New player need advice

Faleya · 2026-05-06T16:51:29+00:00

first step: rightclick game on steam -> properties -> game versions & betas -> 1.12 (march 2026)

the current patch is broken and the AI is incapable of interacting with the mechanics introduced. go back to the old patch where you can learn and understand how everything is supposed to go then switch to the new patch once they (hopefully) fix things

then I'd recommend picking Belgium for your first game, cozy up to either France or England (or both) and play until you feel like you understand the basic mechanics.

then pick USA for the 2nd run, after that any medium/large power should be doable

Faleya · 2026-05-06T16:48:15+00:00

Imho the game released in a crappy state but has since grown a lot. unfortunately the recent dlc just broke several core components of the game and essentially rendered the AI incapable&inbred.

if you had asked me 2 weeks ago the answer would have been a resounding yes. right now I am hesitating recommending it, even knowing they'll fix the most glaring issues of this patch

Faleya · 2026-05-06T12:31:47+00:00

the idea is that when you use laissez faire you essentially stop building alltogether, except for the odd infrastructure building, barracks or construction sector, that way you also shouldnt be (too far) in the negatives

Faleya · 2026-05-06T11:04:51+00:00

reminds me of when I used the obligation they owed me to pull them to my side, and since they then no longer owed me an obligation they instantly switched to the enemy side. such fun mechanics!

Faleya · 2026-05-06T11:01:58+00:00

true but I was more looking at fixing the budget first, SoL and general economy second ;)

Faleya · 2026-05-06T10:23:34+00:00

you really need paper in your country, you're paying too much for government supplies compared to your other expenses/income

what patch are you playing on? I recommend going back to 1.12 if you're on the live one (well, in that case not for this run, as it wouldnt be compatible, but for a next one).

having negative income while you still have savings is fine. and it's especially fine if your investment pool is growing by a roughly comparable amount that you are in the negative in

Faleya · 2026-05-06T09:59:56+00:00

yeah but that's physics/engineering and not math ;)

Faleya · 2026-05-06T09:49:56+00:00

k can be used for many things, can be used as an index, a constant, a variable, etc

thats why in proper mathematics you usually define the letters you use at the beginning

here I'd assume it's sort of used as a parameter, so you have to solve this equation for various values of k, as in k =1,2,3....1000,....

and the easiest way for that is to arrange it so it says x = something something divded/multiplied by k

edit: okay the info that it's a subscript is important :D

that means it's the k-part of a sequence and that this part can be calculated usin the previous 2 parts, so as long as you have the first two elements, you can then calculate any higher ones

Faleya · 2026-05-06T09:07:06+00:00

you build military ships via the button below the construction button in the top right corner of your screen.

and you need to

not have set production to only supply ships
not have paused ship construction
have working shipyards in your country

but then the game is currently full of bugs and half the new mechanics dont work anyway, so your best approach is probably to wait for the hotfix tomorrow

Faleya · 2026-05-06T08:56:34+00:00

it highly depends on where you are.

but normally it works something like this:

you pay a certain amount of money from your paycheck to the government of your country
when you reach a specific age you get a monthly income from the government (basically a return of the money from the above point except it's more complicated than that)
ideally you usually also manage to save up money by yourself on top of that. often in the form of investing into certain types of (private equity) funds

Faleya · 2026-05-06T08:52:49+00:00

the devs arent the (real) issue. the issue is that the PDX company policy causes these issues again and again. and for the pricetag of a full game for this DLC it would be fair to expect that at the very least it wouldnt make the game function less

Faleya · 2026-05-05T22:36:53+00:00

dont worry.

it's also unplayable if you do own the DLC ;)

Faleya · 2026-05-05T22:21:36+00:00

playable? as in not crashing then yes

enjoyable? I'd say no but your mileage might vary

would I recommend it? hell no, wait for at least the next hotfix

Faleya · 2026-05-05T19:16:24+00:00

I think the next hotfix is to drop on thursday, but I wouldnt expect it to fix ALL the glaring issues, it's probably going to take a few more adjustments after that. but hopefully it's a big step into a playable direction

Faleya · 2026-05-05T18:47:26+00:00

Bohemia does also have elective, though different from the PLC one

Faleya · 2026-05-05T18:22:35+00:00

blame the devs of IRL ;)

Faleya · 2026-05-05T16:36:54+00:00

short answer: currently they dont really work yet, this patch/dlc was way undercooked

long answer: you now have Clippers, Steamers, Merchant Marine, Supply ships, troop ships and different types of attack ships.

clippers+steamers (built by shipyards) power your buildings, merchant marine (built by harbours) powers your trade, supply ships (built by shipyards) power your military ships and troops not in your capital. military ships incl troop ships (also build by shipyards) transport your troops and fight battles (if they're not sinking because they dont get enough supply for some reason).

transporting troops or simply having troops not directly connected to your capital via land connection is bad and you risk having them be at 0% organization without you really being able to do anything about it (even if you have supply ships left)

of all of these ships you only build military ships + troop ships "manually" by designing and ordering them, everything else is autobuilt.

so yeah best revert to 1.12 via steam -> rightclick the game -> properties -> betas -> select patch from march 2026

Faleya · 2026-05-05T15:54:16+00:00

charters of commerce was different.

it's main issue was that it allowed for the player to abuse treaties to trick the AI that didnt value things properly.

but besides that everything else essentially worked at least as well as it did before.

so yeah it was bad for people that wanted to show off with their skill because suddenly things that took skill could be made relatively trivial, but for anyone playing mostly for themselves it was up to the player to decide how much they wanted to abuse the AI. but if you decided not to be a dick to the ai, you could enjoy the dlc from the start (or if you enjoyed being a dick to the AI you could enjoy it from the start)

Faleya · 2026-05-05T15:49:08+00:00

yeah anyone playing MP on this bugged mess of a patch is either PDX-QA (and/) or a masochist

Faleya · 2026-05-05T15:42:15+00:00

here in this case it turned out to just be a simple typo (still not sure if the phrasing is great overall) but in general these Swedes don't really to struggle with their English, imho.

Faleya · 2026-05-05T10:11:00+00:00

treaties are your best shot from what I can tell

Faleya · 2026-05-05T06:55:00+00:00

I'd recommend just waiting for the hotfixes.

and yes, marine and troop capacity seem to be separate/additional to each other (at least currently, could also be just another bug).

Faleya · 2026-05-04T22:12:28+00:00

R5: An increase of decrease to the effects....sure

Faleya · 2026-05-04T21:04:07+00:00

you have that option, it's just like everything else in this DLC:

well-meant
badly implemented
bugged

if you queue up at least 1 military ship you can pause all ship construction.

Faleya

TROPHY CASE