tamius23: I don’t know why it didn’t cause a crash for me. It might be random depending on what countries are around.
Dewirix: It helped that I’d been eating them in EU3 as well (when they were Mali).
Juan_de_Marco: That probably won’t happen here, mostly because I want all those culture techs for myself to keep up my score with the ludicrous industry of the GPs.
Mr. Santiago: To be fair I cleaned up Europe a lot both before the EU3 segment and before this AAR. If I’d just straight up converted things would be looking a lot weirder.
morningSIDEr: Sometimes its definitely best to do things yourself.
The top five is a bit out of reach for the moment, but I’m definitely aiming to get there by the end of the game!
Selvetrica: Read and find out.
Across Oceans: Brazil’s Ongoing Struggle
Chapter Four: Grasping the Edge
Brazil was on the very cusp of becoming a Great Power, but there were many other nations that sought the same and they were jockeying for position and causing the numbers to shift too fast for Brazil to gain a hold on the coveted place.
(A quick explanation. I upgraded to the latest 1.4 patch, which messed around the scores a little and boosted Brazil up a few places. At the moment Switzerland, Bavaria and the Netherlands all have around the same score as Brazil and are constantly switching around the 7th-10th places.)
The various rebellions spilled over in Africa and the East Indies, but local forces proved more than capable of putting them down. The exception was a large force of twenty thousand rebels on Brazil’s sole territory in Java. However, with plans to shift colonial conquest priorities a large army was already been planned to be deployed there.
The heavy-handed control of the economy continued to upset capitalists, a fact the king found perplexing as it was only by his getting the economy off the ground that they had even been able to start building their own factories.
Europe was once again embroiled in war as Austria broke away from the Two Sicilies sparking a large conflict in southern Germany and Italy that brought in Bavaria and Switzerland as well. The weakening of two close rivals for Great Power status, as well as one of the more prominent powers, pleased Carlo.
This finally brought Switzerland over the edge and out of the Great Powers. The Netherlands took its place, leveraging its significant colonial holdings around the world to boost its economy, military and prestige. Brazil continued to hover close but not quite there.
While thoughts of new ideologies began to spring up across the nation, a large scale research project into industry was ordered by the king to help Brazil catch up in its weakest area. Improvements to factories through interchangeable parts, better steam engines to help mining and farming operations and upgrades to the railroads were all on the agenda for future development.
There was a near disaster as a flotilla of clippers was caught in a storm as they transported troops for the East Indies operation. While a number of ships were sunk, they were not carrying any soldiers and the remainder that were made it safely to their destination.
(This is entirely my fault for not really understanding how attrition and ship repairs work in V2. I think I understand now, so hopefully this won’t happen in future.)
Suddenly in 1847 Brazil was considered among the Great Powers! Bavaria’s war had weakened it enough to allow Brazil to slip in. Almost immediately Carlo I began using his new-found influence to secure South America from European control. Colombia, the most affected nation, was the first target.
After the disaster at sea it was decided that the transport segment of the fleet be upgraded and replaced with the steamships that the Europeans were so fond of using. The first three flotillas were built and assigned to replace the clippers of the Asian Fleet, while later on more were constructed to fully replace those of the main Brazilian Fleet.
The last of the rebels were finally crushed almost two years after they appeared. The amount of time it took to cross the oceans was further impetus to upgrade the transportation capabilities of the fleet. Soon afterwards, Sicily surprisingly allowed Brazil to move its forces through their region of Java to strike at the remaining independent natives.
There was probably an ulterior motive for Sicily to give up the rest of the island so easily, but Carlo ignored it as the invasion was begun.
The reason was rapidly uncovered as Brazilian troops marched arrogantly on the Javan capital. It was defended by a well fortified and expertly led contingent of soldiers that came close to wrecking the entire invasion force. Reinforcements had to be called in from the local garrison before the battle could be won. It seemed that Sicily was hoping for Brazil to throw away its army in a brutal conflict.
Despite efforts from France to halt Brazil’s diplomatic relations with Colombia they were incapable of stemming the tide of influence pouring in. Carlo had taken in an interest in why so many nations were trying to get a piece of the Colombian pie. There was a lot of speculation about the possibility of building a canal across Colombian-owned Panama. While the concept intrigued the king, he was aware that the technology was a bit beyond Brazil for the time being. For now the best thing would just be to get European influence out of Colombia entirely.
The Javan leader Abdul Khan was finally caught after months of chasing him around the island. In all he was responsible for around twelve thousand Brazilian deaths, and the army did not treat him kindly in captivity.
But it all seemed to be in vain. The war in Europe was over and Bavaria’s economy was recovering, bringing it back above Brazil again. The only hope was that the full conquest of Java could bring enough prestige to salvage the situation
Even that was not enough and Brazil slipped back out of the Great Powers again after just two years, undoing all of the work that had been done in Colombia. Carlo I did not let it dishearten him however. The brief stint in the top eight had proven that Brazil had what it took, and that it was only the still-lagging industry that held it back. A whole new wave of factory construction timed with the new industrial technology being developed would allow Brazil to secure a more stable foothold on its rightful position.
To be continued…
