Update 9: July 1, 1895 - June 30, 1896
Central America
Spoiler :
Booming region, potentially crucial for Atlantic-Pacific trade, trying to overcome legacy of prolonged economic stagnation.
Canal is a canal is a canal (Panama)
Q3 1895-Q2 1896: Relative normalization of life in Gran Colombia and gradual removal of terrorist threats across the country gave a clear signal to the Portobrazilian business that the time was ripe to renew construction of the troubled Panama Canal. Yet, the nation’s economic focus was extremely spread-out due to a need to rebuild the fringes of the colonial empire, and that necessitated foreign partnership in this endeavor. One of the partners was rather obvious: the Dixie Panama Canal Company already had some presence in the ground, with infrastructure, manpower, and even political ties in place. Additional help was secured from the Heavenly Chancellery of the Taiping Mandate, as a way to expand on the economic ties between the two nations that sprung out from cooperation between the Southern King and the Portobrazilian authority of Macao. This three-way partnership eventually saw a serious ramp-up of efforts on finalizing the ambitious project. Ironically, the entire endeavor’s second wind coincided with the beginning of the North-American effort to complete a similar project using a Nicaragua route. By the middle of 1896, the “Canal Race” became a focal point of many publications, and investors and geopolitical analysts alike are wondering what implications the potential creation of two separate canals will have on economy, seafaring, world distribution chain, and geopolitical balance of power. (Regional quest progress: 76.6%, Confederate States of America losses: -0.71 HC, -0.16 IC, -1.92 EC, -1.69 MC, Portugal-Brazil losses: -0.99 HC, -0.27 IC, -3.01 EC, -2.14 MC, Taiping Mandate losses: -2.16 HC, -0.42 IC, -4.99 EC, -3.27 MC)
Canal is a canal is a canal (Nicaragua)
Q3 1895-Q2 1896: Not wishing to wait for the end of the Gran-Colombian debacle (or, simply, not willing to partner with its recent enemies), the Congress of the UNA approved a massive state investment into a so-called Nicaragua Canal, connecting Punta Gorda and Brito through the Lake Nicaragua. Irony wasn’t lost on anyone reading the State Department’s official statement on the Union staying away from the Gran-Colombian instability, given the state of political deadlock gripping the Centroamerican Federation at the same time. Yet, for experienced diplomats and foreign intelligence analysts, it looked like a smart move: a way to provide North-American investments in the Centroamerican economy, shifting the gravity of political influence away from the trouble-making Fourteen Families and their pet project of the Greater Republic of Central America. With massive employment of the labor force from among local workers, the project soon took up a good speed and immediately became a major economic factor in Centroamerica politics, greatly improving the position of the North-American diplomats and lobbyists. Alas, on the engineering front not everything is as rosy, as the Nicaragua Canal is expected to be roughly twice as long as the Panama Canal, and the assets assigned to its construction are smaller than that of the joint Taiping-Dixie-Portobrazilian Panama Canal Company. In fact, some Congress members are starting to question what should happen to the Nicaragua Canal and all the North-American investments should they lose the race to the Panama competitors. Meanwhile, more hawkish politicians insist that the construction should continue until final completion regardless of the return of the investment, as having a dedicated North-American canal connecting the oceans could be a powerful diplomatic and military asset, providing the Union Navy with mobility and an additional base on the both shores. (Regional quest progress: 30.57%, Union of North America losses: -2.74 HC, -2.04 IC, -8.01 EC, -5.41 MC)
Greater Republic of Central America
Q3 1895-Q2 1896: Seeing how close the Centroamerican Federation was to a major political legitimacy crisis, the State Department of the Union of North America went overboard on supporting the Collectivist regime. Having tried and failed at so many methods of improving the Federation’s political communication with its people, the Union’s diplomats and agents of influence have finally struck the right chord by falling back to good old verbal agitation. Thousands of demagogues and ideologues, some of them Centroamericans trained in the Fabius University were dispatched to go door to door and explain to the benefits of the centralised, Collectivist regime to local peasants. In more than one case such activists got threatened, beaten, or even killed by angered reactionaries, but these losses were absorbed by the State Department without as much as a shrug. The sheer number of agents partaking in this campaign of public enlightenment made it look like a rather ineffective and heavy-handed influencing effort, but it also meant that whoever supported the Fourteen Families had to deal with an overwhelming flood of political propaganda. To a degree, this flood was diverted by an unknown foreign power via a savvy misinformation campaign, in which false messages were presented to the peasants under a guise of pro-Collectivist agenda, designed to infuriate rather than placate their target audience. Simultaneously, the same power started to encourage more radical leftists to act against the more moderate core of the Collectivist regime, in order to promote infighting in the government, but that effort didn’t quite take off. After yet another turbulent year, it became clear that the Union and its Centroamerican mentees have started to firmly reverse the constitutional crisis, despite still being rather far from its resolution. (Regional quest progress: 33.48%, Union of North America losses: -8.51 HC, -15.04 IC, -21.3 EC, -6.32 MC, Centroamerican Federation losses: -1.09 HC, -1.73 IC, -2.59 EC, -0.19 MC, ??? losses: -34.2? HC, -38.6? IC, -47.0? EC, -9.0? MC)
Collective economy
Q3 1895-Q2 1896: While at home the Union’s industrial development resources were thinly stretched, Fouracre’s administration still intended to heavily invest in bringing the Centroamerican Federation’s collective economy to maturity. A healthy mix of political communicators, personnel managers, and industrial experts was dispatched to Central America, combined with quite a lot of North-American investment. By summer of 1896, this gave the desired results, transforming the region’s economy and bringing it to modernity (of course, compared to what it used to be). Besides improving the Federation’s productivity and share in the regional market’s output, it also paved a way for eventual resolution of the Federation’s constitutional crisis, as a growing part of the nation starts seeing the benefit in the collectivist path of development, turning against the old reactionary institutions and their advocates. (Regional quest completed with full success, region Central America gains +5 HC, +10 EC, +5 MC, Regional Growth Trend +0.25%, Regional Growth Fluctuation +1.25%, Union of North America gains +3.5% Regional Influence, Centroamerican Federation gains +1.5% Regional Influence, Portugal-Brazil loses -5% Regional Influence, Union of North America losses: -2.24 HC, -1.34 IC, -6.71 EC, -4.83 MC)
Canal is a canal is a canal (Panama)
Spoiler :
1890: In 1876, Imperial France has already attempted to build a canal in Gran-Colombian Panama, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. That bold project, however, failed when the Atlantic War siphoned all resources directed to that giant infrastructure project, and now the Panama Canal is nothing but a series of unfinished excavation works in Central American jungles. Now that the world in this hemisphere is not engulfed in flames of war anymore, people are back to discussing the benefits of connecting the two oceans via a canal. One project merely suggests continuing the work started by Imperial French engineers, while another one suggests starting a new canal further up north, connecting Punta Gorda and Brito through the Lake Nicaragua. Of course, the both efforts would require the governments of, accordingly, Gran Colombia and Centroamerican Federation to agree to hosting such projects on their territory, as well as, potentially, a sale of adjacent lands.
1891: The most recent successful dynastic marriage made the monarchy of Gran Colombia very receptive of Portobrazilian offer to build the Panama Canal in exchange for indefinite return of investments, combined with a 10-year lease of lands adjacent to the canal, and full protection of assets. The work has started at full possible speed, but progresses slowly, mostly due to the harsh climate, epidemic disease, and a large task at hand. (Regional quest progress: 2.95%, Portugal-Brazil losses: -2.79 HC, -0.62 IC, -6.65 EC, -6.15 MC)
Q4 1893: While people of Gran Colombia were fighting for their freedom, one of the members of the Monroe Conference was happy to use that chaos for development of a troubled Panama Canal. Confederate construction firms were dispatched to a liberal stronghold of Panama, along with lobbying groups, informal ambassadors, and security teams provided by the CSA. The hope was to use the temporary confusion in Gran-Colombian politics to ship in Confederate heavy machinery and Japanese migrant workers with a permission of the local liberal governor and thus finally start moving the prospective canal construction forward. However, as the situation in Gran Colombia escalated to the state of civil war, the entire endeavor became compromised. Miraculously, Confederate negotiators managed to retain somewhat lukewarm relationship with the Panama governor and then, later, with the Portobrazilian marine corps general who took control of the region as a part of the Twin Crowns’ counterinsurgency operation. Somehow, Dixie engineers even managed to achieve some progress in the construction, despite the chaos and war that surrounded them, but the managers tasked with keeping the construction going insist that they have no confidence in security of Confederate assets as long as the war goes on and the diplomatic gap between the CSA and Portugal-Brazil widens. (Regional quest progress: 17.3%, Confederate States of America losses: -3.56 HC, -3.13 IC, -8.62 EC, -4.84 MC)
1891: The most recent successful dynastic marriage made the monarchy of Gran Colombia very receptive of Portobrazilian offer to build the Panama Canal in exchange for indefinite return of investments, combined with a 10-year lease of lands adjacent to the canal, and full protection of assets. The work has started at full possible speed, but progresses slowly, mostly due to the harsh climate, epidemic disease, and a large task at hand. (Regional quest progress: 2.95%, Portugal-Brazil losses: -2.79 HC, -0.62 IC, -6.65 EC, -6.15 MC)
Q4 1893: While people of Gran Colombia were fighting for their freedom, one of the members of the Monroe Conference was happy to use that chaos for development of a troubled Panama Canal. Confederate construction firms were dispatched to a liberal stronghold of Panama, along with lobbying groups, informal ambassadors, and security teams provided by the CSA. The hope was to use the temporary confusion in Gran-Colombian politics to ship in Confederate heavy machinery and Japanese migrant workers with a permission of the local liberal governor and thus finally start moving the prospective canal construction forward. However, as the situation in Gran Colombia escalated to the state of civil war, the entire endeavor became compromised. Miraculously, Confederate negotiators managed to retain somewhat lukewarm relationship with the Panama governor and then, later, with the Portobrazilian marine corps general who took control of the region as a part of the Twin Crowns’ counterinsurgency operation. Somehow, Dixie engineers even managed to achieve some progress in the construction, despite the chaos and war that surrounded them, but the managers tasked with keeping the construction going insist that they have no confidence in security of Confederate assets as long as the war goes on and the diplomatic gap between the CSA and Portugal-Brazil widens. (Regional quest progress: 17.3%, Confederate States of America losses: -3.56 HC, -3.13 IC, -8.62 EC, -4.84 MC)
Q3 1895-Q2 1896: Relative normalization of life in Gran Colombia and gradual removal of terrorist threats across the country gave a clear signal to the Portobrazilian business that the time was ripe to renew construction of the troubled Panama Canal. Yet, the nation’s economic focus was extremely spread-out due to a need to rebuild the fringes of the colonial empire, and that necessitated foreign partnership in this endeavor. One of the partners was rather obvious: the Dixie Panama Canal Company already had some presence in the ground, with infrastructure, manpower, and even political ties in place. Additional help was secured from the Heavenly Chancellery of the Taiping Mandate, as a way to expand on the economic ties between the two nations that sprung out from cooperation between the Southern King and the Portobrazilian authority of Macao. This three-way partnership eventually saw a serious ramp-up of efforts on finalizing the ambitious project. Ironically, the entire endeavor’s second wind coincided with the beginning of the North-American effort to complete a similar project using a Nicaragua route. By the middle of 1896, the “Canal Race” became a focal point of many publications, and investors and geopolitical analysts alike are wondering what implications the potential creation of two separate canals will have on economy, seafaring, world distribution chain, and geopolitical balance of power. (Regional quest progress: 76.6%, Confederate States of America losses: -0.71 HC, -0.16 IC, -1.92 EC, -1.69 MC, Portugal-Brazil losses: -0.99 HC, -0.27 IC, -3.01 EC, -2.14 MC, Taiping Mandate losses: -2.16 HC, -0.42 IC, -4.99 EC, -3.27 MC)
Canal is a canal is a canal (Nicaragua)
Q3 1895-Q2 1896: Not wishing to wait for the end of the Gran-Colombian debacle (or, simply, not willing to partner with its recent enemies), the Congress of the UNA approved a massive state investment into a so-called Nicaragua Canal, connecting Punta Gorda and Brito through the Lake Nicaragua. Irony wasn’t lost on anyone reading the State Department’s official statement on the Union staying away from the Gran-Colombian instability, given the state of political deadlock gripping the Centroamerican Federation at the same time. Yet, for experienced diplomats and foreign intelligence analysts, it looked like a smart move: a way to provide North-American investments in the Centroamerican economy, shifting the gravity of political influence away from the trouble-making Fourteen Families and their pet project of the Greater Republic of Central America. With massive employment of the labor force from among local workers, the project soon took up a good speed and immediately became a major economic factor in Centroamerica politics, greatly improving the position of the North-American diplomats and lobbyists. Alas, on the engineering front not everything is as rosy, as the Nicaragua Canal is expected to be roughly twice as long as the Panama Canal, and the assets assigned to its construction are smaller than that of the joint Taiping-Dixie-Portobrazilian Panama Canal Company. In fact, some Congress members are starting to question what should happen to the Nicaragua Canal and all the North-American investments should they lose the race to the Panama competitors. Meanwhile, more hawkish politicians insist that the construction should continue until final completion regardless of the return of the investment, as having a dedicated North-American canal connecting the oceans could be a powerful diplomatic and military asset, providing the Union Navy with mobility and an additional base on the both shores. (Regional quest progress: 30.57%, Union of North America losses: -2.74 HC, -2.04 IC, -8.01 EC, -5.41 MC)
Greater Republic of Central America
Spoiler :
Q4 1893: As ideologically agnostic as the Fourteen Families of El Salvador are, their open demarche against the Centroamerican Federation’s authorities has exposed the weaknesses of that collectivist state and crystallized an anti-leftist opposition. Uneducated and lacking political consciousness, Centroamerican Mestizo peasants often lack the initiative and will to oppose various resurgent reactionary elements, unless their direct day-to-day interests openly conflict with them. In other words, large portion of the country suddenly showed quite a lot of indifference to the Fourteen Families’ defiance of the central authority and the semi-militant standout that resulted from that. Now the country is left paralyzed, as the Central Committee is afraid that other regions will experience similar uprisings of old-regime reactionaries supported by foreign adventurers. This political inactivity is being viewed as a sign of fatal weakness by one of the most vocal members of the Fourteen Families, one Tomás Regalado, who has started to agitate for a destruction of the collectivist regime and an installment of a so-called Greater Republic of Central America in its place.
Q1-Q2 1894: Destabilization of the Centroamerican Federation in late 1893 created an important buffer between the Gran-Colombian conflict and the bulk of the Monroe Conference bloc. Perhaps, that might explain, why Porfirio Diaz’s Mexico stepped in to the political standoff and attempted to untie it, despite urges by some of the President’s more pragmatic advisers to embrace the Fourteen Families instead as a much more ideologically homogeneous alternative to the Centroamerican left-wing collectivists. Diaz’s ambassadors were instructed to negotiate a reduction of tariffs and railroad building rights with the Federation’s leadership in exchange for their resolution of the crisis, and these promises were easily granted - maybe, because the Centroamerican economy benefited from such measures much more than the Mexican one. One way or another, just when the actual negotiations with Tomás Regalado started in El Salvador in March, the Mexicans discovered that the Twin Crowns of Portugal and Brazil weren’t going to let go of their allies that easily. Every offer the Mexicans made to Regalado or other supporting families, was countered by a Portobrazilian counter-offer, and the entire negotiations process turned into a misty swamp of indecision and unclear expectations. That was just what the Portobrazilians needed, cementing the standoff even further and gradually eroding popular support for either of the major political parties in the country. (Regional quest progress: -30.76%, Mexico losses: -12.83 HC, -17.98 IC, -26.54 EC, -5.54 MC, Portugal-Brazil losses: -14.62 HC, -21.67 IC, -31.75 EC, -7.46 MC)
Q3-Q4 1894: Where Porfirio Diaz’s ambassadors had failed, President Fouracre’s agents hoped to triumph, perhaps, due to their closer ideological alignment to Centroamerica’s Collectivist regime. However, the Twin Crowns expected that move and countered it with their own, showing to the pedantic agents of the UNA the whole variety of methods of political influence the Twin Crowns possessed, ranging from classic shadowy negotiations to cultural propaganda campaigns via an organization of friendly futebol competitions across the Federation. The Union’s agents still attempted to run a smear campaign against the reactionaries, but the means of that effort proved to be counterproductive. Propaganda by the Fabian Society held little sway over the Catholic country that lacked an educated, socially-conscious middle class, and on the religious field the reactionaries could always claim the support of the old clerical hierarchy. One way or another, the UNA’s push to change the deadlock failed, mostly because the Federation’s Central Committee had little sway over individual collective deputies involved in negotiations. At the very least, the Federation’s leadership agreed to create its own independent counterintelligence and national security force in exchange for the North-American economic help. Yet, the proposal to use the troops for an armed crackdown against the Fourteen Families in the south was rejected, as the Central Committee wasn’t sure it had the popular mandate for such an action that could trigger a strife mirroring the Gran-Colombian Civil War. (Regional quest progress: -50.57%, Union of North America losses: -7.08 HC, -12.61 IC, -17.86 EC, -5.3 MC, Portugal-Brazil losses: -17.4 HC, -19.09 IC, -32.5 EC, -6.57 MC)
Q1-Q2 1895: The State Department of the Union has learned the lessons of its previous unsuccessful push toward resolution of the Centroamerican political standoff. Firstly, the Mestizo peasants were deemed to be too low-conscience from the political standpoint to be relied upon. Secondly, religious agitation was stopped altogether. Instead, President Fouracre’s agents concentrated on getting the Central Committee on board with a country-wide political crackdown, for now using only relatively “soft” actions of Collectivist civil guards that were formed with a New Year’s decree. Mexican ambassadors disappeared from the picture altogether, clearing the space for a predictable agitation battle between leftist and reactionary elements in the Centroamerican politics, with the Portobrazilians standing to lose it simply due to a shortage of resources, thinly spread between several diplomatic engagements. However, a surprising intervention took place when a series of “incidents” started to occur to Collectivist passionaries and their North-American backers (most of them non-lethal, but being not far from that). Simultaneously, a fearmongering campaign among less conscious peasants set them up against an “imminent Collectivist terror.” By the middle of spring, it was clear to the Union’s intelligence that a yet unknown force of license-to-kill agents was working in the country, sabotaging the State Department’s efforts to push toward the resolution of the crisis. For all of the Union’s agents’ efficiency and sophistication, they were facing a powerful wave of artificially manufactured popular sentiment that has put the Federation on the brink of anticlimactic split into two different political entities. (Regional quest progress: -96.81%, Union of North America losses: -9.78 HC, -17.41 IC, -24.65 EC, -7.31 MC, Portugal-Brazil losses: -13.61 HC, -16.35 IC, -26.54 EC, -5.63 MC, Centroamerican Federation losses: -1.56 HC, -2.46 IC, -3.69 EC, -0.27 MC, ??? losses: -13.6? HC, -19.1? IC, -26.8? EC, -6.7? MC)
Q1-Q2 1894: Destabilization of the Centroamerican Federation in late 1893 created an important buffer between the Gran-Colombian conflict and the bulk of the Monroe Conference bloc. Perhaps, that might explain, why Porfirio Diaz’s Mexico stepped in to the political standoff and attempted to untie it, despite urges by some of the President’s more pragmatic advisers to embrace the Fourteen Families instead as a much more ideologically homogeneous alternative to the Centroamerican left-wing collectivists. Diaz’s ambassadors were instructed to negotiate a reduction of tariffs and railroad building rights with the Federation’s leadership in exchange for their resolution of the crisis, and these promises were easily granted - maybe, because the Centroamerican economy benefited from such measures much more than the Mexican one. One way or another, just when the actual negotiations with Tomás Regalado started in El Salvador in March, the Mexicans discovered that the Twin Crowns of Portugal and Brazil weren’t going to let go of their allies that easily. Every offer the Mexicans made to Regalado or other supporting families, was countered by a Portobrazilian counter-offer, and the entire negotiations process turned into a misty swamp of indecision and unclear expectations. That was just what the Portobrazilians needed, cementing the standoff even further and gradually eroding popular support for either of the major political parties in the country. (Regional quest progress: -30.76%, Mexico losses: -12.83 HC, -17.98 IC, -26.54 EC, -5.54 MC, Portugal-Brazil losses: -14.62 HC, -21.67 IC, -31.75 EC, -7.46 MC)
Q3-Q4 1894: Where Porfirio Diaz’s ambassadors had failed, President Fouracre’s agents hoped to triumph, perhaps, due to their closer ideological alignment to Centroamerica’s Collectivist regime. However, the Twin Crowns expected that move and countered it with their own, showing to the pedantic agents of the UNA the whole variety of methods of political influence the Twin Crowns possessed, ranging from classic shadowy negotiations to cultural propaganda campaigns via an organization of friendly futebol competitions across the Federation. The Union’s agents still attempted to run a smear campaign against the reactionaries, but the means of that effort proved to be counterproductive. Propaganda by the Fabian Society held little sway over the Catholic country that lacked an educated, socially-conscious middle class, and on the religious field the reactionaries could always claim the support of the old clerical hierarchy. One way or another, the UNA’s push to change the deadlock failed, mostly because the Federation’s Central Committee had little sway over individual collective deputies involved in negotiations. At the very least, the Federation’s leadership agreed to create its own independent counterintelligence and national security force in exchange for the North-American economic help. Yet, the proposal to use the troops for an armed crackdown against the Fourteen Families in the south was rejected, as the Central Committee wasn’t sure it had the popular mandate for such an action that could trigger a strife mirroring the Gran-Colombian Civil War. (Regional quest progress: -50.57%, Union of North America losses: -7.08 HC, -12.61 IC, -17.86 EC, -5.3 MC, Portugal-Brazil losses: -17.4 HC, -19.09 IC, -32.5 EC, -6.57 MC)
Q1-Q2 1895: The State Department of the Union has learned the lessons of its previous unsuccessful push toward resolution of the Centroamerican political standoff. Firstly, the Mestizo peasants were deemed to be too low-conscience from the political standpoint to be relied upon. Secondly, religious agitation was stopped altogether. Instead, President Fouracre’s agents concentrated on getting the Central Committee on board with a country-wide political crackdown, for now using only relatively “soft” actions of Collectivist civil guards that were formed with a New Year’s decree. Mexican ambassadors disappeared from the picture altogether, clearing the space for a predictable agitation battle between leftist and reactionary elements in the Centroamerican politics, with the Portobrazilians standing to lose it simply due to a shortage of resources, thinly spread between several diplomatic engagements. However, a surprising intervention took place when a series of “incidents” started to occur to Collectivist passionaries and their North-American backers (most of them non-lethal, but being not far from that). Simultaneously, a fearmongering campaign among less conscious peasants set them up against an “imminent Collectivist terror.” By the middle of spring, it was clear to the Union’s intelligence that a yet unknown force of license-to-kill agents was working in the country, sabotaging the State Department’s efforts to push toward the resolution of the crisis. For all of the Union’s agents’ efficiency and sophistication, they were facing a powerful wave of artificially manufactured popular sentiment that has put the Federation on the brink of anticlimactic split into two different political entities. (Regional quest progress: -96.81%, Union of North America losses: -9.78 HC, -17.41 IC, -24.65 EC, -7.31 MC, Portugal-Brazil losses: -13.61 HC, -16.35 IC, -26.54 EC, -5.63 MC, Centroamerican Federation losses: -1.56 HC, -2.46 IC, -3.69 EC, -0.27 MC, ??? losses: -13.6? HC, -19.1? IC, -26.8? EC, -6.7? MC)
Q3 1895-Q2 1896: Seeing how close the Centroamerican Federation was to a major political legitimacy crisis, the State Department of the Union of North America went overboard on supporting the Collectivist regime. Having tried and failed at so many methods of improving the Federation’s political communication with its people, the Union’s diplomats and agents of influence have finally struck the right chord by falling back to good old verbal agitation. Thousands of demagogues and ideologues, some of them Centroamericans trained in the Fabius University were dispatched to go door to door and explain to the benefits of the centralised, Collectivist regime to local peasants. In more than one case such activists got threatened, beaten, or even killed by angered reactionaries, but these losses were absorbed by the State Department without as much as a shrug. The sheer number of agents partaking in this campaign of public enlightenment made it look like a rather ineffective and heavy-handed influencing effort, but it also meant that whoever supported the Fourteen Families had to deal with an overwhelming flood of political propaganda. To a degree, this flood was diverted by an unknown foreign power via a savvy misinformation campaign, in which false messages were presented to the peasants under a guise of pro-Collectivist agenda, designed to infuriate rather than placate their target audience. Simultaneously, the same power started to encourage more radical leftists to act against the more moderate core of the Collectivist regime, in order to promote infighting in the government, but that effort didn’t quite take off. After yet another turbulent year, it became clear that the Union and its Centroamerican mentees have started to firmly reverse the constitutional crisis, despite still being rather far from its resolution. (Regional quest progress: 33.48%, Union of North America losses: -8.51 HC, -15.04 IC, -21.3 EC, -6.32 MC, Centroamerican Federation losses: -1.09 HC, -1.73 IC, -2.59 EC, -0.19 MC, ??? losses: -34.2? HC, -38.6? IC, -47.0? EC, -9.0? MC)
Collective economy
Spoiler :
1890: Historically, the lands of the modern Centroamerican Federation lacked the indigenous forced labor to allow the establishment of haciendas (plantations, mines, and factories owned by aristocracy). This has shaped the local agricultural economy as an amalgam of free village communities producing, mostly, export crops. But the new type of economy proposed by the Centroamerican Planning Bureau requires more sophisticated forms of organized labor, and Centroamerican citizens have a trouble grasping that concept, especially in the more remote parts of the country. However, the government is exploring its ways to move away from small-time agricultural production to a more modern, collective agriculture and industrial economy.
Q1-Q2 1895: Having faced a setback after setback in its attempts to break the power of the Fourteen Families and their offshoot Republican movement, the State Department of the UNA has finally recognized that a more holistic solution could be required to produce the desired result. Therefore, groups of economic advisers, agriculturalists, union leaders, and machinery experts were sent to the Centroamerican Federation to help its Planning Bureau to organize local collective farming. The Union’s own agricultural communes of the Midwest were used as the prototype for the new farming collectives, although that project itself was in its infancy and couldn’t be really helpful as a proof of concept. Still, with gradual modernization of Centroamerican farming, there comes a real possibility that the Mestizo peasants would grow more politically conscious and economically independent from the remnants of the old aristocracy, thus eroding the reactionary support.(Regional quest progress: 68.57%, Union of North America losses: -2.85 HC, -2.26 IC, -8.32 EC, -5.5 MC)
Q1-Q2 1895: Having faced a setback after setback in its attempts to break the power of the Fourteen Families and their offshoot Republican movement, the State Department of the UNA has finally recognized that a more holistic solution could be required to produce the desired result. Therefore, groups of economic advisers, agriculturalists, union leaders, and machinery experts were sent to the Centroamerican Federation to help its Planning Bureau to organize local collective farming. The Union’s own agricultural communes of the Midwest were used as the prototype for the new farming collectives, although that project itself was in its infancy and couldn’t be really helpful as a proof of concept. Still, with gradual modernization of Centroamerican farming, there comes a real possibility that the Mestizo peasants would grow more politically conscious and economically independent from the remnants of the old aristocracy, thus eroding the reactionary support.(Regional quest progress: 68.57%, Union of North America losses: -2.85 HC, -2.26 IC, -8.32 EC, -5.5 MC)
Q3 1895-Q2 1896: While at home the Union’s industrial development resources were thinly stretched, Fouracre’s administration still intended to heavily invest in bringing the Centroamerican Federation’s collective economy to maturity. A healthy mix of political communicators, personnel managers, and industrial experts was dispatched to Central America, combined with quite a lot of North-American investment. By summer of 1896, this gave the desired results, transforming the region’s economy and bringing it to modernity (of course, compared to what it used to be). Besides improving the Federation’s productivity and share in the regional market’s output, it also paved a way for eventual resolution of the Federation’s constitutional crisis, as a growing part of the nation starts seeing the benefit in the collectivist path of development, turning against the old reactionary institutions and their advocates. (Regional quest completed with full success, region Central America gains +5 HC, +10 EC, +5 MC, Regional Growth Trend +0.25%, Regional Growth Fluctuation +1.25%, Union of North America gains +3.5% Regional Influence, Centroamerican Federation gains +1.5% Regional Influence, Portugal-Brazil loses -5% Regional Influence, Union of North America losses: -2.24 HC, -1.34 IC, -6.71 EC, -4.83 MC)
Gran Colombia
Spoiler :
Slowly-developing region suffering from a civil war, corruption, and obsolete socio-economic institutions.
Resistance is not dead
Q3 1895-Q2 1896: Just a few months before the Treat of Montreal was signed, some Portobrazilian journalists were writing that the cyclical pattern of Gran-Colombian insurgency meant that the resistance could simply not be completely crushed, no matter the investments. To that, the general-governor of the Titular Kingdom of Gran Colombia famously replied in his opinion piece, “I find [your] lack of enthusiasm disturbing.” The general-governor’s career would then take an unfortunate turn, as he was court martialed after having strangled his adjutant in a bizzare crime scene at a military staff meeting, but his quote would nonetheless become highly popular among the Portobrazilian hardliners. In less than a few months, the end of the war turned the situation in Gran Colombia upside down, as the stream of North-American, Mexican, and Andean money sent to support the Republican cause dried up completely. Left with no support from the outside world, the progressive coalition continued to collapse further, when the North-German diplomatic corps started its low-key outreach program to Gran-Colombian liberals and moderates, guaranteeing to work out some sort of an amnesty agreement for them with the Twin Crowns in exchange for their abandoning of the Republican cause. While not always successful, this move did help a lot in splintering the Republicans just when their only salvation seemed to lie in unity and cohesion. That greatly helped the Twin Crowns when their ham-handed crackdown on the Republican resistance came in the fall of 1895, turning streets of Gran-Colombian cities into a background of violent and tragic raids and round-ups. By summer 1896, it was clear, the resistance was dead to begin with. (Regional quest completed with full failure, region Gran Colombia gains -5 HC, Regional Growth Fluctuation -1.25%, North German Federation gains +2% Regional Influence, Portugal-Brazil gains +3.25% Regional Influence, Mexico loses -1.25% Regional Influence, Union of North America loses -4% Regional Influence, North German Federation losses: -0.18 HC, -0.25 IC, -0.31 EC, -0.08 MC, Portugal-Brazil losses: -1.9 HC, -1.39 IC, -2.17 EC, -0.78 MC)
Resguardo wars
Q3 1895-Q2 1896: In accordance with the Treaty of Montreal, Amerindian resistance fighters and their Indigenista Andean supporters were allowed to leave the Colombian and Venezuelan outback, often performing gruelling, mournful treks across the rainforest-covered highlands. However, this tragic acceptance of the defeat wasn’t universally spread, and many Amerindian militia units (augmented by some rogue Indigenista activists) chose to keep their arms and stay fighting the Resguardo Wars to a bitter end. That end is now almost assured to follow, as the Portobrazilian “forest clearing” operation started to take the tribal-controlled zones one by one. A lot more fighting is still expected to happen before the struggle for control of the resguardo areas is truly over, but the Amerindian resistance is taking on increasingly more fatalistic undertones. (Regional quest progress: -32.44%, Portugal-Brazil losses: -2.34 HC, -1.42 IC, -2.21 EC, -0.94 MC)
Father General strikes back
Q3 1895-Q2 1896: The loss of the Andean support did truly knock off the atheist rural resistance to the Jesuit Order’s rule in Gran Colombia. Having lost its most capable commanders, advisers, armaments, and the majority of manpower, the anti-Jesuit partisan units were left unable to perform any more offensive actions after the formal signing of the Treaty of Montreal. One by one, they started being surrounded and eliminated by the combined might of the Twin Crowns’ intelligence and garrison troops. It wouldn’t be an understatement to say that more than half of all atheist partisan forces has been destroyed by now, and now the entre movement’s demise looks like a matter of time, not occurrence. (Regional quest progress: -52.28%, Portugal-Brazil losses: -2.51 HC, -1.64 IC, -2.56 EC, -1.02 MC)
Tickets for war, tickets for peace
Remember the 19th of April!
Q3 1895-Q2 1896: With the Treaty of Montreal requiring for the Monroe Conference Bloc to stop its involvement in the Gran-Colombian matters, the Twin Crowns were finally free to start cracking down on the anarchic bomb throwers of the Movimiento 19 de Abril group. The hunt for the terrorist organization’s cells was performed by the royal counterintelligence service, combined with the garrison troops, and the results of this cooperation varied widely. The army showed a complete lack of understanding how to handle a hunt for a small group of zealously motivated bombers, leading to a spectacular loss of life when an entire section of barracks in Fuerte Militar Larandia was blown to pieces along with several hundred of soldiers. However, where the army failed, the detectives of the Twin Crowns’ secret service excelled, and through the winter of 1895-1896 most of the remaining cells of the Movement of the 19th of April were liquidated, finally bringing the costly bombing campaign to its end. (Regional quest completed with full failure, region Gran Colombia gains -5 HC, -1.5% Regional Growth Fluctuation, Portugal-Brazil gains +2% Regional Influence, Mexico loses -2% Regional Influence, Portugal-Brazil losses: -1.26 HC, -0.82 IC, -1.28 EC, -0.51 MC)
Resistance is not dead
Spoiler :
Q1-Q2 1895: The Republic of Gran Colombia may be dead, but the ideas it was based on are alive! At least, so say the few lucky souls that survived the Portobrazilian purge immediately after the Republican government collapsed. Now, with the blockade being installed over the Carribean shore of Colombia, Panama, and Venezuela, it’s harder than ever for these staunch Republicans, socialists, and progressive ex-servicemen to receive help from their overseas supporters. Yet, some do try, and many of them receive what they ask for. As hard as it is to infiltrate occupied Gran Colombia, some foreign agents (and often just their proxies) do make it through the curtain. Slowly, but surely, resistance cells are being rebuilt, mostly in a passive struggle to survive the onslaught. The latter task is not easy, as the Portobrazilian counterintelligence bureau has proved once and again that it could get the job done regardless of the losses it takes to do so (in fact, the Gran-Colombian resistance fighters even have a subset of jokes dedicated to how Portobrazilian gendarmes are physically unable to shoot at their target and hit it, often dying in droves almost comically in firefights). Yet, despite all the lack of training, in a few cases when their attempted crackdowns failed, the Twin Crowns’ agencies mobilized even bigger resources for even bigger manhunts, eventually almost always delivering on their promise to hunt down the pesky rebels. So, even though the resistance is being slowly reborn, the enemy it stands against may be far from being defeated. (Regional quest progress: 40.61%, ??? losses: -4.4? HC, -7.8? IC, -11.1? EC, -3.3? MC, ??? losses: -4.3? HC, -6.0? IC, -9.0? EC, -1.8? MC, Portugal-Brazil losses: -27.63 HC, -33.19 IC, -53.87 EC, -11.42 MC)
Q3 1895-Q2 1896: Just a few months before the Treat of Montreal was signed, some Portobrazilian journalists were writing that the cyclical pattern of Gran-Colombian insurgency meant that the resistance could simply not be completely crushed, no matter the investments. To that, the general-governor of the Titular Kingdom of Gran Colombia famously replied in his opinion piece, “I find [your] lack of enthusiasm disturbing.” The general-governor’s career would then take an unfortunate turn, as he was court martialed after having strangled his adjutant in a bizzare crime scene at a military staff meeting, but his quote would nonetheless become highly popular among the Portobrazilian hardliners. In less than a few months, the end of the war turned the situation in Gran Colombia upside down, as the stream of North-American, Mexican, and Andean money sent to support the Republican cause dried up completely. Left with no support from the outside world, the progressive coalition continued to collapse further, when the North-German diplomatic corps started its low-key outreach program to Gran-Colombian liberals and moderates, guaranteeing to work out some sort of an amnesty agreement for them with the Twin Crowns in exchange for their abandoning of the Republican cause. While not always successful, this move did help a lot in splintering the Republicans just when their only salvation seemed to lie in unity and cohesion. That greatly helped the Twin Crowns when their ham-handed crackdown on the Republican resistance came in the fall of 1895, turning streets of Gran-Colombian cities into a background of violent and tragic raids and round-ups. By summer 1896, it was clear, the resistance was dead to begin with. (Regional quest completed with full failure, region Gran Colombia gains -5 HC, Regional Growth Fluctuation -1.25%, North German Federation gains +2% Regional Influence, Portugal-Brazil gains +3.25% Regional Influence, Mexico loses -1.25% Regional Influence, Union of North America loses -4% Regional Influence, North German Federation losses: -0.18 HC, -0.25 IC, -0.31 EC, -0.08 MC, Portugal-Brazil losses: -1.9 HC, -1.39 IC, -2.17 EC, -0.78 MC)
Resguardo wars
Spoiler :
1892: Multiple distinct nations of Amerindian (pre-Columbian Native American) descent exist in the region, vast majority of them residing in reservation-like areas known as resguardos. Most of such resguardos occupy undeveloped, hard-to-reach lowland and highland locations deep off the coast, making them hardly an attractive land to own. However, the recent “Plato o Plomo” deal between the capos and Portobrazilian interventionists has made distant patches of land hidden in the wilderness an attractive investment for coca plantation owners that wish to stay away from the eye of Gran-Colombian customs police or from their Portobrazilian competitors. This has pushed the two groups into a non-stop low-key warfare across the jungles, with narcoparamilitary squads and Amerindian bands clashing for control of the glades.
Q1-Q2 1894: Remote corners of Colombia and Venezuela became hotbeds of rebel activity in the first part of 1894, as Andean agents first arrived to agitate disgruntled Amerindians to rise against pro-monarchist narcoparamilitary squads, soon followed by first units of Andean guerilla fighters that had infiltrated the region via blimps or obscure mountain trails. Almost exclusively comprised of avid Indigenista party members, these Andean units started a campaign of jungle hit-and-run warfare across the region, soliciting a heavy response from the Portobrazilian military and secret police. Currently, the situation is clearly moving in the desired direction for the United Communes, as the Amerindian resistance is growing, and the resguardos are being slowly cleared of the pro-monarchist cocaine cartels, but Andean military experts point out that the Communal army and intelligence still have a lot to learn from their enemy in terms of training and equipment. (Regional quest progress: 26.11%, Communes of the Andes losses: -37.5 HC, -14.46 IC, -25.52 EC, -8.65 MC, Portugal-Brazil losses: -30 HC, -18.22 IC, -27.74 EC, -12.31 MC)
Q3-Q4 1894: With the collapse of the Republican government of Gran Colombia, the Twin Crowns started to concentrate on internal insurgencies that plagued the Titular Kingdom of Gran Colombia. One of such insurgencies was centered on Amerindian resistance against narcoparamilitary groups. Despite their use of an unorthodox approach to partisan warfare that included promotion of vigilante behavior, Andean guerilla units and field agent networks found themselves outmatched in the pedantic clearing of jungle territories that the Portobrazilians performed. Still, despite the setbacks, the banner of the Indigenista movement continues flying over many Amerindian villages. (Regional quest progress: 7.61%, Communes of the Andes losses: -26.55 HC, -12.55 IC, -20.98 EC, -5.93 MC, Portugal-Brazil losses: -22.38 HC, -15.75 IC, -26.5 EC, -8.44 MC)
Q1-Q2 1895: The Amerindian partisan warfare in distant regions of Colombia and Venezuela increased in intensity through the first half of the year. It started with a series of high-profile spy planting operations, in which agents of foreign nations (most likely, direct enemies of the Twin Crowns at the current war) attempted to infiltrate Gran Colombia and establish safe routes through which the partisans could be provided with a steady stream of equipment, medical supplies, and advisors. While the Andean airship collectives used their power to deliver as much cargo as possible to the rebels, in the end it came down to more complicated smuggling operations that often saw shipment delivered through third countries to Portugal-Brazil and then “stolen” on its way to Gran Colombia. However, the Twin Crowns’ intelligence officers yet again showed what they were being paid for. As costly as their counterespionage operations were, they managed to keep such smuggling operations at a minimum, seizing plenty of goods going to support the Indigenista rebels long before they reached their final destination. (Regional quest progress: 6.17%, Portugal-Brazil losses: -23.14 HC, -27.8 IC, -45.13 EC, -9.57 MC, ??? losses: -2.6? HC, -4.7? IC, -6.7? EC, -1.9? MC, ??? losses: -3.3? HC, -4.7? IC, -7.0? EC, -1.4? MC, ??? losses: -4.0? HC, -5.6? IC, -8.1? EC, -0.9? MC)
With the spy game being indecisive at best, the Resguardo insurrection came down to a guerilla operation by the Andean soldiers this spring. In their operations, the Indigenista units attempted to use non-military blimps for reconnaissance, but these makeshift efforts were mostly useless, given the nature of the terrain, the vastness of the territories, the primitivity of communications and, of course, the civilian nature of the air units involved. Still, the proficiency of the Communal Army ws growing, and in May the Indigenista partisans managed to deliver several painful stings to the Portobrazilian garrison, destroying a string of roadblocks and forts in the jungles of the Coqueta River basin. Still, the Resguardo Wars are very far from being over. (Regional quest progress: 19.17%, Portugal-Brazil losses: -16.08 HC, -5.01 IC, -11.01 EC, -6.26 MC, Communes of the Andes losses: -31.03 HC, -7.89 IC, -21.02 EC, -6.43 MC)
Q1-Q2 1894: Remote corners of Colombia and Venezuela became hotbeds of rebel activity in the first part of 1894, as Andean agents first arrived to agitate disgruntled Amerindians to rise against pro-monarchist narcoparamilitary squads, soon followed by first units of Andean guerilla fighters that had infiltrated the region via blimps or obscure mountain trails. Almost exclusively comprised of avid Indigenista party members, these Andean units started a campaign of jungle hit-and-run warfare across the region, soliciting a heavy response from the Portobrazilian military and secret police. Currently, the situation is clearly moving in the desired direction for the United Communes, as the Amerindian resistance is growing, and the resguardos are being slowly cleared of the pro-monarchist cocaine cartels, but Andean military experts point out that the Communal army and intelligence still have a lot to learn from their enemy in terms of training and equipment. (Regional quest progress: 26.11%, Communes of the Andes losses: -37.5 HC, -14.46 IC, -25.52 EC, -8.65 MC, Portugal-Brazil losses: -30 HC, -18.22 IC, -27.74 EC, -12.31 MC)
Q3-Q4 1894: With the collapse of the Republican government of Gran Colombia, the Twin Crowns started to concentrate on internal insurgencies that plagued the Titular Kingdom of Gran Colombia. One of such insurgencies was centered on Amerindian resistance against narcoparamilitary groups. Despite their use of an unorthodox approach to partisan warfare that included promotion of vigilante behavior, Andean guerilla units and field agent networks found themselves outmatched in the pedantic clearing of jungle territories that the Portobrazilians performed. Still, despite the setbacks, the banner of the Indigenista movement continues flying over many Amerindian villages. (Regional quest progress: 7.61%, Communes of the Andes losses: -26.55 HC, -12.55 IC, -20.98 EC, -5.93 MC, Portugal-Brazil losses: -22.38 HC, -15.75 IC, -26.5 EC, -8.44 MC)
Q1-Q2 1895: The Amerindian partisan warfare in distant regions of Colombia and Venezuela increased in intensity through the first half of the year. It started with a series of high-profile spy planting operations, in which agents of foreign nations (most likely, direct enemies of the Twin Crowns at the current war) attempted to infiltrate Gran Colombia and establish safe routes through which the partisans could be provided with a steady stream of equipment, medical supplies, and advisors. While the Andean airship collectives used their power to deliver as much cargo as possible to the rebels, in the end it came down to more complicated smuggling operations that often saw shipment delivered through third countries to Portugal-Brazil and then “stolen” on its way to Gran Colombia. However, the Twin Crowns’ intelligence officers yet again showed what they were being paid for. As costly as their counterespionage operations were, they managed to keep such smuggling operations at a minimum, seizing plenty of goods going to support the Indigenista rebels long before they reached their final destination. (Regional quest progress: 6.17%, Portugal-Brazil losses: -23.14 HC, -27.8 IC, -45.13 EC, -9.57 MC, ??? losses: -2.6? HC, -4.7? IC, -6.7? EC, -1.9? MC, ??? losses: -3.3? HC, -4.7? IC, -7.0? EC, -1.4? MC, ??? losses: -4.0? HC, -5.6? IC, -8.1? EC, -0.9? MC)
With the spy game being indecisive at best, the Resguardo insurrection came down to a guerilla operation by the Andean soldiers this spring. In their operations, the Indigenista units attempted to use non-military blimps for reconnaissance, but these makeshift efforts were mostly useless, given the nature of the terrain, the vastness of the territories, the primitivity of communications and, of course, the civilian nature of the air units involved. Still, the proficiency of the Communal Army ws growing, and in May the Indigenista partisans managed to deliver several painful stings to the Portobrazilian garrison, destroying a string of roadblocks and forts in the jungles of the Coqueta River basin. Still, the Resguardo Wars are very far from being over. (Regional quest progress: 19.17%, Portugal-Brazil losses: -16.08 HC, -5.01 IC, -11.01 EC, -6.26 MC, Communes of the Andes losses: -31.03 HC, -7.89 IC, -21.02 EC, -6.43 MC)
Q3 1895-Q2 1896: In accordance with the Treaty of Montreal, Amerindian resistance fighters and their Indigenista Andean supporters were allowed to leave the Colombian and Venezuelan outback, often performing gruelling, mournful treks across the rainforest-covered highlands. However, this tragic acceptance of the defeat wasn’t universally spread, and many Amerindian militia units (augmented by some rogue Indigenista activists) chose to keep their arms and stay fighting the Resguardo Wars to a bitter end. That end is now almost assured to follow, as the Portobrazilian “forest clearing” operation started to take the tribal-controlled zones one by one. A lot more fighting is still expected to happen before the struggle for control of the resguardo areas is truly over, but the Amerindian resistance is taking on increasingly more fatalistic undertones. (Regional quest progress: -32.44%, Portugal-Brazil losses: -2.34 HC, -1.42 IC, -2.21 EC, -0.94 MC)
Father General strikes back
Spoiler :
Q4 1893: The Jesuit Order has suffered quite a lot of losses to peasant proletarian rebel forces in the first months of the War of Independence, mostly in assets, but at times in lives of its brethren. Most of the cases of anti-Jesuit persecution and, on a few cases, mass murder were committed by radical Communards and social-revolutionaries, influenced, but not directly instructed by the Andean Communes. Now, it seems like the monks have had enough. Provost-general Rafael Sosa, also known as Father General, has announced that the Order will be forming a “host” of devoted Christian soldiers to put an end to Communard depravity. Skirmishes between the Jesuit hosts and Communard partisans are starting to take place across the country outback, as hostilities escalate. Bad blood is being accumulated on the both sides, and some of the more radical figures are starting to rise in the both camps (for now, disavowed by their supreme leaders). Rumors spread that some particularly rabid anti-Communard priests are forming special kill squads consisting of “repentant narcos,” who mix their traditional criminal brutality with zealous righteousness.
Q1-Q2 1894: Atheist lynching and Jesuit repressions are fanning the flames of a religious conflict in Gran Colombia in addition to the civil one. As the conventional military campaign in Ecuador was clearly going against the Republic’s newfound allies, the United Communes of the Andes, the Andean units were sent to infiltrate the countryside and help local radicalized peasant militias to fight for themselves against the Jesuit Order and its “host,” demonized in the Communist propaganda despite being ethical equals of the atheistic lynchers. A special place in the Andean plan was dedicated to a capture and demonstrative execution of Provost-general Rafael Sosa, who was, in fact, the only high-ranking Jesuit commander who continued insisting on disavowing the “repentant narcos” as the Order’s allies in the war. One way or another, the attack on the Father General’s residence in Monasterio de La Candelaria in Bogota resulted in a bloody battle that raged on the streets of the city for three days, as Bogota’s garrison had been reinforced with three Portobrazilian regiments earlier. In the end, the Andean partisans had to retreat, having lost half of their numbers in that fight. That battle was generally representative of the larger campaign at hand. Fanatical and enthusiastic, the Communal soldiers simply lacked the training and equipment to fight on par with their Portobrazilian opponents in an offensive insurgency, despite clearly enjoying the benefit of popular support and superior initiative. As a result, the campaign was a virtual stalemate, in which the Portobrazilian army could at least claim smaller losses. (Regional quest progress: 2.33%, Communes of the Andes losses: -19.34 HC, -4.04 IC, -8.75 EC, -4.28 MC, Portugal-Brazil losses: -12.07 HC, -3.76 IC, -6.08 EC, -4.55 MC)
Q3-Q4 1894: The Twin Crowns’ counterintelligence service learned a lot from the assassination attempt at the Father General’s life. Mostly, that military police action could produce results only if the scourge of atheist treason could be purged from the Gran-Colombian society. So, while the army left only token support for the Jesuit Order’s paramilitary, the countryside was infiltrated with a lot of experienced field agents of the Twin Crowns. This did mean that some remote roadblocks and fortified positions were overtaken by sudden attacks of atheist partisans (most of which were Andean soldiers operating in the Portobrazilian rear), but the Portobrazilian counterespionage effort managed to do a lot of damage to the network of agitators and rural supporters of the anti-monarchist movement. If this trend were to continue, the loss of grassroot organization threatens the entire insurgency campaign. (Regional quest progress: -14%, Communes of the Andes losses: -17.49 HC, -11.24 IC, -17.62 EC, -3.92 MC, Portugal-Brazil losses: -19.87 HC, -10.29 IC, -17.11 EC, -7.49 MC)
Q1-Q2 1895: The rural insurgency against the once omnipotent Jesuit Order and its Portobrazilian protectors continued in the Colombian Andes, fuelled by Andean infiltrators. The Communal Army’s proficiency had grown by then, and attacks on land convoys and roadblocks stopped being as one-sided as they used to. This campaign culminated in a daring raid on Colegio San Pedro Claver, a Jesuit seminary school-cum-military base in the town of Bucaramanga. Meanwhile, atheist agitation among the peasants had also stepped up, gradually bringing new frustrated converts to the anti-Jesuit cause. These successes were costly and far between, but they did help to stabilize the anti-Jesuit resistance just when the dynamics had appeared to be going against it. Still, the partisan war against the Jesuit Order and the “repentant narcos” may take years and years. (Regional quest progress: 5.2%, Portugal-Brazil losses: -26.55 HC, -19.98 IC, -34.83 EC, -10.66 MC, Communes of the Andes losses: -31.04 HC, -13.87 IC, -27.98 EC, -6.55 MC)
Q1-Q2 1894: Atheist lynching and Jesuit repressions are fanning the flames of a religious conflict in Gran Colombia in addition to the civil one. As the conventional military campaign in Ecuador was clearly going against the Republic’s newfound allies, the United Communes of the Andes, the Andean units were sent to infiltrate the countryside and help local radicalized peasant militias to fight for themselves against the Jesuit Order and its “host,” demonized in the Communist propaganda despite being ethical equals of the atheistic lynchers. A special place in the Andean plan was dedicated to a capture and demonstrative execution of Provost-general Rafael Sosa, who was, in fact, the only high-ranking Jesuit commander who continued insisting on disavowing the “repentant narcos” as the Order’s allies in the war. One way or another, the attack on the Father General’s residence in Monasterio de La Candelaria in Bogota resulted in a bloody battle that raged on the streets of the city for three days, as Bogota’s garrison had been reinforced with three Portobrazilian regiments earlier. In the end, the Andean partisans had to retreat, having lost half of their numbers in that fight. That battle was generally representative of the larger campaign at hand. Fanatical and enthusiastic, the Communal soldiers simply lacked the training and equipment to fight on par with their Portobrazilian opponents in an offensive insurgency, despite clearly enjoying the benefit of popular support and superior initiative. As a result, the campaign was a virtual stalemate, in which the Portobrazilian army could at least claim smaller losses. (Regional quest progress: 2.33%, Communes of the Andes losses: -19.34 HC, -4.04 IC, -8.75 EC, -4.28 MC, Portugal-Brazil losses: -12.07 HC, -3.76 IC, -6.08 EC, -4.55 MC)
Q3-Q4 1894: The Twin Crowns’ counterintelligence service learned a lot from the assassination attempt at the Father General’s life. Mostly, that military police action could produce results only if the scourge of atheist treason could be purged from the Gran-Colombian society. So, while the army left only token support for the Jesuit Order’s paramilitary, the countryside was infiltrated with a lot of experienced field agents of the Twin Crowns. This did mean that some remote roadblocks and fortified positions were overtaken by sudden attacks of atheist partisans (most of which were Andean soldiers operating in the Portobrazilian rear), but the Portobrazilian counterespionage effort managed to do a lot of damage to the network of agitators and rural supporters of the anti-monarchist movement. If this trend were to continue, the loss of grassroot organization threatens the entire insurgency campaign. (Regional quest progress: -14%, Communes of the Andes losses: -17.49 HC, -11.24 IC, -17.62 EC, -3.92 MC, Portugal-Brazil losses: -19.87 HC, -10.29 IC, -17.11 EC, -7.49 MC)
Q1-Q2 1895: The rural insurgency against the once omnipotent Jesuit Order and its Portobrazilian protectors continued in the Colombian Andes, fuelled by Andean infiltrators. The Communal Army’s proficiency had grown by then, and attacks on land convoys and roadblocks stopped being as one-sided as they used to. This campaign culminated in a daring raid on Colegio San Pedro Claver, a Jesuit seminary school-cum-military base in the town of Bucaramanga. Meanwhile, atheist agitation among the peasants had also stepped up, gradually bringing new frustrated converts to the anti-Jesuit cause. These successes were costly and far between, but they did help to stabilize the anti-Jesuit resistance just when the dynamics had appeared to be going against it. Still, the partisan war against the Jesuit Order and the “repentant narcos” may take years and years. (Regional quest progress: 5.2%, Portugal-Brazil losses: -26.55 HC, -19.98 IC, -34.83 EC, -10.66 MC, Communes of the Andes losses: -31.04 HC, -13.87 IC, -27.98 EC, -6.55 MC)
Q3 1895-Q2 1896: The loss of the Andean support did truly knock off the atheist rural resistance to the Jesuit Order’s rule in Gran Colombia. Having lost its most capable commanders, advisers, armaments, and the majority of manpower, the anti-Jesuit partisan units were left unable to perform any more offensive actions after the formal signing of the Treaty of Montreal. One by one, they started being surrounded and eliminated by the combined might of the Twin Crowns’ intelligence and garrison troops. It wouldn’t be an understatement to say that more than half of all atheist partisan forces has been destroyed by now, and now the entre movement’s demise looks like a matter of time, not occurrence. (Regional quest progress: -52.28%, Portugal-Brazil losses: -2.51 HC, -1.64 IC, -2.56 EC, -1.02 MC)
Tickets for war, tickets for peace
Spoiler :
Q3-Q4 1894: Financial collapse brought about by hyperinflation may one day be admitted to be one of the biggest causes of the collapse of the Republican Army in the campaign of the fall of 1894. Still, the damage done to the local economy by the “service tickets” appears to extend past the military matters. Now that Portugal-Brazil has overtaken the country, thousands of people who had either served or sold some wares to the Republican soldiers, remain with stacks of “service tickets” that they hope will be someday exchanged for a more “valid” currency, or else they might lose a year’s worth of earnings. To the reinstituted authority of the Titular Kingdom of Gran Colombia it presents a duplicate challenge. Invalidation of the service tickets could set a wave of bankruptcies of numerous businesses, deepening the financial and economic crisis in this war-ravaged realm of the Twin Crowns. Meanwhile, many counterintelligence experts express discomfort with the idea of supporting the “service tickets” with Portobrazilian money. After all, a good number of people with a surplus of such tickets might indeed be past members of the Republican military and especially its leaders.
Q1-Q2 1895: For the foes of de Braganza dynasty, the “service tickets” of Republican Gran Colombia looked like a great way to find a road toward the heart of every poor commoner. With many of them barely trying to make ends meet, while having stacks of worthless coupons at home, it was just a matter of finding the right way to provide them with what they needed most (food, water, medical supplies) in exchange for the old government bills and, perhaps, a bit of information or some small commitment. Once in a while, these agents would drop a few hints about how easy citizens of Cartagena have it, being able to pay for anything they wish with their service tickets. As attractive as these acts of calculated kindness were, the Portobrazilian police managed to make it well-known what happens to those who posses the “service tickets” or buy goods with them. After all, who but a rebel would have the “rebel currency?” Masters of mass public events, the Portobrazilian authorities even turned executions of “service ticket” holders into an open demonstration of how serious the crime was. Not only were the executions (and court sessions) captured on camera, but they were often put right into the middle of popular futebol matches to make the message more clear. As hated as such measures were, they started to turn the “service tickets” into some sort of a “black spot,” a doom-bringing possession that could lead all sorts of disasters to its owner (or trader). In a few cases, people even started to use them to anonymously settle their petty scores, leaving a “service ticket” to a hated neighbor and then tipping the police. Either way, it may take some effort to turn the “service tickets’” reputation around. (Regional quest progress: -15.22%, Portugal-Brazil losses: -8.65 HC, -10.38 IC, -16.86 EC, -3.57 MC, ??? losses: -2.2? HC, -3.9? IC, -5.5? EC, -1.6? MC, ??? losses: -2.3? HC, -3.3? IC, -5.0? EC, -1.0? MC)
Q1-Q2 1895: For the foes of de Braganza dynasty, the “service tickets” of Republican Gran Colombia looked like a great way to find a road toward the heart of every poor commoner. With many of them barely trying to make ends meet, while having stacks of worthless coupons at home, it was just a matter of finding the right way to provide them with what they needed most (food, water, medical supplies) in exchange for the old government bills and, perhaps, a bit of information or some small commitment. Once in a while, these agents would drop a few hints about how easy citizens of Cartagena have it, being able to pay for anything they wish with their service tickets. As attractive as these acts of calculated kindness were, the Portobrazilian police managed to make it well-known what happens to those who posses the “service tickets” or buy goods with them. After all, who but a rebel would have the “rebel currency?” Masters of mass public events, the Portobrazilian authorities even turned executions of “service ticket” holders into an open demonstration of how serious the crime was. Not only were the executions (and court sessions) captured on camera, but they were often put right into the middle of popular futebol matches to make the message more clear. As hated as such measures were, they started to turn the “service tickets” into some sort of a “black spot,” a doom-bringing possession that could lead all sorts of disasters to its owner (or trader). In a few cases, people even started to use them to anonymously settle their petty scores, leaving a “service ticket” to a hated neighbor and then tipping the police. Either way, it may take some effort to turn the “service tickets’” reputation around. (Regional quest progress: -15.22%, Portugal-Brazil losses: -8.65 HC, -10.38 IC, -16.86 EC, -3.57 MC, ??? losses: -2.2? HC, -3.9? IC, -5.5? EC, -1.6? MC, ??? losses: -2.3? HC, -3.3? IC, -5.0? EC, -1.0? MC)
Remember the 19th of April!
Spoiler :
Q1-Q2 1894: As the Gran-Colombian Civil War was expanding into an international conflict, the strife at the heart of the Gran-Colombian society only grew. A series of bombings took place earlier in the year, damaging railroads and port infrastructure in Portobrazilian-controlled Venezuela and eastern provinces of Colombia. The true alarm was rung by the Twin Crowns’ military government in the area on April 19, when the palace of a Portobrazilian governor-general of the province of New Andalusia was bombed in Cumaná, taking his life along with the entire administrative archive. At that point, the Portobrazilian secret police was already fully engaged in an intense hunt for the perpetrators of these terrorist attacks, who started naming themselves Movimiento 19 de Abril (the Movement of the 19th of April) in their underground leaflettes. Based on their program’s analysis, the Portobrazilian investigators could define the terrorist group’s ideology as “militant technocratism,” while its sponsorship and coordination was placed clearly on one of the great powers currently at odds with the Twin Crowns. One way or another, the end of the spring saw numerous cells of the Movement of the 19th of April destroyed by the Twin Crowns’ counter-intelligence squads, while the population on the occupied territory was exposed to a counter-propaganda campaign that concentrated on numerous Gran-Colombian lives lost in these attacks, placing a wedge between the terrorists and their potential recruitment base. Still, the Portobrazilian war on terror is very far from over, and it promises to test the true power of the Twin Crowns’ security services. (Regional quest progress: -16.44%, Portugal-Brazil losses: -17.75 HC, -26.32 IC, -38.56 EC, -9.06 MC, ??? losses: -12.8? HC, -17.9? IC, -26.5? EC, -5.5? MC)
Q3-Q4 1894: The bombing and assassination campaign by the Movimiento 19 de Abril continued throughout the year, sending many trains off the rails and taking quite a toll on the Portobrazilian troops, police, and local collaborators. However, for all the impressive damage the terror tactics had done, there were few signs of any real weakness shown by the regent regime. In fact, after the collapse of the Republic and a deep drop in morale among its supporters, the Movement of the 19th of April was seen by the population as a group of bitter avengers who endangered lives of the civilians for the sake of their own agenda. Or, at least, that’s how the Twin Crowns’ propaganda tried to paint the picture. What can objectively said about that terror campaign, however, is that the counterintelligence service of the Twin Crowns has finally been able to concentrate on tracking down the movement’s cells, pushing it on the edge of extinction. (Regional quest progress: -91.33%, ??? losses: -9.5? HC, -13.4? IC, -20.?? EC, -4.1? MC, Portugal-Brazil losses: -16.17 HC, -17.74 IC, -30.2 EC, -6.11 MC)
Q3-Q4 1894: The bombing and assassination campaign by the Movimiento 19 de Abril continued throughout the year, sending many trains off the rails and taking quite a toll on the Portobrazilian troops, police, and local collaborators. However, for all the impressive damage the terror tactics had done, there were few signs of any real weakness shown by the regent regime. In fact, after the collapse of the Republic and a deep drop in morale among its supporters, the Movement of the 19th of April was seen by the population as a group of bitter avengers who endangered lives of the civilians for the sake of their own agenda. Or, at least, that’s how the Twin Crowns’ propaganda tried to paint the picture. What can objectively said about that terror campaign, however, is that the counterintelligence service of the Twin Crowns has finally been able to concentrate on tracking down the movement’s cells, pushing it on the edge of extinction. (Regional quest progress: -91.33%, ??? losses: -9.5? HC, -13.4? IC, -20.?? EC, -4.1? MC, Portugal-Brazil losses: -16.17 HC, -17.74 IC, -30.2 EC, -6.11 MC)
Q3 1895-Q2 1896: With the Treaty of Montreal requiring for the Monroe Conference Bloc to stop its involvement in the Gran-Colombian matters, the Twin Crowns were finally free to start cracking down on the anarchic bomb throwers of the Movimiento 19 de Abril group. The hunt for the terrorist organization’s cells was performed by the royal counterintelligence service, combined with the garrison troops, and the results of this cooperation varied widely. The army showed a complete lack of understanding how to handle a hunt for a small group of zealously motivated bombers, leading to a spectacular loss of life when an entire section of barracks in Fuerte Militar Larandia was blown to pieces along with several hundred of soldiers. However, where the army failed, the detectives of the Twin Crowns’ secret service excelled, and through the winter of 1895-1896 most of the remaining cells of the Movement of the 19th of April were liquidated, finally bringing the costly bombing campaign to its end. (Regional quest completed with full failure, region Gran Colombia gains -5 HC, -1.5% Regional Growth Fluctuation, Portugal-Brazil gains +2% Regional Influence, Mexico loses -2% Regional Influence, Portugal-Brazil losses: -1.26 HC, -0.82 IC, -1.28 EC, -0.51 MC)
North Andes Region
Spoiler :
Booming region overcoming years of economic neglect and weak infrastructure.
Land-use permits
Guano farmers
Legacy of Royal Proclamations
Q3 1895-Q2 1896: By mid-1895, the United Communes de-jure secured their control of southern Ecuador in accordance to the Treaty of Montreal. However, simply conquering the territory didn’t change the nature of public order in it. Just like in the darkest days of the Gran-Colombian Civil War, pro-Jesuit militias continued to roam the countryside, eradicating what little presence that the Andean administration had there. This meant that the troops of the Andean Communal army, along with the United Communes’ counterinsurgency agents, were sent to Southern Ecuador to clear the newly gained lands for the remnants of reactionary resistance. At that they succeeded with brutal efficiency, through a series of counter-raids, mass arrests, and public executions of the enemies of the people (the hatred the locals had for the Jesuit paramilitary squads in these lands did help a lot, as the Andeans had a popular mandate for their repressions). Meanwhile, a separate problem that arose at the same time was an influx of refugees from Gran Colombia, most of them proletarians of strong Communard or Socialist sympathies, escaping Portobrazilian purges. To President de Luna’s credit, the national response to this problem was holistic and rather diverse. It included establishment of a temporary, but reliable blimp transportation network (built on the foundation of the wartime “Cloud Road”), as well as industrial subsidies for small and medium businesses and urban accomodation program for misplaced newcomers. The program wasn’t an all-round success, though. De Luna’s attempts to organize a land reform, which was devised to re-assess land ownership based on the principles of “Progressismo, Centralismo, Indigenismo,” failed soundedly. In an overcrowded, war-torn country, still suffering from an unresolved issue with land-use permits, the government attempts to fix perceived social injustices via land redistribution caused more ownership confusion and bad blood than anything else. Still, despite some shortcomings, the integration of southern Ecuador into the United Communes was largely a positive effort, which helped the troubled de Luna’s cabinet to establish greater authority across the northern half of the country. (Regional quest completed with mixed results, region North Andes Region gains +5 HC, +10 EC, +5 MC, Regional Growth Fluctuation -0.5%, Communes of the Andes gains +2% Regional Influence, Union of North America loses -2% Regional Influence, Communes of the Andes losses: -5.23 HC, -3.06 IC, -8.11 EC, -3.39 MC)
Republican Communes
Q3 1895-Q2 1896: The story of De Luna’s cabinet’s work on reintegration of southern Ecuador was mostly a story of success and achievement. Yet, it wouldn't be complete without a troubled attempt to establish enclaves of Gran-Colombian liberalism in the newly gained territories under a placeholder name of “Republican Communes.” These efforts were criticized from the start by both the Indigenists and radical Communards in the Communal parliament (for favoring American Spaniards (main adherents of Gran-Colombian republicanism) by the former and for straying away from ideological purity by the latter). Knowing full well that the Andean state lacked necessary elements of legal pluralism, de Luna secured promises of North-American and Mexican assistance in dealing with liberal and progressive elements in southern Ecuador. Mexico’s and the Union’s mediation indeed succeeded in creating such islands of political and economic nonconformism in the North Andes, but it came at the cost of the Communard regime losing even more grip on the region in favor of its North-American sponsors. Yet, despite additional (and much criticized) decentralization that this change brought to the United Communes, it, at least, attracted additional intellectual capital to the country, as many members of the Gran-Colombian middle class were only happy to leave the Portobrazilian territory for promised havens in Andean Ecuador. (Regional quest completed with mixed results, region North Andes gains +5 HC, +10 IC, Union of North America gains +2% Regional Influence, Mexico gains +4% Regional Influence, Communes of the Andes loses -6% Regional Influence, Union of North America losses: -0.38 HC, -0.66 IC, -0.94 EC, -0.28 MC, Communes of the Andes losses: -0.91 HC, -1.38 IC, -1.97 EC, -0.23 MC, Mexico losses: -1.07 HC, -1.51 IC, -2.25 EC, -0.46 MC)
Fortifying Ecuador
Q3 1895-Q2 1896: Wary of a possible repetition of the Gran-Colombian bloodshed, the Andean military rushed its engineering forces to start fortifying the new mountain border between the United Communes and Portobrazilian part of Ecuador. Due to simplicity of the Andean engineering knowledge, the new defensive line was simply a string of star forts, artillery emplacements, and roadblocks along the mountain trails, but in the defense-favoring terrain like the Andes, it seems to be enough to provide a major obstacle for an attacking enemy. (Regional quest progress: 52.88%, Communes of the Andes losses: -8.24 HC, -1.88 IC, -4.76 EC, -1.43 MC)
Dynastats, rotastats, and hybrid airships
Q3 1895-Q2 1896: Throughout the most of its contemporary history, the United Communes as a nation were truly united thanks to a specific technological achievement of modern engineering: dirigible airships. With regular blimps and zeppelins being either too slow or having too little of a cargo-load, a market demand had already existed for more complex and heavy-lifting airships. This demand, combined with a series of Andean government contracts, eventually brought together design bureaus from the three nations that were consistently obsessed with lighter-than-air aircraft over the past years: Dixieland, Tokugawa Japan, and the Andean Communes. The CSA were represented by a merged team of the Talahassee Gas&Air and Shenandoah Steel engineers. On behalf of the Shogunate, the Ima construction bureau (a brainchild of Ima Naoaki, the constructor of the “Blind Justice” air yacht) was present. As for the Andes, the project was driven on their side by a multitude of airship collectives under the AAA umbrella. With the comprehensive amount of practical experience and technical expertise accumulated between the all three participant groups, the joint international project was extremely productive and went far beyond even the pragmatic and specialized Russian military effort at developing military supply airships. It is hoped that this combined approach to the problem from multiple angles might result in development of several forms of powered aircraft that obtain some of their lift as a lighter-than-air airship and some from aerodynamic lift as a heavier-than-air aerodyne, including airships with fixed wings and/or a lifting body intended for long-endurance flights (dynastats) or airships with rotary wings intended for heavy lift applications (rotastats). (Technology quest progress: 73.17%, Communes of the Andes losses: -1.97 HC, -0.45 IC, -4.62 EC, -3.31 MC, Tokugawa Shogunate losses: -0.76 HC, -0.16 IC, -2.11 EC, -1.84 MC, Confederate States of America losses: -0.59 HC, -0.14 IC, -1.6 EC, -1.41 MC)
Heliographic networks
Land-use permits
Spoiler :
Q1-Q2 1893: Land-use permits are a new legal document that earlier in the year helped prevent land speculation at the height of the Transandean Railway Network construction. Essentially, the permits and an associated law established that any land owning citizen or commune could be stripped of their right to that land by the local Citizens’ Council if the user of the land did not begin “intended and meaningful work” upon the land within 30 days of obtaining the right to use it. While being the most robust method of land nationalization, this law was written in a hurry and has left a trail of loopholes and anecdotal, counterproductive judicial rulings. Some citizens clearly became victims of personal vendettas by chairmen of their respective Citizens’ Councils, while a few communes lost agriculturally valuable fields just because they were using obsolete or too advanced crop rotation systems that left some patches of land formaly “not used” for more than thirty days. As for the state, it has found itself in unintended possession of some low-value lands all across the nation. Now it is up to the Communal President (or any of his enemies) how to use this bureaucratic chaos for better or for worse.
Guano farmers
Spoiler :
1890: The world is experiencing a population boom, which leads to a skyrocketing demand on agricultural production. This, in turn, makes use of fertilizers an indispensable part of an agricultural cycle. One of such fertilizers is guano, dry excrement of seals, seabirds, and cave-dwelling bats found in big quantities all across Peru. Besides boosting agricultural output of local village communes, guano makes a great export good, being much cheaper than artificially made fertilizers. However, many Andean experts predict a drop in guano demand quite soon, because of the growth of artificial fertilizer industry across the world. While the prices are still good, these experts suggest investing money into something more lasting.
Legacy of Royal Proclamations
Spoiler :
Q4 1893: Peru-Ecuadoran territorial dispute over territories located north and east of the Maranon and Napo rivers is one of the oldest running international conflicts in the Western Hemisphere. It stems from so-called Real Cedulas (Royal Proclamations) issued by Spain, quite loosely defining borders between various viceroyalties in South America, making it easy for each country to read it whichever way they wished. With the conquest of Ecuador by young General Diaz, the caudillo and first monarch of Gran Colombia, and with absorption of Peru into the United Communes of the Andes, the conflict didn’t dissipate, but rather changed how it manifests. For years, it was considered that the troubled Communes had no realistic way to challenge the Gran-Colombian power in the region, erasing their claims de-facto if not de-jure. However, in recent years the situation flipped completely, and now calls are being made by many peasant communities of south-eastern Ecuador to the Andean President de Luna, asking him to allow them to join the United Communes. Diplomatic experts warned the Andean leader that such move would require a lot of diplomatic investments, bringing all local leaders on board, while simultaneously not angering either the Republic of Gran Colombia or the Twin Crowns of Portugal-Brazil. Besides, they point out that such pleas are made not out of Pan-Andean sentiment, but due to a desperate hope by the villagers to be protected from collaborationist pro-Jesuit bandits, who ravage the countryside and may spread havoc across Andean river valleys further south if the territories of Tumbes, Jaen, and Maynas get included into the United Communes or simply receive their protection.
Q3 1895-Q2 1896: By mid-1895, the United Communes de-jure secured their control of southern Ecuador in accordance to the Treaty of Montreal. However, simply conquering the territory didn’t change the nature of public order in it. Just like in the darkest days of the Gran-Colombian Civil War, pro-Jesuit militias continued to roam the countryside, eradicating what little presence that the Andean administration had there. This meant that the troops of the Andean Communal army, along with the United Communes’ counterinsurgency agents, were sent to Southern Ecuador to clear the newly gained lands for the remnants of reactionary resistance. At that they succeeded with brutal efficiency, through a series of counter-raids, mass arrests, and public executions of the enemies of the people (the hatred the locals had for the Jesuit paramilitary squads in these lands did help a lot, as the Andeans had a popular mandate for their repressions). Meanwhile, a separate problem that arose at the same time was an influx of refugees from Gran Colombia, most of them proletarians of strong Communard or Socialist sympathies, escaping Portobrazilian purges. To President de Luna’s credit, the national response to this problem was holistic and rather diverse. It included establishment of a temporary, but reliable blimp transportation network (built on the foundation of the wartime “Cloud Road”), as well as industrial subsidies for small and medium businesses and urban accomodation program for misplaced newcomers. The program wasn’t an all-round success, though. De Luna’s attempts to organize a land reform, which was devised to re-assess land ownership based on the principles of “Progressismo, Centralismo, Indigenismo,” failed soundedly. In an overcrowded, war-torn country, still suffering from an unresolved issue with land-use permits, the government attempts to fix perceived social injustices via land redistribution caused more ownership confusion and bad blood than anything else. Still, despite some shortcomings, the integration of southern Ecuador into the United Communes was largely a positive effort, which helped the troubled de Luna’s cabinet to establish greater authority across the northern half of the country. (Regional quest completed with mixed results, region North Andes Region gains +5 HC, +10 EC, +5 MC, Regional Growth Fluctuation -0.5%, Communes of the Andes gains +2% Regional Influence, Union of North America loses -2% Regional Influence, Communes of the Andes losses: -5.23 HC, -3.06 IC, -8.11 EC, -3.39 MC)
Republican Communes
Q3 1895-Q2 1896: The story of De Luna’s cabinet’s work on reintegration of southern Ecuador was mostly a story of success and achievement. Yet, it wouldn't be complete without a troubled attempt to establish enclaves of Gran-Colombian liberalism in the newly gained territories under a placeholder name of “Republican Communes.” These efforts were criticized from the start by both the Indigenists and radical Communards in the Communal parliament (for favoring American Spaniards (main adherents of Gran-Colombian republicanism) by the former and for straying away from ideological purity by the latter). Knowing full well that the Andean state lacked necessary elements of legal pluralism, de Luna secured promises of North-American and Mexican assistance in dealing with liberal and progressive elements in southern Ecuador. Mexico’s and the Union’s mediation indeed succeeded in creating such islands of political and economic nonconformism in the North Andes, but it came at the cost of the Communard regime losing even more grip on the region in favor of its North-American sponsors. Yet, despite additional (and much criticized) decentralization that this change brought to the United Communes, it, at least, attracted additional intellectual capital to the country, as many members of the Gran-Colombian middle class were only happy to leave the Portobrazilian territory for promised havens in Andean Ecuador. (Regional quest completed with mixed results, region North Andes gains +5 HC, +10 IC, Union of North America gains +2% Regional Influence, Mexico gains +4% Regional Influence, Communes of the Andes loses -6% Regional Influence, Union of North America losses: -0.38 HC, -0.66 IC, -0.94 EC, -0.28 MC, Communes of the Andes losses: -0.91 HC, -1.38 IC, -1.97 EC, -0.23 MC, Mexico losses: -1.07 HC, -1.51 IC, -2.25 EC, -0.46 MC)
Fortifying Ecuador
Q3 1895-Q2 1896: Wary of a possible repetition of the Gran-Colombian bloodshed, the Andean military rushed its engineering forces to start fortifying the new mountain border between the United Communes and Portobrazilian part of Ecuador. Due to simplicity of the Andean engineering knowledge, the new defensive line was simply a string of star forts, artillery emplacements, and roadblocks along the mountain trails, but in the defense-favoring terrain like the Andes, it seems to be enough to provide a major obstacle for an attacking enemy. (Regional quest progress: 52.88%, Communes of the Andes losses: -8.24 HC, -1.88 IC, -4.76 EC, -1.43 MC)
Dynastats, rotastats, and hybrid airships
Q3 1895-Q2 1896: Throughout the most of its contemporary history, the United Communes as a nation were truly united thanks to a specific technological achievement of modern engineering: dirigible airships. With regular blimps and zeppelins being either too slow or having too little of a cargo-load, a market demand had already existed for more complex and heavy-lifting airships. This demand, combined with a series of Andean government contracts, eventually brought together design bureaus from the three nations that were consistently obsessed with lighter-than-air aircraft over the past years: Dixieland, Tokugawa Japan, and the Andean Communes. The CSA were represented by a merged team of the Talahassee Gas&Air and Shenandoah Steel engineers. On behalf of the Shogunate, the Ima construction bureau (a brainchild of Ima Naoaki, the constructor of the “Blind Justice” air yacht) was present. As for the Andes, the project was driven on their side by a multitude of airship collectives under the AAA umbrella. With the comprehensive amount of practical experience and technical expertise accumulated between the all three participant groups, the joint international project was extremely productive and went far beyond even the pragmatic and specialized Russian military effort at developing military supply airships. It is hoped that this combined approach to the problem from multiple angles might result in development of several forms of powered aircraft that obtain some of their lift as a lighter-than-air airship and some from aerodynamic lift as a heavier-than-air aerodyne, including airships with fixed wings and/or a lifting body intended for long-endurance flights (dynastats) or airships with rotary wings intended for heavy lift applications (rotastats). (Technology quest progress: 73.17%, Communes of the Andes losses: -1.97 HC, -0.45 IC, -4.62 EC, -3.31 MC, Tokugawa Shogunate losses: -0.76 HC, -0.16 IC, -2.11 EC, -1.84 MC, Confederate States of America losses: -0.59 HC, -0.14 IC, -1.6 EC, -1.41 MC)
Heliographic networks
Spoiler :
1892: The idea to use light-reflecting mirrors to pass encoded signals over big distances originated in the Ottoman army, but was never used on a scale bigger than inter-platoon communication in the field. Civilian government of the Sublime Porte was previously unimpressed by the project proposed by its retired military engineer to create a permanent heliographic network across the nation, so the inventor took it elsewhere. This year, the Andean government saw some value in the proposal, recognising its value in the largely mountainous nation, divided by deep valleys and rugged terrain, yet almost entirely located above the elevation level that could hamper effective heliographic exchange due to weather conditions. Essentially, plans are made to build fast-speed communication networks that use heliographs, wireless solar telegraphic devices that signal by flashes of sunlight (generally using Morse code) reflected by a mirror. However, the young nation was short of resources to start working on the new project, so the financing was promised to start in the upcoming year, according to the plan.
Q1-Q2 1893: Development of the first nation-wide heliographic network in the world has started this year, but the progress was slow, since Andean engineers were struggling to find a reliable method of converting heliographic information into analogue messages without mass use of human labor for round-the-clock “light sighting.” Once more resources are dedicated to the research, it may be able to progress faster. (Technology quest progress: 8.07%, Communes of the Andes losses: -3.31 HC, -0.75 IC, -6.98 EC, -4.78 MC)
Q1-Q2 1893: Development of the first nation-wide heliographic network in the world has started this year, but the progress was slow, since Andean engineers were struggling to find a reliable method of converting heliographic information into analogue messages without mass use of human labor for round-the-clock “light sighting.” Once more resources are dedicated to the research, it may be able to progress faster. (Technology quest progress: 8.07%, Communes of the Andes losses: -3.31 HC, -0.75 IC, -6.98 EC, -4.78 MC)
South Andes Region
Spoiler :
Booming region recovering from civil war and decades of neglect and corruption.
Q3 1895-Q2 1896: Having established some basic diplomatic and political ties with the Union of North America, the diplomatic corps of moderate socialist Belgium turned to entering the politics of yet another leftist nation, specifically the United Communes of the Andes. The Belgian embassy was surprisingly well-received in Lima, perhaps, due to a growing wave of popular disappointment in the UNA’s international leadership. (Region South Andes Region: Belgium gains +0.98% Regional Influence, Union of North America loses -0.98%, Belgium losses: -0.9 HC, -1.43 IC, -2.33 EC, -0.22 MC)
Campesino communes
Melgarejismo legacy
Spanish Andeans
Stabbed in the back!
Q3 1895-Q2 1896: Throughout the bloody years of the Gran-Colombian War of Independence, the Pan-Amerindian Indigenista movement experienced the most notable rise across the United Communes and even outside them, among politically conscious Amerindians of Gran Colombia. The sacrifices made by these most passionate exporters of the Communist revolution of South America were great, and they even included a shameful giveaway of the Antofagasta and Atacama communal territories to the imperialist Gran Paraguay. Now, President de Luna is ripping what he sowed, as the Treaty of Montreal left the Andean state with a petty compensation for all of its efforts, effectively abandoning its self-declared mission of Amerindian liberation. Not only did this treaty exposed de Luna’s and his allies’ hypocrisy, but it also let the United Communes in a worse state than they were before the war - at least, in the eyes of the most active political actors on the radical left. Now, this movement looks like the biggest opposition to the relatively pragmatist political regime in Lima.
Q3 1895-Q2 1896: Having established some basic diplomatic and political ties with the Union of North America, the diplomatic corps of moderate socialist Belgium turned to entering the politics of yet another leftist nation, specifically the United Communes of the Andes. The Belgian embassy was surprisingly well-received in Lima, perhaps, due to a growing wave of popular disappointment in the UNA’s international leadership. (Region South Andes Region: Belgium gains +0.98% Regional Influence, Union of North America loses -0.98%, Belgium losses: -0.9 HC, -1.43 IC, -2.33 EC, -0.22 MC)
Campesino communes
Spoiler :
1890: Andean peasants, campesino, have a long history of resisting debt peonage on local haciendas (nobility-owned mining or agricultural holdings). With the formation of the United Communes, many of these village communities formed quickly and naturally into grassroot countryside municipalities that rejected central authorities’ attempts to urbanize and industrialize the entire nation. Besides, unlike French communes, the campesino communes of the Andes have very well-defined natural borders (usually, limited by mountain ranges), which allows introduction of intercommunal tariffs designed to protect local farmers from competition. On the one hand, it does make lives of Bolivian campesino Communards stable and quiet. On the other hand, the nation’s leadership is afraid that this practice may spread throughout the country, hindering its development.
Melgarejismo legacy
Spoiler :
1891: Mariano Melgarejo was an infamous ruler of Peru-Bolivian Confederation in the 1860-70s. One of his most notorious policies was one of cruel discrimination against South American Indians in favor of pureblood Spanish or mixed-blood Meztico population. Now that a new authority controls Bolivia, the grudges of the old should be forgotten… But people have different ideas. A series of disputes between indigenous rural communes and urban Hispanic guilds has led to riots and, in a few cases, bloodshed. Until these disputes are resolved, it’s unlikely the Bolivian society will truly prosper.
Spanish Andeans
Spoiler :
Q1-Q2 1895: The rise of Indigenism at the height of the South-American Liberation War (as the Gran-Colombian War of Independence is known in the Andes) has had unexpected victims inside the United Communes themselves: the Spanish Peruvians and Spanish Bolivians. In the country with around 51% population being of mixed blood (mostly, mestizos (people of mixed white and native Peruvian descent), but also some mulattoes), the Spaniards are still a powerful minority, with strong representation in the Communal Assembly. Besides, the Spaniard diaspora keeps growing thanks to Communard migration from Iberia, as many disappointed idealists leave the peninsula for more “pure” regimes. However, the popular opinion of “colonial injustice” is becoming more and more radicalized, and by now many Andean Spaniards are feeling frustrated and demotivated by the fact that Europeans are being routinely demonized as evil exploiters of the continent’s native population. On the other side, the Indigenista agitators don’t stop asking: aren’t they exactly that, after all?
Stabbed in the back!
Q3 1895-Q2 1896: Throughout the bloody years of the Gran-Colombian War of Independence, the Pan-Amerindian Indigenista movement experienced the most notable rise across the United Communes and even outside them, among politically conscious Amerindians of Gran Colombia. The sacrifices made by these most passionate exporters of the Communist revolution of South America were great, and they even included a shameful giveaway of the Antofagasta and Atacama communal territories to the imperialist Gran Paraguay. Now, President de Luna is ripping what he sowed, as the Treaty of Montreal left the Andean state with a petty compensation for all of its efforts, effectively abandoning its self-declared mission of Amerindian liberation. Not only did this treaty exposed de Luna’s and his allies’ hypocrisy, but it also let the United Communes in a worse state than they were before the war - at least, in the eyes of the most active political actors on the radical left. Now, this movement looks like the biggest opposition to the relatively pragmatist political regime in Lima.
Amazon Region
Spoiler :
Fast-developing region with big infrastructure challenges, but a lot of unexplored resource extraction potential.
Bandeirantes’ fortune
Q3 1895-Q2 1896: The Treaty of Montreal put an end to the brutal, exhausting Amazonian insurgency campaign launched by the Andean Communal Army against the Twin Crowns and their bandeirantes mercenaries. At the height of their self-sacrificial struggle for the freeing indigenous Amazonians from the European colonialism yoke, all pretences were abandoned, and the Andean soldiers were ordered to drag their feet home across the jungle. Not surprisingly, many zealous Indigenista soldiers saw it as an unscrupulous betrayal of the cause they had fought for. According to reports, entire units quickly formed soldiers’ councils and voted to to cut their affiliations with the “treasonous regime of DeLuna,” effectively deserting with their weapons to stay and fight the imperialists to the bloody end. That end, predictably, soon came to them in the form of a punitive expedition by the Twin Crowns’ riverine flotilla and the garrison troops, supported by bandeirantes mercenaries. Some of the indigenous tribes, however, evaded retribution by accepting the gifts of the Portobrazilian state and abandoning the Indigenist cause altogether. All in all, this was an anticlimactic end to the most successful insurgency campaign of the War of Gran-Colombian Liberation, and it saw da Braganza dynasty cementing its rule over the Portobrazilian part of the Amazon basin. The Andeans remained in control over the rainforests at the eastern foot of the Andes, but the overall loss of influence in Amazonia couldn’t come at the worst time for President DeLuna’s position in the Communal Council. (Regional quest completed with mixed results, region Amazon Region gains -5 HC, -5 EC, Regional Growth Fluctuation -3%, Portugal-Brazil gains +18% Regional Influence, Communes of the Andes loses -18% Regional Influence, Communes of the Andes: -10 HC, -5 MC, Portugal-Brazil losses: -1.81 HC, -1.64 IC, -3.17 EC, -3.08 MC)
New India
Dancers or fighters
Escape from the Cape
Q3 1895-Q2 1896: In her response to the reports of desperate poverty and growing banditism among the desperate English refugees from the Cape, Empress Isabel of Portugal-Brazil managed to outdo even the ill-fated Queen Marie-Antoinette of France, who’d quipped her infamous “let them eat cake” a mere century earlier. Shortly speaking, the Empress’ plan to help out the starving refugees was to increase the “cultural prosperity” vial building a British-style grand opera house in Manaus. If anyone’s prosperity did increase from that move, it was Manaus governor’s, but it can’t be argued that the city at least saw its status elevated in the kingdom. What did meaningfully increase the well-being of the English community, however, was a wave of British investments that saw new mining and agricultural industries established, with Cape refugees as their laborers. That investment did give the government of the Royal Commonwealth an almost messianic reputation among the desperate Englishmen, securing Great Britain’s position in the region and also boosting the Portobrazilian economy. (Regional quest completed with mixed results, region Amazon Region gains +10 HC, +5 IC, +10 EC, Regional Growth Fluctuation +0.5%, British Royal Commonwealth gains +3% Regional Influence, Portugal-Brazil loses -3% Regional Influence, Portugal-Brazil losses:- 0.85 HC, -1.13 IC, -1.74 EC, -0.39 MC, British Royal Commonwealth losses: -0.97 HC, -0.26 IC, -2.78 EC, -2.2 MC)
Death in the Thick Bushes
Q3 1895-Q2 1896: The region of Mato Grosso (which name literally translates as “Thick Bushes”) is one of the most biodiverse territories on the planet, including in itself an edge of the Amazonian Rainforest, tropical wetlands of Pantanal, and savannas of Cerrado. Rich in timber and potentially open for agricultural development, Mato Grosso is largely unexplored and very lightly settled by Europeans. One of the contributing factors for this (in addition to its untamed flora and fauna) is the presence of highly territorial and protective Bororo natives. Living in tightly-knit village communes (as their self-name is translated “village court”), the Bororo have been retreating before waves of Spanish and Portuguese colonization for centuries, until the eastern Bororo (the Coroados) of Andean Bolivia found themselves almost completely separated from their western brethren (the Campanhas) of Mato Grosso. The recent war between the United Communes and the Twin Crown only served to agitating the both groups and uniting them along the Indigenist lines, eventually prompting a series of attacks against Portobrazilian garimpeiros (“gold seekers”) who roam Mato Grosso as precursors of another colonization wave.
Bandeirantes’ fortune
Spoiler :
1890: Recent growth of industrial exploitation of the Brazilian rainforest region has led to resurrection of the Bandeirantes (lit. “bannermen”), professional explorers, fortune hunters, and slave raiders. Hired by nobility-owned corporations or by the Royal Crown itself, these gun-slinging mercenaries briskly equip ad-hoc expeditions deep into the deadly jungles of the Amazon basin, sometimes simply mapping the route for better prepared expeditions to follow up. More often, however, their missions border illegal or even barbaric, ranging from capture of exotic animals for the black market to recovering industrial equipment lost in geologic exploration to genocide of local native tribes that display too much territorial pride in attempts to protect their lands from resource exploitation.
Q1-Q2 1894: In a bold effort to take the war to the Portobrazilian proper, the Andean army has equipped a series of lightly armed expeditions into the Amazon Basin, targeting local Bandeirantes in this action. Andean blimps again helped to deliver some scouting parties to the depths of the rainforest, while the bulk of the expeditionary corps marched on foot through that badly explored part of the planet. At the time first contact with the enemy was established, the bandeirantes were shocked to be engaged by a properly armed and trained regular army (albeit somewhat backward, as the Andean force is). This provided the Andeans with the absolute element of surprise, and it’d take it two more months, until mid-May, for the news of that incursion to reach the Portobrazilian high command. The latter put the bandeirantes irregulars into improvised paramilitary units and supplied them with detachments from local garrison troops, but this counter-incursion saw only a limited success against the elusive “forest plague” of Andean guerilla fighters who have surprised even themselves, it seems, with their adaptation to these almost unbearable fighting and living conditions. The only aspect of the Amazonian guerilla campaign that failed on the Andean side, was its failure to stir any organized anti-Portobrazilian resistance among the Amazonian natives. That is because no ambassadors or agitators were assigned to the fighting units, so to some less seclusive tribes the war looked like two groups of alien strangers killing themselves for no reason, while more seclusive communities were likely not even aware that any sort of conflict took place in the vast region. (Regional quest progress: 23.57%, Communes of the Andes losses: -8.06 HC, -1.68 IC, -3.65 EC, -1.79 MC, Portugal-Brazil losses: -8.62 HC, -2.69 IC, -4.34 EC, -3.25 MC)
Q3-Q4 1894: The initial successes of the Amazonian insurgency campaign were rather intoxicating, but the War Committee of the United Communes failed to attribute its success to the element of surprise. Once the Portobrazilians established the source of the threat and deployed properly organized units on the ground, the insurgency largely stalled. Fighting in the river-crossed jungles on foot was a grueling, slow affair, and the Andean commanders admit that it’s their luck that the enemy hasn’t had a chance to deploy riverine flotillas against them, claiming that such move might end the insurgency there and then. Meanwhile, the attempt to woo Amazonian natives to their side was also a mixed affair for the Andeans. Firstly, they incorrectly assumed that the Amazonian tribal chieftains were somehow dependent on the Andean weapons to maintain their power, while, in fact, the primitive and horizontally organized communes of hunters and gatherers had no need in such tools of legalized violence. Secondly, the seclusive tribes in the upper flow of the Amazon and its tributaries (territories where the Andeans operated) were the least aware of the Bandeirantes menace, so the attempts to agitate them against the Portobrazilians were mostly futile (or countered by Portobrazilian gifts of beads, fishing equipment, and alcohol). Still, as the time dragged on, the Andean attempts to promote anti-Portobrazilian strongmen and make them dependent on their weapons started to give results, spreading the rule of the strong and the vicious through the Amazonia Basin. This move wasn’t universally hailed by the Indigenista soldiers and activists, who viewed the original horizontal communes of the natives as an idealized version of a people’s commune and thought that the War Committee’s orders were seeking to corrupt the innocent natives to the cynical goal of using them in the war with Portugal-Brazil. One way or another, in the short term this plan has produced the desired results. (Regional quest progress: 63.14%, Communes of the Andes losses: -10.05 HC, -5.6 IC,-9.03 EC, -2.25 MC, Portugal-Brazil losses: -16.58 HC, -12.77 IC, -21.55 EC, -6.25 MC)
Q1-Q2 1895: The partisan war in Brazilian Amazonia continued this year at the same intensity, and, despite great logistical challenges, the Andeans have started seeing the situation slowly drag toward some sort of aт intermediate victory. Coercion of the Amazonian natives toward following the Andean agenda continued, although it was somewhat weakened by a softer approach the Communards used toward their native recruitment methods. Afraid of the impact that the previously effective, but unethical recruitment tactics would have on the morale of Indigenista soldiers, the Andeans started to say ‘no’ to some of the less principled Amazonian leaders who attempted to form first ever despotic warrior societies in the Amazonian history with the help of Andean firearms. Meanwhile, the fear mongering centered of the “horrors” of the Portobrazilian sale of alcohol to the natives had a mixed effect on the tribesmen, who often were made aware of that temptation through the fear mongering itself. One way or another, the frustration of the native recruitment was outshone by the successes of guerilla raids on the bandeirantes’ strongpoints deep in the rainforest, slowly giving the Andeans more control of the Amazon’s upper basin.(Regional quest progress: 84.57%, Communes of the Andes losses: -17.25 HC, -8.37 IC, -16.32 EC, -3.66 MC, Portugal-Brazil losses: -16.36 HC, -10.11 IC, -18.34 EC, -6.51 MC)
Q1-Q2 1894: In a bold effort to take the war to the Portobrazilian proper, the Andean army has equipped a series of lightly armed expeditions into the Amazon Basin, targeting local Bandeirantes in this action. Andean blimps again helped to deliver some scouting parties to the depths of the rainforest, while the bulk of the expeditionary corps marched on foot through that badly explored part of the planet. At the time first contact with the enemy was established, the bandeirantes were shocked to be engaged by a properly armed and trained regular army (albeit somewhat backward, as the Andean force is). This provided the Andeans with the absolute element of surprise, and it’d take it two more months, until mid-May, for the news of that incursion to reach the Portobrazilian high command. The latter put the bandeirantes irregulars into improvised paramilitary units and supplied them with detachments from local garrison troops, but this counter-incursion saw only a limited success against the elusive “forest plague” of Andean guerilla fighters who have surprised even themselves, it seems, with their adaptation to these almost unbearable fighting and living conditions. The only aspect of the Amazonian guerilla campaign that failed on the Andean side, was its failure to stir any organized anti-Portobrazilian resistance among the Amazonian natives. That is because no ambassadors or agitators were assigned to the fighting units, so to some less seclusive tribes the war looked like two groups of alien strangers killing themselves for no reason, while more seclusive communities were likely not even aware that any sort of conflict took place in the vast region. (Regional quest progress: 23.57%, Communes of the Andes losses: -8.06 HC, -1.68 IC, -3.65 EC, -1.79 MC, Portugal-Brazil losses: -8.62 HC, -2.69 IC, -4.34 EC, -3.25 MC)
Q3-Q4 1894: The initial successes of the Amazonian insurgency campaign were rather intoxicating, but the War Committee of the United Communes failed to attribute its success to the element of surprise. Once the Portobrazilians established the source of the threat and deployed properly organized units on the ground, the insurgency largely stalled. Fighting in the river-crossed jungles on foot was a grueling, slow affair, and the Andean commanders admit that it’s their luck that the enemy hasn’t had a chance to deploy riverine flotillas against them, claiming that such move might end the insurgency there and then. Meanwhile, the attempt to woo Amazonian natives to their side was also a mixed affair for the Andeans. Firstly, they incorrectly assumed that the Amazonian tribal chieftains were somehow dependent on the Andean weapons to maintain their power, while, in fact, the primitive and horizontally organized communes of hunters and gatherers had no need in such tools of legalized violence. Secondly, the seclusive tribes in the upper flow of the Amazon and its tributaries (territories where the Andeans operated) were the least aware of the Bandeirantes menace, so the attempts to agitate them against the Portobrazilians were mostly futile (or countered by Portobrazilian gifts of beads, fishing equipment, and alcohol). Still, as the time dragged on, the Andean attempts to promote anti-Portobrazilian strongmen and make them dependent on their weapons started to give results, spreading the rule of the strong and the vicious through the Amazonia Basin. This move wasn’t universally hailed by the Indigenista soldiers and activists, who viewed the original horizontal communes of the natives as an idealized version of a people’s commune and thought that the War Committee’s orders were seeking to corrupt the innocent natives to the cynical goal of using them in the war with Portugal-Brazil. One way or another, in the short term this plan has produced the desired results. (Regional quest progress: 63.14%, Communes of the Andes losses: -10.05 HC, -5.6 IC,-9.03 EC, -2.25 MC, Portugal-Brazil losses: -16.58 HC, -12.77 IC, -21.55 EC, -6.25 MC)
Q1-Q2 1895: The partisan war in Brazilian Amazonia continued this year at the same intensity, and, despite great logistical challenges, the Andeans have started seeing the situation slowly drag toward some sort of aт intermediate victory. Coercion of the Amazonian natives toward following the Andean agenda continued, although it was somewhat weakened by a softer approach the Communards used toward their native recruitment methods. Afraid of the impact that the previously effective, but unethical recruitment tactics would have on the morale of Indigenista soldiers, the Andeans started to say ‘no’ to some of the less principled Amazonian leaders who attempted to form first ever despotic warrior societies in the Amazonian history with the help of Andean firearms. Meanwhile, the fear mongering centered of the “horrors” of the Portobrazilian sale of alcohol to the natives had a mixed effect on the tribesmen, who often were made aware of that temptation through the fear mongering itself. One way or another, the frustration of the native recruitment was outshone by the successes of guerilla raids on the bandeirantes’ strongpoints deep in the rainforest, slowly giving the Andeans more control of the Amazon’s upper basin.(Regional quest progress: 84.57%, Communes of the Andes losses: -17.25 HC, -8.37 IC, -16.32 EC, -3.66 MC, Portugal-Brazil losses: -16.36 HC, -10.11 IC, -18.34 EC, -6.51 MC)
Q3 1895-Q2 1896: The Treaty of Montreal put an end to the brutal, exhausting Amazonian insurgency campaign launched by the Andean Communal Army against the Twin Crowns and their bandeirantes mercenaries. At the height of their self-sacrificial struggle for the freeing indigenous Amazonians from the European colonialism yoke, all pretences were abandoned, and the Andean soldiers were ordered to drag their feet home across the jungle. Not surprisingly, many zealous Indigenista soldiers saw it as an unscrupulous betrayal of the cause they had fought for. According to reports, entire units quickly formed soldiers’ councils and voted to to cut their affiliations with the “treasonous regime of DeLuna,” effectively deserting with their weapons to stay and fight the imperialists to the bloody end. That end, predictably, soon came to them in the form of a punitive expedition by the Twin Crowns’ riverine flotilla and the garrison troops, supported by bandeirantes mercenaries. Some of the indigenous tribes, however, evaded retribution by accepting the gifts of the Portobrazilian state and abandoning the Indigenist cause altogether. All in all, this was an anticlimactic end to the most successful insurgency campaign of the War of Gran-Colombian Liberation, and it saw da Braganza dynasty cementing its rule over the Portobrazilian part of the Amazon basin. The Andeans remained in control over the rainforests at the eastern foot of the Andes, but the overall loss of influence in Amazonia couldn’t come at the worst time for President DeLuna’s position in the Communal Council. (Regional quest completed with mixed results, region Amazon Region gains -5 HC, -5 EC, Regional Growth Fluctuation -3%, Portugal-Brazil gains +18% Regional Influence, Communes of the Andes loses -18% Regional Influence, Communes of the Andes: -10 HC, -5 MC, Portugal-Brazil losses: -1.81 HC, -1.64 IC, -3.17 EC, -3.08 MC)
New India
Spoiler :
1890: Spooked by the scope of the Great Caribbean Slave Rebellion, British colonial authorities in Guyana chose to replace unreliable Afro-Guyanese labor with indentured workers recruited and brought in from India by paid local agents known as arkatis in North India and maistris in South India. However, it appears that the agents did their job a little bit too well (or, maybe, the number of people wishing to escape suppressive British policies in India was a bit too high). Now, British Gayana and even parts of the neighboring Dutch colony are populated primarily by Indians of Telugu and Tamil origin, who outnumber Europeans five to one. The region is being transformed by this cultural shift, and some observers suggest that a new, mixed Indian ethnicity is fusing in Anglo-Dutch Gayana.
Q1-Q2 1895: Little has changed in the ethnic composition of Suriname and Gayana since the colonies were purchased by Portugal-Brazil, and the tensions it brings remain.
Q1-Q2 1895: Little has changed in the ethnic composition of Suriname and Gayana since the colonies were purchased by Portugal-Brazil, and the tensions it brings remain.
Dancers or fighters
Spoiler :
1890: Cabanagem was a rebellion of black or mulatto slaves in Northern Brazil that occurred in the first half of the 19th century. Since it was put down, slave population in this region has been very closely supervised by the authorities, which make sure that people of color don’t stash weapons sharper than a fork and don’t practice any fighting skills. Now, however, the line begins to blur, because many slaves are starting to practice an acrobatic dance known as capoeira that looks suspiciously like some form of a combat. Facing this uncertainty and surrounded by well-trained, athletic people, gendarmes choose to look the other way. Meanwhile, in the slums of Bahia towns, these dance- and battle-hardened martial artists, known as capoeiristas, are starting to form criminal gangs that can rival those of Italian mafioso.
Escape from the Cape
Spoiler :
Q1-Q2 1893: Strange duality continues existing in relationships between the Free Boer Republic and the Twin Crowns of Portugal-Brazil. Despite all diplomatic setbacks between the two nations, they continue exchanging gestures of goodwill or, at the very least, cooperate on the issues that one of them continues generating. This year, the Portobrazilian navy volunteered to assist with a semi-forced evacuation of English refugees from the Cape to Brazil. This royally sanctioned effort by the Portobrazilian merchant marine indeed helped many refugees escape the horrors of Kaapstadt, although some number of survivors still wait their steamer in Capetown. Many chose to settle down and stay in Manaus, while others took tickets to Great Britain (if they could afford them) or to Portobrazilian Patagonia (if they couldn’t), where English is still the dominant language of day-to-day life. (Regional quest progress: 84%, Portugal-Brazil losses: -1.19 HC, -0.76 IC, -1.56 EC, -2.72 MC)
Q3-Q4 1894: The escalation of hostilities between Portugal-Brazil and the Monroe Conference Bloc dragged other participants of the Second Atlantic War into the conflict with the Twin Crowns. Among these were the Boers, whose government had consistently been exchanging near-open hostility and suspicious friendliness in relations with de Braganza dynasty. This, by itself, put a sharp end to the Portobrazilian effort to evacuate a settle English-speaking refugees from Kaapstadt. (Critics of the crown, meanwhile, commented that such efforts died down as suddenly as they started more than a year before, in a manner typical for energetic, but absent-minded Empress Isabel.) One way or another, now English shantytowns in Manaus and other parts of the rugged Amazonian shore are there to stay, and many of their inhabitants are turning to crime or begging for money out of desperation. Whoever can, have already left for Patagonia, and some even preferred the Spanish-speaking Free State to the Portobrazilian (and partially English-speaking) colony. (Regional quest progress: 34%)
Q3-Q4 1894: The escalation of hostilities between Portugal-Brazil and the Monroe Conference Bloc dragged other participants of the Second Atlantic War into the conflict with the Twin Crowns. Among these were the Boers, whose government had consistently been exchanging near-open hostility and suspicious friendliness in relations with de Braganza dynasty. This, by itself, put a sharp end to the Portobrazilian effort to evacuate a settle English-speaking refugees from Kaapstadt. (Critics of the crown, meanwhile, commented that such efforts died down as suddenly as they started more than a year before, in a manner typical for energetic, but absent-minded Empress Isabel.) One way or another, now English shantytowns in Manaus and other parts of the rugged Amazonian shore are there to stay, and many of their inhabitants are turning to crime or begging for money out of desperation. Whoever can, have already left for Patagonia, and some even preferred the Spanish-speaking Free State to the Portobrazilian (and partially English-speaking) colony. (Regional quest progress: 34%)
Q3 1895-Q2 1896: In her response to the reports of desperate poverty and growing banditism among the desperate English refugees from the Cape, Empress Isabel of Portugal-Brazil managed to outdo even the ill-fated Queen Marie-Antoinette of France, who’d quipped her infamous “let them eat cake” a mere century earlier. Shortly speaking, the Empress’ plan to help out the starving refugees was to increase the “cultural prosperity” vial building a British-style grand opera house in Manaus. If anyone’s prosperity did increase from that move, it was Manaus governor’s, but it can’t be argued that the city at least saw its status elevated in the kingdom. What did meaningfully increase the well-being of the English community, however, was a wave of British investments that saw new mining and agricultural industries established, with Cape refugees as their laborers. That investment did give the government of the Royal Commonwealth an almost messianic reputation among the desperate Englishmen, securing Great Britain’s position in the region and also boosting the Portobrazilian economy. (Regional quest completed with mixed results, region Amazon Region gains +10 HC, +5 IC, +10 EC, Regional Growth Fluctuation +0.5%, British Royal Commonwealth gains +3% Regional Influence, Portugal-Brazil loses -3% Regional Influence, Portugal-Brazil losses:- 0.85 HC, -1.13 IC, -1.74 EC, -0.39 MC, British Royal Commonwealth losses: -0.97 HC, -0.26 IC, -2.78 EC, -2.2 MC)
Death in the Thick Bushes
Q3 1895-Q2 1896: The region of Mato Grosso (which name literally translates as “Thick Bushes”) is one of the most biodiverse territories on the planet, including in itself an edge of the Amazonian Rainforest, tropical wetlands of Pantanal, and savannas of Cerrado. Rich in timber and potentially open for agricultural development, Mato Grosso is largely unexplored and very lightly settled by Europeans. One of the contributing factors for this (in addition to its untamed flora and fauna) is the presence of highly territorial and protective Bororo natives. Living in tightly-knit village communes (as their self-name is translated “village court”), the Bororo have been retreating before waves of Spanish and Portuguese colonization for centuries, until the eastern Bororo (the Coroados) of Andean Bolivia found themselves almost completely separated from their western brethren (the Campanhas) of Mato Grosso. The recent war between the United Communes and the Twin Crown only served to agitating the both groups and uniting them along the Indigenist lines, eventually prompting a series of attacks against Portobrazilian garimpeiros (“gold seekers”) who roam Mato Grosso as precursors of another colonization wave.
Coastal Brazil
Spoiler :
Fast-developing center of South-American immigration, with big trade, economic, and manufacturing potential, but huge income inequality.
Quilombos and their dwellers
Q3 1895-Q2 1896: In an effort to improve the economic standing of the more distant quilombos, the royal government encouraged a series of geological expeditions, aimed at establishing mining and logging operations in their vicinity, effectively turning the settlements of ex-runaway slaves into prosperous mining and logging towns. While the lack of minimum wage regulations and many other labor protection laws made it possible for the mining magnates to pay their laborers extremely cheap, even these peanuts were much better than nothing, and they gave a legal, paying, and stable job to many people for the first time in their lifetimes. While not all quilombos were lucky enough to be located near operations-worthy sources of natural deposits, the continuous investments in education and local development kept on improving the living conditions of one of the most disenfranchised people in the kingdom from very bad to moderately bearable - which, in fact, signified a lot. (Regional quest completed with success, region Coastal Brazil gains +10 HC, +5 EC, Regional Growth Fluctuation +0.75%, Portugal-Brazil losses: -1.67 HC, -1.35 IC, -4.25 EC, -2.17 MC)
Threeway game for Paraná
Q3 1895-Q2 1896: The territory of Paraná was largely abandoned by Portuguese colonizers for centuries, leaving it open for other nation’s ambitions, which were fuelled by their search for pau brasil, trees famous for their timber known as Brazilwood (or Pernambuco wood). The resulting economic and demographic vacuum was largely filled by Jesuit reductions, missionary Christian communes of indigenous Tupi and Gaingangues people. However, the Brazilwood forestry and Jesuit agriculture have recently been on the retreat, as the giants of the São Paulo coffee industry started to buy off the best land for their plantations in Paraná. Meanwhile, from the south-west, the local traditional industries were under pressure from Gaucho cowboys, who started to migrate from Rio Grande do Sul due to an overpopulation and lack of good pastures. This clash of agricultural and pastoral industries is giving a rise to major economic and social tensions, which might soon grow even more, as heavy industries are coming to the state as well, attracted by its cheap land. At this point, it’s almost impossible to please everyone in this dispute, and the Twin Crowns are facing some tough decisions to make.
Royal Haven
Q3 1895-Q2 1896: While the King of Spain was left alone for the time being, Empress I Isabel de Braganza managed to bring to a successful conclusion her complete dynastic and political takeover of the Gran-Colombian monarchy. A bloody and exhausting affair, the absorption of Gran Colombia’s Diaz dynasty by Isabel I (also known as Isabel the Termagant to her haters) has finally ended with her triumph. Now, it may require additional heraldic, genealogical, and, most importantly, political work to transform the Twin Crowns into the Triplet Crowns. While that is done, some admirers of her perceived skill of heartless dynastic intrigue wonder what dynasty is next on the Syren’s dinner table. (Regional quest progress: -30%)
Hard work and toil, and noble lineage
Q3 1895-Q2 1896: The Twin Crown’s Ministry of Industry chose to not change anything about its approach to the heavy industry development, except the size of the efforts involved. With the war no longer being a drag on the kingdom’s resources, many fidalgo houses were happy to invest in this promising expansion of manufacturing powers. At this rate, it’s likely that Portugal-Brazil will enter 1897 with a newly grown heavy production capacity. (Regional quest progress: 66.81%, Portugal-Brazil losses: -2.14 HC, -0.59 IC, -6.52 EC, -4.63 MC)
Serpent’s Garden (Portugal-Brazil)
Q3 1895-Q2 1896: The most prolific international secret organization in the world, the infamous Serpent’s Garden, continued to expand its influence to the widest possible variety of regimes and nations. One of the new secret branches to open was located in Brazil, following a scandal that involved the “tomboy princess” Maria da Braganza. Known across the conservative nation for her egalitarian looks and a hobby of big game hunting, Maria was sheltered from the repercussions of her unnamed vagary by being sent to represent the Twin Crowns in the Serpent’s Garden. With her, Empress Isabel sent her fanatical loyalist and controversial “hero” of the Gran-Colombian conflict, priest Federico Ignacio Garcia, known for his deep connections in the circles of narcoparamilitary organizations of South America. Together, these questionable protagonists will, hopefully, redeem their names, fighting for the good of humanity. (Regional quest completed, Portugal-Brazil joins secret organization “Serpent’s Garden”, Portugal-Brazil losses: -1.02 HC, -1.35 IC, -2.09 EC, -0.46 MC)
Quilombos and their dwellers
Spoiler :
1890: Brazil has a long history of colonial slavery, and the very landscape of this land offers a lot of options for runaway slaves to escape their owners. Most notable of them are quilombos, remote settlements founded by runaway slaves in distant, badly explored territories deeper inland. While some royal advisers insist that these communities are criminal in nature and need to be cracked down upon (and the runaway “property” has to be returned to their masters), others point out that quilombo dwellers could be a great tool in development of remote parts of Brazil. Besides, some sort of amnesty to quilombo settlers could go a long way in integrating them into the large Portobrazilian identity and making them serve the Braganza dynasty in one form or another. That, of course, is likely to enrage coastal plantation owners, so it remains to be seen what solution the Twin Crowns will choose.
Q4 1893: To say that Empress Isabel’s Emancipation Decree was received by quilombo dwellers with jubilation would be an understatement. However, it was followed by a quick realization that old habits die hard, meaning that Portobrazilian plantation owners and, in general, less educated whites still viewed freed slaves as a lower social caste. Besides, some of the quilombo settlers found themselves at odds with the law, because, while their escape from their past owners was forgiven, other crimes committed during that time weren’t. Still, despite all of these setbacks, the Portobrazilian government’s stance was firmly inclusive and humane, making great leaps toward integration of former slaves and their descendants into the Portobrazilian society. Quilombos are still widely regarded as hotbeds of poverty, crime, and disease, but for the first time in decades they have a chance of moving toward becoming fully recognized settlements, which residents, at least on paper, have same rights as any other subject of the Twin Crowns. (Regional quest progress: 79.93%, Portugal-Brazil losses: -2.01 HC, -0.55 IC, -5.8 EC, -4.33 MC)
Q4 1893: To say that Empress Isabel’s Emancipation Decree was received by quilombo dwellers with jubilation would be an understatement. However, it was followed by a quick realization that old habits die hard, meaning that Portobrazilian plantation owners and, in general, less educated whites still viewed freed slaves as a lower social caste. Besides, some of the quilombo settlers found themselves at odds with the law, because, while their escape from their past owners was forgiven, other crimes committed during that time weren’t. Still, despite all of these setbacks, the Portobrazilian government’s stance was firmly inclusive and humane, making great leaps toward integration of former slaves and their descendants into the Portobrazilian society. Quilombos are still widely regarded as hotbeds of poverty, crime, and disease, but for the first time in decades they have a chance of moving toward becoming fully recognized settlements, which residents, at least on paper, have same rights as any other subject of the Twin Crowns. (Regional quest progress: 79.93%, Portugal-Brazil losses: -2.01 HC, -0.55 IC, -5.8 EC, -4.33 MC)
Q3 1895-Q2 1896: In an effort to improve the economic standing of the more distant quilombos, the royal government encouraged a series of geological expeditions, aimed at establishing mining and logging operations in their vicinity, effectively turning the settlements of ex-runaway slaves into prosperous mining and logging towns. While the lack of minimum wage regulations and many other labor protection laws made it possible for the mining magnates to pay their laborers extremely cheap, even these peanuts were much better than nothing, and they gave a legal, paying, and stable job to many people for the first time in their lifetimes. While not all quilombos were lucky enough to be located near operations-worthy sources of natural deposits, the continuous investments in education and local development kept on improving the living conditions of one of the most disenfranchised people in the kingdom from very bad to moderately bearable - which, in fact, signified a lot. (Regional quest completed with success, region Coastal Brazil gains +10 HC, +5 EC, Regional Growth Fluctuation +0.75%, Portugal-Brazil losses: -1.67 HC, -1.35 IC, -4.25 EC, -2.17 MC)
Threeway game for Paraná
Q3 1895-Q2 1896: The territory of Paraná was largely abandoned by Portuguese colonizers for centuries, leaving it open for other nation’s ambitions, which were fuelled by their search for pau brasil, trees famous for their timber known as Brazilwood (or Pernambuco wood). The resulting economic and demographic vacuum was largely filled by Jesuit reductions, missionary Christian communes of indigenous Tupi and Gaingangues people. However, the Brazilwood forestry and Jesuit agriculture have recently been on the retreat, as the giants of the São Paulo coffee industry started to buy off the best land for their plantations in Paraná. Meanwhile, from the south-west, the local traditional industries were under pressure from Gaucho cowboys, who started to migrate from Rio Grande do Sul due to an overpopulation and lack of good pastures. This clash of agricultural and pastoral industries is giving a rise to major economic and social tensions, which might soon grow even more, as heavy industries are coming to the state as well, attracted by its cheap land. At this point, it’s almost impossible to please everyone in this dispute, and the Twin Crowns are facing some tough decisions to make.
Royal Haven
Spoiler :
1890: Citizens of Sao Paulo jokingly call their city the Royal Haven, because of how many members of various royal dynasties now inhabit the place. First, the entirety of the Portuguese branch of the Braganza dynasty moved in there, escaping their homeland overrun by the French. And then, an ex-opponent of the Portuguese king in the Atlantic War, King Carlos VII of Spain went on residing with his former enemies. While the grand reunion of the Braganza dynasty into the Dual Crown has been seen as an easy and smooth transition, many political observers wonder what will be the Porto-Brazilian move in regards to their de-facto control of the Spanish king’s decisions. Meanwhile, experts in espionage point out that Portugal-Brazil may be not be the only player in that grand dynastic game, as other nations may try to either manipulate King Carlos or apply more blunt means in order to push their agenda.
Q3 1895-Q2 1896: While the King of Spain was left alone for the time being, Empress I Isabel de Braganza managed to bring to a successful conclusion her complete dynastic and political takeover of the Gran-Colombian monarchy. A bloody and exhausting affair, the absorption of Gran Colombia’s Diaz dynasty by Isabel I (also known as Isabel the Termagant to her haters) has finally ended with her triumph. Now, it may require additional heraldic, genealogical, and, most importantly, political work to transform the Twin Crowns into the Triplet Crowns. While that is done, some admirers of her perceived skill of heartless dynastic intrigue wonder what dynasty is next on the Syren’s dinner table. (Regional quest progress: -30%)
Hard work and toil, and noble lineage
Spoiler :
Q4 1893: Recognizing their economic elites’ frustration with the nation’s erratic foreign policy, as well as attempting to placate slave-owning nobility that lost most of its “assets” with the Emancipation Decree, the Twin Crowns of Portugal-Brazil have invested into home industry. Particular emphasis (perhaps, expectedly for a global maritime power) was made on construction of wharfs, steamer engine factories, and other naval supply manufactures. Most of the new assets are planned to be passed along to major fidalgo houses of the empire, compensating them for their support of the crown in its reforms. However, what was good on paper turned out to be a badly scoped project. With Portobrazilian state enterprises seriously lacking in terms of technology, a project of such scale saw only a very humble progress, with only foundation pits being completed for some of the factories by the end of the year. (Regional quest progress: 2.52%, Portugal-Brazil losses: -3.34 HC, -0.92 IC, -9.67 EC, -7.21 MC)
Q3 1895-Q2 1896: The Twin Crown’s Ministry of Industry chose to not change anything about its approach to the heavy industry development, except the size of the efforts involved. With the war no longer being a drag on the kingdom’s resources, many fidalgo houses were happy to invest in this promising expansion of manufacturing powers. At this rate, it’s likely that Portugal-Brazil will enter 1897 with a newly grown heavy production capacity. (Regional quest progress: 66.81%, Portugal-Brazil losses: -2.14 HC, -0.59 IC, -6.52 EC, -4.63 MC)
Serpent’s Garden (Portugal-Brazil)
Q3 1895-Q2 1896: The most prolific international secret organization in the world, the infamous Serpent’s Garden, continued to expand its influence to the widest possible variety of regimes and nations. One of the new secret branches to open was located in Brazil, following a scandal that involved the “tomboy princess” Maria da Braganza. Known across the conservative nation for her egalitarian looks and a hobby of big game hunting, Maria was sheltered from the repercussions of her unnamed vagary by being sent to represent the Twin Crowns in the Serpent’s Garden. With her, Empress Isabel sent her fanatical loyalist and controversial “hero” of the Gran-Colombian conflict, priest Federico Ignacio Garcia, known for his deep connections in the circles of narcoparamilitary organizations of South America. Together, these questionable protagonists will, hopefully, redeem their names, fighting for the good of humanity. (Regional quest completed, Portugal-Brazil joins secret organization “Serpent’s Garden”, Portugal-Brazil losses: -1.02 HC, -1.35 IC, -2.09 EC, -0.46 MC)
La-Plata
Spoiler :
Fast-developing region with a strong agricultural backbone, but recovering from a series of wars.
Hot mate for my mate
Husband hunting
Freedom-loving gauchos
Hot mate for my mate
Spoiler :
1890: A new caffeine-rich hot drink called mate has been recently becoming more popular than tea across the Americas, most likely caused by the trade disruptions that occurred during the Atlantic War. Produced from yerba mate plant, it’s becoming a major export product for Gran Paraguay that hosts vast majority of its plantations. Some experts suggest that the mate craze may not last if the world tensions drop and normal, pre-war Transatlantic trade returns to normal. Others suggest it won’t happen for a while (if happens at all), and Gran Paraguay should invest more efforts into expanding its yerba mate agricultural production. Some people even suggest that Gran Paraguay should use its shares of the British economy (both in the Albion and in British India) to manipulate the Empire Where Sun Never Sets into reducing its tea production, thus opening bigger markets for mate exporters. Time will tell what approach will be chosen by the President himself.
Q1-Q2 1895: For years, old “El Presidente” Francisco Solano Lopez was know to be simply pumping his own personal and government money (which in Gran Paraguay was usually one and the same thing) into general development of La-Platan economy, without any specific vision for it. Now, new President Juan Francisco Lopez has a much more specific idea about what needs to change in Gran Paraguay for the nation of his father to really get the place it deserves. A big investment package was put toward developing and modernizing the harvesting operations of yerba mate plants. Meanwhile, Gran-Paraguayan businessmen and diplomats (also usually same people performing the both roles) started a wide-scale marketing campaign for the Gran-Paraguayan mate drink as a replacement for tea. Their focus on Great Britain as an export market was impeccably timed and thought through, as the British citizens were being deprived of their beloved hot drink due to the strains that the Second Atlantic and Great Colonial wars had put on their shipping. With a little bit more effort and time, Gran Paraguay may rip great commercial benefits of their agricultural industry.(Regional quest progress: 82.21%, Gran Paraguay losses: -2.08 HC, -0.79 IC, -5.14 EC, -3.1 MC)
Q1-Q2 1895: For years, old “El Presidente” Francisco Solano Lopez was know to be simply pumping his own personal and government money (which in Gran Paraguay was usually one and the same thing) into general development of La-Platan economy, without any specific vision for it. Now, new President Juan Francisco Lopez has a much more specific idea about what needs to change in Gran Paraguay for the nation of his father to really get the place it deserves. A big investment package was put toward developing and modernizing the harvesting operations of yerba mate plants. Meanwhile, Gran-Paraguayan businessmen and diplomats (also usually same people performing the both roles) started a wide-scale marketing campaign for the Gran-Paraguayan mate drink as a replacement for tea. Their focus on Great Britain as an export market was impeccably timed and thought through, as the British citizens were being deprived of their beloved hot drink due to the strains that the Second Atlantic and Great Colonial wars had put on their shipping. With a little bit more effort and time, Gran Paraguay may rip great commercial benefits of their agricultural industry.(Regional quest progress: 82.21%, Gran Paraguay losses: -2.08 HC, -0.79 IC, -5.14 EC, -3.1 MC)
Husband hunting
Spoiler :
1890: Paraguay’s ascent to its status of major power was a glorious, but costly affair. A series of triumphal campaigns in the west, east, north, and south of the country has helped to expand the nation’s territory more than five times, but it also cost countless lives of Paraguayan men. Now it’s led to a serious demographic problem that the country is trying to resolve by importing labor from British colonies. However, it appears that Paraguayan women are looking for something other than just workers for their gardens. They’re seeking husbands and lovers, and the nation’s newspapers are awash with advertising campaigns for matchmaker agencies. Some handsome men, on the other side, have embrace a reputation of “professional grooms,” dating rich widows or prospective maidens with a simple promise to “consider a marriage.” Presidential advisors consider this development unhealthy both for public morale and for the national demographic situation.
Q1-Q2 1895: Juan Francisco Lopez’s cabinet couldn’t help but recognize how frustrate the young “steward of the nation” was about the demographic affairs of core Paraguayan provinces. Under his supervision, a first series of taxation reforms was introduced, providing Paraguayan subjects with a hefty tax breaks for marriage and birth of children. Needless to say, some scams abusing this system sprung up overnight, with fake marriages being registered between people who barely knew each other (that are likely to be followed by divorce after the taxation season is over) and some prostitutes even offering their “baby-birthing” services to well-off bachelors in search of a tax break. Still, while the reform is young, its loopholes may yet be patched, and its positive influence on the demographic situation is not denied even by its critics. (Regional quest progress: 86.57%, Gran Paraguay losses: -1.71 HC, -1.21 IC, -3.58 EC, -1.6 MC)
Q1-Q2 1895: Juan Francisco Lopez’s cabinet couldn’t help but recognize how frustrate the young “steward of the nation” was about the demographic affairs of core Paraguayan provinces. Under his supervision, a first series of taxation reforms was introduced, providing Paraguayan subjects with a hefty tax breaks for marriage and birth of children. Needless to say, some scams abusing this system sprung up overnight, with fake marriages being registered between people who barely knew each other (that are likely to be followed by divorce after the taxation season is over) and some prostitutes even offering their “baby-birthing” services to well-off bachelors in search of a tax break. Still, while the reform is young, its loopholes may yet be patched, and its positive influence on the demographic situation is not denied even by its critics. (Regional quest progress: 86.57%, Gran Paraguay losses: -1.71 HC, -1.21 IC, -3.58 EC, -1.6 MC)
Freedom-loving gauchos
Spoiler :
1890: Gran-Paraguayan conquest of northern Argentina and Uruguay has not been quietly accepted by the locals. While urban centers of these lands are generally well-garrisoned and thus rather orderly, the countryside remains full of anti-Paraguayan discontent. Rebellious mood is particularly widespread among the gauchos, an unruly sub-class of Cisplatin horsemen and cowboys praised in the folklore for their heroic and brave deeds. Some officers point out that fighting gauchos straightforwardly could be a hard endeavor, given their nomadic lifestyle and uncertain political loyalty. Others marvel at what an unstoppable force the Gran-Paraguayan army could become if the gauchos could join it as an irregular fighting force. For now, these dreams seem as far from reality as ever.
Q1-Q2 1893: Radical anarchist agitators seem to be stirring gaucho discontent and adding a clear social-revolutionary undertone to it. The agitators were, however, smart enough to not clash with gauchos’ individualist philosophy in their pamphlets and demagogic speeches. Gran-Paraguayan secret police, however, reacted to these activities with brutality typical for Asuncion’s militaristic regime. It may take more time and effort to sway gaucho discontent toward some open opposition against El-Presidente and his loyal “authoritarianists,” and any continuation of agitation is likely to attract all attention of Gran-Paraguayan secret police, but the first six months have shown a small crack in the Gran-Paraguayan monolith of a state. (Regional quest progress: 3.43%, ??? losses: -9.6?, -14.1?, -19.9?, -2.76?, Gran Paraguay losses: -6.44 HC, -8.42 IC, -14.36 EC, -3.37 MC)
Q1-Q2 1893: Radical anarchist agitators seem to be stirring gaucho discontent and adding a clear social-revolutionary undertone to it. The agitators were, however, smart enough to not clash with gauchos’ individualist philosophy in their pamphlets and demagogic speeches. Gran-Paraguayan secret police, however, reacted to these activities with brutality typical for Asuncion’s militaristic regime. It may take more time and effort to sway gaucho discontent toward some open opposition against El-Presidente and his loyal “authoritarianists,” and any continuation of agitation is likely to attract all attention of Gran-Paraguayan secret police, but the first six months have shown a small crack in the Gran-Paraguayan monolith of a state. (Regional quest progress: 3.43%, ??? losses: -9.6?, -14.1?, -19.9?, -2.76?, Gran Paraguay losses: -6.44 HC, -8.42 IC, -14.36 EC, -3.37 MC)
Chile-Patagonia
Spoiler :
Fast-developing, but sparsely populated region with limited economic potential, but so far valuable as a maritime navigation hub.
Huaso discontent
Justice for the white men
Nitrate democracy
Huaso discontent
Spoiler :
1890: Huaso are free-spirited countrymen and horse riders of Central and Southern Chile that weren’t truly engaged in the Chile-Paraguayan conflict up until they found that their lifestyle and their love for freedom are threatened. Now it appears that huaso communities across Chile are connecting into a secret underground network of freedom fighters who fight against what they consider unlawful occupation by the forces of Gran Paraguay and United Communes of the Andes. Gran-Paraguayan ambassadors have already demanded that the huaso “terrorism” is cracked down by the authorities of the Chile-Patagonian Free State. To that, Chile-Patagonian magistrates can only shrug: their libertarian laws prevent them from exercising any repressive measures against huaso communities whose guilt in supporting their northern adherents is not proven. It seems like a bigger conflict is brewing.
Justice for the white men
Spoiler :
1890: Native Mapuche tribes of Patagonia have recently been engaging in series of punitive cattle raids against white colonizers of their lands. Known as malon, these raids are being performed through mountain passes and usually target haciendas of local major landowners. The latter ones have tried to complain to the central authority in Los Lagos, but received very little support, since the government of Chile-Patagonia is too lean for any major law-enforcement effort. It seems like a civil conflict could result from this situation, unless somebody finds a way to put relationship between the natives and the colonists under control.
Nitrate democracy
Spoiler :
Q1-Q2 1895: Recent bloodless gaining of the Antofagasta province was a blessing for the weak Chile-Patagonian economy from its previous scourge, Gran Paraguay. Rich with nitrate deposits, the province almost overnight transformed the economic landscape of the Free State that previously had been merely a loose confederation of indigenous tribes and colonist settlements, tied to a few Chilean cities by necessity of surviving. Now, some Chile-Patagonian politicians propose funneling the “nitrate money” into some public works to transform the country into a more centralized, modern state. They’re opposed by the “Paraguayan swamp” of reactionary politicians and pro-Lopez cronies who wish to invest the gains from the nitrate mining into various empty prestige projects (which would please the Gran-Paraguayans greatly, keeping Chile-Patagonia weak and controllable). While the arguments keep going, the infamous “nitrate democracy” of the Chile-Patagonian Free State continues stagnating.
