Victoria II

Well, I have already talked endlessly about Europa Universalis III, but oddly enough, that was not my first deviation into Grand Strategy. In fact, the much more challenging Victoria II was indeed my first.

Now, that raises some alarms if you read my EU3 review and read how much of a moronic fuck I was. I somehow managed to get destroyed in that game with cheats on.

Oh boy, here we go.

Well, I first bought Victoria II when I saw a thread for Grand Strategy games on my local gaming forum. I quickly got interested. My memory, as you might know, is absolute shit. It's a wonder I can even remember my first name. So I will likely be recounting plenty of things that never actually happened.

I think there was a demo for this, and I tried it out. I quite liked it, and purchased the full game, and got playing with no real introduction.

I tried the tutorials first. I've heard they were the best of all Paradox Games, so I am quite afraid to see what atrocities the other tutorials are, because I barely learned anything from that damn thing. Still, I trudged onward, like a brave soldier trudging through the mud, still valiantly attempting to take the hill from a larger force.

Much like that brave soldier, I was also shot in the face.

Okay, shot metaphorically anyways. I started the game and played as (of course) Prussia. Now, you might not know this, but Prussia is not very easy to play as for beginners. Hell, some veterans struggle with it. So when I tried it, you can guess what the outcome was.

Basically, I went to war with Austria to try and unify Germany, and I failed miserably. I made WWII Italy look like the Mongol Horde. The Austrians slaughtered me and my allies, fucked the corpses, and fired the dismembered heads at the Reichstag.

Okay, maybe it wasn't that bad, but still.

So I figured that I just made a bad choice. I decided to play as Russia, who I knew from historical knowledge was virtually unstoppable at this time. I knew I could easily succeed as them, right?

Hehe, fuck no.

I tried learning the ropes. In doing so, I beat up on several tiny, Asian countries and took all of their completely useless land. I then noticed a peculiar little addition to the economics screen. This was the tariff. I was young and amazingly stupid, so I did not really know what a tariff was. I decided it was "free money" and raised it to neigh 70 percent.

I lasted a year before every province from Moscow to the Bearing Strait was filled with rebels, who stacked shoulder to shoulder, were likely bigger than the entire Iberian Peninsula. A massive force of Vodka fueled rage was set upon me.

I can only picture the events that transcribed: The peasants revolted and charged my lines with pitchforks. All seemed in my favor, till the insane Woodsmen of Siberia rode in to save the day. They likely rode atop bears and wielded Kalashnikovs, despite that being nearly 100 years away as far as inventions go.

My entire country was occupied and the world liquor sales fell immensely, as there were no more Russians to heavily drink away their ration coupons. Reflecting on that, they didn't even have coupons. Nor did they have money, since I taxed them like they were wallets with legs.

Well, I finally did what I should have done a long time ago and played as France.

I know, despicable, how could I stoop to such a level? But still, I felt if I must progress...

Anyways, my time as Supreme Emperor of Everything Under the Sun was surprisingly uneventful. France had a massive liberal uprising followed by conservative backlash, my culture degraded and I lost prestige, my crime rate went up, my economy boomed then busted, and I invaded some tiny, shitty nations in the Middle East. So basically I became America.

Recently, I played again using formulated plans, strategies, and experience to try and form Germany.

And guess what I did, dear viewer.

No, I didn't fail miserably and burn to death while cursing at god. I succeeded! Germany was united and earned it's place as Empire in the Sun. That game is still going, and it's mostly me beating the shit out of my neighbors like some terrible backwoods neighborhood in Georgia.

All in all, Vicky2 is far more complex economically, but fails to deliver map-painting on such a scale as EU3. Warfare is also slow at times and can be frustrating, so plan accordingly. However, I found is easier to master than EU3, and for that, I award it with half a star more.

Hooray...