How is your Victoria Game going?

[Thormodr]

Excited about V2:HOD.

I love Vicky 2 and this will make it that much better.

The international Crisis thing sounds like it was borrowed from Pride of Nations which is cool.

 

[Zack]

I bought Victoria II (no AHD, at least not yet, since it wasn't on sale). Good first-time nation? Any general tips?

 

[madviking]

prussia
usa

 

[SouthernKing]

I bought Victoria II (no AHD, at least not yet, since it wasn't on sale). Good first-time nation? Any general tips?

-France is a good first game. You start as #2, but unlike the UK you don't have a bajillion overseas possessions that make it micro hell. You can screw around in Germany, go colonizing, basically whatever you want.
-Prussia would be a good second game: the process of unifying German gives you both practice with wars and SoIs.
-Japan makes a good first unciv.

That being said, I'd gain AHD as soon as you can; the improvements to CBs and civilizing (and fixing Prussia's color) are worth it. Alternatively, get the Pop Demand Mod, which fixes a lot of the economic silliness of vanilla, as well as adding a bunch of event possibilities (Crimean War, Indian Mutiny, Napoleon III, Chinese warlord era, Divided States of America) tha aren't in vanilla.

 

[ZeletDude]

Belgium is good too. Great industrial power!

 

[darkimpaler]

I strongly suggest you get the hang on the game and then pass on to the PDM mod (or the APD if you decide to buy AHD) like SouthernKing said.
Once you go PDM, you never go back!

Anyway, atm I'm playing France with the APD mod, good game... I colonized senegal/gambia area, took Cuba from Spain, Greenland & Iceland from Denmark, I supported Prussia in a Brothers' War and gained control of Venice, and lastly I gaines russian Alaska having sided for the Ottomans during the Crimean War. I'm in the 60s and everything is going great!

 

[uat2d]

Good countries to play are the USA, France, Brazil, Prussia, Sardinia-Piedmont and Japan.

PDM? You must be joking, the mod plays so slowly, it's ridiculous. That and the ridiculous goods like boots, that mod is so easy and yet so boring, I don't know why anyone would play it.

 

[ZeletDude]

It's alot quicker for me, it's only slow on crappy computers.

 

[uat2d]

It's alot quicker for me, it's only slow on crappy computers.

So even though my computer can run Far Cry 3 or Spec Ops The Line just fine, it's crappy because it struggles with Pop Demand Mod?

 

[civ_king]

So even though my computer can run Far Cry 3 or Spec Ops The Line just fine, it's crappy because it struggles with Pop Demand Mod?

Just like other modern Paradox games, it is CPU bottlenecked, the faster the processor the better whereas with most modern games it is about GPUs

 

[darkimpaler]

Good countries to play are the USA, France, Brazil, Prussia, Sardinia-Piedmont and Japan.

PDM? You must be joking, the mod plays so slowly, it's ridiculous. That and the ridiculous goods like boots, that mod is so easy and yet so boring, I don't know why anyone would play it.

Ridicolous goods like boots? Go tell that to XIX century soldiers, let's see what they think of that.
Is slow? Yes, sure is slower than vanilla, but then again it's not SO MUCH slower than AHD.
I play it because it has many historic events, nations and decisions that were not included in vanilla v2/ahd, sadly. And I'm really, really happy that the HoD version of the mod will come out as soon as 1 week after the new xpac will be live.

 

[SouthernKing]

Ridicolous goods like boots? Go tell that to XIX century soldiers, let's see what they think of that.
Is slow? Yes, sure is slower than vanilla, but then again it's not SO MUCH slower than AHD.
I play it because it has many historic events, nations and decisions that were not included in vanilla v2/ahd, sadly. And I'm really, really happy that the HoD version of the mod will come out as soon as 1 week after the new xpac will be live.

This. Very much this.

 

[ZeletDude]

This. Very much this.

Ditto ditto ditto.

 

[Antilogic]

Looking forward to the new expansion pack; Victoria II covers my favorite time period and has some of the more interesting game mechanics to boot.

I've played through only one game now on APD (as Peru) and am around 1905 in my Carlist Spain game (haven't played in awhile). It has some things I like, especially the extra events, the first minister/presidents that give you particular bonuses or penalties, the reworked army system, and the reworked economics (not as many critical good shortages, prices vary more than in vanilla). I don't like the removal of the Congo conference--that was an interesting mechanic, and you can still sphere all of China at once which feels like cheating.

 

[SouthernKing]

I'd say that Vicky 2 is by far the most underrated game in the Paradox arsenal, at least among the Clausewitz games. I've actually found far more enjoyment out of this game than I have out of EU3. I'm glad that Paradox hasn't forgotten about this. The fact that 1815-1914, other than maybe the European Dark Ages, is my favorite part of history doesn't hurt either.

 

[Antilogic]

I feel the same way. It'd be great if there was an expansion back to 1815 and the Concert of Europe recreated with some special events that cause Congresses to occur.

 

[mechaerik]

I don't play much V2, so this is my first game in AHD and my first in V2 in general in a long while, so I'm pretty happy with my progress. Started as Two Sicilies, formed Italy through Redshirts. Got my Irredenta cores during the Third Great War (me. Prussia, and Russia against Austria, the UK, and France). Decided to break Austria and started the Fourth Great War (me and later Russia+the USA vs UK, France, Austria). Forced Austria to release Bohemia and Slovakia, then occupied France for a couple years and then finally decided to invade the Worker's Commonwealth.

Frankly I was rather disappointed there; the Commonwealth had no troops or ships to block my landing; their military score was (and still is) actually zero. As a result of the war, France is no longer a Great Power, and is not a Secondary Power either. The Commonwealth is GP 6, solely on their industrial strength. France and the Commonwealth are giving me just over 5K pounds a day in reparations.

I've mostly ignored Africa. I completely forgot about the colonization techs (I had been focusing on Industrial ones to help my ailing economy at that point) until colonization was already well under way.

World Map:

Spoiler :

 

[GAGA Extrem]

I'd say that Vicky 2 is by far the most underrated game in the Paradox arsenal, at least among the Clausewitz games. I've actually found far more enjoyment out of this game than I have out of EU3. I'm glad that Paradox hasn't forgotten about this. The fact that 1815-1914, other than maybe the European Dark Ages, is my favorite part of history doesn't hurt either.

For me the biggest seller of the Vicky Franchise is the pop and politics system.

Detailed pop simulations gives the player a whole new level of interaction and make the game much less of a whack-a-mole against rebels because you actually kill your own people (not to mention it prevents ridicolous stuff like 20k rebel stacks in base tax 1 provinces with 2500 pop).

The political system is also one of the first real chances to create and simulate the problems within a nation (honorable mention: EU Rome tried something similiar with the senate). Most of the time I find myself not fighting against outside nations, but rather trying to keep a balance with internal affairs. The lack of this in EU3 is the reason why that game is much less challenging and fun once you have become the #1 nation.

 

[bonefang]

I started with Japan in AHD. I tried to westernize, there was rebellion all around..
much rage quitting ensued ... its there in the junk somewhere, I am however excited to see this thread...

 

[Bowsling]

<snip>

That has to be one of the most interesting games I've ever seen. Reminiscent of EU3 craziness. You're giving me an urge to play again, maybe I'll have to pick up AHD!