Holy Hell! Somebody help me in Vicky 2!

The Game Room
1

OK, I got through and started playing. After toying with some tutorials and restartign to experiment, I managed to do the following playing as the U.S.

Defeat Mexico, annex Texas and everything clear to California, and also Chihuaha. I colonized Canada, and then the rest of the continent. I killed off my hugely expensive, utterly useless Navy.* I bowed to British pressure to disarm the first time, went to war. I prioritized techs (Medicine -> whatver I needed for Manifest Destiny -> economic techs for railroads and such -> Culture techs for prestige and improved research/education.

*My Navy cost more than all my soldiers combined. It costs mroe than a huge army of enough size to squash all the South in two years.

However, England will NOT leave me alone. They keep declaring war, which keeps from doing anything actively. This isn’t so bad, except that I don’t see how I can keep them from it and I can’t do much warscore just in Canada. Worse yet, the AI seems very up-and-down. Sometimes they’re unstoppable and do way more damage than in reasonable under strange circumstances, managing to outnumber me 2-1 with troops they pull from Hammerspace.

So can someone explain a bit how I can manage wars better. Mexico was one thing, but England is another. Am I making a mistake by focusing on sieges, or should I just concentrate my troops, mash their armies, retreat to regenerate my numbers, and so on? I’ve currently got an army rating of about 73, but the attrition rate is painful and the British somehow manage to inflict triple casualties on me. What am I missing (I did pick up Muzzle-loaders, but am not up to Breachloaders yet; it’s only 1865!)

2

1: You won’t beat England. It just isn’t going to happen. England is bugged to where they’ll have an ungodly amount of manpower and industry.

2: The way I use armies is the Great War model. I like having a broad front and slowly inching forward. This isn’t always the best way. The more recon your units have the faster you can occupy a territory.* Your best bet against the UK is to let a few units break through and then surround and crush them.

*Which I think is fucking retarded. If I have a million men in one province I should be able to occupy it a hell of a lot faster than a single cavalry unity.

3

Bloody hell.

4

Yeah, because of the way the assimilation works the UK gets really high manpower from their Indians colonies.

5

Are you playing with the 1.3 beta patch?

6

I am not.

7

Britain is the hyperpower in the game. You either lick their boots or get stomped by them. :eek:

Or, try more diplomacy. Are you a Great Power yet? Get other countries into conflict with Britain. Do more to improve relations with them. Basically, you want Britain to hate several other countries more than they hate you.

As for warfare, are you paying attention to what generals you’re using? Match the general to how you’re using the army. They can make a critically big difference. Avoid stand-up fights where you don’t have overwhelming numbers in your favor, unless you have a tactical reason to.

Like Rand, I try to line up a defensive front. And then send fast units into enemy territory to cause trouble. You’ll never be able to stand up to the British navy, but having transports to move troops into enemy territory is very useful.