Trying to reproduce a somewhat historical American-Mexican war . . .

[Freebot]

Note: Playing version 1.2 as USA

The war score value for California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona is over a hundred. If you also need to liberate some Texan provinces, you are out of luck. So is it really impossible to recreate the American-Mexican war? How have other USA players gone about acquiring the American west "on schedule"? What is the penalty for breaking a truce?

 

[Jon F. Zeigler]

I don't think it's possible at present.

I think the game needs two things to make a historical Mexican War feasible.

First, it needs a couple of events to represent events in California - a rebellion by Anglo settlers that set up a short-lived republic, which soon joined the Union. Not a lot of US troops were involved - certainly not an army like what you would need to occupy all of California.

Second, you need some kind of "Treaty of Guadelupe-Hidalgo" event that ends the war if you've occupied enough Mexican territory, including the Mexical capital. That would give you the bulk of northern Mexico, with an option in a few years to purchase the rest.

 

[unmerged(7789)]

As I recall the territories gained by the US after the US-Mexican war were technically "purchased" and not won through a treaty. The Gadsden Purchase I think...and I do believe there is an event for The Gadsden Purchase though I'm sure the Mexican AI has the opprotunity to turn it down and start or extend the war. Also...the territories gained at the end of the war were, shall we say...rather extensive. It makes some sense that the war cost would be so high when asking for that much land. Because of the fact that if you reduced the cost of Cali, Nevada, Utah, etc and thus open up the possibility of other nations invading the US (or Mexico) and grabbing those territories and then having a relatively good chance to win them all with ease in a peace treaty...and thus making things *very* ahistorical, I believe Paradox intended the US player to trigger this event and have the best for both occasions.

Edit: Apparently I was quite wrong...The Gadsden Purchase was only for the border areas in 1850 after Guadalope-Hidalgo. Looks like I need a US history primer. I still think that the costs for the states should remain high though...A Guadalope-Hidalgo event just needs to be written.

 

[Jon F. Zeigler]

Well, the bulk of the territory was handed over as part of the peace settlement - yes, the US did "buy" the land, but the opportunity to buy would not have appeared without the war, and the Mexicans didn't have any real choice but to agree.

The Gadsden Purchase was a separate item that was done several years later, mostly to open up a southern route for a transcontinental railroad. The area involved was much smaller.

 

[Freebot]

So a historical route is currently out of the question. What I need to know is what penalities, if any, are there for breaking a truce?

Why do I need to know this?

Well, I envisage this ahistorical strategy to try to achieve the historical result:

Help the Texans achieve at least a white peace with the Mexicans. Grab Mexican claims in Colorado during this war.

From the beginning of the game until Texas joins the Union, increase mobilization every six months.

When Texas joins the union, begin mobilizing reserves (should yield say 40 divisions).

When mobilization is complete, place the ample divisions all along the Mexican border and declare war.

Start taking provinces like crazy. Have a particularly strong army capture provinces all the way down to and including Mexico City. End the war demanding provinces worth some 50% or so in war score.

Retreat back to new borders and reinforce. Once units are back to full strength, immediately break the truce and win another 50% worth of provinces. Repeat until Mexico is reduced to modern borders.

Of course, breaking the truce is key to conquering all the provinces in a timely matter. I want to be sure that doing so won't wreck the USA in some way . . .

 

[Kedryn]

I believe you lose 1000 prestiege for breaking a truce.

 

[Freebot]

So how do USA players get their historical territory from Mexico? I haven't seen a USA AAR that gets that far. The options seem to be bankruptcy - whether financial or political - or dragging the process out for a couple of decades.

 

[swilhelm73]

So how do USA players get their historical territory from Mexico? I haven't seen a USA AAR that gets that far. The options seem to be bankruptcy - whether financial or political - or dragging the process out for a couple of decades.

It took me four wars.

I allied with Texas at the get go and helped them grab some provinces.

Then the first war I started around 1849 to take scattered provinces here and there.

Then another war in 1855 to get all but 3 CA provinces.

Then they allied with the confederates allowing me to eventually take the last three CA provinces. I actually had the AI agree to a peace treaty for more points then my war score amazingly enough...

 

[Silencer]

There is an event!

You can find it in V.I.P., its still not finished, but you can the rest quite easily, the only problem is, money, US losses lots of money through all this buying of land, but you get the land!!

 

[Freebot]

I am considering writing a series of events. The problem is finding the province and state ids and converting dollar amounts into game terms. I.e. how many game pounds should 15 million real world 1848 dollars translate into?

 

[Damocles]

I am considering writing a series of events. The problem is finding the province and state ids and converting dollar amounts into game terms. I.e. how many game pounds should 15 million real world 1848 dollars translate into?

Thats a damn good question.

 

[unmerged(23618)]

There is no reason why this shouldn't be possible. The trick is to get Mexico's WE high enough. When in a recent war with Austria they're WE reached 100% (they broke a peace treaty a week after we had ended a two year war while they were still at war with the russians) i was able to get a peace treaty giving me 198% war score while i only had a war score of around 28%. Granted i haven't actually looked at the costs of the provinces your talking about but it seems to me that if you had 100% war score and mexico had 100% WE that you could probably take anything you wanted from them.

 

[Moltke]

I wrote an event that triggers when USA controls certain provinces. The event fires and gives three choices Historical Peace, Annex Mexico (weak chances of success), and Punish mexico further which leaves you at war.

It costs USA 100,000 quid to simulate Polk paying Mexico for General Scott smashing up their country.

It's pretty easy, but I'm pretty sure someone here has written a better one. Wait for VIP

 

[Dinsdale]

There is no reason why this shouldn't be possible. The trick is to get Mexico's WE high enough. When in a recent war with Austria they're WE reached 100% (they broke a peace treaty a week after we had ended a two year war while they were still at war with the russians) i was able to get a peace treaty giving me 198% war score while i only had a war score of around 28%. Granted i haven't actually looked at the costs of the provinces your talking about but it seems to me that if you had 100% war score and mexico had 100% WE that you could probably take anything you wanted from them.

You probably outnumbered their army by 2:1 or more to get them to cave. Warscores around ~200% are very possible, but IIRC the historic provinces are >200%, I've never taken them all in one war.

 

[Damocles]

You probably outnumbered their army by 2:1 or more to get them to cave. Warscores around ~200% are very possible, but IIRC the historic provinces are >200%, I've never taken them all in one war.

As someone pointed out, this is almost entirely because Mexico is A) To quick to claim the colonies as states, which makes them impossible to simply overrun and B) The events surrounding the seceding of the Republic of California are nonexistant. Otherwise, it'd be perfectly possible. Should be fixed in VIP. Hopefully.

 

[Darkrenown]

I believe you lose 1000 prestiege for breaking a truce.

It's down to -100 in 1.02.

 

[Red Bird]

I wrote an event that triggers when USA controls certain provinces. The event fires and gives three choices Historical Peace, Annex Mexico (weak chances of success), and Punish mexico further which leaves you at war.

It costs USA 100,000 quid to simulate Polk paying Mexico for General Scott smashing up their country.

It's pretty easy, but I'm pretty sure someone here has written a better one. Wait for VIP

I'm a bit new here but what is "VIP"?

 

[kenroney]

A while back I commented on this subject, but I'd like to expand a little here with a few suggestions that might be incorporated into a later patch.

The Mexican "colonies" that existed in what is now the southwestern US existed pretty much in name only. With the exception of eastern Texas, central New Mexico, and southern coastal California the Mexican presence in the area was pretty minimal. Consequentally, representing the area (with the exception of Texas) primarily as a scattering of trading posts, missions, forts, and ports with a thin scattering of mexican settler pops in coastal California and cental New Mexico would:
1) give the area a historical feel;
2) reduce the difficulty of seizing them in war; and
3) reduce their value to the Mexican AI for war settlement purposes.
If the AI converts them to colonies, so be it, I can live with it. But they still would be, and should be, lower value areas for war score purposes early in the game.
As an additional point, if this option were adopted, the northern California coast should have at least one Russian post, to represent the fur trading post at Fort Ross, north of San Fransisco.

 

[Freebot]

VIP is the Victoria Improvement Project. It can be found in its subforum off of the mod forum.

If breaking truce is really only -100 prestige, then several wars in quick succession should be feasible. Only have to gain 200 prestige during the war to break even. It is probably possible to completely annex Mexico using this tactic along with a break or two to reduce WE.

I did not realize that the AI would accept peace offers greater than the current war score. In EUII, you usually have to offer significantly less than the war score or wait for a good offer from the AI.

 

[Freebot]

I nearly succeeded in reproducing the American-Mexican war without modding the game. On March 27, 1842, the Mexicans gave me all the the land the US historically won in the American-Mexican war except San Antonio (forgot it), San Diego, Los Angeles, and Monterey. It looks like obtaining all of the southwestern US by 1849 is a cakewalk afterall.

All the game needs to make the US-American war gains completely reproducible would be an event that cedes northern California to the US.

Maybe reserve armies need to be rebalanced. I had 45 reserve divisions going into this war, making it almost trivial. Of course, maintaining that many divisions is so expensive that I did not build any new factories or railroads for the entire war.