Your current campaign!

[Marquis of Roland]

Well, I'm gonna put a close on my current Prussian campaign just past 1800. I am limiting myself to just the 14 objective regions plus Malta. My British allies and I burned down India, and I gave the British my half.

My best army's experience levels:
1 general's bodyguard (Gebhard Leberecht von Blucher 10 star command) - 2xp
2 cuirassiers - 4xp
2 light dragoons - 3xp
6 line infantry - 4 x 5xp, 2 x 4xp
4 Prussian jaegers - 2 x 5xp, 2 x 4xp
2 grenadiers - 4xp
3 24-pdr howitzers - 5xp

An entire front of 5xp Prussian line infantry unloading volley after volley after volley is a beautiful thing. I almost feel like they're firing their actual 5-6 rounds a minute, except their accuracy is around 55.

In my last battle, I took Paris with that stack against 1 full stack of French and 1 full stack of Spanish, mostly infantry. The rate at which those guys were going down, you'd think it was WWI

[Didz]

I started a French Campaign last night using TROM, and I deliberately set the difficulty lower to test the theory that the number of 'Random DOW's' would be lower.

But boy is France in a mess in 1700. I've had more trouble with the opening of the French campaign than any other I've played so far, simply because everything needs attention. There aren't even any roads in most of France in the 1700's, all the peasants are revolting, all the army is sub-standard, the treasury has all been spent on cake.

Its really hard to decide how to prioritise. I started off going for trade income and modest internal growth and seemed to be doing ok!. I got the annual disposable income up to around 5,000 a turn by 1705.

The main problems I had were that all the native american tribes were on the warpath threatening Lousiana and my north american territories and forcing me to hire expensive native auxilaries to suppress them.

In Europe, things were reasonably quiet. Poland which was friendly with France at the time declared a random DOW in 1703, and as it was allied to most of northern europe that would have been a problem, but I simply reloaded the end of turn and the 'screw the player' routine didn't trigger again so I avoided it.

What happened next is still confusing me. I was getting about 5,600 disposable income per turn and gradually building up my trade routes and was just about to capture Mitchigan Territory, when suddenly all my income dissapeared and I was declared bankrupt.

I checked every thing....trade routes intact, peasants moaning but not revolting, ministers still honest, but really can't see any explanation for the sudden drop in revenue. I've got round it by sending a lot of my native levies home, increasing the tax on the nobility and disbanding some of the sub-standard infantry regiments but I'm now down to 200 disposable income per turn and can't understand why.

Definately, the hardest faction I've played to date.

P.S.

I've just gone through all my saved games to try and plot what went wrong with my disposable income. It turns out that my Trade Revenue dropped suddenly from 7,988 in the summer of 1705, to 3,529 in the winter of the same year, a sudden loss of 4,459.

I checked my trade report again and it seems that whilst all my trade routes are still open, my incoming goods from the trade theatres have been blocked.

When I checked the map, what I discovered was that the Barbary States were blockading Marseilles in the Med. All my other trade routes are fine including the one to America which is untouched but apparently all my sugar, ivory and spices were being delivered to Marseilles despite the fact that trade lanes also go to Le Havre.

So, basically I've got to sink the Barbary pirate fleet to survive.

[pevergreen]

I checked my trade report again and it seems that whilst all my trade routes are still open, my incoming goods from the trade theatres have been blocked.

And thats why you have a few navies patrolling. Not nice to lose all that income.

[Didz]

And thats why you have a few navies patrolling. Not nice to lose all that income.

Sorted it now I've realised what the cause was, to be honest I hadn't even noticed the sneaky pirates creep up on Marseille and it never occurred to me that such a remote port would be the hub of my world imports. Couple of Frigates soon sorted the problem.

[Fisherking]

This is a recent change. And one that was not documented at the time. But now you loose your commodity imports world wide when a port is blockaded but not all your trade, just what comes through that port.

I have not seen how it works on the other end of the supply chain yet. I guess we will get a full effect view after the release of 1.3 tonight.

[pevergreen]

Patch is coming out?

Sweeet.