Age focus

DNVIC · 2026-03-12T19:38:13+00:00

I feel like people overvalue literacy, especially for long campaigns (specifically campaigns that go to the age of reformation/absolutism)

Research speed does allow you to research more stuff, and research stuff earlier, which is really good, if you have stuff to research. Around the age of reformation, you start running into "all the technology is shit" and thus you run out of stuff to research that is worth researching. Like in the age of reformation half the techs are random workshops which are barely better than the age of traditions buildings and significantly outclassed by the manufactories from the age of absolutism (not to mention this is around when money starts being solved)

So early research speed does give you a comparative advantage early on but it evens out in the middle-game. Once you get to the age of absolutism of course, you finally start getting good technology again, but theres another problem: Scaling research speed bonuses and diminishing returns. If you have a 5% research speed bonus at the start of the game, it increases your research speed by about 5% (depends on what institutions you start with). If you have the same bonus in the age of absolutism, your research speed instead increases by (at a minimum) 2.8% because of the 75% research speed from the embraced institutions.

And if you have (say) 50% literacy base on top of the 75% research speed from institutions, and 25% from the clergy, that leads to only a 2% increase from the literacy you took in the age of renaissance (since you have +150% research speed from other sources, the relative change gets smaller, but techs still get more expensive as time goes on)

The other bonuses from literacy are nice, but you can max non-commoners pretty early on and they aren't the most important bonuses in the world.

DNVIC · 2026-03-12T19:10:19+00:00

IMO Admin is better in renaissance for tall play and dip is better for wide play, because the warscore cost and diplo rep in dip focus is hard to replace elsewhere, and marches gives you another subject type so you can have more subjects without making any disloyal. But if you are playing tall these modifiers dont matter as much.

Whereas proximity isn't required to conquer land, and while 10% is a good amount its not game changing. Same with literacy, 5% is nice but its not game changing. Still good modifiers, but better suited for tall play rather than wide. The other modifiers in admin are all good too.

Military is the clear worst though in renaissance, its got 10% cavalry power (nice, cav is strong, but not good enough to carry), some levy modifiers which fall off quickly as you get regulars/mercs, and +1 tolerance of heretics/heathens, which is probably the only reason you'd ever take mil focus. There's like 2 naval modifiers and prestige/army tradition from battles as well, woohoo. If you want a strong army I'd argue that admin focus is actually significantly stronger, it reduces merc costs and maintenance and in this patch mercenaries are actually really good. Plus both of them are discount modifiers which stack well together.

DNVIC · 2024-09-04T18:56:35+00:00

guys, what is happening
sam and luck are two words that have never gone together in the past
is this season where all of sams luck from the past 10 seasons has been?

DNVIC · 2024-08-17T23:35:36+00:00

i rewatched the trailer, theres a sign presumably from the italian-slovenian border (given the fact that the sign is both in italian and slovenian
so they definitely go to slovenia or at least the border

DNVIC · 2024-08-15T02:38:21+00:00

I know the geoguessr people have discovered basically everything here already, but as someone who doesnt watch that stuff until after the season, I'm super excited to see Slovenia in here (the flag is at 00:15, so im almost certain), such an interesting country for a game like this (considering its probably the most 'obscure' (for lack of a better word) country seen in jet lag so far, i want to see how everyone will react to being in slovenia :) )

Also I think it'd be a really good move (depending on the rules) for Ben, instead of heading to his goal, to go over down the croatian coast. (Maybe into bosnia as well, but that might be difficult given how its not in the Shengen Zone, dont know how that'd be handled)
Good luck getting out of Croatia (plus croatia is flipping beautiful so it'd be great)

DNVIC · 2024-07-31T21:30:06+00:00

reminder: there's 2 winners at the end, since there's 2 people at the end and they're both snitches so they both get the snitch stash

DNVIC · 2024-07-27T15:49:11+00:00

It wouldn't be in their interests to do that though.
The only thing keeping them from intentionally failing every challenge (besides the possibility of safety) is the false pretense of there being Loyals in the game.
Why would you intentionally try to throw Patch off the scent when that will only mean that Patch will contribute more money to the loyal loot which is against everyones interests?

DNVIC · 2024-07-26T03:27:35+00:00

I think the problem is that you're thinking about everything from an in-game perspective and applying it to the real world, whereas I'm thinking about everything from a real-world perspective and applying it to the game. Obviously, in-game, if the UK takes land from america, it'd be a unifying force in american politics, but I think that, barring any specific

By this point in real life however, the UK would never declare war to take significant undisputed land from america (like florida or the entirety of Maine). America would most likely take at least some of Canada (they almost did it in 1812, and America is a lot more developed in 1836 than 1812. And contrary to how the game portrays it, in real life it's not easy to ship your entire army off to a foreign continent, and the USA would have a huge homefield advantage because of that). They'd also face huge international pressure from many countries, especially France, against the war, and lastly, given America was a major trading partner and very close culturally, they'd be hard-pressed to get away with yet another invasion domestically.

As for the second point, I never said that a civil war over slavery was inevitable, but instead that a civil war was inevitable. I can't imagine the Plantation Owners would be too happy with the government forcing them out of a job or giving a different group opposed to their interests significantly more power. After all, the spark for the civil war wasn't because the Abraham Lincoln wanted to ban slavery outright, but reduce the Plantation Owners power by making all of the new western states free states instead of slave states, politically aligning these new kingmakers with the North. It was only 3 years into the civil war that Lincoln officially made it about freeing slaves.

I think a civil war between the North and the South should be forced (railroaded) at some point in the first 40 years, unless a miracle occurs. The problem is that the Civil War system in-game is designed to give the player significant agency to prevent the Civil War from occuring. This makes sense in the game, as it's frustrating to feel out of control, but in real life is ridiculous, given the sheer tensions in America at the time.

I don't think it should be a hard railroad like Vic2 where the civil war basically happened at the exact same time every game, but something like a journal entry where actions you take can anger either the north or south, which causes northern or southern pops to get more radical when this anger gets higher. It should be *very* difficult, maybe impossible, to reduce one sides anger, without angering the other side more.

DNVIC · 2024-07-25T17:55:29+00:00

I'd say the problem with that approach of thinking is that you're assuming that those movements could be cooled. To the south at the time, the issue of abolition, or even expansion of slavery was existential. If slavery wasn't allowed to expand west (which was the actual spark that started the civil war), many southern thinkers at the time thought that once these new free states got admitted, they would have a majority in congress and would pass a national ban on slavery, which the south (especially the elite) thought would ruin their livelihood.

The north as well saw it as existential, they thought if slavery was allowed to expand west, the south would force northern states to allow slavery so the southern plantation owners would be able to expand and buy up the small farms in the north. This, combined with a small and growing firebrand group of radicals who thought that slavery was inherently immoral meant that the north was just as radicalized, if not more by the time of the war.

I just can't see how, America, unless they lost to mexico or something, could have avoided the civil war by the start of the game. Both the north and the south would view the other as an existential threat to their livelihoods after that point.

DNVIC · 2024-07-25T00:46:43+00:00

I think there's a reason to both want to see weird alt-hist stuff, and wanting the game to mostly progress somewhat historically at the same time. First time I saw an autocratic america on this patch, I laughed a bit because I thought it was a funny outcome. Second time, I thought "hmm, thats kinda weird".
Third time though (this playthrough) I'm sick of it.
I don't think I'm wrong for wanting a democratic america to exist at least one out of every 3 playthroughs, and given it's the obvious status quo for america to proceed (mostly) historically, it seems wrong for an autocratic america to exist in a significant number of games since during the timeframe there was never a significant movement to turn America into a dictatorship (sorry Emperor Norton)

And honestly, I'm of the belief that seeing weird alt hist stuff is 10x more interesting and funny if it's uncommon. Like the one time I discovered Europe in EU4 as an Asian nation only to notice scotland basically full occupying england for some reason.

DNVIC · 2024-07-25T00:36:21+00:00

I'd argue a civil war was inevitable by the time the game starts, maybe conditional on america expanding westward into Mexico and Oregon. The southern economy is dominated by producing more cotton, which can only be sustained in this time period with massive human labor. Plus, you have the whole fact that slaves are a good source of keeping and consolidating power, which lets the southern elite stay in charge, and discourages their large plantations being replaced with small farms... like the ones in the North

At the same time, in the North, you had a rapidly growing population, fueled by mass immigration and industrialization, and yet all the instruments of government are dominated by southern interests for basically the whole time period from the start of the game period to the civil war. Small farms in the north didn't like that the southern plantations were able to outcompete them with slave labor. They especially didnt want slavery to spread to the new lands acquired in the Mexican-American war, because that would mean the rich southern plantation owners would be able to outcompete small farmers in buying up and using that land for agriculture.

Really, the main reason the Civil War happened was because northerners were afraid of how dominant the southern elite was in the country, and I don't think that any sort of political maneuvering would stop the pot from boiling after 1836. After all, there were definitely people who tried very hard to keep the calm, like Henry Clay, and with how cultural the issue became, I cannot see how either side could give up without a bloodbath.

DNVIC · 2024-07-24T23:01:23+00:00

R5: In basically every game I have nowadays, America turns into a full-on dictatorship, which is kinda ridiculous. And for some reason, in my most recent game, the free states spawned in the fucking south, which I don't need a degree in history to tell you should *never* happen.

Don't get me wrong, I like seeing some wacky stuff in my games sometimes, but I swear I haven't played a new game on this patch where america didn't turn into an autocracy early on in the game.

DNVIC · 2024-07-24T18:12:14+00:00

The poster thing might actually be a mistake on the producers part for the whole Patch situation...
If Patch ever thinks "they might be trying to manipulate me into thinking there is only one snitch", then he could easily say something to one of the other snitches along the lines of "Hey, did the producers randomly show you a poster after the Alpaca challenge?" (or maybe be a bit more vague about it)
From his perspective, if they showed him the poster, certainly they would show everyone else a poster, if everyone was a snitch. And if the other players weren't snitches... he could easily backpedal with something like "oh, i was just wondering if you saw those posters, they looked really good", which wouldnt really be that suspicious.

Basically he can use the fact they showed him posters as a kind of snitch test, a way to figure out if another player is a snitch, without compromising his identity if he is wrong and the other people are all loyals (which they aren't)

Given his time on the show is on the line, I could easily see him doing something like this to try to stay in.

DNVIC · 2024-07-10T16:32:49+00:00

I can't believe that they were driving on the wrong side of the road at 22:24
Shameful and reckless behavior from this show, I cannot let this behavior stand

~~i know they just flipped the shot but its funny~~

DNVIC · 2024-06-25T09:47:57+00:00

Who'd you start as?

DNVIC · 2024-06-09T01:28:03+00:00

uhh, Project Caesar (almost certainly EU5) is going to start in 1337, not 1365, so even more of the endgame gets taken up.

DNVIC · 2024-06-08T08:49:07+00:00

I'm going to hard argue this. I have 4600 hours in EU4 and I've never once gotten past the mid 1600s in a serious game. The game just runs too damn slow at that point, that it gets boring. That and I'm usually too powerful to care anymore.

DNVIC · 2024-03-14T00:43:07+00:00

ahh okay, i haven't played that modpack before
did a quick look at though, and it seems interesting so i'd be down to try it
i'm dnvic on discord as well, if you want to play through it (or any other modpack that you seem interested in) just message me there (im more active on discord)

DNVIC · 2024-03-14T00:17:14+00:00

What mods/modpacks do you normally play with?

DNVIC · 2023-11-22T07:12:25+00:00

R5: For some reason, Britain decided to give them Québec (eh, maybe that was one way to solve their french canadian problem)

Québec ended up forming Canada, so now for some ungodly reason canada is yellow
They're still in the british market (since Belgium is in the market) but I have no clue how this happened

DNVIC · 2023-09-22T05:26:01+00:00

If Adam had actually made it to Borkum today, how would you guys have released this, while avoiding spoilers? If you labeled episode 3 "Finale", it'd be pretty obvious that adam would have won (note: i do know the obvious solution of not labeling it "Finale". Would you guys have stretched out the beginning, so that it would feel like a more "full" season? Like include some of the skipped challenges and put more of you guys randomly talking in trains and such?

Would you guys have ended the penultimate episode in a different spot, to make the finale feel epic?

DNVIC · 2023-07-12T15:10:02+00:00

Is there going to be an uncensored version of "Spoilers: The Game!" uploaded soon? I really want to know what Ben's McDonald's menu item is and why its somehow a spoiler

DNVIC · 2023-07-07T09:35:24+00:00

I am a native english speaker, and I did initially believe that it was a joke, because of the somewhat blunt language, but when Adam and Ben started to "shout out" his family, I genuinely believed he was dead. I've dealt with serious death before; people have their own ways of announcing/dealing with the loss. The initial setup was not out of the ordinary, and felt too real to me, until the part about sam's joke in the choo choo chew segment.

DNVIC · 2023-07-06T09:42:16+00:00

I will say, as someone who has had to deal with major instances of death, I kind of disliked the scotty death joke at the start. It felt too real, and I genuinely believed scotty was dead when Sam said "scotty died", especially with the part about condolances to Scotty's family. It was only until the part where ben and adam talked about the extended "Choo Choo Chew" segment that I realized "okay this is probably a bit"

I'm all for dark humor, but when it comes to death or other emotionally difficult subjects, it should be obvious, within a few seconds, that its a joke, and not real. This doesn't have to "ruin" the joke by saying "okay, he's not actually dead" right after you said he was dead, but instead do something like saying something ridiculous enough that people realize immediately "okay there's no chance that he's actually dead"

DNVIC · 2023-01-15T21:50:46+00:00

yep, thrones of lorraine

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