Pbem109 - Do you hear the people sing?!

[terje439]

Yup, it is do or die now

[Mus]

ORIGINAL: terje439

Actually Preussia does not have any options. Britain, Sweden and France all owns territories Preussia has stated that she wants, and since we are all allied, it makes sense for them to ally with Spain and Austria in an attempt to gain more land.

Prussia's big glory targets are in S Bavaria which is controlled by Austria. I would think an alliance with France versus Austria would be more beneficial to a open minded leader of Prussia.

Maybe you could suggest it.

[Tophat1815]

Keep going,nobody can say France didn't do any fighting.Talking to Prussia sounds like good advice as well.Still rooting for you in your uphill fight.[;)]

[terje439]

The hopes for France are as follows;
1. A successful end of the war with Spain.
2. An unsuccessful end of the war with Spain.
3. Time in peace with no war, so that the economy can be rebuilt, our armies reassembled and new recruits recuited.

[terje439]

Turn 106

BULLETIN: French troops enter Madrid!

As said, our main army enters Madrid, pushing away the weak corps the Spanish left for defence. The SPanish mroale starts to drop, -250 morale per turn as long as I can keep my forces in Madrid, but they will try to break my supply lines for sure. All available money will be spent on keeping the supplies flowing.

[terje439]

Turn 107

This turn we take Madrid, the garrison which seems to have been consisting of atleast 3 Millitias surrender or are killed. Report claims 17.000 dead. As expected the Spanish morale drops this turn too, I am however surprised at the movement made by the Spanish armies.
Their main army only moves one province, and their corps retreats north. If my opponent goes for Paris, I will happily let him as my morale is at 809 and rising.
The only real effort to break my supply lines was by a mere Millitia division moving from one province to another. I have ALOT of supply lines, if he wants to use this tactic all around, his cities are up for grab by my own individual divisions.

We also have other good news, this turn a DoW on Spain was issued from Turkey, the Ottomans expects to land 250.000 men during 3 months, and then another 100.000 in the next three.

[Rondo]

Vive la France!

[Tophat1815]

Is there some reason that the Spanish wouldn't be talking to the French to stop this war? How is that staunch ally of France,England doing now?

[terje439]

Just recieved a mail from the Spanish player, and he claims that he gave the order to surrender

[terje439]

Turn 108

G%¤ D#¤& IT!!!!!!!
S%¤ of a B¤%&§!!!!!

Soooo...Spain surrenders. To Britain and Turkey. Then they cut all our supply, our army takes casualties, the people in France are unhappy due to the losses sustained by the army, and Britain and Turkey will most likely walk away with most of Spains colonies during the peace settlements...
NOT a good turn!!
We decide that no matter what, we will keep going, the release of the Spanish garrisons to break my supply MIGHT backfire for the Spanish...
I hope...

[Mus]

Interesting move, provided you make all the marches you might grab all 3 cities, but the battles are too small to count towards lowering morale I believe.

How large is the main Spanish Army headed towards you right now? Can you win a decisive battle versus that force with your army at hand? You called this your main army, what is the size and location of your other forces?

Are any of the POWs yours and do you liberate them if you land on them? I have never seen it happen so I don't know!

[terje439]

ORIGINAL: Mus

1) Interesting move, provided you make all the marches you might grab all 3 cities, but the battles are too small to count towards lowering morale I believe.

2) How large is the main Spanish Army headed towards you right now?

3) Can you win a decisive battle versus that force with your army at hand?

4) You called this your main army, what is the size and location of your other forces?

5) Are any of the POWs yours and do you liberate them if you land on them? I have never seen it happen so I don't know!

1) True the battles will not lowe rhis morale more than a few points, the loss of three cities will force him to lose some 150 points, and I still have a div in Madrid for another 250 (??) point loss.

2) Too large, probably 150.000 men +

3) No chance, espesially since Spain just gained 350 upgrade points for his surrenders. I am quite sure those points are spent before he engages my armies [:)]

4) 2nd Army is in Italy, severly depleted and counting a mere 40.000 men, my 3rd Army consists of a sole Division and is heading for Paris.

5) Yup all the PoWs are my troops, and sadly, unlike in CoG you do not liberate them anymore.

Terje

[Tophat1815]

So do you feel your "allies" betrayed you? Perfidious albion certainly is living up or down to her name eh? I think you need new allies by the way.

[Mus]

ORIGINAL: Tophat1812


So do you feel your "allies" betrayed you? Perfidious albion certainly is living up or down to her name eh? I think you need new allies by the way.

They apparently weren't allied, otherwise they would have been forced to surrender to France as well?

[&:]

[terje439]

Yes, we were allied in name only, the Ottomans I feel I can trust, but the British I will not be dealing with alot longer.
Not only did they not do anything to help end the war, but they are also sending alot of money to Austria every turn, something that does NOT help my situation, and the British are also trying to take Switzerland by diplomatic measures.

France NEEDS a few years of peace now!!

[terje439]

Turn 109

I fear this turn might have been the nail in the coffin for the future for France...
(oh, and Britain is acting VERY unfriendly and VERY threathening...)

[terje439]

Turn 110, aka Game/set/match

So it is all in vain in the end
The Preussians decided that the Sword is indeed mightier than the pen and decided that they would like to continue the war, leaving us no choice but to surrender. Since Preussia is allied with pretty much everyone except France, that means we also surrender to Spain. [:(]

The war is over, and we are out of the match for ruling Europe I am afraid.
I am giving the Preussians a little payback atleast as seen in the screenie.
I+II are garrisions that have been ordered to break the Preussian supply chain, just to let them take some casualties.
III is my third army of only one division (it shows as more since I managed to put my PoW in there as well) that is ordered to advance into Preussia and plunder what they can just for the hell of it.
The greyed areas were provinces I HOPED to be able to liberate, but since those nations are ruled from Bavaria which is Austrian controlled, I will not be allowed to do so [:@] That means that Preussia gets plunder after all...
The pesky Dons have sold Venice to Austria, which is bad since I controlled the province (reducing the VP Spain would recieve against me).

In the South the Dons defeated one of our Corps' as well this turn so we were defeated in every aspect anyway, the Preussians just sealed the deal.
My secondary army has been told to split up into three separate pieces and try to take one spanish province and two of my own provinces as these are unguarded. If they succeed the Spanish victory will be somewhat smaller than what it will be as things stand now.



So, what can be expected to happen in the peace settlements?
-cede provinces? Yes, definitively, most likely to Preussia (up to 4), and I will most likely have to give Ancona back to Spain.

-payments? Absolutely

-reduce defences? Doubt it, they hardly work in this game anyway.

-remove generals? Maybe

-cede colonies? Oh yes...I will most likely lose them all...

-scuttle ships? I am not sure, maybe not as I am the only nation capable as of now to deal the RN any blows...

-feudalism levels? Likely forced to increase those.

-alliance? Doubt it, as both nations have to figure out that the ONLY way for this to have any effect at all is to demand NOTHING else. If they take a colony or a province, I simply will not issue a DoW when this is required.

-enforced peace? Maybe.

Oh well, next turn will show just how reduced we are, and if things turn out as ugly as I fear, I will have to chose between Austria, Spain and Britain as to who I will back to win. (Not a hard choice really, Britain is constantly pushing and threathening, Spain sneak attacked and plundered, while Austria have acted civilized...)

[terje439]

Turn 111

Nothing happens this turn, we move our defeated units to Paris for retraining (capture really ruins their morale) and reorganisation. We also spend as many of the upgrade points as possible, 1 for the infantry and 4 for the cavalry as the plan now is to form two independent cavalery corps.
We order the production of one artillery division as we are now down to only two, and we order a new corps formed. I will not start to build millitias in the provinces that has just been liberated yet, as these might very well be lost in the peace settlements.

(forgot to save this turns image, but nothing to show really anyway)

[Mus]

Strange decision by Prussia, Prussia and Austria are kinda in competition in the long term as to who will control much of the german minors. He is basically forcing France into the Austrian camp.

I do however believe that you are conceeding too early as far as the game is concerned. You will have 350 military experience and 18 months of relative security in which to recover and rebuild. It is also only 1802 and IIRC that game was a 23 year scenario, highest glory with nearly 13 years remaining.

Also Prussia should get almost nothing from you if you haven't had any major battles.

BTW I am also curious as to what Kingmaker's strategy is. If you will recall when I was controlling Britain in this game I was approaching you as far as a possible alliance and this was to offset Spain and Austria in the longterm who I saw as being in a position to take the game.

Spain is now reduced by the British seizure of Naples (the source of Spanish power since there is a feudal levy bug involved there), but Austria is still very powerful and Britain will have a hell of a time defeating Austria in the future without the aid of France. Earlier you mentioned that Britain was actually subsidizing Austria heavily which is surprising.

I just don't get British strategy here. Wish the other players were reporting in their AARs.

Last, surrender mechanics need to be looked at in addition to other adjustments and bug fixes. You had basically crushed Spain and were sitting on their capital and Spanish morale was able to be magically recovered through surrendering to powers you were not allied with. In reality they should have been forced to surrender to you as well or morale should not be restored for surrendering when the surrendering power remains at war with another major power.

PS What military upgrades do you have? Do you have levee en masse, nationalism I/II/III and the food reducing one (universal service maybe?)? Just curious, maybe you could post a screenshot of your military upgrades screen.

[terje439]

What makes the Preussian decision even worse is the fact that I offered to give up two of the three politigal goal provinces he wants that I control if he withdrew from the war. But he stated that he wanted to aid Spain but not to knock France out? I have no idea how that was supposed to be doable when he marched 300.000 troops on Paris.

You are correct of course, I still have not lost, but alot depends upon what I must give up during the peace settlements, my economy is not good as it is, so the game breaker might be the economy, but then again there is no waste to be concerned about.

It seems that Britain is out to remove all naval threats as he has crushed the Spanish fleet, and he is now using nothing but threats towards France. Well, I do not fear the British, although I will never be able to end a war with them, their military power is not big enough to be a real concern as long as I keep an eye on them.

As to militray upgrades, yes I will post a screenshot of that for the next round, although I have none of those you mention since i have been focusing on making my armed forces more effective.

Yes, I agree that some fixes/changes are needed.

Terje