Hello all! This is the second game that I played after my learning game as Sweden, and rather than an active AAR I want to go and reflect on what I was able to accomplish as the tiny island of Cuba. Now, this isn't a WC because that doesn't appeal to me, but my main goals were to 1) gain my independence and 2) improve the lives of the people on the island of Cuba drastically. At start, most of the people on the island are fairly impoverished or in slavery, with an excessively strong landowning upper class. We also started as a colony of Spain, which is no fun because who wants THAT nonsense?
I'd say I was pretty successful here! I also realized when uploading this that a lot of my screengrabs would be encompassed here...so I can avoid excessive screenshots related to population and GDP. Now, the main line that is referred to in "Line (Mostly) Go Up" is the GDP one - Cuba starts with a miserably low weekly GDP and I got it to be higher than that thankfully, which shows how outsized my economy was in my country compared to where I started. If you're wondering how I have 2.18 million Han Chinese as my second highest population, that would be from the treaty port in Nantong that I acquired after Qing thought it would be a good idea to support Brunei (Great Britain also likes to beat up on China and we always had a good relationship so I gave them something good for help, can't remember what at the moment though).
With a bonus of the beautiful island of Cuba and the creation of glassworks at the end of the campaign in this lovely screengrab (in which I had built every single resource building and used up all of the arable land so I could not build factories fast enough to keep up with unemployment, we had about ~120K of the 5 millionish people unemployed at the end), my GDP ended up at about 167 Million, and we were the number Six world wide in GDP, GDP Per Capita, oh and the 6th ranked Great Power. But my favorite part of this graph is the part where it go DOWN.
Now, nobody likes big red number we only like big green number, am I right, friends? Well THAT is the brief period of time where Cuba's economy was big red for a bit, and a brief historical overview of my situation will help see how we got to that point. After two independence wars (the first no one supported me and I stubbornly refused to back down) France helped me crush Spain. The Cuban troops heroically liberated Puerto Rico from its one garrisoned division while the French did some stuff in Spain that caused them to lose. Of course, this came at a price which was to enter the French market with an obligation. Now, this wasn't too bad at first because the French wanted to buy my agricultural products, but eventually the French market did not end up being as valuable for me as it did them, and big red number showed up (not that GDP spike, but one I took care of more efficiently). By this point I had finally learned how I could manage my three territories of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the tiny bit of only land I could colonize at the time (a chunk of Mauritania) and learned that it's better to keep constructing because this forces my wood, iron, and tool prices up. More construction sectors = more demand, and I was a producer of wood, iron, and tools with cash crops to back up my economy. Of course, we still had slavery and unfortunately to get anywhere at the beginning of the game we...may...have...slid into agrarian authoritarianism but hey, what are you going to do? The Landowners were powerful and the French were more than happy to purchase my slave-grown tobacco and that was what mattered at the time.
So, eventually when the French market became a liability on my own the British paid off my debt and I joined their Customs Union. This...did not help. It managed to be curiously, equally as bad, and I was spiraling towards bankruptcy again because construction cannot stop! That's a sin, we all know it. I almost considered it but then as my debt grew an unlikely, coffee-drinking hero showed up and paid my debt in exchange for a customs union - AUSTRIA. Which, at first glance, is a massively head-scratching choice of a pseudo-colonial overlord using MY plantations to get delicious caffeine beans but then again, have you ever BEEN to Austria? Have you MET Austrians? Coffee is a true passion there (I know this, I've been there, and I love you all and your beautiful land) and this managed to jumpstart my economy. Austria wanted my coffee so badly they paid top dollar because it was so hard to get it in their own market. Take that, you colonialist French and British!
So, this is where my understanding of the economy of being in another market really took off because I started producing whatever I could that Austria had less of, which resulted in more money, more construction, and more resources. By this point we ALSO expanded into the Congo (funny aside about colonial laws, there was a strong movement against it twice that would have resulted in Civil War after passing it, so I put up a debate to get rid of it twice to force the revolution to stop, and then I would cancel the debate right before the checkpoint; eventually the anti-colonialists gave up because I'd like to think they got tired of the Prince's shenanigans) so we had more resources that Austria didn't get access to. And things were going pretty good! The 1880s-early 1900's were wonderful years for Cuba - we even managed to start to liberalize because the Landowners were so loyal that getting other parties in the government with laws they weren't strictly radically against were easier to pass. Banning slavery in such an authoritarian environment after about half of the game feeling like it was impossible to get rid of is still my crowning achievement for this one, both socially and economically (peasants are more useful than slaves, though SOL for the agricultural slaves was actually a bit higher than peasants due to the filthy rich plantations during the dark times).
But all that had to end because Austria decided hey, you know what would be cool? A REVOLUTION! Let's fight a civil war! So they did. And my army was strong, but small. We weren't fighting much because it wasn't important to my expansion or goals, so I had to capitulate and get out of the ugly war (we had a defensive pact). That DIP in GDP saw a drop from about 75 million at the time to 25 million. I felt absolutely doomed - was this the end for Cuba? NOT SO - it turns out that years in another country's market (well...multiple countries) made me forget that I can set up my own trade routes and make other countries pay tariffs for my sweet resources, so I spent a minute gathering myself, ejecting Austria from my customs houses, and re-setting up my entire market virtually from scratch as I hadn't had to manage a thing other than figure out what to produce for the previously-beneficial Austrians. And then - the miracle happened. Line go up again! This enabled me to expand my economy so much that at one point we had the second highest GDP per capita, and were the fourth highest Great Power (sadly by the end we were at 6th place, Spain just edging me out in the final years).
So what lesson did I learn? Well, a few! First, it's entirely possible to succeed in Victoria 3 as a smaller country, especially if your goals are smaller. Mine were pretty simple, and I more than succeeded my own expectations there by creating a globe spanning Empire thanks to my policy of reverse-colonialism and going East to take advantage of whatever markets or resources I could get my hands on. Second, as a smaller country it's entirely beneficial to use a larger market you can get into to kickstart your own by providing them with things they need. Third, construction and deficit growth is key. Imagine my surprise when my deficit looked to be out of control, but the demand for my goods was so great that my credit limit kept getting pushed farther out and enabled more construction and employment eventually pushing me back up into a positive budget and allowing me to reduce taxes and increase wages while relying more and more on what I was producing than heavily taxing everyone and paying my government next to nothing (they really earned their higher wages after a solid 10-20 years of economic growth on the lowest possible government wages while also forcing extreme taxes out of the population). There were even large periods of time where I had the lowest possible taxes to make up for it, so really once I got a handle of how the market works - understanding the factors going into a Pop's standard of living, knowing the function of peasants and how best to get rid of them into much better buildings for more economic value, how to use credit and other markets to my advantage, understanding the game's version of supply and demand - I had a LOT of fun nation building. The base on this game is pretty great, so I'm looking forward to future updates since there are a few rough edges that are being worked on.
But I also leave you with by far my favorite screenshot:
Who needs the BALKANS when you have CARPATHIA! I am very happy that they are solving the endless Civil Wars in 1.1 and issues with Revolter Tags because of this hilarious mess. We have (not in Carpathia) Radical Sardinia Piedmont (can we get some more dynamic tag naming, or a better choice of tag revolts please? SP owns nothing in SP here after revolting from Austria, this should be Lombardy-Venetia, the same thing happened with parts of Libya and Egypt revolting to...checks notes...the Trucial States, and that was a real immersion breaker) fighting against their own revolt, a split Slovenia with no soldiers endlessly glaring across their borders; Bohemia split in two; Poland and it's two revolts, Krakow and a revolt, Three Romanias, a Disjointed Hungary, oh and Ukraine showed up in East Galicia which was pleasant.
Now you can all see why leaving the Austrian market was a good choice! Thank you for reading.
I'd say I was pretty successful here! I also realized when uploading this that a lot of my screengrabs would be encompassed here...so I can avoid excessive screenshots related to population and GDP. Now, the main line that is referred to in "Line (Mostly) Go Up" is the GDP one - Cuba starts with a miserably low weekly GDP and I got it to be higher than that thankfully, which shows how outsized my economy was in my country compared to where I started. If you're wondering how I have 2.18 million Han Chinese as my second highest population, that would be from the treaty port in Nantong that I acquired after Qing thought it would be a good idea to support Brunei (Great Britain also likes to beat up on China and we always had a good relationship so I gave them something good for help, can't remember what at the moment though).
With a bonus of the beautiful island of Cuba and the creation of glassworks at the end of the campaign in this lovely screengrab (in which I had built every single resource building and used up all of the arable land so I could not build factories fast enough to keep up with unemployment, we had about ~120K of the 5 millionish people unemployed at the end), my GDP ended up at about 167 Million, and we were the number Six world wide in GDP, GDP Per Capita, oh and the 6th ranked Great Power. But my favorite part of this graph is the part where it go DOWN.
Now, nobody likes big red number we only like big green number, am I right, friends? Well THAT is the brief period of time where Cuba's economy was big red for a bit, and a brief historical overview of my situation will help see how we got to that point. After two independence wars (the first no one supported me and I stubbornly refused to back down) France helped me crush Spain. The Cuban troops heroically liberated Puerto Rico from its one garrisoned division while the French did some stuff in Spain that caused them to lose. Of course, this came at a price which was to enter the French market with an obligation. Now, this wasn't too bad at first because the French wanted to buy my agricultural products, but eventually the French market did not end up being as valuable for me as it did them, and big red number showed up (not that GDP spike, but one I took care of more efficiently). By this point I had finally learned how I could manage my three territories of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the tiny bit of only land I could colonize at the time (a chunk of Mauritania) and learned that it's better to keep constructing because this forces my wood, iron, and tool prices up. More construction sectors = more demand, and I was a producer of wood, iron, and tools with cash crops to back up my economy. Of course, we still had slavery and unfortunately to get anywhere at the beginning of the game we...may...have...slid into agrarian authoritarianism but hey, what are you going to do? The Landowners were powerful and the French were more than happy to purchase my slave-grown tobacco and that was what mattered at the time.
So, eventually when the French market became a liability on my own the British paid off my debt and I joined their Customs Union. This...did not help. It managed to be curiously, equally as bad, and I was spiraling towards bankruptcy again because construction cannot stop! That's a sin, we all know it. I almost considered it but then as my debt grew an unlikely, coffee-drinking hero showed up and paid my debt in exchange for a customs union - AUSTRIA. Which, at first glance, is a massively head-scratching choice of a pseudo-colonial overlord using MY plantations to get delicious caffeine beans but then again, have you ever BEEN to Austria? Have you MET Austrians? Coffee is a true passion there (I know this, I've been there, and I love you all and your beautiful land) and this managed to jumpstart my economy. Austria wanted my coffee so badly they paid top dollar because it was so hard to get it in their own market. Take that, you colonialist French and British!
So, this is where my understanding of the economy of being in another market really took off because I started producing whatever I could that Austria had less of, which resulted in more money, more construction, and more resources. By this point we ALSO expanded into the Congo (funny aside about colonial laws, there was a strong movement against it twice that would have resulted in Civil War after passing it, so I put up a debate to get rid of it twice to force the revolution to stop, and then I would cancel the debate right before the checkpoint; eventually the anti-colonialists gave up because I'd like to think they got tired of the Prince's shenanigans) so we had more resources that Austria didn't get access to. And things were going pretty good! The 1880s-early 1900's were wonderful years for Cuba - we even managed to start to liberalize because the Landowners were so loyal that getting other parties in the government with laws they weren't strictly radically against were easier to pass. Banning slavery in such an authoritarian environment after about half of the game feeling like it was impossible to get rid of is still my crowning achievement for this one, both socially and economically (peasants are more useful than slaves, though SOL for the agricultural slaves was actually a bit higher than peasants due to the filthy rich plantations during the dark times).
But all that had to end because Austria decided hey, you know what would be cool? A REVOLUTION! Let's fight a civil war! So they did. And my army was strong, but small. We weren't fighting much because it wasn't important to my expansion or goals, so I had to capitulate and get out of the ugly war (we had a defensive pact). That DIP in GDP saw a drop from about 75 million at the time to 25 million. I felt absolutely doomed - was this the end for Cuba? NOT SO - it turns out that years in another country's market (well...multiple countries) made me forget that I can set up my own trade routes and make other countries pay tariffs for my sweet resources, so I spent a minute gathering myself, ejecting Austria from my customs houses, and re-setting up my entire market virtually from scratch as I hadn't had to manage a thing other than figure out what to produce for the previously-beneficial Austrians. And then - the miracle happened. Line go up again! This enabled me to expand my economy so much that at one point we had the second highest GDP per capita, and were the fourth highest Great Power (sadly by the end we were at 6th place, Spain just edging me out in the final years).
So what lesson did I learn? Well, a few! First, it's entirely possible to succeed in Victoria 3 as a smaller country, especially if your goals are smaller. Mine were pretty simple, and I more than succeeded my own expectations there by creating a globe spanning Empire thanks to my policy of reverse-colonialism and going East to take advantage of whatever markets or resources I could get my hands on. Second, as a smaller country it's entirely beneficial to use a larger market you can get into to kickstart your own by providing them with things they need. Third, construction and deficit growth is key. Imagine my surprise when my deficit looked to be out of control, but the demand for my goods was so great that my credit limit kept getting pushed farther out and enabled more construction and employment eventually pushing me back up into a positive budget and allowing me to reduce taxes and increase wages while relying more and more on what I was producing than heavily taxing everyone and paying my government next to nothing (they really earned their higher wages after a solid 10-20 years of economic growth on the lowest possible government wages while also forcing extreme taxes out of the population). There were even large periods of time where I had the lowest possible taxes to make up for it, so really once I got a handle of how the market works - understanding the factors going into a Pop's standard of living, knowing the function of peasants and how best to get rid of them into much better buildings for more economic value, how to use credit and other markets to my advantage, understanding the game's version of supply and demand - I had a LOT of fun nation building. The base on this game is pretty great, so I'm looking forward to future updates since there are a few rough edges that are being worked on.
But I also leave you with by far my favorite screenshot:
Who needs the BALKANS when you have CARPATHIA! I am very happy that they are solving the endless Civil Wars in 1.1 and issues with Revolter Tags because of this hilarious mess. We have (not in Carpathia) Radical Sardinia Piedmont (can we get some more dynamic tag naming, or a better choice of tag revolts please? SP owns nothing in SP here after revolting from Austria, this should be Lombardy-Venetia, the same thing happened with parts of Libya and Egypt revolting to...checks notes...the Trucial States, and that was a real immersion breaker) fighting against their own revolt, a split Slovenia with no soldiers endlessly glaring across their borders; Bohemia split in two; Poland and it's two revolts, Krakow and a revolt, Three Romanias, a Disjointed Hungary, oh and Ukraine showed up in East Galicia which was pleasant.
Now you can all see why leaving the Austrian market was a good choice! Thank you for reading.
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