The Sick Man of Europe; FriedIce Fails to Play Victoria II

[FriedIce]

Welcome to Victoria II. It's a game about Imperialism and Industrialisation.

But mostly Imperialism.


Can you feel the White Man's burden yet?

Welcome to the world of 1836. 'Why 1836?' I hear you ask. Well, I've no idea.

We have a choice of who to play as. Shall we be Prussia and spend the game kicking around France? Play as the UK and go full White Man's burden on Asia? Do a Russia run and spend decades grinding our way to industrialisation before scaring the daylights out of everyone unfortunate enough to be our neighbour?

We could play as Spain an- no. Let's play as the Ottomans. Or as I like to call them; 'Ottoblob'.


They were really easy to play as in EUIV. How hard can it be?

This is our starting situation. A few things jump out, firstly seven percent literacy?! Russia starts with 10% literacy. Russia. How do I have a worse literacy than Russia? There are Uncivs with higher literacy than me, and not just Japan. Oman has a higher starting literacy. 7% for a European nation is true trash tier.

The reason I care about this, for the uninitiated is because Literacy basically decides my tech progression rate. Additionally, some pop types aren't unlocked until certain levels of literacy (40% for clerks and 20% for capitalists - I think).

Secondly, apparently I'm at war. With... Tripoli. Well a quick look tells me that they're an uncivilised nation, so their military will be trash which I shouldn't have a problem with.


Fancy a smoke?

A quick look at my RGOs (what goods my provinces produce for the uninitiated) shows me a set which... actually isn't bad. I honestly didn't know that Tobacco grew in the Balkans but I've got a lot of Timber, some Coal and a bit of Iron. And a lot of wheat - which means liquor factories!

I can't comment on Anatolia because I forgot to check it. I'm sure it's fine though.


Wow the Liberals are trash

A quick jaunt over to the Politics page shows me that first, for an autocratic absolute monarchy I have a surprising number of political reforms, and second that my reactionary government is completely typical of reactionaries. But that's fine, a State Capitalist, Jingoist, Protectionist party suits me just fine at this point. I'll probably move to Conservative later so I don't need to keep building railroads manually.

I'm never going to play as the Liberals despite the Full citizenship because Pacifism is a terrible ideology in game and will get my troops murdered.


pictured; the only reason I ever use the pop tab

A look at the Population tab. This will be the last look at it in this game because I'm only ever going to use it to cycle through clergy national focuses until I'm at ~3.5% nationally (because it increases literacy), and then to promote craftsmen/clerks/capitalists for industrialisation.


just why?

I glance at my military and I find that its full of irregulars.

Why?

Irregulars are the infantry unit for uncivilised nations and Infantry cut through them like a hot knife through butter.

They're the troops that Tripoli's army (which I was confident I could tear through - because irregulars are trash) is going to be made up of.

Suddenly I'm actually slightly worried about that war.

Also, Cuirassars? Why would anyone ever build Cuirassars? They've got recon (the only reason you build Cavalry) so I'm just going to have to use them as extremely expensive infantry.

At least I've got canon. Canon solves all manner of problems. Not much, but that's a problem I can solve later.


ohh. wow.

Into the Diplomacy menu and a look around my fellow Great Powers finds that the only one prepared to be my ally is... The UK.

niceeeee

The UK's actually kindof a terrible ally from what I've seen because it's stretched over the entire globe and it can never contribute enough troops to any theatre to be relevant. Except India, but no one (other than maybe me) is going to be fighting the UK in India. That said, it's normally the #1 Great Power and that will (hopefully) be enough to keep Russia from trying to kick my teeth in.

A lot of my early game is going to be focussed on making sure Russia doesn't kick my teeth in from what I know of history. So, I'll take it


omnomnom, plurality

My first choice is obviously Ideological Thought for the extra Plurality (every 1% of plurality is an extra 1% research rate) and for the National Focus which will let me promote even more clergymen.

I've seen some people online arguing for beelining Medicine at the start for the compound population increase, and the Tactics technology is probably a good pick for Prussia (or other warlike nations). But my first technology is going to be investing for more research.


insolvency here i come!

Finally the budget. Which is a lot worse than the glance at the budget window made it look.

My aim here is to have enough money coming in so that I can max my spends on Education (for extra literacy), Administration (because it increases my tax take) and finally on Military Supply and Soldiers. Later I'll want to decrease my tariffs to zero to make my factories more profitable.


thank lord I can't buy enough stuff to actually supply my navy

Increasing all my taxes and tariffs to maximum and getting rid of my navy spend lets me increase my Administration spend to max. Well it doesn't, but it reduces the deficit slightly which will have to do!

And with that I can finally unpause the game...

 

[FriedIce]

With the game unpaused, the first thing to do is to sort out my war in Tripoli.


such trash

I have 12 thousand men in the Tripoli theatre, made up of 6 thousand irregulars (terrible) and 6 thousand cavalry (ok). It's hardly the Prussian army, but for Tripoli it should do.

The cavalry, who are actually decent, will be used as a roving force to crush Tripoli's armies in detail whilst the irregulars act as a siege force.


turns out you can justify wars with 100 relations. who knew?

Meanwhile I get to work ensuring I'm spending any possible infamy reductions by getting ready to justify the conquest of Tunis. Why? Because imperialism.

Mostly though, I know that if I don't take Tunis then someone else will and I don't need the French any stronger on my border, thanks. In terms of actual profitability Tunis isn't that great, it's only got Grain, Wool and Fruit RGOs,it's just a low hanging fruit.


just get on the boat kev.

In preparation for my war against Tunis, and an army of more than just pockets of 3k irregulars I ship over some actually decent troops and, most importantly, artillery.

This feels like a good time for me to go on a tangent about different types of troops. I've found (probably because I'm lazy) that you can get through most of the game using only three types of troops: infantry, a cavalry unit with recon (I prefer Hussars) and artillery. Therefore, these are the only troops I'm ever going to build.

The Ottomans start off with all sorts of stuff. Normally, I'd delete and rebuild for consistency, but I honestly don't have the money. So I'm just going to throw them at the fire and see what emerges. And then throw what emerges at the fire again.

Eventually I'll have my consistent hussar/infantry/artillery armies.


ahh finally minions- i mean allies

Ethiopia and Yemen both offer me alliances (and the UK accepts my offer). Honestly, I'm inclined to accept Ethiopia's offer, they're next door to Egypt and whilst, long term, I absolutely intend to conquer my way south through Ethiopia for that African colonialism it can wait until I've dealt with Egypt.

Yemen can go hang though.


you thought i was joking about insolvency?

I've noticed I'm about to run out of money because of what I assume is either an economic crash or just a change in global prices so I cut my Administrative spend (never a good idea) and try to promote Bureaucrats to make up for it. (it didn't really work)

Victoria II does this, you'll be flying high one moment making hundreds a day and then your surplus will tank and you'll be losing a thousand a day. I think it's supposed to simulate the regular economic booms and crashes of the Victorian era.

Normally, you have a choice about how you balance the books; you can ride it out on your savings (which I have none of), you can cut your military (I'm in the middle of a war and Russia is scary), you can raise taxes (already at max), you can cut education (I'm already barely spending anything on it) or you can cut Administration (do not suggest).

Cutting Administration is my last choice because it cuts into your tax take later if you cut it for anything more than a month or so and it craters your crime fighting ability - something I've no idea what it does but sounds important.


grasping at straws

In a further effort to save costs I disband all my European irregulars. It doesn't really help.


badboy badboy wat you gonna d- wars of containment, that's what

My war justification to conquer Tunis got discovered and I ended up with 8 infamy which is around six and a half years of peace to get rid of. Which isn't so bad, mostly because Victoria has plenty to do even in peace - like INDUSTRIALISE!

It gets really frustrating when you're eating 22 infamy a piece to eat a one province minor though, because that's more like 18 years.

Don't ever let your infamy go over 25 unless you can take all of your neighbours at the same time. The only time I've been confident enough to do it was as an industrialising China.


deploy the imperial guard!

The Guards arrive and because I'm getting impatient with the sieges I deploy them to help whilst also posing imperiously on Tunis's border in a vaguely threatening manner.


i have a cunning plan

I realised that I forgot to set up my Great Power dickwaving (otherwise known as spheres of influence) before unpausing so I'm doing it now. I'm going to make a play for sphereing Persia. I probably won't be successful because it's trivial for Russia to sphere them but I could get lucky.

I don't actually know if there's any benefit to having countries in your sphere this early beyond dickwaving and the ability to say 'no fuck off, i'll fite you' if someone war decs on them.


Imperialism Ho!

And the justification for war has finished. From now I have one year to the day to declare war on Tunis.

I should be finished up with Tripoli by then.

looks at how fast the sieges are going

Probably.