Grand Strategy Victoria 3

[what am i doing]

So I found out the way to make Super Germany.
1. Start as Austria, beeline for Nationalism tech.
2. Improve relations with Saxony, Bavaria, and Hesse-Kassel. When Nationalism is due to be ready soon, drag those countries out of Prussia's Customs Union, offering Favours if needed, which physically cuts Prussia's eastern half out of their market. They're now fucked out of sulfur (a video showing this technique may have been posted here earlier, or it was on /vst/, I don't remember which), which weakens their army substantially and also hurts their economy and prestige.
3. Declare a Leadership play against Prussia, add wargoals to Liberate everything you can from them, try to get Russia and/or France in the war on your side or at least not against you. Beat up Prussia.
4. Prussia is now very weak. But here's the important part, don't immediately go on the Unification Play, and don't do it as soon as Prussia falls from GP status. Wait, and improve relations with them. They should go Conciliatory with you, but should rise back up to GP status at a certain point. The important thing is that now they won't be against you for unification, and they won't be one of your unification targets, which means you won't take a massive Infamy hit and your enemy war leader will be Hanover. But, Prussia should fall back down out of GP status after the play starts (because they don't have enough prestige and the game is buggy as fuck, they regain and lose GP status regularly. If possible try to time your diplomatic play so that they fall out of GP status before the war starts, because I think this is how you end up annexing them with the rest.
5. Do your war; usually I was able to get Russia on my side, Britain neutral, and France as an enemy. Prussia actually comes in as an ally this way, which is useful.
6. Conclude the main wargoal vs Hanover, you are now Austria with Super Germany borders. If you want to stay Austria / become A-H, you can do this. If you want to be Germany, click the button. And there you have it, the 70 millionen Reich, with next to no infamy, and even easier than it is in vanilla V2, in my opinion. Also, funnily enough, less of a pain than forming lesser Germany as Prussia, because doing the latter, you often get one or two countries not joining via decision and then get stuck having to start another war over them. This game was not ready for release.

By 1853 my GDP had gone up by 30% and will probably be the largest in the world within another decade.

 

[XenomorphII]

Just a warning. If a general strike event pops, you have to deliver what you promise exactly. I promised a lower reform, but managed a higher one. Now they have struck and I cannot roll back nor does that reform "count" for ending the general strike. Leaving my country crippled.

 

[Tigranes]

So I found out the way to make Super Germany.
1. Start as Austria, beeline for Nationalism tech.
2. Improve relations with Saxony, Bavaria, and Hesse-Kassel. When Nationalism is due to be ready soon, drag those countries out of Prussia's Customs Union, offering Favours if needed, which physically cuts Prussia's eastern half out of their market. They're now fucked out of sulfur (a video showing this technique may have been posted here earlier, or it was on /vst/, I don't remember which), which weakens their army substantially and also hurts their economy and prestige.
3. Declare a Leadership play against Prussia, add wargoals to Liberate everything you can from them, try to get Russia and/or France in the war on your side or at least not against you. Beat up Prussia.
4. Prussia is now very weak. But here's the important part, don't immediately go on the Unification Play, and don't do it as soon as Prussia falls from GP status. Wait, and improve relations with them. They should go Conciliatory with you, but should rise back up to GP status at a certain point. The important thing is that now they won't be against you for unification, and they won't be one of your unification targets, which means you won't take a massive Infamy hit and your enemy war leader will be Hanover. But, Prussia should fall back down out of GP status after the play starts (because they don't have enough prestige and the game is buggy as fuck, they regain and lose GP status regularly. If possible try to time your diplomatic play so that they fall out of GP status before the war starts, because I think this is how you end up annexing them with the rest.
5. Do your war; usually I was able to get Russia on my side, Britain neutral, and France as an enemy. Prussia actually comes in as an ally this way, which is useful.
6. Conclude the main wargoal vs Hanover, you are now Austria with Super Germany borders. If you want to stay Austria / become A-H, you can do this. If you want to be Germany, click the button. And there you have it, the 70 millionen Reich, with next to no infamy, and even easier than it is in vanilla V2, in my opinion. Also, funnily enough, less of a pain than forming lesser Germany as Prussia, because doing the latter, you often get one or two countries not joining via decision and then get stuck having to start another war over them. This game was not ready for release.

By 1853 my GDP had gone up by 30% and will probably be the largest in the world within another decade.

All this is very clearly but a prelude to the grand Austro-German Communist Revolution

We salute you for volunteering as the initial swing of the dialectic

 

[Fedora Master]

Notice I built this factory in 1870, yet it instantly became the #1 in the world.

 

[what am i doing]

So I found out the way to make Super Germany.
1. Start as Austria, beeline for Nationalism tech.
2. Improve relations with Saxony, Bavaria, and Hesse-Kassel. When Nationalism is due to be ready soon, drag those countries out of Prussia's Customs Union, offering Favours if needed, which physically cuts Prussia's eastern half out of their market. They're now fucked out of sulfur (a video showing this technique may have been posted here earlier, or it was on /vst/, I don't remember which), which weakens their army substantially and also hurts their economy and prestige.
3. Declare a Leadership play against Prussia, add wargoals to Liberate everything you can from them, try to get Russia and/or France in the war on your side or at least not against you. Beat up Prussia.
4. Prussia is now very weak. But here's the important part, don't immediately go on the Unification Play, and don't do it as soon as Prussia falls from GP status. Wait, and improve relations with them. They should go Conciliatory with you, but should rise back up to GP status at a certain point. The important thing is that now they won't be against you for unification, and they won't be one of your unification targets, which means you won't take a massive Infamy hit and your enemy war leader will be Hanover. But, Prussia should fall back down out of GP status after the play starts (because they don't have enough prestige and the game is buggy as fuck, they regain and lose GP status regularly. If possible try to time your diplomatic play so that they fall out of GP status before the war starts, because I think this is how you end up annexing them with the rest.
5. Do your war; usually I was able to get Russia on my side, Britain neutral, and France as an enemy. Prussia actually comes in as an ally this way, which is useful.
6. Conclude the main wargoal vs Hanover, you are now Austria with Super Germany borders. If you want to stay Austria / become A-H, you can do this. If you want to be Germany, click the button. And there you have it, the 70 millionen Reich, with next to no infamy, and even easier than it is in vanilla V2, in my opinion. Also, funnily enough, less of a pain than forming lesser Germany as Prussia, because doing the latter, you often get one or two countries not joining via decision and then get stuck having to start another war over them. This game was not ready for release.

By 1853 my GDP had gone up by 30% and will probably be the largest in the world within another decade.

All this is very clearly but a prelude to the grand Austro-German Communist Revolution

We salute you for volunteering as the initial swing of the dialectic

No commie vermin in my Germany, thank you.

 

[HeroMarine]

View attachment 29821

Notice I built this factory in 1870, yet it instantly[/b] became the #1 in the world.

Lmao fucking Lhasa

 

[Sranchammer]

Unironically, the modders WILL fix this

 

[thesecret1]

Played until 1891 with Afghanistan and I'm not sure if I have it in me to continue. I conquered Baluchistan and blobbed into Sindh (for those sweet sulphur mines), and with the united might of those shitholes, managed to become a major power, one with 4th best living standard in the world (first place was some savages in Indonesia... Really, Paradox?) one of the highest GDPs, and terminally bored. Here's my impression of the game:

Economy: Probably the most micro in any Paradox game to date. It's actually fun at the beginning, when you have a shithole that has fucking nothing, and just industrialize it from the ground up. That stops being true after a while as techs open up more and more products to juggle, and your pops become wealthier and wealthier and demand more shit. Also the bigger you get, the worse it gets, naturally. You're stuck in a micro hell that's pretty trivial to do well in (just build factories for whatever goods you are lacking the most. Duh!) but is incredibly repetitive and later needs optimizing when you run out of labour force or achieve a major technology breakthrough, etc. Joining someone else's market to get a reprieve from all this crap might be a good idea – while microing your own autarky will inevitably lead to creating a paradise for your pops, the price of boredom is steep. As for money, there's this super cool pro gamer move to get as much of it as you want! It's: 1. industrialize 2. change your tax law to per capita. That's it, you're done, you won't have to worry about cash from here on out. If you wish to obtain wealth beyond measure (outlander), upgrade it later to whatever-it's-called that has the highest income tax. With that in place, I was soon able to put taxes at the minimum and pay my troops and bureaucrats highest possible wages, and still be in the green, despite aggressive building strategy. Yeah, it's that fucking easy because with your pop becoming wealthier due to your microing (very easy to do), they get much, much higher wages, which directly translates into much, much higher income tax.

There is a nice distinction between the private and public sector that I actually liked – you pay government employees, buy resources needed for their work, pay for your armies' gear and wages, etc. while just taxing the private sector. That's good, that's how it should be. Sadly, that's also the extent of the good things there. Lassiez faire doesn't exist in this game, you're gonna be in a command economy from start to finish. Do the people need more grain? You will have to go and actually click the button to create another grain farm, and pay for it with tax money. And if you later decide you need that workforce elsewhere... you will just destroy it. It even turns the actual owners of the farm radical (no wonder!) so I can only assume that what occurs is you send in the troops, chase the workers from the fields, and salt the earth or some shit. It's ridiculous. Fucking CAPITALISTS are handled as EMPLOYEES of the fucking farm. You literally need to HIRE CAPITALISTS to have the farm working at full capacity. The retardation is off the scales with this one. Naturally, it also means there is no way to avoid the micro. You can't just let some retarded AI handle your economy once it gets boring, no, you'll be stuck at it throughout the whole game. On a lighter note, it's not like there's anything else to do in this shitfest anyway, so there's that.

War: What a fucking joke. I told you back when they announced the whole thing in dev diaries it was gonna turn out shit, I warned you! It's chock-full of absolutely infuriating bullshit, crammed with RNG, and trivial to game if you know what you're doing. Basically, if a war starts, put all your troops and conscripts to the best equip you can (even if you cannot afford it and shit. Doesn't matter, just eat the cost while the war is on, then revert it all after), and attack. Done. Numbers don't really matter all that much since the RNG will usually put you into battles of roughly equal forces. It's retarded like that.

Diplomacy: Somehow dumber than in EU4 and the like. Everyone also has a massive stick up his ass and refuses to agree to any deal unless you thoroughly dick-suck them prior to it, unless it's massively and overwhelmingly in their favour. Anyway, you don't really need it that much in the first place. The AI is mega passive for whatever reason. For example, Russia just decided it didn't wanna play the Great Game this time around, and left Central Asia be. Brits, likewise, just politely watched me conquering my neighbours in Pakistan without doing anything. US didn't even manage to gets all the land from fucking Mexico... Really, the map is mostly the same in 1891 as it was in 1831. Which brings me to the next point...

Historicity: There isn't any. None. Zilch. Great Game? What's that? Scramble for Africa? Maybe Brits and French will grab one of two states there, but that's about it. WW1 will be entered with 80% of Africa uncolonized, probably. USA is some kinda small-dicked little cuck sitting in the corner, with living standard worse than most middle eastern shitholes and a shit economy, and doesn't even dream of things like Manifest Destiny. Russia enters wars with Prussia here and there but nobody really cares who wins as land never changes hands. I assume they're fighting for sport or some shit. Revolts are rare, and only seem to concern absolute and utter shitholes. Spring of Nations? Nah man, I'm happy, I get to work in this neat little sweatshop the king built for me (...and he actually is, because the sweatshop wages make him mega rich in a very short amount of time!). Long story short, it's an absolute clusterfuck no matter how you look at it.

Mana: This is actually a positive. The game sort of doesn't have mana, unlike other Paradox titles of the last decade. Bureaucracy, Authority, and Influence are capacities, rather, that don't stack and are usually only increased by laws, buildings (hence money), or international prestige and stuff like that. They're still way, WAY too abstract and often don't make much sense (why does a bit of bureaucracy suffice to set up schools across the country and educate the population? Shouldn't I, you know, actually fund that shit? No? Okay.... Not like literacy actually matters in this game anyway), but it's still a pretty big step in the right direction for modern paradox.

Pops: Don't matter. Just don't. Do you lack highly educated work force to work this specialized factory? Doesn't matter, as an inbred peasant from Congo will turn into an esteemed academic within the week. I've never had any issues with jobs – I don't claim to know how exactly it works in the game, but I do know I had a population of literally only illiterate Pashtun peasants, and they could take on ANY job within the week. Culture, religion, etc. also doesn't matter because any dissent born out of that will be countered by the fact you're making them all massively wealthy through the economy micro. The only thing that seems to have any relevance in pops is their actual number, as you can industrialize so much that you won't have enough bodies to throw at your factories.

Now, their average wealth level, on the other hand, does sorta matter. The wealthier they are, the more shit they want, and the higher wages they demand. That means that if your population is particularly wealthy, you can find your factories running into issues, as even though they're creating high demand goods, they are still not profitable, as your pops demand such a massive paycheck that it still doesn't pay for it. It's a nice problem to have, however, because the higher paycheck they have, the more income taxes they pay, and who cares that there's a shortage of dildos or whatever going on when you have essentially infinite money?

Characters: I don't understand why they're even in the game. Utterly pointless and irrelevant. More pointless than in Imperator, even.

UI: Dogshit. Looks like it's made for tablets, a pain to work with, and all the important info is buried and scattered (and sometimes even hidden in fucking tooltips!).

Flavour: There is none!

Summary: What a sorry excuse for a game. Paradox has been doing this for a while, releasing what's basically an early access skeleton of a game at full price, and then jewing you on the DLCs, but they really outdid themselves with this one. It's basically just the fucking economy micro. That's the gist of the gameplay loop and the only thing that seems to actually matter. This is gonna be another case of them re-making the entire fucking game in various patches until they come up with a 2.0 that's (hopefully?) actually playable. They learned nothing from the Imperator fiasco, it seems.

 

[Fedora Master]

Game comes down to
- Check which goods are in demand in your market
- For most of the world this will be clothing
- Produce said goods
- Win

 

[Mark.L.Joy]

Pretty much my experience, every country is the same, no real reason to play after 1860, great war dlc will fix it should be coming 3rd or 4th.

 

[RobotSquirrel]

This is actually a positive. The game sort of doesn't have mana, unlike other Paradox titles of the last decade. Bureaucracy, Authority

I disagree because it ties directly to what buildings you built for Admin -> Bureaucracy therefore its still mana, its just you generate it in a way that makes a lot more sense than it did with Imperators out of thin air mechanics.
Authority is tied to the government, high legitimacy more authority the downside is it costs money because the bigger your nation and bigger the government the more it costs in government wages. Edit, I think I might have this a bit confused it seems that (Party Buffs + Leader Popularity + Authoratarative Laws) - Government Size = Higher Authority. Legitimacy controls party clout which gets you the authority bonuses from the parties. This is pretty much the only thing I can see that is sort of a cap besides influence, everything else is a mana currency.
Money is your main mana since it does pretty much everything and has a hard cap, it doesn't work like money it works like mana, you use money to pay for bureaucracy. Its just tied to a building.
Construction also works like mana because I can switch materials as a way of throttling construction.

The only control you have over it is the buildings and laws, otherwise its out of your control, taxation is pointless as ideally its set at the lowest at all times there's no benefit to surplusses.
The parties in government only control what laws can be passed, the other parties only exist for rebellions if unloyal and buffs if they're loyal. The whole thing is very hands off, this game has a lot of illusion of control.

Playing as Australia it became very apparent that if you have enough income Bureaucracy is just mana. Early game it seems like it isn't but once you're flooded with money it just becomes an arbitrary thing you pass to stop revolutions.
Its not a good system.

Characters: I don't understand why they're even in the game. Utterly pointless and irrelevant. More pointless than in Imperator, even.

Your head of state is just a figurehead, the only factor that seems to do anything is popularity so yeah its pretty damn pointless.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

View attachment 29798

Ah yes, that famous Iranian wine

Might want to familiarize yourself with The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, at least the version by Edward Fitzgerald:

Indeed, the idols I have loved so long
Have done my credit in men's eyes much wrong
Have drowned my honor in a shallow cup
And sold my reputation for a song.

Indeed, indeed, repentance oft before
I swore --- but was I sober when I swore?
And then and then came spring and rose in hand,
My threadbare penitence a-pieces tore.

And much as wine has played the infidel
And robbed me of my rob of honour, well,
I often wonder what the vintners buy
One half so precious as the goods they sell.

 

[thesecret1]

Money is your main mana since it does pretty much everything and has a hard cap, it doesn't work like money it works like mana, you use money to pay for bureaucracy. Its just tied to a building.
Construction also works like mana because I can switch materials as a way of throttling construction.

I don't think we agree on what actually makes mana a mana.

 

[thesecret1]

Oh yeah, and inner politics are a joke. Remember how difficult it was to pass any changes in Victoria 2? Well that's not the case here. You can pass ANYTHING through. Even if the passing chance is 5%, you can do it – how it works is that it, usually, fires an event each "tick" that can benefit or harm the chances of passing it, but usually lets you increase them if you accept some sort of temporary mallus. Will you accet a couple minor factions having a slightly lower opinion of you for five years? Bam, +20% passing chance just like that.

Oh and literacy seems to do nothing, I think? I haven't noticed anything changing going from 20% to 70% in any case. It's also real easy to raise. That literacy increase I made? I just changed the education law to allow religious schools, buffed the institution once, and that was it. It cost me nothing but a small bit of bureaucracy, and needed no further input from me.

 

[Joggerino]

Historicity: There isn't any. None. Zilch. Great Game? What's that? Scramble for Africa? Maybe Brits and French will grab one of two states there, but that's about it. WW1 will be entered with 80% of Africa uncolonized, probably. USA is some kinda small-dicked little cuck sitting in the corner, with living standard worse than most middle eastern shitholes and a shit economy, and doesn't even dream of things like Manifest Destiny. Russia enters wars with Prussia here and there but nobody really cares who wins as land never changes hands. I assume they're fighting for sport or some shit. Revolts are rare, and only seem to concern absolute and utter shitholes. Spring of Nations? Nah man, I'm happy, I get to work in this neat little sweatshop the king built for me (...and he actually is, because the sweatshop wages make him mega rich in a very short amount of time!). Long story short, it's an absolute clusterfuck no matter how you look at it.

This might be the worst thing because it means the game has no soul.

 

[Joggerino]

Anyone know how to get more research? Just spam universities or what?

 

[Reina]

Oh and literacy seems to do nothing,

It's actually quite important, as it impacts pop qualifications (so their ability to take on higher end jobs) as well as technology (discovering technology you aren't actively researching - one active process per tree IIRC). The problem is, the process of gaining literacy and their immediate impact on pops is almost impossible to monitor because of shitty UI.

 

[Fedora Master]

Historicity: There isn't any. None. Zilch. Great Game? What's that? Scramble for Africa? Maybe Brits and French will grab one of two states there, but that's about it. WW1 will be entered with 80% of Africa uncolonized, probably. USA is some kinda small-dicked little cuck sitting in the corner, with living standard worse than most middle eastern shitholes and a shit economy, and doesn't even dream of things like Manifest Destiny. Russia enters wars with Prussia here and there but nobody really cares who wins as land never changes hands. I assume they're fighting for sport or some shit. Revolts are rare, and only seem to concern absolute and utter shitholes. Spring of Nations? Nah man, I'm happy, I get to work in this neat little sweatshop the king built for me (...and he actually is, because the sweatshop wages make him mega rich in a very short amount of time!). Long story short, it's an absolute clusterfuck no matter how you look at it.

This might be the worst thing because it means the game has no soul.

You mean exactly like every other PDX title since Stellaris?

 

[RobotSquirrel]

I don't think we agree on what actually makes mana a mana.

My definition of Mana is any abstracted currency that the player has minimal control over I don't consider the definition of it being exclusively RNG. My reasoning is that if you hide the fact its mana its still mana. Vicky 3 they just tried to hide it a bit so you think you had a choice but really you don't.
You've got some levers but only really do small incremental differences, a lot of the time you're not going to want the other options anyway (consumption tax for example, when and why would you ever want that).
Beyond that you're going through the same loop, Build more admin when you need bureaucracy, if you have any spare money invest it into extra construction because you can always turn it off later if it costs too much, as I said it throttles, there's no consequence for changing the materials. The only way you go wrong is if you build the wrong things and if you play it like Vicky 2 you will.

The main things I can see the player has choice over was colonization, who they go to war with, who they ally, what their country produces and how big an army/navy they want otherwise outside of that you're not doing a whole lot. The game is shockingly hands off.
The laws aren't as impactful as you'd want them to be, they really only offer incremental differences and most of them aren't noticeable other than you might annoy some political parties but wait enough time and they stop caring.

 

[Mortmal]

I have not bought it as i was too busy, but reading the steam reviews and reddit, not sure i will ever. The positive reviews are meme for dumbfucks who like everything, the negative reviews speak of things even more negative to me, the lack of depth , the lack of flavor ,oversimplification. Seems everything i fear happened but worse.

 

[Seigneur Locklear]

On an unrelated note, I gotta notice how awfully silent the resident circus retards grew, you know, the ones who defended this shit tooth and nail when the leak dropped back in April.
I hope ye women are barren and your fields be salted.

 

[whydoibother]

Historicity: There isn't any. None. Zilch. Great Game? What's that? Scramble for Africa? Maybe Brits and French will grab one of two states there, but that's about it. WW1 will be entered with 80% of Africa uncolonized, probably. USA is some kinda small-dicked little cuck sitting in the corner, with living standard worse than most middle eastern shitholes and a shit economy, and doesn't even dream of things like Manifest Destiny. Russia enters wars with Prussia here and there but nobody really cares who wins as land never changes hands. I assume they're fighting for sport or some shit. Revolts are rare, and only seem to concern absolute and utter shitholes. Spring of Nations? Nah man, I'm happy, I get to work in this neat little sweatshop the king built for me (...and he actually is, because the sweatshop wages make him mega rich in a very short amount of time!). Long story short, it's an absolute clusterfuck no matter how you look at it.

I don't know how you can forget Egypt crushing the Ottomans. In ~20 starts I've attempted (most in Persia and Ethiopia, where you need to get a bit lucky), every time Egypt butchers the Ottomans, and takes Constantinople early on.

 

[Tyrr]

Watching this dumpster fire made install Vic2 again.

 

[Demo.Graph]

Historicity: There isn't any. None. Zilch. ... USA is some kinda small-dicked little cuck sitting in the corner, with living standard worse than most middle eastern shitholes and a shit economy, and doesn't even dream of things like Manifest Destiny.

Just like it should be, it seems.

Really, most games portray US as an inevitable superpower - sit in the corner, get fatter, watch tech sliders slide, win. While this idea has some merit, American industrial development wasn't a given. It demanded a lot of internal strife, including some bombing of your own people, absorbing and whoring out millions of Irish, capitalists fighting government and finally a turn to fascistization to save an economy. Ancestral Yankees sucked many dicks while scraping for a better living.
Economy is complex. But even military mobilization is usually handwaved away by game engines. In 1935 US had an army of about 100k fighting men largely armed with WW1 era equipment. If not for a specific group of people it might've fared in WW2 much worse than it did. If Germany was stomping on its border, hastily mobilized American army would likely've fared about as well as mobilized Soviet troops in 1941-1942. A significant organizational effort of the largest economy and some very talented people that had turned the army into a very effective fighting force in 1944 are usually abstracted away with "you win" tech modifier.

Vicky 2, HOI, etc suffer from this as well. They don't portray internal strife and institutional development/degradation properly.

/ramble

 

[Delterius]

The core issue I have right now is a lack of flavor / very light railroading. Victoria 3 is in the same place as vanilla Vicky2, and it needs an HPM esque mod to very lightly guide most places in the world into semi-historical outcomes of the first 30-40 years of the game period. What I mean by this is that I'd like to see the US generally fulfill their borders, for Britain and Germany to generally attain a dominant position (which currently falls under France), for the Ottomans to generally acquire the levant, for monarchs to generally die in a timely fashion, for the Carlist War to actually happen in Spain, and so on. Also in respects to certain options, the Ottomans, for an instance, should be able to annex/puppet Egypt in the oriental crisis - like they did in an early dev AAR - but they generally can't rn for some reason.

Also this game needs foreign investment. Ideally you should be able to profit somehow from owning foreign buildings but even if you can't do it directly I wish you could develop your customs union's natural resources for them. As Brazil my immediate neighbors tend to never actually build their mines even though mine are maxxed and, say, coal is 50% more expensive in the common market. Oil is the late game bottlekneck because nobody has any. Rubber too.

Electricity should be on a national grid.

That aside I feel like it's a bit too easy to become rich. My unrecognized Persia was only poorer than France by 1900. Which owes to hyper exports towards Russia and China but still.