Vic2 Speedrun - Form Greater Germany IGT (Former) World Record EXPLAINED

After more than half a year since the last one, I'm finally back with another high-effort video production, this time with even more effort! In this video I'm attempting to explain the strategy used in my Greater Germany world record (at the time) speedrun, in as much detail as possible without crossing the line into insanity (I'm not sure if I succeeded in that). As always, this video assumes you're already familiar with the basic mechanics of Vic2, but I do try to explain all the more advanced stuff :)
Btw, I misspelled the reddit user who came up with the alternate strategy: It should be u/RoyLiuzya, not u/RoyLiuza.
Full unedited video of the run: • (Old) Vic2 Speedrun (I...
Abridged RTA version of this category (and previous IGT record): • (Old) Vic2 Speedrun (R...
Vic2 speedrunning leaderboards: www.speedrun.com/vic2
Vic2 speedrunning discord: / discord
General Paradox speedrunning discord: / discord
Paradox speedrunning subreddit: / paradoxspeedruns
I also have a twitch channel nowadays: / xarxos1
Credits for images used that I didn't make myself (and that aren't stock photos):
0:12 : This is the thumbnail from Shenryyr's video "How To Form Super Germany Quickly And Easily As Prussia In Victoria 2" - • How To Form Super Germ...
0:30 : Bismarck meme taken from this r/HistoryMemes post by u/ApolloSpice: / otto_von_bismarck
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
0:32 Rules and objectives
1:31 Territory to acquire
2:08 How to annex Austria
3:53 How to boost a secondary power
5:00 How to sphere Austria
5:52 Adding war goals through jingoism
7:19 Fighting France without wasting jingoism
10:25 How to acquire Austria's spherelings
12:03 Diplomatic influencing strats
12:56 Forming NGF before Germany
13:58 Forming Greater Germany
15:05 Alternate strategy
15:48 Outro

[@Swagorath]

great work, i dont understand anything

[@xarxos5274]

Thank you! I don't imagine it will be very easy to follow if you're not already familiar with Vic2, but maybe you can enjoy the pretty visuals :)

[@salvadorhenriquez4091]

@@xarxos5274 i loved it, even if i don't have the game

[@xarxos5274]

@@salvadorhenriquez4091 That's cool! :)

[@salvadorhenriquez4091]

@@xarxos5274 yeah, i want to buy it tho, i only need a good computer to run it

[@xarxos5274]

@@salvadorhenriquez4091 Nice, I hope you can make that happen then! :)

[@jakethegreatestofalltime]

This guy: forms super germany in 3 years Me who formed super germany in 5 hours:

[@Wm7forthewin]

hmmm

[@webber9707]

5 hours in gamee: *Idk like 30 years?*

[@phaze7843]

@@webber9707 that's the joke

[@randomgreekmathematician3159]

Remember, never compare yourself to the others

[@certaindeath7776]

i bet he needed more then 5 hours

[@thatoneguy-wr3px]

You may not like it, but this is what peak Realpolitik look like

[@adenosine2electricboogaloo647]

I do like it

[@SuperLusername]

POV you're Bismarck:

[@1900OP]

This is what would've happened but Bismark wanted a german state for the german people.

[@theexam7394]

My first time playing as Prussia was already absolute hell when I declared war on France for Al-Lor while Russia was allied with France, and you're saying that the speedrun consists of literally fighting 3 great powers at the same time?! Brilliant job on winning that! I learned a thing or two from this video as well, thanks!

[@xarxos5274]

Thank you very much! Well of course it's gonna be difficult to fight wars on multiple fronts when you're still new to the game, we've all been there! With practice and learning some useful tricks it will start to get easier :)

[@Antiteshmis]

Russia splits its stacks + you get huge bonus damage when you have a longer front line , enough arti and some cav on the attack. Just select a few provinces to attack on and you can stack wipe easily with very few casualties.

[@djcustoms6637]

Yeah same I was doing so good had a large empire but I neglected diplomacy. Before I knew it all my neighbours hated me and every war was like 3 world powers vs me, Netherlands and occasionally Italy. Needless to say my empire was neutered

[@michaellinde794]

For some reason I never thought to stop influencing once they discredit me, this could have saved so much pain with Saxony.

[@xarxos5274]

Yeah it's usually not worth it to keep going once you get discredited, since that will just encourage the other GP to keep influencing too and eventually expel/ban you. It's better to shift your influence between several different countries if you can.

[@somedude8468]

@@xarxos5274 quick question, how do you got nationalisim and imperialisim before 1850? because you need it to form germany right?

[@thefightrr2460]

@@somedude8468 only with the mod HFM and HPM

[@annurissimo1082]

@@somedude8468 You dont.

[@thaimapping]

@@somedude8468 it’s only for mod hpm and hfm

[@vallraffs]

I like that this strategy makes some sense even within the narrative of the game, and isn't just exploiting game mechanics. Allying with the Netherlands and fighting Belgium to both gain desired territories from France and to lower the international standing of Austria. Very cool

[@jeffjefferson5095]

I love the 60 infamy you had at the end. How didn’t the entire world declare a containment on you? Edit: ‘in’ to ‘on’

[@xarxos5274]

I'm not too sure, I was a bit surprised myself actually! Tbf though, I had a truce with the UK, France and Austria, and I was allied to Spain, so the only GP's that were likely to declare on me would've been Russia and the Ottomans, but I suppose they may have been distracted by other wars or something.

[@nakaimoore6548]

@@xarxos5274 you can declare a containment war even with a truce

[@xarxos5274]

@@nakaimoore6548 That's correct, but the AI never breaks truces under any circumstances so you're always safe if you have a truce with the AI.

[@plusxz821]

@@xarxos5274 Oh, good to know

[@cravingtuna1561]

@@xarxos5274 I've had the AI break truces by declaring wars for core provinces but I don't have the HOD dlc so maybe it's just me playing an older version of the game.

[@deutschamerikaner]

*Casual 58 infamy* Now those are some real German hours

[@ThekaiserXD]

Only 6 mins in and already this has been a great vid. Was randomly recommded it by YT and what a great find. Concise but informative about one of my fav grand strat games. Subbed :)

[@xarxos5274]

I'm glad you found it and that you enjoyed it! :D

[@caioaugusto3138]

It was called "The concert of Europe" for a very good reason lol. I'm impressed with the diplomatic depth you can have in vicky

[@alexzero3736]

Y...like only one great power as ally at the time.

[@purpledevilr7463]

Bismarck would be jealous.

[@alexanderbryant9821]

This is a fantastically made Video! Came here from your Reddit post and definitely didn't regret it:)! Your stragegy and presentation is really nice. Especially the way you visualised everything:) It must have been a lot of work and the end result speaks for itself. Really really good job!

[@xarxos5274]

Thank you so much! I tried to put a lot of work into the visualizations but I wasn't sure how clear everything would be in the end, so I'm happy that you think it turned out good! :D

[@hrach1384]

I actually really love your editing and the way you explain

[@xarxos5274]

Thank you very much :)

[@cadenmarshall7360]

Wow, what a great video! Good job finishing in three years. I enjoyed watching your strategies :)

[@xarxos5274]

Thanks mate, glad you enjoyed it! :)

[@simonsalaev2520]

Good job man. Great video and congrats on your speedrun!

[@xarxos5274]

Thank you very much! :)

[@mastrorick]

I love your explanation videos 🧡 I can always use something sneaky you teach me on my runs

[@xarxos5274]

Thank you, I'm glad you like them! :)

[@ThekaiserXD]

11:40 The entire European ruling class 1840s: WRITE THAT DOWN, WRITE THAT DOWN! I did not know about this quirk, will use it in my later playthroughs :)

[@xarxos5274]

It's very useful if/when you don't care too much about infamy and want to conquer as much as possible!

[@ThekaiserXD]

@@xarxos5274 I read your other reply about how long it takes to make a video. If this is your standard then I'm happy to wait :)

[@sowietdoge6259]

Very interesting and complicated. Trying this would destroy my brain, so props to you for doing this!

[@xarxos5274]

Thank you! When I started working out the strategy I hadn't anticipated it would become this complex, but it kinda just grew in complexity over time :)

[@sowietdoge6259]

@@xarxos5274 How long did it take you to establish this solid strategy? A few weeks or months of playing Prussia? And how often do you restart due to poor RNG? This seems prone to a LOT of misfortune, as you’ve expressed in the video.

[@xarxos5274]

@@sowietdoge6259 Well, I've done a lot of Greater Germany runs over the years, even if most of them weren't necessarily speedruns, so that gave me a pretty solid foundation to build upon once I actually started speedrunning. But for this particular attempt, I'd say I probably spent a couple of weeks overall working out all the kinks of the strategy (you can check out my RTA run which is also on my channel if you want to see roughly where I started from strategywise). But of course I didn't play every single day during those weeks. As for restarts, I'd say that once I had al the details figured out, RNG on its own wasn't a huge issue really, as it's possible to adapt to most of the random variance without losing time, but the one major RNG aspect is how fast I gained Jingoism which is what prevented me from getting a sub-1839 time here. Fortunately, with the alternate Java strategy that I mentioned near the end, even that RNG aspect should be done away with to make it even more consistent! But even disregarding RNG, there are of course a lot of intricate things you need to keep in mind so it's quite easy to mess up. But the more you repeat the run, the more consistent you'll become, so by the time I got this attempt finished I rarely did any run-killing mistakes I'd say :)

[@sowietdoge6259]

@@xarxos5274 That's really cool. Thanks for sharing!

[@danielhouston7550]

Saw a post about Victoria 2 speedruns, was pleasantly surprised when I found such an in-depth video after searching your name

[@xarxos5274]

I'm glad you liked it! :)

[@TheBreadPirate]

Fascinating! I love that the speedrun depends on the end date instead of IRL time.

[@xarxos5274]

The leaderboards actually have separate subcategories for in-game time and real time, so it's possible to do speedruns with both timing methods! I also have a real time Greater Germany speedrun on my channel.

[@TheBreadPirate]

@@xarxos5274 Woah, that's cool!

[@Moonninja420]

Very well done. I've done many ties at doing this with my earliest being 1850s.

[@jharnett44]

This vidéo is very well put together

[@xarxos5274]

Thank you, I tried my best :)

[@Segovaxzz]

WOW amazing strategy, I love it!! One more subscriber :)

[@xarxos5274]

Thank you, glad to have you! :)

[@baconboss359]

As the holder of the form germany unrestricted world record, I will use this on my next run

[@xarxos5274]

Oh hey! Will you be making a glorious return to Vic2 speedrunning perhaps? :)

[@baronbrummbar8691]

mh i might join in i formed supergermany faster (but without luxembourg or schleswig)

[@xarxos5274]

@@baronbrummbar8691 You're very welcome to! For the category on speedrun.com you do need Schleswig and Luxembourg though :)

[@baronbrummbar8691]

@@xarxos5274 is ther a cathogerie for hypergermany (luxembourgish supergermany) ???

[@baronbrummbar8691]

@@xarxos5274 and is it legit to form supergermany as Austria for this run?

[@angelopueyygarcia43]

3 years absolutely insane o_0

[@Archduck]

Impressive and informative for the entire duration, nice high-effort video.

[@xarxos5274]

Thank you! :)

[@BryanBeast13]

Okay, the pausing the game and setting all the war goals is a pro gamer move i haven't thought about.

[@BryanBeast13]

The influence strat!! Wow 😳

[@xarxos5274]

@@BryanBeast13 Haha I'm glad I can enlighten you! :D

[@svenkaasik9868]

I love that i found your channel coz I will start my own channel with videos soon and now i know vic 2 speedruns exist so I can do them.

[@xarxos5274]

Sounds good, I'd be interesting in seeing what you come up with! :)

[@svenkaasik9868]

@@xarxos5274 my only problem is editing and my mic is not that good but still your channel is really good I think and happy I found it

[@xarxos5274]

@@svenkaasik9868 That's fine, you can always do speedruns without editing or a mic if you want, at least when you start out, then you can improve your content over time. That's how I did it anyway :)

[@svenkaasik9868]

@@xarxos5274 ok thank you

[@svenkaasik9868]

@@xarxos5274 you inspired me enough so i did my first speedrun recorded, the USA thing wr time and will upload it tomorrow on my channel RandomMapboy I just need to fix some things like adding a speedrun timer. Thank you so much anyways

[@Aschraffff]

this gave me a headache. Nicely done!

[@xarxos5274]

Then I have done my job lol. Thanks!

[@ComradeHellas]

Ingenious my man

[@angryduck121]

Amazing, this is art

[@dalsosegno]

beautiful work, my head now hurts but i have subbed

[@xarxos5274]

Then my work here is done lol.

[@bendkok]

Great video. Maybe I should try this once, it does look kinda fun.

[@xarxos5274]

Feel free to do so! If you want to record a video of it then maybe consider submitting it to the leaderboard as well :)

[@doomslayerobama]

I played Victoria 2 three times as Central America. Completely confused on what I should do lol. Also, sick vid m8!

[@xarxos5274]

I don't think Central America is the best starter country for a new player, as they're kinda limited in what they're able to do at the start. I'd recommend going as a slightly larger country so you have some stuff to work with! Thanks though!

[@natethegrate2783]

I think best beginner nation is Sweden or chile

[@plusxz821]

@@natethegrate2783 Best starter japan,it teaches you to civilize, be a world power, get in a sphere of influence, make your own sphere,be colonial, defeat russia, maybe annex korea, naval invade,etc

[@Umamaahoe]

This is one of paradox’s only grand strategy I haven’t played and i might have to try it after watching this it looks pretty cool. Need to give eu4 a break anyway haha

[@xarxos5274]

I can recommend it, it's arguably even more confusing to get into than the other Paradox games, but it's quite fun once you do :)

[@LudwigFalkenhain]

Sick af!!

[@eternalasquith]

Good comprehensive guide

[@xarxos5274]

Thank you! Although I didn't actually intend this to be a guide per se, just an explanation for those curious of how I did it. If I had actually intended for it to be a useful guide I would've gone into more detail in a few places! But of course, if people still find use for it as a guide, that's all well and good! :)

[@Jishy2415]

great video

[@abagofbobbish]

Diplo points, infamy, and jingoism are broken mechanics they need to makeover in Vicky 3

[@xarxos5274]

I agree they're not the most well-designed mechanics.

[@dennispashin4393]

Add influence to that list, most annoying thing to manage in the whole game.

[@pogromcafoliarzy7494]

We just need Vic 3

[@copeseethemald8510]

@@xarxos5274 speaking of infamy why didnt you metion it

[@xarxos5274]

@@copeseethemald8510 Because it didn't become relevant in this run. I actually had strats for dealing with containment wars if they had fired, but for whatever reason they didn't.

[@babassoonist557]

Damn three years, you really ground this one out

[@xarxos5274]

Yeah I spent some time on it! Although recently I managed to do it in less than 3 years as well :)

[@elyisusking3603]

Xarxos: you should make sure that Austria and Belgium stays out of Great Power Bavaria: **Laughs in Great Power Status**

[@xarxos5274]

Not when you're boosting the Netherlands simultaneously :)

[@apolloforabetterfuture4814]

Incredible

[@lucasmalpica6029]

Amigo, no entendí casi nada, pero aún así aprendí muy buenos consejos para poder formar la gran Alemania de manera rápida. :D

[@thesoupmills1426]

Well I tried it and 5 years into game my pops had 15 militancy but I was able to pull it of by 1946 so great video

[@xarxos5274]

That's rough, militancy can be a hassle for sure!

[@guilhermefaleiros4892]

I have a question for this run: is it worth to disband all your infantry units to recruit artillery, and them fill them up with mobilized? Or does it take too much time? Also how dont you get bankrupt?

[@xarxos5274]

It would take too much time, yeah. You need to start fighting wars almost immediately so you need to have plenty of infantry at the ready. Also, it would be expensive and likely difficult to keep all that artillery supplied since there isn't much industry going around yet at that time. The reason I don't go bankrupt is because... well, Prussia is rich, so with max taxes and tariffs you make loads of cash. And again, when your entire army isn't artillery it makes it a bit cheaper too.

[@guilhermefaleiros4892]

Yo thanks man, i'll try this run once i finish my (failed) panjab

[@guilhermefaleiros4892]

Man, I did it by 22 june 1843. Austria got prestige out of nowhere so I had to wait for them to bankrupt. Other than taht, your strat worked perfecly!

[@xarxos5274]

@@guilhermefaleiros4892 Ah, they probably got a random event or something, that's really annoying! But nice that it worked otherwise :)

[@marinmilevoj4829]

What editing software did you use to make this video? I'm specifically asking about the graphical visualization like at 10:49 and 12:19

[@xarxos5274]

I used Openshot. It's a free open source software and it has worked well enough so far, but I don't necessarily think it's very good compared to more professional software; I've only used it because it's free. I did use it for all the visualizations in my video (or rather the animations; the images themselves were mostly made with Paint.net), but I don't think it's actually very well suited for that either. It was quite cumbersome to get the animations to work!

[@mcnaughe]

Regular Germany is the overbite. Super Germany is the underbite.

[@xarxos5274]

Haha yeah that's not an inaccurate description :D

[@jevinliu4658]

Let's just declare war on three majors at the same time because **yes**

[@xarxos5274]

Of course! :D

[@marcl7215]

I had a save where it just happend. And I was like: why am I a thicc boi now?

[@Elsneakakaze]

does it produce a stronger germany in the long term to wait a few years before absorbing the german minors, seeing as how they all have their own national focuses?

[@xarxos5274]

I'm not sure tbh. It might depend on how well the AI uses its national focuses. But as minors they also don't have access to as many resources, so that might hamper their development too, while if they get absorbed into Germany there's a better chance that their people will get their needs fulfilled and such. So I could imagine there are both advantages and disadvantages for them to be independent.

[@Elsneakakaze]

@@xarxos5274 thats a good point, i often forget how resource starved lesser countries are, i was thinking that the literacy rate would be alot higher on average if you absorbed them later but i guess is none of them can even fund their education it probably doesn't matter what national focuses they have

[@faridconde6591]

Very nice indeed, and clever. But, unless you are willing to, this is but a curiosity guide, for you WILL fight a lot of Coallition wars against everybody, I really hope that infamy mechanic gets fixed in V3.

[@xarxos5274]

Thank you! This was indeed only meant as a speedrun and not as a more long-term Greater Germany guide, although if you get lucky like I did where no one declared a containment war before I formed Germany, then you can always release German minors to reduce your infamy below the limit again.

[@daundredemars5028]

Could you do one where you take over switzerland and neuchatel as well? Or is that impossible

[@xarxos5274]

It wouldn't be impossible by any means, but it would waste some time since you'd first have to conquer one of their states normally and then you can annex their capital state via your core there. Since Switzerland isn't part of the Germanic culture group you can't integrate them the way you can do with the German minors, and since you only have a core on their capital state but not the other one you can't conquer them in one go either.

[@vitorleite3095]

Is it possible to form Super Brazil(unite South América) before 1900?

[@xarxos5274]

Yes, that would certainly be possible!

[@FredBGC]

One thing you didn't bring up wrt jingoism is that you can gain it by election events, especially while at war. Would spamming election be a viable strategy to somewhat speed-up jingoism regain rate?

[@xarxos5274]

Elections can be a way to gain jingoism, but the issue is that 1) It's quite unreliable, and you can easily end up losing jingoism if you don't get the luck you need with the election events, and 2) As Prussia you have to pass some political reforms before you can even hold elections, so it would be difficult to make use of it this early in the game anyway.

[@cordoba9502]

Man wtf, I don't think I could pull this off even if I were to use every cheat available to man

[@hasanyigitsar6264]

this was a very nice video! but i'm curious, why isn't switzerland part of it?

[@xarxos5274]

Thank you! Switzerland isn't part of the Germanic culture group in Vic2, so they can't be integrated into Germany the way the others can and Germany also doesn't have cores on Switzerland. Prussia *does* have one random core on one of Switzerland's provinces, but that's just for some obscure historical reason so it makes more sense to leave that out.

[@hasanyigitsar6264]

oh, that's interesting

[@FrancisTha1st]

Is it not possible to use national focus to support reactionaries, whose war policy is jingoism?

[@xarxos5274]

You can do that, but it wouldn't have an impact on your pops' support of jingoism itself. The correlation is the opposite: If your pops support jingoism, then they will be more likely to support a reactionary party, but whether they support a reactionary party or not doesn't impact their support of jingoism.

[@lordedmundblackadder9321]

can't you use "make puppet" cb on Austria, and that counts as the same thing as a sphere? I know it works for forming Gran Columbia.

[@xarxos5274]

I'm afraid not, I've actually tested that. It works for Gran Colombia because it has special conditions that allows puppets to count, but the same does not apply for Germany (nor for most other formables either).

[@garotogaivota14]

gorgeous strategy and even more execution. Otto Von Bismark himself would cry seeing this. Back in 2017 in a HD I lost the following year, I had a save where I did it in 9 years, now I know it is possible even sooner

[@xarxos5274]

Thank you! 9 years isn't bad, not sure how fast people had managed this challenge back in 2017!

[@Nutral1234]

Are you doing a video on the Java strategy?

[@xarxos5274]

I'm not sure. I had some ideas for strategies to form Greater Germany in 1837 by incorporating the Java strat, among other things. I never managed to pull it off though, but if I ever do I might consider making a video explaining that.

[@LedosKell]

I've been playing the game for the better part of a decade and I was not aware of that jingoism game mechanic quirk. I feel really dumb.

[@xarxos5274]

It's not very obvious unless you specifically look into it, so don't feel bad about it :)

[@bom3757]

Epic

[@senorspaghett6129]

I dont even play Vic2 but this was really interesting

[@ibosh1836]

Well. It took me like 60 years to form super Germany as Austria

[@MyUsersDark]

I love hoe this was posted on February 11th, and he also formed Germany on February 11th Btw great video. I personally don't play this game, but your way of presenting it made me more or less understand what you tried to do. :)

[@xarxos5274]

Wait, wtf, you're right, I did post this on February 11th! Haha I honestly didn't even think about that, it's a complete coincidence that the dates happened to line up! That's amazing xD Thank you! I wasn't sure how much sense this video would make to someone who doesn't play Vic2, but it's cool if you could somewhat follow along :)

[@arentak2773]

Today I did it in april 1841 and thought "That's pretty good", so I searched "Greater Germany" on reddit, found this, and now I have to try again :)

[@xarxos5274]

April 1841 is very good for sure! But by all means, try again and see if you can get it even better! :)

[@archenepnf]

Are you vviling to make a luxembourg=>super germany=>super germany+france? Since Luxembourg gets french as accepted culture.

[@xarxos5274]

It's not something I have planned. Several people have asked about it though and it is an interesting concept just because how OP you would be, so maybe I can try it out some day. Probably not anytime soon though :)

[@princekyros]

Isn't Maastricht also a core for a german OPM? Or is that HFM?

[@xarxos5274]

It might be in HFM. It's not in vanilla anyway!

[@mcming3338]

Would this be possible to do on HPM as well?

[@brandonlyon730]

Unless they changed it recently I believe you can’t do it without the “Nationalism and imperialism” tech in HPM, and that’s not available until 1850.

[@natethegrate2783]

I’m pretty sure hpm prevents you from annexing Austria, at least it did for me

[@zord1352]

GR8 job! That Jingoism trick was new stuff for me, good to learn sti today. But pls, if anyone make germany ike this, release the german minors both before forming NGF and GER to reduce infamy, so you can sti have a good game :D

[@xarxos5274]

Yeah if you wanna keep playing a full game after this then releasing minors would be a good idea, although you can always release them after forming Germany too since you can reintegrate them over time :)

[@zord1352]

@@xarxos5274 how can you reintegrate more over conquer them? If you release a nation you lose your cores.

[@xarxos5274]

@@zord1352 You do lose your cores, yes, but you don't need cores to reintegrate them. If you're a cultural union nation, which Germany is, then you can integrate any minor nation who is part of your culture group as long as they're part of your sphere and you're both at peace. You just have to wait for a certain event to fire. And if you have researched Nationalism and Imperialism you can regain your cores fairly quickly through events as well!

[@zord1352]

@@xarxos5274 thx the tipp! Never used it yet. I'll definitely give it a try!

[@datfluteboi7906]

What is that map paint called at 2:03

[@xarxos5274]

It's a map I made myself with Paint.net based on a mapshot from the game.

[@_extrathicc]

I didn't know doing it before 1840 was even possible.

[@xarxos5274]

Yeah I wasn't sure if it was possible either, before I started seriously looking into it. But now I actually think it might be possible to do it as early as 1837, though it would be tricky!

[@Sce68]

you can also add national focus to support reactionaries and tho jingoism

[@xarxos5274]

I don't think that helps though? Pops that support jingoism are more likely to support reactionaries, but I don't think it works the other way around.

[@Tian2zi4huang2di4]

A tutorial created for use by the German Army in the 1860s - 70s, colorized and restored.

[@olejnik5165]

CAn we get a save to download? I want to play as this behemoth lol

[@xarxos5274]

I've got various save files here: drive.google.com/drive/folders/1mgC9IkYDpUSnaz4W96f5Y0TgJtxQTTLE I think this save is included here, or a faster one :)

[@olejnik5165]

@@xarxos5274 Thank u!

[@joaovilaca1436]

This video is great. I sometimes comeback to it just for pleasure.

[@xarxos5274]

Oh, thank you very much, I'm very happy you like it that much! :D

[@XIXCentury]

subbed

[@j.c-6424]

I remember using Greater Germany for the 1st time. Damn rebels

[@xarxos5274]

In this world nothing can be said to be certain except death and rebels.

[@eduardolujano9658]

se puede anexar cracovia a la con la NGF?

[@xarxos5274]

No, Cracovia no pertenece a el grupo cultural de aleman, despues no es posible le anexar en esta manera.

[@saribey3375]

You can call it gamey but I suggest spamming hold election button and pick jingoism boost in events to raise your jingoism

[@xarxos5274]

I considered doing that actually, but I found it to be far too inconsistent. First of all, it takes a while before you can pass the reforms needed to hold elections in the first place, but even when you can it seems to be roughly equally likely that you'll end up reducing your jingoism rather than raising it, since any election event that doesn't raise jingoism will instead raise other things, which will indirectly reduce jingoism.

[@simplypepe1732]

I felt like an idiot watching this, I only have 19 hours and I can never get past forming NGF. Either France and Russia kick my ass when I try to take Alsace Lorraine or I can't get influence on Baden which has somehow fallen under France's sphere.

[@xarxos5274]

Don't worry, if you only have 19 hours it's not so strange that you're struggling, this is a very complex game and it takes a long time to get into it! For reference, I have about 1700 hours :)

[@simplypepe1732]

@@xarxos5274 Thank you, for the first time I was able to form Germany and become the #1 Great Power today thanks to this guide!

[@xarxos5274]

@@simplypepe1732 Oh wow, congratz! This stuff is rather advanced I'd say, so good job if you managed to pull it off despite being relatively new to the game! :D

[@austinpowersfasjer]

Nice casual 58 infamy

[@xarxos5274]

Infamy is just a number after all!

[@Sheir01]

I dont play the game but i still watched the whole video

[@xarxos5274]

Well done! :)

[@your-mom-irl]

byootiful groBgermania

[@alexh2947]

As far as I know you can rapidly increase jingoism by constantly holding elections and selecting the jingoism policy on the war policy election thingy. But this likely doesn't apply to prussia since I'm not sure if it can have elections.

[@xarxos5274]

As you say, Prussia can't hold elections at the start so you'd have to pass some reforms first, which might take a while. But even if you could, I find elections to be a bit too unreliable. If you get lucky you can increase jingoism quite quickly, but most election events that don't increase jingoism will in fact indirectly decrease it instead, so it's really a bit of a gamble.

[@Haider-Ali92]

i have a question that why u did not spam elections for more jingoism

[@xarxos5274]

Because I've found elections to be far too unreliable. If you get lots of jingoism election events then it can increase the rate at which you gain jingoism, but any other election event will actually indirectly reduce your jingoism instead, so it's not unlikely that spamming election ends up being counter-productive. Either way, judging from my test runs it didn't seem like getting jingoism was gonna be a problem, but it just happened to be really slow during this run for whatever reason.

[@Haider-Ali92]

@@xarxos5274 thanks

[@xarxos5274]

@@Haider-Ali92 Haha after three years? Well you're welcome :)

[@Haider-Ali92]

@@xarxos5274 I opened vic2 for the first time in 3 years and just played Germany. Brought back some memories

[@turkiyett0928]

9 years my record probably now I see this video

[@xarxos5274]

That's not bad either! :)

[@Haider-Ali92]

woooooooooooooooooooooow

[@HorangiPowah]

I'm pretty sure that the Greater Germany doesn't include all of Austrian Empire since in the real life concept of it only the Archduchy of Austria is a part of Greater Germany that is in the Habsburg realm since the Archduchy is the German speaking part of the Empire and the other parts are mostly made of other ethnicities such as Hungarians, Italians, Slovaks, Czechs, Romanians and many more. Great job on doing the challenge though.

[@xarxos5274]

For real life you're probably correct on that, I was just basing this on the convention within the Vic2 community. Thanks though!

[@ottomansultan3450]

What technology to you need to form germany

[@xarxos5274]

In vanilla you don't need any particular technology. In some mods like HPM you need Nationalism and Imperialism though.

[@ottomansultan3450]

@@xarxos5274 thank you for the help

[@xarxos5274]

@@ottomansultan3450 No problem!

[@corwinusm.7875]

I have tried that idea but lol in my game Netherland has an aliance with Hannover and didn`t attack Belgium :c

[@xarxos5274]

Alliance with Hannover? You mean after Hannover becomes independent after 1838? The war with Belgium can be a bit inconsistent, but if you restart enough times they should declare on them eventually!

[@totalwar1793]

Can you do this in GFM/HPM?

[@xarxos5274]

Not really, since there's a tech requirement for forming Germany in those mods that makes it impossible to do it before 1850.

[@totalwar1793]

@@xarxos5274 I forgot that you don't need N&I in vanilla for most cool stuff

[@turkiyett0928]

If you play with Luxemburg etc. you can conquest French and then unite Germany probably but it's so hard

[@xarxos5274]

Indeed, that would be the theoretically strongest Germany. Quite a bit tougher than normal though!

[@itbaytar6728]

R E A L P O L I T I K

[@CenturionMkIII]

Me a Austroboo reading the title: *As Austria... right???*

[@xarxos5274]

I'm sorry :)

[@loldelol34w56436]

Can you do it in HPM?

[@xarxos5274]

I believe you can form Greater Germany in HPM, but it's locked behind tech that isn't available until 1850 so it's not really possible to speedrun it.

[@vedsingh2108]

Bismarck after doing a line :

[@nearen1]

The god himself revealed his magic! My PB is early 1840 so imma try and beat you

[@xarxos5274]

Haha well :D I very much welcome you to try! If you wanna make a video recording as well and submit to the leaderboards then that'd be even better :)

[@nearen1]

@@xarxos5274 Will try! Currently on potato PC so maybe when I get a better one

[@xarxos5274]

@@nearen1 I see! Well, whenever you've got the means to do it, it's always nice to get more runners! :)

[@xModerax]

I was so proud about my 7 year run 😂😂😂

[@xarxos5274]

7 years is definitely not bad though, that's better than what most people have accomplished! :)

[@jeremyneil5775]

11:44 eso no lo sabia, lo aplicare mas tarde con otros paises