((Naxhi, first of all, I wanted to thank you for the game. I will give my views below on the mechanics but I enjoyed playing up until the end.
On the things you did well, the general flavour was very good up until the Russian War. The Boshin War was a highlight and it showed that a lot of thought had gone into preparing the mechanics of that event. The mood tended to blur into a generic Victorian mood after that which may be expected from people who are less familiar with the unusual times Japanese society went through from 1880 to 1920 with a strong split of old and new as a virtual half/half of extremes. The industrial mechanics worked very well in promoting investment as did the conversion of money to power and bonuses for success. The military characters also worked well.
Some things that did not go as well as intended. Although not unusual to post-1945 Japan, the monolithic dominance of the NLP was out of place and killed off the tension of elections and the enjoyment of opposition players. Whilst Militarists and Industrialists had active roles, Politicians struggled to find anything useful to do. Assassinations were a little too capricious so that at times it was more like an episode of Dexter than an AAR.
Finally, I hope you don't interpret this as a negative, but you tended to lose control of the game once you announced it was ending.That was a fair enough decision but players started to do actions out of character simply because they knew the end was nigh and there was a closing window to do crazy things that had not been done yet. In particular the Coup and the Civil War were poorly handled. I say this knowing that you had not anticipated them. As an observer, you appeared to waiver between sides as to how to keep them happy up tot the finish line but not wreck the storyline. As I mention below, it appeared to catch out on the hop as there was not the level of thought of the Boshin War present in how a coup or civil war would be fought. My one moment of sour grapes and disillusionment as a player is knowing what the map looked like at 5 November 1998 (and even 9 April 1900), and knowing as the Imperialist Chief of Staff what orders I gave, and seeing the retcon of your version. It is just very disappointing as a player to engage in a game, play by the rules but have the results changed on you because of a sense of regret or guilt. As a final comment on this point, I would note that the other IAAR's I have been in have also struggled with coups and civil wars, and I do not profess to know the magic formula to make them work in the context of Vic2.
Some food for thought for the future IAAR's, as part of the learning experience of this game:
1. Bonuses should have a finite life. Family bonuses in particular tend to entrench people into positions of power as per the NLP in this game but even lifetime bonuses can be dangerous in allowing people to dominate to the exclusion of others. One option is the possible depreciation of a bonus with old age, with a chance of loss every 5-10 years after age 50 as the young start to supplant the old. Another option is that instead of a fixed bonus, the player is given PP as political capital to be spent on specific votes (including elections). Political capital can be earnt performing quests or doing a particularly good job, and lost by stuffing up (eg. a Minister's portfolio excelling/failing, a General winning/losing a major battle, an Industrialist investing in a new type of factory). This could be a very good carrot and stick approach for a GM to move the game forward and break up any ossification of the system (such as giving political capital to the opposition if Dissent is high).
2. I know you want to move away from classes, but allowing Dual classing should be considered. It was a significant disappointment that you reversed your decision to allow Politicians to change to Generals in the Civil War after Sakamoto rolled excellent stats. It was ahistorical to shut this down and left a bad taste in the mouth that the game was being retconned. As I noted above, politcians frequently became involved as generals in wars, just as generals became involved in politics in peace. To do otherwise made no sense. Using old D&D logic, it would be simple exercise for someone to make a once off decision either at the start of the character or during its life to become a dual class who is good at both but not great at either.
3. Coups need more thought. Firstly they should be rare. There were in this game but it is important to remember there is always a significant threshold to whether a coup will start which is more than a player standing up and saying I am starting a coup. As GM you need to look at the wider environment to work out whether people would take the player seriously or dismiss them as a lunatic. This can involve multipliers such as any crisis, the Dissent score, any player conflicts, social mores, etc. The Coup in the case was just ridiculous because the NLP already had 88% of the Diet and was effectively toppling itself. To expect the populace or the armed forces would regard it as serious strained credulity. Similarly the military police Counter Coup was incredible in the truest sens of the word and appeared to be a case of staircase regret.
4. The Civil War mechanism needs to be thought out ahead in detail. The game really fell apart here because it bwas evident that the rules were ad hoc and arbitrary in reaction to OOC rather than the historical context.You don't need to tell the players at the start of the game how Civil Wars work as that preserves the uncertainty of taking this step for the players but you need to have a clear idea of how it works, in picking sides, the setup and how 2 sides can fight when there is only 1 player on the computer. The Civil War here had many lessons on what not to do. Firstly think about the setup in the overall historical context. In particular, it made no sense to give Kyushu to the Militarists when it is the home of the KAP and Hokkaido to the Imperialistgiven the Ainu seperatitsts. A simple half half may be neat from a sandbox perspective but one of the benefits of the Boshin War mechanic was the piecemeal split based on local loyalties, as also happened in the Englsih, French, Spanish and Russian Civil Wars (and in the border states in the ACW). Next, once you make the rules for running the War, let every know so they can plan. Also give them all of the information which they would be expected to know. I sent a number of PM's to you which were never answered, I was never given the Imperialist OOB and I found out the mechanics second hand. Next, once you make the rules, don't change them. It only creates resentment and confusion. I planned as per the original instructions of moving each army only one province per month. By the time the change of rules to a free for all was communicated to me, you had jumped ahead 18 months. Which leads to my next point that the lines of communication need to be established and clear. The Imperialist orders given in November 1898 were to pursue the defeated army until it disintegrated and then disperse to occupy the provinces. I won't get into an argument as to what transpired between you and Keinwyn but clearly the lines of communication were substandard and were little more than Chinese whispers. This may be fun for a game but shatters the sense of participation as my input was essentially not implemented. As a positive, I think the "wishes" to each side were a good idea but I think you should reduce the number from 10 as it was too many, you should impose a set menu of what type of wishes can be made and exchanged wishes between the sides before they are implemented so to give each side that chance to make counter wishes. Off the top of my head, I would suggest 5 wishes all up with 2 to be used as counter wishes. This avoids the embarrassment of each side wishing for the same thing. It also avoids the absurdity of of a major event which would draw publicity before hand suddenly dropping from the skies. Finally, there are some inherent problems playing 2 sides by yourself. As a matter of commonsense, the Imperialists had won by November 1898 and as GM you ought to have played in the spirit of the campaign instead of arbitrarily parking the entire Imperialist army in one province until attrition whittled it down to make it a contest again. It also appears to me wholy unrealistic to expect you as GM to implement the hit and run diversionary strategy which I communicated or a because you could hardly be taken by surprise.
Thanks again for the game and I look forward to your next effort.))