Sick Man of Europe - an Ottoman Empire AAR

[Stuyvesant]

I wonder what your intrepid sergeant will make of machine guns...

So, you still have a healthy fear of the Brits, but it seems that otherwise, the Eurasian heartland is your sandbox (with your Turkey playing the role of the neighborhood bully who is rubbing poor Austria's and Prussia's faces in dog turds).

It's all rather ludicrous and I keep waiting for that rebel explosion where half of Europe dons arms against the Turks, but it is a very entertaining kind of ludicrous.

[naggy]

The attentive amongst you probably noticed that I never signed peace with Austria. That's because I made a mistake - I have demanded 4 regions whose war score is just a little more than Austria will accept (around 90-95), because I can't take a few provinces that Italy has occupied, and I can't take Jutland as Denmark has occupied it (and Holstein is in the way).

I still have some occupation to do against Austria, but I need to move my army north and take out Denmark (and free Holstein for later) - Prussia is conveniently in the way.

August 1, 1875: Prussia starts off by...invading Tripoli. Really, what is so great about attacking Tripoli that everyone goes there?



August 31: While we continue to occupy Prussia and Austria, I declare war on Lubeck, just to get them out of the way.

October 3: Panjab's final province surrenders...



December 8: Lubeck is annexed. Ten days later, Prussia surrenders all but their capital region. Having the Ottoman Empire written over Germany is amusing. This leaves Prussia in 9th place - Italy will replace them as a GP in 6 months.



January 24: We declare war on Denmark, with a goal to force them to release Holstein.

February 27: Despite being strong, the Danes and their puppets pack quite a punch. The Danish army appeared out of nowhere, and clobbered me.



Hrm. Osman Pasha seems to be a popular name:



March 20: The attempt to extricate my army from Kiel leads to another disaster. I think this is more than I lost in the last war with Austria and Prussia combined.



April - May: Reinforcements arrive, and I thrash the Danes at Lauenburg, harder at Kiel, wipe an army at Lubeck, and destroy their remaining army at Aabenraa. Meanwhile, with access to Hamburg, I declare war on them.

Oh, and this happens. It's not a mid/late game war without rebels!



June 5: Italy white peaces with Austria. Again. This has got to be pissing off the Italian populace, but it gives me 5 more provinces to occupy to drive up war score. Meanwhile, Austrian Jutland is under occupation. 2 weeks later, Prussia officially is no longer a Great Power, replaced by Italy, who was so Great, they couldn't win a war against an army-less Austria.

June 24: Guess where my 5 National Foci are going. Our next tech: Biologism.

Sergeant #2: OK, this new machine gun thingy is really cool. Just point it at the enemy and hold the trigger.
Private #1: Where do I put my pants?
Sergeant #2: What?
Private #1: Well, our last sergeant showed us how to load our guns with pants...
Sergeant #2: *buries hands in face* OK...you just stick with the rifle and shoot your pants, and I'll let Hans and Franz here use the machine gun.



As you can see from this Colonial Mapmode shot, France has started colonizing south of Algeria. I'll have to cut them off.



July 16: Hamburg is annexed. We break our alliance with Bremen in preparation to invade, which we do in October.

August 29: The only ones missing are Communists and Fascists.



November 2: Britain declares war on the USA to take American New England.

In other news, the liberal party experiment has failed - my UH is not becoming noticeably more liberal, and the limit of 40% military spending is not letting me expand my army fast enough (considering I have to compete with Russia, France, and soon GB). We move back to the conservative Imperial Party.

November 28: Bingo! I get 50 influence in Bavaria with Friendly relations, which lets me drop France to Cordial. With France now at Cordial with Bavaria and Austria having a truce, I can take Bavaria out without interference.

December 26: Austria finally agrees to my terms. Yes, that's a border with Italy, Switzerland, and Papal States (but PS is in France's sphere).



January 13, 1877: Denmark agrees to release Holstein. In retrospect, I should have tried to take Iceland/Greenland as well. Bremen is annexed a week later, and a week after that, Denmark and Austria reach a white peace (neither side has an army).

March 1: More map cleanup is coming...

[naggy]

I wonder what your intrepid sergeant will make of machine guns...

So, you still have a healthy fear of the Brits, but it seems that otherwise, the Eurasian heartland is your sandbox (with your Turkey playing the role of the neighborhood bully who is rubbing poor Austria's and Prussia's faces in dog turds).

It's all rather ludicrous and I keep waiting for that rebel explosion where half of Europe dons arms against the Turks, but it is a very entertaining kind of ludicrous.

I went back and added something, just for you.

There are over 450 brigades of A-L rebels, but only about 40 ready for a general rising. Not sure why I don't have a wave of them, but I'm quite glad.

[Melrick]

Man, that's some serious arse-whooping going on there!

[Kaltorak]

Nice to have an Ottoman Empire in the colonisation game. They have such a good position for it and I haven't seen it happen before. The Ottoman Empire is engulfing Europe just nicely. It looks like the entire population of what is left of Prussia is unhappy from that screen shot lol. I might be too if my formally proud and reasonably powerful country was a tiny landlocked enclave sitting smack bang in the middle of the Ottomans.

[Mr. Sometimes]

August 1, 1875: Prussia starts off by...invading Tripoli. Really, what is so great about attacking Tripoli that everyone goes there?

You should know, you started it :P

Hrm. Osman Pasha seems to be a popular name:

Maybe you should spend your next national focus point on encouraging imagination?

Oh, and since the troops now have a new sergeant, I'm guessing that ol' Sergeant #1 found breeches ineffective against the Danish offensive?

Excellent job with securing Prussia and conquering more of Austria, can't wait to see you take Bavaria too! Hope they are not as strong as the Danes :P

[loki100]

In retrospect, I should have tried to take Iceland/Greenland

, indeed, core parts of the historic Ottoman domains and all that.

With that rebel stack in Prussia are you going to start a competition with Prawnstar?

[Enewald]

Maybe you should force the members of the Imperial house of Osman to actually invent new names?
And some other tittle than pasha?

[naggy]

Malrick: This time, my ass was included in the whoopin'.

Kaltorak: You'd think they'd be used to having no freedom, given how many times reactionaries and anarcho liberals took over Prussia.

Mr. Sometimes: Heh. Technically, King started it, since they had the war as part as the starting campaign.

Sergeant #1 is now an officer, in the Planning Department. You'll hear from him when I get gas attack.

Enewald: Either that, or outlaw all other names, and EVERYONE shall be Osman Pasha! It can be part of my Cultural Assimilation program.

[Rensslaer]

Hmm... Not since Rocketman have I seen Prussia smaller than Bavaria.

But it looks like you're about to change it back.

Rensslaer

[Rastar]

Very impressed by the power of the alliance with GB. Given your high infamy and sharing a border with them, they surely would have DOWed you otherwise for containment.

I had expected them to drop the alliance once your infamy skyrocketed. Evidently infamy isn't as big a factor in the AI calculation for alliances as one might think. Useful to know...

Nice work with the multiple simultaneous wars.

[aldriq]

If the AI could be slapped then Italy should get the lion's share... Why oh why?

, indeed, core parts of the historic Ottoman domains and all that.

It continues the glorious tradition of EU3 Ottoman fleets blockading the Baltic...

[AllmyJames]

I'm impressed that even as a one-state-minor, Prussia remains in 9th place. I guess it helps that Italy is incompetent and you've given Austria a kicking.

[Stuyvesant]

Sergeant #1 is now an officer, in the Planning Department. You'll hear from him when I get gas attack.

<Most unseeming immature sniggering>

Looking forward to it (I am a man of simple pleasures ). And thanks for the machinegun bit.

[ChiCity]

"Gamey" question about your earlier wars -- doesn't switching generals on the fly like that hurt your Org. right before large battles? Also does attrition hurt their org too? I feel like every time I play the Ottomans, I get zerged even if my stack is the same size and they're fighting on my home turf -- maybe I have to pick my spot better and aim for more generals.

I'm also surprised you haven't had "gunboat diplomacy" issues with all of that early debt. That's a strategy I never tried b/c I was worried about the consequences of going that far into the red -- they don't actually seem that bad though.

Also, any thought to just letting those Jacobins reach your capital and taking the free political reforms? Jac's are the only kind of rebel that ever seems useful to me.

[naggy]

"Gamey" question about your earlier wars -- doesn't switching generals on the fly like that hurt your Org. right before large battles? Also does attrition hurt their org too? I feel like every time I play the Ottomans, I get zerged even if my stack is the same size and they're fighting on my home turf -- maybe I have to pick my spot better and aim for more generals.

If switching generals hurts org, I haven't noticed (though the general may change the total ORG possible). Attrition does not hurt Org.

The Ottomans start out behind their neighbors in tactics (IIRC), which is why I went for that early. Tactics does make a pretty hefty difference.

I'm also surprised you haven't had "gunboat diplomacy" issues with all of that early debt. That's a strategy I never tried b/c I was worried about the consequences of going that far into the red -- they don't actually seem that bad though.

I don't think gunboat diplomacy works at all in 1.2. I've never seen it enabled, nor has it ever happened to me.

Also, any thought to just letting those Jacobins reach your capital and taking the free political reforms? Jac's are the only kind of rebel that ever seems useful to me.

They're all the way in Germany, so it's a long walk for them to hit my capital. I would lose my entire SoI at once, which I don't want (yet). My poor pops are overwhelmingly conservative, so Jacobin rebels would nuke any chance at me passing social reforms.

[anweRU]

I guess you have all the Osman Pasha's due to their parents being inspired by Osman Bey, the founder of the Osmali dynasty.

The very first one seems to somewhat correspond to Ghazi Osman Pasha, hero of the 1877-78 war with the Russians.

And it looks like you just started 1877. Why not repeat history in reverse - and invade Russia with that Osman Pasha you have in Kars?

[naggy]

Rensslaer: Yes. Due to the truce times, Prussia will die first. Since they have no army, this will be a cakewalk.

Rastar: I was expecting a war at some point, and to suffer the WE of a massive blockade. Actually, the WE might have helped me pass some reforms. C'est la vie.

aldriq: All of the Clauswitz games seriously need more regional war score. The current absolute system means that large empires become nigh impervious except to the player and other large empires.

AllmyJames: Prestige never dies.

anweRU: What a coincidence that you would ask.

The global situation is this: there are 5 true Great Powers: USA (isolationist outside the Americas), UK (allied to Italy and OE), France and Russia (allied to each other), and the Ottomans.

I don't want to declare war on Italy while they're allied to Britain, because if they call the alliance and the UK responds, I'm probably going to be locked in a cycle of wars with the British juggernaut and their Chinese sphered ally for the rest of the game.

If I declare war on France or Russia, the other almost assuredly will respond, and I'll be stuck with a two front war where I need my entire army to handle one front. I can probably win that war, but the 3-4 years of economic devastation and resulting rebuilding means that I may be stuck with 5-6 years where I can do nothing else.

I've been trying (as you'll see in future updates) to attack France and Russia's sphere to draw them out, but they have refused to help their sphere each time - at least I get stronger while they weaken.

[Fronzel]

"Pasha" is a title, not technically a name. In this context it would be "general".

[naggy]

March 2, 1877: Austria honors its truce with us, and ignores Bavaria's call for help. This is an effective way to make someone's prestige plummet, as they will lose 25 prestige per dishonored call. Bavaria mobilizes 2 weeks later, giving them almost 20 more divisions.

March 29: The Bavarians managed to sneak much of their army west, while I was expecting them to go east. As a result, they caught my occupation army with their pants down. And as we all know, you can't fire breech loading rifles if your pants are down.



April 15: Oldenburg is annexed. This gives me 3 provinces surrounded by Hanover.

April - September: Bavaria's army and mine dance around, not really managing to land any killing blows. Unfortunately for them, I can take this indefinitely, and they cannot.

September 9: I don't want to let too much of my army sit around idle. This is a straight occupation and rebel clearing: Switzerland has no army.



October 28: Kenya is colonized. Now we can train secret units that can run LIKE KENYANS! (mild language) And with our first colony, we are addicted. More colonies!!!!!!



October 31: Prussia falls to Jacobins. That leaves the Anarcho Liberal rebels still running around angrily.

December 7: After whittling down Bavaria's army and occupying everything, we reduce Bavaria to their final region. Our borders look a little better.

One ironic result of colonizing: new colonial pops are equally split among ideologies.



There are 7 nations with 50+ brigades: China (1413), UK (679), Japan (165), Me (123), France (92), Korea (91), and Russia (50). My numbers sound impressive until you realize that I can mobilize a whipping 10 brigades.

While I was busy in Bavaria, I failed to notice this...



January 21, 1878: Abeche is colonized.

January 24: We get the Ambassador insulted event. We choose to mend fences, since I don't want to trigger a two sided war between France and Russia.

Here's a random world map, resulting from hitting the wrong button. As you can see, the UK literally just signed peace to take New England from the USA.



February 14: Switzerland cedes East Switzerland to us. We celebrate by colonizing the Libyan Desert. Niger follows 10 days later, and the East Central Sahara follows in a month.

March 1: I finally manage to scrape together enough influence to drop France to Cordial in Baden. In retrospect, I should have risked the intervention for a clean shot at France. C'est la vie.

March 9: With Russia coming close to taking West Galicia from Austria, I declare war on Serbia to try and draw them into a war. Russia declines. On the 10th, I try again with Krakow - again Russia declines. Instead, they force Austria to cede West Galicia on the 11th. I'm now at war with 2 armyless minors.

March 22: I look at the Anarcho-Liberal rebels and nearly spew coke. With so many angry people, you'd expect lots of emigration: I lose 3363/month, but gain 16317 in Immigration.



In a look at my Upper House, I find my Capitalists are overwhelmingly Liberal (50%), and 21% Socialist. Unfortunately, my Aristocrats are 10x as numerous and are 53% Conservative, 19% Liberal. Apparently, I can't send them all into the army and march them to Siberia.

My middle class pops are 36% socialist/32% liberal, but expanding the UH franchise would be bad, as my poor POPs are overwhelmingly conservative. As usual, I have no good options (even if I had options).

April 1: We declare war on armyless Baden. A simple map cleaning job, and it provides a shorter link between Switzerland and Wurttemburg (which otherwise has a lake in the way).

June 10: I try again to get Russia into a war by declaring war on Afghanistan (spheremate and ally), but they still don't bite). Russia has lost 75 prestige in less than a year though, so that's something.

June 20: Krakow is annexed. Serbia follows in August, and Baden in November.

October 2: Tuscany declares independence from Italy, and I get even better news 5 days later:



With our protection gone, Egypt gets a flurry of war declarations: Italy on October 27th, Russia on November 8th, Greece on November 18th, and finally us on the 19th. This sounds like a race for Egypt, except that we're the only one with troops in the area.

March 17, 1879: Rift Valley is colonized. Mauritania follows in May, then Niamey Region in July, and Waw and Timbuktu in August.

June 1: Woohoo! Time to go after Experimental Railroad.



June 20: Afghanistan is annexed (with Persian help). We follow up with a declaration of war on Bukkhara (who has no allies).



August: The Netherlands declares war on Egypt.

September: Italy is booted out as a GP by USCA.

November 12: Egypt is cut down to size by Russia, despite Russia having only taken 1 province.

November 17: Experimental Railroad is researched, leading to a MASSIVE railroad building spree. We go for Mechanical Production.

December 1: Darwinism is invented. Literacy, here we come!

January 7, 1880: The UK hosts the Congo Conference. Ironically, the next month, they choose to table it.

January 20: Egypt is crushed.