Victoria 3

[tonberrian]

Vicky 3 finally released! Having fun playing with it, but the economy is still very much a black box to me. I ended up taxing my people so much they all got and left my country. They were very unhappy.

[Corvus]

Loving it so far even though I still don't understand it all yet.

Doing a New South Wales into Australia run and it is going crazy thanks to multiculturalism. Seriously, it's s-tier for growth and migration. I'm barely keeping up with the flood of immigrants.

[tonberrian]

Playing as the Ottoman Turks. Infamy really is just a number when you get down to it - I ate 195 to puppet the United States after breaking them a little bit, and my alliances are big enough I don't have to worry about TOO many Cut Down To Size plays. It helps that everybody that wants to already has a truce with me. Thinking about stealing most of India next, that'll help cripple the British war machine.

[GloatingSwine]

I'm going to give it a little time, at least until 1.1 before I pick it up.

I think the big things at the moment are that the AI doesn't reliably tech into new resources which can leave even major powers behind the curve because eg. Britain never learned how to coal, and that there's not a lot of pressure for new laws only against things that you've done.

[Taevyr]

Did most of a playthrough as Sardinia-Piemont->Italy, and a short one as Cape Colony: the base game seems promising, but definitely needs a few updates to get there. Kind of like Stellaris right after the big rework.

Two notable "bugs"/missing options I encountered, which lead to quite a bit of annoyance:

- You can't start a leadership/unification play if one of the involved nations is a subject (potentially only if they're a subject of a non-involved nation, in this case Lucca being a puppet of Austria). Ought to be able to do so by simply dragging said overlord into the war. Aside from that, unification felt a bit too easy: minors in the region literally ask you to annex them if they're in your customs union and like you enough, which meant that once I could bankroll them, it was only a matter of time before the only ones left were me, Sicily, and Austria's single puppet.

- No option to ask an overlord to become a dominion diplomatically or militarily: it's independence or nothing.. As Cape Colony, I didn't quite mind being under GB's umbrella and frankly liked playing a loyal vassal, but being unable to do diplomatic plays unless you fight an independence war, which would wreck your GB-market oriented economy, isn't really fun. Once you make it to a certain level of influence in the world, it's only normal that you'd be able to ask.

[Corvus]

Haven't finished a game yet - furtherest I've gotten is about 1880 die to starting to slow down (which they are working on).

First was an Australia run. Its fairly easy really - you've got Great Britain as your boss so you aren't in danger of getting attack and you are part of the largest market around, with access to all the resources you will need, and plenty of opportunity to make profits off manufacturing. On top of that it is easy to form Australia, allowing you to make your own diplomatic actions independent of GB. You have access to plenty of wood, iron, coal, lead and sulpher in Australia and once the gold kicks in money is no problems. You get a lot of gold, which is historic. Plus good starting technology and laws. Going egalitarian is simple. And you can play the colonisation game as well, as there are plenty of places nearby you can take, including in the East Indies, which gives you access to other resources, including rubber.

As Taevyr mentioned, there isn't an option to peacefully go independent, as happened historically to Australia, as well as others. Wiz did say they were working on that too.

Second run was Ethiopia. That is a lot harder. Unifying the region isn't hard, giving you a good sized GDP and population, but you have a lot of troubles. A little bit of wood and even less iron are the sole strategic resources you have. No coal, no lead, no sulpher. Your technology base is very limited and your laws are very restrictive. that comes from the main problem you have - the landowners. Their political power is so strong and so entrenched it makes getting near anything done hard. They support slavery, serfdom, isolationism (so you can't trade), traditionalism and of course the autocratic monarchy. And they aren't too keen on things like education, colonisation, tax reforms, racial equality, religious equality etc and so on.

[Corvus]

Just hit 1890 in my Ethiopia run and am finally starting to get somewhere.

It took until the 1870s to finally break the entrenched strength of the landowners and church and get the economy working. That is when I managed to push through laws to allow trade with the rest of the world (and start importing all the things I had no access to, like silk, sulphur, lead, artillery etc as well as exporting lots of tea, coffee and wood), reform the economic system from the terrible traditionalism (with its huge tax penalty and lack of subsidies) and also reform the tax system so its not just the poor paying. After that GDP and SOL started to climb and was able to do a lot more building.

Right now I'm working on trying to reach major power status so I can force someone to recognise me, as well as reforming society. And picking apart Egypt. They are a lot weaker than me and no one else has declared an interest in the region. I managed to snag the rest of Eritrea from them after they backed down but the truce has ended and there are richer parts to take, including some valuable source of sulphur up north.

And somehow the USA decided that they wanted to enter a defensive pact and trade pact with me - they along with France are my main trading partners.

The current Liberal government is an odd mix - Intellectuals, Armed Forces, Industrialists and Trade Unions.

[Artanis]

Definitely recommend starting with Sweden - it's even the country used in the built-in tutorial. Ultra-high literacy, great natural resources, close enough to the Great Powers to play around with them but far enough away to not get eaten immediately.

[Corvus]

Not to mention a far-too generous allocation of state modifiers. Some regions get none, or just penalties, whereas it gets multiple ones per state.

[tonberrian]

Well yeah that's basically Paradox's thing to give the scandinavian countries, and sweden in particular all the nice toys. That's where they're based, after all.

I keep running Ottomans, and it's tough getting them out of Sick Man of Europe, but not impossible. One of the more irksome things is that once you've bested Egypt in your first war and get nearly the first set of provinces for the Tanzimat reform, the Second time they're a bunch of cowards and will just give you the war goal and not go to war so you can't press the secondary objectives to get all the stuff you need. Since you can only really afford two wars with them in the 19 years you have minus the time to get your troops well geared enough to stomp on them, having them just capitulate one of the like five states you need for the tanzimat reform kinda sucks. I've seen worse equipped nations go to war for their survival you could go to war if you wanted Egypt. That, and there's another Journal entry that fires once you can puppet Egypt, and puppeting them does not count for Tanzimat reforms. You'd have to puppet them and then annex them five years later, if you had time. Though the only Tanzimat reform I cannot get to fire at all is the literacy one because increasing literacy 35 points is impossible as far as I can tell.

[Corvus]

Egypt is doing the same in my Ethiopia game - three times in a row now they have capitulated rather than fight, giving on just the initial state war goal and no other war goals. Next time the wargoal is going to be Cairo just for that.

I've hit major power status, which means I can demand recognition but that isn't a war I think I can win yet.

[tonberrian]

How does demanding Recognition even work? I never had to deal with that as Ottomans, because despite being a Sick Man of Europe, we still are Of Europe.

[Corvus]

You have to reach major power status and then start a diplo play against a great power to demand recognition, and one that you aren't friendly with either. They either back down and recognise you or you have to beat them in a war. Given that they will generally outnumber and out-tech you, it isn't easy. Qing and Japan are probably in the best position to do so.

My options are France, Great Britain, Austria or Russia, all of who are likely to wreck me unless I can get allies.

Hopefully they put in a peaceful way to do it at some stage.

[Taevyr]

I imagine the "peaceful" way, for now, is to get them to back down in the play, which would be easiest by getting enough Powers on your side of the recognition conflict. Still a lot easier said than done.

[Artanis]

I keep running Ottomans, and it's tough getting them out of Sick Man of Europe, but not impossible. One of the more irksome things is that once you've bested Egypt in your first war and get nearly the first set of provinces for the Tanzimat reform, the Second time they're a bunch of cowards and will just give you the war goal and not go to war so you can't press the secondary objectives to get all the stuff you need. Since you can only really afford two wars with them in the 19 years you have minus the time to get your troops well geared enough to stomp on them, having them just capitulate one of the like five states you need for the tanzimat reform kinda sucks. I've seen worse equipped nations go to war for their survival you could go to war if you wanted Egypt. That, and there's another Journal entry that fires once you can puppet Egypt, and puppeting them does not count for Tanzimat reforms. You'd have to puppet them and then annex them five years later, if you had time. Though the only Tanzimat reform I cannot get to fire at all is the literacy one because increasing literacy 35 points is impossible as far as I can tell.

FWIW, in one of the dev diaries, they said they're looking into ways to make multiple demands primary, so that you get all of them if the other side backs down. It's a tough balancing act though, since the era was very much about NOT going on an EU/HoI-style conquest spree by starting wars willy-nilly*.


*Well, not against people who could meaningfully fight back, at any rate

I imagine the "peaceful" way, for now, is to get them to back down in the play, which would be easiest by getting enough Powers on your side of the recognition conflict. Still a lot easier said than done.

My first instinct would be to use the tried-and-true "kick them while they're down" method. Wait for a Great Power to break in half with a revolt or get slapped around by Prussia, then start the Play against them. Bonus points if the target is rivalled by France or GB so that it's easier to sway in a wrecking-ball ally.

...then again, I'm both inexperienced AND bad at the game anyways, so grain of salt

[Taevyr]

FWIW, in one of the dev diaries, they said they're looking into ways to make multiple demands primary, so that you get all of them if the other side backs down. It's a tough balancing act though, since the era was very much about NOT going on an EU/HoI-style conquest spree by starting wars willy-nilly*.


*Well, not against people who could meaningfully fight back, at any rate

Personally, I imagine a "simple" solution would be to make pushing multiple primary demands possible when

1) Reconquering states. This could also play in e.g. a newly formed Italy declaring on Austria for their Italian holdings, giving them cores upon formation.

2) Warring unrecognized powers, possibly with the caveat of only including non-major/non-regional unrecognized powers. Still gives the same combined infamy bonus as if you claimed the states separately (maybe even a bit more), but it strengthens the idea of these nations being seen as pawns without agency at best.

Of course, I hardly know anything about coding so this could just as easily be horrible to actually implement But I'm looking forward to how they deal with expanding diplomacy/warfare options once the initial mass bug-swatting phase has passed.

[tonberrian]

Patch 1.1 looks really neat so far. I'm looking forward to it.

[Corvus]

1927 in my Ethiopia run, so getting close to the end. Was trying to go for the Egalitarian achievement but I've just got too many peasants still. Need to have less than 10% and I'm still running at 20% despite churning out buildings. Got too much pop growth.

Managed to get recognised, more by luck than anything. I made a play to puppet what was left of Egypt (after stealing Suez and Cairo from them) and Great Britain decided to get involved. Normally they would have crushed me but they decided right then to have a proletarian revolt leaving them with just 60 battalions and no navy. A landing in the home counties and in Scotland later and they surrendered and Ethiopia was recognised and elevated to the rank of Great Power.

Sitting at #4 for GDP (behind Germany, Great Britain and France), #2 for GDP per capita, #4 for literacy and #9 in over all population. Also the #1 producers of fine art, paper, electricity and telephones among other things. My desire to build automobiles is hampered by lack of oil.

[Corvus]

And the run has come to its end. Ethiopia went from a desolate backwater to the #3 power in the world. #3 for GDP (at around 370 million pounds), #2 for GDP per capita, #4 for literacy, #8 for population and #10 for SoL. Owned both the Suez and Panama canal. Had colonies in the Celebes, West and East Papua and part of Western Australia the AI never colonised. Vassalised the other part of Papua, Egypt and most of Arabia (except the parts stuck in a permanent civil war because no one had armies, meaning you couldn't do anything to the rebels) and the oil producing part South America - it was the only way I could get any oil because no one was producing and the other regions were in the hands of other powers.

The fight for the oil turned interesting. The USA, my ally, actually honoured their alliance (which seems to be a rarity in game). Both France and Italy decided to back Haiti and I was able to bring Spain in by offering an obligation. So 5 great powers scrapping over a bit of South American jungle. As soon as Haiti capitulated, France and Italy were quick to peace out given the losses they had suffered in futile attacks against my trench lines in Africa.

I'm sure that with what I've learn I could make Ethiopia #1 next time around.