Victoria 2 Strategy Guide

STRATEGY guide

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“It is an extraordinary era in which we live. It is altogether new. The world has seen nothing like it before. The age is remarkable for scientic research into the heavens, the earth, and what is beneath the earth. And perhaps more remarkable still for the app-lication of this scientic research into the pursuits of life. The progress of the age has almost outstripped human belief. The future is known only to omniscients.”

Daniel webster

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TABLE OF CONTENTI

II INTRODUCTION 6III USING THE INTERFACES 7

FOR UNCIVILISED INTERFACES 8 MAPMODES 8

IV KNOW YOUR COUNTRY & NEIGHBOURS 10

EXPAND YOUR HORIZONS 11 POTENTIAL THREATS & ALLIES 11 POTENTIAL TARGETS 11 FOG OF WAR: WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW 11 PLAY STYLES 11

V POP MANAGEMENT 12

POP TYPES 12 USING THE POPULATION INTERFACE 14 THE MEASURES OF A POP – CONSCIOUSNESS, PLURALITY, MILITANCY & LITERACY 15 INFLUENCING IMMIGRATION, EMIGRATION & PROMOTION 18 Slavery & The American Civil War 20

VI ECONOMICS & INDUSTRY 21

MANAGING RGOS 21 MANAGING FACTORIES 21 STRATEGIC GOODS 22 FACTORY SUBSIDIES 22 BUILDING AN INDUSTRIAL ECONOMY 23 Revolutionary Changes to Travel & Communication by Land and Sea 25 RAILROADS 25 ECONOMIC IMPROVEMENT THROUGH CONQUEST 25

VII SPENDING & BUDGETING 26

BUDGETING 101 26 TAXATION POLICY 26 TARIFFS 27 ADVANCED BUDGETING 27 Raise the Red Banner! 28 LOANS & DEBT STRATEGY 29 BANKRUPTCY 30 EDUCATION SPENDING & STRATEGY 30 ADMINISTRATION & CRIME FIGHTING 30 SOCIAL SPENDING 31 MILITARY SPENDING 31

VIII GOVERNMENT, ELECTIONS, POLICIES & REFORM 32

NATIONAL FOCUS STRATEGY 32 POLITICAL MANAGEMENT 33 RULING PARTY, UPPER & LOWER HOUSES 34 GOVERNMENT POLICIES 35 STATE ECONOMIES & LESSER BREEDS 35 REFORM 36 POLITICAL REFORMS 37 SOCIAL REFORMS 38 ELECTIONS & ELECTION STRATEGY 38 COALITIONS & HOW TO USE THEM 39

IX GOODS, MARKETS & TRADE 40

USING INTERNAL MARKETS 40 The Waning of the Ottoman Crescent 41 STOCKPILE MANAGEMENT 42 The East Indies and Southeast Asia 42 PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT & RESTRAINT 43

X TECHNOLOGY & RESEARCH 44

TECHNOLOGY STRATEGY 44 IMPORTANT TECHNOLOGIES 45 EVALUATING THE TECH TREE 45

XI COLONISATION 49

THE CHALLENGE OF COLONISING 49 Southern Africa 50 COLONISING TECHNOLOGY 50

XII EVENTS & DECISIONS 51

HANDLING EVENTS 51 HANDLING DECISIONS 51 UNIFICATIONS 52 The Unification of Italy 52 Bismarck & the Rise of Prussia 53

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XIII REBELS, REVOLTS & REVOLUTIONS 54

THE LIBERAL REVOLUTION 54

XIV GEOPOLITICAL THINKING & PLANNING 55

PLAYING FOR WHAT YOU WANT 55 WATCHING FOR OPPORTUNITIES 56 STRATEGIC GOALS 56 PRESTIGE, GREAT POWER & SECOND TIER STATUS 56 SPHERES OF INFLUENCE 58 THE CIVILISATION DECISION 58 Japan & European Contact 59 The Origins of World War I 60

XV STANDARD DIPLOMACY 61

DIPLOMATIC ACTION 61 ALLIANCES 62

XV I GREAT POWER DIPLOMACY, SPHERES & INFLUENCE 63

GREAT POWER INFLUENCE & OPINION 63 GREAT POWER ACTIONS 64

XVII WARMAKING & PEACEMAKING 66

CASUS BELLI & WAR AIMS 66 Emperor Napoleon III & Louis Napoleon’s Second Empire 68 PICKING THE RIGHT WAR 68 ADDING WAR AIMS 68 WHO YOU GONNA’ CALL? 69 ALLIANCE LEADERS & SEPARATE PEACES 69 GETTING THE RIGHT PEACE TREATY 69 WAR EXHAUSTION (WE) 69 BUILDING A STRONG MILITARY 70

XVIII LAND UNITS & COMBAT 71

FRONTAGES & TECHNOLOGY EFFECTS 71 MANAGING BRIGADES 71 WHERE TO PRODUCE 72 MOVEMENT CONSIDERATIONS 72 PREDICTING ENEMY MOVEMENT (LAND & SEA) 73 SUPPLY LIMITS & ATTRITION 73 TERRAIN 73 DIG-IN & ENTRENCHMENT 74 FORTS 74 CREATING & ASSIGNING LEADERS 74 MANAGING RESERVES & MOBILISATION 74 WHERE TO ATTACK 74 AMPHIBIOUS INVASIONS 75 UNCIVILISED & IRREGULARS 75 COMBAT VALUES 75 THE PROCESS OF COMBAT 76 KEEPING TRACK OF BATTLES 76 CLOSE-UP ON BATTLES 76 WHEN & HOW TO RETREAT 77 POST-BATTLE MANAGEMENT 78 CONQUERING PROVINCES 78

XIX NAVIES, FLEETS & NAVAL COMBAT 79

NAVAL UNITS 79 NAVAL BASES 79 NAVAL COMBAT 80 BLOCKADE STRATEGY 80 USING STRAITS & CANALS 80 NAVAL RANGE 80

XX MULTIPLAYER 81

A FEW QUICK NOTES ON MULTIPLAYER 81

XXI CHARTS 82

ARMY TECHNOLOGIES BY CATEGORY 82 NAVAL TECHNOLOGIES BY CATEGORY 83 COMMERCE TECHNOLOGIES BY CATEGORY 84 CULTURE TECHNOLOGIES BY CATEGORY 85 INDUSTRIAL TECHNOLOGIES BY CATEGORY 86 THE CHAIN OF PRODUCTION 87

XXII ERRATA FROM THE V2 MANUAL 90XXIII PARADOX INTERACTIVE CREDIT LIST 91


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INTRODUCTIONII

The information contained herein is not meant as a comprehensive guide to everything. Indeed, some of the things you might like to understand about strategy won’t be possible to verify until after the nal patches are ready. What is here is guidelines to playing using the tools the game gives you. There are many insights here, not just by myself, but also by developers and others on the beta team. This is the most useful collection of advice and specics on how the game works that is currently available for this game. Therefore, you should nd it very useful, but you won’t nd every question answered. Followup strategy research will be conducted on the paradox forum, and you will also nd it useful to watch the after action reports (aars) of players who will use some of these strategies in their own games, and will undoubtedly develop more of their own. I, for one, will start an aar to continue highlighting aspects of strategy that maybe i wasn’t able to get to in this strategy guide. As with previous strategy guides and manuals, capitalised terms normally highlight a game term or concept, whereas if that term is not capitalised it often indicates a more casual use of that term.Special thanks to the paradox development and support teams, to the tremendous work of the victoria 2 beta team, and especially to johan, king, darkrenown, letar, ohgamer, peter ebbesen and others who have assisted specically with this project!Please, learn and enjoy! Victoria 2 is doubtless going to be a great, and well-regarded game.

eD hanks aka rensslaer (on the paraDox forum) littleton, coloraDo, usa


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There are ways to get the information you need without getting spammed or overwhelmed. At most times, most of the visible interface can be ignored until you want to look something up. A quick scan of your interface – your “dashboard” – is well advised once a game-week or so. Few disastrous things can happen to you in less than a week.

Those few disastrous things that can happen to you include:1)

making massive purchases of armies (Recruiting) or Stockpiles (expensive ones anyway) can deplete your Treasury very quickly – beware. This can be kept to a minimum if you properly use the slider for National Stockpile purchases.

2)

most things (like going to war!) of critical importance will either be obvious (from popups) or are defaulted to pause the game. If for some reason this isn’t set, you’ll notice the first time around and you can right-click to set it to “popup and pause” so it won’t catch you by surprise again.It is a good idea to examine your Message Settings before playing. However, this can be a bit like reading the phone book, so many players prefer to wait until a circumstance comes up, then change the Message Settings on a case-by-case basis. If something is noted that you don’t care about (and you don’t care about any similar messages either) then click them off. If something important to you almost escaped your notice then set it to “popup.” If you’re in the habit of letting the game run at moderate speed or higher, you may find “popup and pause” useful for more than just wars and such. But if you’re like me, who generally runs at moderate speed with my finger hovering over the “pause” button, a “popup and pause” can actually mess you up because as the game pauses itself I’m hitting the pause button myself and they cancel each other out. Pick your settings to match your play style and comfort levels.Whether you prefer to get “flag alerts” or popups to inform you of world events, or just have it in the log, is up to you. Someone who is deep into a play strategy may not care that there’s cholera in India. However, if you enjoy the “flavour” events – if it helps you get into the spirit of the game – then you’d be well advised to keep them as popups and just play at slower speed so you don’t miss important things while clicking the popups. A happy medium is best achieved by allowing the flag alerts to build up, and you can read them at your leisure or ignore them depending on the tempo of your game at that moment. You can hover your mouse over each flag to see a basic Tooltip, and click on it to see if you want more detail (it will appear as a popup). Right-clicking will dismiss the flag alert, and right-clicking the main icon to the far right will dismiss all awaiting flag alerts. Your History Log can capture these things also, so you can look back and see anything you may have missed.Also remember that if you want more detail on just about any piece of information, anywhere in the game, there’s a good bet hovering your mouse over it will provide a Tooltip. Wait more than one second to see if there is a 2nd stage to the Tooltip, providing yet more detail.There are three icons on the Production Tab (in the Information Bar at the top of your screen) which will light if there’s something important going on. They tell you about Factories under construction, closed or bankrupt Factories and Unemployment. Next to this, the Budget Graph is a very useful indicator of the “health” of your Treasury. If you see too much red, be concerned and pay attention to what’s causing it. Bad things can happen quickly, so if you can pause or slow down the game this may be helpful to fixing it before too much damage occurs (downturns can happen due to fluctuations in the World Market, temporary shortages, sudden purchases, etc.).The rest of the tabs along the top of the Information Bar can be ignored for most of the game, unless you need to know something specific. It’s good to click through the tabs (i.e. see the actual Interface behind the tab) once every month or two. Perhaps pay more attention to the Production

USING THE INTERFACES

III

“If you are overwhelmed with all the stuff going on you can try to focus just on some aspects of the game on your rst few tries. As with previous Paradox titles, there is something new to learn in every game you start.”

letar (tuomas tirronen, helsinki, finlanD)


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Interface and its three tabs (showing Factories, total production and Capitalist Projects). Glance at the Population tab every once in a while to see your Consciousness and Militancy ratings, but these won’t change fast. Don’t let your Diplomatic Points build up too high without spending them (also don’t let them get too low, in case something important comes up – keep 1 or 2 around).One of the other two player aids which you should pay periodic attention to are your country statistics (upper left corner), showing Prestige, Industrial ranking, Military ranking and Country Rating. Try to remember what your numbers were, so you will notice if they change up or down. If they change in a way you don’t understand, stop or slow the game in order to figure out why they’re changing.The last, and perhaps most important, player aid is the Outliner. You can toggle types of information on or off, and you should always keep monitoring those things of most importance to you. Glance at the Outliner regularly to see if something important is happening, or if you have a Factory or Unit about to be completed.When you first start your game, do not pay a great deal of attention to the economic status of your country or its POPs in the first two weeks, as it may take that long for the worldwide economy to stabilise and begin operating as it should. After that, take a look at what is and what is not operating properly, and make adjustments accordingly.Lastly, when you’re looking at units on the map, there’s a box underneath them. The number indicates either the number of ships, or the number of thousands of troops (i.e. not the number of Brigades). The colour of the box indicates their level of Organisation (green is good, red means they’re about to be defeated). If there is a tiny flag next to the main flag displayed by the unit, it indicates a stack of more than one army there (the flag indicates whose country’s unit).

For Uncivilised Interfaces

If your country is Uncivilised, or if you are not a Great Power, you have no reason to pay attention to the Diplomatic Interface’s Great Power Influence chart, except to anticipate the likely outcome of those rivalries (which can be checked every season or every year, which will not necessarily worth-while to check every month). You will only need one of the tabs inside the Production Interface (the Production tab shows RGO production), because Uncivilised countries cannot have either Capitalists or Factories. Pay special attention to your Technology tab, though you’ll only be able to do anything once every few years. Technology is your way out.

Mapmodes

Set your Mapmode to the one most useful to you on a regular basis, switching when you need to use a different style of information. As pretty as it is, the Terrain Mapmode is mostly useful in combat, if then. I usually play in Political Mapmode, so I can clearly see country boundaries. At different times you may find Infrastructure Mapmode more useful because you want to know which Provinces produce what Good, or you may be tracking Administrative Efficiency or a number of other things which require other Mapmodes.

TERRAIN MAPMODE

shows you the “lay of the land,” which may be very useful for planning movement and plotting battles. Many players like the visual attractiveness of this Mapmode, and will default to playing it. Much of the same information (and more) can be obtained by clicking on the Province and seeing Terrain in the Province Interface.

POLITICAL MAPMODE

shows country borders more clearly than any other Mapmode. Confusion with regard to which country Owns/Controls a Province can be disastrous, so either learn the country borders (and take note of changes) or play using the Political Mapmode. Often, the “buildings” (Factories, Forts, items under construction) are more apparent in this Mapmode too.

INFRASTRUCTURE MAPMODE

allows you to see the Goods produced in each Province. It also shows Railroads, etc. The Goods are also shown in the Colonial Mapmode, if you find that more useful. Because movement speed is increased in higher Infrastructure Provinces, this may also be a way of predicting what route would be the fastest for your troops (the AI will automatically assume the fastest path to your destination when you select movement).

DIPLOMATIC MAPMODE

is useful for seeing the “lay of the land” in Diplomatic terms. Which countries have Cores where, who’s Allied with whom, etc. Click on the country whose relationships you want to see, and the colours will demonstrate how they connect. Blue indicates an Alliance, while a shade of green (less bright than the subject country) shows Spheres of Influence. Crosshatching shows Cores. Red indicates a war.

REGION MAPMODE

is actually very useful, though not in an obvious way. It shows you which Provinces belong to the State where a Factory will be. It shows which Provinces of another country you will claim when deciding which State to demand. It also shows you if you have a “split Region” – a Region partly owned by you and partly by another country. If your Region is split, then you’re not getting full use out of it. Any Factories there will be understaffed, because they’re pulling Craftsmen from only one or two Provinces, instead of four or more. It may show you a reason to militarily conquer the rest of the State from your neighbour. You can even use it to evaluate the economic constraints upon other countries – they face the same problems from incomplete States as you do.

“Infamy is hidden under the diplomacy tab. Yes, I saw you looking for it on the main screen. Focus points are set by the province view, but affect the entire state. You can see this by selecting the administrative map mode.”

relee (jimmy williams, near nashville, tennessee)


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REVOLTRISK MAPMODE

is useful for two things. If you really do have problems with Militancy, you can visually see where here. It also shows how your war against Corruption is going – too many icons for Criminal activity means your Crime Fighting (Administrative) spending should maybe be increased. You can see the success of your efforts as these icons go away.

ADMINISTRATIVE MAPMODE

shows Administrative Efficiency by State (each State has its own level, independent of the National Administrative Efficiency). This can show you where you may need to place a National Focus to increase Bureaucrats.

COLONIAL MAPMODE

can be very useful, but mostly for finding locations for your Colonies. It shows what Goods its RGO produces (this is an important consideration for Colonies), and it also shows your Naval Range. If any Colonial activity is already present, it will show up in a Tooltip (this can also be seen if you click on the Province Interface), including the degree of progress already achieved by each country trying to Colonise.

RECRUITMENT (OR MILITARY) MAPMODE

shows where your Soldier POPs are located within your territory. Provinces where “free” Soldier POPs exist (i.e. Soldier POPs which have not been assigned to a Brigade) are shown in bright green – these are the Provinces where you can still build new Units.

NATIONAL FOCUS MAPMODE

helps you locate where you’ve assigned your National Focus Points, and an icon shows what the Focus is doing (what its goal is). You can see this for other countries too.Because most Mapmodes are so specialised in nature, most of your game will be spent in your preferred Mapmode, with only brief switches to other Mapmodes for informational purposes.


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KNOW YOUR COUNTRY & NEIGHBOURSIV

Your first step in any game should be to examine every Province in your country. Click on it to pull up the Province Interface, and see what the population is, what it produces, how much capacity remains for new workers, whether there are any Factories (this will be visible on the map itself), and any other special characteristics like Railways (almost none exist in 1836), Forts, Crime, how many Bureaucrats (top right corner), etc. It’s up to you whether you want to check each Province’s POPs in detail now or wait to see them all in the spreadsheet from the Population Interface. At least hover your mouse over the pie charts to see the Tooltip which explains some of the demographics.If you’ve picked a large empire to play, it’s still important to do this, or else you might get surprised by something you overlooked. There’s a quicker way to do it, for large countries though. Check the Population Interface first and note where your population centres are – what’s most populated, and least populated (remember the Province names, so you can recognise them on the map) – and then check your Production Interface to see where you have Factories (if any). Select the Infrastructure Mapmode to display what each Province’s RGO produces, and do a quick visual survey of your country, looking for important Goods. Maybe you can check the “flyover country” in more detail later, once you’ve got your basics managed.

One of the first “photographs,” this daguerretype image of Paris was taken by inventor Louis Daguerre himself in 1838.


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Your most populated Provinces have the most potential for Industrialisation as time goes on, which is good to include in your set of goals. Also keep an eye out for those specific RGO types which allow construction of restricted Factory types (like Coal or Iron for Steel Factories, etc. – see the Factory chart to know what to look for).Getting a sense of all your provinces gives you a head start on understanding your economy – where you’ll make Money, where you need to encourage growth, what might be accomplished by a National Focus, etc.How large is your Army? Do you have a seacoast and a Navy? Where are your military forces stationed? Get an idea of your Terrain, too, so you know what your defensible borders are, and what you might need to keep a closer eye on (include Forts in this calculation). Don’t assume the pre-game setup is the best arrangement for your troops. As you play the game (and read up on military strategy) you’ll understand where your Brigades need to be to best protect you.

Expand Your Horizons

Now start looking at your neighbours, and do a less comprehensive assessment of their country for the same things. How Industrialised is each neighbour, or what’s their later-game potential for it? Forts? Terrain? What kind of Goods do they produce?This is where you start noticing their military strength, too (most easily checked in the Ledger). If you have a seacoast, your horizons stretch further than other countries. Examine, briefly, all the countries which touch your local ocean or sea (if you already have overseas possessions, check their oceans too). Best to do this in Political Mapmode first, to get an idea of the countries, and then switch to Infrastructure Mapmode to see what Goods these coastal Provinces produce.It’s worth noting any unclaimed territory, also, so you can Colonise them. Take particular note of what Goods these unoccupied Provinces produce. RGOs with high-demand Goods will be the most obvious targets for your Colonisation (and everyone else’s too!).Where are the Spheres of Influence of the nearby Great Powers extending? Who’s in it? How far do they reach? Any obvious targets for them to include in their Spheres? What about you – if you’re a GP where do you want to extend your SoI?

Potential Threats & Allies

How are your Diplomatic Relations with each of your Neighbours (check in the Diplomatic Interface)? This can be discovered by changing the selection in the Diplomatic Interface to show only “neighbours,” as oppose to “all” or some other subdivision. Changing it to include just your continent, regardless of adjacency, can also be useful.Again, do a quick assessment of your neighbours too. Are you the country they’re most likely to fear? Most likely to want to stomp on? If not you, then who? Does your neighbour have powerful neighbours of its own that might keep it from paying too much attention to you? If so, then those could be targets for your Diplomatic efforts – keep your neighbour’s enemies in mind for Alliances.If you’re on a seacoast, check out the Navies of the powers in your ocean. Do you have any Straits you could take military advantage of (or could you seize them in war, to improve your strategic situation)? Who are your likely rivals in the Colonisation race?

Potential Targets

If you intend to play aggressively – either in a military sense, or through Colonisation – you need to think through how to expand your empire.Using the same methods as shown above, cross-reference the kinds of Inputs you currently need, or the kinds of Goods you will need as you enact your Factory plan, and see where you might be able to meet your needs. Do you need to increase your Population in order to Recruit more Soldiers? If so, it may not be necessary that they all be from your National Culture (you’ll have to wait for their Nationalism to subside before they’re reliable troops, though).Think like a chess player – for each target you identify, see who or what might foil your plans for that target. Think a few moves ahead – is there something you can do to “secure your flank” in order to be better assured of success?

Fog of War: What You Don’t Know

Just because the country neighbouring you looks peaceful – at least from what you can see from your border – there’s no guarantee it actually poses no threat. There could be an army hiding behind the Fog of War, just one province from your border. This works both ways. You might assume there’s an army there, or at their capital, when there’s really not. One way to examine the possibilities is to check the Ledger to see how many brigades they have. Take their total number of brigades, subtract those which you can see, and you know that somewhere under that Fog of War there are that many brigades. Experience may tell you where they’re most likely to be.

Play Styles

Pick what works for you. I’m a predominantly careful player who then takes calculated risks – sometimes big ones! That style can reap great harvests, but can also sometimes cause heart-clenching anxiety if things don’t go as planned. There are also very careful, meticulous players who move only when they are assured of success. Other players are aggressive, but very calculating – like chess players, they’ll set the groundwork, and then when opportunity shows itself they’ll snap it up with the speed of a moray eel. Each of these play styles can succeed if played well. If you’re good at playing that style, you’ll get better at it and can succeed. It’s also worth trying out different styles sometimes, just in case there’s another way that actually plays to your strengths better.

Venice in 1855, by Jean-Baptiste van Moer.


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POP MANAGEMENT V

In general, unless you don’t mind your POPs moving away or changing to a less-desirable POP Type, you’ll want to take care of them. Help them be happy, which means allowing them to fulfill their Needs. At the same time, you want them to make you happy too – their country (i.e. you!) needs them!And so POP management becomes an exercise in social engineering – getting them to do what you want them to do, while making them think they’re doing it for their own good (which, in many ways, they are). Usually this means they need to make a profit for themselves and their employers so that you can Tax that income, or get a cut of their imports through Tariffs. At other times, getting them to do what you want means being mean to them – keeping them from making a living so they will want to change to a different job that you want filled.There’s more to it than that, of course – what do you want your POPs to do? For that matter, who do you want your POPs to be? You can influence this through the National Focus Points, but also through your management of Tax and Tariff rates, and even Education policy and Administrative or Military Spending.

POP Types

LABOURERS, MINERS & FARMERS

Labourers (of which Miners are a part) and Farmers comprise much of the game’s economy. All the RGO Goods are collected by them, and those are used as the Raw Materials for the whole economy. You may see RGOs “fill up” – reach their maximum number of employees. Unless Techs change the size of an RGO (and many do), you won’t get additional benefit from increasing these POP types. But even though some Techs will increase the size of certain types of RGO, some Techs will actually decrease the size of other RGOs. This has the effect of forcing those extra Labourers and Farmers into Unemployment, prodding them to Migrate, Demote or Devolve. What this often means is that the POPs who had been employed in the countryside, working the land, instead become Craftsmen and work in the Factories. Toward the late period of the game, you will see a shift between the proportion of Labourer and Farmer POPs versus those types which work in the Factories. RGO sizes for different types of RGO will also change – some growing larger, and others becoming smaller and unable to employ as many Farmers.When you Mobilise for a big war, these are the POPs who end up trading pitchforks and pickaxes for guns. They aren’t very good at fighting, so they may take serious casualties, which may reduce the Population of the POP. From a purely gameplay perspective, this may be desirable depending on your circumstances. The same can be true of Revolts, when these POPs become Rebels, their Population will drop in ratio to the casualties taken.When Slaves are freed – either through a Reform action or as you conquer States which allowed Slaves – they will become Labourers and Farmers. This may be a good thing – maybe you need the extra labour – or it could just send them into Unemployment. Free Labourers and Farmers will work at higher levels of Efficiency than Slaves, which is one reason to prefer these POPs be freed.

CRAFTSMEN

These may be the most important POPs in your Population. That’s not to say other POPs aren’t more important for what they do – Clergy for Literacy and Research, Capitalists for Factory construction, Soldiers for war, etc. But Craftsmen will be the workforce of an industrial society, and if you want to succeed in Victoria 2, you’ll need an industrial society. Without them, you cannot succeed (which really can’t be said of any other POP Type in V2, except maybe Clergy). When you’re building Factories, you will want to encourage Craftsmen somehow so that they can produce the Goods. There are strategies for this discussed later on, but start thinking now about how these guys will be the core of your strategy.

CLERKS

Clerks improve the Production Efficiency of Factories, which can be a very useful advantage over a Factory without Clerks. There is a maximum ratio

“POP management is more like POP inuence. Need more soldier or capitalist POPs? Spend a national focus point and select a POP type you would like to encourage their growth in a particular state.”



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– 4 Craftsmen : 1 Clerk – which you should try to maintain for maximum Efficiency. If you have a Factory with lower ratios, it might be worth placing a National Focus to encourage Clerk Migration or Promotion.Another reason to encourage Clerks is because these educated POPs contribute to your Research Points, which are very important in Victoria 2.

ARTISANS

Artisans are your country’s “entrepreneurs” – they are able to produce Manufactured Goods for profit without the necessity of having a Factory, and can even switch to a different, presumably more profitable Good at any time (though their tendency is to stay with the same Good if it is making a profit). As such, they are very valuable to any country, most especially to non-Industrialised countries, as they are often the only internal means of producing Manufactured Goods. Unfortunately, Artisans often have difficulty making a profit because they do not benefit from the same Efficiencies Capitalists provide for Factories. Because of this, and because of natural independent tendencies, Artisans are often unhappy (high Militancy) and can tend toward being Fascist. Nevertheless, they are good additions to any economy. You can encourage them by keeping Middle Class Taxes low. A National Focus, if you want to use one for this, can also bring them in (though since they might leave or Demote if they don’t make a profit, this may not be the best use of your National Focus Points). If the Manufactured Goods they choose to produce require any Goods not available on your Internal Market, Tariffs may also be a hindrance for them. Artisans pick from all the possible Manufactured Goods (those their country has the Tech ability to produce), tending toward items which are most profitable. Once they pick one, if they make a profit, they will generally stick with it, though they re-evaluate periodically. If the Good they’re making isn’t turning a profit, or if the Inputs are too expensive, they will seek a different Good. Over time, since Artisans do not benefit from increased Efficiency from Technology, they will be priced out of certain Industrialised markets and must move to something new. This does mean, however, that they will be the first to pick up advanced Technologies you’ve discovered, because it may be two years or more before you can build a Factory to do what they can do on day one!Artisan production is reduced if they are not able to purchase their Life and Everyday Needs. They are limited to those Goods their country has the Technology to produce, except that they can produce every type of Good that is typically available in the early game – small arms, explosives, fabric, etc.

SOLDIERS & OFFICERS

Your army cannot grow without Soldier POPs. You may build up to a maximum, but unless you take steps to encourage Migration or Promotion to Soldiers, you will always be stuck with that maximum limit (unless you add new territory, with new Soldier POPs). Encourage more Soldiers by increasing Military Spending.The best time to encourage Officers is before you need them. Officers are very important, because they provide your Leadership Points, which provide your competent Leaders. If your rate of gain is too low, you may have to go to war with no Leaders, or too few. Address this situation early on, so you don’t get in trouble.High Military Spending doesn’t necessarily make Officer Promotion popular, even while it may make Soldier POPs increase, because the attractiveness of being an Officer is reduced by high Taxes on High Class POPs. Both criteria must be addressed to encourage Officers properly.Keep in mind that combat casualties are reflected to some degree in the Population of the Soldier POPs. After a bloody war you may have to encourage more Soldiers just to get back to the level where you were.

BUREAUCRATS

Modern political pundits may disagree, but in Victoria 2 Bureaucrats really are “from the Government and here to help you.” They are the representatives of the Government, and are the enforcers of law & order. States where there are few Bureaucrats are not run very efficiently, will collect a smaller proportion of Taxes, and may suffer from a lot of Crime and Corruption. That’s why a country must encourage Bureaucrats in order to become strong.Increasing Administrative Spending (Crime Fighting Spending) has a direct impact on encouraging more POPs to become Bureaucrats. Low Middle Class Taxes may also help. Low Administrative Spending may cause Bureaucrats to decide to leave the profession and become something else.

“Clerks increase output, so you get more goods for the same input. Capitalists decrease input, you get the same output for less input. Craftsmen increase throughput so that you get more output, but you need more input too.”

Darkrenown (DaviD ballantyne, paisley, scotlanD)

“I don’t care about artisans as, say, the USA. But play a game as the USCA and you suddenly have a use for them.”



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CLERGY

These are the Religious leaders of your Population, and your Educators. They inherently encourage POPs to remain Conservative and content, by way of reducing Consciousness. However, they also increase Literacy, which may ultimately cause higher Consciousness. The benefit of Clergy for all-important Research Points is through two avenues – the increased Literacy they create adds to RPs, and the Clergy themselves also contribute RPs directly.You can encourage Clergy by keeping Education Spending above 40 percent, and by high Literacy and Consciousness. Low Middle Class Taxes may also help.

CAPITALISTS & ARISTOCRATS

Capitalists are one of the most rare, and one of the most important POP Types in the game. In countries which have some forms of Economic Policy, they are the only way of getting Factories or Railroads built. Capitalists contribute to the Production Efficiency of any Factories in the State where they reside. They also do raise Money to pay for, and buy necessary Goods for, construction of Factories and Railways. Once the Factory is built, they reduce the cost of Goods used as Inputs for the Factory.Aristocrats perform a some-what similar purpose for RGOs – they increase the Production Efficiency of the RGO. But they do not perform a “creative” function like Capitalists (i.e. they do not build anything or start Projects). Aristocrats exist even in countries where “noblemen” do not (such as the United States) – it represents a class of people, not a particular royal status, and so prominent patrician families still qualify.Either Capitalists or Aristocrats may be encouraged by National Focus, though only Capitalists are really worth the trouble. Promotion and continued residency can be encouraged by keeping Taxes low, which serves a double effect of allowing the Capitalists to have enough available Money (capital) that they can invest in Projects or National Banks.

SLAVES

Slaves are captive workers who perform the same tasks as Labourers, Miners or Farmers but who do not get paid, either by the government or through profits (those profits are shared by the other workers and/or Aristocrats).Most societies which have Slaves must decide what to do with them as the country becomes more Liberal. This generally means freeing them to become regular worker POP Types, though this may cause some disruption in the labour pool, Unemployment, etc. In most societies, it will also be the cause of political unrest, affecting either Consciousness or Militancy of the rest of the Population.

Using the Population Interface

Ideally, the Population Interface is your “crystal ball” for understanding what’s going on with your POPs. A careful reading of the Strategy Guide will help you “read” your crystal ball.Use it not just to see how your country’s Population is changing, but also to see how your country’s regions (most easily viewed by State in the Population Interface) are changing, relative to each other. Are you losing Population in one State? Are you growing elsewhere? Are your citizens moving from State to State, or from your country to another country? What direction are Promotions taking people? Is that consistent in all States, or just in some?Knowing how one State is operating may take more time to understand than a general average over your country. But it will allow you insight to better understand not just what is happening, but why, and will allow you to take steps to adjust things if you can. Do you need to move a National Focus to a State in order to counteract Unemployment, or a lack of Clergy, or whatever?By viewing your POPs not just nationally, but subdividing by State, you can also see if your policies are going to affect one State more than another. If one of your States prefers an Issue or Ideology, that will affect how that State reacts to your Ruling Party and/or your moves on Reform. Then you must ask yourself if it is worth aiding or rejecting that one State (or several) versus the rest of your country. Is this one area more volatile, and so you might be willing to take action at the national level that will anger most of your country but prevent one section of your country from Revolting? If one State is at Militancy 6 and the rest of your country will only increase to Militancy 3, then this might be a good way of avoiding internal conflict, even if your country’s overall Militancy rises.You can focus on small POPs if you want, but it’s not necessary. Generally, only your largest POPs will have enough influence over what happens in your country to make much of a difference. There are some key exceptions, though. The most important things you can check through the Population Interface include these, which are most easily seen by using the sortable columns and scrolling to see the information you need (if you use sort, usually the very top of your list will show those things you most need to see).

“High administration efciency increases the chances of POP promotion. For this reason, you should always strive to have at least 1.0% Of your population as bureau-crats, though any more than this and you’ll be paying too much on administration costs due to the bloated bureaucracy.”

palisaDoes (lewis jones, uk)

“Y’all are jumping the gun in promoting capis and building factories with the smaller, more backward countries. If I’m gonna promote a POP before getting freedom of trade [an important tech for development], it will most likely be clergy.”



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UNEMPLOYMENT

– Anybody out of a job?

LIFE/EVERYDAY/LUXURY NEEDS

– Sort twice, once to see which POPs are having trouble getting their Life Needs (these are those who are gaining Militancy) and a second time to see who is getting their Luxury Needs met (these are earning Consciousness, and probably adding to their savings, too).

SAVINGS

– This is important for knowing who isn’t struggling (if a POP has no savings, they’re scraping the bottom of the barrel to meet their Needs), and who might be a candidate for Promotion (a closer look at the POP Type or the POP’s Individual Interface can show you which POP Types they’re most likely to Promote to). Keep in mind the savings total (listed under the pound “£” symbol) is divided between all the members of the POP, and so a small POP with a small amount of savings may actually have more savings per person than a large POP with a larger total.

REBELLION

– Who is most likely to Revolt (and why)? Check both, the “rebel flag” column, and also the Militancy column. Look for those in open Revolt, but also for those who might be the next to go into that state (at MIL 7 POPs join a Rebel Faction and begin funding them).

ISSUES

– Is one Issue taking precedence over the others? What will that mean for you? Are you politically able to respond, if they demand Reform? Is one set of POPs concentrating on a particular Issue?

IDEOLOGY

– This matters less if your country doesn’t allow Elections, but it’s good to know in what ways your POPs may influence your government politically.

PRODUCTS

– Each POP which directly produces something (i.e. Farmer, Labourer, Craftsman, Clerk)

PROMOTION

– Which POPs are liable to Promote (you can see this through a Tooltip in the Population Interface) and what is influencing those changes (this can only be seen by pulling up the POP Specific Inferface – click on the individual POP and it will appear).There are other things you should note on occasion, but which aren’t important to note but once a year or so. Look at your changing Population Demographic, as shown in the Workforce pie chart. Is your Population of Craftsmen growing? What about Clerks? These categories growing shows that you are changing from a rural, agrarian culture to an Industrialised one (which in game terms is good!).It’s also useful to see how your country’s Religion and Nationality demographics are changing, as they will in response to conquering territory.One last thing – one necessary view for the management of your POPs is most easily seen in the Budget Interface. Next to each Class’ Tax slider is a pie chart showing what percentage of that Class’ Needs are being met. The more blue you see (either dark or light blue), the more Money those POPs have to purchase their Everyday and Luxury Needs. If the colours are not blue, then POPs in that Class may be having difficulty (remember – let the game run a couple weeks before checking, so you can get reliable data from these charts).

The Measures of a POP –Consciousness, Plurality, Militancy & Literacy

CONSCIOUSNESS (CON)

Consciousness is a POP’s understanding of his own needs (it’s tied to the individual POP, unlike Plurality, which is a societal measure) and his willingness to risk to achieve those needs, whether the government wishes to cooperate or not. Consciousness is a two-edged sword. It can be very helpful for many societies, and at the same time can utterly destroy others.Consciousness is always a difficult matter in Authoritarian societies. Consciousness can be dangerous in these countries, because these governments will do things without regard to what the POPs want. POPs who start to acquire Consciousness will agitate for Reforms you don’t

“In certain cases it can be benecial not to fulll your POPs needs. An example of this is when you want some of them to demote, either because they are currently more trou-ble than they are worth in their current job or because you need more people doing the job they demote to.“The classical example here is that labourers and farmers demote to soldiers. You can increase your soldiers POPs by cuddling the army with military spending and making it an attractive place to be but you can also tax the poor till they bleed and slap high tariffs on all imports and see them join the army out of poverty once they start to starve - assuming that your poor are poor enough that they cannot cover their life needs.“Likewise, if you have large numbers of farmers gaining militancy due to unemployement, which can happen in provinces with small RGOs, forcing them into the army via starva-tion may be preferable to having them breed the next generation of Jacobin rebels.”

peter ebbesen (Gentofte, Denmark)


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want to give them – Reforms that may prevent you from pursuing the government-determined priorities you think are best. This can be difficult for any Authoritarian regime, but is most uncomfortable if your system isn’t Authoritarian enough. A moderately Authoritarian country, where the people have some influence, is where it’s most difficult to keep your POPs in line. Keep them in cages, if you must, but definitely don’t allow them increased Consciousness. However, an Absolute Monarchy with an appointed Upper House will usually have the ability to keep their POPs in line, even if they do increase in Consciousness. In a strong Authoritarian country with tight internal controls you can allow your POPs high Consciousness and reap the benefits. This can be a somewhat dangerous balancing act, and relies on keeping Militancy low, but it is one of the ways to succeed with an Authoritarian country.But more democratic governments will actually want to promote Consciousness, through Taxation policies which allow increased CON, and through increased Literacy. High CON becomes a very beneficial factor in a free country’s development because it promotes Plurality and encourages Reforms over time.However, beware if you ever do something that isn’t in line with the POPs’ ways of thinking. Increased Consciousness allows them to understand, first, that they don’t want you to do that, and to recognize, secondly, that they do have something to say about it! They’ll begin to mobilise, politically, and if you don’t respond they’ll start to become Militant.You can manipulate how much or how little Consciousness your POPs acquire by way of Events. If you want more CON you can increase your Education Spending, which indirectly increases Literacy (the Clergy have a downward trend on Consciousness, though the Literacy they promote ultimately increases Consciousness). Allowing your POPs to keep enough of their Money that they can afford Luxury Goods will increase Consciousness. There are also Technologies which increase Plurality, which gradually increases Consciousness. The effect of Clergy in reducing CON works more effectively for low-class POP Types than for those who are in higher classes of society. That said, the other effects which increase CON (most particularly Events) tend to affect mostly the lower classes, and so these effects may cancel out. CON also is reduced by responding to the POPs demands for Reform, because the POP is satisfied and is happier about its overall situation.Obviously, an opposite trend must be attempted by those governments who want to prevent increased Consciousness – prevent Luxury Needs from being affordable (which may involve high Taxes, but could also mean exceptionally high Tariffs, which are a more targeted means to affect Goods availability), do the anti-Plurality Techs, and lower Education spending to prevent the Clergy from increasing Population and teaching (ultimately these last two recommendations will place a cap on your ability to Research as fast as other countries – this is the fate of backward countries).If you’re willing to try a balancing act, you could instead go ahead and fund Clergy/Education and use the other methods to keep CON low, even as Literacy rises.Some players may be tempted to try to increase Consciousness (and thereby the important Plurality) without using Clergy. This is not likely to work very effectively, because of the way Education Spending and Literacy interact. Your best bet is to fund Education Spending (which increases Clergy) and allow the Literacy to overcome the downward trend of the Clergy on Consciousness.Consciousness is not always a desired thing, even for free, democratic countries. The USA, for instance, has tremendous social tension related to

The Hermitage in Saint Petersburg, Russia, 1826.


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Slavery. This may eventually lead to the American Civil War (other countries may face similar tensions based on different issues). Some players may want to avoid the Civil War, others may want to rush it, and others to delay it. Depending on your chosen strategy, you may find increased Consciousness complicates your strategy. In these cases, you’ll want to prefer responses to Events which will have effects other than increased Consciousness.

PLURALITY (PLU)

Plurality is a measure of sophistication in your society, and also a measure of the collective desire for Reform. It is a history of advanced traditions – a “shared memory” of Consciousness – and a confidence that they under-stand their own needs as well or better than their government. To use an example from modern history which everyone will be familiar with, Imperial Germany and Weimar Germany were one of the most advanced societies in all of Europe before the 1930s – German culture, science, literature and virtually everything else set the standard for Europe and the world. When the Nazi authoritarians came to power, it served their purposes to reduce the Consciousness of the people. That did not permanently eliminate the societal accomplishments and traditions that had made German society great.Think of your Plurality as a “high water mark” for Consciousness. Even if your average national Conscious-ness is reduced, your nation’s Plurality will remain at its previous level, and will gradually draw your POPs’ Consciousness back toward its level. When you enact a Reform that the POPs are demanding (pointedly, not one that they are not demand-ing), their Consciousness will be reduced (they’re satisfied, and care less), which reduces pressure on the government for an immediate followup Reform. However, when Consciousness is reduced, the level of Plurality stays the same, so that pressure still exists for CON to increase again.Plurality itself can be reduced or increased by Technologies (in the Culture category). Plurality will increase as your average Consciousness increases.Functionally, besides providing an upward draw on your POPs’ Consciousness, Plurality plays a large role in contributing Research Points to your country, allowing you to build upon a prior history of Technological or Cultural accomplishment. This contribution, fortunately, is not reduced merely by lowered Consciousness, but is only impaired if you intentionally reduce your Plurality values.

“If you’re a victoria 1 veteran, beware that getting reforms through now needs patient and careful work -- small steps! But it’s much more rewarding, now that you know how much you worked for this reform, and constantly nudged your pops into the direction you want. Increasing the militancy of your pops will allow you to enact reforms even with a conservative majority [because conservatives get “scared” by the threat of revo-lution]. Having weighted universal or universal suffrage prevents the liberal revolution from starting in your country. You could try to pre-empt those revolutionaries by incre-asing the militancy in your country to enact those reforms ahead of time, but this is a very difcult feat to accomplish.”

safferli (Germany)


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MILITANCY (MIL)

When you tell someone your opinion, and they don’t care… Doesn’t that make you mad? That’s Militancy, except in Victoria 2 it’s a bunch of people who are giving you their opinion. If you don’t care – or if you offend them in some other way – they’re going to get mad.There are times when you may hold back on Reform, in order to cause more Militancy, just in order to enable yourself to Reform more quickly. This is a dangerous game, though, unless you’re prepared to fight some Rebels.Most of the time, rulers of countries are deathly afraid of Militancy among their POPs, and will want to act to control it so that they don’t have to call out the army, later, to control it more firmly. If allowed to simmer and fester, Militancy ends in a Revolt – small or large, depending on the circumstances.

LITERACY (LIT)

Literacy impacts the efficiency with which some POP Types (Clergy, Artisans, Clerks) perform their jobs. Your country’s Average Literacy impacts how many Research Points your country gets, which is a very important function you should covet.Literacy also affects POPs’ ability to Promote – or, more accurately, their ability to Promote into POP Types that will be most effective for your long-term development as a country.When the percentage of Clergy in your Population reaches its optimal point (check Tooltips to show you what this value is, because it may change) you are at the upper limit of what can do any good. Bring your Education Spending down so that you don’t encourage more, because that will only cost you more with no recognisable effect.

IDEOLOGY & ISSUES

POP Types each have their “preferred” Ideology, though a portion of each POP actually represents every Ideology to a greater or lesser degree. POPs will tend to support Parties of their predominant Ideology, even if they aren’t allowed to vote (i.e. even without voting, they can “support” a Party by not becoming Militant when that Party is in power).POPs develop and agitate for preferred Issues according to their situation. POPs who are Unemployed, for instance, may find a special attachment to the concept of Unemployment Benefits. Soldiers tend to be Pro-Military. Capitalists tend to be Liberal (in the sense of wanting more freedom for their business dealings).

NON-ACCEPTED CULTURES & ASSIMILATION

Being from a different culture does potentially impact a POP’s Militancy. Countries whose Residency Policy excludes certain POPs from citizenship will cause a Militancy rise among those POPs who are excluded.Non-Accepted Culture POPs will Assimilate over time (adopt the National Culture). This is influenced partially by the government’s Residency Policy (a measure of persecution), which may pressure the POP to Assimilate to become accepted, and by the POPs’ Literacy level, which makes it more likely to Assimilate.Persecution (in the form of Events, or whatever) tends to make POPs both, more Militant and more interested in Assimilating.

NATIONALISM

As you conquer enemy territory, from Civilised or Uncivilised countries, there will be increased hostility toward you as the new Owner of those Provinces. This is expressed as Nationalism, which produces increased Militancy which will subside over the course of years.Conquered Provinces which are not Cores of the conquering power will exhibit an increased Militancy influencer called Nationalism, which will subside gradually over the course of a number of years.

Influencing Immigration, Emigration & Promotion

PROMOTION

There are several influencers which could cause a POP to Promote to a more desirable POP Type (see the POP Type chart at the end of this book for details on who can Promote/Demote to who). POPs can also Demote, which in some circumstances may be preferable for your government, even if the POP may not be that happy about it.POPs are looking for more Money and better jobs, typically. POPs will want to Promote if there are better-paying and higher status jobs available, such as Farmers wanting to Promote to Craftsmen or Bureaucrats. The “better job” may be represented by the available profits (for profit-sharing POPs) or better government pay (such as for Bureaucrats or Clergy). If POPs are unhappy where they are, they may also Demote into a POP Type that’s making more Money, which in some circumstances may mean Soldiers. Unsuccessful POPs may Demote in order to get into a more stable financial situation as a Farmer or Labourer.POPs are more likely to be able to Promote if their Literacy is higher. It’s also helpful for Promotion if a POP has some extra Savings which could enable them to make the jump. However, in other circumstances, a POP may Promote out of desperation – say, if they are out of work as a Labourer, or cannot save any Money because of over-taxation, and they think they can do better as a Craftsman.Lower Taxes for the higher-Class POP Type may also serve as a draw for more POPs to Promote.

ATTRACTING THE RIGHT POPS

Your levels of Administrative, Education or Military Spending may attract POPs who could either Promote into the POP Type in question, or might even Immigrate from another country. The higher the pay offered, and the

“Under some governments you can allow poor POPs enough money to promote by reducing taxes or heavily subsidising imports. But under others, e.g. minimum 50% tax ones, the single best way to make the poor promote is to increase rgo output through technology.”



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lower the Taxes you’ve set on that POP Class, the more likely it will seem attractive to a Promoting or Emigrating POP.The “New World” gets a bonus for Immigration – many POPs who are unsatisfied at home will be drawn to Emigrate to the USA or other American countries. Gradually, this influence bias will shift toward the United States rather than toward other American countries. There is also a further bias introduced to influence which country they will Emigrate to, which shifts every month.The National Focus is another useful way to influence these things, but it cannot overcome the primary principle of getting Money to the POPs. If a POP Migrates because of a National Focus, but they can’t make Money, they will eventually leave.Emigrating POPs will also prefer to go to a Democracy, where their opinions will be respected. This can be one way, besides offering jobs, to attract Immigrants. These countries are also more likely to keep their POPs.

Typical continental travel in the mid-1800s. Painting by Johann Heinrich Bürkel

A POP won’t Immigrate to a country where there are no available jobs for that POP Type. Make jobs, then they will come.Certain POPs – Soldiers, Officers, Clergy and Bureaucrats – are 100 percent reliant upon your Budgetary decisions to make Money. If you don’t pay them enough, they’ll lose Population. If you want more of them, you can increase their Budget line item. Other POPs – all the rest (except for Slaves) – depend on the state of your economy, one way or another. They must be able to sell the Goods they produce in order to make Money, or they must be able to find jobs so they are not Unemployed. As ruler of your country, you can influence this, though you can’t always directly control it.There’s never a guarantee that you can keep a POP from Migrating (either Emigrating or moving internally). The best possible result is for them to Migrate internally, so it’s good to have a number of attractive States where someone could move.


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Slavery & The American Civil War

When the United States Constitution was negotiated, between the different states, the South insisted that the institution of slavery be protected. Slavery was written into the final version of the Constitution, existing beside the more noble expressions of peoples’ rights and freedoms. The British Empire had outlawed slavery in 1833.Among the American Founders, some had opposed slavery in general, while others disliked the practice, even while owning their own slaves. Many believed slavery would become increasingly unprofitable, and would eventually go away on its own. But the invention of the Cotton Gin reinvigorated the cotton industry, and slaves remained an important part of the southern economy. A movement of Christians and progressive thinkers founded an anti-slavery movement in America, based on William Wilberforce’s successful efforts in the United Kingdom. Even some who were pro-slavery began to consider emancipation in order to avoid slave revolts and violence.In the early 1800s, the “colonisation societies” sought to buy slaves, free them, and send them “back to Africa.” This popular combination of racism and compassion resulted in the foundation of the country of Liberia, in west Africa. Throughout the 1830s into the 1850s, anti-slavery politicians favoured accommodation and containment toward slavery – regulate it, and keep it in the south. Much legislation in the 1840s was aimed at stopping the spread to newly admitted states, often maintaining a balance of votes in the Senate by admitting slave and free states on a one-to-one basis. Meanwhile, as the anti-slavery movement grew more vocal, more politically powerful, and more focused on wholesale emancipation, an “underground railroad” to transport escaped slaves into freedom in the north began to operate. Tensions over slavery were growing because of westward expansion, through settlement, treaty and conquest – anti-slavery factions in Congress wanted to keep slavery out of the new territory altogether. The conflict was temporarily resolved by the Compromise of 1850, which allowed limited expansion of slavery if approved by a state’s voters, but enforced a Fugitive Slave Law, requiring the return of escaped slaves found in the north. The principle of popular sovereignty was again followed in the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act, but attempted manipulation of the vote in Kansas by both sides resulted in “Bloody Kansas” – a violent clash between pro- and anti-slavery citizens, leaving nearly 100 dead and many more Americans permanently embittered. Violent opposition to slavery continued in 1859, with John Brown’s raid on the arsenal at Harper’s Ferry. Things were made worse by the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision, upholding slavery as a legal institution.Anti-slavery votes destroyed the American Whig Party, and split the Democrats, as the emergent Republican Party became the anti-slavery party. A four-way race in 1860 elected anti-slavery Abraham Lincoln, and that was the last straw for the South. States began to secede, and the American Civil War began.The southern Confederate States of America (CSA) was immediately advantaged by the proportion of talented generals who were from those states. Lincoln’s north was handicapped by a succession of timid or incompetent generals. Despite a brilliant campaign waged in northern Virginia by Gen. Robert E. Lee, his attempt to invade Pennsylvania was stopped at Antietam and Gettysburg, and the Confederacy never again made a substantial move into Union territory.Gen. Ulysses S. Grant led United States forces down the Mississippi River to a significant victory at Vicksburg, which continued south to divide CSA territory. As the new Union commander, he fenced with Lee in a series of battles of attrition which the South could not hope to win. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman delivered the death blow to the CSA by marching and burning his way through Georgia, destroying much of the industrial capacity and will to resist in the South. Peace, in 1865, brought freedom for the slaves, and a lingering period of bitterness between North and South, still. President Lincoln paid the price of a sour victory when he was assassinated by a southern sympathizer shortly after war’s end.


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Managing RGO

s

Every RGO has a maximum capacity for Farmers or Labourers. Up to that limit, you may increase the Production of the RGO through building or attracting more Population from elsewhere. Once that upper limit is reached, the Production of the RGO may only increase if Railroads or Aristocrats increase Production Efficiency, or if Technology increases Efficiency or the size or your RGO. Other Techs may actually decrease the size of your RGO, causing you to lose workers, though these Techs also increase your Production Efficiency for those same Goods, so the net effect will always be upward.

Managing Factories

In the Manual, I said Factories exist within a State, and draw workers from every Province in that State. That’s sort of true, and sort of not. I should have just left it at “draw their workers from every Province in the State.” The Factory itself physically exists within the capital Province of that State, which means it can be taken by another country in a Peace Treaty. But there’s a catch – if you don’t own more than one or two Provinces of the State in which that Factory operates, then you’re trying to run a Factory with half a crew! Only workers who reside inside your own borders may work in your Factory. So a Factory is best located where you Own all the State’s Provinces (or at least three).Factories have their own internal economy which depends on profit. The workers are paid by the Factory from the income generated by selling its Goods. That gross income is reduced by the cost of Inputs required

ECONOMICS & INDUSTRY VI

“Once an rgo reaches maximum capacity, any farmers or labourers in the province in excess of that capacity will be unemployed. Since unemployment is bad, you should do your best to avoid this happening in the rst place or, failing that, do your best to make the surplus farmers or labourers promote or demote into new jobs before you have a rebel problem on your hands.”


to produce the Factory’s Goods, creating the net income the workers and Capitalists share from (the Manual referred to Inputs coming out of net income, but of course that’s nonsense). The workers depend on a profitable factory, and the Factory depends on its workers – if the workers leave because they can’t make enough Money, that Factory may Close. If either labour or Input Goods are not available in quantity to meet the total need, then the Factory will produce at reduced output.The more Capitalists you have in a State (up to a limit of around 2%), the better your Cost Efficiency for your Factories will be. Technology can also improve your Cost Efficiency or Production Efficiency. Cost Efficiency will reduce the amount of (and cost of) Input Goods needed to produce the same amount of Manufactured Goods.Once you start to get Craftsmen to work in your Factories – about the first 1,000 – it almost immediately pays to start finding Clerks for that Factory. There are two ways to influence this. The first is easy – encourage Craftsmen to Promote to Clerks by reducing Middle Class Taxes (a good, profitable Factory may not even require this). The other way would be to use a National Focus, though that may be considered overkill for this purpose. Its efficacy is improved if you can stand to micromanage the Focus – leave it in one State long enough to reach a 4:1 ratio of Craftsmen to Clerks (the ideal Ratio, resulting in maximum Efficiency – you could stand to do extra, just to keep the ratio going for longer), then move the Focus to another State and repeat the process.Some long-term planning with Factories may be useful. You have a maximum of 8 factories in each State, though each can be of any level. Most countries won’t be able to “fill up” all of these slots and levels, but some perhaps can. If you start to approach the maximum number of Factories in a State, it is in your interests to make sure you have a good mix of Factories, and that they aren’t all just low-Tech consumer goods Factories. Keep room somewhere in your country (somewhere that’s a good location for Factories – not somewhere that can’t support the Population of Craftsmen and Clerks necessary for success) for some advanced Technology Factories which may be only available in the late game. If you find it necessary to slow the Project-building rate of your Capitalists so they don’t fill up all your slots early on, you could try increasing Taxes on the Rich Class and Tariffs (only if you don’t wreck other portions of your economy by doing so), or even changing Economic Policy with a new Ruling Party.You can also set Priorities on Factories, sending your limited supplies of Input Goods and labour to the most important Factories. This is only


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necessary if there are shortages, but it might be a good idea to set Priorities anyway, just in case a shortage occurs when you’re not looking.The government sets Priorities if they are Interventionist, or more strongly into state control. However, while Laissez Faire governments cannot set Priorities for their Factories, the Priority is automatically set to 1 for new Factories (those with less than 1,000 workers) in order to help them grow.If you really have a Factory that isn’t making profit, and probably won’t make a profit, which is nevertheless taking up workers and making a nuisance of itself, it may be worth Closing it. Closing a Factory can throw workers into Unemployment, which is hopefully very temporary. It’s obviously best if there is an understaffed Factory in the State where they can shift to. Usually, this is the whole point of Closing the Factory.If you have either a State Capitalism or Planned Economy policy as your Economic Policy, you may destroy (cancel) Factories which are currently under construction.

Strategic Goods

Not all Goods are as meaningful to every country. Often, it depends on status and strategy. But whatever is meaningful needs to be protected, either financially or militarily.A small, agricultural or fishing country won’t need to worry about Steel or other advanced Goods. Without Factories, they have little use for Raw Materials used by industrial countries, except to sell them to those countries. Even military Goods may not be as in-demand by these countries, because their ability to build modern armies of great size may be limited.Major industrial countries have a heavier emphasis on need for Raw Materials, as well as for cement and machine parts – the Goods needed to Maintain their Factories. Iron begets steel. Timber becomes lumber, which becomes furniture, which becomes luxury furniture – a “chain of production” (see the Chain of Production chart at the end of this book to see what exists within which chains).A “strategic Good” is anything your country, or your country’s economy, needs to keep operating. In small or Uncivilised countries, a strategic Good may be whatever Luxuries its POPs want in order to be happy. In industrial countries, a strategic Good may include anything within its chain of production – Goods which factor into the production of other Goods in its Factories. If three of a country’s major Factories depend on silk to make luxury clothing, then silk is a strategic Good to that country – something important enough to fight for, if it can’t be easily bought on the World Market.For Great Powers, Second Tier Powers, and anybody else whose survival depends on a strong, modernised military, strategic Goods must also include military Goods which allow it to construct such fleets and armies.Strategic Goods are often worth Stockpiling in larger quantities, because Production Efficiency will suffer if you run out, and also because in case of war you may face shortages. During long wars this could be a concern. If your access to strategic Goods is unstable, or could be cut off by Blockade, it becomes an important goal to “move” those Goods into your Internal Market, either by extending your Sphere of Influence to enclose access to those Goods, or by conquering Provinces which produce that Good.

Factory Subsidies

Sometimes a Factory cannot be profitable without government Subsidies, and so you will want to “prop it up” by guaranteeing its costs so that it breaks even – this may require the purchase of expensive Input Goods, etc. This is especially true of Factories making strategic Goods, such as national security industries.Other times, you will find that a Factory will become more profitable if you remove the government Subsidies. How could this be? The Capitalists who run the Factory may avoid making necessary cuts if they know the Government will cover them – they may decide not to cut workers, or not to reduce Production to match available Inputs (your Government is covering Inputs – why cut Production?). If you remove the Subsidy, the Capitalists will start to make those tough business decisions that will start turning a profit, even if it also has drawbacks, such as Unemployment, which hopefully will be temporary.To determine whether Subsidies are really necessary you could remove them for a week or a few, and see if the Factory starts turning a profit, perhaps even without laying off workers. If it doesn’t work, you

Four settings for Factory PriorityA 19th Century Swedish factory.


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can always re-establish the Subsidy without much negative effect to the affected industry or workers.If you choose to only Subsidise certain Factories, your choices should lean toward strategic Goods Factories and those Factories which are most frequently going out of business (i.e. Closing). Unemployment can sometimes be as detrimental to your country’s development as a lack of strategic Goods. A Subsidy guarantees two things – the Factory will continue producing whatever it produces, and it will continue employing whoever it employs. Either can be a desired condition, depending on the desperation of your situation, or your personal preferences.Sometimes a Subsidy is really necessary to keep a Factory going, especially if it’s from a critical military industry or something. But at some point test it without Subsidies for a period of a month or two, just to see if it’s going to fail or succeed on its own. If you still need to rescue it to keep it from failing, then you can renew the Subsidy and nothing is lost except a little production and a temporary heartache for the workers.Subsidies can kill your industry too. If you’ve guaranteed profit from your Factories (which is what a Subsidy is), then the Capitalist operators are bound to start making silly business decisions, like keeping too many workers on hand, or building Factories when conditions aren’t favourable, etc. A non-Subsidized Factory might, on the other hand, make cuts to workforce and costs when business is slow, which causes temporary Unemployment, but may have a higher likelihood of resulting in later profits.Subsidies are not allowed under a Laissez Faire Economic Policy, where Factories are also removed (destroyed) if they continuously fail to show a profit. For this reason, it may be worth choosing a different Economic Policy for a time in order to rescue the Factory through Subsidies. This is a significant choice, so make sure you’re ready to accept the full Economic Policy in order to rescue the Factory.When the Economic Policy does allow Subsidies, all new Factories are defaulted to receive Subsidies – you will need to go change this if you don’t want a Factory Subsidized.

Building an Industrial Economy

The more you can build Railroads (or encourage their construction), the more efficiently your Factories will operate.In a properly diversified industrial economy, some of your Factories will exist to make strategic Goods, others will exist to make a profit, while yet others will exist in order to support the other industries.When you build Factories out of your Treasury, you should take care to choose locations to best benefit you. If you’re allowing Capitalists to build them, you can’t really control where they build, or even what. But keep an eye on things to see if you might need to temporarily intervene to make something necessary happen. Certain Factories (Lumber Factories, Steel Factories) may only be built in certain Provinces which support their industry, so take this into account when watching over your development.When you’re first starting out, location doesn’t matter so much as what you’re building and what support mechanisms you have in place. A Factory needs workers, and so your earliest Factories should really have the support of your National Focus to bring in workers. Ideally, your first Factory will be something that will make Money, because you need those early profits to build up your Treasury, and also to attract good workers from Promotion or Immigration. Profit means good, attractive incomes! Later industries should be selected from those strategic Goods you need, and/or something down the chain of production from something your existing Factories or RGOs already produce. If you have two RGOs producing wool or cotton, it makes sense to make a Fabric Factory, for instance.Not all profit-making Factories can exclusively use Goods from your Internal Market. In fact, some of the best moneymakers are luxury furniture and luxury clothing, both of which will probably require at least one Input that your country doesn’t produce. It’s not a problem to have to buy some of your Inputs off the World Market – not at first, anyway.If there are Unemployed workers somewhere, especially if they are


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chronically Unemployed or underemployed (going in and out of work, perhaps because of an unstable supply of Inputs or Closing Factories), it is good to build a new Factory there. This may seem silly, to respond to current Unemployment by building a Factory that may take years to put into business, but there is a good likelihood that the same cycle of Unemployment will continue until things are addressed by another Factory.It would be a good idea to consider your country’s general defensive structure, as well as your Population structure (leaning toward large Population centres for early and/or important Factories), when choosing sites. You do not want an important strategic Goods Factory near where the enemy can strike at it. Some smaller countries do not have a choice in where to place them, but if a choice can be made think strategically where is most defensible.It’s difficult to tell at a glance which Goods will make profitable Factories. For instance, explosives sell for what seems a high price, but when you consider that its production requires two other rather expensive Goods, it doesn’t have a great margin for profit – explosives are strategic Goods, needed for military applications, and aren’t a great idea for making Money. A rough idea of the profitability of a Factory type can be had by considering its selling price versus the selling price of the required Inputs. For instance, paper may sell for 3 times its Input cost (lumber), whereas the lumber itself doesn’t bring in much more than its own Input (timber). So we see that paper is a profitable Factory, whereas lumber is not. However, lumber can be profitable as part of a chain of production. Turning unprofitable lumber into furniture brings in a 4:1+ profit, and if it’s combined with fabric (another Good which costs almost as much to make as it brings in) to create clipper convoys, it could bring in a 10:1 profit or better! Clipper convoys make good money very early on, but it’s almost an obsolete industry at the beginning of the game. By mid-game, you’ll not have much demand. As an interim moneymaker, it’s a good choice. Steamers, obviously, are better.Most Great Powers or Second Tier Powers are within a stone’s throw of Steamer Technology anyway, so many naval powers will immediately jump to producing those lucrative Factories, skipping Clipper Factories entirely.Liquor and wine Factories are good bets for quick cash, especially if you produce grain or fruit internally (and most countries do). Canned food is a sort of hybrid, as it’s a strategic Good and yet can bring a profit.Either luxury item – clothing or furniture – will do well for profit, although warfare could stymie your access to those necessary Input Goods. Furniture can make a good profit on its own, besides being a stepping-stone to luxury furniture. Regular clothes are variable – check current rates for dye.Machine Parts and Cement are both great for profits, and they’re guaranteed to be in demand throughout the game. Machine Parts, especially, are good if you have the Technology to produce them, because many of your rivals won’t!Military Goods are usually in high demand throughout the game, and are also useful for your own building needs, but the profit they turn is dampened by high production costs.Useful late-game Factories will generally be on the cutting edge of your Technology. Hopefully, by this point, your country will have its own niche of Technology where you’re ahead of most of the other countries of the world. Those Techs, where you may have a virtual monopoly, are where you’ll make your Money.While building your industrial economy, don’t forget Railroads….

“Cement factories are cheap, quick to build and from experience they tend to run a prot early in the game even if you have low techs.”

peekee (alan riDDell, canaDa)


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Revolutionary Changes to Travel & Communication by Land and Sea

At the beginning of the Victoria 2 timeframe, sailing ships cruised the seas and horse cavalry still ruled the battlefield. But Queen Victoria herself saw her first steam-driven train in 1837, and soon she had commissioned one to travel between destinations in her realm (as shown below).A ship which was state-of-the-art in 1836 would become obsolete mere decades later because of changes in armament, protection and, most especially, propulsion. Coal-fired steam engines transformed naval warfare, just as it did world trade and even land-based transportation and factories. What the steam engine accomplished at sea was replicated on land, with steam-driven locomotives carrying trains of cargo and passenger cars along rails into the far frontiers, and even into great mountain ranges. Along with the later invention of the telegraph, these new technologies enabled more rapid communication and transport, enabling sizeable migrations and encouraging the nationalisation of government control.By the end of Victoria 2’s historical time period, the combustion engine combined with other technologies to give mankind control of the skies.

Railroads

Railroads are a must for a serious industrial economy, and they double as speedy routes to and fro across your empire for your armies to meet military threats.As with military units, when you want to build Railroads with government funds, it’s wise to build up a Stockpile of the necessary Inputs before you make your purchase orders. This way you’ve taken the time to buy Stockpiles without spiking the market, and you’ll be able to start building immediately. Railroads provide a bonus to Factory and RGO production of 20% per level, which is huge!The movement speed of your Brigades is increased by the percentage Level of Infrastructure in the Province. Therefore, it may be a good idea to extend Railroads from the interior of your country toward your borders so that your troops may move more quickly to where they’re needed. Keep in mind, though, that maybe you don’t want those Railways to go quite all the way to the border, as the enemy can use them in the opposite direction! Use wisdom in deciding where to do this.

Economic Improvement Through Conquest

In the Strategic Goals section, I explain the concept of “chasing” strategic Goods – things you particularly need to properly industrialise and build your country. But a Good doesn’t have to be a pre-identified “strategic Good” to be important to either your industrialisation or your country’s future. Any Good, if needed by your POPs or Factories, becomes a “strategic Good” which can/must be “chased” for the good of your country.Because every country has some sort of economy, you can expand your own economy by annexing their States. You’ll gain the RGOs which exist there (some of which are more useful and more profitable than others), and you gain Population, which may allow you to ultimately Promote them to more useful industrial POP Types. If you can capture industrialised Provinces, then your economic benefit will be even better. Picking up new Factories (along with their workers) is often the quickest way to increase your Industrial Score.Because of the concept of “chasing” it is often useful for you to pick out certain valuable resources – certain Factories or RGOs which produce specific items – as targets for conquest.


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Budgeting 101

Think of your Spending and Budgeting tools as a panel of levers and switches which you can manipulate to arrive at the formula you need. Too much spending without enough Taxation is bad, while too much Taxation may strangle the economic development you’ll need for later Budgets. Balances must be found in order to make your Budgets consistent.If you find you’re constantly dipping into your Treasury reserves, you either need to increase income through various forms of Taxation, or you need to control your Spending better. That’s all part of the Budget process, and believe it or not, countries which constantly run deficits are not going to be able to keep that up forever.Both Education Spending and Administrative Spending pay for themselves in the early game. Once you’ve reached a relatively high “plateau,” the utility of having either at 100% lessens. It’s not ever necessary to have either at 100%, but many players (including myself) recommend it if it’s not a “budget buster.” Education Spending equals higher Literacy (indirectly, through Clergy), which equals more Promotions, and higher Consciousness, which contributes to Plurality, which contributes to Research Points. Administrative Spending equals better Efficiency in controlling administrative costs, which means your Taxation and Tariff collection will pay off better in the end. The more Money you spend in this category, up to a point, the more Money you have coming into your Budget. Corruption or saturation may interfere with this seemingly perfect arrangement – having too many Bureaucrats or Clergy may actually cost you more than it helps.Keep in mind that these values do not remain static. Each slider pays a segment of your society. If the Population of that/those POP Types changes, so will the values you must pay to maintain the set percentage of funding (i.e. if you set Bureaucrats at 100% funding, which will encourage more POPs to Promote to Bureaucrats, you will have a gradually growing line item, which you may not be able to afford, long term (especially since you’ll eventually see diminishing returns on your investment).

Taxation Policy

Many players prefer to set high Taxation policies from the very beginning of the game, and will continue them throughout. This results in relatively high amounts of Money to spend through the national Treasury. There are consequences to this, however. POPs who have little Money of their own to spend will have difficulty getting their Life and Everyday Needs met, which means they will probably gain Militancy, and they will also be less likely to Promote to a more useful POP Type. They may even Demote. These things can actually crash your economy, or at least retard it so that it never really develops to its full potential.A balance must be struck between the needs of your POPs versus your needs as a government, which may or may not be in danger of conquest by rivals. Taxation Policy must be carefully managed to ensure that your POPs have enough Money to spend on their own Needs, just as the government has enough Money to spend on what it needs. Immediate concerns, of course, can “wash out” longer term concerns for the happiness of your POPs – if your government faces imminent invasion, it may be unwise to consider the needs of your POPs first, and only increase your military as you can afford. Urgency is an important consideration when setting the balance between POP and government needs.It is true that you can manipulate POPs into doing certain things by increasing their Taxes, making it less likely they’ll want to remain where they are. The only problem is this usually causes them to do something you don’t want them to do, rather than something you intended. In order to Promote, they often need spare cash, which they are less likely to have if they are being aggressively Taxed.Aggressive Taxation is a problem with the Rich Class, too. I know – there’s a natural tendency for those of us who aren’t millionaires to want to “soak the rich” and get them to pay for lots of stuff – maybe even allow them to “carry” a good portion of your national budget. There’s a problem with this, though. For one, there aren’t normally very many Rich POPs, and so Taxing them outrageous amounts isn’t going to bring as much into your Treasury as a more modest increase to your Middle or Lower Class Taxes. Secondly, this shows a desire to get them to play a role different from the one they should really be doing. The Rich shouldn’t be funding your Budget. The Rich should be funding your economic expansion, by means of constructing Factory and Railroad Projects. High Taxes make this increasingly difficult for them, to the point where eventually they will be unable to do Projects at all. In fact, in environments of really high Taxation, the Rich POPs will probably either Migrate elsewhere (to help fund someone else’s economy!), or will Demote into a less desirable POP Type. It is well recommended that Taxes for the Rich to be kept below the Taxes for the other Classes, so that they are free to use more of their Money for investments that will benefit you in the long run.

SPENDING & BUDGETING VII


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Here’s an interesting thought. The Taxes you set for the Lower Class are the forms of Tax mostly paid through the industry of those who work to make a profit from their own labours. The Taxes you set for the Middle Class largely fall upon those who you pay through the public Treasury (i.e. it’s a Tax on the Money you pay to your Clergy, Officers, Bureaucrats, etc.). So if you reduce Taxes on the Middle Class, you could probably reduce Spending for Education and Administration Spending and achieve somewhat of the same attraction for POPs to Promote to those jobs and remain there.Keep in mind also that higher Taxes (or Tariffs) may also prevent your POPs from having excess Money that they could invest in your National Bank. This not only allows them extra income (which is Taxable, itself), but it allows you to take Loans from your own Bank, rather than from a foreign country which may get you in trouble.Certain Economic Policies affect your ability to set your preferred Tax Policy. State Capitalism requires Taxes for all Classes be set no lower than 25%. Whereas Laissez Faire prohibits Taxes higher than 50% on any Class.

Tariffs

A Tariff is a Tax on the purchase of Goods, like a sales tax, except that it is only applied to imports, not to locally produced Goods. If Tariffs are set at 40%, and a Good is priced at £10, then that Good would be purchased internally at £10, but the same Good would require £14 to purchase from the World Market.Tariffs only add to Goods from the World Market, and anything produced and sold within your Internal Market will not have the additional price. This has the effect of preferring the Internal Market, as your POPs will buy those cheaper products from there first, before looking elsewhere for the more expensive Goods (the ones being taxed by the Tariff).Historically, there were some countries (the United States was one of them) that operated for a period of their history exclusively on the revenue generated by Tariffs on foreign imports. This can be tried in the game. It requires, however, that the player be very good at running a Budget on limited resources. Frankly, the potential revenue income from Tariffs is limited compared to Taxation of the various economic Classes. It is also very dependent on how many of the Goods your POPs need must be sought on the World Market. If your POPs don’t need to find their Goods on the World Market, or if they cannot afford those Goods because the Tariffs have nearly doubled the price of those Goods, then your ability to raise Money through high Tariffs may be impaired.Ironically, your attempts to expand your Sphere of Influence can have a negative effect on your ability to raise Money through Tariffs, because the more your POPs can find Goods on your Internal Market, the less you’ll gather from Tariffs.Keep in mind that Tariffs have a direct effect on your POPs’ ability to buy Goods to fulfill their Life, Everyday and Luxury Needs, whereas Taxes have only an indirect effect. Taxes are distributed to all POPs within each Class, regardless of what their Needs are, whereas Tariffs are targeted to only affect those POPs who need to find their Goods on the World Market. Certain Trade Policies require levels of Tariff, such as the Free Trade Policy, which has a maximum limit on Tariffs of 25% and the Protectionism Policy, which allows up to 100% Tariff (which basically doubles the price of every Good that isn’t produced within your Internal Market).High Tariffs greatly encourage reliance on your Internal Market, which is fine so long as your Internal Market contains most of the Goods you need. Otherwise, you’re setting a huge burden on the shoulders of your citizens. Tariffs are actually the preferred method of raising income for a country whose Sphere of Influence draws most useful Goods into its Internal Market.

Advanced Budgeting

You can actually use your Tariff Policy as a reverse Tariff – subsidizing your POPs in buying imports. This makes the most sense for countries without a lot of internally produced, high-demand Goods. Otherwise, you are competing against your internal moneymaking industries. But if your POPs are really struggling, this can help them meet their needs. Generally this would be a temporary measure, to get over a bad spot. If your Treasury can handle it (has a large enough balance), you could use a reverse Tariff to allow your POPs to ride out the high prices from a Blockade, by absorbing some of the added cost, so that they don’t get Militant and start rising up against you.There are a variety of ways to run your national economy, but on one extreme is always a high degree of government control, and on the other extreme is a principle of keeping the government out of the way of the private businessman – Capitalists – so they can do their job with as much freedom as possible.If you’re playing with state control, you want to increase your Taxes and/or Tariffs so you have enough Money to build Stockpiles and the various other things to build the Factories and various other things these governments get to fund (Subsidies, Railroad construction, etc.).On the other hand, if you’re wanting to use laissez faire (roughly translated as “hands off”) policies, you want Taxes and Tariffs low (or lower) and you’ll want to do as much as you can to pump more Money into the private economy so the POPs can buy what they need to live and invest. You’re also allowing POPs to have enough surplus Money that they may gain savings and Consciousness which will help them want to Promote to the POP Types you want. And you’re especially doing this so Capitalists can be free to build their own private stockpiles of Goods and Money to fund the many Projects you want them to build.

“For large economies like the U.S. You should let your mercantilist freak ag run high. To encourage industrial development, raise tariffs to 25% or higher while keeping income taxes low. High tariffs allow your own industries to develop and low taxes allow your people to build and buy more. You should encourage mercantilist policies to get an edge up on your neighbour. Free trade is for saps.”

marshman (j. boyD, san francisco, usa)


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Raise the Red Banner!

Socialists overall look to the national government to protect workers by control or regulation of capital, taking away the traditional, allegedly exploitive role of capitalists in free market societies. The expression of socialism, once achieved, took different forms, from blends like market socialism to full communism. One branch of socialists (libertarian socialists or anarcho-liberals) took an entirely different approach, renouncing state power altogether in favour of local government or anarchy.The socialist political movement (along with its related communist faction) gained strength as industrialisation prompted dramatic shifts in the income, working conditions and living arrangements of the middle and lower classes of society. The social tension caused by demographic upheaval translated itself into discontentment and militancy. Some socialists sought only reform within existing systems, while others advocated the violent overthrow of governments, though even reformers could rise up if frustrated enough. Each method experienced both success and failure during the period of Victoria 2. Historically, in the spring of 1848, many countries of Europe saw a generalised uprising of liberals and socialists, the lower classes, nationalists, religious and ethnic minorities, and even the middle class against their governments, demanding social or political reforms. Widespread famine compounded the discontent and led to increasing desperation. In some areas, peaceful demonstrations sufficed, while in other areas, open warfare broke out. In the German states, an attempt to create a unified German nation failed.Royalists led a mostly successful counter-revolution through 1848 and 1849, putting down uprisings and new governments by way of military force. The 1850s ended up being a time of reaction, with most royal houses restored to power and security, allowing little dissent to be publicly voiced.The philosopher Karl Marx has gone down in history as the most famous of the socialist agitators, but there were others leading the socialist movement even before the publication of his and Friedrich Engels’ Communist Manifesto in 1848. Socialist thought in the first half of the 19th Century saw many forms, influenced by the ideas of Jeremy Bentham, Robert Owen, Charles Fourier, Henri de Saint-Simon and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, among others, representing a tremendous variety of opinion. Saint-Simon’s philosophy, for instance, could be seen as almost opposite of Marx’.Socialism by no means remained an exclusively European social movement. It exerted influence upon the political scene in the United States, and even factored into much of Japan’s history in the early 20th Century. The most spectacular of all socialist revolutions, of course, took place in 1917 in Russia, though the end result of a series of changes of government was nowhere near the communist ideal.

Barricade on the Rue Soufflot, by Horace Vernet, 1848


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Now, from a laissez faire perspective, “pumping Money” is not actually what you’re doing – governments really don’t put Money into the economy without taking it out of the economy first. What you’re doing is (you guessed it!) keeping your hands off the¬ private economy and allowing it to grow the way it should. You’re refusing to obstruct the natural flow of money through your private economy.Improving Literacy helps encourage Promotion also. You need to fund your Education Spending, which is more important to a laissez faire economy than a state controlled one (in state control you can make up for the lack of the right POPs by Subsidizing).

LOANS & DEBT STRATEGY

If your Treasury drops below zero, you will automatically take a Loan, if possible, This will be taken first from your own National Bank, and once that is depleted, you will acquire Loans from other countries (who may or may not pose a threat to you).Loans can be dangerous. If you over-borrow, you can end up Defaulting, which can have some pretty hefty consequences if you’re not very powerful and your lender is. See Gunboat Diplomacy! Keep in mind Defaulting may not always be your fault – sometimes you can fall into weird circumstances (wars, serious Events) where your economy is thrown into a tailspin, and you can’t keep up on your Debt payments. Then where are you?Capitalists will deposit Money into the National Bank (as will others), but Capitalists will withdraw their funds in order to pay for Projects, and regular POPs also withdraw funds to pay for Needs. The balance in the National Bank may be routinely fluctuating.Small countries, unfortunately, may not always have the financial and industrial wherewithal to do what they must to protect themselves militarily, or to industrialise so that they can pull out of their meager status. In these cases, many countries consider Loans. But you must be just as careful as the big boys – more careful, frankly, because the consequences can be relatively more dire. Nevertheless, the temptation is there, and it’s not necessarily a bad choice to take Loans in this situation. Careful handling may prevent you from falling afoul of your lender, and meanwhile you may reap tremendous benefits from your borrowing.If you have any Money in your Treasury, it always makes sense to use it to pay off any existing Loans, even partially, so that you stop paying Interest on those Loans. The only exception would be if you somehow have a lower Interest Rate than you would otherwise get. Or, obviously if you need the Money for other immediate concerns. The worst thing that could happen, if you pay off your Loans, is that your Treasury may become depleted again and you may have to take the Loans out again.When you borrow a Loan, you borrow from your own National Bank first, which is good – you have only yourself (and your POPs!) to pay back. This can result in unhappy POPs (angry, really), but you can deal with their Militancy internally. You can, unfortunately, be the cause of your own grief with Loans from your National Bank. The Money in the Bank is loaned to the Bank by your POPs. If your Tax or Tariff policy later causes those POPs to have to struggle to meet their Needs (particularly Life or Everyday Needs), they may choose to remove their Money from the Bank, which means at the very least you’ll have to cover the Money with Loans from some other source (i.e. the Loans from your National Bank will be reduced in favour of international Loans).One last pitfall of borrowing from your National Bank – if you’re at war, when Provinces are taken by the enemy, the Money loaned to the Bank from that Province’s POPs disappears. This means you may have to borrow from other countries (i.e. more dangerous Loans) if your enemy is rampaging on your lands.If you fall into Default with a country that has a navy, watch out! The enemy may send a fleet of ships to sit off your coast and bombard. It need only remain for a short time – it will make its appearance. The size of the fleet determines how much Money they can demand in Repayment terms, and once that’s agreed upon they will go home. You can do this too, if anyone Defaults to you.

The Crystal Palace of the Great Exhibition of London, 1851: “The Prince, with always the keenest interest in matters of science and technology, was eager to explain to Friedrich that the enormous structure contained a million square feet of glass plate. And the exquisite samples of all the world’s latest technologies excited them both. There was a scale model of an early exploring ship, a working example of a new design of steam engine, a Jacquard loom, daguerretype photographers, and a couple of men demonstrating their artificial limbs. There was even a bizarre device called a “Tempest Prognosticator” that divined the approach of a thunderstorm by harnessing the animal reactions of jars filled with leeches. And, too, there were the sights and sounds of a world full of diversity and color.” Description borrowed from Rensslaer’s Victoria 1 AAR, “Fire Warms the Northern Lands”

“If imported steel costs $50/ton and you add a 10% tariff, then the cost to your con-sumers would be $55. If your steel industry can’ produce steel at $50 a ton but can at $54 a ton (even factoring the 10% tariff on inputs if they aren’t made locally), then the local variety becomes cheaper compa-red to the import. And if you don’t have a steel industry in situ, the consumers will have to pay whatever the cost is.”

ohGamer (Gene whitmore, columbus, ohio)


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Bankruptcy

The final stage of Default is Bankruptcy, which clears your Debt, but also costs you tremendous Prestige and will result in higher Interest Rates for any future Loans you take. It will also be impossible to borrow from “shadowy investors” if you’ve had a Bankruptcy (you can only borrow from your National Bank or from another country).It is feasible for a rich country to become a Loan lender, to multiple countries, and to make this part of its yearly income for its Treasury – basically earning a profit on their lending. These countries will tend to want to stay peaceful, to avoid having to keep a large military, but should also have a large enough navy that they can afford to send out fleets for Gunboat Diplomacy to enforce their will, as well as to protect their shores.Bankruptcy cancels all ships, Brigades and Buildings under construction. All Factory Subsidies are also cancelled.

Education Spending & Strategy

Increased Literacy, combined with larger numbers of Clergy and Clerks, produces much of your Research Points. Because Research and Technology is at the centre of a winning Victoria 2 strategy, keeping your Education Spending as high as your Budget will allow is important. Because of the connection with Clergy, you can increase the rate at which you gain Literacy by using a National Focus to encourage Clergy Promotion (this will also increase your overall Education Spending Budget, even if you don’t also increase your percentage rate).Education will only proceed half as fast in Colonies.Remember that Literate POPs are more likely to Promote, so your education strategy may well determine both, your economy and your Research (which, itself, improves your economy).The maximum effect of Clergy upon Literacy is achieved at 6 percent of the Population in any Province. If their Population is greater than that, there is no additional benefit. Therefore, once you reach 6% Clergy in most or all of your country, it is best to reduce Education Spending until the 6% level evens out. Raising the Clergy Population higher than that will increase your costs (your Education Spending Budget will rise as the Clergy Population rises) without any corresponding benefit.Even if you reduce Education Spending at some point, because you’ve reached maximum Literacy, you may find that you have to increase it later because of conquests of lands where Literacy is lower.

Administration & Crime Fighting

It may seem a “no-brainer” to increase Administration Spending at game start, because it will result in more efficient collection of Taxes (i.e. it pays for itself). In most cases it’s best to start the game with 50-70% Administration Spending, and just see how your spending compares to your income after about two months. Then you may increase your Administration Spending to 80-100% according to what you can afford. It will pay for itself, but it’s not helpful to break your Budget or overtax your POPs in order to achieve it.Your National Administrative Efficiency is determined by the total number of Bureaucrats you have in your country – something which is greatly influenced by your Administrative Spending Budget. The more money is available for Bureaucrats – the higher they’re paid (they’re paid directly out of this Budget) – the more people want to become Bureaucrats. As your Population of Bureaucrats increases, so will your Administrative Efficiency, which means your Tariff collection rate will increase – it will become more efficient. Also, in every State where Bureaucrats live they improve the State (or Local) Administrative Efficiency, which determines how efficiently they collect Taxes. The more Bureaucrats you have at the State level, the higher your Tax income.Naturally, this makes Administrative Spending a popular priority early in the game – you get your Efficiency levels high early, and you’ll ultimately have more to spend throughout the game. Or another way to look at it is it will allow you to reduce Taxes and Tariffs to maintain a reasonable Budget while keeping your POPs happy, because they’re not overtaxed. Low Taxes are a great way to keep your POPs’ Militancy low.The Administrative Spending and Bureaucrat Population both also combine to reduce Crime and Corruption. At some point, your Administrative Efficiencies may hit 100%. But Administrative Spending can remain an important way to keep Crime down. It’s your Crime Fighting efficiency. If you reduce Administrative Spending, you may find Crime and Corruption cropping up in your Provinces (check this by looking for Crime icons on the Revolt Risk Mapmode). You can feel out what rates keep it the lowest, or you can go back and forth – set spending low and wait for Crime to occur, then set it high to sweep it away.When you enact Reforms, some of them will increase your need for Bureaucrats. You will see your State and National Administrative Efficiency drop, according to the additional need. Increase your Administrative Spending to bring your Bureaucrats up to the desired level again. How effectively your POPs receive their Unemployment subsidies and/or Pensions is determined by your National Administrative Efficiency. This will naturally determine how satisfied they are by these Reforms, in terms of Militancy or Consciousness.At least with the beta version of Victoria 2, setting Administrative Spending at 90-100% is very effective at removing almost all forms of Corruption and Crime over about a six-month period. Lesser percentages may remove the Corruption and Crime more gradually. Once the Provinces are rid of Corrupting influences, you can reduce the Administrative Spending some unless you are still trying to increase the Administrative Efficiency.When you start new Colonies, they will lack a Population of Bureaucrats, and so your initial Tax Efficiency in those Provinces will be zero. This is like the American “Old West” – you have trouble enforcing federal policy and law and order along the frontier of your society because they lack proper Administrative support. You must either wait for Bureaucrats to appear on their own, or you must shift your Colonisation National Focus to an Encourage Bureaucrats National Focus. Keep in mind that Tariff Efficiency is based on your National Administrative Efficiency, not your State level, and so your Tariffs will collect normal amounts from your Colonies even while Taxes remain uncollected.The positive advantage of the low Administrative Efficiency in your frontier Colonies is this – your POPs who settle there will have more Money with which to meet their Needs, and so they will both, grow faster in Population, and be more able to Promote to higher POP Types.


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TYPES OF CRIME AND CORRUPTION:

ANARCHIC BOMB THROWERS

– This promotes increased Consciousness among the POPs in the Province, so they may become more prone to Liberal suggestions and Socialist tendencies.

CITIZEN GUARD

– These gangs cause the Life Rating to drop, harming Population Growth, as well as dropping the income of every POP by 5%.

IMMORAL BUSINESS

– This proliferation of opium shops and prostitution houses, among other things, causes income for the Rich Class (i.e. those who can afford high-class vices) to drop by 10%.

ROTTEN BOROUGHS

– Local political leaders have gained a few pounds (£), and the dead are voting again! This doubles the local supply of eligible Voters, magnifying the local voice at Election time.

SPOIL SYSTEM

– Because politicians are handing out jobs to their friends, support for the Ruling Party is increased at Election time.

MACHINE POLITICS

– Different Parties have control of the local process, and Voting is manipulated through bribes or intimidation. A random Party benefits from this at Election time.

MAFIA

– Local Factories have less output because gangsters are taking “their cut,” which they take out of local Taxes, too (lower Tax Efficiency).

TERRORIST CELLS

– Saboteurs cause disruptions in the Factory throughput so that less is produced per worker (-25%).In the Elections section, you will see a brief discussion about how certain specific forms of Electoral Corruption may actually benefit you (on the short term, anyway). In almost every circumstance there is no benefit from allowing Corruption, other than that it may be cheaper in a Budgetary sense.Some of these types of Corruption may also be associated with the frequency of negative Events, because they ruin the rule of law and make politics and economics less stable.

Social Spending

Your Social Spending will be set at 50% when you start the game, but the Budget line-item will generally be zero because few if any countries start with Social Reforms in place. Once you enact certain Social Reforms, you will have to remember to go back to your Budget and adjust your Social Spending to reflect your real commitment. Until then, its slider position is irrelevant, since there are no Social Reforms to fund.Only Pensions and Unemployment Benefits are covered by this slider. The cost of other Social Reforms shows up as a cost in Administrative Spending (reflecting the need for more Bureaucrats to operate them). Setting the slider to 100% fully funds all of the Social Programs (Pensions or Unemployment) you’ve enacted. You may choose to under-fund these programs, but POPs will begin to gain Militancy because they are under-funded (i.e. your promises aren’t being kept). Your efficiency in distributing them depends on your National Administrative Efficiency.

Military Spending

Where you set your Military Spending will determine how many POPs Promote to Soldier and Officer POPs (or how many of these Demote to lesser POP Types). These, together, will determine how able you are to create and sustain Brigades and how many Leadership Points (i.e. your “raw materials” for Generals and Admirals) you get.Remember to prepare for the doubled (more or less) Military Maintenance costs for wartime. When you’re planning a war, take this into account and be ready for it. When you’re attacked, always check your Military Maintenance after a few days to see how badly it’s impacting your Budget. Military Maintenance is a different line-item from Military Spending, but it is related.Certain Military Policies set limits on your ability to control your Military Spending. A War Policy of Pacifism requires Military Spending of no higher than 50%, whereas Anti-Military limits Military Spending to 75%. The other two policies allow up to 100%.


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National Focus Strategy

You can guide the way your country develops by using your National Focus Points. You earn National Focus Points according to your Population, but your cap for National Focus Points is determined by your Technology (the Political Thought track within Culture Technology).Use your points carefully, according to your priorities. Poorly or mistakenly deployed Focus Points can delay important development or allow your country to stagnate. You only have a few Points, so be sure you know what you need and where you need it.

NATIONAL FOCUS OPTIONS:

RAILROADS

– By encouraging Railroad construction, you’re improving the productivity of your Factories and RGOs, which helps your economy, overall. This is most useful for countries with a Laissez Faire Economic Policy, because these rely entirely upon Capitalists to build their Railroads. However, it’s still useful for other countries because you can tell a Capitalist where to build while you build government-funded Railroads somewhere else.

IMMIGRATION

– The Immigration Focus can only be placed on a province which is Overseas or in North or South America. This is your government telling people, “Hey, there’s this nice new place on the frontier where you can move and make a new life for yourselves!” This Focus makes it far more likely (30%) people will move there, which will start the economic development you need in that far off place. Not all of the Immigration will be from your country – POPs from other countries may move there, too.

COLONISATION

– The chapter on Colonisation will explain the hows and whys of this in more detail. But essentially you use this Focus to start Colonising an undeveloped Colonial province. This is the only way to peacefully build Colonies (you could fight for them and take them in war, but this is often easier).

PROMOTION

– If you’re needing a certain POP Type in a Province, you can encourage existing POPs to Promote. At the end of this book, you will see a chart which shows which POP Types can Promote into what other Types (check this in order to ensure you have a target POP in the Province eligible to Promote). It’s important to decide not only whether Promotion is worth one of your Focus Points, but also which POP Type you most need. Bureaucrats, Clergy, Craftsmen or Clerks might be popular choices, depending entirely on your needs at that moment.

INDUSTRY FOCUS

POINTS

– There are several choices (listed below) you can make to encourage certain industries. You need to have the Technology to build at least one of the Factories in question. It’s also helpful if the raw materials you need for the industries in question exist within either your country, or your Sphere of Influence (i.e. inside your Internal Market).

CONSUMER

GOODS

INDUSTRY

– This is often a good choice if you need quick Money. Consumer Goods are usually in high demand, so have good prices. Glass is a good thing to produce because it can either support your own liquor industry or other countries will buy it to produce their own liquor.

ARMAMENTS

INDUSTRY

– This is another potentially lucrative industry to have, because you can use it to build up your own military, and if you don’t need a huge army someone else will be glad to buy these things from you. Armaments are always in high demand worldwide. The trick is many of the raw materials Inputs needed for this industry are themselves expensive or difficult to find, or both. This is a better choice if you have some or all of the raw materials already in your country or Sphere of Influence. Sulphur, in particular, is an Input for most armaments. Better yet, if your country can specialise in

GOVERNMENT, ELECTIONS, POLICIES & REFORM VIII

“Some culture techs increase the number of National Focus point you can have, but this only increases the cap. You get 1 NF point for every million primary culture pops you have. So if you only have 2 mil-lion people and you increase your cap to 3 NF points you won’t actually see any dif-ference until your population increases.”



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armaments one factory can produce finished goods Inputs for another of your factories so that the combination is better than the sum of its parts.

BASIC INDUSTRY

– This is a good early choice for a country that wants to build lots more Factories. It encourages production of Factories that produce the Finished Goods you need to build more Factories – steel, cement and machine parts. Even if you’re not building lots of Factories, other countries are and you can make a good profit supplying them.

WOOD

INDUSTRY

– Especially if you have a lot of timber RGOs, this may be a good choice to make profits. Furniture, especially, and paper, can bring good profits.

TEXTILE INDUSTRY

– Especially if you have a lot of wool or cotton RGOs, this can be a profitable choice. Clothing usually sells well, and even dye and fabric sell well by themselves at most points in a game.

SHIPPING

INDUSTRY

– Naturally, this is best chosen by countries which have vast shorelines. The more shipping Factories you have, the easier it will be for your country to be a maritime power. However, even if a country has just one port, shipping can be vitally important to their economy, opening up the possibility of Colonies and profitable sales of ships to other naval powers.

CHEMICAL

INDUSTRY

– This is a restricted Focus, allowed only after you have synthetic oil and/or fuel refinement Technology. Once you do, this can be a very profitable choice, especially if you’re one of the first producers (then again, if you’re too far ahead of everybody else, your only market may be selling to yourself!).

ELECTRICAL

INDUSTRY

– Another restricted Focus, in the late game, once you’ve researched the Techs, this can be a profitable choice, especially if you are making advanced war machines like dreadnoughts or tanks, which require some of these Inputs. Again, if other countries are advanced enough to be making these things, you can make a profit by selling to them (which hopefully won’t come back to bite you!).

AUTOMOBILE

INDUSTRY

– This Focus (restricted again) is highly specialised in vehicles – automobiles, tanks and aeroplanes. Great for top powers near the end of the game.Keep in mind that industrial Foci, or those Foci which would promote industrial POPs (including Capitalists) won’t work until a Colony has become a State. They also won’t work in Uncivilised countries.Remember that a National Focus applies to a whole State, even if that State is not entirely Owned by you! This means you may unwittingly be aiding your enemy – be sure you know where the Focus has its effects. There is never a requirement to leave a National Focus in one place for very long. You can use it long enough to get the desired effect, and then move it around to get more of the same effect, or a different one. This requires some micromanagement on the part of the player, but it can be quite useful in the long run.

Political Management

You always want a Party in power who will do what you want, or who will allow you to do what you want. It’s always best, however, if your Ruling Party is also one that your POPs (or the majority of them – you can never please all the people all the time) approve of. Otherwise, they will start becoming more Militant.It’s possible to have one Party in power for a while, and then when you want to change your policies you can switch. Each of your POPs is a “political entity” – a self-interested unit which has the potential to influence politics, whether through voting, or through violence. Each of your Political Parties is also a self-interested political entity, but one which responds to a certain segment of your POPs. Generally, the Ideologies and Issue positions of the game-start Political Parties are skewed to represent only a small proportion of your POPs – the ones who can Vote. As Political Reforms widen the Voting franchise, old Political Parties may die away and become replaced by new ones that respond to the newly-empowered POPs.Get in the habit of thinking of your Political Parties as interest groups, of POPs as interest groups (abstracted as percentages of your citizens, except for the largest POPs which still carry their own weight), and of yourself as an interest group. These three interest groups do not always agree, and it’s your job as leader of your government to make sure the interests of the country are not undermined by the interests of either the Political Parties or the POPs. You, as leader, cannot afford to be “self-interested” – it’s your job to do what’s best for everyone. Often it’s hard to know what that is. Other times, it’s made obvious by the growing voice

“NF plays a central role for countries embarking on industrialisation without an existing class of craftsmen to draw upon. As soon as the rst factory nears completion or perhaps even before that if it ts in your plans, you should spend a NF on promoting craftsmen in the relevant state. There is nothing sillier than having your rst factories get ready for production without having craftsmen to support them. Until your country has a large class of craftsmen lling your factories there are few NF choices that are more valuable than promoting ever more craftsmen. The ‘build this type of factory’ NFs are for the short run and should be used sparingly until construction of the relevant factories has begun. Crafts-men promotion is the NF you leave active for years on end.”

peter ebbesen (Gentofte, Denmark


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of one of these interest groups. At yet others, there’s nothing you can do because you’re hemmed in by the interest groups. Part of your job as leader, also, is to prevent the interest groups from gaining too much control over your decisions, because that makes your job of promoting the country’s interest (as a whole) more difficult.Fortunately, Victoria 2 does provide you with tools which are at your disposal, and if they are properly used they can benefit both, the government and the variety of interest groups within your country. Every policy – Taxes, Tariffs, Budget, Military, Technology, etc. – has some bearing on how things develop inside your country, and outside. Properly managed, these things can be your friends. Improperly managed, these things can set off damaging or even catastrophic trends which can make your term as leader of your country a rocky ride, to say the least!If you have trouble managing it, don’t worry. So do the guys and girls who do this in real life, and that’s been true throughout history.Your Labourers and Craftsmen are the most sensitive POPs to the changing of conditions. They have no inherent Ideology, and so will basically follow what their hearts and pocketbooks tell them – keep them happy by allowing them to keep enough Money to live on, and when they ask for Reforms, provide them. This will keep them from getting angry and wanting to turn your government or your Party out of office. Unemployment is one of the worst things that can change a POP’s loyalty. Certain Events can also change a POP’s Militancy or his Consciousness (which, in the end, may also increase his Militancy). Make your choices wisely. When an Event gives you choices, decide what’s most important. Do you want to avoid increased Consciousness, because you believe these POPs will later turn against you? Or is it more important in the short term to avoid Militancy, especially if these POPs are already Militant enough (you don’t want to push them into Revolt… Or do you)? Keep in mind that Militancy can be reduced by the tools at your immediate disposal (like lower Taxes, etc.). It’s much more difficult to get rid of Consciousness.Check your larger POPs in each Province or each State on an occasional basis – see what they’re thinking and how they’re feeling. What Ideology do they follow? What Issues are they most concerned about? Is this Issue concern new, or were they also concerned about that the last time you checked? If you get in the habit of occasionally checking them (say once a year or every five) you will become familiar with them, generally, and you’ll probably notice if something new shows up as a major concern.

Ruling Party, Upper & Lower Houses

Your Ruling Party does not have to be the same as the majority Party. In Democracies, the Ruling Party will always be the majority Party, because the government doesn’t have a say over who rules. But in many governments, including Constitutional Monarchies, the people will vote and approve a majority Party, which the ruler can then either accept or can appoint a Ruling Party of their choice. Keep in mind that a Ruling Party not of the same mindset (Ideology, Issues) of certain POPs will cause Militancy to rise among those POPs.The Political Reforms you choose will have a significant effect on how the Upper and Lower House memberships are chosen, either by you or by your people. These are discussed below.

UPPER HOUSE

Though it might seem so, when you appoint a Ruling Party (if your government type has that power), you’re not selecting the leader of the Upper House, but rather the leader of the Lower House. Membership in the Upper House is determined according to the systems you have in place for Political Reforms. See below (Elections & Election Strategy) for a fuller explanation of how to work with these Reforms.

LOWER HOUSE

If you have the power to select your Ruling Party, they will determine the leadership of the Lower House, even if the Ruling Party – your Prime Minister or Speaker of the House – doesn’t have majority support in the Lower House. Your choice of a Ruling Party does not have any bearing on the actual membership of the House. Only the policies followed by the government will change.If your Lower House is chosen by popular Election (depending on your Political Reforms), the most powerful Coalition will determine

An early photographic plate (hand coloured) of Japanese samurai at the dawn of the Meiji Period, 1860s.


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the Ruling Party. In times of high Militancy (above average MIL 5), Coalitions will not operate and the Ruling Party will be the Party that gets the most Votes.Who your Ruling Party is may have serious consequences – if it’s your choice, think through your choice very carefully. For instance, if you appoint a Reactionary Party because you like that extra control over Factory Production that comes with State Capitalism, be ready for a backlash from the POPs who don’t like 25% Taxes.

Government Policies

Government Policies are determined by your Ruling Party, whether they are Elected by popular Vote, or Appointed by the ruler (the player).

TRADE POLICY

PROTECTIONISM

– Prefers high Tariffs (up to 100% -- doubling the price of foreign Goods) which protects domestic producers from foreign com-petition, but which may make things hard on POPs who need Goods not produced on the Internal Market.

FREE TRADE

– Prefers low Tariffs (maximum allowed is 25%), so that Goods made outside of the country can be bought affordably.

ECONOMIC POLICY

LAISSEZ FAIRE

– Generally wants the economy to operate without govern-ment intervention, using free market principles. Won’t allow Taxes over 50%, requires no additional Costs to Capitalists to build Projects, and all decisions about Factory or Railroad construction and operation is handled by the Capitalists, not by the government, without assistance or Subsidy from the Treasury. The government cannot set priority between Factories – the workforce will concentrate in whichever Factories pay the best.

INTERVENTIONISM

– This is a predominantly free market economy where the government policy still allows some government involvement and assistance. There are additional Costs for Factory construction & operation (50% more expensive), but the government can involve itself in every aspect of Factory or Railroads besides the actual building of a Factory (the government is allowed to build Railroads). The government can Prioritise or Subsidise Factories, in order to keep workers employed or to promote strategic industries. The government works in partnership with Capitalists to build the economy.

STATE CAPITALISM

– The government controls most everything about the economy, but limited free enterprise is allowed. Taxes may not be set to lower than 25% for any Class. Costs to Capitalists for building or operating Factories are doubled. A Capitalist may build/open a Factory, but may not Expand it (you’ll have to do that, from the Treasury). Only the government may build Railroads.

PLANNED ECONOMY

– The economy is entirely in the hands of the government, and Capitalists may not do anything but pay Taxes, if they exist at all (they will all eventually Demote or Migrate). Taxes may not be set lower than 50% for any Class.

RELIGIOUS POLICY

(no real effect except to add flavour between Parties)

MORALISM

– No separation between church and state.

PLURALISM

– Other religions are tolerated, but the state Religion is promoted.

SECULARISM

– Religion is not officially part of state policy, but religious values are encouraged.

PRO-ATHEISM

– Religions are actively discouraged by the state.

CITIZENSHIP POLICY

RESIDENCY

– Only POPs of your nation’s National Culture are allowed to Vote.

LIMITED CITIZENSHIP

– Any POPs of an Accepted Culture are allowed to Vote.

FULL CITIZENSHIP

– Every POP in your country is allowed to Vote.

WAR POLICY

JINGOISM

– Reduces the effects of War Exhaustion, increases Supply Consumption of military units, allows maximum Military Spending.

PRO-MILITARY

- Strongly supportive of the nation’s military. Allows maximum Military Spending without being overly eager. Reduces War Exhaustion effect, but not as much as Jingoism.

ANTI-MILITARY

– Believes the country has better things to spend Money on than the army or navy. Prevents Military Spending of higher than 75%, reduces Supply Consumption of military units, War Exhaustion effects are higher.

PACIFISM

– The government is very hostile to the interests of the military, feeling the military itself is more of a threat to the country than outside ene-mies. Supply Consumption is low, Military Spending is not allowed to exceed 50% funding. War Exhaustion effects are magnified because the government (and any POPs with a similar Issue) just doesn’t want to be at war.Most of these Policies are fairly limited in scope. Your Economic Policy has much more far-reaching effects, so this is dealt with in more detail below.

State Economies & Lesser Breeds

In Victoria 1, the predecessor to this game, every economy was basically a “state economy” – each government raised Money to spend on its Budget, and bought the Inputs of its Factories and POPs, purchased Goods to use in construction not just of Brigades and Ships, but also Factories, purchased Goods to allow POPs to Promote, and then caused them to Promote when the player wanted them to, etc. The expansion set for V1 – Victoria: Revolutions! – changed this system to include Capitalists and a more free market economy. Victoria 2 is a further step toward realism,


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allowing POPs and even Factories to exist and act independently of the Government, to a large degree.Victoria 2 still allows a player to run a government using state control of the economy, in a variety of versions – allowing full powers of participation and intervention in the economy, somewhat like V1. And it may be habit for old V1 players to do this. It may even be tempting for new players to take full control – strategy gamers, in general, like to be in control. But it’s not always the best way to run your economy.If you do prefer control, but you’re a non-Communist/Socialist government, you can use State Capitalism. This is most often preferred by the Reactionary Party. There is a lesser degree of government control, which is Interventionism – it allows you to do everything State Capitalism allows except for initial orders for Factories (you may Expand a Factory, but not construct a new one). This is often the Economic Policy chosen by Conservative Parties, and for that reason is sometimes preferable to the State Capitalism encouraged by Reactionaries because it does not come with the high Taxation policies common to Reactionary Parties.Laissez Faire economies make it cheaper for Capitalists to build Factories and Railroads – they don’t have added costs imposed (something which will speed up the process of Capitalists building these things, because it won’t take as long to build the resources) and they generally pay less in Tariffs and Taxes, so things go more smoothly when they try to start and complete Projects such as a Railroad or new Factory.The problem with relying on Capitalists through Laissez Faire is they build assets (Factories & Railroads) where you wouldn’t necessarily have placed them, and this bothers some gamers. We’re used to control! We want it here, now, not there, later! Inevitably, the Capitalists will make some decisions that you’ll question. If you really want to exert control over a specific decision, or on an intermittent basis, consider changing your Ruling Party long enough to implement whatever intervention you want, and then you can change it back. This is a bit “gamey,” but real governments would normally have some powers to accomplish the same that are beyond the scope of a game like this – just rationalise that you didn’t really change Parties, you just asked your Prime Minister to change policies briefly.

Reform

Remember that a POP will push for a specific Reform, and that you’re aiming to please a large number of POPs with your Reform, so get the right one or ones (obvious from charts in the Population Interface). If you don’t hit the right Reform, you won’t get the desired reduction in Militancy.Reform is not something that can happen in only one direction. There can be counter-revolutions and counter-reformations that implement counter-reform. For instance, Reactionaries oppose Reform enough that they will often press for the removal of existing Reform. Other Parties oppose Reform in certain circumstances, and even advocate repeal.There are a few circumstances where a player may find benefit in revoking Reforms. Some of these Reforms involve expensive Social Spending Budgets. Some of them greatly interfere with the profitmaking potential of Factories. Others may result in Election results that may impair the player’s style of play, or preferred course of action. In these cases, a player may choose to revoke Reforms, but be aware that this may provoke a violent backlash – have your armies ready!You may not normally switch automatically to any level of Reform. You must implement Reform step by step, never too much at once. Your political situation may prevent further movement, too, because the will for Reform is lessened every time a new one is implemented.Be mindful of the long-term effects of the Reforms you enact. Social Reforms will usually either cost you Money or will cost their employers Money (which ultimately costs you, in terms of less Tax revenue). Political Reforms can be even more volatile. If you open up the vote – the franchise of citizenship – to a larger group of people, make sure you have an idea of how it will change voting behaviour. You can approximate this by comparing the pre-Reform Voters’ Ideology chart (on the left) with the Peoples’ Ideology chart next to it. When you extend the voting franchise to more POPs, the Voters’ chart will become more like the Peoples’ chart in proportion to the number of new Voters added. Be ready for the consequences of that.The political result of enacting a Reform doesn’t stop just with the easing of Militancy among those POPs who supported that Reform. Enacting any reform also increases the trend of Conservative Ideology, which builds in reaction to the sudden change of policy – basically, as Liberals become less vocal, Conservatives become more so.Social Reforms are generally not demanded from POPs until and unless there are Socialists who make it an Issue that some POPs begin to follow.

Two British political rivals, Prime Ministers Disraeli & Gladstone, both of whom served Queen Victoria various times over five decades.


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Political Reforms

SLAVERY

– This is a simple “allowed” or “outlawed” setting. If Slavery is outlawed, all existing Slaves are freed (and become Farmers or Labourers), and any Slaves you acquire through conquest are also freed.

UPPER HOUSE

RULING PARTY ONLY

– Only the Ruling Party (as chosen by the ruler) may serve. All decisions are left up to the Ruling Ideology.

APPOINTED

– Only the Rich Class are represented, and the Ideology of members matches the proportions of Ideology among the Rich.

TWO PER STATE

– Elections for Lower House in each State determines representation, distributed regionally, two members per State (which means some States with less Population will have representation equal to larger States).

BASED ON POPULATION

– Popular Election determines representation, distributed according to Population of the country at large.

VOTE FRANCHISE

NO VOTING

– No one is allowed to vote – representation is according to the ruler’s priorities.

ONLY LANDED

– Only Rich POPs may Vote (property owners).

WEIGHTED WEALTH

– Rich and Middle Class POPs get to Vote, but Voting is weighted in favour of richer classes.

WEALTH

– Rich and Middle Class POPs get to Vote.

WEIGHTED UNIVERSAL

– Everybody gets to Vote, but Voting is weighted in favour of richer classes.

UNIVERSAL

– All POPs get to Vote in the Election (i.e. Voters’ Ideology pie chart should match Peoples’ Ideology pie chart).

VOTING SYSTEM

FIRST PAST THE POST

– The Party with the most Votes gets the Lower House seat in each district.

JEFFERSON METHOD

– Representation in the Lower House is according to the “highest average” – small Parties are cut out, but major parties get proportional representation.

PROPORTIONAL

– Representation in the Lower House is proportional to the number of Votes each Party gets.

PUBLIC MEETINGS

– Settings are “allowed” or “not allowed.” This allows POPs to react to new Issue interests more quickly.

PRESS RIGHTS

STATE PRESS ONLY

– Consciousness among Literate POPs is reduced because the press only repeats the government’s talking points.

CENSORED PRESS

– A “neutral” setting for Consciousness gain.

FREE PRESS

– Literate POPs gain Consciousness through free discussion of important Issues.

TRADE UNIONS

ILLEGAL

– Workers don’t really have a voice because they can’t band together.

STATE CONTROLLED

– Some outlet for Social Reform demand is allowed, but tightly controlled.

NON-SOCIALIST ALLOWED

– Social Reforms become popular but are less radical without a Socialist voice.

ALL ALLOWED

– Demand for Social Reform is accelerated by Unions who can freely advertise.

POLITICAL PARTIES

ONLY UNDERGROUND

– You can Vote for someone other than the Ruling Party, but it’s really difficult and no one really does.

HARASSMENT

– The Ruling Party gets more Votes because if you don’t Vote for them, watch out!

GERRYMANDERING

– Cleverly drawn district boundaries favour the Ruling Party over challenging Parties by pooling like-minded Voters together.

NON-SECRET BALLOTS

– Everybody knows who you Voted for! Intimidation or peer pressure slightly favours the Ruling Party.

SECRET BALLOTS

– Voting is free and secret – the peoples’ will is heard.If Slavery is even an issue in your country (it’s not for most), you’ll probably face intense Militancy if you mess with this setting. It’s a matter to be either negotiated through a careful teasing of popular Consciousness and Militancy, or else it’s a fundamental decision of right or wrong which you should be willing to face the consequences for, no matter what – be ready for it.Public Meetings can be allowed if you’re willing to deal with the increased demand for Issues. This makes you more responsive to the public will on Issues, which helps your government’s popularity (meaning reduced Militancy) if you can keep up with these demands. Before you allow this, it’s best if you make sure your Upper House will allow you to make the Reforms demanded – if they won’t then this is a recipe for disaster. Press Rights should be allowed if your intent is to promote higher Consciousness, and if you want to rein in Consciousness keep it locked down under State control.


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If you’re wanting to encourage Social Reforms, the best way is to allow the Trade Unions to flourish. You’ll need to make sure you have the ability to enact the Reforms they demand – if your Elections aren’t cooperating, then you need to accelerate the Electoral Reforms.

Social Reforms

Each of these Social Reforms is a range of progressive steps, each one requiring either more Bureaucrats to administrate it, or more Social Spending to fund.

MINIMUM WAGE

– This improves the amount of Money the POPs get for their work, but it’s taken out of the gross profits of their workplace, and so the Capitalists or Aristocrats will have less Money to go around. It’s basically a “wealth redistribution” plan, which is fine so long as you’re willing to either accept less productivity from the Rich Class, or can make up for it in other ways (like Taxes). This can fuel Promotions to higher classes.

WORK HOURS

– This reduces the Throughput of the Factories (basically reduced production), and so this is actually a negative change for many reasons. But if the people demand it, you often must respond. And it will make people happier. Their demand for luxury needs will be slightly reduced (Poor and Middle Classes) because free time meets some of their definition of “luxury.”

SAFETY REGULATIONS

– This increases the Factory Maintenance (cement and machine parts), but reduces peoples’ Everyday Needs, which is helpful.

UNEMPLOYMENT SUBSIDIES

– When POPs become Unemployed, this Budget line item will pay for their most basic Needs (less basic as your commitment and levels increase). This keeps the POP from becoming as Militant as a result of Unemployment, because they still get some of their Needs met. If you’re short on cash, you can reduce your commitment at times when Militancy is manageable, and only implement the full benefit when Militancy starts to get out of hand. The problem with this is it can force the POP into a vicious cycle which will be difficult to recover from (especially if this isn’t their last bout with Unemployment).

PENSIONS

– This is a Budget line item which takes care of all POPs as they age (a certain percentage of every POP will get Pensions). This is simply added income to the POP, which may make them more able to meet their Needs purchases.

HEALTH CARE

– There are administrative costs to this Reform, but the improvement to Population Growth is useful.

Elections & Election Strategy

MANIPULATING ELECTION RESULTS

So you’ve got all these Reform settings to allow or restrict your POPs in their free exercise of opinion. How do you use them to get what you want?First, look at who believes what. Which Class is more Liberal, and which more Conservative? Which ones are becoming Socialist? You can use the Population Interface (along with its filters) to get a good idea of this.Second, decide which of these Ideologies you want to support. Are you wanting Political Reform, and so might favour Liberal Parties? Are you wanting Social Reforms that the Socialists are asking for? Do you want to keep all these guys under a hat? This will determine which tools to use, and how. If you don’t care, and want the chips to fall as they may, don’t worry about all this.The most basic decision is who will you allow to Vote? This is controlled by the Vote Franchise Reforms, and you can gradually open up the Vote to more people if you want (of course, political realities may force you to open up the Vote even when you don’t want to). To decide this, compare your current Voters (the pie chart on the left, in the Politics Interface) with the pie chart for Peoples’ Ideologies – if you like the Peoples’ Ideologies better than you like your Voters’ Ideologies, then you’ll want to open the Vote Franchise to more people.Next, you can manipulate how those Votes are counted. If you’ve been forced into allowing more people to Vote, but you didn’t really want their Votes to have an impact on your government, then you can use tools that allow you to “ignore” the peoples’ will. Your Political Parties setting determines how strongly their Votes will favour the Ruling Party (which is presumably what you want). If you actually want the Ruling Party to be able to lose – either because you want the people heard, or because you want to keep them from getting too mad at you – then move in the direction of Secret Ballots. Otherwise, hang onto the intimidation and controls offered toward the top of the scale.The Voting System Reforms can affect how mainstream your Vote results are. First Past the Post favours the dominant Political Party (whether it’s the Ruling Party or not), and mostly ignores others. The Jefferson Method prefers mainstream Ideologies while screening out fringe Parties (generally either Fascist or Socialist Parties). If you want to let the popular will to really be heard, allow Proportional representation.The throttle on Reform is held by the Upper House. If you want to prevent Reform, then Ruling Party only will be your method. Appointed still favours the rich, but remember sometimes those rich Capitalists are pretty Liberal (because they want freedom for their business) – see where yours fit. Two Per State allows the popular Vote for the Lower House to carry through into your Upper House – this is what you should choose if you want your Upper House responsive to the will of the people without being a mirror of the Lower House. Remember that your settings for Political Parties, Voting System and Vote Franchise will determine how truly representative your Lower House is – if you’re not allowing the popular will through, what’s the sense in having a more liberalised Upper House? Finally, Based on Population allows your peoples’ voice to be heard in the Upper House as well as it is in the Lower House (those other Political Reforms still determine this, as noted above). In rare cases, you may be able to trick an uncooperative Upper House into supporting Reform by allowing Militancy to build. This will split any Coalitions between Parties, and may change the behaviour of some Parties and Ideologies. As the game goes on, it’s more likely you’ll have a Party that supports Reform.


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ELECTION TIMING & STRATEGY

You won’t want to call an Election at a time when you’re likely to lose. Some Elections are scheduled and will occur no matter what you do. Naturally, your choice is to have your preferred Party succeed when the Election does happen. There are things you can do to influence this.If you can enact Reforms (or roll them back), this will impact who can vote, and you can steer the vote toward those people who will most likely support you. There may be reasons you can’t practically do this – if you’re worried about Militancy levels, you won’t want to anger the POPs by giving them a Government they don’t want.You can also manipulate your Taxes and Tariffs to make your POPs happy. Your response to Events can also significantly impact your Election Results. Many Events have consequences to how Liberal your POPs in certain Provinces will become. If you have Corruption present in some of your Provinces, they may affect Election results. Rotten Boroughs has the effect of doubling the votes counted from that Province (dead relatives voting, etc.). Machine Politics can affect Election results from that Province in unpredictable ways. Spoils System always supports the Ruling Party, doubling their support from that Province.In certain rare circumstances, you may find an opportunity to benefit from these forms of Corruption. If one of the listed forms of Corruption exists in a Province, check the Province’s Ideology chart to see who they support. Taking the effects of each form of Corruption into account, see if it benefits you. If there is more Corruption that benefits you than that which opposes you, you may actually prefer not to use Administrative (Crime Fighting) Spending to wipe away the Corruption! Keep in mind that if these forms of Corruption are perpetuating a resistance to Reform, this practice may backfire by increasing the Militancy of POPs who feel like you’re not listening to them.Some players will prefer to appoint a Ruling Party (if their form of government allows it) that matches what the POPs want, and other players may want a Party that won’t get in the way of their personal playing style (Policies, Taxation, etc.). If the Ruling Party is popular with the people, and matches their preferences on Issues, then you will end up with lower relative Militancy. The more conflict between the Ruling Party and the POPs on Issues, the higher their Militancy will go, which typically induces gradual changes in Voting behaviour. Therefore, keep in mind that if you don’t match the popular mood on Issues, the POPs will find ways to try to convince you to follow their lead eventually (in democracies, they do this through Voting, in authoritarian countries, they may do this through Revolts).

Coalitions & How to Use Them

Most Political Party Ideologies have another Ideology for which they have some philosophical common ground. During times of low Militancy, these Parties will combine their support during Elections in order to form a Coalition government – pooling their combined Election results to overcome other Parties and other Coalitions. The largest of these Coalitions becomes the majority Coalition, with the majority Party between them becoming the Ruling Party in forms of governments that allow it (in other forms of government, the player chooses the Ruling Party, independent of Election results).During periods of high average Militancy (generally over MIL 5), these Coalitions break apart due to partisan bickering. In these cases only the Party with the largest total result in the Election will become the Ruling Party (where allowed).Before an Election, you can get an idea of which Coalition, or which majority Party, is likely to win. Use this in deciding whether to hold an Election on schedule, or to “rush” it by calling an Election in advance. Obviously, your preference is to hold the Election when conditions are most favourable to you. Keep a close eye on the Voters’ Ideology chart trending, and pay special attention to the Coalition Parties if MIL is below 5. Ask yourself which Coalition you’d prefer win the Election, and watch to see which Coalition is gaining power, and which are losing power. If the trend favours your preferred Coalition, but you’re losing ground, then you want the Election to happen as soon as possible (unless you see a way to reverse that trend) – in this circumstance you want to Call an Election early.If, however, your preferred Coalition is gaining ground, or if you know a way to influence Voters’ Ideologies to reverse the trend (this is very difficult to do with certainty, though possible), then you will want to hold the Election as late as possible, which means you should wait for it to happen on schedule.If your country is hovering around the MIL 5 mark, there is a possibility you can “game” the Elections in order to produce a different result. If there’s a Coalition of two parties which are not the majority Party but which would probably win the Election when held, and if the majority Party is the one you prefer, you can conspire to increase Militancy above the 5 mark so that the Coalition you oppose will break apart. Then the largest Party will win the Election instead – if that’s you, then you have incentive to try this. Likewise, this can work in reverse, too. If you can drop Militancy below 5 (through Taxation policy, etc.), you can cause a preferred Coalition to win, rather than the majority Party you don’t want.


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GOODS, MARKETS & TRADEIX

On the World Market, countries with higher Prestige get to buy first, which means that if Demand is higher than Supply, certain countries with less Prestige are locked out of the market for that Good, and will have to go without. For this reason, Prestige is a very important element in Trade and the process of industrialisation.Since access to high demand Goods requires Prestige, some Goods may be entirely out of reach for Uncivilised countries or countries which have less Prestige. This is a serious problem for the long-term development of these countries. It can be overcome through military conquest (which can capture Factories or RGOs, and even provide Prestige), or through pursuing Technology which provides Prestige (generally Cultural Techs, but also the Medicine Tech in the Industry category). Even their ability to take valuable territory is reduced because the range at which they can invade is limited.For the most part, the only realistic way out for these countries is a single-minded pursuit of Prestige until they can buy the Goods they need. A non-intuitive alternative, which you probably don’t have any control of, is to become included in a Great Power’s Sphere of Influence, which gives you priority access to their Internal Market, where these Goods may be more available (you will still have to compete according to Prestige with other Sphere members, but your chances are better).Even when you are relying upon Capitalists to build at least some of your Factories or Railroads, you may find it is most helpful to them if you buy Goods into your Stockpile (because your Treasury is better able to absorb the cost) and then later release them to your Internal Market so the Capitalists can buy them. This insulates the Capitalists from the wildness and inconsistent prices on the World Market.The actual “pound cost” (i.e. “£”) of your Stockpile purchases can be seen in a Tooltip by hovering your mouse cursor over the daily change figure in the Budget tab.When you set a “maximum Stockpile” figure in your Trade Interface for Buying or Selling, the computer will make every effort to reach that figure within the limits of the available Supply. If your nation does not have enough Prestige to have access to much Supply, you may find it takes a while to reach the desired maximum Stockpile. However, A “Buy” order will always endeavour to raise your Stockpile to the specified total when sufficient Supply is available, which may occur over a matter of days, or which may happen all at once. A “Sell” order will always endeavour to sell off enough of the current Stockpile to leave only the specified amount remaining. Again, this may happen all at once or over the course of days, depending on your POPs’ ability to purchase from your existing Stockpile. Proper settings to your National Stockpile Budget slider will prevent massive deductions from your Treasury to cover these purchases.

Using Internal Markets

Your Internal Market is sort of like buying at a discount up to the amount of a Good your Internal Market produces (i.e yourself, your Satellites and members of your Sphere of Influence), because you avoid paying Tariffs on Goods purchased Internally, even if it’s from another country, so long as they’re in your Sphere of Influence. If there’s a strategic Good available in your Internal Market you may wish to buy up as much as you can, not just for your own use, but also to keep it out of the hands of your rivals. This is good practice if you can afford it, but it can be quite expensive and so it is a luxury of the rich. You also may find it is of limited utility in the long run, especially if you don’t control the Good exclusively. This is more useful if there are few or no Factories producing the Good, and you happen to have Artisans who are producing that item. This same strategy is possible even on the World Market if your Prestige is high enough.

“Woolen cloth was a regional specialty [of Exeter, England] ... Much of the British army marched in uniforms of sturdy Exeter serge [tightly woven woolen twill], as did the armies of Holland, Portugal, Italy and Spain.”

a sense of the worlD, by jason roberts


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The Waning of the Ottoman Crescent

The Ottoman Empire had been strong once, but by the time of the game its power had waned. Eventually, it would acquire the nickname, “The Sick Man of Europe.” Christian Greece declared independence from their longtime overlords. Austria moved into the Balkans. When Napoleon had invaded Egypt in 1801, he was forced out by the British and an army of local, largely independent Mamluks. The successful Mamluks ruled their freed empire, nominally under some level of authority from Ottoman Constantinople, but essentially they were independent of their former masters (in Victoria 2 this independence is recognised and represented as the independent country of Egypt). Other African holdings soon gained similar levels of independence, as Constantinople was unable to enforce her will so far from home.When its aggressive northern neighbour, Russia, attempted to capitalise upon Turkish weakness in the Balkans, Black Sea area and in the Holy Land, the allies the Turks had acquired came to her defence, partly to maintain the balance of power and prevent Russia from becoming a Mediterranean power. From 1853-56, the French, British, Ottomans, Sardinians and Nassau battled Russia on the Crimean Peninsula, until she gave up on her aggressive claims.Yet, despite the fractures showing themselves in the edifice of Ottoman power, in some ways, this was the period when the Ottoman government modernised, inviting Prussian and British experts and philosophers to help them reform parts of their government and military, and eventually even Railways. The centuries-old Muslim encroachment into Europe left a legacy of bitterness and confused religious conflicts. Eventually, the turbid ethnic and religious cleavages within the Balkans would lend themselves to the start of World War I, which sparked off with the assassination of an Austrian archduke in Sarajevo, Bosnia by a Serbian nationalist.In 1908, a nationalist Young Turk revolution forced the sultan to agree to a renewed constitution. These reformers signed an alliance with Germany, which brought the Ottomans into World War I on the side of the Central Powers (Germany and Austria) after a British provocation. Turkey became the setting for the embarrassingly failed invasion of British troops at Gallipoli, near Constantinople. But ultimately, the Ottoman alliance destroyed her empire on the defeat of the Central Powers. The success of British leaders T.E. Lawrence and Gen. Allenby, along with Arab revolters, pushed Ottoman power out of the Middle East and back into Asia Minor.The collapse of the sultanate followed, and the Young Turk Mustafa Kemal shed the former trappings of empire to concentrate on ruling their homeland, where the predominantly Turkish culture and language was concentrated.

Tombs of the Mameluks, by Sanford Robinson Gifford.

Your Internal Market is most useful if it has a wide variety of Goods being produced, and is even more useful if those Goods are the right ones needed for the economic system inside your Sphere of Influence (i.e. these Goods need not only benefit your own country – if they are needed for a Factory inside another Sphere member, your benefit is almost as complete). This consideration should be part of your reasoning for expanding your Sphere.Keep in mind that the Artisan production is a way of sidestepping the monopoly issue. Even if a country tries to buy up all the Supply of a Good, it is likely that an Artisan somewhere will be producing it also. Of course, Prestige is still a requirement to buy these, unless the Artisan exists within your Internal Market.


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Stockpile Management

When you set your Stockpile to Buy to a maximum number (or even if the AI is doing this for you), that maximum will remain, and when your Stockpile is drawn down, purchase orders will be made to re-fill it. This can be a drain on your Treasury, and can be unexpectedly disruptive if you don’t take control of the process, either by ordering manually, or by using the National Stockpile Budget slider. The AI orders in smaller amounts, and so its effect is not so dramatic. This effect can be magnified if you are selling your Stockpile on your Internal Market, as you can’t always predict when POPs will want your Goods, and their preferred timing may not match yours. This is a balance only you can figure out – fell it out for the best practice, and adapt when necessary.It’s not a bad idea to manually acquire a Stockpile of various Goods your country needs lots of, especially if they’re available for cheap on the World Market. This may include things like canned food and small arms which are used for military units, but may also include tea or coffee, for POP Needs, or cement and machine parts for Factory Maintenance, etc. Tooltips will show you the POP Needs for each POP Type, and the Production Interface will show Input Needs for different Manufactured Goods. The Build Army or Build Navy Interface (within the Military Interface) will tell you how much of each Good units require to build. The chart at the end of this Guide shows all this too. Use the “buy low, sell high” principle. This can keep you going through war, or if the price of these Goods suddenly ends up higher than normal (which in fact can lower Demand on the World Market, thereby reducing those prices – but that’s really beyond the scale of what a player should be worried about).Just reducing the “maximum Stockpile” setting to zero doesn’t mean you’ll sell the Stockpile off immediately – you use the sell command for that. Setting it to zero on “buy” simply means your Stockpile won’t grow and it won’t shrink unless you’re selling on your Internal Market. If you are selling Internally, it still may take days or months for the Stockpile to reach zero. If a Good’s price has risen too high because of high demand, and you’re one of the principal bidders for that Good, then you’re causing the high prices! Try reducing or eliminating your bid for a while, and see if the prices subside. Then you can buy up a Stockpile again at the lower price – just make sure to moderate your demand so as not to repeat the process.It normally won’t make any sense to manually set your Maximum Stockpile (i.e. your Demand) above the Supply – that only drives the price up. The only reason you might choose to do this is to drive other bidders

The East Indies and Southeast Asia

The Netherlands had, in the centuries before 1836, con-quered most of the Portuguese trading outposts of the East Indies, and had begun to push into the interior of what is now Indonesia. The government and Dutch East India Company encouraged resettlement in this colony in order to capitalise on the vast trade in spices and exotic timber. In fact, already more than half the population of the Dutch Empire lived in the East Indies!The Portuguese still held a portion of the small historic island port of Timor, and Spain also continued to hold the Philippines. The French had moved into the coastal regions of French Indochina, where Vietnam is today. The British concentration in this region was focused on the Indian Subcontinent, where the British East India Company had increasingly moved in on local kings and princes, including the weakening Mughal and Maratha empires. More often than not, the relationship began as a business partnership with the rulers, along with proxy wars against their enemies, but when local independence put too much pressure on Company profits, their hirelings would invade and overthrow these governments, incorporating them into the growing British colonial occupation of India. Other such states remained self-governing, but under the close watch and leadership of Britain as satellites. India was a lucrative holding for the British crown, supplying much of the profitable opium, tea and cotton trades.

Tinted photograph of colonial troops from British India, 1857.


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out of the market (so they can’t afford the Good and you end up keeping it out of their hands).Stockpile big-ticket (expensive) items in small amounts. Stockpiling in larger amounts only drives up prices and causes large up-and-down gyrations in your Budgeting. Use the National Stockpile Spending slider to moderate these purchases. It’s important for your long-term financial health.

Production Management & Restraint

Before we move on, I want to add a short note about what Goods you really want to be produced. It’s important not to overbuild early on. Even if certain Goods seem to be good investments because of existing prices, remember those prices may change drastically as soon as you (and maybe some other countries) start a Factory to produce that Good. The

“Personally I like to leave all my trades on AI control in V2. I know this was a poor choice in V1, but it works very well in V2.”


sudden Supply will naturally push prices down, and they will tend toward an equilibrium which may be quite a bit lower than prices which were based on practically no Supply relative to Demand. Be careful what you expect when you break into a new market by building the first Factory to produce that Good.Furthermore, I want to emphasize that rapid building – overbuilding – in the early stages can be counterproductive. In the early game, there won’t be that many Craftsmen to man your Factories. The supply of Craftsmen will largely be driven by the available Factories, not by a natural tendency for POPs to become Craftsmen (unless you’re artificially promoting them, using a National Focus). If you have a concentration of Unemployed Craftsmen, then by all means build a new Factory for them. But it’s often a poor investment of resources to build more Factories (esp. in one State) than you have the Craftsmen to man. What that may cause is a spreading of Craftsmen too thinly, which provides you with a lot of marginally profitable Factories which may retard your country’s industrial growth.What you should do is to build one Factory per State (or allow Capitalists to do so) which should ideally produce a consumer Good with good, solid, reliable profit returns. Allow that Factory to encourage the Promotion of new Craftsmen, and by all means help it along with a National Focus, but wait for it to reach perhaps 2/3 capacity before building your next Factory. Any faster construction process may actually slow your overall growth.


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TECHNOLOGY & RESEARCH X

Research Points are generated by Clergy (2% of the Population is optimal) and Clerks according to their Population and Literacy rates, as well as by the country’s average Literacy, and Civilised status. Great Powers have the largest bonus to Research, while Second-Tier Powers have a smaller bonus, and regular Civilized countries have the least. Uncivs Research at half speed. All these matters add their modifiers up to create a base number of Research Points, which is then modified (increased) by the Plurality percentage.There is no cap to the number of Research Points you may store – if you forget to pick your next Tech to Research, those Points are applied when you choose a Tech to Research.A wise player will maximise opportunities to build Research Points through strategies to increase Literacy and Plurality (though some governments tend to oppose Plurality because of the potential for Militancy).

Technology Strategy

Not every player will want the same set of Technologies – it depends what your country needs, and on the style of play of each player. A Tech which is key to one player’s game may be useless to another player ruling the same country.When reading the Technology chart, you will see various advantages to each Technology, usually increasing some game statistic by 1 or 3, or increasing some rate by 1 or 5%. The first items listed under each Tech benefit you as soon as you finish Researching the Tech, whereas the Inventions listed below are things that you will probably discover as a result of your Research, though it may take a matter of months, or even years, to discover all of the Inventions. When evaluating the worth of each Tech, take the Inventions into account. While they take time to discover (generally a 2% to 8% chance of discovery per month), in many cases their benefits will eventually dwarf

“As well as those amazing alpine tunnels, the previous decade [the 1860s] had seen the creation of London’s sewer system, and the rst electric streetlights – 1869 had witnessed the opening of the Union Pacic Railroad across the United States, as well as the Suez Ca-nal. The Brooklyn Bridge was under construction in New York, increased world trade had driven the development of new iron-screw ocean steamers, alongside spectacular recent advances in chemical and electrical science, cheap steel, made by the Bessemer or Siemens-Martin hearth methods, together with new techniques in precision manufacturing, had made possible a huge range of new goods at affordable prices. Improvements gave birth to further progress and commerce, in a seemingly endless virtuous circle. All this was celebra-ted in international expositions, such as the American Centennial in Philadelphia in 1876, which in its Machinery Hall showcased cutting edge new technologies. Most impressive was the gigantic 1500 horsepower Corliss Steam Engine, taller than a house, which alone powered 13 acres of machinery. Dreams of ever more powerful machines, of cheaper and quicker transport, communication, of opening up the world to increased trade and civilization, gripped the public imagination as an endless stream of amazing new inventions and mind-bogglingly ambitious engineering projects were introduced to the world.”

from “panama fever,” by matthew parker


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the immediate gain. As a rule of thumb for technologies with several Inventions attached, consider how the Tech’s immediate advantages will help you on the short term, but consider the cumulative benefit with the Inventions added as a long-term gain.

Important Technologies

There are certain Technology tracks that are important to almost anyone, while others are important if you are following a certain strategy. There are certain individual Technologies that are of particular benefit for almost anyone, and there are others that are only important if you are following a particular strategy. Knowing which fits in which category is important for building your Technology strategy.Obviously, Naval Technologies are not that important to landlocked countries. On the other hand, successful candidates for world power will eventually grow so they are no longer landlocked. Because of that – their potential to become naval powers – they cannot completely ignore the Naval tracks, though they can put them off until later. Those countries who start the game with a navy, and especially those countries whose survival depends upon a strong navy and an active Colonial strategy, will need to pay special attention to the Naval tracks.Almost every country will need to pay some attention to the Army tracks too. If you expect to be at war – and if you ever don’t expect to be at war, it’s likely that you soon will be! – must have enough military Technology to serve as a deterrent against war. Those countries who will follow an aggressive path toward world power, or who must defend their existing status against rivals, must pay special attention to the Army tracks. The Culture tracks include many Techs (concepts and philosophies more accurately, not “Techs”) which bring Prestige to an early discoverer. Many of these Techs offer “Shared Prestige” – the first country to discover the Tech gets the full gift of Prestige, while subsequent discoverers must share – half, for the 2nd one, 1/3 for the third, etc. Others deal with Plurality and Education (both useful for improving Research), or with Colonising abilities.The Commerce tracks also offer Prestige and Education improve-ments, but also Factory improvements and improvements to Taxation and/or Administrative Efficiency.Industrial Techs, naturally, are the “red meat” an industrialising country needs. The benefits of these tracks vary wildly, from Population enhancing Techs, to those that improve Factory or RGO input or output. Those most critical late-game Technologies are unlocked or enhanced by some of the Techs deeper into the tracks.The unfortunate truth for a Great Power… in order to maintain your status, it’s likely you’ll have to pay special attention to most of these tracks! It is very difficult to pick out what’s more important. I’ll try to lead you through the thinking process now, so you’ll understand how to recognise those subtle priorities.From a single-minded Great Power perspective, the Culture and Commerce tracks might seem like the least important – behind Techs that build industry and military. But the Prestige offered by both, and the other efficiency improvements, may actually be more important than other tracks to smaller countries, or even to Great Powers being played with a different style than most. The earlier that you can concentrate on those Techs which offer vast amounts of Prestige, the more valuable those discoveries will be. This, however, is why they are often more beneficial to smaller powers than to large ones. Great Powers are commonly forced to concentrate on those Techs that deliver raw power, not mere Prestige. Prestige is critically important, but Great Powers can get Prestige through industrialisation and warfare, whereas smaller powers may be more successful at gaining Prestige through Techs.

Evaluating the Tech Tree

Keep in mind, as you read through this section, that many Great Powers and Second Tier Powers have the first several Techs – much or all of the first level Techs – already discovered, and so you can ignore recommendations to “pursue” Techs that are already yours.At the end of this Guide, you will find a chart of all the Technologies, by tab and by category. The Techs’ effects and Inventions are listed, and particularly valuable Techs are denoted with red shading (or gray shading, if you’re viewing in black & white).Most Techs have a regular benefit, as well as a series of associated Inventions. The Inventions have their own benefits when discovered, and discovery generally has between a 2% - 8% “mean time to happen” per month. Statistically, they will generally be discovered over the course of months or years after Research on the associated Tech is completed. It may still take 5-10 years, conceivably, but you will eventually get most or all of these Inventions.Keep in mind that larger countries will be able to Research faster than smaller ones, on average, and that countries which can spend to reach the optimum number of Clergy as fast as possible will be able to maximise their ratio of size to Research Points. A Tech will have the same required Points for each nation, and some nations are better suited to accomplishing them more quickly. Certain nations, also – often the large, agrarian nations – will benefit from RGO Techs a lot more than smaller nations, because each of their RGOs will benefit from the same percentage improvements.

“There are ve technologies that are con-nected to RGO spread events that signi-cantly increase the productivity of farms or mines. Inorganic Chemistry, which spreads knowledge of Nitroglycerin, and Inter-changable Parts, which spreads knowledge of Machine Tools, both boost mining, while Business Banks, which spread Distribution Channels and the Combustion Engine, which spreads Tractors, both boost farming. Finally Electricity spreads, well, you guess it, and benets both farming and mining RGOs. It can take a long time for the these to spread to the RGOs so aiming for the RGO spread events is something that only pays off in the very long term.”



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Those Techs specifically geared toward improving your ability to Colonise are discussed in more detail in the Colonisation chapter. See The Civilisation Decision (in the Events & Decisions chapter) for a rundown on Technology Research options for Uncivilised countries.

ARMY TECHS

In general,

THE ARMY DOCTRINE TRACK

provides defensive bonuses. Forts, Defence values, Reconnaissance values, Organisation improve-ments, additional capability to entrench (Dig In), etc. The 5th level (Infiltration) unlocks Tanks. The 6th level has significant advantage to Morale (Organisation recovery rate) and Supply Consumption.

THE LIGHT ARMAMENT TRACK

narrows Combat Width (a good thing for modern armies who fight less advanced armies), and increasingly improves Attack values. The last 3 levels are especially good, improving Defence and Attack values by a lot. The final Tech also improves Reconnaissance and Morale.

MACHINE GUN

is a Tech which can do tremendous things for any country facing military conflict, but especially for countries who are Colonising. Besides the major benefit (+5 to Defence) in any combat, the improvements to Combat Width and Liferating will aid greatly in dealing with the move into Uncivilised country. The Techs after it, in the Light Armament track, are also very valuable.

THE HEAVY ARMAMENT TRACK

may seem like a lot of work if you don’t intend to use a lot of Artillery. But key Techs for Tank development are at the very end of the track. Besides, you don’t really want to go without Artillery – it’s an important “force multiplier.” You don’t have to go after this track “great guns” (so to speak), but you should at least manage a leisurely pace.

MILITARY SCIENCE

allows improvements to your Cavalry unit types – Dragoons, Cuirassier, etc., and completes the “scouting” theme by unlocking Aeroplanes. Besides that, this track mainly improves Organisation, which will give your units useful staying power.

ARMY LEADERSHIP

has great improvements for Tactics (a combat value which reduces casualties in combat). Morale and Organisation are also improved. Levels 3, 4 and 5 also increase the Speed of your land units, which is very important, providing an operational advantage against enemy armies. This is an important track for countries which often find themselves at war. Tactics are one of the most important values in combat.At the extreme end (level 6) of the Heavy Armament and Military Science tracks are

TANK TECHS

and

AEROPLANE TECHS

, respectively (Military Science unlocks the aeroplane, whereas tanks are unlocked by the Infiltration Tech from the Army Doctrine track).Many of the Techs in these tracks gradually increase your units’ Supply Consumption. Only level 6 of Army Doctrine (Modern Army Doctrine) reverses this, with a -50% Supply Cost available through

THE HUMAN WAVE & SPEAR INVENTION.

NAVAL TECHS

THE NAVAL DOCTRINE TRACK

is important because it allows you to expand your Naval Bases, which increases your Naval Range, as well as the rapidity of shipbuilding (other . Major naval powers must pursue this track. It provides those unique advantages, as well as a wide variety of other important improvements, such as ship Speed, small amounts of Organisation improvement, and both Attack and Defence (Hull) values.

SHIP CONSTRUCTION

is what it sounds like. Without pursuing this track, your navy will be stuck in the past, perpetually behind many of your potential enemies. This track improves ship Speed, and Hull (Defence) protection. This track contains two very important Techs – level 2 Steamers is a “no brainer” because it allows countries to leave clipper ships behind and enter the steam age. No one will succeed as a country without doing this. Steamers also improves Fish RGOs by 150%, and allows Raiders (an important warship revolution).

LEVEL 5 STEAM TURBINE SHIPS

is one of the most important Techs because it unlocks Dreadnoughts and improves ship Speed (as do others in the track). It’s possible that Second Tier Powers may be able to get along with just improved Ironclads, so long as they have a powerful ally with modern ships, but no Great Power will be able to reach the end of the game without Dreadnoughts. DNs are so overpowering in the degree to which they affect your Military Ranking – the first few countries to build Dreadnoughts are almost guaranteed to have top-level Military Rankings.

THE NAVAL ENGINEERING TRACK

improves Build Times, primarily, but also Attack and Hull values (to a significant degree!). There’s some Organisation improvement too. Naval Science improves Organisation and Naval Range (so they are important Colonisation Techs). Naval Leadership allows massive Organisational improvements. The first Tech, The Command Principle, is a “no brainer” for naval powers, because of the quick 10% Org jump (which most naval powers probably have at the start of the game, but make sure). This track results in a total improvement to Organisation of nearly 50 points by the end of the game – and that’s not useful??? Go for it or sink.

COMMERCE TECHS

THE COMMERCE TECHS

allow Factory types, which should be quickly sought after by any countries that don’t start with these Techs. This is how countries acquire the “quick cash” style industrialisation. More serious industrialisation will require Industry Techs, but countries can at least get their foot in the door with early Commerce Techs.

FREEDOM OF TRADE

(Market Functionality level 1) is a no-brainer Tech for any industrialising country (most major countries will have it at game start). Its automatic doubling of every single RGO’s Output is beyond any other Techs for usefulness. And the Luxury Clothes Factory is one of those “quick cash” Factories which come in handy for jump starting into the mainstream of the world. In many ways it’s the gateway Tech for a country to start industrialising.

THE +10% EDUCATION EFFICIENCY

of the next Tech in line should be attractive, too, though the rest of the Market Functionality track isn’t


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necessarily great until you reach Synthetic Oil at level 6 (Government Interventionalism). It’s is a weird track of great imbalances, with only two of the Techs greatly desirable (when taken in context with the others). The Techs in between the 1st and 6th levels almost take away as much as they give. The Tax Efficiency improvements are small, and the Factory Cost changes balance each other out. If you need Synthetic Oil or help with Education, it’s an important track – if not, ignore it (except for Freedom of Trade) and go for something more worthwhile.

THE ECONOMIC THOUGHT & CRITIQUE TRACK

is important for early industrial developers, too. Level 1 unlocks three useful Factory types (most useful if you have access to Timber). The middle Techs in this track offer good Prestige bonuses, but level 5 has the potential for a dozen Prestige Points. You’ll collect lots of Prestige if you follow this track to level 5.If you’re trying to improve Tax collection and efficiency,

THE FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS TRACK

is valuable, offering substantial improvements at every level. The Monetary Systems track improves Administrative Efficiency and Tax Efficiency, which is great until you reach level 6, which allows the Hyperinflation Invention (+10% Factory Costs, and Plurality, which you may or may not want, for the Research benefits).You can improve your Factory operation by pursuing Techs that reduce Costs and improves Output. This means

THE ORGANISATION TRACK

primarily, supplemented with

FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS

. Anyone who doesn’t start with level 1 in Financial Institutions and/or Organisation should consider whether he wants those Factories (Cement will help Maintain Factories, and Canned Food will help recruit armies).

CULTURE TECHS

THE CULTURE TECHNOLOGY

(philosophical discoveries and movements, more than “Tech”) is an interesting mix of opportunities and land mines. Three full categories of Culture Tech are attractive means of picking up free Prestige, but only if you really need Prestige. Many countries can acquire Prestige through other means, and probably need to concentrate on Industrial Techs more than Culture. But Prestige is one of those things that’s invaluable, and if you would prefer not to get it through risky warfare, these Culture tracks – Aesthetics, Philosophy and Psychology – are rich with Prestige if you’re one of the first countries to discover these items. Aesthetics and Philosophy are the “richest” tracks, offering +20 Prestige to the first country to take it. Psychology can be helpful once the others have been “picked over,” and the final possible Invention (“The Talkies” has +20 also – a country who’s behind can maybe reach this before the others if he concentrates on this track. The only really highly recommended Tech in the Culture Tab is the final

TECH, MASS CULTURE & AVANT-GARDE.

It offers more potential Inventions than the others (you’d also have to have committed to the Prestige pursuit to even reach it), some of which are at only 2% base chance to achieve, but others are at 6% -- potentially a treasure of Prestige points, at the end of a long track of rich Prestige possibilities. Fortunately, that whole track, up to there, is a treasure trove worth pursuing unless the Techs have been “picked over” already by more than a few previous discoverers.The other two Culture Technology tracks are harder to evaluate.

THE SOCIAL THOUGHT TRACK

offers benefits for Colonial powers (Colonial Migration boosts, and Prestige boosts), and moderate advantages to Education. The final tech aids against War Exhaustion, and the last two Techs work against Plurality more or less (Social Alienation has a split between adding or subtracting Plurality, but you’re more likely to lose it on average). Unless you’re trying to improve your Colonies or back up an Authoritarian government, Social Thought is not a very attractive track to follow. Even a wise pro-Colonial player may choose to stop at just the first Tech (Malthusian Thought = aid to Migration), because you’d have to Research two more full Techs before you reach more Colonial benefits.

THE POLITICAL THOUGHT TRACK

can look (and is!) confusing. The easy part is that each Tech provides more National Focus Points (which also makes it a good track for Colonial powers). Many of the potential results of the other Techs are less straightforward. For instance, the 2nd Tech (Ideological Thought) is a “grab bag” – it has a 2/3 chance of increasing Plurality, and a 1/3 chance of reducing it. This makes it mostly a way of increasing Plurality (because that’s what you’ll do on average), but there’s a chance your Inventions will cancel each other out without much effect either way. The third Tech (State & Government) is exclusively promoting Plurality. The fourth Tech mixes/matches on Plurality, and so no one wanting to reduce Plurality would want to go past the 2nd Tech unless they also need something else, like the Liferating improvement (pro-Colonial) in the 4th Tech. That fourth Tech

(NATIONALISM & IMPERIALISM)

is also a grab-bag. The Liferating improvement is an important benefit. And additional pro-Colonial Inventions (aiding Migration and Prestige gain) make this yet more attractive for the Colonial power.

INDUSTRY TECHS

Some Industry Techs (and a couple of others) actually reduce the size of RGOs (reflecting the reduced need for human labour because of machinery). This isn’t a huge deal because these same Techs also increase productivity for them. The main effect can be Unemployment, which can be bad, or it could be good, by forcing Farmers or Labourers to Promote to Craftsmen. Other Techs increase productivity while also increasing the size of the RGOs – these are generally mines, not farms, because the use of machinery actually enables more opportunity for work.


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RAILROADS

are important for industrial development and increased Factory and RGO output, so the Infrastructure track is important, even if it may seem limited. Consider your Population of Capitalists and/or your access to Money to build these Railways. This can be Researched gradually, as it will take a while to build up each level of Infrastructure where you need it – no sense in Researching ahead of your ability to construct.

THE CHEMISTRY & ELECTRICITY TRACK

is valuable, and the level 2 Tech (Medicine) is especially worthy. It improves your Supply Limits, improves Attrition and casualty trickleback for combat losses, improves Population growth, and has the potential to boost Prestige. It reduces the Liferating limit for Colonisation. Medicine also improves resistance to Cholera Events. The rest of this track continues to improve Supply Limits, contributes in a variety of ways to industrial output and potential (new Factories), and advanced late-game Techs. Medicine, Organic Chemistry and Electricity are all marked “red” on the chart (to indicate particularly valuable Techs).

THE POWER TRACK

improves RGO and Factory outputs considerably, per level. The 5th level Tech is Combustion Engine, which allows Auto and Aeroplane Factories, as well as improving Machine Parts production.

THE MECHANISATION TRACK

contains three “red” Techs. Mechanical Production (Mechanisation), besides providing a substantial bonus for Factory Production, has the potential for an amazing number of Inventions to provide small to moderate production increases to almost every type of product, raw or manufactured. Interchangeable Parts (level 3) has a large number of Inventions to improve output, and unlocks Machine Parts Factories. Assembly Line (level 5) reduces Factory Costs and improves RGO and industrial outputs. The final Tech (Shift Work - level 6) improves output for every RGO and every Factory by 5% (which is valuable because of its breadth of scope).The whole

METALLURGY TRACK

is worth Researching, but its most impressive Tech are its first two levels. Mechanised Mining unlocks four types of military industry Factories, and also allows Steel Factories. The Clean Coal Tech provides breathtaking amounts of output improvements for Coal and Iron, and significantly improves Sulphur production. The rest of the Techs provide valuable output improvements for Steel, Iron, Precious Metals and Sulphur production.What’s best? The Medicine Tech is an all-around smart choice to Research for almost any country. Mechanical Production is a great Tech for a large country with great economic diversity. However, countries which have a good Coal mining industry could choose Clean Coal instead (provided you have Mechanised Mining first) – production bonuses for Iron, Coal and Sulphur. It will also increase the size of Iron, Coal and Sulphur mines – another good thing. Besides the guaranteed more-than-doubling of the Coal industry, it combines with Inventions to eventually double Coal production yet again. This is also a gateway Tech for expansion of iron industries, etc.

“Four early technologies are so valuable regardless of which nation you are playing that they should be among the earliest researched when not delayed by more urgent concerns.“These key technologies are Freedom of Trade for an across the board 100% pro-ductivity boost to RGOs, Mechanical Production for a lot of inventions that together give signicant bonuses to RGOs, Cheap Coal (if a coal nation) for a whopping 380% bonus to Coal Production once all the associated Inventions have been discovered, and Medicine, which is the key tech for long term sustained national growth as it has several Inventions increasing monthly population growth and, in addition, increases support limits, reduces attrition casualties, improves life rating for colonisation, and improves military hospitals.“Since two of the RGO spread events are gained from technologies that have a key technology as their immediate predecessor, those two are often really good early to mid-game choices - Interchangeable Parts, which follows Mechanical Production, and Inorganic Chemistry, which follows Medicine.“Finally industrialization requires railroads. They do not provide as huge individual bonuses as the key technologies but they benet all RGOs and all factories and as a result it is very hard to go wrong with railroad research once the fundamentals are covered, if you feel you need to improve your production.”



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The Challenge of Colonising

In the time period of the game, many parts of the world had already been Colonised. But vast territory still remained in the hands of native inhabitants, if only because Europeans didn’t particularly want to live there (something represented in Victoria 2 by the Province Life Rating). During this period, however, these lands, too, became targets for Great Powers and Second Tier Powers, partly for purposes of Prestige earning, and partly to support their fleets, which increasingly required coaling stations to travel around the world.In my Victoria 1 After Action Report (a story or gameplay report), “Fire Warms the Northern Lands,” I turned Prussia into a globe-spanning empire, partly by Colonising key Provinces that supported my home industry. Prussia starts the game with an armaments industry, which requires sulphur as a critical part of its “chain of production.” The Pacific island of Samoa had sulphur, and so it became an early and obvious Colonisation target.Here’s the catch: In Victoria 2 there are no more “easy pickings” that can boost a small country into a major Colonial power. First, Samoa no longer produces sulphur. Second, Victoria 2 has a Colonial Range requirement – you

COLONISATION XI

must have a Naval Base close enough to the target Colony to make the reach. Technology extends your range. Third, Victoria 2 has a Liferating requirement for Colonisation – you can’t just waltz into a primitive jungle island, or a desert province, and set up camp. Without the appropriate technology, you cannot Colonise Provinces whose Liferating is below 30. The worst of it is that all the potential Colonial Provinces with Liferating above 30 have already been Colonised by other powers! The only exception is in the American Pacific Northwest, where those countries within Colonial Range (generally Russia, Spain, UK, etc.) will already be staking their claims.So Colonisation becomes a dual race – a race to get the valuable Provinces, but also a race to get the crucial Technologies that allow Colonisation at longer ranges, and allow Colonisation of less-habitable Provinces (lower Life Rating). That often means that if you intend to Colonise you must set out with that intention from the beginning – get the right Technology so you can do it, then aggressively pursue it. This may mean leaving other important Technology (and other national priorities – domestic Focus Points, etc.) for later. Is that a choice you’re able and willing to make?Colonisation requires a National Focus Point, which is a very limited resource at the beginning of the game. So choosing where to concentrate is important, and you have to concentrate the Focus there long enough that the Colony gets going.See Strategic Goals for more information about picking Colonisation targets. Figure out what resources (Goods, mostly) you need to supplement your national economy, then look for those things in Provinces where you have the ability (or soon will have the potential) to Colonise. If you find a Colonisation target outside of your Naval Range you can pick an intermediate Colonial location, and build a Colony first, then a Naval Base from which you can expand further. New Naval Bases become the “stepping stones” you’ll use to cross the oceans to your Colonial

The Oregon Trail, by Albert Bierstadt, 1863.

COLONISATION XI


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Migration, and another (Mission to Civilise) which increases the amount of Prestige you get from Colonies by 10%. It could be considered that the whole Political Thought track (every Tech) will aid Colonisation by increasing the number of National Focus Points you get (which can be used for Colonisation).Because increased size (levels) of Naval Bases extends a country’s Naval Range, every level of the Naval Doctrine (Navy Tech) track is helpful for Colonisation. Every level of the Naval Science track is also useful, because they also increase your Naval Range. Naval Techs in general can also be seen as supportive, because they will allow you to protect your overseas Colonies. The Medicine Tech (actually the related Invention Prophylaxis from Malaria) from Chemistry & Electricity in Industrial Techs, will lower the allowable Liferating for Colonisation (5% improvement).The most powerful Colonising Tech is Machine Gun, from the Light Armament track in Army Techs. Because it protects Colonial outposts against attack by hostile natives, it has the effect of allowing Colonisation in areas with a Liferating 10% less than the previous level.If you get all of the Liferating Techs (Machine Gun, Nationalism & Imperialism, and Chemistry & Electricity), your allowed Liferating to Colonise will extend down to Provinces with a Liferating of 10% (assuming a starting level of 35% allowed, which is standard).Even with just one of the -10% Liferating Techs, you can start Colonising as soon as you’ve Researched it.targets. Increasing the level of each will extend your Naval Range from that Base.Once you select a Province target for Colonisation, keep an eye on it to see if anybody else tries to take it from you, and to gauge progress. Remember that friendly troops aid in your rapid Colonisation of a Province. This is especially important if you’re being challenged by a rival Coloniser, as you will often be. Sometimes it becomes a bidding war, with troops on both sides.Once a Province becomes a Colony (i.e. you’ve won the race to 100% and any rivals are locked out), the process begins to become a State. This depends on Population growth and the number of Bureaucrats. You need a minimum in order to become a State. Only Primary and Accepted Culture Bureaucrats count toward this minimum.You will get 5 Prestige Points when you first found a Colony (succeed in claiming it). Colonies will eventually become States with Population growth and Bureaucrats, and you’ll get 10 Prestige Points. Then they will operate as normal parts of your country. The amount of Prestige you get may be modified by certain Techs.Education overseas proceeds at only half speed. There is a 25% pen-alty to production overseas.

Colonising Technology

There are certain Technologies which are critically important for Colonising powers. Most Techs which improve your Colonial situation are Culture Techs. Many countries will already have Malthusian Thought (level 1 of Social Thought) at game start, which will improve Immigration into your Colonial Provinces. Later in that same track is Biologism (level 4), which further improves Colonial Migration. Level 5 in that track increases the amount of Prestige you get from Colonies by 10%. In the Political Thought track of the Culture Techs, you’ll also find level 4 helpful – Nationalism & Imperialism reduces the allowed Liferating by 10% (if you had had the ability to Colonise at 25% Liferating, this would allow you to Colonise 15% Liferating Provinces). This same Tech also allows an Invention (Biased Multiculturalism) which improves Colonial

“Placing a brigade in province that your are colonising will give a 2% increase in speed. More troops do no yield a larger boost though, so 1 brigade is all you need unless you expect to ght someone there.”


Southern Africa

South Africa had been an early focus of Colonisation by the Portu-guese, who long maintained a presence in what is now Angola and Mozambique. The natives of the region of South Africa had their own regionally powerful kingdoms and territories, centered to the north of where the British and Dutch first arrived. Of these tribes, the Zulu and Xhosa were predominant during the period of the game, though the foremost Zulu leader, Shaka, had been killed several years prior.The flag of the Dutch East India Company had been purged from South Africa by the English and Boers at the end of the 18th Century. Dutch residents reacted against increasing British control, and settled in a number of small Boer republics to the northeast of the Cape of Good Hope after a migration called the Great Trek. Later in the 19th Century, these tensions would bring these peoples into conflict again.


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Handling Events

Many Events present a choice – some don’t. Those that don’t are merely a way of informing you that certain things have changed for your country, or its Population, and tells you how it’s going to affect you (you’re also usually informed of Events from other countries – you have no control over these). These single-choice Events generally alert you to the start of some influence or modifier (like perhaps an increased rate of Consciousness gain for POPs in a Province over a period of time).When an Event offers you a choice, sometimes the choice is obvious. Other times it’s not. These non-obvious choices may balance immediate Militancy gain for POPs in a State or Province against Consciousness gain for those same POPs. Or it might result in Consciousness gain for either lower-Class POPs or higher-Class POPs, and you must choose who you want to potentially irritate.Every once in a while you may be asked to approve “building restrictions” for minority POPs. While this may not be nice (and will have other negative consequences), it will add to the motivation of those minority POPs to Assimilate.Consciousness isn’t necessarily bad, but it can become problematic. Militancy is an immediate dislike of you and your policies. Consciousness is like putting those problems off until a future time, but Consciousness can easily turn into Militancy if the POPs’ concerns are not addressed the way they want them to be. So Consciousness can be considered a “chance of future Militancy.” And that “deferred” Militancy potential can actually be stronger with high Consciousness, because those high-Consciousness POPs have a determination to do something about their problems.When given a choice, it may be your best choice to take increase Militancy instead of increased Consciousness, because with proper handling of Tax policies (i.e. temporarily or permanently reduced Taxes for that Class) the Militancy can be easily reduced – a lot more easily, for instance, than Consciousness. Those guys will quickly enough forget they were mad, and will be happy because they have lots of Money and are allowed to keep it. They might even later Promote to Capitalists and be of even more benefit to you.Some Events are part of “Event chains,” and are part of a series of Events triggered by another country (or maybe other countries will be affected by Events or Decisions you make). These Event chains show the dynamic nature of the Victoria 2 system, in that the choices made by you may change the history or direction of other countries. Your choices in these Event chains can be very important to your own country’s future too, as they may cause permanent hostility between you and your neighbours. Choose wisely.

Handling Decisions

You will only see a Decision displayed when certain pre-triggers make it even remotely possible. Then the Tooltip will tell you what you must do to meet the final prerequisites.Some countries have Decisions that allow them to change their style of Technology Research Administration. Most Research Administrations are set at game start to represent the direction of that country at that time (such as a Military-Industrial Administration for Prussia). But whatever Administration makes Research for a certain type of Tech easier – which can be great! – also makes it relatively harder to Research things that don’t fall into that category. Depending on what types of Tech are most important to you, you may want to change your Research Administration. Maybe wait until you’ve achieved many of your goals in your primary Research area, then switch, though this often means while concentrating on one area, you’ve ignored others and fallen behind other countries’ Research. Ideally, you can “leverage” your preferred Research tracks so that it doesn’t matter so much if you’re behind in other ways.Sometimes your Decisions are like Event chains (discussed above), where a choice made by another country makes your Decision possible. These can be some of the most powerful Decisions you can make, and you should consider carefully what your action should be.There are major Decisions for most historically important countries, including unification Decisions, historical flavour Decisions (where you can follow history or completely change it), and Decisions with major worldwide significance, such as building a Canal. Many of these major Decisions carry Prestige bonuses with them, for the country that implements them. Major Decisions usually require a large degree of determination to achieve the prerequisite conditions, so that they may be implemented. Decide if the Decision is something you want to implement. If so, pursue it. If not, forget it. There’s nothing forcing you to take action on most of these Decisions. In fact, some Decisions (many of them historical in nature) are actually pretty stupid to implement, and it may be an obvious choice to avoid them.In the United States, you will find that repeated attempts to stop Slavery will increase Consciousness and make POPs trend more Liberal. When the USA accomplishes the Manifest Destiny Decision their Sphere of Influence will no longer include Mexico so that those two powers can come into conflict.

COLONISATION XI

EVENTS & DECISIONS XII


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Among the many types of Decisions are some that allow you to form Unions (or smaller countries), or Decisions that are steps toward that Union (which themselves will trigger other Decisions). The qualifications for these, like other Decisions, are shown in the Tooltips. It’s wise to follow these instructions like a roadmap if it’s your intent to found the Union.Consider this – many Unification Decisions require that certain Provinces required for the Unification be in the Decision-maker’s Sphere of Influence. So obviously there is incentive to make this happen. There is a corollary though. If you desire to disallow such a Union, you need only keep parts of the required Union within your Sphere of Influence. Fight doggedly on the Diplomatic front, and on the battlefield if need be, to keep it so that your rival cannot achieve his dreams.

The Unification of Italy

The revolts of 1848 were no less strong in Italy than in many other places in Europe. The Pope and other monarchs were forced to flee, or agree to constitutions. Carlo Alberto, King of Sardinia-Piedmont, saw this as an opportunity for Italian unification, and provoked a widescale uprising against the Austrian rule of northern Italy (Lombardy, Venetia, etc.), and Sardinian troops joined in support. The Venetian Republic was declared, but Austria’s General Radetzky defeated the Venetian and Lombardian insurrections in a series of battles. Meanwhile, the radicals Giuseppe Garibaldi and Giuseppe Mazzini had founded a Roman Republic in Rome, but the French restored the Pope to his Vatican, and these revolutionaries fled. This first unification attempt was shown to be stillborn by mid-1849.Italian nationalists didn’t give up, though. Count Camilio Cavour and the new Sardinian king, Victor Emmanuel, entered into a partnership with French Emperor Napoleon III in order to throw the Austrians out of northern Italy. Sardinia-Piedmont provoked the Austrians to action in 1859, leading to an Austrian invasion which was met by French and Italian troops. Louis Napoleon and Victor Emmanuel defeated Austrian Emperor Franz Jozef at Solferino, which caused them to withdraw into the Quadrilateral fortress complex in Venetia, leaving Lombardy free. Meanwhile, the Sardinians pushed south into Tuscany and east into the “Papal Legations” of the Papal States, essentially seizing central Italy north of Rome. Double-dealing on the part of the French, and mutual distrust between all three warring powers finally settled out, by 1860, into formal recognition of all the Sardinian acquisitions, while France took control of Nice and parts of Savoy, as was originally discussed in negotiations with Count Cavour.Then, events took on a life of their own, as the Kingdom of Two Sicilies (which included southern Italy south of Rome, and the island of Sicily) was rocked by insurrection. With Victor Emmanuel’s encouragement, Giuseppe Garibaldi invaded Sicily (not in support of either, the rebels or the government), conquered it, then attacked north along the mainland coast, finding widespread popular support. By the autumn of 1860, the Sardinian Army had become involved, marching south to meet Garibaldi at the Two Sicilies’ capital of Naples, violating the sovereignty of the Papal States a second time in less than a year, though avoiding Rome itself. Louis Napoleon had stepped in to attempt to control matters, hoping to avoid the overthrow of the Pope and the rise of a rival state in Italy. His diplomatic intervention saved Rome, but not much else. In 1861, Victor Emmanuel II was declared king of an almost united Italy. Rome was announced as the symbolic capital, despite the fact that Italy had not yet gained control over the city, which remained protected by French troops. Unrest, largely stoked by the more radicalised Mazzini and Garibaldi, simmered in the years after until 1866.In that year, 1866, the long rivalry between Prussia and Austria for hegemony over the states of Germany came to a head in the Austro-Prussian War (the Seven Weeks’ War). Italy took advantage, and despite mixed results on the battlefield, secured the annexation of Venetia from Austria as part of her war spoils. Ironically -- a testament to the shifting loyalties during this whole decades-long saga -- it wasn’t until French troops were withdrawn from Rome to respond to the 1870 onset of the Franco-Prussian War that laid the Papal States open to final annexation. Italy had been united, in stages, between 1848 and 1870. Germany’s unification would come one year later, as a result of many of these same, closely intertwined, events.

King Victor Emmanuel II meets Giuseppe Garibaldi near Naples.

Unifications

There are a number of Decisions which can be made to enable or enact a Unification within a Culture Tag. If your goal is to promote Unification, your strategy should concentrate on (or at least remain aware of opportunities) fulfilling the requirements for the Unification Decision. These Decisions require the country in question to Own a number of Core Provinces which must be held to implement the Decision. Any country (including AI) wanting to do this will be trying to get those Provinces.Accomplishing Unification will gain at least some Prestige, which can be useful in reaching higher Ranking status.German Unification will give you both, North and South German Culture as Primaries. Other Unifications may have similar benefits, within the context of their situation.


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Bismarck & the Rise of Prussia

There had long been a dream of uniting the various countries and city-states of the former Holy Roman Empire into a com-mon country – a Second Reich. By the mid-1800s Austria and Prussia stood as rivals for leadership of a German nation which remained politically divi-ded. Hidebound and ossified, the ancient Habsburg dynasty in the Austrian Empire was preoccupied with its own, internal troubles, as well as with main-taining its foothold in Italy. The Prussians had begun to bring many German states into its sphere of influence through the Zollverein customs union, but it was not clear until 1866 that Prussian ascendancy would overcome the Austrian-led German Confederation (another sphere, which overlapped somewhat, and which included Prussia).An early attempt at German unification had failed in 1849, when in the wake of the 1848 disorders the Frankfurt Parliament offered the crown of a constitutional monarchy to Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV, who refused the “honour” as contemptibly liberal. In 1864, under the leadership of King Wilhelm I and Count Bismarck, Prussia established a clear rivalry for power in the Schleswig conflict, and then in 1866 Austria and Prussia came into open conflict in the Seven Weeks War (Austro-Prussian War), where Helmuth von Moltke clearly demonstrated the supremacy of the Prussian military model. While no territory shifted hands (except in Italy), the unquestioned result was a withdrawal of Austria from its position of leadership over Germany and the assumption of that role by Prussia.While 1866 had shifted the center of power away from Vienna toward Berlin, unification was not cemented until 1871, at the conclusion of the Franco-Prussian War, when the Prussians and their allies (now including several German states who had opposed her four years before) accomplished stunning victories against the French, first surrounding and capturing her main armies, then besieging Paris for months. Many of the leaders of the German states – some of them acting as officers leading their national armies – were present at the Palace of Versailles in January 1871 to approve the creation of a German Empire under the leadership of the Prussian King, newly styled Kaiser Wilhelm I.


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POPs at Militancy of 7 will join a Rebel Faction and will begin funding the Organisation of that Faction. If a general uprising occurs – several Revolts at once – then POPs of Militancy 8 will join in. POPs at Militancy 9 will always revolt. Any military Brigades linked to a Militancy 9 POP will also Revolt.Fortunately, a Rebellion can only be as large (in Brigades) as the Support Limit of the Province. Station troops nearby high Militancy areas to be ready to respond. After a Revolt, the Militancy of the participating POPs will be reduced slightly, but only slightly. Steps must be made to further calm them, or else they will continue to be a problem. Because the amount of Militancy reduction is so small (.5 in the beta versions), you will need to further reduce their Militancy through other means or else they will continue to fund the Organisation of the Faction.POP Militancy will also be reduced when damage is absorbed by the Rebel army (a chastening by force of arms does good to the temperament of the rebellious). Such damage also reduces the POP’s Population somewhat. Complete destruction of a Rebel Brigade will lower the POP’s

REBELS, REVOLTS & REVOLUTIONS XIII

Militancy by 2/3. For these reasons, combating Rebels and causing casualties is one very effective way to keep the Rebels down. If Militancy is reduced sufficiently (through injury in combat, or through another means), the Rebel army will disperse, not to reappear unless the POP’s Militancy rises again.Colonies have a higher prevalence of Nationalist Rebels who may seek Independence.Countries which suffer a Revolution will lose Prestige for having allowed things to get that bad. Not good for a Great Power! Hope your neighbours share your pain.

The Liberal Revolution

Many industrialised countries will suffer from a Liberal Revolution at some point. When you sense this coming (if you haven’t done something, like Reform, to ward it off), pull back – keep yourself out of international trouble, because you’re going to be way too busy at home to have any foreign entanglements to bother with.The mechanics of the Revolution system can cause a Liberal Revolution (similar to the 1848 Revolutions, historically) to occur. This requires high generalised Militancy, as above, but also requires a higher level of Literacy in order to trigger. Without this Literacy level, it’s considered that the Population really doesn’t know that it wants a “Liberal” Revolution as opposed to some other more populist type.The Rebels you get during a Liberal Revolution don’t really agree on anything except that they’re mad. You will get a mixture of Pan-Nationalist Rebels and Anarcho-Liberal Rebels who won’t necessarily cooperate with each other, but who are equally troublesome.A Liberal Revolution can be effectively ended by enacting Voting Reforms (part of the Political Reforms).

“Trouble with liberal agitation? You might want to try to use some of your military power for suppression.”



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“WHAT DO YOU WANT?”

You can mess around in Victoria a lot without getting what you really want. That can be because you’re not really sure. This Guide goes into a lot of it. But much of what you “really want” comes down to your personal playing style and your personal goals, which may be quite different from another player’s.Do you want to survive? Usually this isn’t a very challenging goal, unless you’re playing Afghanistan or Modena, and then it can be a really exciting goal to pursue!Do you want security? Do you want hegemony? Do you want a world-spanning empire? Do you want to have the most progressive, enlightened government in existence, which contributes to the peace and security of the whole world through its beneficence and economic strength? What you want determines a lot of what your strategic goals should be.

Playing for What You Want

If you’re primarily interested in economic strength, then pursue industrialisation with singleminded purpose, but remember that you must protect what you build. Use industrialisation as the basis for your military, but don’t let the military get in the way.If you want a Sphere of Influence throughout your region (hegemony), read the section on Great Power Actions, and implement those strategies. Watch for your rivals to identify themselves, and do everything you can to block them while you’re promoting your own interests.If you want empire, then you have to put a plan of conquest into action without provoking a generalised backlash against your aggression. You must carefully set Infamy aside as quickly as you acquire it, or else you may frustrate your own goals. Think like a chess player, not a berserker.Always consider who your enemies are (who stands in the way of your goals), who your friends are (who can enable or ease you in pursuit of your goals), and who you’re not so sure about. Never get locked into thinking your friends can’t change…. Or your enemies! Sometimes, game success is determined by your ability to Colonise and/or put a navy to sea. Landlocked countries can find it difficult to become Great Powers. For this reason, part of your strategic goals may need to include capture of a coastal Province with a Port. On the other hand, if you’re not ready for this – if you don’t have the Money to build a navy, or otherwise “do anything” with the Port, then this is may be premature.Don’t get locked into thinking one-dimensionally, or into thinking you have to get everything you want all at once. Maybe one war is fought for the sole purpose of setting up advantages that will carry you to victory in a subsequent war.Does a ring of Forts make total victory against your neighbor unrealistic? Do you have the power to take those Provinces, but maybe then you’re spent? If so, then do that first war to take the State those

GEOPOLITICAL THINKING & PLANNING XIV

”There is the isthmus of Panama in America and that of Suez between Asia and Africa; these two isthmuses prevent the junction of our Seas and are the reason that, to go around the World by water, requires about three years and exposes one to stormy and very often icy Seas, and uninhabited Coasts. Each of these two isthmuses must be cut from one Sea to the other by a canal about sixty feet wide, thirty feet deep and about forty leagues long; by means of these two canals one will make the tour of the terrestrial Globe, by water, in about ten months, and upon Seas that are always good for Navigation and very convenient for the establishment upon all the Coasts thereof of new and very benecial trade between many Nations.”

from the “project of perpetual peace between all the sovereiGns of europe & their neiGhbours,” by pierre-anDre GarGaz, publisheD by benjamin franklin, 1782


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Forts are in – make your enemy waste his energy building new Forts while you prepare to launch toward his Capital in five years’ time with a fresh army and the Forts your enemy built shielding your own Capital from his counterattack!

Watching for Opportunities

When a country who you consider a threat “turns his back on you” (say they get involved in a war on the opposite front from you, or they’re occupied in a serious war elsewhere), maybe that’s the time to attack. Wars are always more productive when your enemy is distracted. This is another good reason to have Allies in strategic places (say on the opposite front – you can set up the situation discussed).Some opportunities always exist, they’re just hard to recognize. Is there a single State or Province which touches another Province that might provide a route into your enemy’s rear areas? Concentrate on taking that Province so you can use it to penetrate deeper into his lands.

Strategic Goals

Strategic goals are things – tasks you must accomplish – in order to facilitate the eventual achievement of your ultimate goal. Depending on your goals, maybe that means securing an internal supply of a particular Good, or even a whole Chain of Production (see the chart at the end of the Guide). Maybe that goal can be achieved either through conquest, Colonisation or through including a producer in your Sphere of Influence. Straits are great strategic goals. Can you capture a Strait that will block off an entire portion of your empire, keeping it secure from enemy navies and amphibious invasions? Bases are also great strategic goals. If your eventual goal requires you to control a Province way across the map, you’ll need to have an intermediate goal of seizing a Naval Base that allows you to reach where you want to go.In some way, choosing and pursuing strategic goals could be seen as “chasing” goals:

CHASING FORTS

– A Fort is a nice resource to have on your border. If you can take a province with a Fort in a Peace Treaty, then your enemy can’t use it against you in the future and you will instead have it as a protective presence on your own frontier.

CHASING GOLD

– Some Precious Metals provinces exist at the beginning of the game, while others appear according to events, and over time they can start to play a key role in certain countries’ economies. The Money provided from Precious Metals goes straight into the Treasury, so if it’s easy to pick up these provinces it will be worth it.

CHASING OIL

– This may not be obvious to veterans of the original Victoria game (which ended in 1920 with motorised industry only in a fledgling state), but in Victoria 2 Oil is going to play an important part toward the end of the game, starting around 1900 or so (which means for 1/3 of the game!). For this reason, it’s possible you may want to make Oil provinces a priority for conquest or Colonisation. It’s a “gamey” tactic, using foreknowledge of the late-game importance of what starts out as a Good of little consequence. Some players may want to play as if they have no idea of the potential impact of Oil, but in Multiplayer games, don’t count on anyone else being this gracious. The only question is whether to seize these provinces early and possibly make yourself a target for late-game Oil wars, or do you start a late-game Oil war and take these resources for yourself from whoever owns them? As with Precious Metals, Oil will appear in certain provinces over time, according to Event.

Prestige, Great Power & Second Tier Status

While country rankings – the ones which determine whether you are a Great Power, a Second Tier Power, or just a regular Civilised country – are made up of more than just your Prestige ranking, Prestige may be the most important of them. Prestige is the most easily manipulated ranking. It may go up or down quickly, depending on the course of events. Furthermore, since Prestige often determines your (and your POPs’) ability to get needed Goods, Prestige can indirectly fuel industrial expansion. Because of all this, your Prestige may catapult you into a higher status, or you may fall dramatically from grace. Anybody can build up their industry or military (okay, not anybody, but there’s a known formula, right?). These may require some strategy or planning, but properly implementing simple strategies will cause these

“Prior to Freedom of Trade I’d promote bureaucrats, just so that after it I can actu-ally promote some capitalists to build my economy. I suppose artisans wouldn’t be a bad choice either.”

palisaDoes (lewis jones, uk)

“Want to raise you prestige? Use the war goals with easy targets to get your country to the top! Be careful not to anger the big players though.”


“Humiliated by the Prussians in the War of 1870, France was determined that it would be great again, and would recover its prestige not by ghting, but through, as Victor Hugo put it, ‘astonishing the world with the great deeds that could be won without a war.’”

panama fever, by matthew parker


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rankings to grow reliably (albeit while other countries are trying to do the very same things).But it takes determination and effort to increase your Prestige rankings, and this is how you can get ahead of other countries, even if both of you are trying to expand your industry and military as noted above. A military power may find that it’s easy to increase Prestige by winning battles and wars. Other ways to substantially increase Prestige usually involve Decisions (which require determination to achieve prerequisites and implement), or can be earned through Researching Prestige Technologies. The problem with these Techs is that most of them become increasingly useless if other countries achieve them first (for instance, with “shared Prestige,” the first country to Research the Tech gets 100% of the allowed benefit, but the next one only gets 50%, the next one 33%, etc.). So develop a strategy for how you’re going to achieve the Prestige you want.A country’s Industry Ranking is based primarily on the number of Factories in a country, not so much what that country produces in its RGOs. This is because it is not an economic ranking, but rather an Industry rating (implying Manufactures). The number of Craftsmen and Clerks in your Factories improves the score they contribute to the Ranking.A country’s Military Ranking is based primarily on the number of Brigades it has in the field (i.e. not its potential, or its Mobilisation pool, but those actually deployed). Ships are factored in, but sailing ships are all but irrelevant for this ranking. Dreadnoughts increase a Military Ranking substantially, while Ironclads have a much smaller impact.Certain actions and options only become possible if you’re a Second Tier Power – Gunboat Diplomacy and Colonisation. Other things only become possible if you’re a Great Power – Influence gain, Spheres of Influence, and Great Power Actions.

“Your military score is based primarily on the number of soldiers pops you have, and your tech levels. Your actual elded troops won’t count towards it. Likewise most ships don’t add anything, although ironclads and later add some while dreadnoughts add a fair bit.”


British-controlled Hong Kong in 1846.

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Spheres of Influence

Those of you who have played Europa Universalis 3: Heir to the Throne (HttT) may know of the Sphere of Influence concept. But you need to know it’s very different in Victoria 2. In HTTT a Sphere of Influence was mostly a Diplomatic entity, which marked certain countries for “hands off” treatment from your rivals. In V2 it still has a similar effect Diplomatically – it means that rival Great Powers are prevented from certain interactions with them. But it goes further, taking on some of the aspects of an HttT Trade League, in that it includes that country in a unique Trade relationship with its Sphere master. This is not an exclusive Trade right – countries in your Sphere may still Trade with other countries – but it means you get to Trade with them first. You can, essentially, turn this into a more or less exclusive Trade relationship with certain Goods if you can buy up all the Production of a Good within your Internal Market. This prevents other countries from being able to buy from you, though if other countries outside of your Sphere of Influence also sell that Good your control of that Market is not exclusive.Countries which are in the same Sphere of Influence are influenced to have more positive Diplomatic Relations with other members of the same Sphere. They will also tend to be more supportive of the Sphere Leader in their Diplomatic Actions, including when they decide whose offers to accept.Here’s a non-intuitive thought for you. If you’re a Second Tier Power (or close), striving to become a Great Power, being “manipulated” into a Great Power’s Sphere of Influence is not really a bad thing. It doesn’t prevent you from becoming a Great Power yourself – in fact, it helps you because you get the economic benefits of being in a larger Internal Market. What’s more, once you finally do get into the ranks of the Great Powers, you automatically leave the other GP’s Sphere of Influence and begin building your own.Because of the unique Internal Market function, it’s sometimes possible that a particular Good may be impossible for a country to get (if, say its Prestige is too low) until it becomes part of someone’s Sphere of Influence, and thereby gains access to that country’s Internal Market.If Great Powers place a country in their Sphere of Influence which has their Cores, they’re promising not to attack that nation, basically – it makes it very difficult to attack a nation which is already in your Sphere. If it’s your intent to acquire those Core Provinces, instead keep it outside your Sphere so you can conveniently try to take them down the road.

The Civilisation Decision

Players may have a lot of fun in Victoria 2 playing an Uncivilised country, but for those players who want a super challenge, or who want to really succeed in the game, it will be necessary to become a Civilised nation. No Uncivilised country is ever allowed to be ranked higher (in terms of country Ranking) than a Civilised country, they also may not industrialise with Capitalists or Factories.An Uncivilised country has limitations on who it can attack, what it can gain from those attacks, and what range at which it can attack. Uncivilised countries also suffer penalties to Technology Research, which unfortunately is the very avenue they must use to escape from their status. For these reasons, most Uncivilised countries attempt to become accepted as Civilised.There are certain Technologies which are a must for the future development of Uncivilised countries. This might seem easy until you consider that Uncivilised countries Research at half-speed, compared to Civilised countries.All the Techs are first level. Most players recommend Freedom of Trade (Commerce) as your first Tech – it doubles RGO output, which will improve your income. You also need Private Banks (Commerce – improves Tax Efficiency), The Rights of Man (Culture – an added National Focus Point), Publishing Industry, and Post-Napoleonic Thought (Army). At the end of all these Techs, you’ll be able to build Cement Factories, Regular Clothes Factories, and Luxury Clothes Factories, but not until you’re Civilised.For that reason, the last Tech you should Research should be Publishing Industry (Mechanisation track of the Industry Tech), because its only result is that you can build Regular Clothes Factories (which still isn’t useful until you become Civilised). Your second should be The Rights of Man, for the Focus Point, unless you don’t have sufficient Population to earn the extra Point. If you don’t then your second should be Private Banks or Post-Napoleonic, depending on your defensive situation.However, I would submit a possible alternative to Freedom of Trade as your first Tech. One of the requirements for Civilised status is a high Prestige score. The easiest way to get this is to Research high-Prestige Culture Techs. But this only works if you’re the first country (or close enough) to get there (otherwise you split the Prestige award too many ways). If you are the first to complete Research into Aesthetics or Philosophy levels 1 and 2 (the first level doesn’t help much), then you have the potential for 60 Prestige (you need 40, as of this stage in the betatest). Even if you share the Prestige with someone, you’re well on your way. It’s always a question of whether you can win the race for the Tech with handicapped Uncivilised Research Points. This is something you’ll have to judge for yourself, based on your country’s RPs.Your final hurdles are that you must raise your Prestige and Military scores (I won’t say how much because it might change – check the Tooltip on the Decision). To build Military score, it might be worth using your National Focus Point and Military Spending to hire more Soldiers, then build Brigades and deploy them. Ships aren’t going to help much, because you don’t have Dreadnoughts. Masses of clipper warships might help, but it would be expensive. For Prestige, you can either Research Aesthetics or Philosophy among the Culture Techs (as suggested above), or you can win wars until you become Civilised (as strange as that may sound).

“Very important. First thing when you start the game, if you are a GP, select the countries you wish to inuence. Missing this by a day or more could conceivably set you back.”


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Japan & European Contact

Prior to 1853, Japan had main-tained centuries of isolation from European influences, and its only official contact with western powers (considered barbarians) allowed under their laws was at a Nagasaki trading post, operated by the Dutch, and limited interactions by way of China and Korea. In that year, Commodore Matthew Perry entered Yokosuka Har-bour and made contact by displaying machines of war (a demonstration not entirely wel-comed by the Japanese at first) and commerce, thus “opening” Japan. Soon, most other major powers were also trading.During the 1860s, a Jap-anese attempt to “throw the barbarians out” and return to their previous state of isolation failed amidst European and American bombardments. In 1868, the militant Tokugawa Shogunate was abolished and the Emperor Meiji was “restored” to a previous style of imperial control over his country.Even before Perry’s visit, the Japanese were studying western technology, though, and throughout the latter half of the 19th Century the Japanese researched and turned western technology to their purposes. The Meiji, seeking to “prosper the state and strengthen its armed forces,” meant for Japan to be able to stand on its own against other powers. Soon, many aspects of Japanese society – particularly their military – had been adapted to western standards. While the Meiji abolition of the samauri class caused much social disruption, and even violent rebellion, it also centralised political power. In 1889, the Emperor promulgated a constitution based on the Prussian model, which carried some weight in western acceptance of Japan as, if not an equal, then a country worth dealing with. Beginning with the Sino-Japanese War of 1894, Japan also began to create a regional sphere of influence, reaching into Taiwan, Korea, and parts of Manchuria and northern China. In 1904, Japan came into conflict with Russia over ownership of Port Arthur, where the Japanese launched a surprise attack, destroying most of the Russian Imperial Fleet in the Pacific. Angry beyond words, Czar Nicholas II ordered Russia’s Atlantic fleet prepared and sent to attack Japan. These ships’ decks were piled high with piles and stacks of coal for the long journey (far beyond its “Naval Range”) and wallowed for months through hostile seas. When they had nearly arrived, they were intercepted by Admiral Togo, Japan’s most revered naval leader, whose well-trained Japanese sailors and commanders tore into the Russians at the Battle of Tsushima Strait. The Japanese shells, fuzed to detonate on contact, hit the wires and rigging on the Russian ships and ignited the coal dust which remained smudged across the enemy ships’ exterior surfaces, delivering a second disastrous defeat to the Russians.This double victory against a European power essentially earned Japan a place on the world stage as “honourary Europeans” – a title which mattered much in those racially charged decades. American President Theodore Roosevelt still treated the Japanese shabbily at the Treaty of Portsmouth , where he negotiated a treaty which could be seen as a vindication by either side. But Roosevelt patched up damaged relations with Japan partly by encouraging them to build a sphere of influence of their own, on the style of the Monroe Doctrine, in east Asia, which secured Japan’s place in Korea and China in the years that followed.

Black Ships, which were sidewheel steamers (“raiders” in V2).The Japanese flagship, the pre-dreadnought Mikasa, with description written in Admiral Togo’s own calligraphy. Pre-dreadnoughts often had fore and aft main guns (twin 12” guns here), with 7 6” guns on each flank, mounted in turrets and barbettes.

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The Origins of World War I

Europe: 1914. In the years after the upheavals of 1848 and the wars of the 1860s & early 1870s, had been for more than 40 years a peaceful, cosmopolitan society. Peoples of all nations freely crossed borders for travel or work. Unknown to almost every citizen of Europe, a lattice of secret treaties would soon conspire to draw them all into a bloody cataclysm of world war. Sparked by the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand by Serbian nationals who wanted Austria to clear out of Bosnia, German Kaiser Wilhelm II mistakenly overstepped in communicating his support for Austria. Thus fortified, an aggrieved Austria made unreasonable demands of Serbia, which prompted her ally Russia to threaten to step in. By then, already, diplomatic missteps were accelerating things out of control. The Russians mobilised in response to the Austrian declaration of war upon Serbia, which prompted a German mobilisation, the Germans being unwilling to countenance war so near. The French had maintained an alliance with Russia against Germany, and so German war plans hinged upon a rapid knockout blow against France, first, followed by a redeployment east to meet Russia. This plan required the German army to cross neutral Belgium. The United Kingdom had established secret treaties with her old enemy France, and also issued a guarantee to Belgium, so when the Germans moved, Britain felt obligated to enter the war as well. Soon, most of Europe was embroiled in a general conflict which would last four years and cost 10 million dead and 20 million maimed.

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Most Diplomatic Actions have a chance of being accepted by the target country which is influenced primarily by the countries’ mutual Diplomatic Relations, but may also be influenced by other things, such as the Opinion of a Great Power (see Great Power Influence), or the foolhardiness of the request (for instance, if you’re about to be overrun in a war, don’t expect a small neighbour to come to your aid).Remember to spend your Diplomatic Points! They are capped at 100, and you will get no more if you’ve hit that level.

Diplomatic Action

FORM ALLIANCE

– This would bring your countries into a mutual Alliance. Countries are more likely to respond to a Call to honour an Alliance if their Ally is the defender, not the attacker. Countries will be unlikely to accept an Alliance that might bring it into conflict with its Sphere of Influence Leader.

CALL ALLY

– This allows you to Call your Ally into your war. Allies will generally be called no matter what if you’re attacked, but in a war of aggression (you started it) they may not jump in right away. Calling them forces their hand. There are some obvious restrictions upon who can respond to this Call, including countries who are in a Sphere of Influence, or who have a Truce with the country in question. However, a Call is always valid without penalty in a defensive war, regardless of any truces (though they will still not attack their Sphere Leader).

STANDARD DIPLOMACY XV

MILITARY ACCESS

– This allows you to move your troops through the territory of another country. It is usually easier to gain Military Access than to gain Alliances or other treaties which more closely bind countries to one another. Use this to secure a path from your lands to your target. This is especially important if you want to attack someone who you don’t have land access to (and can be quite beneficial because they can’t attack you through the same path), but can also offer a different avenue of attack your enemy may not have anticipated.

GIVE/REVOKE MILITARY ACCESS

– This allows other countries to move their troops through your territory. This might be useful if they’re partners of yours in a war, or even if they’re at war with a traditional rival of yours, and you want to help them out by giving them access to your mutual enemy.

INCREASE RELATIONS

– Most Diplomatic Actions are more likely to be successful if you have strong Diplomatic Relations with the country in question. You increase those Relations through this Action. A series of repeated attempts (some of which may fail) are usually required to greatly change a relationship.

DECREASE RELATIONS

– This rather effectively spoils Relations between your country and the target. It has the effect of grossly offending them, making Relations to suffer dramatically. This can be useful if you are intending to Declare War on them, whereas it’s not very useful otherwise. For this reason, it can be considered a warning that war may be coming.

“In February 1836, France agreed to pay its indemnity, and did so within 3 months… [President John Quincy] Adams had not been able to collect the French claim, or the $10 million that other nations owed America for damages inicted under Napoleon’s decrees, or the South American wars of independence. Through deft negotiation, Jackson’s diplomats collected debts from Russia, Portugal, Spain, Denmark and Brazil. The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was less forthcoming, but [then-President Andrew] Jackson exed his muscles, sending several warships to the Mediterranean. As a result, Naples made a payment of $1.7 million.”

from wakinG Giant: america in the aGe of jackson, by DaviD s. reynolDs

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Sometimes you may choose, instead, not to provide this warning and to accept the penalties of going to war with higher Relations. This can also be used as a threat which could be used to manipulate a country into better relations or some other action (this probably will only work in Multiplayer – this is too sophisticated a concept for the AI to understand).

WAR SUBSIDIES

– This is a way of involving yourself in another country’s war without actually going to war. You pay Money to a participant in a war so they may use that Money to build new Brigades, ships, etc. This can actually be a very crafty way of accomplishing your strategic goals without the expense (combat losses, War Exhaustion, risking Prestige, etc.) of outright warfare. It’s “let’s you and him fight” – use proxies to engage your enemies in war, and let them die and bleed to accomplish what you want. You can even maintain a “balance of power” between two of your own country’s rivals by backing the losing side with War Subsidies, in hopes that it will help enough to turn the tables and stop their enemy. If two of your rivals can be kept at war for a long time, adding up combat losses and War Exhaustion, etc., that can be of tremendous benefit for you.

GUNBOAT DIPLOMACY

– This allows you to exercise your Gunboat Diplomacy option against a country which is in Default to you from a Loan you’ve made. It can only be implemented by Great Powers or Second Tier Powers.

DECLARE WAR

– This is obvious, and will be discussed in more detail later.

Alliances

Some leaders have warned against “entangling Alliances,” and they weren’t kidding! An Alliance can be the best thing you have going for you, or could also be the worst thing. Worse, it could be both! An Alliance protects your country, on one level, against enemy intrusion. If you’re a powerful country, one or more Alliances can enable you to stand and defeat a larger country, or another Great Power, or two or three. If you’re a small country, an Alliance an be the only thing preventing you from annihilation at the hands of a larger neighbour. An Alliance is another country’s obligation to come to the defense of your country. The problem is that it’s also an obligation for you to come to the aid of your Ally. If your Ally is wise and prudent, this can be a great relationship – you only go to war when one or the other of you is in danger. If your Ally is a bit of a “loose cannon,” you could end up being dragged into wars you don’t have the resources or the inclination to be part of. Small countries can also find themselves on the front line of a war not of their choosing, and may be ground under in a competition between giants.So Alliances – ones offered, or ones you seek – should be chosen with great care. Does this benefit you more than them? Does that matter? What do you get out of it? If it doesn’t really benefit you directly, but it serves your purposes to protect the other country, then maybe it’s still worth having. If it allows you to attack a country you want to attack (maybe because of a naturally hostile relationship between them and your potential Ally), then maybe that’s a useful reason to have it too.You should never seek or accept an Alliance “just because.” Always know why you’re a part of an Alliance, and know what its limits are. If you’re being dragged into a war you cannot afford to be part of, consider Dishonouring the Alliance – refusing to come to your Ally’s aid. It doesn’t help your relationship with that country, and there are negative consequences to Prestige for you, but maybe this embarrassing step back is what keeps you from worse consequences. If this scenario is far too likely, you shouldn’t join that Alliance in the first place.But frequently, a network of Alliances become “force multipliers” – they allow you and your friends to stand against much tougher foes than you could each do alone. Use your Alliance offers to build a “hedge of protection” around yourself so that you’re more difficult to attack (or at least to defeat). Just make sure you’re part of the Alliance for your reasons, and not somebody else’s.


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GREAT POWER DIPLOMACY, SPHERES & INFLUENCE XVI

A Sphere of Influence is a great foundation for future empire, as well as for unification bids. Many Decisions for unification – small or great steps – require Spheres of Influence to be extended to certain territories. The Sphere of Influence becomes the vehicle for expansion and unification.Great Powers also will typically go to war as one Sphere against another. In many cases, an Alliance soon follows inclusion in a Sphere, and in the case of attack upon a Sphere member, a defensive Alliance is automatically assumed. So, as you can imagine, the competition to acquire and take away countries from each others’ Spheres is intense, and has far-reaching consequences for victory or defeat.

Great Power Influence & Opinion

So much of the Diplomatic focus of the Great Powers must necessarily be on a secondary game that only Great Powers get to play – the Great Power Sphere of Influence contest. Every country has an “Opinion” of every other Great Power, ranging from Hostile to Opposed to Neutral to Cordial to Friendly to Sphere, in order of friendliness. Using Influence is how a Great Power changes a target country’s Opinion of it. Influence is not used against other Great Powers directly, but rather can influence other countries’ Opinion of you and other Great Powers.Great Power Influence is gained and lost on a track that is somewhat – though not completely – separate from the Diplomatic Relations track. Rarely will you see a country with bad Relations with a Great Power, but good Opinion, or vice versa. But Opinion is different because it can be based not on friendliness, but also on fear (call it respect if you want).

“Want all the economic benets of empire with only a fraction of the headache? Focus your attention on drawing and keeping areas you are interested in as part of your sphere of inuence. Why go to all the trouble of conquering and then administering directly (at a cost to your taxpayers) Morocco, Siam or Argentina when you can gain the economic benets of a captive market via deft diplomacy? Call it indirect rule or dollar diplomacy, very often a less intrusive approach to projecting power and inuence produces the best results when it comes to keeping the exchequer in balance.”

ohGamer (Gene whitmore, columbus, ohio)

Opinion – and the related Sphere of Influence process – is what makes a president say, “Yes, Master,” no matter what his varied reasons are for doing so.I say Relations and Opinion are not completely separate because Great Power Actions can have influence on Relations (generally negative for hostile actions), and because higher Opinion and/or Sphere of Influence status does play a role in determining which countries’ requests for Alliance a country will or will not accept.If someone has a better Opinion of your country than another Great Power, your Influence gain is 50% less. Likewise, your gain is reduced by 50% if the target country (not the Great Power) is overseas. Obviously, this means a Great Power is better able to Influence countries on its own continent. In order to compete with this, you must acquire territory on that continent too, or else your game with that target country may remain very difficult to win.Make sure to pay attention for when you hit 100 Influence Points in a country (there will be an Alert to let you know), because there is a 100 Point cap per country. Any continued Points may be lost.Sometimes you can “surprise” your rival GPs’ AI. If you’re not paying a lot of attention to a country, and then suddenly boost your Influence gain to maximum, you may be able to get to a point where you can perform a GP Action before they can. Another form of “reverse psychology” is to sneak up, where you place very minor Priorities on a country and hope the rival AI doesn’t notice. This is probably less likely to work, as it requires only a minor shift in the AI’s thinking to counter it, whereas the AI may have to decide to put his full attention toward countering your rush, and he may not be quite ready to zero out all his other Influence Priorities in


































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