Hello everyone. Apparently people still play this game! I used to have a couple AARs around here like the ever-unfinished Deseret AAR and the multiplayer AAR where I was Germany fighting a super imperialist USA. If you remember me and those AARs that's pretty cool. Personally, I'd quite like to forget them - my old writing is hard to read. 
Not that my current writing is much easier...
Speaking of writing I have other writing projects going on, but I found myself with an itch left unscratched by the other projects. Apparently between a sci-fi novel, a fantasy worldbuilding project and a Renaissance forum game, something was missing. And this AAR is the result of me trying to fill that niche. As a result however I consider this a very backseat project, so don't expect updates to be frequent. Do expect them to be substantial though - if I come around to write for this it'll be when I'm in the zone and writing for a few hours straight. So maybe it'll even out.
As for the AAR itself. I'm going to be playing Heart of Darkness 3.03 with the New World Order mod, in the 1992 start date. Victoria 2 isn't a particularly great wargame, and my playstyle tends to focus on what the game is good at: economics and internal politics. That said there will be plenty of room for violence and conflict, so if you're into the war side of things don't worry friend I got you covered. Just not the main focus of the narrative however. The mod also has a 1946 start date, but as this is prior to decolonization, I would not be able to play in the seemingly hopeless situation that I want to. Besides, 1992 is a fairly interesting date to start - and we'll get to that in a moment.
Speaking of hopeless situation we are going to play as an African country - Burkina Faso, or 'land of the honest folk' in the Mossi tongue. The goal of this playthrough is not to conquer the world (or so much even take over any territory at all by force) but rather to thrive and prosper as an African country against all odds. And the goal of this first episode is to show you how challenging that is going to be.
Lastly one final note. The events in this AAR will not always reflect actual game mechanics or anything, you could call it roleplaying. There are somethings in the NWO mod I don't like as far as mechanics, or where I feel something is missing for the narrative. Just worth noting in case you read something and go "but le pix, that's not how x mechanic works" I probably know. Don't worry. : D
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Campoare, military dictator of Burkina Faso, has had a change of heart. An awakening. The end of the Cold War, and the dawn of the new year, has left him with a lot of time to think. The world is different now, and what does that mean for Africa, and for his country, his people, that he staged a coup 5 years ago in the interests of protecting? Or at least, that's what he tells them.
Campoare pours over the map of the world, just to take in what all has changed in seemingly so little time.
In Europe democracy has worked its way through the Eastern Bloc. Spain, Greece, and Portugal became republics not that long ago in the grand scheme of things. Meanwhile, the former soviet republics are trying to adjust to their new world, while Yugoslavia, once among them, has completely splintered into its constituent states, and war has broken out. Germany has united (again) and must work to bring the East half up to standard with the West, but nonetheless is the economic heart and foremost power of Europe. Most relevant to Burkina Faso is however France - who exerts a great deal over the country, its former colony. Some would call this neo-imperialism, but everyone knows that France loses great power status early in the game and in turn its sphere of influence. In Burkina Faso the language of business, education, administration, and the lingua franca between the various different cultures is French, carried over long ago from our former colonial overlords.
All of which is just a roundabout way of saying that we are in the French sphere of influence.
North America is home to the world's only superpower, the United States, and also home to the person writing this - or well, not quite just yet, but his parents are alive. Cuba is one of the remaining few countries that openly profess Communism, while recently a Communist party was peacefully elected to power in Nicaragua, only to be forced to fight an intervention against this from the United States. That war ended a couple years ago... and Nicaragua still elected the Sandinista Front that remains in power today. Venezuela pretends to be socialist, but mostly just sells oil. Speaking of oil, Mexico is a newly - and rapidly - industrializing country that is trying to reduce its dependence on oil exports, which have in turn caused crime and corruption to be rampant in the country. Oh and Canada is basically paradise.
East Asia welcomes several new countries to the scene, mostly in central Asia, largest among them Kazakhstan, that have risen from the ashes of the old USSR. Afghanistan has repelled, after many years, a Soviet invasion. India and Pakistan hate each other due to border disputes and age-old rivalries. Iran was a prosperous and rapidly growing and modernizing country until the Islamic Revolution and subsequent ten years of brutal war with its neighbor in Iraq. Vietnam has defeated imperialists and consolidated its influence as the strongest power of the Indochinese peninsula, while joining China and North Korea as among the last Communist countries on Earth. Japan meanwhile is a bulwark of western democracy alongside South Korea and to some extent Taiwan - all of which are high-tech economies churning out weird things like video games and microchips and robots and other electronics and of course those Chinese Cartoons.Taiwan however is a point of contention - and some fear that this tension may lead to war, or at least proxy war, between the United States and its nearest rival in China.
Now we're looking a little closer to home. Central and southern Africa. Oh boy where do I even start. Angola, Mozambique, and Somalia are embroiled in devastating civil wars that seemingly have no end. Zaire is pretty much universally hated except by a few who support the current government, and some think it's likely that war will break out that will kill millions in genocides and famines. At least, that's what the court shaman tells me in his divinations of the future. Namibia has diamonds and German restaurants. Botswana has AIDS. Zimbabwe has runaway inflation and Mugabe, but also the best education system in Africa. Zambia has copper. Everyone else is about as useless and irrelevant as we are. What in the world is a Gabon?
Home. Africa, the cradle of human civilization, motherland of the Black Diaspora, a continent of diamonds and gold. Do I make it sound beautiful? Don't worry, maybe it has some scenic landscapes but it's kind of terrible. And that's kind of an understatement maybe. This area of the world, from Saddam in Iraq, Gaddafi in Libya, Mubarak in Egypt, to Campoare himself, is dominated by military dictators of all sorts. Morocco and Algeria hate each other and fight over sand. (No, literally). Tunisia is cute. Libya is the most developed country in Africa, with the best infrastructure on the continent. Just ask them about their cool canal systems and highways. Egypt and Nigeria are the most populated in Africa, but Nigeria far more so - the relatively small country has more people than massive Russia. Sudan is a little too Islamic for our tastes. They also have a civil war and everyone hates their leader for being a little too Islamic for their tastes. Ethiopia just finished shooting the Eritreans, who wanted independence, and thinks Somalia should really just chill out okay? Ethiopia is also becoming the political center of Africa, as the headquarters of the African Union and all that jazz.
Maybe in the past the place was kinda nice. Burkina Faso's northern neighbor, Mali, is named so because the French gave them Timbuktu (sorry, heh, Tombouctou :^)) an ancient and historic city of the old Mali, a descendant of Ghana, where the University of Sankore (actually a madrassa - a mosque and a university), a world-class institution, once stood and collected books from all around the world. Niger is even worse off than we are but they're called that because they're on the Niger river - but so is Nigeria? The only difference is that Nigeriens speak French and Nigerians speak English. Ghana is called that because the kings of Wagadu used to call themselves Ghanas - and white folks seem to have this tendency of naming places after the king's title. Ever heard of Peru? Exactly.
But the heirs to the ancient and illustrious Ghana Empire are not in Mali, and not in Ghana. But here, in Burkina Faso. Our capital is Wagadugu (you know, "kings of Wagadu") though the French like to add as many vowels as possible, so they call it Ouagadougou. This city was once the center of that empire. It's also pretty much the only place in our country that matters. Figures.
(EDIT: Double-checking my research shows that this Wagadugu was not the capital of Ghana - it had a similar name that got rendered the same way by the French. Sorry friends! So unprofessional...)
While there are two other continents, South America and Australia, they don't matter to Campoare. He has come around and found home again, and now it's time to ZOOM AND ENHANCE! to see just what home means. First, what is our economy. Or at least the mess we like to call an economy.
It means cows: so beef and leather. Cotton is grown along the banks of the Volta near Wagadugu and gold is mined in the west. Our economy is predominantly agricultural - this is not much different from the case in our neighbors.
(looks better on pdn... will fix next time!)
The good news: we have a factory. The industrial revolution started with textile mills and fabrics and stuff, and the pattern repeats itself here. We turn the cotton we grow into fabric useful for making clothes. The thing is we don't actually ... make the clothes, we sell the fabric to other people to make clothes with and then buy those clothes. Other people are getting richer of Burkinab sweat than we are. The other problem is that while the factory is doing quite well (not nearly as well as those numbers indicate) we do not produce enough cotton to meet its demand. Therefore most of its cotton consumption must be imported from other countries, cutting our profitability. If nothing else however it guarantees our cotton farmers have someone to sell to, even if raw cotton suddenly loses a lot of demand on the world market. Speaking of which, our fabric factory is outpaced by other fabric producers in the world, and so if for whatever reason the demand for fabric goes way down (and it will) our factory, and thus our livelihood, will suffer. Because in that case, countries will just buy from the larger producers, and not need to come so far down as landlocked ol' Burkina Faso. Observe:
For reference we make about 1/3 to at most 1/2 of Italy.
We have a gold mine, but for some reason no one wants to work there. Our farmers and miners are mostly unemployed - either the infrastructure can't support them or the landowners can't afford to pay them. They seem to work almost seasonally, and switch jobs often.
We have a lot of cattle. They are useful for food, and it does seem like Burkina Faso is, at least, self-sufficient in regards to food. That's good news. The bad news is that we don't use the cattle for anything useful. We can change that if we build a clothes factory, to make use of the fabric we are producing from our cotton, and a footwear factory, to use the cows for their leather. Then we can make a luxury clothes and footwear factory. The factories will 'feed' each other and provide bonuses to each others' throughout, and what's more at least some of the raw materials can be bought right here in Burkina Faso rather than abroad. With a clothes factory, we will be able to A) supply our peoples' own clothes, and B) give our fabric factory a domestic market so that it will always have someone to sell to. It's a great idea! Let's go take a lo-
Oh. Heh. Right. These things cost... money. And Burkina Faso doesn't have... money. Heh. I'm almost dying of laughter. Let's see how we can resolve Burkina Faso's budget problems.
Hmm. Well first things first, let's be honest here, Burkina Faso doesn't need an army. We'll reduce military spending as much as is possible under our current administration. Next!
Ah, education. How are we doing in that regard...
... Eh. Shrug. Good enough for right now. Education funding will stay as is.
Speaking of current administration... what administration is there? There are in fact, zero Bureaucrats in Burkina Faso, reducing our research points, and reducing our administrative efficiency down to 65% - all of which is just because we have a few techs that give admin efficiency researched. We are paying more money than we have to for everything because we're so inefficient at administrating this damn country. While we wanted to cut funding to stuff to save up enough money to start building factories, we need to fund this - in the long term it will pay off, trust me! We'll even start encouraging some of that 1.4% higher-educated folks to start being bureaucrats. Alright, good start.
Except that hardly fixes our budget problems. Looks like we'll have to raise taxes as much as our administration will allow, and similarly, the tariffs. This sucks because tariffs raise the price of goods substantially in the country. It will make it harder for Burkinabs to buy the clothes other people make with our fabric. But perhaps more importantly, our fabric factory will have to spend more money to buy the cotton it doesn't get from our own plantations. The maxing out of our taxes will make this problem worse because now our people have less money to buy those more expensive needs with. Oh well. We gotta do what we gotta do. To a better future! We can fix this, don't worry.
You know, just what are those administrative policies that are restricting what we can do with our budget? Time to take a look.
Wew lad. What a nasty place to be. Let's start with the ruling party:
Free trade is good, awesome actually, but we're not in a good position right now to use it.
Interventionism is tolerable (especially in this mod, where the player can still build factories, they're just more expensive) and probably for the best.
Secularized religious policy is good. We don't want Sharia law in Burkina Faso!
Our Citizenship Policy is good. Most anyone can become a citizen in Burkina Faso. Most anyone. More on that later.
Our Pro-Military policy is not quite what I want. It makes it so we have a minimum requirement on our military spending.
The "African Democratic Rally" is hardly the only party in Burkina Faso. There are about half a dozen others, but many of them cannot be appointed as the ruling party by our dictator because they are opposition parties or are banned in Burkina Faso. Interestingly, the communist party can be appointed to rule. Perhaps we can let them have a free hand for a while until they are no longer needed. They can drive reform forward really fast.
Speaking of, Burkina Faso's laws are backwards. There is no voting - we want to fix that. Pronto. Press and media are censored by the dictator to favor the ruling party. Our justice system favors severe punishments in the hope of deterring crimes from happening in the first place. We all know how that goes. Minorities, also known as people who are not Mossi, are considered inferior until proven otherwise. Only the primary culture can vote on this level. Bleh. Although women were crucial to the success of the revolution that put Sankara, Capoare's predecessor, in charge, and while some concessions were made to favor women, including outlawing female circumcision, we have extreme difficulty enforcing these laws. Might have something to do with our zero bureaucrats. Our voting system is perfect - Proportional is my personal favorite in the game. We also officially recognize Islam as the religion of Burkina Faso, but this has almost no in-game effect besides people rallying to change it. If you're gay, you will probably be hung. Tough luck.
(OOC: I'm ignoring the migration laws, since in real life Burkinabs migrate all the time. Also, in the game, the "better" policies are nearly useless, and we only have so much time to fix our political screen, so we have to prioritize. Also, disclaimer: any perceived reluctance to advance the LGBT tolerance policies does not reflect my personal opinion - the reforms don't make much sense, reducing your population growth and increasing your mobilization size. So, aside from roleplaying, I will be slow to do those. Sorry pals.)
In Burkina Faso our fabric factory is allowed to dump its... cotton waste?... into the Volta river and contaminate our drinking water. But I'm sure people wash clothes in that river, might account for at least some of the cotton contamination right? There are no safety standards, but that's pretty normal for a country just beginning to industrialize. Wages and work hours are unregulated, healthcare is nearly non-existent, children have little to no support and may be forced to work, the old and unemployed have zero support whatsoever, and perhaps worst of all, our education system requires the family to finance it. This means if you can't afford uniforms, books, writing utensils, etc. then you don't go to school. And guess what? Most people can't afford those things.
We have a lot of work to do gents! And the people know it.
The goal of the country is to develop. But there are many difficulties facing a developing country: our factories are not as good as those in the first world, and are more expensive to build as we require foreign expertise. But at least our farms and mines make a bit more than usual. If we mobilize our population for war, which probably won't ever happen - it will hurt our fragile economy even more than usual.
Speaking of our population - as the driving force behind our economy and our politics, perhaps its time to take a look at them.
Most people are rural farmers and ranchers. They probably do this for subsistence rather than to sell to other people. That'll change once we want to make leather boots though. ; ) A large percentage of our farmers are unemployed.
A few people are miners, mostly in the east. They are migratory and only work occasionally. Perhaps a jewelry factory to use our gold might be a good investment in the future. A large percentage of laborers are unemployed.
Teachers are 2% of the population - this is a decent ratio but should be much better. Education funding is poor, so they're not being paid well. Shrug.
Our landowners are important, as they are the pops that run the RGOs (our cotton plantations and cattle ranches) and pay their workers. Our unemployment is high probably because the landowners can't afford to pay the workers. Unfortunately we have resorted to making goods more expensive in our country and reducing the value of our exports, while raising the tax rate, so this problem is going to be even worse for a little while. Shrug.
Workers and clerks are our industrial employees, most of whom live in our one city. Together they make up about 1.3% of the workforce.
Soldiers are almost useless and don't matter at the moment. (Don't tell them I said that though...)
The dominant religion, since the Fulani Jihads of more than a century ago, is Islam. Christianity is also strongly rooted in the country with the French missionaries that arrived and built churches and held mass with us for many years. The game does not represent traditional African religions but that really should be about 10% of the pie chart.
The dominant culture is the Mossi. They are who gave the name to the country - Burkina Faso, 'land of the honest folk'. In their tongue. They are the single largest ethnic group and the only one that would be allowed to vote and is favored in getting an education and stuff. We'll have to fix that soon enough my friends. Note that African Minor is made up of about seven different groups.
The dominant issue is Moralism - an absolutist approach to religious matters. That will change with like, literally the first election, though. You can see quite a few people don't want a state religion, and a few more are strongly in favor of free trade. This is good, as it will help keep the current party in power, if we want it to stay. We definitely want Free Trade to stay.
Most people are conservative. You know what that means. The Nationalists are Mossi that want the Mossi to stay top dog in Burkina Faso. They want to protect their own people and give themselves advantages. Big meanies, the lot of them. Traditionalists are reactionaries. Socialists and populists might be useful occasionally. Liberals will make our factories even more expensive, and in our case they're also Protectionist, the opposite of Free Trade, the opposite of good.
The good news is that a few of our smart people are capitalists. It's actually a pretty decent number of them - they will be able to help us industrialize by building railroads and factories with their own money, rather than using ours. You saw how little we actually have.
There is one major obstacle to all these notions of progress. Let me introduce you to... Burkina Faso's military.
Look. The truth is, Burkina Faso does not need an army. Yet, as is the case with many African countries, while everything else is beyond backwards, our military is relatively advanced. Despite that, it is not well-funded (especially now) and very small. It's basically a bunch of bored guys with AK47s, a handful of RPGs, maybe an RPK, and a truck or two. These bored guys are led by a strangely distinctly Portuguese-named fellow who is actually quite competent all things considered. But back to the point - the army is unnecessary. If you wanted to invade Burkina Faso, you'd win. No ifs, ands, or buts. Gg ez. And we don't have any territorial aspirations of our own, and even if we did, our neighbors are all (mostly) stronger than us or protected by someone abroad. All the army does for us is get in the way and use force to get what it wants and exploit our own people. You can even see those filthy officers up there, getting their luxury needs while the rest of the country barely has a stable job and a regular meal. (Vic2 UI reading tip: The full wine glass means they're getting all their luxury needs.)
Furthermore the military-industrial complex is our a academic administration. It gives a bonus to researching army and navy stuff but a penalty to culture and commerce. We have no use for army and navy stuff, and its penalty to things actually useful for us means the military-industrial complex is, in fact, hampering our development goals - not helping. We'll have to change that out as soon as possible.
Anyway, since this army is pointless, let's dismiss ol' Itamar and stop paying for pointless soldiers, right? Yeah, easy, I just gotta click a button...
Not surprisingly, it seems that General Itamar here doesn't want to "resign" just yet. And he's right, he can take us out of power any time he likes. Suppose we'll leave him be then. We may yet find another way to get rid of him...
The topic of the academic administration brings us to our last topic to explore today: SCIENCE! in Burkina Faso. Mainly, we have to look at things that will help our uhm... what's it called... the crop thing. Google doesn't exist yet and we don't have any bureaucrats to ans- AGRICULTURE. Right. So what are the latest developments in agriculture?
This is good. It would raise our cotton production, which will help our development goals. It also comes with two inventions that increase overall farming output. Start research immediately!
That will take a few years because we're a useless country, but we're eager to get going so what should we research after Agriculture? Maybe something in biology, that seems a relevant topic.
The next technology on the Agenda.
And now, is time for end, no more will I sang. TO BE CONTINUED
Not that my current writing is much easier...Speaking of writing I have other writing projects going on, but I found myself with an itch left unscratched by the other projects. Apparently between a sci-fi novel, a fantasy worldbuilding project and a Renaissance forum game, something was missing. And this AAR is the result of me trying to fill that niche. As a result however I consider this a very backseat project, so don't expect updates to be frequent. Do expect them to be substantial though - if I come around to write for this it'll be when I'm in the zone and writing for a few hours straight. So maybe it'll even out.
As for the AAR itself. I'm going to be playing Heart of Darkness 3.03 with the New World Order mod, in the 1992 start date. Victoria 2 isn't a particularly great wargame, and my playstyle tends to focus on what the game is good at: economics and internal politics. That said there will be plenty of room for violence and conflict, so if you're into the war side of things don't worry friend I got you covered. Just not the main focus of the narrative however. The mod also has a 1946 start date, but as this is prior to decolonization, I would not be able to play in the seemingly hopeless situation that I want to. Besides, 1992 is a fairly interesting date to start - and we'll get to that in a moment.
Speaking of hopeless situation we are going to play as an African country - Burkina Faso, or 'land of the honest folk' in the Mossi tongue. The goal of this playthrough is not to conquer the world (or so much even take over any territory at all by force) but rather to thrive and prosper as an African country against all odds. And the goal of this first episode is to show you how challenging that is going to be.
Lastly one final note. The events in this AAR will not always reflect actual game mechanics or anything, you could call it roleplaying. There are somethings in the NWO mod I don't like as far as mechanics, or where I feel something is missing for the narrative. Just worth noting in case you read something and go "but le pix, that's not how x mechanic works" I probably know. Don't worry. : D
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Chapter I: A New World Order
Wherein I set the scene and relate our starting situation
January 1st, 1992. The world has changed seemingly overnight. The USSR has fallen apart, leaving the United States as the sole superpower in the world, and capitalism in turn the world's dominant economic system. The Cold War that has ravaged the world is over - but the aftermath has not been totally bloodless.Wherein I set the scene and relate our starting situation
Campoare, military dictator of Burkina Faso, has had a change of heart. An awakening. The end of the Cold War, and the dawn of the new year, has left him with a lot of time to think. The world is different now, and what does that mean for Africa, and for his country, his people, that he staged a coup 5 years ago in the interests of protecting? Or at least, that's what he tells them.
Campoare pours over the map of the world, just to take in what all has changed in seemingly so little time.
In Europe democracy has worked its way through the Eastern Bloc. Spain, Greece, and Portugal became republics not that long ago in the grand scheme of things. Meanwhile, the former soviet republics are trying to adjust to their new world, while Yugoslavia, once among them, has completely splintered into its constituent states, and war has broken out. Germany has united (again) and must work to bring the East half up to standard with the West, but nonetheless is the economic heart and foremost power of Europe. Most relevant to Burkina Faso is however France - who exerts a great deal over the country, its former colony. Some would call this neo-imperialism, but everyone knows that France loses great power status early in the game and in turn its sphere of influence. In Burkina Faso the language of business, education, administration, and the lingua franca between the various different cultures is French, carried over long ago from our former colonial overlords.
All of which is just a roundabout way of saying that we are in the French sphere of influence.
North America is home to the world's only superpower, the United States, and also home to the person writing this - or well, not quite just yet, but his parents are alive. Cuba is one of the remaining few countries that openly profess Communism, while recently a Communist party was peacefully elected to power in Nicaragua, only to be forced to fight an intervention against this from the United States. That war ended a couple years ago... and Nicaragua still elected the Sandinista Front that remains in power today. Venezuela pretends to be socialist, but mostly just sells oil. Speaking of oil, Mexico is a newly - and rapidly - industrializing country that is trying to reduce its dependence on oil exports, which have in turn caused crime and corruption to be rampant in the country. Oh and Canada is basically paradise.
East Asia welcomes several new countries to the scene, mostly in central Asia, largest among them Kazakhstan, that have risen from the ashes of the old USSR. Afghanistan has repelled, after many years, a Soviet invasion. India and Pakistan hate each other due to border disputes and age-old rivalries. Iran was a prosperous and rapidly growing and modernizing country until the Islamic Revolution and subsequent ten years of brutal war with its neighbor in Iraq. Vietnam has defeated imperialists and consolidated its influence as the strongest power of the Indochinese peninsula, while joining China and North Korea as among the last Communist countries on Earth. Japan meanwhile is a bulwark of western democracy alongside South Korea and to some extent Taiwan - all of which are high-tech economies churning out weird things like video games and microchips and robots and other electronics and of course those Chinese Cartoons.Taiwan however is a point of contention - and some fear that this tension may lead to war, or at least proxy war, between the United States and its nearest rival in China.
Now we're looking a little closer to home. Central and southern Africa. Oh boy where do I even start. Angola, Mozambique, and Somalia are embroiled in devastating civil wars that seemingly have no end. Zaire is pretty much universally hated except by a few who support the current government, and some think it's likely that war will break out that will kill millions in genocides and famines. At least, that's what the court shaman tells me in his divinations of the future. Namibia has diamonds and German restaurants. Botswana has AIDS. Zimbabwe has runaway inflation and Mugabe, but also the best education system in Africa. Zambia has copper. Everyone else is about as useless and irrelevant as we are. What in the world is a Gabon?
Home. Africa, the cradle of human civilization, motherland of the Black Diaspora, a continent of diamonds and gold. Do I make it sound beautiful? Don't worry, maybe it has some scenic landscapes but it's kind of terrible. And that's kind of an understatement maybe. This area of the world, from Saddam in Iraq, Gaddafi in Libya, Mubarak in Egypt, to Campoare himself, is dominated by military dictators of all sorts. Morocco and Algeria hate each other and fight over sand. (No, literally). Tunisia is cute. Libya is the most developed country in Africa, with the best infrastructure on the continent. Just ask them about their cool canal systems and highways. Egypt and Nigeria are the most populated in Africa, but Nigeria far more so - the relatively small country has more people than massive Russia. Sudan is a little too Islamic for our tastes. They also have a civil war and everyone hates their leader for being a little too Islamic for their tastes. Ethiopia just finished shooting the Eritreans, who wanted independence, and thinks Somalia should really just chill out okay? Ethiopia is also becoming the political center of Africa, as the headquarters of the African Union and all that jazz.
Maybe in the past the place was kinda nice. Burkina Faso's northern neighbor, Mali, is named so because the French gave them Timbuktu (sorry, heh, Tombouctou :^)) an ancient and historic city of the old Mali, a descendant of Ghana, where the University of Sankore (actually a madrassa - a mosque and a university), a world-class institution, once stood and collected books from all around the world. Niger is even worse off than we are but they're called that because they're on the Niger river - but so is Nigeria? The only difference is that Nigeriens speak French and Nigerians speak English. Ghana is called that because the kings of Wagadu used to call themselves Ghanas - and white folks seem to have this tendency of naming places after the king's title. Ever heard of Peru? Exactly.
But the heirs to the ancient and illustrious Ghana Empire are not in Mali, and not in Ghana. But here, in Burkina Faso. Our capital is Wagadugu (you know, "kings of Wagadu") though the French like to add as many vowels as possible, so they call it Ouagadougou. This city was once the center of that empire. It's also pretty much the only place in our country that matters. Figures.
(EDIT: Double-checking my research shows that this Wagadugu was not the capital of Ghana - it had a similar name that got rendered the same way by the French. Sorry friends! So unprofessional...)
While there are two other continents, South America and Australia, they don't matter to Campoare. He has come around and found home again, and now it's time to ZOOM AND ENHANCE! to see just what home means. First, what is our economy. Or at least the mess we like to call an economy.
It means cows: so beef and leather. Cotton is grown along the banks of the Volta near Wagadugu and gold is mined in the west. Our economy is predominantly agricultural - this is not much different from the case in our neighbors.
(looks better on pdn... will fix next time!)
The good news: we have a factory. The industrial revolution started with textile mills and fabrics and stuff, and the pattern repeats itself here. We turn the cotton we grow into fabric useful for making clothes. The thing is we don't actually ... make the clothes, we sell the fabric to other people to make clothes with and then buy those clothes. Other people are getting richer of Burkinab sweat than we are. The other problem is that while the factory is doing quite well (not nearly as well as those numbers indicate) we do not produce enough cotton to meet its demand. Therefore most of its cotton consumption must be imported from other countries, cutting our profitability. If nothing else however it guarantees our cotton farmers have someone to sell to, even if raw cotton suddenly loses a lot of demand on the world market. Speaking of which, our fabric factory is outpaced by other fabric producers in the world, and so if for whatever reason the demand for fabric goes way down (and it will) our factory, and thus our livelihood, will suffer. Because in that case, countries will just buy from the larger producers, and not need to come so far down as landlocked ol' Burkina Faso. Observe:
For reference we make about 1/3 to at most 1/2 of Italy.
We have a gold mine, but for some reason no one wants to work there. Our farmers and miners are mostly unemployed - either the infrastructure can't support them or the landowners can't afford to pay them. They seem to work almost seasonally, and switch jobs often.
We have a lot of cattle. They are useful for food, and it does seem like Burkina Faso is, at least, self-sufficient in regards to food. That's good news. The bad news is that we don't use the cattle for anything useful. We can change that if we build a clothes factory, to make use of the fabric we are producing from our cotton, and a footwear factory, to use the cows for their leather. Then we can make a luxury clothes and footwear factory. The factories will 'feed' each other and provide bonuses to each others' throughout, and what's more at least some of the raw materials can be bought right here in Burkina Faso rather than abroad. With a clothes factory, we will be able to A) supply our peoples' own clothes, and B) give our fabric factory a domestic market so that it will always have someone to sell to. It's a great idea! Let's go take a lo-
Oh. Heh. Right. These things cost... money. And Burkina Faso doesn't have... money. Heh. I'm almost dying of laughter. Let's see how we can resolve Burkina Faso's budget problems.
Hmm. Well first things first, let's be honest here, Burkina Faso doesn't need an army. We'll reduce military spending as much as is possible under our current administration. Next!
Ah, education. How are we doing in that regard...
... Eh. Shrug. Good enough for right now. Education funding will stay as is.
Speaking of current administration... what administration is there? There are in fact, zero Bureaucrats in Burkina Faso, reducing our research points, and reducing our administrative efficiency down to 65% - all of which is just because we have a few techs that give admin efficiency researched. We are paying more money than we have to for everything because we're so inefficient at administrating this damn country. While we wanted to cut funding to stuff to save up enough money to start building factories, we need to fund this - in the long term it will pay off, trust me! We'll even start encouraging some of that 1.4% higher-educated folks to start being bureaucrats. Alright, good start.
Except that hardly fixes our budget problems. Looks like we'll have to raise taxes as much as our administration will allow, and similarly, the tariffs. This sucks because tariffs raise the price of goods substantially in the country. It will make it harder for Burkinabs to buy the clothes other people make with our fabric. But perhaps more importantly, our fabric factory will have to spend more money to buy the cotton it doesn't get from our own plantations. The maxing out of our taxes will make this problem worse because now our people have less money to buy those more expensive needs with. Oh well. We gotta do what we gotta do. To a better future! We can fix this, don't worry.
You know, just what are those administrative policies that are restricting what we can do with our budget? Time to take a look.
Wew lad. What a nasty place to be. Let's start with the ruling party:
Free trade is good, awesome actually, but we're not in a good position right now to use it.
Interventionism is tolerable (especially in this mod, where the player can still build factories, they're just more expensive) and probably for the best.
Secularized religious policy is good. We don't want Sharia law in Burkina Faso!
Our Citizenship Policy is good. Most anyone can become a citizen in Burkina Faso. Most anyone. More on that later.
Our Pro-Military policy is not quite what I want. It makes it so we have a minimum requirement on our military spending.
The "African Democratic Rally" is hardly the only party in Burkina Faso. There are about half a dozen others, but many of them cannot be appointed as the ruling party by our dictator because they are opposition parties or are banned in Burkina Faso. Interestingly, the communist party can be appointed to rule. Perhaps we can let them have a free hand for a while until they are no longer needed. They can drive reform forward really fast.
Speaking of, Burkina Faso's laws are backwards. There is no voting - we want to fix that. Pronto. Press and media are censored by the dictator to favor the ruling party. Our justice system favors severe punishments in the hope of deterring crimes from happening in the first place. We all know how that goes. Minorities, also known as people who are not Mossi, are considered inferior until proven otherwise. Only the primary culture can vote on this level. Bleh. Although women were crucial to the success of the revolution that put Sankara, Capoare's predecessor, in charge, and while some concessions were made to favor women, including outlawing female circumcision, we have extreme difficulty enforcing these laws. Might have something to do with our zero bureaucrats. Our voting system is perfect - Proportional is my personal favorite in the game. We also officially recognize Islam as the religion of Burkina Faso, but this has almost no in-game effect besides people rallying to change it. If you're gay, you will probably be hung. Tough luck.
(OOC: I'm ignoring the migration laws, since in real life Burkinabs migrate all the time. Also, in the game, the "better" policies are nearly useless, and we only have so much time to fix our political screen, so we have to prioritize. Also, disclaimer: any perceived reluctance to advance the LGBT tolerance policies does not reflect my personal opinion - the reforms don't make much sense, reducing your population growth and increasing your mobilization size. So, aside from roleplaying, I will be slow to do those. Sorry pals.)
In Burkina Faso our fabric factory is allowed to dump its... cotton waste?... into the Volta river and contaminate our drinking water. But I'm sure people wash clothes in that river, might account for at least some of the cotton contamination right? There are no safety standards, but that's pretty normal for a country just beginning to industrialize. Wages and work hours are unregulated, healthcare is nearly non-existent, children have little to no support and may be forced to work, the old and unemployed have zero support whatsoever, and perhaps worst of all, our education system requires the family to finance it. This means if you can't afford uniforms, books, writing utensils, etc. then you don't go to school. And guess what? Most people can't afford those things.
We have a lot of work to do gents! And the people know it.
The goal of the country is to develop. But there are many difficulties facing a developing country: our factories are not as good as those in the first world, and are more expensive to build as we require foreign expertise. But at least our farms and mines make a bit more than usual. If we mobilize our population for war, which probably won't ever happen - it will hurt our fragile economy even more than usual.
Speaking of our population - as the driving force behind our economy and our politics, perhaps its time to take a look at them.
Most people are rural farmers and ranchers. They probably do this for subsistence rather than to sell to other people. That'll change once we want to make leather boots though. ; ) A large percentage of our farmers are unemployed.
A few people are miners, mostly in the east. They are migratory and only work occasionally. Perhaps a jewelry factory to use our gold might be a good investment in the future. A large percentage of laborers are unemployed.
Teachers are 2% of the population - this is a decent ratio but should be much better. Education funding is poor, so they're not being paid well. Shrug.
Our landowners are important, as they are the pops that run the RGOs (our cotton plantations and cattle ranches) and pay their workers. Our unemployment is high probably because the landowners can't afford to pay the workers. Unfortunately we have resorted to making goods more expensive in our country and reducing the value of our exports, while raising the tax rate, so this problem is going to be even worse for a little while. Shrug.
Workers and clerks are our industrial employees, most of whom live in our one city. Together they make up about 1.3% of the workforce.
Soldiers are almost useless and don't matter at the moment. (Don't tell them I said that though...)
The dominant religion, since the Fulani Jihads of more than a century ago, is Islam. Christianity is also strongly rooted in the country with the French missionaries that arrived and built churches and held mass with us for many years. The game does not represent traditional African religions but that really should be about 10% of the pie chart.
The dominant culture is the Mossi. They are who gave the name to the country - Burkina Faso, 'land of the honest folk'. In their tongue. They are the single largest ethnic group and the only one that would be allowed to vote and is favored in getting an education and stuff. We'll have to fix that soon enough my friends. Note that African Minor is made up of about seven different groups.
The dominant issue is Moralism - an absolutist approach to religious matters. That will change with like, literally the first election, though. You can see quite a few people don't want a state religion, and a few more are strongly in favor of free trade. This is good, as it will help keep the current party in power, if we want it to stay. We definitely want Free Trade to stay.
Most people are conservative. You know what that means. The Nationalists are Mossi that want the Mossi to stay top dog in Burkina Faso. They want to protect their own people and give themselves advantages. Big meanies, the lot of them. Traditionalists are reactionaries. Socialists and populists might be useful occasionally. Liberals will make our factories even more expensive, and in our case they're also Protectionist, the opposite of Free Trade, the opposite of good.
The good news is that a few of our smart people are capitalists. It's actually a pretty decent number of them - they will be able to help us industrialize by building railroads and factories with their own money, rather than using ours. You saw how little we actually have.
There is one major obstacle to all these notions of progress. Let me introduce you to... Burkina Faso's military.
Look. The truth is, Burkina Faso does not need an army. Yet, as is the case with many African countries, while everything else is beyond backwards, our military is relatively advanced. Despite that, it is not well-funded (especially now) and very small. It's basically a bunch of bored guys with AK47s, a handful of RPGs, maybe an RPK, and a truck or two. These bored guys are led by a strangely distinctly Portuguese-named fellow who is actually quite competent all things considered. But back to the point - the army is unnecessary. If you wanted to invade Burkina Faso, you'd win. No ifs, ands, or buts. Gg ez. And we don't have any territorial aspirations of our own, and even if we did, our neighbors are all (mostly) stronger than us or protected by someone abroad. All the army does for us is get in the way and use force to get what it wants and exploit our own people. You can even see those filthy officers up there, getting their luxury needs while the rest of the country barely has a stable job and a regular meal. (Vic2 UI reading tip: The full wine glass means they're getting all their luxury needs.)
Furthermore the military-industrial complex is our a academic administration. It gives a bonus to researching army and navy stuff but a penalty to culture and commerce. We have no use for army and navy stuff, and its penalty to things actually useful for us means the military-industrial complex is, in fact, hampering our development goals - not helping. We'll have to change that out as soon as possible.
Anyway, since this army is pointless, let's dismiss ol' Itamar and stop paying for pointless soldiers, right? Yeah, easy, I just gotta click a button...
Not surprisingly, it seems that General Itamar here doesn't want to "resign" just yet. And he's right, he can take us out of power any time he likes. Suppose we'll leave him be then. We may yet find another way to get rid of him...
The topic of the academic administration brings us to our last topic to explore today: SCIENCE! in Burkina Faso. Mainly, we have to look at things that will help our uhm... what's it called... the crop thing. Google doesn't exist yet and we don't have any bureaucrats to ans- AGRICULTURE. Right. So what are the latest developments in agriculture?
This is good. It would raise our cotton production, which will help our development goals. It also comes with two inventions that increase overall farming output. Start research immediately!
That will take a few years because we're a useless country, but we're eager to get going so what should we research after Agriculture? Maybe something in biology, that seems a relevant topic.
The next technology on the Agenda.
And now, is time for end, no more will I sang. TO BE CONTINUED
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