Home Trending Latest threads New posts Developer diaries

The Lone StARR, A Texas Great Power

Jump to latest Follow Reply
  • 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.
cyrylc said:
Oh man, so many screenshots, and they're big. :( It takes forever to load.
Click to expand...

Sorry about that, I know that I went a bit crazy with taking screens some times. I'll try to limit the battle screenshots in the coming chapters.

Chapter 6: Not Again...

v23.png


Not even a full 6 months after concluding my 2nd victorious war with Mexico the CSA declares war on me to try and retake Louisiana again. At the start of the war I was incredibly unprepared. In my war with Mexico I only had 12/12 but after taking the new territories my limit rose to 16 and I started to field a larger army. I was able to reach 15 brigades by the time the war started, but the CSA had 37 plus the United States was a CSA ally and they had 52. Mexico was also a CSA ally with a bunch of brigades but my truce wouldn't let them join till 1868 (a good 5-6 years away) so I didn't have to worry about them. Still the CSA outgunned me 2 to 1 and probably had about the same level military tech as me. I figured I could build up my army to about 20 brigades and possibly win a defensive war against the CSA but if the Union entered the war I would be toast.

By now I think I'm finally starting to get a handle on some of the more specific aspects of Victoria. Before, I thought my brigade limit was determined by population size, much like Manpower in EU3 and I figured defense spending only affected troop morale, again like in EU3. After the conclusion of the Mexican war I raised defense spending a bit while increasing tariffs to make up for the difference and changed my national focus from encourage craftsman (to boost my industry) to encourage solders (to increase my manpower). By doing this my brigade limit nearly doubles in a matter of months and I am able to move about 20 brigades to the front line.

Lucky for me about 3 months pass before the CSA makes their first offensive and lucky for me again, they decide to attack Baton Rouge where my large army was stationed. It started out as an even battle, I had 33,000 troops and he had a little bit more. My advantage though, was that I had found a great general in Alison Bee who was a rising star with a defiant personality. This gave him +3 defense. +20 morale, and +15 experience. Under his leadership my army got off to a great start and was just about to win the battle when the confederates brought in about 30 or 40k more soldiers. Despite being severely outgunned my troops managed to slowly gain ground and I was able to send a couple of brigades to support them once they finished training. In the end my troops won in probably one the most one sided battle in my game so far.

v210.png


Not only did I managed to wipe out about half the confederate army I managed to raise the war score a whole 6 points with just that one battle. That might not have been a good thing though since I think me winning the war increased the likelihood of the CSA calling on the USA. Still, I was gonna have to get a good score in order to get a white peace (I wasn't giving up Louisiana). Lucky for me again I noticed the Confederates were retreating south into New Orleans instead of their own territory. I decide to follow them and I managed to completely wipe out the brigades.

v211c.png

v212.png


Notice how they now only have 17 brigades after starting with 33. I now possess the numbers advantage over the Confederacy if only for a while and after a quick rest I order my troops to occupy Mississippi. It didn't take too long for this to happen though.

v213sy.png


Knowing the United States from wars past I know that they like to attack the states out west so I didn't worry about them too much since their armies in Sacramento weren't gonna cause me much trouble, especially when they stack 12 brigades together to take one province at a time even though the nearest enemy is on the other side of the rocky mountains. Back on the eastern front I've been having a lot of success by scaring the confederates away from battles. I did this by putting my large army in Shreveport, which I controlled so they wouldn't gain attrition, then sending out smaller armies which wouldn't gain attrition to occupy the neighboring confederate provinces. Then when the CSA would send their armies into one of the provinces such as Jackson or Vicksburg, I would simply have my large army start to march over there and that would cause the confederates to cancel the attack and sit back. Then I would cancel the move and keep my forces in Shreveport and the enemy would try to move into Jackson again and I would then threaten to move into Jackson as well, we just kept doing this without a real battle until I finally got control of the regions. Eventually though, the USA caught me napping and sent about 15,000 troops to fight my garrison of 6,000 in Jackson which I had just taken. I bring in my big army and we have one last major battle with the CSA jumping in.

v24.png


This allows me to get the war score high enough to get a white peace a couple months later, which surprised me since the war hadn't been going on that long but I'll take it. I knew I wouldn't beat the USA in the long run and I couldn't take any CSA lands without the infamy hit. Besides I needed to boost up my industry and focus on growing as a great power. I haven't focused much on my navy yet as I only have 1 ship but since I likely won't have another war until my truce with Mexico expires 5 or 6 years from now I'll have time to build that up.

This war was darn near impossible for me to win, I did have to reload twice but I really didn't want to give up Louisiana, and make the CSA even more powerful. My game would be a whole lot easier if there wasn't this stupid 3 way alliance between the USA, the CSA, and Mexico, that's not realistic at all, but then again neither is a Texas great power. Hopefully something happens to that alliance soon because I'm pretty much contained until then.
 
Last edited:
As much as I would like to add them to my sphere I can't since both Mexico and the CSA are allied with the United States and there is no way I could beat all 3 in a war even though I've really built up my military since taking the Mexico. Also I hardly have any influence over any country, I'm not quite sure how that works but the most influence I have is like 2.5 in some latin american countries.
 
You should focus all your influence on the Mexico, you have a border with them, so you will get the bonus, dont put any influence on anyone else.
 
You ought to look for allies; perhaps the UK or another powerful Great Power; make the US/Mexico/CSA think twice about messing with Texas. :)
 
Avindian said:
You ought to look for allies; perhaps the UK or another powerful Great Power; make the US/Mexico/CSA think twice about messing with Texas. :)
Click to expand...

I tried but even with 200 relations they still say it's impossible. I guess nobody wants to be friends with Texas =( ahh screw it I don't need them.


Chapter 7: Rebels, Rebels, Rebels

Not much has happened in the ways of war since the CSA invasion. Back during chapter 2 I had a nice chance to learn the basics of the more peaceful mechanics of Victoria, well now I have a chance to learn the more peaceful mechanics of a great power in Victoria. Despite being a world power for about a a couple of years, I just now finally learn how to focus my influence on one country (before I was slowly influencing every country in the world). I'm off to a difficult start though since EVERY country in North America is in the United State's sphere. I will go more in detail about that in a minute.
While there wasn't much of anything interesting going on in my country other then steady economic and diplomatic progress there were some strange and interesting events going on with the CSA and the Union.

v28.png


umm yeah... I'm not exactly sure what happened here but apparently the United States got in a war with Britain and dragged they called the CSA to help them out, then Spain somehow got involved on the side of the English. I still don't know what they were thinking sending just one brigade across the Atlantic to conquer an entire country but whatever. Eventually though the United States lost the war and Britian either cut them down to size or contained them. I'm not exactly sure which one because I knew the Union was flirting with the infamy limit but I didn't even realize there was a war going on until I just looked over and saw a Spanish guy in Jackson. Either way yay for Britian, they just made my game so much easier.

So back to Texas, my government has become more socialist it's at about 20% now. I don't really want it to become more socialist but my militancy is getting a little high and rebels are becoming a problem so I might have to make some socialist choices with events in the future. One of the good things though is my market system switched from laisez faire to state capitalism which has given me more freedom. I've begun to build several factories that tend to raise a good profit and be successful and not the stupid factories the AI capitalists like to make. I also spread them out among the states (the capitalists like to put them all in Texas). This lowered unemployment greatly and I get to pick what was produced. I made my national focus promote craftsmen and I moved it around to wherever the new factories were being put up. It worked out very well with at least one successful factory in every state by the end of the decade.

My main domestic problem though was all these stupid rebels that kept popping up. They were easy to defeat in combat but they just kept popping up forcing me to bring my armies back to fight them every 6 months to a year. Even worse I think some of my brigades have been defecting to the rebels to but I've always been able to replace them. I really don't know what these stupid Jacobians want, I mean we're already a democracy so stfu and leave me alone, that goes for you to libero-anarchists. Y'all are more freaking annoying then pirates in EU3.

v29.png


As for my sphere of influence I had a tough time getting that going. Every country on the continent was already in America's sphere. I thought about going to South America but the penalty for being another continent was too much for me. The problem with Mexico was that even though I seemed to raise my influence there faster then the United States, they were always able to ban me or get my advisers kicked out before I could reach 100 influence and remove Mexico from their sphere. I keep working at it though, getting my opinion improved when I can and when I got banned I just targeted other countries in North America that the United States had sphered so that they would be forced to play defense there rather than build an influence cushion in Mexico. It took a couple of years but eventually the U.S. kinda gave up and I was able to sneak up to 100 influence and remove Mexico from their sphere.

v215.png


Next chance I got I banned them and soon I sphered Mexico myself
v217.png


A little while later I got an alliance offer from Mexico and I accepted, I wouldn't be able to get Nevada-Utah this way but I figure Mexico could prove to be a good ally should I get involved in a war with the U.S. again. I also managed to bring Nicaragua, who broke off of the U.S.C.A, into my sphere. By now I had solidified myself as a great power, I was ranked #6 in every category and I was vastly outpacing the U.S. which was probably due to the whole containment thing but still. My infamy had dropped down to about 8 so if I did get in a war I would be able to acquire a new state which I could use. If only there was a nation so stupid and determined to have a war with me...

v23o.png


Don't worry CSA, I'll get to you as soon as I clean up those stupid rebels that popped up a week before you declared war.
 
That was a good idea to ally with mexico. Now you should be able to kick the CSA's butt and the Mexicans should help you fight the USA. Focus on getting as much CSA territory as possible and try to get them annexed at some point. Once you manage an annexation, you can then turn on the either Mexico or the USA. If you turn on Mexico, keep eating them until you manage to annex them, if that is possible in the ammount of time you have to annex both. Then, fight the USA in a titanic struggle to determine the top dog in North America. If you choose to attack the USA after the CSA is subdued, then keep attacking them until you annex them, then turn on mexico and take as much as you want from them. If you still have time after those wars are over and done with, I would go after Canada if you are in a position to fight the UK
 
Nice work on Mexico! What version of Vicky 2 are using? You might be better off upgrading; 1.2 had huge numbers of rebel problems, 1.3 really doesn't, and the 1.4 beta is also highly recommended.
 
Give Mexico military access if you can, if they are already on your side they can walk across your territory during war but still get attrition. If the USA gets drawn in and you somehow manage to beat them, make sure to add remove from sphere on the USA for the CSA, if you can.
 
Mexico won't accept me giving them military access for some reason.

And I just updated to 1.3 and there are hardly any rebels but what's with the population growth. I went from getting about 10K a month to maybe 1K. That's almost worse than the rebels since there is absolutely no way I can catch the U.S. now in terms of population now. I think I might just have to tough out the rebels.
 
Even during the war they wouldn't accept the offer but it didn't really matter.

Also I made sure to included more political maps on this one. Even though I prefer to play on the terrain map mode, just has a nicer look and feel imo. I also apologize in advance for the many grammar mistakes I probably made. It's getting late, I'm tired, and this was a lot of writing, so yeah.

Chapter 7: Third Time's A Charm

v212.png

^ Tired of violent, ineffective methods, the Jacobians attempt to reach their goals by means of non violent resistance and standing in the middle of a battlefield.

After about a decade of peace, the Confederates once again decided they wanted to try and take Louisiana back and launched the Third Confederate Liberation of Louisiana. At first I thought this would be a good easy way for me to pick up Mississippi since I could spare the infamy this time, however the U.S. almost immediately backed up the South. When the war began the U.S. only had about 12 brigades due to the fact that they had been contained but now they were free of containment and they were rebuilding fast, I believe they got up to about 50 while the South had another 25-30. I only had about 40 but since I was playing defense mostly I was able to hang in there. Mexico also came to back me up but they had some rebel problems in the beginning that kept them from helping. Also worth noting I patched to 1.3 about halfway through. I didn't like how it seemed to nerf my population growth (which I needed since I wanted to catch up with the other powers) but the rebels just became too much of a problem.

I tried to split the war into three fronts, the western, the middle, and the eastern. Early on most of the fighting took place along the Mississippi which served as a natural border between me and the confederacy. I was able to blunt the main confederate assault in a major battle in Little Rock which gained me 6.5 warscore but the CSA/USA coalition was able to sneak by and begin to occupy some of my regions.

v211.png


After that battle I consolidated my armies into one 20+ brigade stack and I begin to target some of the smaller confederate occupations while trying to avoid the larger ones. I do wind up losing several regions along the river but I am able to pick off the smaller confederate armies which then allows me to take on the larger armies which I am then able to defeat. There were quite a few battles so I won't show them all but this battle here was the last major battle on the front

v217.png


The United States also was a bit of a problem out here. They had armies of about 30K troops sitting in both Fayateville and the north eastern Oklahoman region that I can't pronounce. This army later moves over to the central front, which I'll get to in a minute.


Out on the western front I also made a huge victory against the U.S. in Portland where 8 of their 12 initial brigades were. I managed to occupy Portland and later in the war I make another big victory in Klamath Falls. After that there really isn't that much going on out here for a while. I occupy both those regions while the U.S. keeps a garrison in Baker City which keeps me from advancing further.

v210.png

v219.png


In the Central front I sent about 10 brigades to occupy Cody. My hope being that this front will slow down the swarm of brigades that the U.S. produces out east from making their way to the western front. The plan sort of works as I score a victory in Cody and occupy the region.

v214.png


After about a month the U.S. attacks again and while I am able to gain the upper hand the U.S. starts to roll in more brigades and I decide to retreat and take the loss. I do end up losing Cody and the Americans were able to back up their forces on the western front. Still, I win in the end since I was able to allow the troops from Cody to heal and reinforce themselves and then have them head over to the western front to help aid my army over there which had come under attack and was on the brink of losing Klamath Falls in the battle I mentioned earlier.

By this point my warscore is about 20, even though I feel like I'm losing bad. Several of my regions are occupied and the only reason my warscore is so high is because I've been winning big battles. I did manage to occupy a couple of regions here and there but other than that I've been losing. Up until now Mexico wasn't much help but by now they seem to have gotten their rebels under control and they send about 10 brigades to fight in the central front. After I lost Cody the Americans sent troops down into Denver and Pueblo. They managed to take Denver but the Mexicans were able to stop the U.S. in Pueblo. The main U.S. stack on the eastern front with about 12 brigades then heads west to fight the Mexicans. By now I had managed to take out most of the confederate forces who were now down to just 12 brigades. I divide my major army so that I have one 12 brigade stack and a few smaller stacks that I can use to reoccupy the areas that I lost. I send the 12 brigade stack to help out the Mexicans and I am eventually able to wipe out the American stack.

I continue to press on, the CSA won't give up easy despite losing most of their brigades. I begin to occupy Mississippi facing little resistance before moving into Alabama later. The war score is up to 27 (although not against the CSA) and the map looks like this now.

v220.png

v221.png


I'm never able to occupy Alabama but I do send one of my armies out to Atlanta. This attracts the remaining confederate brigades to try and team up and take back Atlanta. Knowing that I was baddy outnumbered I bring up some of the other armies that I was using to occupy regions in Alabama to help in the defense.

v22i.png


This win just about locked up the eastern front for me since I was then able to chase down and pick off the remaining confederate brigades. Expecting to have to occupy most of Alabama and Georgia to get a white peace from them, I split up my armies a bit more knowing there will be no resistance. Just a bit later I get this notification.

v23.png


While I could probably get them to hand over Mississippi I decide it's not worth the infamy hit. I plan on getting the CSA in my sphere anyway and what I really need to do is weaken the U.S. (plus I think having the Mississippi river as a border looks nice.) I accept the peace and focus on the United States.

Things were starting to get bad for the United States. How bad were they? Well, just take a look at this picture.

v24.png


This happened because I was able to get Nicaragua into my sphere after they broke off from the USCA, who was allied with the U.S.. The USCA was forced to fight both Mexico and Nicaragua and eventually, Nicaragua made acquiring Costa Rica a war goal. I later get a notification saying that the USCA is offering a peace deal and will agree to hand over Costa Rica. I accept and that little theater down there is over.

Now lets go back a few months to about the time I started invading Mississippi to see how this got so bad. The U.S. had just had one of their three major stacks destroyed out in the central front. They then had two remaining one of which was already on the western front blocking me from advancing further, and the other was on it's way to the western front. Anyways these stacks, who had already been weakened considerably, both try to maneuver around my garrison in Klamath Falls in order to attack Carson City and Elko, both regions in Nevada-Utah which was controlled by Mexico. I let them move down there and split their forces, while resting my armies in Klamath. After I feel my army is ready I detach one of the brigades to go take Baker City while I send the rest to attack the U.S. in Carson City. By the time they get there the siege is at 99%, my forces win and pursue the Union down into Elko where we win again. The U.S. tries to retreat into the Californian province of Mariposa, I chase them there and force them to retreat back to Elko. I immediately follow them and fight them one last time in Elko before they are completely wiped out. I check to see how many brigades the U.S. has left and apparently I had just wiped them all out.

Taking advantage of the situation, I spread out among the western united states and just sent 1 brigade to each province while slowly moving eastward. A little while later the CSA caves and my troops from down there help in the conquering. Look at all those little Texas flags go!

v25i.png


Such a beautiful sight. Now that I am clearly going to win the war, I add another war goal on top of gaining the CSA in my sphere and containing the United States. I decide to demand Missouri, while Oregon would take the pacific away from the United States it was still only a colony and if I was going to take an infamy hit I wanted a good region for it. Besides the U.S. will almost certainly go to war with me again to try and take back Missouri so I will get another chance. It may be a bit harder to defend geographically but with the U.S. contained for another 5 years and the CSA and Mexico on my side, the U.S. won't have much a chance anyway. Plus taking Missouri allows me to extend the nice looking Mississippi river border!

The U.S. economy was probably hurt pretty bad by the containment so I doubt they really had a lot of money to rebuild their brigades. It wasn't until my armies were already in the Dakota's that they started to rebuild some brigades but there were very few and a bunch of them just got eliminated right away since I had armies in the province they were created in. They get a bit more organized by the time my forces reach Detroit, once they were able to get 2 brigades together (ohh scary) but I took em out quick. Like with the CSA I figured I would have to take all of the United States in order to get my demands since I needed a total warscore of 76 (52 for Missouri, 20 for the CSA, and 4 for containment) Instead by the time my troops get to around West Virginia/Pennsylvania, I get this.

v26.png


Looks like there's a new top dog in North America.

v27p.png


During the war my industrial score took a big hit when those few regions got occupied. The war took its tool on my military score and for awhile I almost got dropped to the #8 world power position. Now that it's over though everything's looking better, I managed to add Peru to my sphere during the war and I'm now working on Colombia. I'm gonna to focus on South America since none of those countries have been sphered other than Brazil. The USCA broke up after this war, I think they're now either just Guatemala or Honduras, so I will get another North American country to sphere. Who knows maybe I can snag Hawaii or Haiti from the U.S. but meh they're not really worth it. I still find it funny that Nicarauga somehow got past the U.S. navy which used to have over 100 ships but yeah. Apparently Britain also declared war on the United States a little bit before they caved to me. The U.S. was still over the infamy limit so Britain tried to contain them again. I don't think I have to worry about them anymore.


v28.png


I actually played a bit further after I got the peace offer and saved just to get that screen shot along with a couple others.
 
You should try to colonize Africa next, your almost in the right time period, Portugal is easy to take off of, or if there a bit of Morocco left. Otherwise you could just build up the economy and military.
 
Fantastic work! With the CSA in your sphere of influence, that's another enemy down -- the only bad part is you'll never get Nevada-Utah now, since Mexico is in your sphere.
 
You should let someone take mexico from your sphere so you can get nevada-utah. It's worth it, just for the border integrity.
 
The way this is going you might actually control more land and Bush could never become the president of the US.
Who's next? An Unciv? the CSA (again)?
 
flame7926 said:
You should try to colonize Africa next, your almost in the right time period, Portugal is easy to take off of, or if there a bit of Morocco left. Otherwise you could just build up the economy and military.
Click to expand...

That's what I was thinking, only problem is that I don't have a navy or a single navy tech researched at this point. I could probably manage to research about 5 or 6 before 1880 though. I'm already really good with Industry where three categories are maxed and Army.

Avindian said:
Fantastic work! With the CSA in your sphere of influence, that's another enemy down -- the only bad part is you'll never get Nevada-Utah now, since Mexico is in your sphere.
Click to expand...

Yeah I might miss out on Nevada Utah but without Mexico's help I wouldn't have been able to take down the U.S. and get the CSA in my sphere. What I hope to do is use my spheres to beat the U.S. in the war they will inevitably start in 5 years to take Missouri back and take Oregon from them. Then I will just let Mexico fall out of my sphere (the U.S. might take it if they're still a great power.) and take Nevada Utah that way.

CivandEUIII said:
The way this is going you might actually control more land and Bush could never become the president of the US.
Who's next? An Unciv? the CSA (again)?
Click to expand...

The CSA is in my sphere so they can't declare war on me anymore and I don't want to start a war without a CB since my infamy's a bit high.
 
You spelled 'toll' as 'tool', just so you know. :D

Also, I'm loving this AAR! Keep it up! Also, are you going to try and take Nevada and Utah?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back