Victoria 3

[Tamas]

Spotted on Reddit one of the devs claiming the late game serious lag is from effectively them leaving the AI last to be worked on - with non-retarded economic AI there's a lot more migration than before and it creates a crapton of micro-pops by the late game, slowing the game to a crawl. Allegedly they are testing a fix.

[Syt]

The year is 1901, and I feel at this stage the Habsburgs would be hard pressed not to bring in more people into government. So I guess I will switch on over to oligarchy. The Emperor will remain as figurehead, but the capitalists and military will be calling the shots together going forward, I think. 



My current policies and laws:

[Tamas]

With the game slowing down around 1900, I am finding myself mulling over the same things as when playing Austria in Vic2  - how could all the political forces pulling Austria and Turkey apart could be better represented?

It was really fun getting to the point of dismantling the entrenched interests of the old monarchy, as Syt described earlier. That part is far better than in Vic2. But now having achieved Racial Segregation, the potential of my myriad minorities have been unlocked (since they are no longer discriminated against), and maybe trouble will brew later but more than half of the population still politically inactive, it's bliss.

I wonder if maybe not being a primary culture should contribute to Radicalism regardless of accepted status (or maybe it does already?). That way, on paper at least, while the economic going is ok and they are politically asleep you'd be fine, but if things go rough them being non-majority could still add fuel to the fire.

An other

[Tamas]

The year is 1901, and I feel at this stage the Habsburgs would be hard pressed not to bring in more people into government. So I guess I will switch on over to oligarchy. The Emperor will remain as figurehead, but the capitalists and military will be calling the shots together going forward, I think. 



My current policies and laws:

This is my constitutional monarchy in 1903:




One thing is that after a couple of decades of Racial Segregation I am turning into a target of immigration rather than having people emigrate away. Irish, Albanians, Greeks flock to the warm embrace of Austrian racial peace.

[Syt]

Yeah, getting a fair amount of immigration too at this point, esp. in Dalmatia and Croatia because of the high SoL. I also got an event of Boers migrating to Dalmatia. 

I hope message settings become more customizable. I keep overlooking notifications in the bottom right because I was distracted. "Oh, seems I got a new Emperor at some point while busy fighting a war." "Wait, when did that country leave my customs union?" "Why do I have army units in garrison? Guess a general died at some point." "Wait, there's a diplo play in a neighboring country?"

[Tamas]

Yeah we need message customisation.

I'll be trying this Anbeeld Revision AI mod which for now focuses on economic AI (plus Prussian diplomacy). Apparently this guy was releasing patches to the beta leak and spent months perfecting a custom build order economic AI.

I am also going to make the Treaty Port play/wargoal so that you can only demand it from unrecognised countries. I am irked by the little treaty ports all over Europe, like French port in Portugal and such.

EDIT: diplomatic plays do work nice though. I earlier grabbed Bosnia from a now Unrecognised Ottomans along with vassalising the two Romanian states. Thought I'd try what happens if I go after Serbia (not allied/vassalised to anyone) next, but Russia said "hell no" and numbers-wise I was not in a shape to fight them on my own.

[Syt]

Speaking of notifications - I wish there were better notifications about what happens around the world, too. Saw a notification about a Diplomatic Play, clicked the message. I haven't paid much attention to the Americas, so this was a bit of a surprise.



(Fascist pres. is Millard Clay, Pres of "old" US is Cornelius Govan)

[Josephus]

I need more opium in Sweden. I'm currently importing from the British Market, and my trade route is at level 1. The tool tip says it will remain at level 1 under current market condition. How do I up that?

[Tamas]

I need more opium in Sweden. I'm currently importing from the British Market, and my trade route is at level 1. The tool tip says it will remain at level 1 under current market condition. How do I up that?

I know very little of this stuff but I don't think you can. If the British market had more to sell and your market could afford to buy more (and you had the convoys) than the level would go up, but I don't think you can force it.

[crazy canuck]

So as Russia I accepted a trade agreement with China. Years go by without me noticing that they're importing tons of stuff from me. I only notice because I'm annoyed that clothes are still so expensive even after I build a ton of textile mills. Turns out the Chinese keep buying my clothes and jack the price up.

I decide maybe I should end the trade agreement and start taking advantage of tariffs. My income immediately skyrockets from running a zero balance to hundreds of thousands of pounds. And the Chinese keep buying my stuff. They're hooked on all my beautiful Russian goods, not just the clothes they were buying by the thousands. 

Within a couple years my cash reserves are full because I can't spend all my income fast enough, even after jacking up wages and lowering taxes 

My income is balanced now after building a ton of construction so I can build more things simultaneously. Thank you, oh Great Qing, for doubling my GDP in a few years and for laying the groundwork for my massive industrialization.

Yeah, one of the things I learned from my first Russian game is not to enter into trade agreements but instead put export tariffs on goods in demand.

The other mistake I made in that first game was trying to liberalize too quickly.  It became very difficult to create a legitimacy of over thirtyish.

[FunkMonk]

So as Russia I accepted a trade agreement with China. Years go by without me noticing that they're importing tons of stuff from me. I only notice because I'm annoyed that clothes are still so expensive even after I build a ton of textile mills. Turns out the Chinese keep buying my clothes and jack the price up.

I decide maybe I should end the trade agreement and start taking advantage of tariffs. My income immediately skyrockets from running a zero balance to hundreds of thousands of pounds. And the Chinese keep buying my stuff. They're hooked on all my beautiful Russian goods, not just the clothes they were buying by the thousands. 

Within a couple years my cash reserves are full because I can't spend all my income fast enough, even after jacking up wages and lowering taxes 

My income is balanced now after building a ton of construction so I can build more things simultaneously. Thank you, oh Great Qing, for doubling my GDP in a few years and for laying the groundwork for my massive industrialization.

Yeah, one of the things I learned from my first Russian game is not to enter into trade agreements but instead put export tariffs on goods in demand.

The other mistake I made in that first game was trying to liberalize too quickly.  It became very difficult to create a legitimacy of over thirtyish.

Yeah I've liberalized very little. It's 1870 and I just now abolished serfdom and established religious schools. The aristocracy share power with the industrialists.

I plan on keeping autocratic Tsarist rule and Russian national supremacy for as long as possible. Gotta keep it somewhat historical 

[Zanza]

I played Prussia into the mid 1840s now and could already peacefully form the North German Federation. For whatever reasons all those princes that kept their sovereignty since the Middle Ages decided that they should join Prussia after using Improve Relations on them until mixed out. No other power even cared when I annexed all of Saxony, Hesse, Anhalt and Mecklenburg. Not sure why. Anyway wasn't much of a struggle.

I kicked the Junkers from government and had the miltary-industrial complex ruling Prussia. Again with little consequences. There should be major upheaval if I just remove the Junkers with their leader Otto von Bismarck. Maybe the King should be part of that faction,not of the army faction.

Also Prussia could easily afford colonies around the Coast of Africa and even in Oceania. I feel that should be harder.

But so far it is enjoyable, probably more so than CK3. Not yet on alevel with Stellaris or EU4 for me.

[Tamas]

I played Prussia into the mid 1840s now and could already peacefully form the North German Federation. For whatever reasons all those princes that kept their sovereignty since the Middle Ages decided that they should join Prussia after using Improve Relations on them until mixed out. No other power even cared when I annexed all of Saxony, Hesse, Anhalt and Mecklenburg. Not sure why. Anyway wasn't much of a struggle.

Watching the Prussia dev stream a month or so ago I thought this was so easy so the AI wouldn't struggle. But then what the Prussia AI does is instead of relying on easy diplomacy, is to go on a bloody violent rampage, making it impossible for itself to unify.

I am actually pretty sure this could be tweaked, since the AI strategies (of which you can see what a given country is on at each time -minus a secret fourth one-) are in text files, but I haven't been able to figure the parameters out without a guide.

[HVC]

Once you get used to the warfare its not so bad. a lot less micromanaging.

[HVC]

I played Prussia into the mid 1840s now and could already peacefully form the North German Federation. For whatever reasons all those princes that kept their sovereignty since the Middle Ages decided that they should join Prussia after using Improve Relations on them until mixed out. No other power even cared when I annexed all of Saxony, Hesse, Anhalt and Mecklenburg. Not sure why. Anyway wasn't much of a struggle.

I kicked the Junkers from government and had the miltary-industrial complex ruling Prussia. Again with little consequences. There should be major upheaval if I just remove the Junkers with their leader Otto von Bismarck. Maybe the King should be part of that faction,not of the army faction.

Also Prussia could easily afford colonies around the Coast of Africa and even in Oceania. I feel that should be harder.

But so far it is enjoyable, probably more so than CK3. Not yet on alevel with Stellaris or EU4 for me.

Gets Harder to Form Germany, at least for me. The second trigger (pan-nationalism?) got me the rest my northern buddies, but the southern ones wouldn't join. Then I saw the tab under culture to form Germany. Went to war with austria for the honour, but they backed down so i got germany for free.