Post by pathdoc on Sept 14, 2020 15:24:43 GMT
This is the sort of thing Napoleon kept Berthier around for. Some of these questions can be answered at once, others only with experience. Some apply only to conquest mode, others to campaign missions, and a few to both.
The questions are not necessarily in order of importance.
1) Which nation am I, and what mode am I playing? (Campaign/Conquest). Obviously you choose these, but some of your answers may inform future choices; e.g. you will find out the hard way that it's easier to play as a raw beginner as Russia or France than Sardinia or Wallachia.
2) What are my objectives?
a) Campaign: things that must be killed, captured, preserved or defended.
b) Conquest: complete victory.
c) Other: e.g. setting up the conditions for a nobility, rank or medal grind.
3) What are my time limits?
a) Campaign: great victory vs. avoid default loss.
b) Conquest: platform-dependent turn limits, 99 vs. 999, or shorter limitations imposed by princess runs.
c) Other: grind-save time limits are essentially irrelevant.)
4) Where am I on the map?
a) Do I need to spend gold to get my land units a boat?
b) If I have naval assets, where can they travel? (e.g. Great Britain is not always completely surrounded by water on every map.)
5) Who are my allies, and can they get to me easily to help/hinder?
a) Do I have to leave 1-formation militia on all my inactive assets to stop them from being stolen?
b) Are there assets I can easily steal from my allies at the start of the battle?
c) What is their level of tolerance for asset-stealing before they turn neutral and then hostile?
d) Do they form a buffer zone to let me spend the first few turns developing my economy/creating necessary units?
6) Who are my enemies, and where are they located?
a) How many of them directly adjoin my territory?
b) Do they have any powerful units immediately poised to do me serious damage? e.g. HRE 1798 has multiple French generals close to its western border.
c) Can I rely on my allies to overrun them, or do I have to take active measures? (e.g. HRE 1798 can rely on Russia to overrun Poland, UNLESS you are going hard for an elite princess.)
d) Do I need to mount an amphibious operation in order to beat them? (e.g. I can't think of any era in which Russia fights Britain in Europe, but in most maps she must make at least some units amphibious to conquer all of Turkey.)
7) The Neutral Powers (ask yourself this question both at the start and intermittently throughout the war.)
a) Who are the starting Neutrals, and where are they located?
b) What is their usefulness to me?
c) Can I beat them quickly with my available starting units, or are they strong enough to pose a challenge?
d) In conquest mode with extended time limits (99-turn platform for killing grind, 999-turn platform for any conquest), how easily can I turn friendlies neutral to be farmed at leisure later (e.g. for a killing grind)?
e) For any neutral power, starting or turned, will they constitute a serious threat RIGHT NOW if I deliberately or accidentally turn them hostile? (informs whether you want to do a save-load before capturing that one extra city).
8) What are my military assets?
a) Starting units.
b) Starting generals (assigned within game).
c) Tavern generals. (Where, when available, for how much, to command what units?) You may want to spend the medals needed to deploy these if you are constructing a mid-late game killing grind for medal farming.
d) Fortresses/coastal guns - not all nations have access to all of these, and the access sometimes changes across the various maps; e.g. France in 1815 Conquest mode cannot build them at all.
e) Your own generals and/or princesses - how many can you have, and which units are they best deployed to?
f) Your combat items.
g) Your medipacks/wine shots, if you intend to use them.
9) What are my economic assets? Includes, but not limited to...
a) Starting resources (e.g. to build/upgrade units/buildings on Turn 1).
b) Starting buildings and fields (how much are you bringing in per turn?).
c) Generals or princesses with economic powers, whether as intrinsic skills or available via items. This includes both Economic Expert/Master and Architecture, as the latter can decrease your outgoing expenditures.
d) Logistics. If you are a small power, e.g. Sardinia, and must run for your life to avoid complete early defeat, having a general with Logistics will keep you in the fight until you can steal cities/farms and rebuild elsewhere. That might be a starting general or one of your own.
e) Marketplaces, to exchange gold/wrenches/food. Where are they on the current map? Do I have one or more in my own territory, or do I need to capture one? If so, where? Do I have generals that can take full advantage of them?
f) Shops (in the campaigns). What's in the shop on this map, and do I have a general who can get it for me cheaply?
Further suggestions are welcomed.
The questions are not necessarily in order of importance.
1) Which nation am I, and what mode am I playing? (Campaign/Conquest). Obviously you choose these, but some of your answers may inform future choices; e.g. you will find out the hard way that it's easier to play as a raw beginner as Russia or France than Sardinia or Wallachia.
2) What are my objectives?
a) Campaign: things that must be killed, captured, preserved or defended.
b) Conquest: complete victory.
c) Other: e.g. setting up the conditions for a nobility, rank or medal grind.
3) What are my time limits?
a) Campaign: great victory vs. avoid default loss.
b) Conquest: platform-dependent turn limits, 99 vs. 999, or shorter limitations imposed by princess runs.
c) Other: grind-save time limits are essentially irrelevant.)
4) Where am I on the map?
a) Do I need to spend gold to get my land units a boat?
b) If I have naval assets, where can they travel? (e.g. Great Britain is not always completely surrounded by water on every map.)
5) Who are my allies, and can they get to me easily to help/hinder?
a) Do I have to leave 1-formation militia on all my inactive assets to stop them from being stolen?
b) Are there assets I can easily steal from my allies at the start of the battle?
c) What is their level of tolerance for asset-stealing before they turn neutral and then hostile?
d) Do they form a buffer zone to let me spend the first few turns developing my economy/creating necessary units?
6) Who are my enemies, and where are they located?
a) How many of them directly adjoin my territory?
b) Do they have any powerful units immediately poised to do me serious damage? e.g. HRE 1798 has multiple French generals close to its western border.
c) Can I rely on my allies to overrun them, or do I have to take active measures? (e.g. HRE 1798 can rely on Russia to overrun Poland, UNLESS you are going hard for an elite princess.)
d) Do I need to mount an amphibious operation in order to beat them? (e.g. I can't think of any era in which Russia fights Britain in Europe, but in most maps she must make at least some units amphibious to conquer all of Turkey.)
7) The Neutral Powers (ask yourself this question both at the start and intermittently throughout the war.)
a) Who are the starting Neutrals, and where are they located?
b) What is their usefulness to me?
c) Can I beat them quickly with my available starting units, or are they strong enough to pose a challenge?
d) In conquest mode with extended time limits (99-turn platform for killing grind, 999-turn platform for any conquest), how easily can I turn friendlies neutral to be farmed at leisure later (e.g. for a killing grind)?
e) For any neutral power, starting or turned, will they constitute a serious threat RIGHT NOW if I deliberately or accidentally turn them hostile? (informs whether you want to do a save-load before capturing that one extra city).
8) What are my military assets?
a) Starting units.
b) Starting generals (assigned within game).
c) Tavern generals. (Where, when available, for how much, to command what units?) You may want to spend the medals needed to deploy these if you are constructing a mid-late game killing grind for medal farming.
d) Fortresses/coastal guns - not all nations have access to all of these, and the access sometimes changes across the various maps; e.g. France in 1815 Conquest mode cannot build them at all.
e) Your own generals and/or princesses - how many can you have, and which units are they best deployed to?
f) Your combat items.
g) Your medipacks/wine shots, if you intend to use them.
9) What are my economic assets? Includes, but not limited to...
a) Starting resources (e.g. to build/upgrade units/buildings on Turn 1).
b) Starting buildings and fields (how much are you bringing in per turn?).
c) Generals or princesses with economic powers, whether as intrinsic skills or available via items. This includes both Economic Expert/Master and Architecture, as the latter can decrease your outgoing expenditures.
d) Logistics. If you are a small power, e.g. Sardinia, and must run for your life to avoid complete early defeat, having a general with Logistics will keep you in the fight until you can steal cities/farms and rebuild elsewhere. That might be a starting general or one of your own.
e) Marketplaces, to exchange gold/wrenches/food. Where are they on the current map? Do I have one or more in my own territory, or do I need to capture one? If so, where? Do I have generals that can take full advantage of them?
f) Shops (in the campaigns). What's in the shop on this map, and do I have a general who can get it for me cheaply?
Further suggestions are welcomed.
