Two months later, I finish my first tech. I had chosen muzzle loading rifles, as I figured the extra punch might help with France, but France lost first. Now I wish I had chosen Ideological Thought first.Postwar AnalysisThe French should have won. They had 158:83 brigades. Taking away the 21 they have somewhere other than France, and the two that invaded Swinemunde, they had 125:83 for the main show. The mobilized French brigades were pretty quickly committed, and could not org up. The French brigades got little rest. once the battle started (basically, if Prussia lost, or quit a battle). They rarely retreated.Why did the French lose?1.. I loaded up the Dec 4, 1836 save, to peek at French deployments. They have 45k troops in Algeria, 9k in Senegal and 6k in Cote d'Ivoire. In the opening days of the war, I have 83 brigades ready for business in northeast France (and good access routes through Belgium). They have 37 brigades in France proper to my 83 just across the border, pre-French mobilization (and some of their brigades are not at full strength -- in total they are short the equivalent of two brigades). Prussia did not mass in Belgium before the attack. That would have made it easier, but the Prussian general staff forgot!2.. Prussian org in 1836 was based on a 100% national stockpile setting. France's is 41%. The average of three largest French armies (in France) is 16.9 org, 18.5 and 11.8, compared to the Prussian base of 32 (though some have commanders that give a bonus). The French have 8 brigades in France with org of less than 10 -- perhaps they were newly created; this means they were even less useful than the mobilized brigades. My mobilization pool is orged up. Theirs has not yet been called. If we can say that their average org of their standing army is about 1/2 of mine, and the mobilization will come in with org of 10/32, they will have about 1/3 of the Prussian org. This organizational superiority means that there is more organization points in the smaller Prussian army than in the larger French army. On D+1, after their mobilization, Prussian org exceeds French or by about 60%, even with the smaller Prussian Army.3.. The Prussian Army fought many key battles on the defense, even while on French soil. This gave an intangible advantage to Prussia.Even with these advantages, Prussia nearly lost. I almost gave up when I was on the defensive against more numerous French troops, especially in March of 1837. It was only after some successes in smaller annihilation battles of surrounded French units that convinced me the Prussians may have a chance. Successes against encircled enemies just snowball. I was also worried for quite some time about Papal forces. They had a decent sized army. Had they marched to France, 25k fresh, orged up troops would have been a serious obstacle at any point between December 1836 and April 1837. They would have swept aside weak, depleted, scattered armies.What would I do differently?1. Better pre-war forward deployment. As I mentioned, lining up Prussian forces in Belgium would have saved me a great deal of attrition on the approach march, and allowed the French even less time to org up.2. Better focus on destroying the French Army. Generally, since the Prussians do not know where the French are, I ordered the Prussian Army to Paris. When I encountered the French army, I engaged each of its parts separately. The French deployments around Paris and the English Channel was the far larger portion of the French Army in France. I think it would have been better to set up blocking forces in Paris, and then focused energy on engaging and destroying the smaller French forces in Alsace Lorraine. The French superiority in Alsace Lorraine/Franche Comte meant that several smaller Prussian detachments were pretty badly mauled marching in. I probably could have blocked the French border and marched every Prussian unit through Belgium. Not having any definite local superiority was a mistake, and made things closer than they should have been.3. Role for the Prussian Navy. Large French forces (45,000 men) were deployed in Algeria, which were eventually sent to France. Given how long naval battles take, 2 frigates and 3 clippers would have delayed that 45k army for quite some time in the critical early days of the invasion of France.