chzr
Scholar
- Joined
- Jun 26, 2010
- Messages
- 1,238
So, I have few screens from my playthrough as Krakow and since there doesn't seem to be any recent Vicky 2 LP (not even mentioning LP of AHD) and most people play rather CK2 anyway, might as well post it here.
There are only about 30 screenshots, so it won't be long, but I'll try to remember and comment stuff that happened in the meantime, hopefully providing some insight for everyone who wants to see/play/learn etc about the expansion.
Let's get this started:
Right from the start, I start researching romanticism as anyone who wants to become great power as soon as possible.
Taxes are set to 100% for poor, middle/rich is low because there aren't enough pops to provide any significant amount of money. Education and Aministration is set to max, so are tarrifs. Military spending is set close to 0% because I don't really need to pay any soldiers yet. Note that except national stockpile, tarrifs and military spending the budget will be pretty much the same the whole AAR.
Because in AHD you have to justify war and unlike in vanilla, you can't attack anyone without cb, i hold elections (Krakow starts as democracy) and make people vote reactionary party with jingoism, which speed up the cb acquisition speed (current party is pro-military). Justifying acquire state cb takes about 300-400 days.
Last thing is to encourage clergymen to get more research points. I should also say that Krakowian starting techs are especially shitty.
With somewhat stable economy, I use my limited diplomatic points to ally Austria and start fabricating acquire state CB against switzerland.
If you asked how do i plan to attack Switzerland without any army, Krakow starts in Austria's sphere of influence. That's not only the reason I can ally with them, but they are also willing to join me in war against some irrelevant nation, like Switzerland.
Of course, there's a reason why I 'attack' Swiss instead of any other country. This mostly comes down to starting spheres of influence and while there are many countries in Europe, most of them are protected by some great power (or 'friendly', which means GP can intervene in the war). Other option would be Two sicilies, who are too strong for very quick land grab and montenegro, which is one province like Krakow (and it would need conquest CB that costs twice the infamy of acquire state). East Switzerland also has 70% literacy, raising the current avarage.
Now, few important things to note with the new CB system is that you can't justify war against nation that has truce with you, relations must be under 50 and you can make only one CB at a time. While first two conditions don't bother me (yet), the last one makes it a bit tricky for Krakow, because in 1-2 years after the start of the game, Russia removes Krakow from Austria SoI, which means they will no longer protect me, or help me to get another state the same way like they will do with Switzerland.
Here you can see Austrian army after the peace giving me East Switzerland. The main reason of having this state is that Krakow can now become great power (you need at least two states). As you can see, except having a bit higher literacy, I still have shitty income and no army. Factory is bankrupt and it will stay that way for some time.
Few years later, thanks to romanticism and idealism discoveries Krakow is now great power. The goal now is to sphere Two Sicilies, because nobody tries to influence them yet and they have rather strong army, especially compared to the rest of Italian states. Before Krakow gets some competent army, Two Sicilies' forces will be a tool for expansion.
Apart from that, I influence Papal States and Tuscany. With some effort it's possible to remove them from Austrian and French spheres, which is important since I want to annex them later. After removing them, I also decrease opinion on respective GPs, preventing them from honoring the alliances they made once I attack.
Obviously, once it's clear that Austria won't be bothered protecting Tuscany, I start justifying conquest CB.
As you can see, after 7 years everything is ready and war is declared on Tuscany. As planned, Two Sicilies do the job, with help from Sardinia-Piedmont that offered me alliance when I started influencing them as well. Italian provinces finally grant some manpower and money for a small army.
Same method is used to get one state from Papal States. Thanks to the new CB acquisition, while you cannot attack whenever you want, in the long run you'll end up with lower infamy for CBs, making conquest CB against smaller nations somewhat affordable. This means I'll also end up annexing two provinces of Modena to connect south and north Italy. The rebels you can see in Lucca are Garibaldi's Redshirts. If they had managed to hold Lucca for 1 years, Italy would have been created from remaining Italian states, which is something I don't want thus I make sure they don't capture it.
Yet again, I remove S-P from French sphere and attack them to get the two-province state Annecy. In the meantime, Prussia together with Austria offer me alliance for some reason. This is something that greatly helped me in achieving the goal of this playthrough as you'll see later. Back to S-P, having Austria in war was great because they demanded Nice which, even if single province, still counts as state. With Two Sicilies demanding Sardinia, this will leave S-P as a single state nation, ready for annexation in 5 years when truce ends.
This is S-P after the war. While my states are still splintered all over the place, my possible army size gets bigger and bigger. Too bad I can hardly afford it and my military techs are still as bad as they were in the beginning of the game. As far as research goes, most culture techs are mandatory in this case, while rest of the time I get techs for influence speed and anything that increases income.
As you can see on previous screen, I start influencing China. Now, in AHD China is divided in sub-states that can't be allied, which means sphering Chinese Empire isn't as huge now. Still, even with their lower numbers they still make a decent ally, especially early in the game when tech levels aren't that great.
Now, you may be reading this and wondering if I'm playing Krakow and trying to form Italy...
Well, fortunately with Prussia and Austria offering me alliances this isn't the case. With free liberate CBs that are available against everyone with Polish cores once Krakow becomes GP, they actually agreed to join me in the war (or rather join my 2 irregulars). While fighting with UK isn't great, they mostly just blockade everyone and occasionally land with few units, Netherlands and Spain don't have large armies to begin with, and you can see how much land is captured before Russians even arrive. I should also mention something that I didn't screen, which is China capturing quite a lot from Russians in the Asia.
Two years of fighting later, whoever is war leader signs a peace, ceding Krakow not only first piece of Polish nation, but also very potent state. Also, during the war I annexed the rest of Papal States, making S-P last remaining point of interest in Italy.
And soon after first step in forming Poland, S-P is annexed as well. Able to build and maintain decent army, I start to finally research some military techs, preparing for another war with Russia.
Second war with Russia, this time also with help from sphered Ottomans starts slowly, because Russia has help from France. Wish I had more screens of this, but by winning battles, war score eventually favors Krakow. Thankfully, being war leader this time I can white peace all nations except Russia and happily add all war goals I can afford.
Since states didn't cost much warscore with all provinces captured, I was able to add every single liberate CB I had, giving me all Russian lands needed for Poland.
Suddenly, Krakow is much more scarier than before. I think this shows really well that CBs and cores need some more work... Being able to take whole state for free just because I had CB on one province there seems a bit wrong. Anyway, the Russian part of Poland now belongs to Krakow.
NGF eventually breaks alliance with me, giving me opportunity to attack them. I only manage to take one province from them because at the same time, Russia attacks to get her provinces back, and Austria signs peace with NGF, so I grab one state while I still have war score. Defending against Russia isn't that hard, however, war exhaustion is slowly rising and I don't have enough money nor manpower to fully support army.
Having trouble maintaining army, reinforcing it and dealing with rebels, NGF attacks back. Fortunately because they started the war, I don't have to deal with their allies so after dealing with their mobilized forces, I can finally push them back and start capturing their provinces. Forested Lodz gets honorable mention for being the bloodiest place during the war. Every time someone tried to attack there (whether it was me or NGF), he suffered horrible losses, usually atleast around 10:1 ratio.
Once I started winning the war with NGF, Russia used the opportunity and attacked again.
Like the last time, defending against Russia isn't big deal. This time they don't even have a lot of forces around (probably didn't mobilize). Having Ottomans and now Sweden as allies means UK and Russia send some forces there, just to sign white peace with them later.
After signing white peace with UK/Russia alliance again, I take my time to capture most of the NGF. Unfortunately I was still missing around 6 war score for Schlesien, meaning one more war with NGf was needed to get all Polish cores. Special thanks to Pommern for providing another example of retarded core system.
At this point Krakow is now larger than Austria, which is quite something when you compare it with the first screen. All thanks to free cores and 'bonus' Russian and NGF provinces. Needless to say, previous wars 'fixed' my economy, not only by giving me more poor people to tax, but also reducing my army size. That said, my war exhaustion is now around 50%, resulting in extremely high militancy and frequent uprisings.
That means I wait around 10 years in peace, dealing with rebels and building new army...
In the meantime NGF made alliance with USA, which didn't really help them and I took Schlesien without a problem. When NGF was unable to deal with rebels, few German minors got independent and NGF ended up with proletarian dictatorship. Only Polish cores left are in Austria, that declared war on me just when I wanted to attack them.
Obviously, dealing with mobilized peasants wasn't a problem.
And as always during war, butthurt Russia declared war together with UK and France.
Good for me, UK was just happily blockading and France apparently had all forces in Africa and didn't even mobilize. Mobilized Russia was pain in the ass though because even when winning every battle, I didn't have enough troops to fight all of them.
Nevertheless, when I dealt with most of Austrian forces and eventually even Russian reinforcements stopped coming, I was able to humiliate France (prestige from war goals now scales) and focus just on Austria again.
Getting enough war score to get 2 more uncored states, I had everything to form Poland and even more, finishing my goal. I haven't played further yet since as you can imagine, at this point it's your regular superpower, so let me just end this with two screenshots.
There are only about 30 screenshots, so it won't be long, but I'll try to remember and comment stuff that happened in the meantime, hopefully providing some insight for everyone who wants to see/play/learn etc about the expansion.
Let's get this started:
Right from the start, I start researching romanticism as anyone who wants to become great power as soon as possible.
Taxes are set to 100% for poor, middle/rich is low because there aren't enough pops to provide any significant amount of money. Education and Aministration is set to max, so are tarrifs. Military spending is set close to 0% because I don't really need to pay any soldiers yet. Note that except national stockpile, tarrifs and military spending the budget will be pretty much the same the whole AAR.
Because in AHD you have to justify war and unlike in vanilla, you can't attack anyone without cb, i hold elections (Krakow starts as democracy) and make people vote reactionary party with jingoism, which speed up the cb acquisition speed (current party is pro-military). Justifying acquire state cb takes about 300-400 days.
Last thing is to encourage clergymen to get more research points. I should also say that Krakowian starting techs are especially shitty.
With somewhat stable economy, I use my limited diplomatic points to ally Austria and start fabricating acquire state CB against switzerland.
If you asked how do i plan to attack Switzerland without any army, Krakow starts in Austria's sphere of influence. That's not only the reason I can ally with them, but they are also willing to join me in war against some irrelevant nation, like Switzerland.
Of course, there's a reason why I 'attack' Swiss instead of any other country. This mostly comes down to starting spheres of influence and while there are many countries in Europe, most of them are protected by some great power (or 'friendly', which means GP can intervene in the war). Other option would be Two sicilies, who are too strong for very quick land grab and montenegro, which is one province like Krakow (and it would need conquest CB that costs twice the infamy of acquire state). East Switzerland also has 70% literacy, raising the current avarage.
Now, few important things to note with the new CB system is that you can't justify war against nation that has truce with you, relations must be under 50 and you can make only one CB at a time. While first two conditions don't bother me (yet), the last one makes it a bit tricky for Krakow, because in 1-2 years after the start of the game, Russia removes Krakow from Austria SoI, which means they will no longer protect me, or help me to get another state the same way like they will do with Switzerland.
Here you can see Austrian army after the peace giving me East Switzerland. The main reason of having this state is that Krakow can now become great power (you need at least two states). As you can see, except having a bit higher literacy, I still have shitty income and no army. Factory is bankrupt and it will stay that way for some time.
Few years later, thanks to romanticism and idealism discoveries Krakow is now great power. The goal now is to sphere Two Sicilies, because nobody tries to influence them yet and they have rather strong army, especially compared to the rest of Italian states. Before Krakow gets some competent army, Two Sicilies' forces will be a tool for expansion.
Apart from that, I influence Papal States and Tuscany. With some effort it's possible to remove them from Austrian and French spheres, which is important since I want to annex them later. After removing them, I also decrease opinion on respective GPs, preventing them from honoring the alliances they made once I attack.
Obviously, once it's clear that Austria won't be bothered protecting Tuscany, I start justifying conquest CB.
As you can see, after 7 years everything is ready and war is declared on Tuscany. As planned, Two Sicilies do the job, with help from Sardinia-Piedmont that offered me alliance when I started influencing them as well. Italian provinces finally grant some manpower and money for a small army.
Same method is used to get one state from Papal States. Thanks to the new CB acquisition, while you cannot attack whenever you want, in the long run you'll end up with lower infamy for CBs, making conquest CB against smaller nations somewhat affordable. This means I'll also end up annexing two provinces of Modena to connect south and north Italy. The rebels you can see in Lucca are Garibaldi's Redshirts. If they had managed to hold Lucca for 1 years, Italy would have been created from remaining Italian states, which is something I don't want thus I make sure they don't capture it.
Yet again, I remove S-P from French sphere and attack them to get the two-province state Annecy. In the meantime, Prussia together with Austria offer me alliance for some reason. This is something that greatly helped me in achieving the goal of this playthrough as you'll see later. Back to S-P, having Austria in war was great because they demanded Nice which, even if single province, still counts as state. With Two Sicilies demanding Sardinia, this will leave S-P as a single state nation, ready for annexation in 5 years when truce ends.
This is S-P after the war. While my states are still splintered all over the place, my possible army size gets bigger and bigger. Too bad I can hardly afford it and my military techs are still as bad as they were in the beginning of the game. As far as research goes, most culture techs are mandatory in this case, while rest of the time I get techs for influence speed and anything that increases income.
As you can see on previous screen, I start influencing China. Now, in AHD China is divided in sub-states that can't be allied, which means sphering Chinese Empire isn't as huge now. Still, even with their lower numbers they still make a decent ally, especially early in the game when tech levels aren't that great.
Now, you may be reading this and wondering if I'm playing Krakow and trying to form Italy...
Well, fortunately with Prussia and Austria offering me alliances this isn't the case. With free liberate CBs that are available against everyone with Polish cores once Krakow becomes GP, they actually agreed to join me in the war (or rather join my 2 irregulars). While fighting with UK isn't great, they mostly just blockade everyone and occasionally land with few units, Netherlands and Spain don't have large armies to begin with, and you can see how much land is captured before Russians even arrive. I should also mention something that I didn't screen, which is China capturing quite a lot from Russians in the Asia.
Two years of fighting later, whoever is war leader signs a peace, ceding Krakow not only first piece of Polish nation, but also very potent state. Also, during the war I annexed the rest of Papal States, making S-P last remaining point of interest in Italy.
And soon after first step in forming Poland, S-P is annexed as well. Able to build and maintain decent army, I start to finally research some military techs, preparing for another war with Russia.
Second war with Russia, this time also with help from sphered Ottomans starts slowly, because Russia has help from France. Wish I had more screens of this, but by winning battles, war score eventually favors Krakow. Thankfully, being war leader this time I can white peace all nations except Russia and happily add all war goals I can afford.
Since states didn't cost much warscore with all provinces captured, I was able to add every single liberate CB I had, giving me all Russian lands needed for Poland.
Suddenly, Krakow is much more scarier than before. I think this shows really well that CBs and cores need some more work... Being able to take whole state for free just because I had CB on one province there seems a bit wrong. Anyway, the Russian part of Poland now belongs to Krakow.
NGF eventually breaks alliance with me, giving me opportunity to attack them. I only manage to take one province from them because at the same time, Russia attacks to get her provinces back, and Austria signs peace with NGF, so I grab one state while I still have war score. Defending against Russia isn't that hard, however, war exhaustion is slowly rising and I don't have enough money nor manpower to fully support army.
Having trouble maintaining army, reinforcing it and dealing with rebels, NGF attacks back. Fortunately because they started the war, I don't have to deal with their allies so after dealing with their mobilized forces, I can finally push them back and start capturing their provinces. Forested Lodz gets honorable mention for being the bloodiest place during the war. Every time someone tried to attack there (whether it was me or NGF), he suffered horrible losses, usually atleast around 10:1 ratio.
Once I started winning the war with NGF, Russia used the opportunity and attacked again.
Like the last time, defending against Russia isn't big deal. This time they don't even have a lot of forces around (probably didn't mobilize). Having Ottomans and now Sweden as allies means UK and Russia send some forces there, just to sign white peace with them later.
After signing white peace with UK/Russia alliance again, I take my time to capture most of the NGF. Unfortunately I was still missing around 6 war score for Schlesien, meaning one more war with NGf was needed to get all Polish cores. Special thanks to Pommern for providing another example of retarded core system.
At this point Krakow is now larger than Austria, which is quite something when you compare it with the first screen. All thanks to free cores and 'bonus' Russian and NGF provinces. Needless to say, previous wars 'fixed' my economy, not only by giving me more poor people to tax, but also reducing my army size. That said, my war exhaustion is now around 50%, resulting in extremely high militancy and frequent uprisings.
That means I wait around 10 years in peace, dealing with rebels and building new army...
In the meantime NGF made alliance with USA, which didn't really help them and I took Schlesien without a problem. When NGF was unable to deal with rebels, few German minors got independent and NGF ended up with proletarian dictatorship. Only Polish cores left are in Austria, that declared war on me just when I wanted to attack them.
Obviously, dealing with mobilized peasants wasn't a problem.
And as always during war, butthurt Russia declared war together with UK and France.
Good for me, UK was just happily blockading and France apparently had all forces in Africa and didn't even mobilize. Mobilized Russia was pain in the ass though because even when winning every battle, I didn't have enough troops to fight all of them.
Nevertheless, when I dealt with most of Austrian forces and eventually even Russian reinforcements stopped coming, I was able to humiliate France (prestige from war goals now scales) and focus just on Austria again.
Getting enough war score to get 2 more uncored states, I had everything to form Poland and even more, finishing my goal. I haven't played further yet since as you can imagine, at this point it's your regular superpower, so let me just end this with two screenshots.