National Focus: Order of Operations

[Chicken]

I'm just curious to get the opinions of my peers on this.

Whenever you start a new game, regardless of the country (but assuming you're civilized), how do you utilize your National focuses? For instance, I'm about 70 years into a game as the Ottoman Empire, and my Literacy is 14% huh. I attribute this to the fact that my starting National focus moves were to increase administrative efficiency, instead of expanding my clergy. Now I realize that there is a certain benefit to administrative efficiency, but for the most part, I don't use tariffs unless I absolutely have to, and the effects of crime (in my experience) is not extraordinary unless you allow it to grow unruly. Of course there are the education technologies that really help with literacy, but that's another thing altogether.

That brings me back to the original question. Assuming that I'm not roleplaying or anything like that, and I'd like to end up as a forward thinking liberal-ish country that is at least semi-industrialized with decent to good literacy, what's a general outline for the best national focus moves to make? As a disclaimer, I recognize that there are other aspects to the game, but I'm more curious to how you guys utilize the national focus from start to finish.

 

[DrLulz]

I honestly can't think of any country, civilized or not. Where I would not start by putting an NF on clergy in my most populous state.

I don't claim to be an expert on the game though.

Note that clergy promoton (to put it mildly) doesn't seem to be very effective in AHD though. One of the devs said they were aware of the problem, and would tune it up a bit.

 

[Chicken]

I honestly can't think of any country, civilized or not. Where I would not start by putting an NF on clergy in my most populous state.

I don't claim to be an expert on the game though.

Note that clergy promoton (to put it mildly) doesn't seem to be very effective in AHD though. One of the devs said they were aware of the problem, and would tune it up a bit.

Well maybe my example of the Ottomans was a bad choice. They start with an academic structure that penalizes Cultural research, so I stayed away from it for what was probably too long, losing out on getting those education efficiency technologies sooner.

 

[DrLulz]

Well maybe my example of the Ottomans was a bad choice. They start with an academic structure that penalizes Cultural research, so I stayed away from it for what was probably too long, losing out on getting those education efficiency technologies sooner.

The NF-techs, Research techs and literacy techs basically pay for themselves research-wise, within a relatively short period. I'd simply start by dumping a techschool that (heavely) disfavors culture tech, because I think they're so important.

 

[Beagá]

NF that always have their uses depending on circunstances:

1- Clergy (more useful with low litteracy countries, than say, France). Research points are lovely, can´t have enough of them. Plus, litteracy increases assimilation.
2- Clerks: underrated; but not only increase RP but also factory efficiency, increasing your industrial score more than craftsmen (in the sense than 1 clerk > 1 craftsmen).
3- Bureaucrats: transforming colonies into states, reducing crimes, increasing promotion and administrative efficiency. More monies!

NFs that have uses sometimes:

1- Soldiers: to increase military score and to allow you to replenish losses in a very bloody war that you could lose.
2- Craftsmen: more liberals, more socialists, more industrial score.
3- Capitalists: more factory efficiency and if you have low litteracy, a MUST to get capitalists and those first factories running. Don´t underestimate this NF.

NFs that simply are a waste IMO:

1- Aristocrats: increase RGO efficiency and that´s it. Might have use if you REALLY need more output from RGO; also, aristocrats also increase output of mineral resources RGO, not only farms (a mistake many people do)
2- Officers: derp derp. `Nuff said.
3- Artisans: same. If you need them to make stuff, you are playing poorly.
4- Farmers and Labourers: seldom needed, unless you REALLY need more output from a RGO, like Tea or Coal.

BTW I was wondering, shouldn´t we come up with an economy FAQ?

 

[unmerged(18418)]

Call me crazy but in my latest game I actually used encourage artisans for the first time ever. I got a Chinese province that had 7 million people in it. My biggest Spanish province had 400k. So my thinking went like this. 1. NF should go to largest prov for efficiency. 2. Although the Chinese prov can never become a state, a single prov with more population than the rest of my empire combined simply can't be ignored when it comes to the efficient use of NF. 3. So first I got some bureaucrats and clergy there, but then noticed that farmers were getting unemployed and were all becoming soldiers. I decided that although artisans obviously aren't very efficient, a province with 7 million people could probably produce quite a bit of goods with artisans.

I actually only did it for a little while though because I was never sold on the idea. It's an interesting question though: is a 300k prov that can industrialize more worth your NF than a 7 million prov that can't? I'd be interested in hearing the experts' take on this.

 

[Chicken]

NF that always have their uses depending on circunstances:

1- Clergy (more useful with low litteracy countries, than say, France). Research points are lovely, can´t have enough of them. Plus, litteracy increases assimilation.
2- Clerks: underrated; but not only increase RP but also factory efficiency, increasing your industrial score more than craftsmen (in the sense than 1 clerk > 1 craftsmen).
3- Bureaucrats: transforming colonies into states, reducing crimes, increasing promotion and administrative efficiency. More monies!

NFs that have uses sometimes:

1- Soldiers: to increase military score and to allow you to replenish losses in a very bloody war that you could lose.
2- Craftsmen: more liberals, more socialists, more industrial score.
3- Capitalists: more factory efficiency and if you have low litteracy, a MUST to get capitalists and those first factories running. Don´t underestimate this NF.

NFs that simply are a waste IMO:

1- Aristocrats: increase RGO efficiency and that´s it. Might have use if you REALLY need more output from RGO; also, aristocrats also increase output of mineral resources RGO, not only farms (a mistake many people do)
2- Officers: derp derp. `Nuff said.
3- Artisans: same. If you need them to make stuff, you are playing poorly.
4- Farmers and Labourers: seldom needed, unless you REALLY need more output from a RGO, like Tea or Coal.

BTW I was wondering, shouldn´t we come up with an economy FAQ?

Well, there is the Victoria 2 Wiki, but even before AHD was released, most of the information there wasn't kept up to date, or wasn't there in the first place. I'd try to edit some of the pages myself, but I don't have a lot of time, and I'm not exactly the most knowledgeable V2 player either.

The things you mentioned shed some light on NFs for me. I'm not totally clueless, but I'm not necessarily aware of a lot of the intricacies of the game. I was experimenting with playing Manchuria (probably another poor choice). I boosted my administrative efficiency until both starting states were about 70% efficient. That was GREAT for my tariff revenue... until Russia took my Eastern state and Sphered me via event, and I lost all tariff income. Then I got hit with 3-4 disease events, and being a one-state nation of 1.7+ Million, I lost probably 25% of my population in a few years. I think if I'd chosen a more isolated unciv, then combining the things you said would have been great for it.

 

[unmerged(221966)]

Having just played a game as Korea, I can testify that it is one country where you shouldn't start off by encouraging clergy. I imagine the same is true for a lot of uncivs. The problem is that your poor pops don't get enough needs to promote and your middle class pops don't get enough needs to stop them demoting (this is unavoidable, because the goods aren't available on the world market). A focus point on clergy at starting admin efficiency was getting me maybe 1 out of 100,000 farmers promoting, while 5 out of 1,000 clergy were demoting back to farmers.

I didn't catch this at first, because I was getting extra clergy. The problem was, they were all coming from demoting bureaucrats. Then I realised 20 years down the line that my clergy growth had stalled, and the only provinces with meaningful numbers were in the state capitals (that being where the bureaucrats lived). At this point, I felt the situation was irretrievable - I could turn my remaining clergy back into bureaucrats, but by the time this was done, I'd have such a reduced level of total bureaucrats/clergy, that I was better off restarting.

Second time around, I encouraged bureaucrats until I could actually get a meaningful amount of middle class pop increase. My research point increase was down to about 1.65 for a long time, but after getting efficiency up to 80%+, I could start getting clergy and raising research to about 5 a day, so in the long term I think it was better than a rapid increase to 2.5 a day followed by a slow fall into the dark ages.

Whether this will hold true forever I don't know. I don't think the mass demotion of middle class pops to farmers and labourers is terribly realistic, so hopefully it'll get fixed in a patch. In that case, clergy focus might win again.

 

[Chicken]

Yeah I noticed that too in my experiments with Manchuria. I was getting Clergy and Bureaucrats, sure, but it was pretty much either one or the other. As soon as I switched my national focus, whichever group was no longer being promoted started to decline. That, and Manchuria having a puny tax base made that game a pretty miserable experience.

At the same time though, I feel like building up the clergy for the research points (as an unciv) is definitely beneficial. Even though they demote, the lack of alternatives (aside from bureaucrats) makes just constantly bumping the clergy up to 2% when needed a viable option. The difference between earning 3 Research Points per day versus ~1.6 is huge. That's nearly doubling RP generation. Even if you technically run out of money supporting the huge education costs included, the budget balances itself by decreasing the amount of money that you're investing in other areas, like Soldiers. So while it's more efficient to have money, it isn't necessarily required until you have the ability to take loans, at which point you run the risk of going bankrupt.

If I'm reading what you're saying right, then your strategy is to increase admin efficiency so that pop promotion... well... works. Once that's the case (and assuming that there's money left over to support the new level of efficiency), you begin to promote clergy. Seems reasonable. I think I'll give it a try and see what happens.

 

[calvinhobbeslik]

Life is infinitely more complicated than the ridiculous caricatures that the ignorant employ to make sense of things they really have no knowledge of.

I sense rhetoric without substance.

 

[unmerged(221966)]

If I'm reading what you're saying right, then your strategy is to increase admin efficiency so that pop promotion... well... works. Once that's the case (and assuming that there's money left over to support the new level of efficiency), you begin to promote clergy. Seems reasonable. I think I'll give it a try and see what happens.

I wouldn't say pop promotion "works" with high admin efficiency. It still won't happen automatically, but it will make a focus much more effective. At Seoul's starting state admin efficiency of 18%, a focus will get 3 out of 268,000 pops promoting a month, or one pop out of every 90,000. At 50%, you'll get one in 20,000. At around 80%, you'll get one in 10,000.

I guess the optimum strategy might depend on how populated you are. I think a focus will always result in at least one pop promoting a month, so if your province population is 10,000, that's a good rate. With East Asis's high populations, though, that just won't get you anywhere.

I'm not absolutely sure that bureaucrat focus is the best way - it still took me until 1911 to westernise. But I'm not convinced you'd be able to sustain 3 RPs per day just with a clergy focus (correct me if you've actually done it), because while you're turning bureaucrats into clergy in one state, you're losing both to farmers/labourers in all the rest. Then, once you run out of bureaucrats, you're on a downward slope. Even if you can get 3 RP a day, I think you need about 80,000 RP to westernise which would take you to 1909 anyway, and I think with a better strategy (I tried switching over to clergy focus at 50% admin efficiency, but I think that was sub-optimal) I could have done it a little quicker my way.

 

[unmerged(18418)]

I sense rhetoric without substance.

What you sense is a complete lack of desire to argue a point that should be obvious to anyone whose knowledge goes beyond the Daily Show.

 

[s1234567890m]

What you sense is a complete lack of desire to argue a point that should be obvious to anyone whose knowledge goes beyond the Daily Show.

Then why make a pointless reference to the daily show... If you want to talk about someones sig, you probably should PM them, not make stupid posts

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Aristocrats and capitalists are completly useles (except for building factories).
I don't know if it was changed back some time in vanilla, because I remember a game where I used a NF to spam aristos in my oil provinces as USA, but that was probably sometime around the Vicky2 release...

As it is now, they grant a bonus that is outweigthted tenfold by the first few techs.

 

[RedRalphWiggum]

I shall feed the troll this one time

Do not EVER feed the troll. The troll will be dealt with.

 

[Restless Native]

For me it depends on the country but I always seem to follow a similar pattern. I like to build up some decent soldier pops early on before concentrating on clergy to get to an optimum percentage. After that I encourage craftsmen then clerks for industrial power. Of course as a large country i can be doing 3 or 4 differant NF's at the same time across the nation.
Another thing on NF's. Does anyone use the 'focus on X industry' or the railroad national focus? I'd imagine it's useless if you have state capitalism but I've never used them with LF governments either.

 

[palmus]

Why do everyone say that the NF for increasing officers suck?
I use it all the time when playing Japan. I think it works great!

 

[loki100]

Does anyone use the 'focus on X industry' or the railroad national focus? I'd imagine it's useless if you have state capitalism but I've never used them with LF governments either.

I've used the focus on industrial sector and it does influence the capitalist decision making. I've never used the rail one yet, if you have LF and they ain't building rails in a region there is probably a very good reason that the focus won't overcome.

also agree with palmus, there are times when the officer focus is just what you need. Not often but particularly in the early stages of developing a weak power they can be invaluable.

 

[48th tennessee]

I'm just curious to get the opinions of my peers on this.

Whenever you start a new game, regardless of the country (but assuming you're civilized), how do you utilize your National focuses? For instance, I'm about 70 years into a game as the Ottoman Empire, and my Literacy is 14% huh. I attribute this to the fact that my starting National focus moves were to increase administrative efficiency, instead of expanding my clergy. Now I realize that there is a certain benefit to administrative efficiency, but for the most part, I don't use tariffs unless I absolutely have to, and the effects of crime (in my experience) is not extraordinary unless you allow it to grow unruly. Of course there are the education technologies that really help with literacy, but that's another thing altogether.

That brings me back to the original question. Assuming that I'm not roleplaying or anything like that, and I'd like to end up as a forward thinking liberal-ish country that is at least semi-industrialized with decent to good literacy, what's a general outline for the best national focus moves to make? As a disclaimer, I recognize that there are other aspects to the game, but I'm more curious to how you guys utilize the national focus from start to finish.

If you are playing vanilla Vic 2 use clergymen
If AHD bureaucrats can be used to make supression points (actually i must prefer this)