Inevitable Defeat - Slovakia '44

[sebas379]

I am torn between option b. and iii, since that depends on your modding skills, which I can't judge.
From my own, very limited experience I would say attempt b, it will always have its consequences somewhere that we can have a laugh at. Of course only if the 31st is still close to the 29th by Slovakian standards.

 

[keynes2.0]

Instead of modding in an event, just set consumer goods to nothing until you get a revolt.

 

[jeeshadow]

Option B. Hopefully you will have another group of incompetent Slovaks to play with!

 

[keynes2.0]

Seeing as half the cabinet is already democrats or communists, maybe the revolt would be a chance to switch sides.

 

[Stuyvesant]

If memory serves, the real-life Slovak Uprising was doomed by a couple of really poor decisions and/or backstabbing by the instigators, so it certainly fits the bill for this Slovakia.

My preference is to trigger an insurrection, either through modding or through the route keynes2.0 suggests. Then again, how will it affect your game? You don't have any forces to fight them yourselves and I imagine that an under-strength German division will be enough to wipe out any rebel rabble, so will it make any impact on the narrative or the game if a bunch of pitchfork-wielding dudes (and dudettes) make a brief appearance? I'd love to see the rebels take Bratislava and see what happens then, but I suspect that the final outcome will still be the same.

Vote is for b., but I'll leave the final decision to your superior judgment.

PS: I'm touched to see that the First Division (East) is deemed enough of an obstacle to form multiple speed bumps ('beschraenkungen' is plural).

 

[Stuyvesant]

Seeing as half the cabinet is already democrats or communists, maybe the revolt would be a chance to switch sides.

Many members of the Slovak ruling class who have graced the pages of this AAR seem to have played significant roles in the uprising: Malar, Catlos, Viest... It would be interesting to see the uprising play out as some inter-governmental power play between the various cabinet ministers.

 

[keynes2.0]

It seems my estimate of "half" the cabinet being rebel fellow travelers was too small. Did the ruling party actually have a third supporter besides T&T?

 

[El Pip]

megaspider01 / Clio / Athalcor - Vote noted.

Gen. Marshall - I shall count that on the basis it will likely make no difference to the final result.

SFSLovenought - Flattery will get you everywhere.

Willum - A fine argument as to why you should get two votes in the same post, which I am prepared to accept.

sebas379 - I'm a little rusty but I'm not that shabby at modding in events. Not sure if that change your vote.

keynes2.0 - Quick trial has Slovakia gaining 0.01 dissent a day with no consumer goods. Looking at the Coup events the minimum requirement is 10 dissent (plus various other triggers). 1000 days, 2.7 years ish, Slovakia doesn't have that much time. Unless of course I missed something on how the coup events work.

jeeshadow - Possibly.

Stuyvesant - The main problem was the planners of the Slovak uprising trusted Stalin and that went exactly as well as you'd expect.

Operation Geschwindigkeitsbeschränkungen is a multi-national exercise. The cream of Axis minor powers are sending terrible division to Southern Romania so there will indeed be many speed bumps for the Soviets to roll over.

It should be noted that the Slovak government in the game is fairly un-historic anyway so trying to map the actual uprising onto the game is not straightforward.

Current Voting Tally
No uprising - No votes
Semi-realistic-ish - 6 votes
T&T flavoured event - 4 votes
Tanks - 2 votes

As I hadn't been entirely clear, voting closes when the in-game date gets close to the 29th August not the real date.

 

[mahkan]

I will have to take the time to read this AAR. I read the beginning and I got a good laugh.

 

[jeeshadow]

Just to check, is this standard El Pip Florida rules?

 

[Willum]

So, as I read it, it's 6 votes for b. and 6 votes for T&T&T(anks). We need a tie-breaker sometime during the next few (hopefully) years.

 

[Athalcor]

So, as I read it, it's 6 votes for b. and 6 votes for T&T&T(anks). We need a tie-breaker sometime during the next few (hopefully) years.

Oh the thrill!

 

[Gen. Marshall]

Unvote B and C

Vote A

 

[El Pip]

mahkan - Glad you enjoyed the start and thanks for reading.

jeeshadow - Good question. It is traditional to run on Florida rules, so lets go with. Vote early, vote often, vote in the name of dead men and dogs but not more than once a day or it wont be counted.

Willum - The tie-break situation is one of the nightmare scenarios that using Florida rules can help to avoid.

Athalcor - It is rather thrilling.

Gen. Marshall - Even Florida Rules have limits, unvoting is one of those limits.

And now, back to Bratislava!

 

[Gen. Marshall]

Yay Bratislava

Vote Tanks

 

[El Pip]

15th August

Having realised there was nothing useful they could contribute to the military situation at that point, or perhaps ever, Tiso and Tuka met in the Presidential Office to discuss a vital political matter. And for Tiso to refill his hip flask from the drinks cabinet, a task that he was being forced to undertake increasingly frequently. We join them mid-discussion.

"I know it might be unpleasant, but I believe we have to consider it. Tuka said.

"But what difference could it really make?" Tiso asked, a useful phrase that could be applied to any aspect of the Slovak war effort.

"I think a Minister for Production who at least knows what century we are in can only help." Tuka replied.

"We'd still have a tiny industrial base utterly crippled by a lack of resources." Tiso countered.

"Yes, but we'd have a chief scientist who isn't surprised every time a telephone rings and who would know that heavier than air flight is a good idea and not just a passing fad." Tuka outlined his (limited) hopes.

"Possibly. Remember what happened last time we looked at potential replacement ministers, who knows what horrors await?" Tiso warned.

"The whole of the General Staff think we should at least consider it. Even the Minister for Security agrees." Tiso said, handing over a memo from said minister

On a subject as vital as this
People would think it remiss
Not to say yes
in support of progress
And remind everyone that only through critique of the fact-value dichotomy can emancipatory change be actualised

Straying far beyond his security remit Janko Jesensky was a passionate and eloquent supporter of bringing in a new armaments minister. Possibly. That or he was putting in his order for breakfast. As always with socially realistic poetry, it is hard to be sure.​

Bowing to the arguments of his cabinet, and because he could see the attraction of an armaments minister who didn't keep talking about the Holy Roman Empire, Tiso agreed.

Relieved, Tuka sent a messenger to bring in the file of options. A strangely familiar looking man eventually arrived, handed over the file and then departed.

"I'm sure I've seen that man before. He looks familiar." Tuka said.

"That's my cousin Stefan, he's the new Private Interior Senior Secretary For Logistics And Personnel." Tiso explained.

"That's not an important sounding role." Tuka said, deliberately not working out the acronym.

"No it isn't. I was thinking about giving him a senior role in the government, but he is a bit of an extremist so I think it's safer if he stays where he is." Tiso said.

Torn between surprise at such a display of common sense, and horror at quite what Stefan must have done to be too extreme for even a hardened collaborator like Tiso, Tuka took refuge in reading the file.

--
Bonus Note: Stefan Tiso was a real person and actually a cousin of our own AAR President Joseph Tiso. He did pick up a few very senior jobs in the Slovak state in real life and is a minister in the HOI3 data files. However as Slovakia is set up as merely a right wing autocracy, as opposed to a full blown fascist dictatorship, all the actual national socialist ministers (like Stefan Tiso and Alexander Mach) are not selectable. Apparently Paradox believe the Germans set up a puppet state where the collaborators who most agreed with the Germans were not allowed into power. Another triumph of Swedish logic and attention to detail.

 

[sebas379]

Jesensky returns, hurray!
This Stefan fella actually had a lot of jobs IRL, as I noticed through the technology far beyond Slovakia's grasp, called Google. So it only makes sense he is off-limits in HOI3.
On the other hand, he was also a lawyer, so Tiso and Tuka could also be glad he wont be bothering them with such nonsense as unconstitutional laws, considering his political alignment. That would've perhaps allowed them more time to worry about the state of the roads over which the Red Army is to eventually advance.

 

[Stuyvesant]

A... flap? What's a flap in this context? You know what: don't answer that.

It's always fun to have a fleeting moment of common sense ('We need a new armaments minister') which is then swiftly and mercilessly drowned again in the maelstrom of madness that is Slovakian politics.

For Stefan to be considered 'too extreme', all that is required is that he ascribes to what non-Slovaks would consider 'common sense' - in larger than microscopic doses. Believing, say, that fighting the Soviets would require an actual army would do it, in my opinion.

Having the option to vote repeatedly, I must at least once surrender to the lure that is voting 'Tanks', so count that as another vote. I'll be back tomorrow for another round.

 

[Willum]

At first, I thought Jesensky might have been sick, as his poetry is almost teetering on the brink of coherence, the surest sign of decadence in a poet. We true connoiseurs of true poetry know, however, that it is when the poets words seem clear as day that the shining rays of the sun are most likely to dazzle us like owls, and this apparent escapade into sensibility is thus the most brilliant, if you will permit the word play, ploy to throw us into yet greater confusion, opening for the, now unfortunately blinded, eyes of the discerning reader the chasms of his own incomprehension and laying bare the vanity comprehended in the word understanding. Truly Jesensky is the refulgent sun, the star which shuts out all others with its splendour.

On a more prosaic note, do you have any alternatives to the incumbent armaments minister other than Tiso, who is, as it turns out, not a real alternative? I somehow find the notion of several hopefuls applying for a ministerial post in Slovakia, Abandon all etc., to be ever so slightly unbelievable.

 

[Stuyvesant]

At first, I thought Jesensky might have been sick, as his poetry is almost teetering on the brink of coherence, the surest sign of decadence in a poet. We true connoiseurs of true poetry know, however, that it is when the poets words seem clear as day that the shining rays of the sun are most likely to dazzle us like owls, and this apparent escapade into sensibility is thus the most brilliant, if you will permit the word play, ploy to throw us into yet greater confusion, opening for the, now unfortunately blinded, eyes of the discerning reader the chasms of his own incomprehension and laying bare the vanity comprehended in the word understanding. Truly Jesensky is the refulgent sun, the star which shuts out all others with its splendour.

On a more prosaic note, do you have any alternatives to the incumbent armaments minister other than Tiso, who is, as it turns out, not a real alternative? I somehow find the notion of several hopefuls applying for a ministerial post in Slovakia, Abandon all etc., to be ever so slightly unbelievable.

I don't even know what 'refulgent' means, but I like the cut of your jib.

Regarding the matter of multiple applicants for a position of responsibility in Slovakia: apart from Tuka and Tiso, nobody seems particularly pessimistic. Staggeringly incompetent, yes. So slow in the uptake that an amputee sloth could run circles around them, definitely. But despair does not seem to be an attribute that the ruling classes ascribe to. Based on that, I'm certain that multiple candidates can easily be found. The average Slovakian politician comes equipped with a reality distortion field that easily brushes aside such unpleasantries as the fact that there are more soldiers in the Red Army than there are Slovaks, or that early Industrial Revolution-era technology is no match for a T-34 or Stalin Organ.

Today's vote goes to C, the T&T option ('T&T' reminds me there was a Mr. T television series by that name - or did I already mention that in years past?).