Pbem109 - Do you hear the people sing?!

[terje439]

Turn 29

A quiet turn. Russia offers us an alliance with a royal wedding attached. We accept.
We then offer Turkey a one way non agression pact for 5 years, saying we will not attack them.
We build 2 level 5 courts, and a farm before spending all our labour.

And we take a quick look at the politics screen to see who is allied with who.

[Harvey Birdman]

to Sardinia is also part of piedmont and is a good wool producer. Is spain getting that?


Against the ai, I'd be building courts asap to deal with expected wate in the future.

But against human opponents, shouldn't you be building docks 7(for experience and merhant income) in all your naval provinces and barracks/factory 7 in amsterdam,troyes,lemans, nantes and cleves? These would be production provinces.

troyes and nantes build up to road 7, le mans up to road 6. That will increase their max population and labour output from the factories 7.

Then barracks 4 in your other provinces for experience.

[terje439]

Yes, Spain keeps Sardinia, that was the deal.

Well, with our settings, production is low, and I am now above 30 provinces, so waste WILL be an issue also in pbem.
Docks - well the sea belongs to Britain I am afraid so they have lower priority than barracks. Banks and farms are crucial to keep our economy and food production going as the game progresses. Factories will be built as time progresses but there simply is not enough labour being produced. My income is way to low [:@]

I have to expect that after the first war with Britain I will no longer have any merchants.
An eventual war with Britain is also why I am saving my naval exp for colonial warfare I and II.

Terje

[terje439]

Turn 30

As most turns have been, this too is a rather quiet turn.
Austria keeps expanding, and has now devoured poor Saxony. This means they are far into Preussian territory (or atleast into what the Preussians should see as their territory) and that Austria has now gotten huge.
Our alliance with Russia is finalised, and the Turks are happy to accept our 5 year enforced peace offer.
We donate 20$ to Spain, Turkey and Russia to keep them happy and help them develop. Well, Spain we want to keep happy and Turkey and Russia we want to help develop at least.
We order the production of 1 level 5 court and 2 level 4 courts before expending all our labour. We do not produce enough labour, so we look for a new city were we can produce labour, and find one candidate. (see image)
The INF we ordered in Paris is ready and is ordered to take place in our secondary army to start filling that one up.

[terje439]

Turn 31

We hand out 20$ to Spain, Turkey and Russia, and we order the production of a factory, a court and two barracks.
Apart from that, nothing happens.
The rumors however claims that Britain is part of a secret treaty, we'll find out soon enough I guess...

[terje439]

Turn 32

This turn we decide to build a bank, a farm and a level 5 court. I actually forgot (and I mean forgot) to give cash to Russia, Turkey and Spain
While we did not buy any new military units, we spent our naval experience on buying an upgrade. This will help protect our colonies in case of war, never a bad thing.

[terje439]

Turn 33

While nothing much happens in game, a few interesting notes have been recieved outside the game itself.
Britain and Preussia are unable to come to terms, and Britain has told me that they want to extend our non-agression pact, and Preussia has asked if any form of alliance is possible. Our main targets at the moment still remain Austria and Spain in that order.

We hand out 20$ to Russia, Turkey and Spain this turn, and we build one level 5 court and a farm.

[terje439]

Turn 34
We build a factory in Strasbourg (remember how we aim to produce labour there eventually? A factory will help with that.) and a level 3 court.
As usual we hand out 20$ to Turkey, Russia and Spain.

More messages are sent to me from Britain who wants some more land on the mainland and will allow me to move on as I see fit, and from Preussia who wants me to DoW Britain instead of Spain and Austria.

Well, we look at the glory report to see who our main concern should be. Not a big surprise to see that it is Spain and Austria.

[terje439]

Turn 35

Our economy (in regards to resources not money) is still a mess, and we decide that we cannot afford to keep 20% of the population as builders anymore. So from now on we will produce more raw materials, but all our building projects will take longer.
We order two new farms to be built, as we only increase our population by two points every turn, and we are still some 60 pop points from maximum population.
We also order a new corps to be formed, that will go into our main army to maixmize the size of that army before we go to war with Austria. This however means that we will only be able to field one army against the Austrians. That MIGHT be cutting it close.

And we take a look at the map as that is constantly changing.

[terje439]

Turn 36
The corps we ordered has completed, and we move it into our main army, move over as many divisions as we can, and send for some more generals to lead this corps.
France will march into war very soon. The question is how many troops the Austrians can field, I fear that it will be 2-3 times our number. We need help from Turkey and hopefully Russia.

On the more peaceful side of events, we build two farms and a factory. The factory is built in a province that produces a bit of textiles, and will give us even more textiles when it is completed. The farms will help our population grow even faster.

And this is how our army looks:

[ShaiHulud]

Being cognizant of how wasteful Quick Combat can be, what does your replacement pool look like?

I'm curious as to your position on Austria and Britain DoW'ing Bavaria (IF you feel it's safe to say, that is).

Likewise, Italy is going bright yellow! As it would provide two fronts in a war with Spain, that has to worry you.

Lastly, what do you think your prospects are in wooing Russia?

(btw, I read all the threads and yours is the most light-hearted while Spain's is the most brightly optimistic, thus far, both are good reading)

[terje439]

My replacement pool is somewhere around 65.000 men, and we have roughly 15.000 men in training, so I can replace 1/4 of my army in short time, furthermore most of my cities are starting to get close to max population so we have alot of men to draw reinforcements from.

Well, it seems Austria will be getting Bavaria since they brought alot more men to the game than the British.

Italy will have to be taken care of sooner or later, but Austria comes first. What I need to do now is to see what Preussia decides to do, will she say with Austria or join the "good" side of the fight when the time comes.

Russia I think I can get to join in, I know she wants parts of Austria, and soon she will no longer get 56$ per turn from me, so I might offer some cash to help her decide the right way as well.

Spain is getting reckless, she is pushing Britain around, and that will not be tolerated for much longer by Britain/Mus. The British fleet out sinking the Spanish fleet, and my troopers marching southwards should see Spain crumblign before long.

[terje439]

Turn 37

Some loud words are spoken by private messages, but things eventually settle down. We will stay at peace for another 10 months per Turkeys request. She wants to build more artillery before going to war, and we could frankly do with an increase in our armed forces as well.
So we order a CAV division built in Paris, and we start building yet another level 5 court this turn.
We hand out 20$ to Russia, Turkey and Spain.

Of all other events, Austria captures Bavaria, and Britain proposes to buy Malta from Spain for 300$.

We end the turn by looking at the military strength of all nations.

[terje439]

Turn 38

We build two farms and a factory, that is all that actually happens beside us giving 20$ to Spain, Turkey and Russia.
In 8 months (8 turns) the treaty between Austria and Preussia expires. That should see Preussia breaking away from Austria, and war will break out. Turkey are ready to aid France in a war with Austria, and so is most likely Russia.

We take a quick look at our and our enemies stockpiles.

[terje439]

Turn 39

The usual 20 is handed to Russia, Turkey and Spain. Russia actually needs the money, Turkey gets it as we want to ally with them later on, and Spain gets them so they will not attack us (hopefully).
We build a farm, a level 5 court and two level 3 courts. This leaves no manpower to invest in the army this turn.
We produced enough food to get two population increases this turn, and we now have a total of 109 manpower available in our nation (an INF div costs 2, a CAV div costs 1), so we have the ability to produce alot of military units in terms of population.

We then take a quick look to see where our and the enemy armies are located.

[terje439]

Turn 40

Since a war will come sooner rather than later, we decide to try to save up alot of textiles so that we can build ourself another diplomat. If we manage to do so the extra diplomat will result in better war scores, and more gained/less lost from peace treaties after the war.
So, we build 4 banks and a farm instead of courts this turn, as banks and farms does not require textiles to build.

Spain has declared war on Veneto, and soon all of Italy will be Spanish, this must be taken care of eventually, all knows that Italy should by all means be French!

[terje439]

Turn 41

Spain DoWs the small independent kingdom of Venetia, this brings something good for France. The small kingdom of Lombardy are frightened by the Spanish agression on their neighbour, and asks France to protect them from harm.

We hand out 20$ to Russia, Turkey and Spain this turn, while we order the construction of a higher level factory in Paris, this will hopefully result in another labour point per turn when it completes.

Turkey and France signs a deal were we will DoW the enemies of the other for the coming year.

The clouds are gathering over Europe.

[terje439]

Turn 42

We hand out the usual 3x20$ and build an Inf Division in Paris. We also order the construction of a dock and a farm, taking care not to spend any textiles, however it might be expected that our people spend textiles to gain happyness so we might not be able to build a diplomat next turn after all, we will see.

However Austria is getting nervous, they suggest a diplomatic deal which we immediately turn down, we do not want to accept any enforced peace with Austria!

[Harvey Birdman]

Hint: You don't have to build factories ever in your wool provinces. I have langedoc, guyenne, normandy, lille, antwerp, friesland and sardinia max textiles and farms 5. Only sardinia can't convert all it's wool into textiles and the factories in normandy,lille and antwerp have lot's of wool to textiles capacity to spare.


As far as war with britain...
Are you playing the mod where you get napoleon? If get napoleon and your going to be territorially greedy, expect war with britain.
If you use napoleon wisely as a force to maintain the balance of power and only acquire a few good wool producing provinces you should be able to maintain the peace with britain.

Generally I find that strasbourg, luxembourg, aosta and turin can produce more than all the iron I want without building factories. So it's not high priority I'll build factories over time.

For labour production I find it better to use le mans and nantes. ie the 2 textile provinces who suck at producing luxuries and spice.

Start building 2 roads in le mans and 3 roads in nantes allocate full labour to develoment. That increases max pop by one.

Then focus le mans on building factories to 10 and nantes on building docks to 10.

Than le mans starts building barracks to 10 and nantes starts building factories to 10 than barracks to 10.

Then you can shift labour allocation from development to labour production. Your shooting for high labour production with max morale production of cav, arty, inf and ships. The level 10 factories max arty morale and speed up unit production and produce labour.

[terje439]

Turn 43

The usual 3x20$ is handed out.
Once more we save all our textiles, as our population did indeed use some textiles last turn, thereby not allowing us to build a diplomat last turn.
We order the construction of a bank and two farms this turn, but order no new military units to be constructed.

The evergrowing Spain issues a DoW on Portugal, this cannot sit too well with Britain as King Mus of Britain has for a long time said that he wanted Portugal.


Our glorious frigates manage to sink a Swedish privateer in the English Channel. This should help reduce losses to merchant shipping for all nations. Privateers are to be hunted down and killed on sight (atleast since all of ours have been sunk allready).

We finally take a look at our glory goals for the game.