Hi gents,
i've been more or less lurking here for years and now its finally time to post! This will be a kind of feedback/AAR type of post. I've been playing as Great Britain and encountered several funny and sad things throughout my campaign against mighty france.
First of all, GB is really easy to play, since you can pick your fights and conquer about anywhere you want, since noone matches your naval power and the AI is really retarded at breaking blockades. Once i blocked a french port with 11 Ships of the Line in it with 5 ships and from 1805 to 1814 they didnt come out.
When playing Britain, islands are your friend - use this to your advantage and when sueing for peace, DO NOT annex the islands unless you need supplies around that area. Islands are free warscore in the upcoming wars. As a general rule, do not annex countries you can easily retake.
What really paid off for me was for example the Odensee-Maneuver for control of the Ostsee region:
Odensee can NOT be attacked by anyone if you have your fleets guarding it. Those fifty thousand men fought off several armies from netherlands and spain who tried to pick off Frederica. Also i can quickly march over to Kobenhaven should the danes try something again. That army stood guard there from 1806 to 1814 until they merged with the main force for the assault on netherlands.
Pizza for France
But i disgress. Why did sicily save the world? Early in the game (after i just captured Piedmont and made it my base of operations for the mediterranean), France attacked Sicily, as they are always wont to do. France annexed almost whole of Sicily, leaving Palermo and Gaeta to the poor sods. I saw my chance and immedeately declared war on Sicily. I took both provinces and also messina since poor France couldnt move units over there to defend it. After a while I noticed that France STILL HAD THEIR INVASION FORCE IN SICILY.
The following screenshot is for your amusement:
Important things to notice: I never made peace with sicily. They asked for it about every 2 months but I did not give in. Because France couldnt enter Sicily. That means those ~150k men you see on the screenshot were never able to leave sicily every again. Oh the joy. Sadly in late 1813 Spain declared on Sicily and took Gaeta, immedeately sueing for peace and thus freeing the French force. After 10 years of Spaghetti, Pizza and wine those were surely in no condition to ever fight again...
Taking the war to Spain
After having dealt with Tunisia and Tripolitana (both annexed), fighting off the Ottomans (and taking my Dominance targets from them on the way) I finnaly was able to focus on Spain, which is Britains job in fighting off Napolean in my opinion. Funnily Portugal was not taken and also quite liked France (Relations +5 to +20), so i couldnt ask them to join the mighty coalition. First i wanted to make Tangier my base of operations (and I DOW'd them), but later I realized that portugal is much closer to Britain and easier to reinforce, so i asked for military access and they granted it.
There was a problem though. Spain had 60 thousand men positioned on Gibraltar and about 40 thousand men next to it (god knows why not in Cadiz). So my force should have been prepared to meet around 100 thousand troops on the battlefield. And so we were, but it all came different.
Below another screenshot for your amusement:
Again several comments, this time in a list!
After that war Spain lost the South to me (made Cartagena my new base of Ops with 40k stationed there till the end of the game). I also DOW'd on Portugal and made them my satellite, just because i could! They later tried again, only to lose even more land to me.
March on Utrecht
In the year 1814 it was time to march on Utrecht and finish off this game once and for all. I did it the following way: An army of 60000 men set over from Britain to Hamburg and a short declaration of war against Denmark ensured my force from Odensee could march to Kiel, take it and sue for peace with Denmark for it. Now we had (1) all of the danish mainland and (2) a connected supply-line. With several skirmisher armies that force was around 150 thousand men marching slowly towards Utrecht.
But I didnt want to meet the french on the battlefield without first knowing what they had in stock, so I launched "Operation Bruges". Put roughly 20k Militia on a ship and let them assault Bruges and Bolougne. Immedeately after that ship around ten thousand Garrison troops into each of the cities and bring the miltia army back home.
Didnt take long and France showed up with around 120 thousand. And stupid as they were they did really assault one of the cities, costing them 28.000 men!
It doesnt sound much but
- we lost only militia troops and they lost fighting men so 20:28 isnt that bad
- now we knew of the army composition, generals and how many they could field
The final battle
It was in August 1814, british forces had taken most of northern Netherlands, when a small opportunity arised: 20k French men walked past towards Wesel, north of which my main host was waiting in Munster (55k guards). I charged head on and enabled "March to Noise" on my surrounding forces. The following days would see over 150 thousand men dead in one decisive battle. And i tell you, until the last day i was not sure who would win. Last screenshot:
147 thousand Brits versus 121 thousand French. Although they marched from Crefeld to Wesel over the river, they didnt not get those battle modifiers (its magic!). We still won, barely.
Two days later Utrecht fell, making me 100 percent land dominant and at the same time reducing France dominance below 100%.
Final Map
Hope you enjoyed this half as much as I did.
Thanks to Sicily the rest of Europe stood a fighting chance!
i've been more or less lurking here for years and now its finally time to post! This will be a kind of feedback/AAR type of post. I've been playing as Great Britain and encountered several funny and sad things throughout my campaign against mighty france.
First of all, GB is really easy to play, since you can pick your fights and conquer about anywhere you want, since noone matches your naval power and the AI is really retarded at breaking blockades. Once i blocked a french port with 11 Ships of the Line in it with 5 ships and from 1805 to 1814 they didnt come out.
When playing Britain, islands are your friend - use this to your advantage and when sueing for peace, DO NOT annex the islands unless you need supplies around that area. Islands are free warscore in the upcoming wars. As a general rule, do not annex countries you can easily retake.
What really paid off for me was for example the Odensee-Maneuver for control of the Ostsee region:
Odensee can NOT be attacked by anyone if you have your fleets guarding it. Those fifty thousand men fought off several armies from netherlands and spain who tried to pick off Frederica. Also i can quickly march over to Kobenhaven should the danes try something again. That army stood guard there from 1806 to 1814 until they merged with the main force for the assault on netherlands.
Pizza for France
But i disgress. Why did sicily save the world? Early in the game (after i just captured Piedmont and made it my base of operations for the mediterranean), France attacked Sicily, as they are always wont to do. France annexed almost whole of Sicily, leaving Palermo and Gaeta to the poor sods. I saw my chance and immedeately declared war on Sicily. I took both provinces and also messina since poor France couldnt move units over there to defend it. After a while I noticed that France STILL HAD THEIR INVASION FORCE IN SICILY.
The following screenshot is for your amusement:
Important things to notice: I never made peace with sicily. They asked for it about every 2 months but I did not give in. Because France couldnt enter Sicily. That means those ~150k men you see on the screenshot were never able to leave sicily every again. Oh the joy. Sadly in late 1813 Spain declared on Sicily and took Gaeta, immedeately sueing for peace and thus freeing the French force. After 10 years of Spaghetti, Pizza and wine those were surely in no condition to ever fight again...
Taking the war to Spain
After having dealt with Tunisia and Tripolitana (both annexed), fighting off the Ottomans (and taking my Dominance targets from them on the way) I finnaly was able to focus on Spain, which is Britains job in fighting off Napolean in my opinion. Funnily Portugal was not taken and also quite liked France (Relations +5 to +20), so i couldnt ask them to join the mighty coalition. First i wanted to make Tangier my base of operations (and I DOW'd them), but later I realized that portugal is much closer to Britain and easier to reinforce, so i asked for military access and they granted it.
There was a problem though. Spain had 60 thousand men positioned on Gibraltar and about 40 thousand men next to it (god knows why not in Cadiz). So my force should have been prepared to meet around 100 thousand troops on the battlefield. And so we were, but it all came different.
Below another screenshot for your amusement:
Again several comments, this time in a list!
- Spain never moved their besieging force out of Gibraltar, even after i took Madrid
- The main problem in Spain was a french army of 40.000 that came around to annoy me
- Chasing stacks of 4-6k men around is no fun
- the year is 1814 and the siege of Gibraltar was still at 0%. Hooray for the British defenders but how is that even possible?
- Also: Spain should be the naval power to rival Britain, but they are a total joke. Their admirals are so sub-par and their amount of ships is just laughable, is this historical? Cause i once played Spain and that ended in a naval disaster. Even the Ottomans posed a bigger naval threat. Poor sods.
After that war Spain lost the South to me (made Cartagena my new base of Ops with 40k stationed there till the end of the game). I also DOW'd on Portugal and made them my satellite, just because i could! They later tried again, only to lose even more land to me.
March on Utrecht
In the year 1814 it was time to march on Utrecht and finish off this game once and for all. I did it the following way: An army of 60000 men set over from Britain to Hamburg and a short declaration of war against Denmark ensured my force from Odensee could march to Kiel, take it and sue for peace with Denmark for it. Now we had (1) all of the danish mainland and (2) a connected supply-line. With several skirmisher armies that force was around 150 thousand men marching slowly towards Utrecht.
But I didnt want to meet the french on the battlefield without first knowing what they had in stock, so I launched "Operation Bruges". Put roughly 20k Militia on a ship and let them assault Bruges and Bolougne. Immedeately after that ship around ten thousand Garrison troops into each of the cities and bring the miltia army back home.
Didnt take long and France showed up with around 120 thousand. And stupid as they were they did really assault one of the cities, costing them 28.000 men!
It doesnt sound much but
- we lost only militia troops and they lost fighting men so 20:28 isnt that bad
- now we knew of the army composition, generals and how many they could field
The final battle
It was in August 1814, british forces had taken most of northern Netherlands, when a small opportunity arised: 20k French men walked past towards Wesel, north of which my main host was waiting in Munster (55k guards). I charged head on and enabled "March to Noise" on my surrounding forces. The following days would see over 150 thousand men dead in one decisive battle. And i tell you, until the last day i was not sure who would win. Last screenshot:
147 thousand Brits versus 121 thousand French. Although they marched from Crefeld to Wesel over the river, they didnt not get those battle modifiers (its magic!). We still won, barely.
Two days later Utrecht fell, making me 100 percent land dominant and at the same time reducing France dominance below 100%.
Final Map
Hope you enjoyed this half as much as I did.
Thanks to Sicily the rest of Europe stood a fighting chance!
