Victoria 2 was released in 2010 developed and Published by Paradox, and the game was....
It was a mess, like any good PC game, the game was released in a all most unrecognizable state than what I am used to play nowadays, 2 years later and 2 expension it became a much better game,but this review isn't about that, it's rather about why I love this game so much, and with that I am going to talk about my personal history with this game.
In 2017, 8 Years ago when I was 12 years old, I begun to watch YouTube videos about this game from a Brazilian YouTube in his Paraguay and Germany playthroughs, with that I got really interested in this game, and bought it on steam on November 25, 2017, I played this game a lot despite the fact that I didn't even speak English back then.
After playing the base game I played with mods, which I will talk about later but for now let's talk about the game itself.
What's Victoria 2
It's a Grand strategy game in which you control any country from 1836 to 1936 , you have to manage the countries diplomacy, Economy and Warfare, what makes this game more fun to me is being able to change history, and make a better future for X country, not only that but this game made me curious about history, which made me want to learn about it.
Gameplay
There's 2 faces to Victoria 2 gameplay so let's start with my least favorite of them warfare.
Wars in this game consist into 2 things battles and seizing territory, battle are pretty simple when 2 enemy unites are in the same province a battle automatically starts, who wins the battle depend on many factors like the size of the army, the terrain of the battle is taking place, whenever the attacking army is crossing a river or not, the technology each army has.
Seizing is very basic, you have to put your army on enemy territory and wait for them to conquerer it, how long that will depend on how big your army is and what types of unites that group has.
It's pretty simple the issue is when your country gets big specially in the end game, for example in my Austria game, which later became Austria hungry and the Danubian federation.
This screenshot was taken right before my war against both Russia and French, and while I did won that war, having to deal with multiple fronts while also having a army with 253 units and having to organizing each and every single one of them is a pain the ass, specially when the war ends and you have to organize them back, to how it was before the war.
Now let's talk about the deeply flawed but Great part about this game , Economy and Nation Building.
It's Broken, to the point that not even this game devs know how it works, I member in a Reddit AMA when someone asked a Dev, why could Artisans make Tanks out of Fruit and the DEVs didn't know that could happen ,While we generally know how the economy works in theory, the code was so optimized to the point of being Unreadable, and make quirks like the one I just mention, not only that but even in theory the economy is very complicated even if it isn't realistic, I always enjoy the process of industrializing the country I am playing.
But the fact that you can build your nation and manege the economy means that you can play tall, this is the main reason as to why I prefer Victoria 2 over other Paradox games, it's a economy manege game first, and war game second while other Paradox games like Europa universals and Hearts of Iron are War game first and foremost.
This also goes to may point that of making a alt-history, I like to play as historically poor countries and making them Rich, like making Indochina not only powerful but rich in the turn of the 20th century
In this game I played as Vietnam, united it with Laos, Cambodia , Thailand and parts of Myanmar and made it a prosperous nation, meanwhile in real life Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, were colonized by the French, but I manege to turn that around, I am sure that people who play this game better than me could have done better, but I like how my game went, it's just satifying to play well in this game.
But now I guess it's a better time than any to explain who this mechanic tie together in a actual game.
When you start a new game you start in the country selection screen, here you can choose any country you wish to play as, they are very different from each other to play as you can imagine, with it's own unique challenge, but in a general overview:
Western Hemisphere: You Assert you dominance in your Region either be South America or North America in the early game wars, after that around the 1870 you will enjoy the thousands of immigrants that will come from Europe daily, remember that the more people that live in your country the better because it means more people working in the factories, more people extracting materials and more people in your army.
Europe: similarly to the western hemisphere you will assert your dominance in up until the 1880 when the scramble for Africa will begin, and depending how you plan out, you will dominate Africa and it's precious resources.
Asia: Countries that aren't "western" in Victoria 2 are considered uncivilized
In those countries you have to pass a series of Reforms to make them civilized and be on par with European countries, while you are uncivilized you have many debuffs like not being able to build factories.
In my game as Vietnam that I mentioned above I also had to deal with the reforms, I didn't had factories until the 1870's but depending on the country, when they civilized they become OP specially Japan and China, because they have Good resource distribution and a very big population.
Of course this is just a very sort form of what you would expect from Victoria 2 but every country is different and you can always make your own fun, Like instead of colonizing Africa, you can try to end British Hegemony early, it all up to you, making it a infinity re-playble game.
The music
It fits really well with the game and I love it, most of it is classical music, I have heard it so many times that nowadays I mostly play this game mulited.
MODS
What would be a Good PC game without them, so let's talk about some of it.GFM
GFM stands for , The Great Flavour mod, this mod adds more content and more events, that makes this game more historiacal acurate, not only that but it makes the game map prettier (In my opinion) , this mods is the acumulation of years of work from the Victoria 2 modding comunity being a fork of HPM, but with even more content, the screenshot taken above were from this mod BTW.
Divergency of Darkness
This mod is basically Victoria 2 but in a wierd time-line as you can see in the map above, one of the main things about this time line is that England won the 100 Years wars.
That's why the Dual Monarchy is exist, of course many things happens and the lore is really intersting , my favourite country being QINGQIU which is basically California but Colonised by China.
In the Fan fork DoD mod they add a lot of text that's a very intersting to read, and make the lore feals like events that could actually happen in real life if things where a little different.
Of course there's more mods, but If I talked about them I could be for HOURS.
Conclusion:
I love this game flawed as it may be, It's a deatifull game to play if you like me love history and want to explore the what if in this world.
This game made me the History Nerd I am today, and I would a different person without it, I mostly talk about JRPGs here but today is a different day, Victoria 2 is the only Hardcore PC that I love, which makes it a the wierd when I talk about my favourite games, because that list is full of JRPG with some racing game, but Victoria 2 is the wierd fish.
Pros
- + Economy base game
- + Great For history nerds
- + Immersive OST
Cons
- - Managing armies is a pain in the late game
- - The economy has some weird quirks
8
Gameplay
While I do think it's warfare is weak, this doesn't change that economy is this game main strength, and the only game that did economy better was Victoria 3
10
Story
If you love History in the Victoria era and Video games you will love this game too
9
Sound
I got tired of hearing it, but that's expected after almost 2k Hours, it doesn't change the fact that the OST fits perfectly with the game.
10
Replayability
Having 1990 on this game and with so many mods, I feel like I can play this game for eternity
9
out of 10
Overall
This game was not made for many people, I doubt many people here want to play it, however if you feel like this game was made, I will have a great time playing it for days.
