Another Victoria one that I'm reading- "
The Footsteps of Illustrious Men", by Estonianzulu.
It's one of those AARs where the ahistory is mostly to justify in-game events, but he simply does it so well. And it's really not that implausible, in that he doesn't have a vastly divergent foreign policy of conquering Canada/Mexico/the world as you see in most AARs (no matter how written). Some of the stuff I liked:
* The American Party actually captures the presidency for two terms. The U.S.-Mexican War analogue happens under the Know-Nothings' administration.
* Instead of expanding the hell out of the U.S., it basically just has OTL U.S., plus 54'-40'; apparently the game does that a lot and has the Brits back down.
* There's a Free City of Austin, leading to two Texan states- north, and south. The Southern one (which contained Austin) is free, the northern one, slave.
* A group of "Young Hegelians" settle in Florida, ending up founding its biggest city and later capital.
* The U.S. is involved in the United States of Central America pre-Civil War, and after. Indeed, during the middle of the intervention, the Civil War occurs, and U.S. expeditionary forces in the USCA are divided in half. How cool is that?
* The U.S. goes to war with Sardinia-Piedmont at one point because of the latter's involvement in Mexico.
* Reconstruction is vastly different (Lincoln wasn't ever president, and the Texases did not secede with the South, for one thing). The Klan are dissolved, and at one point one of the post-Klan supremacist associations fights the Knights of Columbus in Richmond because a black Catholic is killed.
* Currently it's the analogue of the U.S.-Spanish War. The French are involved. But it's not Ameriwank, because
Baltimore just got burned down.
* Other than all that, and the very different party politics system, it's pretty much just a few heartbeats away from OTL. Which makes it all the more cool.
* Also, the research is impressive, the elections and maps well-made, the writing is top-notch- what's not to like? And
Sardinia.