Factions in ER

[DaVinci]

So which faction(s) do you play prefered, and what are your (special) observations and what are your preferences (i.e. goals) with them?

I'm curious, and your reports may help the further development, so let them come, a note which version you have installed would help as well, besides the chosen difficulty, unit size, etc. what you want to add as info. - You don't need to write essays, just a bit player-info, though faction-related.

[cave sexte]

I tend to use either Great Britain or the United Provinces. I'm currently playing your last official release (not the beta) with great britain. Both GB and the UP are very seafaring and trade dependent, which I like because it gives me lots of opportunity for naval battles. In both cases (UP more than GB, though) I tend to try to push my merchant marine capabilities early on. To that end, I'm very excited about the new muscle on the Indiaman (the fluyt's superiority to the indiaman was both ahistorical and stupid, given their relative configurations. Sending single indiamen (or Fluyts) to take and hold as many trading posts as possible, and then beefing up the numbers at each after all open spots are taken generally seems to yield good results for both factions, in my experience. With both factions, I try hard to build and hold a presence in the trade theaters in east africa and the east indies (best prices for those trade goods). South america is important to the UP, but not so much for GB as a lot of sugar is already coming in from their colonies in the new world.

I try to limit my expansion to the new world and India (conquering Europe tends to result in a lot of nasty painful 3-way knife fights). In both cases my new world strategy is usually to nail down the islands of the Caribbean (starting with the pirate bases), then take South America east to west and work my way up to the southern US. For GB, you get the opportunity to inherit the 13 colonies outright if you fulfill your obligations in securing them a buffer zone in each direction, but that can wait until the rest of the continent is in your hands, b/c once you're into the mid-Atlantic and Canada the complexity and scope of the terrain forces you to run multiple-army campaigns, which is painfully expensive early on.

Old world strategy differs for UP and GB - UP I try to build a buffer of friendly allied and neutral powers between me and the unfriendly major powers (Westphalia, Bavaria, Alsace-Lorraine, etc. Then I just provide military support to them when necessary to preserve their usefulness as buffers while I build up a dominating navy. This also allows me to focus on one or two high-quality armies because the local forces of each satellite nation can usually speed-bump major powers long enough for me to deploy my best without having to maintain multiple weak (but costly) border forces. As GB, I usually immediately break off my alliance with Austria (keeping it guarantees you'll be at war with almost everybody from the first couple of turns), but strengthen my UP and Portugese alliances, but try to stay out of everyone else's wars. I use the UP for my strategic depth (same strategy as above) and support against the French and Spanish as needed. Obviously, strong channel fleets are critical once the balloon goes up against France. As GB, you can largely stay out of the big wars on the continent, even if you're technically at war, and support your allies at your discretion, preferably with amphibious landings of highly trained and experienced armies. UP is particularly important for this because France and Spain tend to go for them and I can support them (fighting on their land, not mine, and keeping them away from my soft targets on the home islands). Portugal's survival is important to me in keeping Spain occupied in the old world while I swipe their new world possessions (I do wonder if galleons should be that pathetic, though), so I'll invest a lot of time and money keeping them armed, supplied, and supported. Sometimes I try to take Gibraltar, but that destroys my strategic buffer and puts me in the position of directly defending against a land assault on my territory, so I usually wait on that until I've got my economy humming along.

Things I really like about the build I'm playing - the naval combat is hugely better than vanilla, although raking shots seem less effective now than the last time I played ER (as UP, not sure what build). I'm not sure if I'm happy about that or not. I remain confused as to why the morale hit doesn't apply to being raked from the fore, as that was a similarly damaging experience, at least on deck, if not quite as nasty belowdecks given the structural weakness of the stern (windows and such on many SOLs and frigates). Other reactions - diplomatic AI is a lot more functional than vanilla, and the tech exchange ability is a nice bonus (although it may speed up development too fast - I've got the first level of tech (and some of the second) researched in probably 3/4 of all the tech trees as of 1705. I also think the land combat morale model works better now - fewer inexplicable routs, but troops still flee at reasonable points (except during sieges, of course - what's up with militia and citizens holding to the last man?). Other than that, it's a great experience and miles better than vanilla. Keep up the good work!

[wiskey78]

Being raked from the bow is not nearly as damaging as from the stern. The bow of the ship is well protected the hull is thick and angled shot is likely to glance right off. The stern on the other hand has no protection it is just some windows and an interior wall. A shot to the stern will probably pass all the way through to the bow.

[BGH]

Ill ask here... is there any possibility how to play as a minor nation in ETW realism mode? How can I unlock all factions? Thanks

[JaM]

BGH: right now only major factions are playable, minors are adjusted to provide historically proper behavior, anyway there are several submods that enable them, but that would require using different startpos files, which will reduce certain aspects of the game. Enabling them is possible, anyway right now they are not balanced to be playable factions.