Chapter 6: African Adventures
I've had a lot of free time lately
, so here we go again with another chapter - enjoy!
oh, no, not again....
When we left Denmark, it was
August 1870, and I had just gotten machine guns - let the African land-grab commence!
However, I have barely begun when a crisis erupts, as in
October 1870
Austria DOWs me again! Here you see a portrait of the Danish king on receipt of this news:
The situation goes from bad to worse:
my sole significant ally, the Netherlands, bails on me.
Oh, and this time Austria wants "Jylland", one of my two remaining home provinces (the part connected by land to Europe). This would be a huge blow.
I cast about for some cavalry to rescue me - and remember that in this game, unlike EU3, you can call an ally
after a war begins. I go through each of the other GP, and all say that an alliance is 'Impossible', with one exception, Prussia, who says 'maybe'. I ask them to ally with me - and they accept! YES!
What a difference Prussia makes
Even better yet, when I call them to help....
they accept! Oh frabjous day! They then take leadership of the war effort, which isn't great, but a very small price to pay.
The Prussians tear into Austria - (why oh why did they need me to get them to do this?): here's an example of the feeding frenzy, as Prussian armies swarm in to Austria:
Another sign of how overmatched I am is when I take a look at the Austrian navy - it was 37 ships last time -
and now it's 81! Luckily, the Prussians have been spamming their navy as well, with a little help from me (and I'm not being falsely modest here
) the Austrians are chased back to port.
The war ends in
June 1872, as Prussia ignores my request to have Austrian Holstein returned to me (oh well), and instead grabs Moravia. Whew!
I get another piece of nice news in
January 1873, when France allies with me - yes!
A-colonizing we go....
While this has been going on, I have already started colonizing Africa. There are so many options - I want provinces that (a) strategically, help 'block out' other GPs from expanding - the other coastal provinces, (b) economically, seem like they'll be the most valuable (I wind up going primarily by province size).
My first two choices are below: (1) Somaliland, to 'block out' the eastern coast of Africa and expand my toehold there, and (2) the few iron-producing provinces in Africa.
A Great power again
I get a big lucky break in
August 1873, when Danish explorers discover the source of the Nile.
This gives me almost a 50% bump in my prestige. A few months later, I am a GP again. Nice....
The Kenyan jewel
I continue steadily colonizing, my goal is to link my northern part with my southern part. I stumble across a big find in
February 1875 - coffee is ridiculously profitable. I discover this after colonizing Kenya.
My #1 province (by far), and #3, are these two recent additions. Wow.
The valley of the kings
At the urging of this forum (thanks all!), I try the 'Valley of the Kings' decision again, and this time it pays off big-time. First a small gain as Egypt allows me access to the tombs
but then a huge gain (like discovering the source of the nile), when I discover a tomb.
wow.
An opportunity squandered
There is a huge opportunity to knock down the UK several pegs, as in
February 1877 there is a successful rebellion in the UK.
Why is this huge? Because when a rebellion happens,
all alliances and sphere of interest are reset. In the case of the UK, that means that they've just lost a good chunk of India:
Note the big gray chunks that used to be green (this is the UK diplomatic view).
This is a golden opportunity for people like France, Russia, etc. to jump into India in a big way. Sadly, none of them do.
Why don't I? Because, in short, I feel that I already am hyper-expanding, and adding yet more masses of populace won't really add anything, especially when they can be taken from me easily by any other GP. Also, most of the knocked-loose areas are interior, which means I'd be trying to influence them rather than conquer them, and all my diplomatic influence is spent (fruitlessly) trying to knock Sweden into my SOI.
but yeah, this is kinda wimpy of me - maybe I should have tried to grab one. Let me see if anything is left when I resume playing
Coffee FTW
I learn from my Kenyan experience the value of Coffee, and grab Coffee whenever I can, as I'm expanding my two African 'halves' together. Check out this ledger from
April 1878:
My top 3, and 4 of my top 5, money-makers, are from Coffee.
More Prussian weirdness
Other than the one time I pulled them in, Prussia has done exactly nothing all game - not a single war against Austria - very very odd. In
1878 they finally bestir themselves - and DOW Egypt to grab a little piece of coastline near Ethiopia
Very odd.
Colonial expansion summary
By
April 1880, I have linked up - here's the new map of Africa:
(1) shows Danish africa.
However, the bad news is, my exclusive monopoly on this expansion is ending. Portugal (2) has expanded a little inland, the UK (3) is starting to colonize north from South Africa, and (off-map) France (4) is starting to colonize into West Africa.
One good effect of this is that I am now making pots and pots of money - my money worries are a thing of the past. I decide to not yet embark on a naval building spree, as my hope is that within 10 years I will have Cruisers. For now, I just let the money pile up.
One
bad effect of this is that Denmark is depopulating at a significant rate - from roughly 600K (total) to under 500K. This seems a price worth paying, though, as I've said before, it means no factories are being built, and the two I have are mostly empty. sigh.
Dogs that don't bark
After the first war with Austria, as you can see, this has been a quiet 10 years. I've been patiently waiting for any of the following to happen, and none have:
(1) Somebody (if not Prussia, maybe Russia or the OE) to get into a major war with Austria, at which point I could try to reclaim my lost lands
(2) Sweden to enter my SOI. I moved to the recommended 'broad front' strategy of attacking all countries with Russian influence, and still it hasn't helped.
(3) Transvaal to give me a border incident. I would like to annex them, but without a border incident this will cost me 20 infamy, and I'll also have to expel them from my SOI.
(4) The political situation to allow me to do some reforms - while the parties have fragmented mightily, the MIL is still very low, and I've come nowhere close to being able to do anything, like health care
Hopefully some/all of these will happen next chapter
- until then!