Hamburger Royalties

[Heretic]

“Donner und Blitzen!” cried Wolfgang Zimmemann Klempel, jumping up in the busy café, flinging his newspaper down.

“Gott in Himmel!” he shrieked.

All around the other patrons of the café looked up, startled. The mood was generally dour, as 1850's Hamburg was a place of strict restrictions in all aspects of daily life.
Supporting the troops out overseas had crippled the budget, as had the reconstruction after the great fire. As for the lavish program of schools and hospitals set up by the
overoptimistic administration, well, it was crippling the country.

"Herr Klempel?" coughed the waiter, repectfully.

Wolfgang's expression clicked back into place as he realised where he was. He stuffed a crumpled note into the waiter's hand and scurried out of the cafe, muttering:

"I think I have it - I may just have the answer."

[Heretic]

Version: 1.03c
Country: Hamburg
Difficulty: Normal/Normal
House Rules: Don’t Milk It
Aims: High Tech Heaven, Capitalist Nirvana

Yup, it’s a shorter, punchier AAR.
Thought I’d join in the whole multiple-AAR thingy, but do a different one with a lighter flavour.

The general idea is that I will write up the history up to 1850, post a few screenies, I think you know the form. Then, as the story will make clear, there are really quite a few possibilities. Anybody who is interested can then join in the fun, to work out the situation.

I would request that anybody who is interested in playing out a few years PM me, and I will mail you out the save file.

[LM+]

Sounds like fun. Go with VIP!

[Rey]

Delicious AAR

[Skymning]

Show those peske Lübeckers who's the man!

[GhostWriter]

I would request that anybody who is interested in playing out a few years PM me, and I will mail you out the save file.

looks good. (pun intended. ) i'm in!

[cookie monster]

Yeah. Take a real good look at the hamburger.
Go on then.
Hmm my mouth starts to water.
What's your initial plans?
Good luck

[Mettermrck]

Man now I'm hungry. Throw in a soda to wash it down and I'm subscribing. What burger is that, btw? Good luck!

[Heretic]

thanks for the comments -
no kind of burger in particular
only lemonade available (not sure when cola invented)
any participants welcome

Heretic

[Heretic]

As a short history, a few years ago, Hamburg was generally managing to turn a small profit, mostly due to the timber factory revenues, although this was sometimes supplemented by sales of government assets. These asset sales had generally funded the implementation of social reforms.







Whilst the state was nominally a democracy, the lack of any opposition parties made elections very predictable affairs.



The state had an advanced scientific community, with strong links to neighbouring states like Lubeck and Bremen for cultural exchange (tech trading).



The devastating great fire of Hamburg led to a temporary hole in the budget, as rebuilding of industry went on.



The debts were made worse when Hamburg honoured it’s alliance with the UK in their war against the USA. A regiment was deployed, although swiftly cut back to a skeleton staff. The regiment was shipped out to the US pacific coast to see if there were any outposts that could be claimed for Hamburg.



By late 1849 the budget deficit was getting much more serious. It seemed that the social plans might have to be abandoned.



It hadn’t helped that the factory rebuilding program had focussed on clothing rather than furniture, with considerable equipment costs.



All the problems, however, were to fade away. Herr Klempel’s solution was radical and effective. It was legally watertight, and would make the budget deficit evaporate. The city of Hamburg was in assert it’s intellectual property rights over a very popular product. The USA was to pay a small royalty on every single hamburger sold, in recognition of the origin of that nation’s favourite light snack. Legal wranglings were brief and conclusive – for the new few years, Hamburg would surely wallow in cash; but how would they spend it?

[LM+]

Smooth move in getting war indemnities from the Americans. They must have been very war-weary indeed!

Two comments:
- If you cut spending on social to the minimum, you'll save a lot of money. You'll also raise your population's consciousness. Since you're running a democracy, this is a good thing!

- Instead of doing tech trades with nations that have the same national value as yours - Order, I presume? - and will likely get eaten up by you (or Prussia) sometime, get friendly with Belgium and trade tech with them. They'll pay a high price for military techs, and offer you industrial and commercial techs dirt cheap.

[el presidentse]

Creative way to describe a Neville, I assume?

Neat AAR. Can't say I've ever tried Hamburg -- seems a little small and surrounded even for my tastes...

[Heretic]

el presidente -

no Neville used.
USA was at 94% war exhaustion due to the UK, and I tried asking for indemnities just as a joke really. To my suprise they accepted.
I think there is an event called 'the compromise of 1850' which helped push the USA in the right direction. I guess I will have a look at it, but I was mainly shocked at actually getting indemnities worth my yearly income every month.

LM+
I was trying to get some immigrants, so I thought I'd fund the reforms - perhaps this is not essential, so it is worth a look

Heretic

[GhostWriter]

...I was mainly shocked at actually getting indemnities worth my yearly income every month.

as that is a very rare thing, enjoy it while you can! excellent update!

MORE!

[Heretic]

Ok, update time!
1850-1860 has naturally been an eventful decade. Sadly, due to the two parties Hamburg has, massive immigration was not achieved – although maybe I am doing something wrong. I got a few, just not lots and lots.

The first step therefore was to take the army from the Ellices to a small, defenceless, low prestige nation. That was Aceh, and all this was played out some time in late December, so no comment intended on the appaling tragedy in that region.
Anyway, the Netherlands also declared war, stole my sieges, so when they annexed, I was left with this:



With a bit of skilful relations improving, and some trading of non-essential techs, the grabbed claims in the USA were turned into this:



However, this gave me a land border with one of the most aggressive AI’s in the game, so I probably needed some alternative holdings too.

By 1855 I had also diversified my industrial base a little, to this:



All of which meant a need to secure some resources, i.e. coal and iron.
The natives of Tarumon were mostly trained into cavalry, and a larger naval fleet developed to field them.
In order to avoid further prestige loss, and since my ally the UK was already paving the way, I declared war on China, and ended up with this:



So, all in all, pretty good going for a feeble 1-province minor with as yet no expansion in Germany. I quite like that – for the moment I do not have a deeply blobby border in mainland Europe.

[CatsandCradles]

This AAR is delicious. That picture of the hamburger is original.

[Heretic]

CatsandCradles,
thanks, nice to see I have a small but perfectly formed readership - just the kind of thing for this mini-AAR. (Ok, not a 1-page effort, but still pretty curt by my standards)

Another decade, another chance to attack China; did I mention that I was aiming to get reparations from them too? No, well if I didn’t, I shall now; it’s all very well having the manpower, but you really need cash too.



Give or take a few years of peace after that, and some copious tech trading, I sense a need for more prestige. The various parts of Italy really aren’t gearing up to unify, so the Two Sicilies are a little short on prestige, which makes it a golden opportunity for me to attack:



As for the two lumbering giants of the Germanic world, well, it seems the time has come for them to resolve who’s the boss. Given that Prussia occupies a smaller expanse of the continent and has less men under arms at the moment, their chance don’t loos too good.



What of Hamburg’s alliances? Well, still hanging onto the coat tails of the UK for one thing, and rapidly making friends with the Russians too – it doesn’t hurt to have some big friends when you are a pushy little nation.

Well, things didn’t go too well for Prussia overall, so perhaps there is room at the top table for another German nation? In order to set the record straight, a rapid campaign is started against the smaller German states.



The main weight of our army is cavalry form Tarumon, allowing rapid control of the various states in question.



For the moment, humiliation is the order of the day – it is key that our dominance of the northern parts of Germany is truly uncontested when we finally come to exert it. As a side note, we have released the lands in north America as a satellite nation, in order to keep our borders small and defensible.



Speaking of small, defensible borders, it appears that following Russian success against the Chinese, our section of Manchuria now borders theirs. Ah well, as allies we should have nothing to fear, right?

Finally, as a new decade dawns, the Prussians acknowledge defeat at the hands of the mighty French army. You may just be able to glimpse the parts of West-Prussia that were ceded to France.

[GhostWriter]

...Well, things didn’t go too well for Prussia overall, so perhaps there is room at the top table for another German nation? In order to set the record straight, a rapid campaign is started against the smaller German states.

did you capture anything with Mecklenburg? best of luck! this is a nice AAR!

[hasskugel]

This is a good one, it makes me hungry.

[JoshWeber]

Holy crap! HOW did Hamburg capture anything from China, much less ANNEX from China? Very interesting AAR?