Is Sweden even viable after this update? ---Your Thoughts on it.

[das_ubersoldat]

Whenever Paradox does a stream, they more often than not play as a great power (Britain or france or the like) Yet, i havent seen them playing as a major power (say Sweden) in any of their most recent streams. Trying to play as Sweden is finicky, because from the get-go you are saddled with a small population and a weak economy, the problems i´ve noticed when playing as Sweden is that your economy will stagnate long before you even have a chance for return investement, yet you cant really increase your construction because of your lackluster economy. Even when i managed to get a stable income, (Just barely 1k) you can expect the construction cycle to take upwards of 50 to 70 weeks (and thats just Svealand) and i either close it down out of boredom or the economy crashing because you cant build fast enough. Its not helped by the fact that Private Construction is apparantly a permanent thing now.

I dunno, i know its the Victorian era with all the great powers and the like, and i dont expect Sweden to become one over night, but major powers should atleast be viable.

Whats your thoughts on it?

[Damedius]

Sure. I'm not sure I'd want to play as them because it would be a slow burn. But you have a decent size fleet and a bigger army than Denmark. You should be able to take states from Denmark who are an accepted culture. You probably want to run some Greener Grass campaigns because your Starting Population is smaller.

Make sure you make Nice with Prussia and Russia so they don't crush ya.

[das_ubersoldat]

Originally posted by Damedius:

Sure. I'm not sure I'd want to play as them because it would be a slow burn. But you have a decent size fleet and a bigger army than Denmakr. You should be able to take states from Denmark who are an accepted culture. You probably want to run some Greener Grass campaigns because your Starting Population is smaller.

Make sure you make Nice with Prussia and Russia so they don't crush ya.

Then i´d rather try to form Scandinavia through decisions, just because the Diplomatic Play system is too unreliable. You could have top relations with Prussia for instance, defencive and custom union, yet as soon as you try to take on Denmark, they all of a sudden join the danes instead.

[PTK]

Based mostly on my games from before the DLC. )Hopefully foreign investments can help somewhat with some of these.) I think the following:

I find Sweden to be too powerful. You have everything you need to get off the ground, coal (for some reason) iron, huge amounts of forest. Norway has huge amounts of sulphur, There are some African colonies you can get into to supply your tropical goods needs. Managascar being the best colony ever due to having both coal and rubber, a sizable population and geographical isolation.

Playing Sweden I always find I can run a comfortable autarky, which means Im less likely to be ♥♥♥♥♥♥ by the AI.

Generally whenever I play a major power, I find I lack one resource, If I can find a steady supply of that one resource the rest of the game is a dream. Sweden has all those base resources, and no real threats surrounding it. meaning I can focus on "soceity building" or just bide my time to strike. For Belgium, or even the Netherlands, you are more at the mercy of being dragged into diplomatic plays going on above your head.

Really I think the issue is for most medio-powers is that there never is enough supply of basic resources on the market. In all my hours in the game, Ive never been able to trust the international markets to supply me with vital resources like coal or iron in sufficient amounts.

I think there might be A and B teams when it comes to major powers. Just like there is for great powers. Some countries you have done well with, if you maintain your major-power rank. Some great powers are going to fall into major-power rank. Some major-powers have a right of becoming great powers.

[Gorlos]

Sweden cannot puppet Norway because they want liberty xD

[Gorlos]

...and swedish market is bugging when Norway is puppeted with that new diplomatic miracle. Maybe wait a patch.

[coolgame308]

Originally posted by Gorlos:

Sweden cannot puppet Norway because they want liberty xD

Makes a ton of sense! I love the improved performance of this update, but this aspect of subject-suzerain relationships is just laughable.

[Vellsi]

Didn't start with Sweden itself but I played a Norway game to test out the new subject mechanics in a simple and familiar setting before annexing Sweden and forming Scandinavia. Breaking free took a while but it also gave me the opportunity to experiment with market dynamics and foreign investment.

In my opinion Scandinavia itself is still very much viable but you obviously quickly rely on Mass Migration Attraction to keep growing. Sweden starts with great laws to make migration possible early. Borders are not closed, so you just have to get the Intelligentsia in the government to change Citizenship and Church laws. Building a few universities in the capital (for the influence bonus) should give them enough clout to get laws passed.
After that you can put Greener Grass Campaigns on all your provinces to get Mass Migrations and scale up the economy. I usually end up getting more people than one could get construction throughput to put them to work for.

The state modifiers are all for useful things like agriculture, wood, iron, ports and shipyards. On top none of them have penalties, so it's actually a pretty strong country with various specialization options.

Coal is of course an issue but depending on how the game goes you could get it through Prussia, Russia, the US, annexing Belgium, colonizing South Africa or rummaging around in the Middle East.
Sweden used to be a strong naval nation in the early game (and a great supplier of ships to the entire world if you declare interests well and supply nations with large Clipper and Man-O-War demand) but I'm not sure how viable that still is in 1.7. In the previous patch it used to be possible to prevent the navy-weaker Great Powers (Prussia, Russia, USA and Austria) from helping anyone requiring shipping routes - one just had to raid away their convoys and put the army on Defense until their morale has dropped enough to run them over - but I've not put it to a test in 1.7 yet.


What was really difficult for me with 1.7 were the new building mechanics. At first I made the mistake thinking nationalized buildings give me more dividend income, which is good - but it turned out to be exactly the wrong thing to do. I didn't understand how to scale up the economy to compete with the surrounding major powers until I figured out that the player, as the government, is no longer supposed build most of the economy by themselves (with the exception of a few key economic buildings to create new investment cycles for the AI). The reason for this is quite simple:

Half of your Economy of Scale value gets a penalty from nationalized buildings. You have to privatize or all those buildings you are stacking will not get proper throughput.

The way it seems is that the government, means the player, is mostly a provider for construction throughput for the private sector, similar to how Laissez-Faire worked before 1.7. The goal is to keep the investment pool at or near zero, to maximize returns from the investment and dividend cycle. Nationalization only serves to deprive entrenched factions of political power, by removing their source of income/wealth and driving them out of business.

Mind you, Peasants in 1.7 are still the first thing to get out of subsistence farming and into buildings (for tax reasons), so the first goal is to get all of them into resource buildings to scale construction with, while building the occasional agriculture building to keep fabric and grain affordable. This bumps up tax income significantly and scales construction capacity further.
Aside from that it's always better to have business in the hands of people (if politics allow it), so the Standard of Living increases (good for migration and taxes), they have more money to fund more construction efforts (including those abroad) and the Throughput bonus applies without penalty.

Speaking of foreign investments: If you can not churn out more construction throughput from a lack of income, affordable construction materials or infrastructure, make sure you have investment rights to another country where you or your Pops can build up the economy. If it's a nation with access to a certain resource you need, just go import it from that nation (even at a loss) and the AI will build up the buildings for you in that country. Eventually you get to buy the goods you built buildings for in large quantities at affordable prices, to supply your home economy, while also getting dividend income (which acts as a further discount to the trade cost, except that it's passed on directly to you or the Investment Pool).. From my testing it creates a tax- and SoL-beneficial cycle with a little snowball of its own that is notable over the course of a game.

Which brings me to the last point. I'm Not sure how the balance works out yet but the whole economic system seems rather promising, provided one gets to figure out best practices. I currently presume Agrarianism is much stronger than Interventionism, as most Pops will be Aristocrats, Farmers and Clergy for a good while until one has built up enough of a tax base to efficiently industrialize from - or has researched Mutual Funds. It might mean that pure construction scaling (until all resource buildings are built and all Peasants are assigned), while letting Pops invest their earnings on the side, might be the absolute best way to build up a nation. Needs more testing though and with all the law and demographic combinations it's beyond my ability to conclude.

[Gorlos]

Hotfix 1.7.4 is now LIVE!

It is once again possible to start Reduce Autonomy & Annex Subject diplomatic play against subjects, even if their Liberty Desire is high. However, doing so will result in taking on the full infamy cost of the wargoal rather than the usual reduction for targeting subjects.


Now it might be playable again after 1.7

[Jason]

I played a Sweden game last week and found it a very tough start. I am not an expert player by any means but somewhat experienced (750+ hours) and can make minor powers into #1 Great Powers plenty of times.