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Thanks, it's much appreciated!
Quick update re: this AAR; I have 20 screenshots for Chapter 11 already, so I'll break Chapter 12 into two parts; one before the 50 year update, and one after. I think that's the best solution overall.
subing you will easy become a great power just got to wait a while for your boom time
Thanks for the kind words; welcome aboard! I hope I can live up to everybody's expectations!
I'm working on the next update now; it will have two tutorials, so it'll take a while.
Chapter 11: Healthcare reform [insert political joke and/or rant here]
August 12, 1882: We open this chapter with a rebellion of Jacobins!
In 1.3, Rebellions are almost always a joke for Human players; this one is a sole brigade and is dispatched rapidly.
September 15, 1882: Damnable Spain! It just attacked Abu Dhabi.
Arabia is one of the few places I can expand without worrying much about GP interference, so this is very irritating.October 1, 1882: Paternalism -- +5% to Morale (or ORG regain rate).
November 8, 1882: We finish up State and Government; Nationalism and Imperialism comes next.
December 1, 1882: Constitutionalism is invented; +5.00% to plurality!
December 6, 1882: Maybe this Expedition will go better, without the hated Hamburgers interfering!
December 20, 1882: Listless Unemployed fires; to be honest, I forget which option I picked, but they're all localized to Ukrainian Budjak, so it's not a big deal no matter what.
January 1, 1883: We have a new upper house!
We've broken the 50% threshold again... but for Social Reforms! So that means a new tutorial!
Social Reforms
In one sense, Social Reforms are very similar to Political Reforms, in that 50% of the upper house must agree for you to pass them. However, unlike Political Reforms, there's always a cost to them either directly or indirectly. Not all of them are desirable either; we'll go through each category one by one.
Social Reforms are always supported 100% by Socialists, Communists, and Fascists (if Fascists are the ruling party). Liberals will, with no militancy, add votes at 50% of Liberal Party support. Each increase in MIL by +1 makes 5% more of them support reform. Conservatives won't support reform at all, unless there's MIL (each +1 is 10% more for them). Anarcho-Liberals, Reactionaries, and out-of-power Fascists will never support Social Reform.
The current tabulation is 36.04% unequivocally for (Socialists and Communists), with about 15% of Liberals also voting for Social reforms; this gets us over the 50%.
Here are the reforms. All reforms increase immigrant attraction by .01 per step; unless specified otherwise, the cost of Social Reforms is reflect in increased administrative spending and increased need for bureaucrats; an additional .1% of your population must be bureaucrats for each social reform to get maximum administrative efficiency.
Minimum Wage
No Minimum Wage: Pretty self-explanatory.
Trinket Minimum Wage: Creates a minimum wage of ".2", whatever that means. It could be 20% of profits have to go to the workers, or a minimum wage of .2 pounds a day; I've searched everywhere I can and can't find any specific numbers.
Low Minimum Wage: Minimum wage is now ".4."
Acceptable Minimum Wage: Now it's ".6."
Good Minimum Wage: Finally, we get up to ".8" for minimum wage.
Minimum wage can help your POPs buy goods they need; it can also cripple industries that don't make enough profit. I prefer to avoid this, in most cases, unless your POPs are really mad and won't rest without this reform.
Max. Work hours
Each step in this decreases factory throughput, across the board, in 5% increments. It also reduces the needs of Poor and Middle POPs by 5%, again across the board.
This is almost uniformly bad. There are better ways to reduce POP needs that actually don't kill your factory output. My POPs better be rioting in the streets before I'll touch this one.
Safety Regulations
This reform adds to maintenance costs for all factories, +25% per step, while reducing needs for all POPs by 5%. Maintenance costs are always cheaper than minimum wage, and if you can't pay maintenance, your factory doesn't shut down; it's just less profitable.
Since it's an across-the-board improvement in POP needs, I usually consider this one. It's not the best Social Reform, but it is desirable, and it's less destructive than a shorter work day. A shorter work day guarantees less profit; better safety means that your factories might be less profitable.
Unemployment subsidies
If a worker loses his job because the factory goes bankrupt (or you just have too many craftsmen), they get a percentage of their salary, paid through your Social Spending slider. It starts at 25% of the last daily salary they had, up to 100%. It's a mild social reform, but usually popular, and you still get the immigrant attraction bonus. If you have no unemployment, you still get the benefit, but with no cost, which is nice.
Pensions
This applies to every single POP in the game; using the Social Spending slider, you pay a fixed amount to each and every POP; starts at .05 (5% of the POP's daily wage or just .05 pounds, I'm not sure), goes up .05 per step.
I'm lukewarm on this one. It is quite an expense, if you think about, since Vicky 2 models each POP as including old people or disabled workers. You pay it directly through Social Spending; you could decrease Social Spending, but you'll make people mad. There are other reforms which are worse, but others are better.
Healthcare
The Holy Grail of Social Reforms. You get a boost of .05% to population growth per step. Every single POP in every single province will grow by a minimum of .05% per year, even with the lowest option. Pretty cool, eh? You'll need more bureaucrats, but it's worth it!
If I were to rank Social Reforms in terms of desirability, I'd rank them this way:
1. Healthcare
2. Unemployment subsidies
3. Safety regulations
4. Pensions
5. Minimum Wage
6. Shorter work day.
I'm pretty fixed in my top three. I would be willing to swap Pensions and Minimum Wage, perhaps. Minimum wage won't affect your most profitable factories at all; minimum wage only applies to employed workers who aren't already making enough. However, bureaucrats can be hard to come by if you don't have plenty of Literacy; at least you can pay pensions directly from your treasury. Shorter work day is the worst of the bunch.
Needless to say, I choose Trinket Health Care.
End tutorial, back to the action!
January 14, 1883: The Nationalists win the election. No shock there. We switch back to the Liberal Faction; my factories are well established enough that I want to see how they do without any subsidies.
January 18, 1883: I now have 25% import subsidies; that ought to help get folks what they need. Still making a nice profit too.
February 11, 1883: I briefly considered war with Siam; then I saw they were in the British sphere. Uh, thanks but no thanks. I finally remember Aceh; they are allied to Siam, but uncivs almost never honor alliances. I've got too much infamy for now, but it would cure my tea, tobacco, and coffee needs.
March 20, 1883: Our botanical expedition reports back; we will always support our scientists!
May 28, 1883: The USA is friendly towards Ukraine now. Great! Would somebody please add us to their sphere? I want Guards, dammit!
June 12, 1883: I give up on Guards, for now, and instead build an army for Ukraine proper; four infantry, two cavalry, one artillery.
September 1, 1883: Populism v. Establishment = +5% Political Reform desire. I want more political reforms, not social reforms!
October 1, 1883: And now we get Bureaucracy vs. Nepotism, which increases Social Reform Desire. That was fun.
January 1, 1884: A new upper house; about 2% shy of another Social Reform.
We also learn about Egalitarianism and Plurality gets another 5% boost.
January 15, 1884: Regional Trade fair, eh? Don't mind if I do!
February 27, 1884: The Trade Fair is a smashing success!
April 23, 1884: Four bankrupt factories now: the Artillery Factory in Rovne, the Steamer Shipyard in Cherson, the Paper Mill in Kiev, and the Artillery Factory in Ukrainian West Galicia. I imagine there's a decent chance that the artillery factories could re-open, but the others might be doomed.
May 13, 1884: Know who else is doomed? Atjeh!
May 16, 1884: Just as I predicted, Siam does nothing.
May 22, 1884: I can't say the same about my military stockpile, which goes through the roof. I'll just eat the daily hit for now.
September 2, 1884: We finish Nationalism and Imperialism! Steel Steamers is next.
It's also time for our second tutorial: Colonization! (Don't worry, it's a short one.)
Colonization
There are three requirements to colonize an empty province.
1) You must have the technology with the appropriate Life Rating. Every province in the game has one; the vast majority are 15, which means you'll need medicine, machine guns, and nationalism and imperialism to colonize them.
2) You must be a Secondary or Great Power.
3) You must be within naval range of the province to be colonized; more advanced naval bases provide more range.
Ukraine is #16 in the world and we have all three Life Rating techs, so we can start at any time. How do we do it? We have to change a national focus. Pyongyang is almost hopeless as far as becoming a state; we change an NF to Muraleve, just south of Brunei.
It increases by roughly .10% a month; troops don't increase colonization speed, unlike in 1.2, so keep that in mind. I think some techs do, but I'm not positive.
After enough time passes (you can check the province to get a rough date of when it will finish), you'll have yourself a brand new colonial region! It's about getting there first; once you start colonizing, nothing will stop the process unless you remove the NF. Even if you lose secondary status, you'll continue to colonize until it's done.
End of tutorials for this update!
October 14, 1884: We increase tariffs to 41% so we don't go bankrupt.
December 14, 1884: Stupid Spain finally finished annexing Abu Dhabi. We do get an event, however.
I'll take the prestige, thank you!
January 1, 1885: A new upper house, and better health care for Ukrainians everywhere!
February 1, 1885: We get National Fraternity, which increases plurality by 5% and decreases war exhaustion by the same amount.
March 1, 1885: Determinism and Meritocracy vs. Aristocracy both fire; 10% more plurality!
May 7, 1885: More big game hunting.
July 1, 1885: Hierarchical order; that's +.01 to CON but -.01 to MIL in all non-colonial territories.
July 18, 1885: At the battle of the Straits of Malacca, the Atjeh fleet drops from 5 ships to 1; there are no losses for Ukraine's Indian Ocean Fleet.
August 6, 1885: However, they cleverly sneak a brigade to Sharm al-Shaykh. I sent the Home Guard to destroy them.
August 21, 1885: We're friendly towards China again.
October 8, 1885: The invasion of Egypt is thwarted; the Home Guard stays in Egypt for now just in case Atjeh tries again.
November 1, 1885: Secularization -- +5% to plurality.
November 24, 1885: Woo hoo! We strike Oil in Brunei! One of the reasons I wanted Abu Dhabi is because sometimes they get oil; thankfully I don't have to worry about that.
January 1, 1886: A new upper house.
We're now up to Acceptable Health Care.
February 1, 1886: We get one good invention -- Biased Multiculturalism, good for +5% to colonial migration (that's basically Colonial POP growth, not faster colonization) -- and one bad invention -- Separatism, which radically increases the frequency and power of Nationalist rebellions.
April 8, 1886: The last ship from Atjeh goes to the bottom of the ocean.
April 24, 1886: We finish Steel Steamers; I go with Cheap Steel next, since I want even more gold.
September 6, 1886: It turns out Atjeh had three more Frigates; now they have three less.
October 1, 1886: Social Justice; more plurality!
January 1, 1887: A new upper house, more health care reforms. Same ol', same ol'.
January 14, 1887: Atjeh falls and is annexed! It's also time for new elections, and the end of this update.
I'm going to update this twice this weekend; once for part one of Chapter 12, once for the 50 year update.
You got a socialist take over if they reach 50% ?
Not in a million years! I'd probably have a heart attack when/if I get HM's government and the Socialists win. My dream RP would be the Anarcho-Liberals; Free Trade and Pro Military instead of Protectionism and Pacifism (although the whole 50% cost to armies at peace is tempting...)
That was quite forutnate of striking oil. May we see the extent of your asian holdings?
Ukrainians must be the healthiest people in the world by now.
Woot, black gold!
Well, they would be if I had enough bureaucrats! I get the full benefit even without the bureaucrats, though, so that's one piece of good news.
Indeed you shall, in the fifty year update.
It also means that I can build fuel refineries (soon); my navy will need precious fuel. Ukrainian dreadnaughts FTW!
I should have the 50 year update done this evening -- I will include maps of all Ukrainian holdings!
Great stuff -- I went through it all in the past couple of days. Lots of great tips in here. Thanks!
Thanks for commenting, and welcome aboard! More should be forthcoming soon.
UPDATE: I kind of messed up the timing -- part 1 of Chapter 12 will come first (it's a little less than a month), then we'll get the State of the Nation for Ukraine; I'll try to do them both this evening!
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Chapter 12, Part I: A new and improved navy
March 6, 1887: We discover Mission to Civilize -- +10% to colonial prestige and +20% to diplomatic points. The later refers to how quickly you regain diplomatic points; the maximum is still 9.
I haven't talked much about diplomacy to this point, because it simply hasn't been a big part of my strategy, but we'll go ahead and do a short tutorial on it now.
Diplomacy
I am referring to non-GP diplomacy; when Ukraine becomes a Great Power (trying to think positive here!), we'll get into influence and all of that.
You are given a maximum of 9 diplomatic points to use on various actions; the action that costs no points is Calling an Ally into a war.
The core of diplomacy in Vicky 2, as in all PI games (that I've played thus far) is the system of relations. You have a sliding scale of anywhere between +200 and -200. "Good" relations are defined as relations over +100; you can declare war with a lower infamy penalty if your relations are worse than good. This hasn't applied to Ukraine thus far, but it's a handy thing to know.
The relevant actions are as follows. All of these actions are 1 DP, except Call Ally and Increase Relations -- Call Ally, as mentioned before, is free, and Increase Relations is 2 DPs.
Form Alliance: An agreement between two countries that ensures if one partner is attacked, the other can intervene. Keep in mind, you may get called into some wars and not others; likewise, you can choose to call or not call allies. If you dishonor a call, you'll take a prestige hit (I believe it's fixed at 25 prestige) and other countries may be uneasy about allying with you.
You will have free access to your allies' territories; you can repair your ships in their naval bases as well. There is no fog of war over allied countries either; this can provide you with useful intelligence.
Call Ally: If you start a war and do not immediately call your ally, you can use this to call them later. If another country declares war on you, your allies are automatically called; they may choose whether or not to respond as they see fit. (For example, Russia honored my call to intervene in Korea, but did not honor the automatically call to arms when the Ottoman Empire attacked me.)
Military Access: You gain access for your armies and ships to allied territory. You don't get the fog of war lift. You can declare war on a country you have military access with, but you will take a penalty to prestige, infamy, and militancy, even if you have a legitimate CB. It's better to break the agreement first.
Give Military Access: You grant military access to another country; if you want both powers to have access to one another, you must either sign an alliance or do both agreements separately. The same rules apply regarding penalties; these do apply to AI countries too, so it could (but not always) act as a deterrent. The only way to be sure another country won't attack you is to have an alliance.
Increase Relations: Increases relations with another country by 15.
Decrease Relations: Decreases relations with another country by 25. Some decisions require you to be under a certain relation level; you may also want to be under "good" relations (+100 or above) to declare war on another country.
War Subsidies: Want to help another country without declaring war? You can send them cash, each day, direct from your treasury. You can cancel these, but you may take a relations hit.
Declare War: Self explanatory.
After you perform a diplomatic action, you can't influence the other country again for a short time; it's usually only a couple of days (telegraphs, probably), so it's not as bad as it could be in EU 3 from time to time. You'll regain diplomatic points at a fixed rate, determined by technology and your status (Unciv, Civ, Secondary Power, GP).
That's all for diplomacy; it's pretty simple and straightforward for the non-GP.
April 4, 1887: We get pre-dreadnaughts; Ironclads get +1 to attack, hull, and KPH. A nice little invention. With the war over, we go back to -15% import subsidies instead of tariffs.
April 24, 1887: For State Press only, we sure do let a lot of stories slip; maybe I need to fire some censors.
July 14, 1887: The election is finished, and weirdly enough, we have non-RP results!
I have no idea why there's actual plurality now; I haven't changed any political reforms, social reforms normally don't affect elections. First Past the Post usually results in two or three parties; maybe it's a weird bug.
August 8, 1887: I really must fire my censors. They clearly don't do their job.
August 13, 1887: Yuck, a flu pandemic. The other option makes the flu last for 18 months instead of a year, for no money. What good is all this health care?
August 15, 1887: We establish a penal colony. Basically, it's a one time bonus to MIL or one over time, plus some extra prestige; I'll take the prestige, thanks.
October 1, 1887: We discovered Protected Cruisers, which allow us to build cruisers. Why am I excited?
That's why. There's only one downside -- which I totally forgot about until after I disbanded some Commerce Raiders
-- you need fuel. You need Inorganic Chemistry to build Fuel Refineries; that will have to be a priority, if I remember, which I probably won't.November 10, 1887: I finished Cheap Steel. Guess who forgot to go with Inorganic Chemistry?
Administrative efficiency is important for several reasons. First, you'll get a boost to bureaucrat effectiveness when fighting crime. Second, you'll get better gains from Tariffs. Third, you'll usually get neat inventions, like these, which will also help taxes. Commerce techs are usually only profitable (except Freedom of Trade) and worthwhile if you have nothing else to research; to be honest, I have no idea why I chose it here. Oh well.
December 29, 1887: We finish colonizing Muraleve, the region south of Ukrainian Brunei. We move on to Somaliland; it's not that useful, but once I have it, I'll build naval bases, and that will help me colonize the rest of Africa.
January 1, 1888: We get a new upper house!
We pass the first level of Safety Regulations; in hindsight, Unemployment Insurance would have been a good move also, but I'm always a big fan of Safety Regulations; I like reducing needs, because it means more for me (the government).
January 15, 1888: We add a few infantry units; four to be exact; and they form the 3rd Army of Asia.
That's it for this mini-update; I'll have the State of the Nation tomorrow, then I need to actually play some more before I can give you anything else
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Indeed.
I have to do a little actual work this morning -- lots of papers to grade -- but after that you'll get the fifty year update.
Actually, you can cancel subsidies. I did in one game and I don't recall if I took any hit because of it in my relationship rating.
Good to know; I never tried it, so I wasn't sure. I've updated my post to reflect that!
Awesome.
I have to say, this AAR has been the one to really teach me many of the finer points of this game. I was overwhelmed for a week or two, but refused to say "enough!" Glad I found the forums and this AAR. Thanks!
I have to say, this AAR has been the one to really teach me many of the finer points of this game. I was overwhelmed for a week or two, but refused to say "enough!" Glad I found the forums and this AAR. Thanks!
The State of the Nation: Ukraine after 50+ years
We'll have one more of these at the end of the game; if there's any other info/pics you want, let me know and I'll add it (I've got two spots open for screen shots as of now).
We'll start with the ribbon at the top.
As you can see, our five leading goods are Coal, Wheat, Fabric, Fish, and Fruit. No huge surprises there. The budget is balanced and we have a healthy surplus in the bank. I'm especially proud of the literacy; from 10% to nearly 60% in a little more than 50 years -- we're also getting really good RPs thanks to our plurality. Everything else is pretty self explanatory.
Here's Ukraine and Ukrainian Egypt -- it's kind of hard (for me, anyway) to distinguish the OE and Ukraine, so I've drawn (badly) a border between the OE and Ukraine in Egypt.
Here's our holdings in Asia, with Korea circled.
Getting a little more in depth, here's all the factories in Ukraine.
I'm surprised Small Arms factories are doing so well; usually they're bankrupted pretty quickly. Wine and Liquor are by far the most productive factories.
Here's what Ukraine is producing as a whole!
We have three Artisan-only goods; Fertilizer (wouldn't want to be that Artisan), Regular Clothes, and Regular Furniture. These all tend to be pretty unprofitable, so I'm okay with this -- I might consider Furniture if I had more timber (and a lumber mill).
Here's Ukraine's budget.
Here's the politics of Ukraine.
That voter pie is awfully red -- makes me somewhat nervous about eventually going HM's government. If we expand the franchise, though, the people are very conservative; that's normal, since farmers and laborers tend to be, unless there's a lot of MIL. It's sorted by Voter Issue; look how important Pro-Military is! They'll get a 14 hr work day over my dead body, the lazy bastards. I really want that decision, but I need a Military Score over 100 -- that will take a long time.
Here's Ukraine's population at a glance.
Ukraine is just under half farmers. We've got a nice cornucopia of religions (that's one of my favorite words) and cultures. The people are really into Jingoism -- that means, with universal voting, I'd get a lot of votes for the Nationalists. The electorate is voting liberal, but that's with the huge bonuses to ruling party support; I bet that would vanish with a freer electoral system. The POPs are sorted by size; it's kind of sad my biggest POP isn't even Ukrainian. Check out those super literate farmers in Kiev, though!
Here's the world market -- I've got luxury clothes highlighted.
I've got my eye on Fuel in particular; not only do I need it for my fleet, but it would be really profitable. I need Inorganic Chemistry ASAP.
Here's the world's opinion of Ukraine -- you also get a list of GPs here.
Everybody is Discrediting everybody else -- I knew this would happen.
Still, six friendly GPs. This means that any of these GPs could intervene in a war against me, if I had no war goals. They don't have to, but they could.Here are the wars of the world, including Ukraine's infamy.
I'm getting really ticked at Spain -- they need to stay out of Arabia. I might have to do something about it at some point -- wouldn't the Philippines make a lovely addition to Ukraine?
Here's Ukraine's army and navy -- you can also see how kind technology has been to us.
We have 0% supply consumption because 1) we're at peace and 2) we're pacifists. That doesn't mean we still don't add stuff to the National Stockpile. You can see my stalled Cruisers and the Guard unit I refuse to give up on.
We'll wrap this up with some pages from the ledger that show Ukraine's place in the world.
First, the national comparison (ranked by total score).
At some point, apparently, Japan westernized. I didn't catch it, or I would have mentioned it. However, look at my total score -- I'd need to quadruple to be a GP, and that's assuming no movement from the OE. That's an awfully big gap. No big surprises in the order of the GPs -- France always seems to top the UK in my games.
The population of the world, with Ukraine in yellow.
Now, this is the number that pensions is based on; the 5 million or so Ukrainians in the ribbon are those that compose the POPs -- i.e. can work. Not sure why there's such a big gap -- I guess there's a lot of disabled or lazy Ukrainians.
Ukrainian provinces, sorted by population.
If you're wondering why so many provinces have zero literacy, it's because the game doesn't count Colonies in the literacy calculation. Jingoism, Full Citizenship, and Weighted Wealth voting seem to dominate the minds of the people of Ukraine; note how overwhelmingly conservative the biggest provinces tend to be.
Here are the provinces, sorted by RGO production.
If the numbers look skewed toward colonies, that's because they are -- remember, no factories means most of the population is farmers/or laborers.
Here are the factories in Ukraine.
If this looks like the same numbers as the earlier factory screen, it's because they are. It's just in a handy table instead of a picture. In retrospect, I'll either sort this one by output next time or just not include it.
We'll close this update with a map of the world!
If Ukraine moves fast, we could get a big chunk of Africa -- that's probably my most realistic way of gaining territory.
This will be the last update for a while -- I need to play ahead some more to get material for future updates. Probably next week or so will be the next update.