The World After Appeasement-UK 1941 AAR

By 1955 the French people had been split in two for 14 years. The process of peaceful unification had almost been underway under Petain, as he was beginning to soften in his advanced age, but after Petain's death in July 1951 the talks broke off. Fascist radicals, the only ones left in Europe, ran the French government and over the course of several years isolated themselves from their brethren and sought out greater self-sufficiency. It was in 1955 that the "Free" French finally realized that Vichy may not return after all. This thought sent a panic through the government. They felt that Vichy would ultimately modernize and industrialize the south of France to such a point that it would eclipse the north at which point Vichy would invade. This notion caused the paranoid Free French government to make an ultimatum: Unification or war. Vichy chose war.

The decision to pose an ultimatum seems rash now but at the time the Free French government truly believed that if they did not act now then Frenchmen decades in the future would curse their names. Instead both their contemporary Frenchmen and future Frenchmen would curse their names.


At the start of the war the Free French asked for British and American aid but their requested was declined. The Brits and the Americans felt that this was purely a French problem. Also they were not up to fighting another war after India. Perhaps the biggest reason the two nations did not get involved was that the Soviet Union did not have a part in the conflict. The Soviets were suspiciously quiet, they were focusing their attention elsewhere.

Strangely, the Vichy French regime asked no one for foreign aid. Vichy was historically anti-communist and would not compromise even if it meant soviet assistance and a much greater chance of victory.

Ultimately the war accomplished only the destruction of families and of a people. While talks of unification were at one point close to being successful they could never become so again as because of the war each side saw the other as demonic and subhuman. The conflict was "resolved" only one year later in 1956. Both sides agreed on the status quo. Vichy France demonstrated the proclivity of the French towards defensive structures, as they built a massive wall along their border with "Free" France. A wall that divided a people in two.

The "Vichy Wall" being constructed.​

After the war's end Free France and the allies went their separate ways. The geographical region of France was now unaligned and would stay that way.

The coming years would not be any less difficult.












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Hope you like everything guys! Looks like we're winding up here. If I stick with what I have in my head now(I constantly rethink the ending, if I had an ounce of talent I would have had it all planned from the beginning) then there will likely only be 2-3 more epilogue updates, then the bonus, then the commentary. I really hope you've liked everything and I haven't "jumped the shark". Sorry for it being short as well. As I have said the ending changes in my head a lot so I only could write what I wanted to happen for sure.

Also: I have changed the font of the very first update to the typewriter font, it makes the combat updates feel more like a war report and more vintage. I'll get the rest of the gameplay updates done like that some time.


Remember: the AAR land choice awards is up, go to the thread in the General AAR subforum and vote. I don't even care if you vote for me just vote for any AAR. We all work hard to make these things and it feels great when someone votes for you and even better when you win. It is nice to have your work recognized so please vote for anyone!

In the 1958 the world finally seemed to be going back to normal. Many pundits were claiming that conventional war was obsolete thanks to the newest weapons possessed by the worlds superpowers, namely intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads. Unfortunately for many, these pundits would be wrong. As long as humans lived war would live along side them albeit in increasingly gruesome ways...

The trouble started off in Greece. The allied puppet government there was reporting increased communist partisan activity in recent months. Initially this was not a large cause for alarm amongst the top men in the allied governments. However, it became increasingly important as time went on and communist actions became more violent and bold.

Four "Black Berets", the elite units of the communists.​

In April 1958 the Greek government sent in a detachment from the army to put the communists down. The Greek communists were shockingly victorious. The communist insurgents had somehow managed not only to intercept Greek military transmissions but also to obtain advanced weaponry such as armored cars, rocket launchers and even an attack chopper. With such a result it was clear that the "Greek" communists were basically soviet military divisions infiltrating Greece. After the April victory more Communists began coming out of the woodwork and a full scale crisis was erupting.

The British and the Americans realized the significance of Greece. If it feel then the Soviets would have a springboard into the Eastern Mediterranean and could possibly strike at the Suez Canal! Britain sent what it could afford to and the United States also sent divisions and materiel. Another Indian war had unfolded in Greece, but this time the allies were on the losing end.

The Soviet Union had a much easier time bringing troops and equipment onto the battlefield because of their close locations. This was not so for the allies; Greece was a logistical nightmare. The allies needed a close by ally to offer troops to help the situation via logistical aid and power projection. Italy was suggested by some but the nation was far too poor and war-battered to be of help. Eventually it was realized that Turkey was the perfect nation to assist the allies in Greece. Turkey, who was officially part of the allies, would certainly help. Or at least that was the thought. The Turks however, were far more opportunistic than the British and the Americans had given them credit for.

For military and logistical aid the Turks demanded a high price: Cyprus, British occupied Syria and the right to annex, forcibly if need be, any independent nation that did not currently exist east of the Suez Canal and west of Persia(The Turks expected the British to eventually leave the Mideast and create free states in their wake. The Turkish plan was to quickly annex these fledgling nations. Then, from the position of a regional powerhouse, establish dominance over Saudi Arabia and Iran). The British were outraged and would have walked away from the negotiating table if Allied forces had not lost a crucial battle days before. On June 30th the first Turkish "Volunteers" and "Advisors" were sent to Greece as Cyprus and British Syria were given away. A shameful moment for Britain it was indeed.

With Turkish assistance the war became a stalemate in the rocky, mountainous Greece. Both sides were content to keep their positions and not risk losing the hills and mountains they had fought so hard for.

By the 1st of August people wondered how either side would advance considering the recent stalemate. By nightfall on the 2nd people would realize that it did not matter...

On the night of August 2nd, Soviet Military divisions flying the flag of the Chinese communist hero Mao Tse-Tung performed a devastating surprise attack into the Republic of China. The USSR had succeeded in distracting the allies while they had built up their proxy, Communist China. Greece was of little consequence, the real proxy war would be fought in China and the allies were already at a tremendous disadvantage.










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Thanks for reading everyone! I could probably update late tonight if I really wanted to as I have a good idea what I want to happen now. Update tomorrow is more likely though. I sincerely hope you like everything. Thanks a lot guys. I think were down to 2 more epilogue updates and then the bonus. Then thats it for the story and we just have my commentary. Thanks again.

The sudden re-emergence of the Chinese civil war put the allies, especially Britain, into disarray. They now had to completely overhaul their strategic and tactical objectives. In addition to this they had to move thousands of men from firmly entrenched and difficult to access positions in Greece(and do so under enemy fire). This, coupled with the fact that the Nationalist Chinese army was caught badly off guard in the surprise attack made the situation appear bleak for the allies.

By late December 1958 however the front line began to stabilize and the might of allied military units could be felt. The war was gruesome and bloody. Both sides of the Chinese had a large enough population for life not to matter, thus the earlier years of the "Second" Chinese civil war was a demonstration of the human wave doctrine taken to its horrific extreme. The bloody business of war became habit over the next five years until grim news made it appear as though the war would go to the soviets. That news was that Britain, due to financial reasons, had to withdraw from the war.

With the British army exiting China on a timetable, the United States had enough time to work out a solution before they would be completely overrun by the communists. The conclusion that the US generals reached was that only a draft could produce a large enough amount of men to replace British units. Amongst much dissent the United States announced the draft and the first drafted units arrived in China in the Spring of 1964. Americans had taken the place of Brits. War and death, however, did not discriminate by nationality. Casualties were high among the green units, who were facing battle-hardened Soviet veterans and extremely tough and fanatical communist Chinese.

As time went on the Allied position would become worse and worse. The Chinese peasants began to become distrustful of the Allies and of the Kuomintang. Many Nationalist troops began defecting to the Communist side and many civilians began engaging in espionage, subterfuge and sabotage.

The communists were masters of propaganda.​

To replace the losses on the Chinese side the United States had to draft even more soldiers. This, in addition to the fact that many in the US were starting to realize that a majority of the Chinese were starting to resent US presence and actually wanted the communists in power, created a nightmare for the US government. Riots were erupting in major cities and draft dodging was rampant. Still, the army persevered in an attempt to save the nationalists and contain the Communist threat. If China was lost it was felt that the rest of Asia would fall under the Iron Curtain. Although the desire to halt the spread of Communism was strong, public opinion and votes were stronger in the democratic United States. Overwhelming public hatred for the war finally forced the United States to withdraw from China in 1975.

The disheartened and now frail and elderly Chang Kai-shek was said to have cried when the communist forces began to overrun what was left of the Republic of China. He had wanted to flee to Hainan but the remnants of the Japanese Empire, unbelievably still ruled by Hirohito, still occupied the island. A retreat to Taiwan was suggested to the aging leader but he declined, as he did not want to become a parasite among whales. On the 5th of April 1975, the man who gave so much to China took his own life. His ashes were aboard the last U.S. plane to leave China(A famous picture was taken after this was revealed to the people. A woman stood at a protest with a sign reading "Where are my son's ashes?"). Chiang requested that his ashes be spread over the nation when communism if purged from the nation, as true China is not the China of Mao and the Soviets.

China was lost to communism. Britain's shameful withdraw had cost the nation its position as a global power and hundreds of thousands of young Americans lost their promising lives only for a mass retreat.

This was the low point for the world.















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I might finish the epilogue tonight as per Loki's suggestion.

I hope you like everything, readers!

After the failure of the Chinese campaign the Soviet juggernaut seemed invincible. Fortunately, things would eventually change.

In 1979 the Soviet Union launched an ill-fated invasion of Afghanistan that would sap Soviet strength and diminish their prestige, similar to the United States and China. Even with help from their puppet state in Northern India the Soviets could not contend with Afghani guerrillas who knew the terrain and were also being secretly supplied by the United States, who felt that providing advanced weapons to such a chaotic region could not possibly have any ill effects on them in the future.

The Soviet campaign lasted for ten brutal years before retreating. The world had changed during those ten years...

The Turks, bent on establishing hegemony over the Mideast, took over the newly independent nations Britain left in its wake. However, the return of the Ottoman Empire short lived. The various ethnicities had long been waiting for their independence and believed it was worth dying for. They banded together, and with aid from Saudi Arabia and Persia(by this time known as Iran) defeated the Turkish thread and regained their independence.

The Two Frances were finally able to come to the negotiating table to resolve their differences. In 1989 the nation was unified for the first time since 1940. The "Vichy Wall" being torn down was responsible for some of the most famous images of the decade.

The Japanese "Empire" changed itself into a new nation, "The Republic of Hainan" in 1989, after the death of Hirohito. The new state gained international recognition and would even be allowed entry into the Olympic Games(an honor which it had been denied of in the previous decades).

Britain had eventually gotten used to its role as a second rate power. There was a divide between the generation of "heroes" that had "conquered the world" and the new generation that they perceived as too weak to keep what was gained. In 1989 the British Empire consisted of scattered islands and Gibraltar. Still, this decline was preferable than what had happened to some of the other nations in existence over the course of the past few decades.

By the time this had all happened and the Soviets had left Afghanistan their economy was on the brink of collapse. Then the United States suddenly upped the ante by claiming it was developing a system capable of rendering the nation impervious to a nuclear strike. The Soviets attempted to match this but it pushed their economy too far and it was crushed. The Soviet Government would eventually fall out of power. By 1991 the USSR was gone, there was only Russia. The Cold War was over, history was over.














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OK just the bonus(which is technically part of the epilogue I guess) and then thats it for the story!

NOTE TO READER: I listened to this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqBThZFtKX8&feature=PlayList&p=667A3A096ECA57EC&playnext=1&index=12 while writing the update. I highly suggest listening to it as you read as it will enhance the mood of the final update. Now without further delay, the finale:

Finale
September 1941: The Passage of Time​

The afternoon was beautiful. There was a serene breeze and the waves had died down. It was a perfect time to walk along the shore. A child was doing just that when he spotted something peculiar. It seemed to be some sort of case that had been brought up by the waves.

The inquisitive child opened the rusted, beat up case and was disappointed to find maps and scrawled notes instead of riches like in the stories. The child held the worn maps up and looked:

*Illegible writing. All that can be made out is "September 1941"*

The child tossed the case back onto the shore in disinterest. If only he knew of the battles that had been fought so long ago, some only several miles from where he was walking! The case was soon taken back by the tide. So does the ocean protect its secrets. The child studied the maps for a bit longer before becoming bored with them. He let them be carried away by the breeze.



So it was that the memory of the war and those that fought in it was carried away as well, but not by a breeze, but by the passage of time...

Deathsheadx said:

the epilogue still sticks in my craw.

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I didn't want to be like BSG and ruin it with the last season/ending. I hope I didn't imitate my influence.

Well originally I was going to have the case of photos and notes wash up on shore but there was no one around to appreciate them because Earth was a nuclear wasteland after the cold war went hot.

Then I was going to have the case be brought up in a fisherman's net and right after he looked at the pictures he saw a mushroom cloud in the distance and realized that war was constant and inevitable.

THEN I was going to have the case be brought up by fishermen off the coast of england only to reveal that the fishermen were Russian and that the world had been taken over by the USSR.

In the case of the three above the end of the epilogue would have been a situation where the cold war was about to turn hot. It would have been a cliff hanger that would have been revealed in the finale.

Then I was going to have the case be found and brought to a museum at the site of the battle of Bayonne.

Finally I decided on what I actually did.

I think it is the least of all evils.

I am sorry it seems harsh and bad but I wanted to have the historicalness of the aar be like this: arrive at the same place but by different means and have historical parallels. I wanted the soviet union to fall, the British empire to weaken etc.

In terms of parallels:

Vichy wall---->Berlin wall

Japanese Empire's national redoubt on Hainan ----> ROC's national redoubt on Taiwan(I didn't plan on having a chinese civil war when I wrote the Japanese update)

Indian War ----> Korean War

Chinese War ----> Vietnam War

I know it is sad and harsh but the Empire did not have a happy ending historically and ultimately thats what I felt made the best story and all the rest of it.

I appreciate your comment though! I am glad that you read and that you expressed your opinion. After all, was it not a famous AAR writer that said "to comment is divine"?

blsteen said:

Ahhh, the least of all evils.
Well done sir, well done!

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Thanks! The atomic holocaust ending was too cliche I realized.

Ahura Mazda said:

A very good AAR! I'm sorry i didn't comment in it earlier, but I really enjoyed this!

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Thank you! I am glad you enjoyed it.

Commentary on the first few updates should be up within a day or two hope fully.

Title page: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showpost.php?p=10461205&postcount=1

Ok here I was just trying to set a somber and desperate tone and mood. I also wanted to provide a really really brief summary of what had happened in europe in the years prior to the AAR. I used the word fascism a lot because at the time I was going to focus more on the struggle between political philosophies but I ditched that pretty quickly.

All in all I think the title page is OK. Originally the political cartoon was actually a map of Europe at the time but I accidentally deleted the screenshot off of my imageshack so I just replaced it with the cartoon. I actually had a great website of British political cartoons by decade but kept forgetting to use it. Once I wiped my hard drive I ended up losing the web address and was unable to use other cartoons. Anyway the title page accomplishes its goal but doesn't wow anybody. I felt that as time went on though and the AAR got more complete the title page got nicer and nicer.

Med, June 1941: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showpost.php?p=10464513&postcount=3

This update is pretty standard. I wanted to sort of dispel the whole “italians are stupid thing” so I made sure to mention that “command” thought the italians sucked and they ended up not sucking, at least not yet. I used “command” because I wasn't really sure whether or not I was going to be paying a lot of attention to the HQ heirarchy or not. Eventually I started paying attention to only the highest commanding officer(Adam, Miller, Dobbie) but in retrospect I would have made more of an effort to use the command system as a story telling tool. Had I done that each theater could have been so much more vibrant and the AAR could have been so much more diverse and exciting. Oh well.

I had just learned about paint.net so I was thrilled to be able to use it. The map is kind of crude and can't really compared with some of my other maps made later in the AAR(although those are far from perfect). Unfortunately now the map isn't loading up as I look at the update. Hopefully you can see it.

Home Front, June 1941: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showpost.php?p=10467876&postcount=4

I wanted to show how many divisions and ships I had so that people didn't question where they came from. I had decided to introduce the ministers as characters to spice up the home front updates. The idea actually inspired my tragically canceled 2nd AAR, Germany Must Be Empty. Originally I was going to have the ministers be true to their description “corrupt kleptocrat, happy amateur etc.”. This you can sort of see a little bit later with Anthony Eden but it didn't really get off the ground. I decided to make a comedy out of it where each minister would be almost a parody/caricature of their description, thus Germany Must Be Empty was born.

A note on my 2nd AAR: Since I don't want to post in it and make people think it is still going I'll post what I had planned here: Lebrun realizes that the only way the Germans can put so many men on the frontlines is that they must have emptied the nation(hence "Germany must be empty"). So he sends divisions of "colonists" to colonize Germany. He also sends divisions of "Party goers" to Washington to party there, as he believes that the washington superstack was a party intended only for Americans and he wanted to crash it.

Anyway... There is a picture of a submarine in this update and I was afraid people were going to call me out on it being an anachronism or some such nonsense.

Med, July 1941: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showpost.php?p=10474675&postcount=8

Here's where I realized I couldnt just keep using “command” to refer to whoever was doing the planning. I promoted Adam because he was a logistics wizard. Little did I know he would eventually die from the thoughts of renewed trench warfare. I also finally stop the italian advance. I was upset because I knew here that the Italians wouldn't be a threat anymore once I had stopped them. Not much else to say about this one. I like the "report" from the intelligence minister.

Home front July 1941: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showpost.php?p=10484629&postcount=

Ironically, I start this with HQ organizing but this was probably only 1 of 2-4 times I actually paid attention to HQs in the game. I know there are bonuses but sometimes the AI is bad and you dont need them.

Anyway with the update I wanted to show what my fleets looked like. The size of the CV pictures increase in size but I didn't plan that. You can see that I was trying to go into that idea I mentioned earlier with the ministers. I was really proud that I found a way to have the diplomacy triangle be like accounted for “historically” as an idea of Anthony Eden. I thought it was clever. I also wanted to show who I was influencing. A solid update I suppose but I just feel reading back through everything that the home front updates feel a little disconnected from the big picture.

Med, August 1941: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showpost.php?p=10492624&postcount=18

I just wanted to give a little bit of detail to an otherwise boring naval battle. The you have the bit with me losing Torbruk and having to take it back. I was actually really annoyed about this. There are points in the AAR where I lose all respect for the AI and because of that I get into bad situations. This was one of them.

Med, October 1941: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showpost.php?p=10515683&postcount=28

I thought I had lost the screenshots(I found them months later) for the sepetember updates so I had to skip to october. I have the little letter in the beginning trying to find a justification within the realms of history for there being no update. In retrospect I don't think I would have done that because it feels lame.

Because of this incident though I had to organzie my screenshots in a better way to ensure that it wouldnt happen again. What I was doing was taking shots right out of the HOI3 screenshots folder cropping them as necesary and then deleting what was left. Because of this there would be holes in the numbering. If I used lets say #s 10-20 and deleted it the next ten screenshots I took would start at #10. Because of this they got wildly out of order and I didn't find september until much later.

Of course, losing the screenshots gave me a chance to use them for the finale but that wasn't planned. If I had an ounce of talent I'd have had the whole thing planned from the beginning instead of making it up as I go.

HF, october 1941: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showpost.php?p=10527905&postcount=34

Ooh "Buckingham Palace", "bollocks"! See he is trying to make it look British!:rofl:

Here we have a piss-poor attempt at characterization with Eden and Ireland's rejection of alliance. Again while it adds a little bit of flavor I'm not sure if its a flavor I like looking back on it. I guess it serves its purpose good enough.

Then we have this bit with the Shetlands. I was actually shocked to see this as I still had very little respect for the Ais offensive capabilities. I tried to make it as dramatic as possible to make the update a little more exciting. I think it worked well. The picture of course is actually from the invasion of crete. I couldn't really find a good shot of a german amphibious landing so I just pretended it was a paradrop (despite the fact that the division in the screenshot is a regular inf. Division!) All in all this was a fun update.

Med, Nov 1941: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showpost.php?p=10532521&postcount=41

This update saw the closure of a theater. Not really too much to say here. Adam routs the italians thoroughly and in doing so provides britain with the wars first major victory. Huzzah! Little did I guess that only 2 in game years later I'd be on the shores of Japan! I was happy Italy gave me a fight here. I was hoping that the rest of the AAR would kind of be like africa. Where initially I was overwhelmed but through hard fought battles was able to best my foe. Unfortunately the German and Japanese Ais kind of petered out. Oh well eh? At the end we have the foreshadowing to the different war plans.

I added the little bit with the captures sub and the explosives just for fun and diversity. I imagined like little things you here about history today and then though of little things like that to happen in the AAR. "Did you hear about how one time in N.Africa they captured an Italian sub but the commander was afraid it was a trap and wouldn't let people examine it"? Stuff like that.

HF, Nov 1941: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showpost.php?p=10538063&postcount=48

The battle of the atlantic was a really big part of the war so I felt the AAR needed at least one update talking about my efforts to defeat the german commerce raiders. Enter admiral evans and his heroic ASW fleet. I know little of naval tactics so I'm sure the “tactics” described are total garbage. I just wanted to show what was going on in the whole u-boat war and whatnot as it was really important.

This update has the distinction of being the last one to be “untitled” meaning it uses the old naming conventions of “theater/date”. I also talk a bit about technology but not for long. I never wrote about technology much because It was boring for me to write about and I felt it was boring to read also. However, I did list technologies that I researched sort of as a blueprint in case somebody wanted to try and play a UK 1941 game so they could see what I researched out of curiosity.

“Dissecting Fortress Europe”: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showpost.php?p=10538310&postcount=49

Ahh my noble attempts at creating stunning maps with paint.net! Ironically I think the maps got worse as they went on. Anyway first up is operation Zeus. I actually had wanted to do this one first because I felt it was the most audacious and exciting. Next we have operation Verdun. This was probably the most gamey of the three and the least likely for me to do because of that. I was just trying to show the diverse ways I could go about attacking Fortress Europe and trying to establish Adams' character a little more (Too bad I killed him!). The final plan is operation Visigoth. It is less ambitious then the other two but workable. It was a shame that all of these plans were essentially useless as a plan for invading Europe was sort of thrust upon me when Spain declared war. Meh. I still think this was a nice update. I probably should have used bold text for "timetable" and "expected resistance" and all that good stuff.

“The World at War”: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showpost.php?p=10551255&postcount=61

I added the whole Pearl Harbor thing to add some drama. In the actual game nothing happened to the US fleet but that would have been rather boring. Also the declaration of war fell on the 5th of december in the game, I might have saved myself some embarassmenet by putting that as a note to the reader in the beginning of the update.

This update and the previous one served an important purpose in sort of “holding the line” for the AAR because there was really nothing spectacular going on while I was preparing to invade Italy. I didn't really feel like writing some cliche narrative about the departure of soldiers from England to the N.Africa staging grounds and how they weren't treated with respect by the veterans but ultimately earned their respect once the invasion commenced. Anyone ever see Flyboys? That movie really sucked. It was about WWI pilots but it was surprisingly boring. There is one scene where they don't let the new pilots into the bar because they haven't seen combat. I did not want to stoop to that level and have some sort of bs exchange like that so I just dropped the whole thing.

Instead I just focused on what had “happened” with Pearl harbor. Luckily there was some action in the U-boat war to keep any naval enthusiasts happy. What is also funny is that I never intended the men I sent to asia to do a lot of fighting. My allies, Bhutan and Nepal, would end up capturing Japanese territory later on which sort of forced me to advance and defend it.

Originally, I wanted to hold the line in Asia until Germany was over. I felt it would have made things a bit more exciting because maybe Japan would have been able to turn things around and consolidate their base. I was envisioning the Asian part of the AAR sort of like the storyline to an expansion pack. Usually things are different, new characters, changes to old ones, maybe a little darker story etc. Kind of like WCIII--->WCIII:TFT or SC--->SC:BW, two things that influenced me, mostly WCIII though. That didn't happen though for several reasons.




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Well, that is all I have to say about the 1941 updates. Thanks a lot for following everybody. Let me know what you think about the commentary. Anything you want to see? Not want to see? Also if you have any questions about what I said or an update or anything you can ask.

I'll try to get the '42 updates done sometime this week. Things are getting busier and busier as the fall semester approaches!

Deathsheadx said:

it is this that sticks in the craw. i absolutely hate that sort of thinking. i hate watching something butterfly only to end up in generally the same place or very close to what was the original timeline end result. in my mind it makes most of the changes and the effort genuinely worthless in the grand old scheme of things. i end up feeling i wasted my time reading it.

i feel you basically shot your AAR in the foot.

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I respect your honesty.

Leviathan07 said:

I actually like the way you drew a line under the British glory days of WW2 and wrote an epilogue that was close to historical reality. In terms of realism it surely was more plausible than any "Britannia superpower" schemes that are popular in some places

WW2 was a conflict that did not do the British any good... not that staying out would have done them any better, though Britain's far flung empire was in 1939 no longer as valuable an asset as it was in 1914, and her national wealth was dwarfed by that of the USA. Even if Britain won WW2 singlehandedly, as you did, they would have to face economic and political realities once the war was over. And the crux of the matter was that Britain had lost enormous amounts of wealth as a result of the war, and their once powerful empire was restive because London was a drain on their resources, rather than being the generous father who supports his kids and teaches them how to stand on their own feet. India had woken up as a nation, and they were looking for ways to build themselves a proper nation. Britain sadly had nothing to contribute - their wealth drained, their military utterly exhausted, their people completely focused on solving Britain's own social and economical problems rather than those of its empire. And worst of all, the other European nations facing similar problems (France, Netherlands, Belgium) were completely in ruins, there wasn't anyone who could help Britain.

None of that really is any different in your story so it makes sense that there is no Pax Britannica even if Britain wins WW2.

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Thanks! I just felt that there was no way that the UK could possibly keep everything that they had gained, especially in the presence of the USSR and a not-war-torn USA. I can understand how one would be upset but having a more upbeat ending didn't seem realistic or right to me.

loki100 said:

I'd utterly concur, both with the analysis and the quality of the post-war scenario. Regardless of the level of victory the British Empire was doomed by the war, domestically the best they could drum up support for was in cases of open aggression or wars so small that they scarcely registered (Malaya, Kenya, Aden etc). And the old dominions wanted real independence, plus major bits like India wanted out.

The only bit missing is the way that the US actively undermined the old European empires (esp the French and Dutch) in those parts of the globe they fancied as forming part of their economic sphere.

So I think this post-war sequence is a really neat linking of the real dynamics and the situation left by the game

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Thank you! I didn't go into too much detail because I didn't want to focus too much on the USA(it was a British AAR after all), I didn't want the epilogue to be too long(I felt I was being like a TV show that sucks and refuses to end) and because I didn't feel like doing the research haha.

Hopefully I'll get the next set of commentary up today or tomorrow.

January 1942, “The State of the Empire”: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showpost.php?p=10564468&postcount=72

This is yet another update where there was no central action in any particular theater. Hong kong was taken and I wanted to talk about that. We have the invasion of Sardinia which was meant to sort of hold people over until more exciting stuff could happen.

Then we have the scuffle with the German navy in which more British ships were sunk than German ships. I made sure to play that up because to me it felt like the RN had been defeated somehow because they managed to sink more even though technically the RN won the engagement.

At the end of January Portugal declared war which totally shocked me. I then looked at the triangle and saw that Spain was about to join the axis. While I could have tried to influence them away in order to not fight them I decided that I would use this to invade Europe instead of Italy as it would likely be easier. I also became enamored with the idea of a vicious, brutal fight through the narrow corridor of southern France into greater Europe. This is where I started conceptualizing the whole “Corridor of Quicksand” stuff.

February 1942, “Seizing the Fortress Walls”: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showpost.php?p=10570038&postcount=79

Here I get a nice foothold on the continent. Portugal gets crushed almost instantly which I expected but not before Italy idiotically sends a lone battleship out to fight. This update pretty much shows the complete stupidity of the AI. Why would Portugal declare war on me when they can't defend themselves at all? Why would Spain declare war when I have a big army in Portugal and a big army in Gibraltar? Also why would the US invade Germany with only 4 or so divisions? It all makes no sense!

Then we have my most confusing map ever. Looking back I should have probably made a seperate map for each phase of goldeneye but meh. The fans were probably getting tired of the maps anyway. IIRC the name “Goldeneye” was the name for a hypothetical invasion of spain.

March 1942, “The Britskrieg of Iberia”: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showpost.php?p=10585923&postcount=89

I just wanted Spain done with as fast as possible. I landed my guys and told them to go to nearby victory points. The Spanish AI couldn't handle such a large and sprawling front and I conquered them in a month. Not much more to say really. I wanted to just reference the backwardness of the Spanish army to sort of justify conquering them so quickly. Also I felt it was necessary to have a whole somber part about how the US invasion failed. And yes I know the picture is from the failed Dieppe raid which was Canadian and not American. Deal with it lol.

April 1942, “The Fring of the Reich”: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showpost.php?p=10597908&postcount=94

What I planned to be the pinnacle of the AAR, the battle for southern France, started in this update. I personally loved the idea of an epic battle that spanned for months but for some reason I felt the viewers didn't like it that much. Still that can't change the fact that it happened and that while writing it I thought it was cool. It provided for a lot of drama and for like one really big set piece that sort of I guess split the AAR in a way because after Bayonne everything pretty much went down hill for the Germans.

Also it was really the only massive epic battle in the whole AAR. I was yet to have a Stalingrad of the western front, Bayonne would be it I had decided.

The Asian front begins to emerge in this update. I actually wasn't happy about this as I hated having to babysit my guys in Asia while the fate of France was still up in the air. I think this might be the only update where the Home Front portion comes before the Asian part. Panama also joined the allies here in no doubt the most important event of the update.

May 1942: “ The Stalemate Continues”: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showpost.php?p=10601128&postcount=98

This update shows more of Bayonne and how it has sort of devolved into trench warfare which leads to the eventual death of Field Marshal Adam. I had read All Quiet on the Western Front and Goodbye to All That, two books about WWI, and from reading these books I realized how truly horrific trench warfare was. Now imagine experiencing it first hand and then being partially responsible for its second incarnation less than 30 years later. Would you not be horrified? So Adam was kind of overwhelmed by the whole thing and having to send a new generation through such horrors and it gave him a heart attack.

I did this to sort of add some drama because obviously I couldn't kill Churchill and still have things be somewhat believable. I think the thing with Adam was believable enough and it added a good tone of sadness and desperation to the update. Then in Asia we have some minor skirmishes.

June 1942, Courage and Endurance: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showpost.php?p=10603229&postcount=101

We have more of the epic stuggle for Bayonne here. Other than that not much happened in Europe. I was kind of glad the Germans got reinforced at the last second because it hightened the drama.

At the beginning of the month it looked as though Bayonne might have been taken! I probably would have never broken through if it wasn't for the US expeditionary force. Luckily the guys in St.Jean re-organized quickly and were able to help in Bayonne as well. Unfortunately they get attacked in the next update but by then the writing is on the wall.

In Asia I own the Guangxi Clique some more. I also deploy TONS of mountaineers because I had expected to be fighting in the Italian/Austrian alps by this time after having performed a successful Operation Visigoth, not southern France.

At first I had no idea what to name this update because so little had actually occurred. I arbitrarily named it courage and endurance because “Stuck in Bayonne for another month, sorry!” just didn't do it for me. This was probably one of the most boring and uneventful updates of the AAR.

July 1942, The Counter Attack: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showpost.php?p=10611057&postcount=104

So right as we are owning the Germans they counter attack Orthez, where a lot of the fresh British units were. This was pretty much the theme of the update. Not much else happened in Europe other then the titular counter attack. I wanted to get Bayonne over with at this point because I felt the readers were getting bored. I got lazy with the screenshots in Asia here because the fight against the Guangxi clique was largely irrelevant in my opinion at the time. So I just did a sort of lazy before and after shot but honestly It would have been worse if I just posted tons of screenshots of division x moving to y province after destroying division z. Then the USA does something right and invades a sparsely defended Norway, incredible.

August 1942, Daybreak: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showpost.php?p=10614844&postcount=107

This update was named for the final episode(s) of Battlestar Galactica, Daybreak (pt.1 and pt.2). I thought that the Germans were totally broken after this and expected to advance really quickly afterwards but I didn't.

In earlier updates I stated that I was slightly disappointed with the whole "decisive battle" angle but in retrospect I think its good. The reason there is a difference between my thoughts is that my commentary on July 1942 and before was actually done many months ago before I even finished the AAR. Everything after is actually being done live. So there is a little tidbit of commentary about the commentary.

Other than that there is some more stuff in Asia which I hated playing and writing about hence why it gets no attention. In retrospect I probably could have come up with a dozen more clever ways to present the Asian front but that is hindsight.

I think part of the reason was that I didn't pre-write the updates, I did them live. So it would take me a while to choose the screenshots, prep them and then actually write. By the time I was done with the European theater I wanted to just hurry and finish.


September 1942, No Rest for the Weary: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showpost.php?p=10641688&postcount=120

Not a whole lot to say about this one. Nothing new in Europe.

I was upset the Guangxi clique surrendered because I kept getting popups that Japanese units were taking the land I had annexed that they had been walking on.

October 1942, Resurgence: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showpost.php?p=10649784&postcount=126

More of the same in Europe. For some reason some pictures are not working now. I added the pictures just for eye candy because blocks of paragraphs are bad(too bad I forgot this rule during the epilogue and the summary:rofl: )

I was actually really glad that the Italians came back. It spiced up the game and the AAR. Unfortunately, the woefully incompetent AI could not capitalize. If it had sent the bulk of its forces to the Suez canal and left a defensive force at Beirut it would have been a big problem for me. I wanted to be sure to reference "Operation Jack-O-Lantern" from the early updates. I wanted to do this because I wanted a sense of continuity. I always liked it in TV shows when they referenced things from earlier in the show or visit locales from earlier in the show(or in movies when they visit places from a previous movie. Video games too!).

Believe it or not the whole continuity thing has its origins in a game called Banjo-Tooie, the sequel to Banjo-Kazooie. You can visit a place from the 1st game but you can only go to an extremely limited part of it. I wanted to be able to go look around at places from the old game so badly.

November 1942, Breakthrough: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showpost.php?p=10666092&postcount=134

Not a whole lot to say here. When the Netherlands attempted their ill-fated invasion is when I came up with the whole idea of the "Historian's Summary". I wanted to be able to explain some things in the game and add some flavor but I just didn't feel it belonged within the context of the update. I wanted something afterwards that would go back to the events of the game and explain what was going on behind the curtains and all that good stuff.

The picture of the motorized division at the end is actually of an Australian division and not a British one IIRC.

December 1942, Miller, the Hero: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showpost.php?p=10672025&postcount=139

Hahaha here we have an interface fail by Paradox and a comprehension fail by me. I THOUGHT that when you bomb guys it showed it by divisions, I was wrong! It showed them by brigade. Hence I overreacted to Miller's accomplishments and hailed him as a hero for destroying "70,000-90,000" enemy troops :rofl:

I was finally glad to get a bigger front in France though, it made playing a bit more fun.

Again the AI totally screws up in the middle east. I wonder if they would make the same mistake(s) in 2.03? I probably would have lost in 2.03 though since the subs all have cloaking devices and are impervious to ASW.

I delayed the whole eulogy to Field Marshal Adam here because when I did the Bayonne update(which was when I had originally planned to do Adam's eulogy) my Grandfather had just passed away a day or two earlier. I just couldn't write something like that at the time so I waited and tried to come up with an in-game excuse for it.

I wanted Bayonne to sort of be of "cosmic" significance and add a kind of supernatural element with Adam dying when the Battle ended. I wanted to elaborate more on a theme of the ghosts of WWI and of war in general and of the inanity of warfare but I did not have the skills or the time.



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Well guys thats all I have to say about 1942. Thank you all for reading and for the comments, everything is appreciated.

Ahh it has been a while since I have updated but I have not forgotten about this. I would look every few weeks but realized that I really did not have a whole lot to say about what was left. So all I have to say is that I truly enjoyed writing this AAR. It was so much fun! Thanks so much for reading. Thanks even more to those who commented(Shout out to Loki100 who had the most comments in the aar iirc). Thanks for voting for me in all the contests too, people! It was the readers and the commenters that helped to make this so enjoyable.

I hope to write another AAR some day but I doubt it will be anytime soon as I will be writing two undergraduate theses over the coming months. Maybe over the summer because grad school awaits a year from now haha.

Anyway, thanks again everyone. The book is finally closed.