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Kavak posted:Click the last researched doctrine, there should be an "Abandon Doctrine" button that highlights. I figured it out - It's because I had Armored Divisions researched. 
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Feb 28, 2016 22:09
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balls (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Mar 10, 2016 16:34
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my post was part of a Free Speech Fight, that's what i like to think of when i went to goon hole
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Mar 13, 2016 04:51
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blood simple posted:my post was part of a Free Speech Fight, that's what i like to think of when i went to goon hole Okay seriously, did you fall through a time portal from when LF was still open or something?
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Mar 13, 2016 04:55
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Kavak posted:Okay seriously, did you fall through a time portal from when LF was still open or something? A small piece of LF exists within the heart of every goon. That piece tends to come out during election years.
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Mar 14, 2016 20:05
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I figure I might as well mention that I work and study full time now and that is why the update pace has become glacial, but rest assured that I don't plan on abandoning this, and even if it takes forever, I will finish this. On the bright side, the longer it takes me, the better shape other games will be in for the inevitable sequel. I do have short breaks in between my courses and so I will have a period of time where I'm not sick of word processors and can crank out some updates.
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Mar 16, 2016 17:17
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Chief Savage Man posted:I figure I might as well mention that I work and study full time now and that is why the update pace has become glacial, but rest assured that I don't plan on abandoning this, and even if it takes forever, I will finish this. On the bright side, the longer it takes me, the better shape other games will be in for the inevitable sequel. I do have short breaks in between my courses and so I will have a period of time where I'm not sick of word processors and can crank out some updates. Planning to take the Syndintern to the stars, comrade? 
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Mar 17, 2016 03:39
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VostokProgram posted:Planning to take the Syndintern to the stars, comrade? Yes, I'm thrilled to announce coming soon*: These Stars Are Your Stars: Let's Play Spore: Galactic Adventures! *not soon
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Mar 17, 2016 04:32
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Chief Savage Man posted:Yes, I'm thrilled to announce coming soon*: These Stars Are Your Stars: Let's Play Spore: Galactic Adventures! The growth of communism starts with a single cell?
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Mar 17, 2016 10:15
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Chief Savage Man posted:Yes, I'm thrilled to announce coming soon*: These Stars Are Your Stars: Let's Play Spore: Galactic Adventures! Stellaris dude. Stellaris
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Mar 17, 2016 11:37
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Chapter Sixteen: The Great Liberation (Africa: February 17 – July 4, 1943) The following are excerpts from the wartime writings of Abraham Johannes Muste, who passed Sunday. Muste, a Methodist clergyman by training, began his career in politics during the First Great War, during which he strove to prevent American entry into the conflict. Following the war, he engaged in a number of labor actions, most notably the 1919 Lawrence Textile Strike and the 1934 Auto-Lite strike in Toledo. Following the revolution, he served in the Chamber of Delegates for twenty years, as the representative for the New England Textiles Syndicate. He was a founding member of the Christian Socialist Group led by Norman Thomas, a key contributor to the Thomasite position during the drafting of the Chicago Consensus and an honorary member of the American chapter of the Pan-African Congress. After retiring from the Chamber in 1958, he served for five years as Ambassador to the Netherlands, where he was born. He was 82.  December 1, 1942 I know that Norman isn’t really supposed to be telling me many of the things he does, but I don’t betray his trust in me by telling anybody else, not even Anna. I also make sure I keep this book locked up at all times. Truth of the matter is that the Wallonian offensive has stalled, and that the optimistic predictions of the Rhine by Christmas are completely impossible.  The French would be better off digging in for the winter than pushing this further. They would simply be overextending themselves I fear.  March 18, 1943 Met with the Bolivian ambassador and Norman today. Norman was straightforward with the ambassador that we frankly don’t have the resources to intervene in a second War of the Pacific should it break out.  The ambassador’s main concern is that the situation in Buenos Aires could lead to an anti-Bolivia alliance with Chile.  To the contrary, it is my opinion, as I told the ambassador, that the refusal of the junta to hold elections would actually paralyze Argentina. I am concerned that the ambassador seems to have had his head filled with stories the militarists in the Chamber that we have unlimited resources available to launch an invasion of the Andean coast. We simply must continue to stave off this conflict. I’m afraid of the consequences, both human and political, if we attempt to enforce socialism in South America by force, especially at this juncture.  March 22, 1943 Having a weekend with Anna in Green Bay was lovely and I’m glad that the news didn’t break until this morning. I needed that rest badly with all that is going on, and George was very helpful in keeping things moving while I was gone. But still I would have had to come home for this. The atmosphere at the office was tense when I got here. The headline of the Proletarian told the story well enough: GITLOW ABANDONING AFRICA? It didn’t take me long to read the first few paragraphs and know what the deal was. Norman told me last week that the French are panicking about the German offensive in the south and wanted American divisions to be transferred from Africa to southern France. We told them we would consider it, Norman says that the idea went nowhere, and that was that. But when the Proletarian got a hold of this information, it had passed through so many filters that our false consideration became an agreement and a transfer became a total abandonment of the African front. And so here we are. My staff is outraged, naturally, but I can’t let on that I know what Norman has told me about the situation. The Central Committee is supposed to meet about this later today and we’ll see how they respond.  March 29, 1943 Norman is asking me to go with the Chairman on a trip to Wilmington. A few years, one of the workers there found some documents somebody at Dupont had hid during the outbreak of the revolution, detailing the creation of a new synthetic fiber called nylon. Now half of northern Delaware is working in those plants, producing nylon for parachutes. And now they’re working on mosquito nets for the troops in Africa. The tactical point is to prevent malaria, but the point of the trip is to show that the African theater has been, is and will continue to be a priority. We’ll see if it calms the backlash.  April 4, 1943 The Chairman asked me my opinion on the speech he’ll make at the plant. I’m surprised he would ask somebody outside the Committee. This experience may have humbled him. Either way, I told him not to bring up the local forces. The concern of last year was that the presence of our forces in Africa amounted to colonialism and thus championing the accomplishments of the new African armies made sense. This year’s concern, ironically, is that we’re going to leave Africa out to dry. Any focus on African armies would probably be interpreted as a sign that the Red Army is withdrawing. How quickly situations change.  This fiasco is having another effect beyond our borders. Based on the bits of intelligence from Norman, I don’t think the neutral powers who have a stake in Africa really believed that we were ever committed to eliminating Mittelafrika. I’m not sure what led them to believe this, but now that we clearly have a domestic motivation to pursue the campaign to the end, they probably don’t anymore. The Internationale does not consider Africa a colonial theater, whatever panic comes out of France, and I think the rest of the world is beginning to realize that. There is already concern that Portugal or South Africa or even Ethiopia could be ‘transferred’ territory, simply to keep it out of our hands. We need to move quickly before the colonizers get together and figure this out.  The South Africans might not even wait. Would they move up towards the Congo? I have to say that I don’t think its outlandish. They’ve had to be pretty clever to survive on their own all this time.  The fact that they haven’t sent the Canadian tanks elsewhere is encouraging. Getting to Dar es Salaam as quickly as possible is important. Cutting the head off of the colonial administration is important.   It would be one thing to justify an attack on South Africa or Portugal but to attack Ethiopia would be, simply, a crime. How do you combat colonialism by fighting with a nation that has thrown colonizers out of Africa? Quite frankly, I’m ready to get back to Chicago, there’s a whole lot to deal with since the Proletarian article came out and none of it can be solved in Wilmington. This nylon trip is tiring, especially when the specter of further conflict in Africa hangs. We must endeavor however we’re able to avoid it.  May 15, 1943 I think the Committee might actually have considered the report that Randolph and I put together. The Canadian armor have not been withdrawn from the theater as we expected.  They were supposed to remain in the area to safeguard against an invasion by the Entente, but with the fall of Kabul, we were certain they would be withdrawn. But they haven’t been, and I have to think that means the Committee is regarding the threat of neutral occupation as a real one.   There also hasn’t been any kind of unnecessary delay in moving to block Portugal and South Africa either. The vultures are actually afraid that we may not be stopping at the borders of Mittelafrika.  June 16, 1943 I knew I told Norman I never would, but I had to let Randolph know. The Committee is loath to make any grand pronouncements without being sure but it’s hard to figure that this isn’t the end of the African front.  I had to manually edit the save to get control of Dar es Salaam back from Egypt. Don’t attack from puppet territory with puppet armies, friends. The capital fell Thursday. Most of the German population fled to Zanzibar, where we suspect they are waiting for an evacuation to New Guinea. Goering was captured but managed to kill himself in his cell somehow. It is a shame that the people won’t get to see justice administered.  But that is just a tiny blemish on what is otherwise a shining triumphal moment. Mittelafrika is gone and even if we lose Europe, we have two continents united under the banner of the Internationale. Randolph is preparing a speech of his own, which shows how important this really is.  The liberation of Africa is a profound moment for black people everywhere. There is still more to be done, of course, but we have ripped the crown jewel of the German Empire out of its grasp for good. Both Randolph and Gitlow have invited me to their speeches, but I think given the circumstances, I will be declining the Chairman’s invitation.  July 4, 1943 I’ve heard the same joke six times today. “It’ll still be Independence Day somewhere, huh?” It was funny the first time. Rustin and Houser are pushing a resolution for an African Liberation Day for today, I think half for the explicit purpose and half to confiscate the Fourth of July for the black peoples of the world as a sort of symbolic restitution. A lot of people still celebrate Independence Day instead of Revolution Day, and some of the observations have a reactionary tone. To have a pan-African celebration on the same day will irritate many people who deserve to be irritated. I will certainly be voting in favor of that resolution and I hope the holiday catches on next year.  The African Section was, for lack of a better phrase, promoted today in Dakar. It is certainly no longer a group of exiles twiddling its thumbs in Paris. Thanks to the actions of the American Red Army and the advocacy of the diaspora, the territory of black Africa is in black hands. It is only a matter of time until the remaining colonies are liberated. The African Section is now the African Union.  I don’t expect this to be the end of controversy about Africa, not by a long shot. Europe and America ought to pay restitution to Africa. I doubt Europe will be overly willing to pay up, and America may only be willing when shamed into it by our black population. Africa has been neglected, brutalized and subjugated for centuries, and they will need industries, infrastructure, schools and teachers, healthcare, everything that they have been denied while Europe and America enjoyed them partially at their expense. This makes Africa ripe for socialism, but what I believe the white left fails to understand is that Afro-socialism will not be a mere copy of western Marxism. It will take on its own character, and as Africa asserts full independence, it might leave a bad taste for my colleagues to give them unconditional aid despite what disagreements are bound to come. But that is what must be done.    I don’t suffer the delusion that we will always do what is right. The leaders of free Africa will, ultimately, be left with the lion’s share of this tremendous task. I have faith that they will succeed and I look forward to playing a small part in forging this partnership of equals. To transform a relationship of exploitation and atrocity into one of friendship and mutual aid would prove that humanity has the potential to live at peace with itself. I pray that today’s optimism carries forth.
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Mar 22, 2016 06:40
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It is sad that we did not get to put Goering before a People's Tribunal of his former subjugated peoples. Zanzibar seems to still be red though. A temporary measure, I assume?
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Mar 22, 2016 06:57
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Fatboy never makes it to trial in any game. Zambia, Malawi, and Namibia will need to be released to somebody- what else of Mittelafrika is undecided?
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Mar 22, 2016 07:00
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GSD posted:It is sad that we did not get to put Goering before a People's Tribunal of his former subjugated peoples. I honestly can't remember if I claimed that on purpose or if it was just left out of the EAU's province list. I have taken some bases for my own use on a few occasions, thus far Newfoundland from Quebec and Gibraltar from Spain but Zanzibar doesn't have a naval base so I don't think I would have decided to keep it. There are all kinds of stray provinces in Africa that don't belong to nations depending on which ones you decide to release and much later in the game I distributed them much like I did Chad to the Tuaregs. At that point, I gave Zanzibar to its rightful owners. If there's one thing I would have changed, I would have left Africa alone and let the African Conference events that we'll see later do the nation building. I'm not sure how exactly that chain is supposed to work but I forgot all about it when I was playing this game and so went ahead and released my own. csm141 fucked around with this message at 07:10 on Mar 22, 2016 |
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Mar 22, 2016 07:04
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Kavak posted:Fatboy never makes it to trial in any game. Since those territories didn't belong to any bigger unit I could release like Benikongo or the EAU (and let's face it, even though it's historical, Congo is a big loving country), I held onto them to see how things would shake out in the long run and if there were other big states I didn't know about. I'm always interested in seeing what releaseable states there are. In the meantime, I imagine those territories are areas of substantial tension as the new borderlands between free Africa and what is left of the colonies. Therefore a measure of American control is necessary in the short term to
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Mar 22, 2016 07:16
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Chief Savage Man posted:If there's one thing I would have changed, I would have left Africa alone and let the African Conference events that we'll see later do the nation building. I'm not sure how exactly that chain is supposed to work but I forgot all about it when I was playing this game and so went ahead and released my own. Kavak posted:Fatboy never makes it to trial in any game.
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Mar 24, 2016 02:36
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The events will still happen, it's just that because nations already exist, some parts won't happen. A lot of cool stuff does happen though. I'll look through the events and see how the nations shake out.
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Mar 24, 2016 02:55
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So after digging into the events and looking at revolters, I think I have an idea on how it could have worked if we had done a few different things. There are events for Africa to get shaken up without direct Syndintern attack in the event that Germany loses in Europe, but because we are such lovely people and did the dirty work ourselves, those events will not be needed when it comes to National France and Mittelafrika (and Liberia). If we were to focus one hundred percent on Europe and leave National France and Mittelafrika to play with themselves, then after German capitulation, there would be events for those areas to have syndicalist revolutions with Internationale backing (and we would have events to offer assistance like we did for Soviet Russia and like the Eurosyndies did for us in our civil war), as the colonial administrations are now more or less hosed without their motherlands (or hopes of ever getting back to their motherlands, in the case of NF). What I said I regret is not letting the events make the nations but it turns out on closer inspection of the files that the events to liberate these states are not for the CSA, but only for Britain and France. The CSA gets events to give African ally states territory back in case Africa turns into a giant clusterfuck of the Internationale all making a bunch of different landings, but not to do the liberation itself. Therefore in the case of Mittelafrika, I would have been sitting on that territory forever even after the African Conference events fired because I'm not Britain or France. If I hadn't been releasing territory during the war with National France, then it seems I would have gotten events to transfer North Africa to Communal French control, which is not an event I'm really upset about missing because it doesn't seem to fit. Considering I launched the operation myself with Britain and France supported by air and sea, transferring to France assumes that Communal France still maintains the position that Algeria is an integral part of France, which I'm not really sure they would. France would then have its own events for what to do with the territory, which have the best chance in ending with Algeria and Tunisia being French puppets. Considering Quebec is already a French puppet liberated by American arms, and the Combined Syndicates desires to assert itself as a global power, I would have told the French to go piss up a rope if I had gotten that event. I didn't get those events though, because I released Algeria and Tunisia while the war with National France was ongoing, and the events require NF to be gone. I did miss a few tags I wish I had known about, because I get irritated when provinces get left out and I have nothing to release for them. If I had done things a bit differently, everything would have ended up being a core of something, but I am reasonably happy with how things ended up in this game. This is the configuration of states that would cover the whole territory and not leave the empty spots in Chad and the Malawi area.  Instead of the Tuaregs and the Union of Mali, the big state there is Sahel, which goes all the way to the Sudanese border. I'm not upset about this specifically because of how the Red Army had to cooperate with the Tuaregs to get across the Sahara alive, but I did have to trade Chad to the Tuaregs which they did not have a core on in order to not have a random American colony right smack in the middle of the Sahara. Sahel does not include OTL interior Algeria so that would have become part of Algeria. Guinea is the same as in my game, with its cores on the Portuguese and German colonies absorbed naturally. Benin-Sahel is not here, instead Benikongo would cover that entire space all the way to the Guinea border. The black state is the one I really wish I had seen and released, the Bantu Federation, which incorporates the Congo, the territory of the East African Union that now exists and the territory in the middle that has gotten left out in this game we're playing now. Angola and Mozambique would exist as is, and Namibia could either be a part of South Africa or released on its own. Loading up a save, what happened is that I didn't realize Dar Es Salaam was a required province (and capital) for the Bantu Federation, and thus it disappeared when I released the East African Union. It's not overly consequential in terms of the game or events that take place further in the LP, but it would have just been neater. On the other hand, I suppose drawing lines that seem right without any regard for the people within those lines is pretty imperialist behavior, so maybe this is what I deserve. It's a cool event chain and we're going to see a lot of it, but it could definitely use American copies of the events that Britain and France have to liberate states. csm141 fucked around with this message at 06:40 on Mar 24, 2016 |
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Mar 24, 2016 06:37
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Chief Savage Man posted:On the other hand, I suppose drawing lines that seem right without any regard for the people within those lines is pretty imperialist behavior, so maybe this is what I deserve. If you havent already, Id say this would be the big thing [so far as been revealed in teh LP] that anti-syndicalists would point to to show that its just colonialism all over again; not to mention the ethnic strife and border issues it might cause (I dont know sub Saharan Africa well enough to say if they would, though it will definitely be magnitudes better than OTL). Though for some reason I feel that in this timeline the [Pan] African Union equivalent wouldnt be as hung up on having whatever borders exist be The Borders and each state having to meld/mold/forge their clumps of disparate ethnic, tribal, religious, and racial groups into proper mostly homogeneous nation states, so that there might be more than two? (official) border changes/new countries post decolonization.
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Mar 24, 2016 11:04
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Chief Savage Man posted:What I said I regret is not letting the events make the nations but it turns out on closer inspection of the files that the events to liberate these states are not for the CSA, but only for Britain and France. The CSA gets events to give African ally states territory back in case Africa turns into a giant clusterfuck of the Internationale all making a bunch of different landings, but not to do the liberation itself. Therefore in the case of Mittelafrika, I would have been sitting on that territory forever even after the African Conference events fired because I'm not Britain or France. Speaking of the CSA not getting events it probably should, can you contribute to the Phalanstere?
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Mar 24, 2016 20:48
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Communist Zombie posted:If you havent already, Id say this would be the big thing [so far as been revealed in teh LP] that anti-syndicalists would point to to show that its just colonialism all over again; not to mention the ethnic strife and border issues it might cause (I dont know sub Saharan Africa well enough to say if they would, though it will definitely be magnitudes better than OTL). Though for some reason I feel that in this timeline the [Pan] African Union equivalent wouldnt be as hung up on having whatever borders exist be The Borders and each state having to meld/mold/forge their clumps of disparate ethnic, tribal, religious, and racial groups into proper mostly homogeneous nation states, so that there might be more than two? (official) border changes/new countries post decolonization. Probably so, if the events of this LP hadn't put American troops directly in contact with Mittelafrika and the European war had kicked off earlier, then we would have been busy with Canada while France was dealing with Mitteleuropa. In that case, assuming a French victory, the Conference would have happened and the African states would rebel on their own and anti colonialist sentiment wouldn't apply (in game terms, they wouldn't be puppets), but in my game because of what I did, I'm sure that there would be backlash to America chopping up Africa. However, the difference here is that the Internationale is ideologically united, more or less, and so the Cold War qualms about figures like Lumumba and Sankara that led to their deaths would be lessened. There is also a politically ascendant lobby of the African diaspora, across both North America and the Caribbean, which has a great deal of moral authority when it comes to African affairs, and so concerns about how the Western Syndicalists are treating Africa would probably be taken far more seriously. And I think you'd be right about borders not being seen in the same light as OTL. I think that the efforts of the new Syndicalist leaders of Africa would be focused on forging an African identity of a people who share a common history of being colonized beyond the identity of one's ethnic, religious and lingual background. This is something that was discouraged in our time line as external powers utilized divisions between groups as a way to protect their own or harm their rivals interest. Certainly if there were to be a Cold War situation and a dire threat exists to the Internationale after the war, then perhaps things devolve into a similar morass as OTL. Friend Commuter posted:Speaking of the CSA not getting events it probably should, can you contribute to the Phalanstere? No, unfortunately, we cannot. I've been generous with blueprints when I remember to be, but we don't have any mechanism for exporting industry like France and Britain do, even though a united syndicalist America would be in by far the best position to bankroll the development and recovery of the post war world, provided the Civil War didn't completely ruin the country.
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Mar 24, 2016 21:31
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Chapter Seventeen: The Romandy Offensive (Italy: March 29 - April 25, 1943 http://www.lumumba.edu.cng/history/faculty/dnkembe/blog.html Professor Nkembe’s Military History Blog Posted: May 4, 1996 Topic: Greatest Military Blunders of All Time: Honorable Mentions: The Romandy Offensive Body: The Romandy offensive was launched in late March of 1943 as a response to Operation Rocky. It was intended to relieve the embattled Italian Federation after the encirclement and surrender of Italian and German forces in Bologna and consisted of the southern pincer of Operation Südwind, which was diverted south from its base in occupied Romandy towards Turin.  The decision to split Operation Südwind in two took place while the Pact salient in Genoa was attempting to repel the Americans in Parma led by General Wark.  The Pact divisions in Genoa were certainly under great threat, and so, at first glance, the idea of a relief effort from the north of Genoa does appear to be a good one. So why was it a blunder?  First of all, its strength was woefully inadequate. The Internationale force in Italy numbered just about one million men, and a few hundred thousand Pact troops had already been captured during the course of Operation Rocky. The amount of German troops being diverted was simply not enough.  In order to relieve Genoa, where a Pact garrison was being attacked on two sides by a force three times larger, the Romandy offensive would have had to recapture Turin. Turin had been in French hands throughout the winter, and the Italian fortifications that were intended to defend against a French attack from Romandy were instead being used to defend against a German attack from Romandy.  On top of these problems, the Germans were attacking along a narrow corridor through rough terrain. The French forces in Turin were able to mount an extremely effective resistance along the St. Bernard Pass, one of the few routes the Germans could use without violating Swiss neutrality.  Therefore, it was pure fantasy to imagine that an offensive directed south, through the Alps, could ever relieve Genoa in time.  The folly of the attack through the mountains is enough to qualify this as a blunderous decision, but the amount of resources that it diverted from Operation Südwind is the most damaging aspect of the Romandy offensive.  In this case, the German High Command made the critical error of allowing public opinion to trump tactical considerations. Operation Rocky had ignited a panic throughout the Prague Pact, as one of the largest German allies was falling to pieces. ‘Saving’ Italy became an objective that distracted from what had been and should have continued to be the primary objective: defeating the French. I will refrain from repeating the tropes of shoddy historical television programming. I cannot, nor can anybody else, say that this is the one decision that cost Germany the war. However, we can be certain that the divisions committed to the Romandy division could have had greater success against other targets. The French armor in the Pontarlier salient was left mostly unmolested, and the half of Operation Südwind left to its original task was unable to mount a sustained westward attack. Would a full strength Operation Südwind offensive have won the war? Probably not, but capturing Lyon would have been a boost to Pact morale and could have opened a number of opportunities for the German army.  Remember what I said in the previous post: it is better to respond than react. Attempting to relieve the embattled forces of Northern Italy at the expense of Operation Südwind was a reaction, and a particularly ill-advised one at that. Instead it would have been better for the Pact to respond with a blow of their own. Seizing Lyon and opening up the south of France would have been a good start. Also realizing that the outnumbered German defenders of northeast Italy had the Alps as a defensive aid would have been good.  The Pact failed to hold back the Internationale in the lowlands, but the further north the attack went, the more and more time and effort it would take for the OAS forces to advance. The pace of warfare in the Alps was drastically different than warfare in the south of France, and the German High Command failed to recognize what they could have accomplished if they had stuck to their original plan while the OAS began their arduous trek into the Alps. Every day the OAS spent navigating the increasingly rugged alpine terrain could have been a day that German armor spent speeding towards Marseilles had they went ahead and broken through the French lines. It is another of the many examples of the German High Command’s failure to understand the new age of mobile warfare, almost two full years after the epic collapse of the New English front changed the way (most of) the world thought about war.  Instead, the Romandy Offensive encountered increasingly stiff resistance on the road to Turin, as French forces wheeled northwards after capturing Genoa and linking up with the OAS in Italy. It petered out completely as the Internationale was knocking down the gates of Milan, the last bastion of the Federation.  The Romandy Offensive was designed to save an un-savable country. In this sense, the Romandy Offensive can be considered to be the final manifestation of misguided thinking about the military strength of the Italian Federation. The first was Italy’s complacency following its victory in the Austro-Italian War. Italy had spent decades in the shadow of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and so when it defeated Austria, its leaders believed this to be an accomplishment of the highest order. The pope sincerely believed that the Federation’s military was favored by God, and the would-be military reformers in Italy were ignored. Instead of crucial upgrades to Italian equipment, funds were spent on lavish public works projects throughout the Federation, particularly in the Vatican. Many in the German High Command recognized that Italy’s victory had far more to do with the many distractions besetting Austria, but the second manifestation occurred when military concerns took a backseat to the diplomatic efforts of Chancellor Brüning in putting together the Pact. The spiritual authority of the pope complicated the negotiations between the Federation and Germany. Unlike Bohemia and Sweden, which were willing to allow their forces to be effectively subsumed into a greater Pact command structure, the pope was reluctant to see the soldiers he believed were commanded by God to be integrated in such a way. Pope Pius quickly changed his mind once Rome was captured, but by then it was too late for an effective defense strategy to be put in action. The third was how Germany bought into Italy’s own hype. While the Italian army was substantial in size, the events of the war proved that they were largely ineffective, even against green OAS units. Instead of leaving Italy to suffer the consequences of its poor preparation, Germany sabotaged its own operations out of a misguided belief that the Italian Federation was a key ally. Its geographic position was important, but it took until Milan had fallen for the German High Command to realize just how much of a liability their ally was.  Clearly by the time of the pope’s surrender in Milan, it was too late. But the fate of the Italian Federation had been sealed long before War Plan Black was ever executed.  The Federation simply stood no chance against a determined, better equipped and larger OAS force that utilized its naval supremacy of the Mediterranean to maximum effect.  While it was certainly alarming for a major member of the Prague Pact to crumble in such a fashion, the German High Command should not have panicked. Red Rome was an inevitability, but the stalling and failure of the German southern offensive was not. It was the combination of self-delusion, politics trumping sound strategy and sheer futility that earned the Romandy Offensive an honorable mention on my list of greatest military blunders of all time. Here’s your hint for the next post: The British gave America its language but also the idea for invading this place. Whether you prefer American or British English is up to you, but we can all agree that the Americans pulled off the better invasion. Got an idea what it is? Email me the answer for five extra credit points on the next quiz. Hope you enjoyed this post and see you in class!
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Apr 3, 2016 18:02
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Uhhh, crap, I'm never going to pass this class. India?
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Apr 3, 2016 21:37
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I'm going to guess Denmark. Also, you might not want to have stopped military control over Italy, their AI can get pretty wonky and believe that it still has its pre-war borders.
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Apr 3, 2016 21:51
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Gallipoli?
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Apr 3, 2016 22:52
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The Falklands!
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#
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Apr 4, 2016 00:13
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theblastizard posted:Gallipoli? Oh poo poo I think you're right.
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Apr 4, 2016 00:18
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Changing my vote to Afghanistan. Somebody's gotta get it right eventually!
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Apr 4, 2016 00:25
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I'm gonna say Gallipoli. When I try to think of a botched British offensive it's by far the first thing that comes to mind.
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#
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Apr 4, 2016 02:11
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Let's hope the Turks fare better than Libya does in the future 
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#
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Apr 4, 2016 02:23
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Hastings
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Apr 4, 2016 03:39
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Canada! 
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Apr 5, 2016 02:23
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOCe2Y7iVF8
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#
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Apr 5, 2016 02:45
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If it is Gallipoli, then I hope to give all my 
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Apr 5, 2016 04:26
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I will say it's in a future update and to make up for the lack of reader participation to this point (or in this entire LP, DH doesn't really fit that type of LP), the first correct guess will get a colony named in their honor in the inevitable Stellaris sequel.
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Apr 5, 2016 04:37
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If it isn’t Gallipoli, the only other place I can think of off-hand is the River Plate (either Buenos Aires or Montevideo, though more likely the former).
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Apr 5, 2016 04:45
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Chief Savage Man posted:I will say it's in a future update and to make up for the lack of reader participation to this point (or in this entire LP, DH doesn't really fit that type of LP), the first correct guess will get a colony named in their honor in the inevitable Stellaris sequel.  Why didn't I think of that?
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#
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Apr 5, 2016 04:47
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Of course, I also won't actually say who is right until the update comes around so it's kind of a lame contest.
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#
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Apr 5, 2016 04:49
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South Africa / Zululand.
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Apr 5, 2016 04:51
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| # ? Jun 1, 2024 15:25 |
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Crimea. e:No wait that doesn't make any sense. e2: Cartagena? WhiskeyWhiskers fucked around with this message at 05:01 on Apr 5, 2016 |
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Apr 5, 2016 04:55
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