[ETW AAR] Great Britain Expands the Empire (COMPLETED)

[Ares_Casai]

It's purely artistic and creative license.

Well, as I said before, it's genius.

I've been wasting quite a bit of time at work recently, reading AARs ... Now to get my own copy of ETW...

[samsmithnz]

Chapter 10: 1790 - 1800 The End

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

State of the Nation

It was 1790, and Queen Anne I had just celebrated her 86th birthday. Age was really beginning to take it's toll and she was basically confined to her bed - she had been ruling over the English Empire for over 53 years now!! The last ten years had been some of the most peaceful in England's history, although the relationship with Sweden was beginning to become strained. The 1790 State of the Nation report shows that the England Empire has a population of nearly 600 million people, the economy is in excellent health with over 700,000 pounds in the treasury, (despite pouring as much money as possible to develop farms, factories and cities throughout the empire), and the taxes are as low as anyone can remember. The English Empire was continuing to flourish, and it's people, conquered or not, were content.


Due to the peace of the last 10 years, no progress has been made to the Europe map. Although there had been 'peace', relations between England and Sweden were beginning to get cold.


The Americas map...


The India map.


A Cold War
In 1791, Sweden proposed to swap the Hannover and Flanders regions for the Karelia and Netherlands regions, as well as offering 580 pounds. It was a disgraceful offer, and Anne had no hesitation in declining it. Anne also took the next step and cancelling military access for Swedish troops in English lands. Sweden responded to the treaty cancellation by stationing more troops on the English/Swedish borders, and creating border checkpoints. England in turn responded by increasing their own troop numbers and making it even more difficult to cross the border.


In 1793, after 3 very prosperous years for the English treasury, England offered Sweden 1 million pounds, (the entire English reserves), for all Swedish regions except Sweden itself. Queen Ulrika Elconora I declined this agreement too, and responded by cancelling the current Trade Agreements and ordering giant gates to be built on the border roads to prevent all contact with England. With no trade with Sweden, England cancelled thethe alliance between Sweden and England - there was hardly any need for an alliance at this stage anyway.


90 is a ripe old age
At the beginning of 1794, at 90 years old, Queen Anne I died. She was completely insane, and had spent the last 10 years of her life largely bedridden, but her contribution to the expansion of English Empire was unquestionable. The circumstances around her actual death were shrouded in rumor and mystery, with the most popular rumor being that she was attempting to burn Windsor Castle before she slipped on some stairs and fell to her death. Regardless, the English Empire entered 57 days of mourning - a day for every year she had ruled England.


After this mourning time, Queen Mary I, the 58 year old daughter of Anne, was officially crowned Queen of England. Mary did not have the same love of her Scandinavian cousins as Anne, Queen Ulrika Elconora was a distant cousin of Mary and they had never been friendly. Unofficially, on hearing of her mother's death, Mary had immediately started preparing for war, deploying troops and ships in strategic places around the Swedish borders.


Mary then announced to the Empire her first action as Queen of England was to capture Sweden, and declared war.


War!!!
The rest of the summer was a flurry of logistics as English troops prepared to conquer the last part of Europe. Troops landed off the coast of Norway...


...and off the coast of Finland...


Just outside St. Petersburg, General Browne was intercepted in the woods and ambushed by a Swedish attack force.


Browne was easily victorious, and the Swedish retreated into St. Petersburg. The Swedish soliders had grown fat and lazy after so many years of peace - where as the English troops were in excellent condition.


Arriving at the outskirts of St. Petersburg, 2000 of Browne's reinforcements also arrived from the East.


With only a few hundred men - most of which were scarred and demoralized after the loss to Browne a few days before, St Petersburg was captured with the loss of only 33 men.


Meanwhile, in the North, the capital of Karelia was captured with little to report except a resoundingly decisive victory.


Amsterdam
In the South, Amsterdam is attacked. The troops lined up and prepared to attack.

Sweden was not prepared for this, (battle or war), and with several of their regiments outside the fortress, England took advantage of the surprise and ran a regiment of cavalry down their throats.


In a strange move, Sweden decided to leave the fortress walls and attack the English one regiment at a time. It was a poor strategy.


With the opposition defeated, Amsterdam is taken. 1500 Swedish were killed and only 42 English men lost their lives.



In Denmark, forces led by General Isaac Towers, one of Mary's favorite cousins, advanced to Copenhagen, where a small garrison of Swedes was defeated. So unscathed was Tower's army, that he was give orders to immediately cross the channel and land on Sweden's beaches, with plans to march to Stockholm. However, it was not all one way traffic for England, as news was received that many English trade ships had not returned from the high seas of Brazil and the Ivory Coast - it was assumed that Sweden had captured or sunk most of these trade ships.


The Battle of Helsingborg
Late in 1794, winter sets into Europe, and the entire campaign slows down. Norway, Finland and Copenhagen are all captured, but it is while crossing the frigid frozen channel between Denmark and Sweden, that the largest and most significant battle of the war occurs. Leading 2000 men, General Isaac Towers, landed on the shore outside the small Swedish town of Helsingborg from Denmark, where his forces were intercepted by an army of 2000 men led by Swedish General Finn Bergstrom, who was under specific orders to keep the English away from Stockholm.


Setting up a quick defensive position, the Swedish army slowly marched towards the English Army.


Just as the Swedish linemen were getting into range, mortars went off behind a screen of trees and before Towers knew what had happened, Lime bombs (very primitive 1700's chemical weapons) exploded all around him. He was lucky to survive, as 3/4's of his unit was maimed or killed by the resultant lime cloud...


Towers quickly withdrew out of range, as his brave English linemen opened fire on the brave Swedish, completely unaware of what had just happened behind them.


The Swedish were in a very similar formation as England, yet were starting to lose men. The front row of the lines were already all dead.


The English on the other hand were a well oiled fighting unit, and seemed charmed, as most Swedish bullets whisked past them without causing much damage.


Appearing out of the trees, more Swedish regiments came into range and started swapping volleys with England.


Realizing he was starting to lose, General Bergstrom took a huge risk and ordered his cavalry to charge at the center of the English, in an attempt to break the lines. The plan was a complete failure. With the English crossfire, even the well trained horses refused and the unit was cut down and killed.


Bergstrom was stubborn and ordered a fresh unit to take the place in center. It was a grisly march as they stepped over their fallen comrades.


After several hours, General Bergstrom gave the order to retreat from the field of battle. The Swedish lay dead everywhere, and as the English started to march across the open field, Bergstrom felt a tear on his cheek. He had failed miserably to keep the English away from Stockholm.


Isaac Towers would be remembered forever for this mighty victory. Facing an army of almost equal strength on an open field, he had crushed the General Bergstrom, losing only 1 man for every 10 of Bergstrom's. Total War victory was within England's grasp!!!


The Death of Sweden
The remains of Bergstrom's defeated army retreated back to Stockholm. General Towers quickly regrouped, and proudly marched towards Stockholm, the last Swedish controlled capital.


Joining 2000 men of reinforcements from Finland, Towers turned towards Stockholm with nearly 4000 men. Bergstrom was defending Stockholm with 700 Town Militia, and about a hundred survivors from the Helsingborg battle.


The battle was a short and anti-climatic event, as the Swedish war machine was finished and had no real units to fight with. Outnumbered 4-1 fighting England's best troops, Bergstrom was killed when he charged his unit into the 34th Regiment of linemen. After his horse was shot out from under him, he was shot in the heart and died almost instantly.


In 1795, Sweden was destroyed, and England controlled the entire Western world. Sweden's queen was sent to the Tower of England where she lived the rest of her days in (un-)comfort.


Epilogue
It was just a few days into 1800, and Queen Mary had just received the first State of the Nation report for the new century. There were no obvious enemies to fight anymore, but she was sure that England would soon have new challenges. They now controlled an area several times the size of any empire in known history, controlling the entire Western world.


Finally, there was total Victory in Europe


Before Mary were maps of Africa, South America and Asia! Mary had no doubt that the world would be England's, and began organizing the troops to head out on new campaigns...

[samsmithnz]

Empire Total War Reflections

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

With total victory in my first Empire Total War game, I had some time to reflect on this AAR, my game experience, and Empire Total War. It is a fun game. Initially I struggled a little bit as I attempted to understand the game mechanics, once I played after a late drunken night out and accidently (effectively) declared war on a friend, and another time I fell asleep in the middle of a late night battle - luckily causing a draw.

I loved the idea of a 'Mad Queen', and after researching previous 'Mad' regents, I discovered that many of these were suspected of having Arsenic poisoning (http://en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenic_poisoning). Using this as a base I was able to make some decisions to spice up the game, (in particular declaring war on Catholic nations for otherwise no reason)


Timing wise, I think I played an almost perfect game - in respect that the first 50 years were slow and steady expansion and buildup, with a 20 years explosion of expansion from 1750 to 1770, and the last 30 years were really just cleaning up what was left. I think you'd say that those critical 20 years were the tipping point, where I passed the point of no return where no other nation could beat me.


I felt like the land battles were often much easier than they should have been. I would meet mighty enemies and they would often send one unit towards me at a time, which my well ordered formations made short work of. I experimented with different formations (particularly the W formation that was most successful against overwhelming Indian odds where the units are relatively weak), but overall, found that a long line with Cavalry on the ends for flexibility was the best. The land battles are much much longer than previous games, and by the end of the game I auto-simulated more and more battles (especially when I had 10-1 odds).

Sieges were quite boring to me, especially when I was attacking. I felt like I never really fought a siege where both sides had equal troops. There was always one side with 1000 more men. I found artillery to not be nearly as powerful as previous games, and sometimes I would be frustrated with 2 or 3 artillery units bombarding a single building or wall, and after 15 minutes it would still be at 67% strength. If I was a general, I'd probably fire the soldiers responsible for aiming my cannons!

I found Naval battles to be really easy. Putting my navy into a long line of ships and firing with a good crossfire, and then turning for another strafing run worked extremely well. I know the game strategy recommends that you divide your fleet into two to surround and strafe from each side of the enemy, but I don't buy it. It adds a lot of management and complication to your naval battle.

I was really impressed with the campaign AI. I was constantly surprised by how aggressive some of the minor nations were (the highlight has to be when Portugal took Madrid for a couple years) - although I still don't understand how Spain incorporated New Spain into it's empire, and I checked the New Spain campaign, and they were supposed to capture Texas - something they never did.

Looking at the top 5 regions again, France has the largest capacity of any region (at least on my game). I'm interested if the top 5 regions are because they are large with many towns and factories - or if it had more to do with the length of time I controlled the region (encouraging pretty rapid growth). I think it's interesting that France and England were my most successful regions - by a significant amount.
The top 5 Regions summarized:
1. France ($30,000 & 119.3 Million people)
2. England ($29,000 & 26.6 Million)
3. Hindustan ($20,700 & 41.9 Million)
4. Moscow ($19,800 & 4.6 Million)
5. Carnatica ($19,500 & 4.3 Million)



Some Stats
I started my campaign on the 2nd July, and finished on the 12th August. I estimate it took me about 100 hours to play, and then 30 hours total to write the AAR (about 3 hours per chapter).

As I played the game, I also recorded some stats.





From the above stats I produced a couple charts.
1. The first chart is the percentage of regions England controls (there are 137 regions).



2. Region controlled and income. The biggest drops occur when I start declaring war on everyone and lose all my trade partners.


3. Region controlled and expense. Expense I found to be the most constant.


4. This chart is a comparison of the number of regions I control and the profit. Note that declaring war on Spain and Austria in 1780 cost me 70,000 pounds in trade revenue, and after I declared war on Sweden (who also happened to be my biggest trade partner), I lost 75% of my profit in 1800 compared to 1780.



Final Thoughts
Thank you for following my AAR. What a fantastic game, I can't wait to start my second campaign... maybe as the Ottoman Empire?

[Ares_Casai]

Excellent! Very high quality AAR ... maybe it's the business major graduate in me, but I was very excited about the spreadsheet and the charts. Next time I play a full campaign, I'll have to do something similar.

I'll definitely read your next AAR.

[samsmithnz]

Excellent! Very high quality AAR ... maybe it's the business major graduate in me, but I was very excited about the spreadsheet and the charts. Next time I play a full campaign, I'll have to do something similar.

I'll definitely read your next AAR.

I completely agree. I work for a management consulting firm in Boston and I LOVE seeing stats and numbers at the end. My only regret with this AAR is that I didn't log MORE stats...

[Welshman25]

An excellent AAR! Loads of stats and an interesting storyline (I enjoyed the part about Anne's insanity, especially the Holy Grail and English Inquisition!).

A big +rep to you for all your hard work!

[Seleucid king]

Awesome dude. I would Rep you 50 times if I could.

But, since I can't, 1 will have to do. +Rep!

[Hebrew_Hero]

I'd say play as the martha confederecy or russia,

[samsmithnz]

Sorry guys, but I seem to have exceeded my monthly allowable Photobucket bandwidth. They said that it will be enabled again on the 14th September...

[samsmithnz]

As it is now the 14th September, my photobucket account has been reset and you can view this again!!

Hopefully now that the AAR is finished and most people have looked at this, the bandwidth will stay down and this won't be a problem again.

[Grouchio]

So...What's you're next AAR gonna be? One of France?

[samsmithnz]

I am actually right this very minute typing up the first chapter of an Ottoman campaign. I noticed there weren't too many of them and it seems like it might be quite interesting. I hope to have a first post in the next few days, I have a lot to do!!

[Ares_Casai]

Excellent! I'm looking forward to it.

[Midnight Rambler]

I know this AAR was wrapped up a few months ago, but wow. Best one I've read so far. Great job. I'm now going to look for any others you've written.

[samsmithnz]

I know this AAR was wrapped up a few months ago, but wow. Best one I've read so far. Great job. I'm now going to look for any others you've written.

Check my signature. I'm currently finishing up an Ottoman Campaign.

[Sknit]

A good AAR but my only gripe is that you keep saying english when it's britain.

[Dave Strider]

Yes but they mainly think of themselves as "England". Plus Britain is ruled over by England.

[Majonga]

Yes but they mainly think of themselves as "England". Plus Britain is ruled over by England.

I'm sorry to post in this thread on this issue, but I just couldn't let it go. We don't think of ourselves as England, any more than people in New York think of themselves as Californian. England is part of The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (just Ireland during the 18th century), and it was a Scottish king who became ruler of England, i.e. James the 5th of Scotland and 1st of England. I actually find it quite amusing that most people forget that it was Scotland that took over England, not the other way around.

[RMcD94]

Majonga, I was going to say the exact same thing as you, that it was a Scottish King who was the first to unite the lands. It really annoys me when the rest of Britain are looked as inferior to England.

Awesome AAR, loved the stats. I thought that Sweden was being really really stupid at the end.

Personally, if I was the only country left besides an otherwise world controlling faction I would be obeying utterly.

Not sure if I read the Ottoman faction, think I have.

Haven't got Empire Total War yet, but what difficulty do you play?

Edit: Yup, it was your AAR I read. It would be really cool after conquering everywhere they did actually give you the new maps.

[samsmithnz]

Majonga, I was going to say the exact same thing as you, that it was a Scottish King who was the first to unite the lands. It really annoys me when the rest of Britain are looked as inferior to England.

Awesome AAR, loved the stats. I thought that Sweden was being really really stupid at the end.

Personally, if I was the only country left besides an otherwise world controlling faction I would be obeying utterly.

Not sure if I read the Ottoman faction, think I have.

Haven't got Empire Total War yet, but what difficulty do you play?

Edit: Yup, it was your AAR I read. It would be really cool after conquering everywhere they did actually give you the new maps.

I usually play the Normal Difficulty. Anything harder or easier I find to not be fun. Challenging yes, but fun - no.