January-June 1861, back to the colonies
So we are now really waiting for the secondary unification chain. Fortunately a few new inventions give me new things to do (and I can play PoN while cooking/doing other work, so its surprising how much progress you can make).
In the meantime, I can only hope for Austria to stumble into a war that at best brings in France as my defender and at worst means their alliance with Prussia is broken.
I think I am starting to see why for Single Player, PoN only has a few playable nations. In truth you are very locked into the nineteenth century norms and that means few wars between the major powers. Equally its worth remembering how unexpected were the events of 1859. Napoleon + Cavour could only get respective agreements to a defensive alliance and that meant hoping Austria would take the bait. Even as tensions rose in February, the British seemed to have mediated a settlement, making Austrian aggression unlikely. Some Italian history textbooks used to refer to this as the 'miracle of 1859' (guess they still do).
Anyway, first the regular reports and then the main events:
Manufactured Goods & other economic events
Non-Manufactured Goods
Again, my basic goal here is to keep the stocks under control and to meet the growing demand from China for my fish, cows, wine and cereals.
Happy People
These increases in population are welcome as they in turn want more goods to satisfy their needs
Replacements
Not much to say here. I am slowly building up an unused reserve which will be handy. Over time that is either a new formation or the means to pay the replacement costs of a major military upgrade.
Diplomacy
This shows the end of June only. There is little that is changing but I am slowly trying to bring more nations onto my 'best mates' list.
Events
I decide to invest cash into speeding up another of the techs that will have the effect of boosting demand for goods (in effect it increases demand by 10% in each of the 3 categories)
In my mind this is good as it creates domestic demand that I can meet either by production or by increased trade.
Another useful tech has fired that allows for more exciting colonial activities. I can send people off to look at the natives and the animals and things.
Note these loop back into improved prestige which I could really do with boosting.
I also set up a new trading post – this time in a coffee producing province (so I get a regular supply of 1 unit about every 2-3 turns)
Other events fire that improve the efficiency of some of my industry. I'll not list these but they tend to increase efficiency (ie more output for less input) or increase volume per factory (more input & more output).
But this one opens up a new, and rather useful, decision.
So that can be used to drive down militancy (good to use in Piedmont) and increases the development level (good for industrial and agricultural efficiency).
And my new merchant fleet goes off to the West Coast of America. Not only might this net me some more sales, but I fancy a cut of all that gold that has been discovered
Cavour steps down (ill-health), well he's not achieved much in any case
Prestige continues to be rather unimpressive
By June, the American Civil War looks pretty much resolved:
