How can Victoria emulate nations that came about more or less solely due to personal initiative?
What about The Kongo Free State and Sarawak?
- Thread starter Kaiserschmarrn
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It can't, since Africa and Asia will be ignored as usual. Hopefully there will be a VIP2.
I don't know a lot about Sarawak, but the Kongo Free State would best be represented as a completely independent presidential dictatorship (though a monarch, Leopold II was more like the "CEO of Congo"), with a defensive alliance with Belgium. Then through event, i.e. Colonial scandal, annexed by Belgium.
Another possibility is through a decision chain for Belgium.
1) Establish International African Association => Creates the independent nation "Congo Free State"
2) Annex Congo Free State => Congo Free State becomes Belgian colony.
Another possibility is through a decision chain for Belgium.
1) Establish International African Association => Creates the independent nation "Congo Free State"
2) Annex Congo Free State => Congo Free State becomes Belgian colony.
In a game that starts in 1836, you need to ask yourself this, will the conditions in game be such as to even validate the developers having a Sarawak or a Congo Free State in game.
Sarawak started as the sub-fiefdom granted to a British adventurer in 1841 who helped the sultan of Brunei in a civil war, and then slowly grew in power at the expense of his Bruneian lord. You would need to have a whole set of internal circumstances in Brunei to make having Sarawak arise and exist. While that is something that could be modelled by Mods with a good deal of work, I think that is something best used by modder resources, not the developer who's gonna have much more complicated fish to fry in the game than modelling the internal situation of Brunei.
As for the Congo Free State, it's not created until the early 1880s, and it depends on first above all Belgium existing as an independent nation from game start to that point, second, Belgium taking an active interest in colonization and, third, the Belgians getting a foothold in the region before the British, French, or a re-expansive Portugal. A lot of what-ifs there to fulfill, again would require a pretty extensive scripting of gameplay to make sure it exists in the majority of games, something I think most players of Victoria would find to "dirigiste" in terms of gameplay. Again - something that would be better for the mod world to work on than the developers investing limited resources upon, when more broad categories of gameplay, such as getting the economic model working right, need to be valid for whatever country in the world you play, and whether you play historically or ahistorically.
The good news is modding on Clausewitz engine games has a much deeper set of tools than in the old V1 that making more contexutal events without resorting to fifty-line triggers is possible. And there is no hard limit to the number of nations you can add, as there was in V1.
Sarawak started as the sub-fiefdom granted to a British adventurer in 1841 who helped the sultan of Brunei in a civil war, and then slowly grew in power at the expense of his Bruneian lord. You would need to have a whole set of internal circumstances in Brunei to make having Sarawak arise and exist. While that is something that could be modelled by Mods with a good deal of work, I think that is something best used by modder resources, not the developer who's gonna have much more complicated fish to fry in the game than modelling the internal situation of Brunei.
As for the Congo Free State, it's not created until the early 1880s, and it depends on first above all Belgium existing as an independent nation from game start to that point, second, Belgium taking an active interest in colonization and, third, the Belgians getting a foothold in the region before the British, French, or a re-expansive Portugal. A lot of what-ifs there to fulfill, again would require a pretty extensive scripting of gameplay to make sure it exists in the majority of games, something I think most players of Victoria would find to "dirigiste" in terms of gameplay. Again - something that would be better for the mod world to work on than the developers investing limited resources upon, when more broad categories of gameplay, such as getting the economic model working right, need to be valid for whatever country in the world you play, and whether you play historically or ahistorically.
The good news is modding on Clausewitz engine games has a much deeper set of tools than in the old V1 that making more contexutal events without resorting to fifty-line triggers is possible. And there is no hard limit to the number of nations you can add, as there was in V1.
I know this comes dangerously close to the history forum, but I'd still like to add some nuance.
The Kongo Free State was not Belgian. Though led by the Belgian monarch Leopold II, it was a sovereign state and completely independent from Belgian. The actual Belgian government, the parliament, had no say there and all profits went to Leopold II's personal fortune.
correct, but in terms of game mechanics it has to be a decision of the player, which become a decision of the state.
In VIP we had Congo be created on the decision of Belgium as a dominion, not under direct Belgian rule (that would come in 1908 if BEL decided to annex the mess Leopold created). THat worked well, I think, and for a V2 mod that is probably the route I'd suggest, provided similar mechanics exist.
Well there should be *some* events about the Congo conference, regardless of who is the top dog in Europe. And there should be the possibility that an entrepreneurial monarch of a minor country stakes a claim for himself - be it the king of Belgium, Denmark, Sweden or Ireland if it exists. Or if need be the Congo Basin Development Company Ltd. of New Orleans, LA. It's too much part of Victorian era to be left out.
Even if the devs don't include it, there should be event mechanisms by which the territory could be handed over to the country in question, so modders can put the events in.
If you just reduce everything to generic sandbox style mechanisms there will never be the oddities that the 19th century was so famous for. You won't get a fun game set in which the player can shape the 19th century to his liking, but instead a boring sandbox game without any flair, like Rome or EU3 vanilla.
It's all pretty much moot until we find out how Vicky 2 handles colonisation.
I do think that there should be space for something similar to the Congo Free State or Sarawak. Leviathan is right, it's curiosities like these which make the 19th century so interesting. While it may be impossible to recreate them exactly in a game starting in 1836, the potential should probably exist for private initiatives to attain statehood. I can say pretty confidently that it's something we'll need to look at in V2IP though.
We'll just have to wait and see!
I do think that there should be space for something similar to the Congo Free State or Sarawak. Leviathan is right, it's curiosities like these which make the 19th century so interesting. While it may be impossible to recreate them exactly in a game starting in 1836, the potential should probably exist for private initiatives to attain statehood. I can say pretty confidently that it's something we'll need to look at in V2IP though.
We'll just have to wait and see!
Is there a meaningful real-world difference between a colony owned by a state and a colony personally owned by the king? Certainly. Is the difference significant enough and interesting enough to warrant a game mechanic for differentiation? I doubt it.
I would agree with you with the single exception of the EIC / British India... and that's mainly for gameplay reasons.
I might be wrong, but my understanding is that in that case the government sees none of the profit from the colony, even though it effectively still foots the bill, which is a major money sink. Not that there was a lot of profit in Africa anyways.
Free State or not, the choice should be up to the player and not to simply follow all historical route blindly
you'll probaly find that africa has veyr few bureaucrat POPs meaning that you have to pay for soliders to defend these colonies, pay the salaries of the bureaucrats and get sod all tax out of them.
Perhaps you should ask the Congolose. The whole reason Belgium was pressured into taking over the colony was to halt the atrocities. Of course there's a meaningful difference, Congo Free State and Belgium were separate countries, and the government of the former had no control over the latter.
However, I do agree there's no need to create a new game mechanism for it. Paradox just might consider creating Congo Free State as a new country through an event, but wouldn't lose sleep over it if they don't.
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