Victoria; An Empire Under the Sun

[Tyr]

I decided to play a Prussia game too.
Easier than i remember due to Revolutions. It plays the game for you in many respects.
First war; I jumped on the Netherlands. Just for fun. Belgium took nothing from them in their war and Luxembourg is German dammit! Took Luxembourg and satalited them.
Second war; that one over S-H with Denmark. Meh. Took S-H. Satalited Denmark. Cheated to get Virgin Islands (the way the game works means I couldn't demand it in the peace )

Also somewhere along the way I got an event war with Burma (just took Rangoon) and crushed no prestige Borneo (I needed wood!).

Come Crimean war I went to war with Russia fully expecting to reload a earlier save but...it went well. I took loads of the west of their country and St.Petes. Demanded a peace giving me the Baltics, Poland and even bits of Belarus before the tide turned (they were finally getting their act together...) and before I went totally bankrupt.

Oh. And I'm a democracy.
Had a bit of a wrestling match going on there.
Just wanted to go con.monarchy if anything but it went out of control to democracy...then a reactionary dictatorship. It was HARD to get the dictatorship to turn off and a democracy to stay. Bloody annoying bug.

Next on my list: Egypt has low prestige....

[Zyzzyva]

The day after I saved the game and took my screenshots, the situation in Germany gelled somewhat: Everybody except Baden and, uh, Pfennig-Halbpfennig or something, got folded into the federations. The six german states now have three great powers (Me, Austria, NGF) as wellas the # 10 slot (SGF). The other two are perpetually insolvent, have no armies, and are only still independant because I suspect I can get them for free in the Franco-Prussian event chain. More on that later.

[Zyzzyva]

America: I could have sworn Columbia existed, but maybe that was one of my Brazil games. Anyways, since this photo, the CSA folded at the two year mark, the US made white peace with everyone, and Britain established a megaCanada encompasingthe entire BNA except Newfoundland (inevitably ) and, for some reason, Wyoming (apparently Dave's still around in 1870).

[Zyzzyva]

Fianlly, Africa. I started taking over colonies right around 1861, since I had been prepping for MachineGun, butI've been having to work my way down the coast for lack of naval bases nearer than Konigsburg. So the British got Nigeria, but I have every other scrap of coast unclaimed in 1836 between Morocco and Angola.

[Zyzzyva]

The Franco-Prussian war failed to fire, since we still technically had a peace treaty from when the French jumped on me in '66 post-mobilization. I ended up nevilling my way out of that, but it meant the actual war event never happened. France passes the 8 months before the treaty wore off by having a revolution, a republic, and a commune; I figured that was supposed to happen because of the war but hey, whatever. Come '71 I DOWed them, mauled their armies in Alsace-Lorraine, and made a mad dash for Paris. I didn't want to get caught by the enourmous French Army, and I didn't. Hmm, I wonder where it could have gone?


Playing on "retarded opponents" has some advantages, apparently.

[Zyzzyva]

Anyways, my troops moved into Paris right on schedule, just as a 9-division army was vacating the city for points south - these troops were from the Belgian border, I guess, but now that the Prussians were swarming over the border, they were urgently needed... down in Algeria. I took Paris without a fight.



Once the whole "bow before Bismark" thing in Versailles was over, we were done with France, and left. The troops were needed back home - most of the troops and provinces I inherited were all well and good, but Bavaria had apparently been staffing their army with the dregs of their prisons, because about thirty seconds after this photo there was a massive uprising of Anarcho-Syndicalists, including two whole divisions. Ugh. So, anyways, I stomped Munich underfoot with six army corps, then turned my attention to Africa.

[juanml82]

Lol, the AI does that with France. It keeps a huge army... in Algeria and Indochina. If you decide to challenge the French navy you can cut France... from her army. And it's not a long way to Paris from the English Channel either

[Zyzzyva]

Skip ahead a few years:



I took over Ethiopia, Madagasgar,and Zanzibar, after they all went bankrupt (god, I love that 300-prestige hit! Free countries for all!)

The brits like it too, since they made a grab at Sokata, which failed, due to... I dunno... Redvers Buller or something, they made a white peace. I then DOWed Sokata while the brits still had a treaty, and picked it up for nothing. They had two dragoon divisions! How did the brits lose?

The brits went for Egypt, which I had had my eye on but was too busy eating Sokata to take just yet. Well, I couldn't let them take it all - and they got the invasion right this time, amphibious-landing all over the place, taking out three-quarters of Egypt's military points in about a month. I got my native Ethiopia-Repression brigade (from Togo, obviously - never hurts to keep your troops from revolting) to run up into the Sudan and grab as much as possible. That amounted to three crappy desert provinces; the brits got the rest, then turned them over to puppet-Egypt. Ah, well, I kept the brits from getting out into North Africa.

The whole colonization thing plays a lot like go; the brits and me have alternating cycles of having all of our buildings come due at once, so there's long periods of inactivity, punctuated by me grabbing a colony or two and setting up new buildings to outmaneuver the brits, followed by more inactivity, followed by the brits grabbing a colony or two and setting up new buildings to get around my new buildings, rinse, lather, repeat. The brits have pretty much got Kenya and points west, but I've contained them everywhere else, so I'm feeling pretty good about our weirdly two-sided scramble for Africa.

[Ofaloaf]

Strangest part of this is that the US is a satellite state of Mexico that doesn't even reach the Mississippi.

[Timmy811]

Wait what? I thought satellites that made the Great Powers list declared independence?

[Ofaloaf]

Originally Posted by Timmy811

Wait what? I thought satellites that made the Great Powers list declared independence?

I don't think so, since I'm pretty sure Canada's still a Dominion of the UK and the US hasn't declared war on me recently.

edit: Hell, Canada would DoW me if it were independent, considering I control British Colombia and a couple of other Canadian national provinces.

[Ghost 88]

Originally Posted by Ofaloaf

Strangest part of this is that the US is a satellite state of Mexico that doesn't even reach the Mississippi.

Short answer. Prestige, Military, and Industry.
Long answer.The reason the UK is almost always number one or two is it almost always has the top military and because of the immigration bonus the US receives it is usually in the top three in industry and has high prestige.

[Parsleymagnet]

AEIOU

Anyway, after I made Russia my satellite (!!) in the Crimean War, I cheated a bit to get them to release a bunch of nations. My badboy is through the roof, but it doesn't matter, no one can match my military. UK's military score is mostly its navy, which isn't mush use against a land-based empire such as mine. Its army isn't even half the size of mine. As of now, I'm torn as to whether I should invade France, finish off Prussia, or invade Sweden.

[juanml82]

Go for Prussia, take her eastern colonies to stop her colonization efforts. Then go for France, Sweden, Spain, you name it. And of course, check if you can invade the UK at some point

[Parsleymagnet]

I may very well be able to invade the UK, even if they do have such a big navy that they could destroy every other navy in the world three times over. I'm probably not the first to notice it, but there's an AI exploit you can use to invade the British Isles with minimal losses to your own ships.

[juanml82]

Really? Witch one? The only thing I can think is try to get an alliance or join them in a war so I get military access and then backstab them. Other than that, I usually destroy my navy in the process, the ai "garrison" the seas around the islands and dissembarking takes enough time for the RN to close in the transports

[Ghost 88]

Originally Posted by juanml82

Really? Witch one? The only thing I can think is try to get an alliance or join them in a war so I get military access and then backstab them. Other than that, I usually destroy my navy in the process, the ai "garrison" the seas around the islands and dissembarking takes enough time for the RN to close in the transports

Rush to Ironclads and sink them wooden targets.

[juanml82]

Oh, that. I don't really think it's an exploit. You just rush naval techs and get the upper hand due quality instead of quantity. And the UK also tries to develop naval techs asap. You can also try it later on with PDNs, some times it works

[Parsleymagnet]

What I was referring to is this. I think it's better explained in a diagram.

I consider it an exploit as it's something that they would never allow to happen in real life.

Basically mass all your battle-ready ships into two fleets and all your transports into another. The former groups don't need to be able to defeat the stacks the UK has, just hold their own for a few days. The transports should have as many soldiers as you can muster.

Be sure not to move the transport fleet into any squares adjacent with the British Isles until the fleet defending it has moved to attack your diversions. Simply unload your troops and get out of there, and congratulations, you're one step closer to reclaiming Britain for Germanic peoples.

If at any point your transport fleet is attacked you should scrap the invasion.

At any rate it's easier than building up a navy that can actually challenge the Royal Navy, especially considering how behind I am in navy research.

[juanml82]

I see. The "problem" with that is that Victoria doesn't simulate supplies, that's usually the tactic I use. Witch leaves my navy utterly destroyed, but as long as enough troops make it into Britain, who cares. I'll rebuild later.