Empire: Total War, anyone found a way to win on Very Hard/Very Hard with dutch?

[irishScott]

I've put about 10 net hours into this little challenge and have yet to survive past 1710. Basically, around turn 3 or 4, France and Spain declare war on you. Now being Dutch, you're all spread out and while India is nice and peaceful your trade lanes are constantly raided and the french get aggressive in North America. Any of these threats can be countered, but at the cost of not countering the others, and I have yet to find a way to keep my capital intact. Even my longest stint was entirely defensive (aside from taking over an un-garrisoned colony, retaking Westphalia from the Prussians and slaughtering some pirates). The AI doesn't let up, and even with all trade lanes clear you literally don't have enough time to recruit new units or rebuild defenses in Europe. Even when I took flanders early on and shoved the Spanish out of the picture, I had to use most of army to do so. French took it back with massive infantry waves, and continued said waves until they got better cannons, which then opened up breaches in my capital and Westphalian defenses and, as the result of stupid battle AI, I was fighting tedious pointless battle after tedious pointless battle, but losing a minute amount of troops every time. The AI must get a ridiculous monetary handicap because my kill ratio was something like 7:1 and they still kept sending half-3/4 stacks every fucking turn.

Oh btw, the 8000... dubloons (or whatever currency ETW uses) for the "improved defenses" are a waste of money if you don't have at least a half stack defending the place. Just more wall area for the enemy to scale and spreads your troops thin.

/nerd rant

 

[Ichigo]

So don't play it. A TBS game that requires fixing of the game mechanics (money/military/etc. handicaps) just shows that the AI can't handle the average player.

I dunno, that sort of thing always bugged me, and is part of the reason why I like Galactic Civilizations II (no handicaps, just better AI).

 

[datalink7]

I never play past Hard/Hard just because the AI doesn't get better, they just get stupid amounts of money which makes it annoying. And I don't play VH in combat because troops don't react the way they should because all the stats get messed with.

H/H is just more fun for me. I've beaten it (not with the dutch, with prussia) on VH/VH but H/H is more fun IMO.

 

[Regs]

In terms of game play elements, ETW is by far the weakest. The gunpowder era seems a little out of scope for the graphics engine or even their own design team. The navel battles were good though.

 

[aigomorla]

Did they fix the 5 min+ wait time on loading?

If they did i wouldnt mind playing the game again.

But the load up times is what really pissed me off.

 

[Regs]

I don't remember that much of a problem, but they did fix the turn speed. I remember a good 5-8 min per turn. Insane.