How to form Germany "peacefully"

baws said:

Whenever I play as Prussia and form Germany (I usually play with POD but has happened without), I always end up facing a billion wars even when I try and stick to being peaceful. Here's my way of forming Germany peacefully:
Slowly get all N.German states excluding Hanover into SOI, wait until Hanover stops being part of British SOI (the wedding) and then get them in and ally them, invade and defeat Austria to extend my SOI into S.Germany, wait about 10 years while I rebuild army and get as built up as France and build fortresses all over Western Germany to hold off longer from occupations then attack France through neutral Belgium (who by this point is also allied and in SOI) while making sure Belgium stays neutral to hold of counter attacks then beat France and take Alsace-Lorraine and from there do nothing else. This doesn't seem too militaristic and yet I get a billion wars which is odd because when playing as Japan and taking Korea, Manchuria, most of South Asia and taking over Greece gets me 0 wars. PLEASE HELP

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Peaceful Germany, what is this heresy?

OK, I guess you aren`t paying attention to the alliance webs.Check the allies of the countries you are about to attack.
Another reason might be the fact that you are over the infamy limit which is 25, if you get over that limit there are triggers that would push other factions to go at war with you.

Well your first move should be to get Denmark to release it`s puppet - Holstein-Schleswig.Don`t linger or UK will get Denmark in it`s sphere.

Then let the Infamy burn down and reorganise your army since the OOB is a total disaster.

When you start your war with Austria don`t go for "Take away from sphere", go for "Acquire state", get Bohemia then when jingoism permits add another "Acquire state" for Moravia.Don`t stop the war until the hole of Austria is under total occupation.
After you sign peace they will plummet down to civilised thus they release all states that were once part of their sphere.

For good measure keep Bavaria under total occupation, don`t white peace with them since they tend to get a GP spot.Being under total occupation will knock them down a bit.By the time you occupied all Austria, the infamy will permit you to add a Humiliation war goal on Bavara.Better safe then sorry.

I suggest this course of action for a not so Klein Deutschland, waging war with Austria only for sphere control will be a waste of time.They are weak and make an unreliable ally thus you getting your hands on Bohemia and Moravia will be much more productive.Those states have +30% South Germans, accepted population for you, thus you can easily govern them.Those two states will help you boom your industry, Bohemia will be the biggest contributor to industry by far since they have over 1 million.

After the war with Austria is over take your time to burn the rest of the infamy and sphere Saxony, Bavaria, Baden and Wurttemberg.

After you become the North German (Con)federation justify war to release Elsass-Lothringen, if they are in your sphere than you can form the German Empire.
If you, for some reason, lost the influence fight for Luxembourg with France, you can slap them with a "Take away from sphere" so that you can get your hands on it.

Voila, 3 wars, the minimum required to form the German Empire.

P.S. I assumed you will be playing PoD.

3 wars unless Bavaria becomes a Great Power.

Rangergxi said:

3 wars unless Bavaria becomes a Great Power.

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If he keeps it occupied while he finishes Austria off and then, just before he signs peace with Austria, he slaps a Humiliate on Bavaria and makes peace with them, it will be enough to keep Bavaria down.

You don't even have to fight Austria at all if you know how to play the diplomatic influence game efficiently and have a wee bit of luck. I feel like a good German Empire should be formed before 1845, with 1842 being ideal (It's the fastest I can form it. I like forming it fast so that France and Russian aren't to powerful).

Obviously Denmark, Holstein, Saxony, and Hanover can be sphered peacefully to form the North German Federation.

As long as Bavaria doesn't become a great power (if it does you are taking too long to form Germany) then sphereing the south German states should be relatively simple.

France is really the only war you should have to do to form German Empire if you are quick. With Britain's aid it should be quick and painless.

I just formed Germany on my FIRST EVER game of Victoria 2, and I only fought two wars so it not THAT hard to do it. As someone already said, as long as you play the influence game correctly, you can come out ahead. The trick with influence is that the AI will always do a discredit/ban embassy/expel advisers if it can. So you rush influence in a certain nation until the AI nation your competing with hits 25 influence in your target nation. Then you cancel all influence in said nation for 3-5 days. This causes the AI to "forget" you were ever influencing said nation and pull out its influence as well. So when you reintroduce your influence in 3 days, the AI thinks this is a new influence game, and will instantly discredit you. If you can time the discredits, then you can keep the AI in the dark while you steal a nation from their sphere.

Oryxslayer said:

I just formed Germany on my FIRST EVER game of Victoria 2, and I only fought two wars so it not THAT hard to do it. As someone already said, as long as you play the influence game correctly, you can come out ahead. The trick with influence is that the AI will always do a discredit/ban embassy/expel advisers if it can. So you rush influence in a certain nation until the AI nation your competing with hits 25 influence in your target nation. Then you cancel all influence in said nation for 3-5 days. This causes the AI to "forget" you were ever influencing said nation and pull out its influence as well. So when you reintroduce your influence in 3 days, the AI thinks this is a new influence game, and will instantly discredit you. If you can time the discredits, then you can keep the AI in the dark while you steal a nation from their sphere.

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To greatly decrease the time needed for this strategy, I would invest in all the south german states a TON (greatly decreases influence growth for other nations, and all the nations you are sphering are going to become a part of you anyways, so it is a long term industrial benefit as well).

I assumed he is playing PoD which makes almost all assumptions wrong.

Denmark, in PoD, is almost in UK`s sphere, Prussia can`t compete with UK.

And why would one want to sphere Denmark?They will still be keeping Schleswig .

The influence trick doesn`t work in PoD.

Shatterfury said:

I assumed he is playing PoD which makes almost all assumptions wrong.

Denmark, in PoD, is almost in UK`s sphere, Prussia can`t compete with UK.

And why would one want to sphere Denmark?They will still be keeping Schleswig .

The influence trick doesn`t work in PoD.

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Indeed what I usually do in POD is the following atleast for forming kleindeutschland (you can under no circumstances form Germany before 1850 in POD you need the state & government tech for it):

Steal Saxony from Austrian Sphere, then Sphere Schleswig-Holstein followed by Hannover, around 1848 if not a few years later, Schleswig-Holstein and Denmark will be at war (First Schleswig War), in which if you have sphered Schleswig-Holstein you get called in, and you don't have to fear the British intervening. Then once Schleswig-Holstein is independent you should be able to form the North German Federation, BUT WAIT! A year or 2 after that war, an event Austria (and Bavaria if they are a GP at that point) gets triggers a war with them,in which case it's good to have your North German minors helping, because you haven't had time to build up your armies since forming the NGF (if you formed them prior to this war with Austria). Then once you have fought them and taken their sphere, by using the admit hegemony CB on them, you should have all of the south german minors in your sphere, if Bavaria is a GP you just fabricate a CB and occupy them until they are no longer a GP and use a CB to force into your sphere. After the war with Austria you should form the NGF and begin preparing for war with France, and when you feel you are ready and have all the South German minors in your sphere you just declare for Alsace-Lorraine, if they don't have any other GPs as allies it should be pretty to win against them. And BAM you can form Germany.

omnipotentatus said:

Indeed what I usually do in POD is the following atleast for forming kleindeutschland (you can under no circumstances form Germany before 1850 in POD you need the state & government tech for it):

Steal Saxony from Austrian Sphere, then Sphere Schleswig-Holstein followed by Hannover, around 1848 if not a few years later, Schleswig-Holstein and Denmark will be at war (First Schleswig War), in which if you have sphered Schleswig-Holstein you get called in, and you don't have to fear the British intervening. Then once Schleswig-Holstein is independent you should be able to form the North German Federation, BUT WAIT! A year or 2 after that war, an event Austria (and Bavaria if they are a GP at that point) gets triggers a war with them,in which case it's good to have your North German minors helping, because you haven't had time to build up your armies since forming the NGF (if you formed them prior to this war with Austria). Then once you have fought them and taken their sphere, by using the admit hegemony CB on them, you should have all of the south german minors in your sphere, if Bavaria is a GP you just fabricate a CB and occupy them until they are no longer a GP and use a CB to force into your sphere. After the war with Austria you should form the NGF and begin preparing for war with France, and when you feel you are ready and have all the South German minors in your sphere you just declare for Alsace-Lorraine, if they don't have any other GPs as allies it should be pretty to win against them. And BAM you can form Germany.

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This just shows that it`s better for player Prussia to initialise the war on Denmark to release S-H so that you can start the attack on Austria when he wants.He might even get detected later, if he`s lucky.

When you say steal Saxony you mean play the influence game in PoD? I got defeated at that everytime.

Even if you play along for a year or two and manage to get Saxony, it`s much better to initiate the war and cripple Austria by taking Bohemia and Moravia.
In that war you will get to fight Bavaria also and you can keep then under total occupation by the end of the war, thus increasing the chances they will not be a GP.

Force of arms is far more convenient and would yield a far better result.

My take anyway.

Shatterfury said:

This just shows that it`s better for player Prussia to initialise the war on Denmark to release S-H so that you can start the attack on Austria when he wants.He might even get detected later, if he`s lucky.

When you say steal Saxony you mean play the influence game in PoD? I got defeated at that everytime.

Even if you play along for a year or two and manage to get Saxony, it`s much better to initiate the war and cripple Austria by taking Bohemia and Moravia.
In that war you will get to fight Bavaria also and you can keep then under total occupation by the end of the war, thus increasing the chances they will not be a GP.

Force of arms is far more convenient and would yield a far better result.

My take anyway.

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I think it doesn't really matter when you release S-H, that event forcing you into a war all the other german GPs still trigger no matter who started the war and when it was started (IIRC), also yes about playing the influence game to steal Saxony, what you want to do is improve relations with saxony to 200 and invest alot in them in them, that way you should be generating more influence than Austria.

And yes if you like war, then you could take Bohemia and Moravia from the Austrians, but I personally prefer either Kleindeutschland with historic borders, OR going for a full Grossdeutschland. So that's why I'm doing it the I do it.

With my "method" you should be able to form Germany in the mid 50's depending on if you were lucky and how well you did.

panda_Express12 said:

France is really the only war you should have to do to form German Empire if you are quick. With Britain's aid it should be quick and painless.

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Why would you need Britains aid? They'll take over as war leader and you won't be able to enforce all your demands.

I add tons of demands and absolutely annihilate France, forcing them into a cycle of revolutions that depopulate the country.

omnipotentatus said:

I think it doesn't really matter when you release S-H, that event forcing you into a war all the other german GPs still trigger no matter who started the war and when it was started (IIRC), also yes about playing the influence game to steal Saxony, what you want to do is improve relations with saxony to 200 and invest alot in them in them, that way you should be generating more influence than Austria.

And yes if you like war, then you could take Bohemia and Moravia from the Austrians, but I personally prefer either Kleindeutschland with historic borders, OR going for a full Grossdeutschland. So that's why I'm doing it the I do it.

With my "method" you should be able to form Germany in the mid 50's depending on if you were lucky and how well you did.

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Yeah...I pumped relation up to 200 and made a ton of investment into Saxony yet I couldn`t snatch Saxony from Austria in PoD.

And what about the other 3 South German states?Play the influence game as well?It will take a long time.

If you, for some reason, don`t want to get more land and you are going for only historical Kleindeutschland, you could release Bohemia-Moravia as a vassal after you conquer those lands.

You could just release Bohemia-Moravia as a free state under your sphere only but given their size they might tend to get a GP spot for a short while.If you occupy hole Austria you might pop Galicia-Lob also and get two powerful spherelings.

Historically, forming the German Empire as Prussia without winning a war against Austria so that the superiority of Prussia is evident is kind of shallow.
Bismarck fought those 3 wars because there was no way around it.

My opinion anyway.

Shatterfury said:

Yeah...I pumped relation up to 200 and made a ton of investment into Saxony yet I couldn`t snatch Saxony from Austria in PoD.

And what about the other 3 South German states?Play the influence game as well?It will take a long time.

If you, for some reason, don`t want to get more land and you are going for only historical Kleindeutschland, you could release Bohemia-Moravia as a vassal after you conquer those lands.

You could just release Bohemia-Moravia as a free state under your sphere only but given their size they might tend to get a GP spot for a short while.If you occupy hole Austria you might pop Galicia-Lob also and get two powerful spherelings.

Historically, forming the German Empire as Prussia without winning a war against Austria so that the superiority of Prussia is evident is kind of shallow.
Bismarck fought those 3 wars because there was no way around it.

My opinion anyway.

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No I personally do go to war against the Austrians as it can't be helped in PDM (remember event triggering war with Austria and other German GPs (if there are any such as Bavaria)). So if you do go to war with Austria before you free S-H and Austria is still a GP after S-H has been freed, that event will still trigger, and you will still be forced into a war with Austria... If you want a peaceful game I wouldn't call 2 wars with Austria peaceful when you can have just 1 war. And sure you could release Bohemia, but if you don't intend to go for Greater Germany, why would you want to take territory from Austria, or even destroy them? They would never be a threat to a German Empire unless they form the Danubian Federation, and even then the threat would be neglectable.

Oh and for the South German I use the admit Hegemony War goal against Austria. For Saxony I guess you have just been unlucky, usually in my games the AI backs off after you get more influence per day than them, which if you have invested in Saxony and gotten 200 in relations with Saxony, you should get more influence than Austria. Alternatively you could just wait to get Saxony until the war with Austria.

omnipotentatus said:

No I personally do go to war against the Austrians as it can't be helped in PDM (remember event triggering war with Austria and other German GPs (if there are any such as Bavaria)). So if you do go to war with Austria before you free S-H and Austria is still a GP after S-H has been freed, that event will still trigger, and you will still be forced into a war with Austria... If you want a peaceful game I wouldn't call 2 wars with Austria peaceful when you can have just 1 war. And sure you could release Bohemia, but if you don't intend to go for Greater Germany, why would you want to take territory from Austria, or even destroy them? They would never be a threat to a German Empire unless they form the Danubian Federation, and even then the threat would be neglectable.

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I did a Kleindeutschland game and let me tell you that Austria proved an unreliable ally and even turned against me.In PoD A-H can have the same populations accepted as the Danubian Federation so it`s down to how much accepted populations they have.

Even if you can tackle Austrian Empire/A-H/Danubian Federation with ease it would be far better to cripple them so that they aren`t in any position to challenge you at all.A Bohemia-Moravian satellite will always be there to guard your back.

Since I see you are a bit more rigid then me, I would suggest freeing Bohemia-Moravia and Galicia-Lob, they will be in your sphere and thus they will be far more likely to follow you in your wars and with those two countries missing that will sum over 2 mil thus the Austrian empire will be in no shape to ever challenge you.

Oh and for the South German I use the admit Hegemony War goal against Austria. For Saxony I guess you have just been unlucky, usually in my games the AI backs off after you get more influence per day than them, which if you have invested in Saxony and gotten 200 in relations with Saxony, you should get more influence than Austria. Alternatively you could just wait to get Saxony until the war with Austria.

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Th German Empire is formed by the time that war goal is even available, what tech enables it? State and government?

As I said mate, for me Austria proved unreliable and rather then suck up to them it would be better to cripple them and keep Italy as an continental ally.
Since Bohemia-Moravia was part of the German confederation it wouldn`t be unusual for the German Empire to have them as a satellite.

Ah by the way do you let Denmark keep Schleswig?