Chapter Fourteen - Meeting the Italians
As some of the sharper-eyed readers have noticed, Italy has established a presence in India-Indochina. More specifically, they have taken Arakan, which borders on my province of Pegu. I failed to notice this fact due to my over-concentration on my interests in China, so the Italians decided to introduce themselves more formally...
Of course, my first reaction is panic!
However, the Italian forces in Arakan are extremely small (1k men), so I can crush them and take Arakan. My navy also sinks the few cogs they have in the area.
I quickly petition for a white peace, as I know I'm in no shape to take on a western power. I now know that I will probably need to westernize, and as quickly as possible, if I am to face off against Italy. Of course, at this point I get "lucky" and inherit the throne of Deva Bengal - some crappy provinces not connected to my empire in any way that border on the other possessions of Italy! Great...did I mention that lovely inheritance also overextended me?
The effects of the overextension are soon lost however, as my first round of Chinese conquests core. The second round of cores soon follow. As I still need to move further to Innovative on my sliders to westernize, I decide to spend the time waiting warring with my favorite buddies, the Manchu! I use the Reconquest CB I have on Jizhou to kick things off.
Of course, it's never just the Manchu by themselves! However, they are the alliance leader, so I am most concerned with beating them down and forcing a peace. My pre-prepositioned armies quickly go on the offensive.
My two armies operating along the coast have sufficient amounts of infantry and are relatively unthreatened by Manchu forces, so I feel I can risk some assaults. The army in Shenquing still has some mopping up to do, so they settle in for a siege. The coastal armies quickly show some results...
...and move on to conquer more provinces! Japan as usual is fixated on Okinawa, which for the moment I am perfectly happy to ignore. Let them waste their time while I tear up the Chinese countryside.
So, for all those provinces captured, I should surely gain quite a bit, right? Well, I settle instead for one lousy province. Fortunately, it is a lousy province that will cripple the Manchu and give me a massive boost - Jiangsu!
Jiangsu (as you may know) is a nice fat CoT and a very valuable province. The loss of this sucker means the Manchu economy gets sent to the crapper, and I get a lovely new CoT with its attendant benefits. This does lower the value of the CoT that I built previously in Vijaya, but Vijaya's remains fairly valuable due to the many provinces I own nearby.
Soon after the peace is declared, I get the news that my Production Tech has reached Level 9 - it only took 290 years
Now I set to building a couple of workshops...however, my peaceful life as a builder is soon interrupted by those pesky Italians again! Every time I see their name come up, I get panicky about my position.
My defending force in Pegu takes a beating and is forced to run away, but there is obviously something else going on in Italy - they immediately offer a white peace. I'm no dummy - I take the offer right away!
My first round of workshops is soon done and I launch another set of ten workshop projects. I also decide to move my national focus to Jiangsu to take further advantage of the province - you can see here that it is fairly well off...
Since I still have one more move to the right on my Innovative slider to wait for, I go back to the old drawing well and attack Manchu...
They are in bad shape now and put up only a token resistance. They soon agree to cede a couple of provinces, putting me tantalizingly close to connection with my homelands.
Of course, as seems to be the pattern, no sooner do I go back to peace than Italy decides to declare war again! Annoying, those Italians
My army in Mongnai gets whupped, and my army in Pegu gets whupped even worse...
I don't have anything that can stop the Italian forces, so I am forced to give up some land.
Grrr, I'm getting tired of these arrogant Euros trashing my armies! I need to westernize and fast....
(here's that world map you wanted to see - Lithuania representing!)