How to annex minor countries in 10 easy steps.

[AacornSoup]

Step 1: Determine which minor countries you want to annex.

Step 2: Determine whether the absolute smallest/cheapest BB, BC, or CA is the cheapest; those will be your capital ships.

Step 3: Build as many of those low-end capital ships as you can afford, organized into flotillas with two of them plus three DDs or TBs as escort vessels.

Step 4: Put those flotillas in the ports nearest the minor country you want to annex.

Step 5: As soon as the campaign begins, move your ships out of port to blockade the minor countries you want to annex.

Step 6: Set your flotillas to "invade" to maximize the chance of receiving the prompt to invade those minor countries.

Step 7: Wait for years, even decades, to receive the prompt to invade the minor countries you want to take.

Step 8: If Britain and France try to annex your intended conquests, park as much of your naval tonnage next to their fleets as possible to keep them from annexing the minor country.

Step 9: Scream in impotent rage when Britain and/or France annex the minor countries you want to annex, despite having parked literally half of your entire fleet next to theirs to prevent the annexation.

Step 10: Restart the Campaign and repeat steps 2-8 for as many times as it takes to annex all of your strategic objectives.

[MDHansen]

😴

[justMike247]

sounds about right...

 

*le cough*

 

[Norbert Sattler]

Step 3.5: Make sure you read the messages about allying with minor countries carefully, so you don't waste your time trying to besiege a country allied with you.

Step 3.5 Addendum: If you end up allied with your target, since you have no say in this, make sure to not sell them a single ship and hope that will be enough for them to cancel the alliance in reasonable time.

[MDHansen]

^^ this

[UnleashtheKraken]

Reading this thread just reinforced how much I don't like the dev's vision of not having political say in the running of finance, invasions, or other guidance of the nation/empire.  It is extremely frustrating to be placed at the hands of an AI that acts as a black box, with terrible decision making (I will NOT invade this country I am at war with, despite surrounding it with 3 nations that cumulatively have six times the army power, and that nation repeatedly launching failed invasions of my countries), and popup messages that you have to remember 10 turns down the line.

Mouse hovering gives barely any info.  I need 25K tons for a popup conquest.  I move a fleet there, the fleet is 175K tons, outmassing 7:1, and I see 65% chance of victory because a decade ago I did sell this territory some obsolete destroyers, which are now easy fodder for the invasion fleet nearby.  Can I launch my own mission to destroy that naval power?  Oh no, I have no control of that.  Despite being an admiral and planning/launching battles being what I should be doing.

This game rips so much control away from the player.  It's like a sim game with most of the strategy torn away, leaving task force positioning and in-game control of heading/speed.  And do not get me started on telling a group of ships to fire at a target I select, only to have that group immediately switch to a different target.  So I select and retarget my selection, and again the AI decides to have my battleships shoot their main guns at a destroyer that's further away than the enemy battleship I'm trying to sink.

The faith in AI control the devs seem to have is misplaced.  If there were a mod that let me take control of political decisions, and see tensions as more than a once-in-a-while popup, I'd grab that in a heartbeat.

[Dave P.]

On 1/23/2024 at 9:49 AM, Norbert Sattler said:

Step 3.5: Make sure you read the messages about allying with minor countries carefully, so you don't waste your time trying to besiege a country allied with you.

Step 3.5 Addendum: If you end up allied with your target, since you have no say in this, make sure to not sell them a single ship and hope that will be enough for them to cancel the alliance in reasonable time.

Even better, agree to sell them a ship, then cancel the sale. They'll break it off immediately, usually. (IME, YMMV, etc.)

[Wowzery]

I still think there should be a suggestion of what to invade.  It doesn't mean you will succeed in initiating an invasion and take a corresponding hit on your prestige as a penalty.  Maybe the higher your prestige the easier it is to invade, while a low prestige the harder it would be.

Like a war invasion you would need a fleet parked in the area.

[Suribachi]

On 2/16/2024 at 9:46 PM, Wowzery said:

I still think there should be a suggestion of what to invade.  It doesn't mean you will succeed in initiating an invasion and take a corresponding hit on your prestige as a penalty.  Maybe the higher your prestige the easier it is to invade, while a low prestige the harder it would be.

Like a war invasion you would need a fleet parked in the area.

To be honest, I would like a system where you can spend your prestige in order to influence the politics of the game.  For an example with arbitrary numbers, you can spend 100 prestige in order to speak to parliament about the need to annex a minor power.  This would reward the player for doing well in battle and have incentive to gain prestige beyond "oh, look at the pretty numbers".

[anonusername]

On 2/25/2024 at 11:00 AM, Suribachi said:

To be honest, I would like a system where you can spend your prestige in order to influence the politics of the game.  For an example with arbitrary numbers, you can spend 100 prestige in order to speak to parliament about the need to annex a minor power.  This would reward the player for doing well in battle and have incentive to gain prestige beyond "oh, look at the pretty numbers".

Yes, this has been needed for a long time. I think I made multiple posts on this all the way back when EA ended, and I believe there were others making the same suggestion.