Victoria 2

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Jan 1851

Apparently the Hungarians did not take kindly to being forced to become Austrians as the year starts with rebellions all over the map:

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While the Austrian army quickly got them in hand, one wonders if this will be a recurring theme for them.

April 1851

The latest news from the paper is Spain and France are at war (the month before France and Russia reestablished their alliance):

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Sept 1851

In addition to continuing work on infrastructure with more factories the army reasserted itself and demanded the diplomats work up a pretext for declaring on Zayid (closest next region to Egypt) for the purposes of bringing them into the Empire’s sphere of influence, foreign office got their pretext for declaring with only minor issues and the empire declared and the army immediately marched for Zayid:

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The army in the picture above to the west is Mahra, who joined the war but sent no troops.

The war was over in a matter of months and Zayid accepted the terms and was brought w/in the sphere of influence of the empire:

Jan 1852

We closed out 1851 with more good news on the infrastructure front, research on railroads was completed and capitalists immediately began building them out. This was made a focus both to aid factories but also for better supply lines for the military.

The rest of 1852 was spent building out factories with 18 completed by the end of the year! And the first series of railroads are nearly complete! Here’s a map of the current Ottoman Empire closing out 1852:

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Jan 1853

All good things come to an end, but we made some progress while the peace lasted knowing full well it wouldn’t be for long. Austria has refused France’s demand of liberation of the Lombardia region made on behalf of Sardinia-Piedmont and instead called all their allies including the Ottoman Empire to join them in rebuking the French demand.
We’ve answered the call in the affirmative, so war it is.
This is the region being fought over highlighted in yellow:

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And here are the demands of the French:

So looks like 1853 will be a bit more exciting than the previous 2 years, will Russia come in with France? Will any of the other Great Powers join or will this hopefully stay a small regional affair, if such a thing exists in the middle of Europe.

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Great stuff! but you’re going to have to take out Iran eventually. Whatever your love of Persian culture your Sunni Ottomans cannot abide the Shiite heresy any longer!

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Things poised to get very interesting in the next year for the Ottoman Empire depending on how some of the other Great Powers play their cards. Captivating stuff.

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Victoria 2 Complete is part of this Humble Paradox Bundle:

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Feb 1853
The Austrian army and their regional allies look to have the French and their allies handled so the empire decides we’ll join the war more in spirit than boots on the ground:

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Made the papers as well:

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Meanwhile nearer to home we’ve got our own French headache to deal with and we’re forced to move our army and mobilize to contend with them coming from Algeria and working to liberate Tunisia from our sphere of influence.

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Our main military goal is not so much to defeat the French as pin them down until the war with Austria concludes as we’re not convinced France gives a damn about the so called freedom of Sardinia-Piedmont.

What worries the monarchy more than the French incursion is homegrown rebellion, intelligence from the secret police shows Egypt is a powder keg. The red is their assessment of the area in the empire likely to revolt:

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June 8153
Well, good to know the secret police are on their game, a summer revolt has begun and equally annoying the French are still causing mischief: Our forces will have to choose who to deal with, the prevailing view is the rebellion as the French unless they turn things around against Austria are going to lose and that problem then solves itself, while the rebellion is not going anywhere and must be dealt with.

The diplomats haven’t stopped working even while we’re up to our eyeballs in trouble, they’ve been tasked with creating a pretext to sphere Njed (need supply lines in the desert to the small nations on the coast the empire wants to sphere or annex), apparently journalists on the ground there got wind of what we’re up to and it made the papers:

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By September 1853 the Egyptian rebellion is put down, now time to turn to the French who are still causing problems west of Egypt. The Generals decided the best course of action was to wait at the Egyptian border for them and hold out for what we hope will be their eventual loss to Austria.

November 1853
Been a busy year and in all the chaos looks like our diplomats botched it a bit in working to sphere the small nations south and southeast of Egypt as they’ve managed to put the empire on both sides of a conflict, Kaffa and Shewa are both asking us to come in the war between them on their side.

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Neither nation has strategic resources so the decision was made on military criteria, the Shewa have twice the army so we’ll join Shewa and leave them to fight it out. We’ve still got the French to deal with. Amusingly this small regional war made the November paper:

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November 25th 1853
Prussia no doubt sensing Austria was distracted and taking too long to win their war with France declared on them and Austria in turn requested us to join:

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We have really no choice but to accept, we can’t afford to lose an alliance with another Great Power due to balance of power considerations and because geographically Austria is a nice buffer between us and the rest of Europe.

Dec 1853
Meanwhile closer to home the army grew impatient with garrisoning in Egypt while the French continued pillaging and initiated a direct assault on their forces, the hope being to reduce them down and convince them to return to Algeria

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And by March 1854 the French army was utterly destroyed, apparently rather than returning to Algeria and a properly fired up hookah they decided to die in the desert.

May 1854

As expected Shewa won the war with Kaffa and annexed it with our blessing. This works out well because our diplomats have almost completed efforts to bring Shewa into the empire’s sphere of influence.

The enlarged Shewa:

May 1854

Final news for this dispatch. The Austrians are proving incompetent strategists, who on their command staff thought engaging in two wars at the same time was a good idea? At the point Prussia declared on them they should have brokered peace with France rather than demand reparations as a term of that peace. Now what they’ve got is a two front war, and that’s going about as well as expected:

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Our ally is in need of our help, and while it pains us to march up to help, it would appear the next year or more will be spent helping the Austrians in more than spirit in the wars they’ve embroiled themselves in, our army marches north to war.

Anyone care to bet on whether the Egyptian rebels pick this as a prime opportunity to rebel again…

746

Well there we go, I was waiting for when Prussia would pick a fight with Austria. That was going to be the one drawback to an alliance with Austria. As said, would have been nice if Austria could have established a truce with the French because the last thing they need is a two front war against two Great Powers.

Will be curious to see how events progress over the coming years. Austria will need to play their cards smartly lest they drag the Ottoman military down with them, which is the last thing we need.

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May 1854

Our diplomats pointed out something of further concern about the Prussian-Austria war, Great Britain joined on the Prussian side. So, all the efforts spent diplomatically getting on quite good terms with the Brits just went up in flames.
The command staff aren’t crazy about either of these entanglements in Europe that Austria pulled us into, we’re fully mobilizing because we expect this war is going to spill over into Ottoman regions soon.

August 1854

Mobilization is coming along, but too slowly. Worried the Prussian army and their allies are going to cross our border, and as if things weren’t bad enough, there are now rebellions taking place in Austria:

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Starting to get that sinking feeling the empire is on the absolutely wrong side of this war.

Sept 1854
Not surprisingly given the size of their navy and army the British have sent an invasion force in the northwest portion of the empire:

The military are in transit to respond.

Sept 1854
Less than a week later Prussians are discovered invading further north as the war in Europe spills onto Ottoman soil:

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This has quickly escalated into a multi front war that the Generals have told us will stretch them to thin to handle effectively.

Oct 1854
The British not satisfied with one invasion land a 2nd one east of Egypt and begin capturing regions SE of Egypt:

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By the end of the year the 1st British invasion force was repulsed and the regions recaptured. There’s still work to be done though as the Prussian army and their allies are capturing regions on the northern border and the 2nd British invasion force in the east still needs to be dealt with.

The army and foreign office pointed out the obvious, there are some real downsides in not being the primary negotiator in wars; you get pulled in and then don’t have any control over an exit.

January 1855

End of year analysis of the Great Powers has one glaringly obvious problem, Austria now has no army, which as far as the Monarchy and the Generals of the Ottoman empire are concerned makes them worthless as allies:

Oh how the mighty, or apparently not so mighty have fallen (and taken us with them)

The nation next to Egypt (Ha’il) is asking us to come to their aid against Nejd, which is mildly amusing because before we got dragged into losing wars by Austria we’d created a pretext to attack and sphere Nejd. Fate had other plans.

We accepted but do not plan to send an army as they’re otherwise engaged all over the empire.

June 1855
The 2nd British invasion force east of Egypt was finally tracked down and reduced:

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June 1855
But at the end of the month more bad news in the form of a 3rd British invasion comes back to the monarchy, landing at the same location as the first one early last year:

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And the war is taking a toll on the empire’s treasury:

At the rate we’re going we’ll be bankrupt by the end of the year.

end of dispatch

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I just want to say I’m really enjoying your playthrough, @easytarget! This is one of my favorite threads to check in on. It’s nice to get a Victoria 2 fix every so often, even if it’s vicariously.

-Tom

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Yes enjoying it also.

In fact I have finally purchased it on the strength of it after having the game for years on the wishlist.

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Oh boy, darned Austrians are trying to drag the Ottoman Empire down with them alright. Hopefully you can extract yourself eventually without too much damage caused. Seems like there might be a fair bit of a rebuilding process involved though if this keeps dragging on.

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I’ve owned the game and dlc’s since release but never actually played it- until now, inspired by this thread (and COVID).

Finished one game as Belgium with copious reloading. The GUI is definitely a step behind the more modern PDX titles.
(Belgium Protip: quickly ally with UK or France to avoid being annexed by the Dutch within 6 months of game start. That was a short game!).

Now as Japan in 1929 with China, Australia and the Republic of California in my sphere of influence. I’m getting there, but still have only a tenuous grasp of politics and proper factory management.

Good fun- I wonder if Victoria 3 is in the realms of the possible.

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I still think that’s what Martin Anward has been working on the past couple years. He once spent his holiday break working on a new patch for Victoria 2. He also has a goof off personal project Victorian Secrets, a Victoria dating sim. I’m guessing the patch work over his holidays was because he was in the code familiarizing himself with it before starting on Vicky 3.

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Hey, glad you guys are enjoying my battle with the tides of history, which as you’ve seen of late have turned against us.

On a game play technical note, I am interested in discovering when these two wars come to an end in light of the fact Austria has no army to continue them one wonders when it will dawn on them to sue for peace?

For the sake of the empire I hope soon.

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With only two games under my belt, I can’t comment too much- but I did notice that the AI does take into account the respective military strengths of the two sides.

I tried to get a peace deal while being ahead on war score but behind on strength and kept falling.
A great power joined and brought us ahead on strength and the opponent then immediately offered the same deal he rejected previously.

(But I am not sure if the AI weighs individual country strength such as in your Austria example…)

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Well, that’s what concerns me, Austria has effectively zero army strength now and the Ottoman army is getting bled dry by never ending British invasions.

So, the Austrian-Ottoman military strength is only going to get worse and the war score for both wars is a complete loss as Austria as it stands currently is more or less wiped off the map.

From a game programming stand point I’m curious to see when does a nation throw in the towel? Because if Austria were played by a human it would have been well before now.

Btw, I’m no expert either, that’s why I’m intrigued by what Austria does next.

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This has what has dampened my enjoyment of my revisit to Vicky2 the most. It’s really frustrating when I can’t do things and the game gives me no indication as to why. For long periods of my Ottoman game the Justify War button was either greyed out or it would led me open the pop-up only to have no options. Why? No idea. Similarly, it’s a pain to try to dig into individual pops to attempt to discover why promotion/assimilation isn’t happening.

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So I guess the Austrians interpreted your alliance as a blank cheque for an aggressive foreign policy and thereby provoking a major war? Good luck!

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Well, in their defense they didn’t start either of these wars, they got declared on in both. Ottomans just got dragged into the fun. Austria annexing Hungary I suspect was what put them into proximity to several smaller and bigger nations that led to our current situation. Now I’m just wondering why they don’t sue for peace on pretty much any terms…

The Ottoman error was in picking the wrong horse, although at the time it was the only horse that would have us. ;)

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[like]

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Ah I misremembered. I thought Austria declared on someone France was protecting and Prussia jumped in opportunistically.