Victoria II - Initial Thoughts

About The Game (From the Steam Store Page)

Carefully guide your nation from the era of absolute monarchies in the early 19th century, through expansion and colonization, to finally become a truly great power by the dawn of the 20th century.

Victoria II is a grand strategy game played during the colonial era of the 19th century, where the player takes control of a country, guiding it through industrialisation, political reforms, military conquest, and colonization.

Experience an in-depth political simulation where every action you take will have various consequences all over the world. The population will react to your decisions based on their political awareness, social class, as well as their willingness to accept or revolt against their government.

Previous Playtime

80 minutes

What Was I Thinking When I Bought This

I had a vague idea about playing all three of the Paradox grand strategy games back to back - going from Crusader Kings II to Europa Universalis IV to Victoria II all on the same map. That didn't work out because it turned out that Crusader Kings II took an absurd amount of time for a single campaign and I'm actually pretty terrible at Europa Universalis IV. Anyway, it was only 11 bucks for the game and all the DLC, so I was pretty confident that I'd get my money's worth either way.

Expectations and Prior Experience

I played the tutorial awhile back and I really liked it. It was a complex strategy game that focused on ideology and diplomacy, and I could easily see myself getting lost inside it. The big worry here is that it will be overwhelming in its complexity and too difficult for me to master inside of 20 hours.


And normally this is where I give an optimistic counterpoint, but that last scenario is exceedingly likely. I've yet to play a Paradox game that didn't treat the first 100 hours as an extended tutorial and I have no reason to suspect this one is going to be any different. In fact, as an older game, it will probably be less friendly than later titles.

But you know what, it's all right. It's a complicated, sim-like strategy game, so it will probably be a pleasure to learn. And if I'm still out of my depth when 20 hours comes along, well I'm less than 2 months away from reaching my goal, and maybe I'll be able to come back to it while it's still fresh in my mind.