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Has this been sorted out (I hope so), or do you mean that the AAR will now stall after this latest update?

Yes, this will be the last update till I know what to do. If the 1868 save is the best option then I need to replay the period 1868-70 in any case and it won't be quite the same sequence etc.
 
loki100 said:
And then Gari has to go and protect the school, it seems the putative kids have been listening to too much Alice Cooper. Well we’ll soon put a stop to that.
Put them to work in the opium fields and see how much they like their "School's Out Forever!" then! Harrumph!

Quite the coffee/opium imperium you're putting together there. If there was a mission 'Become the world's largest producer of narcotics', would you win that one yet? :p

Finally, I'm not sure how the dynamic of alternately shelling the camels and then bribing the survivors is increasing your colonial grip on an area, but I'll accept it as a game abstraction.

Hopefully you can resurrect or otherwise Frankenstein your save back into action, so that we won't be deprived too long of the Adventures of Mad Garry in Arabytm. Yes, it's purely selfish reasons, but... Oh well, there's no 'but'. Purely selfish reasons. ;)
 
With Gary the terminator at the helm there looks like nothing will stop you other than a bugged save game! Just would like to add that I for one hope you manage to get it working sooner rather than later.

One thing I was puzzled by was your huge stock of coffee. So far I am seeing massive demand for this resource and and currently have over a hundred orders to buy from me with every other nation also similarly oversubscribed. Has there been a great crash in demand for this item?
 
ok, I'll do a proper feedback post when the next update is ready (mon/tues I guess), but some excellent news. Pocus has managed to sort out my saves (& anyone else with the same ctd), so this carries on as I originally played it. Somewhere in sending files/deleting files/exracting files, I have lost the 2 November 1870 turns (& any related screenshots) but I really regard that as pretty minor stuff, as it means this is back in business (& I am up to armpits in a bigger war than I ever had planned)

I'll check the various zip files I made, as I may be able to find those 2 turns back, clean them up and then I have a continuous record for the AAR.

anyways, bit of reading for you while you wait:

 
I do hope you are able to bring this back to life. I realize I have been seriously remiss in my attendance here but this thing called 'real life' rose up and swallowed my free time...

I will resist making Djibouti jokes save to nominate Garibaldi as 'Sheikh Djibouti'. Poor man - he gets no love here at all, does he.

Congratulations on your expanding colonial empire - I have no doubt the prestige is richly earned.

From earlier I noted,
Note the inflation (due to the Russians but it will go away)
I don't understand this at all - can you clear it up for me?
 
Excellent news. A fixed game and a large war sounds ideal!

I am a little confused with the quick fixes and I was wondering if you could shed some light. Was the initial problem caused by saving a game under the initial quickfix 1.03a which persisted even when the second quick fix 1.03b was installed? I guess the main question I am asking is if I install 1.03b without having installed 1.03a will this avoid the problem?
 
Excellent news. A fixed game and a large war sounds ideal!

I am a little confused with the quick fixes and I was wondering if you could shed some light. Was the initial problem caused by saving a game under the initial quickfix 1.03a which persisted even when the second quick fix 1.03b was installed? I guess the main question I am asking is if I install 1.03b without having installed 1.03a will this avoid the problem?

I'm not sure to be honest. I think (a) introduced the bug and (b) is fine. but on the AGEOD forum Pocus mentioned he was preparing a (c) that would address a number of bits and pieces and that would be available today. So I'd wait.

Just processing the images for the update, but been deflected by a RuS PBEM where the Red defences are starting to badly unravel.
 
Thanks for the info on 1.03c. Makes sense to wait.

I have no idea how you manage to juggle so many games I have difficulty keeping my single PON game straight in my head!
 
Congratulations on overtaking Prussia.

in this time line, Prussian is a basket case who will never ever pass the Euro entry test

Again, excellent work! Yemen has been seized quite entirely for the glory of Italy.

As to the switching of ownership of provinces, I noticed recently in my Spain GC that, after conquering Morocco, MCing their entire state, and declaring a protectorate, I could seize MC of the two southern provinces of the Moroccan colonial state with a pair of colonial brigades despite not being at war with Tuareg. This leads me to believe that it is either the protectorate status of the provinces in question or their (I think) tribal status which allows me to switch MC without war. I'm leaning toward toward the former, as another province of the Moroccan colonial region was under french administration and MC, though it has switched to my control some time after the declaration of protectorate (I wish I could say exactly when), though it still holds a French military outpost which the manual tells me will eventually disappear as their CP is in the process of doing. You may be experiencing something similar in your game with respect to the Horn of Africa and Yemen.

Something you may soon have trouble with, and that I have also had trouble with myself, is the extremely unproductive nature of colonial sites, not including trade post shipments. As I'm not sure if and when major road construction becomes an option, building railroads in one's colonies may be a good idea in resource heavy regions you plan to develop. I'm trying this out myself in Marrakesh, Morocco, though I've got quite a bit of time until I can see if it is worth the cost.

I think you are right that you seem to gain a sort of incremental control over related provinces once a regional capital becomes a colony. Equally, I agree, I think if you have really valuable goods, or need to improve supply through put, then you need to invest in railways. Just its quite expensive and detracts from industrial development at home - which of course nicely mirrors the reality of the economics of European colonialism.

Good to see your burgeoning Empire continuing to expand, with many a well placed bribe and a well placed shell helping said expansion considerably. What a surprise though that there is trouble at the school in Aden, it is almost as if Garibaldi being nearby is proving a bad influence on the school kids.

Yep, old Gari-B is quite the bad influence on the young. Why else do you think he's running around Yemen and Eriteria as opposed to sipping espresso in Rome?

Put them to work in the opium fields and see how much they like their "School's Out Forever!" then! Harrumph!

Quite the coffee/opium imperium you're putting together there. If there was a mission 'Become the world's largest producer of narcotics', would you win that one yet? :p

Finally, I'm not sure how the dynamic of alternately shelling the camels and then bribing the survivors is increasing your colonial grip on an area, but I'll accept it as a game abstraction.

Hopefully you can resurrect or otherwise Frankenstein your save back into action, so that we won't be deprived too long of the Adventures of Mad Garry in Arabytm. Yes, it's purely selfish reasons, but... Oh well, there's no 'but'. Purely selfish reasons. ;)

If I think about it, I have all sorts of qualms about what I am doing in this game. Not only building an evil colonial empire, but doing so in order to supply stimulants to the rest of Europe.

I do try the alternative - shell the locals and bribe the camels, that really does work.

With Gary the terminator at the helm there looks like nothing will stop you other than a bugged save game! Just would like to add that I for one hope you manage to get it working sooner rather than later.

One thing I was puzzled by was your huge stock of coffee. So far I am seeing massive demand for this resource and and currently have over a hundred orders to buy from me with every other nation also similarly oversubscribed. Has there been a great crash in demand for this item?

I'm not sure about coffee. Apart from up to say 1853-4 I've not noticed any problems with securing stocks and I have my own plantation in Brazil as well as the output from Ethiopia et al. But then the only shortages in this game (at this stage) is around the luxuries, everything else is available though demand is rising as the European population expands.

I do hope you are able to bring this back to life. I realize I have been seriously remiss in my attendance here but this thing called 'real life' rose up and swallowed my free time...

I will resist making Djibouti jokes save to nominate Garibaldi as 'Sheikh Djibouti'. Poor man - he gets no love here at all, does he.

Congratulations on your expanding colonial empire - I have no doubt the prestige is richly earned.

From earlier I noted,
I don't understand this at all - can you clear it up for me?

no, poor Gari is just not getting the love and respect that should be shown to a hero of the Risorgimento ... funny though and it does rather seem appropriate given his various activities in this particular game.

The last was a very opaque reference. PoN has a lot of potentially brilliant, not quite properly implemented mechanisms (IMO). One is the economic crisis. So it starts in a country (this one in Russia) and I think is meant to simulate the minor fluctuations in the economic cycle, so you should see some unemployment and dislocation. All that actually seems to happen is you get +5% inflation for a fixed period and a number of messages about 'unhappy businessmen', then it goes and inflation is set back to 0% (I'm not even sure this sequence sees a permanent hike in costs but I assume it does). So its not really having any real impact.

I do think the PoN economy does contain the tools to reflect the big economic cycle. The ways that efficiency of supply intersect with population demand sets up crises of both under and over-production and can lead to you having large unemployment (=unrest, esp as the 'socialism' techs fire & possibly emigration). Equally as it doesn't use the Vicky 'world economy' abstraction (actually I think this is one reason for the turn loading times) but a 1-1 model, then it shows the dislocation of war so much better. Its not just blockades etc, its that your trading partners are focussed on something else or your trade routes are disrupted. A big multipower war has the means to reduce the international economy to year zero as everyone scrabbles around trying to find new sources and markets.

Thanks for the info on 1.03c. Makes sense to wait.

I have no idea how you manage to juggle so many games I have difficulty keeping my single PON game straight in my head!

well the PBEM is easy, if it is white, shoot it.

But I found the AJE AAR rather confusing as in my Rome game I am swatting Populists on sight, and in that I suddenly found I was playing them - which was indeed rather confusing.
 
January-June 1868: Spreading goodwill across the globe

So, the good news is I can carry on with the original sequence. The bad news is I ended up making a huge (in-game) mistake. Sigh. Well that confession can wait a little while.

Anyway by early 1868, Italy seemed to have settled down post-unification and it was time to enter the world of the European Great Powers. And that meant, expansion. The continued Austro-Prussian love affair helped focus attention on a more diplomatically isolated target.



But first there was a need to prepare all the groundwork.

Manufactured Goods



Main issues here is I am burning through my Manufactured Goods stock (colonial actions cost a lot as does building up the army) but other most stocks are robust. There is plenty available internationally so I’m not too worried but I think I need to find the capital to create another domestic plant fairly soon.

The indicator of economic activity is on the right hand side and is increasing as unrest falls away and I bring a number of agricultural plants back into use.

Non-manufactured



Most stocks either stable or slowly recovering. Wood was becoming a bit short so I opted, as with Manufactured Goods, to buy a lot more on the open market.

Happiness



I’m afraid I forgot to take the screenshots for the end of June, but in effect it is coming under control. I think by the end only 1 province was experiencing any unrest.

Military Developments



Again, I must have forgotten to take the end of June screenshots but basically my stock of conscript companies remained steady. As you can probably work out from the pattern of builds, I am mainly gearing up for operations in poor terrain rather than a European war.

With hindsight, the warship squadron was a mistake but I wasn’t sure how powerful the Ottoman navy really was. I’ve done a bit of digging in the game files and what I’ve worked out is that ‘units’ upgrade to a certain point in the technological chain and then become obsolete and you need to build new base ‘units’ for your fleet. I think I’ll hit that tech about 1873-5 (presume its related not just to steam but the shift to proper ironclads for the fleet).

Events

Although the Italian empire was being born in East Africa, the lure of North Africa and rebuilding a key part of the Roman Empire remained. Thus more camels were shelled and locals bribed. This process was repeated on a regular basis, sometimes the locals were shelled and the camels bribed. Thus was the ground prepared for the return of the legions.



More peacefully, control was asserted in East Africa by building new military outposts and roads



And sending lots of new garrison troops

And building a few more forts

Oh and some telephones



Although forts spawn their own garrison if under siege the advantage to having some actual units is they are a bit more flexible. They can be shuffled around in case of need and it sometimes helps to be able to deploy them defensively outside the fort (in particular when hunting down rebels).

On the east side of the Red Sea all sorts of exciting things happen.

So by the end of February Aden is ready to be a proper colony


And can have a colonial society too. Soon after a new school is added in Sanaa … oh and some more Opium fields.

In celebration, a firework display gets rather out of hand



However, I don’t ignore the rest of the world. Somalia is being developed as another potential colony.



And then someone finds gold in Scotland [1]



And Italy is first on the scene … my very own gold mine [2]

I then decide I’d rather like my very own tea



Less sensibly, I also fancy my very own rice [3]



Now as Italy spreads goodwill across the globe, all of its diplomats and officials are ordered to be nice to people. So Gari-the-terminator manages to pick a fight.



Equally mysteriously some body turns up who wants to fight for him [4]



[1] true, also there is a real stushie at the moment about whether or not to re-open the mines.
[2] The real benefit of all those Commercial Agreements I have built up so painstakingly.
[3] I forgot that a structure in a country where you have poor relations is at risk of being nationalised. Which happens at a later stage. Siam is now marked down for inclusion into the new Roman Empire.
[4] I guess in some way this is connected with making Aden a colony in that I inherit part of their army. Damn useful stuff and the cavalry in particular has a very high detect value.
 
Nice work snagging the Scottish gold. Will this be sufficient to meet the demand for luxuries from your population?

As usual your AAR has given me plenty of food for thought. Very intereisting how the international situation pushes the game in a certain direction.
 
I will resist making Djibouti jokes save to nominate Garibaldi as 'Sheikh Djibouti'.

Have you been listening to Frank Zappa, by any chance? ;)

well the PBEM is easy, if it is white, shoot it.

In that case, I suspect your Red Guards are going to get thoroughly confused when General Winter blankets the land in snow - how you're gonna fight that counter-revolutionary precipitation? :p

So, good progress overall, Gary gets to engage in his favorite pastime and you've made a colony out of Aden. Earlier, you mentioned that you incur a prestige cost for colonizing outside of your historic sphere: is that an ongoing issue, or a one-time cost? In other words, does it mean that Arabia Felix (or however you Italianize that) will forever eat your prestige, even as it is flooding your coffers (and the world with its pharmaceutical-grade opium)?
 
Well now, I had no idea that units switched controllers! Very interesting. Though the infantry units are typical native garbage, they could be useful as screens for your colonial brigades in the game of rebel corralling, a sport it which one must become adept in these trying, exploitative times.

I'm somewhat surprised at the degree to which you've invested into protecting your colonies with forts. You won't ever have to replace any colonial structures or RGOs, if I may borrow a Vicky term.

What are your plans for dealing with the Ethiopian menace? Surely they would not stand a chance against a few well led colonial divisions.
 
Nice work snagging the Scottish gold. Will this be sufficient to meet the demand for luxuries from your population?

As usual your AAR has given me plenty of food for thought. Very intereisting how the international situation pushes the game in a certain direction.

not enough to meet my domestic demand but it will help. It also becomes incredibly profitable (about £180 per turn), so if you see the chance grab a gold resource. For some reason I can't set one up in Canada even though I have a trade fleet in the North Pacific.

ditto, it is interesting seeing the two, as it gives some idea of the range of variation in the game. I noticed some of that when I ended up running the last 2 months of 1870 about 30 times ...

Have you been listening to Frank Zappa, by any chance? ;)

In that case, I suspect your Red Guards are going to get thoroughly confused when General Winter blankets the land in snow - how you're gonna fight that counter-revolutionary precipitation? :p

So, good progress overall, Gary gets to engage in his favorite pastime and you've made a colony out of Aden. Earlier, you mentioned that you incur a prestige cost for colonizing outside of your historic sphere: is that an ongoing issue, or a one-time cost? In other words, does it mean that Arabia Felix (or however you Italianize that) will forever eat your prestige, even as it is flooding your coffers (and the world with its pharmaceutical-grade opium)?

as to the colony malus, I really do not know. I know what it says should happen, and equally my little empire there is vulnerable if the designated colonial power (ie the UK) decide to take it off me. But in truth I see nothing that allows me to make a judgement. I am on +1 prestige for colonial actions now (the UK has +8) but the tooltip gives no idea how that has been made up. It *might* be that I have 2 legal colonies (Djibuti and Somaliland) and 1 illegal (Aden-Yemen), but then I am sure I created two colonies over there as each state needed a separate decision. File it under the various mysteries of Pride of Nations.

Anyway, my logic was this was a trade off. Its a good strategic position and has lots of luxury goods (ok looks of opium), it also means I can raid Ottoman held Arabia in case of a war.

Well now, I had no idea that units switched controllers! Very interesting. Though the infantry units are typical native garbage, they could be useful as screens for your colonial brigades in the game of rebel corralling, a sport it which one must become adept in these trying, exploitative times.

I'm somewhat surprised at the degree to which you've invested into protecting your colonies with forts. You won't ever have to replace any colonial structures or RGOs, if I may borrow a Vicky term.

What are your plans for dealing with the Ethiopian menace? Surely they would not stand a chance against a few well led colonial divisions.

When the Italian unification chain fired, I gained units, money and assets from the minors but getting those combat units from Aden was a real surprise. A nice surprise as they are just the business to wall in a rebel force till I have the time or power to deal them a more direct blow.

As to the forts, I think they are for ever. The pre-industrial ones are already out of date in terms of Europe but here I don't care. They stop rebels taking a province and would mean a European power, in the event of war, would need to commit a serious force to taking the region off me. And in PoN, they are rather cheap (30-40 cash, some manufactures and some steel I think). Actually overall, forts and major naval yards are too cheap (imho).

Ethiopia is scary. The next update has an image that shows as much of their army as I can see. But a bit later they have an 1100 power stack and an 500 power stack hanging around. Given Powloon's AAR and his problems with weak rebels in that region, it will be a while before I take them on. And I will need to construct an army very specifically for the task.
 
July-December 1868: Its all quiet, too quiet

So 1868 proceeds. On the surface all is peaceful (well except for where ever Gari-the-Terminator is), but beneath it plans are laid. Italy will seek to establish its place among the great European powers with war. Let the Austrians keep Milan, the new Italy would be forged in the Eastern Mediterranean.

But first, there were a few things to do.

Manufactures.



Main thing here is the juggling of the number of open sites. In effect I have all the industrial and most of the agricultural stuff open and am experimenting with how much I can sell, meet domestic demand (easy apart from the luxuries) and hold stocks steady.

Non-Manufactures.



Here I’m content to let some stocks fluctuate (I can always restore the fish stock for example just by re-opening some fishing fleets). Wood is building up again and I’ve probably re-opened too many vinyards. Overall I am paying little regular attention to the F4 (this info) and the F11 (the structure listing) screens compared to my focus at the start of the game.

Happiness



The obvious thing here is that I no longer have any unrest and actually have one or two happy provinces (the single mask in column 4).

Maybe an idea to relate some of that information to my actions. I have been playing the telecommunications card and the sewer card a lot. In addition to reducing outright revolt risk (the sixth column with the Kalashnikov), which is meaningless as this is 0, they do two other things. Improve the ‘development level’ (col 7 with the river/bridge symbol) and the overall population (the two people).

So if we look at Savoie and Sicily you can see the improvement in development from 96 and 93 respectively to 99 and 96 (this also will reflect the recently completed rail lines).

Population increases both organically and as a result of these cards. In addition, by event, your population is moved from the country to the urban areas (this info is not shown in the screenshot), but obviously that creates more of a demand for urban (industrial) jobs over rural (agriculture/mining).

Oddly education has fallen back (the column with the mortar board) but then I didn’t have the chance to play the relevant card in this six month period.

The Army



Didn’t build very much that was new in this period but wanted to ensure I had a good stock of reserve companies. The Garrison units are of course for the colonies or to secure my rear, and, as I find, I will need an awful lot of supply wagons.


Events

The latest minor revolt in Aden-Yemen carries on for a few months. The new native units, especially the cavalry are invaluable in detecting the rebels and setting up ambushes for when they try to flee.



Unfortunately, Gari-the-teminator brings his special skills to the problem



Still nothing a few more teachers won’t solve



And on the peaceful side of the Red Sea the Ethiopians deploy in a very aggressive manner [1]



And Gari finally manages to force the rebels into an isolated corner



I’ll leave them for the moment as I have nothing to lose there and they just might wander over the border and annoy the Ottomans.

At much this time the idea of having a war catches on. Cuba and Spain start a set to that will last some time.



With all this war mongering going on I feel it is time to protect poor isolated Somalia. I mean someone has to.



And build my first colonial railroad, this one in Djibuti. This will improve the efficiency of my opium fields as well as speed troop movements.



Just to add to my global commercial empire, oil is discovered in Texas. As you would expect, Italy is there first, creating the famous Italian dominated culture in Dallas that became so well known in the 1970s.



The idea of universal suffrage is raised. As with a few similar techs it has the effect that any latent militantism becomes more serious more quickly (or at least that is how I interpret the information). However, it brings with another political card that you can play that helps drive down such unrest.



And overall there is a decent growth in prestige



For some reason Britain and China remain completely pleased with themselves. I have no idea who #6 on the prestige list is as the tooltip doesn’t show it (China I guess?) and Prussia drops to #9 (an early manifestation of what later political scientists would call the ‘Merkel’ effect as Germany drops behind the Mediterranean powers in terms of influence and prestige).

And now to lay my plans for expansion in the proper Imperial manner, I mean #7 is no place for a state with my ambitions.

[1] – A bit later I reckon they have about 1500 power in a couple of large units. Given Powloon’s trouble in Ethiopia, I will wait a while before I deal with them.
 
I think I fully understand your pain now having to deal with the post unification unrully mob. Just completed unification in my game you would think people would show a little gratitude:rolleyes:

I think my main problem in Ethipoia has been trying to do war on the cheap basically with a pathetic conscript rate and having to keep my main focus on Europe it has taken forever to build up the forces I really need. The other issue is that native armies seem to have an inexhaustible supply of replacements. You have got to kill unit elements or they simply appear next turn as good as new. This is a problem when native forces 9 times out of 10 seem able to retreat out of your grasp whenever they are confronted by a superior force. I'm still experimenting with my force makeup so hopefully I will be able to get the balance right. Oh and don't get me started on mountainous terrain:p

I think the Ottomans are in 6th by the way as they have 10496 points compared to your 10211. I'm guessing you will be climbing the leader board really soon! As I think I said before AGEOD really need to simplify the score screen and expand its scope to include at least the top 20 nations.

I'm guessing it's not too much longer before we see your peace loving Italians have a crack at the evil Ottomans!
 
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Gary's performance, coupled with your remark about sending in the school teachers, makes me wonder if Mr. Baldy wouldn't be better suited to the scholarly pursuits? After all, you know the saying: those who can't, teach. :p Maybe his methods of indiscriminate slaughter are more suited to the classroom (where everyone besides himself will be a valid target)?

I couldn't help but laugh when I saw your screenshot of the nasty rebels, the Innocent Italians and the Aggressive-looking Ottomans. Yes, verily, those empty, barren stretches of desert look very menacingly and aggressive. I can just picture all those Ottoman grains of sand disregarding your international border and sweeping right into Italian Yemen. You should really consider a pre-emptive strike to make sure such an outrage does not come to pass.
 
Excellent stuff, cracking updates.

In celebration, a firework display gets rather out of hand

Was an aroma of charred peacock detected perchance?

The obvious thing here is that I no longer have any unrest and actually have one or two happy provinces (the single mask in column 4).

Not too surprising for your Italian residents, they are likely glad Gari has been stationed so far from them!

Wonderful that you are making such good progress with regards to colonisation because, as you say, seventh rank in the world for prestige is nowhere near acceptable for so magnificent a nation.
 
If you want extra detail on ranking try hovering over the flags on the F10 screen, this shows rankings for several different measures.
It would be nice to have this as a sensibly laid out table.