Power Bloc Tier List

[@carlosfuentes9506]

This video needs a “cohesion” hashtag or something. I think this is the only video on KZbin discussing cohesion, but the algorithm doesn’t suggest this video when searching “Victoria 3 cohesion”.

[@Nopelessness]

790 views in 50 minutes?! 😮 Generalist really skyrocketed!!

[@generalistgaming]

Just getting ready for my next failure - how will I fall off if I have nowhere to fall off from?

[@molt45]

The kind of optimism we need

[@ВетерИндиго-э9к]

With Defensive Cooperation you still can annex your subjects but non of them can start those annoying diplo plays against you so it really helps the casual player not to be bothered by routine wars with ruthless vassals

[@connorvic3]

They can still declare independence however they cannot declare leave power block

[@louischen1280]

I played religious convocation the most. Here is some findings: 1. the cohesion is really not an issue because if you have 40+ devout clout your cohesion will always be maximum 2. you do not want to convert your subjects because you want them to pay more, and the cohesion malus is countered by your strong devout 3. divine economics replaces your shopkeepers from finance buildings, and halves the clergy workforce in your manor buildings. that means: a. some of your PB clout is transferred to devout b. manor house dividends are split between fewer pops, that means stronger aristocrats. assuming the dividend share stays the same, your clergymen from manor houses get the same amount of dividends, just that there are now fewer to split the profit, so no biggie c. I tried maximizing clergymen invest by stacking divine economics and agrarianism, but it's not as good as I imagined because capitalists are just so much better, they get the most dividends and contribution efficiency modifiers really won't change due to the base cut capitalists get from dividends 4. it becomes harder to empower TU. the devout will eat your TU no matter how rich your citizens are. 5. does not go well with communism. It is better for early-midgame large rural economies, but still, perhaps not as good as other blocs. However I love this idea to have divine intervention into the economy. Hopefully there will be a different meta a few patches onwards. Also, devout can spawn reformer, democrat, abolitionist, social democrat, communist leaders. Having a strong clout helps with passing laws once you get that leader, and they will always be happy if you don't pass any law that will weaken them, in which case you wouldn't if you play religious convocation,

[@TheKatons]

Tried it with Russia and was disappointed Devout's stances are shit and buff for positive approval is weak

[@chaospilot2142]

@@TheKatonsRussias clergy is exceptionally bad though

[@gawddamn6186]

"5. does not go well with communism"

[@lazykatie42069]

@@TheKatons Russia's devout stances are particularly bad bc they have a unique ideology that makes them support awful shit like serfdom and traditionalism

[@TheKatons]

@@lazykatie42069 yeah, but if devout had some good buff like protestant one's, it would not be so awful

[@mishanyaovcharenko]

I think when playing China, the first principle you should pick is the transportation one. It gives a massive buff to infrastructure, then combine it with the infrastructure decree and you won't need railways until 1850

[@PPKinguin]

It was exactly today, that I asked myself what to pick for my 3rd principle and I referred to your new meta video from a couple of weeks back. Then you upload this. Always reliable, thank you so much.

[@RainBrain26]

You help me so much with Viccy3. And honestly, I just find your videos very nice to listen to, it really helps me stay motivated to play Vic in general.

[@josephlieberman8295]

I'm late to the party here, but I took the last few days to really test the religious bloc / Divine Economic abilities to see if they are quite as bad as you made them out to be. Short answer is: They're kinda awesome in very narrow scenarios. In the end I determined it is best used with Russia. It goes a little something like this: At some point, doesn't have to be immediate, reform into a religious power bloc with Divine Economics. Since the clergy are going to be uber powerful anyway you will have kinda crappy laws for a while, but that is OK as Russia. I waited until I could force-vassalize Greece to change, but you don't need to do it that way for sure. The core principal here is that +50% heathen religion modifier. And basically EVERYONE is heathen to Orthodox; plus you start with a lot of vassals and easy conquest. I snagged Persia pretty early, and later scooped up Japan, Belgium, and Korea as my biggies by mid-late game. Next as stated you get Vassalization to level 2 for the additional +25% income transfer. And of course as soon as anyone becomes a dominion you charge them that extra +100%. This turns every vassal you have into a money-printing MACHINE. Be warned though, because they are transferring SO much wealth they're economy isn't going to grow (but who cares). It works out to be over ~65%+ of their total income goes to you. (A ~30m GDP Persia was sending me ~55k). The trick I found most helpful in all this is it doesn't matter at ALL how large your protectorate is, if you spam-build (agriculture is easiest) you'll tick down their score pretty fast via economic entanglement; plus the dividends are nice too and odds are it is in your market so good prices fall all the same. Not quite as good as self-building but the income boost for every decent size nation you add is SUBSTANTIAL. A modest investment up front and huge payoff for the rest of the game. Decreased radicals is a nice to have and the extra authority from your vassals is nice as well. The rest is meh, but you still get two additional mandates to play with. I ended up with Police early on and later swapped to food and tech. You could probably do a similar thing with East India if you can get free relatively early on. However, any other nation I think will be a challenge. The US would require you to return to state religion; though it is in a fine position to make use of this tactic if you can. Once you've got one or two mid-size heathen dominions you can do whatever you want basically, I had taxes at minimum pretty quick. I do agree that the Sacred Civics doesn't seem to have much purpose beyond some early game nonsense. Oh and your cohesion doesn't suffer at all from having tons of heathens in your power bloc. All that your cohesion really cares about is if the church is in power and your overall relations within your bloc are good.

[@SvenDoes]

Using secret police force on lvl 5 helps a lot when trying to pass the more difficult to pass laws 18:52

[@generalistgaming]

Does it help more than creative assembly though?

[@connorvic3]

I doubt it creative assembly is really nice to pass laws

[@tijmenwillard2337]

With defensive coordination, I know for sure that you can annex subjects if you're a secondary member, so I assume you can do it as the block leader as well. In my recent Afghanistan playthrough, I joined the Russian block, who has this principle and I had no issues whatsoever annexing subjects.

[@ayyyyylmao]

I gotta say creative legislature is absolutely amazing I love it dearly. You can basically push through whatever law you want with it and not being able passing laws is probably the most annoying part of this game lmao

[@AlecSoD]

As Great Britain with Soverign Empire, the United States joined my power block. Still can’t subjugate them since they’re still a great power (rank 3), but I’m wondering if exploitation of members might be worth switching into to hurt them specifically (income transfer).

[@ffreeze9924]

You can annex subjects with defensive cooperation. I played Austria recently and their bloc starts with it, was able to annex Krakow with a war

[@Junker-sq6pu]

Thank you dude. Very nice video. Watched the whole thing.

[@generalistgaming]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@blazeburner303]

For religious convocation, clout gets a multiplier based on rank of generals, 4 generals at field marshal for the devout are enough to push them to powerful for most countries right out the gate and an easy way to get cohesion…honestly it’s the simplest one to get good cohesion time wise and the penalties are not that harsh when you can overcome it with more general promotions It also helps out with “colonizing” recognized states since the opinion and liberty changes on sacred allow you to get industry banned a bit quicker through Luddites thus allowing you to reduce liberty even faster by turning states like Nordic countries, the lowland countries, the Balkan states, Central and South America, and the Italian states into resource hubs that rely on you for literally all home goods for their mines and agriculture that you turn into groceries to export to them

[@ezekiel3626]

I play Austria and switch to religious convocation day one. I find it pretty easy to get all those small Italian states into my faction and get really high mandate.

[@CyberiaChild]

1,5 hour essay about a game i dont even play? dont mind if i do!

[@generalistgaming]

Based honestly

[@ynkesfan2003]

Low infamy and high infamy play through should probably just have different tier lists, things like migration attraction become pretty useless while military treaty becomes OP.

[@connorvic3]

He's ranking these assuming you are playing optimally which means eventually going high infamy but staying low infamy for a long time

[@ynkesfan2003]

@connorgaming2313 there's gonna be a difference in opinion on that, the optimal time to go high infamy is basically asap while still being able to hold off cut-downs. No amount of low infamy play will match the gains you get from simply grabbing valuable dirt

[@scorpioneldar]

​@@ynkesfan2003 to illistrate your point I have the opposite opinion. High infamy makes all the dirt in the world worthless no matter how valuable the things in it or grown from it might be. even in a low infamy game (by which i mean never breaching 25 infamy) it can take 10 or more years for the turmoil you get from conquest to go away in some states especially if the population is discriminated against or highly populous (which tends to be where most of the good stuff you don't already have is). over 25 infamy? 25% more radicals further driving turmoil. every step up the infamy ladder makes it even worse. to the point where over 100 often you will conquer land and have that land try to leave immediately forcing back to back to back annoying wars that further drive infamy and in some edge cases on high infamy can give more radicals than they lose until you eventually make everyone a radical. Cut down to size is hardly a restriction. if your warring the world for high infamy you already can ignore it. however... the radical situation can get you in a rev doom loop. unless you have lategame tech and good insitutions. that massively reduce your radical generation and inhibit revolution and turmoil. the optimal time to go high infamy is post 1900. but also you can world conquest right now while staying under 25 infamy all game. so the real optimal time to go high infamy is never. because you can't get more than everything. unless your racing the clock to see how early you can get everything.

[@ynkesfan2003]

@scorpioneldar in my low infamy run, I got global gdp to 5 bil in 1920, 3.5 of that was my own. I ticked above 25 infamy once, by so little that it decayed below 25 infamy in the remaining escalation period. In my one-tag run, I was at 7 bil by that same point, with what felt like much more room to grow than the low infamy run. The problem with low infamy is that you're still shackled by the tech, laws, and population of other countries. You can alleviate this to some extent by investing in their land, but tech is an issue that you just can't fix. The conquest decay slows the high infamy growth a bit, yes, but not by as much as you gain by having directed growth. You can also simply construct in lands that don't have the debuff while you wait for the lands that do have it to cool off. I absolutely get that not everybody wants to play the high- infamy style, that's fine. If we're taking what's best for growing your gdp (or even bloc/global gdp), the answer is conquest. Edit: I was USA in both those runs. I did the low infamy run second and arguably played more optimally. I had a higher gdp and more construction until my high infamy run actually ticked over 100 infamy and started conquering everything in sight.

[@equilintogo5378]

The point of Market Unification is to have Customs Union while being a different Bloc type. So the question is, can it help out one of the other Bloc type? Would it help them with their downsides?

[@basileusfang811]

good video as always. May I suggest a shorter tutorial video on foreign investment? I think you touched upon a few pros and cons in situational cases, but I would very much be willing to hear your take on foreign investment implementation in the current state of the game from a more comprehensive prespective!

[@LtVadim]

Agree in general, but few points are hugely underrated here: 20:26 Creative legislator is the bomb! From what I saw, it's -33% flat. Super-S tier in many cases. China, Russia, Turkey? It brings you from " This law I want will never pass, and you are unlikely win the revolution" up to "well, it will take a few years, but it will gets you the law that you want". The first tier makes almost any law passable, the second tier makes you almost forget about revolutions (third tier is a trash, agree). Ban slavery, throw out Serfdom and traditionalism, get Presidential republic, pushing to that sneaky Multiculturalism. This is my first pick in many runs that stays nearly to the end. 28:26 Influential trade center gives you +2 influence. Agree and emphasize: Super strong! While "Internal trade" imo is not nearly as good as this one. When I played for China to get Diplomatic Victory achievement, getting this gave me few thousands Diplo Influence! It means more alliances, Bankrolls, agreements, lobbies etc. Top-tier. 56:30 The Construction one... Well, only the Tier 1 is decent. But even then, in some runs for smaller countries,or sometimes in the late game, when there are 5000+ of construction, the limit is the money in the budget or in the pool, so this +10% bonus could only make buildings pop out slightly faster, but then construction is still being wasted. Currently, you have to take 5 upgrades in 2 civics before you unlock the third one, and this "building" one is not worth it (either destined to be changed after a short while, or be spent precious mandate on the pathetic bonus). 1:04:00 Migration. That's good, but not for everyone. E.g. China tend to still have peasant and unemployed up to 1936. I had a run where I adopted laizas fair early on and allowed the whole world to invest into my economy. And I didn't pass women emancipation laws, so they were not part of my working force. And I allowed people to migrate out of my country. The effective construction was around 4000-5000 for decades, Still, by 1936, I had 500M pops, 100M+ employed, 30M unemployed, and 40M peasants. The migration attraction? That only increased the welfare costs, which were insane. Transport infrastructure is also underrated. In late game, railroads are quite expensive and demanded. As a superpower, it's almost all I build with government construction: railroads and power plants (capitalists build the economy). Minus military costs is also super helpful, if we go for the world dominance through wars. Cheers!

[@McHobotheBobo]

9:45 Religious convocation is useful for unifying Islamic regions or Latin America primarily, I'd argue it is B or A tier for those countries specifically. Ottomans especially can make great use of it imo

[@McHobotheBobo]

One could also hypothetically use religious convocation for an atheist/technocracy hyper-bureaucratic positivist type state + world lol

[@lazykatie42069]

@@McHobotheBobo except you can't use state atheism as a religious convocation

[@McHobotheBobo]

@@lazykatie42069 Makes sense, hadn't tried it yet lol

[@QuisUtDeus828]

I havent played in a long time. I think 1.3 maybe. So Im binging all your videos because I find Vicky to be in a much more fun place now theres finally enough ways to make playthroughs more unique

[@ВетерИндиго-э9к]

On my first 1.7.2 run as Austria I had more loyalists than radicals all the time of the run and btw it feels so smooth and satisfyingly that, from the casual player perspective, the Creative Legislature is a strong B tier for me)

[@honkai8692]

Please make more long videos, theyre pretty good and very im depth

[@Pretisy]

I should of known with you that you meant the principles. XD I expected the in-game, already established Power Blocks that were formed by the Great Powers. I lowkey wanted to see how viable it was to join France instead of the Others. I'm not complaining, as I still use the OG video on principles to make my decisions. 💙

[@lazykatie42069]

I can confirm you can still annex subjects with defensive cooperation. I've been playing Russia in my latest run and their initial power bloc starts with it and I was able to annex the Baltic Governorates despite not having swapped off defensive cooperation yet

[@eduardomelo151]

Briitsh republic with paris convention power block is cursed

[@generalistgaming]

Blursed

[@kfoelsch]

Really appreciate your time and effort. Good stuff.

[@bominzhang6732]

1:10:00 the increased free infrastructure does make sense when paired with better PM for railway. The PM increases only transportation output, so you would need less train&railway to satisfy transportation need; but the infrastructure need is still there, so to balance it you need more free infrastructure. Distill doesn’t make sense from the realistic aspect though

[@aquamarine3612]

Nice vid, helped me with choice on what I ,ake with all that principles

[@Abd121]

My current strat is is go Trade league early game and build it out with early game buffs like construction and colonial stuff, then when I have 2 dozen subjects I'll switch to sovereign empire late game to annex everyone

[@connorvic3]

22:38 creative legislature is not that bad in my opinion i use it when i want to pass multiculturalism pretty often since it makes it much easier to pass the stall chance effectievely gets halved cause the 2 -33% stack multiplicatevly

[@WOcean82]

Amazing!

[@Trypragmatic]

An hour and 22 mins for power blocs? Is this a tutorial, a tier list, a guide or a autobiography?

[@generalistgaming]

A bit of both

[@xGhost4000x]

Not sure how useful it really is but the defensive one allows you to have many vassals who will never be able to increase their autonomy or attempt to break free from you.

[@KittenCritters]

No happy wednesday? Very sad

[@connorvic3]

I have been going for my own world conquest recently so far im in 1874 and i recently got france as a protectorate with a reverse sway so maybe the swaying meta is still a thing post nerf you seemingly need super high relations and genial attidute do accomplish this but ive done it twice in the run so far france and prussia

[@yerroslawsum]

Love the new look btw. :)

[@donaldpetersen2382]

Some of the mandates have little to no incitive to level to 3. Who needs 25% more income from vassals?

[@scorpioneldar]

I am eager to do a pope run with the religious convocation totally for the roleplay.

[@adrianperez8695]

With foreign investment level 2 I'm a bit confused. Does this give my Sphere members cheaper ability to buy buildings my government or my pops build in their lands? Or does it make it easier for me to buy their buildings?

[@generalistgaming]

Both I think

[@ritabuba4831]

15B... I need to see that playthrough

[@ritabuba4831]

Nvm, its the britain playthrough TwT

[@zioming]

He puts Sovereign Empire in the same tier as Trade League, but gives it a slightly smaller icon. Ok, I see what you did there.

[@154Kilroy]

Companies tier list next please

[@Pattarek]

I can tell you I had a run with maxed police coordiantion early wiht 20 subjects, and they were still all perma revving.

[@generalistgaming]

I think if they’re disloyal the malus is a lot bigger than just a couple levels of police

[@goktugyuce5612]

Thank you for this video. It's been really helpful. Also can you make a video about forming italy? It's got complicated since 1.7 and the custom union thing doesn't work anymore. It would be great if you show how it's done!

[@generalistgaming]

I will try! I got a lot lined up already though

[@kams2520]

Creative legislation is a percentage modifier

[@greg7096]

Boo, Police Coordination is situationally good for reducing effects from turmoil on a nation that wont necessarilly do a lot of expanding in the early game, and wont make use of Vassalization. Early game bureau costs can be oppressive depending on starting situations and Police Coordination can be very helpful with adding extra authority, and reducing the cost of what will be most peoples first level 5 institution. Certainly better pics later on, but I think that is a reasonably good starting pick for certain playthroughs. I am formally petitioning you to move this up to C rank.

[@matthieucastellan]

For sovereign empire, what about using command economy instead of interventionism if we are going to keep public ownership ?

[@superdark336]

I wonder how the education principle stacks with the Dutch radio company

[@johannes10038]

Creative legislature is not d tier imo, its not strong but it cam be good to get good laws early, especially when you have say strong landowners in power and add 1 more ig to pass some laws, the -33% (its not a flat reduction unfortunatly) landowner strengt can be good. I used it as china to get rid of serfdom. Also if u dont want to use cornlaws (or cant) 1 level in this is a decent alternative. Appreciate ur in depth content.

[@generalistgaming]

Eh, maybe back of C is better. Thank you!

[@Videokirby]

Great list, but I'd rate Advanced Research higher. That raised innovation cap means faster research, which means improvements across the board. Faster Feminism discovery means sooner Multiculturalism.

[@orangesilver8]

Would foreign investment reducing nationalization cost be potentially a problem if you invested in countries to get them into your bloc then they can buy out your investments easier?

[@gargean1671]

Quite funny, my main pics are S, B, B and C by your metric)

[@nathanstevenson8694]

Can you please do leverage guide.

[@Sonnia-dh8mr]

of course my favorite Religious Convocation which I almost always try to take and which I find completely op is here in the d category XD yolo

[@Pa6oTogaTeJlb]

It's weak, just for fun playnig to make a great caliphate without alcho and wine

[@Marxist-Nixonist-Bidenist]

Currently it's op since you can easily request states from countries with the same religion using it but it's gonna get patched 100%.

[@marcbecker1431]

Are there any tips for pulling larger countries into your bloc? I've been playing an Ideological Union as the USA and really struggling to get leverage on other medium to large states, e.g. Brazil, seems impossible without war (and therefore tons of infamy).

[@generalistgaming]

Going interventionism and building in their country a lot to ramp up economic dependance might be the best way after you've exhausted your ability to get every kind of diplo treaty

[@marcbecker1431]

@@generalistgaming Ah. Does that modifier not have a cap? I've seen countries be entangled with me, but only getting ~5 leverage or so from it.

[@extra_tof]

hey some questions about the run i want to do: I want to play mp probably the other ones playing germany going for africa so i only have asia left palying japan. I want to rush inustry asap and build up a hyper capitalist nation. Attacking china and vassalizing all of the many minor states there. Since their industry should be quite weak my capitalists will invest into their nation which allows me to slowly shift my economy in japan from industry to owning china. I will try to get China on industry banned and similar laws so that china will mainly be my ressource extration source. After the video i will probably want souvereign empire. Would exploitation of members 1 be worth it? I dont want to rush china so i would probably have a weak power block for a while and the 20% authority seems quite nice for free. Then i probably go building 1 with the second mandate. Should i go for laws like ethnostate and state religion for maximum buffs for my japanse people or would this kind rp style of gameplay still need migration? And especially most important question can you shape the laws of your subjects as i want them to? Never worked with the mechanic and stuff like banned industry or removing my social laws from them seems quite important. Maybe you even have some tipps / inspiration for this type of gameplay i am still theorycrafting for a few days till we play. Thanks a lot for your videos.

[@einarm42]

Which 4 make the endgame cut? I dont think you mentioned them specifically.

[@SuperAndrewization]

0 views in 1 minutes? Man generalist gaming really fell off

[@Bretonic]

I take it back, I take it back 😭

[@talosisoursavior3061]

comedy gold

[@eduardomelo151]

0 views in 0.004 seconds?

[@ka1ock]

I whish they fixed vassal feeding. Now vassal don't integrate states outside homelands.

[@ruler898]

Tbh I think Advanced Research and Food standardization are rated too low. SoL and innovation cap and ahead of time help you snowball tech and migration early and stay ahead. I think Colonial Affairs is overated. It takes too long to be useful, by the time you can make good use of it, most of the colonizing and smaller unrecognized powers are eaten up, Qing is the only power that may be worth it but as you said it's only like a 10 infamy difference which is nothing.

[@fatihcetin3183]

How to balance bureucracy as japan?

[@generalistgaming]

Avoid institutions early

[@hesamrazavi5755]

Which one is better for persia(iran)?

[@JimStorrie-v3s]

i love to eat the malus

[@generalistgaming]

Delicious

[@xoxzerkxox7412]

i think sacred civics don't work. i used it on my ottoman run. all of arabia , north africa and persia didnt get - x liberity bonus. However i was on total seperation. maybe that has someting to do with it. or i did someting wrong

[@generalistgaming]

Someone else has told me that it is bugged as well so I assume that it might be

[@kostka001]

Nice

[@frankargenti]

NOOOOOO i dont wanna be british

[@generalistgaming]

Bit late, innit?

[@GregMcNeish]

As someone who doesn't have Sphere of Influence, the fact that the only available Power Bloc (Trade League) is potentially the best, is both wonderful and probably poor design with regards to encouraging me to buy the DLC.

[@xirvt]

Are you lebanese?

[@bluelamboblackpresident6111]

Think he's Armenian

[@thebestdamager7400]

​@@bluelamboblackpresident6111 He is American with armenian origins

[@bluelamboblackpresident6111]

@@thebestdamager7400 and I'm Lovecraftian with Inuit origins :))

[@tyc3246]

just too long for an introduction

[@gnosis940]

So... skip it?