Westernizing as China in Vanilla (no HOD).

[blue emu]

Hi -

I'm playing vanilla Vicky II... no DLCs, no expansions, no mods.

I've started a game as China just to get used to the Unciv and Westernization mechanics. Started off with all scores zero (Prestige, Industry, Military).

In particular, my Military score started at zero despite having over 100 Irregular Divisions. Just as an experiment (for SCIENCE!!!) I decided to try and build an Artillery unit ("The Barking Dogs"), to see if it gave me a Military point... 50+ Military score is one of the requirements for Westernization.

So I bought some surplus artillery pieces at Wall-Mart, and started building one Artillery unit (and one Cavalry unit as well). My Military score shot up from 0 to to 92! Did this have anything to do with my arms purchase, or was it just the game resetting a counter on the month-end interphase?

Aside from that little conundrum... does anyone have any advice for Westernizing China in Vanilla? I have declared war on whatever Vietnam is called, using the Humiliate casus belli (just trying to squeeze some Prestige out of them... I need 40+ Prestige as part of my Westernization requirements. I'm also trying to balance my budget and build up a grotesquely huge swarm of Irregulars.

Advice?

 

[aimlessnerd]

Advice?

Go buy AHD and HOD. You want those patches and content. Learning to play the game in Vanilla without them is silly when you can learn to play the same game with all the better content with the same curve and won't have to adapt later on to the changes.

 

[DesNibelungen]

Why are you playing it without the expansions?

 

[blue emu]

Why are you playing it without the expansions?

Unemployed and broke.

I have succeeded in Westernizing as China in 1857... the Military score was the hardest condition to fulfill.

Next: Industrialization!

I'm aware that with my current techs, any factories I build at this point will be unprofitable and will probably stand empty until they close... I've been using my National Focus for Clergymen (in my most populous states) since game-start, but my Literacy rate is only up to 10% or so, and I won't have the trained workers to operate any large number of factories.

My plan is to first study the techs that increase Literacy, Admin efficiency and RGOs, then work on the Factory techs.

Which factories should I build first? Something that makes money, so that it won't go out of business?

 

[aimlessnerd]

Unemployed and broke.
?

Then refund the game and wait until Vicky 2 is on a sale.

Which factories should I build first? Something that makes money, so that it won't go out of business?

The kinds that you can only get with AHD and HOD.

There's absolutely zero reason to play or learn this game without the expansions, you're gaining nothing from it.

 

[DesNibelungen]

Sorry to be discouraging, but wait until there's a 75% off sale (happens a few times a year), and start playing V2 after that.

 

[Gans]

I have to agree, vanilla Vic2 is just far too unbalanced to play with. Unless you enjoy GB making all India state and ramping up 40-50k industry score, effectively killing off all competition, walking about with 2k brigades and tons of ships, effectively trashing everything, and the battles last way too long too since the back rows dont seem to suffer morale penalty. This is one of the games where expansions are a must since they don't only add features, they rebalance it and fix bugs too.

 

[ELPhantomII]

Good luck with the Boxers. Unless you have a large army in every province, they'll break your relations in a heartbeat. One of the things they should've fixed in 3.04, I feel.