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Fister Roboto
Feb 21, 2008

DrProsek posted:

So to get ready for Victoria 2: Heart of Darkness, I tried out a new type of game called the "Oh God how do I USA" game. Everyone says the USA is easy to play but it was pretty hard for me! First, I stopped colonizing those poor natives because I didn't see what I needed them for, and instead used those NFs to build reactionary support in New York, since that seemed to be the only party that had its priorities straight in the USA, but I also took time to build liberals in the south to keep things fair and balanced.. To keep the slave states happy and not successionist, I admitted every single colony as a slave state. Then, I closed all the factories in the USA because I felt it would be a better investment to stay an agricultural society. Looking around I noticed there were lots of nations inside the USA yearning to be free, so I obliged them. In fact, I noticed there were nations inside Mexico that wanted to be free too, so I decided to dedicate 100% of my armed forces and money to freeing them! The end result is this


For the curious; the blue in Utah is 3/4 of the remaining USA (the other 1/4 is Washington itself. As the Free States of America, we have no need for the monument to tyranny, the White House), the blue just past Maine is the Maritime Union, and the green in Ohio and Arkansas is the Cherokee (I figured since there were a lot of Cherokee in Ohio, I'd give them a core on it when I released them).

Strangely, me and the CSA are both great powers. I have no idea what's going on with Canada in this game, the UK is doing so bad Socialists took over and installed a democracy and now they are Great Britain.


NOT PICTURED: Independent Yucatan and Tarasco. Also somehow the CSA got a core on everything from Idaho to Antioquia. I can't imagine this not resulting in a fascist CSA.

The Indian Territories; a machine gun pointed at the heart of California.

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Wolfgang Pauli
Mar 26, 2008

One Three Seven
I don't get why the Cherokee have cores on northern Arkansas and nothing else. The small reservation they had for a few years before the game even starts gives it cores on 2/3 of the state, but their actual homeland gets nothing?

DrSunshine
Mar 23, 2009

Did I just say that out loud~~?!!!
Okay, so I'm in sort of a pickle.



I'm playing as California, because I live here. :ca:



Over the years, my main concern is to not be swallowed up by my large blue neighbor. I've accomplished this goal largely through a policy of encirclement and "Fortress California". I'm a great power solely by force of my massive industrial economy, which is entirely concentrated in my one state, and is ranked third or fourth in the world. I do own two smaller holdings in Hawaii and Panama from the canal, but the vast bulk of my nation exists within the borders of California. As a single state nation, I cannot possibly rival the USA militarily, so my military exists mainly to guard the Sierra Nevadas against the American encroach.

To achieve the doctrine of Encirclement, I've created a "Greater Western Hemisphere Co-Prosperity Region", that consists of a network of alliances and puppet states. To the North, Socialist Canada is my ally, to the south is Mexico, Rio Grande, Texas, the United States of Central America, Colombia, Venezuela and Brazil, all sphered allies. To the East is my sphered ally of Spain, and to the West I have a good alliance with Russia.

Right now I'm sitting on a casus belli to liberate a state from the US's control, I'm thinking of liberating Utah back to Mexico. However, my problem is that America is, apparently, invincible. Whenever I declare war, the Americans rise up in their masses and perform vast invasions, everywhere, in all directions, simultaneously. After defeating Canada and Mexico on land, and the European and Central American powers at sea, the war becomes just one long march westwards, with me falling back again and again until the war creeps over the defensive mountain borders and into the heartlands.

Is there any way that I can take the USA down a notch? Is any land war winnable against the USA? Basically there's no way that I can compete once they fully industrialize, even with level 22+ factories filling the state. I had hoped to help the CSA in its rebellion, but just a decade after they won their independence, the USA ended up conquering them again.

Riso
Oct 11, 2008

by merry exmarx
Yeah the US really needs to lose their cores after the CSA wins.

Defeatist Elitist
Jun 17, 2012

I've got a carbon fixation.

What are the techs looking like? If you can manage to rush the tech that gives Gas Attack and get that before anyone else, you basically have a small window of time where your army will gently caress up anything it touches.

Gort
Aug 18, 2003

Good day what ho cup of tea

Mortuus posted:

How important is Their Finest Hour? I didn't realize I got HoI3 with an IndieGala bundle a while back, and it's the only Paradox game I haven't really gotten into. It's on Steam as well, so I can't use any Blue Coins on it, so I'm ok with spending $10 on SF and FtM, but I'm a bit hesitant to spend an extra $10 on it if I'm just going to be as overwhelmed as I was when I tried out Darkest Hour. I'd wait for a sale, but I really want something to hold me over until Heart of Darkness comes out.

If Darkest Hour overwhelms you, you'll probably drown in HoI3. It's a similar game with about five times the provinces and a very time-consuming command structure system.

Their Finest Hour adds some elements I certainly like, like the combined arms bonus which rewards diversity in units and the armour/penetration system that emphasises tanks, but if being overwhelmed is the issue, TFH isn't going to solve it for you.

burnishedfume
Mar 8, 2011

You really are a louse...

Wolfgang Pauli posted:

I don't get why the Cherokee have cores on northern Arkansas and nothing else. The small reservation they had for a few years before the game even starts gives it cores on 2/3 of the state, but their actual homeland gets nothing?

Yeah Victoria 2 is kinda strange about cores in general imho. You have situations where the Cherokee have cores on some provinces that have a Cherokee population but ones with a larger plurality of Cherokee they don't get cores, Russia has cores on Poland, and late game will get fascists if their Poles aren't returned, but Krakow gets no cores on former Poland, England has cores on Gibraltar but Spain does not, and Manifest Destiny instantly cores every province in the modern day USA. It just feels like sometimes they represent integral parts of the empire they cannot be without and will result in ultra nationalists fighting to take them back, other times they represent vague claims on land that are strategically important to the nation, but not like the ethnic homeland of then nation.

Speaking of which, I hit 1920 and everyone and their mother is going fascist. England, Philippines, Italy prior to any world wars, the Maritime Union, that Mexican nation that's south of California but not Mexico, the Confederacy is on its way... I checked these nations and their Revanchism isn't too high (like 9% at best), is that still a lot or is their AI just picking the worst option during all the events that can give fascists support?

Affi
Dec 18, 2005

Break bread wit the enemy

X GON GIVE IT TO YA
I'm having trouble with EU3, just installed it through steam and there are some weird graphic glitches like flags and certain graphics just showing up as black. I'm reinstalling now but if it continues do you have any idea what the problem is?

DrSunshine
Mar 23, 2009

Did I just say that out loud~~?!!!

Defeatist Elitist posted:

What are the techs looking like? If you can manage to rush the tech that gives Gas Attack and get that before anyone else, you basically have a small window of time where your army will gently caress up anything it touches.

Doesn't help much, I'm afraid. I've got Gas Attack, and I'm reasonably sure that the USA doesn't, but even so, when all I've got is a stack of 50k against repeated 125k doom stacks, they can only hold out so long.

Another oddity this time around. All I can build is Hussars, Mobile Artillery, Irregulars and Infantry, which are always comprised of "Native American Minor" pops. I can't build regulars, normal artillery, and other cavalry for some reason. I don't know why, because every time I've played California I've had access to the regular Yankee stuff.

EDIT: Here's what my industry and tech and population look like.

DrSunshine fucked around with this message at 14:54 on Apr 8, 2013

Drone
Aug 22, 2003

Incredible machine
:smug:


DrSunshine posted:

Another oddity this time around. All I can build is Hussars, Mobile Artillery, Irregulars and Infantry, which are always comprised of "Native American Minor" pops. I can't build regulars, normal artillery, and other cavalry for some reason. I don't know why, because every time I've played California I've had access to the regular Yankee stuff.

The one time I tried to play as California with AHD, the country never populated with any pops of accepted cultures, and no cultures would assimilate. In the end I think I just hosed with the save file to give San Francisco a bunch of primary culture pops, loaded it up, and then magically in like ten years everyone assimilated. I think it has something to do with the fact that when you release California in 1836 as Mexico, the state doesn't have a single accepted culture pop in it.

DrSunshine
Mar 23, 2009

Did I just say that out loud~~?!!!

Drone posted:

The one time I tried to play as California with AHD, the country never populated with any pops of accepted cultures, and no cultures would assimilate. In the end I think I just hosed with the save file to give San Francisco a bunch of primary culture pops, loaded it up, and then magically in like ten years everyone assimilated. I think it has something to do with the fact that when you release California in 1836 as Mexico, the state doesn't have a single accepted culture pop in it.

I'm playing with "A Pop Divided", but the weird thing, though, is that my previous game as California, where I did the same thing, I was able to build all my stuff just fine. I'm like 80% Yankee culture too.

Drone
Aug 22, 2003

Incredible machine
:smug:


Is there an event as the US where you can reject Manifest Destiny and lose all cores in the west? If so, I'd love to see this event taken out of the AI's control and put in the player's control if they're playing in the Americas. California can be a really fun country to play as but it's a total bitch because of the US. In ever Cali game I've played I've snuggled up real close to the US, best buds and total allies, and they STILL cancel the alliance and invade me. It's annoying as gently caress.

Then again... US foreign policy in the 19th century :eng99:

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy
I'm not sure if you can make use of this, but as I understand Victoria 2's battle mechanics, there's a certain point when you can have more brigades than can fit into the "frontage" of a battle. The trick here is to make stacks that are only as large as what you need to fill up that frontage: Send in one stack, have it fight until it's about to break, then send in your second stack, and pull out the first stack so its org and manpower can replenish. This gives you an advantage over the massive doomstack because their brigades never heal, even if half or two-thirds of them are just navel-gazing and waiting for their turn.

A_Raving_Loon
Dec 12, 2008

Subtle
Quick to Anger
Yes, that is the key to late-game V2 wars between industrial powers. Work out how many dudes can fit on your front, pile as much firepower as you can into that and leave the rest in reserve to sub in as needed. The battles will drag on for months at a time but as long as you keep them running somewhere with a favourable kill ratio you'll slowly grind them down and eventually get a breakthrough.

After machine-guns, every war is WWI. Plan accordingly and you can pull it off.

LP97S
Apr 25, 2008
Recently got V2, backed that up, and got AHD. Is there a good LP on how to learn what the hell I'm doing?

Beamed
Nov 26, 2010

Then you have a responsibility that no man has ever faced. You have your fear which could become reality, and you have Godzilla, which is reality.


A_Raving_Loon posted:

Yes, that is the key to late-game V2 wars between industrial powers. Work out how many dudes can fit on your front, pile as much firepower as you can into that and leave the rest in reserve to sub in as needed. The battles will drag on for months at a time but as long as you keep them running somewhere with a favourable kill ratio you'll slowly grind them down and eventually get a breakthrough.

After machine-guns, every war is WWI. Plan accordingly and you can pull it off.

I think it's actually pretty realistic, considering the gruesome warfare of the period (now if only the AI understood it too..)

Agean90
Jun 28, 2008


A_Raving_Loon posted:

Yes, that is the key to late-game V2 wars between industrial powers. Work out how many dudes can fit on your front, pile as much firepower as you can into that and leave the rest in reserve to sub in as needed. The battles will drag on for months at a time but as long as you keep them running somewhere with a favourable kill ratio you'll slowly grind them down and eventually get a breakthrough.

After machine-guns, every war is WWI. Plan accordingly and you can pull it off.

I think the AI cheats with its generals because every single war I fight after a decade will have some uber general with a + 4 on attack that renders them able to beat my larger army thats dug into mountains across a river with better military technology and a +2 defense general. I get that they can just produce generals whenever they get enough points but I would be nice if I can go up against someone who isnt the tactical lovechild between Hannibal and Alexander the Great every once in a while.

ChikoDemono
Jul 10, 2007

He said that he would stay forever.

Forever wasn't very long...


LP97S posted:

Recently got V2, backed that up, and got AHD. Is there a good LP on how to learn what the hell I'm doing?

I'm in the same boat. Is there a goon instructional LP of Victoria 2 like there is for CK2 and EU3? The game is so daunting and the let's plays I've seen on youtube confused me even more.

YouTuber
Jul 31, 2004

by FactsAreUseless
Is there a way to break up deadlock wars in EUIII? I had a fight to the death with Great Britain in my Byzantium game. Britain got a core on one of my Italian counties and since we were both the two largest powers in the game it broke out into a World War. I win the war through sheer attrition by burning through 125k manpower while I capture the British Isles. This sends them into -3 Stability and with both of us at -20 War Exhaustion they give up by trading Sciliy and I believe Calabrai? 3 Counties total while they flipped 5 of my colonies in North America. Immediately towards the conclusion of the war we both get declared war on by vultures and I fend off against most of the minor powers and pay some nonsense like 5k off to Bohemia to conclude the war.

Britain on the otherhand has rebellions out the rear end and USA forms. However, their revolution gets stuck because Britain has so much turf that either split off or is captured by various other countries. USA had something like 67% warscore and it wouldn't conclude for the last 40 years of the game. I swapped tags over and released England in one of the terms since Great Britain was more or less a non-entity at that point. Even then, it was still stuck and America couldn't conclude the war even when I would offer the sun and moon in terms to them. What exactly does USA want in the "American Revolution" war?

Mandalay
Mar 16, 2007

WoW Forums Refugee

ChikoDemono posted:

I'm in the same boat. Is there a goon instructional LP of Victoria 2 like there is for CK2 and EU3? The game is so daunting and the let's plays I've seen on youtube confused me even more.

In the 111 pages of this thread, there are probably at least 15 people who have asked for this. The best we have currently is ZearothK's outdated pre-expansion Brazil LP: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3430794

There is a Netherlands AAR on the Paradox forums that might serve you well, and it's on my to-read list. If you have the time, check it out and let me know how it goes: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?646921-A-return-to-Dutch-arithmetic-A-Netherlands-AHD-AAR-(2.31)

Drone
Aug 22, 2003

Incredible machine
:smug:


^^^^^^^
That Dutch one isn't terrible, but it's not really the one-stop-shop of Goon instructional LP's. Better than nothing though.

ChikoDemono posted:

I'm in the same boat. Is there a goon instructional LP of Victoria 2 like there is for CK2 and EU3? The game is so daunting and the let's plays I've seen on youtube confused me even more.

There was a pretty good one as Brazil I think, but I don't have the bookmark on me and I can't find it using forums search. It's probably archived by now.

ChikoDemono
Jul 10, 2007

He said that he would stay forever.

Forever wasn't very long...


Thanks for the links. Bookmarked both.

Rejected Fate
Aug 5, 2011

Man, I cannot get Victoria 2 to work for me. I've re-installed it twice and verified the game cache four times over, yet I always get the same error of file exception: virtualfilesystem.cpp, line: 624 . System cannot find the file specified.

YouTuber
Jul 31, 2004

by FactsAreUseless
How do you do anything as an external nation when it comes to Japan? Every Daiymo I click has no diplomatic options availible.

BillBear
Mar 13, 2013

Ask me about running my country straight into the ground every time I play EU4 multiplayer.

Rejected Fate posted:

Man, I cannot get Victoria 2 to work for me. I've re-installed it twice and verified the game cache four times over, yet I always get the same error of file exception: virtualfilesystem.cpp, line: 624 . System cannot find the file specified.

Make sure to delete the folder in the Steam, it doesn't get rid of everything when you uninstall.

A Buttery Pastry
Sep 4, 2011

Delicious and Informative!
:3:

Rejected Fate posted:

Man, I cannot get Victoria 2 to work for me. I've re-installed it twice and verified the game cache four times over, yet I always get the same error of file exception: virtualfilesystem.cpp, line: 624 . System cannot find the file specified.
Go into /map and delete the cache folder. If you're playing the steam version, make sure it doesn't auto-download stuff beforehand. That worked for me.

AnoMouse
Feb 13, 2012

YouTuber posted:

How do you do anything as an external nation when it comes to Japan? Every Daiymo I click has no diplomatic options availible.

There should be a red OPM called Japan, you have to go through him. I'm not sure if all the options are available though.

AnoMouse fucked around with this message at 22:48 on Apr 8, 2013

Baronjutter
Dec 31, 2007

"Tiny Trains"

I own V2 but didn't really like it. Felt the economy was a broken attempt at neo-liberal propaganda and the game was so hands-off to be totally not fun in any way. I wanted to make a socialist paradise but the game just wouldn't let me. I've heard V2 has had quite a few patches and now has an expansion. Has it made the game a lot better? Do players have more things to do and more control? Do the things we can't control behave a little less brokenly?

I really want to love Victoria 2, Victoria was one of my favourite games...

Clapham Omnibus
Nov 11, 2006

Baronjutter posted:

I own V2 but didn't really like it. Felt the economy was a broken attempt at neo-liberal propaganda and the game was so hands-off to be totally not fun in any way. I wanted to make a socialist paradise but the game just wouldn't let me. I've heard V2 has had quite a few patches and now has an expansion. Has it made the game a lot better? Do players have more things to do and more control? Do the things we can't control behave a little less brokenly?

I really want to love Victoria 2, Victoria was one of my favourite games...

Actually isn't socialism (planned economy) one of the better strategies because capitalists are absolutely idiotic about what factories they choose to build. I go planned often simply because its incredibly annoying having to shut down all those useless artillery factories they build over and over.

To answer your question though, I think AHD has been a vast improvement and made the game pretty playable, your mileage may vary however.

Cockblocktopus
Apr 18, 2009

Since the beginning of time, man has yearned to destroy the sun.


I've had a pretty good run in my first real game of Victoria 2 as France. Britain went broke about five years in and their prestige fell through the floor, so I was top dog from about 1840 to 1880, when their industry got scary. I grabbed the Rhineland off of Prussia in two separate wars to keep a strong Germany from forming on my side, although Bavaria popping in and out of the 8th great power slot is about the only thing that's keeping Austria from forming the South German Federation. Around 1890, Austria bit Silesia off of southern Prussia, which launched their industry past mine as well.

I've been spending like crazy keeping all of my factories upgrading and I'm subsidizing every factory in France (I think I'm losing maybe 200 pounds a day from my treasury of 4 million+), but Austria just keeps ahead of me and Britain's gone back to its typically ludicrous lead. I'm thinking about sticking with the game just to see a Great War, but repeatedly loving over Prussia has just gotten me in trouble with Britain, Austria, and Germany while everybody else is pretty lukewarm towards me (minus my giant sphere that includes South America and half of China), so I'm pretty sure any Great War will involve murderstacks of British soldiers landing in Normandy while Austria and Prussia overrun the Rhineland and my sphered Italy.

Am I missing anything exciting if I quit now? There aren't even fun rebellions going on; I think Luxembourg got toppled by Anarcho-Liberals and Two Sicilies fell to the Redshirts, but that's about it. I'm in 1890, my tech is almost maxed out (I'm backfilling naval tech now because land dominance was always the name of the game), and it seems like the only way to stop Austria is overrunning them through Italy (probably doable) while the British have their way with my African holdings and American remnants, probably ending in me just cutting down Austria's prestige while Africa becomes another blob of red factories.

It's a fun enough game, but I can definitely see where the criticism of most of it being sitting back and watching your country get eclipsed by an omnipotent England comes from. I'm counting on Heart of Darkness, Wiz! :ohdear:

Cantorsdust
Aug 10, 2008

Infinitely many points, but zero length.

FadingChord posted:

I've had a pretty good run in my first real game of Victoria 2 as France. Britain went broke about five years in and their prestige fell through the floor, so I was top dog from about 1840 to 1880, when their industry got scary. I grabbed the Rhineland off of Prussia in two separate wars to keep a strong Germany from forming on my side, although Bavaria popping in and out of the 8th great power slot is about the only thing that's keeping Austria from forming the South German Federation. Around 1890, Austria bit Silesia off of southern Prussia, which launched their industry past mine as well.

I've been spending like crazy keeping all of my factories upgrading and I'm subsidizing every factory in France (I think I'm losing maybe 200 pounds a day from my treasury of 4 million+), but Austria just keeps ahead of me and Britain's gone back to its typically ludicrous lead. I'm thinking about sticking with the game just to see a Great War, but repeatedly loving over Prussia has just gotten me in trouble with Britain, Austria, and Germany while everybody else is pretty lukewarm towards me (minus my giant sphere that includes South America and half of China), so I'm pretty sure any Great War will involve murderstacks of British soldiers landing in Normandy while Austria and Prussia overrun the Rhineland and my sphered Italy.

Am I missing anything exciting if I quit now? There aren't even fun rebellions going on; I think Luxembourg got toppled by Anarcho-Liberals and Two Sicilies fell to the Redshirts, but that's about it. I'm in 1890, my tech is almost maxed out (I'm backfilling naval tech now because land dominance was always the name of the game), and it seems like the only way to stop Austria is overrunning them through Italy (probably doable) while the British have their way with my African holdings and American remnants, probably ending in me just cutting down Austria's prestige while Africa becomes another blob of red factories.

It's a fun enough game, but I can definitely see where the criticism of most of it being sitting back and watching your country get eclipsed by an omnipotent England comes from. I'm counting on Heart of Darkness, Wiz! :ohdear:

Build a coalition and start WWI with GB, then you can quit.

Mortuus
Nov 8, 2012

Jesus loves you, useless corpse

Gort posted:

If Darkest Hour overwhelms you, you'll probably drown in HoI3. It's a similar game with about five times the provinces and a very time-consuming command structure system.

Their Finest Hour adds some elements I certainly like, like the combined arms bonus which rewards diversity in units and the armour/penetration system that emphasises tanks, but if being overwhelmed is the issue, TFH isn't going to solve it for you.

I ended up buying all the expansions anyway, mainly because I've been watching a few LPs on Youtube that are better than anything on the Paradox forums for learning the game. The Clausewitz UI is also way easier to understand than the Europa engine, for me at least.

Is there anything useful about learning OOBs, though? That's really the only thing I'm still completely overwhelmed with.

Baronjutter
Dec 31, 2007

"Tiny Trains"

Does HOD or HD add more control? People say "go state capitalist" or "enact this policy", that was my problem with the game, I couldn't ever really enact change unless my population demanded it but they never demanded change so I just sat back watching my idiot capitalists build idiot factories to lose huge money on the idiot market. I want near full control over my country. I want to ram through massive social and economic reforms. I want to create crazy ahistrical empires. I love EU3 because you can totally paint the map, or just make these epic world-spanning histories. In vicy2 I always felt like an mouse trying to steer an oil tanker. My little legs could just barely dip into the water but no matter how hard I paddled I felt I was having an immeasurably small impact.

Dr. Video Games 0031
Jul 17, 2004

You have to make them want change by driving up consciousness and militancy and allowing rebels to win.

burnishedfume
Mar 8, 2011

You really are a louse...

Clapham Omnibus posted:

Actually isn't socialism (planned economy) one of the better strategies because capitalists are absolutely idiotic about what factories they choose to build. I go planned often simply because its incredibly annoying having to shut down all those useless artillery factories they build over and over.

To answer your question though, I think AHD has been a vast improvement and made the game pretty playable, your mileage may vary however.

It's 1920 in my Free States game and still not a single capitalist has thought to build a barrel factory. Yeah sure no problem bros, I'm sure I can just import all my barrels, where do they come from? Germany? Yeah this can't possibly result in bad times when World War I kicks off and it's Republics VS Monarchs. I didn't need armor anyway.

My country FINALLY voted in Socialists and I am free to build whatever. To be precise however, State Capitalism (what the American Socialists use) is actually a bit better than planned because they are identical except for capitalists being allowed to still build in state capitalist. If they want to waste money on railroads in Siberia, I won't lose sleep over it. Also factory costs are a bit lower.

Gort
Aug 18, 2003

Good day what ho cup of tea

Mortuus posted:

Is there anything useful about learning OOBs, though? That's really the only thing I'm still completely overwhelmed with.

Well, if you don't use a proper OOB, you're gimping yourself quite a lot - you miss out on a lot of bonuses. Handily, every country in the game starts with a horribly organised OOB that you basically have to tear down and rebuild from scratch, which is annoying as hell since there isn't a "tear it down so I can rebuild it from scratch" button. (unless you want to use a custom game, which is basically cheating)

Here's how it works:

The smallest unit of troops is the brigade. You mix and match those in groups of between two and five (no, you can't break it down to one, that would be far too convenient for reorganising your army) which is called a division. Division commanders give you 5% better combat per skill point.

Group up to five divisions together, you get a corps. Corps commanders give you a weird bonus I don't really understand (Improve chance of a reserve division entering combat).

Group up to five corps together, you get an army. Army commanders increase organization by 1% per leader skill level.

Group up to five armies together, you get an army group. Army group commanders decrease supply consumption by 5% per leader skill level.

Group up to five army groups together, you get a theatre. Theatre commanders reduce your stacking penalty by 1% per skill level.

-----

So, basically group all your brigades together into divisions (try and light up all the little combined arms boxes if you can), then group five of those into corps and so on up the chain. I try to have as few divisions/corps/armies etc as possible because that way I can put my best leaders into the army and leave out the dross ones.

Your leaders also have traits which grant specific bonuses. Unfortunately they are less effective the more men the leader is in charge of, so having a theatre commander who's a Logistics Wizard will only give you 6.25% of the full effect of Logistics Wizard. Generally speaking, I wouldn't worry too much about them - skill level is generally more important.

Rejected Fate
Aug 5, 2011

A Buttery Pastry posted:

Go into /map and delete the cache folder. If you're playing the steam version, make sure it doesn't auto-download stuff beforehand. That worked for me.

Yeeeeeeeep, think that did it. Thanks.

So what's the usual mod for V2? I know A Pop Divided is mentioned in the OP but I see NNM used a lot too. Also, is trying to start a game with Persia foolhardy?

V for Vegas
Sep 1, 2004

THUNDERDOME LOSER

Rejected Fate posted:

Yeeeeeeeep, think that did it. Thanks.

So what's the usual mod for V2? I know A Pop Divided is mentioned in the OP but I see NNM used a lot too. Also, is trying to start a game with Persia foolhardy?

Not foolhardy, but there's not much to do. Better to start off with a bigger power like France or a secondary power like Two Sicilies so you get to play around with different systems.

burnishedfume
Mar 8, 2011

You really are a louse...

Rejected Fate posted:

Yeeeeeeeep, think that did it. Thanks.

So what's the usual mod for V2? I know A Pop Divided is mentioned in the OP but I see NNM used a lot too. Also, is trying to start a game with Persia foolhardy?

Persia is a bit slow because you start uncivilized, but most games I see them turn out okay, especially with a human at the helm guiding westernizing faster (I tag switched over to the Cherokee in 1900 to see what was holding up westernization; they were sitting on about 1M research points and 15% away from completing Westernization :frog:). My suggestion for a trial by fire: the United States of Central America. For a nice mix of "things to do, decisions to be made" and "keeping things simple enough so I'm not constantly worried that I just borked my nation forever and now someone will annex me", Spain, Austria, and Sweden are good candidates.

As for mods, I like NNM Full, plus the GSG Victoria II mod (found in the Victoria 2 folder, the GSG mod subfolder). It ads some really stupid poo poo (like a "remove undesireables" decision :frogon:, up until the most recent version, a giant nation that consisted of 2/3 of Canada plus Washington and Oregon called the Hudson Bay Company because I guess the best way to represent a company is a nation), some stupid poo poo that's kinda cool (communist events to purge capitalists :ussr:), and some good poo poo (Mexico can refute Manifest Destiny, slave pops grow instead of staying stagnant which I found annoying, I see Australia, New Zealand, and Canada form more often and Norway gains independence more frequently). Although I suspect this mod is why half my game is turning fascist for little to no reason, and others are turning communist for similar little reasons.

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A Buttery Pastry
Sep 4, 2011

Delicious and Informative!
:3:

DrProsek posted:

It's 1920 in my Free States game and still not a single capitalist has thought to build a barrel factory. Yeah sure no problem bros, I'm sure I can just import all my barrels, where do they come from? Germany? Yeah this can't possibly result in bad times when World War I kicks off and it's Republics VS Monarchs. I didn't need armor anyway.
There really should be a way to build strategic industries (Read: arms industry), and subsidize them, even if you can't do it for any other type. Even an ardent defender of free trade needs a gun to force people to buy his products after all.

DrProsek posted:

My country FINALLY voted in Socialists and I am free to build whatever. To be precise however, State Capitalism (what the American Socialists use) is actually a bit better than planned because they are identical except for capitalists being allowed to still build in state capitalist. If they want to waste money on railroads in Siberia, I won't lose sleep over it. Also factory costs are a bit lower.
Yeah, State Capitalism is nice, since it reduces the workload for the player. I generally prefer to just fix the capitalist's mistakes, instead of having to do all the work on my own.

Rejected Fate posted:

Yeeeeeeeep, think that did it. Thanks.
No problem. In the future, I think it would be easier to just type in the error message in Google, that usually gives me the solution to whatever problems I have.

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