[Vic2 LP] How Bismarck got his herring - game thread

[Thanas]

The following is a quick update. Please check that you have read the previous update first.

The Revolutions of 1848
or "Nothing of relevance happened today."


The Newspapers of course were filled with the news of the coming wars and revolutions.

But in Prussia, another great thing happened. Our clippers started becoming competitive with England.

We immediately established the First Prussian Naval College, which will definitely not be used to breed officers for a war with PERFIDIOUS ALBION.


We researched more tech.

And improved the opinion of Schleswig-Holstein of us.

In Mecklenburg, the liberal Government fell out of favor and was replaced by conservative rebels. Said rebels, fearing the Populace, decided to petition us...


News of the world: Notice how the suffering of the Chinese, in true 19th century European fashion, is reduced to "one can profit of this".

In response to the liberal revolutions, our intellectuals rose to the challenge.

Yay, more reactionaries. Great (not), but quite useful in reducing the unrest.


What better way to spread the french liberal values of the 1848 revolution by subjugating lesser races and teaching them that glorious france is best nation of all the world?

"The tabacco plantations of the Islands have got nothing to do with this. Nothing, I say."


The famous Piano cat is coming to Prussia. Can't wait. Let's hope it works better than the Cat organ..
Though this line from that wikipedia article is too good not to share:

Kircher notes that the instrument can be used to reduce the melancholy of princes by moving them to laughter, almost exactly the situation that occurred in 2010 when Prince Charles was greatly amused by a performance of the tune "Over the Rainbow" on an instrument recreated using squeaky toy cats by Henry Dagg for a garden party held at Clarence House supporting Charles's Start initiative for sustainable living.

Oh, you.

On to more serious things.

The Germans of Schleswig-Holstein decided to throw off the Danish yoke. In response, the Danish mobilized.

Austria joined the war. Before we could declare our solidarity with Denmark ourselves, the Danish state quickly realized that this was a losing proposition and decided to cut their losses.

Schleswig Holstein was freed. Hooray.

(Historical note: Did you know that after the loss of Schleswig-Holstein (after the Danish-Prussian war) Denmark was so very ruined that they actually petitioned Prussia to be annexed by them? And Bismarck only rejected that offer because he felt there were too many minorities in Prussia already and because he felt that France and England would not tolerate this. Hmmm...Prussian Denmark....)

Meanwhile, in Prussia:

We expanded the franchise to appease the liberals.
The newly called elections turned out different from what we intended though.

No matter, the Police is strong enough to deal with this.


Let us all remove our hats in appreciation of that great woman.


Hey, the US colonized Saskatchewan.


Work work work. Specialized work work work.

Eventually, we managed to weather the storm without having a major revolt happen to us.




We finished researching the next level of railroads, which lead to the automatic discovery of:

MORE INDUSTRY FOR US.


We started researching the next culture tech.

And took a decision that would change the shape of Germany forever:


The Ruhr valley. Industrial heartland of Germany. The place of the greatest integration project in all of Germany, as people from minorities in the east (largely Poles and Czechs) were recruited en masse to come to the Ruhr valley to dig coal and work in the factories. You ever wonder why the great German team of 1954 has largely Polish names? Because they were descendants (third generation) of those who settled in the Ruhr valley. This is without doubt the greatest integration success in the history of Germany as well as the greatest industrial success in all of German history. Would you like to know more?

The ongoing elections raised a further issue.

Obviously this has to stop. The ruling party has no right to beat our people. Only the police does.


The election finished, with the liberal party winning it.


What do you mean, you liked the play better? I'll cut you, you uncultured swine.



Economic theories were recognized in Germany. However, as we can all agree that economists are little better than fortune-tellers they should not be treated any better.


As you can see, Austria was smashing Hungary. Meanwhile, the British and the USA signed a treaty.

Uhhh....guys? I think you missed a spot. [Obviously this is a bit bugged]


The poor Hungarians.

Historical note: It is nowadays considered impolite in Hungary to clink glasses in a toast due to this
Historical note2: Damn the Austrian method for executing people was nasty. Strangulation, no breaking of the neck. NSFW picture of WWI illustrating it.

(continued below)

[Thanas]

(continued from above)


Ah yes, who cares if the Irish starve en masse. Brits certainly do not.

[Historical note: I fear this update is getting quite depressing. This is obviously the Great Irish potato famine (Great to distinguish it from all the other common potato famines under British rule, at which point you know this is beyond bad).

The British decision in the game is obviously related to the proposed export ban for food. Yes, during the greatest period of famine in Ireland, British merchants were allowed to export food out of it. The historical result of this and other policies (if you really want to be disgusted, look up Victoria and the famines)

But then again, this was par the course for Britain, as evidenced by the sickeningly similar way the Bengal famines happened.

And it gets even more depressing with the coffin ships. I'll stop depressing you and just make two quotes that highlight the problem here:

"During the famine approximately 1 million people died and a million more emigrated from Ireland, causing the island's population to fall by between 20% and 25%" and "mortality rates of 30% aboard the coffin ships were common."

This is the history people are celebrating when they celebrate the British Empire.

On to the game.

Our new prime minister was a true visionary, a believer in technology.


Our economic tech resulted in more inventions:

Monopolies are good for the market. Free market, remember?

This guy actually had redeeming features for a fortune teller. It is also he who later on publicized the CSA as a "slave power" in Europe.
I would highly recommend to read his work on the Civil war participants here.
Especially Rogue9 and Steve would probably get a kick out of this book. (which you can also download as a PDF for free).



More culture....as an aside, does anybody not love Kierkegaard?

With all the wars and revolutions, it was time to upgrade our weapons.



REGNOSAURUS.
Oh, and the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo happened. The US now ruled over all its present continental mass.


Another rebellion broke out in Hungary and again the Austrians moved to crush the brave Hungarian rebels.


More population is a good thing.


This is a balancing feature of the mod - if you get too large of an Industry - TOO LARGE OF AN INDUSTRY? THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS TOO MUCH INDUSTRY.

Hey, political religion. Nowadays regarded as a bad thing, but in the 19th century it was the driving impetus behind many important social programs and worker protection laws. Laugh at the church all you want, but back then there were real idealists who pushed the state hard to change for the better.


Unlike the British, we spared no efforts in helping the farmers. The state organized a mass purchase program of grain to help the starving, forgave taxes and used every charity in a concerted effort to help the poor. Meanwhile, the British sat back, drank their tea and snickered.


France declared war on Algeria, another example of the French values of liberalism and freedom.


The war was over in less than five months and France grabbed a pretty decent size of Africa.

[End of this update]

Tl, DR: Nothing much happened except for some really depressing events in world history. Prussia was meanwhile doing nothing much except losing infamy and building up the forces.

[Titan Uranus]

Annexing Austria by event can only be done with Hungary detached IIRC.

Not precisely, that is how it must be done after the Three Hurrahs, but if you are able to sphere Austria prior to the Three Hurrahs, then you get three options on firing the decision:
One: "We don't need any Austrian lands" nothing changes, loss of prestige (I think)
Two: Annex core Austrian lands (Bohemia, Austria, down to modern Slovenia and I think the Italian provinces. Gain prestige and 20 infamy (probably giving everyone a casus belli on you)
Three: Annex everything. 150 prestige I think, and 40 infamy (definitely gives everyone a CB, in the old days for the next several years, with the new system, probably only enough for one big was with all the European great powers, which isn't too difficult. You can already best France, and Russia is tough, but nothing compared to Großdeuschland. England can blockade you, but little else. All the other potential GPs are brittle and weak.


There might be another option, possibly just modern Austria+Bohemia, but I don't recall.

[Purple]

What's the year cutoff on this game? As in, what year does it force an ending on?

[Flameblade]

What's the year cutoff on this game? As in, what year does it force an ending on?

Originally, 1936. I can't recall if the expansions changed that, and I have no idea if the specific mod Thanas is using changes it either.

[Purple]

1936? Than I might actually give this game a whirl once I save up some money.
Speaking of that. If your nation does not start off with slavery can you enact it? Or must I start with a slaver state to have access to slavery?

[LaCroix]

One of the effects said Prussia would get it 'til 1949, so I guess that's the end date.

[Flameblade]

Definitely wanting to see how Europe turns out in this game.

[Esquire]

German. In this game, Europe turns out German.

[Purple]

On a related note, I have discovered that in this game the end date is not actually fixed. That is to say, there is a file you can edit that lets you edit the end year. So like you can set it to what ever you want.

[Skywalker_T-65]

That's possible in every PDox game...I think.

I mean, there are mods dedicated entirely to extending the end dates.

[Purple]

I wonder if this thing has the same save corruption problems as CK2. Like CK2 save files corrupt regularly for me by the time I hit the 15th century due to being too large.

[Titan Uranus]

The game will experience extreme slowdowns and an economic crash after the 1910's or so, however.
The slowdowns because it is not very efficiently coded (originally it wasn't even multithreaded.) and the economic crash because there is never enough money in the world.
However, before that time, or if you murder a great many people (I suggest the zombie mod.) it works quite well.

And you should make sure to get the expansions.

Edit: Thanas, could you give us a pic of the great power rankings and pop statistical screens.

[Thanas]

Edit: Thanas, could you give us a pic of the great power rankings and pop statistical screens.

Sadly, I played a bit ahead, so no. I might be able to look at an old save file...

[Purple]

Random question. If you are playing as the British can you make the great Irish famine worse? Like could you in theory depopulate Ireland entirely?

[Esquire]

Let me guess, you'd want to do that?

[Purple]

No, at this point it's just my curiosity as a programmer acting up and making me want to feel out the limitations of the game.

[Thanas]

Long live the Confederation


Russia abolished serfdom. Great.


The Polish celebrated this by promptly rebelling against their rightful masters. Sadly, the Prussian solution of Russia simply giving Prussia the territory was ignored.


Dear God, this is pricy.


More guns are always a good thing.


We pressed on with the culture tech. (As an aside, are the wider pictures working for everybody or are they too format breaking?)


We lowered our taxes as we could afford to do so now.


Where are my five hot air balloons, goddammit?


All that money wasted. Well, if the world will not come to Berlin, then Berlin must conquer the world. It is the only solution.


Our calculated policy of bribing everybody in sight careful diplomacy worked wonders and we finally removed Schleswig-Holstein from Austria's sphere of influence.
(Titan Uranus, here is the overview of great powers as well)


Bovine fever. Unlike some states (cough *UK* cough) we will care for our farmers. After all, what good is a state that cannot insure its own citizens from natural catastrophes?


The Russians solved the Polish problem the Russian way.


Bavaria is now a great power. God help us all.

Meanwhile, we showed our own Royal Heir to the populace.

Well, she does look quite comely. Hopefully she will be another Victoria Louise.


Hey, the Oriental crisis part II: European intervention.


So...just a few years ago you declared war on us and marched through our Silesia, now you want us to help you?
Prussia would stay out of this conflict and let the Ottomans suffer.

Besides, we were busy with...

With larger steam engines and larger railroad cars, we could now move large quantities of goods and men over long distances.


The British supported Egypt and Bavaria, eager to throw their new weight around, promptly joined them. Well, let them march off and die.


We researched Functionalism.


...and started research into a new Government philosophy.


New guns are slowly trickling into our military. Old veterans start to complain about the new weapons, saying they feel unreliable and probably will fall apart under stress, unlike the good old muskets.


We decided to tell everybody to calm their tits. But it is a great state who starts to care for the safety of prostitutes...in the 19th century.


Heinrich Schliemann. Discoverer of Troy. Charlatan and destroyer, but without him archeology would not be what it was today.
[historical note: A double-edged sword if there ever was one, though the jewels he found were reported to be the only ones to put Queen Victoria to shame, so there's that. There is also a famous story of Schliemann's wife (see previous photo) appearing at a state function wearing only Trojan gold dresses, so there is that as well. The treasure of Troy is now in Russia and although Russia has signed a treaty to return, refuses to do so. But then again, whoever expects the Russian nation to keep their treaties these days? I any case, Schliemann's vita makes for good reading. [/historical note].


Meh.


Kierkegaard. Everybody should read his works.


Everybody gets a shiny new rifle. Enlist now.

On the diplomatic front, two things happened:

Hooray.


Aah, the sneaky French hard at work.

Eventually, we managed to succeed in our research:

..and quickly adopted the new ideology.


This allowed us to finally do the following:


LONG LIVE THE NORTH GERMAN CONFEDERATION.

Let us take this moment to take a look at the world:


The new situation in Europe.

Not much has changed in the middle east, but the Ottomans (+British + THE MIGHTY BAVARIANS) are currently battling the Egyptians.

Britain still controlling India.

The Dutch are the dominant power in Indonesia.

South America still being largely the same and boring.


The USA has won the war and taken Texas.


I am still amused by this bug.

Let's return to more important things than frozen Canadian woodland.

Work each day.

In response to the formation of the North German Federation (NGF) the Austrians decided to compromise with their Hungarian subjects.

and two days after this....

Really now?

(continued below)

[Thanas]

(continued from above)


The opening of the war caught us unaware, especially because the Austrians mobilized quicker than we thought possible. They jumped one of our corps and we scrambled to reinforce it against the superior numbers.

Though labelled a victory, it was more of an inconclusive battle, especially because we took heavier casualties.

There was little hope of saving Slowakia as the Austrian flood poured in.


While we ordered the heavily savaged corps from Nitra to escape to the north in order to reform, we attacked the Austrian left flank with our best troops.

Three heavy corps smashed into the Austrian lines.

While this happened the Corps stationed in Prague was ordered to advance into Vienna.

The Battle of Bratislava ended in a resounding victory.

While the war was raging, inventions were still made and new programmes were implemented.



Learning ancient Greek however did nothing to alleviate the problems on the front.

Although eastern Slowakia was lost, we managed to hold the Bratislava-Krakow line.

Meanwhile, in the west, we had detached two Corps to attack the Austrian South German allies of Baden and Württemberg. In response, the Austrians detached another corps led by probably the greatest General they had, Lorenz Beck-Rzikowsky.
Still, we were confident. After all, it was 40k Prussians against 35k Austrians.

Damn. Beck-Rzikowsky proved too competent and gave us a very bloody nose.
Even worse, he pursued the beaten army and attacked one of the two weakened corps.

In the greatest catastrophe since Jena and Auerstedt and for the first time in Prussian history, an entire Corps was forced to surrender. The other corps had to retreat all the way to Cologne, being unable to contest Austrian dominance in the Darmstadt area.

Still, the Slowakian front was more important to us and here our best general, Pascal von Boyen was leading our troops.

The battle of Nitra was a disaster for the Austrian army. On the same day, Vienna fell, giving us two important victories.

Not content with the victory, von Boyen followed up with an energetic pursuit of the beaten Army.

The entire Austrian army that was previously attacking Bratislava had to surrender.

A relief force was attacked by our rejuvenated Corps and smashed at Bratislava.


Meanwhile, in the north, we attacked the force of Lorenz Beck-Rzikowsky with an army twice its size.

Goddammit. This force is tough. Once again, our forces had to withdraw.


Still, what mattered was Slowakia and here we pressed on.
The Wurttembergian allies of Austria, now fully mobilized, attempted to hellp them by attacking our Flank.

However, we had reserve forces in the area and quickly reinforced.


I suspect the name Nitra will soon enter Austrian annals as the "damned place".

It was now time to smash the last amount of organized resistance.

The Austrians had the advantages of terrain, but that did not matter to us.

Damn heavy casualties, but the Austrian forces was split in two armies fleeing...


...which were quickly knocked out.



We finished our research into culture and started to research more economic tech.


Meanwhile, the situation in the east allowed us to send a corps to the western frontier.

Darmstadt had fallen, but to our luck - and the Austrian's eternal grief - Lorenz Beck-Rzikowsky had died during the siege.

Our corps mercilessly annihilated the now leaderless force.


The situation in Autumn...

...and winter.



Soon, Austria surrendered and begged for peace.


The North German Federation had passed its first test and gained the Hungarian plain.

(End of this update)

[LaCroix]

Well, this is certainly the death knell for Austria - The Lombards(?) will certainly extract their pound of flesh from the parts they still besiege, and if they ever clash with you again, you will manage to split the country. They are done.

[Titan Uranus]

Belgium looks vulnerable, as long as she still has no allies, she's ripe for the picking. A couple of states, with good RGO's, high literacy, nice big factories, and only a handful of brigades to protect her. And after all, it is properly German land anyway, even if her people have forgotten their heritage.

It might be useful to take the "free" Polish lands, you can never have enough coal, and I've heard of some interesting uses for the black tar that pools and sprays in those mountains.

The errant Dutch are of little use at the moment, but as we will be limited by the truce with Austria for the next five years, I motion that we begin the reintegration (probably by subjugation, rather than annexation) of the Western Germans, for they have been out in the cold for far too long. It is only right that we should extend the eagle's warm embrace all the way to the channel, as it once was.

The Danes are not likely to be very helpful now, but a few hundred thousand highly literate people are always welcome, especially when we need to offset our Austrian acquisitions.

If practical we should aid the Italians in their ambitions, and gain ourselves an ally of worth against France.

[Thanas]

To be honest, our infamy levels will only support taking one province at most over the next five years anyway, so I'd rather get that down. If somebody attacks me I'll take something but other than that we can't really afford going off on anybody.

[The Vortex Empire]

Collectivist Theory, eh? A perfect opportunity to begin the transition to the great Prussian Socialist Republic.

[Eternal_Freedom]

After this defeat, is Austria still considered a Great Power? If so, how exactly, if Bavaria managed to overtake Belgium?

[Thanas]

After this defeat, is Austria still considered a Great Power? If so, how exactly, if Bavaria managed to overtake Belgium?

They slipped from 6 to 7 iirc, whereas Bavaria went from 9 to 8.