Reading the description of the bomb ketch I thought that was what it was for. So I am a bit confused about what exactly your supposed to do with this particular ship. Somehow a mortar doesn't seem like it would be very useful against a moving ship.

I can't either, but TBH I don't really mind that much, I'm normally zoomed out to see the whole picture and graphics are pretty good.

Had a intresting naval battle last night against some pirates in one of the trade theaters. I had 5 ships, 2 5th rates, 3 brigs, vs 1 30 gunner, 1 brig 1 sloop. One of my 5th rates that I had been using (as in moving and firing myself) ended up ramming the enemy sloop and I ended up losing the 5th rate and a brig due to a massive explosion from the ramming. Hows that for awesomeness?

I got spanked last night by a pirate fleet. Was blockading a trade route with a 5th rate and 2 brigs, and a 5-ship pirate fleet happened by. Wasn't pretty.

Speaking of trading, does anyone know if you have more then 1 indiamen in the trade outpost, do you get more money? As in, if you have 2-3 of them on the same spot, not just in the theater on different spots.

No idea. I tried putting 2 scholar type people in the research schools but it didn't seem to do anything extra.. the first guy reduced research time, the second didn't. I'd guess it works the same? I'm doing Road to Independence still though, not the Grand Campaign.

I think the more scholars you have increases the research time, but the first one is a huge upgrade while the others slightly increase it.  In my new campaign as prussia since my russian one keeps crashing, i didnt notice a research difference after the first guy till i got about 4 in a college.

Also, the Indiamen, I havent built one yet, but what do you do with them, I know there armed merchant vessels, but where do you send it to trade?

Yes you do, i've had up to 3 and it increase. I don't know the max number. Just look at the Dutch, they start out with 3 indiamen in a East Indies Trade Post at the start. So if you can manage to grab a few trade posts early on, you can still send ships to them. Still don't know max number. I'm assuming 3 or 5 is probably the max but don't quote me on that

-Phalnax

Oh yeah i forgot about that ship. Yeah in the description it says you should drop anchor to use it better but, you would think it would be better for hitting cities and towns from the sea.

Oh yeah 2.0 and Pirates get on my nerves so much in the Caribbean. I just mass produce Indiamen and sent them out alone in hopes that one will get by (which they do) and hit retreat when they are attacked, sometimes the retreat puts them closer to the Theater Worm Hole Square which is nice.

Extra researchers DO make a difference, but the first one in the school is the biggest difference. I'm sure it depends on their lvls as well. You send them to the small little circle theaters theres little ? with a yellow circle around it, if your able to find a free one you put it there and it then generates trade per turn. I always send mine out with at least a brig or sloop (generally the smaller). I'll need to check it out and send a few more, thanks Phalnax

Edit: Having taken a look I'm not sure. I know the research thing works as I was researching a tech and it dropped by 1 turn with a new guy added in, but the trade I'm not sure on. I have 2 spots on the Ivory coast, I added 2 more indianmen to one spot, while the number of ivory I was exporting went up, my actual trade income went down by about 2k. Now if the games saying that the market is getting too flooded so the demand is going down, hence my income is down due to less buyers IDK.  Would have been nice to have more clarification on this in the manual.

Oh yeah good point, I don't know, maybe I'll need to pay more attention to see if that's the case for me too (British).

Tip: Capture the Inuit Village above Newfoundland, easy win, easy faction kill, more money Brits and French have easy access to it. Send a fleet from England with an army and its all yours Just make sure yur rival French dont want it.

And I noticed by 13 Colonies has been conquering (or receiving idk) territories in the Caribbean from the French, Gunya (?) and the Windward Islands, lol. They better not revolt like we did in history lol, I don't want to have to contend with that haha.

Thats who I am as well. I got another one gonna go to my south American zone and see what happens with that one. Just got done pwning the Huron. They went to war and took my northern village but unfortunatly for them I had two massive armies on the way up there (as the first time I played they went to war too). Bad part is now the Iroquis who seemed like they would be good allies seem upset (was friendly with them, now their indifferent) so I'm waiting for them to jump at me. And now the French bug me every other turn to give them Quebec back, they keep offering me labrador and the windward isles (which I belive begins as pirate).

Lol yeah i crushed the Huron with forces from Fort Ruppert and imported from England.  I'm about to hit the plain nations but don't have a big enough force so gotta wait a bit.  The french are bugging me too. They want Huron Territory in return for their New Quebec i believe. 

I have the highest prestige rating and i'm trying not to be attacked by anyone til i have a big enough army and fleet to invade France itself.

The Carribean is mine pretty much except a few islands. I have destroyed the Pirates as a faction altogether which I didn't think you could do but it is nice not having them alive

What else...I have like five allies and like ten trading partners and the only reason I don't have more trading partners is them not having available trade fleets (i think) because I have a few trade ports with no sea trade to them .

-Phalnax

Muhahaha, Poland is down to one province and Prussia is no more. Poland can chill for now. Denmark awaits!!! France is too powerful so I bagged that invasion.

Did you go after prussia or did they come at you? They keep coming at me and wont make peace even though I destroyed their navy and am raiding their trade.

Umm well  it turned out:

Poland declared war on my protectorate the 13 Colonies (random considering they have not fought before and had no access to each other) so I was like hellz no. So I went in and claimed two cities in two turns with the 20 unit army designated for France.  Prussia was at war with Poland.  Then I think Prussia may have done something to tick me off. But I don't think they declared war on me. For about a decade I claimed all of their cities. 

 Denmark still has not been attacked but the US and Quebec have formed. However in a few short years Quebec was desttroyed by 1500 experienced soldiers that killed the Hurons and the Plain Indians.  I'm at war with the US (SORRY!!) but i'm trying to make peace. It's only been one turn of war. I'm done for the night.

I'm on like my 107th turn, with about 24 regions owned. Working on the Iroquois soon so I can get the 13 Colonies to join me.  I don't want to attack the French, will be too much of a headache and a lot of trial and error.  I make about 18,000 each turn but keep spending it all on buildings so my treasury is at around 200 or so at the end of each turn lol.

How's your British Empire? After 107 turns you think the French would see the good of trading with me. We are the number 1 and 2 and keep flip-flopping. Do you have this on normal difficulity? I do.

-Phalnax

It really needs to stop crashing randomly :/ Lost another 40 minutes last night when it crashed as I was about to liberate Philly from the stinky British.

I figure I'll wait for a month or two of patches before buying it. Total War games are kinda like Microsoft products, see.

I love the game.  The Road to Independence campaign was very cool, but now that I'm actually playing the grand campaign I have more freedom to research/explore/trade/attack whomever.

The Load times can be a bit on the long side, but the battles are very good IMO.

Sometimes ground unit and ship pathing can make you scratch your head and be like wtf are they trying to do.

Ground warfare seems to take more micromanaging than fleet battles.  With fleets though I found that it's important to not let them get too bunched up or their firing lanes will be shut off.

AI is pretty good.

Overall, I am having a blast playing it!  I would recommend it to anybody that has a decent rig.

At least the Creative Assembly patch things when they say they will.........unlike UBI (nubi-soft)!  

I've only had 1 crash so far, though I've had a few freeze up but only during regular battles (as in not campaign battles). I ended up in war against Prussia and Poland, but was able to make peace with them both (not before I captured the entire prussian navy). But Prussia ended up declaring war against me several years later, for what reason, IDK. So far just raiding their lines as most of my land forces are in America. I then took all the huron lands, and just took your advice to go after the inuit, but when I got there they had 2 massive armies, the city was full of units and they had one that was heading for quebec, but it turned around to fight my invasion armies. I just destroyed their armies last night when they attacked (the whole reinforcement thing kinda sucks as my 2nd army was behind the one they attacked, yet it ended up coming in behind their main army and took heavy casualties. Have yet to take their city though as I was done after that. I sent spain a 2.5k gift and got a trade route with them, I tried the same for Genoa and the Italian states but even though they became friendly and have ports, they refuse a trade treaty. So far the most I've been able to get for income is about 10k. I haven't touched India at all and only got 1 more island in the carribean. I figure to probably go after the cherokee after I'm done with the inuit so I can try to get the colonies. I've got campaign on normal, but battles on easy as when I first got it I did a few trial run battles and got owned badly each time.

Yeah, but most games are launched buggy and patched later anymore.

I noticed this too, a major thing seems to be if the enemy routes your units will no longer auto chase to destroy them, you actually have to order them to do it, same seems to be with attacking, their units will come in range and fire, but your unit won't seem to fire till you actually order it to, and yes, thats with fire at will toggled on.

Yeah there was a patch today I believe and one next week to help load times and performance, as stated on their website.

I haven't played all day!!! Blasphemy lol.  After I finish this chapter in the book I'm writing, the Iroquois are going down, I hope.

Yeah, so far this Grand Campaign as the Brits, I have yet to fight a battle personally, after 107 turns lol, none fought. It's not my forte. I like Naval Battles but with my fleets I don't know how my laptop will handle it. It may need to be called a lapbottom instead if it sucks.  I do have an XPS Gaming Laptop so it should be fine.

Been playing for a couple days now, paused the sins game for awhile till i get Entrenchment, and the sea battles i think are its true shining point. I seriously, make all my ships leave the battle so i can watch a damaged ship sink without fighting. so cool to see men jump off the sides and the water slowly claim the ship. Think the technology researching really rather difficult and hard to get.

Some Points:

The_Monk definitely has some points right

Seems like the AI become much less active and more passive and is willing to let skirmishers and light infantry decimate its main line soldiers. Land battles and campaign map stutter every once and awhile while sea battles are perfect. Also, the other powers turns take forever. You can walk away and come back later. Love a skip feature that doesn't show enemy turns.

While the game is good I wished CA and Stardock would get together. While the AI has some improvements over the other TW series it still need some serious work.

For example it seems you can pretty leave England totally defenseless without worrying about an attack from the AI.

Yep 107 turns in, haven't been attacked on home soil. Bout to hit the Iroquois for sure this time!! No lie, been saying that for a few posts now. Haha.

Yes even though Naval Battles didn't get great reviews I find them fun, as long as there aren't huge fleets, that may be a chore as PC Gamer put it. I don't mind a few five v five battles at most.

Like in Master and Commander the movie (good movie). That was only involving two ships, so that's the battle I like.  More personalized and if you lose an even 1v1, then you know you have some reconsideration to do about your naval skillz.

-Phalnax

Lol posting again. I just destroyed the Iroquois and the Swedish. My ally, the Swedish found themselves in a pickle and it was ripe for the picking (are pickles picked?).  It took me about 2 years to wipe out the Swedish during the 3 years it took me to wipe out the Iroquois.  I have 28 regions under my control. It's 1757 i think. And I'm making ~34,000 a turn. My treasury now is in the 100,000's and growing. Stupid French and stupid Italian States still won't trade and I think Russia doesn't like my presence in Europe controlling 10 regions there or more.

Good times, time to right my book, I have late class today (11 am).

-Phalnax

A pickly question.