The AI cheats...

[unmerged(598)]

On size slowing development; This seems historicaly correct. With every increase in the size of a country costs of adminstration and corruption increase. If the colonial nations don't divert the wealth of colonies into the research pool then they will stagnate a la Spain.

Many of the innovations in military technology came from small-(ish) nations such as Holland and Sweden. They advanced because they did not have the resources of the colonial powers and necesity is the mother of invention.

The small independents are not just there as food for the world powers, most remained independent well past the time frame of the game, and their armies were always sought after as allies. I remember the shock of thinking that Helvetia would make a nice new aquisition to my country, until I saw the musketeer icon, and my troops getting slaughtered.

Personally, I think that the colonial cities, especially India and Indo-China are a little too valuable. Three or four cities there can bring in more income than your entire home nation.

 

[unmerged(1686)]

My major gripes would be with the fact they all build manufactories etc right from the beginning it seems which further opens the gap b/w my country and theirs technologically....

Also the naval battles must be 'bugged' somehow, I mean I can't count the number of times a handful 2-6 transports have routed 30-50 of my warships in the English channel...once or twice I even had an admiral with the fleet..

 

[unmerged(905)]

Pirates are being fixed in the upcoming patch. If your 20 warships are being routed by 6 transports then that's a bug. Are you sure it is 6 transports? England has a weak fleet historically before QE I, so I imagine that 6 warships from France have a pretty good chance to rout 20 English. That's Warships though. All transports do is take damage. They don't do damage.

--Avenger

 

[unmerged(1776)]

Originally posted by sean9898
Many of the innovations in military technology came from small-(ish) nations such as Holland and Sweden. They advanced because they did not have the resources of the colonial powers and necesity is the mother of invention.

The small independents are not just there as food for the world powers, most remained independent well past the time frame of the game, and their armies were always sought after as allies. I remember the shock of thinking that Helvetia would make a nice new aquisition to my country, until I saw the musketeer icon, and my troops getting slaughtered.

I agree with the first statement to a point. It's true handguns were first used in Italy (Tuscany, I believe) and that arquebus were invented in one of the small German states, but France invented most of the cannon advances.
My question is after the patch are the small states going to be penalized if they're tech gets too far ahead? I'm playing Austria and I have a +7 tech bonus to Land because Venice is killing me! But yet I'm far ahead of the other powers. *shrug*


Just a thought but maybe a more realistic way of showing that small states were tougher than they appear would be to tone down the tech advantage a little bit (at least for the coastal states) but give them a nasty defensive advantage, given that it's very easy to defend a smaller area than a huge country like France, and that since their armies weren't off invading someone else they busied themselves with digging elaborate fortifications.

 

[unmerged(1648)]

Re: Another one which comes to my mind

Originally posted by Java of Flanders
How about the AI sieging a city with a 150k army in a province that can normally sustain 2. In a month only some 2-3k seemed to die from attrition, they should die by thousands every month!

Actually, the supply number only determines, if attrition will occure. Once it has determined attrition is happening, then it has nothing to do with how much attrition. So an army with high tech lvl and a good commander in a province that have a lower max attrition, could conceiveablely have max attrition of only 1 or 2 percents.

 

[hjarg]

Originally posted by Gundobald
My major gripes would be with the fact they all build manufactories etc right from the beginning it seems which further opens the gap b/w my country and theirs technologically....

Refineries require level 2 infrastructure. So no wonder if small nations, who are ahead techologically, can build them early. And naval manufactories require level 5 naval tech. You can get it easily in the beginning of the game as well.
And why don't you build them yourself?

 

[unmerged(1891)]

A couple of comments,

Transports can definitely rout fleets with warships in. I have never taken damage from an enemey fleet of transports but have seen my moral plumet and my fleet rout when fighting them. If undefended transports meet warships it should be an impossible for the warships to rout. Also why is there no monetary gain from fighting a 'guerre de course' (probably the wrong spelling)? where you concentrate on capturing enemy merchant shipping. England made a fair bit of money throughout the period doing this as did France and Holland.

The AI will offer you peace for amounts less than 250D. When ever I get involved in a war including the Mamelukes they seem to be obsessed with offing peace if I pay them 35 or 50D.

 

[unmerged(1888)]

Regarding minor one province nations being able to keep up in the tech race, it's been argued on other threads that the AI countries are actually too weak in the long run where research is concerned. Eventually the player countries begin to greatly outpace them, perhaps because of smarter investing, or better overall finances.

Since there's no way to 'steal' research levels, I'd agree that size-variable costs are the only way for minor countries to remain competetive over 300 years - otherwise all the tiny German states would still be fighting using pikes in 1791 (assuming they lived that long! )

 

[Xanadu]

Question on Attrition

My current game has a land tech level of 38.What if any kind of attrition will I suffer in a 6 supply limit enemy province with no leader?

 

[unmerged(252)]

The AI definitely seems to suffer much less attrition than player armies. The player has to be very careful in the way he moves armies, even in his own territory. Winter fighting is out of the question. The AI on the other hand marches 60k, 80k, 100k armies all around the map in the dead of winter and the attrition they suffer is very small.

 

[unmerged(1686)]

The transports didn't actually kill any of my warships just routed them, those french really know how to 'taunt' I suppose...

'your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries....' Monte Python