u/SlightWerewolf4428

Just started, 400 hours in, to get to grips with outposts, outpost links and what they can do.

Now looking for mods that are sort of vanilla +: that add habs (anything with furnished outpost habs?) and other QoL functionalities that do not completely unbalance the game?

"On the idle hill of summer,

Sleepy with the flow of streams,

Far I hear the steady drummer

Drumming like a noise in dreams."

-Alfred Edward Housman, A Shropshire Lad (1896)

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End of last month, on the 28th July, 112 years passed since the Great War began with Austria-Hungary's fateful declaration of war against Serbia.

It's an age and world we might be completely detached from, were we to get a glimpse of it today.

A caricatural view often imagined would be that of a pre-modern Europe stuck in outdated ideas blindly following monarchs and their incompetent generals to their doom.

My own great-grandmother, who I am fortunate to have known for a short time as a child, was born in 1899 and would probably have been as surprised as others by this portrayal I imagine.

Those historically informed among us, and I dare say, those that are playing Victoria 3, know a good deal better.

The 19th century was a time of great change. Yes, it brought the birth of modern nationalism in many places, the conception and solidification of the idea of nation state... but it was also the age when these ideas were challenged, where the position of the individual vs established ideas were challenged. The age of Marx, the beginning of Social Democracy, the spread of Republican ideas.. the spawn of modern consumption based societies. of modern media, music, film... and post-modernism. The machine gun was invented alongside the first aeroplane, zeppelin and silent movie.

Romanticism, Decadence, Naturalism, Expressionism and Realism.

By all accounts, this would have been the zenith of this new age. An age promising unprecedented prosperity and exchange of culture in this new globalised world, where all the hopes and possibilities of modern new world would have been apparent. No less so to those spending their holiday on the beaches of northern and southern Europe that fateful summer 111 years ago. Some of those people were perhaps experiencing international travel for the first time in their lives, and may have been the first in their family to do so.

In a remarkably short time, for inexplicable reasons to millions of perhaps politically ambivalent and disconnected people, this age came to an end.

After war had previously become a small scale affair in Europe over the past 100 years, ALL of the advances made over that period were converted, reconsecrated and rededicated towards a new warfare, an industrialized, mass-media driven abomination.

The product of this was the indescribable monster we now call "modern war", leading millions, an entire generation of youth, to their deaths. The international trade routes cut or occupied by endless convoys of supplies to the front. The promises of riches and higher standards of living giving way to shortages, rationing or worse, starvation in large parts of Europe. The end of the Victorian era was followed by the beginning of a dark new one.

This is why WW1 is needed.

When I played Victoria 2 (+HPM), I was struck by the pivotal moments that I could point to during my playthrough, how my country had changed from what I inherited, the scars it bore... The Great War is a scar that most of the world bore in one way or the other, and after which it was no longer the same. Whether one won or lost, it should be clear that something massive has happened.

I want to play a country that is forced, except in very limited circumstances, to choose a side in this inevitable conflict and have its society, economy, and territory transformed by it.

-The old Empires should collapse or be brought to the edge of collapse. There is no white peace possible, only the total defeat of one side or the other, and the disintegration of that bloc or Empire. It should last years by design with the full long haul nature of trench warfare and precious breakthroughs being phenomena to keep track of.

-The trade rework has been fantastic and has revitalised the game. A great war now, whenever it comes, should threaten to destroy or strongly disrupt the international market and all of the carefully built trading entreprises you have built at the zenith of the game.

-Societies should change as war becomes the fascination then obsession of the hour.

-The old world and order we built since 1836 should be smashed into pieces.

Give us the chance to experience the glory of Von Falkenhayn, Von Moltke, Hindenburg, Ludendorff, von Spee and von Mackensen.... of Joffre, Petain and Foch... of Brusilov, French and Haig.

To reach the tragedy and sacrifice of the Somme, Verdun and Galipoli, of Ypres, Mons, Passchendaele and Tannenberg.

The Schlieffen Plan, the Enfield rifle, Big Bertha, the whistle, the Mark 1, the gas mask, the struggle for shell production,

Paradox, please give us this eventually. Love the progress made this year. Looking forward to the rest of the great DLC planned for release this year. But to me at least, no game of Victoria is complete until this massive late game event is included.

Though we were so close with the 'Great WA--' Wave DLC. let's get there soon.

It is the reason to play the game until the later years, that shadow lying on the horizon. That potential event that you are building up your industry and manpower for. Why national defense is important: to defend your nation and perhaps impose your influence on the world in the greatest clashing of arms the world has ever seen.

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und leise tönen im Rohr die dunkeln Flöten des Herbstes.

O stolzere Trauer! ihr ehernen Altäre

die heiße Flamme des Geistes nährt heute ein gewaltiger Schmerz,

die ungebornen Enkel.

-Georg Trakl, Grodek (1914)

I get that it's increasing stability. But at what point should one consider adding it?

What kind of things does it solve?

Only done the introductory mission and 2 of the bounties, but honestly, this is some excellent content.

On NG+, could be going after the Terran Armada, Shattered Space or Watchtower, (or the Main Story again to finally meet Andrea properly) but instead I took a chance and got Tracker's Alliance, as part of needing to raise funds, and deciding to be a bounty hunter in this playthrough.

And boy is the content pretty polished here. It's as if Bethesda took out their best writers and level designers for these missions, and even at level 84 now, I'm still occasionally challenged. Then I get to feel hard when I complete them. A fair numbers of 'hell yeah' exclamations during the thick of some of those firefights.

Aside from the bounties, whose content players really should explore for themselves and what look like handcrafter levels:

-mission board to go after generic bounties that brought me to a fair number of interesting places I didn't know were in the game. I did several of them to flesh out of my career outside of the main missions.

Part of those is taking bounties ALIVE (how do people best do this? I'm just using my Novablaster EM weapon. I also have Useful Brigs and non-lethal framework which lets you also actually take them with you)

-Tracker's HQ has a cool feel to it, with some interesting fellow hunters you can speak to.

-A use for Astra.

All in all a lot of fun. Based on what I've seen so far, I wouldn't mind more excellent content like this being made.

Get the people who made this, and give them a raise and a budget.

Before I head on to the next one (last one was the criminal couple), I'll probably try another 3 generic missions...

EDIT: Unfortunately, some lines by one of the characters then put a damper on it. This game or at least the writers seriously can't help themselves.