Out of the Great Abyss -- Ethiopia. World War One. HOI2:Darkest Hour AAR

Started by JasonPratt, March 06, 2014, 05:34:13 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

undercovergeek

Sorry to do this here - what's written so far is back story, ragnar was real and sacked Paris before being shipwrecked off the coast of Northumbria

I'm actually starting as Alfred who became Alfred the great king of Wessex..... I'm just writing some fluff to explain why Alfreds game starts with 20000 Vikings in York about to kick the crap out of aella to the north

Great update Jason, did you know you could upgrade militia to normal troops or at least can in hoi3

Staggerwing

Sorry to sidetrack your AAR, Jason. I really should have kept my comments from derailing the momentum.   :-[
Vituð ér enn - eða hvat?  -Voluspa

Nothing really rocks and nothing really rolls and nothing's ever worth the cost...

"Don't you look at me that way..." -the Abyss
 
'When searching for a meaningful embrace, sometimes my self respect took second place' -Iggy Pop, Cry for Love

... this will go down on your permanent record... -the Violent Femmes, 'Kiss Off'-

"I'm not just anyone, I'm not just anyone-
I got my time machine, got my 'electronic dream!"
-Sonic Reducer, -Dead Boys

bob48

^Naughty boy. Go and stand in the corner and don't come out until you're told to. :)
'We few, we happy few, we band of brothers'

'Clip those corners'

Recombobulate the discombobulators!

Staggerwing

But if I can't see the computer from there how will I know my time's up? I could be in the corner for hours, day or weeks even!  :o
Vituð ér enn - eða hvat?  -Voluspa

Nothing really rocks and nothing really rolls and nothing's ever worth the cost...

"Don't you look at me that way..." -the Abyss
 
'When searching for a meaningful embrace, sometimes my self respect took second place' -Iggy Pop, Cry for Love

... this will go down on your permanent record... -the Violent Femmes, 'Kiss Off'-

"I'm not just anyone, I'm not just anyone-
I got my time machine, got my 'electronic dream!"
-Sonic Reducer, -Dead Boys

undercovergeek

Quote from: bob48 on March 22, 2014, 02:48:33 PM
^Naughty boy. Go and stand in the corner and don't come out until you're told to. :)

He's Mr wing..... he posts where he wants

bob48

Nobody really expects me to think things through logically do they?

..Oh. bugger.

Anyway, lets clear off and let Jason do his thing. I'm waiting for the next bit.
'We few, we happy few, we band of brothers'

'Clip those corners'

Recombobulate the discombobulators!

Staggerwing

Vituð ér enn - eða hvat?  -Voluspa

Nothing really rocks and nothing really rolls and nothing's ever worth the cost...

"Don't you look at me that way..." -the Abyss
 
'When searching for a meaningful embrace, sometimes my self respect took second place' -Iggy Pop, Cry for Love

... this will go down on your permanent record... -the Violent Femmes, 'Kiss Off'-

"I'm not just anyone, I'm not just anyone-
I got my time machine, got my 'electronic dream!"
-Sonic Reducer, -Dead Boys

JasonPratt

No problems at all! -- I was the one who asked, more or less, after all. :) Got it, king of Northumbria, I know where that is.

UGeek, yes I discovered a few days ago that I can upgrade my troops directly, which I'll probably have to eventually do -- if I get the time to do it!  ::)

Right now all I can feasibly do is upgrade my militia to better militia and my infantry to better infantry, the latter of which I've done up to 1921 standard I think (not at the game right now). Which was weird because it cost A LOT less time to upgrade the infantry several levels than to upgrade even the least of the militia (from 1870 to 1897, 11 days). Note: I mean where I am in the game presently, not the AAR, where I don't have the techs to do that yet. But they're coming, very soon.

Upgrading any infantry to anything movably useful would take 280 days plus right now; I'm better off slowly applying militia upgrades, even to 1921 standard, since I can put those to immediate use.


Still, you may be able to answer a question: does production efficiency help reduce time to make divisions (or to upgrade them, or cross-upgrade)? I know increased IC doesn't, all it does it provide more headroom to work, not speed exactly.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

Opps, accidentally posted the wrong thing here. I'll just leave a blank and post the next part afterward to properly trigger subscription alerts.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

Part 22 -- A Distant Hope Arrives

The Emperor turned fully away from the map on the wall, haggard from lack of sleep, and staggered by the surprise.

"I... I welcome you, sir, to the capitol of our nation," he said, trying to smooth his clothes. He looked like any European businessman, and not an especially prosperous one.

Yimer translated into Italian, and added, "He also speaks French, and I think a little Greek."

The European shortly bowed, then looked at the Emperor's outstretched hand. Then he said, "In my nation, only a few years ago, on any night our king would sit outside on his porch, watching the sun go down, and smoking a pipe, welcoming any walkers on the road nearby to come up onto the porch with him and talk." He swallowed as Yimer translated back for us; and when he spoke again there were tears in his voice. "I do not know what happened to my king, Nicholas, when the Hungarians took our land. But I am very deeply honored to shake the hand of a king such as you."

And, so he did.

"Why then," cried Iyasu, "let us go outside and have a pipe if you wish, and eat from our grill, and talk!"

Petar gladly agreed, but then hesitated. Yimer explained: "He has brought some other men to see you, sir. They are waiting downstairs. I don't think he wants to exclude them."

"Certainly not! Well; we will have a banquet in our street, and offer the poor some meat as well."

And so they did. The smell of the meats on the grill, and the bread brought by the Emperor's wife and children, lifted the spirits of all who came near us, as the early summer sun set on our land.

"O king," said the European statesman after drinks had been brought and mixed, "soon I shall tell you who these men are I have brought with me, scattered as we were from our homes in the Balkan Black Mountains. But first, allow me to ask: are you in need of a foreign minister who has experience making trades agreements with other nations?"

"Indeed I am! In these times of war, such men are like a mine of gold and platinum for a nation!"

"The king mayhap has heard that in the small but noble nation of Montenegro, we survived and thrived by making such agreements."

"I have not heard, but now I have. Continue?"

"Yes, and I myself have had some experience in these matters, of a sort that may, perhaps, benefit your land, in these times of war."

Yimer added, in their own language, "This man and the ones who taught him helped make Montenegro rich through trade, sir. Out of the several possible foreign ministers thrown into the seas by war, during the previous year, this man is the one whom I have heard the best things about. His contacts helped him survive and hide away from his home abroad, along with his family."

The Emperor nodded. "As you can see, Ethiopia struggles, and I must be frank: the hand of Britain is closing down upon us."

"But you have some ports, now; and my land was full of rugged mountains, Emperor of the Horn. Let me make a home, here, with a king who loves his people as did our beloved Nicholas, God rest his soul," he crossed himself. "Then, if you can make your home safe, I will bring my family here as well. I shall be able to help you in your defense -- through several methods."

"Several methods, sir?" The Emperor now was eyeing the men seated around us eating our meat.

"Yes, I think you will find that I knew people, and still know them. With the help of your able and honored minister Yimer, I have gathered them together from the winds, and in some cases saved them from our enemies. They were not wanted, where they were, even by our enemies, so they will not be missed. If they please you, they wish to live here in exile with me, and start a Montenegro of the Horn, as it were."

"So far I see no objection, if they are willing to work for our nation. I think you will find us grateful in our compensation for their efforts, sir."

"Allow me then to introduce you to Nicholas of Montenegro." At this, a man of noble bearing but simple clothes, hearing Petar's Italian, stood before Yimer could finish translating, and...

...the Emperor of Ethiopia leapt to his feet, spilling his jar beside him; children hurried to clean it. "You have brought me a king, and did not let me honor him -- !"

"Shh, shh," Petra gestured quietly, "Who is a king in your nation but you, O king? Many men from Montenegro were named for the saint; is that not true here?"

Iyasu looked doubtful. The other man bowed and offered his hand. "I share the name of the king, of course -- and he shares mine! I am soldier visiting your country until, perhaps, the day when I can return to my own."

"It shall be as you say, but if I may say so, your bearing is regal, sir."

"You may say so, only don't say it so loudly, my king," the other man smiled. "As the first of my family named for the saint," he lightly coughed -- the king of Montenegro had been Nicholas the First, I thought I recalled, "allow me to bring you gifts that I have managed to find, oh, scattered along the road, for I am poor."

"Please, proceed." The other men stood, as the regal Nicholas introduced them: a strong selection of men from Budva Dockyard; from the University of Montenegro; from the Bar Railway; from Montenegrin Agriculture; and far from least, several officers from the Podgorica Academy and the Montenegro Defense Ministry. "And this salty gentleman," Nicholas said, "once was captain of the Royal Armed Yacht!"

Iyasu's eyes kept widening with every round of introduction; with this last, they narrowed in humored suspicion and he shot a glance at Nicholas. "Alas, the yacht was lost at sea, during the final invasion," the royal visitor said. "But, I found him sheltering some of these men, and Yimer's contacts found us all, and one thing led to another, and here we are: seeking asylum."

"And to work," said the captain; also the other men nodded.

"I... honestly, my friends, you see how poor we are. All our factories push us weakly along, and I cannot promise you work, or not at once. But I can promise you homes, if you promise to offer us work when we ask."

"We offer you that, and also more."

"More?"

At a gesture the followers of these men hefted traveling satchels.

"Blueprints we were working on before the final invasion," said the soldier Nicholas. "And if you take us to your factories, you may find these men in particular producing light artillery pieces once you allocate resources. These other men, they can help your farm equipment. I myself and also some others can train and design some kit for combat engineers. I have been told by Petar that you may find these possibly useful on a day to come, even if not now. The blueprints need more work in order to fit them for production -- do you know about antibiotics? We can design you troopships, old but seaworthy. We wanted to build an airforce, and have worked up plans for recon planes -- "

"I have one of those!" Habte had joined the gathering sometime earlier, staying silent in the background -- now he hopped with delight. "A French monoplane, I mean, not the blueprints for it. I haven't had time to draw up any..."

"This is Habte Giyorgis Dinegde, the greatest modern mind ever produced by Ethiopia -- so far as I know!" the Emperor laughed, as Yimer made translations. The other men bowed. "You will get along famously with him I think. But, sirs, I do not think you understand the plight of our desperation. We absolutely must have factories, in order to make such marvels; and we just don't have the factories yet, or any way to make them, and even though very soon we could start making them we must make the room to make them so to speak. Which will take years." And the Emperor sighed from the depth of his soul.

"We ourselves had not yet gotten far enough to fabricate factories on our own, so to speak." The simple soldier Nicholas had clearly taken over being the spokesman; Petar stood aside and practically glowed with joy. "But we do have plans; also for helping factories be more efficient. Very basic plans, compared with other nations, but possibly we could compare our notes with what you are researching now, and speed things along a little more?"

"Habte!" the Emperor clapped his hands. "Take these men at once to the Imperial Palace and give them rooms, and then direct the proper men tomorrow to our research teams!"

"I have heard, sir, you gave your palace away to be a children's school and also a museum." Nicholas nodded in approval.

"The museum may have to move, although if we run out of room we may have to find you other accommodations. Which indeed we will: our children must be taught," the Emperor smiled.

So saying the ministers gathered together the greatest hope we yet had found, and led them to beds for the night. In one grand heroic effort, the man that I had once dismissed as a flattering sycophant had managed more for our nation than all our other efforts combined in a year.

But would we, could we survive long enough to see that hope bear fruit?


[Note: nothing happened on the map during this plot interlude, of course, so the Def-fan is still 8. (Unlike Defcon that's worse. ;) ) Nicholas I of Montenegro was a colorful chap, a mountain man who cannily negotiated his way into being set over his native Montenego as king by the Austrians -- who then overran him of course in the war. I'll try to post his photo later, and that of Petar. The story about him chilling on his porch at the end of the day, smoking his pipe and inviting people on the sidewalk to come on up and have a talk, is 100% true. As are some other details which will come out a few chapters from now.

I don't have the faintest idea what happened to him after Montenegro was overrun; but if someone told me he retreated to one of the mountains where he threw boulder-artillery at the Hungarians until they had to call in a wizard to summon a comet down onto him, after which his ghost wrestled a hibernating dragon into submission and he rode it around zorching the Austrian army until the end of the war, I WOULD TOTALLY BE PREPARED TO BELIEVE THAT!  8) He was one of those memetic badasses like Davy Crockett; except very much more politically ambitious.]
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

undercovergeek

Quote from: JasonPratt on March 22, 2014, 07:07:07 PM
No problems at all! -- I was the one who asked, more or less, after all. :) Got it, king of Northumbria, I know where that is.

UGeek, yes I discovered a few days ago that I can upgrade my troops directly, which I'll probably have to eventually do -- if I get the time to do it!  ::)

Right now all I can feasibly do is upgrade my militia to better militia and my infantry to better infantry, the latter of which I've done up to 1921 standard I think (not at the game right now). Which was weird because it cost A LOT less time to upgrade the infantry several levels than to upgrade even the least of the militia (from 1870 to 1897, 11 days). Note: I mean where I am in the game presently, not the AAR, where I don't have the techs to do that yet. But they're coming, very soon.

Upgrading any infantry to anything movably useful would take 280 days plus right now; I'm better off slowly applying militia upgrades, even to 1921 standard, since I can put those to immediate use.


Still, you may be able to answer a question: does production efficiency help reduce time to make divisions (or to upgrade them, or cross-upgrade)? I know increased IC doesn't, all it does it provide more headroom to work, not speed exactly.

IIRC production efficiency will speed up the creation of units - but id check that before you develop a strategy round it

To be positive ive made myself clear, i dont mean researching better tech for militia, i mean you click on the militia unit and there is a button to upgrade it to a full military infantry unit

JasonPratt

Yeppy yep, I know what you mean, though researching tech means the cross-over upgrade will arrive at the latest tech level. So if I told one of my 1870 militia to upgrade to infantry, they would end up 1921 infantry -- 280 days from now or thereabouts, during all of which time I'd have to dedicate 2-point-something IC to the upgrade process or it would take proportionately longer to complete! (Changing them over to current cav instead would take eight days longer and cost 4.6 dedicated IC during that time if I recall correctly.)

Cross-upgrading units does take less time than building them from scratch, however, and I don't think I lose any experience already gained for the division, unlike dismissing them and redrawing them from manpower. I can't set up brigade attachments automatically by this method, but I can build those independently and then attach them when the upgrade is done.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

Since the next scheduled Part will be another plotty/strategic one without maps, let me take a break for a moment to give some perspective about Montenegro and where it was in comparison with Ethiopia on the eve of war. (I did find out Nicholas survived the annexation of his country and lived until 1918, though I don't know under what circumstances, btw.)



Okay, that little dark blue country on the coast is Montenegro. It has a military alliance with Serbia (I guess, I didn't bother to check), which is why there is no fog of war in the light-blue country next door. The muted colors are fog-of-war, which is why it looks like there are two pink countries to the south one even smaller than Black Mountain! But that's just Albania, which is technically larger (though Nicholas had his eye on that lighter pink territory just beneath him, and wow that sounded so much different in my head before I typed it... ;) ) Albania was the only officially Muslim nation in the Balkans for a while; at the story-current time in the game it's still around, and I sell to it occasionally. I think it's still around where I am in my playthrough, too. I'm hoping to pick up some techs from it when-if-ever the Hungarians run it over; but by now I probably out-tech it anyway.

The big whitish nation to the north is Austria-Hungary; they kick off World War One by invading Serbia (for reasons scholars still debate heavily about). South of Serbia and Albania is Greece. That other blue country (all in fog-shade) to the right (east) of Serbia is Bulgaria; the brownish nation north of that is Romania, and a bit of Russia is peeking in at the top-right of the photo. Far to the right are portions of the Ottoman/Turkish empire where they've been pushed back almost to Istanbul (old Constantinople).

Appropos of nothing, please enjoy the Bad Ass Russian and the Brides of Dracula (and.... others....) -- soon he will be VIKTORY:



Okay, allow me to cleanse your mind after that:



There. Now we can continue... what? Oh very well...



Having established I have the best AAR of all (soon I will be VIKTORY!), I shall conclude this digression with a context map showing where Ethiopia was in relation to Montenegro (and still is since those nations did survive WW1 or were reconstituted afterward).



We shall return to strategic plottiness later this afternoon.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

Martok

Sweet!  So was this most recent chapter featuring Nicholas & Co. representing your "hacking" the game to give Ethiopia a bit of a leg up? 

"Like we need an excuse to drink to anything..." - Banzai_Cat
"I like to think of it not as an excuse but more like Pavlovian Response." - Sir Slash

"At our ages, they all look like jailbait." - mirth

"If we had lines here that would have crossed all of them. For the 1,077,986th time." - Gusington

"Government is so expensive that it should at least be entertaining." - airboy

"As long as there's bacon, everything will be all right." - Toonces

JasonPratt

Very much so, yep.  8)

Not that it helps me much right now. But if I survive long enough it will. Come to think of it, I've seen a few actual dividends already... Not a lot but every little bit helps.

Today, being Sunday (thus appropriate), I played my 'peace' campaign and fiddled around with testing some things in it until March 1, 1916. Amusingly, I have managed to effectively bankrupt the world, purely from buying and selling supplies. (Well, maybe bankrupt isn't the right word. I've sucked up all the spare cash in the world and have put it to work in infrastructure both on the ground and in research. I also learned not to invest in public works because apparently that's useless unless I have an area already developed enough to put a factory on, which I don't yet even in the peace game.)

This, sadly, won't work in my 'real' campaign, because as a state at war with a ton of people who have much better anti-shipping than I do ships (which is none), most of my possible trade partners aren't available, and those that are (even the US) trade at not much better than 50% inefficiency, meaning I send out supplies but only get 50ish percent of the agreed upon cash.  :-\

Even so, it's a lot more efficient to do that than for me to earn it by taxing consumer goods, so I'll be getting around to it eventually in the AAR campaign (not anytime soon, more like part 27 or thereabouts. First I have to beat back the orkish hordes long enough to convince them to stay the hell out, so I can concentrate on factoring supplies without being distracted by dead people needing resupply and reinforcements. (... 'ork' is a British work, right? They have weird British accents in WH40K, and a British guy popularized the term, so I feel pretty safe drawing the parallel...  ;D )
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!