Anyone else think Prussia is realy hard ?

[dom385]

my empire seems to have ground to a halt, at the start of the campaign i just let my tech and economy build up. then after about 10 turns poland and austria went to war, i stayed out of this but when austira took one of polands regions that i needed poland and west prussia i would take it back this meant i was prity much ignored by austria and wasnt drawn into a war with poland russia etc. this has been going on for about 20 ish turns.

i also invaded france, taking france, flanders and alace and this has turned into iraq. france is continuously rebelling, spawing armies and damaging my buildings and seem impossible to please. this is getting very expensive havingto keep an army ready and armies posted in prussia also to keep austria at bay.

but the worst thing is that i seem to get dragged into wars with the small factions which i either have to skirmish with constantly or fight there huge armies, and sometimes i do lose these. even when i take the towns, taking huge casualties, i barley get any income from them.

I would recommend prussia (with darth mod attmitedly) for anyone looking for a challenge, even without the ai mods its a fair challenge.

[aarons got funky fresh]

I found them the easiest. I sacked West Prussia, made peace with PLC, sacked Courland, made peace with Russia. Sat there for 10 turns building my army and researching, then I sacked Poland. Then I sacked Russia.

Ridiculously easy to be honest.

[Shivendra]

Prussia is hard. Those germans states surrounding Berlin especially Couland are quite aggressive. You go war with one, all of them go to war with you. Had to give some money and peace treaty to Denmark, they were a real threat from the north as i was too involved fighting the states. At one time i thought i would lose cos Hannover and Couland were pushing me in from west and east. But somehow i destroyed Hannover, and now Couland
Poland is an easy opponent...

[Oliveira8]

Prussia, the Maratha and France(fo' real!) are the hardest factions in Empire in my opinion.

[Musthavename]

Found it pretty easy tbh.

Got Alliances with Sweden & Austria (and Hannover aswell). Courland attacked me early on, so killed them, then slowly took Poland. As it was Courland that declared war, I wasn't at war with the Russians either. I then sent some men to India and started booting the Marathrans out, getting an alliance with the Mughals until I effectivly had Southern India. At this point I had become a republic, then I set about completely maiming the Russians and from there on it was a cakewalk.

[Divi filius]

played france, prussia and the marathas all on vh/vh and am disappointed. no bragging, but after 20 turns the campaign is mostly done. if you have something between 7-10 regions, it is quite clear how and when you conquer the world. bad balancing and too little intelligent and agressive ai. you attack a country take one or two regions and make peace...
for prussia, the most effective tactic for me was to get hannover and then the rest of germany counterclockwise. after that the game is basically over cuz you got at least 3 universities and enough money to incorporate austria within the next 10 turns.

[MrOsterman]

i also invaded france, taking france, flanders and alace and this has turned into iraq. france is continuously rebelling, spawing armies and damaging my buildings and seem impossible to please. this is getting very expensive havingto keep an army ready and armies posted in prussia also to keep austria at bay.

Have you put in more happiness buildings? I find that if I go in, knock out the churches and toss up inns/ bawdy houses, it helps. Also you get more repression if you keep Dragoons there for order. And, unless you need the tech development there, move your schools and universities out of France and back to your main territories. That will help cut down on those red flags of revolution.

but the worst thing is that i seem to get dragged into wars with the small factions which i either have to skirmish with constantly or fight there huge armies, and sometimes i do lose these. even when i take the towns, taking huge casualties, i barley get any income from them.

I would recommend prussia (with darth mod attmitedly) for anyone looking for a challenge, even without the ai mods its a fair challenge.

I have found it pretty kinda easy so far but I had a few scares from those little start up states that seem to have massive armies compared to their size. The trick is to manage your fights and get some good alliances early on. I started off with a peace treaty with Poland and I kept it as long as I could. They made a nice buffer against Courland.

Someone else posted that as long as a nation has an army it will be beligerant. If you can get their army out in the open, and crush it, they will usually accept peace and may even agree to become a protectorate.

At this point in my Prussia campaign, I control Central Europe, north to south, have made the Itallian States, the Knights of Malta and Ireland my protectorates, and have a firm alliance with France and Spain. I got my French territory by conquering the 13 colonies and trading half of them to France. Ireland I got from England in a peace treaty (and I paid about 10k gold for it too),then I taxed them to rebellion, and once they rebelled made them a protectorate.

Mr. O

[Gigamacdaddy]

Let me brag and just say by 1740 I owned everything east of the Netherlands.

The trick is to play aggressively with Prussia from the first turn, utilizing your generals (probably 90% of my battles were autoresolve). Considering Prussia has a pretty big army to start with, and the effects those good generals have, you can take over prussia and austria in about 15 turns just training a few line infantry reinforcements.

[MrOsterman]

Let me brag and just say by 1740 I owned everything east of the Netherlands.

The trick is to play aggressively with Prussia from the first turn, utilizing your generals (probably 90% of my battles were autoresolve). Considering Prussia has a pretty big army to start with, and the effects those good generals have, you can take over prussia and austria in about 15 turns just training a few line infantry reinforcements.

The one thing about being TOO aggressive is that you can piss a lot of those little states and it can be hard to get peace from all of them which leads to stretching yourself a little thin. However you do start with the plug bayonet, and a pretty good army and if you DRIVE for Fire by Rank you can more or less roll over armies for a few turns while they struggle to catch up.

However, I agree, Prussia should be played agressively early, then once you're established, settle in to work on your econ

[Walternat0r]

I wouldn't say Prussia is really hard. It's difficult at first for sure as you're skint and if you want neighbours to stay friendly you have to pay them a lot of money, and have to really pick your enemies.

I took Courland right off the bat, and then took out Sweden while keeping alliances with Denmark, P-L and Russia. Once I'd removed Sweden I took out Austria (who were at war with P-L) and started chewing my way across germany and removed the UP and the little provinces; Hannover, Saxony, Wuttermburg, Bavaria, Westphalia. Then I hopped across the North Sea and kicked GB outta the game. Then hopped up to Iceland and sent a stack to Copenhagen, removing Denmark from the game in 1 turn. P-L and Russia didn't declare war on me until Denmark were removed so now i'm starting to batter my way through those chaps.

I'm allied with France, Spain and the Ottomans, trade rights with the US, france spain ottomans obviously, Persia, Italian States, Genoa (oh yeh I killed Venice and gifted their 2 places to Ottomans and Spain). I gave Iceland to france as well for some naval techs. Had a revolution to become a Republic and I think if I kept the size of my armies down i'd be at about 30k profit a turn, but I raised 3-4 stacks to combat the P-L and Russia so not so rich anymore. Starting to become a cake walk now, lots of money and my tech has advanced massively.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

My man who conquered Germany, the Uk and Denmark with just these men

[Collic]

I'm just nearing the end of a Prussian campaign, and I wouldn't say it's hard, but it's tricky ( and very fun) early on. But, like every campaign, once you carve out enough territory to give yourself some breathing room (often at the expense of the minors around you), You can dictate the pace of the campaign from then on.

Your main problems are being surrounded by hostile nations, and poverty. It can be hard to stake out a claim in the trade theatres with so few ports, and depending on who you get dragged into a war with, you can have your trade income strangled, and your ports blockaded for a long time.

If you're struggling early on, it's important to pick good allies asap before you declare war on a major. If you can get in on the GB, UP, Portugal alliance, you're all set. Just try to ally with a fellow protestant faction ( I wouldn't advise Sweden though, since everyone hates them. I did this and it caused me no end of problems - but it was fun).

Just pick your targets carefully, and be wary of leaving your starting provinces unguarded since the minor German states are very aggressive given the chance.

[Collic]

Damnit double post.

[The Librarian]

About the little states: if you can't defeat them, join them. Or in this case, let them join you. I think I made about 5 of them to be my protectorate (generally 10000 gold pieces and 2-3 techs) and it's certainly worth it. Half of Europe is allied to me.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

1755 and have won the campaign. Could have done it six or eight turns earlier but I wanted to be a constitutional monarchy. The only hard battles were against the Brits. I thought that 3 stacks would be enough because London was hardly defended. To my surprise six stacks of rather good English soldiers were hiding in the forests of Scotland.

My strategy:
- ally with Denmark.
- attack West Prussia on turn one.
- after that take Warsaw and make peace with the Poles.
- make peace with Russia.
- destroy Courland.
- in the mean time Austria had attacked me but after losing Silesia and Bohemia were happy to accept a peace deal.
- the small German states started to attack me but lost.

After some twenty turns I was already to strong.
- Conquer the rest of Western Europe

[Draknith]

I found Prussia to be very hard, and then very easy. My first campaign I just expanded too quickly without paying attention to my tech/industry/farms. My second go through those was a breeze.

I first developed for a couple years, getting some good infrastructure , and putting my armies together. When I was ready I moved on one of the smaller German states, Saxony I believe. This allowed me to go to war with them and Poland, without bringing everyone in against me. As I gained new regions I burned down any Catholic buildings and worked on building up the towns and infrastructure. Rinse, repeat.

All in all I waited a long time to get 'into the water'. Since I kept a strong alliance with GB it was easy to let them handle the trade problems and I took on the European land wars. Once I developed my navy I moved into the trade theaters, and started developing an empire in the Carribean. With all of the regions you can capture also, my tech rate was excellent, and I was able to get rid of 90% of the colleges by the 1760's.

If it weren't for a CTD error with my American Naval Fleets, I probably would have kept going.

I would say Prussia can be extremely easy or extremely difficult depending on how you start and how your neighbors react to eachother within the first few turns.

[Shigawire]

I thought it was an easy faction. Though it starts slow, I ended the game in 1799 with pretty much all of Europe, Carribean, North Africa.
With a few exceptions.

Hard/Hard was too easy, I will be playing Expert/Expert next.

[A_Dane]

personally i don't find prussia hard, currently i've been taking it slow, but poland just diddint wanna have peace, so after they started a 4th war i whiped them off the face of the earth. lately austria appereantly want back silesia, bohemia and hungary (which poland had taken) but they are hardly a threat and as russia and sweden is still fighting for finland theres no problem over there either... bascially with this speed i'll have won before 1760.