A Royal Prerogative - A UK AAR

[BigBadBob]

It really is a great list, Composer.

I'm currently reading Lords of Finance and, as previously stated, a lot of my degree and personal reading was and has been on this stuff. I'm therefore happy to act as part-time consultant on international finance in the 20th Century for any attempt to write L'Or, L'Or. Like 1901, it would be a good excuse to brush up on my own knowledge.

I'll join in on the chorus of 'no need for gameplay.' In 1901, I did play 1836-1911, but the events have become more detached from those in-game the closer we get to October 3rd and the Great War. After October 3rd, the difficulty of Vicky II's war system with handling an early-20th Century world war means the readers will be in a world of Pure Imagination (I kid you not, as I typed this, this very song started playing in the film I'm watching). The game provides a framework that can be used and discarded at will; it's just a matter of how far you go, events, console commands, tag-switching, outright modding, or saying 'I'll just take it from here').

On the update itself; ugh, one can only imagine the torture of having to pretend you're not thoroughly unimpressed by the 1936 Berlin Olympics, AKA History's Biggest Act of Compensation.

 

[TheButterflyComposer]

It really does seem like the trailer for L'or, L'or! Fall 2021 seems increasingly and disturbingly likely. What would be best, you all think? An actual script layout or traditional narrative AAR just set out like a comedy show? I am totally up for writing/helping write this but need to actually check what a french hoi4 fame looks like first just for reference. As everyone has said, it's not vital, but would be nice to have...

 

[stnylan]

I will just pipe in to note that the subtitle of the forum is, and has been for many years AARs, LPs, and Fanfiction - For ... ten years now? A goodly long time anyways.

In other words @El Pip you cannot use "But that sort of thing is not quite cricket for an AAR forum, so I am reluctant to take that path. " as an excuse

 

[El Pip]

I'm more than happy making things up, editing saves or just ignoring the game completely as and when required. There is just a small pedantic part of me that objects to the idea of their being no game there at all, it is an aesthetic issue I have with the idea and not a practical problem. It's not one I expect anyone else to share and it's something I should probably start ignoring.

It really does seem like the trailer for L'or, L'or! Fall 2021 seems increasingly and disturbingly likely. What would be best, you all think? An actual script layout or traditional narrative AAR just set out like a comedy show? I am totally up for writing/helping write this but need to actually check what a french hoi4 fame looks like first just for reference. As everyone has said, it's not vital, but would be nice to have...

I was thinking of doing it as script layout and really leaning into the homage, complete with a central Rennie type character who talks to the audience and does the exposition. I also really wanted to get the ridiculously plots going, I had half mapped out an idea around 'the Madagascan gold' which the banker are trying to pretend is both still in Madagascar and in Paris (so they can count it twice), so lots of iron bars painted gold, fake bars and trying to dodge League of Nations inspectors who keep trying to actually count how much Gold France has.

 

[TheButterflyComposer]

I was thinking of doing it as script layout and really leaning into the homage, complete with a central Rennie type character who talks to the audience and does the exposition. I also really wanted to get the ridiculously plots going, I had half mapped out an idea around 'the Madagascan gold' which the banker are trying to pretend is both still in Madagascar and in Paris (so they can count it twice), so lots of iron bars painted gold, fake bars and trying to dodge League of Nations inspectors who keep trying to actually count how much Gold France has.

Wait, so can we actually use my French-somalian pirate idea then? Seems ideal for Madagascar episode.

 

[El Pip]

Wait, so can we actually use my French-somalian pirate idea then? Seems ideal for Madagascar episode.

I certainly think so, much swapping around of bars and confusion as to who has the fake gold and who has the real stuff. It's that or the A-Team option;


In 1930 a group of French bankers and economists was told to make Paris the Financial Capital of the World. These men promptly realised they'd been asked to do the impossible and escaped to a maximum starred Parisian restaurant. Today, still being paid by the government, they survive as the French Central Bank Open Market Operations and Precious Metals Reserves Committee. If you have a current account deficit... if no one else can balance your payments... and if you can fund their expense account... maybe you can hire... The L'Or L'Or Team.

 

[TheButterflyComposer]

Hon, hon, hon, honhon, hon (to the A team theme).

So maybe this episode kicks off with the gold being stolen by pirates, and the French team panicking because of course, if the gold was in paris like they said, that should be impossible. So they either have to tell everyone what they did, hunt down the pirates or fake a pirate attack on the paris gold vault and 'steal' the bullion themselves.

They do this, only for the actual pirates to show up on holiday, not realising that the loot they stole from Madagascar was acrually french in the first place. The team decide to hire them to break into the paris vault to put the gold back, leaving the pirates off with a holiday in France, the french team with the gold back in paris and the wankers at the parisian gold exchange looking like idiots having been broken into by the same pirate crew twice in one day.

 

[BigBadBob]

I know it breaks the previously stated idea of the outside world never even being mentioned but, since we're bringing in Somali pirates;

It is September 20th, 1931, a pair of Bank officials show up in Paris with an offer to sell a substantial amount of British gold. As die-hard supporters of the Norman school of thinking, the English are of course utterly insufferable about it, gnashing their teeth, driving a hard bargain, generally thinking they're ending Sterling as a world currency by doing what they're doing. As the Englishmen leave, practically sobbing in public over the fate of England in the elegiac way we've learnt to deal with any setback, our French protagonists toasting expensive champagne to the coup they have performed by robbing Britain of the most precious metal, the script has the camera pan down to the - naturally binned without a first, much less second, glance - foreign section; L'ANGLETERRE A ABANDONNÉ L'ÉTALON-OR.

 

[TheButterflyComposer]

I know it breaks the previously stated idea of the outside world never even being mentioned

The third world is fine. Made up names where appropriate of course. So not Somalia but sunnymayliac. Maybe the French map maker was just drunk that day.

 

[El Pip]

Instead of waitresses the lead Rene banker should have a string of advisors. While he has to follow the advice of the official government economic advisor, he regularly promises the others he will implement their schemes first chance he gets.

The advisors schemes should be mad and contradictory. One of which should be Bimetallism, because the world needs more aars involving bimetallism. They Occasionally get discovered taking to rene about policy and he has to explain why they aren't talking about gold.

Possibly could have John Maynard Keynes, in a silly hat and bad accent, as an officer crabtree type character trying to get France to agree to the idea of a proto-Bancor.

 

[TheButterflyComposer]

Instead of waitresses the lead Rene banker should have a string of advisors. While he has to follow the advice of the official government economic advisor, he regularly promises the others he will implement their schemes first chance he gets.

The advisors schemes should be mad and contradictory. One of which should be Bimetallism, because the world needs more aars involving bimetallism. They Occasionally get discovered taking to rene about policy and he has to explain why they aren't talking about gold.

Possibly could have John Maynard Keynes, in a silly hat and bad accent, as an officer crabtree type character trying to get France to agree to the idea of a proto-Bancor.

Wait so the main guy has to hide from his team that he's very obviously sleeping with several random advisors from differing economic schools? And the joke is when he is found in comprising positions, he strenuously denies they were talking about anything other than the gold standard? Is his name Jean Paul Succour?

 

[Director]

So it can be done. Then again, half the fun of HOI aars is trying to explain the hilariously wrong things paradox says happen in the game.

Yes, I do love the puzzle game of taking a sheaf of Paradox-ical events and threading the beads onto a coherent string. My personal favorite is from an EU2 game in which Spain conducted a royal marriage with Haiti, after Haitian independence.

Tell you what, why don't I play a test game focusing on french fiance and the metropolitan area and let you know what happens?

That sounds like great fun! I'd enjoy knowing what happened. 'The Gnomes of Montmartre' doesn't have quite the same ring to it as 'The Gnomes of Zurich', but the idea amuses me.


Yes, it is possible to write with little or no actual input from the game. When I was writing a lot I tended to put the needs of the story first and set aside any events that didn't fit (or whose inclusion would have meant adding another year or three to the completion time). That said, I find the framework of real history and alternate events quite helpful... but, story first, for me.


I'm not surprised to hear that a good bit of modern Olympic pageantry comes from Nazi Germany. They were masters of spectacle and ceremony... and there is something to be said about conflating athletes and ubermenschen, I suppose. And, on reflection, the Olympics are all about striving and winning - and the Nazis were nothing if not triumphalist. So... interesting but not really surprising.

In the last update I notice the main characters seem to have no great dislike for the Germans - mild distaste, perhaps, but no more so than is expressed for the French or the Americans. Historically, when did this change?

I'm interested to see the stakes rise if and when it becomes clear to Edward that he is fighting for nothing less than personal survival. Baldwin and Lang seem to want to muster overwhelming force-of-argument before making a direct approach to him... Or is it that they have directly approached him and he does not (will not) understand the implications?

I'm not convinced Edward has the constitution for an all-out fight. But no matter how mild the dog, if you corner it...

 

[TheButterflyComposer]

In the last update I notice the main characters seem to have no great dislike for the Germans - mild distaste, perhaps, but no more so than is expressed for the French or the Americans. Historically, when did this change?

Well the Nazis were pretty much just extreme or less subtle versions of late victorian imperialists (both British and non) with various ideas of race, the might of civilization, fanatical pride in the homeland that never was etc. The distaste before the war came mostly from people who found them a little too obvious, a little too lacking in 'good excuses' for their ambitions (since they were always fairly upfront about what they were going to do to minorities and conquered peoples) uncouched by various comfortable late victorian excuses.

Thus a lot of people in europe and across the world quite liked the nazis in theory anyway, but had some issue with their practices (or said they did). This, if I might risk the wrath of the forums, is quite true today as well...

 

[Director]

@TheButterflyComposer - that is a perspective I had not quite seen. I will share the wrath by saying that I agree that it is true today.

The Nazis were pretty open about what they wanted to do - but not, perhaps, the lengths to which they would go to achieve it. That's why the revelations at the end of the war were so deeply shocking, I think. That and the recognition that where the Germans had gone others could go also - no-one was immune.

'Beware the perils of pure logic, Spock. Humanity can't live with a purely rational answer.'

 

[El Pip]

Well the Nazis were pretty much just extreme or less subtle versions of late victorian imperialists

What on earth did the Victorians do to deserve that libellous comparison?

Thus a lot of people in europe and across the world quite liked the nazis in theory anyway, but had some issue with their practices (or said they did).

As we've discussed, there was a lot of apathy and indolence about in British politics (and elsewhere) in the 30s. An energetic and active system, one which was visibly getting stuff done, even if you didn't agree with what was being done, was going to look attractive to some. Particularly when the reality of the actual progress (or lack of it) and the terrible costs were being kept hidden.

There was also the moderately widely held view that Germany had been treated badly by Versailles, no-one was wildly passionate about the subject but there was a certain degree of sympathy that, for example, the Rhineland should either be a bit of Germany or taken away, not mucked about with so much. Th

To drag things back to the subject, in 1935 Eddie VIII (when still PoW) was calling for better understanding with Germany "to safeguard peace" and was threatening to make a full state visit to Germany when he became King, in order to help improve relations naturally. The general principle, that co-operation with Germany was better than confrontation, probably was fairly popular, particularly given no-one really knew what was happening in Germany and, besides, everyone knew the Communists were the real threat.

 

[DensleyBlair]

What on earth did the Victorians do to deserve that libellous comparison?

Must… not… take… the bait.

 

[TheButterflyComposer]

What on earth did the Victorians do to deserve that libellous comparison?

Must… not… take… the bait.

I literally cannot discuss this as per forum rules. I most certainly cannot say go and look at the banned topics and indicate they did all of them.

No, no. Certainly not.

the Rhineland should either be a bit of Germany or taken away, not mucked about with so much. Th

Not sure if you said something else but got cut off but yes, the rhineland was a huge embarsement especially for the french and amercians because someone boobed and didn't make their zones of control meet in the middle.

The best YouTube you'll watch today, BTW.

 

[El Pip]

I literally cannot discuss this as per forum rules. I most certainly cannot say go and look at the banned topics and indicate they did all of them.

Never said they were nice, particularly not the Belgians, but there are surely obvious fundamental differences. Pol Pot did the entire banned list as well, but no-one calls him a Nazi. Because it is possible for other ideologies to do unpleasant things, no matter what the internet may tell you.

Fundamentlaly I disagree with your position that the main difference between, say, the Marquess of Salisbury and Hitler was the facial hair and that Hitler was a little bit more extreme.

 

[TheButterflyComposer]

Never said they were nice, particularly not the Belgians, but there are surely obvious fundamental differences. Pol Pot did the entire banned list as well, but no-one calls him a Nazi. Because it is possible for other ideologies to do unpleasant things, no matter what the internet may tell you.

Fundamentlaly I disagree with your position that the main difference between, say, the Marquess of Salisbury and Hitler was the facial hair and that Hitler was a little bit more extreme.

Didn't really mean to imply ideological similarities between 19th century liberalism and 20th century facism but in practice, they did much the same thing to conquered peoples, just for different reasons.

 

[Bullfilter]

There is just a small pedantic part of me that objects to the idea of their being no game there at all, it is an aesthetic issue I have with the idea and not a practical problem. It's not one I expect anyone else to share and it's something I should probably start ignoring.

I harbour the same pedantic streak, but same as you only as applied to my own AARs.

If we’re looking for some OTL shenanigans, financial scandals in London and Paris and a fictitious third world country to boot, then perhaps the great (whatever) grandson of Gregor MacGregor to could invite everyone to by a parcel of land in Poyais? More a Vicky2 era character I suppose, but who cares? Certainly a truth stranger than fiction life story of someone who always seemed to get away with a tragicomically bigger lie than the last one.