Gosu_McBoss: hello, after winning consistently on 250 difficulty I am the point where I don't see how I can lose by using this strategy. I am not going to try harder difficulty because the AI will not get better, I will have to do tedious calculations for the first 200 turns.

TURN 1:
- you pick a capital with as much grain as possible because of the level 2 grain, in the end u can make a lot of ships and ports for meat, but it might take a while til you can harvest level 2 grain
- delete your peasant levies
- buy 2 workers if you can make up the deficit they will create in time for them not to starve(rare)
- make 1 paper for a new civilian, scout if there are many hills/mountains nearby or engineer if they are far, you need to get to DAT ORE
- check out minor nations who sell iron, build trade embassies there
- set research for timber 2, diplomacy and merchant unit
- engineer can go towards forests until the scout(s) have revealed the iron, you can make good money selling timber and paper to buy iron
- send 1 ship to scout all of the indian capitals, you will want them all exposed so u can trade with them
- set trade bid for wool and iron ore, prioritize iron ore
- do not offer anything, do it once you established trade consulate in case those countries are buying you will also get improved relationships, number of trade counts, not number of items, so selling 1 timber, 1 paper is a better relationship improvement than selling 100 paper
- hope I haven't forgotten anything

TURN 2 and onwards:
- keep scouting, but don't go a long way for 1 unit of iron ore if u got 3-4 timber and wool nearby, better to exploit that and sell it to get a steady income source and then go for the iron. you can also scout close by swamps in favor of long distance hills/mountains. you can easily build a trade empire with half the population working on refining imported raw materials.
- don't forget your research, you need horse artillery, they are pretty much the point of the game, if you get them too late you're gonna get run over, get them early and u can run over your neighbours, get their food, if lucky, their tin and then keep on rolling through everyone else.
- same with early galleons, even 4 of them early can blockade a harbor and then the blockaded country can either fight and cancel trade, or keep trading and risk getting it's ships intercepted one by one by 4 juggernauts of early naval warfare. galleons are also great at cargo space if u can spare the tin.
- keep a balance between workers and warehouse, don't develop resources if you got 30 timber, 30 iron , 30 wool etc., instead build farms and ports to max your population according to your own raw material exploitation.
- calculate how much trade capacity you can use for the import of raw materials and add that to your raw material income flux, then add all of the materials up and make sure you got enough workers so that nothing is wasted sitting in the warehouse for nothing.
- I rarely buy processed resources, I'd rather buy 2x raw for ~100 and use or sell for 250
- find the money early to establish an embassy in the nation(s) selling iron ore, they will start making you ~50 per turn, you need 1000 for embassy, 500 for merchant unit + 3 paper(750) and ~550 to buy up their iron ore mines
- you can also buy this ore at 50% subsidy which will insure you get it and you'll have a 40% discount, so you end up paying a little less than normal asking price with priority.
- the merchant is amazing, you can buy up diamonds from indian capitals. I bought a diamond mine and the first time they sold it to me for ~256, but every turn the price got lower, up to ~100 and I think it would have gone even lower but the game ended, so you'll make 150 on first turn, so in a bout 15 turns you'll get your money back.
- do not forget the horses, you can buy up horse ranches and then buy them at 40% discount.
- 2 light cavalry are enough for level 1 forts, u can break the wall on the fair side, then send cavalries, end turn, the battery will hit one of them, then move the full hp one towards it, it will get blasted, then you can move in melee range with bot cavalries. you only need 1 artillery to take forts. even the siege ones, now that I think about it, they just have to get in range to blast the walls w/o getting shot. you can use just one cavalry, but I think it will die on the approach on the second turn after the breach, then you move in artilleries so they do 2 hits, battery will hit them once and then you can kill it. light cavalry is pretty cheap, but I don't like losing units.
- level 2 forts I don't know, because by the time I meet those I have 12 light artilleries. walls take 5-6 hits, so you're better off rushing one of the batteries and then sending 2 cavalries for the second one.

I do not go to the new world at all anymore, before I used to be desperate to get it's resources, but now I focus on developing my own lands to the max, and before I know it horse artillery is ready, so I start rolling through my neighbours. I even took out a major power's capital on the first turn of war because I had 8 horse artilleries early.

I wish the game was slower so that I could actually explore the new world, but once you get artillery you can start rolling on everyone.

I am playing on Aggressive Game, I wish the AI would rush me with a couple of culverins and some pikemen while I sit with ZERO army for the first 40-50 turns. but they don't...

** it seems the new world capitals do get conquered if they are heavily exploited by the human player.

Gosu_McBoss: hello, after winning consistently on 250 difficulty I am the point where I don't see how I can lose by using this strategy. I am not going to try harder difficulty because the AI will not get better, I will have to do tedious calculations for the first 200 turns.

TURN 1:
- you pick a capital with as much grain as possible because of the level 2 grain, in the end u can make a lot of ships and ports for meat, but it might take a while til you can harvest level 2 grain
- delete your peasant levies
- buy 2 workers if you can make up the deficit they will create in time for them not to starve(rare)
- make 1 paper for a new civilian, scout if there are many hills/mountains nearby or engineer if they are far, you need to get to DAT ORE
- check out minor nations who sell iron, build trade embassies there
- set research for timber 2, diplomacy and merchant unit
- engineer can go towards forests until the scout(s) have revealed the iron, you can make good money selling timber and paper to buy iron
- send 1 ship to scout all of the indian capitals, you will want them all exposed so u can trade with them
- set trade bid for wool and iron ore, prioritize iron ore
- do not offer anything, do it once you established trade consulate in case those countries are buying you will also get improved relationships, number of trade counts, not number of items, so selling 1 timber, 1 paper is a better relationship improvement than selling 100 paper
- hope I haven't forgotten anything

TURN 2 and onwards:
- keep scouting, but don't go a long way for 1 unit of iron ore if u got 3-4 timber and wool nearby, better to exploit that and sell it to get a steady income source and then go for the iron. you can also scout close by swamps in favor of long distance hills/mountains. you can easily build a trade empire with half the population working on refining imported raw materials.
- don't forget your research, you need horse artillery, they are pretty much the point of the game, if you get them too late you're gonna get run over, get them early and u can run over your neighbours, get their food, if lucky, their tin and then keep on rolling through everyone else.
- same with early galleons, even 4 of them early can blockade a harbor and then the blockaded country can either fight and cancel trade, or keep trading and risk getting it's ships intercepted one by one by 4 juggernauts of early naval warfare. galleons are also great at cargo space if u can spare the tin.
- keep a balance between workers and warehouse, don't develop resources if you got 30 timber, 30 iron , 30 wool etc., instead build farms and ports to max your population according to your own raw material exploitation.
- calculate how much trade capacity you can use for the import of raw materials and add that to your raw material income flux, then add all of the materials up and make sure you got enough workers so that nothing is wasted sitting in the warehouse for nothing.
- I rarely buy processed resources, I'd rather buy 2x raw for ~100 and use or sell for 250
- find the money early to establish an embassy in the nation(s) selling iron ore, they will start making you ~50 per turn, you need 1000 for embassy, 500 for merchant unit + 3 paper(750) and ~550 to buy up their iron ore mines
- you can also buy this ore at 50% subsidy which will insure you get it and you'll have a 40% discount, so you end up paying a little less than normal asking price with priority.
- the merchant is amazing, you can buy up diamonds from indian capitals. I bought a diamond mine and the first time they sold it to me for ~256, but every turn the price got lower, up to ~100 and I think it would have gone even lower but the game ended, so you'll make 150 on first turn, so in a bout 15 turns you'll get your money back.
- do not forget the horses, you can buy up horse ranches and then buy them at 40% discount.
- 2 light cavalry are enough for level 1 forts, u can break the wall on the fair side, then send cavalries, end turn, the battery will hit one of them, then move the full hp one towards it, it will get blasted, then you can move in melee range with bot cavalries. you only need 1 artillery to take forts. even the siege ones, now that I think about it, they just have to get in range to blast the walls w/o getting shot. you can use just one cavalry, but I think it will die on the approach on the second turn after the breach, then you move in artilleries so they do 2 hits, battery will hit them once and then you can kill it. light cavalry is pretty cheap, but I don't like losing units.
- level 2 forts I don't know, because by the time I meet those I have 12 light artilleries. walls take 5-6 hits, so you're better off rushing one of the batteries and then sending 2 cavalries for the second one.

I do not go to the new world at all anymore, before I used to be desperate to get it's resources, but now I focus on developing my own lands to the max, and before I know it horse artillery is ready, so I start rolling through my neighbours. I even took out a major power's capital on the first turn of war because I had 8 horse artilleries early.

I wish the game was slower so that I could actually explore the new world, but once you get artillery you can start rolling on everyone.

I am playing on Aggressive Game, I wish the AI would rush me with a couple of culverins and some pikemen while I sit with ZERO army for the first 40-50 turns. but they don't...

** it seems the new world capitals do get conquered if they are heavily exploited by the human player.