My Strategy for a Fast Win (with Save&Load and spend $30)

If you like shortcuts, cheating, getting things quickly, this guide is for you. I am pretty new at this game (although a chronic World Conqueror player), but this strategy worked perfectly for me: i have aced (5 stars) the first 19 campaigns and ruled 600 years in Europe unlocking Sofia, Fatima and Maria (in my first attempt). There are much better guides out there by more experienced players, but I couldn’t find one suiting me, so this may be helpful to you.

Set yourself up for success, Generals are the key to win. Spend $24.99 for 30 emblems and $7.92 for 8 extra general slots (btw you don’t need them all, you may expand as you go). Or you can make the strategy also work for less than $20 buying 15 emblems and only few general spots (Davout and Murat a must). These emblems will allow you to build the best general roaster (if you S&L). In any campaign you can only use 6 generals (formula is more complex in Conquest, but normally 3-4 generals depending on which nation you pick).

A good roaster would be :

• 2 artillery
  
• 2 cavalry
• 1-2 infantry
• 1-2 navy
• 1 tier 1 business general (or you can upgrade Davout to 5 star business not to waste one slot on a business general)

Generals to buy: 

• Davout (artillery, 6 emblems, T3) MUST
• Murat (cavalry, 6 emblems, T3) MUST
• Kutaizov, Gazan, Graham T1 zero emblems, just medals. (They are artillery trainers and you will use to upgrade first Davout and then Sofia to 5 star artillery)
  
• Golitsyn or Ney (cavalry, 4, T2)
• Treville (navy, 6, T3)
• Dobeln (infantry, 4, T2)
• Business Jerome, August I, Arnold (all T1; they are also trainer for later on)
  

The 4 emblems (actually 5 as you will earn 1 emblem from campaign) left can be invested in Sidney (navy, 4), or Wittgenstein/Oudinot (infantry, I believe 4 emblems)
Remember that there are free princesses to complete your roaster

Davout, Murat have “Assault art”. If you S&L, the damage they inflict is superior to any other general. On top, Murat has Spy ability that gives a big bonus in fort destruction. Treville is cheaper than Nelson, has strong defense (Steersman), movement and increase rank (plus he’s a trainer). Compared to the generals i get in mission, these 3 rule and I would not change them with anyone else.

You can beef up the roaster with medal-only general trainers which later on can be used on princesses. The cheapest trainers are:

• Infantry Latour, Zakrevski, Deroy
• Cavalry Agha, Quosdanovih, Dumouriez
• Arty Kutaizov, Gazan, Graham
• Navy Elphinstone, Falsen, Fischer
• Business (as per above)

Complete the roaster with 4 princesses

• Lan (cavalry, but takes time to get)
• Victoria (infantry)
• Sofia (artillery)
• Kate (navy)
• Isabella is also strong in artillery but you have Davout.

As starting point, once you purchased the emblems, go to the Academy, click on the Tier 3 section and buy any of the above T3 general. If they don’t appear, you have 2 « free » refreshes (every refresh, 2 T3 generals appear, or 4 T2 or 6T1 gen).

Then, pass the first five Coalition campaigns (Fire of Revolution, Battle of Toulon….until Trafalgar). Spend the medals only to buy tier1 artillery trainers (kutaizov, Gazan or Graham), which you can recycle later on. There are very good walkthrough guides to pass these campaigns. Once you arrive at Trafalgar, set up your farming:

Phase 1: Academy refresh farming.
The Academy refreshes every 100%, which is equivalent to 50 enemy generals killed. This allows to get a new screen of generals among which you could find those suggested above. Advance your ships near the enemy and equip the battleships with up to 6 generals in your possession. Inflict damage to the 2 enemy generals (Villeneuve, Cisneros) until they have minimum health left. Save. Then launch the game: click on the hourglass (next turn), fast forward button, then attack and finish the 2 enemy generals. Dont save and reload the game. If you go back to the academy, you will see the refresh increased to 4%. Very quickly you will be able to refresh the screen, until you can buy all your T3 generals. (if you don’t hit the fast forward button, you will also start earning medals, but it will slow down your refresh). Up to you: personally, I like accumulating medals, so i took a book and mechanically hit the button while reading.

Phase 2: Medal farming, plus rank and nobility increase.
Restart Trafalgar, this time just get your ships close to the enemy, equip the battleship with up to 6 generals (prioritize your Tier 3). Click the hourglass, but DO NOT click fast forward. You can set the game speed to max in options. Once is your turn, click the hourglass again. Let the game run until the 8-10 round (as long as you have a bunch of ships around yours keep playing). This should take 5 mins. This has 2 effects: earns you medals (from 8 to 15 per game depending on the rank of your generals) and increases your generals Rank (their overall health) and Nobility (the pace at which their health is rebuilt after each turn). My davout is 74/9 for instance.

Use medals to buy residual T2 generals from above list and general trainers (which are used to increase the number of stars of your starting generals and princesses).

You can invest medals to buy also some items. I suggest you only buy

• Medical Kit L - 30 medals (during a campaign you can rebuild the health of a badly injured general). With above farming, you make 30 medals in 15 minutes or less, so worth the spend. If you use a business general in one of the campaign shops, you can get 20% discount. 
• Snare drum. Let your general hit the enemy at full blast even with low vitality (the output of a unit is reduced with lower vitality; the snare drum avoids this)
• Encyclopedia or Napoleonic code increase the economic output from business general
• Military camp. Regen general with an additional +6 per turn
• Warhorse eliminates the penalty of land generals fighting in water

Once you have a big chunk of your general roaster ready (and when you are bored by farming), start progessing on the european campaigns Eagle and Coalition (this will help earn additional “Years of Rule” later on in Conquest mode to unlock Sofia, the first princess. (e.g. I have aced 19 european campaigns, complete Europe 1798 in 57 turns (shameful, but it was in my early days) but got 600 year rule which unlocked Ms. Arty Sofia; the same game only gave me 300 years for Asia, not enough to unlock Lan.

Non military advices

• Don’t spend stars in unit upgrade
• Sell all your stars for medal using your 5 star business general (4 medals for 1 star). Until you don’t have him, keep accumulating stars 
• At the beginning of campaign or conquest spend all money to upgrade cities 

A level 1 city yields 3 coins x turn, level 2 6, level 3 12, level 4 20, level 5 30, level 6 45. Only capitals are level 7 (63). If you have general with economic skill, it may increase the city output.
If you upgrade a level 1 city to level 6, you spend in 5 turns (1 upgrade x turn max) 5x65 (325) and you earn (in 5 turns) 71 (3+6+12+20+30). But then after 6 extra turns (6x45=270) you have fully recovered your investment. To ace a campaign you need around 15-20 turns, so upgrade level 1 cities at very beginning of the campaign or you will not have big returns. But level 3+ cities must be upgraded. Upgrade only 1 factory to produce heavy artillery formations for your generals. Same for the stable, just 1 to produce guard cavalry for your generals.

• In conquest mode there are cities with the “Libra” (Scale) icon. There you can trade food, coins and utensils.Place there your business general and convert all food and utensils in coins
• At the end of the first turn understand which resource you have low and/or you dont produce enough (in some campaigns you will face food shortage unless you fix it; once you run out of food your troops will lose morale and become confused (you can’t control them); if you have utensil shortage, you cannot build efficient units. Just militia or line infantry
• Steal your allies cities, farms, factories. You are allowed one free steal. Then close the game and shut down the app. When you relaunch the game, your allies have forgotten your back stabbing and you can happily steal again with no consequences

Military advices

• In campaign mode, resist the temptation to conquest side cities or attack armies on the sides. Focus on the shortest path (critical path) toward the units surrounded by red circle as soon as possible (some enemy units remain still for several turns before attacking, so be fast before they wake up; plus your vitality is limited)
• Don’t waste your generals adding them on average units. Be patient and put them on formation in superior armies (e.g. guard cavalry, guards, rocket or heavy artillery)
• The game is like chess. Avoid placing units within enemy forts or artillery radius (unless they can respond to enemy fire). Sequence of moves is important as you may block the path to a key piece of your army with a useless militia. Pay attention to the terrain: some tiles have evasion (reduce the effectiveness of unit attack); likewise if you stop near an evasion tile, your enemy attack will be reduced. Rivers provide a natural defence as the enemy will be forced to stop at the river and move only 1 cell during the next turn. Plenty of time to annihilate them with your arty
• When attacking a city with multiple units, don’t move all the units. Once you destroy the enemy unit defending the city, you need to occupy the empty city with a unit. Remember that at next turn that unit will be attacked by the enemy, so ensure it can defend the city for 1 round (then you can build a more appropriate unit). 
• Leverage Davout/Murat assault art. Keep S&L until the red “X” appears at the beginning of the attack. It will yield the maximum attack score, roughly 70%-100% over the average attack.
• Use Murat (or the mission generals like Ney) with “SPY” skill to destroy forts on the critical path
• When attacking a unit with multiple unit, hit it first with artillery (if the enemy cannot respond to fire), then with your strongest piece (i.e. general) and then with the weaker pieces (enemy reduced vitality with increase the damages done by lower units)
• When you have moved all pieces and completed all attacks, save. Set game speed to the minimum. Click the next turn and immediately save (while the enemies start moving). Then observe the enemy's attacks. If they hit you too deeply (e.g. a cannon removes you 30 points), close the game and restart. The game will resume from that enemy move, with a new score. Repeat until you obtain a decent score. 
• Cavalry has the bonus of creating panick among enemy. Very effective to pre empt enemy artillery, which often panicks after attack. Similarly, protect your artillery from enemy cavalry.
• Sometime use cheap militia to shield arty from enemy attack
• If you bought the “Snare drum” you can pass it to the various generals before their attack (for those generals without 100% vitality). Click “I”, “item”, “unequip” in the general screen who has the item and then equip the next one. So you only need 1 Snare drum.
• Enemy Forts and cannons prioritize attacking units which don’t have the ability to return fire (i.e. infantry 2 tiles away). Hence sometime you are forced to place a valuable general under enemy artillery shot. Move a cheap infantry in artillery radius and it will be hit instead of you

Well, that’s it (for now). This is not meant to be the ultimate answer or the superior guide. Again, there are more experienced players and more thorough guides out there. But I liked to share my thoughts. And forgive any mistake, since this guide is free...Enjoy.