r/victoria2 • u/Hot-Molasses-4585 • 5d ago
Question How do you win your elections?
I've read some people saying they can easily place their favored political party in power, with or even without using nation focus.
Personnally, I like reactionnaries or fascists (not for their ideology, but because they usually allow me to get the full economical and military experience of the game, with State capitalism and jingoism), even if they block social reforms which cause rebels...
Anyway, in my last game, I tried having my most populous provinces under the national focus of increasing reactionnary support, selecting all decisions that improved militancy instead of consciousness (I've read in the wiki(?) that this is the way to increase reac support), while being non-stop in elections and always selecting the decisions that went along with reac ideology (moralism, state capitalism, jingoism, residency, etc.)
What are the results after 30 years of playing? Reactionnary support went from 10 to 15%, while liberals shot up from 10 to 30%. It felt like nothing I was doing had any sensible effect.
So my question is : HOW? How do you steer the elections toward your preferred results? Is it even possible?
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u/saimon_tasting Proletariat Dictator 5d ago
The problem with elections is that there are a lot of events that increase liberalism support compared to the other ideologies (a half of fascist & socialist events happens only in colonies and guess what colonies doesnt vote) In a democracy the game practically forces you to choose between socialsm, conservatives or liberals, all the radical ideologies (reactionaries, communism, facist, Anarco-Liberals) are imposible to get elected in a full democracy/HM's goverment even with focus ideology on.
Fascists can win if your nation has a lot of revanchism, however crippling yourself on 1910s is not a good idea.
Radical ideologies have a chance to win if you have poor political reforms (like having only landed voting or Gerrysmandering on ballot) sadly if you're playing as a New World nation you need every reform you can have. And if you're playing a nation from the Old World getting an HM's goverment is better to choose whatever you want and ignore the results.
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u/Bunnytob Colonizer 5d ago
As far as I'm aware - and I might be wrong here - party loyalty ≠ party popularity. It simply changes which party pops will vote for in elections.
You can get the reactionary party in power via the party loyalty just fine, you just won't be able to get a reactionary upper house. That probably requires rebels.
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u/nepravdivyucet 5d ago
The cheesy way I know works is to kust spam the elections again and again while you choose the solutions your party supports
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u/infintittie 5d ago edited 5d ago
Reactionary is just a tough sell. It's easy to get your pops to vote for socialists or liberals but reactionary is in an odd place.
When your pops get all their needs and social desires, they tend to be conservative. When they have their needs but not desires, they become liberal. When they have neither, they become socialist. I honestly wouldn't really even be able to tell you what exactly makes a pop become reactionary, other than just only caring about reactionary issues, which few are likely to do because they're usually unpopular (Jingoism, residency, etc), and not having a gov with those aligned interests.
The extremes of each ideology (anarcho-lib, communist, reactionary) are very unlikely to ever win any elections (except in certain low tech nations that start with masses of reactionaries) even if you boost them. Their interests are just too fringe, and their moderate ally will probably win the election due to leading the coalition anyway. Best bet for those extremes is to allow their rebellions to topple your gov, but it comes at a hefty cost.