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morningSIDEr, spiller68, videonfan, ScaryT, vasziljevics

Thank you everybody for following my AAR and your feedback. East Africa, Austria, the Ottoman Empire ... well, let's see how it turns out :)
 
1878-1883 : First Great War. Sicily and Hedjaz change hands.

The most obvious goal for expansion would have been Austria, who was inhabited by ethnic Germans. But regrettably Austria was allied with Great Britain, and that was the kind of enemy the German Empire didn't need at the moment. Great Britain had twice the ships than Germany.

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Therefore, the Kaiser continued expanding through diplomacy. By 1878, Chile had been added to Germany's sphere of influence.

But another event caught his attention. Germany's ally Two Sicilies had started a war against Piedmont-Sardinia, who had called France into the war. Now the Two Sicilies were fighting against France and Piedmont, and since they were the aggressor (that is, they had the wargoal "cut Sardinia to size"), the Empire wasn't able to intervene. The war would obviously end up badly for the Germany's satellite.

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Sit and watch was not an option, therefore the Casus Belli "Humiliate France" was created.

By July 1878, the Empire was ready for war against France. The troops massed at the border, but in the meantime an alliance between France and Russia had been signed.

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War was declared nonetheless. It became soon "the Great War", since it was pitching Germany and Scandinavia against France and Russia. Germany called the countries in its sphere to arms. The formal allies USA, Portugal and the Ottoman Empire made clear they didn't want to participate, though.

From the beginning, the war went well and several battles at the border could be won.

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The German Empire had mobilized and sent their best troops to fight against France, where it was hoped to achieve a breakthrough. Germany was technologically superior and a victory was expected. On the eastern front the draftees had to slow down the Russian advance.

This was the situation on the two fronts in November 1878.

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The war went into the year 1879 and on the Eastern Front Germany was able to hold and even throw back the Russians.

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Things were going well on the Western Front as well, the French had to fall back along with the Belgians and the Swiss.

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The French had sent an expedition force to Sicily, that had to be dealt with.

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By January 1880, France had all but broken down. They wouldn't be able to resist long. The Eastern front was stable and French troops in Sicily had surrendered. Naval superiority was also achieved.

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The German army continued advancing into French territory. But by July 1880, the Empire was heavily indebted and the finance advisor was pushing for a quick end to this war.

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Luckily, France was in a desperate situation and was ready to capitulate.

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On the Eastern Front, the German army had had to fall back a little, but the Russian advance was slow and wasn't worrying.

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War score was at 34%. The coalition led by France capitulated. The other wargoal, "Humiliate France", wasn't accomplished though.

The war between the Two Sicily and the France-Sardinian coalition went on. In the end, Germany could not avoid the ally's defeat, who had to cede Sicily to Sardinia/Piedmont. This infuriated the Kaiser, it was a whole region which had ended up under France's influence.

It seemed that Germany had won the bigger war, while France had won the more important one.

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France and the other European powers had been colonizing Africa, while Germany had totally ignored this aspect. This was worrying, as the Empire's industry needed the raw materials.

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By September 1881, the debts had been fully repaid. Also thanks to the war reparations, Germany was running an healthy positive balance sheet.

The emperor at last made up his mind: Germany should go east. Wars in Europe were costly and the benefits were small. But a short and cheap war, along with some infamy, was enough to get a protectorate over Hedjaz, which could be easily reached through the Suez Channel.

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Of course, one should not forget about the sphere and Germany's high prestige. There had been a coup in Egypt and influence there had to be recovered.

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In fact, by 1883 Germany's industry was running at full steam. The country had switched to "Laissez Faire" and the national focuses were used to create capitalists.

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In fact, the Capitalists were an asset and an important factor behind the economic wonder. Equally important was the well-educated working force.

It seemed unfair that Great Britain still had the greatest industrial score. But this also showed how powerful national focuses can be.

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A good result against France, although it is a pity it didn't save Sicily though. Forging east so as to begin creating an overseas Empire seems a sound plan, hopefully Germany can nab a few choice bits of land.
 
1884-1888 : Wars with the Ottomans, Persia and China

Thank you for the feedback, spiller68 and morningSIDEr.

The year was 1884, and the German Empire was involved in three wars at the same time.

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In the 2nd Ottoman Liberation of Egyptian Aleppo region, Germany had intervened to help the ally Egypt. The war was already in an advanced stage when the Empire stepped in. Therefore it would take some time to kick the Turks out of the Middle East and Lybia.

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In the second war, the War of Persian Submission, the German Empire was the aggressor. As Persia was about to become part of the UK's sphere of influence, Kaiser Besonnenheit thought the best way to prevent it was to sphere it himself. Regrettably the war was progressing slowly, as several troops had to be redirected to the Ottoman theatre.

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By 1885, the war against the Ottomans ended with Status Quo. Therefore the Empire could concentrate on submitting the Persians.

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By 1886, the Kaiser was happy with Germany's sphere of influence. Persia has been submitted by war, while Brazil could be convinced through diplomacy. The Empire wouldn't run out of raw materials. Again, Laissez-Faire was tried, since it would be a pity not to capitalize on Germany's capitalists.

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But it was the third war which would turn out to be the most important in Germany's history. The Kaiser perfunctorily committed the Empire to put down the Boxer rebellion in China. By the time German troops landed in the Laizhou region, Britain had already signed the peace treaty with the Chinese and received the Daming region.

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That could not be taken lightly. The gap between the Perfidious Albion and the Germany Empire had become greater. Therefore the Empire committed itself to a greater war effort in China.

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By 1888, the Wenzhou Region became German. It was rich in silk, tea and timber.

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But there was one other international success in 1888. Italy, who had unified in 1884 without apparent reason, was brought under German influence through diplomacy. It was astonishing that the French and the Austrians didn't seem interested in the young country, who had a great potential.

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Situation in 1888. The rich Wenzhou province helped Germany's balance sheet a lot. It was clear that the Empire's future lay in China.

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Germany wasn't afraid of investing money into other countries to project its power.

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Germany's industry was growing steadily ( I am fond of showing this graphics, even if I guess most of you don't care).

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17% of the population in the Empire was Chinese - just by adding one single province.

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The Empire's sphere now included Italy. The country was back to a Conservative rule.

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Germany would not make the mistake of not staying up to date in military technologies.

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Some worrying news came from the Ottoman Empire though, who hadn't recovered from the war against Germany and Egypt. The Communists had occupied the capital und were unchallenged in the country. That in itself was on opportunity, since a communist Turkey would not acknowledge Austria's supremacy.

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Good work grabbing that hugely useful province from China, it is aiding your economy and industry considerably. Future expansion in China seems a good idea. Adding Persia and Italy to your sphere of influence is bound to prove helpful in the future too. Now to see what happens with the Ottomans, should the communists seize power I get the feeling Germany would be compelled to 'liberate' some of the Ottoman lands from their rule.
 
vasziljevics, morningSIDEr, thank you for your feedback.

I am not sure who formed Italy, I didn't notice any Redshirts, nor did an Italian State become GP at any time. I haven't undestood yet how forming Italy works in Victoria 2, it seems pretty random.

Yeah China is very rich, but it is not without dangers...
 
1889-1896 : Wars with Guanxi, Turkey, Spain, Belgium, Greece. Germany is born.

By May 1889, Turkey had become a Proletarian Dictatorship. German diplomats were sent to Istanbul to try and influence the new regime, even while a counter-revolution, ultimately unsuccessful, was already under-way.

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In that year, the Kaiser declared war on Guanxi, to expand in China. He speculated the USA would not defend their sphereling against mighty Germany, and he was right. But the Chinese had plenty of troops and at first it was not obvious how to invade the country.

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But using the doctrine of concentration of force, the Empire's army managed to crash through. The Chinese fought valiantly, but were no match for German troops. By December 1889, several provinces had already been occupied.

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Vae Victis ! In the year 1891, the war was over, and Gianxi had to part with two rich provinces: Ghanzou and Zhangzou, which were added to the German Empire, along with the already available Wenzhou province. The two new provinces were pretty much like the first one : rich in tea, timber, silk, manpower, artisans and taxpayers.

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By March 1892, it was clear that the German Empire would not manage to sphere Turkey through diplomacy. In fact, Austrian and French diplomats had made greater inroads inside of the Proletarian Dictatorship. German diplomats obviously could not conceal their dislike of the Communists and were not as successful.

The Kaiser made clear in the diplomatic arena that Germany could not tolerate a Wien-Istanbul axis and therefore a war of Submission against the Turks was fully justified. Egypt, Iran and Italy joined the coalition who would fight against the Proletarian Dictatorship.

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By November 1892, German-Iranian troops were unchallenged in Turkey's mainland,

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while Lybia was being invaded by Egypt...

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and Italy and Germany were marauding in the Balkans.

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Turkey's situation was hopeless and they sued for peace. This way, Turkey was added to Germany's sphere of influence. But the Proletarian Dictatorship survived.

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Meanwhile, somehow ironically, the Kaiser fully trusted the Capitalists to run the empire's economy and had switched to Laissez Faire.

There were other short wars in the decade, that probably will be forgetten by the future generations. One of these was the 1893 war of containment against Spain, which resulted in Status Quo, and that involved virtually all of the GPs.
Germany would have liked to stay out, but answered Scandinavia's call to arms.

The most obvious reason why Spain had become so infamous were the provinces they had wrestled from Portugal.

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Another short war was the 1894 war against bankrupt Belgium, who had to pay its debts to Germany. France didn't help their sphereling.

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In the same year Greece too went bankrupt. Germany declared war on them, hoping to provoke Great Britain into action, but they didn't bite. Was Albion afraid of mighty Germany ? Greek had to repay its debts to Germany as well.

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In fact, now Germany had more ships than Great Britain. How could they allow that ? Of course, Britain had more brigades, but naval superiority would probably turn out to be decisive in a war.

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In 1896, the Empire changed tag and flag. It became simply "Germany" and a brand-new flag was adopted. The government form was now "HM" and Prussian Constitutionalism was given up.

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It was not obvious whether from now on there was going to be a Kaiser or a President. But the goverment was nonetheless shocked when it found out that more than half of the people in Germany were ethnically Chinese. That might turn out to be dangerous.

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It was also worrying that very few social reforms had been approved. Germany was obviously lagging behind in this aspect. That was an obvious consequence of setting Germany's focus on capitalists and clerks, who wielded the real power.

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But a capitalist society could not work without workers, farmers, labourers and soldiers, who in Germany were poorly paid, had very few rights, and were still the overwhelming majority.
There were few communists, but the movement was growing stronger by the day, also among the soldiers. If the government didn't change course swiftly, the Collectivists were predicting a Communist Revolution in Germany in the next decade.

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But the ruling class would not listen to that. They were only interested in the production statistics. The possibility of a Socialist government wasn't even considered. Would that come back to haunt them ?

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Good job, Kaiser. Not sure which Kaiser is more to applaud though.:p
 
This is turning out to be very interesting. Germany should try to take Austria and France, they would taste good and offset the Chinese dominated population a bit.
 
Indeed, if you want to offset the Chinese pop, the best thing to do would be to liberate ;) the German speaking provinces of Austria from those evil Austrian overlords :D A nib on Switzerland would also work to add Germans to your Germany ( oh the irony ... ), but adding some French/Russians/whatever would also help :p
 
Very nicely done. Surprising that Spain went over the infamy limit, I rarely see AI nations doing that. The constant careful expansion has served you well, it seems Britain is wary of fighting with you, as the war with Greece suggests. Rightly so too, Germany has become quite the world power.
 
Hi everybody, thank you for the feedback.

@Nikolai : Thank you. It is supposed to be Kaiser Besonnenheit, the prudent one. But now Germany is not going to be ruled by a Kaiser any longer...

@ScaryT: I am happy you are interested. I'll take on them ... sooner or later...

@Ricardo Rolo: Hi Ricardo Rolo, thank you for following ! Yes, I should take on Austria, but I'll show it is not a war I just want to jump in....

@morningSIDEr : Thank you. Britain is not the unbeatable juggernaut I expected it to be, in fact. How they could allow Germany to have more ships than them?
 
1896-1903 : Wars with China, Turkey and Spain. A Socialist Government.

It is fair to wonder why Germany wasn't attacking Austria. After all, it was a country inhabited by a lot of German people. Regrettably, the European countries had built a web of alliances to isolate Germany. Britain was allied with Austria and Russia, Austria with France and Britain, France with Austria and Russia, Russia with France and Britain. Declaring war against one of these four would have meant war against three GPs at the same time.

But Germany had allies too : USA, Scandinavia, Italy and Turkey among other. So there was no reason to be intimidated. Germany was arming itself, too. A lot of soldiers were being recruited in China and sent to Europe - as a lot of farmers there were going out of work.

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In 1898, a small communist revolt broke out, which was easily crushed.
Not content with the provinces already conquered, in 1899 Germany declared war on China. Russia and Britain had been expanding there too.

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By the end of the year the rich Suzhou province had been conquered - the fourth German province in China. The Stettin Republic was taking a risk here, recruiting a lot of Chinese soldiers whose loyalty was questionable.

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Germany was now a Bourgeoise Republic - the Stettin Republic. Kaiser Besonnenheit had resigned and was living in The Netherlands.

By 1901, Germany had suffered a severe diplomatic setback. Turkey had become a Great Power for a while and so went outside Germany's influence. After a while, it had become a Secondary Power again, and this time it ended up under Austria's influence. So the previous war against Turkey had been just a waste of infamy.

But the cocky Turkish Communists gave us a Casus Belli for a Place in the Sun. In fact, some Turks were found spying inside of German's Hedjaz protectorate. Our proud country is never afraid of a confrontation and yet another war was declared on the middle-eastern Proletarian Dictatorship.

The usual allies were called to arms : Italy, Iran and Egypt. By July 1902, Turkey had been soundly defeated.

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By then, Germany was at war with Spain, who had sent some spies into German territory as well, giving us an excuse for a war to get a Place in the Sun.

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In September 1902, Turkey sued for peace. They had to cede three provinces : Somaliland to Germany, Mosul to Iran and Albania to Italy.

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After a year, in September 1903, Spain sued for peace as well. The region Tangiers / Ceuta / Melilla (not sure how it is called) became German. It was not rich, but it was in a strategic position.

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There were important changes also inside of Germany. In fact, the unthinkable had happened - a Socialist Government had been formed in the Bourgeoise Republic.

There were two reasons for this. The first one was the hope this way the Communists would be appeased.

In 1903 our informators had found out that there were more than four million Communists in Germany, and if they revolted they would have formed 452 brigades. The revolutionary army would be bigger than Germany's professional army. It must be pointed out that most of the Communists were in China, were unemployment and misery were rampant. On the other hand, several soldier pops were communist as well.

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The second reason was more practical. It was the twentieth century but the German capitalists hadn't seemed to notice that. They weren't building any automobile, fuel, telephone, electronic parts and aeroplane factories. So it was obvious that the government had to do that, and a Socialist Government allowed Planned Economy. But don't worry, the Capitalists were doing well, since their management skills were still needed and of course they would still end up owning the factories.
Therefore, several modern factories were queued.

Oh yes, now I will show German factories in 1903. Inside of a spoiler though, since I guess most of you won't care.

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One added benefit of a socialist government are high taxes. We had been saving a lot in the last years. We had 20m - enough to finance several wars.

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In 1903, Italy wasn't part of Germany's sphere of influence any longer - it had become a solid Great Power. While a little diplomatic defeat in itself, both Italy and USA were guarenteeing their support in case Germany declared a war against any other Great Power. The preconditions for a Great War were there.

Conversely, Scandinavia had become a Secondary Power and ended up under Germany's influence. The Stettin Republic had been steadily investing in the spherelings economy, as this list shows.

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I love this game, especially the economic part. But regrettably this game throws a lot of information at you and nonetheless it is very hard getting an answer to a simple question - what kind of factory should I build ? But I created a spreadsheet aggregating the information from the trade and the production screens, in the year 1903. I sorted it by the column "Supply-Demand" - in my country, where supply is how much material is available (from the trade screen) and demand is how much pops, factories and government consume. It is not related to global supply and demand, which might also be interesting.

I wish there was a screen in the game which gives this kind of information, as seen in this picture :

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Numbers are rounded. Now looking at this spreadsheet it is obvious we should build more wine, telephone, automobiles and fuel factories - internal demand exceeds internal supply. We should also try to get more Timber and Iron.

It is also interesting to see where exported goods exceed the "Supply-Demand" difference - and where not. For instance, it makes sense producing more clothes since we are exporting them rather than using them to satisfy internal demand. On the other hand we are producing more glass than we can export and use to supply our pops and factory. So more clothes factories - yes, more glass factories - no.

One thing I wasn't sure about - you can actually export the goods you get from your spherelings. For instance, Germany isn't producing neither rubber not electronic parts - but it is exporting them since the spherelings are producing them.

The last thing I learnt creating this spreadsheet : government spending isn't going to pump up your economy, with the only exception of Canned Goods, Artillery and Steamer Factories.

In September 1903 the Conservatives were back into power.

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The Socialist government hadn't done anything to diminish the Communists's support - you couldn't fool them, the Capitalists would be still in power unless a revolution happened. Sometimes it felt like the Reds had smelt blood and no reform could be enough to satisfy them - only seizing power themselves would.

But the bourgeoise republic would never give up power voluntarily - that would be tantamount to admitting that what they had done until then was wrong. Nobody likes admitting they were wrong.
 
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That spreadsheet is fantastic, although I'm sure it was a lot of work!
 
@Avindian : Thank you ! It did take me some time....

@Repaxan : He is !

@vasziljevics : Thank you ! Actually, I am still learning myself...