Sweden is one of the easier european nations to play. They have a rather easy early game and limited potential towards the later game.
Their isolated position means that they are rarely the target of AI attacks. You should rarely run into continued AI aggression, but it is in general advisable to be wary about a potential attack from Russia (they might receive a random CB via events from time to time). Do not neglect your Army tech too much and make some nice alliances with other majors. Germany can be a great ally against Russia if you do not want to fight of Schleswig-Holstein.
The country has the highest base literacy in the world in 1836, so it is a natural tech powerhouse. The high literacy also has the advantage of allowing the natural promotion of craftsmen to clerks, which make factories more efficient, giving their industry a small edge over the competition. Due to their limited amount of population/potential workforce, it is important to focus on both Industry techs (for RGO and factory throughput) and Commerce techs (to allow other factories to outcompete their rivals). Culture techs can be useful to receive early prestige to climb up the GP ranks and get better access to goods on the world market to fuel their industry.
RGO good wise, Sweden has mostly timber, fish and grain, plus a few iron provinces. They lack coal, which makes early game industrialization a bit more difficult. Good production chains for sweden are:
(1) Lumber -> Furniture -> Luxury Furniture
(2) Lumber -> Paper
(3) Steel -> Clippers and/or Steamers and/or Machine Parts
(4) Glass -> Liquor
Despite their lack of coal it is a good idea to get at least one cement factory early on. Canned food can also be a good idea, especially if you manage to annex/integrate Denmark's provinces.
Your very first step in regards of your budged should be to reduce your fleet upkepp to minimum (or disband the fleet alltogether). Like most countries, focus to get your admin_efficiency to 100%, then start promoting clergymen up to 2% (no need to go higher since your literacy is already great). After that you should focus to promote a few capitalists in every state, so that they can gather money from the factories and help you out by starting their own building projects. Afterwards start promoting craftsmen and clerks. Craftsmen will increase your factory throughput, thus increasing your industry score, while clerks will increase your output, making your factories more efficent (more goods from the same amount of rare materials). They also provide some extra reserach points, which can become quite handy as the game progresses.
If you can manage to become a GP you should focus your influence on other countries that can provide you with RGO goods for your industry. You should also set yourself up for colonizing Africa, which will give you a lot of extra pops for RGO production and soldier duty. Danish Ghana or a conquered part of Sokoto make for great colonial starting areas.
The biggest problem for Sweden is its rather small population size. They have a significant tech and literacy advantage during the early game (the latter will mean more natural pop promotion, thus more craftsmen, clerks and capis early on), but as other nations increase their literacy and tech levels, Sweden will usually be surpassed in terms of IND score. However, this isn't all that bad, since your industry should always be very competetive thanks to techs and your clerk %. And you can easily compensate for the lower IND score by grabbing prestige from culture and colonization. Another way is to boost your MIL score by spamming Dreadnoughts later on - this is very costly, but as long as your budged is balanced (which should be quite easy once you have 100% admin_efficiency), all is well.
If you want some military action, you can use your tech advantage to bully african nations. Russia can also be a potential target (especially if they fail and start suffering from rebellions). Beware, though, even when out-teched their mobilisation size is immense (94 regiments in 1836 at low tech!), so you better bring lots of top-notch military units to the fight. Prussia/NGF/Germany can also be a good target if you can get FRA, RUS or AUS to ally with you, but if you should ever take some of their cores, make sure to dismantle them quickly - even the NGF can be a quite powerful enemy. And they will be ready to fight you for the rest of the game, which can be quite fatal once Great Wars are unlocked...
Their isolated position means that they are rarely the target of AI attacks. You should rarely run into continued AI aggression, but it is in general advisable to be wary about a potential attack from Russia (they might receive a random CB via events from time to time). Do not neglect your Army tech too much and make some nice alliances with other majors. Germany can be a great ally against Russia if you do not want to fight of Schleswig-Holstein.
The country has the highest base literacy in the world in 1836, so it is a natural tech powerhouse. The high literacy also has the advantage of allowing the natural promotion of craftsmen to clerks, which make factories more efficient, giving their industry a small edge over the competition. Due to their limited amount of population/potential workforce, it is important to focus on both Industry techs (for RGO and factory throughput) and Commerce techs (to allow other factories to outcompete their rivals). Culture techs can be useful to receive early prestige to climb up the GP ranks and get better access to goods on the world market to fuel their industry.
RGO good wise, Sweden has mostly timber, fish and grain, plus a few iron provinces. They lack coal, which makes early game industrialization a bit more difficult. Good production chains for sweden are:
(1) Lumber -> Furniture -> Luxury Furniture
(2) Lumber -> Paper
(3) Steel -> Clippers and/or Steamers and/or Machine Parts
(4) Glass -> Liquor
Despite their lack of coal it is a good idea to get at least one cement factory early on. Canned food can also be a good idea, especially if you manage to annex/integrate Denmark's provinces.
Your very first step in regards of your budged should be to reduce your fleet upkepp to minimum (or disband the fleet alltogether). Like most countries, focus to get your admin_efficiency to 100%, then start promoting clergymen up to 2% (no need to go higher since your literacy is already great). After that you should focus to promote a few capitalists in every state, so that they can gather money from the factories and help you out by starting their own building projects. Afterwards start promoting craftsmen and clerks. Craftsmen will increase your factory throughput, thus increasing your industry score, while clerks will increase your output, making your factories more efficent (more goods from the same amount of rare materials). They also provide some extra reserach points, which can become quite handy as the game progresses.
If you can manage to become a GP you should focus your influence on other countries that can provide you with RGO goods for your industry. You should also set yourself up for colonizing Africa, which will give you a lot of extra pops for RGO production and soldier duty. Danish Ghana or a conquered part of Sokoto make for great colonial starting areas.
The biggest problem for Sweden is its rather small population size. They have a significant tech and literacy advantage during the early game (the latter will mean more natural pop promotion, thus more craftsmen, clerks and capis early on), but as other nations increase their literacy and tech levels, Sweden will usually be surpassed in terms of IND score. However, this isn't all that bad, since your industry should always be very competetive thanks to techs and your clerk %. And you can easily compensate for the lower IND score by grabbing prestige from culture and colonization. Another way is to boost your MIL score by spamming Dreadnoughts later on - this is very costly, but as long as your budged is balanced (which should be quite easy once you have 100% admin_efficiency), all is well.
If you want some military action, you can use your tech advantage to bully african nations. Russia can also be a potential target (especially if they fail and start suffering from rebellions). Beware, though, even when out-teched their mobilisation size is immense (94 regiments in 1836 at low tech!), so you better bring lots of top-notch military units to the fight. Prussia/NGF/Germany can also be a good target if you can get FRA, RUS or AUS to ally with you, but if you should ever take some of their cores, make sure to dismantle them quickly - even the NGF can be a quite powerful enemy. And they will be ready to fight you for the rest of the game, which can be quite fatal once Great Wars are unlocked...
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