Chapter 12: The Potato War
Things were pretty peaceful until I got another border incident event which gave me an acquire state CB on the United States. I spend some time looking over their regions and even though I wanted to take Iowa at first, Idaho is starting to look like a much better target. First off Idaho is only slightly less populated then Illinois, with a good 500k people, still a bit less then Illinois but it's quite a bit more then I would get from Iowa or South Dakota.
Second off, it's hard for the U.S. to defend so I can easily occupy it. In almost every war I fought with the U.S. I am able to occupy some, if not all of Idaho. I should be able to occupy the region and get the war score down pretty quickly. I'm not too concerned about splitting the U.S. in half anymore since they usually just get the bulk of their troops from mobilization (they currently only have 10 brigades that weren't mobilized). This means that even if I did split them in half, they would still get some brigades out west which would cause me trouble. Idaho also produces them with 7 mobilized brigades so taking Idaho would hurt them there to. The only downside to Idaho is that it gives me another border region with the U.K. to have to defend, but I don't think this will be too big a deal since they won't attack unless I go over the infamy limit. I think I'm going to wait until the next war with the U.S. to start all out conquering, that way the U.S. will be even weaker and I will be strong enough to fight off both the U.S. and the U.K. at the same time if need be.
As I get my troops into position I decide to go ahead and mobilize to try and get a leg up on the U.S. since I know they are going to mobilize about 140 brigades on top of their original 9. On the other hand, I have about 100 brigades right now and I can mobilize 41 more, so we're about even. If we do go to war I think I will have the advantage since I've managed to beat them in the past with inferior numbers and a much lower supply limit. I think it should be easier when we are about evenly matched numbers wise. Apparently mobilizing sacred some of my neighbors though as the CSA, Mexico, and the U.S. all followed suit. Then all of a sudden the ominous music starts playing.
Works for me I guess, if they want Missouri come try and take it. The great thing about this is my CB doesn't expire until October so I will be able to fight for a while before picking a state. If it goes like all my other wars I can take Idaho, if I am able to push the Americans back I may be able to get Illinois instead. First though, I have to win the war.
My strategy this time is a bit different since I now control Nevada-Utah. I keep a good chunk of my armies over there and wait for their mobilized solders to attack. They eventually attack Carson city and I am able to cut off their retreat so that army gets wiped out, similar to what I've done to their western army in earlier wars. After that I begin to occupy Idaho and Wyoming while keeping some of my armies back there to help defend the occupiers. My increase supply limit from researching the chemistry/electricity techs allows me to keep more brigades on the same region without eating attrition so not only are they better able to defend themselves, but they handle attrition much better.
The rest of my army I keep in Nebraska and Missouri along my border regions. As it has been in the past the U.S. loves to attack these regions even though they get their butts kicked every time. If I want Illinois I will eventually have to cross the Mississippi but I'm gonna wait for now and give my armies out west a chance to grab some land.
The war starts off good, but not as good as I had hoped. I'm able to win just about every defensive battle like normal early on, but for some reason as the war winds on, I often wind up taking the same, if not more, amount of casualties as the Americans. As is often the case, I realized this war with the U.S. won't be as easy as I thought.
The U.S. had upgraded their forts to level 3 and apparently these regions take a lot longer to occupy than regions with level 2 forts. After learning this I decided to just go with Idaho, since by now I knew two things, one I won't wipe out the American military, and two, Illinois would take way long for me to occupy. My forces in Idaho were having some luck though.
About 6 months in and things aren't looking too good for me. While I've managed to win most every battle, my forces are taking a beating and I'm still only halfway done occupying Idaho. I've gotten the war score to 20 and I only needed 40 to get Idaho, I figure if I can just occupy those three regions I can get the requirement down to 20 and by then I would have the war score raised a bit and the Americans would be willing to deal. My only hope is that they've been beat up as much as I have and can't continue to fight. I am starting to build new brigades who are helping me out a little but still the war seems like a stalemate in which both sides are losing. I did see this though which gave me some hope.
My South American spherlings have somehow managed to cross the Caribbean, despite the American navy patrolling the area, and have begun to occupy Florida. They don't do much other then take Tampa but at least they're trying.
By about March I was just stressed out and getting ticked off at the game because I didn't seem to be getting any edge over the Americans. I decided to use a very unorthodox strategy and just put the game on full speed and go on auto pilot for about 3 months. Surprisingly I was actually better off at the end of those three months, maybe it was because some of my troops finished building or I won a long battle but whatever it was I had new hope in the war.
Later in the year things still looked the same, I was still a couple months away from taking Idaho and the Americans had breached my lines and started taking Grand Junction and Alliance. I managed to defeat them from advancing further into Nebraska but I let them keep the regions they took since I don't want to waste any more of my men in an offensive that wouldn't gain me anything.
Near the end of the year I just about have Idaho conquered. The U.S. though, in a desperate attempt to kick me out of Idaho then sends one of their super stacks with 70K troops into Coeur D' Alene, I then send one of my larger armies into the region and then try and circle the region so that the American army couldn't retreat and would just be wiped out.
The plan works and just like that 70 American brigades (about half their army) is gone. If it weren't for the fact that I had already lost so many troops I would probably be able to push on and take more land but by now I had already picked Idaho (I had to pick several months back) so going for Illinois would be foolish, plus the Americans were rebuilding brigades so I don't think I could have gotten it anyway. For the next few months there really aren't many battles. There is the occasional skirmish but our border is just way too long for the amount of solders each side has left so it's kind of peaceful, and once again I just say f it and put the game on full speed. By April the Americans attack Coeur D' Alene again, right before I finished the occupation. I manage to scare them off though by threatening to send in my big army and they retreat.
About a week later Coeur D' Alene falls and I control Idaho. My war score is about 28-29 and the cost of Idaho is now 21. A couple days later I get a peace offer from the U.S. agreeing to give up Idaho.
It was a costly war but there were several upsides. Obviously I picked up Idaho but I also discovered combustible engines and airplanes were invented. I am going to focus on Army techs right now since I will be going to war with the U.S. once the truce expires, and I may also go to war with someone else before then if I think I'm ready to bust over the infamy limit. Before I jump over the infamy limit though I have to be prepared to deal with one major infamy who likes to police the world, Great Britain. I've still got about 38 years left in the game so hopefully I can get a permanent edge over the U.S. by then.