Rating: 
Summary: History Buff's Dream
Review: Like its predecessor, Hearts of Iron, this game doesn't disappoint. Play any country of the 19th century as see if you can bring it to glory. While complex, Paradox runs the best forum around to provide answers and updates to this game. I highly recommend it for those who enjoy not only reading history but also, may want to change it.
Rating: 
Summary: More of the Same from Paradox just not more game.
Review: Once again another copy and repeat of the now infamous Europa Unversalis II. Yet, this one is even more complicated, comes with the same initial "crash to desktop" bugs, lack of a tutorial, and a user interface that only Albert Enstien could enjoy.This is yet another one of those "buy it now, we'll fix it later games" from Paradox. You'll be pulling your hair out, from the moment you run the game for the first time with all the spreadsheet popups you'll have to deal with. It's more of a financial game instead of a strategy game. If you can win the world economy, which once you spend a week figuring out how to play it, becomes quite easy to do, then you can win every game with any province. Tahiti rules the world anyone? It's nowhere realistic by any means. It's just another toddlers toy that wanted to be great, but, instead is just mediocre. This time period is rather boring as a strategy game. If you don't have Europa Universalis II then I suggest getting it instead, it's been patched to 1.07 and for $7.99 it's a better buy overall. I'd recommend a wait on this title, in 6 months to a year it will be "patched" finished and you can probably get it for $15 or less, why pay for an unfinished game?
Rating:
Summary: More of the same from Pardox
Review: Paradox games is probably best known for Europa Universalis II, a game that is sometimes fun to play for short periods but that is fatally flawed in longer games (mostly because of the "unrest" factor, but also because the game is too locked in to actual historical events). Last year Paradox used the EU2 engine to produce a global WWII grand strategy game, Hearts of Iron, which is also fun to play but still seriously flawed (many reviewers have commented on the gameplay problems and sheer bugginess of HOI). In Victoria, Paradox uses the same engine yet again to cover the "Victorian" era. A grand strategy game of this period is not a bad idea. But the EU2/HOI platform is just not the best way to go about this. For some reason, the designers seem to love having the world broken up into hundreds of teeny tiny little provinces. This was an OK mechanism in EU2, where you are usually focused on a relatively small geographic area. But for a globe-spanning Empire game, this province-based system is just a big headache, too crowded and cluttered. Paradox really needs to re-think their system and come up with something fresh; either hexes, a zone-less system, or something else novel. What looked kind of cool 5 years ago looks very stale now. There are also sure to be lots and lots of bugs. Even now, a year or so after the release of HOI, there are still dozens of known bugs, some of them serious, that haunt the game. The player community always tries to brown-nose Paradox to keep on their good side so that they will continue to release more patches, but their patches often introduce even more bugs. Pay a visit to the Paradox website and check out the bug forums for their other games. Judging from their past performance, it will be many months before this game is patched up enough to be considered playable.
Rating: 
Summary: Best & most stable game from Paradox yet
Review: The beauty of Paradox is that not only do they publish incredibly fun grand strategy games, but that their follow-up support towards their community is top-notch, you get real and direct answers from the developers and may even be able to influence the further refinement of the games through the use of patches. This works better than it sounds, trust me, as Paradox give their old games *much* more support than other companies. EU2 is at version 1.07 and HoI at 1.05, and at least one further patch has been planned for both, resolving some of the still existing issues. Now, as far as Victoria goes, this game definitely continues the long tradition of historically detailed environments where the player is free to make his own decisions, NOT necessarily according to history...despite the presence of historical events (which can be easily modded, if you find that something's not quite right), the game's flexibility can result in usually much more interesting situations than one would expect. The engine isn't exactly equal to the old EU2/HoI one, as despite obvious similarities like the combat model and the overall interface, the developers have stated that there's a lot of new code and this can easily be proven not only because of the new features (the economic model, the POPs, the colonial model, etc.) but because of the tremendous improvement in stability. Certainly, some players have reported crashes and bugs, but their number has been seriously reduced from the darker days of HoI, so if this aspect of the previous games turned you off, I'd advise you to please give Paradox another chance. Don't fall for prejudices. In short, contrary to popular belief, Paradox has actually taken their time to polish this game *before* release, resulting in less CTDs and bugs than ever before. Again, this is no HoI. As far as I know, the fact that the game map is divided into lots of provinces only showcases the attention to detail found in Victoria, and while I won't deny that micromanagement can sometimes get the best of the player (if you're not accustomed to Paradox games, for example) amid a so-called "continous time" simulation (not exactly real time, but not turn based at all), the existance of the "pause" and "increase/decrease game speed" features can surely be a lifesaver. Learn to use them often. Victoria's AI isn't no slouch either (another innovation), as World Conquest is tougher than ever before, and you'll spend much more time developing your economy, industrialization, and in short, having a grand ol' time in the 19th Century. This is an excellent game, admittedly not for everyone, but those that manage to immerse themselves in it will find a game that's much more than the sum of its parts. My only complaint would be the "acceptable" manual, which while better than their previous ones, doesn't really cover as much as it should. The lack of a tutorial is sorely missed, because even if Veterans won't find this troubling, newbies might....still, if you have any questions, the excellent community that has been formed around this company and its games will help you find the solutions you seek. Btw, it should be noted that, as the game was officially released on the 14th in Scandinavia and around the 18th in North America, the fact is that reviews written before either of the two previous dates are very likely just previews or speculation.
Rating: 
Summary: frustratingly unplayable
Review: the concept of the game is great! half the stuff you can let the AI do for you concerning econimics, trade, manpwer, military leaders, et al. but some basic stuff like changing from army to navy management cant be done! or seeing and possibly retreating from certain territories under atack! to heck with diplomacy if you cant do these basics forget it!
Rating:
Summary: !!!!!!!!A-W-E-S-O-M-E!!!!!!!!
Review: There are many games you can jump into and understand well in a few minutes. After a few hours, you're done with nearly any of them.
Victoria is not one of these games. After a few hours you're still early in the learning cycle, but you're having fun, and you are just starting a long-term relationship with a great game.
You have to approach Victoria differently than a simpler game. Download the latest patch (1.03c as of this review), go to the Paradox website to review the advice to new players, and play as an easy country for your first game. I suggest Sweden (ignoring the military) so you learn the economic system, and eventually build up to playing countries like the USA, before taking on the UK or Russia.
What you'll get is the ability to play an incredibly detailed recreation of the world as it was 1835-1920. You can play as any of dozens and dozens of countries, from Japan to Sardinia-Piedmont, from the Confederate States of America to Prussia. You advance scientifically, developing and buildign railroad, advancing politically (if you like), moving from Monarchy to democracy.
There are shortcomings to the game. The manual contains information on what is in the game, but not much on how you *should* play. The Paradox forums provide plenty of advice, however. There's a reason for this - once you learn the game, you'll get far more playing time for the tiny price Amazon wants for this game than you will out of nearly anything else you play (that isn't by Paradox, that is). Others have already realized what a great game Vicky is, and they are eager to share the joy with the rest of us.
This is a deep, sometimes difficult game, but it is worth the effort. It offers more replayability than any game I have ever seen from any other publisher.
Rating:
Summary: Beats Civilization ..... Very Complex
Review: This is the best strategy game I have played. I have been an addict of the Civ series for years, this takes strategy games to the next level. The diplomacy and economic aspects of this game are very hard to master (if you love detail this is great - if not you will hate this game!).
This is very addicitive, the gameplay and complex models make for very compulsive play. The level of historical accuracy is educational.
Rating:
Summary: Unstable, bizarrely overly complicated
Review: Victoria is another game by Paradox using the same engine used for EU, EU II, and Hearts of Iron. I enjoyed EU II and Hearts of Iron, so I was looking forward to trying Victoria. EU II and Hearts of Iron are incredibly complicated, but in a good way. It's a strategy gamers delight to tinker and play with the micromanagement of your military and economy. But Victoria adds levels of complexity that seem to have no value. In addition to managing hundreds of provences, units scattered across the globe, and relations with hundreds of countries -- all things you do in EU II and Hearts of Iron -- Victoria adds a bizarre, complicated commodity trading system with workers and factories to produce these trading goods. You can put it on computer control, which means it adds little to the game, or manage it yourself, which is incredibly unpleasant. Although EU II and Hearts of Iron were known for being buggy and unstable, Victoria is substantially worse. With the latest patch levels, I'm still getting crashes frequently and seeing a lot of oddities that don't seem like the game is functioning properly. The bug reporting forums at Paradox are filled with complaints. It's unfortunate, but I'm giving up on Victoria. If you want to try a game in this series, I'd recommend Hearts of Iron. For WWII history fans, it's a delight, even with it's remaining bugs. But skip Victoria. It's bizarrely complicated and entirely too buggy to be enjoyable.
Rating:
Summary: Another fine game from Paradox Entertainment
Review: Victoria is perhaps one of the first near-perfect political/military simulators to come out in a long time. You can not only decide who's tail to kick, but you can also decide what rights to give your people, and how conservative or liberal your nation will be. On the military level, the game is pretty much what you might expect from other Paradox games. The one exception is that, unlike Hearts of Iron, the troops themselves gain experience instead of commanders. Otherwise, it won't be any thing unfamiliar. Troops still move out to ships at sea, they can land any where (not beaches like Hearts of Iron), and moral can be more decisive than numbers. On the political scene (country via country) things are fairly the same but more fleshed out to reflect Paradox's earlier games. As you could in Europa Universalis II, you can make demands to end wars and don't have to annex the entire nation to gain territory (as you had to in Hearts of Iron). Interesting, however, is the extra feature of "negotiations." You can ask for territory, tech, make demands, or give or offer money using this option. It makes for a fare more interesting diplomacy engine. In regards to internal affairs, this game makes you actually care (or hate) your people. How? Well, you can actually make social changes with regards to health care, working hours, minimum wages...you can even decide if the press is free and who can vote! Start your own social government, or just oppress the working man. The way your main civil rights function goes (as well as your limitations on your budget) comes from who is in power in the government. You can ban/allow parties based on your government type, and you hold elections to get choose which alignment your nation goes on issues, as well as to get one party out of power or, inadvertingly, get it back in power. Overall, it is a very impressive and ambitious game. I must warn people that this game (if you haven't noticed already) is A LOT of micromanaging. Particularly the economic part of the game, which has turned many players away. If you stick with it, play a few times, and learn how to manage it, you CAN get the hang of it. Trust me, I'm awful at economics and even I figured out how to work it. Even though Paradox recently said they would try to do less complicated games in the future, I believe this is one of the greatest engines to use in regards to foreign diplomacy and internal affairs. I have spoken with many people who agree with me that a game set in the modern day age using Victoria's engine would be a fun game. Hey, Paradox, did ya hear me?
Rating:
Summary: A REAL strategy game, not a click-fest
Review: Victoria is, by far, the most enjoyable gaming experience I have had in years. It is not a game you can pick up and play in half an hour. It actually requires you to read the manual, to play numerous games and learn the system. This is in stark contrast to the huge number of copy-cat real time strategy games, where the only difference are the graphics and what buildings to construct. The newest version of Vicky (1.03) is very stable, and a vibrant mod'ing community has created new countries and events. There is literally no other game like Vicky--you can play any country in the world, from small states in India to the British Empire, and be challenged every time you play. While this game is not for everyone, if you enjoy a tough strategy game that rewards your gray matter and not your reflexes, Vicky is the only choice.
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