How to Win at Napolic Era

[jatf]

"I'm playing as France.
At the beginning, what's' better to build?
Cavalry or Voltiguers?"

Both. Volts for both defence & offence esp in border cities. Otherwise rely on drafting for core cities. You may need to draft in border cities depending on level

Cavs to make sure your conscript remain just that - conscripts who never see action

Don't forget to throw in some artillery though. Cannon//G Batteries plus infantry (Volts or imp guards) act as a nice seige stack while cavalry form the mobile attack stacks.

JATF

[realpolitic]

Prussia's been a pain, comitting early RoPrape and razing a city. No more RoPs for them. Or maybe I should get an MA against Portugal and Italy as well.

Advanced Tactics are my first tech, those IGs are good defenders for France, as I often have lots of troops in Italy.I guess I shouldn't use Vultures for offence, just build cannons & cav, until I can build Inf.

[jatf]

Recently completed this one with Russia. I wasn't playing properly more mucking about but even then Russia was just to easy to turn into a killer. Takes time but once the russian juggernaut started rolling it only stopped when I ran out of enough troops to protect the artillery stack and to hold/attack cities. Cossacks just seemed to die all the time.

MPP and MA on this are easy to get to begin with. Once the locked alliances kick in then the problems start. Rep goes down the sewer faster than....

well you know

Once the rep is gone then everbody starts declaring war left right and centre, ROP raping becomes endemic, trade embargoes become almost commonplace. Thankfully either the VP limit is hit, time runs out or domination occurs.

Eventually it is I become become isolationist and just trade resources and lux and refuse to give MPP/MA/ROP unless it is really neccessary.

JATF

[realpolitic]

This is my second games, the few extra cannons and frigates I've built are sufficent to hold off the inferior nations, Attaking Italy only with cavs & Napoleon's Army works fine (after Amsterdam). Annihilatiton of Italy should keep ww managable for remaing 78 turns. Russia is attacking Portugal relentlessly. Turn 20 Prussian declare war on me. Since technology isn't all that important, I payoff Russia & Austria for MA against Prussia. Pay fee to renew neighbors MAs of Britian.

[jatf]

Thought I would try something a bit different with this scenario. I usually play as one of the four with the advanced infantry (French, Brits, Russians or Ottomans) so I picked Austria.

Austria starts off as a non aligned state so you can churn out workers and improvements to begin with - usually I have to start with a mix of infantry/workers.

The core of Austria is tight packed with plenty of hills where it matters. Rivers on key growth cities as well. Where there are no rivers, the cities are close enough to the core to build aqueducts quickly.

Grab the dye to south of Venice asap and you have furs, gems & dyes as three lux.

The big problem Austria has is it neighbours & infantry units. France (Imp Guard + Imp cav), Russia (Guards + Cossacks) and Ottomans (Janissaries + sipahi).

Austria - Hussar (pretty good) and Grenzer (4/4/1 )

Not looking too good on the defensive front so preventing attacks by advanced tactics units is key. Using cannons and rivers/hills for defensive purposes becomes more important than normally. Before I could assume that a stack of 20 advanced tactic infantry would have a reasonably good survival rate. Now I need to churn out Grenzers even more than I normally would as they just die all the the time.

As for the game I'm playing, Prussia died (took a while - full HP hussars kept committing suicide against 1hp units on open terrain). I eventually MPP'd with France. Curiously France gave me all her tech lead (Code Civil, Espionage, Education, Mil Logistics) to get me to sign. No gold or GPT as they were broke. I had to choose whether or not to have France as a ally or an enemy. Ended up blocking "Ottomoaning all the time" attempts to attack France while the Russians just declared war when I asked them to leave for the umpteenth time.

Right next to Konigsberg...

Which was packed with elite Hussars and a BIG cannon stack...

Downside is I don't have enough Grenzers to advance yet. Then Spain joins in as they have a MPP with Russia. By the time the first Spanish cav arrives (triggering the MPP with France) the Spanish army has to be strung out across France. Nothing else has arrived though.

One final comment. It seems to take ages to get MGL in this scenario. Even with massive amounts of elite combat taking place.

JATF

Still I would say that Austria is an interesting challenge.

[jatf]

Finally won by VP and time limit.

Even managed to get a secong MGL. Took ages though.

Ottomans are dead(ish). Istanbul renamed Constantinople and the population "converted".

It seems that as both Russia and Austria there is no real point to building the Naval Academy Sm Wonder. The only CIV that really needs it already has it (Britain). Even then once you have a reasonable toehold in France it becomes less important.

JATF (Wondering if everbody but himself is playing Civ 4 )

[realpolitic]

Looks like I'll sqeak through a VP win at DemiGod[France]. Been razing & giving away territory (mainly to the Danes, although I gave to Ottoman a city hoping that adjanct Russians w so a win on points or Domination won't occur. Had to wipe out

Netherlands
Italy
Prussia
Austria
Portugal

Spain will be weak when I finally get 60000 VP.

My big mistake: Premature attacks on Britans ships. Left too many SoL vulerable.

MGLs? about 4 generated with game 70% over. Maybe its the militaristic trait.

Temples? Public Schools? Not for me I want to stay moblised, except for turn 1 when I build FP. No attack on Britain. My lux slider is at 60%, I don't need tech anymore, I'll get more shields from mobilising then rushing, and I get some cash when I sell off distant city improvements.

[realpolitic]

Won on VP with 19 turns remainang as France at DemiGod.

Just took a look at Russia's starting position -- not many troops there in the begining. It will take a week or so before I'm clear on the strategy. MA's with neighbors a nessity! A Draft, probably too!