... getting slaughtered ....

[jamiepearce]

OK, so I've been through the tutorial, seems fairly straightforward.

Started first american campaign as americans with simple rules, computer controlled battles, no fog of war ( trying to keep it simple for a beginner!)

.. and I'm getting slaughtered .. lose each battle even when got most troops, lost most of the map already, so, some questions :

1) I've played a few small battles myself, and get much better results then automating them - is this essentially mandatory? Am I giving myself a big disadvantage here?

2) I'm not familiar with this conflict - am I supposed to lose so badly? (at the start of the first campaign at least!)

3) Any other tips and tricks I'm missing? I'd appreciate it!

Thanks, Jamie

[Redan]

The British Army is a pretty good fighting force. The Americans cannot stand up to them at first.

It's never a good idea to let someone else fight your battles for you... much less an AI.

[Moltke71]

Keep retreating in such a way that the Brits get spread out and you can attack their smaller detachments and sneak into towns they must eventually leave unguarded. Remember to bring Ticonderoga's guns East.

Also, attack the Indian villages in the West and send troops by sea south to take small Brit cities there.

Build and train. Washington's early battle record was abysmal.

[jamiepearce]

Thanks for the replies .. sounds like I wasted too many troops trying to make a fight of things early on. I'll try again & try and conserve strength this time.

[Jim D Burns]

The only real chance Washington has in quick battles early on is if you consolidate all three large armies and Washington’s artillery right away south of Boston at Providence.

If you try to hold everything you'll lose it, so just mass your troops (takes a couple of turns) and hope for a good dice roll. He can still lose but with so many troops he has a better chance at winning some battles until all those British reinforcements start to show up.

I also usually spend half or more of my influence points on raising a fourth large army of militia in Providence to augment the huge army’s strength and have had good results holding the British in the north.

Of course once they start landing elsewhere things become dicier, but this is a good strategy when using quick combats.

In detailed battles I can usually (not always) win when in my starting entrenchments around Boston so have been able to keep the British bottled up in Boston until significant British armies begin to reinforce them allowing them to break out.

So if you invest the time in detailed battles you should do much better than in quick battles. But massing your force does allow you some success in quick combats.

Jim

[Moltke71]

Remember, all of Hussar's games are about wars of liberation; think General Giap and settle in for the long haul.

[jeffreysutro@jeffreysutro.com]

) I've played a few small battles myself, and get much better results then automating them - is this essentially mandatory? Am I giving myself a big disadvantage here?

Yes, you are giving yourself a big disadvantage by automating the battles. Autoresolve often gives results that are significantly different than what you get by manually resolving battles. If you try saving before a battle, resolving the battle manually, then reloading and resolving the same battle automatically, you will see what I mean. Manual resolution often gives you a much better outcome. This is not an "AI cheat", automated battles work the same for both the human and the AI. However, automated battles sometimes give results that are very different from what you get with manual battles, and you may lose battles that you would win easily using the (presumably) more accurate / realistic method of manual resolution.

As I understand it, Alfred the AI uses an estimate of the probable outcome (similar to what you see prior to the battles in the game "1848") to determine whether to attack. Consequently, he will avoid unfavorable results by simply not attacking when the odds appear to be heavily against him. This gives Alfred an advantage if you autoresolve battles. On the other hand it's a significant handicap for Alfred if you manually resolve battles, since he will still rely on his estimate of the probable outcome of of an autoresolved battle, and therefore sometimes make attacks that turn out to be ill-advised when resolved manually.

If you play the beginnning of the campaign again using manual resolution I think that you will have significantly more success. Of course in actual history the Americans were in fact defeated over and over early in the war, so perhaps autoresolve is more realistic and accurate than I'm giving it credit for. Either way it's an outstanding game, and it's nice that you can use automated battles as a way to increase the challenge when you wish to.

[Jakerson]

ORIGINAL: jeffreys
If you play the beginnning of the campaign again using manual resolution I think that you will have significantly more success. Of course in actual history the Americans were in fact defeated over and over early in the war, so perhaps autoresolve is more realistic and accurate than I'm giving it credit for. Either way it's an outstanding game, and it's nice that you can use automated battles as a way to increase the challenge when you wish to.

I use automated battles only when Playing against CPU to increase challenge.

Anyway if Americans could have slaughter UK troops early on war would never have ravaged so long years.