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[MaxTheFox]

I see the last thread on this game that I found is pretty dead. So I'm making this one.

Victoria 2 is the last game of the "old generation" of Paradox games that had fewer, larger DLCs, no mana, and more obtuse yet deeper mechanics. It's, with the HPM mod and both DLCs, the best and probably most realistic one (but it often does get silly: for example in one of my games the USA went fascist then shattered). It models a lot of things from population (the population is modeled better than Stellaris, fight me) to industralization to elections to rebellions. It is also a lot less "blobby" in that expanding too quickly is hard and often leads to your nation collapsing or getting ganged up on, a bit like a harsher version of EU4's AE. It covers two, in my opinion, interesting time periods: The Victorian Era, and the Interwar Era. The first one sees industralization, Asian/African nations being either conquered or westernizing (as they start out uncivilized. Historically accurate for the time period as they were far behind Europe in technology), and nations like Germany and Italy forming. Then, almost inevitably, a crisis leads to a Great War that, unless one side is very unlucky or it's skewed towards one side, can lead to millions of casualties and extremely high militancy, leading to fascist or communist revolutions, and commie/fascist regimes have unique events and mechanics (a bit like EU4's revolutionary governments I guess). The game ends in 1936.

Do note that the game is unplayable without both DLCs and bland without HPM. The DLCs can be bought at a discount and HPM is literally free. Getting a complete experience is cheap by PDX game standards. I plan to start a let's play someday.

[George_Chickens]

I disagree that the game is bland without HPM. HPM adds a ton of historical railroading which makes the game much, much more predictable. Especially for Mexico.

[WealthyRadish]

From what I understand, HPM/HFM is more railroaded, but also effectively provides several expansions worth of new and better content and an all around more "balanced" game (for example by restricting conquests into china). They're also still seeing active development. I say this without having ever played vanilla, however.

[Rockeater]

PTW

[MaxTheFox]

I disagree that the game is bland without HPM. HPM adds a ton of historical railroading which makes the game much, much more predictable. Especially for Mexico.

I'd say that vanilla suffers from too little railroading, resulting in nonsensical scenarios. Even with HPM's rather mild railroading, weird shit happens 90% of games and Europe often looks nothing like OTL Europe during that time. HPM also adds lots of flavor, especially for uncivs. And I like playing uncivs.

[EuchreJack]

I disagree that the game is unplayable without both DLCs.  I played for quite some time without the Heart of Darkness DLC.  The vanilla colonization mechanics were fine, and playing as an uncivilized nation was fine without Heart of Darkness.  I actually think I sort of preferred the vanilla colonization mechanics.

[Qassius]

The Cold War Enhancement mod is pretty much the only way I play Vicky 2 these days, tons of historical events and ahistorical paths you can take. It also surprisingly models modern geopolitics really well and emphasizes Vicky's economic systems. 

Link if you're interested:
https://github.com/settintotrieste/Victoria-2-Cold-War-Enhancement-Mod-CWE

[Sime]

Let's be honest, as fun as Vic 2 is, it isn't a grand strategy game let alone a geopolitical simulator,  because the AI is daft, the mechanics are silly  and the economy is broken.         I especially  appreciate having to spend research points on weird and useless cultural tech  when playing as a minor nation, in order to gain prestige points for ascending the international trade market. 

Has anyone played Divergences of darkness mod?

[MaxTheFox]

The Cold War Enhancement mod is pretty much the only way I play Vicky 2 these days, tons of historical events and ahistorical paths you can take. It also surprisingly models modern geopolitics really well and emphasizes Vicky's economic systems. 

Link if you're interested:
https://github.com/settintotrieste/Victoria-2-Cold-War-Enhancement-Mod-CWE

Yeah I also recommend that mod. It's the closest we will ever get to an East Vs West game.

Has anyone played Divergences of darkness mod?

I have it downloaded but didn't play it yet (and I know the premise). Will give it a try today.

[nautilu]

The Cold War Enhancement mod is pretty much the only way I play Vicky 2 these days, tons of historical events and ahistorical paths you can take. It also surprisingly models modern geopolitics really well and emphasizes Vicky's economic systems. 

Link if you're interested:
https://github.com/settintotrieste/Victoria-2-Cold-War-Enhancement-Mod-CWE

Its a bad mod. I expected vanilla Vicky with bigger wars and upheaval. I played Italy and found out that you cannot declare any wars except when the decision pops up historically. Its a whole lot of waiting to save up money so you can buy prestige decisions.
Its a historical graphic novel, not a game.

[MaxTheFox]

The Cold War Enhancement mod is pretty much the only way I play Vicky 2 these days, tons of historical events and ahistorical paths you can take. It also surprisingly models modern geopolitics really well and emphasizes Vicky's economic systems. 

Link if you're interested:
https://github.com/settintotrieste/Victoria-2-Cold-War-Enhancement-Mod-CWE

Its a bad mod. I expected vanilla Vicky with bigger wars and upheaval. I played Italy and found out that you cannot declare any wars except when the decision pops up historically. Its a whole lot of waiting to save up money so you can buy prestige decisions.
Its a historical graphic novel, not a game.

What? I literally played like 10 different countries, from Thailand to China to the USSR to America, and was sure able to declare war on others. Maybe you have some sort of modifier for a while that prevents you from declaring war? Remember that in 1946 Italy just got defeated in a world war... IDK, never played Italy. But try another country or download a newer version.

[Qassius]

The Cold War Enhancement mod is pretty much the only way I play Vicky 2 these days, tons of historical events and ahistorical paths you can take. It also surprisingly models modern geopolitics really well and emphasizes Vicky's economic systems. 

Link if you're interested:
https://github.com/settintotrieste/Victoria-2-Cold-War-Enhancement-Mod-CWE

Its a bad mod. I expected vanilla Vicky with bigger wars and upheaval. I played Italy and found out that you cannot declare any wars except when the decision pops up historically. Its a whole lot of waiting to save up money so you can buy prestige decisions.
Its a historical graphic novel, not a game.

The mod places restrictions on when you can declare war, dependent on your ruling party and some other conditions. If your ruling party's war policy is pacifism, then you wont be able to declare war, and I think that you need jingoism to declare wars for territory that you don't have cores on. This means you'll typically have to try to finagle your way into getting Nationalists or Populists in power if you're a democracy. But winning wars boosts ruling party support so its not crazy hard to keep that party. But sometimes it's more helpful to become a dictatorship in order to start declaring wars. Though due to the general situation of geopolitics at the time, wars in places like Europe can easily drag in the superpowers like the USA and the Soviet Union, so often times you'll need to snipe nations not protected by the superpowers or go through the International Court of Justice. Though in the beginning getting your finances and industry in order is probably most important.

While I'm not sure about Italy, I know that Japan starts with a modifier in which they renounced the right to declare war, and you would need to progress through some decisions to regain the ability to declare war. I've never played Italy but they might be in the same camp. Though as a European country, your long-term goals are probably going to be becoming a great power and trying to form the European Union or some other superstate. Then at that point, you can try to challenge more dominant powers like the USA, USSR, China, etc.

[nautilu]

Its too realistic. I was hoping for a game where communists and capitalists waged wars throughout the world. It doesnt make sense to play the mod unless you play as USA or USSR. Anything else and you are just going down a decision tree. War is hands off, economy is hands off. You literally wait until you have millions to invest in some program or other. Kind of boring.

[MaxTheFox]

Its too realistic. I was hoping for a game where communists and capitalists waged wars throughout the world. It doesnt make sense to play the mod unless you play as USA or USSR. Anything else and you are just going down a decision tree. War is hands off, economy is hands off. You literally wait until you have millions to invest in some program or other. Kind of boring.

China is potentially a superpower to rival the other two though. So is India. So is an united Europe (which you can do diplomatically). But yeah you're meant to play bigger nations like the two superpowers or a nation that's superpower material. Don't expect to play, I dunno, Luxembourg or Bhutan or Nauru and succeed.

Nauru is the most pathetic nation in the mod TBH. Quite historical. I use it for observer games or if I want to "fast forward" to a later time period because it doesn't matter geopolitically.

I can recommend the Cold War mod for HOI4 if you have that game, it's closer in gameplay to what you presumably want.