March of the Eagles Diary – Prussia’s Manpower Problem

March of the Eagles is a grand strategy title that allows players to control any nation in Europe between 1805 and 1820, the period of the Napoleonic wars, and my favorite during the timeframe has always been Prussia.

Bear in mind this is not yet the nation that pretty much provided the core of Germany a few decades later, a feat I have often accomplished in another Paradox-made title, Victoria II.

Prussia is a rising power, but it’s sandwiched between Russia, with its impressive manpower, Austria, still the hegemon of the eastern half of Europe, and France.

Its armies might be capable, but its territory is fragmented and it has no fleet to speak of.

My first move is to re-organize all of my armies in order to have a better distribution of power and then head over to the Austrian border in order to declare war on my “bigger brother” of a nation.

After a war that takes about two entire years, which is a long time in March of the Eagles, I manage to get some provinces that increase my domination score, and some money from Austria, but now I face an even bigger problem.

Prussia has basically managed to run out of soldiers that are fit for battle, with the game estimating that I need another 50,000 men to bring all my armies up to strength, a process that might take about 12 months at the current reinforcing pace.

Given the fact that I was in 1811 and that the game ends in about nine years, this gave me a very small timeframe during which to battle France and Russia for the provinces I needed to establish land domination.

This is when I understood that March of the Eagles might be a game that’s even deeper in terms of mechanics than Hearts of Iron III, because manpower is such a great limitation that victories can actually be defeats in the long term.