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