Advice on current Haiti game

[unmerged(8065)]

Am now playing Tahiti (Ricky 2.01). Switched to constitutional monarchy with universal suffrace, and have been keeping Socialists in power via reinstating them after each election.
Tahiti has about 12,000,000 citizens, all assimilated.
Bought Cuba (tobacco) and Puerto Rico (cotton) from Spain, and am working relations with UK to buy Jamaica (sulphur).
Almost all industry is in province of Tahiti (the only province I have in the state of French West Indies; all the rest are Spanish West Indies), plus a military industrial complex started in Cuba.
No capitalists.
Cultures: Creole & French.

Situtation in the world is pretty much static, except Mexico took some provinces, including 2 Oil, from CSA (which is no more)
SA nations indsutrial rating is negligible, mine is world's 6th.

It's around 1890.
Where should I turn now to make Haiti more significant in the grander scheme?
How important it is to secure raw resources for my industry? My imports are pretty heavy (around 50), but I'm making around 200 a day (profit).
Should I promote some capitalists?
How about taking on some Asian minors (Korea is eaten by Japan)?
Should I expand my textile sector instead of others, now that I have my own cotton province?
Should I empty my tobacco plantations and send them all to the factories?

Thanks!

 

[OHgamer]

Are you playing Tahiti (which is in VIP:R 0.1) or Haiti? Your thread title says Haiti, but your post says Tahiti.

 

[unmerged(8065)]

woops, sorry. It's Haiti.

 

[unmerged(87197)]

Am now playing Tahiti (Ricky 2.01). Switched to constitutional monarchy with universal suffrace, and have been keeping Socialists in power via reinstating them after each election.
Tahiti has about 12,000,000 citizens, all assimilated.
Bought Cuba (tobacco) and Puerto Rico (cotton) from Spain, and am working relations with UK to buy Jamaica (sulphur).
Almost all industry is in province of Tahiti (the only province I have in the state of French West Indies; all the rest are Spanish West Indies), plus a military industrial complex started in Cuba.
No capitalists.
Cultures: Creole & French.

Situtation in the world is pretty much static, except Mexico took some provinces, including 2 Oil, from CSA (which is no more)
SA nations indsutrial rating is negligible, mine is world's 6th.

It's around 1890.
Where should I turn now to make Haiti more significant in the grander scheme?
How important it is to secure raw resources for my industry? My imports are pretty heavy (around 50), but I'm making around 200 a day (profit).
Should I promote some capitalists?
How about taking on some Asian minors (Korea is eaten by Japan)?
Should I expand my textile sector instead of others, now that I have my own cotton province?
Should I empty my tobacco plantations and send them all to the factories?

Thanks!

take on one of your neighbours like santo domingo and expand into the central caribbean. thats what i did. and i took british, french and dutch provinces in south america and sold them to brazil for a huge amount. .
and build up ur navy to protect you against the british and the americans..
and then i suggest you take advantage of the 'intervention in mexico' event. youre not included on it but hey you ould always declare war on mexico..at least uve got the french on your side.. and oh. i almost forgot that the americans will be on this war because of their 'monroe doctrine' so beware and reinforce your provinces and kill every american ship.. lol.
get immigrants. become a democracy and put some reforms up. you should build up ur manpower aswell..and you will be on your way to be a great power..;p.

 

[unmerged(8065)]

Are you seriously suggesting taking on the great powers? They have like 10-20 times my population.

 

[unmerged(87197)]

Are you seriously suggesting taking on the great powers? They have like 10-20 times my population.

well. if you realy fdont want to take on a great power then i suggest going into santo domingo.

 

[Cinéad IV]

Buy yourself a Caribbean empire, with a massive navy to police it.

The go back to your freed slave roots and take over Africa

 

[Andrelvis]

Taking over the Portuguese Azores, Cape Verde and São Tomé is nice, as you wouldn't need to have a powerful army to defend those territories after you acquire them, only the navy you would already use to protect you caribbean possessions. Besides, they are near to you and owned by a weak power, you have to watch out for the English guarantees of independence on Portugal though. Taking Curaçao from the Netherlands is a nice move too, if they are not stronger than you militarily and aren't allied to a powerful country.

If you are into non-island expansion, I would suggest taking those small states in Central America and if you can endure it, take some caribbean coast provinces from Mexico (particularly Yucatan), Colombia and Venezuela (that oil-producing province is very tempting).

 

[SeedSnatcher]

Are you seriously suggesting taking on the great powers? They have like 10-20 times my population.

I believe he meant buying their far-flung territories. Taking them on at this stage would indeed be silly.

 

[sagimine1]

Well since its been a long time I post on this forum, I guess i might as well put my suggestion. Like everyone told you before do your best to protect your country, especially the auto-death declaration of war England. See if you buy some colonies from them and make that those aren't the one that they will auto core later or else big trouble is in future.

 

[Garek Maxwell]

This may or may not apply to you, but I discovered in a game of Haiti in VIP that most other uncivilized nations aren't "protected" from you. That is, there's no long term peace treaty. (Probably due to the extreme unlikeliness that Haiti would even get a providence outside of the Caribbean.) This means that you can wage war in Africa or Asia without major 100+ prestige hits. In a recent game, I went from taking a few small providences in Asia (Near where the Netherlands has a bunch of providences) to having a nice small chunk of East African providences.

Haiti was more interesting than I thought it would be. Thanks for making the thread for Haiti, as now I found myself wanting to see how far I can take them!

 

[Cinéad IV]

Haiti actually has pretty good potential if you play it well. Tobacco (sugar in the latest VIP) is quite valuable, and gives a reasonable, if not stunning, income to get you off the ground in the early game. If you can reannex the Dominican Republic, there's no reason why a stable Haiti can't become a major player in the Caribbean.

Just a pity it never turned out that way in real life

 

[Geroshabu]

I played a game as Haiti not too long ago. Bought every caribbean island, except one or two being dutch cores, and gained enough immigrants to be one of the largest industrial powers in the world. At the point you're at, you should be able to colonize at least 1/4 of Africa and take on most uncivs in the world. I decided to be somewhat "realistic" and never annexed anything bigger than one province minors, but if you want you could probably take on Korea, China etc.
By the end of my game, I had some 40 million citizens, of which only about 5 were in my colonies, so if you want to go the military route, MP shouldn't be that much of a problem in the long run, provided you have good brigades.

 

[unmerged(16488)]

(.../...)

Just a pity it never turned out that way in real life

The main reason it didn't in real life is not modelled in Victoria : erosion. The once generous soil of Haiti has gone poor & barren due to the lack of understanding of erosion in those times - therefore the country has quickly lost its power base.

 

[Cinéad IV]

LOL, Haitian fan

Aye, you're right about the erosion. In fact, that is probably something that should be modelled in Victoria, and not just in Haiti. Another wee thing for VIP to get to grips with, perhaps.