Great Britain

[Monk]

Great Britain guides.

Please review the ToC before posting new guides.

[Fisherking]

V 1.5

Great Britain

Protestant, Constitutional Monarchy

Estimated Difficulty: Medium

Starting Regions:

Europe

England

Scotland

Ireland

North America

Rupert’s Land

Jamaica

Bahamas

Protectorates; The 13 Colonies (Trade & Ally)

Trade Partners and Allies

Sweden- Trade

Portugal- Trade & Ally

Austria- Ally

Hanover- Ally

United Provinces- Trade & Ally

Starting Enemies:

Pirates-At War

Barbary States- At War



First thing is to start your Research. I recommend researching the first Enlightenment Tech to upgrade your one school first before moving on to Farming and Military Techs.

Before considering what to do next optimize your Cabinet Ministers. You want your First Minister to have 4 or more stars if you can. This will help you in both Diplomacy and the Economy.

Once you have done the best you can do move on to the Diplomacy Menu and make all the trade agreements you can with the largest Factions you can. But try not to spend much on them. Further Allies are not very important to Great Britain in the first turn.

Your income should be up to about 6000 after this but you may want to consider exempting your North American Regions from taxes as they are all losing money. If you also think you can manage on less money then consider exempting Scotland & Ireland to promote population and economic growth.

Building farms are your best bet for early growth and upgrading the government buildings, especially in Rupert’s Land. Building troops there is also a good idea and perhaps promoting a General, because as soon as you hit end turn you are going to be at war with the Huron and Iroquois.

Combining your Fleets in American waters and taking on the Pirate Fleet between Cuba and Hispaniola is a good plan too. Capturing that fleet will give you a little extra cash and end its threat to your trade routs. As both fleets can not reach it move them as far as you can and send a single ship just into the edge of their intercept area. Your other ships should be in a position to reinforce and give you a victory. But for best results fight the battle and don’t leave it to auto resolve.

The rest depends on your victory conditions, difficulty level, and personal preferences.

War with Spain is inevitable, as you require Gibraltar and Florida at some point in time. One idea is to early on declare war on New Spain and avoid early war with France until the Huron are controlled.

Moving your home armies to Portugal can put you in position to capture Gibraltar early and disrupt Spanish military ship production in Europe.

There are chances of sea invasion if you don’t keep a good fleet in home waters or you neglect garrisoning your island holdings.

Not destroying the Pirates first thing can work to your advantage. Most factions will not have the fleets to fight for trade spots with them and if you build up before moving to the trade theaters or taking out the Pirates you will likely have better trade spots.

If you are decent in naval combat you can also earn an extra 1000 or more hunting them each turn but leave the ports alone until you are ready to strike.

Version 1.5 seems to spawn fewer Gentlemen than previous versions. Research will be important as always and suitable locations for schools is at a premium. Rupert’s Land will generate the first town. You may also destroy the church building at Oxford and build a school or move to the continent to capture them there. Do not be surprised if you have difficulty supplying schools with scholars.

Difficulty levels effect the speed of research as well as everything else.

Diplomacy has little effect in Hard or Very Hard settings, so if you enjoy periods of peace and diplomatic interchange it is best to play on Easy or Normal difficulty.


This is meant to be a guide and not a complete AAR for a Great Britain Campaign. Most of the decisions will be made by the player as the campaign develops and this is merely starting advice.

[kayapó]

I agree that normal campaign difficulty is the best way to have some kind of diplomacy. The downside is the without the ecomical bonuses the AI will have less units to field against a human that usually blitz.

My advice is for people to take their time. A human playing against the AI always cuts corners because we know what the AI can and can't do, so we neglect borders, we rush provinces that are empty etc etc. I find my campaigns to be more rewarding by playing on normal and using "house rules" to keep me from rushing the "dumb AI". I find it actually makes the game quite enjoyable.

[oz_wwjd]

Not destroying the Pirates first thing can work to your advantage. Most factions will not have the fleets to fight for trade spots with them and if you build up before moving to the trade theaters or taking out the Pirates you will likely have better trade spots.

Ttpically I blockade the pirates ports to prevent them building many ships until I have a big enough force to deal with them,then once I've finished them,move into the trade zones with enough ships to try to grab all the zones at once.

[Freedom Onanist]

Ttpically I blockade the pirates ports to prevent them building many ships until I have a big enough force to deal with them,then once I've finished them,move into the trade zones with enough ships to try to grab all the zones at once.

I tend to not cash in pirate and Spanish prizes. They are often the heavily armed merchant ship types. Instead I keep them as they are quite handy and capable of capturing trade nodes and defending them by themselves.

I always destroy the church at Oxford in the first turn to replace with a school. Let's get education shinning the light of Reason in the darkness of religious obscurantism Also, the UK doesn't seem to particularly need a church in any event.

Build up the economy, farms especially to start with. Pay for research and research innovations that will pay for themselves. The military ones are a secondary consideration really for me, certainly at the start, Britiswh line infantry is more than capable of dealing with any threats.

With a bit of deft diplomacy you can get most other nations to leave you alone for a while. Trade agreements are very useful of course. Once peace breaks down I find raiding keeps enemies off balance. Until recently I completely missed the ability to raid land trade routes, just plain didn't realise it was possible. As Britain you can usually find an undefended port or two in France and Spain and raid their overland trade routes. Well worth it. A bit of an exploit maybe because the AI doesn't seem to react very agressively to your raiders as long as they aren't too close to actual armies.

I also tend to palm off any conquests I don't want on erstwhile allies - after destroying all the infrastructure. Keeps them friendly and busy. So the UP got Morocco from me in the last game. If they keep it they are grateful to you. More likely it will bankrupt them and or they will have a rebellion ontheir hands pretty quickly.

[Malkut]

The UK is, of course, popular among English-speaking players, and is usually one of the first factions tried by them. In this game, that's kind of a problem, because the UK campaign involves fighting in all three major theaters and on the sea. Needless to say, it can get a little confusing.

A quick word on mods before we begin: if you disagree with the way the American colonies were handled, then download this. It removes the stupid "you must accomplish a mission before you can control your land" requirement for the UK, Spain, and France, and as far as I can tell, it works on the latest patch just fine.



FIRST STEPS:
Immediately burn down the church school in England, and start building a second college. As this is your capital region, there is very little chance of this causing unrest. Get your first college working on bayonets, and your second working on farming technology as soon as it's up. The reason I put bayonets first is that if you take my advice, you're about to be fighting a lot of melee.

Your second step should be to trade Moose Factory for something in India: preferably Ceylon, if you can get it.

Scrape together everything you can in England and Ceylon, and go straight after Mysore. Mysore is an awesome settlement; rich in resources, highly developed, it has a third school, and nobody's going to miss it if you want to eliminate it right now.

Be sure to combine both your North American fleets BEFORE you end your first turn. Pirates are lurking out there.

Assuming that France and Spain don't immediately declare war on you, go after the pirates and Cherokee early on. Eliminating the Pirates will give you stronger Caribbean trade; eliminating the Cherokee will bring you one step closer to controlling the Thirteen Colonies. Both are important to you right now.


THE FIRST WORLD WAR:

Your long-term goal is to fight the French-Spanish Catholic Alliance. Confronting them directly is difficult, owing to the fact that they are incredibly strong in Europe. So, do not try. Let Prussia and the Netherlands do all the messy continental fighting. Your job is much more important: waging a World War.

The wealth of both nations lies in their immense global empires and expansive trading networks. Those are your targets.

Keep a defensive force in London, but don't even bother attacking their homelands. It's not really worth it on any decent difficulty setting. Instead, concentrate on waging war in North and South America.

Prioritize the capture of New France. If you eliminated the Cherokee early, than this will give you your colonies. Eliminating those two Canadian settlements plus New Orleans might force France out of the war.

Spain's primary wealth is in the Caribbean islands, Florida, and Mexico. As such, your targets are more spread out and more difficult to hit. As a result, I suggest targeting France's holdings, first. In the meantime, remember to leverage your naval strength against their trade lanes and merchant ships.

If you take those colonies, than you'll have started the process of bleeding both nations dry. It's possible that you can negotiate a treaty with them at this point, and I suggest doing it. It will allow you to concentrate your forces on India, and besides, you can always return to destroy them both at your leisure.


OH, CALCUTTA!

It's entirely possible that you've chosen not to hold off on attacking India. While I don't really suggest fighting on two fronts, it's certainly possible in this case. Mysore is within reach of the Marthas capital, and a quick strike there could take a lot of the fight from them. However, they are also valuable early on as a trading partner, which you won't have very many of.

However, let's say you did hold off, and concentrated on North America. In this case, you're probably well ahead of the Marathas, technology wise. After all, you've had three schools since the very early days.

The choice is yours. In either case, your troops are going to be the better troops in this conflict. The only question is how much better you want them to be.

[DeathBUA]

Like others have said, Focus on research first.

Then focus on North and South America.

Don't bother invading Europe until you have a good chunk of North/South America and at minimum Mysore in India under your control.

And when you do invade mainland Europe I like the invading Portugal/Spain/Gibraltar route as it allows you to not have to watch your proverbial back and allows you to focus your attack in one direction.

[Bellicin]

Great pointers above, thanks for sharing!

I recently started a GB-campaign myself (H/H, but switched battlesettings to M quickly) and have made some real progress in the american theatre. Here are some random tips that might be helpful:

* The british navy is, much like it was historically, your backbone. Sure, you'll need a few armies on land here and there to take provinces but to reach your global goals as Great Britain you'll need a strong navy - or ten. My advice is to have at least one strong fleet (relative, depending on the opposition) in each theatre. Personally I've avoided war with the european nations and let my allies Austria and United Provinces down in quite a few conflicts just to avoid naval wars. This way my ships can make it to trading zones quite easily. When you do get into a war with France and/or Spain you can keep the upper hand from the start if you first destroy all their navies, and then blockade their ports. That way you'll also bleed them dry, since they won't get any tradeprofits from their colonies.

* Pirates can be a real nuissance for anyone, and as the british you have the pleasure of starting with two regions (Jamaica and Bahamas) close to their two home regions. If you want to gamble you can leave them be and hope that they do more damage to your enemies than to you. I was so annoyed with them myself that after a few raids I put together a large navy in the Caribbean ocean, beat theirs to a pulp and then landed forces on their islands and let them sleep with the fishes. Coincidently the french have a nice settlement (Martinique, I believe) in between the Pirates two islands so if you're already at war with France you might as well grab that region while you're at it. This way you have three dependable islands that give you a steady income and ports that let you send tradingfleets to the brazilian coast in just one turn.

* Mind your alliances - if you ally with some bloodthirsty nations like Prussia or Sweden and heed their calls for aid you may find yourself at war with half of Europe in a few years. At the start of my campaign I was sorely tempted to ally myself with either of those nations (protestants unite and all that) but I was quickly dissuaded as their list of enemies just grew. Playing on Hard settings for the campaign it seems all but impossible to get good deals diplomatically without wasting a fortune, so unless you have a good plan I'd advice against trying to get more alliances.

* Trading is your friend! The AI can be a bit slow on sending indiamen to the tradingzones (or at least it has been in my campaigns) so if you send out a decent fleet before 1710 you can grab a majority of the tradenodes in Africa and Brazil. One tip is also to send out a rather large fleet from Europe to get rid of any hostile fleets in the tradingzones, also clearing up the tradenodes in the process. I strongly suggest you don't go to war over a tradenode though, so if a neutral nation that you have no other intention of fighting is holding one or two nodes I wouldn't attack them. Unless they're a feeble minor one, of course
Trade agreements are extremely profitable if you pick them wisely. Maratha Confederacy, Russia and Sweden seem to be the most profitable, while UP and the poorer minor ones are the least profitable. Just make sure you upgrade your tradingports and keep your traderoutes as clear as possible. For instance in my campaign I get 14 000 each turn from trade, so if an enemy fleet blockades my biggest port I lose around 10 000 just that round...

* Peace and trade with the Barbary States. This nation can be a real pain in the mediterranean for any nation. Personally I managed to avoid this by haggling for peace with them (cost me about 1000 coins) and then making a trade agreement for the same cost. Totally worth not having your trade routes raided, in my opinion.

* Don't underestimate the indians! Sure, they have terrible buildingoptions and a predominantly melee army, but they also know how to use it to their advantage. I have made the mistake of underestimating them in a few fights and it has cost me dearly each time. Be prepared to see them rush your lines quickly and have some tactic to counter that. You will want to get the bayonets (at least ring) upgraded as soon as possible if you intend to go against any indian nations (which you of course will). Oh, and in case it hasn't been mentioned before make sure you destroy their buildings when you capture their regions, since yours are better.

Hope this helps a bit!

Kind regards

[erebrus]

Hi everybody

I just came back to ETW after pausing for several months waiting for decent patches. 1.5 finally seems to put the game close to where it should be from the start, so it is well worth playing.

I started to play with GB, cos that the nation I always to choose to start (when I get the game or when the game gets patches). However, note that I always play in VH/VH.

Prior to this patch, my approach was similar to the one described. Avoid war in the first few years, get trade, kill pirates getting their islands and use that as a base for an attack to Cherokee. Then get new France and having the 13 extra provinces gives you such a boost that from their you could go to wherever you want.

However,I no longer think that is necessarily the best approach, at least if you're playing the short game. With the "new" economy model, it is more profitable to rely on trade than on taxes, so I think the tax boost (mor than trade) you get from getting the 13 provinces doesn't quite compensate the mess you get into. Furthermore, in my game, by 1708, Marathas had Hindustan, and by 1735 they were practically at the gates of Austria. Given GB's superior army, its always possible to blitz towards Hindustan, but it clearly becomes more messy.

On the other hand, the french and spanish provinces you need to win are all coastal and easily defended and - except for New France - the american or cherokee provinces aren't in your list of required provinces for a win, so they are much cleaner to get later than Hindustan.

So, first game I followed old approach, I got into a war that forced me to conquer all provinces in the american continent, plus I had to get into a continental war to completely cripple Franche and Spain, because they kept sending boats to conquer my island provinces. Nothing that couldn't be quickly retaken, but still a pain in the ass. Meanwhile, Marathas grew.

Second game, I went straight for Hindustan (just as soon as I managed to build mobile artillery) and blocked Marathas expansion, got a lot of money (indian provinces are filthy rich) and only then moved to america to get exactly each province I want. If Marathas is kept in check, no one will bother India (at least didn't happen to me), so keep a fleet to keep you routes safe, and you have an economic baseline that can finance any war you want.

For a long game or total conquest game, Id probably still follow the first approach, but for short or prestige, the second worked better for me. Again, this in VH/VH.

Cheers

[Bilgediver]

Wow, well Playing as the British without reading or thinking I realized that you can have total war within just a few years! You already start Allied with a few of the European Powers (Thank God for the Dutch, their close proximity kept my enemies in check for a few years). For some reason I tried going after the easy pickings (pirates) in the Caribbean, and I immediately built up a fleet and an army and went after Mysore (for the same reason as stated above, lone country, no allies), however the Portuguese landed and took that tiny Indian nation next to Mysore that already had a port on it, but their home region was destroyed by Spain, so I was able to expand to the newly spawned "Rebel" state to get a port. Immediate Trade! However for some reason I immediately got tangled up in European politics within the first 10-15 years and became involved in wars with just about every Western/Northern Power: Spain, France, Sweden, Denmark, Savoy (They just flat out declared war on me? I don't get it). I decided the hell with it and sent an army to capture France. While I captured France quite easily, I had rebels spawning for dang near 15 solid years (Its still about 1725) and still don't have enough cash to repair the Capitol Building (which will net me +3 unit producing in Paris, not to mention the Tax and Repression bonuses). In the meantime the Marathas have pushed Mughal into a Corner, the Ottomans have conquered Persia (They're actually doing good? Crazy I know! First campaign I've fought where I've seen a good Ottoman AI). In the meantime in Americas, I've taken South America while Spain finally got onto the Island hopping thing taking one of the "Ward" isles from me. The Thirteen Colonies apparently can't govern as the good old US of A has already spawned.

Long story short, it has been literally the busiest campaign I've ever played, the most fun (while being the poorest). I'd agree with the Turtle for a few years building up a damn fine Navy and Economy while researching as much as you can. If you want to take out the continent, at least send a full stack or two of Dragoons to calm those darn cities (Not to mention a good cash reserve so you can immediately repair the repression and happiness buildings!).

[Bilgediver]

As for the indians, upgrading immediately to canister shot helps, too. Blasting a few with canister shot might only kill a few, but you might be able to send a few running for the hills (solid shot works wonders on those darn elephant generals!)

[jaspritsingh]

Hi All,

I have managed to mess up my GB campaign and am looking for suggestions. In the first 2 turns I lost the North American region to the natives after my Hessian Infantry crapped its pants n routed (they were dug in and shooting at naked screaming natives !!). I sent an army from Bahamas and now have New York plus Iriquois territory plus one more (the one next to New York). 13 colonies started off not trading with me and their ports are full.

I was doing good so far, I had captured Bengal, given Mughals a whole lot of tech that saved them from dying. United Provinces had snatched Rajputana from Marathas.(how they did that I dont know). Then the Spanish killed United Provinces (my biggest trading partner) and blockaded my routes. Marathas are doing the same. My income in a good turn is 2000 gold.

I have the Marathas tied down (its 1730 and they are yet to kill Mughals or leave India). I have a full stack and fortifications in Bengal (with no roads so it takes them 2 turns to attack me). So far I ve killed 5 full stack armies and they keep on coming but its taken the heat off the Mughals who snatched Gujrat from the Marathas. So currently Marathas are firmly tied in India.

So now questions :

1. Should I try to complete the assigned mission to merge 13 colonies with me ? That would give me more money but I might not be able to hold on Bengal for that long unless I raise another stack here. That would free up the Marathas and soon they will eat up Europe.

OR

2. Should I try to take Hindustan First (its a rich territory but it will mean more blood with Marathas - I cant repair 2 full stacks with low income)

[Fisherking]

For now you are likely better off trading with your colonies than you would be uniting with them, atm.

I would take on India and try to pacify the Spanish some how.

[jaspritsingh]

Its a funny game now - I have no navy left. Income is shaky. I am at war with the Cherokee and apart from 13 colonies, USA has cropped up.

On the good side - I killed another full stack in one battle losing very of my own (got a decisive victory) and after that Marathas accepted my peace and trade offer.

Now in the Americas, I am sharing a border with the French and the Cherokee not sure which one to fight