Advice for a noob?

[Atlantians]

I want to get into Victoria II; what nations do you recommend for learning the main different mechanics?

 

[TiberiusfromSWG]

i learned to play using Sweden. you don't fight in a ton of big battles, but you can form Scandinavia, your not an industrial power, but you do have some or can build some industry. colonization is your friend. latter on i always play one of the major continental powers fra, prussia/germany, and russia.

there is a lot to learn. just about all countries have a YouTube walk throgh.

 

[austrianemporer]

i learned to play using Sweden. you don't fight in a ton of big battles, but you can form Scandinavia, your not an industrial power, but you do have some or can build some industry. colonization is your friend. latter on i always play one of the major continental powers fra, prussia/germany, and russia.

there is a lot to learn. just about all countries have a YouTube walk throgh.

I don't. Sweden is a hard nation to learn, they face enemies on all sides. Their too far away to colonize effectively. THey have trouble conquering because of their low population. They have a bad economy because of their low population. You can't afford to take hits. The United Kingdom is great if you already know how to micromanage. Otherwise try the Netherlands, France, and maybe Prussia.

 

[ADuarteGon]

I want to get into Victoria II; what nations do you recommend for learning the main different mechanics?

Watching let's play is the best way to learn and of course, playing the game and exploring.
On the first runs testing everything and screwing up will help you a lot. I would recommend a big nation like France to be messing around. Large population, easy targets near by, good income, can colonize and Will throw you into good wars to learn how to fight other great powers (Prussia/NGF/Germany and Great Britain).

 

[Kurder Jesus]

I want to get into Victoria II; what nations do you recommend for learning the main different mechanics?

Belgium was my first choice, and it is/was actually pretty good.

You will almost always be under protection of France or UK.
Netherlands will most likely become the 8th great power, meaning they will be unprotected, so you and your sphere-lord will gangbang them (which is fun).
If UK gets you under her sphere, you can also choose to invade Scandinavia.

(EDIT)

I totally forgot about Japan!

Japan is definetly the best nation to start as. It might have a rough start, but once you get westernized you will dominate all of East Asia.

When it gets boring mauling the Chinese or the different Indonesian countries, you can always start expanding into Hawaii and then the Americas.

Or conquer all of Siberia.

 

[RELee]

I learned the original Victoria using Brazil as my learning nation. Good times.

But it didn't work worth a diddly-dang-ding-dong with Victoria 2. For this game I used the USA.

1. I know its history better than other nations, go figure.
2. I didn't have to worry about long-distance colonization or the naval aspect of the game that much, other than having enough transports to pull off the Vera Cruz gambit on Mexico.
3. I immediately was forced to learn how to conduct combat, but against Mexico.
4. You have to learn how to use the Sphere mechanism to keep the UK out of Mexico. Plus you can concentrate on Mexico and ignore other nations because you really don't care, or shouldn't.
5. If you pay attention to your pops needs and the movements, you can keep the natives from growing restless.
6. Tons of immigrants.
7. Economic powerhouse, and you can concentrate on that aspect after the early expansion years.
8. You start out with 42% literacy.
9. If you do it right, right being a subjective term here , you can prevent the ACW completely and get on with ruling the world economically.

Drawbacks:

1. You don't start out as a monarchy, so you don't have any early control of factory building like some other nations.
2. If you handle events poorly, you may experience the ACW too early and get caught by surprise, but generally the ACW is a cakewalk as the US.

But that was just me. I mention the drawback because I've seen a lot of players hate the lack of factory control as the USA, but it doesn't bother me. Just let the capitalists build what they want is my motto. The only things that Democratic party prevents a player from doing is:

• Build new factories
• Remove bankrupt factories
• Investors can't open a foreign factory

So I really don't feel the loss. But for those that do, they seem to prefer Prussia and Russia. I do know that France is a really strong nation and good for learning colonization and preventing Prussia from forming Germany should be their main goal if they wish to become ascendant.

 

[austrianemporer]

Belgium was my first choice, and it is/was actually pretty good.

You will almost always be under protection of France or UK.
Netherlands will most likely become the 8th great power, meaning they will be unprotected, so you and your sphere-lord will gangbang them (which is fun).
If UK gets you under her sphere, you can also choose to invade Scandinavia.

(EDIT)

I totally forgot about Japan!

Japan is definetly the best nation to start as. It might have a rough start, but once you get westernized you will dominate all of East Asia.

When it gets boring mauling the Chinese or the different Indonesian countries, you can always start expanding into Hawaii and then the Americas.

Or conquer all of Siberia.

I learned the original Victoria using Brazil as my learning nation. Good times.

But it didn't work worth a diddly-dang-ding-dong with Victoria 2. For this game I used the USA.

1. I know its history better than other nations, go figure.
2. I didn't have to worry about long-distance colonization or the naval aspect of the game that much, other than having enough transports to pull off the Vera Cruz gambit on Mexico.
3. I immediately was forced to learn how to conduct combat, but against Mexico.
4. You have to learn how to use the Sphere mechanism to keep the UK out of Mexico. Plus you can concentrate on Mexico and ignore other nations because you really don't care, or shouldn't.
5. If you pay attention to your pops needs and the movements, you can keep the natives from growing restless.
6. Tons of immigrants.
7. Economic powerhouse, and you can concentrate on that aspect after the early expansion years.
8. You start out with 42% literacy.
9. If you do it right, right being a subjective term here , you can prevent the ACW completely and get on with ruling the world economically.

Drawbacks:

1. You don't start out as a monarchy, so you don't have any early control of factory building like some other nations.
2. If you handle events poorly, you may experience the ACW too early and get caught by surprise, but generally the ACW is a cakewalk as the US.

But that was just me. I mention the drawback because I've seen a lot of players hate the lack of factory control as the USA, but it doesn't bother me. Just let the capitalists build what they want is my motto. The only things that Democratic party prevents a player from doing is:

• Build new factories
• Remove bankrupt factories
• Investors can't open a foreign factory

So I really don't feel the loss. But for those that do, they seem to prefer Prussia and Russia. I do know that France is a really strong nation and good for learning colonization and preventing Prussia from forming Germany should be their main goal if they wish to become ascendant.

Yeah, Japan and the USA work too. Japan is slightly harder than the other nations but it should be doable for a first time player while the USA's only real drawback is early game weakness and event spam.

 

[RELee]

Ah, the event spam. Not everyone is so concerned with that. I do not play on a super fast speed before the ACW. I play rather leisurely, so the spam doesn't irritate me as much as others.

 

[Dr.Livingstone]

America was the first nation I learned to play as, Japan was my second, and Prussia my third. I'd recommend America first.

 

[Atlantians]

What about the economic system?

What countries are educational for learning how to manage the economy effectively?

 

[austrianemporer]

What about the economic system?

What countries are educational for learning how to manage the economy effectively?

You can play any country for that. Playing just one country won't help you.

 

[RELee]

You can play any country for that. Playing just one country won't help you.

Yeah. This is true. Play your cards right and the US is a good one after the ACW, but the US is large with a lot of states which can inflict a learning player with sensory overload.

We can give a few basic guidelines to help folks out though. Help me out here guys.

• Hold off on factories until literacy is about 40% so that clerks are more easily promoted. Clerks make factories more efficient that craftsmen alone.
• Until that time, research techs that give RGO bonuses.
• Use NF's to help promote priests for additional literacy and keep the educational budget slider as high as economically feasible.
• Administration helps with promotion also, so set it's budget slider as high as economically feasible as well, but be careful you don't get too many bureaucrats too quickly that eat up your profits.

That's an incomplete list, and they are only guidelines that can be broken, and usually are, when other priorities need to be taken care of. Countries that start with a high literacy like the US can ignore promoting priests when soldiers are needed for fulfilling their Manifest Destiny, for example.

You have to remember that the economy is a balancing game. Just because you can support 35 brigades and 50 ships does not mean it is economically prudent to build them all. Supply can eat away at your profits and before you know it you are running a deficit and wondering why, especially when you max out your military and research only military techs (which increase supply costs). So, you have to switch back to techs that increase profits to cover your increased supply costs such as those that increase RGO efficiency and factory output.

The best teacher is playing and making mistakes. If you pay attention to the mouse-over popups and read up on points in the manuals, the wiki, and these forums, you'll figure stuff out.

And then 3 years later after you have a lot of experience, you'll kick yourself when you are still making rookie mistakes. I know I do.

 

[serbianKING]

I'm currently playing Netherlands and I think they would be good for learning mechanics. Prussia maybe, but it could be too much in term's of diplomacy.

You have good finances
Option to chose do you want to wage war in Europe against Belgium and its allies or focus on colonies
Decant literacy
Colonies but not as much as UK so its easy to control

Try playing with different country's, whoever you play, you will learn.

 

[Stormbringer]

I learned the game with Chile and the Netherlands. Small countries so I was not overwhelmed and at the same time they are different enough to learn different things. But then again I did play Vicky1 so I kind of knew what I was doing. Still, I think the biggest challenge is not getting overwhelmed, so smaller may be better.

 

[SknerusMck]

Netherlands! I even crossed the infamy limit with them good lesson.

 

[austrianemporer]

Netherlands! I even crossed the infamy limit with them good lesson.

The first time I crossed the infamy limit was the last time I crossed the limit without having equal to all the other great power's military strength.

 

[Atlantians]

What mods do you all feel are the best improvements on the game?

 

[austrianemporer]

What mods do you all feel are the best improvements on the game?

Here is a list:
These are mods that improve the base game. HPM is the best of them, especially for realism. PDM changes the game the most, /gsg/ is the most fun of them (my opinion of course, you should try all of them). I didn't include NNM because NNM is included in /gsg/. I personally, find that Victoria II Realism and Rebalance Project is the most boring one so I don't play that. HPM is currently in development out of the major three.
/gsg/ mod:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/hh6wl8npewtm7g4/gsgVickymod 2.0a.7z
Hotfix for /gsg/:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/8f2jwg5aahy8whh/New VICKYMOD THE SOUTH WILL RISE FOR REAL.rar
PDM mod:
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/pod-3-06-final-download-thread.744962/
HPM mod:
http://www.moddb.com/mods/historical-project-mod
Victoria II Realism and Rebalance Project:
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...ealism-rebalance-project-2-01-out-now.495255/

These are mods that go into the future or into the past. Read the descriptions and you'll find out where. NWO is still a work in progress yet is the best of them all. The Modern Age Mod is also in development, competing with NWO, it is not as good but it came first. Kaiserreich needs more development but it has stopped developing. The Ultimate Mod is buggy and unfinished but it is a good mod that extends the game's timeline by a lot, from 1603- 9999 with many new scenarios. There is a second, less reliable Ultimate mod on ModDB but I have not included it because the other Ultimate mod is better and has the same content (Ultimate Mod used to be on ModDB with a team developing it, then one person decided to make people buy it and was shut down by Paradox. Everyone else went to that forum and continued developing it.) The Ultimate Mod is still extremely buggy and prone to CTD's. They have some alternate history scenarios.
NWO:
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/new-world-order-mod.823674/
Kaiserreich:
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/victoria-ii-kaiserreich-hod.757174/
Modern Age Mod:
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/modern-age-mod.807447/
Ultimate Mod:
http://ultimaterebooted.boards.net/

Alternate History:
These two are the best alternate history mods out there. Read the description at the link i will provide you to know what went differently.
Divergences of Darkness:
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/mod-divergences-of-darkness.870326/
Napoleon's Legacy:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/uqhakft5s8ou84b/Napoleon's Legacy v0.29.7z

I got /gsg/ and Napoleon's Legacy from Reddit so read about them on this link.
https://www.reddit.com/r/paradoxplaza/wiki/mods

 

[Atlantians]

These are mods that improve the base game. HPM is the best of them, especially for realism. PDM changes the game the most, /gsg/ is the most fun of them (my opinion of course, you should try all of them). I didn't include NNM because NNM is included in /gsg/. I personally, find that Victoria II Realism and Rebalance Project is the most boring one so I don't play that. HPM is currently in development out of the major three.

Which would you recommend between the first 4 as the most engaging improvement on the game?

 

[austrianemporer]

Which would you recommend between the first 4 as the most engaging improvement on the game?

PDM "improves" the game the most but it is also the most complicated. I would play /gsg/ or HPM first, if you are not satisfied, then you should transition to PDM.