Tips on unification and when it's better to conquer.

[DaedalusSA]

So I was wondering just how to do this in a good way, most of the information I've read has been from a version at least a year old and I'm not entirely sure if it's all correct anymore.

Also I started by taking over India since I realized it was almost impossible to take it from the AI while the Religion CP is still active but I'm not entirely sure if it was the best pick or if I should have gone after Europe/USA instead.

[debott]

Peaceful unification & military conquest are functionally mostly unchanged since EA launch. Only minor changes like how miltech gets recalculated after absorption.

India is somewhat under-developed and unrestful at first, but can quickly be turned into a super power. I like to start my campaigns with India, too. But try not to limit yourself on only one nation.

[DaedalusSA]

Oh, i'm trying to take more nations but when I try I generally go way over my CP cap trying to get any useful areas other than India and a few small places, hence the Unification tips.

[generalcoffeemug]

For india you're better off using unrest and coups, and then some public campaign to support that. You might have to use multiple coups. Not a public campaign + crackdowns because they have the CP for unity. The unrest missions will also reduce the IP for unity and make your public campaigns stronger. Try and catch the nation when cohesion is low and arrest any councilors trying to use stabilize missions. Then maybe snipe their high command councilors just before coup if you're still having difficulty. You can also occupy some regions to reduce their GDP in the coup calculation.

But if you're picking between India, EU, and USA, definitely go for USA or EU. You really only want India if you want extremely high population for whatever reason.

[DaedalusSA]

I had heard that India/China are good because of their very high growth potential so I was trying to use them for that.

So how hard is it to hold on to the EU, every time I've looked at Europe it's a nightmare mess of contested nations?

I've tried the US before but it felt like something was missing when I played it, maybe I was just thinking too hard.

[generalcoffeemug]

Originally posted by DaedalusSA:

I had heard that India/China are good because of their very high growth potential so I was trying to use them for that.

India and China are good for growth yeah, but you have to play the game very long to see the results. You have to spend 1000s of IP across economy, government, and the rest to catch up to the US and EU. If you take the US or EU you can do more and earlier. I haven't seen some breakdown of whether the growth is worth foregoing holding the US or EU the entire growth period, and growing those instead.

So how hard is it to hold on to the EU, every time I've looked at Europe it's a nightmare mess of contested nations?

Europe is probably the region which has CPs that change hands the most in the game most of the time. You either want to form the EU and raise GDP high enough to stop missions to take the CPs from your faction, or hold high Europe GDP CPs and use federations to get resources to your faction even if you don't hold the CPs of contested nations and then take those CPs sometimes as necessary.

I've tried the US before but it felt like something was missing when I played it, maybe I was just thinking too hard.

What do you mean? Also what faction are you playing?

[DaedalusSA]

Resistance, it's the starter faction after all.

I mostly meant that it didn't feel like i could get the ball rolling as the US, maybe it's because it takes so much CP and that I didn't really understand how to use my priorities correctly which meant I didn't fix the inequality enough.

[generalcoffeemug]

Originally posted by DaedalusSA:

Resistance, it's the starter faction after all.

I mostly meant that it didn't feel like i could get the ball rolling as the US, maybe it's because it takes so much CP and that I didn't really understand how to use my priorities correctly which meant I didn't fix the inequality enough.

Keep the cohesion resting state above 0.0 and crush inequality to the low 4s, maybe go to the high 3s depending on what happens in your game.

[POWER WITHIN USER]

Also I started by taking over India since I realized it was almost impossible to take it from the AI while the Religion CP is still active but I'm not entirely sure if it was the best pick or if I should have gone after Europe/USA instead.

Early game, the largest nations are difficult to get into and only get worse when someone owns them.

You're better off killing councilors and maybe going for the country breakup (ie. End of China) + unrest technologies along with the one that causes regions to break off ('Freedom Fighters'?), splitting several millions of souls off the parent nation while also giving you a neighbor bonus.

If the servants get into a large, nuclear capable nation and they get far enough, you're going to have to use armies while avoiding the capital.

[Ravenous]

Africa aint a bad choice but you need patience.

[DaedalusSA]

There's so little information that is available for the current versions, many of the older parts tell me stuff that aren't possible anymore, like holding both the US and China within a few years of starting. (Because of the lower CP cost in the early versions)

Any tips on what to do after taking your main country? (the US currently)

[Pawleus]

Haven't you already been told to go for EU countries? Despite what's been told, though, it's easy currently (too easy, actually) to keep their CPs - throughout my entire current standard Brutal game I've used Defend Interest not even a single time and very rarely (like once a year on average and despite being at war with every faction since 2027) my CP has been taken in single CP countries, 2x in 2-CP Israel.

[DaedalusSA]

I constantly see 1-2 CP countries switch owners, they're swapping all the time.

The only one that never seems to swap is Singapore, that place *never* get bothered after I take it.

That said, the main reason why I took the US in this run was because I didn't want the extreme groups getting it and going nuclear.

I also realized that getting good public standing in China is a solid way to get a nice amount of Influence if you can manage to get a good persuade councilor as well as keeping it out of anyone else's hands.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by DaedalusSA:

I also realized that getting good public standing in China is a solid way to get a nice amount of Influence if you can manage to get a good persuade councilor as well as keeping it out of anyone else's hands.

If you control it yourself, you don't need a good Persuasion councilor for that (nor do you want to use them for such a purpose). Just use Unity to keep opinion up in high-GDP nations.

[DaedalusSA]

Is it still a good idea to make Mercury and Venus into the heart of your space empire or has that changed?

I was thinking of when to go there, any tips on when I should timeline-wise?

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by DaedalusSA:

Is it still a good idea to make Mercury and Venus into the heart of your space empire or has that changed?

It's a lot more expensive than it used to be, now that they fixed the radiation shielding requirement. All modules are much higher tonnage, and all of that extra tonnage is in the form of Metals.