Needing to expand territory by a lot, I noticed that the Great Power of Haxaco had a weaker military than mine. I landed with nothing more than 10 regiments of Regulars and one light artillery on three ships-of-the-line. The first two provinces gave me much-needed access to iron and gold, and subsequent provinces gave me a whole lot of everything else. Before long, their capital fell with little effort. Almost the entire continent fell soon after, with Devron snatching the last bit before I could. Bastards.
Following this, and enjoying the huge amount of industrial growth that followed(maybe not huge, for a while, my military and industry were rated "fair" compared to the "great" and "excellent" rating of the other powers"), traitorous Dinn began making severely overt diplomatic takeovers on every one of my main trade partners, colonizing most of them. Despite being allied with them, and the alliance being maintained during the war with Haxaco, this was absolutely unacceptable. To survive, indeed actually survive, I would have to invade Dinn.
I spent much capital in upgrading our industrial capacity. Funnily, Dinn sold us much of the steel and food for this. This industrial growth in the capital also fostered much growth in the provinces, strengthening my industrial base even more. The only difficult part was importing enough iron and coal to keep up armaments production. Most producers of both had either been invaded or colonized(mostly by Dinn). Even so, it was not long before I sextupled the size of my army, creating 10 regiments of Grenadiers, 20 Regulars, and 5 light artillery regiments. My fleet had been expanded 4-fold.
Next came the invasion. Dinn had no idea we were coming. Before my fleets had arrived in the designated spot, I officially declared war. Then, the fleets established a landing point two provinces north of Dinn City. Within six months, we were in their capital. But the fight wasn't quite over.
Despite the difficulty at taking their capital city(which had just upgraded to a level 2 fort), we won. However, reinforcements had arrived, trapping us within the city. They had set up two lines of infantry, with heavy artillery between. Our light artillery could not move out to engage their guns without taking fire from the forward infantry. I had hoped that they would push forward, allowing my troops to open fire as they advanced. Didn't happen, they just sat there, bombarding their own capital. They wanted me to come out and meet them. So I did.
The charge was ugly, but we came out swinging. We had the advantages of numbers and generally better experience, but our troops were battered(mostly by their artillery). Even so, our supierior numbers allowed up to focus fire on individual enemy regiments, taking them out of the fight. Some were wiped out, others broke ranks and fled. By the end of it, most of their artillery was destroyed, and about half of their regiments were wiped out, and the rest running. Our losses were 3 light artillery, and 4 Regulars.
At sea, we broke their fleets without any of our ships sunk, but the damage was pretty high overall.
Imperialism. And we have just purchased Breech-loading Rifles, so soon our army will be modernized.
The battle drew on for ages(claws did piss damage to her, and my hand-to-hand skill is 4%)
I should correct this, I had H2H skill in the low 30s. 4 was just the damage output, which is also shown on the skill screen.