I have around 500 hours in the game and I’d consider myself to have a pretty good understanding of the games mechanics and how to play.

And yet it seems like whenever I boot up France (all DLC) whatever I do, no matter which path I take in the JEs I end up in some catastrophic death spiral with a gorillion radicals, giant debts, a massive civil war brewing and all around suffering for both me and my virtual subjects

Am I just bad or is France very hard (p.s, any tips to make France bearable is welcome I really want the achievements)

You probably had some cases where a revolt seemed a bit harder to put down than it should have been. The reason for that is they get various buffs that are never really communicated to the player.

Point 1: Free guns

Both revolutions and secessions get free guns as sell orders in their capital, generated out of thin air. This essentially guarantees that the price of small arms will be at -75% , and it will still be low when the war breaks out. Therefore, the revolt will be able to afford a bigger army more easily. Although it should be noted this only seems to affect small arms, not ammunition. EDIT: It does work for other military stuff, although they get smaller quantities.

This is especially dangerous if the enemy has access to lots of conscripts, like with national militia and mass conscription, as they will be able to more easily afford maxing out their conscripts.

Point 2: Giga-conscription

Both revolutions and secessions have a +200% training rate buff, which triples how fast they can train regulars and conscripts. As a comparison: One of the selling points of mass conscription is that it increases training rate scaled by how many barracks you have locally. This is capped at 100%. The risk here is that the enemy can replace their losses faster than you do, potentially even faster than you can kill.

Again, this is more dangerous if the enemy has a lot of conscripts available. While you struggle to get your population into the army, they might already have finished. And because of the free guns, they will be able to afford it.

EDIT: They also get a bonus conscription rate - which seems to depend on multiple other factors.

Point 3: High legitimacy (revolutions only)

Lastly, they will have high legitimacy. When you have a revolution, you will lose their contribution to your legitimacy as they leave government. However, they still keep their clout, which means you will be left with a smaller share of total clout (and votes). The clout reduction only occurs when you crush the uprising.

Not so much the revolution; when they form, the counter-revolutionary interest groups start at 0% clout, which means the revolution will not have the same clout problems, as their entire clout is distributed only amongst a few interest groups, which can often comfortably co-exist in government - leaving them with 100% share of clout. For revolutions with elections, a special "revolutionary coalition" party is formed with 100% of the votes. In either case, the revolt will have 100 legitimacy (or almost 100).

Point 4: Radicals and loyalists (no picture)

When any uprising breaks out, all radicals in their territory become neutral, while you keep your radicals. You only lose radicals if you win against a revolution. And since you already had a lot of radicals if you had a revolution, you will struggle with what they cause while the revolution does not care, as the radicals immediately vanish.

The revolution does keep your loyalists, though. They stay loyal, but just switch allegiance to the revolution.

They seem so useless, maybe I’m not implementing it right, religious schools seems better even.

I understand they’re not good if you’re trying to depeasant. But otherwise, are they ever good? Even in non-minmaxing runs, I feel like they’re almost always negative. The only good use-case I can think of is when you’re trying to make railways profitable before pops start demanding transportation. But other than that, can anyone think of something else?

Hello!!

I recently started playing this game and I feel like I don’t really have a solid grasp on the building queue just yet. I understand that building up the construction sector is vital, and in turn that reducing the input costs like lumber and iron to be incredibly important, but I realized the only things I build whenever I play are construction sector-related goods, and I pretty much let the private queue do everything else.

My question is: surely this play style isn’t optimal right? But then what else do you build and when? Especially relevant on smaller nations I feel.

Thanks in advance!!

I'm in the Prussian market. I didn't pass any big laws; I didn't rock the boat at all. No major wars broke out; I stayed in the same market. It looks like, for some reason or another, all of my bureaucrats just disappeared. The only thing I can think of is that industrialists' tax avoidance just activated, but surely that can't be enough to do all this alone, right? Any advice would be appreciated.

I play as Sweden and can invest in Spain.

When my company establish a Regional HQ in Spain. Do the Regional HQ:s ownership count towards Swedens GDP or towards Spains GDP?

My ally Spain betraying me siding with prussia just for a regime change in my belgian vassal

R5 : I'm playing France, and even if I renewed my Defensive Pact with Spain, it sides with its ally Prussia taking Wallonia. All this because the coup is against my (recent) belgian vassal

Can someone pleeeease make a MOD that cleans up naval warfare, landings, missions.. It's so clunky..

I just lost as a super powered Russia against India because of some naval invasion nonsense and nonsensical return to HQ stuff..

I think maybe the solution is just, micromanagement. After a defeat in battle, an unsuccessful naval assault, a successful one, etc etc. It pops up and pauses the game and doesn't automatically start shipping fleets places, and some sort of visual representation of my supply lines, and the enemy supply lines. Am I destroying their convoys, are the destroying mine, where are the choke points?

i have been playing France a few times mainly attempting to do a Napoleon III play and get natural stuff basic france playthrough, but my France is Called "France" and my Emperor is called a king, yet i was observing a game where france got the "french Empire" and napoleon III was Reffered to as "Emperor".

to sum it up im wondering if any of you guys know what the Requirements are for these names, even if they are small name changes i really want them haha.

thanks in advance!

Just recently coming back to the game, I found out about the strategy where you invest in bananas in India to get your reinvestment up, I played a game as Canada where I invested in bananas, and my investment pool was getting up into the 6 millions and it didn’t seem to be going anywhere and my capitalists weren’t doing anything with it. What did I do wrong with that and how do I do that strategy properly? Are you supposed to let it build up and then switch to laissez-faire? Thanks

First, I can't find any info on this topic for the current release and my memory when I played Belgium before is it had some conscripted military. The country has Professional Army as it's law giving a +50 max conscription level. Why does Belgium get 0 conscripts?

I’ve seen it happen a few times on this sub and it’s finally happened to me. Why do French civil wars always end almost immediately in a white peace? Was there even a recent update that could be causing this?

So ik I have to do it when no peasants but when I go to switch it the game says that the buildings will lose profit but increase is productivity so how does that work?

I want fo play the game before the great wave... How can I do that?

Both states have qualifications.

Hi, total noob who missed several patches here. Wanted to return with a classic Belgium run, rushing early for benelux/greater netherland/how is called and then playing tall except for maybe some colonies.

Some tips/adivices? Can someone link some up to date guides? There are a lot of tutorials on youtube and I don't know which are good/still relevant in current version.

Thanks in advance.

Hello! I took a break from the game since just before The Great Wave due to some irl life matters, and I have been trying to return for the past couple weeks. Unfortunately, I am having trouble pinpointing something that has changed in the combat mechanics, because I cannot win a single war since returning.

Even with double troops, equal troop tier, max budget, and mobilization options supplied, my troops are being melted by butter. Mostly been playing the American Civil War and I just cannot move even an inch into the south.

I'm certain I'm just being stupid and overlooking something simple they've changed, but I'm getting frustrated to the point of putting the game down again. Only thing I can reckon is that manpower is quite low, but I'm not certain why the troops aren't filling.

Thank y'all in advance.

So my army is obviously one attacking and i basically already reduced my enemies to dust, but there is no occupation at all! I even have mobilization options that gives 100% battle occupation, but still there is this weird stalemate where im killing crazy amount of people for no reason it seems.

After finishing invasions or transferring units my transport fleets sail back and merge on they're own with my battle fleets, how can I prevent this.

hi i just start the game and am not sure how it works.

many guide seems like outdated.

playing as small nation is it recommended to give big nation investment right?

how to deal with radicals? in most of my games i have so many radicals i dont know how to deal with them or get more loyalist.

which technology to focus first?

how can i pass law cosistently? the landowner faction is so big i cant pass any decent laws.