How do you get good at this game?

[Germanicus75]

How does one get good at this game?

I’m playing the Darth Mod by the way (Bran Mac Born edits).

I find that whoever I play with I soon get attacked by a major or medium sized AI faction and am forced onto a difficult defensive. No matter whether I give them gifts or not. And trying to expand just pits one or more of the major AIs against you.

For example, playing as Prussia (easy campaign, hard battles), which ought to be reasonably easy, if I try to expand by first attacking Mecklenburg (which seems to be the prevailing wisdom), France soon declares war against me and they are relentless and incorrigible. Denmark-Norway also sends stacks down to my cities. I just can’t seem to make any headway.

One of the hardest things I find about trying to conquer territory is that you’ve got to keep a nearly whole or whole stack back in the city you just took in order to keep order and prevent rioting. And you’ve got to exempt that city from taxation for a long time. How then does one make any progress? Obviously the number of armies and generals you can have is limited.

I have been playing various Total War games for many years now and I don’t seem to get any better. I don’t think I’ve ever completed a major campaign in any of the games (I usually play mods though).

I can’t even win this game playing as Napoleon!

As far as I can see, I do all the right things with my military and economy, but I never get far. There must be something wrong with my strategies?

Thanks for any help and advice.

Cheers, Ed

[Turumba]

It seems to me, that you dont look at the diplomatic relations at all. mecklenburg is allied with sweden or denmark (cant remember which one), so if you attack them, their allies will attack you. Sweden is part of the entente, so, austria, russia and englang will start to hate you. You have to look into the diplomatic relations before you declare war on your target. Otherwise you cause a chain reaction against you.

As Prussia, for example, you put up trade and/or aliance with england, russia and most important austria. Then the first target should be saxons (no allies in the first turn(s) in the first turn with everything you have.

Then After that make ready for war against france... you dont have to, but it is the easiest target. Deploy your full stacks on a brigde in their land and let them die there.

[Bobby Joe]

2 Words, buffer zones. You have to liberate nations and turn them into protectorates and also make allies. Then you focus internally and then start to take territories one by one, two by two. It's also worth it sometimes to loot cities (especially the big ones like Vienna or Paris) and give them to your protectorates and give them 1 gold to take the offer. Added benefits are that when you have these nations under your control, they're neutral by default so you can keep an army hanging around there while your enemy's can't.