Playing Prussia is Considerably more difficult in AHD

[RedRalphWiggum]

Not quite the speed record some of you have, but I have been having a very fun game as PRU the past couple of days.

Early war with DEN, take HAN and SAX via influence: NGF. Foreign investment really helps keeping your SoI safe.

BAV has become a GP, forged a humiliate CB but, they have Allied with Russia. So be it, attack anyway.

BAV mostly occupied, starting the beat back the Russians when AUS, allied with FRA, TUR, and some minors, attacks me! Luckily most of FRA's forces are off fighting Spain. Focus on finishing off Russia's armies, and get them to peace out for humiliating BAV. Manage some good victories against AUS before Spain falls and FRA brings up more troops. TUR troops start appearing in Austria too.

Around 5 years after attacking BAV, the Austrian alliance is defeated. FRA and AUS are humiliated, FRA gives up A-L, AUS admits my hegemony in Germany. The German Empire is founded in 1854.

I played one a while back where I got an alliance with Denmark while Prussia was attacking them, then intervened. Opportunistically attacked France while they were at war with UK later, got NGF by 1845. Germany too a long while though, eventually had to smash Bavaria down and wait til they lost GP status. As soon as they did, I added 'add to SoI', bingo bang, three hurrahs for Germany.

 

[Grubnessul]

I really think the CB against Denmark and Austria should be fabricated just like normal ones to slow down the German formation.

In my one game so far, Prussia is pretty much a cake walk. The new investments kept Austria out of my sphere and my zergling like minion made me only have to focus on Austria's main armies. Man power and wealth are still quite easy to enmasse, although not as easy as it used to be.

One question though, does the AI use foreign investment actively? Using it, I was able to snatch Luxembourg from France without a drop of sweat. I'd assume they -and the Netherlands- ought to be much more eager to keep the 'Gibraltar of the North' out of German dominance.

 

[Danus Maximus]

I accomplished a Kleindeutschland plus Luxembourg unification as Prussia on March 18, 1840. I checked and couldn't believe I was on normal difficulty. It felt more like very easy, actually. Instead of a day 1 hegemony war with Austria I did a day 2 war after getting alliances with the UK, France, and the Ottomans. This meant I could do both Austria and Denmark at the same time as French troops and Ottoman were dying for me. Then I whipped around, broke the French alliance and pulled the UK, the South German states, Belgium, and the Netherlands into my war for Alsace-Lorraine.

Actually I made the critical mistake of forgetting to influence Hanover which meant I had to wait over a hundred days to form the NGF. Had I not forgotten to do so I could have unified easily by 1839.

Use alliances. The AI is much more willing in AHD and French troops asserting your hegemony and the Royal Navy blockading the French coast make Germany a cakewalk.

 

[qala]

Has anyone noticed how the Krupp decision demands 500 industrial score, was it always so? It seems quite difficult to get that high a score, at least during the first 20 years of the game.

 

[Puritan]

Alliances are far too easy to form atm. Currently I'm playing Prussia and beating down Austria with the help of GB, France, Belgium, then Netherlands and Switzerland, along with the usual hoard of german minors.

*edit* Just formed Germany in Janauary of 1840 using mostly the same exploits mentioned earlier in the thread.

 

[cpreston5]

I've found it a bit more difficult with AHD. Austria, Russia and France have all been very eager to ally this game which may just be bad luck this time.

It's 1871 right now and I'm fighting Austria and France for Bohemia. Austria has been beaten quite hard and no longer can launch any real offensives, but the two combined still have around 250 brigades to my 170. One thing I have noticed is that the AI is more wary of annihilation battles so it might take me a while to whittle down their forces to the point where I can not only take Bohemia, but also Alsace-Lorraine.

Previously I would just let the French attack me with 200,000 men in the forests around Strasbourg, then surround them to win the war in a week.

 

[unmerged(224544)]

I'm playing a Prussia game but not sure what to do about Holstein. Once I take the cores from Denmark how am I supposed to get actual Holstein so I can form NGF? Wait 5 years?

 

[delra]

Or you can put them at Friendly 100 influence before the war ends...

 

[Imperator G4G]

Has anyone noticed how the Krupp decision demands 500 industrial score, was it always so? It seems quite difficult to get that high a score, at least during the first 20 years of the game.

Quite sure that it was the same in V2 and the new functions actually makes it easier in AHD than in V2. Build railroads across the world (foreign investment) and your industrial score will rise very fast.

 

[ajax.hsp]

Reading this topic (especially the title) I decided to play Prussia as my first real campaign yesterday evening (didn't have much time earlier).
So, aside from "no more cash flow", which is general for all countries, current Prussia game is just magnificent. I formed Grossdeutschland in November 1842, but I didn't consider myself as hardcore player. I never did "Gross" in vanilla (wasn't really interested, 'cause of illiterate eastern lands), but this was pretty much fun and easy.
French and Austrian soldiers are made of mud. Sometimes I was getting battle score of +10.

Just for information, how I did that:
dow on Austria on day one (assert hegemony + later humiliate), influencing Holstein, when Holstein is added to SoI, war with Denmark and influencing Hanover & Luxembourg -> forming NGF. War with France for A-L and F-C. Wait until truce with Austria ends -> Assert Hegemony, occupying. When Austria lost GP (which wasn't really hard, 'cos of day 1 war they didn't really have prestige and industry, all you need is to crush their armies to lower military score), add wargoal (add to SoI). -> Three Hurrahs! -> Grossdeutsches Reich!

But then I was thinking that maybe it's possible to fight Austria only once... just leave them occupied, and fight France, but this way you unlikely to form NGF (wasn't much help, though, I beat France with ,my "Prussian" army). I'll just leave it to "hardcore" players.

Also I can hardly express how much I like new "Justify War" feature. In vanilla my game cycle was like this: annex as much as I can until BB limit, then wait a loooooong time, then again annexing,... But now "fun" is just never stops. I hardly even pay attention to my current infamy level. It was about 15-20, nothing to be afraid of.
Also, thanks to foreign investments, I was able to increase my industrial score a LOT, and I was #1 even before 1850.

Now I'm in 1853 and even accomplished my "every game goal" - liberated Greek lands.
The most fun thing is that unlike vanilla, game is not over yet, there's so much to do even not crossing BB limit.

 

[unmerged(224544)]

Or you can put them at Friendly 100 influence before the war ends...

How do I do that if I am at war with them since they are Denmark's puppet?

 

[Cyric313]

Im just wondering how you guys manage it. If i start a game and DOW Austria on day 1 i get my ass handed to me every time.
My troops loose manpower every day and never reinforce. i try and wait on my own soil for them to come to me and still i get creamed.
any idea what im doing wrong here?

 

[drake000666]

Im just wondering how you guys manage it. If i start a game and DOW Austria on day 1 i get my ass handed to me every time.
My troops loose manpower every day and never reinforce. i try and wait on my own soil for them to come to me and still i get creamed.
any idea what im doing wrong here?

Did you leave your lands open, you want them to rush you with small stacks and then attack them in your lands with large stacks

 

[delra]

Bait them into attacking your good Def commander, meatgrind them by slowly fuelling your forces to that battle as they add theirs, surround and wipe them out. Then mobilize and use your mob pool to carpet their country, best in a way that allows you to see all their provinces so you can immediately park a stack everywhere they are training a new unit. While your mob is busy sieging, you can use your standing army to beat some sense into Denmark or even France, provided you went Jingo, Soldier NFs and at least the first Tactics tech.

 

[Cyric313]

great.. tried several times on Very easy diff and still get creamed on my own land by huge stacks.

 

[Maggix]

1) Position all your troops in Prussian mainland, let Austria sent its forces to the border provinces - except those which are woods or hills, since you're getting a bonus defending them. Now wait until you get a general with good attacking bonus to take care of those armies which are e.g. invading Oberschlesien (Kattowitz). Next step is splitting your armies in 1-2 unit stacks and sending them all over Austria. Make sure to have a considerably big stack left to crush new recruited troops.

Wait, theres no 2). Ok if you want to form a smaller Germany, add Cut down to size CB and humiliate CB in addition to the Assert Hegemony one. If you're lucky Austria will drop out of Great Power rank while you're occupying them, it will make things a lot easier.

3) If you want Greater Germany, ALWAYS ask in addition to Assert Hegemony and Add to sphere the acquire Bohemia CB. Without Bohemia Austria wont get back to GP rank in the next 5 years.

 

[delra]

Can you describe how do you get creamed, exactly?

 

[drake000666]

great.. tried several times on Very easy diff and still get creamed on my own land by huge stacks.

Only thing I can think is that you have your national stockpile set low, it should be at max for the war. I do not even mobilize and I send on stack to fight Denmark when I start that war.

 

[Puritan]

How do I do that if I am at war with them since they are Denmark's puppet?

I'd sphered them before the war with Denmark, while I was still fighting Austria. It takes time to get enough WS even to just assert hegemony.

Im just wondering how you guys manage it. If i start a game and DOW Austria on day 1 i get my ass handed to me every time.
My troops loose manpower every day and never reinforce. i try and wait on my own soil for them to come to me and still i get creamed.
any idea what im doing wrong here?

I had help from France and Switzerland. This diverted some of their doomstacks, and enabled me to get away without mobilizing.

Do you have your military at full maintainence? Soldier pops can be rather erratic, and often the pop for one region's regiments will disappear while others grow and allow you to build new brigades.

 

[CFG9000]

I was going to post a thread about this actually. I don't think Prussia is all that hard actually. I went to war with Austria and was able to snatch Bohemia from them. I went to war with them again for Moravia and just as that war was wrapping up France attacking me with Russia as their ally. I thought, oh great here's the end of this game, but to my surprise France wasn't able to draw up it's innumerable army from Vanilla. I focused on wiping out two large stacks that they sent into my territory and then was able to get enough war score easily enough to take A-L. I think the reason they weren't as invincible is because money is in much shorter supply and it's difficult to have a large army smashed and for you to just order up more troops. I also don't think they mobilized either.

I have to say one thing I did notice is that getting Grosssdeutschland is going to be a lot harder because you really need to play your cards right with CBs. I asserted hegemony on them twice and took their two most industrialized provinces and they were still #5 or #6 shortly after the war. I didn't see them drop from the GP club after the typical occupy it all strategy that shuts down their industry. I might have just been impatient though because I was going to go bankrupt if I continued the war.

I tried the same strategy of occupying Austria and waiting to see if they'd drop out of GP status, because I wanted to slap on a puppet goal before ending the war. I waited 2 years and it didn't happen, and they dropped out the day the war ended. So apparently a GP can't lose GP status while at war, whether this is intended or not.