Chapter 8: The Gilded Age
Chapter 8: The Gilded Age
Welcome back! This chapter contains lots of fighting, a Teaching Moment, a Question For Readers, and an info-mercial!
1890 - the war against Transvaal
At the end of the last session, I had been given a 'Conquest' CB on Transvaal. However, because of a bug in the game, I could not DOW them (you can't DOW people in your SOI, and you can't expel people from your SOI - this is the bug part
). I decide to hold my nose and edit the save game file, knocking Transvaal down from SOI to 'Friendly' status (if anyone wants to know how to do this, drop me a line), and DOW them in January 1890, and roll over them - they are annexed by December 1890.
But this is a sideshow - on to the main attraction:
1890 - the war against Austria continues
In
1890, I'm 2 1/2 years into a war of little ol' Denmark against mighty Austria. It's become a stalemate, as I've achieved my territorial goals (conquering southern Denmark), and achieved naval dominance, but am powerless to do much more, as the rest of Austria is one solid blob of land-power - nothing I can attack in isolation. My warscore is stuck at 5 of the necessary 14.
I spend the entire year of 1890 gradually preparing, as my kind and wise readers suggested, for a land attack joined by Italy. First, in a process that takes a surprisingly long time, I evict Austrian expeditionary forces from Greenland, and from the Comoros (the little islands north of Madagascar). This raises my warscore all the way up to 10, a frustrating 4 points short of the necessary 14. It also has a nice benefit of making my war exhaustion no longer go up, while Austria's does.
I also continue to hunt down the Austrian navy, by
May 1890 it is down, from it's starting 81 ships, to 3! Bwa ha ha - it's very very nice to have superior technology.
But, it's not enough - I'm still 4 points short.
1891 - frustration vs. Austria
By the middle of
1891, I have laboriously transported all the troops I can bear into Italy, 87K soldiers. However, no matter how long I look at it, and try to re-arrange it, it just doesn't seem smart to call Italy, as they only have 27K soldiers near the front, as opposed to over 200K Austrians lined up right on the border:
When Italy mobilizes, and gets organized, this could be an even fight, but I just don't think Austria will give Italy the breathing space it needs to do this.
I fume and fret for a good 6 months, just hoping that war exhaustion will eventually doom Austria, or something....
1892 - war exhaustion to the rescue
My prayers are answered in
February 1892, when a good-size rebellion breaks out in Austria:
It's not perfect, but my hope is that this will give Italy the breathing space and time it needs - I call Italy, and they answer.
As I figured, Austria comes pouring across the border, but piecemeal - the rebels (especially that nice big western force) are great obstacles. They attack me at Milan, a key battle that I win:
1.6 more warscore, puts me up to 11.6. The next month, I knock off a small Austrian force nearby, and get the warscore up to 12.
However, for some reason, 12 points is enough! In
April 1892 Austria offers me Austrian Denmark, an offer I accept with alacrity! Yay!
The Spoils of War
Transvaal had a factory in it, and it turns Austrian Denmark had
5. Yes!
This moves me, temporarily but gloriously, into 5th place, ahead of the USA:
Throwing my weight around
So far it's been a rather glorious 2 years, annexing Transvaal and defeating Austria. I decide to reward Portugal for not DOWing me by ... DOWing
them! I'm tired of their being a thorn in my side, and it seems that I'm quite the strong little power now. I DOW them in
May 1893.
On their side, they are joined by the Netherlands - unfortunate, but doable, as wonderful Italy stays by my side - the perfidious French bail on me, however
On the
land front, things go very well, as it appears that all these Danish-Portugese wars have exhausted Portugal - their army is smaller than it was last time (and only in East Africa), while mine is much bigger. I roll through Portugese East Africa, West Africa, and even take the Azores, Madeira, and some Portugese holdings just south of Gibraltar.
On the
sea front, it appears that my technological advantage, which was so large against Austria, is just as large against the Netherlands and Denmark:
I vaporize each of their fleets in turn, without losing a single ship. Wow.
Things go so well that I actually manage to beseige and then take Amsterdam, and get the Netherlands to agree to 3 war goals:
I get about 1/2 of Portugese East Africa, and Humiliate the Netherlands. I would have added even more, but this was about all my infamy could take.
An infomercial
While all this has been happening, I've been continuing to colonize Africa, and thinking about turning Colonies into states. But it's a pain to figure out which Colonies are state-able. You can go to the POP view and click on each colony and see what percentage of its POPs are bureaucrats, but (a) this is a pain, and (b) it's not right. It turns out you need 1% bureaucrats
of a primary culture - you only find out whether you meet this additional criterion when you try to convert. Bummer
So <infomercial> I extend the "Victoria 2 Advisor" (see my signature) so that it can give me this information, and using it I turn 3 colonies into states.</informercial>
A teaching moment
I turn 3 colonies into states, and then note, to my horror that my RP have just gone down 10%! Maybe everybody but me knew this (though I don't see it in the manual or in the strategy guide), but a colony's literacy does
not affect your RP, but a
state's literacy
does. When you think about it, this is a reasonable dynamic, but you have to stop and think about it
.
The game cares about your literacy
percentage, not the absolute value. While this is debatable, it's a reasonable mechanism, it's how little bitty Denmark, for example, can far outstrip huge Russia in RP. Now, to take a historical example, suppose Belgium colonizes the Congo - should their research grind to a halt, due to the large additional illiterate populace under their rule? Nah, probably not. However, once the Congo (for example) becomes
part of Belgium, then it's a different story - the literacy rate for the Belgian 'state' overall has now plunged, and research does indeed slow down.
I happened to catch this before it did
too much damage, but let this be a warning, and a segue to....
A second infomercial
So I extend the advisor to tell me
both percentage of bureaucrats of primary culture,
and literacy rate in the colony (try figuring this out using the existing UI, without using pencil and paper!), and it guides me through the rest of the session:
A Question for Readers
I've been moaning and wailing for a long time about how my Capis do nothing, not even building railroads. Well, all of a sudden, as of
1893, this changes, in a big way. Check out this screen grab from August 1893:
Somehow, the 'bit has flipped', and for the rest of this session, my Capis build railroads and factories like madmen, even places where it doesn't seem to make that much sense to me (does Namibia really need level 3 railroads? The Faroe islands?)
I haven't changed tax policy at all (it's 20% on the rich), I have been rolling in money for a long time. What do you think made the change? I don't see how it can be RGOs filling up, as there's still
lots of room in Africa, and that shouldn't affect railroads anyways. Could it be possibly tied to prestige? Or number of states? Neither one seems to make much sense. Any thoughts?
Lightning strikes a 3rd time
Amazingly, in
July 1897, the UK has rebels enforce their demans for a
3rd time. As the first two times, no GP takes advantage of this - except this time, Denmark does try to take at least a
little advantage, exerting diplomatic influence on Tavancore, the only coastal Indian province that shakes loose from the UK. We'll see if this ever turns into anything....
Austria again
After France bailed on me, to my surprise, Prussia offers an alliance, which I accept. Frankly, at this point I'd really rather with Austria (now that I have southern Denmark back, Prussia is now the bigger threat), but as long as Prussia is allied with me, they're not attacking me.
In
January 1899, while Prussian indolence continues, Austrian aggressiveness does as well, and Austria DOWs Prussia! Check out the balance of forces, and the size of the Austrian navy:
Not only is Austria outnumbered 4-1, but in the 7 years since I fought they them have constructed an incredible
125 ships.
Prussia calls me, and I answer the call - I am feeling pretty cocky by now, and am thinking that my 20+ fleet of cruisers will be too much for the Austrian 125 - and am right!
Note how I sink 64 ships (including 12 men-of-war), lose 0, and again get 0.1 warscore - has anyone
ever seen a naval battle get more than 0.1 warscore?
By
November 1899 I have reduced the Austrian navy from 125 ships to 3. Wow.
On land, however, it's a different story. I have to hand it to Austria, they are, believe it or not, taking the upper hand against Prussia:
I'm not sure what the deal is, as the display shows Prussia with a huge advantage in military forces, but when I look on the map I see mainly Austrians. Oh well, I'm happy to see them slug it out indefinitely - my naval swath of destruction complete, I propose a white peace with Austria, which they accept - Prussia has stayed my ally, to boot.
Danish Africa
So here we are, all the way up to
January 1900, with Denmark at peace, and generally pretty pleased with itself
- check out Danish Africa:
The only real fly in the Danish ointment is that 60 years of Diplomatic efforts to pry Sweden loose from Russia, and form Scandinavia, have been fruitless....
I'll stop here, the next update will probably be a 'state of the world' report, as we're now 2/3 of the way through the game.
As always, feedback/input welcomed!
