Tips and Tricks for New Players
General Tips
- Use reputation to move techs along instantly.
- Plan ahead for continental army tech this will allow you to go blow for blow with the red coats.
- Build schools in every town the low rank officer corps will really hold you back when fighting battles later.
- Build textile mills weaver and fur production early this will allow you to make money later and cover yourself for money.
- Always try and steal the enemies guns i have full complements of 6 pounders in my armies without ever researching them.
- Try to go west and fight over new york the ai in boston is very passive if you just keep 1000 man or so garrisons.
- Melee only when you need to or bring militia in your army for that purpose alone firing lines will generate much less loses for you and you can flank.
- When attacking guns use two or three units and melee them that way they have less time to fire on you and hit them from multiple sides at once not just front charge.
- Make use of your guns canister shot does wonders on the enemy lines.
- Don’t just stand and shoot at the enemy try and flank them or always have a 2-1 advantage when shooting you will almost always win the fight same goes for melee.
- Pick and chose back line settlements to leave open if you lose the settlement no big deal just regroup and retake it if your going to lose the fight anyway pull your troops out and run them back that way you can change them or retrain them it’s less of a loss of resources and man power.
- Always be building muskets at all times even if its just one factory you will need them have factories building in the background that way you don’t need to pay to use them.
- Don’t be afraid of fighting the redcoats once you have fusiliers there numbers are a lot but it does not mean as much as you think.
- Sell the extra boats you get in your storage through events if you need money later on in the campaign. To sell ships, they need to be in a port, then double click on the ship to bring up the ship details and then click on the little skull.
- Stop looking at just the battle your fighting and think ahead you can win the battle but you lose the war mentality.
- Bait troops coming down from Canada in to a siege at Ticonderoga after you have taken it its really easy to defend and the ai just grinds up on it.
- Try to limit your casualties. Don’t engage in mass melee blobs, you want to have many of your units vs one of theirs.
- Run down the enemy guns before you end a battle if you win it will remove them from the enemy makes life a lot easier later. Even exhausted your units can run down artillery.
Comabt Tips
I primarily use shooting armies. Melee only for cleaning up isolated units. When using militis vs muskets you need to even the field a bit with combined arms. Skirmisher units for higher shooting damage. Cannon for your center.
- Adjust your line frequently to make sure you’re getting 3-5:1 shooting against one unit.
- Try to make sure your units taking damage are getting some cover from fields and trees.
- Put units on hold position so the front rank kneels and you get a cover bonus.
- Your starting infantry units are your core, they shoot much better than the militia.
- Flank cannons from two sides to force them to rotate and avoid canister.
Regimental Officers
You will generally always have a shortage of regimental officers. There are two ways currently to gain more. The first is to do research that unlocks additional generals. They can and should be used for regimental command if you already have your max general limit.
The second way is to use the project pool to generate a new regimental officer. The officer will only appear if you already have 0 regimental officers (this includes any unused generals. They have to be assigned somewhere first before the officer project will appear). You will also receive between 1 (good officer), 2 (average officers), or 3 (bad officers) per week and the week resets every Tuesday in game.
Early Game Tactics
Sitskrieg in Boston will just let them build up troops.
Be aggressive early in attacking small formations. Personally I like attacking Ft Stephens and then leaving, letting the AI come back and retake it. The fort is easy to take and killing a 600ish garrison each time is not bad.
Otherwise if you think that’s a bit too cheesy, leave a really small garrison there and then keep troops in the town to the south, use your general to spot in the woods/river to the east of it, then send troops from the south to intercept the attackers. They tend to send them in 800-1200 man stacks.
I also hold Portsmouth, the AI attacks from Salem often. Using those same woods where your General is to watch the Fort, you can send reinforcements across the river to intercept and destroy a lot of troops.
Doing this before the West opens up and you have less micro elsewhere I believe is key, this also will whittle down the Boston garrison to the point they don’t stack up and push you while you are dealing with the West.
Also with tech, I rep rush to Fusiliers and then Army Innovation 2 for the dirty nasty traitor Arnold. This will let you manage both fronts nicely. Once you get Ticonderoga I tend to forget about the west, leave enough to keep the AI passive, then consolidate my forces and build up my Fusiliers to deal with the Boston garrison.
I love my fusiliers as well. Doing the above strat, if RNG favors you, provide you with Brown Bess’ and some 6lb Fields, equip your Fusiliers with those. But using them sparingly, I like to flank fire with them while Civ Musket troops just hold the line on a hold order.
Boat Play Tips
- Get the starting ship from character creation.
- It spawns in portsmouth when the game starts.
- Immediately exit the harbor and look for british ships.
- While that is happening boost your militia in portsmouth to 450 and send the concord militia to reinforce. the ai should leave you alone.
- You will end up in a fight with a 30 gun ship that has 70 less crew. immediately board and capture. try not to damage it if possible!
- Go back to port and heal up.
- Next time you go out you will fight a teeny ship. odds are you can’t capture it b/c crew too big so either sink or board and destroy. heal again!
- After that is a 40 gun ship. let auto battle fight it for a while. when it’s at 40-50% green bar enter and immediately board it.
- After you’ve taken and healed up with those three congrats, you have a viable squadron. do boat stuff.
Final Tip:
Right click will move your boats to specific spots in a sea zone. this is mostly useless but maybe you can evade british warships? Good luck.
So it turns out that you can use the right clicking to engage specific enemy ships. wait til some weak ones come near the port where they’re stationed and snag em with a quick outing.
Boats don’t have the (+/-) for editing them like regiments. you have to double click your boat portraits to upgrade their kit or give them their vet skills.