This update is somewhat dull, not a lot happened. Mostly recovering our education/administration budget.
Our people are protesting all of our new colonies in addition to all of the old ones. I ignore them, because fuck off, citizens. MORE AFRICA.
Finishing off our political reforms this update. By the end of it, only the draft won't be at the most liberal option.
Imagine I posted like 20 of these. You'll see at the end.
Social reforms are also getting close to maxed out. Which will make costs less obnoxious.
We finally add another Italian minor to our sphere. We're in a fight for the Papal States that we keep losing, because fuck France.
OIL! This isn't particularly useful yet, but when someone invents cars/fuel/airplanes that will be excellent. We should get around to that ourselves at some point...
This pisses off our Greek citizens, but I needed cash. There would obviously be no consequences!
We finish this, allowing even more colonies. Also restoring our clergy, who got demoted with the crap funding. Stupid laissez faire.
It also opens up a ton of decisions. Most prominently this, which gives minorities protected status, bonus research, and accepts the cultures we rejected earlier. We're pretty liberalized, y'all!
We start excavations at Mycenae and Knossos. Eventually those should give us events that are basically a billion research points.
And we decide the Jews can have a homeland. We won't release them, but still!
Our second to last political faction is founded, in Hesse-Kassel. Only fascism remains. They support all social and political reforms, which is kind of neat, but never get big enough to really matter in my experience.
Safety regulations, whatever.
Work on better factories. With this done, we move up to sixth in the world in industry, which is pretty impressive considering our absolute shit literacy rates to start the game. When everyone's at peace, we're about 200 back of Austria/Prussia for 4/5th. Catching the US is semi-feasible if we can get some better boats.
The election is mostly boring, though the two liberal parties are close.
Prussia is getting the Pan-German nationalists and is super powerful, subjugating the former Great Power of Bavaria. Still haven't managed to form the NGF though, I think because they're missing Holstein.
We learn better railroads, which of course do nothing until the invention triggers in a APD.
Fortunately, it only takes about 2 months this time. And then within a week capitalists have railroads building in every single one of our provinces. I have to turn it off the summary thing they give you.
And that's the last one! Go team, we're super liberal, from absolutely no reforms in 55 years.
More econ techs, la di da.
This finally lets me max out admin/education funding. And cuts the tariff down to 15%. It'll expire by the end of next update, but I'm hoping to be able to keep things stable.
We have to deal with a couple rebellions, one here and one in Albania. They were our first of the game. They're crushed easily despite our tiny, tiny army.
Accepting labor unions makes our RGOs more efficient. Neat!
Our colonies are impressive, we decided to host an exposition to show them off.
The US starts the Panama Canal. It'll take a while. Kiel hasn't happened yet I don't think, and obviously Suez has not.
More industry/commerce tech. Probably about time to start on Naval techs and maybe a little army again. But our economy is not where I want it to be... hmmmm. I choose you, Stock Exchange!
So there's our Africa. We lack ports. Major goal is to conquer Sokoto. We could probably do it peacefully if we sphere them. Which I might do, abandoning the Italian project for a little while.
Sorry not a lot going on at the moment, I'm trying to wrestle our semi-backward economy into paying for our very modern welfare state. On the plus side, we started getting immigrants from Russia and Austria, which is a nice accomplishment. Not enough to make up for the assholes heading to the US, but whatever. The US' immigration bonuses are insane.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Honestly, fighting a single colonial war against Italy and Spain as the Netherlands made me realize that when you have colonies all over the world, fighting a war becomes the most tedious thing possible. Having to manage Europe, the Caribbean, Africa and Malaysia all at once is just awful.
My friend is working on a roguelike game you can play if you want to. (It has free demo)
So, what's the point to going all the way over to the liberal side on the reforms? Most of them, from the earlier explanation, seem to be pretty trade-offy (lots of money for this small benefit, etc.). Is it just to neuter rebellions?
This is not something I would normally say, but I wish it was possible to be more racist (in this game)
In my Netherlands game that is now defunct since I upgraded, I had full military funding, ~60 regiments of guards, and about 200 unbuilt regiments of Asian and African unaccepted cultures that I couldn't do much with but were costing me lots of money. Let me pay the guys who can be the best unit more than the millions of guys who can't.
My friend is working on a roguelike game you can play if you want to. (It has free demo)
So apologies for no update Friday like I promised, but I was glued to manhunt coverage like something like a third of this country was. I have friends in Boston (who were fine, thankfully they didn't go see the marathon as they're the type to do so).
Seriously this week, barring another national semi-emergency. I'll start writing tonight's in a few. And we should get the return of reader participation, as we have budget flexibility again!
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Turkish archaeologists uncover Mycenae, the home of the leader of the Greeks during the Trojan War and the origin of Greek civilization (sort of, let's go with it). This is one of three such events, all of which deliver a ton of prestige and research points. This is basically a tier 3 tech or about a year's worth of research. So: useful!
It finishes us stock exchange quite quickly. It has some nice inventions, like finally being able to make cigar factories. I started growing tobacco in Africa, so hopefully that will encourage the development of such. They're highly profitable.
Running low on social reforms to enact, but there are a few less. Mostly we're telling the work hour people to get bent, because a 1/8 reduction in work hours is no good at all.
This was a legitimately tough decision. The other option would have led to very lowered reputation with France and them getting a free casus beli on us. I didn't want to risk it as our military is woefully under sized for a Great Power. It's a thing we need to get to fixing at some point.
Got business regulations next, to further improve factories and education efficiency.
We're finally bringing in some money and I'm saving for Suez when this comes up. It's 100k, but that's only about 3 months income at this point, so I agree.
We have a third border incident in a few months. This one with Sokoto, who I genuinely wanted to attack. If you refer to previous updates, they're the big green country in central Africa. They have some coal and iron RGOs, I think the only coal mines in Africa. The first two were Loango (Congo), who are friendly with France, and Serbia, who are friendly with Russia. I didn't really want to risk intervention on either case, though Serbia was tempting.
Pick up steamers just in case we ever want to have a half decent navy, and our fish canneries are going bankrupt for lack of supplies. There's a useful invention here to improve fish production.
Also, of course, there's the invention that allows steamer transports, which are faster and hardier than clipper transports. Nice.
The IOC forms and asks if we want membership. If we're going to get a top 3 ranking, we're going to need a ton of prestige, so we join.
Speaking of prestige, 50k for 21 more.
And we start Suez. 25k when you trigger the decision, 75k here...
War is declared, just before our free casus beli expires.
50k more... APD makes the canals take longer to build and makes them considerably more expensive.
The mining techs are huge boosts to our economy. It turns out I wildly underestimated their use early in the game. If I did this again, I would prioritize them much more.
I add an annexation war goal.
Commerce raiders are invented. We're like 50 years behind in naval tech, but woo! Steam powered warships, baby!
Rubber is discovered in Africa. If you don't have any native rubber supplies, this is a great reason to colonize Africa, as there is quite a lot down there. And they're useful in the late game industries which are just now coming online in the more advanced parts of the world.
If we're fighting wars, reinforcement rates are good and less war exhaustion is better, so I finally grab this.
Wars! The key thing with wars in Vicky is to not open a hole in your lines. The AI loves sneaking through them and then you have to go back and chase them. This is a (bad) example of this. They can wander around your territory, but the AI is reluctant to if you have theirs occupied. The other important idea is, if you can, to surround enemy troops so they cannot retreat. So if I could have gotten stacks to those provinces east of Kano and then beaten that stack in Kano in a fight, they couldn't retreat and would all surrender, regardless of how many I killed in the fight. Tactically, those are the two important things. If we fight a war with Austria, we'll probably see a better example of this.
Argentina finally annexes Paraguay. No big deal for us, but worth noting. The USA did intervene in that fight on behalf of the Paraguayans, but is thus far just putting forward a token blockade. They'll probably white peace eventually.
We finally chased down their 30k stack in Dikoa (after attrition took out 6500 of their men). With our superior technology and large amounts of artillery, they are crushed, with just token remnants to be chased down and mopped up. The war is basically over.
We both learn army decision making and you can see in the background that I've split up my forces to occupy Sokoto faster so we can annex them. Once you've eliminated the enemy's military, this is the best plan, as numbers don't have a huge effect on occupation rates, at least when your armies are fairly small.
Unfortunately, Prussia got to Warri before we could take them. We now share a colonial border with them (it's south of what used to be Sokoto, the light blue in the previous shot)
The first phase of the canal is done. Second phase started. It's another 75k.
Our second social reform of the update. They're coming much more slowly now.
Bavaria is invaded by Prussia again. This is an add to sphere war. Prussia needs Wurtemburg from Austria and I think Schleswig from Denmark still to form the NGF and then Germany. Anyway, in the course of the war, the Bavarians discover a "Third Way." It's fascism. Meh.
We prepare an expedition to get to the North Pole before the other great powers. It will almost assuredly fail.
The war is won in the middle of 1895. We now have even more of Africa.
New First Minister is a warrior, which is appropriate, considering my current policies.
Got this to increase supply limits (very much needed, obviously) and also because one of the inventions here is "cracking" which allows fuel refineries. High profit factory that uses oil, which obviously we're sitting on quite a lot of at the moment.
And it's now 1896.
Here's a look at our newly half decent budget:
As you can see, social spending is still a bit low, but stockpile, education, administration are all maxed out, and we no longer have a tariff. Additionally, we've bumped military funding a tad. Small deficit right now, which isn't related to war exhaustion, but we did just have a major economic downturn I'm not sure of the origin of near the end of the Sokoto war. Probably about 1000 pounds a day worth.
But let's talk about what we can try to do with it!
A) Focus on maxing out social spending Focus on cutting taxes
C) Focus on increasing the size of the military (I built about 20 new regiments this update, we're now up to 105 or so)
We absolutely do not need to increase the amount of military spending, we're about a third of our maximum regiments right now.
Meanwhile, here's our tech status. We're a bit behind on industrial techs, as telephones are being made, and cars/planes should be pretty soon. So other people have electricity and combustion engine at the least. We're still 0-6 techs behind on army. Our navy is obviously absolutely backward. Culture techs... we've mostly ignored the prestige branch entirely, we're good on education and political science, pure research techs we could maybe use some more. Commerce we're middling.
So, general strategy questions:
Tech focus, what's your fancy? We could go high tech factories, naval modernization, try to build an elite army, a continued hodgepodge?
General strategy:
A) Peace Gobble up the remaining African minors
C) Invade Egypt
D) Prepare for World Wars, particularly against Austria. And probably France if we're being honest.
And any other things you'd like to see happen. We're now economically powerful enough that we have some choice here. Probably can't take on France quite yet because of the massive colonial borders with them and our tech/size deficit, but Austria with our Russian allies is increasingly possible. Would take a decade of military build up, but I think we might be able to take them.
Oh, also, we're #1 in prestige.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Seems to me like it'd be a shame to squander the opportunity for war when you've got a Military Man handy. I say go after some more African minors that have The Good Stuff, and perhaps focus on getting some high tech factories up and running in the new provinces?
Alright and in this next scene all the animals have AIDS.
We get this event again, this time we assert our position. France is fighting colonial wars, and Prussia is close to the NGF and thereafter Germany itself, so I think we're relatively safe.
Speaking of Prussia, they add Bavaria to their sphere. Just need Wurttemburg now.
Yoink. Oyo is ours. It's got Lagos and some other bits of Nigeria. Well, it did. Ashanti is the last uncivilized in Africa, and they're in France's sphere. FRAAAAAAAAANCE!
We finish Suez in 1897. Which is mostly useful for the British, but we're buds, so that's fine.
50% literacy!
We finally dislodge France from the Papacy for good.
Opens up Automobiles and Aeroplanes. Among other things.
The text to this event is bugged and is always Dusseldorf, no matter who gets it. Let's pretend it was in southern Serbia instead.
Speaking of Serbia, we got a border incident and invaded. We beat their army despite being outnumbered by 50%. Go team! They're annexed not long after, which I missed because Russia was technically the war leader and made the peace for me so I wasn't expecting to need to take a shot of it and just closed the window. But we own Serbia now.
Steel Railroad is researched.
This update's election results in a change of liberal parties. Pacifists are in power, but they give us full citizenship. Our military is nowhere near our force limits, so that's not a terrible thing.
Free research points!
When you see this, you can basically assume the NGF has formed. It has.
Cars and planes! I switch a national focus to automotive industry to try to get them up and running.
Electricity opens up power, telephones, and electrical gears. The gears in particular are super important, while telephones are needed for dreadnoughts. Not that we're likely to get to dreadnoughts.
Railroad invention fires. New tier will be finished throughout 1902.
The Pope is now Muslim. Suck it, Christianity.
We're the first to the North Pole! No science to this one, but a ton of prestige that we totally don't need, but will take.
We're chosen to host the Olympics in 1900. Which earns us a bunch of prestige and some bonus plurality. Nice.
The key electricity inventions fires for us. Telephone factory is started, but no gears yet. We need gears, capitalists!
We do finish two automobile factories though. Automobiles are basically the most profitable factory in the game so this should help our industry score once the factories staff up.
And we grab Analytic Philosophy to increase our research points a bit more. 25 or so/day now. Which isn't great, but for a APD, isn't terrible at all. Especially since we're still only 55% literacy.
So it's the 20th century! We're a couple nations + the Austrian possessions from an Italian puppet. I think our goal for the last 35 years should probably be to dismantle Austria. Which will require a massive military build up/research, but we're in decent position for that, actually.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Just out of curiosity, how much does PDM slow down the game later on in the game?
I haven't had much if any slowdown getting to around 1900, but I've never gotten to the end and I've heard PDM has a lot more stuff to keep track of which really slows you down.
My friend is working on a roguelike game you can play if you want to. (It has free demo)
It gets relatively slow on my relatively old machine. It's not awful. These 5 year chunks take me about 90 minutes to play. With a major war, it would probably be a bit longer.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
FWIW: we'll be juggling updates around playoff hockey. Detroit is my team, so my focus is there. Should be fine to update tomorrow, but it might be a bit later than usual and finished during the first intermission.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Update 14: Chaos in Europe, Prosperity at Home (1901 - 1905)
This update from our perspective is mostly learning technologies, building railroads, a little diplomacy, and expanding the military. First tech is logistics, so we can afford more dudes.
We finish an aeroplane factory in northern Iraq. It's only the second in the world, and by the end of the update, we'll be making more than anyone else. We're a ways from being able to use them military though, unfortunately. We also build the less valuable to us, but still useful telephone factory. If we ever bother to invent dreadnoughts, it might be handy.
Alternated between army techs and factory techs, for the most part. There are a couple inventions that give us additional factory bonuses associated with this one.
We learn how to refine oil into fuel. A fuel refinery is started in Baghdad not long after.
Better forts, which are immediately started on the Austrian border.
As our railroads finish in the latter parts of 1902, we suddenly have a massive surplus and finish fully funding our social security and unemployment benefits. With a sizable surplus, too. By the end of the update, we'll have a nominally progressive income tax for the first time in our history (40/45/50). And with only one social reform left (10 hour workday -> 8 hour workday), there aren't that many costs left. Huzzah!
Europe was an absolute mess in this update. First the NGF declared war on Austria-Hungary for control over Wurttemburg. This was a nasty, brutal war.
Artillery improvements were next on our list.
The war gave us a free alliance with the NGF if we wanted, without us having to commit our troops. I agreed.
It was a tad brutal. Savoy also declared war on Modena in here and fought their protectors (Austria). You can see a 600k Austrian stack over there on the right. They would win that battle, but at large cost. Also, on the left side of the screen, you can see the beginnings of a major world development.
During this war, the "Great War" event triggers. Great Wars are nasty. There are no white peaces, you can only get the Great War defeat, which is humiliate + reparations. Not good. It also allows the "dismantle empire" casus belli. Which does what it says on the tin. All casus bellis come with way less infamy during Great Wars. I think 1/3.
Modena annexed by Savoy. Limits how many of them we need to influence.
Better factories!
The British were allied with the Germans, and marched their India corps into Hungary and the Ukraine. This surprised me a great deal. British don't usually get involved on the continent.
France declares war on Savoy for Savoie. I decide to not fight a war in Africa for no particularly good reason against the world's #2 power.
And then the Two Sicilies declares war on Savoy, in an attempt to humiliate them. France intervenes as soon as they succeed in taking Savoie. Which is bad news for the Two Sicilies.
The NGF wins, but at great cost to both sides...
We keep learning things!
This is the major science event from Egyptian excavations, much like our discovery of Agamemnon's Mask a few updates ago.
Austria-Hungary has a ton of rebels, who occasionally spill over the border into our land, fortunately we've managed to fully garrison the border with 30k stacks by this point.
This event fires again, it's great as always. I'm mostly using it to build up a reserve for the war that is coming.
Factory techs!
We're huge, which gives us more RP, which is always appreciated. I believe 300 million is the next one, which we're not going to be hitting.
This is the Spanish-American War event, which as best I can tell fires on a random great power, but it's always Spain. I take the first option so we don't lose prestige, but without a fleet there's not much of anything we can do about it.
Oh. Oh dear. Those are actually mostly fascists, 30 years too early.
Denmark decides to take advantage of the rebellion and try to take Greenland back from the NGF. Is this worth it? No, not at all. But the NGF has 17 regiments, so whatever!
Oh hi Nazis. Delightful!
Better rifles is our last military tech of the update. We're going to be attacking Austria soon, so work on the next level of forts is started. We currently have more troops and are 1 tech behind (until September). The next level of forts also allows the invention of gas attack, which is a +3 to all rolls and just murders people who don't have gas defense. The Austrians didn't have it in the German war. After that, probably go tactics and then back to industry/commerce. Or maybe Navy. This brings us to...
Decisions!
1) We are going to invade Austria in the next update, probably to free Italy, but I might try to grab Croatia as well, to make borders prettier. We're going to go in with our long term ally the Russians, but we can make an alliance with another Great Power before we go in as well. Should we choose:
A) The NGF. Pros: Right on the border, super powerful, currently Jingoists. Cons: Military was destroyed by the Austrian War/rebels, high war exhaustion already. The UK. Pros: Huge fleet, which is our major issue with fighting the Austrians right now. Cons: Probably won't march land troops in, and certainly won't get there before Russians have occupied Hungary.
C) France. Pros: Sizable fleet, close by, huge army, ideally we destabilize them. Cons: They're France. Fuck France.
They're all likely or better.
2) Technology after tactics 4:
A) Continue military techs, try to get tanks/airplanes Back to industry/commerce
C) Get Social Alienation, so the endless (not pictured) women's suffrage events finally stop
D) Learn better capital ships, the only way we're going to catch France, the USA, and the UK in score. We're fourth, about 1700 points behind. That's... a lot of dreadnoughts, but 100% doable.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
I don't know anything about this game but here are my decisions.
1) UK. I don't like France. Also maybe the war will weaken their fleet.
2) Get better capital ships. Armies are great but constantly getting invaded via sea is annoying. I don't know how good the naval AI is for Victoria but in EU3 where it was't good it would still manage to slip some transport ships past me when I wasn't looking.
In terms of catching up to the UK/USA/France scorewise, I mean.
As far as alliances go: France may have its own designs on Italy, and the NGF would certainly like to lop some chunks off of Austria. I'm inclined not to invite them to the party, lest they start monopolizing the cheese dip. Britain's fleet ought to be sufficient, even if they don't commit their armies, to keep the Austrians penned up in their ports. That frees our glorious armies to go on the offensive.
Posts
This update is somewhat dull, not a lot happened. Mostly recovering our education/administration budget.
Our people are protesting all of our new colonies in addition to all of the old ones. I ignore them, because fuck off, citizens. MORE AFRICA.
Finishing off our political reforms this update. By the end of it, only the draft won't be at the most liberal option.
Imagine I posted like 20 of these. You'll see at the end.
Social reforms are also getting close to maxed out. Which will make costs less obnoxious.
We finally add another Italian minor to our sphere. We're in a fight for the Papal States that we keep losing, because fuck France.
OIL! This isn't particularly useful yet, but when someone invents cars/fuel/airplanes that will be excellent. We should get around to that ourselves at some point...
This pisses off our Greek citizens, but I needed cash. There would obviously be no consequences!
We finish this, allowing even more colonies. Also restoring our clergy, who got demoted with the crap funding. Stupid laissez faire.
It also opens up a ton of decisions. Most prominently this, which gives minorities protected status, bonus research, and accepts the cultures we rejected earlier. We're pretty liberalized, y'all!
We start excavations at Mycenae and Knossos. Eventually those should give us events that are basically a billion research points.
And we decide the Jews can have a homeland. We won't release them, but still!
Our second to last political faction is founded, in Hesse-Kassel. Only fascism remains. They support all social and political reforms, which is kind of neat, but never get big enough to really matter in my experience.
Safety regulations, whatever.
Work on better factories. With this done, we move up to sixth in the world in industry, which is pretty impressive considering our absolute shit literacy rates to start the game. When everyone's at peace, we're about 200 back of Austria/Prussia for 4/5th. Catching the US is semi-feasible if we can get some better boats.
The election is mostly boring, though the two liberal parties are close.
Prussia is getting the Pan-German nationalists and is super powerful, subjugating the former Great Power of Bavaria. Still haven't managed to form the NGF though, I think because they're missing Holstein.
We learn better railroads, which of course do nothing until the invention triggers in a APD.
Fortunately, it only takes about 2 months this time. And then within a week capitalists have railroads building in every single one of our provinces. I have to turn it off the summary thing they give you.
And that's the last one! Go team, we're super liberal, from absolutely no reforms in 55 years.
More econ techs, la di da.
This finally lets me max out admin/education funding. And cuts the tariff down to 15%. It'll expire by the end of next update, but I'm hoping to be able to keep things stable.
We have to deal with a couple rebellions, one here and one in Albania. They were our first of the game. They're crushed easily despite our tiny, tiny army.
Accepting labor unions makes our RGOs more efficient. Neat!
Our colonies are impressive, we decided to host an exposition to show them off.
The US starts the Panama Canal. It'll take a while. Kiel hasn't happened yet I don't think, and obviously Suez has not.
More industry/commerce tech. Probably about time to start on Naval techs and maybe a little army again. But our economy is not where I want it to be... hmmmm. I choose you, Stock Exchange!
So there's our Africa. We lack ports. Major goal is to conquer Sokoto. We could probably do it peacefully if we sphere them. Which I might do, abandoning the Italian project for a little while.
Sorry not a lot going on at the moment, I'm trying to wrestle our semi-backward economy into paying for our very modern welfare state. On the plus side, we started getting immigrants from Russia and Austria, which is a nice accomplishment. Not enough to make up for the assholes heading to the US, but whatever. The US' immigration bonuses are insane.
It looks like the congo conference event didn't trigger? What causes that, anyways?
They need to tweak dominions a bit but I like all the new things they've added.
Jesus.
I feel like I really need immigrants to get going, but my fucking population hates reform.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
In my Netherlands game that is now defunct since I upgraded, I had full military funding, ~60 regiments of guards, and about 200 unbuilt regiments of Asian and African unaccepted cultures that I couldn't do much with but were costing me lots of money. Let me pay the guys who can be the best unit more than the millions of guys who can't.
Seriously this week, barring another national semi-emergency. I'll start writing tonight's in a few. And we should get the return of reader participation, as we have budget flexibility again!
Turkish archaeologists uncover Mycenae, the home of the leader of the Greeks during the Trojan War and the origin of Greek civilization (sort of, let's go with it). This is one of three such events, all of which deliver a ton of prestige and research points. This is basically a tier 3 tech or about a year's worth of research. So: useful!
It finishes us stock exchange quite quickly. It has some nice inventions, like finally being able to make cigar factories. I started growing tobacco in Africa, so hopefully that will encourage the development of such. They're highly profitable.
Running low on social reforms to enact, but there are a few less. Mostly we're telling the work hour people to get bent, because a 1/8 reduction in work hours is no good at all.
This was a legitimately tough decision. The other option would have led to very lowered reputation with France and them getting a free casus beli on us. I didn't want to risk it as our military is woefully under sized for a Great Power. It's a thing we need to get to fixing at some point.
Got business regulations next, to further improve factories and education efficiency.
We're finally bringing in some money and I'm saving for Suez when this comes up. It's 100k, but that's only about 3 months income at this point, so I agree.
We have a third border incident in a few months. This one with Sokoto, who I genuinely wanted to attack. If you refer to previous updates, they're the big green country in central Africa. They have some coal and iron RGOs, I think the only coal mines in Africa. The first two were Loango (Congo), who are friendly with France, and Serbia, who are friendly with Russia. I didn't really want to risk intervention on either case, though Serbia was tempting.
Pick up steamers just in case we ever want to have a half decent navy, and our fish canneries are going bankrupt for lack of supplies. There's a useful invention here to improve fish production.
Also, of course, there's the invention that allows steamer transports, which are faster and hardier than clipper transports. Nice.
The IOC forms and asks if we want membership. If we're going to get a top 3 ranking, we're going to need a ton of prestige, so we join.
Speaking of prestige, 50k for 21 more.
And we start Suez. 25k when you trigger the decision, 75k here...
War is declared, just before our free casus beli expires.
50k more... APD makes the canals take longer to build and makes them considerably more expensive.
The mining techs are huge boosts to our economy. It turns out I wildly underestimated their use early in the game. If I did this again, I would prioritize them much more.
I add an annexation war goal.
Commerce raiders are invented. We're like 50 years behind in naval tech, but woo! Steam powered warships, baby!
Rubber is discovered in Africa. If you don't have any native rubber supplies, this is a great reason to colonize Africa, as there is quite a lot down there. And they're useful in the late game industries which are just now coming online in the more advanced parts of the world.
If we're fighting wars, reinforcement rates are good and less war exhaustion is better, so I finally grab this.
Wars! The key thing with wars in Vicky is to not open a hole in your lines. The AI loves sneaking through them and then you have to go back and chase them. This is a (bad) example of this. They can wander around your territory, but the AI is reluctant to if you have theirs occupied. The other important idea is, if you can, to surround enemy troops so they cannot retreat. So if I could have gotten stacks to those provinces east of Kano and then beaten that stack in Kano in a fight, they couldn't retreat and would all surrender, regardless of how many I killed in the fight. Tactically, those are the two important things. If we fight a war with Austria, we'll probably see a better example of this.
Argentina finally annexes Paraguay. No big deal for us, but worth noting. The USA did intervene in that fight on behalf of the Paraguayans, but is thus far just putting forward a token blockade. They'll probably white peace eventually.
We finally chased down their 30k stack in Dikoa (after attrition took out 6500 of their men). With our superior technology and large amounts of artillery, they are crushed, with just token remnants to be chased down and mopped up. The war is basically over.
We both learn army decision making and you can see in the background that I've split up my forces to occupy Sokoto faster so we can annex them. Once you've eliminated the enemy's military, this is the best plan, as numbers don't have a huge effect on occupation rates, at least when your armies are fairly small.
Unfortunately, Prussia got to Warri before we could take them. We now share a colonial border with them (it's south of what used to be Sokoto, the light blue in the previous shot)
The first phase of the canal is done. Second phase started. It's another 75k.
Our second social reform of the update. They're coming much more slowly now.
Bavaria is invaded by Prussia again. This is an add to sphere war. Prussia needs Wurtemburg from Austria and I think Schleswig from Denmark still to form the NGF and then Germany. Anyway, in the course of the war, the Bavarians discover a "Third Way." It's fascism. Meh.
We prepare an expedition to get to the North Pole before the other great powers. It will almost assuredly fail.
The war is won in the middle of 1895. We now have even more of Africa.
New First Minister is a warrior, which is appropriate, considering my current policies.
Got this to increase supply limits (very much needed, obviously) and also because one of the inventions here is "cracking" which allows fuel refineries. High profit factory that uses oil, which obviously we're sitting on quite a lot of at the moment.
And it's now 1896.
Here's a look at our newly half decent budget:
As you can see, social spending is still a bit low, but stockpile, education, administration are all maxed out, and we no longer have a tariff. Additionally, we've bumped military funding a tad. Small deficit right now, which isn't related to war exhaustion, but we did just have a major economic downturn I'm not sure of the origin of near the end of the Sokoto war. Probably about 1000 pounds a day worth.
But let's talk about what we can try to do with it!
A) Focus on maxing out social spending
Focus on cutting taxes
C) Focus on increasing the size of the military (I built about 20 new regiments this update, we're now up to 105 or so)
We absolutely do not need to increase the amount of military spending, we're about a third of our maximum regiments right now.
Meanwhile, here's our tech status. We're a bit behind on industrial techs, as telephones are being made, and cars/planes should be pretty soon. So other people have electricity and combustion engine at the least. We're still 0-6 techs behind on army. Our navy is obviously absolutely backward. Culture techs... we've mostly ignored the prestige branch entirely, we're good on education and political science, pure research techs we could maybe use some more. Commerce we're middling.
So, general strategy questions:
Tech focus, what's your fancy? We could go high tech factories, naval modernization, try to build an elite army, a continued hodgepodge?
General strategy:
A) Peace
Gobble up the remaining African minors
C) Invade Egypt
D) Prepare for World Wars, particularly against Austria. And probably France if we're being honest.
And any other things you'd like to see happen. We're now economically powerful enough that we have some choice here. Probably can't take on France quite yet because of the massive colonial borders with them and our tech/size deficit, but Austria with our Russian allies is increasingly possible. Would take a decade of military build up, but I think we might be able to take them.
Oh, also, we're #1 in prestige.
I got a little excited when I saw your ship.
We get this event again, this time we assert our position. France is fighting colonial wars, and Prussia is close to the NGF and thereafter Germany itself, so I think we're relatively safe.
Speaking of Prussia, they add Bavaria to their sphere. Just need Wurttemburg now.
Yoink. Oyo is ours. It's got Lagos and some other bits of Nigeria. Well, it did. Ashanti is the last uncivilized in Africa, and they're in France's sphere. FRAAAAAAAAANCE!
We finish Suez in 1897. Which is mostly useful for the British, but we're buds, so that's fine.
50% literacy!
We finally dislodge France from the Papacy for good.
Opens up Automobiles and Aeroplanes. Among other things.
The text to this event is bugged and is always Dusseldorf, no matter who gets it. Let's pretend it was in southern Serbia instead.
Speaking of Serbia, we got a border incident and invaded. We beat their army despite being outnumbered by 50%. Go team! They're annexed not long after, which I missed because Russia was technically the war leader and made the peace for me so I wasn't expecting to need to take a shot of it and just closed the window. But we own Serbia now.
Steel Railroad is researched.
This update's election results in a change of liberal parties. Pacifists are in power, but they give us full citizenship. Our military is nowhere near our force limits, so that's not a terrible thing.
Free research points!
When you see this, you can basically assume the NGF has formed. It has.
Cars and planes! I switch a national focus to automotive industry to try to get them up and running.
Electricity opens up power, telephones, and electrical gears. The gears in particular are super important, while telephones are needed for dreadnoughts. Not that we're likely to get to dreadnoughts.
Railroad invention fires. New tier will be finished throughout 1902.
The Pope is now Muslim. Suck it, Christianity.
We're the first to the North Pole! No science to this one, but a ton of prestige that we totally don't need, but will take.
We're chosen to host the Olympics in 1900. Which earns us a bunch of prestige and some bonus plurality. Nice.
The key electricity inventions fires for us. Telephone factory is started, but no gears yet. We need gears, capitalists!
We do finish two automobile factories though. Automobiles are basically the most profitable factory in the game so this should help our industry score once the factories staff up.
And we grab Analytic Philosophy to increase our research points a bit more. 25 or so/day now. Which isn't great, but for a APD, isn't terrible at all. Especially since we're still only 55% literacy.
So it's the 20th century! We're a couple nations + the Austrian possessions from an Italian puppet. I think our goal for the last 35 years should probably be to dismantle Austria. Which will require a massive military build up/research, but we're in decent position for that, actually.
I haven't had much if any slowdown getting to around 1900, but I've never gotten to the end and I've heard PDM has a lot more stuff to keep track of which really slows you down.
This update from our perspective is mostly learning technologies, building railroads, a little diplomacy, and expanding the military. First tech is logistics, so we can afford more dudes.
We finish an aeroplane factory in northern Iraq. It's only the second in the world, and by the end of the update, we'll be making more than anyone else. We're a ways from being able to use them military though, unfortunately. We also build the less valuable to us, but still useful telephone factory. If we ever bother to invent dreadnoughts, it might be handy.
Alternated between army techs and factory techs, for the most part. There are a couple inventions that give us additional factory bonuses associated with this one.
We learn how to refine oil into fuel. A fuel refinery is started in Baghdad not long after.
Better forts, which are immediately started on the Austrian border.
As our railroads finish in the latter parts of 1902, we suddenly have a massive surplus and finish fully funding our social security and unemployment benefits. With a sizable surplus, too. By the end of the update, we'll have a nominally progressive income tax for the first time in our history (40/45/50). And with only one social reform left (10 hour workday -> 8 hour workday), there aren't that many costs left. Huzzah!
Europe was an absolute mess in this update. First the NGF declared war on Austria-Hungary for control over Wurttemburg. This was a nasty, brutal war.
Artillery improvements were next on our list.
The war gave us a free alliance with the NGF if we wanted, without us having to commit our troops. I agreed.
It was a tad brutal. Savoy also declared war on Modena in here and fought their protectors (Austria). You can see a 600k Austrian stack over there on the right. They would win that battle, but at large cost. Also, on the left side of the screen, you can see the beginnings of a major world development.
During this war, the "Great War" event triggers. Great Wars are nasty. There are no white peaces, you can only get the Great War defeat, which is humiliate + reparations. Not good. It also allows the "dismantle empire" casus belli. Which does what it says on the tin. All casus bellis come with way less infamy during Great Wars. I think 1/3.
Modena annexed by Savoy. Limits how many of them we need to influence.
Better factories!
The British were allied with the Germans, and marched their India corps into Hungary and the Ukraine. This surprised me a great deal. British don't usually get involved on the continent.
France declares war on Savoy for Savoie. I decide to not fight a war in Africa for no particularly good reason against the world's #2 power.
And then the Two Sicilies declares war on Savoy, in an attempt to humiliate them. France intervenes as soon as they succeed in taking Savoie. Which is bad news for the Two Sicilies.
The NGF wins, but at great cost to both sides...
We keep learning things!
This is the major science event from Egyptian excavations, much like our discovery of Agamemnon's Mask a few updates ago.
Austria-Hungary has a ton of rebels, who occasionally spill over the border into our land, fortunately we've managed to fully garrison the border with 30k stacks by this point.
This event fires again, it's great as always. I'm mostly using it to build up a reserve for the war that is coming.
Factory techs!
We're huge, which gives us more RP, which is always appreciated. I believe 300 million is the next one, which we're not going to be hitting.
This is the Spanish-American War event, which as best I can tell fires on a random great power, but it's always Spain. I take the first option so we don't lose prestige, but without a fleet there's not much of anything we can do about it.
Oh. Oh dear. Those are actually mostly fascists, 30 years too early.
Denmark decides to take advantage of the rebellion and try to take Greenland back from the NGF. Is this worth it? No, not at all. But the NGF has 17 regiments, so whatever!
Oh hi Nazis. Delightful!
Better rifles is our last military tech of the update. We're going to be attacking Austria soon, so work on the next level of forts is started. We currently have more troops and are 1 tech behind (until September). The next level of forts also allows the invention of gas attack, which is a +3 to all rolls and just murders people who don't have gas defense. The Austrians didn't have it in the German war. After that, probably go tactics and then back to industry/commerce. Or maybe Navy. This brings us to...
Decisions!
1) We are going to invade Austria in the next update, probably to free Italy, but I might try to grab Croatia as well, to make borders prettier. We're going to go in with our long term ally the Russians, but we can make an alliance with another Great Power before we go in as well. Should we choose:
A) The NGF. Pros: Right on the border, super powerful, currently Jingoists. Cons: Military was destroyed by the Austrian War/rebels, high war exhaustion already.
The UK. Pros: Huge fleet, which is our major issue with fighting the Austrians right now. Cons: Probably won't march land troops in, and certainly won't get there before Russians have occupied Hungary.
C) France. Pros: Sizable fleet, close by, huge army, ideally we destabilize them. Cons: They're France. Fuck France.
They're all likely or better.
2) Technology after tactics 4:
A) Continue military techs, try to get tanks/airplanes
Back to industry/commerce
C) Get Social Alienation, so the endless (not pictured) women's suffrage events finally stop
D) Learn better capital ships, the only way we're going to catch France, the USA, and the UK in score. We're fourth, about 1700 points behind. That's... a lot of dreadnoughts, but 100% doable.
agree button
2 C)
1) UK. I don't like France. Also maybe the war will weaken their fleet.
2) Get better capital ships. Armies are great but constantly getting invaded via sea is annoying. I don't know how good the naval AI is for Victoria but in EU3 where it was't good it would still manage to slip some transport ships past me when I wasn't looking.
Steam: CavilatRest
2) D) Learn better capital ships (if at all possible: C as well, because women are rad. )
As far as alliances go: France may have its own designs on Italy, and the NGF would certainly like to lop some chunks off of Austria. I'm inclined not to invite them to the party, lest they start monopolizing the cheese dip. Britain's fleet ought to be sufficient, even if they don't commit their armies, to keep the Austrians penned up in their ports. That frees our glorious armies to go on the offensive.
It should be noted that the US usually spams them near the end of the game.
Also, I forgot to take a shot of it, but Transvaal humiliated the UK in one of the Boer Wars.