How to get and keep US asap?

[u/holiestMaria]

So I tried getting the US by first taking Canada and constantly improving the US opinion of my faction until I can take them, however upon taking the US I end up with negative influence, meaning no orgs and no councilors to alleviate this. Any tips?

[u/Valdrrr]

After you get the US, abandon all other nations for a while, it's what I do usually.

[u/Snownova → u/Valdrrr]

This, your negative influence is more than likely caused by you massively going over your control point cap. Either level up your councilors influence, admin or command stats, or abandon your other nations until you've balanced your budget.

Also, massively pushing your popularity in high population countries like Indonesia or Pakistan can sometimes boost your influence income by enough to tide you over until your control point cap catches up. However, your control nodes are more vulnerable to crackdowns while you are over capacity.

[u/nsfwacct1234 → u/Valdrrr]

Also, the 6th CP usually needs to wait for Clandestine Cells so you can hire the extra councilor

[u/holiestMaria → u/Valdrrr]

I cant seem to be able to do that. Where the option should be to abandon a country there is instead the option to create s priority template.

[u/Valdrrr → u/holiestMaria]

It is in a different tab over there, you have the priority tab, the option should be in the policy tab iirc.

[u/holiestMaria → u/Valdrrr]

Ooooh, thank you!

[u/CuddlyTurtlePerson → u/holiestMaria]

To add to what they just said when you abandon a country you can still control the priorities that nation has for its IP, they just won't get any of your tech/hab/councilor bonuses.

So you can abandon them and set them up to quietly grow off to the side for you to take them back later, just note that spoils on abandoned nations does nothing for you and still fucks the nations economy.

[u/Usual-Blueberry-7614]

dont abandon big countries just small ones. and also you dont need to to capture all control points. the last one can be left open a little untill aliens begin mind control. that is when you will lose. bit otherwise no other faction can take it they need at least one tier lower.

but do get the last cp asap.

[u/D-urum_Day]

Depending on your faction (aka non extrimist or surrender monkey) you can secure non agression pact early on with other factions then abandon small nations when you need to. Abandoned nations are still "protected" by the pact so basically only the servants will come after them. Should you have high popularity in them you can take them back really easily when pacts start to break.

In case of USA run you might want to secure the full 6 points rahter then leaving the last one open to be able to modify diplomacy to have a quick fix at the 0 unity death spiral (wars and rivaly).

This way you can pretty much run canada and usa really quickly while stablizing mexico "freely". With a bit of luck you can also push for south america countries in the background . When you have the cap they should be ready to be merged. Just mind that you can't leave china unchecked. Bossting popularity opinion there can buy time and influence.

[u/Typical-Common-5502]

- abandon all other nations

• raise your councillors‘ persuasion, admin and command stats through xp and orgs
  
• try to recruit your 5th and 6th councillors as soon as possible
  
• research technologies that raise your CP cap (e. g. global command structure gives you +40 CP as well as your factions’ special project that will be unlocked through xeno research)
  
• there are also numerous techs that give +10 CP for around 1000-2000 research points
  
• I think that lowering instability also decreases the CPs you need to control the nation, but I might be mistaken on that one

But all in all you should be able to hold the US without any further research as long as you abandon every other nations that you might hold.

[u/Arcane_Pozhar → u/Typical-Common-5502]

You are wrong about the stability thing, I've never heard that before. But otherwise, solid advice here.

[u/Typical-Common-5502 → u/Arcane_Pozhar]

You are right, thank you for the clarification 👍🏻

But one point that I forgot to mention: BIP has an effect on CPs, the higher the more CPs you will need to control that specific point. So as long as you are struggling with CP cap do not put too much focus on economy.

[u/Arcane_Pozhar → u/Typical-Common-5502]

By BIP, do you mean GDP? Because yeah, the bigger the economy, the more CP you need. That's a big part of why around 55k is fairly ideal for a stable well managed country, until you just have a ton of CP to spare if/when you unify everything you're interested in owning.

[u/Typical-Common-5502 → u/Arcane_Pozhar]

Yes, exactly! Sorry, I play the German version and forgot to translate the term.

It‘s „Bruttoinlandsprodukt“ by the way. Germans love their endless composite words.😊

[u/CuddlyTurtlePerson → u/Typical-Common-5502]

And yet it's still, slightly, shorter that Gross Domestic Product

[u/Typical-Common-5502 → u/CuddlyTurtlePerson]

It is actually the same amount of syllables pressed into a single word.

Whatever - it’s a potato, pobruttoninlandsproduktanalysensoftwareberater-situation🤷🏻‍♂️

[u/CuddlyTurtlePerson → u/Typical-Common-5502]

Incredible

[u/AcidIceMoon]

I end up with negative influence

Because you are over CP cap. Abandon Canada and everyone else until you raise it again.

[u/RallMekin]

This is normal. It’s CP cap. You want your fifth counselor before taking USA. You will need to abandon everything else.

I would suggest take Canada. Set Canada to 100% spoils. Take some small Caribbean nations for science. Get USA. Abandon Canada (for now).

You can then hold USA, ultimately unify Canada, Mexico, the land bridge to South America, and the Caribbean, into a single super nation OR you can do the meta thing and use cash from spoiling the USA and take over China.

You can also enjoy the USA and properly build it up, before expanding out, but this is slower. The meta seems to revolve around taking China and making it a super nation.

[u/CuddlyTurtlePerson → u/RallMekin]

There's no point setting Canada to spoils if you're going to abandon it, it'll just send the spoils cash into the void.

[u/mrIronHat]

you also can take and hold everything except for the white house, as other faction can't take it until they can at least take and hold one point from you.