The first thing you will want to do when you start off is Pick a country.
V This is how you do it V

1. Press Esc Once
   
2. Find the mouse cursor on your screen
   
3. Move your mouse to make the cursor move
   
4. Move the cursor over SINGLEPLAYER
   
5. Left click Grand Campaign (1836)
   
6. Left click the flag of the country you want to play
   
7. ;Right click a flag to pull up a list of countries not already shown.

There are five ways to view the map, each with a different use. The buttons activating each of these views are on the bottom left of the main task window, beside the minimap.

• Terrain: This is the first map mode. It is the default form you see when loading the game. This map will show you the kind of topography of the province—mountains, hills, grassland, forests, etc. It also shows where the major rivers are. ; These factors are important to keep in mind when conducting a war, as terrain acts as a combat modifier.
  
• Political: This shows you clearly the borders between all countries, as well as the demarcation of provinces. ; It also shows the location of capitals by placing a city icon in the province where the capital is located.
  
• Economic: The economic mode shows what resource is produced by each province. This resource is represented by the icon in the center of the province. ; Each province produces only one kind of resource, but certain in-game events can change the type of resource produced in the province.
  
• Infrastructure: The infrastructure map shows the layout of the railroads and factories of a country. Railroads appear as dark, straight lines connecting provinces with one another, whereas factories are represented as small factory icons.; Provinces where railroads may be built are shown in green. ; Fully developed provinces are show in white. Although the icons appear in a particular province, factories are organized not by province but by the state (see 3 below).
  
• Revoltrisk: This mode shows in red those provinces that are in danger of revolting. Green means no revolts and the redder the more likely a revolt will occur in that province. This map also shows, through the placement of small icons, the various types of crime in each province. ; Provinces can only have one form of crime at a time.

The map is organized into three levels.

1. The highest level is that of the nation. These are clearly shown in their own color on the political map. Each nation is sovereign over its own territory and (unless it is a satellite or a dominion) has control over its international relations. Taxes and tariffs and literacy are examples of factors determined at the national level.
   
2. Between the province and the nation is the state. States are visible as the highlighted region on the terrain map after only one click, or as the slightly darkened region on the political map after only one click (clicking again selects a specific province).
   The state is merely a collection of provinces, geographically related. It is at the state level that factories are managed. The factories are spread across the entire state, even though the icon appears in a specific province. POPs in any province in the state can be assigned to work in a factory within that state. Factories can only be built in states that have been granted statehood in your country. Statehood can be granted only when the majority population of at least one of the provinces in the state is your national culture. Keep in mind that all territory conquered or purchased from civilized countries, regardless of its population, is a state.
   ; States are unique in Victoria in that they are the only demarcation of land that transcends national boundaries. Land allocation in treaties is done by the province, not by the state, meaning that states can be split up among two or more nations. ; Examples of this at the outset of the 1836 scenario include the state of Azerbaijan, which is divided between Russia and Persia, and the state of Maine, which is divided between the United States and Great Britain.
   ; States divided between nations can still have factories built in them, but only those POPs inside your country can be assigned to work in them. When an entire state is conquered, all factories in that state are transferred as well, but keep in mind that as long as even one of the provinces in a state remains in the hands of the other country, all the factories will remain in that other country.
   
3. The lowest level is that of the province. These are also clearly illustrated on the map—they are the smaller territorial demarcations within a country. Battles, railroads, resources, crime, revolts, and POP management are all handled by the province. Provinces also have an individual “life rating” which shows how hospitable the province is to human habitation. The better the life rating, the more people will want to move there and the lower the penalties suffered by invading armies.

There are 8 Gameplay Basics we will cover in this guide.
V Basics V

1. Economy
   
2. Military
   
3. Technology
   
4. Politics
   
5. Human Resources
   
6. Money
   
7. Colonies
   &
   
8. Diplomacy

Industry is very important in this game.
You have Farms, Mines, and Fish in every province.
;These produce resources that will either be stockpiled or sold on the market.
Then you have several kinds of Factories.
;These Factories take in resources to produce anorther resource like steel, glass, and wine.
Both Factories, Farms, and Mines/Forest need workers; the more workers, the more will be produced at a farm, and more factory workers will increase production and intake.
In other words, supply and demand; Farms/Mines/Forest and Factories.

Then you have the market, in the market you can buy or sell resources from your resource stockpile. The AI automates the market for you, unless you uncheck the square in the <left.
;However, I reccommend changing the settings on resources you need like coal, lumber, timber, steel, and iron.

The Military is divided into the Army and the Navy.
At the start of all of your land units will most likely need to be reinforced, to do this you need manpower which is the number beside a soldier at the almost top left of your screen.
;To generate manpower you need to convert your citizens into soldiers.
To make a unit you need to access the military screen; by pressing the button below the crown on the right, then you will need to click either of the 2 options in the recruiting section, it will pop up the recruiting panel with several options v .

• Type
  
• Att. Brigade
  
• Culture
  
• Quality
  &
  
• Home Province

You can click the arrows to pop up a list of options.
- There are several types of Naval Units but only 4 types of Land units; Irregular, Infantry, & Calvary.

- There are many types Att. Brigades for land units, when you are at the end of the game your entire army should be comprised of land units with Attached Brigades
- The Culture of a unit is very important for wiping out that culture; esp. in colonies.
- The Quality is determined by culture.
- The Home Province determines where you can deploy this division.

This game is all about the industrial revolution, so technology is of up most importance.
Technology is divided into 6 catagories which are further divided into 6 catagories.

• Army -Machine Guns -Artillery Boost
  
• Naval -Steam Transport -Ironclads -Late game Ships
  
• Commerce -Money -Reduced Cost
  
• Culture -More Prestige -Less Rebels -Colonization Tech
  
• Industry -Railroads -Factories

A tech is randomly selected from each catagory.
;You can't leave out any catagories though or you will be unable to research certain technologies./Culture

Politics can destroy your nation from within.
Costantly changing the party that rules your government will cause a massive revolution that won't end. So wait until Communism comes around, switch to it, and then procede to disable voting rights.

People work, but they also have: specific jobs, dissenting veiws, and different cultures.
In this game your cultures and other accepted races are the only people you can manage(Until you become communist), and you also require them in a colony to turn that colony into a state.
Each group of people can be converted into different classes: Farmers, Labourers, Soldiers, Craftsman, Clerks, Clergyman, Officers(Can't convert), Aristocrats(Can't convert), Capitalist(Can't convert). They can also be split if their numbers are above 4000. However farms/factories/mines/forest have a certain capacity, so if you split a group of people the new group will not have a job. However they will start to migrate, and some will probably go to your colonies.
This feature brings in the best part of this game. Ethnic Cleansing. If you followed what I said and are now a communist utopia, you can change the class of all cultures(except into Capitalist), so all you need to do is change the class of unaccepted cultures into craftsman or clerks and give your culture the farm/mine/forest jobs.

Depending on who you play, money isn't such a big deal.
That is if you become big enough, if you have excess money lower the spending on tarifs to a negative amount and spend more on the others, don't raise taxes too high if you can't handle revolts. If you're a small wimpy state like Makran, you probably shouldn't be playing them right off the start if you want learn how to play.

Colonies are central to becoming a great power, colonies give you prestige, provinces, and resources. However you need the technology to colonize, but you can start off by taking over Arabia or North Africa. After you get the technology, you can start building claims, you can only have claims in 4 colonies, when you get a claim on all of the provinces in a colony you can hit the claim colony button and get prestige, and a new addition to your empire.
After taking control of a colony the main thing to do, if it doesn't have a big population, is get your culture there to turn it into a state. Make sure you leave some troops behind, there are certainly going to be revolts. Speaking about revolts, everytime you crush a rebelion the population goes down, so if you have an army in the colony make sure to incite revolts from the native culture. Also an effective revolt crushing army is a 4 cavalry unit since cavalry moves so fast in this game.
You can't build any factories in colonies, so commit a genocide and get your accepted culture to immigrate there.

Perhaps the best part about this game is the diplomacy, you can negotiate the receiving or ceding of: Provinces, Technologies, Claims(All to a max of 5 <<<), and a sum of money. So, you can as China or Persia give money for technology, however this will make it harder to research on your own. It also allows you to exchange land for tech or money, and buy land for tech and money. You also have diplomat points in which you can conduct diplomacy until you run out.

For many things not mentioned in this guide, take a look at this!
Complete Victoria Manual[vic1.paradoxwikis.com]
Not sure what came first, or if I made the original but that's besides the point, this is
a really old game, and guides are kind of hard to come by.
So enjoy!