Victoria 2

[IcedT]

It's been around for a while but I couldn't find a thread: anybody here enjoy some Vicky?

I'm a not-quite-expert-but-pretty-competent player at it, and I just discovered that Spain can release the Phillipines as a civilized country with 1m adult male pop, 10% literacy and modest income, so I've been having some fun with carving out a Phillipine Empire (as of my last save, it's 1842 and I've annexed Brunei and Johore, humiliated Atjeh, and taken Siamese Singapore. Next on the hit list is Dai Viet and Cambodia). I've also had a lot of fun with Japanese campaigns, although I tend to get bored when I'm playing one of the major powers.

[emceng]

Hmm, thought there was a thread about this game. Yep, here: here

I didn't realize it had been released. If it's anything like EU3, I should enjoy it. Though I have about 10 games to get to at this point, so probably will try and wait to buy it until I have more time.

[IcedT]

Hmm, thought there was a thread about this game. Yep, here: here

I pretty much disregarded that thread, since it was only a few posts long and hadn't been updated since before launch. It was a choice between starting a new thread or doing a meganecro, but issawlgood.

I didn't realize it had been released. If it's anything like EU3, I should enjoy it. Though I have about 10 games to get to at this point, so probably will try and wait to buy it until I have more time.

It's a lot like EU3, except with a shorter timeframe but much richer economics, demographics, and politics. But it's definitely the kind of game you can play for weeks so it's probably best to knock out some other titles first.

[Sheikh al-Majaneen]

It is okay. Everyone uncivilised is just too limited, which makes the game boring pretty quickly. And any war you start is bound to put you up against three or four great powers. Seriously, I can't even get the Mexican-American War right, even if I put Mexico nearly in my sphere (if you don't, the UK will)--Someone always starts an American Containment war if you don't pick up only three states or so.

[IcedT]

It is okay. Everyone uncivilised is just too limited, which makes the game boring pretty quickly. And any war you start is bound to put you up against three or four great powers. Seriously, I can't even get the Mexican-American War right, even if I put Mexico nearly in my sphere (if you don't, the UK will)--Someone always starts an American Containment war if you don't pick up only three states or so.

Japan is actually a lot of fun, but they're a special case. All other unciv campaigns tend to be pretty slow and frustrating, but there are people who somehow unify India as Panjab and do other insane stuff like that. But I agree about GPs allying with eachother too often, but in a sandbox game weird events are kindof inevitable. I would like to see a lot more CB events between GPs and possibly a constant relations drain between certain powers- and although it's admittedly ahistorical as hell, I wanna nerf the UK.

[savanik]

I had a lot of fun playing as Brazil. A LOT of fun.

Unifying South America? Check.
Built the Panama canal out of the bones of my enemies? Check.
Kicking Europe out of the South American colonies? Check.
Destabilizing North America by funding the South during the American Civil War, resulting in a fractured nation? Check.
Colonizing Africa before the first Great Powers? Check.

I'm still working on how to conquer North America. Even split in half, the USA is a formidable opponent.

I have to admit, playing Vic2 was almost impossible at first, I had to drop in some mods to reduce terrorist rebel activity. I could keep mine under control through aggressive political management but all the AIs basically toppled my first game due to rebels in every province. Glad they fixed that.

[emceng]

Well I was dumb and bought this last night through steam. Should have gone through impulse or somebody - steam bothers me with the always connected thing.

Anyway, yeah, no idea what I am doing. Need to read the manual. I was thinking it would be a bit like EU3, but wow. Yeah, no idea what I was doing last night. Also I was a bit drunk, and that didn't help.

[IcedT]

Well I was dumb and bought this last night through steam. Should have gone through impulse or somebody - steam bothers me with the always connected thing.

Anyway, yeah, no idea what I am doing. Need to read the manual. I was thinking it would be a bit like EU3, but wow. Yeah, no idea what I was doing last night. Also I was a bit drunk, and that didn't help.

The biggest thing is getting used to the pops. Since demographics are modeled in a lot of detail, there's all kinds of new elements worked in that revolve around managing your peeps, and if you're anything like me you'll probably think Vicky is kinda dull compared to EU3 at first, but once you start to get all the subtleties you'll actually start to prefer it. There's a lot more ways to play.

I had a lot of fun playing as Brazil. A LOT of fun.

Unifying South America? Check.
Built the Panama canal out of the bones of my enemies? Check.
Kicking Europe out of the South American colonies? Check.
Destabilizing North America by funding the South during the American Civil War, resulting in a fractured nation? Check.
Colonizing Africa before the first Great Powers? Check.

I think I might actually do this for my next campaign. I've yet to do much with the Americas.

[savanik]

The ooooonnnne thing that bugs me about the whole game is the need to implement 'nice' social policies at a fairly steady rate. And to implement these, you HAVE to get approval from the parliament or whoever. This means you basically have to manipulate your elections very particularly from start to finish and can't really explore options like, 'What if Britain had become Communist?' without actually modding the game. Everyone becomes socialist by the 1900's. Or their empire dissolves into an orgy of revolts. I feel like it lacks choices in that regard.

[IcedT]

The ooooonnnne thing that bugs me about the whole game is the need to implement 'nice' social policies at a fairly steady rate. And to implement these, you HAVE to get approval from the parliament or whoever. This means you basically have to manipulate your elections very particularly from start to finish and can't really explore options like, 'What if Britain had become Communist?' without actually modding the game. Everyone becomes socialist by the 1900's. Or their empire dissolves into an orgy of revolts. I feel like it lacks choices in that regard.

This actually really depends on what government type you're using. If you're the US or one of the other democracies, yeah it can be problematic because you don't have much influence over which party gets put in power. As an absolute monarchy, HM or prussian constitutionalism, you can pick the ruling party so you have a little more influence over how things go down. It does bug me that most Liberal parties (who you need to get political reforms) have Laissez-faire economic policy, so you often have to choose between strategic industrialization and getting the reforms you need.

And re: revolts- are you playing a fully-patched game? In 1.3 I've only seen weaker states like Wurrtemburg or Dai Nam get taken over by rebels, although I saw Russia come close once. I have read that around 1.1, there were some really massive, crazy revolts going on though, so that might be part of it.

[emceng]

Ok so playing this a little when I have time.

Questions: What the crap am I supposed to do with my economy? I've got free workers or something, and don't know what to do. In the top let tab I have a hammer with red border, and worker with green. Is this good/bad/normal?

How long do truces last?

How do I check my infamy, or whatever it's called for starting wars? How much can I have before consequences start, and how severe are they?

I am playing as Prussia. Is there a way to form Germany? How bad is it if I just start gobbling up the minor countries around me?

The tutorial mentioned stuff about revolutions - I don't see where to check on how likely these are for states/areas.

Navy - I built some ships. The transports seem just fine. The big warships I built - nearly as soon as they leave port their box turns red(which means attrition for armies). Is this normal? If not, what should I do about it? I also had issues with getting them into port. I built two large ships, and wanted to make a fleet. For some reason I couldn't get them to both be in the same port, and couldn't get either of them to dock in certain territories.

Thanks for any help/suggestions.

[IcedT]

Ok yeah, a lot of these are things that I had issues with when I started out.

Ok so playing this a little when I have time.

Questions: What the crap am I supposed to do with my economy? I've got free workers or something, and don't know what to do. In the top let tab I have a hammer with red border, and worker with green. Is this good/bad/normal?

The hammer represents factories that are being built. The red worker on the right represents unemployed craftsmen (factory workers). The factory symbol in the middle shows factories that have gone under and are closed. You can mouse over each of the icons to get deets- they break down what, where, and how many for you. As a rule of thumb, all those icons in the top bar can be moused over for more information.

Also, there's a couple things that influence what you can do with your economy. On the budget side, putting more money into military, administration, and education makes those jobs better-paying and means more of your POPs will want to promote into those jobs. Lower taxes mean your pops have more money to spend on consumption, and your capitalists have more to invest in factories and railroads, although sometimes your rich POPs start just putting big lumps of money into your national bank instead of spending like they're supposed to. On the production side, what you can do is limited by which political party is in charge. If you party's economic policy is Laissez-Faire, you can't really do anything. If it's Interventionism, you can subsidize factories that are failing, expand existing ones, reopen or demolish closed ones, and if you see your Capi's building something you know is gonna tank, you can cancel its construction. In State Capitalism, you can open factories on your own, but capitalists will still build some on their own so this is generally considered the best policy for when you're trying to industrialize a smaller country, since you can build faster and more strategically. Planned Economy means capi's cant do shit, all factories are built by you out of the national budget.

How long do truces last?

About five years. You can see when your truce ends by either switching to the diplomatic mapview and mousing over the other country (it'll be shaded dark blue), or by looking at your diplomacy screen and finding it on the list.

How do I check my infamy, or whatever it's called for starting wars? How much can I have before consequences start, and how severe are they?

For this one, you have to go to Diplomacy (you can also get there by clicking your country's flag under the Production tab), then click the "See Wars" tab in the top of the window (by default, it's on "See Great Powers." It'll be the number next to the raggedy flag, just above your regiment count if memory serves.

Your infamy limit is 25. You can still go over this, but once you hit 25 infamy everybody gets a free Cut Down to Size casus belli against you. Experienced players with powerful countries will sometimes just say "fuck it" and hit 400 infamy by the game's end, but while you're still figuring things out I really can't recommend that.

I am playing as Prussia. Is there a way to form Germany? How bad is it if I just start gobbling up the minor countries around me?

There is. First you have to form the North German Federation by either annexing all the North German states or getting them into your sphere (sphere is faster, easier, and a lot better infamy-wise). Then you have to annex or sphere every country that has a German Empire core in it- turn on the Diplomatic mapmode and you'll see yellow hatches on all the German cores. This includes Alsace-Lorraine, so you'll have to fight at least one war with France, and if you knock Austria out of Great Power status, you can sphere them too and make them a part of the German Empire. These are decisions, which means you can look at their requirements in the bottom right corner of your Politics screen.

This might help you too: http://www.paradoxian.org/vicky2wiki/Prussia

The tutorial mentioned stuff about revolutions - I don't see where to check on how likely these are for states/areas.

The information for this is split up into two places- your Politics screen has a window for listing rebel factions, which tells you how many rebels there are, how likely they are to revolt, and what their goals would be if they did. Your Revolt mapview will show what provinces are likely to have revolts- green if the revolt risk is 0 or near 0, and darker shades of red the more likely a revolt is.

Navy - I built some ships. The transports seem just fine. The big warships I built - nearly as soon as they leave port their box turns red(which means attrition for armies). Is this normal? If not, what should I do about it? I also had issues with getting them into port.

The game uses the concept of coaling to show that ships had a certain range that they could stay supplied from, but if they went outside that range they had to eat at their onboard supplies and this gradually damages their effectiveness. Your supply range increases with Naval tech and with bigger Shipyards (Shipyards also repair damaged ships- regular ports don't). It is really unusual for any ships to take attrition when they're in a sea zone bordering a friendly port though.

I built two large ships, and wanted to make a fleet. For some reason I couldn't get them to both be in the same port, and couldn't get either of them to dock in certain territories.

This part is not normal. Do they just refuse to go into port, or are you having trouble with the controls? The only thing I can really recommend for this is to make sure you have it patched up to 1.3 (1.4 is in public beta, might be worth checking out). There might've been some pathing issues in earlier patches, I honestly don't know.

[emceng]

Yeah, I think the navy think is borked. The ships just would not go into certain ports. In the sea zone just north of Prussia, there are about 6 ports. I could only get certain ships into certain ones.

Played a bit more last night.

How do you get ore influence? Does it just slowly accumulate? Is it a separate number for each country, or do I have a pool of it for certain areas. For example, I had 12 for the Netherlands, but 36 for most of the German minors. I want to know if I am slowly getting close to being able to pull them all into my sphere, or if I am going to have to get to 100 about 10 times to do so.

Is there a way to pull someone into your sphere without using the diplomatic option? Is it a war goal too?

I was in a war with Austria. Was investigating adding war goals. I think I may have screwed up though. I was just looking at options, but don't think I clicked ok, but now they want to give me the things I had been looking at, and I can't add another war goal.

[IcedT]

Yeah, I think the navy think is borked. The ships just would not go into certain ports. In the sea zone just north of Prussia, there are about 6 ports. I could only get certain ships into certain ones.

That's a pretty serious bug. My advice is to try a clean install or go to Paradox's tech support forums and see what you can find out, cause this is the first time I've heard of anyone having that problem but that doesn't necessarily mean it's not a known issue.

How do you get ore influence? Does it just slowly accumulate? Is it a separate number for each country, or do I have a pool of it for certain areas. For example, I had 12 for the Netherlands, but 36 for most of the German minors.

It accumulates, but you need to distribute where you're sending your influence to. In the Diplomacy screen, on the country list you'll see three empty bars right next to the country's name- you use that to set priorities for influence (so, you can have low, medium or high priority). Also keep in mind that the country's score relative to yours affects how fast you get influence, so you should expect to gain influence faster in like, Saxe-Gotheburg than in the Netherlands or Belgium, since they're generally SP's. The two other factors are whether they're on the same continent as your capitol (-50% penalty if they're not) and whether you share a border with them (+50% if they do).

So, as Prussia, you've got all the North German minors sphered at the game's start except for Saxony (in Austria's sphere), Schleswig-Holstein (a Danish satellite), and Hannover (a British satellite, but apparently they get independence by event pretty early on or something). Luxembourg is optional (it's a Dutch satellite). Just sphere or annex those guys and you get the Form North German Federation decision (an easy way to get Saxony out of Austria's sphere is to use the Admit Hegemony wargoal against Austria. Makes them lose all their influence in Germany).

I want to know if I am slowly getting close to being able to pull them all into my sphere, or if I am going to have to get to 100 about 10 times to do so.

There's only a few steps. If they start out Neutral, you need 50 influence to bump them up to Cordial, 50 more to bump them up to Friendly, and 100 to add them to your sphere. Of course, it can take a lot longer than that if other GPs are discrediting you or banning your advisors.

Is there a way to pull someone into your sphere without using the diplomatic option? Is it a war goal too?

Yep, there's an Add to Sphere wargoal. I think it takes a pretty large warscore but it doesn't cost much infamy.

I was in a war with Austria. Was investigating adding war goals. I think I may have screwed up though. I was just looking at options, but don't think I clicked ok, but now they want to give me the things I had been looking at, and I can't add another war goal.

You just can't add goals back to back, you need to accumulate some more warscore. Or you might've topped off on wargoals- if the total warscore you need is over 100 there's no way you can achieve all your goals. If it's a big problem, I say just go back to an autosave, or push on and see what happens next.

[emceng]

Thanks for all the help.

Follow up on the influence question: So do I get say 100 points of influence each month, and I can prioritize it to certain countries? And each country I deal with I have influence with - there's no shared pool. So if I add Saxony to my sphere, I can add Bavaria at the same time, if I have enough influence in those two countries - right?

I think I screwed up the war goals thing though. I was screwing around trying to figure out what war goals I could add. Instead of hitting cancel, I may have hit proceed or escape - and now those are part of my war goals. Wouldn't be all bad, but they weren't ones I particularly wanted.

[IcedT]

I'm not really sure what the base Influence gain is, because it's affected by technology and relative score by a pretty huge amount. So your 100 might work out to over 100 if you're influencing a weak country you share a border with but maybe only 20-30 if the country is strong and far away. But when you adjust priority, it'll tell you what your daily influence gain is for that country when you mouse over it. You can focus on one or a few countries and get influence pretty fast, or spread it out and gain it more slowly.

[emceng]

Thanks. I figured out my war goal issue. I didn't get the whole "you see different information if you're on the great powers tab versus the wars tab" thing.

Next issue: How do i increase industrial power? Mine has barely changed, and I am being rapidly outpaced by all the other great powers. Hell, Austria is now ahead of me since their IP is 5 times mine, despite me kicking their ass in two wars.

[IcedT]

IP is basically a calculation of the total value of industrial goods you produce, so sometimes you'll see weird stuff where there's the same number of factories in two countries but one has a much higher industrial score because they make more expensive stuff. The best ways to increase it are to promote Craftsmen and Capitalists, focus on consumer luxuries, and build hella factories if you have a State Capitalist party. Basics like glass and cement are good to start with, but you should start focusing on luxury clothes and luxury furniture later on for the big Industry points (since you're fighting a lot of wars, it might be worth it to build up an arms industry too, even if those aren't super profitable).

[emceng]

The influence system is starting to annoy me a little bit. The only country I need in my sphere to form Germany is Baden. But freaking Austria is trying to influence them as well. The problem is I am about 3 influence points behind them and we gain influence at the same rate, so there's nothing I can do. So if I hit 25 and discredit them, they do it back to me. So we both lose 25, except since Austria was at 28, he's still in the lead. So the only way I can figure to beat him in the influence game is start a third frigging war for dominance. I'd say screw it and go, except they're now allied with France.

Quick question. For the military, there's a number in the box that's like 45/23 for me right now. What does it mean? I think I need to greatly expand my military, but I hate doing so due to the expense.

Oh, and how do you promote craftsmen or Capitalists?

[IcedT]

The influence system is starting to annoy me a little bit. The only country I need in my sphere to form Germany is Baden. But freaking Austria is trying to influence them as well. The problem is I am about 3 influence points behind them and we gain influence at the same rate, so there's nothing I can do. So if I hit 25 and discredit them, they do it back to me. So we both lose 25, except since Austria was at 28, he's still in the lead. So the only way I can figure to beat him in the influence game is start a third frigging war for dominance. I'd say screw it and go, except they're now allied with France.

Yeah, if France is allied with them and your military is in the shape you say it's in, a hegemony war isn't the way to go. Are you still spending some influence on countries you've managed to sphere? Trimming those down might help you outpace Austria a bit. Also, look for techs that increase diplomatic influence (I think there's a line of Commerce tech that does this in vanilla- I'm playing a mod right now so I don't remember for sure). Or you could look for big allies of your own, like Russia and the UK.

Quick question. For the military, there's a number in the box that's like 45/23 for me right now. What does it mean? I think I need to greatly expand my military, but I hate doing so due to the expense.

If the number on the left is bigger than the number of the right, it means you have more regiments than you have Soldier POPs to support them (you have 45 in the field, but only enough POPs to support 23). If you click your armies, you'll probably notice a lot of the units' soldier icons are yellow (too many units to a POP) or red (the POP the unit was trained from no longer exists). And for Prussia, 23 is really, really low- I'm guessing you've had a lot of casualties in recent wars? You really ought to up military spending and set an Encourage Soldiers focus to beef up those numbers, the Netherlands probably has more soldiers than you do right now.

Oh, and how do you promote craftsmen or Capitalists?

They do it automatically over time, but the best way to do it is to set National Focuses to encourage them. When you click a province, up in the top of the info panel by the name of the state, there's a brown box- click it and it shows a bunch of different options for a national focus. You can promote pop types, or railroads, different types of industry, or emigration in it's in the Americas or colonization if it's unsettled. Generally speaking, you'll get lots of craftsmen as more factories open up and as tech starts to shrink your RGO's (the things employing all your Farmers and Laborers). Capitalists are more likely to show up where there's a lot of literacy.

EDIT: about the influence thing- you don't need Baden for the NGF, just for the German Empire. Aren't you still Prussia?

[emceng]

Yeah, I can form the NGF, just didn't want to do so before bed the other night. Just need Baden for the German Empire thing.

I didn't think I lost that many guys in wars, but I have been in 4 wars already. I think the soldier slider is set kind of low though, I'll check that out.

[IcedT]

Yeah, I can form the NGF, just didn't want to do so before bed the other night. Just need Baden for the German Empire thing.

If you haven't formed NGF yet you should do it asap, that oughta increase your influence gain over Baden by a good bit (since the bonus from your strength vs theirs will get a lot bigger). Do you already have Alsace-Lorraine?

I didn't think I lost that many guys in wars, but I have been in 4 wars already. I think the soldier slider is set kind of low though, I'll check that out.

Yeah, if your military slider is below 50% soldiers start demoting pretty rapidly. It's best to keep it maxed if you plan on fighting many wars.

[emceng]

Don't know about Alsace. The only territory I have gained is Denmark's mainland stuff, and two states from Austria - oh and some minor that I conquered right away. Not really anything more towards France. All the Germanic states are in my sphere except Austria and Baden.

[IcedT]

Don't know about Alsace. The only territory I have gained is Denmark's mainland stuff, and two states from Austria - oh and some minor that I conquered right away. Not really anything more towards France. All the Germanic states are in my sphere except Austria and Baden.

Yeah, Alsace is one of the German Empire cores you need to get. You're gonna have to take it from France.

[Vaniver]

So, I got this recently because the economic system sounds a lot like a system I started designing a while ago; so far, I'm mostly still floundering.

I think my least favorite thing at the moment is that there isn't really a country I want to start as. Great Britain is awesome but so massively huge it's just unwieldy- I get the feeling I'll pretty much have to put everything on automation. Besides the UK, there are only a few countries that even start off with any industry- and while there are a lot of fun things you can do with the US I don't particularly enjoy the threat of an impending civil war. It almost seems worthwhile to release the CSA as soon as that's an option.

Also, how long is it normally until you can actually enact some reforms? I don't think I've ever had more than 10% of my upper house in favor of reforms.

[TheStrongest]

So, I got this recently because the economic system sounds a lot like a system I started designing a while ago; so far, I'm mostly still floundering.

I think my least favorite thing at the moment is that there isn't really a country I want to start as. Great Britain is awesome but so massively huge it's just unwieldy- I get the feeling I'll pretty much have to put everything on automation. Besides the UK, there are only a few countries that even start off with any industry- and while there are a lot of fun things you can do with the US I don't particularly enjoy the threat of an impending civil war. It almost seems worthwhile to release the CSA as soon as that's an option.

Also, how long is it normally until you can actually enact some reforms? I don't think I've ever had more than 10% of my upper house in favor of reforms.

Well, the economic system IMO is in favor of protectionist, Keynesian policies. If you get a liberal party in power that supports laissez-faire economics, in most nations your factories will shutter and there's nothing you can do about it. I believe this has been corrected to some extent in post-vanilla version updates though. If you want a country that isn't hard to manage and has some starting industry, try Prussia, Netherlands, or Belgium.

I've played the US many times, and survived the Civil War every time. Don't recruit a lot of units from Southern cities; that way, the CSA will have less troops to start with.

If I recall correctly, you can only enact 1 reform every 1 month, regardless of how many in your house are in favor of them.

[IcedT]

As a rule of thumb, you need to have high militancy in order to push through reforms quickly, unless your upper house is majority Liberal for political reforms or Socialist/Communist for social ones (I think Fascist parties also generally favor social reforms, but they'll try to roll back political ones).

I've actually had a lot of fun playing as Japan. They start off with pretty high literacy and a homogenous population in a pretty quiet neighborhood, so they're a good country to learn the ropes on. Since they're populous and educated, you can reach Great Power status pretty quickly once you westernize.

Well, the economic system IMO is in favor of protectionist, Keynesian policies. If you get a liberal party in power that supports laissez-faire economics, in most nations your factories will shutter and there's nothing you can do about it. I believe this has been corrected to some extent in post-vanilla version updates though.

The stutter comes from the fact that factories start shedding employees, slashing production, and sometimes shutting down en masse, and the recovery happens in such a haphazard manner that gains are slow as hell. All you gain with Laissez-Faire policy is a reduction in the cost for Capitalists to build factories, at the expense of giving up all influence and control over what your economy does. The end result is you get a big increase in the number of factories built/expanded and an equally big increase in the number of factories that immediately fail. Unless you already have a very large pool of Capitalists and Craftsmen, it does you more harm than good. It also tends to come bundled with Free Trade, meaning you can't even try to prop your industry up with tariffs.

I've generally done best with Interventionism, but subsidizing everything is just a good way to wreck your budget, and State Capitalism is really only worth it in countries that don't have enough Capitalists to industrialize independently anyway (since it does raise a pretty significant cost barrier against opening factories). Planned Economy: good God, so much micro. I don't know how people do it.

[TheStrongest]

I've actually had a lot of fun playing as Japan. They start off with pretty high literacy and a homogenous population in a pretty quiet neighborhood, so they're a good country to learn the ropes on. Since they're populous and educated, you can reach Great Power status pretty quickly once you westernize.

I second this. Japan is fun to play as. It presents the challenge of Westernization, but the Meiji Restoration decision makes it easier to accomplish than say, an African country like Sokoto. Definitely a good choice for those not familiar with uncivilized nations.

I've generally done best with Interventionism, but subsidizing everything is just a good way to wreck your budget, and State Capitalism is really only worth it in countries that don't have enough Capitalists to industrialize independently anyway (since it does raise a pretty significant cost barrier against opening factories). Planned Economy: good God, so much micro. I don't know how people do it.

I have on occasion been able to afford subsidizing all of my factories. This is partly out of laziness; as long as I'm not going into the red, I leave them on. This probably isn't the best way to improve your industries, since weaning them off that government teat is what you ultimately want. Plus, it'll only work in countries that have the money to spend.

So far, I've never gotten a planned economy and I loath all the micromanagement.

[emceng]

Ok, haven't played this in a few months. Basically the economic portion was too confusing, so didn't stick it out. Tried the demo for Crusader Kings 2 last night. It was interesting, but didn't grab me that much. I like the idea, but had a hard time getting into it. Anyone try it out?

[Vaniver]

Ok, haven't played this in a few months. Basically the economic portion was too confusing, so didn't stick it out. Tried the demo for Crusader Kings 2 last night. It was interesting, but didn't grab me that much. I like the idea, but had a hard time getting into it. Anyone try it out?

I bought CK2 and I've enjoyed it quite a bit. I think it may be the first Paradox game I bought because I liked the premise and then actually liked the game.

The main thing to realize about it is that the game is a dynasty management game, which means it's a people management game. It doesn't matter how awesome your martial skill is or how big your army is- if you don't have a claim to the Scottish throne, you can't become king of Scotland. And so much of the game is spent managing your relationships with your vassals, neighbors, and family, trying to get your hands on (and then pursue) as many claims as possible. There have been a few moments when I've cackled at pulling off a plot, and those alone were worth the price of admission.

Two of the things that were dissatisfying about Victoria 2 were that the population was split into so many different classes that there was no personal attachment, and there were so many resources it was difficult to ensure that your economic engine was functioning as it should be. Here, both problems are solved- each region has one person in charge of it, with relationships with other people (and other hangers-on, of course), and the resources are just gold, prestige, piety, and levies.

But if you don't like the idea of scheming so that your son can become King of France, I wouldn't recommend CK2. The military tactics and strategy both seem fairly weak compared to other strategy games.

[emceng]

Thanks! I do prefer military stuff, but I might give this a shot.

I guess I was confused by a few things in the demo. Offhand - I didn't really understand the plots/intrigues. In the demo I played the son of the king of the Byzantine Empire. Some plots made sense(kill dad, bro, sis - as I would assume that would gain me more political power). Others I didn't get. 'Kill Baron xxxxx(some random Coutier)'. Ummm, ok?

Also, do you have a suggested starting country? Something medium sized. Big enough to have things to do and not get crushed, but small enough it isn't overwhelming.

[Vaniver]

Plots to see someone dead are essentially cheap, extra successful assassinations, but you need friends (and either a high intrigue or a lot of friends). I'm not sure how it decides who you can plot against. He was probably either in your way for something or your character had a low opinion of him.

I've pretty much only played as William the Conqueror. England is nice, and his personal stats rock. You have to make a loot of decisions before you unpause the game, though, and so I don't recommend him. Any of the kingdoms in Spain will have a manageable starting territory and a lot of action- they all have claims on each other's thrones, and can declare Holy Wars on the Muslims (or have Holy Wars declared on them) with no provocation (besides being an infidel).

[emceng]

Cool, thanks.

I did find it quite amusing during the demo that when I tried to assisinate my father, he pretty much told me "I know about your plot to kill XXX(him). Please stop."

[Vaniver]

Cool, thanks.

I did find it quite amusing during the demo that when I tried to assisinate my father, he pretty much told me "I know about your plot to kill XXX(him). Please stop."

When your spymaster discovers a plot in your realm, you have grounds to arrest the person leading it- or you can just ask them to end it.

You also can notice people joining plots- but responding to them is a little bugged. The way it should work is you ask them to stop backing the plot, and they either say yes or no (and then you can arrest them for refusing). But if they're guaranteed to refuse, you can't offer them the option of refusing, because of how the diplomacy system works (you can't make doomed requests), meaning you can almost never arrest them because they refused.

[emceng]

Well I bought the full game last night, and started at the King of Leon.

So far random thoughts - a touch unhappy with some of the choices. Was unfaithful, but didn't have the option of not being so. Also kind of got stuck into being celibate. The opposite choices weren't great, and with only 1 kid I'm a touch worried about succession - especially after one of my a-hole brothers tried to assassinate the kid.

Combat - a little annoyed by this. Or mainly the seige thing. My one opponent kept raising 4 man armies, and yet my 600 man army would lose 5 guys to them each time? WTF?

Also spent most of the game at war. 1st, Castille called me to action. Pretty much said f-it, and didn't send troops. Then my one noble rebelled. Had to freaking get mercenaries to put that down because between the two provinces that went, I couldn't beat their troops.

Then Galicia called me to help them against 2 sets of Muslims. Again had to frigging get mercenaries because they had so many troops.

End result of being at war the whole time? I spent a shit-ton of cash. Ok, I kept my realm together in one of those, but I got nothing out of the other wars. Couldn't seem to find a way to make peace with the Muslim countries, despite me occupying half their territory. Maybe because Galicia was heading the war.

Going to maybe try conquering Galicia tonight, once my troop levels recover. Have a cassus belli, so why not.

Still not 100% clear on plots and such. Feel like there are just a ton of people out there, and I don't know who is who enough to care about their plots.

[Vaniver]

Combat - a little annoyed by this. Or mainly the seige thing. My one opponent kept raising 4 man armies, and yet my 600 man army would lose 5 guys to them each time? WTF?

Did it tell you you lost, or did the siege just reset?

One of the wrinkles with sieges is that you have to take over each barony, one at a time. So sieging a county is really four different sieges, which takes a while, and you can see that you've taken over a barony by your flag showing up in the center of the barony picture.

Also, yeah; fighting other people's wars is not very good for you. I tend to just accept calls to arms and then not actually help, but that may be more difficult if you're next to the people at war.

[emceng]

Combat - a little annoyed by this. Or mainly the seige thing. My one opponent kept raising 4 man armies, and yet my 600 man army would lose 5 guys to them each time? WTF?

Did it tell you you lost, or did the siege just reset?

.

I wasn't losing the seige or anything, I just think it's ludicrous that when I outnumber the enemy 150 to 1 I am losing 5 guys in battle. It was also super annoying that I got hit by a bunch of events during that particular seige and lost a ton of guys. It was putting down a rebellion, and I lost 15+% of my army due to sorties, bandits, etc. Which greatly weakened my army, contributing to my loss to the other revolting army, causing me to need mercs to put down the rebellion.