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V2 Beta AAR : Hyper-Expansionist Brazil

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Peekee

Peekee

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Dec 11, 2008
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This is going to be a no thrills description of my game as Brazil. Some basic points on grand strategy will be made but by and large it will be a fairly terse description of what happens. (Because of course I should be spending more time testing and less time writing ;) ) The game on a beta version and not on the gold release.

(As I don't think this forum is open for everybody to post to there is a comments thread here : http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=486904 )

I have tried to split the images up but it looks like some are already exceeding the bandwidth limits for downloads :( Sorry but I guess you will have to wait a while if you have missed them this far

The rough plan is to play as a very militaristic Brazil and try and take all of south America then eventually to Mexico and take over the USA :) The trick of course is to take over the smaller South American nations without all the great powers coming down and spoiling Brazils fun.

The remainder of this post is covering my initial choices on day 1:


First up which technology to research. The "standard" approach for a minor nation is to go for Freedom of Trade as it basically doubles your income. As initially all your money is from farming/mining. However, I opted for railroads. this means my farmers & labourers will only have half as much money. In turn this means they will be more likely to promote into other types of POP. (Craftsmens and soldiers primarily)

001_which_tech.png


Next start up point as I am a monarchy I can choose my government. Lets have one where I can build the factories.

002_start_gov.png


Then set my single national focus point to encourage clergy in my state with the highest number of POPs: (clergy == literacy and research, both of which I need lots of)

003_national_focus.png


For the same reason I max out my budget sliders for bureaucrats and clergy. (If those types of POPs have lots of money other POPs will be more likely to promote to them)

Finally I have enough cash to build a cement factory (and as I now have a State Capitalist Government I can choose to build it and not wait for capitalists). It will take a year to complete but POPs will start promoting to craftsmen straight away.

004_factory.png
 
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Now time to start acquiring some more provinces. Brazil starts with some of their cores held by Paraguay and some by Bolivia. The most obvious countries to attack are those two. As I have a larger starting army than both of them it should be fairly simple.

005_war.png


Even more foolishly their army comes to find me:

006_battle.png


The war goes well enough that I can add a second war goal which will help gain some much needed prestige.

007_second_war_goal.png


Victory!

008_victory.png
 
I don't think it is much to say that Bolivia went the same way as Paraguay. All this prestige means I have jumped from rank 19 to rank 9. Sadly the GP still have quite a chunk more score than me so will be a few more wars or a lot of factories to catch them up.

009_bolivia.png


The couple of factories I have under construction are costing me dearly. Basically I run out of money and have to wait until I can buy enough cement and machine parts. So my cash flow is sitting just above zero. Despite two years having passed no progress has been made on my cement factory. :( I guess I tried to do too much too soon. If I had been a bit more conservative it may have completed by now.

010_expensive_factories.png


Eventually my railroads tech completes and I can start another one. Again I don't go for the obvious freedom of trade instead I go for techs that will help my limited factories (when they open)

011_next_tech.png


All this building factories and building railroads is not getting me any more land though. If only I had another small neighbour to pick on ....

012_what_am_i_waiting_for.png


Well that is going to get my infamy up but it was going to happen sooner or later :)
 
The war in Uruguay took about three quarters of a year. There was not much fighting but I simply did not have enough troops to siege all their provinces at once. Building more troops however, would mean more expensive guns and more upkeep costs, which my poor economy would likely struggle with.

013_took_a_while.png


Even with all the prestige from that though I was still some distance from becoming a GP.

014_still_some_distance.png


Another year of consolidation sees me fall to rank 10 in the world although I do have railways built or under construction along a large portion of my coast.

015_building_railways.png


Eventually as my rank falls from 10 to 11 I decided that I have waited long enough and it is time to start expanding my borders again.

016_back_to_11_what_can_I_do.png


However, it turns out other countries did not like my war mongering!

017_blast.png
 
If anything Paraguay takes even longer to annex than Uruguay.

018_one_down.png


However, once annexed it means all my troops can head north to Guyana to try and prevent me loosing the war and prestige to the Dutch. Eventually I managed to gather more troops than the Dutch. Add in some favourable terrain and a decent leader and I came out quite a bit better.

019_battle.png


However, the real problem was that the Dutch could blockade my ports at will. Causing me higher war exhaustion stopping me from being able to trade as freely. Even though I took all of Dutch Guyana I was lucky to be able to achieve a white peace.

020_white_peace.png


Lessons learned.

1) European majors were going to attack me.
2) Their superior naval power causes quite a lot of problems.
3) I could defeat European powers if they landed troops.
4) So far, they did not seem too annoyed at my expansion.

Whose next?
 
Next up was to march my soldiers to Columbia. It took a while but ultimately they could not stop the Brazilian troops. They had to give everything that was asked from them.

021_march_to_columbia.png


Having research all of the first level techs that would help my industry (other than Freedom of trade). I moved on to medicine. This would help increase my countries population, and lower the amount of attrition my troops were taking in the jungles.

022_need_some_medicine.png


All of these victories finally meant I was almost a great power. I just had to maintain my leader over the Netherlands for long enough and I would finally be considered a great power.

023_almost_a_great_power.png


While I was waiting I thought I might as well continue plundering everyone around me.

024_next_war.png


Then finally.

025_great.png
 
Unfortunately, another country decided to object to my armies marching across South America.

026_mexico.png


Only Mexico, they should not be too much trouble... On the other hand central America was starting to invade with a sizeable force.

027_central.png


Then...

028_usa.png


For a couple of weeks things were looking quite grim. However, Central America decided it would rather let me take what I came for in Ecuador rather than face my armies. This would also cut of any potential land route for Mexican and USA troops. I was back to fighting a single war.

029_back_to_one_war.png


However, their ships were causing me all kind of problems I was unable to do anything to hit back. And while my attention was on the war...

030_unable_to_hit_back.png
 
Fortunately the USA did not actually seem that keen on following up Mexico's threats :)

031_peace.png


Mexico on the other hand had quite a grip over my ports.

032_blockade.png


The only way it seemed to be able to beat Mexico was to start building ships. However, ships are quite expensive to build...

033_cost_of_ships.png


and take a while to complete.

034_takes_too_long.png


And that was only for 3 ships. They had 4 ships outside my capital so I would need at least 5 to stand a chance of winning. In the mean time I though I might as well do something useful considering I was at war.

035_another_war.png


Then just as my had managed to queue up all my ships to face the Mexicans...

036_peace.png


Still the ships are always going to be useful.
 
With Mexico out of the way finishing off Bolivia was not problem.

037_peace_bolivia.png


And the extra prestige from all the wars meant...

038_everything_is_great_again.png


Surely nothing could hold me back. The dutch attacked me and even brought the Russians along. But as I could take Guyana and they could do nothing to me the result was an unexpected gain for Brazil.

039_unexpected_gains.png


Running out of money I decided was a getting to be a pain and my efforts to encourage craftsmen my starving farmers had not really worked. As such it was time to try and get more money out of my Farmers.

040_freedom.png


Finally here is a world map (Europe and Asia were not that interesting, everything fairly historical)

041_185262_1.png
 
In the previous world map you will notice what an annoying stub the remains of Columbia are. My next task was to remove the problem completely. However, the Ottomans had other ideas.

042_Ottoman.png


As did the British...


043_UK.png


As did the Prussians :(

044_Prussia.png


I sent my Navy out to try and fend off the British ships that came to blockade my ports. However, their first attempt was a failure meeting superior British forces.

045_Naval_Outing.png


They did manage to get all the ships back into port though. Which was a relief however...

046_Retreat.png


To make things worse the Ottomans had landed...

047_Ottoman_Landing.png


And the USA decided to jump in...

048_USA.png
 
I had to try and do something fast to fend off all of the troops landing on my shores. I decided to go for the British first...


049_Winning_at_sea_but.png


This time my ships managed to ambush a smaller British fleet. sinking 4 ships

And my troops met the British on land.

050_Need_more_men.png


I had to get more men there quickly, luckily I was mustering as many troops as I could and started to win the battle.

051_Winnig_this_battle.png



Also I finally finished up against the Columbians. The extra troops heading down from the Northern jungles should help against the various landings.

052_Got_to_help.png
 
However, eventually it turned out even the extra troops from Columbia were not going to make any dent against the numbers of UK troops arriving.

053_Oh_dear.png


The Ottomans too were expanding their area of occupation. I tried to recruit new armies but I could not buy enough guns to even start recruiting. (As I was at war with all the major producers of small Arms, and they were blockading my ports which effectively increases the price of any small arms I did manage to buy)

054_Also_not_good.png


Basically I could not do anything against the troops already landed on my shores. and I was fairly certain there were more coming. I could not build any extra armies and it was only a matter of time until defeat.

As such I had no option but to surrender to all the powers trying to contain me. I would loose all of my prestige and with multiple peace settlements, the war-reparations would be crippling and I would have no army or navy to defend myself with.

Various minors jumped on this fact to increase their own standing in the world...


055_more_war.png


Thus ends my AAR.

----

I did try playing on for a bit but it gets fairly stale after a while. Basically the entire world takes it in turns to launch wars of containment. You can not build any armies and so have to accept these peace terms. With some clever juggling you can still get your books to balance even if 90% of all taxes have to go to other countries. (hint...don't charge taxes just tariffs). However, you are doomed to 0 prestige and can never build an army, and so will never be able to get beyond a second rate power.


I have tried to split the images up but it looks like some are already exceeding the bandwidth limits for downloads :( Sorry but I guess you will have to wait a while if you have missed them this far
 
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