Kane Red RobeMaster of MagicArcanusRegistered Userregular
Decided to run a Holland game for fun and uhh, what do I do after forming the Netherlands? I'm not usually one for the colonial game so I'm not sure what my goals are here. Can't expand further in Europe because I'm not in the HRE anymore, and I'm pretty tough on the seas but my army is barely 18 regiments. Hrm
I just did Keep The Flame Burning (As a Zoroastrian nation, own all Religious Centers and Monument Baku Ateshgah on tier 3) as Timurids. It's not a hard achievement, but I did it really badly. You have one Zoroastrian province, so you need to provoke rebels and get them to convert, right? Well, I put that off until I got my vassals under control, and while I was doing that I got a Dhimmi estate agenda to increase autonomy in Yazd. Which meant for the next 25 years I had -10 unrest in my only Zoroastrian province and couldn't provoke rebels. So, fine, off I go conquering the lands I need, until finally I can provoke rebels but now I've got 80 provinces so they spend 10 years wandering around. Then the bloody Ottomans come in and kill them, because they're my ally and just wanted to help out I guess, so I had to Alt-F4 and take away their access rights.
Finally I get the option to convert the country, take it, and now I have 20% religious unity and rebels everywhere, and by the way I can barely deal with them because I'm broke. How did I get broke in such a rich area? I formed the Mughals, which moved my capital (and trade capital) to India, tanking my economy, and I didn't realise it so I left it like that for decades. My army's paper because I chose quantity but can't afford to raise my whole army, and my religious conversion is slow because I chose administrative despite taking almost all my land from diplo vassalisation, feeding cores, and diplo annexing.
I ended up winning the last wars I needed by calling in the Ottos in the west and letting them do all the fighting, and Vijay to fight in India.
I got the achievement, but did almost everything wrong.
Don't Be Cilli, on the other hand, was far more smooth. It took me about an hour.
Day one: hire a diplo rep advisor. Royal Marry Hungary and Austria (to use up some of their diplo slots), then Bohemia and Poland. Ally Bohemia and Poland. Curry favours with them. In 1449 attack Croatia, calling them in. Let Bohemia and Poland (and Lithuania and Moldavia etc) win the war for you. Full annex Croatia, culture shift, form Croatia. Easy stuff.
You could stack development modifiers and grow extremely tall if you don't want to go to America or Asia
What actually happened is the negative relations modifiers from them wanting my colonial territories led to France, England and Spain teaming up to kick the shit out of me. I'm really not cut out for the colonial game, best to stick to Europe proper for me I think.
Everything I've read says something like "Once you have 10 provinces Ashikaga will declare on you", or "Once a coalition forms Ashikaga will declare on you". Well, I own almost all of Japan, I've fought off a coalition, Ashikaga has -200 opinion of me, and nothing. I guess I just need to take the stability hit and attack them myself.
Everything I've read says something like "Once you have 10 provinces Ashikaga will declare on you", or "Once a coalition forms Ashikaga will declare on you". Well, I own almost all of Japan, I've fought off a coalition, Ashikaga has -200 opinion of me, and nothing. I guess I just need to take the stability hit and attack them myself.
The way to play Japan is that you force Colonialism to spawn in your capitol and then watch Europe completely implode
I have an alliance, 170 relations, 100 trust. They have no CB on me or my vassals. And for some reason, out of nowhere, they turn hostile on me. Thankfully I'm about 10 years from getting my achievement and finishing the run, so it shouldn't matter, but it's still annoying.
They should be only able to turn hostile if they drop below 100 relations and they shouldn't want your land at 100 trust
Did you integrate a subject with lots of CNs or did they pick Explo or Expansion
I figured it out! It's because they joined the Protestant side of the League Wars, and I was on the Catholic side. About 20 years later the Leagues ended without war, and they immediately went friendly again.
My 1.30 Austria one-faith save was apparently corrupted, so I'm going to have to start again. I know Austria's probably the easiest country in the game, but I find the start so stressful. I need to ally electors so I can get the Bohemian PU, get the Milan PU, get the Hungarian PU, vassalise Byzantium before the Ottos get there, get the Burgundian inheritance, rival France and make sure Castile rivals France and takes the Iberian wedding, while babysitting the princes and getting little bits of land everywhere to stop the reformation...
It's just so much, and I did it last patch, I don't know if I can do it again.
Been still playing Victoria 2 on and off. One nation that is surprisingly hard to play as in spite of several obvious advantages is Switzerland. Switzerland has extremely high literacy and to a lesser extent level of industry by the standards of 1836, and also has nice natural defensive terrain on almost all of its border. Switzerland also has, even in vanilla, a number of positive unique events. That being said, in Vanilla it is extremely culturally isolated having only 'Swiss' as accepted culture, a culture which exists only in Switzerland. Most mods break up Swiss culture to more accurately represent the diversity of its Latin influenced western and southern territories and its more German influenced eastern cantons. This allows better potential expansion routes as if you theoretically take land in eastern France, southern Germany/Austria, or northern Italy, you'll have a large pool of accepted pops who won't constantly rebel against rule by a foreign minority as opposed to having literally no accepted pops outside of your initial borders.
Those same mods, however, both massively increase the strength of France, Italy, and Austria Hungary while removing exploits that allow small nations to increase in power quickly. (like using a powerful ally to invade and take land in China) They also, almost to a one, add a pretty devastating "political neutrality" modifier to Switzerland which makes it unable to ally or even make any diplomatic agreements with foreign nations. In actual history, this ended up being a tremendous boon to Switzerland as it allowed it develop a level of trans-national financial investment that was unheard of elsewhere in the rest of the protectionist, imperialistic world. In Victora 2 though, you can't really play that way as that kind of financial growth is just not modeled in the game. This modifier is difficult to remove and, unless you are very lucky, will likely take at least a decade or more to get rid of. Switzerland is a nation I've often tried to play but rarely had great success with due to being a land-locked nation, forced years behind on diplomacy, and surrounded by much more populous neighbors. That being said I finally seemed to have had run that has gone pretty well:
My hope is take Ravenna from the Federation, and Venice, Tyrol, and Sudtyrol from Austria. I'm currently making mad bank after the Italian Federation and Austria attacked and I got reparations from them. Italy by the way didn't unite until about the 1880s when I took Piemonte. It's orange because it was formed by event by a southern Italian nation. Has same accepted cultures and cores, just the color and name are different than a northern led Italian unification. France is my ally but allies in Vic 2 are very... unreliable.
Is it weird that I'm hoping that Vicky 3 won't end up as a power fantasy, yet at the same time I'm pretty sure my goal will be to decolonize the entire world
Made it to 1720 and unfortunately discovered that I wouldn't have enough monarch points to diplomatically annex all the large countries in the world
Ideally you'd stack Administrative Efficiency if you want to integrate the world, even if it gets boring playing with the same religions and forming the same countries every time
Victoria 2's combat system is bad and frankly Paradox have never been good at making rewarding or fun combat systems, so while I can't say the new system will be good it's unlikely to hurt the game. I have never liked any paradox strategy game because of its combat.
The bunch of old school victoria 2 players who have been playing multiplayer victoria 2 for years are gonna hate it though, since micro is like... all victoria 2's combat is. Well that and random dice rolls. But, and I say this as someone who's been a fan of paradox games for about a decade, the old school paradox community is kind of awful.
Paradox has been moving farther and farther away from moving little men from province to province over the years and their games have just been getting better for it, IMO.
So many of my games have stalled out because a big war with lots of theatres to pay attention to breaks out, I say "I'll deal with that later," save the game and never come back to it.
My friend is working on a roguelike game you can play if you want to. (It has free demo)
I'm a big fan of them trying something new instead of using EU4/Victoria 2 style combat yet again. It really just doesn't work with the way warfare changed during the time period of the game, and I've always felt that if I have to pay attention to more than maybe two areas I have some real problems dealing with the AI's ability to control each army individually. This way the player and the AI should be on equal footing from a mechanics point of view, and it will come down to preparation and logistics instead of micro-managing.
Also in the patch where Judaism gets special mechanics, Ethiopia also gets an event which lets them instantly wipe it out (and the AI proceeded to do so in any of my test runs)
Also in the patch where Judaism gets special mechanics, Ethiopia also gets an event which lets them instantly wipe it out (and the AI proceeded to do so in any of my test runs)
Ooooomph
They're patching that so (1) The AI always chooses the stability, and (2) It incentivises the AI not to convert it for a while.
The AI seems to have a bit of a problem colonizing right now - I'm not sure what is going on behind the scenes
Also everyone outside Europe falls behind in tech a lot more than you'd expect - they must've changed AI behavior to not always prioritize researching technology
I tried playing a game in Australia for the Australia-Hungary achievement but tribal mechanics are unfortunately broken again. Your tribal lands get removed under weird conditions I can't quite figure out, I've also seen the AI remove themselves from the game this way in North America (like literally stop existing)
I need to stop watching YouTube EU4 videos, they make me think i can play that well and i can't.
Anywho, I've such video i watched the guy says before unpausing at start "and then we go to the economy screen to lower development cost" then moves on to show a lower development cost on a province then what i have in my game for same province. WTF is he talking about?
Second, unrelated question: if you get an bonus from splendor (i.e. all your colonies start at +1 to each development), does that go away at start of next "age" or does it persist to the end of the game? If it goes away, is it better to not buy a perk if age is about to shift?
Related to that, what's the best time to trigger golden age? In the past i usually did it near the end of a given age to get help starting the next one, but i have no idea what's actually optimal.
0
Options
Kane Red RobeMaster of MagicArcanusRegistered Userregular
I need to stop watching YouTube EU4 videos, they make me think i can play that well and i can't.
Anywho, I've such video i watched the guy says before unpausing at start "and then we go to the economy screen to lower development cost" then moves on to show a lower development cost on a province then what i have in my game for same province. WTF is he talking about?
Second, unrelated question: if you get an bonus from splendor (i.e. all your colonies start at +1 to each development), does that go away at start of next "age" or does it persist to the end of the game? If it goes away, is it better to not buy a perk if age is about to shift?
Related to that, what's the best time to trigger golden age? In the past i usually did it near the end of a given age to get help starting the next one, but i have no idea what's actually optimal.
There's a state edict you can put in place to lower dev cost at the expense of a temporary increase in state maintenance (there are a bunch of other edicts if you are like me and forget to check the state tab occasionally I urge you to check it out).
Goes away at the next Age.
ASAP. Small bonuses early snowball, in particular the reduction in power costs allows you to roll up more tasks earlier which gives you a hand up.
Posts
Finally I get the option to convert the country, take it, and now I have 20% religious unity and rebels everywhere, and by the way I can barely deal with them because I'm broke. How did I get broke in such a rich area? I formed the Mughals, which moved my capital (and trade capital) to India, tanking my economy, and I didn't realise it so I left it like that for decades. My army's paper because I chose quantity but can't afford to raise my whole army, and my religious conversion is slow because I chose administrative despite taking almost all my land from diplo vassalisation, feeding cores, and diplo annexing.
I ended up winning the last wars I needed by calling in the Ottos in the west and letting them do all the fighting, and Vijay to fight in India.
I got the achievement, but did almost everything wrong.
Day one: hire a diplo rep advisor. Royal Marry Hungary and Austria (to use up some of their diplo slots), then Bohemia and Poland. Ally Bohemia and Poland. Curry favours with them. In 1449 attack Croatia, calling them in. Let Bohemia and Poland (and Lithuania and Moldavia etc) win the war for you. Full annex Croatia, culture shift, form Croatia. Easy stuff.
But the Horde stage feels so overpowered that you might as well skip ahead and start as a Horde if you're doing it that way
Florryworry destroyed maybe 5 - 8k development during a recent campaign but still ended up with a world 36k dev strong
What actually happened is the negative relations modifiers from them wanting my colonial territories led to France, England and Spain teaming up to kick the shit out of me. I'm really not cut out for the colonial game, best to stick to Europe proper for me I think.
Yeah, up until that point France and I had been staunch allies, was real irritating.
You can probably do this faster as Jianzhou
Everything I've read says something like "Once you have 10 provinces Ashikaga will declare on you", or "Once a coalition forms Ashikaga will declare on you". Well, I own almost all of Japan, I've fought off a coalition, Ashikaga has -200 opinion of me, and nothing. I guess I just need to take the stability hit and attack them myself.
The way to play Japan is that you force Colonialism to spawn in your capitol and then watch Europe completely implode
I have an alliance, 170 relations, 100 trust. They have no CB on me or my vassals. And for some reason, out of nowhere, they turn hostile on me. Thankfully I'm about 10 years from getting my achievement and finishing the run, so it shouldn't matter, but it's still annoying.
Did you integrate a subject with lots of CNs or did they pick Explo or Expansion
I figured it out! It's because they joined the Protestant side of the League Wars, and I was on the Catholic side. About 20 years later the Leagues ended without war, and they immediately went friendly again.
It's just so much, and I did it last patch, I don't know if I can do it again.
Those same mods, however, both massively increase the strength of France, Italy, and Austria Hungary while removing exploits that allow small nations to increase in power quickly. (like using a powerful ally to invade and take land in China) They also, almost to a one, add a pretty devastating "political neutrality" modifier to Switzerland which makes it unable to ally or even make any diplomatic agreements with foreign nations. In actual history, this ended up being a tremendous boon to Switzerland as it allowed it develop a level of trans-national financial investment that was unheard of elsewhere in the rest of the protectionist, imperialistic world. In Victora 2 though, you can't really play that way as that kind of financial growth is just not modeled in the game. This modifier is difficult to remove and, unless you are very lucky, will likely take at least a decade or more to get rid of. Switzerland is a nation I've often tried to play but rarely had great success with due to being a land-locked nation, forced years behind on diplomacy, and surrounded by much more populous neighbors. That being said I finally seemed to have had run that has gone pretty well:
My hope is take Ravenna from the Federation, and Venice, Tyrol, and Sudtyrol from Austria. I'm currently making mad bank after the Italian Federation and Austria attacked and I got reparations from them. Italy by the way didn't unite until about the 1880s when I took Piemonte. It's orange because it was formed by event by a southern Italian nation. Has same accepted cultures and cores, just the color and name are different than a northern led Italian unification. France is my ally but allies in Vic 2 are very... unreliable.
I'd concentrate development from all of them then let them go.
Made it to 1720 and unfortunately discovered that I wouldn't have enough monarch points to diplomatically annex all the large countries in the world
Ideally you'd stack Administrative Efficiency if you want to integrate the world, even if it gets boring playing with the same religions and forming the same countries every time
I like the idea a lot, especially to carve out an identity for yourself, but boy howdy is that thread spicy.
The bunch of old school victoria 2 players who have been playing multiplayer victoria 2 for years are gonna hate it though, since micro is like... all victoria 2's combat is. Well that and random dice rolls. But, and I say this as someone who's been a fan of paradox games for about a decade, the old school paradox community is kind of awful.
So many of my games have stalled out because a big war with lots of theatres to pay attention to breaks out, I say "I'll deal with that later," save the game and never come back to it.
Whoever wrote the achievements doesn't know how they work in the game files
Ooooomph
They're patching that so (1) The AI always chooses the stability, and (2) It incentivises the AI not to convert it for a while.
Also everyone outside Europe falls behind in tech a lot more than you'd expect - they must've changed AI behavior to not always prioritize researching technology
I tried playing a game in Australia for the Australia-Hungary achievement but tribal mechanics are unfortunately broken again. Your tribal lands get removed under weird conditions I can't quite figure out, I've also seen the AI remove themselves from the game this way in North America (like literally stop existing)
France was able to walk straight to level 1 Madrid and level 1 Lisboa, it's like the AI's committing suicide
Anywho, I've such video i watched the guy says before unpausing at start "and then we go to the economy screen to lower development cost" then moves on to show a lower development cost on a province then what i have in my game for same province. WTF is he talking about?
Second, unrelated question: if you get an bonus from splendor (i.e. all your colonies start at +1 to each development), does that go away at start of next "age" or does it persist to the end of the game? If it goes away, is it better to not buy a perk if age is about to shift?
Related to that, what's the best time to trigger golden age? In the past i usually did it near the end of a given age to get help starting the next one, but i have no idea what's actually optimal.
There's a state edict you can put in place to lower dev cost at the expense of a temporary increase in state maintenance (there are a bunch of other edicts if you are like me and forget to check the state tab occasionally I urge you to check it out).
Goes away at the next Age.
ASAP. Small bonuses early snowball, in particular the reduction in power costs allows you to roll up more tasks earlier which gives you a hand up.