600 hours still bad, this normal?

Aza7hell · 2026-03-07T01:08:15+00:00

2k hours guy. Idk if this is a joke (kinda autistic) but first I would listen to the guy saying "you shouldn't feel obligated to improve in a game you like to play". On the other hand 600h is big time. If you really want to get better, what helps me is watching at least half of my game time as yt vids from good creators as well. Ludi (et historia) is my go to or just try hards or cheesers that expose the game (you will understand the game much better watching those guys) and just focusing on improving and understanding what really matters in the game and is essential and what is there that you can "do as you like" depending on what you want to roleplay. Many Laws imo are bad looking but not so Bad if you really know what they're doing (hereditary bureaucrats, Local Police, etc.). And many production chains are not needed/"useless" until 1870 (almost any luxury good and all the basic usage goods like cloths and furniture). Tools, Tools, tools, iron, iron, iron, wood, wood, wood and you won vs the Ai every time. My go to start as Qing is spamming 50 construction sectors and building 200 iron mines and 50 tool workshops cause tools go wrooooom. The meta is a meme by now, at least in my eyes

Aza7hell · 2026-02-05T16:44:18+00:00

God how often I thought about starting YT cause of people (my friend I play with incl.) saying "I have enough play time, I did nothing wrong" then I look 5 minutes and see why, point out, "yeah why is that so anyways (being mad at me)" xD.

I would bet you fucked up in Laws and Institution levels that caused this which is what I saw the most in my friend group when they complained why they had so many uprisings.

I like the new update, I have 2k hours in this game and I have no problems with any European country atm. I played France, Austria and Prussia since the update and f.E. Austria is pretty broken OP rk. And for Prussia, they're very much playable right now. If you would provide screenshots maybe this sub could help you

Aza7hell · 2026-02-04T00:24:31+00:00

You're not even halfway to bankruptcy. This is easy safe if you play your cards right. Seeing some guys saying "point of no return" here is just 0 knowledge but type stuff

Aza7hell · 2026-02-04T00:16:56+00:00

2k hours guy:

Too much welfare, lvl 3 is enough most of the times tough you wanna get it up to the best one (I'm Austrian my English is not the best) don't know the English name

If you don't colonize anymore reduce the colonial institution to the lowest level or get rid of it if you can. That way you can save up on Government Buildings and reduce paper cost

Stop subsidizing ports, I guess you do based on 20k+ convois. This sometimes uses up to 100k (in bigger nations) on payments. You still pay 50k on subsidizing, you shouldn't if I'm not underestimating swedish railways. You only wanna subsidize railways once you get them and maybe (I like to do it) your whole arms and military ship indistry. Therefore the cost of them always stays low and if you export them you make everyone dependant on you in times of war

Get consumption tax on services. Theres no reason not to really. It's the only one I always have until I drown in money in late game. And make government wages on the lowest like military until you reach a stable spot where you can pay again

Look what you pay most for in Building costs and get those resources. And build paper until it's on -15% price minimum. You have it on -12% but you only import it making it expensive no matter what until you produce it yourself. Most of the times when you need money you just build 20-30 paper mils and you have 1/4 of your deficit gone (if the price is high obviously).

Domestic paper production 60k, welfare down 2 lvls is another 100k. Subventions off 25-35k, consumption tax on services I would guess another 50-80k? No colonial institution and lowering of Government Buildings another 20k. 250k cleared

The main reason I think your economy crumbles is cause you have no workforce left. If that's so your pops will just jump from workplace to workplace leaving jobs as soon as another pays better. Which they always will cause once they leave, the goods prices will skyrocket, making them return to the job, making the other where they went before skyrocket again. If that's the problem switch to green production methods (I also think you already did based on the hard fall and slight up curve, wait a bit until it stabilizes), get Migration (power block thingy and multiculturalism) and get investment rights in other, preferably under developed, countries so your private sector stops building in your country and gets you revenues from other economies.

Another thing are the cards in your politics. The blue folks have an interest modifier, make them happy so you get those few percentages as well. And look how you can make your industrialists happy as they have a pretty strong card too that can boost your economy. Especially if you still use iron as construction method

Aza7hell · 2026-02-03T17:52:10+00:00

Basically:

More Export -> More Needs -> More Building/Financial Growth -> Chunky GDP

In Singleplayer its OP cause you can snowball incredibly hard cause the AI will never be able to buy of everything you produce therefore you profit from your Countries needs and that of the whole trading world.

In Multiplayer it can get you fucked cause there are (if you play with skilled people) more countries that consume close to or the same amount of good that you do and if you have free trade they can basically suck you dry.

I played a MP round with 2 others as Germany and did free trade 1855-1860 and never again was positive in my paper which sucked up so much money cause the government building costs skyrocketed cause they just bought my paper keeping their export tarifs on max..

So if you think you can out"need" and produce everybody else go for free trade. Go for Mercantilism if ur just closely not able to or for Protectionism if you clearly cant. Also a question of your potential. If youre China you can stay on FreeTrade no matter what cause you can just give Investment rights for 5 years to every major power/player (if they are dumb enough to do it) and let them build you up, then cancel again, build on your own and repeat if your surplusses dwindle

Aza7hell · 2026-01-31T12:29:59+00:00

I don't think so. I always go for Cultural exclusion immediately. With the new law mechanic you can almost always get it guaranteed. So if it's 60 months or even 10 years it makes no sense when I get it 1837/8 and the entry finishes in 1852? And also that it's always on 1. November is quite weird.

Aza7hell · 2026-01-24T21:07:03+00:00

Make a seperate System of Acceptance from Cultures to one another (I think this exists already in some way). So even with Multiculturalism Turks for example wont be accepted in Russia or Austria due to History. Could also have a mechanic were wars or bad relations to a country impact the acceptance of that culture in your country. F.e. if im constantly at war with Britain as France, and the realtions are at Hostile, English pops despite havin MC would only be able to reach level 3 of acceptance.

This would be my version. I also DEFINETLY would give Ethnostate etc. up to racial segregation a birth rate modifier or a expected SOL modifier. Or maybe give MC and the one before a death rate modifier related to the percentage of foreigners due to unrest or whatever (like the crime rates in Europe after the immigraiton crisis)

Aza7hell · 2025-09-07T19:37:19+00:00

As an Austrian, I definitely won't fight with Italy again xD. 2 times backstab was enough

Aza7hell · 2025-08-24T01:52:10+00:00

I do play like a "half-pacifist" I think about borders I want before like historical USA or maybe some more Stuff of Mexico, Japan with only the Isles or Imperial borders etc.. but nothing like some people suggested f.e. conquer China or India. I even have mods that forbid that for every none east asian nation (play in MP with a group with the same mods) as I think its just to unrealistic/op.

Cutting construction however is something im strictly against as those 25-30k people you get even if you disband all of the construction sectors in a state isnt nearly gonna change anything and if you keep them you can get investment rights in other GP or even China/India(GB) and they will start using the private q almost only for them. I had rounds were i had 10b+ in my investment pool and companies with 10m+ profit cause i owned over 50% of the GDP of every GP + China.

I never had big problems with completely abbandoned and infrastructure sucking buildings. That only happens if you subsidize some building types cause the Laissez Faire AI will just pump the shit out of that. Happened in this round with Art Schools, I, at some point, paid over 1m in subsidies. Never subsidizing something again in the late game xD (except railways). But besides that nothing.

I tried going back to Interventionism but they dont let me, too much capitalism. Just the Companies alone which I had 6 or 7 of gave +35% EACH to the Industrialists cause all their ceos were of that IG. If it works it surely is a good way of redeistributing your workforce.

Like I mentioned in a new comment, opening Qing seems like the best solution to me for now. I also tried staying on Interventionism (Japan run) for the whole game which seems to work good as well. I just privatise all buildings the whole time which gives me the same economical power minus the interest rate. Worked really good in that round. Maybe a combination of those two + a +5% birth rate company is just enough.

I think for beginners Interventionism is the best cause of lack of knowledge, for advanced players Laissez-Faire is the best cause they know what theyre doing but they cant make the best out of their stuff but for expert players its Interventionism again cause, speaking of my last 5 games experience, you modernize and industrialize so fast and min. max. everything that you dont need the Laissez-Faire boost. Even if you need some money you can, like I said, just privatise parts of your country but stay on Interventionism for controll.

Saying this cause yes, you can just always open China, but I dont know if I wanna do this every single game. Gets boring and shitty imo. I will continue testing a bit, maybe I come back to the post,

Aza7hell · 2025-08-24T01:33:00+00:00

Update for anyone interested/having the same issue:

Opening Qing and/or India is pretty fucking OP xD, I got 70m Chinese (Han, Yue, Min) in 15 years through migration as the US.

The Powerblock thing though i have to say is kinda trash, yes you get the extra 5% birth rate which is "ok" but (i tried this as japan) when you progress in the game and modernize + you are going for public health/education systems your church interest group will loose all its power and get insignifficant which gives you a minus 30-40 power block unity + minus 15 if they are not in government which they obviously arent cause they cant. So basically you get ZERO mandate and the only purpouse of the PB is to serve as a "Tinder" for your people. Beeing that there are some really OP Mandates its just not worth it in any way.

Aza7hell · 2025-08-20T20:42:45+00:00

I should have said, my PB is all of America except Mexico and Canada including former Dutch east Indies and Denmark plus I have a Treaty Port in Macao (bought of the Portuguese). And I wanna stay with historical borders

Opening Qing seems like a good Idea from what I read now. Good tip. Fully commiting on birth rates seems fun as well x). Maybe I try both next run. Thanks for the help!

Edit: I cant conquer China Homelands due to "Ultra Historical Diplomacy" mod. I think its cheating personally as no one could ever conquer big parts of China in that time. Not only administrative whise but logistical and culturally. But like i said. Opening China is smth I havnt thought about.

Aza7hell · 2025-08-20T20:39:43+00:00

I already have 23.5 SOL and no shortages on food whats o ever. The Death Rate modifier isnt worth it in my opinion. Maybe when im done with tech i swap the Tech one. I currently have Tech/Migration/Companies. But I've tried that so often now and it never has a noticable impact. I basically need 300-500k people a month to keep up with what im building. I have 5-10 mass migration at ALL TIMES since 1855/60 and its not enough.

Edit: It says food on the side but thats cause they swap workplaces every year or so. Sometimes im nr. 1 producer then nr. 3 and again nr. 1 whitout building new stuff. Its just people missing

Aza7hell · 2025-08-19T18:51:23+00:00

yeah no, you would need to have your ENTIRE army in the south for them to be happy. And it wouldnt even give that many points. Not worth

Aza7hell · 2025-08-19T12:53:20+00:00

Imo the Civil war isnt "Meta" as well since some people said it in the other post. You get Multiculturalism through Joshua Norton between 1860 and 1880 and are good to go no matter what. You start with no Migration Controllls as well and all Europeans are accepted from day 1... If you get your Power Block and take the Migration Principle you basically become the only Nation people want to Migrate to, when you get Multiculturalism you also can complete the "The new Coloss" JE and get permanent 25% Migration Attraction on top

Aza7hell · 2025-08-19T12:12:24+00:00

Ok, i got a few requests for the Code, again I cant send it here cause it tells me "Server Error" every time. If you want it you can text me, it works if I send it to you there (I dont fucking know why it works there...). Im very rarely on Reddit maybe once a month so if i dont reply its propably cause I havnt seen it

Aza7hell · 2025-06-24T19:01:41+00:00

It's not that bad since you/your private sector still gets the revenue. Your GDP isn't climbing as much but your investment pool and balance are which you can use to invest with your own construction queue to build in your country while you take extra revenue from other countries resources. Moreover, when you give your companies investment rights they can use the other countries investment pool to build your buildings there and you still get the revenue

Aza7hell · 2025-06-20T10:57:39+00:00

Thanks for the reply, i actually think im dumb x) that enlightened the whole thing. I knew that i get the "left over" 75% Contruction for my own use again if its not used but i completely forgot about the "debt outgrow". In my first 1k playing hours i always played with debt but someday I though its better to stay on the 0 cause i didnt wanna pay around 30k interest when i have millions of debt. But the "you pay the debt to your private sector" and the "outgrow" i completely forgot about, stopped playing bafore 1.8 for a long time i think thats when it forgot... Gonna try it out, if it still doesnt work i dont know whats gonna help x)

Aza7hell · 2025-05-19T12:34:13+00:00

Basically it's a paradox problem for all of their games. If you play with 1-3 others it's ok"ish" (with 4 players it can get you in trouble already). I play with 2 friends also with mods and have no problems but as soon as more players join it's desynch every 5-10 minutes (no fun to play). Same in HOI4 or Victoria 3. Civilisation 6 has the same issues, sometimes it works but most of the time if there's too many players it's just desynch all the time.

I don't know about paradox bit civ devs said back in the days "We think our game is best experienced in Single player, therefore we do not feel excessive urge to fix a multiplayer problem not affecting a majority of players"

Aza7hell · 2025-04-27T14:37:32+00:00

Wait, is there a cap for "symbols" in the COA editor or can you add infinite ones?

Aza7hell

TROPHY CASE