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I honestly had no idea. I thought it was quite a lot but then they are very mobile, so it is hard to know whether it is because you moved them from one front to another, and also after one or two years about half the indians of the game "unlock", giving you a huge number of them.
You always learn new things :)
Can you unlock all the Indians this way, even those who else have a "timer" ?

It depends - some have both timer and can be unlocked by units some have only one of the two and some can by only unloced by the enemy attacking them.
 
It depends - some have both timer and can be unlocked by units some have only one of the two and some can by only unloced by the enemy attacking them.

aye, you have to check them all out individually (as there are a lot different rules in place), you also have the option to use EPs to wake up a tribe which might be handy for those further from easy contact ...
 
April 1755 – Braddock expedition on the march

Situation in April 1755 :

Objectives.jpg



The game starts in April 1755 [each turn lasts one month. It is a simultaneous turn-based game. I prepare my orders, Loki prepare his orders, and they are solved together]



There is not much I can do right now, as only three forces are “unlocked” for the British. You have to remember the war is not formally declared… yet.

One of the three forces I have is Braddock’s Expedition. Braddock has been sent from England to take Fort Duquesne, which stopped English expansion to the West. Braddock’s force was joined up by Washington, who had a quite an experience of the area since his traitorous attack on Jumonville’s diplomatic expedition [as a reminder, I am French IRL] and then his capture by the French reaction force coming from Duquesne. This had started the war. As Horace Walpole said : ” The volley fired by a young Virginian in the backwoods of America set the world on fire”. I always wondered whether the Americans knew this part of G. Washington history.

Back to the subject - here is Braddock force and its target, Fort Duquesne. The first stop will be Fort Allen, from which the force will hop from English forts to English forts until it reaches Fort Duquesne.

Braddockmoves.jpg


It is a sizeable army, with :

- 3 leaders : Edward Braddock, Thomas Dunbar and George Washington
- Two units of British regulars – 720 men
- Three units of militia ((from New York, Virginia and Maryland) : 1 100 men
- One unit of Light Horses : 180 men & horses
- One unit of rangers : 360 men
- One unit of guns : 8 guns
- One unit of siege guns : 4 guns – it will be quite difficult to carry across the mountain.
- One unit of supply wagons.

Usually, it is not a good idea to actually launch Braddock’s expedition :

- siege guns are so rare and useful you want to put them out of harm’s way
- Washington is best used as a trainer, so you don’t want him on the front (I will explain this later),
- Horses are very rare, and useless in the mountains, so you prefer to keep them away and use them in deeper South,
- Without Washington in the expedition, all the Colonials are difficult to lead to battles, so you have to take them out of the expedition as well,
- By that point, the expedition is too small to be useful, so you cancel it.

But in the interest of the game, as a self-imposed rule, I will try to lead this expedition as far as possible until it meets its first opposition. Then I will see what I do with it.

Note that if the expedition is successful (unlikely, but possible), an early seizure of Fort Duquesne is a tremendous advantage for the British player.

But let’s make a point about organizing and moving units.

Beginner’s corner : Organizing Forces

In Birth of America, they are three types of land units :
- Leaders
- Troops
- Supply wagons

Units are the little red or orange rectangles with a picture inside. Together, they constitute an army, which I tend to call “a stack”. Some stacks have only one unit, some others… much more.
Units (except leader) are then divided in between 1 and 4 elements. A unit is not destroyed as long as it has not lost all its elements.

Vocabulaire.jpg


Leaders never fight on their own. They are used to command troops. They generate Command Points (CP) for this purpose. Here is the rule :
- One star leader : 2 CP
- Two stars leader : 4 CP
- Three stars leader (rare) : 12 CP

Troops (including guns) can fight on their own, but in this case they got a sizeable malus in moving, in cohesion recovery and in combat. To be led, each unit needs a certain number of Command Points, most of the time one, but sometimes two (for Elite troops). A few units need 0.

Supply wagons don’t need command points, but don’t fight either. They can be captured easily.

So of course, the objective is to have enough CPs in your forces to lead your troops properly.

As an added difficulty, if you choose the option (we did), “colonial” (in orange) troops cannot be led by English leaders (in red), nor can regular troops be led by colonial leaders. One colonial or one regular leader is enough to avoid the malus, whatever is the number of colonials / regulars.

Here is a serie of examples to illustrate how CP works :

FinalCommandPoints.jpg


Beginner’s corner : Moving around

Wars in America use a very simple drag-and-drop system. Drag the stack to where you want it to go, and it will calculate the fastest way. Of course, you can force a certain way to the target.
An army speed moves more or less quickly according to what is inside :

- It takes 28 days for Braddock’s army to reach Fort Allen. That’s what I going to do.

Everyone28jours.jpg


- If I get rid of the canons and of the supply wagons, it takes only 18 days !

18jours.jpg


- If I have a command malus (here, I took Washington away), it takes 26 days, even without guns !

WrongCommand.jpg


Individuals units take different time. Here is an example (one unit per stack only) :

Moving.jpg


Note that it takes the cavalry 5 days to go to the province of Montgomery, a civilized plain north of the starting point, vs 6 days for the ranger, but 9 days for the cavalry to go to Fort Allen (uncivilized forest), while the ranger takes only 7 days.

The advantage of fair terrain is not enough for the regular army to compensate for the time to cross the river without bridge from Montgomery to Fort Allen. For this reason, the regulars take the more direct route.

End of Beginner’s corner

The second stack I can move is up North, in Hallifax. The stack includes 2 leaders, 3 units of regulars, one unit of Canadian militias, one unit of guns, one unit of supply. I want it to take Grandpré, a strategic city, and a threat to Halifax in the long run :

North.jpg


Finally, I have a small militia stack available in Boston, with a boat to transport it wherever I want (I did a copy / paste to show the two of them at the same time). Due to difficult weather in the sea, and since I have no pressing needs, I decide not to do anything for now.

Thirdarmy.jpg
 
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May 1755 – Braddock expedition exhausted already !

Are we there, yet ?

Braddock arrived in Fort Allen. Unfortunately, a march to Fort Cumberland would take 58 days ! Almost two turns.

Braddock.jpg


The reason is that some of my troops (namely : the people pulling the guns with the help of horses) are exhausted, and things are going to be worse in the mountains. For this reason, I decide to recover a little by resting in Fort Allen

Beginner’s corner : Units main characteristics

Troops are defined by a lot of characteristics, but there is only a few you need to follow.

Here is the description of a unit, as you can see on the lower part of the screen :

Unit.jpg


Name : Well, that’s the name of the unit.

Type : The main “type” of units. Here it is infantry (the game uses NATO symbol). Note that you can have several “types” of elements in an unit, you will only see the main type here.

Cohesion : How exhausted the unit is. The higher, the better. It is an average of all the elements of the unit, and each element has its maximum (militiamen’s maximum is lower than highlanders’ maximum). Marching, fighting, or a long transport by boat will deplete this bar. Not doing anything will allow it to recover.

Health : How many men are left in the unit, compared to the maximum men possible for the current number of elements in the units. Note that French elements are usually twice more numerous than English elements. It gets depleted by just about everything, including just minding your own business in a fort, due to desertion and illness. It also recovers when an army receive more supplies than it can use. The rest of the supplies is used to “recruit” new men. This means that a simple garrison will not lose men due to new men arriving to replace the “accidents”, but if you put a full army in a small fort, you will (slowly) lose men.

Power : An estimation of the strength of a unit in normal situation for their current health / cohesion. You can trust it, more or less, in open terrain. In difficult terrain, remember that your light infantry has little to no malus, while even though they look “powerful” the regulars will fight at half their power, or less, and you guns can be useless in mountains.

Elements: Number of elements in the unit (in green), and the maximum (in white). Cavalry has a maximum of 3 elements per unit for instance, and some light units 2 only.

Origin : Militias fight much worse when not in their native region. This allows you to know where the unit comes from, if the name is not enough. VR stands for Virgina

Star : Edit : It is the amount of experience the unit has. Thank you Akritas

This is the “simple” description of a unit. Here is a more complex description – but I won’t get into for now. Here is what it looks like :

Detailledinformation.jpg


Lots of numbers, eh ?

End of beginner’s corner

Note that I will order my stack to wait INSIDE the structure. This means it won’t be able to defend the region but it will recover cohesion faster.

Here is an example with a siege gun waiting inside and outside the structure :

Lowcohesionrecovery.jpg


Highcohesionrecovery-1.jpg



I also receive the first part of my fleet :

Navyarrived.jpg


I decide to separate my fleet. My transport squadron will transport reinforcements to the North, the light warships will harass the French merchant shipping while the heavier ships will patrol close to Halifax :

FleetOrders.jpg


I should start the siege of Grandpré next turn !
 
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Did I sink any boat ? Sometimes, you don't when you sink one because they sink "after" the battle ? :)
If I sank one, did it take any soldier with it in the deep ? :)
 
Did I sink any boat ? Sometimes, you don't when you sink one because they sink "after" the battle ? :)
If I sank one, did it take any soldier with it in the deep ? :)

Hah, no one sinks the French Navy .. , but it would have been funny to burn Annapolis to the ground ...

I'm just trying to work out quite what happened in the last turn, prepare my next one (its either that or write a paper on the UK budget setting process ... ok I do get paid for that but this is more fun) & then I'll put up a couple of posts ... I'll split my reports by sectors as that'll be less confusing and I can keep quiet where my plans have yet to go totally belly up ...
 
... I'll split my reports by sectors as that'll be less confusing and I can keep quiet where my plans have yet to go totally belly up ...

You mean... like this new hospital for your soldiers in downtown Montréal ?

IMO, if we are at different points of time according to the fronts, it is going to be fairly confusing. Just wait for all your plans to be exposed or belly-up, or wait for winter, to start posting your own situation.
 
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G'day,

Really enjoying this and learning quite a bit.

Cheers,
Lancer

glad you're enjoying it ... it is a really fun game to play - the low unit density and the chokepoints caused by the forts give it a very different feel even to other AGEOD games, & the economic/political element is minimal, so its all a focus on a few mobile units, very immersive.

I hope this AAR works well and I'd like to congratulate you on showing what is in my opinion one of the best AGEOD games.

good luck!

I think I'm coming to agree with your judgement. I really liked RoP, haven't had time to delve into PoN yet, but this seems such an elegant neat game design. Even with very few units, the range of choices and trying to second guess means its not a game to play quickly

You mean... like this new hospital for your soldiers in downtown Montréal ?

IMO, if we are at different points of time according to the fronts, it is going to be fairly confusing. Just wait for all your plans to be exposed or belly-up, or wait for winter, to start posting your own situation.

Ok, maybe best to delay till we reach the winter turns then it doesn't matter too much if I do it by time frame or sector, in that case at the current rate of progress I'll put up some in action reports in a couple of days at the latest
 
Great AAR, guys! :)
Narwhal,
The star on the unit counter is just the unit experience. As you can see on the unit detail panel it has one experience star.
I think up to 3 stars can be shown on the counter.
CHeers!
 
French moves _ early Summer

This post will cover my activities up to August. I'll split it into 4 sectors as it sort of makes sense that way.

Up in the north west, I received 2 fresh battalions at Louisburg and after a bit of thinking decided to gamble on a raid at Annapolis, if I was really lucky it might disturb the siege of GrandPre (which force was far too powerful for me to tackle head on), in the event I met Narwhal's navy and aborted the raid, and escaped with no damage:



Elsewhere, I decided that Fort Halifax should be burnt to the ground. So I sent my active Indians down to scout around, and used by French Chasseur unit first to raise the other tribes



and then to capture the fort ...



Since Narwhal made no progress at GrandPre, I was reasonably pleased with this sector. I think I have the capacity to loot and burn at will and my forts seem to be strong enough.

Around Mont Royal, my plan was to occupy the south end of Lake Champlain. I had 2 brigades - a good well led unit of regulars (who I gave the wrong orders to, so they retreated rather than defended) and a mixed force of Chasseurs and Indians, who I decide can end the Mohican threat once and for all ...



well the raid went well (burn baby burn), but my combat brigade lost its position due to its orders (you really do have to be meticulous at checking orders and stances in the AGEOD games).

another fairly decent force arrives at Quebec



so here I have 2 decent brigades of regulars and a well led light force. So ... not too bad, but pity to lose due to inattention.

Further east along Lake Ontario is a bunch of Iroquois tribes - they are hostile but inert, so I start with a bit of scouting:



and then decide to eliminate the unit at Geneseo



problem was I was low on org so that wasn't so good, except I killed the chief ... who is a good commander so that helps a bit.

Around Duquesne was more active. First I started scuttling around waking up the natives:



as you can see I found Braddock's column at Fort Cumberland, now all I decided to do was to move somewhere else (big mistake I fear)

and use my EPs for some more Indian tribes



So I wandered off to Staunton to do some 'burning and a looting tonight'



but meantime back at the fort ... there are problems



so on balance, I've been badly outmanouvered on this front, can only hope that Fort Duquesne is made of the same firm stuff as the defenders at GrandPre.

.... when doing all these turns, I couldn't get the old Gang of Four (the Leeds not Chinese ones) song 'guerilla war warfare is the new entertainment' out of my head, which may say something about my plans, such as they are.
 
June 1755 – Braddock’s expedition carry on !

June 1755 is fairly quiet :

After having rested, Braddock is on the march to Fort Duquesne again :

Braddox.jpg


Only 22 days to reach the next English fort (good thing the French did not attack it ; attacking it is usually what French players do at the beginning of this ). Braddock will rest inside the fort as soon as he arrives.

In the North, I am now sieging the city of Grandpré, while the Windsor is patrolling in front of Halifax and will carry on in the next turns :

North-1.jpg




Beginner’s corner – Siege

There are two ways to take an enemy structure :

- Assault (even if the enemy fort is not breached).

You can give the order to your troops to assault the enemy structure – even if the enemy fort is not breached. Unfortunately, the defenders will have a bonus of defense, and will fight with despair as they have no way out. Hence, it is to avoid if you don’t have numerical absolute superiority. If they are protected by a fortress, they will also have a huge bonus. A handful of militiamen can resist a much stronger force if they try an assault.

Note that sieging a city with artillery can create “breaches” in the wall, helping tremendously with the assault.

- Siege

When an army is sieging an enemy city, the city does not receive supplies but of course carries on eating whatever it has available. When the besieged units have no more supply, they surrender. But this can take a lots of time. If the city has a port, you also need to blockade it (or hope that the port is blocked by ice in winter in the Northern ports)

Note that if the besieging army is stronger than the besieged army, there is a small chance each turn, if the supply runs low (but before there are no more supply) that the enemy army surrenders before the end.

During a siege, each turn, the attacker runs a test, with a bonus depending on the size of his army, the presence of guns (esp. siege guns), the presence of military engineers and a few other bonus I won’t get into, versus a defender test with bonus of his own. If the attacker “wins”, the city gains one level of breach, receive damage, a combination of those, or just surrenders.

As of patch 1.08 (current version), the icon showing that a siege is in progress and the number of breaches is invisible (display bug). Sieges are working normally, you just have to inquire in the event list what the progress of the siege is.

End of beginner’s corner

In other news :

I spotted enemy moves south of the Ontario. I suppose he wants to take Oswego, which is a strategic port – even though for now there is no structure on it (notice the anchor, though).

Enemymoves.jpg


Finally, my fleet is harassing French shipping :

Fleet.jpg


Beginner’s corner – the guerre de course

Loki told you about the importance of Engagement Points (“EPs”) to take "special actions". Most of the EPs come from shipping : each “naval boxes” in which you have merchant ships can bring you betwenn 0 and 2 EPs. France only has one transport fleet, in the New England shipping lane. If you have privateers or other navires de course in the same box as enemy shipping, you can “block” the enemy EP, and if you are lucky sink one of his merchant ships (thus lowering forever his chance to have 1, or 2 EPs even with no interception). Edit : After some testing - not sure it works.

End of the corner
 
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Hi, this is awesome. I'm pretty familiar at this point with the Aegod system since I have RoP, AACW, and BOA/WiA2. Thanks for this AAR. I have not played BiA, though, and bought it awhile back because I didn't want to get to a point where I couldn't buy it except maybe on eBay.

1. Washington - I'm not sure about knowing the earlier part of his history that well. I knew he participated. I think that France and England would have probably ended up fighting, no matter what Washington did, as it seemed like they were diametrically opposed already in Europe. Anyway, considering what he did later in life, I think we can "cut him some slack". :)

2. The forces here are so much smaller than RoP. It is mindboggling to me to see a force of 144 and that seems to be the highest, when you can get at or over 2000 in RoP. Of course the amounts of troops were much higher in the European part of that war and I'm sure the forces in the big campaign are stronger, too, but nowhere near 2000.

3. Although the battle displays aren't very informative, I kind of like the quaint woodcut report display. Also, how did you know the leader of those Indians was killed? Did it get an information line in the report lines?
 
JJuly 1755 – First engagements !

July 1755 sees the first blood

Surprisingly, the first battle is a naval battle. The Windsor in front of Halifax intercepts a French transport ships that was probably trying to drop troops behind the line :

NavalBattle.jpg


The French ship decides to retreat. No ship is sunk.

A few days later, the French attack one of the Indian villages south of the Ontario. The French retreat – so do the Indians, but 2 elements are destroyed during the retreat. Double retreat is extremely rare, but can happen :

LandBattle.jpg


Here is a picture of the movements I saw in the Middle States :

Center.jpg


Now, the good news… :
My troops along the Hudson unlock. There are two columns in Albany :

Johnson.jpg
Shirley.jpg


And one column in New York

Delancy.jpg


I decide to use the troops in the following manner :

MainFront.jpg


- Johnson’s and Shirley’s stack have merged, and are going to attack along the Champlain the small French group I noticed. Either the French stack goes South, and I will cut his retreat, or it will stay where it is, and I will defeat it. Hopefuly.

- DeLancey will wait for the transport to pick him up and then join the English force sieging Grandpré.


In the North, not much change. Grandpré is still holding :

North-2.jpg


In the South, on the other hand, Braddock is now in Fort Cumberland, less than one month away from Fort Duquene :

ToFortDuquesne.jpg


There is a small force in Fort Duquesne, but I am confident I can defeat it. I cannot afford to wait more, because I know that Braddock’s column has been spotted by the French, and he is probably going to bring as much troops as possible in defense of the Fort.

How do I know that ? Well, I know that because Braddock is not good at concealing… at all.

Beginner’s corner – Leaders

As you know, leaders bring more or less command points. But apart from their number of “stars”, what is the difference between a good and a bad leader ?
Leaders have 5 characteristics (6th if you count their number of stars), 4 of which are important. Let’s take Braddock as an example :

DetailsBraddock.jpg


The most important information is the Command Rating. It is the numbers (like 5-3-2) you see when you hover the mouse over a leader.
- The first number is the “Strategic” rating. It goes from 2 to 6 “naturally”, but since we used “light randomization” in leader stats, it can go up to 7 in this game. ‘Strategic” gives various bonus, but it mostly gives you how often a leader is "activated" (a non-activated units cannot attack and moves very slowly – see below) and gives various bonus during battles (chance to come in reinforcements when a neighboring column is attacked for instance, chance to commit elements,…)

- The second number is the “offensive” rating. It can range from 0 to 6 “naturally”. It gives a bonus to the bonus of the units in command during an offensive.

- The third number is the “defensive” rating. It is exactly like the “offensive” rating, except it is, well, used in defense.

Only the rating of the leader of an army is taken into account

So who gets to lead, if only the leader’s ratings are taken into account. That’s where “seniority” plays a role. The leader with the most stars, and between them, the leader with the highest seniority leads. Note that the lower the seniority number, the higher the seniority, so when I say “high” seniority, it means the leader has a small seniority number (say between 1 and 10) and gets to command in most case.

Leaders can gain or lose seniority when they win or lose battles. So most of the time you are stuck with poor leaders at the beginning, but as they get defeated, they get replaced with better leaders.

A leader who has improved his seniority number by 4 since the beginning (the starting seniority is in brackets) can get a promotion and gain one-star. Be wary, though, that some other leaders of their (former) ranks might not be happy if they had a better seniority. For instance, promoting a leader that went from 20 to 10 in seniority might upset a leader that started at 5 in seniority and stayed there). This will cost you Victory Points, and even in a few cases National Morale (at least in Rise of Prussia – can’t remember if it can happen in WiA).

Finally, the "politic" rating shows how well connected the character is. It gives you an idea of how many Victory Points you are going to lose if the leader is captured, dies… or get outpromoted by someone with lower seniority. Not really important, but AGEOD wanted to track that somewhere, so losing Washington during the Independence war has some impact…

Note that many leaders have traits. Braddock traits are all negative : he is reckless (he does no disengage when he should), has a poor spy network (I get poor situation on the enemy when his army is doing the scouting, as is the case right now) and has dispersed moves (it does NOT mean he moves slowly but that he is easy to spot). Due to this last trait, I know the French have seen him. Of course, due to the second trait, I might completely underestimate the opposition in Duquesne…

Beginner’s corner – Activation

I mentioned this, so let’s get it covered. What is it ? Well, a general can either be activated, or not.

- An activated general behaves normally

- An non-activated general is sulking, distraught or just play lazy : he gots a (very significative) malus in speed and attack capacity, and more importantly, cannot be set in an offensive or assault posture (we will see posture later).
Activation depends on two main factors : the strategy level of the general and whether the general was already active the previous turn.

To see whether the general is active or not, look at the envelop ABOVE his portrait on the map : if it is white, he is active. If it is yellow, he is not…

Note that in the option, you can set activation to have no impact, or to have a much more impressive impact : there is an option so that unactivated leaders cannot move at all ! See Loki100 previous AAR on Rise of Prussia for an example on how difficult It can be to play like this.

End of beginner’s corner

I thought you might want a list of all my leaders so far. Here is it :
Leader1.jpg

Leader4.jpg

Leader3.jpg

Leader2.jpg




Finally, I use my EPs to buy some supplies this turn :

Neverenoughsupply.jpg
 
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Great AAR, guys! :)
Narwhal,
The star on the unit counter is just the unit experience. As you can see on the unit detail panel it has one experience star.
I think up to 3 stars can be shown on the counter.
CHeers!

glad its useful ... seemed a good idea to try and convince more people who are used to the Paradox game style to try out AGEOD

Hi, this is awesome. I'm pretty familiar at this point with the Aegod system since I have RoP, AACW, and BOA/WiA2. Thanks for this AAR. I have not played BiA, though, and bought it awhile back because I didn't want to get to a point where I couldn't buy it except maybe on eBay.

1. Washington - I'm not sure about knowing the earlier part of his history that well. I knew he participated. I think that France and England would have probably ended up fighting, no matter what Washington did, as it seemed like they were diametrically opposed already in Europe. Anyway, considering what he did later in life, I think we can "cut him some slack". :)

2. The forces here are so much smaller than RoP. It is mindboggling to me to see a force of 144 and that seems to be the highest, when you can get at or over 2000 in RoP. Of course the amounts of troops were much higher in the European part of that war and I'm sure the forces in the big campaign are stronger, too, but nowhere near 2000.

3. Although the battle displays aren't very informative, I kind of like the quaint woodcut report display. Also, how did you know the leader of those Indians was killed? Did it get an information line in the report lines?

agree the forces are so small compared to RoP, anything over 100 is a large army, takes some getting used to. But like RoP, you really need to sort out the key geographical features in your own mind. I think, having botched most of 1755, that the way to think of it is each layer of fort is both a shield to what is behind and a means to project power forward. Add on to that always having an eye for river rather than land movement.

I quite like the minimalist battle reports in BoA, but it works really in the context of the limited forces engaged. None of this, 'your 3rd corp was committed at 11am' style info.

The dead leader I didn't realise I'd done the nasty deed, Narwhal told me in an email.


Surprisingly, the first battle is a naval battle. The Windsor in front of Halifax intercepts a French transport ships that was probably trying to drop troops behind the line :
The French ship decides to retreat. No ship is sunk.

hah, cowardly English ran away from my awesome transport ship in reality ... but yes I was trying to get away with a raid behind the lines

Here is a picture of the movements I saw in the Middle States :

this is me setting up my defense around Lake Champlain, the small force is off to ensure the end of the Mohican menace
In the South, on the other hand, Braddock is now in Fort Cumberland, less than one month away from Fort Duquene :

There is a small force in Fort Duquesne, but I am confident I can defeat it. I cannot afford to wait more, because I know that Braddock’s column has been spotted by the French, and he is probably going to bring as much troops as possible in defense of the Fort.

How do I know that ? Well, I know that because Braddock is not good at concealing… at all.

Here Narwhal makes a fundamental attribution error (I am a psychologist by academic background after all). He assumes he's facing someone who has much of a clue ... as I didn't I wandered off to set fire to a few farms and small settlements instead
 
The rest of the year ... 1755 was maybe not that good?

I'll quickly wrap up the last of 1755 from my perspective, essentially all I was doing was finishing off my raids and responding to Narwhal's moves.

Here's a couple of beginners tips:

a) your Indians go back to their villages automatically at the end of a campaigning season, so you can keep them in the field rather than move them back to winter quarters (a mistake I made)
b) once they are activated by moving a unit of Couriers into the village, they stay alert, so will return to fight next season
c) if you're used to the French in RoP, one huge difference is they obviously sent all their good generals to Canada, unlike the British you have no problems with constant activation.

anyway to the action:



thats me being careless with matches again

and I decide to cash in some more EPs, this time for more militia



Now while Narwhal is busily attacking one of my key forts:



I'm off finding small places to attack and burn down (I do get VPs for this sort of thing apparently)

And up around Lake Champlain, I make up for last turn's mistake with orders and inflict a nice defeat on Shirley ...



the other force is off looking for things to set light to

Come September, the inevitable happens



ah well it just means that Narwhal is now deeper into the trap I'm laying ...

and in October he moves deeper into trouble when he captures GrandPre and heartlessly goes around upsetting the locals



this shows the sort of end of year position in terms of VPs etc



its not really going very well

in 1756 I need to find a way to deflect the British juggernaut. My reckoning is that as long as Louisbourg stands, the defense of Mont Royal and Quebec rests on Lake Champlain. Elsewhere, I think the solution is to be very irritating and to stock up on matches.
 
Actually, you might want to know that the "capture" of the village around Fort Duquesne are actually Indians deciding to join the winning side... mine.

Can't wait for the trap !

I think you also get points for pillaging English settlements on the coast. Might be a tad difficult to do without Duquesne, though.
 
This is proving to be very interesting - keep up the good work and the rapid pace of updating too.

I'd be grateful if you could offer some insight on supply as well. It seems that especially the French just go behind enemy lines without much consideration. Is that because of the Indian troops?