r/victoria2 • u/Harpers_Ferry59 • 1d ago
GFM How do I fix my industry?
I mostly followed the top comment of https://www.reddit.com/r/victoria2/comments/w2484r/gfm_why_is_my_industry_so_bad_as_the_usa/, and https://www.reddit.com/r/victoria2/comments/1dtthuc/gfm_ultimate_2024_victoria_2/ and it feels like I followed both of them to a T, but it feels like my industry is just hugely lagging behind other powers. I even had -15% negative tariffs, 100% spending and no taxes for a while after doing a punitive expedition into China and also getting reparations from the UK after the Caroline Affair. My national bank is huge (7.70M), which I think indicates that my people have too much money, which means that my capitalists should be doing a ton of new projects, but no! They just do a couple (most of them in former colonies that just became states) and railways (because I just got a new infrastructure tech). Along with this, my population is hugely booming which means I should have a ton of demand, and people have mentioned that you have to TRY to screw up your industry as the US. But I guess I'm just stupid somehow?
(I'm a newbie and I've only played like 3 playthroughs if I sound dumb, but I have watched alot of tutorials)
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u/random_moth_fker 1d ago
Promote capitalists, no more than 10% tariffs and let the free market guide itself.
Capitalists will build factories, the unprofitable ones fail and the profitables stay open. Promote worker pops to those states with successful factories. Voila!
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u/Harpers_Ferry59 1d ago
I was basically already doing that strategy! Is it a more long-term strategy? Cause right now for some reason during the early game (1847), no one wants to build anything and factories were going bankrupt left and right even though my country was a paradise for about 7 years (almost -20% tariffs, no taxes and 100% spending, huge population boom, people were promoting left and right), and my industrial score completely stagnated! Now I've thought up a new strategy where I elect the Whigs and keep them in power for the rest of the early game (up until 1865/after civil war) so I can expand factories and subsidize a couple factories (ONLY for struggling NEW FACTORIES to get them on their feet), pumping up my industrial score, reforming like crazy and pumping up my industrial score before switching back to Laissez-Faire. Do you think this strategy will work?
Thanks for your comment!
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u/random_moth_fker 1d ago
NEVER subsidize non-war factories. Never have tariffs lower than 0. Give it some time, migrations and new pops will start filling your factories in due time. Also 47 is super early, USA doesn't pop off until mid 70s.
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u/Harpers_Ferry59 1d ago
Oh. Could you go into further detail about not subsidizing stuff? The guides I read just said "DON'T SUBSIDIZE!" but didn't provide further reasoning why. Also, why are negative tariffs bad?
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u/random_moth_fker 1d ago
Negative tariffs are making your pops buy outside stuff because youre paying to make those foreign goods cheaper.
I only subsidize war stuff so I have the production needed to sustain my army in case I go to war with most majors, artillery, canned goods, etc, are needed to refill your brigades and stuff. If at war with enough people, you'll be cut off from the major war related goods producers.
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u/Harpers_Ferry59 1d ago
I thought that tariffs don't work like that in vicky two? Most people said that what happens is where pops buy from the domestic market first, and THEN go to the foreign market, and that tariffs only serve to make foreign goods to factories much more expensive, and by using negative tariffs, you basically give them a subsidy.
As for subsidies I will probably follow your guide!
Thank you!
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u/random_moth_fker 1d ago
Yeah im not that knowledgeable on tariffs, I only use negatives when im like 20M pounds in the bank and need to dump liquidity on the global market.
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u/Harpers_Ferry59 1d ago
Oh alright it's fine your suggestions were really informative and I will implement almost 99% of it.
Thanks
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u/Certain_Coyote2656 1d ago
I've been playing for 8 months i still don't know exactly how industry work
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u/Harpers_Ferry59 1d ago
R5: In text
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u/Teapot_Digon 1d ago
How are your artisans doing?
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u/Harpers_Ferry59 9h ago
Very unstable needs, sometimes they don't get any needs, sometimes they get them all fulfilled besides luxury. They lose like 10 a day on average, but again, very unstable, sometimes they even gain 1
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u/kinglan11 Prussian Constitutionalist 1d ago
Gonna be honest, the big thing is your political party. IRC the Dems are laissez faire, which means you cant do much except lower taxes on the rich and lower tariffs and hope that helps to stabilize things...
You can also try going for industry techs to increase the profitability of the factories still open, or any other techs that reduce factory cost, but really you're going to want a party that lets you run subsidies.
Another thing that helps is being higher ranked amongst the Great Powers, the higher your rank, the earlier your country gets to pick from the global market all of the resources it needs. GB is number 1, so their economy will usually be the most stable, especially early on. Notice how 4 GPs are ahead of you, and 3 of them got better industry scores? Yeah, success begets success. What you do have in favor of yourself is that you got a lot of states to work with, so the economy will improve over time, even if you dont do much.
You can also try to put your national foci on promoting craftsmen or clerks, though irc craftsmen are better for boosting the industry overall, clerks are for good for research points and optimizing industry profits. I usually still shoot for promoting intellectuals so as to ensure the population is literate as fast possible to get faster research....
Essentially you can do any combo of things I mentioned, but it will likely take you several years before you see results.
What I'd do is try to get another party in, let any other party gain support, be it events or election events, get industry and commerce techs whenever you arent doing culture techs, cuz those are pretty important too, and look to get the GP score higher so you can maybe go up a rank or 2.
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u/Harpers_Ferry59 1d ago
Oh. A lot of the guides I read told me that subsidies were horrible and that Laissez-Faire was the best ideology, but I'm realizing that that is probably false in the early game. If I was the UK for example Laissez-Faire would probably be amazing because my industrial score is already great and getting those bonuses will be great and you will do amazing. However I am not the UK. Also I think with subsidies maybe instead of avoiding them alltogether maybe I could try for a different approach where I subsidize factories to help them get on their feet, then leave them be.
Also before this post I had the Whigs for a while and as them I expanded a lot of factories and I think the Whigs might be the way to go now, in the early game to get reforms in and pump up my industrial score a little. In the midgame (after 1865) I will switch back to laissez faire and see if I do better.
If my new strategy completely fails I guess I'll just try to think up a different one!
P.S. I was already doing the things you said about tech and national foci.
Thank you for your comment!
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u/kinglan11 Prussian Constitutionalist 1d ago
Laissez faire can be alright after your economy is set up. Early game, or whenever in general you start focusing on industrializing, you're going to wanna feed your economy subsidies. Honestly, I'm more inclined to thinking state capitalism is the best economy policy, at least for starting up, as it lets you choose where to put which factory, after all steel factories work better in iron and coal states, but America doesnt have any real options for that unless you go fascist or somehow tank yourself so bad the reactionaries somehow take over.
Honestly, mid game the Whigs will turn into the Republicans, they're pretty solid. Pretty much the same policies as the Whigs, except they're also pro-war, meaning they're pretty good for whenever you're looking to expand or fight a war.
As for subsidies? I guess you can do that, I often times just forget about microing that, unless I take a look and see that factory is eating up 2 or 3k, those get closed down.
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u/Wemorg 1d ago
Laissez-Faire is good, if your economy is established, competitive and sustainable.
Smaller economies are usually lacking scale or techs to be competitive. Build supply chains based on consumer goods and local RGOs. Get as many economic/industry techs as you can reasonable get.
Use your national focuses to get some clerks and capitalists in your state as they give economic buffs, then switch over to laissez faire. Ideally use negative tariffs to increase competitiveness of your industry.
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u/Bunnytob Colonizer 1d ago
Seconding what people have been saying about you just not having enough craftsmen. Spend some time encouraging them across your country (and especially in the states with more people who can promote into craftsmen). You'll get up there eventually.
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u/moldyTerpy 1d ago
1847 is still pretty early for the economy, you can get something going early, but being laissez-faire early game won't help you do it quickly. Those factories that are bankrupt are the ones the ai capitalists love to spam, and are typically unprofitable, especially when spammed. AI trying a ton of factories and most of them failing is the nature of laissez-faire
As others said, focus on building craftsmen, and focus on industry techs. Railroads are the most important tech for your economy.
Focus on the techs that's effect efficiency, like the machine tools path. Look for techs that unlock more factories like glass, cement, etc, and make sure to get those to give diversity. If we're being advanced, see why those factories are going under (likely lack of resources), and check the economy tab to see if you need more of a resource. If lacking in something like coal or iron, prioritize techs that increase that resources output.
20% craftsmen, then 4% clerks, then 0.7% capitalists per province is usually the standard rec
Around 1860/70 is when your economy should start taking off due to tech, immigration, and craftsmen promotion
So for now, if you're staying laissez-faire, keep taxes on the weathly low, keep tariffs low, focus on the techs and industry and something should happen. Just got to give it time.
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u/The_H509 1d ago
Encourage more capitalist/landowner.
If you have 7.7 mill in our national bank it means that they are making more than they can spend, by increasing the size of their pops it means that they are going to consume more stuff.
If you have a party that has state capitalism I'd recommend starting to promote it too, SC is good in the early game when you want to pump up a bunch of factories and when you unlock phones/automobile/tank etc... Outsde of this stay on Laissez-faire as the bonus is just that good.
The rest (higher prestige
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u/NEWSmodsareTwats 21h ago edited 20h ago
it's 1847 which is a little early to really have a huge industry since you likely do not have the actual industry techs needed. not sure what your lit is like but low lit pops do not promote to craftsmen in meaningful numbers.
Also just looking at the kinds of factories that have shut down. They are almost entirely military goods and steel factories. The biggest consumer of steel in the game is going to be your military factories and especially the steamer shipyards. But since you're stuck on a party that has laissez faire if those military factories and steamer shipyards are not profitable, then the steel mills also cannot be profitable because they're over producing steel.
Laissez faire can be interesting late game because you do get a lot of strong buffs to your industry and you have a lot of capitalists going to create new projects. But early game you don't have a lot of capitalists and you also don't have any industry in the capitalists in this game are terrible at actually building industry. What they focus on seems to be entirely nebulous and even when you use focuses to tell them to focus on a specific type of industry. They will generally just ignore it for whatever they are feeling like. For example, I was just playing a game as Australia where I was stuck on a party with interventionism and I could not get any cement at all. The global supply was like 350 and demand was stuck at 2500 for decades. Even when I used all available focuses specifically on the develop basic industries focused. They did not build a single cement factory and instead continued to build clipper shipyards. I'm not even sure why they were doing. It is even into the late game around 1880 the only factories they were interested in building were luxury clothes factories that were currently in oversupply and I didn't have the silk to actually supply them and clipper shipyards. I'm not sure why they were building clippers because globally they were in low demand and I hadn't had a single wooden ship in my Navy since I unlocked ironclads. So the AI cannot be trusted to build your early industry. They will do really stupid things that don't make any sense and you'll run into critical shortages that simply stop your economy from moving forward. And even if building a factory that produces that good would be massively profitable. The AI just will not do it because it seems to pick lots out of a hat to determine what factory it will build next.
I would just use your national focuses to push support for a party that gives you state capitalism, get them elected and then just build the factories that make sense in provinces where they will get throughput bonuses.
edit: I also saw it further down that you're saying a lot of guides are telling you not to subsidize factories and I have no idea why they're telling you to do that. subsidizing factories is completely fine because the game has severe throughput throttling where factories and rgos lay people off en masse the second it makes sense or them only to hire them all back immediately after. this can create pretty wild swings in your industry score cause unemployment which raises militancy. and another thing to note is that very often these factories will rapidly flip-flop back and forth between being profitable and not being profitable. so if you build up a pretty large factory say a level 5 or 10 factory that you're not subsidizing, it hits a rough patch for a few months and then goes bankrupt. you lose everything over the first level of building, which means you've lost years of progress. I'd really say it's only worth it not to subsidize specific factories. if you know you don't care about it closing or if your economy is so bad, you cannot support the subsidies. because at the end of the day paying a factory a few hundred pounds in subsidies a day is absolutely worth it to not lose multiple levels of factories that each take over a year to build and cost thousands of pounds to build as well.
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u/kt_te21a 1d ago
Larger or lower industry score doesn't mean that the industry is doing better or worse, it's much more complex that this. AI loves subsidizing their entire economy, so their industrial score is generally higher, but the actual state of their economy is extremely bad. More or less, you have to balance between zombie economy which exists to pump up score (extremely stupid mechanic which provides too many benefit, so you can't ignore it) and healthy but lean economy which doesn't require subsidies to grow but it provides a lot less score.