January 1836 : Starting Off On The Right Foot
(a guide to getting started in VIP:R 0.1 with Prussia)
To start I've decided to give a blow-by-blow description of the things I do in the first month as Prussia to get my economy off the ground and stable. So bear with me for this, it may seem elementary but never hurts to review the basic ideas.
Before I start the scenario, I always set up the following
1) choose which tech to research first
2) a preliminary tax-tariff and spending budget for the first month
3) setup factories to maximize production in some compared to others
So first off,
choosing what to research first
Left: My choices for the first tech to research. Right : Making my choice to begin with Market Research
Prussia starts with Traditional-Academic research establishment, which for starting off is fine with me. Looking at the choices, I could go with Early Railroad. While tempting, there is a good reason NOT to choose that. Capitalists have a specific order of preference when building railways. If you complete research on a higher level of railway before they finish railroading your provinces with the lower tech level, the capitalists will start applying the higher level railway first before completing the construction of lower-level railways in all provinces. This means if you research rail too quickly, some regions of your nation may not get any railways for ages. Of course it all depends on what country you play, but I personally prefer to hold off railway research until my capis are nearly done finishing a level of railroad construction in all provinces. This ensure uniform improvements of infra all around and a more balanced (I think) development of factories. So instead I choose market research, which will give me a small boost in tax and tariff efficiency - free money in effect.
Second
Initial Budget Settings
Basically for the first month my goal is to get a positive budget flow without overly burdening my POPs, capitalists in particular. With Prussia I usually go with low 40s% tax for low and middle and 0% tax for high to start, high tariffs, education spending to produce 0.5 RP/month, full defense spending but very low army and navy spending. While this shot show this as negative, this is before the game actually begins, and within a week once exports start going I'm bringing in approx 25/day income. Considering that I am planning to let the capis do most of the heavy lifting for the economy, that is quite reasonable to start with and leaves room to fiddle once I get the economy actually stabilized.
Some important things to remember :
1) tariffs do not produce the increase in consciousness that taxes do, so the more you can depend on tariffs for income the better for keeping your POPs consciousness low
2) low taxes below ~33% produce decreases in both militancy and consciousness so the more you can use tariffs to generate income the better your ability to maintain low militancy and keep POP con low.
3) POPs that can get their everyday needs have a constant -0.05 MIL reduction for as long as they can afford them. POPs that can get their luxury goods get an additional -0.03 MIL reduction on top of that.
4) when it comes to manpower generation, defense spending is more important than army maintenance in terms of numbers of manpower generated. At the rates set above, this is my manpower generation :
Current Manpower Generation and Appointing First Leader
I also get my leaders before I start, just to have them available if the need arises. This one, he's quite good. I'll not appoint him, yet, but nice to have in the bullpen for later, likely in Saarbrucken to strengthen border defense with France. I'll start moving my divisions once I set the game going.
Third :
Optimizing Factory Production
Finally before starting I do some tweaking of the employment in factories for those states that have more than one factory. this is more something that you pick up after you play a country a few times, but here is my advice for Prussia.
Four states have more than one factory at the start
Rhineland has fabric and winery
Saxony has cement and small arms
Brandenburg has Ammunition and Glass
Silesia has a level 2 fabric and a level 1 regular clothes
Another thing to keep in mind is that in VIP:R the POP files have been set up so that for each factory in a state at the start, you have 4 craftsmen and 1 clerk POP.
However in some cases it is better to try and maximize production in one factory over another. Case In Point, Rhineland
Left: Reorganizing Employment in Rhineland. Right : Maximizing Wine Production in Rhineland for the Export Market
Rhineland has a fabric factory and a winery. As I also have a level-2 fabric factory in Silesia, I should have enough fabric for my Regular Clothes factory, so it makes sense to maximize production of Wine for the export market. Hence for now my 2 clerks and 3 largest craftsmen POPs in Rhineland will be assigned to the Winery, and the remaining craftsmen to the fabric factory. I can convert more to clerks later. Right now the goal is to maximize exports so that capis can build, and wine is a good that is a POP need, so will have decent demand.
In the other states, similar choices to make. In Saxony I have cement and small arms. With Capi building not needing material inputs to build railways, just cash, cement isn't all that crucial in V:R, while early in game small arms are gonna be in high demand as AI nations try to build stockpiles. So put both Saxon clerks in small arms, none in cement, for now.
In Brandenburg, i have ammunition and glass. With my maximizing the small arms factory, anything to reduce the amount of ammo I need to input will reduce cost to the treasury, though need to make sure I produce enough glass to keep the winery going - though glass isn't nearly as expensive so if I have to import a bit of glass it won't be the end of the world. 2 Brandenburg clerks in the Ammo factory, none in the glass factory.
Reorganizing Workers In The Silesia Factories
Finally in Silesia, we have 3 clerks since the fabric factory is level 2, so it makes the most sense to maximize regular clothes production for the export market by putting the 3 largest craftsmen and 2 largest clerk POPs into it, and everyone else into the fabric factory.
Last thing to do is set the levels of import/export for the various materials you produce or need to maintain production. After you play a nation a few times you'll know from practice what you need, but if you are just starting out take a moment to see what your factories need to run and if any of those things are not produced in your nation. For Prussia, this means that cotton, dye and wool are needed for fabric and clothes production, and sulphur for ammo production, so set those to buy at least 5 to start with, then you can adjust up and down. Coal, Timber, Iron, Cattle, Fish and Fruit are also used in our factories, but we also produce them. After a couple days check and see if you are producing more than you use. If you are then you can set the sell levels down so that you can maximize exports.
As far as manufactured goods go, we need steel and ammo for the small arms, glass for the winery, and fabric for the regular clothes. Glass and fabric we are probably going to have a bit extra from what we use to export, check after a few days to see what your production levels are. Steel and ammo, though, are likely gonna be short so set those to buy at least one (and as our steel stockpile is at 25, set to buy at 25 so that we don't lose our stockpile). Other goods, like fertilizer, canned food, cement, wine and lumber, are not currently inputs for factories in Prussia, so we can start exporting them now. I usually like to keep a minimum quantity of 1-2 above what I need to keep my factories running in my stockpile for all goods (or whatever the stockpile we start with is if the stockpile starts > 0) to have in case I need it, otherwise export production and get your POPs earning money.
Now we are ready to start the scenario. It will take about 6 days for the AI production for the world market to stabilize, so check your import/export levels on 7 January to see if you need to import more or have extra of resources to sell. Remember, we recommend VIP:R be run at no faster than above normal speed, and at normal/normal difficulty-aggresiveness levels, and save and reload from save once every 2 years minimum to ensure the game engine does not go "Brian Dead" and start missing events or event commands.
Part 2 to follow..things to do in the first month of gameplay
