Have i become capable at victoria 2?

[Roparex]

My boys i have 60 hours in vic 2 and so far even if it's a little flawed it's my favourite paradox game (i have over 1000 hours in eu4, 300 in eu3 and 80 in ck2).
I wanted to know if the first game i finished shows that i learned how to play vic2 capably (Germany out of austria).
I must note that one annoying thing is the fact that even small countries can be great powers, since of course bavaria and the commonwealth can become great powers before i can form germany...
I was an absolute monarchy until about 1920.
Didnt do scramble for africa at all, because i was still trying to put germany in my sphere, and i didnt have range.

Question: are there other liberal parties that are jingoists(in other countries)? These are the most fun parties to have

 

[Flobalob]

Starting as Prussia or Austria you should be getting a sizeable chunk of Africa in all honesty, but clearly you've shown you're at least capable. Some nice literacy and RP, but judging by your army list I'm guessing you don't have a consistent stack composition? Exceeding your naval supply is also a bad idea and for a late game Ubergermany you could easily be topping 1000+ brigades.

Is that income excess with 100% spending and low taxes? Because if not then I would suggest you move towards that since 7k/day with 70M sitting in the bank is just a lot of unused money. You could at least spend it on buildings. This is all trivial stuff really, clearly by the fact that you formed Germany in the first place and expanded through Europe shows you're capable.

Yes, there are lots of liberal jingoist parties.. But I wouldn't choose parties solely on their military policy.

Can I ask wtf happened to Morocco, and whether Heavenly Kingdom just came about or has actually survived the Chinese onslaught?

 

[Roparex]

Actually, thats fascist china. China just lost to fascist rebels. I don't have a good stack composition at all (its mostly random, i just tried do have as much artilery as infantry). My taxation is at 50% with full spending. I actually almost never build forts, but my naval bases are maxed.
I know i shouldn't choose parties based on military policy, but liberal parties almost guarantee laises-faire, and good citizenship/religious/trading laws. My main problem with them is being anti-military most of the time.
A big problem i had in the late game with laisses faire is the lack of airplane/tank production (i only have 3-4 low level factories for both, and i produce 100% of the world's tanks and 60% of airplanes).

Question for future playthroughs: If i have negative tariffs, will my industry explode even more? (if i can afford it)
Now that i look at it, heavenly kingdom still exists (that small blue in the middle of china)

Morocco was counquered by the USA surprisingly.

 

[Flobalob]

Quick army composition summary: Armies should be 50:50 front/back-line troops. Front-line troops are infantry/guards and tanks. Back-line troops are artillery and airplanes. Guards are NOT better than infantry overall, they have better attack but a worse defence. Thus you should pick one or the other for an army depending on what you intend to do with it. Tanks replace both infantry and guards by the end-game, and airplanes replace artillery once you have all aviation techs. Keep 2-4 flank units (dragoons/hussars) in armies. Dragoons and hussars will interchange a lot in terms of strength depending on your techs. A few engineers are useful early on to counter forts but tanks also have a side-bonus in that they do an engineer's job better than them, so you wont need an engineer role once you have tanks. Siege stats (engineers/tanks) counter forts, recon stats (flank units/airplanes) occupy provinces quicker.

Looks like Heavenly Kingdom formed as China as being overcome by fascists, so it didn't get annexed. Count yourself lucky, you might never see an end-game Heavenly Kingdom again in your life.

Laissez-faire ironically requires a lot of micro-management, since you have to plan ahead to change parties and build factories yourself because the capitalist AI is programmed to build according to:
"Is there booze?" "No: WE NEED BOOZE" "Yes: WE NEED MORE BOOZE"
And thus you will only have BOOZE BOOZE AND MORE BOOZE ENDLESS BOOZE. That or clippers.

A lot of people - myself included - steer clear of Laissez-faire because of this. In theory it's great since your economy basically runs itself, but in reality there's very few games where it will work effectively. Also, tariffs and subsidies just don't exist with laissez-faire. That's why despite your -25% tariff you're not spending anything on it. (Negative tariffs are good for your economy if you can afford them; your POPs don't have to spend money so they are richer). It's also why your "bankrupt factory" indicator is lit up, because they run themselves into the ground and you're not there to help them. Personally I prefer parties where the capitalists do all the work but I can step in if necessary, which tends to be conservative/reactionary. Then I subsidize everything.

Lastly, you don't want to be taxing your rich strata much, nor your middle if you can help it, because these are positions you want to look appealing to the lowers so that they'll promote and you can have more efficient shiny factories.

Protip: Ctrl+click to build forts state-wide. You should always have max forts on your borders if possible, but with 70M sitting pretty you may as well just build them everywhere.

 

[Roparex]

Thanks for the tips, i lately used laissez-faire because, from my own experience, i always build factories till i run them myself to the ground, and get to 2000-3000 in industrial subsidies(growing a factory untill there is no more demand for the good). That's why i gave up and let them do as i please, but that clearly doesn't work when you need a military industry up and running. (a good case of this is machine parts: used only when making factories, the moment the world isn't building many factories you go bankrupt, but then suddenly when you want to increase your industry nobody sells machine parts).
A problem i have with closing factories is the fact that their level resets to 1, and increasing in to -say- 10 takes decades.

 

[DesNibelungen]

I wish there was a "please don't let this factory close" button, where it wasn't necessarily subsidized all the time, but you could step in before it went bankrupt and re-set to level 1. That way your level 10 factory doesn't evaporate just because of a temporary economic hiccup. Maybe some kind of "maintenance level" subsidy that allows a factory to slow down without closing completely. Ah well, Vicky 3!

 

[Flobalob]

Thanks for the tips, i lately used laissez-faire because, from my own experience, i always build factories till i run them myself to the ground, and get to 2000-3000 in industrial subsidies(growing a factory untill there is no more demand for the good). That's why i gave up and let them do as i please, but that clearly doesn't work when you need a military industry up and running. (a good case of this is machine parts: used only when making factories, the moment the world isn't building many factories you go bankrupt, but then suddenly when you want to increase your industry nobody sells machine parts).
A problem i have with closing factories is the fact that their level resets to 1, and increasing in to -say- 10 takes decades.

You should build factories largely according to what is produced in that province. Producing dye? Build a fabric factory, then a clothes one, then a luxury clothes one. This way, you ensure that you always have the inputs, and you get a little throughput bonus too.

If you subsidize everything you'll need to go to your factory screen every 6 months or so and check for factories that are losing a lot of money (you can also see which are costing the most by hovering over the subsidies spending in the budget screen), then close the worst offenders so that you don't drain all your money into subsidies.