So, I'm playing the good ole US o' A in my first shot at VIP (0.3). I'm rocking and rolling, accumulating badboy, etc.
The contenders for 1st rank are me and UK. Eventually, UK declares a badboy war on me in about 1885 or 1890.
Bizaarely, UK has only attained Commerce Raiders and Steamer Transports by this stage (which seems like extremely bad research AI). So my many ironclads and few battleships take the UK navy from 180 ships to 9 ships (2 MW, 2 raiders, 7 transports). I occupy all but a few provinces of the island of Britain, northern Borneo, Bangladesh and am marching for Delhi (they've already annexed British India). They offer northern Borneo and all their Nigerian/Cameroonian/Sudanese holdings, so I accept (having already made a separate peace with Canada).
Later on, I declare colonial war on one of UK's -300 prestige indian vassals. Britain honors the alliance, so I'm in a colonial war vs. them. I find that neither Malaysia nor any of British-owned India are colonial states.
Three things:
A) Maybe it's just a fluke that even by this second war (1900) UK did not yet have battleships. Anyone else seen crappy late game navies from UK in either 1.03b or 1.03b + VIP 0.3?
B) I like the British India idea. But would it be possible to make British India an Uncivilized state (with good technology, possibly by giving it high negative starting prestige and negative prestige events on it's dividend payments) so that when UK annexes it, it's still colonial? Otherwise UK is able to build factories and recruit military units of full (non-state) quality, yes?
C) Anyone who doubts the utility of navies in the game: with my superior navy I was able to invade and occupy the island of Britain (where there were only about 10 divisions) in the first war, and in the second war, was able to keep about 85 of UK's 180 divisions bottled up in Arabia while my forces in Egypt were safely protected by intervening Ottoman Palestine and land forces in unprotected South Africa instead of trying to break through heavily entrenched UK troops in Southern Congo.
There's an enormous joy in slaughtering transports, especially with the thought that they may be full rather than empty.
The contenders for 1st rank are me and UK. Eventually, UK declares a badboy war on me in about 1885 or 1890.
Bizaarely, UK has only attained Commerce Raiders and Steamer Transports by this stage (which seems like extremely bad research AI). So my many ironclads and few battleships take the UK navy from 180 ships to 9 ships (2 MW, 2 raiders, 7 transports). I occupy all but a few provinces of the island of Britain, northern Borneo, Bangladesh and am marching for Delhi (they've already annexed British India). They offer northern Borneo and all their Nigerian/Cameroonian/Sudanese holdings, so I accept (having already made a separate peace with Canada).
Later on, I declare colonial war on one of UK's -300 prestige indian vassals. Britain honors the alliance, so I'm in a colonial war vs. them. I find that neither Malaysia nor any of British-owned India are colonial states.
Three things:
A) Maybe it's just a fluke that even by this second war (1900) UK did not yet have battleships. Anyone else seen crappy late game navies from UK in either 1.03b or 1.03b + VIP 0.3?
B) I like the British India idea. But would it be possible to make British India an Uncivilized state (with good technology, possibly by giving it high negative starting prestige and negative prestige events on it's dividend payments) so that when UK annexes it, it's still colonial? Otherwise UK is able to build factories and recruit military units of full (non-state) quality, yes?
C) Anyone who doubts the utility of navies in the game: with my superior navy I was able to invade and occupy the island of Britain (where there were only about 10 divisions) in the first war, and in the second war, was able to keep about 85 of UK's 180 divisions bottled up in Arabia while my forces in Egypt were safely protected by intervening Ottoman Palestine and land forces in unprotected South Africa instead of trying to break through heavily entrenched UK troops in Southern Congo.
There's an enormous joy in slaughtering transports, especially with the thought that they may be full rather than empty.
