Victoria 3 - The 7 HUGE MISTAKES Everyone is Making! (Victoria 3 Tutorial)

[@lastword8783]

Another mistake people make: assuming the tutorial will teach you the game.

[@davey2487]

That's why I stopped playing the tutorial and just started a regular save. It's way better to watch videos like this one and playthroughs on youtube.

[@TehKarmalizer]

There’s a tutorial. Kappa

[@ScabbyBoi]

The tutorial gives you enough info to learn where all the buttons are and what they do, but to actually get a deeper understanding of the game’s underlying systems takes a lot more time messing around in-game and watching videos.

[@EricChien95]

0.4% Global completion of "Learn the Game" Achievement.

[@ruukinen]

@@davey2487 There's no point in not playing the tutorial for Vic3 as it's the same as the sandbox mode but with added information through objectives in the journal. @Jordan Randall "0.4% Global completion of "Learn the Game" Achievement." - To be fair it requires you play an entire campaign from 1835 to 1935. Similar achievements in other paradox games are also fairly rare.

[@michaelcollins4534]

Nobody crashes economies when trying to fix the economy quite like I do. it's art really

[@johnmurphy6928]

Me playing USA: *Expensive goods Timber* Heh easy fix (Builds a shit ton of wood factories) Also me playing USA: *Revenue goes from 15k to negative 38k within a week* sigh

[@Tobs02]

@@johnmurphy6928 well you start needing more tools and those tools are now more expensive for EVERYONE and so on (for more tools more iron more iron even more tools and more dynamite so more sulfer and yeah) so what do is i first fix the Problem that is gonna happen befor i even build logging camps or you just build a few as a start or you just import it which can even be the best option ( in my germany game i make 250k by buying shit and having tarrifs on it xD)

[@alexzero3736]

@@johnmurphy6928 thats how market works. Deficit =high price , Proficit = low price.

[@johnmurphy6928]

@@Tobs02 Yea I'm doing a South Korea playthrough and it's going WAY better. Year is 1862 and I'm #9 GDP in the world, #20 in population, Quality of life is almost 15. Only issues I'm running into now is my literacy is declining despite the fact that I've built Universities in every region and have technologies that increase tech spread

[@Tobs02]

@@johnmurphy6928 thats normal the Population rises so you get more and more people in my exp its not very important

[@lexiouse5357]

playing vic 3 is like studying math for a test you have the next day and you understand nothing. i damn near started crying playing it for the first time

[@lexiouse5357]

@root...... this, i can say after a year ive learned the game very well and now im enjoying it fully

[@scooble_]

And then you hit rock bottom and pretend you understand everything so you can go to bed

[@sundayghost1]

I'm making way more than 7 mistakes in this game an untold number.

[@Kingfiish]

Lol, same

[@Alex-dp1bk]

Another good tip for war goals is not to overdo it. Sometimes the ai will give into demands if you put too many war goals and then you ONLY get the main war goal, the very first one you started the diplomatic play with. It’s frustrating to add so many war goals, get so much infamy, and then end up with only a single state added.

[@tooeasyy5287]

Thanks, i kept getting frustrated by that

[@JumboPixel]

Yup! Always a careful balance. Don’t get too greedy or you’ll get punished by: 1. What you mention (effectively being peace locked into the first demand) 2. A prolonged and expensive conflict where your goals were too ambitious

[@martenkahr3365]

@@JumboPixel I'd add from my recent experience with Punjab a third consideration: 3. Going high on infamy makes everyone angry Your friends will be less willing to support you and your enemies will see a better opportunity to start their own plays against you as your infamy isolates you.

[@GamingMasterOfficial]

It only gives you the infamy of the main war goal after they give in.

[@dominges]

@@martenkahr3365 from time to time click on diplomacy map and just hover your mouse on the powers you are interested in and it will tell you, based on your relation, what do they what to do towards you and why. It's a very nice habit to develop so you can get a better grip on your world standing and what your opportunities are.

[@MrAJ1109]

Good point about Barracks vs Conscripts, however it's worth noting that a standing army gives you army projection, and in turn, prestige. A few Regulars are worth if they bring you up to the threshold of a new power ranking.

[@ds2sofs]

I love to have a national militia solely because you can choose how much you want to conscript. It's great because you can still have a good army with puny 5 sized barracks. The only thing that sucks is that you can't turn off factories without destroying them.

[@oskar8536]

I’ve found that raising government and military wages almost always pays for itself by increasing consumption from relevant pops. As long as they have something to consume you’re going to get that money back as tax income.

[@heinrich6294]

No. It's increasing their quality of life but you get less money because of that

[@jeremiahkivi4256]

I tax liquor as the US, because that's what we did instead of income tax for quite some time. Also I found using a high quality professional army has worked great. Only got about 100 or so professional battalions but they take on easily 3x their number without even trying.

[@dawnadmin8119]

Tip number one is good, and an even easier way to check it is to go to the Population button and see what percentage of your pops are peasants (or serfs). When you upgrade subsistence farms, the workers become laborers and farmers instead.

[@TheDJdragonflame]

Little tip that helps me a lot with interest groups: You can have the game display them on your ledger on the right sider of the screen. Simply go to the "neutral" map mode and click on the button below the journal. There you can set ledger parts as favorites which will display them on the main screen showing power percentage, active bonuses and allowing for quick access to the interest group

[@andrasfogarasi5014]

There is actually some merit to low taxes and high government and military wages. Such a policy will cause consumption and thus prices to increase. This results in 3 things: 1. Lower taxes increase SoL. Whether this is useful to you depends on your situation. 2. Lower taxes increase GDP. This causes minting to increase. Yes, minting. That one mysterious entry in the balance tab. It's based primarily on GDP. 3. Lower taxes cause POPs to spend more money. This causes in increase to the tax base, thus resulting in more taxes. 4. Lower taxes causes factories to become more profitable. This causes capitalists to gain more dividends and thus contribute more to the investment pool. The last 3 effects combined mean that often times, decreasing taxes will actually increase the treasury balance and allow you to accomplish the primary goal of the game. Building more buildings.

[@brocksamson3282]

With Chile, if the government faction (who gets government wages) gets mad at you, there is -10% penalty to your prestige, which can drop your country to a lower status level (insignificant). So, paying the govt workers average, or a step up, keeps them from penalizing you. had this happen with Japan too.

[@JumboPixel]

I think every interest group in the game has penalties beyond -5 unhappiness, and benefits above +5.

[@eveei]

why is prestige important?

[@thegreatestfallout1794]

@@eveei Prestige is basically your score. The higher your prestige, the more powerful your country is. The more powerful your country is, the more other countries fall in line.

[@brocksamson3282]

@@eveei helps with level of power of country, insignificant, minor, major. you get more diplomacy options like able to have multiple areas of interest. maybe other things, i'm new. downgrading to "insignificant" power seemed like a bad thing.

[@hetzer5926]

This game has an intensely brutal learning curve. Spent the last few days learning what things do. And I just recently figured out how to colonize. So that’s fun.

[@adamik2271]

It feels like everytime you focus on one thing, another thing is crashing in the meantime, I just started playing and the learning curve hurtsssss

[@havoc989]

Tried to play on this free four days and man I am going good for three hours build up a nice nation then bam economy fails and I go to bankruptcy, I can deal with the political and war aspects from crusader kings 2 and 3 but I can’t handle the small parts of the economy that make or break it. And I’m no stranger to learning curves like I said crusader kings 2 and 3 but this was a new beast

[@joshuagrosvenor9837]

I am still trying to figure out when the best time to add a construction sector is. I like to play as small, some what isolated nations since I am still trying to figure the game out (coming from CK there is a lot to learn) so they don't have any sectors to begin with and even building a farm takes most of a year. Whenever I build a sector it seems to obliterate my money - which I usually aim to be slightly green - to red and I can never get it back. I'll try following the tax tips in the video but any advice on when to put in that first 1-3 sectors would be appreciated. Even trying to plan ahead by having excess wood and fabric in my market so I can supply the sector doesn't seem to do much of anything. Maybe I need to just smash the government wages down to very low and find a different way to get my laws how I want them instead of using the intelligensia?

[@godwin1020]

The amount of pops stuck in unused arable land is actually reflected on peasant population. If you overdevelop agricultural buildings you might find you have trouble employing enough people in your urban buildings.

[@0DanielPerez0]

I am loving your videos and general demeanor, I think you can reach far if Victoria 3 stays popular. I do have one suggestion/question for a video, I feel like how to deal with radicalism and radical pops. I can't seem to be able to control them at all, with usually a quarter of my pops being radical. Looking at the growth it seems to stem from lowered SoL, but I do everything I can to reduce that + my strats are all at least midling to prosperous. How can I effectively deal with this?

[@elementrix4651]

I second this. But maybe focus more on how to influence Standard of Living because that is one of my big question marks.

[@Dubbs09]

Hey, I am *starting* to understand this game better and better and especially Radicals and recently had a breakthrough with it. You can always hover over it and see why you have so many, keep in mind the +/- is a rolling comparison from the previous year. You will always have people with SOL, fired from jobs and passing laws basically. Keep your basic input and needs of your pops cheap (food/grain, liquor, CLOTHES) keep in mind the more/faster you pass laws the more that number will be until it ticks down (you stop passing laws later in game too keep in mind). Fired from jobs is when you upgrade buildings and production methods and that is honestly just something to bite because its worth it, they will eventually find another job if you keep building. Then, the biggest things that starting helping was a far left law 'Guarantteed liberties' under internal security and dedicated police force (and some social security for poor settings some money). Those open up amazing institutions you can keep upgrading that directly affects radicals and loyalists. Law enforcement and home affairs helped me drop from roughly 12-13ish% of population as radicals with loyalists dragging behind to almost flipping it. Now as Belgium with 16m people I have 552k radicals and 4.5m loyalists. After looking around, radicals are just a part of the game, they will pretty much always be there, but the percentage can drop *dramatically* with those 3 institutions. TL:DR--Keep pop basic demands cheap (grain, liquor and clothes) pass home affairs and police laws and upgrade those institutions.

[@elementrix4651]

@@Dubbs09 Thank you this clear up some things.

[@elementrix4651]

@UCE4-PvixDk9ViuqS-HcBFrw Yeah I am getting the hang of it. It's just how to acces certain information is always a big thing to discover in Paradox games. And I still have no clue on some things. So maybe expect some questions on Reddit in the near future. 😅

[@Dubbs09]

@Brendan Sure. Currently top 5 in sales, top 20 in current players at this moment on steam. day to day users staying the same from a Tuesday release. Has more users than EU4 and HOI4 all time already Sorry you can't figure out supply and demand and wrecked your economy bro lol

[@yaitskov1]

Personally gotta disagree with the tip about troops. When you conscript people, they stop working and your economy gets majorly impacted at a time when you need your economy outputting at its maximum. I think it's better to build a solid, if not massive, military with barracks and use alliances and defence pacts in the early game, when wars are less common. War isn't as necessary in Victoria 3 as it is in EU4 or CK3, and imo you're better off focusing on building a large economy than you are on building a large army of conscripts.

[@HansenSWE]

Agree. A standing army will also give power projection score to help you gain influence points for diplomatic actions, and also prestige. That's too much to just give up.

[@espenpettersen504]

A standing army can also keep your munitions/arms factories profitable while at peace - so they don't just sit there and soak up subsidies (or worse, hire nad fire constantly and build up radicalism) when you're at peace. I think militia is fine if you're a wide nation (many states) , but it's not enough for a smaller and taller nation.

[@kierano8390]

id argue a professional army is more important because when you conscript, your arms goods demands increases, which if you only have like 1% of your total army as professional, means you'll definitely get input goods shortages with your army, and therefore it will lose like every fight. if you have a large professional army, you'll have the arms industry to support it, which means when war breaks out, even if you're fighting your trading partners, you'll still be able to get the arms goods, and therefore still have a competitive military to fight with. Id argue this is more of a significant issue than simply the conscripted brigades will the leave the economy and thus reduce output etc.

[@kierano8390]

@@espenpettersen504 if you use laises fare, which you should because it gives more free money to spend on construction, you can't subsides arms industries, therefore having a professional army is essential for maintaining goods supply

[@ruukinen]

@@kierano8390 Interventionism gives you more in the early game when you don't have that many capitalists.

[@stormyprawn]

1. Consumption tax construction goods because they reduce the cost of construction. Construction is always paid for by the government so any money spent paying the tax for those goods goes right back to you. This blocks out poor people from buying, for example, wood because the costs are too high, increasing supply and decreasing the base cost of the good. 2. If there's an interest group you want to boost (e.g industrialists) put buildings which tend to employ people of those interests groups in your capital. For example, make your capital strictly filled with factories to boost industrialists. Or construction sectors for intelligentsia. Or (early game) government admin for clergy. Or farms for landowners. Pops in the capital get +25% influence boost. 3. Government wages aren't only there for approval. Wealth is power so if you increase the wages of armed forces, their influence will go up.

[@Aendolin]

Your mouseover of Australia when you mentioned 'really minor nations' made me laugh :)

[@whoishim2998]

Lol mistake I made was spamming construction sectors 😂😂 ended up having a massive headache

[@101jir]

Big thing that mislead me when first playing was "insufficient qualifications" for expanding government administration. You don't have enough to completely fill it, but if you are already maxed out you won't get more, it's a gradual process. I seem to do better if I ignore it, just build one level at a time and check in later to see if it fills.

[@thegreatestfallout1794]

I honestly hate how many components of this game you can simply ignore because it isn't actually reflective of whats happening. You're a free-market parliamentary republic? Nah, build your own factories, tell them what tools to use, stack the government with your preferred IGs, and bring back slavery with no public backlash.

[@101jir]

@@thegreatestfallout1794 Haven't messed with slavery yet. I was happy that trying to abolish the serfdom brings the shogunate and samurai to the brink of rebellion, unlike Vic2. But different systems should be far more impactful, 100% agree there. I could maybe see a mechanic where maybe a capitalist wants to buy government owned land to expand a factory, or with "interventionism" you can block monopolies from forming or something. That would be cool if they want more player input, but not this.

[@umchen1192]

@@101jir I play as the shogunate right now and wow, I'm good at raising my gdp and my radicals are decreasing. Because they're dying. Somehow, I am continously growing my GDP, but my sol is at 8.8. I tried to enact different laws, but there was no support. So, I swapped the shogunate with Intelligentsia + Industrialists. Terrible mistake. The Imperial Party increased their clout and the current government didnt want to create a party, thus 100 % of the voted go to... the only party existing. The Imperial Party didnt want to govern, because they didnt like me, so my legitimacy decreased to 3 % but in order to increase this I needed to appease the Imperials, but for that I needed the Imperials to govern, which tjey didnt because they didnt like me- Eventually, this escalated to a civil war. I am now back with the conservaties, bjt because this is a "new" japan, the restoration mission is gone. My GDP is growing again and sol is now 9, but my balance is terrible, because of the interest. I created 21st century Japan in 19th century

[@burtreynolds8030]

@@umchen1192 a good way to improve sol is to low the costs of staples, most nations don’t have many pops in the upper strata so the majority of your sol will come from lower strata and I think you can get up to 13 or 14 with all staples at market price, also importing luxury goods seems to bump it up a bit

[@101jir]

@@umchen1192 My latest game as Japan, I was able to abolish the serfdom through a peasant movement. This allowed me to implement religious schools, though I still can't find a way to end isolationism. Was able to colonize Celebes, South Island, and Narau. Also completed two expeditions (Nile and Congo). Vassalized Hawaii and that one nation that starts on Papua and a few other islands. Held back by two bugs: armies remain mobilized even if you didn't enter the war, and leaders that went on missions are considered "busy" until they die, even when the expedition completes, locking up their troops/flotillas (the latter in my case, starting to build a navy) for an extremely long time.

[@dawnadmin8119]

Good advice on consumption taxes. I’d add: check the tooltips on each good, and you’ll see the category it falls into and at what standard of living your pops start buying it. You normally want to cover an entire category, rather than mix-and-match: if you tax all the luxury drinks, luxury items or intoxicants, you’ll get more revenue than if you taxed one of each and let your pops switch to cheaper goods in the same category. (Edit: I originally said something about buildings, but in fact buildings do not pay consumption taxes. Only pops do.) So, services are a solid choice, especially early on, when you might not have any pops with high enough income to pay luxury taxes. It’s a solid compromise that’s taxes your richer pops more, but still gets you some revenue from all income levels. But the most efficient consumption tax is when you produce only one kind of luxury drink (wine, coffee or tea) and can tax the entire category for only 100authority. Someone following your first tip and getting their peasants out of subsistence farms will also be making their liquor in food-industry buildings, so that becomes more viable, especially if you want to collect a larger share of taxes from your lower-income pops.

[@myonline1985]

Consumption taxes are only applied when pops buy the goods in question, not your buildings. Putting a consumption tax on wood as an example will mean some of your pop won't buy wood making more available to your production chains

[@dawnadmin8119]

@@myonline1985 You’re right; buildings are exempt.

[@heraissilly]

Out of curiosity, is it better to stack 3 buildings of the same type, lets say iron mines or lumber camps in the same province, or is it better to have them spread out across three separate provinces?

[@ruukinen]

Depends on what you want to achieve. You get throughput bonuses from stacking and spreading instead keeps the wages low.

[@davidjames1993]

I prefer professional army cost a bit more while at peace but u can manage your supply lvs where its hard to suddenly need guns and ammo for an extra 200 more troops.

[@BamBamGT1]

Yeah, I always go for professional army. You can build your economy to provide their goods, which means jobs are created as well. And the soldiers get paid, so they also spend their wages to buy things. I haven't tried it in a single campaign to be fair, but the militia routes seem stupid. In war you suddenly need supplies you're lacking, and you're taking people away from their jobs, further crashing your economy.

[@espenpettersen504]

Peasant levies empower the shittiest IG, so that's usually a hard no. National Militia is very good - but conscripts are more expensive when in the field than regular soldiers (There's a debuff for freshly raised troops that makes their goods MUCH more expensive). THings to consider. If you have a decently wide nation though, militias are a pretty decent compromise with an ok standing army and an insane reserve at hand (combine with National guard home office for extra conscription!)

[@Arrwmkr]

This game is like piloting a large boat, everything takes a while to become effective or at least that's my hunch.

[@Tetragrammaton22]

It actually doesn't. Making changes to production methods, for example, instantly (or nearly instantly) affect your economy. If you have the qualifications a newly made business can reach full employment in about 4 weeks, which is very fast.

[@Arrwmkr]

@@Tetragrammaton22 You are right, as a new player, it seems to me that if I try to develop esp things like Administration, it tanks my economy and I can't figure how to recover.

[@GruntGP]

14:45 You forgot the most important thing (imo): Lower your armies techlevel so they don't consume all the expensive military goods while idle. When attempting war you can switch back to the highest tier, wait for ~6months and you shoud be fine. Postive: Massive amount of money Negative: Loosing military power, prestige and you got to wait for around a year before the troop strength penalty goes away (don't know how it's called in english)

[@HydroSnips]

Thanks for these vids - subscribed etc. Think the reason why I can’t get a handle on overpriced goods is being nervous about that negative weekly number, and forgetting about the big gold bar that’s full up underneath it. Am loving this game though, a few tweaks needed but a lot to keep coming back to even in vanilla. I will master this game dammit :D You thought about doing a whole playthrough series? Beginning to end etc sorta thing.

[@stephenchurch1784]

Remember that shareholders pay for construction of non-government buildings. Their profits can grow much faster than yours can and, if you manage your growth to ensure all your building stay profitable, they will pay far more than you ever could to grow your economy. I'm in the 1890s with Persia right now and I literally cannot conquer quickly enough to add enough construction capacity to run a deficit despite the fact that I have never stopped building things since I hit unpause. As an added benefit, wars are super easy because I produce so much of the world's military goods that I can win wars by losing slowly enough to bankrupt whoever I'm fighting

[@ds2sofs]

You won't master shit until you stop fearing the deficit.

[@HydroSnips]

@@stephenchurch1784 Thanks for that, could you clarify the part about “managing your growth to ensure buildings stay profitable” a little, please? Is that where you ensure that goods needed for production aren’t massively overpriced and that you aren’t flooding the market with the final output (ie by having too many buildings making it)?

[@stephenchurch1784]

@@HydroSnips That's pretty much it. You want goods to be cheap so that buildings using them pay less for imports but also expensive enough that you don't need to subsidize them to keep employees. If you want to expand an input industry proactively (like building up coal as you research railways) you can as long as there's someone you can export to to keep prices stable while you wait. If you want to simplify things to learn, try playing japan for a bit. Their isolationist trade policy allows you to play around with getting the right balance of cheap vs profitable without other countries setting up trade routes with you

[@HydroSnips]

@@stephenchurch1784 Aha, that’s good advice, esp the bit about exports as a price modifier. I might give Japan a go, yes. Thankyou!

[@nordnord8141]

My understanding is that the amount of money an interest group has effects it's power so if you cut funds to the bureaucrats you weaken the intelligentsia which is a bad idea if you want to become a republic but maybe a good idea if you want to remain a monarchy. Also under the Journal don't forget to check the decisions tab for more fun stuff to do. Like exploring the American west as Japan.

[@JumboPixel]

That’s right, you will weaken groups you cut funding for!

[@lowercasehorse2363]

I have 1.5k production in 1900, is that OK? Also my investment pool is almost half of my gdp (gdp=1bill) kinda broken lol

[@lioraselby5328]

What country are you playing as?

[@happyslapsgiving5421]

I went into this thinking: "7? I only know of 2. What are the others?" Turns out my two mistakes were way too dumb and basic to be included in this video. 😅

[@dougfowler1368]

Thanks, my best friend had Russia become a democracy, much freedom, low taxes, very small army and no war, yet people kept being unhappy and he got overthrown in 1920 despite good economy. Sounds like he needed a bit higher taxes and more construction, plus shouldn’t have Just kept having a surplus all the time. He also said he didn'tknow how much building one railroa was - Is it one track, one mile tracks come or what? I tried game last week when I visited, I tried as Prussia to take Belgium in 1850 once I became the N. German Confederation - I quipped that I was 65 years ahead of my time - and only got reparations from them, and you showed me what I did wrong. I did get my budget back to surplus. I Found only focusing on a couple items was best in my 1st attempt at playing. That way. I wasn't too overwhelmed.

[@astralsilber]

6:08 „by fixing these mistakes the Spanish economy is roaring..“ - graph goes down😌

[@JumboPixel]

Nah mate we earning big bucks

[@Tetragrammaton22]

@@JumboPixel A positive government balance does not equate to a roaring economy

[@barneythepurpledinosaur7002]

Thank you JumboPixel!

[@icook1723]

The changed the wages. Civil wages now add authority if high, and cost prestige if low. And military wages impact your army performance, massivly.

[@nomdeplume9590]

Low government wages could knock a weak GP down to a major power, or a major down to a minor, due to the loss of prestige. Make sure you're comfortably above the threshold before doing that.

[@fabriziocossio3336]

So how does one get rid of substance farms? Just build agriculture or is there another way?

[@AlteryxGaming]

Building agriculture is pretty much the only way. Subsistence farms don’t really do anything though so ag buildings by comparison at least produce goods and cash

[@rizzorepulsive7704]

im pretty sure peasants will take any laborer job so any mines or workshops where laborers are produced will get rid of peasants, and thus the subsistence farms. best to just focus on what will be best for your overall economy, although in the early game building up some additional agriculture helps because it's quick to construct

[@AlteryxGaming]

@@rizzorepulsive7704 subsistence farms are a placeholder building in states that have arable land. Ag buildings replace them and fill up that same arable land slot. Peasants don’t necessarily correspond with subsistence farms 100%

[@ruukinen]

Build literally anything and the peasants will rather work that then their own crappy plot of land.

[@mrfloppydonkey7287]

saw the part about subsistence farms and immediately went and built hundreds of farms to erase them lol. im not sure it worked out because I am now missing several million workers

[@riotdrone]

when you click on a building mouse over the resource it outputs, check how much need there is in your nation for that resource, check how much each level of the building provides of that resource at full employment. usually you only want to have as many levels of a building to supply the need of your nation. you can do more if you are rapidly expanding and know you will need more of that resource say fabric if you konw you're going to build a textile mill right after that will increase the need. or you can build more if you intend to export the good to make money off of trade tariffs

[@eveei]

only build when peasants are there, bottom left when u click on a state. otherwise ur workforce might be divided also there’s no point unless there’s peasants/ migration

[@velvet6923]

the only problem i have with vic 3 is that it is so slow and most of the time nothing is happening

[@psycheisssdelic]

i tried to learn the game by starting with south africa/cape colony. tried 3 different times with games lasting over 8hrs each. fell into the economy death spiral each time, last game was the smoothest though. i was trying to figure out the construction sector and it just killed off my treasury. no idea how you are able to afford to build in this game. with so many options in this game, i still cant figure out how to see what is needed easily at a glance

[@danielhaywood9695]

This is a year later but could be useful for someone else who comes across this; the key to South Africa is to get out of the British Market and produce your own goods and export them as soon as you can (kind of like what happened in real life after apartheid). Export things like tea and cotton, which you have access to. You also have access to Gold and Coal, which should help keep you afloat and help your industrial revolution. Build things slowly to begin with, and upgrade your construction sector to iron-frame immediately, as you're in the British Market and have access to those goods from the get go. This will increase your construction efficiency and allow you to start slowly building up cash crops like tea, cotton and fruit. Maybe tobacco as well I can't remember. You also want to expand in to Orange County as they have good population, infrastructure and discoverable resources, but no malaria.

[@miraclemaker1418]

What's helpful is always calculating the shortages when you are actively constructing something. From my understanding, the game loop is building stuff, getting in negatives because of the construction costs, building stuff to decrease the cost of construction goods, making everyone richer in the process, getting positive or close to positive, expanding/upgrading construction sector. Also capitalists' investment funds save literal lives make them happy until you can afford not making them happy.

[@ericmarvin1551]

Thx for the very good tips 👍 The game runs so smoothly on your computer! What CPU are you using?

[@dunning-kruger551]

Thank you. That was very handy.

[@Silverhand404]

Idk if I am wrong here, but coming out of a China campaign in which I had 1200 barracks, lowering their wages might affect your troop's living standards as civilians (when they are not deployed) and is subject to lifestyle changes

[@JumboPixel]

It will naturally reduce their cash, the same as any other action that decreases a interest group’s income (laws, employment opportunities, building construction and funding methods, event outcomes, etc etc)

[@Silverhand404]

@@JumboPixel Right, I think it is worth warning people when they go ffor a BIG proffesional army that lowering this will make their population poor (RP Prussia maybe?) . The worst part is that the more barracks you have the more pops lose living standards.

[@jonaswitt251]

This has been very illuminating for me, I thank you many times kind sir and wish you a lovely day.

[@jamesdetroit3791]

Do construction sectors just speed up production of urban, rural and military buildings and improvements?

[@jeronimo486]

Every construction center basically gives you "construction points", and every building you construct costs "construction points" (and goods like wood and fabric, and most importantly money, of course). So the more construction centers you have, the more buildings you can construct simultaneously. The limiting factor is your government budget - you just can't afford to build a million construction centers and have them all construct buildings all the time, you'll run out of money. I haven't found the "perfect" number of construction centers for myself yet. I failed my first run as France miserably, so I started again as US and it works fine for me as far as I can tell, I have 95 "construction points" and my budget is balanced with reasonable taxes, so maybe I did it right by instinct, or maybe I'm missing out, I don't know yet.

[@ruukinen]

@@jeronimo486 I mean just build more of them when you start building up cash reserves since having a surplus doesn't give you anything. Just move the construction centers up to the top of the line since they take a very short time to build and improve the build rate of everything else.

[@marcostigre9349]

Is it worth it to go in debt?

[@6th_Army]

Looking for things to do with the portrait editor. I want to make a custom character for my nation. Instead I learnt how to not suffer an economic colaspe.

[@schmeltg]

I watched some of the video, and I don't understand two parts. 1. I've gone to great lengths to fill out my farms and plantations within Japan in my current game. All of the subsistence farming is gone in my provinces, and I'm well into industrializing. However, my least valuable farms and plantations have no workforce, as they are being paid more to work in the factories. I'm fine with this, but by the logic of subsistence farming, why aren't these farms at full production? If just destroy these unproductive crops, give them back to the "people", the subsistence farming will start creating liquor and other goods. I think the video is mistaken. I don't think it's about getting rid of subsistence farming. I think it's entirely about getting rid of unemployment+peasants in a particular region, and balancing that labor into whatever gets the best returns. In colonies, it's tea/tobacco, and in the cities it's steel/motors/guns. This makes sense. Am I wrong? Making new farms becomes pointless exactly when my labor pool runs out, not when subsistence farming ends. 2. At 7:30 he states that building more construction costs more money. This is only true if you keep your construction queue 100% full at all times (or even more in the backlog). If you only keep it half full, you'll only pay half. Seriously, you can test this. Start a game, only build construction centers, but only build one at a time. Do it for an hour, but again, don't fill your queue and only build one at a time. Does it ever get more expensive to build them? Just be disciplined and keep the extra production in your "back pocket" when you really need it. Like, when you first get railroads, or find coal, or go to war.

[@magnuspotter9821]

The other thing I've tripped up on is how to do naval invasions.

[@panicman857]

From my experimenting it seems that to do naval invasion in any capacity you need a 1:1 ratio of both brigades and flotillas so if you want to naval invade a province with a 20 brigade army then you will need to have a 20 flotilla fleet as well other wise you get a penalty proportional to the amount of ships you are missing so if you are invading again with that 20 brigade army but let’s say you only have 10 flotillas then you’ll get a 50% penalty on your attack modifier along with the 25% rough landing penalty effectively making it worthless it was really weird trying to figure out but I think that’s how it works. And as an end note supply ranges to really seem to be a thing and you can invade anywhere on the world rather easily. As well I’d also suggest insuring that you invasion force is at least decently large as it will take at least a week to over a month for other armies to get to that region as well as ensuring that your navy is actually supplied something I very much neglected at first as just because you have a flotilla doesn’t mean they all have warships so a healthy dockyard industry is very much necessary

[@cheeseofglass]

When you say there's 1 subsistence building for each unused arable land, does that mean I still have subsistence farmers in my industrialized state that has both 0 "available peasants" and 0 farms?

[@WilliamSt.Clair1399]

Subsistence farms are outstanding for building pops if you can hold onto them however.

[@nostradamusofgames5508]

But wait! Some countries have to focus on agriculture as a whole to provide food for other nations. They're called "Breakbasket of (INSERT CONTINET HERE)" for a reason!

[@JumboPixel]

You can still produce food :)

[@gfanikf]

Man was this useful, especially with how I handle(d) consumption taxes.

[@theschisack]

Just found your channel the other day great vids mah dude

[@arno_grnfld455]

I played Sardinia, allied with Austria and France and triggered two Europe wide war. It's was fun

[@JPB180]

I played as brazil in my first game, never played victoria 2, and also never played these types of games, but i think im doing okay? I have a 23 million gdp in 1865 but still cant pass some laws because of bad luck..

[@Parmenides100]

Can you think of any good strategy to exploit the more traditional policies, such as Peasant levies, Traditionalism in economy and Serfdom and Slavery? The game seems to be focused on modernization, it does not seem that by staying with older policies you can make a good game.

[@bryangamarra3208]

You talked about formable nations at the end of the video, but what about Peru-Bolivia? It isn't a formable nation, however, you can "form" it as any of the two after conquering the other. Could you talk a little bit about that?

[@tomashidalgo5538]

I think there is also an advantage on barracks. They help maintain an arms industry

[@wurstsalatplays523]

Mobilizing conscripts insted of your professional army is terrible advice. Thats not what he means. Alot of advice here adhers to a specific style of plying i feel. Having a standing army has its upsides compared to relying on conscripts. If youre fighting wars against proffesional armies with conscripts you will be at a disadvantage early on especially if you have poor infrastructure since it will take a while to mobilize. also if youre undeveloped your mobilization will drain your workforce and if alot of them die you might not have enough qualifications to replace them.

[@567secret]

"Services, these are always in high demand" Me in my Sweden game with -60% services cost: :O

[@dison1172]

Don’t want to shook Victoria, so I subscribed.

[@MK-ev5rz]

What's better, building more construction or using tech to be more efficient?

[@eveei]

tech

[@IceNinja18]

I did both and it seemed fine. Only problem was I had to keep building things to keep some of my goods from losing all their value. I was spending about 100k on building materials, but constructing about 7 buildings at a time. My GDP graph went exponential.

[@ds2sofs]

Build more if you are in a shit spot, then definitely swap the techs.

[@Tetragrammaton22]

You'll need both. Using new tech, such as when you go from iron to steel construction, requires different input goods that you may not be able to provide so you'll be stuck with the previous tech level anyway.

[@grumpydinosaur2347]

I rly would like to see a guide, how to rebalance economy after huge external shock, for example i got kicked from british customs union, my economy was crumbling and i couldnt rebalance it even if going backward. Now i build, even if as protectorate, raw resources and farms more when construction capacity is somewhat 50 or more, to ensure in case of war of independence or kick from union, my economy would survive, it seems lack of fundamental resources and tools, steel is major

[@SoDakJason]

Well, the tip about barracks and construction sectors explains why I ran Argentina's economy onto the rocks so quickly. 🤣

[@tafYT.]

btw if your intellegencia dislikes you, one of the negative modifiers is less prestige (if you are playing as someone like two sicilies and need high prestige to annex the other italian states keep their approval high)

[@JBXyooj]

Im on my 15th restart with Laos... I have yet to break the yoke of being a subject haha😊

[@VisElectra]

Hi JumboPixel, thanks for this very informative video. I have been grinding the game the past week and had a ton of fun doing so. But couldn't get past the 60ies with a game because I either went broke or my people were constantly rebelling... If I can swallow a neighbor in one campaign, should I go for it or conquer it piece by piece? Let's say for example I had this Belgium game where I really wanted Amsterdams harbor etc. I thought to myself "might as well take Gelre and Friesland". It worked, but I didn't really know what to do with those provinces and simply swallowing their GDP does not work in this game. Would love to see a follow-up video on warfare and incorporation of conquered territories. Keep up the great work! :)

[@LCRichardM]

Budget is not equal to economy. Lower General Taxes increases you standard of living as your pops have more money to spent. This is an awesome factor as it pulls or avoids pops leaving your regions towards other countries.

[@SincereNoble]

So in order to fix the "Stockpiling Gold" pop up I keep getting while playing as Chile is to just construct buildings in the urban and rural sectors?

[@Dubbs09]

Honestly, after maybe an hour those pop ups can hurt more than help. At the beginning they tell you things to do that are actually helpful, later on they just seem to randomly select things for you to do and you get no rewards from it. Personally I like trying to hover right at equilibrium because, even though you can afford it especially snowballing, I hate paying the interest fees. Its not *bad* to go into 'debt' I just don't try to do it for too long because of interest

[@JumboPixel]

I’m not suggesting you should go into debt. Rather, spend what you’re making and reinvest it in the economy. Adding more buildings that provide jobs or more advanced supply lines sounds like a good idea 👍

[@Dubbs09]

​@@JumboPixel Oh for sure, not necessarily suggesting you were. I got that stockpiling gold thing too at one point and, yea, there is no point on maxing out your reserves, or even getting close. Maybe I'm just too afraid of a death spiral if things go wrong, a market temporarily crashes, a war breaks out, and you are already in decent debt and having to pay a high interest fee on top of the other problems. Almost certainly not min-maxing properly because I'm a paradox vet but new to Vic, but I really liked my sweet spot to be right near balanced, maybe slightly in debt. I'm not afraid of $400 interest payments, I don't like being saddled with $17,000 lol

[@eveei]

@@Dubbs09 lol ikwym, as someone who played every other paradox game other than Vic learning to get out of that habit was weird my first game. i usually just increase construction to where ur just barely in the red with semi-low tax

[@ruukinen]

@@Dubbs09 The interest is pretty much always worth paying. Pretty much like IRL. Growing faster means affording more debt. Deficit spending for the win.

[@Blossomy77]

On my first game I played Sardinia peidmont and went overboard on rural and urban buildings having 150+ being built with only 7 construction sectors and I went bankrupt fast

[@Caroleonus]

Fantastic video, thanks so much for this! Now I'm not flying blind lol

[@kt3657]

Lowering the army wages will efferct the army's morale and set naval morale at 0. I would recommended that people leave the army expense alone where it should be if they plan on expansion.

[@yorkieandthechihuahua]

I thought, according to a video by Spiff, the biggest mistake was not playing as a literal rock off Iceland... ;) Great video, JP. I've never played a Victoria game before so any help is useful (if my old fart brain remembers it of course).

[@ikkas00]

I would have added to be very careful before accepting trade agreements. If most of your economy as for example spain is exporting coal you can crash your economy instantly by not gaining any tariffs from those exports.

[@ds2sofs]

That shouldn't matter because you want to rush free trade anyway

[@ruukinen]

You get tax income from the people working in the trade centers. Tariffs are bad mmkay.

[@joshistitic]

I’ve got the opposite problems to that I’m playing Sweden and I’m trying to get people to work in the iron mines and rail systems but there’s not enough people in the country lmao I don’t know how to increase my population quickly

[@Ealdorman_of_Mercia]

12:04 he channeled his inner Boris Johnson, the prior UK prime minister.

[@Ealdorman_of_Mercia]

If you close your eyes, it feels like JumboPixel is giving advice to our politician in terms of how to run the economy.

[@Chadmlad]

I really wish Paradox made your infamy more apparent to the player. You can so easily become the most hated country if youre not careful. It just seems like a lot of information is hidden behind a tab somewhere that we shouldnt have to press. In Hoi IV we had world tension, which was perfect. I wish they brought back something similar for my specific issue.

[@dake6844]

Yeah, I got a couple of wars with GB with a goal of cutting my fast growing empire. I have not found my infamy number, though I was not specifically looking for it.

[@stoopidapples1596]

It is part of the nation info you can see from clicking on your flag in the top left.

[@PortalOfKaden]

@@stoopidapples1596 thats not his point, he’s saying it’s to hidden.

[@Chadmlad]

@@stoopidapples1596 Yeah I'm aware, but information like that should be clear to the player 100% of the time. I hate how often you have to switch tabs in this game. It gets exhausting

[@101jir]

It is easier than Vic2 I think, but there is still a lot of information that needs to be checked, and it takes a while to learn

[@makiavel2925]

hi, where could i found the list of formable nation in order to try the most challenging for me ?

[@elicoole5028]

I created a wellfare state and it was all good at first but i went broke by the end lol

[@TurtleShroom3]

Just like in real life!

[@uncletimo6059]

Mistake number 1: BUYING THE GAME

[@albertgreene313]

Thanks. I do appreciate this vid. I've been hitting a wall, partially due to my own stubbornness. I have been playing Sweden in the "learn how" tab. Granted, when i try and get Iceland/Greenland from denmark, the game crashes every damn war. Anyhow, I have to questions. First, I keep running into a problem with pops. I find myself with one extra farm or factory absolutely destroying my worker pool. either i have a bunch of subsistence farm pops laying about or no qualified workers, and that's early game, with very few to no production changes. drives me nuts and my economy into the dirt. Where how do i strike the balance? Second, I constantly have an investment pool that I cannot exaust even if my economy is in the red, and with the above mentioned issue, I just cant use it. Is there a way for that fund to be used up?

[@Zee3po]

To enable the Investment Pool to begin with, you will need to pass one of the following Economic System laws: Interventionism, Agrarianism, or Laissez-Faire. Each of these laws differ in the amount they let Aristocrats or Capitalists contribute to the Investment Pool, and they also change up which buildings can use the funds for construction. Take a careful look at each one, and decide what types of buildings you want to prioritize. If you open your budget menu, go to assets, and then hover over the investment pool amount. It'll tell you what buildings to build to lower the pool.

[@Zee3po]

p.s. Once you start building the buildings that your economic law allows you to use the investment pool for, if you find that the pool still keeps going up, it means you need another construction center as that means that your investment pool is growing faster than your ability to construct the buildings which use it.

[@kalcuthbert6829]

Crusader Kings/ Hearts of Iron player... will I pick this up quick? I bought the special edition out of spite against mixed reviews... the game is probably bashed because its new... like company of heroes 3,

[@infini_ryu9461]

Should we disperse our industry across the country as much as possible or stack things in a certain few states? Is there any bonuses for increasing the level of a building over just having another one? Will that get rid of unused arable land better?

[@flintube2622]

I would cluster an industry in one in regions as long as there are peasants there to convert to workers. Also that’s kind of what had happened in history. for example the massive textile factories in Silesia. You can then give these states where your massive industry is buffs via the Authority tab? One of the tabs.

[@infini_ryu9461]

@@flintube2622 That makes sense. But apart from province bonuses and population idk what to build in the rest of the smaller pop provinces. Kinda feel like they need something.

[@flintube2622]

@@infini_ryu9461 true. Although I suppose realistically farms would’ve been build in these less industrialized regions. Especially later with fertilizer and farming equipment. I don’t quite know how well that would go in the game tho.

[@kylekight581]

Absolutely, buildings work slightly better when stacked up opposed to spread out. The more you can stack an industry the more that industry produces, compared to if you had the same number of buildings spread out

[@mymedia8785]

Your voice sounds just like the bloke in Economics Explained!

[@artemmayboroda5217]

Honestly, it’s difficult for me to realize how to play games of paradox before I start my campaign as France. Literally that’s how I studied how to play EU, and Victoria as well

[@konstantinpodgaets2313]

How can explain mechanics of salary change? I faced the problem with prophitability of some industries in big regions. Like I still have 100k peasants in natural farms but salary is almost too high

[@ryszardmaciek4240]

How do you keep arms industry alive at peace (while also having enough for war) if you have tons of conscripts and can't export all of it? Also i believe pulling significant part of your workforce to war could "slightly" unbalance economy

[@ryszardmaciek4240]

I am a noob tho so idk

[@thegreatestfallout1794]

@@ryszardmaciek4240 nah, you're right. Pulling conscripts pulls workers from the work force that are of lower quality than a professional army. If they die in war, you just lost a worker of a factory or farmhand and not a soldier, which exasperates the economic damage done. You also have to raise *all* conscripts every war if you were to use that method, meaning you're constantly sending your workforce into a meatgrinder for a workforce that hates you and won't pay tax.

[@JumboPixel]

The conscripts shouldn’t really be used aggressively and frequently, that’s not quite the idea. It’s more that they have no operational costs during peace times. So in the early game, when war isn’t advisable, it’s best to use you the funds to build up a stronger resource economy than fund excessive battalions & barracks that do little in the early game. Conscripts can be called in to defend.

[@mawortz]

I love how you pronounce "again" and "instead" 😆

[@GaiusCaligula234]

It's called an accent mate, everyone has one

[@utewbd]

@@GaiusCaligula234 Yeah? And he's not allowed to say something about it? Relax guy.

[@maxii2975]

Construction is my biggest money maker, a good part of my economy is steel, tool and glassworks...

[@johnuthus]

if you fund all the other nations armies, might as well use those weapons for your own good

[@hoyinching9313]

Learning from mistakes through simultlations 10:34 War is expansive

[@Bizza12345]

I have never played a victoria or paradox game before. im struggling to understand the education/qualifications and infrastructure systems. I have 100+ subsistence farms, but i am almost over all my infrastructure limits so building more farms or buildings cooks it. I also frequently "dont have the qualifications" to man basic buildings sometimes... is there any guidance on how to manage the micro systems like these? I truly dont understand why infrastructure is such a limiting factor in small nations, and how to educate people if i cant even build things to get them off subsistence farming??

[@matts5959]

Sounds like u need to build railroads. You get capped at a certain point in the game if you don’t. An industrial directive from the start has to be to be get to a point where you can build and sustain railroads.

[@Bizza12345]

@@matts5959 thanks man. i think this saves bricked because i dont have quals to staff it, ill try that next time.

[@ruukinen]

@@Bizza12345 Build universities/university in your capital and aim for the private/public schools and set their investment level as high as you can get it.

[@JohnJackson-e9z]

With the new patch rice farms in Asia are great.

[@ariantes221]

Conscript armies suck really hard. They are good to stiffen the line of line battalions, but alone they will just lose and suffer horrendous losses. And because you have so many of them, you suffer a lot of attrition as well. Note that wounded soldiers, whether line or conscripted, have a high chance to becoming dependents and therefore become unproductive and need to be supported by either their family or by welfare.

[@McHobotheBobo]

I'm still stumped as to how one would form Aotearoa as United Tribes - New South Wales controls half of the North Island and I've no idea how to oust them....

[@eroorefulufoo6625]

what's the deal with subsistence farms? i can't really get my pops into labour, coz there just is a labour shortage in my economy, and they don't wanna work for lower wages, so is building farms and stuff to replace subsistence even better late game? if so how?

[@GruntGP]

If you got no more peasants to work on farms and/or factories you need to boost your migration. Open boarders, open culture, greener gras camapign. No racism and discrimination and stuff.

[@eroorefulufoo6625]

@@GruntGP that i know, i wasn't commenting to that. i was trying to ask whether it really was so important that i have so many subsistence farms, coz at 0:38 they talk about how subsistence farms and such suck for the economy

[@GruntGP]

​@@eroorefulufoo6625 Maybe i'm missunderstanding you again but subsistence farms are the worst indeed. Peasants (living in subsistence farms) don't pay taxes (or significant less), produce less goods and don't reproduce as much... They're just a needed labor ressource for factories, mines and farms you build in future.

[@eroorefulufoo6625]

@@GruntGP do you know if they contribute to the "unemployed" pops, or just if they're easy to displace and put into labour and don't add to the number of "unemployed"?

[@2207joni]

I did have low military and government wages for a long time but then I realised that the low wages of those groups were leading to lower than expected Standard of Living for government employees and therefore increase in radicalism. So a consequence that's not immediately apparent.

[@flopus7]

Should I be using every farming slot or just employing all peasants in a region?