Victoria 3 – Dev Diary #186 - AI Update Open Beta Start Happy Wednesday everyon

Happy Wednesday everyone! This dev diary was originally intended to come out last week, but sickness got in the way, so now you’re getting it as a bonus dev diary this week instead. Where the last dev diary was a deep dive of some of the bigger changes that will be coming in the 1.14 AI Update, this one will be a bit more big-picture and should elaborate more on the actual AI changes coming in the AI Update.

The goal of today’s dev diary is first to tell you which changes are coming in today’s Open Beta release for you to test, and also what changes we are currently looking at rolling out in upcoming Open Beta updates from next week onward. In the interests of not turning this dev diary into a 50-page essay, we’ll keep each change brief and to the point, listing what’s changed and what we would like you to focus your feedback and testing on.

When the Open Beta goes live, you can opt into the Beta by following these instructions:

• Navigate to your Steam Library.

• Right-click Victoria 3 and select “Properties”.

• In the newly created window, select “Game Versions & Betas”.

• Now find the “1.14-openbeta” option and select it.

• If you wish to opt out and return to the live version of the game, you can scroll back up to the top of the same list and select “Default Public Version”

Before I get into it, I am once again going to remind you of the broad goals of the AI Update set down in Dev Diary #184:

• Deepen AI strategic region stances and use them to give the AI a much better understanding of how it should view and act against other countries in a particular region

• Give the AI a proper understanding of where it should and should not be interested in territory - improve border gore and prevent nonsensical aggression such as the US puppeting Italian states

• Fix the persistent issues with war starting/ending - make the AI properly understand when wars are worth going into and getting out of

• Improve the AI’s economic development by fixing some systemic issues that are holding it back, particularly when it comes to understanding how to plan its economy around the availability of goods and the world market

• Make the AI more transparent in its reasoning and behavior across the board

Now that we’re all in the proper context, let’s get to it.

Changes in 1.14 Open Beta 1 (Releasing today)​

Everything in this section will be available to test in the first Open Beta, which should release shortly after this Dev Diary goes live.

War Support Rework

• What is it: This is the complete overhaul to the War Support system as described in Dev Diary #185. For details, please refer to that dev diary.

• What to test/feedback: How War Support feels now, whether wars end too quickly or drag on for too long, whether the AI is sensible about peace deals and capitulation

War Goal Flipping

• What is it: The system of war goal back-and-forth flipping also properly described in Dev Diary #185

• What to test/feedback: Whether war goal flipping works correctly, whether the system feels meaningful to use and changes the dynamic of wars, whether enforcement timers are too fast or too slow

Pathfinding Overhaul

• What is it: A complete backend rewrite of the game’s pathfinding system, intended to eliminate bugs and edge cases in pathfinding (especially military pathfinding)

• What to test/feedback: Whether units still get stuck or exiled in odd places, whether military pathfinding feels logical

Naval UI Improvements

• What is it: Major improvements to the naval UI, particularly in displaying crewing/sailors and improving naval mission information

• What to test/feedback: Whether the UI changes convey the information you need and whether there are still significant improvements needed in other naval UI areas

Building Hiring & Wage Tweaks

• What is it: Logic and UI improvements to building hiring and wage setting

• What to test/feedback: Whether buildings set sensible wages, are able to reach a stable equilibrium at non-full employment, and whether it’s clear from the tooltips why they make the decisions they do in regards to hiring and wages

AI Construction Improvements

• What is it: Improvements to the AI logic for construction targets to ensure they can fully utilize their investment pools

• What to test/feedback: Whether the AI is over or underbuilding construction sectors, whether they are able to tap their investment pools properly through the entire game

AI State Values

• What is it: Exposing the logic for which states the AI values and why they value them.

• What to test/feedback: Whether it’s now clear why the AI values certain states, where their state value logic could use improvements

AI State Incorporation

• What is it: Proper logic for which states the AI will incorporate, particularly for colonial subjects

• What to test/feedback: Whether AI state incorporation feels sensible or nonsensical

AI Ship Selling

• What is it: AI will now offer to sell obsolete ships for money via bespoke treaties​

• What to test/feedback: Whether the ships the AI offers are of interest, whether it feels spammy, whether the price feels reasonable​

Multiplayer Backend

• What is it: We have changed our default multiplayer backend from Nakama to Steam with an option to change to Nakama if needed

• What to test/feedback: Whether multiplayer is stable, whether larger lobbies are feasible

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Planned changes in future 1.14 Open Betas​

This is by no means an exhaustive list, and will naturally change based on feedback from Open Beta participants. For this section we will omit the ‘what to test’, as the plan is to release a list like the one above with every Open Beta release.

AI Naval Improvements

• Make the AI better at fleet management and overseas force projection. Find a good balance between spreading out fleets for power projection and keeping them consolidated to win naval battles.

Expand on AI Regional Stances

• Deepen the AI Regional Stance system and use it to give the AI a better grasp of geopolitics and which regions it should actually be interested in expanding into.

Improve AI State Values

• Using the new State Value visualization, regional stances expansion and open beta feedback, create a much stronger set of AI state values that makes AI territorial expansion feel coherent.

AI Strait Handling

• Improve AI understanding of straits: both in how to use them and how to diplomatically react to player strait closures.

Diplomatic AI Improvements

• Do a major pass on AI diplomacy and treaty article acceptance to eliminate some of the more nonsensical AI behavior and promote interesting AI ‘roleplaying’.

AI Trade & Production

• Give the AI better tools for evaluating trade capabilities in its market and which goods it should encourage importing as opposed to domestically producing. Make AI understand which goods it can overproduce to fill key needs in the world market.

Naval Transportation Improvements

• Making naval transportation missions more sturdy/reliable, adding early troopships to make transportation less of a hassle early-game

Open Beta​

Let’s close out this dev diary with a reminder of what the Open Beta update schedule looks like.

The Initial Open Beta Branch will be available Today 2nd of September, with weekly updates for the open beta.

• Open Beta Update 1, 8th September

• Open Beta Update 2, 15th September

• Open Beta Update 3, 22nd September

More information on how to opt in to the beta and where to put feedback was shared on 31st August and can be read here.

As for what’s next? We will see you tomorrow in another dev diary, for something completely different.