Greek Empire: The Anti-Industrial Revolution

[IEX Totalview]

Greek Empire: The Anti-Industrial Revolution

Industry is overrated.

Really, who needs it? Factories are a pain, railroads are expensive, and the game requires so much less management if you avoid the hassle of putting pops in this and that factory.

To that end, I will play this game of Victoria without investing in any industry. I might conquer or get industry through events, but I will not man any factories. (This actually started as a game as Greece to experiment with tech-rushing, but it evolved into quite a fun game that made me decide to write this AAR.)

Settings:

Country – Greece
Start Date – 1836
Patch – 1.03b
Difficulty: Normal/Normal

House Rules:
No building factories
No building railroads
No manning captured factories
Prestige may never be less than -20, and must generally be positive
Any other exploit is fair game

Goal: Build a nice empire, kick some Ottoman ass.

Note - This will be structured similar to my old HOI Italy and Sweden AARs. That means if you expect to learn about Greek culture , history and heritage through a cast of dozens in an AAR told in the style of an epic novel, you are out of luck. If you want to read a straightforward narrative, discussing game mechanics relating to a very specific strategy, you have come to the right place. And no, this is not a world conquest.

Comments are always welcome and appreciated.

 

[IEX Totalview]

Chapter I: Foundation of Clay

Greece sucks in 1836. No offense to any Greeks out there, but the country is pathetic, at least in Victoria terms. No industry (which is ok by me in this game) few pops, small population, little military, no navy, and one fairly powerful neighbor. It’s not all bad though. At least Greece has no development penalties and starts as an independent nation. Also important, all of Europe loves Greece. Really. Britain, France, Austria and Russia can’t spend enough time money trying influence this little kingdom. Still, the starting situation is moderately challenging.

Now, obviously, I would not just play a game with no industry then just sit there in economic stagnation for 84 years. I have a plan, of sorts. I will promote all pops I can to clerks to maximize research bonus. I will then research a bunch of techs, trade them to the computer for cash, build a big army, and kick some Ottoman ass. There are obviously a few problems with this well thought-out, detailed roadmap for glory:

1) Any techs traded over the amount received in return will cost me 10 prestige. Since I can’t go negative, trades must be carefully considered
2) Depending on prestige, I will only get 1.00-1.25 diplomats a year, making tech trading and influencing difficult
3) Greece starts with almost no manpower, and few pops to convert
4) Even if this works, it will not pay returns for 15-20 years at least, putting me way behind in the colonial race
5) Tech selling is not a reliable income stream, and a large army will be difficult to maintain

But the plan is workable.

Greece starts 1836 with 9 provinces, 34 pops and a population of 888,000 Greeks. The army consists of 4 milita and there is no navy. Literacy is 22 percent and at full education it produces 0.50 research points a month. The tech situation is summarized below:

Army 4/25
Navy 2/25
Commerce 3/25
Culture 3/25
Industry 3/25
Total 15/125

Obviously, some works will be done…

 

[IEX Totalview]

I'm the blue blob in the middle.​

Allow me to plug Irfanview here. Very simple, free graphics manipulation program. Friends don't let friends upload raw bitmaps. Use it on all my screenshots.

http://www.irfanview.com/

 

[unmerged(11439)]

i'm interested to see how well you can do without industrialization. please continue

 

[IEX Totalview]

i'm interested to see how well you can do without industrialization. please continue

Thanks. The game was actually played until about 1875 when I started writing this, but the writing will catch up quick.

 

[IEX Totalview]

Chapter II: Clerks, Clerks, Clerks

The first goal is to raise my research rate. The most effective way to accomplish this is to promote either clerks or clergy, since they are the fastest researchers. Neither are of much use economically, so I go with clerks since they don’t lose their research with Darwin. Unfortunately, clerks cost money, not something Greece has in excess.

Step one is to adjust the budget. Taxes are set at 65%, 49% and 49% for the upper, middle and lower classes respectively. Crime fighting, army and naval support were set to zero, and defense spending was set at the Jingoistic minimum. Education and tariffs were maximized. This left me with an income of 9.0 a day, to go with my 2000 pounds to start. My income would decline when my pops ran out of their initial funds I was tariffing to death.

A clerk requires 500 pounds, 5 precious metal, 5 luxury furniture, 5 luxury clothes and 10 paper. It varies depending on prices, but these equate to normally about 4,000 pounds a clerk, give or take. To raise funds, I had a fire sale of everything else. This netted me about 9,000 pounds. Along with starting funds, this netted me enough money for three clerks, although it took a few months to buy all the goods.

My largest pops were around 25,000 people each. Converting them to clerks raised my research to a respectable 0.97 research points a month, enough for a tech a year with room to spare. I decided to focus on two technology paths – culture and commerce. Culture would be used to up my education modifier, prestige gain modifier and gain prestige through culture discoveries while commerce would be mainly traded to gain money and use up excess research points. One thing I learned very quickly is culture techs cannot be traded.

The next 24 years were uneventful. My effort was focused on researching and trading techs. My income stayed low at 1-10 pounds a day, depending, but I earned a fair bit of cash trading techs with Britain and France. If you get relations very high, you can actually trade techs at 1:1 and still get cash or land in the trade. This works very well if you are trading a good (level 4 or 5) tech for a crappy (level 1 or 2) tech. The AI will be happy to throw in several thousands pounds or a few colonies for your trouble. This was good, since culture inventions were a disappointment. Despite a massive investment in the tech tree, by 1860 I had only earned about 80 prestige through culture, so I could not afford to trade more techs than I received on a regular basis. In the 1850s, I started getting army techs as well, to help my fledgling military.

In 1844 I got my first scripted event, “The Greek Constitution”. I went with choice A, changing my government to the British Faction (more or less the same as the French or Russian). This produced two major advantages. First, it provided a free government change to a constitutional monarchy. The advantage there is my plurality was going through the roof thanks to all those culture techs, so this new government provided relief from revolt risk. Second, it changed my national value to liberty, giving a reduced price (only 10.8 months and 9 research points) for culture, commerce and industry techs. Very nice.

In order to truly become great, military expansion was needed. My first acquisitions were France’s three North African territories in the 1850s, which France traded as part of our tech deals. Oddly, France had not captured Algeria or Tunisia in this game, so this would provide a base for Greek expansion into North Africa. More importantly, since I had disbanded my useless militia, these provinces provided enough manpower for me to scrape together two infantry divisions with regulars attached. In 1861, Greece embarked on her first war of conquest, aiming for pillage and plunder on the Dark Continent…

Greece in 1860

Provinces: 12
Pops: 45
Prestige: 70
Treasury: 21,000 pounds
Daily Income: 1.0
Research Points (saved): 16
Research Points (month): 1.97
Literacy: 71.4%
Military: 24,000 men
Navy: 2 Transports

Tech Summary:

Army – 12/25
Navy – 3/25
Culture – 17/25
Commerce – 19/25
Industrial – 9/25
Total – 60/125

 

[IEX Totalview]

See snazzy screenshot below.

 

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Insert snazzy screenshot.

I guess this is an interactive AAR, where we insert our own screen shots.

Athens c. 1844

 

[unmerged(11439)]

Troggle you're so thin, and yet you are a giant destroying buildings. So only Grantman can stop you

 

[IEX Totalview]

I guess this is an interactive AAR, where we insert our own screen shots.

Athens c. 1844

I was going to put in a lame screenshot of Greece + 3 provinces of Algeria, but yours is cooler so I'll use it instead.

 

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Industries are for the weak.

 

[unmerged(11750)]

Forty-five techs in 24 years ... amazing what a few diplomats and welfare-collecting clerks can do.

 

[IEX Totalview]

Forty-five techs in 24 years ... amazing what a few diplomats and welfare-collecting clerks can do.

Hehe. It helps when 70 percent of your state-culture pops are clerks...

 

[IEX Totalview]

Chapter III: Conquest!

By 1861 I had amassed a force of two infantry divisions with regulars attachments and a mighty fleet (armada?) of two clipper transports. My troops had semi-decent stats, with organization of 50, morale of 29, fire of 11, shock of 1 and defense of 1. Of course, I had to find an opponent worthy of such a force, so I picked the nation of Zulu. Zulu was uncivilized, unallied and had only a 10,000 strong militia to oppose me. War was declared January 2, 1861, the country was invaded and Zulu was annexed March 6, 1861.

All the citizens of Zululand were converted into soldiers. This gave me enough manpower for an additional infantry division. My next target was Egypt. Although Egypt was much larger than Greece, it had a small army, no allies, little navy and poor tech. I rolled the dice in October of 1863 and declared war on Egypt. My armies invaded Crete that same month.

The First Egyptian War was much easier than expected. The Egyptian navy stayed in port, and Egypt’s army loitered around the capital, leaving its island possessions undefended. Taking advantage, I methodically sieged and captured the 5 island provinces, finishing Crete in November 1863 and Cyprus in February 1864. The Egyptian mainland was invaded in March of 1864, and the capital of Alexandria was quickly taken. Egypt’s army, finally in action, was crushed in an attempt to relieve the capital, and my troops were unopposed the rest of the way. The capital of Al Qahira fell in May, and by August Egypt sued for peace. The terms were better than expected; in addition to Crete and Cyprus, Egypt gave up 4 provinces in Sinai, 2 on the Libyan border, and 3 Red Sea provinces. Overall, in the peace, I picked up 14 provinces. Greece now had a real empire, and manpower would no longer be a problem. To further supplement my manpower, I also bought Ceylon (all three provinces) from Britain in 1864-1868 as part of our tech deals.

With my new Egyptian manpower and income, my army swelled to seven divisions. Six of those were infantry-regulars and the last was a cavalry division used to suppress revolts. With these divisions, I had no trouble with Algeria, my next target, in August of 1865. As I had already purchased France’s three Algerian provinces, it was simple to put two divisions into each province and methodically capture the provinces. Progress was slow, due to poor infrastructure, but by May of 1866 all provinces were captured, and the humiliated Algerians ceded all but the capital to the expanding Greek Empire.

Possibly as a result of my adventures, the remaining North African powers banded together in alliance against Greek hegemony. As a result, my next war would be against the combined forces of Egypt, Tripoli, Tunis and Algeria. War was declared in January of 1870…

Greece in 1870

Provinces: 37
Population: 7,726,000
Pops: 132
Prestige: 43
Treasury: 18,500 pounds
Daily Income: 30 (100 income/70 expense)
Research Points (saved): 14
Research Points (month): 2.43
Literacy: 81.7%
Military: 85,000 men
Navy: 7 Transports

Tech Summary:

Army – 18/25
Navy – 14/25
Culture – 23/25
Commerce – 23/25
Industrial – 9/25
Total – 87/125

 

[IEX Totalview]

Hopefully, all the blue bits will eventually be connected.​

 

[unmerged(29305)]

Hopefully, all the blue bits will eventually be connected.​

HeHe

 

[unmerged(19936)]

I was going to put in a lame screenshot of Greece + 3 provinces of Algeria, but yours is cooler so I'll use it instead.

Hey, thanks. Just a little something floating around in my webspace.
I may be thin, but I'm tall and even Grantman can't stop me!

Are you managing to make a daily profit or have you just been selling techs to get money?

 

[cipollacipolla]

It seems that Prussia have some problems with Sweden and Russia in your screenshot... And what's happening around Persia? Ottoman spearhead in Russia! Wow! Walachia and Moldavia growing eating Russia? What a crazy game!

 

[IEX Totalview]

Hey, thanks. Just a little something floating around in my webspace.
I may be thin, but I'm tall and even Grantman can't stop me!

Are you managing to make a daily profit or have you just been selling techs to get money?

Both. So far, my daily profit has ranged from 1 to 30 pounds a day. Not much, but enough to prevent me from going into debt. But I have probably raised 3/4s of my funds up to this point by selling techs. I generally don't sell techs directly for cash; to avoid the prestige hit, I sell a good tech (or five) for a crappy tech (or five), then pocket the difference as cash or territories (usually cash). I've made as much as 24,000 pounds on five tech swap with the UK without losing any prestige.

My expenses are low anyways. With the exception of education (100%) my only other real expense is military.

 

[IEX Totalview]

It seems that Prussia have some problems with Sweden and Russia in your screenshot... And what's happening around Persia? Ottoman spearhead in Russia! Wow! Walachia and Moldavia growing eating Russia? What a crazy game!

Yeah it was interesting. The main thing was there was a huge Crimean war. Here's a summary:

1) Britain, France, Prussia, Sardinia-Piedmont, the Ottoman Empire, Wallachia, Moldova and Sweden declare war on Russia and China. Prussia is fighting independently.
2) Allies (mainly Britian) throughly thrash the Russians and Chinese. Britain takes over Crimea, St. Petersburg, Siberia and half of China. Sweden advances into northern Finland, Ottomans take over Caucasus, Balkan countries expand into Besserabia and Prussia take over Poland.
3) Allies (except Prussia) accept peace with Russia/China, giving northern Finland to Sweden, much of the Caucasus to Ottoman's and Besserabia to Moldovia.
4) Russia now fights Prussia alone, thrashes the Prussians, kicks them out of Poland, and advances into East Prussia.
5) Prussia cedes bits of East Prussia to the Russians.

Certainly interesting IMO.