Victoria 3’s grand strategy elements offer a range of deep game systems, one of which is technology. Researching technology is how you advance your nation. Ignore that and you and your people will be left behind in the world. Having a high technology rating will allow you to push better laws, reap a better economy, and most importantly, have a better defense against hostile neighbors.
The following guide will provide some important technology tips for you to consider, including the best technologies you should research first in Victoria 3.
Types of technology trees
In Victoria 3, there are three technologies that you can research: Society Technology, Military Technology, and Production Technology.
With the help of Production Technology, you can unlock new methods to produce buildings. Military technology will allow you to have better defense practices and you can introduce new laws and governance in Social Technology.
The difficult part is that you cannot research every technology. To research technology, you need to wait for the Innovation to match the technology. Otherwise, it will take several years to research something. The good practice is to research cheaper technologies first.
Once you start researching cheap technologies, you will eventually build enough innovation. This innovation can then be used to research more expensive technologies. We have made a list of technologies for you to research first in Victoria 3.
How does technology spread work
Victoria 3 features a Technology Spread feature. With this, all the technologies, other than the one you are focusing on, are being passively researched. This allows you to randomly unlock new technologies from other technology trees without actually investing in them too much.
Technology Spread is determined by Innovation and Literacy. The higher the Innovation and Literacy you have, the higher the chance of you unlocking an extra random technology through Technology Spread.
Even if you are not actively researching any technology, all of your unspent Innovation points will go toward your Technology Spread. Furthermore, if you’re over the innovation cap, it will work towards bettering your Technology Spread at a 60% rate.
Of course, any technologies that you get through the spread are completely random and out of your control, however, you can increase your research speed by increasing your Innovation and Literacy.
To increase your innovation, construct university buildings, and boosting literature requires you to build primary schools along with universities.
Best technologies to research first in Victoria 3
The order in which you research technologies boils down to how your economy is set up. While there is no right or wrong order, you generally want to focus on small-scale areas as first then work your way up to larger and more demanding technologies.
Nitroglycerin
You can get access to Nitroglycerin early in the game. Researching this technology will give a boost to the economy by enhancing the production of mines.
Railways
To build your infrastructure in Victoria 3, you need to research the Railways. You can then import and export to boost your local industry.
Improved Fertilizer
If you research Improved Fertilizer, you will get increased yield on crops in all your farm buildings. You will get a lot of benefits from this technology and is sometimes overlooked.
Aniline
In Victoria 3, you can produce a lot of luxury goods with the help of the Dye. You can produce Dye in the lab with the help of Aniline instead of planting the Dye plantation. These luxury goods can then be sold to produce a decent boost to the economy.
Stream Turbine
With the help of a Steam Turbine, you can efficiently produce electricity on the Victoria 3. Electricity production can be very helpful for growing economies with more needs than production.
Concrete Drydocks
You can build ports with the help of Concrete Drydocks that will improve your shipping volume. If you are heavily reliant on the trade, you must research this technology.
Field Works
Field Works technology will help you build more defense power to fight enemies in case of any foreign attack.
Electric Telegraph
You can use Electric Telegraph to receive and send critical messages from the neighboring regions if they receive any attack.
Military Statistics
In Victoria 3, Military Statistics technology will help you mobilize your troops in case of any foreign invasion.
Central Archives
You can implement flat taxation all over the state if you don’t want to invest heavily in Tax Implementation and collection. The smaller running cost of the flat tax will help a lot if you are a small economy.
Labor Movement
No one wants to lose the labor force in the growing economy. After researching Labor Movement, you can reduce workplace incidents and mortality rates by unlocking Workplace Safety Office Institution.
Mutual Funds
To get more investments from the Capitalists in the industry, you can research Mutual Funds. This will then allow all industries to publicly trade involved in production.
Feminism
If you want to boost your workplace by implementing women, you can research Feminism. You can then make the workplace women-friendly by implementing Women’s Suffrage laws.
Multilateral Alliances
You can improve your diplomacy by implementing more alliances with countries. This will in turn improve your military position in your region.
Technology Cheats in Victoria 3
You have the option to cheat your way to get all the technologies faster in Victoria 3. For that, first, you need to enable your Console Commands in the game.
To enable console commands, go to your Steam library and select Victoria 3. Open the settings and enter the Properties menu. Next, in the General tab, look for the Launch option box at the bottom and type “-debug_mode” in the box. Then start the game by using console commands.
With the console commands active, you can press the “~” key (just below the ESC key) to open the console commands.
To acquire technology, you can type in “research” to acquire technologies that are currently under research. There is no other console command for getting technologies in Victoria 3.
