First off, this is probably going to sound unbelievable considering there was major drama in the beginning of this thread concerning another guy who achieved Greater Germany by 1844, but I will try to explain, in detail, how I did this, so others can try (unless there's already some major discussion on how to do this quickly in some other thread):
About the image where Austria is still in fog of war, I had literally just initiated Three Hurrahs. Until one day goes by, fog of war still exists in the former Austrian Empire (oddly enough, this usually happens to me when I play as a released nation). I demobilized since I ended the war and achieved Greater Germany, so that picture isn't as impressive in troop count as it could be.
I was inspired by the guy who posted his Greater Germany in 1844. I discussed that, at length, with the guy who introduced me to Victoria 2. Although we were both extremely skeptical, and we thought the guy *had to* have been cheating, I think we came to the conclusion that it might be possible by 1850 or so. So, last night I decided to give this a try. I did not cheat, nor did I ever abuse the save-reload feature. My game difficulty has been "normal" mode.
To begin with: a lot of this had to do with diplo luck; at the beginning of the game, I sent out alliance proposals to Denmark, Russia, and the Ottoman Empire. All were accepted. I hoped they would join my upcoming war with Austria, but at the very least they would be factions not willing to fight me. Can you imagine the sheer horror of not only fighting Austria, but perhaps Russia, or even the Ottomans? The reason I threw an alliance proposal to the Danes was that the strategy to gain Greater Germany involves NOT going to war with Denmark for Schleswig-Holstein. So, on day one I set up my production, mobilization orders, and alliance offers (and I haven't declared war yet). On day two, when they graciously accept, I'm still moving my troops in the eastern half of Prussia towards the Austrian border (in groups of 25,000 or so, which isn't too many), and troops in the west to the border with Baden. On the third day, I finally declare war on Austria. I worried that an immediate declaration of war on day one might make the Ottomans and Russians decline an alliance proposal. I'd also like to note that I've only been playing Victoria 2 for about 2-3 weeks, but I am a long-time fan of strategy games, especially Civilization. So, although V2:AHD has a pretty big learning curve, and although I have a lot to learn about the game, I have gotten a hang for mechanics (the economics stuff in-game is still very complicated), but I suspect I was probably lucky with the alliance accepts (nor did I cheat).
So, with the war actually on, the following day Austria got a major fish slap to the face: the only people coming to her aid are Baden and her Italian spheres. Bavaria and Wurtemburg did not declare war on me (thank god; Bavaria can be an extreme annoyance). Austria took a while to actually get her act together and try to invade me (I sat near the borders waiting for Austrian troops to arrive to adjacent provinces, suffer attrition, and then I'd strike). As a short amount of time went past, I noticed that the Russians and the Ottomans found the prospect of joining my war "impossible", so I didn't bother to ask them. I'd rather them stay allied with me than become potential Austrian allies. I took the time to call my German allies, and Denmark, to war under my banner. They were the first ones to make a move on Austrian soil itself. My strategy at this point was to send out my army groups and leave some brigades behind, mopping up occupation efforts. This is all well and good until a 30-40,000 man Austrian army appears on the horizon, ready to attack your exposed brigades. I had to start adapting and adjusting my tactics and strategies, and what I settled for was collecting my army into three major groups. This of course promotes attrition within the ranks, but the idea in my head was to smash the Austrian armies with my larger army groups. While doing this, I'd try to array a brigade here or there into adjacent provinces. Once I'd win a battle and the bulk of the Austrians, with depleted organization and morale, would try to run off, I'd pursue. I'd keep doing this, leaving men here and there, and pursuing until there was nothing left. Of course this is simplifying everything, but that's essentially what I did. If some of my forces seemed to be at risk of losing a battle, I'd pick up all neighboring troops conducting occupation efforts and send them to the battle zone. This extended the length of the war, and destroyed occupation efforts in a territory, but it meant winning battles and completely destroying the Austrian military. After all, with no hostile military to oppose you, you can spread out and occupy whatever the hell you want.
In the end, having all my German/Danish allies in the war was a pretty big help. Combined, they are like annoying little bees who kept the Austrians distracted. It provided me many ample opportunities to see a pinned-down Austrian army in range of my larger army... and thus gave me more forces to begin pursuing to the death. From time to time I slowed down to regain organization, but the most difficult thing about this war was just being patient and deciding where to move forces exactly. After about 3 years I had all of Austria and her belligerent allies wholly occupied and at my mercy. With "assert hegemony" as my initial cassus belli, I added two wargoals along the way: humiliate, and cut down to size. Combined, they provide a severe punch to the gut for Austria and set it quickly on the path to being downgraded to "secondary" status. This opens up Austria to the potential of being sphered by you once the treaty ends. Although I have no screenshots, I remember the exact date the treaty was to end (I was waiting patiently for this date so I could begin sphering Austria): November 3, 1843. I admit, I was hoping to sphere Austria by 1844 so I could compete with the guy who posted the initial Greater Germany in this thread! =D
With Austria slapped like a twenty-dollar hooker (and her rating around 10, but it would take almost a year for the great power downgrade to actually go into effect), my next target was France. This of course is the scariest part, because unlike France in the real world, France in Victoria 2 can be pretty powerful. They regularly field massive armies that seem to be endless. You can fight battle after battle, and then you notice a whole lot more French army groups coming out of fog of war, like they have cloning facilities or something. Anyways, I started rebuilding my forces (mostly just replenishing and maxing out my military forces) and positioning them near the border with France. Still being a relatively new V2 player, I’ve noticed that cavalry can play a really effective role in pinning down slow-moving hostile armies until your main, equally slow infantry army catches up. I started grouping out my cavalry in preparations for the Holy War.
Also, in the interim, I sphered Luxemburg first, knowing that Luxembourg joins the North German Federation if it’s sphered at the time you activate the event. I sphered Denmark, and then I started sphering Hannover. Sadly, I totally forgot about sphering Holstein itself until I started getting frustrated and pissed off about “why can’t I NGF yet???” Eventually I realized it was because I was stupid and forgot about them, yeah. I then also realized I hadn’t acquired Alsace Lorraine yet… and I felt doubly stupid. Anyways, back to the story.
It really wasn’t terribly long after defeating the Austrians that I went to war with France. They were allied to the Austrians, Swiss, Sardinians, and Papal States, and I honestly wasn’t expecting the Austrians to break our truce and go to war, but they did. I had virtually no forces near their border, but the “cut to size” I imposed on them left them with 0 brigades until the war begin (even after the war began, my war tab section on Austria kept showing 0 brigades for a while). Bavaria started invading Austria, and I think Mecklenburg. They largely contained the 20-odd Austrian brigades that eventually popped into existence. By the time I started this war, I had Two Sicilies in my sphere. I called them, the Danes, and my German allies to war. The Ottomans had UK for an ally, and somehow Greece or the UK got involved in a war with the French a little while after I started my own war, which dragged the British, and Ottomans, into war with France. Sicily mostly handled the Pope’s forces, but the Swiss and Sardinians were pretty annoying. I had hoped that my German allies would keep those two muppets under control, but I ended up having to send one of my large armies to pacify both. My main forces engaged in counter-attacking the French on Prussian soil. True to my strategy in the previous War of Hegemony, I waited for the French to array their forces in my territory, and then I struck, snowballing in size and pursuing them in large army groups. One of their own army groups, perhaps 25,000 men in size, nearly succeeded in occupying one of my forward territories (around 92% occupation progress before I was able to attack that group).
The most annoying thing in the whole war is that the French dropped nearly 30,000 men in Stettin. Near the end of the war, they dropped another 21,000. Back there, they managed to occupy two territories, and they even had an army group in Berlin before I swung forces back to smash them. However, I ignored these feeble attempts. The goal is to utterly destroy France. Pulling out forces necessary to stop an annoying incursion way behind the lines only weakens the forward assault.
Again, defeating France, much like Austria, was not easy. I lost a couple big battles, but I always managed to keep attacking large French groups with even larger Prussian armies. My organization levels on a group or two hit critical a few times, and I’d have to slow down, or even halt. However, I had so many troops in a few clusters that my strategy of clustering, smashing hostile forces, and then pursuing them until they’re whittled down to nothing eventually worked again. Eventually, the French were broken militarily. I had large amounts of France occupied, and I was able to push the French in the Stettin area straight into the sea. I made a separate peace with the Papal States to get them off some territories of mine (Sicily was a bit incompetent after all), but I didn’t bother offering peace to the Swiss, Austrians, or Sardinians even when they kept begging endlessly. When you have such massive army groups (a couple times I combined them into two or even just a single cluster) winning battle after battle by pursuing the French endlessly, you rack up pretty impressive war points simply from battles alone.
My infamy from the War of Hegemony was still pretty high, but I’m pretty sure I demanded humiliation from the French, and nothing else besides Alsace-Lorraine of course (I don’t think I had enough infamy to demand more without going over 25 infamy, and I wasn’t willing to risk that just yet). Once I gained Alsace-Lorraine is when I realized I, again, forgot to sphere Holstein (sigh… I can be dumb sometimes). I also realized after the fact that I didn’t demand to put Austria in my sphere (pretty sure they downgraded to secondary power during the war; I wasn’t closely monitoring them, but once the war ended, they weren’t great power), but I think my infamy would’ve surpassed 25 and I really didn’t want to piss off my neighbors (Netherlands conquered Belgium and allied Russia/UK). The Holy War with France ended sometime in 1840/1841 since I managed to get Greater Germany by August 31, 1846. I eventually sphered Holstein and activated the North German Federation.
In the meantime, France declared war on me regain Alsace-Lorraine. At the end of the First War of Never Learning Our Lesson, I made them accept my demand to free Castille. It wasn’t a year later that they again went to war with me for Alsace-Lorraine. (About a year after I achieved Greater Germany, they declared war on me a second time for Alsace-Lorraine. As a condition to end the Second War of Never Learning Our Lesson, I made them give French Algeria to the native Algerians. I don’t like the French in North Africa: they always seem to have 50-100,000 troops stationed there, and I find that offensive. The Algerians do not need to be burdened with eating smelly cheese when they could feast on delicious sausages and sauerkraut, because one day, I promise, they will be. They will have our sausages.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pR18hGBMhWM)
That first time they declared war on me was literally as I was about to reach sphere status with Austria. Since you can’t activate “Three Hurrahs” until you’re at peace… this was extremely annoying.
Anyways, this is how I achieved Greater Germany by 1846. I could’ve reached it earlier, but 1846 was awesome enough. I hope this was an amusing read and that others will want to try doing this, too. It’s a challenge, but it’s fun if you play your cards right!