Manufacturing Italy (a PoN GC)

[loki100]

Nice work snagging the Scottish gold. Will this be sufficient to meet the demand for luxuries from your population?

As usual your AAR has given me plenty of food for thought. Very intereisting how the international situation pushes the game in a certain direction.

not enough to meet my domestic demand but it will help. It also becomes incredibly profitable (about £180 per turn), so if you see the chance grab a gold resource. For some reason I can't set one up in Canada even though I have a trade fleet in the North Pacific.

ditto, it is interesting seeing the two, as it gives some idea of the range of variation in the game. I noticed some of that when I ended up running the last 2 months of 1870 about 30 times ...

Have you been listening to Frank Zappa, by any chance?

In that case, I suspect your Red Guards are going to get thoroughly confused when General Winter blankets the land in snow - how you're gonna fight that counter-revolutionary precipitation?

So, good progress overall, Gary gets to engage in his favorite pastime and you've made a colony out of Aden. Earlier, you mentioned that you incur a prestige cost for colonizing outside of your historic sphere: is that an ongoing issue, or a one-time cost? In other words, does it mean that Arabia Felix (or however you Italianize that) will forever eat your prestige, even as it is flooding your coffers (and the world with its pharmaceutical-grade opium)?

as to the colony malus, I really do not know. I know what it says should happen, and equally my little empire there is vulnerable if the designated colonial power (ie the UK) decide to take it off me. But in truth I see nothing that allows me to make a judgement. I am on +1 prestige for colonial actions now (the UK has +8) but the tooltip gives no idea how that has been made up. It *might* be that I have 2 legal colonies (Djibuti and Somaliland) and 1 illegal (Aden-Yemen), but then I am sure I created two colonies over there as each state needed a separate decision. File it under the various mysteries of Pride of Nations.

Anyway, my logic was this was a trade off. Its a good strategic position and has lots of luxury goods (ok looks of opium), it also means I can raid Ottoman held Arabia in case of a war.

Well now, I had no idea that units switched controllers! Very interesting. Though the infantry units are typical native garbage, they could be useful as screens for your colonial brigades in the game of rebel corralling, a sport it which one must become adept in these trying, exploitative times.

I'm somewhat surprised at the degree to which you've invested into protecting your colonies with forts. You won't ever have to replace any colonial structures or RGOs, if I may borrow a Vicky term.

What are your plans for dealing with the Ethiopian menace? Surely they would not stand a chance against a few well led colonial divisions.

When the Italian unification chain fired, I gained units, money and assets from the minors but getting those combat units from Aden was a real surprise. A nice surprise as they are just the business to wall in a rebel force till I have the time or power to deal them a more direct blow.

As to the forts, I think they are for ever. The pre-industrial ones are already out of date in terms of Europe but here I don't care. They stop rebels taking a province and would mean a European power, in the event of war, would need to commit a serious force to taking the region off me. And in PoN, they are rather cheap (30-40 cash, some manufactures and some steel I think). Actually overall, forts and major naval yards are too cheap (imho).

Ethiopia is scary. The next update has an image that shows as much of their army as I can see. But a bit later they have an 1100 power stack and an 500 power stack hanging around. Given Powloon's AAR and his problems with weak rebels in that region, it will be a while before I take them on. And I will need to construct an army very specifically for the task.

[loki100]

So 1868 proceeds. On the surface all is peaceful (well except for where ever Gari-the-Terminator is), but beneath it plans are laid. Italy will seek to establish its place among the great European powers with war. Let the Austrians keep Milan, the new Italy would be forged in the Eastern Mediterranean.

But first, there were a few things to do.

Manufactures.



Main thing here is the juggling of the number of open sites. In effect I have all the industrial and most of the agricultural stuff open and am experimenting with how much I can sell, meet domestic demand (easy apart from the luxuries) and hold stocks steady.

Non-Manufactures.



Here I’m content to let some stocks fluctuate (I can always restore the fish stock for example just by re-opening some fishing fleets). Wood is building up again and I’ve probably re-opened too many vinyards. Overall I am paying little regular attention to the F4 (this info) and the F11 (the structure listing) screens compared to my focus at the start of the game.

Happiness



The obvious thing here is that I no longer have any unrest and actually have one or two happy provinces (the single mask in column 4).

Maybe an idea to relate some of that information to my actions. I have been playing the telecommunications card and the sewer card a lot. In addition to reducing outright revolt risk (the sixth column with the Kalashnikov), which is meaningless as this is 0, they do two other things. Improve the ‘development level’ (col 7 with the river/bridge symbol) and the overall population (the two people).

So if we look at Savoie and Sicily you can see the improvement in development from 96 and 93 respectively to 99 and 96 (this also will reflect the recently completed rail lines).

Population increases both organically and as a result of these cards. In addition, by event, your population is moved from the country to the urban areas (this info is not shown in the screenshot), but obviously that creates more of a demand for urban (industrial) jobs over rural (agriculture/mining).

Oddly education has fallen back (the column with the mortar board) but then I didn’t have the chance to play the relevant card in this six month period.

The Army



Didn’t build very much that was new in this period but wanted to ensure I had a good stock of reserve companies. The Garrison units are of course for the colonies or to secure my rear, and, as I find, I will need an awful lot of supply wagons.


Events

The latest minor revolt in Aden-Yemen carries on for a few months. The new native units, especially the cavalry are invaluable in detecting the rebels and setting up ambushes for when they try to flee.



Unfortunately, Gari-the-teminator brings his special skills to the problem



Still nothing a few more teachers won’t solve



And on the peaceful side of the Red Sea the Ethiopians deploy in a very aggressive manner [1]



And Gari finally manages to force the rebels into an isolated corner



I’ll leave them for the moment as I have nothing to lose there and they just might wander over the border and annoy the Ottomans.

At much this time the idea of having a war catches on. Cuba and Spain start a set to that will last some time.



With all this war mongering going on I feel it is time to protect poor isolated Somalia. I mean someone has to.



And build my first colonial railroad, this one in Djibuti. This will improve the efficiency of my opium fields as well as speed troop movements.



Just to add to my global commercial empire, oil is discovered in Texas. As you would expect, Italy is there first, creating the famous Italian dominated culture in Dallas that became so well known in the 1970s.



The idea of universal suffrage is raised. As with a few similar techs it has the effect that any latent militantism becomes more serious more quickly (or at least that is how I interpret the information). However, it brings with another political card that you can play that helps drive down such unrest.



And overall there is a decent growth in prestige



For some reason Britain and China remain completely pleased with themselves. I have no idea who #6 on the prestige list is as the tooltip doesn’t show it (China I guess?) and Prussia drops to #9 (an early manifestation of what later political scientists would call the ‘Merkel’ effect as Germany drops behind the Mediterranean powers in terms of influence and prestige).

And now to lay my plans for expansion in the proper Imperial manner, I mean #7 is no place for a state with my ambitions.

[1] – A bit later I reckon they have about 1500 power in a couple of large units. Given Powloon’s trouble in Ethiopia, I will wait a while before I deal with them.

[loki100]

I think I fully understand your pain now having to deal with the post unification unrully mob. Just completed unification in my game you would think people would show a little gratitude

I think my main problem in Ethipoia has been trying to do war on the cheap basically with a pathetic conscript rate and having to keep my main focus on Europe it has taken forever to build up the forces I really need. The other issue is that native armies seem to have an inexhaustible supply of replacements. You have got to kill unit elements or they simply appear next turn as good as new. This is a problem when native forces 9 times out of 10 seem able to retreat out of your grasp whenever they are confronted by a superior force. I'm still experimenting with my force makeup so hopefully I will be able to get the balance right. Oh and don't get me started on mountainous terrain

I think the Ottomans are in 6th by the way as they have 10496 points compared to your 10211. I'm guessing you will be climbing the leader board really soon! As I think I said before AGEOD really need to simplify the score screen and expand its scope to include at least the top 20 nations.

I'm guessing it's not too much longer before we see your peace loving Italians have a crack at the evil Ottomans!

yes, the ungrateful wretches really do not appreciate how hard you have to work to unify them.

I'll leave Ethiopia till I have read your solution. I think what I'll do is a line of forts/depots on the border, stack this with regulars and a single offensive column (native cavalry for detection, colonial and mountain units for robustness), take a province, advance one of the regular forces, set up a supply wagon chain. Repeat. In theory any battles should bring in the supporting forces so your advance element is pretty secure. Thats a theory anyway.

And yes, the Ottomans will not be more prestigious than me ... well unless of course they win this terrifying war I'm about to start.

Gary's performance, coupled with your remark about sending in the school teachers, makes me wonder if Mr. Baldy wouldn't be better suited to the scholarly pursuits? After all, you know the saying: those who can't, teach. Maybe his methods of indiscriminate slaughter are more suited to the classroom (where everyone besides himself will be a valid target)?

I couldn't help but laugh when I saw your screenshot of the nasty rebels, the Innocent Italians and the Aggressive-looking Ottomans. Yes, verily, those empty, barren stretches of desert look very menacingly and aggressive. I can just picture all those Ottoman grains of sand disregarding your international border and sweeping right into Italian Yemen. You should really consider a pre-emptive strike to make sure such an outrage does not come to pass.

That screenshot put me in mind of Dino Buzzati's Il Deserto dei Tartari (not sure of the English translated title but I'd guess the Tartar Desert). Its a wierd book where this young officer is sent to serve in the garrison of a remote mountain fort overlooking a desert. You know there is potential tension but for 150 pages not much happens except they watch this road slowly being built across the desert. The final 5 pages it is clear that there will be a war. But our 'hero' by now is old and infirm so is sent to rear. The effect is very odd, at times you want a war (for the reasons he does - to make sense of being there), but equally you know its something to fear (the book was written in 1943/4) and at the end he is humiliated by all these people who don't appreciate his 20 years spent guarding this fort.

Excellent stuff, cracking updates.

Was an aroma of charred peacock detected perchance?

Not too surprising for your Italian residents, they are likely glad Gari has been stationed so far from them!

Wonderful that you are making such good progress with regards to colonisation because, as you say, seventh rank in the world for prestige is nowhere near acceptable for so magnificent a nation.

The volcano event was indeed well timed. There is another natural disaster coming up in a couple of years, and yes, I'm sure Italy is so much happier with gari-the-psycho safely tucked away on another continent

If you want extra detail on ranking try hovering over the flags on the F10 screen, this shows rankings for several different measures.
It would be nice to have this as a sensibly laid out table.

Of all the visual aids in PoN, that table is one of the worst. And, notionally so important to gauging your performance. Not helped in that it doesn't show your own position (at least not directly)

[loki100]

By 1869 it was clear that the liberation of Milan and Venice would have to wait. Austria, securely protected by its Prussian alliance was too strong and seemed content to absorb the ongoing agitation in Northern Italy.

So on this basis, I finally decided to go for the Ottomans. Now given their dismal showing in the 1851-2 war with Russia and that they faced constant revolts, I managed to convince myself this would be rather easy. I also made the mistake at the start of waging this war as if with the Clauswitz game engine (my excuse is I have never engaged in a war in Pride of Nations except with the shorter ‘battle’ scenarios and they are very different).

I’ll go over this as the thing develops (I am into mid-1871 and the war still rages) but what you need to do is to go for high prestige targets (either your own objectives or locations marked as ‘objectives’ for your opponent), merely occupying lots of trivial provinces makes no differences. Also you need, somehow, to break their morale, or it will end in a peace, perhaps with some financial reparations. All very nineteenth century, but frustrating when its not quite how you expect things to have developed.

In these updates, unless it is critical, I’ll do very limited reporting on the economy et al. In truth, it carries on pretty stable, the main difference is I need to increase my imports of things like manufactured goods. Equally domestically the population remains content – as long as I avoid conscription. We’ll come to that too, but basically Italy has a professional army and as a result the rest of the populace don’t expect to be too inconvenienced by my wars.

So, by Early March, war is declared [1]



Due the gentlemanly nature of the era, you cannot attack in the turn in which you issue a declaration of war.

Now my initial plan involved three distinct theatres of war.

Greece



And, I guess onto Istanbul. Key here is that Tirana (an ‘objective’ for me) is held by rebels and equally from some scouting I find that a lot of the region is rebel held. This indicates both that the Turkish army is weak and that I should be able to secure Western Greece with some speed. On the other hand, Thessaloniki is both an important supply base and an ‘objective’ for the Ottomans so if I take it they lose National Morale [2]

Massawa



My goal here is to take the small Ottoman colony on the west side of the Red Sea. With my rear secure, I can then deploy most of the regional army back into Yemen and use the navy to support raids up and down the Red Sea coast.

Libya

Here I made one of my mistakes. I should have gone straight for Tripoli, but instead landed in the west and hoped to secure that region first..

Opening blows.

Well Victor Emmanuelle and one of the three armies deployed in Italy is landed at Tirana, led by the men in hats.



The other two will be shipped over as fast as I can. I may as well completely strip my defences on the Po and hope the Austrians don’t attack (at worst I still have my defensive alliance with France), since with even one army withdrawn I doubt I could hold them off.

Meantime Garibaldi lunges for Massawa.



And wins a decent early victory. That the first encounter was so one sided did wonders for Italian morale.



A feeling of well being reinforced with the bloodless capture of Tirana



By Early April, the first landings in Eastern Libya take place. I’m sure that all those camels that have been shelled for the last couple of years are going to be very welcoming.



At the same time, Garibaldi, now he’s really allowed to attack people finishes off Massawa



Seems he really wants a more substantial target to give him a proper challenge.

A second Italian army lands in Epirus, as the first Turkish units are sighted.



By the start of May, with Massawa secure, I decide its time to launch a raid into Ottoman-Arabia. Supply is horrible here and attrition is potentially a problem but I have light colonial units and can use the navy to shift the heavier armed units around.



Italy wins a victory against the rebels at Benghazi



The disturbing part of which is it indicates just how many rebels are running around Libya and that, just maybe, shelling them for a couple of years, wasn’t the best preparation for being welcomed as a liberator?

And at sea, I find (by accident) and destroy a large chunk (this is the last I see for almost 18 months) of the Ottoman navy



So by the middle of May, one campaign is already victorious (Massawa is secured). Two out my three main armies are ashore in Greece and preparing to move Eastwards and I have secured Benghazi (oh and sunk their fleet). Looks like the war will be over by the end of Summer really?

[1] – possibly the most scary button I have ever pressed in any computer game. I cannot afford to lose this war, not least it will take ages to rebuild the army (as well as the negative consequences in terms of prestige).
[2] – it took me a while to grasp this. In effect if you want to force a peace that gives you real gains you need your own NM>125 and their NM <65. You do this two ways, capture key cities and killing enemy units (those used to other AGE games will recognise this). Pride of Nations though has very asymmetric objectives so you need to look around for cities that will dent their morale, even if they do not actually increase yours.

[loki100]

Very interesting warfare in this game due to the constraints placed upon you (nations too gentlemanly in this era to attack one and other straight after declaring war, hah!), the need to focus upon objectives and so forth. Everything seems to be going swimmingly though, thus it is a surprise the conflict has dragged on until 1871. I have to assume a combination of natives proving surprisingly unwelcoming of Italian liberation (as if a few shells are anything to complain about) and Gari's excessive excessiveness are the reasons for this.

well this is very much a journey into the unknown. I know how to wage a war in other AGE games, but in PoN have only used the battle scenarios. They are good to practice with (esp the Russo-Japanese and the Boer war scenarios) but they tell you little about how to put together a strategy. Equally there is no feeling of chucking away troops because in two turns the game will end. If I take heavy losses, it will be an age before the army recovers.

I'm guessing reading between the lines that the ottoman ai goes on a sending spree with the cash it had been saving and you are facing a pile of freshly raised units.

Fascinating update. I think you've reached a fairly unique point for a PON AAR where two great powers are slugging it out. Can't wait to see how it pans out.

Their army is certainly far larger than I imagined. Big enough that they could have kept on top of the rebel problem I guess. The good thing is a lot is militia, the bad thing is there are a lot of them ... a lot.

War! Slaughter! Finally!

yep, this finally ceases to be a treatise on economics ...

I'll start varying the length of time in each update. I guess the default will now be quarterly (not six monthly), but in the active periods I may do either monthly or bi-monthly time periods. Really its a case of what works for the narrative but within the rough framework that I was still taking a lot of the contextual screenshots every six months as before.

[loki100]

So late May sees the relentless Italian advance, carry on … well carry on advancing.

Those rebels are displaced from Yemen back into Ottoman territory



So for the moment, I’ll stop and reorganise. Then work out how best to prosecute the war in this theatre.

In Greece, the third army lands in Larissa, just as a few … no strike that out … a lot, of Ottoman troops are spotted at Thessaloniki.



So what I am going to do is to try and Skopje (undefended) to split the two Ottoman forces apart. VE can rest in Larissa to recover organisation (& protect the landings of the third army). Then I’ll see what I can do to try and take Thessaloniki.

In North Africa things don’t go so well. A small detached column is badly beaten by the rebels



This is worrying as my vague plan to take control of the ‘easy’ corner of Libya is proving rather expensive, that is about 3,000 dead just in action with rebels so far.

Away from the front, well I discovered breech loaded rifles



So that will cost me in terms of replacements but one advantage is it seems to unlock mountain troops as something I can build.

Ottoman morale has dipped, but not by much



Siam has stolen my rice. Well for the moment there is not much I can do (I forgot that if you have low <25 relations, then a production site is not safe). Also I see the Ottomans are building a railway station in Istanbul, that will look nice in the photographs of when my glorious army marches in.



My replacement situation is fine, just that upgrading to the new rifle will be a bit of a drain.



And the population remains firmly behind me.



But it looks like the war won’t be over by August. But I will have won by then, I’m sure of that?

So at this stage, I now have all 3 of my main armies in Greece (around 3500 pwr in total), and seem to be facing about 2500 pwr of Ottoman units. I’ll let the two armies in Larissa regain organisation and then attack Thessaloniki but see if I can use manoeuvre to take Tirana (as regulars with supply columns will lose a lot of organisation moving to the attack). In effect i think I have a decent advantage but need to be cautious in making the best use of it.

In Libya I need to work out if my current plan is a good idea or if it is best to fall back and re-invade with the goal of taking Tripoli. And in the Red Sea, I seem to have total dominance, so it’s a case of thinking about how best to use that power.

[loki100]

I can appreciate that having read the most recent update, the losses to rebels in Libya alone quite nasty. Considering that you don't seem to hugely outnumber the Ottomans forces in Greece too, I'm quickly beginning to understand how close a contest this is and thus why it has continued for so long.

its also very hard, in many AGE games to deliver a terminal blow, an army has to be in a real mess to take permanent losses and you tend to get that only after a lot of combat, or long period of attrition. The result is you can win a sequence of battles and still find yourself facing quite a strong foe.

If the combat system in this is anything like what I believe the combat systems in other AGEOD games are like, the rough terrain may benefit you greatly by reducing frontage and allowing your qualitatively superior forces to squish their numerous but dirt poor units. The Ottomans start with a few good divisions but by now they are surely outdated.

Well once the real battles start (not for a while yet) I reckon that they outnumber me 1.5/2-1 even when the power is pretty even. So if I can get into good defensive positions and make them attack I can really extract a toll, but if it is in open terrain or I am attacking it can be grim stuff. In truth, what I find is the utter importance of keeping your organisation high. There are some pretty big reversals of fortune just because one side or the other had a fresh column to commit.

If you are struggling for supply in North Africa it's definitely worth putting down a mission which will auto supply 3 elements and if you have a merchant in 5 turns you can build a trade post giving you 6 supplied elements. The trade post also generates a garrison unit as well.

One thing I have noticed is some structures seem to be available straight after they are placed despite the stated build time. For instance if you built a harbour in Larissa you could land your task force on the same turn you dragged the structure into place rather than disembarking them. A bit gamey perhaps but possible.

Sorry I keep forgetting you are well ahead of where advice will make a difference doh!

In Libya, I just decided I was in the wrong place. If it becomes my colony at the end of the war, its worth taking the losses and the time to end the rebellion, but at the moment they can run around in the east as they like. All I need is Tripoli, increases my NM, decreases it for the Ottomans, & I get a prestige boost every turn I occupy it.

I realised about the port thing by accident, but its getting depots built is the real problem. I'm so used to the usual AGE system where you can build them in a single turn as long as you sacrifice a couple of supply units.

One thing to note is that on the F10 screen you get an approximate estimate of combat power.

So for example Russia has 3.8 times your power whilst Turkey only has 1.7 times.
Clearly it was much better to pick on Turkey.....

Interestingly on turn 1 it appears to include navy, whilst thereafter it only includes land power.

The above appears to indicate a strategy of attrition may not be your best option. As I assume their average power per man may run as low as 25% of yours, suggesting they outnumber you 8 to 1.

Given their key point is Istanbul this should be your target, especially as they may not have a great deal of production outside there.

I suspect you are in for a long war.

Watch out for the infiltration of enemy raiders and rebels taking your back areas that are left under garrisoned.

Good luck.

I think in quality terms I have about 1.3/1.4-1 (better for my 2 Guards corps and the elite mountain and marine divisions) and I certainly have a lot more artillery. Its the battles either in open ground or when I attack that are when their numbers can really tell.

Agree about Istanbul, as I say I started this thinking I was waging war under the Clauswitz system, took me about 6 months to adjust my thinking and then started just to target key things. It is exceptionally hard to gain the War Score to force a decent peace unless your enemy is completely and utterly beaten, or you hold their capital.

The good thing about that naval victory is they have only 1 transport fleet left (it annoys me a bit later), so in the main I can strip my rear areas, but there are masses of rebels running around outside Europe so that forces me to deploy quite a bit to the rear of the main campaigns.

So, the battle against the Turks and their numerous rebels is turning out to be a bit tougher than expected. I guess that happens when you only have one Gary to go around - there are only so many people a single Terminator can kill.

Is there anything like the accumulation of victory points (or their equivalent) you get in CKII when you continue to occupy an area, or will you really have to take the fight to the enemy and kill their soldiers and occupy their key points? If the latter, then I hope you can lure a couple of the larger Turkish armies into battle on your terms. Right now the situation in Albania/Greece seems stalemated: the Turks don't have the power to dislodge you, but you don't have enough forces to break their lines. How strong is that third army you're about to land in Larissa? Enough to tilt the balance in your favor?

The situations in North Africa and around the Red Sea are at least a lot more fluid, so hopefully you can outsmart the AI with some clever maneuvering.

The VP/War Score system is a bit like EU3 in that the longer you hold a dominant position, the cheaper the price becomes, but dominance in this game is very hard to achieve. So far all that is on offer is reparations and I really want a lot more than that. So its key cities, plus the impact on their NM and pushing yours as high as you can that really matters (& remembering that NM tends to 100 if left to itself).

The AI is tricksy, there are a few times when it turns my positions, and at least one rather embarrasing retreat when I over gamble.

I will watch with a certain amount of Schadenfreude if that were to happen. This has nothing to do at all with the fact that loki is currently beating seven shades of the brown stuff out of me in a RUS game, with a combination of Communist Doomstacks and the tactics just described by Joecon. Nothing at all.

<Ahem>

I'll provide hints on how to deal with partisans ... though in that last turn I noticed you don't need many lessons ... Still I am enjoying myself flying around in your aeroplanes.

[loki100]

I’ll divide this report up into the three main theatres (Greece, Libya, the Red Sea) over the period July to September.


Greece

So early July and things have changed a bit. In the north, I now hold Skopje and the Turks seem to have abandoned Pristina so I’ll take that too as this will secure my flank. But the big gamble is the decision to use my two main armies to take Thessaloniki. Not least I am in a small supply problem and really need a big port + depot [1]. That is about 2600 power attacking an army of about 1600.



Now much to my surprise, the Ottomans fell back



Leaving me to siege the city. Problem is they have a huge garrison so I need to wait for it to surrender, but with naval dominance I can impose an effective naval blockade.

By early August, a new stalemate has set in. But what I am going to do is to try and envelop that Turkish force, and taking Sofia will give me a valuable alternative depot.



I am juggling units to maximise the effectiveness of my siege, and it appears as if there is scope to drive into Bulgaria. Risky as that column would be isolated, but the potential to turn what is otherwise a powerful defense line for the Turks.

By early September, I have pulled this off. It’s a bit risky as that large Turkish army would beat my army in Bulgaria, quite easily, but that would also mean abandoning their current defensive position. Fortunately, the Turks in Thessaloniki surrendered, giving me a nice VP haul, 1 point of NM and costing them about 1000 power in terms of units. I also solve my incipient supply crisis, just in time.



I now take a gamble and see if I can encircle that Ottoman army (or at least force it back towards Istanbul). My attack on Kavala is a success



At least the army in Thessaloniki and now Kavala can mutually support.

Sofia falls at the end of September



So I have an encirclement. A weak one that could be broken, but all my units are in good terrain so any attempt to break out will cost the Ottomans.



On balance that went well, I’ve had very few losses, they have lost around 150,000. Ok all in terms of garrisons that surrendered so no real dent in their field army. The operational position looks good. I am a bit spread out, but I have quite a prize in a trap and really its now a case of waiting for lack of supply to take a toll on the effective combat power of that Turkish army.


Red Sea.

First task is to send Gari back to the side where the war is. There is nothing for a man of his talents in Massawa now. By early August, he moves into Ottoman controlled Arabia in search of prey worthy of his talents



While the tribal units carry on beating up a bunch of rebels. These are blocked into the province on the west of Yemen and trying to break through to my more valuable provinces. I can’t spare the units to finish them off, but I can keep them contained.



Gari does what he does best and terminates people at Djeddah. This helps to cut up the Ottoman supply lines and reduces their military control over Arabia (the fort doesn’t rebuild as I don’t have the CP to sustain such a structure)



Libya

Here I abandoned my ill-fated Benghazi operation, moved back onto the ships and landed again at Misurata. With around 250 power (once my units are at full organisation), I should be able to take Tripoli quickly and that is all that really matters for the moment. If I gain the colony in any end of war peace deal, then I will worry about crushing the rebels.



By late August, I have it under siege but the first assault is held.



I send more supplies and decide the best is to wait for the garrison to surrender.

Oh, and the French have a hissy fit with Venezuela.



So here is my musing on the options going forward. That position in Greece is good, but rather fragile. If that large Turkish army goes out of supply I can take out a lot of their force with minimal fighting. On the other hand, I suspect this will take time and they may bring up another large army that could crack open my encirclement (at least they will have to attack me, in good defensive terrain).

Libya should fall soon and the Red Sea region is clearly mine to do as I will (but lacks meaningful targets). Now maybe a raid in force into the Levant would be an operation worthy of Gari’s talents? I can always scuttle off if they have a large force in the region and it may distract them from building up in Greece-Bulgaria.

Anyway, so far, no large battles, so my losses are pretty low.

[1] – in virtually every other AGE game, if you sacrifice 2 supply wagons you build a depot in 2 weeks. Here trying to build a depot that way takes as long as building one using the build screen (6-8 weeks), so if you try to land overseas you had better have a lot of supply wagons or gain a port + depot quickly. Tirana is neither (though I do start building both there asap).

[loki100]

This is definately keeping me on the edge of my seat. Very impressed with your aggressive moves in Northern Greece! I guess as you stated the key here is how many other Ottoman armies are available to break the ring around their isolated army.

Interesting how you started this AAR to demystify the Economic side of the game I think by the end of this campaign you will have gone a long way to clarifying the military aspects as well.

Out of interest you seem to have a fair few leaders how many of each type do you have?

I have enough 3* leaders to field 4 major armies (in some ways I am rather wasting Gari) but a real shortage of divisional/corps style people, so am constantly juggling formations to keep each force under the CP limit. This is less a worry for the AI as their malus for being over CP is capped at 23% (since it does tend to put everthing in a province into a single formation).

that lunge at Sofia had me scared witless. I was sending my weakest column to a province where it wouldn't be supported, the prize in terms of another depot and the envelopment was huge and I guess the risk minimal. If I got caught, I'd hopefully fall back and be able to recoup my losses.

My view at the start was that having played most other AGE games (not AACW and for some reason I just can't get into NCP) and the scenarios that I knew the military side. Well I've found that rather optimistic view to have been wrong. The basics are there - stances, loss of organisation in movement, but the way in which they interact is different and more importantly, this game has a very different concept of what winning a war looks like. Add to that, you are in for the long haul, so unlike say in my RoP PBEM where I was quite prepared to chuck away the Austrian army to achieve a short term gain, in this, the idea of facing serious losses really worries me.

I'm impressed by what I see of the game's military mechanics - more emphasis on logistics than Vic2 (IE some). You are also impressing me with your generalship, while the AI is definitely not. The use of flanking columns and wide enveloping manuevers is very Napoleonic and would be difficult to pull off in the terrain of northern Greece/southern Balkania. Kudos to you, your generals and your men. If the AI had more dash - or perhaps just better troops - it would have been well advised to risk a blow at your flanking column, wrecking it with sheer mass. The Ottos can afford the casualties better than you, I think - and a failure of their attack would still cost you men and supplies, while they would fall back from their current position to another likely as good.

Several times the Russians tried to wage a campaign over some of the same ground (although a bit further north) and they took higher casualties for lesser results. But your strategic problem is shaped by geography - the ancient tapering funnel with Adrianople in the center and Constantinople at the bottom. Even if the Ottos have poor troops they have masses of them, and it will get harder to manuever them out of position as the front narrows. By the end you will have to beat them decisively on the battlefield and stampede them or take heavy losses trying to cram them down that funnel... Perhaps you need conscription, after all. Nothing breaks up a stout defense anchored on both flanks by water as well as a landing behind it.

Sorry for the disquisition, but I fought several campaigns over that region in an EU3 game and the geography of it made a permanent impression (as did temporarily losing naval supremacy and getting part of my army stranded north of Smyrna - sounds like you've avoided that).

Your reading of the geography is spot on. In many ways Adrianople is going to be the pivot of this war in terms of who has the strategic dominance and Thessaloniki of almost equal importance in terms of logistics. Both will be changing hands quite a few times as the fortunes of war fluctuate.

I don't see an Ottoman warship for the next 2 years, so that is one huge bonus. I can use the fleet to blockade (which increases the chance a coastal fort will surrender) and to shift units around as I try to create new fronts and new threats. Unfortunately I can't do commerce raiding as I don't have any ships with a high enough 'detect' value to find their merchant shipping.

The army model in PoN is rather subtle. For a start all those odd units like hospitals, balloons and signal units bring real and valuable gains, so you have some feel for why armies lugged around a load of stuff in their support (as of course do engineers and specialist siege guns). Then the combat model rewards certain types of units in the right terrain. So those light colonial brigades would be wrecked in a European conflict but because they lose organisation slowly, they are invaluable in poor terrrain. If you sent in regulars they would be a 0% organisation before they arrived (organisation works as a malus against the default combat value). Then combat power is not just a function of equipment but training. So Guards will beat militia in a 1-1 because they are better trained, more likely to fire, more likely to hit and more likely to enter close combat. But on an open plain, with a wide frontage then numbers has the potential to trump quality.

The supply game is neat. In some AGE games (Alea Jacta Est and Wars in America) it merely exists at certain points and you either go there to collect it, you load it into supply wagons and take them with you or you set up a physical convoy sending wagons and back and forth. In PoN, you need a chain of depots and then supply flows along that chain (that is why Thessaloniki is so key, it has a large depot and is a port so supply from Italy can arrive there). You then get it to your armies by wagons again (unless the army is actually on a source of supply). So you can really muck up your opponents logistics and you really need to protect yours. I tend to have cavalry brigades escorting my supply wagons - no defense against a large army but at least you don't lose supply wagons to rebels etc.

Conscription I am wary of. In part you get +10 on militancy and I've just faced down one wave of unrest in Italy. More importantly, my command limits are small enough that if I added another 5-6 corps to the campaign I would lose quite a lot of their notional value due to them being under-command. Having units over the command limit means another malus off their combat power so a unit with say a 20% malus due to lack of commanders fights 20% less. In this model, that would mean for every 5 new corps 1/1.5 would be effectively useless.

All I'll say at this stage is my finger hovered over the relevant button many times.

As Powloon has noted, very tense stuff. The position in Greece seems promising, but there is considerable scope for thing to go wrong. I like the idea of a raid upon the Levant, at the very least it'll stop Gari from terrorising Italy's colonies for a time.

Yep, get Gari out of my territory and into theres seems to be a sound plan. At the end of the next update it is still rather fragile, but it looks like it will work out in my favour.

It's 1869 and Corfu is still... British? There should be an event when the new Greek King comes that cedes Corfu to Greece. Hasn't this fired? Ideally, after you defeat the Ottomans you could yield all these newly conquered regions of ethnic Greeks to smallish Greece and gain Corfu in return which is in your national objectives. I could help you simulate it through script if you need.

Once again, loki100, an awesome AAR. Keep it strong!

I think all sorts of odd event chains haven't kicked in. The German unification one obviously fell apart in the early 1850s (I wasn't paying much attention). But I will take you up on that offer as if I win that seems a reasonably redistribution. I think as in your PBEM, you just have to accept that as a game of PoN develops you need to intervene to make things that seem reasonable happen. In this case, if I force the Ottomans to any sort of colonial redistribution (I really want Libya), then I will add a few events around Greece (they can have everything but Thessaloniki) and I'll have Corfu + Tirana.

And thanks to you and Powloon for the responses in my AGEOD request, I'll run those scripts when I next find time to play - been rather busy recently, but hopefully that will in turn translate into an improved cash flow = buying the 1880 DLC.

[loki100]

So by the autumn, the war seems to be moving in my direction. I have a rather fragile, but effective pocket on a major Ottoman force that may well seriously reduce their overall combat power. I’ve simplified my North African campaign to just taking Tripoli, which should both reduce needless losses and free up units for elsewhere, and am in complete control of the Red Sea (well I’m not actually, but that is what I believed)

Unfortunately the Ottomans do not want to surrender yet [1]




I’ll split up this report as usual by front. In reality, this was a quiet quarter as it was a case of waiting till I could realise the potential gains of my earlier actions.

Greece

By Early November, things have settled down. My encirclement holds, the Ottoman force seems to be running out of supply, but equally a fresh Ottoman army is forming up in Adrianople.


(key here is that now all my formations have some support, at worst, ie Sofia, just one supporting army but most are in a pattern where two supporting armies exist. Best is at Plovdiv where all the main formations would protect the army actually in the province)



You can read a lot about a unit by the 3 columns on the side of the leader (or unit) image. The first is raw strength and will dip as elements (not I believe men as such) are lost and not replaced (so this is, if you like, the baseline). The second shows organisation, and dips if a unit moves and in combat (this then reduces the effective combat power but, given a bit of time, is quick to recover - so if you damage an enemy's organisation, you need to move quickly to exploit that advantage). The third shows supply. When the bar is full, both the unit's intrinsic (4 weeks) and all its supply wagons are full. As it dips it indicates it is running these stocks down. When it is at the bottom, the unit is out of supply and will quickly degrade in terms of combat power, take attrition and desertion hits. Here, what I'm looking for is that third column as I know no new supply is able to arrive.

To shake things up a bit, I decide to try and capture that Ottoman outpost on the Danube (marked as ‘3’ on the map). Attacking in a storm seems to work very much to my advantage (though again the battle report is misleading as the permanent garrison took no part in the battle).



But unfortunately the fort holds. So I will need to besiege it, but again it will improve my position and slightly weaken that of the Ottomans. Not least, the force there and the main army at Sofia will mutually support in case of attack.

North Africa

Nothing happened here, Tripoli is under siege and blockaded so will surrender soon, all I can really do is to wait.


Red Sea

Now I think the Red Sea campaign is over, but clearly the Ottomans disagree. Its only a transport squadron but I too have no warships in the region.



Equally while the serious business of a war takes place, there is still ongoing rebel chasing needed in Yemen, so I cannot strip that region of all its mobile forces. This campaign is the usual rebel hunt as I try to force them off onto the eastern province where I can, at least, block them in. By the end of December, I’d managed to achieve this.



Anyway, I decided to explore the options of a raid on Medina. This is an Ottoman VP city (no direct value to me) so its loss would be another small dent in their NM.



Or maybe not, think I’ll avoid tangling with that army if I can help it. In Greece, an isolated column of 154 power would be a tasty morsel to be consumed at leisure. Here I can beat it (Gari has about 250 pwr) but it would be quite a commitment. As it is low on organisation (the second, blue column) I guess it is has just arrived, Equally that means its potential strength at full organisation is going to be around 200-220.

Anyway I build up the recent colonial gains from the Ottomans.



Massawa itself is still showing as Ottoman as the harbour won’t shift to my control. I’ve a short event (see this thread on the AGEOD forum) that I will use to resolve this.

Overall, my manpower is holding up well



And the population remains supportive (well apart from in Tuscany).



And in terms of prestige, the war is doing me some good as I am now #6. Fair way to go to catch Austria but, as above, even capturing farms etc gives a small bonus.



Note here the relative military power between me and the Ottomans. It was at 171 and their morale at 90 at the end of June. So my victories, in particular at Thessaloniki have shifted both in my direction. In terms of losses, at the start of the war I had 51,112 (so have lost 21,600 in the war) they had had 380,750 and this is now 435,425 (so they have lost 75,000 plus the 152,000 prisoners). Now I strongly suspect their manpower pool would swamp mine but I doubt they have the economy to convert that potential into an effective army so expect to meet more and more militia style units. But at the moment, the loss ratio is 10-1 in my favour, though we have yet to see any major battles.

And in late December, the Ottomans offer peace.



I’ll pass on this as I will be in Istanbul by May at the latest, I mean … why not?

So that period was a bit of a stalemate. I need to let that large Ottoman army I have trapped degrade, so it will be easy to beat. I’ll then have about 4000 pwr against that 2500 pwr army they have at Adrianople.

In North Africa it’s a matter of waiting till Tripoli surrenders. The Red Sea is also a bit of a stalemate as we both have large (by the regional terms) armies on our own territory, but supply + organisational loss for movement makes it very hard to move in force against the enemy.

So the war rolls over into 1870. I still believe it will end relatively soon with the Italian flag fluttering over Istanbul as I re-enact 1204.

[1] – there are a number of display issues in PoN that make you wish for a simpler way to access key information. So the only way you can find Warscore is to open the diplomatic screen and start to offer a peace. In turn if you press one of the buttons on the right, it will tell you how much your choice will cost. Libya, which realistically is my goal, is about 100.

But the AI will be more likely to cede if their NM<65, or if you occupy key cities.

[loki100]

As usual I’ll divide this up but into two main blocks of the war in the Balkans and the other fronts (the reason will become clear soon enough).

Balkans

By early February the trapped Turkish army is weakened. If we go back to November, the trapped army had about 1500 power and the army at Adrianople was around 2100.




So, this leads to a major error but first I’ll try to explain my logic. That Turkish army at Adrianople is strengthening (there is a second unit you can't see of about 600 power) and it looks like winter is over, so there is a greater danger of an offensive, especially as Kavala is left undefended. Equally I don’t want that trapped Turkish army just to starve away, I want the NM gain (and their loss) for killing off elements within it.

The next sequence may look good, but ends up coming close to leading to me losing the war.




So the Ottomans now look weak (down to 84 power) and have fallen back to Sofia I think they did this with no more combat as the Sofia army was both inactive and therefore in a defensive stance – this is what military co-operation is all about. Anyway, I decide to push onto Burgas in an attempt to cut their retreat route.






Ok, so by the end of March, that looks good. The Turkish army escaped but seems very weak. However, it lost very few elements. So if the Turks have the replacements it will be back at full strength very soon [1]

Although it took about 60 additional hits in the retreat, I gained no NM for that operation. Worse my army is a little out of position, with a lot at Burgas. So the force that was at Sofia moves into Plovdiv to fill out the front again. And I try to reinforce the weak force holding at Kavala.

Give me a turn to recover, maybe some delays if key units are inactive and then it’s a case of attacking Adrianople and thus onto Istanbul.

Now why was this an error? Well if the army at Sofia had been in attack mode, they may not have escaped (but it was inactive and I had no choice). Anyway, between attrition, combat and retreat losses it’s a mess for now. But, if the Ottomans have a lot of replacements, it won’t be a mess for long. As I find out, the Ottoman economy may struggle to raise new units, it doesn’t struggle for replacements (at this stage)

Others

In Yemen, the rebels in the east keep on trying to break into my controlled area but the local native formations do a good job of driving them off. I’m not going to finish them off this (as rebels regenerate their numbers unless you kill elements), but the situation remains under control.



In the meantime, Massawa is made into a colony under the protection of Gari and his boys [2]





Just to celebrate Gari does what he does best and burns down Medina.

Anyway, Libya finally fell (Tripoli surrendered) so I decide its time to distract the Ottomans. A raid into the Levant is just the solution.



Even as Gari pulls back from the smouldering ruins of Medina



Non-war events

Some useful research projects fire, this one improves the bonus that railways give to production.



And my urban population in some regions grows.



Oh and I decide to build a rubber plantation in Malaya.



Not sure what the Americans are doing there, but I put mine in the Dutch province as I am good chums with them. Anyway, this is part of my intention to ensure I have at least some controlled supply of goods that will become important like oil and rubber.

Since my manpower is holding up well [3], I decide to invest in a 2 new Infantry Corps (one regular, one Guards). This will either bolster the successful offensive on Istanbul or ensure the success of my invasion of the Levant.



All of which leads the Ottomans to offer peace



Nah.

So this looks good. Ok that Ottoman army slipped out but is in a mess. All I need to do is to reorganise my lines, recover from the fighting and Adrianople is mine. And a fresh Italian force is ready to rampage across the Middle East, possibly with Garibaldi’s assistance (if, of course, Gari manages to escape the trap he is in).

That is my version.


[1] – this answers a question I wasn’t sure over. The red column (first) indicates % manpower, not % elements. Manpower in PoN is relatively easy to replace, elements much less so.
[2] – Massawa ends up needing some special scripting help as the harbour remains enthusiastically Ottoman despite this.
[3] – with hindsight, I think this is happening as I am gaining more recruits from holding land in the Balkans/Greece.

[loki100]

Loki, wanted to say your AAR drove me to buy PoN so thanks and keep up the great work!

A question I have though, is around capturing objectives. I'm playing as Austria and I've gone to war a couple of times over objectives - first Serbia, and then the Ottomans, but I can't seem to actually claim any regions in a peace treaty!

I understand now this is due to my having no Austrian loyalty in the region, but that does rather make it impossible for me to gain those objectives and I suspect you will have the same issues with taking any land in Greece even if it's an objective

Do you happen to know a way around all this, or is the only option an extended occupation?

welcome

its not a purchase you will regret, I am finding it the most addictive game I ever got into

the only solution is prolongued occupation, over time you do gain loyalty/influence (military police style units help here) - you'll see this sometimes in the message log, something like "due to our overwhelming power ... xxx has shifted loyalty", but its a long slow process.

I guess the design is meant to emulate 19C statecraft where there were almost no transfers of provinces in Europe from 1815-1914 unless there was some feeling that it reflected national sentiment - so even after France's crushing defeat in 1871 and the Paris Commune, Prussia settled for Alsace-Lorraine. In effect it seems a mechanism to keep borders (in Europe) pretty much as they were.

Your other solution is to script events to make it happen. There is a useful discussion over on the AGEOD website that contains a couple of examples. One will sort out the wierder things that can happen such as legacy structures in colonial areas, the other can be adapted to force a transfer in a Peace Deal.

The legacy one worked to sort out my issue with Massawa where an Ottoman harbour would not transfer and thus I had no control (despite it being my colony). If I win the war with the Ottomans (& by that I mean the sort of warscore that will allow me a colonial gain), then I'll see if I work out a sequence that will give Greece both Thessaly and Epirus and me Corfu and Tirana. So the Ottomans lose something substantial, but not something integral to their state.

Austria sounds fun to play, its always interesting to play a state that is on the wrong side of the social and political trends in an era.

Thanks Loki! I too find it strangely addictive - but a little frustrating around the edges with its restrictive nature. I think I'm too used to trampling all over history in EU3

I do really like the idea of being able to adjust the course of history a bit more than you currently can though - a few realistic what-if scenarios would be great, but perhaps I just haven't reached them yet (it's only ~1854 for my Austrian game). I'm enjoying Austria - I can safely ignore the colony game, and really get to grips with the economy, and hopefully the army. I also get to develop my country from scratch, always my preferred choice. And as you say, playing a country that historically didn't "make it" hopefully poses some interesting challenges. I really like the Ottoman Empire in various games, but it was looking like a bridge too far for PoN as a first

The scripts you pointed me to look great - although I'd really like to be able to do this properly if possible. Do you know roughly how quickly the loyalty might rise with a couple of MP's in a province? Are we talking 1% a year, or is even that a bit too speedy? Is it the suppression (I forget the attribute name) value which is of interest here? Also, is it mod-able to remove the loyalty requirement from Peace? Obviously not the best choice... but as per the manual, Unorganised countries like the Ottoman Empire is weren't considered in the same political light as other Major/Minor powers. Perhaps it's not completely unrealistic to take bits of the Balkans away from the Sick Man of Europe - to keep it safe of course!

Regarding your game, did you find that the global markets get really flooded with everything except Wine, Tobbaco, Coffee, Tea, and the Luxury Goods class? I find by about 1851/52 the only things I can sell are those - everything else is massively overprovided for... I guess Italian wine is selling well!

Anyhow - keep up the great work with your AAR, it's been by far the best way for me to learn the game! And watch out for those sneaky Ottomans, they've got some pretty solid forts around Istanbul

I've tried the Ottomans in a few early experiments but it seems nearly impossible, it would be a real challenge to see if you could hold it all together but I think a pretty frustrating game. There was a report on the AGEOD forum that implied that from the mid-1870s you have virtually no diplomats for example.

As to the world economy, I found at the start I had to really work to buy the things I need. By this stage in the game there are a few shortages as I think population numbers and their relative demands are increasing, but still its probably too easy to buy. Worth remembering the general advice of don't go mercantalist, as the player you need to lubricate the world economy and that can mean buying stuff just to sell on etc.

The gain in loyalty is glacial, as is the slow gain of legitimacy if you undertake colonial actions outside your notional sphere. I regard the scripts as a tool to either smooth out the rough edges or to impose a degree of logic (ie internal to the game) on the proceedings, not as a means to do something that can't be justified. But if for example I really beat the British in a war, then I think it is fair that Italy would demand say Malta in any treaty.

Gary and smouldering ruins what are the chances

Great update. If it weren't for the portents of doom scattered around your posts I would say that you were making excellent progress. I guess that the army that got away combined with the one already at Adrianople causes you a few headaches. Anyway good luck!

Gary is off to play in Palestine at the end of the next update, and we all know how calm that region is, even before someone like him turns up. In game, at that stage, I thought I'd won, maybe a few big battles, some long sieges but it was all over but actually completing the job ... ahem.

I thought this looked ominous.

Sadly it does!

Sounds like a rather quiet but fun party.

A very good update as ever, things seems rather messy in all theaters but you do seem to be having some success. However the comment that this is the 'dawn before the darkest hour' and it being 'my version' of events, makes it clear the next update is going to be a rather nasty one.

It was/was/was .. will be (think that answers everything), but yes the next update is not much fun (for me in any case)

Caught up on your Ottoman war. It seems you have things well in hand in the Balkans, although your dark mutterings hint at an upcoming change in fortune. In Libya, you're playing a waiting game (and having a chat with those homesick Russians?) and in Arabia... Nice job capturing Medina. Letting Gari putting it to the torch was, perhaps, not the most sensitive way to draw the natives to your point of view, but I guess Gari will be Gari (his name, by chance, wouldn't be pronounced 'G-harry', now would it? ).

Well Medina looked better that way, he is now off to apply his unique form of bonding with the locals by arriving in Jerusalem. G'Harry, has a certain ring to it ... I do agree.

[loki100]

As winter ended, it appeared as if the war was very much in my favour. The Ottoman armies had been driven from both Greece and Bulgaria, Libya was mine and I had a toehold in the Levant. Really it was just a case of waiting for the final victory to occur.

Well …

Anyway this report is divided as usual into what I’ll call Greece, the other war fronts (now mainly in the Levant) and other events.

Greece

Well the first sign that I had misjudged came at Kavala where a powerful Ottoman counterattack displaced my covering force.



Forcing me back to Thessaloniki and leaving my armies somewhat badly aligned [1]. But on the other hand, they appear to be as well, especially as Adrianople is now less well protected.

Well this proves not that effective as while they take out my small garrison at Kavala [2].



They also beat off my attack on Adrianople.



This starts to become scary. Thessaloniki is my key port and my armies are now both out of position and, for the moment, weakened.



The only good news is I take back Kavala as they fell back to help with the defence of Adrianople.

This good news lasts a few days as the Ottomans renew their drive on Thessaloniki





The only good thing is the garrison holds but I am now badly out of position, but then, in a way, so are they. I hit their now exposed defence at Adrianople again





But they take Thessaloniki. In effect we are now both across the other’s supply lines, but my only decent depot is Sofia, while they can sit at Thessaloniki in perfect supply.

Elsewhere

Jerusalem falls in late June, giving me an Ottoman VP city (ie they lose NM for this) and a decent depot (not before time as my supply position was becoming very poor)



However, an Ottoman relief force appears, fortunately weakened by its march.

I grab reinforcements from the Red Sea region. Gari is on the way, lets face it that region has always been so much calmer when a total nutter is in charge of a large armed force.



Other matters

My manpower stands up well, despite the heavy losses in Greece.



So I order a fresh infantry corps. Depending on how the battles in Greece work out, it looks like I will need more units.

And the populace remain pretty content



Just to ensure they remain happy, I upgrade my opium farm to a plantation



The Ottomans still outnumber me, but their morale is a problem (remember that the difference between our respective NMs gives me a combat bonus)



For comparison, the key indicators at the end of 1869 were:

NM – Italy 118 (110), Ottomans – 82 (81)
Losses – Italy 72,712 (128,174), Ottomans – 435425 (521,587)
Relative Military Power 139 (142)

(June 1870 in brackets)

Still its not all war, some useful research is carried out.

This education tech has a number of useful consequences..



The university decision gives another regional card that boosts development and education levels.

And so does this, which improves the efficiency of my Texan oilfields.



So, there is no easy way to read this situation. I have paid a large price for dislodging that Turkish army in March. They have regained the key port and main depot I was relying on, but I have Adrianople under siege, so in effect threaten Istanbul. In the Levant, the happy prospect is of Gari coming to play. There are 3 Ottoman key cities in the region and one (Adana in SE Turkey) that is an objective for me.

However, looking at the losses over the last six months (I think that excludes attrition), then it has been a stalemate (at best) and quite likely evidence that overall I have lost ground.

[1] I maybe misinterpreting this but the ‘march to the sound of the guns’ mechanism seems to work very differently in Pride of Nations. In other games the supporting formations stay in their old province and do not advance/retreat. In PoN they often physically move to the combat province and if the attacked unit retreats, then so do the support units. In this case the army at Plovdiv offered support at Kavala, but when the weak force actually there gave way then the Plovdiv formations retreated as well – leaving a huge gap in my defence lines.

[2] I had deployed garrison units to here, Thessaloniki and the western Greece, As I find out the hard way, such formations are effective against small armies but are just swept aside by a large force, leading to losses of both manpower and NM.

[loki100]

Sounds like you need a descent upon the Ottoman rear to focus their attention on their own position. A landing across the straits from Istanbul would do nicely... IF you had the troops.

Failing that I see two choices: siege Thessaloniki or siege Adrianople. If supply permits the latter is preferred because of its proximity to Istanbul (as you noted). What you must strive NOT to do is dither between the two and fall 'between two stools' into success at neither place.

Of course you could always use the preferred 19th century option: point a massive army at Thessaloniki and turn the artillery loose. The casualties of Solferino, Magenta, Koeniggratz and Gravelotte all point up the wisdom of that choice.

Historically I think the Ottos had lots of light troops but little firepower/staying power, though they did give the Russians fits around Adrianople (I think I remember that). Not good that they were able to push your troops around like that. I fear that if you ignore the army at Thessaloniki it will just keep rolling you up.

The strategic dilemna (or one of them) is that in power terms (which is AGEOD's unit of currency) we both have about 4000 in the Balkans. In terms of manpower I think they outnumber me 3:2. The AI tends to keep the bulk of that power in a single block (sending out raiding forces), I'm a bit more prepared (& in fact need to) to spread out - not least all the Ottomans need to do is not to lose, I need to find a way to win ... and the only sure way is to occupy Istanbul.

In tactical terms, in restricted terrain, they cannot bring their power to bear (frontage and similar mechanisms) so the fights become roughly evens in terms of manpower (& thus my artillery and better infantry pay off), but if I am to win, I need Adrianople (a flat plain) as a stepping stone.

In operational terms, till some techs fire around improved movement (I'll cover these as they crop up), the defence gains two ways. Most units are better on the defence than on the attack and the side that moves to combat will suffer organisational losses merely for moving.

What is engaging is that these factors are mutually contradictory (for Italy at least) ... . But I dare not weaken the forces in theatre at this stage to sustain a diversionary raid (Garibaldi will have to carry that role out)

Very difficult to know how to read this, as you've admitted yourself. Whilst undoubtedly weakened by Thessaloniki's capture, both you and the Ottomans still have good opportunities open in the Greek theatre. Of course, exploiting said opportunities is another matter entirely. Fascinating stuff, hopefully Gari can give the Ottomans something to worry about in the Red Sea region and you can take control of the Greek front once again.

Gari gives everyone something to worry about .... . Its best seen as a dynamic stalemate, there has to be a solution, but finding it proves very elusive, not least the AGE AI makes few outright mistakes, its probably more conservative than a player but that makes it hard to trick.

There is something very chesslike to this, relatively few provinces, relatively large armies, relatively balanced even if with very different strengths and weaknesses.

I think I woul be nervous if a 4000+ pwr enemy force was sitting on my main supply source whilst my armies were splintered in several smaller stacks vunerable to defeat in detail As always an adictive read looking forward to see if / how you pull it out of the bag.

Interesting how you are describing the 'March to the Sound of the guns' mechanism I to did not think it worked liked that. On balance I think they way it works in PON is more realistic. I will keep it in mind when planning my campaign.

In other AGEOD games I have noticed the predaliction of the AI for raiding hence I am guessing why you have built up garrisons in your captured cities. From the screenshots the AI dosn't seem to be doing that I wonder if it is due to a lack of suitable units or simply that it has been toned down (or you are not mentioning it with all the other tumultuous events going on) .

In the next update, it does indeed go a raiding, actually making a mistake of uncovering Thessaloniki to do so. I think my siege of Adrianople, and implied threat to Istanbul, was enough to draw its main force back eastwards while it chucked out a couple of corps to raid behind my lines.

thanks for the extra scripts, I've set up a file with all the events I'm adding or modifying and firing them from the console command when I need them. At least that way I can find them back later. In general it looks like a fair bit of the work of sorting out the database etc is going to be something of a community effort.

That sums up my feelings as well (oh, and then there's the "Oh my god, Garibaldi is being sent to one of the holiest cities of at least three major religions?!?", but I guess PON does not include Crusades and Jihads, so the in-game effects should be positive for you, as you badly need more forces there).

There's a lot going on, but frankly, I don't see how anything but the 4,000-pound gorrilla at Thessaloniki can be the focus of your attention right now. Can you load up a bunch of cannon and follow Director's suggestion to simply blast the Turks into oblivion?

If the Ottomans would attack me, in restricted terrain, preferably across a river, then yes, I think I could really dent their main armies. If I attack them (especially on an open province like Thessaloniki) its much more even as their numbers can be deployed more effectively.

Its sort of a game of chicken, Adrianople is a big threat to them, Thessaloniki is one to me. In the event, in different ways, we both pull back before the fatal moment ...

Woohoo, and slaughter there was!

300 000 men sitting at Thessalonika? That seems like an awful lot to me for sure. They certainly made the war much more interesting (for the readers of course )

By the way, how many soldiers do you have in the greek theater? Enough to handle this doomstack?

Looking forward to your next update!

EDIT: Also, how come you're using Garibaldi, who seems to me to be your best general, in a secondary theater? Although I admit that the thought of Garibaldi fighting the Ottomans in the Levant is bloody awesome, wouldn't he better be used in Greece?

I have about 200,000, so they have a manpower advantage. In terms of power its pretty even (& that is where my artillery comes into play). So my formations are smaller but far more effective, but their numbers have, as Uncle Joe noted sometime later, their own quality.

Gari is my best general, I sent him off to the Red Sea as a bit of a in-game joke and he is now not really available for the theatre that matters. On the other hand, he is a good general for a theatre where mobility rather than brute strength is important.

There will be some battles with rather jaw dropping casualty rates when the main armies finally lock horns ... but not in the next update

which brings us too ...

[loki100]

So, we move into the second half of 1870. A huge Ottoman army sits across my supply lines but in turn I am besieging the last fort that protects Istanbul … and Gari is loose, armed and dangerous in the Middle East.

Well I decide I need more firepower



My net warscore has crashed to just +6 by early July.



At least I can make Somalia into a proper colony



The war:

Balkans

What happened on this sector was a complex series of moves as we both seemed to be willing to test the other’s commitment. I didn’t want to abandon Adrianople but was very aware that Sofia was now my main depot (and too small to really supply my armies). On the other hand, merely sitting on Thessaloniki was not going to win them the war.

In the event, by late July the Ottomans split into two columns. The largest seemed to be heading to raise the siege at Adrianople.



Now as may be clear, things are pretty chaotic.

That force still at Thessaloniki split up. One portion headed west but fortunately was unable to take the key towns of Janina (Epirus) and Tirana due to the additional garrison units I had deployed. Even so this further mucked up my supply lines.

By late July, I had cleared out that Ottoman fort on the Danube and Vittorio Emmanuele had invested Thessaloniki. This was a gamble as it split my armies but by the time he arrived there were no actual Ottoman troops there except the garrison [1]. So I had Thessaloniki under siege, but the army there is vulnerable if that large Ottoman army swings west again (nothing in the region to offer support if my army is attacked).

With this in mind, I gambled on an all out attack to take the town back, before their army decided to intervene.



Thus by the start of September, the situation is a little clearer, but not much. If I could take Adrianople, I would be happier. The Ottomans now occupy Plovdiv putting Sofia (which is where my supplies are coming from) very much at risk. In the west, Janina (Epirus) is still under siege but fresh units from Italy should drive them off.



At this stage, it was my turn to panic. I have finally taken that Ottoman fort on the Danube but Sofia is too vulnerable. My supply position is very poor, and I have supply wagons (with escorts) moving back and forth. The problem is the escorts are fine to defend against say a cavalry raid but not against an attack by their main army


(this is a typical supply convoy, enough protection to see off a weak cavalry raid)



Anyway by early September I panicked. I was really struggling with the supply lines so opted to fall back from Adrianople to Sofia, reorganise and think again of a campaign strategy for 1871.

My caution proved to be well founded, as I arrived back in Sofia just in time to fend off an Ottoman attack. 2 weeks earlier and my army at Adrianople would have been cut off from its supply lines



So I am really back to where I started, the good news coming from Epirus and Thessaly where I destroyed that small Ottoman force.



So by the end of September, I’ve driven the Turkish raiding column into Albania, my main armies are all at Sofia and I can reorganise into a decent, mutually supporting, defence line. With my supply lines restored I can then think of how to handle those 2 Ottoman armies.



Middle East

Well Gari arrives and takes control of a new Infantry corps I’d sent to the region



And then drives north in the search of new places to … err new places to conquer, pushing onto Damascus (a depot and an Ottoman key city)





Well that was the plan. I’ll pull back to Jerusalem, re-organise and try again. At least the Ottoman army has retreated off to the north.

Other things

Well I subsidise my first public university (this is the consequence of the public education invention and decisions). La Sapienza will see its first students soon



And my artillery gets a useful boost



And something rather weird involving the Hohenzollerns happens


[2]

So, by the end of September 1870, I think I am at risk of losing this war (or at least fighting for an age for no real gains). The Balkans is really a stalemate, sometimes one side or the other gains an advantage but it doesn’t really last. I really regret not properly destroying that Ottoman army that I had trapped. In the Middle-East, I have the stronger army (more or less even in numbers so here my qualitative advantage really shows) but I find I need to garrison my lines of communications (not least all those rebels running around), so it is hard to mass all the combat power into an offensive force (though, of course, Gari is good at being offensive).

[1] – there is a PoN mechanism whereby a town/fort under siege automatically spawns a garrison. Thus something that looks undefended can in fact be very hard to take.
[2] – this is part of the event chain that is intended to lead to a Franco-Prussian War. In effect, if France does not declare war on Prussia it enters a catastrophic cycle of lost NM and rising militancy, so is really forced to do so (unlike Austria over the 1859 events). In this game, France doesn’t DOW and ends up with exceptionally low NM as a result.

[loki100]

Gari's suffering from Jerusalem Syndrome, with the water-walking and turning the other cheek* and all.

Situation in the Balkans is not looking so hot. I assume having reconquered Thessaloniki is still nowhere near good enough to make substantive demands of the Ottomans? Bit of a pickle, I don't see how you're going to turn this around very quickly, and a long, drawn-out war can't be in your best interests, especially if the REAL really-bad-casualty-battles are still to come. It sounds like a parallel to your Rome AAR, where each war takes you many months or years to make up for the lost manpower ground.

*I don't know how else to explain that he let roughly 20,000 Italians be slaughtered in the sands of the Middle East.

I guess that is the region to go to if you tend to have delusions of grandeur, but I was quite surprised to see him walking on water.

There is one way the attrition game works for me. My instinct is that if the Ottomans lose regular elements they cannot raise fresh ones. So they are well off for replacements but if I land a very heavy blow, those losses are beyond their capacity to repair. Their new units tend to be militia (I think from discussion on the AGEOD forum one problem they have is a severe officer shortage). So, akin to the British strategy in 1916, I am making my opponent expend a quality of formation they cannot replace, even if they can replace the raw numbers.

I think you made a wise decision to retreat and concentrate your forces. Looks like from here on out it will be a battle of attrition. I'm assuming that to obtain a decent war score Constantinople needs to be captured?

Nice to see Gari in his element with a suitably large bodycount o

thanks for the text, I'll run it when I get chance to play again as it is a bit odd to see Parma and the Two Sicilies still cropping up. I don't think I had much choice but to pull back, in the next update they do the same so it settles into a conventional front line. Its working out how to shake it up that takes me a lot of effort.

Holy crap, the Ottomans army is HUGE. 600k men? Damn!

this, from someone playing the DNO scenario in Revolution Under Siege. ... but yep, they have manpower all right, fortunately their trained regular army is a small and diminishing core within that total.

Good, engrossing stuff. Things are proving hugely difficult in the Balkans, I had thought you were in the ascendancy until the unfortunate loss of Thessaloniki, which has thankfully been recaptured now. It seems the only answer now is to slog it out and hopefully gain victory that way. Unless the Ottomans prove helpful enough to mount some suicidal attacks that is! The Middle East front seems difficult too, but at least Gari is causing mayhem as ever.

Both sectors stalemate for different reasons. The Balkans due to relative equity of forces, the Middle East as it appears that whoever moves to combat losses (organisational losses on the move & the inate advantage to the defence). But the big-G does his best to shake things up a bit.

I've been enjoying reading this AAR...
So much that I got back into my Japan game that I've long neglected... probably since for the entire is stimulating the econmy and trying to attract the foreigners. (I enticed them with silk, tea and rice... they give me steel)
Only bottleneck for Japan as far as I can tell is the SEVERE lack of steel. (Which I import... from America)

Is there an area (if its in the manual, I haven't read that in a long while) where it describes events for certain nations? Like the Meiji Restoration events?


I do like how the solid relations between Prussia and Austria have lead your Italy to colonial ventures because it would be too dangerous to attack that alliance.
Currently mid 1855 in my game, and they are also extremely in love with Austria...
How dangerous is it to place something like a Gold Mine in Mexico? I'm trying it as an experiment in my game...

Edit:
You're AAR ow is also hlping me understand the long term, in regards to the military system. I took a look at the scenarios, but I felt that it would be too short term for me to apply the riskier strategies of it in a long term game.
Thanks for clarifying it, similar to the experiment in 'Marching to the sound of Guns', I was wondering what that would entail.

I'm glad you are enjoying and finding it useful. I must confess I started this as a sort of teach myself PoN exercise (on the logic that doing an AAR would make me concentrate and study the game dynamics that bit more).

Make sure you have good (>25) relations, or as with my rice in Siam, you'll find they steal it off you. Start with the 'offer support' card as they can't reject that one and then push for commercial agreements.

sorting out the event chains is hard. The only real solution is to open up the event files and try and work them out - once you get used to the syntax its not too bad.

In this game you are right, Europe is locked up with that Austro-Prussian alliance so I may as well opt into the colonial game instead.

I've had a great time reading through this aar I can't wait for more it has taught me alot about the game which I am trying to get to grips with stopping and starting with different nation but this has defo made me wanna get in to it more lol

Again, glad you've found it useful. I am finding this one of the deepest, most intriguing games I have ever played. Even SP, I find myself making long term plans and dreaming up not very feasible schemes when I am not actually playing it.

Perhaps it is time to rethink your Grand Strategy. The Ottos will keep churning out masses of poor troops, and you aren't killing them as they swarm. My suggestion would be to go all in or take whatever you can get for peace. "No state benefits from a long war," to paraphrase Sun Tzu. Either start the battles and take the casualties and the risks, or make a peace... The current 'sitzkrieg' benefits the Ottoman strategy of being everywhere you aren't, so unless you are gathering up enough on the Red Sea and Levant to make standing on the defensive in Greece worthwhile, you are losing. The loss at Damascus argues this will not produce a quick victory for you.

Ideally you would want to occupy something the enemy has to have and force him to attack your position - this is the classic way for a good, small army to beat a big, poor one, as I am sure you know. I just don't see how you are going to get into Istanbul or Adrianople without an amphib end run or a series of brutal smashing assaults. The only other operational idea I can come up with is to use rapid manuever to concentrate against small detachments and kill lots of Turks. If you can't do that then you are going to be penned up, and that will leave you out of good options.

If smashing the Ottomans is worth it, take the casualties - even if you have to conscript or mobilize. If this war won't produce significant gains for you, make a peace. That's my advice.

My only reason not to take a peace (the Ottomans keep on offering reparations) is a feeling that it will never get any easier, so I may as well push this to the point where it is clear I cannot win. Otherwise your analysis is correct, I either need, somehow, to create a war of manouver or accept that this is a war of attrition. In the next post, at the end, there is some evidence that the Ottoman army is degrading in quality if not in quantity. Equally as I enter new regions in the Levant, I find more and more evidence of widespread revolt.

as long as I avoid conscription, my populace remain ok about the war, so I have perhaps more time on my side than may appear to be the case.

General comment.

The next update encompasses the sequence where my game was crashing all the time. I must have played this quarter out about 8-10 times with each ending in a crash. The version I did at the end was oddly the least interesting, in some the Ottomans attacked into Bulgaria (against entrenched troops in the snow and defending mountainous terrain), you can guess how that ended and in another they broke their main army up and made another lunge at Thessaloniki, at least breaking the stalemate again.

[loki100]

So while the war is rather stalemated, the Italian political classes find new fun things to do. Lets set up a national bank:



(also the decrees to the left allow me to build even more sewers and telegraph lines at a given time – these really boost both population and development level). To keep the populace happy with the idea of being at war, we’ll recognise Trade Unions (reduce militancy).

A little bit later I add a textile shop as I try to keep filling out emerging gaps in my production chain.



On the Balkan front by late October, I’m occupying the new front lines as the Ottomans have abandoned Plovdiv



This remains the position of the two armies throughout this period. However, elsewhere the war becomes one of attack and counterattack.

This sequence starts in the Levant, the Ottomans seem intent on following up their defence of Damascus with an attempt to retake Jerusalem. Here, Garibaldi manages to hold them off but with more heavy losses



In turn, having won his defensive battles, Garibaldi seeks to exploit the victory by taking Damascus with a small detached force while his main army grabs Beirut and moves on to attack their major depot at Aleppo.



Both Damascus and Beirut fall as Garibaldi seeks to evade the Turkish forces and grab their main depot at Aleppo. Hopefully cut off from supply they will fall back to either Anatolia or into Iraq.



Ah, I didn’t expect that, with his army split, Garibaldi is beaten when the Ottoman army counterattacks, falling back towards Beirut [1]



Even more aggressive, the war in the Red Sea region reignites as the Ottomans seek to capture Sanaa.



Where they fail badly



Leading to an Italian counterattack, Medina will be burnt down again [2]



Overall, this sequence of battles has given me quite a heavy replacement load to meet, but even so I really need more frontline formations.



Even if the population remains content



Ottoman morale remains low and losses on both sides mount, but in truth the war remains a stalemate.



However, just as Italy is focussed on war with the Ottomans, a major crisis erupts with Montenegro. In retaking Albania, it appears as if some Italian units crossed the border … well I’m not really prepared to apologise.



But with this approach, there is a risk of another war breaking out. I am pushing for supremacy (ie I am prepared to gamble to win) but not for war if it can be avoided. I have chosen 3 options to play as I seek to ensure they back down (and thus I win the prestige points now available).

So there we are, the main front is a stalemate, the secondary fronts remain very dynamic but both sides are unable to press home a short term advantage. My problem is that the various fronts are too well balanced at the moment, so I need to perhaps take a gamble and unbalance one so as to build up somewhere else. Or hope for the Ottomans to make a mistake. However, the prestige screen implies I have brought the two armies to a state of rough parity which is quite an improvement over the start of the war. I am not going to give up yet.

[1] I think this was pure bad luck. Garibaldi now has a Guards corps under his command, so I have all the advantages of quality. The snowstorm may have been critical, while it would reduce frontage, it also crippled my usual advantage in the ranged combat phase.
[2] I can take it but not hold it. Every time I capture the province all the colonial buildings (& thus the local source of supply) are destroyed. The reason is I have 0 colonial penetration there so when the buildings notionally flip to my control then they cannot be supported. The attraction is every time I take it, the Ottoman NM dips a little.

[loki100]

Aleppo seems to be a hard place for a regular force to fully occupy.

Stalemate in the Balkans, a vigorous back-and-forth in the Middle East... It is impressive that you have brought yourself to parity with the Ottomans, going by the numbers, but I don't yet see how this is going to translate into a victory. Certainly not a quick one. But it sounds like you're willing to drag this out a bit, so time might be on your side.

If Montenegro goes to war, could you quickly detach a corps and subdue it? I mean, you're already in their neighborhood... I do wonder, though, do they have an alliance, or is their independence guaranteed by anyone (or whatever EUIII-equivalent PON uses)? It would be a shame if too much blustering on your part brought Austria into the fray...

I actually forgot to check if they had any decent backers ... . So yes my logic was a nice crisis with no war = good, a crisis with a war, well ok I could pull back a bit and send in enough of a force to gain a very quick white peace.

With hindsight, that last quarter was a bit of a tipping point, after it the war mostly swings in my favour but its a case of having to do well enough to exit with some real gains but before the lag on my economy really starts to hurt.

I know thinking about what to do all the time been away from my computer for far to long need to to buy a laptop for this game lol and i can't wait to read the next input of the AAR just want see how it ends and im only doing a 1880 campaign to scared for a grand one yet lol and hope you sort the crisis out don't need another war!

It is utterly addictive, even when not playing I have all sorts of schemes in my mind, some idiotic - take Tunis from France - some optimistic, like adding Egypt to my Empire all set against the realisation that this game forces you to need long periods of peace between wars.

Hope you get to hold on to those ships at Thessalonica it wouldn't do for the Ottomans to cut off your naval superiority in the region. Looks like you stabilised the Balkan front nicely done. You need one of those crazy AI attacks on one of your strongpoints to get the ball rolling again.

well the AI does indeed decide to unblock the Balkan front, next three months were mostly good news for me ...

[loki100]

So, the war edges towards its second year with Italy sort of dominating but with no clear idea how to achieve a real victory. However, one advantage of the professional army is that there is no rise in domestic dissent despite the mounting losses. This gives me the capacity to think of a long term approach rather than having to win quickly.

On the other hand, while my economy is strong enough to sustain the war, it is not strong enough that I can sustain the war and carry on with its development. The latter is important as with a steadily increasing population (all those telecoms and sewers) and the techs that increase demand, my stockpiles are slowly running down and my balance of trade is often negative (ie I am importing more value of goods than I am exporting). At this stage, neither is critical, but both are niggles that make a too long a war unsustainable. On which analysis, I’d hate to think what state the Ottoman economy is in.

The diplomatic hissy fit with Montenegro ends with no war, but very much with them having to apologise. That is a nice little prestige boost for me.



Anyway, the war.

The Balkans

Here the campaign again burst into life. By early January the Ottomans abandoned Burgas and concentrated at Adrianople. I opted to shift my forces into Burgas to see if I could lure them into a counterattack, or, if they were going for Thessaloniki again, see if I could take Adrianople.



Well several things happened. They did indeed go for Thessaloniki, and drove off my weak covering force and recaptured the city.

With their main army now at Kavala, I decide its time to go for Adrianople. If I can drive off that weak covering army, I can set a siege that I think they will have to respond to. The attack on Adrianople is a success, with the Ottoman covering force driven off




Their main army does not try to raise the siege of Thessaloniki, I suspect the threat to Istanbul is a worry to them. This in turn provokes a significant response in a series of battles spread over February and March.




I manage to fend off all these and start to inflict fairly serious losses both in manpower and elements (harder to replace) on the Ottoman army.

Late March sees the final round of this phase with a fresh battle at Adrianople.



This is near ideal for me. I have a good strategic position that they need to attack. I have most of my army there so they have only a small numerical advantage against my large qualitative advantage. The only problem is I am back to a restricted supply line, but have sent a lot of fresh supply wagons to the region over the last 3-4 months so can just about survive.

The Levant

Here the basics of the campaign were even more straightforward. They followed up their victory at Aleppo with a failed attempt to take Damascus. I then let Garibaldi recover and reinforce and struck back at Aleppo and by the end of March had the city under siege.

To do this I sent more units to reinforce Garibaldi, my basic idea is to strip my Red Sea holdings and to send him most of the new units. With some luck, he can overwhelm the Ottoman forces in his sector and take Adana (which is one of my objective cities)



The Ottomans follow up their victory at Aleppo with an attempt to attack Damascus, this time numbers are on my side and Garibaldi holds them off.



I let him recover and by early March, the attack on Aleppo is renewed




This gives an idea of just how many rebels are running around the region. In turn, an Ottoman attempt to lift the siege is handily driven off



Colonial actions

The final steps are taken to ensure that Somalia is a full Italian colony, especially as people even want to emigrate to there.



My first naval guns arrive in Yemen, this will help cement my control over the Red Sea (I do wish the French would build the Suez Canal) [1].



At the same time the lure of a bit of colonial action on the Persian Gulf takes hold. Oil and Gems … but again outside my assigned area. Well its worth a gamble [2].



Domestically

I carry on building Universities, at this stage cash for NM and prestige is a good deal as far as I am concerned



So the first quarter of 1871 has seen the war shift in my favour. I should take Aleppo soon (so that is another major depot in my hands) and my siege of Adrianople is leading the Ottomans to attack me, with steadily mounting losses for them. The loss of Thesaloniki (again) is annoying, but I should be able to retake it, anyway I’m happy that they are trying to batter me at Adrianople so it is a good trade off.

At this stage, though, it seems as if someone else wishes to grab a portion of the Ottoman Empire …



Ah. Clever Russian AI. Well depending on how much they commit then that should seriously increase the pressure on the Ottomans.

[1] Or maybe I need to conquer Egypt too … ?
[2] Thanks to Powloon for alerting me to this potential.

[loki100]

Wow what a turn around! The Ottomans will definatelty be hurting. A lot of enemy casualties and even better you are starting to kill off elements in his army. It also dosn't hurt to have the Russians come and play to. I guess it is just a matter of time now. Did your goals change as the war progressed or did you find yourself sticking to your inital war aims?

The Dubai region is definately worth the investment I have 2 Gem mines built and a third under construction which makes a huge difference in supplying that sometimes difficult to achieve luxury good quota. Didn't know there was oil there as well definately an added bonus

I am also interested in seeing how the Suez canal forms. I think it is mostly by event again but I wondered if getting the Suez canal tech gives you the right to build or just use the canal?

when I was poking about in other country files a few years back, France has the Suez card but shows no interest in actually playing it. If I recall the text, they have first refusal but I'm not sure how another country gains the right to play it in turn.

The Russians are more use in Anatolia where they seem to distract the smaller Ottoman armies away from Garibaldi, so I have a much easier time of it. They never commit enough to the battles in the Balkans to risk going up against the Ottoman field army.

Well I did start dreaming of taking Jerusalem (220 Ws not 100) instead of Libya as the province gives access between the Med and the Red Sea.

Russian needing the Italians to commit before they dare attack the Ottoman Empire - how unhistorical.

Well, if you capture Constantinople (that was one of Orlando claim in Versailles / Trianon / Sèvres, in the "I claim an awful lot so they settle with only a lot"), you might have an issue with the Russians. And if you bow to the Russians, you'll have an issue with the English.

I've been checking over a lot of the event files (mainly to work out what doesn't work) and there is an event for 1874-6 that makes the UK very protective over Istanbul, so in that case this war may well prove to have been very well timed.

as with the Italian slogan in 1969 - hai ragione, domande tutti - seems a pretty sensible approach to me

One thing I find a bit scary is that in the battles around Adrianople, the Turk incurs heavy losses (I can only see numbers for the first battle - over 30,000 - but I assume the other ones were bruising too), yet still manages to have a more numerous army at the end of those battles than at the start... That's a lot of manpower they have to spend...

Sounds like you're not concerned by the fact that Gari's army is outnumbered roughly 3:2 near Adana, going on the power ratings. Italian quality will carry the day?

I know have my NM in the 110 range and there is down around 40, so any battle that is notionally even in power terms is going to go my way in reality. Their combat morale must be very fragile now.

Its very misleading reading across between those reports, not only do they include all units actually in the province (engaged or not), then units in surrounding provinces are included or excluded if they marched to the sound of the guns - so numbers fluctuate. After the next post, and the general loss of their secondary population centres, I notice their army doesn't seem to recover its manpower in a noticeable manner, so slowly their losses are becoming permanent (& horrendous)

Looked to me like the Ottoman army increased from 70,000 to 188,000 and then declined to 116,000 through battle, which is seriously good news for you. I also note you have 800-1200 artillery while he has 80... What's the quote? I'm sure I'll get it wrong. Something like, 'Frederick the Great had 80 pieces of artillery. What would he have said to the 1000 we have got?'

What I cannot see is how many men you have at Adrianople - 130,000 perhaps?

I was perhaps too strong in my comments last time, but I did not undertand that you had a definite strategy in mind and were following it. We can clearly see that this current strategy works! If they stop attacking you at Adrianople and the siege is not progressing in a satisfactory manner, will you reduce your force there a bit and tempt the Ottomans to attack some more? The size of the enemy field force at Thessaloniki is worrisome, but the gain of Adrianople (and threat to Constantinople) is perhaps worth risking the loss of the rest of Greece. As the siege progresses, the pressure on that Ottoman commander to return to Adrianople and give battle will increase...

Looks like 'Old Baldi' is laboring heroically for you in the Levant. If you can get Aleppo and Adana in hand, will you wind down your forces and send Gari elsewhere or try to strike inland?

Politically and strategically, I think the Russian entry is a mixed blessing (and quite opportunistic, at that). If the Sultan was smart he would cut his losses and make a deal with you, but I doubt that he will. The Ottoman ability to sustain campaigns around the Black Sea and in the Balkans should be poor; hopefully the Russian ability to rapidly advance overland in the Balkans will be poor, too. Of course you don't want the Russians setting down with you at Adrianople - I'm assuming the attrition would be high - but I'm perplexed to see what you can do to influence matters aside from what you are already doing.

artillery is probably just at the edge between being a major force multiplier and the real killer in this war. But you can see the impact in those snowy battles when I lose my gain in ranged fire.

Russia is not much use, I think they help in Syria-Anatolia in distracting the Ottomans but the grim business of actually taking Istanbul falls to the Italians ... and grim it will be.

I'm not sure I had that much of a strategy, more the AGE system so often favours the defense, so my ideal was them attacking me where they really needed to win. The geography of the region always indicated that Adrianople was the place to set that up if I could.

Also, the Oct-Dec 1870 period I played about 10 times (that was where my game was terminally crashing for a while), so I saw a lot of variants by the Ottoman AI. Sometimes it sat on the defense (which was a worry to me), a couple of times they went straight for Plovdiv which was a slaughter, most often they lunged at Thessaloniki if I left the coastal provinces under-protected. I'd built up my supply wagons to quite silly numbers so even if they cut my supply I knew I could operate for some time and at the end of the day Adrianople-Istanbul was worth far more than Thessaloniki.

If I can take Adana, then the only real use for Gari is to cull stray Ottoman formations (= gains in NM), its a long march to Istanbul and with all the rebels howling around in Syria/Iraq, I need to keep quite a large army even if just to protect my current games.

From stalemate, which you were dominating (if that makes any sense), to domination alone. Nice to see the war swinging decisively in your favour, especially with Russia declaring against the Ottomans as well. Nabbing some prestige from the Montenegro hissy fit was most welcome also and overall things seems to be going rather well, with new colonial ventures being attempted too. Long may it continue!

It swings even more ... Gari is quite the swinger in this time line. Yes it was very nice of Montenegro to feed me some more prestige, hopefully a few other smaller states will contribute to my coffers in the coming years.

[loki100]

So by early Spring 1871 I was becoming more optimistic. This time my threat to Adrianople (and thus Istanbul) seemed to have some effect on the Ottomans and it seemed as if the war in the Levant had also shifted in my favour. In that region, I think the Russians were indirectly helping as they occupied the border forts and engaged with some of the smaller Ottoman armies. In the Balkans, they were less use as they did not commit a large enough army to allow them to attack the Ottomans and I’d already occupied all the secondary provinces that made any difference.

The effect of the war on my domestic economy was to reduce me to ‘guns and not so much butter’. I was still able to build up my domestic industry and upgrade the agricultural sites, just less quickly than I wanted to.



Balkans

April saw more attempts by the Ottomans to shift me from Adrianople, the first I held, but the second saw my army only partially engaged [1]. So I lost, but they paid a high price to drive my army from the field.



However, it was clear that the victory had cost the Ottomans a lot, in terms of lost organisation, while two of my armies were relatively unscathed



With this in mind, I ordered both to stop their retreat [2]

The result was rather impressive, first the Ottoman field army was thrown back



Even better in the chaos of their rout, Adrianople fell into my hands [3]. In combination, their short lived victory and subsequent defeat cost them almost 160,000 losses for about 60,000 Italians (my defeat was brutal as VE’s army took the full brunt of their attack)

Equally by the start of May, Thessaloniki was back in my hands and I quickly destroyed the newly built Ottoman ships



At Adrianople, the fighting continues as this time I try to catch the retreating Ottomans



With these battles ended, I was too battered to risk a direct assault on Istanbul, but decided I could safely start to reduce their control of the flanking regions. My first goal was to clear out Gallipoli and thus give myself complete control of the European shore of the Dardanelles.



Levant

Here less happened, there were a few battles around Aleppo both before and after Garibaldi stormed the town in early May. His victory secured another supply depot and effectively ended Ottoman control in the region.



By the end of June, the Russians are over the border and I have firm control over Syria. The only remaining target of any value to me is Adana



In the meantime the Ottomans tried another raid into Yemen, which I fended off with no difficulty.

Other Things

Away from the war, I slowly develop my new colonial interests on the Persian Gulf



By the end of June, I even start to pay some attention to Zanzibar and Mombasa (again outside my set SOI but will really anchor my control over the entire coastal region around the Red Sea)



A very useful military invention occurs at the end of June



This reduces organisational losses from movement, making my armies much more effective on the offensive.

My manpower remains ok, at least I can replace my losses in the fighting at Adrianople.



The population remains content, giving me a firm foundation to continue the war.



Despite the recent battering for the Ottomans, it is clear this war will only end with real gains if I can take Istanbul



To put those losses in context, at the end of 1870 our respective casualties were 210,000 for me and 659,000 for the Ottomans. So the battles at and around Adrianople saw my losses leap by 218,000 and theirs by just over 400,000 (and a further 40,000 prisoners).


[1] – the battle reports are confusing in that it shows all the units in a province, not just the ones involved. What happened here is, I think, the Ottomans got lucky. Two of my armies were relatively unengaged and their full attack hit the third which was badly beaten. This can happen due to how the game engine selects targets and I think does a neat job of simulating those battles which make no sense except as indicative of the chaos of war.
[2] – one of the ways in which the AGE engine is different to the Clauswitz model. You can choose to stop a retreat and engage again. Often a silly choice as you will just get another (bigger) beating, but as here it is a way to reflect the ability to turn a battle by engaging with fresh formations.
[3] – nope I don’t understand either, I think my attack for some reason carried on into an assault, something similar happens at a later stage

Note France's NM. I think this is due to them not attacking Prussia despite the event chain trying to force this. Again I think its an example of how the firm Austro-Prussian alliance is really the dominant political feature of this game. I can't see, as Prussia hasn't unified N Germany, why it should ever break unless they blunder into a war almost by accident with each other.

[loki100]

Excellent! Time to start thinking about what to demand... Albania and Libya are a must, everything else would be a nice bonus.

Indeed, and the liberation of Central Greece too, but only if I can force the warscore over 130 or so. I do keep on dreaming of claiming Jerusalem but that is a bit implausible for this war. I do however plan to come back for more.

Ah! Marego redux! It seems there was 'yet time to win another'.

If you've cleared the Turks out of the Balkans and secured Adrianople then you have indeed done well - a tremendous rebound in your fortunes earned by daring, skill and persistence. If your formations are able to keep pushing then Gallipoli/Kum Khale is a good objective. The thing is, if you swing through Bursa to Izmit, can you keep the Ottos from breaking back out into the Balkans? Or will you cork the Dardanelles and settle down for a siege of Istanbul instead?

By the way, to what degree is your navy able to close the straits? Can Ottoman armies continue to march across or can you block them?

And what of the Russians - are they marching into the northern Balkans or only pushing down the eastern end of the Black Sea?

The force at Gallipoli is pretty safe. It and the main army at Adrianople can mutually support. Once it cuts lose into Western Anatolia it is a bit vulnerable but only if the Ottomans abandon their defense lines at Istanbul - which I suspect they will not do. I keep the Ottomans under close observation and it is clear they are no longer reinforcing (that red bar next to the units) and my 2 armies left at Adrianople are actually more powerful than all their forces at Istanbul.

The fleet I'm unwilling to send into the Dardenalles till I have Gallipoli as the fort batteries are a threat (if I move in to shell), harmless if I stay out at sea. So at this stage I'm content to keep the fleet in the Aegean, I don't really need the additional damage the ship guns can do (still on sail but steam/ironclad tech is pretty close). A bit later, as we will see, I rather make a mistake and manage to take heavy naval losses due to close engagement with fort batteries (wasn't really paying attention to be honest).

By the end of the next post, most of NE Anatolia is in Russian hands, they have cleaned out the Ottoman forces in the Balkans but make no useful contribution to the main campaign at Istanbul. Still I'm grateful for them tipping the scales in my favour over in the East.

This strikes me as fairly unprecedented bloodletting by 19th century standards. A bit of a seesaw in the Balkans, but you're now firmly in control (assuming your armies can march over the enormous piles of rotting corpses to Constantinople).

With France's NM all but gone, I think you can kiss goodbye any dreams that France will ever be a useful ally in case of a war with Austria. Any ideas how you're going to get northern Italy back in the fold, what with the French out and the eternal Prussian-Austrian alliance very much still in?

If you recall the early PoN AARs (Stonewall's using the 1859 campaign was a good example) one thing that everyone remarked on was the lethality of the battles. I have infantry units with attack scores in the 30 and that deals a lot of damage.

Fortunately France's NM bounces back significantly once they retake Paris so my ally can actually manage a war if it comes to it.

I've not written off Northern Italy, if I get the chance I'll escalate any crisis with the Austrians (even if it doesn't lead to war it will gain me a lot of prestige) but apart from that all i can do is to wait for the Germanic alliance that rather dominates this Europe to splinter, or the Austrians to stumble into a war with Russia (that would be handy for me). Even then, I run the risk of their defensive alliance with Prussia.

It seems like you're essaying a pretty bloody answer to the Eastern Question. With Russia pursuing its own ends, is there a chance of Franco-British intervention? Holders of Ottoman debt in Paris and London probably take a dim view of what you're doing to the value of their investments.

There is a scripted event for 1875 or so (no doubt designed to fire before the 1878 Bulgarian crisis) which gives the UK a focus on Istanbul. I'd like to have another bite out of the Ottomans in a few years if I can (my hope is that their army is permanently degraded by this war) but I can't if it means war with the UK ... ugh.

Carnage on an industrial scale and Gari didn't even do it! Does feel more like a 20th century battlefield rather than a 19th.

Looks like the fall of Istanbul is now inevitable. Well done! Out of interest have you been able to pass ships into the straits to block movement as I imagine the seige of Instanbul would proceed faster with a blockade in place (although I am assuming the coastal guns in the straits are likely to have prevented this)

I noticed Massawa harbour is still under Ottoman control is this because you hadn't run the script at this stage?

Again just to be nosey could you describe how the war impinged on your economy was it mainly down to a shortage of manufactured goods (required for both economic structures and military units)

I ran the Massawa script in the period of the next update so that finally shows as owned by me.

The war dislocation is mainly around manufactured goods. I need a high flow of replacements so am importing manufactured goods like mad. In turn that means I still lack them for industrial expansion and my balance of payments is about zero rather than showing the healthy surplus of the pre-war period. But I think one gain of a professional army is the civil population remain pretty unfussed by the war, removing one constraint on my ability to stick it out.

Once I actually am able to besiege Istanbul, as opposed to, as now, surround it, I do move the fleet in. The blockade then makes a surrender that much more likely and I am close enough to ironclads that I can lose a number of my existing ships if I need to. It seems as if the upgrade path for sail ships doesn't cross that threshold so I'd have to scrap them in any case.

[loki100]

I’ll return to six month reporting for the next couple of updates as the war has really simplified. In effect I need to take Istanbul, and that is not going to be easy, and I need to clean up the remaining Ottoman forces in the East.

In the west, my campaign plan is to take Gallipoli, Smyrna (a large depot) and then Izmit which will surround Istanbul. There is a small gamble to this as the Ottomans could attack me at Adrianople but the force there is powerful and that would mean they have left their entrenchments.

In the east, especially with the Russians moving into Central Anatolia it is mostly a case of taking Adana and dealing with a few isolated Ottoman forces.

But lets start with the Istanbul campaign. Here, the final act of the Adrianople battles is yet another slaughter as the Ottomans fight a rearguard action to cover their retreat [1]



This shows the campaign I have planned.



Gallipoli falls in September (this was the only fort blocking my campaign). This is followed by the fall of Smyrna in early October and Bursa at the end of October.



The final stage is to take Izmit at the end of November



I am now in a position to try an attack on Istanbul. The two armies at Adrianople advance and the force at Izmit will offer support.



Ouch. Well I knew this was going to be a brutal business. The key difference is I can re-organise and replace my losses, it now seems as if the Ottomans are not able to do so. So the second attack should be easier.

Here is the situation afterwards. The only real problem is the force at Izmit is now at Adrianople [2] so it needs to march back to Izmit while I regain cohesion and replace my losses.



But the key outcome is that Ottoman force is now much weaker (the red bar reflects core numbers and strength)

I do however have quite a replacement challenge as a result



Elsewhere the only really important event is Adana falls in July




Subsequently there was a series of battles with rebels and some smaller Ottoman forces but none of it of any real importance. My only logic was to see if I could further dent Ottoman NM with some more victories.

You can track the Ottoman willingness to surrender through the shifting warscore



This shows how the war is fluctuating. The capture of Adana leads to a jump in warscore from 17 to 31. My victories around Smyrna etc pushed it up to 63, the defeat at Istanbul dropped it to 58.

But this does emphasise, I need Istanbul if I am going to force a meaningful peace on them (meaningful for me that is).

Elsewhere the Commune has taken power in Paris.



France’s NM remains exceptionally low but will recover once Paris is retaken.

Rome ends up under water.



A number of inventions fire. They can be grouped into a block that increase my productivity allowing upgrades to my mines and steelworks (should note that upgraded steelworks have the secondary advantage of also producing prestige).



The other block all have the effect of reducing the cohesion impact for movement of combat units.



In effect that batch of train related techs mean my armies can move into combat with lower cohesion losses which partially offsets the innate advantage to the defense.

I can no longer see the Ottoman position on the scores chart.



One thing I really need to do is to force my own NM > 125, that will make them much more willing to make peace. Since I lost 2 with the defeat at Istanbul, that makes that battle all the more costly.

Note that France’s NM has recovered as it has regained Paris. Massawa is now showing as mine as I ran the script to eliminate the Ottoman controlled port.

[1] in reality a single corps was retreating very slowly, I caught it and their main army intervened.
[2] another instance of how the march to the sound of the guns rule works differently in PoN. In say Rise of Prussia that force would have remained where it was.

[loki100]

So after the defeat of my first attempt at Istanbul I had to do some thinking. It appears as if I can pick up more warscore and some NM by attacking peripheral Ottoman units. There are two problems to this. One I want out the war if I can so I can return to building up my economy and exploiting my recent colonial expansion. Second is that the Russians, in this respect, are competitors, they too are attacking and destroying those Ottoman units not actually defending Istanbul. So really it comes down to actually taking Istanbul and that promises to be a grim business.

By the end of January, everything is in position for a second offensive. Note in particular the Ottomans have not managed to replace their losses.



The result is the usual grim slaughter



But the Ottomans held on. The key here is I attacked at normal commitment, they opted to defend at all costs. So I won, but they held the battlefield.

I am presented with another huge replacement bill.



As you can see my core infantry formations are badly battered.



Gari’s wandering looking for a fight led to a sharp series of actions at Mosul, the Ottomans actually attacked me, I think looking for a source of supply.



This was overshadowed by the third battle of Istanbul. This time I had ordered an all out attack.



There were a few more skirmishes that cost me another 10,000 and them another 15,000. That also shows that I didn’t give my army time to properly recover from the Second battle of Istanbul so my losses translated into lost elements (I actually lost a complete Infantry corps and they lost 2 Infantry corps).


I not only dislodged their field army I actually carried on the attack into the fortifications taking some heavy losses on the way.



To speed up the siege, I bring the navy into the Dardenelles (this imposes a naval blockade and I can shell the defenders). This may speed up the siege but at the loss of about 60% of my fleet [1]



This happens, even as I storm the city.



Some Italian units gain a gold star (combat experience not diluted by replacements) and there are promotions for a few of my commanders as well.



The Ottomans now are ready to surrender



I gain a huge shift in prestige and temporarily, a massive boost to my National Morale. Now would not be a good time to take on the Italian army.



So the war ends.

I took Libya in the peace deal, added Tirana (my argument is I started the war to restore ‘order’ there), gave Greece Thessaly, Epirus and Corfu. I then shifted Corfu to me as the price for negotiating such a good deal for Greece (the last three changes were all by script). My argument is I could have sat on Istanbul for ages and the Ottoman field army is pretty wrecked. There is nothing in those terms that was really outwith the potential for Nineteenth Century diplomacy.

In the meantime some important techs fire.


The cruises one increases the demand by population type, while the Commune is another of those techs that lead to an increase in underlying militantism unless I take active steps to keep contentment high.

Amidst the war, my colonial expansion carries on, with a protectorate declared in Oman for February and Italians, hearing the Garibaldi is coming back to Italy, sensibly flee to Somalia.



Later on Zanzibar is made into a protectorate.



However, even as the Italian army held its victory parade in Istanbul, a fresh crisis was about to erupt on my northern borders. Austria was not happy. So 1872 may yet see more war.

Thus ends the 1869-1872 Ottoman-Italian war. It took just over three years to finish a war I expected to win in one year. There was at least one stage when I was on the verge of defeat.

I think the critical issue was I could replace my losses, and faced no dissent at home. The Ottomans clearly generated a huge pile of replacements early on (hence the recovery of the army that had starved in the snows of Bulgaria), but this ran out (lack of cash, lack of manufactured goods?). There after their army declined, they seemed to produce new militia units but their regular army was lost in the first 18 months of the war.

To this must be added, their low NM (which undermines your combat performance) the hordes of rebels running around the place and my slow capture of their secondary cities (with the help of my Russian friends). In combination, I think that starved them of replacement manpower (mine was higher due to the cities I held) and cash.

What is not clear is how important was Russia’s declaration of war. In the west, all they did was to take provinces on the Black Sea and in the Balkans I was ignoring. In the east, I think they distracted the Ottomans enough to allow me to move from Aleppo (where I was rather stuck by two separate armies) to Adana and to be able to keep both. I also think it was the presence of Russian troops elsewhere in Anatolia that allowed me to risk detaching a weaker army to take the towns on the eastern shore of the Dardanelles and thus to surround Istanbul.

[1] – I reckon I am less than a year from the Ironclad tech that makes my existing navy obsolete, so those ships would have been scrapped in any case. Well that was my rationalisation after it had happened.

[loki100]

Did your peace treaty apply to the Russians, or is that a separate war?

Lost an infantry corps? Ouch... Does the game not allow for really large siege guns or are you just not able to build them? I did notice that in one battle the Ottomans lost 25 units just of infantry... that is a sign of shattered morale indeed. If they have to carry on a war with Russia after this they won't be able to do much. Still, take heart from doing what no-one has been able to do since the Middle Ages: you conquered Constantinople. Bet the Russians won't be able to do the same.

I do hope you can rapidly build back up to strength. If Austria is *finally* getting restive you will need those lost units. The sinking of old wooden ships is less severe, though potentially embarrassing. If war has to come I hope you can limit it to Austria alone... if Prussia comes south you are pretty much done for. (*Nervously eyes 'Fortress Sardinia'*).

I actually lost 2 of those colonial divisions as well. All that survived were the artillery organic to the formation.

The Ottomans and the Russians carry on with their war, we were never allies, just I gave them passage and supply transit rights so they could do as much damage as possible.

There are specialist heavy guns. Its those units that look like mortars, each gives a +1 on the dice roll that determines if you breach a fortress, I have 3 and a load of sappers etc. Thats why, even though Istanbul is a level 3 fort, I took it so quickly. They are not bad in the field either.

losing the fleet was indeed embarrassing, I just forgot to switch off the commitment to shore bombardment, in this era naval guns are no threat to ships well off shore but deadly if you close enough to use the cannon of wooden sail ships to bombard.

I think, and I'll cover this in detail in some follow up posts, it will take me 2-3 years to get over the war, more if I also need to start producing an ironclad fleet as well.

Congratulations on dealing a creeping blow on the Ottoman Empire, you really were on a verge of disaster at one point.

Keep us updated on how to AI will handle the recovery of a post-war devastated country, first the Italians and then the Russians must have really hurt them, so I am quite curious.

I can't see the Ottomans recovering. A lot of their factories were destroyed because when I took control they couldn't be supported (Anatolia has some sort of colonial status for the Ottomans), their NM is low, they have rebels everywhere. My hope is to come back in 2-3 years time for a second course and this time grab Jerusalem which will start to link up my Empire.

Do you now have a border with the Greeks in Albania, or is there still Ottoman territory between you? Also, what happened to all the little islands in the Aegean - were they made Greek too? A map would be nice!

map in the next post. But yes I now border the Greeks - not too worried about them to be honest. I'd like a defensive treaty but if not they are no real threat.

You really battered your way right into Constantinople, and the cost was high. But oh, the prestige! And ah, what a prize - a sandy stretch of North Africa infested with rebels. I assume this will be Gari's new posting, governor of Libya?

It was not a pretty war and it clearly did not live up to your initial expectations, but certainly a valuable learning experience and you did, most importantly, manage to turn a near-defeat into a total victory. As you said, you could've sat on Constantinople for ages, watch the warscore creep up and just demand whatever you pleased.

Now, about those Austrians... I hope you won't have to put all the lessons learned against the Ottomans into practice this soon.

as so often when I play an AGEOD game, my tactics tend to the brutal and direct, but sometimes you have no choice. I still blanche at the lethality of combat in PoN, more used to RoP where you really need to work hard to generate very heavy losses.

nah Austria whimps out.

Wonderful end to a bloody war can't wait for more shame its Christmas all the family here I can't play but hopefully get in soon !!

thank you, yes me too. I'm not sure I'll be allowed several hours to play PoN in the next week or so ... or to post updates

[loki100]

One of the mechanisms in PoN is that at the end of a war, your forces are automatically moved to friendly territory. In my case this means the forces at Istanbul are now in Tirana and Garibaldi is found to be sunning himself in Corfu.

My plan is to send the main three armies back to North Italy. They need reinforcing, specialist units and so on so that they can operate as front line combat forces (we’ll look at this in detail in a later post). Garibaldi’s force is mostly lighter units and a single Guards Corp. Ideal for Libya. At the moment all I hold of my new colony is Tripoli, so taking the rest is going to be a long colonial struggle I fear.



So this shows Greece at the end of the war. Greece now owns the centre and south, I have Tirana and Corfu. The Dodecanese went back to the Ottomans. I attacked and defeated the rebels while waiting for the peace treaty to fire. With peace the Ottomans regained control.

So I settle down to making Tripoli a nice place to visit. A harbour, a fort, a depot, the usual things.

And start ferrying the army back to Italy (this actually takes me till the end of December). At which stage I receive this message.



So first thing to check is whether or not my French ally is in any shape to help me out



Now the truth is this is inconvenient, but I am not going to get many chances to provoke Austria into actually attacking me. Not least the French army has high morale too. This is too good to miss.

So I decide on the most aggressive negotiating stance you can use:



When I had the dispute with Montenegro I went for a stance designed to ensure I won but avoided the risk of war. This one ‘bullying’ is really designed to force a war or a humiliating climb down on your opponent.

I back this with a strategy designed to escalate rather than diffuse the crisis.



After a couple of these I am now more used to how to structure a response. Some cards are more aggressive than others but also the order is important, for example you can start very aggressively and then try to calm it down (ie hope the stake has gone your way and then seek to avoid war). Well here, I’m trying to escalate at each step.

I either want a huge prestige win or a war (remember Austria is in #5 but only 80-90 points ahead of me).

And I get



So I pushed the stake up to 2541 and the seriousness (ie war risk) to 64, so a very low key minor dispute took both countries to the edge of war. However, at least I am now #5



Oh well. Anyway life goes on and Tripoli gains a school and more Italians flee now Garibaldi is back on the mainland … little do they know where he is going next. I also move to formalise my status.



At the same time Oman gains a school and a new road. Oh and a fort and a coaling station



I also build a new opium farm in Somalia



My army learns better defensive tactics and my artillery has a major upgrade.



That actually brings the reports up to where I am in-game. However, I am going to do three relatively detailed reports on the economy (I’ve neglected much reporting of this), my colonial empire and the army. In combination that will indicate just why I needed to end the Ottoman war and why I need a period of peace to digest my recent gains and develop all the various resources I now have some control over.

This game is incredibly addictive, even SP, I spend ages dreaming up schemes and plans - you won't be surprised to realise that adding Egypt to the new Roman Empire is something I am giving a lot of thought to. Anyway, that will be the last update this year, so thanks to everyone who has read this aar and especially to those who have left comments. Wish you all the best regardless of beliefs or activities over the next few days.

[loki100]

[color="#FF0000"]this post was originally by SirGarnett ... its too useful just to lose and I didn't make a full response at the time[/color]

Thought I should catch up on this thread.

EVENTS AND STRATEGY:

War: War is not as rare as you might think it should be in our CIE PBEM 24-playable nation multiplayer game. (There are openings for players, BTW) Diplomacy, alliances, and coalitions can deter but also facilitate conflict. The behavioral effects of different arrangements among nations are quite interesting.
"Possibly the most scary button I have ever pressed in any computer game. I cannot afford to lose this war, not least
it will take ages to rebuild the army (as well as the negative consequences in terms of prestige)."
Yes, there is a momentous aspect to the declaration itself (though you can change your mind before turn processing), just as there is to the succeed-or-die dynamic of an amphibious assault - part of the role play aspect built into the game. In PON a year is a long time - 24 turns - and your manpower flow is limited. You can't just sweep up manpower and convert it to troops. You use your flow, maybe adopt conscription measures of varying degrees up to calling up the next classes early.

That said, there are ways out of war and the cost depends on the type of war. Naval battles are relatively cheap in manpower, costly in material. Land battles can get expensive, very expensive. One can't do it overtly in single player, but in multiplayer the opponents may agree or indicate that they
will limit the theatres of land war to reduce the scope of destruction. Or, in the case of the Russo-Chinese war in my AAR below even more so than Italy's Balkan campaign, geography and supply constraints limit the forces that can be maintained ready to fight at the end of a supply line. Losing troops for lack of supply is a tragedy, losing an army thus is a catastrophe. In our multiplayer (see multiplayer forum) the German Empire just recently lost an entire army of over a hundred thousand fine troops which failed to establish a beachhead when landing to retake the Ryukyus recently seized by Meiji Japan. It's about calculated and miscalculated risks.

Ship Upgrades: Don't set the squadrons with lost elements to Passive to replace elements until you have the relevant Ironclad technology. Activate them for replacement then and the lost wooden type slots will be filled with ironclads in replacement.

Fighting Ottomans: The advice is a little late, but having naval supremacy gives you the equivalent of interior lines with the ability to shift and reconcentrate faster than the Turks, to your advantage. This enables picking off enemy regions and units on the coast or near it, prompting the enemy to disperse and weaken key points.

A long war has the great benefit of developing more capable and promotable leaders as well as units of higher quality. Some experience can also be gained against rebels and pirates around the globe. Fighting the Ottomans offers both opportunities.

Italy might have one too many corps where it could use some extra divisions and brigades.

Native Troops: When protectorates and colonies are formed, you may get tribes and their forces submitting to you. Some of these may be outside the scope of the territory and may be giving you Military Control you can use.

Native troops are very useful in colonial areas generally - for their terrain, attrition, and scouting advangtages. They are good for chasing rebels. They are irregulars so not organized, equipped or disciplined for modern battle so should be considered auxiliaries rather than fed into the front lines as if regulars.

Replacements: Replacements rather than Money should be considered the sinews of war in PON. 10,000 casualties is 100 hits requiring an average of 10 replacement chits (or I might call them depot battaltions) to replace that could take from a few to many months to build. Replacements don't decay, don't cost added maintenance, and will always be useful even as the units they replenish evolve and change. Don't let the flow of conscripts and officers go to waste - just add to replacements.

Foreign Investment: Foreign investment is strategically important in SP and you can invest anywhere you have a Commercial Agreement. In PBEM multiplayer it is different. Trade can make it much less necessary, and among players there may be an expectation that you won't have anyone else building in your domain without permission. You have your own development plan, after all.

The recent foreign investment tax addition to the game means some cash benefit from foreign investments in addition to creating employment. Employment is beneficial when it moves some of the population up the social ladder so they create more domestic demand (i.e., peasants up to workers up to middle class etc.).

PON DETAILS:

Fort Garrisons:
there is a PoN mechanism whereby a town/fort under siege automatically spawns a garrison. Thus something that looks undefended can in fact be very hard to take.
True, but this only works if that nation holding the fort has garrison troop types and the right script has been run so they they can be spawned. In the 1850 campaign we find Latin American nations do not have garrison nor fortress infantry nor artillery, so they must garrison forts with regular mobile troops or leave them entirely vacant. In single-player this would hardly ever matter, but it remains something the community can fix with a mod.

Reports: The F10 table lacks the comprehensiveness and utility of a spreadsheet but then this is an era where military intelligence was often lacking (in several senses) or more limited and less pro-active than in the 20th Century. What you get is a sometimes-varying snapshot of most of the top powers with some priority to those at war with you that can bump them up the list. Physical recon using ships or troops may be your only in-game method of gathering intelligence - and blithely going to war without accurate knowledge of the enemy, his dispositions, or the terrain was not unknown. So it has a 19th C feel - more surprises.

CIE multiplayer which is now at the end of 1871, some of the more clever participants have written scripts that can be used to generate annual reports on military and economic statistics for the playable countries. Element count for land
troops and warships, for example - interesting but misleading since element vary greatly in strength and value. Still interesting.
quantity than quality.

Sneak Attacks: A country can attack the same turn the declaration of war is delivered if in or able to move into a region with enemy present. This is supposed to be treated as treachery with a prestige penalty on land, but there is no penalty at sea. Against live players, they may each have their own reaction to it.

[loki100]

First, and generally, thanks to everyone for the comments - I'll try to do them all due response. The next set of updates will be a sort of 'state of the nation' overview, since this seems a good time (post my first war) and is the sort of thing that goes on around the New Year. This will also help to obscure that I haven't had much chance to play beyond the point of the final post above.

Fantastic updates, it truly is a thrill to observe your progress. Though your brutal and costly war might seem to merit more gains than just Tirana Libya, I believe that their strategic value is perhaps much greater than their economic value.

Speaking of Libya and its strategic value, I suspect that you'll soon be be developing your military infrastructure directly west of Egypt... if there's a geographic point around which your empire rotates, it's Cairo. I can't think of a single way in which Egypt wouldn't be useful to Italy.

If my Empire is to make sense, then Egypt has to fall within my ambit I agree. There is both the ease of communication via a Suez Canal as well as the potential to build a continuous Empire from Syria to Tripoli down to East Africa. Now whether the rest of the world sees this as equally natural and logical is a different issue.

To answer some comments below. I think the Ottomans are now there for the taking - my reasons will become clear after the next set of updates. A large depot/fort/port in Tirana will really ease my next bite at them. In the last war, the loss of Thessaloniki came close to ending the entire enterprise, next time I will have a much more secure base. Its not that I want to take more land in the Balkans but that it was clear that capturing Istanbul is critical to grabbing anything else of interest - next time this will be Palestine.

It's a bit odd to think of Albania and Libya as desirable additions to your empire, but there you go. Good job winding up that war and I agree that you achieved realistic wargoals, given the way you had beaten the Ottomans (and given the fact that they are still at war with the Russians - looks like they took Sofia in one of your screenshots).

I think you got the best result with that crisis with the Austrians. True, the French appear willing and able to join the fight, but your forces are/were out of place and in need of replacements and upgrades. I can't see you make a whole lot of headway in that case, if a war had broken out.

Enjoy the holidays and we'll see you on the other side (that being 2013).

The Ottomans have got Istanbul back but the Russians have taken almost all the rest of the Balkans and Anatolia. To be cynical, there is nothing the Russians want that interests me, so I am content for them to weaken each other.

I was very unsure about war with Austria, but I wasn't going to pass up the chance. Not least with an NM>160, my army is pretty awesome and they would be more willing than usual to give in. Having said that - I need peace ... for a while.

Kinda surprised the Austrians backed off so easily. I'm guessing the AI wasn't expecting you to be so aggressive despite having what appears to be a weaker bargaining position.

Kinda funny though, the thought of a 19th-century top hatted, mustachioed diplomat cursing angrily and deliberately provoking war over some minor trade violations.

I have visions of the Italian ambassador bursting in screaming "che cazzo, vafu ...." and the Austrians looking scared witless in response, ... I'll neither translate nor complete the sentence.

I think the Austrian AI was fairly aggressive but quite clearly not prepared to deal with someone prepared to escalate the dispute into a major war.

I like the idea that the Austrians - mindful of your ambitions to reclaim Venice et al - manufactured a trade spat to remind a war-weary Italy of it's place. They then realised that you were spoiling for a fight and had to hurriedly back off, since they were unprepared for a major war.

Are there any guaranteed ways of pushing them into a war via a crisis? What's the advantage of this mechanism rather than a straightforward declaration of war?

And happy Christmas and Hogmanay! I've really enjoyed your AAR output in 2012. Long may it continue.

Unfortunately not, all Austria has is a serious revolt risk in a couple of (to them) marginal provinces. So its a crisis or nothing. A feature of PoN is you only get defensive alliances (I'm not sure if this shifts as the 20th Century approaches), so at the moment, continental Europe is locked between the Austro-Prussian & the Franco-Italian alliances. Whoever attacks will be horribly isolated as their ally won't contribute. I need that Germanic block to splinter and even then Italy-Austria is not a sensible 1-1 battle.

Tirana is inside the Objectives List with eight points. If Egypt is italian with a Italian Libya is easy to transport from mainland to Somalia.

That quite brilliantly sums it up. One is of value as I get Prestige for it, the other as it is the missing link in my growing Empire.

Congratulations on the conclusion of an epic and brutal campaign! It has given me much to chew on / think about:happy:

I understand why you wanted war with Austria but probably it would have been bad timing with your army dispersed.

Have a good Christmas looking forward to some festive updates

Given it took me to Jan 1873 to get the army back to Italy, I suspect I would have lost a lot of border provinces in a war. I was rather wishing I'd adopted your strategy of building a decent fortified line. But my high NM gave me a lot of hope, that translates to a lot of military power, so I think I could have held them north of Rome and, with the French, moved into the Po.

Splendid job! It really seems that the Ottoman Empire is gone for good, the loss of Greece, the terrible cost of a war fought on their land and the likely defeat they'll suffer at the hand of Russia will leave them a shadow of their former selves. You'll probably have an easy time grabbing Egypt and Jerusalem now.

And that Austrian crisis! A proper vaudeville with your ambassador barging into the Austrian's office threatening war and doom over a minor commercial dispute! After your decades of insults they must think Italy is a country of maniacs and lunatics.

This game certainly seems much more fun once you have a decent power base, and I'm really curious to see the long term consequences of war in PoN. It's very nice to see that you can't just go for an all out total war unlike in say Rise Of Prussia where you can just sacrifice your entire army in order to achieve victory (cue: your RoP AAr against Narwhal).

I agree, I think the Ottomans really are this game's punch bag now. I suspect bits will spin off due to rebellions and the Russians will grab their border targets.

Agree on the point that this game doesn't have an 'end of the world' aspect. My fear all the time in that war was taking such huge losses that my army needed 5-8 years to recover, thus leaving me vulnerable to my potential enemies. I knew I needed to use attrition as a tactic, but it wasn't my tactic of choice. In that RoP AAR, I just used the Austrian army as an enormous tar baby while the French and Russians took the forts I needed.

True, you are absolutely correct in the game. I was speaking more from a real-life, early 20th century perspective: neither area was a particularly grand prize at that time. But you're certainly right that they are valuable possessions for Italy in the game.

I think PoN, even more than Victoria, forces you to think in 19C terms - the gain of a single fortress that gives you the (perceived) stepping stone is vital. Its intrinsic worth becoming irrelevant in those terms. Tirana, means my next Balkan war is now grounded on a much more secure foundation (or will be in 1875 or so)

Tirana was the reason for the war so for Italia is a prize -in prestige- to take it and Lybia isn't a valuable possesion but is an estrategical possesion : every country would like to have a circle of territories around their mainland, Italy can battle in two fronts to take Egypt, to debilitate Ottoman Empire -less money, products and manpower- and these things go to Italy.

I suspect I am in for a couple years of grinding war with Rebels in Libya, guess it is good practice for the army and as you say, potentially sets up Egypt for an overland rather than very risky, naval, invasion

I rather fancy the Austrian ambassador in Rome being imperiously summoned to the Palace and emerging horrified and shaken... Writing to the Emperor, "If the Italians can take casualties like that while taking Istanbul, imagine how cheerfully they would pay the price in blood for Vienna! My Emperor, I beg of you - give them whatever they want! All Italians are madmen - fiends! Demons! I didn't even know that we bought turnips from Italy - much less widgets! Never mind that every barn in both Austria and Hungary are stuffed to the bursting with turnips! Buy more - I beg of you - buy more!"

I interpret as they were trying to stop the Italian population of Lombardy and the Veneto partriotically buying Italian rather than Austrian goods - but yes it is easy to see it as them panicking when they realise just how unsubtle is the Italian response.

Excellent stuff as ever. The war against the Ottomans proved a grim, bloody affair until the end but at least you managed to secure considerable gains. Colonial expansion continues nicely and the most recent tensions with Austria went well (reasonably well anyway, I was hoping for war!). Nicely done anyway, I'm looking forward to the next update.

I think I lost about 500,000 and they lost around 800,000 in the war. The game engine seems to reflect the reality of warfare at a period when rifles, early machine guns and almost modern artillery all intersected with armies that still wore pretty uniforms and formed up in neat lines and columns on the battlefield. I guess in reality Europe didn't really absorb the lessons of the American Civil War in that respect until the turn of the 20th Century.

Hi Loki and everyone,

I'm hugely enjoying your AAR and look forward to more next year

och there will be .. and thank you

Thought I should catch up on this thread.

thank you, that is a brilliant and informative post, one that I will answer partially over the next 4 updates

[loki100]

Having reached the end of 1872 (ie I only have 48 years left to play) and managed a decent expansion it seems to be a good time to stop and look at four aspects of my progress in detail. Thus the next four posts will review the economy; the population; my colonial progress; and, the army.

In doing this, I think it will also make it plain why I need a lengthy period of relative peace as I absorb my gains, rebuild the army and ensure the economy is keeping up with my population needs.

[CENTER]Introduction[/CENTER]

Since this is very much an economic game, I’ll start with the economy. Equally I’ll review some of the PoN mechanisms in this respect and the understanding I have come to on the basis of my own game play and the information in other AARs and on the PoN page here and over on the AGEOD forums. You don’t really need to read this post to follow the AAR, the key message is that I need to fund quite a lot of development in the next few years.

There are two key items to hold in mind when considering the interaction of state and private finance, of international and domestic trade and of the impact of economic activity on your domestic population. In effect Private Capital is generated and lost in international trade, is lost as a major input into production and gained by selling that production in the domestic market. State Funds come mostly from taxes and is mostly spent on colonial activities, the army and funding the speeding up of key research fields. The game model presents lots of nice dilemnas in terms of how you structure your choices.

Anyway, here are the usual tables that you have seen before. I’ll draw on this in the discussions.





The table below shows my understanding of the financial flows (I’ve illustrated it with real numbers taken as a snapshot – the precise details fluctuate turn by turn).

[CENTER]Financial flows[/CENTER]

Fiscal Model



Now it may well be that table is more confusing than helpful. So lets look at four key aspects in more detail.

Production and Consumption

The main complication is there are a number of overlapping interactions. So your goods to sell come from two sources (domestic production, imports) and go to satisfy two competing sets of demand (population or exports). The balance, positive or negative, goes into stockpiles. Also meeting population demand improves their contentment (+0.47 in this case).

If we look at one item from the main reports, it will indicate how this works. I started with 164 fish (I’ve been running the stocks down so as to free private capital for investment), from my current open capacity, I will produce 55 fish, it is estimated I will sell 25 as exports and another 20 to the domestic population. If the exports happen then my stocks will increase by 10 to 174.

Private Capital and State Funds

Domestic production uses Private Capital and a range of goods (we’ll look at this in detail below). Private Capital is also used to create new farms, mines or industrial capacity, as well as for some colonial actions. State Funds goes on buying replacements, new units, investments such as telecommunications, Universities and sewers as well as being a major requirement for colonial actions.

The table below shows the various flows around Private Capital and State Funds (this obviously does not capture the voluntary expenditure I may make during a turn).




What is left, is then what I can spend by choice, on new factories, on domestic and colonial development etc.

The value of Colonies

To me, PoN takes a view on colonies based on the economic theory of Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes was on the first British economists to seek to evaluate the value of colonisation and came up with some uncomfortable (for the British establishment) ideas.

At first glance, the main table indicates that each turn, I make a nice profit, paying out £3 for upkeep and grabbing £47 in taxes (and £31 in private capital).

Equally Colonies impact on the goods you have available in two ways. One is if you build the appropriate agricultural, mine or industrial centre then that works as normal (remember you can also build in your allies colonies). Secondly, once you place a merchant, you can build a trading post. This sends one of the available goods every now and then. Not a lot in any given turn but they are relatively cheap to establish and this helps with a small baseline supply of some valuable goods (and more fish!).



It also indicates where I could usefully build farms (coffee and opium, there is enough fish around Italy) so as to develop these resources.

There is then the geo-political game of grabbing and holding strategic locations. This I’ll come back to in the post about my Empire.

So what is the catch? Quite simply to develop a colony is horrendous cost. Even sending merchants costs the state £50, the real costs to creating political control are around £250-£500 (per action) and you need to then boost development. Add to this, a fair chunk of my army (and replacement costs) are in the colonies.

So for that net £44 per turn I have invested (at a rough guess) some £5-6,000 in colonial developments. Thus we can only see Empire as a vanity project, but one that PoN quite rightly forces you to engage in. Since the game is about gathering prestige and your economy is only the means by which you can sustain this key activity.

Merchant Fleets

One thing to note, is the complex chain around merchant fleets. Not only do they allow you to buy, they allow other countries to buy from you. So for example, there are no Chinese ships in the Med, but they can buy my fish using the fleet I have in the Far East. Equally, you can tax usage of your fleets but if you keep the tax low then the usage of your fleets will improve, which in turn boosts private capital via the transport fees. So you can trade off between these two options.

Taxation



So you can base your taxes on up to six areas (but can only raise Income Tax in time of war). As above, it is clear that I am relying on Excise Taxes for most of my income (my logic is that if the upper classes want an Empire they can pay for it).

To me, you can split your tax base into two broad blocks. Taxes on activities and taxes on existence. I am only raising one of the latter – the Census Tax, and this has the effect of reducing contentment once every quarter when it is raised.

The Tariff Tax you need to be careful with. Over 50% and it will start to harm your relations with your neighbours, so it is attractive to use but has consequences. It also (and there are techs that influence this as well) changes the chance that your population will buy locally produced goods over those offered for sale by another country (so this is another part to the import/domestic production trade off).

Maritime Tax, as above, is another that looks consequence free but has potentially negative implications. It makes it less likely that foreign countries will use your ships which in turn reduces the fees earnt by your businessmen. In truth, given how little I am raising by it, I ought to reset it to 0%.


[CENTER]Industrial Sectors[/CENTER]

Finally let’s look at my economy in more detail.

I’ve selected these by output, it doesn’t cover everything but gives a useful overview of some key sectors within my economy as well as showing the impact of upgrading structures as the various techs fire.

First, the Italian wine industry (hic):



I have two left to upgrade, well as I am now over-producing (ie stocks are rising and I am trying to sell more than the world can buy), I’ll leave them. Key is that upgraded they produce much more but demand additional inputs (coal and chemicals), so slowly we see the mechanisation and industrialisation of agriculture.

These, in different ways all produce prestige as well as actual goods. So upgrade your steel mills when the chance comes your way.



I have one steel mill still to upgrade which is something of a priority and this will be done in January 1873.

My military-industrial complex.



Not hugely profitable but I can always sell the results.

My large cereal industry, almost all closed as I have far too much (most of this was built by the other states pre-unification), but I am upgrading the most profitable and can always restart the others once I need them.



My equally large fishing industry, more of this is open and has been upgraded (note it then needs coal, I guess reflecting the type of ship in use). The reason for this is the Chinese in particular can’t get enough of my fishes …



The mainstay of my export trade is my luxuries. I have built all the luxury goods factories I can (6) and can sell them with ease. One thing I need to do is to develop my Opium fields to satisfy domestic demand and hopefully start selling it (… yeah, I know).

This also shows something that is confusing. A structure being built (ie the plantation at Mogadishu) shows as if it was closed, you have to remember which is closed and which is not yet ready. Handily, once it is completed it is automatically opened so you do not need to intervene to achieve that.



Other bits and pieces. My Scottish goldfield is a real cash cow. I need to upgrade one of my coffee plantations, and the tea field. Note I am leaving my oilfield closed for the moment, I have a decent stockpile and there is no real demand for it. But that, plus the capacity to exploit my new colony in the Persian Gulf at least will ensure I have some supply of oil when it becomes important.



My mining sector. Again some upgraded, some waiting for their turn.



The main gaps (apart from luxuries) are in terms of chemicals (as you can see upgrading your agriculture increases demand) and manufactured goods. Both are easily available by trade, especially with the USA. So I feel no need to prioritise creating domestic production. I am, quite deliberately, not playing this with a mercantilist mindset, indeed some of my trade is to buy so as to sell, rather than just buying for my own good.

[CENTER]Summary[/CENTER]

So that is probably far too much information (the original of this post also included information on population) but hopefully it shows my understanding of how the PoN economy fits together. I’ve not shown it but it is worth remembering that PoN does not use Victoria’s world market concept so all the trades are 1-1. If the good is well supplied this is of little importance, but where it is rare then additional factors such as some techs (that improve your purchase chance), good relations (= a commercial agreement) and the volume of shipping you have in the region all influence your purchase chances.

You actually don’t need to read this update to follow the AAR, but hopefully it gives some idea to my logic for the next 2-4 years. I need to complete upgrading of a number of industrial and agricultural sites. I need to spend on colonial development (this will become more clear in another post). I need to boost my domestic chemical industry (not least if my demand is increasing then so will that of the other advanced economies).

[loki100]

You do realize I have absolutely no time to start playing this monster of a game, right? because, dense as your explanation of the economics is (and as much as economics usually puts me to sleep), it still sounds awfully intriguing... Ah well, vacation's almost over and then I won't be tempted anymore - too much Real Life to occupy my time.

well its not a quick game, I guess I manage about 3-4 sessions across a week and 2-4 turns in each. So I do something like 1-2 years in a 2 week period. One good thing is that AGEOD seem to take a lot of care to make patches save game compatible, so it is kind of feasible to imagine one day actually finding yourself in January 1921 and the game refusing to continue for another turn.

Thanks for you kind words and detailed narrative.

Recreating the glory of Rome for Italians is a transformational goal, doubtless conceived to unite the different peoples of Italy under a common geographical heritage and distract attention from the Italians groaning under Austrian oppression in the north. Should work for a while. It does seem feasible in game to make it real.

The two great geographical questions are the plans for the Balkans, where Austria and Russia have strong and rival interests, and the role and fate of the Ottoman Empire, which serves Austria and Russia as a "safe" neighbor wihtout offensive potential to the south and serves the rest of Europe as a check on the expansion of Austria and Russia with a linchpin at Constantinople.

The Ottoman Empire serves that and the other useful purpose of keeping other great powers out of that area - universal buffer state of a sort. Human player rivals would be sensitive to changes in the Near East. The AI might not do more than push the Turks hard to adjust borders in the north to take objectives while Italy carves up the bulk of the Ottoman Empire farther south.

I could see a more powerful Italy later effectively propping up and guaranteeing the defeated Turks with Local Support against potential opponents in order to stabilize things once Italia claims her share. Or a scripted treaty among the powers in the area to ensure Constantinople remains in Turkish hands rather than one of their rivals.

Don't neglect the Arabian coasts for colonization. Nor Tunisia, which does present some risk with France - however, France does need Italy - does need some European great power ally to try to maintain the balance in Europe.

===================
Added: In order to test a fix to area definitions I started an 1880 Italian New Roman Empire campaign - i.e., the secret goal down the line is to come up with a splendid Mediterranean Empire, with immediate goals of cuttting costs and selling a lot to stimulate trade as well as snatching Tunisia from the French who have not penetrated that much. Ethiopia etc. will proceed as well, along with penetration of Libya. .

I think your reading of the Ottoman situation is correct. I'm actually a little bit worried it will fall apart too easily. All I know want is Jerusalem on the assumption that pre-Suez that allows to me knit together my Empire and I'll take the Levant if it is on offer. Once I have that, I like the idea of a strong Ottoman Empire, means I have no connection with the Russians and that the British are not tempted to blunder into my Empire trying to knit their holdings together. The only Prestige zones I can still take from them are the Dodecanese (which fits my other holdings in that region) and Adana which doesn't (and usefully gives me a permanent CB on them).

In my game Tunisia is there for the taking, its just I don't want to upset the French and it does seem very rebel prone - and I am already up to my armpits in rebels in my existing Empire (ungrateful wretches).

Do you do the trade at the end of every turn manually to keep your economy functioning? When I play the game it seems I require to always buy and sell each product and from each country manually but that is extremely annoying and just takes too damn long.

Also I thought the game penalized you if you went after ahistorical areas. Are you playing without them or are the penalties just for colonies then?

At the start i was working through the 'B' and 'T' screens plus F4/F11 every turn trying to get it into balance. I now look at it when I have a reason. So at the moment I want to increase Private Capital for investments and I've closed down a fair bit (running down stocks from the post above). Equally if I want say more chemicals I either use 'B' and just order or if I know someone who I want to get on with sells them I go to their trade areas and order it. So I guess I do a review every 4-6 months of normal operation now and just let it run. I'm not being efficient but then I am trying to do my bit to stimulate the global economy rather than build up a self-sufficient Italy.

I must confess I'm confused too. I have historic SOIs and you can see it in the tool tips but I can't see the impact on prestige. At worst I gain no more but I've been on +1 PP per turn ever since I made Djibuti into a colony. My fear is that at some stage the rightful owner (ie for the most part, Britain) will try and take my out of SOI colonies off me.

Next post is about population, perchance even more than the economy one, one for those who wish to dig into the game. Again its my understanding and my attempt to make sense of the information I have on the game - as will be clear there are a few bits I simply can't work out what is happening (but then I don't think you are meant to game the population model - it happens as a consequence of your actions)