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I'm reading them, Andries. Are you sure this strange diskoerekto character isn't simply another personality within your own mind? If so, "may God have mercy", as they say in the papers! :D

But, whoever this stranger is, Transvaal is expanding. But have they done enough to be able to beat those fierce Zulu hordes?

Andries is really doomed by my existence. He is not sure if I am another personality within his mind, or a witch, or something else entirely. Now he is hearing another named Stierenfilter telling him god should have mercy on him :D. But at least this one is not physically there like me. Oh, may God really have mercy upon him.


Welcome

And so Oranje Vrijstaat is no more, next stop, those nice beaches to the east!

Yes, we'll be landlocked no more, but as Bullfilter said this will be a tough one. Even with the addition of Oranje, we do not have a big enough POP (you need a soldier POP of at least 1000 people to be able to recruit a new brigade, the biggest we have is around 400-500 people) to recruit new brigades so we have to go with our only brigade against their 9 strong albeit irregular force. I need to let them besiege my provinces and die of attrition (I doubt AI is smart enough to split its army to avoid attrition) while I lay siege on their provinces. Until I finish all 3 sieges they will probably capture 5-6 of my provinces which will destroy the economy and pave the way to bankruptcy but I hope some opportunity arises and I can get away with this one. The Zulu war will definitely be a long shot. Maybe I'll try to fight them head on to finish their army off once they take 1-2 provinces and lose some of their numbers to attrition.
 
Expanding apace.
 
1. Do you use Ubuntu? Why not Mint? :3
2. If so, how did you manage to run Vicky on Linux?
3. How many times did you restart to beat Oranje? ;)

1. Windows 10 killed my laptop by irreversibly screwing the wifi drivers after an unstoppable update, I started installing arch but then I needed something quick and I figured ubuntu is the quickest to install. didn't give much thought actually

2. wine is really great, although running the game through steam screws the directx libraries, and it is difficult to juggle all the libraries without playonlinux. so first playonlinux, then a list of libraries you can find when you google playonlinux victoria 2. One of the libraries you install via playonlinux is steam. Then you login to your steam account, victoria 2 gets downloaded, but the critical point here is not to run it via steam it will mess up with the directx stuff. Just create a new shortcut directly to victoria2.exe (the launcher) and run the game via that.

3. no save scumming is necessary to beat oranje as transvaal, the opposite might be an issue since transvaal has 7 provinces while oranje has 3 and they have the same starting armies so by the time transvaal controls all oranje provinces oranje only controls 3 out of 7 transvaal provinces which is enough for an easy annexation without any actual battle. With a low manpower nation like transvaal/oranje one needs to avoid direct combat and focus on sieges anyway. I got lucky though when they disbanded their only brigade to save some money. I played a test run for a few hours a few weeks ago and they kept their brigade then, but it was a minor nuisance when I was besieging them they were besieging me but I had more provinces to trade.

against zulu I have no idea how it will happen I haven't played that part yet. In the test run they caused some havoc but it was manageable (my economy got destroyed but that's recoverable). this time i will try to destroy their army halfway through the sieges when it is attrited enough but i have no idea if that would work better.

i had to load to the beginning of the last chapter because I lost all my screenshots but the end result was the same (in fact i was in a better positon having remembered to fabricate a CB in correct time and not getting caught until after being halfway there), i will point out if i ever load/save because i screwed up something :)
 
Congratulations, I've nominated you for the Weekly AAR Showcase. I enjoy your way of storytelling very much and now you've got a chance to shine in the spotlight of these forums.
 
Congratulations, I've nominated you for the Weekly AAR Showcase. I enjoy your way of storytelling very much and now you've got a chance to shine in the spotlight of these forums.

wow thank you very much, i was playing the next episode (75% of the way there) but couldn't quite get there due to some RL issues. this will be a motivation boost :)
 
Congratulations, I've nominated you for the Weekly AAR Showcase. I enjoy your way of storytelling very much and now you've got a chance to shine in the spotlight of these forums.
wow thank you very much, i was playing the next episode (75% of the way there) but couldn't quite get there due to some RL issues. this will be a motivation boost :)
Well done LTCOL Diskoerekto and good pick SibCDC!! :)
 
today I played some more. RL problems kept me down for the last 10 days, and tomorrow my parents are coming to visit so unfortunately if you've been waiting for a new episode it might take at least a few more days.
 
No worries. Have a good time with your parents.
 
Found this through the AAR Showcase. I'm really enjoying the humor, and I've always liked seeing people taking small, out-of-the-way countries and trying to achieve something great with them. Count me a follower :)

Hope all goes smoothly with the family!
 
Hmm how dangerous is the Zulu state? In OTL some 20000 zulu's overwhelmed a 1800 man force which had breech loaders, so what can they do to your mussle loaders?
 
Hmm how dangerous is the Zulu state? In OTL some 20000 zulu's overwhelmed a 1800 man force which had breech loaders, so what can they do to your mussle loaders?

They were not dangerous at all in my test run but that wasn’t due to their battle strength. They just attritioned away all their numbers sieging my provinces and when they turned back to fight me they were already down to around 12k men or so. That was still a somewhat close battle so 20k fresh Zulu soldiers will simply overwhelm even if my armies had 1850 techs.

Well I have to admit (I believe this is not entirely in what I believe is an “AAR spirit”), but I am liberally load/save scumming this war. I intend to not do that again but the same Zulu that didn’t turn to attack me until it was too late for them on the test run just seem to be too trigger happy now. For the sake of the story this war needs to go well so the save scumming but normally one needs to be very careful during the Zulu war. A direct fighting with the fresh Zulu army equals annihilation.
 
I know I am all talk and no action but finally I've pulled some shit together in my life and had a chance to play the game. The Zulu war and its aftermath is finally over now I will rest and soon I expect to have the new chapter here.
 
Excellent. Awaiting the next chapter eagerly :)
back home from work now. a shower, dinner and it will be writing time :)

Zululand, what is that? I think you mean Natalië
I put in a decision that does that in addition to other things, it will be in the AAR in time :)

After this you can raise the Zulu flag on your fleet :)
first thing will be building ports, some ports and a fleet is absolutely necessary for the colonization points
 
Chapter 1, Section 4: It's me, again (02/08/1841 - 27/03/1842)
-----Chapter 1, Section 4: It's me, again-----

I think me teleporting and time travelling myself through layers of realities into this Paradox grand strategy game called Victoria 2 was just too much for poor Andries. He may be the president / tribe leader of a small unconventional band of people that can be called a nation, but he was sure as hell not ready for somebody that was yet to be born until around 150 years later. Well I hope he pulls his stuff together, and so do I. I had some problems with my girlfriend, then with my job, then had my parents come visit me from a different continent, then had some more problems with my girlfriend. My therapist says she sure is crazy but I need her nonetheless. Sometimes I wish I was only as crazy and troubled as Andries, then I think the cholera and dysenteria of 1800s would kill me in an explosively horrid torrent of crap and I change my mind. Now let's try to steer this small civilized African nation to relative power and try to slow the powers from colonizing. This uncharted territory is the final frontier and we will strike back with fury.

Now, after this pep talk, why don't we check where we left it the last time:

uc

On second thought, was it really wise attacking a country with 9 times the army?

---

God I wrote the part above yesterday. Suddenly my gf dropped by unannounced, we made peace, then had a fight, then made peace, then went to sleep, then had breakfast in the morning, then had a fight, then made peace, then went out for coffee, then she went home and I came home to eat something and now here I am sipping my tea writing this before a friend of mine who had a fight with his wife come at my place to discuss about life and stuff. I really sometimes hope my life was only as crazy as Andries. Take a look at the newspapers from Transvaal while I have some tea with my friend over his marital problems.

uc

The bigs are getting bigger, the developed are getting more techs, the Germans are composing songs

---

My friend has just left and it's been over 5-6 hours since I wrote the previous paragraph. I will not go into other details but he had sex once in the last four years. Pretty descriptive of his situation. We understandably switched to Rakı instead of the tea. Andries has it so easy. So, what happened in the time period when those newspapers were published? Well we won a siege but in the meanwhile the Zulu army won 4 sieges including our capital and was besieging the 5th province. They lost half their army to attrition though.

uc

I have a missing screenshot of the siege where we lost our capital. I think I was too distraught to take a screenshot.

---

So it took the better part of a year to complete the siege. Let's see what else happened in our lovely little nation when I was keeping our army besieging Ladysmith and the Zulu army going crazy in our provinces and Andries was sending telegrams and messenger pigeons and human messengers and everything in his power to convince me to break the siege and bring the army back to defend the motherland. I couldn't convince him this was the only way we get out of this war alive. He came himself swearing and kicking but in the end I hold the absolute power. I can even delete the save file and his universe will vanish from existence. So he returned to keep an eye on what we have left as a nation and run my orders about the affairs of the state. For example, our brilliant scientists discovered the practice of medicine. Should be pretty useful, now we can work on steam engines.

uc

I am an idiot to have forgotten to keep current on the tech line that affects research speed. It gives huge bonuses (bonii?) and I forgotten about it for years. Andries told me but I didn't listen.

---

Now is also a nice time to have a look at the budget. Victoria 2 is the Paradox grand strategy game most geared towards economic concepts. Here you can see the direct effect of gold to our coffers is only 1,2 pounds per day whereas the tax from the poor classes are a lot. This is because the laborers in the gold and diamond mines make good money (they are profitable businesses) thus pay more taxes. Also, since they make a lot of money and buy a lot of stuff, and that stuff mostly is imported, we make some tariff money. Normally I'd keep tariff as low as my economy allows (which can even go to negative meaning you are subsidizing imports, all sliders have min and max limits depending on the stances of the ruling party of the country) because rising this slows down the economy if you are not producing ALL of the resources that your industries (including artisans) might be using. When tariffs are higher inputs for your industries are more expensive thus the industries are less profitable which keeps the workers unhappy and the production low which in turn causes poorer workers to buy the outputs of other industries thus making them less profitable etc. But for now I will keep it 30%, and you will see I will even increase that temporarily in the future. There are strategic materiel to be stockpiled and things that needs to be done ASAP so that is why.

uc
Oh the great cycle of economics

---
In the second screenshot you can see the stockpile. Most items (except for machine parts which we still only managed to buy 73.87 units and timber which I only recently added to manually stockpile) are stockpiled as much as we ordered. That is the reason for the thousands of pounds of debt we amassed (machine parts is around 50 pounds per unit!) and we'll even borrow more to fill our stockpiles. That might see us go bankrupt but I think that would be worth the risk. One small thing that got my attention is the small steel icon in the top trade section. It shows we are selling wool, precious metals and steel while we are buying furniture, clothes and booze. Now, one can ask how we can export steel without any industry at all?

uc

The prices a risin

---

In the last screenshot the answer to that stands. Artisans, which are the traditional way of production can decide to produce any item. They choose by their own free will, they can buy their input materiel from the world market as well, and will produce whatever they like and sell it. You can see here (small icons next to the artisan icons) they are producing steel, explosives, canned food etc which are all industrial goods that normally require a factory. Early game, without a good raw material production base and some techs making factories more efficient, artisans are actually a more efficient way to produce stuff than factories. You cannot control them though. How nice would it be if one could control EVERYTHING.

uc

Come on artisans, build artillery and machine parts and luxury clothes and all

---

My real life stuff really tired me, I'm already halfway through this episode but I'm finished. I will continue with the rest of the Zulu war and more soon. Now is the time for sleep. Andries and others can have their peace of mind too. See you soon.
 
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Wow, seems you travel back in time to get a bit of peace from RL: then look what happens! :eek::D

I assume this scorched earth and attrition plan will work in the end, but you can’t blame Andries for getting his knickers in a twist with Zulu warriors traipsing all through his Fatherland!

And if only some modern national leaders had learned that 1830s-40s Vicky lesson on tariffs and their effect on the economy ... :confused:;) ... just sayin’
 
The Zulus just want a decent cup of tea.