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unmerged(198309)

Second Lieutenant
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Mar 6, 2010
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Inspired by the great many AAR's going on during Alexspeed's contest, I thought I would try my hand at making one. I apologize with the images, as I am not a masterful graphic designer.

We begin in 1836, looking at the world.



China is a powerhouse, with millions and millions of people, with huge potential for industry if it westernizes. Any game with it will be focused on westernizing as fast as possible and eventually beating the UK around China. We will not be playing them.



Brazil is located amidst several other nations, all who have only recently freed themselves from the bounds of colonial oppression. Brazil is different from the rest on the continent, Portugese among the Spanish, large amidst the small states, ready to form a new empire. We will not be playing them.



Iceland is a godforsaken rock in the middle of nowhere, with only three distinct populations, Artisans, Farmers (Fisherman), and Clergymen. It is a One State, One Province Minor, bordering far away from any possible routes of expansion. We will be playing them.

Before we even press a button, let's look at the situation at hand.



Iceland is politically an aberration of a country, with a liberal majority and several different political and social reforms passed already. It also has “Socialists” and “Anarcho Liberals” in 1836. who they are, we have no idea. Undoubtedly, it will begin to resemble it's European Brethren more and more as I pass reform.



Pie-charts are a lovely indicator as to the composition of the state. As a One Province Minor, we can view all the populations at the same time. Going from left to right, we can observe that We are a majority of Farmers, followed by Artisans and Clergymen. We are also entirely Protestent, which is good, as hopefully this means that we won't be caught in the middle of another reformation. Our ideology roughly reflects the makeup of our society, with the Farmer's Conservative SuperMajority making up the greatest portion of it. The other charts are not really that noticeable, Iceland being entirely Icelandic, many varying splits of the dominant issue, and a Electorate Vote which doesn't really reflect anything.



The budget says we get no money, and that we have to spend nothing to fund anything. I think that this might be misrepresenting the situation partially.



And finally, Iceland on the World Stage. We begin as the 67th most powerful country, only because we have to be ahead of the uncivilized countries. Note specifically how we have 0 Prestige, something which may be useful in the near future.

This should serve as an interesting base for the growth of a nation.


Notes on this AAR

-This is intended to participate in Alexspeed's Victoria 2 Contest, although I have no expectations of winning. As such I'm using his Map Improvement pack and his Untransparent Map Mod.

-The difficulty setting is Very Easy. (I'm playing Iceland for God's Sake!)

-Please give me feedback. I for one it very useful in almost all contexts. (Specifically Advice on Image editing!)

-To begin the game, I released Iceland as a Dominion of Denmark, and then switched tags to Sokoto, declared war to free Iceland, switched back to Denmark, proposed to peace, and switched back to Sokoto to agree to the peace before finally switching to Iceland. A bit convoluted, but I wanted to start the game hopefully being able to determine my own destiny.
 
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Part 2: A Spoonful of Sugar

Nobody's Responded Yet? That's a bit saddening.

WhAAR? A Nowhaar of Iceland - Part 2

Let's begin by actually playing this time.

The first Action I commit is to put my National Focus on encouraging Clergymen in Icelandic Iceland and Greenland. This is pretty self explanatory, as the the only way Iceland will expand is through technological progress. We start with a .7% of the population as Clergymen, not the worse amount, and will leave it on that value until it expands to the desired 2%.

v224.png


What this does mean is that I get about 4.7 Research points a day to begin with. I pick Medicine as my first Technology to research, although I have no intention of hosting an army, for a few reasons. Medicine unlocks the Pressure Chambers for Thorax Surgery Invention, which If I unlock will be enough to put me as a Secondary power this early in the game. Later levels also improve the farming efficiency of my Fishing Wharf in Iceland. However, the most important thing is the Population Growth Modifiers it provides, overall adding a +.06% to my growth, which will be invaluable.

Currently this shows me getting the tech a little bit after 1840, but that will change as time goes on and the pop ratio of Clergymen Increases.

As I mentioned in my last post, I don't have any taxes or any expenditures as of the moment. As has been often stated, the world wide economy shakes and rattles about in the first few months of the game, and as such, I set my sliders as follows:

National Stockpile: 100% - At the moment I have nothing costing me money with the national stockpile and will not for some time. Technically this could be anywhere

Education: 80% - By putting the funding this high, I pay for the highest rate of conversion from my Farmers to my Clergymen

Administration: 100% - At the moment, this is nothing, but in the future, it will be changed in order to allow for the growth of a bureaucrat population once I get my 2% wanted in clergymen.

Social Spending: 100% - this won't have any actual value until I get a bureaucrat population.

Military Spending: 0% - I don't intend to have any Soldier Populations, and as such I should make sure they don't form. What better incentive then not funding them?

Taxes: 50% – All are at the maximum amount I can put them at (50%). I need to collect money over time for my goals, and the populations will learn to cope with it.

Tariff: 100% - This is to help in the collection of funds. However, this is subject to change, as you will see later.

This leaves little else to explain but my Political and Diplomatic strategy, which are intertwined with one another. As I previously stated, Iceland starts with a unique position, with some relatively advanced Social and Political Reforms passed already. However, some is not enough in this case. Specifically we want to focus on passing the following three Social Policies to the maximum Setting: Health Care, Safety Regulation, and Maximum work hours. This allows for my Population to expand in Iceland, which means that I will have more money to work with.

(One interesting aside that I noticed is that by using Sokoto to free Iceland, I gave them enough prestige to enact the Decision “Annals of The Fulani Jihad”. Does anyone else have any other countries that one could use instead of Sokoto which wouldn’t influence anything else?)

However, as we begin in Iceland, we can only change a single time in the political reform side. How do we begin to change the country socially? The answer is war.

v230.png


The way the war mechanics work in the game, we can simply declare war, and then white peace out at a later point, rising the infamy and militancy of the country as a whole. In this situation, I chose Oranje, a landlocked South African nation which poses no threat to me. Choosing the Humiliation war goal. The first war begins on February the 3rd of 1836 C.E. When I white peace out the first time in mid January, I have a militancy of 1.4. Here is where it gets extremely gamey.

Because I do not have any prestige as of yet, I can simply declare war despite the truce with Oranje I have (0-20 = 0 with the games math). The Drawbacks to this are 1) increased infamy (2.6) and 2) increased militancy upon the declaration of war, which I want. The way infamy works in the game as of version 1.2 Vanilla, there is no real downside to having high infamy besides an increase in consciousness, which in this case isn’t a bad thing. I further raise the militancy by switching my government between the two available parties whenever possible, from the Conservative to the Liberal and Back again. the parties are so similar it changes only one thing in practice, the Maximum Tariff which is always set to the highest available amount. Once militancy is high enough to enact social reform, I do so.

v266.png


The one thing to note with this process, is this does make your country susceptible to rebels and neighboring countries greedy expansion. However, Iceland does not have any neighbors to be invaded by, and does not have a large enough population to host a significant rebel threat. Despite this, the first inclination of rebels, specifically Icelandic Anarcho-Liberals, show up on October 17th of 1836. Also during the process, My government reformed from the Absolute Monarchy it starts off as to a Prussian Constitutionalism to a HMS Government, as the current Liberal Super majority went about there business. When I check my research progress slightly later, I already see that my ETA on Medicine is earlier than my initial prediction, completing on Decmeber 27th 1939.

v261.png


The eve of the new year sees a radical shift in the upper house as the makeup shifts to reflect what the country is. The ideologies which do not exist as of yet disappear, and the liberal majority is replaced with a conservative majority. My policy of declaring war and peace on hapless Oranje does not change however.

v263.png


Most of a year passes and not much has changed. The speed of research is still increasing, and the population is now increasing at a much higher level with Good Health care provided. At the beginning of January, I have finally accumulated enough Leadership for my first Military officer, Admiral Gunnar Bjornsson, who isn’t bad. His worth is 2 military points, enough to put me up to the 66th position in the world. We begin our advance up in the world.

v281.png


By April 1839, we have nearing the end of this cycle of war and peace. Once the Medicine tech is unlocked, I dare not continue and risk losing the precious prestige provided by Pressure Chambers for Thorax Surgery if it triggers early. On April 2nd, I declare my last war on Oranje, the 6th War of Icelandic Aggression. This time, there is one difference, the wargoal is not to simply humiliate, but to cut down to size.

v298.png


While this does put me close to the Infamy Limit (22.30 / 25), it does not put me over, and provides me with the militancy needed to pass my last few reforms once the war resolves in early September. A month later I get another admiral and pass another reform, pushing me to #60 in the world. On October 14th, I get Medicine.

v2111.png


Here are a few pictures reflecting my current situation

My current Political Reforms and Goverment:

v2112.png


My current Population and it’s growth. Notice how small it is despite the full Healthcare beign provided. I really need this to increase badly, and fast.

v2113.png


My Current budget. Can anyone guess what I will be investing in with this cash?

v2114.png


Please give me feedback! It’d be wicked nice, and radical, and narbtacular, and whatever else it is you kids say these days.
 
Looks interesting. Heres hoping the health care reforms will do you good. :)
 
Pretty cool. If you hold a lot of elections, then you can steer the ideology of your POPs very effectively.
 
Iceland aye? This should certainly turn out to be a fun, and probably wild ride - so I must tag along for this one!

Good luck, and I'll certainly be reading! :cool:
 
Wow, this promises to be quite the epic tale. Here's hoping Iceland rises to become the cultural and industrial powerhouse of the world!
 
:eek: i think my head just exploded...please continue
 
Thank you for taking part in the contest and good luck!
I linked your thread in the contest list and will follow this AAR :)

Thank you for the first 2 chapters allready, i hope you will be able to get the 5 chapters necessary till the end of the contest (15th Nov.).

Concerning feedback you asked for, well i would suggest using .jpg´s instead of the .png files for the images,
they are much smaller and easier in bandwith by dont loosing much in quality.

If you need assistance in how to do that you can take a look in the general AAR forum,
there are many threads and guides allready that will help you out there :)

Iceland is surly a difficult country to play with i guess, i wish you all the luck for that!
 
Midge - So do I.

BootonFace - I concur, but I do not plan to spend the time trying to micromanage elections, launching them every year. I will try to instill the correct view (the goverment's) in every election though.

Haramir - Technically, you can do this with any country. Iceland is just well suited for this. Another thought is that besides declaring war and switching the government, one could also put themselves into bankruptcy. I'd probably try that and put the initial constructions up years earlier.

Rabid - As the best things in life are.

Volksmarschall - It will be likely be a bit more tame then you think it will be.

Konnigratz - Cultural yes, Industrial I am not sure of. I'll explain a bit more in my next post.

Boris ze Spider - Just wait until it's over 9000!

Haramir - Unfortunately Iceland is considered to be part of Europe for the purposes of the game. I might still get some Immigrants at some point with my extreme reforms tough.

Mico94 - I recommend Advil.

Omen - That's all I really wanted to hear.


Alexspeed - Thank you for your contest, and your suggestion of JPG's is duly noted. You will see them in the next chapter.

Expect the next chapter to come in any moment from now
 
The Waiting Game

I probably should have stated it at the beginning, but this is my goal for this AAR of Iceland:

To expand the Icelandic Culture as much as possible.

-For me to do this, there is two ways which I will be doing this. Iceland starts with very little population and very poor, making it impractical to either construct factories or to wage war. In order for me to accomplish my goal (if I can), I must colonize.

The closest reachable colonies to me are in western Morocco, and the states directly underneath. I will need to have a colonial range of XXX to reach it, (Naval doctrine up to XXXX) and will have to have all of the Colonization Technologies (Machine Guns, Nationalism and Imperialism, and Phropalaxysis against Malaria) to do this. I ended my last post reaching medicine, my first desired technology.

Iceland is only a civilized power, and we will not be receiving any clerks for some time, so all we can rely on will be the Clergymen, and to extend this to the furthest, we need research sensibly and smartly.

This means that the first tech on the board will be Positivism, even though we cannot research it until December. I start by accumulating Rps to invest on the First of January. Following this, I will employ a strategy of maximum research gain. The only techs I will research are those that improve my research efficiency, and I will accumulate enough spare RP so that I can research new techs as soon as they become available. It might sound a bit confusing, but hopefully You’ll understand as I begin to enact this policy.

Politically, although I am not doing any major influencing, I will be trying to convince my population to be Liberal. I do not expect any significant success, at least not any time soon.

Diplomatically, I am enacting a replacement to my earlier policy of Endless War, a policy of kissing up to the UK. The goal of this is to eventually find myself within the sphere of the UK, for both the economic benefits, and for the military protection it would give me considering my current state of the armed forces.

Let’s begin once more

I begin by storing up RP, netting a 460 something in Idealism at the beginning of the new year. Following that, we return to the waiting game.

My first election start on the first, and continue on until July. I find myself with a Conservative government, which I then replace with it’s liberal counterpart, mostly due to it’s preferable tariff policy.

v2170.jpg


July 25th marks the beginning of the Gift UK program. As with everything we do, success isn’t expected for sometime, not until we are worth some more economically.

March 8th: An Admiral Dies - We go back down to 67th in the rankings

August 12th: We appoint another one - 65th

January 1st, 1842: The first of the medicines pop growth modifiers triggers, in this case “Genetics: Heredity”.

February 1st, 1842: “Clinical Thermometers and Binaural Stethoscopes”

January 1st, 1843: We get Idealism! This pushes us up to 8 and a bit RP each day, a sizable amount. We continue by researching Ideological Thought to push the Research Advantage even more by gaining more Plurality.

v2182.jpg


Jun 9th: We get another admiral, pushing us to 66th. We keep fluctuating as smaller countries are annexed I presume.

Sometime prior to December I begin the construction of a Naval Base. I will admit that I did not plan this in the best manner, as I found myself too close to bankruptcy and heavy debt than I should off. The beginning of actual construction doesn’t begin until much later.

September 1st, 1844: “Pressure Chamber for Thorax Surgery” - Unfortunately by the time I get it, some other lucky country got it first. I only get 25 prestige. This still pushes me up to 26th

v2191.jpg


March 22nd, 1845: We get Ideological Thought. I continue by researching State and Government, hoping to get even more Plurality increasers.

April 1st: No joke, we get “Rationalism”

May 6th: Another Admiral, pushing us to 27th

October 1st: “Proto - Exisentalism”

April 1st, 1846: “Individualism”

May 1st: “Neokantian Idealism”

July 1st: “Constitutionalism”

December 1st: “Egalitarianism”

January 1st 1847: “Social Conscience”

March 1st: “Social Justice”

April 16th, 1847: Something other than an Invention! Finally! On this date, we reach a 2% Clergymen ratio, the optimal amount. This puts us at 12.30 RP a day, and it will only get better as Plurality and Literacy increases. We shift our National Focus to Farmers for a couple of reasons.
-Farmers are the basis of my economy. more Farmers means more money.
-I am not set up to handle any from of industry. This precludes the possibility of any form of industrial encouragement.
-Farmers allow for the population to increase massively, expanding the size of the Icelandic Culture, my goal.
-As I expand the Farmer Population, some will promote to Clergymen, meaning that I stay relatively close to the 2% ratio.

v2218.jpg


This massive increase can be seen just a few weeks, with the population increasing by 70 people a month.

v2220.jpg


August 1st: “Secularization”

September 1st: “Aerial Bacteria and Antispetic Principle”

November 21st, 1847: We finish research on State and Government. We are just have to research Nationalism & Imperialism once 1850 hits and we’ll have 2 of the desired 3 colonization techs.

We are making .7 gold each day, and we generate 12.36 RP each day. We have 10 Officers, a majority of which are admirals, pushing our Military to 10. Our total score is 42 Points, placing us at 25th in the world Rankings.

The world at large

v2mapicl18475251.jpg


Not much has happened. Russia is beating up it’s central Asian neighbors, North America is developing in the typical manner as of V1.2. I suppose the most interesting thing is Portugal, which annexed Zulu, and is slow encroaching on Oman’s Colonial Territory. Africa looks like it will have it’s usual contenders, but nothing game changing has developed so far in the world.

I would like to apologize for the boringness of the update, but that’s exactly what it was like to play, boring. I hope my description of my process and intentions helped to remedy this. Other than that, I would like your advice on anything you feel like responding too.
 
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I nearly pooped my pants when you got Neokantian Idealism! :D
 
''The Waiting Game'' is an epic title for an update and very apt for an AAR about Iceland.
 
Why is the literacy rate 10%? Its unrealistic, Iceland had quite a high literacy rate since the high middle ages. Or rather relatively high rate, Icelanders have valued education for quite some time.
 
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