Dealing with Britain as Spain and France.

[Megawasp]

Two games in row, once as Spain and once as France, Britain amassed a Doomstack Army/Navy, declared war on me and then proceeds to gobble up my American possessions.

Does AI Britain always do this, or was I just unlucky?
Because this makes Spain and France pretty much unplayable for me. It's not that I can't defeat Britain. It's just that I don't want to have rush them and then having to deal with The Netherlands and Austria at the same time. I know I have to deal with them eventually, but i'd rather not have to do it too soon and in such a way.
It's not the declaration of war that bothers me as such, it's that it does it when it moves a Doomstack near my borders and in a place that's hard to defend.
In my Spain game they attack Florida while my American army just finished dealing with the Cherokee. In my France game they sent a massive navy and landed an big army in French Guiana.

[pgeerkens]

Britain always will build a naval doom-stack, given sufficient time. However the AI has no conception of Mahan naval strategy; if that doom-stack isn't parked in the Channel, Britain is shortly doomed to fall to my forces. By 1720 or so, if you are a naval power with early game access to the Caribbean, you want to be in a position to take out Britain the moment they DOW you.

[Bfloo]

If they send all their forces to America, take England, and roll over Scotland and Ireland. No more England.

[Empire_TW]

They pretty much do it all the time. Also the war of French succession always happens so a big conflict between the Spain/French alliance against the Austria Britain alliance is inevitable fairly early on.

[OZFugazi]

heyo..

playing as spain or france.. i always have an invasion force for GB ready to go, once GB sends off their invasion force to either the med (egypt, knights of SJ), or indian theatre. leaving london rather easy to take. i always focus london first as scotland and ireland are usually never supported and easy pickings once rebellion calms down.

at the start of the game, i try to park a spy (move to with sloop) right next to london. so i have a good look at city strength before committing. also have a couple sacrificial sloops to park into their ports. especially the naval dock. their starting 4th rate production can be hard to deal with as france. spain not so much.

GB can be a pain is left to develop and i would rather deal with US spawning in the americas than GB's naval stacks. just me though.

all the best.

[TPTI]

if you worry about the civ in the late game, wipe them out early game, and cheese the army movement to wipe them out eg siege north britain and lure the armies there then jump in a boat and siege london, easy.

[Sokol]

Britain always gets the better of me naval-wise as Spain, but in the americas, i focus on buidlings farms and plantations first to get a lot of money, and build up an army in florida and cuba because I know they will come for it eventually, and also work towards taking new spain.

I'll take the objective provinces with the exception of Dutch Curacao, and Right when britain declares war on you for whatever reason, I will invade dutch curacao and then absorb new spain immediately, giving myself more wealth to take them on in war.

The main thing to overpowering britain as spain is to really focus on agriculture tech and construction of farms and plantations to build wealth, and whenever they do eventually declare war on you, take their colonies as fast as you can and don't let up and get too defensive, or they'll big a huge army and take your guys out. Try to avoid naval combat if you can.

[pgeerkens]

Originally posted by Sokol:

Britain always gets the better of me naval-wise as Spain, but in the americas, i focus on buidlings farms and plantations first to get a lot of money, and build up an army in florida and cuba because I know they will come for it eventually, and also work towards taking new spain.

I'll take the objective provinces with the exception of Dutch Curacao, and Right when britain declares war on you for whatever reason, I will invade dutch curacao and then absorb new spain immediately, giving myself more wealth to take them on in war.

The main thing to overpowering britain as spain is to really focus on agriculture tech and construction of farms and plantations to build wealth, and whenever they do eventually declare war on you, take their colonies as fast as you can and don't let up and get too defensive, or they'll big a huge army and take your guys out. Try to avoid naval combat if you can.

Remember to build sufficient port capacity to export your plantation-grown Trade Goods back to the motherland. Here is capacity by port type:

• 30 from Trade Port;
  
• 60 from Commercial Port;
  
• 120 from Commercial Basin; and
  
• 240 from Global Trading Company.

Some regions also have a modest, in the range of 1 to 5, internal demand for their local Trade Good.

[KillSmithID]

Seeing a lot of this lately, hating it myself too. This thread seems to have found a fix. I'll be testing myself soon: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2475600482

[Bab Peeg]

Britain ALWAYS attacks me no matter who I am playing if I have a port and they do it with no provocation or notice. The last time I played as the ottomans but I kept the only port closed off by blocking the way into Strait of Gibraltar, they never declared war since they didn't have a port to sneak attack.

[OZFugazi]

Originally posted by Bab Peeg:

Britain ALWAYS attacks me no matter who I am playing if I have a port and they do it with no provocation or notice. The last time I played as the ottomans but I kept the only port closed off by blocking the way into Strait of Gibraltar, they never declared war since they didn't have a port to sneak attack.

agreed..

the efficient use of critical blocks, can steer the direction of the early to mid game and sometimes even up to end game. the three best critical blocks, are (as you mentioned) gibraltar, also, the strait between istanbul and ankara and the baltic sea straits around denmark.

gibraltar will allow you to limit the amount of med based nations spamming for trade theatre spots (slowing some economy and nation growth. france.), as well as prevent GB from landing egypt, greece or knights of SJ. strait of ankara is good for keeping the game from bugging out (ottoman army splits), and keeping russia pinned to the black sea, allowing a good (open) trade with the ottomans as their ports stay clean of russian fleets, or at least till mid game when austria, venice, genoa and italian states start the fight with the ottomans. and baltic blocks to allow for uninterrupted trade routes with denmark and sweeden. sweeden being only harassed by early-mid prussia and then mid to late russia, poland and courland, depending on how aggressive sweden is, or how pro-active the player is at blocking those emerging ports with war and controlling all of the baltic.

THE best way to prevent a landing war from GB..(in the med) as the war will not be declared unless the nation can land the embarked units immediately after.. is as you said. block gibraltar with a dhow (ottomans with no worry of barbary states) or anything larger to feed off navy wins against barbary that come within range of gibraltar. at least until you can build a defending force to greet them. it's a good call.

all the best.