Manufacturing Italy (a PoN GC)

[Sir Garnet]

British troops must be raised in Britain, other than fortress troops and of course Indian Army units, which include brigades but also divisions and even several Indian Army fulll corps which can be raised in india, though I'm not sure about this scenariio.

Leaders and replacements, however, arrive in London, and it takes the India ability to command Indian Army troops without penalty.

[Dewirix]

Even without South Africa, Britain has a string of ports that would be perfect for resting re-inforcements to India (There is western Africa ports, also the 2 islands off the western coast of Africa, and the small Island east of Madagasscar - don't remember any of their names). Thus they could be fresh if they stop there. The question is, whill the AI rest their ships at these different ports? If not, then they will be very worn down by the time they get there.

British troops must be raised in Britain, other than fortress troops and of course Indian Army units, which include brigades but also divisions and even several Indian Army fulll corps which can be raised in india, though I'm not sure about this scenariio.

Leaders and replacements, however, arrive in London, and it takes the India ability to command Indian Army troops without penalty.

Hmm, I'm assuming that the smaller islands (Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, St Helena and Ascension in the Atlantic) can be taken fairly easily, given that they're unlikely to have large garrisons and loki's already taken the presumably better-defended-and-fortified Gibraltar.

That would then mean India was relatively isolated, and the Royal Navy would either have to run the gauntlet all the way from West Africa, or the British AI would concentrate on taking back South Africa and/or the islands it had lost first. Either way, loki would have a fairly free run of things in India as long as he can keep the British tied up elsewhere.

[loki100]

In terms of preventing the British reinforcing their position in India, what would be the impact of denying them bases in South Africa and the Indian ocean? Loki's unlikely to be able to push them out of all their Indian ports, but there's probably nothing between Nigeria and the subcontinent if South Africa's in Italian hands.

I'm guessing it would mean that any fleets that do get sent out would be low on organisation, and ripe for interception by the Regia Marina.

Even without South Africa, Britain has a string of ports that would be perfect for resting re-inforcements to India (There is western Africa ports, also the 2 islands off the western coast of Africa, and the small Island east of Madagasscar - don't remember any of their names). Thus they could be fresh if they stop there. The question is, whill the AI rest their ships at these different ports? If not, then they will be very worn down by the time they get there.

British troops must be raised in Britain, other than fortress troops and of course Indian Army units, which include brigades but also divisions and even several Indian Army fulll corps which can be raised in india, though I'm not sure about this scenariio.

Leaders and replacements, however, arrive in London, and it takes the India ability to command Indian Army troops without penalty.

Hmm, I'm assuming that the smaller islands (Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, St Helena and Ascension in the Atlantic) can be taken fairly easily, given that they're unlikely to have large garrisons and loki's already taken the presumably better-defended-and-fortified Gibraltar.

That would then mean India was relatively isolated, and the Royal Navy would either have to run the gauntlet all the way from West Africa, or the British AI would concentrate on taking back South Africa and/or the islands it had lost first. Either way, loki would have a fairly free run of things in India as long as he can keep the British tied up elsewhere.

I'll answer these as a group as they all relate to much the same issues. Those small islands will be garrisoned, I believe one reason that the auto-garrison function is in the game is to avoid the AI failing to (or committing too many forces) garrison such outposts.

I've been planning to knock S Africa out of their communication lines for 5-6 years. That alone justifies all those colonial wars as I moved south and that I am losing colonial prestige due to having so much outside my SOI. My fear to date was that they would slip a naval force past me when my fleet (about 1 turn in 5) was back in port to recover.

Now I'm pretty sure that nothing of any weight slipped past so the force I am fighting in India is a combination of the pre-war garrison and any Indian units they have raised since the war commenced. As in the next update, I think its clear they are running out of formations, so my assumption was they were keeping one large army back in the UK. I guess, as I do, they have a lot of weaker forces scattered around other parts of their empire.

In India, their only main ports left are Calcutta and Karachi and I am trying to close both of them if I can (I have no fleet in India as unfortunately I have not been able to secure a port). On balance, I think I have managed to break the war up into isolated sectors and I seem to have gained a real advantage in S Africa.

I'm not going to give too much away by revealing that I don't think the British AI solves the problem but in part that is at it is quickly running out of troops.

Thanks for this continuing AAR. I'm just now trying to learn the game -- okay, I bought it a while back but just came back to it -- and this is invaluable, the best resource I've found.

I'm glad its useful. Its an utterly addictive game with a need to lay plans over 5-10 year periods and is a real challenge. I must confess I started this as 'teach myself PoN' as I tend to pay more attention if I am taking decent notes, so I remain very grateful that anyone else finds it useful.

[loki100]

This update completes the reports on the first year of the war. For a while, all the action takes place in either India or S Africa so I will divide up the reports on that basis. In this period not much happened in S Africa as I was sieging Durban. It is in India that most of the action takes place.

The important decision was that Giuseppe and the Alice Band went to India (Ricotti-Magnani's army was retained in Africa). In India this will give me 3 commanded armies and about 4 independent corps. Hopefully enough so that I can start to regain the initiative. I still have one completely uncommitted army in Italy but I don't want to send that to either colonial theatre till I am completely sure of my options.



So that disposes of the troops freed up by the conclusion of the E African campaign.

S Africa was all about the siege of Durban, and the British attempts to break out. India saw a gradual extension of Italian control.

India

Here I decided on two very different strategies. I fed Giuseppe's force into the war in the centre and the south. Here my goal was to take provinces and secure my overall position. This led to some disasters such as when an attempt to sieze Hyderabad off the march with an independent corps led to a bloody failure.



Still, I slowly managed to create a coherent front. First, the British units operating in southern India were isolated from those in the north.



In the west, the Alice Band are trying to capture the southern provinces of modern day Pakistan



In the meantime along the Ganges I used a very different approach. Cosenz ignored the prospect of territorial gains and instead concentrated on destroying the larger British forces in the region. This set up a campaign of rapid movement and bruising battles.



He then swung south and another army was trapped at Panipat



He then shifted and advanced on Cawnpore where another British force was badly beaten.



The net effect of those two disparate campaigns was to solidify my grasp of central India but I made almost no gains in the North. Nonetheless, 3 large British armies had been routed even if none of them was actually finished off. This is a rather large scale map but gives some idea of the state of the Indian campaign at the end of August. Green is where Italian military control is dominant, red British. The pale space in the middle seems to be related to that independent Indian state.



S Africa

Throughout July, the British tried to break out of the siege at Durban (Archibald was content to remain at Cape Town). This led to a series of bloody actions, but time and force disposition is very much on my side.




By mid-September, the British surrender, clearing the way to deploy my armies towards Cape Town.



Other events

By early September I have valuable new techs – Browning Machine Guns and Bolt Action Rifles.



There will be a hit on my replacement pool as my army re-equips but I can cope with that. Note that the machine guns improve the force and volume of my defensive fire. The bolt action rifles trigger a completely new generation of all the military units.

Also Britain and Russia have a major hissy fit at each other. Unfortunately it doesn't lead to a war.





Main things to note is my national morale has gone from 157 to 169 basically due to the victories at Durban and Cosenz's campaign in N India. They have dipped from 63 to 59. This differential gives me a major bonus on the battlefield.

In terms of losses mine have been 120,000 (2.86m to 2.98m) and they have lost 220,000 (3.29m to 3.51m). To this should be added around 10,000 prisoners at Durban.

So I'm still not inflicting massive losses, in fact compared to the Austrian wars this is pretty low key. In the first year, I have lost 400,000 (2.58m to 2.98m) and they have lost 800,000 (2.78m to 3.51m). I've not been able to track prisoners but even ignoring automatic garrisons, I'd say they have lost another 300,000 from major forts surrendering. On balance that is quite a hole in their OOB and their overall combat power has dipped from 136 pre-war to 102.

In effect, they now scarcely outnumber me. I have two large armies (Gibralter and Italy) uncommitted, I now outnumber them in S Africa and I think there is rough parity in India. So my guess is they too have 2 large armies somewhere else. I guess defending the British Isles.

My overal warscore is 286. Enough to force the release of one of their nations or take some colonies. But not yet really at the level where defeat will serious damage both their immediate prestige and their longer term resiliance.



Summary

If I am careful S Africa is now mine for the taking. I need to be cautious as the other British army is around 2500 in combat power. But I have almost 4000 available (and much better NM).

In India, I was pleased with the outcome of my switch of focus. Learning the lesson from the second Austrian war, I made the British army the target rather than territory. Cosenz did a lot of marching (and recovering) and fought 3 major battles in 3 months. Each say heavy British losses, especially in elements, so those armies need to pull out of the theatre of operations if they are to have any chance of recovering.

The overall parity in combat power is interesting. As in the discussion, I suspect that means 1-2 large armies in the UK plus colonial units spread around Africa and so on.

[Dewirix]

Good to see you're following The Invader's Guide to India and fighting battles at Panipat.

What impact will developing bolt-action rifles and machine guns have on the course of the war? Are you likely to have a significant technological edge now, or is it just a matter of catching up?

[Stuyvesant]

"Whatever happens, we have got
The Maxim gun, and they have not"

It's still true. It's just too bad that they (the Italians) now have the Browning Machine Gun. Makes the Maxim a tad bit less impressive.

South Africa tilts a bit more in your favor, you've slaughtered tens of thousands of Britons in India (as well as a good number of Italians) and you have an extra army there. I think things are looking good for you.

Do you have a fleet to spare to do some reconnaissance around the British Isles, find out if the remaining armies are indeed cowering in Albion, awaiting the Roman reconquest that will restore Britannia to its rightful place in the Roman Empire? It's only been 1850 years since Claudius succeeded, after all (or even less, if you count the the suppression of the Great Conspiracy).

One thing that puzzled me was the apparent jumping around of Cosenz's stats in the consecutive battles. Even though he wins them all, his stats bounce back and forth. Any idea why that happened?

[loki100]

Good to see you're following The Invader's Guide to India and fighting battles at Panipat.

What impact will developing bolt-action rifles and machine guns have on the course of the war? Are you likely to have a significant technological edge now, or is it just a matter of catching up?

I know, its so good to keep this as historical as possible.

I doubt I have a technological edge. My assumption is that, unlike Austria, Britain is completely up to date with the techs. So my bonus is from my NM, that I have better leaders (all those wars in Africa) and a lot of my formations are elite.

"Whatever happens, we have got
The Maxim gun, and they have not"

It's still true. It's just too bad that they (the Italians) now have the Browning Machine Gun. Makes the Maxim a tad bit less impressive.

South Africa tilts a bit more in your favor, you've slaughtered tens of thousands of Britons in India (as well as a good number of Italians) and you have an extra army there. I think things are looking good for you.

Do you have a fleet to spare to do some reconnaissance around the British Isles, find out if the remaining armies are indeed cowering in Albion, awaiting the Roman reconquest that will restore Britannia to its rightful place in the Roman Empire? It's only been 1850 years since Claudius succeeded, after all (or even less, if you count the the suppression of the Great Conspiracy).

One thing that puzzled me was the apparent jumping around of Cosenz's stats in the consecutive battles. Even though he wins them all, his stats bounce back and forth. Any idea why that happened?

I only saw the issue with Cosenz when I put together the report. I'm not sure why its happening (I know he didn't lose any battles) but he settles into a nice 555 in the next update (such a pity its not 666, then I could reintroduce Harry to the proceedings).

It wasn't till the end of 1891 that the idea of taking the war to Britain became even feasible. As we'll see in the next update, i have reason to expect that by mid-1892 I should have both colonial theatres pretty much under control and can think of some large scale redeployments. Depends on how realistic this goal is and how well population contentment bears up.

[loki100]

In this quarter, I basically concentrated on creating a dominant position in both India and South Africa. In India, I committed the last main reserve army from Italy. This allowed me to rest exhausted and depleted units but keep up the pressure on the British. In South Africa it took me 3 months to redeploy the armies from Durban so that they could all attack Cape Town at the same time.

However, early December 1891 was important for another reason. Italy becomes the number one nation in this world.

India

In northern India, Cosenz's victories seemed to have stabilised the situation. I made no territorial gains in the previous 3 months but have badly weakened the British forces that were threatening my position around Delhi.



From this basis, I was able to start pushing east along the Ganges again, and to wreck another British army.



I don't think that army will be much of a threat for some time. Unfortunately, that also wrecked Cosenz's force so he is pulled back to Delhi to allow him to recover organisation and take on replacements.



Despite those wins, the British remain capable of seizing back provinces in part as, as with Cosenz, I do need to rest my forces (or my losses will start to lead to lost elements).



With this I decide to commit the final reserve (although there is still the army at Gibralter). Torre is ordered to India with all the spare formations currently in Italy. I intend to add another large field army and 3-4 separate corps to the campaign in an attempt to shift the balance finally in my direction.



This allows me to rest the more damaged units and keep up the pressure on the British.



In effect, I can both go for their field forces and expand my physical control. Torre's army works off its frustration at having spent the entire war so far in Italy.



South Africa

At the start my main goal was to redeploy the 3 combat armies to Cape Town. I was able to use naval transport for two while the third marched.



This period saw no further combat as I wanted to bring all those formations to bear and give them chance to recover from their marches. Still, hopefully, Kaapstad and the last British held port and depot in S Africa should be mine in early 1892.


Overall

Outside the war, I gain a tech that allows me to upgrade all my coal mines to level 3.



Equally, the Mediterranean has been quiet since the fall of Gibralter. However, rebels rise up in Malta and take over the island. Somehow this fails to distress me as it presents the British with a longer term problem.



Population militancy remains fairly high, not helped by yet another economic crisis. But contentment is at 99% and it is not translating into any real problems.



Just in case there are two reserve corps and 3 divisions still in Italy.

Now, in early December, an event of major importance happened. We had the Victorian equivalent of il sorpasso [1]. Yep, I am now officially the number one nation in this PoN-verse.



I still need double the UK's to win but there is something very pleasing to see them at number 2.

In prestige terms, since June they have increased by only 600 (from 97,800 to 98,400) and mine by 4,500 (from 94,100 to 98,600). Their steady loss of battles, colonies and industry is starting to really hurt their prestige.

Losses in the last 3 months have been 60,000 for me (2.97m to 3.03m) and 140,000 (3.51m to 3.65m) for them. That is a lot more in favour but still indicates the dispersed nature of this war and that major clashes are rare. In terms of NM, mine has gone from 169 to 172 and them from 59 to 57.

On balance, a quarter of preparations rather than particularly decisive. However, I am hopeful that the war in S Africa will end soon and that in India is now very much in my favour. If so, I could either decide to conclude peace on whatever terms that will give me or seek to push for an even more decisive victory.

I did a test and I have enough for Scotland freed, 2 or 3 colonies transferred and a forced disbandment of about 10% of the RN. Some more victories may allow me to claim more (or more valuable) colonies and/or force further long term damage on the British armed forces.

Of course, if the 'pizza oven of doom' was to be moved to the UK, then the warscore would be even more substantial. I might be able to rescue Australia from its British overlords.

[1] the moment in 1987 when Italy's formally declared GDP was claimed to be larger than Britain's. The term was also used in the 1970s when it seemed as if the PCI would outpoll the Christian Democrats.

[Asher413]

Loki- a piece of housekeeping I'm sure you're aware of, but when you "Liberate" Scotland and Ireland, it's only the region with their capitals, not the whole country (at least it was for me back when I decided that they needed their freedom). And in the case of my current game, Ireland decided to revolt back to being a part of the UK. So while it may be a short term prestige blow, it wasn't the death-blow to British industries on the home islands I had hoped for.

[Sir Garnet]

Loki- a piece of housekeeping I'm sure you're aware of, but when you "Liberate" Scotland and Ireland, it's only the region with their capitals, not the whole country (at least it was for me back when I decided that they needed their freedom). And in the case of my current game, Ireland decided to revolt back to being a part of the UK. So while it may be a short term prestige blow, it wasn't the death-blow to British industries on the home islands I had hoped for.

The scope of released regions was increased a while back, though I have not directly experimented.

[Stuyvesant]

Are those Bulgarian rebels in Malta?!?

Oh yes, the update. War continues to tilt in your favor and you keep feeding new troops in. Is it going to strain your supply into India at all, or does it tie in to the generous supply situation you mentioned a few posts ago?

[Dewirix]

Woo hoo, Italy has become Top Nation, and history comes to a . [punto fermo]

Damn, the joke doesn't work any better in Italian than it does in US English.

Are you afraid the British will try to attack your transports, or have you got their navy locked down?

[Director]

I appreciate the niceties of juggling troops across three continents. Your emphasis on naval supremacy has indeed paid high dividends.

If you decide to carry the war to England - and at this point, why not? - you will probably find the Royal Navy deployed in home waters. You will need to keep significant forces in Africa and India, and the British Army is probably swarming on the Home Islands. Might be worth sending a fleet to scout out the situation. Then, too, wrecking the Royal Navy might pay more than invading - higher yield for lower casualties.

So along with the shock of losing Gibraltar comes defeat and retreat in South Africa and the grim spectre of the loss of India... if the British public isn't panicking then the government certainly is. 'Splendid Isolation' it seems has a price.

One suspects the French are chortling darkly into their wineglasses.

[Stuyvesant]

'Splendid Isolation' it seems has a price.

If they don't pull a [s]nifty[/s] magic trick out of their hat very soon, the higher-ups in Whitehall will soon be sitting in 'Not-So-Splendid Isolation' as loki besieges Parliament and burns down everything else on the British Isles. I tell you, that man and any game that has a 'pillage' option... It makes for a scary situation.

[loki100]

Loki- a piece of housekeeping I'm sure you're aware of, but when you "Liberate" Scotland and Ireland, it's only the region with their capitals, not the whole country (at least it was for me back when I decided that they needed their freedom). And in the case of my current game, Ireland decided to revolt back to being a part of the UK. So while it may be a short term prestige blow, it wasn't the death-blow to British industries on the home islands I had hoped for.

The scope of released regions was increased a while back, though I have not directly experimented.

Without giving too much away, I've found that Asher413 is spot on. All that was released was Edinburgh (I mean what is the point of making your second largest city your capital?). A wee bit of scripting solved that, but I'll do a quick bug report too.

Are those Bulgarian rebels in Malta?!?

Oh yes, the update. War continues to tilt in your favor and you keep feeding new troops in. Is it going to strain your supply into India at all, or does it tie in to the generous supply situation you mentioned a few posts ago?

Well I suspect, that title is actually an anglicisation of the Russian ~ya is the cyrilic equivelant of writing .div. Now why AGEOD think that all rebels in Europe are Russians is a mystery, but it does seem that all rebel formations have that style of label.

As before, I think too much supply is now being produced by cities (remember the game has a steady increase in city size as it develops), so I am fine in India as, I suspect are the British. S Africa where they are reduced to a few colonial structures is going to be different.

Woo hoo, Italy has become Top Nation, and history comes to a . [punto fermo]

Damn, the joke doesn't work any better in Italian than it does in US English.

Are you afraid the British will try to attack your transports, or have you got their navy locked down?

Yep 1066 and All That is going to be very different in this time line. I'd urge everyone to read it, its the perfect pastiche of the traditional, Macauley style, Whig history of Britain (well actually of England as us fringe nations don't really get much of a look in). But it is exceptionally funny, the Lambert Simnell, Perkin Warbeck confusion is still with me and the increasingly brief descriptions of Britain's colonial wars in the 19C is worth the reading alone.

They do have a modern navy, with a lot of 1880s battleships so they could have engaged with my fleets but have chosen to go commerce raiding instead. Probably the one thing the AI does really badly to be honest. But if I am going to play with an invasion of GB, then I am going to collect almost my entire fleet to support the landings.

I appreciate the niceties of juggling troops across three continents. Your emphasis on naval supremacy has indeed paid high dividends.

If you decide to carry the war to England - and at this point, why not? - you will probably find the Royal Navy deployed in home waters. You will need to keep significant forces in Africa and India, and the British Army is probably swarming on the Home Islands. Might be worth sending a fleet to scout out the situation. Then, too, wrecking the Royal Navy might pay more than invading - higher yield for lower casualties.

So along with the shock of losing Gibraltar comes defeat and retreat in South Africa and the grim spectre of the loss of India... if the British public isn't panicking then the government certainly is. 'Splendid Isolation' it seems has a price.

One suspects the French are chortling darkly into their wineglasses.

I can free up 2 armies from S Africa at the end of the next update. That gives me, plus the Gibralter force, quite a decent invasion army. I reckon, in terms of CP, that I am now ahead (they are at 94%). Like me, they must have colonial forces all over the place so I can land about 6-7,000 power and I'd be surprised if they had much more. With the NM bonus, that makes it very unlikely I will lose and I can always push for peace if it turns out as a stalemate.

I'd imagine France is both amused and worried. Amused at the demise of the old enemy but perchance worried at this power now on their southern borders. Still we remain the best of chums, and I'm happy to keep it that way.

If they don't pull a [s]nifty[/s] magic trick out of their hat very soon, the higher-ups in Whitehall will soon be sitting in 'Not-So-Splendid Isolation' as loki besieges Parliament and burns down everything else on the British Isles. I tell you, that man and any game that has a 'pillage' option... It makes for a scary situation.

uhuh, would be a pity to invade Britain and not burn something down. We must avenge Guido after all.

As to burning things, well I do wonder how inflamable Egypt was in 71AD, I mean all that wood and grain? can't be too careful, esp with Otho looking for somewhere safe to run to

[loki100]

In this quarter, the war in South Africa was more or less finished. The battered remains of Archibald's army went away, well they fell back to the north where there is no supply apart from a colonial outpost. I need to finish it off, but can start to think of major redeployments.

In India, I carried on prioritising the destruction of the British army but also broke them up into three completely seperate sections in the west (modern day Pakistan), far south and around Calcutta in the East. Its too early to think of pulling anything out of the theatre, but if I can further squeeze one or more of those sectors, then I can start to release units.

With the fleet itching for a fight, and a large army sunning itself in Gibralter, my mind did indeed start to turn to a potential invasion of Britain.

But first, lets have some details.

S Africa

By the start of January I am in position for what I hope will be the final stage of this campaign. Two armies attack Kaapstad, the third is held back in reserve.



The result is a brutal and bruising battle with almost equal losses. However, the British cede the field of battle and their last depot.



Since there are no supply producing cities not under Italian control, just a few colonial structures, for the first time I can use starvation as a weapon [1].



India

With the new army, I am able to put the British under substantial pressure. I focus on their army rather than taking cities, and inflict a series of major defeats. This is typical of a range of such encounters.



By early February, the British are confined to the edges of the sub-continent.



In the west, the British are forced back towards the Afghan border.



In the east, Italian forces close in on Calcutta, one of the few large depots the British still hold.



In the south, it has become a campaign of individual corps but I think I outnumber the British 2-1



On each sector, I am trying to press my advantage, either by battle or manouver.


(oddly for a battle in the snow, almost all the combat was at range, I suspect the British morale is low and they fell back once I moved to close quarters).

The only setback is at Madras where I was too optimistic about my ability to overwhelm the garrison. That defeat, and the resulting retreat, cost me an entire corps.



Even so, the defeat is quickly avenged.



Other matters

Some important techs are finished, in particular a more modern form of cruiser, the pre-Dreadnought battleship class and a number of techs that improve either armour or gunnery strength.



I decide to only order 4 (1 counter) of the new battleships for now. I have plenty of steel but don't particularly need them given how this war is developing.



The difference is fairly minimal, some extra medium range fire power, so I don't see the need to build a lot, or replace my existing steel battleships for the moment.

To this is added a couple of cruiser squadrons so that I will have a small, but very modern, naval squadron in addition to the main fleet.

And submarines, again no idea how useful they are but who can resist building some?



If the combat ships are mostly small upgrades, other, more interesting, new ships become available.



The hospital ship looks particularly useful as it will improve the cohesion of my fleets.

Overall position



In the last three months, they have lost 290,000 (from 3.65m to 3.94m) and their NM has dropped by 2 (from 57 to 55). In turn, I've lost 140,000 (from 3.03m to 3.17m) and my NM is up to 177 (from 175). I've included the tooltip you see if you hovver over your NM as it explains why 65 is so important (as is being over 125). If you are outside that range you get -2 or +2 per turn for balance, if you are within that range you get plus or minus 1 till you reach 100.

I'd suggest the losses are starting to shift dramatically in my favour as their battlefield morale must be low and have increased due to the number of large battles - especially in India. This affects cohesion, means that most fighting is at range (where my usual dominance in terms of artillery favours me) and they tend to break in the close combat phase.

[1] – its odd as this is such a default tactic in other AGE games, especially Rise of Prussia and Wars in America.

[Stuyvesant]

Will. Not. Get. Drawn. Into. Psychological. Warfare. Over. Egypt. I'm currently having nightmares from Jewish Zealots destroying my armies in my AJE test run, so clearly I'm doing it wrong...

You're doing well, though you're having a little math problem with your casualty numbers - either the totals jump too much, or the quarterly casualties are too low by a factor 10.

Anyway, U-Boats - who wouldn't want to build a few of those. How soon until you test them against the RN? In the English Channel, perhaps?

[loki100]

though you're having a little math problem with your casualty numbers - either the totals jump too much, or the quarterly casualties are too low by a factor 10.

whistles nonchalently while hoping no one else spotted this

[Dewirix]

Regarding the new battleships, this is one of the problems faced by historically inspired games (in fact, by all games, but historical ones in particular). As a player, you know that there's not much point building late-era pre-Dreadnoughts, because the post-1905 ships will be that much better that the best plan is to wait until after the relevant technologies have unlocked.

I'm guessing that most navies of the period would have reacted quite badly to the suggestion that they suspend their building programmes until the next big thing came along.

[Jonathan Pollard]

It's a known "feature" that completing dreadnought research has absolutely no effect in PON. Has anyone ever actually been able to build dreadnoughts?

[Citizen X]

Regarding the new battleships, this is one of the problems faced by historically inspired games (in fact, by all games, but historical ones in particular). As a player, you know that there's not much point building late-era pre-Dreadnoughts, because the post-1905 ships will be that much better that the best plan is to wait until after the relevant technologies have unlocked.

I'm guessing that most navies of the period would have reacted quite badly to the suggestion that they suspend their building programmes until the next big thing came along.

It's a problem of a world focused on technical progress and its hardcoded impacts: hitting harder, producing more, shitdive deeper. The real impact of those inventions was strategical, psychological, political. Many shipgnerations in that period did only see a prototype. But its presence, mainly that of the first dreadnoughts, filled their opponents with awe. This is rarely reflected in historical games, as bonus or malus of various kinds, like battlestats or "warreadiness". But I think in a game like PON it could easily be implemented: the single owner of a prototype gets an advantage in naval battles, regardless of participating ships or their opponents warweariness grows faster or whatever. That would make a navy up to date at all times be crucial and waiting for newer ships riskier.

[Dewirix]

It's a problem of a world focused on technical progress and its hardcoded impacts: hitting harder, producing more, shitdive deeper. The real impact of those inventions was strategical, psychological, political. Many shipgnerations in that period did only see a prototype. But its presence, mainly that of the first dreadnoughts, filled their opponents with awe. This is rarely reflected in historical games, as bonus or malus of various kinds, like battlestats or "warreadiness". But I think in a game like PON it could easily be implemented: the single owner of a prototype gets an advantage in naval battles, regardless of participating ships or their opponents warweariness grows faster or whatever. That would make a navy up to date at all times be crucial and waiting for newer ships riskier.

Yes, I could see that working. Of course, there's also the wider political implications of halting ship construction. I suspect any British government that said it simply wasn't going to build new battleships for 5-10 years would probably lose the next election.

[loki100]

fascinating debate, and I'll do a full response with the next update. But to stick in my 2p:

a) Dewirix has a good point, its using an unfeasible level of knowledge to stop battleship construction now. I know in this particular AAR there is no pretence to do anything but report the game, but ... I've ordered another squadron. I think its reasonable as Italy's global reach does sort of expand in 1893
b) I read somewhere that one reason the RN was so dominant in the age of sail and esp the period 1750-1850 was that they could afford (uniquely) to replace their main ships every 15-20 years, so in a battle line every ship had a similar performance. One problem in this era was that almost every capital ship was an experiment, that had different handling characteristics, so fleet tactics were exceptionally hard to organise. Add to that, till Tsushima, I can't think of any naval clash in the post-monitor, pre-dreadnought era so of course there is no empirical evidence to draw on;
c) I'll check over the links between a number of techs and triggering new units. I've seen the post in the main forum. If its true, then I'll see if I can script solutions (the dreadnoughts, and indeed airplanes are all in the units files) and send them to Kensai for evaluation into a patch
d) released nations come into the world pretty naked - no army, no stocks etc, which may explain why they have a tendency to fall to rebels. Also Scotland is released as a religious theocracy. Now I realise there is plenty of evidence of religious stupidity, esp in my home city, but that does seem a wee bit harsh. After all John Knox didn't actually win. Just for my own peace of mind, anyone know how to do a script to alter national characteristics?

[Dewirix]

fascinating debate, and I'll do a full response with the next update. But to stick in my 2p:

a) Dewirix has a good point, its using an unfeasible level of knowledge to stop battleship construction now. I know in this particular AAR there is no pretence to do anything but report the game, but ... I've ordered another squadron. I think its reasonable as Italy's global reach does sort of expand in 1893
b) I read somewhere that one reason the RN was so dominant in the age of sail and esp the period 1750-1850 was that they could afford (uniquely) to replace their main ships every 15-20 years, so in a battle line every ship had a similar performance. One problem in this era was that almost every capital ship was an experiment, that had different handling characteristics, so fleet tactics were exceptionally hard to organise. Add to that, till Tsushima, I can't think of any naval clash in the post-monitor, pre-dreadnought era so of course there is no empirical evidence to draw on;

I wasn't having a go at you for not building soon-to-be-obsolete ships. Just remarking that that's how we play these games. It's the same with things like the Europa Universalis series, where it's immediately obvious that Maurician Infantry are better than Tercios or whatever.

In reality, there'd be all sorts of external pressures, social/cultural, economic, etc., which would preclude simply ditching one type in favour of a mechanically better variety.

On pre-dreadnought naval clashes, Lissa comes to mind, and not only for inspiring a great painting of mutton chops. However, that's still comparatively early in the period, although there was one proper post-monitor ships, the Affondatore. It's also worth noting that Lissa was basically responsible for ramming coming back into vogue as a naval tactic.

EDIT: Having done a bit more digging, the Battle of the Yalu River in 1894 pitched German-built Chinese battleships against French-built Japanese protected cruisers. Both sets of ships were 1880s vintage, but the Chinese suffered from a critical shortage of ammunition, which was bad enough in itself, but had the knock-on effect of meaning that the crews had not been allowed to conduct gunnery practice and were thus being thrown in at the deep end.

The battle of Manila Bay during the Spanish-American war is another example, but that was restricted to cruisers. However, it's probably the best example of two warship-building states clashing in the pre-Tsushima period.

[Stuyvesant]

b) I read somewhere that one reason the RN was so dominant in the age of sail and esp the period 1750-1850 was that they could afford (uniquely) to replace their main ships every 15-20 years, so in a battle line every ship had a similar performance. One problem in this era was that almost every capital ship was an experiment, that had different handling characteristics, so fleet tactics were exceptionally hard to organise. Add to that, till Tsushima, I can't think of any naval clash in the post-monitor, pre-dreadnought era so of course there is no empirical evidence to draw on;

If Dewirix's post hasn't provided enough fodder, I'm sure that Director will be happy to provide a handy treatise - the man's a veritable walking encyclopedia when it comes to naval warfare. In fact, I'll say that your original comment about the RN's regular ship replacement sounds a lot like something he would know all about.

[Director]

To Dewirix's excellent list I would add the naval battles of the South American states (the Pacific War and Brazil's riverine campaign against Paraguay), the Battle of Santiago (which actually involved battleships) and the Russo-Japanese naval battles before Tsushima. What we learn from this is that no navy was really prepared to fight at the (comparatively) long range and high speed that iron-and-steam ships could achieve, nor did anyone have any idea how incredibly hard it was going to be to hit the target and have the shell go off as planned.

Ramming in Lissa was an effective use of a weapon of desperate last resort. The Austrian fleet was deficient in rifled guns, modern armor-piercing projectiles and in armor plate. The Italian fleet, for their part, had moved large numbers of guns around in the days before the battle meaning ammunition supply was confused, crews were not extensively trained on the guns and - in some cases - shells were lacking or defective. Teghettof's decision to push for a ramming melee was driven by the stark fact that the Austrian fleet was utterly outclassed. In fact the two navies succeeded in ramming only once - against an opponent who was stopped dead in the water - and there are few other instances of ramming being effective. Fun fact: most of the 'ram-bow' warships of 1880+ are built that way because a protruding underwater prow provided better buoyancy, not because they intended to ram the enemy.

The 'dreadnought' all-big-gun idea had been germinating for a while: see the Japanese, French and British semi-dreadnoughts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Nelson-class_battleship and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satsuma-class_battleship). It was given its first full expression in a paper by the Italian designer Cuniberti and first given form in the American 'South Carolina' and 'Michigan'. Britain's 'Dreadnought' was the first ship of the new type completed and represented a break with RN tradition. Since Trafalgar the RN had waited for other powers to develop ideas and then used Britain's shipyards and financial power to improve on and outbuild all competitors. With Dreadnought, Sir John Fisher hoped to deter other powers by jumping far out into the lead... this probably worked about as well as any other approach, which is to say it deterred no-one. Too, they were supposed to save money by giving the RN higher fighting power for less money and fewer expensive crewmen; it is not co-incidence that dreadnoughts were said to be worth two or even three pre-dreadnoughts (a debatable claim).

What is not generally understood is that the dreadnought took decades to live up to its potential. To deploy such vast fleets, moving at turbine-driven high speeds, you needed wide-spread, reliable radio. To fire the guns accurately you needed excellent range-finders, director-firing controls, plotting computers (all gear-driven analog models and surprisingly good), inter-ship communications equipment. To keep them afloat you needed careful attention to damage control, relentless practice and sensible handling of munitions - the latter cost the Royal Navy most of the ships lost at Jutland: the crews were piling propellant and shells in the turrets and blocking the flash-doors open to speed up reloading times.

What doesn't get talked about much is the way the torpedo-craft, submarines, zeppelins, early aircraft and radio constrained the movement and use of the big ships. Mine warfare became the single biggest killer of ships, and it was something that every navy but Russia had utterly ignored before WWI broke out. Still, control of the sea rested with battleships, and to play in that game you needed a superior number of more-or-less equivalent ships, something only the most robust economy could support.

From 1870 to 1945 - 75 years - the capital ship went from a displacement of 10-12,000 tons to 55-75,000 tons. Speed rose from 12 to 33 knots, projectile weight from 200 lbs to 2700 lbs, gun range opened from 2000 yards to 30,000+. But this was a gradual and steady growth... Lord Nelson (a semi-dreadnought) and Dreadnought have a lot in common with each other and less with Mikasa (Togo's flagship at Tsushima) or Bismarck from WWII.

To address the point about ship construction: inferior or out-dated ships were usually completed (Lord Nelson and Agamemnon were delayed while Dreadnought took their 12" guns) and then deployed in a secondary theater. Dreadnought did not spark an immediate ship-building frenzy; the French went off building the Danton semi-dreadnoughts, the Germans took (I think) a four-year holiday to study the situation and the Japanese were mostly too broke to immediately follow up. In my personal opinion a pair of fairly recent pre- or semi-dreadnoughts with good gunnery crews could probably take on an early dreadnought. Where the dreadnoughts began to tip the scales was in the indirect factors: fewer crew (one engineering plant not two), less maintenance (turbine drive versus triple-expansion) and the ability to pack more survivability into the bigger hull. What mattered MOST (IMHO) was not the size of the enemy ship and number of heavy guns but the training of the crew and the determination and expertise of the commanders...

So... in my opinion, should the dreadnought class get some special bonus? No. A lot of the 'ultimate-ship' hoopla was Fisher-inspired intimidation aimed at getting Parliament to finance them and foreign navies NOT to compete with them. Better ships - yes, but not orders of magnitude better. Improving the quality of the rangefinders, gunnery controls and damage control equipment - in my opinion - made a much bigger difference, and that took decades.

Stuyvesant - you should know better than to set me off and I should know better than to let you.

[vonduus]

This is such a great read! Thank you loki100, for teaching me to play this game. I read this AAR back when it was situated on the Paradox website, at that time it made the difference that enabled me to actually play this game. And now, when rereading it, I begin to understand quite a lot more of those things I didn't understand in the first place. There are still (lots of) things I don't understand, but it is reassuring to know that I am not the only one.

It is a great deed that you took the trouble to move the entire AAR to this forum. One thing could be better though. Quite a lot of your screenshots are dead links (I guess around 10%), it seems that imageshack is not to be trusted 100%. And what happens if imageshack goes out of business (like fx Megaupload did)?

Actually, this critique is not aimed at you or your work, but should properly be adressed to the AGEOD forums. I fully understand that a small company like AGEOD cannot afford to pay for so much server space, but in my opinion your AAR is way better than the official manual, so in this case an exception to the rules would be proper. Of couse I know it is a lot of work to upload all the images again and provide new links, so I don't really expect you to do it, even if you are allowed to.

So far I have read about half of this AAR, and over the next couple of days/weeks i expect to read the rest. As most of the time spent in this game is spent waiting for the ai to finish turns, i really appreciate that I can let the game run in the background while I am reading your AAR.

Keep up the good work!

[loki100]

General

First some general comments. That is one awesome set of posts and knowledge on display. Reminds me somewhat of when I was writing my Great Patriotic War and finding images on Russian language sites (and trying to ignore all the Stalin love nonsense on some of them). As a result, more than a few of my attributions were ropey and Lord Tim would pop up with an erudite explanation.

The comments indicate the degree that my Nineteenth Century history is so euro-centric that its easy to forget all these other conflicts. So thanks to all, from a casual throw away line and fair comment to a masters dissertation on Nineteenth Century naval warfare – one of the many ways that comments really make an AAR.

Specifics

Will. Not. Get. Drawn. Into. Psychological. Warfare. Over. Egypt. I'm currently having nightmares from Jewish Zealots destroying my armies in my AJE test run, so clearly I'm doing it wrong...

Ummhhh, time to update the flaming pig experiment ... would flaming rats be the appropriate solution in the Year of Four Emperors (or flaming locusts?).

Anyway, U-Boats - who wouldn't want to build a few of those. How soon until you test them against the RN? In the English Channel, perhaps?

These have very limited range, but I do hope to try them out on someone.

1 was going to make some comment that in Italian its not a U-boat but an S-boat but it seems less sure. The overall arm is called Sottomarini italiani , but the designation of boat numbers is based on the particular class (rather than generic as with the Germans), so some were indeed U-???. Anyway, here's a pretty picture of Italy's first real submarine, the Delfino:

It's a problem of a world focused on technical progress and its hardcoded impacts: hitting harder, producing more, shitdive deeper. The real impact of those inventions was strategical, psychological, political. Many shipgnerations in that period did only see a prototype. But its presence, mainly that of the first dreadnoughts, filled their opponents with awe. This is rarely reflected in historical games, as bonus or malus of various kinds, like battlestats or "warreadiness". But I think in a game like PON it could easily be implemented: the single owner of a prototype gets an advantage in naval battles, regardless of participating ships or their opponents warweariness grows faster or whatever. That would make a navy up to date at all times be crucial and waiting for newer ships riskier.

I agree this would be an intriguing concept. Add in dissent etc if you are seen to fall behind and you could start to model the real reasons behind the naval expansion at the start of the twentieth century.

If Dewirix's post hasn't provided enough fodder, I'm sure that Director will be happy to provide a handy treatise - the man's a veritable walking encyclopedia when it comes to naval warfare. In fact, I'll say that your original comment about the RN's regular ship replacement sounds a lot like something he would know all about.

and he did indeed ... in spades

This is such a great read! Thank you loki100, for teaching me to play this game. I read this AAR back when it was situated on the Paradox website, at that time it made the difference that enabled me to actually play this game. And now, when rereading it, I begin to understand quite a lot more of those things I didn't understand in the first place. There are still (lots of) things I don't understand, but it is reassuring to know that I am not the only one.

It is a great deed that you took the trouble to move the entire AAR to this forum. One thing could be better though. Quite a lot of your screenshots are dead links (I guess around 10%), it seems that imageshack is not to be trusted 100%. And what happens if imageshack goes out of business (like fx Megaupload did)?

Actually, this critique is not aimed at you or your work, but should properly be adressed to the AGEOD forums. I fully understand that a small company like AGEOD cannot afford to pay for so much server space, but in my opinion your AAR is way better than the official manual, so in this case an exception to the rules would be proper. Of couse I know it is a lot of work to upload all the images again and provide new links, so I don't really expect you to do it, even if you are allowed to.

So far I have read about half of this AAR, and over the next couple of days/weeks i expect to read the rest. As most of the time spent in this game is spent waiting for the ai to finish turns, i really appreciate that I can let the game run in the background while I am reading your AAR.

Keep up the good work!

thanks for this, its the sort of feedback that makes keeping this going relatively easy. I still don't understand this game in its totality. Some bits are obscure and I see little wrong with that – it reduces the temptation to min-max (the research model is a good eg), some you learn from others (such as how to dampen down colonial wars). As I've confessed a few times, one reason for starting this is I know I play better, and pay more attention, if I am writing. So the AAR started as 'teach myself PoN', its always re-assuring to hear that others find it useful.

Now this seems a useful cue to muse on how to take this forward. Its clear that I've won some sort of victory as even if the GB invasion fails I now have 450-500 warscore. Enough to do some serious damage to the British Empire.

It'll take a while (at least one 6 month period of relative peace) to see if the resulting long term prestige position is enough to make it likely I can win (ie end up with double) or if I'll fall short. In the latter case, at some stage in the 1890s or early 1900s, I'll need to do round 2 on Britain. But first I need some period of peace to absorb my gains and also, if the game models Italian history well, the 1890s will be rather dramatic domestically as, not for the last time in its inglorious history, the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) is going to threaten more than it can deliver (that is before Craxi set new world standards for corruption in the 1980s).

Anyway, I may switch to less regular, annual updates, as reading about small shifts of industrial power or minor colonial wars maybe a wee bit tedious (oddly its interesting to play).

If I am well on track to a conventional win, then I may, by around 1900, start to script in an event chain to set off a global conflict that is in tune with the emerging power blocks ie Italy-France-Russia vs Germany-Austria-Britain. Really just to give a focal point to the end game.

I will take it to 1920, not least it'll be useful to check over the late game event and tech chains to see if any really are broken. If so, I can create a file of fixes for someone more knowledgeable to check over and perhaps assist in the patching process.

If I opt to break the vanilla game with a false WW1, I'll signal it clearly to make it clear I've set it up.

As to the images - it does seem that image shack is bad at long term viability of images. I'm not sure if the other image hosting sites are much better to be honest (at least it doesn't have the bandwith problem of photobucket). I have most on my hard drive, but what tends to happen is every time I switch to a new laptop, I tend to end up deleting older AARs to spare myself the tedious task of copying stuff over - one problem of self-employment is you end up being your own IT dept.

[loki100]

In this quarter, my main aims were to push my advantages in S Africa (mainly by releasing units for elsewhere) and India (to see if I could finish off, or completely block, the British forces in one of the isolated sectors).

It ends with Wales about to receive a fraternal visit from Italy.

Anyway, we have a war to cover first.

Africa

The retreating British are caught north of Cape Town and in a hard fought battle are pretty much wrecked as an organised force.


(that was actually the second battle in a sequence of three as Archibald bounced off the various encircling armies – not a good time for little archie to be honest).

They are now low on supply as well. I decide to deny them the chance to recover, if I can, but also to withdraw 2 of the 3 armies in S Africa.



First target on their south-north world cruise is the British holding at Warri on the mouth of the Niger.



This falls easily and the main force re-embarks for sunny Wales, leaving a division behind.

India

In the north, Ricci continues to win a series of bruising (for the British) victories.



This seems to mark a definitive shift in power in that I am inflicting massive losses for little in return. Their low NM is meaning they are now breaking under the long range cannonade, long before any close quarters fighting.

Since I was running out of targets, Giuseppe went off for a tour of the Himalayas. These are not only British allies, but also stole an earlier tea plantation of mine. Revenge, long delayed, is best taken without milk.



In the south, not only do I take Madras, I destroy their final field army in that region. The remainder of the campaign in the south will be small skirmishes and siege work.


(not quite the one sided slaughter of Bahawalpur – which shows the real advantage of leadership and additional artillery to the units embedded within a corps)

By early June, the British hold on India is pretty weak. The south is now a matter of a couple of sieges, the west is splintered into a portion around Karachi (shown) and the north-west (not shown). In the East, I now have Calcutta and their remaining army is trapped in the north.



I decide to make clearing the North West my priority as it has one of the few remaining British field armies.



In doing so, I find that Russia trying to occupy Afghanistan (unrealistic heh). Not that anything stops Ricci carrying on up the Khyber [1].



Britain

By early June, the British Isles become a war front. First the fleet is sent to the Channel to scout and see if the RN is present.



In doing this, I work out that Wales is perhaps the best target. It has no fort, so is easy to take, hilly, so easier to defend if that is what I need to do.

With no evidence of a British forces there, Francesco is ordered from Gibralter.



Two other armies, from Africa, should arrive as reinforcements in a few weeks. I hope to be able to release an army from India fairly soon to add to that force.

Given the relative power of the two combatents (below), I think that 4 veteran armies should be able to handle any realistic opposition but I guess the British may be able to mobilise again. I've not done this since the start of war as I can't effectively command all I currently have in the field and my replacement situation is under control. No need then, to set off any more domestic militancy.

Other news

A new steel related tech kicked in this period allowing me to upgrade to the level 3 steel plant and this increases my average per plant production to 28 (up from about 22). Since I have 12 plants, that is quite a decent uplift. Most of the new techs, I held off upgrading during the war just in case i really needed the manufactures or steel for combat. The shot below shows the cost of upgrading one of my plants in terms of steel, coal and manufactures:



So the full set will cost me around 700 steel, 360 coal and 1300 Manufactures.

Overall



One key change since the end of December is that my NM is 174 (compared to 172). The lack of growth is not surprising as once you have NM this high, each turn a -3 adjustment is applied. The British drop from 57 to 45 is perhaps more indicative of the balance of events.

In terms of losses, mine are 220,000 (from 3.03m to 3.25m) and theirs 630,000 (from 3.65m to 4.28m). There were a lot of battles, especially in Northern India, as I consolidated my advantage.

The relative combat power has dropped from 100 to 95. So I suspect, there is still a powerful force in Britain itself, but the NM differential means they would need 2-1 to hold me off and I'd guess 3-1 to beat me in an open battle.

Since this is all about prestige, I've gained 4,900 (from 98,600 to 103,500) and they have gained 1,500 (from 98,400 to 99,900). I think I am now safely #1, the remaining question is whether I can manage to achieve double their score. I am surprised to see the British back to their normal six month gain, I suspect as they haven't lost much in the last quarter as I am now taking relatively low value provinces


[1] – yet again the order "fire at Will" was being too literally translated by the British soldiers, who spent a lot of the battle looking for Will.

[Dewirix]

This AAR is starting to read like one of the late-19th/early 20th-century "invasion scare" books. First the dastardly Italians crush the Empire overseas, then the foreign hordes pour ashore to pillage unchecked.

Having grown up in South Wales, all I can say is that your invasion forces should pack their raincoats.