New year, New me! How i took hold of my future and shaped up in January... while playing total war

A dark and stuffy cabin on the fringe of the civilised world. Four steadback riders faun their attention over the fickle and inane. Stuffing their face with wine and brie, until one man cries,
“This new government of the our people, the nation of France is nothing but a sham!” stoked to action a young artillery officers rises to his feet Notpoleon No-Bonaparte, handsome and devilishly charming, sure to never succumb to male pattern baldness, he puts the vile dog in his place with an impromptu speech and then he beds two red head maidens…

I’ve never been to Corsica and i’ve never written self insert fanfiction about myself, one of those is true for me but neither for our dear emperor circa. 1804-1814. He is the subject of much discussion by historians, which is code for: he killed lots of people. Also they made a total war game about him and you can do all his battles and stuff and that’s worth talking about maybe?

Do i need to explain a total war game to anyone in the room? No? Thank frog, i honestly struggle to sleep when i have a strategy game like that installed on my pc as i suffer from chronic over-musing syndrome, an affliction i discovered after thinking about it too much. Feverish fitful nights were spent in tight white cotton leggings screaming
“je m'appelle BVGROTI,” while directing brutal cavalry charges against fleeing Austrian soldiers.
When i started playing, i confess, i knew little of strategies of the day. My last total war game was rome and while i will spend some time discussing it at a later date for now imagine a toga wearing latin spitter thrust into to the advent of the new pedagogical age. Turns out the melee-mash phalanx was the strategic equivalent of duct taping to leg to your enemies and thrusting it into a woodchipper.

Innovation was required!
“If you want a thing done well, do it yourself. you lazy sausage,”
I was commanding as napoleon, napoleon was an artillery officer before he became emperor. so maybe, i reasoned, cannons might be pretty useful. My first attempt was a failure, the dirt directly ahead of the embankment i placed the cannons in was utterly smashed beyond all recognition in a somme like hail of death. Unfortunately the enemy army were behind the dirt i was pounding and so i got overrun and lost the battle.

Step two, the second! I needed a real enemy, so i hopped on with a friend to play a quick match. My cannons, numbered twice the standard complement were poised to smash his line before he got in range, unfortunately he charged them mid reposition with his cavalry leaving me anchor-less… then his internet broke and so i won by default, progress had been made.

Next i actually learnt how a firing arc worked and took account of terrain when positioning my guns. You know, like an artillery officer would do. This was the turning point, but it came at a steep price, an hour of watch history videos on youtube. A boot camp in war, death, slaughter and pain all narrated by the acoustic voices of the digital domains finest. Still didn’t quite get the whole friendly fire thing but hey if you kill as many friends as enemies you’re getting double points right?
“An army marches on its stomach, pass me that croissant mon philip,”

Battles were won, close cut things. Carried to me by the grace of fate.
“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake or eggs Lorraine.”
But with each slaughter my tactics evolved and with it came stronger victories and fewer team kills. A major step forward was taken when i began using “stinger” forces, yes i am obsessed enough to name my strats. Two infantry and a cavalry group. AKA two in the pink one in the brown. The cavalry are used to bait the enemy units into switching to a cav-square, horses don’t understand squares making this a strong counter. At which point the infantry charge the enemy having reduced their effective fighting action power (E-FAP) in half, with the subsequent application of the Lanchester's square law. One sees why they are then wrecked.

A refinement of design took place until i struck upon my master stroke, the MAW. (Makes enemy Army get Wrecked) with cannons in the centre of my line overlooking a topographic depression, i know the feeling. I had on their flanks units of line infantry backed up with cavalry, and ahead in the depression a tiny morsel of bait. The plan was simple, lure the enemy into the MAW and rain canister shot on them with my flanks holding them tight and engaged at range.

I don’t want to say the tactic trivialised most encounters, but it actually did.
“Numbers count for nothing when funnelled into the rotating knives.”
occasionally, just the once actually i blundered and marched a nearly depleted army into enemy territory, outnumbered 2:1 my MAW’s left flank was ground down and over run but not before we had whittled two thousand men down to about three hundred. A pyrrhic loss for austria that spelled their end. Not one to seek challenge, especially in a strategy game, i rinse-repeated until total conquest was mine.
“Ability is nothing without opportunity, and a ratatouille.”

At this point i’d lost enough sleep to my war fever, so i uninstalled the game and got back to living as an exile on some butt-frog island in the middle of nowhere. The game has horses, some of will pull your cannons, colour me french.