United Provinces trouble

[KingGeorgeV]

Great plan CloudyGamer but how are you avoiding the Pirate fleets already in the trade theatres? I agree with taking out the Pirates early- that is always my first priority. I build up Indiamen as I am conquering the Pirate regions and send them out right before I take out their last region.

[CloudyGamer]

Thank you KingGeorgeV.

Madagascar and Ivory coast start with a small fleet of pirate ships.
These fleets are Brig or Xebec and the likes mostly, no match for a Fluyt/5th rate/6th rate fleet.

What i did is attack them as soon as my ships entered the theatre.
Capture their ships, and move them onto the nodes after.
Ofcourse there is the 5th rate flaghip those pirate starting fleets have, this you need to single out and disable by demasting.

After i had done that Ivory Coast remained the hotspot for pirate attacks until i took their islands.
Which was fortunate because it contained the larger concentration of my own ships.

[KingGeorgeV]

It only just hit me that I have never bothered to check out the fleets on the coast of Africa lol. I had always invaded the Pirate-held islands as soon as possible. I will have to look into this on my next campaign. I have fought the fleet in the East Indies which was a decently-sized fleet but never bothered with the others.

[CloudyGamer]

Haha, it wasnt my first playthrough with the United Provinces.

For some reason this way never occured to me in previous playthroughs as well lol.
It seemed obvious this playthrough and i sat there thinking, why did i never do this before!?

It was a fun campaign, in the end i did get the Emperor of Europe achievement (own every province in the theatre) and i had time left to conquer India completely as well within the domination campaign time limit(end of 1799) i was also shy a few provinces of 100. If i never played before i could have unlocked Maharajah of India and Emperor of Europe achievement and A New Rome in one play. Quite something for such a small country!

The following mods turned my game into Holland: Total War :P

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?p=7046402
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?p=6029286
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=244612

[swmackin]

I've found the Dutch to be one of the easier factions. This is what I do:
- Start building up Ceylon; you will use this shortly to launch an attack on india
- Take out the pirates. They are easy to take out. Then send out merchant ships. It is difficult to do indiamen trading if you have not taken out the pirates.
-Take out the Mughals and Persians. Grab as much as you can before the Marat get to it. Try and at least work your way from the west coast up to Hindustan, Punjab and Kashmir.
- Then take a break to build up your Indian territories. You will need a lot of money to take on the Maratha.
- Also build up your navy. The greatest strength of the Maratha is their economy which is based off trade. Navel blockades will thus crush their economy.
- Once you control all of India you will be the economic superpower of the game.