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Victoria 2 17560 After Action Reports (AAR)
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Hocking1

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Nov 2, 2013
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First let me begin with my very brief Belgium AAR (game over in 1838):

1) Start game, look at the map for a few minutes, and build the maximum number of troops and ally with the United Kingdom first thing.
2) Netherlands immediately declares war on me, and allies with Russia
3) 1000's and 1000's and 1000's of troops come out of nowhere over and over again and completely pummel me. To make a conservative guess, I would say it was about 100-150 Brigades against my 30. Britain did nothing but send about 12 Brigades to lay claim to some of the Netherlands provinces but did nothing to help me.
4) I would fight off a small army here and there with my dwindling Brigades, but then, out of nowhere, would appear another 30 Brigade strong Russian army followed by 30 Brigade Netherlands army on the other side of the map. They would come out of France, Prussia, Luxemburg, and the Netherlands. I even think I saw one Russian group wade out of the Atlantic with no ships around at all. Often times they would not come from anywhere, they would just magically appear in a province located in the middle of Belgium.
5) I am completely unable to build any other troops and it says that I have fielded 14/2 brigades that I have available troops for. I tried setting national focus to recruit troops in both of my regions, and I made sure the military spending and stockpile spending were slid all the way to the right. Keep in mind that we are literally just a few months into the game when this all started. What else did I have time to do?
6) Finally, my dwindling army is completely wiped out and there is a Russian army of at least 20 Brigades in all of my provinces and I can do nothing but sit back and watch. Again, the United Kingdom did nothing to help, and yes I had granted them military access.
7) I receive the "Belgium Annexed" game over in 1838, less than two years into the game. Wow, that was fun. Seriously! I want my $10 bucks back that I spent on this game.

I have spent hours reading manuals and watching tutorials on Youtube. What am I missing here? Is this really what this game is about? Perhaps I should start with the POPS Demand Mod and skip the vanilla game completely (this all happened under the vanilla game HOD patched to latest patch). Will the Pops Demand Mod fix this ridiculously unbalanced game play.

Very frustrated and feel my interest in Victoria 2 slipping quickly. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.
 
Hocking1 said:
First let me begin with my very brief Belgium AAR (game over in 1838):

7) I receive the "Belgium Annexed" game over in 1838, less than two years into the game. Wow, that was fun. Seriously! I want my $10 bucks back that I spent on this game.

Very frustrated and feel my interest in Victoria 2 slipping quickly. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.
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1 and 2) UK is an unreliable ally. They have huge military score, but those armies are scattered around the world. France would be a better choice against Netherland. France is right there on the continent and can field a good army.
3) Russia has massive population and can send an insane amount of troops. The low literacy of Russia means that they will drag in technology. Later on in game you can easilly have smaller but better armies. As Prussia/Germany, i easilly defeated armies double my size. Still, early in game, don't anger the bear!
4) Don't know about troops appearing from nowhere. Maybe you're playing fast speed and didn't see where they come from.
5) If your soldier pops were decimated during that war, you simply don't have enough soldiers in your population to recruit new regiments. You need to promote soldiers in your population. You can look in the population screen, choose the entire country and hover your mouse over the soldier pop icon; you will see how many people promotes/demotes. This should give you an idea of how long it will take to get more (you need groups of at least 1000 soldier pops to recreuit regiments).


My first game was with Sweden. Is was fun, but the population is pretty low so i could not do much on the international field. Then i tried Prussia and it was really cool. Big population and international tension. I had a clear objective : unifying german states to form Germany. And i was strong enough to kick Russia in the teeth more than once :)
 
Six-Monts said:
1 and 2) UK is an unreliable ally. They have huge military score, but those armies are scattered around the world. France would be a better choice against Netherland. France is right there on the continent and can field a good army.
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The only problem here is that Belgium in the UK's sphere, which makes any other Great Power very reluctant to agree to an alliance.
 
Try playing the US, it can play itself quite well regarding industrialization and unless you mess up bigtime you'll always be a GP.
 
I'm pretty sure troops do not appear out of nowhere, it's either a bug or you just did not see them coming.

Military access is way too common and the AI is way too willing to support allies in offensive wars.

So if you're unlucky enough to being invaded as Belgium in 1836 by Netherlands with a strong ally, things can go bad.
Try another nation ? Some have a more reasonnable starting position which does not amplify some of the game's weaknesses
 
Well you could always try it on the other side and play as the Netherlands, you'll have an experience of colonies then.

If however you really want to play as Belgium then play as Netherlands annex Belgium then release it and play as Belgium; your relations with the Netherlands will be fine then.
 
Thanks for the replies.

Yes, the troops were not coming out of nowhere. It ended up being that I was playing on a fast speed after my troops were wiped out.

Hey, I gave it another go with Belgium and knew to be prepared this time. Another quick AAR:

1) Immediately tried to Ally with Prussia, then France, very first thing. Both turned me down. Allied with United Kingdom and gave them military access before anything started.
2) Good news, Netherlands didn't ally with Russia. Bad news, Netherlands allied with Prussia.
3) Built my troops and combined my armies to have three armies. Two having 15k and the third with 12k.
4) War declared by Netherlands on July 7, 1836 (7 months into the game starting). Onslaught begins.
5) I avoid Netherlands army of 25k moving into my provinces and I move into the Netherlands trying to kill off armies as they spawn which works for about 2 or three battles, then I am faced with three armies of 25k each moving in from Prussia.
6) The rest is history. Again, I am totally steamrolled by no less than 250k to 300k troops against my 42k. The United Kingdom doesn't even have time to react with sending troops. I see them coming over but I am completely wiped out already, and my entire country is occupied with 300k troops from the Netherlands and Prussia. I am sure the UK will turn back around and give up on me. They don't have a chance.

The date everything is lost: November, 1836. All this happened in the first 11 months of the game. The Netherlands declared war on me on July 7, 1836, so the war lasted less than 5 months. Under these conditions, Belgium is unplayable! I had read that Belgium was a good country to start out with to learn the game but something drastically must have changed in an update or patch since then. There is absolutely nothing you can do with the amount of time and resources you are giving to defend against 300k troops. Prussia or France will not ally with you, and the Netherlands will ally with a very large army that always helps in wiping you out.

Anyway, thanks for the help. I will either try another country, or try Crusader Kings.
 
You should try the Pop Demand Mod. Not only do you have a truce with the Netherlands at the beginning, it also has a Treaty of London Event chain where the Netherlands give up their cores in Belgium in exchange for Limburg and Luxembourg.
 
MarkBrandenburg said:
You should try the Pop Demand Mod. Not only do you have a truce with the Netherlands at the beginning, it also has a Treaty of London Event chain where the Netherlands give up their cores in Belgium in exchange for Limburg and Luxembourg.
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Definitely endorse this, it is a great mod. I tried and failed as Belgium too, try Sardinia-Piedmont. Rich, industrial and easy to raise armies but watch militancy!

I currently have another thread open where I discuss the absurd military access issue where countries like Russia simply get given access by the likes of Prussia and Austria and making gameplay very unrealistic. I am currently trying military access requests costing 9 diplomats. Results inconclusive so far, but will report back.

I wouldn't take the defeats personally. Victoria (both 1 and 2) are great games, but I find that I completely fall on my backside several times before I finally get the hang of them.
 
I haven't played that many games, but Belgium always stayed independant. Have you tried improving relations with Netherland so they don't attack you?
 
If Netherland allied with Prussia, then game over. I have no solution.
If Netherland allied with Russia, you actually have a fighting chance.

1) Have one 10 brigades army with 1 cavalry, 5 infantries and 4 artilleries. The other army pure curraissers. Use the pure cuirassiers army to bait Netherland stack into attacking you, reinforce with your 10 brigades army. Group mobilized infantry brigades into the 3rd army.

2) The only chance you have is to totally destroy Netherland's armies before the Russian arrived. So bait-defense-defeat-chase until Netherland professional armies are gone. Then go sit on the 3 provinces where mobilized infantry come in.

3) It takes a while for the Russian to arrive, and they arrive in stages, 8-12 brigades a go. So watch your border closely, play at slower speed. Always use your curraiser stack to bait-defense them.

4) Keep raising relationship with France and pray that they intervence.

5) Research the last row of army tech as 1st tech.

6) Also, remember to move stockpile slider of artillery and whatever else needed for army construction to 200.

All in, you probably have around 20 brigades, it is perfectly possible to kill 100 brigades, as long as they don't all come to you at once.
 
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