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A great update to the story there!:) Can't wait for the next part!
 
Whoa...good story update. :D You're a virtuoso of the AARs my good man! Good thing though that the Brits (who I assume were the target?) haven't gotten VT Proximity Fuze's from the Yanks yet. :D
 
Great battle scene Renss. Very well done, it seems like your air forces managed to catch an almost defenceless convoy, and the few escorts around didn’t give you much problems. If you continue like this maybe you will be able to hurt the British so much that they will be interested in a peace treaty...
 
Great scene - I really enjoyed seeing "Chita" finally in action. Let us hope her first kill is a good omen for your coming campaign. No one can ignore the Imperio Novo now ;).

Looking forward to the continuation!
 
Well written! I really enjoyed reading that! Looking forward to the next update. :rolleyes:
 
Good, believeable, scene with the Condor. A successful attack, but not too much so.

Your war has started and Portuguese conduct so far reminds me a bit of a hyena. Not so much the picking at dead carcasses, more the opportunistic hunting. :) It suits you pretty well, so far. As far as France goes, is it good or bad that the territories next to Cabinda will form the nucleus of Free France after the Vichy events? You're guaranteed hostility from those quarters and since the Free French don't really have the means to do much else, I suspect you might bear the brunt of their attention.

So you've invaded Saigon. What's that saying about getting involved in a land war in Asia again? ;)
 
16Sep39EyeballHK.jpg


Who's attacking Guangxi???
 
Have been lurking since the start but only just bought the game and registered. A great read and a great tutorial for economic micromanagement (critical with the minors).

Looking forward to the rest of the story.
Thanks, Shepherd! Welcome!

As a longtime lurker (since the first post of this Portugal AAR!) and first-time poster for AAR threads, I'd like to say I'm thoroughly enjoying the reading and watching with anticipation. Thank you very much, Rensslaer, for the story you've told so far and I look forward to following the story through to the very end!
Excellent, LaBretonniere! Glad you're enjoying. Welcome!

At last it begins! We will see if Portugal is prepared to defend and expand it long stagnating empire! I'm surprised Denmark decided to fight, maybe with Sweden as a close ally they had a little more incentive.

I'm hoping for some good stories out of these battles aswell!
Yes, I will be covering the interesting war outside of Portugal's own sphere's of influence. Some interesting things going on, though I'm not sure how atypical they are.

I hadn't posted on your AAR yet, but I must say it is very well written and very exciting. I hope the Condor does what it supposed to do, kill ships. It seems like a balancing act with the resources and your far flung units. Anyway, all the best!
Welcome, BoemsiBoemsie! Thanks for your kind words, and for taking the time to comment! I think you'll be happy with the Condor squadron. I am! :)

It would be very interesting to see a Portugese Empire over Africa. Go beyond the Pink Map!
Yes, I'll definitely be trying to expand beyond that. Welcome, HMAS-Nameless!

awesomeness! the anticipation of how the woar will turn out can be felt in the air. Yeah that situation in Cabinda is pretty scary. Even if you would attack the Belgians too early, your forces would be weaker and the French would notice. but as long as your transport fleets can hop around unmolested in that part of the world, you can use the same division for protecting more than one province at the same time.
I have a special plan to deal with the marauding Royal Navy... You'll see! :D

Hmmm, yeah from where I am, things look like they could go ok, or not well at all. Do you think you'll be able to pop more men into Africa? I guess you've already had a look at military access into HK.
Yes, testing with military access in both, Spain and Hong Kong (the Guangxi approach) proved untenable, because by the time my units were to get where they would need to be to attack, they'd be out of supply. The only practical way into Hong Kong is by sea, unfortunately. Fortunately, the same is true of Macao.

Great job at early getting additional IC :)
Aha! This is part of my grand, strategic plan -- cherry picking IC and resources provinces where I can.

Nice start to the war. It seems that progress during the first days of warfare was pretty good, and your conquest of Saigon was a clever move, especially considering the French will soon surrender if the Germans keep up their momentum. At the moment you are able to sail your ships around, but I fear that soon the oceans will be a dangerous place for your small fleet. I am actually surprised that your naval forces in the Far East haven’t been attack by the British yet, have they removed all their naval forces from Hong Kong and Singapore?
Well, Saigon soon becomes a part of what might seem a hilarious "keystone cops" operation, which should provide plenty of entertainment, but also lots of nail-biting suspense! Much to come, on this subject! :D

Wow, I just started reading it today, it drew me in very fast!

Keep up the good work. :)
Thanks! Glad to have you along! Welcome, Red Communist!

Won't Saigon's province be granted to the Vichy when France surrenders, regardless of who holds it now?
(All of French Indochina, for that matter, so that Vichy France can grant Japan use)
Actually, in v1.2 conquered French territory goes to the "controller" (the conquerer) when the event occurs, along with some other interesting stuff.

yay! an index no more worrying about missed posts.

Great job so far, I'm looking forward to the war to come.
That's right -- thanks for your suggestion!

For those who might have missed the announcement, you can find the Index of Updates here.

The text in that notification seems to be horribly off.
Yes, I've been playing Paradox games for a long time, and even Victoria, after about 4 years in release and patching, still had these odd text errors. After all, I only know for sure of one guy in the Paradox office whose native language is English, so.... :rolleyes: There are more game-critical bugs to be tracking down right now.

The hunt for prey, a fantastic scene! :D
Thanks! :D I appreciate your kind praise!

A great update to the story there!:) Can't wait for the next part!
Thanks! The next few updates will be gameplay style, but there will be more fictional interludes...

Whoa...good story update. :D You're a virtuoso of the AARs my good man! Good thing though that the Brits (who I assume were the target?) haven't gotten VT Proximity Fuze's from the Yanks yet. :D
Thank you very much! This is the first time I've tried a "gameplay-narrative" mix. My first AAR was "narrative-historybook", followed by a pure narrative AAR, followed by a couple of pure gameplay AARs. I'm still feeling out the process for this, but it's good to be able (to have an "excuse" to!) to write fiction again!

Great battle scene Renss. Very well done, it seems like your air forces managed to catch an almost defenceless convoy, and the few escorts around didn’t give you much problems. If you continue like this maybe you will be able to hurt the British so much that they will be interested in a peace treaty...
Thanks! I suppose I could look in the files, or start as UK, to see how many escorts they're sending. Not sure, but I'm just guessing.

Great scene - I really enjoyed seeing "Chita" finally in action. Let us hope her first kill is a good omen for your coming campaign. No one can ignore the Imperio Novo now ;).

Looking forward to the continuation!
I was looking forward to finishing that scene, too. Just did it this week, though I'd planned alot of it out already. More to come...

Well written! I really enjoyed reading that! Looking forward to the next update. :rolleyes:
Thanks! Hopefully another update tomorrow or so.

Great story you've got here Rensslaer. Can't wait for your update.
Thanks! And Welcome, Messenger!

Good, believeable, scene with the Condor. A successful attack, but not too much so.

Your war has started and Portuguese conduct so far reminds me a bit of a hyena. Not so much the picking at dead carcasses, more the opportunistic hunting. :) It suits you pretty well, so far. As far as France goes, is it good or bad that the territories next to Cabinda will form the nucleus of Free France after the Vichy events? You're guaranteed hostility from those quarters and since the Free French don't really have the means to do much else, I suspect you might bear the brunt of their attention.

So you've invaded Saigon. What's that saying about getting involved in a land war in Asia again? ;)
Always appreciate your feedback, especially on narrative scenes! And you've caught the essence, yes -- an opportunistic offensive strategy to take advantage of the weaknesses of a very strong opponent (or two!).

Thanks also to Karelian, Pier, Kigrwik, Aldriq, Beppo, Th3freakie and Exterous for your comments! Anyone else out there?

As I mentioned, update coming soon -- tomorrow or the next day at the latest. Pix are done, just need to comment upon them. I'm getting a system down -- now I just have to figure out how to expand my free time despite so many demands for work-work.

Thanks again!

Rensslaer
 
16Sep39EyeballHK.jpg


Who's attacking Guangxi???
That's an early Japanese invasion attempt. Strangely, they never tried to expand it, and the Guangxi never seemed to do anything to get rid of it. There may have been fierce combat underway that I just didn't notice, but I'm not sure.

Rensslaer
 
Still in those critical early days of war, we landed a garrison division by sea in the port of Catio (just south of the Portuguese port of Bissau). Now, that same division is being landed at the undefended French port of Conakry.

19Sep0800Conakry.jpg


Our cavalry is moving north from Bissau to take the province south of British Gambia, so we can assault that colony from north and south.

Portugal’s submarine squadron had been deployed to the Cape Verde Islands, and is currently operating against shipping passing by our colony at Bissau. They first hit a French transport, and then later the same day another British one!

19SepReinforceCabinda.jpg


Portuguese tactical bombers are busy bombing the French division outside of Cabinda. The battle is going tolerably well in Cabinda. There are two units already in combat, defending the colony, and we’ve landed a second garrison division to bolster defenses there. Once that division was able to get into the battle, the French realized their leverage against the colony had disappeared, and decided to stop the battle.

The defenders of Hong Kong still include an HQ, a garrison division and a second infantry division. We’ve departed Saigon (riskily) with our marauding infantry division, and are now threatening Kuching, the only British naval base on the north coast of Borneo.

19Sep1200Kuching.jpg


Having taken Kuching, we’ve flushed some British transports out of port. We send our transport in, and our destroyers go out in pursuit of the enemy, as well as to do some scouting. Notice that we’ve just captured 78 supplies and 106 fuel units here at Kuching, which denies these (and their only naval base for replenishment) to the British divisions operating to the north of Kuching. Scouting shows more units here than there were in v1.1c – another sign of improved colonial defenses in this version. The defenders seem to be colonials from India.

20SepKuchingSupply.jpg


What I’m discovering, from both my submarines and my FW 200 convoy raiders, is that the enemy convoys change their route very quickly after being attacked. I rarely can “fish the same hole twice.” So I have to vary my convoy raiding routes constantly (the AI does this for me with the subs, not so with the naval bomber). After a single success, early in the war, our naval bombers didn’t find anything else until we spot a British naval squadron passing nearby. We attack, but do not come away successful.

19Sep1500FW200.jpg


As soon as our garrison landed in Conakry (capturing yet another Allied port, as well as the supplies there, and making supply to the interior just that much more difficult), it was attacked by the British defenders of Freetown, in Sierra Leone.

20Sep0200ConakryBatt.jpg


The defensive qualities of garrisons being what they are, my two brigades are able to hold their own on defense against the 3 British infantry brigades (which are doubtless of a higher tech quality than even my own infantry). This is good, because I was counting on this when I planned my strategy. The -40 terrain penalty for attacking mountains, of course, is welcome.

Our scouting destroyers found that we’re opposed in Borneo by an HQ brigade, and two full infantry divisions. Hmm…

20Sep0800Surprise.jpg


But they did also find and chase the British transports out of the way. It’s possible they could have caused trouble for us if the AI understood how to grab units away from naval bases, which to my knowledge it doesn’t. We weren’t able to engage them in battle.

20Sep0900Rebase.jpg


Having had less luck in convoy raiding than early on, our FW 200 flies down to Cape Verde to attack these convoys which are currently supplying the British and French colonies of West Africa. Our tactical bombers rebase to Conakry in order to lend air support against the British in Freetown.

Midday on the 20th, our cavalry captures Kolda, and they combine with the garrison in Dakar to launch an attack upon the single brigade of Royal Marines in Gambia. The attack seems to give us favorable odds (I should hope so!) despite the fact I have only 4 brigades, my cavalry is crossing a river, and that one of my divisions is only a garrison.

20Sep1800Guinea.jpg


Meanwhile, I’m scouting out similar pickings by observing the Slave Coast of Africa. The Allies seem to have positioned quite a few garrisoning divisions in these ports, so we’ll have to be more creative in how we attack them.

21SepScoutAfricanCoast.jpg
 
Very good, very good. Small scale picking of sweet little cherries, well done! :)
 
Nice work!:)
 
I agree that the adoption of the "stick & move" tactic is the best for Portugal right now. However, it seems to me that your long term success can only come from Germany and Italy doing their level best to distract and weaken the Allies. If that "war" stagnates then the French and British can turn some of there attention toward you and brush you aside as if a pesky little fly. :rolleyes:
 
Oh, excellent! Greece should be fun. Interesting location, enough on the periphery of what's going on to be not immediately steamrolled, but near enough to have a certainty of action with Italy, etc. Will you do an AAR, in addition to your USSR one? Not that I'm necessarily recommending multiple simultaneous AAR projects. I know from experience that can be difficult and time consuming.

I've thought about it, it's been a really interesting game, but I probably won't do a full AAR for it since I'm already not updating my current one!:rolleyes:

I can see you're having an interesting game of your own though. Seems like you're making good progress early on, nibbling away at the peripheries. I'm interested to see how well the AI reacts to fighting in disparate theatres of operation.
 
I suspect that your troops will be fairly safe, as long as you keep up this hit and run strategy. How long you can hold those provinces you gain is another matter, but even if the Allies retake all of them, you'll have caused them considerable irritation - and you'll have gained a few nice resources, here and there! This war might just pay for itself! ;)
 
I don't have the game nearby at the moment, but I have a question: does it make strategic sense to try to conquer Africa ? I seem to recall that it's modelled as a big (huge) area without any resource, industry, leadership, etc.

Wouldn't it be better to try to grab some land elsewhere ? (The East Indies move look good).

I'd welcome input from anyone, my question is not aimed exclusively at Rensslaer.
 
The greater number of coloinal defenders make your strategy harder toi execute and the reduced number of troops on home soil may speed their countries demise faster, which further reduces the number of gains you can make.

You're clearly going for IC. You're not running into the British, French or Dutch navies in the Pacific.ot sure , if you can gain IC raiding Australia or the Dutch East Indies.

You'd like for the British to take all their Hong Kong garrison on to ships to attack a level 2 fort in Macao and you to have have subs to sortie against the British transports and escortsto cut off retreat, You'd need an air field in Macao to bomb the costal fort in Hong Kong otherwise.

That British Marine brigade looks doomed in Gambia once you have cut off its lines of retreat. You can move your troops from one coastal province to another faster by sea transport than you can by walking there.

Cabinda's garrison is strongenough to act as a magnet for allied troops and sizeable enough to defeat attempts to take it. That should include South African troops, leaving their homeland vulnerable to coastal hopping.
 
Having just captured Kuching, I’ve gained a gold mine of resources there. When you capture a port (this I did not know), you also capture whatever resources have built up there, waiting to be shipped. Apparently, even the British weren’t able to fully gather in all the resources at this port before I got there, and so some of my initial convoys carried hundreds of units of crude oil and rare materials home. You can see some still flowing, but there was a flood at first. I need more escorts.

Sep22-0000-Convoy.jpg


You can see I’ve placed more convoys, and some escorts, into my production queue as early as the 5th day of war. This is because, having captured about six or seven new ports (Dakar, Douala, Saigon, Conakry, Kuching… and I think some other smaller ones) in these first days of war, I’ve already seen enormous stresses upon my early convoy and escort fleets – one convoy to take supplies and fuel out, one convoy to bring stockpiled resources back home for my national stockpile. Convoys to places further from home use more convoy ships… You can begin to imagine my yawning fear that I’m way behind the curve in convoy contruction… Because my whole strategy is based upon the capture of new naval bases across two oceans!

Fortunately, my submarine has begun to also score claims against the enemy convoy routes. They need convoys too, for their far flung empires. Ironically, I’m quickly relieving them of the same stresses on my convoy fleets they started with!

Sep21-0900-SaigonLost.jpg


Easy come, easy go! Our destroyers are scouting out possible landing sites in Singapore and Kota Bharu (British Malaya), and the invasion force that took Saigon is in Kuching. Now, I did see a French HQ unit way up the coast from Saigon, but I really didn’t think it would have the speed to make it back to Saigon so quickly. Apparently, I was wrong. We’ll deal with that later – I have limited resources, but I’m crafty.

Finding the British forces along the Gold Coast and Slave Coast of Africa garrisoning their ports, I’ve landed at Kumasi (without a port). The defenders at Accra instantly attack me (with motorised infantry, no less! – two regular brigades and a motorised brigade).

22Sep-1000-GoldCoast.jpg


Now that western Africa is pretty much secured the way I want it (I’ve taken all the ports along that stretch of coast), I start looking around for more targets. I sent an expedition to Ascension Island, in the mid-Atlantic, but it was garrisoned, so we’re coming back up toward the port of Abidjan, in French Cote d’Ivoire, because it appears to be ungarrisoned. My other transport is hanging out nearby, just in case the British defeat my unit before I have a place for them to retreat to. And I’ve positioned my submarine subron just outside the Accra harbor, waiting to see if the British will venture forth to attack my navy.

22Sep-1600-Ascension.jpg


Meanwhile, back in Asia, I’ve noticed that the French HQ unit is again heading back up the coast – the same as it was when I first saw it. I have no idea what urgent task it’s on, but it’s left Saigon unprotected again. I had another division en route to Kuching from Hong Kong – meaning to capture more of the Borneo coast and maybe deal with those British units there – but I turn him around to head back to Saigon.

23Sep1900Saigon.jpg


My transport arrives at an undefended Ivory Coast, and he begins his invasion. My bombers are bombing the marines at Bathurst (Banjul), unmercifully, and my divisions are closing in there, too. And in French Indochina, on the 25th, our division recaptures Saigon, and begins marching up the coast to try to find this inattentive headquarters and destroy him.

24SepKumasi.jpg


At Kumasi, now that he has someplace to retreat to, I decide there’s no point in losing more of my precious troops. This strong infantry division in Accra will have to be defeated by guile, not by brute force (not yet, anyway). By leaving my captured ground behind, I’m thinking I may have left a vacuum he will feel compelled to fill. If he does…

My dumb luck has finally run out in the Atlantic. I had just captured more ground in French West Africa, completing a land supply route from Dakar all the way down to Conakry, when one of my small fleets was surrounded by French submarines!

25SepNavalBatt.jpg


They savaged my destroyers, which did their job in screening the transports, most of which escaped. I did take a bite out of one of their subrons. I’m not likely to survive another of these encounters though. They’re costly! Such is the lot of one who’s handicapped with such an impotent naval force. I use it as best I can, and sometimes I get burned.

You might have noticed Chief Ragusa’s comment, just a moment ago. Very timely! In the screenshot below, you’ll see my first use of the tactic he recommends – he points out that it’s faster to conquer a shoreline by sea, than by overland travel. So I’ve loaded my infantry division at Saigon onto a transport, and I’m stairstepping him up the coastline by one amphibious landing after another, building a supply line as I go. We’ll catch up to the HQ at some point (and then you’ll see some interesting stuff!).

25SepIndochina.jpg


We get transit rights from Spain – not sure how we’ll use that yet. The South Africans have taken our city at Lourenco Marques, Mozambique (one of Portugal’s Victory Point provinces, because it’s the Mozambiquan colonial capital, but it has no other value to me). Our Tac Bombers have switched their target from Bathurst, where those marines have just admitted defeat and begun retreating into the African desert toward Diourbel, and have begun bombing the British at Freetown, hoping to keep our garrison from defeat by them. I’m also trying to get reinforcements to that battle, but the French submarine menace is making me wary of transport by sea.

Sep26Diourbel.jpg


Above, you can see my breadth of conquest along the west African coast, as well as the dry destination of those marines… Swim those dry riverbeds, Tommy! I wasn’t sure, yet, if they’re worth pursuing. Ultimately, I decided that I needed a “warning” province – a buffer, which they would have to take before they could attack the provinces I’d value. That way, they couldn’t sneak up on me. So I send my cavalry into the desert to take Diourbel, too. That will cover that avenue of attack, and then I’ll also use the cavalry to take the province of St. Louis, to the north of Dakar, for the same purpose. I have to use quick cavalry for that, as moving garrions is slow as molasses!

Sep26Lome.jpg


My submarines are still screening my movements along this dangerous Slave Coast as I land another garrison at Lome, in the French-held colonies of Togo and Dahomey (Togo is a former German colony). This has the effect of bracketing the British at Accra. I’ll have to figure out how best to use that leverage….