The First Anglo-Boer War (1903-?)
Week 5, 1903 ADOkay, great... just great...
Without a DOW, the British Empire moved two stacks of troops into my borders. I knew if I did nothing, GB would automatically declare war on the Boers on their next turn and they would be completely free to run amok in my lands. They could cause plenty of damage before I can make a single move on my turn right after their DOW. Not to mention that the British Empire could easily pour reinforcements from the rest of the world into the African theater.
Back to the situation
If you can see in this re-upload picture, I have the 3 blue cities which can produce troops. I also have the purple 4 cities which aren't ready to pump troops (but they can help if I have to use them). For comparison value: The British Empire has 11 cities marked in the red zone. That's the Southern half of their African colonies. On the other side of Congo and Tanzania, the British Empire has their Northern half - 9 cities from Kenya up north to Egypt at the top.
The Brits owns 90 cities all around the world in the present situation and I intend to somehow cut them down a couple of cities in Africa, one way or another. I already moved down my army to the blue dot SE of Bloemfontein, just between the two red dots where the British dumped their troops onto my land.
Instead of waiting for the British Empire to DOW me on their turn, I went to the diplomacy window and I demand that they move their troops outside my border immediately or else. The queen took the else route and DOW on me, but the big difference is that the war starts when it is my turn, not her's. *evil smile*
Okay, war is on! The west red dot is a stack of troops, in a closer look, turns out to be only weak conscripts and has low atk/def/move stats. My calvary could easily mow them down on the open ground, especially since my Boer Calvary has the blitz ability (it means that it can continue to make another attack after attack long as it has remaining moves).
The east red dot gives me quite more concern on the other hand. It's not a stack of conscripts and it's a stack of crack colonial troopers. The British Colonial Infantries also happens to be standing on a mountain square. Mountains gives 100% defensive bonus to the already sturdy Brits. This is where I will focus-fire all of my cannons against.
The aftermath of the Battle of Bloemfontein: 4 Boer deaths to 19 British deaths. 1 British POW worker captured.
I fired my artillery batteries on the eastern flank, each Brit infantry lost 2 HP (50%). Sure wish I could continue firing until they were down to 1 HP each. Next, I launched a portion of my calvary against the west flank until every single flithy conscript died bleeding on Boer soil. Putting the hardest part last, I charged up the mountain against the 8 infantries and ended up losing 5 calvary units. The last attacking calvary moved onto the mountain and seized the spoils thereof. I moved an infantry from Chieve onto the calvary to protect it. Likewise, I set an infantry on top of my calvary/artillery stack to guard against counter-strikes. I can afford to lose an infantry but I want to preserve my calvary so I can press on the attack forward.
Next turn:
Week 9, 1903 AD
Stupid! Stupid! I had forgotten to move my workers into my cities away from the battlefields outside. Wasn't that bad, I lost 1 Boer worker and 2 Portuguese POWs.
I was quite right in my prediction that GB would send swarms of troops flying around me. Fortunately, it's mini-stacks of 2 or 3 troops each, except for one particular stack of 3 infantries/3 conscripts on my tin mine hill just between Johannesburg and Bloemfontein.
What's interesting is that during the wait between my turns, the British made a DOW on the Lowland Countries (blend of Belgium and Netherlands into one nation). Here's what I am pretty sure had happened: The British sent masses of troops from the Keyna-Egypt half through Belgian Congo's borders without a right of passage (military access). Of course, the Lowlands would be upset about this violation of their sovereignty, but the mighty Brits doesn't have any respect for anyone who isn't their equal in power, thus the DOW popping up.
Right so... back to my turn now, I have to deal with the multiple invasions before I can feel free to move forward and take a city away from the British Empire.
I got a leader triggered by an elite unit killing an enemy, Piet Jourbert. Nice! I'm making him an army corp and load an infantry into it. The infantry corp has a lot higher HP bar than an infantry regiment. If there's a singular military unit with massive HP and boostes defense, the AI tends to automatically step around it and prefer to attack some other square. It's like using a bubble shield where the AI doesn't dare to attack. A bit gamey exploit, I know. I'll set him down in my capital because I really don't want the British to capture Pretoria. He's visible in the above screenshot, btw.
First, I bombarded the 6-unit stack down to 1 HP. Then the next goal should be to kill the individual mini-stacks off. I got a second leader (Paul Kruger) triggered to my surprise. I set a second infantry corps in Chiveve, the highest risk for a city to fall (a defender had died there to the Brit cav recently). It would be nice to capture Bulawayo to shrink my borders.
Only 2 Brits remains in my lands at end of my turn and I set my stack of calvary/artillery with 2 infantries atop of that tin mine hill to fortify and rest between turns until I can make a move again. I don't want the British to land onto that high-value terrain (gives me 2 food, 5 shields, 6 gold) and that hill allows Johannesburg to pop out a C96 Field Gun Battery per turn for me.
I've also switch 3 of my new cities to produce infantries instead now, and paid gold to rush production to get more troops ASAP.
Before pushing the "Next Turn" button, I looked at the Congo/Uganda area. I can't see what units are moving around there but I can see border changes even if I don't have a presence there. I'm surprised to see Kampala captured by the Belgians. I fear it's very likely that the British is going to eventually push back with numerical superiority and possibly seize the northern half of Congo or something.
Week 13, 1903 ADSimilar to previous turn, mini-stacks invading, kill and be killed. I got my 3rd leader (Louis Botha) convert into a corp.
Week 17, 1903 ADUSA signs a military alliance with the Lowlands against UK and DOW om them! That's good news! The Canadian Dominion definitely won't be available to help out Africa now that they're going to be busy with America.
The bad news (not really for me): The Dutch lost a city on the island of Boreno to the British - Samarinda.
At home, I tested the defenses of Mafeking, South Africa by running on the rails up to next to the enemy's city, fire the cannons and then go back to the tin hill and then fortify. I counted 6 defenders and I didn't get much of their health knocked off. I decided against a charge because it would only lead to unnecessary casualties. I'm aiming to hold down on my territory and stabilize the situation into my favor first (if UK seems to run low on units, then that's a good sign to switch to the offensive)
Week 21, 1903 ADThe beatdown is just getting started... Spain DOW UK.
USA got Spain to join the anti-British dogpile. AIs tend to make these things runaway escalation to where 70% of the world is against one or a pair of countries. I don't want to be on the wrong end of that.
I tested a different city, Kimberley. It had 6 defenders but the artillery fire had better luck this time because the defenders were down to 50% HP. I suppose it's better than nothing. Really, this is probably the best opportunity to grab a British city in this war because this turn was completely empty of Brits running around on my lands. South Africa/North Rhodesia/South Rhodesia must be very low on surplus troops right now. My calvary are also healed up at full health.
Might as well go for it.
I ended up losing 5 calvary units but Kimberley is mine now! Mine!
The third city (Pontianak) on that island of Boreno fell to the British now.
Week 29, 1903 AD2 turns later, President Grover Cleveland manage to lure Italy AND the Ottomans AND Chile AND Mexico into the huge dogpile.
But out of the blue (literally blue lol) France decided to randomly DOW the British. I'm betting the blue boys didn't like it when UK stomped over the line with them. The French Legionaries took a city in eastern Nigeria (Aba) and it's likely that Afrique occidentale française (French West Africa) would absorb the British Nigeria.
In total, Queen Victoria has
nine enemies at war with her right now. 1903 definitely hasn't been a good year for the queen.
At home, the British citizens in my city of Kimberley rose up in riots and now productivity is zero in that city.
My response... layoff the agriculture industry in the area, force the city to make do so with limited supplies due to "budget cuts". The British population needs some downsizing in this bad economy anyway.
), for 225 bucks. Eh, every bit extra money helps. That's okay.
