That's because Portugal and Spain are OP and can colonize too fast and too soon. When England has enough range to start colonizing North America it's already too late.
ENG/GB Underpowered?
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That's because Portugal and Spain are OP and can colonize too fast and too soon. When England has enough range to start colonizing North America it's already too late.
Some of it is the fact that Portugal and Spain are too good at colonizing. The other part is the fact that the AI almost NEVER transports troops until it has total Naval Superiority. I am still trying to figure out why AI puts all of its ships in one fleet and goes fleet hunting. AI doesn't try to put troops on ships that might get into combat if possible. I know that AI seems to like suicide invasions when it does do them......because of the conflicts between Army and Navy portion of the AI.
The problem is that the AI can't handle the problems as well as a human can. Like others have said England starts with a 0/0/0 King and no heir and soon gets hit with some terrible rebel events. Everyone complains about the AI's lack of ability against rebels. Between that and the other points outlined above is why England can't match its historical success.
The problem is that the AI can't handle the problems as well as a human can. Like others have said England starts with a 0/0/0 King and no heir and soon gets hit with some terrible rebel events. Everyone complains about the AI's lack of ability against rebels. Between that and the other points outlined above is why England can't match its historical success.
Human England is probably the easiest country in the game, but AI England always underperforms.
This. Its silly that spain and portugal end up colonizing the entire world by 1650-1700, even Siberia.
Well, to be fair, the Spanish and Portuguese did get a fairly massive head start on the English, and did colonize a pretty large chunk of the world before the English had established a single colony historically. I generally see the English colonizing up in North America and the Caribbean, which is where they focused in the New World.
I play England quite often.
It's easy in the fact you are safe, but if you do not go down the unhistorical route of PUing France, I do feel like you're underpowered.
Even focusing on colonisation, Portugal has a ridiculous head start and generally snaps up Africa, most of the Caribbean, central America, some of India, and the spice Islands.
Youre generally worse than Spain in every way except Navy.
It also seems harder to generate income from North American trade now, due to the changes introduced in 1.4. It takes a lot longer to get trade income rolling in, and a serious investment in ideas.
Blockades are nice, but no where near as powerful as made out. The main value you get from your fleet is sinking enemy trade fleets.
Getting involved in land wars in Europe is generally suicidal unless you have focused on land ideas, which means either trade or your Navy is suffering. You dont have the manpower, or army tradition usually you last long. In real life, Great Britain acted as a counter weight to European expansion. In game, youre really powerless to influence the mainland through force. It comes down to diplomacy.
So whilst England is a safe country to play (after you deal with all the problems at the start), its not one of the most powerful nations in the game by any stretch, assuming you take the historical route, and dont win the HYW.
The only way you can really catch up is by an unhistorical conquest of India. But relying solely on the Isle means you will get left in the dust.
It's easy in the fact you are safe, but if you do not go down the unhistorical route of PUing France, I do feel like you're underpowered.
Even focusing on colonisation, Portugal has a ridiculous head start and generally snaps up Africa, most of the Caribbean, central America, some of India, and the spice Islands.
Youre generally worse than Spain in every way except Navy.
It also seems harder to generate income from North American trade now, due to the changes introduced in 1.4. It takes a lot longer to get trade income rolling in, and a serious investment in ideas.
Blockades are nice, but no where near as powerful as made out. The main value you get from your fleet is sinking enemy trade fleets.
Getting involved in land wars in Europe is generally suicidal unless you have focused on land ideas, which means either trade or your Navy is suffering. You dont have the manpower, or army tradition usually you last long. In real life, Great Britain acted as a counter weight to European expansion. In game, youre really powerless to influence the mainland through force. It comes down to diplomacy.
So whilst England is a safe country to play (after you deal with all the problems at the start), its not one of the most powerful nations in the game by any stretch, assuming you take the historical route, and dont win the HYW.
The only way you can really catch up is by an unhistorical conquest of India. But relying solely on the Isle means you will get left in the dust.
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A lot of the "colonized" land was conquered from natives, not settled by Spanish colonists.
What's unhistorical about British India? It's a key part of what made the British powerful. Yes, you probably end up doing it slightly sooner than historically, but the same is true for most things involving colonization and expansion.
People tend to look at the end of the period, where the UK is arguably THE power, and project it backwards in time. But in truth, England/UK was generally a second tier power until the 18th century. English armies were absolutely terrible whenever they deployed to the continent basically between the death of Henry V and the rise of the Duke of Marlborough (the only notable exception being the New Model Army under Cromwell). While Henry VII managed to restore the English treasury, the later Tudors and Stuarts generally squandered it and were perpetually short on cash (during the Elizabethan period, numerous attempts were made to intercept the Spanish treasure fleet, but they always failed because the English couldn't afford to keep a significant fleet at sea for long enough to do any good).
Even the British navy was mostly a non-factor for the majority of the game period. The Spanish Armada was defeated, but subsequent English attempts to counterattack against Spain in the 16th century were pretty much failures.
It's not really until the Glorious Revolution and especially the War of Spanish Succession that the English begin to be a true Great Power.
Well in most of my games they end up releasing Wales and being conquered by Scotland. Even if they do survive they struggle to take Ireland and never quite colonize anything relevant in North America.
i think i see england colonizing at all in about one in five games... they usually get their fleet crushed too bbadly to be any use as a colonial nation and any colonies they get get destroyed... france, spain or even denmark can usually destroy the english navy with ease since england earn so little money in comparison. i don't really need to go into details about their effectiveness at managing their land wars off their mainland.
and if they DO get colonies and get in a war before a nation is formed, their in even WORSE problem because the ai can sometimes send almost all their army off to the colonies and then leave it there after the war is over so that scotland can easily stomp them. I'm not saying PLAYER england is UP, but the ai can't handle it. usually. sometimes, they get it right.
and if they DO get colonies and get in a war before a nation is formed, their in even WORSE problem because the ai can sometimes send almost all their army off to the colonies and then leave it there after the war is over so that scotland can easily stomp them. I'm not saying PLAYER england is UP, but the ai can't handle it. usually. sometimes, they get it right.
Ok since you are talking about them Tommies I tried them in my first beta game.
I peaced out with France giving them 2 provinces in the HYW. Then proceeded to claim Munster... which was allied with Scotland and thus I got 3 provinces from Scotland already
Burgundy is busy with France (which DOWed them) and so I think I´m in a quite good position by 1450. Should I attack France to get Normandy back? Also which NI you guys take for England first nowadays? Specially in case you do want to keep a continental presence.
I peaced out with France giving them 2 provinces in the HYW. Then proceeded to claim Munster... which was allied with Scotland and thus I got 3 provinces from Scotland already
Burgundy is busy with France (which DOWed them) and so I think I´m in a quite good position by 1450. Should I attack France to get Normandy back? Also which NI you guys take for England first nowadays? Specially in case you do want to keep a continental presence.
This thread again... they are able to stand up very well but the AI player is not programmed to be aggressive enough in the mid to late game to take advantage of it.
Yes, I have to agree. Though if you look at a map from around 1775 Spain was sitting on an absolutely huge part of NA. The difference is just that the Spanish presence in most of NA above the Rio Grande was probably quite small, even if combined together into one town (for instance Los Angeles had 650 inhabitants in 1820, and some 85000 in total for all of Alta California in 1847).
I suppose the colonisation mechanic could use an expansion on it's own. It really needs to have a sort of manpower. I mean in my latest Prussia game Norway was completely eaten by Sweden... Save the Faroes Islands and Iceland. Guess who had a huge swath of NA in the late 1500s? How many could they really be? Total population of those territories probably didn't top 50k combined for the period. Not even if they all moved to America could they settle the area Norway had staked out. I calculated them to to have a bit more than 90% of the BT in America. That's absurd.
The only reason why Stuarts were unable to raise enough funds was because of their fighting with Parliament. It were the inner political problems that were the biggest obstacle to English power. Also to the English being a non factor - it's more complicated than that. Edward IV was still considered significant threat by France after War if Roses. Henry VIII led a lot of field campaigns in France during his reign. During Elizabeth I the land army was weak, but Navy became as strong as Spanish Navy, maybe even better. It's true that James and Charles adopted more peaceful policy (like I said because of conflict with Parliament). On the other hand during republican and Cromwell era England gained a lot of reputation and their Army and Navy were considered top notch (although army not numerically,just qualitatively). Cromwell managed to beat both Dutch and Spanish during his reign and England gained some colonies in Carribean in addition to their NA settlements. Under Charles II, the English reputation again suffered somewhat. So basically only during the reign of James, Charles and Charles II (and during War of Roses of course) the England was insignificant.
And to the English counterattacks after Armada being failures - well just look at he opposition - they went against Spain and Portugalcombined, just with the support of the Dutch, who were much weaker than few decades later. It's quite and accomplishment, that they were able to fight them to draw.
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Oh yes lack of population as part of the mechanics screws the game a lot, but I´m afraid it´s too late.
Small population of the country and lack of colonizers to populate huge áreas was the main cause of slavery use in colonies, including Brazil.
Returning to topic the main cause of UK failing is the idiotic use it makes of its armies. Instead of sending them to attach to allies, it sends them piece meal, with predictable results.
Maybe the colony->city speed should be drastically reduced until say 1600?
That would mean it would still be worth it to grab colonies with 3 colonists, but it would allow the latecomers to have a chance, and we would probably not see Castille/Spain or Portugal eating all the open provinces in South Africa or Asia, but likely still get most of South and Central America.
That would mean it would still be worth it to grab colonies with 3 colonists, but it would allow the latecomers to have a chance, and we would probably not see Castille/Spain or Portugal eating all the open provinces in South Africa or Asia, but likely still get most of South and Central America.
Like I said before the Castile 3rd colonist should be made temporary (let's say until 1600) and Iberian nations should get "too cold" mallus when colonizing provinces outside of warm climate zones (that's pretty much what happened historically anyway).
Certainly the English launched expeditions against the continent during the Tudor period; I never denied that. What I disputed was that these expeditions accomplished anything. The greatest success Henry VIII had during his French campaigns (which he launched in concert with the Hapsburgs of Spain and Austria) was gaining the town of Boulogne for 9 years. His successors were even less successful. This was during the period when the French were fighting (either openly or diplomatically) almost continuously with the Hapsburgs, and yet the English were still unable to be more than a nuisance to the French.
The Stuarts had money problems, to be sure, but so did the Tudors (other than Henry VII, who preferred to strengthen the treasury and reform the government rather than pointlessly launch expensive military expeditions across the channel). Edward IV was an extremely successful general in the Wars of the Roses, but his French campaign was devoid of major success, and resulted only in a subsidy from the French crown to "go away" (which was generally the outcome of the more successful English continental campaigns of this period). As for fighting the Spanish, they had the advantage that neither the French nor the Spanish cared enough to actually worry about them; both sides were more interested in fighting each other (and in the Spanish case, subduing the Dutch rebels and supporting the Catholic League in France) to focus on them. They were generally happy to buy them out of the war (much like a player might do when facing an enemy alliance; just concede defeat or toss some ducats at the junior members to get them to drop out, while you focus on the important enemy).
Now, I'm not saying the English were entirely insignificant; they were a mid-level power. Which is what they tend to be as an AI in my games.