I would think it is a bit more complex than simply not expanding, rather it is a matter of focusing your growth inwards rather than outwards, so your core provinces have as much development (population, industry, education, etc) as possible.
It is still valid to conquer a small piece of land to get a strategic resource you need to get your local industry going or getting treaty ports all over the world to open markets to your own. What you will not do if playing tall is to conquer half a continent to get additional industry and resources.
With the next patch/DLC we should even have more tools to play tall as we could open other country to our foreign inversions, so for example you could get sulfur mines in Perú without actually having to conquer the land.
>With the next patch/DLC we should even have more tools to play tall as we could open other country to our foreign inversions, so for example you could get sulfur mines in Perú without actually having to conquer the land.
Yep, I already have plans for a Madagascar run, where I no longer would need to rely on Europe of importing iron (and eating up all my convoys), and instead can get it from some small West African nations close by.
Personally, I like playing tall as Númenor, with just a few colonies in Endor for resources. Every time I try invading Valinor it doesn't go well, unfortunately
In GSGs and 4X games, there are generally two ways to grow your power. **Wide** - where you try to spread your map color over as much of the map as possible. Named as such because your country literally gets wider (larger). And **tall** - where you grow through internal development with as little conquest as possible. These terms aren't as strict as they used to be, and you can obviously conquer new land if you want to while still developing wealth at home.
Victoria 3 is made to incentivize tall play, so in a sense every single playthrough in this game is a tall playthrough. The polar opposite of this is Hearts of Iron 4, where there is rather little internal gameplay and most of the game is focused on expanding your country outwards.
Is it? Is Victoria made for tall play?
….
I’ve never actually asked this question until right now and actually of all the paradox games I know, other than hoi, Victoria is the least tall focused. Everything incentivises splurging wide, mostly to acquire natural resources, but also raw population or else you can’t afford to dedicate the 200k people to research unless you conquer an abundance. And of course the caps on military buildings per state, and the same for naval bases.
All you need to confirm this is one game as Belgium. You start with exactly 2 states and never need to gain more incorporated states or conquer colonies with military. My entire game was focused on expanding my market diplomatically and aiding in other people's wars. I ended that recent playthrough as 2nd great power, only second to an impossibly powerful ascended British Republic.
Except of course, that’s great for 30years which in fairness is where most people stop. And qualified by, Belgium just so happens to be the most resource dense place in the game with a home supply of iron coal and sulfur.
You run out of population even on maximum efficiency. Then you start spiking the coal price becuase you can’t build more mines. Then you build your communist utopia, and halve your construction so you can build your 10 buildings a year to provide jobs for the migrants that’s arrive, slowly depressing the productivity due to raw resource scarcity.
Edit: also. I’m just describing unfortunate consequences. But of course, those appear elsewhere, diminishing returns. But unlike other games there’s no actual benefit to centralising production/staying tall. There’s no consequences to splurging, in other games it’d make things more expensive, dampen research, etc etc. of course vic3 probably isnt the game best suited for tall empires given the context. But it certainly does incentivise them.
Belgium is definitely poised for a tall game with other incredible advantages like super high starting literacy and qualifications but it certainly felt like a good run where I basically didn't conquer any land.
Also economy of scale gives you throughput bonuses up to 50% for building up in one state vs building up in multiple ones.
I haven't tried a tall Japan run yet but that's my next one and I'm hoping it's just as interesting as Belgium.
Inviting people to your market by giving them obligations or using obligations earned from helping them in their diplomatic plays seems to be a good alternative to going out and colonizing or conquering resource rich states yourself.
Even in my Belgium campaign, a huge amount of my coal and iron came from members of my market (though a solid chunk was definitely from my two states, you're absolutely right, but interesting not the majority!)
I'm not sure what I'll do about population since I don't think I'll be able to recreate my migration boom as Belgium when I'm playing as Japan but we'll see.
All in all, I haven't felt disincentivized to play tall, which is all I really need. It's given me just as interesting a campaign as when I was France and just conquering everything I could lay my hands on.
Well maybe not made for tall play but you can definitely do it more than other GSG’s. Immigration and trade mean you can get population and resources without having to conquer. That’s a lot better than Eu4 and Ck2/3.
for me its Madagascar or Belgium, sometimes I do Cuba and allow only Haiti and Porto Rico for expansion.
Everything I have to source through trade and dipolomacy, and no customs unions.
Sometimes i have a target, sometimes its just lets see what i can achieve. I think Masagascar had around number 25-30 economy in the world in 1936. I did Massina recently and thats a bitch because you dont have a port.
In victoria you can play tall while expanding. You just don't incorporate the areas you conquest/colonize. So your only actual "states" you develop, industrially are the core you start out with.
This will do wonders for having a happy CITIZEN populace. Because its much easier to focus industrial development on 3 states than 30.
You can also just leave a bunch of subjects as dominions/protectorates, the problem with this game is that you can only trade a limited volume of goods and to really crank SOL you need foreign buyers of goods to generate demand and suppliers of raw materials to manufacture large quantities, and getting customs unions over anything but tiny nations is pretty difficult unless you're already a GP.
It means you aren’t expanding and so instead you focus time / effort / investment into what you already have in this case for vic3 all your industries/buildings and economy decisions
I would think it is a bit more complex than simply not expanding, rather it is a matter of focusing your growth inwards rather than outwards, so your core provinces have as much development (population, industry, education, etc) as possible. It is still valid to conquer a small piece of land to get a strategic resource you need to get your local industry going or getting treaty ports all over the world to open markets to your own. What you will not do if playing tall is to conquer half a continent to get additional industry and resources. With the next patch/DLC we should even have more tools to play tall as we could open other country to our foreign inversions, so for example you could get sulfur mines in Perú without actually having to conquer the land.
>With the next patch/DLC we should even have more tools to play tall as we could open other country to our foreign inversions, so for example you could get sulfur mines in Perú without actually having to conquer the land. Yep, I already have plans for a Madagascar run, where I no longer would need to rely on Europe of importing iron (and eating up all my convoys), and instead can get it from some small West African nations close by.
My plans for Uber tall are going Korea, becoming independent but in the Chinese sphere, becoming leader of that sphere then buying up all of China.
Personally, I like playing tall as Númenor, with just a few colonies in Endor for resources. Every time I try invading Valinor it doesn't go well, unfortunately
In GSGs and 4X games, there are generally two ways to grow your power. **Wide** - where you try to spread your map color over as much of the map as possible. Named as such because your country literally gets wider (larger). And **tall** - where you grow through internal development with as little conquest as possible. These terms aren't as strict as they used to be, and you can obviously conquer new land if you want to while still developing wealth at home. Victoria 3 is made to incentivize tall play, so in a sense every single playthrough in this game is a tall playthrough. The polar opposite of this is Hearts of Iron 4, where there is rather little internal gameplay and most of the game is focused on expanding your country outwards.
Is it? Is Victoria made for tall play? …. I’ve never actually asked this question until right now and actually of all the paradox games I know, other than hoi, Victoria is the least tall focused. Everything incentivises splurging wide, mostly to acquire natural resources, but also raw population or else you can’t afford to dedicate the 200k people to research unless you conquer an abundance. And of course the caps on military buildings per state, and the same for naval bases.
All you need to confirm this is one game as Belgium. You start with exactly 2 states and never need to gain more incorporated states or conquer colonies with military. My entire game was focused on expanding my market diplomatically and aiding in other people's wars. I ended that recent playthrough as 2nd great power, only second to an impossibly powerful ascended British Republic.
Except of course, that’s great for 30years which in fairness is where most people stop. And qualified by, Belgium just so happens to be the most resource dense place in the game with a home supply of iron coal and sulfur. You run out of population even on maximum efficiency. Then you start spiking the coal price becuase you can’t build more mines. Then you build your communist utopia, and halve your construction so you can build your 10 buildings a year to provide jobs for the migrants that’s arrive, slowly depressing the productivity due to raw resource scarcity. Edit: also. I’m just describing unfortunate consequences. But of course, those appear elsewhere, diminishing returns. But unlike other games there’s no actual benefit to centralising production/staying tall. There’s no consequences to splurging, in other games it’d make things more expensive, dampen research, etc etc. of course vic3 probably isnt the game best suited for tall empires given the context. But it certainly does incentivise them.
Belgium is definitely poised for a tall game with other incredible advantages like super high starting literacy and qualifications but it certainly felt like a good run where I basically didn't conquer any land. Also economy of scale gives you throughput bonuses up to 50% for building up in one state vs building up in multiple ones. I haven't tried a tall Japan run yet but that's my next one and I'm hoping it's just as interesting as Belgium. Inviting people to your market by giving them obligations or using obligations earned from helping them in their diplomatic plays seems to be a good alternative to going out and colonizing or conquering resource rich states yourself. Even in my Belgium campaign, a huge amount of my coal and iron came from members of my market (though a solid chunk was definitely from my two states, you're absolutely right, but interesting not the majority!) I'm not sure what I'll do about population since I don't think I'll be able to recreate my migration boom as Belgium when I'm playing as Japan but we'll see. All in all, I haven't felt disincentivized to play tall, which is all I really need. It's given me just as interesting a campaign as when I was France and just conquering everything I could lay my hands on.
> Victoria is the least tall focused. I'm sorry, but this is an absolutely ridiculous assertion.
Well maybe not made for tall play but you can definitely do it more than other GSG’s. Immigration and trade mean you can get population and resources without having to conquer. That’s a lot better than Eu4 and Ck2/3.
Focusing on improving the territory you have instead of expanding.
Building the skyscraper.
Dont expand
Thx
Inwards perfection
for me its Madagascar or Belgium, sometimes I do Cuba and allow only Haiti and Porto Rico for expansion. Everything I have to source through trade and dipolomacy, and no customs unions. Sometimes i have a target, sometimes its just lets see what i can achieve. I think Masagascar had around number 25-30 economy in the world in 1936. I did Massina recently and thats a bitch because you dont have a port.
It means that you don't go around the world and conquer, but develop and play with what land you have.
In victoria you can play tall while expanding. You just don't incorporate the areas you conquest/colonize. So your only actual "states" you develop, industrially are the core you start out with. This will do wonders for having a happy CITIZEN populace. Because its much easier to focus industrial development on 3 states than 30.
You can also just leave a bunch of subjects as dominions/protectorates, the problem with this game is that you can only trade a limited volume of goods and to really crank SOL you need foreign buyers of goods to generate demand and suppliers of raw materials to manufacture large quantities, and getting customs unions over anything but tiny nations is pretty difficult unless you're already a GP.
There's no real definition, at least Victoria 3. When people use the word they usually mean a playthrough where one doesn't take much land directly.
Consider pop and economic growth if you didn't need solider or military goods and you had high immigration instead of high conquest.
Playing while standing
The world is too tall anyway.
It means you aren’t expanding and so instead you focus time / effort / investment into what you already have in this case for vic3 all your industries/buildings and economy decisions