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First Lieutenant
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Aug 15, 2011
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I'm playing as Great Britain. I've a couple of questions, so I'm grouping them together.

Question 1: How do you organize your army to assault a fort? I cannot win a fort battle lately to save my life. Assume a 12k stack with around 7-8 brigades, two of which are cannon. You enter a region with a fort. The assault button tells you that if you attack the fort you are "likely" to win? Every time I attack, I loose 3000 men, the fort looses 200 and the AI laughs itself hysterical over how it duped me into attacking the fort.

I've tried putting all my units into reserve except a single brigade of line infantry (leaving the right and left flank empty) so that I'm using the absolute minimum of frontage, but I still get beat. The fort only has 2000 men (a line garrison).

I know I'm doing something wrong, but I can't figure out what.

Question 2: Has anyone successfully invaded France as Great Britain? I'm trying but I organize my army into 30-50k stacks, four brigades to a battle flank and the rest in reserve. France, on the other hand, organizes their armies into 80k doomstacks. I've read where others have defeated AI armies of twice the size of theirs. I cannot seem to make this happen since France's land armies are buffed out of this world. And the problem is exacerbated by my army fighting with a supply penalty because of the invasion. When one of their armies hits mine it's just complete destruction.

Beating a French army for me is tough no matter what I do, but this is next to impossible. Again, I feel as if I'm doing something wrong here, but I can't identify what - other than group my army into one huge stack and go from there.

Thanks for any suggestions.
 
I'll answer question 1 only since I've not tried 2 yet :)
There are three colour codes that highlight when you hover over the assualt button on forts. Red - you'll be massacred don't do it, yellow - you'll probably win but it could go either way and casualties will probably be heavy, green - it should be a walk over though very rarely the enemy will do heavy casualties when you win.
Personally unless I can spare the troops or am in a desperate rush to take the place I never attack unless it's green. Usually that means waiting it out for a siege for a while before storming the place.
 
I'll answer question 1 only since I've not tried 2 yet :)
There are three colour codes that highlight when you hover over the assualt button on forts. Red - you'll be massacred don't do it, yellow - you'll probably win but it could go either way and casualties will probably be heavy, green - it should be a walk over though very rarely the enemy will do heavy casualties when you win.
Personally unless I can spare the troops or am in a desperate rush to take the place I never attack unless it's green. Usually that means waiting it out for a siege for a while before storming the place.

Thanks, that does help. When I was playing the vanilla game, Great Britain starts with a rather large army and I guess I was getting more "green" assault warnings because I was able to take forts pretty easily (with like a 50k stack). Now I'm playing a mod and my entire army is fraction of what it is in vanilla and I'm feeling the loss of every single man.
 
1. Do not attack forts before the defenders are out of supply and the walls breached.

2. Try facing the enemy army in an advantageous position, in mountains/hills behind a river, etc... Also, you will need to conquer a couple of supply producing provinces as soon as possible, so you can actually sustain your army on the mainland. And in the special case of France, try not to invade before you have reduced the technology difference. Otherwise you won't stand a chance. Fire&Shock techs are most important in this situation.
 
I echo Al. I. Cuza's advice. I never assault forts until a breach occurs, the frontage penalties are so huge otherwise that only a fraction of your men, even with a 20k stack, are engaged. Even with a breach, your frontage will be heavily reduced so a 50k stack won't really be much more effective than 25k.

I've only fought France late in the game, and with Prussia who had tooled up on army ideas, but the way I found best to deal with doom-stacks was to march in 25-35k stacks, keeping several close together, and enable march to the sound of guns. Draw the doom-stack into good terrain where you can deploy maximum frontage, and then hit it with everything you've got. Separate immediately following the battle, and depending on how many have survived, chase down with one of two of your stronger armies, while other stacks hunt for more French or occupy some land.
 
1. To have chance with winning a siege you should got minimum 10x more troops (infantry and artillery are the most important) than enemy, and the best idea is wait for breach and then attack.
But with proper leaders, tactics and good advantage of troops you can attack without waiting, and you will win.

Anyway I almost never attack forts with more than 3k people inside, maybe only when I got doomstack 200-300k army... Sometimes with bad luck you can lose even 80k troops in few days^^

P.S. When enemy have low morale (bankruptcy, or high war exhaustion) you chance to win siege is higher due to morale collapse.

2. It is possible but require some work. You can win without these points, but when you fullfill them it will be easier work for you:
1) Proper ideas -> you should choose infantry ,or guard + artillery
2) Conquer some land earlier -> Africa, Scandinavia ,Oldenburg, Mecklenburg , Piemont and Sicily ,or even Turkey are good starting positions for MP growth. Watch carefully their amphibious landings and attriction due to desert and winter. And try to build depots there...
3) Blockade all France, french minors and propably Spain to get money, and give Napoleon as many WE as you can (lower manpower, reinforce speed and morale)
4) Try to destroy they armies first: (good idea is to conquer these lands earliermor get military access) from Sicily, Portugal, Spain or from Denmark -> they got attriction, and supply problem -> you not. And if you see 80k doomstack try to destroy them all -> just bring more army (200k)
5) Bew patient, wait until they got high WE, multiple fronts ,or war in Russia.
6) Disband all militias, and garrisons (exception is Gibraltar and Valetta) and build as many troops as you can.
7) You can try to change land dominant -> from French to Russia -> just help Tzar, and when he got 100% objectives try to invade Italy/ Hanover fast. Your goal is to capture some provinces and retreat.
8) About choosing doomstack or march to the sound of guns -> second option not always work, but be caferull-> you can easy lost battle due to bad timing.
But it can be good weapon too -> you can hunt AI in trap.
9) Nice tactic -> move all troops to one side of map (for example Portugal, and Sicily),but not attack. AI will move all their forces there, and then you can fast go to transport ships and land in France, Holland and capture some cities which give your supply line...
 
The beauty of playing as GB is you can actually replicate Britain's historical strategy to win the war. It is great fun to take down france as GB. The goal is to completely blockade the continent while training up a smaller but elite army (under Wellington) fighting on the fringes of Europe. You can have a blockade in place by 1813. Before then, most of your army actions are just raids, with no intention of actually holding conquered territory. Not until the blockade is in place is a proper invasion of France feasible.

Dismiss all militias, and use whatever isn't needed for home defense as Wellington's army. Take out the Spanish provinces in Africa, the two Spanish islands, Corsica and Elba. Now you can start operating in Spain and/or italy. Always keep Nelson's fleet and the transport fleet together as a team to support Wellington. Nelson protects the transports and takes out any fleets hiding in the ports the army is besieging. The transports are there to whisk away the army when doomstacks show up.

All the while keep cranking out SOLs for the blockade. Blockade Holland. One of it's provinces is an island. Build a smaller 20k army to capture it. With the straits blockaded the enemy can not send an army to relieve it. But your little army will tie down thousands waiting for any chance to cross the straits.

I could go on and on, but you get the idea. For playing as GB at least, MotE is the best Napoleonic game out there.
 
1. As discussed above, only assault forts when a breach has occurred. Hover over the "Assault" button to see your odds of success. Also in the out liner it will show when a breach has been achieved.
2. I have managed this a number of times early game but only when certain conditions exist:
i) Amass as many allies into the coalition as possible...you want Austria, Prussia and Russia as a minimum but I also get Sweden too. Wait for the French to over extend themselves in Germany, Sweden & Austria and then land small 30k armies (I usually need about 5 or 6) in the Netherlands and slowly advance into Northern France. At the first sign of trouble (a French doom stack) withdraw - preferably via your navy. Once they've gone rinse and repeat. It's a long, slow process but it does work. I usually wait till I get a 80% war score so that France releases Netherlands as a satellite.

I once saw the French send an army of 150k into Sweden (they were allied with Denmark) and I simply blocked the strait so they were trapped....slowly but surely the Russian's wore them down, along with attrition. Viola!

Good luck!