Finally got the game...

[blue emu]

Victoria I baffled me. I hope to do better with Victoria II.

Does anyone have any advice? Starter countries for a noob? Is there a specific game-play AAR that I should read?

Specific question: What should I spend money on? I started a test game as UK, and I seem to be rolling in money... literally millions of bucks in the first few years. What should I do with it? Build stuff?

 

[Shinkuro Yukinari]

1. Vicky 2 is much easier to work with than Vicky. I have both and let me tell you, Vicky is absolutely horrendous interface-wise
2. Good beginner nations are Brazil, Belgium, Japan and perhaps Serbia if you want to take it slow.
3. UK is pretty tedious so I do not recommend it to newbies
4. Yes, especially railroads and factories. This is an economic game(also a unique title), not a military game. You can have a good game just by economy, unlike other titles

 

[Sadiregu]

Out of the ones mentioned above, the only one i would recommend to a beginner would be Japan, and not as a first game. They are an unciv, but the easiest one. The others take a bit of fiddling to get right. If you want a nice and easy game, pick USA. If you want a bit of everything, pick France. If you want a bit of a challenge, pick Austria. If you want everything ground to dust under the boots of your goose-stepping soldiers, pick Prussia.

 

[Aardvark Bellay]

Wait, Blue Emu hasn't played VIc II yet ??

That's clearly a case for Dr. @RELee , me thinks.

I'll just link this well known AAR by Kerch on LP archive http://lparchive.org/Victoria-II/.

Basically reading the manuals to undertstand what the UI options refer to and do suffices, but who reads manuals , right ?
I was actually irritated how helpful they were. From the strategy guide, the online_manual to the Hearts of Darkness update changes.

The only tricky part is the economy.

A post by Naselus on economy and two good and interesting threads:

Economics - How is it current state
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/economics-how-it´s-current-state.675185/page-6#post-15226185

Vic II and economic accuracy
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/victoria-ii-and-economic-accuracy.853211/

Let's say opinions differ, but i simply think it depends on each nation and circumstances.
When playing Giggly Britain Naselus' post is probably right, but i don't really have an opinion.

 

[Jorlaan]

Army composition:
Depends on the country you're playing. You want stacks that can work well together when grouped up, some people like stacks that can be split evenly in to 2 for easier occupation. Personally I go with 4-5 inf, 2 art, 1 eng, 2 dragoon or hussar or a mix. Hussar better for occupation dragoon for combat. I'll usually bring stacks to 10-11 units total for much of the game. I find this works quite well, each army is nicely rounded out and when grouped up they pack quite a wallop. I don't typically split because I don't like doubling up on the engineer. Late game I'll probably swap out the cavalry for planes and add a couple armoured.

Tech:
The very first tech you want unlocked is medicine. Population is KING in this game and medicine has 3 + pop growth modifiers you want ASAP! After that you really always want the + research point (RP) techs as soon as they are available; education techs are also highly important especially the 4th one as it unlocks Darwinism a +50% education bonus. If population is king, literacy is queen.
Engine techs will be very important early to help squeeze capital out of your nation, as well as banking techs for tax efficiency; at the start even at 100% tax it's really only like 28% due to low efficiency. As tax efficiency goes up and engine and other techs help get your RGO's (local goods production basically) producing more you can lower the overall tax rate.
Army organization tech is one of the most important combat techs, keep it up to date, also small arms especially machine guns and bolt action rifles.

Economy:
The most complex and frustrating part of the game. Early on you can largely ignore mass industrialization with most countries, a few factories is probably fine. Get those RGO techs early to get the whole country producing more of nearly everything. As mentioned tax efficiency is super important.
When it comes to factories, by 1860 or so you can really start working on them. Factory output techs are very much needed to get things running best, as well as input reduction. Input reduction will mean your factories will need less resources to produce, output helps with making more and throughput helps with overall efficiency.
Liquor tends to be a very profitable and stable industry, as does glass and to come extent wine. I usually have a liquor factory in most every state to keep some stable employment everywhere.

Railroads are also your friend, they increase both factory and RGO efficiency/output, help with army movement and increase the supply cap.

Armies and navies are very expensive to be wise about how large you grow them and when. At the very beginning most of those Man o' War's that so many countries start with, are kinda crap and VERY expensive. I usually disband most nations starting navies. I don't really worry about a navy until I have Steam Transports and Commerce Raiders + Ironclads. Keep spending for the army/navy low when not at war to save money, just remember this affects their ORG, so they'll need time to recover. If you're planning on declaring war raise the spending to full a couple weeks in advance.

Resources:
industrialization at it's most basic takes iron, coal and some sulfur. Many of the goods that RGO's produce will be needed in some factory, every factory will tell you what it needs to make what it makes. Having a factory in a state that produces the required inputs gives a very small bonus. Otherwise it is just good if what you need is produced in your nation. There are no supply routes in this game, blockading is more like "blockading", it gives warscore and hurts the local economy but does not actually stop the flow of goods. Goods in this game magically travel, seriously. From wherever they are to wherever they are needed, any country can sell/buy from any country
All goods produced go to a few different places. Supposedly your nation gets first grab at anything you produce, either RGO or factory. From there it goes to the world market. Every day the nation in the #1 spot gets first grab at the world market for their needs, then #2 and so on. If you're stuck in 30th place you may never see what you need if supply is short. Supply/demand can be seen on the trade page. Early game this is more of a problem, but with RGO and efficiency techs as the game goes on this gets better. Being in a sphere messes with the buy order a bit and some of your produced resources will go to the sphere master

The general rule in this game is that you really want to have as much of the raw resource production as possible under your own thumb, either directly owned or sphered. Having a nation as a puppet gives you no special access to resources.

Umm...I dunno ask questions I guess. This is my fave game I'll answer what I can. Especially for the Emu.

 

[RELee]

If you think I'm going to give Mr. @blue emu advice on game playing, you gotta another think coming.

He'll be teaching me stuff by next week.

But if I were to give advice, I would say forget UK and play the USA instead, and plan on restarting many times.
If you feel the need to start out smaller, well don't. Small countries played badly will wind up being swallowed up.

I can't go into any more detail on account of I'm at work.

 

[aimlessnerd]

Avoid America as a newb, its deceptive in that it is essentially gifted population, cores and industry by the game, and the only power on the hemisphere who can remotely challenge you is Britain (and sometimes Brazil), who has its attention divided across the entire globe, but it also as 30-40 years of forced dealing with slavery and then the issue that intercontinetal naval invasions are far easier in vicky than they were in real life in the 1800s, which takes away the one real strength america has in real life: getting to it is a bitch.

Thougv, being you, America might not be as bad as the people i usually ward from america 1sts.

 

[Nirmara]

Try as Belgium and play until 1860. By this point you should know enough about the game to play most nations. I would recommend switching to state capitalism and industrializing manually to get a decent understanding of the economy.

 

[TK-XD-M8]

In my opinion, he US is the easiest for a new player (as others have recommended). You're relatively isolated, most of the immigrants come to you, and you can industrialize quite nicely without having to do too much interference.

Try as Belgium and play until 1860. By this point you should know enough about the game to play most nations. I would recommend switching to state capitalism and industrializing manually to get a decent understanding of the economy.

Another good idea is to de-automate your acquisition of some RGOs in the trade tab so you can ensure that you have a pool of resources. Worked well when I was playing a tall Haiti game.

A decent starting factory to build is a cement factory. After that consumer goods are a good idea, to ensure there is a demand for your products. Although you shouldn't neglect stuff like steel or machine parts.

 

[Nirmara]

Belgium have pretty much every resources needed to industrialize early on (lots of coal, iron and some timber I think). Also, being in the sphere of Great-Britain grant him access to a large market and the resources needed to set up a textile industry. The large UK market make it more forgiving if he ever overproduce a good unlike the relatively small US population at the start. Of course, he might become a great power due to his industrial score forcing him to leave the UK sphere, but in that case, it is just a sign he is doing well.

Unlike the US, Belgium is fairly small so it's easy to manage the pops and their economy manually. Plus, Belgium starting literacy and population is ideal to industrialize right at the start. In comparison, the US industries take a bit longer to kick-off.

Finally, Belgium HM government grant the possibility to choose the ruling party and therefore the policies unlike more freedom than the US democracy. Without resorting to NF abuse, it's nearly impossible to get state capitalism as the US.

Therefore, he can make a few tries with Belgium without having to go in 1936 to get a good understanding of the economy. He will eventually hit a population "wall" that will cause his economy to stagnate, but by this point, he should have a decent understanding. Trying to optimize his economy to delay as much as possible the stagnation can be a decent challenge, in particular if he refrain from expanding.

 

[TK-XD-M8]

Belgium have pretty much every resources needed to industrialize early on (lots of coal, iron and some timber I think). Also, being in the sphere of Great-Britain grant him access to a large market and the resources needed to set up a textile industry. The large UK market make it more forgiving if he ever overproduce a good unlike the relatively small US population at the start. Of course, he might become a great power due to his industrial score forcing him to leave the UK sphere, but in that case, it is just a sign he is doing well.

While that is true, the factories in my games tend to run low on their stockpiles, so I tend to manually control the trade for RGOs I need, to ensure i have a supply.

Now I rarely play as Belgium, so my suggestion may not be the best one in that case. That doesn't necessarily mean that de-automating your stockpiles isn't a bad idea.