I just lost two major battles! huzzah!

As the title says I just lost two major battles playing as the Britains. One was my first conflict with the Huron. Though I read threads here with sufficant warnings they gave me a first defeat like so many players encountered in the previous days.*

Simultanously I invaded france ( allied war thing made me go to war with france - my objectives are offcourse their oversea territories but I had the cash left over so I invaded france with the objective to do economical damage )

My nearly full stack of line infantry and cavalry got attacked by a slightly bigger stack of infantry, artillery and cavalry but most importantly two heavy cavarly. These guys made me loose the cavalry war on the flanks thus resulting in a very close defeat.

I am building new stacks and next time I will probably win, both due to my own experience and better armies next time around.


But I am happy the AI gave me not one but two defeats. I really can't remember playing any TW series for the past 5-6 years where I wouldn't be certain of winning or loosing with a simple look at both enaging armies and the map where the battle was to be fought. Offcourse over time this will be the same in ETW but I'm happy it isn't, yet.

* I mainly ignored other player's warnings because I want to know how you get defeated typical by natives, in order to come up with a 'cure' myself.



On a funny side note when GB and France went to war GB had almoast no combat fleet, while france had it all. Am spawning 4th rates at 2 per 3 turns now so that will soon be over but still, funny thought.



Thank you for reading :smash:


Kulgan

I've only had one major defeat and that was against Pirates. I attacked their final region with a force made up of mostly Line Inf with some canon and a general. They had mobs, cavalry and buccaneers. They made a clever two pronged attack (i guess offence is the best form of defence!) with good use of cover and vegetation. Their mobs fought much better than I expected and in the end they were able to roll up my force from both flanks. I was impressed and its a shame the AI isn't usually that clever.

Pirate infantry are wicked good in a melee. Never, ever underestimate them. :dizzy2:

what difficulty were u on. i was losing battles on hard but on normal i seem to will too easily.

anyone know the difference at each difficulty setting yet?

I forgat to mention the difficulty. I'm playing on VH/VH .

Thank you


Kulgan

I don't know about H, but the AI gets stat bonuses on VH battles. Because of that, I play H/H.

*sigh of relief* So I am not the only one. :embarassed:

Being Austria I lost a full stack against those darn Prussians.

The encounter has been between a Prussian full stack full of line infantry, 2 cavalry and their general against my stack of line infantry, some militia, 2 pikes and four (too many?) artillery pieces.
Due to the 200 men Austrian line infantry my line was much longer than the AI, but they punched right through my centre and decimated it before I could bring all units on the flanks within firing range.
My artillery failed to score any substantial kills, thanks to bad positioning and no grapeshot, and stood useless on the sidelines.

Battle ended with a bloody melee mess and almost my entire army wiped out.

Next turn I decide to send a 2nd rate militia half-stack against the surviving Prussians before the AI simply reinforces their weakened units and is as strong as before. That kind of worked, but the battle was lost in the end as well.

Therefore, in 2 turns I sent 3/4 of my entire army through the meat grinder. :skull: :oops:

Susanna/Calapine :pokemon:

the paris region is just too big to mess with. if u are lucky enough to take it then by god give it to an ally in exchange for tech or money, its just too vast to hold and far too expensive. i lost a few battles vs french in my early dutch campaign because reinforcements came from all directions, and eventually had to focus on their foreign holdings and blockaded to weaken them with bankruptcy and rebellion

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Susanna

Due to the 200 men Austrian line infantry my line was much longer than the AI, but they punched right through my centre and decimated it before I could bring all units on the flanks within firing range.

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I had essentially the exact same experience against the Prussians. Unfortunately the large but weak Austrian line infantry means that the Austrian line is almost always going to be longer than their enemy's, but dangerously brittle. I find the battle usually comes down to whether I can roll up the enemy's flanks before my center collapses. As you suggest, grapeshot helps greatly with this, grenadiers also to sneak in and lob grenades while the enemy are tiring themselves out mowing down my line infantry.

Just had my first big loss (which I wasn't expecting) last night as well, VH/VH.

I was playing as those darn Prussians, in a war with Austria, Poland-Lithuania (and protectorates), and Hannover. Wasn't quite used to the diplomacy on VH yet :inquisitive:.

Anyway, I had taken Saxony already and wanted to taken Hannover to secure my western flank before I turned south into Austria. I marched in with 8 units of line infantry, 4 of assorted cavalry including 2 of lancers, and 3 demi-cannon (building the appropriate cannon factory for 12-lbr foot right now)

I got utterly schooled! Wasn't expecting it at all. They had 6 or so cavalry, 12 infantry (mostly militia), and another 3 militia in reserve. I thought my line infantry would take care of them, but I never got a chance to get my lancers into the mix, they were too busy with the cavalry battles on the flanks. And those stupid immobile cannon, they were getting in potshots but never enough to turn the tide. The cavalry canceled each other, and everyone on a horse was routing by about 1/2 way through. I had to fall back THREE times, the first two were spots with walls for good coverage, I had my flanks covered and everything, and the AI still got around me. The last was a last stand at the base of the hill where my main artillery battery was. And even BETTER, the AI was smart enough to bring the garrisoned units out of the houses for a last push. Just when I thought I might have fought off everyone, here come 2 fresh units of 120 militiamen each to put the last nail in my coffin. My general got out with 4 bodyguards, and about 50 line infantry left.

Of course, I was pissed off last night. But I'm glad I'm getting a run for my money, even if it is early-game before I've pulled ahead in tech.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Feanaro

Pirate infantry are wicked good in a melee. Never, ever underestimate them. :dizzy2:

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Pirate armies have always seemed the most creative to me in battle. One Battle they split up into a town and made excellent use of cover by fortifying buildings and guarding choke points. By the time I pushed them out of the town, I lost a lot of line infantry. They will split up forces and hit me at different angles. They seem to react more to what I am doing and this makes fighting them more fun. Too bad they are almost wiped out in my latest campaign.

actually come to think of it when i said i found N much more easier that H all my H battles were against pirates and yes i do remeber them really have some super tactics using cover, flanking, the only battle i won agsint them was a pretty close victory and i havd to assault one town 3 times before i won in the end. so maybe it was more to do with the apparently more intelligent pirates than the battle difficulty

Pirates to me also have been the hardest fights, they just seem to fight in hand to hand so well even their Pirate mobs. I gave up trying to attack them and went to India instead where the fighting has been far easier :2thumbsup:

(I'm playing on H/H.)

The AI also gets stat bonuses on Hard, but I think they are small...

This comes from my observations of 1v1 identical unit fighting in custom battles. In Medium (Normal), it is 50-50 split on who wins. On Hard the AI will always win, but only just (it is not just down to Morale as the AI will have always caused a few more casualties). On very Hard (Expert) the AI will kill your troops at a rate of 2:1 and always win pretty quickly.

This is with basic Line Infantry...

I am impressed with anyone taking the AI on with significantly fewer numbers on VH. Especially the Native American factions as they tend to move directly to melee combat.

I like Hard battle difficulty myself because you are forced to be tactical because on an even footing and a simple head to head fight you will tend to lose, or at the very least take very high casualties.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JeromeBaker

Pirate armies have always seemed the most creative to me in battle. One Battle they split up into a town and made excellent use of cover by fortifying buildings and guarding choke points. By the time I pushed them out of the town, I lost a lot of line infantry. They will split up forces and hit me at different angles. They seem to react more to what I am doing and this makes fighting them more fun. Too bad they are almost wiped out in my latest campaign.

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I haven't seen any creative tactics on M/M from them, they're just stinkin' good at mobbing my troops in a never ending brawl. The first battle I fought against them, they mostly died from cannon fire, on account of their hiding in buildings like little girls. The second, we had equal forces but half mine was militia. I almost won that one but my army routed.