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Complex, but worth it - well worth the price

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 53 / 55
Date: October 23, 2004
Author: Amazon User

There are many games you can jump into and understand well in a few minutes. After a few hours, you're done with nearly any of them.

Victoria is not one of these games. After a few hours you're still early in the learning cycle, but you're having fun, and you are just starting a long-term relationship with a great game.

You have to approach Victoria differently than a simpler game. Download the latest patch (1.03c as of this review), go to the Paradox website to review the advice to new players, and play as an easy country for your first game. I suggest Sweden (ignoring the military) so you learn the economic system, and eventually build up to playing countries like the USA, before taking on the UK or Russia.

What you'll get is the ability to play an incredibly detailed recreation of the world as it was 1835-1920. You can play as any of dozens and dozens of countries, from Japan to Sardinia-Piedmont, from the Confederate States of America to Prussia. You advance scientifically, developing and buildign railroad, advancing politically (if you like), moving from Monarchy to democracy.

There are shortcomings to the game. The manual contains information on what is in the game, but not much on how you *should* play. The Paradox forums provide plenty of advice, however. There's a reason for this - once you learn the game, you'll get far more playing time for the tiny price Amazon wants for this game than you will out of nearly anything else you play (that isn't by Paradox, that is). Others have already realized what a great game Vicky is, and they are eager to share the joy with the rest of us.

This is a deep, sometimes difficult game, but it is worth the effort. It offers more replayability than any game I have ever seen from any other publisher.

Another fine game from Paradox Entertainment

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 36 / 37
Date: May 29, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Victoria is perhaps one of the first near-perfect political/military simulators to come out in a long time. You can not only decide who's tail to kick, but you can also decide what rights to give your people, and how conservative or liberal your nation will be.

On the military level, the game is pretty much what you might expect from other Paradox games. The one exception is that, unlike Hearts of Iron, the troops themselves gain experience instead of commanders. Otherwise, it won't be any thing unfamiliar. Troops still move out to ships at sea, they can land any where (not beaches like Hearts of Iron), and moral can be more decisive than numbers.

On the political scene (country via country) things are fairly the same but more fleshed out to reflect Paradox's earlier games. As you could in Europa Universalis II, you can make demands to end wars and don't have to annex the entire nation to gain territory (as you had to in Hearts of Iron). Interesting, however, is the extra feature of "negotiations." You can ask for territory, tech, make demands, or give or offer money using this option. It makes for a fare more interesting diplomacy engine.

In regards to internal affairs, this game makes you actually care (or hate) your people. How? Well, you can actually make social changes with regards to health care, working hours, minimum wages...you can even decide if the press is free and who can vote! Start your own social government, or just oppress the working man. The way your main civil rights function goes (as well as your limitations on your budget) comes from who is in power in the government. You can ban/allow parties based on your government type, and you hold elections to get choose which alignment your nation goes on issues, as well as to get one party out of power or, inadvertingly, get it back in power.

Overall, it is a very impressive and ambitious game. I must warn people that this game (if you haven't noticed already) is A LOT of micromanaging. Particularly the economic part of the game, which has turned many players away. If you stick with it, play a few times, and learn how to manage it, you CAN get the hang of it. Trust me, I'm awful at economics and even I figured out how to work it.

Even though Paradox recently said they would try to do less complicated games in the future, I believe this is one of the greatest engines to use in regards to foreign diplomacy and internal affairs. I have spoken with many people who agree with me that a game set in the modern day age using Victoria's engine would be a fun game. Hey, Paradox, did ya hear me?

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.

Beats Civilization ..... Very Complex

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 21 / 23
Date: December 16, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This is the best strategy game I have played. I have been an addict of the Civ series for years, this takes strategy games to the next level. The diplomacy and economic aspects of this game are very hard to master (if you love detail this is great - if not you will hate this game!).

This is very addicitive, the gameplay and complex models make for very compulsive play. The level of historical accuracy is educational.

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.

Sophisticated Real Strategy Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 15 / 16
Date: May 26, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I hesitated to buy Victoria: An Empire Under the Sun owing to some of the negative reviews it received here. It is my pleasure to report that those criticisms are largely unfounded.

Some people have problems when a game is buggy, crashes, etc. As the owner of a computer software company, it has been my experience that it is not the game that is a problem but the PC on which the user is trying to run it. New games and other software take advantage of technological advances in the hardware to do things that older machines can't do. If your PC crashes, look at its capabilities before you level criticism at the game.

Some people enjoy what are usually called Real Time Strategy games. My observation is that such games are anything but strategic in character. They are all 'build a village' games that actually emphasize tactics and have no real strategy to them. They rely upon flashy graphics and sometimes arcade features to attract users, in the same manner that the film industry now substitutes special effects for a good plotline, often resulting is visually attractive pablum.

Victoria is a real strategy game. It requires forethought and planning, and doing so not only in a small scale tactical environment but also seeing the big picture well in advance and adjusting how you run a country accordingly. Small strategic mistakes can have longterm consequences.

This game is well thought out and presented. It has three scenarios: the American Civil War, World War I and the Grand Campaign. The latter gives a player the chance to manage a country throughout the Age of Imperialism, building not only that nation internally but forging 'a place in the sun,' as Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany put it, founding and developing colonies around the globe in competition with the other imperialist nations.

If you want a mindless shoot-'em-up, play something else. If you want a game that challenges you to think, buy this one!

Complex, maddening, irritating..... and enormously fun

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 18 / 21
Date: June 05, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Choose one of, say, 120 nations -- from the UK down to Zanzibar -- and one of 5 points in history. Throw in a complex world economic market, multilateral geopolitics, antsy minorities, griping aristos, and a shortage of machine parts.... and settle down to many hours thoughtful strategy gaming.

Upgrade 1.03 is completely stable (easy upgrades from the website); and there is a booming, active user forum comparing strategies, tactics, and advice (including more in-depth economic analysis than Alan Greenspan offers in real life).

Finally, the game is eminently moddable -- indeed, the gamemakers encourage it actively.

If you are looking for cutsey Sims, don't look here. And don't look to finish a game quickly. But for history, economics, and geopolitical fiddling.... a great game.

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

!!!!!!!!A-W-E-S-O-M-E!!!!!!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 11 / 13
Date: November 17, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Three cheers for Paradox! Truly outstanding! Amazing! This game is the funnest game I have ever played. If you're a history buff like me, you will not be able to stop playing this game. Play as the U.K. ,France, Russia, Sweden, Prussia(Germany), U.S., Austria, Mexico, Confederate States of America, Sardinia Piedmont(Italy), Belgium, the Netherlands, the Ottoman Empire or over 100 other nations. Progress through history as you colonize, wage war, inmdustrialize, initiate social reforms, and negotiate with other nations. Instead of reading history, you MAKE history. I like how real events happen to you, but they don't have to go the way they did in real life.

The idea that this game is unplayable is a myth. You don't need a tutorial, it's fun learning on your own.

PROS:
Addictive
Very, Very Fun
Historically Accurate
Playable
Real Tactical Strategy
Bulked-up Navy
Not insanely easy
Realistic concept of Manpower
Good colonial simulation
Adjustable game speed
Good for students studying Victorian era

CONS:
Strangely miniscule amount of "manpower" at start
Russia is !UNPLAYABLE!-they have -350 manpower at game start
Resources and factories sometimes difficult to manage

As I said, this game is not super easy. You have to put an effort in, and you'll have even more fun. This game is SSOOO educational-even the names of your units are accrurate. The manpower at the start is wierd, but convert laborers and farmers into soldiers in your provinces by double-clicking on a province, clicking on the population button, clicking on farmers or laborers, and pressing convert to soldiers. That is an important concept. Also, manage your resources and factories carefully and don't let clipper shipyards take all your lumber-close them down until you're buying or producing enough lumber and stuff to have enough for railroads and other things. Yes, Russia is strange in this game, but convert enough populations and you should be fine.
Have fun!

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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