Mexico for NOOBs - a learning/gameplay AAR

[badger_ken]

I re-read the sections about politics and vote and there's still one aspect left:

how do POPs choose their ideology?

Have you, badger_ken, or someone else an explanation? ... and maybe found a way to influence POPs into choosing this or that or yonder ideology?

Yours,
AdL

P.S. I'm looking forward to the other aspects of the game being explored/explained ...

hi AdL, I don't think we'll ever know the 'real' answer without looking at the source code, but I've been thinking about this a lot recently, and here are my current theories:

Theory #1: ideology drives issues.
In my previous essays , I argued that issues drive party affiliation (which party a POP votes for is based on issues, not ideology per se), and that issues do not drive ideology - ideology is not a 'summary' of a POPs issues.

My current theory is that it's the other way around: ideology drives issues, but does so via a many-many mapping. This can't be as simple as a 1-1 mapping, as otherwise (a) in a two-party system, issues would become irrelevant: ideological liberals would always vote liberal, ideological conservatives would always vote conservative, and (b) it doesn't explain the 'reactionary example' - if 19% of a voting segment has reactionary ideology, why will only 12% of that same segment vote for the single reactionary party? There are other examples like this, but this is the canonical example.

Well, here's one way it could work:
Suppose that there are a 'set' of Reactionary issues, a 'set' of Conservative issues, and a 'set' of Liberal issues. A given issue may be in more than one set (for example, if you look at the 5 Mexican parties, all of them have 'Moralism' as one of their issues). Each party chooses a subset of the possible issues of its ideology, (note that no two parties have the same party platform, which shows there are more issues than ideologies). Furthermore, you might have a party which does a 'hybrid' - picks, either intentionally or because of random perturbations, some issues from another 'set' (for example, in Mexico the Conservative 'moderado liberal' party might be called this because it chose 50% 'conservative' issues, and 50% 'liberal', for its party platform). A POP then chooses the party that dot-products best with its ideologies values.

If it works this way, we get three nice behaviors:

1) most of the time, a voter will vote for a party of their ideology, as you would expect, but....

2) a voter might sometimes "cross the aisle" and vote for a party which isn't of their ideology, because their 'natural' parties choose a unlucky subsets, while the 'un-natural' party did the opposite.

For example, let's suppose that Reactionary voters really really really value 'jingoism'. Suppose that the particular Mexican reactionary party, which picks all reactionary issues, didn't happen to pick jingoism - it picked other, less juicy reactionary issues. Now suppose that another party, let's say the Liberal party, did pick 'jingoism', as an issue can span ideologies. This might cause the POP to vote Liberal, even with a Reactionary ideology.

3) There's a reason for the "ideology" pie chart

Theory #2: demographics drive ideology.

OK, if party is driven by issues, and issues are driven by idelogy, what drives ideology? Is it turtles all the way down?

I'm too lazy to do the statistical analysis required to validate this thesis, and too poor to bribe Paradox into releasing the source code , but my intuition is that ideology is driven by demographic 'facts on the ground', such as:

• profession
• militancy
• consciousness
• citizenship

Putting this all together, we get the following Unified Grand Theory :

• the economy drives profession
• profession, nationality, and militancy drive ideology
• ideology drives issues
• issues drive party affiliation
• party affiliation drives election results
• election results drive government policy
• government policy drives professions chosen by POPs

and the circle of life is complete - hakuna matata

 

[theokrat]

it doesn't explain the 'reactionary example' - if 19% of a voting segment has reactionary ideology, why will only 12% of that same segment vote for the single reactionary party? There are other examples like this, but this is the canonical example.

Not to ponder the point, but 19% of the middle class were reactionary, but only 71% of the middle class may actually vote. Not because of class, but because of non-resident status. Not being "Mexican" they are not allowed to vote.
So it might be that of these 19% reactionaries 7 percentage points belong to the 29% aliens. That would mean an above-average amount of reactionaries among the foreigners, but than again its an extremist ideology and being of unaccepted culture probably drives militancy and hence extremism.

In Vic1 at least ideology was driven by profession and conciousness, with high militancy causing the extremist points of view.

 

[Saintis]

• profession
• militancy
• consciousness
• citizenship

Putting this all together, we get the following Unified Grand Theory :

• the economy drives profession
• profession, nationality, and militancy drive ideology
• ideology drives issues
• issues drive party affiliation
• party affiliation drives election results
• election results drive government policy
• government policy drives professions chosen by POPs

Also IIRC POPs with low consciousness have a tendency to just vote for whoever is in power. I think that consciousness determine whether POPs vote for what they want (their issues) or not (apathy votes for current ruling party).

 

[Alan deLane]

...
but my intuition is that ideology is driven by demographic 'facts on the ground', such as:

• profession
• militancy
• consciousness
• citizenship

Putting this all together, we get the following Unified Grand Theory :

• the economy drives profession
• profession, nationality, and militancy drive ideology
• ideology drives issues
• issues drive party affiliation
• party affiliation drives election results
• election results drive government policy
• government policy drives professions chosen by POPs

and the circle of life is complete - hakuna matata

Add literacy to this. From my littl' Hawaii experience, I've seen Aristocrats (and later Capitalists) turning 75%+ socialist:

- They had a literacy rate of 100%+ (at some point of the game I had CTW and all my Bureaucrats were gone, my budget massively in the red, so I decided to use the "cash"-cheat and go on with the game).

- Pluralism was around 80%-100% and CON around 4-6.

---
I've noticed another thing:

- as Hawaii is a one-province with a one-culture, and after I used an exploit to get Universal Suffrage, and
- when the election events happened,

- then when I chose for example "+15% Moralism" (from an election event), and - let's say: Moralism was before an issue for 5% of all the voters - it changed to become an issue for 20% of all the voters.

Sorry for my crappy English, but I hope you guys got the point.


---
Yours,
AdL

 

[badger_ken]

Not to ponder the point, but 19% of the middle class were reactionary, but only 71% of the middle class may actually vote. Not because of class, but because of non-resident status. Not being "Mexican" they are not allowed to vote.
So it might be that of these 19% reactionaries 7 percentage points belong to the 29% aliens.
In Vic1 at least ideology was driven by profession and conciousness, with high militancy causing the extremist points of view.

Ahh, yes, I finally see, I had been thinking that all of the middle class could vote.

Also IIRC POPs with low consciousness have a tendency to just vote for whoever is in power. I think that consciousness determine whether POPs vote for what they want (their issues) or not (apathy votes for current ruling party).

Ahh, yes.

I think that with these two inputs we may consider "The Case of the Elusive Electorate" solved! Brandy's all around, fellow detectives!

Next update will be back to All Things Geopolitical, as Mexico continues to try, ever so slowly, to overcome its crippling infamy....

 

[Tmac]

Cool AAR, subscribed!

 

[badger_ken]

Chapter 7: war against the UK (again)

Chapter 7: war against the UK (again)

Welcome back to the Mexican AAR, this chapter is almost non-stop combat!
When we had left fair Mexico, in July 1858, it was still working off the astronomical infamy debt I had stupidly accured by confusing Vic2 with EU3 . As a result, the UK is at war with me.

The war starts as expected, deja-vu from the last UK war, as in the south I stroll into Belize and start seiging it, while in the north hordes of Brits start streaming from Montana and Vancouver into Idaho and Oregon.

The war, phase 1.....

Here we see the battles in the first 6 months:



The fighting in the first 6 months, as in later phases, is characterized by the following dynamics:

• the British can defeat me easily in an even fight, I assume because of their technological advantages - they also have very good leaders, and also seem far less affected by attrition. It sucks being on the short end of the technology stick
• the army sizes are big enough, and the terrain low enough, that both sides wind up doing 'swarming' medium-sized stacks (size 10 to 30) about, coalescing them to fight, and then splitting them apart to regoup.
• however, I hold the "central position", and have higher supply limits because I'm fighting on home turf, and so shuttle from battle to battle - my guys hang out most of the time in Baker City, Klamath falls and Boise.
• The brits get a war score of 6 more or less "for free", by blockading all my ports. Drat. At least, they never mount an amphibuous invasion!

Four months into the war, in November 1858, I make a key realization, as I am looking at the main british leader


I notice that he's a holy terror when attacking, but nothing special when defending. My strategy becomes to let him advance, and then counter-attack - this helps a lot.


The war, phase 2 ..... et tu, USCA?

Things go from not-bad to horrible in March 1859, when...



the USA DOWs me....



Joined by the CSA.....



and the USCA!

Ay Caramba! Check out this diplomatic map - I am surrounded by powerful enemies on all sides:



I must hand it to the AI here, as the USA has played this flawlessly - when I stopped being a great power, they stepped into the vacuum, moved the CSA and USCA into their SOI and then making allies of them, and then when I was fully engaged with the UK, they and their buddies pounce on me. Give the devil his due.

Other than admiring how totally screwed I am , what could I do about it?
The only silver lining I could see is that, if you look closely, the US' goals are actually quite modest:


Simply to liberate Colorado. Hey, that's not so bad.
I decide I will try the "attack the weakest ally" strategy - I outnumber the USCA roughly 2-1, I am going to try to see if I can knock them out of the war before the USA and CSA flood into Mexico.

Though this strategy goes well tactically, as I thump the USCA solidly in battles at Tapachula and Quetzaltenango


However, it is to no avail, as a second wave of USCA forces shows up to hold the front - I won't even be able to attack their capital. Meanwhile, the USA and CSA are advancing unopposed into Texas and Colorado.

I decide to fold a losing hand, and in May 1859 I acquiesce to the US's demands, sigh



The war, phase 3 ... the going gets good.

The above out to be the nadir in the war. Oddly, 3 months after surrending to the US ....



I'm a great power again! Boy, somebody above me must really be screwing up . My guess is Austria.

Secondly, from February 1859 through the rest of the year, by careful use of the "central position", and the "counterattack nigel" strategy, I run off a streak of 16 land victories against the UK - most are against smallish detachments, but hey, a win's a win.



...things go swimmingly against the British...


The good diplomatic news....

The net result is that by mid-1860, the war's starting lines are right back where they started, and the UK is on the defensive. The UK agrees to a 'white peace' in August 1860

The technological news

In June 1860 I finally get



Army professionalism, which I hope will help me in a few more years


The bad diplomatic news

My cherished "balkanize the US" strategy goes from barely-breathing to totally defunct, as in a totally implausible sequence, the US does..



Emancipation Proclamation, then announces



Radical Reconstruction, and the CSA responds to this by .....



re-uniting with the US! The Swedes have an odd sense of US history - only semi-joking here, if you read their text closely on the 'Emancipation Proclmation', for example, you see they got it a bit wrong - technically, it didn't free the slaves 'in the Southern United States', it freed the slaves for areas in rebellion. No rebellion, no outlawing.

Where to now?

So, let's summarize - after 25 years, my initial strategy has to be considered a failure. The USA is whole, strong, and allied with my neighbors, while I am....



an international pariah who has 25 years of infamy to work off before the UK will leave me alone. Oh, and all those victories in battle? They moved my prestige from 12 to .... 6. .

Have I augered Mexico into such a deep hole that it can't be climbed out of? Any suggestions?

 

[Tmac]

25 years of infamy burn isnt a good choice, why dont you forget about it and start conquering your south border towards central and south america?

USA and UK will attack you whenever they can anyway, by doing that you at least increase your empire potential to fight back. If you luck enough your noth buddies will eventually enter war and you can seize the opotunity.

 

[Von Uber]

Any suggestions?

Go for world conquest?

 

[Alan deLane]

25 years of infamy burn isnt a good choice, why dont you forget about it and start conquering your south border towards central and south america?

USCA's POPs have a high MIL (safe those of Guatemala), especially at the start-date. That could be risky in terms of internal security.

USA and UK will attack you whenever they can anyway, by doing that you at least increase your empire potential to fight back. If you luck enough your noth buddies will eventually enter war and you can seize the opotunity.

You still have the option to edit the save, and lower the infamy to a point where you should get less DOWs ... though it might be considered as cheating by other people.

Yours,
AdL

 

[jafloresl]

mmm, not sure how really was the things going in the south front of the war against the USA, but probably if you accupied the whole USCA, you could demanded Cut to size or humiliate to get a good prestige bonus.

 

[matt12th]

Can you plop off a satellite? Idaho cannot be giving that much population and industrialization for you to use, get under the limit and get out of the diplo box you're in. Get Columbia in your SOI and build the canal and get some allies. Then rush that cultural tech that lets you take out an unciv for 8 and take out Egypt or some other colony that can help you.

 

[InnocentIII]

I love these forums.

"I've got sky high infamy and I am surrounded by powerful and implacable foes, what should I do?"
[all in unison] "ATTACK!"

Have to say, I agree. If this is the worst that BB wars will do to you (and I'm not saying that it is the worst), meh. Make the most of it.

I really appreciate your AAR, generally, but your walkthrough of the political system in particular. I have a much better handle on the mechanics than I did before. On responding to electoral events, I'd suggest that instead of working on the outcome of the current election, you do more fashioning the electorate to line up with your long-term goals. What do you want people to favor over the years? Use election events to push them that way. Also, it sounds like consistently choosing 5% events for non-economic issues and 30% ones for the economic policies you like (or the one most like it), you could convert people to economic-driven voters rather than something else, over time.

I'm not sure it works, but for myself I try to drive people toward interventionism and state capitalism because the Capi AI is goofy, and moralism because I can. OTOH, I hate building my own railroads so much I ought to just go laissez faire no matter what country I'm playing.

 

[Dewirix]

So, let's summarize - after 25 years, my initial strategy has to be considered a failure. The USA is whole, strong, and allied with my neighbors, while I am....



an international pariah who has 25 years of infamy to work off before the UK will leave me alone. Oh, and all those victories in battle? They moved my prestige from 12 to .... 6. .

Have I augered Mexico into such a deep hole that it can't be climbed out of? Any suggestions?

At 1.2 points of BB-burn a year it's only (?) 15 years. If GB and the US are going to come calling every five years you'll have 3-4 more wars with each of them.

My instinct would be to sit tight and concentrate on making Mexico into an industrial and military power which can withstand the bullying of these arrogant Anglos.

By 1875 you should have dipped under the BB limit and be in a position to start throwing your weight around.

It's not like you've got the navy to take the British on at the moment anyway and unless you think you kick them out of Canada while holding the US off I wouldn't start the BB-wars in earnest just yet.

 

[badger_ken]

At 1.2 points of BB-burn a year it's only (?) 15 years. If GB and the US are going to come calling every five years you'll have 3-4 more wars with each of them.

thanks for the input!
Sadly, your infamy does not decrease when at war, so if you're at war 40% of the time, et voila, the 15 years she becomes 25

Real Life and a hacking frenzy (I'm trying to parse Vic2 save files so that I can do a Vic2 advisor) have intervened - but never fear, ¡Mexico Glorioso Regreserá! (Glorious Mexico shall return!)

 

[unmerged(77853)]

Just found you AAR and I must say I had a blast:rofl: reading it. I think the best way to sum up your current situation is FUBAR. The world hates you, your infamy is so high I'm surprised noone else has declared war on you, two of the worlds biggest badasses come knocking every five years and winning battles somehow screw up your prestige. I see only one soultion: Preemptive strike. Lets face thing won't get better, you might as well have some fun. Take som more states from the US, annex the USCA, take Belize. Your infamy is so high I'm surprised noone else has declared war on you

 

[badger_ken]

Chapter 8: The Fates speak...

Chapter 8: The Fates speak...

Welcome back to the Mexico AAR! When we left fair Mexico, it was 1860, and we had just finished fighting the UK to a draw for the second time, shortly after surrendering Colorado to the despised Yankees and their USCA imperialist lackeys. The swine! The US can attack me again in 1864, the UK in 1865.

I spend 1860-1863 frankly in a bit of a dither, slowly building my economy and otherwise not doing much. In January 1864, after much consideration of the advice given me (thanks folks), I take the advice of my two most trusted senior advisors, Senadores Otter and Bluto:

Otter: We gotta take these bastards. Now we could do it with conventional weapons that could take years and cost millions of lives. No, I think we have to go all out. I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part.
Bluto: We're just the guys to do it.

Here we see a portrait of Senador Bluto, drawn shortly before this inspiring speech.

I decide that the next time the USA/USCA attack (which I assume they both will when the truce expires), rather than gamely defending against the USA, I will instead --- beat up on the USCA! If I can annex them, it will surely ease the pain of whatever the US has up its sleeve, and move things from a 2-front to 1-front war henceforwards. In anticipation of that day, I try (probably futilely) to butter up Colombia.

The balloon goes up

The chess game starts just as I had expected, as in May 1864



the US DOWs me



joined by the USCA. The only surprise here was that they waited a whole 9 days after the expiration of the truce to do so . Note also that the US wants Texas out of the deal - hmmm, a trade of Texas for the USCA isn't so bad....

I had planned for this joint DOW in two ways:
1) 110K Mexican troops, including copious contingents of cavalry and engineers, are on the USCA border
2) My mighty navy, which can carry an entire 3K troops, is employed to drop said 3K troops on the extreme southern border of the USCA. This will either (a) detract USCA troops away from the northern front, or (b) copy some provinces for cheap, either way is ok with me.

Things go quite according to plan - in the north, Yankee hordes swarm into Houston and Salt Lake City, unopposed, while in the South glorious Mexican liberators swarm into Guatemala and El Salvador. A diversion for a Teaching Moment:

Troop rotation in action

One thing I've been learning from other AARs in this forum is the importance of keeping your troops fully organized (condition "green"). Rather than dumping your troops into a battle and leaving them to slug it out, the idea is that as soon as your troops go "yellow", you click on them, see which of your armies is the least organized (this requires that you split your forces into multiple armies, the more the better), and rotate a "yellow" army out, hopefully rotating a "green" army in. This requires more micro-management, and can hurt you if you rotate out your best leader, but overall seems to work better. For one thing, it means that if you win, instead of having two almost-exhausted armies, you should have some rested components ready to pounce - that is where you really do the damage.

The screen grab below shows this in action



in the middle of a battle, I'm rotating one yellow army out, while two green armies are joining the fray.

This technique reaches its successful culmination in a battle in late July,


where as you can see I have 51 green against 23 red - that's the way I like it . This battle ends with the total destruction of the main USCA army.

Thank you sir, may I have another?

As if being an international pariah and regularly attacked by the US and UK weren't enough, in late July



hordes of Rebels spring up. Waaah.....

The situation in August

Sorry for the fragmented explanation, suffice to say that by August 1864:
1) In the North, the US is methodically munching its way through Utah, New Mexico, and Texas


I am seeing roughly 150K US troops (gulp), which I am not yet opposing. The only good news here is that they haven't defeated any of my troops yet.
2) In the middle 1/2 of my army is frantically putting down rebels.
3) In the south,

1/2 of my army has obliterated the USCA army, and is in the process of occupying roughly 8 provinces (around 50% of the USCA).

Overall, things have gone pretty much as I expected. And then....

The fates intervene

And here, dear reader, higher fates intervene. One thing I haven't been mentioning is that Vic2, which had been working flawlessly up to to the start of 1864, is now giving me sudden crashes almost every month. A crash in mid-August wiped me all the way back to June. (I hadn't been smart enough to increase auto-save frequency). I think there are three possible causes for this:

1) Perhaps the game has now gotten complicated enough (enough units, technologies, etc.) that the game has gotten some grit in its gears? Anyone else encountering these bumpy spots?

2) My significant other has gotten into the habit of leaving up lots of Internet Explorer windows with lots of online games on them - perhaps this is sucking down too many system resources? And much though I love Vic2, I love my S.O. more, so this situation is pretty much not gonna change

3) Even my computer thinks I have made a total hash of Mexico, and is signaling me the only way it knows how.

I am leaning towards the 3rd explanation . Given that

a) the 1.2 patch is Any Day Now, which evidently includes significant changes to Mexico, Texas, and the CSA, and

b) I'm itching to write the "Vic2 Advisor" (save-game-file mavens welcome to help!)

I think I'm going to call it a day for this AAR. I'm going to try one more post that collects the various 'lessons learned' into one place for future NOOBs.

Until then, thanks for reading, and remember - do as i say, not as i did!

 

[PrawnStar]

Thanks for writing this it's been very interesting!

And buy your S.O. at cheap laptop to play Farmville on - I did :rofl:

 

[Dewirix]

Ending on an Italian Job-style cliffhanger somehow seems appropriate for this AAR. Thanks for perservering even when it was clear that your original plans were out the window.

Looking forward to seeing a new AAR on 1.2! Now back to trying to get my head round the politics system.

 

[joriandrake]

please do Mexico again with 1.2