Yet another newbie asking for help as Great Britain

[Synthshadow]

Good morning all.

After a long time away from games due to life getting in the way, I treated myself to a new computer and my next purchase was Vicky 3.

After watching MANY "how to" videos I wanted to take on being Britain a couple of times and promptly/hilariously/predictably tanked my economy every time. I feel the reason was (aside from my poor playing) that the Britain play throughs i watched were a little outdated? So I'm really asking for real beginner help just early game to get me steady on my feet.

My ambitions are: To make a "crystal Ball" Britain that knows and gets the places with the best resources. Not massively into conquering everything, though to do ANYTHING with France sticking their oar in early doors would be nice! That and maybe taking back the US if that's doable. Other than that i'm happy to hill and build my streamlined empire.

Any foolproof help would be hugely appreciated, be it a link somewhere or anyone's time in typing out. I promise i ave done some of my own research before this and came out wanting a fair bit. What to build first, where, how much (looking at you CS) would all be great.

[alexander.julian.erhard]

I can´t exactly say what would be a "foolproof" amount of construction centers.
That´s definitely some personal preference, depending on whether:
-You want to reserve some surplus income/gold reserves for wars, playing it very safe but expand your economy/technology a bit slower
-You play it somewhat normal and try to keep balance and gold reserves/credit around 0.
-As a great or major power you can also play it risky and purposefully go a into debt, but try to get more credit limit per week than you accumulate debt per week.
If done well, it expands your economy faster than maintaining 0 balance and gold reserves.
At the risk of course that a big war can screw you over hard and bankrupting you, giving you a lot more radicals and weakend military for 10 years.


If you have determined your comfort zone, I think you should at first build construction as long as you´re above that comfort zone and it doesn´t create an input goods shortage, then expand either construction goods (allowing you to build a bit more again) or something else that is very profitable.

As for universities and innovation: For countries that at start are technology leaders like GB, you pretty much only need to get as much innovation as your innovation cap.
You should probably expand innovation to cap somewhere within the first 5-10 years.


As for comparison with older guides (before patch 1.5), there are generally 3 reasons why following them blindly, especially "start with x construction sectors", won´t work:

-increased construction costs of nearly all buildings
-The MAPI mechanic, which makes local demand/supply matter a bit even at 100% market access and overall will hurt the profitability of your buildings, because a good will
decrease in price in states where it is comparatively overproduced and increase a price in states where it is comparatively underproduced.
To stay the least affected by this mechanic, it is recommended to somewhat pair inputs and outputs of goods: build buildings with a major iron consumption, like construction sector and steel, to a lesser extend also tools and engines, preferably in states with iron (+coal),
buildings with a major sulfur consumption, like paper, fertilizer and explosives in sulfur states,
and glass in lead states.
-Services, Transportation and Electricity being made 100% local goods. Which unfortunately makes the game rather micromanagement heavy.
It also suffers from pop needs not really working that well imo, and autonomous construction also sometimes doing ridiculous overbuilding of railways and power plants, at least in some patches.

[Dave Reckoning]

Originally posted by Synthshadow:

though to do ANYTHING with France sticking their oar in early doors would be nice!

Don't under-estimate the importance of Diplomacy, it's absolutely key. You'll greatly benefit from having a clear, focused and well-thought-through diplomatic strategy to keep a balance of power within the Great-Powers; but a balance that works to tilt that balance of power so you're either the first-among-allies or the head-of-the-axis-of-evil. There's no virtue in going into an even war, always go in with at least one of your mates on-side.

For example, having 2 or even 3 out of Prussia, Austria and Russia (later, Scandanavia, the USA and even Italy are in there too) all supporting you against the French will make it much more of a stroll.

But you'll have to positively work towards that, in a focused way. Getting to that positive balance of power can be done by using your economic strength and "stretch" to empower your diplomatic strategy. Gradually build your diplomatic links and friends. Trade with your friends, starve your foes. Feed and strengthen your allies and they'll be strong and supportive, but make sure to stay one step ahead even of them.

And actually, planning all that and then working it through to success can be immensely satisfying, in game.

Have fun!