Holy damned Scotland is well defended!!

[Leviathan]

I'm currently in Chapter 4 of the Americas campaign.
Due to circumstances at the start of this chapter (attacking one of the adjacent Native tribes who happened to be allied with Britain), I've been at war with Britain since the start of the chapter, slowly kicking them out of the Americas (Nathaniel Green, Nine star general, has been very handy in that regard).
Now, once I had a few nice ports, I started trading with people in Europe. Trouble is, those trade routes run right past the UK, so Britain have been pirating them something shocking.

So I thought I'd send a few ships to deal with them... took out one GB fleet, and decided to pirate their routes rather than try to kill them.
This got me thinking.. why not invade?

So I built up another army (Nathaniels' army was still busy taking out the far northern outposts, and my southern army was holed up in Jamaica), guarded them with half a dozen third rates, and sent them to Europe.

I took Ireland pretty easily, one defensive stack (with twelve units of artillery), wiped it out, repaired, built a peacekeeping garrison, went on to attack Scotland.

Holy hell!
So far, before even reaching the capital, I've been attacked by four full stacks of units in Scotland, and had to retreat for repairs twice. All units are mixed Infantry/Cav/Arty, every unit at least one chevron of exp.

I know Scotland has the most awesome scenery ever and so GB would want to hold onto it as much as they can, but holy crap thats a lot of troops!

[Maladin]

I think it has something to do with the absence of naval transport. The AI just recruits and recruits and recruits until the province is filled with full stacks. And it does not help their line infantry is the best; that means you need even more troops to subdue the islands.

Funnily enough, when I attacked Great Britain as France, there was only one stack guarding the three provinces. I destroyed the faction in three turns without wasting time and men to garrison the cities... Of course, this led to the formation of Scotland and the return of Great Britain while I was stuck in Ireland.

The AI is just weird.

[Graphic]

I've been at war with Britain since the start of the chapter, slowly kicking them out of the Americas (Nathaniel Green, Nine star general, has been very handy in that regard).

My Nathan Greene kicks ass too :smash:

[Dayve]

It's because the AI can't transport units overseas on ships. If you notice in a grand campaign, Great Britain always has terrifying military power 100% of the time, whereas other nations may gain this power but never keep it for long. That's because Britain has a mega income from its empire and can afford to keep producing armies in Britain, where its best soldiers can be built in the largest numbers, but they can't do anything with them other than stand on the island.

Other nations build armies just as big and just as often, but they get into battles and lose soldiers so they never retain the terrifying military power 100% of the time like Britain does.

[nafod]

I was wondering if the British Isles were awash with full stacks just like a warless france and Spain. I figured they would be.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

In my Prussian campaign I thought that three stacks would be more then enough. I took London almost without a fight and then marched with two stacks to wards Scotland. Scotland was defended by a secret army of six stacks, hiding in the woods :oops:. I had to train a lot of infantry to beat them aided by the weak AI which sent those stacks one by one to raid England. So I was able to defeat them one by one and in the end I attacked Edinburgh with 13,000 men.

[Graphic]

This is why the lack of working naval invasions has totally sucked the fun out of the game for me. Hurry up CA!

[Skott]

Yeah, in my Prussia campaign I invaded GB too with three armies. First time I ever bothered to invade GB in one of my campaigns. Took London easily enough since it only had one full stack army defending it but as I moved up to hit Scotland four and a half stacks of Britain's best came after me. Talk about a blitz...:dizzy2: Anyway it was some serious fighting and nail biting there for a while but attrition won out in the end and I took Scotland. :yes: