Chapter X - War in the East
I checked the files again, because I was getting worried about slavery: will it ever be abolished in the US or not? Luckely, it will be, and hopefully soon enough. There's an event between '76 and '80, that will fire randomly, but surely if we still have slavery allowed. That's a relief! It might even have some nice side-effects! (Still, I don't think I will ever play VIP again. It is just not the kind of mod for me.)
So, let's dive into our main subject for this week: finishing the 'unification' of the Americas! First of all, we will need to teach Chile a lesson, because they still think it is best to remain independent. Of course they are seriously mistaken, but not for long. The plan is very simple: the 3rd Corps will attack Chilean reserves in Copiapo, while the Assault Corps will attack the main force in the capital, Santiago.
The battle plan for the Chliean Campaign. A simple, but hopefully effective plan.
The battles were long and bloody (I had to actually retreat from Santiago after losing more than 50000 men!), because the terrain is advantageous to the defenders, and they were very well entrenched. The moral of the war is that I shouldn't go and attack the enemy outright, when I can go and occupy his country instead, forcing them out of their foxholes.
Back in the war against Korea and Japan, I took a claim in Sakhalin: one of the islands to the North of Japan, contested by Russia. Now Russia offered to buy it off of me for Impressionism and 1500 Money. While the 1500 Money is negligable, Impressionism is, well, impressive
D), because I won't lose any Research Points for recieving a tech, and I'm pretty low on Culture techs anyway. So I accepted the deal. (By the way, I bought four different (Commercial and Military) techs from Germany for some 100.000 Money. That's a lot, but I can afford it right now. They are good pals
Do you remember my evil plan to strangle the world's Machine Parts support by not selling any of my own? Now I extended that plan to Steamer Ships. They are becoming a very important commodity of which I have a monopoly, owning more than half of the World's daily production. By doing that, I can deny other nations the ability to build Steamer ships, which will hurt them a lot in the long run! Of course it hurts my economy as well (as I said, Steamers are a very lucrative business), but I can afford that now. Some changes in taxation and tarrifs solves the income loss in a second.
On May 22th, 1875, the first Oil Well of the United States was found in Houston! Yeeeeeha! That will be a
very important discovery! For the moment, it has no real value though, as I can't do anything with it. There are some slaves and labourers working there, producing 0.76 of that per day. Currently Russia is the lead producer of Oil by the way, overall production amounting to 2 units daily.
The war against Chile is not going as well as expected. They have 10 Infantry Divisions now, while I only have 9 commited to that campaign, and the 3rd Corps was called away to put down a rebellion in Bolivia (which still has no armies of its own). It will take some time to win this war. Still, the change of tactics helped out immensely. After luring out the main forces from Santiago to reoccupy their territories, I managed to attack the city practically undefended, only manned by a Division of not-dug-in Infantry. Reinforcements arrived to help them, but that couldn't turn the tide of the battle: without their entrenchments, they quickly fell under the constant shelling of our Artillery. (Artillery has some minimal advantage, but that is far from enough against dug-in troops. Proper Shore Bombardment can help a lot more, but of course not inside the continent.) After annihilating 7 of their 10 Divisions and taking their Capital, they were ready to surrender.
Now that Chile is done, we have controll over all the formerly independent (civilized) nations of the Americas. But there are still some ugly stains on the map: the European colonies! They also shall be dealt with in due time. The colonial nations holding land in the Americas are as follows: Denmark, the Netherlands, France, the United Kingdom and Canada. (There are also the natives, but much to my annoyance, I can do nothing about them. Lucky for me though, that I don't really need to
)
Of course, our first target is Denmark, because they are the weakest of them all. They have Iceland as their Satellite plus Greenland, and the Virgine Islands as American colonies. These are my war objectives. They are supposed to have 8 Divisions and 11 Ships. Iceland has no armies whatsoever. 20 Ironclads are dispatched to blockade their ports in Coppenhagen and Viborg, which will also gather some intel on the allocation of their troops. I will send my victorious South American divisions (who have quite some experience by now) to conquere the peninsula.
But I won't DoW Denmark, oh no! I want to get Iceland as well, so I will DoW them instead! They are in a Defence Pact with Denmark (as a Satellite), so attacking them will bring Denmark in, while it wouldn't work the other way around. This way, I will get twice as much Prestige as well. The plan is to drop off my victorious armies in the undefended Aalborg and Aarhus, and wait for them to come to me. Meanwhile, the transports will pick up some spare troops from the invaders and attack Iceland. After that, the they will get some more troops to get the overseas possessions, which are most likely defended by only a few men. (Or more precisely one of them is, because 7 of the 8 Divisions are in Denmark proper.)
The troops assigned to the defence of Denmark proper, and the Danish fleets patroling around the peninsula. The red line shows the movement plan of the transport fleet bringing the boys to Europe.
While preparing for the war against Denmark, I recieved the 'Resolution of Slavery' event. That is the one I was refering to at the beginning of this Chapter. I have three options here: either slow integration, faster integration, or giving all slaves equal rights instantly by practically buying them off from their current owners all at once. Obviously all costs some money (although for some reason all costs the same), will increase the cash reserves of Aristocrats, and turn all slaves into citizens. The main difference is how it effects the cultural groups: the more immediate the change is, the more will the Dixies be outraged, but the less will the Afros. Still, even the most drastic change will only increase Dixie Militancy by 2, which is negligable in the light of the advantages: 30% of the Afro-Americans will be turned into Yankees! That's a huge bonus, as those are an accepted culture, while Afros aren't! And in addition to that, some of the Slaves will be turned into Clerks, Craftsmen or Soldiers, which is also a big plus for that option! So I will take that route. We can deal with some unhappy Dixies. (We did before, remember?
)
The nation-wide abolishion of slavery also resulted in changes in the Political Parties. Practically all of the old parties are now obsolete and deactivated, and we have some shiny new ones: the Republican Party (liberal), the Democratic Party (conservative), the Union Party (liberal), the Populist Party (conservative) and the Socialist Party (socialist). There are two remnants as well: the conservaitve Greenback Party and the anarcho-liberal Revolutionary Party. That's a lot for a two-party system, isn't it?
Of course they are not really big league players, any of them, as the Republican Party still holds about 85% of the votes with the current voting rights being Wealth. But according to the census data, three quarter of the population is Liberal anyway, so even if I gave voting rights to everyone, the Republican Party would probably remain in power. Not that I plan on doing so, mind you. We don't want unwashed, unliterated bums and rednecks messing in politics now do we?
Now back on track. Actually, for some reason I thought that attacking Iceland will be enough to automatically bring Denmark into the confilct, but I was mistaken of course. They simply dishonoured their alliance, and now I'm only fighting Iceland. No matter, it will be over in a few weeks anyway, then we can go after the traitorous Denmark. Iceland is part of Europe, so normally it shouldn't be considered my concern, but I've learned my lesson in South America: if I puppet them, they will probably have a revolution soon, turning them independent again. I don't want that to happen, so I annex instead. Now back to Denmark.
After DoWing them, in a few engagements, their Navy is reduced to three ships, but they have started to mobilize their forces. I have no idea how many reserves they might have, but I'm pretty confident in my armies actually. They can't come to my land, all they can attempt is try and retake their own. In which they will probably fail too. The transport fleet is sent back to attack their colonies.
The two US Army Corps landed safely on Danish soil.
After securing the initial beacheads, I felt ready to attack the lone Danish group in Viborg with my nine Infantry Divisions. They were only moderately dug-in, and terrain was far from being favourable for them, although Infrastructure gave them some advantage. Shore Bombardment from my 20 Ironclads positioned nearby almost negated their Entrenchment bonus, and the defenders quickly fell. And if I'm not mistaken, I will need to take some land in Denmark to force them to surrender anyway. If I can take their unjustly gained possessions, I think I will also make them my Satellite while asking for some War Reparations as well. Yes, I'm a greedy bastard
It might be interesting to note that they offered a peace treaty with more territorial gains for me than I wanted to achieve, but that didn't include my two greedier terms, so I turned that down. The Virgin Islands was undefended, which means Gothab (Greenland) won't be. That is pretty unfortunate, as that province is a frozen mountain, heavily favouring the defenders. I will send some heavy artillery (the 20 Ironclads, as they are no longer needed in Europe) and some more troops to help out.
In November, 1876, my efforts to start a Fuel Industry (meaning I skyrocketed demand for Fuel by setting it to 'buy if under 1000') payed off, as my dear Californian Capitalists started to build a Fuel Factory. Now I will be able to do something with that Oil in Houston! Which I won't sell to anyone by the way. (Evil plan #3.) The factory later turned out to consume more oil than I produced, so actually I had to start buying Oil from the Russians...
With eight US Divisions, I was finally able to break the resistence in Gothab, and with that province secured, Denmark agreed to my terms, and the war was over. Now I can start to plan my next move: the Netherlands.
The Netherlands will be a more interesting foe than Denmark was, because they are somewhat stronger, and have a very good friend in Oceania: the Dutch East Indies. The Netherlands has 4 Divisions and 20 ships (mostly Clippers from what I can tell), but the Dutch East Indies has 16 Divisions and 17 ships. They might be a bit harder to subjugate, but that is a necessity for two reasons. First, I don't like them being there in
my Pacific. Second, I can't attack the Netherlands directly, because they are guaranteed by Germany.
The Dutch East Indies. We currently have a Satellite, Atjeh bordering them. According to intel, they concentrate their Fleet in three ports.
If I have to fight the The Dutch East Indies, then I want to defeat them for good. I will either have to puppet them, or annex them, but I don't really like the idea of having a puppet called '
Dutch East Indies', so I will go for multi-phased annexation instead. They have two Satellites as well: Tidore (the Eastern part of today's Indonesia) and Bali (which consists of two islands to the West of Timor), so I will have to fight those too. But don't get too hasty, that is not that urgent. Their capital is Batavia, on the big island in the bottom center of the picture, so I can safely go for the Western big island in the first war. (I can't annex them right away of course, because they have more than three provinces, that's what I meant by 'multi-phased war'.) So that's my basic war objective for the moment. It is possible that I will be able to ask for more if things go well, but we'll see to that later. Of course I will position my fleet for blockade before I start the war.
Surprisingly enough, the war only costed me 65 Prestige, and when the smoke cleared off, I found myself at war with all of the DEI's Satellites as well! That is actually quite benefitial for me, as they will be also annexed. (Or more precisely, I will reduce all of them to one province. That is because I can kinda 'hack' the system this way, gaining no badboy points at all for taking the land.)
The war started out rather well. The Netherlands were quick to go down, even though they managed to sneak a Division through my blockade to Salisbury (and as we all know, the engine won't tell you that a Division set foot on your motherland, until it's too late and they already occupy the province
). In the Dutch East Indies, the enemy navy sustained heavy casualities and the province of Siak was seized quickly. Somehow the DEI managed to get a Division to Hartford too. Doesn't really matter though, as I have troops at home, so they were quickly pushed back to the Sea. These were the only two offensive maneuvers on their part. Still, it is important to have fleets at home as well, to spank the invaders while they are still embarking!
After the European territories of the Netherlands were all dealt with and the attack on Dutch Guayanna (called Suriname today, in South America) began, it was time to start the actual attack on the Dutch East Indies. My armies were sitting idle in Siak for quite some time now, forcing the Dutch to form a front in the surrounding provinces. That made the rest of the islands open for attack, and I used that to my advantage with my forces arriving directly from Europe. (They are battle-hardened veterans by now.) One corps lured the single Division defending the Capital away and defeated that, while the other started to go rampageing on the North-Western island.
During the DEI campaing, a very important event happened to the United States: Steel Hulls were invented! That means Capital Shipyards and the 'Hull' product are now available. I immediately increased the demand for that to 1000 as well to encourage Capitalists to build such a factory. I want one built ASAP, because that will be needed for more modern ships like Destroyers and Pre-Dreadnaughts. A little later, another invention de-activated Ironclads. The new ship I can build is the Protected Cruiser, which is kinda sad, because I don't have Hulls yet, and they are needed to build those. Currently I can't build any warships...
The war in the Dutch East Indies has been raging on for quite a while now. There were significant territorial gains, but not enough for a preferable peace agreement.
Now, with the arrival of another two Army Corps, the occupation of the DEI and its client states were sped up quite a lot. In a few months, Tidore and Bali were out of the war, and considerable progress was made in the lands directly controlled by the Dutch governor. The war lasted until February '79, when we finally came to terms. Territorial gains were a bit less than I first wanted, but I also demanded Forced Disarmament and Humiliated the DEI. They will be much easier next time. Also, I was kinda in a hurry, because in the last few months, revolts sprung up all over the Netherlands, so it became pretty urgent to negotiate a treaty. I had to make peace with the DEI first, because they are the lesser member of their Alliance, and dealing with the Netherlands would have caused the entire war to be over, and I didn't want that yet. After some convincing, they accepted my terms, and the war was finally over. It was about time too, because I was running low on Manpower, and Elections were due in five months!
Indonesia in early 1879. The Dutch East Indies were dealt a serious blow they will hardly recover from, and most of the natives are also subjugated.
But if we went that far, why don't go all the way? The rest of Oceania could use some good American culture! Some quick re-organisation, and we are on our way towards a new victim: Bugis. They are the teal island in the middle of the picture above, an uncivilized nation, and were soon incorporated into as a United States colony. There are still some available targets, but time is short, they will come next week. I think I will divide my Armed Forces into two groups: a Pacific one and an Atlantic one, responsible for Asia and Europe respecitvely.
In February, 1879, I was lucky enough to get another 'Support Industry' event, in which I got the opportunity to build a 'Capital Shipyard'! That's very good news! Unfortunately the three options of where to build it were surprisingly bad... Alaska, Montana or Utah... The first two has barely any Yankee population I could turn into Craftsmen and Clerks to work in it, and the third already has 13 Factories. Still, it's way better than the other two, so Utah it is. The new factory got the best of what the State could offer in terms of workforce, and it started to produce 0.62 Hulls a day, which is nice enough, considering that a Protected Cruiser only needs 2 of them. Good, very good!
In the last days of the '79 Election Campaign, the Republican Party gained back their support, and won with 83% of the votes. The Union Party dropped back to about 1.7%, and the second major Party is now the Socialist Party. But I will never let them win an election, I promise! The United States is the home of Capitalism, and I won't let it fall into the hands of State Capitalists!
As for the Top 30, here's how we stand on June 8th, 1879:
The Tap 30 nations of the World in 1879. Germany has a strong hold on the first place, thanks to their unbelievable ammount of Prestige, and their rather high Industrial Score, and the second on the list, the United Kingdom is there because of their Prestige, rather than any real effort they made.
As you can see, Germany and the United Kingdom are my main rivals for top score both in Industry and overall. Don't be fooled by the Military score, it is badly balanced, the Navy weights in too much IMO. There are a lot of Satellites on the list (of which, some are mine). Also note Liberia
As I see it, the United Kingdom was recently dropped out of the race for the highest Industrial Score, but Germany is still there. I have two options here: either get the means to somehow stomp the Germans into the ground and take their factories or manage to get a lot more of mine.
The question is still open: Which nation(s) should I try and force out of the Great Powers list?
