My 1st complete game was a success some thoughts and some lessons

[WSnova]

Hi, I recently decided to commit to a full game after failing a few times as Sweden and Sardinia. I decided to go with Brazil this time.

I ended up in 6th place overall. I managed to get up to 5th but I screwed up in Great War 2 and that made me drop to 7th but I managed to climb back. Some things I at least seemed to gather that are necessary for a semi succesful game.

- Lesson #1 Pops=Power, more pops= more taxes= more soldiers=more workers=more everything. I finally understand why people recommend going after high population provinces now. My African colonies gave me tons of Soldiers and taxes.

-Lesson # 2 Pops are not everything, yeah I know what I said! Japan, had half of my population and yet Japan overtook me in industry, prestige and military score. Prestige was my fault, but Japan managed its pops better to get a much much higher Ind score. Think of Pops as money, more is better but in the end if you blow it all away gambling it won´t matter much.

-Lesson # 3 Education Pays off. I kept my Education spending at full and encouraged clergymen to 4% in all my states. By 1880-1890 I had my literacy at 99% and I was the highest literacy great power. In the end I outteched them in many ways. The USA didn´t manage to research everything and I did. Brazil starts at 7% literacy, USA at 40 ish.

-Lesson #4, Colonies are awesome. I colonized most of the Niger Delta and around Sokoto. They gave me tons of pops and resources for almost no commitment.

Lesson # 5, A story of Hubris. I won GW1 by well, allying Germany(it was little Germany then) I mostly mucjed around Africa and Germany won most of the land fighting. GW2 happens, I decide to not Mobilize because I had Germany as an ally and many more spherelings. Germany was Greater Germany then. Germany got overrun and by the time I mobilized it was all over. Anyways, basically Mobilization is there for a purpose don´t be greedy. This big wars are about being there fast and in great numbers, your professional army is mostly to get good posotions and wait for reinforcements

Lesson #6, Industrialization is about moving your people from the countryside to factories. I was # 1 producer in radios, planes and tanks yet my industry score was relatively low. I loaded as Germany, UK and Japan. One thing stood out for me. The % of craftsmen was much higher than mine they had from 50 to 30% of their population in factories. 90% of mine was still in farms and mines. I saw they used most of their Focus points in encouraging workers after getting my priests I used them encouraging inmigration and inmigration and soldiers. I kinda wish I hadn´t culd have been much higher.

I think my nest playthrough will be as the USA to learn about a pure Democracy and see of I can do better this time. I plan on having 50% of my population as workers and hopefully I will manage stuff better. Still, awesome game I had a blast.

Anyways feel free to correct a newbie

 

[AmpsterMan]

Focusing on soldiers of you need some early troops isn't bad; it's all about focusing the correct things at the correct time. Usually can't go wrong with clergy to 4% with such as illiterate country. After clergy, i do administrative to 1% for max pop promotion efficiency. Then i promote Soldiers to 2% minimum and let natural promotion take care of the rest. My next and last priority (by now i am in the mid game when colonization and big time industrialization is going on) I'll switch to heavy craftsmen promotion for the rest of the game.

Why do i wait for midgame for craftsmen promotion? Number one reason is because early game resources give you more money than industry does. By midgame, one usually has a wealthy set of Capitalists and can start focusing on rapid industrialization. I promote troops early on because 3% or more trrops gives me much more strategic flexibility than the same amount of any other pop.

If you are going to play U.S. i recommend you try to get a piece of Africa during the rush there and try help China modernize. China modernizing gives you a huge influx of immigrants when it modernizes and having China and Japan as GPs will eliminate two GPs in Europe which i always thought was fun. If you are feeling frisky, try release India from Great Britain. It's great fun xD

 

[Thrake]

Not sure how you exactly managed to have your mines full with workers. In my last run, I had a hudge and constant load of craftsmen immigrants. It was nice early on as it allowed to immediately setup factories that had plenty of manpower, but eventually I also had 3k unemployed craftsmen in Amazonia (and in most states at first), because apparently it was a nice place to search for a job. Most of my funds were for funding factories in non tropical regions though I had to build some a bit everywhere for my workers to have a job and keep being an attractive country for immigrants. It ended up with around 50% of my POP in Amazonia being soldiers by the time I setup a factory there. In the other hand, most of my farms/mines were slowly loosing workers I think, probably in favor of facilities/army (I lacked the men early on so I did invest too much in retrospect). It's not really bad in itself though I had tried to setup a selfsuficient economic base by acquiring states with key trade goods, which proved useless as it employed very few people in the mines.