How to industrialize and access tech?

[Nussor]

I don't get it. If I don't play a country that doesn't industrialize or gain literacy on its own, I'm always left behind. Instead of having catch-up mechanisms and actual decisions the economy seems to fascilitate exponential growth and make it impossible to go anywhere with a second rate country. Liberal parties are an outright disaster and will crash the economy.

 

[Kovax]

Smaller countries with limited population and meager resources are inherently going to fall behind in this game. If you've got decent population or some valuable resources, you can usually leverage them to gain a few spots in national prestige and power. You're not going to take over the world as some uncivilized minor country with 2 regions, but you can certainly overtake several of your peers and neighbors in overall importance.

Liberal parties are a disaster unless you've laid the groundwork for them in advance. Some of the major powers already have most of the pieces in place; most of the world will take the better part of a century before it becomes viable for anything more than a quick reform or two before reverting to a more stable party.

 

[deanwebb]

If you want to play as a "civilized unciv", then the console is your friend. Use it to grant research to your unciv and in the course of a few years, you'll be civilized.

Of course, that does nothing for your population's underlying literacy or political leaning, as that's initially controlled in the province files, which are a real pain to edit and not cause game crashes.

 

[Matoro_TBS]

You can get high literacy with any country via encouraging clergymen through national focus. That should be always your primary goal.
You can kick-start industry by electing a ruling party that uses state capitalism (reactionaries or socialists) and just manually build basic factories. The biggest problem is rank, because low rank means you can't buy stuff easily, so if you don't own steel and coal, you're going to have very hard time with industry.

 

[fall back]

If you want to learn how to industrialise with limited resources may I suggest a game as chile the gold rush LF proofs the economy
you have South America levels of tech aka an early meaji japan has more than you
no real opponents unless you look for them
no gp will spear you early unless you look for it
You have ok resources iron with coal and sulphur in reach war profiteering is your friend here
Overall chile is a good game to learn how to play as a non GP that wants to be a GP

 

[Aardvark Bellay]

...
Overall chile is a good game to learn how to play as a non GP that wants to be a GP

Isn't Brazil sooner or later knocking on your door ?
I ask mostly, as i felt a sudden urge to try a Chile campaign, which i never did before.

 

[Thrake]

I don't get it. If I don't play a country that doesn't industrialize or gain literacy on its own, I'm always left behind. Instead of having catch-up mechanisms and actual decisions the economy seems to fascilitate exponential growth and make it impossible to go anywhere with a second rate country. Liberal parties are an outright disaster and will crash the economy.

If I have low literacy I simply prioritize economy to be able to afford bureaucrats and clergymen high wage and forego some tech trees: do I need navy research tree? Do I need prestige techs?... It's going to depend on which starts you're talking about of course, because some starts are less desperate than others. A fair deal would probably have a hard time doing anything relevant because it needs to climb up in rank when you have literaly nothing, like not the ability to access the materials to build a naval base,...

 

[Matoro_TBS]

If you're climbing upwards, I'd priorize the following:
1. Education and research techs. More tech means more tech.
2. RGO output techs. Better economy to get at least some savings for factories later.
3. Prestige techs, earlier the better. They might seem weak, but slow and steady climb up the rank ladder will eventually help your economy a great deal.
Always maxed out education slider, cut other stuff if you have to. Education slider is much more important than the bureaucracy slider. Always use national focus to promote clergymen, up to 4%. 2% gives you max research buff, but 4% gives max literacy gain.

 

[Kovax]

Normally, I initially have to use my NF point to boost Bureaucrats, in order to produce some positive cash flow. It doesn't matter how literate your pops are if your country is bankrupt. Once that's in the black, then I go for boosting Clerics to a MINIMUM of 2%, preferably closer to 4%. Be careful about overpaying your clerics, otherwise they start promoting out of that and into the upper class. You want them to get as much in the way of basic and life needs as possible, but not too many luxury goods.

As has been stated by others, the tech to improve research is important, as is the one to boost literacy gain through education. You may also need to research tax or administrative efficiency to keep the finances stable. Once I've got those under control and my pops gradually educating themselves into the 19th Century, hopefully before the beginning of the 20th Century, the next step is either military or prestige, because you can't neglect your army for too long without becoming a victim. You're not going to get necessary resources for your economy and pops without climbing the national rank ladder, and by far the fastest way to do that as an unciv is through Prestige. Navy depends on which country you play: if you're an island chain, you'll need at least some naval capability to defend your turf, but most countries can let that lapse for a while until they finish more important research. At low levels, basic small arms (firepower and defensive stats) and organization techs will benefit your army, but at higher levels, artillery becomes the dominant force. As an unciv, you may not get much benefit from artillery until late game, if at all.

I usually find it more reliably entertaining to play a borderline secondary power, or close to it. That's enough to arrange decent alliances, begin industrializing, and possibly step into the colonization race to grab a couple of pieces of land with badly needed resources. You're also within striking distance of becoming one of the lesser Great Powers if things go right. Playing as a smaller unciv too often leaves you at the mercy of events, and you can get annexed or chopped apart at a moment's notice with nothing that you can do to prevent it.

 

[Guedes]

If you want to succeed with a small/medium sized country which isnt a secondary at game start you should be looking to americas. The already mentioned Chile, Peru, ecuador are all good calls.

The thing about this countries is since they are in americas they can and will receive a crap ton of immigrants (if they are democracies, which most of them already are or become with some political reforms) and bottom line if you do everything correct late game 2 things will define your industry; access to resources and population (craftsman).

So, besides the tips already mentioned (raise clergy/literacy/research points, farm prestige through tech to raise your rank as early secondary or even gp and lay the base of industry with state capitalism before liberals get into power), you will have to do proxy wars to artificially raise militancy, so you can pass all political reforms at max 1860 and compete with usa/brazil for the hordes of immigrants that will make your industry boom late game.

Not less important is, once you feel ready, conquer a place in the sun at korea and/or sokoto to guarantee coal and iron for your industries (later rubber if you colonize the nigerian provinces near sokoto, which you should).

Another interesting playtrhough is Hawaii , it has a whooping high starting literacy so you dont need too much effort to raise your research points fast and you can be ahead of tech race by mid game even starting as an unciv. It also has an interesting position with easy access to colonize the pacific island and east indias, conquering korea for that juicy iron/coal and southeast Asia for the juicy rubber. Last, and most inportantly, it still counts as a north america state which is nuts and will grant you those hordes of immigrants!

Believe it or not a Hawaii pacific empire superpower by late game isnt that difficult for an experienced player.

 

[Denkt]

The fastest way to industalize is probably to reach 100% war exhaustion as that mean your RGO production come to an halt and poor peasants demote quickly to craftsmen with national focus, much more so that they promote and war exhaustion have no impact on your factories if Im not wrong other than the RGO part so if you can import raw material for your factories you may survive and be an industrial powerhouse very quickly.

The promotion path is slower but safer. Literacy is Always good if you don't plan to stay a conservative Agricultural monarch all way to 1936.

 

[Thrake]

The fastest way to industalize is probably to reach 100% war exhaustion as that mean your RGO production come to an halt and poor peasants demote quickly to craftsmen with national focus, much more so that they promote and war exhaustion have no impact on your factories if Im not wrong other than the RGO part so if you can import raw material for your factories you may survive and be an industrial powerhouse very quickly.

But would you survive the mandatory upcoming commie micro?

 

[grimkm]

If you want to succeed with a small/medium sized country which isnt a secondary at game start you should be looking to americas. The already mentioned Chile, Peru, ecuador are all good calls.

The thing about this countries is since they are in americas they can and will receive a crap ton of immigrants (if they are democracies, which most of them already are or become with some political reforms) and bottom line if you do everything correct late game 2 things will define your industry; access to resources and population (craftsman).

So, besides the tips already mentioned (raise clergy/literacy/research points, farm prestige through tech to raise your rank as early secondary or even gp and lay the base of industry with state capitalism before liberals get into power), you will have to do proxy wars to artificially raise militancy, so you can pass all political reforms at max 1860 and compete with usa/brazil for the hordes of immigrants that will make your industry boom late game.

Not less important is, once you feel ready, conquer a place in the sun at korea and/or sokoto to guarantee coal and iron for your industries (later rubber if you colonize the nigerian provinces near sokoto, which you should).

Another interesting playtrhough is Hawaii , it has a whooping high starting literacy so you dont need too much effort to raise your research points fast and you can be ahead of tech race by mid game even starting as an unciv. It also has an interesting position with easy access to colonize the pacific island and east indias, conquering korea for that juicy iron/coal and southeast Asia for the juicy rubber. Last, and most inportantly, it still counts as a north america state which is nuts and will grant you those hordes of immigrants!

Believe it or not a Hawaii pacific empire superpower by late game isnt that difficult for an experienced player.

Those SA countries are indeed fun and interesting to play. The major problem with booming industry in late game SA is of course the lack of coal.

I also find the reform issue isn't always what triggers the immigrant attraction. Most SA countries have more reforms then Brazil (which is a monarchy at the start), yet struggle to compete with Brazil for immigrants. From memory, claims have been made on these forums before that immigration is generally broken. I'd love to see it explained in detail, and then illustrated eith example play throughs..

 

[Guedes]

Those SA countries are indeed fun and interesting to play. The major problem with booming industry in late game SA is of course the lack of coal.

I also find the reform issue isn't always what triggers the immigrant attraction. Most SA countries have more reforms then Brazil (which is a monarchy at the start), yet struggle to compete with Brazil for immigrants. From memory, claims have been made on these forums before that immigration is generally broken. I'd love to see it explained in detail, and then illustrated eith example play throughs..

US and Brazil have a hidden bonus so they Will receive immigration no matter what. To other countries compete with them, they have to maximize the other factors asap, like reforms.

It can be said that a lot of things are broken in this game, but immigration is not one of them. The immigration works precisely as the factors describes in the game files and you can check them at the wikipedia too.