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Let's Play Victoria II as the Sultan of Sultans!
Posts
1) Who should govern us?
2) Who to try to sphere next?
Greece is fine.
3) What should we learn?
... Whichever ups the tech rate the most the soonest.
4) How should we handle the debt crisis (sort of)?
A) Do nothing but pay back our creditors until we're out of debt; IIRC, Paradox games like to have all kinds of bad things happen to you when you're running a deficit.
5) Other suggestions.
Opportunistically build railroads when they become available, focusing on main N/S and E/W arteries, rather than trying to achieve 100% coverage.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
5) Industrialization!
So here's the military screen. On it you can see we have two fleets, one a Red Sea fleet of three transports to finish the conquest of Yemen, the other a Mediterranean Sea fleet which has some firepower to it. Additionally, we have a bunch of armies, most of which are somewhat beat up/reorganizing following the war with Egypt. At the bottom you can see the "Mobilize" button. It's sort of an in case of emergency break glass thing. The AI uses it all willy nilly, wrecking their economies. I do not. We had to against Egypt until the Austrians jumped in, but generally I do not like to do it. If you enact the draft reforms, you can lessen its impact.
Let's talk about what stuff means!
Here's one of the places we can build military units. It's the build army button from the previous screen. You can also build troops directly in provinces, but I prefer to do it from here. Across the top we have all the various types of units in the game. They are (from left to right):
Irregulars: Crappy, crappy units from uncivilized countries. Never build these unless you have to because you're uncivilized. We started with some, they have been disbanded.
Regulars: Your basic infantry. Going to be the bulk of your forces. Unless your ruling party is full citizenship, can only be made out of accepted culture pops (Turks in our case).
A name I'm forgetting that's like Horse-drawn or something artillery: artillery that are weaker, faster, and can be made out of non-accepted culture pops. Decentish.
Artillery: Are cannons. Can fire from the back row (more on this momentarily). Powerful, but very, very slow.
Engineers (We're too dumb to build them at the moment; I never do so don't remember what opens them up): Never found a use for them. Supposedly improve attacks on forts, but not occupation of forts. Meh.
Guards (available with Machine Gun + an invention): The best. Elite infantry that are faster, stronger, more organized, and occupy territory faster. Expensive, but totally worth it. Make as many as you can once their available.
Dragoons: Medium cavalry. Decent at everything.
Curaissiers: Heavy cavalry. Strong at fighting, less good at occupying stuff.
Hussars: Light cavalry. Weak at fighting, great at occupying things. Can be made from non-accepted pops.
Tanks (available with Infiltration): Slightly mobile artillery, basically. Need infantry support to be effective, as these are WW1 tanks, not the panzers and what not of WW2.
Aeroplanes (available with Aeronautics): The best at occupying things, relative fragile.
Cavalry: crap ass uncivilized cavalry, can be made from non-accepted pops
Infantry: better than irregulars, but not nearly as good as a regular. Can be made from non-accepted pops
And then we can also see a bunch of numbers for regulars, they represent...
Reconaissance: How quickly they take occupy provinces.
Attack: attack value
Defense: defense value
Discipline: more discipline means they'll stay in a fight longer, despite casualties
Maneuver: range on the battlefield
Speed: how fast they move on the world map
Supply consumption: upkeep, basically
And then special terrain advantages/disadvantages.
Then we see the size of the POP that we're making these guys from. If the POP runs out of citizens then we can't reinforce our brigade and that's sad times. And the upkeep at current market prices. Each regular costs us 4 pounds daily.
Combat
Basically when units engage, there are two rows facing each other, like so:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Artillery fires from the back row, otherwise they're just there to reinforce. As technology improves the rows get smaller, and terrain also changes the number of rows available (numbers are less helpful in mountains, for example). A unit attacks the unit across from it, unless there is no such unit. Then they check if there is a unit within their maneuver value and attack that. Each side makes a roll, subtracts any modifiers (from crossing a river, chemical weapons, if the defender is dug-in) adjusts its attack/defense values accordingly, and casualties are inflicted. These then change the organization of the army. When the organization hits 0, that brigade flees. When all brigades have run away, their army loses. The player can also choose to run away.
Mostly it's just a mathematical model. Generally speaking, you don't need to understand it to win. Follow these simple rules:
1) Better tech > worse tech
2) More dudes > less dudes
3) Cavalry aren't great except as a force that runs around occupying territory after the army is eliminated
My method is basically 1 to 1 infantry/artillery with maybe a couple cavalry for flanking purposes. It's a slow army, but it's deadly. You can add cavalry to catch things and make them fight so they can't run while your slow moving ball of death finally catches up. Additionally, the farther you get in the game, the higher the dig in bonuses get, so if you can bait the opponent into attacking dug in infantry, you get a huge advantage. Especially because the way Paradox games work, defensive bonuses apply to reinforces, so you can keep like 9k infantry sitting on the border with a 60k death stack right behind them, have the idiotic French attack the 9k and then end up with 69k with a massive digging in bonus. Kind of an exploit, but one we will hopefully be taking advantage of against the endless Russian hordes.
Navies, by comparison, are simple. The ships, for reference:
Clipper convoys: transport sailing ships, are squishy
Frigates: anyone can build them, they're somewhat quick and decent for blockades if you've eliminated the enemy navy
Man O'War (requires one ship building tech): Sailing heavy ship. Helps your military score, is OK until iron plating comes in
Steamer transport (requires Steamers): a steam powered transport, less squishy but pretty squishy
Commerce raider (requires Steamers): a fast, light, steam powered ship. Better than frigates in every way, but cannot stand up to...
Ironclads: Heavy ship available with Iron Steamers: Super useful, upgrades with better technology to really, really useful. Large contributor to military score.
Monitors: The ironclad's retarded cousin. Yuck.
Cruiser: Light ship that will make up the majority of your late game navy, unless it's just a show piece navy
Submarines: hunt down stray transports
Dreadnoughts: massive stats, massive upkeep, insane military score. I think one of them at this point in the game would be considered the world's like fourth best military. And three would make you a Great Power. Mostly useful for propping up said military score, as cruisers are more useful for the price, but do not affect your score in anything like the same way.
The stats:
Speed is speed
Attack is attack
Hull is HP
Naval combat has all the ships line up and fire at each other. When a ship's organization hits 0 it goes to the end of the line. First navy to run out of organization runs away. When a ship's HP hits 0 it sinks. Simple.
Navies can blockade ports, which adds quite a lot of war exhaustion and war score. Just sit off the coast of a province to blockade it.
As I said, simple. Supposedly this will be getting revamped totally with the new expansion, Heart of Darkness.
Leaders
Last, let's talk about generals and admirals. Each has a background and a personality. Pertev here is a paranoid guy with a focus on artillery. Those things give him some bonuses (or negatives, as we'll see in a minute). Additionally, he's been with his unit long enough and won enough battles that he has some personal prestige. If he changes units, this will be reset to zero. Higher prestige increases the bonuses.
As a contrast, here's this guy. He's awful.
Generally, no leader is still worse than a terrible leader, but yikes. That's really bad. I tend to just let the AI auto-create and assign leaders, which is fine unless you want really specialized troops. There's enough micromanaging in this game.
But, I won't be surprised if Paradox has followed EU and CK and made units differ with culture. I certainly don't remember having two types of arty available. Or maybe it's because I have A House Divided?
The whole thing could be emulated with about a fifth of the moving parts, supported with some toggles and buttons (say, 3 or 4 in total) to let players interact with the thing by making interesting decisions. For instance, you could specify Tight vs Loose formations to allow more troops to attack each day at the cost of suffering more casualties from certain kinds of attacks (like artillery fire) and then eliminate the entire "row" concept.
Just carping a bit, don't mind me
On with the show!
EDIT: Not for nothing, but French/German wars in the 20th century are brutal. Got stuck in a fight that literally didn't end the entire length of the war, I sent in like 350k, 180k or so came out alive at the end of the war. The French, I have no idea, but I think I killed about a half million of them in that one battle, and probably 2 or so overall. Took Franche-Comte finally. And Nigeria wooo. Eventual goal is to take all of their African territory but they managed to make them states, so it's a tad expensive.
I agree with this. It reminds me of World War II Online, which bragged about modeling projectiles and shrapnel and shit inside tanks. The thing is, none of this was ever visible to the player, and so it was just a more complex "shoot the weak spot for massive damage!" only sometimes it wouldn't work and the player wouldn't get any feedback as to why. A lot of wasted effort for something that does not actually impact the end player experience any more than a random number generator would.
I suppose there is a set of players that take joy in believing that there is some sort of "meaning" behind the actions that occur, and simulations essentially are pandering to this audience, rather than one that just wants, you know, a videogame.
As requested, we hold a Lavish Exhibition, getting us a bunch of prestige and keeping us among the Great Powers, though our spot is being threatened by Belgium and Sardinia-Piedmont by the end of the update. We'll either have to drastically expand the military, which we can't afford, research some prestige techs, which we also cannot afford, or fall back to Secondary Power status until we can get some literacy all up ins.
As we try to assimilate Bosnia into our empire, we decide to be dicks. But whatever, do it faster! We need more useful pops, more soldiers, more factory workers, and just generally more Turks. Stupid Bosniaks. Also, cores are good.
I probably won't include these events anymore. Your theoretical emperor/king/President/Sultan/whatever doesn't really matter much in Victoria, unlike in EU or (especially) CK. But a new Sultan is born. Love live the Sultan!
Our population growth stabilizes. Fewer people, but more education, which we badly need for more factory workers. I'll definitely take it.
We get a new first minister, which I believe is an APD thing, but I don't tend to play with monarchies, so it might not be. Someone without it clarify? Anyway, he's going to lower our consciousness, which we don't want, if our goal is to reform into a half decent form of government.
So he's sacked. This causes a slight hit to a few useful things, but we need that consciousness!
We finally discover Experimental Railroad. We need the invention to fire before we can build the damn things though. Grumble.
Work is started on the last of the basic commerce techs. This will get us some prestige with the inventions and some new kinds of factories, not that we need them quite yet. It will also make our current factories slightly more efficient.
With the invention of railroads and a monarch, we can send them out on a tour of the country, gaining us some prestige and lowering poor pop's militancy. It does give us a chance to have our ruler assassinated, which is bad for prestige, though. I take the risk, we need to hold off those Belgians!
In May of 1846 we pay off our debts. Huzzah! The Ottoman Empire is debt free again. Oddly, and this has been persistent throughout, we always get ~250 pounds less than projected. It's annoying me. I have no idea why. Anyone have a good idea? This does not happen in any of my other games. Maybe something about our religious diversity or the number of non-cores we have?
Anyway, we knock out the tariff and slightly increase stockpile spending to try to spur some growth. Our literacy is still too low to do much about it though.
Our new First Minister arrives and... ack. That risk did not pay off at all. We'll have to sack him too, but only after a year has passed since the last time we did this.
Then this happens. I increase our military spending to 50%, necessitating a temporary return of the tariff and stockpile cutbacks. We need our troops to be at least vaguely prepared for war though.
The other option loses prestige, which was basically how I was making decisions here. Want to keep Great Power status.
Finally! Real, honest to God railroads!
We start a small line on both sides of the Bosporous. Two things have changed in APD from normal Victoria 2 with regards to railroads:
1) They take 3 years to build (factories, by contrast, build faster than in vanilla)
2) Certain terrain lessens your ability to build railroads. Hills take more technology than plains or grassland, jungle and desert takes considerably more, and mountains quite a lot more. Red represents territories we can't build railroads yet, blue is territories we can build, and blue/gold stripes is territories we're building railroads. Fully gold is fully developed.
I included this because it's the first factory our capitalists have fully funded by themselves. It's a boring cement factory, but cement is the building block of a good economy.
Finally, our third First Minister is a decent one. Probably would have preferred a researchy one, but this guy could be useful.
We finish our previous tech and start on Idealism. It's tier 2, but the research boost is super helpful, and will improve it by 25 actual percent, plus the inventions will give us another ~.7 points. It's the last tech of this update.
Anarcho-liberals begin appearing. They're basically like liberals, but more RON PAUL-y. And don't mind being all dictatorial. Every ideology (except fascism) has a mainstream party and an extreme hardcore party that will overturn your constitution and install a dictatorship if elected. The ALs are the liberals one of those (reactionary is the conservative one).
Austria annexes the last vestiges of an independent Poland. For reference, Krakow is probably the hardest nation in the game to play (Algeria is also pretty fucked), definitely the hardest civilized nation. It's got exactly one province and sits between Austria, Prussia, and Russia. It's somewhat miraculously still alive in my Germany game in 1902, though permanently occupied by AL rebels.
Then Austria faces a semi-major crisis when their Hungarian subjects rebel and form a new nation. The army goes on somewhat higher alert concerned we'll be called into the war, but the Austrians handle it fairly easily, especially when Russia intervenes.
They're somewhat irrelevant, because monarchies can't appoint them, but we get a new Anarcho-Liberal party. It's too bad, because they're actually pretty nice. Or would be if our factories had enough workers to be profitable.
I start investing in the railroads the capitalists are building, remembering that it's about 50% cheaper that way, you just don't get to plan the route. Saving the money is good and improved economy efficiency is improved economic efficiency.
Helping people loses prestige, so screw them. Revolt and let me make some reforms, dammit!
In APD, every decade features a World's Fair. The Great and Secondary Powers can bid to host the thing, losing prestige if they decide not to. We probably won't get it, but it's worth 25k to not lose 5 prestige, frankly.
We don't win the bidding.
If we don't send a delegation we lose prestige, if we boycott, France loses prestige, and our relations with them are hit. Going can win us a good amount of prestige, cost us money and prestige, or ideally get us a bunch of prestige and research (that's rare). We're going, damn the risks. And then we learned Idealism and the update ends, but I'm a bad LPer and my instinct is to just go to the tech screen, at which point the notification goes away.
Anyway, science update! We now have a literacy rate of 12.3%. We started at 10%. But a full 2/3 of those gains were in this 5 year play session. Positivism is great. At this rate, we'll hit the 20% nationally that's needed for real industrialization in...about two decades.
Fortunately, in our main factory states, I've got clergymen promotion going, so it's increasing much faster there. Those states should be hitting industrialization numbers probably in the next ten years or so. We're getting to the point where we can start building our industry and with that comes a larger military and a much larger score, keeping us in Great Power territory. The next decade or so should be the hardest, after which point we can probably start figuring out some long term goals for ourselves.
Decisions!
Forthcoming! But first we'll have a lesson about political and social reform and a state of the world post so I can include stuff about them.
But one preview: we have an Egyptian question. And it's not simple, as our allies are friendly with them.
Answers!
1) Yes on Perry, potentially. It depends on circumstances.
2) Ditto on Boshin War.
3) No on Sino-Japanese War. Generally, the game (and especially the mods) has scripted stuff until approximately the turn of the century. The Boxer Rebellion and the Spanish-American War seem like the last scripted thing. There's a Great War mechanic to represent the alliance system (and Versailles), but not a specific thing that will force a German/Austrian alliance against the UK/France/Russia and later the US, for example. So the Japanese won't necessarily occupy China, but they'll almost always sphere/satellite Korea or just annex them outright, if Korea is not protected by a major power.
As for our intervening in Japan, there are two issues.
1) Our ability to supply ships that far away is problematic, at best. They'd sink, probably. Even the British have issues early in the game if a clever human occupies Singapore.
2) They may have a shit army over in the Shogunate, but there are about 100 brigades on the island. We have 58 and our tech isn't THAT great. Quantity has a quality all its own. Shockingly, a decaying empire doesn't project force all that well until we stabilize it. We can probably start adventures in Southeast Asia in probably the update after this next one. I could maybe get access from the Dutch or English and speed that process up if y'all really want. I'll include it in our options.
We might want to go after Japan at some point anyway though, as if we don't they'll probably outstrip our score. Other issues: when Italy is formed they'll pass us. Belgium and Sweden we should outperform as we finally get going, industrial revolution wise. This should settle us firmly in... 8th or 9th place. Which means we'll have to take out one of the major powers. Austria is the obvious one, but there are other options! We'll discuss them when it becomes feasible.
There's no need. You can just not use him and the "no leader" penalties are even worse. They eventually die off too
"In May of 1846 we pay off our debts. Huzzah! The Ottoman Empire is debt free again. Oddly, and this has been persistent throughout, we always get ~250 pounds less than projected. It's annoying me. I have no idea why. Anyone have a good idea? This does not happen in any of my other games. Maybe something about our religious diversity or the number of non-cores we have?"
I ran into the same problem, and I'm pretty sure it's because the expenses side of the budget doesn't account for the "Overseas maintence" that's in small print by the national stockpile. The budget screen says you're spending 455.5, but the small print says 415.29+403.3= 818.6. So then it was underreporting expenses by 350. I haven;'t fiddled with it, 'cause I abonded that game, but maybe you can move the stockpile slider to 100% to see if it changes the underreport amount?
Yes. I'm repeatedly running into a brick wall trying to get Italy stood up. Everything except Two Sicilies/Sardina starts in a sphere, and if I (Two Sicilies) try and get some land from Sardina, France intervenes, even tho I have +200 realtions with France and they're busy fighting Russia and Prussia! And good luck stripping a country from another sphere. The best I've got so far is have Two Sicilies take lots of N Africa (I even built the Suez Canal! But didn't get any use fees out of it
ebum, you look to have played much more than me.. Are either of the canals worth $$$, or just prestige?
Also, it's totally possible to become a Great Power from secondary power status, it's just harder. Especially in Europe. Brazil's not THAT hard to do it with, and they start around 20th. Most of the South American countries could, and if you're clever about it, Mexico. I made Texas #1 in Ricky, but haven't tried in Vicky 2 yet. That might be my next single player game. Japan is definitely doable, if you're patient enough to work through the very, very boring uncivilized bit.
Literacy is actually the controlling factor, mostly. And even the US starts with it pretty low. Brazil's is low but eventually they become a fairly major power if played well. You need a ton of immigrants and a ton of reforms to get those immigrants. Which might only be possible in APD, now that I think about it, there seems to be much more immigration.
But yeah, I'm not sure if I like how much more difficult it is to go from minor european power to WORLD DOMINANCE. I mean historically Italy formed in 1861 (I looked it up). Damn if I can even get one of the minors I need before then. I mean I could probably game the system and start as France, take it all over, then release it, but
In APD, Italy always forms.
Check out some of the post your empire threads on the official forums. Empires are very doable.
The Great Powers. We're still on the list! Just ahead of Sweden. I believe Belgium and Sardinia-Piedmont are around 110, so that's dangerous. Being able to build capital ships (Man O' War) would help the cause, as would actual industrialization, which we're getting to. Slowly.
Europe is pretty much status quo, territory wise. Prussia might have a couple of German OPM annexed, but it's hard to tell, really.
Our neck of the woods. We've made some gains obviously. There are a couple targets available, which will be included in our decision options. Also you can see that Egypt is invading Ethiopia at the moment.
North America. They've taken bits of the Mexican Cession but not the whole thing. We're probably one war away from the Treaty of Guadaloupe-Hidalgo. USCA still holding together.
South America. Paraguay took a chunk out of Bolivia, Colombia took one from Ecuador. Mostly standard though.
Africa is empty, as Africa will be until 1880. A few Spanish colonies along with Dutch and British along the coast. Sizable Portuguese presence in the south, on both coasts. Not pictured: South Africa, which is South Africa.
Australia and the East Indies. Nothing really going on here. Some of those islands are quite valuable though.
East Asia. Also not a lot going on.
The budget. A middle class tax cut would probably help us, but we broke. A rich one also wouldn't hurt to try to spur development, at least of railroads.
Factories. Starting to get enough workers they turn a (small) profit.
Politics. People are getting a little more liberal, but our consciousness remains low, so it doesn't matter THAT much.
Population stats. Clergymen are starting to edge near 2%, at which point education is decent. 4% is ideal for education purposes, 2 for tech purposes, I'm getting a 2% baseline in the important provinces before going to 4%.
Current railroad status. There's also one being made in Jerusalem. Some are finished along the north coast of the Aegean, and plenty more will be over the next year. Full railroads will take a while still though.
Decisions:
1) Ruling Party
A) Conservatives
C) Reactionaries
2) Technology. We have the first tier in army and culture, along with two second tiers in culture techs. Most of commerce's first tier is also done. Navy is just 2/5 and industry 3/5. Improved mining and basic chemistry would both be excellent options. Chemistry increases our growth rates, for example. With better naval technology, we could make some more Man O' Wars to prop up our military score in an attempt to maintain great power status. Or we could learn State and Government to get another national focus and thus more clergymen.
A) Industry!
C) Navy!
D) Culture (State and Government)
E) THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING!
3) WAR, our infamy is zero and our military is no longer exhausted from the Oriental Crisis. The budget situations IS a little hairy though.
A) Peace
C) Oman, for their colony of Zanzibar (east coast of Africa)
D) Egypt, for the Suez. Note that foreign nations can intervene if they have friendly relations with Egypt, which I believe is our two allies, and only them at the moment. But the quest to build the Suez Canal makes the AI go nuts with massive attention towards the Egyptians, so this is limited. If we own the Suez outright, we get to build it ourselves, if we're still a Great Power. It's worth it for the prestige/science/fees/improved flexibility with our fleets. This is the most dangerous but the strongest longterm option, I think.
E) Far East Exploits! Take the gold mines of southern Malaya and Bali.
4) Persia Greece is not yet sphered (they started hostile) but will be soon. Who should we target next? Free response question, consult the maps.
5) The biggie. There is a growing movement pushing for political reforms. Specifically, they want open meetings. They're growing large enough and angry enough that during this next update, I may get to push one through. As we've already voted to go for reform, should we...
A) Give them their open meetings.
If B, which one?
Which means it's time for...
Teach me, ebum: political reform
For the moment, we're only concerned about the right half. We'll get to the left when the people start demanding them (roughly: increased administration costs for nice (or obnoxious) things. Also note that APD adds a bunch of them.
Political reforms happen when either your upper house is 50% liberal or the populace forces you into taking them via movements or revolt risk. Reactionaries never vote for reform. Conservatives will if the threat is serious enough. Liberals will always vote for reform. FUTURE PARTIES will vote in varying ways. EDIT: Oh, right, after a reform, the conservative party gains strength and the movement goes away, preventing further immediate reforms without a different movement.
The reforms do... (all reforms improve immigration, which is vital for New World countries, and somewhat less vital for us; though it does also lower emigration in my experience, which is good).
Political Party reforms: right now they're kept underground except for the ruling party. Basically these make the ruling party less and less capable of rigging the voting. Which is less important at the moment, what with our lack of voting.
Conscription: Less draft = less affect from mobilization and happier people.
Immigration: Fairly self explanatory. More reform = more immigrants. Get these ASAP in the New World.
Trade Unions: increase reform desire, particularly social reform.
Minorities: better minority treatment is good for lots of ways. If we could stop oppressing our Balkan subjects maybe we could teach them to work in factories. Also they could serve in the military.
Vote franchise: grants the franchise to people! Landed = Aristocrats only, Weighted wealth means only the wealthy can vote and it's rigged towards aristocrats. Wealth is the wealthy can vote equally. Weighted universal means everyone gets to vote but the wealthy's vote counts more. Universal is universal (male) suffrage.
Upper House is how the Upper House is apportioned.
Slavery is simple. If we ban it, all of our slaves will become farmers/laborers.
Public meetings. Allowing them increases reform desire.
Press rights. Increases consciousness if they're allowed.
Voting method. First past the post is the stupid American method. Whoever gets the most votes in a given district takes everything. Jefferson is weird. Here's the wiki on it. Proportional means that if you win 30% of the vote you get 30% of the seats, regardless of where those votes came from.
So how do we want to reform?
Other ideas are, as always, welcome.
2) Industry! But also: THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING!
3) Egypt, for the Suez. This channel is so vital.
4) Greece
5) Give them their open meetings.
Questions:
Can't we also outlaw slavery while we're at it? The more labourers the better, right?
When the Suez channel does not exist, does that mean the Silk Road is going right through the Ottoman Empire for massive profits?
Also, see my other edit in the reforms section. When you enact a reform, some of your liberals become conservatives (protecting the new status quo), so you can't reform again until a new upper house or a new movement forces the new conservatives to move.
I guess you take the good with the bad, though. All those rabid liberal capitalists handled my industry without much need for intervention. All I needed to do was shut down the occasional unusually unprofitable factory. I don't usually play factions with so robust an economy.
The catch of the above AAR is that it is completely done by the AI. And it gets crazy. He's around 1640 now, and only 2 historically powerful nations of that era are actually strong. The other strong nations will amaze you.
SO. MUCH. LAND.