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Thanks for the inputs everyone!
as of August 1857 - 116 million. You're right, it's a fool's quest to try and raise literacy via conquest. Sigh, I am what I am
Yeah, thought about that, and if wasn't for my focus on the UK, I would probably do so, but at this point it seems like too much of a diversion.
thanks for the tip - BTW, as of August 1857 scores are 84/959/217 (Prestige/IND/MIL)
sounds good, the one time I don't want 'state capitalism' and i'm stuck with it
I just hope the craftsmen demote to nice little farmers again (what a reversal from normal!) instead of rebelling or some such.
howdy dewirix! Yes, this is quite a change from Denmark, let alone Switzerland!
re the trap - that's essentially what I did. Put in a force small enough to get attacked, big enough not to get wiped out before reinforcements arrive. The problem was that I wasn't able to surround the attackers, and this 'inflict great casualties and then withdraw' gambit by the UK defeated me
Research-wise, I'm in the classic dilemma - on the one hand, as you say, it's years of effort to do RP-boosting tech. On the other hand, if I don't, long-term it gets even worse.
Thanks! I'm playing now from 1857 on, we'll see how it goes - thanks again to all for your advice, particularly w.r.t. the factories.
as of August 1857 - 116 million. You're right, it's a fool's quest to try and raise literacy via conquest. Sigh, I am what I am
Yeah, thought about that, and if wasn't for my focus on the UK, I would probably do so, but at this point it seems like too much of a diversion.
thanks for the tip - BTW, as of August 1857 scores are 84/959/217 (Prestige/IND/MIL)
sounds good, the one time I don't want 'state capitalism' and i'm stuck with it
I just hope the craftsmen demote to nice little farmers again (what a reversal from normal!) instead of rebelling or some such.
It's a bit different from Denmark isn't it!
I should have thought you could take both Russia and the UK in a war at this stage of the game. Russia in particular seems ahistorically quick to industrialise, but slow to build up military power. I'd focus on freeing Indian states from GB for now. Their technological lead is vast, but your manpower should be better for the time being.
I think your strategy of luring them into battle and then beating them on your own turf is sound. In fact, I might go a step further and let them occupy your border provinces and advance a step further. This way you can more easily entrap them and can afford to use bigger stacks as they'll be on territory you have cored (which I think is x4 supply limit).
You might also want to use smaller attacking stacks to fix enemies, or not send in the attacking units until the trap is already in place. That way you'll get eliminations rather than the small victories you've been achieving. Won't do much for your warscore though.
Research-wise I'd go straight for Army techs with diversions for medicine and whichever philosophy/culture/social thought techs are currently unlocked. Raising literacy is important, but it's only part of the picture and the plurality boost from (IIRC) Ideological Thought is a nice bonus. On the other hand, IT will take you around 3 years to research at current rates.
howdy dewirix! Yes, this is quite a change from Denmark, let alone Switzerland!
re the trap - that's essentially what I did. Put in a force small enough to get attacked, big enough not to get wiped out before reinforcements arrive. The problem was that I wasn't able to surround the attackers, and this 'inflict great casualties and then withdraw' gambit by the UK defeated me
Research-wise, I'm in the classic dilemma - on the one hand, as you say, it's years of effort to do RP-boosting tech. On the other hand, if I don't, long-term it gets even worse.
Thanks! I'm playing now from 1857 on, we'll see how it goes - thanks again to all for your advice, particularly w.r.t. the factories.
Should this AAR be called Clash of the Titans? UK vs (westernised) China with a long time to run sounds like trouble for everyone else.
sounds good, the one time I don't want 'state capitalism' and i'm stuck with it
I just hope the craftsmen demote to nice little farmers again (what a reversal from normal!) instead of rebelling or some such.
For clarification, why would L-F be better? Just the subsidies?
In 1.2, State Capitalism has a negative modifier on throughput or output or something like that. If you have a massive population like China that can actually support an L-F economy, your factories will be more efficient under L-F than under Interventionism, State Capitalism, or Planned Economy.
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Fear not! A party with laissez faire economic policy will come around in 1912!
Also it will be reactionary, and last only until 1925...
But then you'll get a conservative laissez faire party that should last you until the end of the game! (a glorious decade!)
Also it will be reactionary, and last only until 1925...
But then you'll get a conservative laissez faire party that should last you until the end of the game! (a glorious decade!)
It'll be interesting to see whether an industrialized China turns out to be a Pandora's box (or at least a madness-inducing Gordian Knot of micromanagemnt ) Good luck!
) Good luck!
It'll be interesting to see whether an industrialized China turns out to be a Pandora's box (or at least a madness-inducing Gordian Knot of micromanagemnt
Thanks! So far it's pretty much the latter
. Here's my rule of thumb for dealing with factories, BTW, this has made it less micro-managey, while still hopefully not too stupid:Every January 1st, go through the production screen.
- shut down any factory losing more than 30/year.
- If there are n unemployed craftsmen+clerks, and n > 0, then make sure at least ceil(n / 10000) + 1 expansions/constructions are going on.
I don't think anyone would fault you if you made your parties L-F, Interventionism, State Capitalism to coincide with Liberals, Conservatives, Reactionaries.
Yeah, I certainly wouldn't. Realistically, I think a China that embraces Westernisation so quickly should get new parties that may not have existed then historically. It makes sense, considering that a China that embraces Westernisation would have a government with different priorities than a China that resisted Westernisation.
China's got to have some challenge to it, otherwise you just make it an underdeveloped but bigger version of the UK. I have a feeling that this game is going to be decided militarily anyway, so industrialisation is chiefly important for getting clerks to boost the research rate.
The problem is that State Capitalism for China falls much closer to the "Tedious" spectrum, rather than the "Challenge".
Exactly. The only real disadvantage China has at all is low literacy and thus low RP. State Capitalism does not make China more difficult, it just makes it more annoying to play.
If we really wanted to make China more difficult, it should have it's own special Westernisation requirements (like Japan) that are much more difficult to achieve. You could also be mean and start them without the Flintlock Muskets (I think that's what it's called) tech so that they can only build irregulars at first. Of course, all this really ends up doing is letting the UK be even more powerful in any game in which the player is not playing China.
It makes it more inefficient, but realistically, even with the maluses, factories fill up so fast that once capis start rolling, they will still build factories very quickly. It would take a LOT of work to somehow manage to build factories faster than Chinese POPs can fill them.
Chapter 3: there will be blood
Welcome back to 'China FTW', this episode, though it only covers 8 years (1857-1865), took me something like 15 hours of game-play, mostly at slowest time compression - there was a lot of fighting.
The 5-year plan
When we left China in 1857, it had just won a narrow and small victory over the UK, getting the UK to de-satellite one of the smallest indian minors (Jaisalmer). I'm thinking that time is not on my side here, as my RP are so pitiful compared to the UK's that even though they have to spread their technological investments out widely, they'll still probably outstrip me. So the question is, what should I research during the 5 year truce?
The first tech was well under-way, and in September 1858 I finally get Medicine, which should help a lot in the next war.
After that, I grit my teeth and pay the 2 year cost to get Ideological Thought - gotta get that plurality up, gotta get that RP up. I get it in November 18660 (over 2 years) - there are just 2 years left before the truce expires.
I decide I can't afford to invest in a second RP-increasing tech (like educational efficiency) - it will use up the rest of the 2-year window, and I would be entering the next war with no better military tech at all (though you could argue that Medicine is a military tech). So I invest in the key 'Military professionalism' (this is the one that increases your tactics 100%), and get it in December 1862, 3 months after the truce expires. Let's go to war!
Status Quo Ante
The world has been a very quiet place in these 5 years. From a Chinese/UK point of view, I've been continuing to 'shape the battlefield' not just technologically (see above), but also diplomatically.
The (A) countries (Panjab, Siam, Nepal/Sikkim/Bhutan) have all granted me military access. I plan to use this to 'prick and poke' the UK, to make it spread out its forces, and then run back across the border when they show up. I try not to abuse this, as it seems kinda gamey, but there is some historical precedent.
Afghanistan is now in my SOI, mainly because I don't want the UK to get them, and Burma is allied with me (ditto).
So overall the situation has improved - a little. The question is whether this will be enough to outweigh whatever improvements the UK has made to its technology and force structure.
My (limited) intelligence shows me about 40K UK troops, near Nepal - that's it. On my side, I have about 450K troops total, about 350K of that available to fight in Tibet - that's about all i can do without attrition becoming a big problem, and 350K should be enough, one hopes.
My plan is similar to that of the first war - try to lure the UK either into China (the best outcome), or into a border province, and then swarm them.
No battle plan survives contact with the enemy
Everything's in place, I DOW in December 1862. For my initial war goal, I decide that this time I'll ask for what I want, not what I can easily get - that means Tibet. Oddly, it requires a lower warscore to transfer Tibet to China than to free it!
I don't call allies, as I don't want to let the UK pummel Panjab or Burma.
I start moving into Tibet, western India, and Siam-ish-India, and over the next few months get a number of unpleasant surprises:
(1) UK army size within a few months, the 40K UK force turns into 4 stacks of 40K, or 160K total. Gulp. They have 1 of them near Siam (where my 'pinpricks' do a good job, overall, tying this guy down for a long time), but then 3 of them, in mutually supporting positions, near Tibet. So instead of 350K against 40K, it's 350K against 160K. Doable, but....
(2) UK army quality while it looks like I've kept pace with the UK in tactics (I'm probably still 1 level behind them), it looks like they've advanced in both ATT and DEF, while I haven't - as I feared. What this means is that even if I get a good force ratio on them, and even if I win the battle, they inflict far more casualties than they suffer, and (since warscore seems to be based, at least in part, on ratio of casualties, not just amount suffered - more on this later) I get very little warscore.
To make things worse, they also seem much faster than I am - time after time, the UK slips out of a trap, or pounces on a 'pinprick' force before it can retreat, etc.
(3) Formosa By the way, as last time, the UK gets a handful of European stooges to join in, most notably Spain and Belgium. I have my fleet lying in wait near Formosa, ready to sink the Spanish, like I did last time. Instead, a few months into the war, the UK shows up, with a force of 15 unescorted transports. I sally forth with my 15 men of war... and lose. The UK lands their fifth 40K stack on Formosa. But the bigger problem is that the game somehow decides that my fleet should retreat to .... Prussia!
Now, Prussia is my ally (this was a mistake of mine, I accepted their offer without thinking it through), but this is still ridiculous - the men of war will sink from attrition far before they make it there. So, I just disband it, and start building a new navy. Sigh. Very odd.
But back to the land campaign - overall, it's a confused hairball, that is nearly a stalemate. The UK does an outstanding job (kudos Paradox!) of keeping its 40K stacks in mutually reinforcing positions.
Round and round we go, in a very frustrating first year - after 9 months (and one night of playing), I've gained two provinces (an unguarded Indian minor in the west, and the north-easternmost Tibet province), and lost one (the northern half of Formosa), and the warscore is ... 0. This war is not going as planned.
I take a break and re-evaluate - how can I change things?
The Human Wave
I can't change the quality of my troops, but I can change their quantity. I had eschewed this option, as I had thought that more troops would just die due to attrition, and I thought that Chinese troops mobilized as irregulars, but it's really the only option I have left, and I need a game-changer. In September 1863, I click a new button.....
And over two million Chinese infantry are recruited! Now they're disorganized, and a long way away, but there are things you can do with 2.3 million soldiers that you can't do with 0.3.
I organize them into stacks of 30K soldiers, and send the horde streaming westwards....
Tibet - breaking the stalemate
At almost exactly this same time, I win a battle with my existing forces, using my existing strategy, in northeast tibet:
(Note how despite winning, and inflicting good casualties, i get almost no warscore - this is what I was referring to earlier).
However, this battle turns out to be the key to the whole war.
The UK stack (which is the attrited sum of two armies) retreats to central Tibet. The supporting UK stack, below it in India (but which can't move across Nepal/Bhutan, as they've given access to me, not them - nyahh, nyahh) starts to swing west, so it can swing east and join up/reinforce.
I don't pursue immediately, I want to let some of the horde catch up to me, and then the UK makes a huge mistake - instead of moving its eastern stack West, to join up with its buddy, it moves it North, trying to attack into northwest Tibet.
The '1's show where the UK started, and at this point they are at the '2' spots.
I jump on the northern stack. At this point, the UK Siam stack, which had vanished off my radar screen, shows up in eastern india, heading north - the bad news is, I now have 120K UK soldiers to deal with. The good news is, they are all in different provinces - if I can 'pin' them long enough for the 'wave' to arrive, they are in big trouble!
The two western stacks enter battle, at the '3' spots at the west. I am behind in each battle, but the cavalry is coming (if you look closely, you can see the Chinese troops streaming in from the east)
The third stack jumps on a little 6K stack of cavalry of mine at the '4' spot.They are able to just barely hold on long enough for the Wave to wash over it, just in the nick of time.
The battles rage on, the odds shift more and more in my favor, and I have every stack surrounded. It was a very close-run thing (especially in the east) at the start, but in
January 1864 I wipe out the northern UK army:
(since most of the casualties came because of inability to retreat, you don't get warscore for it).
Two months later, in March 1864, the eastern stack dies, fighting to the last man:
The warscore should be a lot higher here - WTF??
And the next month, the southwestern stack dies, again fighting to the last man:
Woo-hoo! Though I wish I would have gotten more warscore for it, the 'human wave' pays off big time, as I wipe out around 60 UK regiments, and break the back of the UK army in India. The UK Army overall, which peaked at 167 brigades during this war, ends it at 90. Bwa ha ha.
Mopping Up
After this, it's all over but the shouting. I have my minions stream into India (where they meet yet another 40K UK stack, but it's isolated and I easily wipe it out), and to add insult to injury in January 1864 France DOWs the UK! This makes me realize that this is the first time I've ever seen the AI DOW the UK - has anyone?
It takes over a year, but finally, by July 1865, I've conquered almost all of India, and the UK capitulates - not only does it hand over Tibet, but it agrees to de-satellite Hyderabad (the largest Indian minor), and somebody-else (Bodkhaner, maybe?)
(1) Tibet is now part of China
(2) The two Indian minors that are no longer satellites
(3) The one Indian minor that was previously de-satellited (Jaisalmer)
Whew!
Sorry my writing skills can't convey it better, this was quite the titanic struggle. Clearly, the mobilization is what made the difference. I found, however, that it is a "use 'em and lose 'em" strategy - their forces will steadily dwindle, even if not fighting, as they get hit by attrition. And they reinforce very very slowly, due to a lack of technology. So they pack an enormous punch, but only for a short time. A lesson for the next war, which should be in 5 more years
Welcome back to 'China FTW', this episode, though it only covers 8 years (1857-1865), took me something like 15 hours of game-play, mostly at slowest time compression - there was a lot of fighting.
The 5-year plan
When we left China in 1857, it had just won a narrow and small victory over the UK, getting the UK to de-satellite one of the smallest indian minors (Jaisalmer). I'm thinking that time is not on my side here, as my RP are so pitiful compared to the UK's that even though they have to spread their technological investments out widely, they'll still probably outstrip me. So the question is, what should I research during the 5 year truce?
The first tech was well under-way, and in September 1858 I finally get Medicine, which should help a lot in the next war.
After that, I grit my teeth and pay the 2 year cost to get Ideological Thought - gotta get that plurality up, gotta get that RP up. I get it in November 18660 (over 2 years) - there are just 2 years left before the truce expires.
I decide I can't afford to invest in a second RP-increasing tech (like educational efficiency) - it will use up the rest of the 2-year window, and I would be entering the next war with no better military tech at all (though you could argue that Medicine is a military tech). So I invest in the key 'Military professionalism' (this is the one that increases your tactics 100%), and get it in December 1862, 3 months after the truce expires. Let's go to war!
Status Quo Ante
The world has been a very quiet place in these 5 years. From a Chinese/UK point of view, I've been continuing to 'shape the battlefield' not just technologically (see above), but also diplomatically.
The (A) countries (Panjab, Siam, Nepal/Sikkim/Bhutan) have all granted me military access. I plan to use this to 'prick and poke' the UK, to make it spread out its forces, and then run back across the border when they show up. I try not to abuse this, as it seems kinda gamey, but there is some historical precedent.
Afghanistan is now in my SOI, mainly because I don't want the UK to get them, and Burma is allied with me (ditto).
So overall the situation has improved - a little. The question is whether this will be enough to outweigh whatever improvements the UK has made to its technology and force structure.
My (limited) intelligence shows me about 40K UK troops, near Nepal - that's it. On my side, I have about 450K troops total, about 350K of that available to fight in Tibet - that's about all i can do without attrition becoming a big problem, and 350K should be enough, one hopes.
My plan is similar to that of the first war - try to lure the UK either into China (the best outcome), or into a border province, and then swarm them.
No battle plan survives contact with the enemy
Everything's in place, I DOW in December 1862. For my initial war goal, I decide that this time I'll ask for what I want, not what I can easily get - that means Tibet. Oddly, it requires a lower warscore to transfer Tibet to China than to free it!
I don't call allies, as I don't want to let the UK pummel Panjab or Burma.
I start moving into Tibet, western India, and Siam-ish-India, and over the next few months get a number of unpleasant surprises:
(1) UK army size within a few months, the 40K UK force turns into 4 stacks of 40K, or 160K total. Gulp. They have 1 of them near Siam (where my 'pinpricks' do a good job, overall, tying this guy down for a long time), but then 3 of them, in mutually supporting positions, near Tibet. So instead of 350K against 40K, it's 350K against 160K. Doable, but....
(2) UK army quality while it looks like I've kept pace with the UK in tactics (I'm probably still 1 level behind them), it looks like they've advanced in both ATT and DEF, while I haven't - as I feared. What this means is that even if I get a good force ratio on them, and even if I win the battle, they inflict far more casualties than they suffer, and (since warscore seems to be based, at least in part, on ratio of casualties, not just amount suffered - more on this later) I get very little warscore.
To make things worse, they also seem much faster than I am - time after time, the UK slips out of a trap, or pounces on a 'pinprick' force before it can retreat, etc.
(3) Formosa By the way, as last time, the UK gets a handful of European stooges to join in, most notably Spain and Belgium. I have my fleet lying in wait near Formosa, ready to sink the Spanish, like I did last time. Instead, a few months into the war, the UK shows up, with a force of 15 unescorted transports. I sally forth with my 15 men of war... and lose. The UK lands their fifth 40K stack on Formosa. But the bigger problem is that the game somehow decides that my fleet should retreat to .... Prussia!
Now, Prussia is my ally (this was a mistake of mine, I accepted their offer without thinking it through), but this is still ridiculous - the men of war will sink from attrition far before they make it there. So, I just disband it, and start building a new navy. Sigh. Very odd.
But back to the land campaign - overall, it's a confused hairball, that is nearly a stalemate. The UK does an outstanding job (kudos Paradox!) of keeping its 40K stacks in mutually reinforcing positions.
Round and round we go, in a very frustrating first year - after 9 months (and one night of playing), I've gained two provinces (an unguarded Indian minor in the west, and the north-easternmost Tibet province), and lost one (the northern half of Formosa), and the warscore is ... 0. This war is not going as planned
.I take a break and re-evaluate - how can I change things?
The Human Wave
I can't change the quality of my troops, but I can change their quantity. I had eschewed this option, as I had thought that more troops would just die due to attrition, and I thought that Chinese troops mobilized as irregulars, but it's really the only option I have left, and I need a game-changer. In September 1863, I click a new button.....
And over two million Chinese infantry are recruited! Now they're disorganized, and a long way away, but there are things you can do with 2.3 million soldiers that you can't do with 0.3.
I organize them into stacks of 30K soldiers, and send the horde streaming westwards....
Tibet - breaking the stalemate
At almost exactly this same time, I win a battle with my existing forces, using my existing strategy, in northeast tibet:
(Note how despite winning, and inflicting good casualties, i get almost no warscore - this is what I was referring to earlier).
However, this battle turns out to be the key to the whole war.
The UK stack (which is the attrited sum of two armies) retreats to central Tibet. The supporting UK stack, below it in India (but which can't move across Nepal/Bhutan, as they've given access to me, not them - nyahh, nyahh
) starts to swing west, so it can swing east and join up/reinforce.I don't pursue immediately, I want to let some of the horde catch up to me, and then the UK makes a huge mistake - instead of moving its eastern stack West, to join up with its buddy, it moves it North, trying to attack into northwest Tibet.
The '1's show where the UK started, and at this point they are at the '2' spots.
I jump on the northern stack. At this point, the UK Siam stack, which had vanished off my radar screen, shows up in eastern india, heading north - the bad news is, I now have 120K UK soldiers to deal with. The good news is, they are all in different provinces - if I can 'pin' them long enough for the 'wave' to arrive, they are in big trouble!
The two western stacks enter battle, at the '3' spots at the west. I am behind in each battle, but the cavalry is coming (if you look closely, you can see the Chinese troops streaming in from the east)
The third stack jumps on a little 6K stack of cavalry of mine at the '4' spot.They are able to just barely hold on long enough for the Wave to wash over it, just in the nick of time.
The battles rage on, the odds shift more and more in my favor, and I have every stack surrounded. It was a very close-run thing (especially in the east) at the start, but in
January 1864 I wipe out the northern UK army:
(since most of the casualties came because of inability to retreat, you don't get warscore for it
).Two months later, in March 1864, the eastern stack dies, fighting to the last man:
The warscore should be a lot higher here - WTF??
And the next month, the southwestern stack dies, again fighting to the last man:
Woo-hoo! Though I wish I would have gotten more warscore for it, the 'human wave' pays off big time, as I wipe out around 60 UK regiments, and break the back of the UK army in India. The UK Army overall, which peaked at 167 brigades during this war, ends it at 90. Bwa ha ha.
Mopping Up
After this, it's all over but the shouting. I have my minions stream into India (where they meet yet another 40K UK stack, but it's isolated and I easily wipe it out), and to add insult to injury in January 1864 France DOWs the UK! This makes me realize that this is the first time I've ever seen the AI DOW the UK - has anyone?
It takes over a year, but finally, by July 1865, I've conquered almost all of India, and the UK capitulates - not only does it hand over Tibet, but it agrees to de-satellite Hyderabad (the largest Indian minor), and somebody-else
(Bodkhaner, maybe?)
(1) Tibet is now part of China
(2) The two Indian minors that are no longer satellites
(3) The one Indian minor that was previously de-satellited (Jaisalmer)
Whew!
Sorry my writing skills can't convey it better, this was quite the titanic struggle. Clearly, the mobilization is what made the difference. I found, however, that it is a "use 'em and lose 'em" strategy - their forces will steadily dwindle, even if not fighting, as they get hit by attrition. And they reinforce very very slowly, due to a lack of technology. So they pack an enormous punch, but only for a short time. A lesson for the next war, which should be in 5 more years
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Sweet! Nice work, badger_ken! France is the only AI I've ever seen DOW the UK, and usually only in the early stages (or because the UK has seized a chunk of Normandy from them!) That could work out well for you - if you mobilize next time as well, and France sees the UK outnumbered, they may pounce again - as long as they haven't been too beaten by them in this war!
At first, I thought perhaps the warscore depends on relative casualties. Maybe you didn't get much score in Lhordak because you lost 2/3 of what the UK did. But then again, you had almost the same result in Ngari, and got +1.5 instead of +0.9. That's very perplexing. Maybe there's some weird mechanic in which reinforcement numbers are disregarded?
At first, I thought perhaps the warscore depends on relative casualties. Maybe you didn't get much score in Lhordak because you lost 2/3 of what the UK did. But then again, you had almost the same result in Ngari, and got +1.5 instead of +0.9. That's very perplexing. Maybe there's some weird mechanic in which reinforcement numbers are disregarded?
