Victoria 2 is a grand strategy game which lets the player take control of a state from 1836 to 1936, the time of industrial revolution, new imperialism, revolutionary waves and total war. I thought it would be fun to run the game in a forum, but doing so would be difficult seeing as in the single player game the AI might overturn decisions made by players in the thread.
Luckily the engine the game runs on makes tweaking things relatively simple, I would need to know the extent of the tweaking necessary to run a good game however, and seeing as the game can be pretty intricate it would be good for interested players who haven't played vicky 2 to mess around with the mechanics to familiarize themselves wih it.
Which is why I'm doing a test run. Feel free to pick any country from the following map, ask questions, and experiment with the mechanics while we all get used to transitioning this from a single player grand strategy experience to a more turn based forum multiplayer experience. This thread will run for a bit while I get the kinks figured out and then it will be unceremoniously ended, so if you're interested don't feel too invested in your country.
I'll do all the necessary explaining along the way, the most important thing is to have fun! There's not really a fixed limit here. Build alliances, wage war, industrialize, invade Canada, wage jihad in west africa, bring Iran into the modern age, etc.
Seeing as the time period was very unsavory, there are some unsavory decisions one could take in this game. We probably won't get far enough in this run for any of you to be able to take those decisions, but I feel it would be best to avoid committing genocide, that's probably a good limit.
Don't feel like this has to be a long-term commitment. Any bystanders can hop into an NPC country at any time, or leave if you get bored, or switch countries. Like I said, right now we're just figuring out what works.
I suppose that's a long enough wall. Here are the countries:
Spoiler:
Spoiler: Possible questions you have
Help me understand this map
Fairly simple. Like a regular world map. If a country name runs past different colors it means one central government controls more than one state. Maybe it's two kingdoms under personal union, like in Sweden. Maybe it's an empire and its vassal states, like China (Qing Empire), or with some autonomous provinces (Ottoman Empire and Egypt). If there's no name there, that's uncolonized land. People live there, but the states of the time thought it was okay for them to just sort of take over that land if they felt like it.
Places like "British India", "British Australia" are controlled by the British. To play as those places, you'd be playing as the UK.
If I want to play, how should I even start?
Depends. Is your country an ethnically homogeneous great power? Build up your military and industry to outperform your neighbors. Is it an ethnically diverse, traditionalist state? Get some of your farmers to become bureaucrats and raise your education to make your people literate. Is your country not a western country? Grow your army and invade your weaker neighbors in a mad dash to westernize so that the Europeans don't take over. If you really want to choose a certain country but have a tough time figuring things out, I'm here to help.
How do I win?
Each country has a rank. If your rank is rising that means you're doing good. Generally you want to unite your nation under one flag, have an impressive army and navy, an educated populace and access to resources for easy industrialization.
How do I interact with other players?
However you want. I might set up a private thread for secret discussions but I think you could also just PM them. Post in-thread to convince people to join your grand coalition against Russia, decide if you should intervene if the US invades Japan. Whatever you want. The mechanics allow you to take territory from others, force them to hand over suzerainty of foreign lands, dissolve their army and pay you reparations, make them a puppet state, or just really embarrass them. More options will pop up as history marches forward. Some general knowledge of the time period helps with knowing what to expect.
