Go Savoy!

[Skott]

In my Prussia campaign the little country of Savoy (Turin) has invaded France and captured Paris! I'm not sure who originally attacked who but Savoy has three armies (2 full stacks and 1 half stack) in France and kicking the Frenchie's butts good. This just leaves Alasce-Lorraine in French posession but I'm about to relieve them of it. Has anyone else seen Savoy expand and conquor before? First I have seen them of doing it. Kinda funny.

[Megas Methuselah]

Well, that's interesting. In one of my campaigns, Savoy had lost its capital region to France (but still survived as I had gifted Sardinia to it much earlier).

In any case, it is interesting because Savoy was the power that united Italy (which makes me wish we could switch our capitals) in the mid 1800's.

[Fisherking]

Interesting development.

I have not seen it happen in any of mine so far. I don’t know what they did to get the cash to build all that.

Any ideas what else they did in that game?

[Monsieur Alphonse]

I have seen that once. And Wurtenberg has destroyed France also once. But France has also taken Savoy on a coupe of occasions. Sometimes late in the game the French are starting to expand into southern Germany and Northern Italy, but most of the time they stay at home drinking wine and make like rabbits. That is why they end up with such an enormous population.

[Azlahn]

If you play as France, there's a 99,9% chance the Savoy(t)ards will attack you at some point, unless of course you attack them first. Never thought they would actually have a chance though :P

[Tora]

Minor states seem ridiculously over-powerful at times. In my Ottoman campaign, after assisting them to ward off a Russian invasion, it's 1707 and the Crimean Khanate has taken 2 Russian provinces and is invading a third, while I'm strolling to St Petersburg with impunity, meeting minimal resistance.
Yet to combat Georgia I've had to build 2 forts on the border to keep them out and still havent been able to build a big enough force to take Tblisi, despite wiping out 3 full stacks they've sent into my territory.
I'm desperately trying to take them out before Dagestan decides to join in, having bad memories of taking them both on in my now deceased Russian campaign, when they always seemed to have twice as many armies than me despite only having one production city apiece.

[JRCDave]

I agree that the minor powers are a little too powerful. They should be a challenge but not game changers vs major powers. I would like to see more coop in diplomatic moves with minor powers. More options to enter into allied campaigns against major powers. Options to attack an enemy or province for a certain number of turns or options to move armies to city x in x turns. The strategic options would be useful. Threaten city x with allied army y causing power A to move forces to cover city x. Move your armies to cover the hole left. This might be too complicated for the code writers.

I would also like to see an option to pick which of your allies to go to war with instead of all of them. The strong German states are useful as an early game buffer between France and Prussia or Austria if you are playing as Prussia or Austria. This allows you to have a one- or two front war instead of fending off France too.

[andrewt]

The problem is that each faction has a base "other income" of around 3000 (I've seen only 3000 but others might have some other value). This works like the king's purse used to. Also, money from trade is only lightly proportional to number of provinces. So states with only 1 province have too much money in comparison with larger states, who have to build spread out forces.

[Skott]

I sent rakes into France just to see what was going on. Apparently Savoy invaded for whatever reason. Like I said I dont know who originally attacked who because I was concentrating on taking over Italy at the time and wasnt paying attention to France, who I was friendly with and in a trade agreement. Anyway once I saw some smoke coming from a burning town I sent in rakes to investigate. By the time my rakes got in there Savoy had three armies going around looting and burning. French armies were more or less ignoring it too. There was one French army in Paris, two armies in Alasce-Lorraine, one army in western France where the English channel and Atlantic meet, and the French had an army down in Eastern Spain for some odd reason. France and Spain were allied.

About three turns after I got my rakes in place to observe the goings on one Savoy army took Paris. At that point the French armies in France began to get active and actively seek out the Savoy armies but they lost every fight against Savoy. After a couple of turns the French only had one badly beat army left in Alasce-Lorraine I then declared war on France and took Alasce-Lorraine thus destroying the French nation for good.

I quickly made a trade agreement and alliance with Savoy for 10,000 and took Flanders, Lombardy, Naple, and Sardinia from Spain. Which is where my campaign is so far. Savoy controls Savoy and France and allied to me and Spain is awaiting my assault. I may however go after France and Savoy first and then move onto Spain itself. I'll have to wait and see if Spain accepts a cease fire first or not.

I just find it amusing little Savoy took on and captured France. I've never seen Savoy do that before. Past times they just sit there and happily move their little armies around Savoy until attacked.

[Walrus]

As unfair and unrealistic it might seem, i quite like the minor nations standing some kind of chance of survival. Remember ETW isnt just about re-enacting the 1700's, its about creating a new version of history. Imagine a world where Savoy actually had mustered its troops and marched on Paris?
I wish things like that happened in my games. My GB campaign is in 1780 and the other major powers have done precious little. Europe looks exactly the same apart from me owning most of the east side of it, Maratha took India and have just been sitting there since, and in America my armies just march around unmolested - I would love to see some more interesting and ambitious AI conquests/attempts.

[Beskar]

I seen a game where Sweden invaded conquered Poland, Austria, Denmark and Russia. (Prussia is just sat there with Berlin and West Prussia).

In another game, Italian States conquered the entire Italy area except for Savoy which France owns and Spain keeps sending tons and tons of stacks at Italy via Savoy or even going around the other side.

[Jacque Schtrapp]

Around turn 40 of my VH/VH Prussian campaign, I received notification that the French faction had been destroyed. Since I was a bit busy with wars against Austria, Poland, Sweden, Bavaria, Courland, Russia and GB, I hadn't been paying attention to that part of the map. Wurttemberg was in control of France and Alsace, there were rebels in Upper and Lower Lousiana as well as the Windward Islands while UP had French Guyana. I'm not sure what sequence of events caused three provinces to rebel. The problem now is that since one region factions are so aggressive (but with limited funding), Wurttemberg has three fairly rich provinces and is now popping up with large armies all over the place.

[anweRU]

When a nation is destroyed, its colonies either rise as new nations (Quebec in, well, Quebec when France is destroyed) or as generic rebels.

[Kobal2fr]

I sent rakes into France just to see what was going on. Apparently Savoy invaded for whatever reason. Like I said I dont know who originally attacked who because I was concentrating on taking over Italy at the time and wasnt paying attention to France, who I was friendly with and in a trade agreement. Anyway once I saw some smoke coming from a burning town I sent in rakes to investigate. By the time my rakes got in there Savoy had three armies going around looting and burning. French armies were more or less ignoring it too. There was one French army in Paris, two armies in Alasce-Lorraine, one army in western France where the English channel and Atlantic meet, and the French had an army down in Eastern Spain for some odd reason. France and Spain were allied.

About three turns after I got my rakes in place to observe the goings on one Savoy army took Paris. At that point the French armies in France began to get active and actively seek out the Savoy armies but they lost every fight against Savoy. After a couple of turns the French only had one badly beat army left in Alasce-Lorraine I then declared war on France and took Alasce-Lorraine thus destroying the French nation for good.

I quickly made a trade agreement and alliance with Savoy for 10,000 and took Flanders, Lombardy, Naple, and Sardinia from Spain. Which is where my campaign is so far. Savoy controls Savoy and France and allied to me and Spain is awaiting my assault. I may however go after France and Savoy first and then move onto Spain itself. I'll have to wait and see if Spain accepts a cease fire first or not.

I just find it amusing little Savoy took on and captured France. I've never seen Savoy do that before. Past times they just sit there and happily move their little armies around Savoy until attacked.

Whenever I play France, Savoy always, always declares war sooner rather than later, especially if I send the starting northern army to the New World. My new strat is to just rollercoast the tartiflette eating bastards on turn three or four, since they're allied with no one at first (or maybe Austria, but Austria is far away, and they get into a succession war with France whenever Louis XIV dies anyway).

The other advantage is that puts me closer to Genoa/Corsica (another campaign objective, although that one can wait a while), gives me a port on the Med, and gets me closer to my Spanish allies in Northern Italy.

In fact, I thing that's a rather good strategy for whichever small faction you need to take out as your campaign goals, no matter your nation : take them out ASAP, taking advantage of your larger troop production capability before money becomes the equalizer.

[Skott]

From my experiences France usually has a large enough army to deal with someone like Savoy. From what I could see with my rakes they just ignored what Savoy was doing until Paris fell and that was their downfall. The AI just let Savoy all over France for whatever reason I guess.

[Ordani]

From my experiences France usually has a large enough army to deal with someone like Savoy. From what I could see with my rakes they just ignored what Savoy was doing until Paris fell and that was their downfall. The AI just let Savoy all over France for whatever reason I guess.

Most AI factions do nothing the majority of time in most games. Every now and then whatever conjunction of heavens required to wake the AI up occurs and one faction will steamroll everyone around them, who will be busy sipping cognac half-asleep in the pilothouse until someone kicks in the door.