Start me off on my first game

[ywhtptgtfo]

Hmm.. the MTTH for discovery of CB is ridiculously high. It's like 1 month?

[Shadowkano]

It's random, War policy reduces the generation time. Repressive Press rights trigger events randomly during creation that speed up/slow down the CBs generation.

The defines states its a 15/1000 chance per day to be discovered which is small really.

[calvinhobbeslik]

I wish the French AI were smart and demanded Java instead of the useless Guyana

[moldeh]

By the way, it's very possible to beat France in a war if you play defensilvely. And then you can take the province with the flemish pops in it and maybe another one. If you do it when Prussia attacks, they might be crippled for the rest of the game.

[ywhtptgtfo]

By the way, it's very possible to beat France in a war if you play defensilvely. And then you can take the province with the flemish pops in it and maybe another one. If you do it when Prussia attacks, they might be crippled for the rest of the game.

This happened last night - Prussia and Austria attacked France to get Elsass-Lothringen with basically every German minor (it's kinda like a bigger Franco-Prussian War). However, I had to reload and not enter the war because France had Spain, Switzerland, Sardinia-Piedmont, and Sweden as allies whom all were not in the war with Prussia/Austria but immediately joined to defend France when I declared (wtf is that). While France was thoroughly crippled during the war, it was largely impossible to get enough war score to steal Champagne before the war with Prussia ends (which would entail doom stacks coming to my territories).

However, I did manage to annex all of Siam, Brunei, Aceh, and Johore. So Oceania is quite dominated by me (except for Australia). Since I am #7 right now and don't feel like angering the Chinese yet, I'd probably try to de-sphere Britain at Burma and then forge a CB on it.

As for industry, I have 2 luxury clothings factories that sometimes lose money. I think it's due to the supply of silk. Should I plan for an eventually invasion of China to fix that?

[moldeh]

Get Nam and Siam because you won't beat 1 mil. chinese soldiers without a base of operations. Plus, they've got kickass resources. You can't desphere Burma. The UK has a score at least 2-3 times higher than yours and they border them. No way that's happening. You need to hurry up and get Siam as well, before the uk gets to friendly status with them. Nam and Siam have opium (pretty much exclusive to that area) as well as tropical wood (also pretty much exclusive to that area). You should go for industry combos: fabric => clothes => luxury clothes (unless of course you don't have the stuff for the base factories in the chain).

[ywhtptgtfo]

Get Nam and Siam because you won't beat 1 mil. chinese soldiers without a base of operations. Plus, they've got kickass resources. You can't desphere Burma. The UK has a score at least 2-3 times higher than yours and they border them. No way that's happening. You need to hurry up and get Siam as well, before the uk gets to friendly status with them. Nam and Siam have opium (pretty much exclusive to that area) as well as tropical wood (also pretty much exclusive to that area). You should go for industry combos: fabric => clothes => luxury clothes (unless of course you don't have the stuff for the base factories in the chain).

I ate Siam already (all of it). I made a stupid mistake of adding war goals (I thought they were free!) without checking though so I took full BB for 4 Siamese states - but it's fine- that's what first games are for. Vietnam is allied with China so I am probably not going to attack it soon. My next target is Bali and that's about the last primitive I can safely attack without drawing in European powers or China. I suppose I can start doing stuff on Saudi Arabia but the only troops left I can support are Indonesian troops and I am not sure if they'd rebel once I make them since I keep getting those annoying +8 militancy events.

How do you check the resources of a province? I want to look for silk provinces!

Also other things:

Politics - I have pass a lot of political reforms like free press, no slavery, and such. Basically, I am just looking to get higher and higher immigration modifier. One thing I am not sure about is trade guilds since I don't know what they do. I haven't been able to pass social reforms. Not sure what activates them. Although there are elections once in a while, I seem to be able to force change of government - are there any penalties? I am right now sticking with nationalist because of Jingoism (CB comes faster) and being able to build factories

NF - Getting clergyman to 4% takes a while (is there a quick way to check it without having to open up the population screen?) and I notice admin efficiency drops from time to time. Hopefully I am going to get to clerks next (what's a good %?) and then capitalist (what's a good% as well?). Lastly, one of the Javan provinces had a 0% (probably like 0.04%) Dutch population. Does that mean when I put a NF for bureaucrat and it'd become a state?

Fort/Naval Base/Railroad - I didn't build any forts and built a Naval Base 2 in Amsterdam and Aceh for ship attrition stuff. What do railroads and forts do?

[moldeh]

You won't be getting that many immigrants, unless you're hms govt/democracy (esp. the second), not to mention the usa gets a pretty hefty immigrant attraction bonus. Even if you are getting immigrants now, that won't last long. You do *not* want to pass too many social reforms (in fact, anything other than health care, which is extremely good, and education, which is lackluster, is very bad for your industry).\

You need more than 1% dutch population in java, otherwise it's pointless. It's probably not going to happen, since you have a lot of colonies and java has a really high population.

If you press the + sign on the right of your screen, you'll get a small box that tells you how your nfs are doing, how big your armies are, how battles are going and so on and so forth. Next to your nf, you'll find the relevant percentage number.

When you change the ruling party, you increase militancy a great deal (but unless something else is wrong, it'll go down).


Railroads make your factories better, naval bases increase supply range (that's the range within which you can colonise and have your ships fully supplied), forts increase the time needed to occupy a province and I think they also provide a defence bonus IIRC (not sure about this last one).

[Shadowkano]

Your Indonesia troops are just as likely as your Dutch troops to rebel - not likely provided you fulfill their needs enough.

Trade Guilds increase desire for Social Reforms, so leave those till you have all the political reforms you want.

Changing government adds militancy to all pops to varying degrees, it's negligible. In the RGO mapmode if you click a Silk province, like the ones in French Provence, ALL other Silk provinces will be highlighted. This is useful for finding where you want to expand.

China is a bit of a glass cannon. Large Armies of Irregulars which fail compared to real troops, You should be able to hold China off in Vietnam through defensive actions. Even if they send 100k at you, a smaller more advanced force can generally push them back and cause huge casualties.

Sphered Substates might not join China in a war against you. I've seen Russia and China engage in long phoney wars due to their Russian bordering Substates being in the Russia sphere and Neutral in the conflict.

[ywhtptgtfo]

Thanks for all the responses (especially moldeh).

So I suppose I should try for a war with China then? I haven't invested anything in land tech yet. So far, I am going cultural (maxing education and research point modifier). I also go for extra NF when my NF points is above cap (i.e. I am at 3.98, so research for the 4th NF now). For naval, I only got the one for naval base 2 since I needed a transport fleet. I haven't done anything with industry yet (except railroad #1), since I am not sure how much it affects my profits.

I am worried about recruiting from colonies I've read that Japan thread which said the entire army became rebels.

Anyway, I am going to load up the game and eat Bali.

[moldeh]

Naval techs shouldn't be a priority. Army techs, on the other hand, are pretty useful since you have to deal with a nation whose population is bigger than that of all the GPs combined. The only reason you can beat China is that they're uncived and use shitty irregulars. Since you have Thailand, you can use it to launch your attack. Get some forts there and get ready to slaughter some chinese. Play defensively to get battle warscore and if you feel that you've massacred enough, then move in with a small regiment that won't get attritted down and have other regiments in nearby provinces to reinforce as needed (since they have a shitload of provinces, they won't give you a lot of warscore, so there's no rush to siege). Your tech will seal their doom and you should be able to grab a few colonies (that will probably have a much larger population than everything else you have combined). These will give you troops and lots of free tax (you're not paying for their education and crap like that since it's a colony), not to mention a huge population base to consume your industrial goods.

Go for states that you can protect. But once you beat them for the first time, the troops you get will help you annihilate them. Don't forget to get at least mediocre tech first. Make sure you have artillery in your armies (fewer than your infantry regiments though) and get some forts in Thailand. They might have literally millions of troops, but it's basically just some dudes with spears (just like that bad jackie chan movie, minus all the martial art stuff).

Oh and you need the Suez canal to help you transport stuff around faster. It's ok if the AI builds it, since you can still use it even then, but the AI might take forever to do that. So you should probably sphere Egypt or at least get the Dumyat region to get the canal built to save you time. But Egypt has rubber so you should probably sphere them anyway.

[ywhtptgtfo]

My game from last night saw the entire Indochina (except Burma and UK territories) annexed and I've just declared war on China for Guangdong. I also bit off 2 states from Argentina (since Brazil dragged me into a war with it), sphered Chile, Brazil, Egypt, Luxembourg, Najd, and Denmark. Sweden and Hedjaz were also in my sphere but the former became a great power and the latter got broken by rebellions.

Right now, I am also in a phoney war with Ottoman Empire that tried to take Aleppo. I couldn't really bother with it but the OE also wouldn't white peace. I hope they'd be more inclined to do so once their economy starts to bend out of shape.

In terms of industry, I am not really sure what factories to encourage/build. The capitalists love building clipper, luxury clothing, and canned food (I've got 2 of each that were built by them now). I am ranked 6th in the world but even Austria the 5th place is 50% ahead of me (and England is like 4 times ahead).

As for military, I built up to force limit pretty much. One thing that puzzles me is that I cannot build guards in the colonies (yeah, I disbanded all my infantry for naught). I also can't build any troops in annexed Argentine lands. I wonder how to force limits and troop types are regulated.

I tried to keep a large stockpile of military resources but I've never seem to be able to do so even by turning slider max stockpile high and setting a high stockpile budget %

My artisans are very annoying and always in red even though tariffs are at -15% and I am barely taxing the middle class at all. I hope they all jump off a cliff and reborn as clerks.

And lastly, I am spending my NF's on promoting clerks (to 100% factory efficiency) and capitalist (to 1k). I tried putting an NF in Java to promote migration there but there was no effect so I sent that NF back to making capitalists.

[Shadowkano]

non-core provinces require 4x the pops per Brigade than a core province. So, Argentina is quite sparsely populated at first, it'll take time for it to consolidate into meaningful soldier pops.
Nationalism and Imperialism unlocks the core events, but it only fires in states NOT colonies.

Guards can only be of your Primary/Accepted cultures.

As for Factories;
Cement, Steel and Machine parts to provide your other Factories with their maintenance goods as well as Railroad/Fort/Naval base goods.
You have a few of the non-UK dye provinces and Cotton is generally never out of supply, so Fabric > Clothes line works, synthetic dye later.
Those Clothes and your Silk from China let you supply Luxury clothes.
Timber/Tropical Wood - Lumber factory > furniture > luxury furniture.
You have Fruit, Coal and Grain, so Glass > Liquor/Wine.

Come the 70's-90's when Rubber beings to appear, you can use that to get a Electric Gear > Telephone/Aeroplane/Tank/Radio/Car chain set up too.

Grab the Arab states for Future oil unless you want to wait till you can make synthetic oil from coal, something you don't have too much off.

The stockpile can be ignored unless you're at war. Letting you lower taxes to ease social mobility for your poor into more desirable pops - Clerks/Crafties/Capis.

EDIT: The AI is more than likely so far ahead of you in score due to larger population and subsidies. Don't aim for #1, aim for a competitive industry that isn't heavily reliant on state subsidies.

[ywhtptgtfo]

I had to reload and not attack China because I got dogpiled by a nosey Russia + allies. While I handily killed countless doom stacks, I still got overrun in northern Indochina and the war with Ottomans was also annoying me, so I decided to switch full gear to rape those Muslims and got 2 states from it (Baghdad and Kuwait). I should be pretty safe in the region for a while.

Thing getting on my nerves right now are:
- Arisans consistently not getting their needs. Tariffs are at -12% and middle class taxation is 0 gold. There's no unemployment too.
- Factories are costing me a fortune to subsidize and I closed the most costly ones (a clipper and a canned food factory).

Edit: There are parts about the budget I don't totally understand. For a while, the population seems to be fine and I can fully pay for 100% maintenance without going into debt. But suddenly, my poor tax base is not getting their needs and lowering their taxes don't help. The only things I did were to close the canned food factory and a clipper factory.

Edit2: Whoa! I researched "High and Low Pressure Steam Engine" and my income instantly spiked.

[Naselus]

Thing getting on my nerves right now are:
- Arisans consistently not getting their needs. Tariffs are at -12% and middle class taxation is 0 gold. There's no unemployment too.
- Factories are costing me a fortune to subsidize and I closed the most costly ones (a clipper and a canned food factory).

Artisans are pretty dumb. They'll struggle to get the goods they need to operate unless you have good prestige or a good range of raw materials, and as time passes they become hopelessly inefficient compared to factories. After about 1870, just tax them into demotion.
Factories move in the other direction. Without good Commerce tech, they're likely to get out competed by foreign industry (and the UK starts with fairly strong Commerce, so you're coming at them from behind). They'll also struggle to get resources if you're not doing well in Prestige.

Edit: There are parts about the budget I don't totally understand. For a while, the population seems to be fine and I can fully pay for 100% maintenance without going into debt. But suddenly, my poor tax base is not getting their needs and lowering their taxes don't help. The only things I did were to close the canned food factory and a clipper factory.

There's a good chance that's just because there's a shortage of Fruit or Wool or something. Open up your Population screen, and check on the farmers there; if they're getting less than 100% life needs but are receiving some everyday or luxury needs, it's because there's not enough of something on the market.

Edit2: Whoa! I researched "High and Low Pressure Steam Engine" and my income instantly spiked.

RGO output increases a lot from the power tech line, and 70% of your population work in RGOs. High and Low Pressure probably increased your GDP by about 30%.

[ywhtptgtfo]

Hmm... then it seems like the engine techs are one of the first techs to prioritize.

Are there ways to make sure RGOs are always available? I suppose NFing farmers/labourers is not the way to go and that one has to just wait for tech to progress?

By the way, I saw that Portugal and Spain are colonizing all over the place. I chose not to do that because I am struggling to keep clerks, clergyman, and bureaucrats percentage up (I took stuff from OE and their states take forever to NF). But is it a good trade off with respect to using the NF to develop the industries?

[moldeh]

The thing is... as RGO output increases globally, your RGOS will start firing people since there's no demand for the extra goods. Which is how you get a lot of your craftsmen. So there's no point in NFing rgo workers... if there's room, they'll get a job in the rgo. If not, then they'll become craftsmen.

[ywhtptgtfo]

It's random, War policy reduces the generation time. Repressive Press rights trigger events randomly during creation that speed up/slow down the CBs generation.

The defines states its a 15/1000 chance per day to be discovered which is small really.

1.5% is a pretty large number if it is calculated per day.

The math of forging a CB can be described by the geometric distribution with p = 0.015 and k being number of days. The average number of days for a country to be found out is thus 66.7 days, which is about 2/5 of the way to generating the CB meaning one would be getting about 60% of the full cost on average.

Now, let's look at the cumulative distribution. The probability of getting found out within 30 days is a whooping 37%. That, in my book, is a lot.

[Shadowkano]

1.5% is a pretty large number if it is calculated per day.

The math of forging a CB can be described by the geometric distribution with p = 0.015 and k being number of days. The average number of days for a country to be found out is thus 66.7 days, which is about 2/5 of the way to generating the CB meaning one would be getting about 60% of the full cost on average.

Now, let's look at the cumulative distribution. The probability of getting found out within 30 days is a whooping 37%. That, in my book, is a lot.

Compared to Vanilla when you always got 100% of the infamy 100% of the time any discount is better than none. The system was never meant to give you free CBs in demand just a discount.

[calvinhobbeslik]

Compared to Vanilla when you always got 100% of the infamy 100% of the time any discount is better than none. The system was never meant to give you free CBs in demand just a discount.

In vanilla, you didn't have to wait a year to DOW a civilised country...