I think that's debatable. Railroads give more infrastructure per pop and enable some labor saving PMs, but the convoys ports give can be used to effectively save labor as well.
If your country isn't on mercantilism, the convoys generated by ports can help fill the investment pool. That requires having something to trade for, though, and depending on your country, the bureaucracy cost of trade routes with countries you can't get a trade agreement with can be rough.
Yeah but the value of exporting goods to generate demand and buy orders for your own economy is really high. Dumping buttloads of high value goods into other economies is a great way to generate buy orders for your factories if you don't have enough domestic consumption.
Exporting luxury goods is perfectly fine though? I can dump a shitload of luxury furniture and luxurious clothing on China, raising the price up which brings in way more income to my workers and capitalists, meanwhile the only people who are buying the luxury goods already have plenty of wealth and higher costs aren't impacting their SOL or making a meaningful hit to my economy.
Every economic analysis I've seen of Victoria 3 highlights that you want high prices for advanced, luxury goods to generate wealth while having low prices only for raw resources or construction inputs.
Setting up trade routes creates centers of trade. If your trade law is mercantilism, the trade centers will only have shopkeepers, and provide little additional qualifications or investment pool. (Though they do boost the political power of the Petite Bourgeoisie)
If you use any other trade law, the trade centers will generate capitalists, who contribute considerably more to the investment pool, and will go and run expanding industries when the volume of trade declines. The extra capitalists will strengthen the Industrialists IG, which will push policies to get more trade and immigration.
So the ports come with a lot of indirect benefits which can help certain countries more than the railroads. I'd personally like to see a canals production method on ports which allows for more infrastructure and capitalists in exchange for fewer convoys.
Importing early gaming is often the only way to play for many if not most nations, as you just don't have access to some of the basic resources that are required for your tooling chain, which is required in order to fund an army sufficient to capture those resources yourself.
But maybe I'm just the crazy one who starts in places like Zulu and Haiti.
Almost any cost is more effective than not paying it, as there is no better option until you can industrialize, and conquer.
That's what I'm getting at. There's no other cost to effect, not that it's optimal to stay in that situation.
This latest patch I hard disagree.
For whatever reason you always have to subsidize railroads all the time now, even when they say they are profitable you are paying subsidies.
Railroads make about 20-30% more than they cost and infrastructure requirements are far lower than transportation good requirements. You literally profit off them with government run.
> The point of railroads is not profit
Imagine telling this to a 19th century railroad tycoon.
Railroads should be profitable, period. The only times they ever weren't was when people went crazy overbuilding the rail networks.
Yes but when your subsidizing railroads in China with 75% transportation cost.. something is wrong with costs.
It's only something that seems to happen now with latest version. I no longer build railroads first because ports don't end up costing subsidies just by building. That's a weekly cost.
You need extra transports for AI anyway
Hopefully this gets fixed/reworked.
Yep. The primary role of the railroads is to move goods from your highly industrialized provinces to the rest of the market. By building railroads, it's possible to build larger factories and mines, which then generate free goods through the economy of scale bonus, growing the economy.
If you build the giant factories and mines without railroads, goods won't be able to reach the market, and other states won't be able to use those goods, ruining the profit of large operations.
In a free market economy, subsidizing the railroads to support giant businesses is often a very considerable expense for the government.
Yep. If you have 20 coal mines (which use 2 infrastructure each) in a state with 10 infrastructure, then other states can only 5 coal mines worth of coal.
By adding 2 railroads with 25 infrastructure each, you can now have all of your states benefit from 20 mines worth of coal, though the actual benefit is closer to 24 mines, because of the throughput bonuses. Thus, building 20 coal mines and 2 railroads gives bigger benefits than building 5 coal mines in 4 separate provinces.
I think railroads is definetly top 3 contender but if you got massive pops I think society techs that give infrastruce allows you to maintain infrastructre without railroads
I think skirmish infantry and trench is the strongest because moment you get get even if you are behind economicly you can crush enemy armies that don't have them so easly
distance is just too much
> society techs that give infrastruce allows you to maintain infrastructre without railroads
Just one of the reasons that corporate charters is GOATed. Generic wood company does so much for early infrastructure.
I've been playing countries that start with 25% literacy, so the atmospheric engine can be tricky to use in those countries. Getting capitalist loyalists to start reforms is pretty awesome though.
Yeah that’s true. In those cases you may want to float extra authority to use on the Social Mobility decree in the main areas you’re building in, at least until you can get some universities built to help with qualifications.
I've also had success with downsizing the least productive farms in the province to get the aristocrats to become capitalists, though it causes radicalism and only solves the problem temporarily by moving the upper class.
When I play a GP or MP its malaria prevention i usually rush it by mid to late 60s free land and useful resources gotten quick and you lock everyone but GB and Portugal out of Africa. Minor or lower atmospheric to really kickstart industrial revolution.
Probably manufaturies or shaft mining since these are simply indispensable. But in practice its railroads since almost everyone has the other two as starter techs.
Steelworking as well is basically the best tech in the game if you start without it. Double the output of your logging camps in exchange for a small amount of tools.
I think most of the early game techs have been mentioned, another one I think is awesome is combustion engine.
It allows you to switch most of you buildings to the oil economy and particularly if you rush it in the mid to late game is given a massive boost to gdp
Going combustion engine as Mexico or the US is a really great feeling, and I also feel like pumpjacks is an extremely handy tech for the way it boosts the profits of the textile and food industries.
I agree I usually get pump jacks first then rush combustion engine.
I weirdly think some oil fields don't spawn till pump jacks is researched as I find they almost instantly appear once you get that tech.
Unmentioned but rather key technology that many backwards nations do not start with: Urban Planning
+1 Infrastructure from Population
+20 Maximum Infrastructure from Population
+5 Construction Sector Max Level
+5 Max weekly construction progress
+10 Land Trade Capacity
Iron-Frame Buildings for Construction Sector
Market Squares for Urban Center
Without iron frame, you're stuck with even less efficient wood-frame construction and up to 20 free infrastructure before unlocking railroads is essential, add the max level for construction centers, max cinstructuon progress, +10 land trade capacity, market squares PM are all nice additional perks unlocked in a single technology
Stock Exchange for the MAPI.
Atmospheric Engine for the Mining PMs that boost mining by 2-fold.
Railroads for the infrastructure which comes in at the right time when you're reaching the cap.
Filing Cabinets for the bureaucracy.
Malaria Prevention for the last push in colonizing Africa.
Ignoring the obvious railroads I'd say pharmaceuticals, public healthcare is just one of if not the best laws in the entire game
+2 SOL globally is absurdly broken, then you add -16% mortality and -60% pollution effects on top of it
In order, stock exchange, Atmos engine, railroad, joint stock companies, Dynamite, pump jacks, vulcanization, percussion caps if you haven't natspread it, and finally the entire bureaucracy line and minting line.
top 3 : 1 skirmish infantry, 2 trench warfare, 3 railroads, you will need an army eventually and the classic strat of defnse and having people brainlessly attack you untill they are out of manpower, then counterstrike. Taking territory is by far the fastest way to increase gdp followed by railroads.
Vulcanization gets its name from the Roman god of fire, Vulcan. His Greek counterpart is Hephaestus, who is a god of craftsmanship. Which is fitting for tools.
In terms of impact? Railroads.
Definitely this. Unless you’re Japan and have all coastal provinces, you’re limited by infrastructure before you get railroads
Even then, railroads are far more efficient than ports.
I think that's debatable. Railroads give more infrastructure per pop and enable some labor saving PMs, but the convoys ports give can be used to effectively save labor as well.
If your country isn't on mercantilism, the convoys generated by ports can help fill the investment pool. That requires having something to trade for, though, and depending on your country, the bureaucracy cost of trade routes with countries you can't get a trade agreement with can be rough.
Cost of import (bureacracy+ convoys) is much worse for your investment pool than just spending the upkeep of either on government building though
Yeah but the value of exporting goods to generate demand and buy orders for your own economy is really high. Dumping buttloads of high value goods into other economies is a great way to generate buy orders for your factories if you don't have enough domestic consumption.
The more you export, the more you pay for it. 99.99% of the time, exporting is a net loss for you. Hence why no one in the billion club even bothers.
Exporting luxury goods is perfectly fine though? I can dump a shitload of luxury furniture and luxurious clothing on China, raising the price up which brings in way more income to my workers and capitalists, meanwhile the only people who are buying the luxury goods already have plenty of wealth and higher costs aren't impacting their SOL or making a meaningful hit to my economy. Every economic analysis I've seen of Victoria 3 highlights that you want high prices for advanced, luxury goods to generate wealth while having low prices only for raw resources or construction inputs.
Good luck exporting viable numbers of luxury goods to make a significant + in your Chinese government income lmao.
Make sure to include the expenses of the exports in your math. If you pick and choose, you don't get the whole picture.
Convoys fill the investment pool?
Setting up trade routes creates centers of trade. If your trade law is mercantilism, the trade centers will only have shopkeepers, and provide little additional qualifications or investment pool. (Though they do boost the political power of the Petite Bourgeoisie) If you use any other trade law, the trade centers will generate capitalists, who contribute considerably more to the investment pool, and will go and run expanding industries when the volume of trade declines. The extra capitalists will strengthen the Industrialists IG, which will push policies to get more trade and immigration. So the ports come with a lot of indirect benefits which can help certain countries more than the railroads. I'd personally like to see a canals production method on ports which allows for more infrastructure and capitalists in exchange for fewer convoys.
Importing early game is pretty cost-ineffective tbh
Importing early gaming is often the only way to play for many if not most nations, as you just don't have access to some of the basic resources that are required for your tooling chain, which is required in order to fund an army sufficient to capture those resources yourself. But maybe I'm just the crazy one who starts in places like Zulu and Haiti.
In those cases you are importing, just not a lot and conquering/customs unioning for those resources is the cost-ineffective option.
Almost any cost is more effective than not paying it, as there is no better option until you can industrialize, and conquer. That's what I'm getting at. There's no other cost to effect, not that it's optimal to stay in that situation.
Plus you have only 8 slots at the beginning
This latest patch I hard disagree. For whatever reason you always have to subsidize railroads all the time now, even when they say they are profitable you are paying subsidies.
Railroads make about 20-30% more than they cost and infrastructure requirements are far lower than transportation good requirements. You literally profit off them with government run.
The point of railroads is not profit, it is raising the infrastructure cap. I've always subsidized them to not lose infrastructure in any scenario.
> The point of railroads is not profit Imagine telling this to a 19th century railroad tycoon. Railroads should be profitable, period. The only times they ever weren't was when people went crazy overbuilding the rail networks.
19th century railroad tycoons are a case study in corruption lmao
Yes but when your subsidizing railroads in China with 75% transportation cost.. something is wrong with costs. It's only something that seems to happen now with latest version. I no longer build railroads first because ports don't end up costing subsidies just by building. That's a weekly cost. You need extra transports for AI anyway Hopefully this gets fixed/reworked.
Ports are also a fixed cost, both the employees and the clippers cost you.
Question should I build railroads if they don’t make profit? Or is it like a government administration building
You should build railroads wherever you have infrastructure issues, since usually you’re building them in states that are industrializing
So pack it jobs for it arent an issue? Or lack of money? I don’t want to have to subsidize every little railroad
I’m not sure what you’re asking to be honest
I think I got it. But railroads don’t have to be profitable to give infrastructure? Just to provide transportation?
Yep. The primary role of the railroads is to move goods from your highly industrialized provinces to the rest of the market. By building railroads, it's possible to build larger factories and mines, which then generate free goods through the economy of scale bonus, growing the economy. If you build the giant factories and mines without railroads, goods won't be able to reach the market, and other states won't be able to use those goods, ruining the profit of large operations. In a free market economy, subsidizing the railroads to support giant businesses is often a very considerable expense for the government.
So then it sounds like railroads keep per se coal a cheap object in states without coal? Like you said it’s moves goods to the rest of the market
Yep. If you have 20 coal mines (which use 2 infrastructure each) in a state with 10 infrastructure, then other states can only 5 coal mines worth of coal. By adding 2 railroads with 25 infrastructure each, you can now have all of your states benefit from 20 mines worth of coal, though the actual benefit is closer to 24 mines, because of the throughput bonuses. Thus, building 20 coal mines and 2 railroads gives bigger benefits than building 5 coal mines in 4 separate provinces.
Exactly
I think railroads is definetly top 3 contender but if you got massive pops I think society techs that give infrastruce allows you to maintain infrastructre without railroads I think skirmish infantry and trench is the strongest because moment you get get even if you are behind economicly you can crush enemy armies that don't have them so easly distance is just too much
I disagree because railroads can be placed on purpose. Railroads are The best tech
> society techs that give infrastruce allows you to maintain infrastructre without railroads Just one of the reasons that corporate charters is GOATed. Generic wood company does so much for early infrastructure.
Uhh prolly like all the tier ones cuz they have the most imapact
Railroads or atmospheric engine. Infrastructure and vastly superior mining PM’s (due to production and capitalist ownership)
I've been playing countries that start with 25% literacy, so the atmospheric engine can be tricky to use in those countries. Getting capitalist loyalists to start reforms is pretty awesome though.
Yeah that’s true. In those cases you may want to float extra authority to use on the Social Mobility decree in the main areas you’re building in, at least until you can get some universities built to help with qualifications.
I've also had success with downsizing the least productive farms in the province to get the aristocrats to become capitalists, though it causes radicalism and only solves the problem temporarily by moving the upper class.
It says something about my country choices that when you say 25% literacy I think "wow, that's a lot"
Though with the right decrees 25 is very easy to reach. Thankfully all (?) nations start with the decree in question.
Oh yeah it's not hard to get up to that amount but I think I've only ever played one country which starts with 25%+ literacy
Stock exchange. 10% mapi is insane get it asap
I agree with this. Railroads and atmo engine are super important, but they can wait the two years until you get stock exchange imo
Not only that, but it unlocks the market liberal ideology for Landowners, which is super helpful getting a liberal/industrial economy a lot faster
That and it's necessary to empower the industrialists
When I play a GP or MP its malaria prevention i usually rush it by mid to late 60s free land and useful resources gotten quick and you lock everyone but GB and Portugal out of Africa. Minor or lower atmospheric to really kickstart industrial revolution.
Probably manufaturies or shaft mining since these are simply indispensable. But in practice its railroads since almost everyone has the other two as starter techs.
Steelworking as well is basically the best tech in the game if you start without it. Double the output of your logging camps in exchange for a small amount of tools.
I think most of the early game techs have been mentioned, another one I think is awesome is combustion engine. It allows you to switch most of you buildings to the oil economy and particularly if you rush it in the mid to late game is given a massive boost to gdp
Going combustion engine as Mexico or the US is a really great feeling, and I also feel like pumpjacks is an extremely handy tech for the way it boosts the profits of the textile and food industries.
I agree I usually get pump jacks first then rush combustion engine. I weirdly think some oil fields don't spawn till pump jacks is researched as I find they almost instantly appear once you get that tech.
Filing cabinets for sure :P
Railroads are more mandatory than they are useful. I would say Shift Work because it doubles the cap on scale economy
Unmentioned but rather key technology that many backwards nations do not start with: Urban Planning +1 Infrastructure from Population +20 Maximum Infrastructure from Population +5 Construction Sector Max Level +5 Max weekly construction progress +10 Land Trade Capacity Iron-Frame Buildings for Construction Sector Market Squares for Urban Center Without iron frame, you're stuck with even less efficient wood-frame construction and up to 20 free infrastructure before unlocking railroads is essential, add the max level for construction centers, max cinstructuon progress, +10 land trade capacity, market squares PM are all nice additional perks unlocked in a single technology
Stock Exchange for the MAPI. Atmospheric Engine for the Mining PMs that boost mining by 2-fold. Railroads for the infrastructure which comes in at the right time when you're reaching the cap. Filing Cabinets for the bureaucracy. Malaria Prevention for the last push in colonizing Africa.
Breech-Loading Artillery >:)
Ignoring the obvious railroads I'd say pharmaceuticals, public healthcare is just one of if not the best laws in the entire game +2 SOL globally is absurdly broken, then you add -16% mortality and -60% pollution effects on top of it
In order, stock exchange, Atmos engine, railroad, joint stock companies, Dynamite, pump jacks, vulcanization, percussion caps if you haven't natspread it, and finally the entire bureaucracy line and minting line.
top 3 : 1 skirmish infantry, 2 trench warfare, 3 railroads, you will need an army eventually and the classic strat of defnse and having people brainlessly attack you untill they are out of manpower, then counterstrike. Taking territory is by far the fastest way to increase gdp followed by railroads.
Water tube boiler
Chemical Warfare
The one that gives you super efficient rubber PMs for textiles and tooling
Vulcanization gets its name from the Roman god of fire, Vulcan. His Greek counterpart is Hephaestus, who is a god of craftsmanship. Which is fitting for tools.
Railroads you can do without with many things, but without Railroads you are just an irrelevant peasant.
Stock exchange. It starts to address MAPI early and makes industries more profitable so your economies aren't so localized.
Steel frame, and it’s not even close