Victoria 3: You're Going To Brazil

[Humbaba]

Boa tarde amigos and welcome to this LP of Victoria 3, in which I play as Brazil (pronounced: Brazeeoo). Why Brazil? I paid for the Brazil-Content DLC and plan on getting my money's worth. But also because the history of 19th and 20th century Brazil is actually quite cool and something more people I think should know about.

For those who don't know, Victoria 3 is a paradox grandstrat game, focussing mainly on nation building and economics. There's tons of calculations and simulations under the hood but those result in a mostly intuitive simulator that is quite fun to play around with. I won't be going into much detail regarding the exact mechanics of the game because that's boring but I'll do my best to explain what I'm doing and why I'm doing it.

A short overview of Brazil is in order I think. The Brazil of the era is synonymous and inseparable from the reign of Emperor Pedro II., or Dom Pedro as they lovingly call him.

King Pete as an old bag.

Despite what you may be thinking, his claim to fame is not his beard but rather his track record as a ruler. Widely considered to be one of the most effective heads of state of all time and highly respected by the people of his day, Pedro 2 grew up all alone in Brazil, after his dad, Pedro 1, was mercilessly deported back to Portugal by the Brazilian gubberment. During his reign that lasted 58 years, he made Brazil into a modern industrial state and was a massive liberal back when that word meant something good. The main challenges of his regency were building a nation from many and combatting slavery. That last part would spell his demise as angry landowner fucks and the military finally deposed Pedro in 1891 and exiled him to Europe where he died in poverty. He remained beloved by his people until his last days and modern Brazilian consensus is that his removal was the biggest mistake in the country's history and what kicked off its eternal enshittification. In short, he was a pretty cool guy who is undeservedly forgotten by most people outside of Latinx-America.

Luckily, I am here to avoid this terrible fate with the power of video games. It is this LPs goal to ensure the survival of the Brazilian monarchy and make Brazil a superpower. I'll be dividing this LP into sessions and post the most epic gamer moments of the sesh into each respective posts. Each sesh equals one post.

I don't claim to be an expert in this game or that I will succeed. If I don't I'll just start over. So let's get into it brazilbros.

[Shillitron]

Jim Sterling?

[Humbaba]

Sesh 1: Reign of the Shota King

Alright gang, we're here in green Brazil and our situation looks like this:





We are currently fighting the "Ragamuffin war" so called, because Pedro was just a cute little ragamuffin when it happened. Just kidding, it is called that because ragamuffin is an archaic word for "bum" or "broke ***". We're fighting the bum war folks, against bushwackers up in the Amazon and the heinous satanists of Porto Alegre. That war wins itself basically, not much to say here.





We're starting out with this little **** as our emperor under the regency of some ******** named Feijo, who runs the Intelligentsia (they're the modernizing liberal sort of people) group and during the regency period won't join any other party. This makes forming effective gubberments difficult. If the gubberment has a value below "legitimate" you start incurring penalties, for example how quickly laws get passed.





Luckily, we have "wealth voting" meaning there's elections in our empire. Unluckily, wealth voting mans that your vote scales with wealth. And who's got the most wealth in Brazil? Even worse than the ****, may Allah forgive me for uttering this word, it's the landowners. I can't put em in gubberment ever, not if I want to save the monarchy. You see, the parties that form your gubberment influence how likely it is to get certain laws passed and what I need to do is pass laws that curb the power and influence of the landowners. This means that one of my starting difficulties is having to deal with an unstable gubberment, while trying to pass reforms.

True to real life, other initial obstacles Brazil faces are an extremely low population and horrific infrastructure. Starting out, this huge green jungle blob has a measly population of 4 million. Low population means not much income from taxes and a small workforce. This can be alleviated via opening your borders but I tried that and it sadly failed. Will have to try next time I get the chance.

Low infrastructure is bad for many reasons, one of which is everything takes ages to build. If I wanna get anywhere I need to bulk up my construction sector, however I am severely hampered by the unavailability of iron in Brazil. I'll have to see if I can import cheap iron from somewhere in Europe in the future, then get a steel industry going, lots of coal (which Brazil has nothing of at the beginning) and then build railways that boost infrastructure.

In the meantime, I'll tend to Brazil's companion quests, of which there are a lot with the DLC. For one, we have the main questline, "Magnanimous Monarch":





This is the quest I have to complete in order to meet this LP's goal. Throughout the LP, there will be events that increase or lower the progress bar. It must be above 50% by the time Pedro dies, otherwise, Brazil will become a republic. Can't have that.

Sidequests include integrating the many peoples of Brazil:





This one is rather easy and you're given plenty of time to do it. The quickest way to do it is wage war and have one of your generals, who is from a certain culture, become a national hero, who can then be used in propaganda in order to establish his culture as "Brazilian". There are other ways to achieve this too though. Completing it progressed the main quest.




Lol "Irineu"

The other bigger sidequest is dealing with slavery:





I actually don't want to complete that one right now, because doing so depletes the main quest bar. So what I did was enact "legacy slavery", which puts a memorandum on international slave trade, but allows domestic slave trade. Doing that reduces the landowners' power and stops the abominal brits from harassing my ships under the pretext of defending human rights.





Imperialistic virtue signalling is not a modern phenomenon as it turns out. A more immediate threat is the potential superstate of Peru-Bolivia, which is formed if you don't **** up the Peru-Bolivian bloc.





You can always choose to leave them be and try to get along with them but I don't feel like doing that. So let's do a quick little war and break em up.





There we go. In the meantime, I got done with passing the "dedicated police force" law, which further curtails the influence of the landowners.





Pedro also gets declared an adult at 14 and I can start getting more stuff done now.





5 years later and the ************ already has THIS amount of beard:





High test monarchy folks. Anyway, at the end of this first sesh, Brazil looks like this:





I've subjugated Argentina, annexed Paraguay and Uruguay because I could and am in the progress of trying for the second time to open our borders. The main quest sadly sits at 40% currently, because I had a minor insurrection as a result of reforming voting laws, to further btfo the landowners and those reduce your progress.

I am also in the process of making Brazil the #1 producer of coffee, which is a sidequest you can do:





To help me with that, I founded a large coffee zaibatsu and gave it monopoly rights over all coffee plantations in the country.





I am also waiting for Pedro to be done grooming his loli daughter FOR SUCCESSION MIND YOU, since this is essential in securing the future of the monarchy.





I'm still suffering from iron deficiency and a low manpower. Let's work on that in sesh 2, coming soon.

[Humbaba]

Sesh 2: Bad RNG Or: Rise of the Loli Queen

This sesh was a bit ******** lads lemme tell you wew.

It started off rather well, took La Paz from Bolivia because they had gold mines.





The rest of Bolivia would then become my puppet state, same as Argentina.





Soon, they will all be green...


Some other nice stuff happened too, got an event chain that resulted in massive influence loss for the accursed landowners:





This would lead to the desired result of finally having a stable gubberment with good approval ratings and a heavily diminished landowner class:





That's where the good news end though. I got some rather bad RNG and it took 3 TRIES and the switching sides of the petite bourgeois faction into the gubberment to FINALLY pass the "propertied women" law, which is required to secure the eventual succession of the loli queen Isabel.





This results in this beautiful no-longer-loli-aged former loli to be readied to become empress of all Brazil.





Also results in a massive boost to the main quest.


More ******** happened. To my shock, I realized that my coffee quest was in jeopardy, since I got surpassed by like 4 countries in coffee production, probably due to a tech advantage which I hadn't gotten around to research. I was relying on that one, because it's a requirement to integrate the last people group, the Paulistas, into the Brazilian people mass. I panicked a little and decided I had to start a war and hope for good RNG to get a Paulista war hero.

That took a few reloads. My target was poor Bolivia, who I decided to annex. Before that, I tried attacking other countries in the area but more powerful european nations kept joining in and ruined my fun. Eventually though, I finally got this ********.





Thanks Joaowo, did me a solid.


With that, I have achieved Brasilidade and get tons of bonuses and avoid the loss of progress of the main quest.





As an added bonus, I gained all of the Bolician coffee plantations, putting me at #2 again. I think once I research the necessary techs, I could reach #1 but fulfilling that quest is no longer strictly needed. At the end of this sesh, Latinx-America is starting to look greener and greener. I've also started colonizing Guaraní territory:





Next up would be getting my gubberment in order. A socialist party has formed and started to gain traction and is now in gubberment. They're ruining all of my plans and they're annoying. I'd also like to grow my army and take care of the shortage of transportation via building more railways. I've discovered rubber and oil though and once I have the necessary techs I can invest in those sectors and start building cars. Brazil has tons of oil and rubber and is thus primed for a leading position in the car industry. I'm also right on track for saving the monarchy.

[Humbaba]

Sesh 3: Let's Run It Back

Ok brazilbros, this didn't work out





I was at 60% for most of the time, then the guy gets old and puts the bar back to 50%





What an *******. I'll have to try this one again and then report back here.

What I could've avoided was getting a revolution for a law I didn't really need and was rather slow with curbing the landowners and the military. I should've also been quicker in my coffee production, as completing that quest gives you progress. So that's what I'll do. See you in Sesh 4.

[Nooneatall]

Boa tarde amigos and welcome to this LP of Victoria 3, in which I play as Brazil (pronounced: Brazeeoo). Why Brazil? I paid for the Brazil-Content DLC and plan on getting my money's worth. But also because the history of 19th and 20th century Brazil is actually quite cool and something more people I think should know about.

For those who don't know, Victoria 3 is a paradox grandstrat game, focussing mainly on nation building and economics. There's tons of calculations and simulations under the hood but those result in a mostly intuitive simulator that is quite fun to play around with. I won't be going into much detail regarding the exact mechanics of the game because that's boring but I'll do my best to explain what I'm doing and why I'm doing it.

A short overview of Brazil is in order I think. The Brazil of the era is synonymous and inseparable from the reign of Emperor Pedro II., or Dom Pedro as they lovingly call him.

King Pete as an old bag.

Despite what you may be thinking, his claim to fame is not his beard but rather his track record as a ruler. Widely considered to be one of the most effective heads of state of all time and highly respected by the people of his day, Pedro 2 grew up all alone in Brazil, after his dad, Pedro 1, was mercilessly deported back to Portugal by the Brazilian gubberment. During his reign that lasted 58 years, he made Brazil into a modern industrial state and was a massive liberal back when that word meant something good. The main challenges of his regency were building a nation from many and combatting slavery. That last part would spell his demise as angry landowner fucks and the military finally deposed Pedro in 1891 and exiled him to Europe where he died in poverty. He remained beloved by his people until his last days and modern Brazilian consensus is that his removal was the biggest mistake in the country's history and what kicked off its eternal enshittification. In short, he was a pretty cool guy who is undeservedly forgotten by most people outside of Latinx-America.

Luckily, I am here to avoid this terrible fate with the power of video games. It is this LPs goal to ensure the survival of the Brazilian monarchy and make Brazil a superpower. I'll be dividing this LP into sessions and post the most epic gamer moments of the sesh into each respective posts. Each sesh equals one post.

I don't claim to be an expert in this game or that I will succeed. If I don't I'll just start over. So let's get into it brazilbros.

This game is one of the worst paradox games and worse than Victoria 2.

[Humbaba]

Sesh 4: Pedro is ******

Time for the redux. Did a couple things differently, like prioritizing muh covfefe a lot earlier and gearing my research toward that end. I also decided to be a lot more aggressive towards my neighbors in order to roll war heroes to integrate my nation and also to cripple any future military and economic competitors.

Enacted legacy slavery fairly early, just so I could get that out of the way.





Working towards propertied women too, while I have the chance. I also secured a coal import deal with the brits, just until I can get my domestic coal industry going. At the end of this sesh, the map looked like this:





The green tide cometh. Ideally, all of latinx-amerigo will be subjugated by Pedro. I also snagged the southern half of New Granada, because I can't actually cross over the direct border to Venezuela, the Amazon is in the way, same goes for Ecuador. But now I can and Venezuela will be my next target, before they get the chance to muscle me out of the coffee business. I neglected my northern neighbors too much the last time and let them prosper for too long. My southern flank is secure with Bolivia and Argentina crippled and Paraguay and Uruguay absorbed by the blob. I've decided to ally with peru, since they don't have resources I want right now and Chile is a coast masquerading as a country and thus irrelevant to me.

On to the next sesh!

[Humbaba]

Sesh 5: We Did It Heddit (that's reddit in Brazilian)

Lemme tell you how. During this very intense 4-5 hour gaming sesh I did tons of things and tons of things happened.

First thing what happened was, due to my increased efforts in building my coffee empire, I got a questline called cafe com leite, which is cafe con leche in Huespeak.





It gives you the opportunity to either give more power to the landowners or to take it from them, depending on whether or not you're gonna free the peasantry. I would of course go on to enact sweeping land reforms in order to btfo the coffeelords.





Speaking of reforms, I also gave the country a public school system, which is important if you mean to ever transition from an agrarian economy to an industrial one.





And I was doing very good on time too. It was only 1850 when I did that. Anudda minor thing that happened was I got an event chain in annexed Argentina, where stability was low and turmoil was high, resulting in mass crime, which is honestly par for the course for latinx amerigo, so I don't know what the big deal was.





A neat side effect of the cafe con leche quest was that I kept getting these random events, where coffeelords would feud amongst themselves, reducing their political clout.





A big milestone was that I managed to open my borders fairly early, meaning I could finally get mass migrations into the country and grow my workforce.





In the meantime, I grabbed some more land off of Venezuela and made what remained a protectorate. That war wasn't that easily won, because the Netherlands joined in and they had quite a robust, if small army to help the Vuvzelans. Eventually though they gave up and I won. In the course of that war, I got my first mass migration of @gereys:





I also got a migration wave full of mes!





Anyway, the best part about that war was that as a result, Brazil attained the rank of a Great Power, usually reserved for Europeans and sometimes America. I don't know how exactly the calculation goes, but it's mostly reliant on prestige, which can be gained through a variety of ways. I suppose beating a European power in a war was what did it. Being a great power is cool, because it advances the main quest by one point and comes with a lot of other perks.





I'd go on to get tons more migration waves of all sorts of peoples, including Greeks, Ukrainians, Italians, s*rps etc. Good times. At one point Bongland lost their monarchy:





That usually doesn't happen but it is funny to see. Also managed to snag a nice deal with the Germans for tons of resources:





Anudda big milestone was completing the coffee quest and become the world's lead producer and seller of coffee. I did that via the founding of the coffee company from earlier and the enacting of the "laissez faire" economic system, which, to put it shortly, gives a lot more leeways to private actors in the economy and lets them build a lot more, which greatly boosted my coffee output and profits.





Anudda +1 to the main quest. Things were looking great.


Years of grooming the loli and enacting limited wamen's rights also secured the succession of the monarchy:





A whopping +3 to the main quest! What I did then, almost cost me the run. I went on quite the gamble and ended slavery, which gives -1 to the main quest but greatly decreases landowner influence and has other benefits besides. The plan was to take the hit now and then even it out by marginalizing the coffeelords. Sadly, this didn't quite happen, despite my best efforts. I got very close though. A group is considered marginalized when their clout drops below 5% and I once got to 5.3%. I was so close it hurt.





Anyway, completing the coffee quest and ending slavery gave me what I needed to achieve Brasilidaddy for anudda +1 to the main quest:





Cafe con leche would complete a couple years later, but still not reduce landowner influence enough like I said:





The ace up my sleeve was anudda sidequest, revolving around naval superiority. It's quite easy to do but it takes ages to complete, as you need to keep a certain level of naval power for a whole 40 ******* years. Thankfully, it completed before old Pedro had a chance to die:





This put me towards the finish line of the main quest. All I had to do was for Pete to bite it. In the meantime, France became communist and Germany didn't quite manage to unify:





Europe is a silly place. Once a country turns communist, you can get all sorts of events relating to the red scare like commies raping women:





Riveting stuff. In 1896 Pedro died with the main quest bar at 60%, completing it successfully and granting me the coveted cheevo:





The monarchy is saved lads, I did it! Now, the playthrough is not quite over yet. I'll see what else I can achieve and report back later.

[gerey]

Eventually though they gave up and I won. In the course of that war, I got my first mass migration of @gereys:

Just proof that people would rather live in a shithole like Brazil than be around Turks.

[Humbaba]

Final Sesh: Brazil Makes It Big

Short final post showing how far the new and improved imperial Brazil made it. And the campaign's end, the world looked something like this:





Almost all of latinx amerigo was green and mean, which sparked great joy in my green soul. Before that, I got ropey into a massive war by the brits that had little benefit or effect on anybody involved:





That's one of my criticisms of the game actually, these wars have little to no impact and don't simulate the effect they have irl. Anyway, this is the final score:





Brazil ranked very highly, though I don't know why we got surpassed by Tuscany, which had a lower standard of living, GDP and population. Whatever. In total our stats were very comparable to the US, though their GDP was a lot higher. These were the laws I ended up with:





Very progressive and modern. And this is the final screen:





Lots of muslims in my Brazil, mashallah.


In total, this playthrough was a resounding success. Brazil is a global superpower, #1 producer of coffee and cars too in fact, and their standard of living is first world by the standards of the time. Had lots of fun achieving alla dis. Until the next LP!