Victoria 3 has a lot to offer grand strategy enthusiasts that enjoy focusing more on economic aspects and, after touching upon national markets last week, dev diary 10 sheds more light on how Infrastructure works and why it matters quite a lot.
Infrastructure is represented in each of Victoria 3's states by two different values: Infrastructure and Infrastructure Usage. They determine your Market Access and you'll want to do your best to ensure that the existing Infrastructure is higher or at least equal to the usage in a State.
If usage ever gets higher, your Market Access will diminish "by an amount proportional to how much of the usage is not being serviced," dev diary 10 explains. An Infrastructure of 45 and a usage of 90 translates to just 50% Market Access, affecting prices and the availability of goods.
"This imbalance goes in both directions. If you have one bread basket state and one iron mining state, and they both have perfect Market Access, the price of iron and grain will be the same in both. If the iron mining state’s Market Access is reduced, the market’s price of iron goes up while the local price of iron in the mining state goes down," the developer writes.
"But in addition to this the iron mining state will be unable to source as much grain, raising the local price there but reducing its price somewhat across the rest of the market."
The impact of potential Infrastructure issues also depends on the goods a state needs. In rural areas, you might get away with relying on local production entirely. As soon as the complexity of required goods grows and you have to bring them in from a different state or country, or send them to Pops elsewhere, you'll want to make sure you have the means to do so.
"The Infrastructure Usage of a State is determined by which types of Buildings exist in a State and which level they are. Generally, the more urban and specialized the building, the more Infrastructure it uses per level, so Chemical Industries (a heavy industry building) will use several times more Infrastructure than a Rye Farms building of the same level," dev diary 10 reads.
Paradox also names a country's Railway network as "the most crucial aspect" of its Infrastructure. A key element if you plan to industrialize areas and have them working efficiently, Railways themselves need to employ Pops and access resources like Coal and Engines in order to function.
"Our intention for railways is that they must be able to find their way back to the market capital, or an exit port destined for the market capital, in order to be useful. In effect this means that any railway can only provide infrastructure up to the amount of infrastructure provided by the best adjacent railway that connects it to the market capital."
Infrastructure only covers transporting goods overland in Victoria 3 but also ties into military logistics and migration. You can read more about its intricacies in dev diary 10, which you'll find linked above.
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