Prussia to Germany 1.8.6

This guide lays out procedure and my preferred strategy for taking Prussia to full Germany, including Austria and all north and south German minors that are not the subject of another power. I will try to be brief for those who have formed Germany on a previous patch, but try to include enough detail for those who have not.

Expect the strategy below, with decent RNG, to result in full Germany around mid 1842.

Big Picture

The big picture is unchanged from the previous patch:
- Resolve SH
- Research Nationalism and wait for National Identity to complete
- Push the button to launch the leadership play. The button has been moved to the last tab of the journal.
- With SH and leadership complete, the North German Confederation will form automatically.
- Get all the South German minors and Austria to like you. When they do, push the Form Germany button.
- Celebrate with schnapps or a good German beer.

However, how you go about these tasks probably needs some adjustment due to new mechanics in 1.86, which is the main point of this guide.

SH War

SH are subjects of Denmark. You only have sea access to Denmark and SH, and your navy only has one ship. To resolve this you could build a navy or sway in a power with access to Denmark. I would rather spend my construction slots on building iron mines, so I tend to go with the sway option. Sweden can usually be swayed after you improve them to 50. This works great, unless UK joins against you. As of 1.8, it seems like Britain joins the SH against Prussia more often than not. If your troops are going though Sweden, they need to be supported by convoys, and the British AI loves to sink convoys.

If you can sway in Hanover, you will have direct land access to SH and through them Denmark. Improving Hanover to 50 seems to be sufficient for this about half the time. Otherwise, you can bankroll them to 80. With no convoy support needed, your full army is more than a match for what Britain is likely to send.

It looks like Mechlenburg might work too. However, I have never been able to sway them. I think this is because they always spawn with a "Defend the Borders" strategy. If you have better information on this, please make a comment below.

The proper (imho) war goal to kick this war off is to liberate Holstein. If Denmark accepts, SH closes and I drive on. If not, I put liberate against Schleswig and make primary. If you do not get Schleswig in the initial war, you get a claim. The game text implies that you need to do something more than liberate, but you do not. Some other war goals may work but I have not tried them.

Leadership War

If you have an alliance with Russia, winning this will not be a problem. Just go straight at them with all generals on "advance"'

However, it might be best to improve the South German minors to 50 before kicking this off. This should prevent them swaying in with Austria, hating on you for beating them in a war, and then declining to join when it is time to form Germany.

Extracting war reps from Austria might not be the best plan. As far as I can tell, this makes it more likely for Austria to start damaging relations with you.

Diplomacy Strategy and Setup

This may be obvious to most, but I will say it anyway. Nationalism needs to be your first tech for the best timeline to form Germany with 1,8.6.

It seem to me that National Identity completes faster than it used to. It also seem like bankrolls are much cheaper than they used to be.I cannot prove this but if you have evidence which confirms or refutes this, please drop a comment. Faster Nat Id is good news and bad news. It means we form Germany faster, but requires us to move faster and more aggressively to that end.

With unlimited influence and money, I would do the following out the gate from unfreeze:
- Begin improving the South German minors to 50.
- Begin improving and bankrolling Austria. They usually need to be at 80 before they will join.
- Begin improving and bankrolling Russia. They will often accept an alliance for an obligation somewhere above 50, but you may need to take them to 80.
- Begin improving and bankrolling Hanover for SH.
- Optionally, begin improving Sweden, also for SH.

There is no need to improve the North German minors. It looks like they are all scripted to join the Confederation when SH and leadership are complete. You may be lucky enough to pick up an obligation from one of these bankrolls. Watch for that and modify accordingly.

I do not rival Britain or France as Prussia. I want them to stay out of my business. Ottomans and Netherlands are not in a position to hurt Prussia, so I always rival them. If you want one more, I think the only choices are USA , Spain, Brazil, and EIC.

Influence is obviously not unlimited so you will have to juggle the tasks above. Pay attention, keep all your influence working, and prioritize as best you can.

You can afford all these bankrolls with high or very high taxes, some consumption taxes, not going crazy with new construction sectors, and some willingness to go into debt.

Laws and Taxes

1.8 introduces the political movement mechanic. Ignoring this mechanic can put you into rev trouble fairly quickly. Don't ask me how I know.

For each law that you might want to pass, text will show what the law what the law does and also what the interest groups think of it. New for 1.8 is information about political movement reaction to potential laws. This information is near the bottom of the law text. Secret Police is the poster child for laws you should not try to pass as Prussia while running very high taxes. Pass useful laws if you can, but try not to put yourself in a rev situation. Even if you beat it, a tick down to a revolt will likely negatively affect your timeline for forming Germany. Passing no law is better than trying to pass a dangerous law imho.

Comments

Comments are encouraged and appreciated.

[Gnarlycuga]

Great guide! I have some extra tips to deal with SH quicker and cleaner.

Before I start though, I played and tested this on 1.8.7 and I have used some mods (the most gameplay changing one being Better Politics). However, someone else (also the person who I learned this from) attempted this in Vanilla and it worked for them.

You can find their video and playthrough here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzbk6vQlb4A

At the start of the game you can quickly start a diplo play for Greenland to liberate them from Norway. It says France will join, but they (and most other powers) won't as they don't have an interest in the North Sea. Then you can add the other war goals for liberating Schleswig and Holstein and enjoy an easy war to knock that out.

I used a slightly different strategy to deal with the lack of Flotillas. I made demands to Lubeck to become my protectorate so I could enforce military access on them when the war for SH started.

Hope this helps!