Victoria 2 (and indeed Victoria if there's still anyone left playing it here)

[ShadesWolf]

So far not impressed, cant see anything new :(

I will need to play the tutorial, which is usually a no-no, like to do thinks on my own and only use it if i cant master it myself.

but as i said cant find anything new, just same stuff but in different places.

[Greyblades]

I was playing as Uk and I got an interesting issue:
http://hosting11.imagecross.com/imag...-laughter-.jpg
Practicaly had me dyeing of laughter.
Edit: Huh I couldnt get it to show on here, so I replaced the pic with a direct link.

[Gregoshi]

I've not played any Paradox games, but my interest is definitely elevating in this thread.

[Martok]

I was playing as Uk and I got an interesting issue:
http://hosting11.imagecross.com/imag...-laughter-.jpg
Practicaly had me dyeing of laughter.
Edit: Huh I couldnt get it to show on here, so I replaced the pic with a direct link.

Oh, lord. Someone on the Paradox team is overly fond of puns, methinks. Related to Greg, perhaps?

I've not played any Paradox games, but my interest is definitely elevating in this thread.

Same here. Both here and elsewhere, reaction to Vicky 2 so far seems to be very positive overall. I'm definitely intrigued.

The tutorials have received wide praise, the gameplay appears to be solid, and there don't seem to be a lot of bugs (which is in apparent stark contrast to HoI3). The one major complaint I've seen so far is in regards to rebellions -- they're both too frequent (and happen for inadequately explained reasons), yet at the same time are too/absurdly weak when they do occur -- and it sounds like this is already going to be addressed in the next patch.

[Beskar]

This is like a mix of HoI3 and Eu3. Sort of "All the best parts out of HoI3 without the rubbish ones" slapped ontop of EU3 HTTT.

Is anyone having any China problems in their games? China is always a serious issue for me, around 1870. They are on the top of the Great Powers with around 1600 industry or similar and a Massive Army. Then it kills all the factories in the game, as China is using up all the resources in their mega-industry, then it kind of all falls apart.

[Marshal Murat]

I figured out that infamy rating invasions is cancelled out by going a massive army/navy building spree. So now I just have constant Jacobin rebellions in France while Reactionaries in my armies are ripping apart my Outre-Mer garrisons. That's the frustrating deal, is that I can't give in to the rebels, but I can't enact reforms without scaring the libs. and conservs.

[Greyblades]

Ah nuts, I found the cheats, now I'm finding it hard to resist tagging the US and forcing them to disband all their forces.

This is like a mix of HoI3 and Eu3. Sort of "All the best parts out of HoI3 without the rubbish ones" slapped ontop of EU3 HTTT.

Is anyone having any China problems in their games? China is always a serious issue for me, around 1870. They are on the top of the Great Powers with around 1600 industry or similar and a Massive Army. Then it kills all the factories in the game, as China is using up all the resources in their mega-industry, then it kind of all falls apart.

Odd I thought china was pretty weak during the games time period, they shouldnt be even close to the great powers outside of population. Hm I think thats something to check on next time I play.

[Beskar]

Odd I thought china was pretty weak during the games time period, they shouldnt be even close to the great powers outside of population. Hm I think thats something to check on next time I play.

Yeah, China has to 'westernise' (along with Japan) by doing certain research, which gets completed around 1870, if the computer isn't dumb. Then it instantly jumps from 33 or so rank, to 9th. Then it begins building up its industry, and since of the huge population full of wealthly people who have spent nothing, and lots of workers, they just industrialise mega quickly, while having a 300-400 man army, which can get up to 600 or more.

It is an utter monster.

If you doubt me, do a new game as china, then cheat just to westernise, and you will see how it just jumps up the rankings (instead of waiting hours upon hours to see it occur)

[al Roumi]

Being a newby at Vicky and only having played EU3 HTTT before, I decided to play it safe and build on what I'd learned from the demo by playing USA. Becasue of my experience of the demo, I was able to get a good start against the Mexicans, forcing them to cede Mexican texas to my Ally Texas, which then acceded to the Union once their war of independance ended.

Since then I've focused on industrialising my North East regions and had two major wars, again against Mexico and then the civil war against the CSA. I think I was lucky in how these two wars panned out, for starters, most of my soldier pops were Yankee (probably around 70%) and war actually triggered while I was ending the liberation of california from Mexico. After breaking Mexico's forces, i was starting the slow grind occupations to give me 100% warscore, and allow me to release all US cores from Manifest destiny (California, arizona, new mex etc) but I decided I'd rather not fight two wars at once and settled with Mexico for California.

When the civil war event fired (you are offered the choice of pursuing the game as the CSA or Union), the traitorous dixie soldiers in my armies split out and formed their own armies, in the same province as their former compatriots. This meant that the worst of the civil war battles actually happened on Mexican soil! My allies (CAR, Columbia, Brazil) also joined the fight and sent detachments north, to help occupy CSA provinces. In the end, the war was short, not very bloody and nothing like its historical precedent. I don't mind this at all though as I would have done everything I could to make it as brief and painless as possible anyway. The point about CSA soldier pops is probably key -although I can't claim to have consciously done anything to keep dixie pops from becoming soldiers, things must have been worse in the North for people to join up from there.

Despite the notices I've seen slapped on Vicky by posters, about its complexitiy and vertical learning curve, Vicky 2 so far seems not to be quite the headache on a DVD I was fearing. The AI trade seems to be saving me alot of micro managing and I'm kind of limited in what I can do with the economy with only 2 national focii (3 soon) and only the ability to build railroads (which I've spread out like carpet, everywhere).

My economy remains the biggest challenge, not because I'm short of cash (running a 2-300 daily surplus with Ed on full, admin on 80% and Mil on 70%) but because of where I want it to be internationaly, and how I want it to run (e.g. lots of factories and lots of craftsmen). Currently, I have 3 states with 2+ developped factories (New England, New York and Pennsylvania), a number of states with a single capitalists built factory (around 3 building fertiliser for some highly frustrating reason as it just doesn't sell!) and nationaly, a craftsman pop of approx 2.3% (Millitary pop stands at 2%). My chief exports are still tobacco, coal and in third place either lumber, steel or fabric -it changes. The vast majority of my POP are farmers, I guess that's unavoidable for the moment but I have a long way to go to create a large proleteriat.

[Greyblades]

If you doubt me, do a new game as china, then cheat just to westernise, and you will see how it just jumps up the rankings (instead of waiting hours upon hours to see it occur)

I'm trying to stop cheating thanks.

[Greyblades]

I'm sorry for the double post but I think you will forgive me when you see this.

[Beskar]

I'm trying to stop cheating thanks.

I never said to 'cheat', I said you can do it so you can see how China dominates the world so easily. There is a difference.

[naut]

I was playing as Uk and I got an interesting issue:
http://hosting11.imagecross.com/imag...-laughter-.jpg
Practicaly had me dyeing of laughter.
Edit: Huh I couldnt get it to show on here, so I replaced the pic with a direct link.

Yeh. VickyI was also one for the wordplay. There was an event where you'd loose coffee stocks and the ok button said "Gone in an instant".

Thoughts on VickyII. Needs a historical mod to fill up all the empty land so the AI doesn't colonise willy-nilly. Once that comes out I'll buy it.

The one major complaint I've seen so far is in regards to rebellions -- they're both too frequent (and happen for inadequately explained reasons), yet at the same time are too/absurdly weak when they do occur -- and it sounds like this is already going to be addressed in the next patch.

For a VickyI player this is easy to explain. Your PoPs have militancy, which indicates their willingness to revolt, this is tied to plurality and consciousness, the higher these two get the more demanding your population is for reforms. If they don't get their reforms their militancy goes up and they revolt. Basically it's actually a good feature, and if you are experiencing constant revolts then you've gone wrong and allowed militancy to spiral out of control.

[Monk]

Bought it yesterday and am loving it, though the artisans of my population are really getting irritating. Almost every test game i've played to get used to the mehanics again my artisans go into the red immedietly and start to demote. They simply don't have any money to buy their life needs, it's infuriating.

AI trading is worthless as any nation without a factory. Leaving it up to the AI gets half my pops whining they aren't getting their needs and my armies starving in the fields without supply, still tons of micro to be had there even with attempts at automation.

[Furunculus]

the strategy informer review was pretty positive, as are many of the comments here, definately buying it as soon as i get back from poland.

[Greyblades]

I never said to 'cheat', I said you can do it so you can see how China dominates the world so easily. There is a difference.

[al Roumi]

I just saw this on the economist, a chart of global GDP from 1 AD (sort of) to present day, most focus is on Vicky's time period:

http://economist.com/node/16834943

Although GDP is not at all equivalent to V2's "industry" rating, it's interesting to see an approximation of world productivity. Intriguingly, the UK itself never actualy gets bigger than China, but that's not including india in the equation I guess (which was always the whole point of GB's empire...).

[Ja'chyra]

Going by this thread I can't see much difference from HTTT

[Jolt]

Going by this thread I can't see much difference from HTTT

Victoria has nothing to do with HTTT.

[Ja'chyra]

I get that, but the gameplay seems much the same.

[al Roumi]

I get that, but the gameplay seems much the same.

In actual I'd say warfare is quite similar to HTTT, but there is much more to Vicky than warfare. Whereas EU3 is about controlling territory and COTs, Vicky is about developping your nation's industry, managing your population - and their response to the industrialising world, and competing with other world powers for diplomatic/trade spheres to fuel your economy. To my mind, HTTT is about creating a powerful nation or empire, Vicky is about modernising and industrialising that nation/empire and carving the rest of the world up.

In a way, I'd almost liek to see a renaissance mod for Vicky, that would allow you to have the whole pop/politics thing as well as a bit mroe detail on industry and trade that EU3 doesn't have.

[Greyblades]

I'd personaly like to see a save game converter from EU3 to Vicky 2. Sure the rush to africa would become redundant but it would be nice to see a world I've molded snce 1400 enter the imperial age.

[Marshal Murat]

I have to say that it's pretty difficult to "annex" another nation when it's impossible to reach to other nations farthest province. In my game China had this island of a province in Russia, which UK couldn't capture so they had a "war" that lasted for a decade before China just gave in for some reason (maybe it's because they realized that their entire nation was destroyed?).

I'm finally having my first world-war. My infamy is so high that Britain doesn't miss a chance to attack me to contain me (no way no how!!!). I've given up trying to protect my Chinese/Vietnam/Indian possessions because the Brits always outnumbers me. I'm just holding the Mediterranean with my superior (technologically) fleet and building up transports to invade UK proper. Added to that a massive recruiting drive across French Egypt/Africa and a $6m warchest I'm just going to drag this out until I have enough men to conquer UK, and then...THE WORLD!

[frogbeastegg]

The cause of the crazy rebellions appears to have been found. A missing bracket in the coding. There's a fixed version of the file up for download in post 4.

[frogbeastegg]

Flashofsteel.com has a podcast interview with King, the lead designer for Vicky 2. It's excellent listening, it goes into real depth on how the game works.

I can't remember if I posted a link to their first Vicky 2 podcast. Again, much recommended. Three veteran strategy gamers disecting the game shortly after launch.

[frogbeastegg]

1.2 is close, probably next week. Johan is posting parts of the fix list on the official forums. So far we have:

* Politics
- Conservatives now properly allow social reforms at scaled militancy.
- Fixed a consistency with militancy to support reform calculation.
- There is now less of a militancy decrease when enacting a reform.
- You can now only change ruling party once a year.
- Ideology changing on pops from events is no longer divided by 100.
- You can now release union tag countries if nobody with this tag exists (crush krakow->release poland->victory)
- Ruling party is now set to one of the same ideology you had, after a tag change.
- Free peoples now work on union tag countries that already exists
- Pops of the primary culture will never assimilate now.

* Revolutions
- Rebels of union tags can now spawn if no country with culture exist
- Reliability is now applied correctly.
- Rebels now have a bit better organisation, and will be more likely to form in bigger armies.
- Inventions are now inherited when a country is formed.
- When a rebellion ends in any way, all pops who symphatized with that rebelfaction lose militancy.
- Pan-nationalists are now limited in spawning, not in enforcing
- Rebelfactions grow stronger a little faster now.
- Provinces seceding from events will now get militancy&consciousness reset.
- Government change is now updated when rebels enforce their demands, thust nationalists rising under one fog wont change the country they broke free from when they do so, should that country had changed during their insurection.
- All alliances, SoIs and influence cleared by revolutions
- Rebels are now far less likely to rise on their own.
- General risings will now set the organisation of a faction to 0.
- Rebel organisation gains are now colored correctly.
- Soldiers now only revolt when the rest of the faction is close to ready to rise.
- Getting a revolution succeeding in your country now reduces 10% of your current prestige instead of -5.

* Great Powers
- GP intervention now requires the country to have a "Friendly" opinion of the GP
- Once a GP has formed its union tag it no longer gets the free assert hegemnoy CB vs other nations with the union tag.
- Assert Hegemony wargoal changed into removing the all nations within the same culture group from being either in the sphere or being vassals. It also sets the relation back to neutral.
- Changed warscore for Hegemony to 6 for each sphere member or vassal
- Military and industrial score now have higher theoretical maximum
- Halfed impact from leaders on military score.
- In order to intervene in a war, a nation targeted by a wargoal need to have at least cordial opinion of the nation wanting to intervene
- Removing a country from a sphere now incurs an influence drop as well
- Relation now has slightly less effect on suppressing wars if countries have valid CBs
- It's no longer possible to call your sphereleader again and again into a war as a spheree
- Lowered influence cost of discredit, upped the effect(-50% -> -75%)
- You can no longer influence any country you have a truce with.

* Diplomacy
- Its no longer possible to release satellites when at war.
- Relations now have slightly more effect on military access chance
- It's no longer possible to add wargoals to a side that has a Status Quo wargoal added to it
- The first nation that intervenes in a war will always become warleader, subsequent joins will never become warleader
- Called allies never become warleader in Status Quo has been added to that side
- It's no longer possible to negotiate with minors if you have added non-annex wargoals and the other side has added status quo
- All states that are annexed by a minor in a war are now added as "Free people" wargoals(up to 150 warscore worth)
- Status Quo wargoal is now removed if someone annexes a minor(since it will be replaced with Free People wargoals)
- No longer possible to call allies into civil war
- Rebel territory is now disregarded when occupation percentage is compared.
- Releasing nations now reduce infamy and prestige


Looks like I had the right idea, holding off starting any new games until 1.2 was out. This one's going to be best with a fresh game.

[johnhughthom]

Nice little addition to the list:

- Playable Babylon added as a free DLC integrated in the patch

[minishog]

Is Vicky 2 worth buying for £10? If so, how much time does it take learning about it before you can actually play it?

[pevergreen]

Is Vicky 2 worth buying for £10? If so, how much time does it take learning about it before you can actually play it?

Yes, its worth that, IMO.

Very steep learning curve, though if you know any of the other paradox games, less so.

Before you feel comfortable taking any country and doing well? Depends on how fast you learn. If you are completely knew, could be upwards of 30-50 hours.

[Skullheadhq]

Yes, its worth that, IMO.

Very steep learning curve, though if you know any of the other paradox games, less so.

Before you feel comfortable taking any country and doing well? Depends on how fast you learn. If you are completely knew, could be upwards of 30-50 hours.

Funny you, I knew almost everything in ~2 hours. Vicky I however did take me 30-50 hours.