Scotland

[frogbeastegg]

Scotland needs to be unlocked before you can play as them. To do this you can either complete a campaign (on any difficutly, long or short setting) with one of the five starting factions, or you can edit the preferences file. To do this open your Sega/M2TW folder/data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign, find the file called "descr_strat" and open it with wordpad. Now find the section which says
campaign imperial_campaign
playable
england
france
hre
spain
venice
end
unlockable
sicily
milan
scotland
byzantium
russia
moors
turks
egypt
denmark
portugal
poland
hungary
end
nonplayable
papal_states
aztecs
mongols
timurids
slave
end

Change it so it reads

campaign imperial_campaign
playable
england
france
hre
spain
venice
sicily
milan
scotland
byzantium
russia
moors
turks
egypt
denmark
portugal
poland
hungary
end
nonplayable
papal_states
aztecs
mongols
timurids
slave
end

[Ja'chyra]

I rushed through an English short campign and destroyed the Scots just so I could play them, there must be irony in there somewhere.

So I started my campaign and the first thing I done was rush down and lay siege to York before the English get there. I emptied my capitol, Edinburgh, of all but a couple of militia and formed up a second army under my heir which sent down to Wales for another siege, I picked up a couple of Welsh spearmen merc units to bolster my meagre forces. Back at my capital I was busy constructing any and all buildings to supplement my income, while my one spy headed up to Inverness to check out the garrison my diplomat headed down to the Auld enemy to try and keep the peace.

So that's it for the first few turns, it's easy to beat the English to both York and Wales, York surrenders without a fight but Wales will sally forth, if you let them. My spy had reported that Inverness is a Castle with a not insignificant garrison for my few forces to deal with and they seem typically stubborn in accepting a bribe, damn cheuchters :laugh4: . Meanwhile with both Wales and York now in your control it gives you 2 cities and a castle which a more than adequate base considering you only start with one region.

Once I had my 3 regions I had my capitol producing militia and my other 2 building militia support buildings for the free upkeep which freed up my better troops to defend my borders. Trade rights were relatively easy to obtain from the English and my diplomat moved on to the mainland to try and secure some more. If you're lucky you'll get some easy mission, like build a church or blockade some rebel ports, I got 3 ship units from one of these missions which helped immensely in clearing my coasts of pirate fleets as I kept on losing 1v1.

The next choice I had was to try for the English lands or the rebel ones of Dublin and Inverness, I decided on the more lucrative, and risky, English lands.

Leaving a minimal garrison at York and Wales I merged my troops and marched on Nottingham, which only had 1 unit in it. Surprise surprise, as soon as I laid my sige 2 things happened, 1. I got a message from the Pope telling me toddle off and leave the English alone 2. I was attacked by a full stack of English troops :help: Being a big brave Scotsman I decided to ignore the Pope and fight the English who had emptied all of the garrisons to from this army which outnumbered me 2-1 but was formed mostly of militia.

I formed up in a standard infantry first, archers to the rear and cavalry flanks and waited for them to come to me. In my front row I had 2 units of Highlanders, 3 of welsh spearman followed by 2 Highland Archers with 2 barder cavalry on one flank and my heir on the other, the terrain was me in a small clearing sorrounded by forests. The AI rushed his archers out in front and only had 1 cav unit so I was able to rout their archer units with my cav before they had cleared the trees. I then stretched my infantry front to match theirs and waited for then to engage, which they did without letting my archers get more than one volley off, good for them but bad for me. Earlier I had sneaked one of my Border Cav into the trees and this saved my life as they English had enough units to engage along my whole infantry front as well as my other 2 cav units. I charged my remaining Border Cav unit out of the trees and into their Captain Hobilar unit from the rear whcih stood no chance, I then wheeled my cav unit and charged then into the rear of the right flank of the enemywho immediately routed with about 70% losses, this then freed up some infantry units to roll along the line into what developed into a mass rout. As I was unable to chase all the units a good proprotion of them gathered themselves enough to return to the fight but eventually I won.

I now had another Castle in Nottingham, but was promptly excommunicated by His Popiness, damn killjoy, so I made the most of it and promptly marched on London, which fell without too much bother. I now had 3 cities and 2 castles :yes: .

I then decided it was past time to answer my Council of Nobles and take Dublin which again wasn't too hard, and then spent quite a while building up my settlements and improving my forces and generally consolidating my hold on the British Isles, except for pesky Inverness whcih is where I'll leave it for today.

[McDoogle]

:2thumbsup: :2thumbsup: Well being a true blue scot at heart i couldnt wait!

10 turns as the english made me hate them so i altered the file and got the scots :) i took york and wales first with my full stack armies (merged my two at the start together) and left a small garrison of troops at my conquered citties. i then went to irveneness then to dublin as the cuoncil asked, i set up trade and map info and alliance with the English on the thrid turn...around the 16th turn the english marched on york..ha ha! my three scottish highlanders destoryed twice their number and sent them licking their wounds!

Then on to nottingham...now get this!:furious3: the pope was happier with the english then with me! when they attcked me! so i converted endinburgh, york and wales to castles and built me a big stack of mailed knights...marched on nottingham with one infantry unit included and sacked the bloody thing...as i turned on london i got a warning of excummincation now being me whos a none christian the threat is empty.

now if i were closer, i would simply march down and kill him, atm i am training my assianians and am planning on removing him, seeing as my priests dnt have a chance on the cardinal college theres no hectics or witchs in my releams to cause me any dramas! i would welcome them to increase my pirests piety :2thumbsup:

so when i have them trained enuogh i am taking london...then normandy and waiting for french to attack then going all out and detroying them as quickly as i can. or prehaps i should just ignore them all and be the excumincated power, no one cared abotu scotland anyway!

the building controls are way different as well as recrutment but u get used to it. u gotta love the videos of the assianians and feel sorry for them!:laugh4:


anyone got advise about these cardnials and how to increase ur piety? or any factions that are pagans!!! he he...

i do hope they repeat the viking invasion as well, would love a detailed map of england

[Ja'chyra]

Some more info.

The short campaign for the Scots is to hold 15 regions and destroy the English, which is more of a pleasure than a chore :smash:

You start off with just one region, Edinburgh, which is a large town. You also have your leader (+1 val)stationed here along with 1 Border Cav, 1 Highland Archer(+1 val), 2 town militia and 1 spear militia(+1 val). As well as these units you have 2 other stacks.

Stack 1 - Faction heir (+1 val)and 1 each of spear militia(+1 val), highland archers, highlanders(+1 val) and border Cav(+1 val)

Stack 2 - Family member (+1 val), 2 highland archers, 1 highlander (+1 val), 1 border cav (+1 val) and 1 spear militia

Highland archers (Att7,5,1 Def 4,0,1,3,1)- not too bad and a definate inprovement on peasants but nowhere near Longbow leetness.

Highlanders (Att 12,3 Def 5,0,2,3,1)- These are going to be your staple light infantry, and make up the bulk of your armies in the early stages, they chew through militia units but you will take losses.

Border Cavalry (Att 10,4 Def 10,4,6,0,1)- These units have won a few fights for me, they are quick and pack a better punch then Hobilars.

Stats being Att Attack/Melee, missile, charge & Def total, Armour, Defence skill, shield, hit points

[Kekvit Irae]

Scotland, in the short campaign is actually one of the easiest to do. Reasons for this is because you are in the very corner of the world, and only have one enemy to defeat.

The main weaknesses of Scotland are the apparent lack of any decent horse units, and the fact that they live so far away from the Holy Land that it's not worth while to call a crusade unless you have units nearby. However, their weakness in both of these areas can be overcome by exploiting the Pope's willingness to allow you to call crusades. Build up a fairly good army and then call a crusade (I usually pick a region, such as Antioch, that is rebel). Choose that army as your crusading army and park it on the border of England. Hire crusading mercenaries to boost the power of your army. All the units in the army will be free from upkeep, allowing you to park them on the border of your enemy without any cost to your finances. Once the crusade target has been taken (usually by Venice, as they are closer), steamroll all over England with your knights. Dont worry about being excommunicated if you are playing a short campaign, you'll only need 15 regions to win once you destroy the English.

[turnip]

I got a bit bored of waiting for the English to attack me, so when the Pope called a crusade on Jerusalem, I thought I'd join in. I'm not entirely sure what happened to all the other factions, since only Poland joined it with me. God only knows where they got to.
https://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n252/jiluty/ochaye.jpg

The English attacked when I was halfway there. Recruiting the armies to fend them off almost bankrupted me, not to mention the Holy City's rebelliousness being a huge pain in the rear. Still, I think it was worth it.

[cambrax]

I'm well on the way with Scotland, and enjoying a fair bit of success. I've deliberately stayed out of Western Europe, although I made sure I kicked the English out of Nottingham and London asap. If you can make it to York and Wales before them, then the UK is basically yours.

I managed to take Helsinki quite early on, and this has given me a number of advantages. It served as a great base to sack and occupy Novgorod, and I've been able to pinch Sweden and Norway off the Danes as well. By staying out of the craziness in France, Germany and Italy I've kept good relations with everyone, and the British Isles are easily defended if anyone should be daft enough to try. I think the best early pickings for the scots are to be found in Russia and the rest of the Baltic states.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I got a bit bored of waiting for the English to attack me, so when the Pope called a crusade on Jerusalem, I thought I'd join in. I'm not entirely sure what happened to all the other factions, since only Poland joined it with me. God only knows where they got to.
https://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n252/jiluty/ochaye.jpg

The English attacked when I was halfway there. Recruiting the armies to fend them off almost bankrupted me, not to mention the Holy City's rebelliousness being a huge pain in the rear. Still, I think it was worth it.

What a silly and Quixotic thing to do! Kudos!!

[Mystiq]

My strategy with the scotts seems to be similar to everyone elses so far but the English gave me alot of trouble. I reinforced the two standing armies with units fromt he capital and quickly took Iverness and York. I left the Southern army at York as a garrison. I started to send my Northern army south to Wales (cant spell the name of the castle there) but the English got to it first. So I made a detour and took Dublin instead.

For the next 30 turns I was in a cold war with the English, we both built up large military forces at the border of York and Nottingham. During this time I started getting my merchants/diplomats/spies opperating. I had two diplomats roving through Europe getting trade rights and map information as well as a spy to scout those that wouldnt give it up cheaply. I skilled up my merchants in jolly ole England before sending them to fabric resources in Antwerp. The only Alliance I had was with France, but it was quite stable and lucritive other than the brief fallout due to excommunication because of the war with England later on.

My first priority during this time was financial. I quickly grew Edinburgh into a money making power house. York and Dublin lagged behind because I took a more balanced build policy due to the probility of attack in York's case and the isolation of Dublin.

Eventually the English seiged York and after a few battles they took it. I sunk all of my money into troops from Iverness and Edinbourgh and marched two armies South. I took York back only to lose it a few turns later. At one point I had a $4000+ deficit. At this point I re-established a lost alliance with France and moved my armies South by passing York and sieging Nottingham. After a close battle I took the castle, retrained a few units and took London.

At this point it was just a matter of mopping up, but for about 15 or so turns in there it was pretty hairy. I got lucky and out of 6 or so Assassins one lived to become a mass murderer. I took out 3 princesses, a diplomat and 5 Family members/generals just with him.

I left off having gained complete control of the British Isles. I am trying to decide where to strike next. I am thinking of hitting Scandinavia as the Danes are getting quite strong and I could probably solicit some assitance from Poland and the HRE before they are swallowed up.

[Mystiq]

Wanted to edit the post but didn't realize that I couldn't, new to the forum.

In any case the big thing I learned from that experience is about by passing enemy strong points. I completely ignored the large army and garrison at York and moved on to Nottingham and then London with great success. Since Nottingham was Englands main heavy troop production center the quality of their armies dropped as the fighting went on. All they had left were milita and low lvl castle units.

Its also pretty obvious that Nottingham and Edinbourgh served to hem in the armies at York and prevent them from distracting me in the North or sending a relief force in the South to London when it was under Siege.

I hope that yall enjoy reading my posts and possibly learn something from them, I know I enjoy reading other's posts about how their games went.

[darsalon]

Well in my Scotland campaign I was very lucky. However it still pretty much follows the general tactics of the game.

Took York before the English got hold of it. Then sent my diplomat and spy down to nottingham. Diplomat got an alliance with the english to keep them off my back for a bit. Plan was to go for wales, ireland and inverness whilst maintaining the alliance. The spy picked out a full stack english army just sitting south west of nottingham and led by a captain. With this in mind I put my main army on the border in case they tried anything.

They did try something, they completely unexpectedly decided to turn rebel. This was my chance. The english on seeing this then used the rest of their armies to wipe the rebels out but this left them severely weakened. At which point I marched my main army across the border, broke my alliance and attacked nottingham after grabbing several units of mercenaries to pad the army out a bit. Took that, marched on London (ignoring the pope's demand to stop fighting), and took that as well. Britain was now mine.

Once that was done I followed the standard city/castle configuration I like to have on the British isles which is all settlements as cities except Nottingham. This allows me to build up a fat pile of cash to upgrade settlements easily and then build up a decent army of feudal knights, noble swordsmen, pikemen and noble highland archers for taking on the european powers.

I don't tend to like using mercenaries but, as the scots have a poor missile selection crossbowmen are necessary. Otherwise I use the noble swordsmen and pikemen as holding troops whilst outflanking the opposition with my feudal knights and highland nobles.

Currently am taking on denmark on the continent having grabbed rennes and caen off the english. Am taking real advantage of the lack of garrisoning to launch naval raids into danish territory by sacking their cities, selling off all the buildings in them and then running off again. Is netting me some big money and economically damaging the danes all being well. Once they're softened up I'll then take northern europe to complete my short campaign.

Intend to go as the Scots again on a long campaign as they're a great faction to play although I have the feeling that it won't be quite so easy to get rid of the English next time around!

[Jammer]

Once that was done I followed the standard city/castle configuration I like to have on the British isles which is all settlements as cities except Nottingham. This allows me to build up a fat pile of cash to upgrade settlements easily and then build up a decent army of feudal knights, noble swordsmen, pikemen and noble highland archers for taking on the european powers.

I like this strategy as well, except I've chosen York. Next time, I'll try Nottingham for a quicker shuttle time to the continent. The British Isles can do well with only one castle, especially when paved.


I don't tend to like using mercenaries but, as the scots have a poor missile selection crossbowmen are necessary.

Highland Archers and their Noble upgrade have worked very well for me. In a showdown with crossbow, their rapid reload time seems to give them an edge.

Tip: commanding your archers to fire at a unit just behind the enemy xbow/archer line can also take out many archers. In MT2W, the arrows come in low and will also decimate units standing in front of the target.

I love the Scots for their battle speeches, which are always short and beligerent. Example: "When you get close to the enemy, remember to breath through your mouth...so you won't smell the REEK!" :laugh4:

[lalartu]

scots are by far the easiest faction I played with.

though how easy it is depends on your first 3-4 turns. they're extremely important and like Virgil said Fortune favors the bold (RTW quote hehe)
so what I did was also similar, though I did send armies to every rebel settlement and had all 4 under my control within 4 turns. I then instantly went aggressive on England as soon as I saw their forced approach

I waited for this so I could strike with my main army into their heart, taking nottingham while they sent half the force to take the welsh city.

in the end I ended up eliminating their attacking army and taking nottingham. so there was just london left with their king and about 5 units protecting it.

what's strange is that as soon as I layed the siege on London the next (7th) turn, out of nowhere appears a full stack of english forces right next to london (wasn't a ship transport, it just appeared in the middle). so I assume they were hiding in the forest somewhere and attack my sieging forces. what follows is a decisive battle, which I managed to win thanks to my superior cavalry forces (ironically because scots suck with cavalry, but they do get mail knights as the first unit you can produce in a castle). so basically i flanked and skirmished a lot and sent their forced into a disaray of constant pursuit of my annoying horsemen.

eventually they ran away, city was taken, half of their force was destroyed and king was dead.
london was mine and so after rebuilding my forces, I destroyed their final forces ,liberating english isles of english presence once and for all.

after this the game became extremely relaxing. my idea now is to just build up my technology until i can colonize south america and teach them all to streth their voyels and roll their Rs like true scots:)

I did out of boredom sent a crusade army, which ended up being late and behind the hungarians, but I did sack 5 turkish and 3 egyptian cities along with constantinople, all of which raised my coffer by about 100k florins.

england is still alive and i only hold 8 provinces, but it's really not what I was aiming for anyway. I'm sure english will be eliminatd by the french allies and I'll hold 15 provinces after the aztecs are done for.

[Bleda]

On my Scotland campaign I rushed York and Wales like everyone else did, then rushed into England no sweat. Once I got the English out I set about making them my protectorate, I've learned that in M2TW its a lot harder to make countries into your vassal, so I tried a number of methods then I finally just killed them off which is something I dont like to do. I feel that once you start killing off countries, the game loses complexity and there is no fun to be had. So then I tried the Danes, after a long drawn out limited war with them and just about everyone else on the continent I was able to pin the Danes down in scandinavia, I then blockaded all their ports and parked a naval unit on the "landbridge" between scandinavia and denmark, leaving the danes completely isolated. after a number of turn they still would not submit so when the Danes were excommunicated, I bribed the pope and called a crusade, causing the Danes to lose all of their catholic allies. Then I marched into their only castle at Oslo, then took it over and destroyed every building I could, then handed the castle at Oslo back over to the Danes. Once I handed over the territory, my relations with the Danes went from Abysmal to Very Poor and they were actually more willing be become my bitch. So until I find a better method, forcing fealty onto other states is a long drawn out process.

[McDoogle]

Personally i prefer to make the poms sweat :P

I would take one settlement and then amass armies to scare then and take the next after awhile. and allainces with the french go along way when i started ont he poms the french were at them as well...they english are gone and now i gotta contend with the french

[IRPhydeaux]

Everyone says Scotland has bad cavalry . . . I disagree. They don't have any missile cavalry, but they get Templars and thats pretty darn good. Once you get offered the Templar guild you can build Templar Knights to replace your other horses. They're damn expensive and I don't know about retraining them yet. Do you have to go back to a city with a Templar Guild?

I do know that i'm stuck in a quagmire in Caen and Rennes. I took britain rather quickly, then decided for a jaunt across the channel to keep up my end of the Aulde Aliance. Now I have weak French allies to the south, Danes attacking from the East, English from Paris, Danish fleets blockading all my ports. I can't build faster than they can on the mainland and i can't keep ships in the water long enough to get troops across the channel. I just built a massive fleet and marched a huge stack of Nobles, Templars and Highland Archers to London. If I can get across the channel I should be able to sack Antwerp and maybe get the Danes to back off.

I'm enjoying this campaign more than my others. I think cause I set it to 1.0 and Hard/Hard. I played that with Portugal and got my butt kicked, but i'm doing fairly well with the scots.

[Andrew of Newcastle]

Im on turn 400+ now with a Scots campaign and have discovered a rather fantastic and cheap tactic that goes to prove that Scots do have a useful cavalery unit, although this would actually apply to probably every other faction.

The situation that has forced my drastic move is a surgence of Spain, allies since turn 10 who have launched a European dominiation attempt and swept eastwards across western Eurpope ala mongol style taking down every city in their path and destroying the relative peace we have all shared until now. Up to this point I had some pretty full stack in each of my Western eurpope cities, eg Paris, Rennes etc but the spannish handgunners have caused mass hysteria on the battle field and cause fear in virtually everything I threw at them, including temple Knights. I was on my last legs and lost 3 or 4 cities within a few turns with no show of then slowing down their march east with half a dozen full stacks dotted around.

That’s the situation.

The tactical solution and somewhat of a nice little roleplay opportunity for me was sitting their all the time in my Edinburgh Capital. For some reason the scots breed like rabbits. I had nearly a full city of neglected family members and generals all getting fat and getting gambling traits etc so I gathered them all up (they filled all my unit slots but didn’t really look that an impressive stack if you know what I mean)

This stack made up purely of Scottish Family members, ie 100% ‘generals bodyguard cavalry’ is an absolute monster. It would take on spannish armies 3 or 4 times its size in numbers and nevered routed. Used properly like any cavalry, ie split it up into 2 focres and with either a small ‘bait’ unit at the front and main army sweeping round the back and taking them on the blindside, or 2 equal flanking armies, they have yet to meet a stack they cannot rout. Obviuosly ive taken casualties but these have been topped up with new family members as they have joined the family.

This army is now 10 Stars and anything other than a full yellow stack will withdraw from battle and move away from it.

[McDoogle]

turn 400? well no wonder u got so many of the buggers! i usually get bored with my games around 150-200 and am always family memebers to inquitors or assians or the bloody plague.

But ur way would take a while to get that many family members, personaly i prefer to get one or two full stack armies of fedual knights and fighti n person, focus every unit on one enemy unit and make it a HUGE wedge of thousands of men :) never lost a battle and with 700 knights i destroyed 2800 danes at bridge. I am a peacful nieghbour and one hell of an enemy when u push me.

in a previsou game i had just conquered England and then the danes sent a flet to block my ports and attacked burges. So i let them have it. In four turns i came back with several armies, sent two spies in grabbed the city in a turn losing 14 men and thier loses around 500+. i then built my navy destroyed thiers and made a rather peaceful un challenged sail to Arthus, took it and worked from arthus an Antwep and joinedup thus destorying my enemy. then the french turned on me! ha ha lets just say it took me 3 offical turns to conquer france once my armies where back at Burges.

Personally i am a cavarlyman, its in my blood for most of my family were the Australian light horesman, and i have only once EVER lost a battle using horse and that was when i had to fight the Timmuirds...So now i am settling in the west and waiting for both Mongols and Timmurids to come and go then im going for the holy lands

[dismal]

Playing VH/VH as Scots.

My basic strategery is to deal the English a quick, crippling blow before worrying about all the rebels cities, which are relatively poor.

The Scots are well suited for early aggression, as they are capable of assembling a very nice army on the first turn. I moved the one general (from the north) and two spear militia to garrison Edinburgh, and assembled all the other units into a single army in the south. I supplemented the initial allotment by hiring some merc crossbows and 2 welsh spearmen. Initial army = 2 generals, 5 ranged units, 2 highlanders and 6 or 7 spears. By turn 1 standards, this is a powerhouse army.

Originally planned to bypass Kent and head straight to Nottingham, but as my main army happens to be heading right past Kent I get a mission to take it from the nobles. Oh well, it has no walls, and I have a big army right next to it, so I take it that turn. The 2000 florins reward is a nice little helper. I leave behind a couple spears and keep moving south.

In a turn or so, I have Nottingham under siege. Nottingham is defended by 6 or so units, and doesn't look to present too much of a problem. But, the problem is I have no siege weapons. While I'm waiting to get my towers built, the English muster up a large relief force (7-8 spear militia, 3-4 town militia, 2 archers, 1 mailed knight) and send it North from London. At this point, both I and the English have about 80+% of our forces on the island around Nottingham. The decisive battle for the British Isles looms. It's still only about turn 8.

After toying with the idea of maintaining the siege and taking on the whole English force on defense, I decide to assault Nottingham's garrison first. Though they only have 3 units of relatively weak militia infantry, I'm somewhat concerned with taking heavy losses that I can't afford on the walls. Fortunately, my ram gets through and I am able to send some spears through the gate, who manage to kill the enemy general. After he dies, I send in my two general's units in to punch a hole through to the square. Nottingham is mine, but I still have that big English relief stack right nearby.

Next turn, the English siege Nottingham. Long story short, I sally out and with some nice cavalry work (or bad AI play, depending how you look at it) take out the English's two units of archers. After which, the English are relatively helpless before my 5 ranged units. A wholesale massacre ensues. Losses are like 1000 to 7. I pause only briefly before tapping the "execute" button on 500 captured men. On to London.

London under siege on Turn 10. They have William I, some other general and 4 or 5 militia units. Not much of a problem, I'm thinking. My army is still pretty much as strong as it was in Turn 1 because I have been replacing my losses and garrison units with militia spearmen from Edinburgh.

However, just as I am planning my new residence in London, I get the Pope warning to desist attacking the English for 5 turns. I seriously think about taking the excom, but the same turn the nobles tell me to take Caernavon so I elect to break the siege and go take Caernavon while waiting out the Pope warning. A nice side benefit of this is that for taking Caernavon the nobles send me 4 mailed knights to Edinburgh, which gives me a legitmate army of the North. I pair them up with a general and a coulple spears to besiege Inverness.

The bad news is that this allows the English to recruit several more units. And I can no longer afford my army - losing 1000 or so per turn. On the other hand, I have made a few units in Nottingham to beef up my force. In a few turns, I have London under siege again, and this time there no Pope warning comes to save them. It's around turn 25 and the British Isles are mine, except for Dublin which falls easily enough to my army of the North a few turns later.

A little rest and relaxation would be nice, but the Pope has called for a crusade on, of all places, Toulouse. Since my popularity with the Pope is not that great, and it's a good chance to cut my payroll, off I go. Poland ends up beating me there, but having a nice army in excommed France is not altogether a bad thing. It might not have been my first choice, but I ended up taking Bordeaux as my foothold on the mainland. Starting out on the continent with a fortress is not a bad thing. I have converted all settlements except Nottingham on the British Isles to towns to get some economy going.

Anyway, there were a few anxious moments, but generally this was not that hard of a start to pull off. The secret is concentrating your forces and dealing with the English early. Fortunately, the lack of other threats allows you to maintain minimal garrisons as you move south. Given the relatively weak economic and developental status of the rebel cities, you will be many turns before you can field an army as strong as your initial force if you spread it out too much. Meanwhile, the English will enjoy a superior economy and a nearby castle.

[Lobosolitario]

A quick tip for those playing Scotland - get a few merchants across the water to the Danish territories. There's at least three sets of amber there, which are worth 60+ florins a turn for a one coin merchant, and therefore much much more for a decent one. It's a quick two turn hop from Edinburgh on the boat.

Cons: Expect to meet pirates on the way, and expect competition from foreign merchants - an Imperial merchant took both of my merchant scouts out in two turns, and is now happily camping the amber himself :furious3:

[haggis monster]

i started off the way everyone does, taking york, wales etc. then inverness, and a turn or two later dublin, all the while turning wales + inverness into cities and building up trade. allied with england and then lept over the channel to take flanders with various militia/mercs. allied with french, trade rights with loads more people. having taken out flanders (i think) and bruges, i decided to take control of england. takes a few turns to build up army, then i took nottingham, taking out huge english army just sitting around nearby. got warning from pope just after taking it, then convert it etc and waited for pope mission to go away, plus sent diplomat to give money from my rather large treausry to his holiness. then with max favour i take london, and then caen.
victory is mine! :beam:

[Sheogorath]

I decided to try something new as the Scots.
I've adopted an...overseas policy.

Of course, I had to delete the English first, so I have Caen on the mainland, but since I have great relations with France (after helping them against the Milanese and Spanish, as well as giving them some cities to keep them strong), I also gave the Papal States the Netherlands to keep the Danes away.
(On a side note:
The Papal States is an EXCELLENT shield against aggression, since the AI seems rather unwilling to attack them. Plus, giving them cities keeps you in the Popes good graces.)

So, once I secured the British Isles (not a huge challenge, I snagged trade deals with EVERYBODY so I had enough cash to start getting pikes pretty early. Once the Scotts have pikes, the Englosh dont stand a chance, since a pinning unit combined with a certain claymore wielding unit = death), I called for a crusade on the Holy City, which the Pope was only too happy to accept.
Of course, I didnt know this would end up with me locked in a 200 year long war with Egypt, but hey, its not like IM the one who lost the entire Middle East south of Turkey ;)

Scottish strategy is fairly simple:
Build pikes. Lots of pikes. Also build various nobles.
Use the Pikes to pin the enemy units, flank with your highland nobles/swordsmen, and boom. Dead natives.
I should mention the Noble Swordsmen. These guys a great. They have about the same stats as knights, but only cost 125 upkeep. Excellent deal.
Scottish archers arent GREAT, but theyre okay, since they have OK-ish mellee stats. You can use them to flank if you HAVE to.

Anyway, I also made an alliance with the Turks, which has proven quite useful since the Byzantines (allied to me for 50 turns or so at that point) suddenly decided they wanted my land.
However, due to the heavy reliance of most Middle Easterners on cavy, Im doing pretty well against them. Cavy archers are something of an issue, but massed foot archers deal with them just fine.

I cant wait to establish the Scottish New World ;)

[Fisherking]

Scotland, the Early Years

In the first turn send your southern general (the heir) and the cavalry to York and besiege it. Before attacking pick up a couple of Merc Spears and assault. It should be yours on turn one.

With the northern stack go after Inverness, you shouldn't need additional help but if you want it send some of the garrison from Edinburgh north separately after you start the siege.

With the remains of the southern stack you can either send out the king and head off for Dublin or send them back to Edinburgh. (the noble counsel will give you the taking of Dublin as your first mission almost every time)

The fleet off the west coast should head north as a rebel fleet will spawn and attack in a turn or two if you don't move it. Don't think you can take the rebels, their fleets are better than yours, especially post patch.

Send your three agents south. The religion is lower in Wales, the spy can be trained up and the diplomat will be closer to the continent…but don't send him to treat with the English. In a turn or so the English Princess will be along and if you would rather be in a much stronger position when war comes you might just choose to marry her to your heir.

The English have a couple of stacks hidden in the woods to the west. If you go for a quick kill on the English you may be in for a bit of a mess.

Build for a strong economy with your now two cities.

End turn one!

Now you may assault Inverness and have your first castle. Move your other generals out of settlements or you are likely to pick up bad traits. Having a priest with them may lower the chance of picking up those pagan magicians. With what is available and the general of your choice start moving on Dublin. It will take several turns so a cavalry stack will be faster and you can pick up Mercenaries when you get there. You may be able to repair some units and you should but a large building project for troops can wait a few turns.

Keep moving your agents south and training up that spy. There is a chance that you may be able to use your fleet to move your troops to Ireland but only just a chance so if you want to keep it safe send it around to Edinburgh.

This should be about the end for turn two.

Now to the Princess; she will have 3 charm. When she has a successful negotiation this will go up by one. If she has two in a turn she will go up two. If you marry her this means that the heir will likely get 'Wife is Charming' or along those lines. If she doesn't go up you will get wife is a wretch…not good of course. So, if you except trade rights come back and ask for Alliance, Marry Princess, & offer map information and request map information. It should be accepted. If not it is no great loss as you will kill them all in the end at any rate.

Your priorities are to take Dublin and Wales, Build troops to go to the continent and build a fleet to carry them. England will give you fore warning of any attack by moving agents toward York and later follow it with troops.

Taking the rebel provinces on either side of the English in France should be your objective. Don't concern your self too much about who decides to go to war with you but make all the alliances you can and get a diplomat to Rome as soon as you can…Play the pope game and look out for Inquisitors. You are going to need a strong navy as Scotland but navies are expensive and it is better to build up your ports quickly and build stronger ships before committing large sums into your ships. A couple will do until then but you will be dodging pirates.

I find crusades and breaking alliances with excommunicated allies a waste of time and harmful in the end. One crusade is enough and then take Acer and gift whatever the city was to someone else. If you are chased out it is no big deal. Unless you move your capital there it is much too far away to be of much value.

I find that once you are on the continent you are going to fight the French before the English. Just something to remember. Also the French when asking for a ceasefire are usually willing to part with a castle province so don't be afraid to ask.

This should put you into the middle game so enjoy the fight!

[Gray Beard]

I went York and then Ireland and Inverness then marched of the way down the British isles to London then Wales. I married off a princess to the French heir and convinced them into attacking the English on the mainland.

I found the Scots to be almost insanely easy. I was in Vienna 50 years later

[Jonathan_Thompson]

I'm about 30 turns into Scots long campaign VH/VH. I took all rebel settlements by turn 4. and took nottingham by turn 6. However London was still pumping out massive armies and they had 2 full stacks by the time I laid siege:help:
Strange thing is that I took London and ferried to Caen without fighting both the stacks. I butchered the first one by flanking with highland archers (didn't see that one coming) and using border hrose to spilt his amry in half. Then the second one sat in the middle of the isles for 8 turns before I destroyed all their settlements.(popes cease hostilities mission) My questions are, why didn't the full stack one of my lightly defended settlements, and how the hell was England paying for 2 full stacks with only 2 cities?:wall:

[llewellyn]

so it is revenge of the ancestors.
well becuz scotland gets a uber army at the start it is quite easy to make a large empire before the tenth turn. the key is highlanders and highland archers with some border cav. these units can destroy armies especialy ai commanded armies. here is how i did it
first turn i seiged inverness with the garrison from edinburgh and a unit of archers
took combined 2 armies and went south and took york on second turn then moved all i could to wales. bought off the english for a few turns then took dublin and inverness
pump out highlanders the second you can they are vital for the battles ahead. when you finally do go to war against the english chances are they have 2 full stakcs of militia heavy cav and archers mostly militia tho. set up on a hill with 3 rows of long lines with highlanders and in front. the second the english inf is halfway up the hill send in the first wave of highlanders to disrupt there lines the send in half of the second wav to ppush the sides down. take all your general bodyguards and dispse of the english cav if you dont you will lose as you are outnumbered and the scottish inf hate cav. by now you inf has probably done lots and lots of damage so send in the third wave to rout the milita untis and mop it all up with light cav. heroic victory and nottingham is yours and in 3 turns so will be london. now upgrade to get nobles(archers and inf) build a full stack of these units with some cav and go to norway. build another full stack and take caen if it is still english. also eliminate the english and use only caen as a castle. convert nittingham to a city so now there are only cities in england. elminate the danes and take hamburg now oyou will have a trading empire and absolutey no money problems. now you can attack virutally anywhere. i personaly took the steppes for sheer land mass cities.

[grapedog]

This is a quick and dirty guide to domination with the Scottish.

First order of business is the British Isles...which should be fairly straight forward. Work on the rebel provinces first, England should attack you eventually. Once they do attack you they usually get Ex'com'd...you can clean up the Isles and head for Caen. Just have a couple of armies primes so as soon as they get Ex'com'd you can jump all their settlements. I left Nottingham as my only Castle on the british isles for about 20 turns to produce troops.

Second order of business is eliminating the French and really kicking the crap out of the Milanese. I usually go straight south from Caen grabbing all the provinces in between. Castles are kept in Nottingham, Caen, Angers, Toulhouse. You can also grab Brughes to the east of Caen, that is almost always rebel for me in the first 30-40 turns. Brughes south is a good line of demarkation to leave alone for later on.

After you've cleansed the lands south to the coast, it's now time to grab the Iberian penninsula and close a second back door. This can be done pretty quickly as the Spanish and Portugese if they are both still around have been battling the Moors for quite a while. I kept a single castle, the one located almost smack dab in the middle of the Iberian Penn, can't remember the name off the top of my head.

After the Iberian Penninsula is yours, you could expand south a little taking Timbuktu in the process or head east, but through Europe, which is my usual route. Now you're busy taking out the HRE, the rest of Milan and possibly some Denmark or Poland. I usually leave Denmark and Poland alone as they rarely ever bother me can be quite a pain in the rear end. HRE usually gets beat up a lot, and you already beat the Milanese up quite a bit, so it's time to finish them off. Castles in Toulhouse, Stufan, Bern and Angers should be producing the majority of your troops.

At this point you're probably very near if not over 40 provinces and ready to start marching towards Jerusalem.

Obviously you can produce troops anywhere you want, I was just listing the castles I used as the rest of the provinces got turned to cities. Ports, Port upgrades, Farms, Ports, Markets, Port Upgrades, Roads, Ports...all the cash producing buildings I could muster. Once I had the British Isles to myself, my two diplomats had made it quite a ways around the globe. Picking your wars, and staying nice with the Pope, makes it easy to maintain good relations with everyone else and good trade. I was ROLLING in cash pretty much the entire campaign...the british Isles, the french and Iberian coasts and the early milanese territory west of italy all have very big cash potential.

Even when the plague hit, i didn't stop anything that was currently in production(most provinces had 2-4 things in production at all times including plague times(plus 500fl/turn to the Pope). The plague hit lost about 180,000 civilians, but they popped back and I never went into the red in the bank, lowest I came was 20,000fl. You have potential for a HUGE income even without using merchants to their fullest if you grab and upgrade your coastal cities.

As for units...the bulk of my army was made up of Noble Swordsman/Dismounted Feudal Knights(swordsman are cheaper upkeep), Noble Highland Archers, Noble Highlanders(the high offense/med def 2h guys) as shock troops and some Feudal Knights. The Scot's have a nice array of units from early to late that can do the dirty work of holding the line which is always important. In the late game, of Swordsmen, NH Archers, NHighlanders, and Feudal Knights...i pretty much steam rolled every other army I came across. Don't forget to call crusades often and keep the pope happy and it's really easy to get some generals with great stats to lead the Scottish on their world domination tour.

[_Aetius_]

Overview

There's no getting away from the fact the Scottish are a very small faction, starting with only a single settlement in the city of Edinburgh. You do have enough starting troops though to quickly expand, Edinburgh is also an excellent trading centre which when adequately developed will become a powerhouse of the north sea. Your immediate concern is that of England and of a rather poor starting economy.

Founding your empire

A great advantage the Scots have is the starting position, unlike most other factions you start off with only one real enemy, England. This allows you to absorb the surrounding rebel settlements without fearing invasions from your flanks or rear, Inverness to the North, Dublin to the west, York and even Canaevon to the south can be conquered before you even go to war with England.

The English unfortunately for them have commitments on the continent and you will find the cream of their army fighting the French for supremacy in western Europe leaving only a modest group of armies in England itself. This is greatly to your advantage, you can muscle the English out of England itself with relative ease. Nottingham (castle) rarely has a strong garrison and often you will find your highlanders and nobles are more than powerful enough to crush whatever English armies there are out in the field. London is suprisingly easy to occupy and you will often find the English willing to agree to a ceasefire very quickly after the fall of London.

However from here on in things become instantly more complicated, I originally planned to consolidate my territories in Britain before deciding what to do next. This however is near impossible you will almost certainly be dragged into a continental war with France or England (often both) and be forced to commit more and more armies to western Europe. Furthermore, the council of nobles will provide you with missions which clearly imply that your involvement in France will quickly increase such as blockading certain ports or outright annexing settlements i.e Bordeaux in my case.

An economy built upon conquest

I have found that whilst playing as Scotland you are forced very often to act without your wishing to. I was unable to consolidate Britain due to the constant need to train troops and ships for my wars in France and the naval battle for the North Sea and Channel. Therefore I often found that despite success upon success my economy was not on a firm base and infact relied upon my conquering and sacking of enemy settlements.

Being forced to accelerate your plans for conquest often causes your economy to become underdeveloped and your army upkeep to skyrocket. This can be sustained aslong as you continue taking settlements, only when you have enough settlements are you in a position to relax and build up trading infrastructure.

The endless wars of Europe

What you will find after first stepping foot onto continental Europe is that you are going from one war to another, the English, then French, then Spanish, then Danes. This may seem obvious, but the speed of which your commitments mount up seems greater as the Scots than any other faction I have played. Being a small faction from the start, this can come as a shock.

This allowing even less time to consolidate, peacetime for Scotland will be extremely rare, fortunately your army is well suited to constant large scale warfare.

Your army

I have found Highlanders to be infinitely useful in storming cities, they pack a good initial punch and are suprisingly sturdy throughout the campaign. Ferociously brave, I have found a place for them in my armies all the way through, I can think of few better light infantry in the entire game.

Highland nobles are your standard unique heavy infatry unit, very similar to Gallowglasses from MTW1 in there appearance aswell as fighting style, they lack a shield but are devastating against all but the hardest of heavy infantry although as you'd expect very weak against a cavalry charge. Against standing cavalry though, theyll cut them to pieces.

A unit that is probably much ignored but I found suprisingly useful is the Border horse, they are light cavalry and extremely pacey, their primary purpose will undoubtedly be chasing down routed units but they pack a decent punch off the charge n my experience and shouldnt be ignored.

The Scots do have a major flaw in their army and that is the lack of crossbowmen (and the like) they are indeed sorely missed units, the wide variety of archers the Scots have help make up for this flaw but the lack of crossbowmen and advanced long range units will cause you difficulties later on in the game. Mercenaries are a way to help cover over this, but arent viable for a total solution.

Pikemen are something the Scots have from very early on in the game, but I have never really used them much after exceptionally poor performance, often pikemen lift their pikes up and fight with swords way to often so are unreliable. However you do have a good selection of them and when they do their job properly they can be near unbreakable units. The general rule is if they hold their pikes theyll stand their ground all day, if they go to swords they cease to be of value as you might aswell have a unit of highland nobles instead.

The Pope

This guy hates your guts, there isnt a special reason why the Pope hates you, it's just that your constant fighting with bigger more popular Catholic factions means you will incur the wrath of the Pope and the bane of excommunication atleast once. I found it unavoidable, I needed to defend myself, but somehow placate the Pope, donations of florins will only get you so far in my experience. Also a succession of Popes coming from an enemy of mine never helped. Excommunication hurts your public order and makes you an easy target for other Catholic factions, but once you have been excommunicated, give as good as you get. Theres nothing stopping you from fighting as many battles and wars as you want with Catholics, you can't exactly get any less popular afterall.

Conclusion

The Scots have been alot more fun than I expected them to be, I am approaching the end of my campaign with them and have found their array of unique units to be extremely fun to play with. They are a nice mix of an ancient barbarian army and a medieval army, of ferocious warriors and heavily armoured knights.

They are deceptively easy to play as and can dominate as far as you want to take them, no problems.

[Harve]

Compared to the other 2 factions ive played Scotland was by far the easiest faction ive played. I needn't say much; others have explained it very well but after England it became easy so much so i got bored after i took modern France, i did get excommunicated a lot though especially when i decided to go to war with the popes faction; the Danes. I didn't worry though and you shouldn't too depending on your postition. Actually i think if the English got to Caneavon (spelling?) it would be much harder because Caneavon was the castle that chucked out loads of troops, im glad i took York and Caneavon first as the English would snap it up rather quickly. THEN take Ireland and Inverness

[John_Longarrow]

With the Scots, I’ve found that being very aggressive the first couple turns goes a long way towards keeping the English in check and, finally, sending them down to the foot notes of history.

Turn 1 I take the southern army (the one with the Heir) and head for York. Just like everyone else I grab up the pair of Welsh spear mercs before the assault. What I do during the assault is rather particular for this fight. My right flank is composed of the two Welsh spear units. They are set to go straight down the street on the right side of town towards the center. My left flank is the General. He’s set to run down the street on the left side of town. My center is the spear unit I’ve got backed up with the Highlands Archers. My supporting units are the cav (behind the Welsh) and my highlanders who help guard the archers.

When I attack York, my goal is to take no losses on the Highlanders or the cav. Welsh, spears, and Generals Bodyguard I can get replaced during the first couple turns, the others I can’t. As soon as the fight starts the Welsh charge the center, the General moves up to charge down from the left, and my spears march towards the center backed by the archers. I’ve done this 5 times with the same basic results. Welsh get in to it fast with York peasants and the General goes hand to hand with their archers. Their spears come forward to fight mine and get hit by a couple volleys of Arrows. When the spears finally break I’ve already got Welsh spears in their town center and my General is cutting them up from the rear. The Cav goes in about half the time to keep the Welsh intact and about half the time my Archers do a little hand to hand with rebel troops trying to avoid getting slaughtered.

If you are not playing VH for combat, you may be able to have just the General and two units of merc Welsh take the city. I've pulled this off twice for opening gambits on medium combat. One unit of Welsh go straight in, one comes in from the left. The General comes in from the right and does most of the killing. Expect the Generals unit to take fair casualties and you may loose your general. You do get to kill/capture about 200+ with the General though, something that can definitly boost his experience.

While my army is marching on York, I send my spy towards Caernarvon and my diplomat just south of York. I grab my northern army and send it towards Caernarvon. When the northern army runs out of movement on the first turn I grab my king and everything but a pair of militia from the Capitol and reinforce my 2nd army.

Turn two sees me marching my second army south toward Caernarvon and my damages spears at York going up to the capitol for repairs. I also get my spy in to Caernarvon and watch as a large English army starts forming near the boarder between York and Caernarvon. I’ve built reinforcements up in the capitol and I’ve got them going towards York.

Turn 3 I send the cav, including both Generals, from my 2nd army over to siege Caernarvon while marching the rest of the troops up. This keeps the English from attacking it first. So far the rebels have never come out to fight Scottish cavalry that’s siegeing them.

By this point I’ve normally made peace with the English, often by marrying their princess to my Heir. It keeps the peace for a few turns. This is also the point where what I do changes from turn to turn based on what comes up. I normally wait until my spy gets the gates of Caernarvon open before I storm it. I’ve got enough troops to do it without using mercs and I normally use my cav to take the brunt of the damage. With about 140 horsemen leading the charge the castle falls pretty quickly. I normally have it either turn 4 or turn 5.

To get the English to attack, I normally leave a small force in Caernarvon and let them see me move troops up towards Dublin. I can normally sucker them into siegeing Caernarvon then marching a large army towards Nottingham. Normally I get to destroy one of their two big stacks with my good troops and watch the other stack break off the siege to come try and reinforce their castle. If you try this a couple times you can get the hang of where to march so you’ll hit the castle before the English catch up with you.

I normally also have a second spy by this time and I have both go to Nottingham. There are few things more satisfying that smashing an English army then walking through the open gates of their main castle to butcher its few defenders.

At this point the English get caught in a weird pattern. They keep their big army of junk troops sitting out where it can threaten Caernarvon, York, and Nottingham. It just sits there though, and it gives you time to reinforce before you take out London. The nice thing is this army seems to require enough resources to keep in the field that London isn’t as hard to take as it could be.

Once I’ve kicked the English out of England, then I can head up north and over to clear out Ireland. The best part is that England normally is stuck turtleing up on the continent until you are ready to remove them.

So far this has played out the same regardless of difficulty. If anything, the English seem to get confused more easily when you have the difficulty set to Very Hard / Very Hard.

[PuppetMaster]

YO Scotland can be NUTs if you play them correctly (lol seems like all factions are like this haha).

I played as Scotland on a H/H and I ended up in America fighting Aztecs with nasty upgraded highland nobles and noble swordsmen (which was awesome to watch, haha). Not to mention, it was EXTREMELY entertaining to click on a group of troops and to hear 'assemblin the lads' in a strong Scottish accent as aztec jaguar troops were running right at me haha.




To respond to an earlier post, the Scots DO crusade. As a matter of fact, I played as the turks once and the scots launched a crusade and took constantinople from me....twas a day of sadness haha.

[TeutonicKnight]

Playing Scotland with vanilla 1.2 patch installed, one year per turn.

My first time as a Scot. Usually they are just targets. I take a measured pace in growth, establishing alliances and only going to war against people who have declared on me. Scotland is turning out to be the exception, and I'm having a lot of fun doing it.

I started out like all the rest, taking York, Caernevon, Dublin, and then Inverness in that order. I actually expected the English to hold to the alliance longer, because they were already at war with with France in the Angers region. Unfortunately, the bloody English thought otherwise, and took York and Caernevon simultaneously while I was seiging Inverness. After taking Inverness, I quickly retrained what I could, and headed south.

My spy in York saw the main English army leave, heading north. I couldn't reach it that year, so instead I picked a likely piece of woodlands and prepared an ambush on the off chance I could catch the English army on the march.

The next thing I knew, I'd done it. I caught their army in an ambush, and destroyed it to a man. I charged them with my spear militia from one side, and when they turned to face them, I charged my highlanders from the other side (their rear), and my two generals charged the head of the line. Not even the enemy general made it out alive. Hell of a battle, and a total massacre, but I am quickly learning to love Highland axes.

After that, recovering Caernavon and York was a cakewalk, but I needed another refit before I was able to have a go at Nottingham. By now though, France and England had settled their differences, and I knew I would soon be facing more troops, likely veterans from their campaigns in France.

Sure enough, by the time I get my feild army back to Nottingham, it's nearly fully garrisoned. Mailed knights, longbowmen (damn those guys to hell), and levy spearmen. I think about it, and decide odds are not in my favor, and move my spy and army to London. I figure they'll either ignore me, chase me, or take York again, but I'll get London either way.

I lay seige to London. Of course the army chases me, but doesn't attack that year. It's just far enough away not to be able to reinforce London. The next year, I attack, and my spy opens the gates for me. London falls almost instantly, and sacking brings my treasury back into a decent level for the first time in ages. The English army retreats to Nottingham where it dies a slow beseiged death over the next few years.

Now about the year 1200, I've got France down to Marseille, and I've taken almost all of western Europe from Hamburg to Staufen to Pamplona. :)

My opinions on the Scots:

They seem to be excellent ambushers. I've managed to pull off more ambushes with the Scots than any other faction I've played. I'm not sure if it's because I'm trying more due to their lack of spears, or if I'm getting lucky, but I've completely destroyed at least three full stacks with minimal losses, and numerous smaller ones. Highlanders pwn anything in an ambush. :)

Unfortunately, they are very cash poor starting out. I was desperate for every florin once my starting cash ran out. Sacking was next to useless as most towns in the early years in England don't have any wealth. I had to deliberately choose military troop training to keep my war going with England, and several years went by before I could start building again. Once you've sacked London though, and can get merchants going in England, your cash worries are over.

Crusades are far more a tool of politics than a means of expansion. I've been the catalyst for every crusade after the first one. I've targetted Venice, Milan, Staufen, and Pamplona as nations are excommunicated. I've only participated in (and taken) Staufen and Pamplona. The two crusades on Milan and Venice were excellent ways of breaking up major alliances and sowing discord among my enemies. Venice, Milan, France, and Hungary formed major power blocks twice, but after the last crusade, they are firmly at war with each other for now. I kept my trade and didn't break my relations with any of them by not actually crusading against them. Apparently calling a crusade doesn't matter, it's only if you join it that counts against you in relations.

Unit wise, I prefer the noble flavors more so than the regular. Of course for archers and pikes, it's a no brainer, but normal Highlanders are armor-piercing. Noble Highlanders seem to perform better though, esp in a frontal attack, despite their lack of armor-piercing. Border Horse are just plain awesome. I've got two units of Border Horse that are now up to two gold chevrons, and they make very short work of routers and archer units. They are awesome flankers. Pikes are another very nice thing to have for once too. I was expecting them to melt in front of archers, and they do, but they are numerous enough to last a while. Noble Pikes can even handle most archer fire, except crossbows. Pikes will stop anything cold. A line of pikes to take the charge, and a line of Noble Highlanders behind to charge through the ranks and take on the stationary attackers works really well for me. For cavalry, forget everything else once you have Templars. Those are the best cav you can get, and you won't want anything else once you get them. I've got a Templar HQ in Nottingham pumping out +2xp Templars every chance I get. I don't retrain them, I merge and replace. They move fast enough to keep me in cav so far.

The major issue I am foreseeing is when gunpowder arrives. Scotland's lack of gunpowder units is simply going to compound the lack of armor piercing missile units. I'm hoping to have myself established enough by then that I can make up the lack with artillery. Otherwise I'll be spending a crapload on mercenary units and hope gunpowder makes it onto the merc roster. So far, I've survived on the fact that no other European power has been able to reach high tech units. I don't see how my NH archers will be able to compete with Genoese xbows or the like.

[Shifty66]

I cant wait till i buy this game next tuesday so i can use the scots.
Just a question When you go to that page where you can unlock the scots etc With the nonplayable countrys if you move them into playable does anything happen?

[Stuperman]

I cant wait till i buy this game next tuesday so i can use the scots.
Just a question When you go to that page where you can unlock the scots etc With the nonplayable countrys if you move them into playable does anything happen?
yes, in the descr_strat file if you move the scots to playable you can play with them straight away.

[Shifty66]

haha yep i knew that, sorry i probaly did not make much sence. What i meant was if you put say the rebels into the playable group will you be able to play them?

[Shifty66]

Woops i meant slaves :oops:

[TeutonicKnight]

No.

[John_Longarrow]

TeutonicKnight,

A note on Scotish archers. They are better in hand to hand than just about any one elses. That means when you face large numbers of crossbows, you CHARGE. Nothing like laying down a constant barrage of arrows on an enemy then going straight at them to discourage enemy archers. :smg:

[Shifty66]

Hmm ok im trying to tweak the Descr_strat file. When i try to save it after i have changed it. It says i am denied access. :furious3: :help:

[Sir Robin the Brave]

shifty66 the file is set to read only, you need to uncheck it in properties

[Shifty66]

oh i see! lol well i finished a campaign anyway so its all good.

[samiosumo]

I started by taking York and Caernovan. Then Dublin came down and I made it my capital. I've ignored inverness for now as it's garrison is really big.

[samiosumo]

the popes called a crusade to Jerusalem. My merchants are making me loads and i'm the richest and strongest in the game. The english are annoyed after several assassinations and sabotages in Nottingham. Won't attack me! How can I get them to?

[JohnTravoltaTotalWar3]

Well i rekon if you called them benders over the headset they willl try to bang you out!





Also a new member boasting you name is saying that you have a cave! how obsered, you cant get caves on TotalWar except using the cheats on JohnTravoltaTotalWar3

[auzlin]

I love playing the Scots, so this is my second time around. It’s funny how a minor change in strategy can change the coarse of history. You’ll see what I’m talking about below…enjoy!

I started with the standard approach, taking York and Wales. The English approached me about trade rights, but I’m not a big fan of them in this game, so I send them on their way. I follow this up with taking Nottingham and London off their hands. I then move north and take Inverness and Dublin. An interesting note here. While I was playing with the English I noticed that Portugal kept trying to take Dublin. I think 4 tries in total.

Immediately after securing Dublin I moved down to take Caen, finishing off the English once and for all. Their full stack never made it back in time to protect it, so now they are wandering around my countryside. Several attempts to bribe them have failed, but I’ll keep trying.

At this point I sent out my diplomats, spies and assassins. I decided to keep my assassins busy by limiting the French royalty. This should benefit me later. My diplomats opened trade routes and I decided that an alliance with Spain would be an interesting twist this time around. They readily agree.

Next I realized that Portugal had managed to take Rennes. That was interesting, as it ties in with their attempts on Dublin. I decide that this city can be easily protected from Caen, so I take it as well. I immediately follow up with a ceasefire agreement, as I don’t have time to go down to Portugal and take the rest of their civilization. They didn’t forget the attack though, as seen below.

Considering the amount of money I am making each turn (about 6000 florins), I decide to try something new. I bought Bordeaux from France for 1000 florins for 5 turns. I probably shouldn’t have done this, as it gave them too much money to build up their troops. However, I have never bought a castle before and thought it would be fun. Besides, I thought it would keep the French off my back for a bit while I think about what to do next. Little did I know how much they didn’t like that deal.

Before I go there, I want to talk about Bruges next. My assigned missions usually include the taking of Bruges, but due to my attack on England before taking Inverness and my attack on Portugal, my next mission was to blockade one of Portugal’s ports. This puts an interesting twist into my game that I have not seen before. In the past, Denmark had played a key role in my game, as they would land troops on my island constantly and attack my cities. London was a particular favorite. However, I attribute my lack of conflict with them thus far in this game to Bruges. The French have it, and Denmark wants it (as they always do). I figure I’ll let them bicker over it, effectively keeping my island free of invaders.

Now here’s where I find my first hurdle. I have purchased Bordeaux and I previously attacked Portugal. While they are not allied, they end up hitting me on the same turn. France blockades my port in London and Portugal attacks Bordeaux. I immediately destroy the blockade and attack Angers in retaliation. Portugal’s attack on Bordeaux fails, but leaves me wounded. I end up taking Angers the next turn, but Portugal still has two almost full stacks running around Bordeaux and Angers.

At this point I have 3 castles on the Mainland and 1 city. Yes it’s hostile, but not that hostile. I convert Caen, my least developed castle into a city. I leave Angers and Bordeaux at this time because they are fully loaded fortresses and I cannot bring myself to change them. BTW, my only castle on the islands is in Wales. I will leave that there until I rid myself of the Danes.

This is where I am, and it’s fun so far. My plan is to wipe Portugal from the face of the Earth as my assassins keep the French in line. I will use my alliance with Spain to secure Military assistance, as it will take a while to get down to Portugal’s two remaining cities.

After Portugal is gone, I expect to wipe out France. This is for no other reason than they don’t like me and I don’t feel like fixing that problem. This leaves me back were I used to be, which is a conflict with Denmark over Bruges. I could give it to them as a gift and then conquer the Southern parts of Europe, but that’s not really my personality type. So, I guess Denmark is next, which I find to be fairly boring. Then I can start the fun again. My guess is that this time I will go through Spain and take the Moors in Northern Africa. Then again, I’m really tired of the pope, so maybe I take all the cities in the giant boot. We’ll see, at least I don’t expect to face the Mongols. I can’t stand the Mongols!

[Gibb The Great]

Ok this is my 1st post here. To get to Scotland i played with England until i beat Scotland.

So i started my Scotland tour after reading all your posts. So rather than "beating" England to York and the Wales castle, i just combined both free standing armies and march past York to Nottingham, why beat them to the punch when you can just flat out beat them up. Not before sending my diplomat to the princess and getting her to marry my faction heir (which turned out pointless anyway).

I attacked Nottingham with both Generals and other units (can't remember which ones exactly). While waiting for siege equipment to be built i was attacked by 3 small English armies. When the battle started i had two armies behind me and one in front, the setting was in Nottingham forest raining and stormy. I charged the smallest army in front of me so i could turn around and fight the other two coming up my rear. While doing so i lost sight of my generals and thought they were in a safe place, wrong. In short both generals were killed but i won the battle fending off 3 armies while taking the castle. Lucky for me there are two generals to be in my tree line to start off so as long as i keep my King safe i was golden.

With the Pope warning me and worried that the English would attack i sent my diplomat to London and bargained a ceasefire, which the accepted. I sent my spy to Wales to keep an eye on the English attacking them, they kept getting beaten back. So i sat there after a few turns of building up troops, once the English attacked and were beaten away i would attack the next turn. Its was piss easy.

After taking Wales and Nottingham i asked England for an alliance they accepted with a "its finally to be allied with somebody trustworthy" i laughed abit. Since the English and French were at war and weren't attacking me i took York and got 3 Knights reward. I completed another mission and got 3 more Knights. I took those Knights to Dublin and sacked it.

After that I took London easily, then i thought i may travel North to take the last castle on the island. Just as i reached them the Nobles told me to take them and 2500 bonus if i do, score.

Now its "My Island", I have only 1 castle on my island and the rest are cash cows. I have agents on the mainland gathering trade rights and knocking off people. I have a ring of fleets around me to sink anything that i'm at war with.

Some notes
I have the richest faction
The Pope loves me
The English have been banned
My generals are breeding like rabbits

[Magraev]

Welcome to the org Gibb. :birthday2:

Good luck with the scots.

[John_Longarrow]

Gibb,

That "They breed like rabbits" line is EXACTLY what my Girlfriend said about the Scottish generals!!! LOL

[McJohnny]

Hi guys...I'm sort of new here, too...


So...let's start...

After completing a short with Spain (quite enjoyable, but not so easy, not even on M/M...but it was my first, so...), I decided to try H/H (the second H doesn't really count as I automatically resolve most of the important battles...).
I chose Scotland because I enjoy hearing their accent, and because they have a great starting position...


First thing to do was sending some of the troops held in Edinburgh to both of my armies (and balance them out a bit, too), and I also added 1 merc unit at each army. I sent them down to York and Wales, and took both cities without much problems...

Meanwhile, I concentrated on income in Edinburgh, and also on recruiting Diplomats.

"Diplomacy tactic:" Sounds silly, but...well, I sent three diplomats on the Continent, and made alliance with ALL European factions + Moors and Turks (+Trade Rights & Map Info.). On the start, this is easily done, since all factions consider your alliance offer as "very generous". I've managed to get from each faction 2000-3000 florins (either straight away, or as a regular tribute), which helped my development very very much.

Of course, I couldn't do that in just a few turns due to slow Diplomats...so there is another...

...meanwhile, I reinforced my armies on the borders and Edinburgh, and sent the army on the North on a mission to Inverness (and then Dublin afterwards), and the army on the South to Nottingham, that was practically undefended (English were concentrating on the continent...). I took Nottingham, retrained my forces, and immediately attacked London...I got excommunicated, but I didn't care really...I had the British Isles under my control...

Then I converted Welsh castle to a city to generate more income, and I sent all my units not needed in cities (almost all except militia) to London, and recruited some in Nottingham...I sent them to the continent seeing that Caen was undefended, too...I took it, but saw that England conquered Rennes, so after some turns, I took Rennes, and exterminated English faction. What a pleasure... :P

After the English were gone, I concentrated on still rebel towns east of Caen. Antwerp was a mission, too. But the s***-heads Germans surprised me, and attacked Antwerp with a huge army...but they didn't assault, because my rescue party was on it's way+the army in Bruges...

So I just HAD to take revenge, and the opportunity was perfect: the Pope requested my leader to join the Crusade, and I did. I got half of my army at a Crusader discount price, and since GHE got excommunicated, too, I conquered Frankfurt, Nuremburg and Prague without any desertion on my way down (I would get to Jerusalem far far back anyway)...after that, I was only one region away from a victory, but I didn't notice that at all...forgot to count :laugh4: After around 10 turns I turned to polish who were hated by all anyway, and conquered one of their cities and won the Campaign...


So, I must say that despite I was playing on H/H, it was MUCH easier than with Spain...and I did it in only 53 turns...but it surely was enjoyable!

[Benandorf]

Started a Scottish campaign a few nights ago, and so far I've been loving them. Had no real problems with the English, and now I control all of great Britan and am about to start taking English settlements in France at turn 45.

I've found that it's best to quickly take the two southern rebel settlements before moving north, simply so you'll be able to get those southern settlements. Once you have those (and those to the north, including Dublin), fill up those two stacks you started with and march on Nottingham and London at once. With some luck you can take them both in a turn or two, and the Pope won't be too angry. At that point it's fairly simple to move on down into France and push into mainland Europe.

Another big help is to send a few diplomats into Europe immidietly with the goal of getting trade rights with everyone, and alliances with all you can. After doing this, I've had no problems with money at all, and hopefully this will protect from any multi-front wars.

One problem I've had is sieges. I just can't seem to win them without taking huge casualties. So I have a question: Is this just how it should be for Scotland early on, am I simply too used to Spain's way of fighting, or what's the deal? Am I just awful at sieges?

[Brusilov]

Build up a fairly good army and then call a crusade (I usually pick a region, such as Antioch, that is rebel). Choose that army as your crusading army and park it on the border of England. Hire crusading mercenaries to boost the power of your army. All the units in the army will be free from upkeep, allowing you to park them on the border of your enemy without any cost to your finances. Once the crusade target has been taken (usually by Venice, as they are closer), steamroll all over England with your knights.



If you build a crusading army it needs to keep moving towards the target of the crusade. If you don't then the units will start to desert.

I have found that the AI regularly marches armies all over the place and does not appear to be affected by this. I've been playing M2:TW 1.02.

[McJohnny]

If you build a crusading army it needs to keep moving towards the target of the crusade. If you don't then the units will start to desert.

True.


I have found that the AI regularly marches armies all over the place and does not appear to be affected by this. I've been playing M2:TW 1.02.

Not so sure 'bout that.



@Benandorf - Well, nice to hear I'm not the only one that sucks at sieging...you need some practice, and it'll go better...also, take your time, do not rush into the walls. Leave the archers to shoot for some time and take as many enemies down as possible. DO NOT rush with battering ram and siege towers and ladders...enemy will probably take them on fire before you'll get to the walls/gate, so I THINK it should go like this:

->send out your archers to shoot at the units on the walls-keep them in a long enough distance so your enemy won't take them all down
->keep your cavalry behind...for now
->when you feel the moment of truth is coming, send the archers closer, and send all infantry running towards the wall, and at the same time, send you siege machinery in attack (so they will distract enemy's fire missiles)
->if needed, send out your general's cavalry on FAST run around your towers/rams (so they will, hopefully, distract enemy's fire missiles if they turn attention to you siege machinery...)
->when you breach the gates, if there's waiting cavalry, send out your spearmen, or in you don't have them, cavalry...do NOT use other infantry, you'll be smashed
->if there are spearmen behind, take them out with all your infantry (except for archers of course...)-do not forget to take charge bonus advantage if possible
->if there are any other infantry units such as town militia, archers, that doesn't have bonus for fighting cavalry, take them out with your charging horse riders...they will beg for mercy!
->if there are lots of infantry units (not necessary which units...if there's alot, it doesn't matter so much...), TRY to run your cavalry through all the massacre at the gates, and charge at the infantry from behind...


These are my tips, BUT note that I'm FAR away from being an expert (main reason is that I mostly automatically resolve battles... :wall: ).

Please, anybody that can give any more advice, and/or correct my strategy, feel more than free to do so. :yes:

[Benandorf]

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll work on those, I think (from what you've said) my biggest problem is that I start moving towards the walls ASAP instead of softening them up. And I'm inexperienced in it because I've pretty much auto resolved any sieges that have more than one wall, or is completely one sided.

I do know that those english longbows on the walls really make my Highlander archers hurt.

[McJohnny]

I do know that those english longbows on the walls really make my Highlander archers hurt.


Yeah, that could very well be one big problem, so, start distracting them and send the siege machinery into action...I think :)

[Benandorf]

Ug, siege equipment is such a hassle to carry around (and to make early on). Makes my quick conquests turn into "sack, walk for 10 turns, sack, walk for 10 turns, repeat till death by old age".

On the other hand, that would be very nice. The AI sucks at taking units off breaking walls.

[McJohnny]

Ug, siege equipment is such a hassle to carry around (and to make early on). Makes my quick conquests turn into "sack, walk for 10 turns, sack, walk for 10 turns, repeat till death by old age".

On the other hand, that would be very nice. The AI sucks at taking units off breaking walls.


Not sure if there was any misunderstanding, but I was talking about siege towers and rams and ladders.

[Benandorf]

Ah, I thought you meant Catapults, Ballistas, Cannons, etc.

[ninjahboy]

one of my favourite factions the scotts :D
my strategy take the isles then build up strength for a several full stacked invasion of the mainland then spread like a plague into Europe :D
dont go straight into Europe go along the coasts then move in that way you have your flanks covered and you minimise the front that ou fight on. always a problem when invading Europe :(
Fully upgraded noble swordsman heavy plate or whatever and the best arms etc on guard mode infront of the castle gates - can dfend against an entire army ;)

[Joh]

Hi everybody!

I just started a Scott game, and my intention is to respect the English for as long as possible to make for an interesting game. Has anybody tried this approach before?

My first moves are the typical ones.
Military: Take York, Wales (even though the English beat me to it, they failed to conquer it), Iverness (turned to city) and Dublin in that order. Fortified settlements are sieged until they sally, whereas settlements without walls are taken within the turn.
Diplomatic: Build a diplomat to ship it to Spain (allied), then Portugal and South European countries countries and Papal States (trade rights). With starting diplomat, first get trade agreements with England and ship it off to continental Europe for trade agreements with as many countries as possible.

Then, I do not go for the English as I play the good Christian and think it will be funnier to have a better challenge later in the game. I move to present Norway, conquering Oslo (converted to city). At present time (turn 25 maybe???) moving to modern day Sweden.

As it can be seen, I favour economic development rather than militaristic. I have build merchants and trained them in Nottingham (wool???) and Norway (fish???) for getting monopolistic traits, them moved them to the amber deposits to get the big cash. Then train some more until agent limit is reached.

Probably I will explore Finland and conquer it if rebel, then depending on the status with England start some crusading against Rusia (never used crusades that much before, so it could be fun) or fend off English attacks. Probably won't be able to do much counter attack as my best units are in my attacking army in Scandinavia now.

This is possibly not the way to beat the game, but it is going to be very interesting in mid and late game due to a poor Scottish unit rooster. Maybe it is actually the way to go, to develop a power house economy to finance all the missile mercenary units Scotland is going to be needing in the future.

Let me hear your comments on this strategy.

[Barbarian]

It is close to strategy, which I once used. But I only didn't fought English until the year 1270 or something like that. I had made alliances with every faction in the Europe (until they started killing each other :furious3: ), also with papal states. In fact, I only waited for England to strike me first, because then I wouldn't loose a support from pope.
Unfortunately, I decided that the end of the 13th century is the best moment to destroy english.

[Callahan9119]

i dont leave the island till i have siege equipment, i like to have a siege force follow my main fighting stacks around to quickly take lesser defended towns plus they make up for what i think is a bad missle army, and i like missle troop army... catapults are invaluable defending bridges also

[BharatRakshak]

So I'm playing Scotland on M/M after reading all the posts. First things first of course, secure the British Isles. I actually waited for a while holding everything on the two islands except London and Nottingham. I teched up for about 10-15 turns, and then I went after Nottingham. And after that, came London. There is still a full stack of English troops in the south-western part of England just chillin, not on a road or anything, so I'm not bothering them. I have trade rights with them, and no point in initiating war and invoking the Pope's wrath without taking over settlements.

Meanwhile, my diplomats have gotten trading agreements and alliances with everyone from the French to the Byzantines. I teched up the British isles for a good 30 turns I think, making an income of 10 grand each turn. I sent a spy towards Scandinavia, and I saw Oslo was still rebel. Stockholm was lightly defended and making a good 3k per turn, so I set my eyes on that. While I was sending my army and fleet out of Nottingham, this thing came up saying Denmark excommunicated. I tried to pull a crusade on Stockholm but the Pope didn't agree.

Anyway, Stockholm is mine. I sent a diplomat towards Oslo and bought the place. I made peace with the Danes, but for some reason my income was going low now, so I figured I should take Arhus (Denmark) because that place had an income of 4000+. I got excommunicated in the process (because the Pope had reconciled them by then), but the Pope is 60 years old, so I'm not expecting any crusade or anything now. I already made a ceasefire with the Danes, and am pretty much Lord of the North, making some good dough.


I'm not sure which way to expand now. Towards Russia there will be lots of provinces I'm sure, but not enough income I think. Maybe I should hit Iberia or even start out of Marrakesh maybe.

I don't want to get involved in the mess in continental Europe. Too many frontier provinces, drains out the economy fast.

[Mek Simmur al Ragaski]

When i started the long campaign with Scotland, the first thing i did was take york, then i decided to build an economy. This went badly and pretty soon i was bankrupt, i tried to capture towns unsuccesfully, but this went badly. Then a crusade was called, and thinking of this as a big break, i joined and went to Acre (the target was Jerusalem, but Venice had that covered) i sacked it, aswell as every Egyptian city in my path, letting the revolt, i ended up making 50,000 gold, aswell as almost wiping out the entire Egytpian empire (i think they have a few peasants hiding somewhere, but i cant be bothered to find them)

[Mek Simmur al Ragaski]

Here my opinion on what to do in the first few turns of the Scottish Campaign

Expansion
Gather a small army and attack york immediately, leaving inverness and dublin well alone. One you have done this attack Inverness, and then Dublin. By now the English will have taken Caenervon, which is good as the majority of there soldiers will be there. Next attack Nottingham, dont release or ransom any of the captured men, no matter how much england are willing to pay, execute them all so there is even less resistance. Then you should attack london as quickly as possible, as caenervon will be a small castle, not producing anything good yet. Once you have london, attack caenervon as quickly as possible, kicking england out of england for good. Then you should probably take oslo, and fight the danes, or take rennes before england can get it and destroy england.

Trade and Economy
As Scotland is not joined to the rest of Europe, you should either get a diplomat over there as soon as possible, or begin to make your villages produce high income.

Navies
Compared to England, the Scottish Navies are bad. Either build them up, or use them only rarely and keep them in secluded areas where the english cannot get to them.

Units
Compared to other factions, Scotland field the largest variety of heavy infantry in the game, which can make it incredibly easy towards the start of the game, where the AI only use spearmen and light infantry. Later on, the Scottish nobles are decent, aswell as dismounted feudal knights if you can get them earlier on.

Well thats what i think i would do if i as Scotland

[kitbogha]

This is the only faction I had not yet played, so last night out of boredom I started a grand campaign...
It has been challenging so far but also the most gripping of games. I am at turn 20 and command 5 provinces, having to stop briefly to consolidate while the Popes decree against destroying the English times out. I am poised outside London with a full stack army, hoping that the English will save me disobeying the Holy Father and attack me.
Starting with the poor resources available to the Scots is taxing but not insurmountable at all. I have found that a Blitzkrieg approach is indicated to carry your momentum through and the extra monies are definately best spent quickly before being eaten up by the Scot's ravenous economy. While I wait 5 turns for the Pope to forget England I will invest in my infrastructure then it's back to the action!
I can't wait to play another session.
PS I'm English but from the murdered MacDonalds on my mothers side so I can happily square away the genocide of my own nation....

[boudica]

Background:

New to the Total War series, I've quickly played the English short campaign to unlock the rest and got stuck into the Scots Long Campaign. I've tended to let the computer resolve more than half the battles as it always seems to do better with my stack than I do! - not sure that this bodes well for multi-player :P ANyway, I've played a couple of hundred years of my Campaign so far, and thought it might be fun to write it up, so I'll edit this post as I go/ can be bothered ;P

I began perhaps more cautiously than most who have posted. Taking Inverness and sending only just enough to take Dublin, my plan was to strengthen my position before facing the English. Establishing trade with them instead of sending my Rabble straight in. After sweeping back from Eire, I beat the English to Canaervon and my spies watched with glee as Prince Rufus was sent packing by Yorkshire rebels :)

The English struck back though and finally took York from the rebels. At this point I began to concentrate my forces - for the most part levied spears, bolstered by my reformed units of highlanders - into English lands, although I confess I was a little wary of angering the Pope. My worries soon passed, as a large English army - without noble leadership soon decided they could not stand Scots presence on their soil and attacked.

tbc. :)

[kitbogha]

I just started a Scott game, and my intention is to respect the English for as long as possible to make for an interesting game. Has anybody tried this approach before?

Ha ha ha!!!
I doubt that approach has been tried before. Certainly not in real life. I have just started a Scotland campaign. The problem with your novel approach is that the English are right in your path to glory and must be swept away before going on the rampage in continental Europe. I suppose you could expand Eastwards to Scandinavia or bypass England entirely but that leaves you with very vulnerable lines of supply and the entirely plausible (at least historically) scenario that England will stab you in the back.
My plan is dog simple. I have taken the surrounding 4 rebel provinces and am allied with England. I have an army moving past Nottingham (I can take that later) and arrowing in on London. I have a spy in place and a 24% chance that the gates will beopened at my attack next turn. London, purely for the money making advantage-the Scots are, at least at the beginning chronically short of money. Once I take London I am expecting the Holy Father to demand I stop and desist, but by then I will have plundered the English capital and be able to use that money wisely (ie to build up my economy and army). :evilgrin:

[Bacchon]

I'm almost through my first campaign with Scotland, and I'm most certainly not going to win, as I've got forty turns left and only thirteen provinces. D: I conquered the Isles fairly quickly, but I let the English reestablish themselves on the Continent and once I'd taken Toulouse, Rennes, Caen and Bruges I got dragged into a more or less permanent three-front war with Spain, Denmark and France that's kept from being able to make big offensives. I'm trying to get a couple stacks across the Atlantic before the campaign ends so I can see what the Americas are like, but victory is not looking likely.

I did manage to avoid Excommunication for the entire campaign, though, which is cool, and I think I've got a good chance at having the next Pope.

To those bemoan the lack of powerful ranged units: charge! ;) Actually, I got cannons before anyone else in Western Europe so I typically spend the first half of my battles blowing the crap out of the enemy at extreme range with explosive shells. I also keep at least three mortars in all of my frontier cities.


Next time I will almost certainly go for Scandinavia as quickly as possible, since Western Europe is an ungodly quagmire.

[AchubaNanoiaBR]

I've finished a long game with Scotland yesterday, and I thought I could give some advice. I've tried to play the game keeping a high reputation and was very successful until end game, when I need to wrap up my conquests.

1- Expansion

First of all I've conquered all the rebel provinces in Britania, easy enough. Then I massed my troops and moved to conquer the north of the map: Oslo, Stockolm (spellcheck?), Higa, Helsink... . Then I noticed Bruges was still rebel, so I went back and got that too. After that, I called a crusade against Cordoba, and pretty much wipped out the Moors, except for Timbuku (spellcheck?). The Franks and the the HRE attacked me, so I conquered some of their provinces, got some money for ceasefires and proceeded to conquer North Africa, crusading my way to Antioch and basically wiping the Egypt. After that, just made a few retalliation wars against the Turks and Byzantines, evaded the Mongols and went to war with England (finally!) and Portugal. End game basically, just had to conquer a few more provinces and ended by 1400's or so. Good game

2- Diplomacy

Nothing special here: Just get alliances and trade rights as soon as you can. I found out that it's great to have a good reputation, the Ai helped me against the enemy a few times, and being friends with the Pope is awesome! Also, if you want to attack an enemy, but don't want to fight an attrition war, just keep your borders undefended (but keep one or two stacks ready nearby). The Ai will declare war, then you can attack him, conquer a few cities and bring a diplomate to offer a ceasefire for a nice amount of cash! Be sure to keep your army nearby the diplomat!

3- Economy

I made Edimburg into a castle after I had all of the rebel provinces in Britannia (everything else became a city), and for the most part, had one or two castles every other 5 cities. I keep taxes on low to grow as fast as I can, and the cash never stopped coming! For this to work, it's nice to have a good navy: 1 big, killer fleet, with at least 8 ships, and 1 ship for every 2 coastal cities in separate fleets, to move those Highland Nobles and Catapults around ;). I felt like the Vikings some time!
I also made 3 merchants and went to Constantinople to get the 3 silk there. Each trader eventually ended up making 600 Florins per turn! Also, keep a few roaming traders and spies so you can track enemy movement and buy traders for the extra cash.

4- Military

Highland Nobles are awesome! Being city-heavy, I usually made my armies like this:
1 General - to chase the routers
2 Border Horse - to chase routers, siege weapons and archers
5 Spear Militia - to hold the center of the line (you can change to Pikemen if you want, but I like to save the money. I expect these troops to hold the line just long enough so my Nobles and flank the enemy. Since these units will probably suffer heavy casulties, they are also easier to replace)
4 Archer Units - for the most part I used mercenaries, since my few castles were more melee infantry based
2 Ballistas or Catapults - to speed up sieges, but only if can transport by sea. Otherwise I'd rather wait one turn for sieges and keep my army mobile
4 Highland Nobles - to flank the enemy. AKA: Meat grinders!
Wathever slot I have left I'll usually fill with milita units to keep the order.

Hope it helps, and have fun with the Scots, had a great game with them!

[sbroadbent]

I haven't been around in a while, and only recently reinstalled M2TW. I decided to play the Scots for the first campaign, and am using the Vanilla Mod (in the hosted mods forum). As far as I know the Vanilla mod cleans fixes some things, but otherwise is as Vanilla as Vanilla is. Otherwise I decided to do a long campaign, and my recap below won't go into much detail, just a general what did I do when.

I started with the obligatory strike into York. I followed up with Inverness. Once Inverness was done, I took Caernarvon. I decided to seige the enemy into submission, but found York was the only settlement willing to submit without a fight. I decided (and this would factor into my many other battles) that spies would be the way to go. I promptly made plans to develop my covert ops hit squad, comprised of 3-4 Spies (enough to ensure the gates would be opened for my assault), and a couple saboteurs. My primary battle plan fell under Plan A or Plan B.

Plan A: Invade City, Sabotage every happiness building. Hope that Public Order drops enough for city to rebel. Once city has rebelled, send in forces to steal city from the original owner, and avoid threat of Excommunication or War with the original owner. Unfortunately the only city to fall in this manner was Antwerp which had been in the hands of the Holy Roman Empire.

Plan B (When Plan A failed or you're attacking a castle): Invade City, open gates, send in forces. Claim Victory.

I am currently in the year 1396 (turn 159 with 67 turns remaining). I have 15 cities and 8 castles. Won 159 battles, lost 2. York is currently my highest revenue region with 6282. London comes up around 5556. Antwerp and Rennes round off the 3rd and 4th spots with revenues of 4644 and 4638 respectively.

Once I completed my unity of the Isles (left Dublin last as the English decided to attack), I had several options. I could go to Scandinavia or to the continent. I had started to put together a strike force and land on Oslo. I arrived there to find Oslo under siege. Due to the distance to send reinforcements, and unsure of the Danish forces, I choose to veto that plan. I believe the Danish forces were larger than my own strikeforce, so I opted for the continent. At the time the Pope called a Crusade against the excomm'd French, and Toulouse was the target. Planning to land off the coast of Bordeaux and then cross across to the target, I recruited some crusade units and I set sail. It wasn't long before the HRE took Toulouse and ended the crusade. Sitting off the coast I had two options. Return home to finish off the English still on the mainland, or find better pickings. I decided the better pickings was (and I had atleast two separate crusade forces) the French in Rennes and Bordeaux. These fell easily (with the French whittled down by the crusade and all).

My path of destruction generally followed: Angers, Caen (surprise attack on the English finishing them off), and then into Paris. Rheims and Bruges fell next, and then Metz, and Dijon. I believe I went after Antwerp next and solidified power there. I finally claimed Staufen and Bern (from I believe the French). One note, on the subject of Rheims, I ended up buying Rheims from the French. It started with one of their diplomats threatening to attack unless I paid them 265 florins (??????). I was bored and had a bit of money, so I turned this around on them. I offered them 6,000 for Rheims. They refused, but countered with a request of 23,600 (or so). While I could have taken this, that would have eaten most of my financial reserves. I upped my bid to around 10,000, and they refused but returned with a lower counter offer (now that's more like it). I wanted to see how cheaply I could buy it for. Ended up bringing the French down around 17,500, and they took it. Admitedly I'm not sure it was the best financial move, as I was more than prepared to take it by force, but it was something anyway...

At this point the Danes started to get Aggressive. They got themselves excomm'd, and they did try to land a force to take York, but some quick recruiting and troop movements brought their advances to a halt. They also started sending waves of forces between Hamburg and Antwerp. In order to cut them off at the pass, I setup a fort on my side of the bridge between the two, and used it as my front line. To this day, the fort hasn't fallen. The best use of 500 florins. I have done the same thing on the north side of the bridge near Angers as I had a HRE strikeforce travelling north. This stops their advance in their tracks, and gives me time to reinforce for Caen, Rennes, and Angers.

I setup a third fort east of Metz (south of Frankfurt on the west side of the bridge). To deny entrance to the west by the HRE. If I recall, this location is also within one turn troop movement of Metz for easy reinforcement. I utilized this location for a strike on Frankfurt. After taking Frankfurt, but before the HRE had a chance to retaliate. I used a diplomat to negotiate an exchange of Toulouse for the recently captured Frankfurt. Although I didn't expect them to take it, it cost me around 12,000, which gave me access to the mediterranean (but I've been too busy with wars against 4 enemies to do much in the med).

Up to this point the French were all but devastated. They had tried their best, but their forces weren't able to stand up. When they were down to Marseille and Nuremburg, I decided to offer them a ceasefire. I also either offered an immediate payment of a thousand florins or so, or some tribute for 10 turns or so. They gladly took it, and although I figured I'd finish them off some time in the future, I had considered offering an alliance (maybe even try to make them a Vassal (never done that before). At the moment they are now just down to Marseille.

The only thing from the South I got was a small spanish raiding party by sea, but my troops near Anger were able to respond, and I destroyed their ships. They very quickly accepted a ceasefire (the last thing I want is a war against 3 factions as I was fighting the Danes and HRE.

Some time ago the Milanese had an obsession with Dijon. As though it held some special secret power. They started sending assassins which never seemed to do anything (except feed my own assassins there), and then troops which were easily thwarted. The French finally recovered and rebuilt some forces and tried desperately to take Toulouse. I was well prepared, and got reinforcements from Bordeaux.

At this point I have the Danes threatening to come through Antwerp with several stacks. I prepare by draining my treasury to do a mass recruiting blitz, and had my forces ready, and then the Plague hits. Trade (which comprised atleast half my budget) was all but decimated. I was going into the negatives and fast. I couldn't wait for the Danes to attack me, so I did a suicide strike towards Hamburg with everything I could muster from the immediate vicinity. I ripped through a few half stacks and was prepared to seige Hamburg (my covert ops ready to open the door) when the Pope threatened Excomm (wait time 3 years???). Rather than retreat from Danish territory, I sent my troops north into Arhus, and parked them. I had some additional reinforcements (a half stack of elite troops and about 5 family members) coming from the Isles. The Danish didn't attack, but combined their stacks. I decided the best thing to do was to take Arhus and use it as a defensive position. In the interim my troops caused massive devastation (3 stacks can really do some damage) near the port. Once I had claimed Arhus, the Danes had no desire to attack and left the territory immediately. Some went into Scandinavia, and others went east and south. After ensuring I wouldn't get an immediate surprise attack, I struck quickly and took Hamburg.

I finally reclaimed Frankfurt and am deciding my final push. The Danes are not much of a threat now, and I nailed the final blow on the French chances by blockading their only port of Marseille which was getting some decent trade. I am 3rd in Military Strength behind the Russians (1st place) and the Timurids. Far beyond everyone else in territory (my 23 compared to 9 for 2nd place). Russian managed to reach 300,000 in financials, but has recently plummeted to around 80,000.

While I was dealing with the Danes, I had the HRE coming through Metz, Staufen and Bern, the Milanese coming up towards Bern, and the French going after Toulouse. I successfully wiped out stack after stack utilizing and reinforcing stacks from Metz, Staufen, Bern and Dijon. Occassionally I had to reinforce with Militia from Rheims and Paris. At one point I had the fort near Antwerp Seiged, Metz was under seige (both by the HRE), Bern seiged by Milan, and Dijon seiged by the French. I was on a single turn able to lift each seige, and devastate the enemy forces.

During the time the Plague struck, and struck me hard. My treasury was wiped out, and I was in the negatives and not able to recruit any new units. Fortunately the plague ran it's course and trade came back online.

My final strike will be to take out the French, take out the Danes, and while I would like to finish off the HRE, I will probably go after Milan.

I plan to play the Scots again, but this time after uniting the isle, to challenge the Danes for Scandinavia.

[JustJoey]

Haven't played in ages, mostly because I suck at trade in MW2, but read a couple threads here and got a better grasp on it.

So I started with Scotland, I ignored York and took all my units apart from a spear unit I left in Edinburgh went straight for Nottingham took it with ease, one battle and a siege later I had London, made peace with the Brits left on the continent, got a nice payment which I needed since I was 4K in the red. I mopped up the rest of the island of rebels and Dublin all with the same army I had from turn one plus a couple Welsh Spear and Galloglaich.

Then it was on to building my economy and military tech, I have a treasury of about 50k now. So I took my experienced army and a couple of generals and set sail for the Middle east while passing Sardinia I noticed the Moors had it, I set siege and took it left it as a castle, as luck would have it I got the popeage and asked for a crusade on the Moors to keep them busy, couple turns later both Venice and Sicily wanted it and went to war, Venice was excommunicated, my pope died not long later, as it stands now I'm still at war with the Moors, I have taken Sicily for myself and converted it to a city, they begged for mercy so I gave it to them.. I can't remember if I'm stall at war with Venice.

Gonna focus on economy and peace again, build a new army and wait for a crusade. Hope Sicily attack again, I have my eye on Tunisia and they have it, would make a nice economic triangle.

[Ashfire]

I don't normally play as Scotland but I used to quite a lot!

My Strategy is normally is to try and find either Princess Ingrid (Denmark) or Constance (France), This usually means more Generals are on the way. Meanwhile Take York before England and Dublin and Caernarfon as this halts the English Expansion for a while. Send an Army to Bruges and Expand in Continental Europe, Make sure that you remain good friends with France as this can help if when the English Expand into France your Papal Relationship will not be hindered. Try and remain good friends with the HRE at all costs, especially if your army is weak, give them money or marry a princess, but stay allies with the HRE, they will betray but you can regale them with money. Word of Warning I LIKE PEACE! :)

[dzidek]

I like Scotland... in fact there are little factions i don't like (f ex. HRE, France, Spain)

Why i like the Scots? Well their army makes me feel it has courage in what it does.
No fancy knights in shinig armour here, just tough mountain folk fighting for their lands.

Their starting position is weak. Taking the isles is the key and how you do it is not relevant. some start here some there. I usually take hal of army to Iverness
the other half to York, after i have those settlements i combine my troops and go for Caernaveron. I take Dublin at the end, when i defeated the English.

To defeat England is easy at the beginning. Your archers and infantry are far more better, just watch out for their mailed knights and royal guards.
After you united the islands you can sit down and relax for couple of turns. Make a nice stack, punish some rebels, develop the economy. My only caste is at Caernevaron, the rest are cities. I also transfer my capital to London. I don't know why but i get fairly easy the swordsmiths guild in my castle.

After i have my stack i make some decent flet and off we go to Cyprus. Yes cyprus, a castle on an easily defended island near the holy land. Perfect spot for crusade launches. I never hold the cities i crusade for, just sack them for big gold income. Let them rebel and then re-crusade them :) Besides why bother with the HA heavy Mongols. I take Rodos also, and Crete if Venice gets excomunicated. It lets me deploy the troops easily in Europe and Asia/Africa.

Normally my second stack liberates Norway+Sweden if they are still rebel. If they are Danish i usually prepare for a quick war making 2 stacks to crash Hamburg and Arhus at the same time. After that even if they have still Oslo and Stockholm those settlements are to weak to produce a big threat.

Once you get Hamburg you will come in touch with other Catholic factions, some of them will begin to grow impatient and will attack you. But don't worry they have little good troops you can't counter. Noble swordsmen will decimate French and HRE infantry, Poland has equal DPK but they are expensive and the AI does not use them often. You will have trouble with Polish Nobles if you can't out shoot them with Noble Archers. The AI HC is not a problem with such great pike units.

My end army usually consists of: 4x Noble Pikemen, 4x Noble Swordsmen, 2x Highland Nobles, 2x Border Horse, 2-4x Feudal Knights, 2-4x Noble Highland Archers, 2x artillery

For big siege battles i don't take cavalry. I replace them with more artillery and infantry.

In the beginning i use a lot the simple Highlanders infantry, being easy to recruit and with high AP attack they are a little brother of Vikings. They make spearmen look silly. After a while i replace them totally with Noble Archers, these guys rock at decimating spearmen of all kinds. First they shoot them in the face, just to chop them with axes when the get close. A bigger, better version of Highlanders.

[King Flambard I]

I like the Crete idea D-Z, do you find that the castle there comes under attack often from naval invasions?

[dzidek]

Not really. The only threat are the Byzantines and Venice.

[where's yur troosers]

I have just won a campaign as Scotland (H/M) on turn 157. I did not rush, but did find the Scots more difficult than many other nations with which I have experimented. I went the standard way of securing the British Isles, then went into Scandinavia (Danish expansion was slowed by placing a ship on one of the land bridges) and the Low Countries at the same time. That army joined the first crusade and I was able to expand a fair bit at the expense of Egypt and the Turks whilst keeping on the Pope's good side.

I think where I struggled was the Scottish troop mix. Their missile selection is poor (Noble Archers are the "best" on offer) and cities do not produce any. I found myself supplimenting with mercs AND keeping more castles than I would usually.

Their cavalry are poor as well. I ended up with the Templer HQ, but in Antioch, and as the Mongols went for Kiev they never saw action. I know the pikes are meant to be the bees knees, but I struggle to use them properly.

Still it was a lot of fun and I have kept the campaign going to see how well I can match up to the Timurids.

[Visor]

From what I've read, it seems that a lot of people aren't very agressive.

Image:
https://img191.imageshack.us/img191/8426/scotcampaign.png

In my current Scotland campaign, I'm kicking ass. First, straight for Inverness than York (rebel), then sailed around and attacked London with a full stack. London fell and then Nottingham. Didn't waste any time and sent all my men south to Caen. Pushed southwards into France, taking Paris and Rheims quickly while another army went to Oslo, then Arhus. Crushed Denmark after taking Arhus because they had done nothing. I was then at war with HRE and France. I soon brought Spain and Portugal and Milan into it. Eventually crushed France and then moved in to HRE land. Took down Spain and Portugal and then Milan, and finally the HRE.

Currently I am going for Marrakesh, Riga, Budapest and Constantinople.

[Myth]

What difficulty are you playing on? Being uber agressive is nice but when the whole world starts sedning stack after stack at you it becomes harder and harder to keep your borders safe while expanding at the same time.

[Visor]

Hard/Hard. I just tried a Byzantium VH/VH, I'm doing okay, just sacked Budapest, but boy is it hard.

When I see people on about turn 60 - 70 with only the British Isles under their control shocks me. I always play extremely aggressively, even when troop number gets low, I keep pushing and massing armies. Usually I plan an initial invasion and then it all goes to hell. I leave skeletal garrisons ans don't bother improving buildings except for ports and military buildings and roads (mines are good too).

[Myth]

I'm very agressive as well but playing a Catholic nation this way proves tedious if you don't constantly buy off the Pope. Early on it's smarter to let them attack you and get excommunicated in the process. This reduces the number of fronts you fight on greatly. It was very annoying in my England campaign, i had just taken all the French towns, and was now smack-dab in the middle of Portugal and Sapin from the South, Milan and Sicitly from the South-East, the HRE, Poland and Hungary from the East-North and the Danes from the North. All of these bastards started sending stacks and while I could beat any of them with England's superior roster I simply didn't have the patience to lead 5-10 battles per turn. This was on VH/VH of course

Turtling on the British isles alone is not an option IMO. As Scotland I tend to either wipe off the English completely (getting warned by the pope by the time i siege Caen, I'm blitzing with the starting armies), or leave them with Caen alone and keep my papal standing. From then, there's rebel towns and Danish and French idiots who get themselves excommunicated.

But i always boom my towns, building Council chambers and farms with priority to get more population, then getting roads/ports/econ buildings. Castles get the troop buildings naturally.

[Visor]

Besides the Scotalnd and Byz games, the last one I tried was as the HRE.

It was extremely easy, I took all rebel settlements around me, by that time France had become excommunicate and I took over all their lands, followed by a backstabbing Milan and Venice and Denmark. Poland and Hungary both stayed neutral and eventually I destroyed them. I never pay the pope anything. Once I had France under my control, excommunication wasn't an option as Milan, Venice, Denmark and Spain were all excommunicated.

I did a few campaigns on KGCM (Best mod ever in my opinion, for gameplay). There was no ganging up or random stupid diplomacy, which leads to an easier VH/VH campaign as the AI isn't as broken.