How to Win at Napolic Era

[joncnunn]

I sign MA alliances against England all the time as France on this one. Most of the AIs will pay you big bucks for this privilege.

France has a locked war with England and so there's no worries about you ever breaking the military alliance.

But yes, don't sign MA against the small powers because you don't want to lose rep for winning an alliance war.

Originally posted by Grim Legacy

I never sign military alliances, as the 20 turns interval before being able to sign an 'honorable' peace treaty is too often unsuitable.

[Solomwi]

GL, I've had really good results landing an army and a few cavs first, then adding to the force each turn. Two transports allow you to add eight units each turn, which mounts into a force that can take London fairly quickly.

On MA, I've found that the AI is pretty reliable as far as breaking it to make peace themselves, though as jon points out, winning an alliance war is a concern.

[Grim Legacy]

Heh, I have to admit that I hadn't thought of signing MA's against England at all! I guess I was too strongly biased by the original game in which I consider MA's to be quite useless and in which locked alliances do not exist.

BTW I looked at that PBEM game that's ongoing and it seemed like a lot of fun. A cool scenario for human players with a nice power balance and opportunities for politics.

[joncnunn]

Since the AI itself does sometimes break the alliances, don't place a luxary as part of the same deal and also make the AI paying for it do it in up front cash as much as possible.

I did look at the govts the civs are currently in. So it might just be a fluke in my game that the Spainish broke the MA first. (Spain seemed to be the only other country that's also a Republic)

The reason I have time for England is that I reached 9000 VPs just from annexing Amsterdam and Italy at a time when the next closest civ was at 2500 VPs.

Protugual is also gone now, I annexed the northern half and the Austrians took the southern half as my forces were moving down to it.

The Rock of Gualbaltar is next, but it looks like the Ottomans might conquer it before me.

[Grim Legacy]

Are you saying you're content with having the VP lead by the time the scenario ends? You're not going for the VP limit?

Originally posted by joncnunn
Since the AI itself does sometimes break the alliances, don't place a luxary as part of the same deal and also make the AI paying for it do it in up front cash as much as possible.

I did look at the govts the civs are currently in. So it might just be a fluke in my game that the Spainish broke the MA first. (Spain seemed to be the only other country that's also a Republic)

The reason I have time for England is that I reached 9000 VPs just from annexing Amsterdam and Italy at a time when the next closest civ was at 2500 VPs.

Protugual is also gone now, I annexed the northern half and the Austrians took the southern half as my forces were moving down to it.

The Rock of Gualbaltar is next, but it looks like the Ottomans might conquer it before me.

[joncnunn]

A win is a win.

But if I conquer England before the game ends I'll find someone next to conquer.

Or if Denmark drags me into a war, I'll really fight it.

But I do note that killing English units is worth more than killing most other nations units. (VP for killing a unit is based on the cost of the unit)

Originally posted by Grim Legacy
Are you saying you're content with having the VP lead by the time the scenario ends? You're not going for the VP limit?

[Grim Legacy]

I was hoping for Denmark to be obliterated, but the lame computer tactics of their enemies failed to reach even that modest goal. I'm thinking that the incessant alliances against Denmark and hence France were purposely pre-cooked for this scenario.

[Solomwi]

England's cities are close enough to let you move quickly once you get rolling, too.

[joncnunn]

And cities retain culture is on and so London's strong culture helps you once you take it.

Use the standard starve cities down to pop 1 that you take until that civ is wiped out.

Note that the above starving tactic might only be really neccesary when playing France (as a Republic) because cultural flip is off. France only needs that tactic because of the starting WW level with England, Netherlands, and Protogual, each of which indiviually is at pretty close to max low WW level.

Originally posted by Solomwi
England's cities are close enough to let you move quickly once you get rolling, too.

[Solomwi]

Originally posted by joncnunn
And cities retain culture is on and so London's strong culture helps you once you take it.

Use the standard starve cities down to pop 1 that you take until that civ is wiped out.

Exactly. Once you have enough troops in London, you can start a kind of leapfrog system, with one column taking a city and the other moving through and getting into position to attack the next city the next turn, while your first column heals.

[joncnunn]

Update on my current game, saw my first English LifeGuard in Scotland (Edinburgh), that was the first unit hit by my grand battery stack down to 2 HPs, so it was no match for my Army of Imperial Guards.

That was right after I had only 1 tech left to research, and several turns past the last useful tech for France in this conquest. IMHO, the most advanced useful techs for France are the ones allowing Grand Battery [advanced tactics IG is a prereq to that], the one allowing Ship of the Line, and the one allowing public schools. (Effectively a second Temple)

And with one tech remaining, I finally broke down and enlisted the help of 10% luxaries to go with my 6 luxaries. (5 in my territory, I'm giving the Ottomans a sweet heart deal of two of my luxaries for their Dye,)

Territory of France in my game Nov 1806:

France + Netherlands + most of Italy (Austrian owned Venice excepted) + Northern Protogual + England, Wales, and southern Scotland.

The Rock of Gulibartor is Ottoman owned.

This leaves the British empire with only Ireland plus central and nothern Scotland.

Completed the Naval Tactics small wonder and built the first ship of the line, so the troop ships with a large escort of frigates and the ship of the line is now headed to the Wales city in preperation for transporing my forces from England to Ireland as soon as the English are kicked out of Scotland.

Victory Status:
18% of land area (#1) Russia is second at 17%
22% of worlds population (#1) Russia is second at 19%.
Apox 20,000 victory points (#1) Austria is second with aprox 4100 victory points.

It is quite increadible the amount of damage a stack of 7 Grand Batterys does to the opposition.

[joncnunn]

Nov 1807

Annexation of Scotland complete; in process of relocating forces to Ireland.

Intelegence Agency built and spy placed in Dublin. England has only two Life Guards in their entire army. In the hands of a human their nine men of war would be a serious threat, but the AI has no clue on how to use ships to block naval invasions. (Most of their fleet is actually between Northern Ireland and Scotland, just out of movement range of my ferry from Wales to Southern Ireland.

Victory Status:
20% of land area
22% of worlds population
aprox 25,000 VPs

Most countries have seen the light and disposed their monarchs in favor of peoples republics.

London now has 4 French citizens (and 1 English citizen)

[Solomwi]

Public schools are actually slightly better than a temple in this scenario, since they give a happy face for the same price as a temple's content face. Maintenance and culture are the same for both.

Also, a note on those Ottoman dyes... something to consider once you get the Italian invasion underway is diverting a voltigeur and worker through Austria or across the Adriatic, if you can get a ship in there, and colonizing the dyes on the road between Mostar and Venice. Obviously, this won't work in all situations, and will be precarious, at best, if you go to war with Austria soon afterward, but it's definitely feasible in the right situation.

[joncnunn]

Update, sometime in late 1808 or early 1809 took the last Engish city.

No more WW.

About 30K victory points.

Start a massive Hospital construction project and cancel the starve the english citizens project.

Meanwhile, a massive redepolyment of forces from Ireland back to the mainland, use one Troop Transport to bridge Ireland and England and the other England to France to speed this up.
As they get to the mainland deploy in a city within range of Frankfurt.

Several turns later ...

The military is back in France. All except the most recent arrival can reach the tile to bombard Frankfurt this turn. But, Prussia has an MPP with Austria and the Ottoman Turks.

Hum, everyone willing to pay big money for an MPP with me. Turks offer more than the Austrians, so I sign the deal with the Turks.

Austria now wants a bunch of GPT for an MPP. Hum, price goes down to almost nothing if RPP thrown in. Deal.

Hum, everybody except the Sweeds now wants a lot of GPT for an MPP even with an RPP thrown in. Sweeds will pay me money. Deal!

Hum, everybody else wants even more gold than before for an MPP. Insult even with RPP now.

Declare war on Prussia. Both Spain and Russia would consider it an insult to MA + RPP against Prussia as well as MPP.

Press enter so the MPPs will break in my favor. Enough turns had gone by to where my VP locations brought me up to 35,000 VPs.

Prussia does not invade!

Finish deploying the units in my staging city and hit enter.

Ok, Prussia now crosses the border. They haven't attacked any of my units nor pillaged.

But wait, Sweeden, Austria, Turkey, and Denmark declare war on Prussia anyway.

Over the next few turns, take Frankfort.
Prussia signs a MA with Russia against Denmark. Russia declares war on Denmark. Russian cosacks apprently go after Danish troops in Prussia [left over from RoP] and other countries instead of Denmark. So the locked alliance doesn't trigure.

I then the city north of there, and then while redeploying to the German city leading to Denmark, Russia signs a MA with Sweeden against Denmark!

On my turn, the Danish attack the Sweeds. Our MPP with Sweeden causes us to declare war on the Danish!
Followed immedately by the Sweeds attack the Danish. Our MPP with Demark causes us to declare war on Sweeden!!!

We are therefore at war with Denmark!!!
Denmark promptly sinks one of my Ship-Of-The-Lines with a Frigate.

On my turn, I take that German city leading to Denmark.
Can't quite reach the red lined Frigate, but I spot a Danish transport with 2 Frigate escorts. Try to attack it, but my capitans refuse!? WTF? Denmark can attack me but I can't attack them???

Oh, and that city now has brought me up to 41K VPs. Might still be possible for me to still hit the VP limit before time runs out. Turks are second with 9K VPs.

[Grim Legacy]

Heh looks like the 'locked alliance' isn't foolproof.

On the topic of oddities in this scenario... has anyone else ever noticed the french banner states "emereur" instead of (I suppose) "empereur"?