Stuyvesant wrote:I see your 'Rub' puns and I raise you... Actually, I'm folding, to stick with the poker analogy. I got nothing.
But your plot for a worldwide sand monopoly continues apace! Najd has been eliminated (for some reason, 'Playing hunt the Najd' sounds vaguely like a filthy euphemism to me) and the Ethiopian sand supplies are also being safeguarded. Foolish backpacking tourists notwithstanding.
I noticed you continue to have problems with your steel production - or rather, your ability to produce and import steel does not keep pace with your wishes. This raises the question: do you have any idea how much steel the British produce and/or consume? Are they also limited in their steel (and hence, battleship) production, or is this a case where the British have an increasing lead over you? Oh, and how much will those two steel plants contribute, once they come online? Enough to start churning out battle wagons at a steady pace?
There is a particularly bonkers (and I mean stand out bonkers even by the standards of the current Conservative Party) Tory MP who is sometimes described as Mad Nad ... so its not a long leap to Najd. But yes, it is accurate as to what I was doing, but perchance, open to misinterpretation.
The image below shows the steel position in mid-1886:
In effect, domestically at the moment I am breaking even. The two being built (their production shows as white in the image) will give me +40 per turn and even if some is then used for development I reckon that will sustain a building programme of one battleship squadron per year (& 3-4 other naval units).
Gen. Monkey-Bear wrote:Nice work on the colonial side. How is it that negative Sphere of Influence territories become positive? I thought you were playing with historical claims.
On another note I just realized most of the world probably sees Italy as the enemy of Islam. You control a huge geographical chunk of the Muslim world and are really enslaving millions of innocent people! Looking at that colonial map I see that Muslim population areas are most of your empire.
If you hold a region, you slowly gain SoI as there are random events that fire and improve your score by +1. I guess it reflects the wider world coming to accept what you have done even if they feel it is a bit pushy to have grabbed such a region in the first place.
To be fair, my Italy has been pretty even handed. At different stages, Garibaldi has shelled the Vatican, burnt down Jerusalem and captured Mecca (at least twice, maybe 3 times), I think that covers the full range of Abrahemaic religions?
More realistically, it would be intriguing to imagine just how an Empire such as mine would survive once the wider decolonisation/national liberation movements took off in the 1920s. I guess, quite appropriately given how much desert I do own, it would collapse like a castle built on sand.
Director wrote:It seems to me that you have a magnificent business opportunity just waiting for development. Dig a giant trench through all that sand and name it 'Silicon Valley.'
Investors will then fill up the hole with money, and after you siphon it all out the walls will fall in - no cleanup needed.
I'm sure I could find some clever soul who could start to bundle my sand with other products to create just the type of financial product that is essential for long term stability on the financial markets
But yes, I now own Silicon desert.
Sir Garnet wrote:Catching up on this increasingly gripping tale - two dozen collected comments below in no particular order.
1. You are making the right moves in expanding trade, but maybe not enough. Does Italy already have merchants in every Maritime Trade Box (except maybe Hawaii)? As a GP this allows you to sell as well as buy in every MTB which lets you drive world trade and development. By stocking up and heavy resales you have an easy way to avoid supply issues by raising or lowering your sales and even "manage" prices, if you care, while also developing your trading partners (paying a premium is a nice way of getting the goods or providing a subsidy, as is buying excess items from some countries even if they go to wastage). Less taxes mean more PC to load up on everything, and why not have a full inventory of everything if you have the PC?
In the CIE MP Brazil is around 10th rank overall and militarily but 1st in commerce and 6/7th in total output, with (according to the report scripts) 2nd largest stockpiles of products in both value and volume. Why not spend extra PC on stockpiles? This helps Brazil be a one-stop-shop for buyers' merchant ships. BTW Brazil is a good SP trade partner given its range of investable resources, like the USA but with different items such as Gems, Gold, Rum, Sugar, Coffee (and Tobacco, an overlap with USA). There is a lot of Tropical Fruit in the Americas just waiting for buyers.
2. A huge merchant marine generates profits and taxes but does eat up a lot of coal, and coal can go from surplus to deficit quickly when more advanced structures come on line that eat it up, so build out coal mines, and then petroleum in the next decade. Your move to buy rather than internally produce things is supply abroad is also good for development and relations. No harm having extra capacity for when you need it, especially in something like Steel, Coal, Mfg Goods, or Mech.
3. I like your descriptions for Asset Balance (B) and F4 - I have those open at the same time as well as usually having the relevant T window for trade orders to allow more precision than +10/-10 on the Asset Balance and to allow paying a premium.
4. Torpedo Boats are only in Coastal/Shallow waters, which can limit their use - I have not figured out how to get use from them yet but look forward to info.
5. I see you are losing some images from imageshack - curses to those digital bookworms, eating up the archives. If there is an image limit, maybe put in some "CODE" tables instead of pix?
6. Even negative SOI can be improved by development, but I learned to stagger such efforts in order to be quick to develop each in turn up to snuff rather than spread too thin and having them sit as a long-term drag on prestige (if one cares about prestige).
7. The misnamed "Defensive" alliances and Local Support each give one chance to declare war against each declaration of war by anyone against the ally, and a stiff penalty for each not honored as well as the small automatic penalty for Local Support failing to deter attack. The time limit for DOW is a few turns and can easily be missed. At 10% penalty per failure, a web of alliances can get expensive in prestige with declarations flying around back and forth. Which encourages WW1 cascades of DOWs.
8. One peace option available is to force empires to release peoples - I did that as France to Russia to nerf it and protect Turkey. Austria and Britain are candidates for that treatment. I don't know in the current version if you get an alliance with the released nation, but that would make sense to script if not.
9. When you script territorial changes, how are you handling the residual Austrian loyalties?
10. Prisoner counts are in elements (100 men) on the battle report, actual men on the F10 display - which is not obvious.
11. Austrian Wars: Fighting in the narrow battlefields of the Dolomites was just providing just enough fighting to perfect the skills of your troops. A human player might well have pushed hard to take Venezia and thus turn the Trentino defenses. The contact frontage would be much larger and movement in easier to allow a full hammer blow and active rotation. The battles would be much costlier, meaning both sides would tend to lose elements from the start. The consequences of losing control of the Venezia countryside would be dire since the invader can hit Lombardy, Trentino, or cross the Po. In CIE MP Austrians have run around central Italy a number of times. On the Austrian side, I would encourage an Italian advance into Udine or beyond as a trap, though if Italy controls the sea it would be much less effective.
12. Take your time to enjoy the economic advantage of occupation of enemy manufacturing centers.
13. "The odd consequence is I exited the first Austrian war with a superb army - 6 corps were elite. I exit this one with only 3 elite corps left and the loss of a cadre of experienced generals."
Indeed. And in peace you lose experience stars to training upgrades. My thought in the second war, since you discovered the Reserves save their experience when demobilized (nice catch), would be to use them along with the lower quality formations in the front line and hold better veterans as army group reserves for MTSG, for key assaults if needed, but largely for holding strong defensive positions efficiently. Napoleon conserved his guardsmen for decisive strokes against an enemy already weakened by prior attacks, which is a good model.
14. I'm glad to see you stock up on depot battalions (replacement chits). It is the best peacetime use of manpower flow if additional units are not needed. I say think of it like ammunition - too much costs something, but too little is fatal. A thick cushion can avoid the disasters that occur when heavy losses force the use of severely attrited units and elements that are low in power/frontage ratio and easily eliminated permanently - Britain suffered this a couple of times in the CIE MP under earlier governments.
15. What other game alliances exist beyond AUS-PRU and IT-FRA-BEL?
16. Britain can be defeated by drawing forth and tying up its land forces overseas (India, Africa, Americas, etc.) and then landing and taking Britain itself. A secure launchpoint in Northern Europe is very useful - Scandinavia is ideal in order to swing north of interception from the usual fleet stations in the south (which was a reason for the anchorage at Scapa Flow in the far north).
17. Italy with the canal under control and blocking British transit has the central position and interior lines, cutting off its key possessions in India and dividing its fleets, which offers the possibility of defeating them in detail. It is a long way round to ship troops back and forth, and they are vulnerable at sea...
18. As a consequence, the relative positions mean the Royal Navy can effectively lose the war in an afternoon by a mis-step, ideally one leaving Britain exposed to attack or at least exposed enough to force a pullback and concentration of naval forces to home defense. Italy, however, can use even a battered force in essentially the same way as a full force so long as it is a significant force in being.
19. Consider making friends with Spain, getting passage rights, and seizing Gibraltar with a massive attack at the start of the war. Very good for you and very bad for Britain.
20. The British like islands but their armies landing on islands can end up as self-run POW camps if they can't then get off. Think about lures and traps. Summer, Autumn, and Winter in Corfu . . . or Sardinia
21. The large British fleet takes a long time to update, meaning that with fresh cutting-edge construction timed for the war you can have a qualitative advantage if you attack at the right time - so scout the British fleets with corvettes and evaluate their forces in detail. Steel Battleships vs. Ironclads is good, or Dreadnoughts vs. earlier battleships, or cruisers vs. earlier types.
22. Re crises, there are specific strategies focused on pulling out prestige rather than winning, which can make sense for crises without substance.
23. Narwhal's SP War Pool idea of having guest players to play the enemy is an interesting one, especially if the player is capable and determined. The AI, however, has the advantage of rigid tenacity and can't be bullied or negotiated into concessions - it's all the numbers. Sometimes humans give way too easily - more so than the real protagonists would have done.
24. Finally- re CP Leakage, let it be proclaimed on the Garibaldi Memorial that: "Wherever is soiled by Italians, there is Italian soil."
This comment is almost impossible to answer, but thanks for taking the effort to put together so much. So lets see:
Trade etc.
I did a double check and found I had a few gaps, only one of any importance was off S China so built some new merchants and sent them off to fill in gaps. I also adopted your idea of running up the stocks (it won't appear in the AAR tilll later in 1887). Originally I was being cautious as I was trying to conserve PC but at the moment my only shortage is in terms of Steel so I can use the PC as I wish. I've also adopted an approach of paying over the odds for things like tobacco etc, both of which help to speed up the international circulation of capital and to keep demand for my own products as high as possible.
Diplomacy etc
Those are the only alliances I'm aware of. Russia might have a defensive alliance with Bulgaria as a result of that event chain. I'm trying to draw in Russia but while it likes me, and offers regular state visits, it won't sign a defensive pact till I improve my relations with Serbia and Bulgaria - so doing that is my current priority in international relations. I need to rethink this as we get nearer to 1900 as I don't want to be friends with both sides of the later Balkan Wars.
If I do get into another war with Austria, then I'd certainly force the release of say the Czechs (as that would cripple their industrial base), not least I don't really want to take Split (which is the only remaining objective of mine they hold). All the N Italian provinces have some Austrian loyalties. For Alto Adige this is correct but historically some of the Milanese industrialists preferred Austrian rule (they could sell into a larger market) and of course the NE regions have Slavic minorities. So I've left them untouched so far.
The balance between letting my qualitatively superior army meet their larger numbers on an open battlefield as opposed to in the mountains is interesting. It was clear, esp in the first war, that once I met them on relatively open terrain it was then that I started to inflict very heavy losses. But I was aided by all the NM that the Dolomite battles had cost them. I was very clear that I was a single bad defeat away from losing that war and that if they retook Alto Adige (or turned my flank in the Veneto) it would be very hard to recover. I think generally the AGE AI does well but it lacks the patience that sometimes you need - given the cohesion loss for movement and that most games favour the defense, a player is often well advised to sit and wait, the AI tends to find something to do.
I've been steadily building up my replacement pools, esp as manufactured goods are no longer such a serious constraint. Agree, it is the best use of conscript companies that otherwise go to waste.
Strategy for Britain.
I'm in two minds over Gibralter (I won't get a Spanish alliance in time as we are about -15 on relations). One is a major naval invasion to seal the Med. I can then project power as/when I wish leaving only a minimal army in Italy. The other is to leave it and hope the UK invades. Unless they have massive sealift (which I doubt), I think that could set up a rather useful killing ground and source of NM/WarScore for me. At the moment I tend to inviting them to come and visit (and creating major traps in Sicily and Sardinia).
Offensively, the idea of an overland attack on S Africa is becoming attractive and I think I have the naval power to land 2 armies in India (and still defend Italy). But I think I'll opt to open the war on the defense and see if I can lure them into my territory. I am also putting in place some commerce raiding squadrons in addition to the main battle fleet.
Fleet
I've been building some of those smaller ships, as much for colour as out of any appreciation of their value (and the steel situation is badly hampering my ability to create cruisers never mind battleships.
Military things.
I only noticed the issue with the reserves as the two Austrian wars were so close together, but it is a nice feature. I tended to use the regulars (for experience) but perhaps I should have re-organised my armies a bit better. Problem was in the second war, I was split up and detaching and re-attaching corps to reflect immediate need rather than any particular idea of how the OOB should have been.
Sir Garnet wrote:24. Finally- re CP Leakage, let it be proclaimed on the Garibaldi Memorial that: "Wherever is soiled by Italians, there is Italian soil."
Stuyvesant wrote:Very interesting thoughts (I would expect no less from someone who clearly knows his game) and that final remark is certainly fitting for the tone of the AAR and the somewhat haphazard expansion of Italian colonial dominion.
One does lke to set and maintain standards
