Nev
Sent a small army east to fight the bandits, equipped with rifles to scout out the situation.
In order to combat the bandits, you have begun the mass conscription required to wage a "Crusade into the East". That may be a bit overkill, but better safe than sorry right? People poor into the ranks from the crowded factories and the farms, pretty quickly you have more volunteers than guns.
Sadly, they are little more than conscripts. Never held a gun in their life. Manufacturing and farming are hurt due to a lack of people in the labor force. This does raise your popularity a bunch, as now your people are going to fight to make their lives better.
Lyrian
(As a note, I understood they were boarding schools, because you were taking people from the countryside and taking them to these schools.)
While the general education suffers, and those who are gifted get to get a real education. Most of the funds allocated go to the quality of the gifted and talented program, and people criticize the lack of equality in this, but normal education gets a cut too. In general, there are more gifted and talented schools than normal schools, and this creates a weird situation where people that aren't gifted nor talented get accepted into the higher quality schools, especially in the cities, where they are pretty much treated as regular schools.
Beginning of a basic railroad infrastructure has begun, and mostly linking up cities with each other. The failed naval park has still not been helped in this much, but it will probably show profits within a year.
Rordalia
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People are eagerly moving away from the terrible work in sweat shops to be slightly higher paid in the oil fields. The work is just slightly more demanding, after all. A man comes up with the ability to use gasoline as a combustion source, but what you want is the full engine. Based on the Italian steam engine, he replaced steam with gasoline. Now this is the unrefined sticky stuff, and it sucks, but it is still an engine. Might want to set up a refinery, and design a better engine using refined gasoline.
The cavalry men take over the island facing light resistance, but a fort is left in French hands. The cavalry aren't going near that thing, it has a full regiment of musket men waiting inside. At they'll surrender next turn likely. Might have been a good idea to make and ship artillery for this circumstance. Oh well, maybe everyone didn't learn from Napoleon. The Germans have been producing a bunch at least, and they're quite willing to sell it. And have been. To Poland.
You have bought the design for the Gatling Gun, taken it, and used compressed steam to create a better machine gun. It is still hand cranked, but better than nothing. It is quite heavy, and requires a large amount of ammunition to fire it for long periods of time. It jams every so often, and the cool down system is quite terrible. After about 20 seconds of firing, it gets pretty hot. Would be 10 without the gas chamber. I'd say about 30 bullets are fired in 10 seconds. That would be 1800 rounds per minute, but you don't get it firing that long. More like 800 rounds per minute.
United Emirates of Italy
Your people have successfully made the Rordalians attack that island owned by France instead of Fgerbia. Your protection of Fgerbia has gained their respect however, and they accept your trade agreement. Advisers are shipped over to help train their military to defend against foreign invaders and supervise the development of an arms industry.
A coolant system is developed in parallel to the Rordalian one. I think the Italian one is better, but it is a dedicated coolant system, while the Rordalian one is more of an overall improvement. You still have not created the gun yet, but the Scandinavians will do this for you.
Scandinavia
Oh boy, this is a big one, considering war broke out.
Well, now people are annoyed, considering it was government policy that caused the whole unstable market in the first place. Your speech criticizing them made it worse. Nothing too major, it is only 1904, but still.
First of all, the Machine gun is developed with the Italian coolant system. This makes it different from the Rordalian machine gun. It is still a heavy machine gun, but due to a different caliber bullet, and the lack of gas powered firing, the rate of fire is only about 15 rounds per 10 seconds, if you get up to that much. You really have to crank it hard to get that out. However, you can sustain fire for a record of 30 seconds. This is because the force to start the reaction is harder, but spaced out, so it doesn't heat up as fast. The muzzle velocity is pretty high due to a larger caliber though. Your MG men will have to be strong, or get strong in order to operate it though. Both Italy and Scandinavia can mass produce it, or modify the design.
Industry is expanded, and now you have a sizable heavy industry. In between tiny and small.
A war is declared. From the new reporters in the Polish army, suddenly, the border guards was under fire from a previously unseen force.
The Low Countries
The colonies are divided into an administrative vice royalty with companies subsidized to move in and take control of production there. This doesn't really make the life of the colonials better, but the Low Countrymen that live there are mostly rich, highly paid company employees who oversee the area.
Of those who aren't the rich are those soldiers that have come over to keep order. They live as the middle class here. They are separated from their families though, as a soldier's life should keep separate from civil life.
The natives still live in hellish conditions, but now they are set to more profitable work. The invisible hand made their life miserable, and they resent that.
The one sole benefit this plan has to the natives is the introduction of people who are forced to work with the natives and not hurt them.
Tribal courts work pretty well, but the European courts tend to favor the Europeans, as expected. You can kill a native and get away with it.
The War will be an update below this.
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Topic: 1909: Beginning of the Great European War (Read 16698 times)