Just bought the game on sale, tips for a beginner?

[hkrommel]

As the thread title says, I just bought this game and so I'd like some tips. All advice is welcome but I'd especially like to get answers to the following questions:

1. From what I gather there is an optimal percentage of different kinds of pops. What are these percentages and how do I attain them?

2. How do I expand intelligently?

3. What are the best mods for this game?

4. What are some good nations to start as to learn the game?

 

[Shinkuro Yukinari]

1. It depends. First and foremost, clergymen. If your literacy is below 30% then have 4% clergymen. Otherwise 2%. 1% bureaucrats. The rest depends on the situation.
2. It depends on the country, but mainly you wanna aim for uncivilized nations, especially once the scramble for Africa begins
3./gsg/Vickymod, Ultimate, HPM, DoD, any many more
4.Prussia, USA, Japan

 

[TrueCroatian]

Did you get DLCs? If not, buy them.

 

[DesNibelungen]

Get the two expansions, and then read this: http://lparchive.org/Victoria-II/

 

[grimkm]

Expansion is generally about three things. Territory (nice borders of course), manpower (canon fodder) and Resources. Depending on what country you are playing, this also influences decisions. Small countries need more manpower, larger countries need more coal, Prussia needs bigger borders!!

 

[nkibilko]

Definitely gonna keep my eye on this thread, since i am in the boat with the OP. I've had the base game a long time, but just got the DLC's.

So far all i really know how to do is manipulate the budget sliders to keep my income positive.. oh, and i know how to research tech

 

[thedarkendstar]

There are basically 3 diffrent kind of Nations at the Start of the game 1 Nations without enough People Sweden USA Serbia. etc

2 nations who need more resources almost every one falls into this.

2 Great Britain no seriously you have the massive India population coupled with Resources from several continents.

The unique nation though is the USA it starts with 4 million people which is pretty good why does it belong in group one because most of the land it owns does not have that many people and that has some really good RGO's but not enough people to mine and produce it which makes it also not have enough resources but it has one unqie thing that makes the USA constantly get stronger faster than any nation IMMIGRATION.

It takes other nations years upon years to double there population but not the USA early game your population will remain low but come mid 1850's and after 1860's You will get immigration in the thousands You will get more immigrants than your national pop growth especially once china civilizes

Another one is Prussia.Prussia is weird despite have a smaller POP than the US it feels like it has more than Austria because it has a high literacy very centralized and good pop percentages they start of with 50 soldier brigades the USA only has enough soldier pops for 14 brigades

Making Prussia great requires violence even more Violence if you want to keep historical German borders.Germany united is very very very powerful with the Ruhr bomb and tech school change you will out populate France out tech it and will have more factories the only problem is alsace lorraine even if you take it France will never forget about it here were campaigns were I faught them at least once every decade because them and Russia attacked me millions died over this land he only way to make them stop is to have a military so large they don't challenge you or you need to dismantle France by taking there lands or Russias.

The reason I mention these two nations is they are the best at what they do the USA only has basically 2 nations it has to Fight all game Mexico and the Confederates they are the peaceful superpower at the end of the game unless you want to Remove British Canada once and for all.They grow passively from the most part because of immigrants as other nations get high pops more people immigrate to the US it has one of the fastest pop growths in the game with almost every resorce you need inside of the country you only need the pops to use them.

Prussia is different it is the Military violent superpower who has to fight to gain and maintain your status you could stop at Germany but still have duke out the European wars or you could integrate Austria become the true Central European Superpower.

They both can become superpowers but the methods differ through conquest and Glory or by patience and Growth. Thats why I recommend them Prussia is the harder start tho fighting France and Russia can be difficult the first time around.

TLTR: Prussia for Military game. USA for a peaceful Industrial growth based game.

 

[hkrommel]

Yeah I should have specified that I have all the DLC as well.

These are all good suggestions and tips. Is there anything in particular you guys wish you knew as a beginner that didn't become apparent until later? Some mechanic where it's important but not apparent how it works?

 

[AledlePieux]

The importance of army management and general management.
Your "generals" are randomly generated and their skills can vary greatly... including some terrible negative ones.
At the beginning, this can mean failure against any worthy opponent.
The manpower does not grow back as easily as in EU4.

I see you have EU4, so if you apply the same concept as England vs. France for the 100y war in the earlier patches (defend in the mountain with defensive generals), you will slaughter the enemy and prevail both in the first war, but also in the long run as you can really derail their soldiers pops and then push them into civil war and permanent revolutions if you raise their war exhaustion really high. If you have "attack" leaders, just drag the enemy into a plain and attack...

If you do not feel "comfortable" with one of your big neighbors (like Prussia vs. Austria or France, Spain vs. France), try to go all the way in occupation and invasion until their country is really broken (full occupation for at least a year to make them loose international status + some large nation liberation in the peace to shatter their pops and size). It will take them decades to recover and it will ease your development as a beginner.
Beware of "attrition" (especially when sieging), of "infamy" (if you go above 25 everyone will declare on you), of "budget" (your money pot, with the risk of bankruptcy destroying your international status and plunging you low in the ranks... which means no access to foreign resources as imports are based on ranking for countries outside your sphere of influence) and of the UK (or any other large GP that could suddenly become "friendly" with a country you are fighting and then enter the fray)

Keep us posted about your difficulties!

 

[TrueCroatian]

USA is super boring to play. Take Prussia or Japan.

 

[Onirim]

1. From what I gather there is an optimal percentage of different kinds of pops. What are these percentages and how do I attain them?

2. How do I expand intelligently?

3. What are the best mods for this game?

4. What are some good nations to start as to learn the game?

1. ...

2. You don't have to expand if you don't want to

3. Historical Project Mod

4. Belgium, Two Sicilies

 

[Kovax]

Your economy is divided between Resource Gathering Operations (RGOs) such as farms and mines, and factories. At first, RGOs will be your primary sources of income, but factories will quickly become dominant if you can develop the technologies to make them competitive. Setting your 3 tax sliders for the different "classes", and individual expense sliders for educational, administrative, and military spending are an art form, where you want to encourage promotion to some groups and demotion to soldiers in others, based on how well they can afford to meet their needs. This will heavily depend on which country you play. Paying a group TOO well will result in people promoting out of it into higher classes, and having too many fat aristocrats will ultimately waste a lot of money for little return.

Most countries need to play a balancing act, where you have farmers and laborers being driven out of work by more efficient farming and mining technology, and either going into military or industrial occupations. I normally start out the game with at least one or two factories in locations where I have at least one of the needed resources, which draws an industrial labor force from your displaced RGOs. Too much industry and there aren't enough soldiers to defend the country.

If you're one of the 8 Great Powers, then the game opens up a whole new side, using Diplomacy to create a Sphere of Influence, where you get first pick of goods produced in your Sphere before they hit the World Market, and your own products get marketed first to your Sphered partners. One can corner the market on particular goods, all but depriving them to the rest of the world outside your Sphere of Influence. It's often more practical and easy to sphere a country with resources you want, rather than take the heavy Reputation hit for invading them.

Note that even war-centered Prussia can form the North German Federation with only one small and easy war against Denmark to release Holstein (which you can do almost from day one, before they find a lot of allies), and if you also forcibly take Schleswig-Holstein from them in the same war, the only other war you need to form Germany is to get Alsace-Lorraine from France (not a trivial task, however). Most of the game is about diplomacy and industrial development, and decades may go by without a single major war, other than minor land grabs for distant colonies.

 

[Bernard95]

Like any Paradox game, Youtube is your best friend for learning the game. Unlike something like CK2 though, Vicky 2 didn't change all that much through its life cycle and only had two main DLCs so videos dating back years are still relevant.

1) Clergy controls your literacy which in turn influences your research speed. Get at least 2%, then shoot for 4% to get the maximum benefit. Likewise, Soldiers directly influence the number of brigades you're allowed to field and then Craftsmen and Clerks influence factory production. Soldiers I don't believe have a set ratio, but there is a ideal certain ratio you could probably find on the wiki for craftsmen to clerks.

2) Each time you go to justify a war, it will cost you a varying amount of infamy and once you hit 25 infamy points, the world has license to declare war on you. The best way to use your infamy is to pick up the most valuable territories you can get your hands on. The most valued resources in this game are population, industry, industrial resources (coal, iron, rubber, oil, etc.), and then positions for colonization (which in turn can get you more population and resources).

3) Never played with mods myself, but I used to always hear good things about POPDemand, Ultimate, Modern Day, and I think Kaiserreich. Be wary though if you plan on using the 3.04 beta patch, since most of the mod makers are long gone as far as I know and haven't updated their mods to be compliant with it.

4) United States, Netherlands, Brazil, Belgium (a perfect tutorial for managing industry), Sardinia-Piedmonte, and to a lesser extent Sweden are all decent starts for a beginner. They all pretty much have their drawbacks though- off the top of my head the Netherlands has some scattered possessions to keep track of with the possibility of invoking the wrath of the Germans, Brazil has terrible literacy and missing resources like coal and iron, Belgium is at risk from getting eaten by the Dutch if the Brits don't come to your rescue, and the Swedes are at high risk for war with the Russians.

 

[thedarkendstar]

USA is probobly the best tutorial nation to Become strong with you have a couple wars which while arent too difficult will help you learn the mechanics no one on the continent is strong enough to really take you on so you can get strong at your leisure if you war to go to war its your decision on ones elses because of this because of immigration its probably the easiest beginner nation to get to number 1 gp by the end of the game.

 

[hkrommel]

So forgive me if this is a stupid question, but what do you do in this game? I played a quick test game as Belgium where I got crushed by the Russians. Now I am playing my current game as the US where I got to 1860, won the Civil War, got every nation in both north and south America into my sphere (minus Mexico, which I'm trying to annex bit by bit but for some reason the UK seems intent on protecting them), and now I've influenced Hawaii, Japan, and Korea into my sphere. I understand that things are mostly economic in this game but with the US economy basically on autopilot I'm just switching around national focuses to get more clerks and soldiers, occasionally checking the diplomatic screen, repaying my debts from my wars, and researching tech. Is there something else I should be doing?

 

[thedarkendstar]

So forgive me if this is a stupid question, but what do you do in this game? I played a quick test game as Belgium where I got crushed by the Russians. Now I am playing my current game as the US where I got to 1860, won the Civil War, got every nation in both north and south America into my sphere (minus Mexico, which I'm trying to annex bit by bit but for some reason the UK seems intent on protecting them), and now I've influenced Hawaii, Japan, and Korea into my sphere. I understand that things are mostly economic in this game but with the US economy basically on autopilot I'm just switching around national focuses to get more clerks and soldiers, occasionally checking the diplomatic screen, repaying my debts from my wars, and researching tech. Is there something else I should be doing?

Yes see what resources your nation is lacking and look across the world and seize them you want the world under your economic influence for instance If you seize shanxi from China which means you will have a enclave in China (disgusting I know) you will produce more coal then you will know what to do with because its high pop province combine with modern mining tech.

 

[VienLa]

Judging by the dates you shown, the Scramble for Africa is about to begin. Don't sleep through it!

 

[hkrommel]

Judging by the dates you shown, the Scramble for Africa is about to begin. Don't sleep through it!

Is it a viable strategy for me to let Africa distract the other GPs while I carve out an empire in Asia? I've given up on trying to take Mexico because the UK seems to think it's part of Scotland or something judging by the number of soldiers they send to defend it.

 

[Savolainen5]

Likewise, Soldiers directly influence the number of brigades you're allowed to field and then Craftsmen and Clerks influence factory production. Soldiers I don't believe have a set ratio, but there is a ideal certain ratio you could probably find on the wiki for craftsmen to clerks.

For soldiers, something like 3-5% is recommended pretty often.

 

[thedarkendstar]

Is it a viable strategy for me to let Africa distract the other GPs while I carve out an empire in Asia? I've given up on trying to take Mexico because the UK seems to think it's part of Scotland or something judging by the number of soldiers they send to defend it.

I know why they are trying to sphere Mexico if they are of friendly disposition they can join the war as long as the only wargoal mexico has is status quo the way to stop them is influence mexico enough where you are friendly then decrease opinion of the Brits until its neutral or less.

As for an Asian empire Manchuria and Shanxi parts of China will give you good resources as will korea.