How does one become a major power?

[the atom]

I've done a couple games as Canada and Persia and I think I'm getting the hang of this, but I'm finding that once you get to around 8-10th rank moving up is extremely difficult. Humiliating major powers or annexing pieces of their territory barely causes your prestige to budge, as does cutting them down to size.

The obvious thought is 'knock down the powers right in front of you' but that can be difficult when they're tied in with a nightmarish alliance network of super powers

 

[Kovax]

Military intervention against a GP is generally counter-productive (causing you a lot of dead workers and soldiers), unless you've got a C-B to give you something meaningful and a lot of allies to assist, and still doesn't give you much of a score increase. You're better off pursuing an economic or cultural advance, and gobbling up a couple of non-civs to provide the additional resources and manpower to boost you into the big leagues.

Generally, a long-term strategy of increasing Literacy, followed up by researching techs leading to higher educational impact, Plurality, and Prestige, will pay off down the road. If you can make it to #8 spot, then you can work on clawing out a Sphere of Influence to insure a steady supply of raw materials that you can actually buy, as well as to provide a market for your own goods.

After that, you'll want to prioritize the techs to get Machineguns and the chemistry advance (can't think of the name) by the early 1880s, to lower your minimum life rating so you can colonize. By that point, you'll want to have previously grabbed a colonial concession from some uncivilized nation along the coast of Africa or in the Far East, integrated it as a state, and built a port. That will allow you the range to colonize those areas when the big rush happens.

Then you just have to defend it.....

 

[the atom]

Military intervention against a GP is generally counter-productive (causing you a lot of dead workers and soldiers), unless you've got a C-B to give you something meaningful and a lot of allies to assist, and still doesn't give you much of a score increase. You're better off pursuing an economic or cultural advance, and gobbling up a couple of non-civs to provide the additional resources and manpower to boost you into the big leagues.

Generally, a long-term strategy of increasing Literacy, followed up by researching techs leading to higher educational impact, Plurality, and Prestige, will pay off down the road. If you can make it to #8 spot, then you can work on clawing out a Sphere of Influence to insure a steady supply of raw materials that you can actually buy, as well as to provide a market for your own goods.

After that, you'll want to prioritize the techs to get Machineguns and the chemistry advance (can't think of the name) by the early 1880s, to lower your minimum life rating so you can colonize. By that point, you'll want to have previously grabbed a colonial concession from some uncivilized nation along the coast of Africa or in the Far East, integrated it as a state, and built a port. That will allow you the range to colonize those areas when the big rush happens.

Then you just have to defend it.....

I've tried getting there through the economic/cultural route but like I said I always seem to hit a wall. By the time I reach that point all the non-civs seem to have been gobbled up or westernized, with most of the empty territory taken by the majors by the time I hit secondary power status. The weaker civs are almost invariably locked up in some alliance network that involves Britain or America by that point as well.

 

[luitzen]

Always take the culture techs as soon as possible. Update your army technology, increase your literacy and modernize your economy. Increase militancy and get health reforms as soong as possible, later also try to get education reforms. If you're in the Americas, try to get as many reforms as possible.

If you're still unable to become a great power, it means someone is higher on the list then you while this shouldn't be the case. Find a target that is higher than you and justify a CB to liberate an entire nation. Pick a large member nation and force your demands. Rinse and repeat. In my last Moldova/Romania game, Russia lost 20 population during a great war due to 2 Liberate Country CB's and an Acquire Sate CB by Germany.

 

[Kovax]

Playing a secondary power, there are a ton of uncivilized states that you can take land from, without getting the major powers involved. If your military rating is even remotely decent, most of the unciv allies of your unciv target will back down, so you're fighting only the one weak country. That gives you room to grow and build factories in, a few resources that you wouldn't have access to otherwise, and some extra population that you can convert into soldiers for your next expansion effort. Ideally, you want your Infamy rating to remain above zero and less than 10 (zero means you're wasting an opportunity, and above 10 increases Consciousness), which you can maintain fairly easily at 4 infamy per region or 8 to create a "protectorate" (annexation) of a small unciv.

 

[grimkm]

Build dreadnoughts. If you look at the scores, the gap can be in the 1k range between two spots. You could try to dismantle the countries above, liek balkanising Austria is always a guaranteed way to depose them from GP status.