Trade ships have to be sent to the actual trade areas (West Africa, East Indies, etc) and moved to the circles. If they breach the wall, station several units around the gap in a crossfire position. When defending a fortress, try to move units around on top of the walls to head off enemy assaults. Capture the walls, then move troops down inside the fortress to attack the enemy reserve in the centre. One quirk (bug) is that if you use artillery to breach the walls, the breach is permanent for the rest of the game - so I prefer to use siege ladders. If you choose to assault the fortress, move fast to assault the walls. It's fairly certain the enemy will try to attack your beseiging army, but you'll have the benefit of field fortifications if they do. To capture cities, I ususally lay siege unless the garrison is very weak. That's the difference between letting the enemy stack retreat to fight again, and wiping it out. When the game tells you the battle is won, don't end it straight away send all your cavalry to chase down routing enemy stacks and wipe them out to the last man (concentrating on their best regiments first). Enemy artillery a nuisance? Send cavalry round the back of them and tell them to charge (but be wary of unengaged enemy reserves that will chew up your cavalry and never send horses in a frontal attack against guns.). Enemies in strong defensive positions? Outflank them. Try to gang up on the enemy with several regiments, and use crossfire from multiple angles. Once some of the enemy units start to rout, it's time to move forward. The cavalry can reinforce weak spots in the line and infanty regiments not engaged can march forward and pivot so they're firing at the enemy flanks. Be aware that they really love charging at your artillery, so have some troops in reserve ready to rush forward to cover them. The enemy will usually charge your line, and because you're stationary you'll do more damage to them. I tend to put my cavalry behind the line too, and keep it in reserve. (Friendly fire isn't.) Keep some infantry pulled back in echelon so if the enemy try and outflank you, you can react to them. Line up the line infantry in a solid rank, with the artillery in the centre of the line (for protection) unless you can put them on a hill behind the lines firing over your troops' heads. Research the bayonet techs that let your men engage in melee without sacrificing firepower, and the one that allows firing by rank. I don't think I've lost a battle where I wasn't outnumbered by at least two to one. Tactics: Again, the AI isn't very clever. Always cancel taxes from a captured province for a few years until nationalism has subsided remember to rebuild the government buildings, and maybe station extra troops there if they're still rebellious. Then siege their cities take a few turns to recover/build up strength, and move forward again. If you see them forming a big army, hunt it down and kill it.

One main army is assigned to each front (or rather, a front is defined as 'somewhere where I have a main army'). Cities get a couple of militia each as garrison, maybe some dragoons. Once I can afford it, I build additional armies like that. I generally put together a maximum-strength main army with something like 4 cavalry units, 2 artillery, 2 mortars, maybe a couple of skirmishers, a luxury unit or two for fun, and the rest Line infantry. At least Russia shares fewer borders than, say, Prussia. Strategy: trying to pick your fights is a good plan, but you'll probably end up fighting everybody in Europe anyway, sooner or later.

Empire total war tips