I've been trying to play a germany game, but i'll get to forming germany, cut taxes, increase construction and build out of the deficit spending, but I can seem to be able to. How should I grow my economy and nation to become the #1 gp? I build Iron, coal, steel and tools but I dont know what else to do

Why is Secret Police a mid-game law? Historically, Russia has had one since the 1820s, and Germany since the 1840s. It would make more sense as an early-game tech, but perhaps limit the ability to advance it beyond tier 1 or 2 until further tech requirements are met. Also, Russia should start with it, given that the country has maintained some form of secret police since 1826.

After playing a full 100 year campaign as GB, I had to spend about 80% of the time at war putting down revolutions, and ending up with my Colonial Administrations peacefully passing anarchist and communist laws.

As the game stands now there is not very much differentiating a Dominion from a Puppet from an overlord's standpoint (yes as a player Dominions being able to do diplo plays is very strong). You get slightly more in terms of wealth extraction but that's really about it.

What I would really like to see is a change to where Puppets can only have their laws imposed upon, and cannot change them on their own. This would accomplish many things and honestly I can't believe Paradox has not implemented something like this yet.

1. Fewer random revolts for large empires.

2. Makes "Appoint Governor" more impactful as that can influence the laws you can impose.

3. Adds realism, as by definition a Puppet State is one that is de facto ruled externally.

4. Prevents major economic shifts such as seizure of overlord property by simply passing different economic system laws or switching to communism/command economy completely removing it.

5. Makes a player's decision to decrease autonomy more impactful as a way to "solidify" a colonial/subjugated holding.

6. Makes playing as a Puppet much more meaningful when you can finally get your autonomy increased, and more punishing for nations like the EIC failing to avert the Sepoy Mutiny. EIC is a whole can of worms in and of itself and needs an overhaul, but that's for a different discussion.

There's probably more reasons as well that you can post down below. I'm sure the detractors to this will complain that its difficult to play as a puppet, but that can be made more engaging in different ways too. And 99% of players are not going to be playing as puppets, lets be real.

I've got Vic3 a month ago and had a few successful runs playing some of the bigger powers. Then I decided to try out Korea and go for the achievements. I'm playing with a friend who is doing a Japan run and we wanted to team up later on to take over asia.

I started the game and improve relations with Britain, Russia and the others and somehow the Opium war never happened? Is this a 1.7 thing or did I just get super unlucky?

No one wanted to support my independence so for the next 10 years I was just industrializing while hoping to get a pro country lobby for an alliance with Britain. Seeing that the opium debuff is almost ending in Qing, I did a hail mary and tried to pull in Russia and Britain with some war goals for a treaty port. France then instantly joins in the fray on Great Qing's side and demanded a treaty port on me. Great Britain then abandoned me and left me hanging. I got steamrolled in the war but at least corn law triggered when I left the market, which gave me a good IG leader a few years later. Passed Homesteading and Protectionism and then the leader died while trying to pass Free Trade (seems like a common issue with Corn law leaders to die/retire early when they're only in their 30s).

Now its 1879, I'm doing pretty well with a top 10 GDP but giving a sizable chunk of my gold to Great Qing as tribute, and everything i make in the market is getting gobbled up by the Qing market. Whats the play here to go for independence? I did get an alliance and independence support from Britain, but France seems to be hellbent on hating my guts and supporting Qing when I last check. Would Qing ever get the Heavenly kingdom revolution if they never got the opium war? I guess I'll try another independence play but I fear that France will come in again while Great qing overwhelms me. Tech wise I'm on par with Great Qing but I don't see myself pulling ahead with the abysmal literacy rate and tech spread penalties at the start.

Which do you think are better, what is your cannon to horse ratio?

I'm kind of new to this game. I want to create a nation where almost all my people own factories but don't work in them themselves. What nations would be best to pick and what is the general strategy?

When industrializing, is the game kinda a loop between building enough wood, iron coal and fabric to upgrade my construction sectors, then using the construction/resources to build factories for consumer goods?

Loop, rise and repeat.

Not that this is a bad thing, just want to make sure my priorities are in line.

Is it possible to limit the consumption of narcotic substances, from the obvious opium to nicotine and alcohol? By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, sober societies were flourishing in Europe and America and many countries were adopting dry laws: the United States, Russia, Norway, Finland, Canada, and even Iceland.

I was thinking of this mostly because I wanted to make a housing market mod, but I don't see how it wouldn't be impossible otherwise

While Victoria 3 doesn't have exact quantities of resources and instead just has rates of buy and sell orders, I'd still imagine that it would be possible to have buildings that simply generate a certain quantity of buy orders when a good is cheap and then sell an equivalent amount when a good is expensive.

As an example of how this would work, there would be a "speculation market" building. When a resource is under base price it will buy up that resource and store the quantity bought. Then when the resource is expensive it will then generate sell orders for that resource until the quantity value goed down to zero or the price stabilizes.

This could help smooth out the prices during things like wars or sudden economic changes, and create buy orders for resources that haven't broken through to the market.

The only issue is that IRL speculation markets require risk assessment to function, which may be too expensive to compute in game. Leaving risk out could lead tk issues, for example if your speculation market buys a whole lot of cheap grain because its cheap and then grain never gets expensive, it will just take a permanent loss without any benefits.

Perhaps this would be solved by having the speculation market dump inventory if it has not faced a price increase after X time. On one hand, this would create a historically accurate business cycle where speculation bubbles burst. On the other hand, a historically accurate business cycle would probably not be fun to players. You could also instead have the max quantity of resources buyable in the market change depending on how volatile the price has previously been. So if small arms have been fluctuating in price a lot the speculation market would be able to buy more guns, but if wheat hasn't changed in price for decades the speculation market will barely have any wheat purchased.

Any thoughts as far as this concept?

So many influential characters like Otto Vin Bismarc are sidelined and its a real shame. On general I wish characters would play a more active role in the game and have more impact and interactions.

So, if capitalists own an industry in a foreign country and earn dividends from it, do I receive a percentage of that as tax? Or how does I profit from them investing in foreign countries

Hey there everyone! So my latest idea for a "chill" run would be taking over all of central Africa as Kongo. Mainly because they are a playable African nation in the mid section of Africa and seem primed for colonization where they are located.

I am currently around 1860 in my current Kongo campaign and have had some struggles that required cheating to bypass but I really do not want to cheat. Essentially I have been struggling to turn any sort of income with having more than 1 construction center, and that is one of the bigger issues.

Another issue I seem to be having is colonization speed and research speed. Getting quinine before 1860 is nigh impossible it seems like, but it's not a big deal because I can still colonize most coastal states. Still trying to figure out how to make colonization a bit faster.

And finally the biggest issue I had was dealing with Portugal. I really wanted north Angola and south Angola for pops and money. Ultimately I was able to ally to America and then once I attacked Portugal, GBR, Spain, and France all joined portugals side. So that was my final straw with this run and needed to cheat to win the war. The run feels tainted by the amount of console commanding I've had to do and want to restart.

To be honest, law wise, I feel in a good spot with no cheating. Free trade, landed voting, tenant farmers, migration controls, and frontier colonization. But everything still feels slow by 1860 especially with colonization.

I am not opposed to restarting my run and would love any suggestions or tips of anyone can help!

On my Switzerland run and doing really well. Would love more authority, and would also like to disempower the trade unions. My industrialists were powerful but now are getting quite annoyed. I’ve got a revolution brewing for Technocracy, and I think I might swap away from Universal Suffrage for it. Is this a wise move? Any other advice on late game laws that should be in place is appreciated. Thank you.

https://preview.redd.it/1baw7vumabvd1.png?width=2880&format=png&auto=webp&s=3249121b936f0d530e77a518422d20b88e8480f5

I frequently use local prices mapmode for transport, electricity and services micromanagement. However, when you click on a province the mapmode goes back to default, which can be frustrating when you are going through 20+ provinces at times. So I wish you could lock it in the samme manner as other mapmodes