“When a country is well governed, poverty and a mean condition are things to be ashamed of. When a country is ill governed, riches and honour are things to be ashamed of.”
~Confucius
Welcome to my first (actual) AAR!
I’ve tried to start a project on this format before, both for Victoria II and Crusader Kings II. However, due to some unforeseen personal circumstances that happened a few years ago I wasn’t able to actually start on them. However, with Covid finally(?) starting to slow down in the Netherlands and with my life being much more stable, I can finally start writing one.
As you can see from the title and the opening quote and image I decided on writing an AAR on the Qing Empire with the HFM mod and the HBM submod. I figured I should explain why I picked this country and these two mods specifically.
What is HBM?
HBM stands for Historical Bloat Mod, although it’s more often referred to as (Anon’s) Bloatmod. It’s a submod for HFM started by one guy (although I believe a few people are working on it now) who took it upon himself to both make the game as historically accurate as possible as well as try and bloat Victoria II to its limits with as much historical and alternative history content that both the game and modern PCs can handle. Despite that it runs surprisingly well, with little to no bugs outside of those already present in HFM, and it even fixes a few of those along the way.
The mod has garnered some controversy and got removed from a filesharing website over a year ago due to some of the language used in the coding of the mod (I’m not sure what the exact deal was and I decided it’s for the best not to inquire further). It’s up once again since then, but I decided not to link it here as I’m not sure whether it’s against Paradox Interactive’s code of conduct. If you want to find it you’ll probably come across it by searching on Google or browsing through one or two subreddits.
Why the Qing Empire from HFM for goodness’ sake!?
Good question. Let me first illustrate that by posting a map of China with the HBM submod’s content added on top of that. Be warned, for it is not for the faint of heart:
Don't say I didn't warn you
Recently I came to the (un)pleasant surprise that I have over one thousand hours into Victoria II on Steam. I’ve played the game since roughly 2014, thus it was bound to happen at some point… But, it has made me reflect on my time with the game. I’ve gotten the hang of virtually all mechanics (and mastered most), and while the coding for the economic system will remain a secret to all I’ve unconsciously figured out how to work with it. While the game is still incredibly fun to me I thought it might be fun to try a ridiculously hard challenge and write an AAR about it.
The Qing Empire from HFM is already notorious for being a very hard country to play. That said, I did actually have a short run with it a few years ago (without the supposed ‘fix’ submod) and I might be one of the (very) few who enjoyed the challenge.
HBM, as you can see on the map, adds another few layers of complexity to the Qing. On top of that, a lot of historical events (especially rebellions and other crises) are added that makes a “peaceful” Qing run fairly interesting to write about, as you’ll constantly be busy with putting out fires, keeping the country afloat and minimising damage caused by both foreign countries and internal rebellions.
What is the goal of this run?
Survive.
I’m going in (mostly) blind. I’m somewhat familiar with the HFM events, but since HBM tends to overwrite a lot and add a lot on top of that I’ll mostly be guessing with what I’ll face. While this might mean I’m going to have a lot of falls, at the very least it might be fun to see how the country collapses under my inept reign. It’s also going to be a fun experience learning about the history of the late Qing Empire considering the historical events added in HBM, although from my understanding the events are a little bit randomised by year and how they happen.
To give a slightly more concrete answer, I’m going to try and minimise the damage caused by foreign intervention in China. I’m not going to be expansionist, nor do I think I’ll be able to stop losing at least some territory (I’m not going to fight with Russia over some sparsely populated areas in Outer Manchuria), but I think I might be able to stop the realm from collapsing as well as avoid a certain outcome. While HFM is incredibly harsh with the fragmentation after modernisation I have reason to believe the modders behind HBM added one or two routes that will allow me to, at the very least, keep the Qing in power until 1936.
Narration and pacing
I haven’t fully figured out how I want to write my AAR. English is my second language, and while I’m also partly writing this AAR to continuously practice my English skills I think I will avoid writing actual first/third person dialogue (adding to that you’ll probably see me editing posts regularly to fix spelling or grammar mistakes that I miss. I will generally type this out in Word, but I might occasionally miss a mistake or two). Instead I’m probably going to mix two narration styles: I’ll either write a descriptive “in-person” narrative, or occasionally switch it with a more light-hearted out of character gameplay approach… or mix the two.
Another reason why I am not going to write any kind of dialogue (yet) is because I’m not familiar with court and bureaucratic language in 19th century China. While it’s easier to write dialogue for Western powers it gets harder for a nation whose state had a unique and unfamiliar development. While I’m somewhat familiar with how their government worked, and some of the basics of court life, my court language knowledge comes from the Three Kingdoms period, and I just know I might end up writing an apocryphal tale if I add the dialogue style from a third century period to a nineteenth century story.
The pacing of the story I’m going to write is mostly going to depend on whether I come across something that is fun to write about. I will give updates on ‘gamey’ governmental, economic and military policy I’m not going to have every post contain slight percentage fiddling. Considering the scripted First Opium War will happen a few years after the game starts I expect the first few AAR posts to have more than enough content.
With all of that out of the way, I decided not to write a history post on China before 1836 as telling the tale of the Qing Empire properly would require a dozen forum posts. Instead I will start with a general gamey 1836 post detailing how China looks like in practice in HFM/HBM with the immediate issues and modifiers at hand. I got to work on a paper that I need to hand in next Monday, so it might take me until next week Tuesday to post the first update. After that I can plan out my AAR in more detail (hopefully).
I hope you will enjoy this AAR! Any comments and feedback(/criticism) are, of course, always welcome.
(Already had to edit out one grammar mistake from the post, what a good start to an AAR...)
(edit 2: I just noticed that I wrote "HPM" instead of "HFM". Bad habit thanks to Google autocorrecting HFM to HPM half the time...)
~Confucius
Concessions, Humiliations and (a whole lotta) Opium: a HFM/HBM Qing Empire AAR
Welcome to my first (actual) AAR!
I’ve tried to start a project on this format before, both for Victoria II and Crusader Kings II. However, due to some unforeseen personal circumstances that happened a few years ago I wasn’t able to actually start on them. However, with Covid finally(?) starting to slow down in the Netherlands and with my life being much more stable, I can finally start writing one.
As you can see from the title and the opening quote and image I decided on writing an AAR on the Qing Empire with the HFM mod and the HBM submod. I figured I should explain why I picked this country and these two mods specifically.
What is HBM?
HBM stands for Historical Bloat Mod, although it’s more often referred to as (Anon’s) Bloatmod. It’s a submod for HFM started by one guy (although I believe a few people are working on it now) who took it upon himself to both make the game as historically accurate as possible as well as try and bloat Victoria II to its limits with as much historical and alternative history content that both the game and modern PCs can handle. Despite that it runs surprisingly well, with little to no bugs outside of those already present in HFM, and it even fixes a few of those along the way.
The mod has garnered some controversy and got removed from a filesharing website over a year ago due to some of the language used in the coding of the mod (I’m not sure what the exact deal was and I decided it’s for the best not to inquire further). It’s up once again since then, but I decided not to link it here as I’m not sure whether it’s against Paradox Interactive’s code of conduct. If you want to find it you’ll probably come across it by searching on Google or browsing through one or two subreddits.
Why the Qing Empire from HFM for goodness’ sake!?
Good question. Let me first illustrate that by posting a map of China with the HBM submod’s content added on top of that. Be warned, for it is not for the faint of heart:
Don't say I didn't warn you
Recently I came to the (un)pleasant surprise that I have over one thousand hours into Victoria II on Steam. I’ve played the game since roughly 2014, thus it was bound to happen at some point… But, it has made me reflect on my time with the game. I’ve gotten the hang of virtually all mechanics (and mastered most), and while the coding for the economic system will remain a secret to all I’ve unconsciously figured out how to work with it. While the game is still incredibly fun to me I thought it might be fun to try a ridiculously hard challenge and write an AAR about it.
The Qing Empire from HFM is already notorious for being a very hard country to play. That said, I did actually have a short run with it a few years ago (without the supposed ‘fix’ submod) and I might be one of the (very) few who enjoyed the challenge.
HBM, as you can see on the map, adds another few layers of complexity to the Qing. On top of that, a lot of historical events (especially rebellions and other crises) are added that makes a “peaceful” Qing run fairly interesting to write about, as you’ll constantly be busy with putting out fires, keeping the country afloat and minimising damage caused by both foreign countries and internal rebellions.
What is the goal of this run?
Survive.
I’m going in (mostly) blind. I’m somewhat familiar with the HFM events, but since HBM tends to overwrite a lot and add a lot on top of that I’ll mostly be guessing with what I’ll face. While this might mean I’m going to have a lot of falls, at the very least it might be fun to see how the country collapses under my inept reign. It’s also going to be a fun experience learning about the history of the late Qing Empire considering the historical events added in HBM, although from my understanding the events are a little bit randomised by year and how they happen.
To give a slightly more concrete answer, I’m going to try and minimise the damage caused by foreign intervention in China. I’m not going to be expansionist, nor do I think I’ll be able to stop losing at least some territory (I’m not going to fight with Russia over some sparsely populated areas in Outer Manchuria), but I think I might be able to stop the realm from collapsing as well as avoid a certain outcome. While HFM is incredibly harsh with the fragmentation after modernisation I have reason to believe the modders behind HBM added one or two routes that will allow me to, at the very least, keep the Qing in power until 1936.
Narration and pacing
I haven’t fully figured out how I want to write my AAR. English is my second language, and while I’m also partly writing this AAR to continuously practice my English skills I think I will avoid writing actual first/third person dialogue (adding to that you’ll probably see me editing posts regularly to fix spelling or grammar mistakes that I miss. I will generally type this out in Word, but I might occasionally miss a mistake or two). Instead I’m probably going to mix two narration styles: I’ll either write a descriptive “in-person” narrative, or occasionally switch it with a more light-hearted out of character gameplay approach… or mix the two.
Another reason why I am not going to write any kind of dialogue (yet) is because I’m not familiar with court and bureaucratic language in 19th century China. While it’s easier to write dialogue for Western powers it gets harder for a nation whose state had a unique and unfamiliar development. While I’m somewhat familiar with how their government worked, and some of the basics of court life, my court language knowledge comes from the Three Kingdoms period, and I just know I might end up writing an apocryphal tale if I add the dialogue style from a third century period to a nineteenth century story.
The pacing of the story I’m going to write is mostly going to depend on whether I come across something that is fun to write about. I will give updates on ‘gamey’ governmental, economic and military policy I’m not going to have every post contain slight percentage fiddling. Considering the scripted First Opium War will happen a few years after the game starts I expect the first few AAR posts to have more than enough content.
With all of that out of the way, I decided not to write a history post on China before 1836 as telling the tale of the Qing Empire properly would require a dozen forum posts. Instead I will start with a general gamey 1836 post detailing how China looks like in practice in HFM/HBM with the immediate issues and modifiers at hand. I got to work on a paper that I need to hand in next Monday, so it might take me until next week Tuesday to post the first update. After that I can plan out my AAR in more detail (hopefully).
I hope you will enjoy this AAR! Any comments and feedback(/criticism) are, of course, always welcome.
(Already had to edit out one grammar mistake from the post, what a good start to an AAR...)
(edit 2: I just noticed that I wrote "HPM" instead of "HFM". Bad habit thanks to Google autocorrecting HFM to HPM half the time...)
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