England

[ah_dut]

Normal England
In early you are one of the lesser catholic factions. However, you can reap certain advantages. By conquering Ireland and Scotland, you get Gallowglasses, kerns and highlanders. The gallows and highlanders are fast flanking inf. Without too much armour. The kern is a jav man, and well used can wreak some hardcore havoc. One big tip, please remember to bribe Wales, it has 3 units of longbowmen at the start of early. You’ve also got the fyrdman, who only require a spearmaker for feudal sergeant stats, but only in england. oops, forgot hobilars, the old spam flank unit, as in very early, any horse unit is an advantage, u have hobilars.
In high you have the priceless billman and longbow combo. This can be used to spank the knight heavy French a lot. Similar situation in late.

English tactics: as with many people, in early, I advocate a shield wall. This allows your gallows and kerns to shelter in and then flank to cause great damage. You may not have as many cav as the French but always keep a token force to defend your cheaper archers.

In high, I use 3 units, (honest.) bills as the wall, longbows to pepper my enemies and the ever cool CK. Obviously, I use arbalesters from time to time along with a few others but this works fine.
In late a pike wall may be used instead f bills but I still prefer bills, more frontage.
bye for now, i'll write some more later. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[ah_dut]

from servius:
Early, Expert, any version really

This version refers to a somewhat unorthodox tactic I use: forfiet Aquitaine, Anjou, and Normanday; take and hold Flanders. It's economically and strategically beneficial. I also RP a bit by never accepting alliances from Muslim countries. Lastly, I have modded in all the rivers that appear on the map, making Flanders very easily defendable with a few Fyrdmen and Archers.

This walkthrough is designed to quickly provide:
- a very strong economy,
- naval access to the entire map,
- an easily defended home empire,
- low military upkeep costs,
- strong kings and heirs,
- and lots of peacekeeping and crusading opportunities.

First year
- Sell Fort and HOrse Farmer in Aquitaine
- Move all forces from Aquitaine to Anjou
- Move all forces from Anjou to Normandy
- Move archer from Northumbria to Mercia
- Move archer from Mercia to Wessex
- Cue up 3 Emisaries in Wessex
- Build a tower in Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex
- Assign the peasants with the best acumen to be governors
- Jack up tax rates as high as you can while retaining 100%+ loyalty in all provinces
- Send Emisary and 2 princesses from Wessex to Flanders

Second year
- Move Anjou forces to Normandy
- Move Mercian archer to Wessex
- Send Princesses and Emisaries to ally with Germany, Spain first, then Italy, Poland, Hungary, Denmark, and Novgorod if you want
- Never accept alliances with Muslim nations
- Don't accept alliances from nations who don't share borders with France or Germany, at least not until you're a naval power in the Med
- Cue up the 2nd tower, 1st crop upgrade, and Fort in Northumbria and Mercia (done by year 9)
- Cue up the 2nd tower, 1st crop upgrade, and 1st horse farmer in Wessex (done by year 7)
- Continue to raise tax rates where able

Third year
- -Move all forces in Wessex and Normanday to Flanders. The French will abandon it.
- Continue to pursue alliances with nations that border France

Fourth year
- Cue up 2 Peasants in Wessex (7)
- Build 1st tower in Flanders (5)
- Jack up Flanders tax rate
- Move Prince to Flanders

Fifth year
- If you get a Peasant with better Acumen, disband and replace a governor
- Cue up 2nd tower, 1st crop upgrade, and Fort in Flanders (12)
- Begin pursuing princesses for heirs

Sixth year
- If you get a Peasant with better Acumen, disband and replace a governor

Seventh year
- Cue up 2 Hobilars in Wessex (9). These will be 4 (8) and 3 (9) star generals
- Cue up 1st spear (9), Port, and Keep in Wessex (21)

Eigth year
- Move 4-star Hobilar general to Flanders
- Withdraw 3 Royal Guards and 1 Archer from Flanders to Wessex

Nineth year
- Build 1st Town Watch in Northumbria and Mercia (11)
- Cue up 2 Urban Militia in Wessex (11)
- Cue up 3 Peasants in Mercia (12)
- Cue up 4 Peasants in Northumbria (13)

Tenth year
- Move =3 Royal Knights, 1 3-star Hobilar, and 1 Urban Militia From Wessex to Wales
- Move Wessex Archer to Mercia
- Move Mercia Peasant to Wales
- Move Northumbria Pesant to Mercia
- Rout Peasant from battle
- Use the King, 2-star heir, and 3-star Hobilar (in wedge) to bait out and kill 3 Welsh Longbowmen
- Use Urban Militia (in wedge) to engage and pin Welsh Spear
- Use 3-star heir to hit welsh longbowmen units in rear. When they break, use both cav on rear of another longbow, longbow, spear

Eleventh year
- Retrofit 2-star heir with horse from the 3-star heir unit
- Move 3-star heir and 3-star Hobilar to Wessex
- Move Mercia Peasant to Wales
- Make best Welsh Peasant governor
- Move King, 2-star heir, and Urban Militia to Mercia
- Move Wessex Urban Militia to Flanders
- Begin replacing Peasant governors with better ones from Mercia and Northumbria
- Ideal is 4 Acumen Peasants as governors
- Give Flanders governor 1st Royal Court title
- Build 1st archery (13), Port, and Keep in Northumbria (25)
- Build 1st spear (13), Port, and Keep in Mercia (25)
- Build 1st tower in Wales
- Set Welsh tax rate as low as necessary
- Cue up 3 Fyrdmen in Wessex (14)
- Move Mercia Archer to Northumbria

Twelveth year
- Refit Mercian Urban Militia
- Move Royal units from Mercia to Northumbria
- Cue up 2nd tower, 1st crop upgrade, and Fort in Wales (19)
- Continue seaking princesses for heirs
- Continue replacing sub-4 Acumen Peasant governors
- Move Wessex Frydman to Flanders
- Begin disbanding non-governor Peasants in Flanders

From here on out...

- Take Scotland with King, 2-star heir, 1-2 Hobilars, and 2-3 Archers
- Use archers to bait and thin Clansman, quickly withdraw them, smach pursuing Clansman with cavalry in flank or rear
- Make 3-star Hobilar King of Scotland (now 4-star)
- Defend Flanders with 4 Archers, 3 Frydmen, 1 Urban Militia, 1 Clansman, 1 4-star Hobilar, and 1-2 additional Hobilars
- Build Ports, Forts, Docks, ships, and traders ASAP.
- Keep 3 Provinces building ships, rotating, so that 1 ship is built each year
- Extend merchant marine fleet
- Garison at least 2-3 Archers, Hobilars, Fyrdmen, and Clansmen, King, and 1-2 Urban Militia in Northumbria
- Jack Scotland tax rate up. Don't garison it (let it revolt every year)
- Crush Scottish revolt every year with Northumbrian units (builds king's stars and improves heirs)
- Take Ireland ASAP
- Make 4-star Flanders general King of Ireland
- Ignore economic Irish buildings, go straight for swordsmith for Gallowglasses
- Replace Urban Militia with Gallowglasses
- Build Churches in all provices (save Scotland)
- Don't build Town Watch, Church, or towers in Scotland to help keep them revolting)
- Build Chapter House and 3 Crusades in Northumbria
- Take one of the 3 East Med islands and establish shipbuilders there.
- Crusade and Peacekeep to your heart's content.
- Holding and defending Flanders, and having a good fleet around Isles is all you need to do.
- You will soon be very rich.

[ah_dut]

from gr8 master Katank:
I've found that it's best to move Anjou's force into Normandy for the first turn while attacking with Normandy and Wessex into Flanders with everything.

similarly, pile everything from Aquitaine into Toulouse.

the French will retreat from Flanders.

Toulouse is an interesting battle in which you have your archer take potshots at the spear and use your hobilar to maneuver and take out the enemy archer unit and ballista without the spear arriving.

once the archer and ballista are both dead, you should have the whole unit of archers left with the spears hot on their tail and a hobilar at maybe 2 or if you are lucky 3 energy bars with anywhere from 25-30 men left.

then, charge the hobilars in wedge at the rear of the spears but stop short.

this feigned charge forces the spear to turn and face the hobilars, thus stop pursuing your archers making them get more potshots in.

expend all of you ammo if possible and I rarely enage the spears in melle until they have less than 50 men.

in that case, charge the hobilars first in wedge and switch to close.

then charge the archers from behind the spears and force them to melee if necessary.

this charge upon decimated spears should be instant rout and your hobilars can capture all the fleeing spears.

you should lose perhaps 20 hobilars from this encounter.

you shoudl be pumping out a hobilar each turn.

the next turn, have the forces in normandy hold while your king hits champagne and whatever is in wessex moves down into flanders.

they should retreat from champagne.

BTW, pump archers from wessex and bribe longbows form wales.

next turn is to attack Ile-de France with all forces from surrounding territories while trying to maintain loyalty.

this is the final showdown and your hobilars can easily prevail in maneuvering and chasing their archers down while your archers shoot up their pesants and militia.

once the enemy king is engaged, use hobilar to pin and charge fromt he rear with your king's RK unit to decimat their RKs to maybe 3 or 4 and best 1.

at this time, set your hobilars to hold and just have the pin the king while your king goes to do something else like running down peasants.

focus 2 or more archers upon the french king, preferably 4+ and he goes down without too much trouble.

this battle usually spells heavy losses for your hobilar contingents with about casualty rates of 1/2 but they will have 100+ kills/captures apiece.

I never had the french king captured and he usually dies in combat.

next year I assault the rebels in the castle although if I deployed my hobilars really well, I occasionally get to kill/capture everyone ont he field and not have to assault.

thus, French eliminated on third turn and you can try to bribe birttany or just overrun them with hobilars like I do.

ballistas and archers don't handle cav charges well and the UM general will be ripped up by 3 hobilars charging from all sides.

soon, the longbows can come online and post them as a strategic reserve in Aquitaine to guard most of your long borders with HRE and use the companies of fyrdmen as well.

taking navarre is also a priority to prevent the Spanish form doing so and the Aragonese are easier to destroy if they only have 1 province.

they will always attack Toulouse so attack them ASAP before they spawn a billion RK heirs.

having a few merc heavies will wipe out their archer/militia/jav based armies easily.

I always find hobilars to be real battle winners in the first dozen or so years of and english or french campaign.

once this rush is over, you should own all of your starting territories, France, navarre, Aragon, Wales.

taking Scotland is a good idea and you can frequently suicide your first two heirs there who are likely worthless.

having the ability to get clansmen means budget shock inf like swords earlier.

while no substitute for FMAA as toe-to-toe troops, the clans men actually make better flankers.

your fyrdmen are also quite strong and I can't justify building up to feudal sarges while I can just use fyrdmen form spearmaker.

the discounted archers you should stack.

while other factiosn woudl always build archer heavy protected by spear wall for budget conscious early era armies, as the brits you get archers for only 166 and should go even more archer heavy.

if archers get to expend all their arrows, they can kill at least 10 men for every guy who dies in an archer units provided it's well protected and that can easily go to 20.

bumping off the Spanish and establishing a border at Morroco etc. would reduce your borders and also give more valuable farmland, iron province, and inquisitor province but it's difficult to avoid excom and it's hard to time it so that you can finish off the Spanish in Morrocco.

attack too fast and you may have to war with the almos.

attack too late and the almos will be gone, the spanish stronger, and when you finish them, the Eggy who you have to crusade against flush against you.

I prefer an almo buffer.

it's tricky to doge excomm if taking out the Spanish though as the last provinces maybe too hard to get to in about 2 years as you own many provinces and will get warned almost as soon as you attack the Spanish.

[Cheetah]

Valgore

Mercenary

Group: Member
Posts: 4
Joined: Sep. 2002
Posted: Sep. 30 2002,17:21

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am playing on Easy In the Early pearod and I am still dooing bad and loosing. I am in the process of reading the Help book to so I am trying to learn the game. I mean I know how to play I am guist not good at it yet. Can some of you give me help on what to build up. So far my plain is to take out France first then Scotland.
Back to top
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Vanya

HOF Award 2003
Group: Senior Member
Posts: 2990
Joined: Nov. 2000
Posted: Sep. 30 2002,17:31

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
GAH

Vanya sez... make war, fall out with the Pope. Then, youz will have a parade of good christians flocking to your lands to show you the errors of your ways.

Vanya sez... build big castle Build houses of ill repute Flood France with all the ugly, skanky womenz you can find The French won't know what hit them

Vanya played English campaign until He got to that inevitable point whereby no matter what youz do, the game just crashes... Vanya was allied with the French the entire time

Vanya hope He can continue that game when the patch comes out. Vanya wonders if its because there are too many units visible to Him on the map...?

GAH


--------------
[Sips sake, eats popcorn]
Back to top
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


EuroLord

Man at Arms

Group: Member
Posts: 37
Joined: July 2001
England, Salisbury Posted: Sep. 30 2002,17:45

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi,

I suggest you get one of your princesses to marry into the french Royal Family and have a good alliance. They wont attack you for quite a while, but dont let that stop you attacking them when you need to. They wont attack you for quite a long time.

I suggest building a port in Normandy and wessex, so your troops can come directly to France. Also some ships quite quickly just in case the French decide to attack England.

The alliance with the French is very important, as is one with the Papal States. Just dont invade a christian province for more than the time limit the Pope gives you.

hope this helps.

EuroLord


--------------
To the Brave comes Honour and Victory. To the weak comes Defeat and Dishonour.
Back to top
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kraxis

Boringly known as Tarrak

HOF Award 2003
Group: Senior Member
Posts: 2507
Joined: Feb. 2002
Lyngby, Denmark Posted: Sep. 30 2002,17:48

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I usually abandon Anjou and Aquitaine and take Flanders (good farming, very great trading and the connection with Wessex) and hold on to Normandy.

------------------
BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.

You may not care about war, but war cares about you

--------------
You may not care about war, but war cares about you



A proud member of the OOOO
Back to top
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gringoleader

Mercenary

Group: Member
Posts: 71
Joined: Aug. 2002
Posted: Sep. 30 2002,17:50

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In my experience the best way to start out with the English is take down the Welsh and the Scottish for starters. There should be a good chance in the early period that you can have a pop at the Aragonese too, but it might be best to wait for somebody else to soften them up first.

Before tackling France, particularly if you are new at it, I would advise building ships and taking on first the Irish and then the Danes and the rest of Scandanavia. The trick to fighting the Danes is to use lots of spearmen as they tend to deploy half a dozen or more units of Royal Knights on their home turf, and spearmen will have them away.

Once you get a foothold in Scandanavia you can move your ships further along to place you in strike range of some Russian territory. Getting stuck into a war using Scandanavia as a starting off point is good because it minimises the area that can be counter attacked.

While fighting in Scandanavia continue to build fleets and loop them around the coast of Spain as far as Italy. This way should the Spanish kick off you can nail their trade routes instantly and also have the capability to strike anywhere along their shores, which is always handy if you need to quickly nick a load of cash.

Spies are great for unsettling enemy provinces, and if you use large groups at once you can incite rebellions at a rate of one per turn. Be careful though, as I have found this tactic can often lead to the enemy units and generals being trained to very high level just from butchering proles.

Well that's my two cents on the issue...
Back to top
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pachinko

Count

Group: Member
Posts: 235
Joined: Aug. 2001
Phoneix,AZ Posted: Sep. 30 2002,17:55

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OK.. It worked for me anyway.. it is a Hard mode..So, it should work.ALL the florin is your food. ie 80% food and the ships and use a trading post. THEN you have alot of florins.

I hope you understand..My english is bad...sorry

P.

------------------
Crush your enemies, see them driven before you on the field of battle, and hear the lamentation of their women.

Dev quote>>Sigh, ye of little faith. Don't assume everything is a bug.

--------------
Crush your enemies, see them driven before you on the field of battle, and hear the lamentation of their women.
Back to top
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cheetah

The Guilds Archivist

Group: Moderator
Posts: 1269
Joined: Dec. 2001
Hungary Posted: Sep. 30 2002,18:47

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bribe the Welsh and Scottish rebels Then make allience with the French. Build a port in Wessex and start to build ships. Build a port in Aquitane too. Upgrade your farmlands but only in your rich provinces. Build mines. Build an Inn in Aqitane. Wait till the pope excommunicates a catholic faction, then hire all the good mercenaries you can (that is why you need the Inn) and then attack this faction with all your military might

--------------
If you wish to weaken/ the enemy's sword,/ move first, fly in and cut
- Ueshiba Morihei O-Sensei
Back to top
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wolfgrin

Mercenary

Group: Member
Posts: 27
Joined: Sep. 2002
Cincinnati, OH Posted: Sep. 30 2002,19:25

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I agree with Kraxis and Gringoleader. Befriend France, kill Scandinavia, expand into Lithuania/Novogorod AND BUILD TRADE ROUTES I'm playing Expert mode and have so much cash it's unbelievable (over 500,000 florins) and that's with the Byzantines harrying my trade every 20 years. Unless you're playing Glorious Achievement mode, don't fall in love with Aquitaine and Anjou. Let them go when France attacks, but bunker into Normandy and Flanders. Those will be good bases of attack when you're ready to exterminate the Froggies. Also, maximize your English assets, namely Billmen and Longbowmen. Together, they can kill just about anything (of course, throw in a few units of your own cavalry on the flanks for good measure).

Hope this helps and have fun.
Back to top
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cardinal

Man at Arms

Group: Member
Posts: 79
Joined: Sep. 2002
Norway Posted: Sep. 30 2002,20:41

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am still pretty new witht his game, and have still to finish my England Campain. Still I have done as they mentioned above, and made sure I am dragging in loads off cash, with alomst every province at very high tax level. This has not made my morale drop either (lucky me), although I keep a tab on it. I was attacked by the French, but beat them off, and conquered Flanders before the pope started medling. The I waited 12 years an attacked 2 provinces simultaneously, and won (I had spent 12 years planning for this), and killed the French King. The French by that stage had only one porvince left which went rebel (no heirs). The pope was at me again, but as the French were now elliminated it came to nothing.

I played on Normal.

My advice is: If you want to take out the French, hit hard and spread out your attack. I also had Keeps and Castles in all my French provinces, and they were reluctant attacking them without siege engines (this was about 1100-1130).

PS: Keep ypur Hoblars in reserve. The are excellent in pursuing a routed enemy.

--------------
The Cardinal
Back to top
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gringoleader

Mercenary

Group: Member
Posts: 71
Joined: Aug. 2002
Posted: Sep. 30 2002,20:58

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A good little tactic for breaking the French is to build an army so vast that it simply cannot be faced and just play Pokemon and pillage through the enemy provinces without hanging around to capture them properly.
You'll rake in a lot of money, reduce the quality of the enemy troops, and make it difficult for the enemy to mobilise a counter strike.

When going on this kind of raiding spree I normally find it's best to take your best native general, possibly even a prince, and then tool him up with mercenaries. It helps to steady their morale and your army looks cooler with loads of weird units in.
Back to top
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Enigma

Mercenary

Group: Member
Posts: 25
Joined: Sep. 2002
Posted: Sep. 30 2002,21:12

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have played two campaigns as the English. I usually bribe the Welsh to get their longbowmen and bribe the Scottish as well if possible. Make an alliance with the French and snap up Navarre if you can do it before the Spanish. In both my campaigns I was able to take Navarre, Aragon, Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Norway and Sweden before war with France. Usually France and the HRE are going at it and it is good to make an alliance with the HRE then stab the French in the back. Attack France immediately if they are excommunicated. In one campaign the king died without an heir and France just fell apart.
Back to top
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jo_Beare

Man at Arms

Group: Member
Posts: 85
Joined: Sep. 2002
Posted: Sep. 30 2002,23:26

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Don't forget about Ireland. Kerns are kind of fun if used corectly and gallowglasses are excellent shock troops that can slice through spear units like a hot knife though butter.

JoBeare
Back to top
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cardinal

Man at Arms

Group: Member
Posts: 79
Joined: Sep. 2002
Norway Posted: Sep. 30 2002,23:59

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Just out of interrest, what is the correct way to use Kerns?

--------------
The Cardinal
Back to top
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jo_Beare

Man at Arms

Group: Member
Posts: 85
Joined: Sep. 2002
Posted: Oct. 01 2002,00:45

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The best way to use kerns is to flank with them. Once the enemy unit is engaged move the kerns in close and deliver a healthy dose of flying spears and then plunge into their rear. Just watch out for cavalry units and other units that try to engage the kerns before they are out of spears. They can decimate heavily armored units like knights and AUM. Another way is to tuck them in up as close as possible behind your sergeants or billman so that the kerns can throw the spears through the unit in front of them to the unit they are engaged with. There was a thread about kerns a few weeks ago with some more good ideas.

JoBeare
Back to top
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Valgore

Mercenary

Group: Member
Posts: 4
Joined: Sep. 2002
Posted: Oct. 01 2002,12:59

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I thank you all for you help. I guess that best way is to Try and Try agin. If you are new to a game like that You can not expect to concor the world in 1 try.

Good luck to you all.
Back to top
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Green Knight

Man at Arms

Group: Member
Posts: 78
Joined: Sep. 2002
United Kingdom Posted: Oct. 01 2002,13:36

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I decided to [play as english - easy- on glorious achievement and without trying too hard seem to have conqured all of france, and destroyed the hre plus spain and the wole of n africa to egypt. i have had almohads reappear and once the germans did. i have given the pope back his lands and tyhje italianss hold only sardinia and corsica. but i have little money and a nmighty army, tired of war and it is 1230 ad. this is strange cause i have another game going which is judged byc onquest and |I have hardly taken anything - jusdt too chicken.

So perhaps you shopuld be really aggressive.I got theose pesky frogs seen too almost immediately. the scots gave me some trouble but now they are gentle as lambs - tho i guess they will rebel when willy wallace appears.

next strike will be to take egypt -- Ha
Back to top
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

LittleGrizzly

irritating

Group: Member
Posts: 2729
Joined: June 2002
Wales Posted: Oct. 01 2002,13:58

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
english expert mode what i did was bribe wales and scotland leave anjou and the other one ? to take flanders i put tax on very high and keep 600 peasents in each province this means i can get excommunicated without problems.

i have given english the greatest navy in the world with trade booming so ive decided to take sicily and tripoli (4 goods) i got excommunicated taking sicily but worth it for trade.

i never use any agents bar the occasional emmisary and i use armys packed with chilvaric knights billmen and longbowmen with helped me expand my french holdings (il de france and champagne)

im currently gearing up for war with the spanish they have he biggest empire 2nd novorgood 3rd me but spain and novorgood my allys are at war so im using tripoli as a base to expand i have the largest army but need to expand my navy as they could inflict bad finacial damage small navy but sqaushed together

right better get back so me and novorgood can finally finish em spanish idiots


final note argonese took rest of french holdings but they're also at war with novorgood so i might take em out but they're fighting spanish so they are all helping me by killing each other

--------------
(Idaho) the world is set up for the benefit of an elite group of global capitalists. There is a small sub-group of their butlers and attendants (us) Outside that window 70% of the world are living in poverty

(Gawain) Kerry is doomed to lose the election mark my words.
Back to top
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Joe Smithe

Mercenary

Group: Member
Posts: 7
Joined: Sep. 2002
Mobile,AL Posted: Oct. 01 2002,18:12

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am playing on NORMAL.

I took wales immediately. Then I tried for scotland. Those bastards pissed me off. I would take it, they would rebel, repeat for 5 years. Finally, I just let them be for a little while. My main goal was taking the french because I don't like having my provinces seperated like that. I built up a few large armies and started with an attack on 3 bordering provinces. I ended up taking 2 of them. The third I took on the next turn. Of course the Pope excommunicated me, but I perservered through a couple rebellions. I had all of France(with no loyalist rebellions, etc) by 1115.

This is a good move in my opinion because I was able to take a lot of land with reletively minor troops. All of us were using primarily peasants at the time, so when I rolled in with my spearmen, they would break and run. Like I said, I got a lot of land and that meant a lot of money to be made. Flanders is still my best province financially.

Next I took scotland and installed a permanent army there with a 6 star general to keep them settled. Then I built up for around 20 years. I tried to take the spanish, but got my ass handed to me pretty bad until the Almoheds came in from the south. All in all I made out with 3 spanish provinces, which I am stocking up for the probable invasion by the Almoheds. Now I am currently going after germany.

Just a hint: Spies are the best units in the game. I have taken two thirds of Germany without fighting a battle yet. Also, build border forts, since Byzantine is trying this same tactic on me.


[This message has been edited for paragraph breaks by Joe Smithe (edited 10-01-2002).]

[This message has been edited by Joe Smithe (edited 10-01-2002).]
Back to top
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cadarn

Man at Arms

Group: Member
Posts: 30
Joined: Oct. 2002
Buckingham, UK Posted: Oct. 02 2002,19:42

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ally with the worthless French ??

NO Make the HRE your best friends and allies to keep your eastern flank safe. Build up armies in Wessex and Aquitaine quickly, make sure you use Spearmen as the french will have many peasants (I like to start building Keeps in Wessex/Aquitaine in the first turn which in turn leads to early armouries, and early access to toughened troops.

Attack 2 or 3 French provinces at once. Use your Hobilars to slaughter any retreating foes and slaughter any prisoners.

Using this method I took Ile De France, Brittany and Flanders in one year, and used the other year to wrap up the castle sieges.

In the next 12 years of Papal restraint you can mop up Wales and Scotland if you haven't done so, and you can build up your troop building facilities before moving on to destroy any French stragglers that may be in Toulouse, Lorriane or Provence.

My English (NORMAL) empire now covers Northern and Central Spain, what was France, Denmark, the UK, Sweden, and the western half of the HRE. The Germans at least are putting up a bit of a fight in their river provinces.

[mfberg]

England, early, expert

1. Ally with HRE, Spain, Danes, ..., anybody except France, move units to Wessex and Normandy. Build holibars & archers

2. Take Flanders from Wessex (french retreat)

3. Take Ile de France, the French king is there. Kill or capture the king. Get warned by the Pope. (French king may retreat to Champagne.)

4. Slaughter French King & son in Champagne, no survivors

All that remains of france are rebels, you have a few years to buy/conquer them.

After cleaning out the rebels buy the rebels in Wales (2 units of longbows in early are not to be sneezed at) and take Scotland. Build a fort and make cheap, high valor highlanders to conquer with.

Make enough boats/troops to hit and keep Sweden and later Lithuiania, Kiev and Khazar. Trade, become rich, keep on good terms with the pope, rule the known world.

mfberg

[katank]

well, I find it feasible to blitz Flanders, Ile de France, and Toulouse on the starting turn.

then hit champagne and collect fat ransom for the prince/king.

then hit brittany to eliminate them.

if excommed, don't worry as no one has crusade ability yet except maybe the spanish who you should ally with.

welsh longbows should definitely be bribed and can be used against the french if one delays the rush by 2 or 3 turns.

[chunkynut]

England, Early, Normal

Bribe Wales (Longbowmen units) and Navorra (Iron here can build blacksmiths). Then send the diplomat to the French King for either cease fire http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif or an alliance.

Make sure that all territory has +4 acumen govenors or leave it free of a Lord as later on removing titles can annoy your good generals.

Reinforce Wessex with strong troops and perhaps some seige equipment (bottleneck in early game against 'home' territory loss) and build Hobilars (cheap) to reinforce all territories bordering other nations.

Start building an army for taking Scotland put in Northumbria and build ships (Englands lifeline) and improve farm land in rich territories and mines.

Pick up Tolouse (it seems to rebel at least once in the first 20 turns. Now you have a bottleneck to the south halting Spain or the Almohads from advancing from the peninsular. Take Aragon if possible (small nations seem to survive on hiers royal bodyguards and 6 or 7 can be tricky).

France will probably attack or become excom in this time, Italy or Scicly will become excom by one attacking the other and Spain or the Almohads will be dominant over the other.

Pick up Sweden (iron +3 tradable goods) and Norway (2 tradable goods and good ship building prov (only take when your budget is in profit)) and Lithuania (3 tradable goods and with kiev creates a bottleneck). With a trade line of ships into the 2 - 4 port sea lanes in the med will give you a lot of cash.

Use the money to make castles or bigger in key provs (iron/producing 3 trabable goods/bottlenecks).

Take over Europe http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Chimpyang]

When you'vee done that, try sending a couple of Crusades off to easter europe, lithuania's alway's handy and so is taking a few othe litle provinces. This can give a vital advangtage of the ability to build ships of 2 side of the med until the horde appear. Then defend like crazy.

[katank]

just a tip.

pump hobilars like mad from Aquitaine and elsewhere.

any cav that early in the game is good and hobby horses are quite cheap.

if taking navarre, it's not worth bribing.

send a few hobilars and archer or two to take them out.

they have 2 peasants and 1 spear.

they do have steep slope so climb to level with your troops before attacking.

hit the peasant general they have in both flanks with hobilars and use the archers to pepper the spear.

this should result in their forces melting away and this gives you navarre without need to bribe as that money can be better used to fund economy or military.

however, this delays the french rush by a turn or two.

if taking navarre, do so before taking on the french as if you take the french first, the Spanish or Aragonese will have Navarre before long.

Taking the Aragonese out of the game is good as they seem programmed to go for Toulouse which you want and Aragon also has iron, is located on the other side of Gibaltar for building quick navy, and is a nice chokepoint when combined with navarre due to insane slopes on which to park your discounted archers and shoot up any enemies.

[Chimpyang]

France to England is what Spain is to the Almohads, Weak in early but they both grow incredibly strong in the lategame.
TAKE OUT THE FRENCH ASAP, then secure a 2 province border with Spain by taking out Navarre and Aragorn. If playing GA this is a good time to prime up your fleet for the trading goals and if popssible take sweden and norway. Sweden had 3 trade products which help a lot.

if the Byzantines grow paticuarly weak or you are feeling paticuarly strong (either will do) try a crusade to Constantnople or a rebel baltic province. The capture of Constantnople will give you a good trade income to build up farms in France with. Again if playing GA try and nab some provinces next to your target so when the big crusading giant appears you can tie up surrounding provinces with feinged attacks.(You dont have to win these but they are nice to have if you do). If not playing GA then take Egypy and the Holy lands anyway cos you get some pretty good crusade troops and marching a crusade through Germany drains troops from the HRE for later http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif . Also, the holy land has some of the richest and best trading items to offer (2 provinces end up with 4 tradable items each, with Ruby in both).

After this is done regardless of Almohad advances attack the HRE and try and spark a civil war. If one is ignited take the rebel provinces ASAp before someone else does and make peace immediately with the HRE, if not then grow rich or attack the ALmohads. The mongols shuld cause no concern to you unless you have taken the Russian provinces. The rest shuld be easy as you shuld be the bigggest superpower with dominace of the seas.

[katank]

don't forget trying to get the Iberian as jinettes are great light cav and the iron is good for FMAA and kngihts.

[Chimpyang]

The iberian perninsula is quite profitable to grab but it has to be done quickly otherwise the pope will get shrity if the Almohads have been wiped out by Spain and getting excommed at the midgame isn't fun for me at least) anmd sparking a war with the Almohads can cost a lot of money as they have some pretty decent troops.

[katank]

I attack Spanish and HRE only if I get excommed while against the French.

otherwise, I don't but if you are already bad, just keep going all the way. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Servius]

Early, Expert, any version really

This version refers to a somewhat unorthodox tactic I use: forfiet Aquitaine, Anjou, and Normanday; take and hold Flanders. It's economically and strategically beneficial. I also RP a bit by never accepting alliances from Muslim countries. Lastly, I have modded in all the rivers that appear on the map, making Flanders very easily defendable with a few Fyrdmen and Archers.

This walkthrough is designed to quickly provide:
- a very strong economy,
- naval access to the entire map,
- an easily defended home empire,
- low military upkeep costs,
- strong kings and heirs,
- and lots of peacekeeping and crusading opportunities.

First year
- Sell Fort and HOrse Farmer in Aquitaine
- Move all forces from Aquitaine to Anjou
- Move all forces from Anjou to Normandy
- Move archer from Northumbria to Mercia
- Move archer from Mercia to Wessex
- Cue up 3 Emisaries in Wessex
- Build a tower in Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex
- Assign the peasants with the best acumen to be governors
- Jack up tax rates as high as you can while retaining 100%+ loyalty in all provinces
- Send Emisary and 2 princesses from Wessex to Flanders

Second year
- Move Anjou forces to Normandy
- Move Mercian archer to Wessex
- Send Princesses and Emisaries to ally with Germany, Spain first, then Italy, Poland, Hungary, Denmark, and Novgorod if you want
- Never accept alliances with Muslim nations
- Don't accept alliances from nations who don't share borders with France or Germany, at least not until you're a naval power in the Med
- Cue up the 2nd tower, 1st crop upgrade, and Fort in Northumbria and Mercia (done by year 9)
- Cue up the 2nd tower, 1st crop upgrade, and 1st horse farmer in Wessex (done by year 7)
- Continue to raise tax rates where able

Third year
- -Move all forces in Wessex and Normanday to Flanders. The French will abandon it.
- Continue to pursue alliances with nations that border France

Fourth year
- Cue up 2 Peasants in Wessex (7)
- Build 1st tower in Flanders (5)
- Jack up Flanders tax rate
- Move Prince to Flanders

Fifth year
- If you get a Peasant with better Acumen, disband and replace a governor
- Cue up 2nd tower, 1st crop upgrade, and Fort in Flanders (12)
- Begin pursuing princesses for heirs

Sixth year
- If you get a Peasant with better Acumen, disband and replace a governor

Seventh year
- Cue up 2 Hobilars in Wessex (9). These will be 4 (8) and 3 (9) star generals
- Cue up 1st spear (9), Port, and Keep in Wessex (21)

Eigth year
- Move 4-star Hobilar general to Flanders
- Withdraw 3 Royal Guards and 1 Archer from Flanders to Wessex

Nineth year
- Build 1st Town Watch in Northumbria and Mercia (11)
- Cue up 2 Urban Militia in Wessex (11)
- Cue up 3 Peasants in Mercia (12)
- Cue up 4 Peasants in Northumbria (13)

Tenth year
- Move =3 Royal Knights, 1 3-star Hobilar, and 1 Urban Militia From Wessex to Wales
- Move Wessex Archer to Mercia
- Move Mercia Peasant to Wales
- Move Northumbria Pesant to Mercia
- Rout Peasant from battle
- Use the King, 2-star heir, and 3-star Hobilar (in wedge) to bait out and kill 3 Welsh Longbowmen
- Use Urban Militia (in wedge) to engage and pin Welsh Spear
- Use 3-star heir to hit welsh longbowmen units in rear. When they break, use both cav on rear of another longbow, longbow, spear

Eleventh year
- Retrofit 2-star heir with horse from the 3-star heir unit
- Move 3-star heir and 3-star Hobilar to Wessex
- Move Mercia Peasant to Wales
- Make best Welsh Peasant governor
- Move King, 2-star heir, and Urban Militia to Mercia
- Move Wessex Urban Militia to Flanders
- Begin replacing Peasant governors with better ones from Mercia and Northumbria
- Ideal is 4 Acumen Peasants as governors
- Give Flanders governor 1st Royal Court title
- Build 1st archery (13), Port, and Keep in Northumbria (25)
- Build 1st spear (13), Port, and Keep in Mercia (25)
- Build 1st tower in Wales
- Set Welsh tax rate as low as necessary
- Cue up 3 Fyrdmen in Wessex (14)
- Move Mercia Archer to Northumbria

Twelveth year
- Refit Mercian Urban Militia
- Move Royal units from Mercia to Northumbria
- Cue up 2nd tower, 1st crop upgrade, and Fort in Wales (19)
- Continue seaking princesses for heirs
- Continue replacing sub-4 Acumen Peasant governors
- Move Wessex Frydman to Flanders
- Begin disbanding non-governor Peasants in Flanders

From here on out...

- Take Scotland with King, 2-star heir, 1-2 Hobilars, and 2-3 Archers
- Use archers to bait and thin Clansman, quickly withdraw them, smach pursuing Clansman with cavalry in flank or rear
- Make 3-star Hobilar King of Scotland (now 4-star)
- Defend Flanders with 4 Archers, 3 Frydmen, 1 Urban Militia, 1 Clansman, 1 4-star Hobilar, and 1-2 additional Hobilars
- Build Ports, Forts, Docks, ships, and traders ASAP.
- Keep 3 Provinces building ships, rotating, so that 1 ship is built each year
- Extend merchant marine fleet
- Garison at least 2-3 Archers, Hobilars, Fyrdmen, and Clansmen, King, and 1-2 Urban Militia in Northumbria
- Jack Scotland tax rate up. Don't garison it (let it revolt every year)
- Crush Scottish revolt every year with Northumbrian units (builds king's stars and improves heirs)
- Take Ireland ASAP
- Make 4-star Flanders general King of Ireland
- Ignore economic Irish buildings, go straight for swordsmith for Gallowglasses
- Replace Urban Militia with Gallowglasses
- Build Churches in all provices (save Scotland)
- Don't build Town Watch, Church, or towers in Scotland to help keep them revolting)
- Build Chapter House and 3 Crusades in Northumbria
- Take one of the 3 East Med islands and establish shipbuilders there.
- Crusade and Peacekeep to your heart's content.
- Holding and defending Flanders, and having a good fleet around Isles is all you need to do.
- You will soon be very rich.

[katank]

I've found that it's best to move Anjou's force into Normandy for the first turn while attacking with Normandy and Wessex into Flanders with everything.

similarly, pile everything from Aquitaine into Toulouse.

the French will retreat from Flanders.

Toulouse is an interesting battle in which you have your archer take potshots at the spear and use your hobilar to maneuver and take out the enemy archer unit and ballista without the spear arriving.

once the archer and ballista are both dead, you should have the whole unit of archers left with the spears hot on their tail and a hobilar at maybe 2 or if you are lucky 3 energy bars with anywhere from 25-30 men left.

then, charge the hobilars in wedge at the rear of the spears but stop short.

this feigned charge forces the spear to turn and face the hobilars, thus stop pursuing your archers making them get more potshots in.

expend all of you ammo if possible and I rarely enage the spears in melle until they have less than 50 men.

in that case, charge the hobilars first in wedge and switch to close.

then charge the archers from behind the spears and force them to melee if necessary.

this charge upon decimated spears should be instant rout and your hobilars can capture all the fleeing spears.

you should lose perhaps 20 hobilars from this encounter.

you shoudl be pumping out a hobilar each turn.

the next turn, have the forces in normandy hold while your king hits champagne and whatever is in wessex moves down into flanders.

they should retreat from champagne.

BTW, pump archers from wessex and bribe longbows form wales.

next turn is to attack Ile-de France with all forces from surrounding territories while trying to maintain loyalty.

this is the final showdown and your hobilars can easily prevail in maneuvering and chasing their archers down while your archers shoot up their pesants and militia.

once the enemy king is engaged, use hobilar to pin and charge fromt he rear with your king's RK unit to decimat their RKs to maybe 3 or 4 and best 1.

at this time, set your hobilars to hold and just have the pin the king while your king goes to do something else like running down peasants.

focus 2 or more archers upon the french king, preferably 4+ and he goes down without too much trouble.

this battle usually spells heavy losses for your hobilar contingents with about casualty rates of 1/2 but they will have 100+ kills/captures apiece.

I never had the french king captured and he usually dies in combat.

next year I assault the rebels in the castle although if I deployed my hobilars really well, I occasionally get to kill/capture everyone ont he field and not have to assault.

thus, French eliminated on third turn and you can try to bribe birttany or just overrun them with hobilars like I do.

ballistas and archers don't handle cav charges well and the UM general will be ripped up by 3 hobilars charging from all sides.

soon, the longbows can come online and post them as a strategic reserve in Aquitaine to guard most of your long borders with HRE and use the companies of fyrdmen as well.

taking navarre is also a priority to prevent the Spanish form doing so and the Aragonese are easier to destroy if they only have 1 province.

they will always attack Toulouse so attack them ASAP before they spawn a billion RK heirs.

having a few merc heavies will wipe out their archer/militia/jav based armies easily.

I always find hobilars to be real battle winners in the first dozen or so years of and english or french campaign.

once this rush is over, you should own all of your starting territories, France, navarre, Aragon, Wales.

taking Scotland is a good idea and you can frequently suicide your first two heirs there who are likely worthless.

having the ability to get clansmen means budget shock inf like swords earlier.

while no substitute for FMAA as toe-to-toe troops, the clans men actually make better flankers.

your fyrdmen are also quite strong and I can't justify building up to feudal sarges while I can just use fyrdmen form spearmaker.

the discounted archers you should stack.

while other factiosn woudl always build archer heavy protected by spear wall for budget conscious early era armies, as the brits you get archers for only 166 and should go even more archer heavy.

if archers get to expend all their arrows, they can kill at least 10 men for every guy who dies in an archer units provided it's well protected and that can easily go to 20.

bumping off the Spanish and establishing a border at Morroco etc. would reduce your borders and also give more valuable farmland, iron province, and inquisitor province but it's difficult to avoid excom and it's hard to time it so that you can finish off the Spanish in Morrocco.

attack too fast and you may have to war with the almos.

attack too late and the almos will be gone, the spanish stronger, and when you finish them, the Eggy who you have to crusade against flush against you.

I prefer an almo buffer.

it's tricky to doge excomm if taking out the Spanish though as the last provinces maybe too hard to get to in about 2 years as you own many provinces and will get warned almost as soon as you attack the Spanish.

[Zortanius]

Hi All,

Playing the English is fun altho it is a bit tricky as you can easily get carried away and apread yourself too thin. Here's what I usually do:

(I am gonna desist from my usual one-big-chunk posts and try and spread things out)

The German Connection:
First of all I ally with the Germans - They will soon go to war with the French and that keeps them off your back.. initially.

A question of national defence:
Keep training hobilars in Aquitaine. Build watch towers in every province and focus on building up Mercia, Aquitaine and Wessex.

The man who would be king:
Once your first heir comes through attack and take Wales. Once you have atleast 5 hobilars attack and take Navarre -
Don't let the Spanish get it.

Building an empire:
Bribe Ireland, attack and take Scotland. So by about 1110 you should have Ireland, Navarre, Scotland and Wales.

Keeping the good folks happy:
You should also build up all your farming upgrades in the rich provinces and stack lots peasants and UM everywhere.

Rule Brittania:
Start Shipbuilding from Mercia and Northumbria and pump out spearmen, FS, CS and billmen from Wessex. Keep training HC in Scotland and get some spearmen and archers into Aquitaine. Wait for the Aragonese to attack you - they will soon enough. When they do take out Aragon and if the Aragonese had it - Toulouse as well.

Horatio Hornblower:
Next try to get some fleets out and take Norway and Sweden. Trade from Sweden and tray to have a ship in every sea square from the Baltic Sea to the Gulf off Leon. Sweden is very lucrative - Also the woodsmen and HC make more than adequate rebellion crushing garrisons.

Robroy and Wallace would be proud:
Keep some HC in your border provinces as they are very good against most Catholic factions. Now, you can attack France and or Spain but if the pope warns you then just wait. They will attack you soon enough. The HC will come in very handy.

Battle of Bannockburn again and again and again:
Keep atleast 6-7 spearmen in the Navarre and Aragon for the Spanish, Sweden for the Danish and Anjou and Normandy for the French.

Spanish bufferista:
The Spanish provide a good buffer against the Almohads but they tend to get very tricky themselves. They will always tend to attack Aragon - keep lots of good units there.

Aragon:
Also usually Aragon is pretty well developed when you take it so you could get out FMAA and CMAA from there to complement your spearmen from Wessex, hobilars from Aquitaine and crossbowmen.

A Crossbow is easy to master:
As always, once you get to crossbowmen get as many of them as possible and disband your archers. Crossbowmen are better and cheaper.

The importance of being Ireland
If you have not neglected Ireland you should have a decent farming and trading province setup there. You can also try to get kerns anf Gallowglasses as well. I personally do not like Kerns too much but they can and are very useful if deployed correctly.

Foreign Flava:
Build an Inn in Normandy and Navarre - get the Billmen and Longbowmen on offer as you can always nationalise them later by merging them with your own troops. Also get all the vikings you can get - they are good units to have.

Branching out:
At this stage I may either blitz the spanish by suddenly landing in Leon or Portugal and razing everything to the ground while waiting for the port to rebuild so that I can evacuate - but this tricky and needs one to completely surround Iberia and remove all other spanish ships - or I may decide to send a crusade or just land in Antioch or Lesser Armenia - If my shipping lines stretch that far.

An empire on which the sun never set:
If I am successful I use that foot-in-the door to wipeout/restrict the turks and cripple the egyptians while building a second wing of my empire - but do watch out for disloyalty. If you can get all the turkish provinces you could land up with most if not all of Asia Minor and Constantinople

The Far Pavillions:
Build churches and atleast one keep to keep the those far off generals loyal - also keep a few spies and priests nearby. After this attack either the French and move into the continent, North Africa or The Italians.

Conflict makes us rich, combat makes us strong
It is quite lucrative to have multiple fronts against multiple enemies as you can always ransom back prisoners for a lot of money - sometimes this moeny is as much as your farming income.

The issue of ransom:
Also sometimes If I can capture some good units early - I kill them before I capture the other lesser troops - this way I have fewer troops for he enemy to ransom - no matter how much money they have, they rarely ransom back more than 600 prisoners and gets rid of some of their best troops to give you less of a headache. Of course sometimes they only want to ransom back their best troops but then you'll have to let the rest of their army rout and hold back your troops after capturing their cream of the crop.

Decline of the (Eastern) Roman Empire:
The world is now at your finger tips. It is a bit tricky to get to Khazar before the GH arrive especially if you are not concentrating on the Steppe regions initially - like I don't but using my approach you could get into Khazar via Georgia or across the Black sea but you might have to attack the Byzantines - which I try to avoid. Of course usually the Byzantines attack me after a while in hopes of regaining their lost provinces (which I got from the Turks). Their attempts usually fail. Billmen are really solid against Kats... and against GH heavy cavalry.

A sound history lesson:
A good English army always has atleast 3 crossbowmen or if possible arbalesters - perhaps one longbowmen - whom I withdraw once their ammo is out, 3-4 units of billmen, 3-4 units of FS, 2 units of CMAA and the balance in knights and hobilars. I almost never train Knights as the English but instead train lots of hobilars and MS if necessary. If you are in outremer or Asia minor by 1190 you should be able to take on Saleh ad din (Saladin) as Prince Richard.

Cheers

[ah_dut]

on your last point, 1 unit of longbowmen? in a history lesson? yes crossbowmen are good and arbs very good, longbows rock http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-drummer.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-guitarist.gif, also you should have a more like 50-50 balance or more longbows. The longbowmen get waaaaaaaaay more shots in. just my 2 cents

[katank]

dude, merc longbwos/bills aren't available in early.

you should rush the French and still have more than enough to take Navarre.

you also know that Ireland isn't bribable, right? it doens't have a port.

also, waiting for ships to go to sweden is usually too late and you risk warring on the Danes which will almost invariably lead to excomm.

I always bribe my way into Scandanavia and the steppes but usually only a toehold.

BTW, the 4 viks in Norway is a very good bargain.

shuffling them back and forth, I managed to hold both Sweden and Norway as well as killing the Danish royals when they warred on me and ended up getting a nice stack of viking troops in Denmark with developed keep level infrastructure for little more than 1k.

[ah_dut]

Quote[/b] (Zortanius @ June 28 2004,18:59)]A sound history lesson:
A good English army always has atleast 3 crossbowmen or if possible arbalesters - perhaps one longbowmen - whom I withdraw once their ammo is out, 3-4 units of billmen, 3-4 units of FS, 2 units of CMAA and the balance in knights and hobilars. I almost never train Knights as the English but instead train lots of hobilars and MS if necessary. If you are in outremer or Asia minor by 1190 you should be able to take on Saleh ad din (Saladin) as Prince Richard.

Cheers
there are bills there and longbows, Katank, i just prefer longbows to arbalesters http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif

[katank]

I do too. I would sometimes bring all bill/longbow armies.

volleys from 10 longbows is enough to ensure that nothing except for maybe some heavy cav woudl be able to walk up and fight my bills for long.

longbows can just shoot so much faster than arbs.

I remember that before they fixed it, longbows shot faster than vanilla archers. Damn I love the Brits, gotta play as them and mass some longbows again.

[Spartiate]

Have to agree with you on the longbows.I modded one of my campaigns to allow me to train Sherwood Foresters in units of 60 but making them visible at all times in stead of only while they are moving.They are also armed with longbows and have the added advantage of being able to handle whatever makes it as far as them.
Long time ago................was too easy.

[Zortanius]

Hi everyone,

Katank, you're right Ireland is not bribable - I meant to say that take Ireland as soon as possible even if it means to bribe it - although I had never bribed Ireland myself I just tried it and you're right.

I have never had that problem of getting to scandinavia too late (even on expert) - altho I rarely bribe the vikings there (done it once i think) - but I see the inherent danger in trying to use ships to invade.

My bad.

As for using longbowmen - I tend not to use them depsite their many advantages (excellent range, frequent volleys) because far too often they have started firing way too early - used up most of their bodkin arrows on lesser units (UM, etc) and caused less damage then I expected. Also since they are more expensive than arbalesters I tend to use a shield wall and use arbies more often than longbowmen.

I guess that's just my taste.

Umm.. I dunno about this but several times in, my inns in both navarre and normandy, right off the bat have had billmen and longbowmen merc units among others (trebuchets, bulgarian brigands) - I am thinking that is a bug - I don't play VI just the basic MTW.

And I usually hire them.

About the history lesson - well I know that crossbowmen were used to great effect by many english armies both in the holyland under richard lionheart and on the continent earlier on. I just finished reading a book about the crusades. However I am aware that longbowmen featured with great notoriety and (in)famy in english armies during the 100 years wars later on. The reputation of longbowmen led to the 2 fingered 'salute' (still in use) as an insult then.

That and the fact that I tend to use only one fast firing unit (longbowmen, bulgarian brigands) - I included just one of them in my model army.

As for not rushing the French - well my style is to make the game a bit longer and more interesting - I like to defend, suck enemy factions in and wait for them to attack me. Hence in all my 'walkthroughs' I always advocate taking the neutral provinces and waiting for your neighbours to try and attack you. Once someone does attack me - I fight a few defensive battles - let the enemy become locally exhausted and then move in to take over half their provinces. That's just my style. I find it more fun.

Sorry for the confusion and errors.

A humble knight's honest opinion.

Cheers

PS - guys how do you quote someone ?

[katank]

mercs should be restricted to their respective eras.

I enjoy using fast shooters since they do better in a missile duel

also, the morale penalty for under fire doesn't kick in during reload so the faster shooters inflict more penalty and the faster shooting also kills more in case of longbows.

[Kristaps]

French, HRE - out by 1102.

the English start with a super-high dread king: this can be used to English advantage to take provinces and move on quickly not worrying about rebellions.

1087: start pumping hobilars in aquitanie, archers in wessex; move archers from northumbria to mercia; move your force (except a peasant unit) from normandie into anjou; build inns in normandie and anjou; send your princesses and emisary into flanders.

1088. move your archers (2 units) from mercia into wessex, continue pumping archers in wessex, hobilars in acquitanie; send one princess into champagne, the other one into ilde de france to have a better view of what frenchies are doing; send you emissary to ally with aragon.

1089. move everything from wessex into flanders; move the forces from anjou and aquitanie into brittany. continue pumping hobilars in aquitanie and archers in wessex; french retreat from flanders. kill the high star french general in brittany: the won't have a fort yet so they'll have nowhere to retreat to.

1090. move the force from britanny into anjou; by this time, mercenaries lured by the conflict will hopefully have flocked to your inns. hire some. khwarazmian cavalry and like are welcome; leave a peasant unit in britanny as garrison; since french had nowhere to retreat in flanders and britanny the pope hasn't even noticed anything happened...

1091. move your prince (he must have just matured) into champagne (give him some support if needed: but he should be able to take out the peasant unit and/or archers there on his own); move your forces from flandes and anjou into ile de france: it's a bridge battle... lur the french king and their prince onto the bridge using a peasant unit or two as bait. on the bridge the french royals turn into pin-cushions for your archers: the french are gone...

1092. move a minimal force into anjou (the goal is to take the rebel province of toulouse); see if you can harvest anything good from your inns in anjou, normandy and flanders (the french, invariably build one there); storm the paris fort using your king and his support units.

1093. strike from anjou and aquitanie into toulouse: if you are lucky, the aragones willhelp you; meanwhile, prepare your armies in flanders, ile de france and champagne for a strike against the unsuspecting HRE;

1094. Storm Toulouse castle (unfortunately, the French rebels have one there already); scout the inns for more mercs in flanders; you'll need them; attack from flanders into friesland and lorraine joined by the force in champagne; strike from ile de france straight into bourgundy; in the case of my game: the germans retreat from friesland, the germans retreat from lorraine; the germans put up a fight in bourgundy and get beaten; the toulouse castle falls... pople seems indifferent to the troubles of his northern neighbors: no warning...

1095. a civil war in germany... storm the fort in friesland; in my game, the germans had built nothing in lorraine so i just took it; storm the keep (or fort) in bourgundy; gather the force in toulouse and attack provence.

1096. storm the fort in provence; build up (guard towers and inns first) in lorraine, friesland, bourgundy. start moving some lower rank general towards wessex with the goal of taking wales and subsequently scotland; pump out some support troops for him along his path towards england; beat the rebellion in champagne (if you get one) using part of the force in lorraine;

1097. ally with italians if they have not allied with you earlier; move the force from champagne back into lorraine. don't forget to check those inns.

1098. attack blitz from friesland into saxony and franconia; assist from lorraine, if needed; strike into swabia from lorraine and bourgoundy; part of your force into switzerland; and the army from provence into tyrolia: HRE retrets from most of the provinces: another civil war in HRE: the pope has developed an indifference syndrome.

1099. storm any german garrisons, beat off their sallying forces and watch the remains of hre being taken over by rebels;

1100, 1001 - cleanup, build up, etc.; take bavaria at your leisure.

1102. attack strike from saxony into pomerania (in my case, prince alfred's army); from franconia into brandenburg (prince william's army); from bavaria (king william) into bohemia; and from tyrolia into austria: the HRE is history after successful completion of the last maneuver: i bet, the pope is still silent. from here, it's your choice: eliminate the polish - which was my choice since they were still an easy pick at this time; regroup your armies to attack the italians; send a force into denmark or start moving towards aragon: they might attack you soon since your princes and the king are far away in germany.

:)

[Mightypeon]

Well, I think that everyone can agree that blitzing and killing the French easens a lot of your problems.
At some time, the HRE will always start to fall. Use this and get your part.
I would advise against a to deep psu into the HRE, Friesland Lorraine Burgundy and Provnece ok, but the rest of thier lands is not to diserable and quite far from the see.
Saxony is propbly Danish by this time, if not, take it too.
Now its time to kill of your single possible trade rival the Danes.
Ammas your ships so that you are able to wipe out their fleet in one turn.
Storm Denemark from Saxony if you have it, storm Sweden with bribed rebels from Norway.
The goal is to destroy Denemark in 2 turns.
This nets you a 6 privnce realm, several super rich lands, acces to the mediterran (nice for Crusades) and almost unmolested control other the Nordic seas.

[Kristaps]

Quote[/b] (Mightypeon @ July 04 2004,05:36)]I would advise against a to deep psu into the HRE, Friesland Lorraine Burgundy and Provnece ok, but the rest of thier lands is not to diserable and quite far from the see.
well, you are in for a total domination, aren't u? :) why stop on friesland, lorraine, burgundy, provence line if you can take also everything beyond and not stop there either :)

[katank]

I personally like GA games now.

I think that taking Lorraine is very sensible as it reduces the border to four but I rather push into Iberia than deal with crazy amount of borders and mess that is the HRE.

Opportunism is good but dont' go too far. My only justification for taking internal HRE provinces is the existence of Switzerland which gives nice swiss pikes, swiss halbs, and the all mighty SAPs. Tyrolia also yields valor bonused regular pikers.

[Kristaps]

Quote[/b] (katank @ July 05 2004,09:42)]I personally like GA games now.

I think that taking Lorraine is very sensible as it reduces the border to four but I rather push into Iberia than deal with crazy amount of borders and mess that is the HRE.

Opportunism is good but dont' go too far. My only justification for taking internal HRE provinces is the existence of Switzerland which gives nice swiss pikes, swiss halbs, and the all mighty SAPs. Tyrolia also yields valor bonused regular pikers.
yes, a ga game should be played very differently. in that case, i'd try to survive with the existing english provinces + ireland, scottland, wales and the crusader targets: it's fun.

as to todal domination: you don't need switzerland for pikemen if you start early... a total domination started in the early should be finished in the early ;) - so, no pikes :) leave those to a TD game started in the late :) however, you need switzerland (and any other province) asap to finish before the 1205 strikes. :)

[MadKow]

I'm playing an English campaign right now. I rushed the french in the 3 turn fashion described by Katank. Works wonders.
Conquered Navarre and Aragon too. Bribed Scandinavia, Scotland and Wales.
This was the status by 1110.

Then i was prepared to turtle, developing trade and preparing for HIgh. But the (allied...) HRE thought differently and attacked Flanders. Well... i couldn´t leave it like that and now i own Lorraine Burgundy and Provence too. I don't like landlocked empires so now i'm hesitant to go east.

I have made some crusades to the Continental Baltic not really intent on owning the land there as much as in gaining political influence.

In the mean time my spanish allies have already pushed the Almohads to Tunisia. They will become powerfull soon enough. I would like to take the Iberian peninsula, but now i'm sure i cannot do it without ex-comm.

My conclusions after this first fase:
The combination of Fyrdmen, Clansmen, Cheap Archers and Hobilars gives the English a very flexible and powerfull early army, probably unequaled in the fact that they are all available at Fort level.

[katank]

crusade a bit through the HRE lands and you can weaken them.

crippling the Spanish without excomm can be tough before navies.

be content with a chokepoint of two provinces in the Pyrennes for now.

[MadKow]

Crusading may be specially interesting at this point because the Italians have just been ex-commed. I, however, tend to respect treaties and not attack allies...

On Crusading through HRE, since i am at war with them, how does it work? Can i have passage and still get new units into my crusade? Or does it always behave as an agression?
Or can you have both? Passage of crusade is a war action but you still have incoming units because of local zeal?

[katank]

even if you are at war, the AI usually allows your crusades to pass through so you can have it it in a high troop concentration border province to drain away their troops or risk having little troops to resist an invasion.

it's a delicious conundrum that you put the enemy into.

[King Edward]

This is a tactic i used yesterday, i was at war with france and set a crusade to Egypt through provence. Even though i was at war with the French they allowed the crusade to pass, i then invade next turn and the french are seriously depleated in numbers. (my Inquisitors had whipped Zeal up to 98%!)

[katank]

how the heck did you get the zeal to 98%? that's unreal. unusually inquisition spirals out of control far before hitting that high and even if using cardinals to prevent that, one or more of the agents would likely be killed by rival agents.

soaking off enemy troops using crusades is a well known tactic though.

they always allow enemy crusades through for fear of excomm.

I think if you attack while the crusade is in the province, then the crusader troops will actually join in the fight.

[King Edward]

There are a few Provs Around Italy that are at 100% Zeal, I have 2 5* Inquisitors wondering round, but i must adnit i've never seen Zeal this high in so many provs before. I'll get a screen shot for you tonight.

[cunobelinus]

i found british fun there longbowmen are great unit i used them to my best advantage and i found them easy i took over the hole world and completed the campaighn

[Craterus]

i found british fun there longbowmen are great unit i used them to my best advantage and i found them easy i took over the hole world and completed the campaighn

Maybe you could post a screenshot and share your achievements ~D

[Sir Patrick]

Longbowmen are a godsend as the british. I've used them to annihilate entire infantry units as they approach, and they also have a good enough range that they're rather effective against some of the heavier mounted units such as knights and order cavalry. In any campaign against armies equipped heavier foot-soldiers than you have, longbowmen are a must. I don't like to waste my heavy cavalry against such troops. Better to destroy them at a distance before hitting them with my knights rather than wasting good soldiers against fresh troops.

I also found Hobilars quite useful early in the game. They provide the player with a cheap alternative to the heavily armored knights of his French adversary. A few hobilars can make mincemeat of an advancing line of infantry. I've used them many times to pick apart the less-experienced units in my adversary's line and break apart his force before i move my infantry in for the kill. If you find yourself exposed, those hobilars can even stand up to a unit of knights for a short while, long enough for you to reorganize your line and prepare to defend against the armored onslaught. As the English player, don't underestimate the power of your light infantry or even your vanilla archers. They will play a crucial role in your victories early in the game before you're able to build up more advanced training facilities in your territories.

That said, even the best troops won't protect you from the attacks of multiple neighbors on multiple fronts. If you displease the pope, or if you expand too quickly without a mind towards protecting your borders, you'll find that you're rapidly faced with attacks coming from all sides. The best strategy for avoiding this is to first consolidate your empire. Annihilate France and create a solid state on the mainland. When you feel the time is right, move into germany and attack into the East, but always watching for the Spanish, who are likely to attack, especially if you are not on good terms with the Pope. Stay on good terms with the Pope. You'll thank me later when you can still engage in huge crusades, when most of Christendom remains allied with you and when you don't have huge armies of Spanish Crusaders rampaging through your lands.

Other than that, I have no other really good recommendations.

[ah_dut]

Normal England
In early you are one of the lesser catholic factions. However, you can reap certain advantages. By conquering Ireland and Scotland, you get Gallowglasses, kerns and highlanders. The gallows and highlanders are fast flanking inf. Without too much armour. The kern is a jav man, and well used can wreak some hardcore havoc. One big tip, please remember to bribe Wales, it has 3 units of longbowmen at the start of early. You’ve also got the fyrdman, who only require a spearmaker for feudal sergeant stats, but only in england. oops, forgot hobilars, the old spam flank unit, as in very early, any horse unit is an advantage, u have hobilars.
In high you have the priceless billman and longbow combo. This can be used to spank the knight heavy French a lot. Similar situation in late.

English tactics: as with many people, in early, I advocate a shield wall. This allows your gallows and kerns to shelter in and then flank to cause great damage. You may not have as many cav as the French but always keep a token force to defend your cheaper archers.

In high, I use 3 units, (honest.) bills as the wall, longbows to pepper my enemies and the ever cool CK. Obviously, I use arbalesters from time to time along with a few others but this works fine.

In late a pike wall may be used instead f bills but I still prefer bills, more frontage. You will however realise one thing. Bills can be overrun from cheap units onthe pin. This applies to all units, however, a unit like bills is one you don't want pinned, they are great for whooping cav ass 6 ways to sunday. Such power is not to be wasted on inf who aren't even heavily armoured. In addition, they aren't that heavily armoured themselves so aren't the ideal for that either, they are still nevertheless highly dependable line inf with 2 valour and morale bonuses in Merica. Of course, it goes without saying that you'd be a total idiot to ignore longbowmen. Such lethal weapons and long range are slightly armour piercing and are devastating when used correctly. It is also highly interesting to note their capabilities in hand to hand combat. Armed with an armour piercing axe, they can do surprising damage to an enemy toe to toe. Needless to say though, that is a waste of their talents

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Is it practicable to do any "development" with England prior to the conclusion of your almost inevitable war with France?

I've tried grabbing Wales and Scotland while leaving Flanders alone; I've tried grabbing Flanders and abandoning Anjou and Aquitaine and offering peace, I've tried not taking anything. War with France happens almost immediately and I am more or less forced to keep hammering them until France is gone or France has no border with me.

Just want to make sure I'm not going starkers.

[rotorgun]

Is it practicable to do any "development" with England prior to the conclusion of your almost inevitable war with France?

If I may...I found it useful to develop my merchant buildings, as well as building ports. These helped me to establish a better economy to weather the coming fight. I also spent money for the buildings required to create Archers, Cavalry, and Spearmen as these are the building blocks of your defensive armies. I also let the French attack me first, so that I could wear them down in defensive battles on my home soil. This tends to leave them ripe for a counter-offensive latter from the Aquitane, Normandy, and Anjou. It is a bit touch n' go I'll admit. Holding on to your capital is critical in the early stages; everything else can be sacrificed if need be until you stop their assaults.

Hope this is a little help. ~:cheers:

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I think you're right. It just galls me to be so strategically passive in the early game -- its the only time that His Holiness leaves you alone.

[rotorgun]

I think you're right. It just galls me to be so strategically passive in the early game -- its the only time that His Holiness leaves you alone.

Bearing in mind that I am a reformed "papist", I can quite understand your frustration. It is no wonder that England broke with tradition; it only remains to ask, why not sooner than the reign of Henry VIII ?

Had a good laugh on reading this post Seamus. ~D

ps: You can always postone the war for a few turns by marrying off one of your princesses (an ugly one mind you) to a French prince. Once the war begins at least you can rest safe in the knowledge that you have tainted the the French royal bloodlines!

[Seamus Fermanagh]

As a reasonably good catholic and knight of Columbus, I am a strong supporter of the Holy Father.

However, were MTW real, I'd be doing MANY MANY Novinas courtesy of my confessor based on my responses to his missives. In my first -- discarded -- game, I began to wonder if I could produce a chapter-house anti-crusade (I'd been excommed again) aimed at Rome....

Good point on the princess and the frog(s) -- but is there anyway I can pass off some Scottish Lassie as a princess so one of my own doesn't have to "take one for the team?" Maybe if I just sent his royal frenchness a quartet of Manx choirboys~D

[rotorgun]

As a reasonably good catholic and knight of Columbus, I am a strong supporter of the Holy Father.

However, were MTW real, I'd be doing MANY MANY Novinas courtesy of my confessor based on my responses to his missives. In my first -- discarded -- game, I began to wonder if I could produce a chapter-house anti-crusade (I'd been excommed again) aimed at Rome....

Good point on the princess and the frog(s) -- but is there anyway I can pass off some Scottish Lassie as a princess so one of my own doesn't have to "take one for the team?" Maybe if I just sent his royal frenchness a quartet of Manx choirboys~D

I praise you for your religous fervor; the Knights of Columbus are a wonderful organization. I wouldn't take this "excommunication" thing too seriously though. It is almost a given that England will be put between a "rock and the hard place" because her hereditary, and natural enemy is, and was historically, France. Send an envoy to the Pope. Kiss his Holiness' ...er...hand.
Make some type of contrite offer of alliance. Then...whip France's derierre!

I must make a second confession, I am also a descendant of Gaul with some Scottish blood mixed in there for good measure. Perhaps someone had performed such as you have suggested above. (Sacre Bleu!) LOL~D
In any case, send the quartet also. If he doesn't care for the princess, he'll at least have some music to distract him...oui? ~:handball:

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Alright then.

Sitrep:

Time: Early, not yet 1100; at war with nobody, allied to much of christendom -- but neutral with France (took Flan turn 1, smashed 3 French assaults in Norm/Acq, lost Anj but regained on a rebellion).

Control: Scot, Numb, Wal, Merc, Wesx, Flnd, Norm, Anj, Acq. Loyalty 125+ save Scot at 105.

Forces: Half stacks in Acq, Anj, Norm, Scot (all peasant), Full Stack in Flanders (king, 2 arc, 3 LB, 2 Hob, 4 Hlndr, 1 Sp, 2 Ital Inf). Other Garrisons down to 2 peasants.

Money: 0 -- and profit of less than 100 florins/turn.

Pope: Threatened ME with Excom when Anj rebelled, still have two years to run on the ban.


Now, what the heck can I do to ramp up my economy? Once I've got some chink, it'll build fine ( I learned how to stoke it), but for now.....

[King Kurt]

Seamus

Several options
1) Conquer a few more provinces - Ireland is definately worth it for Gallowglasses and Kern, Scandanavia - rebel so no excom . Also give the French the beating they deserve - after all you are meant to be English. Don't worry too much about being excommed- check the age of your King, if he is relatively old, then sort out the French, you get excommed, King dies, problem over. If he hangs on, invade somewhere like Denmark with just your King - after a couple of goes, he will get killed. War gives you more money through more provinces and ransom - always try to capture the king - big pay day when you do that.
2) Build some ships and start trading. England must rule the waves, so set up a province and pump ships from it for the rest of the game. Your navy should stretch from Norway to the Black sea.
3) are you set on auto taxes - the computer always does a good job of maximising cash.
4) 2 peasants per Garrison sounds a bit high - disband the extra for more cash.
5) Are your governers the best available.
6) You don't have any urban militia in your armies - have you built any militia buildings? - they help happiness and hence cash.
Hope this helps - the English are always a bit strapped for cash for a long time, then you seem to hit critical mass and the money pours in.~:cheers:

[rotorgun]

Hey there Seamus,

Along with the ships, which come well recommended by King Kurt, don't forget to build merchants, especially in provinces with goods to trade. These can be upgraded later to master merchants etc. I also built mines whenever possible. The initial outlay is high, but the investment brings good returns once they are paid for. I'm dreadfully sorry to say so old boy, but I agree with King Kurt about France. It is the quickest way to gain some capital to finance your building projects.

I hadn't thought about the militia, but he's right; providing stability and order for a reasonable price (I think the upkeep is the same as for Peasants) is what Malitia are all about. Tax rates can be played with to increase revenues also. Just make sure that the provinces never get above yellow. I have never tried to let the AI run my economy. It might be all the rage in any case.
Good luck and good hunting!

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Well, I sensed that might be the only direction, so I renewed the war with France by simultaneously attacking all 4 French provinces. All 4 field battles went my way (1 narrowly, 1 without a fight). I have received my notification from the Holy Father, and have only one turn in which to resolve my siege assaults. Fortunately, only one province has a garrison of any size left and my biggest field army is there and only I-d-F has more than a fort to get through (and my Anjou rebels came with their own catapult~:) ). Hopefully, I'll be managing all 4 provinces in short order and then, hopefully, I'll have some cash. Of course, virtually all buildings were destroyed so it's start from scratch....

[rotorgun]

Seamus,

What is the status of acumen ratings for your noblemen? Are you putting those with good acumen in charge of your best potentially richest provinces?
I know that this helped me a great deal when playing my last MTW campaign.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Yes -- though I have not been able to "churn peasants" until I could get a "5" -- most of the provinces have a "3" or a "4."


Just took all 4 remaining French provinces in two moves -- French are now defunct and looting has aided my economy. Sadly, I lost about half of one group of longbowmen with poor placement and an equal number of highlanders. The rest of my losses were very replaceable ones.

Now trying to get some ports and trade posts up.

[KhaderKhan]

Ditto to whatt everyone else have said on building up your economy via ships and trading merchants but whilst you are doing this and building your infrastructure up in the French provinces keep an eye on the Spaniards.

(I'd keep a large garrison at Aquitine)

I'd also (depending if my navy is large enough and I have ships in the Med) kick the Italians out of Toulouse (sp?) and Genoa whilst blockading their ports.

(This bankrupts them in a couple of turns)

[gunslinger]

I am playing England in my second campaign (hard). I bribed Wales on the second turn. (If I tried to move my emmissary directly to the rebel army from Wessex on the first turn, the bribe was over 4k. If I moved it to Wales and then waited till the next turn to actually attempt the bribe it was closer to 2k). I moved to take Flanders pretty quickly because it's rich, and I didn't like having my kingdom divided. I didn't want to wait 15 years to build a keep, port, boatwright, and my first boat before I could connect the kingdom via the ocean.(and that 15 years is only if I neglected all of the other building I wanted to do in Wessex) After I took Flanders, my forces on the mainland were pretty thin, and the French started counterattacking in some of my exposed provinces. So, I retreated the weaker armies to their castles, and started wiping the French out. I actually got pretty far before the pope spoiled my fun. The French were left with Toulouse (which Aragon took from them) and Brittany. I really wanted Brittany because it's a costal province and I could hold it with no other factions on its border, but I also didn't want to get excommed. So, I left it alone for 10 years, and then attacked the full stack army that was there. I reduced that army to about 130 men, and they retreated to the castle. I got my warning from the pope, and I actually withdrew from the province after looting a huge stack of money. I think I'll just let them build up for another 10 years, rinse and repeat. They are not an offensive threat to me anymore, I can make decent money by slaughtering them every 10 years, plus I don't have to worry about them re-emerging with three stacks of advanced units out of thin air in the middle of my territory. They should also be useful in that role, because once the pope warns me about them, I'll have 10 years to fight the Spanish, Danes, or HRE without interferance (I've read that the Pope can only concern himself with one of your enemies at a time). The HRE made some small attacks on me. I actually had to retreat to the casle in Ile De France until help could arrive. Fortunately, the HRE was just sending in 3 or 4 units at a time from provinces that had double stacks, so I was able to defend, and then make peace pretty quickly.

There are two downsides to all of this. 1. With everything else going on, I didn't make it to Navarre, and now the Spanish are holding it with a prince, 5 Jinnettes, and some other stuff. #2 I'm broke. I spent a lot of money making Urban Militia because at the time they were the best I could do for infantry, and instead of economic buildings, I was making spearmakers, bowyers, keeps, etc. Right now I've got Wales completely ignoring its economy in order to focus on all of the castles and bowyer upgrades necessary to start pumping out longbows.

I bribed the clansmen in Scottland, but it was costing me more in support costs (i.e. peasant peacekeepers) than it was making from farming income, so I just pulled out and let the rebels have it.

I've also bribed the vikings in Sweden, built watchtowers, and I've started a fort there. That should be interesting, especially since I can build vikings there. I learned from my previous campaign as the danes, that if Vikings are carefully nurtured valor-wise, and they are given weapon and armor upgrades (from Sweden) they make awesome troops, even against much more advanced units.

I guess my next step will be to try and find some way to take Navarre for the Iron and Jinnettes, and then make peace with Spain. When the Almos hit the penninsula I want to try to attack them and the Spanish in turn, just to keep them even so they keep fighting each other without either one gaining an advantage. That should be a fun challenge.

Good Luck, and any suggestions are welcome,
Gunslinger

[allfathersgodi]

I am playing an Early period English campaign as well and intend to go upto the 1400s with it. Right now it is 1110, I control the four core territories of England, I intend to use Scotland as a training ground for generals and newly formed units with low valor, I own all of the French provinces and Navarre.

Like I said, I am going to send newly formed units and generals into scotland, kill off the army, retreat, let it rebel and repeat until I get a core army of kick ass regulars backed up by replacements.

Someone talked about retraining units, what is that? Is it disbanding a unit and the next unit of like type is a fully manned facsimilie? Or is it transferring green troops from a newly formed unit?

[Vince]

Someone talked about retraining units, what is that? Is it disbanding a unit and the next unit of like type is a fully manned facsimilie? Or is it transferring green troops from a newly formed unit?
To retrain an unit, drag the unit and drop it into the training box. You need the have the required buildings in the province.

Vince

[Vlad The Impala]

As an addition to the previous poster: send the unit you want to retrain to one of your own castles, where the buildings required to train the unit are present, like Vince said. Then open the Unit Training window and drag-drop the unit you want to retrain into the queue.

[allfathersgodi]

Wow, I did not know about that and Ivee been playing this game for about a year now... Does the unit keep all the valor, weapon, armor, discipline, moral bonuses and its general stays the same?

One other question, when do the brits get Longbowmen?

Anyways, England, Early period, roughly 1190. I own Constantinople, I raised a crusade, staffed it, (sent my King in hopes that the pedophile would get himself killed) and then sea lifted it from Wales to Constantinople which was occupied by the Egyptians. Long story short, 3500 Crusaders against the 1000 man Egyptian garrison, I won.

A wrench thrown into my plans. Whenever you got your backed turned, someone knives you in the back. The Scicillians (who are really weak) attacked my sea-route to Constantinople, severed it all the way back to the STROG. And this pisses me off, I invaded a Scicillian profvince and the Popefullness told me to knock it off. So I did after, and then the Sicilians attacked my garrison on Sardinia, and the Pope did not Excommunicate them. The Pope is playing favorites and it is time for the English Army to make a tour of the Italian Penninsula....

[Geezer57]

Wow, I did not know about that and Ivee been playing this game for about a year now... Does the unit keep all the valor, weapon, armor, discipline, moral bonuses and its general stays the same?
Armor & weapons upgrades are tracked by the unit, so you don't lose them when retraining. Valor (and I suspect morale & discipline) is tracked by the individual man - if you retrain in a province without the valor (etc.) bonus, the added men will be "green" and the unit average valor (or whatever) will drop.


One other question, when do the brits get Longbowmen?The English faction can train Longbowmen in the High period, staring in 1205 A.D. It requires a Boyers Guild (+1 valor if upgraded to a Master Boyer), and there's a +1 valor bonus in Wales.


A wrench thrown into my plans. Whenever you got your backed turned, someone knives you in the back. The Sicilians (who are really weak) attacked my sea-route to Constantinople, severed it all the way back to the STROG. And this pisses me off, I invaded a Scicillian profvince and the Popefullness told me to knock it off. So I did after, and then the Sicilians attacked my garrison on Sardinia, and the Pope did not Excommunicate them. The Pope is playing favorites and it is time for the English Army to make a tour of the Italian Penninsula....
Whenever you have twice (or more) their number of provinces, the Pope will side with the weaker Catholic faction. You will get warned, then later excommed, if you attack them, but they can attack you without Papal sanction.

[Unforgivable-Fenrir]

I loved playing as the english, because there are so many possiblities that you can do with this faction. Plus the units that you can get will be really worth it.

First thing that i did was to take an army up and deal with the rebels so that i could unite my island. from there i started to build forces up so that i the french wouldn't try anything. i mostly used the longbowmen and the billmen. When i had a big enough army to start conquer, i didn't go into france but put boats all the way over to where the danes are. The danes were easy to wipe out and this allowed me to take war on germany and france. from there it was to continue on to the east

[stormcricket]

I have taken a slow and steady approach to the campaign. Trade has been my money earner and is the difference in this campaign. In the past I have ignored trade but no longer. I have tried to have governors with at least 5 acumen and any with large farm incomes have had their farmland improved. Flanders is the biggest money earner so far, generating 2000 florins or more each year with trade and farming. It also only has 60% improved farmland, but that will change. I started in early and it took until about 1180 before I had a reliable income. In that time I had taken all the starting French provinces (and removed the French faction from the game), half the Iberian Peninsula (except Portugal, Cordoba and Granada which are owned by the HRE through crusades) Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Navarre. I am loathe to attack the HRE as they are my main trading partner, along with the Italians.
Another thing I am doing is upgrading troops when I can with armourers and metal smiths. This does mean that there are a couple of Spanish provinces whose only job is to upgrade my armies, even though they can produce just about all the troops I need. I have identified the provinces that give troop bonuses and they specialise in those troops.
I am also limiting the number of ports I build. This does slow down my own troop movements a bit but it also means that enemy agents are limited to those provinces of mine that have ports. I then jam as many agents as I can into those provinces and the surrounding ones. The agents I can see are targeted with assassins especially if they wander into provinces without ports. As a result there are now 4-5 4 star and 2 5 star assassins in my employ.
The pope used to be a pain, now I ignore him and if I get excomm’d he gets assassinated

[stormcricket]

One thing I have found is that Sweden isnt named as a province with iron ore in many of the guides. I took it originally for its trade potential and it has repaid my risk many times over. I took Norway, simply because I could and now it along with Ireland and Northumbria produce all my ships. I am keeping an eye on the Spanish who have been building up forces on a couple of my borders.
I have sent 2 crusades and they have inadvertantly taken rebellious former Spanish provinces, which could have peeved them a bit. I hold Algeria, Nicaea, Anatolia, Lesser Armenia and Trebizond because of those crusades. Wales pumps out lbowmena and Mercia pumps out billmen, they are then transported to either Sweden or Spain for upgrading along with all the Chivalric troops I can produce.
I am still in the process of getting pikemen but am not sure if they are worth the effort.
I regularly get the mightiest army and the highest technology announcements, but will need to start consolidating my armies and disbanding old low valour units.
I now control most of western Europe, the UK the Iberian peninsula and the other provinces named above. I am starting to build a warchest and have over 100,000 florins. Trade is a huge earner for me but my farm income is the biggest one at the moment.
What I am starting to notice is some corruption and the generous V&V of some of my govenors.
I do want to ask, are the pike men worth it and how do I control the corruption that is starting?

[Ludens]

There isn't much you can do about V&V's. As your empire grows big, your governors become worse. It is an attempt of the game to slow you down. You will suddenly get a lot of vices when you own 60% of the map, but I think there is another trigger at 40%. Very high taxes are also said to be bad for your governors, although personally I never noticed a difference.

I am not very fond of pikemen, except if they are Swiss. The have large units, but to get a full rank bonus you need to make them very deep (flanking!) and their stats aren't that good. They are good for holding short frontages (like gates and bridges) for a long time, though, but for a holding unit I prefer chivalric sergeants. If those aren't available, billmen do a very creditable job as well.

Welcome to the Org, BTW ~:wave: .

[Empirate]

Couldn't agree more on the pikemen issue. In a one-on-one matchup, they're destroyed by lower-tech spearmen like Chivalric Sergeants or Saracen Infantry. Against other kinds of troops, they're even more at a disadvantage because of the cited need for a deep formation: at the very least five ranks, more if you want some replacements for killed men in the front ranks. Of course they don't actually need to be set that deep, but then you're not using their full potential, as the second to fifth rank can help in the fighting. If put into deep formation, however, they don't provide much front and are flanked more easily.
Swiss Pikemen are much better - they simply have better stats. And Swiss Armored Pikemen (which have VERY steep requirements) are simply invulnerable in most every regard. These two units are probably worth the buildup. But then, you'll probably be able to win the game at least before Swiss Armored Pikemen become available. This is quite similar to the problem with Gothic units for HRE and Italians, Lancers and Gendarmes for the Spanish, and Janissary units for the Turks: the game doesn't make them available early enough for these to be useful anymore.

For a quick and very, very good summary, see Frogbeastegg's Complete Total War Unit Guide (it's a sticky).

[SithMarauder]

I'm not sure what strategy most players of this faction have, but I decided to destroy the French from the very first turn. King William II destroyed the French in a short campaign lasting 7 years. In 1106 the Angevian Empire(English) were attacked by the HRE, large armies cut swathes through the HRE cutting it in half. After a successful mopping up campaign the HRE were reduced to a single province of Bohemia, they faced an army of 3 Spearman. 3 Fuedal Sarges, 3 Archers, 3 Longbowmen, with some Hobilars & RK, boldly marching across a bridge & the enemy pulling back giving me a bridgehead. This gave me the chance to march, straight at them in a killer spear & archer formation, what does the HRE Emperor do run like hell, no more provinces or castle to retreat to, instant death to HRE remaining army.:laugh4:

My army from Sweden and Norway swept down through Denmark, destroying the Danes.

I had a very fun battle in Ile de France with a large French army, who just happend to charge stupidly across a bridge, where 3 archer & 3 longbowmen units where overlooking the bridge. The foot of the bridge was guarded by a unit of spearmen backed up with some UM, with 1 RK & 2 Hobilars in reserve. My archers slaughtered them all on the bridge, I love watching the replay of it. Thats what you get for having a stupid French Prince as a general.

Well it seems the Holy Father is hiding in fear under his cassock as the Itallians are rampaging across Italy. It took 2 turns to destroy the Italians and Corsica & Sardinia are now rebel. I'm now going to march into Iberia, smash the Spanish, Aragonesse & boot the Alhomads out. The Byzantines are attacking my Polish & Hungarian buffer allies, so I do the right thing of helping them out. It seems the Sicilian factions has collapsed & by a quirk I get all their territory:2thumbsup:

I'm going to be trying out the BKB mod from now on see if its more accurate & more interesting. I don't know if the XL mod or med mod are any good, but will be willing to try them out.

[Empirate]

You actually got the Sicilians' territory on their demise, did I get that right? I must have played this game a thousand hours, but I never got any land from a destroyed faction. This can happen, I have heard, when you've married some princess of theirs and their king dies without heir.

[ciprianrusu]

I have a question. What is your advise regarding the use of the longbow or the use of the arbalesters(pavoised arbalesters)? Wich type of weapon is more suitable in an English campaign. I have also the welsh longbowman available.
I'm playing the XL Mod and i'm also able to build Sherwood foresters. Are they any good?

[Empirate]

IMO Arbalesters are better than Longbows for their main job: Delivering withering missile fire. They have the same range, but far better killing power; Londbows are armor-piercing, but not very effectively so. Arbalesters are far better at destroying armored units. On the other hand, they need thrice as long to reload. Pavise Arbalesters, moreover, are slow to get around the battlefield. Still, while Longbowmen will on average kill only two men or so out of a regiment of heavy foot (per volley), you can rely on the Arbalesters to kill five or six, sometimes even a dozen in one volley. This delivers a far greater shock to the regiment than being whittled down slowly over time, especially when you concentrate fire by many regiments of Arbalesters. The faster reload time of Longbowmen means they can fill the air with arrows, leaving the target no time to breathe, but it also means they run out of ammo far more quickly. Arbalesters can keep shooting the whole time even in drawn-out battles that involve a lot of missile dueling or maneuvering for position. Arbalesters are also better armored, so they cannot easily be destroyed/routed by a cavalry charge; Longbowmen are quite vulnerable to this. But Longbowmen make much better flankers: Their melee attack is decent enough, and they have armor-piercing axes for close combat. This makes them valuable even once their ammo is gone.

You should probably employ both troops in your armies, e. g. two regiments of Longbowmen, two of Arbalesters. Arbalesters deliver steady killing power against heavy armor, while Longbowmen quickly destroy lightly armored or unarmored targets. Both combined can keep up the fire and thus undermine the morale of a single target unit very quickly. Once their arrows are spent, the Longbowmen can be deployed as a flanking reserve, while the Arbalesters keep shooting.

Also try to keep in mind what kind of troops the enemy has. Against lightly armored enemies, especially in the deserts, Longbows reign supreme. Against knights and Men-at-Arms, and especially in the rain, Arbalesters are unbeatable. Against moving targets, Arbalesters are better because of the flat trajectory of their bolts, but against stationary targets (--> bridge battles) Longbowmen are very good.

[blahblahblah]

IMO Arbalesters are better than Longbows for their main job: Delivering withering missile fire. They have the same range, but far better killing power; Londbows are armor-piercing, but not very effectively so. Arbalesters are far better at destroying armored units. On the other hand, they need thrice as long to reload. Pavise Arbalesters, moreover, are slow to get around the battlefield. Still, while Longbowmen will on average kill only two men or so out of a regiment of heavy foot (per volley), you can rely on the Arbalesters to kill five or six, sometimes even a dozen in one volley. This delivers a far greater shock to the regiment than being whittled down slowly over time, especially when you concentrate fire by many regiments of Arbalesters. The faster reload time of Longbowmen means they can fill the air with arrows, leaving the target no time to breathe, but it also means they run out of ammo far more quickly. Arbalesters can keep shooting the whole time even in drawn-out battles that involve a lot of missile dueling or maneuvering for position. Arbalesters are also better armored, so they cannot easily be destroyed/routed by a cavalry charge; Longbowmen are quite vulnerable to this. But Longbowmen make much better flankers: Their melee attack is decent enough, and they have armor-piercing axes for close combat. This makes them valuable even once their ammo is gone.

You should probably employ both troops in your armies, e. g. two regiments of Longbowmen, two of Arbalesters. Arbalesters deliver steady killing power against heavy armor, while Longbowmen quickly destroy lightly armored or unarmored targets. Both combined can keep up the fire and thus undermine the morale of a single target unit very quickly. Once their arrows are spent, the Longbowmen can be deployed as a flanking reserve, while the Arbalesters keep shooting.

Also try to keep in mind what kind of troops the enemy has. Against lightly armored enemies, especially in the deserts, Longbows reign supreme. Against knights and Men-at-Arms, and especially in the rain, Arbalesters are unbeatable. Against moving targets, Arbalesters are better because of the flat trajectory of their bolts, but against stationary targets (--> bridge battles) Longbowmen are very good.

I wonder why many human players pick arbalests only when England's their faction and not have any longbows in their army. Most of the battle replays I watched involves 30+ minutes of arbalest shootouts, bores me to death.

[Empirate]

That's probably because you would lose fielding Longbowmen against Arbalesters in MP. And nobody likes to lose...
The missile duel is, sadly, the only viable way of getting rid of a cautious player's missile troops, and get rid of them you must.

[blahblahblah]

But aren't Longbows supposed to fare better when they're in a missile duel because of their rate of fire?

[Vladimir]

Not against the heavy armor AND pavaise.

[blahblahblah]

Not against the heavy armor AND pavaise.

Dam that sucks.

[Empirate]

I had a modicum of success in MP fielding Longbowmen on top of my usual complement of four PavArbs. They provided me with a means of supplying greater firepower and, valored up, still packed a punch in melee (using them as flankers or gapstoppers). Still, the epic English Longbowmen, victors of Crecy and Agincourt, as mere support troops, reserve and gapstopper, didn't appeal to me much...

[ciprianrusu]

They provided me with a means of supplying greater firepower and, valored up, still packed a punch in melee (using them as flankers or gapstoppers). Still, the epic English Longbowmen, victors of Crecy and Agincourt, as mere support troops, reserve and gapstopper, didn't appeal to me much...

According to the last researches it seems that the decisive factor in the english victory at Agincourt wasn't the longbow as a weapon itself (they tested a longbow arrow against an armour like the ones that were used in those days, and the arrow head simply bended) but the longbowmen and the fact that they were lightly armored. The main part of the english army was comprised of longbows (they were commoners) who were lightly armored and could move quickly on the battlefield. The french army was made up mostly of heavily armored knights. As you know, a captured enemy knight was a valuable asset after the battle. As the battle begun, whit the few english knights in the middle of the english line, the french knights all rushed in that part of the enemy line. There was a melee there, and french knights toppled one on another, the ground was soft, and made their movement more difficult, many of them just fell on the ground in front of the english line. The longbows who were on the flanks simply surrounded the heavy dismounted french knights and started hacking whit their knives and swords.
And this is how the longbow won the battle (or so say some historians)

[Empirate]

You may be right there, ciprianrusu, or you may not. It is still hotly debated among historians what were the major factors that made the English victory possible. I didn't want to get into another Agincourt discussion. It's a fact that many people hold the Longbow (being, ostensibly, a superior weapon of the time) responsible for the outcome of that battle, so it's kind of a modern legend, regardless of the historical truth (if there is such a thing). This is the reason why it felt kind of cheap to use Longbowmen as mere support troops. Please, don't start another "truth about Agincourt" discussion here, folks, we had one or two of those in the past...

[Adrian II]

Early, Expert

I think it is best to clobber the French from turn One and never stop until they are eliminated. Why? Just because they're there, and you can, and the money is great. Start with Brittany (isolated) and Flanders (commercial and strategic hub).

You will of course be excommunicated. https://img97.imageshack.us/img97/1342/cathofk0.gif (https://imageshack.us)

The ensuing Spanish invasion in Aquitaine and two Spanish Crusades (the first into Aquitaine, the second into Toulouse) are good training grounds for your generals. You don't get many high-ranked generals (in France or elsewhere) and since the English Princes are a pathetic lot you need to work on some star generals against serious armies. After that, Aragon and Navarre are cake.

Wales (bribe) and Scotland (four Town Watch + three Archers out of Northumbria will do the job) take care of themselves.

Never ever lose sight of Flanders which will be the strategic (geographic as well as financial) bottleneck of your campaigns.

And hey, conquer the world before High is over. It's been done before. :yes:

[Sensei Warrior]

MTW/VI Early, Normal, Hard

I'll toss in my two cents. This strat works in Norm, and Hard. It seems like it would work for any difficulty, but you'll need to tweak it in the higher ones for lack of money. I opt for more of a blitzing turtle strategy.

Send emmissary to bribe Wales, and your princess to ally with HRE. Do not ally with France as you will be taking it soon enough. Longbowmen in Early is good, very good. Build up your most profitable farms and basic units. Basic units meaning Urban Militia, Spears, Archers, and Hobilars on the mainland. These units are going to be your workhorses in the beginning years. Start turning Wessex into a shipping provence. The other provences should be geared to money or making fyrdmen or what not. Aquitaine should start a constant production of Hobilars.

The Welsh are bribed and you should be close to getting your first prince. When you do, and if he isn't a complete dud (AKA Inbred or some such nonsense) move him and some troops to pacify Scotland. I do this to gain Clansmen which are decent, cheap troops. Wales should be built up to Celtic Warriors and Longbowmen. While this is going on try to build up mainland units, not to many but more than what you have. Conquer and pacify Scotland and move your Prince and his little force back down to Wessex.

A number of years has gone by and IIRC it is usually around 1100 when I make this move. You should have a moderately size force on the mainland consisting of Spearmen, Archers, Urban Militia, and Hobilars. This should include some respectable generals such as Tancred de Normandie. On the island you should have the King, the hopefully married Heir you are trying to groom, another prince and a sizable force of Archers, Fyrdmen, Urban Militias, and your Longbowmen. From here, move the force in Wessex to Flanders, and move each force in your mainland provence into one of the French held provence. Attack the provences and assault the castles.

If the Pope hasn't said anything wipe the rest of france away. Then after you secure your new lands, its on to Navarre and Aragon. Now, is the time to sit back and relax. Secure your borders, your Heirs, your shipping/trade lanes, and your defenses. Invariably either HRE or Spain will want a piece of you. If its HRE take a moment to shorten up your Eastern Provences, If its Spain grab a large chunk of the Iberain Pennisula.

From here do whatever you like since the game is pretty much yours. You have carved out a sizable kingdom, with high quality money making provences, provences with iron, and even some with high zeal. From here you can seriously turtle up, make a grab for Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Crusade your way to the Holy Lands, or whatever you like.

This is generally my opening move. It is influenced by some personal rules such as: Doing what the Pope says thus the reason for the long build up followed by burst attacks on Catho regions. I won't cross allies until they cross me. I won't ally with Muslims. I want to secure the entire British Isles.

I also like to use unique units. Fyrdmen are the equivalent of Feudal Sergants but cost less. Celtic Warriors cost more than Peasants but cost less to maintain and are much sturdier. Clansmen and Gallowglasses are sturdy decent troops that are great to Crusade with. In the end England I think has one of the most cost efficient unit rosters in the Early Era, and if used properly can even gain what Adrian II suggested: World domination by High. Of course if you don't then who cares because you'll get Longbowmen and Billmen as replacements for Fyrdmen and Celtic Warriors who disappear after Early.

[Adrian II]

MTW/VI Early, Normal, Hard

A number of years has gone by and IIRC it is usually around 1100 when I make this move. (..)On Expert mode, by this time Aquitaine would have been overrun by the Spanish whilst Toulouse would be occupied by 121 imperuous Aragonese Royal Knights... :wink3:

[Vladimir]

Agreed! :2thumbsup:

In MTW, rushing is the way to go. Kill the French royal family! :knight:

[Sensei Warrior]

I have never tried Expert anything. I might be able to handle the Campaign, but my tactical skills leave a bit to be desired. Things happen that fast in Expert? I mean 1100 is only 13 years into the game.

Forgive me for being naive but wouldn't the build up of forces in Aquitaine deter the Spanish or at least give you a fighting chance? As for Toulouse I guess I would have to build alot more Spears.

[Adrian II]

I have never tried Expert anything. I might be able to handle the Campaign, but my tactical skills leave a bit to be desired. Things happen that fast in Expert? I mean 1100 is only 13 years into the game.

Forgive me for being naive but wouldn't the build up of forces in Aquitaine deter the Spanish or at least give you a fighting chance? As for Toulouse I guess I would have to build alot more Spears.Expert mode is not that hard, Sensei Warrior. Why don't you give it a try?

If you start in Early, you'll learn as you go because you start out with small armies and small battles. Build watchtowers to know thine enemy. Never lose Aquitaine which provides you with those essential Hobilars. As soon as you win a battle, send your Hobilars after the stragglers to kill (or capture, if you need the money) another 50-100 enemy troops. Always defend with your back against the wall (i.e. your edge of the battefield) so that if you win your Hobilars can do maximum damage to those runing enemy units.

And yes, you would need lots of spears to 'liberate' Toulouse from the Aragonese.

[Vladimir]

And yes, you would need lots of spears to 'liberate' Toulouse from the Aragonese.

Agreed. Sensei, just remember weapon/counter weapon. Those watchtowers help with that a lot and play smart.

[Sensei Warrior]

Words of encouragement from the Masters. Well, you have inspired me, I will start up a game tonight when I get back to my comp and will bravely try expert.

I always start in Early, so thats not a problem. Rock, paper, scissors, no problem there. Play smart, well that might be a problem, but I save the game every year so worse comes to worse I'll replay a year here or there when I really muck up the works. Thanks guys. ~:grouphug:

[Geezer57]

I always start in Early, so thats not a problem.
Maybe not for this very next campaign of yours, but you should soon consider a Late or High period game. The Early unit rosters tend to be full of basic vanilla type troops, which I find less interesting. Later period battles can have you facing hordes of older troop types, or elite newer types, or a mixture of both. Much more variety to keep things interesting. :beam:

[Adrian II]

Rock, paper, scissors, no problem there. Play smart, well that might be a problem (..)None of us here is a genius - if we were, we wouldn't piss away our talents on a computer game! ~:)

In my experience, the important thing in M:TW battles is.. well, experience.

As a player you can calculate your campaign moves, but there is little room for calculation on the battlefield. Instead you develop intuition.

The more you play, the more you will get a 'feel' for the right decisions. You will discover, for instance, that you can attack a Spear formation head-on with Hobilars and send them running, on condition that the Spears have low morale and are far removed from their commander and their line of battle. This will cost you a few Hobilars, but the remainder will have increased Valour so they can operate more freely in future battles.

Losing battles is a learning curve, too. I will never forget how I learned to play chess in high school: by losing, oh, one thousand chess games against a class mate who was a Junior National Champion of chess...

[Sensei Warrior]

Well I figured this fits in the guide section, I did start a new game, GA in Expert. Its the mid 1120s and I have all of the British Isles and Ireland conquered. I have all of the mainland south to Aragon and Navarre. To the East I own the Friesland, Lorraine, Burgundy, Provence (?), line.

I dominate the Northern Sea and in the Med, am very close to connecting a shipping lane to the Crusade lands. So far I am making a pretty penny in trade and have pretty decent farming.

I am allied to Spain (which is huge) and whats left of the HRE. Have 4 stacks of units in reserve to my defensive border.

Both Kings that have reigned William II and Edmund have an Influence of 10. Edmund has pretty good stats, but the Heir Apparant (another Edmund) has Incredible stats, they're disturbing.

This is what I did. I allied with HRE and Spain. In 1090 I attacked Flanders, Brittany, Il de France, and Toulouse. I won all but the Il de France battle. I underestimated that one pretty badly. In 1092, was warned off by the Pope so was content to keep Brittany, Flanders, and Toulouse and wait the 10years building up.

During this time I bribed Wales. When I attacked again in 1103 I swept the rest of France. The minute I was finished with France I was attacked by HRE. Not to long after the HRE Emperor died and my emmisaries told me he wasn't well liked by his Generals. I scraped up what units I had and attacked HRE's 4 Western Provences. After HRE lost those Provences the Generals rebelled and HRE was reduced to 3 Provences. They are regaining them, but terribly slowly and I think they are pretty much out of the Picture. I re-allied with them just in case.

I love engineering the downfall of an Empire.:yes:

Since then I have been building ships from Provence to Crusade, and in the North to establish trade. From the beginning I concentrated on the typical, Aquitaine pumps out hobbies and I developed them economically, Anjou built basic units then economics, Normandy economics, Wessex ships and then economics, Mercia was spear and then churches (this is where I am going to build a Cathedral), Wales is getting Bows and sword, Northumbria basic units esp. spear, Scotland just a fort. All of the French Provences I have built economy.

Just recently I shipped an army of Fyrdmen to eradicate the Argonese and claim Navarre and Aragon. I just claimed Ireland. Now its the Crusading buildup. I am building or building up to Clansmen, Fyrdmen, Hobbies, Gallowglasses, Celtic Warriors (I use them to garrison provences), and Archers of course.

Next I am off to Crusade my way through those GA points. I have been playing pretty safe, following everyones good advice. In truth the only thing that seems pretty tough is the battles. Man with the comps morale bonus there is absolutely no room for error. Even the opponents peasants seem not so rancid, at least they stick in the fight for a bit. I rather not admit that the Il de France battle I lost was due to underestimating the large Peasant force and ended up being overwhelmed :no: . I didn't make that mistake again.

Well thats it for now. If anything else crops up I'll pop in and add my 2 cents.

[Adrian II]

Well I figured this fits in the guide section, I did start a new game, GA in Expert. Its the mid 1120s and I have all of the British Isles and Ireland conquered. I have all of the mainland south to Aragon and Navarre. To the East I own the Friesland, Lorraine, Burgundy, Provence (?), line.

I dominate the Northern Sea and in the Med, am very close to connecting a shipping lane to the Crusade lands. So far I am making a pretty penny in trade and have pretty decent farming.

I am allied to Spain (which is huge) and whats left of the HRE. Have 4 stacks of units in reserve to my defensive border.And this is the guy who couldn't play in Expert mode! :laugh4:

I have one last suggestion for you, before you definitely become better than me. Take care to raise good generals and heirs. Raise their stats by letting them fight rebellions, make them Stewards and Builders, give them 'Scant Mercy' (increases Dread) but stop right there because if they get 'No Mercy' it gives them a 1- morale penalty.

Now Sensei Warrior, off into the breach! :charge:

[Vladimir]

Sensei: I would like to echo your sentiments on:


Man with the comps morale bonus there is absolutely no room for error.

There have been many times on Expert when I've though: "What's wrong? You should be beating these guys! :furious3:

Don't underestimate the bonuses on that level and learn everything that gives them a penalty, i.e. 50% strength, worried about flanks, etc. You'll need it. :rifle:

[Sensei Warrior]

Adrian II. No sweat building up my heirs, before Edmund died the heir was my best general. My current king who was the heir Edmund that I mentioned is an 8* General, Magnificent Builder, Great Steward, and Scant Mercy. He was posted by the Italian border when they decided that I was getting to big for my britches. The next heir I might have problems with since I cannot imagine the King is going to live long enough to let my heir get some worldly exp.

Vladimir. I think I fought more battles in this game than any other. The learning curve between Hard and Expert is huge. I've had Hobbies rout because they were taking fire from 2 or more units of archers, something I've never seen them do before. I saw another unit of hobbies evaporate when they connected with a unit of Urban Militia, another new one. I have seen the enemies Peasants last on the field long enough for help to come or smack my attacking unit so hard that it ended up being a hollow victory. I've become very rigid about supporting missile fire, flanking, and elevation in addition to the rock paper scissors.

To catch up, its mid-1160s and I've finished the Crusade objectives, which was easy once my trade network was in full swing. My only problem is Spain, Egypt, and the Turks are all at war with me, Spain right out of the blue. Spain absolutely will not accept a ceasefire so I'm going to have to come up with something else. I really don't want to take them over. The Turks and Egyptians I wouldn't care to much about, I'd use them to train the troops, but my trade income has taken a huge hit. I've got Mercia queued up to build a Master Spear and a Cathedral :beam: , and Navarre and Aragon building Metalsmiths :2thumbsup: , I can't wait to ship out some uber-billmen in High.

[Adrian II]

The next heir I might have problems with since I cannot imagine the King is going to live long enough to let my heir get some worldly exp.A familiar problem. As long as the heir starts his reign with three Influence and you take care to keep him in the center and make him a Builder etcetera to increase his Influence, he will not have to fight for his survival. Usually, though, a non-fighting ruler tends to get rather less valiant heirs. In the end your line of Edwards may decay into a bunch of couch popatoes. You will still get the occasional Mighty Warrior whom you can shlepp onto some safe little battlefield to give him Skilled Attacker or something. But your 8-star days will be over and you had better start marrying off your daughters to your best generals.
:oops: :laugh4:

[Sensei Warrior]

lol, thanks. Well, part of Egypt rebelled so I've sent him to the Holy Lands for his education. He might have a couple of stars before his coronation.

[Alouette]

Well, weird situation I got into.

Had no trouble so far, really, just turtled/took potshots at people in kilts for a while.

Wessex: shipyard
Normandy: Shipyard then tech for knights
Aquitaine: Farming
Anjou: Farming
Mercia: F Sarge -> fast armor upgrades
Wales: Bows -> Fast armor upgrades
Northumbria -> Farming

Once I had bribed Wales I used those troops to take Scotland, then took time out to get ports and boats so I could blitz Norway and Sweden. By the time that was finished I had two 7 star generals, (both sixes that I handed Scotland and Ireland to), so I shipped them off south and did the "Kill the excommunicated guy" thing in Prussia (adding Freisland, Franconia, Pomerania, Brandenburg, and whatever is south of Brandenburg.

By now my initial troops were wearing thin but I had bronze arch/bronze F Sarge pumping out of Mercia and Wales, and FK's soon from Normandy. Toulouse and a few nearby points went Reb, so I snatched them, bribing a peasant with a bunch of acumen quills in the process.

Then I got Excommunicated.

Not a loyalty problem, I have no real happiness issues, and my war chest at the time was 130K so I could absorb the trade losses even after the Spanish and Italian started pecking at my fleet in the Med.

By now, the 7*'s were 8 & 9 * killing machines with "Expert Attacker" and the like, so I just killed the Italian boat and landed two full stacks of silver F Sarge/silver Knight in Rome, burned everything, repeated with the Papal States, finis.

Rome IMMEDIATELY popped up with two full stacks of advanced troops and a new Pope. Even Lord FitzGilbert, the hackmaster himself, couldn't take them, and he was now cut off from the sea and from Genoa. So I attacked Tuscany (Italian), to get him a way out. Ended up holding it, and the Eyetals took the Papal States.

Meanwhile, the Hackmaster Mark II (7 stars (made eight on this run) skilled def, expert attack, etc.) was cleaning out Aragon and Spain (Who up until this point were STILL bigger than me).

However, all this time I was allied with France, and I was now a little overextended and (in the Spanish conflict) was Excommed again. So THAT is going to be a problem, since I'm basically undefended in back... I'll probably have to abandon Tuscany to fix it.

[caravel]

And the moral of that story is: Don't try to eliminate the Papacy. :laugh4:

It is far better to contain the Papacy in the Papal states than to wipe them out, as they will always come back no matter what. The initial Papacy that start at the begininng of a new campaign are quite docile happily adding to his ballista collection every year or so while calling for the odd crusade. Wiping them out turns them nasty...

I've seen report of people defeating ten or so reappearances and of the Papacy finally lying down for good, but have never felt masochistic enough to try it myself - so can't confirm if it works or not.

[Alouette]

Well, it turned out not to be a problem, because I had an Emissary on the board and could just bribe every French army I couldn't reach and pull out my fleets from dangerous (read: Italy-bordering) parts of the Med. I abandoned Tuscany (scorched earth), dropped my 8* boys in Flanders and Brittany, and wiped off France in three years. Then, autoceasefire, another assassination job on the Pope, he reemerges again, move ships back into the Med, and land my 8*'s in Constantinople and Antioch.

No one had the troops to stop me. Conquest before 1230. I'm playing the Danes now, which is slower but apparently not harder... Gold/Black Vikings are pretty vicious.

[Motep]

What is aways fun is using the money cheat to get millions of florins, and mass producing peasants. Then you send a massive horde of peasants to storm the globe, and you can usually conquer about half of it before your armies meet too tough of enemy. It is fun, and easy to do with britain.

And I have never been able to eliminate the pope. I have tried again and again, but he just keeps on coming back again...and again...and again. I have got him to lie low for a max of 5 turns with the french.

[gNostic Heretic]

Always quite liked the consistant return of the Papacy. With total control of the sea it's possible to pop an army or two with some newby generals at the helm and use the whole experience as a live-fire training exercise

[Motep]

Always quite liked the consistant return of the Papacy. With total control of the sea it's possible to pop an army or two with some newby generals at the helm and use the whole experience as a live-fire training exercise

lol. Honestly, I did not think of it, and left 5 stacks around the pope as a safeguard. (and he still pulled a power force from time to time, and decimated me on auto-resolve...but not on the field...*evil grin*)

[cambovenzi]

Katanks version of taking out france in 3 turns is very effective and i like that the most.

you just have to be good enough to win the first battle.(not exceedingly hard, especially if you hand out the title that gives +1 command to a unit attacking toulhouse)

it does require a few adjustments tho.
i found that when i attacked champagne with my kings people i had to find a good balance of people to leave behind, otherwise the plan didnt work. i think i left an extra unit of peasants, and something else behind in flanders(i think it was flanders)
if you do not usually the germans attack you, and you have a real mess.