Part 59: 1870-1874 - A poor showing.
We develop military statistics, which means we are now ready to go to war with Aragon.
We declare war, and immediately begin to march our troops into their lands.
In a moment of shock, our fleet engages the Aragonese one and wins the battle! Military strategists across the nation are aghast, maybe fleets could be useful!
The war expands, and we see many other powers come to Aragon's aid.
We occupy Aragon, but now need to march north to secure our victory. Meanwhile our victory gives us an understanding of the command principle for warships.
The source of the Nile has been discovered! People across the world are in awe of this discovery.
Our forces in Aragon are hit by the main part of Gascogne's forces, it is a long and bloody battle, but one we win. While we have lost, the effect on the enemies morale is much greater than the loss is on our own people.
We improve the navy once more, meanwhile, we spend a lot of time putting down another scattered rebellion and moving troops north once more.
The Scandinavians decide to expand the war to humiliate us if they win. We march our new forces north once more. Meanwhile, the election starts.
Scandinavia lands troops and quickly takes our capital. We begin to ready troops to meet them on the field.
We amass an army, and the Well-Wishers are elected to power once more.
We hit the Scandinavian forces, but even with more men, the Scandinavian troops and Generals are to much for our men.
This loss puts paid to our dreams of expansion.
We take the loss as best we can.
We are obviously behind on military technology. We set to addressing this problem.
We then formally create Darfur and Tripoli as states in the nation.
With people thirsty for places to expand, we decide to use machine guns to press more natives into becoming part of Ghana.
Finally, almost all of central Africa is open to our people. Or will be.
We follow this with improved thinking for the military.
We sign an alliance with Lancaster, giving us at least one great power ally.
We also continue to improve our fighting forces after their poor performance in the last war.
The first of our new protectorates is formed, and then converted to a colony. We begin to try and hem in the Norwegians before a major war.
Cheap Iron is a secondary concern to our main goal of getting as much gold from the ground as possible.
Another rebellion begins, as another highly placed Ogoonu decides that he can run the country better than a democracy.
The large Army Corps are given orders to march around the country destroying the rebel brigades one by one. This will be another long battle, but unless they get reinforcements, we should win.
To try and keep people happy, universal voting is introduced.
Bloody Rebels.
Amongst all this, we finish sealing in Norway. Now no one else can reach the interior.
Another naval warfare technology is researched. These are quite cheap for us, as we are so far behind the rest of the civilized world in this respect.
We continue to annihilate the rebels. They are broken now, and it is just a matter of cleaning them up.
People have asked to see the world, so let us give them a tour.
North America has changed little, with the Portuguese clients holding much of the land.
Lancaster dominates south America, we are involved in their war with Gran Columbia, but only as a silent partner.
Europe has changed little, Gascogne has expanded, and Rome lost Italy to rebels about five years ago and has not made any attempts to reclaim that land.
Arabia is still massive, and no one power rules India.
Like most of the great powers, the Golden Horde has not changed much border wise.
Portuguese Asia remains huge swathes of barely populated land.
Ming and Japan also hold their borders.
Finally, we come to the major choice, and one I wish to put to you.
No one wants to move to Australia. The entire colony has roughly 100,000 people living on it with no migrants. This is taking up 100 of our colony points, which could be used to take the interior.
Should I release Australia as a dominion?