Argentina AAR

Post #2

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[anchorlink=post1]Previous post[/anchorlink]
[anchorlink=initial_setup]Initial setup[/anchorlink]
[anchorlink=war_chile]War with Chile[/anchorlink]
[anchorlink=war_peru]War with Peru[/anchorlink]
[anchorlink=post3]Next post[/anchorlink]
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1836-1839



[anchor=initial_setup]Initial setup[/anchor]

So let's pause at the beginning and set some orders. First budget: We start with £4500. Taxing efficiency is 37%. Middle and rich strata taxes 50%. Many people think this amount of tax is too much and can cause pops to devolve. This is WRONG. Pops can devolve if you tax them above 55% AND some other conditions are met. This means that if you tax them below that value they will never devolve. The idea of 49.22% taxation to avoid it is funny. Remember 50% tax is a safe value. Poor taxes 100% - for now. Pops start with some reserves so we need to grab them right away. In 1.04 farming efficiency is greatly increased and so is the starting export income. It used to be about £20 now it's above £60. The difference is huge for such a small country as Argentina. The high exports cause pops to be wealthier than they used to be so possibly they will need to be taxed heavily to avoid building up cash reserves even higher. Moreover we are low in the bidding chain so pops will not be able to import everything they need from the WM so they will save even more money than they should. And remember that we need to put liberals in power asap and will not have needed resources to promote pops with base liberal ideology. So we need to starve conservatives a bit so that they vote on Partido Unitario. The population is so small right now that the population loss won't be noticable. Tarifs maximum allowed 25%. Full education (monthly literacy gain has beed halved in 1.04 so it's even more important to fund it at 100% at all times), no crimefighting (kinda waste of money and cannot afford it anyway), minimum allowed social spending (this doesn't affect reform effects but increases consciousness, which is good for us in the long term: high CON = lower militancy and higher plurality).

Trade: set buy 60 cement, 60 small arms, 50 wine and canned food, 10 precious metal, 20 ammunition, 25 clipper convoy, 10 steamer convoy, 30 machine parts, 20 regular clothes and paper, 10 furniture, luxury clothes and luxury furniture. Sell 100 iron and lumber, sell 1 cattle, grain, wool, fruit, fish. We propably won't be able to actually buy any of the ordered goods as we're ranked 55 - too far to even dream of buying anything until very late game. But we are going to work on that. Machine parts used to appear on the WM in the fifties. Now with railroads requireing 0.1MP per province level and claim buildings 0.5MP each the supply can be slightly delayed. Another good reason to try to provide them domestically.

Technology: With full spending and 12% literacy we gain a miserable 0.44 RP per month. It's far too low to be able to research without delays. The goal is to reach 0.83RP/month. Anything above that limit will allow us to trade techs - but that is a distant future for now. What techs to research? That is a difficult question. We need Idealism. It has three associated inventions worth 150 prestige points each for being the first nation to trigger them, including one that can trigger right from the beginning. It will allow us to go up the bidding chain, possibly gain a Great Power status, and realize at least some of our trade orders. But this tech cannot be picked yet. In the first round we must pick a different one. We can leave the military and navy branch for now. If we go military path we'll need to flood the enemy with mass anyway. We have commerce, culture and industry left to choose from. After getting Idealism we can leave culture too, until Romanticism inventions trigger in the fifties so we have fifteen years to research anything else. Commerce techs, besides Freedom of Trade that unlocks most of factories, mainly improve tax efficiency. Is a little bit of money worth lost opportunities? I don't think so. So we're left with industry branch. Despite lower profitability compared to agriculture than it was in the earlier patches, we still need some factories for several reasons. We won't be able to buy everything we need even with a lot of prestige and open factory slots will attract many immigrant workers saving us money for promotions. Having said that let's pick Practical Steam Engine.


First we need to demote all clergymen. As we are going to be democratic there is no need for decreased consciousness. The research bonus they provide is negligible as they are only a small percentage of our nation. And their base ideology is conservative which is bad. If we were going to have a revolution to change our national value to liberty we could consider keeping clergy. But if you compare the two methods of changing government revolution looks extremely anappealing. If you know of an easy way of having a revolution and think differently let me know.

The next undesirable social group is aristocracy. Normally I have nothing against people, who sit around doing nothing, as long as they pay a lot in taxes (just look - there is only 3k of them and they earn £22 while 200k farmers earn £60 in total). But again there is only a small amount of them so the benefit is next to none and they vote conservative too. After a short reconsideration I decided to increase rich taxes to 100% until their reserves go down and then to 60% so they devolve slowly. I am not worried that if aristocrats devolve more money will stay in the pockets of the poor due to higher export share because they are taxed 100% too, that is until liberals get elected. The additional easy taxable poor income will allow me to get more from the export share without risking a loss of important pop types. This will work well until many clerks and capitalists get promoted though as it will shift back export income mostly to higher strata.

The next action is to send all divisions to the border with Chile in preparation for war. There is a very, very small chance we will be able to buy something in the first few days (miracles happen sometimes) so no point in decreasing our bidding position by going into debt. Around the 15th January pause the game again. Enact Universal Suffrage and Free Parties. This will switch our government to democracy on the 1st February. Then enact Good Healthcare. We need big growth and cost of enacting is still low due to low population so we might as well enact it right now. We are not going to fund it anyway. Then declare war with Chile. We have to do it before constitution is changed not waiting for our troops to take positions on the border. Remember democracies get additional prestige point penalty for DoWing other democracies. The difference is 50pp as opposed to 75pp. We get 1BB point in the process. We have one diplomat left but there is not much we can do with him right now.

On the 1st February constitution is changed. Enact additional reforms: Free Press that just became available and All Trade Unions. Enacted reforms will yield 2.18pp every month. We are now a democracy with multi-party parlamentarism system. We are still conservative and becoming liberal is a second condition to attract many immigrants. But we have a best party available now. Uber immigration Partido Unitario - liberal with full citizenship and pluralism. It's still free trade but I can live with a cap on tariffs. The only problem is to win elections. The real problem is that it can be a big pain to do so. The population is all conservative and the elections used to be rigged so we'll need something like a 95% majority to win. The first option is to enact wealth voting rights but as we don't have resources to promote that big farmer pop in Buenos Aires to clerks we need to wait with that and rely on poor masses for the first election. High taxes are slowly draining pops reserves and only when they have none left liberals have a chance to win. Predicting that one election campaign will not be enough let's start a campaign right away and take Partido Unitario friendly choices in campaing events.



[anchor=war_chile]War with Chile[/anchor]

Now let's think for a while what is the reason for this war. Firstly, we start with a standing army that is partially reinforced (in pre 1.04 it used to be full 10k divisions, but now it's adapted to the number of soldier pops countries start with) so we have two choices: go to war and use them or cut maintence. This opportunity can be quickly used as reinforcing army later would cost money and time, none of which we have in excess. Secondly, every year 0.5BB is burned and we start with 0BB so why not use this natural diminution to the max by grabbing some BB points right away. Thirdly, the provinces we intend to take over contain very important resources: Copiapio has iron and La Serena will have gold event. The event is random with a big offset. It has a 10% propability to trigger checked every 308 days. It means that gold may appear even during the war with Chile but also much later. From my experience it happens rather sooner than later though. Both provinces have a high efficiency (100%), avarage liferating (35, but some provinces in the area have only 30 so this is actually a kind of advantage) and are in one state so when gold discovery triggers the immigrant flow will be lured to one of the best places it can. We need those provinces to properly develope. Fourthly, Chile is easy to deal with. They start with only two divisions as opposed to our three. And the war theater in near the borders so not much attrition is involved. Having said that the reason for war is obvious.

One more remark about the goals. We don't want to engage the enemy to avoid depleting population. The warscore is decided only by occupied provinces and not by won battles. Besides the terrain is though for attacker (40% from terrain + 20% from entrenchments = 60% reduced attacker efficiency but it works both ways fortunately) so if you don't absolutely have to attack outmanouver them and wait for an attack. Besides we want Chile to come out of the war as strong as possible (not counting province loss) so that they won't be afraid to DoW some time later, possibly dragging someone else into war, for more easy idemnites and prestige victories. So try to avoid destroying enemy divisions.


While our soldiers are on the way to the borders assign a general to the stack with cavalry. Set defence spending to 100%. That will generate leadership points twice as fast and increase both manpower limit and regeneration. An important thing to remember is that almost all named leaders are better than the default one, because he has negative modifiers to all significant stats. Only a few attrition increasing suckers are a subject to disposing of and that's only when you have no uses for them in your own territory. A weak leader is not the problem right now though as Argentina has one predefined (Alvear) that adds 10 org and 2 fire, which is not bad. Armies should reach the borders around april. By the time chilean army should already start capturing argentinian soil. No problem here. If they pick Calingasta - our destination province they have a choice of engaging our whole army unreinforced or at no morale. Either way they should retreat. Send one infantry division to Copapio and the stack with the general should be sent to Santiago, their capital immediately. With a bit of luck they will desperately try to repeatedly attack, sabotaging their own defending efforts. When Santiago is captured leave one infantry division to dig up, reinforce the cavalry with the general and move it to La Serena. After Copapio is captured move the division to La Serena too, unless there is a serious threat of losing the province in which case stay and dig up. The final result is that we are occupying three provinces including the capital and they have nothing with no chances of getting anything anytime soon. With another bit of luck a peace offer consisting of two provinces + idemnities should be accepted. The war shouldn't last much longer than a year.


As with everything, the only luck some people get is bad luck. So what can go wrong? If the ai reinforces both divisions to 10k and starts to dig them in the capital and one of the remaining provinces we target it means a big mess. There goes a chance to get what we want quickly and cheaply. Theoretically ai countries start with the same setup as human players meaning that if they reduce maintenance in the first days of game (that is why we don't DoW on 1st January) it should take ages to reinforce back to the max, especially now in 1.04 with clothes required to promote soldiers. In practice ai decisions are not always predictable. They say the ai doesn't cheat so tell me why sometimes they can squeeze more from the starting setup than they should be allowed to. Anyway if such thing happens at the time of playing and you don't like cheating be prepared for a long cat and mouse play in mountainous terrain that will cost lives of many soldiers. Not that you cannot overcome difficulties, ultimately it's just a stupid ai script that cannot match human intelligence, can it? Provided that further shit doesn't happen and Chile doesn't start pumping out new divisions like there is no tomorrow. If the ai is reluctant to accept our generous peace offer try again and again. It costs diplomats only when they succeed. If the enemy manages to capture any of our provinces the resulting warscore may be lower than our demands. In such case go capture another province as it will yield more than just reclaiming our lost one. This is because we have much more provinces so one scarcely populated province is a lesser percentage of the whole territory compared to chilean. Obviously you cannot allow your divisions to die, get weakened too much or leave any opportunites to be fighted back. In the meanwhile keep trying to settle peace on our terms. Another problem is the possibility of partisans appearance. The war shouldn't last long and we leave division in the capital so the risk is minimal but if they spawn and have somewhere to retreat, enemy's military score goes up delaying peace. Partisans cannot be reinforced but are a pain in the ass during long wars.

Assuming everything goes as planned we end up with two new provinces (containing around 149k population of South Andean culture - not combined pop size, remember population = pop size*4) and around 4.5BB points (1BB for DoWing +2BB for each new province -0.5 burned in the meantime). The war nets us with 24pp (31% captured land + 20% for capital = 51% warscore, 12% + 14% = 26% demanded provinces) leaving Chile with negative prestige and possible future debt from paying idemnities. It's not really profitable to drag the war any further to, for example, capture Valparaiso. This will give a bit more prestige and make ai more eager to fold but the cost is just too much if we get what we wanted anyway. As the final result we are now ranked 205, with -19pp and a small debt. Immediately after the war ends move one infantry division to each of the new gains and let them dig up. There is such thing as nationalism that will cause revolt risk in those provinces for the first ten years. In 1.03c it used to start small, rise constantly to a big amount and rapidly disappear (not very logical). Now It starts big and gradually diminishes. Anything from none to several revolts is to be expected in that period. Policing provinces with military units provides a -0.2 militancy modifier. Reducing one of the revolt factors cannot be bad. It may help to cope with revolt risk as well as allow to combat revolters at a minimal cost (they will get a negative modifier from ambushing, terrain and entrenchments).

During war interesting things happened on the World Market. Some of the bids were realised, in particular in the second half of the starting year we should be able to promote to clerks. Let's take advantage of that and immediately after it's possible pick out £5000 for promoting that big farmer pop in Buenos Aires. This will increase the Research Point generation to 0.68RP/month, but also education costs will rise. Clerks are middle class so the action will decrease base tax for poor strata considerably so to make up for that let's increase middle strata taxes to 90%. We are still so low in the bidding chain that clerks won't be able to buy all the goods they demand which results in stockpiling money at a ridiculous rate with their life needs completely filfulled at the same time. At 90% they save only a tiny part of their income (double the base income and a huge part of total export income) while officers, middle strata too, slowly decrease their savings but without the risk of devolvement.



[anchor=war_peru]War with Peru[/anchor]

Lack of transports limits our options of expanding to one target - sulphur mines in Peru. The difference between the conflict we are awaiting and the one from which we just emerged victorious is mainly scale. Peru is much bigger than Chile, they are even bigger than us. In previous patch hardcoded immigration happened right from the beginning even for presidential dictatorship. By the end of the war with Peru populations of both countries were comparable. Now one cannot dream of even a single drop of immigration until liberals get to power. Peru is also bigger teritorially so the theatre of war is much further from our borders. That means more attrition and a long run for the capital. All factors that make war difficult and expensive are much more significant. There is also a risk that Peru will rise many divisions after being DoWed. At the time it is possible to buy some resources needed for building up military, and even without it starting stockpiles of small arms allow to make two infantry divisions. This makes the war potentially dangerous.

To be prepared for all obstacles we need to raise more divisions. My personal favourite for the starting phase of the game is cavalry with cuirassier attachments. No point in killing off people when you can just make them flee easily. Plus such divisions are good for quelling rebellions at a minimal cost. Sure, they are expensive in upkeep, but they are cost effective IMHO. There is one 10k size pop in Cordoba that should be converted to soldiers if it hasn't already been used for war with Chile. This will increase the number of Platinean divisions we can raise from two to three. Unfortunately we already have three divisions so we still won't be able to make more. There is also a big South Andean pop in La Serena that we can use as soldiers. That will supply a steady source of manpower for reinforcing casualties for the next campaign. I don't plan to make any non-national culture divisions. The only feature they are worse at that I know of is slightly reduced reliability, but I don't like the idea of conscripting any minorities to army when they are to be assimilated soon. If you feel uneasy about beating Peru with only three divisions there is also a 9k size pop in Corrientes that can allow you to build a bigger army. There is a small glitch you can exploit. As long as you can build at least one additional division and have enough manpower you can order building multiple divisions of the same type. In this particular case you could build two additional cuirassiers exceeding the limit by one. But I don't like resorting to such bug-like features if I can do without it. And trust me, beating Peru with only the starting army is by all means doable.

During the previous war one of the mutually exclusive military attitude inventions should trigger. This decides what path your military will take in further technological advancements. Inventions in the military branch have two versions, one for each attitude. Clausevitzian puts an emphasis on organisation (a representation of how good the unit is at fighting) and jominian on morale (represents the will to fight to the last man). Clausevitzian seems better in the long run and for major powers that can field large armies. Jominian OTOH gives a hefty morale boost right from the start. Again my personal preference is clausevitzian but in this particular case jominian will be better. The terrain is though and we cannot make up for that with outnumbering enemy. So when you get clausevitzian and face jominian hard times may be ahead. What's the point of having armies that fight great but hardly ever get a chance to actually do some fighting because they flee all the time? Of course when facing ai it can be counteracted by using units that have high morale and shock value. There is also analogical separation for navy but it is less meaningful. There are more mutually exclusive paths you can take later and overall naval combat is somewhat less important. I ended up with jominian attitude for army and superior crew thesis (clausevitzian equivalent) for navy. Btw all military techs and inventions tend to increase the maintenence. With one tech the increse is negligible but pursuing military techs can increase the cost considerably.


One more loose thought about the elections. Recent tests confirmed that votes are distributed to individual pops rather than to indidvidual citizens. It means that the Latest Polls window shows proper support percentage in your population but election results are resolved by the numbers displayed in the parties screen on the election day. This explains why Argentina in 1.04 has such a hard time getting a liberal party. With universal suffrage even 1k size pops need to vote liberal because those small pops provide over 50% votes. And it takes almost literally ages of starving the poor class to take all reserves from them because at the start of the scenario savings are the same for pops of the same kind no matter the size. So 10k size pops deplete their savings ten times faster than 1k size ones. Being high in the bidding chain might speed up the process but the difference below the 50th position doesn't seem to be much, at least not in the beginning when not much of the factory goods are being produced. There is a second way of dealing with the problem called wealth voting rights. This solution is of course far from being perfect too (in terms of immigration attraction), otherwise we'd have already became liberal. We start with no way of promoting clerks and even when resources appear on the WM the cost is humongous. Only five clerk pops would assure victory because after demoting clergymen there are two officer pops and two aristocrat pops. Five clerks are an expense of over £30000, a debt far too much to bear considered that there are many more important future expenditures. Getting a bit more immigrants a bit earlier would greatly constrain our options later, but some may consider this action if they are desperate and plan no costly wars. Officers are important enough to tolerate them as they are, but devolving them is another option for the desperate. We are trying to get rid of aristocrats anyway but starving them, as well as with the officers, takes a lot of time so the best path to take in this situation is to run elections one after another until liberals win and then right before the next election restrict the voting rights to wealth. In the meantime it should be possible to be able to afford to promote three clerk pops, or only one if officers are decided to get rid of too. The problem of winning elections will be gone then (for now). This solution has an additional advantage that it will allow us to postpone the problem of managing hordes of immigrants to after the war, so that we don't have to split attention between two important matters. And in the first few years immigration is not astonishing anyway.

One thing to have in mind while planning war with Peru is that in the new patch Bolivia will form in 1840 every time, taking provinces between Argentina and the targeted sulphur mines. When this happens we will be cut off from the motherland until we get transports, and even then during war naval communication in the Pacific will be risky as Peru has navy (one ship but still). The dissolution of Peru-Bolivia union will leave both countries weak but the future actions of independent Bolivia are unknown, it may ally with a powerful enemy making a barrier when fighting further wars or supply additional easy gains when they get dragged to wars with us. The former predictability was nice but nothing really to cry about here.

This leads to the question when the war should be started. My suggestion would be: as soon as possible. Firstly, in the new patch Argentina gets huge exports from the cattle and sheep ranches. It means that you no longer have to suffer repaying the war debt because army maintenance can be funded from the daily income with a big surplus, so there is no risk of going beyond the bankruptcy point. Secondly, prestige for DoWing Peru depends on the relative amount of prestige both countries have. If we DoW immediately after the peace treaty with Chile it will cost around 35pp and the cost will increase with the prestige we gain over time. The absolute deadline is before prestige increasing invention from researching Idealism triggers, as then it would propably cost the full 100pp. Thirdly, as mentioned before, to avoid an unpleasant surprise with Bolivia emerging, war has to be started before 1840, the sooner the better. I wouldn't rely on having big idemnities from Peru before it divides, but it would be nice to be able to move divisions on land territory to attack and then withdraw after the war, especially if we don't lay our hands on clipper transports by then. The most optimistic scenario anticipates ending the war just before 1840 so actually withdrawing by land may not be the case here. Fourthly, our only leader, Alvear, tends to die somewhere in 1838 so it's best to use him to the full extent if we already spent 20 leadership points to get him for war with Chile. A good thing is that Peru uses it's 20 points to make an admiral, as if we planned to combat them at sea. OTOH there is still some war exhausion from the previous conflict that may be wished to be gone first.

Now shortly about the goals. We need two provinces - Puno and Chalhuanca - for sure. This time idemnities can be renounced as Peru without Bolivia will not pay that much. A question is if we should aim for more. The ai will propably not be willing to hand over all four provinces in one go and they are likely to DoW back after five years have passed. The remaining provinces can be taken then. The drawback is that Peru can make a small surprise doing so by either choosing a wrong moment or preparing more forces than we expect.

The plan is to make a quick run for the capital. You can send your forces through enemy controlled territory without capturing it, but doing so will take a lot more time than normally. The movement speed will be comparable with capturing the provinces and then issuing move orders. So we might as well capture those provinces as they will yield a place to retreat to and a bit of warscore. This would be obvious if not one thing. Before Peru-Bolivian union dissolves it suffers many revolts in the eastern part due to event increased militancy. When revolts spawn in Peru controlled territory they become rebels, that cut off enemy from the money and manpower from the captured provinces and engage his forces. When revolts spawn in territory controlled by us they become partisans and strenghten enemy forces recapturing provinces. Partisans are weaker than normal units and cannot be reinforced but they count in determining ai willingness to capitulate and can really hurt in mass. So it would be good to avoid this problematic terrain and the shortest way to our targets is by the coast. It also happens to be the most scarcely populated part of yet-to-be-formed Bolivia so even if partisans do spawn there they will be small enough that it will take them ages to recapture those provinces. If you decide to capture any more of those problematic provinces be prepared to observe the number of peruvian divisions in the ledger skyrocketing.


So finally when you decide to start the war assign the leader to the cavalry division and merge the two infantry divisions in the second army. Before your armies cross the border reinforce them to full ten thousand men so that they capture the provinces as fast as possible. Move them to the consecutive provinces that are on the way. Cavalry, thanks to its faster speed and the general, will reach them first and start caputuring before infantry makes it there, saving some time. When the enemy blocks your way try not to attack him, remember about the mountainous terrain penalty. Let him attack you instead and don't fight losing battles. Simply go around him if he is passive. By the time Peru should build two more divisions, as expected (the ai is too dumb to increase the stockpiles of canned food ). After capturing Puno leave one division there to dig up and move on with the rest. With a bit of luck enemy forces will go to the east to combat rebels, leaving an open way to the capital. By the time they go around Lake Titacaca you should be besieging Lima already. After it is captured together with our targets you should have enough warscore to demand what is needed.

So once more, for those who are wondering, what can go wrong? You can be overwhelmed by partisans, as usual, even if you avoid risky provinces. Provinces we want to capture, and therefore have to guard, contain high enough population to cause problems. You may have to recapture lost provinces to occupy at least capital + our targets at the time of suing for peace. It may be difficult sometimes if you are at the same time constantly attacked by regular forces. Enemy recaptures lost provinces much faster than you capure them so, as with everything, you need a bit of luck to carry it out. Also there is a possibility that you lose a major battle, it's not that hard without a leader and jominian morale boost or if you just hastily reinforced. In that case you're screwed if you cannot retreat because, for example, you are one percent away from capturing Lima. The dalay it causes may cost a lot of time and soldiers' lifes. And the enemy can fortify in the provinces you certainly don't want him to be.

As the result of the war we end up with two more provinces (containing 225k population of South Andean culture, 45k population of Quechua culture and 41k population of Aimara culture - this values can be lower if there were many revolts in these provinces), around 20pp (depending how many provinces we occupied at the time of asking for peace) and around 8.5BB (+5BB from the last war -1BB burned in the meantime). The war shouldn't last much more than about two years. After it is finished move both infantry divisions to the newly captured provinces to police them. The cavalry should be sent back to the main territory to guard the previous gains from rebels, just be careful no to get attacked crossing the sea of rebels that ruffles in eastern Peru. Immediately after the peace treaty reduce maintenance to zero. It will reduce the size of divisions and therefore the money we have to pay for them. After the infantry divisions take their positions the maintenance should be increased slightly, let's say to 5%, and the divisions should be reinforced. With 3000 men, terrain and entrenchment bonuses they will be able to quell all rebelions at a minimal cost. The cavalry after it reaches La Serena should be reinforced to at least 5-7k men. Remember to increase maintenance first. After everything is done manintenance can be set back to full to get the maximum manpower regeneration and unit morale.


Let's take a look on what happened during the time we were concentrated on fighting. As regards the research matters, our first technology finished researching in the beginning of war with Peru. The second technology to pick is also from the industry branch - Mechanical Production. It gives 5MP. Machine parts are important for building factories, railroads and colonial buildings. We won't be able to buy any from the WM for a long time so getting a few is a good thing. This tech will also unlock some efficiency increasing inventions but right now in 1.04 their usefullness is disputable. Some RGO's start at 16 or 12 efficiency, as opposed to 1 efficiency in 1.03c, so getting a "10%" increase means 16.1 or 12.1 which is laughable. The economic system was thoroughly reworked but technologies need a serious renovation. The next technology to pick is the long awaited Idealism. As said before it unlocks one invention, Neokantian Idealism, that has a start date 1836. The remaining two inventions have a start date 1850. Each of the 'tech_prestige' type culture inventions gives 150pp for being the first country that gets it, 100pp for being the second, 50pp for the third, 33pp for the fourth and 1pp for all others that get it. Those inventions are *really* worth pursuing. Due to the random nature of inventions the only way to do that is researching techs that trigger them asap. That amount of prestige is multiplied by prestige_mod, which is currently 1.1 (2 techs give 5% each). The maximum prestige_mod value is 1.75. After researching Idealism there is a new tech available, The Freedom of Trade, but that should be already after the war.

The initial idea I had regarding guarranteeing UCSA independence and then warring the revolters is not a good one any more. There are still problems with getting clippers on the WM and guarrantee puts at war with only one country as the rest gets released immediately so this is not worthwhile.

Somewhere around april 1838 the 2k size aristocrat pop in Buenos Aires will devolve. Most of it will increase the size of the farmer pop but the last small part will change into a separate reactionary ideology pop. One less improperly voting pop. The second aristocrat pop in Corrientes will follow around april 1840.

Election campaigns are run one after another and in the last one during the war there is already above 40% support for liberals. The next election or the one after that, seventh I think, will witness a triumph of liberals that was so long and impatiently looked forward. But it will be covered in detail in the next post.

During the time nothing new happened on the WM. There is propably some ammunition, mayby small arms too, available for purchase. As usual steamers appear before clippers. This is kinda funny, but not so strange after all. Most countries can build wooden ships only, therefore the demand for clippers is higher. It has a bright side that sulphur provinces will earn money because steamers are just as good for convoying as clippers, no additional tech is needed. Contrary to building ships, which requires some focus in the navy tech branch. With convoys it is possible to produce sulphur. We will need some stockpiles in the future so let's issue 'sell 50' order in the trade screen. Machine parts are of course far beyond our reach, and propably far beyond the reach of everyone besides the UK that produces them.

Post #3

[anchor=post3]-[/anchor]----------
[anchorlink=post2]Previous post[/anchorlink]
[anchorlink=before_turningpoint]Before the turning point[/anchorlink]
[anchorlink=outset_immigration]Outset of immigration[/anchorlink]
[anchorlink=before_industrialization]Preparations for industrialization[/anchorlink]
[anchorlink=massive_immigration]Dealing with massive immigration[/anchorlink]
Next post
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1840-1849



[anchor=before_turningpoint]Before the turning point[/anchor]

If you started election campaigns one after another, the seventh one should end on the 1st August 1840. But before that happens pause the game, preferably one day earlier, as some actions need to be taken before the ruling party changes. But first let's take a glimpse at our nation one day before the election. Population is 1.28 milion, of which 55% is Platinean. There are 85 pops.

Plurality is 3%. Over 77% of pops support liberals. Exports are £92. Daily budget is: Poor taxes at 100% yield £20.6 and middle taxes at 90.6% yield £14.7. Tariff income is nonexistent at £0.3, tariffs only increase consciousness. Education spending at £3.7 provides 0.73RPs/month and literacy has increased to 18%. Crime fighting spending would be £15.3 if funded at max. The country is not corrupted much (below one fourth). Defence spending is £5.8 and army maintenence £2.8. We earn around £23 each day. Savings are £21000. We have around -12 prestige and 7 diplomats.

We need to enact additional social reforms, because later we will be unable to do that. Select maximum level of Minimum Wages, Safety Regulations and Pension Funds. The healthcare was chosen earlier. The remaining reforms have some negative effects otherwise there would be no reason not to take them. Enacting Maximum Workhours reform reduces pop production efficiency, to 75% at the maximum level. This reduces pop export income (which could be ok considering pops' high income) and because of it country tax income as well (which is not acceptable in any case). For own use production it wouldn't matter that much though, you'd only have to wait a little longer to get the needed goods. Unemployment Subsidies reform is supposed to give money to pops that are unemployed so it impedes migrations we may be expecting. I haven't played enough 1.04 games to test if pops will migrate now at all with the increased exports so I might be wrong omitting this reform. I also heared that Safety Regulations reduce efficiency too but this is not confirmed and I haven't noticed any influence myself. After a short reconsideration I decide to enact Unemployment Subsidies however. When we will desperately need pops to migrate in the future this reform can be revoked at a low cost. Due to the increased number of citizens, we acquired during wars, cost of enacting those reforms increased too, from just above £5000 to £8000. Encating four reforms mops up our money saved till now and puts us into a debt again, but it's a good investment. When there is no debt social reforms act as a strong immigration magnet.

After forming, Bolivia seems to take over Peru's divisions sent to it's territory to quell rebelions. The eventual war Peru might want to declare is up in the air. With no army they will not be very willing to do that. Provided there is enough immigration, the provinces we got *will* supply us with all the iron and sulphur we might need but it would be nice to get even more. Ah well, we will have to do without additional provinces I suppose.



[anchor=outset_immigration]Outset of immigration[/anchor]

On the 1st of August ruling party changes to Partido Unitario. It is liberal so at last immigration will start. It's laissez-faire stance means that the maximum allowed tax level is 50% (it somewhat cuts our income and pop consciousness increase) but importing goods from the WM costs half the price (for the government, pops still pay the full price I think). We will not be able to enact social reforms any more. Also the social spending can be set to zero, even further increasing consciousness from trust in government. The party's biggest advantage is the Full Citizenship stance that will allow us to assimilate immigrants and build a big nation. Pluralism attracts immigrants better than Moralism. This party has Pro Military instead of Jingoism, which doesn't change much, and keeps the Free Trade cap on tariffs.

With the new ruling party daily budget changes to: Poor taxes at 50% yeld £11.3 and middle taxes at 50% yeld £7.3, rich taxes to zero, there is no rich strata anyway. Set social spending to zero and defence to 50%. The debt interest costs around £6 every day eating up most of the remaining income, which stays positive though. The money from idemnities from Peru will allow us to gradually repay the debt. Alternatively if you didn't ask for them or want to get rid of the debt sooner defence spending can be cut. Soon the incoming immigrants will generate some additional exports, propably enough to boost the income by two or three pounds. Tariffs increase slightly to £0.7. With the current taxes pops' savings will skyrocket.


In previous patches immigration behaved differently. There was some hardcoded immigration from the beginning and after becoming liberal a real onrush happened and then the flow slightly diminished over time. Now it seems that the immigration starts low and unwinds towards the end, which is better IMHO and causes less problems with managing your citizens. But still some caution is advised to assimilate all incoming immigrants. The advantages of having immigrants assimilated far exceed the small drawbacks, especially in the long run. Assimilation will cause some of the small starting pops to merge with the existing ones, reducing exports slightly. RP generation is calculated by the percentage of clerks (or other good researchers) in your national population. So as the minorities assimilate you need more and more clerks to mantain the percentage and not many, if any at all, clerks will be promoted in the near future. It is profitable to pay clerk promotion cost only for big pops and until they emerge research may be hurt a bit. Clerks don't come in flocking now as they used to. OTOH big pops will have less income per person possibly letting to drain pops' reserves even at avarage tax levels (I'm not against letting pops to live a good life only that the reserves they get seem a waste to me). Also some pops, like capitalists or officers, perform better when there are many people in them. And besides that without assimilation we will not be able to build a great nation.

There is one remark I'd like to add. Immigrant pops are driven by several factors when deciding what province they choose to settle in. Firstly, they favor states with the highest number of provinces. Secondly, they prefer states with some prized RGO types, like gold, iron, sulphur or silk. Thirdly, there is something that causes immigrants to choose states (this is for USA but might apply here too) more to the west if all options are otherwise equally valued. Also states with the capital province are supposed to get a bonus. In terms of our current game it means that the initially small stream of immigrants concentrates in Valparaiso state, because of the high value iron mine, even before the gold event finally triggers (btw when that happens set sell precious metals keeping 25 in stockpile for promotions). This is as desired - one of the best places pops can go to. The immigrants that do not find enough job slots there choose a second state. And that state is La Rioja. It has 7 provinces, just like the second big state Buenos Aires, and has, a low value but still prized, iron, unlike BA. In 1.03c La Rioja becamed the industrial center and the very heart of Argentina thanks to the big population. A bunch of worthless mountainous provinces in the middle of nowhere I might add. That was completely ahistorical. For a long time I thought it was caused by hardcoded german immigration that used to appear there. Now I'm sure that it was the iron mine that lured immigrants.

So my solution to the problem would be to mod that iron mine out. It will not cause Argentina to get more immigrants or interfere with other aspects of the game considerably. But it may lead to having a more historical, BA centered distribution of population. The simplest way to do so is to edit the province.csv file. Use a text editor (not Excel) to find 'Vinchina' chain and change iron to fruit in that line. It will work for all new games started from the scenario file. There are two ways to mod this in a currently ongoing game - editing savefile or writing an event. To edit the save file open it in a text editor. Find '2624' chain. Click next untill you get to the province section (the area between '{' and '}'). Change the iron to fruit. It will change the displayed RGO type but iron will still be produced there. Click find next untill you get to the state section. It should be La Rioja. Replace 'iron_mine' with 'orchard' and that should do the trick.

The described action will shift the second best target to Arequipa state - the sulphur mines (ok maybe I lied a bit saying it doesn't influence gameplay considerably. In previus patch only bits of immigration happened there from time to time when the flow was big enough). The third target is Salta state. Surprisingly pops rather that 6-province state than 7-province BA - is it timber? Seems that Buenos Aires will get it's share of immigration when we build factories.


In a few days population ideology reverses back to conservative and some pops are assimilated. Notably the small Patagonian pops in Buenos Aires and Corrientes merge with the remnants of former aristocrats and turn reactionary, surprisingly at low militancy. There is a counter that will reset to conservative ideology at some point but now all farmer pops that will merge in those two provinces will add to that pop because it is at the top of the list. It won't have any meaning really apart from an odd aspect. I thought that pops turn towards radical version of their ideology exclusively when their militancy is high (or by event of course) and when militancy drops they go back to the moderate version. I guess I was wrong.

Soon after the election takes place, Freedom of Trade should be finished researching. It activates a bulk of factory types, increases tax efficiency by 3% (from 37% to 40% giving a 8.1% improvement), tariff efficiency by 8% (from 41% to 49% giving a 19.5% improvement, but tariffs income is so low that this is negligible), education and crimefighting costs by 6% (modifier rises by 5.6% from 1.065 to 1.125). In absolute numbers our expenses inrease only by £0.2, because we don't fund crime fighting, while income increases by £1.7. After that another important technology is selectable, namely Ideological Thought. It has five inventions associated with each ideology - conservative, liberal and socialist - that will trigger when the ruling party has that ideology. Conservative inventions decrease plurality by 5 each and the remaining ones increase plurality by 5 each. Because we just assured that conservatives will never come to power again this tech can be safely chosen. There is no simple way of getting those socialist inventions to boost plurality even higher because it would require electing socialist party, which for Argentina appears so late that it doesn't make any difference. But even 25 plurality instead of 50 is a good thing to have, the more so because industry research got bogged before Mechanized Mining, that is blocking further progress in industry branch.

We now have 5 MPs and the ability to build serious factories, earlier we could only build glass, liquor and wine ones, each for 4MPs/level. It is advisable not to build lvl1 factories, but upgrade them to at least lvl2 immediately. There is a random event called Industry Disaster and an economic event called Industrial Sector Crash that destroy one of the lvl1 factories. They may trigger only when you are a Great Power (one of the eight highest ranked countries) though, but better safe than sorry. You may miss the point at which you go to the top of the ranking. Because of that, building a glass factory wasn't really a good idea. Now we have several other options, e.g. lumber mill or fabric factory. It is possible to reach lvl2 with the amout of MPs we have. If you feel like you cannot wait any longer you can start industrialization right now. But my advice would be to wait. The factories don't earn a big amount of cash and the basic goods can be bought of the WM in the quantity needed for now. One factory, even upgraded, will not draw a lot of immigrants. In a 7-province BA it will be a few hundred of craftsmen per province giving a few thousand in total and after all slots are filled immigration will end. So why not wait a bit longer for more MPs giving techs and construct a steel mill and MPs factory to be independent form the supplies on the WM? We will be able to build a production chain iron->steel->MPs (or something else) from domestic goods. That way we will establish a foundation for further industrialization.

Pray that you get the culture invention quickly. If we planned any more conquests it could wait a bit because right now cost of DoWing is still low. But the neighbours are either too strong or too worthless to attack and we have no sea transport capability to pick out good targets. In fact the previous actions (including wars and other decisions) can be copied in every Argentina game, because they give a solid base, but from now on pretty much everything can happen. My decision for the moment is to stand still, develope as much as I can and wait for a good opportunity to use it. In my game Oldenburg finished researching Idealism six months before me, it is possible with 80% literacy and tech trading even for the ai. It is a race of who gets it first and gains an advantage for the future. Prestige is an important factor deciding the speed at which inventions are triggered. We already have a few queued, not that they do much, but if you are unlucky you may be still left with no attitude invention if you didn't get it at sight, because of the negative prestige we're in. In the future we will want some inventions to trigger asap, so building up prestige is a priority. If we miss our chance now the next inventions will start in 1850 and more countries are likely to research culture techs by then. The competition will be the bigger, that some countries will have many prestige points already. Those that have a high prestige are more likely to get even more prestige through culture inventions. Those that have low prestige may remain at that low value. Mayby those easy war gains do come at a price after all.

Till the end of 1840 population increased to 1.320 milion, so provided that avarage natural monthly growth was 0.11%, around 35k immigrants came to our country, which makes a rate of 77k/year. A rather humble amount I'd say bethinking the amount of effort made to get it. Will have to rely mostly on natural growth I suppose. Comforting piece of information is that revolutions in Europe are soon to come. Due to the debt, we fell down the ranking taking one of the last positions. Aimara and Quechua minorities are assimilated, the increase in national culture population causes the research to slow down to 0.69RP/month. We will have to rely on RPs and literacy giving events. Btw. in an event that gives you choice between the two always take literacy. In the current situation one percent of literacy will generate 1RP every 12 to 14 years. And in addition literacy influences pop efficiency in RGOs and factories. Besides even with max funding we will have no chance to reach 100% literacy till the end so every percent closer is good. Assimilation also slightly decreases revolt risk in the provinces.



[anchor=before_industrialization]Preparations for industrialization[/anchor]

We can start looking for an ally. The diplomats are being accumulated and soon the limit of ten will be reached so it's better to spend them somehow, preferably wisely. Improving relations with the UK will cost too much for now, so we need to befrend someone else first. When we turned democratic relations were improved by 100 with all democracies in the world. It's best to choose a country we have good relations with already. My choice would be Equador - if we wanted to trade techs, Columbia - if we planned war with Brazil or Guatemala - for possible involvement in the Central America.

During 1841 population rises to 1.409 milion. Around 71k immigrants came to our country (granted that growth was 0.11%). The South Andean pop in Copiapo is assimilated. There is a trick that can be used if it rebels at some point. We are garrisoning the remaining nationalism-caused revolt risk provinces so if a rebel appears there it fights at a severe disadvantage. Copiapio however is not protected, so when the pop rebels there we would have to attack it suffering the mountainous terrain penalty. In 1.04 attrition is no applied to rebels any more so it is no longer possible to wait till rebels go home, recapturing lost provinces in the meantime. But knowledge that the pop will assimilate in the near future can be used to avoid killing your own population. Just wait and recapture provinces and when the pop gets assimilated (and the rebel flag removed) put your cavalry, reinforced to the max, in a position that it gets attacked. That way you minimize casualties, as losses are drained from the soldier pop covering the division only. This trick works for minorities only, for nationals the rebel flag usually doesn't disappear, but they have a much lower revolt risk so they are less likely to rebel in the first place. Research falls further to 0.67RP/month. For me Neokantian Idealism triggered for 115pp (event 100pp * 1.15 prestige_mod) placing us at the second place in prestige just behing France. This will give us additional diplomats gain, +0.25 for being above 25pp and +0.25 for being above 100pp, 1.5 yearly in total. According to the savefile only Oldenburg had this tech researched and triggered the invention but strangely they didn't get any prestige for that. And if you happen to get 1pp? Well better luck next time.

In January 1842 the war idemnities treaty with Peru expires. Luckily the debt is largely repaid, there is only £3500 left. Technology is finished researching. From the available choices there is no noteworthy one left besides industry, Basic Chemistry is blocking the path to machine parts anyway. Additionaly it activates fertilizer factory, which is the first element in the armament chain we will want to build later. The remaining steamers are attainable. Soon after that the five years peace treaty with Chile comes to an end. Chile will propably ally Peru. It would be nice to somehow provoke them to DoW us, as they are almost sure to backstab us when we are not prepared, e.g. waging a though war with a strong opponent. If you didn't get the prestige invention in the middle of the year, positive prestige should be reached at last, enabling future tech trading. A few diplomats should be sent to some country before the limit is reached and we start wasting them. I chose Equador. You may need to delay this action to go up in ranking to pay a bit less improving relations (you pay more when the country you improve relations with is higher in ranking). Improving relation costs £160 for me, while opening negotiations only £10. So one might think that a cheaper option is to offer £100 in negotiations. The ai will always accept the offer and relations will increase by 15, while improving relations increases them by 10. But personally it feels like cheating, or at least exploiting glitches. Besides that improving relations has a chance to increase them by far more than 10, if you are lucky of course. Send two doplomats for now. Clippers becoming available will delay our efforts in repaying the debt but we will need them so the trade orders should not be changed. By the end of the year population rises to 1.496 milion. Around 68k immigrants came to our country (granted that growth was 0.11%).

By April 1843 the country should be free of the debt. With the clippers available in the stockpile comission three clipper transports in Buenos Aires. It costs 12 clippers, £1500, a little bit of manpower and will last a year. In the middle of the year technology is finished researching again. Romanticism is available again, and as I'm not sure if we'll have another occasion to research it before 1850 I'd take it now. The Mechanized Mining may be tempting but if won't run away anywhere. Send another diplomat to avoid reaching the limit. In August the debt should be gotten rid of again. We are now ranked 18. By the end of the year all five Ideological Thought inventions should trigger. Our plurality is now 30.9. Mayby this will reverse the downward trend of immigration we are observing each year. By the end of the year population rises to 1.594 milion. Around 78k immigrants came to our country (granted that growth was 0.11%).

Year 1844 starts with the end of peace treaty with Peru. Will have to be more careful from now on. The commisioned transports will be finished. There is no need to deploy them right now so keep them in the recruitment pool and set navy maintenance to zero to avoid paying two pounds a day needlessly. In May the Platinean population in La Serena will propably exceed 50%. We can demote soldier pop that was promoted there earlier. It will soon assimilate. Apparently non-working pops are considered unemployed in terms of the assimilation cap. Romanticism was finished researching for an additional 5% prestige_mod bonus. The choice now is a though one because all fields present a worthwhile option. I'd opt for Mechanized Mining to follow the path to MPs. On the 1st of August election campaign starts. We will have to prepare for a next election as with the current setup we will lose sorely. There are two methods of wining, both include narrowing voting rights to wealth. We can promote two more pops to clerks a few days before the election and because it costs a lot we can as well kill two birds with one stone by promoting the biggest pops in Valparaiso to boost research. This has two downsides though, we won't be able to save enough money to avoid going to debt again and immigrant flow can become way too big to be handled. So let's use the second method. It's based on an unexpected, at least for me, observation regarding pop migration. Unemployed clerk pop in the capital *will* migrate searching empty factory slots to fill despite having lots of money. If we build a factory in BA it will move in bits of 725 size every month, to provinces in the state creating more liberal voters, which is good. I don't recall seeing it in 1.03, starvation was the only method of convincing pops to move. We need a factory to contain the massive flood of immigrants, that starts appearing, into the provinces we want it to go. This is the sole purpose for having a factory for now. While it is being build it acts as having open slots so craftsmen will go exclusively to BA state. This will relieve the mines in the west as they are not handling with assimilation fast enough now. Every immigrant that goes to Salta state (the third target after Valparaiso and Arequipa are both filled) is kinda wasted. The factory could be used later for developement so the choice is between lumber mill and cement factory. Check the demand/supply for this two goods in the ledger page 12. For me cement was a scarcer commodity so I decided to build a cement factory. By the end of the year population rises to 1.825 milion. Around 209k immigrants came to our country (granted that growth was 0.11%).

In 1845 we have to be ready for a flavor event 'Facundo: or, Civilization and Barbarism (46601)', which will cause a revolt in a random province. The rebel division that appears is not tied to any pop, so you don't need to worry about killing your own population, but it starts at full 10k size so it should be gotten rid of asap once engaged. Because we only have cavalry around I'd suggest putting it in one of the predicted targets to dig up or at least to be attacked for the terrain penalty just as described earlier with the rebel in Copiapio. There is no need to reinforce the unit if it is above 6000 men, there will be no difference in neither combat time nor causalties taken. The election takes place on the 1st of May. We need to change voting rights a few days before that. From now on we will propably never have to worry about liberals winning any more. The results are 71.43%:28.57% (or 5:2 in pops). Right now we can do something with the lagging research. Let's promote the big pop in La Serena to clergymen while it is still not near to 100k size (we don't want it to split too soon). Clergymen are much cheaper than clerks both in promotion costs (£1000+goods instead of £5000+goods) and in education (around 45% of what clerks cost). RPs generation jumps to 0.9RP/month, education costs rise by around £1.3/day. Here is a snapshot of the country at the start of the second term:

Liberals are certain about winning elections but this is not the end of our struggle with the matter. A new liberal party, namely Partido Liberal, will appear in 1856 replacing Partido Unitario. A party will not disappear if it is in power but when it loses even one election and it is after the death date, the party is gone forever. Partido Unitario is better mainly because it has the full citizenship stance, which allows a better assimilation (considerably higher assimilation caps and propably faster process as well), so we cannot let it vanish. The problem is that both parties are almost exactly the same, beside two out of five stances, but the new one has a lower ID. In the way elections work this fact will favor Partido Liberal over Partido Unitario. The only way to keep the current party without cheating is to manipulate the population in campaign events and that means a permanent election campaign until the expected results occur. If a liberal pop has issues that none of these two parties have as a stance, it will vote on Partido Liberal. If such pop has issues that both of these parties have as a stance, it will vote on Partido Liberal. We will only be satisfied if most of the pops that are allowed to vote (right now it applies to clerks in BA) have either pluralism or full citizenship as their dominant/secondary issues. Election campaign system is somewhat flawed, because events trigger for individual states, which we have many, and affect various issue types, so it takes either luck or lots of attempts to get what we intend to do. The conclusion is simple - run elections one after another till you get religion or minority events in BA and support pluralism and/or full citizenship.

Constructing the factory lasts one year and after that all slots get filled, so factory workers stop comming to BA. To avoid that let's expand the factory. This will give us one more year to work on the problem. Pause the game, remove all five workers from the factory and then add them again. This will assure that the biggest pops get to work first, in particular the clerk pop in Buenos Aires - an employed pop no longer migrates. Mechanized mining is finished researching, unlocking Experimental Railroad to be chosen in the next step. Right now we have to research something different. Clean Coal? Thanks, not yet. Malthusian Thought is an ok choice. It does nothing but will allow Positivism later. Alternatively you could get the army tech for the reason that it finishes 10% faster due to national value and gives a nice, although not essencial, org bonus. By the end of the year population rises to 2.437 milion. Around 588k immigrants came to our country (granted that growth was 0.11%).



[anchor=massive_immigration]Dealing with immigration[/anchor]

1846. Immigration is starting to become hard to control, even though we divided the flow between RGO (in the west) and factory (in BA) workers. Pops are comming faster than they can be assimilated with four empty slots per province in Valparaiso and two empty slots per province in Arequipa states. Luckily Platinean culture is now a majority in Chalhuanca so assimilation will trigger soon, emtying two more slots. And indeed this takes place in June. When factory finishes expanding immigrants will stop comming to BA. We don't have the MPs to make more factories. But there is a clever trick we can use to solve this problem. Go to the Production Overview screen and turn off the auto-assign workers to factories option. Now go to the factory screen, kick out five new workers and manually add three new, these will be the biggest 20k size craftsmen from each province. 7 craftsmen + 1 clerk from Buenos Aires is a setup that still leaves open job slots that will keep the immigrants attracted. There is one problem with this solution. Immigrants are pouring in so fast now that it is likely that non catholic pops exceed 2k size, which is assimilation cap for the unemployed. If such pop exceeds 10k size we will never be able to assimilate it. This happened for me in two provinces at the moment the factory finished expanding. Juarez and Bahia Blanca both had a South German protestant pop of more than 5k size. We must provide jobs for this two pops. We have only 2 slots left in the factory, so only one of the pops might find a job there. When you add pops manually the best pop is selected first, there is not much manouvering space. The second pop needs to wait until the first one gets assimilated. We will have to watch out for such situations in the future. However if you overlook a non-catholic pop that is near to 10k size and have no chance to assimilate it before it exceeds the cap, it is better to convert it to farmers. That way it is employed and cannot merge with incoming craftsmen, so it will be assimilated sooner or later. Remember to keep sending diplomats to the UK before accumulating 10 of them. After the tech is researched, get Experimental Railroad. By the end of the year population rises to 3.372 milion. Around 903k immigrants came to our country (granted that growth was 0.11%).

In the beginning of 1847 the number of people in Copiapio should be reaching 100k. We need to promote this pop to mantain a decent research rate. You can choose clergymen as before to reduce the costs a bit but I'd advise getting a clerk pop now. For some reason it will migrate to BA from Copiapo while it will not from La Serena. The reason may be that the distance in the number of provinces is the same (5) but the distance in states is not (6 provinces over 3 states as opposed to 5 provinces over 4 states/7 provinces over 3 states). Oh well, it would be nice to know the exact formula behind migrations of short range cultures. The education costs will rise by over 4 pounds but the daily balance should be still positive. Even if you promote the pop at 98k or 99k it will not split as it starts migrating and the bits that move are bigger than the monthly growth. It is ok, we want to move some pops from the west anyway. This year Platinean becomes a cultural majority in Puno too and after that, assimilation of the remaining South Andean pops should happen in September. When the tech is finished researching we have another though choice to make. Both Strategic Mobility (we are lagging in military right now) and Positivism (we are growing so fast that the research is lagging as well) would be very useful right now. But as High & Low Pressure Steam Engine becomes available the path to MPs can be followed. If we don't get it now the next opportunity will be after the full cycle (around five years). With the new tech we can start building lvl1 railroads around the country. We have neither the MPs nor the money to do it all at once so let's pick the most valuable provinces first. Railroading one province costs £2000, 0.1 MPs and some resources (costing around £500 but laissez-faire governments pay half the price). We are producing timber and cement but trade orders need to be changed for the remaining resources: buy 50 steel and buy 50 lumber. Puno and Chalhuanca are the best provinces to railroad now (investment will pay back between 7 and 14 years not including the increase in population, so in practice it will pay back sooner; railroads are one of the best investments in game). By the end of the year population rises to 4.426 milion. Around 1,009k immigrants came to our country (granted that growth was 0.11%).

In 1848 the ability to assimilate protestant and jewish german craftsmen is finished. The remaining free slots would be taken by a clerk pops, because they have grown big enough. We have to convert all non-catholic pops to farmers as soon as they exceed 2k size. Around August an additional problem with assimilation appears. Pops in Arequipa state reach 100k size and split. When a pop is near the size limit it cannot merge as it would result in pop bigger than the limit. Therefore after pop splits into 25k/75k an additional small pop remains occupying one more slot, which is one less (two instead of three) to deal with assimilation. Incoming immigrants will merge with the 25k size pop, because it is on the top. OTOH this makes us the leading sulphur exporter, pushing Two Sicilies into the second position. As a resoult income increases slightly too. Technology gives nothing after researching but makes Interchangeable Parts, the last step on the long path to MPs, selectable. Again, if you don't take it now the whole cycle will have to be waited out.
5.403M/5.306M

In 1849 the same occurance, as described earlier in Arequipa state, takes place in La Serena. Effect - now our assimilation capability is considerably smaller. Irish clergymen started to migrate to BA, this will completely kill farmer CON increase. Fortunately clergymen don't affect craftsmen. For now it doesn't matter but for future elections it's better to convert them to farmers to get more liberal votes. I even noticed a first foreign clerk immigrant.
6.150M

1850 is the starting year for many culture inventions so start praying. Both Romanticism and Idealism are already researched by around 30 countries by now, including the ones that have more prestige. It is much of a lottery. With Interchangeable Parts researched we gain 10MPs immediately and another 10MPs after Precision Work invention triggers. The next technology to choose should be Positivism. It is the best of the available options and will make up a bit for our inability to keep up the rate of research with the growth of the country.
6.652M



COMING SOON: immigrants, more immigrants and even more immigrants. Ok, so what is up with that industrialization?