Modernizing the Japanese Shogunate

[Ole "Slim Jolo" the Hobo Hero]

What are some routes to faster modernization? I've only slowly built the clout / class of industrialists and such big enough now to forcefully reform gov and switch from Traditionalist economic law, but now trying to do something like aboloshing serfdom will result in a civil war that I can't really win as the shogunate / samurai have the bulk of the armies and such.

Goona do a greasy save scum and maybe try and change trade policy instead of serfdom instead. Outside of being the shogunate, I'm basically still Imperial Japan in that I've colonized quite a bit of Micronesia, and parts of Indonesia, etc, but because my population can't move around it's only the local peoples that can work in industries there. Even on Sakahlin there are more than 500,000 russians on their north half of the island and only like 27,000 Ainu / Siberians in the south, despite my efforts to build industry and such there theres just not a pop to work it cuz my people can't move around, hehe.

It's still my first game and I went in blind, have defended myself from France twice now in wars in the oceania sphere. Feel like I'm quite outpaced by the europeans / americans who want influence in the region and the only way to compete is modernize, but I can't win a war against the landowners in Japan like Shogunate / Samurai interest groups if they revolt against me changing a law :p

Also slowly working towards the 'urbanize' decision but I'm only at like 44% or something.

[Ole "Slim Jolo" the Hobo Hero]

economy is always kind of outpaced by needs of wood, coal, tools, iron, some steel/motor/rail needs and some things like services, furniture, clothes, I'm trying to build industry to drive price down but can never seem to catch up on the deficit

[Mutsu Ara Ara~]

Best way I've found for weakening the Shogunate/landowners is push for landed voting. The landowners don't oppose it and it gives more the other interests more political power so you can pass the more difficult reforms.

[Mordred]

look at the freedom of conscious laws and bureaucrat laws they allow you to change ownership mode of your universities, government buildings and urban centers away from clergy to academics and the likes which lets you pass other political reform laws like voting or serfdom that reduce landowner power and get your industrialists more powerful faster to change to laisezz faire and per capita taxation which will let you develop faster.

also when you pass a law you get a multiyear opinion debuff from the interest groups that opposed it so if you do back to back -10 opinion changes from aristocracy they may rebel but you could do back to back -5 opinion changes

and if you play a nation that's behind on tech and has low literacy because of having a high population and has negative tech spread from isolationism and unrecognized power, over building universities and getting 40ish tech spread from unused innovation is important to keep up in military and other advances.

[Dray Prescot]

Could you get another Country like GR or USA to use a Diplomatic Play against use you to force use to abolish serfdom, or to modernize, or to open your closed Borders?

That is sort of what happened to Japan, the USA forced them to open up their borders, etc., or least demonstrated to them why they needed to change.

[kgkong]

Bolster the pop group that supports abolish serfdom.
But you might have to restart your game several times over. Farm for more favorable ideologies in the political group leader characters.

Bolster the political group, add them to government, wait a few months to let the clout grow, and attempt to fix or improve SoL in the mean-time. Check your Populations > Detailed tab for the lowest SoL pop groups and inspect how they align with the government clouts. See if you can appease them first over any pop group. Ignore cultural discrimination if it's a problem unless you can improve your citizenship law.

[shiggies713]

Search Vic 3 Japan on YouTube watch the videos and enjoy. You’ll almost fully understand the game completely afterwards and have a fantastic idea of what to do.

I forgot the guys name but it literally is a series of like 10-15 videos that explains just about everything in the game while doing a nice Japan run.

[Exile]

There isn't a magic "modernization" button for undeveloped countries. You can try to force through laws but that always comes with the risk of civil war.

Build up your economy, raise your standard of living, build universities. This will erode the power of the landowners and raise it for other interest groups. You will need to import a lot of stuff for industrial growth as well, this is true for any country but especially Japan since it's an island and relatively resource-poor.

Historically Japan didn't reach parity with Europe until like 1920. You can probably beat that by a couple of decades with careful management, but you aren't going to become a superpower over night.

[The Void Boy]

Originally posted by Mutsu Ara Ara~:

Best way I've found for weakening the Shogunate/landowners is push for landed voting. The landowners don't oppose it and it gives more the other interests more political power so you can pass the more difficult reforms.

I tried that before. Because they're so dominant, they'll most likely win every election, and every time they win, their influence skyrockets.

[Ole "Slim Jolo" the Hobo Hero]

Originally posted by Exile:

There isn't a magic "modernization" button for undeveloped countries. You can try to force through laws but that always comes with the risk of civil war.

I didn't think there was, I was just wondering if I was going about pursuing it the right way since it's already about 1906 in my game, haha. I hadn't realized I'd left my universities on clergy education too, for example. With some of my pops I'm feeling I actually could have tried much sooner trying to erode Shogunate power and at least have a ticker now for a peaceful Yoshida restoration if I can manage to reduce the Shogunates power enough.

Originally posted by Mutsu Ara Ara~:

Best way I've found for weakening the Shogunate/landowners is push for landed voting. The landowners don't oppose it and it gives more the other interests more political power so you can pass the more difficult reforms.

Trying this myself now, they've at least accepted trying to get the law through instead of going to revolt like abolishing serfdom would, haha! I think on an earlier save I could probably have started this in at least 1880 had I realized the process earlier.

At least overall have the income and construction sectors to rapidly expand industries in short expensive bursts which also helped me achieve the urbanization thing faster too, and most of my goods needs are now not at such mass deficits minus coal and tools for the most part.

Again though, think I could realistically go back to an earlier 1880 or 1860 save and properly start earlier now that I realize the process better, but I'll also play this game through since it's already 1906 anyways :p

[shiggies713]

I can break it down literally step by step if you want, its possible to not only get rid of the shogunate but be probably the most liberal nation by like 1860.

Basically start with professional army or changing police (switch to dedicated to hurt shogunate power) this coincidentally increases samurai power. You can use the samurai power to help pass colonization next. If you are extremely lucky you can actually pass professional army and dedicated police before you can even finish researching colonization. And i'm talking, researching it immediately.

You absolutely HAVE to rush romantism or whatever the one is that unlocks agrarianism early. This will make the aristocrats poorer, and they can then start helping pay for all your ports as you continue colonizing. Also remember to pack as many capitalist in your capital as you can (max level wood industries using tools is easiest)

By the time you can pass appointed beaurocrats you're well on your way. Once you get rid of serfdom you're there, the shogunate should be less than 20% clout by then easily.

You have to keep switching governments around in the beginning to pass anything and then eventually keep inteligistia and whoever else can help pass laws you want in. Like basically keep samurai in there, pass profesional army and dedicated police, then colonization, then put in i think its petite bourgousie for migration controls, then back to inteligistia for appointed beaurocrats, and so on. Don't pass landed voting until you've at least knocked the shogunates down a few times with other reforms or you will lose every election as you already learned.

Do NOT use early game authority for consumption taxes. As japan you are MUCH better off doing road maintenance in your few provinces you are actually building in and promote social mobility as much as possible everywhere else. Your pops will thank you later, and so will your technology. Higher literacy also means higher chance of joining inteligencia. And of course use roughly 200-400 of it bolstering inteligencia and possibly suppressing whoever is giving you grief passing laws. I have found my chances of success to be greatly higher when i am suppressing the only IG against the laws im trying to pass. Don't even try to pass a law if it is going to make 20% of the political clout or more radical.

There is also alternatively a unique set of events that i believe can happen if the shogunate is not in the government but also powerful and being supressed... it will basically slowly remove their power by event if you do that, but be weary of low legitimacy.

[kgkong]

Originally posted by Gnirith:

Originally posted by shiggies713:

Search Vic 3 Japan on YouTube watch the videos and enjoy. You’ll almost fully understand the game completely afterwards and have a fantastic idea of what to do.

I forgot the guys name but it literally is a series of like 10-15 videos that explains just about everything in the game while doing a nice Japan run.

are you referring to PotatoMcWhiskey? he has a complete series using Japan as a start, think it is up to 14 videos now.... [Victoria 3 - A tutorial for complete beginners - Japan]

I have only watched the first couple so far, but enjoying it, although I admit that my lens as a new player/non owner of game (as of now) may have tinted my glasses positively =)

..and there may be better ones out there o.O?

JumboPixel and SpiffingBrit have some good videos on how to play the game. JumboPixel is more tutorial/explanatory with his, SpffingBrit is more "here let me show you how the mechanics work so I can cheese them for a specific goal".

Leith the Social Streamer is another good one, but he hasn't got much time in Vic3 yet. The way he approaches the PDX games are fairly interesting I think, but he timelapses a lot of his vids.

[shiggies713]

yup thats it. PotatoeMcWhiskey sounds right. He has a pretty chill and easy to listen to approach, and i think he becomes the world #1 as japan all while explaining everything like the viewer has never played.

[Ole "Slim Jolo" the Hobo Hero]

Too be honest, I didn't realize I could just take the legitimacy hits and add one of these groups to my government just to unlock access to changing laws and such after I get the techs. Lol I'll go back to earlier saves and see if I can't force a modernizing Japan a bit earlier now that I understand it's kinda about eroding the landowners power and building the intelligentsia / industrialists etc, which is what I had noticed and was trying to bolster but hadn't nearly enough universities/etc for it to matter this far into the game. I wonder if lots of my urban industries weren't also suffering from lack of qualifications and such since I only had about 28% literacy still :p

Heck maybe a war with the Samurai / Shogunate would just be easier if I can get my allies like Korea / Dutch East Indies to help me, I just noticed last time seemed the bulk of my army vanished during the revolution (had 33 battalions left) and most of the generals I could hire is seemed tended to be from shogunate class which I'd think would have an effect when that's who you're in a civil war with :p

Even in 1906, I've found playing catch up with the navy an expensive task, though my ship building industries have started to catch up. How many ships should one have by like 1900 to be competetive? Lol, I only have 15 Ironclads (and that's after an aggressive 'modernizing' campaign in 1895 leading up to my last war with France which I did manage to win still)

Lol I assume USA will come knockin' eventually since Hawaii is a protectorate of mine, I don't think 15 Ironclads will last long against them :p

[kgkong]

I start with 10-15. But I upgrade the flotilla quality using the naval base production methods.
That's my early game anyways.
My mid-late game i"m running 30-40.
And my late game I'm 40+.

I don't use navies a whole lot. You don't need them a whole lot. They're important for naval invasions obviously. If you can't succeed at a naval battle because you're outnumbered, just go raid some convoys to draw the enemy navy off into escorting convoys so you can get better odds at naval invasion success.

But there's also a trade off. Not enough flotillas and you take landing penalties with your army if the army greatly outpaces the navy. You don't need to 1:1 ratio the army you're naval invading with to the flotillas you have. I often send in 15-25 battalions with only 10-20 flotillas well enough.

[Midas]

Convois are more important for the supply of your landing armies but most people dont have convoys in reserve, cause they are expansive