1.03 game-play praise. Some good words for CA for a change.

[Xipe Totec]

I was just attacking Savoy as the French in 1740, having just discovered quick lime I expected no problems as I had 7 batteries of large howitzers. Not really the usual plan but they just DOW'ed on me unexpectedly after 40 years of peaceful trading while I was fighting in Spain, G.B. and Prussia. I had just built a load of large howitzers to send off to each front to replace the regular howies so I scraped a stack together to hit Savoy before they could start burning my modern universities etc.

I moved the army to attack from the flank of ther initial deployment to wipe out their artillery from where they could not shoot back, trapped in their gay little baskets. So far so good. Then because of the terrain, buildings etc., and the need to avoid dragging my artillery over their not invisible spiky deathtraps and gay baskets which are instant death to howitzers moving over them, I had to move my whole army parallel to the AI line. Aarghh! Talk about red rag to a bull. As soon as you present a load of flanks or rears of infantry to AI cavalry it of course charges. I had seven units of cavalry charging simultaneously at my moving infantry, behind which I had all the artillery moving along limbered up and vulnerable as hell. I quickly formed my infantry up into squares and managed to just hold off the cavalry, and then the moment I was impressed by the AI strategy! Lo and behold the AI line infantry and militia also attacked as well in a rational manner and shot up my squares. Of course I managed to win in the end because their army was half militia and yeomanry, and Savoy was donated to my ever growing Italian States ally as a counter-weight to Austrian ambitions. But it was nice to see the AI reacting well and aggressively to the battlefield situation, in a seemingly co-ordinated manner. Cavalry heavy armies are often the most challenging due to the speed and unpredictability of the attacks, and I always hate when they get into my artillery and scare off the horses.