The New Victoria Manual

And Strategy Guide

Second Edition

By Memnon
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Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1…… The Map

The Terrain, Political, Economic, Infrastructure, and Revoltrisk views; map organization
Chapter 2…… POPs
The Different POP types and their uses; merging, splitting, migration, and efficiency
Chapter 3…… The Budget
Description of the screen; the functions and effects of the various sliders
Chapter 4…… Industrialization
Construction of factories; the implementation of POPs; POP efficiency; railroads
Chapter 5……Trade
Pros and cons of the auto-trade system; stockpiles; the international aspect of trade
Chapter 6……Politics
Government types; economic, religious, minority, trade, and military policies
Chapter 7……Reforms
Political reforms and their effects; social reforms and their effects
Chapter 8……Diplomacy
Diplomatic points; diplomatic actions in peace; trading techs; buying land and claims
Chapter 9……The Army
Manpower, leadership, and generals; the various units and their modifiers; attachments
Chapter 10…..The Navy
The various units and their modifiers; attachments; naval power as used in the game
Chapter 11…..Mobilization and the Reserves
How to form and use mobilized troops and reserves; pros and cons of mobilization
Chapter 12…..Leaders
Backgrounds; personality traits; default leaders; how to create leaders
Chapter 13…..War
Combat modifiers; occupying provinces; reinforcement; attrition; peace negotiations
Chapter 14…..The Big Three
Plurality; Consciousness; Militancy
Chapter 15…..Other Concepts
Prestige; badboy; national cultures; war score; war exhaustion
Chapter 16…..Research and Technologies
An introduction to research in the game; research points; intellectual establishments
Chapter 17…..Colonies
The various claim buildings; how to claim a colony; benefits of a colonial empire
Chapter 18…..Very Frequently Asked Questions
The Unification of Italy; the Unification of Germany; how to become civilized; which
country to play; purchases off the world market; the American Civil War; the Liberal
Revolution; granting statehood to colonies; the ledger and its uses
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Introduction

“I would give no thought of what the world might say of me, if I could only transmit to posterity the
reputation of an honest man.”
-Sam Houston

I have had the distinct pleasure of being a member of the Victoria forums for a little while now, and yet
even in my relatively brief time there, I have found that there is a severe lack of knowledge about the
workings of the game. There have been many attempts to correct this, and valiant efforts put forth by
several dedicated members have indeed produced results. These answers, however, tend to be scattered
around the forums, and even when they are found, they are mixed in with discussion threads so that
distilling the legitimate information is often difficult. More importantly, there is hardly ever a definitive
answer given to the more difficult questions. That is why I undertook to write this manual—so that there
would be one place where players with questions could go to find the answers they sought.

There have been many negative comments made about the original manual. I, for one, believe that given
the constraints on space the writers had, as well as the complexity of the game itself, they actually did an
excellent job summarizing some of the more difficult concepts. Therefore, it is not my intent to replace the
current manual—only to supplement it. This document assumes a prior understanding of where certain
screens are, as well as what the buttons do. I do not bother to delve into installation instructions, nor into
how to load or save a game.

My hope is that this effort of mine helps clear up some of the more pressing problems that result in several
repeated threads being posted in the forums. I also hope that this manual will give even experienced
players a new understanding of the game, at least in certain areas. This manual is, to the best of my ability,
1.03 compliant.

I do not profess to know everything about this game—quite the contrary, in fact—and if there is anything
wrong with this manual, please do not hesitate to contact me at once. I can be reached via the open forums
or by private message if you wish.

I want to thank Rafiki for all the time he put into correcting the drafts of this second edition. Rafiki’s
webpage (http://victoria.nsen.ch) is where you should go for all the tables that this manual leaves out, as
well as for a bevy of other information. I also want to thank Darkrenown for his extensive commentary, as
well as always being available to answer my questions on the forums. Thanks also to Derek Pullem for
reviewing the first draft of this document and correcting my many errors. I also want to thank aprof for
allowing me the use of his leadership modifier chart, and Carligula for his superb essay on Plurality and
Consciousness, which I reference. Thanks also to Johan for reading this over and approving its release.

Last but certainly not least, I want to thank the members of the forums for patiently and consistently
answering my questions. This manual is, in reality, a reflection not of my own knowledge but of yours, for
most of the facts contained herein I learned from you.

Regards,
Memnon
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Chapter 1 – The Map

“BOUNDARY, n. In political geography, an imaginary line between two nations, separating the
imaginary rights of one from the imaginary rights of the other.”
-Ambrose Bierce

There are five ways to view the map, each with a different use. The buttons activating each of these views
are on the bottom left of the main task window, beside the minimap.

Terrain: This is the first map mode. It is the default form you see when loading the game. This map will
show you the kind of topography of the province—mountains, hills, grassland, forests, etc. It also shows
where the major rivers are. These factors are important to keep in mind when conducting a war, as terrain
acts as a combat modifier. The types of terrain are described in the fold out sheet packaged with the game.

Political: The Political map is perhaps the most frequently used mode. This shows you clearly the borders
between all countries, as well as the demarcation of provinces. It also shows the location of capitals by
placing a city icon in the province where the capital is located.

Economic: The economic mode shows what resource is produced by each province. This resource is
represented by the icon in the center of the province. Each province produces only one kind of resource,
but certain in-game events can change the type of resource produced in the province.

Infrastructure: The infrastructure map shows the layout of the railroads and factories of a country.
Railroads appear as dark, straight lines connecting provinces with one another, whereas factories are
represented as small factory icons. Provinces where railroads may be built are shown in green. Fully
developed provinces are show in white. Although the icons appear in a particular province, factories are
organized not by province but by the state (see below).

Revoltrisk: This mode shows in red those provinces that are in danger of revolting. No red means no
revolts and the greener the better. This map also shows, through the placement of small icons, the various
types of crime in each province. Provinces can only have one form of crime at a time.

The map is organized into three levels.

The highest level is that of the nation. These are clearly shown in their own color on the political map.
Each nation is sovereign over its own territory and (unless it is a satellite or a dominion) has control over
its international relations. Taxes and tariffs and literacy are examples of factors determined at the national
level.

The lowest level is that of the province. These are also clearly illustrated on the map—they are the smaller
territorial demarcations within a country. Battles, railroads, resources, crime, revolts, and POP
management are all handled by the province. Provinces also have an individual “life rating” which shows
how hospitable the province is to human habitation. The better the life rating, the more people will want to
move there and the lower the penalties suffered by invading armies.

Between the province and the nation is the state. States are visible as the highlighted region on the terrain
map after only one click, or as the slightly darkened region on the political map after only one click
(clicking again selects a specific province).

The state is merely a collection of provinces, geographically related. It is at the state level that factories are
managed. The factories are spread across the entire state, even though the icon appears in a specific
province. POPs in any province in the state can be assigned to work in a factory within that state. Factories
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can only be built in states that have been granted statehood in your country. Statehood can be granted only
when the majority population of at least one of the provinces in the state is your national culture. Keep in
mind that all territory conquered or purchased from civilized countries, regardless of its population, is a
state.

States are unique in Victoria in that they are the only demarcation of land that transcends national
boundaries. Land allocation in treaties is done by the province, not by the state, meaning that states can be
split up among two or more nations. Examples of this at the outset of the 1836 scenario include the state of
Azerbaijan, which is divided between Russia and Persia, and the state of Maine, which is divided between
the United States and Great Britain.

States divided between nations can still have factories built in them, but only those POPs inside your
country can be assigned to work in them. When an entire state is conquered, all factories in that state are
transferred as well, but keep in mind that as long as even one of the provinces in a state remains in the
hands of the other country, all the factories will remain in that other country.
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Chapter 2 – POPs
“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”
-Karl Marx

What is a POP anyway? POPs are the basic population units in Victoria. They are in every country and
every populated province. They are the basis for your entire economy. In fact, they are your economy.
POPs come in various sizes, from 1 to 100,000.

POPs come in ten flavors: Officers, Aristocrats, Capitalists, Clergymen, Clerks, Craftsmen, Farmers,
Laborers, Soldiers, and Slaves. Each contributes in different ways to your economy. Most POPs are
convertible by you, the player, assuming they are at the right level already and you have the resources to
promote them to the next.

What do the different POPs do?

Aristocrats: These are the wealthy landowners in your country. They basically sit at home all day and
consume things. They do provide a bonus to RGOs, but besides that, they’re useful for little more than
being taxed.

Officers: These are the more experienced and highly trained solders in your army. The number of Officers
you have contributes directly to the number of leadership points you develop. The more Officers you have,
the more leadership points you earn.

Clergymen: These are the religious figures in your country. They work to your benefit by reducing the
Consciousness of your POPs (see section “The Big Three”), making them better citizens of autocratic
governments, but worse citizens of democratic governments. They also, by extension, reduce the Militancy
of some strata of your population, making them less likely to revolt against your rule. They do, however,
raise consciousness for Aristocrats, Capitalists, and Officers. Clergymen also add to your research points
until the discovery of Darwinism makes the obsolete.

Capitalists: These are the entrepreneurs of your economy. They boost your industrial output and are also
very good for taxing.

Clerks: These are the educated working class of your population. They work in factories alongside
Craftsmen (see below), and they improve the efficiency of the factory itself. Importantly, Clerks add to
your research points, so the more Clerks you have, the more research points you acquire. Unlike most
other POPs, the size of a Clerk POP does have a direct effect on your research output. An 80,000 person
Clerk POP does produce more research points than a 1200 person Clerk POP, so a common tactic has
become to convert the largest POPs in an industrialized province to Clerks.

Craftsmen: These represent the lower-educated skilled workers. They work in factories, but they do not
add to the efficiency of the factory the way Clerks do, nor do they yield research points the way Clerks do.

Farmers: These are the agricultural workers in your country. They work the land and produce goods.
Farmers work in RGOs (Resource Gathering Operations), of which every province has one. But they will
only work in RGOs that produce grain, fish, cattle, fruit, or wool.

Laborers: These do the hard physical work of your economy. These are the coal miners, the lumberjacks,
the hard-working men who develop the raw resources that drive your industry. They, like Farmers, also
work in RGOs, but they do not share space with Farmers. Instead, the fill the ranks in the other RGOs,
such as iron, coal, sulfur, timber, etc.
 7

Soldiers: These are the basic fighting unit of your country. The number of soldiers you have adds directly
to your manpower pool. The more soldiers you have, the higher the manpower.

Slaves: These are at the bottom rung of the economic ladder. Not actually considered citizens, they cannot
be taxed, nor can they be converted to any other kind of POP. Slaves work, like Farmers and Laborers, in
RGOs. Only a few countries in Victoria have Slaves, and these include the United States, Denmark, Texas,
and eventually the Confederacy as well. Many of these countries have events that allow their slaves to be
emancipated and converted into laborers.

Note that any and all POPs that give a bonus of some sort (ie. Clerks granting research points) must be of
your National Culture (see section “Other Concepts”) for you to receive that bonus.

Aristocrats and Capitalists are considered “Rich”; Officers, Clergymen, and Clerks are considered “Middle
Class”; and Craftsmen, Farmers, Laborers, and Soldiers are considered “Poor”. This is important to keep
in mind when deciding how much to tax each class of your citizenry. Slaves, as mentioned earlier, are not
taxable.

POP merging is one of the more controversial concepts of the POP system. Merging, under the 1.03 patch
takes place between POPs which are less than 10,000 in size, and essentially keeps there from being
dozens of small, hundred or thousand person POPs in a province. An under-10,000 POP can merge with a
larger POP as long as the resulting POP is not larger than 100,000. When any two POPs whose culture,
religion, and type (i.e. Clerk, Craftsman, Farmer) are the same are located in the same province, they will
merge and form a single, larger POP, as long as one is less than 10,000 in size/.

The direct effect of POP merging is that industrialization is easier in multi-ethnic empires, as the small
POPs of different cultural groups will not merge, thus creating more available POPs to place in factories.
Since a 500 person POP is just as efficient in the factory as a 19,999 person POP, this kind of multi-ethnic
industrialization can make a big difference in production.

POPs not only merge but split as well. When a POP grows to be 100,000 in size, it will split into one
75,000 person POP and one 25,000 person POP, each of which will continue to grow as separate entities,
eventually splitting themselves once they reach 100,000. This is how the game simulates population
growth.

POPs can also degrade. If a specific POP is taxed above fifty percent of its income, it may degrade itself
into a lower class. Thus it is wise to never tax your upper and especially your middle class above forty-
nine percent except in cases of emergencies.

How do POPs produce? POPs add to your production output by working directly in either factories or in
RGOs. Neither will produce goods without POPs to work them. When choosing which POPs to assign to a
particular factory, you must keep in mind the POP’s size. Different sizes of POPs produce more than
others (see section “Industrialization”). Every factory can accommodate only five POPs per level,
regardless of their size.

Another factor to keep in mind is that there is a specific ratio of clerks to craftsmen—2:3—that produces
the most efficient factories. If possible, you should always try to aim for this ratio when assigning clerks
and craftsmen to factories.

POPs will not remain forever in one province. If they are unemployed, they will emigrate and seek work
elsewhere. All POPs migrating are programmed to seek jobs within your country first, then in your
country’s colonies, and lastly in other countries. This way, if you have open factory positions in one state
 8

and unemployed Clerks and Craftsmen in another, they may migrate to the open jobs. Keep in mind that
this process—as in real life—is not perfect and many POPs will not always go where you want them to.

POP migration is also affected by the life ratings of your provinces (the little thermometers), which show
how good they are for human habitation. The better the life rating of the province, the more people will
want to move there.

All individual POPs come with individual thoughts and issues. Each POP will tell you what their specific
issues of concern are, what chance they have to revolt, and how politically conscious they are of
themselves. Each POP type also comes with its own demands for specific goods. These are in three
groups: life needs, everyday needs, and luxuries. The more of each they get, the less likely they are to
revolt. The specific goods that fall into each class can very by POP type. For example, Farmers, unlike all
other POP types, have fertilizer set as a luxury good.
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Chapter 3 – The Budget

“The worth of the state, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it.”
-John Stewart Mill

Managing your budget is key to any successful game, and knowing what the various sliders mean helps
tremendously.

Taxes: There are three tax sliders, one each for the poor, middle, and rich classes. The first thing to
remember is that POPs don’t like being taxed above a third of their income, but they’ll stomach it for a
while. The worst thing you can do is consistently tax the middle and upper classes above fifty percent, as
this will probably lead to devolvement among the POPs (see section “POPs”). If this happens, your Clerks,
the driving force behind your research, can fall back into farmers or laborers because of tax-imposed
poverty. High taxes will also lead to high levels of emigration. But of course, it also leads to lots and lots
of money, so do your own balancing.

There is a second idea related here—tax efficiency. This is the rate at which your collectors are actually
able to impose your tax legislation on the people. There is an overall tax efficiency as well as a class-
specific efficiency. To see how much of your POPs money you’re actually getting, you have to multiply
the tax rate by the tax efficiency by the class-specific efficiency.

State Bonds: Though not actually a slider, bonds represent your population’s investment in the government
of your country. Remember the reasoning behind this: the more of a financial stake a population has in its
government, the more likely they are to rally to its support in time of crisis (by the way, for all you history
buffs and econ majors, this was part of Alexander Hamilton’s financial plan back in the Washington
administration, and was the original reason the United States federal government developed a permanent
system of national debt). Though the citizens rallying to the flag in a crisis to save their money is not
actually represented in the game, your income from selling bonds is.

Citizens will buy bonds if they have extra capital left over after purchasing at least all their everyday
needs. Even if your government is in debt, your citizens can still purchase state bonds.

Education: This slider determines how much your government spends on raising the literacy rate and on
funding research and technological development. Holding spending at fifty percent keeps the current
literacy rate steady. Put the slider above fifty percent, and literacy gradually increases; put it below and it
gradually decreases. The amount of spending also determines how many research points you earn.
Spending minimally on education yields few points, regardless of the number of Clerks or Clergymen you
have. Spending a great deal can compensate for a small population.

Crime Fighting: This determines how much money your government spends fighting corruption and illegal
activity in the country. Reducing crime helps reduce militancy, directly affects the revolt risk, and can help
remove issues like immoral business practices which can lead to a collapse of your economy. There is
always crime developing in your country, but the higher the slider the more quickly the government moves
to stamp it out. Each month the computer runs a check on the amount of crime in you country, and
depending on how much you have invested, a crime “building” (such as immoral business or machine
politics) may appear or disappear. At zero percent funding, Revoltrisk is doubled; at one hundred percent
funding, it is halved.

Social Spending: This determines how much your government spends supporting its various social
reforms. In order to gain the benefits of your reforms, you must spend at least fifty percent of the slider.
Funding below reduces the benefits, whereas funding above leads to Trust in Government (see section
“Reforms”).
 10

Defense Spending: This is where you decide how much you put into national defense. The amount of
money you allocate here determines your rate of increase in manpower and leadership points, as well as
the maximum of each that you can have. When you convert a POP into a Soldier or Officer, the current
level of defense spending determines how much manpower or leadership you get for that particular
conversion (this number will not be constant, but dependent on the size of the converted POP. However,
overall, the higher the defense spending of your country, the more effective conversion to Soldiers or
Officers is in increasing you manpower and leadership). High defense spending also increases prestige to
have high defense spending.

Army Maintenance: This determines how much money you give to the upkeep of your army. This
can—and sometimes must—be low due to the expensive nature of industrialization early in the game.
Funding Army Maintenance at one hundred percent means your divisions can be at full strength—ten
thousand men. Placing the slider below one hundred percent reduces the number of men per division,
although the divisions themselves can never disappear, even at the lowest Army Maintenance possible.
The lowest number of men a division can have, even if its maintenance is as low as possible, is 1,900 men;
a fully maintained division has 10,000 men (or 12,000 if it has a brigade attached).

Once you have lowered the slider, those men have disappeared. They will not automatically return when
you increase the slider again. The only way to bring the divisions back to full strength is through
reinforcement (see section “The Army”).

Navy Maintenance: This influences your individual ships the same way Army Maintenance influences
individual divisions. Lower it below one hundred percent and the strength of your ships declines. Unlike
with divisions, the strength of your ships will return at no cost to you when their funding is brought back
up. The only requirement is that they be in a port, and, given enough time, they will come back to full
strength. Note that ships take considerably loger to regain full strength than land units.

Loans and Interest Payments: Whenever your country spends more then it has in its treasury, it doesn’t
shoot you into negative territory. Rather, you take out a loan, the amount of which is located in this box.
This loan will stay out until you yourself repay it. Repayment is not automatic.

Alongside this number is the interest rate. Not only do you have to repay the loan, but you also must pay
daily interest on it. This number is usually only a few pounds a day at most, unless you are a very reckless
spender.

The interest rate can be reduced through discovering several technologies in the Commerce area of
research. These include things like Ad Hoc Money Bill Printing and any other techs that make capital flow
more freely in an economy.

One thing to keep in mind: if your country goes too far into debt, you will be forced to declare bankruptcy.
If this happens, not only do you lose a tremendous amount of prestige, but, as of the 1.03 patch, you lose
all your stockpiles of goods and some of your factories as well. Having gone bankrupt once makes you
more likely to go bankrupt again, and sooner as well, as the trust bankers put in your government goes
down with each successive declaration. Suffice it to say, bankruptcy is a bad thing.

Tariffs: Tariffs were one of the most hotly debated issues in the Victorian time period, and, similarly, they
are one of the more powerful—and potentially destructive—tools you can use to manage your economy.
Tariffs are taxes on imported goods, which, for the purposes of the game’s mechanics (see section
“Trade”) means that you’re putting a tax on every item your POPs buy.
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The larger your population, the higher your tariff income should be. Tariff incomes are also higher for
countries whose POPs are more advanced (i.e. Clerks, Capitalists, Officers, Clergymen, and Aristocrats
over Craftsmen, Laborers, Farmers, and Slaves). This is because well developed POPs demand more
goods and more expensive goods, thus raising your tariff revenue. But tariffs also make the goods your
POPs seek to buy more expensive, and thus, potentially out of their reach. One of the modifiers of
Militancy is how many of their desired goods POPs are able to purchase, so leaving high tariffs for
indefinite periods of time can be quite harmful to your domestic tranquility.

One other thing that can be done with the tariff slider is moving it below the spot where you break even.
This puts a subsidy, rather than a tax, on the goods your POPs purchase, making the cheaper, and thus
more accessible, reducing Militancy.

There is a certain balance to keep in mind when imposing tariffs and constructing factories. If you produce
an item domestically in any quantity, your POPs will try to buy it from your own sources first. Even
though they will buy it through the world market system, there will not be a tariff imposed because the
product was created domestically. For this reason, producing at least a little of all your POPs’ desired
goods within your nation will benefit them by reducing the cost of those goods (as there will be no tariff
on them) but it will kill your tariff income.

Keep this in mind in the early game, particularly for players of countries with one one or more liquor
factories. As Russia, closing your liquor distilleries on day one of the game can lead to a very large
increase in tariff income for the early game with very few if any immediate repercussions.

Remember, though you may make changes to the sliders in this window, none will take effect until you
have actually exited the window.
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Chapter 4 – Industrialization
“Red-hot iron, white-hot iron, cold-black iron; an iron taste and iron smell, and a Babel of iron sounds.”
-Charles Dickens

Industrialization is the key to the Victorian economic system. Though it’s possible to survive on an
agrarian economic system, your country will go nowhere. All players seeking to achieve or keep Great
Power status must industrialize.

There are three aspects to successful industrialization.

The first aspect is the construction of factories. As mentioned previously (see section “The Map”), this is
done at the state, not provincial level. To construct a factory, open the particular state’s information
screen. At the bottom, there will be a button allowing you to build a new factory. Factories cost a certain
amount of raw material to build. Many nations start out with a certain amount of these raw
materials—lumber, cement, and steel—and with a small stockpile of machine parts. Use them wisely,
especially the machine parts. Many nations do not begin the game with machine parts.

When choosing what factories you wish to build, try to keep in mind the various prices and uses of the
products you are considering making. For example, in the early game, steel is a well-priced commodity
considering how cheap it is to produce. Keeping this process in mind can help you quickly amass enough
cash to continue industrialization.

Also keep in mind the system of vertical production. By this I mean the way that one factory uses the
products produced by another. For example, let’s say you take timber and turn it into lumber in a Lumber
Mill. You can then take that lumber and use it in a Furniture Factory to make furniture, a generally highly-
priced good. That furniture can then be used to manufacture luxury furniture in a Luxury Furniture
Factory. Luxury furniture, situated as it is at the top of a long vertical production chain, tends to be very
highly priced and thus very valuable to sell. As a rule, remember that the longer the production chain, the
higher-priced the goods towards the top tend to be.

Most factories are able to be built once the technology Freedom of Trade has been discovered, although
there are some that cannot be built until later (Telephone and Automobile factories, for instance) and some
that can be built before (Liquor Distilleries, Wineries, and Glass Factories). Note that most uncivilized
nations start the game without having discovered Freedom of Trade.

Once you have built your factories, you want to ensure that they actually produce things that you can sell.
This brings us to the second aspect of successful industrialization—POPs.

You need POPs to run your factories for you. They are the labor that runs the machines, the strength
behind your economy. There are two kinds of POPs that work in factories—Craftsmen and Clerks.
Craftsmen do not need Clerks with them in a factory; they can run it on their own. Clerks, on the other
hand, cannot run a factory on their own, and, in fact, there are a limited number of Clerks you can put into
a factory. You must have at least one Craftsman for each Clerk in a factory; there cannot be more Clerks
than Craftsmen in any particular factory at any time.

Unemployed Clerks and Craftsmen will automatically be placed into newly constructed factories as soon
as they are complete, but eventually, you will run out of unemployed workers and will have to convert
more. You should take these new workers from the ranks of the Farmers and Laborers of the state. To
convert another type of POP into a Craftsman or a Clerk (or, in fact, into most other kinds of POPs),
simply click on their specific box and then click the button that says “Convert to [insert POP type of your
 13

choice here]”. If you have enough of the required goods in stock, the POP will be converted immediately
and will be auto-assigned to a factory at once.

But not all POPs are equal when it comes to factory assignment. As you will recall, all POPs come in sizes
between 1 and 100,000. Obviously, a thirteen man POP is not as good in a factory as an eighty-five
thousand man POP, but the differences are slightly more esoteric than that. Rather than having a set value
increase in proportion to the size of the POP, there is instead a system based around several POP size
thresholds.

Before you can understand this concept you must understand the idea of production efficiency. Factories
do not start out running at maximum possible capacity. There are, in fact, several discoveries that increase
the output of the factories using their efficiency as a modifier. POPs also have efficiencies for production
based on their sizes:

1 – 499: 33% efficiency 20,000 – 49,999: 75% efficiency

500 – 19,999: 50% efficiency 50,000 – 100,000: 100% efficiency

So a fifty-thousand person POP produces exactly as much as a hundred-thousand person POP, which is
three times the amount of a three-hundred person POP. Note also that POPs of non-National Cultures are
half as efficient than those of your National Culture(s).

Managing POP sizes is not the only way to improve factory efficiency. This brings us to the third aspect of
successful industrialization—railroads.

Railroads are the last link to gaining the highest possible factory efficiency because, unlike POPs, their
efficiency increases over time with new technologies. There are several levels of railroad in the game, and
each successive level further improves the efficiency of your factories. To build a railroad, simply go to
the information screen of the province in which you wish to build the railroad and click on the button
beneath the picture of the current transportation type (for almost all nations in the start of the game this
should be a horse-and-carriage). Assuming you have the requisite materials in stock, the railroad will
immediately begin construction.

In order to receive the benefits of railroads, they must cover one province in the state in which the factory
is situated. Otherwise, they will not be effective. The average railroad efficiency of the state is calculated
and usd for factory purposes; the more railroads you have in the state, the higher the efficiency. Never
forget the importance of railroads in improving factory efficiency; it can make all the difference in the
world in the later game. Besides, railroads are always a good investment because they also allow your
troops to move across your territory much more quickly than they otherwise could.
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Chapter 5 – Trade
“Free trade is not a principle, it is an expedient.”
-Benjamin Disraeli

The last remaining issue with the economic system is trade. Understand trade, and you will be able to
make a quick fortune.

There are many, many products you can make, buy, and sell in Victoria, and all of them are available for
trade on the world market. All commodities start the game being auto-traded by the computer. A word of
advice: turn this feature off. History has shown that the computer will purchase items you need, but in
quantities and at intervals not usually suited to your budget constraints. To turn off this feature, you must
go through and unclick all the little boxes on the left of the screen that have X’s through them. An X
signifies that the computer is trading the commodity for you.

In a normal game, however, it is usually safe to leave some basic raw materials auto-traded. These include
cotton, wool, coal, sulfur, and timber. But check your economic map first. If you country is short on any of
these goods, it is better to leave them under your control.

You should rarely leave your higher-end goods under computer control. Allowing the game to auto-trade
luxury clothing has lead to several second-year bankruptcies among new players. To set the orders for
buying and selling manually, click on the box for the particular commodity. That commodity should then
appear at the bottom of the trade window. Click the box to the left to indicate whether you want the game
to buy or sell, and then move the slider to the amount desired. Remember to click “Confirm Trade” or else
the order will not take effect.

Victoria’s economy is an open one, meaning that, like all open economies, the price of goods is
determined by supply and demand. As mentioned earlier, all types of POPs have different demands. The
game keeps track of how much of each good (furniture, clothing, precious metal, automobiles, etc.) is
produced on the market, as well as how many POPs are demanding them. Based on the amount of demand
for goods, and their relative scarcity, the game will churn out a number for the price of that item. This
number is found in the standard, humdrum, Econ 101 supply-and-demand graph.

Because of the game’s reliance on this system to calculate price, you can, of course, manipulate it. To do
this, you simply have to understand the way supply and demand systems work. If the demand goes down,
the price drops, but if the demand goes up, so does the price. Similarly, if the supply drops, the proce of
the remaining items will rise as well. Therefore, if you are a large producer of a certain item—precious
metals, for example—and are unsatisfied with the price per unit you are receiving, all you have to do is
stop selling the good for a little while. As required by the system, the price will rise. Once the cost of the
good has reached a satisfactory level, you can sell your stockpile and reap enormous cash benefits. Of
course, flooding the market that way will drop the price back down to a more reasonable level. Be
cautious, though, for messing around with the supply of certain items can increase your POPs militancy,
because they, along with everyone else, will have trouble getting them.

It is always good to have stockpiles of certain essential goods. Steel, lumber, and cement, for instance, are
necessary for building almost every type of building in the game, including railroads. Products like paper,
furniture, and regular clothing are necessary in order to convert POPs into Craftsmen and Clerks, so it is
also good to have a small stockpile of these on hand, though it should not be your first priority. You
should also try to have at least fifty small arms and fifty canned food in stockpile if you can, as this is the
cost of increasing mobilization.
 15

Trade in Victoria is always international. There is always a domestic market for the goods you produce in
your factories, but the fact is that the system makes the POPs buy their desired goods from the world
market. This means that if, for example, you are the world’s only producer of furniture and you don’t offer
your stockpile onto the world market, then your POPs won’t ever get any of it. This situation, recall,
increases their Militancy.

This means that stockpiling your goods can be a very, very bad thing. Though you may be tempted to keep
the other countries from industrializing by not providing them with the materials to convert their POPs
(such as furniture and clothing), you will also be robbing your POPs of goods they need to live a happy
life. Remember, free trade is a good thing in Victoria.

It is, however, fine to stockpile certain goods. War materiel, for example, is not demanded by any POPs
and is generally a good thing to stockpile as you do not want to be supplying the armies of your enemies.
Clippers and Steamers are very well priced, but they are also good to keep off the world market if you can
afford it, as it will stymie the attempts of other countries to build up their navies. Of course, you can
always utilize the commodities in your stockpiles whenever you want.

Trade also adds to your income. Any products you sell puts money directly into the pockets of your POPs,
money which is then taxable. Your trade balance is clearly visible on the main task window inside the
“Trade” box.
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 16

Chapter 6 – Politics
“The Empress is Legitimist, my cousin is Republican, Morny is Orleanist, I am a socialist; the only
Bonapartist is Persigny, and he is mad.”
-Napoleon III

Victorian politics is an incredible complicated business. There are several factors to keep in mind, from
national ideology to the specific ideals of political parties to the types of political and social reforms you
grant.

Every country has a specific government type. These are: Monarchy, Constitutional Monarchy,
Democracy, Presidential Dictatorship, or Proletarian Dictatorship. The vast majority of countries in the
game will start and end as monarchies, although there is a great deal of transfer to constitutional monarchy
and democracy by the end. Presidential and proletarian dictatorships are few and far between, and can only
be arrived at through revolution. You cannot purposefully achieve either through a combination of
political reforms (see “Reforms”).

Every country also has an Executive Designation, which is directly related to what form of government
you have. “Laws by Decree” reflects a monarchy, presidential, or proletarian dictatorship; “HMS
Government”, a Constitutional Monarchy; “Parliamentarism”, a Democracy.

Each nation also has specific party system which determines how elections are run. In a One-Party state,
the ruling party will continuously hold power and be reelected. In a Two-Party system, there exist third
parties, but they receive a large penalty when votes are counted. In a Multi-party system, all parties have a
chance at the election.

Countries come with a National Value. This represents the sentiment of the majority of the population,
regardless of their political actions. This is the way the game reflects certain cultural determinants, such as
the British and American aversions to despotism, or the German and Russian desires for a strong, central
government. This is not to say that National Value does not change, but it tends to do so more through
revolution than through political reforms. National Values come in three flavors: Order, Liberty, and
Equality. Countries that value order will have more efficient crime fighting and military research.
Societies upholding liberty will speed up non-military research, and societies valuing Equality will make
social spending more effective at reducing militancy.

Each country also has files representing the political parties that can come into power, and each has its
own qualities. But there are universal ideals that are combined in various ways among the parties:

Economic Policies:

Laissez-Faire: This means little or no government intervention in the private sector. A party with this kind
of belief will not allow you to ever tax any class above fifty percent of its income, nor will it allow you to
grant social reforms or spend more than fifty percent of the social budget.

Interventionism: Interventionist parties allow all types of social reforms, and social spending is allowed
between ten and eighty percent of the budget.

State Capitalism: This is the essence of a socialist government. You cannot remove social reforms, only
add them, and you cannot tax your population below twenty percent of their income.
 17

Planned Economy: This is Victoria’s equivalent of a communist economic policy. Planned economy
parties do not allow the taxing of classes at below fifty percent, and social reform spending can only be
thirty percent at a minimum. In Planned economies, you can add social reforms, but not remove them.

The effect of these policies, obviously, is directly related to your ability to raise and spend money as you
wish.

Religious Policies:

Pluralism: Pluralist parties allow all religions in a country.

Moralism: One religion is dominant, and, while others may be allowed, they suffer for lack of funds or
state support.

Secularized: There is freedom of religion in the country, but the dominant mood is one of secularization
and non-religion as people are accustoming themselves to the ideas of modern science.

Atheism: Religion is forbidden in the country.

These policies have a great effect on your citizens. Religion is one of the strongest motivators people have,
and a party that attempts to crush religion in a very religious country (or one that seeks to promote it in an
atheist country) will suffer revolts galore.

Minority Policies:

Full Citizenship: In full Citizenship governments, all people have the same rights, regardless of race,
creed, or color. Minorities can vote only in this kind of government.

Limited Citizenship: These kinds of governments distribute rights unequally, but the bottom-most class
can still do everything but vote.

Residence: Residence governments allow foreigners or other ethnic groups to work in the country but
allow them few liberties.

Slavery: Governments of this type put the less favored classes into forced bondage.

The type of minority policy your government has effects how content your minorities are to be living
there. A strongly xenophobic party will virtually eliminate immigration and encourage emigration,
whereas an open government can draw hordes of foreign workers to your shores, thus giving you free
labor and costing your rivals.

Trade Policies:

Free Trade: Free Trade governments impose maximum limits on tariffs.

Protectionism: Protectionist governments limit how much you can subsidize your population.

These policies have an effect on the happiness of your POPs. Since a part of their happiness is determined
by their access to goods, if the cost of those good is beyond their reach, they will be unhappy. Free Trade
governments may limit how much of a tariff you can impose, but Protectionist governments are potentially
more dangerous: subsidizing expansive good for your POPs keeps them happy, and not being able to do
this can lead to revolts later in the game.
 18

Military Policies:

Pacifism: A pacifist government does not allow defense spending above fifty percent.

Anti-Military: These governments do not allow defense spending to go above eighty percent.

Pro-Military: These governments do not allow defense spending to fall below ten percent.

Jingoism: Jingoistic governments do not allow defense spending to be below thirty percent.

These policies determine how much you can spend on national defense, which is directly related to how
much manpower and leadership points you accumulate. With low stockpiles of either, it is difficult to fight
a successful war, especially a prolonged one.
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 19

Chapter 7 – Reforms
“The more is given the less the people will work for themselves, and the less they work the more their
poverty will increase.”
-Leo Tolstoy

Once you understand how the political system in Victoria works, you can consider granting reforms. There
are two types of reforms: political and social. These work in different ways. Political reforms extend rights
to your population. These include such things as public meetings and the right to form unions. Social
reforms, on the other hand, involve the state shelling out cash to provide services to the people. Such
services include health care, pension funds, and minimum wages. Both kinds of reforms reduce the
militancy of your population, but neither is free—monetarily or otherwise.

Political Reforms:

Voting Rights: This is perhaps the most important political reform, as it can determine what kind of
government your country takes as a whole. There are several levels of voting rights. First, there is the
“None” option. This is pretty self-explanatory, so we’ll leave it at that. Second is the “Landowners only”
choice. This means that you will be allowing your Aristocrats and Capitalists to vote, but no one else.
“Wealth” means that suffrage is extended through the middle class, enveloping Clergymen, Officers, and
Clerks. And finally, “Universal Suffrage” means everyone can vote (note: this does not include women
until late in the game, if at all).

The people allowed to vote determine what kinds of governments are elected. The upper classes tend to be
quite conservative—even reactionary—in their leanings, so with very restrictive voting rights, those are
the kinds of parties you will see elected. The lower classes tend to be more liberal—and later,
socialist—and granting them voting rights may get those kinds of parties elected. Before extending voting
rights, look at the parties that can currently be elected and make sure you understand what kinds of
restrictions they could put on your government.

The type of voting right you have also tends to determine your overall form of government. Many states
with no voting rights, when granted suffrage of any sort, become Constitutional Monarchies. Extending
this to Universal Suffrage tends to shift the government to a democracy, though with the more
conservative nations of Central and Eastern Europe they will stay Constitutional Monarchies.

The classes that are newly allowed to vote are happy to be able to do so and generally receive a decrease in
militancy, but understand that those who can already vote are unhappy to see the privileges extended, and
will be unhappy.

Public Meetings: This is where you choose whether to allow public meetings, one of the staples of popular
government. Prohibiting them will make your liberal classes angry, but it will reduce your crime fighting
costs as everyone (including criminals and political protestors) can no longer congregate without breaking
the law. Allowing them will keep your crime fighting costs up, but it will mollify your more liberal POPs.

Press Rights: This is how you choose how much of a license the press in your country gets. Providing the
“State Press” option puts the newspapers in the control of the government. Make no mistake, people are
not fooled by this, and though it helps keep people in control, they can get unhappy. “Censored Press”
means that the newspapers have some freedom, but they are being watched by government censors. This
allows for a reduction in militancy among the population without suffering the burdens of a truly free
press, and seems to be a balance point with which many players are comfortable. “Free Press” means that
you remove all restrictions on your newspapers, allowing them to print whatever they want. You will find
 20

that this can often include government criticism, which can itself lead to an increase in Consciousness and
Militancy for a segment of your population.

Political Parties: This is where you choose what kind of power you will have over the parties in your
country. The first choice “No Political Parties” is self-explanatory. The second is “Right to Ban”.
Selecting this means that you are allowing elections, but that the monarch retains the right to dissolve a
government with which he is unsatisfied. This allows you to expel a party from power if it has imposed
restrictions on you with which you are unhappy. “All Allowed” means that you agree to allow whatever
party gets elected into office, and agree to go along with that they legislate. Banning a party or expelling it
from power creates a tremendous amount of unrest among the adherents to that party within your citizenry.

As with press rights, the more freedom there is the lower the militancy of the majority of your population,
but remember that allowing all parties can lead to the election of Pacifist or Socialist parties that restrict
how you can manage your military or economy.

Trade Unions: Here you select what kind of collective bargaining rights you assign. You can of course
select the “No Trade Unions” choice. Besides that, you can select the “Non-Socialist” choice, which
makes your liberal POPs happy but angers your conservative POPs. Choosing “Only Socialist” makes the
socialist POPs happy while angering all the rest. “All Allowed” means that all trade unions, whatever their
ideology, are free do form. This makes socialist POPs happy, but angers all the rest.

All political reforms will reduce the Militancy of one or more strata of your population, but they will
increase the Militancy and Consciousness of others. A good rule of thumb to follow: whoever benefits
from the political reforms will be happier, but whoever loses political power will be unhappy. For
example, if you extend voting rights from landed to wealth, you will include Clerks. These will be happy,
while the Aristocrats and Capitalists will be upset. Furthermore, if you then extend voting rights to
universal suffrage, the Clerks, who will have less power after the next reform than before, will be upset by
it.

Social Reforms:

All social reforms are a good way to reduce militancy, but they cost a great amount of money. As you can
see, the social reforms come at several levels, from “trinkets” to “good”. The higher the rate, the more
money it costs to run. There is both an establishment cost and a daily cost that comes out of your budget.

Minimum Wages: This sets how much of a minimum wage your workers get.

Maximum Workhours: This sets a limit on how long employers can force their employees to work.
Reducing the number of workhours also reduces the efficiency of your workers, as they have less time to
produce.

Safety Regulations: These set how much safety your workers should be provided. This, again, reduces
efficiency as it leads to slightly slower rates of production.

Health Care: This establishes a national health care system for your POPs. Unlike the previous reforms,
this one counts both employed and unemployed POPs. On the positive side, though, it leads to an increase
in population growth as well as the typical decrease in militancy.

Unemployment Subsidies: These provide an allowance for your unemployed citizens. Recall how it was
mentioned that all POPs have desired goods. Unemployed POPs, since they do not have a salary, will
quickly run out of cash, lose the ability to purchase their desired goods, and become unhappy, leading to
 21

revolts or emigration. Unemployment subsidies reduce this by giving those without a job some money so
that they can still purchase goods.

Pension Funds: Although there are no “retired” POPs in Victoria, pension funds are also a good way to
reduce militancy overall, for, like health care, it is calculated for all POPs, employed or unemployed.

The cost of social reforms depends on the size of your population as a whole, not on who is actually using
it. For example, even if you have no actually unemployed POPs in your nation, you will still have to pay
for unemployment subsidies. Furthermore, if you fund your social reforms more than fifty percent, you
increase their effects. In other words, they will reduce Consciousness, and through it, Militancy (see
section “The Big Three”).

Note that all social reforms will reduce the militancy of one or more strata of your population, but most of
them raise the Militancy and Consciousness of rich POPs.
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 22

Chapter 8 – Diplomacy
“The secret of politics? Make a good treaty with Russia.”
-Otto von Bismarck

Good diplomacy is a key to victory in Victoria. Setting up alliances can mean the difference between a
long slog of a war and a quick, overwhelming victory. Considering the way the Badboy system functions
(see section “Other Concepts”), and especially in the later patches, diplomacy can allow your empire to
continue expanding its borders and influence even after conquest is no longer a worthwhile means of
furthering the national interest.

In order to make treaties with other nations, you must first have diplomatic points. These represent the
number of diplomatic missions you can send to other countries. The rate at which you accumulate
diplomatic points is based on your prestige. The more prestige you have, the more diplomatic points you
get.

A country gets a basic allowance of one diplomatic point per year, standard. If the country is considered a
Great Power (i.e. if it is one of the eight most powerful nations in the world) it will get a second point per
year. If the nation is a war, it will receive a third point per year. Beyond this, the number you receive
depends on prestige:

Once twenty-five prestige points have been attained, you will receive a quarter more points per year. At
one hundred prestige points, you will receive a further quarter of a point. You will get another quarter at
five hundred and twenty-five hundred prestige points as well. There are no more thresholds beyond this. It
is possible to build up a supply of diplomatic points, but be aware that your stock cannot go above ten.

The number of diplomatic points you get can also be changed through certain events, such as “Aristocracy
vs. Bureaucracy”. Aristocracy increases your rate of gain by twenty percent, whereas Bureaucracy reduces
it by twenty percent.

Once you have your diplomatic points, there are several diplomatic actions you can take in Victoria. Note
that some actions require cash as well as that you have positive prestige.

Declaring War: This is perhaps the most simple to comprehend of all the diplomatic actions. When you
declare war on another country, you announce your intention to send your soldiers into their territory and
take from them either land, money, access rights, or prestige, depending on what you ask for in the peace
treaty. Declaring war can cause a chain reaction wherein you call on your allies to join on your side, and
your enemy calls on theirs.

Declaring Colonial War: This is a special kind of war. Colonial wars can only be declared if both
belligerent powers have claimed colonies (Claimed, not just have claim buildings). In colonial wars, no
states of either country can be invaded, only the colonies. For example, in a colonial war between France
and the United Kingdom, the UK could not land troops in Normandy, nor the French in Dover, but the
French could take Australia and India and the British could attack the French holdings in the Caribbean or
North Africa. Colonial wars are good for seizing another country’s colonies without bringing your
homeland—or, in fact, your national existence—into jeopardy. Colonial wars are also the only kind of war
that can be declared against an uncivilized country. In this situation, a colonial war will allow you to
invade the uncivilized country’s homeland, and it also does not require that the uncivilized country have
claimed colonies.
 23

Colonial wars cannot be expanded to full wars, so declaring a preemptive colonial war can be a good tactic
to keep someone from declaring a full war on you. This is especially true as the war will not end until you
accept peace, and because your homeland is safe in this kind of war.

Offer Alliance: This is how you propose to another country that you formally unite your interests. There
are two forms of alliances: defensive and full. Defensive alliances come into effect when either side is
attacked, but not when one of the countries initiated the war. Full alliances (known in the game as Military
Alliances) are for all circumstances, including when one ally declares the war. In both instances, there is
the ability to make one exception to the alliance. For example, Prussia can form a full military alliance
with the Russians except in the case of Austria, meaning that Prussia will be required to come to Russia’s
aid if it declares war on anyone except on Austria. Alliances do not come into effect when a country enters
into a colonial war.

Dissolve Alliance: This is how you break your existing alliance with someone. Keep in mind that alliances
(except for those among the German states or between satellites and their home countries) dissolve on
their own every five years and must be renewed or allowed to expire.

Improve Relations: This is the way to increase the friendliness between you and another country. The
minimum they can increase is ten points, but if you’re lucky, they can increase much more than that. The
better your relations with another country, the more receptive they are likely to be to deals you offer. Bear
in mind that relations between all countries naturally erode at one per month.

Send Expeditionary Force: This is the way you send one of your country’s military units to aid a friend in
war. You don’t have to be allied to do it, either. Your troops will be put under the direct control of the
other nation, but you can take them back at any point. Remember that the enemy will make no distinction
between your troops and the country’s with which they are at war, so there is a risk you will lose the
division you send.

The hosting country pays for the upkeep and maintenance of the troops they are sent, so sending
expeditionary forces to secure allies can, in some instances, be a tricky way of avoiding high army
maintenance costs in peacetime.

Ask for Military Access: This is the way you secure permission to move your troops across another
country’s land. You already have the ability to do this with allies, but this allows you to move across
another country’s territory if they are not your ally. This is useful when trying to enter a war with a
country with which you have no border or for opening a second front in the war (for example, if the US
gets military access through Great Britain, it can attack Mexico from the north as well as from Belize, a
British holding.

Ask for Naval Access: This is similar to asking form military access. When naval access is granted, you
can dock your ships in another country’s port. Keep in mind that while you have naval or military access
with another country, you cannot declare war on them. Since ships in Victoria have unlimited range, this
feature is useful only if you want your ships to have a port to retreat into so they can avoid combat.

Demand Cessation of Colonialism: This is the way you get a country to stop constructing colonial claim
buildings. In a sense, you are threatening them if they do not stop. When making this demand, you must
specify the continent on which they must stop. Making this demand naturally lowers your relation with the
other country.

Guarantee Independence: This is the way you establish a measure of protection over another country. Not
quite an alliance, a country whose independence you have guaranteed will come to you for help if war is
declared on it, but it will not come to your aid of war is declared on you. If you are a powerful country,
 24

your guarantee of independence acts as a deterrent to any other country declaring war on the country you
have guaranteed.

Open Negotiations: This is the way you begin the more complicated dealings of the diplomacy function of
Victoria. This is the place to trade technology, provinces, cash, and claims.

Trading Technologies:

Remember that technology is not free. Under the 1.03 patch, any technology you give to another country
that is not matched by a corresponding province, claim, or other technology costs you ten prestige points.
This was done to prevent the selling of technologies for huge amounts of cash.

Also keep in mind that each technology you receive costs ten research points to make up. If you have
negative research points, your current research does not advance (unless it already has the maximum ten
points invested). This penalty is meant to represent the retro-engineering your scientists will have to do to
catch up with the new technology, although you can utilize the benefits of the technology immediately.
You only lose research points for techs in trades initiated by you, however. If the computer offers you a
trade which includes giving you techs, you will lose no research points for it.

Also as a result of the 1.03 patch, cultural technologies are no longer exchangeable.

Purchasing land:

Purchasing land in Victoria requires attention to several factors:

First, make sure you have good relations with the country from which you intend to buy. Only countries
with which you have positive relations will even consider making the deal, and the better the relations, the
cheaper the cost to you.

Second, make sure you haven’t racked up too many badboy points. Nations will hesitate to make trades
with you if you’re seen as an aggressor (this goes for all trades, not just land).

Third, be sure to pick the right provinces. There are two things to look at here. The first is the population
of the province. Every nation has one or more national cultures (you can see what they are in the game
files, or you can open up a new game and play as the country from which you want to buy. The national
cultures are the names listed at the bottom of the Population button on the task screen). No nation will ever
sell you a province whose majority population is one of their national cultures, no matter how much you
offer. The second thing to look at is the diplomacy map. Once there, click on the country from which you
want to buy. Every nation has provinces it will never sell, regardless of the offer or population. These
provinces are represented by little dots on the diplomacy screen when that country is selected. You cannot
purchase these in diplomatic deals.

Fourth, remember that a little bit of money can go a long way. A country might give only a sixty percent
acceptance chance to an offer of one tech for one province of land, but load them up with a couple of
thousands pounds and their mind can change quite quickly. It need not be a lot, but cash can take you
places.

The price of a province depends, at least somewhat, on the overall population of the province (ie.
Bangladesh will cost more than Chad) and on the sellers cash store at the time of the deal (the more money
they already have, the more they’ll require to sell it).

Asking for claims:

 25

Getting other countries to cede you their claims is notoriously difficult, mostly because not only are they
giving up the claims, but also the potential prestige that could come with claiming the colony. Countries
do tend to be receptive to offers for claims when the offers themselves include claims the other country
might find useful. Otherwise, trading claims works just like trading land, except that no claims are unable
to be traded.

Note that all successful diplomatic missions, be they for any cause, lead to a positive increase in relations
between you and the other country.

One last diplomatic act you can do as a country is creating satellites. If you have the land of a possible
country within your borders, you can release that satellite, thus granting it independence. Of course, this is
only a false independence. The new country, though it has control over its domestic affairs, has none of its
own international policy. They cannot conduct any diplomatic activities on their own. Basically, their
governments are puppets of yours.

Satellites automatically have a defensive pact with their home countries and can be called into a war.
Dominions have a full military alliance with their home countries. Satellites can also be created as a result
of warfare (see section entitled “War”). What exactly it is that distinguishes a dominion from a satellite is
not yet clearly understood, but it seems, at least for now, that certain countries have been hard coded to be
dominions, whereas others have been hard coded to be satellites. But this is just the theory-of-the-day.

Satellites are useful as buffers between you and aggressive neighbors. For example, Prussia can release
Poland as a satellite. Poland absorbs most of Prussia’s border with Russia. If Russia declares on Prussia,
Prussia can decide not to call on Poland to enter the war, and thus the Russians cannot enter Prussia, but
the Prussian army can still cross Poland and attack into Russia at will.

One more tip for exercising efficient diplomatic overtures: when offering money, holding down the Ctrl
key will increase the rate of money offering, and holding down Shift and Ctrl at the same time will
increase it even further. This is a great time saver for when you have to make those massive payments of
cash to purchase an essential province.
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 26

Chapter 9 – The Army

“Some talk of Alexander, and some of Hercules;
Of Hector, and Lysander, and such great names as these;
But of all the world’s brave heroes, there’s none that can compare
With a tow, row, row, row, row for the British Grenadier.”
-The British Grenadiers

Running the military is an important aspect of a successful game of Victoria. Given the aggressiveness of
the contest between Great Powers, the military can often mean the difference between a successful game
and one of total annihilation.

When looking to build a strong standing army, several variables have to be kept in mind:

Manpower: This is the amount of men you have available to be converted into soldiers. This number
depends on the number of soldier POPs you have in your country, their rate of growth, and the level of
defense spending you have. The higher the defense spending, the faster your manpower rises and the
higher the maximum level becomes. There is always a maximum manpower, but never a minimum. In
fact, many countries start the game with negative manpower.

Leadership: Leadership points represent the strength of your country’s officer corps. The more Officer
POPs you have, the higher your leadership points. These are useful for two things: colonizing (see section
“Colonies”) and producing generals. Defense spending influences leadership points in much the same way
as it affects manpower points.

Generals: One of the most under recognized tools in the military arsenal by new players, generals can
make or break an army. For more information, see section “Leaders”.

To build a new military unit, click first on the cannon icon in the top right hand corner of the task bar. This
takes you to the military management screen Here you can train new generals, commission new ships, or
recruit new divisions. To build a ship, click on the “Commission new ship/flotilla” button”; to recruit a
new division, click on the “Setup a new division button”.

In the recruitment of divisions, you will have various choices to make regarding their composition. The
first is the type of unit. In Victoria, there are four types of units:

Irregulars: These are troops that represent pre-modern forms of military technology. These cannot be built
by civilized countries, but for many uncivilized countries they will be the only troops you can build at the
outset. The weaknesses of irregulars are many. It is not unknown to see twenty thousand well-equipped
Regular troops defeat upwards of a hundred thousand irregulars.

Infantry: These are the basic, gun-wielding ranks of men who march into battle. These are the staple of
every modern army and should form the backbone of every substantial military force in Victoria.

Cavalry: These are the men who ride on horseback, useful for breaking lines, scouting operations, or quick
maneuvers behind enemy lines. Cavalry are noted for their speed, which is their greatest asset.

Dragoons: These are a type of soldier trained to fight both mounted and on foot. These move faster than
infantry, but not as fast as cavalry. They are good supporting units for clearing up the partisans that
develop after an army has occupied enemy territory.
 27

Once you have selected the type of unit you wish to build, you must select whether it will have any
attachments. Attachments modify the variables of the division itself. For example, divisions with
engineering brigades attached will be able to dig in more substantially. Divisions with artillery brigades
attached will receive a bonus in offense and in defense. Of course, these divisions tend to move more
slowly, but they also add two thousand more men to the total count of the division. For a complete list of
attachments and their modifiers, see below.

Next, you must choose the quality of the unit. There are four quality levels in Victoria:

Regular: These soldiers are the standard, well-trained troops produced by civilized countries.

Colonial: These are the troops raised from the colonies of a given country. The men come from the stock
of your national culture in that colony, and are based there as well. If the colony has already been granted
statehood, these soldiers will be of Regular quality.

Reserve: These are troops coming from the conscription and mobilization (see below) programs of
civilized countries.

Native: These troops are the result of native populations being trained by trained, civilized professional
soldiers. As of patch 1.03, these soldiers are equal in quality to Regular quality troops except for a penalty
of negative two towards reliability (see below).

For most military production, you will not be able to select the type of quality. Rather, it will be assigned
to the unit based on its home province and the culture from which it was recruited (see below).

Next, you must choose the culture of the men forming the division. Recall how in the “POPs” section, it
was described that each POP has a specific culture attached to it. The game records how many of each of
your soldier POPs pertain to particular cultures, and reflects those numbers in your ability to build troops.

Each division, recall, is ten thousand men. Recall also that you have a limited number of solider POPs,
each of a given size. Each time you build a division you use up a certain number of these soldiers in the
process. There is, therefore, a limit on how many divisions of that culture you can build at any time. The
limit reflects the amount of soldiers in your country (note: actual soldiers, not soldier POPs. The larger the
soldier POP, the more soldiers it contains). If you cannot build any more divisions of a particular culture,
that culture will not be selectable from the dropdown menu.

Nevertheless, there is a way to get around this restriction. If you can build any soldiers of a particular
culture at all, you can avoid the restriction. To do this, amass a large amount of manpower and resources
to build divisions. Once you have built up large enough stockpiles, enter the military screen and go about
the process of building a new unit. As long as you can build even one division of the culture you want, you
will be able to select that culture from the dropdown menu. Once it has been selected, simply increase the
number of divisions as high as you can afford. Even though you may not have the proper amount of
soldier POPs to pull this off, the game still allows all the divisions to be built. Though this is an exploit, it
is a way around a rather restrictive part of the game. As far as is know, it is useful for any amount of
divisions as long as you can build at least one division of the culture.

Finally, you must choose the home province of the unit you are building. The game not only keeps track of
the cultures of the various soldier POPs, but also their home provinces, and you must select the one from
which the men will be recruited. This is important because if you sell or lose in war the province from
which the men are recruited, the men themselves, as well as the divisions they constitute, will disappear.
For example, if Great Britain recruited most of its army from Ireland, and then granted Ireland
 28

independence, Great Britain would lose all the troops it had recruited from Ireland, as they would now be
citizens of another country.

Similarly, if the province from which the army is recruited revolts, the units from that province can join
the rebels. For example, any Irish military units Great Britain may have recruited could throw down the
Union jack and pick up the Irish flag if their homeland rebelled.

Lastly when creating a military unit, you can examine the specific traits it has. These come in as qualities:

Strength: This is the amount of damage the unit can take before it is destroyed.

Organization: This represents the efficiency of the unit’s use in battle, as well as haw fast its morale
regenerates. Note that, unlike in previous patches, 1.03 has removed the bonus to province occupation time
for high organization armies. Instead, there is now a bonus given to armies which share the same culture as
the province they are occupying.

Morale: This determines how resolute the troops are. This is important because a unit’s morale decreases
as a battle drags on, and if it runs out of morale it will retreat, even if it has not yet been destroyed.

Reliability: This determines the likelihood that the unit will desert or mutiny in the field.

Fire Attack: This is the strength of the unit in terms of actual damage-inflicting power. This represents
how strong the unit’s offensive capabilities are in doing damage to the enemy’s Strength modifier.

Shock Attack: This represents the unit’s ability to destroy the morale of the enemy.

Defense: This shows, quite literally, how well the unit can defend itself.

Maximum Speed: This shows how quickly the unit can move across the map. Speed has no meaning in a
battle situation.

Supply Consumption: This determines the cost of the unit, calculate yearly, which is fed into your overall
Military Spending budget slider.

As mentioned above, you can select brigades to attach to a military division:

Regulars: These are brigades of higher-trained standard soldiers. They give a bonus in the areas of fire and
shock attack.

Guards: These are brigades made up of the largest soldiers, and they are highly trained. These give good
organization and morale benefits, as well as the same bonuses to shock and fire attack as regulars.

Engineers: These brigades allowed their divisions to fortify themselves by digging into the surrounding
earth. Engineer brigades give a high morale and organization bonus, as well as a modest defensive bonus.

Artillery: Artillery units were used to pummel enemies into submission from a distance. These give a high
fire attack and modest shock attack bonus, but they also take a modest speed hit. On top of the bonus they
give to the division itself as an attachment, artillery also give a combat bonus to any army that has it.

Hussars: Fast-moving light cavalry divisions, Hussars give a high morale boost and a modest speed bonus
to a cavalry division.
 29

Cuirassiers: Known for their strength and ability to break through enemy lines, these heavy cavalry give
good morale and organization boosts, as well as a decent shock attack bonus, to cavalry divisions.

Headquarters: Field headquarters for officer staff, these provide their divisions with a hefty organizational
bonus.

Barrels: Named for the tanks in a series of alternate history books by Harry Turtledove, barrels were useful
for breaking through heavily fortified enemy positions. Divisions with these attached receive an extremely
large shock attack bonus, but also take a good sized hit in speed. They are also supposed to have an
advantage against entrenched troops, but, as of 1.03, the feature is still inactive.

Here’s a tried and tested little trick for those who’ve managed to read this far:

The combined strength of your army and navy are the factors that determine your overall military score,
visible at the top of the main task bar to the right of your flag. This number is visible to all, and it helps
you determine if you will defeat a county you are thinking of declaring war on. Now, when you build a
new military unit, that new unit gets added to the calculation for your military score—but only after you
deploy it. In multiplayer games, you can lull your human opponents into a false sense of security by
building huge numbers of military units, but leaving them undeployed and in limbo. Then, just when your
opponent thinks he’s got you over a barrel, deploy those three hundred divisions you’ve amassed and
crush him before he knows what hit him. This has been tested and still works under patch 1.03.
--
 30

Chapter 10 – The Navy

“There is a homely old adage which runs: ‘Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.’ If the
American Nation will speak softly, and yet build, and keep at pitch of the highest training, a thoroughly
efficient navy, the Monroe Doctrine will go far.”
-Theodore Roosevelt

Building a navy is similar to building an army. You go to the same screen and go through the same
process. Even though they are ships, they still require manpower to run, and you still must choose a culture
for the men as well as a home province. There are many different classes of ships in Victoria,

Frigates: These are the small sail ships that represent quick mobility on the seas at the start of the game.
Given their lack of firepower, that is pretty much their only advantage. Frigates become obsolete very
quickly.

Men-o-War: The large capital ships of the age of sail, Men-o-War would be the backbone of a modern
navy at the outset of the game. These ships remain competitive for a little while, but by the time Ironclads
come about, their days are numbered.

Clipper Transports: These are your first transport units. Using these you can make amphibious invasions,
and unlike the other sail ships, they have no hindrances (except, perhaps, for their speed), which make
them obsolete. Clippers are still often as useful in 1915 as they were in 1840.

Commerce Raiders: Representing the first incorporation of steam engines onto combat ships, Commerce
Raiders are quick, efficient combat ships.

Steamer Transports: Replacing Clipper Transports with steam engines, these ships are just faster
transports, though they have better defense and lower visibility as well. They can still do all that Clippers
did, and they can still only hold one division per ship.

Ironclads: These were wooden ships that had iron plates bolted to their hulls, making them more resistant
to cannon shots than wooden-sided ships. These can do a great deal of damage to old wooden ships, and
their arrival signals the true end of the age of sail.

Monitors: Unlike Ironclads, Monitors were made entirely of metal, but as a result, they tended to remain in
coastal waters as they were difficult to navigate and manage and tended to fill up with smoke from their
boilers. In many important areas, Monitors are weaker than Ironclads even though they are higher up the
development tree.

Cruisers: Cruisers represent a successful implementation of Monitor technology to a high-seas ship. They
remain as powerful as Ironclads except in one area—speed. Cruisers can move twice as fast as Ironclads.
Cruisers are the first ships that can launch torpedo attacks. Beginning now, all combat ships will remain
effective at least to a certain extent until the end of the game.

Battleships: These ships represent large developments in defense and in gun attack strengths. They are not
as fast as Cruisers, though. Countries building large amounts of Battleships should begin considering
scrapping their Ironclads and Monitors. Unlike the ships around them, Battleships cannot launch torpedo
attacks.

Heavy Cruisers: These seek to combine the speed of Cruisers with the strength of Battleships, and succeed
in finding a happy medium between the two. These, like Cruisers, can also launch torpedo attacks.
 31

Dreadnoughts: These ships represent the culmination of capital ship technology in the game. Far outpacing
Heavy Cruisers and Battleships in defense and gun attack strengths, Dreadnoughts rule the waves. Unlike
Heavy Cruisers, though, they cannot launch torpedo attacks.

Submarines: These seem almost an afterthought in the process of naval design. Indeed, their strength in
combat is low compared to Battleships and especially to Dreadnoughts. Their one advantage is their
torpedo attack strength. At four, it is twice that of a Cruiser and four times that of a Heavy Cruiser. A
group of submarines, used effectively, can make life hard on a Dreadnought-based navy, but without
surface support, a submarine-based navy will never rule the waves.

When building ships, you must keep in mind that there are five ship classes in Victoria:
1) Men-o-War and Frigates
2) Commerce Raiders
3) Monitors and Ironclads
4) Cruisers and Battleships (I assume submarines go in this class as well, though I was unable to
confirm this before the release of this edition).
5) Dreadnoughts and Battle Cruisers
Each class is progressively more powerful, and can defeat any ship in the class below it. This is important
to keep in mind because, by looking at its stats, you would think that a Commerce Raider would be
defeated by a Man-o-War. This is not the case; a Commerce Raiser would actually defeat a Man-o-War
because it is in a higher ship class. This has the effect of rendering ship stats effective for comparisons
only with other ships of the same class. Note: Clipper Transports and Steamer Transports are not included
in the ship class system as they cannot actually attack.

The stats for naval combat are also different than those for the army:

Strength: This represents how much damage the ship can take before it sinks.

Organization: This represents how well the ships are used in attacks, as well as the rate at which its morale
regenerated.

Gun Attack: This represents the early means of defeating your enemy’s strength factor. It causes low
strength damage.

Torpedo Attack: This represents a more modern means of reducing your enemy’s strength factor, causing
high damage.

Shore Bombardment: This shows how well the ship can bombard enemy land units in coastal provinces
when combined with an assault from land.

Sea Defense: This represents how well the ship can defend itself from attack while at sea.

Maximum Speed: This shows how quickly the ship can traverse the seas and oceans of the world.

Supply Consumption: This shows how costly the ship is to maintain—a figure added to your overall naval
maintenance costs in the budget window.

Sea Detection Capability: This shows how good the ship is at locating enemy ships while at sea.

Visibility: This shows how easy it is for the ship itself to be found at sea by the enemy.
 32

Note that capital ships also have one more aspect to them: prestige. For each capital ship you build, you
receive a certain amount of prestige. As of the newer patches, disbanding those ships casts no prestige, but
having them sunk in battle does.

As with land units, you can assign “brigades” to naval squadrons as well:

Corvettes: These give small boosts to detection and gun attack, as well high bonuses in morale and
organization. They also give a speed bonus.

Torpedo Boats: These give their squadrons a torpedo attack bonus of two, on top of morale, organization
and detection bonuses.

Destroyers: These give a hefty gun attack detection bonus, along with substantial morale and organization
bonuses. They also give a slight advantage in gun attack, speed, and torpedo attack.

Minelayers: These give small bonuses to detection, morale, and organization, but they take a hit on speed
in order to do it.

Minesweepers: These, like Minelayers, give small bonuses to detection, morale, and organization, but take
a speed reduction in the process.

Note: in regards to Minelayers and Minesweepers, you cannot actually lay mines. These are just
representative additions to the battle fleets.

As with the army, you can assign Admirals to run your navy. Like generals, admirals cost twenty
leadership points to train and will be “killed in battle” eventually. These men can modify your ships’
modifiers just like generals can modify those of their armies.

There is a widely held belief that navies in Victoria are underpowered. Those making the argument say
that it is possible to run a huge empire without any naval strength at all. To a certain extent they are
correct, but it all depends on geography. Russia, for example, should be able to succeed without a
correspondingly large navy, as should a conquest-oriented Prussia/Germany, but for island nations such
and the United Kingdom or for countries that wish to leave the balance-of-power in Europe stable, navies
continue to be an important facet of force projection.
--
 33

Chapter 11 – Mobilization and the Reserves

“The people will save their government, if the government itself will allow them.”
-Abraham Lincoln

Mobilization is the ace-up-the-sleeve of every country in Victoria. Mobilization is the process of taking
large numbers of POPs and conscripting them to serve in the armed forces.

Every country can create a mobilization pool. To do this, open up the military screen and look at the
bottom right. There you should see three buttons:

Increase Mobilization: This increases by five the number of divisions you can mobilize.

Mobilize: This calls all your marked POPs for draft duty. Mobilization takes a full two months from the
day the button is pressed, so plan ahead.

Decrease Mobilization: This reduces by five the number of divisions you can mobilize. This can be
important to do if you find that you’re spending way too much money on military costs, but it is a rare
button to find yourself in need of pressing.

The cost for creating five new mobilization divisions is only fifty small arms and fifty canned food—much
less then the cost of recruiting a division for your standing army. Most importantly, it costs no cash or
manpower, meaning that you can build up huge mobilizations pools to use if someone ever becomes brash
enough to try to invade you.

There are a maximum number of divisions that any country can mobilize. This is tied directly to the size of
your population, and prevents, for example, Sardinia-Piedmont from having eight million man armies
unless they’ve conquered or grown enough to support it.

When you mobilize, wait three months, and you should be able to deploy all the divisions you can
mobilize. They will appear in provinces across your country, reflecting the location where their supporting
POP lives (or you can deploy them manually to a specific province). These divisions can be full-strength,
ten thousand man armies (though the actual size depends on your level of army maintenance when you hit
the “Mobilize” button), and immediately armed and ready for action. You also receive a huge temporary
boost in manpower in order to reinforce any losses your mobilized troops may take in combat. This boost
disappears after you have demobilized. The size of the boost is determined by your defense spending level
at the time of mobilization.

One thing you can do is use that extra manpower to build new units for your standing army, but this
should only be done in emergencies because once you have demobilized, the extra boost is taken away.
Recall that there is no limit to how far manpower can drop, so if you use up the boost on anything other
than the already existing army, upon demobilization you will most likely have a large negative manpower.

Mobilization potential is what can prevent small countries like Switzerland or Denmark, which may have
problems supporting a large standing army, being swallowed up by the larger powers.

But, like many seemingly wonderful abilities in Victoria, mobilization does not come free. When you
mobilize your troops, the game will draw on the POPs it has assigned to the draft. These will be the men
working your economy—Craftsmen, Clerks, Farmers, Laborers—and their jobs will be vacant until they
return, unless you have other workers who can fill them. Therefore, in heavily industrialized countries,
mobilizing troops for long periods (ala First World War) can tank an economy. Also, the POPs supporting
 34

your mobilized troops absorb the combat losses suffered in wars, so the POPs returning to the factories
and farms after the conflict is over will be smaller. Some may even have been eliminated altogether.

Most importantly, all POPs that have been mobilized do not return to their original jobs or development
levels. In fact, Clerks and Craftsmen, when demobilized, reappear as Farmers and Laborers. This feature
can really tank an economy.

Remember one more thing about mobilization—it is effective for the duration of the war. You cannot
demobilize while still at war.

Reserves are a strange little position somewhere between mobilized troops and a standing army. There are
two areas that generally fall under the title “reserves”. The first is the place where all your newly
constructed standing army units go, awaiting deployment. To look into the real, click on the box
surrounding the “Recruit new division” and “Commission new ship/flotilla” buttons.

The second area, more often referred to when somebody mentions reserves, is the place where all your
mobilized troops go after the two month period has passed but before they have been deployed. This is
accessible by clicking the box around the section of the military screen that deals with mobilization.
Joining them here are other troops—cavalry, infantry, or dragoons—that come to you through events.
Occasionally, an event will fire telling you that “young nobles join our army” or “recruits rally to the
flag”, giving you a free division. These are available in this reserve pool.

Also appearing in this reserve pool are any military units that may have been in lands you sold. If you have
a division in land that you give to another country through a diplomatic action, you will find that it
disappears. Fear not, it is hiding in your reserve pool and can be redeployed to its home province after a
short amount of time has passed.

Reserve troops can be deployed at any time, and you do not have to mobilize your pool in order to do so.
To deploy your reserve troops, simply click the “Deploy all to home” button at the bottom of the reserve
screen. To deploy manually, click on the specific unit and then on the province to which you want it
deployed.
--
 35

Chapter 12 – Leaders
"I'm a damned sight smarter than Grant; I know a great deal more about war, military histories, strategy
and grand tactics than he does; I know more about organization, supply, and administration and about
everything else than he does; but I'll tell you where he beats me and where he beats the world. He don't
care a damn for what the enemy does out of his sight, but it scares me like hell.”
-William Tecumseh Sherman

Generals and Admirals can make or break a military. A nation with an otherwise weak navy can have its
way on the seas if it has a powerful admiral while the other nations have none. Generals can make the
difference on the battlefield between a victory and a rout.

Every general comes with two modifiers: background and personality trait. These affect the way the
general commands. There are many modifiers included in the game:

Abbreviations:
att: attrition def: defense terr: terrain exp: experience
sp: speed shk: shock rel: reliability org: organization

Backgrounds:
adventurer - org -5%, sp +10%, exp +10%, rel -1
amateur - shk -1, org -5%, fire -1, rel -2
aristocrat - Elan +2 exp -10%
armchair general - shk -1, fire -1
artillerist - fire +4
bootlicker - org -15%, exp +15%
brownnoser - org -5%, exp +5%
bureaucrat speed - sp -5%, att -5%, exp -5%, rel +1
butcher - def -4, rel +4
cartographer - att -10%
cavalry school - elan +1, sp +15%
clueless - org -15%, sp -15%
colonial - rel +1
corrupt - org -5%, att +2%, rel -5
cursed luck - shk -4, fire -4
debutante - elan -1, org -5%, rel -1
diplomat - exp +10% rel +5
disgraced - elan -1
drillmaster - sp +10%, fire +2
eccentric genius - shk +1, elan +2, sp +15% fire +2,
elderly - elan -2, org +10%, exp -20%
engineer - def +4, terr +10%
expert raider - shk +2, elan +2
exranker - elan +1, exp -5%, rel +1
generals aide - org +10%
gifted administrator - org +10%, att -10%
hated - elan -4, rel -4
immoral - def -2, elan -2
36
incompetent - org -15%, rel -2
innovative tactician - def +4, fire +4
madman - shk +6, def -6 org -10% rel -5
megalomaniac - def -2, org -15%, att -5%
natural born_leader - elan +5, rel +5
old school - shk +1, def -2, elan +1, fire -1, rel +1
pawn - rel -3
poet - elan +2, rel -1
politician - elan +1, org -5%
powerful friends - exp +25%
priest - def +2, sp -10%
professor - org +10%, fire +1
rising star - org -5%, exp +20%
sad sack - terr -20%
school of defense - shk -2, def +4, org +10%
school of firepower - shk -2, fire +4
school of offense - shk +2,def -2, elan +2, sp +10%
school of the bayonet - shk +4, fire -2
spoiled - Shk -1, elan -1, fire -1
sucker - terr -10%
sycophant - org -25%, exp +25%
toady - org -20%, exp +20%
uncommonly young - elan +2, exp +10%
unfit - sp -5%, att +2%
unqualified - sp -10% att +5%
war college - org +10%, rel +1
warmonger - def -5, elan +1
womanizer - def -3, elan -3
yesman - org -10%, exp +10%
 37

Personality Traits:
active - sp +5% harsh - shk +1, def +1 elan -2
aggressive - shk +1 hellbent - sp +40%, att +10%
arrogant - org -5% heroic - elan +3
audacious - shk +2, def +2, sp +10% imperious - def -2, elan +2, fire +1
aweless - rel +5 impetuous - def -2, org -5%, sp +10%
balanced - def +1 implacable - shk +3, def +3, elan -6
ballsy - org +5%, sp +10% impulsive - elan -2, sp +10%
bigoted - rel -4 inspiring - elan +1
bold - shk +1, elan +1, sp +5% intuitive - elan +2, org +10%
brash - shk +1, elan +1, org -5%, exp -10% irate - shk +1, fire -1
brutish - shk +1, rel -2 merciless - shk +2, def +2 elan -4
calm - shk -1, fire +1 meticulous - sp -10%, att -10%
careful - sp -5%, att -5% openminded - org +10%, rel +4 *
cautious - def +3, sp -25% persistant - sp +15%
charismatic - elan +2, rel +2 polite - exp +5%
chivalrous - elan +2, fire +2 relentless - shk +2
choleric - shk +2, org -5% reserved - shk -2, fire +2
confident - rel +3 resourceful - def +1, att -10%, rel +2
coolminded - def +2 romantic - elan +5
daring - shk +3, soldierly - fire +1
dauntless - rel +4 stalwart - def +1, fire +1
deeply religious - shk -1, def -1, elan +2 steadfast - fire +2
diplomatic - exp +15% stout - def +1, elan +1, rel +2
disciplined - fire +2 stouthearted - fire +1
earnest - sp +10% tactful - exp +10%
fanatic - org -15%, rel +4 unflinching - fire +3
gallant - elan +2 vainglorious - elan -1
glory hound - elan -1, exp +10% vicious - shk +2, elan -2
wrathful - shk +2, fire -2
The default leaders that come with the divisions you create, and who continue to lead them unless you
personally assign a specific general, come with penalties in several areas. They are as follows:

Fire -1
Shock -1

Defense -1
Reliability -1

Morale -1
Organization -10
Speed -10
Experience -25

This holds for all default leaders, so many generals created by you, even if they seem terrible, will be
better than the default. Keep in mind, though, that some generals, if they get weird combinations, can in
fact be worse than the default leaders, but these poor, pitiful generals are rare to find.

When it comes to admirals, they will have personality traits and backgrounds taken from the same list,
except that modifiers that would increase or decrease a generals “fire” and “shock attack” instead modify
an admiral’s “gun attack” and “torpedo attack”, respectively.
 38

Each general costs twenty leadership points to create. These generals can then be assigned to specific
armies. To assign a general, click on the picture of the default leader of the army. The game then takes you
to a list of your existing generals, and you can then select the one you want to lead the army. Note that
once a general is assigned he cannot be removed unless being replaced with another specific general.
Generals cannot be replaced with default generals. Generals do not live forever. At some point after their
creation, a general will be “killed in battle” and disappear from your list. You will not receive a
reimbursement of the leadership points it cost to create him.

Certain countries have historical leaders that will appear at their proper points in history. The Confederacy,
for example, can create Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.
--
 39

Chapter 13 – War
“Peace is merely the curtain between acts.”
-Georges Clemenceau

War in Victoria is arguably the most complicated action a country can take. Especially late in the game,
wars can drain both your population and your treasury, and, of course, there’s the constant chance that
you’ll lose the war and be crippled as a result.

War in Victoria can only be begun after there has been a formal declaration of war, either of full war or
colonial war. Once this has been declared, both sides are free to march their troops into one another’s
territory.

When two armies enter into battle, the game calculates the strength of either side according to several
variables:

First is terrain. Units defending from mountainous or wooded provinces get a heavy advantage, as to
armies defending from an attack across a river. There are also certain straits that can be crossed by armies
in the game. The strait between Sweden and Denmark, the Kattegat, including the islands of Odense and
Copenhagen, can be traversed by land troops in either direction. This ability can be negated, however, if
there is a navy of the opposing side controlling the strait. Attacking over a strait is more difficult than
attacking across a river.

A second variable is the leadership of the armies. Generals, as mentioned earlier, each have specific fortes
or foibles which can add or detract from the strength of their armies. One thing to not with generals is that
the default generals an army receives are almost always worse than the generals you create. While a
general created by you may have a serious deficiency in speed or in rate of fire, he is competent in the
other levels. Meanwhile, the automatically assigned generals tend to be deficient in every level, so it is
always to your advantage to use your generals, even if they seem terrible.

A third variable taken into account by the computer is the size of the armies. This seems natural: all else
being equal, a 50,000 man army will defeat a 20,000 man army.

A fourth variable is the quality of the armies themselves. Due to the influence of military technologies, one
army can have an advantage over another. For example, an army whose country has discovered breech-
loading rifles will be stronger on the battlefield than one that still uses older kinds of rifles. The strength,
organization, morale, and other modifiers of the specific divisions (see section “The Army”) also help
determine the outcome of the battle.

A fifth variable is the effect of specific entrenchments or fortifications. Forts can be build in provinces
during peace or war, and add a great strength to the defending unit. Forts come in seven levels, from basic
fortifications all the way up to complicated trench systems. One thing to keep in mind, though: of a fort is
lost, it can be utilized by the enemy with no penalty. Forts are represented on the map as small hut-like
buildings appearing within the provinces (different level forts have different icons). Army units, if given
time, can also dig-in. This requires that the unit have had a certain amount of free time in the province
before hand, and a unit that has had time to dig-in receives a substantial bonus, though not as large as one
in a fortification. At higher technological levels, the entrenchment bonus can be quite large.

A sixth variable is the effect of any particular attachments to military units. Artillery units add to the
strength of the entire army attacking or defending, and even one Engineer attachment can add to the
entrenchment and organization of the entire army.
 40

A seventh variable is the experience level of any of the units involved. An experienced unit receives a
bonus in combat reflecting its veteran status.

Lastly and perhaps most importantly, is the effect of strategy. Units that have been encircled receive a
tremendous penalty when being attacked, and if a unit is defeated when it has no province to which to
retreat, it is destroyed. Units being attacked from more than one direction also receive a penalty, as do
units making amphibious assaults. The combined effects of successful encirclements and multi-directional
attacks can quickly bring your enemy to his knees. Thus in Victoria, as in real life, the more effective your
strategy, the quicker and the more successful the war will go.

When an army unit reached an enemy territory, it immediately begins to occupy the province. The speed at
which it does this depends on the strength, level of technology, and number of units in the army, but
generally speaking, it will always take at least a few days to occupy a province. Once a military unit has
occupied a province, that province counts towards the occupying country’s war score calculation.

If a unit gets attacked while occupying a province, the occupation process will be suspended while the
combat lasts, but if the occupying unit wins the battle, it will continue occupying at the point where it was
when combat was initiated. This can be used by sending a fast unit first to start the combat (e.g. cavalry) to
stop the occupying while slower units (e.g. infantry) are on their way to really throw out the occupiers.

Units do not have to stop in each province the cross in order to occupy it. On the contrary, sending cavalry
units or fast generals on raids behind enemy lines to create multi-directional attacks and encirclements is a
common tactic, but be forewarned that moving through unoccupied enemy territory takes considerable
longer than moving through friendly or occupied territory.

Manpower is utilized to reinforce divisions in the field, or to create new divisions. To reinforce an existing
division, click on it so that its own sub-window opens, and then click “Reinforce to maximum strength”.
This will draw as much manpower from your pool as s necessary to reinforce the division. If you do not
have enough manpower, it will take as much as it can before it runs out. To find out how much manpower
it takes to reinforce a division, simply hold your mouse over the reinforce button and a popup will inform
you.

You can also reinforce entire armies (conglomerates of many divisions under one leader) at once. To do
this, simply click on the small fist in the top right hand corner of the army’s information box. Just like with
a single division, the manpower to reinforce will be taken from your pool. To find out how much you need
to reinforce the entire army, simply hold the mouse over the fist as you did with the reinforce button.

You can only reinforce a unit or an army in either a friendly province or in an enemy province that has
been occupied by you. You cannot reinforce an army that is in territory still controlled by the enemy.

One last concept affecting warfare is attrition. This represents the gradual loss of military strength through
disease or desertion. The attrition rate varies by the province, and there are certain generals that reduce it,
but in general it is around three percent. As the number of troops in a province increases, so will the
attrition rate. Attrition affects your units not by the day but by the month, so be aware that if you can get
your troops into and out of enemy territory within the span of one calendar month (i.e. January 1 to 31, not
as in March 15 to April 15), you will not suffer any attrition. Troops never suffer attrition while in their
home territory, but they do suffer attrition in all enemy territories, even ones occupied by you or your
allies.

Attrition is also affected by the life ratings of the provinces you invade. The lower the life ratings (as in the
desert, for example), the higher the attrition rate will be. Conversely, if your army marches through amber
waves of grain and such (territories with higher life ratings), there will be less attrition.
 41

(Note: there are some provinces on the map that experience fixed attrition for any military units positioned
there, even if you own them, even if you are at peace. These include Iceland, Greenland, and several
provinces in Siberia and in North Africa)

A commonly unrealized tactic by new players is stealing colonial buildings in wars. If there is a colony
that you wish to claim, you can send a fast cavalry unit or a quick general at the head of an infantry
division and seize the claim buildings in that colony. To take a claim building, you troops need only have
been stationed in that province for one day. They must be stopped though; a unit simply passing through
will not take over the building.

Also, these buildings are yours permanently once they have been taken. They do not count towards War
Score (see section “Other Concepts”), but they are yours forever after being stolen. You do not have to
negotiate to keep them in the peace treaty as you do provinces. Remember, claiming colonies gives a great
deal of prestige, and the AI tends not to be very good at using this same tactic against other AI players or
against the human.

One last important tactic in many successful wars is the amphibious invasion. To invade from the sea, you
must first load your army onto transports, be they steamers, clippers, or any combination. One division
will require one full transport, no less. To load them, simply place your transports off the coast of the
province in which your army is stationed. Then select the units you wish to load a right-click their
destination as the transports offshore. They will walk onboard in a few days.

Once they are onboard, sail the ships off the coast of the province you wish to invade. Select the ships and
click “Unload troops”. Then right lick on the province to which you wish them to go. Thus begins a naval
invasion. Be forewarned that if the province is defended, your attacking troops will receive a stiff penalty
for fighting while making an amphibious attack.

There is one more aspect to wars in Victoria, an aspect that has been the downfall of many an ambitious
campaign—partisans. Once an enemy army has occupied a province, there is a chance that loyal citizens
will rise up to defend their homeland. These citizens are called partisans, and they carry the flag of their
home country. They are not standard military units, and are, in fact, if a lower quality, but they can spring
up in any occupied province, even ones in which there is currently an occupying army. Partisan divisions,
like all others, can range up to ten thousand men in size, and they can liberate provinces and move around
like other armies.

Note that you get partisans too. If your country is invaded, your citizens can rise up and fight their
occupiers as well.

Keep partisans in mind. Leave sufficient holding troops behind your lines to put down these troops, or else
your victorious army may find itself cut off by an army of angry partisans you never knew existed.

Upon winning a war, you can demand several things of your vanquished opponents:

Annexation: Yes, you can annex a civilized country that you have completely occupied, but only if it is
three provinces or less. Any civilized country larger than this requires more than one war to completely
absorb. But on the other hand, uncivilized countries can be annexed in one go, whatever their size. Yes,
the result of this is that Ecuador is not immediately annexable but China is. This is true, but it is an
extreme example. This will come into play more frequently with nations such as Madagascar, Oman,
Morocco, Korea, and other prized imperial holdings. It also prevents Sardinia-Piedmont or Guatemala or
Texas from being gobbled up in one go.
 42

Provinces: You can demand specific provinces from a conquered enemy. Though you can demand only
those provinces which your troops currently occupy, in asking you for peace, a defeated enemy may offer
any of the provinces under its control, regardless of their location or occupation status. Each province you
take in a peace treaty gives you a certain amount of Badboy (see section “Other Concepts”).

Humiliation: As you will have noticed, declaring war cost a certain amount of prestige. At least part of this
cost is determined by the prestige of the country against which you declare war. A humiliation treaty
removes three hundred prestige points from the defeated and gives you a substantial amount of prestige in
return. It also makes the next declaration of war against that country less costly in prestige, assuming the
humiliation as brought them below -100.

Military Access: This treaty allows you to move your troops through the defeated country’s territory. Your
ships can also use their ports.

Forced Disarmament: The intent of this type of treaty is to cap the amount of military units a defeated
enemy may produce. NB: There is substantial disagreement as to whether or not forced disarmament
actually has any effect in the game, and whether this is intentional or not. Even if it does have an effect,
nowhere has anyone been able to show to what extent the enemy’s military strength is reduced.

War Indemnities: This treaty forces an enemy to pay to the victor of the war a certain amount of its
monthly income for the extent of the agreement (three years). Depending on the size of the country, this
can add up to a substantial amount.

Satellite: This treaty will install a government loyal to you in the defeated country, bringing them into an
equal position with any satellites you might have released during the game. Making a country your
satellite effectively ends your ability to conquer them, as you will be allies, but you can always break the
alliance and take them over.

One more thing to mention about satellites as a result of peace treaties: land acquisition. Looking on the
diplomacy map, you may see that there are certain provinces which have dots on them when it is your
country that is selected. These are provinces to which you have claims. For example, Prussia has claims to
Karlsbad, a province of Austria; Sardinia-Piedmont has claims to all of Italy; France has claims on three
provinces in Sardinia-Piedmont. When you satellite a country, all your claimed land goes over into your
possession.

This means that, if you are playing as Sardinia-Piedmont for example, you can satellite The Papal States in
a war and get all their land—except their capital, which will always remain in their hands in any peace
treaty except for outright annexation.

You cannot take claim buildings in peace treaties. To get colonial claims out of a war, you must take them
yourself through outright occupation.

These treaties can be combined in any way, individually on in groups. But remember that each costs a
certain amount of war score to demand.

One more thing to keep in mind before going on a conquest spree: not only will conquering increase your
Badboy, but the conquered provinces—even if you claim them or they are of your national culture—will
try to revolt for the next ten years. There’s little to nothing you can do about that, just stick it out. Ten
years to the day after the conquest, that angry nationalism vanishes.

The main benefit of going to war for many players, over and above the seizure of land, is the prestige
benefits incurred form a successful war. Even if you fail to take land from an enemy, a successful war will
 43

net your country a positive gain in prestige (though it will not necessarily be larger than that spend on the
declaration).

Before undertaking expansionist wars, be sure you fully understand the ideas of Badboy and War Score,
explained in the “Other Concepts” section.
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 44

Chapter 14 – The Big Three:

Plurality, Consciousness, and Militancy

“To dine, drink champagne, raise a racket and make speeches about the people’s consciousness, the
people’s conscience, freedom and so forth while servants in tails are scurrying around your table, just like
serfs, and out in the severe cold on the street await coachmen—this is the same as lying to the holy spirit.”
-Anton Chekhov

Herein are contained the three concepts of Plurality, Consciousness, and Militancy—three ideas so
powerful and yet so complicated that they merit their own section. Here is my humble attempt at an
explanation:

Plurality: The first of the Big Three, Plurality is essentially defined as your population’s demand of and
desire for social reforms and improvements. Think about it: even the name itself implies the meaning—the
higher the level of personal input into a society, the higher the level of personal expectation from the
government. This value—a percent visible in your country’s political screen—can be thought to stand for
how Liberal your country is becoming.

Plurality and the next of the Big Three, Consciousness, are directly related. High Plurality causes the rate
of Consciousness to increase and high Consciousness causes the rate of Plurality to increase, so letting
either of the two get out of hand can cause a particularly nasty situation.

Plurality, though, is not necessarily a bad thing. First of all, as mentioned above, Plurality increases
Consciousness, which for democratic governments (meaning, as of the 1.03 patch, democracies and
constitutional monarchies) is good because, as shown below, it makes your citizens vote more in line with
their desires. So in high Consciousness democracies, the people will vote into power a government that
actually represents them. Therefore, since acceptance of the government is a direct factor in the calculation
of Militancy (see below), plurality in a democratic government decreases militancy, whereas plurality in
an autocratic government increases it.

But yes, Plurality on its own—and even cobbled with Consciousness when in an autocratic
government—is bad, so what do you do about it? Unfortunately, there is little you can do to decrease
plurality. Certain technologies, such as Ideological Thought, lead to inventions which either increase or
decrease plurality depending on your form of government, but aside from this, all you can do is try to stem
the rate of Plurality growth or reduce its effects.

First of all, keep in mind that if you switch to a democratic form of government, then your plurality can
actually help make your citizens happier than they currently are. Second, realize that plurality also
increases your Militancy in monarchies, but that the higher Plurality is, the more effective the Militancy-
reducing Social Reforms get. So, if you have high Plurality, your health care and minimum wages (see
section “Reforms”) will be more effective at mollifying your people.

Besides this, all you can do is try to stem the growth of Plurality. To do this, remember what is the main
contributor to the growth of Plurality—Consciousness. Reducing the rate of Consciousness increase will
help reduce the rate of Plurality increase. Read on to see how.

Consciousness: The second of the Big Three, Consciousness can be defined as your population’s ability to
judge what is best for it. Consciousness is what allows segments of your population to see themselves as
interest groups, band together, and try to gain a voice in government. If your POPs are not self-conscious,
they cannot do this. The higher your population’s Consciousness, the better their political votes reflect
their desires. This way, if your population is majority conservative, they are more likely to vote into power
 45

a conservative government than a liberal one, which can happen if Consciousness in very low. Overall,
though, low Consciousness POPs tent to reelect the sitting government.

As mentioned above, Consciousness and Plurality are directly related, and the best way to keep Plurality
from getting out of hand is to reduce Consciousness. There are several ways to go about this:

First, and foremost, taxes contribute immensely to Consciousness. POPs are content being taxed at thirty-
three percent of their income. Any higher will lead to an increase in Consciousness directly proportional to
the amount over, but place taxes lower than thirty-three percent and POPs will receive a negative
Consciousness modifier. Taxes set at maximum produce a positive point sixty-seven Consciousness
modifier, while taxes set at zero will produce a negative point thirty-three Consciousness modifier.

One note on this: because of the economic system running in the game, it is very hard to industrialize in
the beginning without raising at least some taxes above thirty-three percent, thus increasing your
Consciousness. If you must do this, it is recommended that you tax the middle and upper classes instead of
the lower, as there are almost undoubtedly more of the lower class that the middle and upper, and the
actual number that increases Plurality is your average, not total, Consciousness. Therefore, if ten percent
of your population (the middle and upper class) have high Consciousness, while ninety percent (the lower
classes) have almost none, your average Consciousness—and, by extension, your plurality—will be low.
Keep in mind the negative aspects of consistent over taxation of the middle and upper classes, though.

A second way to reduce Consciousness is through the use of Clergymen. A Clergyman in a state will
reduce the Consciousness of all POPs throughout that state, even if they are of different religions. This
works because the game constructs religion as a social factor open to all classes, regardless of creed, color,
or wealth. Therefore, religions utilized wisely in the game will prevent classes from discovering their own
political identities, and thus becoming angry at the current government. Clergymen, though, do actually
increase the Consciousness of Aristocrats and Officers.

A third way to reduce Consciousness is through certain events. As most countries—and especially in
democratic governments—random events will occur with titles like “Slavery Issues Hotly Debated in
Missouri” or “Trade Issues Debated in Posen” (these events will appear during election campaigns; other
events affecting Consciousness can appear outside of elections). The choices you have to resolve events
such as these come with both Militancy and Consciousness modifiers. If possible, try to spread the
modifiers over as wide a number of people as possible. Siding against one class repeatedly will make them
so Conscious and Militant that they will revolt constantly. Caution: when choosing which groups to side
with, remember that Consciousness will also affect how cognizant the groups are of the political demands,
and events such as these can also modify Consciousness spread enough to lead to a change in government

Yet another way to reduce Consciousness is through over funding social reforms. Doing this creates a
“Trust in Government” feeling among your POPs, where they feel certain that the government is watching
out for their needs. Because the feel this way, they have less of a need to form their own political groups,
and hence, lower Consciousness. There is a point zero one percent negative Consciousness modifier for
each ten percent over fifty your government spends on the social reform budget. Over funding, however, is
not always possible to do because, first, you may have a Laissez-Fair party in power (see section
“Politics”) or it may be far to expensive.

Militancy: The third of the Big Three, Militancy is simply a numerical value representing how likely your
population is to revolt against your rule. Militancy is the bane of every new player, leading to massive
headaches and frustrating games. When your entire country seems to hate you no matter what you do,
there doesn’t seem to be much point in continuing the game. Understanding Militancy helps prevent this.
 46

As mentioned above, Militancy is directly related to Plurality and Consciousness. Under autocratic forms
of government, Militancy is increased by Plurality and Consciousness; under democratic forms of
government, Militancy is reduced by Plurality and Consciousness. The degree to which Plurality modifies
Militancy cannot be better explained than it was by Carligula in his excellent treatise on the subject:

The exact degree to which it does this is determined, once again, by your population's
average consciousness, subject to hard caps. If all your POPs have consciousness = 10, and
plurality is 100%, militancy will have a plurality modifier of +0.40 in a monarchy and -0.20
in a democracy. If average consciousness = 5 and plurality is 50%, the numbers would be
+0.25 and -0.20. Militancy increases from plurality in a non-democracy are capped at 0.40;
militancy decreases from plurality in a democracy are capped at -0.20.

Constitutional monarchies fall between monarchies and democracies in the effect of plurality. In
constitutional monarchies, plurality neither increases nor decreases militancy.

Militancy can be seen directly in three ways. The first is on the Revoltrisk map (see section “The Map”).
When in this view, any provinces that have POPs likely to revolt will appear in red. The second way to see
Militancy is to actually click on the provinces themselves. Doing this brings up the province information
screen, at the bottom of which is a box listing the form of crime and chance of revolt in the province. The
percentage chance that appears here is the chance, per day, that a POP in the province will revolt against
you, so, though a three-and-a-half percent revolt risk doesn’t seem like much, remember that that chance is
played each day, and a about one day per second, the revolts can quickly build up to an intolerable level.

The third way to see Militancy is in the information screens for the individual POPs themselves. To see
this, open up a particular province screen, select the population button, and then click on a specific POP.
Here you can see what goods, specifically, this POP desires and whether or not it is getting them. Now
hold the mouse over the information displayed on Consciousness and the like. This should open a popup
window showing all the factors contributing to the overall Militancy and Consciousness of the POP. This
information can be vital in locating common factors in rising Militancy and Consciousness.

Understanding any one of these three concepts hinges on understanding the other two. A whole manual
could be written on these three ideas alone, and there is nowhere near enough room in this work to go over
all the effects these concepts have on game play. As with any other idea, the only way to truly grasp them
is to play and watch how they work. If you master these three concepts and their relationships to one
another, controlling your POPs, and through them your society at large, will be simple, and your
government—whatever its form—can continue to exist peacefully until the end of the game. Whatever you
do, do not make the mistake of ignoring these concepts—it will come back to haunt you.
--
 47

Chapter 15 – Other Concepts

“Unexplained, obscure matters are regarded as more important than explained, clear ones.”
-Friedrich Nietzsche

There are many concepts in Victoria that, if not grasped, will lead to frustrating game play. This section
contains five of the most complex concepts in the game.

Prestige: This is perhaps the most important concept in the game, as far as victory goes. Prestige means the
amount of glory and honor your nation has amassed over the years. It is the amount of respect given you
by other countries. In effect, it determines your perceived rank among the countries of the world, and, as a
result, it is the primary component in score calculation.

You do not have fixed prestige. Though the most powerful countries begin the game with between ten and
twenty prestige on average, a well run great power in 1.03 should have amassed several thousand prestige
points by the end of the game. This done through the claiming of colonies (see section “Colonies”),
winning wars (see section “War”), constructing capital ships (see section “The Navy”), high defense
spending (see section “The Budget”) and through events.

Prestige influences many more things in the game than is obvious to new players. For example, the
prestige of a country is part of the calculation of the cost to declare war. If the country has less than
negative one hundred prestige, declaring war on it will only cost you one prestige point. When playing as
an uncilvilized country, you need a certain amount of prestige to civilize yourself, and it determines who
has first dibs on goods offered on the world market.

Guard your prestige with care, and seek it for the entire course of the game. With careful prestige
management and cultivation, even minor countries stand a chance of being able to rise to the level of the
top tier powers.

Badboy: Badboy is one of the more annoying concepts in the game. Many have been the times when an
aspiring conqueror has found himself stymied by a failure to understand this idea. Badboy is the game’s
attempt at representing the desire of countries of the period to maintain the balance of power in the world.
Badboy, therefore, is a numerical calculation of how much disruption you have cause of this closely
guarded ideal.

The calculations for badboy are as follows:

For each war you declare, you receive one badboy point. For each province you take as a result of that war
you will gain two badboy points, unless you have a claim to that province, whence you will receive none.
Provinces to which you have claims show up in green on the diplomatic map. If you annex a country as a
result of a war, you gain one badboy point per province annexed.

For each colonial war you declare, you receive no badboy points. You gain two points for each province
taken from a civilized nation in a colonial war, but none for provinces taken from uncivilized nations. If
you annex them, however, you will receive one point per province annexed. Therefore, it is possible to
completely occupy a country such as Oman, demand all their provinces except their capital in the peace
deal, then wait five years until the expiration of the peace treaty and annex them then. This tactic would
mean your country would amass only one Badboy point instead of the ten it would have taken to annex
Oman outright. This process is called “two-step annexation”.

Badboy is important to keep in mind because as your points get higher, there is a greater chance that the
other nations of the world will see you as a threat and declare war on you to make you stop. These
 48

“Badboy Wars” are notoriously difficult to manage, as taking land from a defeated enemy in a Badboy
War will further increase your Badboy score, leading to even more wars. Having a high military strength
can help deter these kinds of wars.

National Cultures: Every country has at least one National Culture. This represents the most important
ethnic group or groups in your nation, the peoples from which the ranks of the ruling elite are taken. The
important thing about National Cultures is that they are often the prime motivator behind that actions
countries take. Prussia seeks to unify Germany under the banner of a Romantic sense of German
nationalism. Austria has trouble controlling her vast empire because of competition between her several
National Cultures. You can see your particular country’s National Culture by looking at the dark letters
that are written across the bottom of the “Population” button on the main task bar.

When purchasing land (see section “Diplomacy), a country will never sell you a province whose majority
population is one of their national cultures. It is good to try to keep your countries as proportionally full of
your particular National Cultures as possible, as, later in the game, non-National Cultures see a dramatic
rise in militancy and consciousness (see above).

War Score: War Score is a percentage that represents the extent of your victory or loss to another country
during a war. A positive War Score indicates that you are winning; a negative War Score, that you are
losing. Every province occupied in a war gives a certain War Score value. Typically, the more important
the provinces are, the more War Score they yield if occupied. Furthermore, capital provinces give an
immediate twenty percent increase to War Score upon occupation.

Taking allied land also increases your war score against each individual ally. For example, Austria starts
out allied to all the minor German states. If Prussia declares war on Austria, all the minors will get
involved. Prussia may not be able to occupy any Austrian land, but if it occupies enough land of the
German minors who allied with Austria, it can get a high enough War Score to get a substantial peace
agreement. Note that upon annexing an allied country, you lose that country’s war score value with the
other allies, so in the previous example, it would be in Prussia’s best interest not to annex all the small
minors unless it thought it could defeat Austria on its own.

War Exhaustion: This represents the fatigue level of a country towards its current war. This value, a
percentage, is calculated based on the number of troops the country has lost in a war. It also has something
to do with the ferocity of the war in general, including whose land is being taken, but the calculations have
always remained a bit shady. What is for certain is that the longer a war drags on, the higher War
Exhaustion goes. This can lead to eventual revolts of the population in the home country. Note that war
exhaustion rises much faster in countries with smaller populations.

Another factor to keep in mind when analyzing War Exhaustion is that, in a war between a civilized and
an uncivilized country, the civilized country tends not to develop much, if any, War Exhaustion, while the
uncivilized country is subject to the normal calculations.
--
 49

Chapter 16 – Research and Technologies

“We will now discuss, in a little more detail, the Struggle for Existence.”
-Charles Darwin

In Victoria, research and the technologies it brings is crucial to a successful game. Military technologies
can give you an edge over your enemies in war; cultural technologies can load you up with tremendous
prestige; and industrial technologies help you produce more, better, faster.

Each technology researched usually yields immediate benefits (such as the ability to build a higher level of
railroad or a better kind of musket). Further, many technologies open the possibility of inventions. These
appear as popup event screens, letting the player know that something has been built. For example,
discovering the technology Combustion Engine is the prerequisite for the individual invention called
“Daimler’s Automobile” which allows the construction of automobile factories. Another example: the
discovery of the technology Interchangeable Parts allows for the discovery of the invention “Machine
Tools”, which allows the construction of machine parts factories.

There are five areas of research in Victoria: Army, Navy, Commerce, Industry, and Culture. Each yields
discoveries in its own field, and in no others, although certain technologies in one field can be required to
unlock those in others. There are twenty-five technologies in each category, grouped into five subfields per
area.

Most civilized countries start out with several technologies already discovered, though the specific ones
vary by the country. Uncivilized countries start off far behind, hence the term “uncivilized”.

The rate at which you discover technologies depends on your rate of research point accumulation.
Research points represent the strength of the intellectual establishment of your country and the rate at
which it comes up with new ideas.

The number of research points you get is dependent on several things. First, the higher your education
spending, the more research points you accumulate. Education spending determines how much money the
government feeds into research, and the more money the scientists get, the more the produce.

Second, research point accumulation depends on your literacy rate. The higher your literacy rate, the more
people can contribute to scientific development. If you hold education spending at fifty percent exactly,
your literacy rate will hold steady. Put the education spending below fifty percent and your literacy will
drop; put it above, and it will increase. The rate of increase or decrease depends on how far above or
below fifty percent the slider is.

Third, the number of research points you accumulate depends on the number of research-producing POPs
in your country. These are Clergymen and Clerks. Both produce research points for most of the game, on
top of the other benefits they yield (see section “POPs”).

But only Clerks produce research points until the end of the game—Clergymen stop producing research
points after the discovery of an invention entitled “Darwinism” that comes as a result of discovering the
technology called Biologism, in the culture field. When “Darwinism” is invented, Clergymen have their
scientific output reduced by one hundred percent, while clerks have their output increased by one hundred
percent to compensate. To take advantage of this, you can convert few to no Clergymen during the game
while simultaneously creating large numbers of clerks (who, remember, have uses other than as
researchers). When “Darwinism” is invented, it is not unheard of for the rate of research point
accumulation to double.
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The speed at which inventions follow the requisite technologies depends on your prestige, but many
inventions do not become available until a specific date after the game has begun, even if you discover the
technology that triggers them early.

Each technology requires an input of research points before it can be discovered, but this is not the only
requirement. All technologies also have a minimum research time of one year. No technology can be
discovered earlier than one calendar year after it has been assigned, no matter how many research points
you have accumulated.

The number of research points necessary to complete the technology is dependent on your country’s
National Value. If it's Order, army and navy techs take 9 RP and 0.9 years to finish; if it's Liberty, the
same applies to commerce, industry and culture. If it's Equality, all costs 10 RP and takes 1 year (but
reforms become more effective for those nations).

Because of this, there is obviously a threshold at which you will producing exactly ten research points per
year, and beyond which you will be accumulating spare research points. You can use these extras to trade
technologies with other countries. You will need those extra points because for each newly received
technology in a trade you lose ten research points. This loss represents the reverse engineering your
scientists will have to do in order to incorporate the traded technology into your system.

The other factor to keep in mind when researching is your Intellectual Establishment. This represents the
focus of the leading scientific figures of your nation. Different establishments have different foci, and can
be useful for making up a serious deficiency in one area. There are six Intellectual Establishments from
which you can choose:

Traditional Academic Circle: This is the normal, standard establishment. It gives one research opportunity
in each of the five areas of research.

Army-Industrial Complex: Focuses on the army side of the military. This gives three army, one industrial,
and one random research opportunity.

Naval-Industrial Complex: Focuses on the naval side of the military. This gives three naval, one industrial,
and one random research opportunity.

Industrialist-Science Factory: Focuses on industrial development and economic strength. This gives three
industrial, one commercial, and one random research opportunity.

Banker-Science Factory: Focuses on commercial development and economic strength. This gives three
commercial, one industrial, and one random research opportunity.

Radical Academic Circle: Focuses on cultural development. This gives three cultural and two random
research opportunities.

You can change Intellectual Establishments at will and as frequently as you want, but note that you cannot
choose what it will change to, and each time you change you will lose ten prestige points. Therefore,
changing Intellectual Establishments is only worthwhile if you have prestige to waste looking for the right
one and if you have a very serious deficiency in one specific area. Remember, once you make up that
deficiency, you will have to change back to something else.
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Chapter 17 – Colonies
“If Germany is to become a colonising power, all I say is, ‘God speed her!’ She becomes our ally and
partner in the execution of the great purposes of Providence for the advantage of mankind.”
-William Gladstone

Colonies are an important part of Victoria. They were the way in which the great nations of the era
expanded their hard power overseas, and those nations which sought to become great powers—Germany,
Japan, the United States—did so through acquiring colonies.

The colonial system is structured around four building types:

Missions: Missions are a way of spreading your country’s religion to the people of the region you are
colonizing. They act like Clergymen, reducing native agitation to your presence.

Trading Posts: These allow you to immediately begin using the resource in the province that contains the
post. You will not get all of the resource, but you will get a smaller portion of it. You cannot get full
access to the resource until you have claimed the entire colony for yourself.

Colonial Fortresses: These are just special types of fortifications. They can be used by your troops when
defending the province, but they also increase native aggression.

Coaling Stations: Upon completion, a Coaling Station creates a port at which your ships may dock,
something which otherwise would not occur until you had claimed the province.

As of the most recent patch, Missions and Trading Posts cost five thousand pounds to construct, Colonial
Fortresses cost seven thousand pounds, and Coaling Stations cost ten thousand pounds. In addition, each
building costs three leadership points and a certain amount of lumber, cement, and steel. The construction
period for all colonial buildings is four years.

In Victoria, colonies can only be claimed at the state level (for distinction between a province and a state,
look at section “The Map”). There are two ways to claim a colony:

First, if you have your claim buildings in every province of a state, and they have all finished construction,
then you may claim the colony. In this situation, the type of building does not matter. All the buildings
could be Missions, but as long as all the provinces have been secured by you, you can claim the entire
colony.

The second form of claim is more complex. If you have constructed all four types of buildings in a colony,
then it is possible for you to claim it, but only if all the other provinces in the state have been claimed by
somebody. It does not matter who the other claimant is; as long as you have build a Mission, a Trading
Post, a Colonial Fortress, and a Coaling Station, and as long as all the other provinces have completed
colonial buildings in them, you can claim the colony for yourself.

This second form of claiming colonies provides several benefits to calculating players. First, you can
quickly place your four buildings in a large state, wait a few decades for the others to be filled by various
aspiring colonial powers, and then claim the whole thing. Second, you can build your four buildings for
yourself, as well as several extra Missions or Trading Posts, and then sell the extras to other countries for
provinces or large amounts of cash. Then, assuming you have retained the original four buildings, you can
claim the colony anyway. Given the high going price of colonial buildings, you can rack up quite a fortune
with this tactic.
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Claiming colonies is important mostly because it yields a high amount of prestige. The amount you get is
proportional to the number of provinces of the claimed colony: the larger the colony, the more prestige it
gives when claimed.

Colonies are also good sources of manpower. As you continue to industrialize, the population of your
home country available to be used as soldiers becomes smaller. This can be supplemented by colonial
manpower. Troops produced here have “Native” status (see section “The Military”), but this can easily be
overcome by strength of numbers or talented generals.

Keep in mind, though, that unlike provinces in your home country or provinces taken from other civilized
countries, colonies cannot be granted statehood immediately. They are subject to the same statehood
conditions (see section “The Map”) as all other states. Only when they have been granted statehood can
they be used for industry, but they can be used for military production immediately after being claimed.
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Chapter 18 – VFAQ:
Very Frequently Asked Questions

“Italy is only a geographical expression.”

-Klemens von Metternich

Q: How do I unify Italy?

A: Then normal candidates for Italian unification are Sardinia-Piedmont, the Papal States, or the Two
Sicilies. Round about 1849, an event will fire called “Rapid Loss of Authority” followed by another called
“Unify or Die”. Now, it’s up to France as to whom they want to back for unification. They will support
one of the states, and then that state will have to wage a war against the other Italian states with France’s
(and often other people’s) aid. This event chain has caused problems for many players, though.

In addition, for the unification to be successful, you must control (not own necessarily, just control) the
following provinces: Rome, Florence, Parma, Modena, Torino, and Naples. Control of Messina is not
required in 1.03 onwards.

As of 1.03, there is a way to unify Italy without France’s intervention. To do this, simply take all the
necessary provinces in conquest, and an event will fire creating Italy.

Q: How do I unify Germany?

A: There are four ways to create Germany, but only three to unite it (excluding outright conquest). The
first is the historical route. This involves defeating Denmark in a war at least once, followed by several
events that lead to a war with Austria. The key is the final event—the Franco-Prussian War. If you hold
Paris by 1871 (or later), an event will fire giving you control over all the German states that wish to join
you. This, again, is the historical route. Do some research on Bismarck, copy what he did and it should all
work out for you.

The second way to unify Germany is through the Conservative Empire event. As any player playing a
German state will know, there are substantial 1848 revolutions in the region. If by 1851 none of the
German states have become democracies, then an event will fire unifying them in a sort of conservative
empire dedicated to preventing liberalism from infecting their governments. All that is required for the
event to fire is that all of the German states are either monarchies or constitutional monarchies.

Though you cannot directly influence the government type of nations without making them your satellites,
you can, as Prussia or as any other German state, station your troops in the German states’ territories, thus
protecting them from Liberal rebels, or you can send your troops as expeditionary forces. Furthermore,
you can always conquer any states that manage to become democracies despite your efforts.

Finally, there is the Popular Unification. If, as a result of the revolutions of 1848 or through natural
progression, all of the German states are anything but all out monarchies by 1851, then an event will fire
where the people demand and vote into power a unified German government. The other difference
between this popular unification and the other two forms is that if Austria is also anything but a monarchy,
it will be asked whether or not it wants to join. If it says yes, the country created will be a powerhouse.

There is also the “Proposal of the Frankfurt Assembly” event in 1849, which allows you to accept the
transformation of Prussia into Germany. This, however, simply changes the name and color of all current
Prussian holdings, as well as transforming it into a Constitutional Monarchy. It does not place the other
German lands under your control, and does, in fact, make overall German unification more difficult, as it
creates the North German Confederation, an independent country which has no way to join a greater
Germany except through several successful wars on the part of the player. Furthermore, the North German
Confederation tends to become a Great Power.
 54

Q: I’m playing as an uncivilized country. How do I become civilized?

A: As of 1.03, the way to become civilized is amassing each type of point. Once you have built up one
hundred prestige points, fifty industrial points, and at least ten military points, you will become civilized,
gain a load of techs, and be able to play with the big dogs.

Of all these requirements, achieving the ten military points tends to be the most difficult for uncivilized
nations. This is because irregulars, which are the only units an uncivilized country can build, are given so
little of a weight in the point system.

Also, three nations—Japan, China, and Persia—have event chains that, if followed correctly, lead to
civilized status by the end of the game.

Q: What country should I play as?

A: For beginners, Belgium is often suggested as a good starting country. It is small and is in a good
position to observe how the European system works. It is also very easy to manage, as long as your goals
are not too ambitious. Brazil is also suggested. South America’s relative isolation as far as the rest of the
world is concerned provides the ideal sandbox for new players. There is also a wonderful guide for new
players specifically for Brazil available on the forums.

Large empires like the United Kingdom and Russia should be avoided. They are organizational nightmares
even for experienced players. Prussia, France, Austria, and Sardinia-Piedmont tend to have too any
scripted events to provide a new player with a good feel for how to run the game. But if you’re feeling
ambitious, go for it anyway, or you can try the United States.

One other option is to play a handsoff game. This means a game where you turn off the autosave, set the
speed up, turn off fog of war and just watch the map change colors as people get conquered. It’s a good
way to get a feeling for how the AI plays the game. Good handsoff countries are Hawaii, Liberia, and Bali.

Q: What factories should I build?

A: That depends on where in the game you are. Towards the beginning, you ought to focus on two things:
first, getting a steady supply of vital resources (ie. steel, lumber, cement), and second, producing cash
industries to run your economy (steel, clothing, furniture). The cash-producing industries tend to be much
more expensive and harder to maintain, as well as requiring a larger supply of refined goods. Basically, as
of 1.03, steel seems to be a safe way to go. It’s always in demand on the world market, it’s cheap to build
in terms of machine parts, and it’s necessary for internal infrastructure developments.

Make sure to ration your machine parts if you can, because once you have a basic-level industry, you
should look at the factories the game starts you with. Depending on these, you can choose what fields of
production (furniture, clothing, arms, foodstuffs, etc) you want to enter into. Just make sure you keep the
production chains in mind when constructing factories. Just because luxury clothing costs a lot on the
world market doesn’t mean you can just build a factory and churn it out (for a detailed description of the
production chain, see the fold-out chart that came packaged with the game).

Q: Why can’t I get any machine parts (or anything else) off the world market?
A: Purchases off the world market are made in order of prestige. If you’re having trouble getting goods off
the world market—and you’re sure the commodity is for sale—try claiming a colony somewhere to boost
your prestige.

For machine parts in particular this goes double. There is only one country in the world that can produce
machine parts at the beginning of the game—Great Britain. It will offer these first to the highest prestige
player, and then only if it doesn’t use them itself. If you are fifth or even fourth down the prestige line,
 55

expect to have a very tough time getting your hands on machine parts until the 1850s roll around. About
then the discoveries will be made allowing you to build your own machine parts factories, assuming you
have discovered Interchangeable Parts.

Q: Can I avoid the American Civil War?

A: Yes; like most historical events in Victoria, the Civil War is avoidable. In order to avoid the event
firing, the Republican Party must not be in power in 1861. If the Democrats hold on to the government,
then there will be no Civil War. Be aware, though, that if there is no civil war the slaves in the USA will
not be freed. When freed, they are converted to Laborer, which are then convertible into factory workers.
Slaves, on the other hand, are not convertible.

Q: Can I avoid the Liberal Revolution?

A: Yes; again, most historical events are avoidable in Victoria depending on what choices you make. As
on 1.03, the Liberal Revolution can be entirely avoided in several ways:
1) You have a Free Press and the Right to Ban settings in political reforms
2) You have a Free Press and All Allowed settings in political reforms
3) You have a Censored Press and the Right to Ban settings in political reforms
4) You have a Censored Press and All Allowed settings in political reforms
The Liberal Revolution event will also not fire if you have a liberal government in power.

But be aware that, if you are playing as Prussia, there is a nasty Counterrevolution event that will fire if
you have converted Prussia into anything other than a pure monarchy. Unlike the Liberal Revolution, the
Counterrevolution does not have an end date where the Militancy and Consciousness settings revert to
their original levels, though the event itself cannot occur after 1851.

Q: How do I get a colony to become a state?

A: Colonies function just like any other states in Victoria. The only way you can grant the state statehood
is if at least one of the provinces in it has a population whose majority group is your National Culture or
the colony is on the same continent as your capital (Note: this does not just mean that there is a land
connection. Russia, for example, will not be automatically able to grant statehood to Kazakhstan. This is
because St. Petersburg, Russia’s capital, is in Europe, while Kazakhstan is in Asia). Getting your colony to
have a majority population of your national culture will only happen through emigration from your home
country. The issue can be forced by leaving Farmer or Laborer POPs unemployed in the motherland while
expanding the RGOs in the colony, thus creating an incentive for the out-of-work Farmers and Laborers to
go to the colonies. Of course, there’s always the chance they’ll just go to another country instead.

Q: What is the ledger, where is it, and why should I use it?
A: The ledger is your key to understanding the world in thirty seconds. The ledger contains many screens
worth of data, telling you everything from the number of factories in a country to the number of cavalry
division sin its army to the progress they’ve made in cultural technologies. Literally everything you want
to see about another country can be found here. The ledger can be opened by clicking on the second button
from the left at the very bottom of the main task window, right beside the Options button. It can also be
opened by pressing F6.