• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

elbasto

Tier 1 minion
82 Badges
Aug 12, 2003
3.502
2
  • Stellaris: Galaxy Edition
  • 500k Club
  • Cities: Skylines
  • Cities: Skylines Deluxe Edition
  • Europa Universalis IV: El Dorado
  • Europa Universalis IV: Pre-order
  • Crusader Kings II: Way of Life
  • Europa Universalis IV: Common Sense
  • Crusader Kings II: Horse Lords
  • Europa Universalis IV: Cossacks
  • Crusader Kings II: Conclave
  • Europa Universalis IV: Mare Nostrum
  • Stellaris
  • Victoria 2: Heart of Darkness
  • Stellaris: Galaxy Edition
  • Hearts of Iron IV Sign-up
  • Hearts of Iron IV: Cadet
  • Crusader Kings II: Reapers Due
  • Europa Universalis IV: Rights of Man
  • Stellaris: Digital Anniversary Edition
  • Stellaris: Leviathans Story Pack
  • Hearts of Iron IV: Together for Victory
  • Crusader Kings II: Monks and Mystics
  • Stellaris - Path to Destruction bundle
  • Europa Universalis IV: Mandate of Heaven
  • Hearts of Iron IV: No Step Back
  • Europa Universalis IV
  • Crusader Kings II
  • Crusader Kings II: Charlemagne
  • Crusader Kings II: Legacy of Rome
  • Crusader Kings II: The Old Gods
  • Crusader Kings II: Rajas of India
  • Crusader Kings II: The Republic
  • Crusader Kings II: Sons of Abraham
  • Crusader Kings II: Sunset Invasion
  • Crusader Kings II: Sword of Islam
  • Darkest Hour
  • Europa Universalis III: Chronicles
  • Europa Universalis III Complete
  • Arsenal of Democracy
  • Europa Universalis IV: Art of War
  • Europa Universalis IV: Conquest of Paradise
  • Europa Universalis IV: Wealth of Nations
  • For The Glory
  • Heir to the Throne
  • Europa Universalis III Complete
  • Europa Universalis III Complete
  • Europa Universalis IV: Res Publica
  • Victoria: Revolutions
  • Victoria 2
With the release of Victoria 2 I decided to give Victoria 1 another try. The country I choose for this exercise of melancholy is the smallest nation in continental America at the start of the game.

The game version is Victoria Revolutions, latest patch (2.04 I believe) plus OHgamer’s hotfix.

Goals:
1. Survive.
2. Don’t own any land besides my cores (starting territory).
3. Become a Great Power before the game ends.
4. Be the number one producer of at least one item at the end of the game.

Rules:
1. No POP splitting. Since the AI does not seem to do this, I shall refrain myself.
2. No gamey tactics.

Regarding the format, I will post sort of a census information every ten years or so.

Disclaimer: I don’t speak English with the degree of fluency that would make me feel comfortable in most common situations.

So, let start by the beginning shall we?
 
Last edited:
1836

1836%201.jpg

Us

Notice the small population and the starting cash. We have three provinces, all of them cored.
We produce cattle in two of our provinces (one of them being our capital, Montevideo) and sheep in the third one. That’s right, three provinces mean that we may get annexed right away.

They, the people:

1836%202.jpg

Not much… not much at all. At least we are not *insert-name-of-ethnic-minority-for-which-the-reader-has-a-negative-opinion*


How we roll:
1836%203.jpg

The definition of a Party Pooper has never been so closely related to that of a Ruling Party

And finally, our alternatives:

1836%204.jpg

Whohoo!


As you can see, one of our parties has the best possible combination of policies available to attract immigrants.

We have no social policies enacted whatsoever. 
 
Last edited:
Opening Moves:

We have just sold all of our stocks of everything and use the resulting cash to enact social reforms. All of them. Due to our lovely party we can’t have 0 funding for them so we start having a hefty deficit of 0.4 $/day, which is burning our reserves of ~ $ 200.

We also change our voting rights to Universal Suffrage. After a month, an event triggers, turning our nation into a democracy. We immediately set voting rights to wealth. All other political reforms, are enacted to guarantee maximum political freedom.

Finally we go ahead and disband our army of 1 division. Its going to take some months to regain the 3 manpower required to demobilize our 2 soldier POPs.

At the start of the game both Brazil and Argentina start Improving our relations, to over +100.

We start researching Steam Engines, too bad that Freedom of Trade is not available at the start. Next, we started and completed Mechanical Production, which we happily traded to Brazil in exchange for Freedom of Trade.

Afterwards, we sold some techs to Argentina and Brazil, in order to increase our reserves. This cost us prestige, but we are going to need that money if we want to promote pops, industrialize and change our current party pooper ruling party.
 
Once turn black, you never go back. Also, incipient industrialization:

In the tech field we started to focus heavily in cultural techs. We want that plurality by the rooftop a.s.a.p.

By 1841 we had our first budgetary surplus:

1841%201.jpg

Once you turn black, you never go back!.. If only that was true (for game purposes, at least)


That might not seem as much reserves, but for a country of our Lilliputian size, we are stinking rich!

That means that, after saving some more money, selling some more techs to Brazil and Argentina and placing the right buying orders, we have enough assets to turn our largest pop into a clerk and later a capitalist.

Did you hear that? That’s the sound of an anticipated election! What was that? Oh, you could not hear it due to the sound of a new cement factory? Although really, really tiny, those are steps taken in the right direction.

Let’s fast forward a little bit, shall we? And let’s welcome 1851:


1851%201.jpg
Tenfold population increase? I can live with that. Also, considering that over 7% of our pops are capitalist and that this is mid XIX century, Uruguay must have the lowest Gini Index in the whole planet!

The date is 1851 and Uruguay is already an immigrant magnet. The promised land, the Switzerland of the new world, the king of the gutter, the Michelangelo of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, everybody loves Uruguay (in your face, Raymond!).

The Colorados party will stay in power via free elections until the end of the game
 
Last edited:
The mid game:

Let us welcome phase 2 of the game, shall we:

product_life_cycle.jpg

Of course that we do not plan to enter last stage… EVER.


1864:
1864%201.jpg

By now, we have early railroads in every province (all three of them!) and we are el número uno amongst Latin Americans.


1870:

1870.jpg

By now, we have steel railroads in every province (all three of them!) and we are el número uno amongst Latin Americans... Déjà vu.

As you can see, we also have a nice surplus in research points. Now, since we are focusing solely in Industry and Culture techs, we use these to trade with Brazil and Argentina Commercial techs.


Also worthy of mention is that our Capis don’t seem to be as factory building proficient as they were in the previous decade. Even though we haven’t been taxing them (rich taxes at 0%) nor charging them tariffs for their imports, at times they seemed unable to meet their luxury needs. Luckily this was not a problem since most immigrants were being assimilated into the existing Platinean POPS (Farmes, Craftmen and to a lesser extent, Clerks).
At some point here, I mobilized one soldier POP in every province in order to welcome migrating officers and soldiers POPs from Europe.

So, by now you should get the idea. Keep it Laissez-faire and wait. Let’s fast forward a little bit to our next relevant moment in Uruguayan history.
 
Last edited:
Capis and Officers or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Great Powers

1890: We have recently turned into a World Power. We are amongst the greatest nations on Earth.

1890.jpg

Not bad for tiny Uruguay


By this time, we started building claims in Nambia, just for the prestige, and improving our provinces, building forts and ports in all (three!) of them.

By now Uruguay had trained its first armed forces since 1836. Our goal was to have 1 Infantry division with an artillery brigade in every province plus an army of 20 Inf+ART for offensive operations (always led by a General that offsets attrition for our armies). Notice that we have a significant amount of leadership (growing at over 2/month with a maximum of ~56 by the time the screen shot was taken).

So, with that leaderships, and those many guns, Latin America does not stand a chance.

Our objective was to turn all of Latin America into our satellites.

1890%20world%20with%20arrows.jpg

The West at the end of the XIX century and Uruguay’s road map.

The map is pretty self explanatory. The only initial challenge was Brazil, but it ended up carving to our demands when their War Exhaustion was over 50% and ours was under 2%.

Urugay’s campaign for not-expansion started in the mid 1890 and ended around 1910. Twenty years of warfare that did not demand mobilization of even 4% of our total population, nor a budgetary deficit.

At the end of the expansion process, we bought Cuba from Spain in exchange of some techs and colonized Namibia and then sold it to the British in exchange for technologies and money.
 
Last edited:
The end game:

So we only needed to wait until 1936.

The final standing at July 1935:


Final Standing:
1936%200.jpg

We made it into the top 3! Note that there are three clusters of GPs. UK+Ger, Uruguay to France and finally Russia and Japan.


Uruguay in numbers:
1936%201.jpg

Notice that we control all of continental LatAm, Texas and Cuba as Satellites. We have researched all techs but one and 1/3rd of our population is wealthy (clerks and above)


The World in numbers:
1936%202.jpg

We ended the scenario with 202 MM citizens, more than all of the Americas together, including the USA. I wonder how did this affect the development of the US and other nations that receive a high number of immigrants…


The World Market:
1936%203.jpg

At the end, Uruguay was the main world producer of Cattle, Wool, Steamers, Fuel, Telephones, Radios, Automobiles, Tanks and Airplanes. IN YOUR FACE UK/GERMANY!

Well, that was it. I hope you enjoyed this very short AAR.
Regards,
 
Last edited:
Very nice, but your math is off (sorry I am an Engineer and picky about math):

Population: 197,404,000
Area: 176,215 km^2
Water %: 1.5%

Livable area (max): 176,215 * .985 = 173,571.775 km^2

Density: 197,404,000 / 173,571.775 = 1,137.3 people/(km^2)
 
Interesting, you could probably have boosted your industry rating significantly had you been spliting your POPs.

And also did you remain with the liberals for the whole duration of the game? In my Uruguay game i found them to be to slow after the 1890's and switched to the socialist. The increased cost for social reforms or more than compensated for by the ability to directly control your industry, and make it possible to only focus on the most profitable goods.
 
Herbert West said:
Awesome. Period.

Thank you very much. The best thing about this is that I did not do much =) I find playing with Uruguay easier than with Russia and you can end up with a quite similar score.


Mr. Capitalist said:
Very nice, but your math is off (sorry I am an Engineer and picky about math)

I made the calculations using 200 MM people, since by late December my total population was around 202 MM. Also I did not know that you had to consider water covered area in that kind of demographic calculation.


Interesting, you could probably have boosted your industry rating significantly had you been spliting your POPs.

And also did you remain with the liberals for the whole duration of the game? In my Uruguay game i found them to be to slow after the 1890's and switched to the socialist. The increased cost for social reforms or more than compensated for by the ability to directly control your industry, and make it possible to only focus on the most profitable goods.
During the whole game there were some periods in which the Capis were quite passive but the liberal Colorados (after some time a socialist party with the same name appears) attract a lot of immigrants and population is the main restriction for Uruguay. After a certain point, money was not an issue, not because I had loads of it but because I had nothing to do with that much money and so few provinces. I had level 6 forts everywhere and maxed out ports.

At the end, once the demand/supply of automobiles and other luxury items normalized, the Capis were on an expansion fever. As you may have noticed, by the end game I was the main producer of the most profitable items in the market.

Besides, the only two nations that had a higher Industrial score than me (Germany and the UK) had around 14k, while mine was around 7. With the Colorados in power and all those many immigrants, I did not have enough manpower to double my industrial output.
 
Last edited:
Does anyone know if funding of social reforms are needed to attract immigrants?

Or just enacting them is enough?

Or is the funding only taken into account for the reduction of militancy?

Regards.


Edit: I also noticed that Cuba appears as "Dominion of an Empire". Clearly, the only requisite to have a "Dominion" is to have a satellite nation outside your landmass (regarding-less of the continent). Probably if Japan had satellite nations, they would all be "Dominions". This clearly settles (or narrows down) a past discussion about how to achieve Dominion status. Cheers.
 
Last edited:
It should be sufficient to just enact them. Never seen a change in the numbers of immigrants when I changed the funding slider.

Likewise. I played a Transvaal game where I had enacted all reforms, didn't fund them and all that happened is that my POPs became more conscious!
 
Wow.Awesome "fortress" gameplay man.Good AAR,too bad it was so short.

Thanks man!

The background was lackluster compared to most Victorian AARs but I did not have enough time and I really wanted to complete it. It hurts when good AARs are abandoned, I'd rather see a short one focused on gameplay.
 
Last edited:
It should be sufficient to just enact them. Never seen a change in the numbers of immigrants when I changed the funding slider.

Thanks for the answer. If this is the case, I really see no point in funding social spending unless under very specific circumstances. Usually, it would be cheaper to fund your army and crush the rebels.

I don't know any case in the Americas where funding social spending isn't worthless.