Part 42: 1640-1659, Holding Ground.

We defeat the Portugease.



The enemy have many more armies in the field, and they have men in Tunis – we clean up several of their smaller armies before marching to relieve Tunis. This is following the new plan of picking our battles better.



We could have avoided this battle, but we need to protect the capital.



We improve our technology.







I am not sure we can win this war, the Portuguese have brought a few allies.....



Northern Ghana is covered with enemy troops. I would love to have allies, but as the only Well-Snake worshipping power, no-one wants to have anything to do with us. Our manpower is gone and the Italians destroy our army in a series of battles.







I have to make a painful decision – I must let the enemy pillage Ghana so that I can rebuild our manpower – so once the war is over, we can rebuild quickly.
There is nothing we can do to stop the major powers of Europe.



Our Generals have plenty of time to sit around and design the new Ghanan army.



When the peace treaty comes, it does not take much of our land, but empties the coffers that had been filling so quickly during the war.



We need a victory, so I begin to plan the invasion of the Kongo. To start with, I make it easier to assimilate their lands. This is a step towards reducing the maintenance costs of the numerous mercenaries we hire.







I fabricate a claim, hire up some mercenaries, and attack.



Their army cannot stand against even a much smaller force of our own hirelings.



Who, after some aggressive negotiations, we are now paying a third less!







Most of the Kongo is now ours.



The Abbasids hit us next – we keep getting tag-teamed by these sods!



They swarm across the country, but this time we force them to attack us!



We finish another colony and free up more men.



Then we defeat another larger enemy army.



General Salaama and his men then hold out against two more attacks like this.








We lose the Empress, and she is replaced by another, this is a hundred years of Female rule, making Ghana unique in the world.



The war and change of rulership hits the banks hard, we cannot afford nearly 1,000 ducats, so we go for the long term problem of inflation.



Another colony is finished. Also, why do I have 11,000 men down here? The other army is dealing with revolts, but I missed that one.



The Abbasids break their army into siege units, and we go around smashing them.







We are able to force a white peace. We may have been able to turn this around some more, but for now I want to rebuild the army.



We then improve our technology.



Its then time to take the last of the Kongo.



We start two new colonies – Aragon has beaten us to the Cape, but we can get the lands around it.



The Kongo is absorbed and we deal with some rebels.







We manage to secure an alliance with Gascoigne. We have rebuilt our armies, and this should be enough to keep Portugal off our back!



We also get interesting news, Norway no longer holds any lands in Norway! They are now the fragile remains of a once great kingdom. With lands in Africa.







Ghana has managed to maintain its size, but it has some hard choices ahead.



We have a couple of Western tech borders, we could go for Westernization, but to do that, we would need to be eight techs behind. This would be doable, but risks the Abbasids hitting us hard.

The next choice is whether or not we need to take out Norway on our lands. I think I know how you will think for this one.