Suum cuique - Prussia 1850 to ?

[Siegfroh]

To celebrate the latest patch 1.4.03, I started a game as Prussia.

In the following posts my AAR of the first four years. In order to make my game not too easy, I chose historical settings (also because the AI is allegedly optimised for these settings), but with extended claims:

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1850-01 - general - options game.jpg (80.67 KiB) Viewed 23221 times

Prussia has the advantage that it quite big, however not so big that it would get difficult not to lose track of all provinces. A lot of resources, and already plenty of production sites and industries, make the management of the economy quite easy.

The (still reduced) set of colonial options allows to pass the time with some territorial expansions, while I am waiting for the future German unification and its associated wars.

1850-01 - general - territory.jpg (762.2 KiB) Viewed 23221 times

For adding some more flavour, I have modded the game a bit (changing unit and element names), the main difference being that I have split the "heavy cavalry" in medium (blue dragoons) and heavy (white cuirassiers and horse guards) cavalry, but their stats remain basically the same.

[PhilThib]

Cool. Once Germany gets unified, you'll received a wealth of colonial actions and options. You can already start low and progressive with the very few at hands upon start though.

[Siegfroh]

Foreign policy in Germany from 1850 to 1853.

On the long term, the main aim is of course the unification of Germany. It will last long, we believe (I haven't studied the unification events script), so we decided to start with first tightening our bonds with the German states through economic and defensive treaties. Slowly, we could improve relations with them, it was actually quite easy. The only exception was Holstein. Our king Friedrich Wilhem IV. had to travel there himself for a state visit (imgine: a king visiting a duke !), but this finaly broke the ice and relations are improving.

In November 1850, the new prime minister Otto von Manteuffel restructured our foreign office. It caused our diplomacy to become more efficient (9 diplomats every six months instead of only 4), and we could start to promise local support in order to gain the trust of reluctant German states such as Württemberg.

In March 1852, we got the option to create the Zollverein. It should cost 6 diplomats, and we already had trade agreements with all the seven German states involved. But its creation would improve our relations with these states even further, and it would make our upper classes and aistocrats more content, so yes: no more tolls on trade between the German states !

Prussia started with very good relations with Austria, and a defense treaty, so we chose this alliance to be the basis of our foreign policy. We also hoped (and still hope) Austria would declare a war, so that we could send an auxiliary corps in order to gain some war experience for our army, which is getting a bit rusty.

Relations improved from 1850 to 1854:

Austria 50 to 100
Baden 30 to 100
Bavaria 30 to 97
Hannover 10 to 45
Hessen-Darmstadt 30 to 58
Hessen-Kassel30 to 100
Holstein 10 to 43
Saxony 10 to 99
Württemberg 10 to 42

When relations are at 100 and a commercial agreement and a defensive treaty have been reached, we will start to send diplomats to talk about a possible German unification.

Right from the beginning, we got infringement casus belli against Bavaria and Russia. A chance to win Bavaria for the German cause by force ? But our relations with the Bavarian king Maximilian were not bad, and he had got a defensive treaty with the Austrian Emperor, our ally, whom we didn't want to upset. The Russian Emperor also had got a defensive treaty with Austria. And we were not strong enough to fight a war against both these major powers. As it is better not to take a heavy risk it if we can reach or aims through diplomatic means as well, we settled both cases with kind but determined letters.

Below our treaties in January 1850 and January 1854:

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1854-01 - foreign policy - treaties.jpg (106.88 KiB) Viewed 23218 times

[Siegfroh]

Foreign policy with the world from 1850 to 1853.

For the beginning, we completely ignored our relations with other powers outside Germany. But of course, we happily accepted a state visit by the Russian Tsar in October 1850. To honour him, we made him regimental chief of one of our guard regiments, which was named after him. The same honour was bestowed later on the Austrian Emperor when he came to Berlin for a state visit:

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The neglect of the greater owers seems to cause a slow but steady deterioration of relations. Our tariff taxes are low (36% = less than a third of a possible 110%), but we can use the income well. So we won't reduce them to zero.

Below our relations with the major powers in January 1850 and January 1854:

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1854-01 - foreign policy - relations with great powers.jpg (28.2 KiB) Viewed 23218 times

Is the tsar unhappy with his gallant and dashing Prussian guard regiment ?

Wars in the world from 1850 to 1853.

June 1850: Russia declared war against Sweden. The tsar's army was quite sucessful, in 1852 most of Sweden was occupied:

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However, the war still wages on in January 1854, Sweden holds three or four provinces in the northwest, and sometimes temporarily regains control of other regions as well.

June 1851: Taiping Heavenly Kingdom declared war against China.

January 1852: Russia declared war against the Ottoman Empire. In August 1853 a peace: the Ottomans ceased Dobrudja with ist capital Costanza to Russia. This peace did not last long: in January 1854 Russia again declared war against the Ottoman Empire.

May 1852: Mexico declared war against the USA. Their plans did not work: in October 1853, Mexico had to acccept peace and transfer the region Encenada to the USA.

November 1851: Prussia declared war on Marocco (see a later post). During our Maroccan adventure, our ally Austria did not care. But the tiny German states of Baden, Bavaria and Hessen-Kassel did not miss the opportunity to show their dedication to us and joined in the war. Well, actually, they did not join in, but just declared war on Marocco. They did not have a fleet to send troops there. When, due to their inactivity, after a year the world thought these states had forgotten about this conflict (the scripted "white peace"), they immediately renewed their declarations of war in the following month.

[Siegfroh]

The war with Marocco from 1851 to 1852.

In order to provide our army with the chance to gain some practical experiences, we decided to get a first foothold outside of Europe. Our options to gain political influence are reduced, and we yet don't want to declare formal colonies like some other powers. But we can send merchants and build trade posts and missions, which may serve as a first base for our military operations.

So we decided to start a small colonial adventure in Marocco. It is not too far, and unclaimed by others. Hopefully it will be successful, so that public opinon will slowly shift towards investing more money into colonial affaires. Anyway, in the middle and long perpective, a base in Marocco could be useful if a war with France emerges, in order to gain some advantage over her in Algeria. And people in Marocco cultivate some exotic fruits which we have never seen nor tasted before.

The tiny beginnings: All initiated with merchants whom we landed on the shores of three Maroccan provinces:

1850-01 - colonies - Marocco.jpg (275.72 KiB) Viewed 23210 times

Later, trade posts and missions were constructed, and we built a small harbour in Rabat. After our local influence had risen a bit (I didn't pay attention how many CPs are necessary), we constructed a coaling station to provide shelter for our ships, a depot to provide supplies for our troops, and a small fortress to provide protection for everything. We extended our influence inland to Marrekesh. The sultan of Marroco sat in Fez and watched.

To protect our harbour at Rabat, we raised a brigade of colonial infantry as garrison, and sent our 9th infantry corps with one brigade of dashing hussars to Africa. They were commanded by general von der Gröben. This general is of fond of scorched earth tactics, and we don't want him to be in command in Europe, in case a war breaks out there. In the undeveloped North African countries, he can't do much harm.

October 1851: rebels captured Marrakesh. Our first war ! Great ! We sent the colonial brigade and the hussars to take the province. It was done quickly, but the rebels had time to burn our trade post and the mission to the ground. A positive side effect was that somehow a production site of Maroccan dyes fell into our hand. Gröben gained some seniority for this action.

This was easy and made us believe we could easily conquer the rest of Marocco. Our spies informed us the the army of the sultan of Marocco was about twenty infantry regiments strong, therefore we reinforced our Maroccan force with 10th infantry corps, and raised three more colonial brigades in order to protect the structures we had built in some provinces, and to gain military control. General von Pfuel, our best strategist (4-2-1) commanded these troops, in the hope that he would gain some anciennity.

In November 1851, we declared war on Marocco. Our first invasion, with two infantry corps, was repulsed. What ?

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The enemy troops were entrenched, mustered more units than we did, and we had lost some cohesion during our advance. We retreated to Rabat to regain strength, and decided to send another corps from Germany, the 11th infantry corps.

A month later, an intrusion of a Maroccan cavary brigade in Marrakesch was repulsed by our two brigades stationed there and the Maroccan cavalry annihilated. For this action von der Gröben was promoted again.

In March 1852, we again advanced on Fez, with three infantry corps, and were repulsed again:

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Just bad luck ? We recovered and regained our strength, and attacked the entrenched Maroccans at Fez again:

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A change of strategy seemed necessary. For a couple of months, we sat in the open outside of Fez, in defensive mode, hoping that this would encourage the garrison of Fez to leave their entrenchments and attack us. They were not so silly.

Supplying our small army blocking Fez was not easy. Three train regiments were involved, and our fleet was transporting them in turn back to Hamburg for replenishing, as overeas supplies through our harbour in Rabat did not arrive in sufficient quantities. Finally, to faciliate our supply, we withdrew our army to Rabat and left only a small brigade under von der Gröben before Fez, hoping that his inclination to pillaging would do harm to the supplies and cohesion of the sultan's forces. Our spies reported that they already had a lot of deserters:

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This decision was the turning point of the war, but in another way than planned.

[Siegfroh]

The conquest of Marocco in 1853.

In January 1853, the sultan's army, already reduced to 12.000 men only, made a sortie and repulsed von der Gröben's brigade of hussars (which had the order to retreat if attacked). However, general von Pfuel, with his high strategic ability, marched from Rabat to the sound of the guns (on the very same day !) and, outnumbering the enemy heavily, turned the retreat into a victory. The Maroccan army retreated to Rabat, was followed by our troops and beaten again. This broke its neck, they were reduced to 6.000 men, but managed to hide somewhere in the desert:

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The next round, defenseless Fez fell into our hands.

The rest of the year was filled with a long campaign of chasing down the ever dwindling remnants of the sultans's forces, six times we could confront them in battle, but all six times he managed to retreat after the first hour. Unfortunately, in the first of these skirmishes, our gallant but depleted hussar brigade was annihilated. We sent another hussar brigade from Germany.

In one the first of these encounters, the Maroccans, though being defeated, also managed to capture all the waggons of our 9th train regiment. Hunting them down, we did never succeed to recapture our waggons, and finally, the last Maroccan troops just disappeared. Some Tuareg warriors stood by watching our efforts and laughed.

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At least, we occupy Marocco. Every month, the sultan sends a peace offer, but why should we reinstall him in power ? We have military control over all the provinces, we can build and have built production sites, so we plan to continue our occupation. We recalled general von Pfuel (who did not gain any anciennity) with 10th and 11th infantry corps to Germany, and left von der Gröben (meanwhile pomoted to army commander) with 9th infantry corps and the colonial brigades to occupy Marocco. Just in case.

We haven't yet made plans fur future adventures in colonies.

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[Siegfroh]

Cool. Once Germany gets unified, you'll received a wealth of colonial actions and options. You can already start low and progressive with the very few at hands upon start though.

It seems to me the only disadvantage of Germany's reduced colonial options is that I cannot declare formal colonies and can't get prestige for them ? And, theoretically, another nation could raise its CP in Marocco as well, and steal it from me by declaring it a colony of its own ?

In the peace options with Marocco, I cannot claim any provinces. Is the only way to make Marocco mine, through the creation of a colony, protectorate or the like ?

[Siegfroh]

The unfortunate expedition of Heinrich Barth in 1853.

Heinrich Barth had been invited by James Richardson to join him in an expediton to lake Tchad. They wanted to begin their expdition in Tripolis, but somehow (very long and heavy storms, a very drunken captain, a fanciful researcher ?) suddenly Barth and his exploration team turned up at the west coast of Northern Africa, near a coastal province of Guinea:

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Well, there are many parts of Africa which wait to to be discovered, no time to be wasted, so Barth started his journey to lake Tchad just from here. Sending out explorers (many of whom were never seen again), his expedition slowy advanced eastwards:

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However, perhaps he should better have had joined Richardson in Tripolis. Running out of supplies, his exploration team just vanished. There he is, alone in the jungle. Hopefully, he can regain the coast and the trade post we built there, to recover his strength.

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Maybe, his next expedition (if he does not chose a military career instead) must wait to have a trade post built in every region it enters, which will serve as a source of supply ?

PS. Heinrich Barth's expedition was not completely in vain. Reembarking on the ship Kormoran, he brought with him the knowledge of several areas in Western Africa of which we had hitherto been completely ignorant:

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[PhilThib]

In the peace options with Marocco, I cannot claim any provinces. Is the only way to make Marocco mine, through the creation of a colony, protectorate or the like ?

Unfortunately yes as it is now.

[loki100]

Cool. Once Germany gets unified, you'll received a wealth of colonial actions and options. You can already start low and progressive with the very few at hands upon start though.

It seems to me the only disadvantage of Germany's reduced colonial options is that I cannot declare formal colonies and can't get prestige for them ? And, theoretically, another nation could raise its CP in Marocco as well, and steal it from me by declaring it a colony of its own ?

In the peace options with Marocco, I cannot claim any provinces. Is the only way to make Marocco mine, through the creation of a colony, protectorate or the like ?

great to see this - do find Prussia a really intriguing option in PoN.

Remember that over time the SoI will shift in your favour and you will be able to gain prestige but at the moment the world sees you as having trampled on France's area of influence (I doubt the world powers are that worried about the Morrocans as such).

Its unliky that another state could take it off you but its feasible the region ends up ungovernable due to competing SoIs - I found this happens a lot in the wider Congo/West Africa region where many powers either by script or action can gain limited control.

Still think the best route to an early colony for both Prussia and Austria is to take one off another European power - which tends to suggest that the road to Paris might be an early option? If I recall an early war with France won't mess with the unification chains - just make sure its not ongoing after about 1867 ... when you can have a second bite at France's colonial empire?

[Siegfroh]

Remember that over time the SoI will shift in your favour and you will be able to gain prestige

Will this slow increase of SOI be caused by a military presence of 100%, or will I have to declare colony to trigger the effect ?

I haven't yet made up plans for Prussia's future - in the next week I won't have the time to play the game.

Currently, I don't feel like declaring war against a civilised nation out of nothing (casus belli is too far fetched for my taste), I would prefer to appear a good guy in Europe ... but I still hope the war party in Vienna gets more influential and I can join an Austrian war because I have to, due to our alliance.

[Siegfroh]

The Prussian military from 1851 to 1853.

The first aim was to raise enough replacments in order to keep the army constantly on full strength.

The next decision was to built fortresses in Saarbrücken and Hamburg, in order to give some more strength to our garrisons there. Later, we added a fortress in Posen. In May 1852, we had got so many state funds that we decided to upgrade all our forts to industrial ones, and upgrade our depots to level 5. We have the state funds to theoretically build many more fortresses, but we lack the men.

The biggest problem was and is the number of officers. We introduced general conscription as soon as possible, and during the war with Marocco a general came up with the idea to create a nice military medal (For the German readers: Orden kann man sich verdienen, erdienen, erdienern oder erdinieren.), which somehow decreased the inclination in the population to evade conscripton.

Slowly but steadily, the army is growing, even though the war with Marocco did cost us nearly 75.000 men.

Our field army started in 1850 with 10 infantry corps (including the guards), 6 cavalry divisions and 6 cavalry brigades. In additon, the was a division of Landwehr, and some siege artillery and pioneers.

The first half of 1850 we saved officers and men to raise a corps of cuirassiers, as a complement to our guard corps. We don't think heavy cavalry will play an important role in todays' warfare, but it looks cool ! And the regiments are handy to honour the petty German rulers who come for a state visit to Berlin, by making them regimental chiefs.

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Until the end of 1853, we have raised 3 more infantry corps, with the associated train regiments.

We assigned each infantry corps to a special province where it is garrisoned (this is to simulate the problems of mobilisation and concentration of the army in case a war will break out). The siege artillery and pioneers, protected by the Landwehr division, are concentrated around Berlin, the center of the realm, as we don't know whether they will be needed in the west or in the east in case of a war:

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The tiny Reich fleet had been assiged to Prussian command, and we silently inherited it when the idea of unification of Germany through a parliament faded away. The ships are good enough to guard the transports we built (total capacity of 120).

In 1852, when we had plenty of state funds and didn't know what else to do with it, we invested it in the production of two squadrons of battleships and four of frigates. This fleet will be ready by mid-1854.

[Siegfroh]

Development of Prussia from 1850 to 1853.

The first aim was to have in each province (if resources allowed it) at least one mining and one agricultural site, in order to provide work for peasants on the land and workers in the mines. I don't know whether this has any real in-game effect.

After that, each province should have at least one industrial site, for the benefit of the middle classes. This was achieved by 1853, the number of sites increased from January 1850 to January 1854 (incuding a few sites in Marocco):

argicultural: 19 to 38
mining: 19 to 27
industrial: 29 to 44

For the beginning, we have built additional railroads only along the coast of the Baltic Sea, to ease the transport of troops.

In the east of the realm, several provinces had a development level of less than 100. As soon as they were availabe, we passed decrees to increase road, sewers, telecommunications and public transports networks, and built these impovements whenever possible.

We also passed a decree for the drainage of wetlands, only to find out that we don't have any wetlands to drain ...

Every year, we invest a lot of state funds in the improvement of the educational level. This not ony lowers militancy (which doesn't seem to be an issue in Prussia: no strikes since 1852, my gendarmes are bored), but also really improves education (not noted in the tooltip). The overall decrease in education from 1850 to 1854 in the table below hopefully is the result of the aquisition of a mostly illiterate population in Marocco, and not a bug:

Here some tables for comparison, January 1850 and January 1854 :

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1854-01 - development - population B.jpg (335.11 KiB) Viewed 23159 times

[loki100]

Remember that over time the SoI will shift in your favour and you will be able to gain prestige

Will this slow increase of SOI be caused by a military presence of 100%, or will I have to declare colony to trigger the effect ?

time will do it, you'll see it both in the messages on the colonial screen. If I recall, it took me about 10 years to shed the malus and then another 10 before I started to gain prestige - but can't claim I paid very close attention.

my logic is only grab colonies outside your SoI for a good reason - such as the colonial goods (Spain has some nice sugar producing colonies as a hint), strategic location (v useful early game to build a set of controlled harbours around Africa) or simply to deny another power.

But early game it pays off in the end, late game you'll never escape the negative prestige problem due to lack of time

Development of Prussia from 1850 to 1853.

...
We also passed a decree for the drainage of wetlands, only to find out that we don't have any wetlands to drain ...

...

point of this, and the other development options is to ignore the title and check the effect. This one, if I recall, only works on very low development provinces so you might have something in the east that fits? My memory is I played it on Sardinia a few times as that started very low. Probably a better card for Russia or the Ottomans?

later on its the same with the university - the effect is to increase educational levels etc, so sometimes the title is a bit of chrome and a bit misleading

[Siegfroh]

1850: Setting up the Prussian economy.

Our aim is a productive but self-sufficient economy which sells a lot of stuff to the world market, creating a surplus of private capital and, through taxation, state funds.

Having got used to it, economics of the game actually seem to be quite simple - at least for a rich and productive nation such as Prussia. The principle is to produce as many goods as possibleand sell them to the national market, and sell the surplus to te world market. Even buying 10 goods and sellig 10 goods of the same type in the same round will be advantageous, as there is no difference in the buying and selling prices (so no loss through these transactions), but every single act of buying or sellig will be taxed and create state funds.

Taxes are preset to the highest rate which still keeps them lower than one third of the maximum tax rate possible, so that they are considered as "low" and nobody will be upset too much by taxation. The occasional messages that people in province XY are upset by high taxation seem to be unrelated to the actual tax rate.

To make our Prussian subjects happy, and thus more productive and less prone to opposition, we set the percentage of what is to be sold on the national market for all goods to 80%. The tooltip showed that we could satisfy all their needs of food and common goods. Only to provide enough luxury goods was and is a problem.

In the next step, just to get an overview, we cancelled all buy-orders and all sell-orders. The assets balance showed where we were depending on foreign imports:

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Or, more detailed:

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Without trade, we have some shortage of wood, fish, cereals and wine, and to a much lesser extent iron and minerals. So these are the production sites we will build first. For now, we will let stocks go down, and try to flood the world market with mechanical parts (36 quantities surplus every two weeks), coal, chemicals, textiles and wool, creating a surplus of private capital.

A problem could be the shortage of luxuries. Our production of 4 quantities of luxury goods is just a drop of water on a hot stone. We will try to buy some more from our neighbours, as well as some silk. And two of our merchant fleets will go to Central and Southern America in the search for gems and gold.

And for the beginning, we buy ammunition, supplies and manufactured goods which are on the market, in order to build up some stocks.

[Siegfroh]

The Prussian economy from 1850 to 1854.

So how did it work ? Here our income in January, in each of the first five years:

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Peoples' satisfaction was constantly growing, from 50 % in 1850 to 79 % in 1854. This is probably the reason why militantism isn't a problem yet and our Gendarmerie feels bored: not even a single demonstration in the past three years !

State funds were and are so high that we built some fortresses and many depots, just to get rid of the money. We did not yet pass all social reforms though, as they reduce militantism by three, but some provinces still have a miltantism rate of zero. So better wait until militantism is up to three everywhere (it is inevitable that it will go up), to have a wider positive influence for the same amount of money which has to be paid to convince people and parliament of the advantages of these measures.

On several occasions we shut down factories of mechanical parts for some time, as stores were so high: there were not enough people in the world who needed these high quality products of Prussian craftmanship.

In November 1853, an economical crisis spreading from the USA caused a sudden inflation of 5 %. With state subsidies on goods, steel and coal imports, we could reduce it. In April 1854, we declared another steel imports subsidy, and inflation is now down to 1%.

The only real problem we faced was a lack of manufactured goods, which are necessary for raising troops and bulding structures. But just when the situation became uncomfortable, the Krupp event occured and provided enough manufactured goods until the new factories we had built were ready to produce them.

[Siegfroh]

Prussian economics in 1850 and 1854: a comparison.

Here the number of prodution sites:

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1854-01 - economy - production sites.jpg (8.99 KiB) Viewed 23086 times

and the assets balance in both years without trade:

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Probably, we will let stocks go down a bit now, to save private capital for some more merchants and a few railroads. The side effect wil be that our state funds will go down a bit as well (less income from taxation on trade), but we have got so much of it ...

[Siegfroh]

Prussian economics from 1855 to 1857.

Nothing special to report. We are drowning in state money, so that we decided to fund some military research, just to get rid of the money.

In 1856, we had set tariff taxes to zero during the whole year, hoping that it would improve our relations with the great nations. It didn't. So in January 1857 we increased it again to 36% (of a possible 110%), and spent the additional income on research.

Below some data for January 1858.

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[Siegfroh]

Prussian foreign politics from 1855 to 1857.

We continued our efforts to improve and maintain relations with the German states.

Most difficult was Holstein, but a sequel of promised local support and state visits finally broke the ice, and after a mutual defense treaty had been signed with them, relations with Holstein jumped up every month. In November 1857, relations with all the minor German states were at 100, and with Austria as well.

So we will now start to send out our diplomats to convince these states of the advantages of a unified Germany, under Prussian leadership of course ! (As a house rule, I decided not to use unification cards unless relations have reached 100.)

In foreign policy, we tried halfheartedly to improve relations with the USA and Great Britain, hoping it will have a positive effect on our trade relations. This didn't have priority though.

In between, Mexico declared war on the USA, to whom we had promised local support. Therefore, we declared war on Mexico, but there is nothing to gain from such a war: we can't annex any territory, and they don't have colonies to grab. So we just sent our fleet to the Gulf of Mexico, but didn't find any enemy to encounter. Luckily, maybe, as cohesion of our fleet went down quickly. So we had the fleet return to our harbours, and after some time we proposed to Mexico to agree on a peace without any reparations paid by either side, which they willingly accepted.

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[Siegfroh]

The War against the Netehrlands in 1856 and 1857.

In April 1856, thanks to our funding of the resarch, muzzle loaded rifles were ready to be introduced in our army. We planned to declare war on Russia as soon as our army was equipped with these new weapons, as the Russians are still using the inferior smoothbore rifles.

However, in April 1856 a crisis with the the Netherlands occured. Our King joked at court that their tiny little army would be a threat to world peace. This was reported to the Dutch king, he didn't get the joke (or, maybe, he did), and a crisis broke out over this question. We quicky gained just cause, and the Netherlands lost prestige. Their king felt insulted and declared war against us ... good !

Our allies Baden, Bayern, Hessen-Kassel, Hannover, Sachsen declared war on the Netherlands. We noted well that our ally Austria did not. Nor did Württemberg and Hessen-Darmstadt.

Only Bavaria actually sent troops to invade the Netherlands, but they returned after a few months without major action. Saxony sent an army corps which occupied our Rhineland province, so that we could use our army corps which was garrison there, for reinforcing our field army.

We mobilised two armies of three infantry corps each, plus some cavalry, and our siege train (three siege artillery brigades plus pioneers). This may have been a lot against the Dutch army, but in war the stronger battalions win. In central Europe, supply is not a problem.

Oldenburg, a province of Hannover, was occupied by the Dutch army. We besieged their troops there, in November we re-took the province and gave it back to Hannover, but we could keep all the production sites. And Hannover still loves us.

1856-11 - war with Holland - confiscate what has been confiscated.jpg (56.68 KiB) Viewed 22970 times

1856-11 - war with Holland - Oldenburg liberated.jpg (110.18 KiB) Viewed 22970 times

Maybe, we were a bit slow in our warfare, too methodic, wasting a lot of time by laying siege and waiting for the fortresses to capitulate. But actual combats are costly, in August 1856, general Reyher was killed in a battle.

In two battles, we managed to conquer a lot of guns and waggons, which are fine addition to our army. We renamed these units so that they will always serve as memory for our victories. And we could even take over some Hanoverian guns, which seem to have been aquired in battle by the Dutch before.

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1857-03 - war with Holland - victory - more spoils of war.jpg (73.04 KiB) Viewed 22970 times

Our fleet bombarded the Dutch cities which we besieged, inflicting casulties on the their garrisons, but in return we lost a few ships, so that we sent the fleet back to Hamburg harbour in order to be repaired and refitted.

So the war went on until finally, in November 1857, Amsterdam, the Dutch capital and their last stronghold in Europe, capitulated. Their fleets continued to harrass our trade fleets, but this did not really affect our trade.

In December 1857, the Netherlands sued for peace, offering us two of their colonies: the Dutch West Indies and Surinam.

Before returning their territory, we destroyed all the Dutch depots and shipyards (there seems to be no possibility to destroy fortresses and harbours ?), so that they won't be able to threaten world peace again soon ...

[Siegfroh]

The Prussian colonies from 1855 to 1857.

We continued to occupy Marocco and ignore the regular peace offers by the sultan.

Somehow, Fez (but only this one region of Marokko) has turned into a kind of Prussian territory, or at least a region with the potential for becoming a Prussian territory. Fez already profited from this, as we could instate some regional decisions which improve the infrastructure.

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The situation in Duala in Kamerun is difficult. We tried to use it as a basis for dominating the surrounding regions, but whenever we send troops to a neighbouring region, on their long way (around 50 days), even if accompanied by our colonial supply train, they lose cohesion down to zero, and immediately (and luckily) retreat whe they encounter the rebel troops which already seem to wait for them. Barth was so fed up with this, that he retired towards the end of 1857.

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And the two newly aquired colonies, real colonies, promise to provide some nice exotic additions to German art of cooking, and make the people even more happy:

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1858-01 - colonies - Paramaribo.jpg (187.28 KiB) Viewed 22967 times

Maybe the Dutch king thought Curaçao and Paramaribo are a poisoned gift, as these two former Dutch colonies together reduce our prestige in the world by 10 every round. But we are happy with this, eventually it will improve, when the other nations accept the fact that these regions are ours and will remain ours.

[Siegfroh]

Prussian from 1858 onwards: the prospects.

Well, we are currently at peace and completely free to decide what to do now.

As the economy runs well, there remains little to invest. We will be able to bring up soon the last regions to a development level of 100 %.

Now that all German states are united by mutual defence treaties, we will continue with our efforts towards a political German unification. Let's see what the future (and the scripts) will bring !

Conquering Amsterdam, caused a tremendous boost of National moral. Now that the fighting had ended, people are flocking to join the ranks of the army. Some of them may be a bit disappointed, as we intend to increase our territory by declaring war on Russia. Since years, we have got a valid casus belli over the region of Greater Poland.

As a side effect, in Duala, we want to get rid of the Russian division which had landed there two years ago, and thus discourage Russian to extend its influence in Kamerun.

In the colonies, we will explore the regions south of Surinam and maybe expand the colony's territory. Perhaps we will leave Duala as it is for now, and expand somewhere else.

Any proposal from the readers what else could be done ?

[MarshalJean]

Not a recommendation, just a question...

Are your new colonies from the Dutch producing goods? I'm also playing Prussia and just took the Dutch West Indies from them in a peace deal, but the sugar/tobacco/tropical fruit plantations aren't producing anything. Nothing. The infrastructure there is, of course, horrible, but I should at least be getting 1 product from each plantation, right?

Anyway, let me know if you are experiencing different. I'd love to figure out how to fix my problem.

MJ

[Siegfroh]

Are your new colonies from the Dutch producing goods?

Damn ! They don't. I wasn't aware of this, dreamt that all my citizens had access to colonial goods, and didn't check until I read your post.

The tooltip gives the explanation. There are too few people in the colony, therefore only 4 peasants are working in the Tobbacco plantation below. The plantation needs 20 peasants for 100% output, thus with 4 of them the manpower efficiency is only at 20%. The development level of the province is 58%, this seems to be somehow, with another unknown factor, responsible for the transportation efficiency of 30%. 20% multiplied by 30% gives the 6% productivity shown (and 6% of a maximal possible output of 6 tobacco goods is: 0,36 = zero). The other factors listed in the tooltip are too close to 100% to alter this much.

I built all the other production sites in this colony for nothing:

productivity.jpg (476.81 KiB) Viewed 22933 times

My tropical fruits plantation in Paramaribo works at 100% manpower efficiency. Together with a transportation efficiency of 30% and the other factors it has got a productivity of 32%, which yields 1 fruit good per turn.

In the occupied region of Duala, I have got a transportation efficience of 0%. I believe there are some colonial decisions to develop the region, which I will get with the Kolonialverein event. Until then, all my productivity in this region is reduced to zero. No coffee from Kamerun for my German compatriots.

[MarshalJean]

I experienced the same problem. I quickly filled up all available space with new plantations only to find that they wouldn't produce. But it's good to see why. Colonial immigrant cards, telecommunications network, etc. should slowly start to fix the problem.

Thanks, Siegfroh.

MarshalJean