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44 of 45 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Ultimate Empire Management Experience, 4 Feb 2005
For a start those who have reviewed this game poorly you should ignore. Not because their opinion isn't worth hearing but because it's out of date. The problems that they have each conveyed have been addressed by Paradox who has a well established history for support with their games. The exception being the manual which isn't actually as unfriendly as described but merely doesn't cover all of the aspects of the game. A solution is at hand for this in the form of the Victoria online community who have produced a fabulous Wiki encyclopedia. This encyclopedia addresses everything from F&Q's to guides and of course a Victoria manual. And this manual touches everything right down to the most finite detail. Thus while the previous reviewers opinions were valid at the time of writing they are now very much redundant. If you are a fan of empire games and have never played anything of this depth before I recommend you try it out and approach it with some prepared patience. Once you've got into it believe me you'll not turn it off till you've finished your first grand campaign. Then after that you'll have a short break before you launch into the next one. I found myself pulling 20 hour days on this thing, but it was all worth it to see Brazil rise to become the 2nd most powerful nation of the world! The Graphics If you're looking for 3d rendered armies marching across lush swaying fields of golden wheat then look elsewhere. The graphics are sufficient for what they are displaying. Bearing in mind this is only a map of the world with armies marching across it hardly requires state of the art graphics. The battles are conducted automatically, thus you wont see 3d armies fighting but a small unit animation which is sufficient. In short graphics aren't what you play this game for. Sound The sound in the game is fantastic. Nothing short of top class music of the period from classical scores from the likes of Mozart, triumphant brass bands and a full length overture of Rule Britannia. If you're not partial to this music then you can simply turn it off but in my opinion it suits the game perfectly. The only negative here is the noise played when you select cavalry, a trumpet is blared out at you dragging on forever and quite frankly after the 400th selection it begins to get annoying. Thankfully this can also be turned off. Game play
The game play is superb you are literally catered with every facet of empire management. The period is 1830-1920 so you can play as any nation around in that period from a giant such as the United Kingdom to the small insignificant Ethiopia. To label all the things you are in change of in Victoria would take me beyond the scope of the review, but you are responsible for economic, political, social, diplomatic and militaristic affairs. Those are very broad generalisations I've placed everything under but seriously this game is crammed full of features. Special mention has to be given to the diplomatic system which is the most robust and flexible diplomatic implementation to a game I have ever seen. If you've ever played Alpha Centauri and been impressed with the diplomacy in that Victoria puts it to shame. I must take this moment to cover something I deem very important with regard to war in the game. This is not Rome/Medieval/Shogun Total War. In the above titles war is the primary and sole objective of the game. In Victoria war is a key part and you are unlikely to want to play a game without it but that is all it is, a part. No special attention is given to war over that of diplomacy, economy etc. This doesn't mean that war in the game is lacking on the contrary it's highly in depth as with the rest of the game but it IS integrated. Your capacity for making war is reliant on your empire management in other areas and you're going to find it very difficult to win your war if you ignore the other areas. After all as in real life empires aren't built by focusing purely on war. Historic content If you are after a title that also pays attention to history you'll enjoy this. The game has a vast array of historic events within it. These events aren't fixed however they must be triggered. Which leads to the "What if?" scenarios mentioned in an earlier review. You choose which path your nation should follow when these events are triggered so you can either follow the tracks history has made or invent your own. These can lead to some rather quirky turns in history. For example I had a USA game in which the American Civil War was fought by the USA, United Kingdom, Russia and France against the CSA and Mexico. This was caused by the nature of the diplomatic treaties each nation had with one another and whilst a little bemusing at first I'm sure you'll agree it was an interesting turn of events. New events are being added all the time by the community and they're very easy to make because all you need is notepad! This makes it a modders dream! Replayability The game has buckets of replay value and to use a tired cliché is different each time you play it. You can choose any country you want and follow any path of history that unfolds. Of course at the same time as your declaring wars, making treaties and choosing events so are all the other countries so even if you follow exactly each step you took in the last game sooner or later another of the many nations of the world is going to do something different. Overall Verdict The game isn't for everyone, but for the select few out there who love empire management this really is the crème de la crème.
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