The Yamato Destiny: A Japan HTTT AAR

[Enewald]

Looks good!
Remember to put a link here to the next AAR!

[Boris ze Spider]

Id put factories where manufactories are.

[Malurous]

Oh wow, that's going to be so great. Kudos for going through the effort.

[morningSIDEr]

Both very impressive how things look at present, and very daunting with regards to the scale of the work you have set yourself! I hope you can sort everything out without too much bother, and greatly look forward to seeing things begin in earnest in V2.

[Dewirix]

After something of a hiatus (alright, it's been six months), I've stirred into action on converting this into Vicky 2 and though I'd show everyone how far I've got.

For reasons that I can't quite remember, I'm doing the conversion by hand rather than using the converter project that's currently being written. That said, I have been using their province mappings as a guide, which has sped things up immensely, so thanks to everyone who contributed.

So far I've mainly been concentrating on getting everyone in their right place on the map. I've been working down from the biggest to the smallest states and here are the results:

Asia


Europe


The Americas


The mappings I'm using aren't always what I'd like, so once all this is done I'm going to have to make another pass to tidy up. For example, this means ensuring countries aren't cut in half - something that's happened to Bohemia at the moment.

After that, there's still a lot to do. I don't intend to change every province's POP values, but I should really do it for the Americas and Africa and those parts of Asia that have been (or haven't been) colonised. I can guarantee that Trebizond won't start with many Greek-cultured POPs if I don't do this, and where's the fun in that?

Factories I might just leave as they are in vanilla. For Japan that means starting with none, but given that I'm already topping the leaderboard that seems fair enough.

Alliances and diplomacy are another matter I need to look into. Chris Taylor pointed out that the HRE needs to be modelled somehow, which might prove tricky as the emperor - Modena - may not be a Great Power. I could address that by giving them extra prestige, or I might try using vassals, alliances, or some mixture of the two. Some sort of HRE breaking up event chain is a possibilty, but one that relies on me actually learning how to write them.

Finally, I'll make an attempt to set the armies of at least the major powers up correctly. With any luck I can actually begin writing the AAR itself sometime this year!

[vasziljevics]

Sir, I am truly amazed by this AAR you have here - I read it this evening, from the begeinning to the "end" and though I am not familiar with Victoria2, I am looking forward to continue reading.

before this I have not paid much attention to the eastern countries in EU3, but now you got my interest in playing one of them.

again, congratulations for all you achieved and greetings from a little eastern european country,

v

[Rockingluke]

Looks like good progress so far. One thing I would suggest is to smooth the provinces owned out a bit. All the jagged edges and general craziness don't seem to transfer well into victoria

[Dewirix]

Sir, I am truly amazed by this AAR you have here - I read it this evening, from the begeinning to the "end" and though I am not familiar with Victoria2, I am looking forward to continue reading.

before this I have not paid much attention to the eastern countries in EU3, but now you got my interest in playing one of them.

again, congratulations for all you achieved and greetings from a little eastern european country,

v

Thanks! Glad to hear you like it. Victoria 2 is less conquest focused than EUIII (for the most part), which hopefully will make for an interesting AAR of industrialisation and balance of power maintenance. The non-Western countries in EUIII are fun to play because you know that however well you're doing you can't keep up with the Europeans. Makes for an interesting situation when you do meet up with them.

Looks like good progress so far. One thing I would suggest is to smooth the provinces owned out a bit. All the jagged edges and general craziness don't seem to transfer well into victoria

The last test game I ran seems to suggest the map will sort itself out in fairly short order as wars thin out the minor states to the benefit of the majors. Bohemia in particular attracted at least three declarations of war in the first month. Once the conversion is done I'll run some more tests to see if there are any systemic problems that need to be addressed.


As you'll note from my signature, I managed to get through all the 3PMs this weekend and made a start on the 2PMs. I should really sort the core territories out at some point too, but I might just limit that to the smaller countries, to give the bigger states a CB on them. I can't really see anyone successfully taking on the majors to recover cores (although that might make for a fun AAR in itself).

[History_Buff]

Thanks! Glad to hear you like it. Victoria 2 is less conquest focused than EUIII (for the most part), which hopefully will make for an interesting AAR of industrialisation and balance of power maintenance. The non-Western countries in EUIII are fun to play because you know that however well you're doing you can't keep up with the Europeans. Makes for an interesting situation when you do meet up with them.

It should indeed make for an interesting AAR. I also would like to say that the part about non-western powers not being able to keep up should not apply to you. I also believe you should give yourself some factories, as the fact that you westernized should mean you have at least a few.

[Chris Taylor]

Great progress so far!

For the HRE, you could do what the V2 Empire mod does, and make all the member states allies or satellites of Modena. I think the mod also has decisions for German minors to join or leave the HRE, too. You might be able to poach those for your game—why reinvent the wheel, after all.

EDIT: Oh, and if you need assistance with flags (since some countries might need new ones based on their in-game coloniser), I volunteer my services.

[Ashantai]

Very impressive work!

[Derahan]

Impressive!

Now for the right word.

BANZAI!

Derahan

Cherrios!

[Dewirix]

It should indeed make for an interesting AAR. I also would like to say that the part about non-western powers not being able to keep up should not apply to you. I also believe you should give yourself some factories, as the fact that you westernized should mean you have at least a few.

I'm sort of tending towards the opinion that factories are somehow different in kind than the manufactuories built in EUIII. If you think of them as a completely new method of production then it's possible that Japan just hasn't built any by 1836. If I do build some it'll likely be a few "model factories" in Kyoto.

Great progress so far!

For the HRE, you could do what the V2 Empire mod does, and make all the member states allies or satellites of Modena. I think the mod also has decisions for German minors to join or leave the HRE, too. You might be able to poach those for your game—why reinvent the wheel, after all.

EDIT: Oh, and if you need assistance with flags (since some countries might need new ones based on their in-game coloniser), I volunteer my services.

I'll have a look at the Empire mod. Thanks! I might also need your help with the flags. At the moment I'm just pinching them from EUIII and altering them to the correct size, but Victoria 2 allows for different flags for different governments. Probably worth doing for the majors, if not for the other hundred odd countries.

Very impressive work!

Impressive!

Now for the right word.

BANZAI!

Derahan

Cherrios!

Thanks to you both!

Time for another update. I've just finished converting all the two province states, leaving only 24 OPMs left to convert. After that I have to check back through all the states to set prestige levels and somehow sort out POPs for the colonised provinces and the starting diplomacy.

I've also just realised that by making Castile use the SPA tag it can probably absorb the other Spanish-cultured states just by sphereing them. That wasn't what I intended, but it might make for an interesting game. It can't happen for Germany and Italy though, as no-one's using those tags.

Anyway, here's how Europe's looking at the moment:


And these are the Great Powers. I think Castile's still showing Spain's default prestige, so it may be that there's another minor to join Brabant.

Edit: Actually, even with no prestige Castile's military power is enough to keep it the top 8.

Also, just realised that this AAR passed the one year mark last Sunday. Admittedly it's been finished for a while, but still something to celebrate (cracks open the bubbly).

EDIT 2: Just finished converting all the countries. Behold!

EU3 Map - 1821


V2 Map - 1836


Still lots to do, but it's really coming together.

[morningSIDEr]

Glad that you have made considerable progress with the conversion project, I've been looking forward to following the exploits of the Yamato in V2. I really don't think I could stomach what must be very time consuming work myself but the result is very impressive. Hopefully you can begin playing sometime soon.

[Chris Taylor]

Looks great! Well done—you must feel some sense of accomplishment after all that!

Should make for an interesting Vicky game, too; you don't have a single overpowering major (like the UK in vanilla V2), but there are three or four contenders who might battle it out for that honour—Japan, France, Spain, and Russia.

[Dewirix]

Glad that you have made considerable progress with the conversion project, I've been looking forward to following the exploits of the Yamato in V2. I really don't think I could stomach what must be very time consuming work myself but the result is very impressive. Hopefully you can begin playing sometime soon.

Sometime soon might be a tad optimistic. The map's done, but there are still a few bugs to be ironed out (mainly of the flags-not-appearing kind). Still got armed forces to convert, colonial POPs to tweak and the diplomatic game to set up. That said, I'm hoping it'll only take a month or so more to get everything up and running.

Looks great! Well done—you must feel some sense of accomplishment after all that!

Should make for an interesting Vicky game, too; you don't have a single overpowering major (like the UK in vanilla V2), but there are three or four contenders who might battle it out for that honour—Japan, France, Spain, and Russia.

You can add Austria to that list too. If Magdeburg doesn't manage to make GP (it's the second biggest German state) then Austria have pretty much a clear run to forming the SGF and probably Germany too. Needless to say, as arch-enemies such a situation would be antithetical to Japan's European strategy. If either Sind or Madhuri manage to civilise I can't see much stopping them from becoming a factor. They've already go the military score, so all they'll need is prestige and techs.

[vasziljevics]

I really need to look for this so called "Victoria ii" - though one of my friends called it rather "short"...

[Dewirix]

Time for an update I think. I made a lot of progress over the weekend, to the point where I've only the colonial POPs left to go before I can declare the game ready to play.

Over the course of this project I've been learning a bit of VBA and through the probably-not-very-professional method of dumping the EUIII save into Excel I managed to write a few basic scripts to convert the armies, navies and diplomatic values without having to go through each one manually.

Currently the game has:

• Correct countries and provinces
• States have the right religion, flags and cultures
• States have the right navies (only the most modern ships got converted across)
• States have the right armies (although I've assigned home provinces for individual brigades at random)
• Everyone has the right relations value with everyone else (and everyone seems to pretty much hate everyone else)
• The GPs have their sphere countries (although I completely neglected what was then a new-ish feature of EUIII, so Japan has none)
• Everyone has their allies and military access agreements

I'm probably just about at the point where I could start playing with little to no problem. However, I'm going to tweak the colonial POPs first to make sure no-one's where they shouldn't be. Why are there so many Dutch people in Japanese Java?

I really need to look for this so called "Victoria ii" - though one of my friends called it rather "short"...

Timewise it's 100 years as opposed to 400+, so definitely shorter than EUIII. However, there's still a lot to do in the century you have available and in a way the compressed timescale gives a greater sense of urgency. The economic and demographic aspects of the game are much deeper than EUIII too.

[morningSIDEr]

Sounds as if everything is going swimmingly. I've no idea what VBA stands for (I am useless when it comes to any computing matters), but it sounds suitably impressive! As too does the list of what you have managed to do thus far. Will the colonial POP tweaking take long? Hopefully not, then onwards to more Yamato goodness!

[Malurous]

I've no idea what VBA stands for (I am useless when it comes to any computing matters), but it sounds suitably impressive!

Let's just say that it's a sign of some dedication if Dewirix decided to learn it just because of this.

It's great to hear that this is close to V2 now.