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A Buttery Pastry posted:As an aside, what is the difference between an "ecclesiastically-endorsed semi-dynastic dictatorship" and a monarchy? The name of the titles? It's not like monarchies don't come in many different forms. By that point, the distinction was getting tenuous, you're right. But the core idea is one of legitimacy. Mehmed II's heirs laid claim to legitimacy deriving from their descent from Mehmed II. On paper, Romans laid their legitimacy at the feet of other institutions (the senate, the army, and the church, like I mentioned before) to endorse their rule. Any of these institutions could, in theory, reject the Emperor or pick a new one, or abolish the institution entirely. While most of these powers were effectively void, these bodies did regularly exercise their ability to pick a new Emperor when power vacuums arose. In that regard, the distinction was not merely a technicality. The Ottoman royal family did not have to fear this. No one could succeed the house of Osman but another member of the house of Osman. Their legitimacy derived from themselves. Even the powerful institutions of the Ottoman Empire (the clergy) could only condemn an existing monarch and replace him with another member of the dynasty, not change dynasties entirely. Of course, complicating this whole thing is the fact that Romans were frequently dynasts. Generally, the son of the Emperor was the desired candidate to ascend to the purple. It's not fair to argue that the Ottomans were exclusively dynastic and the Romans were not, so it's possible that it is only the relative success of the Ottoman dynasty that caused them to not exhibit the Roman tendency to churn through dynasties. Compare this: the Byzantine Empire churned through Emperors from no fewer than two dozen different houses, whereas the Ottoman Empire was ruled by the house of Osman from start to finish. It's an impressive act of continuity which possibly masked whether or not the Ottomans had adopted some of Rome's political institutions. Maybe the house of Osman was just a very successful Imperial house. A Roman would have been incredibly pleased to accomplish such a dynastic feat. But for over a thousand years, not one achieved anything like that.
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# ? Apr 2, 2015 00:59 |
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# ? Mar 28, 2024 19:23 |
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Thankless Canadians! The poor Spaniards!
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# ? Apr 2, 2015 00:59 |
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Grade: F. Student exceeded word limit. Student did not follow prompt. So, Canada is now even worse than when it was ruled by the King, hooray! Hopefully Hawaii doesn't become unbreakable while we get new invasion techs. And I'm trying to think of a rationale for France wanting to guide Quebec other than really misguided ideas about how close the two countries are, but I can't think of any. Have the Russians done anything interesting? EDIT: You can click the various columns to sort things in the ledger, that'd let you figure out the best ship by kills easily.
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# ? Apr 2, 2015 01:02 |
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A sincere belief in the superiority of the French speaking world? Secret North American invasion plans? I got nothing.
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# ? Apr 2, 2015 01:13 |
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It seemed a bit out of place but I have military control still so whatever.
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# ? Apr 2, 2015 01:14 |
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Yeah that whole Quebec event always struck me as out of place imperialism for a nation trying to divorce itself from imperialist tendencies.
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# ? Apr 2, 2015 01:15 |
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beefart posted:Yeah that whole Quebec event always struck me as out of place imperialism for a nation trying to divorce itself from imperialist tendencies. Yeah, that just seems like linguistic nationalism, which seems to fly in the face of socialist internationalism.
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# ? Apr 2, 2015 01:23 |
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Some kind of flavor event would work better there, but really the puppet status doesn't matter much.
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# ? Apr 2, 2015 01:28 |
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I just realized that the CSA flag is the International Workers of the World flag. I really should've drawn the connection, considering how much time I've spent studying them . So, I'm guessing the plan is - spam carriers and then get the eventual 50th state back to its rightful masters?
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# ? Apr 2, 2015 01:31 |
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Ua Mau ke Ea o ka ʻĀina i ka Pono. Death to treacherous American oppressors. Hawaiian sovereignty and independence, now and forever.
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# ? Apr 2, 2015 01:34 |
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i81icu812 posted:Ua Mau ke Ea o ka ʻĀina i ka Pono. Even if we have to blast the island down to nothing but bare volcanic rock, Magnum p. i. will be filmed on Hawaiian soil!
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# ? Apr 2, 2015 03:28 |
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Gentlemen! Surely, surely there's a diplomatic compromise wherein the Americans can get everything they want while giving up nothing they care about?
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# ? Apr 2, 2015 03:31 |
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Pushed back in Hawaii? Syndies kicked out of Spain? Totalist Canada? Man, I am unreasonably excited about how things are shaping up. I'm sure the King-in-even-more-exile is perversely happy to be proven right, but the Canadian people probably aren't too happy with America right now.
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# ? Apr 2, 2015 03:34 |
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What does the Influence Nation option do?
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# ? Apr 2, 2015 03:40 |
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Crossposting some interesting info from the Military History threadPittTheElder posted:While googling this contest (the Canadian Army Trophy presumably?) I learned that the Dutch army has a union? Nuclear War posted:The Norwegian Army has a couple unions too, and they're amazing. Im in the one for lower ranked officers and noncoms and they saved my rear end from being fired once when I had a major beef with my unit commander. They're lawyers are amazing, usually former servicemen and they take care of you in an environment that of its very nature is given to authoritarian power plays and little to no tradition of compromise. There are limits of course. Soldiers can't go on strike, for one thing and that limits the unions power somewhat. An interesting possible alternative to anarchist militias (BTW, has the military undergone any major reshaping/restructuring in this LP?), Im kinda curious what a fully syndicalist military would look like. I tried to google some more info about military unions but a basic search only turned up stuff regarding alliances or the US (which bans them).
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# ? Apr 2, 2015 04:21 |
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Zeroisanumber posted:Even if we have to blast the island down to nothing but bare volcanic rock, Magnum p. i. will be filmed on Hawaiian soil! I read this in Zapp Branigan's voice. I hope you're happy.
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# ? Apr 2, 2015 04:22 |
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The Commune of France's army is mentioned as being trade union-based- I have to wonder how a system like that would operate during wartime. The Union of Britain is supposed to be a bunch of popular militias and a small professional national army, probably a socialist version of the old British Army and Territorials.
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# ? Apr 2, 2015 04:40 |
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Kavak posted:The Commune of France's army is mentioned as being trade union-based- I have to wonder how a system like that would operate during wartime. Unless the Commune has no/small standing peace time army that makes no sense, hell it doesnt make sense with a professional army since while in the army your 'trade' is going to be fighting- unless its like infantry, mechanized, naval, support, etc are their own seperate union. Thats the only way that can make sense, unless you meant trade union based as taking the concept of an industry union and applying it to the army.
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# ? Apr 2, 2015 04:47 |
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It comes from this event for the Commune's elections.quote:name = "Election day 1: Clarifying the Communal Army"
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# ? Apr 2, 2015 04:51 |
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Kavak posted:It comes from this event for the Commune's elections. Ok, I dont know enough about unions to make sense of whats supposed to be going on in that event, structurally/organizationally speaking.
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# ? Apr 2, 2015 04:59 |
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It sounds like a cross of the modern day military unions mentioned above and the soldiers committees the soviets played around with before realizing that militaries are organized hierarchically for a reason.
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# ? Apr 2, 2015 05:09 |
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Communist Zombie posted:Ok, I dont know enough about unions to make sense of whats supposed to be going on in that event, structurally/organizationally speaking. Me either. I think the Commune has roots in the 1917 mutinies being much more badly handled than in real life, or at least in another round of them when the war went sour, so I imagine their military was designed by people involved in that. It's one of the reasons my personal canon is France imploding like IRL and falling to Germany within two months. :cryingwilhelmII:
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# ? Apr 2, 2015 05:15 |
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paragon1 posted:What does the Influence Nation option do? It mainly increases the relations between two countries, which serves limited purpose in such an event driven game. It can be occasionally useful if you're trying to get an alliance not provided for in events and it may have some bearing on the types of deals they'll accept but I can't swear to that. It can succeed to varying degrees, from +5 to +25, with +25 also moving one of their sliders closer to what yours are, which can occasionally be really useful to bump their interventionism high enough to ally but usually results in an extra point of closed society or something pointless.
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# ? Apr 2, 2015 05:19 |
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I like using it to boost Open Society and be a force for good in the world
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# ? Apr 2, 2015 05:21 |
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Chief Savage Man posted:It mainly increases the relations between two countries, which serves limited purpose in such an event driven game. It can be occasionally useful if you're trying to get an alliance not provided for in events and it may have some bearing on the types of deals they'll accept but I can't swear to that. It can succeed to varying degrees, from +5 to +25, with +25 also moving one of their sliders closer to what yours are, which can occasionally be really useful to bump their interventionism high enough to ally but usually results in an extra point of closed society or something pointless. So could you, theoretically, use it enough to change Canada to from totalist to something else? Probably not practical, but drat beating the King's lackeys just for the country to turn around and go all Stalin on you sucks.
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# ? Apr 2, 2015 05:28 |
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paragon1 posted:So could you, theoretically, use it enough to change Canada to from totalist to something else? Probably not practical, but drat beating the King's lackeys just for the country to turn around and go all Stalin on you sucks. Yeah I could, but it would take a long long time because it only hits on the max effect every so often and even then it's not a great chance it'd be left/right or auth/dem.
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# ? Apr 2, 2015 05:33 |
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Chief Savage Man posted:Yeah I could, but it would take a long long time because it only hits on the max effect every so often and even then it's not a great chance it'd be left/right or auth/dem. Time for a coup
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# ? Apr 2, 2015 05:37 |
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Are there any other Totalists besides Canada? I'm still holding out hope for the 1984 event chain in Britain.RZApublican posted:Time for a coup Yes, I think we can agree that more foreign intervention is the solution here.
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# ? Apr 2, 2015 05:45 |
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Dibujante posted:Yeah, that just seems like linguistic nationalism, which seems to fly in the face of socialist internationalism. I suppose it might be the more internationalist parts of the government throwing the less so a bone, since I doubt France is entirely uniform in political thought. Better to have them running around in Quebec, helping to put French language signs up, than have them have an actual say in the governance of France. Dibujante posted:Royal authority
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# ? Apr 2, 2015 05:46 |
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Kellsterik posted:Are there any other Totalists besides Canada? I'm still holding out hope for the 1984 event chain in Britain. The Country Formerly Known As Georgia is the only other Totalist state as of right now.
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# ? Apr 2, 2015 05:49 |
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I was wondering this when the Canada trade union conference event came up- do you pretty much choose which direction you want to go down in the first few events and it stays that way, or is it more fluid with later events giving a chance to switch? Basically, how likely is it that the currently existing Syndicalist states will go Totalist or otherwise change their orientation? Are we most likely to see new ones if more countries are conquered and puppeted and they pick that option in their event chain?
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# ? Apr 2, 2015 05:54 |
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Kellsterik posted:Are there any other Totalists besides Canada? I'm still holding out hope for the 1984 event chain in Britain. Waitwaitwait-can you actually get Britain to be renamed to Airstrip One in this mod!? Because it would be the best if you could properly say that "We've always been at war with Germany" or whatever country you were at war with that week.
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# ? Apr 2, 2015 06:18 |
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Chief Savage Man posted:
Totalist?! We should have annexed them!
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# ? Apr 2, 2015 06:21 |
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Kulkasha posted:Totalist?! We should have annexed them!
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# ? Apr 2, 2015 06:26 |
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A White Guy posted:I just realized that the CSA flag is the International Workers of the World flag. I really should've drawn the connection, considering how much time I've spent studying them . It's kind of impressive that you've spent so much time studying us and still got our name wrong (it's Industrial, not International). Sorry, I've seen that mistake so many times and it grinds my gears a little more every time, especially when it's newspapers reporting on our organizing campaigns and attributing them to a union that doesn't actually exist.
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# ? Apr 2, 2015 08:10 |
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A White Guy posted:The problem, I feel, is that most Posters on SA are Westerners and don't really care about Chinese impact on East Asia/India. If you're gonna compare sheer geographical size and population, China throughout its various iterations wins almost every time, but if you're gonna compare cultural impact, I'd say that its a toss-up between the Chinese, the Romans, and the Mongols. I think that leaves out India rather unfairly, given the size of India itself as well as the general influence of Buddhism to points eastward and other branches of mystical ascetisism to points west. You'd also get a lot of mileage out of combining the Mongols with the general Hunno-Turkic-Mongol thing, from the Ottomans to the Tang there's been a lot of dynasties coming out of that general area. Dibujante posted:It's really hard to say. To make him the inheritor of Rome's legacy, he would have to adopt Rome's institutions to some extent. Did he? Or is successors? At that point, Rome was an ecclesiastically-endorsed semi-dynastic dictatorship, but not monarchy. Mehmed II most definitely intended to rule as a monarch, and the structure of the Ottoman Empire seems like it was strictly monarchical. That said, some of its power struggles seem fairly Roman (there's nothing the Romans excelled at more than power struggles), although rather than assassinating and overthrowing their leaders, the Ottomans would generally assassinate one and trot out someone else from the dynasty. I mean, the Ottomans sure as hell weren't running a Turkish tribal structure... I'd say the Ottomans were more using and iterating the model they found in Anatolia before they got to Constantinople and went all Kaizar, but that model was one very heavily influenced by the Persian and Byzantine structures that the early post-Muhammad Arab empires fell into. I think all the 'blah' about what broad 'cultures' or 'civilizations' had more influence is kind of silly, and overgeneralizing, where history should really be specific. That said, they are interesting as a thought exercise, and I think there's a model of the world that lumps the West, Arabia, and Iran into one big monotheist Irano-Hellenic-Romantic mode. E: Also also, Polynesian, Bantu, various pre-epidemic American groups, etc. etc. The world is far bigger than Eurasia. the JJ fucked around with this message at 15:10 on Apr 2, 2015 |
# ? Apr 2, 2015 14:24 |
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Welcome to the second intermission mini-LP. In this game, we'll be playing in India as the Bhartiya Commune. I've upgraded my game to 1.04 RC1 and Kaiserreich to version 1.6 (from 1.3/1.5 in the CSA game). The new version of DH brings some neat improvements that I'm liking and wish I had in the base game like:
There's also a lot of improvements to the vanilla campaigns but I've actually never played a non-KR game of DH so I wouldn't know much about that. Kaiserreich 1.6 also brings many good (and one sad) changes. + India has received a major revamp, with each of the three major Indian states having a great deal of domestic issues to deal with. + Every nation can have a minimum of 2 research projects going on at once and can have up to 7 with at least 100 IC (I really wish the CSA had 7 tech teams). + Lots of new events that fill in gaps and give new options to many different countries. - Marshall was replaced with Smedley Butler. I will miss you, George-san. I've enjoyed what I've played of the new version, even if it does have some wacky bits that we'll run into, which is to be expected in any mod with as many elaborate event chains as Kaiserreich. Part One: Early 1936 Our nation, the Bhartiya Commune, is a medium power based out of Calcutta and the Bengal region. We share India with two other medium powers and a handful of smaller nations. The Commune was formed in the 1920s during the aftermath of the British Revolution. While it is a decidedly socialist state, it falls into the category of Radical Socialist like the Union of Britain and Centroamerica. We are not part of the French alliance just yet, but there is a good probability that we'll receive a good deal of assistance from the French and British throughout the game. Our main weakness is our technological backwardness. Like Mongolia, we are far behind Europe, North America and Japan. Unlike Mongolia, we will have the option to get assistance from the advanced European syndicalist states at various points, which will help us out. Our tech teams are generally poor to mediocre, usually in the 3-5 skill range. The one notable exception is Satyendra Nath Bose, the famous Indian physicist, who could very well research every tech required for nuclear bombs. As time goes on, we will unlock some better teams through events and scripted unlocks. The Manufacturing, Agriculture, Computers and Cryptography trees in this window will be important, as they are to basically any nation. As I said before, Nuclear is very much a possibility given Bose. With a potential 7 tech teams, I'll be able to expand our research horizons beyond what the CSA could manage. Our land doctrine has been chosen for us, and it makes sense. The Manpower Focus (AKA the USSR tree) is focused on large infantry armies. This doctrine tree includes construction time reduction for infantry, and combined with small arms assembly line and gearing bonuses, we'll be able to build infantry divisions at a rapid clip. Our potentially massive manpower and our limited industry lends itself to this type of mass infantry army. Our style of warfare will be different than what we have seen so far. The CSA uses the Superior Firepower (USA) doctrine tree and thus I've focused on concentrating artillery and air support. Mongolia used the Mobility Focus (Germany) doctrine tree and therefore the focus was on encirclement and penetration. Our units will not be very mobile, but we'll have a lot of them, and thus I'll be focusing on overwhelming the enemy with superior numbers across a large front. Getting around command limits will be a big part of our success against powerful enemies. Instead of attacking from one province with 12 powerful units, we'll be attacking from two or three with 24 or 36 less powerful units. It's a different way to play the game, and honestly a pretty easy way if you have the industry and manpower to produce masses of infantry. With that in mind, we will be focusing solely on regular infantry. People who know things about Darkest Hour say that building a massive infantry army is always the most powerful option considering the IC costs of specialty, motorized and armored units. I don't plan on building any other units besides infantry, and so the only other trees I'll focus on here are Combat Engineers and Supply, as we'll need to get the most out of our Transport Capacity in order to supply a huge army. We have absolutely no knowledge of tanks and limited knowledge of artillery. I don't really plan on building any of this stuff. We have a World War 1 level of knowledge about aircraft and air doctrine. Aircraft are always good to have, but considering our IC limitations, this will not be a focus early on. We literally know nothing about boats, which I don't get. Not even 19th century level? I would like to field a navy at some point and I plan on fielding a heavy cruiser navy. Darkest Hour experts tell me that a heavy cruiser fleet is the most powerful option for some reason and this path requires less industry and research than battleships or carriers. It's gamey, yes. Deal with it. We don't even have the secret project for WW1 tanks, let alone anything for jets, nukes or ballistic missiles. Our starting position is somewhat weak. We have a lot of divisions, but they are all understrength and require lots of reinforcements, something that will be occupying our industry for quite some time. Once that process is completed however, we will be able to begin cranking out new infantry divisions. I am setting two goals for this LP.
Who stands in our way? Delhi is the remnant of the British Raj. They still pledge allegiance to the King and function as a constitutional monarchy. They occupy the northwestern third of India and are very similar to us in terms of industry and manpower. They have the advantage of being a member of the Entente. Canada and Australasia have some good tech teams and so they'll likely be funneling blueprints to their ally. In addition to that, we can expect to see Entente air forces operating in India, something that we will not have. Our other major rival is the Princely Federation, a grouping of princely states who rebelled against British rule in favor of independence. The Federation has a right authoritarian bent and can be prone to political infighting in between the powerful princes. They also exercise a degree of political control over a small republic centered in Madras. They have the largest army on the subcontinent, but this advantage is offset by their relative isolation. While we can count on the Internationale for some support, and Delhi is part of the Entente, the Princely Federation has only minor ties to the outside world, with the potential to make some agreements with Germany, but nothing as major as what we or Delhi can call upon. The other minor powers on the subcontinent other than the three main powers and the Madras Republic are Nepal, which controls part of the Ganges basin; Bhutan, which took control of some Himalayan territory and Afghanistan, which has moved in on parts of Pakistan. In addition, Germany controls Ceylon/Sri Lanka and Portugal controls Goa as it has for centuries. And thus the stage is set for our Indian adventure. It begins with another Bose, no scientist but rather a leader who makes common cause with a British Totalist. The Indian National Congress will convene later in 1936, and one faction or another will lead the Commune into this fraught time, whether it be Mohandas Gandhi's pacifist Agrarians, A.K. Fazlul Huq's Moderates, or the Maximist faction led by Bose the not scientist. Also this guy died. RIP.
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# ? Apr 3, 2015 16:24 |
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Chief Savage Man posted:Kaiserreich 1.6 also brings many good (and one sad) changes. I finally got Mr. War is a Racket into the mod after people have been pushing for him for at least 5 goddamn years and you will like it! quote:We literally know nothing about boats, which I don't get. Not even 19th century level? I would like to field a navy at some point and I plan on fielding a heavy cruiser navy. Darkest Hour experts tell me that a heavy cruiser fleet is the most powerful option for some reason and this path requires less industry and research than battleships or carriers. It's gamey, yes. Deal with it. Heavy cruisers + Torpedo attachments = Everything but submarines dies. But yeah, Kaiserreich has never been good about giving countries enough Naval techs. The dev for this section kept talking about how the whole Raj navy sided with Delhi, but it never made sense to me. At least with the tech team cap increase we'll catch up in that category much quicker than normal. The problem with navies in Darkest Hour is that you can't blockade anything but army supply convoys and resource convoys from the country you're blockading and its puppets (So Germany can torpedo freighters from British Africa and India, but Canadian shipping is handled via transporter.) Since foreign shipping is completely unaffected, your resource flows are in many ways safer outside your control! So unless you have overseas territories or need to conduct naval invasions to beat the enemy, there is no reason to invest in a navy in Darkest Hour instead of fortifying the hell out of your coasts. I think its supposed to be a "No war crimes" thing, but then you shouldn't be able to intercept resource shipments at all- it's still totally possible to starve out Japan, as far as I can tell.
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# ? Apr 3, 2015 17:13 |
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Subhas Chandra Bose was an interesting character. In many ways he was the militant answer to Mahatma Gandhi's pacifism. He allied himself with the Axis in WWII hoping to lead a Free Indian Army to throw the British out of his country. Bose was an excellent organizer and politician, but not much of a general. The Indian National Army that he raised was crushed by the British while fighting alongside the Japanese during the Imphal Campaign. Bose escaped the debacle, but died shortly after in a plane crash in Manchuria. In spite of his failure, Bose is still considered one of the heroes of Indian independence, and statues of him can be found all over the country.
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# ? Apr 3, 2015 17:20 |
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# ? Mar 28, 2024 19:23 |
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Obviously you're going to go for the Sid Meier's Civilisation strategy of putting Gandhi in charge and backing his words with nuclear weapons, yeah?
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# ? Apr 3, 2015 17:26 |