Chapter 2: The Central American Wars; Part 1
As we can see in the image, Durango temporarily reached a population growth that was scarily close to being half of my total population growth. Think 40%. Clearly, this province will soon be one of my most profitable, if it isn't already.
Next, nicely highlighted and underlined in red, we have something that I unbelievably forget to screenshot. We have declared war on the USCA, which has already started to break up. At this point, and shortly thereafter, I am also able to justify wars to Annex both Nicaragua and Honduras. I declare war with the hope of taking the province of Tapachula in the Chiapas region, which starts as my core. War with the USCA will also in effect yield me military access to Honduras and Nicaragua for when I declare war on them.
As we can see, I clearly have the military superiority over the USCA, in sheer numbers if nothing else. I am able to quickly overrun the USCA's army (this is it, folks), and begin sieging their provinces out two at a time. Everything is going according to plan.
This screenie contains a lot, so I'll take us through it step by step. Grabbing our attention in the center is the event proclaiming Culiacan a Gold province. This province happens to be in the same state as Durango, so the population of that state should grow significantly more than any other. As well, fewer immigrants will move to Durango, preferring Culiacan since, in effect, there's no difference between them. To the left of the event we can see "chula" slanted diagonally on the screen. Tapachula has already been sieged, and since it was the wargoal, I'm doing pretty good here. To the right of the screen we can see more bad guys marching towards us. These are NOT USCA troops, instead I believe that they are Nicaraguans marching into battle with us (I think I declared war on Nicaragua first). As we can see, I have a fairly comfortable troop advantage across the theater, and also am sieging or have sieged all but one USCA province. (El Salvador doesn't count, as it will soon be independent) This should be a cakewalk.
Basic Chemistry completes in the middle of the War, so I decide to improve my military tech. But why am I not getting Muzzle Loaded Rifles or Artillery tech? In PoD, military technology has been rebalanced. Researching this tech is very important for me, as it doubles the base organization for my troops, meaning that they can stay in battles twice as long, and also stand a much better chance when outnumbered. Anyways, nothing of note really happens for a short while, as the Central American States can't really hold up to big brother Mexico, and pretty soon the situation looks like this:
Wait, what? Didn't I just say that we had a massive military advantage, and that everything was going fine? Why are our enemies sieging back USCA lands? Surely Honduras entering the war didn't have
that big of an effect?
Hmm, Spain's at war now. They are still a Great Power, and their military is definitely on par with Mexico, probably better. Maybe this is the reason that the war is swinging around?
Yeah, if you thought that, you were dead wrong. Turns out that rebels are annoying. Provinces sieged by rebels provide just as much War Exhaustion as provinces sieged by enemy nations, so taking out these guys pronto was my number 1 priority. And as you can see from the screenshot, taken just 11 days after the previous two, we're pretty good at stomping rebels.
(But I would keep an eye on the budget there, that's looking pretty red.)
So, with the rebels defeated, we march back South with a general that is so bad, that having no leader is actually significantly better. This should end well.
But clearly, despite not having good leaders, we should win these battles. We have overwhelming numerical superiority, and their troops are probably worse than mine. I attempt to pincer them in with both armies in the Yucatan.
Unfortunately, the majority of the troops manage to get away. All of those lumbering artillery can slow an army down, especially with poor leaders. Luckily, I am able to trap these men after quickly beating down their comrades. With the Central American troops defeated for now, the War is looking good. Or is it.
Spanish ships have been sighted off the coast of Mexico, and they're blockading my fleet (which was built in order to land troops in Nicaragua or Honduras, if need be), and I'm actually very surprised that they haven't landed a nice big 30k stack on me.
Before we get to that point, I'd just like to celebrate the first step in the long road to, hopefully, industrial might; my first Factory!
Anyways, what was that about ominous reversals of fortune, what's going on? Let's see.
Son of a ... And they sieged out my best province first!
Ok, that's it, no mercy for these rebel punks! :angry:
Fighting Rebels, Next time on:
The Southern Eagle: A Mexico AAR!