I beat all three Campaigns

[Vinegaroon]

Here is what my conclusions are.

If you have to do a land and sea battle finish one then finish the other.

Board everything you can. You will find the game is easier if you get ships through boarding vs purchases. And boarding is interesting because you can take a ship out of play immediately and if you invest into boarding tools and skills for the crew you can use a weaker ship to take a stronger ship provided the crew is around the same.

The more ships you can put into the slots the better off you are. More guns, more health, more crew, but get rid of stuff that you don't need they just sap cash from you.

If you like boarding then don't wait until the end of the round to start. when you sink a ship all the crew B-lines for a remaining ship on the map making boarding harder. You can sink the row boats but it's harder earlier in the game.

Army Cannons suck. The problem with cannons is they are good for nothing but defense, because you need to spot the enemy units in order for them to fire. Which means you can't use them until you are right on top of the enemy.They also lack ammo options like grape shot. They aren't worth bringing on an attack because the battle is over before the get there. The strategy for dealing with enemy cannons I found works the best is the charge them head on and if there is infantry in the way, charge them too.

Cavalry is also useless. I tried using them to flank an enemy cannon crew once. They went close to it then realized there was an enemy line next to them and attacked that instead. The cannons blew them to pieces. (Actually units switching targets may be a bug but I'm not sure)

Skirmishers suck, - the annoying little ♥♥♥♥♥ need to go away. They were not hard to deal with just annoying.

Don't try unlocking all the upgrades and weapons just get the ones you need. I used a few upgrades over all, and stockpiled a few good firearm types to equip my units. The rest was a waste of money and rep.

Invest your points into getting more resources first then reducing the need to spend. This should be obvious in any video game but it goes a long way here.

The best strategy for infantry is to zerg rush. It's hard to flank because the enemy seems to find out about it, and you can't see anything until you are next to them. and if your units are moving and you are not babysitting them they will get eaten alive by skirmishers.

If you zoom into the map you can hear the marching of enemy units that aren't spotted.

Fire ships can murder anything you don't like.

[Ninjasquirrel]

I'm playing beta and I dunno if it's the same for regular version but the arty has horses now so they don't drain stamina while they move. So now that you can use them properly, they make all the land battles a lot easier.

Also, cav are good at spotting for your arty, that's what I use them for. But pretty much they suck at everything else, yea. They can't even kill off arty crews unless they outnumber them significantly which surprised me.

Since you can't recruit cav, you'll need skirmishers to spot for you if the mission has no friendly controllable cav.

Even if you can spot the enemy you'll still have to put your arty on high ground so they have a good field of fire otherwise they won't be able to hit if they're blocked by terrain. Sometimes when I don't have the terrain thing turned on enemies can pop out pretty close before I can spot them if they're behind some rise or fold in the ground.

Congrats on beating the campaigns

[BlackwaterXe]

Army cannons do in fact use both canister/grape shot as well as solid shot. The use of either ammo type is automated depending on how far away the target is. If the target is very close, army cannons will automatically switch to canister shot. In fact, IIRC, the 3rd slot skill upgrade for artillery (when you level up your artillerymen to 3 star units) lets you choose whether you want to buff canister shot or buff solid shot.

Army cannons, when used offensively, can be great for allowing a numerically smaller army to win a battle while suffering significantly low casualties. Army cannons have different ranges depending on its caliber, and since the AI usually relies on no more than 6lbers, if you bring 8lber cannons, you can simply outrange the enemy. In some cases, the AI is set to be almost entirely defensive and will not sally out as you artillery strike them from beyond their return fire range.

Skirmishers are, IMO, better used as non-combatant scouts than as frontline soldiers. Full skirmisher units, not simply the "detach skirmishers" option, have very quick speed and very high camouflage rating so they are able to spot enemies for your cannons to shoot at without getting spotted in return. Note that while camo is best in fields or forests, you need to put your scouts on the edge of fields and forests in order to give them line-of-sight so they can spot enemies. There's a toggle (the eye symbol) to see unit LOS so you can see whether your units can see past obstacles. It will also show you how elevation helps in increasing spotting ability. With their increased movement speed, it's also very easy to both get scouts in place as well as exfiltrate any scout whose cover is blown.

Cannons burn through ammo like no other so it's best to bring along supply wagons. All units benefit from walking on dirt roads, so if you want your artillery to go fast, try the roads instead of through forests.

There has also been some mixed land/sea battles where you can decimate the enemy AI with little more than artillery and skirmishers. E.G., there's a mission where a pirate or smuggler ship sails to a pirate island and you're supposed to take the pirate city and you maybe go up against 2-3k enemy pirates or something. I parked 4 ships of the line along the coast and landed 3 skirmisher units and 1 artillery unit. The skirmishers simply spotted for artillery and naval artillery and the battle was won with virtually no casualties on my end. In fact, almost all of my land battles see me walking away with under 10% casualty rate since it's kind of easy to cheese with artillery (moreso with naval artillery since ships have unlimited ammo). Take into consideration that good officers lead to good outcomes; high efficiency stat buffs ranged damaged, and accuracy skill is self-explanatory.

In this game, cavalry should be treated as if they are "light cavalry" instead of heavy cavalry. Thus, you should use them mostly for scouting and running down broken/retreating units. Because of their speed, they can be great for chasing down enemy supply wagons as well as the smaller skirmisher detachments that sometimes make their way around behind your front lines. In order to have the best chance at capturing enemy units, you need to have a second unit attack the enemy unit from directly behind. Cavalry, due to its speed, is very good at being this flanking unit.

There aren't many missions where you get cavalry, but the cavalry are actually mounted infantry, a.k.a. dragoons, and not melee cavalry like a hussar or cuirassier unit. Thus, while you can use your cavalry in its mounted melee stance, a dragoon unit historically was intended to ride quickly to a designated area, dismount, and then use their carbines on foot for shooting. FYI, there's a unit toggle for dismounting your dragoons.

[Vinegaroon]

I will have to try some of this on a second play through. I figured the cave were dragoons but the can still handle a 50 man cannon crew no problem, Their AI is just broken.

[HistoryPlayer]

Which campaign would you recommend to start with?

[Vinegaroon]

Originally posted by HistoryPlayer:

Which campaign would you recommend to start with?

I did the British campaign first, but the US one is great as well.

[BlackwaterXe]

Warning Spoilers:

The British campaign has an early mission, like Ch. 2.4 or something, where you have to square off against the Arrogante. Previously the Arrogante was a 64gun 3rd rate, but now it's apparently a 90gun 2nd rate (with the mission text still refering to it as 3rd rate), as if the game devs are trying to hammer in the idea that they don't want you to capture it. That mission actually heavily implies you to use the escort ships' fireship ability to burn it down. I personally had to play the preceeding missions as carefully as possible to keep costs and casualties low, because chapter 2.4 comes on you really fast. But I was able to arrive with four 5th rates and after capturing the Arrogante, the immediate next chapter gives you an extra battle where you square off against 3 more 90gun 2nd rates. After that, I had four 90gun 2nd rates and the British campaign was basically easy mode from then on. But if you don't capture those 2nd rates early on, the British campaign may actually be harder than the American or Barbary campaigns. This was adaptation off, as off is the new default.

[Vinegaroon]

Originally posted by BlackwaterXe:

Warning Spoilers:

The British campaign has an early mission, like Ch. 2.4 or something, where you have to square off against the Arrogante. Previously the Arrogante was a 64gun 3rd rate, but now it's apparently a 90gun 2nd rate (with the mission text still refering to it as 3rd rate), as if the game devs are trying to hammer in the idea that they don't want you to capture it. That mission actually heavily implies you to use the escort ships' fireship ability to burn it down. I personally had to play the preceeding missions as carefully as possible to keep costs and casualties low, because chapter 2.4 comes on you really fast. But I was able to arrive with four 5th rates and after capturing the Arrogante, the immediate next chapter gives you an extra battle where you square off against 3 more 90gun 2nd rates. After that, I had four 90gun 2nd rates and the British campaign was basically easy mode from then on. But if you don't capture those 2nd rates early on, the British campaign may actually be harder than the American or Barbary campaigns. This was adaptation off, as off is the new default.

Yes, but it has to do with getting ships. On my first play I struggled and actually restarted the British campaign becauseI got to a point where I could not win. So I changed strategy and I focused on buying ships. Second round wasn't so bad. That being said I would have had a way easier time this those SOLs for sure. I learned about the joy of boarding in the US missions and that was way easier. If I go through it again I may do that.

[Ninjasquirrel]

If you want to capture the Arrogante, it might be safer to force it to surrender by morale damage rather than boarding since it'll have a bonus due to height advantage (not to mention probably more crew than your entire fleet combined). Just shoot the crap outta its stern and press finish before it sinks.

[Vinegaroon]

Originally posted by Ninjasquirrel:

If you want to capture the Arrogante, it might be safer to force it to surrender by morale damage rather than boarding since it'll have a bonus due to height advantage (not to mention probably more crew than your entire fleet combined). Just shoot the crap outta its stern and press finish before it sinks.

I tried boarding it. It took my frigate then sunk the rest of my fleet :(

[Burning like KELT-9b]

Originally posted by BlackwaterXe:

Warning Spoilers:

The British campaign has an early mission, like Ch. 2.4 or something, where you have to square off against the Arrogante. Previously the Arrogante was a 64gun 3rd rate, but now it's apparently a 90gun 2nd rate (with the mission text still refering to it as 3rd rate), as if the game devs are trying to hammer in the idea that they don't want you to capture it. That mission actually heavily implies you to use the escort ships' fireship ability to burn it down. I personally had to play the preceeding missions as carefully as possible to keep costs and casualties low, because chapter 2.4 comes on you really fast. But I was able to arrive with four 5th rates and after capturing the Arrogante, the immediate next chapter gives you an extra battle where you square off against 3 more 90gun 2nd rates. After that, I had four 90gun 2nd rates and the British campaign was basically easy mode from then on. But if you don't capture those 2nd rates early on, the British campaign may actually be harder than the American or Barbary campaigns. This was adaptation off, as off is the new default.

ah yes, it also reminded me of a mission in the us campaign. i forgot which one is it, but you were supposed to capture a damaged (but in game it was full health???) 3rd rate british ship that went astray from the column that was engaging the allied french column. funny thing is, the 3rd rate was bumped into victory class S.O.L. and the whole british SOL fleet is also bumped into victory class lmao. its plain hillarious watching your allied french fleet that consists of 3rd rates and 2nd rate as the flagship getting torn apart quickly by a column of 5 victory class S.O.Ls not counting the "light escorts" that are just behind them. the only saving grace from this mission is that youre only required to capture the ship and not bringing it back to the safe zone, because i would rage so hard if it does happen. and it happened with the adaptation mode off. i shudder at the thought what would happen if i turned that thing on.