Top 5 BEGINNER Countries in Victoria 3 (That Aren't Great Powers)

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0:00 Intro
2:39 Japan
5:24 Belgium
9:10 Persia
11:16 Sardinia Piedmont
14:25 Spain
18:37 Summary

Tags:
Strategy Games, Victoria 3, Interest Groups, Economics, Production Methods, Colonization, Playing Tall, Landowners, Industrialists, Armed Forces, Intelligentsia, Carthage, Hannibal Barca, Suez Canal, Ottoman Empire, France, Russia, Universities, Canning, Arms Manufacturing, Quinine, Malaria, Rifling, Tooling Industry, Clippers, Small Arms, Cannons, Timber, Iron, Soft Wood, Hard Wood, Migration, Encouraging Migration, Customs Union, North Africa, Multiculturalism, Mercantilism, Oligopoly, Hannibal Barca, Colonization, Greener Pastures Edict, Maps, Resources, Japan, Nippon, Shogunate, Automation, Revolution, Civil War

Starting Steps, How to, Starting a Game, Beginning

[Terme-]

I feel like I learned the most whilst playing the Ottomans and Mexico. The Ottoman Empire forces you to learn how to modernize fast, and Mexico forces you to learn the military mechanics.

[blockchiken]

Excited for 1.6. I'd love to finally get the hardest achievement in the game: reaching 1936.

[mathiofc]

Persia was the nation I chose to learn how some mechanics in the game works with the help of your spreadsheets and explanation, and especially started to understand how local prices work, that's a huge impact I noticed on my gameplay, again thanks to you. Can't stress enough how I really wanted to get the grip to this game after a bunch of hours.

[richardsvensson]

Great suggestions!

I would also add Sweden as a good country for beginners. They are in a position to avoid wars, or at least you as a player can decide on your own when to go to war. There are some good resource state traits for wood and iron. A challenge could be the lack of population that happens pretty early. A (medium-long term) goal could be to form Scandinavia. It is also possible to go for colonization if you want to try/learn that aspect of the game.

[jasonwodarski]

Got Vicky 3 on a good sale and started the "Learn the Game" mission as Belgium without watching any guide videos first. Managed to cause a seperatist revolution during what was supposed to be the tutorial. Decided to play as Sardinia Piedmont next beacuse I love the Italian nations in other Paradox games. In <10 years I had sent my economy into a death spiral and sunk my standard of living faster than the Titanic. 10/10 can't wait to spend more time with this game. Thanks for making these videos as they are teaching me more than the "tutorials" ever could.

[alexcornett]

would love a video about those discrimination mechanics you mentioned being so tricky

[joelhicks]

Looks like I made good choices for learning the game - I have played all of these countries except Sardinia-Piedmont because I thought they looked like interesting ones to try out. Thanks for confirming that my instincts about that aren't garbage!

[metaflight]

I think Bolivia is the perfect starter 'advanced' nation. It has great potential, but it forces you to interact with every system to meet it. You want to swtch to iron construction, but you need gold to pay to run it and iron to supply it. But you need infrastructure to fit those in the mountains so you need to research infra bonuses or railways. You want to use the ports for infra and imports to supplt your industry but you find you have a labor shorage in your one coastal state that one of your neighbours has a claim on. Another neighbour as a claim on your other iron state, which also has labor shortagrs anyway. So you want to improve your laws to get more pop growth and immigrants, so you nees to figure out how to deal with your military dicatorship thats ticking itself towards further entrenchment. That's just before you form peru-bolivia.

[oliverwarren]

I am enjoying Japan but man, its basically impossible to pass ANY laws that make the country progress. This is my first ever game of Vic3 though so I think I don't really know what I'm doing. I've built enough stuff to gradually create/strengthen an Industrialists class but the Shogunate/Samurai classes are still huge and neither of them like anything I want to do.

[McRich.]

Started Victoria 3 a few weeks ago, bounced off it despite 3k hrs in EU4, finally understanding the game thanks to your videos!

[roryyoung]

Sardinia piedmont been my favorite for a long time. A lot going on but still manageable. You start slightly ahead on tech, you has lots of coal, iron and wood. Start small economy form Italy now you have big economy a lot of fun.

[katmannsson]

I always suggest Persia myself. Bias from it being the Crucible I forged myself in? Maybe. Objectively a very strong starting position to learn the game? Absolutely. If Ireland is CK's Tutorial Island, IMO Persia should be Vics.

[Buffalo_Soldier]

Lol the first country I ever played in Victoria 3 was Spain and here after year or so I can say it indeed was very good first choice. I picked it because in first game I didn't wanted complex politics and economics and it worked great. Having queen in Inteligensia helps with modernizing country and they have potential to become superpower pretty easily. Spain is very chill and self-focused, but you can engage in foreign politics and colonization if you need something.

Japan was also great feel to play, much different than anything else. In fact I failed to "modernize it" as till the later game Aristrocrats building plantations were the biggest source of my investment poll, but I had big power late game nevertheless. The population base and cheap labour make it so that when you eventually get economical technologies you have a lot of people to perform those tasks. In japan I played "greedy" monarch. Taxed population heavily, funded most progress from government treasury.

If someone is overwhelmed by complex starting economies, then (other than Persia) - they could start with Mexico. But there's problem with it - US will want you dead. So if you want to expand your lifespan you need to improve relations with them AND european powers - that might come to help you (france, uk, germany, even russia can help.) if you miss influence points to befriend europe, you can rival some weak nations that you can rival. But with Mexico you will learn building economy from scratch. They have (I believe) no local tools production and barely any buildings at all. They have a LOT of gold, so you don't need to tax your population at all which brings you SoL up and lets migration to happen, this in turn helps in turning you into big power... I mean at first DO tax your population in order to build wood->tools->iron->better tools -> construction centers -> more iron -> more cc -> more iron -> then build gold production. After you jump-start construction centers with cheap iron and have gold you can lower taxes, build and chill.

[benzelmer]

I have done two playthroughs of the East Indies (No Indonesia) from 1836 to 1936. In the first I was able to turn South Sumatra Hungarian, and in the second I was able to turn South Sumatra Dutch and also I was able to get a protectorate I’ve the Netherlands and a united Malaysia.
Your starting conquests are all insignificant powers. You then move onto Langfang but at the end you have to fight the Netherlands and Spain (plus whoever colonized New Guinea). You can easily become #1 GDP and Great Power.
This can all be done by only staying inside the Indonesia region (except for getting states to trade).
By the way I remember I actually was able to force the Heavenly Kingdom to Industrialize.

[jtsa]

I started and still play exclusively Lanfang - I must be a glutton for punishment, then. Ahead of its time for civics, economically a blank slate, and made harder every update due to lack of manpower and migration...

[richard]

Argentina is a great and underrated starter nation. Lots of room to expand with weak neighbors, +20% buffs to agriculture and ranches, and your only threats are Brazil and Great Britain.

If you’re smart with conquering, you can consistently get Return State sways to use to bring Brazil in to almost every war you fight in the early game. Great Britain is always seems busy to bother with you.

It’s a very solid start imo.

[gressorialNanites]

I learned a lot playing the Sikh first, but then again, there is a lot that I didn't learn, too.

[JimStorrie-vs]

good picks! some others that i think are probably in the top 10 are sikh empire, some of the australian and canadian minors, possibly brazil. and when 1.6 fixes general bonuses, anywhere that gets tewodoros and his gundam

[immotion]

Imo you just picked some of the most fun countries... Is this saying something about my skill level

[Coffee-onnz]

I learned with Japan. I did restart about 5 times with Japan as I learned.