German Empire, not quite an AAR...

[HerrDan]

Now I have found the name of Kupio/Kuppio is in fact Ulea in the area's file, still my "strange" Mineral's Mine are there in regions where there aren't Minerals as resources, I'll now have to learn how to delete buildings through event. The good thing is that in the meantime of doing this "fixes" I'm learning how to mod the game for the better gaming experience (at least in my "tradicional radical realism" vision of the game :mdr

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[HerrDan]

After liberating Mombassa our troops lead by Adolv von Götzen is marching to Arusha, where british forces have retreated after losing Mombassa, we shall turn the war is Ostafrika in our favor now!

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We're also counter-attacking in Westafrika with a native force.

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In Lome the situation isn't nearly as good, the british are keeping our forces besieged in our Festung there, we don't know if we'll be able to resist for much longer.

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In Qingdao, China, our forces are resisting against all odds against the british massive forces, but we know we cannot possibly stand against such a force in China...

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[HerrDan]

People may wonder how I manage to get the german contentment so high, well, it's true that war weariness isn't really hard in the game (at least when we're winning the war, as I'm playing Germany and I haven't lost a single war yet, I can't say if this is different when we're not going well in the war). And another thing is that I'm always doing reforms in the education system, investing in Universities, sewers, improving telecomunications system and so on, as my wars are now far from the heart of our country I'm going to show here some of these things.

This is the list of my pool in the things I have explained, I'm going to spend a lot of state funds now making all of these investments, giving priority to my great industrial regions. Here I'm investing in Universities in Berlin.
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Some investment in sewers and telecomunication network will follow.

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I'm going to repeat the process in other important regions, such as Ruhrgebiet and Niederschlesien.

[HerrDan]

This is basically what helps me keeping my population content and avoid militantism, besides the fact that my German Empire isn't really that liberal...

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My inflation is relatively high, so I'll decree a Coal Imports Subsidy, although Germany (produces more coal than any other industrialised nation as it should be) it will help us reduce inflation by -1% within the next 15 days.

[HerrDan]

I'm back , I've been a little too busy this week and my modem suddenly stopped working, so that I'm using my father's at the moment, I have also formated my pc, but now that I have reinstalled PON I'll soon be updating here again.

Cheers my dear readers.

[Kensai]

Welcome back! How's R&D (F7) going?

[HerrDan]

Welcome back! How's R&D (F7) going?

I'll post a screenshot here, game was closed, but as you requested I'll open to post the screenshot

Btw thank you for the warm reception

[HerrDan]

Here it is Kensai:

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[HerrDan]

Despite our soldier's brave resistance, our garrison in Qingdao has surrendered after suffering heavy losses. This defeat will probably do much to booster the british morale in this war, we don't have any hope of sending soldiers to recapture Qingdao as this is really beyond our supply line's capacity. I hope that at least with a good victory in Africa we can somehow offset the loss of Qingdao and end this war in a good position.

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It seems the british won the Second Boer War...

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[HerrDan]

In North America, the situation isn't nearly as good for the british, the americans are on the advance and nothing seems to stop them now...

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[HerrDan]

I ordered some investiments in Minerals extraction in Finland as we're in need of Minerals to supply our demand and also to help develop our allies' economy. We need a powerful Finland to oppose the russians that are now probably thinking in a way to reconquer the country.

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[HerrDan]

Our forces led by Adolf von Götzen defeated the british force in Mwanza and advanced around Lake Victoria, in East Africa our campaign is going really well!

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In Lome things aren't nearly as good, our forces are besieged inside the fortress and we still don't know how to drive the british forces back...

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[Kensai]

In real life the USA could have a war with the British Empire in the late 19th century. There were even plans to do so (later).
Perhaps you need to tell us a story to justify the hostilities from the crisis that started the war between USA and GBR, but its maintenance, for me at least, is justified. Obviously as long as it makes sense for your storyline and the AI makes some progress.

Plan RED (United Kingdom) had the almost immediate capture of CRIMSON (Canada) as you can see from the striped lines here.

[HerrDan]

In real life the USA could have a war with the British Empire in the late 19th century. There were even plans to do so (later).
Perhaps you need to tell us a story to justify the hostilities from the crisis that started the war between USA and GBR, but its maintenance, for me at least, is justified. Obviously as long as it makes sense for your storyline and the AI makes some progress.

Plan RED (United Kingdom) had the almost immediate capture of CRIMSON (Canada) as you can see from the striped lines here.

Haha yeah, I've read one of these days about this plan, indeed I read an article that stated the americans wanted to wage war against Great Britain in the 1930s, but what I meant when I made this poll is that depending on the outcome it might gets a bit weird if it lasts for too long (or maybe because I became utterly paranoid about AI declaration of war after I played Victoria I'm somehow still traumatized...)

Their war started with a crisis, it seems the british were worried about american expansion in military power (what fits very well with the situation, by the way...), it's in the 13th page of this AAR, I'll see how the poll goes. I'm not only playing here, but also writing an AAR so sometimes I like to know the readers opinion on the campaign, that's why I used to write about how important comments are for me etc, it's more fun to write an AAR (in my opinion of course) when we have this kind of feedback from the readers.

And thank you very much for posting this awesome historic map of the red plan, you're awesome.

[loki100]

I think you should let the war run for a while. End it if it bogs down but its an organic part of the game (ie a crisis leading to war), there are historical flashpoints in this era, and its a bit of a convenient myth that relations between GB and the USA were nice and friendly after the 1812-15 war.

Kensai's map certainly shows how the US could have used such hostilities to clear the British completely out of both the Americas and the central Pacific

[HerrDan]

I think you should let the war run for a while. End it if it bogs down but its an organic part of the game (ie a crisis leading to war), there are historical flashpoints in this era, and its a bit of a convenient myth that relations between GB and the USA were nice and friendly after the 1812-15 war.

Kensai's map certainly shows how the US could have used such hostilities to clear the British completely out of both the Americas and the central Pacific

Yes, I'm inclined to do exactly that, let it run for a while to see where it leads, at least in PON I won't see USA annexing Canada or something similar like it would probably happen if it was in Victoria 2

Talking about these plans of the era, I've found an interesting plan by the German Reich to invade the USA (Willy didn't really like the americans haha...), now THAT would be interesting to try , although I doubt very much that I would be able to do it in PON, to supply an army across the ocean isn't an easy thing (fortunately!) in this game, so it would be a nice challenge.

Here's the reference of the plan:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_German_plans_for_the_invasion_of_the_United_States

It's crazy, but this made me think of the possibility of landing some troops in Great Britain as you suggested before...

[loki100]

I think most armies play games with developing plans for unlikely scenarios, guess its a good way to give those coming up through the ranks real experience in the underlying process.

The British Civil Service used to (probably still does) prepare a guide for new ministers on the day after one of our elections (we don't have much of a gap between election and shift of power). The idea was to go over the manifestos, and produce a policy brief that would help ministers and their immediate staff in the first days. The cynical saw this as the Civil Service rewriting the manifesto to suit them (see past editions of the comedy classic Yes Minister).

Now for the main parties this was terribly serious stuff done by the suitably exhalted with lots of awards and titles. But because the Civil Service was meant to be neutral it was done for any party that stood enough candidates that it could feasibly form the government (so not the regional parties). A good friend of mine was on the team that did this for the old Communist Party in the 1980s and he said it was great fun taking their policy document written in pretty turgid marxism-leninism and rendering into equally turgid civil service prose.

Anyway, thats how I imagine this less plausible bits of military planning. Good exercise but not meant that seriously ... but then with armed forces you never quite know

[Kensai]

An invasion of the USA will be quite the undertaking. I had a lot of fun with my Japanese invasion of the USA and I will probably do the same if I happen to end up in a similar situation in my Imperial Germany AAR.

I would say go for it. I was not aware of these war plans, perhaps I should head to the Federal Archives here in Freiburg and check the originals personally!

I think the plans are rather audacious to have a chance to succeed, bear in mind I had supply problems with the relatively small groups of unsophisticated samurais I had sent, imagine what will happen if you land 100000 troops as per Plan II and III. In my opinion, only Plan I could work with a fair amount of success probability. Thankfully, PON abstracts nicely blockades and you might get some VPs for negotiations through successful naval battles.

[HerrDan]

An invasion of the USA will be quite the undertaking. I had a lot of fun with my Japanese invasion of the USA and I will probably do the same if I happen to end up in a similar situation in my Imperial Germany AAR.

I would say go for it. I was not aware of these war plans, perhaps I should head to the Federal Archives here in Freiburg and check the originals personally!

I think the plans are rather audacious to have a chance to succeed, bear in mind I had supply problems with the relatively small groups of unsophisticated samurais I had sent, imagine what will happen if you land 100000 troops as per Plan II and III. In my opinion, only Plan I could work with a fair amount of success probability. Thankfully, PON abstracts nicely blockades and you might get some VPs for negotiations through successful naval battles.

But before this HUGE undertaking I need to win the war against Great Britain and see what happens in their own war with the USA, at the moment it seems the americans have the upper hand, I don't see the british winning in North America, but I'll have to see how it goes while I fight my own war, then later I'll see if this plan is feasible, the ideal would be to have a base in central america...

[HerrDan]

The british forces commanded by John D.P French (really?) assaulted our fortress in Lome, but were reppeled with heavy losses. It seems our garrison in Lome deserves a special medal for their bravery in resisting against the british forces, despite being heavily outnumbered!

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The fighting in Central Africa continues...

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And after resting by the Lake Victoria, Götzen expedition force is ready to resume its march.

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[HerrDan]

The war between the British Empire and the United States of America started for a combination of reasons, among these we could mention that maybe the most important one was the american defeat in the American-Spanish War, the defeat was a heavy blow to the american pride as they couldn't enforce the "Monroe Doctrine" even when faced against a "decadent european power".

Many within american nationalist circles felt that if the United States wanted to be taken seriously by the internatonal community it was imperative that it should improve its outdated navy and armed forces so that the United States could in fact retain their position as "guardians of the american continent" and prevent any other power from intervening in the continent's affairs. So following internal pressure Washington started a program aimed at modernizing and enlarging the american armed forces.

The british, however didn't like the news, as they thought the americans had set aside their "1823 fallacy", however at the end of 1899 Great Britain's attention was focused in Europe as they uneasily watched the German Empire winning the war against Russia, specially after the Krugger telegram incident and rumours of german support for the Boer, the atmosphere was tense in Europe, so there was an international crisis when Great Britain demanded Wilhelm to stop selling weapons to the Boers, threatening the German Empire with war if it continued to arm the Boers, Wilhelm feeling confident after soundly defeating Russia and seeing british demands as unacceptable decided to declare war against the british in order to defend the german honour.

In the Spring of 1900, there were some military exercises made by the american forces along the borders between the United States and Canada around the Great Lakes, there were also some rumours among the canadians stating that the americans wanted to invade Canada now that Great Britain was busy in its war against Germany, the british alarded by the situation demanded explanations from Washington that stated the american forces were merely making routine military exercises, the british then issued a warning demanding that the american forces had to stop their exercises immediatly, feeling pressed by the american public opinion, who were at the moment already parading on the streets all over the United States with cries of hate towards the british asking for "independence from the British Empire" and "Leave America for the americans", the United States decreed a partial mobilization of its armed forces and the british felt forced to declare war.

[HerrDan]

The Russian Empire felt threatened when our war minister mentioned in a recent meeting with italian diplomats that Viborg should be part of Finland as a great part of the region population is of finnish descent, Nicky (for the non intimates, Nicholas II) then sent me a letter stating that the incident has caused great distress in Russia and demanded that the minister should be relieved from his post and well, I couldn't accept such a demand, but after my armies made some maneuvers along our borders they backed down...

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By the way this is Viborg (for those not familiarized with the region), as you can see my minister was right, the majority of the population is finnish...

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The situation in Lome is giving me serious concern as it seems the british are preparing another assault, this time their forces are commanded by Sir Charles Egerton and not the "French" one as the last time we deferated them...

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In North America the british are desperate with the likely fall of Halifax, besieged by american forces, as if the fortress fall the link between Great Britain and Canada will be severed and any serious hope of defeating the americans in this war will be gone. It seems the british have badly underestimated the speed of mobilization of the american forces.

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[HerrDan]

The americans have won their war with Great Britain as I expected, but this peace treaty signed was really weird, the transfer of Gambia!? I play with historical claims (and all the historical options you can imagine lol...) so this peace really pissed me off, that makes no sense, why would the americans want Gambia?

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I would really love if anyone could give me an opinion here as I'm inclined to script something different here...

[Jim-NC]

Very weird indeed. I don't think it's anything like what the Americans would want. They should get either Pacific territories or Canadian territories. Don't know the war score needed for parts of Canada, and without taking over the capital, the war score was probably only going up very slowly for the US. So they probably couldn't get a part of Canada.

[Kensai]

The AI makes choices according to warscore accrued. In the end it took what it could "buy" with that score. Unfortunately, it does not seem to factor in SOIs to that calculation. A more complex version of peace treaty negotiations (possibly coming in a future Gold version of the game?) could take this and other things into consideration.

I wish Christophe sees this, he would be delighted to consider it.

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It's not the end of the world, though, remember it was a simple crisis that had this war started. Perhaps USA simply wanted a foothold on Africa (apart from indirectly controlling Liberia). You can roleplay on that.

[HerrDan]

The AI makes choices according to warscore accrued. In the end it took what it could "buy" with that score. Unfortunately, it does not seem to factor in SOIs to that calculation. A more complex version of peace treaty negotiations (possibly coming in a future Gold version of the game?) could take this and other things into consideration.

I wish Christophe sees this, he would be delighted to consider it.

---

It's not the end of the world, though, remember it was a simple crisis that had this war started. Perhaps USA simply wanted a foothold on Africa (apart from indirectly controlling Liberia). You can roleplay on that.

Yeah I know it's not the end of the world, but it's a bit crazy ...

I was roleplaying something a bit different, have you read my text regarding the conflict? I guess I'll have to prepare a good reason for this situation

[loki100]

I guess the Canadian provinces are expensive. I remember in my game the Indian provinces took 750-1000 WS so the AI has grabbed what it can afford.

Given historic US influence over Liberia this is not that implausible, they've taken a West African colony in a region where there is existing US interests, so I'd let it run.

With a defeat at that scale you could script in Canada deciding for independence. Its clear GB can't protect them and they are at risk of being dragged into foreign wars?

[HerrDan]

I guess the Canadian provinces are expensive. I remember in my game the Indian provinces took 750-1000 WS so the AI has grabbed what it can afford.

Given historic US influence over Liberia this is not that implausible, they've taken a West African colony in a region where there is existing US interests, so I'd let it run.

With a defeat at that scale you could script in Canada deciding for independence. Its clear GB can't protect them and they are at risk of being dragged into foreign wars?

Yeah I was thinking about doing exactly that, maybe scripting an indendepent Canada as it seems obvious that the british influence in Canada must be severely damaged and it would make a lot of sense to see the canadians wanting independence in such a situation, specially and probably because of the americans would probably influence them to do so as well.

I'm going to think about what could be the most realistic outcome of such a war, and as always, I'm open to suggestions

[HerrDan]

(So, this post is to provide a "validation" in my roleplaying of the outcome of the War, I hope you're enjoying my AAR so far )

The outcome of the war between the British Empire and the United States of America, also called The Third War of American Independence has surprised many observers (specially outside observers) when it comes to the peace treaty signed with Great Britain, that unlike many observers thought, didn't include any transfer of territory between Canada and the United States, as the Oregon Boundary dispute, that happened a few years ago, could indicate. Many outside America couldn't really understand the reasons behind the american desire to expand its presence in the african continent. To understand better the issue, we have to go back a few years into the american history.

In 1820, the American Colonization Society (ACS), a private organization supported by prominent American politicians such as Abraham Lincoln, Henry Clay, and James Monroe, that believed repatriation was preferable to emancipation of slaves, began sending African Americans volunteers to the Pepper Coast (in west Africa) to establish a colony for freed African Americans. Up until 1835, five more colonies were started by American Societies other than the ACS, and one by the U.S. government, all on the same West African coast. The first colony on Cape Mesurado was extended, along the coast as well as inland, sometimes by use of force. In 1838 these colonies came together to create the Commonwealth of Liberia. Monrovia would be named the capital. By 1842, four of the other American colonies were incorporated into Liberia, and one was destroyed by indigenous people. The colonists of African-American descent became known as Americo-Liberians. Not only were many racially mixed and of European descent, but their education, religion and culture made them distinct from the indigenous peoples, with whom they did not identify.

The Back-to-Africa movement lost strenght during the American Civil War as the american government was focused in the war and couldn't diverge its attention to the other side of the Atlantic. After the war, with the Thirteenth Amendment, the southern states that had the majority of the freedmen population became even more racist than before and many within the african-american population in the southern states began immigrating to the north. Then, the Back-to-Africa lobby regained strenght as a way to adress the issue, many thought that the best way to solve the problem the freedman population was suffering in the country was to colonise Africa encouraging the freedman population to settle there with the support of the american government. Most african-american preferred to settle in the industrialized northen states, but the argument the lobby provided was nonetheless used to convince the american population of the need to support the ACS in establishing an american colonial empire in Africa. But Great Britain and France vehemently opposed such idea of an american colonial empire in Africa, besides, there were very feel regions in Africa still to be colonised, so such territories would most likely have to be taken from another empire, the americans had plans to attack the weakened Portuguese Empire, but a valid argument was needed. In the late Spring of 1900 the crisis with UK provied the americans with exactly the "argument" that was needed.

The astounding american victory over the british in Canada, opened many possibilities for the americans to ask at the peace table, but instead of expanding the United States borders to the north, at the cost of getting another resentful neighbour, the americans decided to expand their influence over Canada demanding the british to give autonomy to Canada and also the transfer of the colony of Gambia to the American Colonial Society. With this Washington not only expanded their international prestige, but also pleased the resentful southern states and got a valid argument for the expansion of the american colonial empire in Africa.

[Kensai]

"The astounding american victory over the british in Canada, opened many possibilities for the americans to ask at the peace table, but instead of expanding the United States borders to the north, at the cost of getting another resentful neighbour, the americans decided to expand their influence over Canada demanding the british to give autonomy to Canada and also the transfer of the colony of Gambia to the American Colonial Society. With this Washington not only expanded their international prestige, but also pleased the resentful southern states and got a valid argument for the expansion of the american colonial empire in Africa."

Nice!

Regarding Canada, see if you want to fire the late events that I think give some autonomy for Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc. Not really investigated this so far, they should fire after 1900 if I recall correctly.