Almost every province is a level 5 or level 7 fort. It's a real tough nut to crack!
Thanks. We're approaching the end and nobody is happier about that than me.
Heh, I'm actually using exclusively soldiers. There just aren't enough mercs in the world to take on the Holy Roman Fortress.
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And so it begins, the final push for world conquest. my strategy here to avoid coalitions, reduce Overextension and generally not fall apart is to start as many wars as possible. I will occupy most of the land in the world but not annex until I can do so with most nations tied up in war with me. This way I won't have to face OE until the very end. The Revolutionary CB is -so- powerful that most nations I use it on can be annexed in one go. Having all these wars will desync coaltions so much that I can ignore them: almost every nation will have a different truce timer with me so I won't even have to break truces. Assuming all my planning here works out, the only barrier is fighting the actual war for the world. Tech advantage means all non-europeans are a cake walk. numerical advantage means that all Europeans are also not a problem, so let's focus on the one that actually is.
The Holy Roman Empire boasts a standing army of 200,000 men. This is a 3-front war, with borders in Polish lands, Hungarian lands and the entire Western Theatre. I have roughly 200,000 men dedicated to sieging, broken up into stacks of 5/0/1. My main fighting units are 20/2/1, combined and divided as needed to protect the sieging forces. My expensive but uniquely powerful tank is a single stack of 34/6/40. This single division is arguably the most powerful available. The maximum battle width currently is 40, so I will have a full line at the front, all guarded by cannons on the rear. The front shall fight normally, with the cavalry able to flank by up to 4 units' width. The cannons on the rear are able to do massive fire damage and provide 50% of their defensive strength to the front row. The results are devastating.
The fog of war makes me hesitant about a full scale assault, so I keep my men to the northwest until the Black Curtain of exiled troops are brought in to be my eyes. Information is power.
The cannon division clears a path for the siege troops.
Reinforcements are fed in from Hungary to slow down the Roman advance. My siege troops all find their place in the north and begin their long task. Each unit of mine within HRE lands take 2% attrition, with an added 2% loss every time they travel from one province to another. I need to be mobile, but I also need to be sparing with my manpower. I make the best with what I've got.
The regular fighting armies group together to remove an unsuspecting threat to the siege progress.
Once in position, the rest of Northern Germany is placed under siege.
This is hell on the manpower, but I know deep down every man woman and child of Ryukyu would gladly lay down their lives, not for gold, not for glory, not even for God but for PINK! Wait, wrong AAR....
It's moments like this where I wish you could hide the interface. This above, to me is a beautiful shot, the moment where the very last of the Empire's troops make their standoff on the Swiss mountains, the peaks from which they can see their entire beloved country being razed by warriors of the far east. There are worse ways to die. Probably.
Even though not all sieges are progressing, it was important to prevent the recruitment of more troops by the HRE. As sieges round off, troops are re-arranged to bring the wounded back to France while the Siege units do their work. The cannon stack is kept on the sidelines to pick off any revolts from occupied lands.
This war was very enjoyable. While The Seven Years War is a good exercise in Quantity v Quality, this was a great test of logistics, planning and warfare on a grand scale between two technologically equal forces.
While Rome bubbled away, I was commanding troops across the world, but there's not much of excitement to report.
Countries are being occupied in preparation for the big annexation. After all, Aggressive Expansion doesn't mean much from one continent to another, and a country cannot join a coalition if it doesn't exist.
This has been my favourite chapter in Ryukyu's history. I love Europa's warfare and feel that it's overlooked and just played down as being luck+throwing men around. I hope you enjoyed reading this chapter as much as I did making it. If all goes to plan, the credits will be rolling soon and nobody is happier about that than me.
They year is 1750
Not very long remains.