How to continue this Persia game? (1891, freshly recognised GP#7)

[Vajrajina]

Here's the save file so you can check it out yourself:

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I've just beaten Russia in a 1v1 fight by attacking a tiny nation they didn't want me to fight, I forced them to return all the territory south of the Caucasus and also forced them to recognise me. So far so good, but now I'm not sure how to continue. I have the following problems:

1. I have a severe pop shortage, even with all the migration I'm getting. Women's suffrage is still many years away to alleviate this problem. I'm simply running out of stuff to build and I've already downsized my construction sector. This means I also cannot spam as many universities as I would like for tech spread and the ones I have are not even that efficient, because I had to spread them out due to a severe qualification shortage for the longest time. I've just unlocked pumpjacks so I can start getting auto-irrigation, but that too won't last long (plus I have to up Engine production). Rail transport causes transport shortages anywhere I haven't already turned it on (I think?)

2. I don't and pretty much cannot have a navy. My pop shortage is the absolute worst in my coastal provinces, I could maybe squeeze out a fleet of around 30-40 ships if I tried really hard, but that's nothing compared to the other GPs and my navy tech is also sub-par.

3. No rubber (the only resource I lack) and without a navy it will be difficult to get.

4. I'm boxed in and any further expansion involves me fighting multiple Great or Major powers by myself. I want to attack the Ottomans next, but Russia will back them up, even during our Truce. I can 1v1 the Russians, but not while I have 300 Ottoman peasant battalions to deal with on top of that. Other directions are covered by Britain, France or both. Germany and Russia are allied and attacking Russia directly will bring the Reich to my doorstep.

I cannot grow much taller and while I'm very well set to go wider, it seems that I'm cut off. Further expansion of my already sizeable army of almost 300 professional battalions is also out of the question, I could barely afford it during the last war.

What would you do in this situation? How should I continue this game?

 

[Don_Quigleone]

I haven't loaded your save, so I'm just responding to what you've written. Generally speaking, I would have built up your universities in one specific province first, and built 20-50 for them for the economy of scale bonus on both the university and the paper mill to feed them.

In terms of population crunch, you can try to pass healthcare laws or level up existing healthcare laws. Another option is the grocery company, which actually gives a fairly significant population growth boost.

Finally, just conquer your neighbours. If you can beat Russia 1v1, you shouldn't have any problems fighting the rest.

As for your navy, I wouldn't worry about the fact you lack unemployed labour. Your navy buildings will outcompete any nearby buildings. if you continue to build in your coastal provinces pops should migrate there naturally.

A good tactic when you're out of pops is to use the autobuild functionality. Just set the buildings you want to expand on autobuild, and the game will automatically add it to the queue if they're fully employed and at full bank balance (IE profitable). I do this with most resource extraction buildings.

If you want better advice, I'd post some screenshots.

 

[Gundabadguy]

For your rubber problem just colonise in Africa since there are many states, particularly in the Congo, with lots of rubber and people to work it and with no migration controls they might even help your pop shortage in the mainland as well. You dont need a navy to colonise decentralised nations or even to defend your colonies against native uprisings.

 

[Vajrajina]

For your rubber problem just colonise in Africa since there are many states, particularly in the Congo, with lots of rubber and people to work it and with no migration controls they might even help your pop shortage in the mainland as well. You dont need a navy to colonise decentralised nations or even to defend your colonies against native uprisings.

Congo is all taken, the whole African coastline belongs to someone already. Could try to declare on natives, but GPs won't let me without a (naval) fight.

 

[Vajrajina]

I haven't loaded your save, so I'm just responding to what you've written. Generally speaking, I would have built up your universities in one specific province first, and built 20-50 for them for the economy of scale bonus on both the university and the paper mill to feed them.

In terms of population crunch, you can try to pass healthcare laws or level up existing healthcare laws. Another option is the grocery company, which actually gives a fairly significant population growth boost.

Finally, just conquer your neighbours. If you can beat Russia 1v1, you shouldn't have any problems fighting the rest.

As for your navy, I wouldn't worry about the fact you lack unemployed labour. Your navy buildings will outcompete any nearby buildings. if you continue to build in your coastal provinces pops should migrate there naturally.

A good tactic when you're out of pops is to use the autobuild functionality. Just set the buildings you want to expand on autobuild, and the game will automatically add it to the queue if they're fully employed and at full bank balance (IE profitable). I do this with most resource extraction buildings.

If you want better advice, I'd post some screenshots.

I am aware of the economy of scale, but money wasn't a problem, my problem was qualifications and 1 uni per province weren't doing it. I had a ton of buildings empty because no aristocrats/capitalists.

 

[Don_Quigleone]

I am aware of the economy of scale, but money wasn't a problem, my problem was qualifications and 1 uni per province weren't doing it. I had a ton of buildings empty because no aristocrats/capitalists.

In a situation like that, the best thing I find is to spread out your construction, and use the auto-expand function. Specifically, I would build 1 level of every resource building (mines and lumberyards) and then place them on auto-expand. The Auto-expand function should be able to fill the vast majority of your construction queue and create a base of affluent pops for later development to draw from. Avoid building multiple building levels at once, and just use auto-expand, in that way you'll only initiate constructions where there is potential for people to be hired into it.

Finally, for the states where you're concentrating a lot of construction (EG Tabriz) you can use the qualification/education access edict.

In this way you can avoid building so many universities everywhere.

Finally, money is an issue, as the cash being used inefficiently to supply so many universities in unoptimal locations could be used for other things.

Another tip: Persia has massive access to Opium, and it's not difficult to get a border with Qing. You should be able to set up trade routes with Qing at a massive profit, though if you're not careful it could make your landowners very powerful! Opium does not require much in the way of qualifications to staff, and is an easy export industry to build up.

 

[hamburgertrain]

If you want to keep your own market you'll need to take over some rubber bearing lands in Africa or Asia.


My expansion suggestions are these. If you do think you can take Russia in a 1vs 1 then do so. Break them up release Ukraine or some central asian states. Better yet, take central Asian lands and the area in the Caucasus. If you can maybe even try for a black sea port.

Once you've significantly broken them then build up your navy. Go for wherever you can snipe. Someone somewhere will have a revolution eventually but you need the navy to get the interests and even know what's going on. There should still be plenty time to take parts of Indonesia or Vietnam or zanzibar etc.

As said earlier make sure your universities are pumping out the innovation so you sont fall further behind, the earlier you want to more than max your limit for that sweet tech spread