Very First game as brazil : i'm totally lost.

1. You can only build factories if your economic policy is either State Capitalism or Planned Economy. The reactionary parties usually are the only way to build factories in the start of the game.
2. If you're playing AHD, it's usually harder to hoard money. Anyway, if you're doing so, reduce taxes on your pops. I usually reduce first for the upper class, so capitalists can invest in factories, then the middle class, so artisans can buy more goods and get less militancy and last the lower class, since they can get most goods even if your set the slider at 100% until late game.
3. Because there aren't goods for the buildings, and since their prices fluctuate, the game will show that there's money missing. Usually in the first years there are few machine parts in the market, but later it won't be a problem.
4. Pops are much more likely to promote to crats if their literacy is high. I'd recommend getting clergymen and Social Thought techs first, since Brazil has lots of states but low literacy.

erekose123 said:

I chose brazil start in 1836 because the wiki adviced me to.

Questions :
1. why cant i build factories ?
2. i'm drowning in money, currently 400K, every slider in the budget tab is at 100%. I suppose this is not how the game is supposed to be played ? :unsure:
3. there are projects in the Production tab, and I can finance them. But the projects never completes because there is always 0.1gold missing. why ?
4. I set NF on bureaucrats in my 2 most populated regions. It takes 10 years to rise from 0.2% to 4% bureaucrats. Is it normal ? Do i have to repeat this operation for every region in Brazil ? Do i then have to do the same for clergymen ?

I guess thats enough questions for now

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For #2 I would say this can be normal as it happens to me a lot as I play to build industry and wealth not take over everywhere. If you don't have many units you can cut taxes down to a minimum and run a surplus still esp if you have gold mines.

I apologize for hijacking this thread, but I noticed that as Brazil, I often get zero immigrants, while presidential dictatorships and absolute monarchies in Latin America got much more immigration...why is this?

People are less likely to emigrate if there's unemployment. If you start building factories, they will inevitably close in the beginning, due to poor craftsmen/clerk ratio, low literacy, low demand and low efficiency, so you're better off going for prestige and efficiency techs early and conquering what you need from other South American countries as you're much stronger than them.

With a few reforms, you'll be drowning in immigrants and after you've researched some techs, got your literacy up (immigration will help there, too) and started building a nice sphere (you'll be a GP from prestige techs and prestige from wars) you can start building industry rapidly in 1870-1880 and keep your GP status.

erekose123 said:

4. I set NF on bureaucrats in my 2 most populated regions. It takes 10 years to rise from 0.2% to 4% bureaucrats. Is it normal ? Do i have to repeat this operation for every region in Brazil ? Do i then have to do the same for clergymen ?

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If you want to improve literacy from the start of the game, which you do, the best startegy is to National Focus 'Crats in every province up to 1% - this improves the effectiveness of NFs. Once you've done that, switch to NFing clergymen and get 4% in all your states for optimum literacy efficiency (which isn't the same as Research efficiency)

calvinhobbeslik said:

I apologize for hijacking this thread, but I noticed that as Brazil, I often get zero immigrants, while presidential dictatorships and absolute monarchies in Latin America got much more immigration...why is this?

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Because immigration is basically broken. Brazil receives a negative modifier for it being a constitutional monarchy (despite this monarchy actually being a symbol of stability to potential emigrants IRL - notably, this also reduces emigration to any dominions UK releases), and when your unemployment is above 10% (even if it's just in the plantations and whatever), you get absolutely 0 immigrants, even if your factories are gasping for more labour. I'm really not sure about the game mechanics behind it, but whenever I play Brazil, I always find that my bubbling industrial economy in the most liberal regime in Latin America gets zero immigrants after an initial burst after liberalisation. In contrast, bloody backwards, presidential dictatorship Argentina gets bucketloads from mid-game onwards.

erekose123 said:

1. is it better to build industry in your most populated province, or in the province that produces the raw material ? As Brazil, you produce coton -> where do i build cloth factory ?
2. I got several events about a border incident with Venezuella, giving me a "take region" casus belli. Are these randomly generated events or can i provoke them somehow ?
3. As Brazil, you dont have coal or iron, how would you proceed to get those materials ?

thanks again

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1. It doesn't matter at all, except for lumber and steel. Make sure you get a lumber mill in Rio Grande do Sul, but you can't build any steel mills within your current borders.
2. Those are randomly generated, and you don't have to take them, but you can use 'justify war' if you have AHD to create casus belliis for you. Also, get AHD, it fixes most of the countries that aren't UK/France, and makes Brazil significantly less broken.
3. You can't if you stay within your borders. It's basically a crude mechanic of preventing Latin American industrialisation. I rush prestige colonisation/prestige techs such as Nationalism and Imperialism, Medicine and Machine Guns so that I can colonise Southern Nigeria and Gabon which has *loads* of free coal, and more importantly, rubber in late game.

Theres a few tabs to keep your eye on which you should check generally, it will show you how much of a specific raw material you have to who, if anyone, is sphering you. If you apply tarrifs, you'll notice a fall in your daily income when you get sphered.

Actually playing Brazil at the moment and I see your frustration. But the country is pretty backwards compared to the european countries. I found my industry only started flourishing when I was getting towards 40% literacy rate and had researched efficiency techs and a number of industrial techs.

A good money making factory to build in Brazil is the luxury furniture one, it will help your furniture factory as well and generate even more income for everyone.

When you get sphered, you have 3 ways to get out. First is to become a secondary power, lower relations with them to below 0 and leave. Not a good option as they tend to declare war to get you back in their sphere. 2nd is to get sphered by someone else, and the 3rd option is to become a GP. You have no choice in who spheres you, but you could always try to increease or decrease relations with the various countries. You gain access to their markets as well, which is a bonus for any industrialization purpose of stuff you don't have an rgo output of. Brazil has alot going for it, but not a great deal happens until 1870\1880 really.

As for politics and social and political reform, it is decided by the upper house. Depending on who has majority and present, hover over it and it will tell you what makes them move towards social or political reform. Conservative and liberal will usually propose political reform under higher levels of militancy, socialists will enact social reform.

During your elections and you get the options pop up to take a stand on something, look at your pop screen to see what issues people care about, who supports what and what you want to do. So if you want political reform, raise the militancy. The pop up screen will also tell you what parties are associated with what issue. But the key is using the population tab.

I'm sure someone else could write a massive essay on this with more details..but my general advice, hover over and read the various tooltips..it should tell you what you want to know in most cases.

You are reading the Victoria 2 Wiki aren't you?

erekose123 said:

Yes Sir i am. I got some good infos from it, especially the trade policy page and Ideology page. But it tells me WHAT it is, but not HOW to use it.

Same goes for the Brazil "strategy guide". It very shortly tells me what to do, but no real explanations or "why would i do this instead of that" goes with it.

Right now looking for nice AAR tutorials, but too many AARs drown infos in roleplay elements.

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I have the same complaint about the AAR's.

I've been away from V2 for a while now, but getting back into it. So I'm going to be playing Brazil as well. Perhaps we can compare notes.

erekose123 said:

With pleasure RELee.

Brazil 1972, 3rd start, 17th nation, prestige 41, indutry 3, military 14.
I first focused on commerce techs as the wiki said, to improve RGO producing.
Then i focused on culture tech as Phalanxia said, to improve prestige.
Now focusing on military and naval techs to prepare colonization.

Politically i have been chosing "Decive arguments for Laissez Faire" "Religion is not a matter of State" "Freedom will not die" and other kinda pro-liberal choices. Those choices are close to my personal views in real life and have nothing to do with any kind of in-game strategy or goals...
I have been able to ennact only one Social reform (abolish slavery) and no political reforms...

I built 4 factories : one lumber mill in Rio grande Do Sul, one Distillery in Mato Grosso, one vineyard and one Furniture factory in Rio. 6K craftmen total. Poor classes are taxed 90%, middle classes 80% and Rich classes 70%. Education and bureaucracy sliders are both at 75%, military 50%. 23.7% alphabetisation, 15.06 research points. Well thats enough figures isnt it ?

I still have no clue what some core game concepts mean like : Plurality, National Consciousness, Militancy, etc.

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That's bad. You should be a GP by 1870's.

Set your two NF's to clergy in two most populous states. After you get between 3 and 3.5 clergy in them, move them to next states in size.
Open with Ideological thought - it's +plurality event's will help your research a lot more.
Declare war on Paraguay for your core in Mato Grosso on day 1. Take your core for 5 prestige. You may even try to humiliate them for even more prestige.
Ally with Peru at least and declare war on Bolivia for your core. Don't do this only if Bolivia is allied to Argentina, cause only ARG has an army that can threaten you. Another 5 prestige.
If you're feeling adventurous and have good allies, declare war on Columbia. Be aware, they army is decent size, but you can lure them to your territory and watch attrition do your work and than it's much easier since they lack the soldiers to reinforce their army. Kill off their weakened army, split your troops to avoid attrition and take your core. +prestige. You just might have enough prestige to become a GP.

The reason you're doing it right of the bat is because you should be focusing on techs other than army techs for the next few decades, so at the beginning you can force your advantage - you have same techs but your army and territory is bigger.

Ideological thought should be researched by mid 1839. Don't research a new technology yet. Wait for half a year and on 1st January 1940, research Empiricism.
Don't build any factories yet. After Emp is researched, switch to prestige techs all the way and you should become a GP. Sphere all your neighbouring nations. Go for literacy techs next, switching from those only when a new research efficiency tech is available.

By 1870-1880, you should have a decent literacy rates, you should receive a lot of immigrants so you can start researching all those commerce and industry techs. You'll research them quickly because they will be cheap so you can start building your factories. You'll have the pops to work in them and you'll have the pops to sell your products, too. After that, it depends what you want to do. I don't like colonizing Africa since it stops immigration, and you lack only coal and iron which are, relatively plentiful on the WM (you can sphere or invade Korea if you feel like it).

You give really good advice along with explanations as to why. My only adverse reaction is to the first sentence. Brings out the jack-ass in me.

I'll write a big post tomorrow - it's 1am when I saw this, and I'd like to give this thread the attention it deserves because Brazil is my favourite campaign.

erekose123 said:

one quick question : maybe i'm st00pid but is there any map mode that lets you see your cores owned by other countries ? I've tried Political and Region map modes with no success. Also tried the "Casus Belli" tab in Diplomacy, but seen nothing there.

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Diplomatic mapmode. Countries you have free CBs on will be in orange; if you have cores on provinces other countries own, there will be green stripes.

RELee said:

You give really good advice along with explanations as to why. My only adverse reaction is to the first sentence. Brings out the jack-ass in me.

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Sorry. I wanted to help and I only had a few minutes, cause I've had friends coming over so I wanted to offer some advice in just a few minutes.

erekose123 said:

Excellent how-to Samartian.

I failed.

1880 and still not a GP. I have been around the 15th place for the whole game.
Took cores in paraguay and Colombia. Rushed culture techs for prestige (art and philosophy branch).
NF on bureaucrats first to 0.75%, then on clergy to 4%, then on capitalists.
Experienced a mass depression in the mid 50's forcing me to switch to commerce techs and lowering investments in education and bureaucracy to 0.
Been sphered by France.

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NF bureaucrats shouldn't have been an issue. I personally avoid it, probably a relict of earlier versions of the game where you'd end up with way more crats than you need, no matter what you did.

Getting more crats and clergy will be a drain on your treasure, but whenever your income becomes red, just research the cheapest tech that gives RGO efficiency and continue with prestige and education techs immediately, specifically prestige. You do that since the amount of prestige you get from techs depends on how many nations already researched them. So, if you wait to long, you'll only get miniscule amount of prestige, not worth the time spent on research. Other thing is that prestige is event based, meaning you have to wait for the event to fire. On average, you'll probably get a enough prestige, but sometimes you can be so unlucky to get only 30-40 prestige all together since the events fired late, and not become a GP even if you did everything right. Of course, you can get lucky, too, and have those events really quickly bringing you tons of prestige.

Sphering by France can also hurt your treasury. Try to avoid it if you can by lowering relations if need be. They won't attack unless you've been conquering other nations and have a high infamy.

If you lack prestige, you may declare humiliation wars on weakest SA coutries, bringing you 10-30 prestige by 1870-1880. It may not seem much but sometimes it's the difference between being a GP or not.

Beaten by spain in colonizing parts of Africa (yes i wanted to test that ^^)
Passed 2 social reforms and no political reforms.
When picking choices for election, I always chose what gets me the less militancy.
Did not build a single factory myself, but invested in projects proposed by capitalists. Factories got closed a few years after, leaving 15000 unemployed craftmen in Rio in the mid 60's.

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I don't like colonizing Africa as a country in the Americas for the simple reason that your pops will never move to Africa from South (or North) America. That means no factories and very little mobility by African pops. If they're unemployed in one African province, they will stay and rot there, ignoring other colonies screaming for workers. They will also count toward massive unemployment overall, grinding your immigration to a halt. The number one reason going for Africa is rubber, and you have that in South America.

Building factories prior to 1870-1880 is a bad move most of the time. You still haven't researched factory efficiency techs, so your factories will make only losses. They will open, hire people and go bust in a few years, giving you a lot of unemployment, again slowing immigration. Don't build or invest in factories until 1880's.

I dont know what i did wrong. Prestige just didnt want to rise. How to conduct reforms is still a bit obscure. Next time i'll make my population angry on purpose.
I also have a vague question : in the mid 50's, 65% of my middle class couldnt afford their basic needs. I tried lowering their taxes to 0, lowering tarrifs to -5. Thats when i switched to commerce techs for better RGO efficiency. it seemed to improve the situation a little bit. Anyone care to explain what happened ?

thanks again

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As Brazil, you'll be able to conduct political reforms by itself. Your liberals will gain ground if your country is on a steady course. A lot of conquest or colonies can change that, though. Go for least wanted political reform, so that your pops don't change to conservatives, as pops with their issues met always change to conservatives. After a one or two reforms, give them what they want the most though, cause they will start rebelling otherwise.

It is very hard to get all your pops to have 100% of their needs met. Sometimes they can't afford something, sometimes there just isn't enough of it on WM. Make sure they got their life needs met, and for the rest go for a decent percentage. 100% everywhere is unrealistic to expect.

Also, never ever lower your admin and education slider lower than 100%. Raise taxes, research rgo efficiency but never touch that slider.