GB, can't get economy going help!

This is my 3rd attempt at playing Great Britain in the Coalition campaign. I don't know what to do from the start to be able to get my economy going, I build economic builds like farms and mines and magistrates and the likes: but I still run out of money soon. Also, after I get an economy going (which I haven't figured out how to do yet...) I don't know where to go first..

Somebody please help!

Hmm.. i have no problems with GB.. eum... How are you army's look like?
I only had one army, take all units from wales/scotland/england and then make one army with wellington, then you can choose, will you invade spain? or liberated Nederlands and Belguim?

your choise mate

Originally Posted by GreenWhitePuppet

Hmm.. i have no problems with GB.. eum... How are you army's look like?
I only had one army, take all units from wales/scotland/england and then make one army with wellington, then you can choose, will you invade spain? or liberated Nederlands and Belguim?

your choise mate

I looted France in the beginning of my GB campaign.

Your first priority should be trade nodes. Don't recruit much of an army, just keep ships in the channel to prevent invasion, and maybe recruit some units on Gibralter so the Spanish don't take it.

So yeah, trade, and lot's of it!

Originally Posted by zorphon

This is my 3rd attempt at playing Great Britain in the Coalition campaign. I don't know what to do from the start to be able to get my economy going, I build economic builds like farms and mines and magistrates and the likes: but I still run out of money soon. Also, after I get an economy going (which I haven't figured out how to do yet...) I don't know where to go first..

Somebody please help!

Partner, you have only one goal for a robust British economy - put trade ships on trade nodes!

Everything you do, from buildings (trade ports) to units (trade ships, the cheap ones, don't waste money on the Indiamen) to fighting (make sure no enemy ships reach your trade nodes or your ports) should be geared towards this end.

If you do that, you will be swimming in cash. You might also want to run down and take one of the richer (sugar, ivory, spice) nodes, but if you go south you'll have to win a naval battle or three.

when i start as GB i find it quite useful to attack other factions (Spanish, Dutch, French?) merchant ships and make sure you capture them in battle so after the battle thats instant cash . Although i think the trade nodes get you the most cash dont forget roads in regions and deleting those units you dont need always helps

Start building trade ships from you very first turn, as many as you can, and send them straight away to the trade theatres in the upper left corner of the map. If you dont do this you will fail as GB.

Trade nodes is the whole answer. Dont build an army for awhile until you get a decent income to afford everything. If you prioritize building trade ships you should be able to take at least 2/3 of the trade nodes before Denmark and the Russians start stealing them all.

Nelson can handle most of the Spanish and French fleets with minor reinforcement. Build trade ships and send them to trade nodes.

GB is boring at first while you build up but if you build up enough you can steam roll Spain and bust into France easy.

Disband your army, let spanish take Gibraltar (gasp).

Clear Atlantic with nelson, use all ships not in your nelson stack to blockade enemy ports (use starting merchants that you have on trade nodes if you have to, although you should be able to capture some extra ships when clearing Atlantic) then guard pass at Gibraltar with Nelson. so automatically there is no chance England will be invaded and the Atlantic is your trade theater for the taking.

NOW

Start building sloops at dockyards and merchant ships at trade ports, sloops will replace ships you have blockading enemy ports and join Nelson to seal the deal on the seas while merchant ships will cover trade nodes. Remember with nodes its all about how many you have first then how many ships you have on them, plus you'll want to stop Russia and Denmark from taking them so go secure all available nodes first. after that is a cake walk, just build your home provinces and have a continues stream of merchant ships filling up trade nodes, you'll be swiming in money in no time.

The trick to this strat is disbanding you army, the amount you spend on upkeep is insane, all that money now goes into developing your economy earlier on so that before your even 1/4 through the game your making $15K+. It works like a charm, I did it on vh/vh with relative ease.

Originally Posted by Ancient Hunter

Disband your army, let spanish take Gibraltar (gasp).

Clear Atlantic with nelson, use all ships not in your nelson stack to blockade enemy ports (use starting merchants that you have on trade nodes if you have to, although you should be able to capture some extra ships when clearing Atlantic) then guard pass at Gibraltar with Nelson. so automatically there is no chance England will be invaded and the Atlantic is your trade theater for the taking.

NOW

Start building sloops at dockyards and merchant ships at trade ports, sloops will replace ships you have blockading enemy ports and join Nelson to seal the deal on the seas while merchant ships will cover trade nodes. Remember with nodes its all about how many you have first then how many ships you have on them, plus you'll want to stop Russia and Denmark from taking them so go secure all available nodes first. after that is a cake walk, just build your home provinces and have a continues stream of merchant ships filling up trade nodes, you'll be swiming in money in no time.

The trick to this strat is disbanding you army, the amount you spend on upkeep is insane, all that money now goes into developing your economy earlier on so that before your even 1/4 through the game your making $15K+. It works like a charm, I did it on vh/vh with relative ease.

GB is an easy enough nation to have several working strategies. Army disband/ abandon Gibraltar works, but I find it more entertaining to keep both. You can use your army as a raiding band. Get some spies onto French land to spy on their armies and when they send them all east you can loot whatever they leave undefended. Once they pull their armies back to deal with you, simply load up your troops.

I prefer keeping Gibraltar. It makes a nice repair and LoS station, and a nice launching pad for the future invasion of Spain. From a purely technical viewpoint it probably isn't worth keeping...but GB is easy enough to where you can aim for historical games - even on VH/VH.

The one thing everyone can agree on is trade fleets. They are central to nearly (except maybe prussia?) every nation, but especially important to GB.

I tasked the 2 navies right off the sourthern coast of Britain to start raiding French/Dutch trade routes and that seemed to bring in a bunch of coinage for me. Another thing I did that you might want to try is to attack the Spanish fleet near Gibraltar with Nelson and his boys and board/steal their merchant ships and put them right back into action off the coast in the trading nodes.

I decided to hang onto Gibraltar mainly to use it as a springboard against the Spanish. It also lets me keep a presence in Europe and having a ship in the port prevents your enemies from crossing from the Altantic into the Mediteranean.

As others have posted - don't build up your army concentrate on your fleets and your economy.

build a fleet of merchantmen and send them northwest of Ireland to the 4 trade nodes leading to North America / Canada. i believe the income for each ship is reduced the more ships you have in one node, so if placing 1 ship on a cotton node for example nets you 550 income, the second ship will probably be something like 530 income, to a total of 1090. i think it scales down progressively, a third ship would bring it something like 500; at a certain point it would be a better investment to send ships to another node, even if the previous node has a better market price at the moment.

after filling up those northwest nodes, start working on the nodes around Spain and Portugal leading to South America and Africa. you're going to need military escorts, pretty sure Nelson's fleet is sufficient unless you tangle with the Santissima Trinidad near the Balearic Isles (she usually guards an ivory trade node, and ivory is where the big money is)

I traded Gibraltar to the Portuguese for cash, an alliance and to join me in the war on Spain. I selected to grab the Balearic Isles instead as my naval base in the Mediterranean. After securing the Atlantic and by leap-frogging new trade ships south, was able to grab all the nodes west of Gib. before the Danes got there. With my new base in the Balearic Isles, soon the Med will be mine as well. I am in the process of stacking them up five high and recently hit 17k a turn.

Just to add on something that proved successful for me, once you've abandoned Gibralter and built up your navy/income, try raiding along the coast of france and spain, sacking Paris or Madrid will give you a good 30000-40000 gold, great money to help build up your own provinces. Try liberating Belgium, the Netherlands, and Brittany too for some extra cash and protection, as they will stay your protectorates. I'm about 40 turns in and got around 300000+ in cash.

When in ship fights, should I auto-resolve? I can't seem to do good in naval battles because I don't know what to do... And what is this boarding/stealing nonsense? Can somebody explain this to me.

Originally Posted by Brusilov

I decided to hang onto Gibraltar mainly to use it as a springboard against the Spanish. It also lets me keep a presence in Europe and having a ship in the port prevents your enemies from crossing from the Altantic into the Mediteranean.

As others have posted - don't build up your army concentrate on your fleets and your economy.

I sold Gibraltar to the Spanish for 10,000 only for me to take it back same turn

Yeah, but what about Gibraltar, if left untended and unsupported Spain sends full stack army to crush you...Is it better to abandon it rather than support it with your fleet and island army?

my ships always get ass jammed by France, Spain and some other country that for some reason has a full friggin stack of ships if I send my fleet down there.

Originally Posted by Shabby_Ronin

Yeah, but what about Gibraltar, if left untended and unsupported Spain sends full stack army to crush you...Is it better to abandon it rather than support it with your fleet and island army?

my ships always get ass jammed by France, Spain and some other country that for some reason has a full friggin stack of ships if I send my fleet down there.

France seems the only nation (im not sure where they get all these 122 gun ships to start with on VH....) that can navally compete, and they are split into two groups. France won't typically have the resources to build much of a navy past the start. Dominate the north atlantic first, and when you start running out of space for trade fleets (and have a nice size navy) take what you can from the Med as well.

Idk..naval dominance seemed quite easy to achieve as GB...maybe others have a different experience.

I will say Spain does seem quite determined to take Gibraltar...which is the only thing they seem to be capable of in games.

Originally Posted by ckangas

France seems the only nation (im not sure where they get all these 122 gun ships to start with on VH....) that can navally compete, and they are split into two groups. France won't typically have the resources to build much of a navy past the start. Dominate the north atlantic first, and when you start running out of space for trade fleets (and have a nice size navy) take what you can from the Med as well.

Idk..naval dominance seemed quite easy to achieve as GB...maybe others have a different experience.

I will say Spain does seem quite determined to take Gibraltar...which is the only thing they seem to be capable of in games.

There is some country with a burgundy colored flag that has a big ass fleet, maybe it's Denmark with a funny name or something, I don't know.

I'll just keep myself out of there and do what you said Mango.