Hello. I have got some questions, but i fear some of them might not be quick or have quick answers, but i don't really like starting new threads.
I got only the basic game of Victoria 2, no addons yet. And i recently played my first game as Belgium, as someone here suggested when i asked some months ago, and failed horribly in about 1870. Basically, i fear that i don't really understand most of the game mechanics at all.
I got liberals into power pretty quickly, and thus had a laissez-faire economy. I felt that that means that i mostly want to have factory workers and capitalists, so i lowered taxes on the lower and upper class, while increasing them on the middle class. I also used my national focus on factory workers. However, i still never had enough workers to work in the factories in my country, and according to the statistics in the upper left, my economy fell behind more and more, even though i researched almost exclusively economic technologies. I also invested a lot of money into education, and later the military, to gain more soldiers and more research.
What is a good way to get a good economy, since what i did apparently wasn't it?
I found it strange that when i aquired Java, which brought in lots of money from coffee trade, my economic score did not change at all. Similarly, killing the whole hollandian army did not change their military score in any way. What do those scores actually mean, since they can't mean pure military or economic strength?
I also noticed that for about half the game, i could build no units but basic infantry, because apparently noone wanted to sell wine or skipper convoys to me because my prestige was too low. Do you have to produce those yourself, and if, how would you do that when your factories are being built by capitalists, and not yourself? I didn't really care for prestige since i wanted my country to do well, not look well, and thought that prestige would follow that on its own at a given time anyways.
Coming from EU3, i planned my diplomacy mostly around keeping my infamy low. However, i also did not want to just sit around idly and let time pass by, so i got into some wars when i could, first against Denmark, after the Prussians beat them up, and took Iceland and Greenland from them because i could. Sometime later, i beat up the Netherlands and took a bit of mainland territory from them. Later i took some stuff in Asia minor, and even later Java from the Hollanders in a defensive war. There was always ample time between the wars to let my infamy die down. However, i never had a justification in any war. In EU3, you get a lot of different CBs against different countries, some good, some pretty useless. Did i miss any way to make a more legitimate war?
I sometimes got allies, but they always quit whenever someone attacked me. So i was mostly on my own, while the Netherlands managed to get alliances with usually two out of the three of GB, France and the Northern German Union at most times. I did not have a single war where anyone ever honoured any alliance with me. Lateron, noone even wanted to ally me anymore, and i have no idea why. My infamy was pretty low, and i had good relations with them (France, GB). What finally killed me was when holland, who regularly attacked me, and whom i regularly beat up, managed to get the Northern German Union to honour their Call to Arms in an offensive war against me, while i had no allies at all, since i lost them every time holland declared one of their chanceless wars against me. How does diplomacy work in this game? What mistakes did i make?
Also, i felt like i basically could do nothing at all during most of the game. I could not declare any wars, because everyone is allied to 1-2 great powers. I could not do much domestically, because the capitalists build everything, and besides setting the taxes every few years to stay even, and starting a new research every 2 years, there was nothing to do at all besides watch, and even when watching nothing really changed. Did i miss something i should do? So i mostly just sat there at x4 speed waiting for the research to finish.
Regarding reforms, should i enact them whenever i can? From what i know, generally green numbers are good, and red numbers are bad. On all reforms, there are exclusively green numbers, so that should make them completely positive, but apparently they are not.
What is that whole thing with conscience about? Do i want that high or low? It seems to have something to do with rebels, and something with increased research speed, but i was unable to figure out exactly what.
I seem to be generally unable to figure out what is good, what is bad, and how to influence stuff one way or another. Except for that time when 200000 german soldiers invaded my land and demanded i give them everything i own, that was quite obviously bad.
