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Phew, okay, so this is my first AAR. As such, it will be more of a "mini-AAR" since I'm not fully versed in how to properly fill out an AAR (I couldn't even think of a name. Feel free to suggest better ones). Anyway, I present to you: Ubourgermany: A Luxembourg AAR!
It will mostly be lots of screenshots showing my journey from Luxembourg to (hopefully) the NGF to (hopefully) Germany, and we'll see where we go from there.
Part 1: Freedom for Luxembourg We start off almost three years into the game (some evidence that this is my first AAR - poor preparation. I forgot to take some starting screenshots) on the 20th of October, 1838. Doesn't matter too much, not a lot has happened. I've increased French relations and got myself into their sphere so that they can help me win my independence - Which is where we start.
I had the intention of DOW'ing the Netherlands for my independence as soon as I was entered into the French sphere (for any wondering, I know you can gain independence through rebels, but I figured using the French would be quicker and less damaging). Unfortunately, when I went to do so I realised that both Prussia and Portugal had recently allied them. Perhaps I should've checked beforehand, because now I was forced to spend 6 months increasing Prussian relations.
On 3 April 1849 I began the Luxembourgian War of Independence. I formed an alliance with them immediately and successfully brought them to my aid. Luckily I had done enough, and both the Prussians and Portuguese were discouraged from getting involved.
Annoyingly, another 6 months later and greedy greedy France decided to expand our war. Not a surprise, but still a nuisance.
The French managed to drag it out for a year and 4 months, but on August 8, 1840 I was grateful for their assistance, as were the Luxembourgian public, as Luxembourg won it's independence.
Thus concludes a pretty short part 1 of my Luxembourg mini-AAR. I appreciate that it's not a particularly developed AAR, but hopefully the nature of me playing Luxembourg keeps you interested. Part 2 will be posted tomorrow or later tonight! (GMT)
Part 2: That's what friends are for
We return to the AAR almost 5 years after the events of part 1. The plan was always to take the Rheinland with French, and hopefully Russian, assistance. However I was forced to wait thanks to a brilliant show of France also doing someone else's dirty work, getting steamrolled along with Sardinia-Piedmont over the Austrian state of Lombardia.
I figured that perhaps throwing Prussia into the list of French problems wouldn't have been smart, so I waited four years for them to get crushed and allowed an extra year for some recovery, since defeating Prussia isn't exactly a walk in the park. In fact, I almost left it too long and with 9 days of my justification left Prussia only needed 6.5 more influence points to bring Denmark into their SOI, the final piece of the NGF puzzle. I've cut the influence panel of Denmark onto the justification screen here, rather than posting two different pictures.
Luckily I manufactured the justification just in time; France also accepted my call to aid, which the whole plan kind of hinged on. I hardly expected France to win the fight alone, but I hoped that a nice Blitzkrieg would gently encourage them to get some aid of their own, in the form of 30k Russian stack hordes.
The French put up a better fight than I had actually expected, but after a few lost battles in the Rheinland the inevitable happened and France pulled in it's big Russian buddies. The Prussian juggernaut was not prepared for an onslaught like this - or so I thought. Months later and the war was only 5% in our favour, with my worries growing over the likelihood of a white peace, especially once Russia added the demand of acquiring Kars from the Ottomans.
Mid-way through the war, as the French swept through Prussian territories, a single ~30k Prussian stack sat alone on the French border, re-taking a French occupied province. This began a cycle that would continue for some time until a French stack got cornered and ran out of places to go.
Meanwhile, 5 or 6 ~30k Russian death stacks (that actually went 1:1 against Prussian casualties in most battles) had somehow failed to keep up with two Prussian armies and a few small OPM armies. Nevertheless, the sheer numbers prevailed in the end and Prussia was being hemmed in on both fronts.
Prussia essentially assured their loss when they decided to open up a third front by DOW'ing on Saxony with a cut down to size CB. I'm sure they had their reasons.
Needless to say, this war doesn't end well for Prussia. I couldn't believe my luck, although France adding a new wargoal increased the chances of me not getting what I wanted.
Russia finally managed to settle the Kars wargoal, removing a major power (the Ottomans) from the Prussian side and freeing up a lot of Russian death stacks. Just two wargoals remained.
In March 1848 (3 years after the war began) I started to get spammed by white peace messages, indicating that the end of the war was nigh..
..and sure enough it took just four more days until I was informed that the war was over and I now controlled the Prussian Rheinland. I contributed absolutely nada to this war. What a glorious day to be Luxembourgian.
And so concludes a slightly longer part 2. Part 3 may or may not come this weekend, I haven't played since I posted part 1 so I'm not far through the next phase of the game (spoiler alert: I'm heading to Denmark). Expect Sunday, anything sooner is a bonus!
Part 3: The Pudding War Being crushed twice wasn't enough for the Prussians. They fancied some Viking action, and as a result Lithuania has declared its independence. Let this be a lesson, kids: Don't go warmongering
Well now the Danish feel high and mighty, so we have the job of knocking them down a notch. A job that we will quickly palm off to the French, and the Belgians. Unlucky for us we've accumulated a bit of war exhaustion so it takes ~2 years to justify.
So the Belgians will also be fighting the Danish for me. I'll admit Denmark may seem like an odd target, but since I intend to form Germany somewhere down the line I'll need to do something about Schleswig-Holstein. Rather than spend years waiting for my Prussian truce to run down (wasting infamy in the process) it makes sense to nab myself some coastline. 2 birds, 1 stone.
Meanwhile, a drastic lack of potatoes is hitting my already-tiny population hard..
I must admit, I was apprehensive about the idea of leaving the AI to conduct a naval invasion. Why did I ever worry?
I appreciate this isn't the most interesting AAR post ever. Remember that I don't actually have an army, so most of the game so far consists of convincing others to do things for me. There's still a certain skill to it, it's just not quite as captivating.
It's coming.. they're almost done..
Phew, so I have painlessly acquired a port and never have to worry about the Danish again.
I don't know how long it'll take to form Ubergermany here, but if it takes more than 20 years we could very well be seeing "Luxembourgian Africa" on the map. Something to look forward to at least!
Part 4: Nordrdrdrdrdrhein Just as I begin to justify my own war against them, the Prussians go and make me waste the infamy by beating me to it. Guess what they want? The Rheinland!
This war was never going to go my way without both the Belgians and the French. Seeing these messages was a highlight of my day.
Note: Belgium became war leader, despite what the bottom message says.
Immediately, all the German stacks began to pour into French, Belgian and Luxembourgian lands. Only the Belgians were ready.
Germans, Germans everywhere. They occupied lands throughout Luxembourg and France and soon had ticking war score in their favour. French reinforcements were spread thinly throughout the country; The Belgians were the only thing preventing total occupation of Luxembourg and an automatic peace in Prussian favour.
Reinforcements have arrived! The Belgians held the line long enough for French forces to beat back the attacking Germans. But a white peace is no victory.
Ah, the art of sitting on the sidelines and picking off the single brigades, and hijacking allied firepower to steal their hard-earnt warscore.
By this point it was clear that allied forces had turned the tide of the war. If only they could win slower, so I could have time to get my personal warscore high enough to add some wargoals.
It took a year to occupy Berlin, but it's better than taking a 5-year truce.
Turns out this wasn't enough. The occupied Luxembourgian provinces still managed to swing my warscore in Prussian favour and I wasn't able to add a war goal. Unfortunately, the Belgians had peaced out everyone between the two Prussian territories, and as a result I couldn't move my armies back. They were trapped behind enemy lines.
Miraculously the Belgians didn't peace us out whilst all this was going on. The French swift-(ish)-ly retook my lands, tipping warscore in my favour. Lady luck was on my side once again.
Eventually, Prussia need knocking out of GP status never to return, and I need to take their place. Humiliation is the cheap and easy way to do that, especially when you consider that the majority of Prussian score comes from their 111 prestige.
France want a bit o' that action.
This fact won't be all too interesting for any of you readers, but I found it really neat that Belgium timed the peace so perfectly as to end it on my birthday. My troops are still stuck in Prussian lands and I now have another dreaded 5-year truce.
I'm almost big enough for my own map text.
Prussia dropped like, a lot. They went from 5-21 real quick; I think it's safe to assume they're out of GP status for now. Now I have to focus on boosting myself from 11th to GP.
Things are really starting to hot up now, I'm feeling like I'm really breaking free of my economic shackles. No clue what's in store next, but I have a feeling it's going to be exciting. Feel free to post any comments/suggestions/insults/conspiracies on Imgur, on the Reddit AAR, here, PM me whatever. All feedback is valued, constructive or otherwise.
Part 5: Vengeance of the Sore Losers
Part 5 begins just 3 days after the Prussians were crushed under the combined weight of Belgian, French and Luxembourgian troops, conceding the area of Nordrhein and their Great Power status. Sensing an opportunity Sore Losers no. 1, Denmark, have DOW'd on us to reacquire Schleswig-Holstein. Of course, our loyal allies have come to our aid and this shouldn't be too hard..
..we quickly got ahead in the war and I thought to myself "why not nab a colony while I'm at it?" - here's why: 10 infamy for Danish Ghana. Disgraceful, Paradox, digraceful.
The war actually dragged on for a surprising amount of time; time which saw Prussia confirmed as no longer a GP. Sweden took their place.
The remaining GPs found themselves embroiled in a crisis over the Greek cores in Thessalia. Unwilling to back down, the crisis quickly descended into a war that pitted the Austrians and Russians against the Ottomans and British. The Spanish and Greeks were also involved, but they made little contribution. Unsurprisingly.
As an Englishman I found this hard to accept. France, England and Iceland don't go well together, as anyone that watched Euro 2016 will know.
The Brits actually won about 20 warscore from battles, and another 15 or so from blockades, and yet the Ottomans capitulated completely under the weight of the Russians, completely nullifying British efforts. The war expanded, a lot.
Quite possibly the first Luxembourgian soldiers to ever sail the high seas, these intrepid men were to win Zanzibar off of the Omanis so that we can all see "Luxembourgian Africa" painted across the map.
So we've discovered Mission to Civilize, and Prophylaxis Against Malaria is already under our belt meaning only Colonial Negotiations is left.
Ha ha, rebels.
Luckily the 6 brigades on board were able to cram into the remaining 3 transports, which begs the question "why did they need 6 transports originally?"
..who ever said Victoria 2 isn't realistic?
(No puns this time around) I've reached the end of my Omani shopping trip and I checkout with a shiny new colony in my bag.
Sokoto is usually my prime target for snatching a colony to set me up for colonization, but unfortunately they've fallen under the sphere of the USA. They're not actually allied, but I don't want to see 'Murica intervening in my wars.
Colonial points can be hard to come by when you can't support a navy, so I'm upgrading my naval ports to allow for some more commerce raiders to be built (they are the most efficient points:supply ship I can get with level 2 ports)
Colonial points can be hard to come by when you can't support a navy, so I'm upgrading my naval ports to allow for some more commerce raiders to be built (they are the most efficient points:supply ship I can get with level 2 ports)
Here's a screenshot of my budget screen, circa April 1861. No rich tax because I want to encourage promotion to capitalists to get some proper industrialization happening, low naval and military stockpiles because I'm not at war, full military spending to encourage promotion to soldier POPs, no tariffs because tariffs are evil.
Okay, they're not attacking us and they haven't lost anything material per se, but they still lost and therefore they count as sore losers. I'd rather not be involved in another war since I actually want my infamy to go down, but I figured this would be quick and the Belgians are a valuable ally. My troops also needed some experience.
As you can clearly see, the Dutch got absolutely curb-stomped. And yet, the French white peaced us all out before we even had a chance to occupy them.
They're back for more, and the Badeners clearly want in on the action because they offered us an alliance. Too bad they can't actually take part in this war, maybe next time.
The Prussians came to the fight completely under-prepared and were swiftly overrun by just a small portion of the French troops..
For some inexplicable reason, the French kept their most powerful stacks behind, as a consequence dragging the war out for quite some time.
The Prussians never looked like winning the war. The rebels were harder to fight than the army, but France's inaction cost me two years of time.
And so ends Part 5 of my Luxembourg mini-AAR; I think I'm finally getting the hang of AAR'ing. Part 6 will likely come tomorrow or the day after at a similar time to this. As usual, post any questions, suggestions or general feedback and commentary anywhere you'd like, whether it be on reddit, imgur or here.
Part 6: Scramble for Congo I realise that Part 6 is 1) a couple of days late, and 2) that I skipped over 4 years. 1) I am a lazy person, and 2) those 4 years were spent doing next to nothing so there wasn't much to include.
So, we return on 1st January 1870, more commonly known as International Colonization Day. I've been saving research points for a few months - easily enough to research Machine Guns in one bulk. I've also made somewhat of an effort to build up my colonial power.. to 82. Enough for one colony, but naval bases are upgrading and ships are being built, so more is on the way.
I was of course the first to research Colonial Negotiations and therefore I have a much needed headstart of a few months. Obviously, I don't have much colonial power to play with so I can't afford to get myself into any colonial races.
With Zanzibar under my belt I can go anywhere along the Eastern coast of Africa. My naval range from my European base is not enough to colonize Northern Africa, nor do I want to considering it has nothing for me and will likely get me into a colonial race.
That said, I pick my first target as Tanganyika, a state just inland of Zanzibar. The rest of Zanzibar has nothing for me and would be a waste of my time and power, so I'm leaving that, probably for Portugal. My reasons for picking Tanganyika are because I want to reach the juicy rubber provinces on the other side of Africa, and this is the fastest route to doing so.
Prussia must seek someone to back it against Polish claims of independence.. but will it?
No, it wont. France backs Poland and Prussia loses probably a third of its land. This is both good and bad for me, since I welcome a weaker Prussia but also don't look forward to having wrestle Poland AND Lithuania from their inevitable Russian sphere.
So I was, predictably, uncontested in Tanganyika.. but I still don't quite have enough colonial points to take the next step. I'm frantically building naval bases and building commerce raiders (the best colonial ship I have) and am only 14 points from being able to claim my next colony. Rebels have occupied all of Zanzibar, meaning I can't upgrade my base there, and since I can't afford to waste supply points on transports I'll just have to make do. Thank you, rebels.
This could well be the last war I start with Prussia. I've begun justifying an Acquire State war goal so that I can take Westfalen, removing my Prussian border. They're already much lower ranked than me, just lost a third of their territory to Poland and are suffering swarms of rebels, so I feel like I could almost take them alone. The war will probably be a short one with France involved.
I realised that commerce raiders were going to take a frustratingly long time to build, so I had to throw in some frigates too. When this one finishes, I'll go just over the 80 points needed to grab another colony.
Sure enough, the 80 points were achieved and I was able to begin colonization in Congo Orientale. This is two states away from Congo, where we want to get to, and honestly it's tough to tell if I'll make it. It was always ambitious but always looked the best option, so I can only hope that the French keep going South or get embroiled in a colonial race which swallows their points.
Christmas Day 1872 brought Congo Orientale under glorious Luxembourgian rule. I realise now that copying the "Create Protectorate" screen onto a map of Africa after I'd clicked it is just confusing, sorry about that.
I was immediately able to dive into Equateur, the penultimate step of the Scramble for Congo, since I had managed to accumulate 109 colonial power. I was really on edge as the French could turn at any second. It's a good thing the AI has no knowledge of which states are useful, isn't it?
Note: My naval supply points inexplicably jumped to 26 for a few months and then dropped back down to 12. I don't know why and I assure you I wasn't cheating. I made a post on the forum asking for suggestions as to why it might have happened, and I can offer up the save file if anyone doesn't believe me. You can run it yourself and see it happen.
It took just over a year to occupy Prussia with French support. As I had predicted, we were able to pretty easily sweep through their land. In fact, chasing rebels around posed more of a threat than the Prussians. I more or less let the French do all of the work once the few Prussian stacks had been defeated, since I don't have enough stacks to occupy much.
I acquired Equateur unchallenged, but the French were drawing ever closer, meaning I could not really afford to have to wait for an extra 12 colonial power. I had some frigates that I was trying to swap out for the more efficient commerce raiders, but things looked bleak.
This is just a map of the Sphere situation in Europe as of 1874-ish. Poland fell under French influence due to their backing in the crisis, allowing me to find an ally in them. Austria were racing towards bringing Prussia into their sphere, and Baden was heavily disputed between France and Austria.
The reason I actually screenshotted this, as I just realised, is because I was looking for somewhere to conquer. I desperately needed another port if I wanted to be in with a chance of colonizing Congo for all it's rubber, so I turned to the various German states. Filtering out those without ports, those with whom I had a truce, and those with powerful allies, I found two options in Hanover and Mecklenburg. I could acquire Osthannover, or conquer all of Mecklenburg. My infamy level decided the rest.
I was forced to break my Belgian alliance for the second time, as they wouldn't help me with Hanover either. I could easily have taken them alone, but I couldn't afford to waste time slowly occupying provinces with my single stack, so I brought in my allies.
Within three months Hanover was carpet-sieged and gave in. A French stack also found themselves trapped in my newly acquired enclave and would remain there for years, providing a useful 30k defence force.
The French were no longer my only problem in Africa. The Spanish had for some reason ignored an entire state and were racing toward Congo. I had to get it finished, fast.
More problems were found in Europe.. The South German Federation was formed, meaning that when I inevitably had to go to war with Austria, I would no longer be able to stomp on Baden, Würtemmberg and Bavaria. However, it would be easier to sphere.
They didn't last long, re-annexed by the Prussians. One less country to sphere, but a slightly stronger Prussia again. Also, horrible, horrible border-gore is taking place in the World.
This would be the Monitor that allowed me to colonize the Congo. I could do nothing but wait whilst staring at Africa, and time remained to tell whether I could even go unchallenged there.
I don't really know why the Dutch felt the need to do this. Any self-respecting AI would steer well clear of.. my allies.
So 9 months after Valentine's Day I h̶a̶d̶ ̶a̶ ̶b̶a̶b̶y̶ colonized Congo, to my extreme relief. I also had another 80 colonial points that I didn't notice for far too long, as you'll see later. Lucksemburg (s/o /u/Spergeschutz) had struck again and the Spanish completely ignored me in Congo, instead opting to form some kind of horrible three-way abomination. The French went South aswell as getting into some long, drawn-out colonial races.
I figured if the Netherlands want war, I'll give them war, right? So, a bit late, I began to justify against them for Acquire State. My plan was to flip their own war on its head and steal Gelderland from them. Justifying so I had an actual CB would garner less infamy than just adding it as normal.
Unfortunately for me, the Austrians beat out the French and managed to both remove Poland from the French sphere aswell as bring Prussia into their own. This could mean bad things for me, as the Austrians are powerful and if the Prussians decide to start another war, I would be in for a tough fight.
The Dutch DOW'd on me pretty soon after getting their CB, and of course all my allies came to my aid. The Belgians didn't betray me a third time and my new allies Poland and Switzerland proved their loyalty. Also, I don't think I've pointed it out already but I formed an alliance with Sardinia-Piedmont a while ago.
Occupying Amsterdam brought me three things: drugs, prostitutes and lots of warscore. Enough warscore to trigger the next part of my plan..
..it allowed me to add a wargoal. So long as the French AI isn't stupid, Gelderland shall be mine..
Gelderland was actually a great addition to the Luxembourgian family. It came with 8 decent factories and a pretty large POP, aswell as lots of coal.
It took me a full year to realise that I had accumulated well over the 80 colonial power points required to colonize. For some unknown reason, Gabon remained untouched by any GP so I figured I might as well go for it. I almost had enough colonial power for 2 more colonies with the addition of Gelderland.
It was a shame that I didn't grab the rest of Zanzibar in hindsight. If I had, I would have formed a really nice belt across Africa's waist. As it is I still am the belt, just a slightly torn belt on one side. Who knows? One day I might take it, purely for nicer borders.
Also, note the various Sicilian states. They have acquired all of Northern Africa and released it as the Kingdom of West Morocco and the Confederation of Chad, freeing up more colonial power for them to expand even further into Africa and keep France busy. For once, a smart AI.
As I said, their smart moves allowed them to get into a serious colonial race with France. This is likely the reason that France didn't venture into Congo or Gabon, and I can only thank the Sicilians for their efforts.
Another big step on the road to Germany. I can now prepare to form the North German Federation, and I'll start by sphering all the small German OPMs so that I don't have to do so whilst juggling the SGF, Austria, Poland etc..
No, I haven't signed the Geneva Convention. It sucks.
So here's what I'm up against. The Austrians, basically. As I said, I'll start by picking up all the OPMs so that I don't have to juggle them later. Oldenburg is up first.
F*ck.
~Insert Austrians DOW'ing on me and all my allies backing me up because I can't have more than 35 images in one post (thanks Paradox)~
I only got a few days into the war before the game crashed. This nice and conveniently wraps things up for Part 6 of my Luxembourg AAR.
I know this was a really long part, long enough that I had to remove three images (Imgur link if you want to see them that badly), but I didn't want to split up the various parts of the Scramble for Africa and figured I might aswell shove everything up to the start of the Austrian war into it. As always, feedback is welcomed (and encouraged.. pls give feedback) through any means, whether that be here, Reddit or imgur. Hell, if you can stalk me down on social media feel free.
Part 7 could be a few days. I haven't played since this crash (and that was actually a couple days ago) so the combined playing time of what I expect to be a long, long war and editing time may mean a long wait. I'll see what I can do.
Part 7: Bad Meets Evil So I'm diving right back in, roughly a month into the Austrian-Luxembourgian Brother's War after it crashed last time round. I've been ill, which is why this is a couple of days late.
As you can see, the Polish are suffering the brunt of Austrian attacks, which is good for me because it diverts roughly 2/3s of Austrian troops away from the Western front, allowing the rest of us to actually cope and not be completely overcome.
France's armies are.. Nowhere to be seen. Honestly, I'm sure that at the time I knew where they were but looking back now I have no idea besides an 80k stack in Prussia.
I'm really grateful for the Polish here, I think this war would honestly have been lost within months were it not for their diversion. The French are.. building the Maginot! The rest of their troops are off fighting in Spain, who are basically the equivalent of Poland in this war.
My army is, of course, the only army doing something smart. I'm tactically breaking through SGF lines rather than sending my troops into the meatgrinder.
The Polish valiantly held off the majority of the Austrian troops, allowing me to smash through into SGF lands, which the French promptly took advantage of. Sardinia-Piedmont and Switzerland are seeing the brunt of the casualties now at the hands of the Austrian reinforcements, and I am entirely relying on Belgian forces to keep the Prussians out of my rear.
Austrian reinforcements allowed the SGF to replenish their armies, meaning our allied troops were faced with the task of holding against a short but intense South German fightback.
It didn't help that Belgium had allowed a 45k Prussian stack to waltz into my lands, forcing me to pull my only army out of the fray to protect my own interests of a stable economy.
Things took a nasty turn as we tipped into 1882. It's not actually as bad as it looks here (e.g. there's a 40k French army hidden behind the 6k in SGF) but the Sardinians were struggling to keep up and Belgium was trapped in Prussian lands. My army was in dire need of replenishment and the Swiss had peaced out.
I think France actually had more troops in Spain than it did fighting Austria during most of the war. Not to mention, their navy got absolutely creamed, prompting me to send my own.
6 months in and we've not really got anywhere. Occupation is fairly even, but Prussian battle warscore is tipping it slightly in their favour.
Not anymore! The Prussians accepted a French offer of white peace and allowed myself and Belgium to direct our firepower to the front lines.
Our Turkish friends, obviously sensing Austrian vulnerability, attacked them in the rear so that they could retake Bosnia.
A few months later the Papal States followed suit, wanting to take Romagna from the Austrians, which had also been lost earlier in the game. The Papal States don't exactly have much of a military to shout about, but I still welcome their decision.
I was offered a Crown from the Gutter because rebels had overcome Bremen. Of course, I could not take it. I would barely have gained anything and the disadvantages were many.
The Austrians had made some poor decisions, deciding to split their armies into 15-20k stacks. They were quickly defeated that way and you can see this happening in the background over the last few screenshots. This allowed me to occupy Munich and march on to Vienna.
Spain had finally had enough and surrendered to the French as October 1883 came around. This freed up a huge portion of French troops, who promptly ignored the rest of the war and marched on to Portugal.
Small, ballsy little Serbia took their chance to claim their land in Slavonia. I'd rather Austria stay as big as possible to be honest, since I intend to swallow them into Germany later on.
At this point it was clear the Austrians had lost so I went for broke and added the Hegemony CB. They managed to keep a battle warscore majority however, which was impossible to overturn once they had no armies left to fight.
Various allied forces swept through Austrian lands, racking up their war exhaustion. It took me a little while to realise, but the Russians had actually backed up their sphereling, Serbia and were occupying much of Eastern Austria. Not good for us, considering we need to win a lot of warscore back and probably can't afford to have the Russian hordes occupying all their provinces before us.
So this was the situation as of March 1884. Austria has a much larger sphere than I do, so Asserting Hegemony over them requires much more warscore than for them to assert over me. The Prussians had beaten back the Papal States and the Ottomans, to the point that the Austria felt comfortable adding it's own wargoal against them of acquiring Montenegro (which the Ottomans annexed earlier).
Now the French could really, really focus on Austria. The rest of their troops were now late to the party, but every little helps and this left us with just one enemy to go.
The French had also begun relieving my provinces in Africa of rebels, meaning I wouldn't have to send thousands of my own men all the way to do it myself. This also meant my African port was free at last, and there was still one coastal African state untouched by anyone else - Eritrea.
Unfortunately, the bloody Yanks had control over the Panama canal. Kiel would be part of the NGF under me anyway, but Suez..
..the Suez canal was not built! It seemed no one could get them in their sphere, so I opted to take advantage at the first opportunity.
Here's one thing that's useful if you're competing with another nation for occupation of a country - divide your forces into single or double brigade stacks and just put one in every province. The occupation is won by whoever got their first, and if you're lucky they might even help you out.
What a sight to see. The Austrians couldn't stand this for long, even if I didn't have the 96 warscore I was supposed to. Their exhaustion racked up and up, until..
Austrian surrender! Because it's the Hegemony CB, this also means that I get control and 100 influence over all of their spherelings, really saving me a lot of time. Only places left to sphere were Prussia and Poland, and then I could form the NGF.
They dropped to 9th pretty quickly with their military in tatters and their provinces occupied by Russia. 261 of their 278 score was from just prestige. I just hoped the Russians would stay long enough for them to actually drop out of GP status.
Completely forgot about Eritrea. The icon is always lit up green telling me I can convert my protectorates into colonies (which I also did after this), so I didn't notice until it went red.
Serbia have made huge gains so far in this game. It's annoying that I will be gaining less land from the Austrians, but fair play to the Serbs.
And this time they want ME to back them.. little old me? Really?
I considered Wielkopolskie to be in my future interests, since I've mentioned before that I don't like the huge chunk of Russia that protrudes into Ubergermany when it forms. If Poland had a part of that land, it makes my life easier in the future since it will be incorporated into the NGF.
France unsurprisingly backed me and I knew it was inevitable that the UK would back Russia. That meant it could well be down to Two Sicilies, but as usual the Italians can't pick a side.
With Poland and Prussia in my sphere I could finally do it.. I could finally form the NGF..
Forming the NGF gave me a ton of decisions to enact, which I did, including building the Kiel canal and the Ruhr Boom. Best day of the game so far.
Still wont sign the Geneva Convention though.
I'm going to leave it there until next time folks. Poland hasn't yet been incorporated into the NGF because of the ongoing crisis, and you'll have to wait until Part 8 to see whether the brand-spanking-new NGF is scary enough to win the crisis, or whether it will descend into all-out war.
As always, feedback is welcomed and encouraged on here, on Reddit, on the forum or whatever. Part 8 wont be late, I promise.
Part 8: Mother Russia
First off, I know this is is late again and I promised it wouldn't be.. I'm sorry! No excuse this time, I just kept opening the screenshots folder ready to organise them and saying "nah".
So, with the newly-formed NGF I figured Russia might back off in the crisis and let me win.. Quite the opposite. All it did was spur them to add the "Humiliate NGF" wargoal and accept nothing less. Bit unfair that the AI can add it's own crisis wargoals, isn't it?
With the crisis ticking smoothly into war with no signs of stopping, I figured I might aswell get a bit of a headstart. I mobilize early which gives the crisis its final push to descend into war at the most inconvenient of times, since I haven't had a chance to actually build my new German army. Oh well, I've always got the French. But then again, they've got the Brits, so..
With no sense of preparation incorporated into the AI, all the Russian armies spend most of their time milling around in Siberia somewhere. This gave me some relief as I could pick a few of the armies off one by one as they arrived.
*sigh*.. so the Dutch sensed an opportunity to reclaim their land whilst I was occupied with Russia. Being the stubborn git I am, I of course was going to teach them a proper lesson with my new armies..
..a PROPER lesson. They're not getting off with a white peace, I'm going to make them pay.. by taking their other state, Friesland.
And the gates to the East are open.. I've built the Suez canal!
The Chinese are understandably pissed that the Russians took Southern Zhili off them earlier, and now that I'm at war with them they've opted to take it back. Meanwhile, Russia also wants Ivory Coast off of France.
Couldn't have come at a better time.
My army size is increasing as the troops that became available once I formed the NGF are recruited, and more and more Russians are arriving all the time. Good news though, the French bottlenecked the Brits at Dunkirk and have sent reinforcements to me.
Most of Holland is occupied and Friesland will follow. Don't ask me why I occupied Holland first when I could have got the ticking war score from Friesland. I really don't know why I did that.
The British also broke through Dunkirk after the French diverted a bunch of their armies to me. You can't really see here, but most of Northern France is occupied.
Welp, the Chinese got f*cked. All they did was manage to lose Tomsk, too. Pretty soon Russia will get a nice new injection of armies.
Not that I have the spare resources to fight a war against China, but the rebellions resulting from their suckiness have given all the GPs a free CB. And -5 prestige.
Had to wait for ticking warscore to complete the 100% because I frankly couldn't be arsed to go occupy their overseas places.. but I now have Friesland, too!
Things went badly for the French.. Not sure how, but the Russians managed to get a few armies in behind and allowed the British to swarm into French lands. I couldn't particularly afford to help them out straight away what with all the Russians in my land, but now that the Dutch war is over I have an army spare.
The war isn't won quite yet. The Russians are more or less dealt with but the Brits are the next challenge.
The bloody Russians keep adding wargoals against the French and wont give in.
Free Great War Capitulation CBs all round!
The value of our wargoal dropped to 9 from 14 for some reason, but whether they say so or not, the value of the GWC CBs mean that we still can't achieve peace.
Our allies in the Great War, Two Sicilies, could be in for trouble now that Italy has formed all around them. Not that I've noticed their input in the war, mind you.
..*sigh*.. I don't have time for this
France are basically 100% occupied at this point. I'm doing the best I can with what I've got.
I kicked the Russians out of Poland pretty quickly, allowing them to raise their own armies again. I'll wait until they've done so and divert a couple more armies towards France.
Woops, I let that get a bit out of hand. My armies arrived in time to save my capital though, and I used my three 60k armies to pick off a 90k British army whilst the others were occupying my provinces. Here, the 2nd is being knocked down whilst my two remaining armies replenish troops and organisation. This, folks, is the art of rotation.
'Murica demands Alaskan freedom.
Still keeping armies in Russia to supervise the Polish rebuilding their military. Occupied the Russian capital whilst I had the opportunity.
Forgot to include a screenshot of it, but the Austrians DOW'd on Serbia for Slavonia and added Southern Serbia later. Russia, being the Serbian sphere leader, backed them up and got their arse handed to them. France being occupied has destroyed the warscore I worked so hard to gain (We're at -2%, even with +50 from battles and +whatever from occupying St. Petersburg).
The white bits are Austrian occupation. Yeah.
Austria looks pretty odd with Southern Serbia. The rest of the world is far worse than Europe, though. You've already seen China and Africa, and if you caught the bonus you've seen the atrocity that is Canada/Alaska.
Russia just refuses to cave, no matter how obvious it is that they've lost. Also, you can just see in the background that Italy DOW'd on Two Sicilies for Puglia, as I predicted. I've managed to ally both so it doesn't really affect me whoever wins.. I'll still have all their manpower at my disposal.
27 warscore is apparently still not enough, even with the wargoal value dropping further from 9 to 8. Italy definitely won, btw.
Germans freeing France of British occupation. Complete reversal of 1944/45 right there.
When I noticed how quickly our warscore was shooting up as I freed France, I realised I might as well demand more. Mazowieckie is the other state that digs into Ubergermany so I figured I'd take that for the future, and with Great Wars being Great Wars I was able to do so for 3.6 infamy. Gotta love it.
There's nothing in this world quite like murdering the unruly.
Russia took one hell of a hit there. If only China had waited..
That wraps up Part 8 of this AAR. In the interests of not lying a third time, I'll make no promises as to when Part 9 will be. I've played probably half of it out so far.
Just wondering, would anyone rather I do another AAR where I *don't* form Germany and instead see how far I can take Luxembourg alone? Perhaps I could just use an earlier save? I'll probably end up doing it anyway out of my own curiousity, but let me know whether that'd be something you'd be interested in. As usual, feel free to post feedback on Imgur/Reddit/the forum!
That's a lot of reservations
Looks interesting, I'm curious to see if you can manage to build an OP empire. Luxemburg having French as an accepted culture, it could lead to interesting development.
Subbed.
That's a lot of reservations
Looks interesting, I'm curious to see if you can manage to build an OP empire. Luxemburg having French as an accepted culture, it could lead to interesting development.
Subbed.
Yeah, I figured I can always delete posts so it's better to over-reserve than under-reserve. I'm not exactly an experienced AAR-er so I wasn't sure how many to reserve or how much to break down the AAR
So far I've gone through a difficult war and gained Rheinland from Prussia. By now the French should have taken the Left Bank decision so I'm interested to see if they do anything with it.
Part 4 is now also live. This was, at least, quite intense for me. The game is starting to become more fast-paced now and there's a lot less waiting around.
GO Luxemburg!
Sokoto would be a good colony to start. Try to seize most of it before the Scramble. You should seize Zanzibar, if Portugal didn't annexed it yet
