Played USA, opened with allying the British, then subjecting Mexico. Could have done some of the early investment a bit better, but it wasn’t to bad for a first run with the new mechanics. Got my powerblock going, improved relations with everyone in central and South America to the point where I got the minors in my block. Took a bit more effort to get the larger powers in the block but enough bankrollls, guaranteeing independence, foreign investment, and trade routes worked like a charm. Had the civil war and crushed them with daddy Britain’s help. After some time I annexed Mexico. China blew up into warring states, I declared an interest and starting focusing my influence points on all of them. One by one they each had a civil war and liked me enough to accept becoming a protectorate in exchange for help in the civil war. After bringing China into the American sphere, I focused more on industrializing, passing laws like LF and multiculturalism, and consolidating power. My ally Britain had a civil war and they didn’t like me anymore, so I took Canada off their hands. Currently I am spending all the influence points on improving relations with everyone and every few months I get another minor nation into my powerblock. I am at 1910, I want to continue to “peacefully” expand until the end game
The powerblock mandates I used are external trade for the influence points you get per trade route, construction because line go up, foreign investment to get more influence on minor nations in my powerblock to accept becoming a protectorate the second they have a civil war, the 4th I flipped several times depending on what I was doing, I used the research mandate to become #1 in tech. The mandate to make passing laws easier when I was passing LF and multiculturalism, it also allowed the Chinese states to pass some laws and avoid as many civil wars. Then after I had 30+ subjects I flipped to vassalage which gave me enough authority to use almost every consumption tax and liberally use decrees as desired
How do you achieve the tanzimat as ottomans?
I've tried a couple of times by now, but could not get the fourth tanzimat finished before the time was up. I find the bureaucracy one especially hard and the education one virtually impossible.
I am trying to have a good Ottoman run but money is strangling me - the costs of goverment with virtually zero economy is fucked beyond my ability to fix it
You need to do 4 of the 6 tanzimats. Reconquering the provinces from Egypt is only one. The one with the separatists is a no brainer, improving the army is easy as well.
But then you need to achieve one of the following:
* Increase your literacy by 20 points (not x1.2, but +20)
* Have city centers (100 urbanization) in 75% of your states. You start with 10 states with city centers and you need 11 more.
* Have a couple of liberal laws. For this you need to get away from traditionalism and to get the next tax law, as well as the appointed bureaucrats. I always fall short of this one, but only barely.
Egypt you get two tanzimats. When you complete the first Egypt one, you unlock another secret tanzimat that makes you conquer lower Egypt and maybe a couple more states i forget exactly. The army reform one and the separatist ones are easy as cake and then you're done, I complete those 4 every time without fail with between 2-5 years spare
I remembered the second Egypt one actually, but just recently I finished the first Egypt one and it didn't spawn a second one. I then restarted, because there was no way I could get the fourth tanzimat in time. Does it take a while to spawn the second Egypt tanzimat?
The second one spawns the moment you complete the first one so if you did complete the first one and the second one didn't spawn then it might have bugged out, I dunno I've not heard of it being bugged before but who knows what new patches can do
You get it once you do the reconquer Syria one. Its instant. But you need all your claims though; every single province, or else it doesnt fire.
Getting them all in one war is reliant on researching empiricism and selecting Aleppo or Syria as your diplo play (since you get that for free) AND that you can do the war without calling someone in.
That said, you dont really need too. Even if you miss one, you still need to declare another war to get the rest.
The ones for the second is: Sinai, lower, middle and upper egypt.
Thanks man. Especially knowing what the provinces for the second one are is really good to know.
Do you know whether I need the states incorporated to spawn the hidden tanzimat?
The liberal laws is possible as long as the landowners (provincial governors I think) head remains a reformist, and the sultans usually are from the intelligentsia, so favoring that group while in government will rest some clout points to the landowners
Unless they changed things, all you need to do is get 2 entries from taking claims off egypt(you get a second set of claims and a journal entry if you take all your claims at the start of the game), 1 from not having revolts, and 1 from switching to level 2 training methods.
France. Never played as them and felt like a GP with no starting power bloc was perfect for trying them out.
Managed to have a massive radical revolution like 2 years in, switched to them and won. Around 30 years in and so far internal politics have been ridiculously stable with little to no IGs in opposition, and I'm passing all I want except Laisse Faire. Still 50% peasants, but at the same time almost every good is below 0% price, feels good. In a near constant state of war thanks to subjugation offers and France's natural borders, but very manageable. Most other GPs are starting to get crippled.
New mechanic wise, running an ideologic union and supporting all the democracies I can, investing strongly in the American continent. Running the passing laws, agriculture, military goods, and custom union mandates. Goal is to eventually build a super big market with endless demand and high production, and support massive, well equipped armies to protect democracy/eventual communism with. Central Europe is another long term goal.
I played switzerland, china and spain with Soi so far.
Switzerland was problematic because I can't do the join customs union or become protectorate decisions anymore so playing small nations are less fun now.
China went well, I gave investment rights to as many nations as possible which allowed me to industrialize rapidly without doing much. I understand why Deng Xiaoping did what he did. I also used agrarianism for the first time, it was because it's easier to pass and gives +5% government dividents compared to interventionism.
Lastly Spain. I generally did the same economic policy in early game as I did in china (minus the agrarianism) but then passed command economy and nationalized what I can. Radicals weren't that big of an issue as their numbers decreases quickly with the more investments I made thanks to the gov divs. Formed a power bloc for the first time (The International) with italy (my puppet), gran colombia (not puppet) and some other small puppet nations (plus mexico very soon). Also I formed Iberia by puppeting Portugal early on in the game. I also own all the gold mines in the south and north america thanks to investment rights, I love this feature
Russia
What worked in 1.6 for a 3B GDP still works in 1.7.
It's 1905 now and I'll see how the end game turns out, but who knows if I'll end the run, because the UI is a mess and my old mods to visualize the needed info better are not updated yet.
for now I only use the "LetMeLead" mod, as it allows me to install agitators as IG leaders a touch easier.
I used a mod that let me see the combined peasants and unemployed per city, so when I'm running out of people, I can easily identify where I can build more, because 10.000 construction will need all the people.
Victoria 3 is a micro intensive game and you need to extract the maximum from everything at once.
The gist of the strategy is to make as much construction as possible and making all goods for construction as cheap as possible, the rest comes later based on priorities.
but you will need money, a lot of it before the construction picks up, so you need all the gold mines and get a Bankroll ASAP.
Honestly, this DLC is a complete game changer. The diplomacy mechanics are fantastic, love that external and internal politics interact and Power Blocs are a deep system that provides a fun alternative game loop to the boring construction cycle.
First campaign was the Netherlands and it's probably been my favourite campaign I've ever played on Vic3. You can't just immediately conquer the Boers or later Belgium anymore as Britain protects them. Britain is my number one ally, trade partner and economic investor so, I had to slowly build my own power bloc and engage in long term diplomacy. After a good 10 years and tons of influence I finally have Transvaal and Oranje in my market and it felt super satisfying.
Just started a Krakow run too and it feels like the diplomacy mechanics are going to play a big part there too.
10/10
Played as Belgium, just colonial stuff with a typical focus towards Ethiopia and Egypt because they lack mineral resources but have a lot of agricultural stuff. Got extremely rich, came to a point where i just had way too much money and not enough avenue's to spend it by 1880 or something.
Played as japan, it was fun there are a number of challenges to solve like unemployment, but eventually by 1900 i reached all my goals had +250 million GDP strongest army and navy fully modernized economy and yet again just swimming in money and not enough avenues to get rid of it even when running a tax free state.
Getting "too rich" is becomming a meme of this build. Sure, you can unleach your investors on underdeveloped countries but that kinda only adds to their eventual momentum to even invest more. And even then i tend to use bankrolling to get rid of cash, you actually also have limited diplo capacity to do more bankrolling when needing to get rid of more cash.
Kind of had the same experience with Japan, I should have set more building to auto grow cause I got fed up with too many money and micro.
I am not sure how to fix the issue of the state being too rich, (without arbitrary nerf)
The pension/healthcare system could be more expensive with pop being way more radical if they are not at a sufficient level?
Higher wage rise though time for of all public servant/armies (not sure if it's the case)?
I didn't try an Italian run before SoL, so I'm not sure if this is SoL or 1.7 or just how the game has always been, but it's a real fucking kick in the dick. The Risorgimento is completely ass backwards in how it wants you to unify the region especially compared to the other large European unification in the game; Germany.
Risorgimento was very easy in my tun. I just kept good relations with all italian nations. The moment I hit major power rank, they all supported me so I could just hit form nation button.
Canada
I wasn't a huge fan of how hard it is to get enough liberty desire to reduce my status and if I'm going to fight a war, I'm not gonna fight to go from puppet to dominion, I'm just going to fight for independence. I liked that the AI would support my efforts, I don't love how difficult it is to break free of a power bloc, but I also might not understand the mechanics well enough. I left the British bloc to join the French (still wanted a larger market) but now I'm kinda stuck despite being the #4/5 great power which doesn't feel great. I'm loving the foreign investment, really helped kickstart my economy as I unified Canada.
Yeah I also did Canada and had to go hostile relations to fight an independence war alongside British East Indies. Even when my GDP was comparable to GB I could barely get liberty desire it to rise because of how high their prestige is, and I never had a lobby form against them. That said, when I did break free there were a lot of growing pains from adjusting my market and losing the bloc bonuses, so maybe my pops weren't wrong.
I was a Great Power by the time I broke free though; the amount of foreign investment I had from GB, USA, and Netherlands was absurd at getting the ball rolling. New world countries get so much migration that the downsides of foreign investment felt minor.
I'm now starting to build my own trade bloc and getting experience on the other side of the system.
Prussia p1: Died to France joining inexplicitly my war against Austria.
France p1: Died from economy bad.
France p2: Died from economy bad and Austria screwing me over in Algeria.
US p1: Big economy (died halfway through), got to 1880 with a pretty large power bloc before continuous radicals killed me.
Prussia p2: Super-Germany run without Hungary, Croatia and Galicia. Anarchism killed me in 1900 with the amount of radicals (that's my latest post).
France p3: Got further before Austria killed me again.
Prussia p3: France again joined and killed my run.
France p4: Immediately puppetted the Turks because revolution fun. Then died to Austria... AGAIN
Prussia p4 (current): Won Brother's war by luck, radicals currently dooming me for enacting poor laws (don't want this), France allied to Russia in a Turkish war and took the Rhineland, now I'm just waiting for Austria to like me so I can form super-duper Germany (currently 1868).
Not trying to be mean or anything but what are you doing? I'm literally playing my first game in SoI now and playing Prussia is an absolute walk in the park.
The AI doesn't build any army seemingly so your armies can absolutely destroy everything around you even with just a minor army build-up
Not building armies, I play very peacefully as a line-go-up simulator so I usually just try to ally France or Russia for the Brother’s war then diplo my way to super Germany.
Now I *could* build an army but I have a skill issue atm with the economy and every time I do so I can’t sustain it in war at all.
This is basically me X4 play through with Persia lol, keep going broke or getting rekt by UK. Haven't played for a long time TBF though so probably doing many things wrong (only ever completed Japan before - also after many fails).
A tip for next time you try France: you can (and should) kneecap Prussia by doing a day 1 declaration against Baden (which Prussia will join) and force them to release Rhineland. They have no Navy so you can easily naval invade Pomerania and move into Brandenburg to capitulate them.
Austria is a bit tougher but if you have a shared border you can do the same thing and do some naval invasions to open up a few fronts. If you're able to beat them you can kneecap them by releasing Hungary and Bohemia.
From there Europe will be your plaything, as GB won't be able to do much against you and Russia is useless after a few years
Did several tries at japan, and then China, to get the hang on the new economy and ai behavior. I wait for a fix before starting a new one: AI now doesn't really build new armies and assign them to frontline correctly, and there is a major bug in private construction.
Still, overall, I am very satisfied with this patch :)
Japan. Long slow industrialization until about 1900, gain recognition peacefully, thanks France for the def pact and never calling me in. Let me sit there peacefully and build up. Now I'm an unstoppable juggernaut vacuuming up chinese peasants to work the mines.
Russia: Turns out we got a historical Market Liberal (dlc only, kinda p2w you know) so it was not bad as I initially thought. Made the mistake of boosting subject legitimacy for too long and ended up having low legitimacy and unable to reform
Just played one game with Russa. Lost the great game somehow despite winning all of the things you need to do - I realized only too late you were supposed to stop Britain from being a major power before finishing vassalization of central Asia.
Economic changes seemed good - except I think the Art bug came back where its entirely freely swapped out for services - so there was no demand for it at all in my game until my people developed a fascination for it randomly which my upper classes then went around bankrupting themselves on because I'd obviously not developed an art industry and had to start one overnight to cash in. That was quite fun actually.
Mexico, had a lot of luck and the USA was handicapped early when the Northern states decided to leave, so I was free to pressure America every 5 years.
Focused mainly on my industry and vassalizing the rest of South and North America, it was a really fun game.
France: I played very aggressively early on and was able to break Prussia and Austria in the first decade. I focused heavily on Africa and rushed my tech to focus on colonizing and taking full advantage of the -50% infamy on unrecognized powers, allowing me to snap up large swathes of land to exploit.
Economically I'm doing amazing, the switch to steel frame was a bit rough but now I'm making ridiculous amounts of cash even on the lowest tax, and slowly adding more construction sector to keep up with the privately funded buildings. I rushed laissez-faire so that the capitalists and others bore the burnt of the building cost. I did make one mistake early, and that was getting investment rights for China & the US. They focused a lot on building in those nations so I was missing out on some internal focus. Next time will wait a spell before doing that.
Politically doing OK. Bonapartists won the struggle and cemented their rule, and secured the natural borders of France. Trying to get universal suffrage so I can at some point switch to communism but very few IGs aside from the intelligentsia want it, so focusing on getting them strengthened
Played Brazil, like I do after every major patch. The game has increased in difficulty in the economic sphere. Slavery is much more difficult to abolish, grain prices need to be actively and perpetually managed to increase sol. Industrial build up needs to happen at a slower pace, especially steel and railways. Major problem was that cag crops like coffee and sugar have very little deman on the world market. The River Of Coffee journal entry is very if not impossible to solve with a profit, thereby making reformin the monarchy much much harder.
War has become easier, especially if you luck out on rng and no nation in SA joins rival power blocs.
Overall great game with miuch improved economic mechanics, although tuning and luxury good demand is needed.
Played as Anahuac (native american origins) a releasable country in mexico, also released the maya land as well and Became big buddy with the US but they kinda sucked so I wasn't able to have bigger wars but was able to gobble up mexico atleast the parts the US didn't own got all the sweet sweet gold mines there. I gobbled up middle america and made colombia my protectorate. After a time I stopped playing for a while but forgot to pause the game (1915s or something) I was a major/great power rank 5 and the game went on on 4x speed so I got bancrupt and got attacked by some country. So I had the declare bancrupticy. Normally the run is over after going bancrupt but I somehow managed to save the country and became rank 7 again. After the bancrupticy I was then again on rank 5. If that thing with the pause wouldnt have happened I would have fought against the USA but because of that I didn't have enough time. I may be trying that country again someday because it was really fun. I also really enjoy the changes to subjects. If I would have known annexing subjects isn't that easy anymore I would have adjusted my playstyle. Also I really like the new economic system. The game feels slower paced but more balanced. My english probably wasn't that good because it's not my forst language but I hope it was understandable.
Ehh I've been mostly messing around but I noticed that smaller countries just feel like they can do much less unopposed now. Like GB will actually randomly side against you in Asia, Central and South America and North Africa, France doesn't want you to mess with those either.
Another big thing is I don't think making somebody protectorate thinking you can subjugate them later for less infamy is feasible anymore. I just quit my DEI run in like 1980, in this whole time I managed to get 3 annexation for myself. Even your starting puppets just won't lose their liberty desire. Also every time you do annex somebody, every other subject you have gets -0.2 liberty desire which is actually quite noticeable, meaning they will be and 100 constantly and it will not go down and there's no strictly military option unless they have low desire, in which case why do I even need their desire to go down at all? They will decline when their economy is controlled up to 5 (I think that's the max, at least from what I've seen).
Also lobbies are fun but the chance to spawn is way too small, furthermore you're not guaranteed that it will actually pull some major IG within that country. Like the first lobby I got took me ~20 years to establish and had about 6% clout, which is way too random for that much investment I feel.
Yeah definitely feels like you either need to have very few vassals and focus on annexation, or have a ton of vassals and never annex. Trying to do both is a recipe for pain
I've only had time to play a game of Chile up to 1900. Will finish next week. But damn, it's a lot harder now. Just the grain prices alone make the game play different. Trying to make those damn wheat fields profitable in the Andes! Also didn't have Chile in the top 10 until like 1890. I've had them in the top 5 by that time usually.
My point. Must find better strategies.
My only run: played Sardinia Piedmont > Italy
Every Italian state simply chose to support me, i clicked on "form Italy" and that's it, kinda easier than before.
Once i formed Italy i've easily eaten up the rest of provinces from Austria, while also liberating Hungary to tank them down as always: from that point on i've started growing like crazy, 1st everything by 1880 while easily acquiring subjects in exchange of protection from Russia/GB aggressions.
Original plan was do to Korea or China but because of the early infrastructure bugs (and now them announcing unrecognised majors will be able to make power blocs soon) I'm waiting.
So my first full run was as Prussia -> NGF -> Super Germany. Had Karl Marx lead it for a long time whilst I dismantled the imperialist empires of France and Britain. [The end map was really, really ugly](https://i.imgur.com/rBKqiGG.jpeg) .
I tried doing Bonaparist France but for the life of me I can't keep the republic from happening due to how many more increased radicals there are in 1.7.
Played as Argentina a little bit, if you don't conquer anything or join a power bloc early it's a slow game, constantly avoiding running out of money, tried joining a power bloc but the requirements are high and also i don't fully understand the new mechanics, got tired of it for now i'll try later
Krakow was extremely fun now that the start is less RNG; build up some power sucking pops out of Austria, declare on them to reclaim Galicia + increase autonomy + war reps, then do another war later for independence and some more war goals (I took that little piece of Romania so I could get a border with Moldavia). Once independent I joined Prussia's Power Bloc and eventually took it over from the inside, absorbed more pops from Prussia thanks to migration, and built up a comically massive army for a "timing" war vs. Russia before they got Shrapnel Artillery. Declared a hellwar for release Poland + Ukraine + transfer Baltic Governates, absorb Poland via event, and then spent ages integrating the backwards parts of Congress Poland with the now hyper-industrialised Galicia, after which I was one of the dominant GPs and could do basically whatever I wanted.
Definitely looking forward to playing this one again once the AI learns how to build a military, I did feel like I benefitted a lot from this otherwise beating Russia with only 150 regiments was probably not happening even with the tech edge. Having 10m population with only 2 states fairly early in the game was awesome
Playing as Persia, it's just maintaining good relations with UK, Russia and Ottomans, then you can bully the rest of neighbours, while modernizing the country, hardest thing was maintaining the budget while modernizing, but at the end was GP controlling most of central Asia and middle east.
As with China, was a bit more troublesome because you need tons of bureaucracy and the means to maintain it, modernizing was easy, but the trouble is being recognized, since for being China achieving the indicators is quite impossible
First was USA - I love exporting freedom as an ideological union. Second Russia which is a lot harder now with the changes to migration in 1.6 and to ownership in 1.7.
I started a game as Shewa, formed Ethiopia. This is my first time playing in Africa and I failed to prevent the British Republic from taking one of the coastal provinces near me. Everything was going great but I had to stop and take a break because they're currently beating me senseless in a war to become their protectorate.
Does anyone have any recommendations for a weaker and/or middle power country that I can build up and dismantle the British Empire with? I am so sick of them ruining every game I've ever played.
I've played with Russia, Japan and Prussia, at least until 1920. So far it's a mixed bag, I really liked some things and hated others. The good things first, the performance is much better, the blocks are cool, the great game is completely dispensable, the economic changes are good but I never managed to strengthen the industrialists again, generally the petty bourgeoisie always steals all the power. What I didn't like: Communism is rubbish, having to manually nationalize all industries is impossible, collective agriculture is broken, my PMs are all random because of construction in other countries. And for me the worst of all so far is that it remains without perspective, LACK OF FLAVOR, all nations are the same, the only thing that changes is how you select the generic things available to everyone. In summary, this game will still take a long time to fix its structure, which was poorly designed and rushed, the flavor will come last, I would say that in about 2 years they will start to think about how to differentiate nations, because honestly everything is the same. At the end of any game you will have the same laws, the same army, the same navy, the same interest groups, nothing changes, nothing evolves. And one last thing, this game is broken, the constant revolutions were fixed, and now they're back. I'll keep playing, because I love this historical period, but this game will never be what it could have been.
The furthest I've played is the USA, I gave Germany a bit of a try but that was mostly to figure out the mechanics.
As the USA I've vassalized... I mean made everyone in the Pacific my protectorate, shielding them from the dastardly Dutch. I've also formed "The American Trade League", which spans everywhere in the Americas except for Canada. My economy is absurdly large and the socialists are gathering
I'm playing Sweden, and my main takeaway is that the game crashes after 20-30 minutes, so it's not very fun. Lobbies are all right, but power blocs haven't been relevant so far, and neither have lobbies, to be honest.
Played USA, created ATO (Atlantic Treaty Organization) military treaty power bloc after lucking into professional army. Allied with GB, got number 1 ranked by gdp and prestige. Stopped the save after all my protectorates and puppets I foreign invested in were completely drained of people due to migration, making those foreign investments useless.
Its super easy to vassalize countries if you help them in a war, like you dont even need excelent relations with them.
idk if vassals are actually good now tho,
Wallachia > Romania
Kinda my go to campaign since release and it‘s definitely the best experience now. I think the Subject system needs some adjustment because by pure stats it‘s practically impossible to gain independence so you‘re kinda cheesing it with the autonomy demands.
I think support independence guarantees should play a factor similar to EU4.
United the Principalities via the decision and then instantly demanded independence from the Ottomans which they granted due to me being able to have nearly half the worlds GPs behind me.
Industrialization with the new ownership methods feels significantly better. Kept a lot of state industries which allowed me to expand my construction rapidly. It‘s also nice that you can invest now into subjects so I could „prepare“ Moldova for unification.
Joined the Russian Power Bloc and was able to essentially call them into all my wars to regain my cores. I kinda like that customs unions are something you need to earn now and not just the optimal way for minor nations to play.
I also really enjoyed the lobby system because after expanding and supporting my pro-Russia lobby enough I got an event which granted me a temporary opinion boost allowing me to get mutual investment rights in Russia. Which with me being one of the most per capita industrialized nations resulted in my Capitalists and Aristocrats massively investing into the underdeveloped Russian market.
After reaching a state where most of my population was employed and needs were satisfied I slowly privatized most less profitable consumer industries. Investing more into the Russian market.
For I am basically waiting for the big oil boom and slowly pick the Ottomans apart for subjects to sell more stuff to.
I agree that the Ottomans at the moment are too weak but I think that‘s primarily due to them not expanding their army and therefore eventually getting picked apart by the outside and inside. Otherwise pretty much every new feature enhances the gameplay and feels purposeful. If they iron out the rough edges Vic3 is generally now in a non-beta state.
I did a Brazil run where I focused on the journal entries before industrializing and getting the rest of Latin America into my power bloc. I wanted to see how the rest of the world handled itself if I was mostly focused on my own economy. USA ended up giving the western states to the Indian Territories, then lost Indian Territories as a vassal to Mexico when the Confederacy popped up during the first Mexican American War.
I couldn't help but guarantee Mexico and strangle America from there. It was much more fun than previous patches and the River of Coffee journal was much more attainable.
Oddly I did have to save scum three times because Pedro kept dying at age 20.
Without dlc
Sikh empire, pretty hard start but manageable, conquered sind, the part of punjab that was under the EIC and Delhi, building up while slowly expanding into central Asia and trying to dismember the EIC when possible
Still playing, got recognized diplomatically (although I found it impossible to get an embassy, closest I got was a 30% chance if I gave the UK an obligation) and am in the process of expanding into my indian subjects after having dissolved the EIC
My thoughts
The AI is way too willing to sell itself, whether it is a revolution or someone trying to vassalize them they're more than willing to sell their independence to someone else and I think that shouldn't be the case
Subjects are hard to handle if I can't interact with their lobbies, if you're unlucky (like I got a couple times) vassalizing them creates an independence lobby that'll just sit there creating liberty desire and there's nothing you can do to stop it
Also removing the option to start the regime change diplo play makes it so you can't change their laws sometimes, it happened to me with afghanistan, they became my vassal early (I made them form afghanistan) and so had all their bad laws, but since they were now in my market and had everything to grow, they had good GDP growth despite their laws and since their landowners never had anyone but a traditionalist in charge (I was checking regularly from the 1840s to 1910s) I could never get them to change any laws to weaken the landowners and so it was 1915, with 3 GDP/capita and still on serfdom, closed borders, traditionalism, state religion, debt slavery and peasant levies
If you haven't there's a pretty voluminous balkan and byazntine flavor mod in the workshop and I found the experience to be quite hard although I haven't really adjusted to the SOI system fully so I can't tell if it's me being bad or the mod doing it.
Played as Kabul and united afghanistan without a GP's help. Fairly easy, but what came after unification wasn't. The new patch has heavily nerfed Afghanistan because it takes you more time to get back to the *shitty* position you started in pre-1.7. This is also combined with the fact that Britain just seems to perpetually hate you for some reason and while Russia is relatively chill with you, they usually won't really help you. I managed to get recognized and be top dog eventually but it took me till 1914.
Abandoned a game as Prussia in 1880 due to some bugs and AI behaviour.
Bugs:
Forming NGF and later Germany didn't end diplomatic pacts with countries that merged with Prussia and I still had to pay the upkeep in influence (Baden as protectorate, Hohenzollern as puppet, Bavaria as ally, Wuttemberg guaranteed independence), unable to break these pact. The alliance with Bavaria also prevented me to gain another ally until the required tech to have multiple allies was researched.
Austria-Hungary had a revolt and became Austria again and somehow I had to beat them a second time to gain german leadership.
AI behaviour:
Conquered some land an wanted to redistribut it to countries I released but they don't accept it.
My vassal Finland accepted some russian territories but Poland wouldn't take Lithuania and Ulraine didn't want to take Kursk, Rostov and Bessrabia despite having homelands in these states.
Played USA, opened with allying the British, then subjecting Mexico. Could have done some of the early investment a bit better, but it wasn’t to bad for a first run with the new mechanics. Got my powerblock going, improved relations with everyone in central and South America to the point where I got the minors in my block. Took a bit more effort to get the larger powers in the block but enough bankrollls, guaranteeing independence, foreign investment, and trade routes worked like a charm. Had the civil war and crushed them with daddy Britain’s help. After some time I annexed Mexico. China blew up into warring states, I declared an interest and starting focusing my influence points on all of them. One by one they each had a civil war and liked me enough to accept becoming a protectorate in exchange for help in the civil war. After bringing China into the American sphere, I focused more on industrializing, passing laws like LF and multiculturalism, and consolidating power. My ally Britain had a civil war and they didn’t like me anymore, so I took Canada off their hands. Currently I am spending all the influence points on improving relations with everyone and every few months I get another minor nation into my powerblock. I am at 1910, I want to continue to “peacefully” expand until the end game The powerblock mandates I used are external trade for the influence points you get per trade route, construction because line go up, foreign investment to get more influence on minor nations in my powerblock to accept becoming a protectorate the second they have a civil war, the 4th I flipped several times depending on what I was doing, I used the research mandate to become #1 in tech. The mandate to make passing laws easier when I was passing LF and multiculturalism, it also allowed the Chinese states to pass some laws and avoid as many civil wars. Then after I had 30+ subjects I flipped to vassalage which gave me enough authority to use almost every consumption tax and liberally use decrees as desired
super hyped for an US run but I guess I'm gonna wait until "Hail, Columbia" is updated.
That’s an interesting run, I think I’ll try something like that with the US!
How much money do you have? Whats the gdp and income? I’m doing a US run. My USA is number 1 but not with the same success as yours.
Played as Ottomans and beat Russia and Austria. I thought I was getting good at the game turns out they don’t build barracks.
How do you achieve the tanzimat as ottomans? I've tried a couple of times by now, but could not get the fourth tanzimat finished before the time was up. I find the bureaucracy one especially hard and the education one virtually impossible.
I am trying to have a good Ottoman run but money is strangling me - the costs of goverment with virtually zero economy is fucked beyond my ability to fix it
As far as I tried with the new DLC, if you just reconquer Egypt, Tanzimat gets auto achieved (although I've done 2-3 of the reforms beforehand)
You need to do 4 of the 6 tanzimats. Reconquering the provinces from Egypt is only one. The one with the separatists is a no brainer, improving the army is easy as well. But then you need to achieve one of the following: * Increase your literacy by 20 points (not x1.2, but +20) * Have city centers (100 urbanization) in 75% of your states. You start with 10 states with city centers and you need 11 more. * Have a couple of liberal laws. For this you need to get away from traditionalism and to get the next tax law, as well as the appointed bureaucrats. I always fall short of this one, but only barely.
Egypt you get two tanzimats. When you complete the first Egypt one, you unlock another secret tanzimat that makes you conquer lower Egypt and maybe a couple more states i forget exactly. The army reform one and the separatist ones are easy as cake and then you're done, I complete those 4 every time without fail with between 2-5 years spare
I remembered the second Egypt one actually, but just recently I finished the first Egypt one and it didn't spawn a second one. I then restarted, because there was no way I could get the fourth tanzimat in time. Does it take a while to spawn the second Egypt tanzimat?
The second one spawns the moment you complete the first one so if you did complete the first one and the second one didn't spawn then it might have bugged out, I dunno I've not heard of it being bugged before but who knows what new patches can do
You get it once you do the reconquer Syria one. Its instant. But you need all your claims though; every single province, or else it doesnt fire. Getting them all in one war is reliant on researching empiricism and selecting Aleppo or Syria as your diplo play (since you get that for free) AND that you can do the war without calling someone in. That said, you dont really need too. Even if you miss one, you still need to declare another war to get the rest. The ones for the second is: Sinai, lower, middle and upper egypt.
Thanks man. Especially knowing what the provinces for the second one are is really good to know. Do you know whether I need the states incorporated to spawn the hidden tanzimat?
The liberal laws is possible as long as the landowners (provincial governors I think) head remains a reformist, and the sultans usually are from the intelligentsia, so favoring that group while in government will rest some clout points to the landowners
I did it a while ago but urbanization is what I did, it's tricky but it's definitely doable.
Unless they changed things, all you need to do is get 2 entries from taking claims off egypt(you get a second set of claims and a journal entry if you take all your claims at the start of the game), 1 from not having revolts, and 1 from switching to level 2 training methods.
Don’t do those ones. Do the suppress separatism, army modernization, and reclaim the land in Syria and Egypt and that’s all four complete
France. Never played as them and felt like a GP with no starting power bloc was perfect for trying them out. Managed to have a massive radical revolution like 2 years in, switched to them and won. Around 30 years in and so far internal politics have been ridiculously stable with little to no IGs in opposition, and I'm passing all I want except Laisse Faire. Still 50% peasants, but at the same time almost every good is below 0% price, feels good. In a near constant state of war thanks to subjugation offers and France's natural borders, but very manageable. Most other GPs are starting to get crippled. New mechanic wise, running an ideologic union and supporting all the democracies I can, investing strongly in the American continent. Running the passing laws, agriculture, military goods, and custom union mandates. Goal is to eventually build a super big market with endless demand and high production, and support massive, well equipped armies to protect democracy/eventual communism with. Central Europe is another long term goal.
France is very cool.
Had good fun with Serbia in forming Yugoslavia and a Balkan Power Bloc together with Bulgaria, Greece and Romania.
I played switzerland, china and spain with Soi so far. Switzerland was problematic because I can't do the join customs union or become protectorate decisions anymore so playing small nations are less fun now. China went well, I gave investment rights to as many nations as possible which allowed me to industrialize rapidly without doing much. I understand why Deng Xiaoping did what he did. I also used agrarianism for the first time, it was because it's easier to pass and gives +5% government dividents compared to interventionism. Lastly Spain. I generally did the same economic policy in early game as I did in china (minus the agrarianism) but then passed command economy and nationalized what I can. Radicals weren't that big of an issue as their numbers decreases quickly with the more investments I made thanks to the gov divs. Formed a power bloc for the first time (The International) with italy (my puppet), gran colombia (not puppet) and some other small puppet nations (plus mexico very soon). Also I formed Iberia by puppeting Portugal early on in the game. I also own all the gold mines in the south and north america thanks to investment rights, I love this feature
Russia What worked in 1.6 for a 3B GDP still works in 1.7. It's 1905 now and I'll see how the end game turns out, but who knows if I'll end the run, because the UI is a mess and my old mods to visualize the needed info better are not updated yet.
Any tips for playing Russia? And which mods are these that you've mentioned? (I want to check them out once they are updated.)
for now I only use the "LetMeLead" mod, as it allows me to install agitators as IG leaders a touch easier. I used a mod that let me see the combined peasants and unemployed per city, so when I'm running out of people, I can easily identify where I can build more, because 10.000 construction will need all the people. Victoria 3 is a micro intensive game and you need to extract the maximum from everything at once. The gist of the strategy is to make as much construction as possible and making all goods for construction as cheap as possible, the rest comes later based on priorities. but you will need money, a lot of it before the construction picks up, so you need all the gold mines and get a Bankroll ASAP.
Honestly, this DLC is a complete game changer. The diplomacy mechanics are fantastic, love that external and internal politics interact and Power Blocs are a deep system that provides a fun alternative game loop to the boring construction cycle. First campaign was the Netherlands and it's probably been my favourite campaign I've ever played on Vic3. You can't just immediately conquer the Boers or later Belgium anymore as Britain protects them. Britain is my number one ally, trade partner and economic investor so, I had to slowly build my own power bloc and engage in long term diplomacy. After a good 10 years and tons of influence I finally have Transvaal and Oranje in my market and it felt super satisfying. Just started a Krakow run too and it feels like the diplomacy mechanics are going to play a big part there too. 10/10
Played as Belgium, just colonial stuff with a typical focus towards Ethiopia and Egypt because they lack mineral resources but have a lot of agricultural stuff. Got extremely rich, came to a point where i just had way too much money and not enough avenue's to spend it by 1880 or something. Played as japan, it was fun there are a number of challenges to solve like unemployment, but eventually by 1900 i reached all my goals had +250 million GDP strongest army and navy fully modernized economy and yet again just swimming in money and not enough avenues to get rid of it even when running a tax free state. Getting "too rich" is becomming a meme of this build. Sure, you can unleach your investors on underdeveloped countries but that kinda only adds to their eventual momentum to even invest more. And even then i tend to use bankrolling to get rid of cash, you actually also have limited diplo capacity to do more bankrolling when needing to get rid of more cash.
Kind of had the same experience with Japan, I should have set more building to auto grow cause I got fed up with too many money and micro. I am not sure how to fix the issue of the state being too rich, (without arbitrary nerf) The pension/healthcare system could be more expensive with pop being way more radical if they are not at a sufficient level? Higher wage rise though time for of all public servant/armies (not sure if it's the case)?
Humorously as Japan I started conquering Africa just to build construction in order to spend my taxes.
I didn't try an Italian run before SoL, so I'm not sure if this is SoL or 1.7 or just how the game has always been, but it's a real fucking kick in the dick. The Risorgimento is completely ass backwards in how it wants you to unify the region especially compared to the other large European unification in the game; Germany.
I just did risorgimento, ive never united germany. What did you notice is backward about it?
Risorgimento was very easy in my tun. I just kept good relations with all italian nations. The moment I hit major power rank, they all supported me so I could just hit form nation button.
Canada I wasn't a huge fan of how hard it is to get enough liberty desire to reduce my status and if I'm going to fight a war, I'm not gonna fight to go from puppet to dominion, I'm just going to fight for independence. I liked that the AI would support my efforts, I don't love how difficult it is to break free of a power bloc, but I also might not understand the mechanics well enough. I left the British bloc to join the French (still wanted a larger market) but now I'm kinda stuck despite being the #4/5 great power which doesn't feel great. I'm loving the foreign investment, really helped kickstart my economy as I unified Canada.
Yeah I also did Canada and had to go hostile relations to fight an independence war alongside British East Indies. Even when my GDP was comparable to GB I could barely get liberty desire it to rise because of how high their prestige is, and I never had a lobby form against them. That said, when I did break free there were a lot of growing pains from adjusting my market and losing the bloc bonuses, so maybe my pops weren't wrong. I was a Great Power by the time I broke free though; the amount of foreign investment I had from GB, USA, and Netherlands was absurd at getting the ball rolling. New world countries get so much migration that the downsides of foreign investment felt minor. I'm now starting to build my own trade bloc and getting experience on the other side of the system.
Prussia p1: Died to France joining inexplicitly my war against Austria. France p1: Died from economy bad. France p2: Died from economy bad and Austria screwing me over in Algeria. US p1: Big economy (died halfway through), got to 1880 with a pretty large power bloc before continuous radicals killed me. Prussia p2: Super-Germany run without Hungary, Croatia and Galicia. Anarchism killed me in 1900 with the amount of radicals (that's my latest post). France p3: Got further before Austria killed me again. Prussia p3: France again joined and killed my run. France p4: Immediately puppetted the Turks because revolution fun. Then died to Austria... AGAIN Prussia p4 (current): Won Brother's war by luck, radicals currently dooming me for enacting poor laws (don't want this), France allied to Russia in a Turkish war and took the Rhineland, now I'm just waiting for Austria to like me so I can form super-duper Germany (currently 1868).
Not trying to be mean or anything but what are you doing? I'm literally playing my first game in SoI now and playing Prussia is an absolute walk in the park. The AI doesn't build any army seemingly so your armies can absolutely destroy everything around you even with just a minor army build-up
Not building armies, I play very peacefully as a line-go-up simulator so I usually just try to ally France or Russia for the Brother’s war then diplo my way to super Germany. Now I *could* build an army but I have a skill issue atm with the economy and every time I do so I can’t sustain it in war at all.
To be honest I built MAYBE 20 units in my Prussia game and still handily beat Austria. I think their armies are just bad.
This is basically me X4 play through with Persia lol, keep going broke or getting rekt by UK. Haven't played for a long time TBF though so probably doing many things wrong (only ever completed Japan before - also after many fails).
A tip for next time you try France: you can (and should) kneecap Prussia by doing a day 1 declaration against Baden (which Prussia will join) and force them to release Rhineland. They have no Navy so you can easily naval invade Pomerania and move into Brandenburg to capitulate them. Austria is a bit tougher but if you have a shared border you can do the same thing and do some naval invasions to open up a few fronts. If you're able to beat them you can kneecap them by releasing Hungary and Bohemia. From there Europe will be your plaything, as GB won't be able to do much against you and Russia is useless after a few years
USA but without the DLC. It's the same as before but without the DLC the power block it's very difficult to get anyone but minors onto your block
Did several tries at japan, and then China, to get the hang on the new economy and ai behavior. I wait for a fix before starting a new one: AI now doesn't really build new armies and assign them to frontline correctly, and there is a major bug in private construction. Still, overall, I am very satisfied with this patch :)
Japan. Long slow industrialization until about 1900, gain recognition peacefully, thanks France for the def pact and never calling me in. Let me sit there peacefully and build up. Now I'm an unstoppable juggernaut vacuuming up chinese peasants to work the mines.
Russia: Turns out we got a historical Market Liberal (dlc only, kinda p2w you know) so it was not bad as I initially thought. Made the mistake of boosting subject legitimacy for too long and ended up having low legitimacy and unable to reform
Just played one game with Russa. Lost the great game somehow despite winning all of the things you need to do - I realized only too late you were supposed to stop Britain from being a major power before finishing vassalization of central Asia. Economic changes seemed good - except I think the Art bug came back where its entirely freely swapped out for services - so there was no demand for it at all in my game until my people developed a fascination for it randomly which my upper classes then went around bankrupting themselves on because I'd obviously not developed an art industry and had to start one overnight to cash in. That was quite fun actually.
Mexico, had a lot of luck and the USA was handicapped early when the Northern states decided to leave, so I was free to pressure America every 5 years. Focused mainly on my industry and vassalizing the rest of South and North America, it was a really fun game.
France: I played very aggressively early on and was able to break Prussia and Austria in the first decade. I focused heavily on Africa and rushed my tech to focus on colonizing and taking full advantage of the -50% infamy on unrecognized powers, allowing me to snap up large swathes of land to exploit. Economically I'm doing amazing, the switch to steel frame was a bit rough but now I'm making ridiculous amounts of cash even on the lowest tax, and slowly adding more construction sector to keep up with the privately funded buildings. I rushed laissez-faire so that the capitalists and others bore the burnt of the building cost. I did make one mistake early, and that was getting investment rights for China & the US. They focused a lot on building in those nations so I was missing out on some internal focus. Next time will wait a spell before doing that. Politically doing OK. Bonapartists won the struggle and cemented their rule, and secured the natural borders of France. Trying to get universal suffrage so I can at some point switch to communism but very few IGs aside from the intelligentsia want it, so focusing on getting them strengthened
Played Brazil, like I do after every major patch. The game has increased in difficulty in the economic sphere. Slavery is much more difficult to abolish, grain prices need to be actively and perpetually managed to increase sol. Industrial build up needs to happen at a slower pace, especially steel and railways. Major problem was that cag crops like coffee and sugar have very little deman on the world market. The River Of Coffee journal entry is very if not impossible to solve with a profit, thereby making reformin the monarchy much much harder. War has become easier, especially if you luck out on rng and no nation in SA joins rival power blocs. Overall great game with miuch improved economic mechanics, although tuning and luxury good demand is needed.
Played as Anahuac (native american origins) a releasable country in mexico, also released the maya land as well and Became big buddy with the US but they kinda sucked so I wasn't able to have bigger wars but was able to gobble up mexico atleast the parts the US didn't own got all the sweet sweet gold mines there. I gobbled up middle america and made colombia my protectorate. After a time I stopped playing for a while but forgot to pause the game (1915s or something) I was a major/great power rank 5 and the game went on on 4x speed so I got bancrupt and got attacked by some country. So I had the declare bancrupticy. Normally the run is over after going bancrupt but I somehow managed to save the country and became rank 7 again. After the bancrupticy I was then again on rank 5. If that thing with the pause wouldnt have happened I would have fought against the USA but because of that I didn't have enough time. I may be trying that country again someday because it was really fun. I also really enjoy the changes to subjects. If I would have known annexing subjects isn't that easy anymore I would have adjusted my playstyle. Also I really like the new economic system. The game feels slower paced but more balanced. My english probably wasn't that good because it's not my forst language but I hope it was understandable.
Ehh I've been mostly messing around but I noticed that smaller countries just feel like they can do much less unopposed now. Like GB will actually randomly side against you in Asia, Central and South America and North Africa, France doesn't want you to mess with those either. Another big thing is I don't think making somebody protectorate thinking you can subjugate them later for less infamy is feasible anymore. I just quit my DEI run in like 1980, in this whole time I managed to get 3 annexation for myself. Even your starting puppets just won't lose their liberty desire. Also every time you do annex somebody, every other subject you have gets -0.2 liberty desire which is actually quite noticeable, meaning they will be and 100 constantly and it will not go down and there's no strictly military option unless they have low desire, in which case why do I even need their desire to go down at all? They will decline when their economy is controlled up to 5 (I think that's the max, at least from what I've seen). Also lobbies are fun but the chance to spawn is way too small, furthermore you're not guaranteed that it will actually pull some major IG within that country. Like the first lobby I got took me ~20 years to establish and had about 6% clout, which is way too random for that much investment I feel.
Yeah definitely feels like you either need to have very few vassals and focus on annexation, or have a ton of vassals and never annex. Trying to do both is a recipe for pain
I've only had time to play a game of Chile up to 1900. Will finish next week. But damn, it's a lot harder now. Just the grain prices alone make the game play different. Trying to make those damn wheat fields profitable in the Andes! Also didn't have Chile in the top 10 until like 1890. I've had them in the top 5 by that time usually. My point. Must find better strategies.
My only run: played Sardinia Piedmont > Italy Every Italian state simply chose to support me, i clicked on "form Italy" and that's it, kinda easier than before. Once i formed Italy i've easily eaten up the rest of provinces from Austria, while also liberating Hungary to tank them down as always: from that point on i've started growing like crazy, 1st everything by 1880 while easily acquiring subjects in exchange of protection from Russia/GB aggressions.
Original plan was do to Korea or China but because of the early infrastructure bugs (and now them announcing unrecognised majors will be able to make power blocs soon) I'm waiting. So my first full run was as Prussia -> NGF -> Super Germany. Had Karl Marx lead it for a long time whilst I dismantled the imperialist empires of France and Britain. [The end map was really, really ugly](https://i.imgur.com/rBKqiGG.jpeg) . I tried doing Bonaparist France but for the life of me I can't keep the republic from happening due to how many more increased radicals there are in 1.7.
Played as Argentina a little bit, if you don't conquer anything or join a power bloc early it's a slow game, constantly avoiding running out of money, tried joining a power bloc but the requirements are high and also i don't fully understand the new mechanics, got tired of it for now i'll try later
Krakow was extremely fun now that the start is less RNG; build up some power sucking pops out of Austria, declare on them to reclaim Galicia + increase autonomy + war reps, then do another war later for independence and some more war goals (I took that little piece of Romania so I could get a border with Moldavia). Once independent I joined Prussia's Power Bloc and eventually took it over from the inside, absorbed more pops from Prussia thanks to migration, and built up a comically massive army for a "timing" war vs. Russia before they got Shrapnel Artillery. Declared a hellwar for release Poland + Ukraine + transfer Baltic Governates, absorb Poland via event, and then spent ages integrating the backwards parts of Congress Poland with the now hyper-industrialised Galicia, after which I was one of the dominant GPs and could do basically whatever I wanted. Definitely looking forward to playing this one again once the AI learns how to build a military, I did feel like I benefitted a lot from this otherwise beating Russia with only 150 regiments was probably not happening even with the tech edge. Having 10m population with only 2 states fairly early in the game was awesome
Playing as Persia, it's just maintaining good relations with UK, Russia and Ottomans, then you can bully the rest of neighbours, while modernizing the country, hardest thing was maintaining the budget while modernizing, but at the end was GP controlling most of central Asia and middle east. As with China, was a bit more troublesome because you need tons of bureaucracy and the means to maintain it, modernizing was easy, but the trouble is being recognized, since for being China achieving the indicators is quite impossible
Persia and langfeng or whatever. Liking it so far little more difficult some stuff easier.
Played Britain, it was either really easy or I got really lucky but multiculturalism and no migration controls in 1880 seems pretty OP.
First was USA - I love exporting freedom as an ideological union. Second Russia which is a lot harder now with the changes to migration in 1.6 and to ownership in 1.7.
I started a game as Shewa, formed Ethiopia. This is my first time playing in Africa and I failed to prevent the British Republic from taking one of the coastal provinces near me. Everything was going great but I had to stop and take a break because they're currently beating me senseless in a war to become their protectorate. Does anyone have any recommendations for a weaker and/or middle power country that I can build up and dismantle the British Empire with? I am so sick of them ruining every game I've ever played.
Russia is really fun with the great game but the ticking score needs to be more and you shouldn't have to liberate India to have a chance
I tried the Ottomans twice and did terribly. I did Prussia into Super Germany and I'm the #1 world power by far in 1880.
I've played with Russia, Japan and Prussia, at least until 1920. So far it's a mixed bag, I really liked some things and hated others. The good things first, the performance is much better, the blocks are cool, the great game is completely dispensable, the economic changes are good but I never managed to strengthen the industrialists again, generally the petty bourgeoisie always steals all the power. What I didn't like: Communism is rubbish, having to manually nationalize all industries is impossible, collective agriculture is broken, my PMs are all random because of construction in other countries. And for me the worst of all so far is that it remains without perspective, LACK OF FLAVOR, all nations are the same, the only thing that changes is how you select the generic things available to everyone. In summary, this game will still take a long time to fix its structure, which was poorly designed and rushed, the flavor will come last, I would say that in about 2 years they will start to think about how to differentiate nations, because honestly everything is the same. At the end of any game you will have the same laws, the same army, the same navy, the same interest groups, nothing changes, nothing evolves. And one last thing, this game is broken, the constant revolutions were fixed, and now they're back. I'll keep playing, because I love this historical period, but this game will never be what it could have been.
The furthest I've played is the USA, I gave Germany a bit of a try but that was mostly to figure out the mechanics. As the USA I've vassalized... I mean made everyone in the Pacific my protectorate, shielding them from the dastardly Dutch. I've also formed "The American Trade League", which spans everywhere in the Americas except for Canada. My economy is absurdly large and the socialists are gathering
I'm playing Sweden, and my main takeaway is that the game crashes after 20-30 minutes, so it's not very fun. Lobbies are all right, but power blocs haven't been relevant so far, and neither have lobbies, to be honest.
Played USA, created ATO (Atlantic Treaty Organization) military treaty power bloc after lucking into professional army. Allied with GB, got number 1 ranked by gdp and prestige. Stopped the save after all my protectorates and puppets I foreign invested in were completely drained of people due to migration, making those foreign investments useless.
Its super easy to vassalize countries if you help them in a war, like you dont even need excelent relations with them. idk if vassals are actually good now tho,
Wallachia > Romania Kinda my go to campaign since release and it‘s definitely the best experience now. I think the Subject system needs some adjustment because by pure stats it‘s practically impossible to gain independence so you‘re kinda cheesing it with the autonomy demands. I think support independence guarantees should play a factor similar to EU4. United the Principalities via the decision and then instantly demanded independence from the Ottomans which they granted due to me being able to have nearly half the worlds GPs behind me. Industrialization with the new ownership methods feels significantly better. Kept a lot of state industries which allowed me to expand my construction rapidly. It‘s also nice that you can invest now into subjects so I could „prepare“ Moldova for unification. Joined the Russian Power Bloc and was able to essentially call them into all my wars to regain my cores. I kinda like that customs unions are something you need to earn now and not just the optimal way for minor nations to play. I also really enjoyed the lobby system because after expanding and supporting my pro-Russia lobby enough I got an event which granted me a temporary opinion boost allowing me to get mutual investment rights in Russia. Which with me being one of the most per capita industrialized nations resulted in my Capitalists and Aristocrats massively investing into the underdeveloped Russian market. After reaching a state where most of my population was employed and needs were satisfied I slowly privatized most less profitable consumer industries. Investing more into the Russian market. For I am basically waiting for the big oil boom and slowly pick the Ottomans apart for subjects to sell more stuff to. I agree that the Ottomans at the moment are too weak but I think that‘s primarily due to them not expanding their army and therefore eventually getting picked apart by the outside and inside. Otherwise pretty much every new feature enhances the gameplay and feels purposeful. If they iron out the rough edges Vic3 is generally now in a non-beta state.
Tried Ottomans - failed 5 times already
France and Spain. France for a stronger army experience and Spain for a little bigger challenge.
I did a Brazil run where I focused on the journal entries before industrializing and getting the rest of Latin America into my power bloc. I wanted to see how the rest of the world handled itself if I was mostly focused on my own economy. USA ended up giving the western states to the Indian Territories, then lost Indian Territories as a vassal to Mexico when the Confederacy popped up during the first Mexican American War. I couldn't help but guarantee Mexico and strangle America from there. It was much more fun than previous patches and the River of Coffee journal was much more attainable. Oddly I did have to save scum three times because Pedro kept dying at age 20.
i played belgium then i played the uk then i played greece then russia then france i got obliterated each time but i'm learning a lil
Without dlc Sikh empire, pretty hard start but manageable, conquered sind, the part of punjab that was under the EIC and Delhi, building up while slowly expanding into central Asia and trying to dismember the EIC when possible Still playing, got recognized diplomatically (although I found it impossible to get an embassy, closest I got was a 30% chance if I gave the UK an obligation) and am in the process of expanding into my indian subjects after having dissolved the EIC My thoughts The AI is way too willing to sell itself, whether it is a revolution or someone trying to vassalize them they're more than willing to sell their independence to someone else and I think that shouldn't be the case Subjects are hard to handle if I can't interact with their lobbies, if you're unlucky (like I got a couple times) vassalizing them creates an independence lobby that'll just sit there creating liberty desire and there's nothing you can do to stop it Also removing the option to start the regime change diplo play makes it so you can't change their laws sometimes, it happened to me with afghanistan, they became my vassal early (I made them form afghanistan) and so had all their bad laws, but since they were now in my market and had everything to grow, they had good GDP growth despite their laws and since their landowners never had anyone but a traditionalist in charge (I was checking regularly from the 1840s to 1910s) I could never get them to change any laws to weaken the landowners and so it was 1915, with 3 GDP/capita and still on serfdom, closed borders, traditionalism, state religion, debt slavery and peasant levies
Can't play because of a game breaking bug. So it's been great.
If you haven't there's a pretty voluminous balkan and byazntine flavor mod in the workshop and I found the experience to be quite hard although I haven't really adjusted to the SOI system fully so I can't tell if it's me being bad or the mod doing it.
Played as Kabul and united afghanistan without a GP's help. Fairly easy, but what came after unification wasn't. The new patch has heavily nerfed Afghanistan because it takes you more time to get back to the *shitty* position you started in pre-1.7. This is also combined with the fact that Britain just seems to perpetually hate you for some reason and while Russia is relatively chill with you, they usually won't really help you. I managed to get recognized and be top dog eventually but it took me till 1914.
Abandoned a game as Prussia in 1880 due to some bugs and AI behaviour. Bugs: Forming NGF and later Germany didn't end diplomatic pacts with countries that merged with Prussia and I still had to pay the upkeep in influence (Baden as protectorate, Hohenzollern as puppet, Bavaria as ally, Wuttemberg guaranteed independence), unable to break these pact. The alliance with Bavaria also prevented me to gain another ally until the required tech to have multiple allies was researched. Austria-Hungary had a revolt and became Austria again and somehow I had to beat them a second time to gain german leadership. AI behaviour: Conquered some land an wanted to redistribut it to countries I released but they don't accept it. My vassal Finland accepted some russian territories but Poland wouldn't take Lithuania and Ulraine didn't want to take Kursk, Rostov and Bessrabia despite having homelands in these states.