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Painting the world Orange…
A Dutch HOD AAR by Quirinus308

523pxcoatofarmsofthenet.png

Hello and welcome aboard to my first foray into the world of Vicky 2. For those of you who know me, I spent years playing and writing about Vicky/Ricky but got sidetracked when Vicky 2 came out and never even gave the game a try. So here we are several years and two expansions later, and I am finally returning to my first love, the Victorian era.

This AAR is not intended to be a massive tome, but rather a light hearted gameplay AAR about what will essentially be a learning experience for me. I’ve played the game enough to familiarize myself with the mechanics, but not enough to master the game as I had in Vicky 1, so needless to say, this should be interesting. Any advice or pointers would be appreciated.

Since I lack experience with the game, I was looking to play a second tier nation with good potential. There are a number of countries that fit this description, but in the end I decided to run with the United Kingdom of the Netherlands.


mapofthekingdom.png


So there we are… Unfortunately you may notice that half our kingdom is presently in rebellion. This has been the case since 1830 when the southern half of the kingdom rebelled against his majesty William I. They even went so far as to crown their own king, which is generally considered treason in most countries.

First order of business will be the reunification of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. Of course there are some outside the kingdom who enjoy seeing the nation partitioned, and have threatened to intervene militarily should we attempt reunification, but why worry about that for now?
 
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Despite my (probably unhealthy) obsession of, and respect for, Leopold of Belgium, I'll be following this. I like the Netherlands, and this promises to be a good ride.

Please, continue.
 
So here is my general plan for playing the Dutch.

First order of business is the reunification of the kingdom. After all we can’t be a united kingdom if we are divided now can we? Following that, I will focus my efforts on colonial expansion, and industrialization with a few prestige techs along the way.

So here we are…

europe.png

We are sandwiched right smack in the middle of the big 3: France, Prussia/Germany and Britain. After the re-unification campaign we will have little room to expand in Europe.

While the British have never been to fond of invading the mainland, there navy is massive, and can easily bottle us up in the event of war. Both France and Prussia/Germany have a seemingly endless supply of troops to draw upon in the event of war, so there is little chance at present of beating them in a straight up fight. My plan is to ally with one of the big 3 and use them to do my heavy lifting in the early stages. Our best relations at present are with Prussia, so they get the early nod.

As for expansion, our best opportunities will be to take the historical Dutch approach, and look abroad. Let’s start with the Americas. Just about all the land in the Americas has already been gobbled up, so any expansion will require war. We do start with a few Caribbean possessions, and the best move would probably be to keep our focus there.


carribean.png


As you can see (if you look hard enough) we hold two tiny islands and as well as a couple of provinces in Guyana. I always enjoy uniting the Caribbean islands, and there is usually decent money from the capturing of all the tobacco and cotton producing islands. Unfortunately their owners (namely France and Britain) are rather fond of their islands. The Spanish however are usually an easy target, and Cuba does bring in a little cash. Haiti also represents a nice target. Then there’s Guyana: Split between us, the French and the British, it’s a Cassus Belli just waiting to happen.

Africa is of course a wide open target…


africat.png

Egypt is of course always a good target, and is usually high on my list of potential objectives. The Beors to the south deserve liberation, but unfortunately the game no longer considers them Dutch, so their conquest would be for gameplay reasons only. Oh and I almost forgot to mention we do happen t.o have one little colony on the west coast, but its so small you probably wouldn’t even see it on the map. Oh well, it’s not the size that counts

Then there’s the far east…

eastasia.png


There’s a lot of money to be had here. Historically the Dutch had eyes on Japan as an area of potential expansion, and it certainly fits our philosophy of keeping to the islands, and letting our navy fight our wars for us. Korea is also a tempting target, but I am a little hesitant of opening up a potential land border with Russia. China of course is rich with pops, just waiting to be exploited, but for now at least I don’t think our technology is far enough advanced to compensate for the manpower advantage China has. She may be a plum best picked later.

A little further to the south, is the crown jewel in our colonial empire: The Dutch East Indies.


seasia.png


This area also represents some of the best targets for early colonial conquest. In no particular order, I find myself eyeing: the Philippines, Borneo, Johore, Atjeh, and the whole of SE Asia from Burma to Vietnam.
 
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Looking forward to this, should be an experience for me, having never played The Netherlands.

Also anticipating the new expansion features, seeing how they impact gameplay

Wishing you the best of luck in all your ventures. Subbed.
 
Next let’s examine the military might of our kingdom. We shall begin with our pride and joy, the Royal Navy.

navalcomparison.png

We have the sixth strongest navy in the game. That sounds like a promising start…
Our navy is presently spread out around the globe. The home fleet is in Amsterdam

homefleet.png


The Far East Squadron is stationed at Java

indonesiannavy.png

And lastly we have the Far West Squadron stationed in the Carribean.

carribeannavy.png


Of course our navy is a bit of paper tiger…
The first order of business will be the reunification campaign which will undoubtedly lead to war with Britain. In such a war, we will keep our navy in port. In future wars we will be fighting mostly uncivilized nations in which case our navy represents over kill. Still we don’t have a lot to be proud of at the moment, so for now we can be happy we have a navy, and hope we still do after the first year. In the mean time we are increasing the number of transports we have in preparation for future colonial endeavors. All transports are being constructed in the East Indies.


navyconstructs.png


We will eventually add 3 more transports, making for a total of 9 transports under construction. This will give us 12 transports total.

Our army is not quite as strong.


armycomparison.png


It takes a little longer to find us on that list, but there we are, just below Burma… That’s right I said below Burma. Our Army includes a small force in the East Indies.


fareastarmy.png


But the bulk of our forces are stationed at home


homearmies.png


The plan will be to bring the home armies together under one leader in order to overwhelm any potential Belgian force we encounter. We go ahead and begin training additional colonial troops, in anticipation of our future colonial ventures.


armyconstructs.png


Overall I think we are militarily ready for the reunification campaign, and war with the British.
 
Nicely explained with regards to your goals. Certainly looks like it's going to be an interesting campaign.

Good luck, and I'm looking forward to more.
 
Thanks guys... I have a couple more post before we actually get started. I like to lay a foundation of where we are going, and some what of the logic on how we plan to get there. But I promise there will be plenty of actin from day 1 (actually from day 9).
 
Good luck. When I played Netherlands I concentrated on taking all the islands in the far east (besides Japan). I'm looking forward to seeing what you do.
 
In this post we will take a quick look at the technologies of the Netherlands and how they relate to our goals. Overall we start out in roughly the same spot as most other European states… which is to say, behind Britain, but ahead of the Ottomans.

Let’s start with Army techs
armytech.png
The thing I look for most in my army techs, are the ones that add to my attack value, boost my artillery, increase width, and raise tactics…
In other words, they are all important. Of course having said that, I intend to hold of on researching army techs at the start of the game. The logic behind this is based upon who will be fighting. For now, we will be on fairly even footing with the other Europeans, and slightly ahead of the uncivs. We can maintain this for probably the first 10 to 15 years in my estimation which hopefully will allow us to develop other areas before we turn our attention back to the army

navytech.png

Long term, the naval techs are extremely important to us as they allow us to increase our colonial empire and also build bigger and stronger ships (thus more military score). I would love to be in an ironclad race with the British, but I am not sure if we will be far enough along by then. So at first, we will not be investing much in the navy.

commercetech.png
Commerce techs are important to cash flow, but at the start of the game that shouldn’t be to much of an issue. The East Indies give us a strong tax base, so while more money is always good, and is a definite long term goal (to maintain our massive navy) we will probably not be spending much time here in the early game.

culturetech.png
Culture techs are going to be a big deal for us. There are three main goals I have from the culture line: The aesthetics line, for the prestige, the philosophy line for the increase in research, and the political thought line for the increase in National Focus. For now you can’t research Idealism until 1840 so we will focus on Romanticism and Realism and hope we get the inventions (and thus the prestige) early.

industrytech.png
And lastly we come to industry…
To be able to compete with the big boys in the end game we will need to be maxed out in industry. For now though, the most important tech to me is medicine. The little I have played so far has shown me that attrition can kill, so any help in that area is a good thing (especially if we are going after the uncivs).

With all that in mind, we choose medicine for our first tech, to be followed by romanticism and realism.
 
This will be the last update prior to the start of the game. From here on out, there won’t be so much detail unless situations warrant it. Usually if I focus on details, it will be only one post sandwiched in between other stuff.

We start with the budget…
budget.png
We use the fairly standard budget with just a few modifications. To start with I have my naval budget as low as it can go. We will be at war from the very beginning, but I don’t plan on letting my navy ever leave port, so no need to spend any money on them. Also you may note that tariffs are a little high. I like to do this early on to build a cash reservoir, but I will lower it once we get going.

As far as factory production is concerned we are sitting pretty good in the number 3 spot in the world

factorycomparison.png
It may be a little hard to see our flag cause for some reason the colors are all wrong (not to mention they got turned vertical). This is most likely a bug and should be reported. Hopefully it will be corrected by a future update.

I will close out this short update with a very important piece of news on the diplomatic front:

prussialove.png

 
Regarding the flag bug, I hope that gets fixed soon (as much as I like Belgium) ;)

In any case, interesting to see all the detail before the AAR proper. I'm looking forward to this.
 
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Despite my (probably unhealthy) obsession of, and respect for, Leopold of Belgium, I'll be following this. I like the Netherlands, and this promises to be a good ride.
Please, continue.
An unhealthy obsession for 19th century monarchs... you just rose up several notches in my book :)

Looking forward to this, should be an experience for me, having never played The Netherlands.
Also anticipating the new expansion features, seeing how they impact gameplay Wishing you the best of luck in all your ventures. Subbed.
Thanks, hopefully you will be itching to give the Netherlands a try after this. They have always been one of my favorite nations to play.

I just love the Netherlands.
As do I… My favorite nations from Vicky 1 were (in no particular order) the Netherlands, Sardinia-Piedmonte, Japan, and Prussia. I don’t like doing AAR’s on Prussia cause the are so uber, and Japan seems to be covered already so that left me with either the Dutch or the Italians… I went Dutch

Good luck. When I played Netherlands I concentrated on taking all the islands in the far east (besides Japan). I'm looking forward to seeing what you do.
I am not sure exactly how I will proceed, but I know the main focus early on will be in the far east. I like the idea of going after Japan, but then again I like the idea of having them around as an antagonist in the end game.

Thanks all for following and lurking. I plan to start posting about the war tomorrow.
 
An unhealthy obsession for 19th century monarchs... you just rose up several notches in my book :)


Thanks, hopefully you will be itching to give the Netherlands a try after this. They have always been one of my favorite nations to play.


As do I… My favorite nations from Vicky 1 were (in no particular order) the Netherlands, Sardinia-Piedmonte, Japan, and Prussia. I don’t like doing AAR’s on Prussia cause the are so uber, and Japan seems to be covered already so that left me with either the Dutch or the Italians… I went Dutch

I am not sure exactly how I will proceed, but I know the main focus early on will be in the far east. I like the idea of going after Japan, but then again I like the idea of having them around as an antagonist in the end game.

Thanks all for following and lurking. I plan to start posting about the war tomorrow.

Maybe an early conquest of Madagascar? It has some nice coal and tropical wood. Or stabbing either France or Prussia in the back during the Franco-Prussian war. I don't like having scary Germany as a neighbour. Neither scary France..
 
I always look forward to Netherlands AARs. The first game I played in HoD was as the Dutch. Ended up with both canals, ~half of Africa, All of the East Indies, the Philippines, and the malay peninsula, + Bangkok. Peaked at the #2 position, with my navy as the largest and most modern in the world. The real problem with the Netherlands is their tiny starting area. You are surrounded by the three biggest powers, with virtually no room to expand! (And even if you did, it would seem unnatural.)

As to the Caribbean, I actually suggest taking the rest of Zulia, which is the region that Aruba and Curacao are in. It includes Maracaibo, which eventually starts making oil, And has decent pops. If you take that, Antioquia and Panama, You've built yourself an adorable little empire, ringing the Caribbean coast. It also helps solve one of the other problems the Dutch face: their lack of regions for industrializing.

I had a problem in my last game that I didn't have in AHD: Nations seemed to civilize much faster. Make sure to gobble up those primitives fast!

Anyway, bragging time over, I like your writing style, and I wish more AAR writers wrote in such a light way. Keep it coming!
 
Good luck against the British and other potential Belgian allies. I miss the old days when Belgium would go GP early on and you wouldn't have to worry about them.
 
Nice, I prefer the Austrian/Prussian games, for the fun of reuniting Germany, but this seems quiet interesting
 
I've been wanting to play a Netherlands game ever since HoD came out, even though I've never been that much of a fan of naval or colonial powers, so I'll be sure to pick up what I can from this AAR.

It may be a little hard to see our flag cause for some reason the colors are all wrong (not to mention they got turned vertical). This
is most likely a bug and should be reported. Hopefully it will be corrected by a future update.

Ah, that definitely got a good chuckle out of me.