Home Trending Latest threads New posts Developer diaries

Some things I've noticed about Vicky II

Jump to latest Follow Reply
  • We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Victoria 2 17560 After Action Reports (AAR)
T

Tyrannischgott

Sergeant
64 Badges
Jul 17, 2006
68
208
  • Hearts of Iron IV: Field Marshal
  • Crusader Kings II: Way of Life
  • Europa Universalis IV: Common Sense
  • Crusader Kings II: Horse Lords
  • Cities: Skylines - After Dark
  • Europa Universalis IV: Cossacks
  • Crusader Kings II: Conclave
  • Cities: Skylines - Snowfall
  • Europa Universalis IV: Mare Nostrum
  • Stellaris
  • Stellaris: Galaxy Edition
  • Hearts of Iron IV: Cadet
  • Hearts of Iron IV: Colonel
  • Europa Universalis IV: El Dorado
  • Crusader Kings II: Reapers Due
  • Europa Universalis IV: Rights of Man
  • Stellaris: Digital Anniversary Edition
  • Stellaris: Leviathans Story Pack
  • Cities: Skylines - Natural Disasters
  • Crusader Kings II: Monks and Mystics
  • Stellaris - Path to Destruction bundle
  • Cities: Skylines - Mass Transit
  • Europa Universalis IV: Mandate of Heaven
  • Hearts of Iron IV: Death or Dishonor
  • Stellaris: Synthetic Dawn
  • Battle for Bosporus
  • For the Motherland
  • Crusader Kings II: Charlemagne
  • Crusader Kings II: Legacy of Rome
  • Crusader Kings II: The Old Gods
  • Crusader Kings II: Rajas of India
  • Crusader Kings II: The Republic
  • Crusader Kings II: Sons of Abraham
  • Crusader Kings II: Sunset Invasion
  • Crusader Kings II: Sword of Islam
  • Europa Universalis IV
  • Europa Universalis IV: Art of War
  • Europa Universalis IV: Conquest of Paradise
  • Europa Universalis IV: Wealth of Nations
  • Crusader Kings II
  • Hearts of Iron III
  • Hearts of Iron III: Their Finest Hour
  • Hearts of Iron III Collection
  • Europa Universalis IV: Res Publica
  • Victoria: Revolutions
  • Semper Fi
  • Victoria 2
  • Victoria 2: A House Divided
  • Victoria 2: Heart of Darkness
  • 500k Club
Hey gents,

This is my first time posting on this forum. I've loved most of the paradox games over the years. I started back in the day with EU I and have since spent probably months of my life playing everything from EU to HOI to Victoria, etc etc.

Anyway, I adore the games, and here are some things I've noticed about Victoria II since I started playing it about a week ago. All of this is from the 1.3 patch.

France - I started playing the game mostly as Great Britain and I noticed that France seemed to consistently cream me in terms of Industrial score. I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong, so I decided to start a few games as Hawaii and see what would happen if I just passively observed. The results were pretty much the same as my British games - France would lag behind until about 1850, at which point it's industrial score would zoom ahead of Great Britain, beating it by 200 - 300 points by 1854.

Now, I'm all for allowing a some leeway in terms of historical accuracy. The game would be pretty boring if everything happened by script so as to follow the 19th century to the letter. Allowing France to occasionally surpass Great Britain adds some spice to the game. That said, it seems odd to me that France should so consistently become the most powerful country in Europe. Has anybody else experienced this?

Peaceful annexation - Should there be an option to peacefully annex uncivilized nations that are in your sphere of influence? There are a couple of of examples of this in history, Egypt being the one that most immediately pops to mind. There may already be a decision regarding this (I've only been playing for a week), but so far I've seen no indication that a great power can take Egypt without several protracted wars. It seems like if you were to make sure that it's often just as bad as it is good, and perhaps not economically beneficial until later in the game, it could be worthwhile addition.

Literacy - One thing I've noticed about playing as Great Britain is the effect India has on your literacy rate, and thus your research rate. It seems unfair to penalize Great Britain's tech research rate just because of the illiteracy in India. I was thinking literacy should only be a factor for the populations of your states and not your colonies, kind of like in regular old Victoria. I think that would put Great Britain's literacy on par with the rest of the European countries at the start of the game. I can't think of any unfair benefits or odd effects it would have, but I'm not amazingly well-versed on the game's mechanics yet.

I guess I'll leave it at that for now. This post is getting long. Love the games! Keep up the good work.

Edit: The literacy of colonies doesn't impact the literacy rate. Turns out it was a 10% literacy among my Irish pops that was killing my literacy rate. Duly noted. Thank you!
 
Last edited:
Part of the problem with industrial score is that is based on profit alone. This will be changed with the next patch. France tends to build tons of luxury clothing and luxury furniture factories that shoot their score up.

Britain can annex Indian minors who are satellites under the correct conditions...

Your literacy score is only based on the literacy in your states. If you want to avoid the low literacy of colonial provinces, don't make them states.
 
Tyrannischgott said:
Literacy - One thing I've noticed about playing as Great Britain is the effect India has on your literacy rate, and thus your research rate. It seems unfair to penalize Great Britain's tech research rate just because of the illiteracy in India. I was thinking literacy should only be a factor for the populations of your states and not your colonies, kind of like in regular old Victoria. I think that would put Great Britain's literacy on par with the rest of the European countries at the start of the game. I can't think of any unfair benefits or odd effects it would have, but I'm not amazingly well-versed on the game's mechanics yet.
Click to expand...

Colonies do not contribute to Average Literacy, only states do. The UK only suffers if it makes them states, in which case they can build factories there, which more than makes up for it.
 
Noted about the literacy. I just went through all of my British Isles provinces and noticed that the literacy rates are either 55% or 10% depending on whether they're British or Irish. So I guess it's really my Irishmen that are killing my literacy rate.

Another small objection to the way research rates work is that the clergy population percentage and the clerk population percentage modifiers are both taken as a percentage of your whole population, rather than the population of your states. This is really what kills the British research rate, which is usually a good 4 or 5 points behind countries like Prussia and France. I know the quickest way to make Clergymen 2% of the population as the UK is to use a national focus for it one of more populous Indian areas, which is good for research but bad for improving literacy. Meanwhile, making Clerks 4% of the population is pretty tough when you have huge, populous colonies. This seems like an odd disadvantage for colonial powers to have. I'm not sure if it's worth changing anything over, but it seems a bit odd to me.
 
I just tried out the game with the 1.4 patch. The game seems more playable overall, but I'm still having the same problem with an overpowered France. In the time between 1850-1854 they consistently, without fail, lap the United Kingdom with their industrial score. As I mentioned, I'm okay with some variation on history, but it seems dumb to me that France should so consistently steal the mantle from the UK in the 1850s. That's certainly not what happened in real life.

Anybody else notice this?
 
France has a few advantages over the UK; a large homogenus population compared to the UK's multicultural spectrum thus higher literacy since she's mostly entirely French(coupled with France having a higher literacy overall).
Her African colonies (Algeria and Tunis) dont take much to make into states due to their small population in relation to India. Britain convsersely can quickly turn Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa into states however, this causes the migrated Indians to then nerf the UK's literacy rate more.

Since certain techs shrink RGOs and the colonization techs, tied to Frances high literacy, give her two more key advantages.

RGO shrinking techs cause farmer/labourer unemployment which provides manpower for industry.

Colonzation techs being quicker to research for France lets her grab huge swathes of Africa, which french pops quickly migrate too, allowing them to become states and the spiral continues.

Militarily France was still considered to be a major continental power until Prussia trounched her in the Franco-Prussian war, research again gives her that advantage over every continental power that borders her bar Prussia(higher base lit)


From my experience in 1.3/1.4; The light at the end of the tunnel is that, the UK will eventually get RGO shrinking techs, forcing more and more Indians out of India and into the colonies, once those colonies have reached their max they'll be forced into factories and the UK will undergo a growth spurt. Should the UK manage to convert a state or two in India, which can still happen due to migration, then she'll grow faster than France can compete against in the short-term.

End game the UK's starting health care, the US's migration attraction boni, Prussia/Germany's Ruhr boom should, and occasionally in the case of Russias large pop base, overtake France.

Note; The UK can and proberly will eat large chunks of China, giving them more migrants to swell their RGOs. In my game I've given China an auto-WP decision to keep her unmolested until she westernizes, so my experiences will differ the moment the UK bites a chunk of China in your games.
 
Militarily France was still considered to be a major continental power until Prussia trounched her in the Franco-Prussian war, research again gives her that advantage over every continental power that borders her bar Prussia(higher base lit)
Click to expand...

This is true, to some degree, but for the most part other European countries didn't see Britain's scale of industrialization until The Second Industrial Revolution in the 1860s. Even then, nobody overtook the UK until Germany (arguably) did just before WWI. So, to see France *consistently* beating the UK by such a large margin in the 1850s is definitely not in line with history.

This all otherwise makes perfect sense. I guess I'm just miffed that I can't see a game follow some semblance of history - ie. Britain can't stay on top of the competition without turning huge swaths of India into states or annexing huge tracts of land in China.
 
The game is sandbox from the moment you unpause. France might have become an industrial super power had things turned out differently.

Britain used to reign absolutely ascendant until patches began to fix the main issues; India becoming 95% British, everyone demoting to soldiers giving the UK 100mil Indian death troopers.

1.3 balanced a few of those things, allowing France to use the advantage of her smaller colonial empire and population to undergo large growth. Seems very fitting that Britains natural enemy/long time rival is the one to apply pressure in your games. The end result is what matters, when the 20th century dawns, Britain should be ahead of France, if not, then she'll be well within reach.

Right now it's 1877 in my Russian game, I finally overcame France's industrial score, but guess who is #1 and currently at war with me? Britain. Ignore the 50s, everybody has bad days/decades.

harvesarmy said:
How does that happen? Is there an event or something?
Click to expand...

The Doctrine of Lapse annexes any Indian satellite that has <15 prestige and 4> militancy, MTTH is 500 months iirc, certain factors like addition militancy decrease the MTTH, if you're lucky you'll inherit all your satellites, if you're really unlucky, you'll inherit one in the entire century. Absolute Monarchy reduces the MTTH for the satellite down to 10%.
 
Well, like I said, I appreciate the sandbox aspect, but I hardly consider it to be 'sandbox' if France consistently takes the top spot in the same four year period. In any case, if the developers don't end up tweaking it, then I might try to do so myself. Thanks for all the help!
 
Tyrannischgott said:
Well, like I said, I appreciate the sandbox aspect, but I hardly consider it to be 'sandbox' if France consistently takes the top spot in the same four year period. In any case, if the developers don't end up tweaking it, then I might try to do so myself. Thanks for all the help!
Click to expand...

The problem is if you nerf France so she can't beat the UK, then we'll be back with Vicky2 1.0 where Britain was untouchable outside of hugely gamely maxing healthcare by 1850.

France succeeds because of her set up, you can't nerf her simply for being in a good position. Prussia does quite well in Ind score one it gets going, but is that fine since Germany, who did argueably surpass the UK, is Prussia's successor?
 
Tyrannischgott said:
Noted about the literacy. I just went through all of my British Isles provinces and noticed that the literacy rates are either 55% or 10% depending on whether they're British or Irish. So I guess it's really my Irishmen that are killing my literacy rate.
.
Click to expand...
All pops with non primary culture are considered illiterate slaves from uncivilized countries. This means Irish in the UK, Germans in Denmark and all non-germans in Germany will have the same literacy rate as afro-americans in the US, around ~10%.
 
The problem is if you nerf France so she can't beat the UK, then we'll be back with Vicky2 1.0 where Britain was untouchable outside of hugely gamely maxing healthcare by 1850.
Click to expand...

Just depends on how much you nerf them, I would think. Perhaps there's a way to make it more difficult for them to turn their colonies into states, or give them less of an advantage in terms of capitalists? I have trouble imagining that it's impossible to weaken France's position without completely destroying their capacity to compete with the UK. Plus, part of the fun of Vicky 1 was turning France from a second-rate power into the lord of continental Europe! Making them powerful off the bat ruins the challenge.

It's always a tough balancing act, I realize. We'll see what the finished product is once they're done making patches.
 
Carewolf2 said:
All pops with non primary culture are considered illiterate slaves from uncivilized countries. This means Irish in the UK, Germans in Denmark and all non-germans in Germany will have the same literacy rate as afro-americans in the US, around ~10%.
Click to expand...

France's country file has a line that gives her non-accepted cultures a literacy rate of 15%, strange how a homogenus state has that single "buff" when Russia/UK/Turkey would benefit.

Tyrannischgott said:
Just depends on how much you nerf them, I would think. Perhaps there's a way to make it more difficult for them to turn their colonies into states, or give them less of an advantage in terms of capitalists? I have trouble imagining that it's impossible to weaken France's position without completely destroying their capacity to compete with the UK. Plus, part of the fun of Vicky 1 was turning France from a second-rate power into the lord of continental Europe! Making them powerful off the bat ruins the challenge.

It's always a tough balancing act, I realize. We'll see what the finished product is once they're done making patches.
Click to expand...

Try reducing her Capitalist pops in her history file. Her literacy will help her promote them back, so it'll be a temporary hit at best.

As for making her states more difficult, you'd have to either give Algeria/Tunisia a population comparable to Bombay or change the pop promotion and migration logic, a universal thing that will also hamper the US's primary source of pops; migrants.

VRRP gave France a reduced pop growth in comparison to other states to stimulate her stagnant population. Something which is fine, as it can be overcome through liberalising and attracting spare immigrants alongside healthcare.
History is forged through luck, coincidence and always by accident. I just don't see the problem with France's strong starting position allowing her a temporary moment in the sun.

If you want a second-rate european power that you can turn into a continental beast then I recommend Spain; low population that is barely literate, a slightly larger empire than France, but a big bad neighbour that gives you a challenge if you get in her way.
 
Last edited:
a8IdI.jpg


Here's a little sample of what I'm talking about. This, by the way, is *immediately* after a war in which Germany and I humiliated them, cut them down to size and landgrabbed Alsace-Lorraine. This is also par for the course. I have yet to have a game, playing as either the UK, Prussia or simply watching as Hawaii, in which something very much like this wasn't the case by 1860.

I think I speak for a lot of paradox fans when I say that I want a game that loosely follows history, rather than a game which presents a consistent alternative history...

Hard to say that France isn't overpowered.
 
Looking at it some more, I'm thinking it may just be due to the algorithm by which industrial score is determined. The only two manufactured goods which France produces more of than me are Luxury Furniture and Explosives. They outproduce me in Explosives by a very thin margin, but they are by far the top producers of luxury furniture. They produce ~67, with second place being about ~3. These are the only two manufactured products which they produce the most of. I think that this is what's making them score so high industrially.
 
If you want a game that goes all over the place with history, try PDM mod. I mean, every time I play, all sorts of strange things happen and all sorts of weird countries become GP's.
 
TAoD said:
If you want a game that goes all over the place with history, try PDM mod. I mean, every time I play, all sorts of strange things happen and all sorts of weird countries become GP's.
Click to expand...

... The game you just posted in the 'post your Empire' thread had Germany, France, UK, Russia, the US, Japan, Spain and Turkey as the GPs in 1906. That's only 1 or 2 out from history at that point, and aside from Spain they're in the correct order, too; I wouldn't say it was 'all over the place', but rather 'within plausible boundaries' - especially since you'd conquored Austria.
 
Naselus said:
... The game you just posted in the 'post your Empire' thread had Germany, France, UK, Russia, the US, Japan, Spain and Turkey as the GPs in 1906. That's only 1 or 2 out from history at that point, and aside from Spain they're in the correct order, too; I wouldn't say it was 'all over the place', but rather 'within plausible boundaries' - especially since you'd conquored Austria.
Click to expand...

Haha, you should have seen the world when I wasnt around getting rid of people. Scandinavia, The Netherlands, the Ottomans, Canada, some others I forgot were all GP's. I think my brutal interventions really screwed up history, or maybe as you said, improved it to my likings? Haha. But thats what I like about PDM, I actually feel like Im in control when Im the number one, or two or three or whatever person in the world. Its quite fun.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back