Chapter 3: Small steps forwards, a big step backwards
Chapter 3: Small steps forwards, a big step backwards
Welcome back to the Danish AAR, in this episode, covering only 8 years (1843-1850), Denmark fights a whopping 4 wars, only 2 of them by choice.
First, my thanks to
Dewirix, the only entrant (and hence the winner!) in my 'guess the opponents' contest! Guess this AAR isn't as widely read as I had deluded myself into believing
.
Step 1: trying to repair V1.2 damage
The first thing I do, as per the earlier conversations in this forum (thanks all for the help!), is, to my great dismay, reduce the size of my navy - navy maintenance is now so expensive that even my small navy (3 Men of war, 3 frigates, 5 transports) was breaking my bank. I pare it down to what I consider the absolute minimum (if not beyond) - 3 Men of war, 1 frigate, 4 transports). This at least allows me to keep the armed forces at non-zero org without going bankrupt - I am basically hoping that a growing economy will eventually rescue me from this, until then I just can't see shrinking the navy any more than this.
African expansion
I then decide I can now try doing something
fun, expanding my toehold in Africa. There are basically two options - 'Oranje' and 'Transvaal'. Looking at the 'infrastructure' map, I notice some things about them:
(1) Oranje, the smaller one, has coal and iron - nice!
(2) Transvaal, the bigger one, has a factory going already!
(3) and precious metals
(4) and two forts!
It seems that Transvaal is becoming quite the little power. I decide that at this point, when my entire African force is 9K soldiers which I can barely keep out of the 'red', organizationally, that I will start small, with Oranje - I DOW them in
September 1843, and avoid becoming the laughingstock of Europe (and this forum
) by defeating them, though not easily. I am one weak European power.
I Haz Powerz
The game seems to disagree with me, as in
November 1843 it announces that I am....
a
great power!. Huzzah!
Looking at my political decisions, the gain from having Sweden enter my SOI is very large, so I put almost all my priority into that - otherwise I just put a little into influencing Transvaal, Netherlands (I can hope), and Madagascar, just to keep others out (by the way, this latter turns out to be a forlorn hope, as France blasts past me at light speed and a few years later puts Madagascar into its SOI. Oh well).
Unwanted war #1: Portugal
A few months later, while I am munching my way through Oranje, Portugal, of all people, DOWs me in
February 1844. I guess they are jealous of another power horning in on Africa. Or something (shrug). I dodge a bullet here, as Portugal is allied with a heart-stopping set of friends: the UK, Prussia, and the Netherlands, yet thankfully doesn't call them. Phew. I
do call my sole ally, Belgium, which bails on me. Jerks.
So there we are in Africa, where my little 'red' army gets attacked by --- a little 'red' portugese army! We fight a 'battle of the midgets':
Thankfully, I win the battle. A little later, I add in about half of my small Oranje invasion force, and the united tiny invading force, to my amazement, is able to conquer its way up the eastern coast of Africa, knocking off one Portugese province after another.
While this is happening, I finally annex Oranje in
August 1844 - it's region (1) below:
I'm feeling generally good about how things are going, when one little thing and then one very big thing go wrong. First, the little thing - the Portugese start landing little siege forces in some of my provinces like Greenland and the Faroe islands - as I feared, I just don't have anything like the navy needed to protect all my little colonies.
The very big thing is much worse, as in
February 1845
I get DOWed by Austria!
Uh-oh!
War vs. Austria - the initial steps
The very first thing that happens is somewhat positive, as Portugal, which had been refusing all offers for a 'white peace', now that Austria is attacking me, decides - to offer a white peace! Say
what? I accept gladly - now it's 'just' me vs. Austria.
At first, I'm thinking I might actually be able to survive this - they're Austria, they should have little to no Navy, right? Also, they're Austria, they have no land or allies near me - they shouldn't be able to attack me via Germany, right? Well, not so lucky....
War vs. Austria - the horror begins to dawn...
By coincidence, I had just been moving my (1 Frigate + Transports) half of the navy from Africa back to Denmark when war broke out. My first sign that this war is not going to go as expected comes when this fleet gets attacked off the coast of western Africa by 4 Austrian frigates. WTF? I shrug - the AI is known for bizarre deployments, maybe this is where Austria decided to put its navy - good news, if so.
My second sign that this is not going to go as I had hoped comes in
June 1845, the 3rd month of the war, when my main navy (the 3 Men of War), which I had hovering near my home waters, gets attacked by
another fleet of 4 Austrian frigates. I have a good leader, with capital ships, against 4 Frigates - I defeat it (though taking some damage) - surely,
now I can breathe easy on the high seas.
My third sign that this is not going as I had hoped comes the very next month, when a
third stack of
another 4 Austrian frigates attacks. I win again
But the fleet is now heavily damaged, and limps into port. But surely
now I can breathe easy, right?
My fourth sign that this is not going as I had hoped comes the very next month (
October 1845), when somehow a force of 20K Austrian soldiers shows up on the doorstep of my souther Ally, Holstein - somehow they have made it across Germany by land. Luckily, I had my army close by, it's able to join with the Holstein army in time, and I defeat it.
Surely
now I can breathe easy, right?
My fifth sign that this is not going as I had hoped comes the very next month (
November 1845) when three
more stacks of 4-frigate-sized Austrian navies show up and wrap a blockade around Denmark.
I finally decide to check things out, and see that ...
the Austrian navy has an incredible 37 ships. OH MY GOD! There are two questions here - how were they able to build it, and how were they able to maintain it? The second question first - after finishing this chapter of the AAR, I actually went back and loaded up Austria - their gross income is £641,
nineteen times mine. They can handle having a navy 6 times bigger than mine. As to how they were able to build it - I don't know what size navy Austria starts with, but they must have been cranking out warships from Trieste pretty much nonstop from day 1, dontcha think?
War vs. Austria - Prussian brain damage
OK, but then how were they able to march their soldiers up to their doorstep? It's bad enough that Prussia has never fought them, freeing them to pick on little old me (though why this fixation on me, when they are right next to Serbia, Wallachia, northern Italy, etc. - all would seem much more logical targets?), but it's worse - when I load up Austria, I see that
Prussia granted them military access. No emoticons can correctly convey my emotion here - unbelievable.
At any rate, on we go.
War vs. Austria - the horror grows
OK, so the Austrian navy is blockading Denmark. That means, among other things, that my army, which went to repel the land invasion, can no longer make it back to Copenhangen. Oops. But not to worry, as I repelled their invasion, right?
Wrong. The Austrians reach into their Military
Bag of Holding and pull out another stack of 20K soldiers, who they land on my island in the Baltic. Once that falls, they walk into Sweden, and then start walking towards Copenhagen.
My only, only chance is to send my battered navy out to try and break the Austrian blockade - if they can succeed, they can stop the Austrians from walking in to the capital.
As you might expect by now
, this doesn't work out either:
not only do the Austrians have an excellent admiral in place, but they have 8 full-strength frigates in place against my two heavily damaged men-of-war. (this grab is taken during the middle of the battle, after they have already sunk 1 MOW).
I decide that I may as well quit while
some of my navy is still afloat, and give in - Austria gets to rip off the southern chunk of Denmark in
July 1846
(1) shows the tattered remnants of my navy
(2) shows the Austrian strip ripped from Denmark
Ouch
Well, that was painful
.
The 'good news', to the extent that there is any, is that Austria has now 'cauterized' me from the rest of Europe - if anyone wants to walk into Denmark now, they will have to either be Austria, or have Austria let them cross. A small, small, silver lining, but hey I'll take what I can get.
Changing perspectives, though, I must say, the AI did an excellent job fighting this campaign - they had mutually reinforcing fleets which swarmed me, imposed a naval blockade, pinned me out of position, and then moved on the capital. Really well done!
Crawling back....
Somehow, I have been able to keep GP status through this, and I decide I may as well pick myself up off the ground and try to bounce back. A few small positive steps here:
(1) In
October 1847 the Transvaal enters my SOI - no biggie, but I'm grateful for
any positive steps at this point.
(2) In
March 1848
I get a random event that lets me outlaw slavery, this helps my production significantly in the Danish west indies, and I hope will be a boon if/when I expand into inner Africa.
(3) In
March 1848 I get to act the proper imperialist, as I get a 'cut down to size' CB on Hedjaz, which I am able to exploit - it takes a while to move troops into position, but I DOW them in
November 1848, and just 4 months later they cave - not bad work for 10 prestige.
(4) Speaking of prestige, my earlier acquiring of Idealism and Medicine continue to bring in Prestige dividends - I am something like #5 in the world in prestige now.
I have
not been focusing on the prestige techs in this period, by the way, focusing on more crucial things like the Army (I get the one that gives better tactics), the Navy (I get the one that gives better Org), and Industry (I go for 'practical steam engine', the one that increases farm production 20% - I am just so sick of having no money). When this session ends, I have decided to splurge and invest in a level 3 Culture tech, the next one up on the plurality-giving/NF-giving chain, as it will allow me to become a consitutional monarchy, only a few years behind historical - i really like the election part of this game
I'll end this at the start of
1850, as a battered Denmark continues to try to make its way through this cold cruel Victorian world
- wish me luck!
