Hi:
I'm going to have the Empire Total War soon, and I've read thousands of pages saying that the game has a very high difficulty, and I'm not quite sure whether to buy it or not.
I would like someone of you to give me some advice or tips to not BE A NOOB in the game and lose the campaign in a few turns.

Thanks!
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Don't worry about the first two or three campaigns. Use them to get a feel for the game play. Try the Road To Independence campaign first. The first three parts are basically a tutorial. After that just enjoy. My favorite factions are the Prussian, Swedes and UK in that order. I'm about to complete another Prussian campaign now.
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0 · Disagree AgreeThe most important advice that will probably help you more than anything else combined:
If you're having trouble in battles either because there are too many enemies or just because you're not that experienced there is one thing that will fix all your problems: Fire by rank.
This is a military technology that you can research when you have built the tier 3 military building (if I remember correctly) and it allows three ranks of your line infantry to shoot and not just the first rank (note that this doesn't work for militias).
This gives your line infantry triple the strength of any enemy line infantry.
If you go for that tech really quickly, you can research it at turn 20-30. The AI usually needs about 70 turns to research it, so in the 40-50 turns in between you are basically invincible.
And some minor advice that makes your life a lot easier as well:
Use your artillery to focus down enemy cavalry, that's pretty OP.
Get rid of half-cannons, sakers and pikemen as quickly as possible, use movable artillery.
Your units don't replenish by themselves like in the newer games, you have to pay for it like in Rome/Med II, but they take two turns to replenish, not just one.
The real money is in trade. Get some colonies and plantations if you're a western european nation with good access to the sea.
Upgrade your farms, these create new settlements which give you a lot of money, happiness or research, all of that is good.
Build as many schools/universities as your public order allows, you can research many things at once.
Factionwise in the grand campaign I recommend either France or Great Britain if you want a colonial faction (they have good infantry and a good navy as well as decent territory in Europe) or Prussia if you want a landlocked faction (their infantry is just ridiculously strong).
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