Playing Empire Total War as Venice

So after a quick campaign as Russia on normal/normal, I decided to do something a bit more challenging. Playing as tiny Venice long past its prime, on hard/hard.

Using Additional Units Mod, diplomacy fix mod, and no walls mod. Now due to bugs, playing as minors is only possible if I completely disable fog of war over the whole map. Or spend a weekend figuring out how to mod visibility quad trees. No fog of war definitely made the game a bit easier than it would be otherwise, but it wasn't decisive.

Year 1700

Venice is a teensy minor with 2 armies:

• Venice: General, 1 Provincial Cavalry, 2 Pikemen, 1 Militia
• Morea: General, 1 Fixed Canons, 1 Pikemen, 1 Militia

Plus a small fleet. So what do we do? Well, first we need to research stuff, build up economy... Who am I kidding, we ally Austria and Spain (just for one turn to call them into our war), and attack Ottoman Empire turn one. They already start at war with Russia.

First army takes Athens against overwhelming force in a two stage battle.

Second army lands in Bosnia, takes that without a fight, then goes to Serbia and against wins against enemy force twice the size.

That unfortunately meant I left behind one unit of Ottoman Line Infantry, and they took Bosnia back. I had 2x 60 Firelock Armed Citizenry against their 1x Line Infantry. This was hopeless, as each citizen has 3 bullets, and can't fight in melee. Thanks to amazing tactics I managed to kill 57/120 of them. They will be missed.

Next turn my army from Serbia came back, ad crushed the remaining Ottoman forces with just 1 man dead. Oh and Austria and Spain both broke our alliance, but since they're at war with Ottomans, it's fine.

So, my main problem is that I don't have any way to recruit good units. Additional Units Mod is not helpful, since it mostly adds units to major and some late game units. If I remember correctly only Prussia gets stupid OP early units in it.

All this reset Bosnia's unrest from -13 to -4, so I only had two regions where rebellions were a problem. Thanks to no fog, I could also see that Austrians were actually fighting Ottomans in some skirmishes, and that prevented early counterattack against my undefended Serbia.

But God, those end of turns take forever that I see every AI unit movement anywhere on the map. After a few such turns I disabled following AI moves. It's a bit bad, as I can miss enemy units walking next to my cities, but it makes end turns bearable.

Liberation of Constantinople

I raided Ottomans ports. And maybe that's what finally convinced them to peace out. Or maybe all the other wars they were at.

Meanwhile rest of the world was at total war already - Austria vs Poland, Austria vs Prussia, Russia vs Sweden, Spain vs Netherlands, France vs Netherlands, Britain vs Poland, Britain vs Prussia, Marathas vs Mughals, Sweden vs Denmark, Ottomans vs everyone I made them fight, and then various German minors and American natives dragged into all this.

Well, I had Serbian and Greek revolts to deal with. Both spawned with armies a bit stronger than what I got. I crushed Serbians, but battle with Greeks was a long distance shootout with fixed artillery, and I withdrew with 0 loses on both sides instead of trying something risky. One of my general died fighting the Greeks.

Ottomans lost Bulgaria to the Austrians, but captured Transylvania instead. Then Transylvania rebelled, so I was pretty happy about how things were going, merged my shitty armies into one stack (1 general, 1 cav, 6 militia, 2 fixed artillery) and declared war on them again, marching on Constantinople.

Damn Pope took this opportunity to attack me. I seriously wish it was possible to go Orthodox in this game, but sadly I need to remain Catholic forever. This meant something horrible - I had to fight a bunch of naval battles to clear route to Venice. And they were just as miserable as I remembered them. I started recruiting second stack, but Pope agreed to peace out after losing some ships.

Meanwhile my first army took Constantinople. Those battles can take seriously forever if AI is not cooperating, and me still only having fixed artillery means AI does not like to cooperate. Once Constantinople fell, I agreed to peace with the Ottomans, as majors' capitals are all 30 turns of unrest. Ottomans still have one holding in Europe somehow - Moldova, I wonder if Austrians or Russians get to it first.

Meanwhile Spain took over Portugal, Sweden took over Denmark, and French blobbed into Belgium and Rhineland a century too early.

Liberation of Rome

I demolished one building in my capital on first turn to build one college, but that's research is really slow, so I've been also stealing and trading techs. I even got a Steam achievement for stealing a lot of techs. When this game get achievements? Well, apparently ages ago as I got some in 2010. A welcome surprise, most are unfortunately either for multiplayer or for playing all the way to the end, so not really seeing myself going for that.

And finally, after liberating Constantinople and nearly single-handedly removing kebab from the European premises against overwhelming odds, I can recruit my first horse-drawn artillery. The very unit I probably should have waited for before starting the first war. I also didn't use any Line Infantry up to this point, but I recruited a bunch to face the Pope. Their first task was to fight Ottoman rebels, who wouldn't accept liberation of Constantinople. Two revolts got nicely crushed, but then election happened, and new government got elected, highly unpopular with the peasants.

I divided my troops into two stacks. One general leading militia and fixed artillery stayed in Constantinople to keep order. The other took line infantry, mobile artillery, and cavalry to Africa. On the way minor stop to take Malta. And that's where I needed to stop as Malta somehow had -30 unrest like capitals of majors. Why? Nobody knows, that's the kind of game Empire is. So now I have two babysitting armies. So much for Africa.

The Pope declared war on me again. And the Ottomans next turn. Ottomans are not a big deal, as they'd have to pass through Constantinople and I'm blockading the straits with a single ship for good measure, but Pope might take Venice. So I recruited some armies in Greece, and together with armies from Malta I landed everyone next to Rome. The key to victory was Pope only having fixed artillery which can't join as reinforcements, so I could fight him without his artillery, and that's decent odds. And Rome is also at -30 unrest. What the hell, seriously. Now I have two stacks and need to babysit three provinces, definitely nothing left over to spare for fighting Ottomans.

Battle for Rome. Good cavalry charge on weaker wing can cause massive chaos in enemy ranks while the artillery keeps shooting, but it backfires occasionally if enemy holds.

That fog is sure annoying, and Total War games would be better without weather effects.

Unification of Italy

There was going to be fun ping pong to get one army to babysit two provinces, but what needs to be done needs to be done. Empire Total War is just so much better at making overextension feel real than EU4. This desperate struggle to keep the expanding country from just falling apart, and done without any bullshit events, just with solid core game mechanics.

I now had three half-stacks - Constantinople, Rome, and Malta. And one from Malta took a quick break to liberate Tunis. Then Genoa attacked me. So many fronts, and I've been mostly giving up naval supremacy because I don't want to spend more time fighting naval battles than necessary, so it's hard to haul troops to the right place.

Fighting on so many frontline is quite hard. At least Austria didn't attack me yet - I allied them like 3 or 4 times already, then they break up but accept alliance next turn anyway. Weird relationship.

So I took Genoa and it's -30 unrest again. If I could figure out which provinces will have -30 and which only -13, that would be nice. I thought it's just capitals of majors, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Is it based on capital of major or anything with a level 4+ government building? That's my best pattern match.

Well, Spain attacked me before I could figure it out. I'm OK with AIs ganging up on me, or with this massive undocumented unrest, but why both? I quickly took Milan, but Spain wouldn't accept any terms. And neither would they after I took Naples. At least that unifies Italy. Not counting Corsica, Sardinia, and I guess Savoy.

I had my relatively speaking bloodiest battle to date when Barbary States sent their stack at me, and did basically melee charge. They even had female unit of Dahomey Amazons, whatever that's based on. At least after that Barbary states peaced out. They lost Algiers to Spain, so they're now just Tripoli.

Meanwhile - Sweden took Moscow but then lost it, Prussia took Warsaw but then lot it, France took Amsterdam but then lost it. It feels like a bit of a pattern, probably -30 unrest together with foreign armies does that. Everybody is at war with everybody else.

Justinian would be proud

Savoy declared war on me just turn later, as my army was standing next to them in Genoa. So I guess my Italy will be a bit bigger than originally planned. Unfortunately Genoans rebelled same turn, but I just barely managed to squeeze both battles with last fraction of movement point.

Spanish Sardinia was undefended, so I seized it too.

Then France attacked me. That's with the mod that fixes diplomacy? Well, at least none of them are pushing me too hard except on sea. Constantinople and North-West Italy are good chokepoints. Places like Tunis and Malta are exposed, but AI doesn't invade by sea too often.

I wanted to take Genoa, but Genoa, France, and Ottomans together successfully navally blockaded me, and I really didn't want to slog through a few hours of naval battles. So instead I took some armies from Constantinople, recruited a few more troops, and landed in Egypt. I took Cairo unopposed, Jerusalem in a small battle, and Damascus in another.

Ottomans could either try to stop my fairly small army there, or they could try to break into Constantinople. In their probably fifth futile one ship attack they failed to break blockade of the straits, and I finally had some savings to upgrade my Constantinople army to a reasonable stack and went to fight in Anatolia.

I finally got an epic battle. On my side 4 cavalry (1 General, 1 Regiment of Horse, 2 Hussars), 6 basic Artillery, 10.1 infantry (5 Line Infantry, 5.1 old Militia).

On Ottoman side 5 cavalry (all Camel Nomads), 3 artillery (1 stronger version of basic, 2 howitzers), 10 melee infantry (3 Swordsmen, 2 Pikemen, 2 Peasants, 3 basically Berserkers), and 1 Mob with firearms. Do they realize which century this is? That's West vs East, the battle which will decide the fate of the Middle East. After that Anatolia got taken and by 1720 my borders are so close to Justinian's borders like I've been actually trying.

Battle for Anatolia, and my usual setup. Artillery in 2-3 batteries between infantry line. Using groups to quickly refocus where they fire. Cavalry in reserve.

Liberation of France

Those armies from the East could now land in Corsica, switching to fresh ships a few times on the sea. I know it's cheesy, but I don't feel like playing legit naval game.

While all those campaign in the East were going on, I recruited some dragoons to keep North Italy in check, somehow randomly got a really good justice minister, and moved straight for Paris. That risks Prussia and Britain attacking me, as seems to be the pattern, but France is wealthy enough to basically pay for upkeep of a full stack.

Paris was defended by some really advanced troops. I put my artillery in 3 groups of 2, with infantry between them, and some cavalry as reserve. The French assaulted everything on my left flank, and managed to break it, fortunately at this point they were spent and my remaining half the army finished the job. French would not negotiate even when reduced to just Alsace and some colonies, but at least without Ottoman and Genoese fleets, I could challenge small French fleet, break blockade of my ports, and finally get some serious trade income.

Spanish and French troops were ravaging French countryside, so I couldn't move against Alsace, but surprisingly my Dutch allies took it, destroying France, and liberating Quebec. How did I get Dutch as allies? French once destroyed them, then they respawned, then they asked to ally me, and I said sure whatever. That was long before I was anywhere near France.

So now my Northern borders are my ally Netherlands, impassable Switzerland, and my ally Austria. To the East there's broken Ottomans and Barbary States leftovers in Tripoli. So just Spain to crush.

Liberation of Spain

My armies shrunk a lot from the peak as I didn't need quite that many stacks and merged some damaged units. Some were left in Paris, Anatolia, and even a few dragoons in Savoy, but there was still plenty left. I landed in Algiers which surrendered without a fight. A bigger force just marched onto Madrid.

Spanish armies were ravaging countyside, so I took some troops, 5 full units against half of enemy unit so about 10:1, tried to autoresolve as it would be completely trivial massacre and then got defeated. Seriously, autoresolve in all old Total War games is just ridiculously biased against the player. When I finally fought them, they didn't even fire a single shot, basically marched, got shot by all my artillery, and died.

Spain was not willing to surrender yet. They attacked Algiers with overwhelming force, and it was a really close fight.

Then I reached Madrid and AI marched halfway there and then derped for 15 minutes trying to figure out if it wants to place its line diagonally left or diagonally right against mine, like some cat trying to get in or out, while getting shot from fairly close range by my artillery. That's how a 1000 vs 1000 battle turns into 1000 died vs 50 dead.

Spanish stack tried to siege Madrid, but then cancelled same turn and went to raid some farms instead. Oh well. Spain still held Lisbon, Gibraltar, Morocco, and good chunk of America, but just a bit later they peaced out.

Peace was achieved, and I basically recreated Roman Empire at its peak. Well, without England, Vienna, and a few peripheral provinces here and there, but it's basically done.

Battle of Madrid. AI artillery really hated this hill, so it fortified itself behind it so the hill is the only thing it could possibly shoot. Empire artillery has very low max gun elevation, that might be historical, but for gameplay it would be better off if they increased max elevation to howitzer levels. AI is completely lost, and it's hard for the player too as even tiny hill might be too big for artillery.

Strategy Retrospective

I really liked the turn one ally Austria invade Ottomans and rush 3 provinces opener. Maybe Serbia was one too far, and I would be better off limiting myself to Bosnia and Athens, but no big deal.

Empire Total War has some amazing opening turns, as you can do diplomacy with anyone - in Medieval 2 it would take forever to get your diplomats anywhere. Instant diplomacy is the biggest improvement Empire did, no question about it. It's really easy to basically "win" the campaign turn 1, for example as Mughals just pay Marathas a bit of gold for peace, this will give you time to move troops South and consolidate, basically removing all the challenge.

Permanent blockade of straits to Constantinople to keep Ottomans stuck in Anatolia, then opening a second front against Egypt was a great way to turn a prolonged stalemate into a victory.

What I feel I did wrong was leaving Venice undefended for so long. AI chain declared on me - Pope, Genoa, Spain, Savoy, France, pretty much turn after turn. If they didn't lollygag and just seized Venice, it would be really awkward. I had relatively safe second homeland in the Balkans I guess, so I would turn into real Eastern Roman Empire there if that happened.

I've been massively handicapping myself economically both campaigns by not sending any trade ships to colonies, but that would mean far too much naval combat. That's another reason why I'm not too keep on playing on very hard campaign difficulty - AI would get too strong economic bonuses, so I'd need to get some colonial trade, and so I'd need to fight all those damn naval battles.

Research stealing and trading was far more successful that expected. I got almost as good research with 1 school as Venice as I did with 4 as Russia previously.

Conclusions

This was quite fun. Playing as a minor on hard/hard made battles a lot more interesting. I was usually facing stronger opponents, so maybe about half the battles were either fun or quick massacre, similar proportion as in Medieval 2. The unfun ones were a lot worse, since they drag on forever. It's always easier to have AI come to me, but in Medieval 2 it's not a huge deal if I have to be on the offensive. In Empire, dragging the artillery across the map just takes forever, and enemies won't just stand somewhere, they'll reshuffle again.

Naval combat was just as miserable as I remembered, every single time. If this game had no ships, just a lot of land bridges, it would be a lot more fun. That's one thing that's worst for my enjoyment of the game. And I can't even autoresolve it, as autoresolve has absolutely ridiculous level of bias against players. New games removed naval combat, and got rid of this crazy autoresolve bias.

As planned, I'll now go on to try the next Total War game - doing some short Napoleon campaigns.

I can totally see myself coming back to Empire later. As long as I'm fighting on land, I'm having fun. So countries like Sweden, Prussia, or Persia could be a lot of fun.

As for optimal difficulty level, hard/hard might be right since:

• very hard campaign is really hard without doing colonial trading, and that means naval combat, and all its tedium
• very hard battles gives enemy massive morale buffs, making cavalry basically useless, encouraging uniform art/inf lines, and reducing tactical complexity

I made second blog for gaming content, but it was more Google+ backup, and campaigns that take 50+ episodes to finish. I'm not really sure what to do with it going forward. I think I'll just post everything here unless it really takes a lot of parts.