Victoria 3

[Syt]

Been playing Austria myself (into 1855 at the moment). My plans are:
- stay out of Germany; let them do whatever
- stay autocratic - no elections
- focus attention on Eastern Mediterranean; no colonies

I was struggling with reforms, too. Austria has an interesting start:
- hereditary administration which leads to massive shortfalls in taxes
- only South German accepted culture, meaning everyone else is discriminated against and builds radicalism
- Austrian aristocracy is against any reform that might change any of that, and if they're not in government you get a massive legitimacy penalty (and if they're in government you can't suppress them)
- no railroads

First thing I did was get rid of the hereditary bureaucracy which weakens the aristocrats a bit. And then I spent forever and a day trying to figure out a way to reform my government to move from National Supremacy to Racial Segregation which would give all my pops accepted status. Part of the trick is obviously to butter up the aristocrats with other laws, but there's just not much there. I downgraded from Property Ownership for Women to Legal Guardianship (which gives some points with aristocrats). But then I was stumped. You can lower your policing institution (each level of Local Policing gives aristocrats power).

I tried to push the law through regardless, twice. However, the approval penalty/bonuses from laws are applied twice -permanently, when the law is passed, but also as temporary modifier when you put the law to a vote. So the aristocrats would get -20 approval already when the law is proposed, and another -20 when it's enacted. And the first dip already caused them to throw a fit, leave government and  and get ready for revolution (including 7 out of my 8 generals). I eventually found an angle through some lucky events that gave them some bonus approval, plus changing tax laws to something they approve more of.

That gave me enough of an edge to get citizenship changed. Once it passes you can take the Matter of Hungary event, and the landowners lose the Austrian Hegemonists trait and become "normal" landowners, making things a lot easier.

It was a fun challenge to get there, between managing politics and trying to modernize the economy without wrecking my finances. I went per-capita tax => consumption tax (which didn't produce enough revenue and impoverished the peasants) => land based tax (which sent all the peasantry further into radicalism and causing turmoil throughout all of Austria-Hungary) and I'm now going back to per-capita, all within less than 10 years.

I tried to get Ottomans to give me Bosnia, but France joined them in war, and when the fighting went very badly I quickly noped out, cut my losses and got away with humiliation.

I have the Italians (except Two Sicilies) in my market. Sicily keeps trying to start shit, but I have defensive agreements with all their targets, so they keep backing down in their diplo plays. I would try and smite them, but France and Britain feel "protective" of them and would likely side with them, so I'm holding off.

I did manage to annex Krakow, though, when they tried to ask for liberty, though.

I'm now running a tiny profit while expanding some infrastructure, so for now the future looks good (and I desperately need to up my navies). Prussia, meanwhile, is doing their Germany thing. Let them, I'm having my eyes on the Balkans and Egypt.

[Syt]

In short it was a fun puzzle - you have one very powerful group that opposes any and all changes, and anything that might give you an in has a good chance of being opposed by a varying constellation of other groups, too. I spent a lot of time looking at my laws and almost every one had a bigger red than green bar.

(I was sorely tempted to give in to land based voting, but Habsburgs ain't gonna have any of that, unless the rabble can't be suppressed any more )

[Tamas]

 

I completely forgot to check the administration law, I'll need to do that. 

I want to do a democratic austria run, see how easy it is to hold it together.

[Tamas]

It's probably because the haters have moved on, but I am noticing the flood of "OMGWTF this is NOT Victoria 2 how DARE you?!" threads on the official forum are steadily being replaced by gameplay questions/praise.

Game still sinking in Steam reviews though.

[FunkMonk]

It's probably because the haters have moved on, but I am noticing the flood of "OMGWTF this is NOT Victoria 2 how DARE you?!" threads on the official forum are steadily being replaced by gameplay questions/praise.

Game still sinking in Steam reviews though.

Steam is the eternal front in The Review Wars 

[Syt]

I've looked at mods, but nothing stands out to me yet. I usually focus on graphics mods rather than gameplay (esp. when still learning a game).

One thing I might do myself is replacing pretty much all interface sounds. I find many of them very jarring. Sure, I get they aim at a mechanical/steampunk vibe. But e.g. the heavy *clunk* every time you pause/unpause or the gavel whenever you go to the politics screen are really grating on me by now.

[The Minsky Moment]

A late development change was to make it necessary to declare an interest in a region to initiate trade or diplomacy there.  That made sense from a mechanical point of view of putting teeth into the interest mechanic and encouraging historical levels of naval construction.

But a side effect is that to facilitate appropriate levels of trade, by the 1860s-70s, even medium size European powers have declared interests all over the Western Hemisphere.  Thus, when I declared my last war against Mexico to retake a tiny Oklahoma micro-colony, England, France, Russia and the NGF were all participants in the diplo play, which is just nuts.  When I later declared war against Spain to "liberate" Puerto Rico, all those powers plus Piedmont-Sardinia and a few midsize Euros were involved - a bunch of Euro powers tooks sides, and the world was on the brink of World War 1 before Spain prudently backed down.

One point of the play system is to recreate the European "crises" of the post-1870 period, including of course the final one.  But those crises were confined to Europe, the Ottoman empire, maybe North Africa.  A minor territorial dispute in Central America shouldn't trigger a massive European war.  And the consequence of the system is that something like the historical Spanish-Amercian war will never happen because either one side backs down without fighting or a massive world war breaks out.

I would limit participation in Diplo Plays to powers with an interest AND which have either a naval base or barracks in that region (or perhaps a contiguous region), unless the Play initiates in Europe or the OE.

[Solmyr]

I've managed to form Scandinavia as Sweden after puppeting Denmark in a war (with the help of NGF). Russia has rivalled me, but I have pretty good relations with Prussia/NGF, UK, and France. I am also steadily colonizing the Kongo area. Still have no idea how to maintain a positive cash flow though, it goes negative no matter what I do.

Some gameplay mods that stand out: Anbeeld's Revision of AI, Improved Automation, Friendly Construction Site, and Realistic Resource Distribution. I have not turned them on for my current Sweden/Scandinavia game, but will try them in the next one. For graphic mods I am using Clean Map, Doodle's War Flags, No Clouds, Trade Goods Slider Fix, and Clock. Also there's a Proper Mexican Cession mod which apparently makes it so the US can get the entire Mexican cession without needing multiple wars.

[HVC]

I'm doing much better as Prussia on my second go. And While Gaining the North German States went super easily, its been 10 years after starting the "quest" and non of the south germans have joined me yet.

[Syt]

I would limit participation in Diplo Plays to powers with an interest AND which have either a naval base or barracks in that region (or perhaps a contiguous region), unless the Play initiates in Europe or the OE.

Either that or have a measurement of stakes. I like the idea that an insignificant affair could balloon into a major war if badly handled by those involved, but by default they should look at the actual stakes involved - we already have some sort of measure for that; if you do a play for treaty ports, annexation, protectorate, puppeting etc., you can incur opinion penalties from other powers with interest in the region. Have that together with relative military strength of sides - and promised wargoals if nation was swayed - be what decides whether or not a power actually gets involved.

(That said, in my game, the US, after losing a war against Mexico, decided to start a play to cut the British East India Company down to size. Britain now owns Plymouth, MA as a treaty port. )

[Syt]

Btw, the Civ IV tech quote from Oscar Wilde seems quite appropriate for this game:

"The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy."

[FunkMonk]

Not gonna lie, I enjoy the wacky diplomatic hijinx I'm reading 

Tweaks to the diplomacy system are needed but I would still like there to be possibilities for weird scenarios

[Syt]

"Yes, but ..."

[Valmy]

Wait...considering this game goes until 1936 shouldn't North and South Schleswig be separate provinces? Otherwise what actually happened IRL cannot happen in the game, which was one of my biggest problems with EU1.

[Syt]

Wait...considering this game goes until 1936 shouldn't North and South Schleswig be separate provinces? Otherwise what actually happened IRL cannot happen in the game, which was one of my biggest problems with EU1.

1. You're probably one of a very small percentage of Texans who knows that.
2. I think so, but - states can technically be split in game (e.g. when two powers attempt to colonize the same state). I don't think it applies to states conquered in war, but the game's technology would permit to split it between two owners.