Paradox Interactive Games Thread

[Bacon King]

Paradox Development Studios creates excellent games in a niche genre called "grand strategy games" which are very popular among atlas forum posters. Affectionately called "map painting simulators" by fans, the games involve you controlling a nation/civilization/etc throughout a certain historical period, interacting with the game world primarily through the world map itself.

Here's a list of the current "generation" of games, sorted chronologically by setting.

Imperator (Ancient Rome): 304 BC to 27 BC
Crusader Kings II (769 to 1452): control a noble dynasty through the middle ages!
Europa Universalis IV (1444 to 1821): control your nation with war, diplomacy, colonization, trade, religion, and more: this game has it all!
Victoria II (1836 to 1921): the focus on politics and the economy fits well here, in a game focused on the industrial revolution and the drastic change it thrust upon society!
Hearts of Iron IV (1936 to 1951?): World war two! This one naturally the most focused on war and the military
Stellaris (THE FUTURE!) a new twist on the formula, set in a future of interstellar exploration in a randomly generated galaxy!

I'll add so much more to this OP later but ask any of us if you have questions about what to buy or how to do something.

Also Paradox games all have large communities of game modders so there's a LOT of great mods out there in addition to the vanilla experience

[Bacon King]

I loved HOI 1 and 2 and played both games to death for years, but I couldn't get used to the learning curve in HOI3. After the failure of HOI3, I never bothered to get into HOI 4

HOI 3 is easily the worst game that paradox has ever made. HOI 4 is very much a spiritual successor to 2 in terms of the core mechanics (as in it's an actual strategy war game and not an annoying logistics micromanagement simulator)

If you really liked 2 but don't want to take a risk on the new game, though, I definitely recommend Darkest Hour. It was a licensed fan-made game that basically took HOI 2 and gave it a comprehensive update, a lot of cool new features, great quality of life improvements, and the modding community is still fairly active for it (DH Kaisserreich is absolutely amazing)

[Bacon King]

victoria 3 confirmed



I want to believe!!!

I've been hoping for Victoria 3 for years!

I'm actually very hopeful it will be announced at this year's Paradox Con (May 18-20). They've already announced the next CK2 DLC is going to be the last one, and that's going to free up a lot of developers for a new project!

[Bacon King]

my steam game time

Crusader Kings II: 863 hours
Europa Universalis IV: 843 hours
Victoria II: 428 hours
Europa Universalis III: 363 hours
Victoria: Revolutions 79 hours*
Stellaris: 74 hours
Darkest Hour: 39 hours
Arsenal of Democracy: 7 hours
Hearts of Iron IV: 0 hours (I bought it at the Steam Winter sale but haven't tried it yet)

*I bought Hearts of Iron 1 & 2 and the original Victoria + Revolutions in stores when they first came out and spent several hundred hours playing each when I was younger that's not recorded here


also I'm changing the title, I don't want anyone to mistakenly get their hopes up thinking the free CK2 offer is still available

[Bacon King]

The splitting of your lands among your various sons can be frustrating.  It's often pretty easy to just declare war on the younger son right away as he usually gets the lesser counties and duchies.  Sometimes (I think if they are really weak) they will accept a Vassilization (sp?) right away, but rarely.  Just don't spend a lot of coin upgrading your sh**t in the counties you will be losing, especially as your charterer gets older.

A very underappreciated strategy is to adopt seniority succession if primogeniture is out of reach. Primogeniture is only available after the third Legalism tech but seniority is always available if your religion/culture/govt type allows it. Your holdings all stay together and your heir will always be a member of your dynasty. Also if other branches of your family also hold their own titles, seniority succession makes it very easy to combine their land with yours

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this is just my personal experience but the game became so much more immersive when it clicked for me just how important character traits are. They aren't just stat modifiers, they determine entirely how every AI character acts (and it's all surprisingly intuitive, too)

a few examples: a brave and ambitious vassal will be the one leading the faction to overthrow you.  An envious and greedy council member will be the one who steals money from you. A trusting, content wife will almost never catch you cheating on her. A gregarious and gluttonous drunkard will definitely be the guy who accidentally tells everyone about your secret assassination plot.

A character's particular combination of traits lets you know their entire personality. Once I realized that, individual characters stood out so much more for me and I even started to notice emergent storytelling

[Bacon King]

Is it even possible to "take over the world" in a Civ kind of way?

check out this ironman Byzantium game I've been playing on-and-off for a few months now - I've accomplished all this in a mere 150 years! Still another five centuries left before the game ends so I have plenty of time to conquer the rest of the world

(right click and open in new tab to see bigger pictures)


My marriage politics were so lucky, with Charlemagne's great-grandson and sole remaining heir a member of my dynasty




I took the necessary steps to inherit all those kingdoms from him




my empire, 864




my empire, 906




my RESTORED ROMAN EMPIRE, 923




religious map




cultural map




lots of merchant republic vassals = $$$$$$$

[Bacon King]

that's all very impressive, it's hard for me to get past Wales.   What's the deal with </Sienfeld> the Iconoclast bit?  I'm guessing cool new options like this become available if you're in control of Rome?

it's an Orthodox heresy in-game (here's the wiki article about the irl Byzantine Iconoclasm) in the earliest start date the Emperor is Iconoclast but usually converts back to vanilla Orthodoxy fairly quickly since most of his lands and vassals are still Orthodox. In this run I remained Iconoclast so I could get a lot of mileage out of the religious title revocation law (e.g. I could freely steal titles from all my vassals who were still Orthodox)

[Bacon King]

Has anyone played as a Zoroastrian? Now that I have the DLC allowing it I want to check it out, but it appears there's only one notable such country (Karen, located north of modern day Iran, around modern day Turkmenistan), and I've read it's quite difficult because you're surrounded by powerful Muslim neighbors who love to holy war.

It's easier to play Zoroastrian if you use the 769 or 867 start dates (if you have the relevant DLC) because much more of them are still around. Also it's usually smart to practice Zoroastrianism in secret for a while while publicly professing to be Muslim (again, if you have the relevant DLC) so you have some breathing room to consolidate your land and stuff. It's challenging to play as Zoroastrians but it feels so awesome to reinstate the high priest -- and of course there's also the hilarious/weird mechanic of marrying siblings for opinion bonuses from everyone

[Bacon King]

Also, let me make an open offer here, valid for CK2 and EU4

If you are uncertain about purchasing a DLC and want a free "demo" to try it before you buy it, just let me know and I can make it happen.

In a multiplayer game as long as the host owns a DLC, all players have it even if they don't own it themselves. I own every DLC for both games because I have more money than sense. PM me or just let me know here and we can arrange a short MP game I'll host where you can play around with the pay-only features to see if it's worth the money or not.

I play these games all the time anyway so it wouldn't be any sort of inconvenience to me

[Bacon King]

I bought CK2 for free on Steam a few weeks ago but I still have not played it. It seems different from all the other grand strategy games I have played in the past like HOI, Victoria and EU. I figured CK2 was pretty much the same as EU4, but set in a different timeline. I have read more about CK2 and the weird ruler system it has, it seems kind of intimating. I have zero idea how that ruling dynasty stuff works. I want a change from EU4, but the learning curve is going to be tough. It was very easy to jump from HOI to Victoria, then Victoria to EU4.

if you could figure out Victoria you'll have zero problem figuring out CK2. Everything is much simpler in practice than it probably sounds on paper. The general concepts are fairly intuitive and if you're not sure about the details of something just hover the mouse over it because the tooltips explain everything

[Bacon King]

I have not played Victoria.

Vicky 2 is notorious for being by far the most impenetrable and difficult-to-learn Paradox game. I've spent 463 hours playing Victoria II and I love the game but still have no idea what I'm doing half the time. Mikado is one of the very few people in the world who fully understands the game in and out and I find myself asking him questions regularly whenever I play

here are three interface tabs to show you the insane complexity

[Bacon King]

Is there any way to slow down/stop/reverse cultural conversion.

in CK2? are you asking in general or is there a particular culture you're trying to stop/keep (some have special properties)


In general yes. The most important thing is that your character needs to have the culture you want everything to be. If your ruler is a different culture and you want to switch back, the easiest way to do so is to move your capital to a county with the culture you want to have. Then when you right click on your character portrait there will be an option to adopt that culture, at the cost of some prestige. If that's not feasible you can change your heir's culture if they're tutored by someone with the culture you want them to have (if you have Conclave DLC make sure you use the heritage focus)

Once your character has the culture you want everything to have, you can begin. The counties you directly control will automatically convert to your culture over time. This conversion is faster if you have high stewardship. It's also faster in counties adjacent to a county that already has your culture (whether you control it or not).

If you have vassals at count level or higher (i.e. who control entire counties) then you need them to have the same culture as you if you want it to spread in their territory. If a vassal likes you then you can use the "assign guardian" diplomatic action on them and have their children to be tutored by someone in your court. Children will sometimes adopt the culture of their guardian. The longer they raise the child, the more likely it is to happen. It's more likely to happen for kids younger than 12 (if you have the Conclave DLC make sure you set their education focus to "heritage" to make sure they'll culture convert). If possible you should pick "diligent" and/or "gregarious" guardians because both traits double the chance their ward adopts their culture.

Like I said though some cultures behave in a different way. Some cultures will shift to new cultures over time on their own. Norse splits into Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish based on location; Frankish converts to French; Lombard converts to Italian, just to list a few examples. Some "melting pot" cultures will also be created and spread when a ruler of certain cultures rule land of certain other cultures. Here are two related examples: when a Norse ruler has French counties in his demesne then it creates the Norman culture; when a Norman ruler owns Anglo-Saxon lands then it creates the English culture.

These "natural" cultural shifts are much harder to prevent but there is a way. I don't know all the details but it requires either a King or the head of a religion (e.g. the Pope or the Caliph) to still cling to the old culture after a certain amount of time has passed. I'm sure the CKII wiki has all the information you need to know.


summary:

1. Make sure your character's culture is the one you want to have
2. Educate your family and your vassals' families with guardians of that culture
3. If you have the Conclave DLC make sure you're using the heritage focus
4. Just make sure everyone who owns land is the culture you want the land to have because land naturally shifts to the culture of its direct owner - and it happens faster for rulers with high stewardship
5. this process is usually easy and applies for any culture shifting you'd want to do - but it's much more difficult if you're trying to keep one of the cultures that are supposed to shift into something else over time. The vast majority of these cultures only exist in the 769 and 867 start dates

[Bacon King]

Heads up everyone! there's a huge Steam sale, all Paradox games and DLC are 50% off

I always wait until these sales to buy new DLC, it's so much more affordable this way

[Bacon King]

I need to get some DLC for CK2, any suggestions outside of the character builder one which I'm already planning on getting.  It would be nice to play as the Mongolians and/or start in 866(?) instead of 1066.  And I think vanilla limited the mod choices I had, but it's been a month or so since I looked and it was just the once.  I'd look now, but I'm at work and the DoD frowns on installing Steam on thier networks for some reason.

okay so I'm definitely late in replying to this! Shortly after you posted this I began typing a response but something came up so I saved what I had written in a wordpad file on my desktop. I just rediscovered it, saw your question was still unanswered, so I took the time to finish it. It's longer than I meant it to be but I hope it helps: here's what I consider to be the four tiers of CK2 DLC.

Very Essential DLC: these add to the game in important ways, adding features that greatly enhance your experience in every single game you play

Way of Life: the character focus system adds an entirely new dimension to gameplay with soooo much new content. The ten focus areas are fun ways to 'specialize' your characters, for lack of a better word, Adding tons of variety and gives you so much more to do. Adds so much replayability; does more than anything else to make every game unique and every character distinct.

Conclave: Internal/domestic politics become not just relevant, but a crucial part of the game. Your interactions with both your vassals and your liege matter, no longer treated as an afterthought. There's tons of depth in how you handle your own council AND what you get to do as a member of your liege's council. Realm laws are reworked. The system of childhood education is also greatly improved, allowing you to meaningfully influence your children's education.

Legacy of Rome: The improvements to Byzantium are nice but there's one reason this DLC is so important: RETINUES! You get to train an elite professional corps to bolster your normal army of levies which adds so much versatility to combat and warfare. It's pricetag is usually $5 but during sales you can buy it for two bucks. It's definitely worth $2 to access such a helpful feature that's useful in any game situation.

Cool and Good DLC: While these DLC don't fundamentally transform major parts of the game, these are generally worth the money for any CK2 player. No matter your play style, no matter where on the map you are, they add interesting and enjoyable new stuff to do and play around with. If any of these just don't sound like your thing, though, none of them really add anything essential to the game so you'll be fine skipping these.

The Old Gods: The 867 start date is great (the most popular start date in the game, according to polls on the CK2 subreddit). The Old Gods lets you play as any pagan character (except for nomads), so that's the focus of most of the new content. You don't need fancy "claims" to conquer your neighbors, you can take it just because you want it! You can send soldiers raiding in foreign lands to pillage the countryside and steal all their gold & women. You can force captured women to be your concubines, and you can sacrifice any prisoner to your pagan gods. It's especially fun to be a Viking because you can conquer coastal counties anywhere in range, letting you spread far and wide, and you have a special once-in-a-lifetime coastal invasion CB to carve out an entire kingdom for yourself to rule wherever you decide to settle down. In the right circumstances you can reform your pagan religion, centralizing it, giving it a formal religious head, and putting you on even footing with the established religions like Christianity and Islam. But while this stuff is cool, it's really only for playing as a pagan. Why do I consider it universally good then? The 867 start date. It's just that good. No matter where you're playing the map is just as detailed and filled out as the 1066 date but it's a different experience entirely and much more fun. Western Europe for example is split among six kingdoms of roughly equal size split among the various heirs of Charlemagne. Very different from the usual "BIG FRANCE, BIG BIG BIG HRE"

Reaper's Due: Greatly expands the system of disease -- you no longer just get "ill", you get specific symptoms showing up until they progress into a diagnosed illness. You have a court physician who can try to heal you ... though sometimes cures can have some nasty side effects. You can build hospitals which, in addition to limiting the spread of epidemics, can also expand it to get a variety of bonuses. The Black Death becomes something that actually matters, something to fear, you may be able to save your court by sealing the gates of your castle (assuming you don't run out of food) but serious epidemics can leave your lands depopulated for generations. There's a new system that tracks how prosperous/devastated each province is, causing various effects, and your actions impact it in various ways. Also you get a quest chain that lets you search for immortality -- while risky and unlikely to succeed, if you do pull it off your character will never die of natural causes, allowing you to possibly live forever (or at least until everyone starts hating you once they realize you're some kind of demon that's lived for centuries). Lots of fun stuff in this DLC.

Monks and Mystics: The big addition here is SOCIETIES! You can join quite a few groups that can each be fun and entertaining. You might want to join a holy order, or perhaps the learning-focused Hermetic Society, or maybe the infamous Assassins? You can publicly profess one faith while secretly worshiping something else in private -- and you can join secret cults dedicated to privately spreading your true faith, undermining the unbelievers from the inside! Or hey, you could become a Satanist, making sacrifices for unholy powers, casting evil curses on your enemies, kill your children to steal their life force to prolong your own life. Of course these evil powers come with a terrible cost, corrupting your body, mind, and soul. Also featured in this DLC is new actions available for each member of your council -- including sending your court chaplain out to hunt heretics, burning witches and satanists at the stake. Very interesting experience.

Situational DLC: These are the DLC that you might want to buy immediately or you might ignore completely. While each of these include some new features that you can use no matter where you play, the vast majority of the content is focused on specific types of characters (specific religions, regions, governments, etc). If these features sound appealing to you then definitely buy them but don't waste your money on something if you're never going to use it. Also, just a note -- I would have considered "The Old Gods" a situational DLC, except for the new start date it includes. The 867 start makes it worth the money even if you never once play a pagan.

Charlemagne: Okay, this one's going to require a lot of explanation. The main feature here is the 769 start date and includes story events related to the rise of Charlemagne and establishment of the Carolignian Empire. It can be fun and it does provide a totally new experience, however in general the 769 start date has quite a few shortcomings. Personally I like 769 but I understand why a lot of fans disagree with me. The world seems "unpolished", not quite entirely finished. Far too many counts are lonely nobodies with randomly generated stats. If you aren't playing as a known historical figure (or at least an ahistorical member of a historical dynasty, put in there to fill gaps in the historical record) then odds are, you won't be married, you will have few if any courtiers with you, and you'll usually be the only member of your dynasty, no family at all; at most you'll have a single son, random stats and traits, unmarried, who apparently was a product of asexual reproduction because you're their only parent. You click to find a spouse you can marry, and you'll probably have only five or six options to chose from (so you'll probably have to settle for a randomly generated lowborn courtier once they start showing up). In much of the world the game starts you with so much more territory than you can actually hold yourself, forcing you to find/create vassals to rule it. There are counts ruling five counties even though they have a county limit of one, there are dukes directly controlling 16 counties even though their demesne limit is only three. The start date is also dominated by several large empires, who in most cases will only grow larger and larger as the game goes on. Between the Abbasids in the Middle East, the Ummayads in Spain, Charlemagne in France/Germany/usually Italy, and Byzantium in Anatolia and the Balkans,  it can be hard to build a stable realm a safe distance away from them all. (PRO-TIP: the secret to fix these insanely large empires is to select the option to increase revolt sizes-- x2 is usually enough to prevent out-of-control expansion, but x4 or x6 is necessary if you want a chance to see these huge empires to actually break apart. Doing this is hilarious and great). A token feature not related to the 769 start date is the ability to create Custom Kingdoms and Custom Empires. Basically if you control enough territory and have enough prestige, you get to create your own higher title (so you aren't forced to fit arbitrary borders to create new kingdoms or empires). all duchies you hold become de jure vassals of your new custom kingdom, and all kingdom titles you hold become the de jure vassals of a newly created empire.

Horse Lords: This one's all about the nomads of the steppes. Allows you to play them and gives them their own unique government system. Token feature also available to non-nomads is the ability to build trading posts along the Silk Road, which can provide very lucrative economic boosts to the county they're in.

Swords of Islam: This DLC allows you to play as Muslims and gives them their own unique government system.

The Republic: This DLC allows you to play as Merchant Republics and gives them their own unique government system.

Sons of Abraham Various miscellaneous additions to the three Abrahamic faiths. Allows you to play as Jews. Creates new holy orders for every religion and gives you unique interactions with some of them. You can now jump headfirst into papal politics, handing out bribes to get your own loyal bishops elected to the College of Cardinals, and if one of the cardinals you supported gets elected Pope then he'll be very loyal to you and never refuse you when you use existing or new diplomatic actions with the pope (will give you money, free use of invasion CB, free divorces and excommunications, and you can request specific Crusade targets).

Rajas of India: This DLC allows you to play in India and as members of Eastern religions (Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism, Taoism). Access to many unique mechanics and events specific to India.

Bad DLC do not buuy

Sunset Invasion: at a random point, the Aztec Empire will suddenly show up after crossing the Atlantic and will invade Britain, France, Spain, and/or Morocco before spreading further west. They start with a larger army than even the Mongols and create an interesting ahistorical game. Allows you to play as Aztecs who have some unique events and mechanics available. Very wacky. It's surprising and exciting the very first time you use it, and it might still be fun the second time, and might still be interesting the third time. After that you'll turn it off and never use it again because it's just to insane and disruptive to normal gameplay. (your only options for the invasion are "off", "random", and "13th century or later," though CK2+, an overhaul mod of the game, has its default option for the Sunset Invasion to be a new setting, "rare", which gives the Aztec Invasion something like a 10% chance to happen at all, so it's rare enough and unexpected enough to be fun when it does happen.) Also if you have Sunset Invasion activated when you play the very popular Game of Thrones mod, it's still the Aztecs who show up but they ride dragons and it's hilarious


This ended up being like three times as long as I intended it to be lol but I hope it helps you and anyone else who is curious about what DLC to get.

find more info here: https://ck2.paradoxwikis.com/Downloadable_content

[Bacon King]

So question, now that I've established the Empire of Brittania as a Germanic pagan (reformed, it was reformed by the King of Denmark), is it easy to convert to Islam? I think that would be a fun twist to the game, especially as the British Isles are now basically half Catholic/half Germanic. Just expanding the Germanic Church is kind of boring, as would be just switching to Catholic, but converting to Islam and carrying out a Jihad in Northern Europe would be fun!

Yes! Muslim Vikings are a personal favorite of mine. I don't know if this requires any DLC but if you get a Muslim concubine you should see the option to convert to her religion (as a possible interaction with her)

[Bacon King]

Hello friends! The Holy Fury DLC is about to be released and by all accounts it looks amazing.

Furthermore here's a dank discount code for everyone to use, it allows a 75% discount on the base game as well as a 50% discount for any DLC you purchase alongside it (not counting Holy Fury)



If you don't want to buy stuff through the Paradox store for whatever reason, Steam will probably have a comparable sale as well (they always do when a new DLC drops)

[Bacon King]

also if you already own ck2 you still get 50% off any DLC you buy when you use that code

[Bacon King]

bumping this thread to point out that as of this moment, Victoria 2 will be 75% percent off for the next 23.5 hours on Steam: a mere five dollars!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/42960/Victoria_II/

Victoria 2 is a great game that I very highly recommend. The oldest of Paradox's "current" lineup of games, it's not quite as polished as you might expect if you've only played the newest generation of Paradox titles (CK2/EU4/HOI4/Stellaris) -- but it's definitely still better than any title from the previous generation, kinda partially between the current and previous generations

Victoria II has a steep learning curve at first but once you get the hang of it, it is incredibly rewarding. (I can definitely post a mini-tutorial with screenshots too, if anyone is interested). The timespan of the game runs from 1836 to 1921, an era of tremendous change: you manage your nation and its people through the industrial revolution, dramatic shifts in the global political/diplomatic landscape, the rise of nationalism and imperialism. The game's primary focuses are economic, political, and demographic. Your nation is made of POPs: groups of people who share a profession, ethnicity, and religion. In this manner, the entire population of your nation (and the whole world) is simulated.

The Victoria II players here on the Atlas forums consider it to be the most "atlas" game that's ever existed, due to its focus on literally the very issues we talk about all the time. Here's a taste of what I mean, from a few screenshots!


Election results, ideology, and demographics
These screenshots are for the United States as a whole in 1836 but you can also get this information by state, the 'provinces' that states are divided into, and at any level it can be broken down by specific employment categories. Note that the early date means many ideologies haven't been introduced yet: as the game progresses you'll see socialism, communism, fascism, etc. The possibilities are endless. Want to win the US Civil War as the Confederacy and then provoke a widespread rebellion among the slave population, who topple the government and install a communist dictatorship? You can do that!












Social and Political policies/reforms

Want to establish a welfare state, or perhaps revoke civil liberties? With the right support or the right people (which people determined by government type) you can! You can ensure the survival of an absolutist monarchy by placating the masses with exclusively social reforms. You can fuel the growth of your republican democracy's industrialization by enticing immigrants seeking a land of liberty that also offers a good education for their children. You can create a utopia for the bourgeoisie, banning unions and eliminating business regulations while restricting the vote to the wealthy to ensure it stays that way. The possibilities are limitless!









Budget Management

You have total control! Be careful about long-term deficits though because bankruptcy ruins your economy and makes you a diplomatic pariah.

Balance your priorities however you'd like (though you'll obviously have to deal with the consequences). Perhaps you want to fund a welfare state and universal education with a progressive tax against the rich. Totally an option, but then your capitalists won't have enough funds to invest in railroads and factories, That kind of cost/benefit consideration is a deep and interesting part of the game.

Maybe you want to tax the hell out of the working class and put that tax money into the military budget - which would give you the added benefit of skyrocketing enlistment, because paying your soldiers good wages while forcing your nation's laborers and farmers into extreme poverty means an army career is literally their only option for putting food on the table! But then your nation's food production will plummet without those farmers in the fields, forcing your population to buy expensive imported food; lots of people will emigrate abroad to somewhere more prosperous; and your shiny new infantry divisions will probably end up occupied anyway, suppressing the armed uprisings of all those starving peasants. just an example both of the depth of the simulation and the kinds of cost/benefit decisions you'll be making!

[Bacon King]

What's an "easy" country to learn the game with?  (I'm still thinking about getting it, but leaning towards it)

Brazil is often considered a good first nation to play as. Here's a really good "beginner's guide" that uses a game as Brazil to explain the basics of the game step by step while brushing aside the complex parts that don't necessarily matter for most countries. You can read along as you play, or trek out on your own and skim through the guide for specific concepts you're confused about:

https://lparchive.org/Victoria-II/

The USA is another nation I'd consider good for new players because it has a lot of resources and a neverending flow of immigrant arrivals (that quickly assimilate) and is isolated enough that you can futz around without ruining the playthrough no matter how much you mess up. The USA also is particularly event-driven especially in the early/mid game (in particular the Mexican-American War and the Civil War) to give you a bit of guidance. And it's not overwhelming, the pace is managed well and slowly expands over time. You start in 1836 when the country was still fairly small and it slowly grows to include a broader and broader scope as your nation becomes stronger, until it inevitably becomes an industrial powerhouse by ~1900 when you can even join in European wars and diplomatic crises if you want

[Bacon King]

Cool, just got it.

Mikado makes a very good point, the two DLC vastly improve the game (I bought all three so long ago I've forgotten entirely about the DLC). If you can get them before the sale ends, they are $5 and $10 dollars respectively. And if you miss it, just wait ten days and they'll probably be at a similar price again during the big steam holiday sale.

[Bacon King]

I don't know why I'm so bad at these games.  Played as USA in first game, did nothing for my military and did nothing to appease the slavers, so the CSA rebelled a decade before I was expecting them to and I wasn't ready...at all for it.  So the plan was to see how the early war played out and if it went bad, just let them go.  As it's playing out (and not well because I have no idea what I'm doing), Mexico decides they want Oregon.  So I make peace with the CSA and then go about getting my ass handed to me by Mexico.  So I quit and start another w/ USA, balance my tech better, and I still got my sh**t pushed in.  Not as bad, but uggg...I had the same problem with HOI4 for the first 40 games or so, just not playing well.  I suspect it's because I basically ignore large parts of the game because I don't understand them, am I supposed to be doing something in the Trade section?  'cause I'm not.  I get to like 80% liberal, but I'm still electing Democrats?

First off, Mikado definitely knows the ins and outs of the game more than me, and probably more than literally anyone else on the entire internet, so I definitely defer to anything he might have to say. That said though, let me offer some general tips (none of these are universally applicable and are far from optimized, but work well as general rules of thumb for pushing things in the right direction)

1. You can safely ignore literally everything in the "trade" section and be fine. Steam says I've played 520 hours of Victoria II and I still have no idea what half of the page even means, let alone how to properly manage it. By default it's automated by the AI. Don't unclick "automated" for anything and you'll be fine.

2. When you start a new game (or load a saved game), unpause and let the game run for about a week before doing anything related to the budget/economy/industry/etc. This is because it takes a few days for the international economy to synchronize the supply and demand of everything.

3. The two important ways to interact with your nation are national focuses and the budget. You should set these up as soon as you repause the game.

4. Putting a national focus on a state can do many things, but a good thing to do when starting a new game is to "encourage bureaucrats" and "encourage clergymen" in your more heavily populated states

5. Both of those two POP types have a specific number you'll want to hit, in terms of their share of the total population. Once you set your national focus, you can easily see this number (and the status of any other focus you've set) in the liner on the right edge of the screen. Change the focus if one of these numbers turns red -- after that point, continuing to increase the share of that POP type in that state will give no further benefits.

6. Bureaucrats determine how effectively your government is run, both nationally and within their own state. They determine your "administrative efficiency" which determines how effective your government is at doing things in your state (I don't know the full list of what it effects but it's a lot). The population share to aim for is 1.0% but you don't need to keep focusing all the way to that number in a given state because it's better to have good efficiency in many states instead of perfect efficiency in a few.

7. Clergy does three important things (but for now you only need to concern yourself with one of those things). The important thing to know right now is that they generate your research points. They also improve literacy and reduce consciousness for all POPs in their state, so keep that in mind for later. The magic number for clergy is 2.0% nationwide because they don't generate additional research beyond that point. (They continue improving literacy at a higher rate, up to 4.0%, but your starting literacy in the US is high already. 4% clergy is basically only necessary if you're playing somewhere uncivilized)

8. Like I said above, the budget is important and has a huge impact. First off, something to note is that when you make changes, they only go into effect once you close the budget screen. But now I'll post images for reference and briefly explain what each thing does and some rules of thumb



First, let's go over the expenses panel here, top to bottom. The top line is for "industrial subsidies" but don't worry about that for now.

The national stockpile is much simpler than it looks. It determines how well-maintained your military is. The first slider is for purchasing stuff the army needs, the second slider is the same but for the navy, and the third slider is for buying materials necessary for construction that you ordered (stuff like forts and ports but also manually-built railroads/factories). Maximum maintenance funding for the military is really only necessary when you’re doing things with them. If you’re at peace and your population isn’t angry then you should cut funding, but just keep in mind that for the lower you reduce funding, the longer it takes your military to become fully combat-ready when you do increase it. It’s not really a drastic difference, just don’t station your totally unfunded army right on the border with a potential enemy! The third slider only determines how long it’ll take to build stuff – you buy the same materials either way but max funding will buy as much as possible as quickly as possible, lower funding will just space out the purchases longer which helps manage your finances I guess.

Oh, also – if your budget total is wrong this is why. If the national stockpile needs something but the market supply is too low, it’ll still count the full amount here on the budget screen but you’ll only pay the actual value of what you bought. Like if you need 5 steel to build a railroad but only 1 is available on the open market, then the full price of all 5 is what’s counted here on the budget screen, but once the budget goes into effect you only pay for the amount you actually bought. So if your budget screen shows a huge deficit but afterwards see on the top of the screen you’re actually running a surplus, it’s because the “national stockpile” is trying to buy something but there’s a shortage. Only bringing this up because for years I thought the budget was somehow glitched but only recently realized what was actually happening)

Education spending determines how well your nation’s clergy are paid, whether other POPs will convert to clergy, and how effective your clergy are at doing stuff. You want this slider as far to the right as possible at the start when you’re trying to reach that 2.0% number.

Administration sets how well you pay your bureaucrats and whether other POPs will become bureaucrats. Spending as much as possible on administration is probably the most important thing to do with the budget until bureaucrats reach 1.0% of your population. BUT once you do reach that, you’ll need to reduce this slider to around 50% or 60% because once you have 100% administrative efficiency it’s just a waste of money to keep hiring more bureaucrats.

Social Spending won’t matter for a long time. No need to worry about it now. But basically once you have welfare programs, extra funding keeps the lower class content, politically apathetic and supportive of the status quo. Under-funding programs, on the other hand, makes them angry and very and opposed to the current government.

Military Spending determines how well your soldiers/officers are paid and how likely other POPs are to convert to soldiers/officers. Rule of thumb is 50% keeps the number of soldiers stable (only affected by population growth and net migration). Higher funding means other POPs convert to soldiers, lower funding means soldiers convert to other POPs. Only crank this up to 100% if you’re trying to rapidly grow your army. For your purposes anything between 50% and like 75% is fine – perhaps a bit higher after a costly war, to replace the dead and ensure there’s enough soldiers to support your current army.

Tariffs: for the first few decades (if not longer) you’ll want to keep it low, between 0% and 5%. A higher rate will hurt you more than it helps at this point. (Note that you can make the tariff negative, where you subsidize anything your POPs or factories purchase from abroad. Never do this.



Here’s taxes! In the early game you should tax the rich absolutely nothing. This is because, for most of the game, your ruling parties will have policies that allow capitalists to build factories AND keep you from building them manually. Capitalists behave like this with their money: what they have left after taxes they spend on all the goods they need/want – this is the same for all other POPs. Uniquely for capitalists, however, is that they spend the remaining money building railroads and factories. Taxing the rich means less factories, which means a weaker economy, which means less tax money for you. This is especially important when you can’t build factories of your own, which you can’t.

Don’t hesitate to tax the hell out of poor people – that should be the biggest source of your money right now. They’ll be fine, don’t worry: hover over this part of the page and you’ll see a rate of 100% will only have an “effective rate” of probably like 20%, which is how much they actually pay you. You mostly increase the effective tax rate with technologies but iirc having a higher administrative efficiency works too.

With no tax on the rich and all tax on the poor, the middle class tax rate is the only one to adjust for you right now. Ideally you’ll want it fairly low but it’s fine to raise it really high if you need more money to pay for stuff. This is especially true at the very beginning, when you’ll have both administration and education funding at ideally 100%. Clergy and bureaucrats are both in the middle class, so they’ll be getting paid well anyway, and high taxes on other middle class POPs means more convert to those jobs, too!

Finally, to move away from the budget:

9. For right now “economic policy” of the ruling party is the only thing to care about because it will heavily influence your industrial development.

Laissez-faire means you’re entirely at the whims of your nation’s capitalists. They alone decide what to build, what to upgrade, and which unprofitable factories to close (fortunately this economic policy also provides the largest boost to industrial efficiency). Capitalists can sometimes be very bad at decision-making, but the bright side is you don’t need to look at the “Production” page when you have a laissez-faire government, since there’s nothing you can do there anyway.

Interventionism gives you some influence, but capitalists still exclusively decide which factories get built. On the “Factories” tab of the Production page you can: pay to expand existing factories, pay to open factories that capitalists have closed, and you can click to give industrial subsidies to any number of factories you want. Subsidized factories will hire enough workers as possible and produce as much goods as possible regardless of current price (capitalists will incrementally hire/fire people based on profitability if it’s up to them). Also, on the “Projects” tab of Production, you can see what factories and stuff capitalists are currently raising money to build, and you can help them pay for it.

State Capitalism: Capitalists can still do all the things – but you get to build your own factories too! If you’re in a monarchy that can freely change ruling parties, it’s a great idea to pick a state capitalist party to build up your industries the way you want and then switch to one of the previous types, where capitalists are more efficient at running them.

Planned Economy: No capitalism allowed, comrade. This is a Soviet-style economy where you micromanage everything yourself. Not available until much later in the game, most of the time.

10. An easy way to manage the economy under an Interventionist economy in early game: click the green button in the upper right of the factories tab to subsize all factories by default. Periodically go to your budget screen and hover your mouse over the “industrial subsidies” line which shows you all factories you’re financially supporting, sorted by how much. Note the factories that you’re paying way too much for, then go back to the Factories page and remove the subsidies for those specific factories. Also, periodically check the Factories page and click the little + sign on factories that are in the green and close to employment capacity.

11. All army units you build are associated with one specific soldier POP. The size of that POP determines how many brigades you can build from it. When those brigades take casualties, the population in that POP decreases accordingly. Every POP has one specific culture assigned to it, so for example as the United States you can build both Yankee and Dixie units. If the symbol of a brigade turns yellow, it means the POP no longer has enough members to support all the brigades built from it (e.g. a POP of 5000 Yankee soldiers in Pittsburgh can support 3 brigades, but if the population falls to 4500 then it’s only able to support 2 with that number. All three existing brigades will continue existing but reinforcements will be slower for them). A brigade symbol turning red means the POP has fallen to less than a thousand, too low to support even a single brigade. When you pick troops you have the option to delete all yellow/red divisions but honestly I keep using them until the units cease to exist. Note that POP population can also just be changing from those soldiers getting other jobs or moving to a different states. Hover over the icon to see the pop of the POP and if it’s not that low you can just regrow the pop by raising military funding.

12. General rule: your starting navy is expensive and useless (except possibly the transports). A wooden navy becomes completely obsolete as soon as ironclads are invented. As the US you won’t need a navy until ironclads are invented anyway. You will want to build your army as much as your population allows, though. Maybe limit the number of Dixie regiments you build though (or at least keep them stacked with enough Yankee units to overwhelm them in a battle) because they’ll usually join their home states when they secede.

13. My preferred composition for each army stack is one dragoon, two/three cannons (an engineer in place of the third cannon once you have them researched), and 6 infantry. Feel free to experiment though, I’m not the best at combat.

14. In no particular order the most important early techs for you to research are medicine (prevents epidemic events, much less army attrition, higher population growth), the next in the political thought branch of Culture techs (provide additional national focuses), the next in the Philosophy branch of Culture (gives direct multiplier for research points), market structure (iirc important for early factory success)

15. The Civil War triggers when your average national consciousness is 7.0 or higher. You’re provided with lots of ways to reduce consciousness through decisions and periodic events. Many of them affect free states and slave states differently, increasing consciousness in one while decreasing it in the other. There are two typical ways to handle it. First, you can delicately manage national consciousness by balancing the consciousness of both the north and south. If you can make it to (iirc) 1876 without the Civil War happening, you’ve made it. You are then free to end slavery the next time a political reform is available.

The other option is to deliberately trigger the civil war as fast as possible. Build only Yankee soldiers and station them all in the South (or on the border). Make sure every new state is admitted to the union as a free state to keep the confederacy as small as possible. Provoke the South at every opportunity and smash them as soon as they rebel. Cheesy, but effective. Note also doing the opposite is also possible if you want to make the future CSA as strong as possible, in case you want to play as them once the Civil War happens.

16. Just like all paradox games, you can learn so much by hovering your mouse over something. Also try clicking on all sorts of stuff – for example, when you click on a POP icon it shows you how likely that POP is to start converting to some other POP type (along with an overwhelming amount of other information) and from there you can hover over the conversion percentages to see all the factors that affect it, etc. An extraordinary amount of information is actually available in the game, it's just buried in weird sub-menu tooltips like that




This ended up being SO MUCH longer and more detailed than I intended it to be, but I’ve actually been intending to write a beginner’s guide to Vicky II for a couple of years now, so once I hit my stride I just kept on going

I feel like I’m definitely forgetting something so if you (or anyone else) have any questions then don’t hesitate to ask, and experienced players please correct any mistakes I have made!

[Bacon King]

BK. Thank you so much for this in-depth guide! I've long been a super fan of paradox games and all such Uber complex planning / strategy slash statistical analysis type games. And yet the few times I have tried Victoria, one or two, even I felt completely overwhelmed and wasn't sure what the hell was happening or how the hell to make things work. This totally gives me a starting point at last. Thanks again!

I'm glad I could help and please ask any further questions you might have! Vicky 2 is one of my favorite games and I love helping people overcome that initial sense of overwhelming confusion.

There's a lot of stuff I didn't cover and the game's learning curve is extremely harsh, so you're definitely still going to find yourself not knowing how to do things, not understanding why something's happening, and will certainly come across most of the several dozen notable game aspects/concepts that I wasn't able to cover in the brief guide. Honestly, I'd appreciate if you could ask about those sorts of things as you run into them. That way I'll know what else to add to my guide before I share it elsewhere

[Bacon King]

My third game with the US is going much better (I had a game with Brazil in the meantime, it wasn't a complete sh**t show).  Easily won the Civil and Mexican wars.  I've got all 50 states, plus the three most northern Mexican states and Belieze!  I got Belieze and the rest of Alaska 'cause the UK keeps declaring war on me and I beat their ass the first two times.

...

This thid time war is not going so well.  It's 1902ish, the UK has several giant stacks of doom roaring around Canada taking back all the land I grabbed early in the war, and have moved hard into New England.  I'm just starting to build up the navy and have had mixed success jumping the UK's blockaders, I've cleared most of the eastern Pacific, but once I clean out a chunk of Atlantic ocean of 4-10 UK wooden ships, they refill the chunk with 5-8 steel ones.

but that's not important.  I think my issue this game was not making any friends and not keeping my Army and Navy on top things during peace time.  I'm trying to make friends with France, but I think it's too late.  I can give up Alaska or NE and get peace, but I worry about for how long.


The important thing is for me to learn from it.  Is the UK attacking me so much becuae I was a bit of a bully towards Mexico?  Or just because I'm "doing better"?

Awesome! You're doing very well, beating the UK twice is impressive. Also by being able to take Hawaii, that probably means you've been able to figure out on your own about the Great Power "spheres of influence" mechanic (is something I'll include in the "part two" of my guide).

First off, keep in mind that that just like in every other paradox game, continuing after a big defeat (at least once your have a solid grasp on how to base the game ) can be a very fun and rewarding experience so don't necessarily quit and start a new game because you lose a harsh war -- that said, though, Vicky 2 is the game where it does make the most sense to abandon a game after a catastrophic loss, especially if you don't want to find yourself ruling a fascist dictatorship (the game measures something called "revanchism" created by major defeats and loss of territory that encourages extremists. Basically simulating what happened IRL to Weimar Germany).

That said though, let me touch on infamy which is similar to the "aggressive expansion" penalty in EU4 or the "badboy" modifiers from older Paradox titles. When you have a war justification discovered early, or when you add a new war-goal mid war, that adds infamy to your nation. The total is measured up at the top of the screen towards the middle of the upper toolbar. However over it and you'll see the effects of your current infamy level and the rate at which it decreases. One of the most important things to remember for Victoria 2's foreign policy is never go above 25 infamy. In fact if you have, say, 11 infamy, if you look at the tooltip it will say "11/25" showing 25 as an upper limit. That doesn't mean infamy stops at 25, but rather, the penalty of surpassing that limit are catastrophic. With more than 25 infamy the world suddenly sees you as, essentially, "Napoleon reborn", hellbent on military expansion at all costs. You will lost many allies, all great powers get a free casus belli to "contain" you, (which they will probably use), and unless you can fight off the rest of the developed world simultaneously you WILL find yourself forced into some extremely difficult punitive measures. Half your income siphoned away to the nations that beat you, destruction of your fortifications, a limit on the size of your military, and probably suffering the loss of so much prestige that it falls into the negatives.

HOWEVER, if you don't cross that threshold of 25, nobody cares at all about your expansion, which admittedly is a bit silly (which is why for example in EU4 they replaced infamy with "aggressive expansion" added to each country based on how much they specifically are threatened by your actions, and only someone has more than 50 AE against you can join a punitive coalition against you -- only making this aside to explain what I meant when I said Vicky 2 was "half a generation" older than the other current titles, as it lacks some of these innovations present in CK2/EU4/HOI4/Stellaris)

So ultimately that was all to say, the UK wasn't concerned about you 'being a bully' unless you did cross that 25 threshold. They were probably motivated to attack you because your military strength had fallen behind + they wanted some of your territories + they probably absolutely hated you on account of their two previous defeats.

The fact that this war was taking place in 1902 is especially important, because there are some very important technologies that become available for research in 1900. One of them, IIRC, is chemical warfare. If you look at modifiers to your units during combat, you might see "gas attack" -- which is very deadly if your nation hasn't invented "gas defense" and/or the technologies to fully use that defense with high efficiency. That's just a single technology, though, and there are several others like that you'll want to research quickly. Fortunately there are like two decades there (iirc it's 1876 to 1899) where almost no new techs become available, so you'll have a bit of a grace period to catch up on important tech areas you've been neglecting.

As far as alliances are concerned, they are very helpful during war, but even more importantly are crucial for dissuading potential attacks on you, because the AI considers the strength of all your allies when it decides whether attacking you is worth the risk.

As a Great Power one of the easiest ways to accumulate allies is to add more nations to your sphere of influence. I can explain this system if you'd like. but for now just know there are two big benefits to growing your SOI:

A. Nations inside it are very likely to accept an alliance with the leader of the sphere they're in -- in fact, your spherelings often will request an alliance with you before you even need to propose it yourself (if they're hesitant to ally you, get them up to +100 relations because IIRC that's the barrier before they're guaranteed to accept it

B. the other key benefit is that nations within a sphere will form a bit of a common market, eliminating all trade barriers with each other, and nations will always make trades with each other before trading on the full international market with the rest of the world. In practice this means you get first dibs on anything the nations you sphere will produce, allowing you to import from them and use their resources just like they came from your own territory. So for example, if your capitalists build a luxury furniture factory (which requires tropical wood to build), the factory will become much more profitable if you sphere a country that produces lots of tropical wood so its availability will be guaranteed (and more affordable). The "common market" also means that your spherelings will always buy your exports before seeking stuff on the global market, meaning your industries now have many guaranteed customers even when other nations are flooding the markets with stuff

You're right to seek alliance with France, they're the best European power for the US to have close ties with, especially because extremely high relations with Fance are required for some very beneficial USA events like the Statue of Liberty, which provide some insanely high bonuses for immigrant attraction AND migrant assimilation rates, meaning your constant flood of immigrants will grow EVEN HIGHER than it already is naturally.

Seeking a great/secondary power ally as the US is extremely beneficial in the mid-late game, but not recommended until after you win the Civil War (the same applies for involvement in international crises) because foreign entanglements are at point just a distraction for you. European allies are especially beneficial if the Spanish-American War event chain triggers and you decide to follow it. Speaking of diplomacy though, keep in mind that you can only save up 9 points at a time so it's a waste not to be regularly using them. I recommend to spend them in the early game by improving relations with strong European powers. This means you're more likely to immediately find willing allies as soon as you're ready to find them, Another very important thing to note however is that a nation sharing high relations with you is unable to declare war on you. If you're unprepared for a war with the UK just use your diplomacy points to gradually bring them up to +100 relations, at which point you're completely safe from them. Of course this applies to you as well, so if you want to attack a friend you'll need to click "decrease relations" until it falls low enough that you're able to justify a cassus belli and attack them.

Also note that before you click to "call allies" when you declare a war, if you hover over the checkbox a tooltip will list each ally and how likely they are to accept the request to join. If a particularly powerful ally who you don't want to lose will reject your call to arms, then instead of clicking the "call allies" button you can just DoW and then go to the diplomacy page of the other allies willing to join you, where there will be a button to call them individually in the war (that doesn't even cost diplomatic influence to use). Even if an ally never actually helps you in war they're still very useful to keep around because the existence of the alliance itself is a powerful deterrent. For example, if you're distracted in a big war, an uninvolved nation might take advantage of your distraction to launch its own war against you. But remember like I said earlier, the cost-benefit analysis that the AI does when deciding if it should attack you includes assessing the military strength of ALL your allies so even a lazy-but-powerful ally will still prevent attacks against you that you wouldn't be able to handle.

[Bacon King]

^ thank you nerd73

The only thing I can add is that it's actually easy to "allow" your party to be overtaken by rebels - just let them hold your capital for a few months (iirc 6?)

Advanced strategy for quick government change
The easiest way I've found to trigger a large revolt is, when you're able to pass a reform, only enact reforms nobody wants. People want a free press and an expanded franchise? Change the election system from FPTP to Jeffersonian. Upper House feeling enough pressure to pass another reform immediately afterwards? Change it from Jeffersonian to PR. Keep doing this and the POP militancy will skyrocket, they will join militant revolt factions, and then you only have to wait for the ideology of your choice to rise up and just let them win. Voila, your dictatorship is now a democracy (or your democracy is now a Dictatorship of the Proletariat)!

[Bacon King]

Note the thread title! The Steam Winter sale has begun, and with it, 50% to 75% discounts on everything in the Paradox library.

This is by far the best time to buy new games and to stock up on DLC for games you already own. I own literally every current pdox grand stategy game and every major DLC for all of them -- and probably 90% of it I bought during these big Steam sales.

Two things to note, of course: first off, brand new DLCs are the only thing not on sale

Secondly: do not trust the Steam user ratings for any game made by Paradox Development Studios. They are not at all representative of the actual quality of the thing. Whenever a new DLC is released, Paradox also releases a free content update alongside it, so everyone owning the base game gets cool new features without buying anything. There's a surprisingly large number of fans who give a DLC a harsh review just because they hate some feature that was actually part of the free update for everyone (i.e. stuff you're getting in the base game right now if you buy it). Also a couple of years ago Paradox changed their DLC policy and a large contingent of angry fans attempted to "protest" it by going on Steam and giving bad reviews to literally every existing DLC.

So don't determine which DLC to buy based on user ratings. Instead you're much better off asking here for suggestions (for example if you're looking to buy CK2 DLC, earlier in this thread I wrote an exhaustive list rating all of them )