England is in a fantastic position with its multiple secure island provinces. You can sit and build up your infrastructure for as long as you wish without fear of invasion.
For income, England is trade dependant to a large degree. Much of England's trade will be sea-born with the north Europe coastal provinces. This poses a problem when it comes time to expand off the island home territories, for those who like to hold back and build up before expanding.
To counter this problem, it can be useful to plan a 3 step, phased expansion.
Step 1: Take the Danish homeland and the 2 provinces north of that first. You don't have to worry about wiping out the Danish faction at this phase, just take those 3 provinces, soldier them up well enough to ensure their defense and then pause to rebuild your trade infrastructure. Once the trade cash if flowing well enough again, then...
Step 2: have at least 100k in the bank and begin building enough of an army to be able to seize all the northern European coastal provinces from Antwerp to Rennes in one amphibious push. If you can manage it, one full stack of good quality troops for each province. If not then as much of a full stack per province as you can.
Your eastern flank is secure and trade will continue there. The euro coast is your next target so that you can reestablish your trade there, free of blockade and piracy. If you spend the time and loot to build the larger armies, even though the garrisons on the coast will be light, then you'll have enough troops on the continent to react and respond to counter attacks as well as maintain momentum by seizing desired inland provinces or seeking out and destroying enemy force concentrations without having to build crap troops to fill the ranks.
By taking all the coast at once, you minimize the amount of time that trade is disrupted and will begin to recover the costs of the invasion quicker.
Also, you should have nearly enough troops of good quality already on the continent to at least double the number of your provinces without having to rush in building and transporting new troop replacements.
If you plan on using the forces you land with as your main core all the way to finish, you also maximize experience gains along the way.
Anyhoo, this is the method that has worked for me, and given me less headaches in having to pick and choose when to build, what to build, etc as there tends to be sufficient income to just keep building.
Step 3: which I forgot to add earlier is, of course, the continued fight to secure the rest of the continent and battle on to victory. The only thing I'd caution here is to watch out for over expansion and remember to pause in territory acquisitions on occasion to allow for financial infrastructure building to catch up to army maintenance costs.
Bookmarks