AAR OE 1784-1803
Before the start of the session a deal had been made with FRA and SWE. We would fund FRA heavily and they in return would drag out on the war for some time (thereby gaining time for OE and SWE to improve their fleet size even more). Then FRA would lose the war and give up some provinces. But then, some years later, SWE and OE would DOW ENG (+SPA+POR) and if we won the battle for naval supremacy FRA would then join the war and get back what they lost.
Thus huge amounts of money was sent to FRA while we built ships that just became more and more expensive. 80d per ship. 100 ships cost about 1 years income (if we deduct from income what we have to pay in military maintenance).
When we were hit by several bad events we had to redirect money into stab investment and therefore the day of the DOW was postponed. It was finally decided to be Aug 1 1795. Instead of 1788/1799 that we first intended. This later date would mean we would have to face Horatio N but on the other hand our combined forces would be far greater.
Fleet sizes at start of session, withing parenthesis supportable amount of ships
OE - 1170 (1780)
ENG - 1050 (1050)
POR - 600 (600)
SWE - 400 (800)
Spain had too low NT to be relevant.
In 1795 OE had built up to support limit as had Sweden. Our huge fleet begun to move in June and we spotted a single Portuguese ship outside Crete, obviously on look out, the question was: was it looking? Well, it appeared to be moving which meant we were spotted but the decision had been made. In the worst case the Portuguese fleet would join with the English and both of them would have concentrated their fleets into one, then it would be 2000 ships vs 1600. With Nelson as their commander and no one in particular for the good allies.
When we arrived at the mouth of the Thames we could, to our great joy, see that there we had only the ENG fleet of some 950 sails, commanded by Sir Sidney Smith (Nelson was probably down in the pack). The Swedes arrrived and we DOWed... For the first time in the whole game we DOWed a human player. The war was over in a week. The whole ENG fleet was destroyed while we lost some 550 ships and the Swedes (on NT 60) some 250. When our 250k army on board then proceeded to assualt London in 3 days the English king said he accepted any claims. The victorious side was very kind, they only asked for Copenhagen to Sweden and Kent to the OE. And yes, the proud Englishmen also had to become the vassal of the Ottoman Empire.
And thus the OE had finally got revenge on their arch enemy, who twiced had DOWed us during the years, once they failed and once they took Shanghai.
Unfortunately the French never joined the war. They could have taken anything they wanted from ENG - although Kansai now belonged to Portugal, but they could have taken Shanghai instead.
Portugal has almost always been a very good friend of the OE and thus stirct orders had been sent to our allies to spare Portuguese lives.
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And yes, I forgot to mention that early on we vassalised China, more as a matter of prestige than anything else.
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We could then rest for a while until AUS and PRU attacked us in 1800. This was an honorable war as AUS as early in the 16th century had indicated that their deal with the OE would not be for the whole game. Also AUS sent diplomats clearly telling that 1800 was the year. Also PRU asked if we were ready. Rarely has such chivalry been on display!
Thus the attack came and FRA joined forces with SWE and OE. The evil attackers were surprised by FRA joining us but they were saved.... by a crash of me the host. Thus we had to restart from the autosave.... Too bad.
Now the SWE-OE alliance became sloppy, or rather I were. I had forgotten that FRA was not in the alliance. After the rehost the evil attackers tried another approach, instead of attacking me and SWE they attacked FRA. Thus SWE and OE had to DOW AUS+PRU in a separate war.
In this war, still going on, the OE have taken control of Austrian Italy south of the Po while SWE have taken Danzig rom Prussia. However we, at least the OE, failed to assist FRA and they were thus forced to peace with PRU+AUS losing vital parts in the East. This was bad play by me for which I am very sorry. But we can at least be happy that according to Austrian reports our activity in Italy killed Erzherzog Karl. Must have been that 60k force sieging Apulia which was taken by surprise by a 250k Ottoman army sailing into harbour. The Austrians were killed in 5 seconds.
On the other hand this means FRA is now in war with SPA (and perhaps POR). With generous funding from OE and with great leaders still alive they will surely be able to crush the Iberians and thus retake from them what they lost vs the Axis. Perhaps Andalusia and Toledo could become French?
Meanwhile I have great problems remembering to build troops all the time. It seems my MP pool is always on max. I have around 1.2 million men in the pool and it stays so.
It is assumed huge Prussian armies are now on march towards Balkan, since they are not anymore needed in FRA. Thus preparations are and will be made.
Anything but victory is out of the question. But we will not ask for much for ourselves in this war. It is a war of prestige, at least for us. We hope our friends in the North will prosper. Their fleet protects them from their foes and thus they cannot be crushed by PRU+AUS alone.
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Some other stats: we have now moved to land 9. Our BB is 39 out of 71. Our stab cost is at 6500d.
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Everything proceeds according to plan.
