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 Let's Play Kaiserreich for Darkest Hour: A Hearts of Iron Game! Was a big high wall there that tried to stop me A sign was painted said: Private Property, But on the back side it didn't say nothing This land was made for you and me. ―Woody Guthrie, "This Land is Your Land", original 1940 version What game are you playing? The Kaiserreich modification for Darkest Hour, if you haven't picked that up already. It is a standalone expansion made by a team of modders-turned-developers for Hearts of Iron II, which is a Paradox game. Oh cool, Paradox! I love CK2 and EU4! This game is similar to Crusader Kings II and Europa Universalis IV in that it is a grand strategy game but it is also very different because of its age (it was originally released in 2005) and its intense focus on warfare. If you're a Paradox vet, you probably know this game well but if you're one of the newcomers that has discovered Paradox in the era of Crusader Kings II and Europa Universalis IV, then let me begin by explaining how HoI2 is different from the games you might be used to.
OK, so that's Hearts of Iron II, what about this Darkest Hour thing? Paradox stopped development of HoI2 after the Armageddon expansion in 2007 and released Hearts of Iron III in 2009. You'll find a lot of people around (including yours truly) that do not like HoI3 anywhere near as much as they liked HoI2 for a variety of reasons we won't get into. Paradox did however begin to license their old Europa engine (on which HoI2 runs and as opposed to the Clausewitz engine that runs their modern games) to modders to create their own standalone versions of their older games. One of these games is Darkest Hour, which was released in 2011. Darkest Hour is essentially a standalone expansion to HoI2. It aims to address some of the issues that still existed in HoI2 when Paradox moved on to HoI3, as well as to make life easier for modders and players. I personally consider Darkest Hour the best version of Hearts of Iron mostly because it has a beautiful map and adds a lot of features I like, as well as 1914 and 1933 scenarios. Some people swear by another modder-made expansion, Arsenal of Democracy. There's also Iron Cross, but nobody really talks about that. OK... Kaiserreich? What the hell is Kaiserreich? Kaiserreich is one of the most popular mods for Darkest Hour. It is an alt history mod that diverges from our timeline in 1918, supposing what history might look like if the Hundred Days Offensive had been a failure. In this mod, the German Empire not only exists but was victorious in the Great War and enjoys a dominant position globally because of it. Shattered by their defeat, Britain and France suffered popular revolutions that forced their governments into exile in Canada and Algeria and brought into power revolutionary socialist regimes. The mod brings us to 1936, when Europe and the world look ready to blow as the three factions (the exiled Entente, Germany's Mitteleuropa alliance, and the Syndicalist Internationale) gear up for a titanic clash. (You can download it here.) I'm going to try my best to showcase the mod but be warned, it has a LOT of events. Like seriously, you have no idea. If I showed you the message boxes for every one for every country, it would take me until Easter to actually get to the war parts of the LP. I am going to pare it down to domestic events and international events that are of consequence to us. (So I won't be showcasing the events about the Hobbit, seriously this exists.) The events are cool though because its turned a very focused WW2 game into a more wide open alt history game where there are many more options for a fun game than in the original game with regional wars and rivalries all over the world and the big global rivalry between capitalists and socialists. The mass of events provides the illusion of the dynamic quality of games like CK2 and EU4, but in truth it's still scripted with set chances for each event choice. Honestly though, with so many events that can move nations in different directions, you'll likely run into something substantially different in each game you play. Who are we gonna play? What difficulty/options? We will start the game as the United States of America. As we'll see, the USA is going to run into major difficulty that tears the country apart. From that point, we will play as the Combined Syndicates of America. I could definitely cheat when I start by like disbanding the USA's army or whatever but I have put rules on myself to operate the economy and technology aspects like I would in any game I was trying to win, not to move any units and to choose event choices that increase dissent, because this nation ain't gonna break itself. The settings are as follows: Difficulty: Normal AI Aggressiveness: Normal (this doesn't do a whole lot, because as I said, most wars start due to events) IC Takeover: Off (This would allow us to use all of the industry of captured nations instead of just a portion of it. It would make us ridiculously overpowered) Techteam Takeover: Off (Like IC Takeover for tech teams, would add the tech teams of any nation we annex to our list. Also silly overpowered unless you're a nation with crap teams and you want to eventually be able to build advanced stuff.) Use Counters: Off (for now. I personally do not care for counters and like sprites better so I began play with it off like I always do. This will change though once my unit composition gets more varied because it makes it simpler to communicate what kind of forces are on the map.) Everybody can start war: On (this refers to the fact that democratic nations can only start wars with nations that have either attacked somebody they pledged to protect or have accrued a lot of belligerence) What's the goal? End capitalism, naturally. In practice, this means I will try to wipe out both enemy factions and destroy every major industrial power in the game that isn't on the right side of our alternate history. I'm only going to attack other less powerful neutral nations when they threaten a socialist power or if it is tactically expedient to do so (e.g. I could conceivably attack Egypt in order to reach the German-controlled Suez Canal). The goal is not world conquest, because that would get repetitive as you watch me stomp minor powers in succession. Have you made any other modifications to the game we should know about? A few that I won't detail just yet. I will make a note within the posts themselves like a footnote explaining what I changed and why I changed it. Nothing game breaking I promise. Anything else? If you're used to reading CK or EU LPs then you would expect me to make some opening moves and get into at least some kind of action pretty quickly. This game doesn't work that way. In the vanilla game, you would have powers sitting around in peace preparing for conflict for anywhere from one and a half (Japan, China) to almost five (USA) years. Kinda dull, but KR has enough events that we won't be too bored. It won't take long to get to the shooting parts I promise. Acknowledgements: -iosif and Trotsky from the mk forums for helping with initial research -Empress Theonora on SA for having a cool LP that inspired the style of this project -zanni for helping with ideas and editing First update coming soon! csm141 fucked around with this message at 15:28 on Oct 12, 2019 |
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Oct 30, 2014 19:00
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Erwin the German posted:Looking forward to this. Is this just going to be a USA > CSA game, or do you plan to show off other nations down the line? Oh right I forgot. I do plan on breaking up the main CSA narrative with mini LPs featuring medium powers. I've already decided on La Plata and the Qing and might do one other depending on how the main game progresses.
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Oct 30, 2014 19:41
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TomViolence posted:Please tell me you're gonna pick Norman Thomas for HOS and go MAXIMUM GANDHI for the extra challenge. You know I always found the Norman Thomas option funny because it's quite the tonal shift from the fact that the whole country just collapsed into civil war.
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Oct 31, 2014 05:14
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Morholt posted:You turn those counters on right this instant! I did! Unfortunately, I have played through the first two acts already so you won't see counters until the first mini-LP then any act after two. Luckily my forces are mainly infantry and militia for most of that time.
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Oct 31, 2014 05:15
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 Part One: A Dangerous Situation (January 1936) Wherein CSM tries really hard to make a necessary exposition dump interesting. If you know the backstory and initial setup of Kaiserreich, you can skip this post if you want. Read on to learn about the world of KR. I promise the rest of the LP won't be this word vomity but it has to be done. Also I'm gonna try to make this the only post that uses timg. Launching program GlobalClassroom, please wait... Initializing program... Connecting to master server... Connected! Welcome to GlobalClassroom, a comprehensive platform which allows educators to teach classes from anywhere in the world and makes it easy for workers to continue along a path of lifelong learning. Developed by the Educational Software Department of the Seoul Developers Union with input from Worldwide Educators Alliance English localization by the Foreign Language Department of the University of Oregon Networking provided by the Syndintern Council on Education Please log in: Sponsor: JETS Username: jconnor Password: ********** Welcome Joseph Connor! You have two unread messages. Message 1: From: tross@haywood.edu Subject: Graded Test #1 Body: You got an 87 out of 100 on the first test. You have a strong grasp of the concepts and causes of the First Revolutionary Wave but I deducted some points because you made some errors in describing how the Great War peace process affected Germany's response to the revolutions. Don't worry, you weren't the only one, so I will go over it next class. Message 2: From: tboden@jets.synd Subject: Spring 2015 Education Options Body: Since Alicia retired, I've been filling in as Continuing Education rep for the Monmouth district of JETS. There will be an election (that I will not be standing in) for a permanent rep once we complete our Hurricane Sandy resiliency plan. Come talk to me in Red Bank or shoot me an email if you want to discuss what you can use your Spring 2014 Continuing Education Credit for. GlobalClassroom has added a lot of offerings lately and there's still the regular in-person classes at Rutgers if you're so inclined. You have one class starting in 4 minutes: HIST 212 - Revolutions in the Interwar Period - English #34 - Fall 2014 - Instructor: Tom Ross - Haywood University - Chicago, CSA Roster: Baker, Ashley - Hemingway Institute for the Creative Arts - Key West, CSA - NOT CONNECTED Chambers, Patricia - National Health Service - Manchester, ENG - CONNECTED Clarke, Daniel - Deep Sea Fisher's Union - Stanley, FLK - CONNECTED Connor, Joseph - Jersey Electric & Telecommunications Syndicate - Fair Haven, CSA - NOT CONNECTED Fox, Marion - Queensland Solar - Brisbane, AUS - CONNECTED Johansen, William - Iowa Growers Syndicate - Sioux City, CSA - CONNECTED McDonnell, Sean - Ministry of Culture and Tourism - Galway, IRE - CONNECTED Shaw, Edwin - Republican Navy - Glasgow, SCO - NOT CONNECTED Wilkins, Kareem - Seversky Aviation Works - Farmingdale, CSA - CONNECTED Williams, Diana - Belize Times - Belize City, CEN - ABSENT Connecting... Connected! pchambers: hello joe *eshaw connected* pchambers: and edwin jconnor: hey all kwilkins: Marion, I meant to ask you last week but why did you take this timeslot? Isn't it like early morning over there? mfox: I've been on the night repair shift for my mate on paternity leave so it actually works out well. jconnor: I hate night shifts. mfox: I don't mind, it's nice to walk around the installation without being blinded by the power tower for a change. *abaker connected* mfox: Not only that, but I get to stay out of the heat too. *tross connected* *System: Channel moderation activated. Press the raise hand button to request permission to speak.* tross: Alright, we've got a lot to cover today so I'm going to turn on moderation right off the bat today. Most of you did very well on the test. Some of you did have issues with the progression of the revolutions and Germany's response so we'll go over that briefly. Email me if you have more questions about it but we need to move forward in class.  tross: So as we talked about last week, Germany was victorious in the Great War and capitalized on it. The Second French Revolution began in 1919 in the closing months of the war and the revolutionary government sued for peace with the German Empire in order to focus on gaining control of the country. The cost was heavy war reparations, the recognition of the German puppet regime in what used to be Belgium, the seizure of the Belgian and French Congo and the annexation of all of Lorraine. tross: This put Britain in a position where they had no hope of fighting any land operations in Europe but where they could defend the Home Isles from German landings. The Germans thus aimed to starve them out with submarine warfare and eventually succeeded, leading to a peace agreement in which Britain agreed to hand back Germany's African colonies and recognize its gains in Europe in exchange for a promise that Japan, Portugal and Britain would have their colonial empires left alone. tross: Of course, this didn't last long, as Britain suffered their own popular revolution in 1926, which brought the Trade Union Congress to power and established the republic we know today. Ireland had seized upon the chaos of the post-war period to establish itself as a republic independent of both the exiled monarchy in Ottawa and the socialist government in London. tross: The revolutions made Britain and France pariah states internationally and so the neutral states of Europe that had avoided the ruin of the Great War, like the Netherlands and Switzerland, gravitated towards the influence of the German Empire.  tross: After the war had ended, the German Empire felt secure enough to renege on its deal with the Bolsheviks in Russia and back the White counter-revolutionaries in exchange for a White promise to recognize the gains made in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Germany set up a number of new states, with Lithuania, White Ruthenia and Ukraine being a part of its newly formed Mitteleuropa economic and military alliance. *hand raised: kwilkins* *called on: kwilkins* kwilkins: Where's Poland on this slide? tross: Oh, I forgot Poland. Somewhat appropriately as Poland was not invited to the Mitteleuropa alliance like its eastern neighbors. (I really did forget Poland. They're under Lithuania's box there. Oops.) This has a lot to do with the Ausgleich, which I'll get to today. tross: Another victor in the Great War was Bulgaria, which gained territory at the expense of Serbia, Greece and Romania and enjoyed friendly relations though not an ironclad alliance with Germany throughout the interwar period. Romania was forced by the Central powers to give up territory to Hungary and lease their oilfields to Germany for nearly a hundred years. This peace caused much public anger, which would pave the way for the xenophobic nationalist group Iron Guard to seize power during the 20s.  tross: Alright if you have any other questions about last week's material, wait until after class and shoot me a message but this week let's move on to the rest of the world's nations and their interwar experiences. It will be vital for us to understand their situation in the time immediately before the second wave of revolutions and the Second Great War. tross: The three Scandinavian democracies stayed out of the war and had uncommonly well functioning democracies and economies for the times, which lent itself to a regional attitude of neutrality, though Denmark and Sweden in particular had deep economic ties with Germany. tross: Finland is a different story. Finland was a part of Russia up until the First Russian Revolution, remember. They declared independence in the midst of that war and were able to secure themselves against Russia. Anti-leftist nationalism ran rampant in the country, which culminated in the revolt of the expansionist Lapua movement that eventually was recognized by the King of Finland, resulting in the one authoritarian state among these nations. *hand raised: eshaw* *called upon: eshaw* eshaw: What's that German bit below Finland? tross: That was the United Baltic Duchy, which doesn't really merit recognition as an independent state but rather as a settler colony of Germany in Latvia and Estonia. It was nominally independent with a local army of its own but in reality it was subject to the German Emperor like any of the other duchies within the Empire.  tross: Shifting over to Iberia, we have Portugal and Spain. Both were run by conservative and nationalist forces, Spain as a kingdom and Portugal as a republic under perennial president/dictator Salazar and were thus quite similar. However, Portugal had avoided the fate of its Entente allies and had an intact colonial empire and a relatively stable domestic situation. tross: Spain is a much different story. It was an economic basket case and two very powerful movements were beginning to raise fears of a civil war. One the theocratic Carlist movement and the other the CNT-FAI, which was the most ardently anarchist of any revolutionary movement that existed during this time period.  tross: Italy was among the losers and Austria-Hungary made it a point to dismember Italy, seeking to dominate the country by splitting it into smaller loosely federated states. The Italian Federation was comprised of multiple duchies, republics, the Kingdom of Two Sicilies and the Papal State. tross: The Kingdom of Two Sicilies didn't last long, falling in 1921 to an anarcho-syndicalist revolution which established a republic in tight alliance with France. Over the twenties and thirties, the rest of the federation grew to be dominated by the Papacy and was starting to coalesce as a more centralized and powerful state by the mid to late thirties.  tross: Now we'll get to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. They were among the victors of the Great War, though you wouldn't know it based on this map. The war revealed many weaknesses in the empire and ethnic divisions began to fracture the empire. In 1927, the empire enacted the Ausgleich or "Compromise", which decentralized the empire in an attempt to stave off civil war. Austria retained its dominant position, but Hungary enjoyed many privileges of its own as a partner realm to Austria, including dominance of Croatia. Galicia-Lodomeria, Bohemia, and Bosnia were all subject to Austrian control. Part of the Compromise was that it would be renegotiated in ten years, so we'll see in a future lesson how the 1937 Ausgleich affected the empire. *handraised: mfox* *called upon: mfox* mfox: Were Albania and Serbia part of the empire? tross: No, they were not. Albania was actually subject to the Ottoman Empire and ruled by a German prince, putting it in somewhat of a strange position. Serbia was among the losers of the Great War and suffered for it and we'll see later on how Serbian resentment and ambition fueled some of the regional conflicts to come.  tross: Another loser in the Great War was Greece. They were forced to cede much of their northern areas to Bulgaria, cede just about every island in the Aegean to the Ottoman Empire and accept German dominance over Crete. tross: The Ottoman Empire had survived the Great War intact but by the thirties it was heavily dependent on German aid and having a hard time modernizing their very old state.  tross: The Ottomans had other problems. They had managed to defeat the British-supported Arab Revolt but the Arabs did not go away and the idea of freeing Arabia from Turkish rule didn't either. Beyond just Arabs, Persia was even seeking to get out of under the Ottomans' shadow.  tross: The main Arab power was the Egyptian monarchy, which had long been a tributary vassal of the Ottomans and for a time a de facto protectorate of the British. With the Ottoman Empire having so many problems and the British Empire evaporating, Egypt was truly independent for the first time in centuries and had their eyes on the Suez Canal, a German possession and Ottoman possessions on both sides.  tross: The vitally important Horn of Africa sea route was tightly controlled by the Germans, who utilized the former British and French possessions in the area as naval bases from which to protect its links with the east. A small sultanate in Yemen had designs on Aden but was too small to cause the Germans any worry. Oman in the northeast portion of this region was dominated by the Ottomans and the African shores of this route were controlled by Ethiopia, whose late entry into the Great War against Italy gained them possession of Italy's former East African colonies and favorable economic ties with Germany.  tross: Shifting gears here, the result of the first Russian Revolution deserves some more attention. The old Russian Empire had been a colossus stretching across Asia and Europe but it had been severely reduced by the conditions imposed upon it by various factions and powers. In the Caucasus, it was forced to cede the Kars province to the Ottomans and recognize their Armenian puppet state. They also couldn't do anything to prevent the Cossacks, Georgians and Azerbaijanis from establishing their independence.  tross: Central Asia became two states, the northern state being Alash Orda, which was formed through compromise and negotiation with Russian and Cossack minorities, leaving the new state rather weak and fractious. To their south was Turkestan, a state that was established by Sunni fundamentalists and Turkic nationalists who quite loudly proclaimed a desire to establish a caliphate across Central Asia and beyond. tross: With all of this lost territory, it's tempting to call Russia a rump state, but a reduced Russia is still a very large Russia and they remained somewhat industrially powerful and even maintaining a shaky democracy for a number of years. War reparations to Germany and political instability would eventually take its toll, though.  *handraised: wjohansen* *called upon: wjohansen* wjohansen: How much effect did all of this stuff have on the New World? tross: Good question. The Americas were, at this point, the only part of the world that was free of any direct German colonies but the dominant position of the USA in this hemisphere since the late nineteenth century was challenged by German, Syndicalist and even Canadian influence. We can see this by how the USA's neighbors in 1936 were Canada, which had become host to the exiled British royals and thus enjoyed far more prominence on the world stage, and Mexico, which was a socialist state controlled by the revolutionary Zapata, obviously against the wishes of the USA.  tross: The USA itself was in a bad way. The sudden and total severance of trade with major trading partners in Britain and France led American industry to scramble to find new markets. Unfortunately for American capitalists, the Germans made no effort to bring the United States into its new economy, preferring to dominate markets themselves. This led the East Coast of the United States to have major economic difficulty. The West Coast, however, had been successful at forging trade relationships with Japan and thus avoiding the same level of catastrophe as the East.  tross: It didn't help that the United States had the wrong leader at the wrong time. Herbert Hoover could not inspire faith and his distaste for government intervention in the economy made him reluctant to attempt to stimulate the economy in any way. He was lucky to have even had a second term, which he managed because the Democratic candidate, one Franklin Roosevelt, was too far to the left to carry conservative votes and not far left enough to mobilize an increasingly radicalized proletariat. *raisedhand: dclarke* *calledupon: dclarke* dclarke: Do you think the United States might have stayed together if there was a President like Roosevelt that was more willing to intervene in the economy? tross: I don't really like to speculate like that but perhaps. He may have ran in 1936 if he hadn't been assassinated in 1935.  tross: The USA's waning influence was plain to see in Central America. In 1926, the British colony of Belize revolted against royal rule and the European Syndicalists were able to overtly assist the revolt and even spread it to Guatemala and El Salvador, all of which was clearly in violation of the Monroe Doctrine. Sensing this, Costa Rica and Nicaragua joined together to reform the United Provinces of Central America, attempting to convince Honduras and Panama to join as well. Honduras was not interested and Panama was told explicitly by the Americans they were not to join. At the very least, they would try to protect the strategically vital Panama Canal.  tross: The Caribbean was a friendlier area, with Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic all being friendly to American interests. *raisedhand: pchambers* *calledupon: pchambers* pchambers: What happened to the various British and French islands in the Caribbean? Did they all become independent? tross: They did, but they joined together in one federation, acting as a dominion of the Empire in exile.  tross: South America at this time is really the story of the Great South American War, which concluded in 1935. That war escalated from a small conflict between Bolivia and Paraguay into a continental conflict between Brazil and Argentina. Brazil lost that war and so Argentina was able to absorb Paraguay and Uruguay into one new state called La Plata. The Andean nations existed mostly in peace amongst each other, though social upheaval in Bolivia stoked fears of syndicalist revolution on the continent.  tross: Stay awake, class, we're getting through it. Sub-Saharan Africa will not take long to discuss because unfortunately, it was dominated by just a handful of white powers. The majority of the continent was split between two states. One was National France, an Entente regime of exiled French conservatives, capitalists and reactionaries who aimed to reverse the revolution in France from their base in Algiers. The other was Mittelafrika, an autonomous entity subject to the German Empire that combined most of Germany's possessions on the continent with formerly French, British and Belgian colonies to create an enormous resource colony and dumping ground for unsavory characters in German politics. In the south, the Union of South Africa retained its independence and declared itself to be a republic, a newly dominant Afrikaner ethnic group rejecting the British King in exile, aiming to pursue a more pragmatic approach of friendly relations with both Germany and Canada. kwilkins: What about that bit in the west? tross: Yes, that is Liberia. Liberia was a small republic established by free black Americans in the 19th century. At this point, it is still dominated economically by the United States.  tross: Alright only four slides to go before we can get into discussion. The British Raj was the second most populous entity in the world behind the Republic of China at the end of the Great War. As it became clear that the the British Isles were going to fall, widespread revolt broke out, as weak princes who were propped up by the British fell to popular revolt and strong princes fought the British and each other to secure independence for the first time in over a century. By the mid 1930s, the fighting had settled down and an uneasy peace fell upon the subcontinent though world events would later shatter it. tross: No fewer than eight states ended up dividing the former Raj between them. The British forces ended up retreating to the northwest third of the continent, deciding to consolidate their hold on a smaller area of India in cooperation with local Indian rulers. In doing so, they abandoned portions of their frontier to opportunistic rulers from Afghanistan and Nepal. tross: Syndicalists began a revolution in Calcutta inspired by the success of the British revolution and established control of the Bengal region. They did not attempt to assert the Raj's former sphere of influence over the Himalayan states of Bhutan and Tibet. tross: The remainder of the subcontinent was controlled by independent princes and even one constitutional republic in Madras, who federated in the south to assert their independence from the British Crown and to repel the expanding syndicalist revolution from the northeast. The Germans seized control of Ceylon to act as a naval base and to remind the various forces on the subcontinent of their ability to militarily intervene.  tross: The Germans made much more of an effort to extend their influence in the area around the South China Sea. France was compelled to give up their Indochinese possessions to Germany, which the revolutionary government had very little interest in to begin with. As some of you who have taken the Great War class know, Siam had thrown in its lot with Germany in the late stages of the Great War, aiming to reclaim Cambodia from the French. For their efforts, Germany left Cambodia out of its new Indochinese colony and allowed Siam to annex it. tross: The collapse of the British Empire resulted in more opportunities for Siamese expansion. They occupied a large portion of the Burmese border in the midst of Burma's revolt from British rule as well as splitting the British colony in the Malay Peninsula with Germany, who was mainly interested in the value of Singapore as a naval base. tross: With the rest of this area occupied by either the friendly Dutch in Indonesia or the nonthreatening Americans in the Philippines, this constituted the final link in an important series of naval stations for Germany. Stretching from Malta through the Suez Canal, the Horn of Africa, Ceylon through this area, this sea route was an important connection with AOG and the internationalized ports on the coast of China, which combined constituted an important part of Germany's economic empire.  tross: AOG was a result of the 1926 German intervention in China. The situation in China had changed dramatically since the Great War. The system of European zones of control collapsed as their mother countries did and there was an anarchic period where warlords and revolutionary movements battled for control. Power abhors a vacuum and so Germany intervened to establish their dominance in the state. With the cooperation of monarchists seeking the restoration of the Qing Empire, the Germans won an incomplete victory. They secured the southern AOG zone as their exclusive economic realm and established the Qing Empire in the north. Japan was not blind to the opportunities here either and expanded their influence in Manchuria at the expense of the Russians and Chinese. Despite the successes of Japan and Germany, neither could fully subdue the interior of the nation, in which a handful of warlords and religious movements held sway. Among these was the deeply xenophobic religious movement Shangqing Tianguo, which aimed to rid China of all foriegn influence and one of the most bizarre states of the period in Mongolia, which was ruled by the 'Mad Baron' Roman von Ungern-Sternberg, an Austrian noble whose cruelty allowed him to unite Outer Mongolia under his rule. As we'll see, he had some very large ambitions.  tross: And of course we have one last continent to cover, Australia. Australia and New Zealand had sent a lot of men to die in the Great War and the collapse of the British Empire triggered a crisis. The exiled royal government in Canada decreed that Australia and New Zealand would be combined into one state with authority over the remaining British territories in the Pacific. Elections were cancelled and Australasia became a rather authoritarian state within the Entente. That is the end of my lecture today, does anybody have questions or something they'd like to discuss? *System: Channel moderation deactivated. You may talk freely.* csm141 fucked around with this message at 19:19 on Oct 31, 2014 |
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Oct 31, 2014 17:39
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Deceitful Penguin posted:Yea what happened to Iceland and the Faroe Islands? I remember there was, something about them? Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands are all owned by Denmark still, no change there. And updates will probably be about three a week or so though I'll do the prologue ones faster because I'm anxious to start the war bits. theblastizard posted:Please tell me one of your side games will be Mongolia. Mongolia is magical Thought about it because you can tell the mod team had a lot of fun writing that country. I wouldn't do both Mongolia and Qing though so we'll see. csm141 fucked around with this message at 06:38 on Nov 1, 2014 |
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Nov 1, 2014 04:56
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GrossMurpel posted:Central Planning gives you 20% more Industrial Capacity (IC) while Free Market gives you -25% ugprade costs and time (CP gives +25%) and -20% production time and cost. Since upgrades and production are pretty much what you'll be spending your IC on most of the time, FM is plain better. I'll focus the intermission games on gameplay (plus they'll be more concise in general), so that people can see how the game works (in a general sense, there's some mechanics that are still opaque to me even after hundreds of hours in HoI2 and its derivatives). I'll probably need a break from coming up with different ways to write updates by then too. e: Central Planning is indeed garbage but I am literally America so I'm sure I'll be alright. I guess it is a weird shift from Victoria 2 but historically even the most free market nations seized a great deal of control over the economies in order to direct the war effort. Otherwise I can imagine playing the USA and getting invaded by Japan because the capitalist class considers glass to be a higher priority than naval artillery. csm141 fucked around with this message at 19:30 on Nov 1, 2014 |
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Nov 1, 2014 19:26
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Chapter Two: Seeds of Crisis (January-April 1936) i don't know a whole lot about telegrams  quote:RESTRICTED  quote:CONFIDENTIAL  quote:RESTRICTED  quote:RESTRICTED  quote:TO: PRESIDENT HOOVER WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON  quote:SECRET  quote:SECRET   quote:TOP SECRET  quote:RESTRICTED  quote:SECRET  quote:SECRET  quote:TOP SECRET  quote:TO: SENATORS DAVIS AND REED WASHINGTON  quote:RESTRICTED  quote:CONFIDENTIAL  quote:TOP SECRET  quote:RESTRICTED
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Nov 2, 2014 18:12
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Ghostwoods posted:Is there some specific benefit for pumping up national dissent? Or does it just not really matter? My goal is to trigger the American Civil War events so I can play as one of the factions. I actually have no idea how exactly those event chains work so I assumed that bumping up dissent would make sure it happened (it did). Also seems in character with Hoover being inept and out of touch with just how bad things are getting.
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Nov 2, 2014 19:00
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Triskelli posted:I always forget when a Kaiserriech thread shows up, the Syndicalists are a version of communists based around trade unions, right? Did that happen anywhere in real life and work longer than like a year? Yeah its more or less about workers ownership and union democracy. It did have a good deal of traction in Spain during the Civil War for a few years before the Soviet-backed Republican government started to crack down on them. There were prominent syndicalist organizations in Italy, France and the United States but the war, Red Scare and Soviet dickery meant that syndicalism was a non factor by the forties. In this time line, the revolutions take place in highly industrialized nations with strong unions while the Bolsheviks in Russia lost so the Syndicalists have a lot more prestige.
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Nov 3, 2014 03:20
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Chapter Three: Red Summer (May-July 1936) Welcome back to WHPK, my next guest is Gary Johnson, director of the Chicago Historical Society, where the Third International exhibit will be opening next week. The exhibit began on May Day 2011 in the Carnavalet Museum in Paris as part of the celebration for the 75th anniversary of the enormously important First Congress in 1936. The exhibit has since been on a world tour, symbolically traveling to world capitals in order of their revolutions. After three years, it is Chicago's turn. I spoke with the director about the significance of the Congress. Welcome, Mr. Johnson. Thank you.  Where was the Congress and who attended? The Congress was announced and held by the Commune of France in Paris. They were the de facto leaders of the worldwide Syndicalist movement and had the most to lose due to their proximity to the German Empire. The Commune sought to bring in representatives from nations all over the world to discuss the threat of Germany, expanding syndicalism throughout the world and seeking consensus on some other thorny questions. Other than France, Britain, Georgia, the Bhartiya Commune and the Socialists in Southern Italy attended, along with many representatives of syndicalist movements from capitalist states.  The First Congress is well remembered for its bold statements about global revolution. Who set this tone? France, as the hosts and site of the first successful revolution, had the most prestige among all the attending states and so were chosen to open the Congress. In that opening speech, Chairman Pivert gave a rousing speech in which he stated that there could be no compromise with the bourgeoisie. The exhibit has an audio recording of this speech, from which you can tell that the rest of the Congress was enthusiastically in agreement with this vision. Following the tone set by that speech, Jose Diaz Ramos of the CNT-FAI made an impassioned appeal to the Congress to support the cause of his organization in Spain. Britain and France immediately agreed.  Was there a delegation from the Combined Syndicates to the Congress? Yes, Jack Reed and a number of important figures within the CSA were in attendance. On the second day, Jack Reed took the floor and made numerous appeals to history. He spoke at length about how Britain and America had both rejected the King, which resulted in a great deal of applause from the British delegation and then referred to the role of France in the first American Revolution and how France's assistance could turn the tide in yet another Revolution. It was perfectly tuned to the themes of global revolution and the long arc of history that the Congress was based around, and thus, Reed left Paris with pledges of support from both Britain and France.   What other states sought support from the Congress? The Socialists in Naples had long been a close ally of the Commune, and they sought an ironclad commitment from Paris that they would assist them in uniting Italy, which was granted. The Bhartiya Commune also spoke of the potential of the Indian masses united under the syndicalist banner before making an appeal for technical assistance to modernize their colonial-era military, which was also readily provided by Britain and France.  The Congress is also remembered as an important milestone in the fight for women's equality. How did that come about? There was a great deal of women among the delegates and it was generally agreed upon by most men within the Internationale that gender equality was important. What varied among them was just how important they thought it was. Some factions thought it was a distraction that could be handled after the business of revolution was completed while others thought it was necessary to even achieve it in the first place. The French delegation took the latter view and thus were able to push through a forceful declaration that declared womens rights to be a central pillar of the revolution.  There was also a strategic aspect to the feminist focus. The Entente and German Empires were deeply sexist, in the monarchist tradition, and most of the Internationale's enemies did not have women's suffrage. The declaration provoked suffragist demonstrations across the world. Germany in particular was forced to give some concessions to suffragists, which triggered a great deal of turmoil within the conservative establishment.   The Congress had many delegates from hostile states, such as Germany and Austria-Hungary. How did they fare upon returning home? Badly for the most part. The governments of the states targeted by the Internationale quickly retaliated against those they had known to attend. Police turned a blind eye to the murder of one delegate's family in Germany, in one particularly horrifying incident. Those who didn't attend had planned rallies in solidarity with the Congress, which were violently suppressed. Delegates from those nations, like Tim Buck in Canada, read telegrams from home about what had been done to their friends and families. This incensed the Congress and there were even calls for immediate war against Germany when the FAUD delegates spoke of their organization being banned, though cooler heads prevailed at this point. The Internationale was building steam but it was not quite ready for that.  How did the outside world react to the Congress? As I said before, many parties rallied in solidarity with the Internationale, facing reprisal and arrest for doing so. Many states and parties also decided to make their own statements at a time when the Internationale was dominating the headlines and consciousness of the world.  The Socialists in Italy were especially emboldened by the pledge of French support. The Pope aimed to counteract the Internationale's momentum by issuing an encyclical against it. The Socialists immediately responded by seizing the Church's property in their territory, a risk they might not have taken even a few years earlier.   Solidarity protests in Bolivia escalated quickly with police violence causing protesters to turn violent and occupy the Presidential Palace, where Victor Paz Estenssoro proclaimed a new revolutionary government, adding Bolivia to the ranks of the Internationale before the Congress had even ended.  The exiled French realized the Commune's vision was compelling and triggering unrest in Africa. They decided that an Imperial Restoration was equally compelling. Metropolitan France wasn't impressed.   Centroamerica had not had a speaker at the Internationale but was nonetheless emboldened by it, giving their backing to a Syndicalist uprising in Panama. The government was weak and propped up by the United States, which was unable to prevent their puppet's demise. Within weeks, the population had voted to join Centroamerica, putting the American control of the Panama Canal under serious threat.   How did the Internationale affect the political situation in the United States? Jack Reed's speech, with its broad scope and inspiring vision, gained the CSA many new supporters, especially with Hoover's government acting so inefficiently to deal with the Great Heat Wave that struck the next month. With the death of Alexander Berkman, Jack Reed was now the most prominent socialist of any stripe in the nation and it provided a great deal of momentum for his planned presidential campaign. The reactionary elements in the United States were quick to respond, with America First rallies across the South and an explosion of racial violence, leading to the papers terming it the 'Red Summer.'  By the Fourth of July, the Democrats and Republicans were in a panic, with some even suggesting they put forward a joint candidate if only to prevent Reed or Long from becoming President at all costs. The idea gained a lot of traction, but the machinery of the two parties was already in gear and it was too late to avert what was to come. Thanks for your time, Director. Certainly. The exhibit opens on May Day, we hope to see you here!
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Nov 3, 2014 18:52
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Chapter 4: The Stirring Masses (July-September 1936) Dear Jimmy O., Thank you so much for your letter. I am always glad to speak with a young person interested in journalism. As to your question about the best career move I ever made, I would have to say for certain that it was when I decided to take a trip around the world in 1936, with the thought to go to wherever the news was happening. It opened my eyes to so much of what the world outside this country had to offer, and I met many incredible people and witnessed some amazing events that I'll never forget.  It started when I heard about the Arab Congress in Cairo. I had recently read T.E. Lawrence's excellent account of his time amongst the Arabs during the Great War and was interested to see how their spirits were holding up after their defeat by the Germans and Ottomans. When I got to Cairo, I met Arab delegates from all over the Arab world and even spoke to nervous ambassadors from colonial powers.  When the Egyptian Sultan announced Egypt's claims on the Turks, the crowds went wild in a display of nationalist fervor that was equal parts beautiful and abhorrent to behold. Describing the attitude of that crowd is one of the most challenging correspondences I ever had to write.  Another interesting experience was when I was interviewing a representative of the Bedouin tribes in Arabia when an Egyptian minister angrily confronted him about their competing claims to the Levant. It took the two men five minutes to realize they were having what should have been a private confrontation in front of an American stranger.  From there, I had spoken to a French ambassador who described to me the planned coronation of a new Napoleon. This was a spectacle I couldn't afford to miss. The pomp, the circumstance, the gold and jewels, it was the type of royalist splendor that you would never see in the era of syndicalism.  I decided to take a ship from Algiers to Istanbul at that point, and when I arrived in Istanbul I overheard of some upheaval in Georgia. After a train ride east and some difficulty getting into the country, I was the only American journalist present when the Georgian government proclaimed their ambitions to control the Caucasus.  After a very interesting train ride through Persia and India, I arrived in China just in time for the Republican uprising. The Republic had been dismantled many years before and the thought of a united China struck panic in many Europeans in the country.  The most interesting group of people I met were the Shangqing Tianguo religious movement. Their xenophobic attitude towards Westerners led to some hair raising episodes but I was one of the few outsiders at the time who had gotten any access at all into the reclusive movement. I even witnessed one of their pitched mountain battles with the AOG forces, which was also hard to describe. It almost had a fantastic quality to it, like I was witnessing some episode out of ancient Chinese history only with rifles and artillery.  The republicans had been wiped out before I even left china, though the Shangqing fought on for years after the defeat of the southern revolution.  If there was anything I regretted about the trip, its that I missed the Stanley Cup, I heard it was an incredible series and I really would have liked to see the scene in Detroit when they won.  I was in Hong Kong looking into passage back home when the news came across the wires that the Bolsheviks in Russia had revolted yet again! I had wanted to leave university to report on the first revolution but got dissuaded by my parents. This was a rare second chance!  I arrived while the negotiations were taking place. The Bolsheviks wanted to be a part of the government and the Whites refused. All the while, both sides were frozen in place, gathering strength. The tension was so palpable it felt like if you lit a cigarette at the wrong time, you could ignite the whole situation.  I was pretty glad to be in Russia, since it was apparently so hot back home. It was hardly pleasant in Russia but it wasn't that bad!  The situation in Russia took on a bizarre quality as both sides decided not to attack just yet. The Whites were almost pretending nothing was going on at all, having discussions about tariffs and naval strategy when Bolsheviks were just miles away.  Finally, the war erupted. The street violence was some of the worst I've ever seen, worse than Spain and America by far.   I didn't spend very long in Russia, cognizant of the increasing danger and eager to see more of the world. While I was there, I did meet a great deal of interesting folks on the White side, some Japanese, Finns, Germans, Poles among other nationalities. The correspondence from Russia is some of my favorite because of the stories of these people from all over the world and what their motivations for laying down their lives in a foreign land were.  After the austere and brutal nature of the Russian Civil War, I decided to change up the scenery by heading somewhere with some more beauty, namely Italy. I had never been to Italy before and wanted to witness and report on a Papal mass and see what kind of stories of pilgrimage I could find amidst the opulence of Rome and the Vatican. When I got there, I was just in time to report on the Anzio crisis! I was so lucky on this trip with my timing. So much of our profession is about knowing when you're in the right place at the right time.  After being one of the few American journalists, it was a relief to be around a number of my countrymen in Rome. They had a lot to say about what had happened back home since I left. One journalist from the Los Angeles Times was insistent he had seen aliens flying in the Southwest desert, but his colleague assured me he was touched in the head and not to pay any attention to him. I always did wonder if he had really seen something.  An old friend of mine had tipped me off to a leak that the King in Canada had made a veiled threat to Hoover if the CSA were to win the election. I had almost forgotten that the election was coming up! I had to get back in time for that at least.  I'm sure a smart boy like you knows your history, so you know that I never did get to see that election. I could write a whole other volume on what I saw during the leadup to Revolution but I think this old newsman has rambled on enough. Take chances and risks as a journalist, Jimmy, go to places nobody else thinks to go, find your ways into places you're not supposed to be, be persistent when you believe you have something worthwhile. It is there that you will find the stories nobody else is covering, and it is there that journalists can provide the greatest level of public service. Good luck to you, son, and good luck on your university project. Yours Truly, Ernie Pyle
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Nov 4, 2014 19:23
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Drone posted:Digging the narrative style where each post is framed in a different historical context (online classroom, diplomatic cables, radio interview). That's one of the things I liked best about Rincewind's LP, and glad to see you're taking inspiration from that. Keep goin! I did an EU4 LP when it came out (on another forum) and I found that by the fifth war with Vijayanagar it became mildly torturous to write updates so I was honestly loathe to start another LP until I saw Rincewind's and took the idea of making it an in-universe thing because it makes the whole thing more entertaining to write and solves the problem of what to say about repetitious aspects of the game. One more update until the shooting starts!
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Nov 4, 2014 19:37
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Samolety posted:Yeah, really good writing, Savage, I'm enjoying it a lot. Kaiserreich is great and deserves to be LP'd more than it is. I did play with that for a while but then it got old and I turned on Spotify instead. I do have one playlist with a mix of regular songs and the stuff from the pack though. My favorite is still this one for when I inevitably get bored in the late game and deploy nuclear weapons. Rincewind posted:I've never played DH/Kaisereich, but every time I see an LP of it I'm just totally bowled over by the sheer depth and number of events it has. It almost makes me want to try to pick up DH, but I think I'm still too traumatized from my first Paradox game being vanilla Victoria 1 to be able to face the Europa engine again. Darkest Hour is a bit tough but nowhere near Victoria levels of obtuse. Production is much easier to understand since you can always just set production orders yourself instead of trying to do the rain dance in Victoria to get your factories to build the things you need. Technology isn't bad to operate, match your teams' specialties to the tech you want and stick to certain paths (i.e. carrier focus vs battleship focus, close air support vs tac bombers, the different land doctrines, not just trying to research everything like you would in Vicky). You really can't go wrong with just building tons of infantry in DH so don't feel overwhelmed by all the different types of units available, Inf-Art will suffice to begin with. Terrain is far more important in DH than any of the other games. Air units might take some getting used to but familiarize yourself with the mission menu, particularly the end date (just wait until your vital air mission ends early because you forgot to move forward the end time) and the territorial scope (province/region/area, so you don't have to deal with your air armada bombing a retreating unit the province next to the enormous army you're trying to wear down). Naval combat is honestly a huge mystery to me in how it works so just ask for a good fleet composition on here and build that and smash it into enemy fleets. Also make sure you put Carrier Air Group brigades on your carriers unless you want to deploy carriers with no planes on them. The things that take getting used to are not having space bar to pause (you can edit a config file somewhere to add this but then you will not be able to type spaces when renaming units) and not having notifications up top so you'll have to pay more attention to the pop up messages. Really I am just trying to convince you to try DH so you can mod in the earth shattering world war between Ming, Byzantium, France and Ayiti.
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Nov 5, 2014 07:55
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VostokProgram posted:Another great update. And now we're finally coming to the good part. How far ahead are you playing? I've played up to 1940 by now but I won't be playing it for a bit while I catch up with updates and prepare for the first intermission mini LP.
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Nov 5, 2014 20:54
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beefart posted:Only problem is that you can no longer gives ships multi-word names like the CNS Karl Marx and such if you use the space bar hotkey. You will see names like "Abraham_Lincoln_Corps" for precisely this reason. Honestly I've found it to be easier to just go into the savegame in Notepad++ and change everything like that.
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Nov 5, 2014 23:28
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Chapter Five: Brother Against Brother (September-November 1936) General Douglas MacArthur, We are writing you to acknowledge the receipt of our orders as part of the Extraordinary Orders proclaimed this week. It is our solemn, moral and patriotic duty to inform you that we must disregard them. All of us, including you, took an oath upon our commissioning, to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. In our collective opinion, your actions are in clear violation of that oath and therefore, your authority is illegitimate.  I flipped a coin on this one. Our Commander-in-Chief entrusted you with temporary authorities to safeguard the Constitution in a time of crisis. You instead suspended the Constitution, assumed control for yourself and used your powers to back stab your America First co-conspirators in a disgusting display of political intrigue.  As the fabric of our great society frays and tears, your actions have been focused on removing threats to your power, rather than to restore order and engender faith in our democracy. The embarassing episode with Long in Baton Rouge did nothing but inflame the population and set the stage for the unfortunate situation this nation finds itself in today.  Perhaps the election would have put Reed into the White House, but we will never know thanks to your interference. Perhaps the United States would be friendly with the European syndicalists like the popularly elected Norwegian government. Perhaps the Canadians would have made good on their threats. Nonetheless, it is our duty to defend the legitimately elected government of these United States against any foreign power that would wish to change our public's mind, whether it be Canada, Germany or whoever else and regardless of our opinions regarding the policies of that government.    Because of your actions, we now face a grim future, not unlike the conflagration that has consumed Russia. Foreign states will turn the United States into their proxy battleground and already the West Coast seems inspired by the example of Siberia. It has taken centuries for our forefathers to forge this nation and expand it across this continent. It has taken you only weeks to propel it towards destruction.     Not since the time of Lincoln has the unity of these United States been under such threat. Already the states of the South secede under the leadership of Huey Long, who you so publicly failed to apprehend.   The best and brightest of this generation are going to die because of your actions and not to defend our nation from foreign aggression or to advance the cause of democracy, but in a shameful war between brothers over control of their common home.  Perhaps you, in your quest for power, did not anticipate the consequences of your actions. Perhaps you have been stockpiling and planning for this all along.  If your goal was to disrupt the syndicalists and prevent their rise to power, then you have failed. While you have spent the last week quarrelling with Long, Reed and his comrades have been preparing to defend themselves against your illegitimate junta.  It is our sworn duty to serve the Commander-in-Chief of these United States. These States are no longer United and neither you nor President Hoover can legitimately claim to be its Commander-in-Chief, as our men fight and kill one another and our great fleets defect to opposing ports.  Therefore, we have collectively resolved to do the only thing we can do, which is to serve the people and do whatever we can to restore democracy and prosperity to our homes. There is no path to democracy under your command. Long's regime offers an equally grim future, one filled with racism, anti-Semitism and jingoism. Even if you do win this war, you cannot put popular will into a cage forever. We have seen the events in the northern cities, and we can attest to the legitimacy of the people's desire to govern themselves along syndicalist lines.  As Victor Hugo once said, there is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come. This includes you, Long, the King in Canada, the Kaiser and whoever else claims to know what is best for the American people better than they do. With all of this in mind, we collectively tender our resignations as officers in the United States Army and Navy, its Constitutional authority having been invalidated by your actions. Our moral duty is to defend the people and their will. Therefore, our oaths force us to designate you as a domestic enemy of the Constitution and to accept commissions within the Revolutionary Guards. We deeply regret that it has come to this, but your actions have given us no other choice. May God have mercy on all American souls, and may He levy justice on yours. Signed November 11, 1936, George Catlett Marshall Maurice Rose Hyman George Rickover Gervais Raoul Lufbery csm141 fucked around with this message at 20:01 on Nov 6, 2014 |
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Nov 6, 2014 19:57
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GrossMurpel posted:What kind of weird coins do you have? Both the CSA and America First options gave five dissent so in keeping with the max dissent policy, I chose between those two. The USA starts with a handful of land units scattered across the country that I left in their starting positions. The Navy is pretty substantial though.
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Nov 6, 2014 20:43
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Erwin the German posted:Interesting that you went after AUS first - usually in the AI's hands they tend to crack down on the syndies. I like the political backstabbing spin it puts on MacArthur's motives. If there's one thing that came across in all the times I've read about MacArthur's life and career, it's that he had a constant need to be in the spotlight, from his ridiculous staging of the Philippines return photo to his Korean War dickery that got him fired. I did flip a coin and it landed on tails so I figured it would be plausible for MacArthur to view America First as a challenge after the event description for the first event describes them being in the same corner. In retrospect, I should have just done the crackdown on both now that I know it causes a delay for whichever faction isn't suppressed but by this point I had done too many test games and rolled with it. Raskolnikov38 posted:FYI you should go through the files for the AUS and USA generals and remove duplicates from the CSA general list. Far too often does George C Marshall end up fighting George C Marshall when I play the 2nd ACW. Too late for that now but I don't think I encountered any duplicates. I think 1.5 eliminated a lot of them.
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Nov 6, 2014 21:46
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Effectronica posted:It's pretty funny how there's nothing about Smedley Butler, who was an actual socialist by the time the game starts and was almost as popular a figure as MacArthur in the public eye. Of course, Kaiserreich doesn't have many Americans on the development team, and that's somewhat obvious in the ACW2 events. I looked through the CSA leaders list looking for actual armed forces officers and couldn't find many I could actually verify. Most of the leaders are labor leaders (Jimmy Hoffa, who was 23), Abraham Lincoln Corps vets or guys who I think died decades before the game start. oh well
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Nov 7, 2014 02:15
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 Chapter One: The State to End All States (November 1936)  Jack Reed's Address to Continental Chamber of Syndicates, November 11th, 1936 Comrades! I stand here with you today to celebrate the end of a long journey out of darkness. It was fifteen years ago that I returned here from Russia. The fire of revolution burned through Moscow, the smothering forces of reaction poured out of Berlin and socialism was being built on the corpse of bourgeois empire in Paris and Naples. The world was changing in front of our eyes and yet the American worker did not seem to know it. Mass action in Seattle did not spread through the country as we had hoped and capitalist repression and reformist cowardice ruled the day. I recognize many of the faces in this Chamber as those of old friends and comrades, and I remember clearly our conversations in which we attempted to explain away the victory of capitalism. I confess that I did not have faith in the American working class of that time. I have since learned a valuable lesson, that a people may only learn a truth when their minds are prepared for it. All of you in this Chamber deserve the greatest credit, for you kept the truth in your hearts when all the forces of capital sought to bury it. You risked your lives and freedom to speak the truth to the people, and after decades and centuries of oppression and suffering at the hands of the capitalists, they are finally prepared to hear it. We have walked out of the darkness of class ignorance and now the workers of America begin their long march into the light of socialism!  The march is not without obstacles. Our path to victory goes through Washington, where MacArthur plays at being a petty tyrant. It goes through Atlanta, where the reactionaries unite behind Long to deceive the workers and incite racial hatred. It goes through Ottawa, where a monarchy we long ago ejected from this nation seeks to lord over our continent once again. It goes through Algiers, through Tokyo, through Sydney and Berlin! So long as any corner of this Earth is under the domination of capital or empire, there can be no peace nor justice. We will have total victory or we will have death!     The workers of the world are with us! Through New York flows aid from the Internationale, volunteers from Britain and France willing to die for the freedom of the American worker. The workers of Italy send us ammunition and equipment. This aid is given without condition nor ulterior motive. Their sole aim is to free the workers of the world so that we may unite across oceans to defeat the capitalist empires.    The capitalists and reactionaries only wish they could be as united as we. They only wish to dominate and so they backstab each other at the first opportunity. The former government held many imperial outposts and foreign capitalists have simply taken them for themselves. Like carrion birds they abandon their fellow bourgeoisie and feed on their remains. Their petty squabbles and false glory will be only a footnote in the story we are writing. As they convince themselves that they are inherently worthy of their stolen fortunes, the masses will rise up right under their noses and bring them down, just as we are doing now!   Even now, in this hour of disaster for MacArthur's government in Washington, the capitalists in the west abandon him. They have proclaimed their own bourgeois republic, believing that they can ignore the rest of the world on the other side of their mountains.   To the east, the governors of the New England states eagerly jump into bed with the Royalists, proclaiming their love for America while collaborating with the Royalists to jail our comrades in Buffalo and Boston. Their time will come!  They will not be the only collaborators in our midst. Some will attempt to flee the revolution and take the wealth that our hands have created with them. They must not be allowed this final robbery.   Others will claim to serve the revolution and instead aim to enrich themselves off of our blood and our sweat. Be vigilant, comrades! This revolution is yours and it is your right and responsibility to hold your leaders accountable. Only with unity of purpose and commitment to the socialist ideals will we win victory.    this is kind of a stupid tech to research right now to be honest  the fourth tech team slot came from the event that makes Philadelphia a national province, pushing me over 80 IC With the pressures of profit and Fordist efficiency lifted, the industrial and scientific workers can now focus their efforts on what will benefit the revolution. The efforts of our greatest minds can be expended towards progress for all of humanity, instead of the profit margins of a few.   Look out for one another, comrades. This revolution will require sacrifice on a scale that we have not seen before. As we speak, the workers of the Combined Syndicates organize and prepare to defend us while we build a new socialist society. We must be united, regardless of gender or race. Our enemies do not regard women or Negroes as equals or even as humans. If you hold prejudice in your heart, then it is now time to cast it out. Racism and sexism are only wedges used by the bourgeois to divide worker against worker, to suppress our class consciousness. Join arms with your fellow worker, regardless of their gender or race, and defend all of our neighborhoods and families as if they were yours.   With the assistance of our European comrades and the revolutionary spirit in our hearts, we will have victory. We will overcome any obstacle, defeat any foe, through winter's snow or summer's heat, across any ocean! Long live the Internationale! Long live the Combined Syndicates of America!  On behalf of the Central Committee, I am honored to now cede the floor to your newly elected General Secretary, Comrade Paul Mattick! 
csm141 fucked around with this message at 07:00 on Oct 11, 2015 |
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Nov 9, 2014 07:20
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GrossMurpel posted:Are you using an icon mod? Because these things look hilarious and awesome. Yes, if you go to the download link in the OP, the thread will have a link to SKIF Models I believe it's called. I really like the flavor they add to each country. John Charity Spring posted:Half the time, when I play Kaiserreich, I'm doing it as a kind of leftist wish-fulfilment of a better world. This LP is feeding precisely those feelings. Believe me I've been thinking about doing this for months but started when I did so I could immerse myself in something fun while the media storm surrounding the GOP majority passes. Jesenjin posted:Those counters for militia are completely unknown to me. Where have you got em? I had researched most of the 1936 techs as the US and inherited them as CSA. For whatever reason I decided the rocket facility would be a good choice then realized months later it was pretty dumb to start such a giant foundational tech with a team not very well suited to it while my survival was still in question. We'll chalk it up to engineers at Goodyear being sick of tires and wanting to gently caress around with rockets.
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Nov 9, 2014 18:27
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GrossMurpel posted:Do you actually inherit techs? In my AUS game I didn't research as the USA to gimp them as much as possible and still started out with almost full up-to-date tech. I think so? I'm really not sure.
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Nov 9, 2014 21:54
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Thordain posted:Well if you're committed to creating this super sunshine version of the world then I think you have to make at least one change to your staff. William Aalto is a decent Minister of Security, but you should really switch over to Helen Keller(yes really). I discovered this later on, I did not hesitate to make the change.
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Nov 10, 2014 02:28
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The way I've imagined the CSA operating at this point is the Continental Chamber (the legislature of union/syndicate delegates) having sovereignty and granting temporary (in theory) war powers to the Central Committee that then acts as a central authority in the time of crisis. So I would imagine the danger there would be the Central Committee getting powerful enough that it can control the Chamber and marginalize or eliminate the union democracy aspect. The events in game allow you to push yourself towards Totalism so that is a possible path but I'd like to imagine the Chamber being strong enough to hold the Committee to account.
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Nov 11, 2014 06:41
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The actual democratic process happens through events so the sliders only really matter for minister availability and being able to declare war. Being highly Democratic (and isolationist) means you can only declare war on highly belligerent nations, which fits social democracies better than syndicalist democracies in my opinion. Hopefully I'll get an update out today. Also I'd like to start thinking about the first mini LP. It will be a Chinese state and now I'm divided between Qing, Shangqing and Mongolia. Qing has a lot of events but also can just be more or less handed China, which wouldn't be terribly interesting to read. Shangqing has a more war torn path to uniting China, with probably some hairy situations involved. Mongolia can be hilarious with the Empire and crusade events to start exploding across Central Asia and eventually coastal China. Could be interesting too.
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Nov 11, 2014 13:46
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Chapter Two: The Federal Salient (Late November 1936) The following is a selection of excerpts from the journals and letters of militiamen and foreign volunteers during the first days of the Revolution. Thousands of other stories are available to read as part of the Stories of Revolution archive on http://www.smithsonian.csa/revolutionday Please join us this November 11th for our Revolution Day celebrations as we remember and honor those who fought and died for our freedoms.  Hayden Collins, Leicester, England, Transatlantic Expeditionary Force November 15th, 1936 The reception the New Yorkers gave us when we steamed in was incredible but we only had one day to enjoy it before we herded onto the trains to Pittsburgh. The Appalachians are quite striking and it is good to be among miners again. It is a welcome reminder of home and part of me almost wants to drop my rifle and get to work in the mines like nothing has changed. My new comrades have told me tales of the conditions they've been dealing with here, tales that make me appreciate how much the Revolution has changed Britain for the better. I do not regret my decision to leave England. Coming here has given substance to the internationalist ideals I've preached all these years. I would gladly die so that these men may enjoy what we have across the ocean. We are waiting here for a few days before we begin our advance into the federal held territory of West Virginia, another state with many mines and mountains. Rumor is we're waiting on a few militias from up north to arrive.  While we're waiting here, me and some of the boys decided we'd check out the city and speak with some of the militiamen, to get a feel for how prepared these men really are. The airport was an interesting sight, the Americans are using very old planes as bombers, nothing like the sleek planes our aviation works produce in Britain. I met a few of the pilots, some of them used to fly crop dusters, one was part of a flying circus, some are basically new to flying and learning as they go. While we were headed back to our camp, we did see a large flight of bombers headed towards Maryland.  (imagine there's arrows going from Pittsburgh to Huntington and Philadelphia to Baltimore) I wish them and all the revolutionaries luck. We are going to need it.  Benoît Monrency, Aix-en-Provence, France, Benjamin Franklin Corps November 16th, 1936 Pierre, The men are doing extremely well here. I know you were worried about our men possibly ending up involved in intra-CSA squabbles but I don't think we will have that problem. We made the right choice in requesting to be under the command of General Marshall, for he is an extremely competent commander. The anarchist elements that concern you are certainly present but he has kept the Benjamin Franklin Corps running very well so far. He commands respect in the way that he listens to professional officer, anarchist firebrand and union representative all the same, and takes their input into genuine consideration when he makes a decision, in such a way that we all leave his presence feeling like we have been heard. He stands in stark contrast to MacArthur, whose lust for glory some of the ex-US Army officers on our side tell horror tales of and who many of the more moderate social democrats and trade unionists in our midst blame for making this revolution necessary in the first place.  Apparently our British comrades are under the command of another professional officer, one Maurice Rose, who has an excellent reputation among the American officers I have spoken with here. The purely American units are under the command of political figures and organizers, not unlike the the columns from our own revolutions. I am sure they will learn the art of war as they go.  Our march towards Washington is getting off to a good start. Our intelligence indicates that most of the federal forces had moved south when Long's rebellion began and so they are either pinned down or spending precious time redeploying to defend against our advances. I'm sure our British comrades envy us as our first contact with the enemy was a heated engagement with Royalist volunteers across the Susquehanna river. Surely they would have liked to give their old enemy a piece of their mind, but I think we did a fine job of delivering their message.  We're currently settling into Baltimore. This city has split sympathies due to its proximity to the federal capital and to Philadelphia. There is a sizable contingent of the Benjamin Franklin Corps of union men who fled Baltimore to escape the police crackdown. Marshall is insistent that reprisals are forbidden, though we have jailed and replaced the mayor who had forced our comrades to flee in the first place.   Hopefully by the time you read this, I will be penning you another letter from Washington! Bien à vous, Benoît  Ella Stewart, Dundee, Scotland, Revolutionary Air Guards November 30th, 1936 What a week its been! I knew this mission was a good idea, there's no way the Air Command can deny the qualifications of female pilots after we are done here. The Internationale's feminist rhetoric will finally be backed up by practice. I hope the little girls of the next generation will be encouraged to take up flying, instead of being told its not a woman's place. If we can get some female aces, then it'll be easy for women to believe they can fly and fight just as well or better than the men. We were scoffed at by the all-male American wing when we arrived, now they don't laugh, since if it weren't for us their obsolete planes would be coffins by now. We've a modern British wing and a French wing here, both with sizable contingents of female pilots. Adrienne took a sabbatical from flying air mail between London and Paris to join the Communal volunteers, much to my delight. It has been far too long since I've seen her and we've already flown a few missions together. She didn't bring up what happened between us at flight school and I suppose she's right not to, given the focus we need for this mission. It's hard enough to watch my wingmates die without having my heart break.  The one thing that does concern me about this experience is that we could get into some bad habits. The federal troops have nothing in the way of anti-air artillery and we have carte blanche to fly over the battlefield so long as there are no enemy planes nearby, which is increasingly often. When that happens we have been doing reconnaissance, which I'll confess has doubled as sightseeing for me. We've been covering the advance of the Benjamin Franklin Corps and Transatlantic Expeditionary Force. Adrienne and I flew over the National Mall to get an idea of federal defenses around the White House and watched as Marshall's men overwhelmed those defending the city. Adrienne thought she saw a plane in the distance at one point and wanted to give chase but I told her to stick with me. I regret it now, since rumor is that plane held an escaping MacArthur. Imagine that headline in the Telegraph! MacArthur killed in crash, downed by woman aces! That would get their attention! Not to be, I'm afraid. Somebody will give that man what he deserves eventually.  Apart from the urban centers of Baltimore and Washington, we've also spent some time flying through the Appalachians, where my countrymen are doing battle with the Union State. The mountains there are impressive, though some of the American pilots tell me the Rockies are much more so. I hope to see them before this is over. It has been a surreal experience to be spectators to the destruction below as if we were gods. Why I'm concerned is that the Union State Air Force is known to not be as anemic as the federal one, so we must be vigilant not to let our current freedom of the skies embolden us too much in the future. One bad decision could kill us up here, and I am determined to see Adrienne and I through this safely.  (I did eventually change the name of this unit to Abraham Lincoln Corps) Leon Thomas, Chicago, CSA, Abraham Lincoln Corps November 24th, 1936 I'm starting to think the capitalists have elections in November because potential revolutionaries won't want to go outside in this goddamn cold. I can't be too bitter about it though, we haven't had to fight anybody on the way south from Chicago. Some of the more eager in the Corps are angry that the TAF and BFC are getting all the action in the east but I'm not. I'm in no rush to die. I only march because I don't want some peckerhead in a white hood hanging up my son from a tree. Minnie and I left Mississippi to get away from that and I'll be damned if I allow it to follow us. Fighting for Haywood was a good choice. Don't get me wrong, I feel much safer in Chicago than I did in Mississippi but there were still the riots and discrimination to contend with. Haywood doesn't put up with any racism in the Corps. He's a tough man, he fought off the Irish during the riots, he's got training from the National Guard and the fact that our unit is probably the most organized and well equipped of any in the Syndicate Guards (excepting the Europeans) can be credited to him. We're on our way to Saint Louis now. Word from Haywood is that the police there are preventing the unions from organizing militias and declaring for the CSA, so we're going to go resolve that situation. Maybe then we can head south and get out of this drat cold. L'Humanité December 1st, 1936 (I'm gonna do these newspaper things for foreign events rather than trying to shoehorn them into the civil war narrative)  Benjamin Franklin Corps Capture Washington Our American comrades marched into the federal capital, lifting the red and black over the White House. President Hoover and General MacArthur were nowhere to be found. MacArthur is believed to have fled the city by airplane to the American west and President Hoover is believed to be in exile in Canada. The American proletariat with the assistance of brave French volunteers evicted the Royalist scum from the capital across the Potomac River to Arlington. They are cut off from the rest of the federal territory by the Transatlantic Expeditionary Force in Charlottesville.  The federal government has fled to the mountain city of Denver, hoping the plains and Rocky mountains can protect them from the inevitable victory of the proletariat.  MacArthur's illegitimacy has caused the federal government's empire to crumble. Their former puppets in Liberia announced today an agreement with the colonialist regime in Algiers that adds Liberia to the ranks of the Entente.   The breakaway Pacific States of America declared war on MacArthur's junta as well, showing that MacArthur is incapable of keeping peace even among the bourgeoisie of America. MacArthur's attempts to negotiate a peace or alliance with the west coast have fallen on deaf ears.  Hawaii, which the capitalist Americans stole from the natives so long ago, has declared its independence and seized what remained of the American government's Pacific islands.  The military government of Mexico has also crossed the border, seeking to reintegrate the territories taken from Mexico in the imperialist Mexican War of 1846. While we do not weep for MacArthur, we do not regard the Mexican government as legitimate, since it has sought to dismantle the revolutionary progress of the late great Emiliano Zapata. The Combined Syndicates of America are the only entity with legitimate authority over the American Southwest. Japanese Empire Fracturing?  The imperialist nation of Japan has long sought to compete with the European empires in Asia, and in doing so they have built a network of puppet states and imperial possessions. The peoples of this empire yearn for freedom and it seems that the Japanese government has been forced to at respond to them. A new Korean state was proclaimed this week, although it is clearly a puppet of the Japanese Empire. Hopefully this will ignite the consciousness of the Korean worker and inspire them to throw off the shackles of capitalist Japan.  The island of Formosa has been granted independence in a similar arrangement to that of Korea. The light of syndicalism has not spread far in Asia thus far, but we hope that Japan's troubles signal the beginning of an awakening for the Asian worker.
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Nov 12, 2014 19:16
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Zeroisanumber posted:Surprised that the US gave up Washington without much of a fight. I think it has to do with the delayed CSA revolt. In games where the revolt was simultaneous, there were at least three divisions from the USA contesting Washington.
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Nov 12, 2014 20:55
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VostokProgram posted:Your playstyle for the CSA is very different from mine. When I played, I spread my troops out into 1-division corps to create an defense perimeter from Chicago to Baltimore. In your game, the US troops are conspicuously absent, but in mine the US and the AUS were attacking all along the line and I only survived the first couple of months because of winter defense bonuses. It'll be interesting to see where the US army will attack when it finally shows up in force. My goal was to move into strong defensive positions and have enough force to secure Arlington which is imo the most important province in the opening phase against the USA. I was planning on having Rose and Nelson move to Clarksburg then through to Arlington while supporting Marshall's counterattack on an expected attack from Washington to Baltimore. When I figured out just how weak the USA presence was I changed it up and moved Nelson down and had Marshall handle it himself. Once the Baltimore/Washington battle was wrapped up, I would have redeployed from around there to a more spread out formation. Of course things went differently and I adapted as I went. Sorry about the delay, dealing with a few unexpected things and working Saturday but I do plan on combining my next two updates into the next one hopefully Saturday but definitely Sunday. I left the production queue alone which means that it was just the USS Ranger being built. The USA had almost no IC left for production anyway between peacetime and dissent penalties.
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Nov 15, 2014 08:11
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Chapter Three: Snowbirds (December 1936) This update is in three sections. I separated the war updates into two fronts for clarity and there is the newspaper at the end for other events. Each of the two front sections occurred simultaneously Virginia  The Canadian volunteer unit that was evicted from Washington fled across the Potomac to Arlington, where they were trapped between Marshall in Washington, Rose in Charlottesville and Union State forces in Richmond. Cut off from supply and unable to reorganize or escape, they had no choice but to surrender to the Benjamin Franklin Corps, eliminating the federal presence in Virginia. Now the Virginia front could turn its attention to the more robust Union State opposition.  With the Union State moving its forces north in increasing number, Rose made an effort to dislodge and disrupt the Union State forces in Richmond from his strong position in the Blue Ridge Mountains, so that Marshall would have less trouble establishing himself in Arlington.  An opportunity presented itself in West Virginia, as a federal counterattack from Kentucky into the valleys of western Virginia cut off an overextended Union State unit in Beckley.  The unit was a militia from Mississippi, far from home in what must have been strange territory. They attempted to break out and evict the federals from Roanoke. Their chances of success were low to begin with but MacLeish seized the opportunity to wipe out a full enemy division.  With Marshall across the Potomac and Rose well established in Charlottesville, the two units were in excellent position to assist each other. While Marshall's advance would affect the organization of his units, Rose could support the attack from Charlottesville while remaining stationary and recovering organization.  The federal advance did not last long before being repelled by Union State counter attack, though it lasted long enough for the cut off unit to be wiped out.  The Benjamin Franklin Corps completed its advance on Richmond without further incident. The support from the TAEF in Charlottesville allowed them to make it there in relatively good shape. If they had gone it alone and taken more damage, they could have been immediately evicted by Union State counterattack upon arrival. The Appalachian mountains and James River combined to provide a strong defensive line in Virginia that provided the Syndicate Guards with a chance to regroup and plan the next phase of the war.  While the plans were made and units prepared, the air war continued nonstop. Ground support operations were vitally important in weakening enemy concentrations to decrease the likelihood that they would start their own assault.  The flights also doubled as reconnaissance, providing valuable information on the composition of the enemy forces. The Danville concentration contained two militia units and one professional infantry division comprised of Italian refugees.  Somehow the pilots could tell from the skies that these were classy individuals.  Very classy.  With the federals evicted from Roanoke, MacLeish's militia had an opportunity to move into the strategically important province of Roanoke. Whoever controlled Roanoke could support action across the entire region, including Knoxville and Charlotte.  The Union State wouldn't let such an important city go down without a fight and moved some militia into the void before MacLeish could secure it. Rose immediately moved to support the push.  All available air resources were used to reduce the cost in lives and morale of taking the city. The flip side of Roanoke being able to attack so many places was that Roanoke could be attacked from many different places.  With Nelson securing Lexington, the Syndicate Guards were able to open another avenue of attack and pressure the defenders of Roanoke from north, west and east.  Even though a professional infantry division had arrived to back up the militia, the concentration of force was simply too great.  Ninety thousand men and air support did the trick, and the Union State was forced to retreat from the vital city.  MacLeish secured the city without much further trouble, putting the Union State forces in southern Virginia at serious risk and opening a path to the Carolinas. The River Valleys  The Abraham Lincoln Corps split in two, with one half digging in behind the Ohio River in southern Illinois, and the other half crossing the Mississippi to secure the major city of Saint Louis.  Saint Louis had been the site of a tense tug of war between the federally sympathetic mayor and the unions who sided with the Combined Syndicates. The capture of the city by the CSA triggered the mayor and the police loyal to him to flee west and the unions enthusiastically greeted the Abraham Lincoln Corps into the city. An estimated twenty thousand men volunteered to join the Abraham Lincoln Corps as part of the newly formed Saint Louis Syndicate Guard.  The Abraham Lincoln Corps was exhausted and needed time to regroup. The new recruits were, on the other hand, ready to go and decided to march on Memphis, which would cut off federal forces in Kentucky from their power base in the West and threaten the core of Union State territory.   The capture of Saint Louis widened the front that the CSA needed to defend and so two wings of captured federal bombers from Washington were ordered to Chicago, where they would fly missions to Missouri to blunt the federal counterattack.  After the successful capture of Saint Louis, Haywood sought to continue the momentum and capture Kentucky before the Union State could. Haywood moved his forces across the Ohio to Louisville, while Nelson moved out of Cincinatti towards Lexington, engaging federal troops there.  The professionalized Chicago forces in Saint Louis continued to recover and stay where they were. If Saint Louis fell to the federals, it would not be difficult for the aggressors to continue over the Mississippi and threaten the supply lines to the Kentucky advance, or even Chicago itself.  The offensive hit an obstacle in Memphis. A professionalized Union State infantry division occupied the city. The enthusiasm of the new Saint Louis recruits were no substitute for the experience they lacked. Even though the militias outnumbered the Union State defenders by two to one, the challenges of moving across the Mississippi were causing problems.  The attack on Memphis was a waste of effort. The militias were recalled home to recover and await the next action.   That action came when Dion made a brief foray out of the city to evict the Colorado National Guard which was establishing itself in the west of Missouri.  The intent was not to give chase or capture the rest of Missouri but rather to disrupt the National Guard enough that they would have to fall back to recover, giving the Western command time to achieve its goals in Kentucky.  The offensive was proceeding much better in Kentucky, with Nelson occupying Lexington with his forces in surprisingly good shape, good enough shape to support the all important attack on Roanoke to the east.  Haywood's forces were poised to enter Louisville with as little trouble as Lexington until the Union State recapture of Knoxville and pursuit of MacArthur's retreating division threatened to trigger a contest for the city.  There was no time for any 'resource procurement' with the Union State bearing down on the militiamen.  The Union State forces included professional infantry led by a skilled leader. The only respite for the defenders was the snowstorm slowing down their attackers. The Union State had forces in Memphis and Nashville not committed to the battle of Louisville, so there was very real danger of Haywood being forced into a retreat to Belleville, putting Saint Louis at threat of being cut off. Chicago Tribune Headlines, December 25th, 1936  Occupied New England to Hold Elections, Syndicalist Candidates Banned  Southern Negroes Fleeing Union State Violence Welcomed In Chicago  MacArthur Warns Entente to Keep Away from Puerto Rico, Fortifies Commonwealth  Few Mourn Death of B-List Actor in Battle   Minneapolis Liberated, Aalto Says It's "Only The First"
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Nov 16, 2014 09:37
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Drone posted:I think the gist is that trade unions under syndicalism are (supposed to be) run fairly democratically, and then those elected trade union leaders come together with each other to form a government. My understanding of syndicalism (which is not a hundred percent) plus my interpretation of what exists in the event texts about the CSA leads me to believe that there's a Central Committee, which is led by Jack Reed, and a Continental Chamber of Syndicates which is the top level of a hierarchy of union/syndicate representatives and chambers and whom we chose Paul Mattick as the leader of earlier. The Commune of France is organized on the premise of Bourses du Travail or labor exchanges, which are local bodies that deal with the workings of a city or area with the input and support of the unions and syndicates in that city. Paul Mattick is listed as being the option most similar to the Commune of France so I'll assume we're structuring ourselves in the same fashion. So I would imagine that the workers in the Widget Shop in Newark elect a delegate to the Widget Union of New Jersey and then that Widget Union participates in the labor exchange that makes the surrounding area run and then perhaps that body is part of a larger body for the New York metropolitan area, which then participates in the Continental Chamber. The principles of the movement would dictate that sovereignty and legal authority lies with the workers, which is represented by the Continental Chamber, which would have some kind of power over the Central Committee in theory. The Central Committee would act on behalf of the entire apparatus in realms of diplomacy and warfare, at this point probably with some added war powers granted by the Chamber, and the idea would be that as the situation gets better and threats are dealt with, the Continental Chamber would reclaim more power. Of course, there would be a danger of the Central Committee marginalizing the Chamber, and creating a Totalist situation. It's a cool thing to imagine but I haven't the faintest idea how such an apparatus would actually function on a level beyond a city, which I suppose some anarchists would say is the point.
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Nov 16, 2014 09:55
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GrossMurpel posted:How long had the war been going at this point? I'm just wondering why AUS has higher encryption tech than USA. Maybe six weeks? Not very long.
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Nov 16, 2014 16:58
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Chapter Four: Feels Like Going Downhill (Late December 1936-January 1937) The only way to save Louisville was to find ways to take the pressure off. Sending reinforcements was not an option, as Haywood's forces would not be able to stand their ground long enough for them to make any difference. The only option was then to counterattack from another direction and to provide immediate air support.  Nelson and MacLeish's militias in Lexington and Roanoke provided the release for Haywood's men. Nelson's force was in a prime position to turn a defensive situation into an offensive situation and occupy the defensible city of Knoxville.  The Union State could not be allowed to rest. If they felt there was no threat in the east, they could have redeployed forces to Tennessee to break Haywood. With that in mind, Rose and Marshall begin their attack across the James River.  Similarly, George Patton's unit in Memphis very well could have been the difference in the battle of Louisville. The Abraham Lincoln Corps in Memphis was tasked with evicting them to protect the western flank of Louisville.  It was an ad hoc solution to the problems in Kentucky, but it represented a great three pointed offensive that brought the war into the core territories of the Union State for the first time.  The pressure finally achieved its initial goal and the attack on Haywood was called off, freeing up his forces to move into the undefended city of Nashville.  The attacking Union State forces in Knoxville were forced to retreat and so the supporting units of MacLeish in Roanoke were free to support Rose's offensive into southern Virginia.  Similar success was found in Memphis.  With the Union State on the run in the west, the Abraham Lincoln Corps felt secure enough to begin an advance to the west into federal territory. The federal troops were largely engaged against the Pacific States and Mexico, neither of which were engaged in the total war that the federal government, CSA and Union State were embroiled in. Eventually peace of one kind or another would be brokered, and those federal troops would show up along the Mississippi.  With Norfolk out of federal hands, Rickover's fleet felt confident enough to go out to sea for the first time in the hunt for federal and Union State ships.   They found them immediately and scored a costly victory, losing two battleships while forcing out the federal fleet from the waters off the Jersey Shore.  Haywood's advance into Nashville was beset by problems immediately, attacked by a quantitatively and qualitatively superior force upon arrival.  A retreat was the only option. When Memphis and Knoxville were under control, it would be possible for Haywood to retake the city with support from the flanks.  As expected, the Union State marched into Nashville and began marching north, hoping to turn their victory into a rout.  Their advance was threatened by CSA control of Memphis. There was little time to go after the fleeing reactionaries with a possibly crucial battle on the horizon.  The Union State push was put under even more severe threat by the CSA capture of Knoxville. With the ends of Tennessee under control of the CSA, any advance up the middle by the Union State was potentially suicidal.  There were many strategies bandied about such as allowing the enemy to occupy Louisville then encircling them there, but the command in the West found it more important to keep the southern momentum going and therefore, having Haywood's men being evicted from yet another city was considered an unacceptable delay.  The TAEF occupied Danville without facing counterattack while the Benjamin Franklin Corps began an assault on Norfolk, hoping to deny the Union State a crucial naval base. What they discovered was that the Union State's local resistance was concentrated on the coasts while the center of North Carolina was undefended. Marshall and Rose had an opportunity to move south and flank Atlanta.  The defenders of Norfolk surrendered almost immediately.  After the TAEF evicted the defenders of Raleigh, they turned west towards Charlotte. The whole operation had left the Carolinas wide open to the CSA.  The attack into the west captured Springfield, which opened up Saint Louis to capture from federal forces in Arkansas.   This was clearly unacceptable and great effort was expended to eject those forces and protect Saint Louis.  The naval campaign turned into a minor disaster for Rickover. While the initial battle had been a victory, the CSA did not have the amount of ships at its disposal that the federal government did and so they suffered a defeat and were forced into hiding in Elizabeth.  Despite the losses, the local shipbuilding syndicate anticipated victory and decided it was time to prepare for overseas operations. If troops were to land on Puerto Rico or go to Europe in a future war there, they would need supply convoys and those supply convoys needed escort ships. The aging destroyers of Rickover's battered fleet were converted for escort duty.  The naval setbacks did not affect the CSA's progress on land. Charlotte fell to the TAEF without a fight, leaving the unit well rested and prepared to support Marshall's potentially contested bid for Raleigh if necessary.  While that was going, the attack moved forward in the center, with Nelson's militias in Knoxville attacking Chattanooga and MacLeish's forces beginning their advance south towards the Piedmont town of Asheville.  The penetration and support tactics of the Syndicate Guards meant that each unit was able to fight in multiple battles in quick succession. The Transatlantic Expeditionary Force was a sterling example of this type of quick movement and force multiplication, contributing to the success of both Marshall and MacLeish's forces.  The attacks were both successful, and panic set in across the Union State as the 'godless syndie bastards' came closer and closer to Atlanta. csm141 fucked around with this message at 17:20 on Nov 18, 2014 |
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Nov 18, 2014 17:17
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My strategy has been to send out a lone unit to Minneapolis, get the free militia then advance as far towards Denver as I can until I either run into resistance (then I'll redeploy back in order to play whack a mole and delay them) or need those men desperately elsewhere. Then I get a free unit and a fair amount of space that the USA will usually spend time reoccupying. In this game I haven't run into anything out there. The USA did make some progress in Mexico that I neglected to screenshot so I assume they spent a lot of early effort there.
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Nov 19, 2014 01:50
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Deceitful Penguin posted:Followed an earlier Kaiserreich LP and this one looks just as good. Can we get a bit of an overview next time though? I guess if you're familiar with American geography it makes more sense but I honestly have very little idea of how much you control. The way I've been doing this is that I'll play the game for a long time, getting like hundreds of screenshots and thats enough for the next X updates. It's the only way I can keep this thing going on a regular schedule because not everyday is a Paradox day, you know. I'll try to get more wide mapshots as I go on but I'm sure you all know how into it you can get when you're playing for an extended period of time. I do have a save from about a week before the end of the previous update so I went in and took a wider shot, just add the last couple of provinces I took (Charlotte, Chattanooga) and you get the picture.  The PSA is advancing steadily as expected, the USA and AUS have had a fair amount of back and forth in Texas and Louisiana, which the USA is getting the upper hand of at the moment, Mexico was in pretty bad shape with the USA making it down to the Gulf of California at one point but now they are pushing back pretty well. Also notice that Alaska is in American hands, Canada did not seize it. They'll live to regret this, though in a way I regret them not taking it because then they kindly develop oil fields for me to take back. Not that I'll have any need for more oil production.
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Nov 21, 2014 06:40
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Friar John posted:I gotta ask, is there any way the Federals can hold on to the East coast? I thought I'd try as the Feds, and I even made sure to let the elections continue so that I had some more time to build divisions, but there are just too many AUS and CSA divisions that just pop into existence the instant the Civil War starts. Do I just need to resign myself to seeing Washington get taking by dirty Reds or Fascists, and counter-attacking from the West? Most successful ai federals I see do lose the east coast and end up rolling up whoever is left from the west, provided they don't have to deal with the PSA or Mexico. The east is too much of a potential trap, better to let the CSA and AUS smash each other up first.
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Nov 22, 2014 06:42
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Chapter Five: Sherman's Ghost (January 1937 - February 1937) If you look at the timing, you can tell that I got addicted to Divinity: Original Sin this week. Back on schedule. Welcome back to the Stories of Revolution internet archive from the Smithsonian! The archive is being continuously expanded to incorporate entries from later stages of the Revolution. Keep checking back and utilize our search feature to discover if a revolutionary you know of is in our archive.  Hayden Collins, Distinguished Service Star, Hero of International Labour, Second Class, Transatlantic Expeditionary Force It's been a few weeks since we crossed the border to North Carolina and the difference between federal and Union State territory is pretty apparent. We saw the streams of black refugees pouring north through Virginia as we advanced towards the Union State lines. Now we've seen what they left behind.  The black southerners have lived in entirely different communities than the white southerners, which I had heard plenty about from the commissar. I suppose I just didn't expect it to be so blatant. Separate water fountains and other such insanity. We've since crossed over into South Carolina, which is even worse. We had to cut down a boy of no more than thirteen from an oak branch yesterday. Gruesome business.  We've had to deal with some Union State opposition, nothing too serious since they were already on the run from the Benjamin Franklin Corps when we engaged them.  There's not much stopping us from securing both Carolinas at this point. The Benjamin Franklin Corps is moving on to Charleston. Charleston is an important symbolic and strategic city for the Southerners, with its historic role in the beginning of the first American Civil War as well as its port and airfields.  It's nothing compared to the real prize in the South: Atlanta. It is maddeningly close.  Douglas Wright, Order of Valor, First Class, Lake Erie Corps I've got to be honest, I am pretty disappointed at the moment. After all the poo poo we've been through marching south through these mountains to get out of the cold, now we've had to go all the back north again. As we've learned, there is such a thing as a federal loyalist, and a whole slew of them rose up behind our lines in Charlottesville after we left.  We booted them out of there easy enough but then the bastards went even further north into West Virginia. We could have spent this whole time marching towards Atlanta.  At least we made the trip back north by train to Pittsburgh instead of trying to chase these guys on foot through the whole Appalachian range. And we didn't give them any breaks either. Hopefully that will keep the rest of these federalists in line. They had their chance to fix this poo poo heap, now its our turn. It's just a shame that we have to go back north when we were so close to Asheville. Hopefully nobody else gets to that Vanderbilt mansion before we do.  Marcus Sloan, Medal of Honor, St. Paul Syndicate Guard Well after weeks of griping from the boys, they can finally shut up about how we haven't gotten a fight. Certainly things had been quite dull since the Milwaukee boys busted us out of the prison camp in Minneapolis. Omaha, Des Moines, Lincoln, a whole lot of nothing in between.  The federals finally showed up in Kansas City and apparently our boys have captured some Union State bombers to keep the federals on the wrong foot.  I've heard war described as months of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror. Our moment came when we got to Lincoln last week. As soon as we arrived, we were set upon by the National Guard. The ones most eager to fight had the most scared looks on their faces and unfortunately we lost a few.  The National Guard's advances subsided after a few days. We're finally linking up with the attack west from Saint Louis. It's a much better situation now than it was earlier this week.  Now we've had a few days without any sign of federals in Lincoln. Reports over the radio are that Kansas City is the hot spot right now. I wish them luck but I'll admit, I'm happy for the boredom right now. It won't be long until we move on, either to Kansas City or Denver. I hear Denver is nice. Maybe then I can allow myself to hope this is almost over.  Leon Thomas, Silver Star, Purple Heart, Order of Architects of the Revolution, First Class, Abraham Lincoln Corps Dear Minnie, I hope everybody in Chicago is doing well. We are doing fine down here, giving the Union State a taste of their own medicine. We kicked their rear end in [REDACTED] with help from comrades in [REDACTED] and [REDACTED].  I never relished having to leave you and our son to do this, but I'll admit I was a little excited to cross over into [REDACTED]. It's been so very long since I've seen this place, even though we've been in Chicago all these years, it's here that truly feels like home.  I went to where we used to live. It had been taken over by the Union State as a supply depot, and our own planes bombed the whole town to hell. There was nobody left living there and the houses that didn't get hit look like they're about to fall down from neglect anyway.  Honestly, Minnie, the Union State is almost finished. Our comrades to the [REDACTED] are moving into position [REDACTED] of [REDACTED].  I know I've always liked to say that leaving was the best decision we ever made. And it was. We might be dead right now if we hadn't. The thing is I've never admitted to you or myself how sad I was when we did. This is our home, and defending it against the Union State made me feel proud of my black skin and my southern heritage. Why should the whites be the only ones who can feel like [REDACTED] is their home? It was ours once. And it can be ours again. I know it sounds crazy considering what we went through when we left but believe me when I say that the Combined Syndicates is very serious about reclaiming these lands for the Negro. When this is all over, we'll be able to build a real home here. A place where we can be ourselves and raise our son in peace. The Syndicate Guards will be there to protect us from the Klan. This land is our land, Minnie. We don't need to be refugees in Chicago for the rest of our lives. We won't need to decide any time soon, nothing will happen until the war is won. When it is over though, we'll be eligible to resettle here. Consider it, Minnie. We'll discuss it more when I get home.  For now, Haywood is ready to move [REDACTED] towards the [REDACTED] of [REDACTED]. We've linked back up with the rest of the Corps and we're ready to bring the fight to any federal or Union State army in our path. It'll be nice to see water again. Love you, Leon  Maurice Rose, Hero of the Syndicates, Order of Reed with Gold Star, Commander of the Transatlantic Expeditionary Force I would really like to take a long vacation when this is all over, but as I read the newspaper I realize that I should probably enjoy the warmth down here before the Canadians make me have to head north. We're almost through this particular set of challenges though, so I ought to focus on finishing this battle before thinking about the next one. I am confident we'll see this thing through to the end without much more trouble, given our performance the last few weeks. In particular I am very happy with how we have used our air assets to maximum effect. Without the air cover over Atlanta, our advance would have been far more difficult.  The coordination between George and I had been impeccable. His organizational skill is unmatched and he deserves his new star and recent appointment as Chief of Staff of the Syndicate Guards. It'll be an honor to work under him.  It's a shame that our forces in Gadsden could not hold against the counterattack. Encircling Atlanta would have allowed us to eliminate the forces within the city and make our current task of finishing the Union State somewhat easier. We adapted to the change in the situation and I have no complaints.  Most impressive about Marshall is his ability to keep his men under control. Running a unit of Frenchmen, anarchists and union men is no easy task, as I've learned, and neither is keeping pillaging under control when we're involved in such a fierce conflict for the soul of this continent.  I also have to give Marshall credit for his humility. I know there are many commanders out there who envy me being the first into Atlanta. Marshall has no such dreams of glory, he is only focused on the mission at hand. He has performed admirably in protecting our southern flank, dealing with the Union State counterattack into Charleston so that we may advance without worry.  All of this has brought us to this point. We've achieved our first milestone, while the war is not over yet, we've marched into the capital of our fiercest enemy in this conflict. The Red and Black flies over the statehouse in Atlanta, Huey Long has fled south to Pensacola, likely to prepare a ship to flee when we follow him there. I have to admit that I almost immediately regretted my decision to resign my commission in the United States Army when I considered the consequences of failure. I probably would have been hanged in the end if we hadn't battled this effectively for our survival. I'm still not convinced that this is the right path for our nation. The best option available at the time, perhaps, but I am not joining my men in the belief that we are increasingly close to utopia. If we are even able to one day achieve that promised goal of equality and peace, it will come at the cost of many more lives, on this continent and every other.  For tonight, there is no utopia. I can no longer restrain the men completely. The Union State's atrocity and prejudice demands satisfaction. I've given strict orders, on penalty of death, that there will be no rape or massacre, but the mansions of the Union State elite and the memorials to the Confederacy are fair game. Honestly, I'll be glad to see some of them go up in flames. We are these people's masters now, despite the egalitarian rhetoric. Perhaps in time they will form their own syndicates and integrate into the new society, but for now, we are occupiers. Mass violence will only serve to delay that necessary integration. After all, they are Americans too, even if many of us have forgotten that. de Volkstrant, February 28th, 1937  Pacific States and MacArthur Government Reach Peace Deal Delegates of the United States military government and the Pacific States breakaway government announced the signing and ratification of the Treaty of Sacramento today. The Pacific States, with the support of Japan, has rolled back United States troops all across the Rocky Mountains and in exchange for peace, the United States recognized the accession of Nevada, Utah and Arizona to the Pacific States, which join California, Oregon, Washington and Idaho. Alaska was not on the negotiating table, which leaves questions as to what the United States hopes to do with the territory, given their loss of important ports such as Seattle and San Francisco. Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King has already expressed a lack of interest in administering the territory. Mexico was not party to the negotiations, and they have refused to hand over the southern areas of Arizona they have occupied to the Pacific States. The President of the Pacific States, Culbert Levy Olson, has expressed concern about the aggressive actions of the junta that replaced the late revolutionary Emiliano Zapata as rulers of Mexico. The Pacific Army, fresh off its victories in the Rockies are reportedly preparing for an eventual showdown against Mexico or the Combined Syndicates, who appear to have the upper hand in the conflict in the east of the United States.  Olson also announced a series of agreements with Canada, bringing the Pacific States into an alliance with Canada and New England. He described the alignment with the Entente as 'necessary to safeguard Pacific democracy and to hopefully restore the rightfully elected government of the United States'. MacArthur is reportedly outraged that the Pacific States signed such an alliance, after rumored assurances that the Pacific States would take an isolationist approach after independence. With the Combined Syndicates moving through the Midwest at a rapid clip, MacArthur is in no position to protest.  Reed Announces Agricultural Assistance Programs The American Civil War still rages in the south and midwest of the nation, but Chairman John 'Jack' Reed has already begun to roll out a post-war rebuilding plan. First and foremost on his agenda is agriculture. The United States has long been an important source of grain and other foodstuffs for the global market, and the civil war has caused a spike in food prices all over the globe, as well as reports of famine and rationing in parts of the nation. Reed implied that Bolshevik-style collectivization was not being planned, though the Continental Chamber holds the final say on the Combined Syndicates' agricultural policy. He did announce with more confidence that American farmers could count on the Combined Syndicates for various forms of assistance, pointing specifically to a proposal in the Continental Chamber to begin development and distribution of artificial fertilizers to boost yield. He spoke at length about how the former government burned crops while people starved. "Our revolution" Reed said in his speech, "will not allow such criminal famine to come to pass. All Americans will be fed, and once that is done, we will feed our brothers and sisters all over the globe." This seems to be an oblique confirmation of rumored trade negotiations with the European Internationale and other syndicalist states such as the Bhartiya Commune and Centroamerica.  North Sea Crisis! A Bitter Divorce Between Norway and Britain Turns Dangerous Europe was shocked last year when the centre-left social democratic government of Norway announced a series of partnerships and agreements with the Union of Britain. As tensions increase between Britain and Germany, the Norwegian government has begun publicly commenting on the importance of its relationship with Germany. The tension came to a head this week, when Norway abruptly canceled its agreements with Britain at the behest of the German ambassador. Mass protests by syndicalists and trade unions in Oslo at the about face triggered a bold response by the Union of Britain, which sent the Republican Navy across the North Sea with the stated intent of 'enforcing the will of the Norwegian workers'.  The German government denounced the declaration in strong terms and promised to deploy the Kriegmarine in the path of the Republican Navy. The Union of Britain announced it was returning the fleet back to Britain, unwilling to trigger a Second Great War over Norway. The situation has defused considerably in the past few days, and the streets of Oslo are quiet compared to the mass rallies that took place last week. Syndicalist groups within Norway have pledged to continue their protests against the sudden turn towards Berlin, but for now, war seems to have been diverted.  Civil War in Austria-Hungary! The much anticipated 1937 Ausgleich ended in dramatic fashion last week as representatives of Austria and Hungary walked out. Hungarian nobles rejected the Austrian proposal, which would have largely retained the dualist structure of the empire. This was followed by anti-German riots in Budapest and a declaration that the Kingdom of Hungary was a free and sovereign state. The Emperor immediately denounced the declaration as illegal and Austrian units are crossing the border to 'restore order', as he put it. The isolated Austrian outpost in Montenegro also declared its independence.  Fighting has broken out all throughout the empire, with the notable exception of Croatia, which has neglected to declare its support for either Austria or Hungary.  The Montenegrins are not the only opportunists in the Balkans. The repressive Iron Guard regime in Romania declared war on the new Kingdom of Hungary, with the intent to seize Transylvania. The Austrian Empire has not commented on the Romanian declaration, perhaps recognizing the cost of keeping the empire together could involve allowing the Romanians to seize its eastern edge.  If successful, the Iron Guard would go a long way towards its stated goal of 'Greater Romania' which includes designs on Galicia, Bulgaria and Ukraine in addition to the Translyvanian territories.  While Romania's entry does not bode well for the Hungarians, the Austrians have their own problems to deal with, namely the announcement out of Warsaw that Galicia is an 'integral part of the Polish nation', which followed an announcement of allegiance to the Kingdom of Hungary. Austria has vowed to resist the takeover.  The Italian Federation also declared war upon Austria after its demands for Venetia and Trento were denied.  It wouldn't be a Balkan war without the Serbs and they have entered on the side of the Austrians, seeking to seize Bosnia and the Hungarian territories it claims as Serb lands. Luckily for the rest of Europe, this conflagration is not likely to ignite another Great War, as Russia is too embroiled in its own civil war to care what happens in the Balkans, France has no interest in a region with very little syndicalist influence and Germany is unwilling to get involved with the Internationale threat growing daily. War seems increasingly inevitable, but this crisis will not be its cause.
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Nov 22, 2014 22:01
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cokerpilot posted:That really shouldn't surprise them things were like that in a most major cites in the USA. I re-used an English volunteer from the first update I did like this. Considering all he's seen of the nation is the welcoming committee in New York before going into battle, I don't think he really would have such a concept. I think the CSA acronym might have a bit to do with the use of the CSA tag in the game files. I remember a very long time ago in the HoI2 version, my mods I was installing on top of each other got their wires crossed and I ended up with all Confederate imagery in my CSA game. Deceitful Penguin posted:Hmmm, odd that there'd be no Syndies in the east. I forget, what's the state of the Ottoman empire right now? Are they mostly about dealing with Arab nationalism or? Nothing so far. It's really quite early in most of the game's storylines. The Arab Congress has happened and the Arab states have made their claims, but iirc we have a couple years before things kick off in the Near East. csm141 fucked around with this message at 01:51 on Nov 23, 2014 |
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Nov 23, 2014 01:47
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TheMcD posted:Actually, no. If you watch the AUS spawn very closely, they'll start off with the Confederate ministers before their first event sets their cabinet. The AUS uses the TEX tag.
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Nov 23, 2014 01:55
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