1) Ruling party will be the conservatives until I can lower the tax rates enough to make liberals viable. The Conservative Party of Turkey: See, We Told You That Those Liberals Would Fuck It All Up!
2) Technology?
Better steam engines first, and then work on whatever will help us with Africa.
3) We have no infamy, so if we really wanted we could go after Egypt. A) WAR Egypt must be ours! I guess you can wait a couple years for it to get cheaper, but think of Egypt as a nice, big bridgehead into more of Africa!
4) Italy status: A) Continue: The Turkic Juggernaut must roll on!
5) The political reform mentioned above.
Does going for protected minority status make them integrate into the Empire better / faster / sooner? If so, do that; otherwise, these political and social reforms are costing us too much.
6) Our gunpowder factories are costing us about 100 pounds a day in subsidies. Shutting them down would put a fairly sizable number of craftsmen out of work (and thus cost us tax revenue and increase revolt risk), but would open up room for hopefully more useful factories. We have three such factories. D) Shut down 0 We must continue to manufacture our own armaments to the extent we can; while 100 pounds a day is expensive, it is far less expensive than finding ourselves reliant on foreign generosity for our basic defensive needs!
7) Other suggestions welcome, as per usual.
Fuck the French as hard as possible.
Speaking of the middle class, we still don't have any clerks. I should fix that at some point. Sounds like your middle class aren't getting paid half the time, for whatever reason. What's your admin/education/military spending like?
As for the alliance thing, Great Powers don't like forming massive coalitions. Break the Bavarian alliance and go after the much more useful Prussians or French if you want to beat down Austria.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
My sliders are pretty much always as high as I can afford to have them and then whatever education slider keeps me at 2%. the thing is, it's the artisans (I think) because they're the portion of the pie that goes red on the days that I make no money.
My friend is working on a roguelike game you can play if you want to. (It has free demo)
1) Ruling party will be the conservatives until I can lower the tax rates enough to make liberals viable. The Conservative Party of Turkey: See, We Told You That Those Liberals Would Fuck It All Up!
2) Technology?
Better steam engines first, and then work on whatever will help us with Africa.
3) We have no infamy, so if we really wanted we could go after Egypt. A) WAR Egypt must be ours! I guess you can wait a couple years for it to get cheaper, but think of Egypt as a nice, big bridgehead into more of Africa!
4) Italy status: A) Continue: The Turkic Juggernaut must roll on!
5) The political reform mentioned above.
Does going for protected minority status make them integrate into the Empire better / faster / sooner? If so, do that; otherwise, these political and social reforms are costing us too much.
6) Our gunpowder factories are costing us about 100 pounds a day in subsidies. Shutting them down would put a fairly sizable number of craftsmen out of work (and thus cost us tax revenue and increase revolt risk), but would open up room for hopefully more useful factories. We have three such factories. D) Shut down 0 We must continue to manufacture our own armaments to the extent we can; while 100 pounds a day is expensive, it is far less expensive than finding ourselves reliant on foreign generosity for our basic defensive needs!
7) Other suggestions welcome, as per usual.
Fuck the French as hard as possible.
The Scramble for Africa only affects the sub-saharan uncivilizaed nations. Egypt doesn't get any cheaper
1) Ruling party will be the conservatives until I can lower the tax rates enough to make liberals viable. The Conservative Party of Turkey: See, We Told You That Those Liberals Would Fuck It All Up!
2) Technology?
Better steam engines first, and then work on whatever will help us with Africa.
3) We have no infamy, so if we really wanted we could go after Egypt. A) WAR Egypt must be ours! I guess you can wait a couple years for it to get cheaper, but think of Egypt as a nice, big bridgehead into more of Africa!
4) Italy status: A) Continue: The Turkic Juggernaut must roll on!
5) The political reform mentioned above.
Does going for protected minority status make them integrate into the Empire better / faster / sooner? If so, do that; otherwise, these political and social reforms are costing us too much.
6) Our gunpowder factories are costing us about 100 pounds a day in subsidies. Shutting them down would put a fairly sizable number of craftsmen out of work (and thus cost us tax revenue and increase revolt risk), but would open up room for hopefully more useful factories. We have three such factories. D) Shut down 0 We must continue to manufacture our own armaments to the extent we can; while 100 pounds a day is expensive, it is far less expensive than finding ourselves reliant on foreign generosity for our basic defensive needs!
7) Other suggestions welcome, as per usual.
Fuck the French as hard as possible.
The Scramble for Africa only affects the sub-saharan uncivilizaed nations. Egypt doesn't get any cheaper
Ah - I thought when ebum said "We could also wait five years when infamy costs against uncivs halve." that it included Egypt, as well.
2. Let's grab Nationalism / Imperialism. I mean it's pretty much how we're playing it anyway!
3. I'm still confused as to what Sphering really means in this game. In EU3 it really just locks a country down diplomatically so you can conquer it later. Is there some greater purpose in Vicky 2? Anyway, if Sphering is the bee's knees, go for it, but otherwise, Patience and conquer them as soon as it's profitable to do so.
4. Continue! It's a fun and interesting side-project for distracting bored nobles.
5. Let's go with Minority Rights.
6. Go with 1, see how it goes. If you get a quick replacement and it works out great, phase out another.
7. I guess it's too late to go for a navy surge to lock down the Mediterranean and hold control of Africa?
Triptycho: A card-and-dice tabletop indie RPG currently in development and playtesting
I think ebum mentioned it earlier, but sphering has economic benefits (you get first pick of their resources on the economic table, and you get to sell yours to them first to get their factories producing). There are also a decent number of decisions that require certain things be sphered (unification decisions, for example). It also limits other nations' diplomatic options against a particular country. Probably other things too, I am not a Vicky expert.
Hmm, I'll check again, but I think I remember seeing the CB was only for the sub-Saharan areas... OF course Egypt is civilized in my game so I can't check that
Pressing for fewer restrictions on the press. Surely that won't come back to bite us in the ass, right? And it will encourage reading!
After about five years, we FINALLY invent level two railroads. This is my least favorite change from vanilla to APD/PDM. Fortunately, our capitalists get to work pretty quickly.
The first communists appear, in Iceland of all places. A Communist Party that's largely irrelevant (unless y'all REALLY want the Near East Popular Union) forms for us.
I decided to improve our factories' efficiency. Should get the capitalists more money which means more factories and more railroads and maybe we can pay for these fucking pensions (spoiler: no, we cannot).
Speaking of social reform, apparently our pollution controls aren't terribly effective yet. But hey, free fertilizer! Just for pissing everyone off!
Well, dang. There goes that plan. I mean, we still could, but we're risking a major war on our northern border AND it costs much more infamy. We should probably sphere them at some point though.
No press restrictions at all! Clearly a good idea!
Angry pensioners try to assassinate the Sultan on his Whistle Stop Tour. Old Turks are pissed, yo.
Japan conquers Satsuma, uniting the islands. Or re-uniting? I forget. They immediately declare war on Korea.
Screw you pensioners! I'll never give in to your demands!
Preparing for the scramble...
This lets us go for this event. If you find Tut's Tomb you get a massive prestige bonus and quite a lot of technology. So hopefully.
We also get this standard upgrade to our national aspirations thingy. More prestige, more consciousness.
Our capitalists have done an excellent job of funding railroads. It takes between 5 and 10 days to start them, depending on how the larger economy is doing.
More reforms that are not pensions. Pensions are cut to fund the new administration costs.
Ottomans are thinking about Africa and how it should naturally be an Ottoman continent.
New first minister, he's lame. But I don't fire him. This was a mistake.
Let's talk about colonial provinces! So when you demand a concession or found a colony, that area becomes a colonial province. If 1% of the population becomes bureaucrats of an accepted culture in that state, you can make them a full state. Colonial provinces don't count towards your national literacy rate, but cannot have factories. I goosed Lebanon's bureaucrat production a bit to make sure it became a state. More states = more factories = happy fun times.
Well, shit. This dramatically lowers popular support for the ruling party, lowers our prestige, lowers our plurality (and our research), and just generally sucks. This is what I get for allowing freedom of the press.
Finally grab empiricism. Needed more research points, even though it's not a ton.
More reforms. We're getting dangerously close to an HM's Government, which would prevent me from selecting the conservatives. We want liberals eventually, but the social reforms are so fucking expensive. Hmmmm.
Finally, with 1.2 million members in the movement and choosing anything else making them all join rebel groups, I give in to the fucking retiree mob. It cancels all previous tax breaks to the lower and middle class to pay for the damn things. Sigh.
The Geneva Convention fires. It's a good thing almost universally. Our military spending is only 50% right now, so it effectively has no drawbacks. Hooray!
The Persians have civilized and beat up Majeerteen. That's the north coast of the Horn of Africa, for reference. I was probably going to take it eventually, but it's in our sphere, so whatever.
The scandal forces the First Minister to resign in disgrace and new elections are held. Ouch.
Korea surrenders to Japan, now ranked 12th. As you can see, that state is the southern bit of the peninsula.
Our new first minister is a brutal asshole. We don't have any infamy, so that's not a huge deal at the moment. Might want to sack him if we become aggressive at some point again.
It's 1880, so the last colonization tech is available. Unfortunately, the UK is at naval 14 so MIGHT have main armament but probably doesn't (it's tier 4). And I think the most advanced anyone is in military technology is also 14, so they definitely don't have the 5th tier gun technology. We could go after it, but it would take about 3 years for the tier 4 naval tech.
We do improve our artillery. Given that most of our stacks are 5 regulars, 5 artillery, and maybe 2 dragoons, this is a big deal. Also expensive, but we're considerably more powerful now.
We start assimilating places again.
Tuscany is sphered, France keeps wasting points keeping the Pope under its thumb instead of a Muslim one. Stupid French.
Liberals win again, their shitty tax policy totally destroys our budget again, so they're replaced again. Fuck off, liberals.
S-P invades Modena. Which is sphered by the Austrians. Smooth move, S-P. Austria intervenes, demands Corsica, are winning thus far. France has not joined the war on S-P's side as of yet.
This probably won't help us, but just in case the Americas become an infamy plagued dictatorship (possible!) we'll accept immigrants. Plus I'm amused by this idea.
The Conservatives being backed by the Sultan regardless of electoral outcomes seems to have created some corruption within the party. It's rocked by scandal AGAIN.
AHHHHHHHHH CURSES. This event amuses me.
BONUS
State of the World, 1880
Ottoman railroads! A lot of the red in Turkey is actually level 1, but can't get level 2 because of terrain. We almost have a line to the Holy Land!
The UK has been unusually aggressive in southeast Asia. They annexed Siam and Johore in this update. That's fairly standard Dutch play, though usually the AI is slightly LESS competent about actually beating up those island nations. It's worth noting that if you're anyone, but especially France or Prussia invading mainland Netherlands and demanding these colonies is a GREAT idea. You get the East India Trade Company modifier which is +.50 base research points. Also make sure to take Johore and Bali for their gold provinces.
Our budget. We're still adjusting a bit from discovering better Steam Engines, I'm not sure how real that +400k is. Admin is back to 100%, but taxes on the lower class are also maxed. I killed a couple unprofitable gunpowder factories to lower our subsidy costs. Goal is still to get taxes to 50% or close to it so we can let the liberals rule and make our factories super efficient. Hopefully.
Tech status. We're just about halfway through the play period. So we dumb. But not horribly far behind most of Europe in army tech. Our navy blows though.
Reforms and what not. We're fairly enlightened, especially from where we were.
Pop screen. Farmers aren't on the work force, but you can tell by the pie they're still most of the country. Almost 2% craftsmen though!
Great Powers. We're really fourth, but Russia has a hugely inflated military score because Sweden is whooping their ass again after the Russians invaded, again. Occupying all of Sweden and Karelia. Unfortunately for them that means nothing, because Russia has a billion provinces. Prussia is also starting to re-sphere the North Germans. The NGF is super late. Germany itself is late at this point. That revolution killed them.
Our factories. Ignore that one in Van, it just got finished, so thinks it's super profitable, even though it makes nothing and has no workers. The Print factory is our star but we generally have some decent ones up and running. Fish canneries were the popular choice for our capitalists this update, and since we still import canned food, I consider that a fine plan. Would have preferred bakeries as we export a ton of grain, but alas.
Decisions
Hell if I know? Plan is to colonize Africa as soon as the Scramble finally fires. Work from there. How about this one though:
Should we research main armament ourselves (~3 years) or machine gun (~5 years) or wait for someone else to trigger indigenous garrison and hope we don't get screwed on the 10% mysteriously not firing. Expected time to fire would be about a half year. Six months behind is not a big deal, because humans colonize faster than the AIs (troop presence speeds it up, depending on the version, this one does, and the AI isn't smart enough to take advantage).
I'd really like to get things working right so we can go to the liberals. We could just bite the bullet and cut administration/pension funding during the transition and hope their factory bonuses grow us out of the issue. So we'll make that question 2.
Also, if we go for Steam Turbine and actually turn a profit for a while, we could build Suez. It costs like 200k though, IIRC.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Current plan is update Tuesday. If Michigan is in Monday's national title game, I make no promises though. If they're not, I might be annoyed enough to not watch the title game and play Monday.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Hell if I know? Plan is to colonize Africa as soon as the Scramble finally fires. Work from there. How about this one though:
Should we research main armament ourselves (~3 years) or machine gun (~5 years) or wait for someone else to trigger indigenous garrison and hope we don't get screwed on the 10% mysteriously not firing. Expected time to fire would be about a half year. Six months behind is not a big deal, because humans colonize faster than the AIs (troop presence speeds it up, depending on the version, this one does, and the AI isn't smart enough to take advantage).
I'd really like to get things working right so we can go to the liberals. We could just bite the bullet and cut administration/pension funding during the transition and hope their factory bonuses grow us out of the issue. So we'll make that question 2.
Also, if we go for Steam Turbine and actually turn a profit for a while, we could build Suez. It costs like 200k though, IIRC.
I think, research-wise, that we should keep pumping up our economic techs. Being a half-year behind in Africa doesn't seem like that big a deal (fingers crossed) compared to the need to actually pay for all of our colonies and whatnot. I think that goes hand in hand with #2, right?
Suez should turn a profit in ~10 years, right? Probably better to build it sooner rather than later if we want to build it at all.
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Options
MackenzierGold Star Police NinjaLurking... less than usual.Registered Userregular
If you think that it is worthwhile to attempt to rapidly improve our navy enough to be of any use, go for that route; otherwise machine guns. We can always set some troops up to overland it to the soft African underbelly once the scramble fires for more locally based colonizing points.
I just finished up the weirdest USA game I've ever played... notable events:
1. Transvaal survived 3 Boer wars to become a seconday power and colonize most of south central Africa, up to just below Ethiopia.
2. I stole Canada and Ireland from Britain, also freeing Australia and New Zealand which aparantly caused a succesful Communist revolution. Later followed by a succesful Fascist revolution that stuck for the remainder of the game.
3. I screwed with the European powers so much in late game Great Wars that Switzerland became a Great Power at the end. By like, a large margin... Good lord.
4. Fascist Tibet. Nothing else to be said, really.
If you think that it is worthwhile to attempt to rapidly improve our navy enough to be of any use, go for that route; otherwise machine guns. We can always set some troops up to overland it to the soft African underbelly once the scramble fires for more locally based colonizing points.
I just finished up the weirdest USA game I've ever played... notable events:
1. Transvaal survived 3 Boer wars to become a seconday power and colonize most of south central Africa, up to just below Ethiopia.
2. I stole Canada and Ireland from Britain, also freeing Australia and New Zealand which aparantly caused a succesful Communist revolution. Later followed by a succesful Fascist revolution that stuck for the remainder of the game.
3. I screwed with the European powers so much in late game Great Wars that Switzerland became a Great Power at the end. By like, a large margin... Good lord.
4. Fascist Tibet. Nothing else to be said, really.
Switzerland tends to hang around as a secondary power that becomes Great if you fuck up one of the major powers (France if you've played EU3 ever) enough.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
So how do you take land from a satellite? I'm playing as japan and I'm trying to take land from korea but it's China's satellite and I can't seem to find a way to come up with a suitable war goal.
KetBra on
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Options
MackenzierGold Star Police NinjaLurking... less than usual.Registered Userregular
If you think that it is worthwhile to attempt to rapidly improve our navy enough to be of any use, go for that route; otherwise machine guns. We can always set some troops up to overland it to the soft African underbelly once the scramble fires for more locally based colonizing points.
I just finished up the weirdest USA game I've ever played... notable events:
1. Transvaal survived 3 Boer wars to become a seconday power and colonize most of south central Africa, up to just below Ethiopia.
2. I stole Canada and Ireland from Britain, also freeing Australia and New Zealand which aparantly caused a succesful Communist revolution. Later followed by a succesful Fascist revolution that stuck for the remainder of the game.
3. I screwed with the European powers so much in late game Great Wars that Switzerland became a Great Power at the end. By like, a large margin... Good lord.
4. Fascist Tibet. Nothing else to be said, really.
Screenshots or it never happened.
Sadly, my last save is from just before I joined Germany in beating up France and the Axis of Evil, but you can see Switzerland at #9 overall in this screen shot (Also, good old Tibetan Fascism!):
Like Ebum said, the Swiss jumped up the rankings after Germany had its fourth empire-wide rebellion and dropped out of the fray, and I forced Sweden to dismantle. Great power by way of being the last man standing?
@KetBra I don't think there is a direct way, you either need to fight to force China to release it satellite and then wage war with it, or hope they the manage to get freed in some other fashion. Someone else may have better info there though, I'm still picking things up as I go.
Russia was a joke the last few times I fought them. So many utterly worthless troops. Why yes hello 500k Russian doomstack. Meet my 12k dudes who will wipe you out (or at least hold you a few months until I can encircle and drop some reinforcements in). I would be outnumbered 10-1 or more and end up with 1/20th of their casualties
Russia was a joke the last few times I fought them. So many utterly worthless troops. Why yes hello 500k Russian doomstack. Meet my 12k dudes who will wipe you out (or at least hold you a few months until I can encircle and drop some reinforcements in). I would be outnumbered 10-1 or more and end up with 1/20th of their casualties
Unfortunately I'm playing as japan and most of our fighting is occurring in a little beachhead in manchuria so it's just a massive meatgrinder
Ah, Japan. I haven't played an unciv game through yet, still trying to figure out the optimal civilization tech path, so I don't know if you would have the same tech advantage I did over them
I've been toying with Japan, but using the 1861 start because it's pretty dull. The only time I tried it I seized Jahore and the British kept invading me. I didn't lose, because occupying Singapore killed their naval resupply and broke the blockade, but it is pretty obnoxious.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Are they civilized by that time? That's around when I managed to do it in a quick test run and damn it's super boring when literally all you do is wait for your RP to accumulate and assign NFs
It's a little opaque. Apparently it changes in HoD. Where pre-Great Wars, there's a -1000 penalty for being allied with another Great Power that's made explicit.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
So I have found that I tend to play paradox games until something goes really wrong.
Last night was a good night for vicky 2, and now it's 7 in the morning.
And judging by how jealously france, GB, and everyone else is guarding their influence on Egypt, I think you should try to build that canal if you can.
My friend is working on a roguelike game you can play if you want to. (It has free demo)
Update 10: Budget Crisis! Also Scramble for Africa (1881 - 1885)
Once again our foreign ministry fucks up. We are no longer allied with Britain. So that's unfortunate.
So, let's go back to the Russians. Northern border secure!
Reforms!
Better factories and more research for pretty cheap. A good deal.
Tunis wants to be free of being our satellite. But they stay in our sphere, so whatever. That's fine.
The conservatives are protesting the cost of health care reform. That doesn't sound realistic at all!
The last of those reforms up there, the non-secret ballots one, changes us from Prussian Constitutionalism to a full on constitutional monarchy. So next time the liberals win we can't just put the conservatives back in power. This will have consequences.
I just wanted to note this because the upper house is 50% liberal. Pre-movements this was pretty necessary to get reforms done. It made it kiiiiiiiinda hard.
This took a while, but that's a big education boost. And there's an invention coming...
Yet more reforms!
Oh hey, this finally triggers. Someone learned indigenous garrisoning. As soon as we hit the 10% shot, we can start colonizing.
And then we just annex Tunis. Peacefully even! Score!
Krakatoa erupts, which is really only important if you have Indonesia. But it's kinda neat.
Yeah. That's a huge boost. Fully funded, we get a full 1.2% a year. Which means we could get to 90% or so with no further research! Doable!
More factory improvement. Makes them more expensive to build, but much more productive.
We get this six or eight months after the Scramble kicks off. So we can start. Goal is basically to get south and cut off the French from the east coast and ideally get to the British border as fast as possible.
But we only have 5 border unoccupied states at the moment, so we start colonizing those.
Our awesome health care does not stop this massive flu pandemic. The other option was spending 20k to cut three months off the length of the pandemic. We're almost broke, so that's no good.
Liberals win again, and we can't replace them. This won't cause massive upheaval or anything!
Oh. Oh my.
Hiking the tariff to 25%, massive cuts to ... everything. This is not the best situation.
And factories go bankrupt because they don't have subsidies anymore. So that's no good.
And the workers in the bankrupt factories get fired. This further harms our budget. Death spiral?
We annex Ethiopia as well. That might be a minor problem because we don't have an overland connection so we have to buy clipper ships to maintain them. Which is expensive. Oops.
There are two pluses to going laissez faire that should eventually outweigh our budget issues. First, our factories are just inherently more efficient, which is good! But also factories become super cheap and capitalists start investing all willy-nilly. Suddenly there's an explosion of factories.
And we get a new first minister to further improve our factories. Nice!
We finish our first colonies in 1885. Colonies give you prestige and just more stuff. Stuff is good.
They also let you change the output to luxury crops. Spices are the most expensive, so I go with them for now. Tobacco is probably best overall, but we don't have the technology to make cigars or cigarettes. So let's go with spices.
Our budget at the end of the update. Pensions have been drastically cut. Administration is our first priority, then education, then lowering tariffs, then stockpile, and then social spending. Then we'll probably increase the size of the military again finally.
Africa at the end of the update. South Africa is quickly becoming British. France has the western Sahara almost colonized so we can't get that.
So that's where we are. Still no Suez. Started Revolution and Counterrevolution for an extra NF and a bunch of useful decisions.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Posts
1) Ruling party will be the conservatives until I can lower the tax rates enough to make liberals viable.
The Conservative Party of Turkey: See, We Told You That Those Liberals Would Fuck It All Up!
2) Technology?
Better steam engines first, and then work on whatever will help us with Africa.
3) We have no infamy, so if we really wanted we could go after Egypt.
A) WAR Egypt must be ours! I guess you can wait a couple years for it to get cheaper, but think of Egypt as a nice, big bridgehead into more of Africa!
4) Italy status:
A) Continue: The Turkic Juggernaut must roll on!
5) The political reform mentioned above.
Does going for protected minority status make them integrate into the Empire better / faster / sooner? If so, do that; otherwise, these political and social reforms are costing us too much.
6) Our gunpowder factories are costing us about 100 pounds a day in subsidies. Shutting them down would put a fairly sizable number of craftsmen out of work (and thus cost us tax revenue and increase revolt risk), but would open up room for hopefully more useful factories. We have three such factories.
D) Shut down 0 We must continue to manufacture our own armaments to the extent we can; while 100 pounds a day is expensive, it is far less expensive than finding ourselves reliant on foreign generosity for our basic defensive needs!
7) Other suggestions welcome, as per usual.
Fuck the French as hard as possible.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
My middle class tax varies WILDLY day to day. As in from 60 to 240. I have no idea why.
Second problem is a bit less of one, but still annoying. No one will accept an alliance so I can take northern Italy off of Austria.
I'm only allied with bavaria (who are a GP by virtue of prestige alone) and the Italian minors.
As for the alliance thing, Great Powers don't like forming massive coalitions. Break the Bavarian alliance and go after the much more useful Prussians or French if you want to beat down Austria.
The Scramble for Africa only affects the sub-saharan uncivilizaed nations. Egypt doesn't get any cheaper
Ah - I thought when ebum said "We could also wait five years when infamy costs against uncivs halve." that it included Egypt, as well.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
2) Technology? Steam engine sounds like a pretty vital thing to have in the 19th century.
3) E) Just sphere them peacefully (it wouldn't take long, we're also friendly)
4) A) Continue
5) Free press at least.
6) No opinion, don't know enough about the subject.
7) Fuck France.
3. I'm still confused as to what Sphering really means in this game. In EU3 it really just locks a country down diplomatically so you can conquer it later. Is there some greater purpose in Vicky 2? Anyway, if Sphering is the bee's knees, go for it, but otherwise, Patience and conquer them as soon as it's profitable to do so.
4. Continue! It's a fun and interesting side-project for distracting bored nobles.
5. Let's go with Minority Rights.
6. Go with 1, see how it goes. If you get a quick replacement and it works out great, phase out another.
7. I guess it's too late to go for a navy surge to lock down the Mediterranean and hold control of Africa?
Pressing for fewer restrictions on the press. Surely that won't come back to bite us in the ass, right? And it will encourage reading!
After about five years, we FINALLY invent level two railroads. This is my least favorite change from vanilla to APD/PDM. Fortunately, our capitalists get to work pretty quickly.
The first communists appear, in Iceland of all places. A Communist Party that's largely irrelevant (unless y'all REALLY want the Near East Popular Union) forms for us.
I decided to improve our factories' efficiency. Should get the capitalists more money which means more factories and more railroads and maybe we can pay for these fucking pensions (spoiler: no, we cannot).
Speaking of social reform, apparently our pollution controls aren't terribly effective yet. But hey, free fertilizer! Just for pissing everyone off!
Well, dang. There goes that plan. I mean, we still could, but we're risking a major war on our northern border AND it costs much more infamy. We should probably sphere them at some point though.
No press restrictions at all! Clearly a good idea!
Angry pensioners try to assassinate the Sultan on his Whistle Stop Tour. Old Turks are pissed, yo.
Japan conquers Satsuma, uniting the islands. Or re-uniting? I forget. They immediately declare war on Korea.
Screw you pensioners! I'll never give in to your demands!
Preparing for the scramble...
This lets us go for this event. If you find Tut's Tomb you get a massive prestige bonus and quite a lot of technology. So hopefully.
We also get this standard upgrade to our national aspirations thingy. More prestige, more consciousness.
Our capitalists have done an excellent job of funding railroads. It takes between 5 and 10 days to start them, depending on how the larger economy is doing.
More reforms that are not pensions. Pensions are cut to fund the new administration costs.
Ottomans are thinking about Africa and how it should naturally be an Ottoman continent.
New first minister, he's lame. But I don't fire him. This was a mistake.
Let's talk about colonial provinces! So when you demand a concession or found a colony, that area becomes a colonial province. If 1% of the population becomes bureaucrats of an accepted culture in that state, you can make them a full state. Colonial provinces don't count towards your national literacy rate, but cannot have factories. I goosed Lebanon's bureaucrat production a bit to make sure it became a state. More states = more factories = happy fun times.
Well, shit. This dramatically lowers popular support for the ruling party, lowers our prestige, lowers our plurality (and our research), and just generally sucks. This is what I get for allowing freedom of the press.
Finally grab empiricism. Needed more research points, even though it's not a ton.
More reforms. We're getting dangerously close to an HM's Government, which would prevent me from selecting the conservatives. We want liberals eventually, but the social reforms are so fucking expensive. Hmmmm.
Finally, with 1.2 million members in the movement and choosing anything else making them all join rebel groups, I give in to the fucking retiree mob. It cancels all previous tax breaks to the lower and middle class to pay for the damn things. Sigh.
The Geneva Convention fires. It's a good thing almost universally. Our military spending is only 50% right now, so it effectively has no drawbacks. Hooray!
The Persians have civilized and beat up Majeerteen. That's the north coast of the Horn of Africa, for reference. I was probably going to take it eventually, but it's in our sphere, so whatever.
The scandal forces the First Minister to resign in disgrace and new elections are held. Ouch.
Korea surrenders to Japan, now ranked 12th. As you can see, that state is the southern bit of the peninsula.
Our new first minister is a brutal asshole. We don't have any infamy, so that's not a huge deal at the moment. Might want to sack him if we become aggressive at some point again.
It's 1880, so the last colonization tech is available. Unfortunately, the UK is at naval 14 so MIGHT have main armament but probably doesn't (it's tier 4). And I think the most advanced anyone is in military technology is also 14, so they definitely don't have the 5th tier gun technology. We could go after it, but it would take about 3 years for the tier 4 naval tech.
We do improve our artillery. Given that most of our stacks are 5 regulars, 5 artillery, and maybe 2 dragoons, this is a big deal. Also expensive, but we're considerably more powerful now.
We start assimilating places again.
Tuscany is sphered, France keeps wasting points keeping the Pope under its thumb instead of a Muslim one. Stupid French.
Liberals win again, their shitty tax policy totally destroys our budget again, so they're replaced again. Fuck off, liberals.
S-P invades Modena. Which is sphered by the Austrians. Smooth move, S-P. Austria intervenes, demands Corsica, are winning thus far. France has not joined the war on S-P's side as of yet.
This probably won't help us, but just in case the Americas become an infamy plagued dictatorship (possible!) we'll accept immigrants. Plus I'm amused by this idea.
The Conservatives being backed by the Sultan regardless of electoral outcomes seems to have created some corruption within the party. It's rocked by scandal AGAIN.
AHHHHHHHHH CURSES. This event amuses me.
BONUS
State of the World, 1880
Ottoman railroads! A lot of the red in Turkey is actually level 1, but can't get level 2 because of terrain. We almost have a line to the Holy Land!
The UK has been unusually aggressive in southeast Asia. They annexed Siam and Johore in this update. That's fairly standard Dutch play, though usually the AI is slightly LESS competent about actually beating up those island nations. It's worth noting that if you're anyone, but especially France or Prussia invading mainland Netherlands and demanding these colonies is a GREAT idea. You get the East India Trade Company modifier which is +.50 base research points. Also make sure to take Johore and Bali for their gold provinces.
Our budget. We're still adjusting a bit from discovering better Steam Engines, I'm not sure how real that +400k is. Admin is back to 100%, but taxes on the lower class are also maxed. I killed a couple unprofitable gunpowder factories to lower our subsidy costs. Goal is still to get taxes to 50% or close to it so we can let the liberals rule and make our factories super efficient. Hopefully.
Tech status. We're just about halfway through the play period. So we dumb. But not horribly far behind most of Europe in army tech. Our navy blows though.
Reforms and what not. We're fairly enlightened, especially from where we were.
Pop screen. Farmers aren't on the work force, but you can tell by the pie they're still most of the country. Almost 2% craftsmen though!
Great Powers. We're really fourth, but Russia has a hugely inflated military score because Sweden is whooping their ass again after the Russians invaded, again. Occupying all of Sweden and Karelia. Unfortunately for them that means nothing, because Russia has a billion provinces. Prussia is also starting to re-sphere the North Germans. The NGF is super late. Germany itself is late at this point. That revolution killed them.
Our factories. Ignore that one in Van, it just got finished, so thinks it's super profitable, even though it makes nothing and has no workers. The Print factory is our star but we generally have some decent ones up and running. Fish canneries were the popular choice for our capitalists this update, and since we still import canned food, I consider that a fine plan. Would have preferred bakeries as we export a ton of grain, but alas.
Decisions
Hell if I know? Plan is to colonize Africa as soon as the Scramble finally fires. Work from there. How about this one though:
Should we research main armament ourselves (~3 years) or machine gun (~5 years) or wait for someone else to trigger indigenous garrison and hope we don't get screwed on the 10% mysteriously not firing. Expected time to fire would be about a half year. Six months behind is not a big deal, because humans colonize faster than the AIs (troop presence speeds it up, depending on the version, this one does, and the AI isn't smart enough to take advantage).
I'd really like to get things working right so we can go to the liberals. We could just bite the bullet and cut administration/pension funding during the transition and hope their factory bonuses grow us out of the issue. So we'll make that question 2.
Also, if we go for Steam Turbine and actually turn a profit for a while, we could build Suez. It costs like 200k though, IIRC.
I think, research-wise, that we should keep pumping up our economic techs. Being a half-year behind in Africa doesn't seem like that big a deal (fingers crossed) compared to the need to actually pay for all of our colonies and whatnot. I think that goes hand in hand with #2, right?
Suez should turn a profit in ~10 years, right? Probably better to build it sooner rather than later if we want to build it at all.
I just finished up the weirdest USA game I've ever played... notable events:
1. Transvaal survived 3 Boer wars to become a seconday power and colonize most of south central Africa, up to just below Ethiopia.
2. I stole Canada and Ireland from Britain, also freeing Australia and New Zealand which aparantly caused a succesful Communist revolution. Later followed by a succesful Fascist revolution that stuck for the remainder of the game.
3. I screwed with the European powers so much in late game Great Wars that Switzerland became a Great Power at the end. By like, a large margin... Good lord.
4. Fascist Tibet. Nothing else to be said, really.
FFRK: 9rRG
Screenshots or it never happened.
Sadly, my last save is from just before I joined Germany in beating up France and the Axis of Evil, but you can see Switzerland at #9 overall in this screen shot (Also, good old Tibetan Fascism!):
steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=137665783
Like Ebum said, the Swiss jumped up the rankings after Germany had its fourth empire-wide rebellion and dropped out of the fray, and I forced Sweden to dismantle. Great power by way of being the last man standing?
@KetBra I don't think there is a direct way, you either need to fight to force China to release it satellite and then wage war with it, or hope they the manage to get freed in some other fashion. Someone else may have better info there though, I'm still picking things up as I go.
FFRK: 9rRG
Also, jesus christ fuck Russia.
They've got like infinity troops
Unfortunately I'm playing as japan and most of our fighting is occurring in a little beachhead in manchuria so it's just a massive meatgrinder
I got a few great powers up to +200 or around there and no one still wants to be my ally.
Last night was a good night for vicky 2, and now it's 7 in the morning.
And judging by how jealously france, GB, and everyone else is guarding their influence on Egypt, I think you should try to build that canal if you can.
To be fair, it seems to be the focus of the whole game.
I think I'm titling this Sultan Barack Hussein Obama
No, we do not need 50 artillery factories. Yes I will cancel every one of your stupid factories that will only ever lose money.
Once again our foreign ministry fucks up. We are no longer allied with Britain. So that's unfortunate.
So, let's go back to the Russians. Northern border secure!
Reforms!
Better factories and more research for pretty cheap. A good deal.
Tunis wants to be free of being our satellite. But they stay in our sphere, so whatever. That's fine.
The conservatives are protesting the cost of health care reform. That doesn't sound realistic at all!
The last of those reforms up there, the non-secret ballots one, changes us from Prussian Constitutionalism to a full on constitutional monarchy. So next time the liberals win we can't just put the conservatives back in power. This will have consequences.
I just wanted to note this because the upper house is 50% liberal. Pre-movements this was pretty necessary to get reforms done. It made it kiiiiiiiinda hard.
This took a while, but that's a big education boost. And there's an invention coming...
Yet more reforms!
Oh hey, this finally triggers. Someone learned indigenous garrisoning. As soon as we hit the 10% shot, we can start colonizing.
And then we just annex Tunis. Peacefully even! Score!
Krakatoa erupts, which is really only important if you have Indonesia. But it's kinda neat.
Yeah. That's a huge boost. Fully funded, we get a full 1.2% a year. Which means we could get to 90% or so with no further research! Doable!
More factory improvement. Makes them more expensive to build, but much more productive.
We get this six or eight months after the Scramble kicks off. So we can start. Goal is basically to get south and cut off the French from the east coast and ideally get to the British border as fast as possible.
But we only have 5 border unoccupied states at the moment, so we start colonizing those.
Our awesome health care does not stop this massive flu pandemic. The other option was spending 20k to cut three months off the length of the pandemic. We're almost broke, so that's no good.
Liberals win again, and we can't replace them. This won't cause massive upheaval or anything!
Oh. Oh my.
Hiking the tariff to 25%, massive cuts to ... everything. This is not the best situation.
And factories go bankrupt because they don't have subsidies anymore. So that's no good.
And the workers in the bankrupt factories get fired. This further harms our budget. Death spiral?
We annex Ethiopia as well. That might be a minor problem because we don't have an overland connection so we have to buy clipper ships to maintain them. Which is expensive. Oops.
There are two pluses to going laissez faire that should eventually outweigh our budget issues. First, our factories are just inherently more efficient, which is good! But also factories become super cheap and capitalists start investing all willy-nilly. Suddenly there's an explosion of factories.
And we get a new first minister to further improve our factories. Nice!
We finish our first colonies in 1885. Colonies give you prestige and just more stuff. Stuff is good.
They also let you change the output to luxury crops. Spices are the most expensive, so I go with them for now. Tobacco is probably best overall, but we don't have the technology to make cigars or cigarettes. So let's go with spices.
Our budget at the end of the update. Pensions have been drastically cut. Administration is our first priority, then education, then lowering tariffs, then stockpile, and then social spending. Then we'll probably increase the size of the military again finally.
Africa at the end of the update. South Africa is quickly becoming British. France has the western Sahara almost colonized so we can't get that.
So that's where we are. Still no Suez. Started Revolution and Counterrevolution for an extra NF and a bunch of useful decisions.