Technologies in Victoria 2 are obtained through Research Points (RP), which themselves are calculated daily by the sum of the following criteria multiplied by a number of factors (plurality, techs, events and game difficulty):
0.04 RPs per % of Literacy (up to 4 RPs); 1.5 RPs per % of Clergymen POPs (up to 3 RPs); 0.5 RPs per % of Clerks POPs (up to 2 RPs); The nation’s rank – these being 1.5 RPs for Great Powers, 1.25 RPs for Secondary Powers, 1 RP for Civilized nations and no points for Uncivilized countries.
This means that Literacy alone accounts for around 40% of a country’s maximum obtainable RPs before multipliers – which can mean the difference between steamrolling and being steamrolled!
How Can You Improve Your Country’s Literacy?
In Victoria 2, Clergymen are the POPs in charge of educating your population. Every month, the literacy change on every POP in every province is calculated by the multiplication of:
“Base Change”, for a minimum of 0% (with 0.5% or under Clergy POPs in the province) and a maximum of 10% (with or above 4.0% Clergy POPs); Education Spending, which can be regulated on your Budget screen for a minimum of 0% and a maximum of 100%; Education Efficiency factors, obtained through researches (each Social Thought technology on Culture screen adds a +10% boost to education efficiency), inventions (Mass Advertising adds a +25% boost, Darwinism adds +50%) for a minimum of +0% and a maximum of +135%.
So as a rule of thumb, these are the three key points which you should watch to take your Literacy rate to the moon:
Keeping an optimal Clergy population Financing your educational effort and Boosting your Education Efficiency
Keeping an Optimal Clergy Population
As the share of Clergymen POPs in each province impacts directly the base Literacy change, the first step is always ensuring you’ve got enough people to educate your POPs. Using the national focus “Encourage Clergymen” on your States enhances the chances that promoted/demoted POPs will become Clergymen – thus contributing to increase its share. Note: you’ll need to make sure your Clergymen POPs don’t go above 4%, otherwise you might reduce other key POPs such as Artisans and Craftsmen without increasing Literacy at all! When your Clergy gets to the optimal 4% rate, change your National Focus to the next State. Rinse and repeat until you have maximized your Base Change in every Province!
Financing your Educational Effort
The easiest – and trickiest – part of improving literacy is to raise your Education spending to 100% on the Budget screen. Why is it tricky, you ask? Well, if you don’t watch out, your country can easily run on too much debt and go bankrupt! Having a healthy Budget is crucial to get the maximum 100% from Education Spending. Watch out for your Incomes and Expenses to finance all your nation’s needs, including increasing your Literacy rate. Building your country’s military can easily drain your cash reserves in an eye’s blink.
Boosting your Education Efficiency
If low Literacy is a problem in your country, almost surely researching Technologies will be as well. However nobody said it would be easy, right? Balancing the desperate need for more Research Points that Philosophy techs gives with all the other buffs your country needs on Army, Navy, Commerce and Industry fields is difficult – but if increasing Literacy is your immediate priority, you should research Social Thought first. Also, going down the road, there are two inventions you can get to improve your Education Efficiency:
After 1850, Darwinism can be unlocked after researching Biologism (Social Thought)(for a +50% boost to Education Efficiency And after 1900, Mass Advertising can be invented after researching Behavorism (Psychology), bringing a +25% boost.
Summing all those buffs together, you can have an effective 235% multiplying factor on your Base Change on Literacy!
Tips & Tricks For Increasing Literacy
These are also some pro-tips to keep in mind when improving your country’s Literacy:
Only full national States contribute to the country’s Literacy percentage. Have this in mind when assigning your “Encourage Clergymen” national focus to prioritize full national States over colonial possessions – but if you intend to transform any colony into a State, remember to improve its Literacy before converting it to a full State! Encouraging Soldiers in low-Literacy provinces is an easy way to increase your military without using high-Literacy POPs Political Thought technologies add more National Focus slots (provided your nation has enough population) to speed up your Clergy population increase.
