I tried my hand at creating the Mayan Empire in a series of iron man games (starting as Xiu). At my best, after 100 years (~1550s) I was able to beat my contemporaries, reform the religion, and create the Maya holding all of Central America. I was feeling pretty good about myself at the time! 
The brutal part, however, is holding off the Europeans even with the (essential) reformation bonus in tech. Surprisingly, neither the Spanish nor the British have been challenging, but the French have been like an army of the dead: unstoppable. Even with the same military tech level, they have morale, tactical, and discipline bonuses that shred my forces to dust. Even if I outnumber them 3 to 2, they easily win.
Worse yet, underdevelopment leaves me with a very low manpower and force limit (Quantity was my first military idea), coupled with a moderate economy means the French outnumber me two to one while I struggle to pay for replacements (thus, a war of attrition works in their favor, not mine). Strangely, they seem to use their entire continental army on me, and they declare war the moment the truce runs out.
I've tried making allies, but all the main European powers have a hard set -200 relations because they want my provinces (Brittany lasted with me one go round with France, and then left after falling to them). Sometimes I've drawn the French to stalemate, other times I've given ground to them only to get it back in the next war, but every time they decimate my forces and lands. The relatively new devastation effect is compounding my losses. I'm now in the early 1700s, overrun, deep in debt, and without an army.
I'm not playing a perfect game, of course, but for iron man I think I'm playing this pretty close to as good as possible. Two lessons I've learned in my current iron man is that all my infantry should be mercs (since I don't have the manpower to absorb the heavy losses), but that administrative ideas (coupled with quantity and defensive) are essential to shore up my economy to pay for mercs and constant invasions.
Are the French in the current patch just super powered, or is playing in the New World asking for constant punishment? Am I missing something where it shouldn't be this hard?
The brutal part, however, is holding off the Europeans even with the (essential) reformation bonus in tech. Surprisingly, neither the Spanish nor the British have been challenging, but the French have been like an army of the dead: unstoppable. Even with the same military tech level, they have morale, tactical, and discipline bonuses that shred my forces to dust. Even if I outnumber them 3 to 2, they easily win.
Worse yet, underdevelopment leaves me with a very low manpower and force limit (Quantity was my first military idea), coupled with a moderate economy means the French outnumber me two to one while I struggle to pay for replacements (thus, a war of attrition works in their favor, not mine). Strangely, they seem to use their entire continental army on me, and they declare war the moment the truce runs out.
I've tried making allies, but all the main European powers have a hard set -200 relations because they want my provinces (Brittany lasted with me one go round with France, and then left after falling to them). Sometimes I've drawn the French to stalemate, other times I've given ground to them only to get it back in the next war, but every time they decimate my forces and lands. The relatively new devastation effect is compounding my losses. I'm now in the early 1700s, overrun, deep in debt, and without an army.
I'm not playing a perfect game, of course, but for iron man I think I'm playing this pretty close to as good as possible. Two lessons I've learned in my current iron man is that all my infantry should be mercs (since I don't have the manpower to absorb the heavy losses), but that administrative ideas (coupled with quantity and defensive) are essential to shore up my economy to pay for mercs and constant invasions.
Are the French in the current patch just super powered, or is playing in the New World asking for constant punishment? Am I missing something where it shouldn't be this hard?
