The Easiest Countries

[Agenor]

Which are the easiest countries to win the game with, without major exploits?

In 1.04 my list is

US - the world's most boring country. Get California and just keep building factories.

Britain - all those colonies

Prussia

Russia

China.

France

Thereafter getting into first place gets a bit tough. Austria and Italy both suffer from low literacy, and don't have the manpower to do lots of industrializing. I'm trying to win as Sweden/Scandinavia at the moment, and am only 120 points behind Britian, but the lead is widening as they keep churning out battleships (it's 1893). Also, the US is bound to catch up with me when their industrial score rises.

Has anyone ever won as Sweden without a culture race(any high literacy minor could win the game with 1.03)? My only thought is to try to build dreadnoughts before the Brits do, hope to build enough and then sink their obscenely large fleet, which is always a pleasure to do. Any hints welcome.

 

[unmerged(63310)]

Which are the easiest countries to win the game with, without major exploits?

In 1.04 my list is

US - the world's most boring country. Get California and just keep building factories.

Britain - all those colonies

Prussia

Russia

China.

France

Thereafter getting into first place gets a bit tough. Austria and Italy both suffer from low literacy, and don't have the manpower to do lots of industrializing. I'm trying to win as Sweden/Scandinavia at the moment, and am only 120 points behind Britian, but the lead is widening as they keep churning out battleships (it's 1893). Also, the US is bound to catch up with me when their industrial score rises.

Has anyone ever won as Sweden without a culture race(any high literacy minor could win the game with 1.03)? My only thought is to try to build dreadnoughts before the Brits do, hope to build enough and then sink their obscenely large fleet, which is always a pleasure to do. Any hints welcome.

Never won as Sweden but have won as Scandinavia quite a few times. Usually by widening the base population by getting Finland and sometime expanding into Russia or other times annexing some of the minor German states and preventing formation of Germany.

In your current situation it would help if you had France and/or USA allied as even if you manage to outbuild UK and win the first naval war they will simply have their entire fleet rebuilt within a few years unless you manage to strip them of colonies and that would be incredibly hard with only Scandinavian population base and no allies.

Of minors to win the game with easiest would be- German minor without forming Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Brasil, Scandinavia, Spain, Persia, Mexico, Portugal, and Switzerland.

You didn't list Japan, or Italy as easy majors but it should be while Ottomans and Austria perfectly capable but not as easy.

 

[unmerged(86954)]

Which are the easiest countries to win the game with, without major exploits?

In 1.04 my list is

US - the world's most boring country. Get California and just keep building factories.

Britain - all those colonies

Prussia

Russia

China.

France

Well you got it there. Thread over.

Maybe I'd switch Prussia & Russia and China & France but yeah, that's it.

 

[crash63]

Prussia is very easy when you become Germany but Russia is very easy even in 1836.

 

[Merrick Chance']

Prussia is very easy when you become Germany but Russia is very easy even in 1836.

I found that it's difficult to get First without really aggressive playing, and even with that (as Russia I annexed China and the Ottoman Empire), my literacy was still 90% and I wasn't getting a tech surplus. (probably mostly because China wasn't giving me any factories or tech points, even though it comprised 50% of my population), and even building 40 battleships every opportunity I could, I wasn't even CLOSE to Britain.

 

[unmerged(22452)]

I always found Russia to be hard cause I'd get crushed in the culture tech race. But I have beaten the UK with US, France, and Germany (Prussia) a couple times though except with the US it always involved winning a war with the UK.

 

[Dysken]

I found that it's difficult to get First without really aggressive playing, and even with that (as Russia I annexed China and the Ottoman Empire), my literacy was still 90% and I wasn't getting a tech surplus. (probably mostly because China wasn't giving me any factories or tech points, even though it comprised 50% of my population), and even building 40 battleships every opportunity I could, I wasn't even CLOSE to Britain.

Tech surplus has more to do with the class makeup of your national culture than with literacy. My guess is you still have a lot of people working in RGOs which don't generate a lot of RPs. Get more clerks and your problem will solve itself.

 

[Agenor]

In your current situation it would help if you had France and/or USA allied as even if you manage to outbuild UK and win the first naval war they will simply have their entire fleet rebuilt within a few years unless you manage to strip them of colonies and that would be incredibly hard with only Scandinavian population base and no allies.

That is a dreadful thought. I just don't have the resources to churn out ships at the rate they do, and can only hope to beat them through a short-term tech advantage. It also means full-scale war rather than colonial war. Might be fun though.

It's been an odd game so far. Switzerland and Britain stomped all over France quite early on, and France lost six provinces. It has lost nearly all its African holdings to the UK in a series of colonial wars. The Crimean war never fired, nor the 1866 war, and Prussia lost the Rhineland in 1871. I'm not quite sure how this happened. I was allied with France at the time, and had a terrible time keeping the Prussians, Austrians and loads of German minors out of Kiel. When next I looked the war was over, and there was a rebel force 40,000 strong taking down the remaining Prussian Rhineland. Maybe that triggered it, if the fall of Prussia event simply requires loss of Prussian control, rather than loss of control to the French.

I've given all my African colonies bordering Britain to the Swiss in the north and Portuguese in the south - I wouldn't survive a colonial war against the UK.

I always found Russia to be hard cause I'd get crushed in the culture tech race. But I have beaten the UK with US, France, and Germany (Prussia) a couple times though except with the US it always involved winning a war with the UK.

I won simply on industrial score - you have a huge population and really good population growth.

I found that it's difficult to get First without really aggressive playing, and even with that (as Russia I annexed China and the Ottoman Empire), my literacy was still 90% and I wasn't getting a tech surplus. (probably mostly because China wasn't giving me any factories or tech points, even though it comprised 50% of my population), and even building 40 battleships every opportunity I could, I wasn't even CLOSE to Britain.

Yes, I'm not an aggressive player, which is probably why I have never won with Austria or Italy. And the only time you can really sink the British fleet is if you get a tech advantage.

 

[Merrick Chance']

Yes, I'm not an aggressive player, which is probably why I have never won with Austria or Italy. And the only time you can really sink the British fleet is if you get a tech advantage.

Have you considered transporting your army to Africa, DoW'ing them with a Colonial War, and take their holdings then?

 

[unmerged(47028)]

You don’t have to have up to date fleet to beat Britain and there is no point to sink its fleet. Military score is nothing comparing to industrial.

Recently I played Russia and was badly loosing technology war, because of very low research speed. However, I beat Britain badly with my out dated army and navy simply landing and occupying British islands. I built cheap but huge fleet of riders and lots of transport ships. Then build lots of units reached shores and in 3-4 days landed all my troops while British dreadnoughts were sinking my commercial riders.

 

[unmerged(86954)]

I think I've won the game only twice, as Germany and then as China, but I generaly speaking play for the experience, not for victory. The "Congrats you won! Quit." is somewhat unmotivating to be honest. o

Aeh, forgot that one game which I won as Japan, thanks to obscene industrial score, wise planning in the start (building strategic industries while I still had State Capitalism) and laissez faire & lazy belligerence in the lategame.

 

[Agenor]

Have you considered transporting your army to Africa, DoW'ing them with a Colonial War, and take their holdings then?

I don't have enough divisions to do this - about 35, they have over 100. Anyway, I don't want their colonies, I want their money!

The only possibility is sink their fleet when they don't have a lot of troops stationed in the UK, and then invade.

I've messed up my current game by stupidly getting involved in the Spanish-American War. I am allied with France, and they are allied with Spain. This has gone on now for eight years, I have 40% war exhaustion (I'm building dreadnoughts) and the Americans are refusing all peace offers, while my navy sits off their coast in sinks the occaional battleship they have coming on line. The French regularly land a division or three, which is promptly slaughtered by an American uberstack.

This is where the game engine really meets its limitations. The US has such huge resources it can contninue warring for decades with 100% war exhaustion. The computer has figured out that the Americans have the men and the money to beat their opponents, so won't make peace. In reality, any sensible human player would grab the chance to get me out of the war and get my fleet off his coast, and then get on with building a fleet to finish the French and Spanish. But not the AI. I reckon this war will run until 1920, and was hoping to win the game without using "neville" or any exploit.

I also realize my whole Sweden/Scandinavia strategy needs an overhaul. Basically I should have bought Finland from the Russians for colonial claims as soon as possible, since the Finnish RGO's are really productive and population growth there would have benfitted from my tech levels. This game really does make you think strategically in a way others don't, which is why it's so great.

 

[unmerged(86954)]

the Finnish RGO's are really productive and population growth there would have benfitted from my tech levels.

Lumber and fish is awesome..?

 

[unmerged(48753)]

Taking Britain is not that hard, but it's still virtually impossible to get favorable peace. :wacko: Situations like that lead me to think that "neville" perhaps shouldn't be called a cheat.

Was the CA > BB bug fixed in 1.04? I can't remember. I've been on an HOI2 binge for a while. That was the way to beat the British Navy. They would churn out battleships which could never beat heavy cruisers. With a headstart, you could get Dreadnought parity and rule the waves for a decade or two.

 

[Eärendil]

That's because they probably have a lot higher military score than you have. If you occupy London with a quite smaller army, then of course the AI will keep on fighting when they have good chances of liberating London again. However, if you destroy their army and navy, so that you have a similar military score to what they have, then they will probably offer you a good peace deal if you have occupied their homelands.

 

[unmerged(760)]

to all those, that say fighting the brits is easy: what difficulty level and version do you play?

i´m on 1.04-VIP, very hard - its actually around 1880 and GB has a military score of 650 and an up-to-date fleet of around 600 ships :wacko: easy? not for me guys!!!

 

[crash63]

It's easy to beat the British navy later with modern dreadnoughts. UK has a lot of different ships but not up to date.

I have crushed British navy with Germany, Ottomans, Italy, Chili, Japan or Texas for exemple.

 

[OHgamer]

i´m on 1.04-VIP, very hard - its actually around 1880 and GB has a military score of 650 and an up-to-date fleet of around 600 ships :wacko: easy? not for me guys!!!

VIP is designed to be played on normal/normal. Playing at harder levels will result in odd AI behavior as the AI gets several additional aids to provide more of a "challenge".

We do not recommend playing VIP at anything other than normal/normal, and can not verify things will work as designed when played on other difficulty/aggressive levels.

 

[Dysken]

As for easiest country, I'd say the USA. All the resources you need and a huge immigration boost.

 

[Oerdin]

Just Google "vickywiki" and you'll see the top tier powers. The second tier powers can become great powers while in the hands of a great player a third tier power could even make it to great power status. The days of one province uncivilized minors could become major powers is now over and they're just lucky to survive.