I don't have a problem with the economic part of the game, it is not very difficult to build up and make lots of money. But the King's army in my game is absolutely HUGE! When I declared independence he had 50 soldiers, 50 dragoons, 20 cannons and 8 man-of-war ships. How do you beat an army of that size? I was wiped out in a matter of a few turns. Any suggestions?
Problems with the King's army
- Thread starter meznaric
- Start date
With just 8 man-of-war ships, you might want to go with a naval strategy and take out just the ships.
But, as a general strategy you'll want to not fight the REF navy at all, and concentrate on winning a land war. You want to get to independence as quickly as possible, since the number of REF units added really cranks up in the last few turns of the game. Use your tons of cash at first to stock up your expanded warehouses with guns and horses to arm all your colonists and turn them into militia. If you play on the quick setting, you can stash enough guns/horses in those expanded warehouses to arm 8 of your colonists as militia units (300 divided by 37 = a bit over 8). Stash more guns on wagons if you have more than 8 potential militia units in a city.
Once you have enough guns and horses on hand to make all your citizens into militia (with a converted native in every city to hold down the fort), use all that spare cash you're generating to buy cheap units from Europe. On the quick setting, an Expert Fisherman or Farmer costs only 450 gold, so after the price of buying cannons and vet soldiers escalates too high, just buy these cheap units and guns/horses to arm them.
When you declare independence, free the slaves -- that'll get you two free potential military units per city (make sure you have guns on hand to arm them).
Turn most your citizens into militia soldiers (with the possible exception of your statesmen and a few other units discussed below) and fortify them several turns before declaring independence, primarily in the coastal cities which will bear the brunt of the attacks, so they all have the 25% fortification bonus. Have roads in all the squares around your coastal city, and when the REF lands, immediately kill them by converting a fortified soldier into a dragoon and attacking them (if the REF lands right next to your city on a square with hills or woods or ideally both, your soldiers in the city will have higher attack bonuses than if you turn them into dragoons, if you've gotten the FF that give those bonuses).
Before the war begins, generate a Great General using your privateers, put the GG in a square containing 4 dragoons to get 5 experience points per dragoon, which allows you to promote the dragoons into medics, one per coastal city, so your injured units can heal faster. (Promote the units THAT TURN, since GG experience points go away after the turn they are generated, unlike other XP that can be saved up to heal damage).
Consider promoting spare units with the double withdraw bonus, which allows dragoons a fair chance of knocking back the strength of the strongest units in an REF stack and then retreating, allowing your weaker units to mop up the artillery and non-dragoons in the stack.
If you can survive the first few waves, all the combat will build up points that will eventually get the FF that turns ALL your units into veteran soldiers AND gives them the city defender bonus, at which point the war is won and it's just a matter of mopping up the strays.
Some people have talked about abandoning your coastal cities and then retaking them using cannon, but I've found that those cities can be defended if you have enough fortified militia to ward off the amphibious assaults and then use dragoons to hunt down the troops that are offloaded onto the land. The trick is to never let an REF stack survive long enough that they can attack your cities with artillery.
If you leave your high food-producing units working the most productive squares (Expert Farmers on corn, Fishermen on Crabs or Fish), you can generate Free Colonists every few turns in some cities, and thus get a steady supply of reinforcements.
Finally, if you've built your production factory inland or on a coastal city that doesn't get attacked much (the city cranking out cigars, rum, etc.), you might want to try a gambit of leaving all those specialists at work cranking out cash producing stuff. Then take the goods to a non-blockaded port city close enough to Europe that a merchantman with the FF speed improvement can reach Europe in the same turn it leaves port, and buy the cheapest reinforcement units to arm with guns and horses. On the Quick speed setting, the merchantman can leave the port laden with goods for sale, convert them into reinforcements, and sail back to the new world in a single turn, then get back into a city on the turn after that and unload the reinforcements, which can be turned into dragoons and rushed to whichever city needs reinforcements the most. This gambit requires declaring monarchy when setting up your constitution.
Using all these strategies, I beat an REF force of about 90 land units (and an unbeatable navy of 40 MoWs) with a manageable number of units lost and no cities ever taken. I actually ended up with MORE units than I started with, as the reinforcements outnumbered the losses due to combat.
But, as a general strategy you'll want to not fight the REF navy at all, and concentrate on winning a land war. You want to get to independence as quickly as possible, since the number of REF units added really cranks up in the last few turns of the game. Use your tons of cash at first to stock up your expanded warehouses with guns and horses to arm all your colonists and turn them into militia. If you play on the quick setting, you can stash enough guns/horses in those expanded warehouses to arm 8 of your colonists as militia units (300 divided by 37 = a bit over 8). Stash more guns on wagons if you have more than 8 potential militia units in a city.
Once you have enough guns and horses on hand to make all your citizens into militia (with a converted native in every city to hold down the fort), use all that spare cash you're generating to buy cheap units from Europe. On the quick setting, an Expert Fisherman or Farmer costs only 450 gold, so after the price of buying cannons and vet soldiers escalates too high, just buy these cheap units and guns/horses to arm them.
When you declare independence, free the slaves -- that'll get you two free potential military units per city (make sure you have guns on hand to arm them).
Turn most your citizens into militia soldiers (with the possible exception of your statesmen and a few other units discussed below) and fortify them several turns before declaring independence, primarily in the coastal cities which will bear the brunt of the attacks, so they all have the 25% fortification bonus. Have roads in all the squares around your coastal city, and when the REF lands, immediately kill them by converting a fortified soldier into a dragoon and attacking them (if the REF lands right next to your city on a square with hills or woods or ideally both, your soldiers in the city will have higher attack bonuses than if you turn them into dragoons, if you've gotten the FF that give those bonuses).
Before the war begins, generate a Great General using your privateers, put the GG in a square containing 4 dragoons to get 5 experience points per dragoon, which allows you to promote the dragoons into medics, one per coastal city, so your injured units can heal faster. (Promote the units THAT TURN, since GG experience points go away after the turn they are generated, unlike other XP that can be saved up to heal damage).
Consider promoting spare units with the double withdraw bonus, which allows dragoons a fair chance of knocking back the strength of the strongest units in an REF stack and then retreating, allowing your weaker units to mop up the artillery and non-dragoons in the stack.
If you can survive the first few waves, all the combat will build up points that will eventually get the FF that turns ALL your units into veteran soldiers AND gives them the city defender bonus, at which point the war is won and it's just a matter of mopping up the strays.
Some people have talked about abandoning your coastal cities and then retaking them using cannon, but I've found that those cities can be defended if you have enough fortified militia to ward off the amphibious assaults and then use dragoons to hunt down the troops that are offloaded onto the land. The trick is to never let an REF stack survive long enough that they can attack your cities with artillery.
If you leave your high food-producing units working the most productive squares (Expert Farmers on corn, Fishermen on Crabs or Fish), you can generate Free Colonists every few turns in some cities, and thus get a steady supply of reinforcements.
Finally, if you've built your production factory inland or on a coastal city that doesn't get attacked much (the city cranking out cigars, rum, etc.), you might want to try a gambit of leaving all those specialists at work cranking out cash producing stuff. Then take the goods to a non-blockaded port city close enough to Europe that a merchantman with the FF speed improvement can reach Europe in the same turn it leaves port, and buy the cheapest reinforcement units to arm with guns and horses. On the Quick speed setting, the merchantman can leave the port laden with goods for sale, convert them into reinforcements, and sail back to the new world in a single turn, then get back into a city on the turn after that and unload the reinforcements, which can be turned into dragoons and rushed to whichever city needs reinforcements the most. This gambit requires declaring monarchy when setting up your constitution.
Using all these strategies, I beat an REF force of about 90 land units (and an unbeatable navy of 40 MoWs) with a manageable number of units lost and no cities ever taken. I actually ended up with MORE units than I started with, as the reinforcements outnumbered the losses due to combat.
HermannLombard
Warlord
- Joined
- Mar 2, 2006
- Messages
- 277
Believe me, that is not a huge army by REF standards (large, yes, huge, no. Good military players--which I don't claim to be--beat armies ten times that size, and do so (they say) at 1:9 odds, given that the REF doesn't land all at once.
If you haven't had a victory yet, or if you don't feel up to fighting a major war, you can follow the strategy of minimizing the size of the REF by delaying production of Liberty Bells. This is described in detail in several threads.
Briefly: For most of the game don't build *any* LB. Build your economy, then train and buy 3 Elder Statesmen per town. Meanwhile build up an adequate force of dragoons and perhaps cannon, with a supply of guns and horses. Once you have your Statesmen, put all of them in the Town Halls at once. In a few turns you go from zero to 51% and declare independence. The King doesn't have time to add a lot of units to the REF, and you wipe them out as they land (as in prolefeed's approach but on a small scale).
The minimalist approach is to do this with a handful of towns, perhaps 3, so you only need a few Elder Statesmen and a small army. In this approach build only one coastal town to minimize the frontage you have to cover.
As prolefeed mentions, some recommend emptying the coastal towns while concentrating your forces on (preferably) a forested hill behind the town (not on the coast where it would be subject to amphibious attack). Let them take the town (if they even do so), and use your cannon to blast them back out.
Prolefeed mentioned using privateers to generate GG points. That works, but more commonly this is done by fighting natives or by eradicating European colonies. The latter also builds a cadre of experienced units that can easily kill the King's dragoons.
Remember that dragoons attack well and defend poorly, so hit them before they hit you. Cannon aren't much use in the open field, but they blast units in towns (and defend towns well against natives, but not against the anti-settlement bonuses of the REF).
Anyway, there are lots of strategies to beat the REF.
Good hunting.
-- HtL
It also helps if you emphasize production of the following resources:
- food, in order to generate a lot of population;
- ore, transformed to tools, transformed to guns.
You can buy a fair number of guns in the vanilla version, but you'd probably be better off selling them to natives for cash than using them yourself. Start cranking out tools & guns, and make a bunch of wagons to stockpile everything.
Then, as soon as you declare independence, transform every free guy you can find into soldiers or dragoons. Fortify them in your coastal cities, and on any coastal square with a defense bonus. If you make the REF land in open terrain, your reserve dragoons can trash them, wave after wave.
As stated above, the size of REF you mention is quite small. But you need to actively prepare for your declaration of independence, or else you'll lose. If you have 4-6 soldiers fortified in all coastal cities, with a fair number of reserve dragoons, you should do well.
Cheers, --- Wheldrake
- food, in order to generate a lot of population;
- ore, transformed to tools, transformed to guns.
You can buy a fair number of guns in the vanilla version, but you'd probably be better off selling them to natives for cash than using them yourself. Start cranking out tools & guns, and make a bunch of wagons to stockpile everything.
Then, as soon as you declare independence, transform every free guy you can find into soldiers or dragoons. Fortify them in your coastal cities, and on any coastal square with a defense bonus. If you make the REF land in open terrain, your reserve dragoons can trash them, wave after wave.
As stated above, the size of REF you mention is quite small. But you need to actively prepare for your declaration of independence, or else you'll lose. If you have 4-6 soldiers fortified in all coastal cities, with a fair number of reserve dragoons, you should do well.
Cheers, --- Wheldrake
I tried prolefeeds approach and declared independence in 1720. The problem is that the king had this time about 150 soldiers, 30 dragoons etc etc but only 8 man-of-war. I defeated his initial wave as well as all the subsequent waves but the game ended before the king managed to deliver all of his troops. In 1792 he had 90 soldiers, 15 dragoons or so left in Europe and won the Europe victory ...
Re this: "As stated above, the size of REF you mention is quite small. But you need to actively prepare for your declaration of independence, or else you'll lose. If you have 4-6 soldiers fortified in all coastal cities, with a fair number of reserve dragoons, you should do well."
I make ALL my military units into fortified soldiers, then unfortify them and turn them into dragoons only as needed.
Re this: "I tried prolefeeds approach and declared independence in 1720."
It is possible to gear up for war much earlier than that. My most recent game I won on the 100th turn on the quick setting, which translates into maybe 150 years or so.
And if you're so fortunate as to face only 8 MoWs, start pumping out privateers from each coastal city and take them all out, rather than trying to win a land war. 2-3 privateers per MoW should suffice -- 1-2 privateers sacrificed to knock back the MoWs health, and the last one to kill it, all on the same turn so the MoW can't heal. You could probably take out the MoWs with 20 or so privateers, which should be doable if you start war in 1720 and have several coastal cities with high production. Try reloading the saved game and trying this approach.
OTOH, if you have 40 MoWs to kill as in the game I recently won, versus about 90 land units, don't even bother with a naval strategy.
If you play on the quick setting, the REF lands 12-16 troops every single turn, so even if you face 150 land units, the war will be over in a little over 10 turns. The quick setting allows you to declare independence much later and still have enough time to win. The downside to playing on the quick setting is that you don't have pauses in the action that allow your injured troops to heal, so you have to make sure you have lots and lots of fresh militia to throw into the fray.
I make ALL my military units into fortified soldiers, then unfortify them and turn them into dragoons only as needed.
Re this: "I tried prolefeeds approach and declared independence in 1720."
It is possible to gear up for war much earlier than that. My most recent game I won on the 100th turn on the quick setting, which translates into maybe 150 years or so.
And if you're so fortunate as to face only 8 MoWs, start pumping out privateers from each coastal city and take them all out, rather than trying to win a land war. 2-3 privateers per MoW should suffice -- 1-2 privateers sacrificed to knock back the MoWs health, and the last one to kill it, all on the same turn so the MoW can't heal. You could probably take out the MoWs with 20 or so privateers, which should be doable if you start war in 1720 and have several coastal cities with high production. Try reloading the saved game and trying this approach.
OTOH, if you have 40 MoWs to kill as in the game I recently won, versus about 90 land units, don't even bother with a naval strategy.
If you play on the quick setting, the REF lands 12-16 troops every single turn, so even if you face 150 land units, the war will be over in a little over 10 turns. The quick setting allows you to declare independence much later and still have enough time to win. The downside to playing on the quick setting is that you don't have pauses in the action that allow your injured troops to heal, so you have to make sure you have lots and lots of fresh militia to throw into the fray.
This worked. I was building SoL instead of the privateers but otherwise the same approach. The lucky part was when the AI landed three of its MoW into one of the coastal cities they managed to capture so I immediately recaptured it, sinking 3 MoW at once. Taking out the other 5 didn't prove to be too difficult a task during the time. Thanks for help everyone.
Tell me if I am crazy, but I have had my best success using a naval strategy. I generally try to build a navy that is at least 50% bigger than the king's, or at least 12 ships-of-the-line. My rule of thumb is that three SOLs will sink one Man-of-War. My expected loss is one SOL per MOW, if you attack three on one.
Since you generally have no more than 16 REF units appearing per turn, a large navy plus a moderate army (32-40 dragoons, 20 infantry, 20 cannons) will allow you to destroy all sixteen each turn. Meanwhile, if your navy is 150% the size of the King's Navy, you sink every ship that appears. After a few turns, it devolves into a game of ten little MOW, until there are no MOW left.
With the 8 units the King's navy had in that game, the exchange would go like this:
1st turn of battle -- 12 SOLs vs 4 MOW. Result 4 SOL & 4 MOW sunk. You have 8 SOLs, he has 4 MOW
2nd turn -- 8 SOLs vs 2 MOW (King sends 4 ships or half the navy) Resuly 2 SOL and 2 MOW sunk. You have 6 SOLs, he has 2 MOW.
3rd turn -- 6 SOL vs 1 MOW. One each sunk -- You have 5 SOL, he has 1 MOW
4th turn -- 5 SOL vs 1 MOW. One each sunk -- You have 4 SOL, he has 0 MOW. You win.
Once the King's Navy equals zero, you win, even if there are 200-400 land units in Europe. All you need is an army large enough to beat off the land units that get stranded in the New World.
Mind, this strategy requires you to build lots of ports, so you can build lots of SOLs. If you can provide the tools and hammers and come up short on guns, you can hurry production and pay 1000-2000 to get the SOL.
Since you generally have no more than 16 REF units appearing per turn, a large navy plus a moderate army (32-40 dragoons, 20 infantry, 20 cannons) will allow you to destroy all sixteen each turn. Meanwhile, if your navy is 150% the size of the King's Navy, you sink every ship that appears. After a few turns, it devolves into a game of ten little MOW, until there are no MOW left.
With the 8 units the King's navy had in that game, the exchange would go like this:
1st turn of battle -- 12 SOLs vs 4 MOW. Result 4 SOL & 4 MOW sunk. You have 8 SOLs, he has 4 MOW
2nd turn -- 8 SOLs vs 2 MOW (King sends 4 ships or half the navy) Resuly 2 SOL and 2 MOW sunk. You have 6 SOLs, he has 2 MOW.
3rd turn -- 6 SOL vs 1 MOW. One each sunk -- You have 5 SOL, he has 1 MOW
4th turn -- 5 SOL vs 1 MOW. One each sunk -- You have 4 SOL, he has 0 MOW. You win.
Once the King's Navy equals zero, you win, even if there are 200-400 land units in Europe. All you need is an army large enough to beat off the land units that get stranded in the New World.
Mind, this strategy requires you to build lots of ports, so you can build lots of SOLs. If you can provide the tools and hammers and come up short on guns, you can hurry production and pay 1000-2000 to get the SOL.
HermannLombard
Warlord
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- 277
For meznaric: Dale's AoD II also helps this tremendously by resetting the clock upon declaring independence so you always have a certain number of turns (depending on original length chosen) to win your WoI. You're much less likely to lose because the King was too slow to feed his men into your meat grinder.
HermannLombard
Warlord
- Joined
- Mar 2, 2006
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- 277
No, you're right, the transport feature is under development for version 1.07. Dale is planning to have galleons transport the troops, preceded and escorted by the MoW. Historically there were the warships and then there were the transports.
Starting some versions back you have a certain number of turns to win *after* you declare independence, so you have time for the war and the King is unlikely to win by simply waiting you out. After all, historically rebels win by surviving their rebellion, usually by outlasting the other side's will to fight.
Starting some versions back you have a certain number of turns to win *after* you declare independence, so you have time for the war and the King is unlikely to win by simply waiting you out. After all, historically rebels win by surviving their rebellion, usually by outlasting the other side's will to fight.
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