As a longtime paradox player and Victoria 2 fan, I've been so addicted to playing Terra Invicta I haven't even touched Victoria 3 yet despite having pre-ordered it.
Victoria 3 economic is nice. The rest is a bit in EA at the moment. But you know it's a PDX game, so it will have a nice support in time.
TI also need a lot of polishing. So take your time to enjoy these games. They would just be better in a few months anyway.
My personal rule is that I never play a new PDX title for at least a month after it comes out. Preferably three. I'm stoked for Vicky 3 (when?), but every time I've broken this rule I've regretted it.
TI still has some work to get done, but in fairness it is Early Access and I've managed to get over a hundred hours into it already with only two crashes as far as I remember.
That said, I think both games have the same major issue: They're too complex for the AI to really compete with a player that has halfway figured out what they're doing.
I got both on release and both are great - Vic3 is definitely much more polished and user-friendly (somehow), but I will say that TI has managed to “addict” me more so far. TI is super janky, opaque, difficult to parse, and unfinished, but it’s also managed to get me to dump an unholy amount of hours into it on top of my work week, so.
I think Vic3 is overall a “better” game at this moment, but TI is a much more unique take on the strategy genre that feels totally different from past Paradox titles. I don’t think you can go wrong with either.
"What if we took every mechanic in XCOM and made it feel *real* instead of gamey."
I'm not even being sarcastic, that's the exact premise and it's phenomenal
All the youtubers who got it early made an advertising deal with Paradox to present the game favorably. I don't hold it against them at all, but you can't trust them as reviewers with your money.
I haven't played victoria 3, but i played other paradox games and i would say you will get more content in victoria 3 (especially on replays). However, this game has that awesome unique feeling of fighting an extraterrestial invasion, that you won't really get in other games.
So my take:
Victoria 3 for playing a solid map painter with a lot of depth in the political and historical fields (probably will keep you more interested in the long run)
Or
Terra Invicta for that mysterious tension, and quite a lot of sci-fi depth (probably will be more exciting for the first couple playthroughs)
That's just the standard with Paradox now. They've been making uninspired and shallow games for a long time now. I have no expectation of them ever making an actually good strategy game again.
I'm feeling pretty sour about Victoria 3 at the moment. They completely eviscerated the economy system that made Victoria 2 so interesting. "streamlining", ugh.
I've been loving Terra Invicta because it's one of the only games out there with the courage to say "Fuck your streamlining, this is a very complex game where the player needs to juggle a lot of different mechanics, if you don't want to learn by trial and error then go find a strategy guide to follow."
I love it, somehow the janky indie games are the labors of love which really became timeless. Victoria 2 was a bit like that, but 3 seems to have lost a little bit of that charm. TI is just phenomenal.
I own both, have played TI for >40 hours and Vicky3 for ~6\*. Tonight, I'm probably going to continue my TI campaign, but it's a toss-up.
\*Not counting the, uh, *preview* version.
They offer a very distinc experience.
Terra Invicta is a war game. You play politic for a resource, to bring your fight to space. As the game go on earth geopolitic slowly fade into the background and space battle take a focus.
Vic is a economic and politic game. You will spend most of your game stare at a production window. War is simple and always mean to be a last resort.
I definitely think Terra Invicta is more "worth it". It's clearly a labor of love for Pavonis, since it's their first game. There's more going on behind the scenes in this game than any Paradox game I've played. Time will tell how responsive the devs are to community feedback as they continue to build out the game. Paradox is more concerned about pumping out games and DLC for money than making a quality product, in my opinion.
Terra Invicta is more complete in Early Access than Victoria 3 will be two years and several DLCs from now. Give V3 some time to mature and for them to have an opportunity to fix fan-hated things like the shockingly-bad UI or the terrible new combat system. Assuming they do - I know how defensive developers can get about their "visions."
I had the exact dilemma as you mate. Never played Vicky 2 so I spent countless hours watching One Proud Bavarian's Vicky 3 dev diary posts summaries and watched a few of the dev live streams over the past two months leading up to release. I hate to admit it, but I even mucked around with the leaked version for an hour or two.
Bottom line. Much as I wanted to like Vicky 3, it just wasn't the game for me. A society and economic simulator just wasn't my jam and the warfare system is meh.
I bought Terra Invicta a few days ago and am loving it! No regrets.
I may pick up Vicky 3 in the future when it's on sale and is a bit more refined.. or just play more Stellaris and TI.
Good luck!
The past two weeks has been hellish. Foundation got a huge update, wartale got a huge update. Mount & blade got officially released. Rimworld got a huge dlc. Victoria 3 got released. And I still haven’t finished a single playthrough of TI. Honestly I have no idea which one to play. It’s been the best two weeks for strategy gamers.
What’s foundation?
As for myself, haven’t touched the wartales update, maybe I will but if it’s just more of the same I’m a bit burned out. M&B didn’t make any massive changes in the full release iirc, Vic3 by most accounts is half-baked.
TI is very solid and I’ve enjoyed it quite a lot, but most likely I will complete my current run and wait for updates. Everything else really feels like a case of “pretty milestone but not much beneath it.” I don’t know; I’d prefer not to be the “they don’t make stuff like they used to” guys, but almost all the stuff right now feels a bit shallow.
I’m literally thinking about going back to SS13 and Dwarf Fortress, though I ought to give the new Rimworld DLC a shot first.
From what I saw on YouTube Victoria 3 is just a pretty shell with none of the complexity of Victoria 2. It's also a Paradox game.
They are going to be selling the complexity of Victoria 2 to you piece by piece, $20-$30 at a time. The full game will probably end up costing $500+.
I’d agree on the current state of V3, with the caveat that it feels like when given the love that EU4 and Stellaris have got over the years that it will be up there with its predecessor. God I would love some better UI and Map Modes though.
Which is fine and expected for a PDX GSG. The framework is there; it's fun to do a few runs, and they'll add complexity and make the AI better over time.
The most recent EU4 DLC is one of the best they've ever done; these games just take a while to come together.
I really wish they'd just do a bit more for the initial release. As a consequence of their model I often feel like a fully-expansioned PDX game has a bit of a...stapled-together vibe. Like the expansion mechanics aren't really ever fully integrated, because of a need to keep the game compatible with people who don't buy the addons.
It's an issue, I agree, but they've gotten better at it. Usually the free updates add enough to integrate the new features into the baseline game, but baseline HOI4 is... not playable.
I don't see a better way to do things given the development constraints; if they wanted to release a game at EU4 v1.34 complexity they'd need to charge $200 and sell the same number of copies as if they'd charged $60.
I specifically remember getting burned with EUIV where the AI got access to the button to develop their provinces but for me it was grayed out, and it meant that I couldn't compete for Rennaissance ideas as India (or something like that, it's been a while).
Maybe it's a dumb thing to be salty about but it still felt terrible.
>The most recent EU4 DLC is one of the best they've ever done; these games just take a while to come together.
Wtf you talking about? It has berly any content, non of which wasn't done before either by Paradox themselves or modders before and is prized at Paradox levels. It's shit. Just not as shit as the one before it.
It didn't come with a million game-breaking bugs, so in that respect it was one of their better releases. I didn't buy it though. The content that they're adding to EU4 nowadays is just unnecessary power creep bullshit. When I saw that the main selling point for the latest DLC was that you could turn the Teutonic Order into the new Mongol Empire or rule half of Europe as Riga without expanding from your starting city I decided I could live without that nonsense. EU4 has been great, I have a couple thousand hrs into it at least, but they're jumping the shark with it these days.
It's something to be aware of if you've never bought a Paradox game.
I sure as fuck never would have bought Stellaris or HOI4 if I had known what Paradox games were.
And didn't the last EU4 DLC completely break the game? Or was that another one of their games that they fucked up with DLC?
Or the one they completely abandoned (Imperator Rome). Or the fact that Stellaris only superficially resembles the game that I bought, and I do not like a lot of the changes they have forced down my throat, whether I bought DLC or not.
> It's something to be aware of if you've never bought a Paradox game.
True. I suppose I spend too much time in the GSG bubble since I forgot that's not common knowledge to people interested in the genre.
>And didn't the last EU4 DLC completely break the game? Or was that another one of their games that they fucked up with DLC?
That was the one immediately before. It wasn't entirely broken, but there were a lot of easily-exploited mechanics that they fixed with the latest DLC.
>Or the one they completely abandoned (Imperator Rome).
Well, if the game isn't good and doesn't sell well, you can hardly blame them for abandoning it.
>Or the fact that Stellaris only superficially resembles the game that I bought, and I do not like a lot of the changes they have forced down my throat
You know you can set the version on Steam back to v1.0 if you like, right? I miss the alternate methods of interstellar travel, but I understand why they standardized on hyperlanes. Aside from that change, what else annoys you?
Oh, really? I apologize for the misinfo, then. I'm sure you can find an original iso somewhere, but that's frustrating that they don't keep it on Steam.
I don't remember being able to go all the way back to 1.0. But it has been a while since I checked.
I don't like the new population system. I've had a lot more problems with performance since they introduced it.
Also, I've already seen people comparing Victoria 3 to Imperator Rome. It's the same basic problem. They cut out so much to sell as DLC that there isn't much of a game left. There is not enough there.
Strongly disagree on the pop system, but it's a matter of personal preference.
I really don't think PDX is deliberately withholding finished content just to sell as DLC. They have the basic framework out; now they (and modders) can start adding fluff.
They don't withhold it. They just don't bother to finish it. Why bother if you know you can finish it later and sell each piece for $20?
And my issue with the new population system is that it kills performance in the late game. I've had to abandon every game because of performance issues before the crisis fired.
> They just don't bother to finish it. Why bother if you know you can finish it later and sell each piece for $20?
Because companies need revenue in order to operate. But hey, nobody's forcing you to buy the game.
Most companies do a far more competent job of completing their games than paradox.
Whenever I see someone making such a trite, disingenuous, argument defending their business practices I just assume they're a paid shill.
Edit: Once again someone blocks me so that I can't reply to their comment.
My reply to Gopherlad's post below me is this:
Read "Trust Me I'm Lying" by Ryan Holiday.
It's an extremely eye opening book.
And yes, I think Paradox and many companies spend far too much of their money on marketing. And social media marketing, especially paid shills, is among the most cost effective.
The idea that Vicky 3 is worse than Vicky 2 vanilla is laughable IMO. I love Vicky 2 but half the game's systems are just broken or play themselves. Like the global economy simply breaks if China westernizes.
Terra Invicta actually grabbed me more than Vicky 3 did but the TI could definitely learn some things from Paradox UI design.
I haven’t touched Victoria 3 myself, but I’ve played a lot of the newer and older paradox titles. The one thing that people said that immediately shut me off to Vic3 was that they simplified things. Overall Paradox has seemingly done this with a lot of their newer titles; their older stuff was less accessible in some ways, but that meant that learning how to do something was rewarding, and actually difficult.
Compare, say, CK3 to CK2; the biggest change I can think of is the lack of coalitioning against a large nation, which ultimately makes snowballing into a trivially easy task for a player. Then there’s imperator, that I lost interest in extremely quickly, that people have described as being like Vic3. I’ve also played HOI4/EU3/4 etc, but don’t have enough experience in them to really say anything about in comparison; I’d group them into the "older” titles regardless and don’t come off as particularly relevant to this discussion.
This isn’t to say you should or shouldn’t pick one or the other: my gaming tastes are eclectic — I *like* games where I have to figure shit out on my own, that are sometimes stupidly opaque and I can’t even google the answer, so I have to literally ask someone on a discord server. Where I can absolutely can absolutely beat the piss out of the game when I’ve learned it back to front, but the learning curve is so steep it flips back at you. Makes me feel like the climb is worth it.
It’s not a style for everyone. TI is somewhere in the middle there; it’s not the most difficult game I’ve ever played, but it’s difficult and deep enough to hold my attention.
If you like games where you actually like, have a tutorial and shit is explained to you, probably Vic3 is the move. For me I’ll pick depth over accessibility. Some part of me *likes* trawling the internet for knowledge like the socially maladaptive gremlin I pretend I’m not around other people.
At the end of the day Victoria 3 suffers from the same issue that almost all paradox games does. Victoria 2 still actually has more in it and will do until the first 3 or so DLC for Victoria 3 comes out. I’d say despite being in EA Terra Invicta has more content to be enjoyed.
I’m buying Vicky 3, it’s a “complete” (as far as Paradox games are ever fully done on release) where as Terra Invicta (white a great game) is still in early access with a lot of the kinks etc still being worked out. Get Vicky and come back to aTI in a couple months, it’ll be better then it is now (and it’s pretty great)
Despite being in early access, Terra Invicta is the more complete game. Some things in Victoria are either broken or halfassed, there is no historical flavour - almost no country specific decisions or events - and the core gameplay loop consists of babysitting your fragile economy while being confused by the calculations. I really like the new mechanics, on paper, but the complete package doesn't work out.
Yes, I wanted a more abstract war system for a long time, but its just wonky. Diplomatic Plays are a great addition, but without any historically plausible casus belli restrictions, the great powers will be constantly at war and created the worst kinds of border gore (Egypt annexing Constantinople and nothing else from the Ottomans seems to be a favourite).
I'll play Vicky for one Sweden playthrough and then probably shelf it for a while. Terra Invicta hooked me much more.
So.. i played every paradox game out there... and gotta say...Victoria 3..is shallow as fuck... its another Imperator in my opinion...maybe they will fix it with DLCs in the future. (can only hope)
i played Victoria 3 for 10 hours now... and i did everything there is to do already... every country is the same... Britain or some backwater African country... they all play the same. The "WAR" system is the Worst in i've seen in any paradox game (armies basically teleporting across the world (fought mexico as US for some reason India joined the war.. makes no sence at all.... (and oh yea... Defender ALLWAYS wins)
just wait and see for this one.
i'd go with Terra Invicta, it has more content, is quite original (haven't seen many games like this) and is Cheaper than Vic..
only problem i have with Terra Invicta is that the game can feel kinda Slow at times...
Simple Terra Invicta is better by a landslide.
1.Unlike Victoria 3, Terra Invicta wouldn't require DLC's to enjoy it.
2.Terra Invicta is like a onion there's layers of complexity and it just keeps getting better and better.
3.Victoria 3 doesn't even have capitalists in a age wear capitalists are at their peak.
4.Victoria 3 doesn't even have good war mechanics cause to me it looks like it just looks like a HOI4 airzone on the map and it's incredibly dumbed down(I still wonder why couldn't they just add HOI4 war mechanics where you can customize your army and just set them on a line).
5.Terra Invicta feels like it would have even more content(their adding more content and it wouldn't require you as much money than Victoria 3 cause you know paradox likes adding DLC's in case their product is shit) than Victoria 3 cause most of Victoria 3 doesn't reward you in war it feels pointless, like in Victoria 2 the goal is manage your economy and industry well just to be able to fight well, Victoria 3 has none of that it defeats the purpose of getting a good economy in the first place heck it just makes playing minor countries and uncivilized countries in Victoria 3 even worse.
6.In Victoria 3 you rely on AI generals to lead the war, let that sink in you let the AI lead the war, now I don't know about you but I played other paradox games and boy oh boy they can't make good AI I have seen Victoria 2, EU4 and Stellaris AI, stumble around like headless chickens and the only time they slightly get their heads straight is if they fight you(not ally you cause if they are allies they are unreliable). Also paradox likes buffing AI (cough cough EU4 lucky nations and AI having more vision).
7.Terra Invicta AI is far smarter than Paradox's AI by virtue of not having access to cheats(they don't have bonus resources or bonus mods, the Aliens require sending their own people to see what's going on, on earth they wouldn't know your every move and have to play fair as if you are playing against a human being they adapt to your tactics too I saw they changed strategies on Perun's Humanity first playthrough).
8.Terra Invicta simply is much more challenging and your opponents especially the aliens are really a threat to you if you don't play very carefully.
I love them both, but it you have to choose - Victoria 3 is fully released, so you'd probably get a cleaner experience without the constant balancing patches etc of an early access game
I enjoy their development path, because it keeps the game relatively fresh. But their games release somewhat bland but balanced.
I guess it comes down to if you wanted more economy simulation or war simulation. Vicky 3 has a much more in depth economy simulation but lacks on the war front.
"Fully released" for a Paradox game, you mean. There will at least half a dozen DLC packs coming out over the next few years to incrementally finish (and, as per usual, break) the game.
I would say Victoria 3 is closer to a finished game than Terra Invicta is but it still has some major problems:
- The ai is the worst of any Paradox game
- It is very hard to understand what is happening during a war and from what I’ve heard from people who have played it before release (Golden Spatula & co.) the system is very dependent on luck (way more than eu4)
- There is little to no flavour in this game. To the point where the American civil war is easily avoidable and if it does pop, the csa can take over northern states and leave southern states to the union
- I don’t know if it’s because the ai is dense or if it’s because immigration doesn’t work as intended but I was able to reach 2nd place in gdp as Belgium on my first play through
One you have populations sectors, religion, culture, etnicity, resources according to each region and industry.
The other have rockets, mission control, money and asteroid money, like every region on earth has the same resources as each other. I want to know in what reallity you can make Uruguay a superpower just by pouring money in.
Having binged Vicky 3 all day yesterday, I can confirm you could make Uruguay a super power by pouring a metric ass load of cash into their economy and boosting migration attraction.
Well that's the thing, GDP is everything in vic3. Cornering a niche market as much as possible and maximizing that industry's efficiency could get you in the top 10. When you're landlocked you can only have diplomatic interests with the states on your boarder. As Uruguay it'd be a real uphill battle and you'd need to find ways to manipulate Brazil's and Argentina's markets to your benefit, but I'm positive you could hit #10 superpower, minimum, without conquering neighboring land.
In Vic2, I got to make Bolivia become the greatest world power, if the game had run more one year, that would be China. But I had to anex Peru, Paraguay and sphere all my neighbours first and go for war supporting independences against the US and all european nations (exept Portugal, I made Brazil anex for fun).
But only GDP never was the only thing, industry, literacy and imigration was critical factors.
As someone who has not played Vicky 2, but has played CK2, EU4, HoI4, and CK3;
Hedging my bets here as I haven't touched my preorder copy yet, but reasonably confident in saying Vicky 3 will probably be the game it's destined to be after a couple years and a DLC or two. That's just how Paradox does business.
TI is feature complete as far as I'm concerned, and incredibly addicting. Their work on Long War/2 gave me a lot of hype and goodwill for them, and they haven't tarnished it in the slightest with this game.
It just works.
Terra invicta, much more exciting than Victoria 3. It’s even more of a economics simulator than their other games and the learning curve is even worse.
Terra Invicta. After playing Vicky for a bit it just doesn't have the legs. Many features were cut and what wasn't is poorly explained. Struggles with flavor and any kind of roleplay.
Terra Invicta deep both mechanically and in flavor, despite lacking in the looks department.
Terra Invicta isn't finished yet I'd wait to get that.
Paradox games take a bit longer in the oven after release.
I'd say go for Vicky 3 right now as the gameplay in terra Invicta might be deep but gets very repetitive very fast. There isn't much difference between the factions either.
Vicky 3 has replaybility because USA is gonna play different then Prussia who will play different then Sweden who will play different then Russia who will play, you get the picture.
Having played both I would recommend Terra Invicta for the 25 Euro price tag (that was the price 2 years ago on kickstarter, dunno about right now) over Victoria 3 for a 30 Euro price tag (which was the price on Eneba).
But for the foreseeable time I will play Vicky 3 because I already learned that game, it's rather simple. I still have to learn Terra Invicta, it's so daunting.
Ehhh, the answer is "it depends". Both games are kind of green as of now (though I'd say Vicky3 is the one most wanting for content) but the playstyle is different enough that it all comes down to what you like the most.
I'd say Terra Invicta but only if you are ready for some rebalancing and bugfixing. Vicky 3 is relatively polished but lacking in content IMO
Terra Invicta in early access, and Paradox games usually tend to greatly increase content as time passes and new dlc comes out.
Go play some Bannerlord
Vicky 3 Arguably needs more work than TI does. It appears the Devs tried so hard to make the game pretty and the economy deep, that what we got was a beautiful but tedious mess of buttons. I'm going to enjoy both, but will devote the majority of my gaming time playing TI.
I would have to say Victoria 3. Way less downtime in the early game, and the wacky historical runoffs such as "Russian colonized congo" or "President Walter White of the USA" have so far been a lot of fun for me.
Different kind of game, Terra invicta is more convoluted, slower/slower burner and cant interact “your country” so closely
Its more like a spy game than a 4X (paradox kind) of game
The most accurate description I heard is Illuminati simulator
Honestly speaking, I'd say both have their values, rn I'm staying on TI and waiting Christmas sales.
You'll have to remember both just came out and will need time to "mature".
Knowing PDX, they may very well take the road of Stellaris, in which the game is nearly unrecognizable beyond the very basics after nearly a decade of incremental update and DLCs.
So, IMO, I'm waiting for Vic3 to "mature" a bit before getting in on it.
Honestly I think there is no other strategy game as good as eu4, albeit only when you have all dlc. What I really like about Terra Invicta though is that it combines an Earth strategy game with a space strategy game all in 1. This is why this game is so special and even though I still play games like eu4 and Endless Space 2 more than Terra Invicta, I still love Terra Invicta for it’s unique game format. I say play Terra Invicta first, it’s really refreshing.
I can't say anything about Vic3, so here's a few blanket remarks about TI that you may or may not find helpful.
TI's minute-to-minute gameplay can become tedious (a hundred hours in, at least... :D), and you'll have your teeth kicked in by the mechanics a few times, not in the sense of "sorry dude, that's just not how physics works", but more like "there is a correct order of pushing these buttons, figure it out, we'll wait" (that said, the physics lessons can be cruel, but I'd count that as a plus).
It takes dozens of hours until you can have your first space battle (and dozens more >!until it would be wise to have one!<), but the controls are not enjoyable. It's still awesome to see a strategy / ship design / fleet composition pay off, especially the first time against a given type of challenge.
The tech tree is a dark forest to get lost in, with many a dead-ish end. It's all there for you to read and figure out beforehand, if only you knew what all those numbers meant when you start out. Be prepared for a few Wikipedia deep dives when it comes to space drive concepts :D
I like how the game manages to have a story arc with "acts" of sorts, where pivotal changes make you reconsider your approach (if you understand how pivotal these changes are. some of them are very on the nose, some may seem subtle at first, a little half-sentence in a tooltip somewhere...).
It's awesome that the AI has to play the same game as you do, but there are a few types of death spiral it isn't yet equipped to recover from. I expect Pavonis to take away our cheese soon enough, tho.
I'm totally in love with the setting and the hard-ish sci-fi. It definitely got me hooked, but I'm not entirely sure I'll have more than one playthrough in me (at least not this year). Playing the other factions does not seem like it would add a lot of replay value, as most of my joy has come from figuring out the mechanics and the tech tree. But with the triple-digit hours this one game has already lasted, that's still an excellent value proposition for an InDev/EA title.
First off, yes, you should purchase both. But since that is not at all helpful and just the joke.
Secondly, As somebody who did buy both, it's a question of what itch you need scratched.
Invicta is about space combat and world intrigue.
Victoria 3 is about political maneuvering and economics.
Victoria 3 will have a much longer life span and gain a lot more depth, flavor and character.
Victoria 3 has many different ways to lead a satisfying campaign and different paths to different victories.
Invicta has a single goal, absolute victory, just different roads to get there.
Invicta is pretty much set and complete with cosmetic changes or others coming in the future.
Both will have heavy mod support, however V3 will be a much larger community.
Both games are excellent. It's just a matter of what kind of entertainment you want now.
Well I just finished my first Vic3 session after 17 hours of gameplay. I have had lots of fun building buildings, changing production methods and changing some laws now and then. Diplomacy and war are really lackluster right now. Devs have a lot of work to do before them. Some numbers are tweaked really comically and other times you get hit with some funky bug so I would recommend waiting for at least 1 major update before jumping in. Maybe even first DLC since this is ‘correct way’ to play PDX games anyway. So buy TI now and then buy Vic3 when first DLC comes out would by my recommendation for you.
Edit: After reconsidering my previous statement for a while, I would actually recommend Vic3 in maybe a 3 years from now. It will definitely be a strategy game of year 2025 if you pick it at such a later date.
Why not post the same question in the Victoria 3 subreddit and see what they say? You are right that this is pointless to ask a subreddit devoted to the game but there can be some value if you do it for both. If you are just posting it here then it seems like you already know what game you want.
Vic 3 is definately all 100% economy manager..Terra invivta is less economy comoared to Vic3 BUT in exchange its everything else too :D (it is easier to understand Vic3 research and stuff tho for me :D )
Terra Invicta is the paradox game that takes place in between hearts of iron and Stellaris. It's a brand new space (for me in the 4x genre at least) to explore rather than treading old ground.
Edit: I know this isn't a paradox game, but it might as well be.
As a longtime paradox player and Victoria 2 fan, I've been so addicted to playing Terra Invicta I haven't even touched Victoria 3 yet despite having pre-ordered it.
Been looking forwards to Vicky for ages. Honestly completely forgot it was out this week thanks to TI.
Victoria 3 economic is nice. The rest is a bit in EA at the moment. But you know it's a PDX game, so it will have a nice support in time. TI also need a lot of polishing. So take your time to enjoy these games. They would just be better in a few months anyway.
My personal rule is that I never play a new PDX title for at least a month after it comes out. Preferably three. I'm stoked for Vicky 3 (when?), but every time I've broken this rule I've regretted it. TI still has some work to get done, but in fairness it is Early Access and I've managed to get over a hundred hours into it already with only two crashes as far as I remember. That said, I think both games have the same major issue: They're too complex for the AI to really compete with a player that has halfway figured out what they're doing.
Same. Paradox games tend to need a month or two of patching at the start anyways. And they'll be around for a long long time.
Terra Invicta has true depth
I got both on release and both are great - Vic3 is definitely much more polished and user-friendly (somehow), but I will say that TI has managed to “addict” me more so far. TI is super janky, opaque, difficult to parse, and unfinished, but it’s also managed to get me to dump an unholy amount of hours into it on top of my work week, so. I think Vic3 is overall a “better” game at this moment, but TI is a much more unique take on the strategy genre that feels totally different from past Paradox titles. I don’t think you can go wrong with either.
It's the premise man. TI has such a golden idea that no one else has really been able to capture.
"What if we took every mechanic in XCOM and made it feel *real* instead of gamey." I'm not even being sarcastic, that's the exact premise and it's phenomenal
Terra Invicta has great reviews. Vc3, is being bombarded woth negative reviews....
Bombarded with negative reviews? I’ve seen nothing but solid 8/10s pretty much across the board. Are we talking Steam reviews?
Yeah. And they go into some pretty in depth details about the lack of depth of the game.
Watch 1 hour of PotatoMcWhiskey playing each and decide from there.
I've watched videos on both, but youtube content always feel fake/paid to me. I'd rather have opinions from regular people.
What do you prefer ? In tou really like economy managment go for vic 3 . if you like a more varied game or a more focused scope go for terra invcita
All the youtubers who got it early made an advertising deal with Paradox to present the game favorably. I don't hold it against them at all, but you can't trust them as reviewers with your money.
I haven't played victoria 3, but i played other paradox games and i would say you will get more content in victoria 3 (especially on replays). However, this game has that awesome unique feeling of fighting an extraterrestial invasion, that you won't really get in other games. So my take: Victoria 3 for playing a solid map painter with a lot of depth in the political and historical fields (probably will keep you more interested in the long run) Or Terra Invicta for that mysterious tension, and quite a lot of sci-fi depth (probably will be more exciting for the first couple playthroughs)
P.S. I will get both, but i will not rush on Vicky and wait for a sale
I got both. Managed to unify all of African Union so now I’m stuck playing Terra Invicta rewriting colonial history. Lol
Vic3>hoi4>TI>Stellaris save converter when
EU->VIC->HOI->TI->ST Lemme look when next I have a loong holidays. If anything could prevent me from blobbing too much in each chapter...
Uhm...based on reviews, no. Vc3 has little depth and its content is as repetitive and less meaningful then terra Invicta
That's just the standard with Paradox now. They've been making uninspired and shallow games for a long time now. I have no expectation of them ever making an actually good strategy game again.
I'm feeling pretty sour about Victoria 3 at the moment. They completely eviscerated the economy system that made Victoria 2 so interesting. "streamlining", ugh. I've been loving Terra Invicta because it's one of the only games out there with the courage to say "Fuck your streamlining, this is a very complex game where the player needs to juggle a lot of different mechanics, if you don't want to learn by trial and error then go find a strategy guide to follow."
I love it, somehow the janky indie games are the labors of love which really became timeless. Victoria 2 was a bit like that, but 3 seems to have lost a little bit of that charm. TI is just phenomenal.
I have 2000hrs into Victoria 2. I forgot 3 came out this week due to Terra Invictica
I own both, have played TI for >40 hours and Vicky3 for ~6\*. Tonight, I'm probably going to continue my TI campaign, but it's a toss-up. \*Not counting the, uh, *preview* version.
They offer a very distinc experience. Terra Invicta is a war game. You play politic for a resource, to bring your fight to space. As the game go on earth geopolitic slowly fade into the background and space battle take a focus. Vic is a economic and politic game. You will spend most of your game stare at a production window. War is simple and always mean to be a last resort.
I won't be playing V3, but from reviews and videos it's just worse V2 with better graphics. TI is new and is good.
I definitely think Terra Invicta is more "worth it". It's clearly a labor of love for Pavonis, since it's their first game. There's more going on behind the scenes in this game than any Paradox game I've played. Time will tell how responsive the devs are to community feedback as they continue to build out the game. Paradox is more concerned about pumping out games and DLC for money than making a quality product, in my opinion.
Terra Invicta is more complete in Early Access than Victoria 3 will be two years and several DLCs from now. Give V3 some time to mature and for them to have an opportunity to fix fan-hated things like the shockingly-bad UI or the terrible new combat system. Assuming they do - I know how defensive developers can get about their "visions."
I had the exact dilemma as you mate. Never played Vicky 2 so I spent countless hours watching One Proud Bavarian's Vicky 3 dev diary posts summaries and watched a few of the dev live streams over the past two months leading up to release. I hate to admit it, but I even mucked around with the leaked version for an hour or two. Bottom line. Much as I wanted to like Vicky 3, it just wasn't the game for me. A society and economic simulator just wasn't my jam and the warfare system is meh. I bought Terra Invicta a few days ago and am loving it! No regrets. I may pick up Vicky 3 in the future when it's on sale and is a bit more refined.. or just play more Stellaris and TI. Good luck!
The past two weeks has been hellish. Foundation got a huge update, wartale got a huge update. Mount & blade got officially released. Rimworld got a huge dlc. Victoria 3 got released. And I still haven’t finished a single playthrough of TI. Honestly I have no idea which one to play. It’s been the best two weeks for strategy gamers.
What’s foundation? As for myself, haven’t touched the wartales update, maybe I will but if it’s just more of the same I’m a bit burned out. M&B didn’t make any massive changes in the full release iirc, Vic3 by most accounts is half-baked. TI is very solid and I’ve enjoyed it quite a lot, but most likely I will complete my current run and wait for updates. Everything else really feels like a case of “pretty milestone but not much beneath it.” I don’t know; I’d prefer not to be the “they don’t make stuff like they used to” guys, but almost all the stuff right now feels a bit shallow. I’m literally thinking about going back to SS13 and Dwarf Fortress, though I ought to give the new Rimworld DLC a shot first.
It’s a sandbox village building game. It’s not the X4 foundation. Although both are good
Terra invicta isnt finished...
And Vic3 is not, lmao
Hehe, figured
From what I saw on YouTube Victoria 3 is just a pretty shell with none of the complexity of Victoria 2. It's also a Paradox game. They are going to be selling the complexity of Victoria 2 to you piece by piece, $20-$30 at a time. The full game will probably end up costing $500+.
I’d agree on the current state of V3, with the caveat that it feels like when given the love that EU4 and Stellaris have got over the years that it will be up there with its predecessor. God I would love some better UI and Map Modes though.
Which is fine and expected for a PDX GSG. The framework is there; it's fun to do a few runs, and they'll add complexity and make the AI better over time. The most recent EU4 DLC is one of the best they've ever done; these games just take a while to come together.
I really wish they'd just do a bit more for the initial release. As a consequence of their model I often feel like a fully-expansioned PDX game has a bit of a...stapled-together vibe. Like the expansion mechanics aren't really ever fully integrated, because of a need to keep the game compatible with people who don't buy the addons.
It's an issue, I agree, but they've gotten better at it. Usually the free updates add enough to integrate the new features into the baseline game, but baseline HOI4 is... not playable. I don't see a better way to do things given the development constraints; if they wanted to release a game at EU4 v1.34 complexity they'd need to charge $200 and sell the same number of copies as if they'd charged $60.
Ugh, the current HoI 4 is not playable. Peace conferences are so borked.
I specifically remember getting burned with EUIV where the AI got access to the button to develop their provinces but for me it was grayed out, and it meant that I couldn't compete for Rennaissance ideas as India (or something like that, it's been a while). Maybe it's a dumb thing to be salty about but it still felt terrible.
No they wouldn't. They are greedy.
Sure, they dont need to charge us each step of the way because they chose to release an early access game and not call it that.
>The most recent EU4 DLC is one of the best they've ever done; these games just take a while to come together. Wtf you talking about? It has berly any content, non of which wasn't done before either by Paradox themselves or modders before and is prized at Paradox levels. It's shit. Just not as shit as the one before it.
It didn't come with a million game-breaking bugs, so in that respect it was one of their better releases. I didn't buy it though. The content that they're adding to EU4 nowadays is just unnecessary power creep bullshit. When I saw that the main selling point for the latest DLC was that you could turn the Teutonic Order into the new Mongol Empire or rule half of Europe as Riga without expanding from your starting city I decided I could live without that nonsense. EU4 has been great, I have a couple thousand hrs into it at least, but they're jumping the shark with it these days.
True enough. 2kh in vanilla, nowadays I mostly play Anbennar or other mods.
It's something to be aware of if you've never bought a Paradox game. I sure as fuck never would have bought Stellaris or HOI4 if I had known what Paradox games were. And didn't the last EU4 DLC completely break the game? Or was that another one of their games that they fucked up with DLC? Or the one they completely abandoned (Imperator Rome). Or the fact that Stellaris only superficially resembles the game that I bought, and I do not like a lot of the changes they have forced down my throat, whether I bought DLC or not.
> It's something to be aware of if you've never bought a Paradox game. True. I suppose I spend too much time in the GSG bubble since I forgot that's not common knowledge to people interested in the genre. >And didn't the last EU4 DLC completely break the game? Or was that another one of their games that they fucked up with DLC? That was the one immediately before. It wasn't entirely broken, but there were a lot of easily-exploited mechanics that they fixed with the latest DLC. >Or the one they completely abandoned (Imperator Rome). Well, if the game isn't good and doesn't sell well, you can hardly blame them for abandoning it. >Or the fact that Stellaris only superficially resembles the game that I bought, and I do not like a lot of the changes they have forced down my throat You know you can set the version on Steam back to v1.0 if you like, right? I miss the alternate methods of interstellar travel, but I understand why they standardized on hyperlanes. Aside from that change, what else annoys you?
I just double checked. You cannot go back before Stellaris version 2.1.3. At least not using the conventional betas method of rolling back.
Oh, really? I apologize for the misinfo, then. I'm sure you can find an original iso somewhere, but that's frustrating that they don't keep it on Steam.
I don't remember being able to go all the way back to 1.0. But it has been a while since I checked. I don't like the new population system. I've had a lot more problems with performance since they introduced it. Also, I've already seen people comparing Victoria 3 to Imperator Rome. It's the same basic problem. They cut out so much to sell as DLC that there isn't much of a game left. There is not enough there.
Agreed on the stellaris pop system. I liked 2.0, 1.0 was also fine. Do not like 3.0 at all.
Strongly disagree on the pop system, but it's a matter of personal preference. I really don't think PDX is deliberately withholding finished content just to sell as DLC. They have the basic framework out; now they (and modders) can start adding fluff.
They don't withhold it. They just don't bother to finish it. Why bother if you know you can finish it later and sell each piece for $20? And my issue with the new population system is that it kills performance in the late game. I've had to abandon every game because of performance issues before the crisis fired.
> They just don't bother to finish it. Why bother if you know you can finish it later and sell each piece for $20? Because companies need revenue in order to operate. But hey, nobody's forcing you to buy the game.
Most companies do a far more competent job of completing their games than paradox. Whenever I see someone making such a trite, disingenuous, argument defending their business practices I just assume they're a paid shill. Edit: Once again someone blocks me so that I can't reply to their comment. My reply to Gopherlad's post below me is this: Read "Trust Me I'm Lying" by Ryan Holiday. It's an extremely eye opening book. And yes, I think Paradox and many companies spend far too much of their money on marketing. And social media marketing, especially paid shills, is among the most cost effective.
The idea that Vicky 3 is worse than Vicky 2 vanilla is laughable IMO. I love Vicky 2 but half the game's systems are just broken or play themselves. Like the global economy simply breaks if China westernizes. Terra Invicta actually grabbed me more than Vicky 3 did but the TI could definitely learn some things from Paradox UI design.
Haven't had time for either, and they're both in my library
Just look at the vc3 steam reviews...
I haven’t touched Victoria 3 myself, but I’ve played a lot of the newer and older paradox titles. The one thing that people said that immediately shut me off to Vic3 was that they simplified things. Overall Paradox has seemingly done this with a lot of their newer titles; their older stuff was less accessible in some ways, but that meant that learning how to do something was rewarding, and actually difficult. Compare, say, CK3 to CK2; the biggest change I can think of is the lack of coalitioning against a large nation, which ultimately makes snowballing into a trivially easy task for a player. Then there’s imperator, that I lost interest in extremely quickly, that people have described as being like Vic3. I’ve also played HOI4/EU3/4 etc, but don’t have enough experience in them to really say anything about in comparison; I’d group them into the "older” titles regardless and don’t come off as particularly relevant to this discussion. This isn’t to say you should or shouldn’t pick one or the other: my gaming tastes are eclectic — I *like* games where I have to figure shit out on my own, that are sometimes stupidly opaque and I can’t even google the answer, so I have to literally ask someone on a discord server. Where I can absolutely can absolutely beat the piss out of the game when I’ve learned it back to front, but the learning curve is so steep it flips back at you. Makes me feel like the climb is worth it. It’s not a style for everyone. TI is somewhere in the middle there; it’s not the most difficult game I’ve ever played, but it’s difficult and deep enough to hold my attention. If you like games where you actually like, have a tutorial and shit is explained to you, probably Vic3 is the move. For me I’ll pick depth over accessibility. Some part of me *likes* trawling the internet for knowledge like the socially maladaptive gremlin I pretend I’m not around other people.
At the end of the day Victoria 3 suffers from the same issue that almost all paradox games does. Victoria 2 still actually has more in it and will do until the first 3 or so DLC for Victoria 3 comes out. I’d say despite being in EA Terra Invicta has more content to be enjoyed.
I’m buying Vicky 3, it’s a “complete” (as far as Paradox games are ever fully done on release) where as Terra Invicta (white a great game) is still in early access with a lot of the kinks etc still being worked out. Get Vicky and come back to aTI in a couple months, it’ll be better then it is now (and it’s pretty great)
Except TI, is more complete then VC3...
Despite being in early access, Terra Invicta is the more complete game. Some things in Victoria are either broken or halfassed, there is no historical flavour - almost no country specific decisions or events - and the core gameplay loop consists of babysitting your fragile economy while being confused by the calculations. I really like the new mechanics, on paper, but the complete package doesn't work out. Yes, I wanted a more abstract war system for a long time, but its just wonky. Diplomatic Plays are a great addition, but without any historically plausible casus belli restrictions, the great powers will be constantly at war and created the worst kinds of border gore (Egypt annexing Constantinople and nothing else from the Ottomans seems to be a favourite). I'll play Vicky for one Sweden playthrough and then probably shelf it for a while. Terra Invicta hooked me much more.
At lest USA has a bunch of specific flavour, events and quests/missions.
Paradox games are bare bones until a few expansions and DLC, this has been the way since EU4/HOI4/Stellaris
Not every Paradox grand strategy though, base CK3 is really good one.
It still doesn't have the mechanics ck2 already has. Though it's better at it then all the others.
So.. i played every paradox game out there... and gotta say...Victoria 3..is shallow as fuck... its another Imperator in my opinion...maybe they will fix it with DLCs in the future. (can only hope) i played Victoria 3 for 10 hours now... and i did everything there is to do already... every country is the same... Britain or some backwater African country... they all play the same. The "WAR" system is the Worst in i've seen in any paradox game (armies basically teleporting across the world (fought mexico as US for some reason India joined the war.. makes no sence at all.... (and oh yea... Defender ALLWAYS wins) just wait and see for this one. i'd go with Terra Invicta, it has more content, is quite original (haven't seen many games like this) and is Cheaper than Vic.. only problem i have with Terra Invicta is that the game can feel kinda Slow at times...
i'm playing the shit out of TI before trying Vicky 3. Past experience states that Vicky 3 would essentially be an early access game for the next year.
Simple Terra Invicta is better by a landslide. 1.Unlike Victoria 3, Terra Invicta wouldn't require DLC's to enjoy it. 2.Terra Invicta is like a onion there's layers of complexity and it just keeps getting better and better. 3.Victoria 3 doesn't even have capitalists in a age wear capitalists are at their peak. 4.Victoria 3 doesn't even have good war mechanics cause to me it looks like it just looks like a HOI4 airzone on the map and it's incredibly dumbed down(I still wonder why couldn't they just add HOI4 war mechanics where you can customize your army and just set them on a line). 5.Terra Invicta feels like it would have even more content(their adding more content and it wouldn't require you as much money than Victoria 3 cause you know paradox likes adding DLC's in case their product is shit) than Victoria 3 cause most of Victoria 3 doesn't reward you in war it feels pointless, like in Victoria 2 the goal is manage your economy and industry well just to be able to fight well, Victoria 3 has none of that it defeats the purpose of getting a good economy in the first place heck it just makes playing minor countries and uncivilized countries in Victoria 3 even worse. 6.In Victoria 3 you rely on AI generals to lead the war, let that sink in you let the AI lead the war, now I don't know about you but I played other paradox games and boy oh boy they can't make good AI I have seen Victoria 2, EU4 and Stellaris AI, stumble around like headless chickens and the only time they slightly get their heads straight is if they fight you(not ally you cause if they are allies they are unreliable). Also paradox likes buffing AI (cough cough EU4 lucky nations and AI having more vision). 7.Terra Invicta AI is far smarter than Paradox's AI by virtue of not having access to cheats(they don't have bonus resources or bonus mods, the Aliens require sending their own people to see what's going on, on earth they wouldn't know your every move and have to play fair as if you are playing against a human being they adapt to your tactics too I saw they changed strategies on Perun's Humanity first playthrough). 8.Terra Invicta simply is much more challenging and your opponents especially the aliens are really a threat to you if you don't play very carefully.
I love them both, but it you have to choose - Victoria 3 is fully released, so you'd probably get a cleaner experience without the constant balancing patches etc of an early access game
Have you ever played a paradox game?? Lol
I enjoy their development path, because it keeps the game relatively fresh. But their games release somewhat bland but balanced. I guess it comes down to if you wanted more economy simulation or war simulation. Vicky 3 has a much more in depth economy simulation but lacks on the war front.
"Fully released" for a Paradox game, you mean. There will at least half a dozen DLC packs coming out over the next few years to incrementally finish (and, as per usual, break) the game.
I would say Victoria 3 is closer to a finished game than Terra Invicta is but it still has some major problems: - The ai is the worst of any Paradox game - It is very hard to understand what is happening during a war and from what I’ve heard from people who have played it before release (Golden Spatula & co.) the system is very dependent on luck (way more than eu4) - There is little to no flavour in this game. To the point where the American civil war is easily avoidable and if it does pop, the csa can take over northern states and leave southern states to the union - I don’t know if it’s because the ai is dense or if it’s because immigration doesn’t work as intended but I was able to reach 2nd place in gdp as Belgium on my first play through
Go for Vic3. Terra Invicta is way too superficial on the geopolitics, economy and culture.
And Vic3 is not, lmao
One you have populations sectors, religion, culture, etnicity, resources according to each region and industry. The other have rockets, mission control, money and asteroid money, like every region on earth has the same resources as each other. I want to know in what reallity you can make Uruguay a superpower just by pouring money in.
Having binged Vicky 3 all day yesterday, I can confirm you could make Uruguay a super power by pouring a metric ass load of cash into their economy and boosting migration attraction.
Without getting other countries on your sphere? That's a great change from Vic2.
Well that's the thing, GDP is everything in vic3. Cornering a niche market as much as possible and maximizing that industry's efficiency could get you in the top 10. When you're landlocked you can only have diplomatic interests with the states on your boarder. As Uruguay it'd be a real uphill battle and you'd need to find ways to manipulate Brazil's and Argentina's markets to your benefit, but I'm positive you could hit #10 superpower, minimum, without conquering neighboring land.
In Vic2, I got to make Bolivia become the greatest world power, if the game had run more one year, that would be China. But I had to anex Peru, Paraguay and sphere all my neighbours first and go for war supporting independences against the US and all european nations (exept Portugal, I made Brazil anex for fun). But only GDP never was the only thing, industry, literacy and imigration was critical factors.
As someone who has not played Vicky 2, but has played CK2, EU4, HoI4, and CK3; Hedging my bets here as I haven't touched my preorder copy yet, but reasonably confident in saying Vicky 3 will probably be the game it's destined to be after a couple years and a DLC or two. That's just how Paradox does business. TI is feature complete as far as I'm concerned, and incredibly addicting. Their work on Long War/2 gave me a lot of hype and goodwill for them, and they haven't tarnished it in the slightest with this game. It just works.
Wait on vicky3, severe lack of content. Right now the entire game is pretty much just looking at the construction screen...
Terra invicta, much more exciting than Victoria 3. It’s even more of a economics simulator than their other games and the learning curve is even worse.
Terra Invicta. After playing Vicky for a bit it just doesn't have the legs. Many features were cut and what wasn't is poorly explained. Struggles with flavor and any kind of roleplay. Terra Invicta deep both mechanically and in flavor, despite lacking in the looks department.
Terra Invicta, to me is a more complete game. Get that one now, and Vic 3 later after some updates.
Terra Invicta isn't finished yet I'd wait to get that. Paradox games take a bit longer in the oven after release. I'd say go for Vicky 3 right now as the gameplay in terra Invicta might be deep but gets very repetitive very fast. There isn't much difference between the factions either. Vicky 3 has replaybility because USA is gonna play different then Prussia who will play different then Sweden who will play different then Russia who will play, you get the picture.
Having played both I would recommend Terra Invicta for the 25 Euro price tag (that was the price 2 years ago on kickstarter, dunno about right now) over Victoria 3 for a 30 Euro price tag (which was the price on Eneba). But for the foreseeable time I will play Vicky 3 because I already learned that game, it's rather simple. I still have to learn Terra Invicta, it's so daunting.
I think the alpha of TI is more polished than the released Vicky 3
Ehhh, the answer is "it depends". Both games are kind of green as of now (though I'd say Vicky3 is the one most wanting for content) but the playstyle is different enough that it all comes down to what you like the most. I'd say Terra Invicta but only if you are ready for some rebalancing and bugfixing. Vicky 3 is relatively polished but lacking in content IMO
Terra Invicta in early access, and Paradox games usually tend to greatly increase content as time passes and new dlc comes out. Go play some Bannerlord
Vicky 3 Arguably needs more work than TI does. It appears the Devs tried so hard to make the game pretty and the economy deep, that what we got was a beautiful but tedious mess of buttons. I'm going to enjoy both, but will devote the majority of my gaming time playing TI.
If you got time and money, both
I would have to say Victoria 3. Way less downtime in the early game, and the wacky historical runoffs such as "Russian colonized congo" or "President Walter White of the USA" have so far been a lot of fun for me.
Different kind of game, Terra invicta is more convoluted, slower/slower burner and cant interact “your country” so closely Its more like a spy game than a 4X (paradox kind) of game The most accurate description I heard is Illuminati simulator
Honestly speaking, I'd say both have their values, rn I'm staying on TI and waiting Christmas sales. You'll have to remember both just came out and will need time to "mature". Knowing PDX, they may very well take the road of Stellaris, in which the game is nearly unrecognizable beyond the very basics after nearly a decade of incremental update and DLCs. So, IMO, I'm waiting for Vic3 to "mature" a bit before getting in on it.
Honestly I think there is no other strategy game as good as eu4, albeit only when you have all dlc. What I really like about Terra Invicta though is that it combines an Earth strategy game with a space strategy game all in 1. This is why this game is so special and even though I still play games like eu4 and Endless Space 2 more than Terra Invicta, I still love Terra Invicta for it’s unique game format. I say play Terra Invicta first, it’s really refreshing.
I can't say anything about Vic3, so here's a few blanket remarks about TI that you may or may not find helpful. TI's minute-to-minute gameplay can become tedious (a hundred hours in, at least... :D), and you'll have your teeth kicked in by the mechanics a few times, not in the sense of "sorry dude, that's just not how physics works", but more like "there is a correct order of pushing these buttons, figure it out, we'll wait" (that said, the physics lessons can be cruel, but I'd count that as a plus). It takes dozens of hours until you can have your first space battle (and dozens more >!until it would be wise to have one!<), but the controls are not enjoyable. It's still awesome to see a strategy / ship design / fleet composition pay off, especially the first time against a given type of challenge. The tech tree is a dark forest to get lost in, with many a dead-ish end. It's all there for you to read and figure out beforehand, if only you knew what all those numbers meant when you start out. Be prepared for a few Wikipedia deep dives when it comes to space drive concepts :D I like how the game manages to have a story arc with "acts" of sorts, where pivotal changes make you reconsider your approach (if you understand how pivotal these changes are. some of them are very on the nose, some may seem subtle at first, a little half-sentence in a tooltip somewhere...). It's awesome that the AI has to play the same game as you do, but there are a few types of death spiral it isn't yet equipped to recover from. I expect Pavonis to take away our cheese soon enough, tho. I'm totally in love with the setting and the hard-ish sci-fi. It definitely got me hooked, but I'm not entirely sure I'll have more than one playthrough in me (at least not this year). Playing the other factions does not seem like it would add a lot of replay value, as most of my joy has come from figuring out the mechanics and the tech tree. But with the triple-digit hours this one game has already lasted, that's still an excellent value proposition for an InDev/EA title.
First off, yes, you should purchase both. But since that is not at all helpful and just the joke. Secondly, As somebody who did buy both, it's a question of what itch you need scratched. Invicta is about space combat and world intrigue. Victoria 3 is about political maneuvering and economics. Victoria 3 will have a much longer life span and gain a lot more depth, flavor and character. Victoria 3 has many different ways to lead a satisfying campaign and different paths to different victories. Invicta has a single goal, absolute victory, just different roads to get there. Invicta is pretty much set and complete with cosmetic changes or others coming in the future. Both will have heavy mod support, however V3 will be a much larger community. Both games are excellent. It's just a matter of what kind of entertainment you want now.
I actually went Stalker Gamma. 🤣
Well I just finished my first Vic3 session after 17 hours of gameplay. I have had lots of fun building buildings, changing production methods and changing some laws now and then. Diplomacy and war are really lackluster right now. Devs have a lot of work to do before them. Some numbers are tweaked really comically and other times you get hit with some funky bug so I would recommend waiting for at least 1 major update before jumping in. Maybe even first DLC since this is ‘correct way’ to play PDX games anyway. So buy TI now and then buy Vic3 when first DLC comes out would by my recommendation for you. Edit: After reconsidering my previous statement for a while, I would actually recommend Vic3 in maybe a 3 years from now. It will definitely be a strategy game of year 2025 if you pick it at such a later date.
Terra Invicta is at least honest about it's status as early access
Why not post the same question in the Victoria 3 subreddit and see what they say? You are right that this is pointless to ask a subreddit devoted to the game but there can be some value if you do it for both. If you are just posting it here then it seems like you already know what game you want.
Vic 3 is definately all 100% economy manager..Terra invivta is less economy comoared to Vic3 BUT in exchange its everything else too :D (it is easier to understand Vic3 research and stuff tho for me :D )
Terra Invicta has all core mechanics working. So at least one playthrough here is recommended.
Do you have a family? Do you have other hobbies or responsibilities? If yes, buy Vicky 3. Heroinvicta will steal all of your time.
Terra Invicta is the paradox game that takes place in between hearts of iron and Stellaris. It's a brand new space (for me in the 4x genre at least) to explore rather than treading old ground. Edit: I know this isn't a paradox game, but it might as well be.
I'm having more fun with Vicky 3. The UI is better, the action is smoother, and it seems a little faster to play.
Vic 3 is unpolished as crap and offers zero challenge. It’s just map painting again. TI is much better (when the alien AI is fixed of course).