Question for the floor-Grenadiers, are they worth it or is it better to go with Line Inf? The morale=12 and superior hand to hand skill is good, but with only 60-strong brigades do they have the staying power in large battles? Always been an issue in Total War game, specialist units are cool, but for example in Rome Total War you were always better off with a unit of Hastati rather then attack dogs or flaming pigs...

Grenadiers ... I reckon they can be useful but only if you can micromanage them. A volley of grenades can devastate a unit, but there's a long delay between telling them to throw and the things going off. If you're get it wrong the target unit has moved in the meantime. I tried putting them behind the main infantry line so they throw over their heads but then you need to turn off fire at will so they don't musket your own troops in the back. All in all it's a bit of a faff and I'm not convinced, replacing them by a standard infantry unit to keep in reserve might be equally effective.

Anyway, I'm now channeling my inner stormtrooper by playing as the Prussians. Well, I say Prussians but after the revolution that swept away the hated Royalist parasites and wiping out the Austrians and the Poles I suppose I'm now Greater Germany. It's quite a rocky start, I started off by steaming into the Poles (it's traditional) and things went OK for a bit, but as soon as you end up with a border with any of the other Germanic states they immediately kick off. I ended up with lots of rebellions. strikes and so on with no money to invest, all the while having to keep pushing to take out my attackers.

Well, I say all the Germanic states but Hannover saw the light and they are now a Protectorate. Couldn't accept fast enough, and I thought it a bit mean to wipe them out in the event.

I managed to get a trade agreement with the Russians and they've held off so far, and I swapped Venice for Cuba to keep the Spanish happy. The Russians have also displaced the Swedes from my borders which is good as we were having a disagreement.

I'm currently building like mad and waiting to see who will steam into me next. If it keeps quiet in Europe then I reckon I'm off to the Caribbean to take those pirate islands. I'm trading and on good terms with both Indian factions and no-one else has got a foothold there so I'm debating whether or not to get involved.

Grens are well worth it IMO , I like to have at least 2 units - they decimate native americans like no tommorrow , and 2 well timed grenade barrages can break a whole formation . Im playing as the austrians now ( considering the prussians though) . Although the austrians start with a lot of territory theres loads of religious unrest to squash. They do get 150 men line infantry units though , Uluhans , light infantry, and you dont have to worry about navies for a good while

Interesting stuff- in battle my doctrine has been to form 4 lines, skirmish line of native skirmishers/rangers, main firing line of line inf, second line of Hessians, and the General's bodyguard and dragoons in reserve, works d@mn well against the forces I've fought in America, will have to see how it works on the continent. Might use a couple of units of Grenadiers in place of a couple of units of hessians in the second line, could be useful to counterattack enemy bayonet charges, will have to see, though I like to sit on my arty waiting for chances to fire canister, so the aforementioned micromanagement may be a bit of a c4 issue! I've yet to use my dragoons in their intended mounted inf role, I've always used them as medium cavalry to charge and break units already weakened by the infantry's fire.

Light infantry: on the flanks to turn in and enfilade the enemies' line, or at the front to disrupt their main attack?

I'm keeping my maintenance of aim in finishing off the french in the Americas, pushing them back in Europe and then sorting out the spanish! India beckons for the second half of the century...

I'd cracked the brit campaign by 1740 odds

If youre fond of cannister shot ( I prefer howitzers to fire over the main lines ) , get your light inf to deploy stakes infront of the cannons to stop cav charges , then skirmish infront of the main line - light inf in skirmish/screen mode duck down so infantry behind them can fire as well , a good volley into the charge , then fold back through the guys behind and out onto the flanks - 1 volley from a light inf screen and another 3 from line inf can break a unit before they get close enough :D

FWIW , I think light dragoons are better than standard ones, just cause they can fire on the move, and can still gub light infantry in a charge. Not that Ive got a vested interest or anything...

Heh, more tactical questions (I'm obsessed) Lines & columns-has anyone tried a properly British 2-deep line using the extend ranks button in deployment yet? Any good? What about a Napoleon style assault column using the extend files button? Not been willing to risk it yet, you'd imagine a 2-deep line would have more firepower, and a column would be better in the assault and easier to manouevre, but don't know if the game would take account of this...certainly it seems like a column would be easier to turn then a line...

Civi_git, it took me a couple of battles before I clocked the 'deploy field defences' panel in deploymnet, will give that one a go!

Columns DO work :D As Austria I get 150 men infantry units, and cheap irregular skirmishers , march up to the enemy in a column 5 abreast, front rank or two goes down to the first volley while light inf guard the flanks, spread out - 1 volley into the enemy then fix bayonets before they reload and pile in :D Just dont do it into cannons :D

Once you get fire by rank in the infantry tech tree , 3 ranks deep is your best option

Thats interesting! I won't try it with my British as its a steeenking french tactic, but when i give a continental power a go I will most certainly use a massed assault column and see how it goes! Rank fire working well with three ranks makes sense, but I'm looking toward 2-deep lines with the platoon fire technology, I'm really hoping that slaughters frenchmen as efficiently as it did for His grace the Duke of Wellington!

I have a very good Laptop that has served me well for 5 years, I did have to replace the hard drive after having the laptop sucking up dust etc. in one of the sandy places for a year, luckily managed to get a replacement hard drive at a local market stall that was allowed on base once a week.

My question is this, the computer is a Toshiba Satellite P25-S520 and although still going strong it has a very inferior graphics card - NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5200 with just 64MB of VRAM! this is quite rubbish for loading any decent games etc. is it possible to upgrade such a machine or is it not possible with a laptop?