I've mentioned before that I don't know sufficient amounts of British history to really have a frame of reference, and you write so well that the game mechanics of what's going on behind the scenes is completely obscured. I daresay that your work approaches an almost
@El Pip -level of terrifying detail that boggles those of us who have only passingly vague understanding of some certain events (and for sure at a much more blinding pace than our esteemed collegue).
Would it be possible to work in (perhaps as a spoiler) what I assume are the game events driving the narrative? Since this is a Victoria II mod, I'd assume that there would be some level of interest in seeing what the mod is doing.
So the bad news is that the actual gameplay ends in 1934. And not, I should admit, because of any save file catastrophe or anything like that. By that point, I'd simply got enough source material out of the playthrough that I knew how I wanted to carry on. I am a big fan of the way that
@Le Jones, for instance, works game notes into his narrative pieces, and it's a technique I would be very eager to use in future projects. Unfortunately, in this case such a thing is impossible.
That said, I can say a quick word about the New Era Mod, which I used in order to get Vicky to cover the time period I wanted for this AAR. After al these years I don't know enough about the intricacies of Vicky to be able to give a massively informed answer, but generally speaking, I think the mod does a decent job of shifting fundamentals like the technology tree. That said, in my experience it doesn't do much to fix one of the problems of 20th century-era Vicky, which is the fact that after a point the war engine becomes pretty inappropriate. I've seen a few people say it gives a treatment of WWII similar in strength to HOI, so maybe I just haven't sat with it long enough. But I'd say that for the most part it doesn't fully get over the problem of putting 19th century mechanics to work in a 20th century setting.
I'd like to be able to try out the NWO Cold War mod to compare and contrast, but I've never been able to get that one to work all that well. Tempted to have another go at it once I've got a bit more time.
I hope these revelations don't do too much to sour your opinion of the AAR. As I say, if there are specific things that are unclear I am always happy to try and give further context or a quick explanation.
I read till the Mosely family chapter. Looks like the Mosleys are in for days of great glory now!
The Mosely dynasty has started!
The Chairman is certainly very canny when it comes to putting friends and family in high places. As for how the dynasty will fare going forward, you'll just have to wait and see.
I always enjoy a dive into economic history. The parallels to the RL Soviet Block, and even RL Britain in development of the Commonwealth’s economy are clear.
Will the capitalist economies start to outstrip the Syndie Block for
growth through the coming decades? What then for Mosleyism?
As you may imagine, the relative economic fortunes of the Capitalists and the Syndicalists – both in Europe and further afield – will form much of the basis of the Cold War going forward.
I shuddered at the mention of the competition between the automotive industry and the railways. You’d better keep Beeching away from anything transport related in this TL!
I come from a long line of train enthusiasts, and while I may not have inherited the actual spotter gene, I do retain a strong affection for public transport (and a deep resentment of the fact that I live somewhere that doesn't have any!) The railways are safe, don't worry.
Good luck with your last days of uni Dens. I can imagine it’s been a very surreal way to end your studies these past few months.
Cheers Tommy! Surreal is definitely one word. It's been both fascinating and infuriating to watch an architecture school of all things try to adapt to all digital teaching overnight, but there we are. And I can't complain too much. In relative terms, I have not had it that bad by any means.
Seconded - its always interesting in good alternate history like this to see where the differences and similarities meet - part Gosplan, part New Jerusalem.
Thanks Jape. The Soviet–Commonwealth relationship is a particularly tricky one, and I do find it interesting figuring out where they meet and where they diverge.
There are contradictions and possible pitfalls for Mosley's unique 'style' as you've previously alluded to. The massive power of Boothby has obvious dangers; he may be a talented technocrat but a simple plan not thought through could have major consequences for the public. The rise of younger people hungry for consumer goods is interesting - a goulash syndicalism down the road perhaps? You also have the lack of worker control despite this being at the heart of Mosley's professed ideology. I'm now even more intrigued to see how Bevan will impact the scene.
As you say, the plan and the reality are often two wildly different things. We will see very shortly what happens when the OEP's carefully crafted policy hits the messy world of real life.
Also I hope you write more on the former Empire, the relationship between Britain and Ghana et al is fascinating; and based both on OTL's decolonisation and the problematic relationship between many Communist states IOTL, plenty of room for interesting developments.
There is absolutely more stuff on Africa in the pipeline, so you can look forward to that coming in a while. In the meantime, coming up there's a general overview of the state of global geopolitics at the front end of the Cold War. This, I hope, fills in a fair number of the blanks left in the story so far.
Apologies if this has been covered earlier, but what exactly is the state of mainland Europe at the end of the war? Which countries belong to the socialist sphere?
This will be treated in more depth fairly soon, but in the meantime here's a potted summary of things as they stand in 1945:
Syndicalist International (SI) – British Commonwealth, France, Spain and Italy
Soviet bloc – USSR, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Finland, Yugoslavia
German Reich – Germany, Austria
The rest of Eastern Europe is the site of a battle for influence between the Germans and the Soviets. Benelux and Scandinavia are unaligned. Portugal is fascist but remains pretty isolated.
I'm also really interested to see how decolonization works in Asia. Will there be a Hong Kong Commune?
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As much as the Syndies might claim to continue to exercise influence over their former Asian subjects, the reality doesn't quite prove that simple. Like Europe, there'll be more on this fairly soon. Hong Kong I haven't actually thought about yet, but that's a good question. It certainly won't look like today's Hong Kong however things pan out.
Fascinating update
@DensleyBlair - please make sure that the Comet's windows are round!
I will pass a note on to the engineers!
I also enjoyed, as others have commented, parallels with the real world UK and USSR. I wonder if the reemergence of striking / disputes augurs badly for the future, or if the State can meet the workers' aspirations. As ever gripping stuff.
Thank you.
On the matter of strikes, we will find out very soon!