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I'm with Enewald - such an empire would bring a tear of satisfication to my eye. And I'm also with Rensslaer - you've been doing masterfully at dodging Qing expansionism. And now that you're modernized - you can crush with impunity! Also - I cannot believe I'd forgotten about this AAR. :/ Wish I wasn't so dang forgetful. Anyway. First, a slight reconsolidation and upgrade of troops might be in order... Then, well- Central Asia beckons.
 
Rensslaer: That’s what I figured. There was no way I was going to risk losing units for a mere 75,000 people. The only troublesome part about giving up the state was eventual warscore and defense.

Enewald: You people and your empires that never stood a chance. :p

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aldriq: Attrition could still be a pain considering how large they are. Ideally I’d like a little more cushion with the army before I go against either China or Persia.

Communitarian!: It seems plenty forget about gameplays. AARland is a strictly narrative world - if we look at the old ACA numbers when Overall Favorite AAR used to be a category.

The toughest part is going to be upgrading the troops. I don't like disbanding troops because ts so hard to tell when I’ll be able to build new units.

Kaltorak: Westernizing was tougher than 1.1 but still easy. Provided at least two units are owned from the start date, nearly any state should be manageable. As for Panjab, there's the little issue of Kalat and Afghanistan in my way...

Jape: Unfortunately we won’t be able to roll into the 1900's but we’ll see what can be done with the time remaining. And I like making countries pay for their crimes...

***

22 April 1867 I spawned three more infantry units. I’m willing to use the bulk of these troops against the lesser uncivs but before I go against China, I’d like a guard unit or two just to make them hurt a little more.

19 May Spain went to war against Egypt; a little less than five months later, the USA opted to aid Egypt. It looks like the Spanish-American War is happening a few decades early. Then in mid-November I received another bump in my slow shift to liberalism.

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22 December I discovered Stock Exchange, beginning research on Practical Steam Engine but this announcement falls into a shadow when I began preparing for war on the first of January 1868. And I'll repeat this: If I knew then what I knew a few decades down the line, I would've loaded up taxes through most of these beginning years.

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My declaration of war against Kalat was issued on 17 February. The population boost isn’t great here but there’s plenty of room for opportunity after a win. Bukkhara* v. Panjab*, Kalat and Kutch.

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8 March I set my first siege in Dalbandin, followed by Kalat 13 days later. Kalat had bottled up all their troops in Quetta and I was going to need enough manpower to pound them out. After Kalat and Panjab flooded troops into the province, I was able to come away with the victory on 15 May. Quetta was besieged the next day while Kalat and Dalbandin were both occupied within ten days.

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1 July I received one of the catch-me-up-to-other-civilized-cultures tech bumps.

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And 21 July Quetta fell. Kalat was annexed.

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Since I’m still trying to settle into my new place I’m going to end it here for the night. I’m still at war with Panjab but they’re not willing to white peace it out which means I’m going to have to go on the offensive unless I feel like playing whack-a-Panjabi whenever they cross through Afghanistan and into my other territories. Doing that could extend the war far longer than I'd like.
 
If they won't surrender then you have no choice but to take concessions from them! :p Pretty interesting country shape lol. Hopefully China doesn't decide to give you grief while you are still engaged with Panjab. Good luck!
 
The Contest is over and i can present you your final rank:

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Brandenburg III - Bukkhara: Central Asian Might

You made Rank number 14 with your AAR.

I wonder why you havent made it in the Top 10 in the end,
you where in there at the beginning, but fell out when more scores came in.
Overall it was a close battle for the top 10, and its all very close together.

You shouldnt feel bad, alot of readers did enjoy your challenging
country choice, i know i did so! :)

I wonder if you would have had more sucess with a humorous AAR?
We will never know. But i hope you will remember the contest with no bad feelings.

No matter what rank you accieved in this contest,
you will allways have your readers that follow your AAR´s,
i hope you got some more by participating :)

You are a seasoned and respected writer, i hope you will keep on writing for a long time!

I thank you for competing and i wish you all the best!
 
Serek000: I don’t have to call Zeus on you, do I? :p

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Actually, Bukkhara was much tougher than I thought it’d be. My only practice in the area before this game was Panjab and that country is infinitely easier primarily because there’s only a two province border with China where, as Panjab, you can station and flood your troops into the mountains.

Enewald: Yeah but I can see Russia from my house.

Kaltorak: That would be nice but I’m all out of extra BB room. :( And I wouldn’t appreciate the silent Russians to come Bearing down on me. :D

Alexspeed: This kind of fits in with my comment to Communitarian! in one of my prior posts. When it comes to competitions in AARland (ACAs most notably) you get a leg up if you’re writing a narrative or history book. I also believe me not starting from day one in the game probably hurt but I wasn’t about to replay those lucky years just to write down some notes.

For me, placing 14th out of 19, its embarrassing. I’m not upset or anything about it but it is embarrassing. I think I only came ahead against those who DNF and one who was just starting to write AARs. I’ll probably try to hide this placement away next to my first AAR where I only had one follower. :)

Onto your competition: I still think it’s a good thing. My placement doesn’t affect my opinion of that. There’s private ballots, selected judges and they have to read through all AARs. I believe this validates it as a more honest contest than the other routine competitions along with those that pop up now and again - such as the HOI3 competition a while back. But a gameplay or a comedy will always have a hard time winning in competitions that lump all genres into one basket.

What I was looking for was a 4th - 7th place finish. I didn’t expect to win with the sheer volume of narratives/history books in the contest. But my tastes and the judges results conflicted wildly throughout. The biggest difference - other than the placement of my project - was that only one of the AARs I thought belonged in the top five were actually in the top five. And none of my top three made it into the top three.

To all: This is unrelated to anything about the AAR or the contest but there’s no better time to ask than now.

I’ve been thinking about this a few months but how many of you can read French and how many would like to see a B3 AAR over in the Francophone? If I decide to do this it won’t be until late next year. And votes won’t make or break my decision, I’m just curious how many of you I’d see over there if I decide to do it.

I’ve also been thinking - as early as a few hours ago - about writing up a history of B3 w/ Paradox for the blog. There’s not going to be a vote on this, I’m going to do it. The question only remains when. At the end I’ll write up my rankings of Paradox games (currently I own 10) and then I’ll probably do a ranking of my own AARs, including those that aren’t even in the Inkwell. You’ll learn that popular opinion and myself continue to disagree.

I’ve finally found a way to speed up Victoria II but not before I had to disband the game in the 1890's. The assimilation, the armies, everything is good provided you run your computer on a single core. Here’s the link if you don’t know how to do that.

There’s another fix on page 2 of that thread. Finally I can play V2 again.

Lastly, I should be mostly moved now so that means: Possible every other day updates for Bukkhara, twice a week updates for The Link and every two or three day updates for Dante’s Blood. Pending when Bukkhara and The Link end will decide if I’ll be able to start up a new AAR in time to beat my early year busy schedule.


***

Picking up where we left off I decided to throw a screenshot your way to let you know my plans. I want this war over so I can burn BB at a quicker pace and so I can prepare for the eventual Chinese DoW.

-- Tinypic screwed up my pic here somehow. It was fine when posted and after an initial review. I'd recreate it but to save space, I always delete my pics after I've assured they've gone through on the forum. You can sort out the puzzle if you like. --

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1 September another Major Discovery technology event hit, giving me the Multitude of Financial Instruments tech. Eighteen days later I’d occupy Deshawan but horrible rolls plagued me in a neighboring province. Not a single decent roll came my way during that battle... and 19,000 more Panjabis were on their way.

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On the European Front, Prussia decided to eat a piece of the Netherlands after the conclusion of their, I think, second war. Germany, when it forms, is going to be a problem for Europe.

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A little less than two weeks after taking the pic of my battle above, I occupied Chitral. It’s the province just north of where the fighting occurred. A Bukkharan siege followed in Gilgit. The mountains were killer and if it weren’t for my worry about time and how long my truce with China was going to last, I would’ve waited for the Panjabis to cross into my land. In retrospect, I probably should’ve risked it considering all the attrition.

But that won’t stop me from having a little fun at the museum.

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By year’s end, the rolls still weren’t getting any better even though a new fight broke out.

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Horrible rolls continued into the New Year but I was at least able to take one battle as a victory. And no, Panjab still doesn’t want so much as a white peace... they were so lucky I was so close to my BB limit.

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I besieged Lahore nine days into 1869 with almost 20,000 soldiers. Toward the end of the month I finally won a big battle in Chitral.

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And another successful battle followed in Chitral in March while I laid siege to Shahpur and Multan.

At this point I decided to take an overview shot of the war. They still didn’t want peace. This isn’t even their war. They’re being ridiculously stubborn. There is no way the AI can think it can beat me.

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9 April Lahore finally fell and they accepted a white peace. The war cost much more than I liked, at least now I’m able to concentrate on my preparations for China.

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Beautiful! I've gotta say - it seems like there needs to be a word to describe Bukkhara's meteoric rise. Bucolic?... No, no. BUKKHARIC! *metal riff*

Those loans suck, though. Luckily, I find that a few drops of gold are worth a pound or two of flesh, when played right. Do you have to have a specific tech or type of province to get the Museum event? It looks lovely, indeed. Finally - I would love to read both an AAR in French - even if it was a ponderous journey with my handy dictionary at my side - and a history of you/your work. Personal opinion is the spice of life! Or possibly chaos. On that note, if you're summoning Greek Gods, I've gotta favor to ask! :cool:

A million thanks for that hotfix - I don't know if I even have multiple cores on my old computer, but maybe there's something there that'll help.
 
Your loan portfolio is truly diversified! Not a big issue, £12K is not much in this game...

Do you think the French moderators are going to let you get away with even more colourful language use than the English-speaking ones? :p
 
Communitarian!: A fix like that should be stickied somewhere. I don’t know a whole lot about computers so finding this was helpful. It seems that on a forum like this its almost expected that everyone ought to know everything about their computer but not everyone who drives a car knows everything about the car they drive. Not everyone who listens to music knows how to play an instrument. A little guidance would’ve gone a long way. And I’m actually one of the few people who read stickies.

And I don’t mind the loan. 12k is in the safe zone, I think once it gets into around 30k then you’re at real risk of going bankrupt.

As for the Museum event, I’m not sure. By reading it I’ll go ahead and assume you have to have a colonial province or something like that. Even though I'm taking this AAR (mostly) step by step, I'm not a technical player.


aldriq: I’d like it better if only one or two countries held major loans rather than dividing them up the way the AI does. With loans like this whose going to go to war over bankruptcy aside from nations who are already going to DoW you?

As for the French arena, I’ve seen more than one or two banned subjects slip by over there but I admit I haven’t read a recent AAR in that area in months.


Enewald:
Enewald said:
But also so awesome.

The #1 requirement for a B3 AAR.

Serek000: My writing is much worse than anything so it’ll be a good place to practice.

To all: Well, it seems Tinypic righted itself on that first pic. Oh well, I’m too lazy to edit out the comment.

I thought I’d go ahead and briefly update who did what song in case you guys wanted to waste some time and look them up. Some of them, I noticed, were impossible to youtube without knowing the band. In each case, the song - its title and/or lyrics - was chosen to help describe the content of the chapter. I was going to stick with only big time songs and bands but I didn’t feel like copying and pasting the discography of a few bands. :p

Rock in a Hard Place (Cheshire Cat) - Aerosmith
Under the Gun - Danger Danger
Knock ‘Em Dead, Kid - Motley Crue
You’re in Trouble - RATT
Cold Blood - Kix (the best Kix song)
Same Ol’ Situation - Motley Crue
Feed My Frankenstein - Alice Cooper
Fly to the Angels - Slaughter
South Station Blues - The Joe Perry Project (also found on Aerosmith’s “Pandora’s Box” collection)
Have A Drink On Me - AC/DC
Run to the Hills - Iron Maiden
Growing Up the Hard Way - Bon Jovi (Unreleased)
Wasted - Def Leppard

On a somewhat related note, since we have so many stickies around the forum, I once asked the mods if Sticky Side Up by Steelheart could be adopted as the P’dox Sticky anthem. I didn’t get a response which is too bad ‘cause the dude can sing. :(

***

The rest of 1869 was quiet on the Bukkharan front but the US kicked their war into gear, mobilizing their troops. Their war with Spain would end on 1 August with a white peace. The UK also managed to annex Sikkim. I’d welcome this but China and UK have a love parade going on between them so expansion on either side over there is bad.

After raising relations with Russia to +124 I decided to go ahead and do a quick ten year (1870) update. We'll get back to the action tomorrow, maybe.


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Brandenburg, I'm not yet fully caught up from where I read to during contest judging, but I'll definitely keep up on it! You've got a great AAR! And it looks like the greatness is continuing from what I see from glances.

I thought I'd add my feedback from AlexSpeed's contest judging (for your benefit and others who might not read the contest thread):

I've said enough already to probably let those who are really interested know I was Judge #3 -- I think I'm the only judge who ranked both Brandenburg III and Surume in the top 10. They both chose really challenging scenarios, and proved themselves successful through good knowledge of game mechanics and strategy. As a Strategy Guide author, I can definitely appreciate that!

Brandenburg III's Bukkhara was very entertaining to me. I have previous experience playing Afghanistan, so I know Central Asia is just NOT the place you want to be if you want an easy game! You've got to be worried about the UK, China and Russia all around you, and there's no one in that region who looks like they can survive more than a few years if any one of these 3 behemoths looks hard in their direction! So I was excited to see Brandenburg play a very clever game of survival and expansion, using a realistic assessment of vulnerabilities, including his own. You don't often see a minor power go up against China 3 times (it was 3, wasn't it? -- wow!) and survive. He did so by using his own terrain to maximum advantage, sucking Chinese blood into the valleys between the mountains, and then ultimately making the tough but realistic choice to give up territory for peace once he'd bled them dry. I remember to myself thinking, more than once, "Really?! No way!" A remarkable achievement which I ranked 5th overall.
 
Enewald: It was losing money so it had to be shut down. At least until I’m able to support a poor factory again.

Rensslaer: You’re right in that I don’t read that thread anymore. After reading what two of the judges wrote, it was obvious why the gameplays in that competition were ragged on. Basing scoring on things like storytelling, characters, etc.... gameplays don’t have that and its too bad those people based their scoring around those things. Its kind of like trying to umpire a baseball game using basketball rules. So in terms of my placement and scores, neither one bothers me because I can’t take most of those scores seriously. However I do think you are one of only four judges who didn’t take personal preference of genre into consideration. Or if you did, it didn’t own you.

I can no longer remember how many times I’ve been at war with China up to this point; the problem with playing a game many decades in advance. It used to be the only way I wrote an AAR so I wouldn’t run into walls that affected my AARs like the slowdown of the 1890s. But we still have a few decades to get into trouble.

Jape: A Wonder Boys reference. :cool:

I think I’m still safe from the UK though, even if they are dragged into a war. There aren’t any easy routes for the UK to take.


***

Around February of 1870 my economy finally became a little more reasonable. Reinforcements are still a need but everything is on the rebound.

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Relations with Russia were raised again in early April to +139 and a month after that I changed my government to the Liberal Faction. I was hoping this would spark the capitalists to build/finish something while taking advantage of Full Citizenship.

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12 May the USA DoW’d Mexico wanting Arizona. The CSA decided to aid Mexico in their war and yes, Manhattan is still alive and kicking.

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At the start of June I was handed the Insurance Companies tech and finished the year with little else happening outside of Belgium falling to Anarcho-Liberals and Spain declaring war on Nejd. There’s something about Arabia that France and Spain love in this game.

8 February 1871 I raised relations with Russia again (+154.) Exactly one month later the USA/CSA signed a white peace but the war continued on in Mexico. There isn’t a whole lot to do while you’re burning off BB in Victoria II. Honestly, the VIP mod can’t get here fast enough.

Two weeks later smallpox broke out which wasn’t going to help me at all. While I no longer needed reinforcements, it was tough trying to force people into service.

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6 August my capitalists haven’t been doing anything new, it didn’t seem like they were using their advantage - likely due to their small numbers - so I switched my government back. And since my factory was still losing money and it didn’t look like I was going to get another factory going for a small while, I changed my NF back to Soldiers.

9 August consciousness was raised in Khiva. This I don’t mind at all since elections - hopefully soon - will give me something to do.

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25 September I discovered Practical Steam Engine and began researching Mechanical Production. As the year let out I again raised relations with Russia (+169) in hopes of an eventual, unlikely, alliance.

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