French woes

[Braden]

First foray into Empire and I dove strait into a French campaign without reading any of the guides!

Now, I’m really not very long into this one (at all) and already I’ve managed to alienate nearly the entire world. Why? Well, I am simply not used to this level of management and being used to Rome and Medieval does not prepare you for the intricate web of alliances that are already there at the start of a game.

So…without checking the Diplomatic screen…I attack Flanders. It should be French right? (lol) So, now I am hated nearly universally. EVEN the Spanish hate me.

Still, I’m managing to turn things around very slowly. However, without Dragoons yet (as I only had one school to start with) and using as much manpower as I can to defeat the Dutch, means Flanders had serious unrest issues (had to move the army North to deal with the remaining Dutch forces) and that caused Dutch rebels to sprout last night with a half stack of Militia. I have noticed in the two battles against them…they have extraordinary morale…sure they rout but the units keep coming back! I fought two battles against this stack with my main force (which contains three companies of Line Infantry with triple-chevrons) and in each one I believe I’ve won only to get a nasty shock as two or three nearly complete units turn up again after rallying.

*sigh*

All this has severely stunted not only my research but economic growth as I’ve not had the free cash to upgrade money producing areas, or even send out Indiamen to trade spots. Spain has roughly defeated my admittedly weak Mediterranean fleet so I have no presence there now. Wuttenberg declared on me last night but I took great pleasure in killing them off quite rapidly with my Southern army.

The Iroquois also declared war on me and took Upper Quebec (think its that one..on the spur?) but I took it back the next turn with my minimal force there thankfully.

NOTE: Potential Ver.1.5 bug: The enemy Iroquois fielded five units – 1 x General cavalry, 2 x archer & 2 x melee. However, each unit arrived on the battlefield ALONE as if it was a re-enforcement. Lucky for me but a long battle to fight! Lol Yes, it was a single stack I attacked not a stack with a nearby settlement…even if it was…there weren’t 5 possible permutations of stacks anywhere.

The main problem I face now is unrest. Not only in Flanders (GOD, IT’S A ROYAL PAIN!!) but at home…the home unrest is due to my, now many, naval defeats I believe. I’ve reduced taxes a bit, have exempted Wuttenberg and Flanders from Tax for now and I hope to re-enter the Mediterranean with a larger fleet (still only 2 x Fifth Rates + Sloops in it though) to gain a victory there.

Any suggestions on unrest for early France? Think it’s going to be 3-4 turns to research Dragoons so do I just fill cities with Militia?

Unrest has got to the point of the upper class writing me letters. I really don’t want a revolution this early (I’m only 4-5 turns into the game).

Settings are Hard campaign / VH battles.

…I guess, in short, I should have read the Archived guide!

[Fisherking]

Boy! Are you going to be disappointed!

France only has Dragoons if they are recruited outside of Europe. The closest place to get them is Morocco.

You get no light dragoons at all.

Before you go sending out Indiamen, you had better defeat the Pirates or you will need a fleet of 3rd rates to protect them.

Yep! Spain hates you for taking Flanders from them and stabbing them in the back. Everyone else already hated you, now it is only a little worse.

You are going to have to kill Spain, or at least take Madrid and Gibraltar away. You have a long row to hoe.

All the best of luck pulling it off.

[Braden]

Ahh..ok, reading about "Dragoons" and their aid in garrisoning must be faction specific.:embarassed:

I have a medium sized fleet ready to go protect the Indiamen so hopefully pirate activity will be lessened...or rather their impact on me.

Hmmm…I'm considering just promoting a Revolution to Republic status as fast as I can. Everyone already hates me so that won’t change but at least I’ll get the public order and research boosts from Republican status!

I’ll look tonight and see what I can do. If things are teetering on the edge I’ll empty my Capital and join the revolutionaries….way to change history huh? Revolution nearly 100 years early.

Have worked out why Flanders is such a pain…it’s a religion thing.

[Fisherking]

What is typical is for the Dutch to Dow on Spain on turn one.

The Dutch will take Flanders in a few turns and you grab it form their emaciated army.

Meanwhile the Spaniards have converted all those pesky protestants to the true faith.

The turn after you squash the Dutch scum and the unrest is in the Netherlands...

but you took a short cut...:oops:


:laugh4:

Every other European Nation and the Americans have Dragoons and Light Dragoons.

For some unfathomable reason, CA decided the French would not have Dragoons in Europe or light dragoons at all.

Austria has a similar problem. Even though all Austrian Jaegers had rifles in all their units (between 40% to 60%) the Austrian army only has two units of air rifles. CA took away all their other rifles after v-1.1.
:dizzy2:

[peacemaker]

My french campaigns tend to go like this:

Sell everything in North America
Build up a huge army
Invade the german minors
Make a trade fleet
Invade North America again, and take the Caribbean islands
????
profit


The starting alliances in this game and such are extremely intricate-The first thing I do on ANY new nation is i always check who's who, and then decide what I want to do with what I have.

[Braden]

Well lesson learnt here! The position is salvagable due to me being a person and not a computer so I can pretty much beat 3:1 odds every time on the battlefield.

Next phase is: French Revolution...in turn 5 :dizzy2:

:laugh4:

[Braden]

Long Live the French Revolution of….1705…*cough*

Last night I took Amsterdam and eliminated the Dutch entirely. Then, in a planned move, I instigated a peoples revolution which went quite well.

Side note on Revolution. The general Empire guide is unclear about the best way to proceed. It recommends emptying your capital of its army but states to remove it from your capitals region (rather than just the capital city itself). Now this worked for me but not in the way I thought. I imagined that, in accordance to the guide, all other areas would be FoW’d but this is wrong. Although I didn’t check America, I could still see my European provinces and my forces there. In addition to this, as I had no army in France the Ai spawned a revolutionary army for me next to Paris (of a decent size too, if not of good quality) which was far more than I needed to take the capital from the single company of loyalists I left there. Also, my other armies such as those in Amsterdam remained LOYALIST until after I took the capital.

Version 1.5 change perhaps? Just a bit odd.

UNFORTUNATELY however, and I would imagine due to my new Republican status, Great Britain decided to declare war on me and blockade my trade routes immediately.

GAH!! I have not proceeded another turn after this yet but due to it the new Revolutionary Council are flat broke! Lol…ZERO funds. Luckily I actually managed to win some naval battles and I have the victorious fleet on its way to break one of the blockades (Calais). So we’ll see.

However with GB openly at war with France now I really see things are up against the wall…still, I’m only less than 10 turns into the game…I can bring it round.

In other news I’m disturbed about exploding ships in naval battles. So far I’ve fought perhaps 5 battles and in two of them I’ve had ships explode.

The first one was sort of understandable as it was near the end of the fight so it’s quite possible a fire would have been set by then and reached the magazine but last night was very odd indeed. My admirals ship (well only a 5th rate but it’s the best I can put out!) is ahead of the rest of my fleet, we’re all line abreast and the line is turning to present our port side to the front of the enemies 4th rate….I was hoping that my weight of numbers would work (and it did!)…with the 4th rate was a galley, nothing fancy.

The galley fires its first salvo into the side of my admirals ship and !!BOOM!!, it just blows up?!?...first salvo…

Do ships seem to explode more than sensible in Ver. 1.5?

As to the French game itself, I’ll try to turn things around over the next few days (mucho trimming of military budget for starters). If I can’t get positive income or the Ai keeps spamming GB ships to blockade me (much the same I guess) then I’ll have to put my hands up and say:

“I’ve lost my first ever Total War campaign”

[Zarky]

What you experienced is the wrath of Galleys...
In auto-resolve they always lose, but if you fight battles yourself they are annoying. First of all the exploding ships, that happens because ships have all their gunpowder stored in one location, hit there and it's KABOOM. Galleys hit this location much easier because their guns fire from lower position and usually hit much lower than other ships, and the gunpowder is stored somewhere near waterline, not to mention hitting the waterline might cause ship to start taking in water and suddenly sink 4 mins after being hit, which I learned the hard way.
Other thing is that they are so small they are often hard to hit (this problem seems to be much bigger when firing from max range and with ships with less guns such as sloops and brigs).
My personal suggestion is to have your weakest ship go first and board the bastard since they have only 19 men and capturing one also gives you some 380-400 cash which can be well spent on repairs.

[Braden]

Thanks for the info. Had problems with Galleys before in the game being able to turn without wind!

In the end I surrounded the galley with 3 of my ships and just grape-shot it to bits.

got 1,500 at the end of the battle but that only just replaces the ship blown up. :laugh4:

Now have Gravy's naval combat guide which looks like it'll help me millions.

[Fisherking]

I thought that CA had said that they had reduced the chance of that happening?

I had a ship explode too and at a significant range also and it was not shot by a galley but a galleon. It was a sloop, which don’t explode so often and it was the first damage the ship had taken.

Galleys have been nerffed considerably over the life of the game and as their firepower is now listed as 0 I guess I am a bit surprised...but it is good they still have some power to them.


It also looked like they may have slightly increased the blast radius of those explosions.

I don’t have any complaints about it, it is just a matter of knowing what to expect.

[Braden]

Well, when GB declared war on me and started to blockade my trade and ports it was the end. The few remaining nations declared war on me, even those I’d had no contact with (such as those in India!).

Few more turns in and I just couldn’t dig out of the trench.

The final straw as a big British fleet of 12 ships, at least 4 4th rate, defeating my best fleet in the Atlantic (only 6 ships including 2, 6th rate). We did our best, captured two of the British 4ths but the weight of numbers and quality was just too much.

Total War beat me!

I have restarted the campaign, this time I’m doing as the Ver.1.0 guide advises more or less. The Huron have declared war on me, not an issue as I have Line Infantry in Canada already, I’ve entered Iroquois territory but I note…oddly…that the mission requires me to make war on the Cherokee as well, one of the provinces Louisiana wants me to takes is in their hands.

Sweden refuses an alliance…just won’t entertain the idea even though they like me LOTS.

Marching into Wuttenberg prompted them to sue for peace without a fight (I took their tech plus a large cash sum back with me to France, should have asked them to become a Protectorate). Now I need to rebuild relations with Bavaria and Austria who are still, officially, at war with me. Savoy is silent so far but I’m guarding my borders well.

So, some changes from Ver.1.0 but nothing drastic so far. At least I’m in 1705 already!

Still plan on going Republic but not for another 10 years at least if I can avoid it.