In my last games playing as the British before the recent patches I was always able to get most of the strategic towns and could most of the time hold them until the French arrived.In my last game I besieged with a strong force Philadelphia as the French Expedition suddenly appeared at Charleston.Until then I got strong forces together mostly dependant to my constant training program for my militia which I evolved to Provincials and therefore using them as garrison troops together with my remaining militia.
Most of my militia was so heavy trained to provincial level that most of them got three of four elements to be provincial so that they will not disbanded at the end of the year.But some of them have a decent level of 44 strength points similar to good british regulars because they got good experience.The other provs regiments had only 38 points.I use the 44s together with my regulars.I had instituted two training centers for militia after some good training officers like Rawdon and Schmidt appeared around 1776.Rawdon was on heavy duty in Charlotte and Schmidt later in Albany as it was captured as the AI leave Albany behind very weak to respond to an attack on New York where the Rebel forces under Washington were heavily beaten in a long straight victorious battle.
I strongly recommend to trust on heavy militia training with this two officers-later will come a third whom name I forgot.Strictly train always two militias at a given time to three elements of provincials then take the next ones.At the end of the year this trained militia/provincials will mostly not to be disband.This occurs only if you have too much provincial regiments as it seems to me.If you have trained enough ones to three element provs then pick this ones with experience and train them to full level.The other ones send to the next strategic town as garrison troops where they substitute the regular garrison troops which will send to the next best location with a high general to become a major army for a main task.
I tried most of the first years to get most strategic towns ,beat most of the enemy main forces,training militia and then form good experienced army forces to get Philadelphia,Norwich and Pittsburgh.In my last game which I stopped playing after the latest patch I had only Philly and Pittsburgh left and had a very high VP count against the Americans as the French suddenly appeared although foreign entry level was zero.
If you forgot to train militia into provincials you will loose much of your force and strength over time due to some misunderstanding of the game mechanics.
It is important even more for the British than for the Americans to train Militia as soon as possible.As a British player you need trained forces to hold strategic towns and objectives and to have a good field force with regulars,do not always use regulars or poor militia as garrison.The regulars should placed in passive mode to get replacements and the militia should be trained to provincials.A usual way of mine is to setup militia garrisons in hold at all cost stance.Because most of the time the AI attacks with two or three regiments but cannot overwhelm the garrison and the garrison got most of the time good experience.In my last game it was always like that some one or two element regular garrison defends well against two continental or three militia attacking getting experience,latter I rotate them out to a well supplied place at the coast like New York,Norfolk or Savannah or Albany or Boston and tried to get more elements.I placed provincials to replace the regulars as garrison and I went the right way with them.
So my conclusion is the following:substitute regular garrisons with trained provincials;train experienced militia to provincials as soon as possible even rotate less experienced militia/provincials out of the training stack into reserve until the experienced ones are fully trained.NEVER let it happen that your experienced militia will be disbanded at the end of the year you will loose important combat strength and power.Maintain always some good forces near New York,Albany and Richmond in midgame so that you can develop a good attack on the last enemy holdings around Philly.
Maintain most of your Ranger troops together with some provincials in the south in direction of Pittsburgh.You need a depot two regions south of Pitty where you assemble your southern attack force.At Lake Erie,in Erie you should assemble even a small force with Caldwell ,some provincials,and mostly Indians,so you can attack on two directions on Pittsburgh in the last game year of war even if the French appears this should be done to get most of the objectives to gain a major victory.I have played WIA two times until Victory,only the third try was stopped having not enough time because of some other games which I am playing now.
I am very happy with WIA and it is for me one of the best alltime strategy games I have ever played since 1991.Congratulations dear AGEOD fellows...
with best regards
Hohenlohe
always your greatest fan
R.I.P. Henry D.
In Remembrance of my Granduncle Hans Weber, a Hungaro-German Soldier,served in Austro-Hungarian Forces during WWI,war prisoner, missed in Sibiria 1918...
I took some of the objectives after this message.
