All missions are played on normal difficulty for both land and naval missions. I disabled the adaption option. I also completed all missions with the hardest modifier activated if available (more rewards but more enemies).

The missions described in this guide attempt to give the most probable outcome to follow. But your experience might differ from it depending on how you and the AI interacted, adapt and improvise.

An example is the first land battle. Depending on your placement, the AI might expose 1 artillery unit to your infantry. If rushed and destroyed, this will make the AI keep its other canons far from you and you will never have to fall back to the second defensive line as recommended by my guide.

1. Always use aimed shots. If you don't use aimed shots, your damage potential falls drastically.

2. Always capture enemy ships. Don't try to destroy them. Until the last act of the game when you can finally afford to pass on the prestige.

3. To have an easy time capturing ships, break their armour with solid shots then soften the crew with grape shots. Once the crew is cowering, board their ship. If the ship is much lower tier than yours, don't even bother breaking the armour or boarding it.

4. A ship has only three states: fighting, passive (aka surrendered) or destroyed. This is important to note because it means a ship is never without a crew. If you leave a passive ship alone, it will eventually go back to the fighting state.

5. Passive ships now count as captured when a mission is ended.

6. When capturing a ship, you have two options. Transferring an officer and their men or just the minimum amount of sailor. Always transfer minimum if possible. Transferring an officer and his men can be good if a ship turned to passive and you don't have the time to send a ship to it.

7. You can unload an officer and his men in a boat at any time as long as your ship is immobile. And then send that boat to capture a passive ship. The rowboat is faster than any merchant ship and is very easy to sink under fire.

8. Never bring a merchant ship to a purely naval mission if you have warships.

9. You can bait the AI with low value ships to distract its ships.

10. Do not use fire ships. Sell your extra ships. Never unlock this research.

11. Late game ships have 6 officers each specialised in 1 skill. You will have 10 warships minimum.

1. Never rush your objectives, use the timer to your advantage. Defence is stronger than offence and the bot will usually send multiple attacks where you get to thin their troops easily. Playing the timer also gives you time to soften the opposition with your mortars and canons.

2. Troops should avoid running, it drains stamina quickly.

3. Charge and melee is good on weaken units. Weaken units are more likely to surrender when your units are close.

4. Artillery is very powerful in defence and offence. They are your most important troops. Bombards are the best.

5. Units shatter when they have around 20 men left in the unit. Do not form skirmishers from your low manpower units.

6. Skirmishers are not meant to fight, only to scout. They exchange poorly in a fight and will shatter easily.

8. Always mind friendly fire.

9. Canons are great at long range and move fast. Bombards are great at everything and move slow.

10. You can bait the AI into costly attacks.

11. Making your line infantry hold is a must for prolonged firefight. A unit that is holding has a white underline under its symbol.

12. Army officers need to be well rounded on their skills. Except artillery officers that need maxed out perception and efficiency over all else.

1. Always distribute your career points when they are given.

2. The career perks to prioritise in order:
Reputation
Mission Reward
Luck (only until you can have 100% success chance at the luck missions)

3. Most research are not useful.

Here is a list of the best stuff to have on your ships late game:
Gun carriages tier 3 for your warships
Boarding equipment and double charge for your dedicated boarding ships
Light hull for your transport ship
Heavy hull + structure repair kit for your dedicated tank ships

List of the most useful equipment for the army late game (with exception):
Mortars (Needed early game asap)
8 lbs Canons
Supply wagon (only late game)
Bayonet research (Needed asap)
Sword bayonet research by mid game
Ferguson breach loader if you can afford late game

4. Ships guns and research

You can already buy basic brass guns of every weights.

The Blomefield's iron gun research options are you direct upgrade to them. They reload faster and shoot more accurately and weigh marginally less. They also have the best 18 and 24lbs guns for lack of other option.

Only one research in brass guns are worth it. The tier 3 french rebore that has the best 32 and 42lbs guns. The investment is up to you as Blomefield's guns can carry you fine the whole way.

Carronades and Gunnades are specialty guns.They are great damage dealer at very short range. They are good to place in the lightest gun emplacement on your warships (4th rate and higher). Light regular guns don't do much when your warship is sporting a 32lbs gun or higher.

4. Ship purchase will only be needed for 1 or 2 transport ship (called merchant ship by the game). Captured ships is what makes a great navy.

5. To sell a captured ship, you have to purchase it with reputation. Before selling a ship, always remove everything from it (canons, equipment, crew). Exception of hull equipment which cost funds to remove.

6. You get an income every turn. That income is not meant to make you rich but to help you pay for your forces upkeep which will always be higher than what you get.

7. The reserve option when reinforcing a unit is expensive, it helps reduce the experience loss.

7.a. When disbanding a crew, they become part of the reserve. Men in reserve cost the same upkeep than men in your crews so you should strive to never have an accumulated reserve by creating new crews or reinforcing other ones using the reserve. Not the clearest concept of the game.

8. You can give cheaper weapons to your ship's crew. But don't cheap out for land troops. Nothing stops you from moving firearms between units before a battle since the army will often sit out while your warships have a mission and otherwise.

9. Most missions give you three options - they change the amount of rewards and enemy forces that the mission will have.

10. Rename your land units right away. Very useful to differentiate them from scenario units so you know who to keep safe in a mission. Your warships crew will have the name of their officers while scenario crews have a generic unit name.

11. Your prisoners cost upkeep. Trophies as well. A trophy upkeep is 50% of the ship's regular upkeep.

12. You will be more starved for prestige than money until late game thanks to this guide.

13. Save often as you start to learn this game. It does not forgive.

Only points to note here:

1. Restart or load a save as many times as you need to get used to the mechanics.

2. Capture both ships. They will become part of your permanent forces and will cheese the early game.

3. Don't start the landing of your fighting troops until you took care of the enemy ships.

4. Once you've landed capture the small village, leave your most depleted troop to defend it or unload some of your ship's crews. Walk up the cliff from the forest and capture the canon emplacements and finish the mission.

This is the only mission that could be worth continuing until all AI units are destroyed. It nets you few more dozen rifle as loot. Not worth it.

Harbour -

Integrate the two captured 6th rate.

Sell all your other ships except for the unrated merchant ship with your land troops.

Max out the reputation perk with your career points. Now concentrate on maxing out Mission reward followed by luck. Later on, invest in shop prizes and availability.


Dinner for Admiral -

Capture the opposition. They are outgunned.


Harbour -

Give the ships to the admiralty.

Change your land units officers for better ones.

Harbour -

Top off your warships.


Priority -

Bring your merchant ship on this mission to have extra manpower to help you crew the surrendered ships.

Capture the opposing ships. Avoid loading them with your warship crews until you can't do otherwise.

Transfer the minimum amount of crew for the remaining ships.


Harbour -

Unlock the research bayonet.

Top off your land units. It would be good to unlock the lightweight hull to bring more troops with you.


Snakes and Powder -

You will face a 1 to 3 disadvantage move carefully and methodically. Save often and reload often, it's not an hard mission but is brutal for new players.

Send any captured units to the bottom right corner to avoid having them liberated by the AI units.

The AI will attack from the road leading to your objective with 6 units. 4 infantry, 1 cavalry and 1 canon. Don't face them head on, create ambushes by using the forest on both side of the road. The point is to shatter them far from the canons to keep your troops safe.

Skirmishers created from units are useful to spot for you. Don't have them go too far forward and reattach them if a fight is about to break out.

From your back will come a couple of weak units, keep 1 or 2 weak units as reserve to deal with them. Don't pursue them if they run away.

Now that you have shattered the units protecting the canon, get as close to it as you can while using the forest to stay undetected. Get in rifle range, let the canon shoot your units if it's close to reloading and charge after.

Task your most depleted unit to take over the canons and go to the objective, if the AI followed its scrip well there will only be a supply unit left to deal with. Supplies unit do not shoot, but they kill your men in melee. Shoot them until they break. You can task one of your unit with taking the supply wagon. It can be useful but not vital.

Now capture the objective and enter part 2 of this mission.

You are charged with protecting the objective from a strong counter attack. If you didn't rush the first objective, the game will give you your reinforcements before the attack begins. If you went fast, you will get them a little bit later. A supply point will spawn on the objective.

The enemy will send a main attack force by the river crossing and road at the top right of the map. And a 2 units force by the river crossing on the left of the objective.

Send your 2 regular units to hold the left river crossing, use the forest on the right to hide to create a defensive line. Keep a 2 unit reserve to cover your flanks if attacked.

If the AI expose its canon units, destroy them. If your defensive line start taking to many loses, fall back to a new defensive line in the second forest behind it. Set your units in a way where they will get to shoot the AI units only after the exit the first forest.

The AI will try to keep its canons away if there is no infantry to support them. When the timer runs out you can finish the mission.


Harbour -

Luck mission:

Throughout the game, put the ships that give you the best percentage of winning. They are totally random on how much damage your units take. The RNG on luck missions can make you loose between nothing to 10 000 funds. It's insane and unfair.

Interestingly the estimated success rate is much lower than the actual success rate. When the game gives a 30% estimate, you will succeed the mission 70% of the time.

You can reload the end turn save to get a different result. I think you'll do it when your 6th rate gets obliterated by a unrated cutter thanks to the RNG.

Second wave -

Again, with your two 6th rate capture every other ship.

The Senora de la Solidad and Aquila (their biggest ship) can be softened with a few solid shot but at very short range it is not necessary.

Do not board the transport ships, they don't have guns but their crew have rifles, keep shooting grape shots until they surrender. Make sure to capture both of them, you need them for future missions.

If you run out of time before Aquila arrives, send your smallest prize to distract it and keep out of its range.


Harbour -

Give all prizes to the admiralty except the two merchant ship. Integrate the merchant ships.

Now we need the Mortar tier 2 research. Unlock boarding equipment and enough cheap research options to get to tier 2.



Building your first land army -

Give an officer and crew both new transport ships. You don't need to give max crew to them, minimum is enough. After all, the best way to move units around water is in row boats at this moment. Don't give them good firearms, ever. They don't need a good captain either, but it is still smart to take a good one as a handy replacement .

Put the lightweight equipment on 2 transport ships. Put 1 mortar unit of 100 men on each with the officers that have the best perception available, don't hesitate to change officers around as needed.

Fill all other available slots with Fusilliers. Do not forget to crew your transport ship before filling them to capacity with troops.

For fusilier, the higher rank officers are usually best. For canons and mortars, higher perception and efficiency is preferred.


Crossfire -

The bot has a lot of units on this mission when you're on the hardest modifier and didn't choose adaptive. TAKE YOUR TIME, as much as you have per objective. Every village have huge supply depots, use your artillery as much as possible. Units that go under 50 men should be pulled back and ordered to take the abandoned canons.

Deploy your mortars and best troops first. Put the rest in the second wave with your two warships.

Your first objective is a small village. Do not approach it by the road, it's covered by too many canons. Instead, cross the river and hug it into the forest on the left and behind the hill.

Charge up than down the hill with the scenario units. Do Flanking shots from the forest with your regular units. Mortars can stay in the forest, put the canons up the hill.

Do not go straight into the village, leave one or two scenario units in the fields to spot the defence and soften them up with a long artillery barrage. Once week enough, chase them out by charging.

Establish defensive positions out of range from the opposing artillery. Wait for the timer to tick off and fight off the counterattacks. In between, spot opposing units for your artillery. The next village will be hard to take.

Bring your troops and sailor ashore from your newly arrived fleet. Keep destroying every AI units that shows up around the village.

Once no more units from the AI shows up and lights up all your units for the AI artillery, start pushing into the second village. Inch by inch, every time you spot a unit, you stop and let your arty do the work. Do this until you pushed out all AI troops from the capture point, once you have that point you can let the timer tick off for an easy win.

If you still have scenario units left alive, do push to the third village to capture the supplies. I personally finished the entire mission with only scenario units being directly engaged and my mortars. Total casualties 200 men. Don't let others tell you mortars are bad.

To compare, I went at it with all fusiliers composition. 700 casualties, I had to use my warships crews to push the last objective.

By now, many of your units will have perks available. Here is what I recommend:

Infantry - Morale, Accuracy and perks.
Artillery - Logistics, Accuracy and perks.
Warships - Morale and both perks that grant accuracy boost.

If there are any good sub-lieutenant left in the admiralty to hire, hire them. You have a limit of officers available for hire during a chapter. in this and the next chapter that is 2 sub-lieutenant. Available officers are permanent, you have to hire them before the game will generate a new one. Plus you will be starved for good officers once you get ships of the line.

Research to unlock in Tier 2 asap:

Brown bess musket (unlocks new firearms in 1 turn)
Army medium caliber (unlocks new land canons in 2 turns)
Blomefield's Iron gun (canons will be immediately available for purchase)

Once you get to act 3, chapter 2, unlock the following:

Naval architecture studies
Double hull
Boarding equipment
Gun carriages if not already done.

And the Field artillery Tier 3 research.

Weapons to stock on as you go along:

20 8lbs land canons; And 10 6lbs land canons if the game doesn't give you enough by act 3 chapter 2.
1280 '78 muskets with bayonets by act 3 / chapter 2
Enough Blomefield's Iron guns of 9, 18 and 24 pounder shots to refit 4 SOL.

Keep hiring good officers. Everything above midshipman. Officer Cadet are for the army and are not good officers. Anything above is rare to see available, take if it happens.

Buy 2 Merchant ships of a 1200 weight capacity. You absolutely need 2 for a land mission in Act 3 / Chapter 2.

Just a tip, when you change the guns installed on a ship, it will only show you canons fitting the selected deck. The greyed out canons at the end of the list cannot be selected because there is not enough available to fit the entire deck.

Warning: The game was updated since this guide was written and Hunter and prey was made much easier by lowering the enemy's warship tier. Which is less than ideal because Fireworks became that much harder.

Fireworks is the hardest so we will start with hunter and prey. Make sure to repair and refill your warships.

Hunter and prey - Use a transport ship to fill the last required spot, as soon as it start send it to the edge so that it can retreat.

You're only fighting 1 ship but it outguns yours, soften it up with solid shots, kill the crew with grape shot at close range than board it. Having a double gunpowder equipment on your ships can help pierce the armour but it is not needed. If you keep close to your starting position, the AI will try to get close to you but will be pushed back by the wind direction, letting you shoot it from relative safety.

At 11 am in game time, the wind will change to north.

This is a though mission, and great to learn how to dance around a all around better ship. Redo as many times as needed. It is possible to complete this mission with less than 30 dead.

Harbour -

Integrate and crew your new 5th class ship. You need it right away. Equip it with light gun carriage tier 2 to be able to fill it to capacity with crew. It will be a ship intended to board others and fight up close. Give it good firearms with swords if possible, bayonets at the minimum.


Fireworks -

fill all remaining slots with your transport ships. We will use them to crew the captured ships.

If you haven't taken the habit of restarting a mission after reading the flavoured text yet, now is the time. You must put the game on pause immediately after skipping the text and aim the first salvo from the scenario warship effectively. It is at a great range to inflict crippling damage to both enemy ships with solid shots. Make sure you capture the ships.

A second wave of ships will now hit you, destroy them with solid shots if you're short on time, capture them otherwise.

With the smaller ships dealt with and crewed with troops from your transport ships, it is time to prepare to face the ship of the line. This ships outguns your whole fleet, do not fight it at any cost. Thankfully, the scenario provides 2 expendable fire ships that will cheese the fight for you.

Form an arrow with your ships. The tip of the arrow should be manned by the slow scenario battleship so it gets killed if ever your fleet takes a broadside. With the two fire ships kept on its sides. The rest of the ships must be behind them but ready to pounce on the flanks.

This will make the AI ship of the line come straight at the scenario battleship, which should be using this time to broadside it. As soon as the ship of the line is close and/or start presenting its broadside, rush the fire ships at it. For your first time with fire ships, I'd recommend saving here, the timing to light it up is when you are almost on the ship of the line. Fire ships have a tiny AOE.

As soon as the ship of the line is on fire, all its crew will be fighting it, leaving the guns. Bring all your ships with guns close and only shoot grape shots. Do not board it if you can, if you can't bring your full fleet to bear on it right after setting it on fire, send your 5th rate to board it. If you were lucky, you still have an unused fire ship, keep it handy.

The goal here is to have the ship render passive (surrender). As soon as this happens put a unit from one your ships in a rowboat and capture it asap, don't let it burn any longer than you need it to, repairing it is expensive. As soon as you capture it finish the mission.

If you want to have fun, you could let it burn and watch it explode. Make sure to reload a save after that.


Warning: The game was updated since this guide was written. Making the AI crews more resilient. However, I have redone this mission at the same difficulty setting and the guide still holds. Screenshots below as proof.








Harbour -

Do not integrate the ship of the line and 5th rate ships yet if you want to be cheap. prizes have smaller upkeep than regular ships. Give all other prizes to the admiralty.

In the next chapter, you only need 4 warships. So keep enough warships to do the luck missions and sell any extra after removing the crew and guns to reserve.

Before you an do anything on the map, the game will ask you if you want to control both sea and land units during one of the chapter missions or just the sea units. Always take the option to command both.


We will start with the Filthy smugglers mission for the only reason that it doesn't require you to manage your nay yet. Use the two transports that have the mortar crews.

Filthy smugglers -

This one is easy, all the hard fighting should be left to scenario units while your regular fusiliers do flanking fire.

Make your mortars and fusilliers join the scenario units once they are spawned on the map. Push the village slowly and kill all opposition with your artillery.

Once the village is captured, establish a defensive position out of sight. When the second part of the mission starts, the AI will launch a slow counter attack.

Once the counter attack is beaten, proceed to push all your troops to the second objective. The mission would like you to capture it with the units on your second boat but that's not a good idea. Before capturing the second objective, make sure you have all your units on it because you don'T want canons to be caught in the open here.

Now the third part of the mission will begin, many AI units will spawn in the marshland you just crossed. Escort the supplies wagon to the beach than make the crew drop them. This is an extra 150 scenario units to hold the line and keep yours safe.

Hold until the timer ticks off and finish the mission.


Harbour -

If you didn't have enough prestige to integrate the ship of the line, you should now. Integrate it and crew it with your best officers it eats 6 of them, now you'll truly realise how starved for good officers you are.

Make sure to install the lightweight gun carriages and max crew, you'll need it for the last mission.

You will abandon the 6th rate ships before the last mission, so don't refill their crews.

Take all your warships and transport ships for the next mission.


Snatch -

Do you see those two big transport ships in the mouth of the river? That's juicy prizes. Such a shame the one on the right will always sink.

Deal with the warships first, kill their crews with grape shots, board them, transfer minimum crew.

Once that is done, send some crews to deal with the 160 men using the canons position on the left entry to the river. There is a convenient beach right left of the fortification how of range. The canons are only defended by the units manning them, easy prey.

Once neutralised, send your 5th rate ship between the neutralised cannons and the last transport ship. This thing has 450 men, you are not boarding it until it surrenders. once it surrenders, send a unit by row boat to capture it and that's it for this part of the mission. Don't move your ships, the canons on the right have a ♥♥♥♥ range, they'll be safe unless you move them closer.

For the land part, as soon as your transport ships arrived, load all your units into row boats. since the canons protecting the river have bad range, you can already send your row boats down the river if you hug the centre. You don't have to wait on your warships to finish all the above actions if you don't want to. You might have a few casualties from crew shooting firearms from the transport ship.

The objective has a nice beach in front of it to land your troops. Now, this objective is a trap, as soon as you capture it, time will not be on your side anymore for the first time in the game.

So take your time to shatter every AI units around it first.

Once you are ready, you will capture all objective in quick succession. The first one in the village, the second one in the few houses on the left of the village, the third behind the river crossing on the right.

The second objective gives you a wagon with 50 troops, the loot. Once you capture the last objective, you just need to wait on the timer wile making sure the ai doesn't take it back. All previous objectives are irrelevant.


Harbour -

Time to prepare to face 3 ship of the line and a few extras.

Integrate the two 5th rate ships that were kept as trophies. Strip your 6th rate of guns, officers and crews and sell them.

Remove your officers from your other 5th rate. One of your newly integrated 5th rate is better and requires the second best officers after your ship of the line. It's the one that has less crew limit but more officers slots. It is faster and more nimble than the others and needs to be up close when firing to deal optimal damage. You'll use it to capture your objectives on the next mission while the rest keeps the dangerous ships occupied.


Treasure fleet -

Put your ship of the line first in the selection. This will be the distraction.

Important wind changes: to the North at 12 and to the West when you capture one of the transports.
If you load an in battle save the change to the north will not happen. It doesn't do you any good or big disfavour. just something to keep in mind.

Send your ship of the line to the top ledge of the map a little bit away from the rest of the fleet, wait on the enemy ships a bit than keep them occupied and on the edge of the map until your other ships finish capturing the transport ships. Ideally, you want your SOL on the top right corner with a nice distance between it and the first AI SOL before you capture the first transport.

With the other three ships, go as much up wind as possible, once they are far enough away from the passing fleet's guns, slip them on the side and go straight for the transports. you want this done asap.

Get close but outside firearms range and pepper them with grape shots until they both surrender. As soon as you capture one the wind will change.

If the strategy with your man of ship worked good, the AI will have one SOL in your range but sitting just outside its range. The ai will keep that ship there and you get to enjoy a turkey shoot. This ship will make a fine prize.

Time for the second great distraction, send your fastest 5th rate to aggro all other warships and keep them occupied.

For your captured transport, you can bring them to the edge of the map suggested by the scenario, or wait until the AI fleet follow your ship downwind then slip them by the top ledge. The latter is the best option, those transports are slow and being upwind will keep them safer than anything else.

Now here is a suggestion, you could keep the fight going and capture all AI ships. It's easy to screw up but possible to get the AI to have their ships stuck one at a time in the top left corner if you kite them well. But the game never intended for you to capture even one of them and this will take a very long time to get right and pull off. For the purpose of the guide, I will go with only one AI ship of the line captured.

Honestly, if you want a "tougher" time in the next missions, don't even bother capturing the AI ships apart from the transports.


Harbour -

Give all prizes to the admiralty except for the SOL.

Strip your current transports of all soldiers, crews and officers than sell them. Since the next chapter will not have any mission, you don't have to refill your crews for your warships yet.

Also, this luck mission has one of the worst roll chances I met, I hope the experience is different for you but for me it was about 200 dead per roll and 1500 funds needed for repair to destroy two puny 7th rates. What a joke. I loaded the end turn save until I had something more acceptable.

Either choose sell for about 6k funds or gift for 10 prestige. 10 prestige is pretty nice since if you followed my guide you now have a sizeable fund.

As usual, don't forget to hire the good officers that have been generated.

If you have 40 prestige or enough prisoner to get to that level, sell your weakest 5th rate after stripping it. 100 prisoner = 1 prestige, the game will propose an exchange by the next chapter if none are now.

Harbour -

Refill your crews on your battleships, lots of prizes ahead. If you have 40 prestige, integrate the SOL and give it your second best officers. If you don't have 40 prestige, do this at the beginning of the next chapter.


Ontario Express -

All your ships outgun everything the AI has. Just make sure not to fire solid shots from your SOL, the AI ships will explode easily.

Same old, capture all of them. It's easy prestige.


Harbour -

Give all your new prizes for prestige.

Research to unlock in tier 3:

Sword bayonet
gun carriages
boarding equipment tier 3


Weapons to stock on as you go along:

Continue finishing the stock of 8lbs land canons.
2 to 3k '78 musket and sword bayonet
64 32lbs and blomefield's guns
At least 64 24lbs blomefield's guns

The game will ask if you want corvettes of a frigate. It won't give you anything right away. It unlocks purchasing options. The frigate option will unlock a 5th rate you already captured in the past and that is not the best of its class. The corvette option will also unlock medium merchant ships for purchase so this choice is the more useful one.

Harbour -

Integrate your SOL if you didn't do it yet and unlock the research stated in prepare for act 3.

Clash -

2 easy ship to capture. The 5th rate is much faster so don't try to race it. It is the best 5th rate you can capture yet.


Harm Rum -

Capture all ships. Let the AI capture the ship objective, you can capture again after and will. It's hard finishing all the crew with grape shots and sports canons so board it. Plus if you board it you won't need to transfer any crew, the original crew will take back control.

Both scenario ships will join your forces permanently, so make sure they survive.


Harbour -

Time to prepare to face the second biggest army of the game. It will be slow and very easy.

The army composition you want:

2 full mortar units
1 full cannon unit, captured 4 lbs are fine if you don't have enough 8 lbs
4 full fusillier units with the '78 musket and bayonet

You don't need a supply wagon if you took the logistics perks on your mortar crews. Otherwise you can fit a half (50) crew supply wagon, it will be enough.

The best transport ship assortment:
2 transport ship of 1200 weights, only available in the shop. No upgrades.
And the free transport ship given by the last mission. Also no upgrades. Remember to remove the excess crew and all canons, this ship is not meant to fight.


Capture of Savannah -

Put all your ships with land units in the first selections and fill the rest with your warships. The game will give 1 scenario unit only, the dragoon they make good scouts.

Your warships units are there only to keep your flanks safe from sneaky small skirmishers. The sheer number of units will easily shatter them.

Only use your fusiliers as the main fighting troops.

To keep your loses low, always keep your fighting units close together and inside supporting mortars range. Only move forward when there is nothing your mortars can shoot at.


As soon as it begins, arrange your fusiliers in a line facing the town, with the artillery behind.

The sole opposing artillery unit is sitting on the objective with 2 canons, your dragoons will be able to spot them from the hill on the left of your starting point. Destroy them from afar with your canons.

The AI will send a few skirmishers to attack your forces at first.

Take the objective and 2 supply points, make sure to top off your artillery and fusiliers. Do not push in the town from the road, your canons won't be able to help and your infantry will be less effective.

Once the new objective is revealed, move your entire army to the trees on the left of the first objective.

Once properly positioned, slowly push to the church followed by the objective. The AI has concentrated there so don't brute force your way, take your sweet time and let the artillery clear the way.

Maintain position once the objective is taken and wait until the timer goes out and finish the mission as soon as it is proposed.


Harbour-

Give all prizes to the admiralty except for the high capacity 5th rate you captured in the first mission.

Sell the 7th rate ship you got for free

A map event will ask which luck mission you would like to do, the reward is the same for both options. Pick the flavor you like.

Harbour -

Integrate the high capacity 5th rate, It's worth putting boarding equipment tier 3 and Blomefield's iron guns on it if you have spares.

It's also a good time to put boarding equipment tier 3 of your SOL. Your 3rd rates that have blomefields iron guns with gun carriages tier 3 have enough weight capacity to sport a full crew with the boarding equipment.

Intelligence - The fake land mission

Don't bother bringing your transport ships.

As soon as the mission start, bring your warships a bit closer to the bottom left of the minimap. This is because the wind will be blowing to the south when the opposing fleet spawns near the top left corner. This places your fleet upwind.

Now put your game speed to max and wait patiently the two time limits. Once the second game timer goes out click the finish mission action right away, this make the AI fleet spawn.

Now capture all ships and wait for the last timer to run out.

Make sure the scenario ship doesn't get destroyed during all that. It becomes part of your permanent forces and you will keep it as is for a while.

Do what you want with the scenario land troops, they are not given to you after the mission.

Harbour -

Give all prizes to the admiralty. Sell the newly given transport ship.

He wore his beaver up -

Put your strongest ships in the spawn closest to the beach.

Your two SOL should focus on capturing the opposing SOL and ensure its speedy capture. Your 5 rates will take care of the other ships.

You can bring a transport ship on this one to have extra manpower for captured ship but it is truly not useful.


Harbour -

Strip your weakest 5th rate and sell it. Integrate the newly captured 3rd rate and use the reserves you got by stripping your ship to get a better crew for your new SOL.


Objects in motion -

Put all your strong ships in the spawn close to the center of the map. It is a good idea here to take your transport ship for extra manpower to send on surrender ships. make sure you stop them right at the beginning and make the units get closer on rowboats.

While it is a lot of ships, your have 3 SOL and they come piece meal.

Deal with the 3 AI ships that spawned the closest before the Opposing ships of the line reach you.

When this happens, you want your three sol to already be waiting in advantageous positions to weaken them. The first AI ship of the line outgun yours a little bit so you don't want a 1v1 here.

Make sure you capture both. Ideally all other ships as well to finance the prestige you will need to integrate the SOL later.


Harbour -

Integrate your new SOL prizes and top off your warships.


Blockade -

Even though the AI has a lot of ships, the wind is in your favour and their warships will come out piece meal.

Make sure to bring some transport ships for extra units to capture your prizes.

With five 3rd rate under your command, this will be an easy and very busy battle. Make sure to capture all opposing ships. The 2 opposing SOL are of the 78 guns 3rd rate class.


Harbour -

Give all prizes except the 2 SOL.

Harbour -

Top off your army and 3 crews of your 3rd rates.

Add one more full canon unit to your troops.


The final frontier -

The AI will attack in force your left, front and front right of your defences. The right with the supply point will only see limited forces.

As soon as It begins, land all your units including the crews of the SOL. You should split all available artillery into 2, one for the left and the other for the front right. Leave the scenario canon unit that is sitting in the front, it has a great spot to stop frontal assaults. No other artillery unit should be in defensive positions.

The scenario infantry units should be used in the front right or left part of the defences, use your SOL crews to make sure there are no holes in the line. Your fusiliers should be split in 2 for the left and front right.

Some defences are not good to man like the exposed ones in the front right part. The AI has 12 guns, make sure you don't stay in their fire with your permanent units.

The map event will either give you 1200 sea service '78 musket and sword bayonet or 35 prestige. The prestige is better.

A journal lets you know that from now ship repair cost will be 30% more expensive.

Harbour -

Top off your land units.


Siege of Toulon -

So you could defend your fortified positions or you could use 100% of your brain.

As soon as the battle begins pull out all scenario units from the objective and send them meet your permanent units at the beach. You can bring two SOL on this map and send them on each flank to provide some support fire.

Land your units on the beach and line the scenario infantry in front, your infantry behind and all artillery at the rear.

Advance toward the bottom of the hill holding the objective. Push to the objective slowly, you ideally want to recapture it just before the timer runs out. The AI will bring substantial infantry on the hill and a few canon units. Nothing that can hold a determined push after a long artillery barrage.

When the timer reach its end, make all your infantry march to the top of the hill. Make them march until they are face to face with opposing units before charging them. With the hill yours, leave the scenario units as intimidation factor for the last few seconds or minute and pull out all your units to safety. Finish the mission as soon as it is proposed.

Honestly, this is the best way to go at this mission. The objective hill you defend does not offer a vision bonus, no units on it can spot a few step beyond the cliff. It's actually only some of the defensive position manned by the scenario units that give the vision bonus on the AI units. They will be destroyed quickly as they are very exposed and fragile. After that, your units are sitting ducks. So you turn things around, you let the AI units go into that trap and you get to enjoy doing the turkey shoot instead.

Harbour -

Top off the crew of your 6 warships.


Escape from Toulon -

The AI only has frigates to oppose you with, capture them all.


harbour -

Add a full supply wagon and a full mortar unit to your army.

Corsica -

The sole difficulty of this map is staying out of fire from the AI canons as much as possible. As such, the objective on the right past the river will be ignored.

Other tips include using detached skirmishers from your fusiliers to scout ahead on open terrain. Taking breaks when your mortar units are low on condition. Keeping your canons from killing your troops. And saving your supplies for when your artillery is low on ammo.

Bring the crews from 3 SOL, they will be useful to cover your flanks and protecting your canons when the fusiliers push forward with the mortars. Due to the sheer number of them, if equipped with the 78' muskets and bayonet, the SOL crews can easily charge isolated AI units and destroy them with low casualties.


Once the mission begins, send your fusiliers followed by your artillery through the forest on the left side of the hill. Before leaving the forest to the bottom of the left objective hill, take a break to let your mortars get back their condition.

The small defensive outpost between the objective and the river is manned by a few infantry units and 1 canon unit while the objective is defended by even more infantry and canons.

Advance very slowly up the slope between the objective and the defensive outpost. Use skirmishers to get vision on the AI units and use your artillery to decimate them. Make sure to prioritise AI canon units when you spot them. Your supply wagon should only give supplies to your artillery units.

Once firmly up the slope and positioned on the road between the objective and defensive outpost, your canons will not be able to assist your troops. The AI may launch a counter attack at this point. Once the situation stabilises, take the time to clear AI units still around the defensive outpost so they can't harass your rear when you push the objective.

With the threat to your rear dealt with, push the objective very slowly. The AI will have a significant presence on it and only your mortars will be able to shoot at them effectively.

Once the objective is taken and the contested timer over, the second part of the mission will activate. The AI will pull back all its troops to the village for a last defence. So it is important to not let units on your side of the river retreat. Use your SOL crews to swarm all AI units up to the river crossing closest to the village. Once done, bring them back to the captured supply point on the original objective.

While your SOL crews do their thing, give a rest to your fusiliers and artillery on the supply point. Your supply wagon should be left on it until it finishes filling back up its supply capacity.

When ready, use the nearest river crossing. This will place your army in the small village behind the hill overlooking the new objective. Do not send your troops down the road and into the village because, the front of the village is a kill zone covered by the AI artillery. The fields sandwiched between the objective and the hill are a much better location to push from.

Send your 2 canon units up the hill so they can shoot into the village more effectively. Sneak your fusiliers and mortars to the foot of the hill facing the objective. Your SOL crews can hang further back on the left flank to assist when needed.

While you push the objective, the AI will send multiple counter attacks from the front of the village and from the village. Do not push into them as your units will become expose to focused fire. It is better to pull back your infantry and let the artillery do the work.

You only need one or two fusiliers units to push into the objective. You don't want to occupy the objective per say, because you only need to hold the objective for a short time to win the mission.


Harbour -

Sell all the free ships you just got. Give all prizes except for the 2 SOL to the admiralty.

A map event will ask you if you want a new SOL or funds. Taking funds will net you a little bit over twice the value choosing the ship would get you so it is the obvious choice. The ship proposed is the same 68 guns 3rd rate you already have and only comes with 180 crew.

Harbour -

Integrate the two SOL prizes that were saved up. At this point, all your sol should have the gun carriages and boarding equipment tier 3 installed. Ideally, they should all sport the heaviest Blomefield's guns they can and their crew should have the 78' muskets with swords or at least bayonets.


Grand Hiver -

Place your three 78 guns sol on the spawn with only 3 selection. Place your next 4 strongest ship in the spawn that does not have the hourglass. Fill the last spawn with the rest.


Quickly capture all 4 AI ships currently engaged with your 78 guns SOL. You want to set your SOL up before the second AI squadron gets to your forces. The only threat is the newly introduce 2nd rate leading that squadron and you want to get a few broadside on it while it makes its way to you.

Once the 2nd rate is close to your 7 SOL, board it from both sides preferably while the rest of your forces go deal with the frigates. Make sure to capture all ships as usual.

A third squadron with a 3rd rate will arrive while you finish the previous one. Regroup your SOL and capture them as well.


Harbour -

Integrate the 2nd rate and 3rd rate if you have enough officers. You can remove officers from your transport ships.


Glorious June -

Split your SOL equally between the 2 spawns but send the new 2nd rate to the bottom spawn. They will each engage and capture a separate AI squadron of 2 SOL and 2 lesser warships. That may differ for you, the AI ship have a small randomisation but it consistently has the stronger SOL near the bottom spawn. Restarting the mission changes the ship you go against.

If you want to reduce the amount of micro required, you can send your two squadron meet in the middle at the start. The AI ships will follow your own. If you use your ships to effectively create a jam when both side meets you can board the AI SOL quickly.

The AI will send warships to pursue any weak prizes you send downwind.

Once you have free warships, come back around and capture the transport ships. They don't have guns so you can broadside them unit surrender.

Do note that the AI ships have a very quick retreat timer on this mission. If a AI ship goes over the boundary, it will be unable to get back in time.



Harbour -

Keep a warship force of 9 SOL. Sell or give any extra warships. By now the prestige supply will allow the integration of warships for the sole purpose of selling them at your discretion.

Keep one of the prizes 4 slot transport ships and give the rest to the admiralty. This will be the last transport ship you will need to permanently add. Now you must have two 1200 weight + 3 slots transport ships and two 1000 weight + 4 slots. If not, the last mission gave enough prizes for you to get this setup.

5th rates provide more money per prestige points than 3rd rates. I did some calculations on the basic AI ships captured in the last mission while having the prices perk maxed out.

2nd rate 90 guns = 1057 funds per prestige point but don't sell them
3rd rate 68 guns = 576.7
5th rate 52 guns = 603.1
5th rate 46 guns = 625.2
1000 weight gunless merchant ship = 487.5
1200 weight MS = 298.8

Unlock the Ferguson rifle tier 3 research and start buying enough to fully equip 6 fusiliers units.

The baker rifles are a downgrade compared to the 78' muskets. The land pattern tier 3 research is a marginal upgrade to your current firearms and hardly justify an investment.

Unlock the hydrodynamic ship design tier 3 research.

Harbour -

Top off your land troops and 3 of your best SOL.


Contraband -

This mission is very tight on time. So the only place worth landing troops at is the port directly. Not a problem, the 6lbs guarding the entrance will barley graze your SOL.

When the mission starts unload your land troops into row boats. Form a line with your SOL with your rowboats on the right (furthest from the AI canons).

As you go past them, don't attempt to shoot at the canons with your sol as they are too low to touch their target. Instead, prepare grape shots and wait until you can shoot at the ships before letting your own fire.

Capture all 3 AI ships with 2 of your SOL, they will surrender quickly. Keep the last one back and use it to fire solid shots at the AI land troops. Take the time to soften AI units you can see before landing your troops.

Once softened enough or before you don't have enough time left land your troops and don't let your SOL fire at targets within medium to long range of yours to avoid friendly fire casualties.

Keep your attack concentrated and only push far enough to get the objective and wait the contested timer to run out. The game will let you finish the mission at that moment.


Harbour -

Top off your 9 SOL


Battle of Cape St Vincent -

The objective is to destroy 5 to 6 ships (or made to surrender). As soon as the condition is fulfilled you can instantly end the fight in a victory if you wish.

The mission gives you 5 scenario SOL to help you, they are low on manpower and should be used as fire support. The first rate will become part of your permanent forces after the fight.

The AI will have around 9 SOL including many 1st and 2nd rates + 12 frigates. In two separate group and this is important to the mission victory condition. The main group is a steamroller, it will head north at the beginning and will follow your last ships until you finish the objective. After that it leave the map in good order.

The second group is the obvious first choice of attack and I recommend that you pick off as many 2nd rates and 1st rates that you can from the back of the main group. 1st rates take 50 prestige to integrate and 2nd rates take 45 so factor that in the amount of ships you take on.

Make sure to capture the 1st and 2nd rates that you fight with.

Harbour -

You will need 10 warships for the next missions. So sell any extra.

Harbour -

Top off your 10 warships, and integrate all the 1st and 2nd rates you can.

My favourite equipment to put on 1st rates are Lightweight gun carriages tier 3 / Heavy hull tier 2 / Hull repair tier 3. Makes them invincible wreaking balls. Perfect to send in first to weaken the opposition.

For my 2nd rates, I go with: Lightweight gun carriages tier 3 / Heavy Hull tier 3 / Boarding equipment tier 3. Makes them tough enough to go against any AI 1st rate one on one. Not that you should.


Battle of the Nile - As last mission, you only need to destroy 8 ships before being allowed to end the fight.

You will face 1 1st rate, 6 2nd rate and 6 frigates. They will just sit in place allowing you to get at the front of the formation and then roll it up with your new ships. The wind will soon start blowing south making it a dream scenario.

The AI has a few 6 pounders in the little island and fort. Don't focus any efforts on them, the ones on the island will be wiped out as your ships pass.


Harbour -

Top off your land units and 2 or 3 warships for extra manpower. Don't repair any ships you don't have to, it will be cheaper next turn.



Guns in the desert -

As soon as your ships are all into your control, drop all crews in their rowboats and land them at the last beach on the left side of the map.

Assemble your usual battering ram of 4 Fusiliers closely followed by your 3 mortars. Screen your flanks with your warships crews and use the canons where you can. Make your way prudently to your objective letting the artillery do the hard work.

Once you capture the objective, another will spawn further inland. The AI units facing you will attempt to retreat, destroy them.

The AI will have a few infantry supported by a canon unit on both sides of the objective; in the towns. Once the objective is capture, you will be allowed to instantly end the battle and should.


Harbour -

In the next turn will take place the largest naval mission allowing you to bring 13 warships. A scripted event will let you have a 2nd rate for free before it. Sadly, this ship has stock guns and a poorly skilled crew and officers. After that mission the maximum will be 10 warships.

If you take the money rather than the ship in the scripted event, you will get 112 500 funds. This is the best choice unless you have less than 4 2nd rate and 2 1st rate.

With that in mind, keep the ships you want and get rid of any extra. Honestly, it's not worth collecting more than 10 warships of 2nd rate and higher. Keep 3 3rd rate with you until the big naval mission and get rid of them.

Harbour -

Do the scripted event on the world map and prepare your 10 best warships.


Battle of Copenhagen -

There will be 3 friendly AI warships in this scenario, they will sit far away from the action and won't help at any point.

The starting AI ships will all stay in place until attacked. After the start of the mission, around 9:45 am, 4 more AI sol will spawn that the shore's edge close to where your forces spawn. This allows you some time to place your ships in a perfect position to block them. As long as you don't let the ships go close to the larger AI group, they will not react.

Once you captured the first group head to the second one and finish the mission.

Harbour -

Integrate the 3 2nd rates you captured if you don't have a total of 10 warships that are this rating or higher. With this, your core forces are set. Give or sell all other prizes.

Take notice that the three friendly AI ships that sit the fight out were given to you. They're only 3rd rate and have bad guns but their officers are top notch.

Top off your 13 warships and give them the best equipment you can.


Battle of Camperdown -

The AI has 1 1st rate, 4 2nd rate, 6 3rd rate and 2 frigates.

Due to how your forces spawn, only a direct attack with no finesse is the best plan. It will be a micro intensive battle.


Harbour -

Deal with the prizes, do the luck missions.

Chapter 7 has no missions nor event.

Harbour -

Top off your 8 best warships


Duck Hunting -

The AI will have two groups composed of 1 SOL, 2 frigates and 1 merchant. They will almost sit in place until attacked.

A third AI group will come into the map from the bottom, midway between your group and the AI. You can take out each group one at a time to make it easier on the micro.

Finish the mission.


Harbour -

Top off your 8 best warships.


Dangerous Beasts -

The AI will have two groups composed of 1 2nd rate and 1 3rd rate + multiple frigates. The first group and largest start in front of your forces and the second will come in from the edge of the map behind your forces some time later.

There will be a third group of 2 merchant that will come in from the bottom of the map midway through the mission. Dealing with them completes the mission.

Take care of the large group first and the second one after and make sure not to miss the merchants while doing it.


Harbour -

Top off your land forces.
Integrate a captured merchant (4 slot): recruit 3 more fusiliers and 1 8lbs canon unit.
Buy one more merchant ship (3 slot): Add 1 to 2 mortars and fill the other solt with fusiliers.


Audacity - last land battle

Push to the farmstead with the AI supplies and form your defences around this. The AI will have numerous scouts, fusiliers and canons coming in three groups by the North, North-east and East.

Hold your ground around the farmstead; fusiliers around the edges and prepared positions with mortars and canons in the middle.

Snipe or overrun AI canons as they get into position, don't let them shoot your troops unopposed.


Harbour -

Get rid of your land forces and transport ship and any other extra ship. Only keep your 10 best warships.

Harbour -

Top off your 10 warships.


Battle of Cap Finisterre - 8 ships to destroy or surrender

The battle starts with your forces and the AI already formed in battle lines but going in opposite directions. The AI has 2 1st rate and 3 2nd rate and 6 3rd rate.

Take advantage of the wind direction to crash your forces into the AI battle line and finish the mission after an intense close quarter fight.

Only the first rates are a must to capture.


Harbour -

Do as usual.

Harbour -

Top off your warships.


Battle of Trafalgar - last naval battle

You are given 12 extra friendly ships along with your 10 for a total of 22. The AI has 24, among them 3 1st rate.

Treat yourself and blast the opposition to smithereens, no quarters. Or give all your forces to the AI control and sit back while the AI sort of easily wins the day with serious loses.

Congratulations on having won the British campaign.