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A very interesting AAR, I'm subbing this!
Thanks for subscribing! I hope my next updates continue to entertain. :)

Could be worse, I guess. Still, looks like you'll be playing whack-a-mole with rebels for quite some time once you finish the actual wars.
The prblem here is that, like Rio Grande, Yucatan is able to, via event, mobilize an extra 5 or 6 divisions, which should make their army... interesting to fight.
 
Really cool aar, subscribed
 
Really cool aar, subscribed
Once again, thanks for subscribing! :) Speaking of cool things, mind shedding a little light on the origin of your avatar, there? ;)
 
so much war and rebellion...

look at the bright side, you will have a strong army with combat experience when war with the U.S.A. comes
 
so much war and rebellion...

look at the bright side, you will have a strong army with combat experience when war with the U.S.A. comes
Yeah, about that...
 
Chapter 2: The Central American Wars; Part 4


Well. We start this update off on a dubious note. Both good news, and bad news.


We finally completed our military tech, meaning that we've just doubled our maximum organization. On the other hand, we've just gone bankrupt, and believe it or not, even with NO spending, we're still running hundreds of pounds in deficits. This is for a variety of reasons, but mainly this is War Exhaustion. However, despite having literally zero troop recuperation or organization gain, as well as little to no organization, period, I am still occupying the Nicaraguan homeland. Oh, and even though I forgot toscreenshot it, my second army in my homeland has just been destroyed, or is about to be. With something like 0.15 Organization, they were easily stack wiped by the Yucatan mobilized brigades, who join the Nicaraguans in sieging my land. They are now scarily close to the capital.

It's too late for me to "fix" my economy now, not that it had much of a chance in the first place, but I'm thinking longer term here. At some point, I'm going to end some of these wars, even if that means conceding to Yucatan or Rio Grande. (Yes, I know, INCONCEIVABLE!) So, in thinking of the future, I go for Freedom of Trade for my next tech. Not only does it help get my Economy back on track, for whenever my War exhaustion starts going down, but it also will help me get my Education Efficiency, and therefore Literacy, up quicker.


I think we all know what's coming here. I've fully occupied the Wargoal, and all of Nicaragua's land. Even in spite of their sieges of my land, War exhaustion and War Score should be pressuring them too...

But before we get there, let's take a look at my "military", as well as the effects of 100 War Exhaustion. First, the War Exhaustion: -100% Organization Regain, not that we had any anyway; -20% Tax Efficiency, which is blistering in the Early Game; -100% Factory Throughput, meaning that basically all of my workers are on strike, and nothing is getting made; -100% RGO Throughput, OUCH, this one hurts more than anything else in that every single province is negatively effected to the point where more than 90% of my population is unable to sustain themselves; and last, and probably least, -100% Cassus Belli acquisition speed, this doesn't matter, as ideally you wouldn't declare war with any War Exhaustion. Ok, that hurt. What hurts even more is the fact that I only have one army left, and their organization is lagging. If I engage anything over 2 Brigades, I may loose functionality with this army entirely.

Finally, that good news that I promised. We will soon annex Nicaragua. And when I say soon, I mean immediately after this screenshot.

And then, as if to spite me, this. 6,000 rebels rise in Chihuahua, and nowhere else. Thanks game, for throwing just a little more salt into the wounds. Anyways, as this happens my last army is loading onto my navy, which is slowly dying of attrition due to a lack of maintenance goods, and heading for its new destination.

And that destination is the Rio Grande. My plan here is simple: avoid engagements, even with the small 3k brigade trying to siege back Morelos. My army is still larger, and this coupled with superior composition means that I can out siege the Rio Grandeans by at least 3 : 1. I'll win this eventually off of sieges.

Every now and then I get events like this, which help me only temporarily, but see to it that things aren't quite as bad as they could be. They're mostly symbolic of hope, however, and aren't really that useful overall.

As we can see, my strategy is working perfectly, as I am clearly able to easily outpace the AI's paltry unit in siege progress.

Taking a slight diversion from my neck of the woods, Peru-Bolivia has formed with all of Peru being annexed by the Bolivian state. However, it should be noted that they are at war with a Chile that does have some military momentum, so it will be a matter of time to see whether this fledgling nation can actually survive its first trial.

SUCCESS! After dancing around the Rio Grande, sieging land as we went, we were finally able to drive up Warscore and War Exhaustion high enough to annex the rebel scum back into our country. Now, onto the Yucatan.

Despite the sieging of the entire state of Mexico (where my capital is located) by the Republic of the yucatan, we ignore their progress and army and move directly towards their home. They only have three provinces, so hopefully our emaciated "army" will be able to quickly siege them out and force a surrender. It should be noted at this point that the Navy sank somewhere off the coast of the Yucatan from attrition.

And then, disaster strikes. Rebels rise up, and in no small quantities in the few remaining cities that I have. It's only a matter of time at this pace before my country falls apart.




And again! This is quite possibly the wort timing that I have ever had with rebels. It is questionable now if I could defeat these rebels even with Yucatan out of the picture, as my army is severely outnumbered by some of the rebel stacks.

Despite this my army continues its brave march, holding out hope that a quick defeat of the Mayans will turn the tide for Mexico. And we do make quite rapid progress, quickly moving through Campeche on the way to Merida.

And so I leave you on a cliffhanger. Can we siege out the Yucatan fast enough, and even if we do, will they be willing to surrender with Mexico City taken? Will our nation be able to withstand the rampant rebellion that has been taking our countryside apart? Even if we achieve victory here, will the country be able to survive the war with the United States looming in 1845? Can we even recover by then?

All of these questions and more may be answered, next time in...

The Southern Eagle: A Mexico AAR!​
 
It appears this AAR is going quite historical! Also, I would leave the reactionary rebels alone if I were you. You have bigger concerns as RR's change government while losing wars mean loss of territory or money.
 
It appears this AAR is going quite historical! Also, I would leave the reactionary rebels alone if I were you. You have bigger concerns as RR's change government while losing wars mean loss of territory or money.
I'm certainly not losing any money or land in this war. Well, technically it's possible to lose land, but I'm not really worried other than that. The reason for this is because I went bankrupt, so I have o money. Bankruptcy also kills off 80% of your prestige, or something, so I don't have any of that, either. Lastly, this is an Independence war, so I'm not sure if the AI ever really adds wargoals, despite having relatively high warscore.
 
So it looks like you should come out of this with your territorial integrity intact, but your country in an absolute shambles. And with your neighbor to the north looking to pounce, I'd guess things are about to get even messier.
 
it will be very hard to recover, but in a couple of years, mexican economy will be good again!

just in time for the yankee invasion, sadly
 
So it looks like you should come out of this with your territorial integrity intact, but your country in an absolute shambles. And with your neighbor to the north looking to pounce, I'd guess things are about to get even messier.
Well, no comment, as I wouldn't want to spoil things.

it will be very hard to recover, but in a couple of years, mexican economy will be good again!

just in time for the yankee invasion, sadly
Consider that I'm pretty sure the event fires in 1845, and it's not "a couple of years". It's one year. :mellow:
 
Well, the game seems to want to repeat history's pummeling of Mexico. It would be hilarious to see if you can do a "Take that, game!" by letting your rebellious rabble fight off the Americans.
 
Chapter 3: The Aftermath; Part 1


Clearly, we somehow rid ourselves of war by the end of this Chapter. Let's see how.

Before we get that far, let's look at Peru-Bolivia again. It seems that they have lost a war with Chile, but just how significant is this. Is this a sign of internal weakness, or merely a stumbling block for what will soon be a regional power?

Of more immediate importance, however, is the movement of Yacatanian (!?) troops back towards their homeland. My army will not be able to successfully engage them, even if I had a good general, which I don't. Hopefully they also avoid direct conflict. Hopefully they take the time to siege a province. Hopefully we can arrive in Bacalar before they completely siege through a province, if they do stop.



And things are looking good! :) They've stopped instead of marching directly into my army, which means that I actually have a fighting chance of full-sieging their country! Now I just have to siege down Bacalar before they re-liberate Merida.



...


Well. It was worth a shot I guess. White Peace?



But before I could get that far, I was bombarded by this message:

At this point you kind of just have to sit back and laugh at all the misfortune. Hopefully we can get rid of him at some point.



Anyways, with 2/3 of their country occupied, Yucatan was more than willing to accept a White Peace. As were we. What exactly does Peace mean? Well, at the end of the month our maximum War Exhaustion goes from 100 to 50, automatically cutting our War exhaustion in half. This isn't all that helpful, as by now rebels have sieged out a considerable number of provinces. However, once and if I can finally mow down those Rebel scum, my country should start to recover. But what's this about a looming war with the United States? Well, the answer comes just a little while later.




Uhhhh, what? I mean, don't get me wrong, we'll take it, but is America really asking for an alliance just a few months before 1845? Well, hopefully they can be of assisstance in the meantime.


Elections appear before I can reassign my "army" or take any other measures with the US, however. I will mainly be going for either conservative or Liberal traits here, but I will say if I'm changing anything.


And finally, FINALLY, I start my first real education research. From this point I start to focus culture techs more-so, as I find them really useful heading into the mid-game for Mexico. High Literacy and a good population base are important for Mexico later on. More important than say, France or Prussia, who start with relatively high literacy rates.


Actually, I'm also going for full citizenship, as I'm also quite fine with socialists or communists being in charge somewhere further down the road. (Mexico usually gets an okay number of communists and socialists in my experience)


Here is step two of my plan. As we can see, The USA likes me a lot, despite being about to declare war (no, the alliance does not prevent the event from auto-declaring war). Hopefully, with military access the US will feel obliged to send an army or two across the border to knock out a few rebels and linerate a few provinces. This has worked for me in past games, in both the base and modded versions.




From improving relations with the US, I move to securing some land from them, while also reducing infamy (infamy gives War Exhaustion in this mod, so reducing it lets me recover from war quicker) and even giving a little prestige. It also prevents the US from taking this land via the Mexican-American War, or the event associated thereof.



Huzzah! The Bear Flag Republic exists. California's land is actually extremely good, the best in the game in fact. Every single province has a life-rating on par with New York, or any other city in the world for that matter. As well, California gets a gold province in Mariposa, and it is one of the largest states in the game. The Bear Flag Republic is essentially a vassal state (although sadly there is no way to annex satellites in Vic II), and they will help me in wars.


And so America, being the pal that they are, decline to send help on the eve of war. I believe that the AI is actually programmed not to do this, or at least less likely to send military support. Either way, my decimated army will struggle against some of those larger rebel stacks.


And we have another First Minister! This time we're lucky enough to find somebody who isn't a raving lunatic, so hopefully this helps us rebuild our shattered economy. The conservatives have also won the election, so we can restore higher tax rates on the poor and middle class. What does this mean? This means that I actually have income, and that I actually have a treasury.


Of course, there's also the bad news.




Looks like friend US got impatient with waiting. I have no real choice but to give in to their demands. I could never fight a war against even one of their weaker stacks at this point, not without mobilizing, at least. Though it puts me in the US's sphere and it cedes a third of my country and it eliminates all of my prestige, I have no choice but to give up now, to prevent having to do so later after substantial loss to myself.



On this bombshell I leave you, my viewers. Before I go, I just have one question. Did anyone notice some inconsistencies in this update? I could give hints, but I'd rather wait to see if anybody figures it out before making it too obvious. I deliberately failed to mention something fairly important that I may or may not have forgotten to screenshot or clicked away too soon in-game. ;)

Anyways, I'll see you next time in...

The Southern Eagle: A Mexico AAR!
 
Oh things are looking grim with splinter states... a third of the country? do the puppet states are gonna be gone?
 
Looks like you magicked Rio Grande back into your fold.
Yeah, and I almost got Yucatan too, I think. Oh well, I still have cores on them, so we'll look at them again in the future.

Oh things are looking grim with splinter states... a third of the country? do the puppet states are gonna be gone?
Actually I was referring to the third of the country that I just ceded to the US for 100k pounds. Of course, it was the least populated third of the country, but it did hold all kinds of shinies.
 
i hope that someday, you will be able to reclaim the northern states

but meanwhile, time to conquer latin america!
 
Chapter 3: The Aftermath; Part 2

So when we last left off America "bought" our "Northwest Territories" from us. What does that mean? I've provided this helpful illustration to inform you.



As we can see, the "Northwest Territories" part was some serious BS, that's like half my country right there! :eek: At least it's the unpopulated half... :(


But clearly, we need to deal with these rebels before worrying about anything else. Despite handily winning the battle, you all can clearly see what this has done to my organization. Hopefully, now that they've "bought" :)angry:) half my land, the generous US friends will help me with my rebels while my economy recovers.


Hopefully from here I can pass some reforms, such as voting, meetings, etc. After all, after my first voting reform most of my voters were reactionary aristocrats, right?













(Yeah, this means that something else happened, doesn't it?)














It appears that my voting reforms, as well as, oh, about six or seven others have been passed. I wonder how that happened? :p

Okay, I'll tell you. In the last update I told you that I left out something rather important. If you go back and look, you'll notice several things that are, in hindsight, odd. The first would be the advent of new First Ministers. Why did I suddenly have 2 new ones in one update, where before I had none? Another important piece of information is the introduction of elections. I told you all that under Presidential Dictatorship, there were no elections. Why, then, did I have pics of an election in progress to post about? To continue, if you look at the top of some of the screenshots in the last update, you can see a little yellow circle representing the Liberals being in charge. With such a reactionary initial voting base, how did the Liberals gain control of the government. I think y'all should probably have guessed by now, but i'll give you the final piece of evidence. Despite my saying that I wouldn't engage any army, including rebels, in combat, all of the Jacobin Rebel sieges disappeared somewhere along the way. By now it should be clear that my country fell to Liberal Jacobin rebels. Luckily for myself, they actually improved the quality of my nation rather than harming it.


At this point I must have been screenshot happy or something. Not really sure why I took a screenshot of this. I get a bit more Iron from it, anyway.


The bastards have some redeeming qualities, at least. :glare: This will actually help me reduce War Exhaustion and boost my eco at least 3 or 4 times faster. For once, thanks US. :)


And luckily Durango is desieged relatively quickly, and you can see the result in the income screen in the top right. Also of note is my World Ranking. With a whopping 1 Industry, 10 military, and, this is the best part, 0 prestige, we have earned the Position of #60 on the planet.


And here's a deeper look into our economy. NOTE: my economy is strong enough to actually set tariffs at -25%, which should help my industry take off, as it very wel could be struggling otherwise under the oppression of the US. Or at least, it would be thriving if I had freakin' capitalists. The wars have seemingly scared them away. I'm losing immigrants here (though not a significant number) encouraging immigrants. :angry: I have my tax rates at their maxes. This means 70% for everybody. Note also that I have my fundings set at max (except for the soldiers, but that slider isn't THAT important). Despite all of this extra spending, we can see that in this screenshot I'm actually making a profit.


Clearly, the economy has recovered enough that military can as well. My remaining army has replenished in both men and organization, but of course I do need a second army, at least, if I want to really get back on my feet. I will use this composition for all of my armies until I notify otherwise.


And I finally get my Capitalists, which means I can finally invest in new factories. That craftsmen icon has been lit up red far too long over there in the Industrial tab.


Jesus, my economy is strong. I guess gold provinces really are OP?


And here we have the next few factories going up. As well, my people are still somewhat peculiar in their... openness, I guess. Either way, my economy and my population growth are looking good for the future.

So, we have fairly quickly recovered from the devastation of years of warfare and rebels. Our army and economy are nearing pre-war strength, and our industry is growing. What's more, despite losing land to Yucatan and the US, we've also gained a powerful new ally and lands in Central America. From here, we need only look to the future. Soon, the Southern Eagle shall rise. Next time in...

The Southern Eagle: A Mexico AAR!
 
I demand the institution of a monarchy! Only then will there be enough power to conquer those lands back and more! Down with the republics!