The Vainglory of Grogheads - Pride of Nations PBEM AAR

[undercovergeek]

We're off................

This is me, Sardinia-Piedmont.

Piedmont's end goal is the unification of Italy, something which it is unlikely to achieve by warring against Austria (although if Austria is laid low by another foe, there is an opportunity). Although France (Tuna) has territorial claims against Piedmont, these historically were conceded in exchange for support in achieving the much greater prize of Italian unification, and there are events that can take you down this path. Building good relations with France (Tuna) should be a cornerstone of Piedmont's strategy.

Like Prussia, Sardinia-Piedmont must focus literally on nation-building at home before it receives the full range of options for colonial expansion abroad. It is a small Kingdom and reliant on imports, so developing and extending its natural resources and cultivating sources of supply should be a priority (which may include early foreign investments).



Closer up, to my immediate east are some small Tuscan states - Parma (blue) and Firenze (pink) with the Papal States beyond them and the Kingdom of Naples in purple at the end, big ass scary Austria (boooooo) in the North East, Tuna to the west as France (yayyyyy), and way out east is SDR as Russia (dunno yet!).............



Each province gives you a brief description of its development and how its population is made up, how it trades and what areas it trades in (more on that later). There is also a representation of the resources it produces - here, wine, cattle, timber, corn and iron, and a railway construction is already underway toward Austria



My organic industry and commerce screen, read down each column to see the turns starting total and the end result after commerce, production and useage is accounted for, so on aggregate i make 37 timber a turn, i start with 400 at the top and 437 is the final number at the bottom.............



and my inorganic/mineral screen, same as above for working out the totals............



As im new and learning all this, i just want to conduct a harmless experiment and see how it effects my balance sheet - i buy 10 coal, thats all im doing this turn and ill see what happens.

Turn is sent to SDR

[Martok]

I hope you guys are able to get/keep this going.  It would be fun to follow, and might give me some small insight on how to play my own copy of the game (purchased long ago through GamersGate).  Good luck! 

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

Pravoslaviye, Samoderzhaviye, Narodnost!

Hope you don't mind me putting my stuff here as well, UCGeek.


Is Russia!!!!






Is more Russia!!!!!





Is still more Russia!!!!!!  (Maybe I should have picked Belgium....)




Russia's massive and I think I'm going to have my hands full trying to keep all my plates spinning but it should be an interesting challenge.
 
A quick look through the provinces shows me that Russia's got little to fear from external military forces but she's a bit of mess internally. 


She's backwards as hell...




And while she has massive amounts of manpower and tonnes of natural resources, she lacks the infrastructure to take advantage of either.  There are a few rail-lines being built between Moscow and Kiev and Moscow and St. Petersberg at the start of the game, but they're not going to be done for another year.  As for the rest, it's mud tracks even around Moscow.




We have some manufacturing already but the poor internal transport system and the lack of advanced machinery prevent the Russian economy from doing much other than sputtering along.   

Here are all my factories that require machined tools to operate.


But Russia lacks the capacity to produce her own so we have to import them from foreign powers.  Here Russia runs into more problems.  Firstly, her only reliable warm water ports are in the Black Sea and that means those damned Ottoman footstools can choke us off at the Dardanelles or the Bosporus  whenever they choose.   



Secondly, we don't have that many trade fleets out there.  If I want access to the UK, I need to get a fleet into the North Sea.




I do have a trade fleet in the Baltic but the various German states just aren't producing reliably enough for me to expect to meet my needs.




The other problem Russia faces is internal dissent.  There are a lot of unhappy people in the satellite states.  The Poles, the Finns, the Ukranians, the Ruthenians, and all those angry horse riders east of the Urals are all pissed off to one degree or another.




There's a handy-dandy pop census screen that will give you a breakdown of who's pissed off, why, and what they want but the latest hotfix buggered it up for some players (me included) so it looks like this now.  Not exactly useful.




So, short term goals are: 

• Improve transport infrastructure.
  
  
• Expand trade fleets
  
  
  • Expand resource gathering operations
    
    
  • Garrison restive areas
    
    
  • Gain access to the Mediterranean.
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

[undercovergeek]

wow, errrrr thats a lot of land there SDR!

i see what you mean about the census screen now (mines ok  :P)

[undercovergeek]

It seems the default starting point in trade for Sardinia-Piedmont is all over the place, im importing goods that im also exporting and money is slowly, not badly, but slowly leaking out

I reset all commercial trade to 0, cancelling all trade agreements and international commerce and will treadwater for a day or two and see what we actually need to operate



Heres the commercial goods window showing a true reflection of our needs when all trade is cancelled - all the green graphs indicate a surplus and all the red ones indicate goods we need to bring in. The factories and projects currently running need iron, coal and steel - we'll concentrate on these and see what happens.



Down in Genoa is a ship factory pulling in all kinds of resources and outputting not very much - ive turned the factory off for now, im not ready to start building a navy yet

[JasonPratt]

Swass! This will be like the Dom3 game but better!  >:D

Can we get a quick full count of who and where the players are?

UGeek is Piedmont, SDR IS RUSSIA, and Tuna as France... anyone else?

Also, France looks like it has some border states (between it and Sardine-Pie and the Swiss) that aren't exactly counted in its main mass; am I seeing that right?

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

Just the three of us playing this campaign.

Turn 2 for Russia. No screenies because I'm lazy and will probably only update every 3 months of game time (6 turns) or if something eventful happens.

Our worker efficiency is poor compared to other European nations so I proposed instituting mandatory education for the kiddies.  Still awaiting the response from the populace to see if it will go through.

I bought a fair chunk of machined tools on the international market so that should see my factories continue running for the next few months but it drained a lot of capital. 

Intelligence sources informed me that the Armenian rabble are arming themselves and a revolt is highly probable.  In response, I sent a few brigades of Cossack cavalry to the area and raised another Cossack brigade.  Let's see how those uni-browed Levantines enjoy the taste of sabre.

[bbmike]

Stop it, I just uninstalled this game!
Seriously, I do look forward to reading this AAR. I've always wanted to play a complete game of Pride of Nations but have never made it.
Also, if I might make a suggestion, please have a look at this thread concerning posting images.  :P

[undercovergeek]

Also, if I might make a suggestion, please have a look at this thread concerning posting images.  :P

are my images too big?

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

Nothing much to report.  The initiative to institute mandatory primary education went through and that caused a big hit to the state coffers.  The people seem happy with the idea though.

I sent an expedition of the Naturalists' Society to the Kazakh region to catalogue the fauna and flora but they seem to have been eaten or something. 

I proposed a favoured-nation trade deal with Great Britain.  They were initially enthusiastic about the idea but later backed out on the deal due to complaints from the Swedes.  I guess they aren't happy with Russia controlling Finland. 

The lower classes have started passing around the Communist Manifesto by Marx.  Hopefully the ideas contained within don't gain traction.  Time will tell.

[undercovergeek]

Its time to start cozying up to Tuna in France, i send an offer of a state visit, the first step on relations improvement -



Books are beginning to balance themselves out, my only concern is our dependence on foreign coal -



I send Commercial Agreement Proposals to the other Italian states, to improve relations



I also start out convincing the other Italian states that unification, led by me, would be a good idea - i start with Tuscany



We send out merchants to Africa, its the first foothold on the way to colonisation and brings in some cash - there is a tool to see which places to do this, but the likes of France, and the Ottomans were already there, and im not ready to annoy them



We start shopping around for a Coal mine site of our own. Firenze looks good from here



Or a manufacturing good factory - that allows us to make more manufacturing goods and therefore build more improvements - this is our first big decision

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

Capitalists in Russia have been raking it in from the sale of dyes and chemicals.  With all that private capital around, I pushed for the construction of some rail lines and a machine parts factory.  That ate up about 80% of the private funds out there.

Next turn, the capitalists were whining about the lack of available credit and demanded easier access.  The banks fired up the presses and now I've got inflation.

Note to self, spend less per turn in future.

Not much else going on.  I sent a diplomatic mission to Sweden to improve relations with the meatball lovers.  If I can get them on-side, maybe the Brits will agree to a trade deal later.

[bbmike]

Also, if I might make a suggestion, please have a look at this thread concerning posting images.  :P

are my images too big?

They are on my computer but I do use that CTRL + trick to magnify which causes your images to have that scroll bar appear on the bottom. So, maybe it's just me.  :)

[undercovergeek]

The next level down the text is unreadable

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

My diplomatic overtures to Sweden were completely rebuffed.  The Swedes wouldn't even meet with my mission and that caused relations to sour even further.

I wish there were a better way to locate and jump to provinces.  I had meant to build a machine parts factory in Veliky Novgorod as it's close to raw materials and wouldn't be too far away from St. Petersberg so constructing rail lines wouldn't be too much of a problem in terms of time or money.  Unfortunately, I had a case of the stupids exacerbated by too much vodka and I mistakenly built it in Nizshy-Novgorod, several hundred miles east of Moscow.  Oops.

Nothing else going on with Russia right now.  Just waiting for stuff to be built.  Cash flow is good.  The non-ethnic Russians are still angry but the Russian populace is happy with the way the country's being led as of now.