Read This Before You Go to War

[Hans2]

Ok, so lets lay out the scenario. Your Russia and decide the inferior Poles would be better under your rule. They are extremely weak and without allies, you are fairly certain you can steamroll them with ease. So you launch the attack. All goes well, you capture 4 or 5 provinces with ease. They offer you peace and 2 of the provinces. You laugh at them, you can take their whole country with time. Then winter sets in. Your armies are attritted to nothing. Meanwhile, Poland has rebuilt their forces with emergency loans and driven you back to pre-war lines. You still think you can get a province, or at least some money out of them so when they offer a white peace you again laugh at them. You stop laughing when they take Tver. You start crying when Sweden and Teutonic Order declare war on you.

So, how could you have prevented the above situation? By realizing that you can only take a maxinum of 3 provinces from a country in any war, no matter what. The only other option is complete annexation, and you cannot annex a great power. So when Poland offered the 2 provinces you should have taken it. I know some of the 'vets' of this game didn't need to know this, but I made this mistake (not the exact situation outlined above, but similar) in one of my early games. Not realizing I could never get more than 3 provinces, I kept uselessly pushing the attack, needlessly wasting my army.

When you set out to attack a country, whether they be minor or major power, you should set goals for the war. What provinces do you want? If its a minor, do you want to annex? Once you have taken the provinces you want, you only need to keep fighting until the AI will accept your peace offer. Stars play a very importanat role in this. Stars show the level of your victory and will show up in the 'Offer Peace' window in the diplomacy screen. You can only achieve a maxinum of 6 stars and each province you demand in the peace settlement will cost you 2 of those stars. If you demand is four stars less than your total number of stars, the computer must accept it. So if you have five stars and demand 250D (one star) or if you have six and demand one province (two stars) you will get them no matter what.

Knowing what to demand and when is very important. Realize that unless you have conquered all the enemies provinces or nearly all of them, the AI will usually not give up 3 provinces. If, for example, you demand Kurland, Belarus, and Eastern Prussia from Poland they will likely refuse unless they are on their last rope since those are 3 very rich provinces.

When to stop a war is the most important skill in this game. It is a fine art that can only be honed with practice.

[yin26]

Great post! I shall keep this in mind...

[VetLegion]

I ll add a few tips from my brief but fun expirience with this game.
note: grand campaign, version 1.07, I am tempted to get 1.08 and play again
Also, 'vet' players know all this but someone may find it useful.

0. Use blitzkrieg tactic. That means, go for your first conquer as soon as possible, because scenario starts with most forts minimal and few small. Assault them. Disband navy if you dont need them (Turkey). Always keep military upkeep at 100 percent, even if peace.

1. Attack in spring, never in mid-year, because of attrition. Try to finish before winter (this is rarely possible, but still a good goal)

2. Reckognize a Badboy attack from a normal attack. If you are attacked because of badboy value there is big chance to get white peace.

3. If under multiple wars, do not accept peace offers as they come. Let them accumulate and let your diplomats accumulate to 6. Only way to stop a huge war is to get peace with everyone at once.

4. Dont make separate peaces, make peace with leader of alliance and that will take 3 or 4 countries off your back

5. Check your religion. If war is likely to prolong, set your state religion to max and the rest to zero. For example, with Turkey you set tolerance for Orthodox to zero and they rebel alot, but rest of your country can suffer much war exaustion because of that. Only way to have a sucess in a decade long war.

6. Attrition is calculated at end of month. Sometimes it is better to lose 10 percent of men assaulting a fort then lose them to attrition

7. There is a bug that makes AI siege one province at a time usually, so if they start amassing somwhere, let them be and take care of what survived the winter.

8. In a prolonged war, make sure you garrison provinces of special importance to integrity of the country. For example if Austria, dont let Bohemia and Hungary get independent, that is worst thing that can happen in war.

9. Guarding capital province should prevent rebels breaking the country.

10. Cavalry has a bonus in plains, but infantry is usually the way to go because of the cost. Dont build cannon if you are in a defensive war. Dont take loans under no cost just to build army.

11. Dont panic Country aflame in war and rebellions, income so small, but still dont give provinces easily. AI does not like war exaustion any more then you do, plus they usually have less stability... if war needs to go on, let it go on.

[Chronus]

Wow. Is this game really this good? For awhile, it sounded as if it was too easy, even on the difficult levels.

[Hans2]

A few things to add..

In 1.08, you can no longer cancel assualts. It used to be when you started an assualt, you could right click in the province to stop the assualt. No more. It now goes on until either you are victorious or your moral is so low you have to stop and sit out the siege again until your moral is high enough. Meanwhile, if your on the 'breaking' point, an enemy army can waltz in and destroy you. Never assualt unless you think you can win or you know that there is no enemy army close enough to attack you in your weakened state.

Also, keep in mind that when you occupy an enemy province its supply level is going to be very low until you officially annex it in a peace deal. The supply level of an occupied province ranges from 12 to 20. I've rarely seen it go higher than that, so if your war drags into the winter, DO NOT leave any armies in occupied territory unless they are sieging.

[Hans2]

Easy? Hardly. The AI is spectacular and I've found myself in a hard place more than one time. The best thing about it is that the AI is not good because it cheats (like on Diety level in CivII), its just that good period.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Yes, breaking away assaults was removed because a bug that could be exploited with that. So, once you're committed, you're committed. I like it better that way. More strategy involved .

[Kyle]

I'll throw my own suggestion out, though a lot of people don't seem to do this.


Maintain a large army when possible. Keep them spread out over your territory, keeping larger forces at the borders and smaller reserve forces in the interior. It's cheaper (I think) to pay maintainance costs for a standing army than it is to quickly rush buy. You get a leg up on your enemy and a fully disciplined army (up to your tech level of course).

And unlike the above advice, in times of extended peace, you can lower funding to save some money. Unless I'm missing something, all it does is lower morale, so late in the game, you'll have very strong rather than invincible.

[Allemand]

Also in 1.08, getting 3 provinces in a peace agreement is slightly harder to do, especially when you make the offer. When the other side makes the offer, it's more common.

My first move as Russia is to grab a seaport from the Teutonic Knights in 1492, while building a fort in Moscow. That starts my settler production, one per year.

My tips on Russia attacking Poland: it's not worth it early in the game. Kazan, Golden Horde, Aztrakhan, and Sibir are better targets. Poland's eastern provinces are too poor to help much, badboy rating goes up, research goes down. I save Poland for later. Another thing to remember is that Polish cavalry costs the same as their infantry, so expect to see a lot of it in their armies. In other words, the Russians may have to beef up their cavalry in order to have an advantage. You will do better when you avoid their armies, attack the provinces you want, then ask for peace before Moscow falls. A 'small' fort in Moscow is a great investment.

I love playing Russia. So many opportunities.....

[Hans2]

Yes, Russia is great. In my game I did not have much choice in the Polish matter as they declared war on me. I had to fight to get Tver back in the next war. From then on I knew I had to finish them before they go too strong. I agree with you on the Teutonic Order move. In this game I've waited too long. Now they have a huge army and are allied to Sweden, bad news.

I'll post a screenshot of where I'm at later on.

[Par4]

The AI pisses me off. I finished a Brandenberg GC, lost but not by too much to Spain. Anyway at about 1550 when I and my allies in Saxony and this other country which I cannot recall it's name were kicking some dutch spanish butt. I captured all the spanish dutch cities I didn't have from previous campaigns, and I was losing to Salvoy so I wanted just 1 out of 3 captured, the Hague. I had been asking for maps and other stuff and starting a navy but spain wouldn't give it up. They even offered 2 provinces just not that one. It took peace with her allies to get them to give it up. Cost me the cost of building a bigger army to deal with salvoy.

Is there any diffs between GC and IGC because I play IGC...

[Hans2]

Yeah, there is a difference. Look at this thread:
ICG Explanation