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Victoria II: A House Divided
- Thread starter MasterSmithFandango
- Start date
GarfunkeL
Racism Expert
Not sure how it workes in Vicky2 but in old Vicky and Vicky:Revolutions, the usual trick was to build units from South pops, so when the ACW event triggered, all of the standing army & navy would go to South. You still have to fight mobilization but it's much easier that way. Also, build as many factories in South as you can and railroads, while allowing North to languish.
Vaarna_Aarne
Notorious Internet Vandal
Here's the method: You have to fight Consciousness all over the place, as long as possible. The longer it takes for the Civil War to happen, the better your chances as the South, due to the following things you'll be doing:
The moment you can, start taking territory from Mexico one state at a time, which you then have join as a Slave State. If you take multiple states, you only get one Slave State, rest will be Free States. While doing this, colonize every-fucking-where you can, and have Bureaucrats trained in largest colonies you have (in descending order, obviously) until they all join as Slave States. This way you can get CSA to include EVERYTHING in the country outside of the core Free States + a few others (which will join the North even if they're Slave States, but getting cores there is worth it so you can get them back later). It's also a good idea to seize Cuba, due to its higher population (though getting it statehood in time will be a challenge). Remember, a single CSA core must be present for a state to defect, so play time for the event to fire as much as possible.
When no other uses are available, use Focus to get Immigrants to Slave States to even the odds a little. In addition to this, do as GarfunkeL instructs. Focus all your efforts on building up Slave States and neglect the mandatory North. Also remember that you will gain all the techs the North has, so plan accordingly. It's also important to remember to disband ALL naval assets and North-based regiments before the Civil War to even the odds.
CSA has always been a total pushover in Vickys, so you really have to "cheat" for victory. Even with all this you will have a tough time due to Northern states having much higher population most of the time (and all your fucking money).
The moment you can, start taking territory from Mexico one state at a time, which you then have join as a Slave State. If you take multiple states, you only get one Slave State, rest will be Free States. While doing this, colonize every-fucking-where you can, and have Bureaucrats trained in largest colonies you have (in descending order, obviously) until they all join as Slave States. This way you can get CSA to include EVERYTHING in the country outside of the core Free States + a few others (which will join the North even if they're Slave States, but getting cores there is worth it so you can get them back later). It's also a good idea to seize Cuba, due to its higher population (though getting it statehood in time will be a challenge). Remember, a single CSA core must be present for a state to defect, so play time for the event to fire as much as possible.
When no other uses are available, use Focus to get Immigrants to Slave States to even the odds a little. In addition to this, do as GarfunkeL instructs. Focus all your efforts on building up Slave States and neglect the mandatory North. Also remember that you will gain all the techs the North has, so plan accordingly. It's also important to remember to disband ALL naval assets and North-based regiments before the Civil War to even the odds.
CSA has always been a total pushover in Vickys, so you really have to "cheat" for victory. Even with all this you will have a tough time due to Northern states having much higher population most of the time (and all your fucking money).
I've worked out on each of those aspects. I've added bonuses for being a civilized non-GP, nerfed mobilization, gave a pop growth bonus for Germany, a pop growth penalty for France and solved the critical global Timber/Coal shortage (in a rather simplified manner, but I wasn't quite sure how to balance out a charcoal factory). Depends really on what you want, I tried to keep the more streamlined and arcadey style of Vicky 2 alive while improving various aspects that needed work, Pop Demand and VRRP do major changes that I didn't enjoy.
XenomorphII
Prophet
- Joined
- Jan 23, 2011
- Messages
- 1,198
It has been awhile since I have done a Confederacy game, but I usually tried to take as much territory off the US in the first war as I could. If you shift the balance enough they won't come knocking again (and it usually doesn't take but one or two states to make the AI decide that attacking you isn't worth the risk).
Zboj Lamignat
Arcane
- Joined
- Feb 15, 2012
- Messages
- 5,541
Bros, teach me to enjoy Vicky II.
For the reference I only played Vicky I for like 15 minutes and the only grand strategy games from Paradox that I played really extensively are the HoI games in all shapes and forms (though I did try all the other ones).
Inspired by the Confederacy LP I played three games so far:
1. Japan - updated myjournal country to a very respectable shape, was nothing to do, quit out of boredom.
2. Oranje - did some conquest and colonization, when I started gaining power UK and Portugal declared war and rolfstomped me. Lost everything, didn't bother to continue.
3. Argentina - I actually finished this one as #8 great power, conquered most of SA, had colonies, very powerful navy and army, decent industry and a lot of prestige.
Ok, so what's there actually to do in this game cause it seems to me that the most accurate answer is "not much"? Developing your country is extremely basic. Few sliders to move, improving the provinces is laughable (build railway/fort/naval base, set focus), colonizing is not exciting at all. You research one technology at a time, choosing from one of short, linear trees (+10/+15/+20). There are some events, but they are banal, shit, boring +10 diapers in stock or +10% farming for some time (they seem to be totally bugged for me as well, I frequently got events that said I will get bonuses till two years ago).
Diplomacy is somewhat developed when compared to your average strategy title, I'll give them that. Though you can have fun with it mostly as a bigger country.
And of course there is war. But it just sucks so bad with, yet again, utter lack of options and total randomness. I got repeatedly whacked by technologically inferior forces and I had no idea why. The only strategy that AI uses are doomstacks so you have to have doomstacks of your own and watch them knocking each other on the head. The infamy mechanic is pretty cool and realistic, but mostly results in smaller countries not being able to do much despite theoretical possibilities.
Generally, you spend ridiculous amount of time just staring at the screen. There's not even any hectic micromanagement from HoI to do here.
One thing that still intrigues me and prompts to try another game is the industrialization process and factories. I didn't really get how that works so far, I tried to fit factories to the profile of my country, but they just ate lots of money as subsidiaries and went bankrupt frequently.
Oh, and this is the only game on their new engine that doesn't look repulsive to me, just plain ugly. That's always something I guess.
For the reference I only played Vicky I for like 15 minutes and the only grand strategy games from Paradox that I played really extensively are the HoI games in all shapes and forms (though I did try all the other ones).
Inspired by the Confederacy LP I played three games so far:
1. Japan - updated my
2. Oranje - did some conquest and colonization, when I started gaining power UK and Portugal declared war and rolfstomped me. Lost everything, didn't bother to continue.
3. Argentina - I actually finished this one as #8 great power, conquered most of SA, had colonies, very powerful navy and army, decent industry and a lot of prestige.
Ok, so what's there actually to do in this game cause it seems to me that the most accurate answer is "not much"? Developing your country is extremely basic. Few sliders to move, improving the provinces is laughable (build railway/fort/naval base, set focus), colonizing is not exciting at all. You research one technology at a time, choosing from one of short, linear trees (+10/+15/+20). There are some events, but they are banal, shit, boring +10 diapers in stock or +10% farming for some time (they seem to be totally bugged for me as well, I frequently got events that said I will get bonuses till two years ago).
Diplomacy is somewhat developed when compared to your average strategy title, I'll give them that. Though you can have fun with it mostly as a bigger country.
And of course there is war. But it just sucks so bad with, yet again, utter lack of options and total randomness. I got repeatedly whacked by technologically inferior forces and I had no idea why. The only strategy that AI uses are doomstacks so you have to have doomstacks of your own and watch them knocking each other on the head. The infamy mechanic is pretty cool and realistic, but mostly results in smaller countries not being able to do much despite theoretical possibilities.
Generally, you spend ridiculous amount of time just staring at the screen. There's not even any hectic micromanagement from HoI to do here.
One thing that still intrigues me and prompts to try another game is the industrialization process and factories. I didn't really get how that works so far, I tried to fit factories to the profile of my country, but they just ate lots of money as subsidiaries and went bankrupt frequently.
Oh, and this is the only game on their new engine that doesn't look repulsive to me, just plain ugly. That's always something I guess.
Sranchammer
Arcane
And it's plain revisionist to say that the ACW was not about economics, culture, and geography with a bit of political maneuvering ensuring Northern dominance of the country. The North in every sense of the world held the strings of Southern prosperity.
The issue could've been settled in a few more decades and a lot less men dead.
Vaarna_Aarne
Notorious Internet Vandal
A couple of things to know:
One thing is that the economic aspect is extremely limited for smaller countries. This is a general problem I've been working on with Vicky 2, since currently it's geared to make only certain countries (read: Great Powers, China and Japan) really playable, especially in Europe. A signficant issue smaller nations face is the GLOBAL COAL AND TIMBER SHORTAGE that deserves to be written in all caps (the world literally runs out of Timber during mid/late 19th century, and the same happens to Coal a little later), as they generally lack the means for having autarky in both. However, beyond this issue there's quite a lot you can do in the economy. It's not really about building, it's about planning longterm growth and resource allocation, which you do by using Focus to keep mining RGOs growing (this is important for countries with huge RGO potential for Coal, like Austria) and trying to manipulate the electorate into becoming Socialist (generally having +50% Socialist voter base in the country is the "I win" result for economy, I had to specifically boost Laissez Faire so it isn't economy-demolishingly bad). This was also why your countries (with most likely exception of Japan, which has access to Coal and can acquire a lot more by going apeshit on China and Korea), as factories and industrialization are resource-driven when it comes to Coal and Timber. If you lack those, most factories will just consume maintenance and wages but produce nothing. This of course is totally fucking insane, which is why I've been massively increasing the base output of those two resources in trying to find the perfect size.
Technology is also about resource management and prioritizing. Obviously certain techs are simply vital to get ASAP (research point boosts and early focus point techs for plurality), but other than that the idea is that you need to develop your country's strengths Choices & Consequences style. Having technological superiority in something can be a huge boost, as Supply Limit techs make your stack focus ability considerably higher, while Army techs can make you a devastating combatant (this is clearly intended as the Achilles' Heel of shit-tech zerg rush countries like Russia and China, but it needs some work), or Navy that can completely contain the enemy in a global conflict.
As for war, you need to look at the terrain you're fighting in. This is the decisive aspect in common warfare (read: Never attack in Mountains without a superior advantage in numbers and encirclement) along with positioning. The land war's weak aspect is that you can't have something like Austria-Hungary's campaign in Serbia, the opening stage of the Zulu War, or the Boer War where small countries put up a fight (this could be solved by giving non-GPs under attack by GPs and alone a triggered modifier to boost them considerably, but currently you cannot give Tactics and several other necessary elements with modifiers). So far, warfare is most enjoyable when you have a multi-front Great War in Europe. In my most recent Austria-Hungary campaign, my clockwork-like attacks against Russia for lebensraum in the Ukraine (Rus genocide best day of my life!) finally ended up with battlelines being drawn and extensive alliances made. In the end, the Great War took place in 1880's, when Austria-Hungary allied with France, Netherlands and the United States squared off against Russian Empire, Germany, United Kingdom and Italy. The best part about Great Wars is that now that AHD works properly, they can truly BREAK a power. By the end of the war, United Kingdom (invaded by sea by the newly constructed Imperial Fleet) and Russian Empire collapsed into endless civil war (UK stabilized as a communist state, Russia underwent six revolutions before game-end) while Germany's power to challenge the Habsburgs was castrated with the annexation of Silesia and Bavaria to the Austro-Hungarian empire (Great Wars also allow for massive territorial changes due to all infamy and peace costs being reduced to 33%). The decisive stage of the war was the grand offensive against Germany in support of France where half of the German army was succesfully encircled and destroyed.
Also, it's fun playing as a smaller country that has a "Greater X" decision (chain) available. For example, Greece with Megali Idea (currently broken because Ottomans will never relocate capital to Ankara) and Restore Byzantine Empire, or Serbia with Form Yugoslavia. You can also try the mega-hardcore one in those, and go for trying to form Der Grosse Kartoffeln (Poland-Lithuania) with Krakow (or release and play as Poland or Lithuania). If I ever get to updating my stuff for Vicky 2, it's got a Greater Finland decision for Finland (autonomous sub-state of the Russian Empire, as it was historically) which adds cores on Estonia and Ingria (I also added a decision for Ottomans to move capital to Ankara, which the AI does, the decision comes available when enough of the Balkan states bordering Thracia are conquered). I'd also work more on making Nationalist Rebels more likely to occur (along with re-adding several core nations to Russia; like Kazakhstan and the civil war factions for potential civil war even chain; and reworking the Liberate casus belli to REDUCE infamy when added but give more infamy if you fail to achieve it), and of course see if British India mini-mod still functions (though not as critical now, I've rarely seen non-colonial India).
Yeah economy is pretty badly fucked up. Industrialisation hardly seems worth it (instead of essential to long-term survival as it was historically). Would also be nice to have a 'relative profit per worker' tool thing that would tell you if your workers would be making more of a profit back in the fields/mines than the factory. Even in the case where a factory is doing well I'm never quite sure if we'd be making more having them in a RGO (which are unhistorically stable and always make a profit).
Ideally you'd have laissez-faire as automatic investment and expansion in the most profitable factories with resources, investment and workers drawn from less relatively profitable factories/RGOs but at the cost of loss of self-sufficiency (all those previously lucrative luxury clothes and furniture factories aren't worth shit now that you've spent seven years in military deadlock and naval blockade means your soldiers are starving and your artillery is being forced to conserve every shell) and risk of mass unemployment and social disturbance when certain industries no longer become profitable. Instead it just sucks and is broken with the sole advantage of saving you 500 mouse clicks as Russia when you want to build railway lines.
Ideally you'd have laissez-faire as automatic investment and expansion in the most profitable factories with resources, investment and workers drawn from less relatively profitable factories/RGOs but at the cost of loss of self-sufficiency (all those previously lucrative luxury clothes and furniture factories aren't worth shit now that you've spent seven years in military deadlock and naval blockade means your soldiers are starving and your artillery is being forced to conserve every shell) and risk of mass unemployment and social disturbance when certain industries no longer become profitable. Instead it just sucks and is broken with the sole advantage of saving you 500 mouse clicks as Russia when you want to build railway lines.
The issue with socialism being overpowered could be easily fixed by giving efficiency penalties to everything other than laissez faire - the more centralized industry is the greater it gets, with communism capping at 70% or something similar.
Vaarna_Aarne
Notorious Internet Vandal
I solved the issue in a better IMO. I simply enabled subsidies to persist under Laissez Faire (this is critical and the main reason for Laissez Faire being the worst), while improving the bonuses LS and Interventionism provide. The issue isn't that State Capitalism is overpowered, the issue is that vanilla Laissez Faire and Interventionism suck (Planned Economy is actually fairly well done, it can be useful but it has notably penalties, and most 20th century dictatorships will be locked in it).
After my changes, economic policy made a whole lot more sense as a gameplay mechanic now. It was now about choosing the bonus (benefits of longterm planning for world conquest VS moneymoneymoney). I also used to rebalance things like Foreign Policy, which I'll probably do again if I start fiddling around (namely, each policy provides infamy reduction, which is increased as your military spending drops, but also slightly increased for Jingoism compared to Pro-Military which has the lowest one; Yea I'm also reworking the Infamy system to have a higher limit but also adding scaled CB costs, meaning that large states like Russia would see larger territorial demands against them and small countries might cap out someone's infamy limit with a single demand). National Values would also get rebalancing, with mobilization effects from them made uniform (probably on the Order level) but instead additional effects added to make them different from each other (and possibly decisions tied to government type and ruling party ideologies + support for changing them).
Actually industrialization IS of paramount importance, as your military capability is directly proportional to your ability to build and maintain a powerful army. Ironically, luxury clothes factory IS primarily for the military, as it's required for production and maintenance of Guards.
The real issue is that Vicky 2 is a game of autarky: The global market is FUBAR most of the time. Pretty much the only thing that will be readily available and that does decrease in price is Steel (in fact, I do quite enjoy monopolizing certain industries in my GP campaigns; Austrial Steel #1!)
EDIT: Another thing is that once you get factories, you end up in an unemployment loop if you don't keep expanding them, because the RGO worker conversion rate is too slow. I deliberately stopped expanding my factories in Bohemia in order to max out the mines there. Well, turns out it's going to take some thirty years for that to happen, since everyone and their dog still wants to become a Craftsman (this is with Focus on Labourers, could probably be solved by making Labourer and Farmer focuses much more effective).
Harpsichord
Arcane
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2011
- Messages
- 1,822
All issues of which slavery was of primarily relevance to.
Agreed, and in a manner that was of a greater benefit to not only the South, the North, and the rest of the whole damned country(into this day!), but even for the slaves themselves.
Harpsichord
Arcane
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2011
- Messages
- 1,822
All issues of which slavery was of primarily relevance to.
Agreed, and in a manner that was of a greater benefit to not only the South, the North, and the rest of the whole damned country(into this day!), but even for the slaves themselves.
Sranchammer
Arcane
Only one other Western nation ended slavery in blood: Haiti. Let's just say that's not the best scenario one would hope for in a war of abolition. I find it hard to blame Southerners for being scared shitless of granting the slaves immediate abolition.
"But, as it is, we have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other." - Thomas Jefferson
Interestingly enough, a significant amount of slaves did fight for the Confederacy. A phenomenon seen in other parts of the world. Those men believed it was their country too.
On another note, I often smirk at quip made by the Scottish writer Thomas Carlye: There they are, cutting each other's throats, because one half of them prefer hiring their servants for life, and the other by the hour."
GarfunkeL
Racism Expert
Sorry to burst your bubble, but it wasn't a "significant" amount, unless by significant you mean "enough for a regiment". Certainly wasn't significant enough to impact the war at all by the time South realized they could use the slaves.
Additionally, many of them were fighting for money, not because they loved the Confederacy - just like a significant portion of the soldiers of the North were fighting just for money instead of any lofty ideals or even patriotism.
Additionally, many of them were fighting for money, not because they loved the Confederacy - just like a significant portion of the soldiers of the North were fighting just for money instead of any lofty ideals or even patriotism.
Sranchammer
Arcane
Or forced to die on the battlefields while freedmen and recently-arrived contraband took their jobs back home?
Thanks for bursting my bubble. You're right in that significant was too significant of a word.
Indeed, it was far too late. I wonder how'd things would've turned out if this had been brought up in '62 instead of '64.
Haha, but I guess the Servile War fears were just too much when the war was going well.
The What Ifs on the ACW are the juiciest part of the whole thing.
Victoria II is one of the most fun strategy/economic games I have ever played. Albeit playing anything but European powers is a very disappointing and ultimately boring experience, playing as one of those powers will provide hours and hours of entertainment. Victoria II is a game that is quite unique and doesn't play like other games I have played before, which is also true for many other Paradox's games. Victoria focuses on politics of running a country and on the population of the country. It stands somewhere between games like Crusader Kings, where the internal politics is most important and player plays a role of a single character, and Europa Universalis, where only external politics matters and the player basically plays as a whole country. In Victoria 2 player has to manage government and satisfy the population's demands or suppress it, but conquest also plays a very important role and the game forces the player to take part in many wars. In addition, the economic side of the country is also under the control of the player (or not, depending on the political system). Hence Victoria II is quite incomparable strategy game and I recommend at least giving it a try. I had a lot of fun in the game and so should you, especially if you like strategy games.
Oh, and the music in the game is gorgeous!
Oh, and the music in the game is gorgeous!
oldmanpaco
Master of Siestas
Conductor we have a problem!
What's your problem, faggot?
oldmanpaco
Master of Siestas
I just think we should Free Jim Profit!
Seeking the guidance of the enlightened minds of the Codex - which are the good and up-to-date historical mods that I could install to make Victoria II less of a sandbox?
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