Ntw Tactics - Tips & Strategies by feanor68

[assistec24]

To feanor68 : greetings again from Portugal. I am back to NTW, after I spend a time in masseffect2, and fallout new Vegas (don.t buy this one yet, have A Lot of bugs!) - but, total wars are still the best strategy games, with no doubts...

So, again thanks to feanor68 for that nice work; also, I will try to put some tips for naval and strategy; I hope that will help; also, always will can learn something new.

1º - money need? - How to make a huge amount of money in 1 turn + slowdown AI aggressions:
One of missions its about taking down Vienna: After you manage to win the battle, LOOT the town ( +- 46000 gold) AND keep the town 1 turn, IGNORING rebellion threat. After looting, destroy ALL Austrian buildings and, after 1 turn offer pace to Austria, ask for trade agreement and... give them back Vienna! They will agree. Use the money to boost your economy, and, after 6-10 turns take back Vienna again (because its just a problem of turns until Austria will turn against you...again); They will support the reconstruction and you have the money; (use the same technique with Berlin)

2.º Going ahead with more strategy tips:
I just finish again the European campaign in hard, so, some more sharing things; With just 4 bomb ketch's I kill Nelson fleet with no looses, was to easy (!), again I say: put your fleet AGAINST the wind (to have Nelson fleet going after you against the wind) - big ships are (very) hard to make illusive maneuver against the wind and PUT your ships IN A HORIZONTAL line - to have them open fire all at once. Each heavy unit on Nelson fleet surrounded after 3-4 salvos, and the one who try to by pass a burning ship was also damaged by the explosions... really easy job... The hard thing was to crush the ottoman fleet, (cost me 3 of 38 frigates and... lol, A LOT of save/reload!!!) but... with the 74 heavy unit (I play always with France) once I come close of they bomb ketch's, and kill them, was fun to kill the rest of galleys and brigs. (in this early phase, I don.t have any bomb ketch. The strategy (working, but hard...) its to put your unit against the wind, again, win a position "on column" one line where your ship its pursued by a convoy of enemy ships, AGAINST the wind, (usually, the AI put the ottoman bomb ketch's in a rearguard position, so no big danger for you in this phase) AND, after you win this position, make a 180º turn and go FAST with the wind directly to the couple of bomb ketch's. Be aware to the shooting blast of them, you have 3-5 seconds to make illusive manuvers, avoiding the shells of mortars. You will loose crewman, guns, eventually you will have fire on deck ( here disable auto-fire IGNORING other ships and keeping all your fire-power for this two little bastards. Disabling auto-fire will give you a little more chances to survive until you close the distance. Remember, the speed its the key, so heaving the wind with you will give to your heavy unit that "bit" of more speed and maneuverability to over-class smaller units like bomb ketch's. Once you are close, in gun range, choose a trajectory who pass in the middle of 2 bomb ketch's (they will be in parallel) - so you can open fire with both broadsides. With chance, one of them will explode, if not, they will split and run. Choose one and fire again; They cannot stand against more of 2 salvos oh a heavy unit. After first kill, turn and pursuit fast the second one. He will run, thats mind he will NOT fire at you but... you will fire at him! Kill him, and then... run a bit with auto-fire disable to switch-off the fire (IF you have fire on deck) and... after the fire its no more a problem, just kill the rest of them, once the nasty part was passed now..


3.º For land battle:

After I fight in a lot of grounds, the best position to kill A LOT of enemy with a LOT of NO losses, its ... behind of rivers!

a) Have with you 3-4 artillery units of 6, 8 pounds (bigger better) 3 or 4 light cavalry units ( I say the best money buy its Light cavalry - faster, cheap, and more deadly ) 4 - 5 units of infantry and 2 - 3 light infantry.
b) Check out the passing places : one, the bridge; second one, a place usual far away;
c) Depend WHERE the enemy positioning, make your deploying;
d) Let say the closer passing point (bridge or not) will be the place A; (close for the enemy units) - this "A" point will be the point where the enemy will try to use to come to you; this its the key.
f) Have the second passing point "B" - bridge or not. This will be the place where the enemy will try to use to over-flank you.
Will have just two scenario's here, so, like in chess, will try to make a move ahead of our opponent. Its not difficult.

Now, try to make this deployment for the first scenario:

1. Before to hit "start" button:

If "A" point its a bridge: infantry unit (elite troop or most experiment unit ) in front of the bridge in square formation, making them the point of a "V". (the bridge must be INSIDE of "V") One or two infantry unit in the left(or right) wing of "V" ; One or two units of light infantry on the other wing of "V"; Your artillerist must be deployed in a wing of "V" carefully, i.e. - to cover the head oh bridge with canister range. IF you have the opportunity to put your artillery just in the base of "V" - that its perfect! but... never happens to me! Usually, the blue line of deployment limit will deny you the possibility to make this in the first stage (before the fight starts) - so, you will need to maneuver to come to that position, and FAST. The only unit who MUST be in fire position already will be your artillery, with NO auto-fire. Will see why.

Second, lets remember will still have the "B" point, where the AI can make us some nasty surprises. So, will deploy at least one or two units of infantry perpendicular with the river, facing the "B" point, together with one or tho units of light cavalry. They will be our insurance. Our general must by cloaked IF the enemy have artillery, in some place with cover, BUT inside of your position.

Starting the battle: - Like I say, your artillery its already positioned with no auto-fire. Choose fast the closer cavalry unit of your enemy and target them. Hit them with round shells. Usually, they or will run or will charge against you, crossing the bridge. Here you already have sent the infantry units to take position, and how crossing the bridge its a slow move, you will be the FIRST one to deploy. Wend the came close to your side of bridge, they will have against them a triple fire: left side, right side, and they will stop the charge right in your square formation, a kill end for all kind of cavalry. Be carefully at this point to stop shooting with your artillery your own troops; Stop shooting just after they pass half of bridge, just target they generals! Kill the enemy leader with your artillery, until your units decimate the charge of cavalry. Now, the enemy will charge with full force in that bridge: retreat the troops from the "V" wing - the troops who stand between your artillery and the bridge - and make a new position in "L" where the bridge will be inside of "L" and your artillery in the opposite side of your deployed troops (the "outside" of "L". Make this fast. Switch to canister once the enemy are inside of range.

Attention: take always a look to the "B" point: IF some cavalry unit will try to over-flank you, be ready to receive them with a infantry unit (at least) and cavalry. IF the main force of enemy just change the mind and decide to turn over and cross the river in "B" point, wait until the move its obvious and move the artillery (just simulate this!) : immediately they will reverse again and will charge to the point "A" . Like the movement of whole army its a very slow movement, you will have always the quicker move and, consequently, you will decimate the whole army. Do not forgot to try killing the enemy leader (with artillery and not only) all the time wend have no imminent danger to your units. This must be a permanent (and important!) objective all the fight. At certain point, you will have a situation where the enemy artillery will remain isolate because their troops are already far ahead. Send immediately a cavalry unit to cross the "B" point (or "A" point) - the point where the enemy are not present! - and charge the enemy artillery!. Kill them fast and run after to a safe distance. Sometimes, also they leader will be close, so... kill him also! The light cavalry always catch from behind heavy cavalry (like general bodyguards) ! Also, they always run faster.
Use your cavalry to hunt down broken units, making them to gain more experience... and enemy no survivors!

Second scenario:

This its the best one, easier.

The "A" point its just a place where the river become smaller and allow passage, and the B point its the bridge. This its the best scenario! Force ratio can be here 3:1 against you and you will win even in hard mode.

Before start: Put ALL your artillery just ahead of point "A" (switch the position with the "square" formation from the first scenario). 2 units of infantry to a "V" flank, and more two to other flank. One support light cavalry right behind one line of your infantry. Guard the point B sending a infantry unit in to, and ordering them to assume square formation right in the front of the bridge (the "B" point in this case) - IF you see enemy cavalry trying to use the bridge. Just one square formation can hang on 5-6 enemy cavalry units. And decimate them, because they cannot charge against your infantry, cannot over-flank, and can attack just one at once. So, in a bridge, the most weack unit its a cavalry unit. If the enemy sent infantry units to the "B" point (the bridge) just simulate the artillery movement. They will turn back.

Starting the fight:

You have artillery in the best position: start shooting the closer cavalry unit. They will run or charge. If charge, switch to canister once they are in range. NO unit survive in the hell you brought! 4 infantry units fire AND canister fire from 2-3 battery of guns! Usualy, you will kill 90-95 100% of them! With more or less no loses. Wend they will charge in force, just do the same; Normally,they will break and the rooting units will go against oif charging unit making a hell of confusion in the enemy lines, meantime your troops will practice targeting shooting. Also, they just stop in the middle of river trying to shoot back to you. But... they will be ONE unit shooting against 4 (or more) units PLUS a lot of canister shells! Go on, do not forgot about the killing the leader and taking off the enemy artillery, and... decimate the rooting units.


Thats all. Hope this will help. PS - work well in hard mode, so in other lower levels must be more fun.

[ross73194]

so, i put my elites between the artillery and im wondering, since the artillery can be easily overrun, can i put some foot infantry in back of them to give a safer position?

[assistec24]

so, i put my elites between the artillery and im wondering, since the artillery can be easily overrun, can i put some foot infantry in back of them to give a safer position?

Hi, don.t put infantry behind artillery, once they will shoot (if the enemy will charge against artillery) - and you will have your artillery killed by friendly fire. Put them instead in the wings of a (very!) large V (at the base of V - the artillery).And keep at least 1 cavalry unit for each wing, once in NTW the AI may try a lot more to over-flank you.

[ed1212]

The success of this formation comes down to a fairly old tactic

[Ishiro]

- Null -

[JaM]

Don't get me wrong, i don't want to sound rude or something, i'm not saying your guide is bad, but reading this tutorial just made me think how bad this game is as vanilla... Entire tutorial is about how to teach player how to use exploits and bad game modeling to defeat very limited AI.. What was probably hardest to read for me was that naval tactic how to kill Nelson with Bomb-ketches... Entire wonderful scenario of naval battles of 18 to early 19.century destroyed by poorly modeled super bomb ketches which would in reality have huge problems hit Town, are here able to snipe Ship of the Line...

another thing is extremely vulnerable generals, that cannot hide, and you can see them across the battlefield... Its like running across the field with huge target attached to the back with big sign "HIT ME!"... I spend lots of time checking game structure, and i can tell you, General unit, as other cavalry is almost 6x bigger target than foot soldier... not sure how tall are you, but cavalrymen on the horse would hardly be 2-2.5x taller... no wonder its so easy to kill them by artillery..

Therefore my advice is - guys, don't play vanilla game and download any mod which is available. Any of those eliminates all those unbelievable exploits, and make this game worth playing by actually using tactics which was used by generals of that era... otherwise you will end up bored after few hours, and you will never want to play this game again...

[assistec24]

I really am at a lost in Naval battles. it's basically big ship beats small ship everytime. Rocket ships are a god send cause they are the only ship that isn't beaten by big ships. So my navies usaully have 2 rocket ships, and I use these ships are my admiral ships.

In Campaign my navy is often secondary, and only used for quick drop off's of high end armys on to England. After that they usaully get destroyed.

"it's basically big ship beats small ship everytime" lol, WRONG and wrong my friend, B/c of CA "mastermind" here are a total sniper ship, small one: bomb k. !
2 or 3 pairs of this mosquitos will kill ANY big ship (including Nelson) FAST !
And please, don.t say about (most) stupid rocket ship: i fight rocket ship.s on MP a lot, one time i get hit 5 times (direct hits) i was burning, true, but my 106 full upgraded reach the gunns distance and 1 salvo was all that toy ship need to kataboom. And, just to see, NO looses on my ship: crew or gunns.
The fire was extinct by repairs in 1 min.
BUT, fighting bomb k. its a different (bad) story. First of all, check the precision fire (sniper stile) of a bomb k. Unreal, frustating ! ANY direct hit take out a big ammount of gunns and... A LOT of crew ! The load time of target ship increase b/c of crew kill, and, after 3-4 direct hits you are doom... So, my friend, I tell u, a pair of bomb K. easy kill a big ship: its a fact, in NTW (a stupid one historical...).

[emenacinc]

These some people are the main responsible for all mishap happened in the world war.
call center service

[Didz]

I'm with JaM on this point and it's one of several reasons why i will never play this game multi-player. I've watched a few MP commentary games on YouTube and basically it's all expliots and really highlights how bad the vanilla version of this game is.

As far as bomb-ketches are concerned, any mod that still leaves those in the game is discredited in my opinion. They had no role in open naval warfare, and were only of any value for shore bombardment, same with rocket ships. Unless one is refighting the bombardment of Baltimore then they have no role in the game.

[Alternative]

ottoman melee inf .. lol you must be joking there awful 2 volleys and there running away faster than an olympic sprinter with his arse on fire

You surely have not played online multiplayer, have you? XD. Ottoman melee infantry rape. line infantry will kill 30 at most before melee infantry hit and then they'll die cuz ottoman melee just pwns every other infantry unit in melee (a cemaat janissary with 3 chevrons beats an old guard unit) . . . unless you're playing the AI in which every unit the AI has sucks lol