It seems like you can only take max one province every few decades without going over the infamy limit, yet still I see you guys posting your massive empires which leads me to ask: how do you do it?
How do you conquer alot of land?
- Thread starter HyperTwerp
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At a certain point you just can ignore infamy. Depending on your Allies this point may be earlier or later.
How do you get to that point?
But I thought that all your allies leave you after going any amount over 25 infamy, that is what has happened to me at least
Frankly it's been to long since I played the last time but besides your Allies you still have your sphere of influence (assuming you are a great power).
Puppets never revoke alliances. But going over 25 infamy will see even sphered nations drop military access and alliances.
There are events that grant cores, which can be conquered without infamy hits. Also, in the late game, there is the "dismantle empire" CB that will give a minimal infamy hit in order to strip a defeated nation of all its colonies. This enables map repainting on a vast scale after 1900 or so.
But I don't play V2 to conquer lots of land. I play it to *dominate* lots of land indirectly.
There are events that grant cores, which can be conquered without infamy hits. Also, in the late game, there is the "dismantle empire" CB that will give a minimal infamy hit in order to strip a defeated nation of all its colonies. This enables map repainting on a vast scale after 1900 or so.
But I don't play V2 to conquer lots of land. I play it to *dominate* lots of land indirectly.
Not sure if OP plays vanilla or modded version. "Dismantle empire" doesn't exist in vanilla.
But to OP, if you wait for a great war, infamy hits are drastically reduced to put forth claims on territories, as is the war score demand. But you really don't want to have a country with lots of angry non accepted pops.
Early on, you can manufacture CBs to grab land from uncivilized countries for under 5 Infamy (I usually have my attempts at justifying a war detected within a month - my last one was detected in 2 days, so 5 Infamy typically becomes 4.7 or 4.9, which you can still burn off in under 5 years). Later on, there will be crisis wars, and after some point those can become "Great Wars". In a Great War, the infamy cost for war goals is drastically reduced. Taking land from a civilized country at 11 Infamy (or 10.8 when your attempt to justify the war is inevitably detected) requires a full decade to remove at 0.1 Infamy per month, so you do need to take it slowly for the first half of the game. At substantially less than half the cost during a Great War, you can grab 2-3 regions in a single war without running into Infamy problems, if your pops' support for Jingoism is high enough to place those additional war goals.
Like any other game, once you've got additional resources (land, people, raw materials, money), it gets progressively easier to take more, and if you've already set yourself up in the early stages, you can take sizable chunks of land later. At some point, if you can blob enough, Infamy becomes less relevant.
Then you have countries which get their own events to gain land for little or no infamy. Prussia can unify the northern Germans into the North German Federation, and can do so by diplomatically sphering Saxony, Hannover, Holstein, and Denmark (or taking Schleswig-Holstein by force), as well as keeping all of its starting sphere members (which isn't that difficult), then form Germany after forcibly taking Alsace-Lorraine from France (potentially a lot harder, depending on alliances) and sphering Bavaria, Wurttemburg, and Baden. Sardinia-Piedmont can form Italy (a successful revolt by Garibaldi's Red Shirts in any Italian state will typically hand the whole peninsula to S-P without any effort by S-P). The UK gets a huge number of free CBs to take land in India for zero infamy. The USA gradually gets several CBs to take a huge amount of territory from Mexico. Other countries may get CBs for taking specific regions. Depending on your starting country, forming a huge empire may either be simple or extremely difficult.
What makes Victoria 2 different from your run-of-the-mill map painter game is that you need to pacify and integrate those conquered provinces over time, not simply treat them as just another happily cooperative part of your empire, which may or may not be possible over the course of the game.
Taking lands from civs is very costly indeed. If you want to mass grab you rush nationalism and imperialism which will let you annex up to 3 states unciv, which is the cheapest you can get it off. You can get lots of pops this way cherry picking populous uncivs. A bit more expensive is to take one state from unciv with multiple states, that's the best early CB.
If you don't mind puppets, then you can release a puppet for a net -5 infamy. Picking the right puppets will let you then target a civ with a free country CB and release a bunch of lands for minor total infamy gain (largely made up by the release action), while minimizing land loss for yourself (you lose 5 infamny no matter how many province are given back, for exemple the Ottomans can release Georgia with 1 single province). I tend to avoid direct land grabs against civs, at least until great wars.
So when I want to be expansionist (or as much as I could) I try to get jingoist party, nationalism tech (better CB and another justification speed bonus) and mostly aim for uncivs, early on one state CB later on full anexations. You need to rush for the tastiest uncivs because populous uncivs tend to civilize faster. I also like toying with the AI, for exemple allying and helping a 2 states unciv win their war for a 3rd state means I'll get more when I will want unlock nationalism, or I can let a nation lose core states, then puppet it and force release big chunks of lands for little infamy.
Lastly, infamy loss is 3 times faster at peace, so quick wars are best. That's another reason to target uncivs, easy gains, short wars with minimal loss and cost (don't need full army fundings).
If you don't mind puppets, then you can release a puppet for a net -5 infamy. Picking the right puppets will let you then target a civ with a free country CB and release a bunch of lands for minor total infamy gain (largely made up by the release action), while minimizing land loss for yourself (you lose 5 infamny no matter how many province are given back, for exemple the Ottomans can release Georgia with 1 single province). I tend to avoid direct land grabs against civs, at least until great wars.
So when I want to be expansionist (or as much as I could) I try to get jingoist party, nationalism tech (better CB and another justification speed bonus) and mostly aim for uncivs, early on one state CB later on full anexations. You need to rush for the tastiest uncivs because populous uncivs tend to civilize faster. I also like toying with the AI, for exemple allying and helping a 2 states unciv win their war for a 3rd state means I'll get more when I will want unlock nationalism, or I can let a nation lose core states, then puppet it and force release big chunks of lands for little infamy.
Lastly, infamy loss is 3 times faster at peace, so quick wars are best. That's another reason to target uncivs, easy gains, short wars with minimal loss and cost (don't need full army fundings).
The one thing I don't like about Victoria 2's infamy system is that it's "all or nothing". You don't get lower infamy costs for taking a border region, or spinning it off as an independent buffer state, in a war that they started, or if you have a significant portion of your culture in their provinces, as in EU3 for example. If you have a valid CB, it's free; if not, you pay full price. As said in the previous post, there are a few CBs with a lower cost or to grab multiple regions with a single war goal, but otherwise it takes a long time to burn off the infamy after a land acquisition.
Also problems with uniform infamy costs for states, regardless of their land area, number of provinces, population, or value of resources. War score cost does scale up/down based on size and population, but it's still the same infamy to demand North Dakota or Rhineland...
You can add war goals if you have jingoistic population. Especially Great Wars allow quite many war goals to be added. But then, V2 isn't blobbing game. Direct conquest is supposed to be restricted.
Map painting being not the absolutely optimal solution for evertything is one of the things i like most in Victoria.
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How do you map paint in Vicky2?
You don't.
...
That's the beauty of it.
...
No, seriously, if you want to play by the rules, and not have to deal with endless waves of rebellion in wrong-culture-uncored-land, it's indeed quite complicated at times, and you're better off focusing on unciv land for the most part, especially in the late game. But there does exist a point where you can safely ignore the infamy cap, and that's when - if I remember right - your military score is so much higher than any other that the AI won't dare attack you, even if it has all the right and desire to.
This mostly happens in Vanilla when you take over the all of China and/or India and start pumping those (thousands of) regiments like a mad man. Then your military score just skyrockets and you're now safe to screw over any country without giving a damn. But coincidentally, that's also (one of) the point where the game stops to make sense and be fun, in my opinion. So there's that.
You don't.
...
That's the beauty of it.
...
No, seriously, if you want to play by the rules, and not have to deal with endless waves of rebellion in wrong-culture-uncored-land, it's indeed quite complicated at times, and you're better off focusing on unciv land for the most part, especially in the late game. But there does exist a point where you can safely ignore the infamy cap, and that's when - if I remember right - your military score is so much higher than any other that the AI won't dare attack you, even if it has all the right and desire to.
This mostly happens in Vanilla when you take over the all of China and/or India and start pumping those (thousands of) regiments like a mad man. Then your military score just skyrockets and you're now safe to screw over any country without giving a damn. But coincidentally, that's also (one of) the point where the game stops to make sense and be fun, in my opinion. So there's that.
Agree. Once you get to where you can paint the map at will, it's no longer worth it. Much more fun to stay in your lane, work on making tidy, pretty borders, and casting aspersions on foreigners for not being as cultured as the elites of your nation.
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Another factor is, once you've got a bunch of pops of foreign cultures, you're a likely target for crisis wars, as those unhappy non-accepted members of your society being held only by force try to reassert their independence or link back up with other elements of their own culture. Until/unless you've got the military to take on most of the other GPs at once (but if you do, the crisis wars are opportunities, not threats), blobbing can lead to unexpected consequences.....and then there are the revolts.
I don't think it makes a lot of sense to fight over a bunch of unpopulated, ressource-poor waste as much as it does over rich populated regions. While arbitrary, I like to think that the current system models this - some places are just not worth fighting over.
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Seconded.
Meanwhile, in my playthrough, France started a Great War over Banat, trying to grant him indipendence from Serbia for whatever reasons because even if it managed to do it, she could have never been able to keep it in her sphere. Hilarity ensued, and France got wrecked into oblivion.
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