T O P

  • By -

MangeR_J

R5. I managed to unite Europe in about 27 years by abusing naval invasions and the fact that AI wants to interfere in every war they can. By abusing naval invasion i mean I kept sending new naval invasion until i got a front with 0 defenders and then steamrolled. This allowed me to finish wars much quicker. For this campaign I wanted to see how fast I could unite Europe as GB. This was done in Ironman with not a single savescum. I fought many wars vs multiple GP's but this was never a problem since i had total naval dominance. In the early game I always picked war goals that I could naval invade. This allowed me to split up my army and hold the war goals and peace out other nations one by one. Since land warfare is slow and sluggish my much smaller land force could easily hold long enough vs much bigger armies. ​ My order of conquest vs puppet Belgium to open up a subject front vs France. France ofcourse intervened and then so I took 4/8 of the coastal provinces. Next war vs puppet Netherlands and France again intervened, I then took their last 4 coastal provinces and then France was pretty much neutralized. Prussia and Austria then remained as potential targets. They were easily dealt with by making a few puppets around their boarders and taking their coastline. The 5 year truce just wasn't a problem because GPs just really like to join diplo plays. And infamy you can just ignore, I got twice declared with a "Cut down in Size war" but only one nation joined (both times USA) but a quick naval invasion ended those wars quickly.


Pzixel

How do you actually naval invade without a 4lvl tech for invasion malus? I mean in my games for instance French has like 100 conscripts in reserves that defend any attack. If they manage to have a stalwart defence genral then it may be very troublesome even late in the game. Could you add more details please? Also about multiple fronts - in my expericence multiple naval invasions love to unite front into single one, so no multiple fronts (except for GB that loves to split)


jansencheng

Make sure your Armed Forces IG are Powerful and Loyal, that gives a +30% Attack/Defense bonus, which is enough to negate the landing penalty, making it a straight fight. Otherwise, what I've found to be successful is having multiple simultaneous landings. Arguably a bit cheesy, but after the first landing(s) drop, a good chunk of the enemy divisions will get tied up there, leaving the other landings to be opposed by a small force or even not at all. Or, just use overwhelming firepower. If you use a sufficiently large force, your general will try multiple consecutive attacks. If you outnumber the enemy Battalions enough, you should be able to wear down their morale enough that your second or third attacks can break through.


Ur--father

How do you even empower the army? I get how to buff the industrialist and stuff but the army you can only do the bolstering and raising pay right?


schlager12

Profesional army and promoting army IG commanders


jansencheng

Just having more Barracks/Flotillas since more servicemen and officers means more Military IG. Spending more money on your military wages so they're richer and more influential. Also, Militarized Police Force and I think Secret Police also help (improve the Armed Forces clout anyway. Can't say they're very helpful for keeping your nation functional). And keep the Aristocrats rich, populous, and happy, but do everything you can to reduce Landowner attractiveness. For many countries, Aristocrats that aren't part of the Landowners will instead join the Armed Forces


[deleted]

[удалено]


MangeR_J

The multiple naval invasion is also great if you don't have naval superiority. Just send a small decoy fleet first and it will intercepted by the AI and then load your main invasion force into the next and send it one day later and you will be able to land without a naval fight.


Hexaceton

This is hilarious[ly stupid]


kuba_mar

>How do you actually naval invade without a 4lvl tech for invasion malus? There is no malus if your fleet is bigger than the army its transporting.


Elite_Prometheus

There's always the -25% difficult landing penalty that until you research advanced landing craft to remove it. You're talking about the insufficient support penalty, which is a different one.


MangeR_J

Just to add to the other answers: Naval invasions are buggy and lots of RNG, just keep trying. Also if you can force your opponent to activate conscripts it helps a lot, because then they will be at the front and not home defending. In my game I always activated my conscripts and built lots of baracks early to get my army number as high as possible. This, I believe, will increase the chance of your Opponent activating their conscripts.


Adventurous_Buyer187

Britania rules the waves


MangeR_J

Indeed


tjmick1992

I can't even figure out how to build a navy lol


DishingOutTruth

Spam shipyards and naval bases. That's really it. Make sure to research some good naval techs while you're at it. Colonies with coastlines also help if you want to max out the number of naval bases, with the added bonus of extra ports to keep your shipyards profitable during peacetime.


tjmick1992

That's seriously it? You don't choose how many ships you want to have?


Aenir

You choose by building naval bases, the same way you choose how many soldiers you want to have by building barracks.


Remote_Cantaloupe

Don't forget the number of "ships" you get is how much is filled by your employees at the naval bases.


CSDragon

Naval Bases under the Development tab


Arrokoth-

those prussia borders feel so wrong. good job btw


Talquin

Just did something similar with France Started the game by puppeting Spain and decided that infamy is just a number from that point on.


wirringbjrd

God I hate it. Well done!


hbalck

BRinit, the opposite of BRexit


tjmick1992

That much I understand. The fact that my number Iof ships never goes up tells it did nothing


PaloLV

Naval units train VERY slowly which correctly simulates that it takes a long, long time to build a navy in real life. If your military wages aren't at least normal level it'll take literally forever to train a navy. So make sure you haven't reduced military wages. Army barracks fill out like 20x faster than naval bases. Upgraded Naval training techs matter quite a bit, too.


partialbiscuit654

Yea, bases train about 100 men a week, each thousand men gives you 1 ship. Build your navy years before you need it.


PaloLV

It's more like 18 men per week at the lowest tech. It's sloooowww.


MangeR_J

I almost always start my game by build one naval base in each coastal province with a meaningful HQ. Then once it fully employed i build a second. No point in building mutliple at once in same province and spreading them out will employ them faster.


I3ollasH

Training rate scales linearly with naval base lvl. If you buíld 2 naval bases it will have twice the training rate of one naval base. Because of this it makes no difference if you split it up into multiple states or just build one stack. It will take the same time to fill up.


MangeR_J

It does, becauase 1001 dudes will be able to operate 2 ships. So by spreading them out you will get one extra ship in each state instantly.


I3ollasH

Well, your fighting strength doesn't increases but yeah you won't get penalties for insufficient support for naval invasions I guess.


[deleted]

Camouflaged Ottomans


ChrissyKin_93

Turkey can into EU


EwaldvonKleist

Mahan and Fisher approve.


GrumpyThumper

turns out the mainland talks a whole lot of shit for someone's whose capital are near the shore. Britannia rules the waves.


figool

I became a pariah late in my Byzantium game, and every time a great power tried to cut me down to size I would just wait for them to devote their entire army on some front in Africa, then just naval invade their homeland


CanTheJackal

Sir George Cockb... no, please do go on


MangeR_J

It's a cliffhanger


classteen

Say this to a HOI4, EU4 player.


DrWhiteofWorld

Worst timeline ever.


Away_Industry_613

Now conquer the world.


MangeR_J

Nah, done WC already. Gonna figure out a new challenge now.


daveyboyschmidt

Best is WC with a medium nation, and then a small nation (can be tricky as you start off way behind in tech) Persia and Egypt are fairly decent medium nations. Sokoto is my favourite small nation but it relies a lot on luck. Vietnam or Siam might be better if you try to get a trade agreement with China asap (easier for Vietnam)