3w ago

How do I do communism in Victoria 3?

Got this game on sale for 5 dollah because everyone talks about how vicky 3 is this big communism builder, but I just started the game and I’m so confused.

Like, are petit-bourgeoisie proles in this game that I have to align with? Should I support Agrarian peasants who want monarchich order. I’m playing as Mexico in the ‘Egalitarian’ challenges, succesfully defended Texas from the evil American hordes and my sights set on American states

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Depends what country you're in. Nominally speaking, build up productive forces to allow the capitalists to supplant the aristocracy/landlords and continue industrialized while waiting for some flavor of socialist to take leadership of the trade unions, peasants, or intelligentsia then try to help them build popularity while undermining the bourgeoisie then when theres sufficient political power/representation in the government by them ram through council republic and prepare to stomp down a counter-revolution. Usually helps to have a major power in alliance or defensive pact to help weirdly enough. Stomp the reactionaries, continue solidifying the socialists hold on power by pushing as much socialist laws through before whatever socialist leaders you have die forcing you to wait for another radical leader. Usually having the worker coop, farming collective, and universal voting laws help the most in keeping the dictatorship of the proletariat safe from legal counter-revolution from other interest groups.
If all that sounds a bit too hard still, just play France until the Commune happens and side with the commune in its event while holding a Marxist-Leninist perspective on seizing power.
- What’s your take on the Armed forces?
  I understand the building up of productive forces but I’m at the stage where I need to build up the military to ward of the baying American hounds as I also look to crush them in the future. And at the moment, because of this my government is comprised of right wing igs. But I don’t want the war pigs to have too much power to stage coups and not sure if they’re at odds with the industrialists and capitalists
  Stomp the reactionaries
  But which ones, all the igs seem reactionary
  
  What’s your take on the Armed forces
  Only useful for pushing for a professional military to undercut the landed gentry's power. If you're doing a colonialism they're also useful for pushing that.
  I understand the building up of productive forces but I’m at the stage where I need to build up the military to ward of the baying American hounds as I also look to crush them in the future.
  Playing Mexico I bet. At minimum you need enough armament buildings and battalions to keep your soldiers and conscripts equipped well enough to fight off major powers to a white peace. After that it's all about building productive forces.
  And at the moment, because of this my government is comprised of right wing igs.
  That's fairly standard for most of a run in a non-industrialized power. Now that I think of it it also helps increasing your peoples literacy rates. There's like a decree that let's you do that. So if you aren't in need of money or are trying to boost infrastructure building/quell turmoil At the moment most of the time you want your most populated or industrialized provides to be under that literacy decree while working on getting some kind of education system going.
  But I don’t want the war pigs to have too much power to stage coups and not sure if they’re at odds with the industrialists and capitalists
  Purely depends on who the leader is, whats their ideology, whether or not you're stepping on their toes too much with whatever reform you're pushing, etc. Like if you got a royalist leader of the Army, its obvious they're going to get super pissed off if you try and institute a republican system or enfranchise more voters but a moderate or whatever other kind of leader won't really give a shut. Try paying attention to the dynamics of power and interests between the factions and when they do or don't coincide in movements.
  But which ones, all the igs seem reactionary
  Pick and chose your battles over the decades. Undercut the theocrats when the gentry don't really give a shit about religious rights, undercut the gentry when the theocrats are more worried about religious rights over secular rights. Utilize the divided interests of the petty bourgeois and the bourgeois that run contrary to the gentry and church to push for more modernization but be wary of when all four interests coincide. So on and so forth.
  You're most likely playing a economically-sociologicslly backwards nation that's transitioning from feudal relations to capitalist to socialist. You have to work progressive measures in one step at a time with the understanding that up until a certain point of development, capitalism is a progressive force in relation to the transformation of the ownership of the means of production and control over the State.
  I mean maybe once in a blue moon you could get lucky with the dicerolls and get like an anarchist peasant leader with the homesteading law in place making what'd commonly among the largest factions suddenly be radicalized over night while being in a military alliance with a major power letting you just ratfuck your way to communism while letting the imperialists fight in your own civil war against the reactionaries then spend the rest of the game shooting your GDP to the moon and roflstomping all of the world powers in wars of containment boy that China run was wiiiild
I ASKED YOU ALL HOW TO DO COMMUNISM AND YET YOU’RE ALL READING ABOUT SOME WAR, FUCKING PHONIES
There's a few pre-reqs, first you need socialism in the tech tree, until that you're really not getting anywhere. Once it's researched and people are miserable enough (below 10 SOL IIRC) you'll get a socialist movement and this is your first real springboard. You basically need enough supporters of the trade unions (TUs) to make passing the law feasible (or at least, not lose all your states in a counter revolution.)
Above all else you need to build industry since they give you laborers who mostly align with the TUs, the core of this will be lumber mills, tool workshops, and iron mines in the early game since they all feed each other. Try to avoid building anything agricultural since agricultural workers are far less effective in getting the TUs in power.
To your direct question about the petit-bourgeoisie (PBs) no in most cases will actually impede the socialist revolution, but they're part of industrialization so you gotta just accept they will be there. The rural folk/agrarian IG is fine, it can get a socialist leader on occasion but I wouldn't count on it. If you do want to get the rurals on your side, mostly keep them miserable, so this means tenant farmers or commercial farming in the laws, not homesteading. Homesteading will effectively make them wealthy enough to not want socialism.
- What about the armed forces, and the Theological groups? Will collaborating with them be counterrevolutionary?
  
  Armed forces are a wildcard. If you manage to recruit a popular communist general, promote him to the max level and fire all more popular generals to get him into leadership of IG. The devout are very useful for passing public healthcare early, and then they are not helpful or worse. Rural folk can be very useful, if they get anarchist leaders. Petit bourgeois can rarely get someone good as a leader, but most often they are reactionary.
  Also, I recommend passing Technocracy, because it allows to demarginalize Trade Unions much faster.
  
  Collatz_problem is correct on both counts for the armed forces and religious IGs. I just want to add that you can use this general cheese on any ideology capable of taking up the communist ideology (so TUs, AF, I think rurals?), so an easy way to get a communist leader of the TUs is actually to have a communist general that is part of the TUs. Once the leader dies/retires the existing characters have a chance to get that role based on popularity and influence. You can actually see those chances if you click an IG and scroll down to the Leader Ideologies drop down.
I recommend mods to make it a bit better, in general nationalization is nerfed by the devs, 3 mods fix this.
Fixed gov thoroughput
Fixed goverment debt
Theresias communist overhaul, this one is big and its great
Your country wont start as communist you have to get a communist goverment and enact laws that benefit the workers, its hard as most laws at the start consolidate monarchist and religious power.
To weaken the monarchy you need liberalism and industrialists but just enough to pass laws and not more, one you have labor movement and specially socialism you have to make the trade unions powerfull enough to start passing laws.
Depending on how long you take, and on how much you go against the current status quo you will get some slow reforms or a revolution. Most of the time I get reactionary revolutions because Im implementing universal sufrage and the monarchists hate it, for example.
Learning the economic game is also important, depending on the job people tend to join certain groups, peasants have no power and you should improve their jobs asap, make them farmers laborers and machinists.
You want farmers, they are not always helpful to socialists but they go against the monarchy as they want to own their land and help you pass homesteading and later maybe communal land.
Laborers and machinists will join trade unions and want better rights.
You also want to indrustralize your country in general to have your economy and army and not get bullied by france and britain.
Applying marxist thinking in general helps understanding this game. But as this is a game you can try to improve a country with godlike powers and some unrealist things will happen, like say if you manage to reform a country to socialism without any revolutions, you know the monarchy and capitalists would bring fascism into a civil war before that would happen just like irl. But the game tends to be quite realistic, I havent seen many silly things.
- Also I forgot, the petit bourgeoisie can be helpful in some cases, Spain for example starts with a radical petit bourgeoisie and they want to get rid of the monarchy, but its dependent on the leader of the faction, so once he dies they will probably turn on you and become reactionary.
  
  Oh also also, agitators, you can promote a radical movement with authority by bolstering them and supressing reactinary ones, but you can also invite an agitator, which are historical charachters, you invite them and they will support their movements, for example Karl Marx

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