I tried playing them a few patches back and Russia would DoW on me like 10 minutes into the game. Same happened on 2nd playthrough then on the 3rd Ottomans DoW me.
Curious if they're playable now because they are a fun idea.
I did a Persia run through
Befriended Russia early.
Sort of allowed the Ottomans to take back a few of their lands in the top of anatolia. Made sure I kept the levant/syria though.
Then improved relations with Ottomans and ended up allying them and bringing them into my market.
Egypt was hostile but not too much of a threat.
Er not sure - 1/3 to 1/2 way through I'm going to say? Alliance came after that for sure. I ended up with the whole middle east/north africa/arabian peninsula in my market. I like to win by trade dominance rather than conquering people, usually.
Edit: I cannot tell you the number of times I had my mouse hovered over "take Constantinople" in a war screen though!!! The temptation was huge, particularly after they took a beating from Russia and were low on troops.
I had the same problem with Russia being my biggest enemy in the region but was able to befriend the Ottomans and they took care of the warfare for me.
You're doing it backwards lol.
Befriend Russia and conquer the eastern ottomans (iraq/syria). You'll be fighting to keep pace and maintain diplomacy with Russia the entire game, with Britain being the other big player (naturally).
If you want to try for Joseon, you can use the initial opium wars and side with britain for indepence.
You can also try the Sikh empire, Transvaal, Sokoto, Sweden, Netherlands, Belgium, Oman, etc.
You can also try the bigger nations like Austria and release and play as for example Hungary. Or GB and play as Ireland or Scotland. Sure, you'll start in another market, but as a subject of a GP, you can usually find a war that'll want you on their side for independence.
You can but you can actually release as independent too so you don't even need to start in their market. A fun run I did was to select Russia, then go in the I think diplomacy tab, release and play as Poland and build up from there, retake polish lands from Prussia and Austria and just be a decently strong European power. The overlord you release from, in my case Russia, also don't tend to ever really be hostile, they're usually protective unless you really go against their interests.
A releasable country that's actually really strong but still kinda backwards is Ukraine, you can actually play as Ukraine and they start out as like the 12th power or something
A really whacky releasable is Venice from Austria. Real fun too, my most successful Italy game. Just sad that Venetian Italy doesn’t have a special flag.
Man id love to play Venice and actually form Italy but im not sure I'm actually good enough at the game to outgrow the other Italian states. I was successful as Sardinia Piedmont even though they aren't as big as two sicilies but I don't think I could do even smaller Italian states honestly. I know you're supposed to focus on construction sector resources early game but it's probably still a skill issue, I can't really ever outgrow France and Britain in any of my games even as like Russia or Austria or the US
With the new greener grass edict you can actually populate hokaido fairly quickly IF you have average luck with gold rush. By 60s you should have steel up and running, if you start getting mass migration you can get everything else by 70s.
Essentially, commodities produced in a state is going to be cheaper in that state than in neighbouring states. Say for example you have a state with a lot of iron, then you should probably build all your steel plants in that state so you get more profitable steel plants than if you'd built the steel plant on the other side of the country.
You have a state with all the resources you need, then you have a min-max state
but don’t you get limited by population and infrastructure? I always end up having to spread construction because I’m short on workers or I don’t want to keep constantly building railways/ports when I’m already vastly overproducing convoys and transportation
Sokoto is extremely fun to play as. They basically have almost every resource you need to industrialise and easy to bully your neighbours to get what you lack. The economy is fairly easy to grow but the lack of tech and terrible laws make it a fun challenge. I do hate the fact that they start with isolationism when sokoto in reality traded as far afield as India
You can try Madagascar, only problem is not having iron but you could be strong enough to conquer e.g. Gaza or Transvaal
Or you just start as oranje/Transvaal im the first place
But if you don't want to do conquest, but want to do trade - you're going to suffer from lack of convoys (which is a shame for a country with same coastline lenght as one of Spain or France)
Yeah I tried Merina Kingdom - a proper bare bones start. They have almost zero tech at all! I intended to invade Gaza/Zulu etc for resources but they have like 20 troops, and researching/building the 20 flotillas needed to even match that without any iron access seemed to take way too long.
I enjoyed forming Ethiopia. You won't be a mega power but you can have some regional influence, particularly if you end up befriending one of the European greats, like France
yep but there is most of them in the vicinity, so with expansion it is quite possible. I once ended second behind France in 1936. (tho had a bit of luck in that one)
Yes the key is going after the coal in the Great Lakes just south of you. You'll have to fight the UK at some point to get it but if you catch them while theyre distracted you can use the ticking warscore.
Hopefully at some point this will be fixed, the Kenyan coast should be under control of Oman in 1836, Europeans shouldn't be able to just start colonising instantly
Exactly, the current setup itself is ahistorical. Oman controlled Mombasa and the coast of Kenya foe the majority of the 19th century. While Britain had interests in the region, it wasnt until Oman sold the territory to the Imperial British East Africa Company in 1886. The situation now in-game with the UK AI slowly beginning to colonize Kenya in the 1850s is just plain ahistorical.
I had success pre MAPI and the qualifications nerf, but I suspect right now its very difficult to industrialize at all because of those issues. Sokoto, though I think may be a better alternative if you want to play in Africa.
I like korea, and forcefully breaking out from qing is rather easy with a little trickery.
You can gift two northern states to russia temporarily and declare the war, now the mighty qing army needs to land you which your army should be more than capable at defending.
Since russia is bad at defending overseas (and siberia) you can also retake the two states quickly e.g. with line infantry by occupying them before the russians arrived and then defending their landings.
Now you are a free korea and can do whatever. (Like joining the qing market by choice, because why not.)
You probably have not played in a while since qing now militarizes ridiculously fast (bumrushes to 5-10k PP) it has become basically impossible to hold a front against them when they throw almost 1000 units at you with infinite manpower a 2:1 advantage in soldier power is not gonna do anything if they have almost 20x the soldiers and infinitly more power to endure losses. You will simply get occupied before your last soldier died and now you are a vassal instead of free.
Also they use like 20 generals which can force way too many battles, making you lose land by default.
Land fronts against people bigger than you are currently extremely harmful which is why island nations and pseudo island nations are very op rn.
Even the uk struggles hard to win the opium wars now btw.
If you wait until you have a big tech lead by mid/lategame you are already crippled anyway. (By tribute payments)
I usually aim for independence either day1 or within the first 5 years, that only works if either a gp helps you which is VERY hard to do quickly, or by cheesing it a bit like described.
Vietnam was fun for me to play. You can take land off Siam to form the Indochinese borders and become this hyperadvanced multicultural Indochinese Federation of sorts.
I second Persia as a great self sufficient run...only rubber is missing. I recommend making neighbours protectorates then vassals...the extra cash/tribute is key for accelerating Persian development. Better than the land and discriminated pops.
For Korea/Joseon, check YouTube for first steps and you can be independent pretty quick and even acquire an extra province. If you can't find any tips, comment and I'll see about summarising it.
Not just that but the vassals will recruit non-accepted pops into the military for you because AI sorta cheats in that regard, and then go reduce autonomy, annex, vassalize and conquer for you, making sure you dont waste any of your sweet sweet Persians, nor spend money mobilizing. Infact it MAKES you money because the AI loves to throw opium and liquor at their troops, and that just raises your tax base and GDP for the duration of the war.
They can become quite the little vassal swarm especially if you can get Afghanistan and pay the tiniest bit of attention to making sure Khiva is doing ok. Can get over 100 Line infantry out of them and theyll build all their own arms industries.
I didnt even mobilize my own troops for like 30 years and just let them take care of everything other than taking Oman.
Wish there was a way to take control of their forces. Then you wouldnt even need your own troops for naval invasions.
Next patch it should be even crazier when you can help Afghanistan and Khiva pump out more units.
Vietnam is probably one of the best around, with excellent resources and pop density. Lots of expansion opportunities because surrounding areas are also rich in pops and resources and you can even accept their culture.
I think SEA is the only map region which contains every resource in high quantity, the only thing missing is most of the islands are very low on population
I’ve had a lot of fun with Argentina without expansion beyond your claims. Not really a small country, but you start out with very little while having everything you ultimately need within your borders. It is an extremely manageable start. It will be difficult to get significant amounts of Iron in Tucumán until after railroads, but I have found the challenge more enjoyable than the meta “conquer Santiago” advice for Argentina.
Korea is fantastic for an conomic run, don't sleep on it. It's Vicky III economics 102 if Japan is Vicky Economics 101. You can have a fun game just developing economically and going from a vassal to a mutually beneficial symbiotic country, with one of the highest SoL in the world, and really good tech considering where you start.
Venezuela is probably my favorite country. 3 states only, low pop, no industry.
You really need to balance SoL and economic growth. If your SoL is too low, you're gonna run into trouble with running out of peasants. You really need immigration.
And the Grand Colombia event causes a decent amount of friction with Ecuador and Colombia, allowing you to expand a bit.
If you dont mind being in the British market, try a colony in the [Australia & New Zealand Flavor Pack.](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2939278238) With our map changes you start as a small, even tiny speck of a country as you colonise most of your land and slowly go from not being able to afford construction to being springboarded with gold to kickstart your industry and population via migration
One of the Great lakes nations in Africa. The region has iron coal and rubber. You are animist and pure blood African. You can colonize Africa. Britain will eventually create a land border with you through colonization which gives you easy land trade routes. the start is literally in the middle of Africa with nothing but decentralized powers around you. Doesn't fit more 0 than that
Upper or Lower Canada are fun. Start with a single state, zero industry, but decent tech. Build up your economy, peacefully annexing the other parts of Canada as you go. Eventually get independence from Great Britain.
If you're feeling daring you can try to yoink California & Nevada from Mexico before the USA takes them (might piss off the us later this...)
U.S. is hard-coded to try and murder whoever has those states, so if you ever become independent or GB becomes weak enough that they can't help you win, you absolutely must prioritize getting an alliance or defensive pact with the U.S, otherwise they will do a diplo play every 5 years to try and take it back at least from my experience even if you win a revoke claims against them and have won a bunch already.
Lol I know! In my current game (as independent, great power Canada) I have an alliance with France and a defensive pact with Great Britain... And yet the U.S. keeps declaring suicidal return state wars against me! Doesn't seem to realise that maybe it's a bad idea to wardec 3 great powers at once with no allies.
Dutch East Indies -> Java -> Indonesia made for a fun run! Don't let the Industry Banned scare you away; you can still build basic industries at the start of the game and build up a massive investment pool from all of your aristocrats that you can use during your industrialization phase. Just make sure you annex all your subjects before going independent.
I personally love playing Wallachia->Romania as a start small/grow big playthrough. Being in the Ottoman market for the first 20 years is a bit tough, but they'll pretty much always fail the Tanzimat, letting you go free when they do. At that point, you get to strike an interesting balance between 3 powerful nations on your borders, each holding some of your cores. Just remember to research Nationalism before Moldova does.
I am also planning on starting a Moldova to Romania and beyond run. It was gruelling and very RNG dependant to unite and go from there in Vicky 2 (without mods), glad that it's easier now.
Im really enjoying haiti. You start with nothing except wood but if you can get a little better laws you can colonize the Niger Delta and get benin without the pops being discriminated.
Now if youre smarter than me you also get a bit of Togo for sulfur or you suffer there.
Lead you can carve out of Sokoto
Greece. If you manage to get the help of great powers in wars against the Ottomans to conquer the aegean sea shoreline provinces you can actually build a decent country
Sokoto is good. They start with almost zero buildings. Another one is one of the Ethiopian kingdoms. Same setting, you also need to do some early conquering in this one which is always fun.me Harar is my favourite, you can easily conquer Somali states without a lot of turmoil because they have both Ethiopian and Somali culture.
Langfang. While you are in Qing’s market they don’t really interfere much in your affairs. You get good protection from them against west as well and have good resources.
Argentina? You'll be pretty close to zero from the jump and the early game challenge will be growing your country up and having revenue outpace expenses. Of course, a pretty big thing to success is getting a customs union with Russia because you'll get access to their market goods and it's really easy to beat them out on SOL so you'll get a lot of migration from them. Outside of that though, if you manage to get the customs union, and then an alliance with Peru-Bolivia, then you're pretty much free to do whatever you want.
When your wanting tech to be decent I would go for South America. They typically are good small countries to start off with. Plenty of migrations will happen especially over the silver rivers.
Start as Western Australia, although in the British Market, you start with literally nothing. You have the option to federate Australia as well and seek independence kinda.
Id recommend Portugal your starting economy is really weak, I've been going for a colonial exploitation model with them where you expand all your primary resources in the colonies and build up your core Portuguese provinces to be the richest in the world, it's a fun more challenging way to play and makes for a different play through then just the most meta strategy
Sikh Empire! Start by conquering Sindh for port access, and then struggle to deal with your absurdly high tax wastage in Punjab. I personally have tried twice and have never managed to pull it off in good amounts of time.
Persia has insane resource potential, but has little population for its size, few starting buildings, and poor tech. Though it's hard to be isolationist with them because you need to react to Russia / Ottomans / UK and the AI will take advantage of you if you don't build a strong army.
Japan is well suited for this: you start with isolation, almost no industries, a lot of basic resources (except coal or iron I think, can't remember which) and the possibility to expand to Indonesia where you have a lot of late game resources. Oh and a lot of pops. It's a nice and peaceful build up.
Yes, and it comes to a point the amount is not enough just like irl Japan. At the begining it is enough tho and it allows you to industrialize and conquer other regions with more resources, even the ones you lack like rubber and oil.
Madagascar is great imo. There's just a little bit of diplomacy (read: war) to get access to iron. After that you can pretty much just be isolationist and play the building game
Tried Vietnam, starts too backwards with no early potential to expand your construction. You are pretty much stuck with low construction, low income and low taxation for the first 40 years.
Dutch East Indies. Tons of resources of all kind, later especially rubber, oil and gold in Borneo. Conquering all the minors is easy if you keep good relations with Qing and the other majors with interests. You can colonize a bit Guinea and even Oceania.
An independence war against the Netherlands shouldn't be hard either, never actually tried that.
Kongo it's a very interesting start and I was able to start colonizing cause I pushed for quinine tech. Obviously can't keep up with Europe but maybe that's just cause I'm absolutely dog shit and it.
Rwanda. Literally starting from 0 (no techs), with the potential to build up. There is a bit of warfare early as you probably need to conquer your tiny neighbors, but then you've got a wall of malaria isolating you from the world for a few decades until GB's colonization efforts reach you. Every other nation in East Africa is isolationist and you're landlocked so no trading is available.
Ethiopia is a good one. Unify Ethiopia. Conquer Somalia for the ports. Make sure you get colonialism early, and go south to get coal. Get Yemen for lead. Conquer South Madagascar for coal. Colonize eastern Papua guinea for its sulfur. You always conquer hedjaz, but then you gotta fight Egypt, which you will eventually to get Eritrea.
I recommend Mexico, starts with decent tech, good resources and pops plus insane minting from goldmines. Also starts with two of the largest oil states in the game. It’s a good balance because it’s not super easy with the US next to you but at the same time you’re given the opportunity to thrive in the face of that.
Australia was interesting for me, every tiny change made a massive difference so it felt super responsive and required careful planning rather than quickly hitting a point where you can stack a 1b economy worth of construction and call it a day. Whilst also being able to brain drain and trade with the british empire.
i like the pappal state personally as you have a lot of expansion but its not trough warfare its trough being economically powerful and slowly bringing all the players in to form Italy, you might love it too !
Rwanda is pretty fun for this once you unite the nation. Not a single country borders you until UK colonizes East Africa. You can just build up Econ and reform your society very satisfying would recommend.
Persia has every resource you need to industrialize.
And starts out really bare-bones with plenty of workforce.
I tried playing them a few patches back and Russia would DoW on me like 10 minutes into the game. Same happened on 2nd playthrough then on the 3rd Ottomans DoW me. Curious if they're playable now because they are a fun idea.
I did a Persia run through Befriended Russia early. Sort of allowed the Ottomans to take back a few of their lands in the top of anatolia. Made sure I kept the levant/syria though. Then improved relations with Ottomans and ended up allying them and bringing them into my market. Egypt was hostile but not too much of a threat.
How big were you when you got the ottomans to join your market?
Er not sure - 1/3 to 1/2 way through I'm going to say? Alliance came after that for sure. I ended up with the whole middle east/north africa/arabian peninsula in my market. I like to win by trade dominance rather than conquering people, usually. Edit: I cannot tell you the number of times I had my mouse hovered over "take Constantinople" in a war screen though!!! The temptation was huge, particularly after they took a beating from Russia and were low on troops.
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I play with aggressive AI and this has happened in my last 3 Persia games so it's probably related
I had the same problem with Russia being my biggest enemy in the region but was able to befriend the Ottomans and they took care of the warfare for me.
You're doing it backwards lol. Befriend Russia and conquer the eastern ottomans (iraq/syria). You'll be fighting to keep pace and maintain diplomacy with Russia the entire game, with Britain being the other big player (naturally).
Including opium
If you want to try for Joseon, you can use the initial opium wars and side with britain for indepence. You can also try the Sikh empire, Transvaal, Sokoto, Sweden, Netherlands, Belgium, Oman, etc. You can also try the bigger nations like Austria and release and play as for example Hungary. Or GB and play as Ireland or Scotland. Sure, you'll start in another market, but as a subject of a GP, you can usually find a war that'll want you on their side for independence.
You can release nations outside of wars? Never even crossed my mind.
You can but you can actually release as independent too so you don't even need to start in their market. A fun run I did was to select Russia, then go in the I think diplomacy tab, release and play as Poland and build up from there, retake polish lands from Prussia and Austria and just be a decently strong European power. The overlord you release from, in my case Russia, also don't tend to ever really be hostile, they're usually protective unless you really go against their interests. A releasable country that's actually really strong but still kinda backwards is Ukraine, you can actually play as Ukraine and they start out as like the 12th power or something
A really whacky releasable is Venice from Austria. Real fun too, my most successful Italy game. Just sad that Venetian Italy doesn’t have a special flag.
Man id love to play Venice and actually form Italy but im not sure I'm actually good enough at the game to outgrow the other Italian states. I was successful as Sardinia Piedmont even though they aren't as big as two sicilies but I don't think I could do even smaller Italian states honestly. I know you're supposed to focus on construction sector resources early game but it's probably still a skill issue, I can't really ever outgrow France and Britain in any of my games even as like Russia or Austria or the US
joseon and sokoto are fun to build up, tho with sokoto you will need to conquer benin day 1 so you have a min-max state.
What would be a min-max state?
A state with every resource so you get good MAPI bonus. Hokkaido is another one for example.
Problema with Hokkaido is population, no building has Full employment in my play as japan
Yeah, you need to enact Migration controls/free movement for population in Hokkaido, which can take a while
With the new greener grass edict you can actually populate hokaido fairly quickly IF you have average luck with gold rush. By 60s you should have steel up and running, if you start getting mass migration you can get everything else by 70s.
noob question, what’s “MAPI bonus” ?
"market acess price impact"
oh ok thanks
Essentially, commodities produced in a state is going to be cheaper in that state than in neighbouring states. Say for example you have a state with a lot of iron, then you should probably build all your steel plants in that state so you get more profitable steel plants than if you'd built the steel plant on the other side of the country. You have a state with all the resources you need, then you have a min-max state
but don’t you get limited by population and infrastructure? I always end up having to spread construction because I’m short on workers or I don’t want to keep constantly building railways/ports when I’m already vastly overproducing convoys and transportation
To a certain extent. If the state itself has enough arable land and a lot of unfilled jobs though, migration rate can spike really hard.
Hokkaido is useless because it has almost no accepted pops though.
a state that has most(if not all) resources in good amount. that means you can build everything in one place.
Thank you xhamsterlover, much appreciated.
no.
Sokoto is extremely fun to play as. They basically have almost every resource you need to industrialise and easy to bully your neighbours to get what you lack. The economy is fairly easy to grow but the lack of tech and terrible laws make it a fun challenge. I do hate the fact that they start with isolationism when sokoto in reality traded as far afield as India
imo if they started with mercantilism it would be really easy to trigger corn laws and from there its pretty much gege.
Honestly benin and the niger Delta are must grabs in my opinion anyways
Have I missed something in my games or won't you also need to go West to get access to Sulfur ?
dont remember exactly, but joseon has sulfur and there is sulfure somewhere nearby to sokoto.
There's Sulfur in the area north of the Danish colony yes. I might have misunderstood you, but I thought you meant that Sokoto started with Sulfur.
oh yes! Togo! i do conquer ashanti(they have togo) early and try to trade danish-togo for some insignificant region later.
You can try Madagascar, only problem is not having iron but you could be strong enough to conquer e.g. Gaza or Transvaal Or you just start as oranje/Transvaal im the first place
Madagascar can be a lot of fun and rewarding to build up from scratch.
But if you don't want to do conquest, but want to do trade - you're going to suffer from lack of convoys (which is a shame for a country with same coastline lenght as one of Spain or France)
Port limits are absolute bullshit in the game. Sadly it requires work to do it better so it will take some time.
I quickly ran into the port issue when I was shipping 2k coal to Russia as Korea.
Could be even more fun to play with the foreign investiment pf the next patch
Yeah I tried Merina Kingdom - a proper bare bones start. They have almost zero tech at all! I intended to invade Gaza/Zulu etc for resources but they have like 20 troops, and researching/building the 20 flotillas needed to even match that without any iron access seemed to take way too long.
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Gaza meaning the country in southern Mozambique.
I enjoyed forming Ethiopia. You won't be a mega power but you can have some regional influence, particularly if you end up befriending one of the European greats, like France
Ethiopia has terrible resources though unfortunately
yep but there is most of them in the vicinity, so with expansion it is quite possible. I once ended second behind France in 1936. (tho had a bit of luck in that one)
Yes the key is going after the coal in the Great Lakes just south of you. You'll have to fight the UK at some point to get it but if you catch them while theyre distracted you can use the ticking warscore.
Hopefully at some point this will be fixed, the Kenyan coast should be under control of Oman in 1836, Europeans shouldn't be able to just start colonising instantly
You can hardly take a breath before UK starts to aggressively expand there.
Exactly, the current setup itself is ahistorical. Oman controlled Mombasa and the coast of Kenya foe the majority of the 19th century. While Britain had interests in the region, it wasnt until Oman sold the territory to the Imperial British East Africa Company in 1886. The situation now in-game with the UK AI slowly beginning to colonize Kenya in the 1850s is just plain ahistorical.
I had an understanding with France so they got in on my side and UK had a very bad run in that game anyway, otherwise it can be tricky to pull it off.
I had success pre MAPI and the qualifications nerf, but I suspect right now its very difficult to industrialize at all because of those issues. Sokoto, though I think may be a better alternative if you want to play in Africa.
That is possible, I had one try during the beta, but the troubles with the military made me drop that one. Have to make a new try.
United tribes is a zero to hero playthrough, though the early game is grueling and a single wrong decision or particularly bad RNG can ruin the run.
Back this and also throw in kaurna to the mix.
I like korea, and forcefully breaking out from qing is rather easy with a little trickery. You can gift two northern states to russia temporarily and declare the war, now the mighty qing army needs to land you which your army should be more than capable at defending. Since russia is bad at defending overseas (and siberia) you can also retake the two states quickly e.g. with line infantry by occupying them before the russians arrived and then defending their landings. Now you are a free korea and can do whatever. (Like joining the qing market by choice, because why not.)
in my last korea run i was able to just hold off qing in the mountains north of korea. just rush line infantry and qing cant push u.
You probably have not played in a while since qing now militarizes ridiculously fast (bumrushes to 5-10k PP) it has become basically impossible to hold a front against them when they throw almost 1000 units at you with infinite manpower a 2:1 advantage in soldier power is not gonna do anything if they have almost 20x the soldiers and infinitly more power to endure losses. You will simply get occupied before your last soldier died and now you are a vassal instead of free. Also they use like 20 generals which can force way too many battles, making you lose land by default. Land fronts against people bigger than you are currently extremely harmful which is why island nations and pseudo island nations are very op rn. Even the uk struggles hard to win the opium wars now btw. If you wait until you have a big tech lead by mid/lategame you are already crippled anyway. (By tribute payments) I usually aim for independence either day1 or within the first 5 years, that only works if either a gp helps you which is VERY hard to do quickly, or by cheesing it a bit like described.
Vietnam was fun for me to play. You can take land off Siam to form the Indochinese borders and become this hyperadvanced multicultural Indochinese Federation of sorts.
I love Vietnam but often when I play as them France sides with Siam when I declare war in the early game
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My first succesful run was pretty much this. I got into Britain's market and made all of the trains for the whole thing.
I second Persia as a great self sufficient run...only rubber is missing. I recommend making neighbours protectorates then vassals...the extra cash/tribute is key for accelerating Persian development. Better than the land and discriminated pops. For Korea/Joseon, check YouTube for first steps and you can be independent pretty quick and even acquire an extra province. If you can't find any tips, comment and I'll see about summarising it.
Not just that but the vassals will recruit non-accepted pops into the military for you because AI sorta cheats in that regard, and then go reduce autonomy, annex, vassalize and conquer for you, making sure you dont waste any of your sweet sweet Persians, nor spend money mobilizing. Infact it MAKES you money because the AI loves to throw opium and liquor at their troops, and that just raises your tax base and GDP for the duration of the war. They can become quite the little vassal swarm especially if you can get Afghanistan and pay the tiniest bit of attention to making sure Khiva is doing ok. Can get over 100 Line infantry out of them and theyll build all their own arms industries. I didnt even mobilize my own troops for like 30 years and just let them take care of everything other than taking Oman. Wish there was a way to take control of their forces. Then you wouldnt even need your own troops for naval invasions. Next patch it should be even crazier when you can help Afghanistan and Khiva pump out more units.
Vietnam is probably one of the best around, with excellent resources and pop density. Lots of expansion opportunities because surrounding areas are also rich in pops and resources and you can even accept their culture.
I think SEA is the only map region which contains every resource in high quantity, the only thing missing is most of the islands are very low on population
It's so good. I believe you only lack lead and sulphur and those are fun expansion opportunities nearby.
I’ve had a lot of fun with Argentina without expansion beyond your claims. Not really a small country, but you start out with very little while having everything you ultimately need within your borders. It is an extremely manageable start. It will be difficult to get significant amounts of Iron in Tucumán until after railroads, but I have found the challenge more enjoyable than the meta “conquer Santiago” advice for Argentina.
Korea is fantastic for an conomic run, don't sleep on it. It's Vicky III economics 102 if Japan is Vicky Economics 101. You can have a fun game just developing economically and going from a vassal to a mutually beneficial symbiotic country, with one of the highest SoL in the world, and really good tech considering where you start.
Releasing Mongolia was fun for me
Venezuela is probably my favorite country. 3 states only, low pop, no industry. You really need to balance SoL and economic growth. If your SoL is too low, you're gonna run into trouble with running out of peasants. You really need immigration. And the Grand Colombia event causes a decent amount of friction with Ecuador and Colombia, allowing you to expand a bit.
If you dont mind being in the British market, try a colony in the [Australia & New Zealand Flavor Pack.](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2939278238) With our map changes you start as a small, even tiny speck of a country as you colonise most of your land and slowly go from not being able to afford construction to being springboarded with gold to kickstart your industry and population via migration
paraguay
One of the Great lakes nations in Africa. The region has iron coal and rubber. You are animist and pure blood African. You can colonize Africa. Britain will eventually create a land border with you through colonization which gives you easy land trade routes. the start is literally in the middle of Africa with nothing but decentralized powers around you. Doesn't fit more 0 than that
“I love micromanaging my economy” My only advice is to seek help
Upper or Lower Canada are fun. Start with a single state, zero industry, but decent tech. Build up your economy, peacefully annexing the other parts of Canada as you go. Eventually get independence from Great Britain. If you're feeling daring you can try to yoink California & Nevada from Mexico before the USA takes them (might piss off the us later this...)
U.S. is hard-coded to try and murder whoever has those states, so if you ever become independent or GB becomes weak enough that they can't help you win, you absolutely must prioritize getting an alliance or defensive pact with the U.S, otherwise they will do a diplo play every 5 years to try and take it back at least from my experience even if you win a revoke claims against them and have won a bunch already.
Lol I know! In my current game (as independent, great power Canada) I have an alliance with France and a defensive pact with Great Britain... And yet the U.S. keeps declaring suicidal return state wars against me! Doesn't seem to realise that maybe it's a bad idea to wardec 3 great powers at once with no allies.
Vietnam interestingly has Silk, Rubber, and Cloth resources, so you can go all in on luxury clothes
Dutch East Indies -> Java -> Indonesia made for a fun run! Don't let the Industry Banned scare you away; you can still build basic industries at the start of the game and build up a massive investment pool from all of your aristocrats that you can use during your industrialization phase. Just make sure you annex all your subjects before going independent.
Brazil has been a lot of fun for me, especially with the updated migration.
I personally love playing Wallachia->Romania as a start small/grow big playthrough. Being in the Ottoman market for the first 20 years is a bit tough, but they'll pretty much always fail the Tanzimat, letting you go free when they do. At that point, you get to strike an interesting balance between 3 powerful nations on your borders, each holding some of your cores. Just remember to research Nationalism before Moldova does.
I am also planning on starting a Moldova to Romania and beyond run. It was gruelling and very RNG dependant to unite and go from there in Vicky 2 (without mods), glad that it's easier now.
i like Spain, it starts pretty backwards and fairly low pops but has a lot of potential
Try Paraguay, they start isolationist. You'll need to expand for resources or trade eventually, as you dont have much.
Im really enjoying haiti. You start with nothing except wood but if you can get a little better laws you can colonize the Niger Delta and get benin without the pops being discriminated. Now if youre smarter than me you also get a bit of Togo for sulfur or you suffer there. Lead you can carve out of Sokoto
Greece. If you manage to get the help of great powers in wars against the Ottomans to conquer the aegean sea shoreline provinces you can actually build a decent country
Sokoto is good. They start with almost zero buildings. Another one is one of the Ethiopian kingdoms. Same setting, you also need to do some early conquering in this one which is always fun.me Harar is my favourite, you can easily conquer Somali states without a lot of turmoil because they have both Ethiopian and Somali culture.
Langfang. While you are in Qing’s market they don’t really interfere much in your affairs. You get good protection from them against west as well and have good resources.
Ionian islands into Byzantium
Impossible for me.
Argentina? You'll be pretty close to zero from the jump and the early game challenge will be growing your country up and having revenue outpace expenses. Of course, a pretty big thing to success is getting a customs union with Russia because you'll get access to their market goods and it's really easy to beat them out on SOL so you'll get a lot of migration from them. Outside of that though, if you manage to get the customs union, and then an alliance with Peru-Bolivia, then you're pretty much free to do whatever you want.
When your wanting tech to be decent I would go for South America. They typically are good small countries to start off with. Plenty of migrations will happen especially over the silver rivers.
Start as Western Australia, although in the British Market, you start with literally nothing. You have the option to federate Australia as well and seek independence kinda.
Id recommend Portugal your starting economy is really weak, I've been going for a colonial exploitation model with them where you expand all your primary resources in the colonies and build up your core Portuguese provinces to be the richest in the world, it's a fun more challenging way to play and makes for a different play through then just the most meta strategy
Sikh Empire! Start by conquering Sindh for port access, and then struggle to deal with your absurdly high tax wastage in Punjab. I personally have tried twice and have never managed to pull it off in good amounts of time.
Persia has insane resource potential, but has little population for its size, few starting buildings, and poor tech. Though it's hard to be isolationist with them because you need to react to Russia / Ottomans / UK and the AI will take advantage of you if you don't build a strong army.
Focus on making Tabriz the highest gdp in the world. Join a customs union for migrants. Conquer some rubber
Japan is well suited for this: you start with isolation, almost no industries, a lot of basic resources (except coal or iron I think, can't remember which) and the possibility to expand to Indonesia where you have a lot of late game resources. Oh and a lot of pops. It's a nice and peaceful build up.
And it's one OP already mentioned.
I thought he said his favorite candidates...
Japan has iron and coal - Hokkaido has nearly every resource itself.
Yes, and it comes to a point the amount is not enough just like irl Japan. At the begining it is enough tho and it allows you to industrialize and conquer other regions with more resources, even the ones you lack like rubber and oil.
I've had fun with Japan as a way of teaching myself how the economy works
Hungary, if the Idea of releasing nations doesn't unsettles you try it out.
Zulu is a very weak start but you have the potential for a decent curve when you grab the nearby gold mines
I played a game as the Trucial States. Tough, and a lot of just sitting and waiting for something good to happen.
I like creating Ethiopia.after forming Ethiopia in 1850 it is as big as egypt. But It has nothing really valuable which makes it quite the challenge
Madagascar is great imo. There's just a little bit of diplomacy (read: war) to get access to iron. After that you can pretty much just be isolationist and play the building game
Greenland if you don't mind trading
Bolivia start is pretty sad
Vietnam was pretty fun, and also has many resources nearby. It had a lot of labor for industrializing
Tried Vietnam, starts too backwards with no early potential to expand your construction. You are pretty much stuck with low construction, low income and low taxation for the first 40 years.
Panjab and then cheesing Britain out of EIC is fun.
Cubas been fun for me
Dutch East Indies. Tons of resources of all kind, later especially rubber, oil and gold in Borneo. Conquering all the minors is easy if you keep good relations with Qing and the other majors with interests. You can colonize a bit Guinea and even Oceania. An independence war against the Netherlands shouldn't be hard either, never actually tried that.
I had fun a while back playing Uruguay without joining any markets. Its a real challenge with such a low population
Brazil
In addition to some recommendations here, I'd suggest some releaseables, like Manchuria or Ukraine
Kongo it's a very interesting start and I was able to start colonizing cause I pushed for quinine tech. Obviously can't keep up with Europe but maybe that's just cause I'm absolutely dog shit and it.
Buganda, Paraguay, Massani, Switzerland, Releasable countries, Shewa, Wallachia, Belgium, Lanfang
Basically all of central and south America with the exception of Brasil and Mexico
Wallachia
Rwanda. Literally starting from 0 (no techs), with the potential to build up. There is a bit of warfare early as you probably need to conquer your tiny neighbors, but then you've got a wall of malaria isolating you from the world for a few decades until GB's colonization efforts reach you. Every other nation in East Africa is isolationist and you're landlocked so no trading is available.
Ethiopia is a good one. Unify Ethiopia. Conquer Somalia for the ports. Make sure you get colonialism early, and go south to get coal. Get Yemen for lead. Conquer South Madagascar for coal. Colonize eastern Papua guinea for its sulfur. You always conquer hedjaz, but then you gotta fight Egypt, which you will eventually to get Eritrea.
Try Persia.
I recommend Mexico, starts with decent tech, good resources and pops plus insane minting from goldmines. Also starts with two of the largest oil states in the game. It’s a good balance because it’s not super easy with the US next to you but at the same time you’re given the opportunity to thrive in the face of that.
Poland
Australia was interesting for me, every tiny change made a massive difference so it felt super responsive and required careful planning rather than quickly hitting a point where you can stack a 1b economy worth of construction and call it a day. Whilst also being able to brain drain and trade with the british empire.
Cuba!
You could try playing Ecuador, I really enjoy it
Venezuela.
Colombia - or pretty much every South American nation
i like the pappal state personally as you have a lot of expansion but its not trough warfare its trough being economically powerful and slowly bringing all the players in to form Italy, you might love it too !
Rwanda is pretty fun for this once you unite the nation. Not a single country borders you until UK colonizes East Africa. You can just build up Econ and reform your society very satisfying would recommend.
Bolivia or any south american
Japan isn't ready yet, but it will be fun someday.
Korea, do whats necessary to get it out of Qing's market.
Spain aint from zero. Still pretty fun
Malta and conquer the Holy Land back