DJ Bonebraker
a.k.a Laura
Preamble:
History is filled with all sorts of "What-ifs", and one of the fun things about Civilization is that you can explore such possiblilites. In this case, one I'm going to explore is this: What if the Boer Republics managed to unite into an effective unit and expand and develop enough that they could successfully stave-off British aggression and carve out an independent nation on a continent ruled by colonial authorities...
The following tale is a chronicle of those events.
Game info:
Age of Imperialism 3.0 scenario, 26 civs full length version.
Difficulty: Ensign (Monarch)
Faction: Boer Republics, one of, if not THE most difficult factions to play in this particular version (They only start with 3 cities, 7 military units, and 0 workers)
Now for the game.... Note: This isn't going to be picture-heavy, so please bear with me
In the year was 1895 when the announcement spread through the cities of Pretoria, Bloemfontein and Pietersburg: The republics of Transvaal and the Orange Free State had aggreed to join together as one nation, to be known as the Boer Federal Republic (Boer Federaal Republiek). Paul Krueger, the newly-elected president immediately called his advisers together to formulate a guiding strategy for the newly-unified nation.
They were all seated around a large table located inside the Presidential palace, discussing the best options for the success of the Republic.
Ms. Anna Veldhuiser, the domestic adviser, suggested that increasing the industrial capacity of all the cities, particularly Bloemfontein and Pietersburg, should be the top priority: The current production in those cities was deplorable, taking almost 20 weeks to train a single company of Boer Riflemen.
Jason Voorhees, the military adviser countered that "The best defense is a good offense, so all cities should start training Boer Light Cavalry and Boer Riflemen as soon as possible.
Tanya Kirkmann, the cultural adviser said, "If we establish the public library system in all our cities, all the people will flock to us!"
Dr. Victor Frankenstein, the science adviser, agreed with Tanya's suggestion on the grounds that "Building public libraries will get our research out of the crapper."
Finally, President Kruger turned to a tall, silent man sitting at the far corner of the table and said, "So, chief of staff Takayama, what do YOU think of these suggestions?"
Hikaro Takayama, the president's Chief of Staff and most trusted advisor stood and said, "There is wisdom in all their words, and we must consider them well, for the battle we fight is long and uphill the whole way.
What I suggest is you follow Ms. Veldhuiser's suggestion and build factories in Pietersburg and Bloemfontein.... In addition, we should establish the Gold Standard in Pretoria, since we can use all the production and revenue we can get!
Once we've got our production up, we should start training military units, but alternate military recruitment with construction of financial and educational buildings: After all, the best way to win a war is to field better units and be able to out-produce the other guy, and the only way we can do that is with a high rate of literacy and a solid economy."
With that, he sat back down.
Among the other things decided at that meeting was that as soon as the industry and military was built up enough, the Republic would need to expand in order to survive The two choicest targets were the colony of German Southwest Africa and the Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique, and plans were drawn up for both options.
Finally, Dr. Frankenstein was told to research any technology related to machine guns, since such weaponry would be needed when facing some of the more powerful colonial powers, such as Britain....
The president then went on a tour of the republic and gave speeches encouraging the people to work hard to improve their country so that they could "drive out the colonial oppressors once and for all."
While the people busied themselves about those tasks, the year 1895 passed without incident.
Early in 1896, however, the Germans and Austria-Hungary declared war on Russia. After 14 months of bitter stalemate on the German front, and a humiliating defeat on the Austrian front, which saw all but Warsaw and Triest conquered by the Russian Bear, The German alliance makes peace with Russia in mid-1897.
Several other nations, including Germany, come demanding gold from the Republic. We give in to all of them, except Germany, hoping to incite a war, but the Germans back down.... We won't forget any of this anytime soon.
By this time, the preparations are complete, and we send a courier to German SW Africa informing them that all their base are going to belong to us, and they have no chance to survive, so they should make their time.
Immediately after Kaiser Wilhelm receives the declaration via telegraph, 8 companies of Boer light cavalry and two batteries of horse artillery thunder into the plains outside the city of Windhoek, and fortify for the coming battle....
The horse artillery batteries fired, but didn't score any hits.... The impetuous cavalry general, eager to end this war before the Germans could ship any reinforcements in, ordered the units to charge anyways. Two whole companies were lost under the hail of bullets the German regular Shutzetruppe infantry poured into the charging Boer cavalry, but the remaining 6 companies made it through and slaughtered the 5 companies of German defenders to the last man.
As a result of the battle, the Austrians, bound by their alliance with Germany, declare war on us as well, but considering that they are now one of the few nations in the world who are actually worse-off than we are, the average citizen in the Boer Federal Republic couldn't give a rat's ass.
After a short rest to recover from injuries and re-arm, and after moving in two companies of veteran Boer Rifleman from the capitol to defend Windhoek from any German counter-attack, the horse artillery batteries and Boer light cavalry companies rode out to the hills surrounding Ludderitz, in preparation to attack and take the city.
In the meantime, a lone company of Shutzetruppe ambushed a group of unarmed civil engineers, and massacred them! President Kruger swore that the Germans would pay dearly for this outrage!
At Windhoek, while the cavalry and artillery were preparing their attack on Lüdderitz, 6 companies of Shutzetruppe, using British railways through Rhodesia, attacked. Despite being outnumbered three to one, the veteran sharpshooters in the Boer rifle companies managed to kill every last single attacker, despite taking moderate to heavy casualties themselves. One unit displayed such exemplary valor that Defense Minister Voorhees awarded them elite status! The Germans also left a pile of raw materials shipments in their now-abandoned base camp, and the rifleman quickly siezed them for the greater good of the Republic (unfortunately, this game is reverse capture the flag, so you have to get the raw materials to a victory point, which are only in important cities the colonial powers have ).
Two weeks later, after heavy artillery bombardment and repeated cavalry charges, the last defenders of Lüdderitz surrendered, but two more entire companies of light cavarly died in the attempt. Since more German reinforcements had arrived in the hills around Lüdderitz, and our goals had been achieved, President Krueger phoned up Kaiser Wilhelm and asked to negotiate a peace treaty.
The Kaiser was willing to negotiate, but would only sign a peace treaty if the Boer Republic would pay 400 units of gold in indemnities. After conferring with Chief of Staff Takayama and Domestic Minister Veldhuiser, it was determined that the treasury took in more than that in two weeks time, the President agreed to fork the money over, and the treaty was signed, ending our war with Germany. Once we made peace with Germany, Austria also made peace, bringing the first Boer War to an end.
The former German colony of German Southwest Africa was re-named and re-structured as the "Namibian Provisional State," at least until the infrastructure and local governments of Lüdderitz and Windhoek could be improved to the point that it could be admitted to the Republic as a full state.
New plans were drawn up to first build up the infrastructure of the newly "liberated" territories, which included building a road to bring quality timber into Windhoek, and allow us to build a sawmill there, as well as building up our military strength for the up-coming showdown with Portugal.
Thus the Year 1898 dawns with the Boer Republic almost doubled in size:
History is filled with all sorts of "What-ifs", and one of the fun things about Civilization is that you can explore such possiblilites. In this case, one I'm going to explore is this: What if the Boer Republics managed to unite into an effective unit and expand and develop enough that they could successfully stave-off British aggression and carve out an independent nation on a continent ruled by colonial authorities...
The following tale is a chronicle of those events.
Game info:
Age of Imperialism 3.0 scenario, 26 civs full length version.
Difficulty: Ensign (Monarch)
Faction: Boer Republics, one of, if not THE most difficult factions to play in this particular version (They only start with 3 cities, 7 military units, and 0 workers)
Now for the game.... Note: This isn't going to be picture-heavy, so please bear with me
Chapter 1: The Vision
In the year was 1895 when the announcement spread through the cities of Pretoria, Bloemfontein and Pietersburg: The republics of Transvaal and the Orange Free State had aggreed to join together as one nation, to be known as the Boer Federal Republic (Boer Federaal Republiek). Paul Krueger, the newly-elected president immediately called his advisers together to formulate a guiding strategy for the newly-unified nation.
They were all seated around a large table located inside the Presidential palace, discussing the best options for the success of the Republic.
Ms. Anna Veldhuiser, the domestic adviser, suggested that increasing the industrial capacity of all the cities, particularly Bloemfontein and Pietersburg, should be the top priority: The current production in those cities was deplorable, taking almost 20 weeks to train a single company of Boer Riflemen.
Jason Voorhees, the military adviser countered that "The best defense is a good offense, so all cities should start training Boer Light Cavalry and Boer Riflemen as soon as possible.
Tanya Kirkmann, the cultural adviser said, "If we establish the public library system in all our cities, all the people will flock to us!"
Dr. Victor Frankenstein, the science adviser, agreed with Tanya's suggestion on the grounds that "Building public libraries will get our research out of the crapper."
Finally, President Kruger turned to a tall, silent man sitting at the far corner of the table and said, "So, chief of staff Takayama, what do YOU think of these suggestions?"
Hikaro Takayama, the president's Chief of Staff and most trusted advisor stood and said, "There is wisdom in all their words, and we must consider them well, for the battle we fight is long and uphill the whole way.
What I suggest is you follow Ms. Veldhuiser's suggestion and build factories in Pietersburg and Bloemfontein.... In addition, we should establish the Gold Standard in Pretoria, since we can use all the production and revenue we can get!
Once we've got our production up, we should start training military units, but alternate military recruitment with construction of financial and educational buildings: After all, the best way to win a war is to field better units and be able to out-produce the other guy, and the only way we can do that is with a high rate of literacy and a solid economy."
With that, he sat back down.
Among the other things decided at that meeting was that as soon as the industry and military was built up enough, the Republic would need to expand in order to survive The two choicest targets were the colony of German Southwest Africa and the Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique, and plans were drawn up for both options.
Finally, Dr. Frankenstein was told to research any technology related to machine guns, since such weaponry would be needed when facing some of the more powerful colonial powers, such as Britain....
The president then went on a tour of the republic and gave speeches encouraging the people to work hard to improve their country so that they could "drive out the colonial oppressors once and for all."
While the people busied themselves about those tasks, the year 1895 passed without incident.
Early in 1896, however, the Germans and Austria-Hungary declared war on Russia. After 14 months of bitter stalemate on the German front, and a humiliating defeat on the Austrian front, which saw all but Warsaw and Triest conquered by the Russian Bear, The German alliance makes peace with Russia in mid-1897.
Several other nations, including Germany, come demanding gold from the Republic. We give in to all of them, except Germany, hoping to incite a war, but the Germans back down.... We won't forget any of this anytime soon.
By this time, the preparations are complete, and we send a courier to German SW Africa informing them that all their base are going to belong to us, and they have no chance to survive, so they should make their time.
Immediately after Kaiser Wilhelm receives the declaration via telegraph, 8 companies of Boer light cavalry and two batteries of horse artillery thunder into the plains outside the city of Windhoek, and fortify for the coming battle....
The horse artillery batteries fired, but didn't score any hits.... The impetuous cavalry general, eager to end this war before the Germans could ship any reinforcements in, ordered the units to charge anyways. Two whole companies were lost under the hail of bullets the German regular Shutzetruppe infantry poured into the charging Boer cavalry, but the remaining 6 companies made it through and slaughtered the 5 companies of German defenders to the last man.
As a result of the battle, the Austrians, bound by their alliance with Germany, declare war on us as well, but considering that they are now one of the few nations in the world who are actually worse-off than we are, the average citizen in the Boer Federal Republic couldn't give a rat's ass.
After a short rest to recover from injuries and re-arm, and after moving in two companies of veteran Boer Rifleman from the capitol to defend Windhoek from any German counter-attack, the horse artillery batteries and Boer light cavalry companies rode out to the hills surrounding Ludderitz, in preparation to attack and take the city.
In the meantime, a lone company of Shutzetruppe ambushed a group of unarmed civil engineers, and massacred them! President Kruger swore that the Germans would pay dearly for this outrage!
At Windhoek, while the cavalry and artillery were preparing their attack on Lüdderitz, 6 companies of Shutzetruppe, using British railways through Rhodesia, attacked. Despite being outnumbered three to one, the veteran sharpshooters in the Boer rifle companies managed to kill every last single attacker, despite taking moderate to heavy casualties themselves. One unit displayed such exemplary valor that Defense Minister Voorhees awarded them elite status! The Germans also left a pile of raw materials shipments in their now-abandoned base camp, and the rifleman quickly siezed them for the greater good of the Republic (unfortunately, this game is reverse capture the flag, so you have to get the raw materials to a victory point, which are only in important cities the colonial powers have ).
Two weeks later, after heavy artillery bombardment and repeated cavalry charges, the last defenders of Lüdderitz surrendered, but two more entire companies of light cavarly died in the attempt. Since more German reinforcements had arrived in the hills around Lüdderitz, and our goals had been achieved, President Krueger phoned up Kaiser Wilhelm and asked to negotiate a peace treaty.
The Kaiser was willing to negotiate, but would only sign a peace treaty if the Boer Republic would pay 400 units of gold in indemnities. After conferring with Chief of Staff Takayama and Domestic Minister Veldhuiser, it was determined that the treasury took in more than that in two weeks time, the President agreed to fork the money over, and the treaty was signed, ending our war with Germany. Once we made peace with Germany, Austria also made peace, bringing the first Boer War to an end.
The former German colony of German Southwest Africa was re-named and re-structured as the "Namibian Provisional State," at least until the infrastructure and local governments of Lüdderitz and Windhoek could be improved to the point that it could be admitted to the Republic as a full state.
New plans were drawn up to first build up the infrastructure of the newly "liberated" territories, which included building a road to bring quality timber into Windhoek, and allow us to build a sawmill there, as well as building up our military strength for the up-coming showdown with Portugal.
Thus the Year 1898 dawns with the Boer Republic almost doubled in size:
Spoiler :