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my LAST warning to Victoria 3 modders
(hexbear.net)
NONE of you COWARDS who make expanded industry mods include COPPER in MICHIGAN despite it being SIGNIFICANT FOR THE INDIGENOUS CULTURES OF THE REGION AND 19TH CENTURY INDUSTRY. 95% OF THE COUNTRY'S SUPPLY OF COPPER CAME FROM MICHIGAN IN 1869. STOP.
I do definitely enjoy the basic loops of most resource management and economy centric games, and Vicky is no exception, for sure. I did absolutely love the "it's a dialectical materialism simulator" thing it had going for it early on that made your typical Paradox game fan all absolutely lose their minds, it's certainly a better look for communism than how it's portrayed in vanilla HOI4 (that said, there are some excellent modded commie paths in that game, and even vanilla USSR can be fun because I'm a tankie and it's the freaking USSR, so... yeah...), and I do enjoy both the political machinations of making revolution happen and the way you have to actually build your productive forces in order to create a situation where your people can come up with socialism as a concept, it's... well, as much as later timeline Paradox games have a Problem with left-anarchist power fantasies (both Vicky in general leftist paths, and vanilla HOI4's handling of the Spanish Civil War in particular), I do think Vicky portrays vanguardism well for what the game is, and I'd recommend a teenage anarchist who's gonna play this stuff anyway try the vanguardist paths.
It's not a good political game, but also, there's no such thing, really, and as communists, while we should absolutely critically analyze the media we consume, it's also okay to do something for fun besides watching old Soviet films with an ideological bent and reading theory for entertainment purposes, and it's okay to have a guilty pleasure in the form of a power fantasy, whether that fantasy is "head of a vanguard party" or a distinctly less left wing power structure, and a lot of video games are essentially just a power fantasy. All that is, though, a pretentious and theory-head way to say, I feel less shitty after forming the USSR or doing something ahistorical but revolutionary in Vicky 3, than I do after playing Crusader Kings 3 and leaning into certain cultural mechanics, and that's gotta count for something, but also, stuff like this can be just plain fun and doesn't need to be politically sound or left aligned.
That's where I put my faith in the expansion cycle. Eventually that or a mod will flesh out the political side of the game to my liking. The core base-superstructure feedback loop is there but it's missing a lot of nuance. The only leftist mod I know of just adds characters and a few events.
Look up Theresias Communist Overhaul mod
Hell yeah, an improved command economy.
Better Politics Mod is actually pretty good, i generally don't play without it.
Yeah, that's true. It's basically a rule of the Internet, any popular enough vaguely political game will eventually have good leftist mods. Whether the timeline and mechanics plausibly permit socialism to exist or not. There's also the Paradox rule, basically any game by them either has a Cold War setting shift mod already or the creation of one is inevitable. But I've personally never sought those out or tried one, I don't need or want a Cold War strategy game - being housemates with a washed up Cold Warrior who still blames Russia for all his problems, and knows I'm a big fan of the Bolsheviks and calls me a "pinko" and a "commie", is enough Cold War action for me.