A Tale of Two Central Americas- A CompARRison

Peaceful USCA: 1836-1840

(Note: The detail in this AAR will improve greatly after this post, as I just discovered the secret to writing a good AAR [A notepad and pencil to write as you go])







Scanning through our initial setup, a couple of things initially stand out:

1) We're running a 26 dollar surplus at the start, even with the liberal party in power, which, with its lazzie faire policy, makes it so that our max tax rate can only be 50% (Though, without any tax efficiency, it's much lower).

2) Our starting literacy is pretty bad. With the immigration we'll get, this should rise fairly quickly without any help, but I begin down the Social Thought branch by researching Malthusian Thought (the screenshot lies).

3) A whopping starting militancy of 6.40. I don't know nearly enough about Central American history to tell you why they start this angry, but I can tell you that its very useful for our goals.



1) I retract that earlier #3. We wont be getting any reforms through with such a large reactionary force in the upper house!

2) Although, given the large reactionary force, we still start with a liberal party in charge. Man, worst of both worlds.

3) The one decision that we get is to change into Guatemala if all of the other Central America states secede from us. While its nice for the flavor, I'd never actually use this, as it would just remove all your cores from USCA lands in exchange for a decent amount of prestige (33). However, this point seems to be moot, as I've never actually seen the USCA dissolve.

Now, after unpausing the game, we get your basic initial flurry of discredits and alliances. One interesting alliance, however, is sent to us:



I immediately accept it, hoping that it wont come back to bite me if they try to drag me into a war vs the UK. Colombia also tries to send me an alliance offer, but I just deny it.

So, without any warmongering, I sit out the rest of the year on full speed, the only interesting nearby thing is the US coming in to help Texas.



As the new year rolls around, and it becomes apparent that the Reactionary upper house is just there to stop players from going nuts with healthcare reforms on day one, as I easily gain a liberal majority in the upper house. So, I immediately pop open the Politics screen, healthcare in my sight, when-



It appears that Paradox is not amused by my thoughts of a rapidly expanding population as, even though I barely manage to eke out a majority to pass a healthcare reform, the game refuses to let me. Instead, I decide to fix a glaring error in my democracy.



I'm hoping that the militancy and liberal majority will let me pass all of the voting reforms. Lo and behold, I was right, and on January 3rd...



I also manage to pass Secret ballots. Also this seems to have solved a problem that I was having, as, throughout these reforms, the militancy was hardly budging from 6. However, as you can see in the last screenshot, passing universal makes it plummet to 0.03. This also seems to be the trigger for something else, as shortly after we trigger it, we begin to get a flood of immigrants.



This screenshot also highlights a trend that I was having in my early immigration. Namely, that I was getting a much higher influx of Russians then, say, British, German, or French, who seem to be the staple of other Democracies immigrant pool. This leads me to assume that Russians are just really sick and tired of the cold.

And as we head into 1840, we find the US beaten by Mexico (Though Mexico still settles for a white peace, leaving Texas open to be annexed by the US), and a relatively quiet world (as far as the USCA is concerned).

Next! When the warmongers strike! USCA 1836-1840, the reckoning.

Warmongering USCA: 1836-1840

(Note: I'm still trying to get used to the "AAR Mindset" when playing Vicky 2, which is why there are a couple of screenshots missing that you'd expect otherwise. I've really got to stop and think about all of those annoying popups that I used to X out without a second thought. And at the rate that I'm putting these notes above my posts, this'll turn into a mini-tutorial on what not to do when writing an AAR )


Starting up the game again, everything is basically the same as the above post, but with a few key differences:

1) Research is put into Military Staff System instead of Malthusian Thought. The extra org should help us keep up with our enemies, and I'm impatient, so the extra recon on the cavalry should help alleviate this problem.

2) Our National Focus on Guatemala goes to Soldiers instead of Clergymen. Even though this is most likely a bad idea in both the short and long run, I figured that If I'm going to be a warmonger, I might as well go all out.

3) I max out tarriffs and taxes on everybody (25% and 50%, respectively). This was in a vain hope that people would demote (Rich-Middle-Poor-Soldier). As I soon figure out, this only works if you can actually max out everything, and not half-do it.

4) We start an election as soon as we start, hoping that the Reactionary upper house majority carries over.



5) We start with a general! Well, technically we had him in the other game as well, but I didn't actually look at my army. Because of that whole peace thing. He's pretty good too, which should prove invaluable in the coming war.


Before we unpause, I also begin to position my army on the USCA-Colombian border, along with sending an alliance request to Venezuela.

They accept our request, and we immediately declare war on Colombia, lest they get an ally or two in the initial flurry of diplomacy.



Venezuela joins in on the war, and, thankfully, they haven't disbanded their army out of poverty yet. However, that means that the Colombians haven't either. We mobilize, which starts just a bit further than our armies. We send both into the same province, which turns out to be a bad idea, as...



I made newbie error here (Moving in an incredibly weak army when I can't actually see the adjacent provinces). By the time I notice the Colombian army barreling towards my lone brigade, its too late to move them out of harms way. I can only sit there and hope that Francisco's army arrives in time...



And they do! Arriving literally the day that the brigade would have fallen, they manage to valiantly fend them off, taking out half their army in the process. However, the mobilized brigade was completely wiped out in the fight. We demobilize, and we begin to chase Colombia's army up and down Panama. At least ten battles later, the last 1000 men of the Colombian army surrender. We remobilize, and the siege game begins, as we occupy all of Panama, and Venezuela captures their way to Colombia's capital.



During this, our first year passes through, and, like the peace game, liberals sweep the vote, gaining an easy majority in the upper house. Popping open the politics screen, I notice a pretty little reform branch that wasn't open previously-



Apparently Paradox is favoring this game as, unlike our hippy parallel, the social branch is open to reforms. What's more, the majority to pass them is exactly the same! I go for the healthcare, pausing several seconds after to consider how this may skew the results in favor of the warmongers.

At the same time, the election that we had started previously ends, with the liberals retaining their control over our country. This is probably because the majority of voters are liberal, even though my voting, at the time, was landed.



Finally the siege game ends, and we accept the peace from Colombia for Panama (Venezuela added a goal for the region adjacent to Panama [Forgot the name], but I don't think that I'm done with Colombia yet, and I don't want my land connection with them severed yet.)



The biggest result of our fight is that our name is now shown on the map, albeit very awkwardly put. The Panamaian provinces are pretty poor, and they gave us a small Afro-Carribeno minority, and an almost invisible North Andean minority.

However, peace is unaccepable! Since Mexico is still too strong to take on mano a mano, I begin to build up my ships on the pacific side, plotting to take on USCA's historical rival....



Johore!!!!
We need the gold, seeing as how the earlier "Bankrupt everyone into joining the army" plan failed without the actual ability to fully tax. It just ruined my economy

And while we wait for the ships to build, four semi-interesting things happen:









In order:

1) We get a slightly better general, and we switch him out in anticipation of the Johore campaign

2) The prestige gained from the war and the military points gained from recruiting an admiral and general makes us a Secondary power! This fades quickly, but its nice to know that our little USCA is moving up in the world.

3) Mexico and the US white peace, and Texas is annexed by the US.

4) We manage to get to universal voting anyways, causing the militancy problem to once again disappear into thin air.

Anyways, after a short interlude, we load up our entire army onto a ship and sail them across the pacific. And while this doesn't sound like the most intelligent decision, it somehow manages to work. On the way, Military Staff System is finished researching, and we don't research anything else, choosing instead to save our RP for Idealism.

Reaching Johore, we quickly declare war on them, unloading our army onto theirs. And, in doing so, we beat them like a red-headed step child.



We quickly chase down the remnants, wiping them out in Kuala Lumpur. The great siege game begins, and we scuttle our ships, which were in no shape to make a return trip to the good ol' USC of A.

Moving to immigrants, it appears that either

A) They need a couple of years to get mad enough to leave their respective home countries

B) You need some sort of universal voting to warrant them hopping across the pond

C) Some combination of the two.

Also, neither being at war nor badboy seems to affect the frequency of immigrants, as they seem to be coming to my idyllic hippy paradise USCA and my bloodthirsty, baby eating USCA in equal numbers. Also, no more Russian.



We finish the sieges, and our eternal enemy is now firmly under our thumb. We end 1839 with a booming economy (Before Johore I was running on a deficit while having my military, supply, and education extremely lowered, with it I could max them all out, reduce my tariffs to -25%, and half my taxes and still run a +10 surplus.) and an army stuck on the other side of the world.

First reactions


My first impressions on the contrast is twofold:

1) Being a warmonger is much more interesting than sitting there in peace, which is why this post was double the size of the other.

2) War > Peace in the early game. The only thing that peace brought me was a stabler economy during 1837-1839, when I was hurting from various upkeep and war related costs.

My plan, schedule wise, is to go by ten year intervals, posting Peace and War one after another in separate posts. Don't really have a timetable on the actual ten year intervals, though.

Replying to people

WelshDude said:

Good start, I hope you carry this through, it looks to be two very exciting AARs!

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Well, I'm not expecting anything big to get in the way of writing this AAR, but you never know.

Selzro said:

I love this! When you posted about this project, the magnitude of the venture hadn't really sunk in my mind - two parallel games played in 10-year intervals! At least I hope the peaceful one will be played much more quickly.

A third USCA game would surely be redundant, so for my next game I'll possibly try... Uruguay!

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Just watch out for those mean ol' Brazilians. They seem to leave Uruguay alone in most games, but you're always one war away from annexation.

Julius.R said:

Extremely interesting so far, I look forward to your next updates, and your continued, uh..., liberation of uncivilized countries, and the glorified teachings of the beauties of the Spanish Language.

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I probably should use Spanish a bit more frequently in the AAR, but I'm ashamed to admit that I'm not fluent in it. I'm hoping that I meet your liberation expectations, though :rofl:

BootOnFace said:

Very cool! I love this idea, but I think warmonger will win. I think the best game is the colony game, however. If you could do three, then that would probably win

EDIT: On the other hand, I've seen AI USCA get to GP status without conquering anything. Just a thought.

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I wasn't really thinking of restricting colonization to either one. The problem with colonization, though, is that there aren't any real places TO colonize. I suppose I might be able to grab some of the pacific islands, but I doubt that they'd provide the boost that you have in mind.

USCA Peace 1840-1850

Welcome back to another exciting installment of "A Tale of Two Central Americas- A CompARRison"! This update promises to excite (on the war update) and help you sleep at night (the peace update). So, without further adeu, I present....peace!




Starting the game, we immediately get a blessing in the form of the Nationalist party gaining power, which makes "State Capitalism" available to us. We immediately kick start industrialization by putting a trusty old cement factory in every province



In addition, I take advice from our good friend Kaltorak. This advice being that I continually expand my factories early game, so that when the wave of never ending craftsmen come, I'll be ready. More ready than the rest of the world, at least.



While we chug along in our idyllic state, I get the classic "School discrimination" event. I pick the first option, which helps us get to Idealism just a bit faster.



Switching to Immigration, you can clearly tell that we're getting a ridiculous amount of immigration for this just being 1841. For some reason, the Russians don't like the USCA anymore. I wonder if pops have temperature preferences modeled in...

However, this stream begins to dry up later in the decade, with the total growth of the nation grinding down to just about 500 a month, and about two hundred immigrants coming a month. Perhaps they were drawn off by the discriminatory school system?





Idealism finally finishes, and we move to Positivism as our first invention, Neokantian Idealism, pops. The twenty prestige we get from it is enough to vault us up from the low thirties to twelve place, which makes us a secondary power!

The second screenshot points out the rate that our literacy is increasing. My initial thought was that it was my focus on education coming to fruition, while the literate immigrants were just the gravy on top. I was wrong on this account, though, as (spoiler) on the war run through, my literacy increased about as fast, and got to about the same point as my peace run through.



Later, our second prestige invention pops, bringing us tantalizing close to the great powers at number nine. The reason that I didn't crop out everything besides the invention, besides laziness and the time of editing, was to further point out the rising of our literacy. That's about a five point increase over a year. And I don't even have Darwinism yet!

Positivism finishes in August of 1843, and we move on to Functionalism as our third and final prestige invention, Proto-Extentialism, pops. Regrettably, this only gives us 6.6 prestige, as we were too late to get the first discoverer's bonus.

We finish Functionalism shortly thereafter, and we switch over to Machine production for all the juicy RGO bonuses that it comes with. We make short work of it in 1848, and we begin to save up our RP's for Biologism.

So, as we approach 1850, nothing that exciting has happened in our happy little state. I'm hoping that the difference between War and Peace will become a bit less biased once we get Darwinism, but I'm honestly not sure at this point.

And, because I feel a bit guilty for this being a rather boring update, I'm going to supplant some interesting things happening to other nations in this.



Denmark has been a surprisingly resilient nation, kicking Spain out of the Great Powers and sticking in it even after a Scandinavian Pan-Nationalist rebellion took over. Even more interesting is that they're doing even better in my War game. I have no idea as to why Denmark is doing so well, as I've never seen them stay with the big boys for more than a month at the very start of the game.

Also, Switzerland had its eastern chunk taken away by Sard-Piede. Now, when they swept in five years later to annex Switzerland, only Baden stood by their side. Switzerland is doomed, right? Wrong. They slaughter S-P, and Baden takes East Switzerland, while Switzerland takes Savoie and Sandegna from S-P.

And that's it for this update. And while I promised that I'd post the War update after Peace, it's 4:20 and I don't feel like staying up 'till five writing and cropping images. I'll hopefully be able to write and post it later today. In the meantime, here's a (not so) cryptic hint as to what happens in it:

The Netherlands. Costa Rica.

USCA War 1840-1850
Now with cropped images!

1840 starts, and we immediately set our research on Idealism, and we send our recently finished ships across the pacific for our boys in teal-ish blue.



On our way back, we decide to annex Hawaii (picture disappeared), mainly so our ships stop disintegrating in the middle of the Pacific. We also get the nationalists, and we enact the same economic strategy as in the Peace portion. However, constantly staying in the green is hard when you're in a prolonged war...


But before that, we finish Idealism, switch to Army Professionalism, and get two pretty little inventions that bring up to ninth place. Also of note is the three way influence battle between France, the UK, and the US over us. There was even an event related to this! I wonder why there's a war for me in this, but in Peace, the US was lazily influencing us, taking about a year to go from 96 to sphering, despite the relatively similar scores that both games had. Everything seems to be going great, when we get something truly out of the blue...



The Netherlands declares war on us! Venezuela ditches us, and, once I got over the initial shock of having a random European secondary do it, the declaration made a bit of sense. Both their army and navy were more numerous and of a higher quality than ours, and we had a colonial possession that was right next to theirs. So surely that must be what they want....



Nope. They want Costa Rica. Also of note is our rank, as said before, and our literacy. Its been rising at a slightly slower rate than on our Peace game. However, this also means that the bulk of our literacy increase has come from the immigrants, and not the education techs.



They immediately set up a blockade and land an army in Yaviza. Thankfully, the soldier focus has started to pay off, and my army has expanded far beyond the three brigades that took on Colombia. We move down to meet them head on, in a battle that will set the tone for the rest of the war.



We easily slaughter a quarter of their entire army, and we wipe it out the rest of the expeditionary force in a followup battle.

And then, an insane plan, one that could easily ruin any chance we have of winning. I begin building nine transport ships on the Atlantic side, and I scuttle all of the transports left over on the pacific side, where the blockade makes it impossible to get out to reinforce the Singapore region.

The transports finish, and we send over the majority of our army to the Netherlands. Where, surprise surprise, there's only two brigades defending the whole thing. There aren't even any ships there to stop the transports.



Their defense force, upon seeing that someone had enough gall to invade their mainland, immediately surrendered to us. We split off our cavalry, and we begin capturing their province. The transport ships also disintegrate. How our admiral survives this so many times, I'll never know.

Meanwhile, we begin to rebuild our transport fleet, as well as build eight Man-O-Wars (Four for each ocean). This tanks our economy, forcing us to go down to 40% national stockpile. The Netherlands, either being brilliant or stubborn, lands another army in Yaviza, and I begin to cobble together a workable fighting force with the two brigades I've built since the invasion, and the mobilized troops.

Proto-Existentialism pops for a nice ten prestige, some reactionary rebels rebel in the Netherlands, and we finish Army Professionalism, moving on to Muzzle-loaded rifles next. And as all this happens, we begin to move our ramshackle army to face the Dutch in combat, expecting the worst...



A decent attacking general and a couple of good rolls later, and we manage to beat their second expeditionary force with flying colors. The perfect storm brews, as, through a combination of recent prestige, expanding factories, and new generals, and on August 6th, 1846, we get a pretty little popup...



Huzzah! We immediately begin to pour all of our influence into Japan (I tried China, but their massive military score means that I can't actually influence them). With my ego at record highs, we send out the available Man-O-Wars, and, with the blessing of our +4 attack admiral, we easily break through their blockades.



Adding a war goal to humiliate the Netherlands, we send our army back to the mainland, and, in a last dutch effort, the Netherlands lands two brigades in Bluefield, which surrender after their transports are taken out, and my main army lands next to them. The humiliation of losing most of their army and navy causes them to capitulate our demands, namely to humiliate them. We destroy our entire navy in joy.



The rest of our time is spent burning BB and researching, as the US sends us an alliance (which we accept), Japan is added to our sphere, and we finish Muzzle loaded rifles (Mechanical production is next). The alliance turns out to be a bad idea, as the UK turns their large, beady eye over to New England.



1) We laugh at the US, and decline their offer. No way I'm going to waste valuable BB burning time getting smacked around by the UK. Good thing I denied them, too, as Mexico declared war on the US soon after, in an attempt to get New Mexico back. At the very least, this means that the southern states are wide open to be conquered...

2) Our literacy gain has slowed down a crawl, barely sliding into 20.3% by the time 1850 rolls around. Comparatively, we were at 23.4%, and going strong on the Peace game.

3) Our population, through a mix of steady immigration, trinket health care, and conquests, we've managed to get one million men in our burgeoning empire!

We finish Mechanical Production, switching to Introspectionism as the new decade comes around.


Reactions, observations, and self criticisms

1) War is still doing better than peace. Though I think the war with the Netherlands is going to hurt War, the sphering of Japan and the imminent sphering of Equador, Colombia, and Venezuela should make up for it.

2) My first AAR war that wasn't a complete curbstomp! While there wasn't much to learn from it in terms of ingame mechanics, I do think that I learned a tad about writing about it. Rather, how I should write about it next time around.

3) There's a definite research gap forming between War and Peace. Becoming a Great Power has helped bridge the gap ever so slightly, but Peace is still 2 Rp's ahead, and growing.

4) The Netherlands was a pushover. I'm not exactly sure why, but I was beating them pretty soundly in the battles I fought with them. Loading up as them, I figured out why: They've been researching only in the Cultural and Industrial branches of the tech tree. The knowledge that I'm more advanced than a relatively important European gives me the warm and fuzzies.

5) Sreenshots. I was much to stringent with taking screenshots in this last update, which is why a lot of things were only hinted at or explained through text. If anyone has suggestions/advice on what makes for good screenshot material, I'd be grateful.

6) Paradox's login system hates me. Nothing much more to add to that.

Well, that's all the words I have in me. I'm hoping to update again tomorrow, but don't keep me to that. If I don't, then updates may become more sporadic, as that's when my break ends.

USCA Peace: 1850-1860

Forenote: Nothing really exciting happens in Peace this round. So I decided to watch TV instead of watching the game. And, while I would normally try to spice things up by talking about wars and such things around the world, nothing very interesting happened in it either. So, before I hurt my already minuscule readership any further, here's the game.


Remember all that RP that we saved for Biologism? Well, we had enough to halve the research time. Sadly, it'll still take two years. At least we should get Darwinism soon after, which will really kick start our literacy.



We also switch our national focus from Guatemala to Honduras, and from clergymen to craftsmen. We did this for two reasons: 4% clergymen in Guatemala, and Honduras has more overall people.




Meanwhile, our literacy rate and budget surplus continue to rise, while the reload seems to have rebooted our dwindling immigration stream, causing it to go back to the thousand-two thousand range. Thank god that it did, because immigration turns out to be our only source of growth for the next five or so years. What every single Central American saw that shut off their sex drive remains a mystery.

Interestingly, the immigrants seem to favor provinces that border the Atlantic ocean. While this makes sense real-world wise, I'm surprised that something as minute as that is detailed. Could just be a coincidence, though.

As 1851 comes around, we're locked in a desperate struggle with the Ottomans over the eight GP spot. They manage to keep us out of it for two years, mainly because they have double our prestige.



On Dec. 1st we get a nice case of the Christmas tuberculosis. Thankfully, it was in our least populated region, so it barely affects our overall population.

Finally, on June 1st 1852, we catch up to War, and we become a great power! We begin by influencing Japan, whom I've decided is the poor man's China.


Biologism finishes, and we switch to Basic Chemistry while we wait with bated breath for Darwinism to be invented.

In the latter half of 1852, the UK annexes Panjab (Who had chucks bitten off by Afghanistan and China), and Brazil annexes Paraguay. Our budget also goes temporarily bipolar, with it wildly fluxuating in a range of -100 to +30 every day until shortly after 1853 comes. I'm not entirely sure why this happened (I didn't make any changes to the sliders), so I'll just have to blame our local wizards.

We finish Basic Chemistry sometime in early 1843, and we continue on the branch by starting Medicine. We also steal Denmark's seventh rank spot, which sends them into a spiraling depression that sees the eighth place switch between them, the Ottomans, and the Netherlands.

On August 22, 1854, we sphere Japan, and we are immediately beset by Russia and their attempts to influence them. We begin to influence Korea on the side, which barely gives us enough influence to keep Russia at bay. Thankfully, ban can be applied liberally, much like a bludgeon to the head, and it reduces the micro that usually accompanies the sphere game. Furthermore, Japan gives us a nice income boost that ends the deficit problems that we were having due to an unfortunate reload in the middle of the game.

We finish Medicine, and we switch over to Ideological thought for the delicious plurality boosting techs. What do Army Hospitals do in regards to the Medicine tech inventions? Does it reduce attrition and in battle death?

The UK goes crazy with special events, activating all three of these in a single day. Meanwhile, Prussia and her tiny little buddies fight against France, who's eager to grab more of Western Prussia. France also annexes Madagascar through their special event. The game shudders a bit as they all mobilize, and, even after the war, the game begins to slow down. I don't know why its creeping up earlier than normal, but I plan on toughing it out, if not just for the sake of SCIENCE!
(France also annexes Madagascar through their special event)

We finish Ideological Thought on Nov. 7th, 1856, and we switch to Mechanical mining, though, in retrospect, its largely useless for an agriculture based country. We finish it shortly thereafter, on Sep. 5th 1857. We decline to researching anything further, choosing to instead save up RP for Empiricism (Which ends well, as we easily gather enough to finish it before January lets out).


Finally, on Oct. 7th, 1859, we get Darwinism. Seven years after we got biologism. However, the urge to smash my computer quickly fades after I see the boost it gave to our literacy gain: A whole .04%! To put that in perspective, that's a 1% boost every 8.3 months, or a whole 10% in just seven years! This means, assuming that our gain doesn't get even larger (which I expect it will), everyone will be able to read before 1910. Suck on that, Germany!



And, as 1859 fades into the twilight, the Netherlands and Belgium finish their second war (First one saw NE get curbstomped by a France-Uk alliance), which sees the Francophones in Belgium get reincorporated into NE.

Then: 1860.

Proposals and a sigh of relief

Phew! Writing this post up took a surprisingly long time, so I think I'm going to put off writing the War post until tomorrow. However, to tide all you readers over, I'm going to put some proposals forward, and see what you guys think about them.

1) Literacy and Rp: Before and after. It's what the title says. At the top of a post, I would post the Rp and Literacy percentage that I had at the start of the decade, and at the end I would post what I had at the end. This could also be done in a double comparison at the bottom of the War post, showing the before and after of both the Peace and War games side by side.

2) More/Less detail. The detail in this Peace post (exact dates) and possibly when and which inventions pop. I'm not sure whether to do this or not, though I think this is really whether or not you want the nitty gritty or the broad picture.

3) End of the game megachart comparison. Basically, instead of posting my industry and population every decade for both War and Peace, I'll post all of them from all decades in a giant post in the end. I'll also (try to) merge War and Peace posts from the same decade into one connected image, to max out your compARRisons.


Thoughts and Feelings

Does anyone have any thoughts or criticisms on my writing style? It just feels wrong/odd for some reason that I can't put my finger on. Besides, I'm always looking to improve my writing skills.

Also, belated props to all AAR writers out there. Before (trying to) write this AAR, I never fully grasped the effort that it takes to write one, nor did I grasp the mindset you had to get into for it. Telling a story or sticking to a goal instead of rampaging across the world takes some real self control. At least for me.

Anyways, I have War played, its notes taken, and screenshots stored in the right folder. I just need to crop/resize some images, and actually write the post. So expect it tomorrow!

Late responses:

Selzro said:

Very interesting. I think the main lesson from this is that the prestige earned from war early in the game can be a significant factor in becoming a GP fast, which brings subsequent advantages.

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Well, it certainly doesn't hurt. You just have to remember that you can't get all of your prestige from wars alone. That's what we have trade fairs for, even if those come a bit late

Kaltorak said:

An interesting concept that I will keep an eye on. I guess the land you take in the war game will be the biggest factor. Although maybe the research advantage will be telling. Will be nice to see which route will perform better.

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Well, (slight spoiler) the gap becomes much more noticeable in 1860. The lack of clergymen NF and education techs has caused my War game to stagnate, so that it's basically at the same literacy/rp it was in 1850. You can see the difference it's made in peace, though, with RP going up six points, and literacy going up 10%. Education is definitely not a short-term investment, but it can be a real killer to ignore it altogether.