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To handle the upcoming disputes between the baltic countries you should hijack Åland from Finland/Sweden and make that your capital :D. Granted, you would need a few convoys to handle supplies :p
 
To handle the upcoming disputes between the baltic countries you should hijack Åland from Finland/Sweden and make that your capital :D. Granted, you would need a few convoys to handle supplies :p

That would be awful, as they are then treated as an Island nation with lots of penalties.
 
Introduction Chapter I: The Background Story

On the 1st June 1934, the representatives of Baltic States met in Riga, the capital of Latvia, where they should discuss top-priority business, most importantly how to strengthen current positions of their states on the international political scene. This meeting has the biggest priority in the history of these three states, it had even bigger importance than meeting in 1918 about territorial claims between them after the First World War.

Three presidents of these small, but still existing and willing to struggle for independence, countries met in Vidzemes Knightly House, where Latvian parliament (Saeima) normally holds a meeting, exactly at 14:00.

saeimab.jpg


The building of Latvian Saeima

“Today we shall discuss improving mutual relations between our states and ways of strengthening our positions on the international scene. Have you got any ideas on how to improve our situation?”, said Konstantin Päts, the current head of Estonian State.

“Well, maybe we should form a trade union between our states. Also creating military alliances between our countries would make us look stronger, especially in the eyes of our biggest threats to our people: Soviet Union and Germany!”, replied Alberts Kviesis, his contrary from Latvia.

“Kviesis, with all respect to you, I find your idea somewhat insufficient, almost ridiculous.” The authoritarian president of Lithuania, Antanas Smetona, has spoken. “This situation requires a daring action!”

“What situation? Our countries are prospering. There is not even a war going on in the world! Maybe with the exception of the Chinese civil war, which is already raging for some time.” Kviesis seemed angered by such behavior just a little.

“Don´t be a fool. This won´t last for long. Look at Hitler in Germany and his, how does is he call them, “volunteer” forces? They are a group of fanatics willing to blindly follow his orders. I bet he already has a few hundreds of thousands of them.”

“I have to agree with you, but how about Soviet Union and Stalin? I think they pose a much bigger threat for us than Hitler, who is trying to get on good terms with us.” mentioned Päts.

“Oh yes, Stalin and his Bolsheviks. He still believes the Baltic States are a bunch of rebels, who torn of his great Motherland! I share your concern, but how are we able to defend against such a power-hungry demagogue with tens of millions of men willing to die for him?”

Suddenly all three men have immersed into deep taught. How to protect three small countries against such threat without outright joining any faction to preserve their independence? All three men wanted to burst out their ideas at the same time after a good while of thinking. They let Kviesis to talk first.

“Gentlemen, I´ve found out only one rational solution. We shall formally merge our states into one union, acting as a one state, having common politics, military and trade while preserving our independence of each state. Do you agree with me or do you have any doubts?”

Päts and Smetona were stunned by the cool-headiness of the statement Kviesis just made. Actually, they were all thinking about the same thing, but Kviesis gathered the guts to say it first.

“Whoa, well... It seems like the best solution, although we might have some trouble implementing it, I´m sure citizens of our states will surely understand the situation we´re at and why we made this decision. Now, under which name shall we call this union? For myself, I vote for “Greater Lithuania”, that would be the best name for it in my opinion.”

Now the discussion has taken a childish direction, where our three wanted to name the union by their state, completely disregarding there are also two other states creating it. After initial variations of their states, Smetona has come with a fair idea of naming the union “Lathuania”. Kviesis agreed to this, but Päts completely refused it, since the ending “nia” was shared by both Estonia and Lithuania, therefore the Estonia might not be as sovereign as it seemed from the union´s name. Smetona argued by that Estonia has the smallest industrial capacity of all three states, so its importance in the union might not be so significant, but when Päts said Estonia won´t be a part of a union, where she´ll be oppressed, he gave up and they all went finding more suitable name.

After an hour of discussion about the name (which taken more time than any other subject they discussed), the simple name of “Baltic Union” was found as the best compromise, together with this flag, where Päts (luckily) forgot to mention it does not contain anything from the Estonian one, all three men went to their homes, thinking about politics and public referendum which shall be discussed on the next meeting.

litmv.jpg


A prototype of the Union´s flag

P.S. You wanted narration? Choke on it! :p Stay tuned and be sure to comment! :)
 
No! Please, don't do this! I like your AARs very much, but this is too much even for me. But I must be strong! :D
And now seriously, I don't really like narratic AARs, I prefer seeing images, then reading text, but maybe your AAR would change my mind? I hope so! :D
 
No! Please, don't do this! I like your AARs very much, but this is too much even for me. But I must be strong! :D
And now seriously, I don't really like narratic AARs, I prefer seeing images, then reading text, but maybe your AAR would change my mind? I hope so! :D

Damn, too bad for you I think :p But that part from the naming of the union to the end was fun to read, no? :) I think I´ll try to make it more in detail than I did previously, but maybe I´ll say "**** or ***** this" after I´ll play five years in one session (and then see the demoralizing effect of the ****ton of work I´d have to put up). I didn´t really need to start the game for this update though.
 
Nice update, I like narrative AAR's ! It's actually funny, how Estonia is getting bullied :p
 
Nice update, I like narrative AAR's ! It's actually funny, how Estonia is getting bullied :p

Well, some like narrative AARs, some don´t. I´m always trying to find some balance between text and pictures or, at least, keeping the text fluent. And about Estonia: I´ve noticed these "inconsistencies" before I started writing AAR itself, but I´ve realized it would be a good idea to somehow implement it in a funny way :)

I liked it a lot. Looks promising so I will be following another of your adventures for sure!:)

Thank you! It´s actually quite difficult to write these "adventures" :D The worst part is to "make the text to make sense" and don´t make it fall in the boredom.
 
Great! A narrative!
You being you, I'm sure you'll find enough screenshots to back this up.

Thank you! :) This is so much sci-fi, that you can´t find any pictures for it :p

School is already giving me a beating (I had like 14 days off it now), updates have to wait :sad:
 
Introduction Chapter II: Discussing the Referendum

One more note before starting; I´m going to write only initials of the presidents, mainly to avoid long sentences, which basically say nothing (e.g. “said Alberts Kviesis.”), because it´s hard to write the same thing in five different ways. You´ll see later on.



On the 21st June 1934, our trio has met again, but this time in Tallinn, the capital city of Estonia. Toompea Castle, the seat of the Estonian parliament (Riigikogu), was chosen to be the place where the presidents of Baltic States should meet. And at what time they should meet? Let´s say at 1 p.m.; you still have your belly full after some good lunch! :)

toompeacastleside.jpg

Toompea Castle looks like classicist building, but in fact it´s a mix of various architectural styles which were developed throughout centuries.

The discussion was started by Konstantin Päts, which has now officially gained the status of the “discussion starter”.

“Today we´ve scheduled to discuss various matters of newly created Union. Let´s start with the referendum question. How are our preferences among the Baltic people? Estonia has a big majority of Russian community, creating more than a one quarter of the whole population. They´ll surely be against our proposal, together with some other communists in our country.”

AK: “In Latvia the situation is no better, even slightly worse. Latvians create only about sixty percent of population!”

AS: “Lithuania doesn´t share a land border with USSR, so Russians have even less numbers than Poles; hardly every 20th citizen in Lithuania has roots in Russia. Let alone these people are not all Stalin´s spies; majority of them fled from communism, that´s why they are here in our states! Now let´s do some counting, so we know what we´re at.”

t439.jpg

Photo shows “white” Russian refugees in 1917. They took every opportunity to escape to foreign countries from the “reds”. Baltic States were often the first choice to many of them.

All of them went checking and comparing the size of ethnic groups in their countries. It took some time, but they´ve finally came to satisfying result.

KP: “I think we should be able to have majority of votes on our side. We should have at least 70-75 percent of the votes on our side, assuming all Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians vote for the creation of the Union.”

AK: “That´s great! But when should we hold the referendum? It is going to be hard to organize it.”

AS: “People are already spreading rumors about Baltic Union, so unless they´re living in a bunker on Mars, they should know something big is going on. I would propose the date of 1st August. Radio and newspaper companies will have enough time to inform the people about it and we also have some extra time to prepare how the politics will look like in the newly created Union, answer the questions of our opponents, raise our chances of winning this fundamental referendum etc.”

KP: “And ultimately, we should avoid using the brute force of our armies even when we can. Only a united nation can hope surviving even the biggest of wars!”

AK: “It´s settled then. We still have things to do when it comes to the politics, army or intelligence... But how about having a small break? The chicken curry with rice were great, but it´s 4 p.m. already and I´m starving to death! Konstantin, do you have a canteen for members of the Riigikogu here?”

KP: “Sure. Just follow me down the stairs...”

Our heroes took a short break for some eating. Nevertheless, they continued their discussion in the canteen, thinking about things to come...



Break concludes this update nicely. Stay tuned for the next episode!
 
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Having read the 1st chapter I must say I expected a bit more from the 2nd one but it sufficed (i.e. was good). :) The only real problem is the 1st photo; can't you at least make it black and white?
 
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Having read the 1st chapter I must say I expected a bit more from the 2nd one but it sufficed (i.e. was good). :) The only real problem is the 1st photo; can't you at least make it black and white?

It looks like the Baltians possess some super car manufacturing technology... probably they are Martians :p
 
Having read the 1st chapter I must say I expected a bit more from the 2nd one but it sufficed (i.e. was good). :) The only real problem is the 1st photo; can't you at least make it black and white?

Well, seems like a good idea!

This AAR will have a slow start. There will be maybe 1-3 more Intro chapters before I get to some gameplay...

It looks like the Baltians possess some super car manufacturing technology... probably they are Martians :p

I´ve never stated the AAR will have legit pictures, but ok :p