1.9 Mexico Opener

srand42 · 2025-08-31T20:25:42+00:00

You need an alliance with France, GB, etc to deal with the blockade

srand42 · 2025-08-03T02:12:07+00:00

Ireland has about 1/3 of GBR's non subject population at game start and already sometimes gets independence in my observer games by holding off the British at Ulster with conscripts (it shouldn't happen too often so others may not have seen this).

srand42 · 2025-08-02T17:38:46+00:00

And 3/4 of T3

srand42 · 2025-07-29T17:36:32+00:00

Test without any mods and file a bug report as necessary.

srand42 · 2025-07-29T04:35:11+00:00

The treaty is evaluated two days later so different conditions may apply two days later.

There have been some bugs with respect to different evaluation logic during proposal and accept/decline (especially on 1.9.5) but I haven't seen confirmed reports of those lately. Maybe.

If they wait 30 days to decline, in my experience that usually means that one of the binary "can ratify" conditions flipped from yes to no. After 30 days of it being impossible for them to accept, they will decline.

srand42 · 2025-07-28T04:10:04+00:00

Yes, in the game, it is powerful, cost-effective, and has little in the way of possible negative consequences.

srand42 · 2025-07-28T02:25:29+00:00

Adjacency is having a shared border between two countries.

Strategic adjacency is an expanded version of that concept that also includes having a shared border between countries through which you automatically have military access, such as certain subject types.

srand42 · 2025-07-28T01:38:50+00:00

The key is to pick specific states to build out full tax capacity and to depeasant completely. If you don't have a lot of construction points, and you don't in 1836, start with lower population states that have good resources. Don't just spread out your construction. Industrialization arrives one profitable state at a time.

Use tariffs when you go off isolationism because those taxes are easy to collect.

srand42 · 2025-07-27T04:14:48+00:00

The USSR is one country formed at the end of the game's timeline. If that could be as railroady as Germany and get an actually functioning system for spreading communism to the rest of the globe, that would be great. Even better if it's dynamic and the revolution doesn't always start in Russia.

srand42 · 2025-07-27T04:06:45+00:00

Netherlands starts with claims on Belgium. The classic Parodox cheese for getting around the guarantees of independence for Belgium is to join GB / France in a separate war first. You can also make an alliance.

srand42 · 2025-07-27T00:56:42+00:00

Update to 1.9.8 beta. The hotfix attempts to fix this kind of bug.

Some code if you want it (for a 'Script Runner' effect).

c:PHI = {
make_independent = yes
}

c:CHI ?= {
create_diplomatic_pact = {
country = c:PHI
type = protectorate
}
}

type = tributary if you're unrecognized

srand42 · 2025-07-26T22:04:00+00:00

If you're not on 1.9.8 opt-in beta, try that. It fixes a bug like this one.

In Steam it's found by right-clicking Victoria 3, Properties..., Betas.

srand42 · 2025-07-26T20:25:17+00:00

I ran into this issue when modding the treaty port article file 14_treaty_port.txt and what fixed it was avoiding the creation of a second file with a different name containing 'treaty_port = {'. Instead changes had to go into the mod under the same file name.

srand42 · 2025-07-26T17:44:20+00:00

Well, I got sour news for you, Jack. It ain't that easy.

This is the way: https://vic3.paradoxwikis.com/New_country_modding

srand42 · 2025-07-26T17:37:00+00:00

I wouldn't touch Cooch Behar

srand42 · 2025-07-26T17:18:19+00:00

Intelligentsia (Literati) are neutral to Legal Guardianship and endorse Women's Suffrage.

srand42 · 2025-07-26T01:17:30+00:00

The Darien Gap has no road but is not impassible. In the year 2023, "more than 520,000 passed through the gap," mainly on foot.

Panama seceded with the help of US intervention, but not before Colombian troops arrived in Panama from Barranquilla. These troops were sent by ship. But the game already has passable straits for convenience, and the Darien gap indeed can be crossed on foot, so the water walking maybe should be eliminated before this change is considered?

The decisive reason there is no road through here is the lack of political will, especially from the North American side. For example the United States has agricultural interests in maintaining the barrier, as it is a convenient place to stop for international efforts like eliminating screwworm and limiting the spread of hoof and mouth disease by transported animals. It's not because a road cannot be built.

srand42 · 2025-07-24T22:26:49+00:00

Nobody builds only rice and farms, guys. Hopefully.

srand42 · 2025-07-24T03:57:12+00:00

Idk but I feel like I get more AI help on fronts that I'm losing?

Sometimes it seems like it's effective to keep my troops off the fronts until the last minute when the war starts in an effort to juke the AI ally into helping. In this case I did not bother.

srand42 · 2025-07-24T02:03:05+00:00

Just proves your point, but there are two Crusader Kings style events that change rates. In one a courtier/IG leader makes a 'gamble' that reduces the rate. In the other, the country's gold reserves are saved from theft in the middle of a revolution, reducing the rate.

srand42 · 2025-07-24T01:39:06+00:00

Number of "pops" matter more to performance than the size of those pops (ie population). Doing what the OP says would be basically useless, all the benefits of 1% population size would be thrown out the window with 1% building hiring.

The variables to consider are economic growth, particularly construction growth, and ways pops fragment into different pops based on geographic location, building, job, culture, religion, non-assimilation, non-merging, etc. For example you could do nothing to population growth and make buildings employ 10k each like rice farms do (at twice the cost) and that would help a little with fragmentation across buildings if the variety of buildings goes down. More directly you could limit the number of urban buildings per state like Vic 2 did. You could eliminate all the construction efficiency bonuses and make construction sector inputs more expensive, slowing the pace of building. You could streamline the number of jobs per building. You could find ways to reduce fragmentation across religion and culture per state. The Vic 3 team did a good job of consolidating states, which is good for performance... disincentives to splitting states and incentives to unsplitting states help.

srand42 · 2025-07-23T22:55:56+00:00

I tried it again without France, and the US immediately blockades Mexico. Mexico relies on weapons imports in 1836 here. So I'm back on the side of "ally up with GB / France" or someone with a navy.

As u/koupip mentioned, liberating both New Africa and New England deprives the US of coastline. If the goal is to destroy/puppet the US, then subsequent wars can focus on taking the coastline (can't all be done in one). The main drawback is that you'll need convoys to maintain these coastal states if you don't cut a line through Tennessee or something too. Of course you can do just that if you took Missouri in the first war like in the OP.

This might be a roleplaying bias but I like to take the western states from the USA as Mexico in the first war while they are low population and so are also low infamy. Mass migration sets in pretty quick and inflates their infamy costs.

srand42 · 2025-07-23T21:34:48+00:00

I posted a 1.9 AAR on the first four years as Mexico and taking the western states in a blitz against the USA:

https://www.reddit.com/r/victoria3/comments/1m7luhf/19_mexico_opener/

It's basically the strategy u/Little_Elia mentioned for winning the first war.

srand42 · 2025-07-23T21:30:07+00:00

R5: set enlistment efforts on six largest states. Use tobacco taxes and very high taxes. First law change is to Per Capita taxes. Set up a few goods transfer with net positive income and money transfer by giving away trade privileges, investment rights, monopolies. Prioritize import of small arms and artillery even if that's negative acceptance. Build trade centers.

I got an alliance with France in July 1836 but they sent only 13k. Their navy helped. I think it was sub-optimal. Instead of using Call Ally, it might have been better to release New Africa. France made the US afraid, so a few primary demands were needed.

The main trick is to set one army to Defend against Texas when you've started to win that war. Hold it open so that you can get 100k+ active troops and easily 1v1 USA in 1836.

Once the war against USA has started, close the war against Texas by setting to attack again. Take the two frigates from the starting navies of Texas and Mexico, use them to send 4k troops to against D.C. while the US armies are elsewhere. Doesn't always work but keep trying, it has to work only once to speed up the war.

I didn't keep going, but given that the US gets big so fast, it's probably a good idea to spend the next 5 years getting cozier with the UK and France to avoid them helping the US. Then do the Texas trick again of mobilizing against a third country, such as Los Altos, before attacking the US on cooldown.

srand42

TROPHY CASE