Part 1: What is the LP about?
What is the LP about?
I am goint to be playing as the Republic of Texas in Victoria: An Empire Under The Sun and its expansion (Revolutions), a game by Paradox Interactive.
What is Victoria?
Victoria is a grand strategy game in which you take control of a country from the beginning of the Victorian era to the pre-WW2 years (1836-1935) and guide it as history unravels around it. The player manages the country's budget, research, military and politics and makes decisions for the country when important situations arise. The player must guide it through the major themes of the period: industrialization, nationalism, liberalism, colonization and grand wars. It is often called the most complex and hardest to learn of the Paradox games, due to the economic and population modeling systems, so I will try to take things slowly and introduce the new concepts as I go along.
What is the Republic of Texas?
Historically, the Republic of Texas was an independent country that revolted from Mexico in early 1836 (Dec 20 1836 was when the first declaration of independence was signed) and existed for 9 years until 1845, when it was annexed into the US as a state.
When are you starting?
The game will start on January 1, 1836.
What are your goals?
In general:
Short term- Surviving the Revolutionary war against Mexico
Middle term- Achieving Texas's current day borders, and then some
Long Term - Becoming a Great Power (one of the Top 8 ranked nations)
Those goals have many ways of being achieved.
Anything Else:
This LP will not be roleplay heavy. It is going to be in narrative style, but also with explanation of game mechanics as they come along to keep screenshots understandable. I am also going to diverge from my usual playstyle (turning the country into a liberal paradise through decades of peace, allowing for un-interrupted research and industrializing) because that can get boring at times and I feel would not make for an entertaining LP. Texas gained independence with rifle in hand, and through similar means it will achieve greatness.
The version I am playing has been slightly modified by me. The Texan political parties were in sore condition, and I felt Texas needed its own Emancipation event. I changed the color of Texas on the map to teal, as the previous color was too similar to a neighbor in a previous game. There is also a flavor Republic of Yucatan event chain, because I have a thing for the Mexican breakaway republics. Also, by default the United States starts the game with the entire continental modern-day USA as core provinces. In any situation in which I am not playing Texas, this is a decent model for Manifest Destiny (as AI Texas is usually marginalized and annexed very quickly). However, I am fairly positive that were Texas to stay independent and expand into the Southwest towards California, the US would not attempt to stop them (would probably actually support Texas). So I am going to remove US cores from any provinces I take before the US does.
I was inspired to create this LP by Fintilgin's Epic Paradox LP, which is fantastic. This thread will probably be conducted in similar fashion.
This is my first LP, and the second Victoria LP as far as I can tell.
Table of Contents
Removed for archives, its kinda redundant
Other stuff:
The Pancho Dollar
The Houston Texipedia Article
FAQ
Q: Are you converting to Hearts of Iron after Victoria ends?
A: Yes, I will be converting to Hearts of Iron 2: Doomsday. I'm not sure if I'm going to get Armageddon, but I probably will.
Q: Does the US have cores on the Southwest? Why haven't they kicked your ass yet?
A: I edited those out before I started the game. Its slightly ahistorical for them to have the area as cores before the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. I did leave the USA AI intact, so they still desire those provinces and have an overwhelming urge to kill Mexico every now and then.
Q:I just bought Victoria! Why am I losing money constantly?!
A1: You have too many troops for your nation to support. Disband some divisions or decrease army maintenance spending.
if not that, then
A2: You are playing a crappy nation. If you are civilized, research deeply into one of the non-cultural tech areas. Trade techs to friendly large nations for cash before they research them. Use that money to industrialize, or build a small army and beat up uncivilized nations. Trade crappy provinces for cash.
If you are uncivilized, wait for Britain to come annex you.
Q: I just got the game. What country should I play?
Everyone says Brazil, so go with that I guess. I played Bavaria my first time around, and its nice for getting the hang of industry and economy, but shit starts to hit the fan later.
Q: Are the World Wars going to happen?
World War One is not scripted outside of the specific WWI scenario. The AI are programmed to try to get into systems of alliances and guarantees of independence, and sometimes it works out and you end up with a Great War situation, and some games can end without one ever happening. For me it usually happens once per game.
World War Two in Hearts of Iron 2 is scripted, but events are fairly specific (it probably won't even start if Poland doesn't exist) and things never end up like they did historically at the end of a Paradox game so its probably not gonna happen.
Other questions about game mechanics and that type of stuff:
www.paradoxian.org has the VickiWiki, which is rather nice, and wikis for HoI2, EU2 and EU3. I don't know where the Crusader Kings wiki is, go look in Fintilgin's Mega-Paradox LP. Its probably in there somewhere.