What do you think?

[demendoza]

As Spain, I decided to let the Netherlands in peace and colonize (from Japan to Newfoundland and Buenos Aires)
I think it´s a good idea, stopping the nonsense of the Spain-Netherlands war.
What is your opinion, Spain-players?

 

[Leprechaun]

Hmmm I played Spain just one time, and I didn't reach the time where the dutch revolt starts, but in order not to waste Dukats by building troops to keep the dutch down..... a good idea I think.
By the way in my last GC with Baden, the evil Spaniards ( just remembering the days when I was a boy and played Pirates!)
were terribly beaten up by everyone, so that a few new Countries started to exist....
Among them were The Netherlands, Sicily and Catalonia. Poor Spain!

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Pour dieu et mon droit

[This message has been edited by Leprechaun (edited 07-02-2001).]

 

[unmerged(673)]

Hi, de mendoza.
I'm playing as Spain. Now I'm in 1638 managing the 66% of the world.
The Low lands are still under my domination and very peaceful.

In 1553 I had a terrible war against France (the nº 1 in these years) in which they loose 250.000 men & 56 Ships and me 87.000 men & 22 ships. I let them to conquer Zeeland ( I only had a samll army of 5.000) and in the peace treaty I gave it to them, with Hainaut and Luxembourg,(to create a path in order to permit France reaching zeeland), waiting
for the insurrection.

The rebellion happens in 1559, and France send 80.000 men to pacify the region ....
But the rebellion explode again and again during 45 years. France had a 'vietnam' in north europe for all this time.My trap had worked with lethal accuracy.

In 1605 France had lost 450k men and the rebels from holland 600k.

In this years the war of religion seems to calm, but it's too late for France to get again the pole position in Europe, because I had finished the exploration and colonization of the whole World, and my armies and navy are the rulers .
(a fleet of 543 war galleons'543-24-118' and a total army of 618.000 men '552k-66k-612' )

At this point , in 8 months recapture the low lands completely, take 9 provinces of France in 3 wars and burn the few posessions
they have in Canada and in Africa.

They have no chance..... The 'holland vietnam' has been too much for them. Even Switzerland and the german states dare to fight against , actually, 'one of them'.

In 1638 I focused my attention in England, with an alliance with Scotland, and in my first war I got the catholic Ulster, Munster and Connaught inside my empire.

De mendoza, the diplomatie is as important as the militar performance.

Best regards

pd:This AAR will appear in web next month (I think)


------------------------------------------
'We have the courage sir, they only have long range guns'

 

[unmerged(668)]

Well done, admiral !!!

 

[unmerged(490)]

Isn't it more or less impossible to keep the Netherlands as Spain (unless you have conquored all of Europe bt then!)?

They have a +40% change of rebelling, so they are always in constant revolt, and they are no piddling little armies either. Suddenly, Holland goes *pop* and the level 3 fortress is rebel and the province contains 100,000 rebel troops! How are you supposed to fight against that.

If you leave them to attrition, they just get more troops the next month (40%+ chance!) or they declare independence. But if you hit them with your army, the province you moved your army from rebels, followed by Holland again next month.

It is very easy to waste 500,000+ troops on the Netherlands. So I never fight them.

On top of that they get King Billy when they do declare independence, who seems unbeatable (we are talking 5,000 Dutch infantry massacring 80,000 Spanish cavalry).

 

[Depp]

Actually, when I played portugal now up to 1650 or so, I had most of the world, but the majors was to tedious to take three provinces from all the time.
But the interesting part is that the spanish lowlands was rebelled controlled for 50 years or so, without the netherlands ever appearing. I though this was odd, they had all the provinces and even some french ones....

 

[unmerged(673)]

Originally posted by Rogan:
Isn't it more or less impossible to keep the Netherlands as Spain (unless you have conquored all of Europe bt then!)?

They have a +40% change of rebelling, so they are always in constant revolt, and they are no piddling little armies either. Suddenly, Holland goes *pop* and the level 3 fortress is rebel and the province contains 100,000 rebel troops! How are you supposed to fight against that.

If you leave them to attrition, they just get more troops the next month (40%+ chance!) or they declare independence. But if you hit them with your army, the province you moved your army from rebels, followed by Holland again next month.

It is very easy to waste 500,000+ troops on the Netherlands. So I never fight them.

On top of that they get King Billy when they do declare independence, who seems unbeatable (we are talking 5,000 Dutch infantry massacring 80,000 Spanish cavalry).

Hi, Rogan.
It's not impossible , as a matter of fact I only lost 3500 men in my flee of Flandes and because my army wasn't fast enough to escape from Amberes and it was caught by the rebels before reaching Artois.

The war :
1.- Frisia (Spanish-no army) is revolted (25k men in arms).
2.- (a month later)The Hague,Holland (Spain-no army)are revolted . (35k men in arms)
3.-Zeeland (France- 15k men)is revolted (40k men that hang up all french soldiers in two days)
4.- Flandes (Spain -5k men) is revolted. I hardly could escape from Amberes.

A few weeks after, a huge french army arrives, takes again zeeland and go back home. Next month, the rest of rebel armies have joined and re-take zeeland.

This army is defeated by another big french army of 100k men.
The provinces of Frisia ,Holland, Flandes & the hague belong to rebels, so, no more armies are raised up there, but zeeland is continuosly revolting.
(If in january the dutch army are cut to pieces, next month thousands of french heads are decorating the walls of Flessinga. )

This happens.....during almost 50 years.
When the first rebellion happened, Flandes (spa) had a +28% change of rebelling, and in Zeeland (fra) was a 21%.

I only went back to the low lands about 1620, when the change of rebelling was 0%, and, very easily, with only 2526 men lost in five sieges I recaptured all the provinces.

I'm actually in 1658 and the low lands is one of the more pacific countries in my empire.

Best regards Rogan

pd: I had a plan B if french hadn't been strong enough to do this effort during 50 years: take Flandes and offer the peace to rebels giving to them the 4 provinces of the north (Flandes is the only province that I really want).
I did it in a previous game and it worked.

 

[unmerged(554)]

There are two problems gamewise with the Dutch revolt.

One, you know it will come, and it will renew itself for a number of times, in force.

Two, the French, who were bitterly fighting amongst themselves at the time, might not be doing so in the game.

Thus, as Spain, you are almost never in the position the Spanish authorities were in - that they thought they could give enough attention to the rebellion to crush it smoothly, once and for all.

Certainly not in a multi-player game, where the French player would jump on this opportunity to attack a distraught Spain immediately.

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'I still see a spark in you.'
-The Thin Red Line

[This message has been edited by Delirium (edited 09-02-2001).]

 

[unmerged(490)]

Well, I am confused on 2 fronts:

1. How was the chance of rebellion only 28%? In my games it is always 40-50%.

2. The rebelling phase lasts for tens of years. How can you maintain a large enough army to keep them down so effectively? Especially if all the Spanish possesions rebel at once (often happens), so that you have to ship your men there. It also sounds odd that the rebel armies are so small - I find armies of 60k or so on average.

What difficulty level are you playing on?

 

[unmerged(90)]

Let NL get independent (save your troops).
When they get indep, attack them, take all provinces save the capital and don't bother anymore with it.

 

[unmerged(490)]

Yes, but don't annex!

I made the mistake of thinking that if I let them form into the netherlands I could then annex them back and hey presto, only 3% revolt risk. Nope! Goes straight back up to 40%+ again.

 

[unmerged(673)]

Originally posted by Rogan:
Well, I am confused on 2 fronts:

1. How was the chance of rebellion only 28%? In my games it is always 40-50%.

2. The rebelling phase lasts for tens of years. How can you maintain a large enough army to keep them down so effectively? Especially if all the Spanish possesions rebel at once (often happens), so that you have to ship your men there. It also sounds odd that the rebel armies are so small - I find armies of 60k or so on average.

What difficulty level are you playing on?

1.- My tolerance to Reformed was almost equal to catholic.
I usually have a province in Spain(S. NEVADA) which is muslim, and I have more religious tolerance with them in the game, but at this time,randomly, they converted to the catholic faith..., so I put more % of tolerance with the reformed.

2.-If the rebels doesn't get their objective of become a nation, come again and again till they succeed or after the council of ¿? they calm. (at least in my game)
I only had rebellions in Leon,Sicily,Sacramento and Barbados, but lasted a few months, till my expeditionary force from Sevilla (30k-10k-50),The Spanish-Inca army from Cuzco (40k-5k-40), and the Spanish-Aztec (50k-5k-20) army from Zacatecas arrived.


pd: I play with A.I. Agressive.

 

[unmerged(673)]

Originally posted by Rogan:
Yes, but don't annex!

I made the mistake of thinking that if I let them form into the netherlands I could then annex them back and hey presto, only 3% revolt risk. Nope! Goes straight back up to 40%+ again.

Hi again, Rogan.
In my case , as Spain, I don't have that problem because I'm only retaking my captured cities, not annexing new ones.

But there's one thing that is very interesting, the rebels always have a very strong moral, and only with superior weapons I could win in the battles, in the firing phase I low their moral drastically. In other case I'll be in serious danger, ¡¡they fight furiously ,like berserquers !!!

I always admire the courage in the battle.

 

[unmerged(850)]

anyone read Paul Kennedys excellent book 'Aufstieg und Fall der grossen Nationen' (approximately: rise and fall of the great nations; from the spanish of 1500 to the us in the last century)? There, the author deals with the question: Why didn't the habsburg alliance succeed in 'unifying' (haha) europe. His conclusion: It was a very close decision. The most important factors why they failed were:
1) strategic overstretching (due to too many conflicts in italy, nederlands, france, germany; against almost all european powers, not to forget the turks; religious intolerance sharpening the problem)
2) bad economic situation (almost no internal reforms, great internal imbalances; diaspora of jews and arabs; no homogenuous internal administration; too many internal powers opposing the crown, etc.)
His 'recommandation' for any spanish regent of that time: To leave the nederlands alone ;-)
Of course some sort of wise hindsight, but - that's what history is for, hu? ;-)
btw: Really fantastic game! Sort of what i have been waiting for years...

 

[unmerged(604)]

Hadrian,
Im just finishing rereading that book. This game made me want to read it again after so many years. It is an excellent book.

 

[Rio]

Hadrian and Arinvald,

Thanks for the comment on Paul Kennedy's book. I am looking for it as soon as I get a chance!

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Rio ~/|~

 

[unmerged(604)]

Rio,
You wont be disappointed.

 

[unmerged(850)]

Hi Arinvald && Rio,
reading such books really adds to the flavor of eu ;-) I don't know what excites me more: Finding Kennedys theorems approved by the game machine or finding the game machine up to its tasks to handle such delicate balances ;-)
Hadrian