I haven't played the major or middle sized nations yet, as I'm trying to learn the basics by playing minor countries.
My experiences so far begs the question, did anybody seriously test play these countries before the games release ? So far I've found them all but unplayable.
Most recently I tried the Punjab -six provinces and 54 starting population with no factories. Within a couple of years the countries economy has collapsed.
To try and survive you have to play the Cambodian Year Zero option of returning every one to the fields:
1. immediately abolish the army and navy, set no defence spending.
2. no law and order budget.
3. significantly increase taxes across the classes.
4. raise trade tariffs significantly
5. convert most spare clerks to labourers and put them into gathering raw materials.
6. dismiss as many soldier pops as possible and put them into raw materials or farms. Just aim to buy some extra time with a few more sales on the World market.
7. sell most non-essential stocks.
8. Set education to the point that you'll get some minor research points and hope for lots of public museums and opera house events.
10. start researching the Trade research that allows you to build most of the factory types.
10a. or try to build a winery if you can afford the materials, put in an order for glass on the WM and hope some turns up.
11. Trust in God, that the research arrives before you budget is killed by the increasing interest on the mounting auto bank loans.
12. with the research complete, try and build the appropriate basic factory for you resources, in Punjabs case a lumber yard.
13. put as many upgraded craftsmen as possible in this, you'll have incurred additional high debts just to make them. And put any surviving tiny clerk POPs in it as well
14. Pray like mad that this will start to turn the financial tide and stop the daily losses.
15...... Continue to dream of that first experimental railway.
I haven't yet got past 10 or 10a with Punjab.
Say the plan works, what do you end up with ?
A once prosperous land in 1831 nearly bankrupt with huge debts. All of the aristocrats, officers and soldiers have gone. The vast majority of the population is locked into harvesting, mining or working in one factory producing one item for export. Everything else has stood still, even though 20 years or more have past.
That is why I call it the Year Zero Imperative, the rulers don't have any other option.
This doesn't square with the idea that your in control of a complete country moulding and influencing its destiny and character. As the manual and box of Victoria implies
For immediate playability sakes I'd suggest something like this should be adopted for most small to medium countries.:
1. most need 2 or more basic factories applicable to their raw materials, so for Punjab a lumber mill and a winery, or perhaps a fabrics one for the cotton. After all turning logs into planks or weaving fabric isn't exactly high technology that needs to be research. Do remember that Indian was as significant exporter of cloth well into the 19th century.
2. all nations need some basic stocks to allow some choice in building or upgrading populations, instead of seeing them reduced to penuary.
3. I assume the mandatory army abolition will be solved, along with restructured defence expenditures. Currently not having any army for the first decades isn't fun.
At least in HOI all nations were playable to some extent, even ethopia.
Anyone got an idea how many countries are playable Grand campaign ? Ignoring all the AI bankruptcies that happen throughout the game, the other two I've tried Afghanistan and Burma are more doomed than The Punjab
My experiences so far begs the question, did anybody seriously test play these countries before the games release ? So far I've found them all but unplayable.
Most recently I tried the Punjab -six provinces and 54 starting population with no factories. Within a couple of years the countries economy has collapsed.
To try and survive you have to play the Cambodian Year Zero option of returning every one to the fields:
1. immediately abolish the army and navy, set no defence spending.
2. no law and order budget.
3. significantly increase taxes across the classes.
4. raise trade tariffs significantly
5. convert most spare clerks to labourers and put them into gathering raw materials.
6. dismiss as many soldier pops as possible and put them into raw materials or farms. Just aim to buy some extra time with a few more sales on the World market.
7. sell most non-essential stocks.
8. Set education to the point that you'll get some minor research points and hope for lots of public museums and opera house events.
10. start researching the Trade research that allows you to build most of the factory types.
10a. or try to build a winery if you can afford the materials, put in an order for glass on the WM and hope some turns up.
11. Trust in God, that the research arrives before you budget is killed by the increasing interest on the mounting auto bank loans.
12. with the research complete, try and build the appropriate basic factory for you resources, in Punjabs case a lumber yard.
13. put as many upgraded craftsmen as possible in this, you'll have incurred additional high debts just to make them. And put any surviving tiny clerk POPs in it as well
14. Pray like mad that this will start to turn the financial tide and stop the daily losses.
15...... Continue to dream of that first experimental railway.
I haven't yet got past 10 or 10a with Punjab.
Say the plan works, what do you end up with ?
A once prosperous land in 1831 nearly bankrupt with huge debts. All of the aristocrats, officers and soldiers have gone. The vast majority of the population is locked into harvesting, mining or working in one factory producing one item for export. Everything else has stood still, even though 20 years or more have past.
That is why I call it the Year Zero Imperative, the rulers don't have any other option.
This doesn't square with the idea that your in control of a complete country moulding and influencing its destiny and character. As the manual and box of Victoria implies
For immediate playability sakes I'd suggest something like this should be adopted for most small to medium countries.:
1. most need 2 or more basic factories applicable to their raw materials, so for Punjab a lumber mill and a winery, or perhaps a fabrics one for the cotton. After all turning logs into planks or weaving fabric isn't exactly high technology that needs to be research. Do remember that Indian was as significant exporter of cloth well into the 19th century.
2. all nations need some basic stocks to allow some choice in building or upgrading populations, instead of seeing them reduced to penuary.
3. I assume the mandatory army abolition will be solved, along with restructured defence expenditures. Currently not having any army for the first decades isn't fun.
At least in HOI all nations were playable to some extent, even ethopia.
Anyone got an idea how many countries are playable Grand campaign ? Ignoring all the AI bankruptcies that happen throughout the game, the other two I've tried Afghanistan and Burma are more doomed than The Punjab
