Kalmar Ascendant (Sweden, PDM 4.5.2)

[etranger01]

Kalmar Ascendant - From Sweden to Scandinavia

A POP Demand Mod After Action Report (version 4.5.2)

Author's Foreword
This will mark my first foray into the wild unexplored wilderness that is 'writing an AAR'; I follow plenty of them, but I have yet to contribute to the field at all until now. I confess, I'm not what you'd call "great" at Victoria 2; there are plenty of game mechanics that I understand functionally, but advanced game theory is way beyond me. So if I make strategic or tactical mistakes, well, that's why. Comments, feedback, and criticism (tempered by a little patience) are all appreciated. This will be a major learning experience for me, after all.

I'll be writing in a pretty bare-bones style from my perspective as a player, rather than inventing an entire cast of characters, for a few reasons. One, this is my first AAR. Two, what I know about Sweden and Swedish history come primarily from having read Stieg Larsson's books and watching Sesame Street as a kid. (That will be my first and only Swedish Chef joke.) In other words, I'm pretty much a dunce when it comes to Scandinavia. Rather than try to weave a rich and engaging tapestry using Swedish history, politics, and culture, I will instead focus on not screwing up too badly and angering the entire region.

General AAR Overview
In this AAR, I will be playing the Kingdom of Sweden, a large, populous, and mainly agrarian Northern European country that borders Norway, Denmark, and Finland. These four countries are 'Scandinavian' countries, named after the Scandinavian Peninsula on which they reside, with a shared history and culture that ties them together to this day. Historically, Sweden rode out the Victorian period without doing much of note outside its own borders, remaining neutral in international conflict and shunning large-scale industrialization until around 1870. As of 1836, Sweden leads a personal union with the Kingdom of Norway, granting that country domestic autonomy in exchange for subordinate status under the King of Sweden and the Swedish government until autonomy in 1910.

This sounds pretty boring to me as a player, so I'm taking a completely different tack. In this AAR, Sweden will instead leverage its sizable, highly literate population and its historical ties to the rest of Scandinavia to achieve greatness on the world stage through industrialization, imperialism, and innovation.

Industrialization: In 1836, Sweden has no factories, no craftsmen, and no capitalists -- in short, a completely agrarian economy. This is simply not acceptable for any country that wants to be a major international player, so rapid industrialization is my first priority. With factories, I can make industrial goods both for domestic use and for foreign consumption, which reduces costs all around and makes my life much easier. Industry is the wave of the future in Victoria 2, and I plan on riding it to victory.

Imperialism: This is the big one. Rather than be content with Sweden's current borders, I intend to reform the Kalmar Union under the Swedish crown as a prelude to full Scandinavian unification. Once Denmark, Finland, and Norway fly the flag of Scandinavia, I will modernize those countries and make Scandinavia into a true world power, with colonial interests in Africa and perhaps even in the West Indies. When able to do so, I will oppose foreign control of Scandinavian territory, which will undoubtedly put me into conflict with Prussia and Austria over Schleswig-Holstein, as well as Russia over Finland.

Innovation: Sweden has 80% literacy in 1836, which is frankly astounding. This gives the country a highly educated, politically aware populace and a major potential edge in technological research, which is crucial in the Victorian period. In time, I intend to match and even surpass Prussia as the pinnacle of scientific achievement.

Rules, Systems, and Other Technical Details
For this AAR, I'll be using version 4.5.2 of the POP Demand Mod (link here), which in turn uses the Friday the 13th version of the 1.4 beta patch. I am a huge fan of this mod and of Naselus and Rylock, its two major developers. While there are a lot of great Victoria II mods out there, I think PDM is simply the best and encourage everyone who wants more balance and more fun in their V2 games to give it a try. I'll try to illustrate a few of PDM's great features and some of the more interesting changes it's made to the world, as well as the neat events that fire.

I'm also using Armandeus' Map Font Mod (found here), Alexspeed's Dark Parchment Overlay and Lighter Fog of War (found here), CaptRobau's Social Pyramid Mod and Visible Country Borders Mod (found here and here), and EGaffney's Big Flag Frames (found here). These are all minor graphical tweaks that I use to make my game look a little shinier and more put-together, though I credit Armandeus in particular with finding a map font that I can actually read easily. (Note: I hadn't added either of CaptRobau's mods for the 1836-1839 gameplay, which is why the screenshots don't include them.)

The game difficulty is set to Normal with yearly autosaves. I won't be reloading unless the game crashes or I make a dumb mistake (clicking the wrong button); stupid mistakes (major tactical errors, starting land wars in Asia) will remain intact. I will be modding in a few new events to account for my alternate history, as well as clean-up events for if AI action leads to ridiculous borders or otherwise totally implausible situations. I will try to make the new events balanced, so that I'm not giving myself cores across all of Europe for a few pounds and a point of infamy, and attempt to keep them grounded in common sense.

Final Word
I think that's everything. The first update will go from January 1836 to January 1840, with further updates every five or ten in-game years, depending on how much content there is and how many screenshots I get. I hope you enjoy the AAR!

[etranger01]

Reserved for writer use.

[etranger01]

1836 Overview

The Kingdom of Sweden on the morning of January 1st, 1836:



The dark blue country is Sweden proper, while the light blue represents the subordinate Kingdom of Norway. Finland (white) and its puppet master Russia (dark green) lay to the east, while Denmark (maroon) and its satellite state of Schleswig-Holstein (pink) are south across the Oresund.

The goods currently produced by Sweden:



Swedish farmers are primarily growing grain and catching fish, while Swedish laborers produce iron, a small amount of coal and copper, and a great deal of timber. Artisans are responsible for the quantities of steel, fertilizer, gunpowder, canned goods, and dyes seen here, with marginal amounts of clipper ships and ammunition as well.

The Swedish budget:



The vast majority of Sweden's tax base lies with its lower-class citizens, who require little but produce much. Basically everything starts out at the 50% mark, as per normal; in this case it gives me a small budget surplus, but it'll need to be reworked.

The people of Sweden:



With an adult male population of 742K people, lower-class citizens (farmers, laborers, soldiers) make up a whopping ninety percent of Sweden's population. Middle-class artisans, bureaucrats, and clergymen make up an additional nine percent, leaving aristocrats to represent less than one percent of Sweden's people. As of 1836, Sweden has no capitalists, clerks, or craftsmen; slavery is abolished and will remain that way. There is a striking resemblance between Sweden's starting economy and one you'd find in, say, the late Renaissance.

Swedish technology:



Sweden is relatively advanced compared to most other Western countries, with a well-equipped army, a mediocre navy, standard commercial and cultural advancements, and a reasonable understanding of basic industry, though it lacks knowledge critical to building and maintaining a national rail network. I love railroads, so addressing this knowledge gap will be priority one.

Sweden's army and navy:



Militarily, Sweden is pretty second-rate, with a single 48,000-man army sitting in its capital (Stockholm) and seventeen ships in its navy, also in port at Stockholm. The army is mostly infantry, with some cavalry and a few units of artillery to back them up, while the navy is primarily comprised of big men of war (nine in total), with three clipper transports and five frigates to round it out. This, in combination with its military technology and leadership potential, keep it firmly in the ranks of the secondary powers, lacking modern doctrine for its army and steam-powered ships for its navy, much less the numbers to compensate for the deficiency.



Finally, the political outlook of Sweden at this time. The Swedish system of government is known in Victoria II as "HM's Government", which represents a constitutional monarchy with governmental power entrusted to elected officials on behalf of the monarch, who serves as head of state and retains influence over, but not direct control of, the elected government. This system has elections every four years. The conservative party currently in power gives me wide economic latitude (since I'm naturally much smarter and better-informed than any capitalist POP), has a mildly disturbing enthusiasm for all things military, and doesn't like foreigners very much. Its only major distinction from the reactionary party and its mighty 5% of the Upper House is that it's less intolerant of religious minorities... of which there are none in Sweden.

Gameplay (1836-1839)

All right, time for the fun stuff! Before I even unpause the game, I allocate my two national focuses to promoting craftsmen in Svealand and Gotaland (central and southern Sweden, respectively) as the first part of building up Swedish industry, set my scientists to researching Early Railroad (as previously mentioned), and rebalance the budget entirely. The tax burden for the poor goes up to 75% and the taxes on the rich go down to 25%, which gives me plenty of wiggle room to shift other sliders around and reduces irritation among the nobility, the only people with the vote in Sweden. I reduce my national stockpile to 25%, further expanding my budget surplus, and increase educational and administrative spending from 50% to 100%, encouraging further development of literacy and administrative efficiency. Finally, I disband the entire army and one of my men of war, along with all of the troop transports.

"Disband the army! Are you nuts?!" Well, no. I'm doing this to shake out the soldier POPs that were pre-allocated to the starting order of battle, but also to rebalance the unit spread; I don't like my starting OOB very much. I order up eight units of regular infantry, four units of standard artillery, and four units of cuiraissiers. PDM has very different cavalry selection, with cuiraissiers, hussars, and dragoons each offering their own unique tactical options. I tend to choose cuiraissiers for my standard army build because they don't have any penalties (or bonuses) on certain terrain and they have a pretty solid Recon score, which is exactly what I want cavalry to do. Once the land units have been finished and report for duty, I split them evenly into two armies of 24,000 men each, with one stationed in the middle of Svealand and the other in the middle of Gotaland, ready to respond in case of rebel uprising or invasion.

As for the navy: were I a larger, richer power, I might invest more heavily in ships of the line, but clipper convoys are expensive when you can't produce them domestically and frigates are relatively cheap to maintain, while I don't even need clipper transports given my current military objectives (not getting conquered). I order up another half-dozen frigates and split the navy evenly as well, with one squadron in the Oresund and the other in the Baltic. When my ships are ready to deploy, I'll organize the squadrons so that each one has four men of war and eight frigates.

With all that tedious detail settled, I unpause the game for all of five days, which gives the PDM economy time to shake out and deposit a large chunk of currency into every country's bank account, providing much-needed liquidity. While one hundred thousand pounds sterling seems like a lot of money, it's important to note that all monetary amounts and costs in PDM have been magnified by ten to increase granularity (I think). A few housekeeping events fire, the most notable of which is the Census, which provides modifiers based on my country's population.



As a nation with a population greater than one million people but fewer than three million people (barely), I gain a small bonus to my population growth and a small but painful penalty to my research points; even though my population is highly literate, they are not legion, and academic thought suffers without enough people to encourage it. When my overall population hits three million in early 1837, I lose the research penalty entirely but retain the population growth modifier.

Using my newfound cash reserves, I invest in one factory for each of my three states. Heavily-forested Norrland gets a lumber mill, which converts raw timber into processed lumber for use in other products. Svealand, with my only coal-producing province and its iron mines, starts construction on a steel factory, which will turn out the single-most important product for early industrial advancement. Finally, Gotaland and its grain farms get an industrial bakery, which converts grain into canned food. Not only will each of these factories produce necessary goods using inputs available domestically, they'll also encourage lower-class citizens to give up their current jobs and become craftsmen, hopefully fueling a cycle of factories needing workers who in turn need factories.

Since I still have plenty of cash left over and a comfortable budget surplus, I decide to invest in naval bases for all my coastal provinces (most of the provinces in Sweden), save for the three which currently have them. Early Railroad won't be finished for another two years and, unlike in base Victoria 2, PDM makes the actual implementation of railroad technology into an invention, which only has a 5% chance to fire every month. I've played games where several years have passed before the RNG saw fit to bless me with railroads, so I'm betting that I'll have time to finish these naval bases before I move onto building other infrastructure. (This is, of course, the one game I've played where I get the invention less than three months later, making me look a little foolish.)

In April, I get a randomly assigned First Minister, who applies a set of modifiers to the country based on his leadership style and overall talent. I get the Great Statesman, one of the unequivocally great potential leaders; most archetypes promote a certain modifier at another's expense, but a few are entirely positive or entirely negative. This result means I'm not stuck with a total idiot for the foreseeable future; if I were an absolute or Prussian monarchy, I could dismiss him at my pleasure (albeit at the cost of prestige and a national penalty), but constitutional monarchies and democracies get to keep whatever the RNG hands out until their elected leader dies or gets unelected. The Great Statesman makes things much easier both politically and diplomatically, with some excellent positive modifiers, as seen below.



The Great Statesman's prestige bonus will come in very handy with my second primary objective: restoring the Kalmar Union. This is a chain of decisions that will, in time, lead to the political unification of the Scandinavian Peninsula under a single flag. The first decisions is fairly straightforward, requiring Great Power status, a minimum level of prestige, and good relations with the other Scandinavian countries.



Fortunately for Sweden, the list of Great Powers is not set in stone; both the Ottoman Empire and Spain will spend the entire game struggling to keep or regain their standing as a GP, and the rest of the Great Powers really like to fight each other. As a Secondary Power, Sweden is well-placed to exploit any potential weakness among the Greats, especially under the control of a total bastard like myself.



In late 1837, while I'm still reorganizing my armed forces, one of the weirder things I've seen in PDM happens.



Okay, so here's what went down: Russia, with its enormous army and over-inflated sense of self-worth, declared war on the UK back in the summer of 1836 for control over British Columbia. This happens fairly regularly in PDM games, so it's not a big deal; the belligerents are usually unable to secure an advantage and end up signing a white peace. This is also what happens in my game.

However, this particular colonial war draws in both France and Spain on Russia's side against the UK, while the UK calls in its Continental ally and future stain on the pavement, Belgium. France and Spain just completely annihilate Belgium in a totally predictable land invasion, allowing Spain to call for a new war goal: returning Wallonia to the Dutch. Belgium, having lost its army and its territory, is forced to accept a separate peace and give up its Wallonian land, thus becoming Flanders by decision.



Tag-switching to Flanders wipes Belgium's cores entirely off the map but leaves intact the Netherlands' cores in both Flanders and Wallonia, providing the Dutch with a valid casus belli if they decide to reclaim the rest of the Low Countries. This entire chain of events does an end-run around the usual sequence, wherein the Dutch wage a war of reunification, get their asses handed to them by the British, and then renounce all claim to Belgium in exchange for prestige. I'm pretty sure I'm not ever going to see Belgium again in this game. Totally awesome, totally bizarre, just one of many potential alt-history results in PDM.

Prussia, sensing weakness, declares war for Alsace-Lorraine less than two years after game start. With France distracted by war with Belgium and the UK, they're totally unprepared for the Prussian invasion and actually surrender the territory by the end of 1838. I have serious doubts as to whether they'll retain it; they don't have any cores on the territory (those belong to fully unified Germany) while France retains their cores and a much stronger military overall.

Returning to Sweden, the natural center of the world, I spend this time of global strife nurturing domestic industry and getting my military affairs in order. As previously mentioned, the First Railroads invention fires a few months after I finish researching the technology, which allows to me to start building railroads in my inland provinces while the coastal provinces finish their naval bases.

Once those bases are complete, I immediately start into expanding my rail network to them as well. My budding capitalist population (a whopping fifty-nine as of 1840) actually funds a few of these provincial railroads, saving me time and money. With State Capitalism in play, their role in Swedish industry is strictly limited, which is good, because they make terrible, terrible decisions about what to build and where.

With my factories in Gotaland and Svealand near capacity, I simultaneously begin construction on new ones (a cement factory in Gotaland, a bronze factory in Svealand) and start expanding my current factories as well. Norrland, with only 85,000 inhabitants (compared to the 300k+ in each of Sweden's other two states) and no national focus, predictably lags behind in making craftsmen out of its lower-class workers.

Having finished Early Railroad, I start Clean Coal as my next technological research, which will increase domestic coal output by four hundred percent (!!!) and provide small bonuses to other industrial resources as well. Given that I have a single coal mine, this is crucial for keeping my steel factory and other industry well-supplied.

Between my industrial progress, my reorganization of the military, and my slowly rising prestige score, at the end of January 1839, I manage to displace the Ottoman Empire as one of the world's Great Powers! Suck it, Turkey!



This gives me the ability to influence lesser nations as well as a few other nice benefits, which I will exploit ruthlessly for the greater glory of Sweden. I immediately begin exerting my influence on Denmark, Finland, and Norway, with the intention of bringing all three securely into my sphere of influence. Denmark and Norway don't represent any particular problem, but Finland is still Russia's satellite and they can counter my influence with their own. Diplomatic progress is slow. Nevertheless, I've surmounted one of the two obstacles to the Second Kalmar Union; all I need now is sufficient prestige.

Meanwhile, as progress nears completion on my newest researched tech, a few events of note fire. One is the Kowloon Incident, which triggers the famous Opium War between China and the UK.



Now, in PDM, China has the option to simply let the Incident pass and avoid conflict with the UK, but this happens very rarely with the AI in control (because it's no fun otherwise!). If the UK manages to enforce a total blockade of China's ports, which is pretty trivial for them, they can enforce the Unequal Treaty decision, ceding a port city (in this case, Hong Kong) to their control and winning them the war. They can also enact the unique Treaty of Nanking decision, which removes the Chinese core on Hong Kong and gives them one of their own. Other countries can use the Unequal Treaty when at war with China, but they won't get a core on their treaty port.

Secondly, the game's namesake makes an appearance: Queen Victoria is crowned in London.



The in-game effect is that Hanover's satellite status beneath the UK is terminated and their opinion of the UK shifts to Opposed, which completely ends British influence in Hanover and allows one of the two German Great Powers (usually Prussia) to begin moving them into their sphere for eventual German unification.

On January 1st, 1840, all nations of sufficient wealth and prestige are allowed to enact the Lavish Exhibition and National Conference decisions; one lets you spend a large sum of money for a large amount of prestige, while the other takes a small amount of prestige and gives you a sizable amount of research points all at once. What follows for Sweden is a bit of math and a lot of progress.



Since I already have 29 prestige, gaining the Lavish Exhibition's 21 prestige points puts me right at 50 -- just enough to enact the Kalmar Union decision! I do so immediately, garnering no complaints from any of the four Scandinavian countries (Denmark will sometimes protest, which may lead to war), which gives me 'Leader of the Kalmar Union', a modifier that boosts my overall prestige. This is the first and hardest step toward Scandinavian unification; AI Sweden almost never manages Great Power status, much less this decision.



However, the Kingdom of Scandinavia is not a done deal -- uniting the Peninsula is a slow process, requiring many years of effort. The next step in Scandinavian unification is the creation of the Scandinavian Customs Union, which eliminates all trade restrictions between Scandinavian countries and provides a 5% bonus to farming and mining efficiency. Unfortunately, this decision requires the leader of the Union to have 100 prestige (!) and to have researched State and Government -- a third-tier cultural technology not available until 1850! For now, the Kalmar Union is nothing more than a political alliance (and a handy prestige bonus). Scandinavian unification is still a long, long way away.

As my last act for this update, I use the National Conference decision to gain the research points necessary to finish Clean Coal. Importantly, if I had used this immediately following the Exhibition, I would have ended up five prestige points short of my goal for the first Kalmar decision, further delaying the process. Thus the math. Since I loves me some research points, Idealism is my next technology on the list -- once completed, I'll gain an immediate 10% bonus to my research points, with three subsequent inventions that each provide an additional 5%.

At the dawn of 1840, Sweden's prospects are great; a newly-christened Great Power, a reformed (albeit skeletal) Kalmar Union under its leadership, and rapidly growing national industry. Only time -- and my next update -- will tell what happens next!

[Rabid]

Looking forward to the first update. There's a real lack of solid gameplay AARs round here

[morningSIDEr]

Sounds promising. Keeping Schleswig-Holstein and Finland should certainly prove challenging, looking forward to seeing how you go about this.

[etranger01]

The first update has been posted! Please post your comments, criticisms, suggestions, and any other feedback you may have.

[flame7926]

Interesting so far, I like the writing style so far

[Neoteros]

Following this.

[jeronimo93]

i like your style. Im definitely following this

[Bassewitz]

I personally go straight for more research points.

Waiting for the next update.

[Saithis]

This seems very solid and I look forward to the Kingdom of Scandinavia's hopeful success! Subscribed.

[etranger01]

Thank you to everyone for your comments and support! I'll try to get my second update out sometime this weekend; things have been a bit hectic this week, but the update should be finished soon.

[chrism2012]

Indeed quite interesting, please keep it up. Good luck.

[omnipotentatus]

As i am scandinavian, i very much look forward to see Scandinavia as a world power
Keep up the good job.

[hoover2701]

I love "tutorial-esque" AARs! Please continue this!

[sprites]

I don't know PDM , but keep this up!

[GamezRule]

Subscribed! Good luck.

[thekonkoe]

Will be following, like the style so far. Do you plan on keeping Schleswig-Holstein from the Germans forever or grabbing it back at some point? Neither sounds like it will be easy.

[TheKaspa]

Following!
A very interesting AAR, I like a lot your style!

[spiller68]

whens your next update