Chapter 5: Railways, machines and the Pacific
The last chapter ended with Argentina discovering Biologism in 1856, making Argentina culturally one of the most advanced nations in the world. Of course this comes at a price, and Argentine industry is all rather basic.
To begin rectifying this, Experimental Railroads are researched. Happily all my efforts to boost my research rate are having a strong effect, and it takes only ten months to complete research. Experimental Railroads are followed by Mechanical Production for all the RGO boosting inventions linked to it. I'm not quite sure how Mechanical Production escaped my notice up until now, usually it would be my third research at the very latest. Many of my aristocrats are unable to meet their luxury needs even with taxes as low as possible, and this is keeping their conciousness and therefore also their liberalism down, so I am hoping increased output will lead to a better off more liberal upper class. My Capitalists are also struggling it seems, as I discover when I check up on their progress towards railroading Argentina. Below is their progress roughly two and a half months after the discovery of railroads.
Their progress towards the first province that is. At that rate they'll never finish even if I research no other railroad techs, so I give them a helping hand.
I start with the most populous states, extending to cover the whole of Argentina over time as funds allow. After Mechanical Production, I save research points waiting for Empiricism to become available in 1860, the head start letting me finish by late 1860. I've not so much as looked at the Army technology screen thus far, so I research muzzle loaded rifles, hoping to keep my forces at least somewhat relevant. Once the rifle research is completed, I decide upon a little field test.
Brazil chickens out, which will make this war somewhat one-sided, though I guess I shouldn't complain. In the south I send one army to occupy the gold mines of La Serena while two others guard the border to stop Chileans from crossing into Argentina. In the north I divide my cavalry and send them to occupy the state of Potosi, my target in this war.
By the end of the year I occupy the northern third of Chile who are now willing to concede to my demands for Potosi. All this has happened without a shot being fired, the Chileans being unwilling to engage my armies.
A bloodless war would be boring however, and I wouldn't get to test out my armies. Unfortunately I accidentally overwrote the screenshots of the battle results, so you don't get to see them
My first battle against Chile did not go as well as I would have liked, with my armies suffering heavier loses than the Chileans before winning due to superior numbers. I'm don't know whether this was due to back luck or bad tech, but I shall increase my tech in the future anyway just in case. After the first battle my armies hunted down and destroyed the Chileans in a series of battles, and with the Chileans destroyed peace is declared.
The state of Potosi includes my first major iron mine, my only other previous iron mine having a mere one thousand or so miners. To take advantage of this I quickly research Mechanised Mining and order a steel mill in Potosi. Aside from this development not much happens over the next few years, until 1865.
What I haven't documented in this AAR is the slow rise of liberalism in my Upper House, mainly due to the glacial pace at which it has proceeded. Each year there has been an 0.5-1% increase in the number of liberals in the Upper House and by the 1860s they have reached the high forties percentage-wise, at which point they seem to have stopped growing. In the summer of 1865 the Farmers Bank event fires for me (didn't stop to take a screen I'm afraid) in the state of Bajo Paraguay. I choose the option that nationalises the bank and confiscates all assets from the farmers raising militancy by +8 and, because Bajo Paraguay has a quarter of my population, this raises my global militancy to just over 2. This drives 20% of my conservatives in the Upper House to supporting political reform and I can force through my first reform.
The two reforms I need to become a democracy are Landed Voting and Harassment of political parties (as opposed to outright banned). Since a number of my Aristocrats support Landed voting (I wonder why?), I force through Harassment in the hopes that Landed voting will be easier to pass in the future. Just one more reform needed and Argentina will be a Democracy!