Part 8: 1837-1842 : The Invasion
In 1837, the naval blockade against Kova is enforced by all the Great Powers in our alliance chain. Meanwhile, support grows for the Goonland for Visisik movement, and we commence formal relations with Unaraco.
With most of the Kovar navy at the bottom of the sea, it is easy for our forces to established a beachhead. To confuse the enemy into misjudging our attack, we also fake a landing near Kova City.
Kind of hard to spot here, but there's a cannon icon on the west edge of the shore of Kova. That's our fleet. Naval invasions require a beachhead to be established by a fleet; the size of the fleet determines the size of the force that can invade the following turn, but if there is a defending navy in the sea zone during the invasion, it will automatically intercept.
With the shore secured, we send forth our armies into Moda, in the southwest part of Kova. General Süldam commands the invasion.
Generals increase the movement of troops into a province, meaning that a good general can attack before any reinforcements arrive. On the battlefield, generals do not fight, but have the special ability to 'rally' troops, which restores routed troops to fighting shape.
The long range of our sharpshooters allows us to advance and pick off the enemy artillery once our cavalry draws off their fire. Once this happens, the enemy is forced to charge their militia at our guns, but we quickly destroy them.
The invasion of Kova is a complete success, and we can now start bringing in even more troops.
The army continues to expand and another General is commissioned.
An embassy is opened in Unaraco, and we make an offer to Qak: they can become our colony and enjoy a guarantee of protection and development.
The only remaining ships that Kova has are a few Raiders, which have been able to outrun our fleet so far. We're also pressing the attack into Kova, now that we can unload our troops more freely into Moda.
Our army presses on to Apya. Here, however, the enemy has anticipated our attack and reinforced.
The cavalry charges, to knock out the guns.
The opposing infantry advances, and traps some of our artillery and Scouts. They force them to surrender.
The militia continue to press their attack, and our artillery is forced off the field. The battle is nearly lost.
But thanks to the efforts of General Süldam, the Visisik troops rally and defeat the enemy.
Losses to our own side were heavy, and we have to call a halt to the campaign for this year.
Because our new province Maraso has no land connection to Visisik, we had to build a port to ship out its resources.
Ports automatically deliver resources from their surrounding tiles. In order to deliver railed-in resources, a depot to be built in their tile as well.
After a lull in the Mone-Evace war, Evace launches a counteroffensive that stalls almost immediately. Mone is unable to land any effective counterblows, thanks to Evace's fortifications in their few remaining provinces.
In the mountains of Maraso, a valuable discovery is made: Gemstones! Unfortunately, there is no way to extract them, as train engines just aren't strong enough to climb into the hills.
Our western border is now controlled by foreign powers. Mone calls a halt to its offensive.
The cease-fire is typical AI behavior when their target gets down to a few territories. They'll start the war up and cancel it every now and then.
There is one further benefit of colonies. We get to buy any commodity we wish at its base price; and this is always returned to us as profit as if purchased from developed land.
After numerous attempts to form a stronger coalition with us (all of which we rebuffed), Wan decides to prosecute the war against Kova on its own.
In 1839 advances in steam technology make it possible to ship freight over hills. We'll be able to get those gems after all.
Despite the presence of multiple allied fleets, we're still unable to hunt down the wily Kova Raiders, which allows them to carry on with some of their commerce.
Kova City has a fortification, and at the moment we lack strong artillery or a large enough force to attack it.
We hear a report that several Kovar generals had been in the province of Kovkov attempting to recruit more soldiers, and we attack in the hopes of catching them flat-footed.
They escape, but we gain control of the southern coast of Kova. Yakakkie attempts an invasion in the north, but it fails.
At least our army is nearing the size that draws the respect of the world.
The Combat Engineer is a specialized unit for use against forts. They cannot fight, but can dig tunnels and plant explosives to undermine the enemy position.
Kova concentrates all its forces to protect the capital.
We make a probing attack to get a better view of the situation.
This results in a loss of one good Scout unit and a Light Artillery, but on the other side, we managed to mortally wound General Kranav and destroy three units — some Light Artillery and Cuirassiers.
Wan takes advantage of the withdrawal of the Kovar forces into the capital, and seizes control of the northwest of the country.
While we seriously doubt that Wan can mount a proper assault on the fortified capital, there is the fear that if we cannot decisively win, they could continue to sweep into the regions after we wear our armies out in attacking.
It is time to knock out Kova once and for all. General Süldam ignores traditional thought on attacking into fortified locations, which says that artillery is the only way to effectively assault units behind walls. Instead, he opts for a cavalry-heavy force. The Combat Engineers will first dig a tunnel to breach the fort, and the mobile troops will rush in afterward. The hopes of our nation rest on him.
After lengthy digging, the charges finally blow holes in the wall. A mass of horses surge forward and weaken the first line of enemy artillery. Sharpshooters arrive to support the attack, as they can easily pick off the troops on the walls from beyond the enemy's range.
Soon the enemy guns have been routed.
This is do-or-die for Kova, however, and their infantry pushes out from the fort in a desperate attempt to hold us off. The battlefield descends into chaos as they engage and kill our most forward cavalry.
The artillery take heavy losses, and the General orders them to retreat while he gathers the remaining cavalry for another charge.
Ultimately the enemy is forced to surrender to us.
Visisik casualties: 1 Regulars, 1 Grenadiers, 2 Scouts, 1 Light Artillery.
Kova casualties: Kova.
The artillery also took significant losses, but gained experience. General Süldam developed experience in this campaign as well.
We must now attend to the task of developing the new provinces of North Visisik.
The demands of war required us to send many men from the city out to the fields of battle. While we have not neglected our economy, we could be processing even more, and now have quite a full warehouse.
Competition for Unaraco is growing fierce. At the moment, the country is producing very little in the way of raw materials. It seems whatever nation can come and develop its land first will then be able to cultivate a better relationship through trade.
Although we still reject their offers, the situation with Wan has changed considerably. They've gone from being an also-ran to taking control of half of what was Kova, and unlike Yakakkie are not competing with us directly. It is something to consider. Right now we just hope for at least a few more years of peace. We've held the top diplomatic ranking for a while and intend to keep it that way.
Mone sits outside the world stage. Despite being widely considered the most powerful Great Power, nobody really likes them aside from the three countries they've subjugated.
Our own relations with the other powers are much better. Yakakkie has colonized Asfah, and intends to do the same to Unaraco. Meanwhile, we're positioned to slow down attempts to court the former trading partners of Kova. There may be peace now (even Mone & Evace have stayed calm for a while) but that doesn't mean relations with the Great Powers will be friendly.