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Whoa. That was extremely sudden. You sure know how to do a cliffhanger, there. 
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Apr 7, 2014 08:43
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...at least the USA got Alaska.
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Apr 8, 2014 01:22
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Akratic Method posted:Whoa. That was extremely sudden. You sure know how to do a cliffhanger, there. Not quite as sudden as it might seem. I finished the last war in February of 1916. I got a five year truce. March of 1921, France DOWs me, roughly three weeks after the truce ended. I was kind of expecting it but the timing caught me off-guard, as I initially had rather disorganized forces because I was reraising all my forces. Things France has going for it: French army outnumbers me 5 to 1 and Russia is huge as well, and my forces start the war rather weak. Things I have going for me: NGF stayed out and all my allies joined on my side, and my soldiers are indisputably the best in the world.
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Apr 8, 2014 01:28
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It is a good thing the V2 AI doesn't know how to fight in the late game.
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Apr 8, 2014 01:48
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Patter Song, it's impressive that you've managed to consistently make every update interesting in a relatively long LP like this. You do a great job of building a narrative while still being informative about game mechanics when they come into play. I dare say I've enjoyed this LP more than actually playing Victoria II myself! Definitely looking forward to the second half of this update. And I hope you'll do more Victoria II or similar games in the future - it would be great to see more from you!
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Apr 8, 2014 02:08
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Chapter XV: The War to End All Wars...? (1921-1926) Herr Generalfeldmarschall Engelbert Hoffmann, you stand accused today of war crimes perpetrated in the late war against the countries then known as the Kingdom of France and the Russian Empire, alongside their minor allies the Kingdom of Italy, the Sultanate of Algeria, the Sultanate of Egypt, and the Kingdom of Argentina.     Herr Vorsitzender, I must tender a plea of not guilty. None of the actions my forces committed were out of proportion with French, North German, or Russian actions in the previous war a decade ago and we and our allies took pains to act within the limits of international law in the war, refraining even from drafting civilians.  Our troops were well-trained professionals, many of whom possess over a decade of experience, and are repeatedly drilled in the rules of war. They couldn't have committed the excesses you claim.  Indeed, our forces began the war with a rather standard siege war through Burgundy in the west and Poland in the Russian side, allowing our minor allies to face the Italians at first, as has been standard Reich policy for over a decade for this scenario, that is, war with Russia and France without North German involvement. We wargamed it extensively.   Our forces were simply better than theirs, there's no war crime in that.     But, Field Marshal, did you not order the first ever aerial bombing raids to ruin the enemy's supply lines? Did you not, and here I am quoting one of your memos, "turn the fields of France into desolate moonscape" with your artillery to prevent French agriculture from supplying the troops, directly causing one of history's great famines that goes on to this day? And did you not, once equipped with defenses against poison gas, order indiscriminate use of chemical weapons on both fronts, causing countless excess civilian deaths as the gas wafted over the villages and cities of France and Russia? Women and children experiencing the horrible agonies of suffocation, drowning, and burning alive simultaneously as the poison pumps through their system, cursing the South German Federation and its Reichswehr with their dying breaths of toxic fumes?      Well, first off, we were under tremendous pressure to win a major victory. The government in Munich refused to compromise and gave us a directive to "win a total victory at all costs to prevent France or Russia from ever again threatening the security and integrity of the Fatherland," and I quote. Besides, were these new tactics really that excessive?   First Brest-Litovsk and first Blois were before the mass deployment of gas masks. (For the record, I personally oppose the terminology of battle numbers resetting every war, but I understand why we do it, especially given how we inevitably fight major battles in Blois every war).   I was present at Proskorov! We weren't using gas masks yet and we defeated the Russians handily without them! I hear the same happened at First Brescia.  Does the Anglo-German effort at Chateauroux, the first major battle fought with gas masks, truly differ in a fundamental way from the prior battles?   But, Field Marshal Hoffmann, you must admit that, despite the utter and total collapse of the enemy force within a year of the start of the war and the constant begging by French diplomats for an honorable peace, you kept the war running. Your clique utterly refused to accept this because you wanted to utterly destroy the lives of everyone in these shattered countries, no?   In fact, by keeping the war going, you diverted critical resources needed for combating the tuberculosis epidemic and the smallpox outbreak!      I assert that you kept the war going to intentionally starve France and Russia into oblivion and to use the poor, half-starved boys unfortunate enough to be conscripted into their armies as practice and testing for your new toys and as a justification for funding for the autobahn!   My dear judge, is there a man in the South German Federation who has not benefited from the autobahn? I assure you that it would have been built, war effort or no. Have we not all benefited from the plastic designed for the war effort as well? Would the invention of plastic have happened were it not for the war?   Besides, our opponents started the war with the clear intention of partitioning us into pathetic little pieces more pathetic than the "Kingdom" of Santo Domingo.   Besides,they're the ones that keep launching assaults. I admit that gassing the Arabs who walked all the way from Algeria to Bessarabia just to be slaughtered to the last man was rather gauche, but it was stunningly effective and any other tactic would resolve in excess civilian and SGF deaths.   My dear judge, I personally led the bravest men you've ever seen to oppose overwhelming odds and and consistently won smashing victories the like the world hasn't seen since Alexander. Do you presume to judge my choice of tactics?    Might I remind you that those tactics of mine you are so quick to dismiss have revolutionized warfare forever?   Careful, Field Marshal Hoffmann: this is not some Latin American banana republic, the military does not rule in Munich.  The BBC reports that you explicitly attempted to delay the closure of the war to, and I quote, "obtain the best possible separate peace with each enemy belligerent."  If that were the case, why didn't we pursue harsher terms against Algeria? It is true that some of the enemy parties were shockingly unwilling to negotiate. Despite occupying the entirety of Italy as well as the island of Sardinia, the Kingdom of Italy refused to negotiate or accede to our Swiss ally's reasonable demands that they hand over Piedmont. Did this Italian intransigence prolong the war against them? Perhaps, but when the Italians refused a peace offer when their government existed in exile in the middle of the Sahara Desert, they forfeited any claims to legitimacy.  Field Marshal Hoffmann, do you deny accusations that you are working with subversive elements to undermine South German democracy and plotting against His Imperial Majesty himself?   Of course I deny such accusations! I am no fascist, my wife is the head of the International Women's Suffrage Society. You should see the damning report she recently put out about Belize, though why she focused on a country with fewer than fifteen thousand total inhabitants is beyond me. She even successfully campaigned for the recent passage of the Secret Ballot.  Also, as to your previous argument, we did campaign for separate peaces. Once reached the Urals, the Russians proved quite agreeable.  The Tsar's efforts to pacify his people proved in vain: when we occupied all the land in Russia, we let the serfs run free. This is where your "famine" comes from: the Russian Empire was only supported on the backs of unfree labor and couldn't bear to have its peasants off the soil. The Tsar's edict of "liberation" only came after there were no serfs left to free.   Of course, the Chinese invasion proved the last straw. Russia couldn't fight two enemies at once and agreed to a deal.   We reclaimed our land, we reclaimed our ally Ruthenia's land, and we established a buffer state to the east to limit the Russian threat, I think we did well.   So did the Chinese.  Field Marshal Hoffmann, do you deny that the Ukrainians have brutally oppressed the Tatars native to the Crimean peninsula and that South German forces have put down said Crimean rebels? My dear judge, everyone knows that the armed gangs in Crimea were actually Russian agents wearing plainclothes trying to dismember Ukraine to make its reconquest easier.  What was it that finally forced the end of the war, Field Marshal?  The Sitzkrieg, of course. No one in the High Command had any desire to send the fleet to India, let alone Japan, but we couldn't maintain operations against Japan while the war continued in Europe. It proved easier to convince Japan that we were not about to fold if affairs in Europe ended.      Though it's called the Sitzkrieg, don't say that in front of Alex...I mean Fleet Admiral von Dietrich. It finally gave him an opportunity to use that navy we spent so much money building.  So by this time you felt you had sufficiently humiliated the French?    I suppose one might say that. We drove them from their most populous parts of Africa, gave our allies the Swiss Lombardy, and left France in a position where she was unable to attack us. I suppose you're going to claim that this was a fault on our part?  If you call destabilizing our neighbors and risking total anarchy all over Europe a positive, then you might be a skilled commander, but you are a horrible politician!  And are you not a Judge and not a politician? People all over the world say that this is why the political class of liberal democracies are out of touch with the masses they claim to represent!  Field Marshal, we are facing a climate where France and Russia are falling and Japan and China are rising. Thanks to you, the very supremacy of the West itself has fallen into question!  Japan, my dear Judge? The same Japan that has faced humiliation every time it attempted to intervene in continental affairs? Don't make me laugh.  Do you realize the consequences of your actions? What they have done?   You have unleashed anarchy upon the world. What do you have to say for yourself? I did what had to be done.  France is done for. Even the Senegalese have renounced vassalization. The French communists have no true power and their starving masses will tire of the novelty of their new government soon enough.    And what about Russia, Field Marshal? The Chinese cleverly attacked their Mongol vassals, annexing them in one go and using the opportunity to reclaim Outer Manchuria, which had been Russian for three quarters of a century. What about the decline of Russia?   You have crushed civilization and the rule of order on both our western and eastern frontiers! I didn't like the Tsar or the King of France, but now we have crazed collectivists on our frontiers!   Your Honor, these Communists are the most pathetic cowards you have ever met. Did you see how quickly they caved when our northern cousins demanded that the Greeks regain the Peloponnese? It literally took one day. Have you ever seen bureaucracy work that quickly?  Ah yes, Field Marshal, about those northern cousins of ours. Are your troops capable of fighting off the tripartite alliance your actions have caused? Absolutely.  Did you see how the Japanese agreed to a total cease fire after we sunk their fleet without a single German troop engaging in combat? The other countries of the world are toothless excepting the NGF. If France and the USSR drag NGF into a war with us, it will be different because NGF will be fighting the war alone with two dead-weight allies that only serve as liabilities to the war effort. They cannot win.  Careful, Field Marshal. The French seem to be regaining their former power. Do not write them off so quickly.  I wouldn't...invest in an NGF victory if I were you, Judge. Now I must be off and this farce of a trial must come to an end. Whatever the verdict, the Chancellor and Kaiser and the people all recognize that they need a general who wins wars more than a jealous judge obsessed with killing the war effort with red tape. How dare you? I'll hold you in contempt of court! "Don't quote laws to us, we carry swords." -Pompey the Great. Now if you'll excuse me, my dear judge, I have important things to do. SGF Demographics  World Map, 1926 
Patter Song fucked around with this message at 06:09 on Apr 8, 2014 |
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Apr 8, 2014 06:06
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Soviet Canada 
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Apr 8, 2014 06:49
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As cool as the world is in this update, it's not going to last. Both France and USSR are death-spiraling and France in particular is likely to have a revolution every six months or so for the rest of the game. Meanwhile, as rebels continually carpet siege it, all of France's agriculture, mining, and industry shuts down. 40%+ unemployment becomes the rule and France doesn't have the food to feed itself. Its population starves and moves to the USA in droves (currently, USA is getting more immigrants from France than it is from China). France sees its population drop from 20.6 million pops in 1924 to 19.6 million in January of 1926, and no sign of stabilizing and that includes all their colonial holdings, like...a third of Africa. Without foreign intervention, by game end France will be a post-apocalyptic neofeudal wasteland where urban life has become untenable and everyone that is still alive is forced to return to sustenance farming to avoid starvation. EDIT: to put this in perspective, SGF has 15.1 million pops. NGF has an almost identical population. France has 19.6 million. What's the difference? France has a colonial empire, the Germanies don't. France's European territories plus a third of Africa barely exceeds either of the Germanies taken separately.
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Apr 8, 2014 06:56
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Patter Song posted:As cool as the world is in this update, it's not going to last. Both France and USSR are death-spiraling and France in particular is likely to have a revolution every six months or so for the rest of the game. On the plus side, Secret Denmark. e: France basically needs to declare war just so someone will march in and clean out their rebels for them. PleasingFungus fucked around with this message at 07:22 on Apr 8, 2014 |
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Apr 8, 2014 07:15
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 That was just about everything I could have hoped for. I love seeing the established great powers become apocalyptic hellscapes in late game vicky 2. Although I'm a little surprised you didn't end up going Spring Time for Hitler. Don't think I've ever seen any great powers ever go fascist in my playthroughs.
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Apr 8, 2014 07:16
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If only everyone else voted for D... 
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Apr 8, 2014 07:18
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Strayed posted:
If I needed to, I would have. I managed to get vengeance against two of our three rivals without needing to resort to fascist dictatorship, and vengeance against our foes is what the goons asked for. I talked it over with the other Paradox LPers and going full-on Adolf Hitler Mein Kampf style update would probably get me banned and I'd probably deserve it, too. Also, no matter how appropriate for the story it would be, I'm not entirely comfortable being Adolf Hitler, one of the reasons I've never been totally comfortable with the HOI series. EDIT: Hitler totally exists in this world, though. He is in jail for the Beer Hall Putsch and will likely never leave, check out the previous update.
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Apr 8, 2014 07:20
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Well, that's an interesting looking world. Kind of amazed that Transvaal and Orangje survived. What's up with "Secret Denmark?"
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Apr 8, 2014 07:51
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NewMars posted:Kind of amazed that Transvaal and Orangje survived. What's up with "Secret Denmark?" Transvaal and Oranje survive purely because Britain's holding South Africa on a leash. If South Africa's dominion status ended, it would DOW those two the following day and win decisively. Secret Denmark is...well, an in-joke relating to a V2 mod. One that I plan to play in this very thread once this campaign ends, in fact.
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Apr 8, 2014 07:54
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Could we get a look at the Great Power standings now all that poo poo's gone down please?
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Apr 8, 2014 08:05
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Sleep of Bronze posted:Could we get a look at the Great Power standings now all that poo poo's gone down please?  Dutch are about to retake #8. We could be #7 on prestige alone.
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Apr 8, 2014 08:13
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Out of curiosity, what have the Ottomans been up to? They've got a pretty smart blob going on but I can't really recall them coming up in any of the updates.
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Apr 8, 2014 08:46
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Out of all those wars with the French, why did the Dutch never take any bits of land? (or if the AI never adds it as a wargoal, what's your in- and outside of game motivation for deciding which allies to reward how?).
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Apr 8, 2014 10:32
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Excellent. Now, just one more foe to avenge ourselves upon. North Germany? We're coming for you. 
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Apr 8, 2014 11:24
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Gamerofthegame posted:Out of curiosity, what have the Ottomans been up to? They've got a pretty smart blob going on but I can't really recall them coming up in any of the updates. They're a total paper tiger that no one has bothered to knock down. They somehow still have near-single digit literacy and have been technologicaly surpassed by most of the former uncivs (they don't have basic medicine, which we got back in the 1830s). The liberal Young Turks destroyed their industry with Lassiez Faire and their low birth rate means that the entire Empire has around 6.5 million pops (or around 26 million people).
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Apr 8, 2014 19:17
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The Sandman posted:Excellent.
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Apr 8, 2014 20:29
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The Communist France flag is hilariously gaudy. Please tell me Fascist France is the tricolor with a bright pink fasces in the middle.
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Apr 8, 2014 20:47
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Funky Valentine posted:The Communist France flag is hilariously gaudy. Nope. It's the French tricolor with the Vichy Emblem of the Chief of State in the middle, and some stars underneath that. I'm not sure of the symbolism of the stars, though.
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Apr 8, 2014 20:52
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Funky Valentine posted:The Communist France flag is hilariously gaudy.  Close, there are a lot of great flags though. 
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Apr 8, 2014 20:53
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That was a hell of an update. I can see why you picked "war crimes trial" for the update theme: those were some brutal slaughters with an absolute wreckage of countries left behind. I'm kinda surprised that the UK and USA are still ahead on the GP list, though! What's the deal with the industry score--how come the UK has such an insanely high one?uPen posted:
What is that second one, Soviet Lebanon? VVV Thanks for posting the gallery! Also, I'm pretty sure they took Communist Australia's kangaroo from the Qantas corporate logo, which feels mildly ironic. Akratic Method fucked around with this message at 23:04 on Apr 8, 2014 |
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Apr 8, 2014 22:45
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Akratic Method posted:That was a hell of an update. I can see why you picked "war crimes trial" for the update theme: those were some brutal slaughters with an absolute wreckage of countries left behind. I'm kinda surprised that the UK and USA are still ahead on the GP list, though! What's the deal with the industry score--how come the UK has such an insanely high one? New England
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Apr 8, 2014 22:56
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Akratic Method posted:What is that second one, Soviet Lebanon? That would be commie New England. My personal favorite would be the Australian communist and republic flags; they have kangaroos.  e:Ninja'd. Also flags http://imgur.com/a/np1o9
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Apr 8, 2014 23:00
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Strayed posted:That would be commie New England. My personal favorite would be the Australian communist and republic flags; they have kangaroos. Man, all those neat flags you'll never see, like Communist Israel.
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Apr 8, 2014 23:22
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Fascist Babylon is metal.
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Apr 8, 2014 23:43
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All the Babylon flags are pretty metal.Strayed posted:That would be commie New England. My personal favorite would be the Australian communist and republic flags; they have kangaroos. Monarchist Beroda looks like T-1000 melting.
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Apr 8, 2014 23:48
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A few of the fascist flags - particularly Israel's and some of the Indian nations - look disturbingly more like terrorist flags.
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Apr 8, 2014 23:57
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It's kind of a shame that if you can form Babylon you are probably capable of forming Arabia and better off doing that.
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Apr 8, 2014 23:59
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Funky Valentine posted:Fascist Babylon is metal. If I remember right the babylonian fascist party is called Babylon Zoo after a terrible one-hit-wonder for some really bizarre reason. My only guess is that their song had the word Fascist in it, and when picking a name for the party they googled "babylon fascist" and got a lyrics page for the song.
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Apr 9, 2014 01:05
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Wait, why does the USA even get cores on Alaska? Shouldn't those come with the Alaska purchase?
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Apr 9, 2014 01:08
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Because I was asked about the Turks, I checked around. The biggest city in the Ottoman Empire is, of course, Constantinople, but with a mere 140k pops (barely over 600,000 people). The second-biggest city is...Shkoder, Albania, with ~120k. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shkod%C3%ABr
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Apr 9, 2014 01:08
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reignonyourparade posted:Wait, why does the USA even get cores on Alaska? Shouldn't those come with the Alaska purchase? US gets cores even if Russia turns down the deal. Makes sense geopolitically speaking in that the Alaskan archipelago, along with the Hawaiian islands, are integral to American security on their Pacific front.
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Apr 9, 2014 01:18
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Strayed posted:US gets cores even if Russia turns down the deal. Makes sense geopolitically speaking in that the Alaskan archipelago, along with the Hawaiian islands, are integral to American security on their Pacific front. Being of vital national interest isn't a reason to get cores, Russia doesn't get free cores on the Dardanelles.
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Apr 9, 2014 02:00
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uPen posted:Being of vital national interest isn't a reason to get cores, Russia doesn't get free cores on the Dardanelles. No, but America got them in OTL so they must get them in all timelines. Even as an American I really hate how America is handled in Victoria II.
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Apr 9, 2014 02:09
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Late to the party, butPatter Song posted:Let me show you the flagship of the SGF navy, the SMS Wagner. We felt that the name reflected the rich Bavarian cultural history as well as a future of militarism worthy of the legend of Siegfried.
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Apr 9, 2014 03:00
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JGBeagle posted:No, but America got them in OTL so they must get them in all timelines. Even as an American I really hate how America is handled in Victoria II. The big problem with America in vicky 2 is just what do you would do with it? You have an entire continent made of only three nations. America and Mexico are pretty much already in a boarder war at game start and with America's larger industrial and population base Mexico is going to lose. Manifest Destiny is too big a part of American history and comes about too early in OTL, being an idea that originated in the 1840's, to be excluded so the push for the Pacific is bound to happen. Next you have the Civil War, which the Union will win for the same reasons that it beat Mexico. After that you're left with one of the largest nations on Earth stuck in its own corner with nothing to do until late in the game when naval technology allows for trans-oceanic excursions. Without player intervention and given its relative isolation, the US' fate in the 100 years of Victoria 2 seems pretty much railroaded by history. I honestly don't know what could be done to handle it better.
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Apr 9, 2014 03:02
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