USA how to?

[Wright1331]

Playing on the most recent beta branch, I cant seem to get any cohesion in the US. I got the inequality down to 3.1, Demo is at 8.7 and im working on pushing the research up over 10, all this while continuing to keep unrest pushed down. However, the cohesion resting point remains at 0. It will sometimes bump up a few .0* and then go right back down.
In the past once i got inequality down some and research to where it is now, I would have a resting cohesion at 5.0.
Been about 6+ months since I played, and im not sure if something changed or maybe the beta branch has a bug in this calculation..
Any thoughts would be helpful, ty

[ArcticISAF]

Playing on the experimental branch as well, inequality 3.1 should be good enough to get your cohesion going. 2.9 is pretty close to ideal. Can you see and list what's keeping the cohesion down (by hovering the mouse over the cohesion icon)? Might be a public opinion problem? And events pushing the cohesion down as well perhaps.

[debott]

Hover your mouse cursor over the cohesion value in the nation; it will tell you what raises and lowers cohesion.

- inequality is often the biggest contributor. But 3.1 for the US is actually quite good, so I don't think you'll need to do much more here.
- population and pop distribution you can't really/should not change
- rivalries and wars is probably what you are lacking. You might want to declare a bunch of minor wars, which will give you up to +3 resting point (Cuba, Sudan and Venezuela are perfect targets at game starts)
- elite public ideology should also not be underestimated. Keep public opinion in your favor.
- government type gives not too much of a leverage, but more democracy will trend more towards ~5 resting point.

[CommanderX125]

If you move the mouse cursor over cohesion, what does it show you? What pulls the cohesion down?

[Ravenous]

i have bumbed government, unity and welfare and environment for decades into US. Still very low cohesion, tends to go towards 0.

[Damedius]

Can you still declare war to raise your cohesion.? This is the only way that I have found to fix the US in a decent time frame.

[ArcticISAF]

Wars should work fine.
I'll post my cohesion stats, inequality is 2.897, democracy 10, cohesion rest at 5, 50% public opinion.
Base value: 20.50
-9.3 from inequality
-3.2 from population
-3.5 from geographical distribution
+0.5 from near-peer rivalries
-1.2 from elite public ideology difference
+1.1 from government

Pretty much a factor of inequality as the main thing and public opinion (if it's cratered).
Just hover over the icon to see what you need, likely inequality/welfare.

[debott]

Originally posted by Damedius:

Can you still declare war to raise your cohesion.? This is the only way that I have found to fix the US in a decent time frame.

Yes, it's still possible up to +3 resting point.
Mind, similar to rivalries, the target nation has to be a non-democracy. (unless the war declaring nation is itself a non-democracy, then it doesn't matter.)

[Premu]

The only longterm solution is to get the inequality down. So put a large focus on wealfare. After a few years the cohesion should be in a decent place. And even with a low cohesion of something like 2 the USA are a very strong and stable country if you take it over and start to fix it. It will still provide lots of research, and you will not suffer signifcant unrest either. So - just live with a few years of comparibly low cohesion while you expand your influence in the world.

Unity doesn't help in the long term, so unless it's really critically low you shouldn't use it to increase the cohesion above its resting point. You could use it to speed the rise to the resting point if it is signifcantly lower, though.

[Wright1331]

Ty all for the helpful responses.
base value 20.5 (<---- what does this actually mean?)
-10.2 from Inequality
-3.2 pop
-3.5 from geo pop dist
-3.8 from elite-pub ideo dif

So I'm guessing I just need to keep working on inequality and get it down below 2 or 1, which seems way different than before this patch...?

[Damedius]

Below 2.5 should be fine. It will take forever if you don't go to war to boost your cohesion though. Everything does seem really slow in this patch.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by Wright1331:

Ty all for the helpful responses.
base value 20.5 (<---- what does this actually mean?)
-10.2 from Inequality
-3.2 pop
-3.5 from geo pop dist
-3.8 from elite-pub ideo dif

So I'm guessing I just need to keep working on inequality and get it down below 2 or 1, which seems way different than before this patch...?

You're losing a lot of cohesion due to a large distance between the elites (your faction-controlled CPs) and the public ideology. Invest in some Unity and you'll easily gain ~2.5 cohesion rest point.

Base value 20.5 means what it says. Everyone gets a base value of 20.5, then other modifiers are added or subtracted from that to get the resting point.

[ArcticISAF]

Yep, what gimmethegepgun has said. Public opinion is the key. Get that up to ~50% public opinion and that -3.8 will go to -1.2 or lower.

[Ericus1]

For the US, since there is only one other nation they can rival that will affect resting cohesion (China) starting some early fake wars really helps to get resting cohesion up while you are working on lowering inequality. You can gain up to +3 to resting cohesion by being at war with at least 3 other nations, and each time you declare a war against a non-democratic rival you gain an immediate bump of 1 to your current cohesion provided 1) your current cohesion is above 2 and 2) you were at peace when you declared the war.

Thus you can farm cohesion bumps by declaring wars, making peace, and then declaring war on a different rival. Just be aware that being at war can trigger various negative events, like the atrocity event, even if you aren't actually fighting at all.

For other nations it is easier to get resting cohesion up by declaring rivals, which caps at +5 and only requires that one of the two nations be non-democratic and within a CP range of one less or higher of the nation in question. So e.g. Mexico (4 CPs) can easily get +5 to resting cohesion by setting 10 other non-democratic nations that have 3 to 6 CPs as a rival.

Additionally, despite the descriptions, inequality above the low 2s is actually still quite high for most nations. "Moderate" inequality is incredibly high and usually will destroy resting cohesion.

[debott]

Btw, perhaps a bit of topic, but isn't it weird that only near-peer rivalries give the bonus?
I mean, in the example of the US, it's surely not like the public doesn't care about 'smaller' nations at all, it's just that China happens to pose the largest threat to the US's position in the world.
Shouldn't smaller rivals also grant a smaller bonus to cohesion? (I think I remember having proposed something like that before...)

[Ericus1]

Well, smaller rivals do, provided they are only 1 CP less. So a 5 CP rival still counts for a 6 CP nation. But in terms of the cohesion gain, you really have to put it in perspective. Having the Soviet Union as a rival to the USA during the Cold War definitely instilled an "us versus them" mindset in the US population. But how many people would really care about having, say, Armenia as a rival? Most Americans couldn't even find Armenia on a map if their life depended on it. Or take the case of North Korea - most Americans think of Kim as a joke and NK as a pathetic failed state.

I think the idea is the rival in question actually has to pose as some kind of minimum threat to have a sufficient enough effect on the nation psyche to register an impact on national unity. Active wars however always tend to cause people to rally around their flag, which appears to be the reason that they always give that cohesion increase regardless of size; but this is balanced by the cap on that being lower (people only really care that you are AT war, multiple wars would blend together) and the non-trivial risk of negative consequences like the aforementioned atrocity event.