Welcome to the MTW community!

I am a veteran of many many real time and turn based strategy games and love them all, but I do have to say that MTW has gripped me very tightly for a long time now and shows no signs of letting go. the depth and variety of the game is huge. there is no "right" formula.

The key skill is adaptation and in depth knowledge of both yours and your opponents forces. Diplomacy is important, even more so in the XL mod but what is truely great about MTW is the sheer depth of the game and it's ability to capture the feel of a real campaign. So many units, so many factions with unique strengths/weaknesses and balancing factors.

the Danes for example start with only a single isolated province giving them limited income and troop production ability but they have access to cost effective infantry and navy - if they can survive long enough to get a foothold they can become a real force depsite their humble origins.

The Germans on the other hand start out with sizeable holdings in central europe and have access to some of the most purely powerful units in the game long term, but often find it hard to expand to the point that they can utilise them. For them the difficulty is getting access to sea trading routes and defending their larger borders.

Your strategy has to change to fit the situation your are faced with. In my current campaign, France was rapidly becoming unstopable so my small empire came to the defense of my spanish allies that were being mercilessly crushed by the French. together we forced the french from spain and most of western europe beacuse other nations to the east took the opportunity to renew their efforts against the French. slowly our 4 or 5 smaller nations brought down the french like a wolf pack attacking a stag. just as I was celebrating the French fall from power, my Spanish "allies" decided that I was weak enough for them to retake some of the land they'd lost to the french and I'd driven them from......With the wounded but still strong french on one side and my one time allies the Spanish on the other the tides of war shifted again, my weakened army had no chance to recover it's strength and I had to fight a war of attrition against the Spanish while retaining enough strength on the french border to deter an attack by them....a delicate situation indeed!

Situations such as this happen all the time in MTW and I love it. As the saying goes - "keep your friends close and your enemies closer" the trouble is telling which is which though!!

In MTW you really have to THINK.

To me MTW is pretty much the yard stick that other games are measured by now. the only areas where it's let down is the sea combat and the CTD problems that are so prevalent.