I had a very interesting war against China recently as France. It was UU vs UU, musketeers vs Chu-ko-nu. It was a pyrrhic victory for me, and I could use people's thoughts to try and improve.
EDIT: I just got thrown into another war with China, so I am documenting the next run. Also, very important, China has the great wall for the analysis.
So of course like an idiot I didn't take screenshots during the war to show my positions, sigh, but below is a screenshot of the terrain after the war.
1) I had a large number of musketeers. A combination of landschik converted into Musketeer, a few lancers, a few heavy skirmishers, and about 6 cannon. I was hitting from the north and east, and controlled all of the tiles north and east of Shanghai
2) Promotion wise, the majority of my teers were Drill III City Siege or Drill I Cover II (Paris had Alhambra so I would regenerate troops with these promotions to start countering Chu-Ko-Nu). I had a few specialists with Shock III Mobility (move 4 muskets!). Hehe, the my one attempt at a Shock III March Musket was killed the second I promoted him
I had full authority, China went Progress.
3) China had a few tercio, lancer, and cannons...and just a lot of Chu-Ko-Nu.
4) In terms of absolute success, I actually did well. I killed way more units than I lost. What would happen is every round I would do a bombard of cannons and then push in with a few tercio. I would often kill 5-6 units or so. China would then kill 2-3. We would rinse and repeat. Eventually holes started opening in my line, or China would buy a lancer and immediately pop one of my cannons.
5) Eventually the AI bonuses kicked in, and the tide of battle turned. Further as you can see in the screenshot, the chu-ko-nus were now being promoted to musketmen. I had to conduct a full scale retreat.
6) China sued for peace, I had a moderate war win and pillaged a lot more than China did. So it was a "win" in absolute military terms. But...I have lost all of my heavily promoted musketeers, and effectively have to rebuild my army from scratch. Ultimately I think I am ok, China is also weakened and we both have to replace our armies, we are the only remaining powers left on the continent so I'm not worried about a counterattack. But I know that immortal/diety players play the idea of losing heavily promoted units is never acceptable, so I want to work on not losing so much, even for a "win".
EDIT: I just got thrown into another war with China, so I am documenting the next run. Also, very important, China has the great wall for the analysis.
So of course like an idiot I didn't take screenshots during the war to show my positions, sigh, but below is a screenshot of the terrain after the war.
1) I had a large number of musketeers. A combination of landschik converted into Musketeer, a few lancers, a few heavy skirmishers, and about 6 cannon. I was hitting from the north and east, and controlled all of the tiles north and east of Shanghai
2) Promotion wise, the majority of my teers were Drill III City Siege or Drill I Cover II (Paris had Alhambra so I would regenerate troops with these promotions to start countering Chu-Ko-Nu). I had a few specialists with Shock III Mobility (move 4 muskets!). Hehe, the my one attempt at a Shock III March Musket was killed the second I promoted him
I had full authority, China went Progress.
3) China had a few tercio, lancer, and cannons...and just a lot of Chu-Ko-Nu.
4) In terms of absolute success, I actually did well. I killed way more units than I lost. What would happen is every round I would do a bombard of cannons and then push in with a few tercio. I would often kill 5-6 units or so. China would then kill 2-3. We would rinse and repeat. Eventually holes started opening in my line, or China would buy a lancer and immediately pop one of my cannons.
5) Eventually the AI bonuses kicked in, and the tide of battle turned. Further as you can see in the screenshot, the chu-ko-nus were now being promoted to musketmen. I had to conduct a full scale retreat.
6) China sued for peace, I had a moderate war win and pillaged a lot more than China did. So it was a "win" in absolute military terms. But...I have lost all of my heavily promoted musketeers, and effectively have to rebuild my army from scratch. Ultimately I think I am ok, China is also weakened and we both have to replace our armies, we are the only remaining powers left on the continent so I'm not worried about a counterattack. But I know that immortal/diety players play the idea of losing heavily promoted units is never acceptable, so I want to work on not losing so much, even for a "win".
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