Post Your vanilla Victoria II Empire

[RorySheen]

I see Iceland is independent, how were they by the end of the game? Any better off?

[TAoD]

Just an experiment playing as someone a bit different. I became a great power really quick after I westernized. Im planning on gobbling up all of SE Asia now.

[Yuri_Kenobi]

Empire of Japan - 1936

Very nice! What's the blueness inside Russia? France!? :S

[Dewirix]

I see Iceland is independent, how were they by the end of the game? Any better off?

They ended the game in 43rd with 26 prestige, no industry and 43 military score. Their population was only 44.14k, so not much room for improvement there. They still beat Greece and Serbia though.

Very nice! What's the blueness inside Russia? France!? :S

Yes, one of the stranger outcomes of the game. The odd thing is that Russia have been a paper tiger throughout, with a very high industrial score (6089) and a comparatively low military score (791) which was much lower for a long period of the game. I toyed with attacking them in Siberia for a while, but wasn't feeling that mean.

[jpschilder1]

I was playing as prussia, and I made germany, and took over most of africa, and alot of the pacific/SE asian islands like micronesia and such. I intervened in the american civil war to keep america weak for game purposes, so the CSA is in my sphere of influence. I also helped the USCA in a couple wars with mexico. I also created all 3 possible canals. there must have been a glitch or something at some point, because Ireland and the United kingdom switched. I have no idea why minnesota is part of the confederacy.http://s999.photobucket.com/albums/a...R_188481_1.jpg

[RorySheen]

there must have been a glitch or something at some point, because Ireland and the United kingdom switchedhttp://s999.photobucket.com/albums/a...R_188481_1.jpg

Crown from the gutter event, i had it as Scotland and switched with the UK once.

[Forgiven]

Kingdom of Netherlands (and Africa) in 1899, trying to figure what next right now, industry is not doing that great, but maybe the electronics and cars will finally start it up...

[Leviathan07]

Kingdom of Netherlands (and Africa) in 1899, trying to figure what next right now, industry is not doing that great, but maybe the electronics and cars will finally start it up...

Your colors are really nice! Which mod do you use?

[Forgiven]

Your colors are really nice! Which mod do you use?

Clicky

[Andrelvis]

My empire as Austria:



I also own the north of Borneo island, and Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden, Saxony, Saxe-Cobug-Gotha, Saxe-Weimar, Saxe-Meiningen, Oldenburg, Greece and Italy are in my SoI.

[Raph]

So, after my last game as Greece -> Byzantine Empire, I was a bit tired of Über-UK using the hordes of Indian workers and soldiers to beat the score of anyone anywhere. How to combat that incredible advantage? Well, as the saying goes, if you can't beat them, join them! No, I didn't decide to play as the UK, I decided to take Panjab for a spin, with the goal of forming India and beating the UK to the #1 spot.

Forming India (also known as "NO_TEXT_FOR_KEY CULTURE_GROUP UNION")in 1917:



The world in 1935. India is the world's most prominent communist nation, heading the comintern even though the revolution came to victory in Austria before Panjab. In sphere are communist Spain, Austria, Cuba, Vietnam, Siam, Cambodia and Burma along with some filthy capitalist countries in western South America as well as Japan. China was in the sphere of India but managed to westernize (as did Japan, and then force-released Vietnam, Burma and Siam) and then, in what's known as the Sino-Indian split, world communism split in two. Still allied though. China was in the sphere of the UK for most of the game and around 1900 when the British were pretty much beaten in the Indian subcontinent, China was actually a bigger problem militarily.



Fierce industrialization and several campaigns to free the shackled proletarians of Indochina (and lowering the british industrial score) finally bore fruit in 1935 when India passed the UK in overall power.

[Dewirix]

That's an excellent achievement against a monster UK. How were the early parts of the game?

[Raph]

That's an excellent achievement against a monster UK. How were the early parts of the game?

Well, in my first try, the UK came after me within the first year and then it was goodbye, but on my second try it worked out better, being more quiet than I had expected early on. I started by annexing Afghanistan (which took my a number of trials to get right, by the way). Took it easy for a couple of years, hoping for a free cb somewhere, researched Freedom of Trade, enlarged the army with new manpower from Afghanistan. The UK put me in their sphere which was good since that made sure that they didn't attack me. Humiliated some of my punier neighbours to get prestige high enough for westernization. Civilized in 1849 and joined the ranks of the Great Powers by late 1850. This was kind of bad, since I wasn't protected from the UK. Increased my relation with them to +200 to lower the risk of an attack (since having high relations hurts you when declaring war, as well as removes the risk of them getting the Border incident event (need -40 relations). China, however attacked pretty much immediately, but I managed to fend them off in the hills of Kashmir, settling for a white peace even though I had a -25 warscore in my favour.

When I was below 13 infamy, I grabbed three Persian states. Focused first on getting research speed up, with clergymen NFs, research efficiency and literacy techs. After instantly researching the 1860 research tech after saving up RP, I focused on military techs in order to be able to fight the UK. They had a lot more soldiers, so I had to make sure to have at least as good tech, and use leaders and terrain wisely if they wore to be defeated. China declared war again, and this time I took Xinjiang and Gansu (both were pretty cheap in war score, around 5 IIRC, so I managed to get them by getting +25 score from battles). With the new millions of Chinese (and Uighur) POPs, my soldier numbers increased substantially. Kept researching and waiting for infamy to lower, then took Sindh in 1882.

By now, my military was ranked #4 and roughly on par with the other GPs. I decided to take the plunge, declared conquest war on Kalat, Makran, Kutch and Persia and quickly annexed the first three. Of course, the UK declared a containment war. Held them off more or less in the Panjabi heartlands but had a rougher time in the south until Persia was annexed and I could send reinforcements from there. Now, my tactic was to use my best defensive leaders (had two +5 ones) and draw in large British stacks, then encircling and destroying them. Got +25 battle score, but didn't dare go far into India, to keep entrenchment and terrain bonuses and avoid attrition. The brits had roughly 6 times more brigades than me, but I destroyed around 200 of them and then settled for British Lahore (one province, some 4 warscore) after several years of war. Took one more Chinese state and kept researching military techs until all of them were researched meaning that I actually had better tech than the UK.

Repeated the same strategy in the next war, won in 1892, and managed to get Dehli region. This was where I really took off, it had IIRC 7m inhabitants, tons of factories, increased my literacy rate from less than 20 to almost 50% and contained lots of soldiers. Then annexed Tibet, Nepal and Sikkim in 1896, and kept raising brigades. After this, it was just a matter of taking a few states in each war and forcing the brits to release some of their sattelites and annex them in separate wars while at truce with the UK.

Whoa, that turned into sort of a mini-AAR

[WeissRaben]

My empire as Austria:



I also own the north of Borneo island, and Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden, Saxony, Saxe-Cobug-Gotha, Saxe-Weimar, Saxe-Meiningen, Oldenburg, Greece and Italy are in my SoI.

An Austrian "Empire" that did not reconquer Schlesien? You, my good sir, fill my heart with shame. è_____é

[naggy]

Not sure if this is the quickest, but it has to be close. Germany formed May 6, 1841.

I did get the Crown from the Gutter event. Jylland was grabbed during the war with Denmark, because Hamburg took it during the war (nice of Hamburg to eat the infamy for me )

[Raph]

Not sure if this is the quickest, but it has to be close. Germany formed May 6, 1841.

I did get the Crown from the Gutter event. Jylland was grabbed during the war with Denmark, because Hamburg took it during the war (nice of Hamburg to eat the infamy for me )

How long to get to a full Germany from there?

[Al. I. Cuza]

Love the pink France

[Leviathan07]

Hmm I see a lot of very interesting and fun game results here!! Civilizing India and surviving the UK must have been a real blast Although interestingly it may have been harder for you if the UK's Indian provinces had NOT been super-industrialized and super-literate. Overpowered British colonies FTW!

Asia, Europe and Africa

That picture of Africa makes my heart swell with happiness... African colonization in 1.1 was so un-fun, either France got it all or no one did. 1.2 seems to have done wonders!! Or were you running a special mod?

[Raph]

Hmm I see a lot of very interesting and fun game results here!! Civilizing India and surviving the UK must have been a real blast Although interestingly it may have been harder for you if the UK's Indian provinces had NOT been super-industrialized and super-literate. Overpowered British colonies FTW!

Sure was a blast! But, as you say, the UK really beefed up those regions for me, so after I started getting the bigger ones, it got pretty easy thanks to that.

That picture of Africa makes my heart swell with happiness... African colonization in 1.1 was so un-fun, either France got it all or no one did. 1.2 seems to have done wonders!! Or were you running a special mod?

Can't speak for Dewirix, but I've seen a nice, diverse colonization of Africa in my 1.2 games without mods.

[Dominatus]

Empire of Japan - 1936


Could have scored more here, but thought I'd share this for a number of reasons.

Firstly, this might be the highest GB end-of-game score we've seen so far! I ended up SoI-ing China to put a stop to their expansion, which also put a stop to mine, but it was getting difficult to keep Britain from 'Friendly' status and at one point I had to concede defeat to them when they intervened in one of my Chinese wars.



Of note here is that I've hit maximum research points! Having four NFs on clerks for 40 years paid off in the end, as did running 100% education spending for far too long.

Also, I'm basically running an entire empire off the profits of my gold mines, and of that Caozhou in China accounts for around 80%.

I'd like to add that I've been Liberal and Laissez-Faire for the past three decades and it's been pretty good economically. My factories tanked initially when subsidies were withdrawn, but since then the strong have survived with the result that my overall economy's much healthier. Being Liberal has also let me pass all the political reforms except for changes to the voting system (I did get as far as Weighted Wealth and would have got Wealth in 1936).

The Americas


I managed to snag the Panama canal and have pretty much all of South America SoI-ed (except for fiercely-contested Brazil). Apart from the normal oddities of Russian North America, the Manhattan Commune and British-controlled New England that's a fairly successful US (more successful than me in fact as GP #2).

In South America, Argentina went on a conquering spree that only finished when I SoI-ed its neighbours. I'd already SoI-ed Argentina itself, so I think it was just having fun under a bigger boy's protection.

Asia, Europe and Africa


Aside from mega-UK it's been an interesting game. The North German Federation formed late (~1920s) and promptly got itself into another war with France which lost it the just-conquered Rhineland. That wouldn't have been so bad, but Austria opportunisitically declared war too and nabbed two states.

Spain made the mistake of declaring war on Japanese SoI-ed Oman, which ended with me taking Abu Dhabi from them. They then turned round and declared war on Japanese SoI-ed Siam, which ended with me taking Brunei. Net result: three oil producing provinces to Japan and Spain too chastened to try anything else.

Japan's incursion into China came as a result of having war declared on me as soon as I had annexed Korea (in the 1860s). This played out rather like the 20th-century version of the Korean War, with Chinese troops streaming over the Yalu and my forces falling back to the south, abandoning Seoul and the north. Fortunately, I was able to use my naval dominance to enforce a blockade and occupy Hainan and Formosa and win enough battles to get China to cede the latter to me in the peace.

China declared war on me another couple of times, each time losing states until they decided enough was enough. I then tried to take a province off them when they were fighting Britain, only for the Red Devil to annex two states and then declare a status quo war against me.

I might have been able to win if I'd have mobilised, but I didn't have the patience. Instead I conceded them the win, waited five years, jockeyed for position in the SoI game, banned them, dropped them to cordial and took the states I wanted in the first place. Very satisfying.

After that (it was already about 1910) I concentrated on internal affairs. The lost war against GB had allowed me to introduce landed voting and with it Prussian Constitutionalism and I assiduously cultivated a Liberal electorate and began to reform, which neatly did away with the revolts I'd been suffering.

All in all it's been a blast, though perhaps next time I'll drum up the courage to take on Britain.

Sounds like a really interesting game you had, nice stuff