how tf do u play this game

[girellifederico8]

??

[kgkong]

There's a learning curve and a lot of trial and error.
Take your time, play slow. Do the Learn the Game start a few times and carefully read.

The tutorial does not explain everything. So check out some YT videos on some of the mechanics of the game to see how they work.

Basically it's a grand strategy economic simulator with diplomacy. Warfare is not like past PDX games and functions with a bit more autonomy than most players are used to.

There are lot of micro mechanics that spillover into other mechanics of the game.

Basically how you play the game comes down to what kind of experience do you want? Do you wanna rule with an iron fist and control everything as an autocrat? Or do you wanna be a peaceful fun loving liberal paradise? Do you wanna be an economic power house? Or how about a military giant? Each focus has its own.

After playing the Learn the Game, try playing the other goals (economic, hegemony and egalitarianism). They provide some additional quests on how to play with those focuses more in mind (economic is about having a booming industry, hegemony is about global domination and egalitarianism is about being a liberal beacon for utopian life).

The better question is... What are you struggling to understand? And pick one thing to focus on first, don't try and consume the entire game and understand it in a heartbeat.

[-=EDF=- Kouta Seto]

Do the tutorial with either nation and then do the "mission based ones" pre sandbox. After that you should be able to grasp the basics enogh to survive, the rest is, as KingGorillaKong said, learning by failing as all games should be.

And if you dislike this being a great simulation of today's marked and industry then i suggest skipping this game entirely

[Kaizem]

You can watch some tutorials. Your first goal should be producing what you need to satisfy your construction sector. If you play a country like france, which i would recommend for a begginer, i would build in the following order 15 construction sectors>tools>iron>coal>chemical plants>steel>motor engines. Use deficit spending to your advantage. You should have a decent deficit at the start of the game, just make sure you do this slowly.

[kgkong]

Originally posted by Kaizem:

You can watch some tutorials. Your first goal should be producing what you need to satisfy your construction sector. If you play a country like france, which i would recommend for a begginer, i would build in the following order 15 construction sectors>tools>iron>coal>chemical plants>steel>motor engines. Use deficit spending to your advantage. You should have a decent deficit at the start of the game, just make sure you do this slowly.

I personally recommend against playing as a larger nation as a noobie. Does make playing mid to late game a bit easier. But it makes taking in the core of the game harder with having to micro manage so much more right from the start.

Start as Cape Colony, Hudson Bay Company, Haiti, or Brunei for a simple start and easier onboarding to learn the game.

[curtadamsCA]

For learning, I recommend a small nation without enemies. Chile is good. I suspect smaller British dominions like the Cape Colony and Australia would be good too.

[teron]

One critical thing is avoid going majorly over your infrastructure cap, since doing so will effect market access and create a bunch of inefficiency in the states.

This is especially the case early game before you have railroads that you can build to increase infrastructure

The sources of infrastructure are the following:
• Ports, which the amount they give is effected by the Production method. Limited to coastal states, also a limit based on tech and terrain modifiers you can build in each state
• Railroads, which train type increases the infrastructure. The car type reduces infrastructure but gives more Transportation.
• Techs that give you infrastructure by the number of population up to a cap. Examples of this are urban planning and modern sewers

[Holo]

Make stuff, upgrade it to the highest tech level you can use, then keep making stuff that fulfills the things that are needed to work it.

For example, say you build a lumber camp, and set it to use tools to make more wood, then your next goal is to make more tools to make lumber camps more profitable and lumber camps create demand for tools, now you need to make more iron/steel, in order to create the said tools, as well as wood, making this an enclosed circuit where you can just make more and more of each if you keep it in equilibrium (not really since tools are way more expensive than wood, but either way you will end up using tools everywhere else). Now, your next goal is to go to the next level, say steel from iron, so you have to shift your toolmakers from making iron tools to making steel tools which creates demand for steel which in turn makes steel more costly and making the steel factories more profitable to operate.

This applies to literally everything and is the entire point of the game. The rest is RP and is honestly not *that* important, though the game heavily pushes you towards being a modern democracy as it removes all negative debuffs.

[spasti696969]

Click on the button that says "build farm"

[Ratio decidendi]

I think you will actually learn quicker through playing Vicky 2 first, then re-adjusting to the Vicky 3 mechanics, especially if you're completely new to the Victoria series.

[Team Triss]

Originally posted by curtadamsCA:

For learning, I recommend a small nation without enemies. Chile is good. I suspect smaller British dominions like the Cape Colony and Australia would be good too.

I can't tell if it's my ignorance or Chile is supposed to become an insignificant power... I'm trying to raise the GDP but I'm not finding the tutorial very helpful, and I don't understand why my Power Projection from my bases (which is 42 according to various tooltips) only gives me +8 for prestige since PP adds to Prestige, so I'm in the mid-high 30s for Prestige and suddenly I need 42 to stay a minor and I can't do it fast enough.

I wonder if there's some bugs in certain tooltips as well; I mouse over something to see what expanding it will look like and for example it says -2.5k per week, then I mouse over that and it says +.55k per week and gives the breakdowns of the costs and revenues and it looks like it matches that positive tooltip but not the negative one...

I'm all about interactive tutorials but this one feels... lacking. The Tell Me Why and How buttons are a nice addition but there's no Tell Me What; what am I supposed to be looking out for, or trying to min/max?

Also, re: Chile, I pass almost no laws because I can't just select them, apparently somebody has to push for them actively or have a trait that wants them, whereas my leader is Moderate so unless I get a random political movement nothing really happens. I can do national guard and dedicated police, and that's apparently it unless I wanna piss off the Intelligencia (and further tank my prestige with that insane -10% or higher modifier) by going monarchy.

[Zero, Dark Knight]

Sadly, this whole game is best learned by playing it until it just "clicks" or it's best learned via YouTube guide, or talking to friends/forum members, whom are usually helpful in explaining stuff.

The problem this games tutorial really suffers from, is that the devs know how this stuff works and so they can't think like someone just entering this game for the first time. Because for them, they're probably in the multiple hundreds of hours each.

They need to redesign it, and properly teach mechanics - in a deep and clear manner... without caring if it's condescending or downtalk, that's what a tutorial is supposed to be after all.
but Vic3 took the 'you're a smart cookie, you barely even need the tutorial!" approach. and it failed.

[kgkong]

Power projection isn't a 1 to 1 ratio of PP to prestige.
Raising your GDP only goes so far if you only have a small trade market. Larger trade markets means more access to goods, often cheaper goods, which means higher productivity rates for industries, which increases GDP at a higher rate than just a single country raising their GDP.

Join a custom union as Chile. Industrialize them and don't build many farms. Build a few resource buildings but only to offset the raw good prices for your industry based on the good prices in your trade market.

I've made Buganda's GDP rival the USA's in my game really easily by focusing on industrialism and joining a trade market that provides access to ample amounts of raw goods that I can just en masse turn into the much more heavily demanded industrial goods. GDP skyrockets when you do this. Otherwise, GDP climes so far, then you stagnant your economy because you're manipulating your market prices too much yourself and not allowing enough trade and market access to others to increase demand of goods to raise the price for you to profit off of more.

[Team Triss]

Originally posted by KingGorillaKong:

Power projection isn't a 1 to 1 ratio of PP to prestige.

I was figuring as much but I wish it told me that.

Originally posted by KingGorillaKong:

Raising your GDP only goes so far if you only have a small trade market. Larger trade markets means more access to goods, often cheaper goods, which means higher productivity rates for industries, which increases GDP at a higher rate than just a single country raising their GDP.

I get GDP is number of goods * price of goods, but what price? The price in my market? The base price? Do I want more goods, but cheaper, or do I want more goods that are more expensive?

I've tried to raise the SoL by focusing on the goods that are most expensive, which for Chile invariably seems to be clothes, but I think I'm missing the bigger picture here.

EDIT: one thing I would also like to learn more about is why does expanding an existing building make less money than setting up a new one in another state? Chile starts with a level 2 logging camp in Los Rios, expanding it to level 3 predicts -0.52k per week from increased tool costs and the dropping cost of wood, but building a level 1 in Santiago thinks the wood will instead make money? They're part of the same market, and all local prices should be the market price because they all have 100% market access, no?

What am I missing here?

[kgkong]

Check your market window, under the first tab. You can sort it by supply or by market price. I prefer the supply sorting, and I focus on producing what is low supply. Generally speaking, low supply goods will cost more. Add in when they're also highly demanded, raises the price.
In terms of resources and raw goods, you want them to be as cheap as possible. Your production rating for industries is basically the profit margin which is good output price - cost of goods and wages to produce.
For manufacturing industries, you want to produce the highest demand and lowest supply. Pay attention to see what your custom union good shortages and expensive goods are. These are good indicators of industries that will provide you long term growth if the demand steadily rises with production. Using the supply sorting in the market window, you can see what is lowest supply which will provide the highest good price (usually) which would be indicated by the market price (scales from -75% to +75%).

*shrug* I hope this helps. Economics isn't too complex but it can be confusing with how many individual factors actually screw with supply and demand. I've found starting from just the focus of supply and demand and slowly introducing yourself to the factors that actually control supply and demand variation and changes is the least confusing.

[Zero, Dark Knight]

Originally posted by LoR Team Triss:

What am I missing here?

You're missing the power of individual province taxation, wages, and business upkeep.

Basically, if the people in State A have jobs already, providing -more- jobs won't provide your people as big a quality of life boost as providing super poor people in State B their only jobs.

The income of the buildings may be the same but the people in State B raising their SoL and buying more goods = more money for the same building.

but you would miss out on the throughput bonus by splitting your logging up.
Though you would benefit from the ability to create 2 different production chains, later on.

-- I think it's something like that ... this game is kinda weird.