Ok so I've only ever played this for like one day, and I cannot seem to play for more than two hours without absolutely tanking my economy.
I'm playing as Cuba, and obviously my goal is to liberate the Cuban people from the tyranny of the landowners and Catholic church and eventually establish communism.
I've watched a couple of "complete beginner" videos on the topic, but there's almost twenty "complete beginner" videos in this series and they're all like 40 minutes long lol. This game is insanely complicated.
I've played a lot of Tropico so I am not unfamiliar with "nation building" games, but this is of course way more complex. It only dawned on me recently that the reason that the plantations that I started with weren't making me any money because they're owned by the fucking ruling class and not the state.
So, any pointers? Early on in the game what should I be focusing on? What should I build, research, etc? I've established that I need to first start a construction industry (Cuba starts with none) and build some plantations in order to get some money flowing in, but after that I'm just kind of lost. Plus the Spanish empire seems to immediately gift me Puerto Rico for reasons unknown and it's a completely impoverished backwards starving hell hole, so then I have to deal with that hot mess too.
Thanks in advance Hexbears.
StalinIsMaiWaifu has some good tips, but I would also suggest starting with a major power to learn the ropes before tackling a minor like Cuba and trying to break free from an overlord, because major powers at least have some level of industrialization at game start, which will make some things easier.
Tbh Cuba will be a very boring run if you don't understand the systems. You are very limited in terms of options and things to do, you will likely spend the entire game slowly industrializing your single province. It might be helpful for learning some of the systems, but I think you might get tired of it. Haiti is in a similar positions in actually but not a subject and with two states, might be a more fun run if you want to stay small.
If you picked a big South American country you will be more or less safe from your neighbors and likely out of the way of the major powers. You could also play a big country, you are unlikely to completely beef it as one of them because you have so much weight to throw around. But it may be overwhelming.
Well atm I am just learning the ropes, I think a major power might be too overwhelming. Cuba is just one small state (plus Puerto Rico apparently) and I can basically just ignore my military entirely because Spain will come to my rescue if I get in hot water.
I read Cuba is a good beginner country (could be wrong I dunno wtf I am doing), plus I like the idea of vicariously enjoying a destroy-the-ruling-class-of-Cuba and establish communism run.
I recommend mexico, you start at war with texas so it forcee you to learn the basic stuff of the military, also some colonization stuff. Its also a short campaign because you will likely lose when the US inevitably declares war on you.
Vietnam is a better beginner country imo, I think they have it as an option for the "tutorial campaign" thing when you select at the start
Yeah I tried the tutorial campaign as Colombia but I think one of the DLCs that was bundled with the pack I bought broke it, causing an event not to be triggered or something, because suddenly it just stopped giving me guidance part way through (very early on). Normally I obsessively go through the tutorials for new games I am learning.
With this game, the tutorials aren't the best anyway imo. Best to learn primarily from videos, but the tutorials they have are helpful to keep you from getting too far lost (unless they break).
But yeah Vietnam is just 3 states so it's manageable, although you're gonna get colonized pretty early on.
It's what I did first, to be fair. If you like it go ahead, just wanted to give you a warning.
They've changed things in some ways that make it better too, I had to invade Spain for my independence which I think isn't necessary anymore.
It’s got fun bits. You will have an extra difficulty in the form of Spain sucking away part of your income, but if you’re open to that challenge then it’s fine.
Going off the other comment, you want to industrialize as soon as you can, to improve profit margins and productivity. Early it can be a bit hard, but one way to make baby steps is by combining one tooling workshop with lumber sectors, which can take tools for more efficiency. The first version of construction sector uses lumber, which makes your economic growth cheaper. You can then use that to build other stuff that uses tools, to increase demand for them.
Eventually you’ll probably want iron to build tools more efficiently, and to get higher tier construction, but you want to make sure you have enough tool demand so that you don’t accidentally make tools too costly to produce with your new, low productivity, iron mine. You can deal with that either with a lot of things wanting tools, or a second tooling workshop you keep on wood tools.
Also you do get money from rich people owning stuff, through taxes. Doesn’t necessarily require government ownership to get money.
That said, if you have a foreign investor or someone you’re a puppet of, the people owning buildings might be in a different country, where you aren’t taxing them.
Before you unpause:
Raise taxes to highest (more money for you + radicals) and set consumption taxes on services + as many luxuries as possible
Set grain to export focus (we want the corn laws event to fire)
Build 1 construction building for every 3-5k you are over net. If you have iron construction turn that on.
After unpausing: focus on goods which feed the construction industry. Try not to build any agriculture buildings. Only privatize if you are independent and no one has investment rights, otherwise foreign capital will buy everything.
After the corn laws fire the leader of the aristocrats will be a liberal, change your eco law to laizie faire
This was very helpful thanks. So far so good, I've made it to 1842 and I'm still making money so far. I didn't realise that if I wasn't producing lumber / fabric / iron etc than I was just lighting money on fire.
Research: you need railroads, otherwise you will run out of infrastructure (negative infrastructure means less goods sold and pops unable to buy goods)
After that you have choices, but I focus the society branch for better laws and New political ideologies
1860 is is when I'd go into mil tech for skirmish inf. Unless you want to go imperializing then your army should exclusively be infantry (best defence)
Politics/laws: radicals support opposition interest groups, early game while you're stuck with landowners they will be very helpful in getting the good laws. Do not worry about civil wars, Spain should be able to handle it** (if anti-player bias is set to high then the GPS will intervene against you). Try to go all the way, incremental steps will take extra time and annoy more IGs. Below is recommended goals early game
Slavery: banned
Education: public/religious (same education bonus)
Healthcare: universal/religious (same sol bonus for poor)
Home affairs: secret police (reduces the chances of civil war)
Taxes: proportional
Economy: laizie faire (construction is your #1 cost, LZ has a 20-50% bonus to paying for construction effectively making free money)
Voting rights: universal
I found a YouTube link in your post. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
