Game Observations

[33rd Fusilier Regt]

I purchased the game as a self Christmas present back in 2011, of late it has been about the only game that I play. Have to tip my hat to the AGEOD development team, it is an amazing game. Victoria/Victoria II pale by comparison. I have played the grand campaign several times, mostly as Prussia, a couple of times as the USA and Sardina-Piedmont (S-P), once as France, and once as Great Britain, unfortunately I have yet to actually finish a campaign.

Anyhow, I like a challenge so I have mostly been playing Prussia, I have just entered the early 1860's and after playing the unification events have had the North German Federation (NGF) form. I had reached this point before just a couple of weeks ago before upgrading to the 1.03d quick fix but certain things remain the same. The German minors, Hanover especially seem to overbuild their military, Hanover typically has anywhere from 6-10 field artillery brigades, which seems excessive likewise, the minors have massive stocks of hard currency. The other item is that typically the two Hessian dutchies, and Schelswig-Holstein are almost always extremely low on contentment. This pattern has been pretty consistent every time I play the game, I made a concerted effort to buy up large quantities of goods from the German Minors once Zollervien occurred.

Similarly the global economy seems to have issues, early on manufactured goods, machine parts, and textiles all fetch good prices, typically within a couple of years, the the prices crash and there is a huge glut of steel, machine parts, and textiles. As Prussia, you don't have a large enough internal market to influence these imbalances. I have noticed that Great Britain and France seem to build hardly any industry. In my latest game, France only finished building out it's rail network in 1859/1860 and there are still a couple of provinces without rail, Epinal, being one. The world supply of silk, opium, and tea seems to be too little. France does not seem to take advantage of it's silk resources. As Prussia, I tried to build up the Ottoman Empire, Argentina, and Mexico, by having commercial agreements and building sites. On thing I noticed with Mexico is that there was gold mine that had a zero for transportation infrastructure, and I could not do anything to address the problem, I suspect that there is not a resource gathering site, which is the problem, the mine is adjacent to Durango. Similarly, I established a commercial agreement with Oman to try and exploit the fact that there numerous opium locations, and opium is in great demand with too little supply, I could not build any sites and again I think it is an issue with a lack of rescource gathering sites.

In the realm of geopolitics, in each grand campaign, the Crimean war has waged for almost a decade. Typically the Ottoman Empire and Russia have a peace treaty but the war between Russia and the France and Britain rages on. In my most recent game this is begining to have a negative impact on France were some of the provinces are experiencing high unrest, and now have a production of zero. I suspect Russia, is in serious turmoil as well. The other consistent item has been that none of the Austro-Italian wars of Italian unification occur. In 1859 S-P has mobiilized, but there ends up not being any sort of aftermath or Austrian ultimatum. As far as I can tell I don't think the Treaty of Polimberes occurs, for I don't recall seeing any of the red text notifications in the turn summary.

Anyhow, did not mean to go off on a negative tangent, enjoy the game greatly, and just purchased the Scramble for Africa DLC, will probably focus on that to see if something similar to WW1 will occur. Despite the long turns, and some of the quirks this is an amazing game, do not forsee myself wasting money on Victoria, since it just does not even come remotely close to Pride of Nations.

[Durk]

Try playing at least a handful of countries either alone or with others, you will find this eases some of the economic issues.

[33rd Fusilier Regt]

Try playing at least a handful of countries either alone or with others, you will find this eases some of the economic issues.

I have tried recently to bootstrap the AI, by trying a single player game, where I switch between Britain, France, and the US, and then at some point switch over to one of the more challenging nations, i.e. Russia, Prussia, Japan, or Sardina-Piedmont. Anyhow, not sure what I am doing incorrectly but seems that the AI nations turns, vanish after turn one. What it is the proper technique to load an AI save game? Apologize, for how basic the questions is, have not been able to figure this out on my own.

[33rd Fusilier Regt]

Figured out that, it is necessary to save each AI that wish to intervene. Of course you are basically playing against yourself. Does anyone on the forum know how you can load an AI file without having to play a hot seat game against yourself?

[loki100]

if I understand it correctly, no. Once an AI 'reverts to the AI' it disappears (at least that is what happens for me). I've taken the view that AI can do its own thing in military/diplomatic turns, so my personal solution has been a level of economic intervention via scripts. For eg, my game was heading for a world ending coal crisis. Now if this was due to over-industrialisation that is one thing (esp if by me) but on looking around it was mostly due to a lack of building coal pits. So I built about a 12, spread around the obvious powers, by script (so any gain to me directly is second hand) and then built 3/4 more by investing and developing using my own resources.

One thing that I think is clear, is that the player in PoN should not do autarky/mercantalism. Keeping the world economy ticking over is something you need to be active in. Not least unlike say Victoria, you gain from having powerful, well run states out there as that in turn will bolster your own economy. I don't think the AI does a bad job at economic management, to me the main flaw is it hordes state cash, so fails to pass reforms and has to operate with lower satisfacion/higher militancy than it needs. But it does need a hand if you are to really enjoy the game.

On the basis of little but observation, I think playing on 'hard' helps as well, seems to provide a small bonus that helps the AI sort itself out.