The Winged Lion attempts to soar and roar - a Persian AAR

Chapter 10: The Lion Feasts ... and learns

Chapter 10: The Lion Feasts ... and learns

Welcome back to fair Persia! This chapter boasts nearly non-stop fighting, a lot of lessons learned (reading the Paradox forums can be very educational!), some world updates, and some tips-of-the-hat to the AI.

But first, thanks to flavioso20, Gunner243, and olvirki for their kind words! Much appreciated!

When we left Persia, it was 1910, and I had just finished taking a bit of Turkey away from the evil Spanish, and repelling yet another invasion of Iraq (if only Vic2 had come out a few years earlier, I'm sure we all would have learned the perils of a Western power invading Iraq - but I digress ).

Lesson Learned #1 - MIL score

In my last installment, I had been griping about how countries like the USCA and Denmark had been rocketing past me in military score, and had assumed it was because of their navy. Well, to make a long forum thread short, that wasn't the case. The good news is (if you're Persia), that MIL score is roughly equally formed by Army score and Navy score. The bad news is (if you're Persia), that the Army component is calculated from the number of Soldier POPs you have (which helps populous countries, but also countries with strong economies), and your level of Army technology. As Persia has a not-that-great (compared to the Big Boys) economy, and is middle-of-the pack technologically, that explains why I'm just ranked 11th in the world in MIL score despite 70 years of successful warfare.

So, anyway, one take-away is that I decide not to switch to a late frantic attempt to build a navy, but instead continue to go all-out for a strong army.

Lesson Learned #2 - clerks

Another thing I'd been griping about (I think - it's hard to keep the gripes straight ) is that despite decades of NF on it, I've still got virtually no clerks. Well, thanks to a post by Zoston, I am now enlightened. It turns out that if you click on a POP, and then hover over one of the professions it could promote/demote to, you can see why (or why not) they're doing it. So, picking a big POP of crafstmen, and hovering over the 'clerks', I can see the problem:



My craftsmen aren't literate. I thought that they became literate when they became clerks, which, when you think about it, doesn't really make sense, does it! Here we see yet another problem with a low literacy rate. So instead I switch all 3 of my NF from encouraging clerks to encouraging clergy, and raising literacy.

OK, enough analysis - let's get on with the show!

A lovely border incident

I'm still waiting for my infamy to go down, when in February 1913 I get a very nice present - an 'acquire state' CB against Russia! Yes! After my last (successful) invasion, I'm feeling generally good about my chances here, but decide to wait a few months, as in October 1913....



I get Machine Guns! Oh yeah!

I immediately DOW Russia. Krakow (which has a surprisingly good army) and Finland answer the call, Sweden does not - more on the Swedes later.

Tip of the hat #1 - conserving of forces

The last time I'd invaded Russia, the AI had thrown its armies at me piecemeal, making things much easier. I have to hand it to the AI, this time it does not do this, instead it goes to the other extreme, making one "monster stack", which I attack (this was not wise, with Machine Guns I should have made them attack me, oh well). I'm still able to pull it out, however, in a bloody slug-out:



While there are a number of smaller battles after this, generally I roll smoothly towards Moscow, where it's time for .....

Lesson Learned #3 - the downside of a huge victory

I had known that if you surround an enemy army and win, the enemy vaporizes - they have no place to retreat to. This is true even if you just have 1K demoralized soldiers as the only force. As the AI is now pursuing a 'monster stack' strategy, I am able to surround the remaining Russian army in, appropriately enough, Moscow:



I win, vaporizing a 49K big Russian army:

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However, I only get 0.5 warscore. It appears that you only get warscore for the troops you kill in the battle - those vaporized because they can't retreat don't count. Bummer.

But if this is the biggest thing I have to worry about, things are going pretty well, and in September 1914 Russia caves, and the small but full-of-iron province of Armenia now joins the Persian empire. The solar-powered Lion glows extra-brightly!

Lovely border incident #2

The border incident gods continue to smile on me, as only a few months after getting my troops back from Russia, I get an 'acquire state' CB on the Ottoman Empire. Yes!

Lesson Learned #4 - border incidents

Yet another thing I recently learned in the forums (yes, I'm not very good at this game, am I ) is that you only get Border Incidents (and they only get them on you) if your relation is < 40. A word to the wise....

War against the Ottoman

I spend a few months moving troops to the border and mobilizing reserves, and in December 1915 I DOW the Ottomans. Their only ally, Austria, dishonors the alliance, which is nice.

In my previous invasions (err, I mean liberations) the Ottoman army had been a 'paper tiger', but this time, for whatever reason, they have quite a hefty military - here's what I'm up against in Syria:



Something like 160K soldiers - not bad! However, my technology is just too much for them, and I manage to steadily overpower them. The only fly in the ointment is that yet again I vaporize 3 medium-sized stacks of theirs without much 'warscore' satisfaction. Bummer.

Tip of the hat #2 - intervention

Things are going swimmingly when in July 1916 the French intervene on the Ottoman side. This is a smart and historical move - while it's bad for Persia, it's good for the game. Well done Paradox! Luckily for Persia, the French never really do anything in the war, however - I luck out.

By the end of 1916, I'm in a familiar situation, as I've conquered everything east of the Bosporus, but that's not nearly enough to get the Ottomans to surrender. However, this time, for reasons that are unclear to me (maybe they are trying to meet up with the French navy or something?) the Ottomans go through a few brief spurts of leaving the straits unguarded, which is enough to let me throw troops across a few times:



It takes a while, but in April 1917 Istanbul falls, and the very next month the French (who took over as war leader - I thought that wasn't supposed to happen anymore with the 1.2 patch) sell out the Ottomans - the province of Ankara is mine! The Lion feasts some more!

Tip of the hat #3 - another intervention

I don't know if the AI is just having a good day, or is this is 1.2 goodness, or both, but immediately after this war ends, France intervenes in another war that a small power (Italy) was losing to a large power (Austria), and this time it's able to make the 'save' and eventually Austria white-peaces out. Well done France!

So here's where are in June 1917:



(1) is Armenia, the state I just got from Russia.
(2) is Ankara, the state I just got from the Ottoman
(3) is the annoying big chunk of the Middle East that Spain grabbed a while ago - let's set that right!

Looking at Spain, I notice a few things:



(1) Spain has gone Communist. Hiss, boo! In yet another sign of the depth of this game, note how Paradox has designed a special flag for this eventuality, just for Spain - I wonder how many countries they did this for? Or do they have a 'red star' that they superimpose on whatever the previous flag was? Either way, it's a nice touch.

(2) wow, are they ever a lot weaker militarily than they used to be

(3) and they're friendless.

Hmmm, weak and friendless - a bad combination in a Paradox game

War against Spain

In January 1918 I DOW Spain - my goal is to give back the chunk of Saudi Arabia back to the Saudis ('Nejd') - they're in my SOI, after all.

The very next month, in yet another sign of some good AI behavior, Portugal (joined by Brazil and the peripatetic French) DOW Spain as well.

Tip of the hat #4 - another intervention

Oh, which reminds me. In addition to this backstab, the AI did a particularly clever one - when I invaded Russia, Sweden dishonored the alliance, and then, about two months into the war, DOWed one of the Russian allies that did honor the call, Finland. Russia was in no position to help, and Sweden grabbed almost all of Finland:



nice!

War in the sands

Back to the war. Marching armies across the Saudi desert is not such a good idea. So instead I just send some cavalry forces of 6K-9K to occupy, and I hope that Spain has no/little troops there. The bad news is, they have a 12K infantry force there, which attacks my 9K cavalry force:



I catch several lucky breaks here, as they have a bad commander, who is attacking (so I get to use machine guns) - the net result is that I win handily, and after pursuing them across the desert I eventually wipe out their force entirely.

Things go uneventfully after that, and by March 1919 northern Nejd is restored back to its rightful owner.

Summing Up

In sum, this has been a quite loverly 10 years - I've taken Armenia from Russia, Ankara from Turkey, and spanked Spain, all while decreasing my infamy. Oh, 'border incident CB', I love you so....

However, according to the Victoria2 advisor,



There are 89 CBs on me! Nearly everybody in the game has a 'containment' or 'unification' CB on me, or both. As my infamy is now just 13, I'm not sure exactly why this is happening - any enlightenment?

Other news of the world

In the non-Persia news, a few interesting things have been happening.

First, Japan is still not Westernized -



Second, while we still don't have a Germany, in 1917 the North German Federation finally formed - quite large, too!



Third, only about 20 years after forming, Italy is rapidly dissolving -



The Two Sicilies (1) and Sardinia-Piedmont (2) have both seceded.

And lastly, as a result of the Portugese-Brazilian-French backstab of Spain,



Brazil has taken Catalonia from Spain! Holy reverse colonialism, batman!

Dewirix said:

....
If you can spare the research points, Biologism gives the Darwinism invention, which greatly improves the speed at which literacy increases. I'm up to about 1.2% a year.

Click to expand...

At this point, there are only 16 years left in the game, I think it's too late for that, sadly - maybe next game.

aldriq said:

You can tell you are a great power when it's you DoWing Mother Russia, rather than the other way around

Of course they've done all the variants for every country! Haven't you checked the V2 avatars? What are you still doing with a EU avatar?

Click to expand...

Why, because Red and White are my favorite colors, of course! Here I am getting congratulated by a grateful Armenian for liberating her from Russian captivity:



Note how she's even tattooed a representation of me on her cheek! A moment's pain, a lifetime's glory....

aldriq said:

Of course they've done all the variants for every country! Haven't you checked the V2 avatars?

Click to expand...

oh my lord, I just looked, I see what you mean - staggering! Not only do they have 5 variants of every flag, but many of them seem quite thoughtfully done - check out the various 'Australian' flags (AST), or those for Bhutan,(BHU), just to pick some from the very start. Wow.

Brandenburg III said:

... Still, I think if you’re promoting clerks, they should be educated as part of the promotion. At least that was my
thinking.

Click to expand...

Actually, they are - my previous thoughts, now that I look at the screen again, are incorrect - I think . The craftsmen are promoting to clerks, but only with a 3.6% chance, which would go to 4.8% if 50% of them were literate. Seem right?

Commandante said:

What a wonderful read, badger_ken! Enlightening and funny at the same time. I'll be sure to keep on reading until you've finished your game.

Click to expand...

Many thanks! I think there are probably only two installments left - I've played through 1930, and will be uploading that chapter when I get the time.

Chapter 11: Deja vu all over again

Chapter 11: Deja vu all over again

Welcome back, everyone! There are only 16 years left, which is changing the focus on the game - I'm focusing less and less on long-term investments (like ones that increase RP), and more and more on short-term (like ones that directly change MIL score).

By January 1920 I am entering the "golden circle" you sometimes enter in a Paradox game - where the amount of time it takes for you to want to attack a country for the n'th time is >= the amount of time you need for your infamy to go down.

In this case, Russia is entering the 'golden circle'. It's been just over 5 years since I last DOW'ed them, and my infamy has gone down since then to the point that I can now afford a CB-less DOW. Furthermore, they are still bedeviled by rebels (I'm not sure if this partially caused by switching from 1.1. to 1.2 mid-stream, but Russia has been >= 50% rebel-controlled for decades).



Even better (1) they are still weak militarily, and (2) are at war with Sweden.
I couldn't really ask for a better set of circumstances, so in January 1920 I DOW Russia for the 2nd time in 6 years.

Deja vu with Russia

So much of Russia is rebel-controlled that I spend the first 9 months of the war slowly chewing my way through one rebel-controlled territory after another, on my way to Moscow. While it's good news in the sense that the countryside is deserted, it's bad news in the sense that attrition is affecting me nonetheless, and a bug-fix in 1.2 means that when I conquer these provinces I don't get warscore for it (since I'm not conquering them from Russia, but from rebels).

As I close in Moscow, I get two pieces of bad news. First, in September 1920 Sweden white-peaces out with Russia. Slackers! Second, sometime between the last war and this one,



the perfidious Russians moved their capital to St. Petersburg! Moscow is no longer the capital. While this does make me swell with a certain "see what I made you do" pride (and the programmer in me applauds the Paradox AI) it's bad news from a warscore point of view.

The Russian army finally shows up in October 1920, and I actually have a somewhat stiff fight, as I've spent 9 months being attrited and spread out, but I do prevail, in a somewhat boring way (sorry, my readers). In February 1921 Russia caves, and I pluck off Georgia ("1") in the picture below.



This is a particularly juicy 'get', as not only does it have some factories, not only is it the largest and most populous border province, but it straddles the Caucasus, opening the 'highway' if I need to invade Russia again.

Nejd goes Nujts

How do you pronounce "Nejd", anyway? "Neighed"? "Nedge-duh"?
Well, however you pronounce it, they'd been a faithful minion for quite some time, when in May 1924



they inexplicably get uppity, and a diplomatic crisis erupts - I spank them easily, and cut them down to size by November 1924.

Deja vu with the Ottoman Empire

I get another lovely gift package from the "House of Casus Belli", as in December 1925 I get a 'place in the sun' CB vs. the Ottoman Empire (the Ottomans have one colony, the southern half of Syria - 'place in the sun' lets you get a colony, not a territory).

The southern half of Syria is not exactly the juiciest piece of real estate in the game, but hey I'm not going to look a gift CB in the mouth, especially as since my last war against the OE I coaxed Greece into my SOI - I immediately start ferrying troops there using my pathetically small and antiquated navy (4 clipper transports and 4 men-of-war).



Using Greece (1) as a dumping spot for troops conveyed by my tiny fleet (2), so I can grab southern Syria (3).

I am only able to get about 12K troops there before the CB runs out, and in April 1926 I DOW the Ottoman Empire.

I wind up fighting a lot of smallish fights, as the Ottoman has a decent-sized army, but I rather easily push them around. I still haven't find the way to administer the 'coup de grace' in this game as you could in EU3 (as mentioned in an earlier post, you can vaporize an army by not giving it anywhere to retreat to, but this doesn't help you warscore-wise). The biggest victory is when I'm all the way up to the Dardanelles and a large Turkish force tries to cross back over from Europe:




My Greek force is too small, it turns out, to do much - I'll try to have more troops there next time.

However, in December 1926 the Ottoman Empire bows to the inevitable and surrenders 'Homs' ((1) below):



Normally I would be worried by having a disconnected piece like this ((1) above), but Iraq is in my SOI, as is Nejd, and the next year Italy (the owners of Jordan) is as well.

BTW, Speaking of Italy, it's gone commie it seems to be all the rage these days And sorry to be a graphics weenie, but I really appreciate the care that Paradox put into designing all these various national emblems, most of which never see the light of day.

Nejd Deja Vju

In December 1926, only 2 years after Nejd last lost its head, it loses it again -



--only the date is different.

I spank them again. Odd.

A Military Milestone

In February 1928 I get "Bolt Action Rifles".



This moves your ATTack way up (it basically counters 'Machine Guns'), which also moves my MIL score way up (yes!), and most intriguingly it "changes unit appearance". On the right of the image above you see the latest in Persian military attire - looks a little more "GI-joe"ish, I guess. Although don't the two little mini-soldiers (that's what I think they are) at the feet of the big soldier look like armed yeti? Hey, so long as they leave the national flag alone, I'm fine with it - still can't beat a solar-powered sword-wielding lion!

'Russia' is an anagram for 'i, a USSR'

April 1929, the world's longest revolt finally ends....



Out with 'Russia', in with the Communist USSR! This is bad news for yours truly, as they will be much more powerful without 75% of their territory in rebellion

The only good news is that the Ukraine, following Winston Churchill's advice to "strangl[e] the Bolshevik baby in its crib" immediately DOWs the USSR. Normally, this would be a mismatch (against the Ukraine), but as the snaps below show...



The Ukraine is actually much more powerful militarily! I decide to send the Ukraine war subsidies - we'll see how this shakes out - I no longer have the infamy to spare to intervene myself.

Summary

So here's where we are in January 1930, entering the final stretch of the game:


Here's where we are score-wise:



Despite my best efforts, we've actually fallen from 6th place to 7th, and up-and-comer the Netherlands will pass me, if I'm not careful. I really seem to have hit "the wall" here, I've spent probably the last 50 years in 6th-8th place. The game really has a very large bias in favor, I think, of the originally westernized economies - note how Austria, which has been slapped silly by the Germans for 75 years, is now in 5th place, and how the US, which never fought the war of 1847, is in 2nd. And the UK, which has done nothing for decades, has almost 4x the score of the #2 power. And I bet those grapes are sour, anyways

One other piece of random analysis - let's look at some pie charts:



(1) 90 years into the game, 75% of the populace is still conservative, even though no reforms have ever been enacted. The most popular reform ('trinken pensions') only has 4.2% support (3)
(2) Even though the fascists only have 2% popular support, they have been gaining representation every year in the upper chamber - they're up to 16%.

Chapter 12: The Red Menace

Chapter 12: Vanquishing the Red Menace

Welcome back to the last gameplay chapter, spanning the years 1930-1936.

When we left, Persia was at peace (for once), and has enough infamy accrued that I basically can only do one more conquest before the game ends. I am moving my troops into position to DOW the Ottoman Empire for one last time, when

Now THAT'S a rebellion!

In September 1909 Persia is struck by a massive Communist rebellion! Financed no doubt by the perfidious USSR to the north. The map below speaks to the breadth of the uprising:



And this isn't your typical rebel "whack-a-mole", either - their stacks are quite beefy, up to and including a massive 100K stack!



That one stack is roughly the size of my entire army!
I suddenly have more sympathy for what Russia spent decades dealing with . The only 'silver lining' here is that the rebels are disconnected, leaderless, and sit in-place until they conquer their spawning provinces - speed is of the essence. I decide I'd rather over-react than under-react, and mobilize the reserves. While this means that sometimes the unfortunate recruits mobilize right into a losing battle with rebels, overall it gives me a large force boost. I methodically munch my through the rebellion, and in a climactic battle in January 1931



the main rebel force is annilhated. Whew!

Lesson time - it's not about the conquests

The game engine tries again to show me that victory in this game isn't all about (or even primarily about) military conquest, as in September 1931 the #7 power in the world is.....

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Switzerland! And this isn't a Switzerland that has conquered Italy or Bavaria or anything - this is little two-province Switzerland that has been quiet as a mouse the entire game. Yet another indicator that this is not your typical 4X game.

And with that dully noted let's return to the 4X game

Revenge!

Before this massive Commie rebellion, I had been all geared up to DOW the Ottoman Empire. But this rebellion makes me reconsider. First of all, it's the USSR, not the Ottoman, who is a threat in the national rankings. Second of all, I want pay-back for the rebellion! So I spend a few more months re-deploying troops, and in January 1932 I DOW the USSR.

Once again, I methodically march my way towards Moscow. The Russian army is small, but routinely inflicting more casualties than it suffers (sometimes significantly):



I can only imagine that my 'tactics' have fallen behind theirs, despite all my focus on the Army. Sigh.

The Tall Ships have a moment of glory

One interesting moment of the campaign is when my mighty navy(1) of 4 men-of-war blockades the Russian coastline (2)!



You're only as old as you feel

A trophy for the wall

Overall, the campaign munches its way steadily north, the climax comes in December 1932 when I achieve an ultimate sign of how the balance of power has changed:



as Moscow falls - the very next day, the USSR sues for peace, and Azerbaijan joins the Persian empire (region (1) below):



The last years

After that, my infamy is far too high to DOW anyone (yes, I guess I could have tried a 'last-gasp' DOW, but I wanted to keep acting mildly historical, plus I figured that the UK and/or France would intervene immediately against me), so I wait for the CB Gods to give me a present, and sadly they do not. The last few years are spent uneventfully, until in a 'just before the bell' move, on December 1935 Italy DOWs me! Meaningless, but kinda interesting

Hence concludes the game - I'll post a "post-game wrap-up" soon!

Chapter 13: post-game wrapup

Chapter 13: post-game wrapup

The game ends on January 1st, 1936.

Here's the world overall:



(1) The US never fought Mexico, never really expanded at all (I think they took Hawaii), and comfortably finished in 2nd place.

(2) Brazil munched on Bolivia and Paraguay

(3) Portugal did a bit better than historical in Africa, the UK a bit worse - overall all the countries were quite slow to expand here.

(4) After some early activity, such as grabbing parts of SE Asia and China, the UK sat passively for a long time, and finished far ahead in first place.

(5) Mighty Persia!

You are number six!

Here's the diplomatic map for Persia:



The solid green is the original Persia.
The striped green is Persian conquests, err I mean liberations.
The light green, and the light blue (e.g. Iraq) are SOI and allies, respectively. I lost Oman and Afghanistan to revolutions, hadn't quite gotten them back yet.
The little bit of red is Italy, which DOWed me two days before game end.

And here's how we wound up scoring:



A solid sixth place. A decent job, I think. With perfect play, I maybe could have gotten fifth (I was really hurt by the mid-game switch to 1.2, which halved my RP), but it's hard to realistically see how you could do better than that, given the enormous advantage that the Western countries have.

More on rankings

Here's the detailed list of nation rankings:



(1) Note how the "North German Federation" is in 3rd - Germany never formed. There was never anything remotely resembling World War I.

(2) Check out Austria's massive MIL score. 50% more than France and almost quadruple Germany's - they must have some huge soldier POP numbers.

(3) the UK cruises, with over triple the score of #2.

(4) The flip side of Austria - check out the USSR's teeny-weeny MIL score! I think their technology is decent, so it must just be that they have virtually no soldier POPs. I wonder if this is caused by the recent revolution?

(5) China never westernized (neither did Japan, for that matter)

The domestic front

On the domestic front, my populace increased seven-fold, from 1.49Mil at the start of the game to over 10Mil at the end:



(1) The populace stayed extremely Conservative the entire game, even though I never enacted a single reform (political or social), I still wound up with 77% Conservative pops.

(2) No political reforms means --- no voting!

(3) And as the 'issues' show, the people are fine with that - no social issue ever got above 5% or so ('trinket pensions', I think).

(4) Despite much pushing and prodding, the country is still very heavily farmer/laborer. "It is what it is", the game engine seems to be telling me

Oh, and speaking of "it is what it is"....



At game end I have the 16th worst literacy rate in the world, right next to my 'buddy in backwardness', the Soviet Union. Some of this is caused by the 1.2 switch, as the 'educational effectiveness' techs weren't there in 1.1, and it was really too late to switch to them in this game, but man it is a tough feat, considering I put almost all of my NF into Clergy for most of the game. Whine, whine whine

It's been a long fun journey, fellow forum fans - thanks for reading!

Myself, I'm off to a vacation on the new Persian vacation villas on the Caspian sea!



Au revoir, or as Google Translate puts it in Persian:

خداحافظی