Chapter 5: War against the UK, and some belated learnings...
Chapter 5: War against the UK, and some belated learnings...
OK, so it's late 1851, and it's just me and my trusty ally the USCA against the UK. Gulp. Let's look at the map, shall we?
War against the UK, round 1: 1852
In the
South, things are great, at least at the start - the USCA and I have the UK far outnumbered, and I order an immediate advance into Belize.
In the
North, UK soldiers start streaming westward (I can see them walking near the US border), and then swinging south to attack me in the Pacific Northwest. My troops are scattered all over the western half of the US, so I frantically try to pull them together in northern Utah before it's too late.
The picture below shows the situation by
december 1851
There are 4 UK stacks, totaling 73K, while my 60K guys slowly stream in. Sadly, it doesn't seem like there's winter weather here, like in EU3, otherwise an army in the Rockies in mid-winter would be withering away quite rapidly! As it is, I'm hoping that attrition will still be my biggest friend.
In
February 1852, I get good news - things are going swimmingly in the South, as Belize falls. Go go USCA! The UK has a total blockade on me, which, in another departure from EU3, seems to not hurt my economy a whit - it just ups their warscore.
In
April 1852, the UK makes a significant mis-step (as I had just made a similar mis-step against the US, I don't gloat too much
) - it over-splits its forces. There are roughly 100K of them and roughly 100K of me, but instead of trying to duke it out monster stack to monster stack, perhaps for reasons of attrition, it splits up into about 5 20K stacks. Holy Lee-before-Antietam, Batman! I ain't no McLellan, and I immediately seize the opportunity, with the AI never really reacting - from
April through
December 1852 my monster stack methodically fights battle after battle against much smaller UK contingents in Oregon and Idaho. A sign of just how lucky I am here is that even with though I am usually outnumbering the UK 5 or 10 to 1, I usually lose slightly more troops than they do - they also have an outstanding leader (+2 attack and +2 defense, if I recall).
I get another bonus in
December 1852:
I get muzzle-loaded rifles - that should help!
War against the UK, round 2: 1853
By the start of 1853, things are going great in the North - I have almost totally wiped out the UK army, have conquered Washington state, and am starting to move into Canada. I order roughly 1/3 of my army to start moving south, as I worry that eventually the UK will amphibious-invade me near the capitol.
In the south, I get a nasty jolt right at the start of the year- the USCA white-peaces out. Hard to blame them, scrolling down there I see lots of rebellions, and a large redcoat contingent, 45K to my 21K:
My bad, I had totally focused my attention up north, they must have amphibiously-invaded down there, I stopped paying attention after Belize fell. Ay caramba!
In
April 1853, I get two pieces of bad news
First, that I'm due to stop being a Great Power! Waaah! But I wanna!
Second, the UK thrashes me in southern mexico
The way to Mexico City is open! The troops I started moving down in January are still a
long way away, too - uh oh!
I count myself very lucky in
July 1853 when, for some reason
the UK offers me a white peace, which I jump all over. Yay!
Just one week later
the UK DOWs somebody else! It's a busy life being the world's bully, ain't it!
However, the bad news doesn't stop, as by
September 1853 I do indeed lose Great Power status (to pathetic Spain no less!)
and by
January 1854 am all the way down to 13th place.
Booo!
And by the way
What good is it having a liberal party in power if you don't do anything? Though I can't pass any social reforms, I can have my pick of political reforms. The only one with a non-microscopic approval rating with the public, however (at 10%), is widening the franchise:
I do it, and don't really notice any effect ... at least, yet.
The situation, and some learnings
How is it that, as Mexico, I could keep all my starting territories, gain Colorado, Idaho, and Oregon, win a war against the US, see the US split in two, fight the UK off, and fall from 9th place to 13th as a result? Let's take a little look.....
First, a little stroll around the state of the country:
The economy is in very good shape, mainly due to lots of gold:
Politically, check out the crazy fragmentation in the issues, and the number of political parties:
It's on the diplomatic tab that my imbecility becomes apparent:
My prestige is a lowly 11, 46th in the world, and my infamy is
49, nearly twice the bad-boy limit! I am going to be Senor Unpopular for a long, long time. I honestly don't know how I bolloxed things up this badly, but I have a guess.....
Lesson: don't DOW Hawaii
One thing I hadn't even bothered to mention in this AAR, which I now think was a major failing, was my actions with Hawaii. As part of my "if the USA wants it, I should have it" diplomacy, I had been raising my influence with Hawaii. This had worked so well that they entered my SOI twice. What's so bad about this? What's so bad about this is that each time, after a few months, there was a diplomatic incident where they burned my ambassador, or spit on him, or called him bad names, or something, and my choices were to either (a) lose prestige (I think not!), or (b) DOW (yes indeed!). As my navy and theirs are both nearly non-existent, it never really meant anything, and after a while either they would offer white-peace, or I would, shrug. No harm, no foul, I figured. However, it may be that my DOWs were considered 'unjustified' DOWs, which would rack me up a goodly amount of my infamy, and I guess it could be that my white peaces might have lost me prestige (because I never humiliated Hawaii like a good imperialist, or something?). I won far more battles than I lost against UK and US, I don't think that's been an issue....
My current theory is that it was this Hawaii blundering, combined with my poor choice of wargoals against the US, that's responsible for my poor scores. Other pointers as to my poor play are welcome
So for now I'm frankly in a bit of a bind. I certainly can't DOW anybody, not with this infamy score - I'll be lucky just to be ignored. OTOH, sitting quietly for the next 50 years isn't an attractive option, either. If only this was EU3 and I could donate to the Pope or something
. It's probably inevitable that the US will attack me in a few years, beating them (assuming I even can) seems my only real avenue at this point. Any other suggestions?
