Matrix Games Forums

My experiences after the first completed campaign

Started as french 1803 settings normal, except length which was set to last at 1815. After protectorating some minor german states I managed to ally with spain (early) and to defeat the royal navy (1805-1806) in many smaller scale battles with the help of the prtoguese fleet (after becoming protectorate they distracted the Atlantic sqns long enough for me to beat the Med fleets piecemeally with the help (and sacrifice) of the spanish navy. After the capture of Gibraltar (1806 june 1-1 french and spanish corps) I was free to act in the med (sneaking into Toulon with Villenuev int he winter), still not thought being strong enough to go to the atlantic.
In Central Europe I either subsidized or captured most German minors and beat Austria once (march 1804-june 1804) immediately after a russian-prussian-swedish alliance where I only fought the prussians attacked me, in july 1804-jan 1805 (I continously had to recapture places I left relatively undefended militia is useless in defending IMHO), I used reg inf after that. Forcing the prussians not ally with either russia/austria I only had to wait until the forced peace expires. Austria massed 300,000 troops in Thuringia I had great difficulty guessing where they would go, so after a few reloads (I was trying different strategies because I was mauled on several occasions) I managed to put Grand + 1cav corps against his whole force and with nappys help (rallying inf units almost immediately) and massed artillery (record 2255 casulties with one shot) I made him lose 98,000 men (alas 23k during retreat). I was already alarming europe after the prussian victory so with some more victories (one was a record for me 210k french vs 230k austrians) I finally saw the two babes holding lauerls.

Questions/issues

IMHO it is unreal that I need 5:1 advantage over the british ont he sea.

Some terrain does not seem to work as it should be, (fort, mud etc.)

Gamewise what is the diff between army and corps? I should be building armies higher cap, cheaper, not corps as historically.

Selection of troops in detailed battles.. Guard should be always first. In case of nappy arty too. In the last big battle whwere I had some 80k cav and 80k inf + 50k arty I had to fight with an awful mix 11 divs of cav 8 inf 3 arty. After a few trials I let the machine ply it out.

To sum it up

Immense replayability with some minor issues.

Kewl, congrats, sounds like you enjoyed it at least

Corps vs Army

the main issue, is you can only place so many units into a Army, be they Corps or Divs, so, you can put Divs into a Corps and the Corps into a Army

IIRC, a Army can hold 8 units, a Corps can hold 6 Divs, so you can place 3 full Corps into a Army and then 2 "support" troops to the mix

so, with out the Corps, the Army can hold 8 Divs, plus the Corps can gain the leadership bonus from the Corps General

so, Corps are a major deal

5 to 1 ?

think it may depend on how you are fighting the battles, but, once I get going, I can fight 1 on 1 with the Englanders (of course, a number of my ships will be English

I do know, as Turkey, I went up against a slightly smaller Spainish Fleet, and ran for port and hid behind the walls the rest of the war (and I thought I was going to win, and win mightyly, in other words, keep your Turks on there horses and away from the water)

not sure on your battle question ? that looks like a good mix to me (of course the evil Ossites like there Heavy Cav)

Naval
I played quick battles and at 3to1 I got my  ä$$ kicked all the time. What I read about detailed nav battles i will wait for the patch.

Cav
I might be worng on how I use them but after the target recieved 5-8 volley (ie I ran out of ammo) I charge them in line from as many directions as possible. Of course not inf squares. All I recieve (even from cuirassiers) is high losses. In the above battle I would have been satisfied with 4:4:3 ration ie 8 can 8 inf 4-6 arty. The always cav strong ossies brought some 12+ inf alas only one arty.

Terrain
Why I cant form to line in fortesses like woods is a mystery to me, and I dont seem to recieve any defense bonus there either.My men in forts (no matter whether militia or line die like flies standing in columns.

Yep I did enjoy it.

Naval, for me, QC is too much of a die roll, at least in HW, I can control my luck, but I understand

for Cav and me at least, I only charge to force the Inf to square up (most times I am upset if the charge goes home, i don't want the charge, I just want to pin and force the Inf onto the defence)

yea the Ossites always seem to be like the guy who brings big knive to a gun fight

forts, part of the rules, just got to live with it, but yea, most times you get the lousy garrison troops