I HATED forming this nation in Victoria 3

Victoria 3 has plenty of formable nations but this one... this one sucked. The nation in question is Victoria 3 Ethiopia, which has an isolationist economy and generally a bad time. The victoria 3 war system is put to the test and to be honest has a few victoria 3 bugs. Regardless, can we dominate victoria 3 africa and resist the europeans? Either way, we're going to build a strong economy - no Victoria 3 guide needed.
I HATED forming this nation in Victoria 3
Live on Twitch! - / thesocialstreamers
Join our Discord! - / discord
Help us out on Patreon: / thesocialstreamers
Follow us on Twitter: / thesstreamers
Shoutout to our Patreon Supporters!
Emperor:
Faith incandescent
JoshuaS
King:
Charlie Damerell
Crilly
Flyerton99
JdoW52
Kargon
Sjalmi
Lewis Wright
Redguard76
ShadowSinger
Duke:
Benjin
ColeZawesome
Cutaline
Ghostwolf567
Of The Dragon
Phalexsu
Thomas Carmichael
Count:
AssBreath
Bobby Bottle Service
Brandon Smith-Darby
danjamrod
King of the Hoot Hoots
Penda
ratsoupchef
Red Star
Stuart Watson
Søren Ryge
ThatOneGuy
Baron:
choppyrice
Hachi
Professor toad
Rhcali
Tobias Lauge Borgstrøm
Trevor
#victoria3
#vic3 #vicky3

[@cabbage2241]

Ethiopia is one of my favs. The opening battle royal can get hectic, but once you've unified the horn nab Madagascar - either use a great power's navy or pray no one else joins so they instantly surrender. You can use the south of the island to pump out coal and then colonise papa for sulphur and Yemen for lead. Quite the Imperial Empire. If you let someone else colonise Kenya as well you can usually kick them out with a bit of luck and use the coal mines in the rift.

[@airkwintrow7845]

I found that if you pass early colonization laws you can sneak into the Kenyan coal mines to help with some early infrastructure. You'll never claim the entire region this way, but just a small section gives you a couple coal mines to work with early on.

[@cebulak6695]

There is also sulphur in Arabia and you can just create couple ships and do naval invasions

[@JohnDoe-sw1rs]

Save scum so nobody takes Kenya until you get quinine

[@jackieclan815]

Good tips!!!

[@MateusVIII]

It would also be great if they added some sort of military menu where you can assign your battalions to your generals insteado of having them just randomly be divided based on their rank. It would be such a simple thing to add and would help A LOT in wars

[@jamesbedwell8793]

Yeah the war system for Vic 3 is very limiting. I doubt it's getting changed though, since it's supposed to be an economy focused game.

[@theguyyouhate]

@@jamesbedwell8793 in that case they need to delete the war system. you can say "it's not a war focused game" all you want but if the war system is going to be in the game it needs to be fustional. simple is fine but the problem is the system isn't simple. it's just not alowed to be engaed with. worst of both worlds.

[@MateusVIII]

@@jamesbedwell8793 I disagree. I think it will be thoroughly reformed, though still maintaining the same philosophy. War is a tool, but at the moment it is broken, and even if it isnt the focus it needs to be a working tool

[@HarlequinHonor]

@@jamesbedwell8793 They are updating warfare somewhat for the 1.2 patch. I don't know to what extent though, so it could be very minimal changes. They seem to be listening to issues pretty well though, so they might be responsive to people's complaints if we are vocal enough about them.

[@jayboeker1935]

@@jamesbedwell8793 I'm telling you they made War so bad in this game, so they can overhaul the war system in later dlcs. This is the paradox business model make interesting game with less content to add later in dlcs.

[@Cement12293]

13:11 I've heard about a bug that stops rulers from dying outside of duels basically. Also France is always the #1 GDP because Pondicherry (in India) counts as a treaty port into the British Market.

[@HDTomo]

Zamn

[@xataru]

Something definitely up with character health, had several 90+ generals and a 101-year-old emperor with cancer.

[@space__idklmao]

1:43 “Tigray is against me” Historical Laith Gameplay ftw

[@burtreynolds8030]

5:22 you could’ve started your own diplo play if you declared neutrality in the other one 10:50 if you hire another general he will take some troops from the general you already have based on rank

[@KAPTAINmORGANnWo4eva]

23:34 - As a Paradox oldfriend, hearing people playing the new games pining for sliders is so beautiful

[@Hadar1991]

As Eu2 to veteran: max out centralisation, and figure out rest later :D

[@KAPTAINmORGANnWo4eva]

@@Hadar1991 Centralisation? Maxed. Quality? Maxed. Innovativeness? Maxed. Yep, it's bad event time.

[@Hadar1991]

@@KAPTAINmORGANnWo4eva But if I went colonial I would prefer to be narrow-minded, after colonising and converting everything I would max innovativeness. Also in late game quality always maxed out, but it the beginning. Centralisation was always top priority and the rest depended on country and era, but usually in late game sliders in every country went in particular way. There things I miss from EU2 (how the PAUSE worked), but EU4 is just better now. But I have habits from EU2 that still haunts me, like random stab hit from shitty event, I have coded in me to load a previous save because in EU2, where you could not core, increasing stability was soooo... expansive. Like 3 years of your mana points generations (all types) just for one stab up, and it took 3 in game years, to get that stab up.

[@GrafEisen1]

Now if more new Paradox players were forced to learn to enjoy Falalalan

[@Hadar1991]

@@GrafEisen1 I LOVE FALALALAN. I miss that song 😅

[@greatbritishmale]

I love how it was an outline of modern day Ethiopia with a question mark, as if we (Victoria 3 and EU4 players) don’t know what that country is.

[@JohnDoe-sw1rs]

It’s pretty recognizable because of the pointy part lol

[@marchernandez4596]

Laith: Gives power to the landowner general and creates local police forces Also Laith: Why don't landowners let me do anything? The same with not building ports that could help with market access, or firing lots of people in culturally marginalized areas and later complaining about turmoil XD

[@Graknorke]

TBF the landowners are a bitch to deal with in general in countries around NE Africa and the middle east, it's a slow war of attrition to wear down their influence

[@marchernandez4596]

@@Graknorke I know, I have played Burundi

[@derkreuzritter6789]

I like vic 3 but as some people have said, it's as wide as an ocean and as deep as a puddle. No nation really feels unique to play as after your first 2 or 3 games

[@tadposting9505]

Form Iberia as the Philippines then, now that is wild and awesome campaign.... my wife is from there and I sometimes watch your videos with her on my TV, she really wants you to do it man. She tells me to comment this every video of yours we watch

[@dijosto]

Has she made you embutido before? Amazing food.

[@tadposting9505]

@@dijosto I'm not really sure to be honest I forget the names sometimes. Her favorite thing to make is manok adobo with some lumpia. Which I'm not complaining. She also makes a decent amount of this pork soup I forgot the name of. Philippine food is God tier most of the time, though I really don't like eating the seafood when we visit her family they barely prepare it and use that awful smelling fish sauce lol.

[@tadposting9505]

@@dijosto I'll make sure to ask her about it

[@ejdswimmer123]

In your next Victoria 3 video can you try and unite Aotearoa as the United Tribes. It’s super hard because NSW owns half of the North Island and UK helps every time .

[@TheMerchantGuild]

I hope he continues to show us when he unlocks the lathe each time

[@andyroo1902]

Did Laith use his authority to boost some of the IGs that would support the transformation of etheopia? I feel that might have increased the speed he could pass the laws. The chance based system is very frustrating though, especially compared to Victoria 2 where you had certainty over what law passed.

[@blomakranz]

When laith realises he only needed one of the provinces to form eithiopia

[@ItzSpinningArrow]

Laith: *scared of controversy* Also Laith: "You're only gonna last about 3 seconds, aren't ya?"

[@jerkel]

34:30 when i thought my discord was bussing

[@mattvonel4039]

23:35 This ! Exactly this! It would help a lot to micro manage.

[@Blythe985]

Laith is working around the isolationism for like the entire video even though he got a port ages ago and could have researched international trade but preffered to research military that wasn't even viable to use for 10 years. Never change lol

[@DJ2Play9]

I was gonna say, should we tell him that he could've built ports? lmao

[@piculra7441]

Guess I'm late to saying this, but you can hire new commanders without having troops in reserve - they'll take some of the soldiers from other commanders. Can easily split up the army to be able to handle more fronts. Also, naval invasions can be really useful when used properly - might be one of the most powerful tools you haven't been utilising that much. Though of course there's not much opportunity for that in Ethiopia.

[@arandomaustrian8741]

So I know you’ve been in africa a lot but, I’ve been messing around and found Oranje to be a really fun pick, especially for a minting empire

[@the_niss]

Cruel pacifist. enforcing peace at any cost.

[@ericbyo9472]

Yeah I tried it, there's no good resources in the region at all. No wonder it wasn't colonized til the 30s

[@DovahFett]

@Medieval Mushroom France and Britain did, though.

[@gustavosanches3454]

Yes, lets base our thoughts on history on a VIDEOGAME 🙄

[@feefree3901]

@@gustavosanches3454 That IS what happened in history moron

[@GrafEisen1]

Ethiopia isn't super rich in a lot of the traditional valuable trade goods (historically it mainly just known for coffee and some precious metals), however it had a large population and a somewhat centralized society which meant it would have been a very valuable commercial market to a colonizing European power However it didn't get colonized a) in part because of the lack of oil or gemstones or anything like that, but also b) its position as an isolated mountainous inland area that could organize large-scale resistance meant invading it was just too difficult to be profitable There was money to be made in Abyssinia, just not enough to cover how hard invading it would have been. Sure Italy could have beaten Ethiopia if it did a full mobilization and went into total war mode, it just would not have been worth it.

[@Cohor101]

There is a small country called Croatia in Austria, I challenge you to play as Croatia, become independet, destroy Austria, drive ottomans back, have full control over old yugoslavia territories, try to also be in top 10 powers at the end of the challenge. Thanks for everything you do :D Have a good day. Day 8 of asking. And if you by any chance find this easy I can give a few extra rules I guess something like "You must stay monarchy always, cannot trade with the austrians and ottomans (embargo em pretty much), cannot ally the austrians, ottomans, serbs, montenegro and russians. I think thats it. It could be too much even for such a CHAD like you". I do apologise for not saying it here, this is for Victoria 3.

[@Memelord-md5hs]

I wanted to say hardwood production does not get rid of all soft wood production. it takes a portion of the softwood and instead makes hard wood a slider would be better but it does not cancel your production fully you woulda been fine making hardwood next to softwood

[@lebendystraw3683]

Every PDX game I play I always fool around in the horn of Africa, just a fascinating area. Honestly, I think this game needs a tyranny equivalent, maybe something that raises "unrest" (forgot the name), to at LEAST pass laws. If you know what's best for your nation, and you haven't signed on for a democracy, you shouldn't have to wait for anyone to agree with you.

[@aqueousdog]

19:43 I'm pretty sure glass is a pop good and it didn't appear in the market tab because none was in your market.

[@bobin3113]

11:00 just hire another general, they automatically receive a % of the total amount of troops in the hq Also, you could've formed Ethiopia a lot earlier as you only need to control 1 state

[@GrafEisen1]

37:03 Surprised Laith knows enough about Ethiopian-Egyptian dam drama to make a joke about it

[@2131MnB]

Hey Laith, great video again! really helps me learn the economics and I might try Ethiopia to see how painful it is. have you ever done a game as Quebec? I think you have to form Canada first and release it but I may be wrong. would love to see how you do it.

[@adamvifrye2690]

the +36 from outlaw prince is doing way more for that guys offense than offensive expert lol... that +36 is crazy broken when fighting similar sized irregular armies.

[@SpeeDyx]

you can always build railways for the infrastructure problem, motor production and railway is the way to go

[@gavinlottering]

I tried this playthrough as well a couple of times. It's too bad it's not more fun to play through because it's a neat area. The main challenge is not going bankrupt then when you avoid it, the English of French come in an conquer you.

[@Renamatic]

I found that even with isolationism if you become a protectorate of someone else you join their customs union, despite the isolationism. I did this as Madagascar.

[@joseprofeta8159]

smart

[@crochetcocoking4275]

Lmao i just finished my Ethiopia campaign starting with that same prince! I was a french protectorate for a while but ended up as a dominion. I still got my hands on Egypt right before the end game! It was pretty hard, had a bunch of civil wars, bankruptcy, disastrous wars bit i survived! and thrived? (Maybe not thrived)

[@space__idklmao]

I like this new editing style

[@BrianHall33]

15:23 lol “Decentralized Industrialization” in a game that only lets the central government do anything with construction, economy, and technology.

[@bapabs]

Definitely agree with you on the infrastructure thing, there is no reason why you shouldnt be able to build ridiculously tall if you had the money in my eyes

[@misterperson3469]

You can, you just need railroads

[@Graknorke]

you can build up to a hundred railroads in a state, which is well above the level you'll need before the factories run out of unemployed/peasant pops

[@bapabs]

@@Graknorke ah so what was the issue laith was running into?

[@thefpstester1293]

​@@bapabsbeing silly

[@lilschlagen]

Laith has no idea how powerful youtube's clips feature is. I have so many out of context clips saved. I'm not gonna cancel him or anything, I just go back and watch them for a laugh.

[@MarwanRashad]

Egypt at the time had many french and american confederate generals to train a professional army from scratch

[@Al3xtheMeh]

They never got Ethiopia

[@johnvalliant261]

That event prince with the insane offense is probably bugged. His traits say plus 30% but instead he’s giving a flat +30, which is a whole lot when local armies are rocking offense of 10 or so lol. I hope they never fix that typo. Also, once you form Ethiopia you lose the “unify Ethiopia” casus belli against nations in those areas. I have no idea what the difference is between using that and just conquering it like normal but it’s something to ponder I guess. Fewer radicals? Less likely to get outside intervention? No idea.

[@wolfbite6033]

Unify Ethiopia cb full annexes the other nation givin less infamy than individually conquered states

[@dijosto]

When you get zeppelins, theres an event that also says 30% but gives you a flat 30 for offense. Its dumb powerful

[@popdartan7986]

Never once had the small guy in the start back down...

[@philippstetter5611]

*destroys all the tea plantations people were working at* "Why are you all radical? Chill!"

[@fredericksinclair]

Something like roads as a tech that gives 10% or 15% for provinces. You are still gonna need rail either way so the percentage doesn't really matter.

[@dragonmas444]

You can get to free trade by embargoing a country then starting a crisis. Many will demand open market which is a fast way to change the laws and start building a capitalist faction via trade. You can change the production mode on trade centers once off traditionalism economic policy so that they will produce capitalists rather than merchants.

[@lapisdragon1237]

Continue the Tunisia Campaign.

[@maddogbasil]

Try playing some more coastal horn of Africa states

[@andrzejrybickiToOn]

Glass is for market squares to create services

[@GermanEistee2000]

Not using Authority speeds up adopting new laws. When you couldn''t build anything you could have dropped the consumption taxes instead of lowered the general tax rate as that would be a much greater benefit.

[@hales2756]

laith please, the interest groups you can suppress and bolster them, please just bolster Industrialist or Intellegisa

[@-Teca-]

I love how hard it is to start Ethiopia

[@Xcyiterr]

13:47 obligatory "hey look laith you're in the game" comment

[@codybates2568]

Ethiopia is tough. Getting it to 90m GDP felt like second job and required ‘acquiring’ colonies across the world for vital resources.

[@drained_yayo]

I see u on ur Vicky grind, Laith!

[@Dark_Detective]

Vic 2 had lots of sliders

[@HierophanticRose]

Ethiopia is very fun but can be completely ruined for mid-late game if you do not colonize Rift Valley or get railroads early. Yemen and Hedjaz is a plus. Watch for Ottoman and Egypt fighting to nab Eritrea. and If you can open your markets early enough or colonize Kenya and Rift Valley as well as Yemen and Hedjaz the rest is all about a race to time to get your peasants working, its like a mini China game after that.

[@blinx5365]

Cruel and pacifist sounds like my manager at work avoiding HR

[@imperialsneke8483]

the real emperor is the ruler of the Begemeder though.

[@TheQwopChampion]

I agree the front system in this game is just so broken. I think it was epitomized in a war I had with most of indochina, where I already owned part of Vietnam. Realistically, it was one continuous border with a bunch of small nations I'd be at war with at the sametime. However, because the game counted it as 5 borders, I needed 5 generals. 5 generals to man a very small frontline in Vietnam. And to make matters WORSE, the supply in the region was horrible, so with 5 generals worth of troops there I was actually suffering 100% attrition. I dunno why they couldn't just make the front system similar to HOI4 :/

[@_Nohan_]

20:35 I do agree that the Ethiopian flag in Vic 3 is bad. It’s literally Republican Spain’s flag but with the Lion of Judah on it instead of the Spanish Republican emblem. 26:12 sees the purple get replaced with the green we know from the Ethiopian flag.

[@TheGreatAntagonist]

Curious if there's a reason for "debug_mode" to be on?

[@Himmyjewett]

Glitches and stuff, it keeps the flow of the content to nice consistency, and that consistency helps with watch time

[@nathanaelsallhageriksson1719]

Can we just apreciate the fact taht laith destroyed his infrastructure and iron mines in somilai, only to one year later realize he needed more infrastructure and iron from somalia.

[@Otori6386]

Roads would be amazing, just have most of Europe max or near max on roads in each state so they cant expand infrastructure that much at game start but allows places like Africa which certainly didn't have roads some wiggle room. Also yes yes yes sliders, but good luck AI

[@mattvonel4039]

I love your Victoria 3 videos, please do more :)

[@isakgirhammar4034]

In every "I formed this country" video, the thumbnail assumes you don't know geography

[@xtreemzy]

Playing as Shewa I got an event for some bandit prince or something. Turns out if you make him a commander he gives your troops like 40 offense, plus you can build infinite barracks cuz Ethiopia doesnt do military wages

[@anonopossum]

that's what he did

[@xtreemzy]

@@anonopossum Ye, hadn't watched yet. Just read the title and got smug, mb.

[@kaspersteiermark115]

trying to do this ach but my general keeps attacking and defending with 2-3 battlions I have no idea why

[@backroomswikide]

how to form ethiopia (the fast way): play as shewa and annex harar

[@dzarko55]

Fun fact, you can form Ethiopia in 1836 with a bit of luck. Start as Showa, conquer Harar, and you're done. You only need 1 of the Ethiopian states.

[@EsperothX]

Ethiopia is at least interesting because of dynamic moving parts. Canada is a slog, and entirely RNG Dependent on USA's Colonisation vs Your Colonisation of Alberta/Saskatchewan. You spend so much time just sitting there building economy, occasionally clicking the confed button and hoping for migrations/favorable colonisation. You just CAN NOT go to war against the US to take the needed zones they inevitably colonize because your economy will -never- be good enough to support the military needed to win.

[@g1ll1ona1r3]

“I’m not gonna try and build an economy” really? Are we sure this is the same Laith?

[@christophhanke6627]

16:05 Just imagining Laith finally coming to Germany and then causing and International conflict because of what he said about us germans lol

[@jamesmoore381]

Just so you know, cattle ranches produce fertilizer meat and fabric, so you didn’t need fertilizer factories as Ethiopia

[@steves9333]

Glas is also used as a domestic good for your pops ;)

[@vortex_william]

The tile you conquered that had super bad turmoil was because you fired everyone in the state.

[@duskpede5146]

13:19 the only other person i've heard say they rate someone is my mum

[@wolfbite6033]

The main problem of infrastructure in Ethiopia is actually migration controls. You’re people are not allowed to move between states at all to other states that need them to fill infrastructure jobs. Ethiopia all in all is a really rough play through. You need to repeal extremely difficult laws such as serfdom, traditionalism, isolationism, and optionally hereditary bureaucrats. All of which are opposed by the land owners who are extremely powerful especially with the event leader as ruler. An easy pitfall is to enact local police force which only makes them more powerful. Also the event leader is strong enough to take on Egypt from the start without army upgrades if the rest of Ethiopia has been united. Eritrea is a very valuable province early on that has enough pops to fill the iron mine unlike Somalia. Finally, rushing a colonialism is a good strat to acquire coal, allowing you to colonize the Rift Valley which has plenty to last most of the game and if you’re lucky, might allow you to stop Britain and France from entering into east Africa. I enjoyed my Ethiopia attempts but it is a play through that requires careful planning and quite a bit of luck to pass reforms.

[@GrafEisen1]

It's kinda true to real life, a lot of the institutions that were in place in the 1800s in Ethiopia stuck around for ages: slavery was only banned in the 1930s due to immense international pressure, and feudalism and the last vestiges of serfdom were only gotten rid of during the communist revolution in the 70s and 80s

[@welersoncarvalhodeavila4499]

I think you cant declare on someone at war because of balance issues tbh declaring on someone at war doesnt mean joining a war, that doesnt make any sense..

[@abdullahirfan1910]

could you try Sindh for Victoria 3 with the goal of reestablishing the Mughal empire might be fun.

[@Prediter5657]

Easiest whose that pokemon ever

[@cristianc733]

jesus france really is no joke. double the gdp of britain AND greater germany is wild

[@Ellial]

Honestly, I really wanted to see Laith colonize the interior of africa. I kept screaming at the screen multiple times whenever he was looking at the laws tab, especially when it was a law he could change.

[@KCCOmug]

A Cruel Pacifist is also known as a despotic coward

[@echo5327]

As someone who’s never played the game, is there some way to increase/decrease the influence of factions in the government?

[@PeevedLatias]

The political power of your pops depends on their wealth and your laws acting as a multiplier. To disenfranchise the landowners, you need to transition away from an agrarian society to an industrial society, because that'll increase the power of a political class that isn't the landowners and thus take away from them. Also passing laws that chip away at their power but doesn't immediately put them out of power can work, like oh maybe you only do landed voting, maybe later transition to wealth when they've got a little less power to oppose you, etc.

[@003mohamud]

As a Somali 🤮 As a fan of the game, good job

[@hales2756]

also build universities

[@ProfTricky3168]

I saw the ai forming Ethiopia in front of my eyes once.

[@subboid]

Why not just build railways to boost the infrastructure?

[@MikeDaugherty445]

Are you not able to build ports to improve your infrastructure if you have traditionalism? (Edit) Oh nvm he brought it up later lol

[@Fralegri]

Sorry but it can be a dumb comment. Why you don't erode the landlodrs power first before trying to chage from isolation law? Local police gives landlords a bonus strength. Try ennacting dedicated police, then profesional army. Also try to give power to the cleargy with religious schools and hospitals. Build universities and bolster the intelgentsia. With the army empowered and the rural folk and another IG you can abolish serfdom and voila you can change any law bc landlords are bygone class.

[@33rdNightfall]

Try Iraq. Absolutely most challenging run I’ve had. Little resources and stuck between Egypt and ottoman

[@Itsjust_max]

In a way, these videos are teaching me how to play. Just do the opposite of what Laith does! (Well sometimes at least)

[@killerbean-wx3ib]

I formed it I’m in the top one percent for the achievement lol to be real it’s not hard there’s just no resources I more or less conquered everything I needed and got rid of my military and sat there building my economy till I got bored which was very fast.

[@gustavb7193]

No. You don't sit on 1k authority for years. You just don't. Hate this start

[@PagerNinerTwelve]

no cap en garde for real for real

[@NON155]

TRY TO PLAY LIBERIA AND TRY TO TURN EVERY AFRICA AFRO AMERICAN??

[@medllensaimon1015]

😭 why didi you take so long?

[@sebastianbodin5385]

its already possible to form ethopia when you just got 1 state of thoese 4 "needed"

[@skully5473]

In his defence. The fact he is a pacificist is cruel to you.

[@andrewfowens]

Laith Unlocked