In 1836 many boers fled the oppressive british rule in the cape colony and began the great trek into the african hinterland, a region known as the "veldt".
Oranje is a one province minor with a mediocre cattle rgo, surrounded by savage* tribes and with the English in its back. Things really didn't look like it was a rose garden.
We realign our budget and set education, defense spending and tariffs to the max which leaves us with a deficit of 0.6$ a day. This would lead us into bankruptcy and disaster in the long run. But as we are all faithful protestant boers we trust in god because the lord is our shepherd we shall not want. But he better comes off with his miracles quick.
Common sense would tell us to keep the budget in the plus but we need a strong military and we do have to to fight the illiteracy among our people. And as we know there will be expansion and maybe some gold mines in the near future we take the risk of running into debt for a short time.
From amongst our ablest men we promote one to the rank of general and give him command of our armed forces the 'Oranje Commandos'.
Here we really need luck, a good general at the beginning of the grand campaign is worth an entire division. Luckily we got a good one, if you weren't lucky at all consider to reload, especially if you're not a vicky crack. The best choices would be generals with shock and speed bonus'. To get a tactical advantage over your enemy by striking quick and strike hard with shock bonus to dismember the enemy divisions. That is more effective than to gun them down, as the battles shouldn't last long you won't need organization or morale boost nor do you need defense boost as you will act not react.
The newly appointed general Toit quickly began to bring his troops into shape and give them a proper training and euipment, comparable to european standards.
Choose Army Professionalism as first tech to research. You will need a strong army in the future and I would recommend to research one army tech after the other. Alternatively you could start with one industrial tech, than switch to army techs. Avoid the artillery techs for now as you have no use for them yet.
We make about 0.94 Research Points per Month which is sufficient to keep our researches on schedule and to produce alittle bit of extra to make some tech deals in the future.
In the initial events we went with superior crew thesis and clausewitzian theory, though jominian theory might be better in the early game it shouldn't hamper our plans
On the 21st October 1836 boer settlers had migrated further into the african hinterland and the sotho formally ceded control over the provinces of Johannesburg and Pretoria to us. This doubles our citizens from 267,000 to 625,000. though our budget (-0.8) and our research (0.91 per month) take minor hits.
On January 1st 1831 the research of Army Professionalism is concluded and Strategic Mobility is now researched.
On November 6th 1837 settlers have gone even further and the Ndbele cede countrol of Pisung Kop and Rustenburg to us, WHile we have now 801,000 citizens research and budget took another minor hit.
On January 4th 1838 the research of strategic mobility came to a close and Muzzle loaded Rifles were next.
On the 18th of April 1838 Diamonds are discovered near Pisung Kop. These founds soon spilled money in the empty government pockets and the diamond founds brought the budget back into black numbers (-1.3 -> +0.9).
Here is our economic miracle we have been waiting for. From now on we will save every penny until we got 500$ to set up a second division.
On the 14th of June we were able to announce our next general General Toits brother became our second general. But he was the opposite of his brother and didn't know to ride at all.
I didn't got lucky with him at all. But if your first general wasn't a good one this one should be or things get tougher.
After the research on Muzzle-loaded Rifles was completed scientists concentrated on the task of Mechanized Mining to improve the profits of diamond mines.
On the 3rd of March something strange happened, 100 Ndebele warriors from Bulawayo marched into Bloemfontein and pledged allegiance to the Oranje flag.
Only a few days later more diamonds were discovered this tine near Rustenburg. Income improved greatly from 0.9 to 2.7.
On the last day of April we got all the money we needed (500$) to train a new infantry division which we did immediately. Exactly four months later the new division was put into service. Only hours later Oranje declared war upon the Zulus.
By 1839 4 new provinces had been added to the Oranje nation.
*no offense intended.
)
