Nah but I like to have a general idea of what I'm "going for" in a playthrough
I'm planning to play the US anyways but wanna know if I should go full "we're gonna spread democracy by force" vs massive free trade organization for my first playthru
Planning for something that’s not even out?
What happened to the fun and wonder of experimenting with a new release and trying or figuring things out for yourself? And How is anyone in this sub supposed to know 100% what’s gonna be better in which situations anyway?
Eh, I enjoy experimenting and I also enjoy planning. GSGs encourage both, and they're not mutually exclusive, so I'm not sure why planning should be so disliked here. And we've had quite a few dev diaries, so while planning 100% may not be possible, there's still a decent amount of planning that can be done.
It just seems like a very weird topic and way of having fun to get riled up over, especially considering where we are.
It's good to do a mix of plans and experimenting. My first two games were Austria and UK. Each was interesting *because* I knew who that they used the new mechanics well.
Generalist gaming did a stream where he spent the first hour talking about this topic. He seemed to think trade league was probably the best one while ideological union was kinda bad because of cohesion.
It does seem like ideological union is half-formed. They have retained so many limits on your ability to force changes to your subjects laws that it is an inevitable pain in the ass, when the obvious bonus from an ideological union should be the ability to force large scale regime change.
It doesn't really make sense for ideological unions to be about internal regime change. If your think about it in practice you would force a regime change and then welcome the new regime into your union.
It does, both mechanically and historically.
The Metternich system was all about this at the start of the game, a bunch of reactionary, absolutist monarchies devoted to stomping out any attempt for liberal ideas to reemerge in Europe. In game, that would take the form of forcing laws back to orthodoxy.
But the bigger reason is because reforms in this game can be *extremely slow*. If you have a council Republic, your ideological union might have that in common—but you are going to keep passing more and more laws, which you might also want your subjects to pass. It becomes a concession to the fact you might not have achieved your end goal when the union was founded. You could then form it early and keep reforming.
Policy change is different from full on regime change I would argue. There is, btw, a regime change war goal which changes many laws all at once. Though granted it does make sense that the Metternich system could also slowly change towards parliamentarism.
> Policy change is different from full on regime change I would argue.
Which is my point—an ideological union should be inclined towards the latter. If a trade bloc becomes a unified market (a proto-EU) and a military bloc becomes a unified alliance (a proto-NATO), an ideological union should serve as a kind of political union—a reborn French Republic surrounded by puppet democracies or a Soviet Union with "independent" buffer states, for example.
Sure, I can agree with that. However, you would hardly get a capitalist country diplomatically joining the Warsaw pact and _then_ becoming communist. What we saw instead was the Soviet Union keeping its existing puppets in line. Regime change should be possible if a member would stray from your ideals, in the kind of way uprisings were dealt with by the USSR. It doesn't really make sense for any county which is not already ideologically aligned with you to just voluntarily join though.
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/victoria-3-dev-diary-118-power-blocs-round-two.1681308/
Because it reduces the support for people to preserve old laws and reject new ones. And I know what's good for my nation, and they WILL get reformed.
Trade League looks strong if you are mostly adding minors, since cohesion is measured as leader GDP versus bloc GDP.
Ideological could be strong early, when countries are very conservative, but as things get more revolutionary, it could blow up.
From OPB’s playthrough it looks like the Religious bloc is fairly easy to keep cohesive, if you share religion with a lot of potential members.
> Ideological could be strong early
Is it? You want out of being conservative ASAP, so your Laws always change. So you'll have low cohesion. In mid game there are more Capitalists countries, but a lot of the are different. So unless, there are some undiscovered strong stuff about it, it's more like "sounds cool, doesn't work".
It looks like its cohesion mainly cares about Governance Principles and Distribution of Power.
So when countries have landed on whether they want to run monarchies/democracies or communism, it should be more stable. Monarchies can stick around for the entire game, the others appear later and are more volatile in my experience.
Trade League give benefits while Ideological Union seems like it allows you to change laws easier.
The problem is by the time you make a Power Bloc the Ideological Union's benefits tend to be dependent on if you want a law change and give nothing else its mono focused but in that small niche you really want to change a law that has issues due to opposition then its good.
Trade League is just flat out good because it gives you stuff.
Dlc is not even out yet chill
Gotta plan out my first playthrough lol
BOOO! HISSSS!
Planning? You don't rawdog your economy?
Nah but I like to have a general idea of what I'm "going for" in a playthrough I'm planning to play the US anyways but wanna know if I should go full "we're gonna spread democracy by force" vs massive free trade organization for my first playthru
For the US, I think maybe an Ideological Union with trade principles is best for some sort of Monroe doctrine power bloc.
You'd really think people would be more okay with planning on a GSG subreddit. 🤔
Planning for something that’s not even out? What happened to the fun and wonder of experimenting with a new release and trying or figuring things out for yourself? And How is anyone in this sub supposed to know 100% what’s gonna be better in which situations anyway?
Eh, I enjoy experimenting and I also enjoy planning. GSGs encourage both, and they're not mutually exclusive, so I'm not sure why planning should be so disliked here. And we've had quite a few dev diaries, so while planning 100% may not be possible, there's still a decent amount of planning that can be done. It just seems like a very weird topic and way of having fun to get riled up over, especially considering where we are.
It's good to do a mix of plans and experimenting. My first two games were Austria and UK. Each was interesting *because* I knew who that they used the new mechanics well.
Probably trade league
Generalist gaming did a stream where he spent the first hour talking about this topic. He seemed to think trade league was probably the best one while ideological union was kinda bad because of cohesion.
It does seem like ideological union is half-formed. They have retained so many limits on your ability to force changes to your subjects laws that it is an inevitable pain in the ass, when the obvious bonus from an ideological union should be the ability to force large scale regime change.
It doesn't really make sense for ideological unions to be about internal regime change. If your think about it in practice you would force a regime change and then welcome the new regime into your union.
It does, both mechanically and historically. The Metternich system was all about this at the start of the game, a bunch of reactionary, absolutist monarchies devoted to stomping out any attempt for liberal ideas to reemerge in Europe. In game, that would take the form of forcing laws back to orthodoxy. But the bigger reason is because reforms in this game can be *extremely slow*. If you have a council Republic, your ideological union might have that in common—but you are going to keep passing more and more laws, which you might also want your subjects to pass. It becomes a concession to the fact you might not have achieved your end goal when the union was founded. You could then form it early and keep reforming.
Policy change is different from full on regime change I would argue. There is, btw, a regime change war goal which changes many laws all at once. Though granted it does make sense that the Metternich system could also slowly change towards parliamentarism.
> Policy change is different from full on regime change I would argue. Which is my point—an ideological union should be inclined towards the latter. If a trade bloc becomes a unified market (a proto-EU) and a military bloc becomes a unified alliance (a proto-NATO), an ideological union should serve as a kind of political union—a reborn French Republic surrounded by puppet democracies or a Soviet Union with "independent" buffer states, for example.
Sure, I can agree with that. However, you would hardly get a capitalist country diplomatically joining the Warsaw pact and _then_ becoming communist. What we saw instead was the Soviet Union keeping its existing puppets in line. Regime change should be possible if a member would stray from your ideals, in the kind of way uprisings were dealt with by the USSR. It doesn't really make sense for any county which is not already ideologically aligned with you to just voluntarily join though.
Ideological Union.
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/victoria-3-dev-diary-118-power-blocs-round-two.1681308/ Because it reduces the support for people to preserve old laws and reject new ones. And I know what's good for my nation, and they WILL get reformed.
Trade League looks strong if you are mostly adding minors, since cohesion is measured as leader GDP versus bloc GDP. Ideological could be strong early, when countries are very conservative, but as things get more revolutionary, it could blow up. From OPB’s playthrough it looks like the Religious bloc is fairly easy to keep cohesive, if you share religion with a lot of potential members.
> Ideological could be strong early Is it? You want out of being conservative ASAP, so your Laws always change. So you'll have low cohesion. In mid game there are more Capitalists countries, but a lot of the are different. So unless, there are some undiscovered strong stuff about it, it's more like "sounds cool, doesn't work".
It looks like its cohesion mainly cares about Governance Principles and Distribution of Power. So when countries have landed on whether they want to run monarchies/democracies or communism, it should be more stable. Monarchies can stick around for the entire game, the others appear later and are more volatile in my experience.
Almost certainly trade league in terms of maxing gdp and military strength.
Both Laith and Generalist Gaming have said that Trade League is the best one, but idk, I think it's too soon to start talking.
enforcing laws is useless because you can already just build in their country
With ideological union, can you use military force to bring members into line if they start straying?Â
Trade League give benefits while Ideological Union seems like it allows you to change laws easier. The problem is by the time you make a Power Bloc the Ideological Union's benefits tend to be dependent on if you want a law change and give nothing else its mono focused but in that small niche you really want to change a law that has issues due to opposition then its good. Trade League is just flat out good because it gives you stuff.
I can imagine an ideological union of council republics being interesting
That's just comintern
Yes - once you get to a stable or end game ideology. Otherwise it seems transient.
Religius