SPF (18)36 - The Danish quest for the perfect tan

[winsingtonIII]

The only real problem I see is that the colonies (be they African or Asian or Siberian or whatever) are too easy/desirable to industrialize. Historically, colonies throughout this period were seen as sources of raw materials and labor, with industrialization seen as markedly undesirable - factory outsourcing I don't think really started until after WWII.

I think three simple tweaks would help here:

a) remove the prestige bonus for turning a province into a state. When the US turned, say, Montana into a state, I doubt it really made anyone ooh and ahh in the government offices in Europe.

b) Make it harder to improve infrastructure in areas with low life rating. This is really the key. Right now it costs no more to build a railroad in the plains of northern Denmark than it does to build one across the jungles of the Congo, which makes it as profitable to build a factory in the latter as the former, and much more so once northern Denmark 'fills up'. This is a very large distortion that tilts the equation too much. I don't know if this is moddable, but I think this simple fix would help a lot.

c) lower (a lot) literacy rate gain in provinces. If African provinces had literacy rates in the teens, even later in the game (as I think would be historical) it would make it much more 'punishing' to your RP to turn them into states.

These are definitely good ideas from the perspective of limiting the industrial potential of colonies, because that really is the main issue right now.

The only thing I would tweak is your approach to the first idea of limiting the prestige benefit of forming states. Personally, I think the ease of turning colonies into states should be tailored more to individual countries. Ideally, this could be done by making it easier for certain countries to turn colonies on specific continents and with specific majority cultures into states.

For example, the U.S. should have an easier time turning North American colonies into states and an easier time turning colonies with a majority Yankee, Dixie, or Texan population into states. Russia should have an easier time turning Asian colonies into states and an easier time turning colonies with a majority Russian, Ukrainian, or Byelorussian population into states.

Basically, the scheme I have here is that a country should get a bonus for turning a colony into a state if it is on the same continent as the home country and if it has majority population of the home country's primary or accepted cultures. Colonies that do not meet such requirements should be extremely difficult (I'm thinking it should be impossible to be honest) to turn into states in the first place. Obviously, given the fast rate of assimilation in V2, it's only a partial solution, but it would still help curb rampant British Indian industrialization because they would get a major penalty to turning colonies not in Europe and not of British/Anglo-Canadian majority into states, and it would take a while for the Indian colonies to become British majority.

 

[WelshDude]

I don't know, thanks for asking. Right now I'm thinking of exploring more the question of "how high can you score without fighting", so I might give somebody like Switzerland a go. Otherwise, I am thinking of maybe China - after all, Tanzhang, 'twas you that recommended Denmark, and that turned out well!


It's even more bizarre than this - note that the US has slaves, and the CSA does not!
The USA only has 40K slaves though, which makes me wonder if it was limited to a province that was conquered from the CSA, before the CSA then outlawed slavery (note how the USA has a little piece of Arkansas)?

Well, no offence to Tanzhang, but when I tried China, (1.0, admittedly)I immediately DOWed Afghanistan the got utterly destroyed, despite a 3:2 advantage!

Bizzare indeed. Should be something to block this.

 

[LordTempest]

Well, no offence to Tanzhang, but when I tried China, (1.0, admittedly)I immediately DOWed Afghanistan the got utterly destroyed, despite a 3:2 advantage!

Bizzare indeed. Should be something to block this.

Afghanistan is not to be underestimated, it's quite the regional military power. That's why I reccomended it too

 

[Selzro]

Re ships - I was talking about selling existing ships, not construction jobs - so there , though I plead "guilty as charged" on the 'ugly american' part

The 'construction job' approach I think you could model (with some difficulty), perhaps by having a new factory type that builds warships, and then you could buy them on the WM like anything else. But maybe big-ticket items like this wouldn't work well in that mechanism.....

Yes, I was mostly thinking of ordering ships from other countries with the capacity to construct them, although selling existing ships was not unheard of - just before WWI, Greece bought two pre-dreadnought battleships from the US Navy (commisioned in 1904) and in 1910 the Ottoman Empire had bought an old German battleship - commisioned in 1894, to give two examples I was able to find easily. Both approaches would be perhaps too difficult to model, though. The latter would require HoI-like diplomatic options (you can sell ships there) while the former would require the equivalent of a friendly nation giving a construction order to a GP's port, with a higer cost than for a normal construction, parts of which would go to that GP's coffers.

As for the slave situation in the USA/CSA, I've noticed it too in my CSA game. It's probably a bug and I noticed a report had been posted in the appropriate section of the forums about a month ago.

 

[Dewirix]

A great end to the game and congratulations are due for making it up to second. I'm interested to see what will happen if and when Paradox nerf GB - all the 1.1 and 1.2 players will find they're running away with the game.

As to your suggested tweaks, I think the province-state conversion prestige doesn't make much sense, but I'm not sure if it should be withdrawn as it's a nice non-violent reliable method to increase score.

The railway and literacy ideas are good. If anything, industrialising is too easy in the game as attested to by the rapid rise of a civilised China or Japan.

I'd echo support for a China game if you're looking to take on the UK. If you want a peaceful game, why not try one of the South American states, like Colombia (which is a democracy) or Brazil (which is richly-resourced).

 

[starchristian]

well Denmark was a lot better here than in our timeline

 

[badger_ken]

A great end to the game and congratulations are due for making it up to second.

Thanks! BTW, how do you pronounce "Dewirix"? "doo - eye - ricks"? "dee - why - ricks"? "dee - whirr - icks"?

I'm interested to see what will happen if and when Paradox nerf GB - all the 1.1 and 1.2 players will find they're running away with the game.

I think they already tried to nerf them via e.g. pumping naval maintenance costs way up, but it may be too much to do, although maybe the accumulation of the various simple proposals (on colonization, railroads, etc.) might be enough.

Here's another simple idea (not like any of these will ever get adopted, but hey a badger can dream ) - one of the major unbalancers is the enormous amount of colonial soldier POPs. While you certainly had your Gurkhas, your Zouaves, etc., a combination of various factors (probably principally racism) led to their never being a major percentage of their GPs armed forces, I don't believe. (Quick googling shows that e.g. even during the meat-grinder of WWI, when the French were trying to get every body they could to fight, according to this site of the 8.8M french soldiers, roughly 400K (or roughly 4%) were colonial.

The railway and literacy ideas are good. If anything, industrialising is too easy in the game as attested to by the rapid rise of a civilised China or Japan.

Thanks - I tried to limit myself to things that are easy tweaks within the existing system.

I'd echo support for a China game if you're looking to take on the UK. If you want a peaceful game, why not try one of the South American states, like Colombia (which is a democracy) or Brazil (which is richly-resourced).

how's Chile to play?

 

[Selzro]

I played Chile in 1.1 and found it fun. You're a democracy, which means a lot of immigration, and you have interesting resources and a couple of cores in Bolivia, if you decide to deviate from purely peaceful goals. Also, if you build up your ports you can be the first to expand colonially in the South Pacific and create a maritime empire.

 

[LordTempest]

I played Chile in 1.1 and found it fun. You're a democracy, which means a lot of immigration, and you have interesting resources and a couple of cores in Bolivia, if you decide to deviate from purely peaceful goals. Also, if you build up your ports you can be the first to expand colonially in the South Pacific and create a maritime empire.

Sounds good, Argentina's similar and is also fun but there already is an Argentinan AAR.

 

[olvirki]

It's even more bizarre than this - note that the US has slaves, and the CSA does not!
The USA only has 40K slaves though, which makes me wonder if it was limited to a province that was conquered from the CSA, before the CSA then outlawed slavery (note how the USA has a little piece of Arkansas)?

Well, is it just me or was the whole slavery thing just an excuse for CSA intependence ? I thing that if the CSA would have won the war she would probably have outlawed slavery a decade later or so.
Anyway, good AAR and good luck on what ? The China AAR ? Gl and hf.

 

[badger_ken]

Well, is it just me or was the whole slavery thing just an excuse for CSA intependence ? I thing that if the CSA would have won the war she would probably have outlawed slavery a decade later or so.
Anyway, good AAR and good luck on what ? The China AAR ? Gl and hf.

Thanks Olvirki!

BTW,it's just you


Sorry to go off-topic, I promise I'll just post this once on this - see the Crittenden Compromise - this was a group of luminaries (mainly senators, but included at least 2 ex-presidents, various reps, etc.) who spent 2 years trying to draft a compromise that would avert secession. After two years of wrangling, they wound up proposing six proposed constitutional amendments, and 4 alterations to the fugitive slave law, that would defuse the issue. I think we could view this as a good distillation of the 'crux' of what was motivating secession.

Of the ten proposed laws that would defuse secession, the number that explicitly focused on slavery?

Ten.

 

[olvirki]

I got that feeling for a number of reasons. Robert E. Lee was, f.e., against slavery but joind the CSA army due to his love for the south states. Nationalism ?
Even though most slaves gained freedom around the world during the 19th century, many of them didn't gain equal rights until the 20th century. Even though slavery was not allowed in Europian colanies some of them had people almost living as slaves.

But, off topic. Again, gl and hf. Nice AARs you have around the forums.

 

[InnocentIII]

I know I'm late to the party, but i really enjoyed the AAR, thanks. Also, I just found out about LINT, and I'm looking forward to trying it. Not sure what I could miss in my current game as Haiti, but I'd have loved it in a half dozen others, and even Haiti might expand someday.

Thanks for the interesting read.