EW6 Risviltsov's Guide to 1861 Peruvian Conquest

UGHHHH I HAVE TO RE-WRITE THIS AGAIN

Hello. I am back after my year long hiatus. Yes, the WC4 project has been abandoned. The source code for the simulation thing is gone. Not on my Dropbox, not in my former Canvas account, nowhere to be seen. OOF.

So, let's get into this, shall we?




BRIEFING

So, you're a former Bolivarian county that is going to have to fight two other much stronger Bolivarian countries. You have a shambles economy and you need to expand quickly or die trying. You're in a rather desperate situation and the game says that this conquest is hard.

There are some historical precedents to this. Let's analyze their approaches to this:

Nazi Germany used public works re-militarization projects and deliberate violations of the Versailles treaty! It's super effective! But too bad, you can't do that! Unlike Germany, you have no option to force your population to fix your busted economy. Labor camps aren't an option, nor is brainwashing your population on a dose of ethnic nationalism with a socialist face.

So, uh, how about Imperial Japan? They had few resources during World War 2 and knew that they couldn't survive for the length of the war. They chose to expand carefully, trying to harvest as much as they could until the USA blockaded their oil supply from the mainland islands. You don't have to worry about oil now, but rather the few amount of troops you have in this scenario, and the fact that you STILL can't brainwash your population. (OOF!) 

It's not a good situation you find yourself in.

An unruly Venezuela that will not grow up must be taken in hand. They've got an infantry general and they can throw many troops at you. More often then not, they're the one immediately fighting you.

A crack on the head is what Colombia needs for not asking. They've got a really annoying artillery general that is a pain to kill and they've got good numbers against you. If Venezuela isn't immediately attacking you, then Colombia is.

What you don't know is that Spain might be the country that kills you. Six Spanish units spawn in the western coastline of your capital city - two warships and three land units, and they come at turn 11.

Other than that, your best friends are the French.

So, with that discussed, let's develop a grand strategy for taking on this challenge.




GENERAL STRATEGY
1. Establish your generals on their most effective troops. Defend your cities and keep troops in your cities. Flank enemy generals whenever possible, while avoiding being flanked yourself.
2. Steal cities from the French. If you've played Finland 1939 in WC4, you'll know what to do. If you haven't, here's how you do it. Have mobile troops in position to move into cities in one single turn, without directly fighting the enemy. Typically, in this guide, you'd have riflemen standing two tiles away from the city (there's only one tile between the city and the troop itself).
3. Fix your economy by either developing your cities or conquering cities. This will come in handy when dealing with the British's annoying eastern island (when they sue for peace).
4. Conquer North America yourself or fund Mexico and the American Union. Or do both. Also, you might want to help Cuba overthrow Spain.



SPECIFICS
1. I built a farm on the capital city on the first turn. I had the first three free generals from the campaign and Grant had an ambulance carriage on him (costs 60,000 gold; well worth the cost). I bribed France, Mexico, and Colombia/Venezuela - France and Mexico are really important to get them in earlier, while the Colombia/Venezuela bribe is to allow the French to fight the Colombians alongside me, rather than me having to fight off the Spanish forces and the Colombians at the same time.
== All at the same time, construct militia, unless it sends you over your population cap ==
2. When Venezuela/Colombia comes, keep them pinned to the east - this should be easy, as they can't go through the Colombian forces, yet. Take out their general first and don't let them flank any of your troops.
3. Once you eliminate Venezuelan/Colombian troops, send your army west. The Spanish will be coming at turn 11.
4. Prevent the Spanish from landing troops on the beaches, typically achieved by troop spamming.
5. I always keep a riflemen troop nearby the eastern Venezuelan city. Take it once the French come over.
6. Sweep everything else out, including Colombia/Venezuela. Always have a unit able to take the cities.
7. By now, I had captured a decent amount of cities, and I started aiding Cuba financially.
8. Once Cuba defended their island against land threats, I focused my funding on self-improvement. You can also spend it on troops to invade the Southern USA.
9. I started producing top-level troops in droves and sent them up to the Southern USA.
10. It's basically a cakewalk from here. Fund the Union if they're struggling. Clean up and you've won.

Best time was 55 turns.



DIFFICULTY EVALUATION
Strategic Difficulty - how hard is it to develop and achieve your general objectives: * *     2
Tactical Difficulty - how hard is the combat, from maneuvering to troop production: * * * *     4
Luck Factor - how important is good luck and how devastating can bad luck be: *     1
Economic Difficulty - how tough is your economic situation and how limiting is it: * * *     3
General Requirements - how good do your generals need to be, including their equipment: *     1
Overall Difficulty:
* *     2
Very Easy