Victoria 3 and the Decline of the West

Victoria 3 isn’t out yet but that won’t stop me from discussing how the game is reshaping the genre. In conjunction, I thought I’d bring up one of history’s stranger yet influential contributors, a man named Oswald Spengler.

I promise this video isn't bait.
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00:00 intro
03:23 Eurocentrism
06:10 Victoria 3 and her Changes
11:16 The Many Faces of Oswald Spengler
18:21 Spengler and Eurocentrism
21:36 Victoria 3 and her Thoughts
23:23 Conclusion
27:13 Outro
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@ThreeArrows video:

Victoria 3 video on colonial:

Victoria 3 on war:

Vic 3 diary on decentralized nations:

Map background used:

[Rosencreutzzz]

Hi. I forgot to include the citation for the text about Spengler's academic integrity and voting record, which, in specific was from this website, which itself cites a particular edition of Decline and a biography:

I did not have the means to look at those editions but I have no reason to believe that paragraph lied to me (or any of us, I suppose).

[MarcusArelius]

“Try to limit the player from committing direct atrocities at times, at least.”

Stellaris: 👀

[Lucas_Antar]

Don’t worry about playing the decentralized nations they’re just saving that for a paid DLC of course.

[Akwardave]

I think the true simulation present in Paradox games isn't the simulation of historical events, but the simulation of historical mindsets.

This is something I first noticed when playing Crusader Kings. When I was in my history classes, I looked back on the Hapsburgs and Henry VIII and all the kings of Europe with a lot of judgement. I thought they must have been psychopaths, ones who did all their unsavory things because they went wild with the power of their state being at their beck and call. But then you sit down and try to play the ruling dynasty of Hungary for 600 years-- and you suddenly get it?? Why people married their siblings, called crusades, tortured and executed, didn't give a shit about average people-- by putting you in the decision making chair, Paradox games MAKE you re-evaluate your modern lens on the past.

And I've definitely had times where I stop and realize that wait.... EU4 doesn't really have an explicitly stated goal? And oh lord I just killed like 500, 000 Ming Chinese, not to mention half as many of MY OWN COUNTRYMEN, all for a handful of provinces?! Good God! Is this REALLY all worth it, just to build a "great nation" on the backs of the dead? And... that's a cool open question to ask yourself as a result of gameplay! It's the difference between judging the actions of a stranger who died 400 years ago, and judging the choices you literally just made.

So I think the Vicky 3 approach of saying to the player "Oh yes there are nations here, but decentralized and open for the taking!" is actually quite smart. Because if you DO decide to partake, then you do it to get a leg up or to prevent someone else from threatening your state-- you're never under the illusion that nobody is there and you're doing no wrong. But you're also in a position where, given the circumstances and the powers that be, you can JUSTIFY that wrong in service of your own self interests.

That change of mindset doesn't (and shouldn't) make us blindly agree with the past... but it does perhaps make it easier for us to understand it on its own footing.

[cosmicdragon]

I always felt that Victoria 2 was so focused on the Great and Secondary powers in Europe that Africa was intentionally only partially filled out to represent how it was viewed by a lot of Europeans at the time. This does seem to match my knowledge of African exploration by Europeans, which didnt really take off in earnest until after Victoria II's start date. Either that or they just ran out of budget and having a developed africa was an afterthought which never came to fruition.

[mdalie]

I always felt that the "land for grabs" mentality the game makes you adopt is intentional. After all you're (usually) playing as a colonial power who historically had this view of the world and didn't give a hoot about the natives. The scramble for Africa really was a race against your rivals to secure as much land and resources as possible. I feel like vic2 simulates this mentality very well.

[tkaine]

Self centered perspective is a common falling point of most people. I have no issues with viewing history through the lenses of your own culture and country history, and it often leads to pretty funny results. As an example, I'm Portuguese, and my entire history class consisted of stone age tribalism to bronze age to Roman Empire to Portugal. The rest is just Portugal. The Holy Roman Empire wasn't mentioned once

[tommyrea]

The African continent was empty to make it easier and more accessible for the AI to colonize it. It was a mechanic necessity. Not to mention the AI was very bad at naval invading foreign lands

[turkepic]

To be fair accuracy isn’t the bread and butter of these games. It’s common to see someone like GB conquer all of Zanzibar or Spain getting all of West Africa before Europeans were remotely involved in Africa in EU4.

[thesenate]

I am pretty sure the reason why Africa was so empty in Vicky 2 was because PDX is lazy, even european stuff was barely accurate.
Later mods like HPM and HFM did a way better job and also populated most of Africa with states (and a way to conquer them without spending infamy).

[CivilizedWasteland]

The entire point of making the region "empty" is to slow down conquest of the region. I'm not sure why this makes people so angry it's a game mechanic and it plays out much better than what we currently have in eu4. Unless they are going to model the negative aspects of those regions malaria/isolated populations/limited trade connections it's going to just make things worse.

[EmisoraRadioPatio]

I think it has more to do with the impracticalities of inputting literally thousands of individual tribal states. But I think the Victoria Realism mod did a good job including major supra-tribal indigenous powers in Africa and North America that were not in the vanilla game.

[jek_si]

This is a great video-essay, and I'd like to disagree with parts of it... I think. Re: Vic3 and her Througts - it seems to me that you're overthinking this somewhat. Vic2 (and 3) is about simulating the 19th century, and letting the player influence that simulation. In our 19th century, the west won (in geopolitical terms, anyway), and there isn't really a world in which it doesn't.
Firstly because of the technological difference - an organized military armed with machine guns will, in almost any situation, beat a military which has outdated firearms at best, and spears and bows at worst.
Secondly, because given that any attempt at resistance can be defeated in a relatively inexpensive manner an attempt at expansion is inevitable - if you don't do it, another empire will, and they will get all of the resources you give up. So, better you than them.
It's perfectly reasonable, when simulating (alternate) history, to look from a non-eurocentric perspective, but within the scope of Victoria this perspective is limited by historical reality. With few exceptions African kingdoms were not in a position to challenge the colonizers, and those few exceptions - Ethiopia, Marocco, Egypt - are represented in the game. This is not to say that Vic3's system won't be an improvement - it'll add more detail, which for a simulation of history is always good, but it doesn't seem to me like a revolutionary change.
Two final notes: 1) obligatory _colonialismIsBad.txt_ 2) HPM fixes this.

[ambroisep.p]

As an African I appreciate that you made such a video about my continent which is always so poorly represented in these Paradox strategy games. But Crusader Kings 3 went to great lengths to represent Africa well

[cstick]

But the question still remains: why Sokoto? It just feels so random. All the other aftrican countries like Ethiopia or Zulu have a famous history to Europeans but Sokoto feels so random. If the other African states where there it wouldnt stand out. But it’s the fact that it’s the only one.

[crazeelazee]

Victoria's 2 way makes sense from a gameplay perspective if you ask me. Is there really a point in including a whole bunch of tribes that have no hope of catching up and being able to defend themselves from the great powers of the time? Countries that could, without much stretch, get to that point, like Ethiopia or Sokoto and the north Africans, were included.
Seriously, for all the talk about how HFM and HPM includes more African nations, has anyone (not including players from those countries and memers) actually played any of them?

[stylianstamatis]

Thank you so much for the subtitles! They're really helpful, and I appreciate the effort you put into them!

[seaofscissors]

it's incredible for someone capable of producing videos of this quality to have less than even 3 thousand subscribers! honestly, can't thank you enough for your work!

[furthestborealia]

Hmm. Finished the video. Mixed thoughts... I feel like the video talked far too much about Spengler at the expense of Victoria 3 - but on the other hand really too short to really provide an accurate synthesis of Spengler's way of conceiving world history. Didn't come away with feeling that I learned much - I do hope others got more value outta it, tho. Maybe it's just me?

[MrShadowThief]

I think it's kinda weird how people generally treat Africa. Sure the Vic2 map is too empty, but you can't expect it to function exactly like Europe because Africa is fucking massive and its geography overall is very different from that Europe, among other regions. It has a lot of regions with a merciless climate, fauna or landscape and we can expect a place like this to work exactly like every other region in the world, for better or for worse.