Christianity's upsides are better wealth generation and chi art research speeds, better religious agents, much better trade ships, and earlier access to imported matchlocks. Its downsides are the removal of warrior monks, bad relations with other daimyo, reduced honor, and the fact that most of the map is Buddhist meaning slower expansion as you waste time converting the population.

With that in mind, it's clear that Christianity is best for the early-mid game, where wealth growth is essential and wresting control of trade nodes is a big deal. The extra chi research means either more advanced chi tech for the same amount of time or more time to devote to bushido arts. 

In the late game, Buddhism becomes superior once a big war chest is saved up, techs are researched and the trade nodes are firmly under control. Bow warrior monks are just that good, easily worth the hassle of reconverting, and the increased long term happiness makes it easier to integrate territories.

With that in mind, I will be examining each faction and how suited they are to converting to Christianity (and back again later).

• Shimazu: Shimazu has a mid-aged daimyo, perfect for conversion (after he dies, you can convert back at will). Shimazu daimyos even have 1 extra honor, making the honor hit not as painful. It also greatly benefits from the better ships as most of the trade nodes are nearby. 5/5.

• Mori: An old daimyo and a dependence on ships, with a similar proximity to trade nodes, makes this a no-brainer too. 5/5.

• Chosokabe: More interesting. Chosokabe have the best bow warrior monks in the game so losing them is a little silly. On the other hand, their starting province of Tosa means that they get a tiny amount of trade ports that actually connect with their capital, so building as many Nanban Quarters on Shikoku as possible maximizes trade income. Old daimyo and proximity to nodes too. 5/5--but with the caveat of strongly considering switching back to Buddhism at some point to regain access to the monks.

• Hattori: Old daimyo, yes, but far from nodes and also surrounded by others in a precarious position. Not a great time or place to make your neighbors angry. 2/5.

• Oda: Middle aged daimyo, also surrounded by people who hate it, far from nodes. Matchlocks are historically accurate so it may be worth conversion, but a difficult way to play. 3/5.

• Tokugawa: same as above. 3/5.

• Takeda: Young daimyo that can survive the whole campaign. Super far from nodes, surrouded by hostiles. I would discourage going through the trouble of converting. Takeda armies are very shock and offfense oriented, which may work with matchlocks but not really worth the hassle. 2/5.

• Hojo: Older daimyo. Access to the best European cannons in the game. Nominally, this makes for a great candidate. But European cannons are awful, even with Hojo bonuses, and the nodes are still far away. It's one of the better candidates in eastern Japan but it's not great. 3/5.

• Uesugi: Youngest daimyo that will live through the whole campaign, bonus to Buddhist monk agents, far from nodes, superior warrior monks!! What are you doing converting? 0/5! 

• Date: Young daimyo that will probably live through most of the campaign. However...Date armies are built around the charge, making bows less of a good fit. In addition the lands to the north are rich and becoming Christian just makes them all the more richer. Next to one solitary node, which often gets attacked despite its position. A lot of pros and cons on this one. 2.5/5. 

This version of the Battle of Waterloo is largely the same as the campaign version, but with one crucial difference: while the campaign version has the French army having a massive experience advantage, in this one it's much more evenly matched. 

My strategy in the campaign version was to have all the cavalry, the horse artillery, and a couple of infantry move to the east and rout the Prussians as they spawned while the remaining infantry and artillery mow down the British as they advanced. 

This is still possible in the Battles version, but it's much more dicey. Your infantry aren't nearly as good, so the British can punch through your middle and left through sheer firepower and numbers alone. The Prussian side on the right is still ok because your success there largely depends on the charge skill of units, which isn't affected by experience--but your left flank just can't consistently hold it.

You could shift around some units from my previous strategy to make it work, but just for fun, let's use an alternate strategy--the one that was probably intended by Creative Assembly.

Attacking the British flank

A frontal charge with all your units is a bad idea for a plethora of reasons: you have height disadvantage, artillery disadvantage, range disadvantage thanks to the numerous Jagers and light infantry the British have, and three indestructible houses from which the British can shoot you with impunity. Hideous. 

The right side has an impassable cliff that would funnel your troops straight to the center, or a giant loop around that would lead you to the Prussians.

The left is the only clear path. Gather up all your infantry--minus one or two regiments to defend your artillery, who in turn should be pounding away at any exposed cavalry the other side has--and run them all to the left side, behind the ditch where you're initially set up. WIth the fusiliers leading the charge, clear out the forest to the north, then squeeze as many units as possible firing on the house and the left-most British infantry. Try to have the fusiliers soak up most of the damage: they have the worst stats and are thus the most expendable. Roll up the British flank this way, forming concaves to concentrate fire on any units that respond. Form squares as you get close to their cavalry. 

The cavalry, meanwhile, have two choices: support the infantry on the left, or try to use my strategy on the right. It is highly effective but very micro-intensive. 

It's not possible to research all arts within a reasonable time frame. I've never done it, and my longest campaign reached well over 150+ turns--and this was with all philosophical traditions, and all generals and monks being attuned specifically to increasing art mastery rates. So prioritization is key.

The top six techs are omitted because they're prerequisites for all other techs and thus should practically always be researched anyway.

A Tier

• Equal Fields: Upgrades farms, therefore allowing you to increase the wealth of all your towns. In the early game this makes a huge difference. Unlocks Chonindo, another essential art.
• Chonindo: Unlocks the full potential of your archers, as well as the full earning potential of your farms. This is practically a requirement pre-realm divide unless you're sitting on absurd amounts of money, as it allows you to squeeze as much money out of each province as possible without triggering realm divide.
• Essence of Spirit: Unlocks Bow Warrior Monks, which are the best archers in singleplayer.

B Tier

Situationally useful, depending on the situation you're in.

• Tea Ceremony: The extra honor can be useful depending on how high the daimyo's honor is by the time this art is available for the happiness bonus. Unlocks nice but non-essential arts.
• Tax Reform: Practically A tier, this art increases tax income and unlocks important arts. Unlocking Merchant Guild isn't as useful as it sounds however since it hurts long term wealth generation to build them. Research this after all the A tier stuff is done.
• Scholarship: Especially useful for Christian factions as it allows upgrading for churches. Unlocks useful technologies, and increases the chance of monk actions, all of which are useful. Unless you're Christian, though, none directly impact wealth generation or military effectiveness.
• Ninjutsu Mastery: Kisho ninja aren't a large part of most strategies, and are unavailable for much of the game anyway. Ninja success rates are already pretty high, particularly with proper training. Unlocking the Infamous Mizu Shobai District, however, generates some additional wealth and an additional assassin...if you have access to incense, which you probably won't unless you have a pretty significant navy come realm divide to secure the trade nodes.
• Calligraphy: I consider the diplomacy bonus to be largely useless because of how fickle the A.I is in terms of diplomacy. The increase in trade income, however, is useful and research of Calligraphy unlocks a couple of useful arts.
• Neo-Confucianism: Both effects are relatively meaningless, since by the time you can access this art you should be fine in terms of both conversion and happiness. Buildings unlocked are also relatively meaningless unless you keep losing monks and can really use that starting experience boost. The exception is if you're Christian, where the extra wealth granted, need for faster conversion, and better missionaries are all strong benefits. This also applies if you are about to convert to another religion.
• Kinza Mint: The huge wealth increase and unlocking of the Kabunakama (allowing for higher tier metsuke) make this the best late-game wealth increase technology, in case you are having financial troubles in the late game, but if you've prepared correctly you shouldn't be.

C Tier

Useless, or near useless. Only research if you have nothing better to do.

• Noh: Unless you constantly loot and betray allies, your daimyo should have high honor, which means that your generals should also have high honor, which makes this tech useless. Neither of the arts it unlocks are essential.
• Secret Police: Metsuke are undoubtedly at their most useful 95% of the time stationed in towns and making money. The only time they use money is when they're bribing enemy armies, which doesn't happen that often. The art it unlocks is unimportant.
• Sumo Tournament: The consumption of food this tech does heavily offsets the increase to tax income. By the time you access this art clan-wide happiness should no longer be an issue.
• Traditional Building: You shouldn't build many castles anyway because they reduce long term wealth, and the reduction to castle building times may save you at most one or two turns. The buildings unlocked are equally meaningless. The only saving grace of this art is the arts it unlocks, though they are all related to wealth creation and by the point you've unlocked this you probably already have more money than you know what to do with.
• Sword Hunt: Once again, Metsuke should be in towns to maximize effectiveness. Bribery is rarely the best course of action and plenty of other agents can remove agents from the world map. The extra happiness is meaningless by the late game, where all regions should be well under control.
• Epic Architecture: The extra money and happiness are practically meaningless! By the time you've researched this you're almost certainly mopping up Japan in the end game, and the roads and citadels unlocked are luxuries.

Enemy generals gain exp at the same rates as yours, at 3 per lost fight and 10 per won battle. So what's preventing you from trapping an enemy general in place and continually sending single ashigaru regiments to fight them, having them retreat as soon as  the battle starts? This counts as a win for the enemy too, and after leveling the general appropriately you can then convert them with metsuke. This shouldn't even take too much effort: a stack of 20 units, each being sent one at a time to fight a general before retreating, would give said general 200 exp--enough to level him to lvl 4, while two stacks should be able to level an enemy general to level 6 instantly. That's a lot of experience to make a great commissioner. Will test when I have the chance. 

Generals have three broad paths when it comes to leveling up: to the right, the warrior path makes them essentially a strong katana cav force. The middle path help them buff friendly troops the most or otherwise make battles easier. The left path grants bonuses on the campaign map.

Let's first examine the warrior path. General base stats are 14 Attack/15 Charge/8 Armor/6 Defense/15 Morale, making them quite similar to Katana Cav (18/15/6/6/12) but with a smaller unit size. A fully upgraded 6 star general, maxing everything except Die-Hard Fighter (generals already have very high morale so more points into it is functionally pointless) creates a unit with 18/25/10/10/17 stats, as well as 52 men on ultra settings. This makes it more in line with the katana cav hero unit. Is it worth it though? You can get an unlimited amount of other cav units, but in most campaigns you'd be restricted to maybe 10 generals max.

Between the right and middle is a sub-set of skills. "Stealthy" is potentially very useful for holding chokepoints, and the third level of it is superb for melee oriented generals as it grants the night fighter trait, great for isolating armies from one another. "Pirate" is potentially good for either a faction that has disregard for the honor stat, or has such high honor that they can afford to take the hit from looting, but outside of a couple of very specific circumstances I can't see how to justify this.

The middle path contains traits that are more up a traditional general's alley. Some skills immediately stand out more than others. Strategist's big boost to movement will really help generals get to objectives or escape from bad situations, and the third level is particularly important for "Stand and Fight" generals. "Infantry Leader" grants the incredibly powerful Stand and Fight ability, and can be maxed for the extra melee attack. However Ashigaru Commander, Siege Expert and Castle Defender are in my opinion fairly useless. Properly supported Ashigaru usually don't break unless the battle is about to be lost anyway, and computers rarely opt to siege you out, so the siege defender's extra seasons of sieging out are pointless. The A.I is usually bad enough in siege battles to make the extra command stars unnecessary. Field Attacker and Defender are both potent. I don't think Cavalry Commander's particularly exciting or useful, unless it's for the Takeda Clan. "Intimidating" is good but raises the interesting question of whether scare effects stack. If they don't, having the "Sword of Amaterasu" retainer or Warcry/Whistling Arrows/matchlock guns and so on would render the skill largely pointless.

The left-most path is the one I have the clearest opinion of. Poet is good IF you don't have more than one school already (due to diminishing returns on research speed bonuses), and if you already have your basic war generals that cover all your fronts well. Honourable is almost utterly pointless since your generals will have high honor unless you go out of your way to make them unhappy with you. Religious is possibly good if you're Ikko but really not worth it in the long run: the inspire ability isn't that important in the late game and the extra morale bonus is small. Inspirational is a serious contender for points from the reduced upkeep alone, and turns your general into a walking hospital of sorts for your units to rest on thanks to the replenishment. Living Treasure is pointless because by the time you get to rank 6 you'll have a ton of repression increasing tools at your disposal.

In an ideal situation, you'd have many generals working together. The Field Attacker general attacks with the Stand and Fight general and other generals as supporting armies. During the battle the stand and fight general rushes into position and deploys, while any suped up melee generals act as flankers or so on. Post battle, the stand and fight general moves in front of the field attacker general, and the field defender general moves in front of both but still within supporting distance of each other. Injured units rest with the Inspirational general. That way you can maximize the benefits of each skill tree without having to compromise on skill points.

So Portuguese Tercos are trained from Nanban Quarters, which can ostensibly be built only in one region but can be built in multiple if you just let provinces rebel or manipulate other clans into converting to Christianity. Nanban Quarters built for the Tercos are best built in two places: Buzen, for the accuracy boost, or Satsuma, for the increased armor. 

The only other realistic option--Hallowed Ground for increased morale at Aki--is just not worth it. Tercos already have excellent morale value, so this doesn't really add anything to their capabilities unless they've already taken horrid damage and are on the verge of fleeing.

Armored tercos have a total of 13 armor, just one short of the highest among non-hero units. This makes them near immune to bow ashigaru and highly resistant to bow samurai, and makes them basically the best troops for guarding walls: they'll shoot down and rout any melee troops, and can simply tank adults from the missile troops until they've done their work. Armoured Tercos can still get great accuracy stats from experience and general abilities, easily reaching 80 accuracy.

Another thing to consider about fully armored tercos is that they require less research to get, with only the powder maker and Heaven and Earth for the armoury, while max accuracy tercos require a master bowmaker, which requires Chonindo.

Accuracy tercos have the advantage of being made in Buzen, which is closer to the rest of Japan than Satsuma. With an accuracy rating of 90 by default they can reach silly levels of destruction theoretically. Do they have significantly better kill rates in reality? This requires testing...

They are definitely much more vulnerable to missile fire, making them less desirable to use on walls, and more suited to field battles where they can hunker down behind more defensive units after shooting a couple of volleys.

Napoleon and his fairly small army spawn at the bottom of the map, and are ostensibly here to save Lannes' tiny army against a substantial Russian force. How hard this level is depends on how badly you want to aid Lannes.

On one hand, you can treat Lannes like a sacrificial lamb and watch as his paltry forces get destroyed, leaving the somewhat weakened Russian troops free to walk toward your cannons. On the other hand, you can make a mad dash to Lannes' lines, and duke it out with the Russians in the middle of the map. This second option is more fun in my opinion, but also very hard. I'm covering the second one. 

The battle can be divided into three engagements: the north, middle, and south. Your infantry, cavalry, and horse artillery can make it to help, but your foot artillery is essentially useless thanks to the large forested hill right in front of it. By the time it gets around or over this obstacle, the battle will be over.

Your horse artillery can help you decisively win one of the three engagements. Unfortunately, your forces are horribly outnumbered, so you can expect heavy losses on the other two wings. Your Old Guard are absolutely crucial and they can, at the very least, delay a couple of enemy line infantry regiments for quite some time.

The Russian army then sends its cavalry; square formation and counter-cavalry charges can fend them off. Finally, send the remaining cavalry to destroy the enemy artillery on the hill.

I rank this battle a 5/5. I lost most of my army trying to save Lannes, but all his forces die anyway. The Russians heavily outnumber you either way and attack you with ferocity and coordination, so your troops have to be very efficient to win the day.

This battle is a reverse of the Battle of Waterloo played in the other versions: you play as the British instead.

To make this battle more challenging, the developers nerfed the British by putting their cannons in gabionades, significantly limiting their cone of fire. The French also get more units; technically they are in two armies. The houses the British are stationed in are destructible. Finally, and most crucially, the Prussians show up way, way later. 

The French attack in three waves: an advance of Fusiliers of Line and their grenadiers, followed by a massive cavalry charge down the center, and finally committing their Old Guard. 

First off, remove the infantry from their houses. They risk getting mobbed by the French infantry and being destroyed by artillery. Pull all your skirmishers and light infantry up to the crest of the hill the rest of the troops are at. Move your cavalry to the right and left flanks, so that they can support the infantry on the sides.

Basically, you plug the holes in your defenses as they appear. The middle troops committed by the French should get more or less chewed up by your middle lines. Your flanks, however (particularly your right flank) will need vigorous help from your cavalry. 

When the cavalry charge in the middle comes, focus your artillery on them. If you have time to deploy stakes, do so now in the middle. If they break through, say goodbye to the middle of your line, and swivel units around to fire at the scrum of your troops and their cavalry. 

Finally come the Old Guard...they are extremely highly experienced, and can cause your men to have lower morale. Carefully organize a volley from skirmishers and light infantry at them, before surrounding them with your guards and cavalry and finish them off with concentrated fire.

If you survive up to this point, all that should remain are Napoleon, his Young Guard, his artillery, and a couple regiments of cavalry. Charge the enemy artillery with your remaining cavalry units from the flanks. You might lose your cavalry in the ensuing scuffle, but it'll be well worth it. Approach the remaining enemies with your skirmishers, then flee back to your line infantry when enemy forces are roused.

The Prussians entered the fray right as I vanquished the last of the French at this point, much to my consternation. I don't know if there's a way to make them spawn earlier.

I give this battle a 4/5 rating. You basically need to handle each wave of enemies very carefully and efficiently, otherwise you are in big trouble when Napoleon finally commits his Old Guard. 

I can find a technical problems board so here goes.  I have been playing NTW2 on Windows 10 for some time now.  My PC did the Fall update a couple of days ago. Now I can still launch the game and go through all the menus, but when I try to launch a new or svaed campaign, the game crashes.  Anyone have any info/fix on this

NTW units have difficulty getting high levels of experience. If you were to consistently play excellently, for example, and you consistently inflict high numbers of casualties while taking few losses, you'll end up with armies having about two to three chevrons per unit. In NTW, your units generally need to take AND inflict many casualties to see more experience. The problem is, the replenishment system adds brand new soldiers to your damaged regiments, which drags down overall experience. Units that suffer low numbers of casualties but still inflict huge amounts of kills each battle can still get experience, but it's slow going

Below are some thoughts and observations on the experience system and how to get the most out of it.

Artillery

Artillery gain experience the most easily. Their extremely low number of men per regiment, coupled with their high kill rates if you can manage to use canister shot, mean that even if they suffer few casualties they'll inevitably get a lot of experience over time. It's not uncommon to see 7 or 8 level experienced artillery in the late game. The exception is the rocket troop, which will basically never get significant experience owing to its pathetic killing power.

To get the experience the most quickly for artillery, park them on bridges on the campaign mapand have the enemy attack them. Put them at choke points with canister shot, and they'll mow down everything with infantry supporting them on the sides; they'll get about 1-3 experience per battle, suffering few casualties in return.

Cavalry

Cavalry gain experience the second-most easily. They have a low-ish number of men per regiment, and the kills they inflict per battle can be impressive if you vigorously chase down fleeing enemies. If you consistently do this each battle, your cavalry can gradually see experience gains over time. Light cavalry have an advantage here owing to their superior stamina, but any cavalry can get exp this way.

On higher difficulties, charging cavalry at even routing enemies can result in a couple of casualties. To mitigate this, park them directly in FRONT of routing enemies. Done correctly, the routing troops will move into your idle cavalry, allowing them to kill them without wasting stamina or men. If you do this often enough it'll become a matter of habit.

Infantry

Infantry have it the worst. Their large number of men, their generally unremarkable killing capabilities, and the difficulty they have in chasing down fleeing enemies, mean that if they are just used normally without paying attention to the replenishment system, they'll be lucky to hit 4 experience in most campaigns.

The method to getting high exp for infantry conflicts directly with getting exp for cavalry, which sucks. It goes like this: If you start routing all enemy troops and the game prompts you to end the battle and you accept, then the game automatically kills a bunch of enemy fleeing troops and acts as if the troops you had who did most of the fighting did most of the killing. If you have a couple of regiments of infantry do that during the fighting, great. They'll get lots of exp. But if you kill all the routing troops with cavalry you can say goodbye to that free exp. More information on this later.

I've found that despite their ok-at-best kill rates, skirmishers tend to get experience the most easily. This might highlight the importance of keeping numbers of men low as opposed to focussing specifically on kill counts.

Ships

Not a focal point of this post due to the very limited role naval warfare has in NTW, but it's worth pointing out here that experience gained is based on how many men the crew of each ship kill and lose. Hull strength is not a factor. This means that if you can somehow get one of your ship's crews nearly wiped out, yet still have that ship kill the crews of many ships, that ship stands to gain a lot of experience. Conversely, chain shot and round shot do little to nothing for the experience of a ship's crew. Ship experience is transferred among captured ships.

I'm not certain if blowing up an enemy ship entirely counts as killing its crew for your own crew in regards to experience. I've never seen experience gains from killing enemy ships.

Overview

The enemy artillery IMMEDIATELY begins the battle firing at your Chasseurs à Cheval to the west. I've seen Let's Plays where the regiment immediately loses half or more of its guys (like this one) . If this happens, I think it's warranted to restart the battle. Hey, the game's abusing YOU, it's only fair that you get to abuse gameplay mechanics to start the battle fairly.

To minimize losses from this first volley, immediately run your cavalry left or right, and/or spread them out. Spreading them out increases the chances that they'll get hit, but reduces casualties. Clumping them and moving left or right could prevent casualties altogether, but if you get hit you'll still lose half the regiment off the bat.

Opening 5 seconds of shenanigans aside...

The Battle of Ligny is largely one of chokepoints, with bridges and narrow paths covering the map. I immediately split my army in two, with the western half heading further west and the eastern half heading further east. By doing this, I force the Prussian artillery to be useless, as they are in gabionades and can't turn. 

The French forces to the west have a good deal of chasseurs, and can take potshots at the Prussians who are in range. Retreat if the Prussians advance, and rinse and repeat. 

The French forces to the east cut off and destroy the Prussians in the eastern village. I found the artillery to be extremely useful here. On very hard mode, even if you have a nice concave on a choke point, the Prussians can still inflict heavy losses on your troops and sometimes break out. But they don't stand a chance with canister shot. 

After wiping out the forces to the east, move west. Your chasseurs should have already whittled down a good number of the remaining forces. Garrison troops in the houses near bridges to coax the Prussians into crossing and attacking (Old Guard and grenadiers are good candidates for holding the houses). The Prussians will commit progressively more troops to attack you; once they've depleted their reserves, charge some cavalry up the hill and finish off their artillery. The remaining Prussians should rout.

Final Thoughts

I like this map; it's very pretty. I can see it being even more fun in multiplayer, with more units. There were plenty of flanking opportunities with multiple bridges in singleplayer, I just didn't find them that useful. I already had plenty of space to set up my troops in good positions.

In terms of difficulty I rank this battle a 3/5. The bridges are quite wide and on VH difficulty, the Prussians can give you a good fight for their money even from a disadvantageous position. Overall, though, your army isn't weaker than the Prussian army, and you have the advantage of dictating where to fight since the Prussians mostly stay put unless provoked.

Overview

Your artillery, for unknown reasons, don't have fire at will on. Get them firing, at enemy cavalry if possible, and turn on the barrage ability.

Most of your troops are behind earthworks, and will handle themselves surprisingly well if left to their own devices. On the western flank, though, pull your chasseurs and cuirassiers back while running the fusiliers forward, and get them into square formation. Use square formation when appropriate and the enemy cavalry is usually dust. Use canister shot when the enemy is close enough, and take advantage of the earthworks where possible. 

Use your cavalry to disrupt enemy artillery or to attack enemy infantry in the rear while they are engaging your own infantry. I found it useful to bring an extra regiment of cavalry (or two) to help out the western flank. Surviving cavalry and infantry on the west can then be used to help out the center. 

In the very center, your fusiliers will be attacked by grenzers, who outrange them by default. Pull your fusiliers back to encourage the grenzers to come forward, then rush back to the earthworks. There's also a house that can be garrisoned there to provide further cover. The Old Guard regiment in the back can be very handy for inflicting casualties and fear, while improving the morale of your own troops. 

The rest of the cavalry and Young Guard in reserve should head east, then cross the river, which is only lightly guarded by Russian Jagers. Use your Chasseurs a Cheval to distract them while your Young Guard cross and get in range. In this method, Napoleon and his Young Guard can "roll up" the allied lines from east to west.

If things go badly inside the city, pull the remnants or your troops across the bridges to the northern half of the city, forcing the allies into bottlenecks and buying Napoleon more time to reinforce. Doing this means you're forced to abandon your own artillery, though.

Final thoughts

As far as defensive battles go (although technically you're defending, the enemy attacks you without abandon so I consider it a defensive battle), this one's probably the most involved. I had to slow the battle a couple of times to micromanage everything effectively. That being said, the battle's not too hard, given that the troop numbers are roughly equal on both sides and that the French have the advantage of earthworks and are defending, and I beat it after only two tries. 

I rate the battle a difficulty rating of 2/5. If you micromanage effectively it'll be more or less over before you know it, and even if you mess up the level gives you multiple chances to bounce back. It's not the easiest battle out there, but there's not much of an excuse to lose here if you pause often and keep aware of the map.

Overview

The Russian army holds an excellent position, with powerful artillery on hills an rivers as obstacles. Winning this battle requires a lot of manouvering and micromanagement. I will split this battle into three geographical areas: North, Center and South. Pause the game/set the game to slow often during this battle to manage everything on time. The longer you take, the more time the Russians have to punish you with their artillery. 

While I am writing this in three separate parts, it's important to try to do all three parts of the battle at once. 

North

This consists of the Swiss Foot, Chasseurs à Cheval, Cuirassiers, and the Chasseurs and Fusiliers of Line furthest north. The Russian forces in the area are (initially): a unit of Russian Jägers, a regiment of Pavlovsk Grenadiers, and some cossack cavalry/hussars. 

The A.I controlling the Russians *insists* on having at least a few units in the northern town. If it loses too many troops there, it starts sending troops from other parts of the battlefield there. Therefore, the more units you can kill off here, the more you weaken the Russian army elsewhere.

The Pavlovsk Grenadiers retreat into the garrisonnable house close to one of the river crossings if they take too many casualties (about 50), where due to the combination of their excellent stats and the very hard difficulty, they can be impossible to flush out or ignore. Routing them before they can garrison is imperative for controlling this part of the map.

Send the cuirassiers further north and have them cross the river, after which they move to a distance away from the Russian Jagers (but not close enough to aggro them). Meanwhile, have the Swiss Foot and the Chasseurs move into the forest to the east, while the fusiliers move to the north to meet up with them. Use the Chasseurs to lure the Pavlovsk Grenadiers across the river. Constantly and gradually pull back each of the troops whenever the Pavlovsk Grenadiers get close enough to fire. Once you have lured the grenadiers out of the forest, have all the infantry fire on them while the Chasseurs à Cheval charge them from behind. This should break the grenadiers. Send the swiss foot or fusiliers close to the Russian Jägers, to convince the Jägers to shoot a volley. Simultaneously, charge the cuirassiers into their back. Put the fusiliers and swiss foot in square formation, and position the chasseurs in a way that allows them to deliver fire on the river crossing while being close to the squares. The Russians should send their cavalry to help their jägers. Pull your cuirassiers through the jägers and to the safety of your squares. The Russian forces should get destroyed by your squares and chasseurs. Any remaining cavalry can be lured into your squares with careful planning and timing.

With the cavalry dead, the enemy general is defenseless. Send your remaining cuirassiers and chasseurs to rout him. Have your infantry in the north focus down the Russian infantry they send over one regiment at a time. 

If you don't do well here, don't fret. If the Russian center and south fall then the troops they have here automatically start breaking. 

Center

This consists of all your artillery, and the chasseurs between your artillery.

Unlimber all your artillery. If you don't, they'll start dying off anyway due to the very accurate Russian artillery fire. Your 12-lbers are more or less useless offensively, because they are in a ditch and don't have a good angle on practically anything. The one exception is, possibly, the house next to the pavlovsk grenadiers to the north. 

Your 6-lbers should start targeting the ground in front of the 20-lber unicorns. This allows them to hit the unicorns, the grenadiers behind them, and the opelchenie and cossack cavalry behind them. This collateral damage can be very handy--by the time I got to them, the cossack cavalry were already routed from the stray cannonballs.

Your chasseurs should go into light infantry formation and make a beeline for the same unicorns: they can shoot at them from the other side of the river. RUN there to minimalize casualties.

Your artillery will take casualties. It's inevitable. Whenever they rout but then stop running, send them back to their guns. The longer they distract the Russian artillery, the less your other troops have to suffer.

The grenadiers protecting the 20-lbers begin chasing your chasseurs. After the 20-lbers are broken, use your chasseurs to lure the enemy grenadiers back to your cannons, who can use canister shot to rout them easily. After this, the chasseurs can be used to assist the southern army. 

South

This consists of all your remaining troops: Napoleon, the rest of your cavalry, and a large number of fusiliers, grenadiers of line, chasseurs, and a polish legion. 

The chasseur regiment closest to the 20-lber unicorn goes into light formation and heads for the 20-lbers to assist the other chasseurs in taking it out. Everyone else heads toward the forest in the south. All the cavalry then move to the south of the southern town.

You'll be dealing with a lot of individual regiments of Russian troops. Use your chasseurs and fire a volley at them before running away and luring them to your fusiliers. Try to mix in a charge from your cavalry from the flank or rear if you have the room. Move a grenadier or fusilier regiment close to the enemy cavalry to provoke a charge, and then form squares to fend them off. Use your cavalry to charge enemy artillery when they're no longer defended by infantry, and so on. 

In this manner, gradually work your way north. You'll eventually reach the center of the Russian defenses: the indomitable Raevsky redoubt. If your northern group has been doing very well, then the Russian infantry should have abandoned this redoubt to reinforce the north, allowing your cavalry to easily charge up and wipe out the artillery there. If not, you'll need to lure the infantry down and pounce on them before they have a chance to run back up hill. 

Once the artillery on the redoubt are dead and the general is dead or has fled, the remaining Russian troops should flee.

Final Thoughts

After the initial annoyance at the Russian artillery, I came to greatly enjoy this battle. The micromanagement was a good deal of fun. While I had to pause often and that took the immersion out of it, it was fun watching the battle afterward in standard time. 

The battle is also probably the first instance in which the game fully demonstrates just how highly the Very Hard difficulty tilts the battle in the A.I's favor. In any 1 v 1 situation, your troops will get crushed by their Russian equivalents. You HAVE to attack any Russian troops with at least a 2 to 1 advantage, ideally more, and hope that they break before they get too many volleys off. The Russian Jagers also had the curious ability to shoot out the back of their heads to protect their rear, as my cuirassiers brutally learned to my horror in an earlier run of this battle.

The battle is not as hard as the forums might make it out to be: a vast majority of the Russian troops are tied down to protecting their artillery, giving you a huge mobility advantage and allowing you to easily exploit your light infantry advantage. That being said, the Russian artillery are extremely deadly should they start attacking your non-artillery troops, and things can start looking gnarly quickly. 

I give it a difficulty rating of 3/5, which is not something I would have said upon beating it for the first time. The fact of the matter, though, is that the majority of the Russian forces pose no threat to you since the A.I causes them to be locked in position until it's too late. As long as their artillery remains focused on yours, and they should, you should be largely ok for this fight. 

Overview

Trafalgar's probably the most difficult naval battle. The French navy's a lot smaller and qualitatively worse than the British, and while their Spanish allies ostensibly even the odds, in reality the Spanish squander their potential by charging headlong into the British force. A lot of micro is necessary for winning here.

Begin by racing all the French ships toward the British position. The Spanish will remain in place for now. Set up your ships outside of British range, in two concaves in preparation for the heads of their two columns. Loose volleys and snake away back toward the Spanish. With good control, you can heavily damage or even sink the first couple of ships before the Spanish even begin to engage. If the angle is right and the enemy ships are close enough, use chain shot. An enemy ship with its masts removed or half-gone is as good as dead in the long run. 

The Spanish then break formation and get themselves killed taking on the British. You can try to help out the Spanish from a distance, focusing on a couple of British ships at a time, but be careful of taking unnecessary damage. Try to kill off Nelson's ship in particular.

The remaining British will break from the Spanish after finishing them off. Target each with round shot or chain shot if you can get away with it. Keep an eye on the clock, it's easy to lose track of time if you're too focused on micro. Wrap up the battle by sending your lighter ships to force the ships that are farther away to surrender. 

Final Thoughts

I was very happy with this battle, partially because the forums said that it's one of the most difficult. I think that the naval battles in NTW (and ETW) get a bad rap, and that they truly are enjoyable from a certain mindset. All my ships survived, so I can say with confidence that my method of winning this battle is also the best method.

I rank the difficulty of this battle a 5/5. The inherent superiority of the British navy, coupled with the randomness of naval battles with lucky chain shots, ships sinking or blowing up after taking only light damage, and random admirals dying, and a combination of good luck and careful micro are required to carry you through this battle.