Did anyone finish this?

[madmenno]

Hey all,

I'm having a hard time winning the game. First it took an age to get from 48% indepenance to 50% while i had 2 or 3 states man with atleast a printing press within each city and didn't put any new citizens inside the city.

I have about 60 dragoons stationed in my capital alone vs a total dutch army about 40 dragoons and 40 regulars.

But i lose more then 3 out of 4 fights while i am fortified withing my fortress.... should i have 200+ units or something? about 40 turns befor i could go on war with the king i had +50 horses and +50 muskets each turn at least.

I figured this was easy befor war was declared...... guess i was wrong... any tips?

-edit-

Also attacking royal units doesn't work. I get 87% odds but it still takes 3 dragoons to kill 1 lonely unit.

 

[madmenno]

I managed to pull it off eventually. But it doesn't make much sense. Do you get the rebel bonus only when attacking? If so it makes a tiny bit more sense. I was able to kill lots of enemies that where stationed on hill forests. Wich gives them 50 to 75% defense bonus. When my town was still above 100% defense bonus i lost almost every fight.....

I still can't make any sense of it... with 100% bonus i lose and with -75% bonus i win..... like i had a harder time killing units on planes (0% bonus) then units in a forest/hill (75% bonus)..... huh?

 

[Narajin]

What difficulty do you use?

Usually, it is best to defend with soldiers and attack with dragoons.
I usually have 3 elder statesman and newspaper in each city to get a quick rebel sentiment of 50%. But only put them there when you are prepared to declare independence since the King would keep adding troops to his expeditionary force.

It would usually take 1 dragoon to weaken and another to kill a royal one. But if you have veteran soldiers then odds would be better.

 

[dalgo]

I managed to pull it off eventually. But it doesn't make much sense. Do you get the rebel bonus only when attacking? If so it makes a tiny bit more sense. I was able to kill lots of enemies that where stationed on hill forests. Wich gives them 50 to 75% defense bonus. When my town was still above 100% defense bonus i lost almost every fight.....

I still can't make any sense of it... with 100% bonus i lose and with -75% bonus i win..... like i had a harder time killing units on planes (0% bonus) then units in a forest/hill (75% bonus)..... huh?

You get the rebel bonus both on attack and defence, but you need to have a high rebel sentiment to get a worthwhile bonus. It is calculated at (rebel sentiment - 50%). So if you declare at exactly 50% you get a rebel combat bonus of exactly zero. If however you wait until your rebel sentiment is 70% your initial combat bonus is 20%which is equivent to two veteran promotions. With your FF bonuses and the correct independence choices your rebel sentiment quickly rises to 100% giving you a killer 50% combat bonus.

Don't worry about attacking the king's troops on hills or forests - they don't get the defensive bonus. They come from Europe remember and don't know the terrain like your troops do. However when it comes to attacking a settlement they are very efficient and get a massive settlement attack bonus. So the best form of defence is attack, hit them with your dragoons as soon as they land.

 

[Malkaviel]

Rebel sentiment is a proportion of liberty bells to number of units, both city population and military. The most efficient I've found when driving to independence is 19 units to 3 elder statesmen (included in the 19) with newspaper, barring ben franklin, sam adams, etc. (which can raise your total to 20-22)

If you're trying to raise sentiment and having difficulty, delete units you will not be able to arm, starting with natives.

There's more to this but I will ramble. Start along this formula and you'll figure it out.