So im playing vic3 with one of my girlfriends and she kicks serious ass. I don’t want to be a drag and have fun with her, so im looking for ways to better play. Im russia she’s china. Just general tips would be nice. I want to do the usual and reform quickly and expand my economy.

  • happybadger [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    10 months ago

    Russia and China have the same fundamental problem. Pre-industrialisation, both have all their power and wealth concentrated in the landowners. You need to rush industry so that wealth is broken up between capitalists/petit bourgeoisie/trade unions. Playing Russia I immediately shift my capital to Perm so it’s invasion-proof without 1m casualties. Then I start building up construction, wood, and iron in Perm. I max it out there, Urals, and Moscow. Then I build up Trans-Baikal, Luhansk, and the Caucuses. I upgrade to iron construction methods and my whole mission until about 1850 is getting it up to about 300 capacity. The industrialisation that brings will drop the landowners down to like 20-30% power and make the reforms easy with a power base for them.

      • happybadger [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        10 months ago

        It basically is a Marxism simulator to the point that they had to nerf socialism because it was like a cheat code for raising your citizens’ quality of life and governmental budget. It’s pure historical materialism with any great man subject to dying at age 35.

          • happybadger [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            10 months ago

            /r/victoria3 was big mad about it and every thread was lovely. Marxists walking people through the most basic theory that they become naively aware of but think is a gameplay bug.

            Get Victoria 3. It’s so good.

            • ProletarianDictator [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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              10 months ago

              Love it. Do you know if it works on Linux?

              In your opinion, is the game a good piece of propaganda for teaching materialist concepts or do most libs figure out the mechanics without internalizing their relevance to geopolitics?

              • happybadger [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                10 months ago

                I don’t know how its linux performance is. The game gives a good representation of base and superstructure, but only in an abstract sense. You see the transition from the remnants of feudalism to early and middle stage capitalism, all tied to the material conditions of your citizens and how their ideology ontologically impacts their response to things. It makes you viscerally hate groups like landowners by juxtaposing their desire to hoard money with your need for tax revenue/legislation benefiting 90% of society. You get a good sense of what separates the petit bourgeoisie from the Ancien régime of the larger bourgeois factions, what separates the proletariat from the peasant, and how your relationship to the means of production shapes you.

            • roux [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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              10 months ago

              Do you think the dlc are worth it? Been looking at this game on and off since I join Hexbear because it seems like a lot of folks here like it. Just put it on my wishlist.

              • happybadger [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                10 months ago

                It’s still very early in its DLC cycle. There’s Voice of the People which is good for the political metagame, adding agitators who help push legislative agendas, and a Brazilian content pack that I haven’t bought yet because South America is so painfully slow to industrialise. You’d be fine to just get the base game and maybe buy Voice of the People on sale.

                • roux [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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                  10 months ago

                  I think I will grab it when it’s on sale. I’ve tried a few x4 and grand strategy games and have had some fun. Learning curve of Crusader Kings can fuck itself. But a few have grabbed me for at least enough hours that it was worth the cost of entry imo.

                  You sold me on it being a game that favors socialism. I didn’t know there was seething lib drama about that lol.

                • Lurkerino [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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                  10 months ago

                  Agitators are not DLC exclusive, but you get more of them, some real ones from france I think. Also the first to research Socialism gets a 95% chance to get Karl Marx in their Labour Union.

    • Candidate [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      10 months ago

      I’d mostly agree with this, with the exception of the capital, you want it in Moscow for that sweet MAPI bonus. Also, be aware that, as a country with serfdom, low literacy and little unemployment, you actually might have trouble getting people into factories. The main culprit is Serfdom, but you can also mitigate it by building in areas that already have large non-peasant populations and by increasing literacy.

      You can also get a little bit of iron construction up right away, thanks to the 16 iron mines you start off with.

      There’s also an exploit you can use if you have Voice of the People. Have the Tsar abdicate, have the new guy become a general, fire all over Landowner generals, then exile your Landowner head. You’ll get your new Tsar as the landowner leader, and he’s a Market Liberal, so it’s trivial to switch to Homesteading/Laissez Faire/Free Trade.

  • Alaskaball [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    10 months ago

    If you’re fighting against equal to advanced war tech enemies, keep your armies on the defensive and plan on fighting them to a white peace. This is because if you try and go on the attack against an enemy army with stronger war implements and a near enough body count to your army, they will get slaughtered. Your manpower will rapidly be depleted and your armies will not be able to reinforce fast enough, and more likely than not the enemy army will go on the attack and continually route your army and take more land. Practice fighting wars on the steppe states between you and Persia.

    Secondly, since you’re also taking control of a country with the aristocracy and landlords in control of the government, it becomes your best interest to set your taxes to ‘very high taxes’ and utilize the surplus tax funds to build more construction sectors and increase the rate you’re industrializing your state.

    Set 'promote social mobility decrees in your most populated provinces so you can increase literacy and your research rate while not having an education policy.

    Lastly, try to beeline towards getting the railways tech so you can further industrialize without stumbing over infrastructure limits.

  • Lurkerino [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    10 months ago

    Basically something like this steam guide

    Changing the landowners first to make factories is key, getting the heir as a landlord leader helps you a ton.

    Focus on coal, iron, tools, steel, engines and trains at first, make other things if you need but getting your construction industry high with the steel-frame buildings tech and the economy to support this growth is key.

    I wish I could find a gamer gf :(