In Progress Let's Play Victoria 2 AHD - the south shall rise!

[Norfleet]

Assuming there are no Hawaiian and other Pacific Islands in the mix yet, Merk will occupy all their provinces shortly, pushing to 100% warscore, where they will instantly accept any peace treaty that isn't 100+ in cost. You have to personally construct on Eternal War, you don't get one if you are winning.

The problem is, claiming that much occupied territory is going to demand WAY more than 100 score unless you can use Annex. The gap between these two values is what results in Eternal War. When you are winning, you get locked into this gap, whereas when you merely crush armies and get +25, it's easy enough to take a small chunk. But when there are no armies to crush, the war never ends, first because they refuse to accept your limited victory, then because they refuse to accept total defeat.

This is a particularly Vicky2 phenomenon, really: The other Paradox games I've played don't seem to have this problem. In CK, your opponent eventually concedes that he ain't getting it back, and there is no need to expand it to an all-out total war to the knife. In HOI, opponents will capitulate once you have taken everything from them. In V2, there's this huge gap in which you fall into an eternal war, unable to conclude despite having totally annihilated your enemy.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

You only get locked to an Eternal War if you feel the need to keep on piling more wargoals and won't personally accept less than all of them, silly. Which means it takes active effort to lock yourself in an Eternal War, nothing on the game's part. It's simply player stupidity if you can't conclude a war satisfactorily. The only issue is that demand costs and occupation warscore gains don't scale well for all nations, giving giant blob nations an irritating (and often moronic) advantage.

And actually, CK2 is the first one to have a more dynamic warscore where occupation of contested area increases warscore indefinately. And that's a very good addition. HoI's system of capitulation is very different, and shouldn't be compared. EU3 technically doesn't have a chance of getting locked into an Eternal War, since your wargoal only affects demand costs, infamy and prestige gain.

 

[Norfleet]

You only get locked to an Eternal War if you feel the need to keep on piling more wargoals and won't personally accept less than all of them, silly.

Nah, that happens anyway: Let's say you start with a very simple goal: One state. You invade, you kill everyone, you take the state. Now, in CK, you sit on it for a bit, eventually your opponent comes to the realization he ain't getting it back, and decides that at this point, it's fair enough to call it quits.

Not so here: With no armies to slaughter, that war is just going to stay static forever. Now what? Well, you could continue invading him, but then the problem continues: You sack another state. Now he's lost TWO states, but no, he's even LESS willing to call it quits than before. He'll just keep annoying you with single unit trickles indefinitely. Which, incidentally, does next to nothing for your warscore when you kill them. And it was going to go nowhere if the state was tasty and combined, even reduced for successful conquest, cost exceeds the score gained from the occupation plus destruction of your opponent's military. If you sack more states to stop this, the problem continues to go unresolved: The cost for his mounting losses continually exceeds his willingness to accept them.

Eventually, you've taken everything. But this still won't be acceptable. This is the point at which you either resort to using "yesmen" to resolve the issue, or you just shrug and just figure this will never be resolved and move on to the next target. This is basically how it plays out every time I've played this game: Even after I've crushed the entire world beneath my shiny black boot, there are just these guys who will never, ever, quit.

And actually, CK2 is the first one to have a more dynamic warscore where occupation of contested area increases warscore indefinately. And that's a very good addition.

Yes, yes it is. I imagine that it was instituted precisely to prevent this kind of problem. Admittedly, it introduces slightly lesser problems where the pointless occupation of some irrelevant vassal territory that isn't even being contested can induce the AI to capitulate when it is otherwise still fighting.

HoI's system of capitulation is very different, and shouldn't be compared.

Well, it's comparable in the sense that the system recognizes total and crushing defeat. This game, on the other hand, has a habit of pressing you into wars of total annihilation where an opponent would rather fight to total annihilation than accept any form of limited defeat...which is fine, except it also doesn't recognize total annihilation, either.

EU3 technically doesn't have a chance of getting locked into an Eternal War, since your wargoal only affects demand costs, infamy and prestige gain.

Yeah, I haven't actually really played EU3. The process of setting it up was just too confusing with all the various patches, expansions, mods, and whatnot that I allegedly needed for this or that. It felt distinctly cumbersome and inaccessible compared to all the other ones I've played.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Pro-tip: Losses cause war Exhaustion, which makes the AI more willing to sign peace. This is simply a case of not understand the mechanics: You need to occupy more than just the contested provinces to win a war, and once you do you win, simple as that. If you keep piling up wargoals you reach a point where your demands exceed 100, which is maximum possible warscore. There is no "eternal war", there are just playing who don't understand the game. If you have reasonable wargoals, you can have a quick and easy war. If you want to strike a crippling blow (this is where big states become problematic, because they are immune to these defeats to a large extent), you need to enter into a war of total annihillation, which actually does happen in Vicky 2.

In my most recent completed campaign, I entered into a Great War as Austria-Hungary when I attacked my favourite punching back, Russia (Rus genocide best day of my life!). They were Allied with Germany and United Kingdom, and I figured that one or both of them would back down because I was allied with France who was ready for a war due to Elsass-Lothringen causing severe butthurt in them. At first my goal was just to liberate more Russian land from beforementioned Slav untermenschen, and set up Georgia and Armenia as Caucasus buffer states (one thing I'm working on is figuring out how to make Liberate goals LOWER infamy, with failure resulting in infamy gain; combined with making them slightly cheaper it would be a very cool mechanic) to prevent Russia from invading the Middle East (they were in bad shape by this point though due to having several crushing defeats that had cost them all of Poland and Ukraine to me).

So anyway, the British pussy out of the war, which leads to me as Austria-Hungary with France against Russian Empire and Germany. While fighting this war, I realized that Great Wars have one massive benefit: Free Cut Down To Size wargoal with 0 cost, and ALL other goals are reduced to 33% of their normal cost and infamy value. I decided that now is the time to fuck German shit up in ways it has never been fucked up before and never will be fucked up again (Russia was of no consequence, they couldn't attack me, and Poland Lithuania formed a buffer between most of the front). So I engage in 4 years of absolutely bloody warfare against the Germans, eventually destroying their 526 regiments and occupying half of them. At this point they were more than willing to let me have Silesia, Sachsen and Bavaria, with France demanding Alsace-Lorraine prior to that. This was then followed by crushing and sweeping attack on Russia, which drove them out of the Caucasus and established my new friends in Georgia, Armenia and Finland. This war was so devastating that sixty years later Russia was STILL recovering, undergoing a total of seven revolutions in that time (reactionary -> communist -> anarcho-liberal -> communist -> reactionary -> jacobin -> communist).

 

[eklektyk]

now this is what i call proper LP.

<Stamp of Aproval? and all that...

 

[Norfleet]

Pro-tip: Losses cause war Exhaustion, which makes the AI more willing to sign peace.

Never seen that to be the case. The AI appears to be entirely willing to simply suck up his war exhaustion the same way I do. I have never gotten a better offer out of the AI purely on war exhaustion grounds. It is also remarkably difficult to inflict any losses upon an opponent who no longer has an army. Smashing the AI's 500-man doomstack army, leaving his entire country exposed to slow death, doesn't seem to faze him at all.

This is simply a case of not understand the mechanics: You need to occupy more than just the contested provinces to win a war, and once you do you win, simple as that.

The problem with this line of thinking is that if I did that, WHAT WOULD BE THE POINT OF GIVING THEM BACK? That is what we call "losing". If I take it over, it becomes contested for the simple reason that IT'S MINE NOW. I see absolutely no sane reason why I would want to give anything back without a fight, especially since I will then end up just having to take it again when they inevitably reattack anyway. And there's nothing I find more deeply abhorrent than redoing something that I already did. When I solve something, it stays solved, even if I have to turn it into a cratered wasteland to do it.

Besides, this way works out more or less I'd the way I'd expect, anyway: I get a crappy, burned-out, rebel-infested wasteland, but at least it's now MY crappy, burned-out, rebel-infested wasteland and won't be giving me any more trouble ever again. Aside from being a crappy, burned out, rebel-infested wasteland, anyway. Although it would be nice if the rebels had some idea what the hell they were rebelling against. They keep acting like they're rebelling against the original owners, who have lost since ceased to be in control of anything, instead against me, which would make sense. At least in HOI, an obstinate government goes off to sulk in exile and the rebels recognize that they're rebelling against me.

If you want to strike a crippling blow (this is where big states become problematic, because they are immune to these defeats to a large extent), you need to enter into a war of total annihillation, which actually does happen in Vicky 2.

In my most recent completed campaign, I entered into a Great War as Austria-Hungary when I attacked my favourite punching back, Russia (Rus genocide best day of my life!).

Those exist? Since when? Was this a new thing they added?

 

[Kipeci]

Once you or some other nations develop... I think one of the cultural technologies, not quite sure which one, any war with multiple great powers on both sides becomes a great war and you can inflict hilariously massive penalties on the losing side.

 

[Norfleet]

Once you or some other nations develop... I think one of the cultural technologies, not quite sure which one, any war with multiple great powers on both sides becomes a great war and you can inflict hilariously massive penalties on the losing side.

I don't remember encountering any such event. Was this a new addition? Last I played was in vanilla, and despite flattening the entire world, never saw a war classified as "Great". And this was in a game where Uruguay had achieved Great Power status, not because of anything they did, but simply by default due to my killing everyone else.

 

[Kipeci]

I'm pretty sure it's a new thing.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

HoI works in entirely different manner from Victoria 2, in Victoria 2 you simply can't annex everything at will and damn the consequences, you need to be tactful. It's not a game about total war, it's a game covering a 100 year period with a much looser structure.

There's also a historical precedent for the war mechanics here. During the Franco-Prussian War, the Prussians defeated the French across Northern France and occupied Paris... And all they got out of it was Elsass-Lothringen.

Once you or some other nations develop... I think one of the cultural technologies, not quite sure which one, any war with multiple great powers on both sides becomes a great war and you can inflict hilariously massive penalties on the losing side.

Nationalism & Imperialism, it's activated by an event afterwards. New to AHD.

 

[Norfleet]

HoI works in entirely different manner from Victoria 2, in Victoria 2 you simply can't annex everything at will and damn the consequences, you need to be tactful.

Oh, there are consequences, believe me. I have, in fact, attempted to annex everything at will and wound up the target of multiple simultaneous Wars of Containment-type dealies. Consciousness was through the roof. The whole shebang that all that entails, etc. That would be exactly the reason why I was absolutely not willing to give them anything back. But it was good times! I mean, what else would you be doing? If you're not at war, you're staring at a clock scratching your navel waiting to see if an event will happen.

There's also a historical precedent for the war mechanics here. During the Franco-Prussian War, the Prussians defeated the French across Northern France and occupied Paris... And all they got out of it was Elsass-Lothringen.

Well, that's all they settled for. With only a capital point and much of Northern France, that would make sense. There was still a FRANCE to be obstinate, and clearly they did not feel like pressing the issue any harder because it was too costly and they didn't want that much, or the BB from taking more. Whereas when I do it, I can press the issue to the point where the enemy is completely annihilated and ceases to exist completely. In my case, I tended to be more "Meh" about the entire BB thing, seeing as it was like 4th War of Containment against me already.

Nationalism & Imperialism, it's activated by an event afterwards. New to AHD.

Mmm. Sparkly. Sounds like I need to get my hands on this thing the next time I decide to play.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

No, otherwise you're busy manipulating your political and economic landscape while sabotaging whoever your chosen rival is. Simply put, you're playing the game wrong, as Vicky is not about war.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Does AHD run good for you guize? I recently installed it with 2.31 patch (had vanilla Vicky 2 installed before, but never really played it) because this thread inspired me for some action, but it just quits on me left and right with weird graphical glitches to boot. Played lots of HoI3 and EU3 on my machine and they worked perfectly fine.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Try making a clean install of Vicky 2 and then install ADH on top of that. Could be some patch or little modification disagreed with the whole.

 

[Merkwürdigliebe]

The real best America

Thats a wee bit more rebels than I can handle, time to get a peace treaty out of this and call it quits.

The result is the creation of Deseret aka Mormon land, which is quite possibly less fun than Disney land. And I take a slice of Mexico in a separate peace agreement.

An alliance, sure if I don't protect them the Union is sure to just grab back all that land and my work to weaken them will be undone.

Well thats interesting, the UK thought they would take this opportunity to occupy New England and return it to the mother land.

The newly annexed territory is unsurprisingly filled with foreigners, better get some good Dixie folk in here.

The territories previously taken form Mexico has experienced a dramatic demographic shift in the last few years.

CSA education is best education.

I've got some troops stranded in Deseret that can't get home so I might as well help them deal with the rebels there.

The union rebels even try to occupy confederacy, begone yank scum!

The battle of Mariposa, there is something weird about these rebels physique and weaponry.

Better administration. While 'merican administration certainly is the best around (or not) it can always get better.

Some rebels manage to flip a territory of Deseret back to the Union, well there should be no more of that at least.

My mortal enemy requesting military access? I will have to think about it... how about... no?

The occupy movement is gaining strength in the USA.

The new territories is seeing some massive immigration, won't be having a Mexican majority here much longer.

Communist North America is best America, praise be to dear leader.

Communist America with capitalistic research, seems legit.

CSA population just passed the 3m mark. CSA #1.

Compared to the start of the game the CSA population has increased by 50% in only 30 years, quite the incline.

Best America is so shitty that people are actually leaving it instead of immigrating in hordes as is usually happening. Also the UK has occupied New england and returned it to the British mother land.

These rebels must be mighty confused for California isn't a part of the Union any more. Good luck creating your new Californian republic.

 

[Norfleet]

Thats a wee bit more rebels than I can handle, time to get a peace treaty out of this and call it quits.

So, uh, I can't quite see it on the map, but what did you get?

No, otherwise you're busy manipulating your political and economic landscape

Which would, you know, involve having a war, otherwise where would you get the landscape to manipulate?

while sabotaging whoever your chosen rival is.

This exists? There's a form of sabotage that does not entail "stomping your armies across his face and burning his factories to the ground while his people riot"? How does this work? I have not seen this in any previous LP, either. There is sabotage? If anything, I find the usual pattern is "race to grab stuff before someone else grabs it".

Simply put, you're playing the game wrong, as Vicky is not about war.

Not about war, you say? Then why is it that it seems every LP is fundamentally characterized by none other than war after war? Why does it seem distinctly the case that if you are not at war with something, it's probably because your country sucks too much to afford it? I've maybe played through 3 or 4 different V2 World Conquests, and I always got the distinct impression that after a certain point, if I wasn't at war with at least 3 other nations with only brief intermissions to grant statehood to colonies (something which you eventually have to stop doing because of the coal thing, as your demand for coal will outstrip the world's coal supply if you don't cool it with the statehood-granting and factory-building), that there was...nothing else to be doing.

I mean, what exactly are you doing with your armies if you are not at war? Do they just sit there, twiddlng their thumbs and chewing down upkeep? At least in CK2, which you kept telling me was "also not about war", there was a reason not to be at war: Wars were expensive. In Vicky, wars cost little to nothing, as long as you don't mobilize. In fact, eternal war is practically required for your economy to remain healthy: Consumption of military hardware increases during war. If you don't have a war on, your war factories will shut down, the economy there collapses, and it turns ugly. I cannot keep up with the output from my cement factories, for instance, unless I am constantly acquiring new territories in which to spam forts in. I have fought wars simply because I needed more space to build stuff in, because YOU MUST CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL PYLONS.

 

[Cassidy]

North Kwa BEST KWA.

Mormons and Commies. Looks like Dixieland will have much to do.

immigrating in hordes

In before Mississipi Wall

*Edit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nV2aJ1tuC6M

By the favorite Swedes of Ultima Thule, perfect theme for this LP.

 

[Merkwürdigliebe]

Occupy communism

Confederate technology is improving at a steady rate, still some what weak compared to other great powers.

Why do I feel like this will greatly increase the number of Irish and potato immigrants?

Spread the Iron across all of the Confederacy. It can finally be built in mountains as well now.

During the last war with the Union or the Peoples Republic of America as it is now called attrition was a major issue, this should help.

Alcohol for every one!

Those californian rebels are at it again. Even though they may be in the wrong place they do have some good fighting spirit.

Women voters what next giving black slaves the right to vote as well?

Speaking of potato immigrants. There is now enough of them to raise several regiments of them. They are welcome to fight for the Confederacy even if they do speak funny.

CSA stands for freedom, unlike best worst america were they lock you up for not being a commie.

A new series of forts is built on the CSA - worst america border.

Putting electricity to use seems to have potential uses such as telemaphones, exe-rayes and other such fancy contraptions. Tesla death ray any one?

Remove Taco from Jalisco.

More railway, sounds like an excellent idea.

I'm tempted to remove slavery, but I didn't win a war of freedom from the northern commies just to outlaw slavery. Thats removing mans right to own property and thats literally communism!

This is going to help accomplish great things in the near future that will be made evident.

New discoveries.

CSA will bring freedom and slavery to the oppressed people of worst america.

Free New England! Occupy communism!

 

[Norfleet]

You declare war on stuff for the oddest reasons. What'd you get last time, anyway? Other than causing Best America to occur, it doesn't look like you actually GOT anything out of it. And now once again you're plunging yourself into another fruitless war?

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

This is the best LP in a looong time

 

[Merkwürdigliebe]

You declare war on stuff for the oddest reasons. What'd you get last time, anyway? Other than causing Best America to occur, it doesn't look like you actually GOT anything out of it. And now once again you're plunging yourself into another fruitless war?

Well last time I didn't take anything from the USA for my self as my infamy would not allow it. Rather I choose to force them to release Deseret, the loss of which weakened them quite a bit. Further in their weakened state they also lost more territories to the UK. Essentially I've been working on softening them up until my infamy will allow me to grab some land from them, apart from the release of New England I do intend to attempt to take one state from them this war, Kentucky most likely. So I would not call it entirely fruitless even though I would have liked to take territory for my self.

 

[Norfleet]

Further in their weakened state they also lost more territories to the UK.

I am not really sure that can be considered desirable. There's something to be said for the entire "balance of power" doctrine that was prevalent during this timeperiod. Having the UK grow blobbier is definitely not to your advantage, they are a PAIN IN THE ASS to uproot due to their widely scattered territories giving them the Total Unwillingness To Give In To Anything. UK is like the freaking Black Knight of Monty Python. Everything is just a flesh wound and they'll continue to try to bite your legs off (with their helmet on, no less), even when all you're trying to take is some colonial territory that isn't even part of Brittania proper.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Yea, I still find it the funniest thing that if you actually want to play pragmatically you'd remove Slavery the moment you got rid of Worst Yankee, since it spawns rebels like crazy.

I guess I need to work in a special CSA modifier that makes people not give a fuck about slavery being legal in the CSA, so they don't lobby the everliving shit out of the subject. Probably add a pro-slavery lobby too.

 

[Norfleet]

I dunno, I think the real CSA would have eventually gotten rid of slavery on its own anyway, if they were really all about States Rights, including the right to determine whether or not to allow owning other people. I mean, it's not a very efficient system. When you own slaves, you have to spend at least subsistence wages on them, not to mention pay decidedly not-slaves to keep them from escaping. Otherwise they die. When you DON'T own them, you don't have to pay them that much, and if they die from the terrible working conditions, you hire some more. Exploitation without ownership is simply much more profitable. You can abuse a rental in ways you'd never do with your own car.

Plus, slaves have kind of weak pop-demand, which means that you can't sell them as much stuff. This, in turn, stifles your economy, since without ravenous demands for more stuff, who are you selling all this crap to?

 

[Cassidy]

If CSA were to become highly industrialized it's unlikely they would retain slavery for long, because a niggah buying some blings with his small wage is far more profitable for an industrial economy than a nigger.

This not counting the very important detail emancipation will indirectly increase the number of craftsmen, and eventually there will be a shortage if a very intensive industrialization strategy is pursued.