WON THE GAME - LESSONS LEARNED

[josephmcmullin]

Ok I've won the game on normal and here's what I learned:
1. Build Infrastructure early on - Your troops need to move fast to react to invasions
2. Build Agriculture early on - You will run out of provisions otherwise and take huge loyalty hits
3. You can pretty much disregard Naval buildup. It's expensive and I invested a lot and only managed to field a 12 strong navy with captured 1sst rates, 2nd rates and 4th rate frigates. The Repair time is long even with over 8 points in shipbuilding ability. You only get minor abilities to actually sail your navy into engagements and spend more time repairing than fighting. Your sea trade never really gets above 4k a week and you're better off investing in a larger army
4. Naval invasions are a PAIN and way overdone. Best tactic is to keep large armies at key points of the east coast (NE, NY. Norfolk, Savannah) and get troops fast to the invasion point. It's KEY to take the invasion at the beachhead and bottle them up rather than let them roam and take multiple towns. By the time you dig them all out another invasion will come
5. Key areas to take and defend: NE as you will get invaded there often, NY as you will get invaded there often, Savannah as you will get invaded there often. You are best to take and hold the east coast line. You should take and hold qubec and montreal and garission strongly there too
5. Build up these key areas with barracks asap as they will allow you to replenish and garission large armies which you're going to need
6. Keen an eye on your tension levels with France and Spain. They will absolutey DOW on you if its consistantly above 40
7. Research your muskets and cannons asap as once you can start building decent muskets and howitzers you are able to fight on par with the British
8. Use your regular troops on the coastline, and militia to push west and take the interior areas
9. The Native Americans are a pain but aren't a game changer...your main risk is the East coastline against the British
10. You ABSOLUTELY NEED to invest in your fur indiustry to its max level. You can sell furs for good profit and it can really allow you to field larger armies
11. Build your loyalty up and then start taxing 1% at a time up to 3% if you can manage it.
12. Upgrade and garrison forts as you go. They can be a real help
13. The British will regularly invade NY. A good trick is to keep a strong army in NY and the computer AI wont attack it. You can comfortably allow them to bottle themselves up in Long Island and starve over time. Mop up the remainder. Clever use of this bottling tacking is essential.

[Deogol]

#4 is absolutely true. Add in the off-board reinforcements elsewhere, and it's just silly.

[the evil one]

4. Naval invasions are a PAIN and way overdone.
I run a large navy , all captured bar the starting ship I took
It would be fine and good fun but they just won't engage invasion forces on their own 95% of the time
So you have to keep them in port until you spot the fleet and micro manage getting the flotillas to VERY closely shadow the enemy till they might decide to engage, sometimes, perhaps, maybe ...........

The biggest single factor on my new run has been using a officer to boost regions, construction and specialists buffs are my favs, instantly boosting even the forts to above 2 points for a small gold cost

Eg A school house in Burlington 103 days, add a officer to buff the region and that becomes 13 days
So with resource buildings they more than pay for themselves by faster building gives resources faster to sell them

[josephmcmullin]

Originally posted by the evil one:

4. Naval invasions are a PAIN and way overdone.
I run a large navy , all captured bar the starting ship I took
It would be fine and good fun but they just won't engage invasion forces on their own 95% of the time
So you have to keep them in port until you spot the fleet and micro manage getting the flotillas to VERY closely shadow the enemy till they might decide to engage, sometimes, perhaps, maybe ...........

The biggest single factor on my new run has been using a officer to boost regions, construction and specialists buffs are my favs, instantly boosting even the forts to above 2 points for a small gold cost

Eg A school house in Burlington 103 days, add a officer to buff the region and that becomes 13 days
So with resource buildings they more than pay for themselves by faster building gives resources faster to sell them

Now that's great advice. I will be using that next time

[the evil one]

Originally posted by josephmcmullin:

Now that's great advice. I will be using that next time

It's a cheesy "cheat" but if you use all the officers you have up, buffing regions etc
You get global research offering more officers, just junk officers often but do that 3 times and that's 6-9 junk stats officers that still do a good job buffing regions without tying up your better officers who you want in charge of units
sometimes the tech is for 3 junk officers or 2 better officers
Just useful in the very early game when officers can be in short supply

I set all mine to construction buff till I have my key buildings done then swap them to specialists buff, I rarely use the loyalty buffing ones early on as that costs rum and gold
And I like to save the little early rum I get for later use

[albrightwillie0]

Has anyone ever used rum to boost unit morale?

[josephmcmullin]

Originally posted by albrightwillie0:

Has anyone ever used rum to boost unit morale?

No never once, never had the need really.

[SkyRiderJM]

If your using a game mechanic that the Devs put into this game then I don't understand why you can call it a cheesy cheat.

[the evil one]

Originally posted by SkyRiderJM:

If your using a game mechanic that the Devs put into this game then I don't understand why you can call it a cheesy cheat.

That's exactly what a "cheesy" cheat is, it's using any game mechanic in a way that the dev's probably didn't intend it being used. All games have them
The mechanic is intended to supply a few officers when you fully run out in normal gameplay
It's unlikely they intended people to use all officers up on buffing duties constantly just to get repeat research. Then take all those officers off buffing duty once you have the amount you want

A example from civil war would be the captured unit tactic, dangling a captured unit in front of the enemy for them to recapture , AI units would chase after them right into a wall of defensive fire you set up . You could pull back the captured unit and the AI would follow it
Players could just repeat as they wanted

The Jp mod solved that but it's a base game mechanic that can be abused
I haven't played the base game of civil wars in many years but I assume it's still there

[josephmcmullin]

Originally posted by the evil one:

Originally posted by SkyRiderJM:

If your using a game mechanic that the Devs put into this game then I don't understand why you can call it a cheesy cheat.

That's exactly what a "cheesy" cheat is, it's using any game mechanic in a way that the dev's probably didn't intend it being used. All games have them
The mechanic is intended to supply a few officers when you fully run out in normal gameplay
It's unlikely they intended people to use all officers up on buffing duties constantly just to get repeat research. Then take all those officers off buffing duty once you have the amount you want

A example from civil war would be the captured unit tactic, dangling a captured unit in front of the enemy for them to recapture , AI units would chase after them right into a wall of defensive fire you set up . You could pull back the captured unit and the AI would follow it
Players could just repeat as they wanted

The Jp mod solved that but it's a base game mechanic that can be abused
I haven't played the base game of civil wars in many years but I assume it's still there

For example, the only way I was able to even win the game was down to bottling invasions in Long Island for example. I figured out the minimum number of garisson that would cheese the AI into not attacking and was able to hold of 10-15k troops so many times.

It's a cheesy cheat or exploit, but until the Devs fix or right size/time invasions its what I had to do. 20-30k naval invasion troops every month just isn't ok

[L A V A]

I think you have to bottle the invasions and that generally means giving up terrain so the Brits can't overrun you. If you want to "cheese" the game with getting lots of officers, I don't see a problem with that. If you can afford to pay for them... why not?

[the evil one]

Originally posted by L A V A:

I think you have to bottle the invasions and that generally means giving up terrain so the Brits can't overrun you. If you want to "cheese" the game with getting lots of officers, I don't see a problem with that. If you can afford to pay for them... why not?

They actually pay for themselves with increased building rates and boost to specialists etc
It means a town is up and running producing goods much faster and gold for wages is not a issue after that

[L A V A]

That depends on the region, does it not? I have used some officers to try to help increase construction and they don't seem to have a very dramatic effect.

[the evil one]

Originally posted by L A V A:

That depends on the region, does it not? I have used some officers to try to help increase construction and they don't seem to have a very dramatic effect.

The lower the region points the more effect they have, it's a amount not a %, so a 0,1 regions can be boosted to almost 3 a massive difference, but somewhere with a 7 already would only to go 9-10 still good but only a 25% boost compared to the first region
The officer stats matter, but even a low stated one makes a big difference in the low point regions and that's where my fur trader or rum houses etc will be

The boost recruitment/specialists but again by a set amount depending on officer stats it seems

Edit just checked
Tried the same officer at Hartford and fort stevens
at Hartford he took 3 days off a build(9 days to 6) and at fort Steven he took 78 days off( 91 days to 13)

Just a random very low stats officer and wasn't the same building at both towns but you get the idea from that

Oh and btw don't forget some regions are 2 towns or forts so he boosts both at the same time

[SkyRiderJM]

It's all good info. Thanks.

[L A V A]

I recently tried using an officer to buff the loyality of a couple forts I couldn't occupy. He seems to be doing a good job. +3 morale boost for 30 days.