VIP - North America - Canada, Mexico, USA, + Revolters

[Theodotus1]

Hi again guys. Its been a while, so I figure I can jump right into the debate

The only concern I have with creating native American 'nations' is the BB that the USA will generate taking them out. I mean, would Russia DoW the USA over conquering the midwest? I like the idea in principle, in that it would better reflect the early settlement of the American West, but we have to consider the impact on the Vicky system/engine as well.

AFAIK, the plan is to have events that transfer the territory in accordance with historical treaty dates, so that both prestige gain and BB gain are kept to a minimum. Also, the native nations will be satellites of the appropriate countries, so as to lessen the likelihood that they are gobbled up ahistorically. (If they are gobbled up ahistorically, there should be a commensurate BB gain, in order to represent world recognition that USA is gaining power very fast -- because as things stand in our tests of 0.3b, when USA does not have to deal with the delays in gaining territory that will come with having to deal with the Native Nations, USA turns into an industrial monster very, very quickly.)

 

[aprof]

I've been reading Villa and Zapata by Frank McLynn, and the description of why Carranza joined the second stage of the Mexican Revolution against Huerta in 1913 sounded amazingly like it should work in a way similar to our present ACW scheme of individual states seceding and forming a separate nation - in this case the Constitutionalist or Revolutionary forces in Mexico,

"In the opening weeks of the Huerta regime [Carranza] proceeded with extreme caution. One of the great myths of the Mexican Revolution is that the three northern states of Sonora, Chihuahua and Coahuila exploded into spntaneous revolt once Huerta murdered Madero. What really happened was that Huerta's bull-in-the-china-shop antics gave them no choice."


In Victoria there is no Coahuila state, but it would be equivalent to northern Nuevo Leon. These along with Zapata in revolt in Oaxaca or Zacatula (his revolt was centered in the states of Morelos, Puebla and Guerrero) would be quite a nice reflection of the Mexican Revolution of 1910.

We use the vanilla events and expand these in a way similar to the run-up to the ACW, with choices made in events such as "Miners Strike in Chihuahua," "Textile Workers Strike in Veracruz" and "Zapata Calls for Land Reform" would determine which states revolt or when a revolution might occur.

Certainly so late in the game, it would be wise to allow for a player who acts as a much less dictatorial Diaz to avoid the Revolution altogether. But to avoid it, there must be all sorts of reform which would stress the aristocrats, capitalists and officers.

I'm no Mexican Revolution scholar, so if anyone can provide helpful insight it would be most welcome.

Theo, Met, Aragos: what are your takes on this?

 

[Theodotus1]

I've been reading Villa and Zapata by Frank McLynn, and the description of why Carranza joined the second stage of the Mexican Revolution against Huerta in 1913 sounded amazingly like it should work in a way similar to our present ACW scheme of individual states seceding and forming a separate nation - in this case the Constitutionalist or Revolutionary forces in Mexico,

"In the opening weeks of the Huerta regime [Carranza] proceeded with extreme caution. One of the great myths of the Mexican Revolution is that the three northern states of Sonora, Chihuahua and Coahuila exploded into spntaneous revolt once Huerta murdered Madero. What really happened was that Huerta's bull-in-the-china-shop antics gave them no choice."


In Victoria there is no Coahuila state, but it would be equivalent to northern Nuevo Leon. These along with Zapata in revolt in Oaxaca or Zacatula (his revolt was centered in the states of Morelos, Puebla and Guerrero) would be quite a nice reflection of the Mexican Revolution of 1910.

We use the vanilla events and expand these in a way similar to the run-up to the ACW, with choices made in events such as "Miners Strike in Chihuahua," "Textile Workers Strike in Veracruz" and "Zapata Calls for Land Reform" would determine which states revolt or when a revolution might occur.

Certainly so late in the game, it would be wise to allow for a player who acts as a much less dictatorial Diaz to avoid the Revolution altogether. But to avoid it, there must be all sorts of reform which would stress the aristocrats, capitalists and officers.

I'm no Mexican Revolution scholar, so if anyone can provide helpful insight it would be most welcome.

Theo, Met, Aragos: what are your takes on this?

I like the idea. Your thoughts on Diaz fit in with what I've been wanting to do, which is to develop a scheme somewhat akin to what we did with the Reforma, in which the player must choose how dictatorial to be -- not enough and Mexico slides into anarchy (aka revolution), too much and Mexico slides into revolution. My perception is that had Diaz been insufficiently dictatorial, some other would-be dictator would have made a power play. (Historically, it was Diaz's announcement that he welcomed the formation of an opposition party that precipitated Madero's evolution from writing to action. Pity poor Madero -- he was so good at heart that he forgave his enemies after defeating them, and they assassinated him for it.) I plan to search out a good biography of Diaz here in El Paso (if possible) and then try to put together a list of significant events and turning points during Diaz's reign. Then we can figure out how best to structure an event scheme.

 

[unmerged(26608)]

My fairly uninformed two cents:

Except for the regions in Michigan and CA, I'm not sure how important the resources in the territories occupied by the various native nations in the above map are for US industrial development. I don't think depriving the USA of having those resources would slow it down very much. The Dakotas, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin... none of these really contribute much economic strength. Nor do Washington, Oregon, Idado or Montana, IMHO.

If the native nations are as weak as (say) Sokoto, with like 3 or 4 divisions of low-tech dragoons, they won't be much of a military challenge either. I suppose if you made the US have to hand over large amounts of cash (say, 5-10,000 per province) to the Indian nations in exchange for the territory ceded, that would slow down industrial development. But AFAIK, the sums handed over were usually scandalously small, and often, no money at all was handed over.

I suppose that depriving the USA of the chance to earn prestige by claiming colonies slows down Industrial growth by depriving it of prestige, thus Machine Parts.

My advocacy would be to eliminate all the pre-built colonial buildings in the West and Canada, install a few native nations (Dakota spanning N. and S. Dakota, a SW one spanning the 'four corners' region), then clear the rest of everything, for Mex, USA, and UK.

The economic costs of filling in the blank territories would slow down USA industrial development. The claiming of the West would be slow, given that you'd have to build one claim, wait several years till it was built, then build the next one.
Yes, the USA (or Mex, or UK) would gain prestige from claiming Kansas, Nevada, or Alberta, but they would have earned it fair and square, like Egypt claiming it's own cores in SW Egypt or Sudan or the Ottomans claiming Libya. The prestige gain would happen slowly over 1845ish - 1870ish, rather than suddenly in the 40's and 50's as USA and UK swap claims.

On a mostly unrelated note, it seems to me that the Cherokee issue could be used to trigger an ahistorical very very early Civil War, possibly one that pits the deep south and trans-Appalachia (both who want to push out their Indians) vs. Virginia, Mid-Atlantic and New England.

 

[Theodotus1]

My fairly uninformed two cents:

Except for the regions in Michigan and CA, I'm not sure how important the resources in the territories occupied by the various native nations in the above map are for US industrial development. I don't think depriving the USA of having those resources would slow it down very much. The Dakotas, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin... none of these really contribute much economic strength. Nor do Washington, Oregon, Idado or Montana, IMHO.

If the native nations are as weak as (say) Sokoto, with like 3 or 4 divisions of low-tech dragoons, they won't be much of a military challenge either. I suppose if you made the US have to hand over large amounts of cash (say, 5-10,000 per province) to the Indian nations in exchange for the territory ceded, that would slow down industrial development. But AFAIK, the sums handed over were usually scandalously small, and often, no money at all was handed over.

I suppose that depriving the USA of the chance to earn prestige by claiming colonies slows down Industrial growth by depriving it of prestige, thus Machine Parts.

My advocacy would be to eliminate all the pre-built colonial buildings in the West and Canada, install a few native nations (Dakota spanning N. and S. Dakota, a SW one spanning the 'four corners' region), then clear the rest of everything, for Mex, USA, and UK.

The economic costs of filling in the blank territories would slow down USA industrial development. The claiming of the West would be slow, given that you'd have to build one claim, wait several years till it was built, then build the next one.
Yes, the USA (or Mex, or UK) would gain prestige from claiming Kansas, Nevada, or Alberta, but they would have earned it fair and square, like Egypt claiming it's own cores in SW Egypt or Sudan or the Ottomans claiming Libya. The prestige gain would happen slowly over 1845ish - 1870ish, rather than suddenly in the 40's and 50's as USA and UK swap claims.

On a mostly unrelated note, it seems to me that the Cherokee issue could be used to trigger an ahistorical very very early Civil War, possibly one that pits the deep south and trans-Appalachia (both who want to push out their Indians) vs. Virginia, Mid-Atlantic and New England.

There was a time early on when we thought that what you're suggesting would be a good solution, but we tested it and unfortunately it wasn't.

Having the provinces be empty is not a good solution -- it allows outcomes that are too ahistorical, as well as ignoring historical realities (such as that Mexico did in fact claim Alta California and was willing to go to war over it, etc.) If those areas are left blank, what typically happens is that North America develops in ways that just would never have happened historically. It also doesn't keep USA from ahistorically becoming an industrial monster, because the pace of colonization proves faster than you're projecting. Additionally, if and when war breaks out among the North American powers, the colony buildings are easily gobbled up, and then the gobbling power acquires immense gains.

The thing that will mainly slow down USA is not having all those extra states in which to build industry. That alone will keep its industrial score in check. It's not a resource issue, it's an industrial rating issue, and that is tied to how many states USA has at its disposal in which to build factories and railroads.

Additionally, the prestige gained by USA from claiming those states is a big part of the problem as well, and we are trying to eliminate that, rather than just delay it.

The native nations are not meant to stop USA (or Mexico, or UK) by virtue of their military strength. They will also have satellite relationships with the appropriate powers (USA, UK, and Mexico) which will mean that ahistorical encroachment will lead to war with more than just the native nation in question.

With a little luck, the new native nations will turn out to be a very good addition to the game. If they somehow don't work out, we'll try something else, I expect.

 

[unmerged(18031)]

ACW Event 304609

In the course of digging through the ACW files to understand the mechanism of secession, I ran across the following three things.

The USA 'CSA Builds Ironclads!!' event - 304609 - requires 50000 pounds to add one monitor and build one monitor and one ironclad. The aggregate cost of these units, if built immediately, would be:

19500 pounds
50 steamer convoys ~ 10000 pounds
14 artillery ~ 1400 pounds
22 canned food - the USA has probably got this on hand

That's a total cost of 30900 pounds. This event kind of rips the player off - I'm not sure that having the USS Monitor available right then and there is worth 19100 pounds.

Found something else in event 304892, 'The Territory of New Mexico Applies to Join the Union'. It appears to have been copied from the Arizona event, but not everything got changed over. Here's the event text as it stands.

The territory of New Mexico has applied to join the Union as a State. The state is sparcely populated with a mix of pro-slave and free soilers. Should Arizona become a slave state or free state?

Choosing to make new states Free Soil actually increases the secession chance of the Great Lakes states, the Northern Plains states, and the Northwestern states, but these states were all massively Free Soil. Was this intentional? At the moment it does not matter, because these states cannot secede unless they are made slave states in the first place, but see below.

-----

So, here's my larger question.

Suppose a willfully perverse human player decided to choose exclusively pro-Dixie choices in the ACW event tree, and institutes universal suffrage to ensure Democratic majorities. All new states are taken into the Union as slave states.

This does not necessarily seem like a bad strategy. (Note: I haven't actually tried it out.) You will have to deal with New England's secession, but New England is small and easy to deal with. You can do a compensated emancipation of the slaves with 304129 - incidentally, is flg_emancipayment ever used for anything? - and then you're golden. You get to keep the industrial centers of New York and Pennsylvania and you can concentrate on the industrial development of the South without worrying that it will come back to bite you in the ass later on.

I don't think you should be able to get away with this strategy so easily. Here's my idea: there could be a set of free state secession events similar to the 'X Joins Confederacy' events. If 304871 - 'New England Secedes' - fires, then you go through and check the flg_secede_x values of the northern states. If the values are high enough, the Northern states will defect to NEN out of anger at the United States' ludicrously pro-Southern policies. I feel that these secession events should ignore flg_free_x values in the most northern states - presumably they would remain Free Soil in sympathy despite legalization of slavery - but should definitely check them in central states like Kansas and Nebraska.

In this case, you'd want to fix the flg_secede_x values of the Great Lakes, the Northern Plains, and the Northwest so that they would be likely to secede from the "Dixie USA".

The issue with this, of course, is that I would have to write a whole set of alternate-history 'Northern secession' ACW events.

 

[aprof]

In the course of digging through the ACW files to understand the mechanism of secession, I ran across the following.

The USA 'CSA Builds Ironclads!!' event - 304609 - requires 50000 pounds to add one monitor and build one monitor and one ironclad. The aggregate cost of these units, if built immediately, would be:

19500 pounds
50 steamer convoys ~ 10000 pounds
14 artillery ~ 1400 pounds
22 canned food - the USA has probably got this on hand

That's a total cost of 30900 pounds. This event kind of rips the player off - I'm not sure that having the USS Monitor available right then and there is worth 19100 pounds.

I'll take a look and see about making it a slightly less price-gouging cost.

Anything else you notice, please post. We're always wanting to improve.

 

[unmerged(26608)]

....

The thing that will mainly slow down USA is not having all those extra states in which to build industry. That alone will keep its industrial score in check. It's not a resource issue, it's an industrial rating issue, and that is tied to how many states USA has at its disposal in which to build factories and railroads.

Additionally, the prestige gained by USA from claiming those states is a big part of the problem as well, and we are trying to eliminate that, rather than just delay it.
...

So, I loaded up an 1872 game and took over from the AI. I had been playing Austria, so while I have made Germany and Italy very ahistorical (annexing minors, preventing either nation from forming), I've had virtually no interactions with UK, USA, or Russia.

USA claimed OR, WA, ID, Montana, Wyoming, Colarado, British Columbia, and Manitoba as colonies in this game. It owns the provinces of Quebec and Alaska. Obviously, the Canadian stuff is an aberration, the result of a war with Britain. (Ontario and New Brunswick stayed UK, then turned Canadian. Labrador stayed UK.) I don't know if the USA gained the provinces by peace-event or whether it has developed the intelligence to steal claims... I somewhat suspect the latter. If so, it hasn't developed the intelligence to claim Alberta and Saskatchewan, where it holds half the claims and the rest is blank.

The other aberrant features are that USA only holds NM and 3 provinces of N. California of Mexican territory and it had just reannexed CSA in about 1870, having fought 3 wars against an early-seceding CSA.

USA's prestige is 893, which puts it in about 4th place, I think. Its industrial rating is about 491. Austria (human player owning Silesia and most of S. Germany) holds industrial rating of 580, and RUS and UK have 344 and 329 respectively.

The USA has a pop of 50 million, of which 39% are craftsmen, 30% are soldiers, and 15% are clerks. 55% of its population is industrial.. It imports most of its raw materials and much of the needed steel and fabric. It even imports regular clothes. It has covered all its territory with level 1 railroads except CA, NM, TX and Alaska.

Here follows a list of factories by state, with the number of which are level 2 or above after the slash. Most are staffed 1/3 or less:

Delaware 18/17
Pennsylvania 15/3
Rhode Island 11/1
NY 10/3
Virgina 10/2
NH 8/0
NC 6/1
Minnesota 5/1
Michagan 4/1
SC 4/1
AL 2/0
Maine 2/1

As you can see, the vast majority of the factories are in the mid-atlantic or north-east, which seems historically accurate. The main historical inaccuracies would seem to be
A) a slightly overindustrialized South (predictable, given the longer independent existence of the CSA) and
B) that the factories in Minnesota and Michigan should be moved to Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. Even this is a small difference, since we're essentially talking about the difference within the Great Lakes region.

There are too many factories built and they are staffed too lightly. But that's a problem with all the AI-controlled countries from what I've seen. The computer has also converted an insane percentage of it's population (85%) to craftsmen, soldiers, and clerks, but that's also a general AI problem.

Both of these would happen even if the USA never acquired the Great Plains or West.

Has anyone seen the USA actually putting up many of its factories in the Great Plains or West (excluding California)? How much does adding fairly useless railroads in the Great Plains and West really add to industrial score, as contrasted with doing something useful with those resources?

BTW, I'm suggesting that Mexico have some of it's northern territories as states, such as coastal California (just like in your Indian-nations map), not that all of the USA cores and Canada should be blank.

 

[unmerged(26608)]

IMHO, there are a few options for retarding the USA's industrial growth.

A) cripple literacy
(But that's ahistorical)

B) reduce the efficiency of RGOs (a huge amount of USA RGOs are 5)
(But that's only a temporary solution, given that in the example I saw, the USA had virtually no workers in RGOs... 1.5% were farmers, laborers didn't even show up in the pie-chart)

C) make the various Fortifications vs. Indian attacks events nastier. Presumably, the computer was choosing a) to fortify, so that slowed it down economically, but not enough, so they should be made more expensive? As a human player, I nearly always choose not to build (unless I really did want a fort in at least 2 of the 3 places), so perhaps the consequences for not building should also be made worse.

D) make the various 'Panic of XX' type events worse
(But not too much worse, else it starts to smell kinda fishy compared to countries which don't get any of these type of events.)

E) modify the pre Civil-War AI to build a hell of a lot fewer factories
(Won't keep a human player from being ahistorical, but you never can really. And if you did, what would the point of the game be?)

 

[unmerged(26608)]

So, having made several negativistic comments, here's a more constructive one:

Near the city of Eureka (in the province of Eureka, obviously), there was a massacre of Indians. The following link goes into a moderate amount of detail about it:

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/02/28/DDG5Q59D8J1.DTL

Probably a boost to militancy and consciousess of indians in California, much like the other events of the same sort.

On a related note, is there a flavor event yet for Bret Harte? One of the originators of the 'Western' genre.

http://www.zpub.com/sf/history/harte.html

 

[lzprst]

Not having read through this entire thread I just wanted to drop a note. in the VIP grand campaign, playing as Mexico is near impossible. if the situation actually was hopeless I wouldnt complain, but the fact that it is the events that make it so annoys me until the point before computer bashing.
some of these events should be revised. specifically how, when and why they fire.
1. An alternative Event 213118 should fire if the mexican army crushes the rebellion and reconquers the provinces. Also the possibility for a compromise should be included.
2. Also Event 213128 fires regardless if there was a war or not!
3. Also, when fighting texas, the second you conquer all their provinces they are immediately annexed. There should be the possibility to satelite them and conduct normal peace negotiations.
4. Even if Mexico refuses to sell the land as in Event 213052, the US still annexes these provinces in another event. this should be changed, it is far too powerful in favor of the US.
5. Event 213101 shouldnt fire regardless, it should fire if Texas actually defeats a mexican army, or seizes a certain province or something.

There are other events too, but I havent seen them all, but it is mostly these that are simply on the verge of unrealistic, or at least unplayable. Also, I think that there are far too many events increasing militancy.

 

[aprof]

Not having read through this entire thread I just wanted to drop a note. in the VIP grand campaign, playing as Mexico is near impossible. if the situation actually was hopeless I wouldnt complain, but the fact that it is the events that make it so annoys me until the point before computer bashing.
some of these events should be revised. specifically how, when and why they fire.
1. An alternative Event 213118 should fire if the mexican army crushes the rebellion and reconquers the provinces. Also the possibility for a compromise should be included.
2. Also Event 213128 fires regardless if there was a war or not!
3. Also, when fighting texas, the second you conquer all their provinces they are immediately annexed. There should be the possibility to satelite them and conduct normal peace negotiations.
4. Even if Mexico refuses to sell the land as in Event 213052, the US still annexes these provinces in another event. this should be changed, it is far too powerful in favor of the US.
5. Event 213101 shouldnt fire regardless, it should fire if Texas actually defeats a mexican army, or seizes a certain province or something.

There are other events too, but I havent seen them all, but it is mostly these that are simply on the verge of unrealistic, or at least unplayable. Also, I think that there are far too many events increasing militancy.

We're looking at all these and more for Mexico for v04.

 

[Theodotus1]

Not having read through this entire thread I just wanted to drop a note. in the VIP grand campaign, playing as Mexico is near impossible. if the situation actually was hopeless I wouldnt complain, but the fact that it is the events that make it so annoys me until the point before computer bashing.
some of these events should be revised. specifically how, when and why they fire.
1. An alternative Event 213118 should fire if the mexican army crushes the rebellion and reconquers the provinces. Also the possibility for a compromise should be included.
2. Also Event 213128 fires regardless if there was a war or not!
3. Also, when fighting texas, the second you conquer all their provinces they are immediately annexed. There should be the possibility to satelite them and conduct normal peace negotiations.
4. Even if Mexico refuses to sell the land as in Event 213052, the US still annexes these provinces in another event. this should be changed, it is far too powerful in favor of the US.
5. Event 213101 shouldnt fire regardless, it should fire if Texas actually defeats a mexican army, or seizes a certain province or something.

There are other events too, but I havent seen them all, but it is mostly these that are simply on the verge of unrealistic, or at least unplayable. Also, I think that there are far too many events increasing militancy.

1. The reason there's no alternative event for 213118 if the army crushes the revolt is that, historically, whenever the Mexican central government restored order, the general in charge of the troops in Yucatan then used those troops to set himself up as a local warlord, starting another round of rebellions. Mexico in that era was characterized by generals who all wanted to be #1, and who tended to attempt to capitalize on any success they had, at the expense of the country as a whole. (However, I'll give some further thought to modifying things in Yucatan in connection with further work on the centralist/federalist conflict.)

2. Event 213128 should only be triggered if either Mexico has accepted the treaty of Guadalup-Hidalgo or has lost any war with USA. (Keep in mind that some types of white peaces are considered losses by the game system, so a white peace between Mexico and USA might also trigger this event.) I'll keep an eye on this during further HO testing.

3. The satellite idea is interesting, though not historical. (It appears to me it would be a way to allow Mexico to possibly avoid the problems that come with USA annexation of Texas. -- though California and Deseret will then typically cause trouble in 1847.) I'll probably add it in for 0.4.

4. If the other event you're talking about is the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, that's just history. The solution is to not lose to USA in the Mexican-American War. You can also just refuse the Treaty of GH and keep on fighting.

5. Event 213101 will eventually be made less determinate. At this point we're still trying to figure out a good non-determinate trigger for it, and I'm not inclined to make any changes to it until we get the new North American Native Nations working correctly, as the addition of those will affect most everything else in North America. In any case, keep in mind that if the GC started in May 1836 instead of January 1836 Texas would exist in all cases, so event 213101 is a way of trying to make actual history more likely to happen in Victoria. Additionally, as the Mexican player one can always refuse to honor the Treaty of Velasco and just keep on fighting.

What must be taken into account is that, historically, Mexico was very messed up until 1876 and the advent of Porfirio Diaz. The events that are now in VIP are simply a representation of what actually went on historically. In any case, they do not make it impossible for Mexico to triumph in VIP. (We've gotten enough feedback from Mexico players who stomp USA in the Mex-Am War that we're going to add an event to 0.4 in which Mexico gets to keep Alta California if it wins big enough -- so it is possible to keep Mexico going in spite of the events.)

I'm going to copy your post to my file of notes for future work, so I keep track of these issues in the future. Many thanks for the input.

 

[crash63]

Is it possible to reduce mobilization pool of USA when secession begins ? It's not normal that USA can have the same number of soldiers before and after the secession.
It would increase difficulty because with 130 divisions, it's easy to destroy CSA. After USA victory, another event increase it at the same level that it was before the war.


P.S: ACW events are great.

 

[aprof]

Is it possible to reduce mobilization pool of USA when secession begins ?

Sorry. There's no command to do that. That's why we've chosen to give the CSA a couple of divisions with each state that secedes.

It's not normal that USA can have the same number of soldiers before and after the secession.
It would increase difficulty because with 130 divisions, it's easy to destroy CSA. After USA victory, another event increase it at the same level that it was before the war.

It's not normal for the USA to have 130 divisions at any time in her history short of WW2.

We're going to work on ways to reduce the military and economic juggernaut that is the USA in Victoria to be more like what it was in reality in the 19th century.

P.S: ACW events are great.

Much of that is the work of Aragos and Mettermrck. Glad you enjoy it.

 

[crash63]

We're going to work on ways to reduce the military and economic juggernaut that is the USA in Victoria to be more like what it was in reality in the 19th century.

It's necessary to do the same thing for UK.

 

[unmerged(26608)]

Doubtless, given the fact that my earlier posts did not attract responses, I should take a hint and not supply further data. And yet, here I am, making another post

I ran two tests, playing Hawaii and Wallachia respectively. In each, I used Neville to steal enough claims from USA and UK to keep them from claiming colonies in North America. I also used Neville to rob Mexico of Utah, AZ, NM, and NV, and USA of the Dakotas.

(Wallachia is superior for this kind of testing, IMHO, as it never faces the threat of being annexed via events. You also get more diplomats once you break your satellite status and can claim colonies in North America. It also seems that neither US or UK will declare war on you, possibly due to guarantee from Russia)

In the Wallachia test, I claimed the colonies myself, then doled them out slowly to US and UK to reflect something like the pace at which the west was won. In the Hawaii test, I just kept anyone from claiming anything, except UK claimed Alberta, as I forgot to steal both of its forts. Both saves are from 1872.

The raw results, scores, then factories/divisions:
Hawaii -
GER 2627/129/807 173/82
UK 927/242/331 93/151
FRA 1529/40/201 60/34
RUS 147/173/594 86/119
USA 232/78/ 453 56/47 (CSA not yet completely reabsorbed, CSA data not recorded)

Wallachia: (Prussia backed down in 1866, got white peace in Franco-Prussian war, USA has not yet reabsorbed CSA)
AUS 1353/45/393 56/39
UK 885/188/368 85/96
RUS 150/56/793 123/37
PRU 780/58/443 72/30
FRA 845/93/312 89/62
ITA 561/35/228
USA 316/47/333 85/33
CSA ././98 34/..

The USA's prestige is higher before the secession of CSA, which caused it to lose about 2/3 prestige. For prestige purposes, it matters a great deal what the status of the ACW is when you measure things. As the USA regains these territories, it regains prestige (which seems appropriate). USA also gains a lot of prestige from annexing Texas.

To a lesser extent, this is also true of industry. In the second example, we see that if the CSA were conquered, USA would increase factories by 1/3, moving up several rankings to 2 or 3 in Industry.

But keeping the USA from owning the NW, Mountain West, and Great Plains has virtually no impact on Industrial score. We can also see that the insane number of factories is a problem for all the AI.

It may add a lot of color and good gaming to include Indian nations and their graduation absorbtion, but I think it will do virtually nothing to retard USA economic growth, and it will probably only retard prestige growth by about 1/3.

I'll likely try a game where I just eliminate all the claims and convert much of interior Alta California and the Great Plains into empty territory and see what that does.

 

[OHgamer]

Doubtless, given the fact that my earlier posts did not attract responses, I should take a hint and not supply further data. And yet, here I am, making another post

I ran two tests, playing Hawaii and Wallachia respectively. In each, I used Neville to steal enough claims from USA and UK to keep them from claiming colonies in North America. I also used Neville to rob Mexico of Utah, AZ, NM, and NV, and USA of the Dakotas.

(Wallachia is superior for this kind of testing, IMHO, as it never faces the threat of being annexed via events. You also get more diplomats once you break your satellite status and can claim colonies in North America. It also seems that neither US or UK will declare war on you, possibly due to guarantee from Russia)

In the Wallachia test, I claimed the colonies myself, then doled them out slowly to US and UK to reflect something like the pace at which the west was won. In the Hawaii test, I just kept anyone from claiming anything, except UK claimed Alberta, as I forgot to steal both of its forts. Both saves are from 1872.

The raw results, scores, then factories/divisions:
Hawaii -
GER 2627/129/807 173/82
UK 927/242/331 93/151
FRA 1529/40/201 60/34
RUS 147/173/594 86/119
USA 232/78/ 453 56/47 (CSA not yet completely reabsorbed, CSA data not recorded)

Wallachia: (Prussia backed down in 1866, got white peace in Franco-Prussian war, USA has not yet reabsorbed CSA)
AUS 1353/45/393 56/39
UK 885/188/368 85/96
RUS 150/56/793 123/37
PRU 780/58/443 72/30
FRA 845/93/312 89/62
ITA 561/35/228
USA 316/47/333 85/33
CSA ././98 34/..

The USA's prestige is higher before the secession of CSA, which caused it to lose about 2/3 prestige. For prestige purposes, it matters a great deal what the status of the ACW is when you measure things. As the USA regains these territories, it regains prestige (which seems appropriate). USA also gains a lot of prestige from annexing Texas.

To a lesser extent, this is also true of industry. In the second example, we see that if the CSA were conquered, USA would increase factories by 1/3, moving up several rankings to 2 or 3 in Industry.

But keeping the USA from owning the NW, Mountain West, and Great Plains has virtually no impact on Industrial score. We can also see that the insane number of factories is a problem for all the AI.

It may add a lot of color and good gaming to include Indian nations and their graduation absorbtion, but I think it will do virtually nothing to retard USA economic growth, and it will probably only retard prestige growth by about 1/3.

I'll likely try a game where I just eliminate all the claims and convert much of interior Alta California and the Great Plains into empty territory and see what that does.

The idea of adding Native American states to the game is only one part of a major rehaul we are planning for 0.4 which will also include major reworking of the tariff system, more adjustments to factory and raw material costs, an overhaul of the population at the start (currently too heavy white American in many parts of the regions of the Great Plains and the West for 1836) and likely many more political events. But beyond that, an important reason to include the Native American states is to address a glaring historical inaccuracy in Victoria that has the United States able to readily exploit the territories in the Great Plains and West from either the start or, at latest, 1850 (end of Mex-Am War) when in fact much of the period pre-1850 was simply clearing title to take over the territory from other rivals - the UK and Mexico. Once the outside competitors had been removed, it would take another 20+ years for the United States to get the majority of the Native American peoples disestablished from the land and then another 20+ years for the American government to enforce that policy of disestablishment in face of fierce resistance by Native American peoples. In the current setup in 0.3B we have the USA able to construct a transcontinental railroad by the early 1850s, and even if you start with empty land in the center the USA ai should have little difficulty colonizing very rapidly across the plains, so again I'll wager it will be able to have a transcontnental rail by 1860 barring getting sucked into ahistorical wars with say the UK. With the current system I am outlining for the USA, if the player plays historically it will be 1868 before an East-West US territorial link is created, and thus 1869 when a transcontinental railroad can be made - the exact year it happened in real life. Again this is all in the testing phase - who knows it may get scrapped if it doesn't in the end work the way we would like it to. We will see.

 

[unmerged(21828)]

Quick Question
How do I manually activate the ACW in the f12 log?

 

[ImperialMog]

I remember the disscussion over the reverse-Mexican-American war results where Mexico wins cores over the southwest. What would the US lose from this? Would they lose their cores or something else, how would this possibly tie in with the Oregon treaty since one could affect the other? Would the US give up on Manifest Destiny after losing? Or are you waiting to see how does the addition of native nations affect things before adding other things? I was curious if it's a possible course of action would be for Texas to survive would be to become an English dominion? Especially if the U.S. rebuffs annexation or they have bad relations with the US and/or good realations with the UK. If so, also a dominion flag for Texas should be added.

Have there been discussions on what might be different with Mexico in the event of a victory in the Mex-Amer war? How would the centralist/federalist struggle wind up, would there be more order in the wake of Mexican victory, or something else? What would happen with the California gold rush? An interesting thing would be what happens in this situation when the Mormons settle into Mexican held Utah? One thing I noticed is that the event where the Mormons settle, maybe it should add a small number of clergy and aristocrats representing the leadership, especially if you plan on having fewer white settlers in the west.

One final observation for now would be the notice that all assimilated Americans have Yankee culture. That and the Yankee culture winds up being the majority even the South before the ACW. I thought one idea to adress this would be to add events *random maybe?* that switches the culture of Yankee pops to Dixie ones in the South and to Texan in Texas causing things to balance out than having a Yankee/Dixie:Texan ratio to be more than 10:1 by 1855. The border states might be different where only some percentage of pops switch *how much is a debate on it's own* Another example of this could be the idea of "Mormon missionaries" switching POP's in Utah to pagan. *maybe have this in other western states to some degree, don't know extent of the Mormon faith in 19th century outside Utah*.

Possible Error List Discovered:

Slavery parties and Free-Soil still exist after Civil War, did have Consitutional Union party win first election after the war. Maybe a Radical Republican party should be in for a while after the Civil War representing that faction, especially interesting would be if they got power. Also some negative cotton production values exist from Civil War, needs to be fixed. That and the result of the Grand Banks fishing rights event, prod. value somehow drops in Hartford. Two goldrush events exist on Carson City province. If intentional, second one should be to increase prod. value. Is that command working right or something? A side note on prod. value. Maybe they should start out in many provinces much lower and increase with events since some seem too high at the start.