Engine map (Victoria 3 1.15.1)

A one-page summary of what has been reverse-engineered, with links to the detailed notes in docs/re/. All addresses are RVAs in victoria3.exe 1.15.1 (PE TimeDateStamp 0x6af3094f, SizeOfImage 0x60fb000, game_build_id() = 6af3094f-60fb000). They will move with the next patch: use the anchor in the “found by” column, never the number.

The engine is Paradox’s Clausewitz + Jomini, one static exe (static CRT, mimalloc 2.0.x, spdlog, PhysFS 3, SDL, D3D11/Vulkan renderers), no symbols, with MSVC RTTI and .pdata for every non-leaf function.

Process start

step	what	where
1	Windows loads binaries/version.dll (V3X) because the exe imports VERSION.dll	src/proxy.c
2	V3X hooks the exe entry point; plugins load on the main thread before the CRT	src/core.c
3	CRT startup, static initializers (GUI functions, console commands and tick-task types register themselves here)	docs/re/gui.md, docs/re/console.md
4	WinMain: settings, renderer, VFS init, then the database/asset load (Empty -> Game takes ~170-200 s on the lead’s machine)	docs/re/loading.md

Simulation tick (docs/re/simulation.md, docs/re/tick_par.md)

RVA	role	found by
01465690	GameState tick, once per game tick	string Processing Tick: (single xref)
014736c0	tick-task runner: runs the due tasks strictly one after another	Tick Tasks for {}
0146bce0	due-list builder (filters the global order by rate)	runner’s callee, docs/re/tick_par.md
0146d010	RunTask (Prepare, Execute, range/context workers)	Context %d (exactly one xref)
0146d0ee	virtual dispatch of a task’s Execute (vtable slot 6)	inside RunTask
01468a60 / 01468d10	RenderFrameIfNeeded guard / helper (frames during long ticks)	gamestatetick.cpp:262

• 272 CTickTask_<Name> classes (RTTI). Rates TICK, DAY, WEEK, MONTH, QUARTER, YEAR; priorities DEFAULT / LATE. Order: one-time stable sort + dependency DFS (dependencies are names, order hints only, not a thread-safety contract).
• Parallelism exists only inside a task, through range stages (Step flags bit0 = parallel range). Hot tasks: HandleAutonomousInvestment, UpdateAI, RecalculateModifierNodes, UpdatePopGrowth, UpdateStateTrades (an iterative solver whose evaluation is already parallel).
• Script RNG scope: one global owner pointer *0x540ae80 (owner thread id at +0x10); ALLOW_RANDOM_IN_SCOPE sets it, parallel ranges swap it out. Script outside a tick task has no owner and crashes (docs/safety.md “Script and RNG scope”; check with sdk/v3x_game.h).
• Saves run as session commands on a job, between ticks (autosave between the monthly pulse tick and the next tick).

Threads (docs/re/threading.md)

RVA	role	found by
03df8a50	task scheduler init (Threading.TaskThreadCount, -1 = auto)	Spawning {} normal worker threads
03df9180	worker thread entry	lea at 03dfa64c
03dfac40	priority per worker kind (BELOW_NORMAL / NORMAL / ABOVE_NORMAL)	3x SetThreadPriority

The game never sets affinity and is not P/E-core aware (counts physical cores with GetLogicalProcessorInformation). Up to 64 workers per pool. cpu_sched places threads with CPU sets.

Memory (docs/re/memory.md)

• operator new = mimalloc mi_new 0x43d95c0 (statically linked, 15k call sites); mi_free 0x43d94b0 (leaf, no .pdata); mi_malloc 0x43d8c20. mimalloc v2.0.x (32 MiB segments). The allocator is already swapped; replacing it is pointless.
• mimalloc options are a static table that can be written before CRT init (mem_tuner does this, instead of MIMALLOC_* env vars that leak to child processes and GPU drivers).
• Measured: 17.5 GB private commit in a long session; about half outside mimalloc (likely the iGPU driver’s resource backing). OOM: bad_alloc handlers mapped with tools/re_mem_catch.py.

Rendering (docs/re/graphics.md)

• Backends: DX11 and Vulkan (no DX12 game renderer; DX12 strings are SDL’s). Launch args -renderer=dx11|vulkan, -dx11, -vulkan.
• Present wrapper 0x3c7a8d0 (hook it rather than DXGI vtables). Frame cap is a busy-wait (0x379a540, pause loop at 0x379a710) driven by owner+0x37/+0x38 (1/fps); frame_pacer replaces it with a high-resolution timer sleep.
• Long ticks call RenderFrameIfNeeded so the UI keeps drawing during simulation.
• XeSS/DLSS/FSR backends are not built into this Windows build.

Loading and assets (docs/re/loading.md, docs/re/streaming.md, docs/re/lazy_mesh.md, docs/re/mapmode.md)

• Phases: checksum (Starting checksum calculation, 0377b120), localization, texture lookup, mesh types (IterateTypesThreaded 0x3ae4d80, CMeshType vtable 0x4ace220, Load = slot +0x30 0x3adcfd0: every declared mesh type is loaded eagerly), script database parse.
• No generic resource manager: each asset kind has its own loader and cache. Textures: GetOrLoadTexture 0x3c5b4f0, global cache map 0x5421820, CreateTexture 0x3c5af20; the engine’s own texture streamer (CGfxTextureStreamer, Start 0x3c613e0) is turned off by every quality preset (asset_stream forces it on).
• The texture cache is weak: map modes and GUI views re-read textures from disk (map_cache measures and optionally pins them).

Saves (docs/re/enhance.md)

• SaveGameState 0x3662910, reached from autosave 0x0ca9580 through ExecuteGameCommand 0x1085b90 on a session job. enhance hooks it to emit save_begin / save_end.
• debug_mode forces text saves (156 MB vs 26 MB binary); serialization, not disk, is the ~3.2 s freeze. Writes go to <name>.v3.tmp, then rename.
• Game speed table: 16 bytes in .rdata 0x4b08610.

Console (docs/re/console.md)

• CConsole (vtable 0x4a90d88), Tab = CConsole::Autocomplete 0x36be560; manager getter 0x3dc0e00, manager global exe+0x5c72730, matcher 0x3dc2140.
• Registry entries SCommandData (0x210 bytes): +0xb0 OnExecute, +0xb8 argument completer, +0xc0 its user pointer. ~300 commands, ~26 with completers (console_plus adds them).
• The console is blocked in ironman by one predicate that references No Console commands in ironman! (ironman_console clears only that reason).

Virtual file system and mods (docs/re/vfs.md, docs/re/modloading.md)

RVA	role	found by
0x3e17d10	vfs_init	../platform_specific_game_data
0x3e17820	MountData	No subdirs mounted for game dir from candidates: {}
0x3dff0b0	mount(unused, dir, mount_point): prepends (highest priority)	45 33 C0 E8 call in MountData
0x3e16bd0	refresh the cached search path	in MountData
0x3b6d500	dlc.cpp: mounts one DLC / mod

Search order: last mod … first mod, DLC, game, jomini, clausewitz. Every lookup probes every root (PhysFS DIR archiver: GetFileAttributesExW, CreateFileW per root), which costs ~34 failed syscall pairs per vanilla file with 22 mods + 12 DLC (mod_loader indexes roots). A mod whose metadata fails to parse is dropped silently.

Logging (docs/re/logging.md)

spdlog >= 1.12 behind NLog::CCategoryLogger; categories and sinks come from platform_specific_game_data/log_settings_live.json. Hook point: the virtual spdlog::logger::sink_it_ (exe+0x43d70f0), found through the RTTI of spdlog::logger (vtable slot 2). log_filter drops and dedupes there, before any file sink.

GUI (docs/re/gui.md)

GUI global functions are registered by name from CRT static initializers (e.g. OpenWikiUrl); before GUI init they queue to a pending list. The main menu is frontend_main.gui (mainmenu_panel_bottom); a file with the same VFS path in a content pack overrides it.

Country history graphs (docs/re/history.md)

Trends are cleared by 11 Trend::Clear calls when a country is demoted to AI (0x1465ef0); keep_history NOPs them.

Where to start for common goals

goal	start at
per-tick logic / “every day” callbacks	RunTask (all tasks) or one task’s Execute via RTTI (CTickTask_<Name> slot 6)
timing a phase of loading	load_transition / load_transition_begin events (fast_load)
before/after a save	save_begin / save_end events (enhance); never run script there
file overrides without a mod	a folder in binaries/v3x/content_packs/ (content_packs)
console features	register_command (V3X console) or the engine registry (docs/re/console.md)
rendering / frame timing	Present wrapper 0x3c7a8d0, frame cap 0x379a540
memory	mimalloc entry points above; mem_tuner / alloc_tracker as examples