Victoria 3 - The 7 HUGE MISTAKES Everyone is Making! (Victoria 3 Tutorial) 

Another mistake people make: assuming the tutorial will teach you the game.

playing vic 3 is like studying math for a test you have the next day and you understand nothing. i damn near started crying playing it for the first time

I'm making way more than 7 mistakes in this game an untold number.

Nobody crashes economies when trying to fix the economy quite like I do. it's art really

Another good tip for war goals is not to overdo it. Sometimes the ai will give into demands if you put too many war goals and then you ONLY get the main war goal, the very first one you started the diplomatic play with. It’s frustrating to add so many war goals, get so much infamy, and then end up with only a single state added.

I’ve found that raising government and military wages almost always pays for itself by increasing consumption from relevant pops. As long as they have something to consume you’re going to get that money back as tax income.

I tax liquor as the US, because that's what we did instead of income tax for quite some time. Also I found using a high quality professional army has worked great. Only got about 100 or so professional battalions but they take on easily 3x their number without even trying.

Good point about Barracks vs Conscripts, however it's worth noting that a standing army gives you army projection, and in turn, prestige. A few Regulars are worth if they bring you up to the threshold of a new power ranking.

Tip number one is good, and an even easier way to check it is to go to the Population button and see what percentage of your pops are peasants (or serfs). When you upgrade subsistence farms, the workers become laborers and farmers instead.

Little tip that helps me a lot with interest groups: You can have the game display them on your ledger on the right sider of the screen. Simply go to the "neutral" map mode and click on the button below the journal. There you can set ledger parts as favorites which will display them on the main screen showing power percentage, active bonuses and allowing for quick access to the interest group

With Chile, if the government faction (who gets government wages) gets mad at you, there is -10% penalty to your prestige, which can drop your country to a lower status level (insignificant). So, paying the govt workers average, or a step up, keeps them from penalizing you. had this happen with Japan too.

The amount of pops stuck in unused arable land is actually reflected on peasant population. If you overdevelop agricultural buildings you might find you have trouble employing enough people in your urban buildings.

It was fascinating when I started using Keynesian economic theory to push my economy into overdrive and simultaneously industrialize, pay off a massive debt, and bring the peasantry into the greater economy. It was very cool to see how real theory can be simulated in a game rather than just simply abstracted by a stat change. I'm not sure I can think about any other game where real theory can be brought about not by a button click but the very mechanics of the game.

This game has an intensely brutal learning curve. Spent the last few days learning what things do. And I just recently figured out how to colonize. So that’s fun.

I am still trying to figure out when the best time to add a construction sector is. I like to play as small, some what isolated nations since I am still trying to figure the game out (coming from CK there is a lot to learn) so they don't have any sectors to begin with and even building a farm takes most of a year. Whenever I build a sector it seems to obliterate my money - which I usually aim to be slightly green - to red and I can never get it back. I'll try following the tax tips in the video but any advice on when to put in that first 1-3 sectors would be appreciated. Even trying to plan ahead by having excess wood and fabric in my market so I can supply the sector doesn't seem to do much of anything. Maybe I need to just smash the government wages down to very low and find a different way to get my laws how I want them instead of using the intelligensia?

I am loving your videos and general demeanor, I think you can reach far if Victoria 3 stays popular. I do have one suggestion/question for a video, I feel like how to deal with radicalism and radical pops. I can't seem to be able to control them at all, with usually a quarter of my pops being radical. Looking at the growth it seems to stem from lowered SoL, but I do everything I can to reduce that + my strats are all at least midling to prosperous. How can I effectively deal with this?

But wait! Some countries have to focus on agriculture as a whole to provide food for other nations. They're called "Breakbasket of (INSERT CONTINET HERE)" for a reason!

Lol mistake I made was spamming construction sectors 😂😂 ended up having a massive headache

Your mouseover of Australia when you mentioned 'really minor nations' made me laugh :)

Personally gotta disagree with the tip about troops. When you conscript people, they stop working and your economy gets majorly impacted at a time when you need your economy outputting at its maximum. I think it's better to build a solid, if not massive, military with barracks and use alliances and defence pacts in the early game, when wars are less common. War isn't as necessary in Victoria 3 as it is in EU4 or CK3, and imo you're better off focusing on building a large economy than you are on building a large army of conscripts.

This has been very illuminating for me, I thank you many times kind sir and wish you a lovely day.

Big thing that mislead me when first playing was "insufficient qualifications" for expanding government administration. You don't have enough to completely fill it, but if you are already maxed out you won't get more, it's a gradual process. I seem to do better if I ignore it, just build one level at a time and check in later to see if it fills.

Thank you JumboPixel!

Thank you. That was very handy.

Man was this useful, especially with how I handle(d) consumption taxes.

Just found your channel the other day great vids mah dude

Hi JumboPixel, thanks for this very informative video. I have been grinding the game the past week and had a ton of fun doing so. But couldn't get past the 60ies with a game because I either went broke or my people were constantly rebelling... If I can swallow a neighbor in one campaign, should I go for it or conquer it piece by piece? Let's say for example I had this Belgium game where I really wanted Amsterdams harbor etc. I thought to myself "might as well take Gelre and Friesland". It worked, but I didn't really know what to do with those provinces and simply swallowing their GDP does not work in this game. Would love to see a follow-up video on warfare and incorporation of conquered territories. Keep up the great work! :)

Peasant levies empower the shittiest IG, so that's usually a hard no. National Militia is very good - but conscripts are more expensive when in the field than regular soldiers (There's a debuff for freshly raised troops that makes their goods MUCH more expensive). THings to consider. If you have a decently wide nation though, militias are a pretty decent compromise with an ok standing army and an insane reserve at hand (combine with National guard home office for extra conscription!)

My understanding is that the amount of money an interest group has effects it's power so if you cut funds to the bureaucrats you weaken the intelligentsia which is a bad idea if you want to become a republic but maybe a good idea if you want to remain a monarchy. Also under the Journal don't forget to check the decisions tab for more fun stuff to do. Like exploring the American west as Japan.

Fantastic video, thanks so much for this! Now I'm not flying blind lol

There is actually some merit to low taxes and high government and military wages. Such a policy will cause consumption and thus prices to increase. This results in 3 things: 1. Lower taxes increase SoL. Whether this is useful to you depends on your situation. 2. Lower taxes increase GDP. This causes minting to increase. Yes, minting. That one mysterious entry in the balance tab. It's based primarily on GDP. 3. Lower taxes cause POPs to spend more money. This causes in increase to the tax base, thus resulting in more taxes. 4. Lower taxes causes factories to become more profitable. This causes capitalists to gain more dividends and thus contribute more to the investment pool. The last 3 effects combined mean that often times, decreasing taxes will actually increase the treasury balance and allow you to accomplish the primary goal of the game. Building more buildings.

Thanks for these vids - subscribed etc. Think the reason why I can’t get a handle on overpriced goods is being nervous about that negative weekly number, and forgetting about the big gold bar that’s full up underneath it. Am loving this game though, a few tweaks needed but a lot to keep coming back to even in vanilla. I will master this game dammit :D You thought about doing a whole playthrough series? Beginning to end etc sorta thing.

Good advice on consumption taxes. I’d add: check the tooltips on each good, and you’ll see the category it falls into and at what standard of living your pops start buying it. You normally want to cover an entire category, rather than mix-and-match: if you tax all the luxury drinks, luxury items or intoxicants, you’ll get more revenue than if you taxed one of each and let your pops switch to cheaper goods in the same category. (Edit: I originally said something about buildings, but in fact buildings do not pay consumption taxes. Only pops do.) So, services are a solid choice, especially early on, when you might not have any pops with high enough income to pay luxury taxes. It’s a solid compromise that’s taxes your richer pops more, but still gets you some revenue from all income levels. But the most efficient consumption tax is when you produce only one kind of luxury drink (wine, coffee or tea) and can tax the entire category for only 100authority. Someone following your first tip and getting their peasants out of subsistence farms will also be making their liquor in food-industry buildings, so that becomes more viable, especially if you want to collect a larger share of taxes from your lower-income pops.

Out of curiosity, is it better to stack 3 buildings of the same type, lets say iron mines or lumber camps in the same province, or is it better to have them spread out across three separate provinces?

Thx for the very good tips 👍 The game runs so smoothly on your computer! What CPU are you using?

1. Consumption tax construction goods because they reduce the cost of construction. Construction is always paid for by the government so any money spent paying the tax for those goods goes right back to you. This blocks out poor people from buying, for example, wood because the costs are too high, increasing supply and decreasing the base cost of the good. 2. If there's an interest group you want to boost (e.g industrialists) put buildings which tend to employ people of those interests groups in your capital. For example, make your capital strictly filled with factories to boost industrialists. Or construction sectors for intelligentsia. Or (early game) government admin for clergy. Or farms for landowners. Pops in the capital get +25% influence boost. 3. Government wages aren't only there for approval. Wealth is power so if you increase the wages of armed forces, their influence will go up.

i tried to learn the game by starting with south africa/cape colony. tried 3 different times with games lasting over 8hrs each. fell into the economy death spiral each time, last game was the smoothest though. i was trying to figure out the construction sector and it just killed off my treasury. no idea how you are able to afford to build in this game. with so many options in this game, i still cant figure out how to see what is needed easily at a glance

This game is like piloting a large boat, everything takes a while to become effective or at least that's my hunch.

hi, where could i found the list of formable nation in order to try the most challenging for me ?

Thanks. I do appreciate this vid. I've been hitting a wall, partially due to my own stubbornness. I have been playing Sweden in the "learn how" tab. Granted, when i try and get Iceland/Greenland from denmark, the game crashes every damn war. Anyhow, I have to questions. First, I keep running into a problem with pops. I find myself with one extra farm or factory absolutely destroying my worker pool. either i have a bunch of subsistence farm pops laying about or no qualified workers, and that's early game, with very few to no production changes. drives me nuts and my economy into the dirt. Where how do i strike the balance? Second, I constantly have an investment pool that I cannot exaust even if my economy is in the red, and with the above mentioned issue, I just cant use it. Is there a way for that fund to be used up?

The changed the wages. Civil wages now add authority if high, and cost prestige if low. And military wages impact your army performance, massivly.

Subsistence farms are outstanding for building pops if you can hold onto them however.

Looking for things to do with the portrait editor. I want to make a custom character for my nation. Instead I learnt how to not suffer an economic colaspe.

How can explain mechanics of salary change? I faced the problem with prophitability of some industries in big regions. Like I still have 100k peasants in natural farms but salary is almost too high

When you say there's 1 subsistence building for each unused arable land, does that mean I still have subsistence farmers in my industrialized state that has both 0 "available peasants" and 0 farms?

Crusader Kings/ Hearts of Iron player... will I pick this up quick? I bought the special edition out of spite against mixed reviews... the game is probably bashed because its new... like company of heroes 3,

Don’t want to shook Victoria, so I subscribed.

I rly would like to see a guide, how to rebalance economy after huge external shock, for example i got kicked from british customs union, my economy was crumbling and i couldnt rebalance it even if going backward. Now i build, even if as protectorate, raw resources and farms more when construction capacity is somewhat 50 or more, to ensure in case of war of independence or kick from union, my economy would survive, it seems lack of fundamental resources and tools, steel is major

14:45 You forgot the most important thing (imo): Lower your armies techlevel so they don't consume all the expensive military goods while idle. When attempting war you can switch back to the highest tier, wait for ~6months and you shoud be fine. Postive: Massive amount of money Negative: Loosing military power, prestige and you got to wait for around a year before the troop strength penalty goes away (don't know how it's called in english)

I'm still stumped as to how one would form Aotearoa as United Tribes - New South Wales controls half of the North Island and I've no idea how to oust them....

Low government wages could knock a weak GP down to a major power, or a major down to a minor, due to the loss of prestige. Make sure you're comfortably above the threshold before doing that.

I have 1.5k production in 1900, is that OK? Also my investment pool is almost half of my gdp (gdp=1bill) kinda broken lol

very good video

I prefer professional army cost a bit more while at peace but u can manage your supply lvs where its hard to suddenly need guns and ammo for an extra 200 more troops.

Construction is my biggest money maker, a good part of my economy is steel, tool and glassworks...

I think there is also an advantage on barracks. They help maintain an arms industry

What's helpful is always calculating the shortages when you are actively constructing something. From my understanding, the game loop is building stuff, getting in negatives because of the construction costs, building stuff to decrease the cost of construction goods, making everyone richer in the process, getting positive or close to positive, expanding/upgrading construction sector. Also capitalists' investment funds save literal lives make them happy until you can afford not making them happy.

I went into this thinking: "7? I only know of 2. What are the others?" Turns out my two mistakes were way too dumb and basic to be included in this video. 😅

You talked about formable nations at the end of the video, but what about Peru-Bolivia? It isn't a formable nation, however, you can "form" it as any of the two after conquering the other. Could you talk a little bit about that?

Im on my 15th restart with Laos... I have yet to break the yoke of being a subject haha😊

The other thing I've tripped up on is how to do naval invasions.

I played as brazil in my first game, never played victoria 2, and also never played these types of games, but i think im doing okay? I have a 23 million gdp in 1865 but still cant pass some laws because of bad luck..

I played Sardinia, allied with Austria and France and triggered two Europe wide war. It's was fun

Can you think of any good strategy to exploit the more traditional policies, such as Peasant levies, Traditionalism in economy and Serfdom and Slavery? The game seems to be focused on modernization, it does not seem that by staying with older policies you can make a good game.

On my first game I played Sardinia peidmont and went overboard on rural and urban buildings having 150+ being built with only 7 construction sectors and I went bankrupt fast

you deserve more sub

Well, the tip about barracks and construction sectors explains why I ran Argentina's economy onto the rocks so quickly. 🤣

Budget is not equal to economy. Lower General Taxes increases you standard of living as your pops have more money to spent. This is an awesome factor as it pulls or avoids pops leaving your regions towards other countries.

With the new patch rice farms in Asia are great.

Idk if I am wrong here, but coming out of a China campaign in which I had 1200 barracks, lowering their wages might affect your troop's living standards as civilians (when they are not deployed) and is subject to lifestyle changes

Thanks, my best friend had Russia become a democracy, much freedom, low taxes, very small army and no war, yet people kept being unhappy and he got overthrown in 1920 despite good economy. Sounds like he needed a bit higher taxes and more construction, plus shouldn’t have Just kept having a surplus all the time. He also said he didn'tknow how much building one railroa was - Is it one track, one mile tracks come or what? I tried game last week when I visited, I tried as Prussia to take Belgium in 1850 once I became the N. German Confederation - I quipped that I was 65 years ahead of my time - and only got reparations from them, and you showed me what I did wrong. I did get my budget back to surplus. I Found only focusing on a couple items was best in my 1st attempt at playing. That way. I wasn't too overwhelmed.

6:08 „by fixing these mistakes the Spanish economy is roaring..“ - graph goes down😌

Should I be using every farming slot or just employing all peasants in a region?

I created a wellfare state and it was all good at first but i went broke by the end lol

I’ve got the opposite problems to that I’m playing Sweden and I’m trying to get people to work in the iron mines and rail systems but there’s not enough people in the country lmao I don’t know how to increase my population quickly

Lowering the army wages will efferct the army's morale and set naval morale at 0. I would recommended that people leave the army expense alone where it should be if they plan on expansion.

so I'm playing south Africa and if I lay off a lot of my battalions I get a lot of radicals

if you fund all the other nations armies, might as well use those weapons for your own good

So how does one get rid of substance farms? Just build agriculture or is there another way?

Your voice sounds just like the bloke in Economics Explained!

"Services, these are always in high demand" Me in my Sweden game with -60% services cost: :O

Mistake number 1: BUYING THE GAME

I love how you pronounce "again" and "instead" 😆

12:04 he channeled his inner Boris Johnson, the prior UK prime minister.

btw if your intellegencia dislikes you, one of the negative modifiers is less prestige (if you are playing as someone like two sicilies and need high prestige to annex the other italian states keep their approval high)

I watched some of the video, and I don't understand two parts. 1. I've gone to great lengths to fill out my farms and plantations within Japan in my current game. All of the subsistence farming is gone in my provinces, and I'm well into industrializing. However, my least valuable farms and plantations have no workforce, as they are being paid more to work in the factories. I'm fine with this, but by the logic of subsistence farming, why aren't these farms at full production? If just destroy these unproductive crops, give them back to the "people", the subsistence farming will start creating liquor and other goods. I think the video is mistaken. I don't think it's about getting rid of subsistence farming. I think it's entirely about getting rid of unemployment+peasants in a particular region, and balancing that labor into whatever gets the best returns. In colonies, it's tea/tobacco, and in the cities it's steel/motors/guns. This makes sense. Am I wrong? Making new farms becomes pointless exactly when my labor pool runs out, not when subsistence farming ends. 2. At 7:30 he states that building more construction costs more money. This is only true if you keep your construction queue 100% full at all times (or even more in the backlog). If you only keep it half full, you'll only pay half. Seriously, you can test this. Start a game, only build construction centers, but only build one at a time. Do it for an hour, but again, don't fill your queue and only build one at a time. Does it ever get more expensive to build them? Just be disciplined and keep the extra production in your "back pocket" when you really need it. Like, when you first get railroads, or find coal, or go to war.

Honestly, it’s difficult for me to realize how to play games of paradox before I start my campaign as France. Literally that’s how I studied how to play EU, and Victoria as well

could you make a guide on how to manage your market because whenever as a big power i make lots of goods like clothes or coal it all just gets traded away and my SOL goes down causing radicals and ive tried other economy laws and tarrifs but it doesn't help so i dont know if you have any ideas

Do construction sectors just speed up production of urban, rural and military buildings and improvements?

Conscript armies suck really hard. They are good to stiffen the line of line battalions, but alone they will just lose and suffer horrendous losses. And because you have so many of them, you suffer a lot of attrition as well. Note that wounded soldiers, whether line or conscripted, have a high chance to becoming dependents and therefore become unproductive and need to be supported by either their family or by welfare.

saw the part about subsistence farms and immediately went and built hundreds of farms to erase them lol. im not sure it worked out because I am now missing several million workers

Should we disperse our industry across the country as much as possible or stack things in a certain few states? Is there any bonuses for increasing the level of a building over just having another one? Will that get rid of unused arable land better?

So in order to fix the "Stockpiling Gold" pop up I keep getting while playing as Chile is to just construct buildings in the urban and rural sectors?

If you close your eyes, it feels like JumboPixel is giving advice to our politician in terms of how to run the economy.

3:44 putting government wages on very low is a nice way to starve your bureocrats

Why doesnt anyone ever use the outliner to keep an active eye on interest groups?

Is it worth it to go in debt?

what's the deal with subsistence farms? i can't really get my pops into labour, coz there just is a labour shortage in my economy, and they don't wanna work for lower wages, so is building farms and stuff to replace subsistence even better late game? if so how?

Mistake Number 1: Playing Victoria 3

I would have added to be very careful before accepting trade agreements. If most of your economy as for example spain is exporting coal you can crash your economy instantly by not gaining any tariffs from those exports.