The process of ”building up your country is meant to be more of a hands-on experience in Victoria 3,” acting as a central part of its core gameplay loop.

Lastly, Development Buildings come with ”vital state-level functions,” including structures like Barracks that turns your population into soldiers Railways that ”provide the Infrastructure other buildings need to bring their goods to the Market.” In short, there is no system of building ‘slots’ or anything like that, as we want limitations on buildings to function in a sensible and realistic way.” ”Urban Buildings such as Factories, however, are only limited by how many people you can cram into the state, simulating the more densely populated nature of cities. ”Many of these buildings are limited by locally available resources such as Arable Land for agriculture and simply how much iron is available in the state for Iron Mines,” the developer notes. Naturally, different economic systems may have a different take on ownership. Directly owned by Pops, like Capitalists and Aristocrats, their profits go to their owners which pay wages to the other Pops they’re employing. Private Industries then represents the category that covers most of Victoria 3’s buildings. Government Administrations, for example, allow Bureaucrats to produce Bureaucracy, which is used in ”the administration of incorporated states and funding of Institutions, and Universities where Academics produce Innovation for technological progression.” Government Buildings are fully funded by the player, providing ”crucial civil services required for the smooth running of a Victorian nation”. Urban Centers are also automatically created, the level of one in any given State being determined by ”the amount of Urbanization generated by its other buildings.” These mainly employ Shopkeepers and ”provide a number of important local functions,” that weren’t touched upon just yet. Most of the world’s population starts as Peasants, working in such buildings, one purpose of the industrialization process being that of finding ways to help them use their time more efficiently. These are highly inefficient structures that cannot be built nor destroyed and which “appear anywhere in the world where there is Arable Land that isn’t being used for another type of building.” The Subsistence buildings category is one example of the latter.

You will choose where a number of Victoria 3’s buildings are constructed, but others are built automatically. In order for them to provide you with benefits, you’ll need to make sure that qualified Pops work in each of them. ”Buildings are just places where Pops can work and generally do not represent a single building - a single level of Government Administration, for example, represents the necessary buildings and infrastructure to support a certain number of Bureaucrats,” reads the developer diary.

Victoria 3 development diary