sounds like I won't be replaying on hard.

I haven't actually picked up the game for a few weeks. I got kinda bored. Once I get the hankering for murdering I'll pick up the game again. Only a bit to go before the entire European map is mine, after all.

You should give things a spin with a nation with colonies from the early start - makes for a very different game focus I'm sure.

I'm finding some serious flaws in this game, not in the least the whole "capture the European capital, destroy the entire faction" dynamic of the game. You can destroy the nation of Spain in one single turn if you capture Madrid, and France in two if you march right up to Paris and Strasbourg. That's just retarded.

In addition to that, once the nation is destroyed all their armies in the field just magically disappear. Seriously...what?! I think the makers made some strange two-fold choice when developing the game: they increased the detail on the meta-level (research, diplomacy, espionage, trade, etc) but dumbed down the basic workings of the engine.

Oh and I'm not too fond of the pathfinding in battles either. I've seen my troops do the most bizarre things when trying to manouvre within the walls of a fortress of mine. It's almost unplayable, starting with deployment. If you select, say, 7 units of infantry and group them up and put them all inside your fortress (ample place) the AI will always place a few outside your walls. Don't know why, there's plenty of place inside. Sigh.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still liking a lot of the game and perhaps its grand scale most of all. Totally digging the naval battles, which seemingly have kept the right balance of complexity/ease of use where the land abttles have been hopelessly broken. It just feels like there are a lot of really badly executed ideas in the game. (Oh and someone needs to explain to me how Spain manages to maintain 4-5 full stacks of armies idling around Brussels with barely more land than me, while I control trade routes and have colonies with proper ports all over the place and nearly collapse under the weight of my massive 1.5 makeshift armies)

Come to the dark side, my disciple. Come to the dark, jade-tinted side.

RELEASE YOUR ANGER!!!



http://www.erikstormtrooper.com/sithprophecy_roj_vaderpointing.jpg

*edit by Satis to remove ridiculously large embedded image*/edit*

ok can we delete derfs post, or the pic from it?

lol @ Derf's insanely sized pic.

I played some more yesterday, and when I begged France for Peace things suddenly started clearing up. I could afford disbanding many of my troops and opened my trade lane from my colonies again.

Money started pouring in and soon I was making so much every turn that I could update infrastructures everywhere (upgrading my commercial ports in my colonies in particular), bribe every nation I can trade with into a trade agreement (including the minor nations) and buy technology from other nations.

I haven't had a land battle since. I'm probably the weakest of all the 'major' nations military-wise, but my infrastructure is impressive and my economy is insane. Things were going well until the Swedes and their crappy ass navy started raiding my trade routes...since I only really have one major trade lane into Holland/Europe I'd often see my income reduced from 12k to 2k every turn. Not cool. But my navy had become hopelessly obsolete by then and I got my overconfident ass handed to me. The first battle with my main fleet quickly ended in a humiliating defeat when the Swedes destroyed my admiral's ship in the first 5 minutes of the battle or so.

Not only did they defeat me and cut me off, they had 5-6 seperate small-to-medium fleets patrolling the North Sea and East Sea area. It became clear that I had to assemble a task force and wipe the seas clean of the damn Swedes if I was going to survive as a mercantile nation. My only two non-commercial ports were in the Carribean so I built a force of 2 2nd rate admiral ships and 4 2nd rate ships of the line. Talking ships with 200+ crew and 82 cannons here. I threw some older ships in there and started a glorious campaign where I utterly crushed the Swedes' crux of power (their navy). After due repairs my main navy is now a pretty frightening force with the admiral and such having 3 ranks of XP.

I the mainwhile I consolidated my position as a trade nation by appeasing the Spanish, British and French with gifts (monetary) and even getting most of them to sign an alliance. Spain even opened up its trade lanes to me which effectively doubled my income. I was making mad cash, even with the navy's upkeep. I now have 250.000 florins or so in the bank.

Next step is to assault mainland India from Ceylon. I started building an invasion force on Ceylon. I plan on taking the Indian subcontinent and building my secondary seat of power there. Meanwhile I've raised taxes on the lower classes in Holland to extreme height and lowered them to virtually zero in my colonies to 'encourage' people to move abroad. It's working, but slowly. And my lower classes are whining about reforms obviously.

I'm in a good position. All the objective regions I need to get are within striking distance, I'm filthy rich, control the seas and am on good terms with the strong European factions without being a direct threat to them and their colonies. I'm gonna majorly piss off the Indian factions, obviously, but I don't have any trade agreements with them anyway and cosy on my island (Ceylon) in case things go apeshit. My achilles heel is land battles though. I'm as technologically weak on land as I am strong on the seas. So working on that too.


Question for Satis: are Carronades Frigates useful? They 'only' have 52 cannons but maybe they're badass cannons?

From the description it sounds like they're badass cannons but have a short range, so great if you can get them in close to pulverize larger ships. I don't actually know, I never built any.

I'll give them a spin then. I love the naval battles. Nothing like seeing a ship of the line giving a full broadside on a smaller ship!

nothing quite as frustrating as your rocket ship accidentally hitting your own heavy first rate, it getting set on fire and then exploding.

lol. Those things cost a LOT of time and money, so I feel for you. ever tried boarding an enepmy ship and commandeering it? I tried a few times but never succeeded, and last night I was going to but the game just...froze.

Continued campaign and basically consolidated my position and conquered the Indian subcontinent. I had to re-launch my invasion a few times from Ceylon because the Mysore guys (huge city, good troops, and only one territory so relatively easy to take on) were being such bastards. But once I gained a grasp on the mainland I was pretty much unstoppable...the surrounding Empire (Mahratan Confederacy or something) was huge and sent in army after army but they were no match for my superior troops. Man, once you get platoon firing and marched firing your elite troops become virtually unstoppable. Volley after volley after volley and Indians dropping like flies. Love it.

After a long and incredibly expensive conquest I destroyed the Mahrathan Confederacy and took 3 regions from the Mughal Empire. I own the entire of the Indian subcontinent except for 2 regions in the North. I made peace with the Mughal Empire there so I could trade with them. It was either that or convert all my ports to commercial ports since there is virtually no other trading partner over the land near.

After that I focused on my infrastructure again. Modernized India and added it to my Trade Empire. In South America, Colombia and Mexico were born out of Spanish colonies...colonies I had been very interested in for a long time but never wanted to attack out of fear of pissing Spain, my best ally and trading partner, off. I raised an army and marched on Colombia, which fells easily enough. Then retrained and shipped them to Mexico - raided Jamaica on the way there (it was owned by the cherokee or something, lol?). Once landed I successively fought off 3 full stacks, survived them (barely), laid siege to the capital hoping that I could score a quick victory but in the end got sandwiched by the remains of their armies and a bunch of armed civilians. No wonder when your largest infantry unit is just 15 men strong anymore. So mexico remains free for now, but I haven't forgotten. They're gonna get theirs still.

Then bought tech off enemies for shitloads of cash, almost at the end of all the tech trees, tore down the madrassas in India and put up churches to convert the populace. My trade income is insane...I generate 60.000 every turn with a major fleet and 3-4 standing elite armies. The hilarious thing is, those armies are all in India. I have 2 second rate ships guarding my port in Holland but should one nation raid my port or blockade it I'm effectively fucked. It's my only trade lane into europe. Basically I'm what we call in Dutch "een reus op lemen voeten", a giant with unstable feet. Incredible rich but enormously vulnerable.

Last things I did was annex Morocco as protectorate and stage a conquest against Persia - bastards dared to raid one of my cities in India. I know that marching a massive army into the Afghanistan area doesn't sound like the best guarantee for success historically speaking, but I'm fairly confident that my Republican Guard and grenadiers will make short work of them.

P.S. Grenadiers FTW! Apart from the truly elite infantry I only use grenadiers to hold the lines. Screw line infantry! They've got great morale, can fire a few nice volleys and their grenade attack is just devastating. BOOM!

Really? You field an army of grenadiers? They're definitely a nice unit.... I try to keep a few around to reinforce my infantry. If the enemy infantry move to engage my lines I just toss some grenades and they typically break with a quickness.

But... the units are small. They don't stand up well to slugging it out with full enemy line units. I mean, they do as well as any other line unit, but they're so fewer in number they typically get slaughtered.

Btw, do you have the small mortars yet? 6in or something. Those things rock. They can't be moved I don't think, but they have a massive range. It's nice to be able to pummel the piss out of the enemy as they try to move up to engage. I typically have enough artillery that I can route a unit or three before they even get to engagement range.

well I don't field an entire army of them, but when I have the choice between them and my regular line infantry/colonial line infantry I go with them yeah. Obviously Republic Guard and Riflemen and all sorts of other elite units still make up a part of my army.

You're right, they're small units...but they rarely ever break. They're pretty bad-ass and their grenade attack sends most regular units running for their mommies if you score a nice hit in the middle of their ranks. Even better, with two lines of grenadiers you can lob over one while it keeps enemy infantry busy...you'll take FF casualties but they're pretty used to the grenade explosions so they make good cannon fodder and don't run.

Not sure about the 6 inch mortars - I'll check. I think so though. Tbh I kinda stopped using artillery except for shock purposes (like the rocket launchers). I still do carry around some artillery but it's mostly optional.

Btw - I noticed some nice improvements in the AI. Itactually adapts to your tactics now from time to time. I had a small army of two elite republican guard and 2 units of crappy civilians defending against a medium-sized Persian army with units of much less quality but obviously outnumbering my 2 cohorts + 2 expendables...if they would have faced off in the field from a distance my Republican Guard would have mauled them with their platoon firing and superior weaponry (they didn't have cavalry or artillery either). Instead, they swarmed me in melee. Obviously, getting attacked from all sides by inferior units with about 4 times your amount of men will get you killed regardless of those advantages.

Was actually surprised that the AI did that. Long way from the armies standing in front of your closed gates in medieval getting pounded by cannon towers, for sure.

Yea, fighting defensively in forts is no longer much fun. Attacking you tend to get pummeled by cannon, plus I don't actually field units that can scale walls.

Defending the bastards come from all over the place... defending on the walls is almost suicidal. Instead I draw up my men behind the walls so they can shoot the enemy as they get onto my walls. Not very realistic, but better than the slaughter I'd normally be in for.

Oh yeah, defending on the walls is madness. The pathfinding sucks too on them. And what's up with the small cannons on the walls not doing shit? I always want my armed citizens up there to fire at will (getting hit with artillery themselves, protecting my important troops ) but they seem to be there just for decoration...lame. What's the point?


I always withdraw my troops in the fort central square and have them cover the doors...orderly at first, just throwing grenades (;)) in the general direction of the enemy after that. Don't usually fails me...the bottlenecking of the enemy is all you need once you got decent firepower. Even the puckle guns or the close-range cannon attacks are devestating when used right.

puckle guns are freakin awesome. I was building armies with 3 or so puckle guns in each because they're so devastating. About twice the range of regular line units and totally demoralizing. If an enemy line units gets in range of 2 at the same time it gets slaughtered.

Anyway, I've had units fire the guns on the walls, but they're pointless. The damage done is pitiful. What's the point? I'd be better off with some mortars. Also, have you had the enemy blow down walls and stuff? I have... and the walls are never repaired. They don't show as damaged on the campaign map, but you can't fix them. Kinda lame. There needs to be a patch to fix some of the more glaring problems.