Sorry, minor correction, if we're treating the fanart of the
Des Plaines Class as canon, then the
Des Plaines class is definitely not a paddle steamer. There are screws at the stern.
As for what it's made of, Poptart seems to be leaning towards metal.
"Looking at the linked image, sure appears to be metal."
Discord is great for playing games and chilling with friends, or even building a worldwide community. Customize your own space to talk, play, and hang out.
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But hey, maybe they just painted the ships grey. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Sorry this is late.
Anyway, its been a while since 2019.
But my distinct recollection was that the Des Plaines was supposed to be both wood-hulled and with paddle steamer propulsion. Cant recall the exact quote though.
So regarding Victoria, I think we should aim for a series of wars of attrition wherein we constantly deny them any victories and steadily deplete their resources and labor pool.
That was kinda the plan before the hiatus. We were never going to be able to collapse them in a short victorious war, so manageable bites are going to be necessary, which is how they took over that space.
We are looking at two more wars. Possibly three more wars.
Ideally I think we aught to aim for this war to be the knock out blow for Victoria, even if it's not the last one period. That's an ideal world though. If it comes down that we simply aren't in a position to completely knock out or take annex Victoria, I figure we have two major goals beyond making the Victorians "not a problem anymore"
Not gonna happen. And thats a good thing.
Look at the map. Victoria occupies the space of the former US states of MA, CT, RI, VT,NH and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick, Labrador, Nova Scotia, King Edwards Island, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia.And thats in addition to most of New York and most of lower coastal Quebec.
It has what looks like, eyeballing it, more than a million square kilometers of surface area, even if most of it is relatively concentrated, and some of us estimated between 20 and 30 million people before the civil war.
Maybe even 40 million at the high end. Lotta territory, potentially a ton of people.
For comparison, 2003 Iraq was 27 million people.
We do not currently have the military capacity to occupy a nation the size of Victoria. We certainly dont have the economic muscle to do so. That was in part why we turned back after Buffalo. Give us a decade, some friends and an accelerated diet of refugees and other successor states and we can begin to make it happen. But we are not there yet.
And if it happened now, we wouldnt have the capacity to prevent shenanigans going on.
Especially with other Russian bases in North America in the Arctic and Alaska.
Arguably time favors the Victorians, they're better positioned to receive foreign aid from their Russian masters and the more time they have the more they can implement army reforms better suited to countering the CFC. A grinding war would also give them combat experience against their primary foe.
All in all drawing it out does not seem like a great idea.
No it doesnt.
Victoria is currently at its best position relative to the rest of the continent, believe it or not. Things are likely to worsen strategically over the next decade. Especially with regards to relative return for investment.
Its fought a vicious civil war, and suffered hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of casualties, at least one major crop failure + famine, refugee exodus, significant infrastructure damage and essentially doesnt have a professional military anymore.
And its still run by an administration of fascist true believers and cynical satraps all beholden to Imperial Russia.
But all that does not detract from its current strengths.
It has a nationwide road, rail, air and telecomms network. It has local power generation capacity in excess of 40 gigawatts from Quebec Hydro, Niagara Hydro, Fundy Bay Tidal and Russian nuke stations. It has access to reliable levels of refined fuel for vehicles. Its population received a reliable level of basic education, and it has significant numbers of doctors and nurses.
It has sufficient light industry to build and maintain notCessnas locally, in addition to light armaments and pharmaceuticals.
It had enough domestic heavy industry to build and maintain steam trains and WW2-era tanks. It has sea ports and airports capable of accessing and handling foreign trade, and it actually earns foreign exchange.
Its significantly ahead of everywhere else on the continent not named FCNY, NCR or the Arctic Conservatiate.
But both FCNY and NCR started far enough ahead economically and demographically that once Victoria was distracted for a couple years, they'd both surge out of sight. And Victoria has to retrench and try to readjust to the civil war and the new normal.
By the time Victoria comes out of their repair and rearm cycle, both nations are going to have consolidated their positions enough that trying to dig them out is going to be...difficult at the best of times.
Meantime, Victoria would have to fight its way through Chicago to even get to Sister Cali.
Chicago plus the rest of North America are starting at so low a base that even marginal investments will result in major jumps in effectiveness. Chicagoland has likely been in double digit economic growth since we ended the famine, and Im reasonably sure Detroitland has been the same way since the war ended.
Thats turbocharged by the nationwide power network that was installed by the green power people into the Commonwealth a couple turns ago, and is likely to get further fevered once we hook up Lifeline of the West or the Mississippi and enable reliable foreign shipping with longterm expectations.
Together, they are going to drag the rest of the Midwest with them, and reshape the econonomy of the Great Lakes around them in a way that ignores Victoria, decreasing their economic and political clout and bulking the Commonwealth.
Victoria is going to improve, but it will find its neighbors a lot closer to it in capabilities than it was accustomed to.
Plus, most of the rest of North America, and especially the Commonwealth, does not share most of Victoria's ideological hangups about things like the official role of women in the workforce, or the proper relationship of the races.
So they are going to be suffering self-inflicted maluses to recovery and development.
Which they will need that Russian aid to help with, at a time that Imperial Russia has to prioritize between threats.
And there are much closer threats to the borders of the Motherland.
