Victoria 3 Dev Diary Unveils Major Military Upgrades in Update 1.9

A new Victoria 3 developer diary explains big military updates coming to the game with the Charters of Commerce DLC.

The Victoria 3 update 1.9 is bringing major military changes to the game. Since its launch in October 2022, developer Paradox has been working to further improve the 19th-century grand strategy game, with a particular focus on delivering the conflict possibilities desired by many players. Now, as Steam reviews are on the verge of hitting the Mostly Positive level, a new Victoria 3 developer diary details several changes being made to the way you handle your troops and front lines.

These changes are set to arrive with Victoria 3 update 1.9, which will be available for free to all players on Tuesday, June 17, alongside the upcoming Charters of Commerce DLC. Rather than the larger scope of the battle, the focus is on three main problems that Paradox has identified as the most serious persistent issues plaguing this grand strategy game. Specifically it is looking at overload caused by front splitting, the way units move along fronts when they merge, and the way formations teleport because they can't find a valid destination to go to.

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We know it's impossible to fully avoid front-splitting but that's fine because it was never our goal. writes game design lead Lino. We were just worried about solving the problems it creates. The new algorithm no longer requires fronts to exist on a continuous land area; fronts can now jump a short distance to merge with adjacent fronts. In the case of the Indian princely revolt example, this reduces 13 fronts to just two.

To prevent troops from having to redeploy to new locations whenever fronts meet or split they will now stay in the same location as long as they are stationed in a front camp that is still considered valid after the change. While you will still see some of your troops moving when new front lines destroy their camps, this will happen much less frequently, and hopefully only in cases where it is actually justified to do so meaning you will only have to run away in the rare case that a part of your front is suddenly left unprotected.

The third issue being addressed is the teleportation of troops, as they have no valid front to move to. This fallback solution has now been improved so that this is no longer necessary. Now, in a situation that previously resulted in a teleport the force will be defined as exiled and will attempt to return to their headquarters. In this state, they can move through neutral and enemy territory, cannot align with any front will take damage, and their organizational value will slowly drop towards zero. They will resume regular operations upon arrival at the target headquarters.

Paradox is also working on adjustments to the way organization values, supplies, and morale are calculated. Another major feature that will make battle planning much easier is the implementation of military access agreements that can be set up between countries, allowing one country's forces to pass through another country's territory. The developer diary also shows some updates to the military and combat menus and interfaces that you can check out.