Prussian micro AAR
Just a little update on this, Memnon asked if I could pull off the same with Prussia.
Well...
I did get started with Prussia and have played through to 1919.
Prussia is a fine example of how brilliantly challenging 1.02 actually is. Playing on Hard/Furious.
I spent a little time, before getting cracking, examining my needs and potential future needs, and discovered that Prussia was dangerously short on sulphur, I had to sell techs to other nations in order to afford an initial burst of colonialism focusing on Borneo, as well as Djibouti, Namibia and Cameroon, giving me a chance later on to buy or conquer the extra provinces from other expansionists.
Then I set about adjusting the Prussian budget to something which generated a small (£50) surplus.
One of the important things here is to build a paper mill and if possible a fabric factory, I chose to build initialy only in Berlin, this took advantage of the fact that unemployed workers elsewhere would migrate to the centre and when pops split they would find instant work in the new factories.
By the 1840s I was producing clothes and furniture in Berlin, Machine parts had been availble on the market for some time. (I assume the British or Belgians had sold them). War with Denmark saw Holstien annexed and Denmark itself largely absorbed into Prussia, with the Danish remnants a Prussian sattelite.
Colonial purchases had given me the provinces needed to claim Borneo and begin Sulphur production.
Diplomatically France, Britain, Austria, the USA and Russia were all friendly, me having spent a huge amoung of diplomatic capital to keep them that way.
The 1850s were a time of continued colonial expansion, Namibia and Cameroon become Prussian colonies. Djibouti became a state when a large pop of Clerks decided to make it home.
The 1860s saw the first glimmers of Prussian expansion to come, still needing sulphur, I looked around the world to find such a highly needed resource unguarded, and finaly found it in Peru, and expeditionary force of 15 Prussian Divisions under Crown Prince Frederick and von Moltke took two sulphur producing provinces and held off the reasonably large Peruvian army, which had inflicted defeats on all it's neighbors, after knocking the battered remnants around for a while we settled on me keeping my initial conquests, which were then fortified. 8 Divisions remained behind to supervise this.
Throughout this period I remained great friends with the Great Powers, even joining with Britain and France to check Russian expansionism in the Balkans.
It wouldnt last.
Disputes with Austria led to war, a long and bloody war which did near fatal damage to Prussia in terms of manpower and when that war was won and the North German states which wanted to had unified into a block France declared war over our plans to put a Prussian noble on the Spanish throne. It took the very last of Prussian blood and effort to take Paris before the large French armies could return from their war with Spain. The French capitulated and Germany was born. I immediately set about repairing relations with Austria and France.
I did have one major problem, my manpower was into large negative numbers most of my armies were weak, it was a problem that would take over a decade to solve. (Quite how this occured I'm not sure, perhaps the pops fled or died when the Austrians occupied large parts of Eastern and Southern Prussia?) It seemed realistic though, you can't expect to fight such a huge and costly war without suffering greatly for it. Given these problem an Alliance with Britan seemed the obvious solution, and indeed it wasn't until the Boer War that German troops took to the field again, and then to support our British allies, for which we took a small strip of the Transvaal in thanks.
By 1903 I had put together Joseph Chamberlain's dream alliance, the UK, Germany and the USA. relations with France and Austria were good, relations with Russia not quite so good. They declared war, and invaded East Prussia, which I had partially fortified, one battle saw 30 Russian and 14 German Divisions annihilated, a white peace was signed shortly therafter. Between then and 1914 the German military became the worlds strongest, it fought a small limited war with the Ottomans in Central Africa, and won huge new territories in a peace deal.
Our chain of fortifications, both in Alsace Lorriane and East Prussia assisted in preventing war. The the British Empire declared war on Russia which had been busily expanding into China and recently Austria. The Russian troops refused to assault the double line of trenches I had prepared. An Anglo-German invasion of the St. Petersburg area supported by German and British Battleships and some 50 Divisions were more than the Russians could cope with and by 1917 the war was won, huge tracts of land expanded East Prussia into historic Poland and Lithuania, with a few bits of Austo-Hungary thrown in (which I gave back to Austria). Germany was ranked 3rd as a great power, behind China 1st and the UK 2nd. The USA was 4th.
China interestingly enough has a staggering industrial capacity, but a weak military and not particularly huge exports, it seems that the majority of her production is absorbed by her huge population.
I'd have to say that this game challenged me much more than my British game , diplomacy was once again the key to gaining enough time to grow and then important in building an alliance able to maintain my place in the world.
Joe Chamberlain believed that an alliance of the British Empire, Germany and the USA would be the arbiter of international power and guarantor of world peace, it seems like he was right, no other nation or collection of nations is capable of challanging this alliance successfully. One thing I think this diplomacy model is lacking is an option to threaten war to countries mobilising for war, this was a feature of C19th Diplomacy and is featured in a few events, it should be added as a new diplomatic option, this would allow powerful alliances to prevent as well as instigate war.
The budget is also important, as Prussia I had to do what historically all nations did, maintain a lowish military budget in peace so I could educate the population, and ramp up spending in war time, whilst cutting back on education spending. Nicely realistic.
Next up I think will be Sardina-Piedmont, as I havent seen Italy unify even once so far.
