Dutch Campaign abandoned in disgust

[anweRU]

Ouch! Sorry to hear that.

[AussieGiant]

Two points:

1) I think it's been discussed that in order to make the game hard, the AI would gang up on the player in the event the objectives stated are about to be reached by the player. Sounds like it did a good job to me.

2) Chess is the quintessential strategy game and probably the best of all time. If E:TW feels somewhat like a complicated for of Chess then I'd say we have a winner.

I'm pretty sure every ruler and statesman of the time would describe 18th Century Europe as a chess match.

I'm struggling to deal with consecutive posts that describe this game as too hard, or not hard enough.

[Didz]

Yeah! bit dissapointing.

I've had another look at the campaign options and as far as I can see (for the Dutch anyway) the only viable set of Victory Conditions is 'World Domination'. All the others including 'Prestige Victory' require the Dutch to declare war on every major trading power in the world, which is financial suicide.

'World Domination' requires the capture of 40 Provinces, but at least you have the freedom to pick which ones and can therefore keep the trade flowing whilst you do it.

The other thing thats dissappointing is that obviously trade is not mutually benficial to both parties, which it should be. As things stand factions can sit their with no trade partners and apparently suffer no ill effects which seems weird. Likewise, trading with a potential enemy ought to make them nore powerful not just you, which it doesn't seem to do at present.

Anyway, going to give the World Domination thing a wirl and see how gamey that gets. Just a bit dissppointed that the 'Short Campaign' is no longer an option as it has been my favourite with all the previous TW titles.

[TinCow]

In my UP campaign (VH/VH, currently in the mid 1760s) I went bankrupt at least half a dozen times due to wars interrupting my trade routes. I was getting so much income from trade in the East Indies and with Marathas, that a large fleet parked anywhere from Madagascar to the Bay of Biscay would swing me from 8k income to 6k deficit. Spain loved parking fleets there.

The way I handled it was to constantly bribe Spain to leave me alone. They would declare war, blockade the trade route, and I would go bankrupt. I'd find a way to get some money together (usually by undoing buildings that were in progress) and buying peace. This usually bought me about 4-5 turns of peace and normal income before Spain would declare war again. Rinse and repeat buying them out of the war. I pumped all my spare money for a long time into building a formidable fleet. Eventually, I had a large fleet of 2nd Rates ready to protect my trade lanes. When Spain declared war that time, I beat their navy to a pulp and proceeded to wage war against them with my income intact.

Lesson Learned: If your income is massively dependent on trade, you need to maintain a strong fleet at all times.