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Chaim Kaufmann

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May 21, 2001
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AHD 2.31, gameplay only, for what it may be worth to new players.

My second effort with AHD; in the first my taxes crashed (although my industry did not) in 1850-1851 and never recovered. Never figured it out.

Goals: Attain GP status, form SCA (without Finland), eat PRU.

Basic approach: Culture first for prestige, then commerce/industry for development, starting in 1850s navy and army to compete with PRU.

1836-1840: AUS attacked DEN, as did I. PRU intervened but not before my troops were ashore. PRU navy blockaded me but never invaded; since I ate DEN before AUS could accomplish much, I got Schleswig-Holstein (DEN did not even lose Ghana so I inherited it later). Became a GP around 1841-1842.

1840s: Sphered DEN and formed SCA 1844, went on sphere Korea, Siam, Dai Viet, Cambodia, Holstein, and eventually Hanover. Invested $24k in HAN, including a winery which came back to bite me later.

1850-1857: In late 1853 started a SOI CB against Egypt. The fights were easy although occupying enough provinces took from April 1854 to April 1856. In 1857 noticed that PRU had only 27 brigades and 7 ships, so prepared a conquer state CB against them. I have 15 brigades and 4 working, 12 ships. PRU has no strong allies while I am allied to ENG and FRA. If either answers it will be a cakewalk; should have a chance even without. Their army tech must be better, though, so I may have to sit on the fort-2 at Flensburg until they kill themselves.

Economics: Focused on liquor, luxury furniture, and luxury clothes, with a mix of everything else: cement, timber, steel, wine, regular clothes, then machine tools and steamers when eligible. All worked out except luxury clothes, which could not get silk; had success with this in 1.4 as BRA, but that was probably later in the game. The Winery crashed in 1856 when global production suddenly spiked; at the time I had no other factory in the state and could not build one because LF (and could not change due to a recent election).

In 1856 started my first military factories. Caps built paper (lots), lumber (lots), explosives, fertilizer. Most of these did just fair except the paper, which failed.

Military: Scrapped my initial men o'war and, once the DEN war was over, all but one frigate. While the army was in Egypt scrapped the rest and built a steam navy to bring it back. Built 5 artillery at the start but no other units till 1857, when I added 2 cav and 2 more arty. Maybe should build more arty now. Army cap is 28 + 20 reserves.

Unlike normal, no trouble with 1840s rebellions. Dunno why.
 
Subbed - always interested in Sweden

However, a slower pace and screenshots I think are really necessary for readability and following.
 
För Sverige – I tiden! Sweden is a fun nation to play in any game that includes them, just so you can build, or rebuild, the empire of the Lions of the North! :cool:

Cheers!
 
1857-1860:

In February 1858 PRU went to war with SPA. Even mostly disarmed in peacetime, their mobilization is awesome. I took a peek and found that they are also teching faster than I imagined b/c their plurality is huge. So I can't fight them now and maybe not ever, at least not without FRA.

Took advantage of the same repay debts CB that got SPA into trouble to attack and then annex BRE myself.

Also did a repay debts vs. VEN, which turned out to be expensive--my ships and troops took attrition on the way over and back. This did not happen on the way to/from Egypt and the range was almost exactly the same so IDK why. Am building a naval base in the Caribbean now.

In October 1860 built the Suez Canal. Plan to annex JOH this coming year, although that is of course an even longer voyage.

SOI doing O.K. I have HOL, HAN, EGY, SIA, Cambodia, Dai Viet, So far able to beat back the various challenges as well as advance in OLD. Guangzi, unfortunately, is already a USA SOI; have been drawing discredits there but probably have no real prospect, in part b/c of having to defend my existing SOIs.

Economy: A global recession roughly 1857-1859. It appeared to be driven by first industrial growth, then demand decline. Mostly recovered now, apparently due to decline in production of some commodities. I can only say appeared on these issues b/c I have been watching only some commodities some of the time. My size relative to PRU peaked 55% in 1856-1859, now down to about 52%-53%. We'll see how that goes.

Military: Still at 20 brigades; max has increased only from 27 at annexation of DEN to 29. Long term I need to annex someplace populous (e.g., ETH's limit is 13). But IIUC I would have to make them a state which would do bad things to my literacy. This issue will become real if the JOH project succeeds.
 
1861-1864:

Correction: Unciv territories do appear in my POP list; dunno how I missed that. They do not appear to affect literacy b/c mine did not move at all when JOH was annexed. Reasonably sure that the numbers I see include all POPs in states, though, b/c if calculated on accepted cultures only should be higher. Will test by creating a new state.

Used annex CB to take JOH (1861-62) and place in the sun CB to take Omanian Mombasa (1863-64). I now have a bureaucrat NF in the latter. Although the voyages were longer than the one to VEN, the troops took no shipboard attrition in either campaign. Had stockpile at 30% during VEN, 40% for JOH, 33% for Oman. So I assume that there is a magic stockpile level or org level to avoid attrition during voyages. I'm guessing it's the latter--maybe 20? Will test in a future campaign by setting stockpile below 30% with org above 20.

Pursued SOIs in OLD (not attained yet) and GUA. When I removed the USA sphere, their industry began climbing rapidly, so I decided I had better not add to my sphere. Instead reduced USA and FRA to cordial. Maybe GUA will stay unsphered for a long time and I'll get another chance to do what will probably be just as foolish then.

My rank hovers at #4 (b/c prestige is #3), though briefly #5 when PRU was mobilized against SPA and during a weird incident described below. PRU has been #5 most of the time. Long-term goal of eating PRU still looks bad, although if FRA attacks I will try it. If I have fleet superiority at the time as well as a level 3 (or 4--who knows when this might be?) maybe not impossible. Between here and there, I'll grab something (maybe ETH) and then engage in colonization (I'll be ready 1870) for prestige, markets, manpower. Afraid of what it will do to my literacy, though, so I've put a bureaucrat NF in Mombasa to find out.

Economy: Growing steadily, but during 1860-61 PRU had a boom which pushed me down from 55% of their industry to 49%, now steady for about 3 years. I've been spending 6 months out of every 2-3 years as SC to build factories, the rest LF.

Military: Max. brigades up from 29 to 31. No new brigades (5/8/7), 6 ironclads (6/6/10). Weird incident: one day in 1862 my mil. score dropped in a day from 57 to 30. About a year later it began recovering, and by mid-1864 was at 64 (ironclads accounted for 4 of this). Then one day it dropped again, this time from 64 to 46, where it remains. IDK why.
 
1865-1869:

No wars and not much change (relative to PRU), but interesting in several ways.

In early 1865 I noticed that AUS was preparing a CB vs. Holstein, which terrified me considering that their (unmobilized) army limit was 109 to my 33. But when the time came they did not attack.

In late 1866 the Ottomans attacked EGY. I dishonored the alliance because, though I would win so long as no one else bothered me, it would have cost £600/day to increase my stockpile from 20% to 80%--£400k if the war lasted two years. I couldn't see gains worth that. To my pleasant surprise, saying no cost only 3 prestige and did not eliminate my SOI.

In a way the experience was encouraging. For PRU a full-scale war would be much more expensive, and they are less likely than I to start with a large cushion (as of 1/1/1870, £500k).

Early in 1866 I discovered that FRA’s SOI in BRA had disappeared at some point, so I tried it and got it by mid-1868. Three odd features: FRA was at cordial, not friendly, but I have no clue who might have done that as no one else was friendly either; FRA made no effort to interfere; and even with £17k investment I have 25% penalty even though no other GP shows any investment at all (maybe SPA or Ottomans when they were GPs?). At this point defending my existing SOIs—HOL, HAN, OLD, EGY, SIA, CAM, Dai Viet, BRA—takes all my effort.

I have 10k RPs banked toward machine guns and so should be first off the mark for colonies. I will go for the tropical wood in Nigeria and the (future) rubber in Congo. (The bureaucrat NF in Mombasa was wasted effort—when I reached 1% I discovered that 0.99% were Swahili bureaucrats, not accepted culture.)

Military: No combat—adding Brunei or Hejaz did not seem worth any effort, and ETH would require a lot of £ and time. Army now 25/37 (6/11/8), navy 22/6/10. As Prussia has 59 commerce raiders, I do not have naval superiority.
Economy: Continuing to develop, but pop. size is a problem. Here are the top 6 powers ranked by industry on 1/1/1870 with growth since 1860 in parentheses:

ENG 810 (89%)
FRA 512 (59%)
PRU 342 (101%)
AUS 227 (158%) Overtook me 1865
SCA 173 (84%)
USA 127 (48%)

AUS has had a very impressive takeoff (passed some literacy threshold?) and FRA and USA are having problems, but I think the big takeaway is that it is quite hard for a country with small POP to keep up. Dunno whether emigration to colonies will hurt noticeably, but colonial states will take long to form and even when they do will have low literacy and so limited industrial potential.
 
1871-1876:

Having troops present really speeds up colonization—the tooltip says 100% but comparing with and without it looks to be more than 200%. I now have 15 African states—a solid belt from Ghana through today’s Nigeria, Cameroon, Gabon, both Congos, Tanzania to the Mombasa region (two cheers for the cross-African-railway!). Working C.A.R. to stop Ottomans from getting it. (FRA has most everything West of Ghana and Ottomans most everything between the French and EGY/ETH.)

So much colonial prestige that I am now 1st (and 3rd overall). Total pop larger than PRU, although brigade limit is smaller and industry, based on SCA’s 2.x million, still just half. Have been using some NFs on clergy in Africa to try to stay close to 2.00% overall.

Big war between FRA and NET/RUS over Wallonia. The FRA AI could not figure out how to occupy NEI and so settled for one province in W. Africa. NET lost AI status and I was able to sphere them, but they are back as a GP as of late 1876. I added ETH and Gran Colombia (former VEN minus one province) to my sphere.

Seeing no hope of fighting PRU soon, I accepted an alliance proposal. Also one from AUS. The "eat PRU" goal will depend on other GPs attacking PRU.

Military: Brigade limit now 73. I’ve built 30/47 domestic and 12/26 colonial. (I was wrong about colonials not providing troops; JOH and the Mombasa region just didn’t have sufficiently populous provinces. Conquer different people next game.) No naval building besides transports. Since PRU has built 7/61 to my 22/6, I think I am better off waiting for cruisers than competing.

Economy: Still 5th, no major changes. Won’t be any factories in Africa soon, or maybe ever; tried an immigration NF in Warri for a year, which attracted 31 people. Have started one dye and two fuel factories. I control or sphere a large fraction of the world’s tropical wood, coffee, and future rubber locations. We’ll see what that is worth. I find that it is also possible now for luxury clothes to operate even though there is still a global silk shortage (regardless of whether ranked 4th or 3rd); DK why.
 
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I do believe I understand what you mean by your subtitle: "An Extremely Skimpy AAR!" :p

It's nice to know that Sweden has joined the Scramble for Africa and is doing quite well. 1st Prestige for Sweden is mightily impressive, and 3rd overall Great Power is too! By any chance, how are 1 and 2? I can't imagine the UK not being 1 but 2 has me at a loss. It appears Prussia hasn't formed Germany so I'm guessing the USA, Prussia, or France have to all be pretty close to each other and nearby you in the overall score no?
 
vm: FRA is #2 based on industry and African colonies, USA #4, AUS has recently climbed to #5 on industrialization and military growth. PRU now #6, partly due to mysterious prestige losses. I've witnessed several one day drops of 10, cause unknown since they have fought no wars since defeating SPA in 1858. Now at 23.

1877-1880:

A bunch more colonization: North Cameroon, Uganda, Kenya, will finish off Congo and Tanzania. France and Ottomans have just about everything North of me and SPA is starting to fill in to South. Clergy hovering around 2%. Literacy in some of the first acquired regions has reached 14%-15%.

Got my alliance with ENG back at long last. With 4 GP alliances I am unlikely to be attacked and will have to dishonor some when a Great War starts. Sphered Ottomans 1878 in place of NET. Completed the research tech in June, next electricity, then cruisers.

Military: 30/46 domestic and 20/44 colonial brigades.

Economy: Top 6 and ten year growth; basically same pattern as previous decade:

ENG 1292 (60%)
FRA 677 (32%)
PRU 542 (58%)
AUS 485 (114%)
USA 281 (121%) overtook me 1879
SCA 273 (59%)
 
Chaim Kaufmann said:
vm: FRA is #2 based on industry and African colonies, USA #4, AUS has recently climbed to #5 on industrialization and military growth. PRU now #6, partly due to mysterious prestige losses. I've witnessed several one day drops of 10, cause unknown since they have fought no wars since defeating SPA in 1858. Now at 23.
Click to expand...

That's a very interesting breakdown of the Great Powers I must say! France at 2 by the midway point is something I generally don't see (either because I've taken one of the lesser GPs and have climbed to 2 by now) or one of the more powerful AI factions like Prussia/Germany or USA have moved into place.

Still nice to see Sweden doing so well (but you're playing with them! :p ) I sometimes see Sweden, AI controlled, crack the GP list. Always makes me smile when I see that!
 
1881-1885:

The race for Africa is over; SCA won with 103 provinces not counting conquest of Sokoto and Oman. SPA got NW, SW, and some of S. Central Africa (Zambia and Zimbabwe), FRA got W. Africa West of Ghana, and Ottomans a big L-shaped region from Tripoli down to the Nigerian border and E. all the way to the Horn. Prestige rewards were huge, moving SCA all the way up to 2nd (almost as much prestige as ENG and FRA combined; with about 65% of all my prestige earned in Africa since 1870). Also made SPA and TUR GPs in place of RUS and NET.

We succeeded in sphering both RUS and NETY without losing anything else—what have the others been doing with their influence? In 1885 the AIs seemed to finally wake up, so some of the SCA spheres will likely soon be lost. Rank won’t last either as there are no remaining sources of prestige to compare with colonization.

Economy: First oil and rubber (all rubber in my sphere so far), started first electric gear and fuel factories, FRA is making autos and telephones.

Military: 15 cruisers replaced the old navy, superior to PRU 2nd generation for now. Army (potentially) larger, 65/110 brigades built vs. 83/94 for them. Slightly ahead in army tech too. But they are allied with ENG, the one power that can destroy my overseas empire even if I have allies, so I’ll have to wait for them to get themselves in trouble—the sooner the better now as my edge should decay over time. If I had understood what colonization would do I would have aimed at this time range from the start.

Total populations of 6 leading powers (growth since 1836):

ENG 254.4m (99%)
FRA 168.6 (380%)
AUS 57.0 (61%)
SCA 44.1 (960%) SWE+DEN 12.1 (105%) Fast metropolitan growth maybe b/c I have all health reforms
USA 29.4 (84%)
PRU 21.7 (52%)
 
1886-1890:

FRA has finally pushed me back down to #3; AUS should overtake with 5-10 years. So far still holding my SOIs, except for Gran Colombia which disappeared when I was not looking.
Looks like I will max. out the pre-1900 techs before that date; I guess the game is not meant to handle SWE/SCA with such high starting lit.

Can’t figure out how convert colonies to states with so few immigrants. Unsure if my problem is simply too many colonial states. I do notice that one medium-low POP region (Ghana) is ready, while another very low (Congo) is at 0.99%. Most are at 0.01%-0.02%, however. Will try encouraging immigration in Lagos (0.58%).

Currently Vietnam and Burma are at war with Siam. If I intervene, will that allow ENG to support Burma?

Economy: We now have electric goods, telephone, autos, airplanes, fuel all doing well, although there is a shortage of rubber. Top 6, with ten and thirty year growth. I continue to lose ground to in absolute terms, although relative to PRU some improvement. AUS remains the powerhouse and FRA the weakling, still DK why.

ENG 2050 (59%, 378%)
AUS 1042 (115%, 1084%)
FRA 927 (37%, 188%)
PRU 776 (43%, 356%)
USA 532 (89%, 519%)
SCA 466 (71%, 390%)

Military: Still 65 brigades, out of 133 limit. 16 cruisers (1 by event), 25 transports. Should build a handful more of each.
 
1891-1895:

Finally got tech rates straight: literacy is based on state POPs, not accepted culture as I thought; clergy and clerks based on entire population. Making Ghana and DWI states reduced my literacy to about 92%, now back to 93%. Overall 57.xx/day, almost exactly the same as PRU (lower literacy but higher clerks based on much larger/much smaller POP respectively). PRU is about 13 techs behind, but none important. I will max out all the available techs before 1898, so I’ll get to find out what happens if you have more than a whole tech’s worth saved.

Burma attacked Siam and TUR attacked EGY. I responded to both and took a state from each (the latter mainly to see what the Balfour Declaration would do—nothing so far). In the first I cheated—since Siam had already added a SQ war goal, I could not add annex state. Fabricated the WG but still could not add it, so I edited the save file.

Am trying encourage immigration in Lagos to see how long it takes to get from 0.58% to 1.00% (most of the migrants are bureaucrats). At this rate maybe 20 more years?

Economy: My territory and SOI produces most of the world’s rubber and my advanced industries are all doing well. Also produce most tropical wood but not a major producer of oil.

Military: 90 brigades/140 + 101 reserve, compared with PRU 101/103 + 159. 20 cruisers, but PRU has 28 plus some older ships. Guess I can’t wait for dreadnoughts.
 
You're rapidly approaching the end game, but the looks of things, it appears as if your principal rival is Prussia due to the close proximity of you and them and I gather there might be a conflict brewing...
 
1901-1905:

Another boring period internationally. SPA lost GP status to Ottomans, and I succeeded in sphering them. Still way out in front in prestige, I think because there are no more colonial opportunities and my large colonial empire gets me more lion hunts and similar.

Rapidly overtaking PRU in industry; gap narrowed from 300 to 150 in 5 years. Probably because I have all types of advanced factories while they have only fuel, though they could have all but radio. Similarly, I have 18 dreadnoughts to none and have begun building tanks. They could do both but have not. (I disbanded an inf to see if I would get the manpower back; didn’t, so won’t be replacing them with guard or tanks.) Can win a one on one, but PRU has many level 4 forts and is building 5s, so would be long.

Economy: Going very well; we’ll see what happens when there is more competition in advanced goods.

Military: 100 brigades/187+142 (PRU 112/125 +195). Fleet 18/25/35.
 
April 28, 1906:

I may get my chance. AUS has attacked PRU and all of the latter's allies have dishonored, including me. Now all I need is:

-AUS to hold their own for 305 days, long enough for me to fabricate an annex state CB (they should; on paper they are stronger now); and
-Nobody DoW me in the meantime.
 
August 14, 1908:

AUS’s war against PRU went poorly at first; turned out that PRU had a tactics advantage, plus gas. But around the beginning of 1907 AUS developed gas defense and then gas attack (against which PRU had no defense) and by October 1907 they had won their objective—annex Schlesien.

I joined the war in March. Initially I had little do except occupy provinces not targeted by AUS and smash up PRU’s navy each time AUS forced it out of port. Only about 4 land battles, the largest against a 50k army (AUS and PRU fought one with over 350k on each side). Used only 114 of my 140 brigades (the others, lacking sufficient manpower for reinforcement, were left in Africa or at Suez). Took me until October 1908 to annex Westfalen b/c I was not efficient about occupation. Chose W. b/c it would hurt PRU most, though it depends on access across NET and HAN.
 
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The war begins, and then ends, and you get a nice little prize too. Not too shabby all things considered! :cool:
 
1906-1910:

SCA is still #2 due to continued slow FRA industrial development and (relatively) low AUS prestige. PRU is no longer a GP (replaced by unified China). As yet PRU not allied to anyone, but presumably will be sphered or allied. If not, I’ll take another chunk when the truce runs out.

Economy: Still going well although rates of profit are down pretty much across the board. for some time now have not been expanding fuel b/c not enough oil on the market. PRU has fallen out of the top 6, replaced by RUS which had a truly fantastic decade. Top 6 with ten year growth:

ENG 4468 (43%)
AUS 2564 (53%) gained Schlesien
FRA 1625 (33%)
RUS 1479 (289%) gained Manchuria
USA 1449 (64%)
SCA 1408 (85%) gained Westfalen

Military: 160 brigades/221+167. PRU 40/74+138. AUS much stronger. Fleet 25/25/40 vs. PRU 1 ironclad + 40 cruisers.
 
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1911-1915:

Amazingly, no one did ally with PRU, so I was able to take another bite. This time I had to do all the fighting, but did not have to mobilize b/c PRU still had no defense against gas, nor nearly as much artillery or tanks, so I won lots of battles at odds of 2:1 and longer. Somewhat more efficient about occupation; war took from July 1, 1914 to July 3, 1915. I took Magdeburg. On January 1, 1915 AUS piled in, seeking Posen. As the most populous province, maybe I should have gone after that. That war is ongoing.

Dai Viet and BUR are formulating CBs against Siam; since all three are in my sphere, not sure what I should do.

Economy: Now #4, having overtaken FRA and USA with my new conquests. ENG-AUS-RUS are the top three. Profitability generally down, not sure why.

Military: 170/256+198. Fleet 30/25/40. Should probably expand some more since I have £60m in cash.
 
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