The Ultimate Tutorial: Becoming (and staying a Great Power) and establishing your Sphere of Influence
It finally happened, on December 20, 1930.
This tutorial is designed to give you a solid understanding of how to become a Great Power from humble origins and how to stay there. We'll talk about Spheres, too.
There are three requirements to becoming a Great Power.
1) You must be Civilized.
2) You must be one of the top eight in Total Score.
3) You must maintain your place for a certain period of time (I believe six months).
Now, there are three components to the Total Score: Military Score, Industrial Score, and Prestige. At first glance, it might look like you can just stick to one path or another and eventually become a GP. You'd be wrong, though. There are three main strategies to maximize your score, but you'd be best served choosing at least two of them to ensure your success. Time is of the essence; the earlier you become a GP, the larger your sphere will be.
Prestige-spamming
What it is: By focusing on the techs that give you the prestige inventions (Aesthetics, in Culture), you can quickly gain prestige, if you are the first to discover them.
When to use it: As early as possible. Both to get the maximum benefit and because Prestige is much less differentiated early in the game, so 20 points of prestige is much more valuable in the beginning.
Why not use it?: You gain no benefit from the techs for prestige, other than prestige, which can put you behind in the arms or industrial race. Prestige is easier to get later in the game, through a number of events or through wars. Because these opportunities pile up closer to the end of the game, there's an excellent chance that a GP slot held solely on prestige will evaporate. You might become a GP, but you'll lose it quickly.
In my first test game as Ukraine, I became a GP in 1860 by pushing this relentlessly -- I also lost it in 1870 and never got it back.
Industry
What it is: Getting as much industry as you can possibly pack in to your country. This includes techs. Industry score is based on your output and profitability, so dozens of Cement factories is not the way to go.
When to use it: An unindustrialized country is a tasty snack. You should always industrialize, if you can afford it and you have the population.
Why not use it?: You may not able to. Early in the game, goods like iron, timber, and coal are absolutely critical in developing a large industrial base, and if you don't have them, industrializing will be very, very difficult. If you aren't in State Capitalism, your Capitalists will make stupid decisions until you "prime the pump."
You need high-tech factories to really make this strategy work, so you need Literacy and the raw materials (or enough prestige so it doesn't matter). It's a mid-to-late game strategy, for the most part.
This was the first prong of my strategy in this game; I didn't initially realize how powerful it could be, until I started turning colonies into states; that gave me enough population and land to see my industry really take off.
Dreadnought-spamming
What it is: A dreadnought is 25 military score. (I originally said five; I was mistaken). Building lots of them can drive your military score up very very quickly.
When to use it: Since you can't build them until 1906, it's necessarily a late game strategy.
Why not use it?: You can't afford dreadnoughts or you're too busy fighting wars on land. You need Telephones and Fuel for this strategy, which are not readily available to all nations.
This was the second of my two pronged strategy.
The challenge for a small to middling power is that industry is, to a certain extent, predicated on size. You can only have eight factories in a state; the more states, the more factories you can have. Technology and railroads matter, but not as much as you'd think. Bigger really is better. Your only way out of this is to get bigger. Going after uncivs, vulturing states from poorly run civs, etc.
Big powers have two main advantages: the one I just mentioned and the likelihood you'll have a huge army to begin with, which will drive up your military score. Dreadnoughts can be game changers, but until dreadnoughts, armies are the big component of military score. (I think you get one point for a man o' war and five points for an ironclad; these formulas aren't entirely transparent).
If you're small and landlocked, I pity you. I really, really do. Extremely high tech industry is the only way to go here -- it would be interesting to see if somebody could pull this off with such a country.
I would prioritize score in this order:
1) Industry
2) Military
3) Prestige
Industry has the most staying power; it will keep you a GP if you become one. You can use military both for score and to take stuff from your neighbors, a viable strategy if you've got a continent without a whole lot of competition or you're huge. Prestige is pretty, but ultimately fickle.
So, you're a GP now. What difference does it make, I hear you ask?
First, certain events and decisions are GP only. One event I got huge amounts of were the "Patrimony" events, which give you cores on territory you hold. Now, I don't know entirely what purpose cores serve in Vicky 2, but I figure it's better to have them than not.
Second, the Sphere of Influence, which as we've discovered, is much better for the Sphere-r than the Sphere-ee.
Because Ukraine got to be a GP so late in the game, my Sphere doesn't end up all that big. I get Moldavia and Serbia. I almost sphered the Russian Empire (who I kicked out at #8), which would have been hilarious, but Russia eventually made itself a GP again. Too bad.
The core of the Sphere-of-Influence system is Influence. Here are the differing influence scores for two different countries:
There are three major components to Diplomatic Influence. First, your base influence. I must admit some ignorance on this; I'm not entirely sure what does and does not determine your base influence. The Market Functionality Path
says it increases Diplomatic influence, but I think they are talking about your base diplomatic points, not GP influence. However, you've only got so much to go around. You can choose None, Low, Medium, or High influence, which increases your base rate at the expense of being able to influence lots more countries.
Second, the geographical proximity of the country to be sphered. Neighbors get a nice bonus, but if they're on another continent or overseas, you get penalties instead. Both countries, in this case, are my neighbors.
Third, the relative position of your country's total score vs. theirs. Note that I get a nice bonus for influencing Moldavia, but a very small for influencing Russia.
Who should you influence? For starters, it's always a good idea to sphere countries that have raw materials you need. Korea is a great choice (if you don't outright conquer it, of course
), as are China and Japan. You have to consider how easy getting a country into your sphere is, though. China is always a diplomatic hot potato -- you have to be prepared to fight for it. Look at Ukraine in this AAR; that can show you how heated competitions can be for influence.
The most influence you can have in any country is 100 points. What exactly can you do with it? Below is a detailed list of the different diplomatic functions you can exercise with influence.
Discredit
Costs 35 influence. You can decrease the rate of influence for any country for 30 days at your opinion or lower.
Expel Advisors
Costs 50 influence. Eliminate another GP's influence for this country instantly (your opinion or lower) and remove discredit.
Ban Embassy
Costs 65 influence. All the benefits of Expel Advisors, plus they cannot gain influence at all for 365 days.
Increase Opinion
Costs 50 influence. Increase target country's opinion of you, up to Friendly, one step. (Remember: Hostile -> Opposed -> Neutral -> Cordial -> Friendly)
Decrease Opinion
Costs 50 influence. Decrease target country's opinion of another GP (your opinion or lower) one step.
Add to Sphere
Costs 100 influence. Add target country to your Sphere of Influence.
Remove from Sphere
Costs 100 influence. Remove target country from another GP's SOI. You must be Friendly with the target country.
It's worth repeating the benefits of a sphere of influence. All of their goods are added to your domestic production; tariffs do not apply. You get these goods even
before the sphered country does! They can still buy what you don't use.
There are a couple of miscellaneous things you should know about influence and spheres. First, unless the sphered country does something about it,
you cannot remove a country from your own Sphere of Influence. Since you cannot declare war on a country in your SOI, think very seriously about who you wish to sphere. Remember, you're obligated to protect them in any wars --
you cannot dishonor a call from one of the countries in your sphere.
Second, you cannot influence a country with whom you are at truce. You can still use the influence you already have, but going to war to add a country to your sphere can be very problematic, if other countries are in a position to reduce your influence.
We have one last item on the table -- strategies for using influence.
Like in most areas of life, the best defense is a good offense. Unless you're talking about China, you'll have at best two or three opponents for any given country. I had none for Moldavia and Serbia, for example.
Right off the bat, I want to you look carefully at Discredit. 35 influence is a lot. The effect is minimal. Don't waste your time with it. The AI loves it, which is weird, but what are you going to do?
Ban Embassy is always a great option, unless there is another country within striking distance of taking a country out of your sphere besides the one you're banning. For a whole year, that country is meaningless in the race. You can even add insult to injury by Decreasing Opinion, which will, eventually, render them ignorable.
Another powerful one-two punch (if you have 100 influence) is Expel Advisors --> Decrease Opinion. Wait until the last possible second (99 influence if they're trying to take it out of your sphere, otherwise 50), and you can set them back a long time.
Now, if you are trying to get a country into your sphere, I almost never bother with offensive action. Just increase opinion when you get the appropriate icon (like the one below):
If it's between you and one other country, you can get nasty, but with two or more opponents, the influence points are far too precious to waste. With luck, they'll cancel each other out, or do stupid things like wasting influence on Discrediting. With China and France both hotly pursuing Russia, I nearly put Russia into my sphere because China kept wasting influence discrediting me. If China had just ignored me, it would have had Russia in her sphere in no time.
Three final thoughts on influence. First, never, under any circumstances, stop influencing a country in your sphere. You may need to beat back challengers, and without influence points, you're in trouble. Some players prefer to sphere as much as possible; I'd rather have a stranglehold on a few countries. Second, don't be too stubborn to give up on some countries. Egypt is another hotly contested country (for the Suez Canal; once the Canal is built, people stop caring about influencing it). You could be fighting off as many as five challengers. You'll have to get very lucky to even get Friendly. Finally, at Friendly, you have the option to intervene for a particular country; a very powerful tool to keep enemies out. That applies to other countries too, so make sure you examine the diplomatic situation in a country before you pick on your favorite unciv.
One more update for this AAR -- the End Game post!
