I got my Russian campaign going the other day.  its about 1735 and i have a revenue of 18k, but my army upkeep is 17k , I know ridiculous.  My fleet still consists of two sloops, since navy really isn't important right now because my southern ports are blockaded in by the ottomans  .   But yes I have 4 full armies, fully equipped and at least 2-3 milita guys in each citie for defense, I really hate the AI who sends 1 guy to raid your back side, as russia its not fun since you have a real big backside.

I recently just took out sweden so maybe i'll use that northern port for making a fleet.  I do have a question for you guys, how are you guys handling the unrest in your captured cities?  Im trying everything to lower the dissent but i still keep getting rebel armies forming.

I'm at 1761 now. I was able to utterly destroy the cherokee so I accomplished the mission. The colonies are mine now. I took another prussian province and then they decided they wanted peace. Poland keeps trying to get me to give them to them but thats not gonna happen. I took algiers from barbary pirates, traded it to france for upper louisiana, yet somehow the pirates got it back, so I just re-took it. Gonna try to trade it again for lower louisiana . The Iroquois just went to war with me, I have no idea why, the turn before it I sent them a state present and made them very friendly, but oh well, this means more land. I think france is getting gang banged by sweden and United Provinces. I gave them a gift and offered them a trade route and they accepted it. Last time I looked I'm making 23k, not sure about naval or army costs though. Got about 5-6 almost full armies (I dont fill them so I can still get the militia once I capture). For some reason the Martha Confed (the oj one in india) went to war with my ally so I sent a army down there. Was having a great time just bombing the hell out of one of their cities with arty, but ran out of time so I (guess) lost that battle. Been really getting my navy going down there though, they keep raiding my trade. I was able to defeat 4-5 sloops with 1 sloop and 3 galleys ( all of which I had captured from the Prussians).

Something is weird with galleys. They seem to have knack for one shotting ships. Twice now I've seen ships that are practically full health get hit by a galley and just completly explode. Anyone else seen this?

I normally exempt the region I just captured from taxes for a while, this seems to help, plus I wont leave the city until I have at least one militia unit.

I have also seen a ship 'just explode.' My guess would be a good ol' cannonball up the exhaust po... er, gunpowder storage room. That is a problem in ships of the era... wood + flamable materials for coating the wood + room full of gunpowder = mild fire hazard.

Oh, and Phalnax, of course he has an account to play online with! After all, the game requires a Steam account to install.

Yeah i realized that lol. what I sorta meant was 'do you play online?' i don't play online lol but it'd be cool i guess, i suck though haha

They are probably special homing cannonballs then! Or magnetized so the gunpowder attracts them like in Indiana Jones!

Nah i read on their website its in Beta form so it's probably buggy or at least not fully functional.  Its two players, different nations.  They vie for world domination with all the others.  They are not sure yet if it will be that if one player gets into a battle, the other fights it no matter who they are.  I wouldn't really want that. Waste, everything should be autoresovle except Human v Human battles. It sounds good though and good work with 2 players and no more

Right now in my Brits campaign, it is 1766, i have 42 regions and the 13 Colonies turned on me when they were Very Friendly.  They are now down to 1 region, Newfoundland and an army is en route.  The Barbary States are no more as well as the United States (SORRY!!!!).  Most of the world hates me but is probably too afraid to challenge me.  My prestige is around 2400 I think and my income is lesser now with the armies I had to form to take on the Barbary States and the US.  the 13 Colonies fell victim to two of my experienced armies and i mean experienced.

Just cliking on a port freezes the game for a minute.  The Portsmouth, England port does this for some reason and maybe a bug, idk. But its real annoying cuz i'm making First Rates there and i need to click on it sometime lol.

-Phalnax

Be warned that if you hate bugs there are still a few in it (some people are complaining of CTDs and the like, although I haven't experienced this).  CA are releasing frequent patches, so they should be sorted out in a few weeks.

Oh and naval battles are hard to master.  Some reviews criticized them a lot but I think that they are probably about as good as they could be, and are easy to handle once you get the hang of them.  Also if you don't have a great rig, turning the resolution down a notch does wonders for performance.

lol bugs sins has more bugs in it than you could count at one time they have fixed most of them

They improved the UI and the graphics, but somehow the gameplay sucks. It just does not suck me in like previous TW titles, and I am not the only one who somehow cannot love the game.

Or wait for the expansion.

I don't think I will be playing much more ETW until they patch the AI on units. Tactical battles, especially seiges, are just silly. Any movement or attack order involving going anywhere near a wall, fence, or other building, especially when it involves moving over/through something makes the AI go nuts. For example, in one seige I was playing, I told my soldiers to attack enemies on the other side of a wall which had been breached. Rather than going through the breach and firing like I had expected, they ran back and fourth along the length of breached wall and went absolutely nowhere. The units just plain feel like they need babysitting.

Hmmmm Best Buy has it on sale for $40   to buy or not to buy.....

awolf