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Cheetah
04-07-2004, 00:48
EARLY
The Empire is one of the least stable of the factions. It starts out with many low-loyalty generals spread over many provinces that are in contact with a half-dozen rival factions.

My first recommendation would be to simply forget the early era Crusader goals. The Empire is not stable enough to survive a failed Crusade, and you cannot spare enough good troops from Europe to make sure the Crusades succeed.

I like early blitz openings, but even I advocate a build-up approach with the HRE. Build that farm economy and some defenses. The good steward and builder virtues will increase loyalty and happiness, greatly improving stability. I would also highly recommend managing your own taxes and keeping them low to further increase loyalty.

Players that are more adventurous prefer to blitz the Italians, taking all their continental provinces. Then they attack the Pope when they can bear the excommunication, take Rome and Naples and reduced Papal armies to a small remnant cornered in the Papal States. That satisfied the “Holy Roman Empire” goal.

You start with one province -- Bohemia -- that can produce Slav Warriors from the start and can produce Slav javelins once you add a spear maker. These are excellent units for the price. The rebel province of Pomerania can be overrun, and they can produce the same units. Peasants from Provence get a valor bonus.

Exploit rebellions and civil wars. Especially look for any chance to take over Denmark. Rebellion, inheritance and even a quick blitz attack if you can pull it off without excommunication are all options.
Denmark is particularly important for two reasons. It can produce Viking huscarls in the early era. These superb units can be the key to successfully defending the whole empire. Second, Denmark is the land bridge to Sweden. A HRE player who takes Denmark and Sweden relatively early is a happy HRE player.

The Danes produce many heirs, for some reason. Expect their army to have many Royal Knights if you do not attack them early. This is one of the reasons I like Slav javelins. Javelins are great for taking out knights, which would normally slaughter low-tech infantry. They do take some skill and practice to use, however.

If you do not know the details on how excommunication works and how to avoid it, learn. The most important point is that you only get one warning at a time. For instance, suppose that at some point in the game you attack the Polish and get a warning. You go on the defensive with the Poles and attack the Hungarians. You are now free to keep attacking the Hungarians.

Keep track of the year when you get a warning. After the Pope's time limit is up, you can attack the Poles again, in this example.


EDITED: To include the summery compiled by Doug-Thompson.

Cheetah
04-07-2004, 00:48
high

Cheetah
04-07-2004, 00:48
late

Doug-Thompson
05-07-2004, 23:44
EARLY

Writing a guide for the Holy Roman Empire is more difficult than for most factions. The empire is spread out among many different provinces. It borders a half-dozen factions in the opening. Crusades also loom large in the empire's glorious achievement goals, providing a source of conflict with still more factions.

The empire is one of the least stable of the factions, since it starts out with many low-loyalty generals spread over many provinces. You can have a large garrison in one province, for instance, but not be able to automatically move it to another province if you need to. The province that needs the troops might be halfway across Europe.

Other players have far more experience with the HRE. I figured I'd get the discussion going.

My first recommendation would be to simply forget the early era Crusader goals. You're empire isn't stable enough to survive a failed Crusade, and you can't spare enough good troops from Europe to make sure the Crusades succeed.

I like early blitz openings, but even I advocate a build-up approach with the HRE. Build that economy and some defenses. The good steward and builder virtues will increase loyalty and happiness, greatly improving stability. I'd also highly recommend managing your own taxes and keeping them low to further increase loyalty.

You start with one province -- Bohemia -- that can produce Slav Warriors from the start and can produce Slav Javelinmen once you add a spearmaker. These are excellent units for the price, in my opinion; Much better than peasants, vanilla spears or archers. Also, the rebel province of Pomerania can be overrun, and they can produce the same units. I'm biased in favor of javelin units, in part because I had to practice with them a lot before learning how to use them. However, once mastered, they are deadly to armored units and a better value than vanilla archers.

Peasants from Provence get a valor bonus, and should also be considered.

Exploit rebellions and civil wars. Especially look for any chance to take over Denmark. Rebellion, inheritance and even a quick attack if you can pull it off without excommunication are all options.

Denmark is particularly important for two reasons. It can produce Viking huscarls in the early era, which are superb units that can be the key to successfully defending the whole empire. Second, Denmark is the land bridge to Sweden. A HRE player who takes Denmark and Sweden relatively early is a happy HRE player.

The Danes produce a lot of heirs, for some reason. So expect their army to have a lot of Royal Knights. This is one of the reasons I like the Slav Warrior/Slav Jav combo. Javelins are great for taking out knights, which would normally slaughter low-tech infantry. At least Slav Warriors are armed with spears, though, with make them better for attacking the Danes than peasants, for instance. Slav warriors are also better fighters than regular spears.

If you don't know the details on how excommunication works and how to avoid it, learn. The most important point is that you only get one warning at a time. For instance, suppose that at some point in the game you attack the Polish and get a warning. You go on the defensive with the Poles and attack the Hungarians. You are now free to keep attacking the Hungarians.

Keep track of the year when you get a warning. After the Pope's time limit is up, you can attack the Poles again, in this example.

Good luck.

katank
05-08-2004, 02:24
I suggest a quick blitz of the Italians.

Wipe them off the continent and you might even get a ransom to help your cash poor state.

carry the momentum onto taking Rome and Naples before the Sicilians get it.

Then beat the Popesta into a castle in Papal States when that come on line and then starve him until last possible year and move out.

this would leave him a depleted BG and possibly scraps of UM units that mean he isn't a threat.

he will also be neutral.

this nicely satisfies the HRE goal.

you will be excommed for attacking the Papacy but your Emperor would die soon and you can satisfy your crusade goals.

taking italian states and particularly venice this early means good naval prescence in the Med which makes Crusades easy.

now be sure to build tower and borderforts in all your provinces on the first turn as this will help with the loyalty greatly.

Taking out the Danes is preferably done early once you are secure down south.

wait too long and they will have a huge pile of RKs.

note: ally with English and defend yourself well against the French who will inevitably have designs upon Lorraine.

use UM in the forests to kill them.

be defensive in the West.

after Italians, and Danes, go for the 2 P's.

knock out Poland if you so desire.

If taking on Hungarians, take Hungary first to force the king to one side and ransom him.

this is another boost to your economy.

farm like mad or you will be broke all the time.

don't develop military and only use spears/archers/UM/slav troops.

regularly check govs and don't be satisfied with below 4 or 5 acumen.

Chimpyang
05-09-2004, 11:29
Royal Knights are killable, just gotta send lots of troops to swamp them anduse javalins to get them. Once they start running use and cav to chase and dont let them regroup.

katank
05-09-2004, 22:23
yep, sniping from long range with archers.

once their ranks are sufficiently thinned, let them get impaled upon your nice deep spear wall where upon swords flank, javs hit from the rear and they are gone.

even better is naptha when you have access to those.

in one magic poof and those annoying RKs are gone, often their king and heirs too. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Brutal DLX
05-13-2004, 14:52
Before this is digressing further, I want to note that how you are going to play the HRE depends not only on your personal taste but also on the game mode. In order to win in total domination mode it's necessary to expand, and the best option would be to eliminate the Danes first and early in the game before they amass too many vikings and royal heirs. If you mass a big army composed of basic spears and peasants along with some archers and headed by your king, you may not even have to fight that battle as the Danes might retreat to their castle. However, if you do, make sure you bring more archers as it will likely be a bridge battle.
Make sure to attack the castle right in the next turn to eliminate the faction and then take Sweden. Norway is not necessary at this moment, it might prove too rebellious to control with a small garrison. Save it for later.
By this time, let's say after about 20 or 30 turns, you should look where to strike next. If no opportunity arises, lay low and build up your farmlands and tech up some provinces so you can produce Mtd. Sarges, MAA and MS at least, these will likely give you an edge against other early armies. If France and England started warring, it may be possible to move into Toulouse, Ile de France and Flanders, but be aware of the chance that the victorious faction (either England or France) might attack you next after they finished off their adversary. You could also attack Italy while France and England are busy, this can lead to a great increase in income, but bears potential risks of drawing the Sicilians, Hungarians or even the Byzantines to attack your new Italian provinces. I would advise against an early attack on Poland because this will neither give you a much better position to defend nor a noticable increase in income. Save them for later, once you have either consolidated Western Europe or Italy. After all of this is done, you should have significantly more influence and income, and the rest of the game can be played according to your personal designs.

However, if you are playing a GA game, it is possible to act defensively right from the start, perhaps conquering Pomerania as the only province. However this requires micromanaging your troop production with regard to their loyalty, priority of building all early happiness increasing buildings in all provinces and a central army, stationed in Franconia perhaps, that can quickly intercept any hostile incursion. Of course you should not neglect garrisons in your border provinces, but only Burgundy and Saxony should have a larger force than usual. In order to do this and still make a surplus, it's vital to upgrade your farmlands too, and thus you'll be able to increase your amount of troops proportionally. I also agree with another poster that early crusades are usually a hopeless effort, unless the Eastern factions have fallen into anarchy. Another opportunity may arise when other Catholic factions start crusades simultaneously, then it could be a smart move to tag along and conquer one GA province. However, it will be hard to hold that one and may exceed your financial resources at that time. But it is possible..It's your call...
Anyway, playing defensively of course doesn't mean neglecting one's GA goals, and since Italy is a GA goal while Denmark is not, I'd try to look South in my plans of conquest rather than North. However, this conquest has a larger window of opportunity, thus you can work on upgrading your provinces and perhaps start to get a North sea trade network going all the while waiting for a favourable situation to occur. Don't overexpand your shipping link early, only do so if you have a sizeable reserve in your treasury, at first I would suggest a link from the Balticum to the Spanish North coast (coasta verde) or till Portugal.
While this defensive strategy may be risky, it is also more challenging and more in the spirit of the game mode, as one should try to win by not rushing early but by surviving and prospering through development of one's homelands and the pursuit of the GA goals, thus, it may be more suited for the veteran MTW player.
However, if you are going to play that way with the HRE, make sure you keep a good watch on your ruler's influence and on the loyalty of his troops. Every battle will be important and you cannot afford to lose more than two provinces at the same time, so make sure your armies are positioned in a way to prevent this. And while you may retreat to a castle in one turn, never overuse this ability, and be quick in relieving the siege with your main army(s). Every battle counts.. and this holds true twice for the HRE.

katank
05-13-2004, 23:23
blitzing Italy and winning as well as Danish is usually enough to get his influence high enough for you to not need to worry about it that much any more.

Kristaps
05-14-2004, 17:08
EARLY

If one is so inclined to blitz and to take Danes, I'd suggest to do it in the first year of EARLY. Just move the initial garrison with the viking units and archers from Saxony into Denmark. Cleverly managed this should be more than enough to overrun the king, vikings and spears which are located there at the time. The tricky part is to keep Denmark from rebelling so you don't get a Danish reemergence: a high dread governor should help.

In the same blitz, I'd suggest moving the two units from Bourgoundy into Milan: Italians will retreat. Better still, wait a turn until you can have most of your initial units in Austria and move simultaneously into Milan and Venice.

I pulled it off myself the other day. First year: eliminated the Danes, second year: Stormed Kopenhagen (now, a rebel fort), attacked Milan (Italians retreated), Venice (Italians retreated, abandoning the keep with a shipyard...). Third year: attacked Genoa (used the troops from Milan which doesn't have a fort at the beginning) and Tuscany (the troops from Venice). Fourth year: storm the forts in Genoa and Tuscany. Voila - Italians and Danes are done for and the pope didn't even whisper a word... Also, due to his majesty's success in Italy, the Danish got happier and more loyal for some reason ;)

As a bonus: you get +1 valor militia in Tuscany :)

While my emperor was busy mincing the Italians, his emissaries established alliances with the Poles and the Hungarians. The French refused an audience to the german duke sent to offer friendship and thus sealed their fate. But that's another story ;)

garion
05-14-2004, 23:00
After the rush consolidate you're empire and hope for wor between the english and the french. This will take the tention of your western borders and you can now focus on poland (this will also be a good step in the direction of a later goal to be achieved). The polish and the rebels can be resilient, and the polish must be conquered ASAP, because you run the risk of being excomd. Try to leave volhynia, because it's almost a natural border. If you take it, rebels, mongols, russians and byzantines caninvade your Reich much easier, so whatch for that..

katank
05-16-2004, 13:09
why not Volhynia?

that combined with Hungary and Serbia forms a very nice border.

Volhynia has always been a nice buffer for me protecting the rich lands of Poland which is now integrated into the Reich.

Frag Nacht Osten is certainly simpler with the Polish out esp. the Livonian GA.

I do something similar to Doug on Germans.

It's always nice as Huns or HRE to rush Venice ASAP for a free keep and shipyard which they invariably abandon or else their king would starve to death in there.

Doug-Thompson
06-16-2004, 17:51
EARLY
The Empire is one of the least stable of the factions. It starts out with many low-loyalty generals spread over many provinces that are in contact with a half-dozen rival factions.

My first recommendation would be to simply forget the early era Crusader goals. The Empire is not stable enough to survive a failed Crusade, and you cannot spare enough good troops from Europe to make sure the Crusades succeed.

I like early blitz openings, but even I advocate a build-up approach with the HRE. Build that farm economy and some defenses. The good steward and builder virtues will increase loyalty and happiness, greatly improving stability. I would also highly recommend managing your own taxes and keeping them low to further increase loyalty.

Players that are more adventurous prefer to blitz the Italians, taking all their continental provinces. Then they attack the Pope when they can bear the excommunication, take Rome and Naples and reduced Papal armies to a small remnant cornered in the Papal States. That satisfied the “Holy Roman Empire” goal.

You start with one province -- Bohemia -- that can produce Slav Warriors from the start and can produce Slav javelins once you add a spear maker. These are excellent units for the price. The rebel province of Pomerania can be overrun, and they can produce the same units. Peasants from Provence get a valor bonus.

Exploit rebellions and civil wars. Especially look for any chance to take over Denmark. Rebellion, inheritance and even a quick blitz attack if you can pull it off without excommunication are all options.
Denmark is particularly important for two reasons. It can produce Viking huscarls in the early era. These superb units can be the key to successfully defending the whole empire. Second, Denmark is the land bridge to Sweden. A HRE player who takes Denmark and Sweden relatively early is a happy HRE player.

The Danes produce many heirs, for some reason. Expect their army to have many Royal Knights if you do not attack them early. This is one of the reasons I like Slav javelins. Javelins are great for taking out knights, which would normally slaughter low-tech infantry. They do take some skill and practice to use, however.

If you do not know the details on how excommunication works and how to avoid it, learn. The most important point is that you only get one warning at a time. For instance, suppose that at some point in the game you attack the Polish and get a warning. You go on the defensive with the Poles and attack the Hungarians. You are now free to keep attacking the Hungarians.

Keep track of the year when you get a warning. After the Pope's time limit is up, you can attack the Poles again, in this example.

ah_dut
06-16-2004, 18:50
great guide Doug but it's a bit risky to do a lot of your other strats mentioned in other threads

katank
06-17-2004, 00:11
I personally prefer a blitz opening.

I prefer to blitz Danes and Italians simultaneously on the first turn.

Hit Venice with everything you got and the Italians should retreat, leaving you an intact keep.

The Danes are trickier as you require some maneuvering to kill the Danes.

you can use forests and lure the Danish king there where he would be destroyed by your vikings and spearmen.

the rest should be destroyed in short order too.

move all other units south.

next turn, hit Tuscany and with king and Genoa.

Tuscany is piece of cake while Genoa is a tricky battle if the king is there.

storm denmark keep as I doubt you could have caught all the routers without cav.

at the end of the second turn, you should have an intact keep in Denmark, Venice stabilized and cpable of producing ships but instead build towards some feudal sarges or FMAA first.

Genoa and Tuscany should also be yours.

next turn, hit Milan and collect ample ransom for Italian doge.

the Italians are thus crippled due to only having two islands that are rather poor and having dished out 8k at the min.

similarly, you have more cash which is always good for your cash strapped empire, shipyard this early to help you become a sea power, and rich lands with trade in Italy.

similarly, Genoa provides sailors and are better than vanilla archers as well as costing less upkeep which makes them cheaper in the long run.

You should ideally also have Denmark with an intact keep for early sea power in the north as well as access to the rest of the kalmar union which is mucho trade and huscarles.

I like to either take a breather or be a bad boy and attack the popesta in Rome.

careful maneuvering coudl get you a perfectly intact castle if you manage to capture all the routers.

then attack Papal states and siege the sucker until almost dead.

move out and sack Naples if the Byz still have it to comeplete HRE goal.

I recommend against hitting Sicily although you could.

If you do, it's a nice rich province and a welcome addition but you'll likely not get a ceasefire with Italians or Sicilians and having random landings along your sizeable shoreline isn't good.

if you attack them, you can cripple further production to ensure naval dominance and playing your cards right can yield a third intact keep with a shipyard to boot

to achieve this rush, you must be a good tactician capable of using spear/archers/UM that come from Burgundy, switzerland, and swabia yearly.

know their limits and use them well will yield amazing results.

know their limits especially morale as they are all 0 morale.

if attacking pope, do so while your first emperor is alive as the excomm is immediate upon waring with his holiness.

if you get excommed with second, you'll not have crusades.

this is important as you need crusades early or Eggy will often become too strong to fight easily.

good luck http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif

econ21
07-07-2004, 14:19
Not sure I agree that Crusades are a hopeless GA achievement. I find a turtling GA HRE game about my favorite MTW campaign. What I do is asap take Pomerania, then devote that, Saxony, Freisland and Provence to ship-building. This gets priority over any other builds in peacetime (and usually war). This way, you will fairly soon get a pan-European trade network that will pay-off in a large way economically, as well as being the fast track for your Crusades. I do the same thing for England and see no reason why HRE should be any slower. Of course, there will be more demands on your armies for defence but you should be able to spare one strong army, especially with all that trade income.

Of course the hard part is surviving until your ships reach Palestine but I am not convinced that going for a crusade makes this any harder (I guess it precludes an early rush, but I find them boring). If anything, the trade income from your ships will make it easier.

katank
07-07-2004, 15:59
Simon, blitzing Italy for the HRE goal can help with ships.

if you attacking into Venice first turn, you can capture the keep with shipyard intact which means ships to the Holy Land extremely fast.

Milan and Tuscany are HRE goal provinces and Genoa produces sailors which are better and cheaper (support) than vanilla archers.

I see no reason to not kick the Itakians off the continent. Then turtle if you like.

killmslow
07-27-2004, 21:03
Can someone please give me some hints on how to start with the HRE on hard difficulty starting in the high period? Or does the tips you've all been giving for HRE early period apply to high period? I can't seem to get my economy off the ground before one or two factions start conquering everything. I've done two campaigns on hard with HRE and I got smoked both times. I'm bound and determined to win with HRE in high period. Any help would be appreciatted.

ah_dut
07-27-2004, 23:10
welcome to the sweet crap on a stick faction. u need to turtle a while annd spin out militia in the forests, then blitz later. it's really hard unlike what the rating says

katank
08-05-2004, 17:33
As High HRE, blitzing the Italians right away is not much of an option any more as their starting troops are better.

Heavy use of mercs might allow you to do quite some damage to many factions and tip the balance.

Warring on the French might be a good option as taking all of their continental possessions will get their king ransomed off to Outremer and help with your econ athough that would result in the Brits having nohwere to expand to except into you and bring their formidable longbows and billmen into play.

Turtle more in High unless you can knock out the French or the Italians using mercs and some starting troops. Use you great farming and huge number of provinces to overwhelm the enemy through mass of your armies as you can outproduce all.

Mightypeon
09-04-2004, 16:18
HRE, the eastern approach:

well, there is a general consensus that killing Italy is the first bojective for any HRE player.
However, there is another possbility: Poland and Hungary.
Poland only has 2 provinces, neither one is too developed, and especially in High defeating them is quite easy.
In general, dismoutning your King gets you 20 Chiv foots knights.
Put them in a wood, protect them from ugly Woodmen (yes, you Chivs will slauighter them but they will take losses.) And let your King duke it out with their cav.
You King will valour up quickly and will propably get some decent virtues out of it.
I found out that he almsot always gets valour if he personally kills the enemy King (Polish Kings arent Jedis) in addition there is a good chance to get "brave" or mighty warrior traits. This chances are lesser for heirs, but you will usually get somehting out of it.
Poland is an easier target than Hungary for several reasons:
A: It does get you borders with Lithunia, Which is a nice thing because the Russians will leave you alone.
B: Mucho Slav troops.
C: Poland does not have dozens of Szeleky
D: There is one empire that can face the HRE in a 1on1, this is Byz in early, you do not want a border with Byzantium.
E.If you make your grab timely you could get Avar nobles.

Hungary also poses a valuable target.
Your army should be composed of Spears Bows and some Knights.
Use the Spear bow combo to shoot the Hungi Horses, The Hungarian infantry is usually composed aof a Gazzilion Jobbagy and does nto tend to be a threat.
The good thing about Hungary is: You have to be quite stupid if you do not get a ransom.
In addition, acces to the black see and the adriatic is ncie to have for crusades.
The bad thing is: You could well end up at the mercy of the Byz.
The Byz tend to be peacefull if oyu have a big army (quilty does not count to much) , but it is still a risk.

katank
09-04-2004, 22:26
but Italy is GA for you and Venice is free shipyard with adriatic access and also a cash cow.

ransoming their doge off the continent also nets you a nice ransom.

you can go all the way to Sicily without much trouble and don't have to fear Italian light later which are so hard to kill in early.

Mightypeon
09-05-2004, 17:43
Well, in my experience always blitzing Italy gets boring.
Apart from that I minly play HRE do have a challenge.
One thing I noticed is that, apart from the start, HRE usually cannot choose its wars, in one game, I have just beaten Hungaria and Italy, however this caused the Spanish king to attack Friesland with roughly 2000 good troops, Oh, 6000 eggys got over to Croatia for a talk too.
I was just like: "Yeehaw! Now I can build up and get trade!" before this happened.
Well, the Eggy horde was a boon to my economy, the Spanish guys were really pesky because I only had some deterance forces in the area.

Another points is: The wars you start as HRE have to be short.
The wars others started on you will be quite long anyway.
Therefore, "little" states like Poland (2 provinces) Denemark (1-2)
or Hungary (about 3-4) are a nice goal which can be reached quickly.
In addition, the Huns/Bulg Danes cant constantly pirate you form some stupid island.

Mightypeon
09-05-2004, 17:50
Oh, a Question by myself, did anyone ever manage to oversome the heavy unit disadvantadge the HRE has in medmod?
Well, you get a Gazzilion times more money than the rest(who also gets much more money), but Heerbans cant exactly kill the Italian uberblokes.
The most reliable way I got it done was massing mtd. X-bows/Knechte and playing HRE like the Golden horde...
Swabian Swords tend to loose to equal Pavisiers if both are in the woods, which just constantly freaks me out.
So what to do with the med mod Italian Juggernauts?

My Heerbans get beaten even if I attack one group of Pavieisers from 3 sides.
My Peasants do better, I send them in from the rear and let them rout immeidatley, the Italian überguys pursue them of the field which gives me som time to deal with the rest.
Another pesky thing are their strange archers, who happen to eat my Spearmans for launch.

katank
09-06-2004, 01:29
medmod italians can be won by a child.

just pick and click on the little green dudes. they are also apparently capable of pretel formation which means they can contort their units into strange shapes and then can resist being hammered from all sides without even losing rank bonus.

playing like the horde is best way.

herrban are junk. mod their morale higher if you want more mileage out of em.

knechte and swabians are all you can depend on in melee but try and killt he italians using missiles as all units are jedi.

Mightypeon
09-07-2004, 13:25
Well, I have to confess that slightly pumped Heerbans from Fanconia can be quite handy, I threat Heerban as Urban Militia with shields, in this role they are ok. However, agasint the Italinas they can beat their archers most of the times and their Contadina infantry some times, but apart from that...
However they do not solve the problem that Medmod HRE has no advanced Spears (this means Feudal sarges) nor men at arms (excluding Swabians which can only be built in Swabia and require a long buildup). Nor X-bows or Archer mellee hybrids....
Oh, that countrys like Silesia are not HRE homelands is a really good joke....

To the subject of medmod, did you try other mods such as BkBs? I would be interested in how they work etc.

katank
09-07-2004, 17:24
I think I tried a BKB game but it crashed for me and I never got a chance to get into it.

NTW is pretty good but the arty is waaay too OP. massed arty can even slaughter cav disproportinately.

medmod heerban are supposed to be the m@a but they need some serious beefing up.

I think in later periods you get saxon m@a and teutonic spears which are good.

Mightypeon
09-10-2004, 13:11
Saxon men at arms and Teutonic Spears are ordinary, which is a huge boost from utterly crappy, but no real match for Italian or Byzantine troops (statwise medmod Byz troops(vesteritare) are Swordsmen, who happen to carry spears and large shields and come in groups of 100).

Late medmod HRE is only difficult because you are in 3 wars before turn 4, Usually Poles in turn 1, Huns/Italians shortly thereafter.
The horde usually sacks Prussia but ceases top fight you after it.
Add Swiss and Burgundy before turn 10, Danes and France tend to be docile though.

katank
09-10-2004, 13:58
true.

crap units and multifront wars with delicate must win situations (otherwise civil war) make HRE pretty hard in medmod.

try and blitz before you are hit usually is good policy.

henoch
10-19-2004, 07:48
a.) build churches, get the pope`s "1000" florins moneybucket
b.) go on crusade..no not the holy lands
1.pommeria, 2.prussia
c.) lose these provinces to rebels (they will hand them over to polish)
if not..back to b.)
d.) after the horde appeared in 1227 they will march there, or stay polish. anyway, the polish have silesia (GA-goal) so "spreading" their forces is vital to a later war.

just make sure you get a "fine" crusade core. this changes from year to year, no matter where you start it.(bohemia is good)

along with teutonic sergeants (fine not best sergeants imo) you will now have swordbrothers: teutonic knights

until late these guys rule in german terrain, beside crusaders get perfect stats to become *gorgiousesly* generals..

lugh
10-19-2004, 17:24
Im actually in the process of a HRE GA campaighn, since I am only as far as the 1210s I'll only do an early section for the moment.

HRE - Early

To start, as many have pointed out, the HRE is quite fragmented and you have quite a few disloyal generals running around. Against this though, the provinces in the center of the HRE are quite loyal, so they do not require the garrisons you have there when the game starts.
To this end, start the majority of your troops moving to the north and south leaving nominal garrisons on your borders, your neighbours, the French especially have other concerns on their mind and you afford to have light borders for the first few decades.
Divide your empire into north and south troop production provinces, aim your border provinces toward the higher fortifications and your coastal provinces towards agents and fleet.

Massing your garrisons and whatever troops you can quickly make down in Italy, and over running their continental holdings yeilds some wealthy provinces aswell as Venice, a rich coastal town already developed. Once you have thier holdings make peace with the Italians but leave a garrison on your coast until you have a fleet to block invasions.

North, ignore Denmark for the moment, concentrate on the rebel provinces and drive up as afar as Novgorod, turn your recent acquisitions to fleet production. Stop just short of Novgorod until you can start drafting some Slavs from your recent acquisitions and some archers spear and militia from your inner empire.
Once you have your fleet production set up, stagger their production, two ships per turn, in the same sea ie Friesland and Saxony one turn, next two provinces next etc. This allows your fleet to expand one sea at a time, gives you a solid fleet of two ships per tile and more importantly puts a check on bankruptcy. At the same time build all the trading posts you can then start upgrading your defenses to next Fort level. Ultimately, ships from this production line will wrap around into the Med, your Med prod line is smaller and as we will see is liklier to take losses.
Once you have a decent force assembled and a fleet to move it, take Novgorod and Finland. There is no real need to finish them off if they expand, the main objective of all this is to take control of the Northern Seas and curtail Danish expansion. DO NOT expand further into the east, this will bring you into conflict with the Polish, Hungarians and Byzantines. Also it will leave you to fight the Golden Horde, let them bloody themselves on other factions before you swoop in in the High period and take the Eastern steppes off whatever weakened faction now holds them.

Your next priority is building a mediteranean fleet., lining up crusades in Venice and producing the volumes of troops youll need to take the Holy lands. this is where I seem to deiverge from a lot of the others, it just seems to me that these crusades yeild some easy GA points, where otherwise you have to rely on the less yielding conquest points or the trickier Empire points.
The fleet you need here is a it more specialised, it only needs to reach as far as the Holy Lands but each fleet will need usually 3 ships to take out the Egyptian fleet and stay viable.
The next part is simple, as soon as you have a fleet line stretching from Venice to the Holy Lands, mass your new legions of men in Venice and create a Crusade to Palestine.
The four Holy Lands will fall like dominoes, but be aware you may need to break your fleet lines if the French have a Crusade on its way.

That should all get you to the mid 1100s. By this time you should be the dominant trade force in the Med and the North and with a broad base of power you can begin to pick up the odd province. Ireland is a goodd one to have, the gallowglasses provide a good supplement to the Slavic warriors when fighting in the desert, and the Egyptians will bepissed enough by now that they will raid regularly.
Your coatal provinces, having established as fleet prod lines, can be turned to agents and you can use these to spread some discontent, especially among the Almohads. Send in a dozen bishops to thier European holdings then a few assasins and finally some spies. I took most of thier empire in this way for little cost, simply bribing the rebels that turned up.

The guts of the last half of the century should be turned to troop production. Try and make peace with the Egyptians for the moment as keeping the garrisons in the Holy Lands at strength in the face of constant invasions is expensive. Rather, build up some spare crusades, and build enough troops to launch several large crusades, one after the other. I broke the Egyptians in 1191, leaving them with only one land locked province. For the moment leave them there, as the new lands will not be very loyal until you can get them Christianised.

About now the rest of the world will be getting antsy. You can afford to ignore the Spainish, Aragonese and Almohads, but the Byzantines attacking your Eastern holdings seem inevitable. Destroy thier fleet and take all of thier Med islands to begin with.

As the age draws to the close, you shouls have the seas of terade completely in your possesion, with no one near challenging you, and your forces shgould be strong enough to with hold the French Hungarian Polish armies jealous of your new conquests, most importantly, with the taking of the Holy Lands, you shouyld have a substantial lead in terms of GA points.

Lanemerkel1
11-16-2004, 06:26
WTF R SLAV WARRIORS,VANILLA ARCHERS,HEER BANS,UBERBLOKES and HUSCARLES??? none of em r in my game :\\\ :help: i am ~:confused:

Lanemerkel1
11-16-2004, 18:41
I love to BLITZ italy its fun and when I do it I am driving them off the european mainland completing part of the HRE goal I had my fleet blockading between the mainland and corsica/sardina so the're king was captured I ransomed him and I think it was 5 other inportant guys and ransomed them off the mainland for 50,000 florins (don't know where they got that much) then for some reason they were depending upon my empire for everything! they were a cash cow for me (my empire streched to muscovy in the east navarre in the west palistine to the south and norway to the north in other words my reich is bigger noe than hitler's was it at its fullest extent but no much bigger) I mean come on italy is bringin in about 1250 florins a year for me!so I AM NOT gonna kick em out of europe my crusades worked I control the holy land I have a total of 67 caravels sinkin the byzantines to the south-east destroying they're med fleet and switchin med power from ITALY to SICILY to BYZANTIUM to ME! I took out hungary and poland I can't immediatley challenge the BYZ on land even though I am the most technologicly advanced empire in the game I also have the biggest military but they are all either in the center provinces of my empire (switzerland,burgundy,tyrolia etc.) or protecting the holy land from the infedels but I am challenging ther'e sea power and winnin all this becuz i sent a crusade to palistine that went through kiev foolish foolish byzantines oh well we all seem to agree that the AI is stupid once i get control of the seas from byzantium i can challenge them on land becuz most my armies are in prussia,provence and freisland I am at war with the turks but haven't had a battle with them in 10-15 years of course havin roman gladiators raised out of burgundy to take rome and then switch rome into makin em helps ~:) (+1 valour to all roman gladiators made in the province of rome) I have an alliance with england and they are the only naval force even close to threatining my control of the north seas france also has some ships and i am at war with them but they are no match for my navy ~:) too bad I got excommed for nearly starving his holiness to death (he will be HOLY when my arquebusiers are through with him ~D too bad I sent my entire German Secret Assassins Corp. after him to void the excommunication the entire corp. (33 level 1 assassins) failed I ended the year with no assassins *sighs* but then 10 years after the first time I nearlr starved the popesta to death I went back in and did it again (I've been repeating it every 10 years) and wattya know I starved 400 of his soldiers to death! ~:) he was left with a force of 5 royal knights! no match for my total military of 160,000 men! so since he is surrounded by me he is at the hands of my mercy I am currently taking my assassins and workin em up to level 5 by killin my own spies then I'll send em in and hopefully they won't end up as the German Secret Amuater Assassins Corp. did.

2faced
02-24-2005, 19:28
A suggestion for Medmod HRE: Hit Poland. I attacked Poland with ~600 men and my emperor on the second turn. Polish king flees to Silesia, next turn I beat him there and net ~10k in ransoms. This was infinitely helpful, allowing me to shore up my armies everywhere and improve my farming.

Turning Saxony into a shipbuilding province is essential, as otherwise the Danes, Swedes, and English will kill all of your small navy and land everywhere.

After the French attacked my ships in the English Channel (but strangely didn't attack on land), I wiped them out fairly easily and gained good economic provinces (Flanders!). By this time, the Hungarians were fighting the Byz, so I was fine on that front.

The only really difficult thing about this was avoiding being attacked by the Italians, who quickly get restless, as they have no one to fight. They eventually invaded Provence with 4 stacks, leaving Milan totally undefended and Venice fairly weak, so I took both of those provinces and squashed their army in Provence. Woodsmen from Prussia (I bribed it), Poland, and Silesia are very useful, and upgraded Heerban (build church for morale, armorer, weaponsmith if possible), especially from Franconia, were actually quite useful.

Asmodai
02-09-2006, 12:29
I played recently a HRE campaign, GA early/expert/XL mod.

Campaign is still saved, but HRE rule most of France and anected Hungarians and Poland....
I stopped at 1198...still waiting for some challenge, cos further gaming will be easy victory in conquering whole world, rather fulfilling GA only.

I have some clues for everyone playing HRE


Germany is realy big, and they have long borders to defend. But the size of the Imperium is not only a bad thing, but is very useful for absorbing invasions. Near always HRE is attacked from all sides. I played many times and always ended with few poor provinces and battered army:surrender: . And the excommunication. It is impossible to keep huge army in every province.
Blitz campaigns are risky, cos while your army rampaging on the countryside, you borders are unprotected.

:idea2: I figured out, that only few provinces are vital for surviving. I named them as "Core". Burgundy, Swizerland, Swabia, Frankonia, Saksony, Bavaria.

Each of this lands, have their role in HRE existence.
Burgundy is the Key province on western borders. 3 French lands bordering Burgundy via river. Also, Burgundy borders with Genuese/Italians also. One army in burgundy keep in check most france and Italians. Burgundy is second of my main troop producers. All heavy infantry and light cav is trained here.
Swabia, Swizerland and Frankonia also building troops. In Swizerland i build only infantry and siege machines only. In Swabia, i train infantry, mostly hth infantry(FMAA, SSwordsmen, MS). In franconia i train most of my cavalry.
Saxony deserves a special mentioning. Generaly, it is a troop producer, but i also build there a naval buildings(port, shipyard, later admirality). During high period i planning extensive building for Gothic Knights, that are available in late. In Swabia i also build every kingdom related building(chancellary, constable palace and so on).
Bavaria is my main farm and is relatively save. Is near my emperor, that their loyality is big enough, and is secured by Bohemia and Austria.
Loraine, Friesland, Austria, Bohemia, Brandenburg and Provence are provinces, that serves mostly for absorbing attack. When enemy invade on of this provinces, my relatively small garison abandon or retreat to the stronghold, while armies from my "Core" are send for help.
Additional lands available in XL mod(Tuscany and milan also serves the absorbing role. Only Tuscany have a value as troop producer. Urban militians produced there have better valour.

Armies of HRE:
Generaly, i divided my armies for blocking and counterattacking.
Blocking army composition depends on region and troop types of your neibours.I allways block any fraction with most efficient units against them. For eg. French army in early consisting many archers and urban militia. So, light cavalery is espetialy useful against them. In Burgundy i quickly build horse breeder and spearmakers workshop, that gives my mounted crossbows(for dealing with French knights, and Mounted Sergeants(for flank charges and dealing with mobs of french archers). That units are godd for italians/genuese also, cos in their armies are quite the same combo(often they have genuese sailors rather than vanilla archers).
More problematic are Poles and Hungarians. They armies consist mostly of cavalry, and HRE must build few buildings to start training even basic (and relatively weaker cav) than Hungary.
In Austria or Bohemia always stands huge army of spearmen with loads of archers.
Saxony is also guarded. Huge contigent of Spearmen, Archers(when mounted crossbows are available, i swap archers for mounted crossbows, cos Danes and Swedens have mostly armoured units) and UM (later MS and FMAA).

For counterattacking i use one, or later two or more armies.
From start counteratacking army is stationed in franconia. That army is used for counterattacks and breaking sieges, and consists most advanced units that are actually available.

I never train peasants for garrison duty. They are to weak and cannot survive siege battle, and my troopers, if they cannot win, they should at least cause as many casualities to enemy, as it is possible. I prefer spearman with urban militia, or later, Feudal Sergeants with one unit of royal knights

Tactics vor preserving Holy Roman Empire is simple. Rather than blitzkrieg on neighbouring kingdoms, turle up. In two first years, build watch towers and border forts. Keep loyality under control. As for generals, i use my heirs for commanders. Keep strong armies in Saxony, Franconia, Burgundy, Austria/Bohemia. Small garrisons in the other. That may provoke invasion, but you counter should be enough.
If you have spare money, upgrade castles in frontier provinces. Small garrison can hold it for years, and enemy sassault will be costly.
From start, try to seal some alliances with neibours.
Problem with counter attack after losing province risk excomm. First, if you counter one fraction, get warning, immediately counter another fraction. You may even invade their homeland. Their next move will definitely be counter to invaded province in their homeland. Beat them in defensive battle on favoured ground. If they lose, raze entire province(money), and finish off their main army, it it is possible. If not, get the next one. And retreat your army and get another invader, do the same with him. Even when you get excomm, don`t bother. HRE had always problems with the pope. Excomm HRE is`nt that dangerous, that is for French, English or other catolics. I think, that this depends on zeal level in each province, but i could be wrong...
And special mention about rulers. I read many post on this forum, and i`am a little bit confused about using ruler in battles. For me, i`s stupidity(no offens to anybody). Yes, he award the stars and his sons may be better generals, but you actualy loose him after 20-30 years. Loosing good general ist good at all. I use heirs to do the commanders job. And after sucsession i often have good general, who is from royal line, but is no heir anymore. Secure his loyality with admiral on constable title and i have 6-8 star general which is...well, immortal, bcos after 20-30 only the general name is changing. His abilities remains the same.
My Emperor command the troops only in crisis(civil war or rebelion, or in dangerous enemy invasion) and using mostly garrisons and support units.
King is for ruling, not for fighting. Leave war to..expendable servants, as i like to say:laugh4:

On actual save, i was attacked by Genuese, Hungary, Poles, and French.:dizzy2: I tought, that it will be the end of the game from the very start, but, i didnt give up. I fend off the english, and attacked genuese, while in austria my battered defenders hold against massive Hungary invasion. Poles overran bohemia and brandenburg. Whem i massacred two french armies and razed genuesian lands, i crushed Hungarian army in Austria:charge: . Then, the civil war starts.:sweatdrop: Tyrol and Switzerland was the core of the rebelion. I ended this rebellion retreating garrison from Tirol to Sweiz, King with garrison in Swabia supported. Rebels Retreated to Tyrol. I attacked rebels with King and garrisons from now loyal Sweiz and Swabia, and supported them with elements of the Burgundian Army. Slaughtered every captive after that battle. Danes were passive, so after defeating huge army of Hungary, time to teach Poles where their place is. Having spare cash from anecting rebel lands, i bribed good(5 star) general in pomerania, and he enjoyously take my money.:juggle2: From pomerania huge army of slav warriors invaded Poland directly. And then very interesting thing had happened. Poles and Hungarians started war with each other. Polish king tried to free Krakow from siege, but huge army of Hungarian also wanted Poland. As defender, i positioned my army on High ground, and i wached happily, as Hungarians and Poles massacred themselves in brutal onslaught. Hungarians were victorious, but they were unable to beat my from my positions. After few desperate attacks:wall: , they fleed.
Krakow was sacked and Poland quickly razed. Next 4 years was spend on merciles anihilation of poles. Last stand they made in silesia.
Now, i regruped my armies, and my bribed general was thrown to Prussia and pomerania, to fight with the pagan rebels.

I only regreet, that it is to late for crusading:embarassed: . Additionaly, egiptians have few ships, and that preventing naval route to the holy land. I planning few crusades on rebels instead, but i must wait couple years, cos i`am actually excomm.:embarassed:

As you see, this is not impossible to fight with 4 enemies, and even resist civil war in the progress. Carefully planned turtling pays off in future.
Also, not losing nerves, when half of the europe wants see you on the knees.
Harsh counterattack on wrong enemy is worse than losing defensive battle.
Ability to field few more advanced units faster than in other fractions also helps. Militia sergeants, Feudal Sergeants and Feudal Men at arms is the first objective of your troopbuilding provinces. Of course, other fractions will be having this units sooner or later, but will be far better owning them much sooner than others.

With chivalrous greetings!

Have fun.

OldSchool
07-01-2006, 20:36
HRE early/hard/VI-unmodded Conquest

Opening goals:

Take over Scandinavia, the Baltic Coast, and gain a port in the Black Sea.

Target territories:

Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Provence, Prussia, Lithuania, Kiev, Moldavia.

Unit production:

Swabia: Swabian Swordsmen in Early. Switch to agents in later eras.
Franconia: All cavalry, starting with Mounted Crossbows.
Bohemia: Slav units and all spears.
Sweden: Huskarles and all swordsmen.
Kiev: Ships and Heavy Steppe Cavalry.
Moldavia: Avar Nobles in early and switch to ships in later eras.
Provence: Ships.
Denmark: Viking Landsmen until Sweden can make them.
Switzerland: Swiss units.
Lithuania: Ships and eventually Lith Cavalry (just for the fun of it, not really that useful).
I don't crusade, but if I did, Prussia is the natural choice to make them.
I usually finish the game well before the Late era, so I don't worry about making Gothic Knights in Saxony anymore.

Opening moves:

I que up spearmen in Burgandy, Archers in Switzerland, and Urban Milita in Swabia. I leave one unit of spears or peasants in each provence (whichever is most loyal) and send everyone else, including the king, to Saxony. I then attack Denmark with the king and enough men to defeat the Danish king, his heir, and their army. If I can't kill the royalty during the battle, I seige the castle on the next turn to avoid excommunication. You should have an heir by now. I send him and whatever army is left to blitz through Pomerania, Prussia, Lithuania, Kiev, and Moldavia if I'm quick enough to get there before the Polish or Byzantines. As units are produced, I keep the most loyal as garrisons and send the rest trailing after the heir to maintain loyalty and beef up his army.

I immediately build the mottte in Denmark and que up Viking Landsmen. I then stop making Urban Militas. Once I have enough Landsmen I send the King to take Sweden and then Norway.

After this initial blitz, I turtle up and start to build defensive armies at my key points. (Burgandy, Lorraine, Austria, etc.) I build ships as quickly as possible in Lithuania and Kiev and just keep them qued up. Once I reach Gibralter, I start building ships in Provence for the Med. I build a strong defense against France, which is usually preoccupied with England, and a strong one against Italy, which usually isn't aggressive until you start having ships in the Med. I leave my baltic coast fairly weak against the Polish, which usually entices them to invade (useful if you are allied with them and want to go to war without losing influence by breaking an alliance). Since you have already cut off their expansion, they should be easy to eliminate within two turns to avoid excommunication.

I use the Avar Nobles to combat the Byzantines, who you will inevitably go to war with. My goal from this stage until the Golden Horde is just to build up my trading fleets and defenses and be opportunistic when I can. If the French get jumpy, I defend what I have and only invade if they slip into civil war or leave themselves too vulnerable. I'm not aggressive towards the Italians, but if they do attack, I gladly kick them off the continent. I don't go any further into Italy than neccessary, nor do I take their islands. My main goal is to finish taking over the Balkans, eventually taking Constantinople. Usually this means allowing the Byz to eliminate the Hungarians and then relentlessly attacking them until you've pushed them out the other side of Constantinople.

Once the high era starts, I send all obsolete troops to Kiev and stack that territory with as many armies as possible. When the Horde arrives, it will inevitably attack Kiev, and the more men you have, the more men it will send. Since this is a bridge battle, you can often diffuse the Horde before it even gets started. Once the initial battle is over, he should be seriously weakened and I then take over the steppes all the way down to Georgia.

At this point, you should have enough armies to fight wars on many fronts. I take the French whenever convenient and then work south through Spain and on to Africa, leaving an army behind to take the Brittish Isles. I send my armies down from Georgia and Constantinople to take the holy land and then all armies merge somewhere on the African coast. Once that happens, I send armies to take all the Med islands and then take Sicily and the rest of the Italian boot. Then I grab my king and a hand-picked army and go pay a visit to that ex-communicating son-of-a-buiscut in Rome. The Pope is dead, long live the Emperor.

Anyways, sorry this is so long. Just wanted to add my two cents to the German guide.

Sensei Warrior
07-04-2006, 02:50
WTF R SLAV WARRIORS,VANILLA ARCHERS,HEER BANS,UBERBLOKES and HUSCARLES??? none of em r in my game :\\\ :help: i am ~:confused:

I'll give you the translation, at least what i know (which doesn't appear to be much).

Slav Warriors = Units available in regular campaigns from the Viking Expansion better known as VI.
HeerBans = I've never heard of it. I believe its a MedMod unit.
Vanilla Archers = term for the unit called "Archers"
Uberblokes = some Italian unit possibly from MedMod or perhaps Italian Light Infantry who are pretty powerful if gained in Early
Huscarles = another unit in VI. Can be built up in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway.

Deus ret.
07-05-2006, 19:29
Well I tried a 'fair' GA game with the HRE (early, MedMod, hard). 'Fair' meant
1)no blitzing, 2)no extensive use of assassins (e.g. to get rid of the Pope), 3)no unnecessary expansion (rather meaningless anyway because of MedMod's homeland concept, allowing no recruitment outside a "home zone"). Now guess which I came to break rather sooner than later....

1) On my 4th try or so (having been quickly dismembered while playing purely defensively in the previous ones) I ended up having to attack Poland right away, destroying everything there and then withdrawing - this pretty much eliminated them and gave me some breathing space for the inevitable war with the Hungarians which attacked only two years later and which took up all available resources. Rule #1 broken.

2) Since I sometimes had to take some counter-action when yet another bugger decided to join the gang-up on me, I got excommed several times. Not only did this harm my income severely, it also provided the English with a pretext for a crusade against me (which in MedMod are considerably more powerful than in vanilla). After that, I decided to break the rule just once, figuring that it would take a while for the 39-year old pope and my 32-year old emperor to bury the hatchet. I bordered the Pope somewhat later; not surprisingly he attacked against all odds....and I got excommed again for throwing him out of my border province. Because he never would make peace again afterwards and consequently has refused me to start any crusades since, I also decided to kick rule #2 (concerning the Pope) as some kind of counter-measure.

3) It proved to be theoretically possible to just settle with little more than the homelands (=starting provinces) but this meant endless battles against invasion armies each turn. Of course, none of those suckers would ever make peace after attacking, even if they were so battered that the respective front was quiet for 10 years. So I ended up taking Italy first, partly also due to GA goals, eliminating the ever-annoying Genoese and Venetians in the process. Since the Sicilians couldn't be persuaded to stop their relentless amphibious assaults they had to perish, too. Next issue was Scandinavia, where Denmark had completely eliminated Sweden and -guess what- immediately turned on me. Their (initial) sea supremacy meant that letting them stay was too great a danger for my coasts as well as for the still fledging sea trade. After I had dealt with them, the English had conquered most of France and ....well in each case I barely managed to hold them off and decided that their continental holdings had to be cut away since they had all become effective troop production centers for them in the meantime and were easier to reach than their island provinces.
So I ended up with around 33 provinces, owning everything between Norway and Sicily plus North France, which can be considered as a breach of rule #3. It is now around 1189, I'm still pondering to wait for High to start because of new units, but it's no point. The game is basically won, there remains no challenge whatsoever (except maybe the horde) and all I wanted was just to sit there and have a nice game....

Conclusion: don't bother to play GA with the HRE. once the "initial" phase of stabilizing and securing is done with, the game's over more or less.
I know this won't cause a shake-up, just thought I'd share my experience with the guys around.

PS just to complete Sensei Warrior's list:
Heerban = basic melee unit with AP for HRE in MedMod.
Huscarles = heavy armoured Viking infantry, available in MedMod also (in High and Late for HRE & Scandinavian factions).
Uberblocks = not really a unit but Italian Light infantry IIRC. pretty good and even better when replaced with Italian Heavy infantry in Late. think of a very naughty wall of spears.

edit: typos

beans_on_toast
08-03-2006, 02:11
Is there anyone that can do a brief HRE late period guide?

Empirate
08-03-2006, 10:05
I recently played a Late, Hard, GA HRE game. It basically goes exactly as an early game, except you don't have to worry about crusades to the holy land for GA points. I never quite figured out how to "control" two thirds of North Sea trade. I had games in which the Germans were down to three provinces, one of them coastal, having no ships whatsoever, and were still awarded the points. In my game I was the only one having fleets in the North Sea (everybody had turned on me, you know...), and I didn't get the points. Strange, to say the least.
Anyway, I started by putting all of my armies together, as in the first few turns nobody is likely to start a war with you, giving you a breathing span of probably six to eight years. I blitzed the Poles, which is only sensible, and also secured Lithuania by crusade from Prussia. I kept up the crusade production there, mainly to come by some nice Teutonic Knights. You can't easily produce knights anywhere, and you definitely need some heavy cavalry. I also killed the Swiss, if only for producing Swiss Halberdiers and Pikemen. This can be skipped, though, as it cost me A LOT of men. Produce lots of Crossbowmen and Arbalesters, once you can get them, and send them east.

The Hungarians have no other way of expanding than attacking you: In the south they're usually held off by either Turks or Byzantines, and in the east the Horde looms rather large. Against the Hungarians and the Horde, you need a decent supply of superior foot missile units to beat their endless waves of Horse Archers, Szekely, and whatnot. In my game I tried to get a short border to the east (Lithuania plus Kiev are ideal), had a lengthy and rather bloody war against the Hungarians in which I was finally able to push them out of Bulgaria and Hungary proper, securing short borders there, too.

The need for short borders is obvious: You have a large territory and are vulnerable all over. I basically kept one large army per region and defended most provinces with just one unit of crap, to withdraw into the castle once attacked. I could then free the province using the larger army. Key is to outmaneuver the enemy and destroy their actual fighting force. You need to be good on the battle map for this, so you can conserve your troops, as reinforcements usually take a long time getting to the front.

The west was difficult as well, but I had the good luck that the English were (unusually) able to take much of France and hold on to it, buying me some time. If the French seem to be winning against the English, though, stab them in the back as soon as possible. They MUST NOT become a power. Take Lorraine and Burgundy to shorten the border. England left me alone for quite a while, but I kept some armies on that border just in case, so they tied up troops just as if there's been a real threat. The Italians usually concentrate on shipbuilding, trade and overseas expansion, so I left the southern border mostly unguarded. In most of my HRE games, this has proven a viable course of action, as the Italians rarely attack and you simply don't have the armies to defend on all fronts.

Strategically, it is defend-where-you-can, expand-where-it-makes-defense-easier, then. What about money? It's tight. Real tight. And it will stay tight. Try to make the most out of plunder: I went into a building and troop-training spree every time I was able to take a rich province. Try to develop some trade, but don't get your hopes up too much: It takes a while for trade to repay the initial investments of Port, Trader, and many many ships. Besides, you don't have many provinces on the sea, and not all of these have trading goods. I concentrated on farming and mines instead. I typically built 20% and 40% farming as soon as possible and assigned good governors, as well as maxing out tax income. More advanced farms are not recommendable, as they take too much money out of your treasury and don't repay the investment for a long while. Don't waste money on anything you don't need RIGHT NOW. Especially don't bribe anything, don't use mercenaries.

You can make do with your own troops - it's a large country, and in many provinces there's some halfway decent unit to be trained. Just make sure you move these to any of your several fronts on a regular basis - and don't commission too many troops for training, only where you really need them. I had to make do with armies composed of mostly inferior troops for the period, as knights are simply unavailable, and arbalesters need some building up to get. But Chivalric Men-at-Arms can be trained in at least two places, and Halberdiers were a staple of my armies (try to build at least a church where you train them, though!). Still, it was uphill fighting for a long while, Crossbowmen and Militia Sergeants against a lot of Chivalric units in Hungary, and against Mongol Heavy Cavalry, Warriors and Mounted Archers in the east. Be sure to secure some other advantage, like numbers, rain (against archer-heavy armies) and terrain, and keep your casualties low.

In my game I now have a secure east, with Lithuania, Kiev, Bulgaria, Hungary and Austria being my border provinces. In the west the English (very powerful now) have taken to attack me, but I could beat their Longbowmen-Billmen-combo by using heavy rain and exclusive melee heavy-hitters (CMAA, and lots of them). This destroyed their most elite army, and I was able to push them out of Flanders. I'm trying to hold at this point and concentrate on naval warfare (slowly turning the table round to my side there as well).
My plans are consolidating a little more, and especially teching up a little. My domain is now so large that I can actually make a little money as long as I look to how I spend it.

Vladimir
08-03-2006, 12:48
Good late strategy. They should have followed it when I was playing Burgundy in Late XL. Now they have to make due with Kazar and Georgia.

rvg
08-21-2006, 17:10
One problem with playing the HRE faction is that the entire game is basically determined within the first 20 turns.
On Expert you routinely get attacked by 2-3 factions simultaneously, and if you survive, then you might as well quit, since it will be virtually impossible to lose the game after that.
For example, in my latest HRE game (Early, Expert) I got attacked by the French, the Italians and the English. When the dust settled, the French have been reduced to just Bretagne and Toulouse, Italians have been banished to the islands, and the English lost the naval control of the English Channel effectively splitting their kingdom in half.
That's it, game over. NOTHING in the game will be able to stop the HRE juggernaught at this point.

Granted, I got lucky, because neither the Poles nor the Hungarians expressed any aggression towards me, otherwise things would have been a bit trickier, but still... the year is 1118, and the game is basically won.

Empirate
08-29-2006, 16:10
If you have any doubts about winning just about any kind of campaign (haven't tried late Byzzies yet, though...), you haven't been playing this game very long. It should be a foregone conclusion that you will eventually win. But it's getting there that is fun. HRE have an interesting starting position (as in "may you live in interesting times"). After they have survived the initial phase of all-out war on all fronts, they will be very powerful, yes. But just because the game is "basically" won then doesn't mean there's a reason to quit, does it? It's still fun to play. If it wasn't, I'd not be playing M:TW at all anymore.

Empirate
08-29-2006, 16:11
If you have any doubts about winning just about any kind of campaign (haven't tried late Byzzies yet, though...), you haven't been playing this game very long. It should be a foregone conclusion that you will eventually win. But it's getting there that is fun. HRE have an interesting starting position (as in "may you live in interesting times"). After they have survived the initial phase of all-out war on all fronts, they will be very powerful, yes. But just because the game is "basically" won then doesn't mean there's a reason to quit, does it? It's still fun to play. If it wasn't, I'd not be playing M:TW at all anymore.

Sorry for the double post. Moderator, please remove, if possible. Thanks.

Maximillian von Hapsburg
03-06-2007, 13:58
MedMod sounds interesting. I've got a few questions,

1) Are the units historically accurate?
2) Is it compatible with XL?
3) Where can I get it?! :D


Yours,



Max :)

Deus ret.
03-07-2007, 02:05
1) Are the units historically accurate?
2) Is it compatible with XL?
3) Where can I get it?! :D

hi max,

1) although I'm studying history myself I really don't have a clue. at least their names sound quite realistic....

2) no, you'll either have to make a separate MTW install or uninstall XL - if that's not possible, you'll have to re-install MTW:VI again. A much easier way is to use a mod-switcher tool which allows you to activate and deactivate mods as you need. ...although you need a clean MTW:VI install to get it to work properly.

3) this link (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=50854)
leads to a thread about the mod with all important information and a discussion. WesW, the mod's creator, is no longer active but the available stuff should suffice.

If you want to share your HRE MedMod experiences I'd be interested, the MedMod campaign with this faction is among the most outstanding I ever had.

Ludens
03-08-2007, 21:14
As for the first question, historical accuracy was never the first concern of the MedMod. WesW claimed he has improved things in the v4 version, but as long as he uses Huscarles as the Danish Royal Guard I would take that with a pinch of salt.

Deus ret.
03-09-2007, 17:42
but as long as he uses Huscarles as the Danish Royal Guard I would take that with a pinch of salt.

Does he? I played a Swedish campaign recently and I am absolutely sure that the Royal Guard units are Hirden in Early, Scandinavian Knights in high and armoured Hirden in Late. ....?

Ludens
03-09-2007, 20:55
Does he? I played a Swedish campaign recently and I am absolutely sure that the Royal Guard units are Hirden in Early, Scandinavian Knights in high and armoured Hirden in Late. ....?
It is? I haven't played the latest version of MedMod, but I do remember WesW saying that the Danish Royal Guard would stay Huscarles, because he wanted the Danes to be an infantry power. I am pretty sure he was refering to v4, but it was a long time ago.

Kavhan Isbul
03-12-2007, 19:35
The Danes and the Swedes royal BGs are Hirden, Scandinavian Knights and Armored Hirden, but the Danes/Swedes are still an infantry power, and more specifically blade infantry power, as they have no spear infantry in Early. This lack of spears was intended for balancing purposes, i guess, but it is certainly a bit ahistorical. I would agree that the main concern of MedMod was balanced and challenging gameplay, and not historical accuracy. There are some small problems when it comes to historical accuracy, such as the Pechenegs being Catholic and having a Hungarian unit roster, but these are easily fixable and do not detract from the mod.

caravel
03-21-2007, 14:35
MedMod sounds interesting. I've got a few questions,

1) Are the units historically accurate?
2) Is it compatible with XL?
3) Where can I get it?! :D


Yours,



Max :)
There are no very historically accurate mods for MTW. MTW doesn't have it's EB or it's RTR. IMHO the most historically accurate mod I've come across to date is probably the BKB Super Mod. It's not totally accurate of course but it's probably as close to it as they come.

:bow:

oz_wwjd
04-11-2007, 13:35
Also it isnt all over once you subdued your enemies.If you get excomm'ed for aggression and experience mass uprisings as a result,things get interesting,expecially if the Hungarians/French decide to take advantage of the uprisings.

Martok
04-17-2007, 01:19
expecially if the Hungarians/French decide to take advantage of the uprisings.
....And they will. (I don't think I've ever seen either faction pass up an opportunity to pound on the poor Germans!) ~D As has been said elsewhere, surviving and prospering as the HRE seems to require as much luck as it does skill -- good tactics and strategy alone aren't always enough to ensure their success.

If you can get the Empire through the first 20 years or so without a major war, then they have a decent chance of becoming the dominant power on the continent. It's getting through those first 20 years that's tricky, however!

Deus ret.
04-17-2007, 17:51
If you can get the Empire through the first 20 years or so without a major war, then they have a decent chance of becoming the dominant power on the continent. It's getting through those first 20 years that's tricky, however!

It is indeed tricky, but it probably won't be possible without a major war. The AI is extremely aggressive towards the faction and since it's impossible to properly garrison all borders at once they WILL find themselves in some kind of conflict within 10 years. And given the abundance of surrounding hostile factions it is highly advisable to strike first to avoid being overrun on all fronts at once (see post #38).

That said, it is mainly through those inavoidable early wars that the HRE can emerge as the dominant power on the continent..... i.e. either they master the challenge and become really strong or they go down and perish. I've never seen another development in any of my games so far, with the latter possibility being by far the most frequent.

Vladimir
04-17-2007, 20:39
Best bet to avoid an early war is to build a paper tiger army of urban militia. They can't fight very well but it will look impressive.

Martok
04-18-2007, 03:00
Best bet to avoid an early war is to build a paper tiger army of urban militia. They can't fight very well but it will look impressive.
Yeah, I've employed that tactic before with some success. It's not foolproof, of course, but it does seem to discourage other factions from attacking you.

gollum
02-16-2010, 19:43
Usually its best to take out the Italians quickly... this solves quite a few problems and makes the Pope more of a pain, but a harmless one. Afterwards certain French regions in the west can be easily taken as Ile-de-France, Flanders and Champagne, this usually quiets the French permanently. Taking over the Poles solves a frontier problem and silences a permanent pest, while taking over the Huns is the most ludicrous and promising, but usually at the same time one may be fighting a Spanish or Almohad invasion from the Iberian. The Danes are a toothless tiger because they have to attack accross the bridge to Saxony. Not worth the time to take out unless one has taken out all others already and has safe rigid frontiers and a solid healthy economy.

In many ways its interesting with the HRE because the direction of expansion/defence depends on the balance of power in other places of the board. The game can have lots of ups and downs that are hard to predict.

I of the Storm
03-04-2010, 09:27
After several campaigns (huge units setting, normal difficulty), I advocate a semi-blitz strategy. The best approach for success in an early campaign was to assemble all your troops in Franconia and Bohemia and hit the Polish asap. You should be able to take them out with your starting troops within 2 turns, while they - most probably - didn't expand yet. 1 faction out. Build towers, basic farming and forts everywhere else. Keep strong garrisons in Burgundy and Lorraine (important!), Austria and Poland. A small garrison in Denmark might also be useful.
Turtling, farming and teching is important now. Make use of any opportunities but otherwise lay low. In my game, the French were overrunning my allies the English, so I was forced to intervene on their behalf and secure Flanders, Champagne, Ile de France. That usually cripples them. Otherwise I only counterattacked. I took over northern Italy when they died out, so I took over. In 1240ish, Hungary finally attacked, and I'm currently finishing them off.
The Turks have recently been killed by the Byz, but everybody else is doing fine so far, which is good.

Taking out Poland early gets one risk factor of your back, and leaves some rebel provinces in eastern europe that you can take your time with. Plus their provinces aren't exactly poor.

gollum
03-04-2010, 11:38
Never tried this route before I, i'll doso next time i give the Kaisers a go. Seems interesting.

I of the Storm
03-25-2010, 10:58
I've been toying around some more and I've come to the conclusion that taking out Poland directly followed by taking out Hungary (yes, immediately after!) is a very beneficial strategy for the early HRE. With both kingdoms you share rather long, underdeveloped and not very defensible borders, in opposition to your other borders (Danes: river; French: 2 rivers+woods; Italians: mountains). Both kingdoms are rather weak at the beginning (Poland 2 provinces, Hungary 3) and prone to attack you sooner or later with hordes of cheap missile cav/javelin inf.
So right after finishing the Polish I recruited one woodsmen unit there and split my troops into three armies according to the hungarian strength. Simultaneously invade Croatia, Hungary and Carpathia and you're done. You can then either consolidate there and go bully someone else around (Danes, Italians) or consolidate there and take over the east which is what I did. I'm currently holding an eastern border at Croatia, Hungary, Wallachia, Moldavia (Avar Nobles, yumyum), Kiev (Steppe cav, spam'em) and Lithuania. The Byzantines, who I'm bordering now, are busy fighting the muslims, the Danes are ... I have no idea what they're doing. Fishing probably. I only have a peasant in Saxony and they don't care. The French are crusading, thanks to a little modding that gave them a chapter house and a crusade marker in the startpos file. Highly recommended little tweak: They are actually going after their GA goals, and don't overrun the english or your western borders with UM/archer hordes.
I'm pursuing the Empire goals in Italy right now which will get me excommed. We'll see how this turns out.

Edit: In case you're wondering what to do about the western border in the meantime: queue up spears, archers and UMs in Burgundy, Switzerland and Swabia and garrison Burgundy and Lorraine, that should deter the French as long as you need to build up your income, recruit more garrisons, deter them even more. You get the idea.