Empire: Total War

[Paelos]

50/50, sure, it would be fine. But I've played any number of battles where I'm supposedly out numbered. If I let the AI play it, I get my arse kicked. On the other hand, if I play the battle, I win handily because for the most part, the enemy AI is daft.

Well if your guys won every battle, even outnumbered, there would be very little point in actually playing the battles at all. I would suppose it's intentional that your AI can't handle things better or equal to a skilled player on purpose to incentivize actually battling.

Also, why are you outnumbered? That rarely happens occasionally to me, but in 80% of my battles i'm 50/50 or better.

[Engels]

Maybe I just picked a bad nation to play. I played Spain, and I start out with Mexico, Cherokees, Milan, Italian States and Holland all after my ass. Its hard to keep a strong presence absolutely everywhere you own without going bankrupt. Spain's starting regions are all over the map. Flanders, Lower Italy, Northern Italy, Cuba, Florida and Spain. They sort of warn you at the start of the campaign that Spain's king is nuts and things are grim for you at the start of the game.

The situations where I'm outnumbered seem to be when suddenly one or more of the above mentioned nations has it in for me. I don't know how the Cherokee managed to keep a full army afloat with their 2 regions, but they do, and they keep coming. I finally had to go into deep red to keep enough troops to both stomp them out of existence and keep my remaining regions alive. Unfortunately it didn't work, and in the time it took me to wipe out the Cherokee, Holland and the Italian states took Flanders and Northern Italy from me, respectively. Now of course, the Pueblo Indians suddenly feel entitled to Lousiana. Oh, and Queen Victoria I will NOT SHUT UP about me giving her Florida! Every single turn its a demand for me to give her Florida. Its been nigh on 5 decades and the bitch just doesn't get the message that the panhandle is MINE damn it!

[HaemishM]

Spain is in a SHITTY state historically by 1700. Hell, the first big war of the century was fought over who got to succeed to the Spainish throne. Your navy is about a century beyond its peak, and your colonies are far and wide with legal piracy allowed to ravage your shipments to and from the colonies. You are pretty much the bitch of the group orgy between France, Austria, the Holy Roman Empire and Britain over who gets to decide the balance of power in Europe. I'd think Spain would be one of the tougher factions to play.

[Engels]

Well, I already lost the 'game' by not having a bunch of stuff locked down by 1750, but I'm finally making inroads into the Americas, and I'm gonna keep at it.  Flanders is gone, norther Italy is gone, but I still have Corsica and southern italy. Now with the addition of Lousiana and Kentucky, I think I'm gonna survive, but jeeze, its rough.

[Big Gulp]

Well, I already lost the 'game' by not having a bunch of stuff locked down by 1750, but I'm finally making inroads into the Americas, and I'm gonna keep at it.  Flanders is gone, norther Italy is gone, but I still have Corsica and southern italy. Now with the addition of Lousiana and Kentucky, I think I'm gonna survive, but jeeze, its rough.

Keep in mind who your neighbors are, too.  You're facing off against France and Great Britain, two of the most technologically superior nations at that time.  They've got way more schools in their territory than you do, so it'll probably stay that way.  Russia is also backwards as hell, but unlike Spain they've got pissant neighbors to go up against.  Makes a big difference.

[Engels]

My goal is to simply surive right now. I have kept England and France at peace with me, but that may change. The French have been kicked out of the southern US by the Indians, so I will be taking over there as my main base of operations. I will neglect Europe as much as I can financially get away with.

Now, the damned dutch pirates are getting up my nose, but I can't afford an armada to deal with them. I had hoped that once they got Flanders they'd get off my case, but alas...

The game is pretty evil; it forces you to beat up the small fry to grain enough ground to stave off attacks from bigger fish. It really boils down world politics to pure darwinism.

[Big Gulp]

My goal is to simply surive right now. I have kept England and France at peace with me, but that may change. The French have been kicked out of the southern US by the Indians, so I will be taking over there as my main base of operations. I will neglect Europe as much as I can financially get away with.

Now, the damned dutch pirates are getting up my nose, but I can't afford an armada to deal with them. I had hoped that once they got Flanders they'd get off my case, but alas...

The game is pretty evil; it forces you to beat up the small fry to grain enough ground to stave off attacks from bigger fish. It really boils down world politics to pure darwinism.

I don't know how the map is layed out in your game, but have you tried an alliance with Prussia or Austria?  I usually follow the old Roman model of expansion; my friend is my neighbor once removed.  At the very least try to surround your immediate neighbors with enemies, I'm thinking your main enemy on the continent would be France, and allying with either German country would also threaten the Dutch.

ETA:  The one near-constant in my Prussia game has been an alliance with Spain.  It's just so convenient having an ally who provides you with endless excuses to attack France or the Netherlands.   

[Engels]

Currently I'm at peace with france. Austria, on the other hand, declared war on me for no reason whatsoever. I have no territories bordering it, I was entirely removed from them. I think it was just one of those historically necessary conditions that Austria was a war with Spain at the time, or some such.

I'm not sure why, but France isn't doing so well in this particular campaign. They have their country, but they've essentially been cleared from the map by the British. When the British alliance declared war on France, which heretofore had been my ally, I was asked to join either France or the British alliance and I declined both. Prompt bribing of both sides when I was running a surplus seems to have kept both of them in my good graces.

[Paelos]

Spain just took over Portugal in my game, but that was 50 turns in and that's as far as they've gotten. I'm playing Britain, and I've already destroyed Sweden and Prussia, who got into foolish wars with my allies that I finished. I also beat the shit out of the Huron Confederacy because they "couldn't tolerate my presence" anymore in Canada. Now, I'm sitting on 12 territories and I'm about to go to war with France so I can pick up the rest of Canada, and get 2/3 territories I need to have the 13 colonies consolidate with me.

I love this game.

[NowhereMan]

Currently I'm at peace with france. Austria, on the other hand, declared war on me for no reason whatsoever. I have no territories bordering it, I was entirely removed from them. I think it was just one of those historically necessary conditions that Austria was a war with Spain at the time, or some such.

Your cousin wanted to be King, welcome to the War of Succession.

[Engels]

inbred morons. I'm starting to understand Cromwell.

[HaemishM]

Currently I'm at peace with france. Austria, on the other hand, declared war on me for no reason whatsoever. I have no territories bordering it, I was entirely removed from them. I think it was just one of those historically necessary conditions that Austria was a war with Spain at the time, or some such.

The War of Spainish Succession For some historical context. Spain buddied up to France against Austria (HRE) and Great Britain. I kind of wish the game had some rights of succession involved in the diplomacy because 2 of the 3 major wars in the early century were about who got to succeed to whose throne.

[NowhereMan]

I think that would hold too much danger of, "play as country X, defeat Country Y in war to succeed them and become the new Great Power very, very quickly". It would hardly be an I win button but it would drastically change how the game plays without the starting geography really giving any indication. Plus it's probably really hard to code with the way the engine's set up

[Paelos]

Currently I'm at peace with france. Austria, on the other hand, declared war on me for no reason whatsoever. I have no territories bordering it, I was entirely removed from them. I think it was just one of those historically necessary conditions that Austria was a war with Spain at the time, or some such.

The War of Spainish Succession For some historical context. Spain buddied up to France against Austria (HRE) and Great Britain. I kind of wish the game had some rights of succession involved in the diplomacy because 2 of the 3 major wars in the early century were about who got to succeed to whose throne.

That's pretty much exactly how my game is playing out. I've attacked France as Britain, they were allied with Spain, and I'm allied with Austria. Also I've made alliances with the Iriquois to box out France from my lands in the Americas, and keep the 13 Colonies as a buffer b/w me and Spain. Spain really should have cut bait on France though, because the French are extremely rich but extremely weak. Now I'm trying to take just enough away from Spain to make them question the fight in Europe, because they dominate the Southern Americas and will probably rape my islands soon.

[Montague]

Been playing this for the last few days but I think this is going on the shelf until CA puts out a major AI patch. Other than the first few turns of a campaign, the strategic AI is incredibly passive to the point that it has to be bugged. Poland has been at war with Austria, Denmark, et. al and is sitting there with almost no army, nothing happening. As Prussia I marched 2 armies into West Prussia and Warsaw with literally no resistance other than armed citizenry.

The battle AI is in terrible shape. Even on the very rare occasion that the AI decides to attack, it cannot direct an army of any size with any sort of coordination and their units simply form a huge blob in the center.

I know CA games always need patches to get to their full potential but this one seems more rushed than Medieval and Rome.

[Big Gulp]

The battle AI is in terrible shape. Even on the very rare occasion that the AI decides to attack, it cannot direct an army of any size with any sort of coordination and their units simply form a huge blob in the center.

Same here, along with the problem of them sending out 1 or 2 units for me to destroy in detail.  No real general would do something that stupid.  Split your forces, sure, but never send unsupported units into a meat grinder.

[Paelos]

The battle AI is in terrible shape. Even on the very rare occasion that the AI decides to attack, it cannot direct an army of any size with any sort of coordination and their units simply form a huge blob in the center.

Same here, along with the problem of them sending out 1 or 2 units for me to destroy in detail.  No real general would do something that stupid.  Split your forces, sure, but never send unsupported units into a meat grinder.

They do that all the time in my game as well. They send out 2 units to blow up my farms and piss me off, then I crush them. It's really quite stupid.

[Engels]

I was wondering if turning up the AI difficulty would affect that, or if it just means that the enemy is just more numerous.

[kildorn]

I seem to have no problems wiping out the map with Austria (why does prussia always try a bad trade and then backstab me? You have no allies and no land, I'm just going to roll you in a few minutes..)

Last night I started taking out Persia just to hit the World Domination 40 territory goal, and got a fun bug:

A unit of Cav didn't have a flag on it, and mouseovers of it gave building information and the door icon. Nothing would fire on it, but it could melee me fine. Sigh. First bug I've hit though. And yeah, nobody EVER accepts tech trades. I've offered 8 techs for 1 with an allied friendly country, and was told to fuck myself.

[Tmon]

I've gotten a few tech trades to work, but it was damn near impossible to any major nation to accept a trade route when I played a Maratha campaign.  Plus I kept getting spammed with stupid territory deals, like give up Bengal for Genoa and a trade route kind of stupid. I did one turn accidentally trade Bengal to Spain by clicking the wrong button (I was just trying to get the campaign over with) and had to declare war and take it back.  Fortunately the Ai seems clueless about amphibious invasions so the war had no real effect on me.

[Big Gulp]

Fortunately the Ai seems clueless about amphibious invasions so the war had no real effect on me.

Speaking of amphibious invasions, has anyone invaded the Barbary pirates yet?  I did yesterday, and this is the first non-European power I've fought.  Jesus, it's like they were still playing M:TW.  They're sending swordsmen at me while I've got mortars that fire explosive incendiary shot.  It was pretty much like beating up a 2 year old.   

[Murgos]

Just try and leave the nose attached to the Sphinx this time pls.

[Paelos]

The stupid region trades seem to pop out of nowhere. France wanted me to trade the Huron Territory for Newfoundland and apparently some beads. I'm like, yeah I'm going to give up a huge chunk of land right in the middle of my NA Empire that generates 5k a turn for a crappy island with a dock? Of course if you counter with anything remotely reasonable, they piss on it and set it on fire.

[Brolan]

Fortunately the Ai seems clueless about amphibious invasions so the war had no real effect on me.

Speaking of amphibious invasions, has anyone invaded the Barbary pirates yet?  I did yesterday, and this is the first non-European power I've fought.  Jesus, it's like they were still playing M:TW.  They're sending swordsmen at me while I've got mortars that fire explosive incendiary shot.  It was pretty much like beating up a 2 year old.   

I've beaten up on the Pirates, and their land forces aren't much better.  Just a mob with swords and muskets.

[Big Gulp]

The stupid region trades seem to pop out of nowhere. France wanted me to trade the Huron Territory for Newfoundland and apparently some beads. I'm like, yeah I'm going to give up a huge chunk of land right in the middle of my NA Empire that generates 5k a turn for a crappy island with a dock? Of course if you counter with anything remotely reasonable, they piss on it and set it on fire.

France wanted me to trade the Rhineland for Ceylon and Newfoundland.  I have to admit that I was actually tempted, since those would give me easy footholds into two different theaters where I have no presence.  I turned it down, though.  The Rhineland is just too productive a province.

[kildorn]

Spain wanted to buy France from me for a trade agreement and a 550 gold one time payment. 

And next turn it wanted France in exchange for 5 random territories scattered around the ass end of nowhere with no expansion or strategic value.

And they constantly refuse my attempts to just bribe a trade agreement out of them.

[Yoru]

Prussia wanted to trade me East Prussia for Courland.

East Prussia is a major city/port with a large population and wealth base. Courland is the shithole fishing strip next door.

Of course, I took it. 

[Rasix]

I mostly get offers that are staight up insulting.  As the Maratha Confederacy, I've just destroyed the Mughal Empire.  So, I pretty much control the entire Indian subcontinent without the portions that I'll have to war Portugal and those other whities that control the island off the southern coast.  And yet, people want payments of all my gold or want to throw in ridculous land deals for a simple trade agreement.   I am very rich, have pretty secure borders, have an amazing tech machine going, and can probably kick anyone's ass without the benefit of a navy.  And yet I get no respect from anyone but England who just sees "TEA! YAH TEA!".

I'm enjoying the game a lot, but have no idea what I'm supposed to do with trade ships.  I don't see what their purpose is as I already see little ships moving around my trade routes.

Also, I've pretty much had mixed results with artillery.  I really don't know how to use it effectively at all.  It did come to the rescue once when I grossly misjudged how pouring through a breach in a wall would go.  Enemy swarmed and I got wiped out due to shear numbers.  Moving two cannons and firing cannister shot into the breach saved the day.  Took some of my surviving men with it in the process, but the siege was a success and I had less upkeep the next turn 

Still, they've made little difference so far on the battle field. Are there ways I should be posititioning and using my artillery to have their presence really shift things in my favor other than trying to find ways to use cannister shot without killing my own men or leaving the cannons open for a charge?

[Big Gulp]

idea what I'm supposed to do with trade ships.  I don't see what their purpose is as I already see little ships moving around my trade routes.

Trade ships are useful in the tiny little "trade zones" like Southeast Asia, Madagascar, and Brazil.  Basically you take over a little trade port and you get access to whatever they've got.  For Africa it tends to be ivory, for SE Asia it's pepper.  Just one of those trade routes grants you around 500 gold per turn, but it also bumps up the already established trade routes you have set up.  My advice would be to create a small but effective combat navy with some 2nd/3rd rate ships of the line and use them to escort some merchant men.  Use your combat navy to chase out any pirates/enemy nations on one of those ports and slap a merchant man on it.  Trust me, the money adds up quickly.

Also, I've pretty much had mixed results with artillery.  I really don't know how to use it effectively at all.  It did come to the rescue once when I grossly misjudged how pouring through a breach in a wall would go.  Enemy swarmed and I got wiped out due to shear numbers.  Moving two cannons and firing cannister shot into the breach saved the day.  Took some of my surviving men with it in the process, but the siege was a success and I had less upkeep the next turn 

Still, they've made little difference so far on the battle field. Are there ways I should be posititioning and using my artillery to have their presence really shift things in my favor other than trying to find ways to use cannister shot without killing my own men or leaving the cannons open for a charge?

With cannon I usually set them up in the middle of my formation, and I create a "1" and "2" group of infantry.  I position them on either side of the cannons and sort of sweep them forward in a "V" shape depending on how the enemy is coming at me.  I basically think of the center of the V as the killing ground for the artillery.  If the enemy gets real close switch them to canister shot.

As soon as you can pump out mortars, do so.  Mortars have the advantage of tossing their rounds up in a high trajectory so you can place infantry right in front of them, unlike cannon.  Also, as soon as you get carcass shot (basically napalm) switch over to that.  It's great at destroying enemy morale.

Also, if you're going to go with artillery you either have to go big or go home.  One or two artillery pieces don't really amount to much.  Six of them?  Oh my, yes, that's impressive.  Especially if you direct their fire on one specific area/unit (ie, turn off "fire at will") you can channel enemy formations where you want them to go or just royally fuck up huge portions of their formation and cause mass routing, which is when you can use your cavalry to run 'em down.

[HaemishM]

I'm way behind in the naval arena as Austrai, because I've only just started building up a navy. I've got Denmark on one side fucking with me because those Vikings know how to sail and have ships of the line, and I'm stuck with Brigs and sloops. On the other side, I have the Ottomans, who have a decent navy but apparently don't care to protect their land holdings with anything but militia.

Just read that CA is doing another hotfix patch this week to fix a lot of coding/crashing problems. They are also working on a gameplay update for a few weeks from now that will include AI fixes, and the kind of stuff we're talking about that needs changing (diplomacy, artillery, etc.) They plan on doing a cycle of hotfixes, followed by big gameplay updates followed by little hotfixes etc.

[Big Gulp]

Oh, and just to share, as Prussia I'm now in an alliance with France, Spain, and the Ottoman empire.  France got into a war with England, and like a dutiful ally I sent in the troops.  I'm now in control of England (but not Scotland or Ireland), but I think it's more trouble than it's worth.  The rebellions are constant, and I have to keep feeding my army there additional troops from the continent just to keep the pasty bastards under my Teutonic thumb.

The thing is, it's like having a wolf by the ears.  If I hold on to England I'm at least facing a severely hobbled enemy, but I have to constantly beat the populace down.  If I give up and let the rebels take back their territory I'm facing a still royally pissed off England with a daunting navy and a worldwide empire.  Also there's the Dutch to consider, they're really buddy buddy with England and not too happy about me.  Sooner or later I'll have to deal with them, but I'd rather not have to keep funneling troops to England when they're a closer enemy.

ETA:  What do you guys think about destroying every improvement in England and just abandoning the territory?  At the very least it keeps them hobbled, and frees me up to deal with the Dutch.

[HaemishM]

Salting the earth is not a very 18th century tactic. 

[Paelos]

Steam updated my game today with a patch for some crashing issues. We'll see if the performance improves. I'll admit I haven't logged in much because the game hasn't really engaged me lately after I've worked my way up to God-like might and gold flowing from the heavens. It's the same problem I had with Rome in that I knew exactly when I was going to win the game. This game only bothers me in that the victory conditions have territories at the ass end of the universe for me to grab.

[kildorn]

If you can't make them happy in england, raze the school and turn it into a bawdy house. I've occasionally blown up schools because the clamor for reform was too hard to control.

Carcass shot never works for me. Ever. Fucking shit just airbursts, doesn't kill a goddamned thing, and nobody seems to run from it even after a good five minutes of hammering.

[Paelos]

Razing is one of the best things to do in this version to restabilize your region. I took over the French region, which had like 8-9 different towns on it. The AI had 5 of them set as Catholic seminaries?!? Considering I'm Protestant I burned them to the ground and put those lazy bastards to work in my mills and taverns.