Chapter Thirty Eight: The End
Vaya con Queso Read on
Dewirix You were right on Uruguay, but I think I've learned my lesson. On Krakow, if only it was the culture!
morningSIDEr Stealing my political map color is a definite CB in my book, even being annoyingly like my political map color should be enough. As for Krakow, I've learned one thing for sure: life is not fair!
Previously on "Last Tango" - we added more to Poland, creating a monster not seen since Poland-Lithuania I suspect. I planned one or possibly two more wars, little did I realize where they would be, or why.
It's entirely fitting that this AAR should all end with a screwup! Though I'm not sure if it was me. As the Final Countdown begins, we see that Argentina has a pretty clean hold on Rank 2, though the UK is well ahead.
Our infamy is 112, so adding BadBoy is not a concern. We also have some cleaning up to do after the last war.
And yes, as I feared in the last Chapter, I did strand an army in Bavaria and he's not coming home. Ever. I did a mini-experiment on splitting armies up, and I still suspect, but do not know, that it helps them to fill faster. In June 1933 Poland DoWs Krakow with annexation as a goal, and there was much rejoicing. Events will prove that this was not my fault. A few days later, Austria DoWs Germany. It's as though Argentina's warmongering made the rest of the world take 20 years off, and now that the game is winding down they want to take up where 1910 should have put them.
Argentina, proud pappa, watches Poland wipe out Krakow. In July, getting into the world's mood, we DoW one-state Bolivia with annexation as the goal.
Poland annexes Krakow.
On the same day, Russia intervenes.
Now, Russia is trying to "preserve" the status quo by giving Krakow
ALL of West Galicia, not just Krakow. I get why the game deals in states, not provinces, but it would be nice if the aggressive nature of this was acknowledged. Also, Poland is not technically preserving the status quo even though Poland now has no wargoal, other than keeping what she stole fair and square. This remains the war to annex Krakow, so the short answer is that Argentina has no ability to intervene.
Oh-kay. I'll DoW Russia to humiliate or steal a state, or a colony. I cannot. "Declare War" is greyed out. I have no ability to fight Russia.
My men rush to the front, fire bullets at the Rooskies as they overrun Poland (my recovering armies are in the middle of every battle), and the bullets freeze in place and then fall as though every Russian soldier is "The One". I swear I hear the Russians say "whoa" in that amazing deadpan which is a cross between Lawrence Olivier and a wet dog. Like me right when I wake up. Apparently, to these stuffed cuckoos, we don't actually exist. Most of them wouldn't be recognized by their own mothers. So we settle in to eliminate Krakow if and when Poland has to give her up. Some things are hard to explain [see Avindian's post below and the tooltip - I had troops in Russia! That's all it was].
Oh, yeah, trust me when I say that Poland lost a war to Russia!
We work on factory output techs, figuring this will affect the scoring in a way that most other research could not in the little time we have left. I call Poland to help with the Bolivian war, thinking perhaps some weirdness will let me into the Russian war which Poland is rapidly losing. Maybe Poland refuses the call and I re-form the alliance(?), or something [Poland was the aggressor, so cannot call us because we have a truce with Russia until November 1935].
Of course, Poland nominally joins the Bolivian war with no actual effect. In February 1934, we annex Bolivia.
Nice look at northern South America, too. In November 1934, with Poland around -55 in her war with Russia, we DoWed Sweden, hoping Russia would protect her ally and sphereling, allowing us to kill all her soldiers in Poland.
No luck, of course. We've scared off bigger fish than Russia. Still, when you begin to invade Sweden, invade Sweden.
January of the final year sees a massive uprising of Jacobins. Since I invaded Sweden with nearly all my Argentine troops (supplemented with Belgians), this was something of a mess. In March, Poland is at -75 and Sweden won't admit being humiliated, and I face the fact that the game is ending. I decide to acquire Vestlandet. If I can't help Poland, I'll help myself. On April 10, 1935, Russia frees newly enlarged Krakow from Poland. We shout "not for long!" Yes for long. Apparently for ever! I do not have the ability to DoW Krakow. The War tab says I have a truce with Krakow, which come to think of it I probably do, from the last war. Well, I've broken lots of truces before, why is this one enforceable? [Again, I had troops in the territory!]
I said earlier in this AAR that Krokow annoys me, well, now I know what real annoyance is. I used to kill Kizdean Gix in EQ all the time, just because I could. I think every V2 game should end with me annexing Krakow.
In July, Sweden grants me the state I demanded. Poland and I hug as the world comes to an end. Well, I assume there's an explanation for why I could not DoW Russia, and one for not being able to DoW Krakow [ed - to annoy you; me - I knew it!]. Don't blame me [well ...], the ending was written by George Lucas: "NOOOOOO!!!!!!" So let's review the world, shall we? I have 14 screenshots left.
I could have finished #1 overall if I'd taken a chunk out of the UK, or gone on a WC spree [ed - or if you'd played better]. Meh. Finishing #2 as Argentina is fine by me. Poland was #15, and the NGF was only a couple spots ahead! On the other hand, I think I ruined WW2. Maybe Krakow will expand it's shadowy invincible borders across all of Middle Europe.
Fourth in the World in population, almost 1/3 more than Russia. Third in Brigades. Argentina certainly finished with a great many people. With 8.15m soldier Pops we had more than China at 7.84, though Sauron had 27m. Jerk.
China must have had massive unemployment. The key to victory is Industry score, and the key to industry score is Craftsmen, so finishing third, and not so far behind the UK, is pretty good. We had a dozen factories making 9k a day, and the bottom of the first page was +7600.
We've seen this map before, but our critical soldier Pops reside in Africa, making it the key to success in this game.
We own four bits of Europe. Southwest Russia, Serbia, Belgium and bits of Norway/Sweden. That Italian bit is Tuscany, not Argentina. Jerks.
Those are all of our states/colonies. I never even tried to convert any, and did not remember to check after around 1915 or so. I had zero Platineans when I did last check, and after a while I needed Soldiers enough that I didn't mind factories where I had them and recruits elsewhere. In a different game I'd like to solve that problem [I was wrong about needing some native Buros to start from! I could have just recruited Platinean Buros from 0. It takes a couple years, but it works].
We had all Army techs for quite some time, and only Advanced Metallurgy and Electric Furnace missing from Industry. I ended up with the vast majority of Navy techs as well, though I got too little use of them.
Here's Commerce and Culture. On Commerce, as the game wore on I took some tax techs, and many factory techs figuring they'd help my Industry score. I took Aesthetics early in Culture for prestige, then abandoned the line.
Philosophy is the best line of any tech tree, and I took quite a bit of Culture to help, respectively, Literacy, Pluralism and Army Replacement Speed.
Argentina's Budget is an absurdity compared to what we started with.
Here's a selection of industries from two parts of the alphabet. I stopped building factories some time in '34, and while I would miss a few months here and there, I generally was building constantly from the moment I could, especially Barrels, Aeroplanes and Automobiles. The 1.6 million workers in Santaigo would be 1.85 million if I had the factories for them. I can't imagine playing China if the Pops promote to Craftsmen with any speed, you start late building any factories and you have massive populations. I should try it.
Here's our production screen.
And to give a sense of what that means, and at a serious risk of TMI, here are a good number of products.
I think the rest of the world's barrels are really just what my employees sneak out of the factory in their lunchboxes and sell on Ebay. Here is our political screen. We had to widen the right to vote to stave off Socialists, but it meant we never came close to getting the right set of policies, basically interventionism and a zero tax rate for the middle class.
Oh, and here's the World Map
If I did this again differently, I'd slow my pace down, probably something more like
Dewrix's Japan EU3-V2
Conversion AAR. Add commentary on the rest of the world. However, the risk of going slower is that you need to play now and then, at which point losing interest is a risk. Here, I played no other Vicky 2 games while Last Tango was going. I was able to put an update up every day for over a month and finish with one every three years on average. The world commentary would serve to make wars less central to the AAR. They're fun, but even something fun can turn repetitious if it's all you do. I have an idea for a CK2 AAR that I think would be very funny. One thing I learned which I gave the wrong impression in earlier chapters:
- You can recruit Bureaucrats just fine even if you have no population of the right kind, and turn a colony into a state. It might take a couple/few years, but it's easy. I remembered from before 1.3, apparently. I could have easily been Rank #1 if I'd swapped a couple NFs, or all five, to making states.
I enjoyed writing the AAR, I already miss not having something to work on now, though it still might be a bit before the next one. And it will be an update or two a week, not one a day. I think I learned a good deal about how to do a better one someday. I did learn a fair amount about Vicky 2 as well, especially that doing better means taking the time to do all of the little things which add up to success. This was a very important lesson, which I intend to go on ignoring.
For the curious - my next card was the Four of Diamonds, Sindh, and I played nearly half a century in one sitting, mostly because it took me 45 years to get the MIL score to civilize. I stupidly wasted 20BB on a crappy neighbor, where have I seen that before? I had to fight off Portugal (one risky downside of taking Zulu), then an alliance of Portugal, Holland and France, then France twice (France owned Makran and bits of Persia). Fortunately, the AI doesn't take colonial wars all that seriously and I beat the local forces - or lost slowly enough to WP out - every time. Then the UK beat France to sphering me, I took Dai Nam, and I geared up to fight China ~1910. I DoWed when the UK had her own war with China going. Then every major intervened! I won't make GP, I'm only Rank 14 and it's nearly 1920. Well, quick and fun beats hard work and more successful. My next Sindh will be better.
I want to play Ireland soon. I hope the cards are kind to me.
One final note - thanks to all who read this, and especially to all those who commented! It's good to see the number of views going up, but it was great to get all the positive feedback.