Aru Harru Blitannia! (Vicky 2 AAR)

[Oberon]

So, last April I started a new Victoria II game as the United Kingdom, last night I finally finished it after playing it on and off. Vanilla Heart of Darkness game with a few twists and turns which I will document below.

First, stand for the national anthem:





We begin in 1836, but aside from colonial consolidation, little happens until Holland attacks Belgium late in the 1830s. Belgium calls upon her British ally, who easily kicks the Dutch back over the border. Holland, not so easily swayed, decides to import Spanish and Russian help and try again in 1845.
It didn't end well for them, and afterwards they gave up and accepted Belgium as an entity.



After this, the world continued much as in this timeline, except for the failure of the North German Federation to create Germany when Britain intervened in the German Brothers war and consistently beat the NGF, thus preventing the Germans from forcing Austria to admit hegemony.
Britain expected that eventually Germany would form and the battle for control over the continent would soon come, so was constantly expanding her armed forces, whilst colonising Africa and releasing Dominions to reduce 'Badboy' (infamy), this expansion resulted in an interesting event in 1887 when Britannia gained a Cassus Belli on a nation she'd just conquered (Transvaal IIRC):



Britain alone could not hold back the tide forever though, and eventually in 1895, after a Great War in which the North German Federation and Italy attacked and defeated France, Austria and Russia (Russia being overrun ridiculously easily since it refused to mobilise for some strange reason), the NGF finally forced Austria to admit hegemony and created the German Empire, Austria promptly collapsed and became Austria-Hungary. The stage was set.



It may be noted in the above picture the lack of British naval forces, please note however that this picture was taken during the crash course upgrade program of the late 1890s when naval bases were being built wherever Britain could build them, and the Ironclads and Monitors being scrapped in favour of the more resource intensive pre-Dreadnought Battleships.


HMS Ramilles, a 'Royal Sovereign' class pre-dreadnought, 1892

By 1901 tensions on the continent were beginning to grow, it was clear that the first Great War which had created Germany would not be the last, Britain was determined to steer clear of as many Great Wars as she could, particularly after witnessing how utterly useless Austria, France and Russia had been in the first one. Italy, on the other hand, decided to invent an offensive attitude...how Italian...


The Italian offensive doctrine in full swing...



Inevitably war broke out in Europe again, this time the focal point being the contested territory of Alsace-Lorraine, France and her allies had a clear military advantage in this war...and yet, proving Britains suspicions of French and Russian incompetence, the war ended in the defeat of France and her allies as Russia was once again completely overrun by German forces, driving the war score in favour of the German Alliance.

Strange things began to happen after the Second Great War, firstly Dutch troops were spotted sharing drinks and stories with Indian troops in North-west India. They were pointed in the direction of Holland and eventually went home.



Then in 1909, the world woke up one morning to find that Belgium had gone communist...



Then Austria-Hungary called all her allies into war to aid against a fearsome adversary in the form of Trieste...



Which was overrun before most of the aforementioned allies could even get there to help...

In the 1910s, another Great war broke out between the rivals of the 2nd Great War, the 3rd Great War ended in another German victory, and France had been utterly crippled, barely able to raise two troops to fight the rebels which were overrunning her. Her ally Austria-Hungary was in a similar state, and it was only the size of Russia which seemed to keep it from imploding under its own incompetence.
With France relatively isolated and most of her forces in a war against Belgium, Britain looked at the small French speck in her Indian Raj and decided to act. It was a rather ridiculously lop-sided affair, and so began the Fourth Great war...



Once the initial French defending force had been overrun, the biggest opposition coming from Communist and Anarchist rebels which were springing up quite literally like wildfires. France was soon occupied by British forces, who moved on through their ally Switzerland into Austria-Hungary.



British forces joined her allies in Austria-Hungary and pushed onwards, passing Canadian, Siamese and Japanese soldiers on the way.


British tanks pushing across the lowlands of Austria-Hungary carrying trench-filling devices.


British troops, fresh from Raj duties, pass Japanese forces outside Fiume (now known as Rijeka)

Japan took the opportunity of its alliance with the most dominant military power in the world, to take a stab at some Pacific Dutch holdings. The British were only too happy to keep the Japanese on side, and so in a brief side show of the Fourth Great War, British forces entered and again overran Holland, which, defeated, collapsed in on itself in a Communist revolution, and as the Fourth Great War came to an end, France also went Communist briefly, and then it went Anarcho-Liberal, and then Communist again, alternating between the two in a state of near constant revolution for the next decade. Austria-Hungary was forced by Britain to release its Polish states, which amounted to a small stretch of provinces near the German border.



Communist Holland gets a really cool flag....



During the 1920s, whilst Britain began to lag behind in industry and prestige, there was no question that it had the most dominant military force in the world, with the dock expansion program enabling the Royal Navy to sortee dozens of Dreadnought warships which were the Queens of the sea wherever they sailed.


Orion class Dreadnoughts of the High Seas Fleet in 1921

[Oberon]

Whilst it was expected that the rapid introduction of so many heavily armed warships into British service would spark a naval arms race, it would seem that many of Europes powers were too drained from decades of war to content with Britains naval ambitions, only in the Americas would a respectible counter to the Royal Navy be found, in the Brazillian and US fleets. Germany would focus on her land forces, amassing a fearful amount of military hardware on her Russian border. Culture began to flourish with the creation of 'Jazz' and a strange pole-sitting fad swept the world. Science and technology continue to race ahead, with new species of dinosaur being unearthed every year, 'Clever girl' indeed.





Palaeontologist Peter Kaisen

After a brief skirmish against the Ottoman Empire, caused by a crisis between Egypt and the Ottomans, in which most of Europe joined against France, Austria-Hungary and the Ottomans, Britain forced the Ottomans to create the state of Israel, which set about arming itself to defend against any hostile Ottoman intentions, Britain became Israels good friend and vow to protect it against any Ottoman attacks.

By the time the 1930s arrived, the world had settled down, aside from the occasional skirmish in divided China, and multiple Communist uprisings, it seemed that little else could happen in Europe that was surprising.

Until, Holland switched from being Communist to being Fascist.



And set about invading Frances Ivory Coast colony, faced with this kind of event, the game decided that 1936 was a good time to end, and sadly for Fascist Holland, it didn't get the chance to finish wiping the floor with France, who would probably have gone fascist as well once defeated.




So, as 1st January 1936 dawned across Britain, an unease sense of dread was filling the upper echelons of power. For whilst the 1800s had been the century of Britain, the 1900s were proving to be a lot more unsettled, with Germany and America becoming the dominant powers of the world alongside the UK. Whilst America seemed to be indifferent to European affairs, eventually affairs in the Pacific would be sure to cross into her boundaries. Germany on the other hand, was eager to exert her power across Europe and the United Kingdom was facing a difficult choice, either seek a confrontation with Germany, alone, or put aside her pride and join together with Germany to rule over Europe. With France in ruins, Austria-Hungary a shell of itself and Russia unable to tell its backside from its elbow, it was clear that unless America were to reverse its isolationist policy and join together with Britain, the British stood little chance to take on Germany alone, and thus it was postulated that by 1940, Germany and Britain would seek closer ties and eventually perhaps a military alliance.

[Oberon]

World Maps:

1845:
http://i.imgur.com/c0CNeDY.jpg

1886:
http://i.imgur.com/4JdDNFe.jpg

1927:
http://i.imgur.com/VjlyPpp.jpg

1936:
http://i.imgur.com/YvstoUm.jpg

Britain and her Satellite nations in 1936:
http://i.imgur.com/jqw6uDb.jpg

[Oberon]

Post-play thoughts:

Well, this is officially the first time I have ever completed a Paradox game, and what a game it was too. Germany is a real powerhouse, I dread to think what it would have been like if it had formed in the historical year of 1871 rather than 1895. I managed to scrape back the industrial lead once briefly before the Fourth Great War but didn't hold it for long. The North German Federation took the first place in industry around 1870 and aside from occasionally losing it to France, held it until the end of the game. Once France had been smashed, America was the only other industrial rival to Germany, pushing the UK down to third place.

In Africa I managed to smash through colonial progress quite quickly, although my goal of building the Cape to Cairo railway hit the buffer stops when I found it difficult to unfriend Egypt and invade it without getting ridiculous amounts of infamy (badboy) and half the world declaring war on me. However, the creation of Southern Rhodesia, South Africa and the Namaqualand State was pretty awesome, giving me a very powerful ally in Africa which came in useful whenever I found myself at war with a state that possessed African colonies.

You may note in the maps that New Zealand is not a satellite of the UK, well it had slipped out in 1936, but it had been briefly on and off a satellite however due to its inability to deal with rebels, it had been alternating between an anarcho-liberal and communist state since the 1900s. It too has a pretty awesome flag, although the Communist Netherlands has one of the best flags...Belgiums Communist flag is just lazy though, a red star in the standard flag.

Great Wars were painful but not devastating, although I did note that during...Great War two or three, my economy went down the toilet when the war engulfed Europe, I was clean of it (due to skirmishing in Ethiopia at the time, hence I couldn't get drawn into the crisis which caused the war) but the effects were clearly felt across the Channel.
However, despite being beaten about six times in war, Russia stayed Tsarist, although France went Communist a couple of times, as did Belgium and Holland. Austria-Hungary toyed with Communism for a while, but was, I believe, Fascist at the end of the game, or heading that way at least. There was no major break-up of nations as a result of a lost war, which I was expecting, and the Ottoman Empire, despite being kicked about by western nations, was still relatively intact by 1936.

My biggest annoyance of the game was Russias complete inability to keep Germany in check, it had plenty of opportunities however it was consistantly overrun by Germany, even when Germany was the relatively militarily weak North German Federation. In fact, during one Great War (which I save-scummed due to Russias ineptitude annoying me) which saw myself and Russia against France and Germany, despite my steamrollering through France, Germany was winning the warscore because it was deeper into Russia than Hitler could even dream about, passing the Urals and entering Siberia when I eventually ragequit, and this was with Russia fully mobilised. I'm aware that Russia wasn't exactly the military mastermind of the early 20th century, but I expected some level of military acumen. For Germany to be able to hold off and defeat France, Russia, Austria and the UK (another save-scum) and accrue warscore through eating major parts of Russia and Austria means that any war against Germany without a strong Russia and France is doomed to failure. Fortunately, with the Kriegsmarine consisting of about two rowing boats and a dinghy, the Royal Navy would be very capable of defending the home counties against Germany.

It reminds me a little of my EUIV war against Spain in which I would have won except my ally Portugal was incapable of holding the Spanish back, and was overrun, giving Spain enough warscore to hold its own.

Allies, sometimes they are your enemies most potent weapon...

There are mods for Vicky II which I might now investigate, including the Realism and Rebalance Mod and the Pop Demand mod, which look to alter the game in different ways.

Just a damn shame that I can't import my game into HOI2 or 3 and carry on...how about that Paradox? If you're going to make HOI4, for the love of God, when you do back Vicky III PLEASE make it compatible with EUIV and HOI4, nothing would make me and many other people I'm sure, happier than to be able to take a game from CK2, to EUIV, to VickyIII to HOI4 and then perhaps on to East Vs West should the opportunity arise (although given that EvW will be on the HOI3 engine, it's not that likely, sadly).

I love the Victorian era, and now that Raptor has taught me how to play Vicky II, I love the game, it's not as easy to get into as EUIV, but it's got a lovely atmosphere and is a lot of fun to play.

Thanks for reading.

[Stealhead]

I like your self portrait in post one.

Some day I'll have the patience to actually complete a Paradox game.

I have used the pop demand mod before it worked pretty well.I also tried a mod that "improved" the economy not sure about that one yet it worked well I am just not sure that I liked the effects.

[Betonov]

Originally Posted by Oberon

You know, those are my lands you're stomping trough you filthy tommy

[TarJak]

Nice AAR Jamie. Almost completed a CK2 campaign taking an Irish clan from Meath through to owning Britain Hispania Byzantine and some small chunks of France and Italy. 10 years to go. I agree it would be nice to take a game from medieval times through to the modern day.