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The real important question: is Viktorie okay?
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Mar 9, 2021 01:53
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Reading through the old thread to try to catch up with this and I gotta say: reading that post with the rise of anarcho-capitalism with things the way they are at this point in time OTL was quite a mood. 
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Apr 14, 2021 23:20
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Just politely keeping this out of archives
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Apr 23, 2021 03:02
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Moktaro posted:Reading through the old thread to try to catch up with this and I gotta say: reading that post with the rise of anarcho-capitalism with things the way they are at this point in time OTL was quite a mood. I am not smart, and poor at googling. OTL?
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Apr 23, 2021 06:00
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"Original timeline." As in, the way things were in the real world.
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Apr 23, 2021 06:01
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Josef bugman posted:That is really interesting, thank you! To reply to this much later, it won't necessarily be until they get pressured to do it. I don't know what's in their focus tree, of course, but there's basically two ways AIs in HoI4 go after opposition -- they have cores/claims to pursue, or their focus tree pushes them into it. You don't actually see the "hmm, this country is weaker than me, I'm gonna go kick their face in" thing that EU4 and V2 have nearly as much if at all, because HoI4 is a game about war rather than country building, so the game is designed around providing those flash points rather than having the country have to make them themselves. That's not to say it's impossible, though -- claim fabrication exists in HoI4. It's just more onerous than taking advantage of built-in cores and claims, which the game has in abundance. Lenape in particular is almost more likely to start poo poo themselves. They were doing plenty of aggressive poo poo in V2 against both the Iroquois and Zheng He Bay, and either could theoretically happen again -- this is the kind of thing usually handled in a country's focus tree. What is also highly unnerving is that Free Corps of Mannahatta event, which absolutely stinks of being a fascist ideology booster. If Lenape goes fascist, many things change. That immediately brings them in line with the WRE ideologically, and they have bottomless oil that the WRE could desperately use. France also has a fleet of considerable size which I didn't realize in that last post -- still not large enough to reasonably fight GBR and Ayiti at the same time even with Lenape on side, but that would give them strong incentive to abandon the Mediterranean and focus on the Atlantic if they go to war with the Red Rose Pact. It also takes that oil away from China, which doesn't change anything in the WPO vs. Allies equation but does in the WPO vs. RRP one, since it makes China more dependent on keeping Asitelihan and Zhongnan in the game. Lenape is still probably instantly screwed if they go to war with Ayiti, but the period between them picking a side and their side going to war with either Ayiti or Haida is a period where their oil can turn into fuel stockpiles for their alliance. The ACTUAL danger point in the last update, however, is absolutely the Aztecs. As I said, an unaligned country will look for absolutely anyone who it thinks can help save their bacon. We dodged that bullet in the German Civil War because it was a civil war, and sides in a civil war are disinclined to join alliances by the mechanics (though it's not remotely impossible). The Aztecs right now are a time bomb that either the Haida crush so fast that they can't go off, or they pick a bigger country to be their friend and set off a multi-alliance war. The latter is less likely than normal as only the Allies are actually currently involved in a war, but this is how world wars start, after all. The Aztecs aren't going to go to the Allies despite their democracy and their decent-sized Democratic support, because the Allies are attacking them, so duh. They also probably aren't going to go to the Red Rose Pact with that near-nonexistent Communism, or the WPO with the similarly weak Pangalist support. Neither one is impossible, but I'd call both highly unlikely. What they HAVE, however, is very large support for Fascism. That's the big black slice in the bottom left of their ideology pie chart, between the tiny red Communism slice and the light-gray Non-Aligned slice. And they also have oil. Which the WRE could really use. If the Aztecs run screaming to Valeria for support, we could instantly see the Allies and the Fascists go to war, which is otherwise something i didn't even consider because their territories are otherwise almost completely incongruous. That would mean the Aztecs wouldn't be eaten alive, just occupied until the alliances end their fight -- which might NEVER happen because of how far separated they are. You might actually see a GW1 reprisal as the nearest possible analogue, but with France in the role Byzantium played, because I can't think of any other place where their borders touch. This isn't a fight France is going to seek, because they are obsessed with Europe, but hypothetically it could happen. Things could get very weird. Edit: Actually, the WRE-Allied borders DO touch in one other place, since Russia joined the WRE, but it is not a place I would ever like to see a war start, because it's the Russia-Silla border and I've TRIED to fight a war in that hellhole. That border is almost exactly congruous with the Ural Mountains and the infrastructure in that part of the world is terrible. It would be a bottomless pit of attrition. Redeye Flight fucked around with this message at 12:03 on Apr 30, 2021 |
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Apr 30, 2021 11:52
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a bottomless pit of attrition? sounds like a war third rome can actually fight 
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Apr 30, 2021 13:49
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I have done something very silly while procrastinating for the next update for TibetLP:
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May 10, 2021 05:02
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This is wonderful. Also, I do hope that we get an update eventually! Thank you for this! It is really appreciated!
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May 12, 2021 16:52
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All of my favorite Romes are here, and such great haircuts too.
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May 13, 2021 18:15
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All the weird Romes in the world are here right now [In the Eternal City!] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RgR0-EWuNY
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May 13, 2021 18:56
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Kangxi posted:I have done something very silly while procrastinating for the next update for TibetLP: Maybe we'll leave come springtime But meanwhile, have another beer What would we do without all these Romes anyway And besides, all our friends are here!
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May 14, 2021 03:22
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May 27, 2021 00:13
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Why do those top two say the same thing?
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May 27, 2021 04:42
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Those are some hot air balloons.
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May 27, 2021 09:33
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Kangxi posted:I have done something very silly while procrastinating for the next update for TibetLP: When in Rome, do as the Parisians
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May 27, 2021 11:03
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THIS IS AN OFFICIALLY SANCTIONED BYZLP POST = = = = = Shouting Into the Crowd: A History of Polemics in the Byzantine Commune posted:"The Realities of Logistics" was a short treatise circulated in late 1935 among the Byzantine officers' corps; while published anonymously, investigations in the late 1940s eventually traced the authorship to one Yildrim Şahin Kara, an invalided 2GW veteran then serving in the supply corps. Kara had been part of the Third Red Expedition and had paid close attention to the way the 2GW had strangled Ayiti with minimal bloodshed; according to later interviews, he became "obsessed" with the supply and logistics angle of war on returning home, and circulated the treatise in an attempt to draw attention to its importance in upcoming conflicts (a common practice among axe-grinding, cause-bearing officers in the Byzantine military of the time). Logistics is the lifeblood of war. This has been known for thousands of years in every culture that has made war; Sun Tzu writes that it is "the line between disorder and order". Alexander, meanwhile, observed that his logisticians were humorless because he would kill them first if one of his campaigns failed. The phrase "An army marches on its stomach" is unquestionably French in origin, even if it has been attributed to nearly two dozen figures throughout history. Only amateurs ignore logistics in war, and we would be ill-advised to do so. To be certain, our Commune has many strengths in this department. But its weaknesses are important, and in at least one case, present a possible weakness no lesser than the heel of Achilles. In large part, it must be said, the Byzantine Commune has no shortage of the means for making war! And it is not my intention to declare that we should rapaciously devour other countries to secure what we cannot make ourselves; certainly that folly has been shown for what it is countless times already. But we must be aware of what we have to import, for it is a target that our enemies can aim for. Hearts of Iron 4 is a game of resources and logistics more than it is of battles or even strategies, because you can't fight the war with an army you don't have because you have no guns for your dudes to hold! I love that part of it and I've been thinking about it for the Byzantine Commune a lot, since I play most of my base HoI4 games in this part of the world anyway. So let's look at some details.  Spanning a broad swathe of Europe, the Byzantine Commune enjoys great wealth for both peace and war. Nearly everything necessary to a modern society can be found within our borders, and some in incredible abundance. From the bauxite mines of Verona to the vast mineral resources of Anatolia, we can build almost anything we desire. In particular, we are well-suited for our modern navy. Whereas past Byzantine navies suffered from the poor timbering and long-depleted forests of the Mediterranean, our wealth of humble steel and well-developed smelting and forging industries mean we are more than capable of building as many ships as we can find sailors to man them. Our greatest strengths are in alloys, however -- titanium, vanadium, chromium, and manganese [Note: abstracted to "Chromium", the grey orb]. The unparalleled abundance of these in Anatolia and the lower Balkans means that Byzantine steel is among the best in the world, and every advance in technology has paid us twofold thanks to them. Chromium in particular is so abundant that it appears on almost every metal surface in Byzantium, as our gleaming skyscrapers can attest (Pub. Note: as can the Ornamentation Limitation Act of 1930, which limited chrome on automobiles after numerous accidents due to blinding reflective light). This decoration has much more practical uses inside of engines rather than just outside, however; we may well never have enough capital ships or heavy landships to exhaust our chromium supply. However, there is much more to war than just building ships, and it is here that I wish to sound alarm bells. Resources in Hearts of Iron 4 are abstracted into six categories: Oil, Aluminum, Rubber, Tungsten, Steel, and Chromium, from left to right on the tab below. All six have different applications and the really good toys need combinations of them. Steel is used in god drat near everything, so I'm glad to see we have plenty. Aluminum is used in all airplanes and infantry support equipment. Tungsten is for large-caliber guns like tank guns and artillery, though not naval guns. Rubber is used for planes, tanks, and trucks. Chromium is for capital ships, the most modern smaller ships, heavy and superheavy tanks, and the most modern tanks. Oil is... special. We'll get to it. Also take note of our civilian factories listed there! 77 is a VERY healthy number and we almost certainly have more by now. Certainly we have more to apply to projects, since we've done several focuses that have freed up a larger proportion of our civilian industry for use.  We have abundance of the supplies needed to build guns and planes and ships; the problem comes when they are built. Oil I shall leave for last, as it deserves particular attention. Rubber, one could say, is our greatest weakness, for no road wheel rolls without its rubber cushion, and we have absolutely none. This is, however, not surprising; rubber is not fond of the climate in the Near West and grows nowhere nearby, meaning this is a problem faced by anyone we might expect to face as well, with the possible exception of China. Indeed, China through their disgusting Zhongnan client state controls the vast majority of the world's rubber supply. This problem is even worse in core HoI4. British Malaya has almost 50% of the entire global rubber supply all by itself! This is because resources are representing development of the resource along with what's actually there; you can have an iron deposit the size of a country, but if you're not able to actually mine it effectively, you're only going to get so much steel out of it. This is also why the Middle East oil deposits pale in size compared to Texas and California; in the HoI4 time frame they're only just being discovered and are not remotely as developed as the ones in the rich, prosperous, highly industrialized USA. Ammunition is perhaps a more immediate concern. Modern ammunition requires increasing amounts of hard metals to achieve the power to punch through increasingly thick and sophisticated armor, of which tungsten is the leader. Our native supply of tungsten is nearly nonexistent, however, coming exclusively from a few mines in Macedonia. In peacetime this supply went almost entirely to our tooling and industrial applications, such as the modern electric lights that now make our cities' chrome shine day and night. Without foreign supply, we may find ourselves hard-pressed to make choices as to how to use what we have.  Which is not to say it has been WASTED! Rather, I would say it has been spent wisely indeed. Rather than being fired wholesale across trenches in Mexico or at bunkers around Jaragua, our tungsten has poured into our industries and infrastructure. When one looks beyond resources to supply, the legacy of Byzantium's resources can be seen any time you take the train or punch the clock at the factory! We enjoy one of the finest rail networks in the world, and this grand infrastructure spending has allowed our industry to grow mighty indeed. Our industrial heartlands in the Bosphorus, Greece, and North Italy can produce riches beyond the wildest dreams of our ancestors. It is a good thing that we have so much mineral wealth, for our factories could well aspire to devour it all in making our brighter future! They absolutely could. This is the Infrastructure view, and ByzCom is doing great. The #/# numbers are development -- the number of factories in a province, and the maximum number that there could be. In this regard we're doing quite well -- we have a good number of starting factories and a TON of space to expand into with all the states we have. If some of those numbers seem low, don't worry, this is game start and the industrial techs can add a boatload of factory slots all over. The entire Commune is not equal in development, however, as the highly urban areas like Byzantion, Athens, and Milan have more factory slots to represent how their urbanization makes building and running industry easier there. Overall, given enough runup time we can absolutely build USA amounts of factories that can produce just about anything we can imagine. What is more, compared to other countries, our state-of-the-art railways and advanced transportation department ensure that what is needed can get to where it is needed, with very little problem. This is a logistician's dream -- to ensure that no army must march on an empty stomach, and to have the means to make it so! So long as we stay within our borders, anyway. The % numbers are our actual infrastructure -- the railroads, roads, pipelines, etc. that let us actually run the country. These are VERY good -- there's nothing under 50% on the entire map, and the scale is from 1 infrastructure in a province to 10 (Byzantion itself having 9, here). Fighting in low-infra areas is a god drat nightmare; attrition will wreak havoc on your troops' organization, and they can't attack without org. We should have no problems with that within our borders unless we stack the entire army on a line in the Balkans. Infra also contributes to other highly important things, like how fast you can build new factories and things, and how fast you can move troops around. Our shiny trains are doing very good work for us in this department.  However, this spending highlights the weaknesses of our grand state -- namely, that its grandeur makes it so broad! We face a long frontier against our enemies, and no part of Byzantium is expendable. For instance, Italy spent long centuries as the "crash buffer" of the Roman Empire and the Republic, doomed to abandonment and occupation in the face of invasions that left it fractured and ravaged. It has come far from these lowly days, and now could be said to be a truly indispensible part of the Commune! But the French covet this wealth, and will surely seek to seize more of what they have only tasted. This is the construction screen view of Italy, so the railroads are on top this time, but you can see what Şahin Kara is talking about. Italy has a LOT of development and factory sockets, as well as like a third of our steel production. Furthermore, we have a ton of our actually existing factories there already. If we lose any of the Italian states to French invasion we immediately start losing a bunch of our production capability. Also check out the development disparity between North and South Italy! It's actually not as bad as it was in real life by a long shot, especially in terms of South Italy having much better infra, but the simple fact of the matter is that North Italy has the Po Valley and all kinds of excellent places to put cities, and South Italy doesn't so much. It IS producing an assload of iron here, though. Also take note of that 0/1 down there, that's Malta. We own Malta. Students of WW2 will know just how important that is, and it's only going to get more so later. Hold this in your mind.  The French have squatted on some of Italy's richest land for generations, growing complacent from the old Roman and Republican struggles in Italy that it would never be challenged. This is not a mistake we can make -- we can no more afford to sit with our backs to our geographic defenses than they seem intent to do so! We have much more to lose in Italy than them, and must be prepared. Şahin Kara is being cautious to match the tone of his polemic, but I'll be real with you: this situation is pure  and whatever general Valeria has assigned to Turin-Genoa has to be consuming most of the Imperium's supply of anti-anxiety meds. France owns Piedmont. Piedmont is on the WRONG side of the Alps for them to even hope to defend it, while being extremely rich, prosperous, full of resources, and protected only halfway by the upper Po. I would describe this as a sub-par situation.This situation can of course run in reverse, too, as if the French can punch through our line in Milan there's no natural terrain defense between there and Rome besides the Apennines sucking to fight in, but we can at least bottle them into Italy at the Po. If we punch through THEM, well, they could hold us at the Alpine chokepoints, but we control the sea and they probably don't. Provided we keep them off balance then we can ram straight through Nice, and on the other side of Nice on the WRONG side of the Rhone are the traditional great French naval bases at Marseilles and Toulon, and then that's ballgame for Mare Nostrum. Again, hold this in your mind for later. Also over there is what I think is almost 200 units of Aluminum, which, y'know, that's something we can have and make them not have, on top of all the stuff in Piedmont. Even failing that, moving troops across the Alps is slow enough that any French troops in Piedmont are under serious threat of being pocketed. Italy is, however, only an example in this regard. I could speak of many of our other frontiers, but one in particular poses by far our greatest threat -- our true Achilles Heel, and one I fear we are not prepared for. And that relates to our oil. Oil is the lifeblood of a modern military. Without it, we return almost immediately to the days of the Great Game. No oil means no trucks for supply, and no great dreadnoughts to sail the seas. And while it may appear that we have more pressing shortages in rubber and tungsten, this would ignore the realities of our oil situation.  It is well-known, of course, that oil in the Byzantine Commune is synonymous with the name Ploesti. A great city in old Bulgaria which rises amidst the countless black-drenched gantries of its oil fields, Ploesti is the largest oil field in Europe, and one of the most advanced and well-developed in the world. Its wealth is our wealth, and it fuels our bright future. This place cannot stop being important. Say hi to Ploesti. It's the small dot to the north, the actual city here is Bucharest, though by the modern day Ploesti is a fairly large city in its own right. In real life, Ploesti is located in Romania, and is indeed the largest land oil field in Europe. This made it indispensible to Adolf Hitler, and targeting it was a very reliable way for the Allies to put the boot into the rickety-rear end Nazi war economy. It is, however, not that big -- certainly it wasn't big enough to feed Nazi Germany's appetite, which was why the Nazis even attempted to think about conquering a place as far afield as Baku. 150+ oil production is no joke, that's about 1/4 of a California or 1/6 of a Texas, but...  However, I fear that few in our society, civilian or military, appreciate just HOW important Ploesti is. For Ploesti is the ONLY source of oil within our borders! Yes, in peacetime it fulfills our needs ably, but as any veteran of the First Great War will tell you, a nation at war is a terrifyingly hungry beast. We could have ten Ploestis at our disposal and not be able to fully sate the thirst of our iron monsters, and our enemies are unlikely to politely allow us to fight with only a portion of our strength at one time! It is, of course, easy to pin responsibility for such a thing on the Navy, as a modern warship drinks far more gasoline than any tank could ever dream of. But this is a known and unavoidable truth, as the alternative would be to have no Navy! Ask the Roman Empire how well such a thing worked out for them, especially in the days before modern amphibious warfare -- they shall give you terrible answers. What's more, this would completely cripple our ability to improve the situation through trade -- but I shall discuss that later. It is important to note that our Air Force also relies on oil to exist, and our modern landship divisions and truck supply will go nowhere without it. And all of this balances on the back of Ploesti, and Ploesti alone! I have a more elaborate post on fuel right here, so I won't repeat myself, but this is the Fuel tooltip. Oil turns itself into fuel, which is how it's useful. And we have fuel problems. As of 1936 our production is defined by two important numbers: our daily fuel production of 3.1k Fuel Units, and our maximum possible daily fuel consumption, of 32.4k Fuel Units. That is a huge drat disparity, but it's basically unavoidable when you have a navy as large as ours. And ours is LARGE. This is NOT a bad thing, it's easier to get more fuel intake than it is to build more ships, but it's a very pronounced weakness. On top of that, thanks to how mechanized our army is and the decent size of our air force, even if the Navy sits in port forever, we're still outconsuming our fuel production when everything's on the board by over twice what we make. Again, this is basically expected and highly fixable through trade with our neighbors, such as Azerbaijan next door who own the Baku oil fields that were the whole point of Case Blue in real life. Unless you're the USA (Lenape and Haida, in this universe), you're basically never going to be completely free of oil concerns. But it's essential to keep in mind, because both the Navy and the Air Force will flat out stop working if the fuel runs out. We can stockpile fuel, and indeed stockpile quite a bit at game start, but if the Navy is turned all the way on they can eat through 440k stockpiled Fuel in alarmingly short order.  And it is this absolute essentiality that makes me question WHY, in the name of God the Merciful, we treat the situation with such complacency! To lose Ploesti is to send the gears of our economy and military grinding to a halt for want of lubricants in extremely short order. Yet for all its essentiality, it sits terrifyingly unprotected to those who would covet it! The desperate and voracious Valois-Vexin king of Poland would certainly love to add it to his lands as a way to make himself indispensible once and for all to Valeria. Worse, the rotting Russian state could well use such oil to keep clinging to power over its impoverished, desperate masses, whether to build its own war machines or to sell for desperately needed capital. Yet all that stands between the black-blooded heartbeat of Byzantium and her enemies is the Dniester River and the meager fortifications of the Sarafis Line! While it is thankful that anything is there whatsoever, a string of bunkers and blockhouses built to stop completely unorganized Russian conscript armies almost at the same time as the Commune itself was built is hardly a shield to trust in against modern armies! Setting aside how poo poo Third Rome's military has got to be, this is very genuinely a problem and what I'd call the most dangerous front for the Commune. Those forts are all level 1s and 2s, again out of 10 -- the fully built Maginot Line, for reference, is a full stack of 10 forts along its length and is basically impenetrable to an AI if garrisoned correctly. This border ain't that. The youngest those forts can be is being built in the 1910s or so; the more likely date for the core of the fortifications is in the 1890s, right after the Commune formed. And behind this front is the only native oil source in the whole country. If Russia can scrape together a mobile unit and get it across the Dniester, it could probably get to Bucharest in a week. Having said that, the situation is not remotely hopeless (and I'm really not optimistic about the odds of Russia being able to support any motorized infantry). Having forts at ALL is a luxury for some countries' fronts -- you'll note that Russia doesn't have any on their side of the river. The forts also have the Dniester in front of them, which is a really, really gross combination to attack into. Forts reduce damage taken for units in them; rivers add huge attack penalties and can sometimes turn the battlefield terrain into a bridge assault, which makes the front shrink to almost nothing wide and is horrible to assault. The shortness of the front also means that Russia is going to have a hard time overwhelming it with numbers, since they can only get so much frontage on each province. Apply all of the things I'm saying to Poland except without infinite numbers of dudes and maybe less poo poo equipment. The problem is, if the Sarafis Line is breached, then the Prut River behind it is less big and thus worse for defending, and also can't be used at all if Poland punches through in the very top left, behind it. However, the Carpathians on that border are so rugged as to be impassable by armies, so a breach in Hungary is no threat unless it breaks all the way through. The Danube is very lorge and a great defensive barrier... but Bucharest-Ploesti is on the wrong bank of it to use the Danube as a defense. We cannot trust in our own righteousness to carry our cause; we must hold that line between order and disorder aggressively. As we have the industry to fortify the Dniester, so we should! We have the troops to protect our resources; so we must! Forward-thinking defense is crucial in a world we know to be so hostile to our cause and our bright future, and we must prepare for the worst!  This is not only a question of our wealth at home, but abroad! Oil is not oil for its own sake, after all -- it is a tool to be applied to a problem. The same is true of the Navy that drinks the oil! We have built up many great friendships around the world, through our strength at arms and the righteousness of our cause, and we MUST make use of them! As others have oil and tungsten, let us buy them! Certainly our Navy is mighty enough to protect them as well; between ourselves and our great allies in Great Britain and Ayiti, there is not a capitalist or fascist in the world that can hope to match us on the sea! Byzantion has long seen the wealth of the world flow through the Bosphorus, and we must ensure that it continues to be so. No man is an island, and neither is our Commune -- we cannot stand alone in Europe or the world! So, hey, I forgot about this. You remember when we beat up Lai Ang in the Second Great War? Well, it turns out, we own Gibraltar. Yeah. THAT Gibraltar. This is extremely important. The Imperium owns plenty of stuff that can contest the Med with us -- in particular, owning both Corsica and Sardinia along with the Baleares means they have plenty of airbases to station planes on to irritate us. But we own Malta, and we own Gibraltar. That means we own half of the Straits of Gibraltar. In HoI4, if both sides of a naval strait like the Bosphorus or the Suez aren't owned by people willing to let your ships traverse it, then loving nothing can sail through it. As the southern side is owned by neutral Morocco, this means that so long as we hold onto Gibraltar, we can lock the Straits against anyone fighting us the moment war is declared and be able to pass through as we please (unless Morocco is conquered or joins our enemies for some reason). They might still be able to get in through Suez, but that requires both being on good terms with the Somalis, and being able to GET there, which involves rounding Africa and that takes a long-rear end time with no intervening bases, and plenty of ocean on the way where our navy and shore aircraft can punch them repeatedly. When we go to war with the fascists, we can instantly cut any supply running through the Straits and make it infinitely harder for the IG to operate its navy in both seas at once. Malta, meanwhile, both serves as the site for an airbase that can control the central Med, and a naval base out of the Grand Harbor that the French can't just march into. Taking a properly garrisoned island is a huge pain in the rear end, especially if the owner has a good navy. Which we do. If we are aware of these things, however -- if we wake up to our weaknesses, and protect them with our many strengths -- then we may surely achieve every dream we have held! Our Navy, if sated, can surely find no match among our enemies. Our Army, so supplied and prepared, can take any heartless human wave and dash it upon the rocks of our defense! Our industry, fed, can produce any tomorrow we desire -- the arms to defend it, and the joys and kindnesses that make it worth defending! Through our might, stood together with our friends and comrades, we can absolutely do so! There is no price too steep to pay for our great Desire! We know what must be done, so we MUST do it! Presented to you in the grace and mercy of Almighty God, for the benefit of the people of the Byzantine Commune. This got a little bigger and broader than I had first intended, but I don't particularly mind. To draw a final conclusion: we're mostly in a very good place. Past investment into our industry and the well-being of our population has paid generous dividends with our high development, excellent infrastructure, and high industrialization. We have assloads of the most fundamental resources for running a Hearts 4 military with the exception of tungsten, and our healthy chromium supply means we can shoot for a highly qualitative military, playing with such toys as aircraft carriers and heavy tanks. Rubber is a problem, but it basically always is, and there's ways around that. Our oil shortfall is quite serious, but can be mitigated through trade and stockpiling fuel. We can basically run any kind of military we want -- and we're running Superior Firepower, also known as the USA Doctrine and arguably the best all-round doctrine in HoI4, which requires having strong industry to support it. And we do. We WILL need to trade for quite a bit of tungsten, though, to get the artillery we'll want. Thank you to Kangxi for taking these screenshots, and Theonora for saying I could do this! Shouting Into the Crowd: A History of Polemics in the Byzantine Commune posted:Worth noting is the second-to-last paragraph. Many military polemics of the time featured similarly strident language, which has often been interpreted as being supportive of the Müllerist factions in the military and thus indicating much broader support for that tendency than the Gang of Ten Incident would suggest. However, the simple fact is that this style of rhetoric was not only common to all Byzantine ideologies at the time, but had been so for hundreds of years. Riotous, escalating hyperbole can be said to be a tradition dating all the way back to the Roman Republic, and indeed it can still be seen throughout Byzantine society today. Redeye Flight fucked around with this message at 04:55 on May 29, 2021 |
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May 28, 2021 22:49
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Is Ploesti vulnerable to bombing by Poland or Russia for the foreseeable future? I don't know if the AI in HOI4 likes to do that.
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May 29, 2021 00:17
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Wait, isn't Iberia ruled by a fash client state? Gibraltar is a literal fortress, but so was Singapore in OTL and the Japanese still took that from the English in pretty short order.
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May 29, 2021 00:42
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habeasdorkus posted:Wait, isn't Iberia ruled by a fash client state? Gibraltar is a literal fortress, but so was Singapore in OTL and the Japanese still took that from the English in pretty short order. Singapore is a very strange instance where "the guns pointed the wrong way". It was entirely expecting a naval attack and the speed with which the Japanese attacked overland down Malaya took the British completely by surprise. Holding Gibraltar isn't necessarily going to be easy, but it's doable if it has/gets proper fortifications. There's only two provinces that front onto Gibraltar so the amount of frontage and bonuses that can be stacked onto it are minimal, and cutting off its supply from the ocean is going to be real difficult. I would definitely expect it to be under constant assault, though, but however long we can hold it is time that we can use the Straits and the fascists can't. (For reference: states are the larger units that get most of the attention; factories and infrastructure are built and controlled on a state level. Provinces are the smaller in-state subdivisions which unit counters exist in, and can be individually fortified.) Grammarchist posted:Is Ploesti vulnerable to bombing by Poland or Russia for the foreseeable future? I don't know if the AI in HOI4 likes to do that. This is basically what strategic bombers are made for, yeah, and Ploesti is well in range of any airbase in Poland and ones that I assume exist in Russia. But the AI will only really pursue that as an option if it's their preference, like the IRL Americans or British. I have no idea what Third Rome's air doctrine is or what their air production even looks like, so I can't say, but neither it or Poland strike me as strat bombing inclined, and France definitely isn't. What the AI DOES love to do is build a metric shitload of fighters to gain local air superiority, which is obnoxious. We can build emplacement AA if strategic bombing really starts being a nuisance, or assign AA elements to whatever units we have garrisoning Bucharest, both of which will help.
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May 29, 2021 00:53
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Would political cartoonists of the day be depicting Third Rome as having bi-planes and things from a previous era? Because I like to imagine someone in the Commune depicting a comical Russian Empress going "Heavier than Air Transports! Do not be foolish! We shall rely upon our dirigibles to help!" Whilst holding a baloon in one hand. This was fantastic, thank you so so much for the information!
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May 29, 2021 09:54
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Grammarchist posted:Is Ploesti vulnerable to bombing by Poland or Russia for the foreseeable future? I don't know if the AI in HOI4 likes to do that. Yes, though more concerning is it's vulnerability to naval invasion. The AI in this game isn't very good and won't really do strategic bombing or paratroop drops, but it will land troops on your shore to try and open new fronts.
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May 30, 2021 11:00
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 PART EIGHTY: A City of Gold, in Flames (September 17, 1938 - June 24, 1939) More excerpts from the collected diaries of Mizuno Tomoe, the Japanese Republic's ambassador to the Byzantine Commune on the eve of the Third Great War. For months now, my every inquiry to the Powers That Be in Byzantion about intervention in the Zhongnan Civil War was met with the same answer-- "The situation in Germany requires our undivided attention." Promises upon promises upon that as soon as the Kaiserin's gone, of course the Byzantines will intervene on behalf on their revolutionary sisters and brothers in Indochina, etc., etc. Well, so much for that excuse. It's as dead as the Holy Roman Empire (i.e., extremely).  Now, it's possible the Byzantines won't be needed at all. News from the front is a mixed bag. It seems like Shanghai and Mogadishu both decided they had more important things to do than bail out Cao Liuxian, so the small contingents of WPO regulars who'd been milling about in Zhongnan are all quietly-- and rather sheepishly-- withdrawing. On the other hand, the idea that Zhang and Walashma have something 'more important' to do is frankly, terrifying, and almost certainly bad news for Kyoto and its allies. More immediately relevant, Trung's rebels and the various underachievers of the RRP who tumbled into the war like clowns out of one of those tiny cars are still mostly bottled up west of the Dawna Hills. Some Marathan alpine troops and a few of Trung's rebels are making a play at crossing the Chao Phraya, but from what I've heard (from... sigh... Rina, who is unfortunately my inside source for the situation on the ground in Zhongnan), it's less an offensive than a horrible, spindly little salient that's just an encirclement waiting to happen.  Shouldn't let myself get too frustrated with the Byzantines, I suppose. They've got problems of their own. With Gaul eating Lai Ang bit-by-bit, I can see why they'd prioritize, say, reinforcing Gibraltar. Rina counsels patience, anyway, but she's hardly an unbiased source.    Gallic rhetoric-- always bellicose-- is increasingly targeted at Great Britain, the so-called "Handmaiden of Byzantium." Not really sure why that's become the focal point of their aggression all of a sudden; desire to shore up their northern flank after the NGF slipped from their grasp? I should cable Kyoto and see if our intelligence service knows what that's all about.  Hardly matters in the end, I suppose. No matter where the spark hits the kindling, the war will set all Europe aflame.  In  Cao's taking heavier casualties than Trung, but-- at least on paper-- is still fielding a slightly larger army, and still hanging on in all of its important strongpoints.  Haida & Allies pretty much rolling through the Aztec Republic effortlessly.  A more agreeable government has been put in place in México. Kind of anticlimactic, really. I'm sure Haida Gwaii is very happy to have dealt with their little separatist problem. Well, fewer distractions for the Allies is good news, anyway.  In Later. Only half-remember writing the above paragraph. "Glittering with the wealth stripped out of the rest of the country"-- really, Tomoe? Can only conclude that I've been talking to too many Byzantines. Or at least that I should stop trying to write in my diary right after I get home from a Byzantine party.  Speaking of the Byzantines, guess who finally decided to show up.  Well, better late than never.   General Eudokia Akinyi, commander of the Red Pacific Volunteers I was expecting them to send Valentina Ha (she of the German Civil War), but she's back in command of the Byzantine Army of the Alps.  Instead, they've sent Eudokia Akinyi. Technically not part of the 'Class of '36'-- she was already a part of the General Staff before Ha, Hau-fang, Halevi, et al were kicked upstairs, but she's young and ambitious enough to fit in with that whole crowd. Some fellow named Anteros Cyrahzax is minding the shop along the Caucasus in Akinyi's absence.  Rina assures me that she's been specifically trained for the sort of warfare the Byzantines expect in  Byzantine volunteers arrived in  Turns out the colleagues didn't need the Byzantines to pile on, so Akinyi just kept on moving southwesterly, to reinforce a joint Marathan-rebel thrust looking to link up with the Taijing salient...  ...and relieve a rebel division caught in a pocket of its own.  And so our little family gets a little bigger. Note to self: make congratulatory phonecall to my Haida counterpart in Byzantion re: his foreign ministry's good works. He'll be cross if I don't.   He's been testy lately; The Haida embassy is within earshot of the constant construction in Byzantion's industrial districts (and across the Commune in general, but you probably can't hear that from the Haida embassy and its environs.)    Concerning news from Zhongnan-- the attempt to relieve the Hele pocket has not only been turned aside by Company forces fighting with renewed vigor and/or paychecks, but the thrust is perilously close to being encircled itself. Byzantines scrambling.  First contact between the Byzantines and ZPC security forces. Akinyi's split her forces-- her two divisions of regular infantry will advance head-on, while her squishier Red Guard types will be sent around to flank 'em.   Told (by Guess Who) she's a bit annoyed at being stuck with Red Guard at all, and, considering that they're mostly known for dying by the hundreds of thousands in 1GW, can't really blame her. Clear sign this is a much, much lower priority for Byzantion than the German intervention, which got columns of brand new landships led by a soon-to-be celebrity. So she took matters into her own hands and re-organized the collection of random communes and union locals that composed half her army into something a bit more military. (ooc: and then i took a screenshot of the wrong template lol)  The reorganized divisions were rechristened the 10th ("Qiu Zhao") and 11th ("Gaius Gracchus") Treaty Armies. The 'Treaty Army' was originally the little rump military left over after the Treaty of Jaragua dissolved most of the Commune's forces, scuttled the Red Navy, etc. That handful of divisions managed to keep the Commune together until the situation could be salvaged, so apparently the 'Treaty Army' designation has become something of a badge of honor for Byzantine regulars. If I were leading an army and wanted to instill it with a sense of esprit de corps, I probably wouldn't choose a name that evokes one of the most humiliating defeats in the Commune's short history. Byzantines: kind of weirdos, honestly.  Thus reorganized, renamed, and rebranded, the Red Pacific Volunteers brushed aside the Zhongnan Peninsula Company forces moving to encircle the rebels...  ...but their advance was cut off by reinforcements-- a mix of Company troops and Ming volunteers looking for an adventure-- under Valentin Baranov, a Russian general whose services Cao has retrieved.  Suppose that if your old boss was the Tsarina, you're one of the few people in the world who would consider working for Cao Liuxian a step up. I mean, have you seen the hats Yekaterina makes her generals wear? Suspect she dug out some Roman mosaics c. the reign of Justinian and told her General staff, 'I want something halfway between that and a shako from a hundred years ago.' Frightful.  General Field Marshal of Third Rome Yeremey Kalyagin, noted fashion victim And so, free of the distraction of half a dozen jangling pendilia bumping into his face at all times, Baranov halted the Byzantine advance.  With help from the RRP (and RRP wannabes like Ayiti and Marathas), it was possible-- although by no means certain-- that the Provisional Government of Indochina had more troops in the field than Cao, but Cao still held the balance of Zhongnan's infrastructure and industry.  Byzantion is trying to be a little more certain about those numbers. Although, honestly, I'm not sure if even Cao Liuxian knows how many divisions Cao Liuxian's got.   Akinyi easily fended off a frankly rather half-assed attempt to dislodge her forces from their position, but her offensive has still ground to a halt.  With most of the foreign volunteers getting bogged down in the northwest, situation in the east is deteriorating for the rebels. They've lost several vital Mekong river crossings, and are slowly but surely getting pushed towards the South China Sea.  Situation in the west more encouraging. Taijing still hasn't fallen, but forces under  Baranov rushed in to try to plug the gap...  ...to no avail.    Before the encircled corporate troops could be completely obliterated, though, a fresh army of loyalists hoved into view, so Akinyi had to divert her forces to deal with them instead of sealing the deal.  Zhongnan's getting desperate, I think. They know that if they don't push the rebels and pals back across the river, Taijing's pretty much doomed.  They've halted Akinyi's advance for the moment. Her army's pretty well battered now. A reprieve for all the fancy-pants in Taijing, then.   Pangalists capable of exhibiting some backbone when something threatens their profits. The Pangalists of the Lenape Republic, at least, have the benefit of being the lesser of two evils.  Another missive from  Not all bad news, though, she assures me. The RRP brass are apparently impressed with Ayiti's performance in Indochina, and seeking closer relations with their government. In response, gently but firmly reminded her that as a diplomat for the Allies, the expansion of the RRP does not necessarily count as 'good news'. Still extremely disappointed in the leaders of the old Ayiti Federation for betraying the Haida and bringing down the fury of the RRP down on their heads. If they hadn't, maybe the Ayiti Federation would a.) still exist and b.) have joined its fellow liberal democracies in the Allies, making our position in Avalon utterly unassailable. Suppose that's just how it goes, sometimes.  Rina then went on to excitedly write about some new trick the Byzantine artillery's picked up for pages and pages, each less comprehensible than the last.  What does she think I'm going to do with this? Honestly.  I guess whatever she was going on about worked, though; I just got a dispatch that Akinyi finally, finally got her offensive inching forward again.  But the same dispatch said that even as the Byzantine volunteers ground their way south, a Zhongnan Peninsula Company army managed to force its way back onto the west bank of the Chao Phraya. Give and take. Push and pull. See what Rina meant about the 'bitter stalemate'.  The mood in Taijing is reportedly quite bad, as the area under Zhongnan Civil Security forces slowly but surely contracts. Cao Liuxian is frantically sending cable after cable to Shanghai, begging Zhang Zhulin for reinforcements, assistance, anything.  Cao's a personal friend of Zhang's, apparently. The two of them go way back, long before the Business Plot swept the Pangalists to power, which is how his company got put in charge of managing the empire's southeastern possessions in the first place.  It's easy just to write off Cao as being wildly incompetent given that within a few years of coming to power it all blew up in his face, but Zhang held him in high esteem-- he'd exceeded all expectations for productivity and exports. Half the cars in Eurasia have tires made out of Zhongnan Peninsula Company rubber. Profits were way up and expenditures were way down from where they were during the period of direct rule from Beijing. Hundreds of miles of new railroad tracks were laid down. The numbers coming out of Zhongan looked good-- and he wasn't even cooking the book on those.  They just weren't the only numbers that mattered. There were other numbers Cao didn't bother to record, and Zhang never asked for. The huge and ever-widening disparity in wealth, standard of living, and access to essential commodities between the Chinese executive class in their shining cities and the peoples of the fallen kingdoms of Khmer, Champa, Manlejia, Thailand, and Annam. The rise in infant mortality. The decline in life expectancy.  The number of people who've had enough of all of this.  The massive, coordinated state action it took to subjugate those people in the first place.  The number of other nations in the world positively salivating at the prospect of poking a Ming proxy in the eye.  The number of loyalist troops left garrisoning Taijing.  Maybe if he had taken a longer look at those numbers, he could've stopped all of this. Enacted some of the palliative reforms that keep the wheels of market economies greased. Spent some money now to save money later. Generally acknowledging the fact that a good government is ultimately beholden to the Mandate of the People, and not just some boardroom full of well-heeled executive types.  But he didn't, so now communists have overrun the last pickets defending his capital city-cum-corporate headquarters he's being hastily evacuated all the way down the Malay peninsula to Xingzhou.  And Trung Cam Lynh is sitting in his chair.  The war wasn't over, of course. Rebels advancing on all fronts, and the ZPC forces are increasingly demoralized, but they still hold most of the south.  There's a definite sense the tide has turned, though. Trung's rebels have advanced well past Taijing, now, and Marathan and Byzantine volunteers are scurrying in their wake to fill out the new frontline.    It's possible the Marathans under General Vrishchika are trying to compensate for something. The Red Rose Pact has officially let the Ayiti Commune into their little club, and   In my professional opinion as a diplomat, there are three reasons for this. The first is that the RRP are clearly consolidating their interests in Avalon. They've long had a stake in the region-- Nuevo Xi'an is a long-time member, and North Avalon played host to both great wars-- the crucible in which, for better or worse, the alliance was forged.    The second is that-- their little jaunt in Indochina aside-- the RRP isn't terribly interested in picking a fight with the Ming Empire while the  The third is that Rishma Sharqi and the people Rishma Sharqi likes enough to be brought into the regime instead of shot at a show trial? Kind of nuts.  With the end in sight, Akinyi's pushing herself hard. According to  Not like Akinyi really needs to be at the top of her game, anyway; one gets the distinct impression that the war had entered its 'mopping up' phase.  With troops from Marathas, Byzantium, and the Union of Indochina proper sweeping eastwards from  I think I've figured out what the rest of the WPO thought was sufficiently important for Zhang Zhulin to write off Cao Liuxian as a bad investment and wash his hands of his old friend's plight.  The answer is "launching large-scale military operations against the Al-Said Sultanate."  Fatima Iqbal's government might not be a formal member of the Allies, but they're still ideological (small-a) allies.  The Japanese Republic and the rest of the Allies are all sending volunteers to aid Iqbal, of course, but, frankly, I'm kind of relieved they aren't part of the alliance. Confidentially, we aren't ready to get pulled into a war against the whole drat World Prosperity Organization.  Then again, we're hardly the only ones lurching towards a conflagration like we've not seen since the Hongwu Emperor sent Chang Yuchun to the Near West to see what's up with the western terminus of the Silk Road.  The Ming Empire and the rest of the WPO (including, hilariously, the rapidly-shrinking remnants of Zhongan) has joined in the fun. Which is just overkill, if you ask me. The Somalian Republic is more than capable of crushing the al-Said Sultanate into a fine powder under its own steam.  The RRP's just about wrapped up their little Indochinese adventure and/or audition for new member states.   Probably a relief to them, given how the Near West is rapidly losing whatever semblance of stability it still had.  The glorious victories of the people's revolution in Indochina isn't even front-page news in the Byzantine papers of record anymore.  It's all military build-up this, research and development that.  Everyone has the sense that something terrible is just over the horizon.  Suppose just what that terrible thing is is a matter of perspective, though. For example, the terrible thing Cao Liuxian probably sees just over the horizon is an impending trial for war crimes now that the rebels have got their mitts on him.  Rest in pieces, I guess.   So-- for the moment (perhaps a brief moment), the world once more holds its breath as it teeters on the brink of an abyss.   Well, not the al-Said Sultanate; they've already been pushed overboard.  The rest of us, though?  All we can do is wonder how much longer these calm waters can last...  ...and when the storm will finally sweep in from the sea.  WORLD MAP FOR JUNE 24th, 1939 
Empress Theonora fucked around with this message at 00:05 on Jun 29, 2021 |
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Jun 28, 2021 23:54
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Hohhhh gently caress, I knew fundamentally that China had to have some of those somewhere in its focus tree, but I still wasn't imagining they'd be in a place where China could hit them first! Hold on to your asses, rear end-holders. And congratulations to the Indochinese for securing their freedom! Not a moment too soon, either.
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Jun 29, 2021 00:36
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Sylvester Mars, the Increasingly-Venerable Patriarch of Rome So some of you heard the news about Indochina. Well, it's not much news given it's place in the paper and I must agree: a jumped-up rubber company getting bulldozed by a guerrilla front is something anyone could have seen coming. You may think that having better guns and professional training might do the trick, but that's to forget that wars are won by morale as much as logistics. Let me tell you right now that men might fight for money but they won't die for it. They'll die for god, they'll die for a nation and they'll die for a cause but they won't die for a paycheck. Remember when we had soldiers whose motivation was the bottom line? We called them mercenaries. Why'd we stop using them? Because they sucked! You see, you have to live to spend money, so they're motivated to stay alive at all costs, all costs, mind you, including actually winning the war. When it comes to the fight, a man might commit to the rear-guard when the situation is hopeless for the sake of their friends, their family, or their cause, to protect them. They won't do it though, for the sake of money they know they can't spend. The Pangalists think that because money can move an economy it can move a nation, but the Indochinese should be their warning: money can buy you enough to win a battle, but victory in an age of total warfare requires a commitment that cannot be purchased.
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Jun 29, 2021 00:46
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I mean a China-Japan War is well within parameters of the scenario. Not ideal, but it isn't like the Red Rose Pact needs Japan's allies to bash the fash. Unless I've forgotten something.
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Jun 29, 2021 00:58
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Let it never be said that Byzantium leaves it's friends hanging in the wind. At least not forever. Also as much as Japan and the rest of the allies are filthy capitalists they're definitely better then the Pangalists, so hopefully they can hold out
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Jun 29, 2021 01:00
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I, for one, believe in the navy of Japan.
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Jun 29, 2021 01:00
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Fingers crossed for Japan's navy, and I feel like France/Galliarum is overreaching if they're going after England first, don't they have a huge navy in this timeline too? Also love the art as always.
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Jun 29, 2021 07:17
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I, for one, feel reassured by the notion of peace through mutually assured destruction.
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Jun 29, 2021 18:54
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I'm sure the incident will be resolved peacefully as everyone realizes what a terrible thing war is
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Jun 29, 2021 19:51
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Pamphilus Barbatus, soldier in the XIVth Legion [formerly Gautier Chappuis from Lyon, who totally knows proper Latin] Miserum est enim Graeci petita tamen aliam partem in globe. Non refert. Romani Imperii erit in exsultatione, et haec causa eritis necis omnium fugere in Continentis Europaeae pertinent. Vivat Imperatrix Valeriam opes!
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Jun 30, 2021 00:53
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same mood:  (that's a us soldier wearing the crown of the holy roman empire after seizing nuremberg)
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Jun 30, 2021 03:10
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Nora did a version in colour, too:
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Jun 30, 2021 05:53
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QuoProQuid posted:same mood: this guy rules
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Jun 30, 2021 07:29
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drat, I had no idea this megacampaign was back! I can't wait to - ah, I have no idea what happened in it other than gay commie byzantines, and that my candidate for Constantinople's new name lost the vote. Guess it's time for a reread!
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Jun 30, 2021 17:27
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ThaumPenguin posted:drat, I had no idea this megacampaign was back! I can't wait to - ah, I have no idea what happened in it other than gay commie byzantines, and that my candidate for Constantinople's new name lost the vote. Guess it's time for a reread! This is me every time there is an update. Also hahahahahaha this is amazing! I am so so looking forward to seeing where this goes.
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Jun 30, 2021 17:59
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This whole LP has been a great read and a really good time. I'm super excited for what's to come next. Big props to Empress Theonora and the entire ByzLP team. Long live ByzLP! Long live the commune!
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Jun 30, 2021 20:25
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Looking forward to two simultaneous and unrelated world wars.
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Jun 30, 2021 20:46
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ZiegeDame posted:Looking forward to two simultaneous and unrelated world wars.  all killer and no filler.
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Jun 30, 2021 22:00
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