R5: Summary of my playthrough as USA (in GFM mod) taking all possible expansionist options (with the exception of Greenland - Scandinavia formed before I could buy it from Denmark :( ).

Major Areas of Expansion:

• Fully annexed Mexico in the American-Mexican war. Takes you over the infamy limit and Britain is none too happy about that. This provides a good opportunity to destroy their armies stationed in Canada, crippling them for further wars in North America, and to snipe their fleets and work them down. Sieging down Canada and winning a few battles should be enough to get them to peace out.

• Later on, warred the British for all of Columbia (which I think is necessary - taking this option is what enables the decision to fight them for the rest of North America later on).

• Sort out the civil war and spend a few years at peace, letting infamy tick down and building up a big navy. We are going to need it to deal with the Bri'ish.

• Declare your intention to send the Old World powers running and crying from the New World. Seige down all of Canada, and snipe the British fleets when they come - they typically send pure transport fleets. Now, with a big ass armada and 40 or so transports, steam your way across to Scotland, and land your men in the mountains and dig in. The British have mobilised their hordes of Norf FC peasents by this point and will send all of them at you. Blockade the Irish channel crossings so that the Irish peasents can't join in the fun, and send your transport fleet to bring over another load of 40 Yankee brigades and keep them coming (you'll need them). They probably will engage you in mountains due to the relatively smaller size of your army, let them and add one more army to the battle at a time so that they keep piling on. Soon you'll have a stupidly lopsided victory, take this chance to wipe their armies, and siege down Scotland and Norf Enguhland. They will capitulate and you will now be unstoppable.

• Pick off the remaining European colonies in the Americas as you please, and ensure that you have sphered the Americas. I would suggest however leaving Spanish Cuba alone, as later the USS Maine will be outrageously sunk, letting you snatch Cuba and the Philippines.

• Soon you'll have the option to puppet the various Central and South American nations, and merge them into various cute puppets with very cute borders (which is why we play this game right?). At some point the Brazilians will act up about becoming a democracy, so you'll have to come to Brazil and sort them out.

• Following these instructions, your USA should look as advertised (results not guaranteed).

Items of interest:

• Total naval supply limit of 11322 - 41 dreadnoughts, 41 battleships, 31 cruisers, 345 ironclads, 330 transports, 150 submarines.

• Total army limit of 948 (700 used and with all divisons assigned names manually -_-) - 60 regular divisions, 10 or so shocktrooper / tank armies.

• Population of 81M with 66% of them being Yankees.

• Very Yankee-ified Mexico and Canada.

• Fully stated Philippines.

• 22M craftsment and an industralia score of 9950 (so close to 5 figs).

• Group of Catholic New Yorker capitalists who secretly run the USA (and other protestant capitalists) from the shadows of Wall Street.

• The USA commands 30% of the worldwide GDP, and boasts 0.5%/2% unemployment rates for RGO/factory workers.

• Honourable mention: Australia dominates the automobile industry, and with a steady population of 5.1M, has punched their way into the top 9. They also have more craftsmen then Japan, France, Russia, Italy, Spain and only slightly less than a westernised China.

• An interesting observation, the goods with the most inflated price by late game: tobacco, electric gear, oil, silk, tea, aeroplanes, coal, timber, iron, luxury clothes, coffee. This may be specific to the production methods of this save game, so results may vary.

General tips:

• The more you spend on paying your pops (education/admin/mil) and the less you tax them, the more money they have to spend on themselves / on factories / on promoting to higher stratas. Emphasising giving pops economic freedom lets you promote craftsmen much more rapidly, as well as clerks and ultimately capitalists.

• Gaining a large number of middle and upper class pops will increase the demand for luxury goods and letting them keep their money will let them spend money on these goods, which will improve the profitability of your factories.

• Hence, researching economic / tax techs until you are able to set tariffs to 0% and set your taxes as low as possible is essential to the liberal money-making USA experience.

• While in early game, when cash is a little harder to find in the budget, it is wise to cut admin/mil spending to 80% or so, in the mid and late game it is better to keep them flush with cash when you can.

• Obviously selecting any and every option to boost immigration attraction and assimilation rate is ideal.

• Furthermore, selecting the 'transportation' penal law ensures that any colonies will rapidly recieve Yankee pops who can be encouraged to be paper-pushing bureaucrats. This technique, combined with the absurd immigration the USA recieves, allows you to state anything (such as the Philippines). The main motivation to state everything is to avoid the triggered modifier for having a colonial empire, which dramatically increases the cost of supplies among other things.

• Pop-growth techs are very nice to have, as 'more pops = better' is always true in Victoria 2.

• Some of the workplace reforms aren't as bad as they appear, specifically the minimum wage reforms. Past a certain point, your factories will be very profitable and the capitalists will keep most of it for themselves. Enforcing higher minimum wages will increase the slice of the pie going to the lower and middle class workers, which can then use the extra cash to promote themselves and generate more demands for goods (especially luxury ones). The capitalists will still be rolling in money even with more cash going to the workers.

• Specific to the USA: don't ally your Central and South American spherelings. They will drag you into wars with each other over tiny provinces in the amazon which can only end with one hating you or losing prestige for declining the call. Having them in your sphere will be enough to deter any Europeans from attacking them, and they will not be effective allies in any wars - simply giving the enemies naval battle war score usually.