Manufacturing Italy (a PoN GC)

[loki100]

Well first, welcome to the new home for this AAR, welcome one and all ...

Well, that was definitely worth the move! Looks like the Austrians are on their last legs, even if your forces have taken a bit of a beating too.

Gari seems to be doing fairly well for himself. He's had an odd career in this version of history, but should cement his place as one of the Founding Fathers of modern Italy with this war.

ah but that unfortunate civil war in the mid-1860s was led by his evil twin ... really ... In the meantime King Umberto (who was a numpty both in real life and with his game stats) is fighting a colonial war in modern Kenya. I'm not letting him anywhere near anything important.

Goto concur with Dewirix. Looks like the tide of the war is firmly moving in your direction. It may take some time to wrap up but it is definately yours for the taking. You have critically smashed the Austrian's National Morale I can't see anyway back for them. Well done!

I was surprised how decisive it shifted. I really expected an age of absorbing a pounting till I was in a position to move for the kill, sort of 1915-18 style but with a different end.

Sweet lord! You're actually going to do it: go on the offensive. And you're going to succeed. I'm clearly too cautious/scared for these games, I'd never have thought you would be able to pull off an offensive into the Austrian heartland.

Grim, wholesale slaughter in those battles. But hey! You've got good Catholics at home, so they should make up for it in a generation or so.

The only province not breeding at the required rate is the Tirol, you'd almost think the daily noise of battle was putting them off. The rest of Italy is indeed doing its duty for the homeland.

Austria seems to be very close of the breaking point ... too bad you couldn't eliminate that almost trapped Austrian army, but even then you are solidly in offence and it looks that the Austrians have not much more to throw into the fight than the troops you see. But even then, caution demands you rest your armies and wait for spring before the next push, not only to recover a bit your elements but also to remove that pesky snow that makes your artillery far less effective. The support for the war is good enough for you to not have to jump into a precipitate move anyway

Now for the longer run, 2 questions:

1) I decided to review your objectives list and ,even if you get what you want from this war, there will be still 2 objectives in the hands of the Austrians ( Trieste and Split ), adding to other 2 in the hands of the Ottomans ( Adana and Thessaloniki ), none of them as cheap as that. This, added to the war(s) you want to do vs Egypt ( that will most likely not need a full mobilization ), this means atleast 3 more wars just to fulfill your and the game objective list. I assume you will go Egypt->Ottomans->Austria ( due to truce time ), but have any calendar sketch of this ? This because ...

2) ... Are you going to take on UK until the end of the game ? Better said, do you think you need to take on the UK to surpass them on prestige until 1910 ? TBH you are doing the role of the non-existant underdog that decides to unite, industrialise and make a solid threat the UK dominance that OTL Prussia/Germany did in the roughly same time period and I'm sensing that the game is slowly forcing you to face the UK if you want to win via prestige ( since Prussia is not winning fast enough their war ) ... let's be honest, the UK has almost the double of your prestige ATM and, in spite of your steady and solid climb, it is not assured you will close that 30k gap without mowing them out.

Astute analysis. Yes I have become the Prussia/Germany of this timeline. When this war is over, no-one is going to want a land war with Italy, the quality of my troops ends up skyhigh (almost every combat unit has a little gold star - ie at least 3 points of expertise). But to win, I need to find some way to take down GB. *All* I need is double their prestige but of course that is a moving number, and easier to achieve if they have been pegged back. So I need to shift to a navy and soon I get the ability to build battleships (& become very glad there is a global glut of steel).

As to the interim targets. I'm not sure I can be bothered with the Ottomans. I'm already spread pretty thinly with my colonies and by the end of 1880 have 2 long running wars to deal with (I've ignored them in the reports as not much happens except a drain of manpower and slow, slow progress). None of my targets is that valuable. Austria I want Udine and Trieste, they can keep Split (one advantage is that means I keep a CB on them). Egypt, and linking up my colonial holdings up the Nile will be my last big gain (though I am expanding almost by accident). But that, subject to rebellions, will give me effective control of the East Med and East Africa and a huge advantage in terms of disrupting the UK's communications.

Ha how I missed my Pon fix, glad to see you kicking Austrian ass.

It gets even more bruised in the next update.

I would swear I made a post here yesterday but it looks like it didn't go through. Anyway: welcome to your new dark-gray home. I think your feline analogy is somewhat off, since I've never seen a cat who had trouble sleeping anywhere.

Splendid results, even allowing for the retreat from Salzburg and the casualties of the Winter Offensive. The Eastern Empire must be rocking on its foundations and the rest of Europe should be taking careful note of your accomplishments.

I understand your reasons for not wanting to push the Austrians too hard. But to get the territories you want you will either have to wreck them now or fight another war (or two) with them later. So I say wreck them and let the political and economic chips fall where they may. Someone will own the Austrian lands and the people who live there will still need to buy your products. Better to kick them hard while you can (Carpe Diem!), before they improve their army or sign up a big ally.

true about the cats, but with mine, one finds a new fun sleeping place then the others mgrate there, and the original owner gets all upset, so there is drama and upset for a while ....

Once I finished this war, I spent time deep in the event chains. First I have sorted out the Russo-Ottoman war (notionally for 1877) chain, that one is important as it creates the various Balkan states (if Russia wins). Next task is to look over the Germann chain. I'm going to use the logic of Austria's catastrophic defeat (I realise that is giving the plot away but I can't imagine any other outcome for this war now) and their victory over GB to trigger the NGF and the Dual Monarchy (but I'll leave the SGF as it is). I'll script in a peace with the UK as otherwise that war will last decades. I'll then see if I can write something that brings the 1866 crisis between Austria and Prussia into the 1880s.

That sort of fits how I see this Europe evolving, and I suspect will make the next stages a lot more interesting.

If the Ottomans are any clue, Austria won't recover from this (well maybe as they have a better industirial base) so I'll take my second chunk out of them once the truce expires - 1882 or so.

This is exceedingly silly, but you don't know how pleased I am to see that custom avatar over here, Director. Still going to disagree with your guerre à outrance against Austria: I have not much sympathy for Franz Joseph, but I really don't want to see either Russia or Prussia/Germany bordering Italy.

Oh well, I'll leave it up to loki to decide when enough is enough. First, let's see the Italians looting the Schönbrunn Palace in Wien.

Yep, me too ...

As above, I'm going to create a unified north Germany and then create the opportunity (no more) for an Austro-Prussian show down in the 1880s.

Well I guess if Austria is dying then Prussia becomes the rightful heir to the soon to be German Empire. So maybe this will make German Unification a bit more clear.

My suggestion is in the future you team up with Germany to take out the British.

Good luck!

Yes, the first part matches my view. This is a massive defeat for Austria and there should be larger repercussions than just loss of some Italian territories. I'm struggling to keep good relations with Prussia (I don't think they like me beating up Austria), so I think this worlds Triple Alliance will be Italy, France and Russia. Against that an Anglo-German entente starts to make some sense. The USA currently likes me and have shown no interest in Europe's petty squabbles so far.

It does make it feel more like home, doesn't it.

I'm apparently not allowed to edit my own profile yet.

I think there is a limit based on days/posts, I also recall you can't send PMs for a while.

Nice to see that the transition to the AGEOD forum went smoothly, although I don't know if the feline comparison is appropriate I understand what you're saying, this new color scheme feels very odd.

Alright let's have a look at the update itself...

WHAAAAT?! 65 elements destroyed! A million Austrian killed and more than a 100 000 taken prisoners! Bloody hell, did you commission some Krupp heavy artillery when I wasn't looking? That's a kill rate almost as bad as WWI! Even at Verdun they "only" achieved 350 000 casualties per side in ten months!

When I was predicting an Austrian collapse by summer 1880 I thought I was being optimistic, but it looks like you'll have achieved complete victory by then, their army is clearly collapsing already. Avanti! A Vienna!

On a side note, what would be the Italian equivalent to Krupp (artillery wise of course)? The Austrians need a name to fear.

Veterli or Berreta would be equivalents. In truth Italy never moved much beyond the artisanal approach to arms manufacture - this was a strength in terms of innovation but the cost was lack of mass production and all sorts of confusion (& a procurement chain that couldn't cope with the demands of a major war).

I do have a lot of artillery, and they are all as modern as possible. But going back to StephenT's and Stonewall's PoN AARs using the battle scenarios its been clear the combat engine in PoN is bloody. Units are as poor on the defense as they were in RoP but firepower is double or more.

Don't know how relevant this would be in 1879, but in real life the Monroe Doctrine was basically enforced by the British for the first bit of its existence (I'm sure Director could tell you more), as the Americans simply didn't have the muscle to back it up. It suited the British just fine to keep everyone out of North and South America, as long as they could get their trade on.

Seeing as how the British are failing horribly to contain the upstart Prussians (without any apparent battles being fought), it's not hard to see why they could care less if the French want to kill themselves in the malaria-infested jungles of Panama.

Could be a cunnning plan by the Brits to encourage France to pour all its hard earned savings into a canal and then occupy the country when bankruptcy happens?

Hadn't realised that about the Monroe doctrine - thank you.

[loki100]

So I have a clear plan. Hold a defence line on Austrian soil over the winter and then seek a decisive battle once the weather clears. If they attack me in the meantime, well that is good (for me). As it is, things were far more dynamic than my expectations.

So here’s the situation by late January.



They seem to have two large armies and have briefly recaptured Innsbruck. I suspect they have called up even more reservists so that expansion in notional power is not such a real threat. Note that Wurtemberg is at war with me, though so far have made no hostile moves.

Anyway, by late February Innsbruck and Graz are back in my hands and the two Austrian armies have split up. My real interest is in the main force guarding the road to Wien.



Well all I can say is they started it. Seems as if they struck at the southern wing (Laibach) of my front, across open terrain and all my armies operated in support. The remarkable bit is the relative lack of losses in terms of elements in the opening round so they must have spent the winter repairing the damage from the Autumn battles.



Even with the snow hampering my artillery that was a major victory. 129,000 Austrian dead (and another 69,000 prisoners) for 41,000 Italians. Which makes another huge dent in their NM (remember that if you are below 100 your NM recovers by +1 per turn) and their overall combat power.



As they break off, I inflict more losses.



And, despite the return of snow, move on Wien.



(I’ve shown the detail for the main corps in that formation, as you can see I am managing my losses with some ease at the moment).

Where another Austrian army is routed. This time I actually lost the ranged combat (I guess due to the fort guns), but that is one less force I need to worry over for the next month.



So by April, I control the south bank of the Danube and have isolated Wien. However, there is still a powerful Austrian army at Zagreb.



However, the Austrian army I beat last turn tries to raise the siege of Wien. In the snow, one of the bloodiest battles of the war is fought with losses almost even. However, the entire Austrian army surrenders at the end of a bloody days fighting.



Despite this, the war is nowhere near over … Spring will sow a bitter crop in Austria this year..

[Stuyvesant]

Crap almighty... Are the Austrians trying to solve their minority problems by conscripting them all and throwing them to the Italian artillery batteries? That is slaughter. And then some. I know it's just a game, but I'm trying to picture the demographic impact of this bloodletting. There'll be a lot of empty villages in the (former) Austrian Empire.

So you're at the gates of Wien. I doubt the Polish Winged Hussars will charge in to save the day this time 'round.

[Gen. Monkey-Bear]

Wow. That was the close to an Austrian victory, and even then they surrendered. I think that is a good indication of how demoralised they are. I can't see how the war can continue for a long time now.

[Director]

Sounds like the Nivelle Offensive of the First World War - an all-out assault, a blood-bath and a collapse. Telling that in the first round of combat for Wien the Austrians had a general, but for the final desperate gamble they don't.

Looks like the Army covering Zagreb has a decision ahead: make an all-out assault on Graz or move to cover Wien. The latter is more sound at present, but retreating to the north bank of the Danube and pulling in every possible re-inforcement might be better. Even if (when) you take Wien, a rested and reorganized army could probably still get over the Danube and hit your line of communications back to Italy. That would draw in everyone for a series of major battles that the Austrians would be unlikely to win but... what other reasonable options do they have?

Franz-Joseph must be roaming the halls of the Shonbrunn moaning, "Bylandt-Rheidt! Where are my battalions! Von Pitner! Where is my Army!"

[Stuyvesant]

Franz-Joseph must be roaming the halls of the Shonbrunn moaning, "Bylandt-Rheidt! Where are my battalions! Von Pitner! Where is my Army!"

"Quintili Vare, legiones redde!" served as the model for that, perhaps? In that case, seeing as how the Italians are the descendants of Rome (sort of) and the Austrians the descendants of the Germanic tribes (sort of), Italy could make great propaganda out of the final revenge for the defeat at the Teutoburger Forest.

I noticed that Austrian army surrendered as soon as all their horses and cannon (all 68 of them - versus almost 1,500 Italian guns) were either dead or destroyed. Does that mean you demolished a field force and the garrison units then surrendered, or do the Austrians just have a very peculiar idea of morale (I mean, I know they like their Lippizaner horseys, but quitting en masse because a few of them are blown to bits seems a bit extreme)?

[r_rolo1]

Hum, the Austrian moves were quite ... well, not sure if desperate or stupid ( maybe both ), but as they opened the door to Wien, you would need to be quite a idiot to not use that gift. The fact they compounded their error by not using their two armies at the same time to protect their cap only adds fuel to the fire ...

Anyway, in the end you are besieging Wien and there is only a significant enemy force remaining and even that force already seen better days ( that army was bleeding pwr during the update and their red bar also tells a lot about it's condition ). But even then your Wien force seems too battered to sustain a direct hit by itself by the part of that army. Well, in the end there is little Austria can do at this point, even if a human picked the situation now, and even a lost of a army would not be that disastrous ...

So, I guess that, regardless of the bloody battles you promise for Spring ( i assume that most of the blood will be from the Austrian army ), this war is pretty much packed in... i guess it is time to let Gari to take a picture with the Sphinx as background

[loki100]

Crap almighty... Are the Austrians trying to solve their minority problems by conscripting them all and throwing them to the Italian artillery batteries? That is slaughter. And then some. I know it's just a game, but I'm trying to picture the demographic impact of this bloodletting. There'll be a lot of empty villages in the (former) Austrian Empire.

So you're at the gates of Wien. I doubt the Polish Winged Hussars will charge in to save the day this time 'round.

If you think that was bad ... best to avert your eyes from the next post ... I reckon they end up losing around 2.5 million in this war. In terms of 19C economy and demographic base, that is the crippling of an entire generation.

Wow. That was the close to an Austrian victory, and even then they surrendered. I think that is a good indication of how demoralised they are. I can't see how the war can continue for a long time now.

I think it was one of those rogue results that the AGE battle engine sometimes produces, if for some reason you fail enough morale checks you can 'lose' but without being forced to retreat. Their morale is dire and that really has a direct impact on combat performance. I played the Reds in a RUS PBEM at the end my NM was around 40, I needed 2-1 (in power) to have any chance of avoiding defeat.

Sounds like the Nivelle Offensive of the First World War - an all-out assault, a blood-bath and a collapse. Telling that in the first round of combat for Wien the Austrians had a general, but for the final desperate gamble they don't.

Looks like the Army covering Zagreb has a decision ahead: make an all-out assault on Graz or move to cover Wien. The latter is more sound at present, but retreating to the north bank of the Danube and pulling in every possible re-inforcement might be better. Even if (when) you take Wien, a rested and reorganized army could probably still get over the Danube and hit your line of communications back to Italy. That would draw in everyone for a series of major battles that the Austrians would be unlikely to win but... what other reasonable options do they have?

Franz-Joseph must be roaming the halls of the Shonbrunn moaning, "Bylandt-Rheidt! Where are my battalions! Von Pitner! Where is my Army!"

Poor old F-J has a lot more to moan about before this war is over. I think Von-P was wounded (I've had 2 generals killed and a few wounded) or maybe just really didn't fancy coming back to face the Italian artillery again. Since the war has moved into the plains, the whole Austrian strategy has had a 'Plan 17' air to it ... if we hurl enough men forward it has to work --- ?

Having said that the Austrian AI comes up with a 2 pronged offensive, not a bad plan if they had the capacity to win the battles, but from now, almost every encounter is very one sided.

"Quintili Vare, legiones redde!" served as the model for that, perhaps? In that case, seeing as how the Italians are the descendants of Rome (sort of) and the Austrians the descendants of the Germanic tribes (sort of), Italy could make great propaganda out of the final revenge for the defeat at the Teutoburger Forest.

I noticed that Austrian army surrendered as soon as all their horses and cannon (all 68 of them - versus almost 1,500 Italian guns) were either dead or destroyed. Does that mean you demolished a field force and the garrison units then surrendered, or do the Austrians just have a very peculiar idea of morale (I mean, I know they like their Lippizaner horseys, but quitting en masse because a few of them are blown to bits seems a bit extreme)?

Yep, we're just getting our oiwn back for poor Varus. Reminds me of when I was watching AS Roma on a regular basis and worked out that SerieA was a re-enactment of every petty squabble from the Middle Ages (& in those days overlaid by left-right politics). This reached the heights of lunacy when Roma were playing Perugia and someone told me, 'we hate Perugia because of what the Etruscans did to Rome' - must be said relations between the 2 sides were almost as bad as Roma-Juve (or Roma-Lazio).

Hum, the Austrian moves were quite ... well, not sure if desperate or stupid ( maybe both ), but as they opened the door to Wien, you would need to be quite a idiot to not use that gift. The fact they compounded their error by not using their two armies at the same time to protect their cap only adds fuel to the fire ...

Anyway, in the end you are besieging Wien and there is only a significant enemy force remaining and even that force already seen better days ( that army was bleeding pwr during the update and their red bar also tells a lot about it's condition ). But even then your Wien force seems too battered to sustain a direct hit by itself by the part of that army. Well, in the end there is little Austria can do at this point, even if a human picked the situation now, and even a lost of a army would not be that disastrous ...

So, I guess that, regardless of the bloody battles you promise for Spring ( i assume that most of the blood will be from the Austrian army ), this war is pretty much packed in... i guess it is time to let Gari to take a picture with the Sphinx as background

Quite right, I think human controlled, I'd cede for whatever terms I could get and pull the army back so as to deal with the inevitable post-war revolts. As to who next, I'm not sure. The truce after this is 2 years and I rather fancy consolidating in Europe before shifting my focus and arranging for the big G to have a Nile cruise before he retires. Its then a race to prepare for war with GB.

Update schedule will be a wee bit erratic. I'm off from saturday ski-mountaineering in Gran Paradiso (the bit of the Alps inside Italy and on the border with Savoy). So no updates for at least 10 days I suspect. This one wraps up this war. I'll then do 2 review style posts. Not as detailed as after the first Ottoman war but a good time to present some more information on the economy and empire. I'll also do a post on the rest of the world (which I have pretty much ignored up to now).

Then back to the usual 6 month cycle for a while as I absorb my gains and deal with 2 low level but rather nasty colonial wars. I've just started the first few turns of 1881 (so not very far ahead)

[loki100]

With Wien under siege, the Austrians are left with 2 bad choices. Let their capital fall or attack the veteran Italian army using the reservists they had called up in January.



Recognising the implications of the winter campaign, they seek a negotiated settlement but fail to meet Italy’s fundamental war aims.



In the meantime Italy is more interested in the construction of its first coal fired battleships. Even as war wages in Mittel-Europa, Italy looks to the seas.



That should start to mop up the mountain of state cash I have, and the world steel mountain. As a point of comparison, the ships I started with had combat values of 12-15. All I now need to do is to find someone worth firing at [1].

And plants some tea in India



And offer to help our American allies to exploit their national resources [2]



As well as expanding control in E Africa [3]



With their peace offer rejected, the Austrians launch a final desperate offensive. Their main army seeks to relieve Wien



Sending in untrained troops across an open field of battle against the massed Italian artillery produces something more akin to a massacre than a battle. In the meantime, their other force tries to turn the Italian flank at Trieste. Briefly, by mid-May, they retake the city, but an Italian counterattack swiftly ends their hopes by late May



At the same time, in a desperate attempt to turn the tide, the Austrians attack at again at Wien.



A combination of desperation and catching the Italians unawares (I was in assault mode to try and storm the city) led to a far bloodier battle than their previous attempt. However, bravery was no match for discipline and the artillery inflicted its usual toll and the Italian riflemen inflicted a horrendous slaughter on the Austrian conscripts (note since there are 2 HQ units among the destroyed I must have completely finished off 2 complete corps). By the end of the day, the Italians were shocked, not just by the scale of the losses but also by the complete collapse of the last Austrian army (548 elements surrendered).

With both his armies defeated on the field of battle and his capital in Italian hands, Franz-Joseph sues for peace. Italy’s terms are simple. The Po provinces and Trientino (the latter demanded to protect the Po from any future Austrian aggression). With no choice, Austria capitulates [3]. The signing ceremony is overseen by Louis Napoleon.



In 18 months, in a war waged to retain provinces that were widely accepted as Italian, Austria had lost over 2.5 million men in the war and 850,000 Italians had fallen. Italy at least had the reward of victory, Austria was plunged into a major domestic crisis.

Italy was now acknowledged as the pre-eminent power of Continental Europe. She might lack the raw resources of some of her neighbours but possessed an advanced economy protected by the finest army in Europe. Given her dismal performance in her war with Prussia, Britain was increasingly being seen as a power past its prime.



So far the question for Italy was what, given the constraints of her powerful neighbours could she do. Now the question was framed: ‘what would she do?’

[1] – Battleships in Victoria/PoN put me in mind of the opening scene in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness where a battleship is, pointlessly shelling Africa, for some never discussed reason;
[2] - This was my solution to yet another global coal shortage. Digging around it was clear the AI was not building pits to exploit its resources. So I built 2 in the USA and 2 in France and then scripted another 12 (spread across Prussia, Russia, Belgium, USA, Netherlands, France and England) for the AI to own. Once all this lot were on stream, for a while the world economy functioned effectively again;
[3] - & thus giving Umberto something useful to do .. should keep him busy for a couple of years before he even thinks of asking to return to Italy
[4] – war ending note. I found in this campaign an odd bug. If there is a third force in the province, then a fortress won’t fall to assault. So the garrison replenishes and it is assaulted again. This happened early in Venice and Trieste (but in one the Prussians went away and the other failed a surrender role). After those two victories, the only thing holding down my warscore was not taking Wien. So I accepted their offer of Sud-Tirol and scripted over Lombardy and the Veneto. As a part compensation I set my relations with Austria to -100 and Prussia to -50.

[powloon1]

I am just in awe at the scale of the carnage!! Congratulations on retrieving those bits of Italy that are rightfully yours. Hopefully now that you have pretty much gained all your objectives the game dosn't become to stale considering the number of turns still to play.

I think any future patches either need to look at the scale of casualties and/or make casualties have more of a direct impact on National Morale / Contentment as no 19th century nation in my opinion would have been able to sustain casualties at those levels and have the will to keep fighting. I also think there needs to be a closer relationship between National Morale and province contentment.

[Matnjord]

Holy..........

This last battle was the single bloodiest slaughter I ever witnessed in any AGEOD game, be it an AAR or a game I played myself. Even in RUS I have never seen anything like that (granted I never played the Dranh Nach Osten scenario). This was absolutely terrifying, horrendous...

After all this carnage even I will find the old economic and colonial reports a welcome change of pace.

Congratulation on winning this war though.

Now, let's hope that you don't end up like real life Britain and that building your fleet of Dreadnought doesn't (almost) bankrupt you. Forza Italia!

[Stuyvesant]

That. Was. Horrible.

Not for you, clearly, but the Austrian losses are just beyond comprehension. 280,000 men killed in just over two weeks. 780 elements surrendered (so, at nominal strength, that would be another 780,000 men out of the Austrian armies?). In other words, as much as a million Austrians went off the army rolls in two weeks time. More than 70,000 people a day. Just looking at the number of dead Austrians, that's more than the combat deaths of the entire American Civil War. For both sides combined...

I could go on and on, but it doesn't change the basic fact: that was slaughter at unprecedented scale. Scripting in a peace where the Austrians had to give up their Italian provinces is a very merciful thing to do, given those circumstances.

Must say that the Prussian 'observation force' of 27,000 power sitting next to Wien is rather scary to behold. Hopefully they'll be bogged down 'policing' the Austrian territories as revolts flare up left and right.

Regarding the question of what to do with your new battleships, I think the obvious answer is that you should take advantage of the ability to shell some camels further inland.

Enjoy the mountain-based shenanigans! Looking forward to the continuation of Italy's rise to global pre-eminence.

[Ahigin]

In regards to the bloodbath, I think the number of losses in PON and other AGEOD games represents not only men killed in action, but also wounded and missing (and some of the missing may be deserters). Typical causality ratio in late 19th-early 20th centuries was approximately 2 wounded per 1 dead, so out of 850k soldiers the Italian army lost in this war only ~280k are dead, the rest just ended up in hospitals. I guess, it makes the losses a little more realistic for that period. (Although, on the Austrian side it still is still very gruesome: ~830k dead out of 2.6 million lost).

As for the AAR in general, I have this to say. I rarely post on forums, even though I follow a lot of AARs very closely. But this one (complete with its neighbor by Powloon) is definitely one of my favorites. I enjoy it and learn from it, so please keep it up. Good luck with the Great Game against Great Britain and Prussia!

[Pat "Stonewall" Cleburne]

In regards to the bloodbath, I think the number of losses in PON and other AGEOD games represents not only men killed in action, but also wounded and missing (and some of the missing may be deserters). Typical causality ratio in late 19th-early 20th centuries was approximately 2 wounded per 1 dead, so out of 850k soldiers the Italian army lost in this war only ~280k are dead, the rest just ended up in hospitals. I guess, it makes the losses a little more realistic for that period. (Although, on the Austrian side it still is still very gruesome: ~830k dead out of 2.6 million lost).

As for the AAR in general, I have this to say. I rarely post on forums, even though I follow a lot of AARs very closely. But this one (complete with its neighbor by Powloon) is definitely one of my favorites. I enjoy it and learn from it, so please keep it up. Good luck with the Great Game against Great Britain and Prussia!

Yeah, I've been meaning to make this point in a couple of AGEOD AAR's. It seems everyone thinkgs those casualty numbers are all KIA's.

[Matnjord]

Yeah, I've been meaning to make this point in a couple of AGEOD AAR's. It seems everyone thinkgs those casualty numbers are all KIA's.

Even the Battle of the Somme resulted in 58 000 British casualties (of which one third were killed) in the first day. Austria Hungary suffered 1,100,000 military deaths over the course of the entire first world war. And that's with a much more modern state than the Austria we have here, hence better medicine, better infrastructure and without going constantly on the offensive over a snowy mountain range.

The American civil war took ~620 000 soldiers lives (of which two thirds by disease) and the Franco-Prussian war ~150 000 and these are contemporary wars to that which Loki just fought.

By using Ahigin estimate here (~850k dead), which seems fairly reasonable to me, this is waaaay too many KIA's for a late 19th century war fought without proper machine guns, barbed wire and gaz. Something is definitely odd with the casualties calculation PON uses.

EDIT: A question, regarding your objective in Thessaloniki, do you have to own it personally to gain you prestige points or can you have a puppet holding it for you (say Greece) like in March of the Eagles?

[Pat "Stonewall" Cleburne]

From the AAR's I've seen, I wouldn't argue that something is a bit off in the casualty counts. Some of it looks like it comes from counting all of the troops destroyed in structure assaults as casualties. I'm pretty sure the vast majority of those should be captured rather than ending up in the casualty rolls.

[r_rolo1]

Even if it the PON engine is counting wounded in the kill count, this war is still a major carnage in XIX century terms and it will take quite a while to recover from it ( especially Austria ). If the Prussians neglect to help the Austrians to quell the inevitable rebel uprises, things will be messy in the Balkans for quite a while ( maybe even allowing loki to capture Split without warring Austria Italia Irredenta !!!! )

Now on what Italy will do ...like I said before, I think that a war with GB is not only inevitable, but desirable gamewise. It will surely be a messy affair and most likely a world wide conflict, given the global interests of both powers. But before that, Egypt: because it is in dead center of your colonies in Africa and Asia, you can't simply let it alone before the UK war ( not mentioning the Suez ). And TBH, I think you will need to intervene vs the Ottomans ... to save them from the Russians ( since I'm not seeing them to not try another Constantinople gambit, especially since the Ottomans are considerably weaker than in other times. Same applies regarding Austria BTW ). We might even say that Russia might end doing the part of the irresponsible bully that Austria did before WW I on the Balkans if you let things unchecked and that is not on your best interest.

Anyway, that is not for now. The immediate concerns of Italy are clearly to integrate the newly acquired provinces and to lick the wounds of the war.

[Director]

I would whisper, "Solferino!" but the casualties here cast that battle into the shade. Even if you use the most liberal percentages (Solferino had around 10-to-1 wounded to killed ratios, give or take a bit) you are looking at 65,000 deaths, 700,000 wounded (and sick) and 750,000 POWs. That... beggars the imagination. Even poor Benedek had the sense to go on the defensive, and the Emperor had the sense to sue for peace when Koniggratz was lost. Here the evil old man just kept shoveling the nation's future into the furnace...

Wow. The Death Ride of the German battlecruisers at Jutland was nothing compared to this. Grant at Cold Harbor and Bragg at Chickamauga? Amateurs. Generals Falkenhayn and Haig and Nivelle would have recognized the outcome, though none of them wrecked their army quite so thoroughly as the Austrians seem to have done. Hitler's pigheaded insistence on Gotterdammerung in WWII is worse, but only because Italy chose not to eradicate the Austrian nation. If massive revolts come after this, then no-one could be surprised. The Emperor will lack the moral grounds for claiming to be his nation's steward and will have forfeited any modest reserves of goodwill from the dozens of subject peoples in his Empire.

I don't know how they come back from this... and yes, there does seem to be something wrong with our casualty figures today. One simple 'cosmetic' fix that would not require any changes to the game engine would be to break the 'casualties' into killed, wounded, sick and captured.


Here's an inspirational picture for you, one of Italy's new battleships (Sicilia) shows off a fine big white moustache:
[Center][/Center]

[loki100]

Rather than just do feedback etc I thought it would be useful to put together a bit of a contribution to why I think PoN is producing such heavy apparent losses. I’ll not particularly try to discuss why I am winning the battles but more as to what might underlie the loss rates. For this discussion I’ve relied heavily on Narwhal’s post in one of our old Wars in America AARs which contains a good overview of how combat works. I’ll also compare a PoN 1870 type line rifle battalion to its rough equivalent in Rise of Prussia as that may help.

So here’s our two protagonists:





There are 4 key numbers to compare.

Depending if you are attacking or defending you use one of the two fire statistics. So here, we see that at short range (for RoP no infantry has the equivalent of medium range) our 1870 infantry has an attack fire value of 25 compared to 8 for our 1760 comparison. Each point gives a 4% base hit chance, so you can see the implication immediately.

Rate of Fire is how many times a unit can fire in a given combat hour. Due to the range (medium and short) this means that infantry in PoN are firing more often.

Protection in PoN is 1 by default (0 in RoP, probably to reflect the looser order of late Nineteenth Century combat) and each point takes 4% off the chance to be hit (remember that in action terrain and entrenchments will increase this number quite substantially).

The chance to hit less the protection value is compared to 0-99 dice (so in theory there is always a small chance to miss). But we can immediately see that in PoN the base chance is 24 (ie 25-1)*4 = 96% and in RoP is 8 (ie 8-0)*4 = 32%.

Now there are quality modifiers around cohesion, initiative and leadership that come into play but I will ignore them, this isn’t an examination of why I won but why the losses are so high. Equally remember that if you have too many units for the available command your chance to hit, and ultimately the Rate of Fire (this won’t apply to the AI as its malus is capped at 23% not 35%) are reduced.

Anyway once you hit, the damage is split into losses and lost cohesion (the ratio varies if it is at range or in the assault phase). So at range our 1870 infantry, if they hit, inflict 3 points of losses and 10 of cohesion. Our 1760 forebear inflicts 1 point of losses and 9 on cohesion.

So I think its pretty clear. 1870 infantry, assuming they are adequately led and in good cohesion are almost guaranteed a hit compared to around 32% for our 1760 comparison (assume equal leadership etc), And then, in terms of actual losses our 1870 rifleman inflicts 3 times the base losses (ie each hit leads to 3 hit points on the target). I've ignored artillery in this discussion but the increase in lethality is (rightly) even more than for infantry fire.

There is an additional point here. Compared to most AGEOD games there are not many provinces (look at Germany in PoN compared to in RoP) and, from my experience, march to the sound of the guns works more often than not. So we are seeing armies of around 300,000 in the field on a regular basis. If the battle (as say Vienna in this war, Adrianople in the first Ottoman war) is in clear terrain, even with this huge number, a lot will be able to fire, most will hit and each hit takes out 3 hit points.

So I think the slaughter is coming from the high base damage and the high lethality of combat, plus, especially in Europe, that armies are very large and can mostly deploy onto the battlefield. I do think that at least 1 part of this complex equation is too high (or the base defence value is too low). I think it’s a combination of base lethality to the units (the fire value) and that frontage is allowing an awful lot of troops into the field of battle. I know the provinces are large, but up to WW1 combat was confined to a relatively small sector as long as all weaponry relied on line of sight and I don't think this is being reflected in the combat mechanism.

Rest of the feedback:

As for the AAR in general, I have this to say. I rarely post on forums, even though I follow a lot of AARs very closely. But this one (complete with its neighbor by Powloon) is definitely one of my favorites. I enjoy it and learn from it, so please keep it up. Good luck with the Great Game against Great Britain and Prussia!

Thank you for contributing, and yes my plan is to get to 1920, not least I’ve not seen any other reports on the late game and its useful as an exercise in unpicking some of the event chains on the way.

Yeah, I've been meaning to make this point in a couple of AGEOD AAR's. It seems everyone thinkgs those casualty numbers are all KIA's.

Even the Battle of the Somme resulted in 58 000 British casualties (of which one third were killed) in the first day. Austria Hungary suffered 1,100,000 military deaths over the course of the entire first world war. And that's with a much more modern state than the Austria we have here, hence better medicine, better infrastructure and without going constantly on the offensive over a snowy mountain range.

The American civil war took ~620 000 soldiers lives (of which two thirds by disease) and the Franco-Prussian war ~150 000 and these are contemporary wars to that which Loki just fought.

By using Ahigin estimate here (~850k dead), which seems fairly reasonable to me, this is waaaay too many KIA's for a late 19th century war fought without proper machine guns, barbed wire and gaz. Something is definitely odd with the casualties calculation PON uses.

I think we can regard them as serious casualties rather than lightly wounded (as I think those are captured in the cohesion loss/recovery mechanism). As far as I can see, there is no trickle back into your stock of reserve companies (unlike RoP) but I haven’t really paid attention. If there is, then that might explain why my replacement stock remained high and that the constraint to calling them up is mostly access to manufactured goods to equip the replacement chits.

EDIT: A question, regarding your objective in Thessaloniki, do you have to own it personally to gain you prestige points or can you have a puppet holding it for you (say Greece) like in March of the Eagles?

I’m not sure, I think it has to be mine. PoN doesn’t really seem to allow for complete control over your allies, in fact I rather wonder how much use an allied AI would be in a war (in the 1859 battle scenario you have control over both the French and the Sardinian forces). I’m not overly fussed to take it as I am getting a bit more choosy about what I hold (I already have a lot of units spread around as it is).

Even if it the PON engine is counting wounded in the kill count, this war is still a major carnage in XIX century terms and it will take quite a while to recover from it ( especially Austria ). If the Prussians neglect to help the Austrians to quell the inevitable rebel uprises, things will be messy in the Balkans for quite a while ( maybe even allowing loki to capture Split without warring Austria Italia Irredenta !!!! )

Now on what Italy will do ...like I said before, I think that a war with GB is not only inevitable, but desirable gamewise. It will surely be a messy affair and most likely a world wide conflict, given the global interests of both powers. But before that, Egypt: because it is in dead center of your colonies in Africa and Asia, you can't simply let it alone before the UK war ( not mentioning the Suez ). And TBH, I think you will need to intervene vs the Ottomans ... to save them from the Russians ( since I'm not seeing them to not try another Constantinople gambit, especially since the Ottomans are considerably weaker than in other times. Same applies regarding Austria BTW ). We might even say that Russia might end doing the part of the irresponsible bully that Austria did before WW I on the Balkans if you let things unchecked and that is not on your best interest.

Anyway, that is not for now. The immediate concerns of Italy are clearly to integrate the newly acquired provinces and to lick the wounds of the war.

I’m up to around May 1881 and the 1878 Balkan War (& related events, ie Bulgaria appears) has fired. This was one of the event chains that broke due to low base chance and a short period of time. While I don’t care about whether or not another Russo-Turkish war breaks out, the creation of the Balkan states is important for later events in the early Twentieth Century.

My rough strategy is I will go for Austria again pretty soon. They cannot have recovered, so it should be easy to get Friule (Udine) and Trieste. I’ll let them keep Split, in part for the same reason I’m not too interested in Thessaloniki and in part as it gives me a permanent CB on them (& who knows when that might be useful).

Next Egypt, as that will link up my East Med/East African empire. No great hurry as I have quite a lot of colonial problems at the moment. Then the UK. I’d like around 20 years to really build up the navy so that I can dominate the Med (at least) and cut their sea connections to India. The Ottomans I’ll leave as I now have all I really want but may intervene to save them from themselves (& help myself to Iraq) if circumstances dictate.

I would whisper, "Solferino!" but the casualties here cast that battle into the shade. Even if you use the most liberal percentages (Solferino had around 10-to-1 wounded to killed ratios, give or take a bit) you are looking at 65,000 deaths, 700,000 wounded (and sick) and 750,000 POWs. That... beggars the imagination. Even poor Benedek had the sense to go on the defensive, and the Emperor had the sense to sue for peace when Koniggratz was lost. Here the evil old man just kept shoveling the nation's future into the furnace...

Wow. The Death Ride of the German battlecruisers at Jutland was nothing compared to this. Grant at Cold Harbor and Bragg at Chickamauga? Amateurs. Generals Falkenhayn and Haig and Nivelle would have recognized the outcome, though none of them wrecked their army quite so thoroughly as the Austrians seem to have done. Hitler's pigheaded insistence on Gotterdammerung in WWII is worse, but only because Italy chose not to eradicate the Austrian nation. If massive revolts come after this, then no-one could be surprised. The Emperor will lack the moral grounds for claiming to be his nation's steward and will have forfeited any modest reserves of goodwill from the dozens of subject peoples in his Empire.

I don't know how they come back from this... and yes, there does seem to be something wrong with our casualty figures today. One simple 'cosmetic' fix that would not require any changes to the game engine would be to break the 'casualties' into killed, wounded, sick and captured.

Here's an inspirational picture for you, one of Italy's new battleships (Sicilia) shows off a fine big white moustache:
[Center][/Center]

My next task with the event chains is to amend the post-Koenigratz ones for Austria to reflect what has just happened. I think the scale of their disaster is such that a major change in the structure of the Empire is more than justified. I guess the end result is typical of the Nineteenth Century mindset that no one would stand for me grabbing things to which I had no title, so I’ve settled for the Po valley (of which no debate) and Sud-Tirol (less clear cut but probably acceptable as a form of reparations). The British nightmare of a strong continental power is becoming true before their eyes … and unlike Prussia, one with a tradition of naval power too.
The picture is great, looks like the same one that AGEOD use on the early battleship counter.

Ok, a bit of an odd medley of a discussion and feedback but it seemed worth digging a little as to the problem with the loss rates. Next post will be a state of the world review (which I’ve pretty much ignored to now), then a review of Italy and then back on our 6 monthly updates (& a lot of colonial warfare).

Oh and ski mountaineering in low visibility is novel, at least the snow conditions were good though ....

[Director]

Glad to hear you enjoyed your vacation. Also glad you didn't 'find' something the hard way in the low visibility...

The insight into casualty calculation was most interesting. Looks like the developers scaled up the mechanics and accounted for the increased lethality of modern weaponry without thoroughly testing the results against historical actions.


If you intend to take another whack at Austria you may run a risk of Prussian intervention. That would probably be... bad... so, be careful.

[Stuyvesant]

If you intend to take another whack at Austria you may run a risk of Prussian intervention. That would probably be... bad... so, be careful.

Bad for him, possibly highly entertaining for us. We'd probably learn some more Scottish (Scotch? Scots? I never know which adjective to apply) invective as well.

That battleship looks smallish. Oh, and it looks like even moderate swells would roll right over the bow. Well, you gotta start somewhere, can't expect HMS Dreadnought from scratch.

[loki100]

Glad to hear you enjoyed your vacation. Also glad you didn't 'find' something the hard way in the low visibility...

The insight into casualty calculation was most interesting. Looks like the developers scaled up the mechanics and accounted for the increased lethality of modern weaponry without thoroughly testing the results against historical actions.


If you intend to take another whack at Austria you may run a risk of Prussian intervention. That would probably be... bad... so, be careful.

we were over on the Italian-French border where there aren't many glaciers so at least no risk of crevaces to fall in - always a problem on skis.

I think the key problem is the relative combat power and the large provinces (hence large armies in combat). Looking over my combat reports for the smaller wars, there is nothing eye watering about them, but its clear that when large armies come together (& march to the sound of the guns works most times) then they need either a better frontage rule or to tone done the combat strength.

The desire to avoid a war with Prussia is one reason for wanting to go for Austria again asap to be honest

Bad for him, possibly highly entertaining for us. We'd probably learn some more Scottish (Scotch? Scots? I never know which adjective to apply) invective as well.

That battleship looks smallish. Oh, and it looks like even moderate swells would roll right over the bow. Well, you gotta start somewhere, can't expect HMS Dreadnought from scratch.

ach I think at some stage a right stushie is going to break out, and then there will be whinging and schinthing a plenty ...

Yes it is only an early battleship, but its mine and I'm very proud of it

[loki100]

Since this both 30 years into the game and the end of a major war I thought it would be a good time for a bit of a review. The first part of this post will look at the wider world – something I have largely ignored apart from musing on Prussia’s desire to gain a CB against everyone (including the martians). In this game there have been very few AI-AI wars apart from the scripted ‘Crimean War’ (fought mostly in Anatolia), the Taiping Rebellion and the American Civil War. Beyond that there has been a war between the US and Mexico around 1852 and that between the British and the Prussians. The British, Dutch and Spanish also seem to have had a fair few colonial wars.
So lets start out with a look at Africa. First map is the north:


(in the main that is pretty much historical)

East:


(very ahistorical as it reflects all my activities since the mid-1860s)

South:


(again more historical, but then I haven’t intervened in the region)

In North America, the USA is making steady progress across the continent and seems to have a historical border with Mexico



Central Asia, where the Russians are eating up the Khanates and Persia and Afghanistan are engaged in an endless war:



In Europe, not much has changed since the start of the game. Once Prussia is finished with Britain. I’ll dig around in the event files and create a NGF for them, as well as ensuring Austria suffers the, post-1867, consequences of its recent defeat.
Domestically, perhaps the main thing is the size of my economy. I’m importing £1970, exporting £1514 and selling £1973 domestically. To put this in context, the equivalent figures in 1872 were £683. £782 and £763 respectively (so using the latter as a proxy for overall wealth I am 2.5 times larger than I was a mere 9 years ago).



I’ve annotated the key data with the 1872 equivalent so as to give some idea of the scale of change in the last 9 years,

In Dubai, I’ve managed to increase my gems output to 5 for those mines, so that really helps with luxury goods.



I’m generally meeting population needs:



Again by contrast the relevant figures in 1872 were 118 (food), 99 (common) and 65 (luxury – which I was only supplying about 25 of). Key here is a combination of population growth and the demand enhancing techs have more or less doubled the size of my domestic market in 9 years.

The main formations in the Italian army (I find out that the ‘reserves’ demobilise at the end of the calendar year):



Key information there is how many of my combat formations are now elite (ie have 3/10 in terms of experience), this in turn improves their fire effectiveness and the speed of cohesion recovery. If we ignore the specialist units, 6/13 of my corps are now elite (the little medal). I think the support units gain this status more easily as they are in combat but rarely take heavy losses (so no dilution from fresh replacements).

So there you are a quick tour of the globe and some background on my economy. I didn’t want to repeat all the detail from 1872 but I find it helpful to slot in a few review posts as we go on. Not least it helps to chart progress and see how the world changes.

[Stuyvesant]

Impressive expansion, especially the growth of your internal market. A nice overview before we go off on our second round of beating up on the weaker neighbors.

Anything noteworthy happening in the Far East, or does 'Asia' basically end at the gates to India, as indicated by your screenshots?

[Jim-NC]

As to your question about Africa and exploration. Once 1 person explores it, everyone sees it. Thus there has been very little exploration of Africa by other nations since the start of the game.

[Gen. Monkey-Bear]

That is one powerful army . . . use it wisely.

Can you briefly explain the Italian Unification to me (in your game, not the real-life one)? I somehow missed what happened with the northern Italian provinces, then suddenly you were fighting Gharibaldi for control of Sicily . . . not really much sense to me. How on earth did Francesco II di Borbone become one of your army commanders?

Sorry for this. I know that happened a long time ago, but I figured this is a time as convenient as any.

[r_rolo1]

It looks that in your timeline Russia and the UK are not worried in leaving a buffer Afghan state between them in Central Asia Besides that, the Prussian fixation in being a big bad boy without actually uniting Germany ( it looks that they got a Willem II on steroids instead of a Bismark ) and the human player actions, it all looks very similar to the OTL events. Well, we don't have maps of the far east and of South America, so we might have some surprises there, but then again those are areas where Italy is not exactly interested ...

[loki100]

Impressive expansion, especially the growth of your internal market. A nice overview before we go off on our second round of beating up on the weaker neighbors.

Anything noteworthy happening in the Far East, or does 'Asia' basically end at the gates to India, as indicated by your screenshots?

Well its a bit hard to take overview maps in PoN, in part there is no equivalent of the world map in Paradox games and then you have to work with the filters to try and make it clear. I'd say nothing has happened in the Far East (apart from millions of dead Chinese in the Taiping rebellion) but then the next update does contain the surprising news that China controls Burma.

Europe is as it was at the start of the game apart from my antics, but I forgot to add this map of Poland et al in the last update:



Poland exists, just, Prussia seems to have grabbed some of Russia (which explains the regular exchange of CBs) but I think with no war so they must have captured it off some rebels.

As to your question about Africa and exploration. Once 1 person explores it, everyone sees it. Thus there has been very little exploration of Africa by other nations since the start of the game.

Thank you, that makes sense, just I wasn't all that sure.

That is one powerful army . . . use it wisely.

Can you briefly explain the Italian Unification to me (in your game, not the real-life one)? I somehow missed what happened with the northern Italian provinces, then suddenly you were fighting Gharibaldi for control of Sicily . . . not really much sense to me. How on earth did Francesco II di Borbone become one of your army commanders?

Sorry for this. I know that happened a long time ago, but I figured this is a time as convenient as any.

No it was confusing. Powloon has dug into the event chain and found the problem. Basically G will spawn in Sicily with his Thousand, he then has 3 turns to take the fort and move to the mainland. However, that is too short so what happens is the event chain breaks and G stays in Sicily as a 'rebel' (ie hostile to all) and the event that makes him friendly to S-P doesn't fire. In my game, I unified Italy by default and found that Sicily was full of rebels (ahistoric I realise), so I had a 9 month civil war as I brought them to battle. A year or so later, G pops up as an Italian general (this is historical as he returned to Italy and took part in the disastrous 1866 campaign against the Austrians).

So my Italy lacked the Po provinces. The other problem with the 'historic' event chain is that in 1859 Austria has no reason to go to war with S-P and France, so I think its very unlikely to see an AI Italy emerge in its 1871 borders.

It looks that in your timeline Russia and the UK are not worried in leaving a buffer Afghan state between them in Central Asia Besides that, the Prussian fixation in being a big bad boy without actually uniting Germany ( it looks that they got a Willem II on steroids instead of a Bismark ) and the human player actions, it all looks very similar to the OTL events. Well, we don't have maps of the far east and of South America, so we might have some surprises there, but then again those are areas where Italy is not exactly interested ...

Certainly no change in Latin America, so the main dynamism is my activity in East Africa and Spain, not France, taking Morocco.

I'm slowly adjusting the main event chains to suit this timeline. I'll cover the 1878-9 Balkan War changes in the post after the next one. But I've decided at a suitable stage I will force the creation of the NGF (when Prussia and GB make peace) and the dual monarchy for A-H. I think given Prussia's likely victory and Austria's utter humiliation, both are justified even if the triggers are rather different to those in OTL.

Next update soon, just chopping up images etc.

[loki100]

So briefly, peace returns to Italy. Well actually there is going to be quite a lot of war …, but first lets catch up on the standard stuff

[CENTER]Standard reports[/CENTER]

Manufactures



Several things there. One is I have so much state cash, even with low taxes, that I can’t actually use it. I am funding all research at 100% but it just piles up. The growth in Private Capital is more that I cannot build new factories due to various resource shortages (manufactured goods will be an ongoing problem). Note that my new coal pits in the US and France have very much solved the coal constraint.
The other point of note is the usage of Private Capital to fund my economy as this is now around 1200 per turn

Non-Manufactures



As ever, less interesting, not least I have near complete control and can open and close production exactly as I need. Main change is I now have a regular supply of silk from Lombardy and the Veneto.

Happy People



Note that contentment is very high now (I’m meeting almost all their needs and taxes are fairly low). Overall there is no militancy except in the three provinces I have just absorbed (ungrateful wretches) but this is coming down (reforms and military police). Apart from in the mountains (Savoie and Sud-Tirol), population growth is around 3%. I think I have to send specially trained medics to those provinces to explain the essence of human reproduction to the locals.

Replacements



As discussed, one goal is to start building up the navy so a second group of early (and yes, ok, small) battleships are ordered and some torpedo boats (as they help screen the battleships). In terms of replacements, I’ve pretty much cleared up the consequences of the Austrian war but am taking quite a few casualties in a rather nasty colonial action in East Africa.

[CENTER]Events[/CENTER]

(lack of) Diplomacy

The ongoing Prussian goal of having a CB against everyone carries on (closely followed by the Russians with a similar goal).



And no, I have no idea how China managed to capture Rangoon.

The war in East Africa

With the end of the Austrian war I decide its time to pay more attention to this annoying ongoing struggle in East Africa. My problem has been with one combat corps and a handful of regulars I can sort of defend the coast and Morogoro but every time I push further inland, the enemy manages to slip behind my lines.



This is a proper war, not a rebellion so in theory I can wear them down but in practice, as you’d expect, the native armies are very elusive. Equally, if they catch one of my weaker columns, I lose a number of small battles. I won’t show many of these but we trade small scale victories over time.



That one is serious as they capture my port and colonial infrastructure in Mombasa.



That decides me, another army corps is shipped off to East Africa to rescue the situation.



Francesco in effect is bringing a modern European army to the theatre. That will give me two powerful (in local terms) forces as well as a collection of weaker units and should allow me to both hold my current territory and expand.

At least further north I have some good news. Time to make Ethiopia into a full colony.



Which in turn gives me a decent force of native units. Very handy for any conquest of Egypt.

In turn, Dar es Salaam becomes my latest protectorate.



As we will see, that is going to have important consequences. Dar es Salaam is in Prussia’s colonial sphere and they are somewhat protective of their entitlements.
Finally my overwhelming force seems to be paying off as I bring the enemy to battle



But in reality any gain is short lived. Now just to add to my problems, in December, my explorers discover more of the Arabian peninsular and that sets off another colonial war, this time with Najd. Even more small scale than this, in impossible terrain and just a slow drain on resources. Still my prestige steadily improves.



Main things to note there is my industry now produces 94 prestige points per turn and I am now gaining 5 from my colonies. This reflects the absorption of Ethiopia and that some of my non-SOI colonies are slowly being accepted as being part of Italy’s sphere by the rest of the world (that is apart from the lucky locals). I’m still way behind GB but it will take a major defeat to remove me from second place now.

So in the next update: The search for manufactured goods, colonial wars and, as an added bonus, very irate Prussians. Oh and a Russo-Turkish war.

[Stuyvesant]

Your industry creates nearly twice the prestige as all your held objectives combined. Since you're well on your way towards creating a Greater Italy, I take it that your industry's prestige-creation is quite impressive.

The colonial war system does a good job of recreating the morass of actual colonial wars. It looks like you could ship your entire European army off to East Africa and still have a hard time beating the natives. Any specialist units you could build that would be better suited to colonial warfare?


Given the Prussian predilection to get angry at the whole world (and possibly the planet Mars), it was only a matter of time before you'd become the object of their ire. Now, giving them a somewhat legitimate reason for meddling in their (entirely fictional) African sphere of influence might not have been the smartest move. Are all those Germans sunbathing and digging holes on the Adriatic beaches coming to pay a visit to you?