New players advice on how to enjoy the full game

  • We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

IsaacCAT

Field Marshal
141 Badges
Oct 24, 2018
3.986
9.218
  • Victoria 3 Sign Up
  • Imperator: Rome
  • Imperator: Rome Deluxe Edition
  • Imperator: Rome - Magna Graecia
Some posts of new players have made me think that some players are not experiencing the full game because they are avoiding some of its characteristics because they are apparently bad.

Could you help me portrait to new players how many games features are experienced through seemingly bad actions?

The scorned families is an example of this. You do not need to calm them, it is only an option for you to have, there is no need to keep families happy for a +5 in loyalty. You can manage power base and keep civil war risk (1) at bay with other means. On the contrary, scorned families is good for the approval of the democratic party. It is a feature that enriches the world and your play through. In addition, IMHO It is much better on the long run to choose the best character possible and let families be scorned.


(1) another example are civil wars, some players use them to their advantage, after you beat the rebellious faction you have a +30 loyalty for your characters.

If you keep avoiding these features, you are playing half of the game.

What else?
 
Last edited:
  • 7
  • 5Like
Reactions:
Another one is integrating cultures.

This one has an obvious advantage in 2.0 as it allows for more POPs to levy. The other advantage is that integrated POPs are happier than non integrated POPs. Nonetheless it has downsides as well. First, your other integrated cultures will have a happiness penalty for each other integrated culture you have. Second, when you integrate another culture, your research efficiency may decrease as a result, because research efficiency is noble + citizens POPs / total integrated POPs. Finally, when you integrate another culture, they stop being assimilated to your primary culture.

Again, this is another double-edged sword, that helps to shape your game. There is no good or bad decision. Of course nobody will avoid integrating cultures in 2.0, but this was the case for some in 1.5.3.
 
Last edited:
  • 4
  • 3Like
Reactions:
Some people avoid rebellions like they are a game over and sure if you are small and get 8 at once it might be but honestly having a rebelling province a decade or so is normal and of no issue assuming you arent busy doing anything else.

Some people also dont seem to be using enough mercenaries in my opinion. Especially if you want to punch above your weightclass mercenaries or strong allies are needed. If you start small you will probablly need atleast 1 merc stack your first coupple of wars unless you get allies to carry you.
 
  • 7Like
Reactions:
Definitely the irrational fear of disloyal provinces. If you've been on an expansionist spree into powerful countries and you suddenly have half a dozen provinces about to rebel it's a problem. But if you have a couple of them about to tip over and they were originally barbarian tribesmen, who cares? You'll defeat them in no time if they DO rebel, resetting their loyalty and, at any rate, showing them the pimp hand with Harsh Treatment will usually slow down their rebellious tendencies enough that they'll never reach the magical 0% and you won't be losing anything since they, being tribesmen, weren't contributing anything anyway.

Scorned families? I try to avoid it, there are almost always a few inconsequential posts you can appoint them to but, you're right, even if you can't, it's hardly going to topple your country.

Trade? Let every single province trade on their own, except for your capital province. Other than that, the AI does just fine. And if you find that you really need a bonus trade good that isn't available, you can usually find one that is readily available very quickly by going through the trade screen and using the invaluable sort function. Cancel an import or export, then import it to your capital instead. No muss, no fuss. Micro-management doesn't give you much at all.

Pirates? Ignore them, unless you have enough income to keep your fleet maintained at all times. In that case, keep them on "hunt pirates" all the time. Not only will it keep you from having to hunt the pesky buggers manually, it will actually increase the size of your fleet passively for no cost.
 
  • 5Like
Reactions:
Just in general: don't stress too much about the internal stuff if you don't want to. You can get away with being inefficient when you're playing against an AI. Focus on the bits that interest you.
 
  • 3Like
  • 1
Reactions:
(1) another example are civil wars, some players use them to their advantage, after you beat the rebellious faction you have a +30 loyalty for your characters.

If you keep avoiding these features, you are playing half of the game.

What else?
Well that goes a lot to the taste of the person I hate civil wars and rebellions myself and I try to avoid them at any cost even if I have to send some character to the prison or to the grave using the murder option.
Maybe I'm too obsessed with my land? well anyway i hate it when i lose control of my land.
 
  • 2
  • 1Like
Reactions:
Scorned families? I try to avoid it, there are almost always a few inconsequential posts you can appoint them to but, you're right, even if you can't, it's hardly going to topple your country.

Many people treat it like this, but a point is, you don't have to.

You can ignore family-scorn and just react to disloyalty of the powerful when you see fit, or you can engage with it in a pre-meditated way, arranging family scorn or family gratitude in accordance with what families you consider usedul or not worth the time of day for the moment.

... as @Bovrick says, it all comes down to what interests you.

Not only with the internal stuff. If you worry about getting overwhelmed by army management in wars that are large or span over multiple fronts, make sure to check out the army automation options. Fleet automation is less reliable but good as a compliment and for low-micro naval landing / troop transportation.


... the amount of ways you can play thia game is staggering!
 
Last edited:
  • 3Like
  • 1
Reactions:
Well that goes a lot to the taste of the person I hate civil wars and rebellions myself and I try to avoid them at any cost even if I have to send some character to the prison or to the grave using the murder option.
Maybe I'm too obsessed with my land? well anyway i hate it when i lose control of my land.
Indeed, but I want to show new players that there is nothing wrong with rebellions, they are a feature to be experienced in this game. If you keep trying to avoid them, all is fine but you will miss an experience that has been programed to be part of the game.
 
  • 1Like
Reactions:
For me it is whole thing called "Religious". I just don't know how to use it, so I usually avoid it. May be that some day I'll see The Light...
 
  • 1Like
Reactions:
For me it is whole thing called "Religious". I just don't know how to use it, so I usually avoid it. May be that some day I'll see The Light...
There are advantages to convert POPs but you can ignore it and build a syncretic society. Religion tab is useful for stability and war exhaustion reduction.

Religion is yet to develop this double-edged sword. Now is a wood spoon. You get a happiness bonus and assimilate faster to your primary culture but there are no big downsides.

Once I argued for zealots type of rebellions.
 
  • 2Like
Reactions:
There are advantages to convert POPs but you can ignore it and build a syncretic society. Religion tab is useful for stability and war exhaustion reduction.

Religion is yet to develop this double-edged sword. Now is a wood spoon. You get a happiness bonus and assimilate faster to your primary culture but there are no big downsides.

Once I argued for zealots type of rebellions.
ATm its free bonuses. The ones that boost Commerce Income are probably the most important atm.
 
  • 2
  • 1Like
  • 1
Reactions:
There are advantages to convert POPs but you can ignore it and build a syncretic society. Religion tab is useful for stability and war exhaustion reduction.

Religion is yet to develop this double-edged sword. Now is a wood spoon. You get a happiness bonus and assimilate faster to your primary culture but there are no big downsides.

Once I argued for zealots type of rebellions.

Most religion-tab mechanics are essentially minigames: holy sites / deities / relics / deified rulers. Even the sacrifices for stability or WE-reduction are essentially minigames, as they invite you to double down on expenditure before the modifier expires to get 2x benefit for the next duration. (This, without reminding you its about to expire).

There is a small "double-edged wooden spoon" with syncretization though, as embracing deities from other religions can give happiness to pops that presumably need it more than those already converted, with the trade-off that conversion speed is reduced for each unmatching diety.

... I wish there were some cultural decisions or something associated with syncretization.
 
Last edited:
  • 1
  • 1Like
  • 1
Reactions:
Most religion-tab mechanics are essentially minigames: holy sites / dieties / relics / diefied rulers. Even the sacrifices for stability or WE-reduction are essentially minigames, as they invite you to double-down on expenditure before the modifier expires to get 2x benefit for the next duration. (This, without reminding you its about to expire).

There is a small "double-edged wooden spoon" with syncretization though, as embrasing deities from other religions can give happiness to pops that presumably need it more than those already converted, with the trade-off that conversion speed is reduced for each unmatching diety.

... I wish there were some cultural decisions or something associated with syncretization.
cultural decisions?
 
cultural decisions?
Yes. There arn't really any of those that do anything with the religious association or modifiers of pops and characters (its all cultural for now), but there easily could be.
1617909623514.png
 
  • 2
Reactions:
Some posts of new players have made me think that some players are not experiencing the full game because they are avoiding some of its characteristics because they are apparently bad.

Could you help me portrait to new players how many games features are experienced through seemingly bad actions?

The scorned families is an example of this. You do not need to calm them, it is only an option for you to have, there is no need to keep families happy for a +5 in loyalty. You can manage power base and keep civil war risk (1) at bay with other means. On the contrary, scorned families is good for the approval of the democratic party. It is a feature that enriches the world and your play through. In addition, IMHO It is much better on the long run to choose the best character possible and let families be scorned.


(1) another example are civil wars, some players use them to their advantage, after you beat the rebellious faction you have a +30 loyalty for your characters.

If you keep avoiding these features, you are playing half of the game.

What else?
The problem with both of these examples from the perspective of new players is that the game tells you these are important. It does this with things like notifications and, in the case of scorned family, the icon on the job selection screen. If you are unsure what makes a good office holder, it is an easy thing to grab onto. Civil war has a countdown timer to, what a new player might reasonably assume is, the literal blowing up of their country.

Things like culture and religion (to use some examples from further down in this thread) don't do anything to draw your attention there. You have to dig to discover what these parts of the game are, can do, etc. Obviously for some the fun (at least in part) of PDS games is in that digging.
 
  • 2
  • 1Like
Reactions:
How many cultures should I integrate then?

Stick to the missions or nah?
That is the beauty of the game, there is no ideal number, depends on the situation and in your playstyle.

If you integrate the most POPs cultures you will levy more soldiers and you will increase their happiness.

But this will change with every conquest when you acquire more POPs.

You can demote them, as you will want to assimilate if they have become a minority.

However, if the culture has a high ratio of nobles and citizens, you may want to keep it at noble level to have a good research efficiency.

On the other hand, each culture has a different type of units to levy, you may want to keep the best cultures for the best units (HI HC).

Etc...
 
  • 2Like
Reactions:
I use a different "solution" for scorned families: 1 ship "fleets".

I'm not entirely sure if it's true (played exactly one monarchy, until Phyrros death), but people need money to marry and therefor produce offspring. Might be a mod i use (more families) or just pure coincidence, but since i started to pay more attention to give as many people as possible some income, i usually get a full "roster" of characters, which leads to a lot less morons in mid/lategame. Or more accurately, enough good characters to not care about the idiots and just put them on boats.

Also, groom these good characters. Doesn't really matter that much if a lets say high zeal character has next to no finesse (stick him in some fringe region if you can), if he spends a few years as a governor he'll improve his statemanship and gets some money.

Another important thing to me, at least in the early game when you don't swim in money, always siege the last few ticks with your "personal" levy. Elevates hard starts like Epirus tremendously, as it is not only a good source of income, but you actually feel like the warlords these people were, financing conquest through more conquest.
 
I use a different "solution" for scorned families: 1 ship "fleets".
But that is the thing I am denouncing here. Scorned families is not a problem that needs a solution, is a feature of the game, something to experience. As said, the democratic party will approve you while there are scorned families, and disapprove you if there are content families.

If the player was not to assign all jobs and it was not in his hands to decide if families were scorned or not, maybe the game will feel more alive, and for sure players will enjoy all the content it has.

Like in trade, if not all trade was for the player to decide, but only some of it, every surplus achieved will feel more valuable.

For the world to feel more alive we need to let go our irresistible need to control everything, I would say, player controls 20% and game simulates 80%.

Edit: this distinction does not need to be artificial, one can see a public and private divide in every aspect of the game.

Take for example the success of levies, legions and mercs. Different levels of player control, with levies the less and legions the more directly controlled by the player. I would add auxiliaries in between, though.
 
Last edited:
  • 1Like
Reactions:
Taking the Proscribed Canon invention (6 innovations into Religious tree) gives your current Hierophant +3 to his Zeal stat.
If your heir has 7 or more Zeal, it might be a good idea to make him your Hierophant then unlock the aforementioned tech.
This way, it should be easier to unlock the Divinity Statute law.
 
  • 2
Reactions: