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gradenko_2000 posted:I remember in Turtledove's Southern Victory series, the African-Americans revolted during the middle of the Second American Civil War/WWI to form a Socialist Republic, but damned if I can remember the name. Congaree Socialist Republic (why do I remember this, I thought I had wiped those books from my brain. Curse you gradenko  )
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Apr 11, 2013 07:44
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So because my computer is a piece of total garbage, I still play Victoria 1. A while ago I downloaded the Hohenzollern mod, but this is the first time I have actually played a full game of it as Mazula. And jesus christ, somehow the world has gone insane. I'm strongly suspecting that there's been some kind of tweak to the AI in HohenVicky to make it a lot more aggressive, and this insanity is the result of Victoria's AI being a thousand times more aggressive than it aught to be. To start with, Swabia lost the Revolutionary Wars. Which would be fair enough, except that now they've became the world's punching bag. Austria spent about 50 years just systematically breaking bits off it, in between Austria's wars with the Byzantines, Italy, and Iberia, which has decided that what it really wants is to conquer Northern Italy. The Byzantines have been basically a gigantic punching bag for Egypt, of all countries, which has destroyed it systematically and has taken all of the Middle East, leaving the Roman Empire to be basically Anatolia, Georgia, and its European parts. Because the Byzantines ally with the British once in a while, there are currently Egyptian colonies in Delaware from when Britain was an alliance leader and Egypt has positive warscore because it was basically in Constantinople. For some strange reason, the CCA didn't form until the 1870s. It actually formed twice, because at some point the Austrian colonies in America (also gained from wailing on Britain) rebelled and formed it, before being annexed by the British, while at war with Janesland and New Britain. The CCA formed again in the 1880s, taking Virginia but not Maryland, because Maryland is still property of Egypt and as such there's this weird tiny enclave of British territory in that tiny province next to Washington, completely disconnected from land. The Kongo rebelled from Swabia, and is currently owning two provinces and doing absolutely nothing else. Swabia, despite being literally landlocked in Europe, is still managing to colonise Africa. Also, Java has rebelled and is currently independent. The Lithuanians annexed Sibir when it was still at war with the Qin or whatever, so as such when the Russians rebelled they wasted all their soldiers going East while Lithuanians marched into Moscow completely unopposed. Qin won the war in China because Sibir was getting eaten by the Lithuanians (who have since gone apeshit and taken half of Hungary and are currently deep into Prussia), which is pretty neat. Because Swabia is basically a rump state, the Austrians won the war to unite Germany and have currently formed it. Swabia refused to join, however, so Germany has the ugliest borders imaginable. Cleves and Saxony are both independent by rebellion. The Union of Rome rebelled from the Byzantines because they have literally no divisions. For some reason, they didn't end up going to war, so the Byzantines are literally just sitting there while there most industrialised regions are held by a hostile Communist state. My point is, how the hell did the game in the LP end up so sane when loading up HohenVicky ends up with this all of this? EDIT: Also, because immigration is hilariously broken in Victoria 1, the most populated and industrialised state in Mazula (and probably the world) is Alaska. MinistryofLard fucked around with this message at 08:48 on Apr 11, 2013 |
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Apr 11, 2013 08:37
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I have the Gamersgate versions of V2 and AHD, do I need to buy the GG version of HoD or can I install the Amazon version of it in case I buy it from them?
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Apr 11, 2013 10:12
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If your V2 and AHD are from GG, might as well buy HOD from GG as well. Better safe than sorry. The Amazon page doesn't explicitly say if their HOD is a Steam-version like it usually does, but then I don't know what else it could be compatible with in that case. By the way, GG itself is having a Paradox-wide sale for this weekend: Crusader Kings has an extra "daily deal" discount for today, while Victoria 2 and AHD are on Saturday.
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Apr 11, 2013 10:34
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Amazon would be cheaper since I can pay $ instead of €.
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Apr 11, 2013 10:57
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EightDeer posted:It worked out pretty well for Spec Ops: The Line. I'm still a good person, it told me so!  And while I think Spec Ops is an amazing game, it doesn't seem all that well-recieved. Opinion in the thread here is very mixed and my [uninformed] impression is it didn't sell very well. Wolfgang Pauli posted:Machine Guns gives one of the biggest boosts to colonization in the game. That alone is probably the most whitewashed thing in the entire game. No explanation, no psychological distance, just suddenly -10 Min Life Rating. At least the massacre decisions call it what it is. Really? I thought the fact that machine guns let you colonise was a fairly obvious way of showing you're killing people to do it. HoD makes it more explicit:  V for Vegas posted:This just completely airbrushes history. At least in a FPS game when you kill someone, you see them die. First up, what you're quoting is from an interview I gave for Destructoid, not sure if you know it was me or not. The answers have been edited into an article, but the actual Q&A was: Q: With the focus of the expansion being the fight to control Africa, are nations that are involved in the attempt to colonise it judged in any way for their exploitations of the continent? The period is looked back on with no small amount of scorn now, but would it be considered too anachronistic to have that represented in the game? A: No, it's too modern a viewpoint. Ingame the race for colonies is seen in an entirely positive light. I stand by that answer (I'm not sure where they got the bit about lines on the map), in the Victorian period from the western point of view there was no moral downside to colonising that I know of. Nations didn't condemn each other for colonising, everyone was rushing to claim colonies of their own, there was no major backlash from people against colonising governments etc. Heaping scorn on you for colonising in a Victorian era empire building game doesn't make sense.
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Apr 11, 2013 11:35
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The whole issue revolves around the age-old historiographical question about understanding the past in contemporary terms or not. I think the different opinions about paradox's games are a consequence of the ambivalence between them containing educational elements and/or purely being a simulation.
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Apr 11, 2013 13:12
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Darkrenown posted:
Well, Congo Free State much?
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Apr 11, 2013 13:37
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Darkrenown posted:A: No, it's too modern a viewpoint. Ingame the race for colonies is seen in an entirely positive light. That's not entirely true, but the opposition to colonialism was clearly not debilitating to any state during the period. Socialists were largely opposed to imperialism and colonialism, but they didn't do all that much about it. The most Hobsbawm notes in his "The Age of Empire" is that quote:The secular left was anti-imperialist in principle and often in practice. Freedom for India, like freedom for Egypt and Ireland, was the objective of the British labour movement. The left never wavered in its condemnation of colonial wars and conquests, often - as in the British opposition to the Boer War - at considerable risk of temporary unpopularity. Radicals revealed the horrors of the Congo, in metropolitan cocoa plantations on African islands, in Egypt. The campaign which led to the great electoral triumph of the British Liberal Party in 1906 was largely waged by public denunciations of 'Chinese slavery' in the South African mines. Yet, with the rarest exceptions (such as Dutch Indonesia), western
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Apr 11, 2013 13:50
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Cowcatcher posted:Well, Congo Free State much? No, not much. It's one example out of how much colonising? You had to do some hosed up poo poo to get called on it, the question was about colonising in general. Even if we wanted to portray more of the bad parts of colonialism, allowing you to act like the Belgians in the Congo is about as likely to make it into Victoria as Deathcamps are into HoI. Darkrenown fucked around with this message at 13:56 on Apr 11, 2013 |
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Apr 11, 2013 13:52
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Darkrenown posted:No, not much. It's one example out of how much colonising? You had to do some hosed up poo poo to get called on it, the question was about colonising in general. Even if we wanted to portray more of the bad parts of colonialism, allowing you to act like the Belgians in the Congo is about as likely to make it into Victoria as Deathcamps are into HoI. You should also note the British role in India in the creation of famines in the 19th century. Their actions were very close to those of the Nazis, including monstrous human experimentation and the use of concentration camps. See Mike Davis' Late Victorian Holocausts on this point.
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Apr 11, 2013 14:09
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I regret mentioning that I wanted to mod in Boer genocide in V2 now.
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Apr 11, 2013 14:11
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MaterialConceptual posted:You should also note the British role in India in the creation of famines in the 19th century. Their actions were very close to those of the Nazis, including monstrous human experimentation and the use of concentration camps. See Mike Davis' Late Victorian Holocausts on this point. What effect, beyond a growing sense of horror in the player, would this have on the game though? Did people in Britain overthrow the government in disgust? Did the other Great powers band together to end the UK's reign of terror? Was it even a political or international issue? Is there any benefit at all to adding a "Starve the Indians" decision granting 5000 grain in your stockpiles, -25% indian pop growth, and a popup saying you are a terrible person (or "YOU are the Heart of Darkness!")? I'm not sure why you bring it up.
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Apr 11, 2013 14:36
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Necroneocon posted:Columbia? This mod truly is representing a timeline that never happened. Should be Cascadia IMHO.
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Apr 11, 2013 14:37
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It's me, I'm the Heart of Darkness.
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Apr 11, 2013 14:38
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Darkrenown posted:What effect, beyond a growing sense of horror in the player, would this have on the game though? Did people in Britain overthrow the government in disgust? Did the other Great powers band together to end the UK's reign of terror? Was it even a political or international issue? Is there any benefit at all to adding a "Starve the Indians" decision granting 5000 grain in your stockpiles, -25% indian pop growth, and a popup saying you are a terrible person (or "YOU are the Heart of Darkness!")? I'm not sure why you bring it up. Well they used the food in question to fund their adventure in Afghanistan and pay for Queen Victoria's coronation as the Empress of India...so it was hardly incidental to the operation of the Empire. Especially, you know, considering that the game is called Victoria. EDIT: What I mean to say is that atrocities like this don't necessary exist in a metaphysical realm of EVIL FOR EVIL'S SAKE where the Greek chorus weeps over the darkness of man's heart. As another example you mentioned death camps as related to HoI. It's impossible to accurately depict the Nazi war machine without considering the use of slave labour. MaterialConceptual fucked around with this message at 14:52 on Apr 11, 2013 |
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Apr 11, 2013 14:48
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For those who didn't get an email, GamersGate is having a Paradox deal. 50% off, 75% during daily deals. Quick check: if you have CK2 on Steam, you still can't install the DLCs you download from GamersGate, right? Or has this changed?
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Apr 11, 2013 15:06
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Aww. I just found out that someone else on the Paradox forums already made a "disunited states of America" mod. 
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Apr 11, 2013 15:25
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Vodos posted:I have the Gamersgate versions of V2 and AHD, do I need to buy the GG version of HoD or can I install the Amazon version of it in case I buy it from them? GG and Amazon play well together. I've got the base V2 game from Amazon and AHD from GG and it works fine (actually, it might be the other way around, I can't remember--point is, I've got one from Amazon and the other from GG). Steam, however, does not allow you to use DLC from other services on Steam games. You'll be fine getting it from Amazon.
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Apr 11, 2013 15:31
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DrSunshine posted:Aww. I just found out that someone else on the Paradox forums already made a "disunited states of America" mod. It's two different atmospheres, though. Their US just never formed at all, yours fell apart at some point in the mid-19th century, and the two scenarios probably play completely differently. Keep going with it!
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Apr 11, 2013 15:33
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Darkrenown posted:What effect, beyond a growing sense of horror in the player, would this have on the game though? Did people in Britain overthrow the government in disgust? Did the other Great powers band together to end the UK's reign of terror? Was it even a political or international issue? Is there any benefit at all to adding a "Starve the Indians" decision granting 5000 grain in your stockpiles, -25% indian pop growth, and a popup saying you are a terrible person (or "YOU are the Heart of Darkness!")? I'm not sure why you bring it up. Even if there WAS such a benefit, I feel like it's the realm of things that can be done by the modding community. With one as active as paradox's, I think it'd be pretty reasonable for a 'realistic' mod to show up eventually. Victoria 2 : The Line, I guess.
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Apr 11, 2013 15:53
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Paradox is going to be doing a live stream of Heart of Darkness tonight at 8PM Central European Time (3 hours from now): http://www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive Is Steam still going to be lagging behind a few days on the HoD release like they usually do?
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Apr 11, 2013 15:58
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Darkrenown posted:What effect, beyond a growing sense of horror in the player, would this have on the game though? Did people in Britain overthrow the government in disgust? Did the other Great powers band together to end the UK's reign of terror? Was it even a political or international issue? Is there any benefit at all to adding a "Starve the Indians" decision granting 5000 grain in your stockpiles, -25% indian pop growth, and a popup saying you are a terrible person (or "YOU are the Heart of Darkness!")? I'm not sure why you bring it up. Switching the general feeling from "Rah Rah! Colonialism!" to "Oh... Colonialism.  " can have a pretty big impact on the play experience. You have to look at this from a standpoint other than one of pure mechanics. I think the problem a lot of people have is that in having colonialism be a primary means of advancement within the game, and by providing no commentary at all on these actions, you're effectively glorifying them. I personally don't think you should go nearly as far as some people are suggesting. But perhaps having EU4 style conditional historical events that at least touch on these subjects without necessarily having much gameplay impact (like many of V2's existing flavor events) would help deglorify colonialism a bit without putting the agency directly in the players' hands (No "push button to commit atrocity"). You wouldn't have to call the player a monster, just describe some events as they happened. It would, at the very least, be more educational.
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Apr 11, 2013 15:59
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NihilCredo posted:Quick check: if you have CK2 on Steam, you still can't install the DLCs you download from GamersGate, right? Or has this changed? No. GG is specifically the non-Steam version, so it's not and never will be compatible. CK2 was intended to be Steam only, but when we announced this a lot of people got annoyed so we made a non-Steam version too.
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Apr 11, 2013 16:08
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A game that would actually benefit from modeling the downsides to colonialism would actually be east v. west, because the de-colonization struggle sets the stage for the US and the SU competing over the formerly colonized world.
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Apr 11, 2013 16:10
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Is the sunset invasion worth picking up currently, or should I wait for a sale. I've been holding off because it doesn't seem to add very much and costs the same as Legacy of Rome while seemingly adding much less.
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Apr 11, 2013 16:11
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Get Sunset invasion if you think western Europeans have it too easy, and you want some hordes to shake them out of their lethargy.
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Apr 11, 2013 16:12
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Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:Switching the general feeling from "Rah Rah! Colonialism!" to "Oh... Colonialism. Making the player feel bad for progressing rather than "hey awesome I painted the map my color!" sounds totally worth it from an educational standpoint. 
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Apr 11, 2013 16:16
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podcat posted:Making the player feel bad for progressing rather than "hey awesome I painted the map my color!" sounds totally worth it from an educational standpoint. Maybe they shouldn't feel awful, but they should at least be aware of what they're actually doing. They can draw from that whatever they want. Some people would be bummed out, some will feel enlightened, and overall I think it would add some much needed texture and context to the system. Maybe some people will feel bad, but would bringing that emotion out be such a bad thing? Emotion can be an extremely compelling force, even negative emotions, and I don't think it would necessarily drive people away. Also, I dispute that Victoria 2 is a simple "Paint the map" game. It's a game that already deals with complex social and economic issues. It gets into many of the issues happening within Europe, including many of the more bloody and violent ones. And then it completely glosses over colonialism. And again, all I'm talking about here are more flavor events, basically.
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Apr 11, 2013 16:40
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podcat posted:Making the player feel bad for progressing rather than "hey awesome I painted the map my color!" sounds totally worth it from an educational standpoint. This but without the sarcasm.
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Apr 11, 2013 16:40
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There! 1836 Start: The central plains are the big uncolonized area here, rather than the West. New England begins as a vassal state of the USA.  1861 Start: To make the outcome of the Civil War less in favor of the CSA winning, the Great Lakes Union has been turned into a vassal of the USA by 1861. In addition the Pawnee are a vassal of the GLU. The Sioux are allied with the CSA. By 1861, the Mexican government has made a push on Deseret, which has in turn forced the Mormons eastwards into Colorado, making an eastern beeline into the central plains, where they meet up with the Texan northward expansion.  How do I make nations in the sphere of another? I had to make the GLU a vassal of the USA just because I couldn't figure out how to set it so that they're sphered. DrSunshine fucked around with this message at 16:44 on Apr 11, 2013 |
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Apr 11, 2013 16:41
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Your mod is awesome DrSunshine. I like it better than the divided states mod you noticed earlier. Is it going to be a standalone scenario, or to be used with APD?
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Apr 11, 2013 16:46
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DrProsek posted:Your mod is awesome DrSunshine. I like it better than the divided states mod you noticed earlier. Is it going to be a standalone scenario, or to be used with APD? I built it on top of APD, so it sorta includes APD in the mod already. I dunno how kosher it is to release it widely in that state, but I give them credit in the credits. When I do release it, it'll be just here for this thread, as it started off only as a few tweaks I made to APD for my own fun. EDIT: Added another thing to the 1861 start -- a Californian-Cascadian war of conquest for Oregon.  Ooh ooh! How about having New England use the chaos of the civil war to declare independence, with the assistance of Canada? The USA/Great Lakes Union would have an interesting choice: finish off the Confederacy in the civil war and turn their attention to their rebellious vassal, or let New England go in order to turn their attention fully on defeating the CSA? Basically, the Divided States of America should be a shifting clusterfuck of alliances and petty wars over barren worthless territory. That would be awesome. Also, I have no idea what would cause this timeline. Probably a series of factors that lead to the USA starting off with a lot less political authority and identity as a single nation, which made it more viable for small regional states to break off and establish de-facto autonomy. Someone more familiar with late 18th century and early 19th century American history might be able to make up a better explanation. DrSunshine fucked around with this message at 17:51 on Apr 11, 2013 |
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Apr 11, 2013 16:48
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podcat posted:Making the player feel bad for progressing rather than "hey awesome I painted the map my color!" sounds totally worth it from an educational standpoint. I already feel pretty bad about some of the stuff I do in Europa Universalis. Settlement policies aimed at displacing the local culture with the accepted one? Forced conversions? Anything at all relating to colonising inhabited provinces? God it makes me feel really terrible. I still do it, though, because I'm able to separate my human horror at these historical events from the gameplay; plus, on occasion I'll try to play as 'nice Dutch' or something, only unifying the Netherlands peacefully and then not colonising. I don't think including a little more commentary on what's actually involved with colonialism will turn off as many players as you seem to think.
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Apr 11, 2013 17:04
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Only with Paradox games do you worry about the educational aspect of it.
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Apr 11, 2013 17:11
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Please don't turn Paradox Games into boring/masturbatory political education tools for internet activists. We all know that colonialism was bad and that all sorts of other activities associated with war are horrible, but the vast majority of people who play strategic war games do so to have fun, not to get a loving lecture about how whatever they're doing in the game is evil. The people who actually implemented these policies didn't get a pop-up warning them about their moral depravity in real life, so why is it necessary in the game? You can work out the implications of your actions on your own if you're inclined to do so.
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Apr 11, 2013 17:18
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gradenko_2000 posted:If your V2 and AHD are from GG, might as well buy HOD from GG as well. Better safe than sorry. Darkrenown posted:I stand by that answer (I'm not sure where they got the bit about lines on the map), in the Victorian period from the western point of view there was no moral downside to colonising that I know of. Nations didn't condemn each other for colonising, everyone was rushing to claim colonies of their own, there was no major backlash from people against colonising governments etc. Heaping scorn on you for colonising in a Victorian era empire building game doesn't make sense. Wolfgang Pauli fucked around with this message at 17:30 on Apr 11, 2013 |
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Apr 11, 2013 17:27
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Wolfgang Pauli posted:Amazon sells the GG versions of Vicky 2. It would be absolute bullshit if they suddenly switched to Steam. When I bought the Plentiful Paradox Bundle from Amazon I was able to register Vicky 2 on Steam.
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Apr 11, 2013 17:48
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I also got a Steam code for A House Divided buying it from Amazon.
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Apr 11, 2013 17:53
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DrSunshine's mod does look really awesome, but it's a bit -too- balkanized for my personal tastes. Anyway I just played about 15 years of a Californian Republic game and things were going great (woo my first million+ people in ten years) when the US triggered the Manifest Destiny decision and squashed me. Is there any way to change the Manifest Destiny decision to include another prerequisite like "PLAYER_IS_NOT CAL/DES/TEX" or something, so the US just does steamroll you like a big whatever? I even had really good relations with the US, so it feels like far too much railroading.
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Apr 11, 2013 18:10
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