Okay, there's a few things to go through here. First of all, I want to ask whether anyone can see a green line running along the bottom of the bottom of the title (first) image? I think I've fixed it but I'm not sure if its just my browser. While I'm on it, this is the first title image not to use the standard Vicky sepia tone effect. I'm not happy with the impact that this has on the quality of the pictures (it would have made this particular one unusable) and I'll probably go back and redo past ones at some point.
As a related question, is the width of these images okay for everyone to see without scrolling? Personally I don't like it when a large image distorts the screen but I'm using a widescreen(-ish) monitor so I can't tell if they are.
Onto the real stuff, there are no doubt questions about Italian Question event that started this war. Its important to note that I made a few changes to the event and manually fired it. The latter was because the event should have fired in 1860 and, after waiting a year or two, I got bored waiting. Somewhere along the line the event triggers went askew, I suspect that it was on the French side, and nothing happened. Unfortunate but there you go.
I also did a bit of editing to the event in order to increase the challenge. These changes involved removing:
1) The reliability penalty to other Italian states
2) The additional divisions that the event grants the player
3) The automatic alliance with France
So basically the event becomes an expensive way to DoW both S-P and TS while giving Austrian the option to join in. I also changed the text slightly to reflect the game. For some reason however I've developed an aversion to placing event pictures within the text proper
Of course I can see, from rereading the above piece, that I completely failed to convey how tough this war was. That is a disappointment that I'm tempted to fix. Unfortunately the length of the piece is already over what I'd consider the optimum (similarly the reasoning for war is also truncated) so I'll leave it for now. I'll just say that the Austrians almost took Parma, my army in the south was gutted in victory, and a delay of a month or two would have seen the numbers of defenders in Turin triple as more divisions came on the line.
I knew there was something else - don't forget to vote in the
AARland Choice AwAARds. I won't go so low as to actually canvass for votes (alas, there is no category for "Best Vicky Papal States Historical AAR Written by an Irishman") but its always good to see a high turnout.
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Now on to the important stuff...
Dr. Gonzo: One of the problems that I find with AARs is the need to keep people's attention and thus have events ticking over nicely. That means that I can't spend as much time as I'd like on the actual civil reforms or mechanisms of government in the Papal States. Or rather, I could go into this more but that would mean devoting less time to the social/economic side of things.
J. Passepartout: Honestly I'm not entirely sure of the odds of the event firing for a particular nation. I don't think anyone is. Its something of a moot point however given that, as I said above, it failed to fire at all in my game. I suspect that some French election/political event took a wrong turn somewhere and so the French trigger remained unsatisfied.
As for Sardinia-Piedmont and the Two Sicilies, ideally I would have devoted an entire update to the road to war and the various political manoeuvrings of the states. However, I was reluctant to devote an entire update to a single uneventful year, I'd get flashbacks to my previous AAR, and I think that was the right decision.
CCA: Now that's an insightful comment. A lot will hinge on the reaction to the new "Papish overlords"
coz1: Well "dark days depends entirely on your own outlook/position. You can be sure that plunging the peninsula into a risky war would have been positively welcomed by certain elements in this Church. Of course they were probably expecting French aid...
Lordban: Good to have you with us! Obviously I can't give away too much in replying to your speculation (although I've been signposting the direction of this AAR since the first post) but I can say that there are different forms of strengths. For example, in the above war S-P's industrial capacity dwarfed that of the Papal States, yet they had only a division or two to defend themselves with. By the same token the Papacy appeared strong in numerical terms yet this rested on a
very flimsy economic base. That relationship between the various factors that comprise a nation's "strength" wasn't really understood at the time.
You've somewhat pre-empted me by a few weeks but this is a theme that will be discussed in later updates.
RGB: Gameplay-wise France is always eager to make friends with Italy, no matter who wins the war, but foregoing French armies was a pain. Meh, I suppose I can't complain.
Quirinus308: Thanks for reading. Unfortunately the event didn't fire at all but
c'est la vie
DerKaiser: That's pretty much the reasoning that I tried to convey above. Relatively speaking the Papal States was only getting weaker when compared to the other Italian states (S-P especially). I doubt success would have been possible if the war had been postponed for another decade.
Varyar: Well there it is above. A solution... until the Austrians have their say. Congrats on the posts BTW... just another thousand needed
stnylan: To be honest that pretty much sums up this entire AAR. Pressures build and then explode with, hopefully, dramatic results.