

More of the Same from Paradox just not more game.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 14 / 20
Date: December 14, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Once again another copy and repeat of the now infamous Europa Unversalis II. Yet, this one is even more complicated, comes with the same initial "crash to desktop" bugs, lack of a tutorial, and a user interface that only Albert Enstien could enjoy.

This is yet another one of those "buy it now, we'll fix it later games" from Paradox. You'll be pulling your hair out, from the moment you run the game for the first time with all the spreadsheet popups you'll have to deal with. It's more of a financial game instead of a strategy game. If you can win the world economy, which once you spend a week figuring out how to play it, becomes quite easy to do, then you can win every game with any province. Tahiti rules the world anyone? It's nowhere realistic by any means. It's just another toddlers toy that wanted to be great, but, instead is just mediocre. This time period is rather boring as a strategy game. If you don't have Europa Universalis II then I suggest getting it instead, it's been patched to 1.07 and for $7.99 it's a better buy overall.

I'd recommend a wait on this title, in 6 months to a year it will be "patched" finished and you can probably get it for $15 or less, why pay for an unfinished game?

A truly wonderful strategic game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 27 / 30
Date: January 02, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Victoria, or Vicky as it's called on Forums, is a complete piece of art in strategy games.
Using the engine of popular and award winning games as Europa Universalis or Hearts of Iron, Paradox Entertainment gave birth to a new installment of the saga. This time the scenario is set in 1836 and brings back to life the Victorian era. You can play almost 100 years (as a matter of fact 84 years exactly) and your goal is simply to be the most prestigious nation.

But, what exactly is prestige? Prestige is a mixture of several things such as economic power (industrialize your nation and enjoy the benefits of the new economy), colonial presence (let your flag rise over far and distant lands), technological progress or education, for instance.

Veteran players will find the UI (user interface) familiar and newbies not so perhaps. But it takes no more than a couple of hours to grab the basics and start playing fairly; although several days or weeks to master the game (assuming you dedicate 3 hours a day approx). But you have available and at your disposition a wonderful forum on line where to ask any kind of question or share your thoughts with developers.

What's interesting, or at least in my opinion, is the cultural progress you can give to your population. You can educate your steel miners, for instance, to make them become craftsmen at factories or officers for your armies. This, accompanied by social and political reforms in your state, can maximize wealth and achieve high standards of living. Fail and suffer popular rebellions throughout your empire.

Overall is a very addictive game and worth to give a try if you feel attracted to historical games.

A shot too far

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 19 / 24
Date: January 12, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I hope you know the former games, which earned Paradox rewards - Europa Universalis or Heart of Iron. If not, it will be a hard time getting into this game. The manual is incomplete and near useless, a tuorial is not available.

The game itself is meant to be a strategic game based on historical developments in the 19th century. You can play nearly any country existing at that time and are supposed to shape its march into the 20th century. Politics, diplomacy, economics, warfare (on division/corps level) - all there. The interface once learned is pretty good, various statistics help keeping overview, the map is scalable. So far, so well.

But be awae of the things that made me rate a 2 instead of the 5 the game earns according to its fans:
- There are way too many flaws in the economic model on top of the fact of its poor (for beginners: non existent) explanation of the interdependencies.
- The warfare AI is incompetent, incongruent and incapable
- History recreation and a free strategy game did not blend well - the one approach always harms the other one
- You may indefinitely (enough troops given) invade other countries by sea. Yep - that's right- from Prussia to China directly, no limit on troop numbers, no stations required on the way. With sailing transport ships in 1836 (game start)
- And - as with each Paradox game - the game you got shipped is not the one you will play. The number of bugs and flaws forced Paradox to ship at least 3 to 5 patches out, before the game has a sufficient grade of completeness. And you are supposed to test them until a dedicated fan community together with Paradox finally manages to set the game to a purchase state (one year after first sales)

In a nutshell - you do not buy a game. The challenge is to master the inexplained (failed manual), not to master the game AI. The fun is to micromanage your economy and to watch strange computer moves in various computer controlled nations, not to play the game. So you buy a huge, impressive and well thought through ... sandbox. If you like model trains and spendhours on setting up train environments on many square meters, you will love the game. If you like strategy and challenge - keep your hands off.

Thorsten

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.

I Love this game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 12
Date: March 05, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Despite a few of the bad comments on here, I went ahead and bought the game anyway since I'm a big fan of these historically accurate wide scale games. It took about a week to get used to the game but after that the game became easy. But its weird, even though I did conquer Europe with several different countries, I always lost the game because this game is all about prestige, in that regard this game is hard. But just dont get into many wars and choose your politics carefully and you should win this game.
On the bad side I don't know if its the game or my new computer, but the game kept kicking me off

Incredible, Deep Strategy Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: March 20, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Ignore some of the bad reviews you see here. It's obvious from reading them that out of all the bad reviews, only one of the people who wrote them (so far) has actually played the game.

However, if you're looking for a simple strategy game, Victoria might not be for you. It doesn't seem so at first glance, but it's a very deep and complex game. For those who enjoy deeper games, this just makes it more rewarding to play. I bought this game when it first came out and now, months later, I still play it daily.

One of the complaints I've come across a few times is the number of patches that Paradox usually makes to their games. Why is such continued support a bad thing? Years after the games come out, Paradox still updates the games for free. In the past, this has not only included bug fixes, but new music, new scenarios, and other new content to the game. It's just one more reason that Paradox games are worth their cost.

The economic simulation Victoria provides is much deeper than the simple one given in EU2, and much better because of it. With supply and demand economics built in, you can manage a large number of different types of factories to build products to sell, and develop the infrastructure to boost production and your economy.

This game is far superior to Hearts of Iron, and I believe it to be better even than the original Europa Universalis II.

A REAL strategy game, not a click-fest

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 10
Date: April 09, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Victoria is, by far, the most enjoyable gaming experience I have had in years. It is not a game you can pick up and play in half an hour. It actually requires you to read the manual, to play numerous games and learn the system. This is in stark contrast to the huge number of copy-cat real time strategy games, where the only difference are the graphics and what buildings to construct.

The newest version of Vicky (1.03) is very stable, and a vibrant mod'ing community has created new countries and events.

There is literally no other game like Vicky--you can play any country in the world, from small states in India to the British Empire, and be challenged every time you play. While this game is not for everyone, if you enjoy a tough strategy game that rewards your gray matter and not your reflexes, Vicky is the only choice.

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