My European Campaign (as France)

[zzmasta]

I started my first Euro campaign on Hard/Hard and this is a basic run-down of my strategy:

- when the game started, pretty much everyone hates you. My first objective was to blitz through Austria and wipe them out as soon as possible while trying to maintain balance on the other fronts

- Britain didn't do much of anything to me for the first little while, but maybe 10ish turns in they'll sail a boat to Corsica to take it. I couldn't defend it so I sold Corsica to my Spanish allies for tech/money. Prussia is at war with you and makes some moves on Hannover in the opening stages. My solution was to just sell Hannover when I knew I couldn't defend it.

- My blitz worked for the most part. I got to Vienna in short order and trampled Austria, but they continue to hold Hungary and produce formidable armies that harass the Austrian cities I annexed from them.

- Soon enough Prussia begins to makes moves as well, and you have to look to the northern Prussian borders

- I looted the towns of Vienna and Berlin when I eventually conquered them - sometimes making as much as 40,000 gold in Berlin and 20,000 in Vienna. Those kinds of paydays help pay for costly wars, like the ones I'm waging on the powers of Europe

- As a personal distinction, I don't like naval battles and since on H/H the autoresolve is unforgiving, so I scuppered my ships and didn't make any others

- Currently Austria holds Hungary and two other regions east of it that are empty. Hungary is their last bastion and as soon as it falls, they are finished forever

-Prussia has 1 final region as well

- Denmark has attacked from the North and even conquered some of my Prussian cities, but I've clawed them back

- Great Britain in the later game sends ships to raid your coastlines. I made a daring defense of Paris with 4 line infantry and the rest all militia versus a full stacked GB army of line infantry artillery horses and Arthur Wellesley

- Ottomans also took Croatia from me and declared war

- The immediate future plan is thus:

1) Use armies in the northeastern fronts to clear out the last Prussian region and pacify any rebels in the next 5 turns, while replinishing.
2) Send a few stacks east to take Hungary and then the final two Austrian regions and end them as well.
3) Napoleon is going to personally lead a foray into Scandinavia, and hopefully conquer the entire region in the next 10-15 turns.
4) Once the Austrian and Prussians are dissolved, the next major enemies will be the Ottomans and the Russians in mainland Europe
5) The Spanish remain good allies with me. I will keep an army near the channel and watch for British invasions.
6) Once Istanbul and Moscow are captured, the rest of the job will be to clean up the remaining regions and prepare for the eventual invasion of Britain.
7) As for liberations, the only places I will liberate (if possible) are the Balkans, Ireland and Barcelona. The rest under my control.
8) The various city-states of Europe will become my protectorates or will be conquered.

I am thinking my next campaign should be Britain, and focus on controlling ALL TRADE for the first entire half of the game and amass tons of tech, industry and wealth, and then invade mainland france with professional late-game armies that will just trample right through.

[Travisk]

Personally, as any Coalition nation, I leave the enemy with their capital and let them fight back. I never actually finish campaigns, just reduce the enemy so they can counter attack.

[Zetto]

I captured and looted Vienna in my second campaign as France on H/H but I gave it my Italian protectorate right away, and they protected me from Austrian advances. As for Berlin, I prefer to keep it as a base of operations, allows for very fast recovery after bloody battles and it's closer to the frontlines than France.

GB usually manages to land a stack or two before I invade them (carefully avoiding Nelson, of course) and take'em down piece by piece (starting with Ireland and Scotland which GB leaves undefended). It makes for a lovely protectorate and gets rid of Nelson

Once GB, Prussia and Austria are taken care of, it's a quick march to Moscow and victory 40 turns and I'm done

I am thinking my next campaign should be Britain, and focus on controlling ALL TRADE for the first entire half of the game and amass tons of tech, industry and wealth, and then invade mainland france with professional late-game armies that will just trample right through.

You can do that but you can also just blitz right away, take over all of French lands along the coast, they are pretty much left undefended and fall into your hands without a single shot Don't try to keep them though, just liberate protectorates and give them other territories. They are usually at peace with France and don't matter much even if they get recaptured, you can take them back soon after What I'm trying to say: you can 'trample' right at the beginning of the game just as well as at the end