Age of Steel: Choosing Generals

Here is my opinion on choosing generals, as of 0.1.1

Aggregate top 5:
1. Napoleon
2. Lan
3. Victoria
4. Isabela
5. Radetzky
Honorable Mentions:
6. Lee
7. Kate
8. Sophia
9. Scott
10. Murat
Infantry:
1. Victoria (for obvious reasons)
2. Lee (he has some very punchy skills, and artillery capability)
3. Brock (I modded him to have Formation instead of Sailor. That means he can get the highest output of any infantry general in the whole game)
Cavalry:
1. Lan (kick-ass and no cost)
2. Radetzky, aka tanky Lan (who has Geography instead of the bs War Master skill)
3. Murat, the Fort-Cracker
4. Grant, aka Lan's twin
5. Dombrowski, aka slow Radetzky
Artillery:
1. Napoleon (yeah, I made him kick ass)
2. Isabela (I'll fix ET's atrocious spelling soon).
3. Scott (Ol' Fuss and Feathers is very slow, but is powerful and has Leadership)
4. Sohpia (begone, Forts!)
5. Seymour (strong Art-Navy Hybrid, especially if you don't have room for Scott in your lineup)
Navy:
1. Kate (pure, focused, tough)
2. Victoria (the queen of S&l)
3. Seymour (Leadership!!!)
Fort:
LOL.

Age of Steel v0.1.1

This is a MINOR update. This means not much has changed, and I guess you can skip it.

Changes:
1. Savary is made normal
2. Grant (store version) loses Surprise, gets Mass Fire
3. Sophia gets Defense Art
4. Tavern generals tweaked slightly
5. First mission of Waning Days campaign released.

I'm not sure whether I can make a major update before Thanksgiving, but I'll try to get Waning Days made kinda piecemeal before that.

Thank you to kind reader Transfermium for pointing out Savary's crazy specs.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B04hI0ajr6cxb3RxTEVuWDVpVGs/view?usp=sharing

Age of Steel Guide Pair: 1861

To compensate for screwing up this weekend, I present two guides now.

America 1861

Using a true-to-history strategy, we can actually win this one really fast. I got 24 turns, with underdeveloped generals used in a subprime way, and without trying to rush.

History Lesson: The Anaconda Plan

In the beginning of the Civil War, the Union's Commanding General, Winfield Scott, proposed a plan to defeat the Confederacy.
In his plan, an elite Union force was to land in New Orleans and push up the Mississippi River, while the US Navy blockaded the Rebs. For political reasons, Lincoln added in an attack directly to Virginia. Ultimately, the Union's victory followed this rough plan.

How I did it:

I put Sophia on the Heavy Cavalry outside of New Orleans, and Maria on MGs I built in Philadelphia. I then used Scott and Maria to march down the Eastern seaboard (aided by the superior Union Navy), while Grant marched to Nashville, and then pushed south.
Sophia's task force was the interesting one. I landed them in West Florida, then marched into New Orleans while the Privateer drew the Confederate battleship away. After New Orleans, she pushed into the Deep South, and participated in the serial obliteration of the South.
One general of note is Robert E. Lee. I spammed forts and artillery to get rid of 'im, and it was not easy.

Confederacy 1861

This one was tougher, but at the same time dumber. I used Grant on Cavalry to seize small towns in the West, while spamming artillery from occupied St. Louis to kill his Doppelganger. Lee, Sophia  on Siege Art, and a pile of units Zerg Rushed the Eastern Seaboard, and Kate on an Ironclad wreaked havoc on the Union's blockade. It wasn't fun, but it was won.

Unrelated note: I'm told Savary's specs are weird. This will be fixed in the next update, which will also contain changes to Tavern generals.

Legacy Guide #2: Switzerland 1806

If you look carefully at the map of 1806, you might see Switzerland.It’s small and easy to miss. No longer! The Swiss Government has given you command of the army and expects you to put us on the map!

What you need:

1 A fast Artillery general (with Warhorse/Geography, Isabela is perfect, which is why I used her)

2 A strong Cavalry General (I used Radetzky)

3 A strong Artillery General (I used Sophia)

4 A moderately strong Artillery/Cavalry General (Your choice, I used Sebastiani as Cavalry)

5 A strong Navy General (Seriously) (I used Kate)

6a A strong Infantry General (I used Jourdan)

6b A general you are willing to fire mid-game (Only if you have a seventh spot with a trainer in it, I used Arnold)

Napoleonic Code (Absolutely Mandatory)

Snare Drum (also mandatory)

How it goes

Turn 1:

At turn one, we have 4 units (2x Guards Cav commanded by Bachmann, 2x Heavy Art, 2x Line inf, and a light grey fort. On turn one, deploy General 1 to the  Artillery and General 6 (6b if applicable) to the infantry. Move Bachmann and 1 North and move 6 into Zurich. Give 6 the Napoleonic Code, upgrade Zurich, and build a wooden fort 2 hexes east of the grey fort.

National Defense And Blucher:

In the first 5 turns, advance 1 and Bachmann towards Dresden, but not too far. Blucher will come towards them. After having built up Zurich, you will have a configuration of Forts shown in one of the pictures. Retreat your generals Northeast and use the Forts to defend from Blucher if necessary.


Operation Dutchman:

 Switzerland is nice, but it lacks the resources to build a World-Class army. The Netherlands, on the other hand, have just the facilities you need to build an empire. The Dutch are your allies, but by now they will have lost the stable and factory in the East and be under Siege in Amsterdam. 1 and Bachmann should be able to secure these Eastern cities and rout the British attacking Generals with ease, and by now you will be able to afford  a hefty 2x Armored Car for your strongest Cavalry General (2). Bomb and take Amsterdam and Rotterdam, and defend against Scharnhorst or Kutuzov in the odd chance that they should attack you rather than Frankfurt. Deploy 3, then 5, then 4 to rocket, battleship (same stats as the British navy, amusingly), and Armored Car, respectively.


Liberation of Germany:

Now you’ve got 2, 3, and 5 deployed and almost saved up for 4, but the Confederation of the Rhine has fallen and Western Germany is overrun by Prussians, Saxons and Russians, plus a few Swedes and maybe one or two Britons. First, you will use Artillery to rout Kutuzov and Scharnhorst (France will help) and liberate Frankfurt. The rest of the massed enemy force will consist of weak, low health units that 2 will kill with ease. 1 should hit Forts and Dresden, and don’t forget to use 1 to take Leipzig, it’s highly valuable for the offensive into Prussia. Don’t worry about the South German Cities, Italy and France will take them. If not, support wit artillery once you take Dresden


Battle of Britain

Napoleon and 4 will support Bachmann in securing London and the neighboring factory. Recruit units to accompany Bachmann as he heads north to Edinburgh, then west to Ireland. Send 4 to the Iberian Peninsula immediately after securing London.


Peninsular War

Send 6, along with some light infantry you recruit, to Spain. Take whatever is open, for me that was Salamanca. If you have the 7th slot and a strong general ready to step up, fire 6b and recruit an elite unit for 6a. Take Porto and Lisbon (in that order) with help from 4, then advance on North Africa.


Unified Germany

Generals 3 and 4 take on the troops of Prussia and any Swedes who leave Sweden/Denmark. 4 penetrates to Danzig while 3 bombs Berlin with help from infantry built in Leipzig and the French. 3 also takes the Factory South of Danzig, which provides cannons to help with any MG’s you might find.


Austerlitz 2.0

After Dresden, 1 and 2 advance on Vienna, then continue to devour Austria. Bubna will be dead and Radetzky will be deep in Turkey, so this will be nice and easy. Once you take Sofia, send 2 north and 1 south.


North Africa

4, 6 and their army will march on Morocco (Sardinia will have finished off Tunisia). This is self-explanatory.


Scandinavian War

4 fights Dobeln in Denmark with help from ships, then advances on Sweden. The rest is obvious.


Invasion of Russia

2 will take the Stable north of Kishinev, Kiev, Kaluga, and Smolensk. 3 takes Warsaw, finishes Prussia, then advances Northeast. 4 joins when Sweden dies. Nice and easy fight.


Turkish Campaign

1 leads troops from Sofia to liberate Turkey. Beware of Radetzky. ‘nuff said.

Age of Steel v 0.1.0 release

Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B04hI0ajr6cxbW0yNHJEYW1XeEk/view?usp=sharing

I promised you, and I deliver. In this first open beta release, you get 17 new generals, 5 modded countries, and 6 new conquests. I've even playtested, and can verify that 1861 (5th Conquest) US and 1848 (4th Conquest) Hungary are both playable. I urge you all to playtest it too, and tell me how it goes. I'll publish my readers' successes in a weekly list, if I get enough.

Sidenote:
Yes, the Confederacy features in this mod. Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis are both gens, and Lee's specs are OP. This is in no way to be construed as support for white supremacism, slavery, or anything of the sort. It's in the interest of depicting the period properly.

Keep an eye out for 0.2, whose release date will be announced on Tuesday

Sneak Peek of Age of Steel v 0.1

Hey guys,

I know I mailed some people about releasing this version on Thursday. That won't happen. Instead, you'll get a better version on Friday. What will be in it?

NEW GENERALS! Including but not limited to:
Napoleon III
The Notorious OVB
Robert E. Lee
Ulysses S. Grant
Garibaldi
And several more!

To top it off, you'll get 6 conquests, made to a decent standard. Here, we have some previews.

1. The Generals

2.The 1866 Conquest: The Hot Spot

Don't worry much for Garibaldi down there. He has friends in Berlin!

3. 1812 in Minnesota

Mod Reveal: Age of Steel

Super Epic, Exclusive, For Your Eyes Only Mod Reveal: The Age of Steel Mod

Ooh, a gutsy name! "Age of Steel" just sounds like a phase in Emo kids' breeding cycle, but it's also the name of my Victorian Era mod. That's right, Picard is in town!

My plan calls for 6 clean-sheet campaigns and conquests, and a TBD amount of new Generals.

The Conquests shall be:
1. America 1812 (but changed, I promise)
2. Europe 1814
3. Europe 1830
4. Europe 1848
5. America 1861
6. Europe 1866

The Campaigns shall be:
1. Waning Days (1812-1815; France, Britain, Prussia, Sweden, Poland)
2. Manifest Destiny (1812-1848; USA)
3. A Conservative Period (1812-1866; Austria, Russia, Prussia)
4. Rise of Democracy (1830-1871; France, German Confederation, Piedmont-Sardinia, Romania, Poland, Ireland OR Hungary)
5. Blood and Iron (1848-1871; Prussia, German Empire)
6. A House Divided (1861-1865; USA, CSA)

The first to be made, Waning Days, will chronicle Napoleon's fall from the Battle of Borodino to the Hundred Days through 5-8 easy, tutorial-esque maps. Manifest Destiny, its companion, will be a full-scale one going from the War of 1812 to the Mexican-American War (kinda, with a lot of creative liberties taken on geography). Rise of Democracy and A Conservative Period will essentially be twins, with similar maps played as opposite sides. Both will have some period (but no content) overlap with Blood and Iron, whose subject I presume to be obvious.

As you can see, you're looking at one heck of a broad span, going from the depth of the Napoleonic Wars in 1812 right up to German unification. This means months and months of work to some level, but I'm up for it.

Version 0.1

Version 0.1, which will be released on Thursday, will include all 6 conquests to some level of completion (the borders will be done, that much I promise). Potentially, I'll include a few maps in the Waning Days campaign.

Legacy Guide #1: France 1798 in EW4

This is a trilogy of guides I wrote on a gaming forum back in 2015 and 2016. I've long since left that place (for reasons too long to explain now), but the guides survived.

France 1798 under 40: The Normal One

This is geared towards securing Isabela, the French artillery princess (who is, by the way, an absolute beast). It's quite easy to do, if you follow along

Prerequisites and Background
1. Princesses are free generals. You unlock them by winning a conquest in the right continent, fast enough, and with enough resources

2. Isabella is France's princess. She is second only to Moreau IMO, although many will say she is better than him. She unlocks in about 45 turns, with tons of food and gold, and over 2000 metal/industry. You WANT her unless you bought Moreau, and maybe even then.


3. France is an easy country to conquest, especially in 1798 (10 gens, buffed economy, access to fronts but only one immediately assaulted). The only problem is that it takes years to cross Russia.

What you'll need:

1. Fairly good Cav Gen (I had Sebastiani (3*, surprise, 98 hp, 5 regen)). You need him with high HP and Regen.

2. Good Art gens (Sophia ( 3* art, explosive, 98 hp, 5 regen)) and Jourdan (3*, explosive+ballistics, hp 64, regen 2)

3. Snare Drum

4. Warhorse

5. Tent (recommend the +6, but +4 ought to do)

6. Willingness to switch Items aggressively

Instructions

Invasion of England

Generals: Massena, Jourdan, and an art. Gen with high HP.

Deploy your Arti gen (will be referred to as Sophia, since that’s who I used)  to the heavy art on the shore, move her, Jourdan, and Massena to the port on your side of the channel. Send Massena across 1st, have him hit the coastal fort next to Southampton. Next turn, he lands there. Fight with common sense until you reach Liverpool, then: 

send Sophia to Sweden, even if Dobeln died

send Jourdan with 1-2 other units to Ireland

Massena will take Scotland. Also, you will have to build battleships by round 15 to kill Hood and aid Massena

North Italian Campaign

General: Napoleon

Take Napoleon and the Line inf in the town, kill Klenau with Napoleon, advance to the Austrian troops near the fort, kill the Troops, leave the fort alone

Peninsular War

Generals: NONE

Send the Troops near Clermont by sea to Northwest Spain, steal a city there. Send the light inf in Bordeaux to steal Zaragoza and the stable near Madrid, build up troops, attack Porto when Spain’s assault is depleted, steal Madrid if you can (Spanish General will leave it eventually) attack Beresford last (round 30-ish), Huarte (Spanish Admiral (Navy General)) will help with the Battleship. Once Portugal is done, feel free to turn Spain Neutral

Italian Seas Campaign

General: Marmont

Take Marmont, the grenadiers near Marseilles, and the Line inf at sea to Sardinia; Kill Amadeo III, take Caligari, recruit troops, send damaged troops to kill fort and others to Sicily; Repeat Process from Sardinia in Sicily; Advance to Naples, repeat process (Italians will hold Naples off, might help you). Don’t go too fast on this front, or Nelson might come. Otherwise, The Ottomans will kill him by round 20.

DON’T SEND NAPOLEON!!! This front is a waste of his talents.

Battle of Weilburg

Generals: Dumouriez, Moreau, Desaix, and your Cavalry general (I will refer to him as Sebastiani since I used him)

Send the starting troops in the area (Dumouriez, Moreau, Desaix and regular forces to Weilburg, deploy your general to double guard cavalry in Weilburg ASAP, take surrounding cities, kill August 

Bavarian Campaign

Generals: Sebastiani, Desaix

Advance from Weilburg, kill Davidovich, take Munich, destroy the little fort, leave the big one be, advance to join Napoleon

Assault on North Germany

Generals: Dumouriez, Moreau, your other Art. Gen (I used Jourdan, so I’ll refer to him)

Take Brunswick, recruit double heavy art, dispatch Jourdan to it, IGNORE THE FORT, send Moreau through Brunn to Vienna,send Dumouriez and Jourdan to Oldenburg, kill Wilhelm III and Hotze. Dispatch a few troop to help Denmark fight Sweden.

Siege of Vienna

Generals: Sebastiani, Desaix, Napoleon, Moreau

Sebastiani, Napoleon, and Desaix attack Archduke C. immediately, Moreau joins after Brunn falls. Secure the light grey fort, advance on Budapest, then Lviv. When you near Lviv, send Moreau up North

Fall of Prussia

Generals: Jourdan, Dumouriez

Have Jourdan pummel Berlin while Dumouriez takes the factory and stable immediately east of it. Once Berlin is empty, send Dumouriez in; destroy the fort; advance on Danzig full force

Swedish Campaign:

Generals: Sophia

If Dobeln is alive, send Sophia to kill him and the regular troops to Stockholm. If he is dead, support the Danes everywhere. Use common sense

The Dagger

General: Sebastiani

This is the move that makes Isabella attainable, so pay attention: Send Sebastiani from Lviv to Kiev, fight the spammed Cavalry sent by Russia; upgrade Kiev; build Guards and Grenadiers; Send most of said inf. with Sebastiani to Moscow, take Moscow

Liberation of Poland

Generals: Napoleon, Moreau, Dumouriez, Jourdan

These guys are gonna fight a bunch of Generals, and a ton of Cheap troops. Kill Suvorov and Bagration first, then the rest. Finally, take the cities and destroy forts

Transylvanian Campaign

Generals: Desaix, Marmont(?)

There will be HRE/Russian forces around Clujnapoca, send Desaix (and Marmont if he’s done) to kill them, then have Marmont and Desaix advance and kill everything South of Kiev. 

Invasion of Russia

Generals: Napoleon, Sebastiani, Jourdan, Moreau, Dumouriez, Sophia(?)

Pretty obvious: send your generals into Russian strongholds, kill Russians, move on, no high priority targets here

Mop-up

Generals: None

This one is starting at round 25. Send Grenadiers to destroy all leftover forts in former Prussia/HRE/British Territory.

A Glossary of EW4 Terminology

Hello, my fellow Simians,

While copying my legacy (read: old) guides, I realized how much jargon I use. There are two solutions to that:
1. Don't use jargon and write things out
2. Make a dictionary of jargon
Evidently, I chose the latter, so here it goes

1. S&L: Saving right before a key fight, and reloading/redoing it until you get an outcome that satisfies you
2. Rushing: Doing conquest really fast to get princesses. This is considered a key part of completing the game by most.
3. Art: Shorthand for Artillery, aka cannons
4. Gen: Shorthand for Generals, aka those dudes you buy with medals or emblems and put on troops to make them stronk
5. Princess: Like generals, but you earn them by winning conquests fast. 5 of the 8 are beasts
6. Medals: The money you earn for killing enemies and winning campaign maps.
7. Emblems: The money you buy with actual Dollars/Euros/RMB/Yuan/Pounds. I will not encourage you to buy them, but it can be helpful.
8. Cav: Short for Cavalry, aka Horses
9. Inf: Short for Infantry, aka little men
10. Skills: those thingies at the top-right corner of the general's info card
11. Farming: Doing repetitive tasks to boost various specs

WC4 is out, and I am Pissed Off

Note: I rewrote this one completely

Easytech just released another title. The 4th of the World Conqueror titles is now on the Play Store, selling for $0.99.

Should you be excited? Possibly. Am I? Heck no.

Why? It looks like Easytech is going wrong again. First we had GoG2, where Easytech inexplicably created $400 IAPs and dropped Conquest. Then came EW5, where we had to endlessly farm a single commodity to advance. Now comes Easytech's back-to-basics WC3 remake. Now I can tell you think I shouldn't be whining, because WC3 was a good game.

Of course I'm complaining. We've seen too bleeding many WWII titles already, and I'm tired of that. The WC series is all WWII, most War movies are WWII, and the History Channel used to be flooded with WWII stuff until it became a Reality Channel. The point is: enough bloody WWII.

But that's not all, obviously. WC3 is still compatible with the most recent Android, iOS, and Windows devices, so I could just play it now if I wanted to. When I say WC3 and WC4 are hecking similar, I mean it. We've got the same generals with slightly different skills, the same IAPs with the same price tags (which were outrageous then), and largely the same graphics. I don't need this.

Lastly, the rollout was botched. The Play Store app crashes with connection errors according to all the comments, and Easytech's response is to spam the comments with the same copy-pasted response. Obviously, I'm disappointed

On that note, I wanted them to do something like EW5. It had so much potential, but it seems Easytech chose not to capitalize on it. That's how Hollywood does business nowadays, and apparently it's ET's way now too.

I'm not going to download it until its free, but if anyone wants to guest-blog on here about it every now and then, I'll happily have that.

Introduction

Hello, Internet Denizen.

Lovely of you to read this, however you stumbled onto here.
I'm a simian pounding on a keyboard who uses the pseudonym "Picard" (as in Captain Picard). I've been playing games by the Chinese company Easytech for about 2 years now, and this is the latest outlet for my gaming knowledge. You're welcome to read, comment, and maybe I'll entertain guest posters.

Here's what the posting schedule will look like

Saturday and/or Sunday: European War 4 post (can be a guide, a mod, or a guide for a mod).
Monday: No post. I'll release my legacy (aka old) guides until those are all depleted. Then it's nothing to ease your Mondays with
Tuesday: Update on the week's modding projects
Wednesday: Possible update on my Scambaiting quests
Thursday: Variety post (can be an Easytech related guide or mod, a Political rant, or literally anything)
Friday: Possible collection of (mostly bad) jokes I heard or devised this week.
And so it goes.

I hope you stick with me.

By the way, I appreciate you leaving a comment, just to say hi