Chapter 3: The Aftermath; Part 1
Clearly, we somehow rid ourselves of war by the end of this Chapter. Let's see how.
Before we get that far, let's look at Peru-Bolivia again. It seems that they have lost a war with Chile, but just how significant is this. Is this a sign of internal weakness, or merely a stumbling block for what will soon be a regional power?
Of more immediate importance, however, is the movement of Yacatanian (!?) troops back towards their homeland. My army will not be able to successfully engage them, even if I had a good general, which I don't. Hopefully they also avoid direct conflict. Hopefully they take the time to siege a province. Hopefully we can arrive in Bacalar before they completely siege through a province, if they do stop.
And things are looking good!
They've stopped instead of marching directly into my army, which means that I actually have a fighting chance of full-sieging their country! Now I just have to siege down Bacalar before they re-liberate Merida.
...
Well. It was worth a shot I guess. White Peace?
But before I could get that far, I was bombarded by this message:
At this point you kind of just have to sit back and laugh at all the misfortune. Hopefully we can get rid of him at some point.
Anyways, with 2/3 of their country occupied, Yucatan was more than willing to accept a White Peace. As were we. What exactly does Peace mean? Well, at the end of the month our maximum War Exhaustion goes from 100 to 50, automatically cutting our War exhaustion in half. This isn't all that helpful, as by now rebels have sieged out a considerable number of provinces. However, once and if I can finally mow down those Rebel scum, my country should start to recover. But what's this about a looming war with the United States? Well, the answer comes just a little while later.
Uhhhh, what? I mean, don't get me wrong, we'll take it, but is America really asking for an alliance just a few months before 1845? Well, hopefully they can be of assisstance in the meantime.
Elections appear before I can reassign my "army" or take any other measures with the US, however. I will mainly be going for either conservative or Liberal traits here, but I will say if I'm changing anything.
And finally, FINALLY, I start my first real education research. From this point I start to focus culture techs more-so, as I find them really useful heading into the mid-game for Mexico. High Literacy and a good population base are important for Mexico later on. More important than say, France or Prussia, who start with relatively high literacy rates.
Actually, I'm also going for full citizenship, as I'm also quite fine with socialists or communists being in charge somewhere further down the road. (Mexico usually gets an okay number of communists and socialists in my experience)
Here is step two of my plan. As we can see, The USA likes me a lot, despite being about to declare war (no, the alliance does not prevent the event from auto-declaring war). Hopefully, with military access the US will feel obliged to send an army or two across the border to knock out a few rebels and linerate a few provinces. This has worked for me in past games, in both the base and modded versions.
From improving relations with the US, I move to securing some land from them, while also reducing infamy (infamy gives War Exhaustion in this mod, so reducing it lets me recover from war quicker) and even giving a little prestige. It also prevents the US from taking this land via the Mexican-American War, or the event associated thereof.
Huzzah! The Bear Flag Republic exists. California's land is actually extremely good, the best in the game in fact. Every single province has a life-rating on par with New York, or any other city in the world for that matter. As well, California gets a gold province in Mariposa, and it is one of the largest states in the game. The Bear Flag Republic is essentially a vassal state (although sadly there is no way to annex satellites in Vic II), and they will help me in wars.
And so America, being the pal that they are, decline to send help on the eve of war. I believe that the AI is actually programmed not to do this, or at least less likely to send military support. Either way, my decimated army will struggle against some of those larger rebel stacks.
And we have another First Minister! This time we're lucky enough to find somebody who isn't a raving lunatic, so hopefully this helps us rebuild our shattered economy. The conservatives have also won the election, so we can restore higher tax rates on the poor and middle class. What does this mean? This means that I actually have income, and that I actually have a treasury.
Of course, there's also the bad news.
Looks like friend US got impatient with waiting. I have no real choice but to give in to their demands. I could never fight a war against even one of their weaker stacks at this point, not without mobilizing, at least. Though it puts me in the US's sphere and it cedes a third of my country and it eliminates all of my prestige, I have no choice but to give up now, to prevent having to do so later after substantial loss to myself.
On this bombshell I leave you, my viewers. Before I go, I just have one question. Did anyone notice some inconsistencies in this update? I could give hints, but I'd rather wait to see if anybody figures it out before making it too obvious. I deliberately failed to mention something fairly important that I may or may not have forgotten to screenshot or clicked away too soon in-game.
Anyways, I'll see you next time in...
The Southern Eagle: A Mexico AAR!