Playing against the UK...

Sure, but not in India. The British Navy can be surpassed, and if you don't actually border them in India you can contain the million strong Indian army there while picking off the Home Isles or Canada.

But the problem today is the high assimilation rate for low-literacy POPs, which means that even though no-one in India can read and write (10% literacy) they still manage to assimilate into British pretty quickly, meaning that India, with it's 70-ish million POPs becomes 7 times more powerful than the home isles. It will probably be fixed in a patch, but for a quick fix check out the mod forums.

I've managed to bloody the British noses in a war as the Dutch circa 1880. I've kept my infamy pretty high, conquest of Persia, concessions from Afghanistan, protectorates from some of the smaller states in the region. The British entered a war on behalf of Spain when the Spanish attacked my Egyptian allies. British came pouring over the borders into Dutch Persia and starting occupying everything with 100k stacks. I had lots of guards on station awaiting the artillery and engineer units that I was building in Java to become available and be dispatched to the various armies that I had in Persia ... so I sent guard stacks of 30k at the British stacks. The first battle saw in excess of 100k casualties for the British to my 3k (I turned the Dutch into a military juggernaut with gas capability and a fleet of cruisers that threatens to bankrupt me someday.) The British lost some 20 war-score from that battle and as I had previously indicated, the units weren't fully constructed yet ... I was just tossing some stop-gaps into the fray in the hopes of delaying a British advance until I could my artillery in the theatre. As it was I got a CB on Spain in the middle of the war and I took Crete off their hands for free and the British were more than happy to give that to me. I figure that I have five years now to take China and encircle India before I start tearing away at British India. The British can be beaten up plenty without cheating, it's largely a matter of containing their ambitions in Asia by aggressively boxing up their avenues for expansion.

I'm a bit of a role-player myself n don't want any of Asia with the US, it sucks that it's pretty much the only way to field enough armies to stave off the UK, fortunately the AI isn't intelligent enough to build a bunch of transports n drop off their troops from India in any large numbers in North America.

The only real problem I have is trying to maintain a navy large enough to fight off whatever ships they wanna send over my way without going bankrupt or not being able to keep them resupplied. I have 3 steamer factories currently and manage not to be able to get any steamer supply for my navy while simultaneously 2/3 of the production from the factories simply gets thrown away....

Fighting the UK navy is best done when you have cruisers. That way you can crush them mercylessly...

Oh god what is this. Full cheats and still can't beat the UK?

What is the year?

raney875 said:

The only real problem I have is trying to maintain a navy large enough to fight off whatever ships they wanna send over my way without going bankrupt or not being able to keep them resupplied. I have 3 steamer factories currently and manage not to be able to get any steamer supply for my navy while simultaneously 2/3 of the production from the factories simply gets thrown away....

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I'm pretty sure that's the consequence of the automatic trading being silly, as I had similar problem with other military goods. Just manually buy enough steamers (in the trade menu) for at least one day of supply. That will make you try to always have that much of them on hand, and they will be used to supply your navy. That worked for me.

I've found its not actually that hard to beat the English despite their massive score. In my recent French game the British decided to go to war with me over that French colony in India. It was surprisingly easy to conquer the Home Isles and force peace on the UK.

rmdsc said:

I've found its not actually that hard to beat the English despite their massive score. In my recent French game the British decided to go to war with me over that French colony in India. It was surprisingly easy to conquer the Home Isles and force peace on the UK.

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Yeah for some reason Britain never have their massive stacks on their homeland.

anomanderus said:

Oh god what is this. Full cheats and still can't beat the UK?

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None of these cheats make your troops invicible.

Look, beating them in the Home islands is easy, because beating their navy isn't so hard. In my game it was mostly things like man-o-wars, commerce raiders, etc, in 1900! Besides, you can land troops while the naval battle is ongoing.

Sharing a border in China/India and still beating them might sound hard, but it can be done, because I'm doing it. I've destroyed more than 1000 brigades already, and had battles where I surrounded 450k troops; others where their losses were well in the hundred thousands.

See my thread on it: here

Truly crazy though, would have been impossible without my own Chinese holdings and gas - they definitely had the upper hand before the gas started helping me. You gotta be fully teched; they outnumbered me by several times.

So basically, it's easy to take the home islands and force them to give up a little bit of territory. Beating the whole empire is way, way harder. I haven't even touched Canada or Australia, but I think I might have to...

Actually, they might have something else than manof wars etc...

Unchecked under 1.2 but the AI has not naval developpment strategy. You need to activate a core to active a naval base supply range.

As the AI seldom does it, it sends their outdated navy anytime the fight is going to happen outside their supply range limit.

I experienced the manofwars stuff. After checking, UK had a more modern navy but as I only engage within my supply range (and outside theirs), I only faced manofwars and stuff.

ChienAboyeur said:

Actually, they might have something else than manof wars etc...

Unchecked under 1.2 but the AI has not naval developpment strategy. You need to activate a core to active a naval base supply range.

As the AI seldom does it, it sends their outdated navy anytime the fight is going to happen outside their supply range limit.

I experienced the manofwars stuff. After checking, UK had a more modern navy but as I only engage within my supply range (and outside theirs), I only faced manofwars and stuff.

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I thought the AI could ignore supply range...?

Most of the battles I fought were British Coastal provinces. Sometimes I would see ironclads... but I don't know if the UK has even researched steel steamers, and I also don't think they retire ships as they get old.

The biggest problem with the UK is that she never really understands that she's really lost a war... In order for you to get a peace treaty worth more than 40% the warexhaustion will have reached 100% and the empire will crumble (usually to communists).

I tried to play an Indian game from the real start with few cheat playing Gwa (sorry don't remember the name) -> failed
Then I added more cheat (all my units get a +20 attack +20 defence +500% moral +100% organisation) Even with that, if I did have some problem at start. I had to make hit and run tactics because once my poor 15k soldiers meet the 100k+ british armies, they loose even with the massive bonus.

I manage to liberate India by liberating 2 nations after first war of hit and run tactics (+25 warscore made on satellite mostly). I was lucky, I declared conquest war on those and UK just watched, so easy win. At this point, I had 3 provinces and like 30k army divided in 2 times 15k. I declared war back on UK to liberate another country next to me and take one of they state (a one province one). Same tactics, hit and run, 25 warscore from battle and peace with my terms.
From here, I declared war on the released country, this time UK reacted.. and this time, even with a +25 score and a statics front (I changed strategy) with a small army swiping the rear where some few british get by, I can't sign any peace with UK to released more countries, neither a white peace...
I had to use console "tag ENG" -> propose peace value 5, warscore -25 -> "tag GWA" accept.
And from here, it was always the same, impossible to get the smallest province/state without usong console and "tag ENG".


So even with nice cheat, it's nearly impossible to make India from the inside and I guess, until you have technological advantage, it's impossible to fight against UK in India... better look for Great Britain/Canada/South Africa/Australia than India.

I noticed during this Indian game that UK will never accept an even warscore/offer score unless there is something more.
For instance, you want a state that cost 20 warscore. Lucky for you, you have 20 warscore. But as you know, UK will refuse. You had a wargoal like liberate pupet, and incredible, UK will accepte your 20 warscore proposal ! (or nearly)

:rofl:

If you were to do that to me in MP I wouldn't sign a peace until either you were crushed or my Empire fell apart, too! You declare war on a nation 3-4 times, and conquer their allies - what do you expect them to do?!?!?

Sortulv said:

The biggest problem with the UK is that she never really understands that she's really lost a war... In order for you to get a peace treaty worth more than 40% the warexhaustion will have reached 100% and the empire will crumble (usually to communists).

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This actually fits pretty well with what I understand of the British Imperial outlook of the period. Admitting defeat in a war was not considered politically acceptable. This had two policy effects:

1. Once in a war, the only acceptable option was to persevere until it was "won" (at least by some definition).

2. It was considered very unwise to engage in wars where the outcome was in any doubt unless unavoidable.

If anything, it is the second of these that the AI seems poorest at. To avoid others declaring war on the Empire, it should be forging alliances to dissuade other GPs and "friendships" to neuter smaller powers.

The AIs in most games also seem poor at a balanced defensive/status quo strategy. HoI has the same (very difficult) issue - balancing an Imperial defence strategy between Home Islands & Europe/Mediterranean & Middle East/Far East & Pacific. Not an easy nut to crack - even defining it in words is hard enough, never mind coding it into an AI!