Playing my first game - Basic questions

[unmerged(110917)]

Hi,

I just bought this game (Victoria and Victoria: Revolutions, both patched) yesterday. I tried following one of the guides on the VickyWiki for Brazil, but that country was really too large and there was too much management.

I'd read that Belgium was a good country for beginners, and so I have started a game as them. I'm still in my first year (started in 1836 on the easiest settings), got the Treaty of London event, and so my independence is guaranteed by Great Britain and France. I have a few questions about where to go from here and some of the basic game mechanics:

1) The Trading System: I am a bit mystified about the whole global market trading system. For example, what does "Current Order: Sell < 3" mean? I also have a message saying that my factories do not have all their required materials (yet when I look at them, I couldn't find anything wrong). When I placed my order, I didn't get anything right away, I don't think. I read that trading is done by prestige, and currently I'm not one of the leaders. Is this why nothing is happening?

2) Game Speed: The game hints said that Control and +/- together increase and decrease the game speed, but I have yet to see this work. Is there a way I can get it to run faster during times when not much is going on?

3) Managing My Budget: Currently I'm running a slight deficit. Now that I have my independence guaranteed and a peace treaty until 1841, should I lower army and defense spending? Also, the amount of exports shifts rapidly from day to day, say, from 25 to 40 back to 25 to 40 again, etc. Is this normal? Any good tips of ensuring that I have positive cash flow?

4) Game Settings: When I run the settings program in my installation folder, I can't change the resolution from 1024x768. I play on a widescreen monitor and would like to increase this. I tried a few utilities mentioned here, but none seemed to work. Is there an easy way, or more detailed instructions on doing this?

Thanks in advance! If you have any other good beginner tips, please do share...

 

[Airfixer]

Hi !

I'm a new Victoria player aswell, I borrrowed it from a friend only a few days ago and now I'm starting to learn how it works (afterall I am a paradox nerd). I also started out with the Brazil guide, but I didn't really get how things worked. So I restarted as Netherlands (alright they are at war in the beginning, but you manage). It is quite hard to learn (I am far from good at it) but just keep on playing and you learn step by step.

1) Sell < 3 means that whenever your stockpile is above 3 you will sell the surplus of to the world market. This means that if you have the order Sell < 10 on the goods, let say Iron, then you'll save up to a stockpile of 10 iron, then if you are producing 0,5 each day you'll sell 0,5 Iron everyday, so you'll always have 10 in store. If you are using more then producing you will run out of iron eventually. Then you should use the order buy > 10, it means that you'll buy iron so that you'll always have 10 iron in stock

2) Hold CTRL and then press +/- to change game speed

3) If you feel threatened keep Army mantinacne high, otherwise low. Balance your trade first, then look at the economy. Try to finance everything with taxes income=expenses, then you use tariffs to make some money. The import cost may change from day to day (like if you build a factory or something you'll have to import extra goods like machine parts the next few days and therefore have higher import costs theese days). The important thing is to keep a positive cashflow most days, not all days

4) I don't believe that this is possible, but you'll survive playing in low resolution, I do (and I have a widescreen too)

 

[Orm]

Welcome to Victoria. Excellent choice!
Airfixer already covered the big bits, I'm just filling in.

1) The Trading System: I am a bit mystified about the whole global market trading system. For example, what does "Current Order: Sell < 3" mean? I also have a message saying that my factories do not have all their required materials (yet when I look at them, I couldn't find anything wrong). When I placed my order, I didn't get anything right away, I don't think. I read that trading is done by prestige, and currently I'm not one of the leaders. Is this why nothing is happening?

It can be, or it could also be that the good you're trying to buy doesn't exist on the market, but that is more common later in the game with the more advanced products. One way that I found sometimes helps if you don't get what you're trying to buy is to set your buy order to buy 1000 units (max allowed), this will increase the price and make the other nations less interested in buying the goods so that you can get some. Obviously this is only recommended for stuff you need just a little of now and then, like small arms for building divisions for example.

3) Managing My Budget: Currently I'm running a slight deficit. Now that I have my independence guaranteed and a peace treaty until 1841, should I lower army and defense spending?

What I usually do is to lower army maintenance for one day, then pull it up to maximum again. This way your divisions are cut down in size and cost less to maintain, while the full maintenance spending ensures less risk of revolt among your troops. Keep your defense spending up, this is what gives your soldier POPs their wages AFAIK, so cutting them too much is not a good idea. Maybe you don't need to keep it at maximum spending at all times, but I always like to be able to quickly fill the ranks of my divisions if the need should arise. That said, with Belgium you shouldn't expect much trouble unless you ally some major power. Also, do not forget to increase your mobilization pool.

 

[unmerged(76730)]

2) Game Speed: The game hints said that Control and +/- together increase and decrease the game speed, but I have yet to see this work. Is there a way I can get it to run faster during times when not much is going on?

Note: There is a bug in Vicky/Ricky engine. High speed makes game very boring (or plainly stupid sometimes) because 'event firing mechanism' is malfunctioning. With everything above normal speed there are missing events or events firing in improper order or events remaining dormant forever. Above normal speed is the top speed if you want to experience most of events but expecting to finish campaign in a reasonable time. With Fast and Very Fast often nothing happening for ages.

BUDGET: Always keep Education&Crime Fighting at max. There is no special need to explain why because its quite obvious why at 100%, however one thing regarding Crime Fighting. Max spending on CF reducing revolt risk (both home & conquered territory) by 50% so it is wise to keep it @ 100%.

 

[orimazd]

Note: There is a bug in Vicky/Ricky engine. High speed makes game very boring (or plainly stupid sometimes) because 'event firing mechanism' is malfunctioning. With everything above normal speed there are missing events or events firing in improper order or events remaining dormant forever. Above normal speed is the top speed if you want to experience most of events but expecting to finish campaign in a reasonable time. With Fast and Very Fast often nothing happening for ages.
.

I did not know this. I guess I'll have to slow my games down, since I play on Very Fast.

 

[unmerged(110917)]

Hi everyone,

One more question: How should I get workers to fill my factories? The capitalists are starting to build some high end factories, and I'm not sure where I should get my craftsmen/clerks from other than educating laborers/farmers to those positions (won't this leave my RGOs empty?) Is there an easier way to get manpower inside of my factories?

 

[OHgamer]

if you have several factories in a state, reorganize where your workers are working so that they are working in your new factories if you have older factories in other states as well.

if you are running low on manpower, don't forget that you can split pops >40 K in size, which can help.

Beyond that, if you have areas of your country that are just RGOs with excess POPs and no factories, converting POPs to crafts or clerks might help stimulate internal migration, but it is very haphazard.

And then there is always the possibility of immigration, though unless you have very high plurality and good political and social reforms, it will be hard to overcome the the attractiveness of the USA and other nations in the Americas, especially if you are in Europe.