Rant 613 / Victoria II

Just installed Victoria II, another game from Paradox that isn't too different from the rest of its other games like Europa Universalis III. This time, the game is set mostly in the 19th century when the world was not yet changed by the two World Wars and the world was still mostly European colonies.

I have to say that the map stunned me. The world was so different just 200 years ago, even though many of the countries that we know today are mostly there! For example, the size of Russia was nothing short of amazing. When I scrolled the map eastward after looking at Western Europe and saw the gigantic green mass (green being its representative colour in the game) I could not help but say," Holy shit..."

Let me show the other areas of the world before Russia to give you a sense of scale. First is Western Europe. See the R on the east? That's Russia.



Next is North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia.



China! Also known as Manchuria in this era.



Okay, here's Russia.



Holy shit, right? Anyway, the part of Russia across the ocean is now Alaska. It's not as wealthy as its proportion would imply because, obviously, the landmass is mostly too cold to be very useful.



Another surprising thing is the USA and Mexico.


The white parts are unexplored as of the first of January 1836. I didn't know Mexico was this big back then, and that Canada has remained mostly unchanged since 200 years ago.


Wanted to show Australia but it's so boring because it's just all British territory. Nothing to see there.

But let's not forget Southeast Asia!

See why Raffles wanted Temasek so much he'd resort to dirty tricks to gain this island? The Dutch practically controlled the entire region!



Now to the tiny bit of land now called Singapore.


Okay so it's not as accurate as expected. But the focus of this game is on Europe and there is no harm in making Singapore larger than it actually is. I'm surprised it's even there at all!




As for the game itself, I'm not as interested as I thought I would be. It's just too complex for a simple mind like mine. You'll have to have a lot of free time and nothing to think about to like this game. Just look at the top left portion of the screenshots to get an idea of how many factors I have to watch all the time.