Top 5 BEGINNER Countries in Victoria 3 (That Aren't Great Powers)

[@Terme-]

I feel like I learned the most whilst playing the Ottomans and Mexico. The Ottoman Empire forces you to learn how to modernize fast, and Mexico forces you to learn the military mechanics.

[@generalistgaming]

I agree w/ your point about learning, but I think that for your very first run it's going to be basically impossible to do Tanzimat, esp considering the schools reform is basically noob trap, and also pretty hard to not lose all your land to the USA. Egypt is good for learning war but I didn't recommend because the resources are terrible and you have to defend relatively early. If this video does well I was going to do intermediate/challenging countries and probably include Ottomans.

[@DanksterPaws]

Ive surprising not played any of these countries(except japan), but IVE been eyeing them forever. I always just get distracted w some other nation everytime 😂. On the topic of the video though, I learnt the most playing Japan, atleast politics-wise, I actually got attached to the Emperor and I ended up keeping the monarchy all the way :)) Playing the Philippines taught me how to play in someone else’s market, Cuba can suffice aswell, but Philippines has 3 territories instead of 1. But yes I do agree that the best beginner nations are ones that focus on one side of the game. So Japan would be the ultimate beginner boss that ties everything together. If you can bring Japan glory then congrats, you learnt the whole deal, PMs from the bottom up, market from the bottom up, politics from the bottom up.

[@DanJuega]

Lol I just ally great powers as Mexico

[@blockchiken]

Excited for 1.6. I'd love to finally get the hardest achievement in the game: reaching 1936.

[@KingofTrondelag]

Complete tetorial:

[@Vi0ar]

I'd love to get to 1936 as well. The lag after 1915ish is unbearable

[@blockchiken]

@@Vi0ar Yeah. I've had to use pop-consolidation mods with like +1000% assimilation just to make it to 1936 in the past.

[@KingofTrondelag]

@@blockchiken i use save cpu, less lag and a few ithers,

[@KVPMD]

Did it in 1.1 already but the crashes in 1930+ were a real pain. Restarting / reloading from month to month. But did it. Yeah ;) Still looking forward to do more AND hope for more cool achievements.

[@mathiofc]

Persia was the nation I chose to learn how some mechanics in the game works with the help of your spreadsheets and explanation, and especially started to understand how local prices work, that's a huge impact I noticed on my gameplay, again thanks to you. Can't stress enough how I really wanted to get the grip to this game after a bunch of hours.

[@richardsvensson]

Great suggestions! I would also add Sweden as a good country for beginners. They are in a position to avoid wars, or at least you as a player can decide on your own when to go to war. There are some good resource state traits for wood and iron. A challenge could be the lack of population that happens pretty early. A (medium-long term) goal could be to form Scandinavia. It is also possible to go for colonization if you want to try/learn that aspect of the game.

[@EskiltheWanderer]

Sweden also has a pathway to colonization via subjugating Denmark, like Spain with Portugal.

[@joelhicks5468]

Looks like I made good choices for learning the game - I have played all of these countries except Sardinia-Piedmont because I thought they looked like interesting ones to try out. Thanks for confirming that my instincts about that aren't garbage!

[@generalistgaming]

You're welcome!

[@jasonwodarski4981]

Got Vicky 3 on a good sale and started the "Learn the Game" mission as Belgium without watching any guide videos first. Managed to cause a seperatist revolution during what was supposed to be the tutorial. Decided to play as Sardinia Piedmont next beacuse I love the Italian nations in other Paradox games. In

[@alexcornett3810]

would love a video about those discrimination mechanics you mentioned being so tricky

[@metaflight9495]

I think Bolivia is the perfect starter 'advanced' nation. It has great potential, but it forces you to interact with every system to meet it. You want to swtch to iron construction, but you need gold to pay to run it and iron to supply it. But you need infrastructure to fit those in the mountains so you need to research infra bonuses or railways. You want to use the ports for infra and imports to supplt your industry but you find you have a labor shorage in your one coastal state that one of your neighbours has a claim on. Another neighbour as a claim on your other iron state, which also has labor shortagrs anyway. So you want to improve your laws to get more pop growth and immigrants, so you nees to figure out how to deal with your military dicatorship thats ticking itself towards further entrenchment. That's just before you form peru-bolivia.

[@matofbelgica]

I just finished a run as Bolivia, and it's certainly fun, but discrimination was a real issue for me throughout the run. It's a nation with a good series of milestones though (unifying with Peru, then forming the Andes federation, then unifying all of South America). Good late game economy with oil and rubber though and strong scaling through conquest and immigration, so very satisfying run. And the 40 or so gold mines you can get early on are very nice.

[@McRich.]

Started Victoria 3 a few weeks ago, bounced off it despite 3k hrs in EU4, finally understanding the game thanks to your videos!

[@oliverwarren1074]

I am enjoying Japan but man, its basically impossible to pass ANY laws that make the country progress. This is my first ever game of Vic3 though so I think I don't really know what I'm doing. I've built enough stuff to gradually create/strengthen an Industrialists class but the Shogunate/Samurai classes are still huge and neither of them like anything I want to do.

[@hee-ho7126]

historically accurate

[@DJSamsonofficial]

Ah very useful way of increasing the power of other interest groups is to hire generals and then promote them.

[@roryyoung9571]

Sardinia piedmont been my favorite for a long time. A lot going on but still manageable. You start slightly ahead on tech, you has lots of coal, iron and wood. Start small economy form Italy now you have big economy a lot of fun.

[@Buffalo_Soldier]

Lol the first country I ever played in Victoria 3 was Spain and here after year or so I can say it indeed was very good first choice. I picked it because in first game I didn't wanted complex politics and economics and it worked great. Having queen in Inteligensia helps with modernizing country and they have potential to become superpower pretty easily. Spain is very chill and self-focused, but you can engage in foreign politics and colonization if you need something. Japan was also great feel to play, much different than anything else. In fact I failed to "modernize it" as till the later game Aristrocrats building plantations were the biggest source of my investment poll, but I had big power late game nevertheless. The population base and cheap labour make it so that when you eventually get economical technologies you have a lot of people to perform those tasks. In japan I played "greedy" monarch. Taxed population heavily, funded most progress from government treasury. If someone is overwhelmed by complex starting economies, then (other than Persia) - they could start with Mexico. But there's problem with it - US will want you dead. So if you want to expand your lifespan you need to improve relations with them AND european powers - that might come to help you (france,uk,germany,even russia can help.) if you miss influence points to befriend europe, you can rival some weak nations that you can rival. But with Mexico you will learn building economy from scratch. They have (I believe) no local tools production and barely any buildings at all. They have a LOT of gold, so you don't need to tax your population at all which brings you SoL up and lets migration to happen, this in turn helps in turning you into big power... I mean at first DO tax your population in order to build wood->tools->iron->better tools -> construction centers -> more iron -> more cc -> more iron -> then build gold production. After you jump-start construction centers with cheap iron and have gold you can lower taxes, build and chill.

[@katmannsson]

I always suggest Persia myself. Bias from it being the Crucible I forged myself in? Maybe. Objectively a very strong starting position to learn the game? Absolutely. If Ireland is CK's Tutorial Island, IMO Persia should be Vics.

[@benzelmer8111]

I have done two playthroughs of the East Indies (No Indonesia) from 1836 to 1936. In the first I was able to turn South Sumatra Hungarian, and in the second I was able to turn South Sumatra Dutch and also I was able to get a protectorate I’ve the Netherlands and a united Malaysia. Your starting conquests are all insignificant powers. You then move onto Langfang but at the end you have to fight the Netherlands and Spain (plus whoever colonized New Guinea). You can easily become #1 GDP and Great Power. This can all be done by only staying inside the Indonesia region (except for getting states to trade). By the way I remember I actually was able to force the Heavenly Kingdom to Industrialize.

[@blockchiken]

The discrimination there hurts hard. you pretty much have to abuse mechanics to get multiculturalism as soon as possible to make that nation even remotely function.

[@richard1493]

Argentina is a great and underrated starter nation. Lots of room to expand with weak neighbors, +20% buffs to agriculture and ranches, and your only threats are Brazil and Great Britain. If you’re smart with conquering, you can consistently get Return State sways to use to bring Brazil in to almost every war you fight in the early game. Great Britain is always seems busy to bother with you. It’s a very solid start imo.

[@immotion665]

Imo you just picked some of the most fun countries... Is this saying something about my skill level

[@lovelylavenderr]

Not really, although I'm also pretty newbie. I think they all just have good long term goals and their resources allow you to industrialize and make a big economy fast. I especially like Japan for that because of the sheer amount of peasants you have, as well as historical LARP.

[@generalistgaming]

No, generally the stuff that makes countries bad for beginners is frustrating and unfun

[@jts1702a]

I started and still play exclusively Lanfang - I must be a glutton for punishment, then. Ahead of its time for civics, economically a blank slate, and made harder every update due to lack of manpower and migration...

[@lilygaming_]

Loved this video: maybe a rundown of harder interesting countries with your breakdowns? Personal favs of mine with the training wheels off a bit are Mexico and Brazil

[@alexandruscarlat8026]

What consumer goods should I lean into? Since I play GB I can get massive throughput bonuses for textiles. On the other hand, glassworks and furniture don't get many companies that I can acquire with my only choice really being the home goods company. I don't want to think about groceries due to just how miserable they are. Generally speaking textiles outclass furniture in every way but not glassworks since they are diffrent as glass is a useful industrial good that's needed for building and service production in urban centres. I also like the fact that the input goods for glassworks tend to be very good from an efficiency perspective (mines are OP as they should be) What's funny is that with everything I said so far considered I still get more demand for textiles not just internally but also externally. When it comes to the issue that cotton kinda sucks GB has the very practical solution of importing (you have all the convoies in the world) and if that doesn't work you can also exploit the EIC and pretty much every nation you get in your customs union. This is how I think about things regarding CG's and I was wondering if I made any mistakes when it comes to my gameplan.

[@generalistgaming]

I need to update the spreadsheet post 1.6, but as the UK probably textiles because you have cheap inputs from the EIC. Groceries PMs suck, but I think they got a buff.

[@gressorialNanites]

I learned a lot playing the Sikh first, but then again, there is a lot that I didn't learn, too.

[@JimStorrie-v3s]

good picks! some others that i think are probably in the top 10 are sikh empire, some of the australian and canadian minors, possibly brazil. and when 1.6 fixes general bonuses, anywhere that gets tewodoros and his gundam

[@generalistgaming]

Sikh empire is really rough for discrimination, backward, and resources and would probably be in an advanced list.

[@harku123]

Argentina is a good one too when you're past the beginner stage and you kinda understand the basic mechanics. Argentina puts your understanding to a test, but just an easy and mild test. You start with low population and low infrastructure, if you build the right things at the start, you can liberalise pretty quickly and also join Britain's market

[@generalistgaming]

Yeah, I didn't want to recommend since they don't have super good iron/coal states

[@harku123]

@@generalistgaming yeah I understand, I wouldn't put them on the list either, just a fun mention

[@lorus90]

I can't understand why sardinia-piedmont is an easy beginner country; you start with 1 construction center and drop money very easly. Maybe i's my fault, but in the previous version i find Naples a better choice... Sorry for my poor english, thanks for your tutorials, i learned a lot.

[@Curtis006]

I played Mexico first when the game was brand, brand new, and I don’t remember USA being much of a problem, not sure if it was still as scripted back then for them to attack, but I definitely tried to “make friendly” with them because I knew they would be a threat and just focused on expanding south, colonizing, and internal politics. That being said, I’m not a total noob to grand strategy so maybe I was just handling it well?

[@LittleBoy08]

Yes, past update made USA pain in the a*s. They are insistent on purchasing my Alaska and if I forgot to be allies with a superpower, they would take advantage asap.

[@generalistgaming]

They've def gotten more dangerous on recent patches

[@Pokeeko]

It was way less scripted before, now they get the claims really fast and declare war in the early, its better to declare yourself and invite someone bigger to finish them off early, as Mexico, GB always wants Chiapas or at least that was on 1.5 lol

[@seedo201]

I played first as egypt and it was very fun game. Struggling with economy frankly which was the part that you need to know the game. Spain and Belgium are always fun and super easy

[@generalistgaming]

Egypt is pretty bad on the resources front, which is one of the reasons I didn't recommend them or Ottomans

[@Coffee247-on7nz]

I learned with Japan. I did restart about 5 times with Japan as I learned.

[@jonw7214]

Lanfang deserves an honorable mention.

[@rincasarff5200]

Why? I’m curious, I play Siam a lot and should try others.

[@jonw7214]

@@rincasarff5200 it's a very liberal country at the start and you get lots of gold mines and protection from the Qing

[@shadowfoxxie7182]

Sardinia Piedmonte is my favourite country to play. I love it. also Krakow is fun but, not for beginner.

[@KatzeArtemis]

italy used to be chill and beginner-friendly, but the current italy-forming mechanics are way too complicated for a beginner IMO

[@blockchiken]

I disagree about Sardinia Piedmont, you have France at your throat all game as a looming threat. Unlike Belgium, Sardinia Piedmont is playing to form Italy, which is fun and challenging in its own right, but will drag you into wars that you need to be prepared for against the biggest military threat in the early game. I think its more of an intermediate level, and maybe good for a second game. But I'd recommend Sweden instead. You still get the unification of Scandinavia as a goal, and play a little more wide than Belgium, maybe doing balancing of powers on Central Europe, and can quickly build a military to bully Russia.

[@generalistgaming]

I did mention possibly giving up Savoy. Sweden I didn't recommend because (iirc) they don't have Sulfur and don't have very good MAPI. I also wanted to include a major unification to offer the option as something to play through, so that pretty much left SP. Two Sicilies has that one Iron/Coal state I guess?

[@williamkarbala5718]

I like Persia, lots of political authority. Large labor pool, Weak neighbors (for the most part), access to the sea, and ass tons of natural resources.

[@thebestdamager7400]

Doing the KZbin algorithm thing

[@generalistgaming]

Based

[@makenshao9886]

I think Colombia also makes a pretty good nation to start with if you want to play a nation like Mexico that is on the new world without having your entire existence threatened by the USA every second. Specially as this start is how I learned the importance of cozying up to a GP to join their market to leech out of pops and resources until you find you're strong enough. There is the problem of having discriminated pops, but Afro-Caribeño can be managed with CE as Native American pops generally remain minority populations. I recommend it over the other states because Peru-Bolivia as it starts can't join a market because of it's puppets until it unifies, and Argentina and Chile are so far away, and they start with Frontier Colonization, which can be restrictive if you want to expand into Africa. And well, Brazil has the DLC mechanics on it that would it make it complicated to manage for a newcomer.

[@generalistgaming]

Colombia is solid, yeah

[@generalistgaming]

I didn't want to recommend New World countries whose capability is a bit reliant on migration

[@makenshao9886]

@@generalistgaming oh yeah I completely understand that now that you mention it! I played a lot of my first games not realizing how the migration system works, so I knee capped my economy by not having enough pops to industrialize once I ate all my starting serfs. I guess that does means that it's a more advanced start that I was giving it credit for thought. In my mind I didn't understand how loose of a subject relationship CU are so I thought I should always remain independent

[@whitefang20]

Great video general. When you are industrializing a nation- how often do you build consumer or non industrial goods? I think I struggle hard with SOL so I think I need to throw more in my queue

[@lovelylavenderr]

Depends what is making your pops struggle w/SOL. You can check in the population tab but usually its because their needs are too expensive but sometimes its because they're discriminated or being unemployed.

[@Pokeeko]

Funny enough my first game was with Egypt, it was kinda fun and as an objective i wanted to from arabia, it was on patch 1.0 so i dont know if things changed that much but steamrolling the ottonoobs was easy lol

[@generalistgaming]

Egypt is a bit rough now cuz they don't have good resources

[@Pokeeko]

​@@generalistgamingagree, Egypt resources sucks, barely have any coal in the early game, I think i choose Egypt just because it was recommended in the hegemony tutorial options, I agree that is a pretty bad nation for starters lol

[@areallyboredguy5825]

This is really hard to watch with headphones because of all the desk banging

[@johnmcorigin2389]

I got my ass kicked by Russia in two separate runs while playing Persia. I have no idea how to keep them at bay .. they have soooo many battalions. And yes, I have seen your playthrough..

[@NB-yu4lj]

Befriend them

[@pingusbabyyy451]

i did a run as afghanistan and did everything i could to make the austrians like me, having their help was enough to win any defensive war the russians forced on me after i had taken all the land between persia and india

[@LiquidCesspool]

Your best bet is through mass skirmish infantry, with high quality defensive generals, and focusing barracks in a few states with the recruitment edict. The Russian AI struggles to modernize their army, and they generally bleed their professional troops fairly quickly.

[@generalistgaming]

Joining their side in a play by declaring an interest in regions you know they're going to fight can reset negative attitudes and help to buy time

[@billisultan6224]

Afghanistan is great if you like the zero to hero run. Actually, afghanistan starts with pretty good resources and you can conquer your neighbors (except the sikh empire and persia) relatively easily. After you conquer them, you'll have the same base as brazil or japan.

[@Zdeno8525]

Dont know if you already knew about this thing but yesterday i was playing russia and wanted to try out geting the heir market liberal as ig leader at start but i couldt marry him to get the popularity for some reason so i played it normaly but i made him general, and when i was in war i looked at him and saw his popularity not to be be 0 but 1 and i hovered over and it said from wining battles, so now you dont need to “fish” for good general that is popular, if you find good general with good ideology but unfortunately he is 0 popularity you can just win some battles and it will give it to you, but it doesnt give for every battle it was after some battles, and again sorry if you already knew that i just didnt saw it your videos and if you didnt knew that iam glad i showed it to you

[@GeorgeMasterclass]

I like picking Greece and transforming it into Byzantium.

[@paypalcrusader878]

Cool video, thank you for the suggestions, from what song do you take the intro music for the various chapters?

[@generalistgaming]

It's pulled from one of Vic 3's promo videos, I can't remember which anymore.

[@Tetragramix]

'Job Openings' from Victoria 3.

[@mathew4430]

Why does the notion of playing tall not fit in Victoria 3 like you said?

[@generalistgaming]

Theres a lot of reasons, but the three big ones are 1. the ai doesn't exploit enough resources, often you need to take resources yourself in order to fuel the economy, 2. MAPI encourages you to build construction spread out where you have resource inputs and punishes having huge manufacturing hubs, and 3. EoS throughput bonuses cap at 50%, which often means for the sake of making your construction as useful as possible that you want to build stuff up to 51, and then find other stuff to build up to 31 because of how the math works. The 51st building is effectively worth 200% of a building (50% throughput on the marginal building, as well as bringing the previous 50 buildings from 49% to 50%), whereas the 52nd is only 150% of one.

[@mathew4430]

@@generalistgaming do you think this might change with the upcoming spheres of influence dlc? I really hope they add foreign investment

[@HJ-ul1eg]

Thanks you!

[@generalistgaming]

Welcome!

[@KingofTrondelag]

Where Norway?

[@benluk02]

I feel like New South Wales should have been a honorable mention

[@generalistgaming]

I think I'd not want to recommend a subject country to a beginner

[@kurlykrenins]

From my experience Japan is a bad choice for a new player. Every game I've played has been annoying & just makes me like Victoria 3 less. This is after playing Sweden then Brazil. Constant pain changing laws & then getting declared on, or forced open market. Economy feels like shit too. Very tedious, even more than usual

[@generalistgaming]

Yeah I used to recommend Japan, but not anymore

[@shaulani]

@@generalistgaming That video is 2 months old and you change your opinion each month?? You can see the constant asking for market opening as an opportunity to get easy war reps and over sea colonies. Or you could simply accept when france asks you to open the market. From what I understand, you can't grow faster than money print if your market is closed and you aren't getting any extra money from outside of your own market.

[@generalistgaming]

@@shaulani I mean Japan is like a niche recommend, but yeah, things change. The game gets patched. It's waaaaay more aggressive to Japan now.

[@daniellison9182]

By the way spain is very missrepresent in this game both politicaly and in resourses.

[@SirTravis-vn6yp]

Idk if I agree with Sardinia. My game has been a nightmare so far 😂

[@generalistgaming]

I think after the migration change I might recommend Columbia over SP now

[@Siler1654]

First nation I play in every paradox game is Poland and vic3 is no different

[@generalistgaming]

That's a rough first nation

[@Siler1654]

@@generalistgaming I know

[@tijmenwillard2337]

For Spain, I think a really fun goal is to reclaim the Spanish empire rather than subjugating Portugal. Will give you a good grip on dealing with minor powers in South America, while balancing major power interests at home.

[@lovelylavenderr]

Why not both? Huge colonial empire in Central Africa and reclaimed Latinoamerica.

[@generalistgaming]

Por que no los dos

[@tijmenwillard2337]

@@generalistgaming because Spain looks a lot better than Iberia

[@johnpawlak7350]

Seems my choice of Columbia as a beginner may not have been wise.

[@generalistgaming]

Columbia is pretty good! Maybe better than Belgium but at the time of making this tutorial playing around migration in the new world was more complicated which is why Columbia wouldn't've made the list

[@johnpawlak7350]

@@generalistgaming Hey! I never would have guessed you'd see or reply to this! I can't express how helpful your Vic 3 videos have been. Keep up the good work!

[@E_Poltz]

What about Greece?

[@pelayla]

weird that you didnt include touggourt on this list

[@generalistgaming]

It was edged out by Gobir

[@cantalope6980]

no way Bahrain isn’t on here 😡

[@generalistgaming]

Rip

[@HenriqueRJchiki]

Brazil modcheck?

[@vladm2364]

Osman, Brasil, Sweden

[@raeenghadarzadeh5370]

‏‪9:10‬‏ nice im persian ❤

[@zombezyb6692]

I started with Kraków 😂

[@generalistgaming]

oof

[@ironarcana970]

coutnries

[@jabloko992]

Bait, lmao, there is no such thing as a "beginner" country in Vicky 3. I've went through this in my head already, no country is good for beginners in this game, all of them will require the player to deep-dive into a mechanic or two "earlier than they should" just to keep their heads above the water. I am a beginner myself (although 200 hours into the game a month later maybe not SO much of a beginner anymore) and I think I'm a good judge of this. Belgium better be on this list, as that is the closest, but even then, you are one successful and angry Germany away from death...as a beginner. Edit: Japan WHAT?!! How is that beginner friendly? Sure, you are left alone most of the time by the AI, but you have to do Meiji restoration and you won't even know that's a thing as a beginner. You also have to start with trash eco, trash tech, trash politics. Belgium, yes, Belgium is the only valid choice imo, because GB backs you up and all you have to do is stack everything in Wallonia. Persia: Absolutely not, you have to do Corn Laws, you have a severe pop shortage, you have to fight Russia to expand, backwards laws, backwards tech. Britain wants your stuff, Russia wants yours stuff, France wants your stuff....no beginner nation, not at all. Sardinia-Piedmont: Decent choice, haven't played them yet, but I can see how a beginner would struggle with this. You need to have your construction loop figured out to take advantage of this one. Spain: Alright, this might be the only good pick. Belgium is easier because you can keep your head down and just focus on PMs and tech, Spain is a more ambitious choice, but still doable.

[@generalistgaming]

I mean I hard disagree w/ the premise that there's no such thing as a beginner country - there are def countries that are *easier* or better for learning than others. I also preface the entire vid by saying that GPs are good and it's mainly for people who don't want to play GPs. Japan is good for learning the game, not becoming a GP. Belgium is def not easier than Spain, because you will often roll an aggressive France.

[@jabloko992]

@@generalistgaming I suppose for me it's a matter of comparing it to other Paradox titles. In CK, there is "noob island" aka.: Ireland, in EU4 you can go to India and both provide a fairly easy way of getting into the game. In Vicky 3 there's no such thing as a "beginner friendly country" the same way you have them in those other 2 games, because of the global reach of GPs, the severe effects of technology, literacy etc. There's nowhere on the planet where you can be left alone and if you want to start "close to the fire", as in, not be severely behind on tech-related metrics, you need to prepare for trouble. Of course, not every country is equally as difficult, but other than Spain which I think is my key take away from this video, all of them suffer from serious problems that make playing them a challenge for beginners. I hard-hard-HARD disagree with Japan above all else, you're asking a beginner to learn everything all at once. Even most GPs aren't beginner friendly: as GB you have to deal with 16 billion things all at once from the get go, you have your fingers in everyone's pie, France, Austria and Prussia have to fight wars early, Russia is Russia. Only the US is truly beginner friendly, although I can see Spain being one as well and Belgium for your first game of just "let's get used to building stuff" that you would play for 25 years until you're ready for Spain or the US.

[@dalfokane]

They all play very similar either way

[@generalistgaming]

Tbf I think that's a way that's straightforward and good to learn on