Sardinia/Italy AAR

[Colonâ„¢]

I don't really have that much to tell, but I figured it's better to open a new topic than to hijack Oerdin's topic. (where I posted about it previously)

My original post was this:

Playing Sardinia right now. It's going fairly well, conquered the 3 statelets within the first 2 years and Tuscany about a decade after that. I intend to attack the Papal States within the next 2-3 years.
My economy is rated 4th globally, beating Austria-Hungary, Prussia and Russia, and I've railroaded most of my territory. My army is fairly sized but top-notch technology&equipment wise. I allowed land-owners to vote to turn the gov't into a constitutional monarchy, to prevent plurality causing problems.
It also seems I managed to escape the liberal revolution and country is stable... the future is bright.

On the downside I lost three factories so far due industrial crashes, luckily only one that was actually being used. Corruption is also being a minor nuisance.

Besides my own expansion the game has been rather quiet so far. All other European borders remained the same and it seems most countries are a bit slow to industrialise.

I've been a bit slow since then, I didn't launch an attack on the Papal States within the next 2-3 years as I intended to, but only in 1858. One reason is that I had the liberal revolution right after I posted my previous report, but that lasted only a short time and hardly caused any difficulties.
A bigger reason for the delay is that I joined France and Spain in their war against Russia and Greece, and yet another reason is that I'm simply too cautious for my own good.

I joined the war hoping to annex Greece and thereby gain a toehold on my future expansions across the Mediterranean. Hence I dispatched a fleet loaded with troops to the Peloponnesus peninsula. Unfortunately my feelt encountered a far stronger Russian fleet which destroyed my frigates and it took months of manoeuvring and waiting for French war ships, before I could finally invade Greece.
By that time the Spanish and the Turks were already on their way overruning Greece's meagre irregulars, and by the time the country was annexating I was left with just Peloponnesus' dirt-poor provinces. But it was something, and it would turn out to be nice base for future expeditions.

For several years afterwards I was unable to make peace with Russia which made it impossible to declare war at the Papal States. Mother Bear never endangered my hometurf though and I spend the time expanding my economy somewhat.

In 1858 I finally declared began the unholy war. Numerically, the pope's armies weren't that much weaker, but they only had one artillery division, technologically backward, and utterly unprepared. I quickly encircled and destroyed several division and smashed my way to Rome in no time. The French didn't even had the chance to send in reinforcements. I settled for the state of Emilia-Romagna and a humilation in return for peace, figuring I could swallow the remained of the enfeebled Papal States later on.

After less than a year I declared war upon Two Sicilies. Two Sicilies also had been at war with Russia, had suicided its entire army in Russian campaigns and was left without allies. To make a long story short, I settled for Siciliy, with its sulphur provinces, which probably was way too small a gain against such an easy picking.

Until I would launch my final assault to unify Italy I steadily expanded my military and economy. The industrialisation elsewhere had been shifting into full gear so my industry ranking got eclipsed by Russia and Austria, but I wasn't too concerned about that. It had never been my intention to create an industrial powerhouse. Rather, I have romantic notions of lightly-industrialised, agrarian Italy, being a world leader in wine and fashion, rather than steel and machinery.
How I combine this with my ambitions of creating a Mediterranean empire, requiring a strong, modern military and subsequently, a large industry, I'm not too sure of.

Anyhow, the day after the peace treaty with the Pope expired I re-declared war, yet again overruning the Papal armies. Unnvervingly, I was not able to annex them, settling once more for a less than satisfactory peace treaty.
I barely had unsigned my decommissioned most of my soldiers, or Two Sicilies declared war at the Papal States two remaining provinced, thereby initiating the war of Italian Unification and gaining 10 divisions to strengthen their claim on Italian leadership.

As Two Sicilies was initiator of the unification-war, the reliability of my own divisions dropped rock-bottom. I decided to take wait-and-see approach and watched Two Sicilies mauling the Pope's divisions as my own divisions dug themselves in the mountains of middle Italy.
When Two Sicilies inevitably annexed Rome's remainders, I went on the offensive, before my enemy got the opportunity to regroup and dig in. My own armies again weren't superior in numbers, but they consisted largely of artillery, engineer and guard divisions, of which the South Italians had none.And since most of their army was situated on the hills surrounding Rome, they had little defensive bonus. I also ordered several cavalery and guard divisions I had located in Sicily to engage a well dug-in division in Reggio.
The offensive was devastating for Napoli's aspirations of Italian Unification, as their division were routed, sent packing, or simply destroyed. Within a single season the Sardinian armies had occupied both Rome and Napoli and the struggle for Italian mastery had ended.

On the first of May 1865, Italy was born, and a new European Great Power rose.

Ok, I'm gonna stop here for now, since my AAR has become way more long-winded than I originally intended.

Next episode will include my wars against Austria and France.

[Dinner]

The key which I found made everything easier was getting first Tunis then Libya. Tunis kind of sucks because you can't build factories there but there are a lot of excess Arab pops which you can convert to soldiers while Libya is already a civilized state in Turkey so you can build factories and it has like 40-50 pops in the provence. Taking those two solves your manpower and industrial problems and allows you to take on the other Italian powers in order to unify Italy.

Austria is pretty easy to handle if you can avoid the liberal revolution while the Austria AI ussually gets hit hard. Alternatively you wait until Austria is in a great power war and take Austria's Italian holdings.

[Colonâ„¢]

Next (long-winded) episode...

Shortly after the unification I allied myself with Prussia. I had always worked on building a good relationship with the German as I knew it'd come to blows between Prussia and Austria-Hungary at some point, and that would make a good opportunity to snatch Austria's territories in Italy. I also feel personally sympathetic to Prussia as it in many ways is comparable to Sardinia-Piedmont before the unification, and as it is an underdog hammed in between Russia, France and A-H.

It did not take long before war broke out, and when it happened, the omens were good: my army was slightly larger than that of A-H, which in turn was slightly larger than Prussia's. In other words, not considering Bavaria, we had a 2-1 numerical superiority.
And indeed the Habsburg's armies were no match. I had four corpses invading Lombardy and Venice, totalling 16 divisions, including artillery, guards and cavalry. The Austrian response was disorganised and they fielded 10 ordinary divisions at most, being distracted by Prussia in the north and a small invasion force in Croatia from one of Prussia's allies.
Even though A-H was substantially larger and wealthier than my previous foes, they were clearly unprepared for war, and I held most of their Italian territories within several months, while Prussia also was holding several of their provinces. I was dreaming about all the territories I'd gain.
But then Prussia turned chick****, and they made peace with A-H, leaving me with Milan as only gain. They didn't even manage to install the Zollverein afterwards. They blew the opportunity of a life-time.

On the bright side, Italy had validated its existance, and Milan was a very wealthy province, raking in £15 a day in iron revenues.
I also needed a break, as the south was very unstable, constantly rebelling against rule from Rome.

The next few years I spend on slightly expanding the railroad network and constructing additional factories to house all the unemployed craftsmen from the south. I build several more divisions and I also expanded my officer's class to improve my military leadership. Something that had been lacking in the previous wars.
A dichotomy had grown in the Italian economy, the areas around Turin were well developed, with level 2 railroads, and modern industries such as steel, textile, clothes, and luxury clothes. Middle Italy consisted mostly of glass and wine industries, while southern Italy was rural. I prefer to keep it this way so that south will provide me with substantial supplies of cannon fodder.
Revolts were a bit of a problem, but it was manageable and likely to turn downwards as a sizeable clergy kept the peasant's conscience down.

During France's long war with Russia, the former colony of Tunesia had managed to wrest themselves from French rule, and ever since it had been defenseless. In short, it meant a new addition to my burgeoning empire.

And then 1870 arrived and war broke out between Prussia and France. I had maintained my alliance with Prussia while France was allied with Spain and the Ottoman Empire.
It probably would have been wisest to turn down my ally's request to join the war, but I jumped in anyway.
I had a powerful army and I felt confident from my previous victories. It was also an opportunity to snatch some North-African provinces from the French or the Turks, or perhaps the territories the Spanish held in Greece.
Confident as I felt I realised I could not combat France head on, for which the juggernaut remained too powerfull. Instead I decided to put substantial forces in the mountainous provinces of Annency and Nice, and the fortress city of Turin. The 20-odd divisions would dig in and utilise their defensive bonus to discourage a French assault. And even though they would not risk massive losses by attacking my hold-outs, the French were still forced to divert 20-30 divisions to the border provinces, which gave some breathing space to my German ally.
Meanwhile I deployed about 10 divisions in Tunesia for a North African campaign, including guards and cavalry and lead by able generals who would keep attrition down.

My strategy was quite succesful, The Prussian were able hold their own, even though they did not come close to occupying Paris. The French did not dare to assault my holdouts and I managed to advance in North Africa, despite perennial local uprisings that bogged my armies.
The French alliance was numerically stronger but the Spanish never really seemed to get themselves involved and domestic rebellions appeared to be a bigger threat to Turkey than I was. The latter's military was also puny, lacking even war ships.

However, the pickle was that while my side was booking successes, the war was dragging on for much too long and there was no prospect of bringing a decisive defeat onto the French.
Thus I decided to take a gamble, and I shipped four divisions from North Africa to the heart of the Ottoman Empire, hoping the shambolic Ottomans had left Constantinopel undefended. And yes indeed, while there were several Ottoman divisions in the area around the capital, they were marching around attempting to get a hold on numerous revolts. There were several semi-attempst to disrupt my invasion, but in the end I had little difficulty in capturing Constantinopel.
The Turks refused my demand of humiliation and several Lybian provinces, but instead offered several Greek provinces. I accepted this offer as one of those provinces contained sulphur and for the sake of having one enemy less.

I could now fully focus all of my North African corpses to Algeria, but I was growing tired of the losses and the massive costs of warfare. I spend £400 a day on army maintenance and defense and I had over £20k in debts. My control over the rebellious South Italians also began to slip. I felt I had been supprting Prussia for long enough and I began looking after peace with France. My overtures were invariably rebuffed however. Hence, I decided to launch another surprise attack, this time on Paris.

Attacking Paris would be far riskier, firstly because they had a powerfull navy that could easily destroy my invasion fleet, secondly because, unlike Constantinopel, Paris was inland, and thirdly because the likehood the capital was defended was much greater. Letting the war drag on for much longer could however pose a much greater risk to my domestic stability and my economy.
I put together a corps of guardsmen and cavalry, fully reinforced them despite my shortage of manpower, put my most able general in charge, and embarked a fleet to The Channel. It had barely left Tunis or French vessels struck near the coast of Spain. Fortunately I was able to withdraw and re-attempted the voyage via another route.
Wonder above wonder, I reached the Channel and unloaded the invasion (suicide) force in Le Havre without further interruption. And from Le Havre I could see Paris, which was defended my just one ordinary division... I gave it no further thought and I ordered my force to march towards Paris, which rapidly fell.
Now I was holding to their capital, crippling the French economy, but the war was not over yet. As soon Paris turned into Italian green, the French massively withdrew their forces from the Italian border and amassed in the provinces around Paris. They were calling my bluff. I had no intention of invading South France as I was not willing to deal with neither attrition, nor a counteroffence and the losses it would infer. Moreover, a counter-invasion force had landed on the Italian peninsula. They could easily destroy my divisions in Paris and then I was left with nothing. This was a make or break moment.
Hence I was panically requesting peace, first demanding Algerian provinces, then nothing, but in both instances the French refused. And then I requested peace for a third time, this time demanding war reparations, in a show of bluff, and they accepted.

3 years of war had been exhaustive, but in the end Italy probably came out best. It had gained several Greek provinces, suffered least losses of all protagonists bar Spain, and I could now enjoy war repayments of £10,000 a month.

[Colonâ„¢]

screenshot, anno 1873

[Nikolai]

Very interesting to follow this one Colon.

[Colonâ„¢]

Overview of my strengths: I have big population that's growing well. My economy is reasonably well developed and diversified, with steel, lumber, cement, textile, (luxury) clothes, furniture, ammunition, small armaments and other industries. Globally I'm ranking 5th on the global industry rank and ranking 4th on the list of biggest exporters, within striking distance of Russia. I'm also the world's biggest exporter of sulphur and iron, and I posses a major coal mine. My railroad network is comparable to France's or A-H's. I have a budget surplus of +£70 a day, I'm debt-free and I recieve substantial war-indemnities from France. My literacy is excellent at 93%, way ahead of France's 58% and A-H's 79%.
Military-wise I have 28 divisions, including artillery, guards, engineer and cavalry, and a vast pool of manpower. Across the mediterranean, only France and A-H are comparably sized, while the Ottoman Empire or Egypt are no match. I have several fortresses on strategic points and thanks to a polypoly market structure, building additional ones is cheap.
Thank to conquests in Greece and Tunesia, I also posses several bases from which to launch and sustain campaigns across the Mediterranean.

Weaknesses: I have NO navy, except of clippers, and I have long been neglecting naval technologies. I've been focusing on researching those however and I'm about gain the steamers technology.
Corruption is endemic and most of my population consists of farmers and labourers, with few clerks. (this is somewhat intentional though) Revoltrisk exist throughout most of my territories, though it's nowhere very high.
And while the Italian economy overshadows the Spanish, the Turkish and the Egyptian ones, Austria Hungary and France have long surpassed me. The French economy is temporarily weakened though.
Of all great powers, I'm only enjoying good relations with the weakest one: Prussia.
My badboy is also sky-high at the moment, so I'm risking perennial backlash.

Goals: Firstly, to expand across the Mediterranean and to dominate it, secondly to maintain a conservative Italy that's not overly industrialised, and thirdly to somehow combine the previous two goals.

I have several options now:

1. I could use my healthy finances to launch a war against corruption. This would improve long-term economic prospects and stability. This would however require me to raise taxes (which stand at 50% poor, 43.5% middle and rich), which would increase militancy at the short term. It may require me to expand my economy which would conflict with my goal of minimizing industrialisation. It would also take a long time before finished.

2. Launch a campaign against the Ottoman Empire or Egypt. Their prestige ratings are negative, so declaring war would have minimal impact on my own prestige. Moreover, their economy and military are pityful and they are not allied to any major power. This is the most attractive option, which however carries the risk of overstretch.
I also have peace treaty with the Ottomans for 4 more years.

3. Team up with Prussia against Austria-Hungary. If succesful, this could remove a major rival and gain me a bunch of wealthy provinces. It could also complete Italian unification.
Our combined armies are currently somewhat larger than A-H's, but their industrial power is also larger than ours combined. This implies that if we declare war, we need to be swift and devastating, since a drawn out war would play into A-H's cards.
A high-risk option that requires good preparation.

4. Improve relationship with France and trade Nice for their remaining Tunisian provinces and maybe some other goodies. Having a good relationship with France seems preferable regardless, to safeguard my expansion. Getting those Tunesian provinces would also allow me to conquer war upon Tripoli.
Something I may attempt regardless.

[Colonâ„¢]

screenie