New Player? Start here!

17 Nov 2023Developer post

Source: Steam Community (opens in a new tab)

Hello New Victorians joining us for the Free to Play weekend! Below, we have some new player advice, video tutorials on how to play the game, alongside some common terms used by the community!

Starting out Advice

These are not exhaustive written tutorials on how to play just advice on these areas!

Suggested Starting Nations

Persia - nice spread of resources and pretty stable!
Belgium - helps you learn trading, colonizing and more
Japan - a fun nation, can be isolated letting you learn at your own pace

Politics

Your political situation is affected by what country you start out as, however there are some broad strokes about what you generally want to do - pass laws to be able to move your country in what direction you wish to.

To do this you need to have an Interest Group in your government that supports these laws, this chance to do so is affected by the clout of the Interest Groups that support the Law. The more interest groups that support the law the easier it is to pass.

Remember, if an in Government Interest Group doesn't want the selected law to pass they can get upset and leave government and in extreme cases want to start revolutions. This can also happen with Interest Groups outside of government.

Changing laws can take time, mostly due to having Interest Groups that do not support the changes or needing technology to unlock certain laws. So, be aware you may take time to get to the goal you want!

Economy

The backbone of a lot of other systems! Interest Groups are affected by the employed pops that work in buildings, which then affects the wealth, and indirectly the clout of the Interest Groups! For example, Plantations normally have a lot of Aristocrat pop types - who normally are attracted to joining the Landowner Interest Group, so by having more Plantations you give more pops wealth and likelihood to join Landowners! Look at other population types, by hovering over the orange concept text, and see what they like to move towards!

Otherwise, constructing buildings is the way to produce goods or provide a benefit. Goods are used in most places, for example:

Pops use them for food, heating and other 'needs'.
Buildings use them as input to make something. E.g. An iron mine uses tools to extract iron.
Armies and Fleets use them with mobilization options and troops e.g. ammunition.

Construction is provided by a small amount naturally or, mainly, by construction centers!

Construction has two queues, government construction and private construction - the proportion of construction is decided by your Economic System law!

Transport, Services and Electricity are local good, i.e. they are only in those states when the building is build to provide them. This means you need to keep an eye on the needs for the states when building!

Diplomacy

Large countries, called Great Powers, dependent on their strategies like to try to pull people into their market or control, so be careful acting around them as a smaller country. Keep an eye on their attitude and strategies, which can be seen in their diplomacy screen.

Being bankrolled can cause an obligation to appear which can be used to make you do something e.g. join a custom union.

During a diplo play you can sway other nations to your side by offering things to them e.g. obligation, transfering lad etc. This also applies to the AI offering this to you to join them!

Warfare

(Check out the videos below to see them in action and explanations on them. )

Otherwise, key points for these are to make sure you have the ability to supply your formations and enough commanders to support them.

Different unit types have different statistics and roles, infantry are more defensive and cannons are more offensive.

Generals/Admirals need to be ordered to attack or defend from their formation.

You can recruit units for your formation via the formation itself not the military tab.

Conscripts come from your population and take time to recruit, opposed to normal battalions which are more regular troops and are always ready to be mobilized.