Greetings Victorians,
This is Lino, Design Lead on Victoria 3, with an update on the release date for State and Revolution.
After some consideration, we have decided to delay the release of the Immersion Pack by two weeks, to Thursday November 5th, to ensure the best release possible for this pack. While we are sorry that this delay announcement is coming so close to its initially planned release date, as we have seen the excitement and anticipation to getting your hands on the new content, update and systems, we are sure this is the right call.
This is a consequence of our learnings from the mistakes of releasing The Great Wave too early.
We are using the delay to give ourselves enough time for polish and bugfixing, so we can make it the best pack we can.
Thank you for your patience, and now on to the Dev Diary with Rufus and Victoria.
Hello, and Happy Thursday. This is Victoria, Narrative Design Lead of Victoria 3, and today Rufus and I will cover additional narrative content coming in State and Revolution. This additional content includes the Ukrainian and Belarusian Cultural Renaissances, content for Congress Poland and her relations with Russia, and the changes we have made to the Great Game.
Please note that any screenshots attached are from a work-in-progress build, and certain elements may not be final yet.
Cultural Renaissances
The Ukrainian and Belarusian Cultural Renaissances each have a unique International Situations Journal Entry to reflect growing ambitions for independence. Champions for the cause in Ukrainian and Belarusian Homeland States will emerge during this time and appear in the form of historical agitators, political organizations, and secret societies.
While the groundwork for Ukrainian nationalism had already been laid in the decades before the game begins, like many other nationalist movements, it is emboldened by the Springtime of the Peoples. With Ukrainian culture spanning Austria, Hungary and Russia at the start of the game, the movement took different forms in the different countries.
In Austria, supporters saw potential in aligning themselves with the authorities and seeking a political path to Ukrainian nationhood. Community organizations called Prosvita encouraged educational and economic development and sometimes received funding from the government.
Russia also saw the formation of societies promoting Ukrainian culture and education, called Hromadas. These largely operated in secret, particularly after the Valuev Circular and Emz Ukase banned publications in the Ukrainian language and other cultural activities.
Language was also a critical part of early Belarusian nationalism. Polish-Belarusian writers sought to align Belarus with the Polish cause and wrote works in the Belarusian language. Ethnographers in Russia also studied the Belarusian language and culture. Newspapers, dictionaries and literature contributed to the foundation of a national consciousness that would later manifest in the pursuit of independence during the Revolution.
The Cultural Renaissance Journal Entries for Ukraine and Belarus are both fueled by Fervor. Their outcome will not grant the countries independence, but depending on whether the cultural activities are accepted or suppressed, either nation will gain a bonus or penalty to their stability and development if they do become independent, be it through a player releasing them voluntarily, a secessionist movement breaking them free, or the events of the Revolution. Even a partial completion of the Journal Entries will have an effect on the countries, which may be particularly important to their survival if they gain independence during a tumultuous time.
Whites and Reds
As announced in a previous Dev Diary, Congress Poland is now a playable nation in the game. However, following the failure of the November Uprising in 1830 and the following Organic Statute, its already limited autonomy as a Russian subject was even further reduced. The Sejm was formally abolished, Warsaw University was closed and was no longer allowed to maintain its own army. The Statute is represented in the game by several constraints on cultural acceptance, passing laws, creating armies and constructing buildings. To regain some measure of autonomy, Poland will have to navigate this situation carefully.
The new International Journal Entry for Congress Poland in State and Revolution is titled Whites and Reds, referring to the two factions in Poland supporting different paths to greater autonomy. Often referred to as "the Whites and Reds, no, not those, the other Whites and Reds" during development, the two factions did share some common goals. They both wanted an end to serfdom in Poland, although the White faction thought affected landlords should be compensated. They also both wanted Poland's autonomy to be restored, although the Red movement saw an armed uprising against Russia as an option, while the White movement opposed it.
Historically, the situation culminated in the January Uprising in 1863. A similar uprising is one possible outcome of the Journal Entry, corresponding to a Red victory. A White victory will instead restore the Constitution of 1815, effectively abolishing the Organic Statute, but still leaving Poland in a personal union with Russia. Since both Congress Poland and Russia are involved in the Journal Entry, they both have means to affect which faction is gaining traction and chart a course best aligned with their interests.
For Poland, this might mean supporting the White faction to regain some autonomy peacefully and use this new position to make a longer-term plan for full independence, or supporting the Red faction, finding allies and timing an uprising with a moment of weakness on Russia's part. For Russia, it could mean appeasing the White faction to avoid an uprising, deliberately provoking an uprising to fully annex Poland, or even keeping the factions in a constant tug-of-war to avoid either outcome.
For both nations, there are several options to manipulate the power of the factions, from the appointment of Viceroys to retaking Polish Homelands to political factors involving Interest Groups and laws.
Stepping back from these harsh political realities, we will end this section on a cultural note, a quote from the Polish national epic Pan Tadeusz to reflect the patriotism that inspired these movements:
"Like Aeolian harps the choirs resounded,
for no frogs sing as sweet as those in Poland."
The Great Game
The Great Game is dead. Long live the Great Game.
Soon after Victoria 3’s release, we had the idea of creating additional “scenario” Objectives that would guide the player through a cluster of themed historical content available to a curated set of countries. The Great Game Objective, included in the Sphere of Influence expansion pack, was to be the first of these, allowing for a themed playthrough as Britain, Russia, or one of the Central Asian powers. Following the release of Sphere of Influence, however, it became clear that this concept had not turned out like we had hoped. Players seemed to enjoy the additional flavour and guidance that the Great Game provided, but did not like the fact that it was mutually exclusive with the more general Objectives and unavailable in sandbox mode. With this in mind, we had decided to continue maintaining the Great Game as an Objective, but not to make any more of its type.
Moving forwards to the present day, 1.15’s focus on Russia and her sphere has given us a chance to take another look at the Great Game. The Great Game is no longer a separate Objective. Instead, it is available from game start for Russia, Britain, British India, and all of the minor powers of Central Asia and Persia. Through the power of the new Journal Entry Widget system, its former Objective Subgoals now appear in the Journal Entry itself, providing a helpful list of what one may do to advance the Great Game.
The new and improved Great Game will be available for those who own either Sphere of Influence or State and Revolution.
And that is all. Thank you for reading. Next week, Karl will cover the art and music of State and Revolution.
Source List
We have seen quite a lot of interest in the sources we consulted in the making of both Update 1.15 and State and Revolution, and we are always happy to provide. Our source list is below. Please forgive any inconsistent formatting.
Primary Sources
Akhmatova, Anna. 1913. "Here we're all drunkards and whores." Saint Petersburg.
Belinsky, V.G. 1948. Selected Philosophical Works. Foreign Languages Publishing House: Moscow.
Chekhov, Anton. 1898. Letters to A. S. Suvorin on the Dreyfus Affair. Nice.
Chernyshevsky, Nikolai. 1863. What Is to Be Done? Saint Petersburg: Sovremennik.
Kennan, George. 1891. Siberia And the Exile System. New York: The Century Co.
Liebknecht, Wilhelm (ed.). 1890. Proceedings of the International Working-men's Congress in Paris, 14–20 July 1889. Nuremberg.
Lenin, Vladimir. 1923. "Better Fewer, But Better." Pravda, no. 49, 4 March. In Collected Works, vol. 33, 487–502. Trans. David Skvirsky and George Hanna. Moscow 1965.
Lenin, Vladimir. 1917. "The April Theses." In Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and V. I. Lenin, The Communist Manifesto / The April Theses. Intro. Tariq Ali. London 2022.
Lenin, Vladimir. 1918. The State and Revolution. Intro. Antonio Negri. London 2024.
Lenin, Vladimir. 1902. What Is To Be Done? In Collected Works, vol. 5, 347–530. Trans. Joe Fineberg and George Hanna. Moscow 1961.
Lermontov, Mikhail. 1837. Death of a Poet. Saint Petersburg.
Luxemburg, Rosa. 1899. Reform or Revolution. Trans. Integer. London 1986.
Marx, Karl. 1871. The Civil War in France. English edition of 1871. London.
Marx, Karl and Engels, Friedrich. 1848. The Communist Manifesto. In Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and V. I. Lenin, The Communist Manifesto / The April Theses. Intro. Tariq Ali. London 2022.
Marx, Karl. 1875. "Critique of the Gotha Programme." In Marx/Engels Selected Works, vol. 3, 13–30. Moscow 1970.
Tolstoy, Leo. 1901. Reply to the Synod's Edict. Moscow
Trotsky, Leon. 1914. The War and the International. New York 1918.
Trotsky, Leon. 1918. "Work, Discipline, Order." In How the Revolution Armed: The Military Writings and Speeches of Leon Trotsky, vol. 1. Trans. Brian Pearce. London 1979.
Social Democratic Party of Germany. 1891. Erfurt Programme. Erfurt.
Socialist Workers' Party of Germany. 1875. Gotha Programme. Gotha.
Souchy, Augustin and Paul Folgare. 1937. "The Collectivization Decree: II. The Enterprise Councils" in Collectivizations: The Constructive Achievements of the Spanish Revolution. Barcelona.
Stalin, Iosif. 1913. Marxism and the National Question. In Works, vol. 2, 300–381. Moscow 1954.
Secondary Sources
Baevsky, Vadim. 2009. Тридцать лекций о золотом веке русской литературы 1800-1855. Smolensk.
Beevor, Antony. 2026. Rasputin: The Downfall of the Romanovs. New York: Penguin Publishing Group.
Bordiga, Amadeo. 2020. The Science and Passion of Communism: Selected Writings of Amadeo Bordiga (1912–1965). Ed. Pietro Basso. Leiden.
Central Intelligence Agency. 1950. "Mining Industry in Yugoslavia," 2 March 1950. Washington, DC.
Duncan, Michael, host. Season 10. Revolutions
. Aired 2022. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/revolutions/id703889772
(The original Typepad site for Revolutions went down in September 2025)
Figes, Orlando. 2002. Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History of Russia. London.
Gibson, Catherine and Irina Paert. 2022. "Apostasy in the Baltic Provinces: Religious and National Indifference in Imperial Russia" in Past & Present, vol. 255, no. 1, pp. 233–278. Oxford.
Haltzel, Michael H., C. Leonard Lundin, Andrejs Plakans, and Toivo U. Raun. 1981. Russification in the Baltic Provinces and Finland, 1855-1914. Edited by Edward C. Thaden. Princeton University Press.
Husband, William B. 1990. Revolution in the Factory: The Birth of the Soviet Textile Industry, 1917–1920. New York.
Kabuzan, V. M. 1971. Изменения в размещении населения России в XVIII — первой половине XIX в. (по материалам ревизий). Moscow.
Kharms, Daniil and Matvei Yankelevich. 2007. Today I Wrote Nothing: The Selected Writings. New York.
Kołakowski, Leszek. 1978. Main Currents of Marxism. 3 vols. Oxford.
Makovsky, Sergei. 1986. На Парнасе Серебряного Века. New York.
Massie, Robert K. 1967. Nicholas and Alexandra: The Classic Account of the Fall of the Romanov Dynasty. New York: Atheneum.
Ostberg, Kjell. 2024. The Rise and Fall of Swedish Social Democracy.
Ryan, Daniel C. 2008. The Tsar's Faith: Conversion, Religious Politics, and Peasant Protest in Imperial Russia's Baltic Periphery, 1845–1870s. PhD dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles. Los Angeles.
Setchkarev, Vsevolod. 1965. Gogol: His Life and Works. New York.
Swift, Anthony. 2021. "Chapter 4 Russian National Identity at World Fairs, 1851–1900" in World Fairs and the Global Moulding of National Identities. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
Weeks, Theodore R. 2004. “Russification: Word and Practice 1863-1914.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 148, no. 4 (2004): 471–89.
Wright, Joe (dir.), Stefano Bises and Davide Serino (writers). 2025. M. Il figlio del secolo \[Mussolini: Son of the Century], season 1, episode 1, aired 10 January 2025. Sky Atlantic. Milan.
Wynn, Charters. 2022. The Moderate Bolshevik: Mikhail Tomsky from the Factory to the Kremlin, 1880–1936.
Falkus, Malcolm E. 1972. The Industrialisation of Russia, 1700-1914.
