Some major details were neglected in this guide: GDP increases country investment points. (Investment points are the speed at which changes are made to a country, representing the might of a nation's government to affect change). Unrest under 2 has no affect on country investment points. You stated that all unrest affects investment points which isn't true. Cohesion's natural resting point is raised with few regions, and lowered the more regions. (Small nations naturally gravitate to high levels of cohesion. Nations with too many regions will naturally want to pull itself apart, bottom out cohesion and skyrocket unrest. This means that in order to keep the nation alive, you'll be dumping investment points into welfare, Unity, and knowledge for eternity.)
Also, if the GDP is too low for the countries level of knowledge it raises the natural resting point of unrest (good example for this at game start is India)
Thanks for adding this. I thought I had mentioned investment points, must have missed it, but there's a lot to cover as you know! Very hard to put it all in one place without resorting to tables and formula so tried to keep things simpler. Will pin this for anyone viewing
Slight addendum to this: Any unrest at all negatively effects military investment unless the democracy score of the nation is over 10. 0.00375(1 - min(10*unrest, 1 - 0.1 * democracy)) This means that countries get max miltech increase by having 0 unrest. If they do have unrest, the penalty scales with level of democracy; at 10 democracy, you don't feel it at all, while at 0 democracy, you get a 100% reduction. This goes for ANY level of unrest. 0.1 has the same penalty as 9. Basically if there is any unrest at all some of the military investment goes to dealing with unrest, not to increasing militech level.
Thank you for this guide, and thanks to the commenters adding additional tips! I'm a first time player myself after I got this game for Christmas. Decided I'd try a Russia-based run. Things will be slow-going for a while, but I figured for realism's sake I would work on consolidating control of the CIS nations and federate all the other post-Soviet nations, then once megastates are researched start reabsorbing them until the USSR's borders are restored. Things are going along okay, though my attempt to crack down and purge the bottom two control points in Russia were thwarted by three bad rolls in a row at 80% chance of success, followed by the other faction securing them, locking me out for the long term. How I hate RNG.
Thank you! Commenters are definitely the MVP I learnt some great things from them. Goodluck with the play through! That RNG can be annoying but I'm sure you will find a way!
I’d love to see a guide on managing the space fleet side of things. What are the key techs, what is a competitive timeline, what are the strategies and guidelines for building , directing, and maintaining your fleets, etc…
@@lakotagrywlf thanks, definitely a good idea! I will try to do something like this. Might take a while to come to grips with all the mechanics and compile it
Excellent nation management overview. Trying to decipher the nation screen has been my biggest hinderance in doing well so far. You've basically covered every aspect that I was most confused about. Knowing this i now understand why my fully controlled united states is on the verge of civil war v2 lol
@PhotonwindGaming or nations made of just a bunch of 500 iq scientists😂 but yes, i have 13.4 education in one my nations thats made for knowledge. Only if eu had more population..
It's fun but I wouldn't play the game right now, alien aggression is broken with current patch and IMO there are some desperately needed UI changes that need to be made. A lot of times it can feel like I'm fighting the UI just to play the game. There is a lot of potential though, check it out again when it leaves EA.
You can also see what you can do with 'set national policies' by hovering over the button next to overview. Small developed nation like singapore or the nordic contries in europe are great to get mission control, ressource rich countries like the gulf states or venezuela are great to get quick money via spoils. For a decent military you need 4 control point nations as only those can get more than 1 navy. Means only these can deploy more than 1 army around the globe, even if you build 5. Found that out with my scandinavia federation, ah well... that one is a pretty decent alternative to the EU if you only want the MC.
@@Silcy6501 high wealth + low population means lots of investments that can go to mc. Investments in other things that are population boosted less valuable. mission control can go anywhere. They're more just radio bases to communicate with stations etc not launch sites.
I think also the number of factions in your game affects it. Was doing test games for this video with less factions which seems to distribute more control to each faction.
if you're making a guide, it doesn't serve to open up the tooltip and just read it from it. I can do the same thing. I'm looking for things which aren't said there.
My experience is that Unity is absolutely useless. Generally speaking, if inequality is high, the decrease in cohesion due to inequality will overwhelm any amount of unity you have. If inequality is low, then cohesion will naturally increase without the need of producing unity. If you just got your inequality low, and for some reason you feel you must absolutely reach the equilibrium point for cohesion as soon as possible despite the loss of government score, it is just better to lower inequality and let cohesion drift toward the higher resulting equilibrium point. I have found that the same holds true for Military. While military is useful for increasing military tech, its effect on unrest really isn't worth noting. If your equilibrium unrest is above your current unrest, your unrest increases by .25 points per month. Further, unrest lowers the amount of points the country has to devote to military in the first place. The result is that no amount of military focus will prevent unrest rise where the equilibrium point for unrest is high. Conversely, if the unrest is higher than the equilibrium point, then the penalty to development will mean that military will lower unrest painfully slowly. the counselor mission Stabilize Country will lower the unrest by either .5 or 1 per month which will lower unrest very quickly. I found that it is simply better to lower unrest with Stabilize while correcting the root cause of the unrest which is usually a combination of high inequality, low cohesion, low government score, and low per capita income.
Well said! Put to words a lot of little frustrations. I do think unity has an application in raising public support in the early game when councilors are few else yes, for both unrest and cohesion the root inequality and government are way more important.
Well, the KI thwated my attemt taking over india with 50% points into cohesion mid game. Even with 25 persuasion public opinion and some tech things barly changed into my direction. I did use it to some effect in the beginning, spoils for the money and unity to increase public opinion and thereby influence early game. Even later I find it somewhat useful in my spoils countries for the public opinion and stabilising effect. I do agree it isn't useful in the countries you'd like to actually develop into democratic science centers. And sometimes you just need some stability to begin somewhere, like in African nation with base 10 Unrest. You know the countries with less than 1000 pec capita and less than 1 cohesion and less than 1 government... have to start somwhere and your councilors have better things to do than be on permanent lower unrest duty.
@@STzim Unity isn't doing what you think it is. At high inequality, Unity's .005 per point isn't going to stop the natural drift in cohesion. You are going to see a much bigger difference in cohesion just by choosing 5 rivals to raise the equilibrium cohesion. The only purpose i could see in maxing unity in your spoils countries is if your strategy was to intentionally tank your government score. The idea would be to increase authoritarianism for the boost to cohesion. This effect is probably what you are actually seeing in your spoils countries, if any. Your problem with india probably has more to do with population and high support for the other faction. 8 social labs in earth interface orbit will help with moving the bar.th-cam.com/video/pQT3_Bjo5Ns/w-d-xo.html
@@braxon Tooltip: "Investing in the Unity priority will increas cohesion by 0.0524 (or some other value) and decrease the government score by 0.001. It also will shift public opinion toward factions with control points in this nations. This pirority is less effective in nations with higher educational level. In my example from AI controlled india 2030 we had all 4 control points - could speculate about a bigger effect there. It also used 50% of the priorities into unity, which given the economy of india was quite a bit. Was past labs and into the t2, social science centers to the same effect (5 of them). Well apart from the time where a station was destroyed by aliens as I forgot rebuilding my distraction station. (simple t1 with tourists to be destroyed by annoyed aliens). The rival thing is interesting, will explore it a bit in my next playthrough. Still, find 80% spoils + a bit of Unity better than pure spoils as you get money and a bit of influence out of it, when you go looting Venezuela, Iran etc . Long term funding and decent government is probably a better strategy.
@@STzim first of all, you dump that 1 points that you got from Venezuela into Unity for once a month improvement to your global popularity for influence. At 30 million people, I'm sure that it will give you a ton of influence. Also, with India, there was probably an AI counter public campaigning you. There is no need for a lot of unity to mess with you. I was raising the United States public opinion by 1% per two weeks when I controlled all six control points at one instance. I would make sure that you aren't just blaiming the failure on what is visible instead of what is actually happening. But if you really feel that dumping all your points into unity, instead of getting money, improving the economy, or lowering inequality be my guess. It not my business to tell you how to play. (also, remember the tool tip is after bonuses and its actually half what the value says cause unity costs 2 points instead of 1).
Some major details were neglected in this guide:
GDP increases country investment points. (Investment points are the speed at which changes are made to a country, representing the might of a nation's government to affect change).
Unrest under 2 has no affect on country investment points. You stated that all unrest affects investment points which isn't true.
Cohesion's natural resting point is raised with few regions, and lowered the more regions. (Small nations naturally gravitate to high levels of cohesion. Nations with too many regions will naturally want to pull itself apart, bottom out cohesion and skyrocket unrest. This means that in order to keep the nation alive, you'll be dumping investment points into welfare, Unity, and knowledge for eternity.)
Also, if the GDP is too low for the countries level of knowledge it raises the natural resting point of unrest (good example for this at game start is India)
Thanks for adding this. I thought I had mentioned investment points, must have missed it, but there's a lot to cover as you know! Very hard to put it all in one place without resorting to tables and formula so tried to keep things simpler. Will pin this for anyone viewing
Didn't know this but makes sense!
Slight addendum to this: Any unrest at all negatively effects military investment unless the democracy score of the nation is over 10.
0.00375(1 - min(10*unrest, 1 - 0.1 * democracy))
This means that countries get max miltech increase by having 0 unrest. If they do have unrest, the penalty scales with level of democracy; at 10 democracy, you don't feel it at all, while at 0 democracy, you get a 100% reduction. This goes for ANY level of unrest. 0.1 has the same penalty as 9.
Basically if there is any unrest at all some of the military investment goes to dealing with unrest, not to increasing militech level.
Thank you for this guide, and thanks to the commenters adding additional tips! I'm a first time player myself after I got this game for Christmas.
Decided I'd try a Russia-based run. Things will be slow-going for a while, but I figured for realism's sake I would work on consolidating control of the CIS nations and federate all the other post-Soviet nations, then once megastates are researched start reabsorbing them until the USSR's borders are restored.
Things are going along okay, though my attempt to crack down and purge the bottom two control points in Russia were thwarted by three bad rolls in a row at 80% chance of success, followed by the other faction securing them, locking me out for the long term. How I hate RNG.
Thank you! Commenters are definitely the MVP I learnt some great things from them.
Goodluck with the play through! That RNG can be annoying but I'm sure you will find a way!
Awesome guide!
Thanks mate
Thank you!
Thanks for this very helpful guide
Thanks!!
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I’d love to see a guide on managing the space fleet side of things. What are the key techs, what is a competitive timeline, what are the strategies and guidelines for building , directing, and maintaining your fleets, etc…
@@darthslackus499 thank you!
@@lakotagrywlf thanks, definitely a good idea! I will try to do something like this. Might take a while to come to grips with all the mechanics and compile it
A guide on getting so much boost through a variety of ways, and direct investment mechs
Excellent nation management overview.
Trying to decipher the nation screen has been my biggest hinderance in doing well so far. You've basically covered every aspect that I was most confused about. Knowing this i now understand why my fully controlled united states is on the verge of civil war v2 lol
If only I found this tutorial week ago :D unification of africa might had been easier
Haha oh well. I hope it's useful for future games
Education can above 10. Have it at 12 or 13+ in one of my saves.
Interesting! Nations of just students
@PhotonwindGaming or nations made of just a bunch of 500 iq scientists😂
but yes, i have 13.4 education in one my nations thats made for knowledge.
Only if eu had more population..
How to read and which government to choose in the winning country?
This seems like a really interesting concept but I'm not sure if it's fun or accessible yet. This guide seems helpful.
Thank you! I enjoy the game but I think it is for a niche of people.
It's fun but I wouldn't play the game right now, alien aggression is broken with current patch and IMO there are some desperately needed UI changes that need to be made. A lot of times it can feel like I'm fighting the UI just to play the game. There is a lot of potential though, check it out again when it leaves EA.
@@rogerhill9559 ui frustrations are real. I do still enjoy it though
You can also see what you can do with 'set national policies' by hovering over the button next to overview. Small developed nation like singapore or the nordic contries in europe are great to get mission control, ressource rich countries like the gulf states or venezuela are great to get quick money via spoils. For a decent military you need 4 control point nations as only those can get more than 1 navy. Means only these can deploy more than 1 army around the globe, even if you build 5. Found that out with my scandinavia federation, ah well... that one is a pretty decent alternative to the EU if you only want the MC.
Thanks! That's useful info!!
Why is Scandinavia good for MC? What makes them great in that matter?
They are Nowhere near the Equator
@@Silcy6501 high wealth + low population means lots of investments that can go to mc. Investments in other things that are population boosted less valuable.
mission control can go anywhere. They're more just radio bases to communicate with stations etc not launch sites.
Why is the base control point cap in my playthroughs so much lower than yours? it's like 100 something and not 300...
It's affected by difficulty and faction I think. (maybe more factors but unsure exactly)
I think also the number of factions in your game affects it. Was doing test games for this video with less factions which seems to distribute more control to each faction.
Patchnotes 0.3.21 Balance: "- dialed back the "how much MC you can use" threat evaluation by aliens on normal difficulty slightly"
CONTROL POINTS. Not mc.@@STzim
Satan himself blocked the contact for whoever the fuck designed the interface for this game.
Welcome to force pause and read. Enjoy.
if you're making a guide, it doesn't serve to open up the tooltip and just read it from it. I can do the same thing. I'm looking for things which aren't said there.
I do cover other things not described, but that's a fair point. Will be covering more advanced things in less beginner guides
My experience is that Unity is absolutely useless. Generally speaking, if inequality is high, the decrease in cohesion due to inequality will overwhelm any amount of unity you have. If inequality is low, then cohesion will naturally increase without the need of producing unity. If you just got your inequality low, and for some reason you feel you must absolutely reach the equilibrium point for cohesion as soon as possible despite the loss of government score, it is just better to lower inequality and let cohesion drift toward the higher resulting equilibrium point.
I have found that the same holds true for Military. While military is useful for increasing military tech, its effect on unrest really isn't worth noting. If your equilibrium unrest is above your current unrest, your unrest increases by .25 points per month. Further, unrest lowers the amount of points the country has to devote to military in the first place. The result is that no amount of military focus will prevent unrest rise where the equilibrium point for unrest is high. Conversely, if the unrest is higher than the equilibrium point, then the penalty to development will mean that military will lower unrest painfully slowly. the counselor mission Stabilize Country will lower the unrest by either .5 or 1 per month which will lower unrest very quickly. I found that it is simply better to lower unrest with Stabilize while correcting the root cause of the unrest which is usually a combination of high inequality, low cohesion, low government score, and low per capita income.
Well said! Put to words a lot of little frustrations. I do think unity has an application in raising public support in the early game when councilors are few else yes, for both unrest and cohesion the root inequality and government are way more important.
Well, the KI thwated my attemt taking over india with 50% points into cohesion mid game. Even with 25 persuasion public opinion and some tech things barly changed into my direction. I did use it to some effect in the beginning, spoils for the money and unity to increase public opinion and thereby influence early game. Even later I find it somewhat useful in my spoils countries for the public opinion and stabilising effect. I do agree it isn't useful in the countries you'd like to actually develop into democratic science centers. And sometimes you just need some stability to begin somewhere, like in African nation with base 10 Unrest. You know the countries with less than 1000 pec capita and less than 1 cohesion and less than 1 government... have to start somwhere and your councilors have better things to do than be on permanent lower unrest duty.
@@STzim Unity isn't doing what you think it is. At high inequality, Unity's .005 per point isn't going to stop the natural drift in cohesion. You are going to see a much bigger difference in cohesion just by choosing 5 rivals to raise the equilibrium cohesion.
The only purpose i could see in maxing unity in your spoils countries is if your strategy was to intentionally tank your government score. The idea would be to increase authoritarianism for the boost to cohesion. This effect is probably what you are actually seeing in your spoils countries, if any.
Your problem with india probably has more to do with population and high support for the other faction. 8 social labs in earth interface orbit will help with moving the bar.th-cam.com/video/pQT3_Bjo5Ns/w-d-xo.html
@@braxon Tooltip: "Investing in the Unity priority will increas cohesion by 0.0524 (or some other value) and decrease the government score by 0.001. It also will shift public opinion toward factions with control points in this nations. This pirority is less effective in nations with higher educational level.
In my example from AI controlled india 2030 we had all 4 control points - could speculate about a bigger effect there. It also used 50% of the priorities into unity, which given the economy of india was quite a bit. Was past labs and into the t2, social science centers to the same effect (5 of them). Well apart from the time where a station was destroyed by aliens as I forgot rebuilding my distraction station. (simple t1 with tourists to be destroyed by annoyed aliens).
The rival thing is interesting, will explore it a bit in my next playthrough. Still, find 80% spoils + a bit of Unity better than pure spoils as you get money and a bit of influence out of it, when you go looting Venezuela, Iran etc . Long term funding and decent government is probably a better strategy.
@@STzim first of all, you dump that 1 points that you got from Venezuela into Unity for once a month improvement to your global popularity for influence. At 30 million people, I'm sure that it will give you a ton of influence. Also, with India, there was probably an AI counter public campaigning you. There is no need for a lot of unity to mess with you. I was raising the United States public opinion by 1% per two weeks when I controlled all six control points at one instance. I would make sure that you aren't just blaiming the failure on what is visible instead of what is actually happening. But if you really feel that dumping all your points into unity, instead of getting money, improving the economy, or lowering inequality be my guess. It not my business to tell you how to play. (also, remember the tool tip is after bonuses and its actually half what the value says cause unity costs 2 points instead of 1).