How to beat Commonwealth ?

[Ser Pounce]

Hi guys, I'm asking for some tips to go toe-to-toe with the Commonwealth as Russia without any allies.

Here is the situation :
I have more men, more manpower, my military tech is one lvl above his. Our respective generals are kinda on the same power level (2 stars everywhere). My prestige is around 50, My army tradition is around 40-50 as well. I don't get any discipline bonuses sadly but he got a 5% bonus. Though I got a part of the Quality ideas so i got some CA for my mens.
For the morale lvl, we got exactle the same.

I ambush his armies on a good place to fight, I always fight 2v1, yet I'm still almost loosing battle.

If I can't get on a forest/mountain/swap past a river to fight them, I lost. Even 2v1. He got more cannons and a 5% discipline bonus. It's around tech 13, are cannons already that much of a deal ?

Also, his manpower never seems to go down, no matter how many men he lost in battles while mine is melting. I can barely get a white peace offer after battling him.
If I try to get more cannons, I can say goodbye to my gold. And since he's slightly richer than me, like 2 ducats per month more than me, I wonder where he find the gold to sustain his armies without any debts.

Is the AI just cheating or do I miss something obvious ?

[luckymarine]

The Commonwealth I see in games usually walks around in 40k stacks, and loses all his manpower to attrition in a Russia that has taken full defensive. They'll push in a few provinces, Russia seems to let them, and then Russia counters once the Commonwealth has run out of troops.

Sit forts in defensive terrain, as soon as war is declared take the defensive edict in those states if you have Mandate of Heaven, will make the siege ticks take longer and also scorch earth the fort provinces too making them hell for enemy troops to sit in. If you can grab any attrittion for enemies policies then that helps too.

A high level russian fort, in harsh winter, with scorched earth, full defensive and a policy or two in place you should see attrition aproaching 5%.

Allow them to sit but dont hit them straight away, let those 5% ticks do the killing for you till the siege gets to positive numbers, then drive them away, rinse and repeat.

Mill tech 16 is Chambered demi cannons and about the time that having a back row can have an effect on a battle, not just a siege. I would build canons, not a lot if you cant afford it, just enough to move around the line and attach to various armies that are about to attack, its very rare that cannons take damage so one group of cannons should be able to go from fight to fight relativly unscathed.

[Darksinth]

Blobbing AIs tend to go deep into debt to basically exchanhe their entire army into merc infantry when they run into manpower issues. So, as the war drags on they use so much mercs that they actually start gaining manpower.

Cannons at military tech 13 start to become worth their money (chambered demi cannon is the turning point), but imo cannons always add a lot to a battle, but are not cost efficient earlier. If you have a ton of money to burn there isn't really a point not to use them. Most significantly the horses of PLC will add a lot to the battle. Poland has cavalry combat ability national ideas and this is further enhanced with discipline and maybe other modifiers.

[Ser Pounce]

Trying to play the attrition game but it doesn't seems to work quite well. I don't have the right ideas and not even fully developped.

I do sit and wait for winters, burn lands and all I can for attrition to do the trick. And during that time, he takes all my lands and my revenue is leaving. Sadly, If I try to recap my provinces, he will go after my armies and defeat them. If I just keep waiting, attrition ticks a bit... but his manpower remains the same even after losing around 10k men. It just fully resplenished and his manpower goes down by 3k.
I do have cannons, around 20k. He just got 10k more than me. His armies are something like 15k infantry, 4k cavalry, 13k cannons.
His cavalry isn't the problem definitly.

Really, I don't get why it is so hard to beat them even with attrition tactics.

[luckymarine]

You filling out your combat width?

At mill tech 16 combat width jumps to 30 having a full width army is simple but can work wonders. Something like 26/4/20 as you say you have the 20k cannons should do pretty well with a decent general in terrain where you get a bonus.

You many need to halve this force down for moving it around to combat attrition but combine it before you throw it into battle as seperate armies joining the same fight are notoriously fikkle in how they deploy.

[Ser Pounce]

the thing is he got 2 big stacks running around. I can definitly fight him with one army but I can't wipe-stack them so he just retreat and come back later while the other army has taken half of my provinces. xD