Looking at the ledger trying to determine future strategy I found a lot of things to be quite surprising. I thought I’d share my findings with you
Firstly we have the victory point graph that, frankly, holds no surprises as I have yet to se a MP game where Spain is not ahead from start to finish. I’d like to brag that this is the result of good Spanish play but it would have taken truly incompetent Spanish play to screw up her VP standing.
The wealth Graph, while not terrible informative, also indicates that Spain is by far the wealthiest nation in the world followed by the Netherlands and France as a third. I think if this leads to any boosting the Dutch have most to be proud of here.
The development of economic techs also indicates the Spanish-Dutch domination though much of the game with the United Provinces concentrating on trade and Spain on infrascture.
Land technology is perhaps most notable for how far behind Spain was in much of the period while everyone in the Latin tech group seems to be running neck and neck now. The ability of the Ottomans to keep in the running is quite impressive really.
http://www.ulver.dk/files/leger/\land.jpg[/IMG]
Navy technology reveals the massive lead the Dutch held for centuries while Spain seems slightly ahead now. Most interesting, perhaps, is how non-Latin tech group countries have been left far behind.
Finally it becomes clear that the sun truly never sets on the Spanish empire spanning the globe. I was frankly surprised to see that Russia have only recently overtaken the Dutch as number two in size.
At first glance the size of the worlds navies would seem to indicate the Ottomans are in the running but it should be pointed out that those galleys belong in history books – not on the high seas. There are really only two navy powers in existence. Spain and the Netherlands
[IMG]http://www.ulver.dk/files/leger/navyforces.jpg
The listing for army powers frankly shocked me. To my utter astonishment I found Spain to have been consistently among the great land powers and – completely unexpected - turns out to have the greatest army in existence at this time. I should be pointed out that much of it is spread out across the empire and thus not available for the point of decision in any conflict but still. I actually field more firepower then France.
The breakdown of the world’s greatest navy and army is as follows
The bulk of my expenses come from maintaining my cannons while the bloated fleet seems surprisingly affordable. Finally Spanish losses for anyone interested. Interesting that I have disbanded over a thousand cannons in this game.
The Versailles event put France firmly in 2nd place.
