The death of a nation

[Battle bunny]

Hi!

I've played my first game of Victoria 2 (HOD) with Sweden. I had watched a couple videos and done the tutorial so things started fairly well. I sphered Denmark, formed Scandinavia and unsuccessfully tried to take over Finland a few times when I could get involved in other wars. Then I got a small colonial empire stretching roughly from Ghana to the Congos, stretching out from formerly Danish Ghana. Germany stayed disunited well into the 1880s, as Austria won lots of wars against Prussia but was itself unable to form any sort of Germany, which helped me avoid losing Schleswig-Holstein.

However, things then started to go wrong, and I'm essentially here to ask about some advice for future games to avoid the same fate that Scandinavia suffered. One thing is that my industry never really succeeded. At the start, I was mostly building the factories myself, trying to exploit the natural resources of Sweden (lumber mills -> furniture, for example, to use all that timber, and also shipyards, for which I build fabric factories). I subsidized the factories for a long time, because they kept failing if I didn't. That makes sense at the start, but even later on, lots of factories went bankrupt, including the ones that had to use the plentiful timber. Taxes on the rich were low, sometimes at 0%, for most of the game. Tariffs were around 25% for a while, then I also lowered that to 0% later on except when I needed an injection of money.

I also didn't get many craftsmen. By 1910, about 5% of my nation were craftsmen, smaller than every other noteworthy power, and about equal to even my own sphereling Sokoto. This despite about 30-35% of my nation being of the Nordic cultures. I'm not sure why this happened since I encouraged craftsmen for like half the game with most of my NFs, before switching to encouraging capitalists and hoping for more success there.

My industrial score around 1890 was 132, compared to Russia which was in the 190s, and of course the UK had something in the thousands. By that point, there were plenty of investors doing private projects (factories, railroads alike), and they were fairly successful a few times, but I guess they just didn't build enough factories, maybe because of the lack of craftsmen. I'm pretty sure that's not particularly good, even with Scandinavia's low population.

Things started to go south from 1892, when the Great War erupted. I had aligned with the Russian Empire (giving up de facto on reclaiming Finland, although I still had the cores), and France was another ally, fighting against a freshly formed Germany, Austria, the Ottomans and the UK. I joined with Russia because I was afraid that the Germans would pursue Schleswig-Holstein and wanted to break them. (In fact, the Germans, possibly as Prussia, tried to take the province once, but then the Russians offered to ally me. Russia took Ost- and Westpreußen from Germany during two wars, one of them being this one.) The war swung around pretty radically. First Russia started to collapse, but then they recovered, and our alliance occupied literally all of Austria, and almost all of Germany and the Ottoman Empire. But the UK also defeated France, and then turned around pretty much the whole war. Eventually, the war ended with only a Great War capitulation around 1900.

Now here comes the other problem. My military was smashed enough at the end that an Anarcho-Liberal cabal took over. At first, I was like "okay, that's fun, let's try it", even though I lost my small sphere and had to rebuild it, which I actually managed to do fully (Netherlands, Sokoto, parts of South America). However, what actually followed was a gruesome 20-year civil war that's still not over. Communists and Jacobins keep rising up, the former pretty much ruling my colonies, the latter bothering my mainland more. Also, it's apparently a very destructive war. I ended the Great War with a population of around 4.4M. Now, it's around 1920, and I have 2M (the population ratios didn't change, everyone is apparently dying or fleeing). The rebels seem impossible to defeat permanently, I am completely unable to reform myself, and now fascist Germany jumped me and took Schleswig-Holstein (this time I had both the UK and Russia, but they couldn't win the war for me, nor did they try very hard). I guess that Germany will stop bothering me now, but I'm also no longer a Great Power, am about to lose my sphere and my best hope seems to be surrendering to the Jacobins and hoping that democracy will solve some problems. Still, there's not much left to do.

Any comments on how I could have done better industrializing, or if it's even possible to defeat such a persistent rebel resistance? The Jacobins were much weaker, the Communists have a membership fluctuating between 500k and 1M (used to be comparatively more when my population was higher), and no matter how many I killed, they just wouldn't stop.

 

[spelhus]

Sounds like your main issue is that you really should focus craftsmen and clerks to improve your industry. You can usually do this all game long.

 

[Kirikano]

One thing I learned after my first game is: Don't build lumber mills. They provide good income early game, but by mid game, there's too much to go around and you'll be forced to spends hundreds per day in subsidies for them. Late game, it could go into the thousands, if its like a level 30 factory or something. Then you have to close it and now you have massive unemployment. In fact, anything that uses timber tends to be bad. Canned food factories and steamer convoys will also lose money late game. And factories that use rubber will tend to lose money late game because the supply can't keep up with demand, although if you have a ton of rubber, then they could also be the most profitable factories (ie I owned all the rubber in Africa as Germany).

Otherwise though, you start with insanely high literacy so as long as life needs are being met, they should be promoting quickly into craftsmen.

 

[Jorlaan]

Lumber does tend to do VERY poorly by the mid game then just gets worse. Furniture and Luxury Furniture factories tend to do well though. Companion factories get a slight bonus, so if you have a timber factory in the same state as furniture you'll get a slight boost to one of either through/in/output.
However even by having a fully timber producing state with all lumber oriented factories you'll STILL see losses in the lumber ones. My recommendation is to only have like 1 lumber factory in the country if any (it depends on how big you are, even full Scandinavia is small population so not as great an idea) and just buy it instead from the market. You'll export timber and import lumber, may be stupid IRL but not here, let someone else deal with failing lumber factories.
I'd try and colonize heavily and get access to lots of tropical wood and rubber, also try and snag as much coal, iron and sulphur as possible.
I also highly recommend a liquor factory in virtually every state, they tend to be profitable all game. Wine not SO much but can be good, you need decent access to fruit though to make it worthwhile.

 

[Battle bunny]

Thanks, that's quite useful. I did manage to get some colonies with tropical wood and rubber, in fact, although the rubber was discovered too late, mostly at the point when I was already done for. I'd like to add that after I went anarcho-liberal, and thus laissez-faire, my industry imploded even further. All of my higher-level factories closed (granted, some of them were lumber/steamer ships like mentioned above, but also some furniture factories which were doing really well in the Interventionist phase). Does laissez-faire just suck that bad, or was it just the circumstances that made it so? I had read that laissez-faire can work pretty well if capitalism is already at an advanced stage in the nation. Well, if so, then I mustn't have been advanced enough.

About fulfilling life needs to get people to promote to craftsmen, I guess that lowering taxes on the poor and building factories for the goods they need might help - anything else?

 

[Maggix]

I had read that laissez-faire can work pretty well if capitalism is already at an advanced stage in the nation. Well, if so, then I mustn't have been advanced enough.

The key is to spam ~4-8 factories in every state and subsidize all of them until the 1860-1870 when you switch to laissez faire. A bunch of them will go bankrupt, but chances are that a couple of them well survive. You also might want to consider going back to interventionism late in the game, because a single factory going bankrupt could flood the state with hundreds of thousands enemployed.

 

[grimkm]

Build furniture first and have the artisans make the lumber until your demand outstrips their production before you set up a lumber factory.

Due to the amount of provinces and low pop density, Scandinavia is a bit tricky to industrialise. Svealand and Gotaland are good to begin with. But I am surprised you only managed to get about 5% of your pop to be craftsmen..with very high literacy rates, they should show up in droves.

Without a substantial army of colonial troops, there's not much chance to stand up against Germany. France is a good early ally for this as well.

But generally unsure on your troubles, Sweden/Scandinavia although no major military power can generally offer a pretty high standard of living to its people and have a strong industrial economy albeit hindered by population, or lack there of..

 

[Jorlaan]

If you want good craftsmen promotion keep middle class taxes LOW. This is typically the lowest tax bracket for my nations, then I drop the taxes on poor. The rich I tend to tax in to space.
Laissze-faire can work you have to help guide it a bit. Setting a national focus on a state telling it to build a specific industry will help guild capitalists towards those factories. Ideally the less capitalists the better, it helps concentrate wealth and they can afford to open/expand factories easier. Honestly a nation can actually run super smoothly with only 1 capitalist per state, as they get all the wealth. This can be very hard to achieve though, don't worry too much about it till you get better, just keep their numbers low.

Clerks are also good, they help improve the overall efficiency of a factory. I don't really know for sure what the optimal ratio of craftsmen to clerks is but I tend to shoot for about 5:1 - 4:1 craftsmen over clerks.

 

[Battle bunny]

Okay, some of the later posts and some other information I had acquired contradict each other, so I'd like some clarification.

I thought craftsmen are poor strata, right? So wouldn't it help them promote more if I lowered the poor taxes? Or is promotion affected by the taxes of the strata that a pop is promoted to?

And you say that the fewer capitalists, the better - so why do other people ever encourage capitalists, then?

 

[Sweynforkbeard]

I have found that the key purpose of increasing the number of capitalists (later in the game) is simply to generate demand. They have Money which is better spend than saved.

My opening strategy for Sweden would be something like:
1) Conquer Madagascar ASAP before France can intervene (for rare Wood). While you are in the area; follow up by taking Dongola and Sudan from Egypt (possibly get some cotton too).
2) Sphere Manchuria for Wood and Coal
3) Tax everyone into Space to drive up militancy and pass the Health care reforms.
4) Get the required number of bureaucrats and Clergymen. Then focus on craftsmen, a trinket number of capitalists (initially) and eventually clerks. Clerks are the ones that will ultimately make industries profitable but on the other hand, the more craftsmen you have the faster you can generate Clerks. I cant say I have ever found the "perfect" timing for switching.

On a more experimental note. It may be an idea to postpone forming Scandinavia a bit. Never tried it but perhaps using foreign Investment to stear Denmarks economy in the direction you want and leave the build up to them could Work.

 

[Jorlaan]

Craftsmen are low class, clerks are middle.

People need to be reasonably literate to promote to craftsmen, you want well functioning clergy for this and they are also middle class. Artisans are also middle and they tend to have HARD times getting what they need. Keeping middle taxes lowish will help keep your artisans going, which will help the overall economy until you have tons of craftsmen. This tax level also helps keep your clergy working and getting people literate, always make sure to have a good 2% clergy per state and a national average of at least 2% for the RP bonus. As the masses get more literate they will start promoting to craftsmen. As the game goes on and you get more and more literacy/craftsmen, you start slowly turning poor taxes down and middle taxes up, adjusting to your budget.
There is also effective tax to bear in mind. Early game 100% taxes is only an effective tax of like 25%. As the game goes on and the effective tax goes up, you can lower the slider.

Capitalists work by investing their money into various projects, those projects then funnel money BACK to the capitalists, who then funnel it back in to more projects...etc. The less capitalists the more wealth concentrates and the faster he(they) can build stuff. If there are 1000 capitalists with $1 each they can't get much done, as some try and build this, some try and build that...etc. With 1 capitalist with $1000 he can build whatever. Obviously most stuff costs more than $1000 but that is just a basic example.

 

[Gnorf]

Craftsmen are low class, clerks are middle.

People need to be reasonably literate to promote to craftsmen, you want well functioning clergy for this and they are also middle class. Artisans are also middle and they tend to have HARD times getting what they need. Keeping middle taxes lowish will help keep your artisans going, which will help the overall economy until you have tons of craftsmen. This tax level also helps keep your clergy working and getting people literate, always make sure to have a good 2% clergy per state and a national average of at least 2% for the RP bonus. As the masses get more literate they will start promoting to craftsmen. As the game goes on and you get more and more literacy/craftsmen, you start slowly turning poor taxes down and middle taxes up, adjusting to your budget.
There is also effective tax to bear in mind. Early game 100% taxes is only an effective tax of like 25%. As the game goes on and the effective tax goes up, you can lower the slider.

Capitalists work by investing their money into various projects, those projects then funnel money BACK to the capitalists, who then funnel it back in to more projects...etc. The less capitalists the more wealth concentrates and the faster he(they) can build stuff. If there are 1000 capitalists with $1 each they can't get much done, as some try and build this, some try and build that...etc. With 1 capitalist with $1000 he can build whatever. Obviously most stuff costs more than $1000 but that is just a basic example.

Artisans suck, start getting rid of them immediately. Put tariffs on max and subsidize factories until almost all your artisans are gone. A few will demote to craftsmen or go work in your RGO and a sizable chunk will demote to either bureaucrats or clergy which is hugely important. I did a few test runs as different countries and a 100% tariffs usually gives you 3% clergy at 60-80% of the time depending on your starting conditions.