Outrageous retinue

[brekehan]

I found it impossible to win even on the easiest setting because:

1) The kings retinue grows expenontially to your own
2) It is extremely difficult to field and army and keep your rebel % high enough

So, I tryed an epic length game. It was worse!
Sure, I have goods, money, and rebel sentiment up the yang. I even have several colonies instead of 3 or 4. However, the kings retinue grew even larger! By 1700 he will have more than

100 regulars
50 dragoons,
20 artillery
30 warships

I have 30 total troops.


Is there any way to slow him down?

Does trading with the natives instead of with Europe slow the kings funds to buy troops?

Does the king even use funds to buy troops or just add units no matter what?

Does it help or hurt to give the king money when he requests it?

[Dale]

Firstly, that's not a large REF. I've heard/seen reports of 500. ;)

Secondly, one thing you have to remember is with all the bonuses you get, you compete on a level playing field at a ratio of 1:5 (you to REF). You can beat 1:6 but that's hard and any better odds is just easy. :)

Just fortify a couple of soldiers and cannons in each colony and have a huge dragoon army and harass them in the field. Don't fight them in the cities as you WILL lose. If you lose a city don't worry, retreat a bit, then come around the back and recover your city.

[brekehan]

Every time I've battled it wasn't possible to win without 2:1
His troops are stronger than yours. It takes two of your to kill one of his.
I've taken every bonus available. Sitting on Hills with mountain man maxed, and somehow he still kills me 9/10 attacks.

[Dale]

Try with dragoons with maxed out withdrawal promotions. When your dragoon withdraws, pull him back to heal and use another dragoon to finish off the king's unit.

[schlub]

Every time I've battled it wasn't possible to win without 2:1
His troops are stronger than yours. It takes two of your to kill one of his.
I've taken every bonus available. Sitting on Hills with mountain man maxed, and somehow he still kills me 9/10 attacks.

You're not supposed to let them attack you out in the open! The dragoons are only used to attack - they don't get any defence bonuses so you should retreat back into a city or away from enemies after each attack. Each city should at least have a Fort, if not a Fortress. Heavily fortify the east-coast cities with soliders as they get attacked first and more frequently. I had something like 12 soliders and four canon in my main city and that fought off 4 waves of attacks without a single casualty. Any troops hanging around my cities I destroyed with dragoons from nearby cities and retreated back into cities before the turn was over.
Keep your wagon trains running if you can... I had constant shipments of guns and horses to my main city to bolster the soldier from my population (24 total) if required. You can always rotate injured soldiers for colonists still producing things inside the city.