Denmark [Archive]

Poised

11-16-2006, 12:21

The Danes have superb economic potential, but it requires an aggressive start, if done right, you wont even scratch your relationship with the other catholic nations.

Send 2 norse bowmen + half of the militia south with your prince, and send the rest except for one peasant across Østersøen to Sweden with your king, leave the 1 peasant army in Aarhus.

The King's objective is Stockholm first, its a small battle and you most likely wont need mercenaries for that battle, but I prefer to buy 2 spears anyway, since they will be used for Oslo very soon, and before you take Oslo be sure to buy as many mercs as needed, I had a lot of trouble with Oslo although it looks perfectly harmless on paper.

The Prince's objective is Hamburg, Stettin, Antwerp, Bruges and if its still a rebel town, Magdelburg, Magdelburg will most likely be attacked by Poland or HRE quite early, but its the least important town, since it doesnt have a port, so leave that for last, I was lucky to have it still being rebel after I took Bruges, so I swooped it up and its a nice defensive town, the river between Hamburg and Magdelburg makes for a perfect HRE screen.

Hamburg should be sieged by turn 2 and taken by turn 3, move all but 1 troop from the Prince's army east towards Stettin right away, both Hamburg and Stettin are relatively small battles, so you can probably do these without mercs, but I hired a few merc spears just to make the medicine go down a little easier, it also free up troops to garrison Stettin and allow you to move on to Antwerp.
You should have produced a few town militia while attacking Hamburg and Stettin, send them to Stettin as garrison, and move the Prince's army west to Antwerp.

The King will reach Stockholm just around the time you reach Stettin, occupy Stockholm, plant a guardtower and move to Oslo, I sacked Oslo for the extra cash, its a nice boost :)

Antwerp and Bruges are both pretty well defended, and will require both skill and manpower, but with enough mercenaries they WILL fall.

Now you hold even more land than King Valdemar managed to hold by the year 1180 :P

I used Hamburg and Bruges as castles, and Aarhus, Stockholm, Oslo, Stettin, and Antwerp as towns (Magdelburg too in my game, but you need a lot of luck to grab Magdelburg without upsetting your neighbours)

This is a monster cashcow, and all of it was aquired without breaking any alliances/agreements, or losing reputation, this is for Hard / Hard, but I see no reason it shouldnt work on medium or very hard too.

Now you are ready to plant the raven banner in the sands of the holy land :)

Stolpmeister

11-18-2006, 13:04

Another good option for danish expansion is to not go south, but to instead do what your viking ancestors did - go west. Divide your beginning forces into two - one taking Stockholm and Olso (converting Olso to a city), the other taking Hamburg. Don't expand south further than Hamburg. Build your economy and a navy in Arhus, Stockholm and Olso, and your landforces in Hamburg. Make a sizeable army consisting of plenty of viking raiders or dismounted huscarles, but them on a boat and send them west. If you're quick enough the scots won't have taken the castle at Inverness, which makes a good staging area for your campaign against the Scots and English. Taking Britian means you'll have TWO strong, easily defended economic bases for further conquests.

Expanding southwards will get you quickly involved in continental european politics, and you'll take over the HREs position as being surrounded by enemies and fighting a multi-front war. I tried it in a campaign I'm playing now, and I'm now at war with the HRE, Milan, Polan, Russia and Hungary (and of course Egypt and the Mongols in the Holy Land).

Skott

11-18-2006, 22:12

That sounds like a fun game tactic to try. Lets go a viking! :yes:

lalartu

11-19-2006, 18:04

I think there are a lot of potentials for Danes and even tho it's not the easiest faction to play with, you get a great amount of strong units.

Now as others have said, you can pretty much go any direction and succeed, it all depends on how much you're willing to sacrifice.

The easiest way I find, along with a potential to build up a very strong alliance is the following:

Send all your troops to take 4 rebel town to the south/east of you. one or two you might not have a chance to take because Poles and Germans will try to grab them as well.

Having done this, send your diplomat to estabish trade and alliance with germans, then france and then move him into the italy and ally with papacy.

Danes usually have the highest relations with the pope (go figure) so you should use that to your advantage and ally with papal states asap. that way, not only pope will excommunicate anything that attacks you, but your populous will always be happy and you don't have to garrison any inner cities because their mood will always be happy.

now obviously you're not gonna be allied with them forever. as soon as you establish a strong enough empire and the borders with other catholic states are drawn, no rebel cities are left either. proceed to building up a conquest army.

I suggest using diplomacy to your advantage and taking out Poland first and Germany next. but it's really up to you.

The reason I would not recommend playing an aggressive campaign early on (except for obviously taking the rebel states) is because you have very few very weak units at first and only one town. so you'd be risking a lot. you also need to at least be able to make dismounted huscarls, which I think are one of the best early units in the game. they can easily cut through most infantry and I even defeated general cavalry with them. so when you can produce them pretty quickly, you can start a major conquest. just remember if Pope tells you to stop aggression, wait a bit or let the other faction attack you, so play it smart.

don't get excommunicated. it'll be the bane of you. if the pope excommunicated denmark, you will spend a long time trying to hold your cities together, rather than conquering territories nearby.

yalpe

11-19-2006, 18:27

I agree with lalartu. Don't get excom. and focuson taking 5-6 rebel towns (including Scandinavia) and then build up a strong econ. Meanwhile, ensure security with diplomacy. This will allow you to pump military units and upgrade garisons. Soon your forces will be really strong and you should start conquering whoever gets excom-ed first. In my case it was Poland. I took 2 towns from them and signed a truce for Riga. Meanwhile, Venice was overextending itself against the HRE, so I proposed them an alliance for Prague. Two towns for free! Now I started bashing catholics at Frankfurt for the first time.

Oh, btw, take Stettin!!! The pope will send you a few missions to raise catholism there. Your standings will increase by 1 or 2 + after this since its an easy mission.

Ripipip

11-19-2006, 21:54

Okey, i got a little problem here.:help: I know it is a big chance that it will be very noobish but i really need help. I won one short campaign as the England and then i thought i could move over to play Denmark but i still can´t play anyone else than those first five factions. Then i started to read this forum and tried to change it in the descr.strat file but it keeps saying that i can´t change anything in the file and that it is "protected". So, what can i do? :P

frogbeastegg

11-19-2006, 22:16

Right click on the file you need to edit, choose "properties" from the menu. At the bottom is a set of tick box options, including one called "read only". Uncheck that, and you will be able to save changes to the file.

McDoogle

11-20-2006, 00:21

Well i just did a campagin as the english out of boredom, and i killed a force of 1900 danes hascruls and norse axemen with 700 feduel knights, so i am skepctical of the danes :laugh4:

However the viking thing sounds more fun then tackling germany and poland right up.

in the orginal medieval i used to take norway sweden then the british ilses, the parts of western russia, then tok all the northern mose provinces of europe...i think i might relive that... and the danes are the only faction with the scots who really have different units..

england and france have the same tech tree, only diff cavarly..and thats crap in my opionion..

Skott

11-20-2006, 01:49

First, let me say, I havent gotten the game yet. Its on order and hasnt arrived but from what I'm reading if you want to play the Danes, and from a Viking Reconquest playstyle, you have to attack British Isles in one of two ways. Either hit the English, Scots, and Ireland right away before they can build up decent troops and economy, or do a slower build up before attacking. Like take hamburg and all the Scandanavian cities. Then once you have built up a good economy, force, and navy launch the raids upon the British Isles. The second method is probably going to be easier although it does have its drawbacks as well. The longer you take to build up the more time England and Scotland have time to build up. The upside sounds like they may be at war when you go stomping in though.

Lets say you choose a Viking reconquest playstyle and decide to ignore the Pope. For roleplay purposes say your Viking king and lords throw off Christianity and redopt the old ways and gods. Okay, the Pope excommunicates you. What happens? Every nation attacks you immediately or just a few? I'm curious how that works. Does everyone make a beeline to take your cities or is it just those nations neighboring your own lands? What exactly happens when you get excommunicated?

The AI being what it is (And it doesnt sound like its been improved that much from RTW. I have heard of this Passive AI bug so it doesnt sound like the AI is vastly improved) is that once you got strong units beating the AI on the battlefield isnt that hard. The AI can throw alot of units at you though in a battle of attrition but once you got a strong foundation its an attrition of losses more for them than you. especially if you can get them to attack at a bottleneck spot on the map. River crossings are great for this. Good City/Keep/castle defense is another.

Like I said I havent played the game yet so I'm merely guessing based on what I have read from others and past game experiences.

lalartu

11-20-2006, 05:54

The AI has definitely improved, but it's still not perfect.

in my 3 games, AI kept probing my provinces and attacking quite often and quite smart. they sometimes ignored me, waiting for me to move my units or even amassed huge forces on a strategically imprortant point for me.

I think it's definitely much better than AI in RTW and by far superious to any other TW game.

now as for excommunication:

1- your citizens are catholic, so they become VERY pissed. you need a lot of units and buildings to prevent rebel uprisal even in your capital. it's very difficult to play if you're excommunicated. many nations will strike from all sides and since you're no longer officially catholic, you might get ripped to pieces from several directions every turn.

now it was that bad only once for me, when poland, hre and england attacked me at three moderately protected points. I lost one and after I got readmitted to cathoicism, could not retake it for a while because pope was getting pissed.

you cannot play as a pagan if you're dane it seems. you can only be a catholic (the idea here is that the dane empire is trying to enter the civilized catholic world)

so it's for the best to keep pope happy because then
1 - any nation that persistently attacks you get excommunicated and is up for grabs (in my case it was both england and poland for a long time and hre for a while)
2 - any nation that pope hates gets a little present from the inquisitons that pretty much starts killing off a lot of your good generals and agents (tho I'm not 100% sure that they do that when you're excommunicated or just very low on pope's list)
3 - obvious dissent from citizens or their ultimate happines and absolutely no need to have ANY units garrisoning inner cities if you're 7+ stars on pope's list
4 - crusadeeees! crusades are cool. you can declare a crusade if you're at good terms with pope on ANY city you really want from anything non christian (that means Byzantine's constantinople, egypt's cairo, turkish Antioch or any of those high profit cities out there that you really really want).
when you successfully take a city during the crusade you become instant pope's favorite and get money+lots of units get experience.
5- finally if you're at good terms with pope for a long time, meanung that you don't anger him much, he'll randomly give you money here and there just cause you know...he likes you.

now a little more dane strategy:

I tried my second game and it plays along quite similarly.
I noticed that in my two games Milan stayed a loyal ally as did Russia.
France did not care about me and even gave me money to improve relations.

England attacked me only when I took Antwerp and had a good profit going from the port.

holy roman empire attacks always and usually sneaky. I had an alliance in my first game and they betrayed me by attacking the weakest province.
poland attacks if you take some of those SE rebel cities in the beginning, but seems to ignore you if you don't take two of them. I advise to take them and face the poles. they're weak against your early infantry.

make sure to establish trade with moors, egypt, byzantium, turks, scots - they never declare war on your and it seems never betray. I had an alliance with moors and turks/egypt/byzantium pleaded for peace when I declared on them. scots had an alliance with me the entire game.

venice can be a problem. they can get spread out and attack from two points. their units are quite strong too, so bewary of venice.

spain eventually pushed through france in one of my games and had tons of units that after the demise of france attacked me and milan. they can be a problem because most units they bring are heavy infantry and heavy cavalry, so be ready on the western front.

I also think that taking English isles can and should be done early on, but if you're allied with scots, it may present a problem. they're devoted christians and good fighters. so it's up to you. their provinces are not worth it either, except london, nottingham and caen (dublin is okay, but worth taking because it's so remote).

if you ally with Russia (which you should), you can ask them to attack poles from their side while you attack from yours, that way eliminating them entirely.

overall though, you should really try to expand as much as you can since your early units (huscars and vikings) are by far the best early units in the game. they're cheap too and you can have tons of them.
I'm going to try another game where I go for non-christian lands, probably byzantium and turkey and try to establish there rather than in scanvdinavia.
if I do it right, I'll be ready for mongolian invasion and have whole mediterrenean trade network to myself.

McDoogle

11-20-2006, 10:48

I must have a different game from Lalartu, the pope is nothing but a pain in the arse to me. I have been his fav factions with ful crosses for maybe 50 turns straight because i kept to myself and hunted rebels while building churchs, i have lost four generals and 5 agents to his miserable inquistors, however i ended up with 8 assasains chasing them and finally killed two of the three, the last one keeps getting away.

i used to get excommunicated all the time in my first danes one, and my populace didnt seem to mind, i could leave one unit garrisons and high tax rate with 90% public order. i also must have scared the germans and poles and french, none had any desire to turn on me, i held two large arms with two very succesful generals with a war with england.

However back to the pope, i think he focuses on 'helping' you out by trailing ur generals, however when you have 6 cities and four generals you tend not to be very appreciative...

and the hint for winning the papacy, is to build as many priests as you can get and eventually by majority you will end up holding most of the positions in the college of cardinals... and thusly u hold more votes to throw around and the better and cheaper ur chance of keeping a danish pope smilig upon you.

With me, i have so far in both games managed to grab the french princess and they are loyal ever since, the english worry about me when i take Antwep or burges and each time they attack i utterly destroy them then execute their armies and they dnt return for along time, the HRE...well they made four full armies of town malitia, sargents, spear malita and mailed knights. They attacked in three turns of the first appreance...in which timei had built 11 units of fedual knights, i defeated two of their armies losing a total of 200 men, the last two, one ran home after i crushed the other army with 500 men killing their king and capturing their heir.

I am considering opening a front in the middle east and having two empires on either side of the map.

btw has anyone gotten up to the aztecs yet? i am turn 122 and still nothing...however i faught them out of boredem in a custom battle...they are not an easy foe... equal armies, i had heavey infantry and cavarly and used cannons...and they wiped me out... i did a random select and they had good and bad units.. So it should be interesting to see how it goes

lalartu

11-21-2006, 01:40

hey Macdoogle, what units do you usually build?

I noticed that when I mass produce dismounted husclars and let computer take care of my battles, I barely lose ANY no matter what units computer sends against me.
it used to be the same in MTW 1 with vikings though, so no surprise there I guess.

I'm on my 200th turn in my 2nd game and still no aztecs. I have 3 explorer guilds, 1 master explorer and 1 explorer HQ, all my ports are up to date and most cities are top tech, so I dont know what else I need to trigger it. it seems it might be random or something.

I also found a very cheap way of making lots of money the viking way. on my last campaign I took Antioch, sacking it, selling all the sellable buildings in it and abandoning it for whoever wanted it (it happened to be the mongols).
so not wanting to go all the way back to scandinavia, I decided to march south. I sacked 4 turkish cities (jerusalem and others) before reachin egypt and sacking 2 of theirs, capturing their citadel, building more husclars and continuing my sacking campaign back north.
every city yielded about 20 000 (15 000 for sacking and 5000 for buildings sold) and on my way back every city gave me about 7-8000 more. so I think I made about 200k within 20 turns. this sort of really reminds me of the barbarian addon for RTW, except a lot more fun and definitely worth trying especially since you are playing as the only barbarian faction apart from mongolians. so sacking cities is in your blood and pope doesn't mind it since you're sacking heathens.

it's also possible to actually settle in egypt by taking cairo, alexandria and the third city and establishing yourself in a new remote region. I tried doing it for 10 turns and nobody ever tried to attack me there. which is why I left, because it was turning my vikings into couch potatoes, but if you feel like having a safe haven, egypt is it.

lalartu

11-21-2006, 04:04

oh and as for excommunication not causing dissent - well it becomes a huge problem later on when you have 30 000+ citizens

I noticed that unless I have 3+ stars with pope and have built enough morale supporting buildings such as brothel and town guard, cities that are far away such as paris have huge revolt chance. when I'm excommunicated, I can't take any city and expect it not to revolt if it's somewhat away from my capital.

so the only other solution is to slaughter populous, but that means you'll have miserable tax income from that city.

it doesn't affect castles as much it seems, they have better overall morale

lalartu

11-21-2006, 06:20

one more annoying thing about being excommunicated that I recently discovered:

your generals randomly leave you because of the lack of faith in you.

fifth turn being excommed two of my 4 star generals left me.

McDoogle

11-21-2006, 07:41

Well i agree with the generals leaving every now and then, and personally from RTW i have learned that with a city that grows beyoung 20000 pop, i pull everything out let it revvolt take it and slaughter the populace, otherwise it will remain a probelm that merely grows.

i prefer staying in the north, sand has never been of much appeal to me, so i tend to 'forget' crusaudes, i know theres lots of money etc to be made but i just prefer showing european supremacy.

Personally i use norse axemen, or redual knights...the raiders and huscarls hold their end, but they just dnt look powerful to me :P and i lost a full army of dismounted huscarls awhile ago they became rebels and couldnt be re bribed...so i had to hunt them down...400 fedual knights destroyed 1400 huscarls losing 152 men.:2thumbsup:

So personally i tend to use cavarly to a maximuim advantage :yes:

I have never liked the pope so tend not to care about what he says. however like i said, i have that many cardinals elections are in my favour and all the other spanish and french cardinals support me.

However i must admitt the advantage, for two turns after i bet the germans back, a new hungrainian pope was elected thanks to me and my influence and being my allies and enemies of germany, they were excommunicated the same turn and they withdrew all of thier armies from my borders.

I am glad politics is finally begining to show itself in Total war games, however i do tend to catch the enemies general as often as i can and kill him if he survived the battle, hell theres nothing more annoying then not having the generals to help gorven and eventually u might kill enough of them to turn thir terrioties to rebels...so u can have free dibs..

and so far i am not tuoching the german lands only the edges of russia and scandanvia and the coastal provinces seeign as i have the largest navy.

But yes i use norse axemen because they are strong in small numbers. or feudal knights

McDoogle

11-21-2006, 09:27

I just found a way to get tot eh new world from the begning :P

cheat! press '~' and type 'toggle_fow' and move ur cursor to the corner of the map and keep going and there they are

Skott

11-21-2006, 18:16

Well, I'm glad to hear they improved the game's AI. It was one of my biggest complaint about RTW. In some ways it kinda sounds like you wait for the Pope to get mad at someone, or for a nation to attack first, and then you rush in and take as much as you can before the Pope changes his mind and decides to stop things. Then build up and wait for it to happen again. I'm looking forward to playing the game.

I got a email yesterday saying they are shipping the game but delivery got pushed back to December 4th! Dang it! First time I ever pre-ordered a game and I could have gotten it at the stores on launch day most likely. I cant cancel the order neither. Oh, well. Luckily I got enough to do to keep me busy till then. Although if it does go out in today's mail it shouldnt take more than 3-5 business days to get to me via regular mail. With the Holiday that would put it next week. December 4th must be like latest date to expect it. hmmmm...

Anyway guys. Thanks for the replies and good reads. I'll keep reading your experiences.

lalartu

11-21-2006, 23:36

I decided to see what would happen if I remained a heathen and told Pope to go * himself so here's how it went:

I had a stalemate on all fronts and had about 20 provinces. year was 1200ish and Danes were the least like nation by pope, constantly abused and always pushed around because Spanish took over France and established themselves as catholic supremacy.

so I got tired of that, took three army fulls of vikings and sent them on Italian peninsula, sacking everything on the way.

having destroyed Venice, I was excommunicated and kept pushing on toward the Rome. I reached Rome with half force and attacked Pope (it's an actual unit with some escort). he summoned a huge force from Rome and kicked my ass. They mostly had quite powerful heavy infantry units and swiss pikemen that took care of my husclar cavalry easy. so learning from my mistake I built up a full norse axemen army, grabbed my best two generals and sent them to sack rome and kill the new pope (he got reelected next turn and was spanish again).
Rome was sacked this time and I kept killing every pope they'd bring up until there were only two cardinals left and the pope was still....spanish.

so I got pissed and took everything I had west into the iberian peninsula. it was a tough campaign and I had my best generals burned on a stake (inquisition), assassinated and two of my kings perished, but eventually I sacked their every city and some of those sacked decided to stay with me with little or no army support needed.
so that sure added to my profits. by then I think I had about 40 provinces and about 4 full armies itching for more.
then comes a mongolian diplomat asking for peace and demanding an outrageous sum of 100k in return. that was the last I heard of mongolia. well not really, they kept asking for peace as I was advancing through egypt and sacking their cities, but i obviously didn't care, my goal was Jerusalem and Antioch.

it's also interesting that as soon as I sacked their cities, they would obviously not join for religous reasons, sothey all turned very rebellious and belonged to no one at all. so in a sense it was sort of a liberation mission.

by the time I reached antioch, my armies were almost completely gone mostly due to 9 star generals that mongols had from the beginning, but also due to their annoying skirmishing tactics. they work well on slow vikings and i didn't bring enough mounted husclars to take care of them. so I thought my campaign failed until I checked the merc units that were for sale in asia minor...and I boughtthe most powerful units in the game. four heavy cavalry units (kwazimirians I think) and two elephant cannons.

now having cavalry would be enough, but these elphant cannons were something different.

imagine having heavy elephants from rtw that can shoot as far as half the screen and kill people with explosive barrage. now that's something you don't mess with. so long story short, those two mammoths stomped their way through two hordes of mongols and reached antioch taking it with minimal losses.

then came the black death...
which is an event that kills off 1/3 of your population/soldiers and generals and causes a general havoc on anyone still trying to fight. so I had to stop and hope the aztec event would trigger, but nothing yet. and sincethere's no actual power threatening my empire anymore, I feel compelled to quit.

now as politics go, it's interesting how easy you get betrayed in the game. I had the warmest relationship with Russia, yet when I accidentally take my unit too close to their border, they eliminate my fleet, blockade my ports and take two of my cities.
whereas Milan which only had one major city left, kept *protecting* one of my cities from the spanish, but as soon as I went ahead conquering the spain, they attacked that same city and took it for themselves...bastards...

the only country that had not betrayed me was the Scots, but that was probably I never gave them a chance

McDoogle

11-28-2006, 04:12

You can't destroy the papcy...even if u take rome, they beg another christian kingdom to take them in...so th only way i can see would be to destroy every christian kingdom and then they have no where to go...but it would take too long, so personally i just put up with him, if i am to go to war, i make a big army, march in tak what i want in two turns and then defend till im told to back off. works :P, and just make sure u build churchs all the itme it willhelp u get back with the pope...n build heaps of piests cause if u do more of em will become cardinals, and then u will have control of the church...

my only problem is with all these bloody rebel armies appearing in my provinces, i have to keep a army at home to deal with them all, however im ainly just chase em into germany and then sit my army at the border so they cant be chased back.let them lose men

AlphaDelta1

11-28-2006, 12:52

I'm on turn 237 of the Danish campaign. I've taken all of northern France, England, Scandinavia, Germany, Poland and Austria. Well on the way to victory right? Nope..Mongols, mongols, mongols...They've been sieging my eastern settlements for atleast 40 turns..I've defeated more than 20 full stacks of Mongols while defending my settlements. I've yet to face them in the open, I'm pretty sure they'll wipe the floor with any army I send out.

Do they stop coming at some point? I've already failed the campaign. :oops:

lalartu

11-29-2006, 00:30

they stop coming after about 3 waves of 6 or so stacks.

but then timurids come and timurids are a true pain in the ass. think mongols with some really heavy ass units along with big attitude problems.

I'd advice to just keep to western europe and take england/spain so that you can pretend to have won the long campaign game hehe.

ps there's also always carribeans/south america

Skott

12-02-2006, 02:28

Well, after having played a English short campaign to familiarize myself with the game and its working mechanics, not to metion to open up the other nations, I started a Danish short campaign today. Settings are M/H. I started out by sending out two armies to the south and East. I sent my faction leader to Hamburg and my faction heir to Stettin. Instead of rushing in I laid siege to each. Takes longer but I figured it I was less likely to lose troops this way. Which I was right. Hamburg took 5 turns but at the end it folded without a fight. Stettin took 3 turns but they sallied forth. Luckily my mercenary archers whittled them down as my line held them in check. I swung my leader's unit in around behind them and forced them to flee back into Stettin. Which then I followed them in and let the archers whittle them down to the last man.

With Hamburg and Stettin secured I sent out diplomats and spies to uncover the lands and set up trade agreements. Magdeburg was taken by the Poles before I could get to it so I didnt proceed to move south or east since there wasnt anything left to me to take. The HRE and the Poles already got everything that was unclaimed. I then moved onto Stokholm. After capturing it I held my one army there to regroup and resupply.

I managed to bribe a general in Denmark and got some good troops along with him. I figured I'd send him to Oslo to capture it but at the last moment I trained more troops and put him on ship and sent it west. During my exploration of the continent I uncovered Antwerp and Bruges(Brussels? the rebel town just due west of Antwerp). During my earlier expansion and build up I noticed the HRE attacked Antwerp once but was repulsed. I kept a spy in the area to keep a watch on things and when I got a army together to take Oslo I noticed Antwerp had been left alone since the HRE's first attempt to take it. Well, I figure Oslo can wait and sent my army west by ship to take it if possible. Its a gamble but if I can get Antwerp it'll be a good cash cow for my growing empire. If I do it correctly maybe I can get Bruges too before the English or French take it. That would definetely be a coup for my Danes.

I'm on turn 22 and I have Hamburg, Stettin, and Stokholm under my banner. My shipboard army is halfway to Antwerp. I have all of Europe, Moorish Africa, and Turkey revealed on the map and trade relations with everyone except Scotland, Turks, and the Egyptians. The only alliance I have is with the HRE. I figured since they were my predertimed enemy that has to be wiped out I felt they'd be my biggest problem so I allied with them early to keep them off my front door and give me time to build up. As soon as my Stokholm army rebuilds I'll take Oslo and secure my final back door. After that I'll just build up my economy and take what scattered rebel towns are left and go any crusdes that might start up. I'll also watch for the HRE to lose favor with the pope. Hopefully they'll get excommunicated at some point and I can dart in and do a land grab.

All the Catholic nations are on good terms with the pope so I just need to build up and bide my time. Hopefully I can get my victory conditions done before the Mongols show up. :yes:

Addendum:

Well, after another session I continued my build up. I did capture Antwerp without a fight and then quick marched on Bruges and took it as well. All seemed well. I made another alliance with the Poles figuring we can all be nice nice together and and at first it was. I built up for a while and then the English decided they wanted war. Mostly it was a sea war at first. At the same time the Pope calls for the first crusade. I got two good half stacks of men in Antwerp and Bruges each so I figure I'll answer the Pope's call. This is where everything starts to go bad.

I didnt want to cross overland through other's territories. I missed the crusades in my English campaign so I didnt know what to expect. I was afraid an army marching through their lands would start wars. I skimmed the manual real quick and I didnt see anything about it. So I elected to go by sea. Apparently this was a big mistake. I took my Faction Leader and his nice full stack army and put them on my best ships. Oh, what a grande fleet of six boats it was too. I figure no one would touch them. The admiral had two stars. On the second turn I was going through the English Channel and desertion started. WTF? They start deserting on the second turn? Then they kept deserting each turn. By the time I entered the Medditerranean Sea I had lost half my beautiful crusader army. Where did they go to out at sea? Jump overboard and drown? About the time I passed Malta my King ups and dies! Just off southern Greece I run into a Egyptian fleet twice the size of mine and none too happy. They hold Antioch so I'm at war with them. They decimate my fleet. Whats left of my crusader army deserts. They preferred drowning I guess to landing somewhere. A few of my ships and the admiral make a wild run back west towards Sicily but The Egyptians chased my fleet down and destroyed what few ships I had left. So ended my grand fleet. ::sniff::

Okay, at this point I said screw the Crusade. Isnt worth the effort or price. I got a mission to blockade the English town of Caen. this works well for me. England and Denmark are at war. I'll take the town and get some freebie men or money for the mission and take the town. I build up a quick decent army and go by boat. I get almost there and then Poland and The HRE both declare war on me. WTF? This isnt good. I decide to forgo the mission and get that army back to Hamburg and Stettin ASAP. The English can wait. I still got good garrisons at Antwerp and Bruges and no English armies in that area. Turns out Poland just marches around killing rebel troops in my lands and The HRE just sits and builds up at Frankfurt. Cool deal. I can go on the offensive and grab HRE lands which i need anyway as a victory condition. Grab some polish territory too.

The Pope dies. An election is called. Turns out my Cardinal is in a tie with another guy for Pontif. I have maintained a good relation with the Vatican. I decided I wanted to experience what its like to have my Cardinal in the big chair so I buy the votes of two other cardinals. Cost me all the money I had to do it too but I won the Pontif seat and my Cardinal was elected Pope. Now I figure I can use this to my advantage somehow (still trying to figure out how). Then the English finally decide to wage war on land and attacks Bruges. Its a big full stack army too. I'm tied up marching on Frankfurt and Magdeburg to come help them. After a long assaulting battle my forces at Bruges wins but barely. The next turn the English attacks again with a half stack army. I send all I can afford to from Antwerp to help break the siege. I manage to rout the English in open fighting near the town. I move whats left of my forces into Bruges hoping I can rebuild their units they are so decimated. No luck. On the next turn a full stack of English troops show up and lay siege to Bruges. Now I know all is lost. During this time I have taken Magdeburg from the Poles. I'm at Frankfurt's gates and laying siege. It has a full force inside too so I cant break away in time to save Bruges.

The next turn I expected the English to pour into Bruges but they pull off somewhere I cant see. WTF? Hooray! Turns out France got excommunicated so the English went south after them. At least thats where I think they went. I cant see because I have no spies in the area to check. Throwing everything I have sieging Frankfurt I assault the place and win! The following turn I make peace with the Poles. Also the crusade ends. Things looking good finally.

Several more turns later and I'm rebuilding my depleted armies and preparing to march south and take more HRE territories. Things are looking up finally. I'm around turn 66 I think and if I can just hold the English at bay I can concentrate on wiping on The HRE since they refuse to a ceasefire. My merchants and assassins are getting their butts kicked. My merchants lose to other merchants all the time and so far not a single assassin of mine has managed to score a kill. I'm really ticked about this. RTW was never this bad with its assassins. Best chance I can get with my assassins is 33%. Most chances are 16%. They just dont have the right stuff to kill anything and I been trying them against every kind of target I can think of. They die each and every time. I dont know if its just my bad luck or what. When I played the English faction their merchants and assassins performed better. Maybe Danes are lousy spies and merchants in this game? Doesnt make sense to me.

To be continued...

McDoogle

12-11-2006, 01:18

Why are all of you so worried about Mongols!?:dizzy2:

Every mogol army that has come my way runs home with their tail between their legs. All you have to do is focus on their general and send more then one unit at a time at thiers at a time. once u rout a few of their units the army crumbles. personally i dnt mind that when its an enemy, but i hate it with my own troops.

BNut mongols are easy to hunt down. they are only painful because they have huge armies. so keep two on your border ready for them because after a few defeats they will decide its easier to go someowhere else for awhile. So create ur armies and hunt down their family members and send every unit at them in battle and dnt let him get away. i destroyed then mongols when they kept trying to sneak in to my western povinces.

McDoogle

12-13-2006, 07:20

Ok i take it back!

I wasn't in jerusalem last time witht he mongols! They just didnt stoped i killed over 17000 of them over 6 turns! and lost thousand myself...i fought them so savagely that they went north and conqouered modern turkey and they are begingint to back off, and just as i organised to fight them again and had tken four of their now weakened settlements, the Timmuirds show up...man the mongols got nothing on this lot!

four large armies of fedual knights and knights hospitlaer arent able to defeat a single army of theirs... i am trying to push them north towards the mongols and i did push 6 of their armies. then another four arrived in the south and they turned and hooked up...my 6 full stacks dnt stand a chance against their 10!

IM gonna have to give up several cities just to be able to weaken em enough..

prob give up the holy lands and come back with a larger army and destroy them once they lose their men to the mongols..

I never realized just how annoying they can be. the western pwoers are eaisly subdued, the only problem with them is not their armies but their cities etc are difficult to get them to submitt. the eastern armies are far more difficult. Well in my opionion...

altho in my current game for one reason or another several factions are dead not by being conquered but most of their family died...the french died by turn 20..that was a huge shock and i had one of their princesses in my family...i didnt not feel like fighting for their lands...i was focused on the holy lands...

btw does anyone know how to help stop ur armies constantly turning rebels and having to track the CUTE FLUFFY BUNNIES down.

I always have a few armies of fedual knights about to help defend myself and they keep turning to triator, i mean i can destroy them its just like so many turns of building and then...i have to kill the KIKKOMAN SOY SAUCE..

McDoogle

12-18-2006, 03:36

Ha ha fine.

But with that i didnt work, i conquered all of England scandinavia and Germany and half of poland with the same king, only him. he had i think 5 or 6 authortiy points and still was losing armies.

I took England because they got an english pope and they then went to war with me and i couldnt fight back without the threats and none of my priests which i had over 30 of were not getting promoted to cardinals. So i destoryed the English, and thent he french and the germans. so lets see what happens

buzzard

12-19-2006, 03:57

I'm a veteran SHO/MTW/RTW player and have just got MTW2.

the danes are a fave of mine from MTW and in m2 look pretty good early on (like before).

I'm still early on in my game (most advanced unit i have is the dragon boat), but the key to winning with these guys is to expand early and to keep the HRE happy and your friend. Unmarried pinces and princesses come in handy here. make some diplomats and get them busy selling alliances and trade rights.

make taking hamburg, oslo, stockholm and stettin a priority. make a push for antwerp and bruge if possible as well. all these are decent moneymakers and will serve a good springboard for an attack when someone breaks an alliance.

I am building up forces, waiting for someone to break an alliance, to do this, i plan to leave a city lightly defended to suck in a army to try it on. considering doing this with bruge, as it has antwerp not far, as this will be where the relief force will come from and i have france and england sniffing around.

the early danish troops are great. norse archers are excellent (not bad in melee) and the unmounted carles are great and relatively cheap for the punch the give. a few lots of these making a charge have made mincemeat out of anything they have faced.

Snoil The Mighty

01-02-2007, 00:51

Running an Early Danish Crusade-

Didn't see this mentioned earlier, so I'll pipe up I guess. Running my first Danish campaign and unlike the other northern Europe factiions, they have a pretty good angle on crusades even in the beginning. Stay north and work straight eastwards until you get past the eastern edge of that horrific fubar of a traffic jam that encompasses northern Italy and south-central Europe. Keep that over-travelled area south of you, dont get stuck in it or there go all your soldiers, usually sooner than later but it WILL happen barring amazing luck the likes of which never visit me. Now you can work your way south, and with an advance spy (though I caught up and passed him eventually, the spy was a great boon working the route out) you will be able to move with full crusader-speed to the sea with no hassle, and hit the sea to grab some merc galleys west of Constantinople, which is a traffic jam in and of itself that you also want to avoid. That first crusade is usually called by the Pope and will be Antioch or Jerusalem. I had so many Council missions I could not get my Dips to see the Pope and ally in time to call the mark and he called Antioch. Once I was in the boats, loaded with crusader fanatics and a big wooden cross on wheels which was kinda cool, it was 2 turns to land and there was not a single other faction in sight. Never lost a single unit to desertion, or even had a whiff of such an issue, never got hung up by cities or troops of other factions, and my forward lookout spy is creeping through Asia Minor gathering very valuable intelligence and should be in to help with the unrest in a couple turns. Next time I'll try to get some priests to send ahead but as the Danes it's hard to get many within 18 turns (I had 3-4 perhaps) and they were busy instilling faith in the homelands to keep Pagan Magician groupies from hanging out with my generals. A fianl caveat, having a priest travel with is nice if you can get to your boats quickly. If not, they slow you down drastically on land making those fanatics get restless much easier if you make a misstep. So I opted to build a church in town and produce local priests.

Krackin

01-09-2007, 00:38

I took a different take on the danes then most seem to have. Early game is about the same i suposs, take Hamburg and the 2 settlements to the north. But then i desided instead of heading into Europower-central, i would hit our good friends the Russians. For this i used lots of mercs but sacking towns was enough to keep the money flowing for now. By round 20 the russieans were no more and i had Lots of reble towns to take. Also sense noone was catholic my priest got tons of piety teaching them the right and true church(well, other then the few oddballs who got a -4 modifier for some reason)

Around round 25(as i was taking reble towns in asia) the French went and got excommunicated. Being best buds with the pope and all, i called a crusade on toulouse. I did this because it ment more french towns on the way. Also, sense the crusader units are so cheap to buy i had 2 armies to crush them.

Right after taht Poland attacked me. So i took yet another crusader army and attacked them back, making a genral line for franch.

By round 40 fFrance was done. (2 factions in 40 rounds WOOT! :smash: ) The pope was alil unhappy with me attacking Poland(i was down to about 4 from max by this point, almost got excomunicated myself) And ofcorse he have me the no attack law. But lucky for me(and very unluck for them) he excomunicated Poland and trust telling me i can attack again, which i did. Round 50 and Poland is no more.

As it stands now, I have the Europowers surounded working my way back in to the pope's good graces. Back up to normal(3 from max) now and looking forward to HRE's soon excomunication. I ahve 24 (maybe 25) settlements. 3 large armys (i'm trading out the high upkeep crusaders for cheaper units now) and just waiting for a crusade.

Krackin

01-09-2007, 15:01

Sorry about the grammer in above post. Also i'm on H/H.

One last note, sense crusader units tend not to like killing other catholics i autocal battle with them. This seems to nullifie that.

By the way, has anyone noticed that holding toulious (sp?) andthe castle just north of it gives you free reign to kill off the Moors, Spain and Portigal(i know i spelled that wrong) whenever you want because they will be to weak to do anything from fighting eachother?

eire1130

01-27-2007, 03:21

The following is a black sea expansion plan / story:

In TW:M1 Denmark was my faction of choice, though I'm not sure why. I beat the game on England and then moved on to Denmark in this newest edition and here is how I did it.

My initial strategy revolved around good relations with the pope and a solid sea based trading empire. I also wanted a more historical expansion, so I chose to expand towards the black sea. After the Danes were removed from the Dane law, they expanded towards Siberia, indeed up until recently there were sizable portions of The Ukraine that spoke an old form of Swedish. I did the standard mercany hiring and made way towards Bruges with one Army and secured the north country with the other. I also grabbed Stettin. I then progressed into a short build period before being attacked by the poles. Once they were ex-com'd I I expanded towards their countries, keeping the Venetians and Hungarians as Allies. The Russians attacked as always and I took this opportunity to take Riga and later, finland and novogrod. I finished up the poles by taking Iasi. Expanding in this direction can be dangerous if the Mongols decide to go north, and they entered Sarkel, declared war on Russia and I knew they would be on me.

Since I didn't think the Russians could hold the northern fortress, I decided to take Vilnius. This gave me a line of three Fortresses all the way to the black sea, which held off the Mongols... although barely. I started to run into money problems.

In the mean time, I was financing my endeveurs through the taking of and sacking of german cities. This worked fine until I ran out of german cities to take.

Around this time I held Tunis, due to a crusade, which was helpful in instigating the Sicilians. They were perma exiled the entire game, after this point, giving me more financing options and expansion opportunities, which I didn't take many of.

When the plague hit I started to lose 20K / turn. Though, I only went red for two turns, I believe. Towards the end of the plague a crusade was called on Constantinople, around this time the Timurads invaded as well. The Hungarians held this space. I Expanded back west from Iasi and took out the Hungarians in three consecutive moves. They went from ally and five provinces to eliminated.

Fending off the Timurids proved to be the most difficult thing of all. I was playing a bugfixer mod (med2 lite) and as such, once my tower canons were upgraded, they too weren't so bad.

A crusade was called on Jereuselem (sp). I took this opportunity to take three provinces in the holy lands (the two just north of the Jer). The Venetians backstabbed me, the last three provinces I didn't own in central Europe and I finished the game with four or so turns remaining.

I ignored the new world.

This could have probably been done faster or more efficiently, though the big problem for me was fighting the stack after stack after stack of Mongols and then timurids. It turned out to be a giant garrisoning money sink, which I would have rather spent on the better money making provinces to the west, but such is life.

I play Hard/Hard

oz_wwjd

03-07-2007, 14:23

The Denmark Infantry good but not that good.In my recent campaign as the english,massed retinue longbowmen mowed most of them down before they got a chance to be a threat,and my armoured swordsmen and General's bodyguard units finished what was left of them.

RoadKill

03-11-2007, 04:52

Moah

03-11-2007, 09:49

I need a little help with Denamrk, which I have just started today we are in year 1119 and i have 8regions of Vilnius, Riga, Oslo, Hamburg, Stettin, Stockholm, Magdeburg, and Arhus. Big problem is all nearby rebel settelments have been taking and I'm basiclly compltly bourdered by russia, poland, HRE, and France. So I am compltly stuck no gaps to go through, no where to go, no where to expand, and I dont think starting a war with any of these factions are good ideas, please help me :help: Thank you

8 Regions is a not bad starting point...Build up your economy and your military and then...

1) Do nothing. One of them will declare war on you soon enough.

2) Do nothing. One of them will declare war on one of the others. Then ally with one side and both of you attack the unlucky blighter in the middle.

3) Try and ally with 1 (or more) of them. Then either attack or provoke the other(s) into war. Careful of the Pope though - if he prefers the other side you may get warnings of excommunication.

4) Ally with the pope. Send a diplomat. Give him 200fl tribute for 100 turns or something. Your rating will go higher, then ally. Now...wait for someone to get excommunicated. Then declare a crusade on them or just attack. You won't lose any standing with the pope because they're heretics and the others may just help you even if not allied.

5) Just attack Poland. They're going to come for Vilnius anyway.

6) Just attack HRE. They're going to come for Hamburg anyway.

etc....

RoadKill

03-11-2007, 14:45

Thank you for your advice Moah, I think I'm gonna go with number 2, sounds the best for me :bow:

Moah

03-11-2007, 16:13

Good luck but just remember...

As a Catholic faction it's always worth allying with the pope anyway.

Trust me on this...

sapi

03-12-2007, 13:32

Agreed.

As a catholic, you have two choices with regards to teh papacy.

1) Ally with and bribe it - the pope will love you

2) Ignore it - the pope will hate you, will wave papers in your face, and will be dead in a few turns (*insert comment about the UN here*)

I usually go for no1, but no2 is the only way to advance with some factions, such as the HRE

PuppetMaster

05-07-2007, 02:13

OKAY so I have played as Denmark on H/H and I love those crazy Norse scoundrels. Awesome troops, awesomely spelled names; pretty solid all around.

Not much to really say, but all you have to do is establish trade rights with all the northern kingdoms, take the Black Sea territories, and get ready to kill some Germans (and lots of them at that). Pump out norse swordsmen and feudal knights from hamburg, frankfurt, and magdeberg (which you should have taken the initiative on and taken already) and reign death onto the German territories to the south. From there, the choice is yours on whether to trounce the Polish (if you're not fighting them already) or abolish the Frenchies. I say Poles, but that likens an encounter with the Mongols, but whatever Danish armies can take Mongol armies to town assuming you use a good amount of norse war clerics/knights, you upgrade your troops, and you take out the 10 star general............lol

Abokasee

05-12-2007, 12:44

Taking york in england when it's still a rebel city, can really change the campain for the better, also I find that getting exocuminacated as denmark, isn't so bad, apart from the Holy roman empire which you will have to fight off (They tend to build mass armys of peseant soldeirs which are easy work for your brave viking boys) Viking warriors are very good, along with norse archers, huscarls and norse swordsmen, these are good all round (In fact sometimes building large armys of norse archers, can be very affective because they are good in melee and ranged combat)

King of Finland

06-14-2007, 21:46

take the Black Sea territories

Do you mean the Baltic Sea? Black Sea is near Turkey

rebel8303

06-19-2007, 05:17

I played Denmark this way:

I rushed started by sending an army to the north taking Olso and Stocholm and another army for Hamburg and Stettin. I managed to take them all and also reach Riga and Helnsiki before the Russians did and capturing Antwerp first. So far so good. I had all the good intentions to obey the Pope as noone wants to have -20% public order in all of his cities. I was stuck between Catholics waiting for an excommunication...

But then Portugal (!) attacked me. That made no sense as Portugal was miles away but there was an army landed outside of Antwerp... I defeated that army but i had not built a fleet large enough to get the war in foreign territory. After a few turns the war was over anyway so I did not care.

I then got allied with French and Milan. Milan got excommunicated and I realised that I was sitting ducks doing nothing for many turns... And then Scotland declared war on me. It did not take long till I waged war upon the English as well and after a well I was the commander of the Baltic. And I could not use that at my advantage because I had not built enough port upgrades in my settlements and I was bankrupt... So I started building naval structure to increase trade income and to be able to support the current and even more armies.

When my fleets crossed the channel I realised that Portugal had expanded towards The western coasts of France and Ireland (So it made some sense why they attacked me earlier in the game). So as they were excommunicated I attacked them and got Dublin, Rennes, Pamblona and Anjers.

And then all hell broke loose. Poland attacked me and after a while their allies HRE attacked me as well. Here I have to mention that a cold war was waging between me and Russians on the Riga region. A great war went on till I conquered all of HRE and some Polish regions founding myself excommunicated. So one by one all the catholic nations declared war on me as Pope had called a crusade on Riga... Only France remained loyal to me but it had just 2 territories and no army at all...

I lost all the western France cities to Milan (my so called allies) and Spain but I managed to repel the invaders in Central Europe and in Riga. In Riga arrived 3 crusades, One from the Papal States, one from Spain and one from Hungary. I had fortified the city quite well so I repelled all the attacks. A fourth crusade arrived by Poland by I had allready defeated it once so it had not soldiers at all. All was nice until Russians declared war on me too... I had war with all the neighbouring nations...

Needless to say that each turn took half or full hour to play, I managed to systematically defeat all of them and arrive victoriously in Jerusalem and complete the campaign with nearly 65 regions under control

Iavorios

06-20-2007, 15:32

This is my experience from 3 campains on Vh/H whith Denmark. It will be long, so sorry if don like it. This is about the first 60- 70 turns on normal time scale.
First of all I must say that Denmark's unique army is pointless. The best way is to use armies of 5 (later on CK) FK, 5-6 DFK, 4-5 mercenary spearmen and 3-4 archers (norse, crossbowmen are merks). MTW 2 is a game whith very powerful cav. so spearmen are live savers. You can use your cav against the enemys cav. but is to expensive. It is like WW 2- tanks dont fight tanks- infantry, guns and airplanes did. The only problem of this army is than you can retrain the mercs only in Europe, but this not a big problem. Just take the 60 provinces there call crusade to Jerusalem, hire tons of crusader sergeants and win the game. As long as you stay in Europe you can fight even the mongols (whith mercs mostly). Afcourse some will ask themselves wat is the point of playing Denmark, when there is nothing unique in it? Well i dont know.
The typical denmark's units are worthless. Norse axemen lose from DFK on equal terms and Ombudsiers are even worst. The only thing that is usable is the norse swordsmen. It is slightly weaker than DFK but is cheaper, and upgrades to particial armor. It needs only drill square. O and the other god units is dismounted huskarls. They come from castle and very good early shock infantry. In fact in my game it looks like on auto resolve they are immortal. They take very small loses and kill a lot. Before turn 50 i had a stack whith 6 of them on max. exp. But using them is pointless when you have DFK.
As for the archers, I use them only to harass the horse archers and to put the enemy's siege towers on fire. So 3-4 of the norse archers are more than enough. O and the crossbows have problems whith heavy terrains, so I always tend to use things whith narrow trajectory. The militia is prity standard. The sword staff militia is god, and Norse clerics are simply perfect.
The campaign is a simply thing. I separate my forces on two parts. The king goes for Oslo and Stockholm, and the heir goes for Hamburg, Shtetin Magdeburg(if HRE doesn't beet you for it) Anverp and Bruges. Hamburg is essential. From it you can recruit huskarls and they are crucial. Anverp and Bruges have garnisons of pikemen and whiteout them it simply impossibly early on to take them. This takes less then 20 turns. After this you have few options. Going to Russia and Poland is very stupid thing to do. Eastern Europe is poor, and Poland and Russia have a lot of HA. So if go for them you will be poor, and will have to fight a lot of heavy battles. Battles are fun. Poverty is not. Not to mention than until fighting Poland you will be attacked by the HRE, and is possible to get excomed. Fighting France means fighting and HRE and excomication. So i decide to fight Scotland and England. By the time I attacked Scotland they where in war whith England. There is a big chance on of them to be chance. Even if they are not it is not a problem. By the turn 20- 25 the HRE and France may wait for you to attack them, and to crush you. But if you dont they will begin fighting whit someone else. HRE will have a lot of problems in Italy, And France will have problems EVERYWHEARE. O give them a chance to ruin themselves. By the time you have pope problems the AI's will be to busy fighting eachother. And after you sack Britain you will have enough money to fix the problem. 20 000 will do it.
When you conquer Britain you get very rich. All you have to do is build you economy and wait until France angers the pope. Pay him for crusade and create huge stacks of crusaders to crash anything. Then kill HRE. The important thing is to whatch for the pope, and to use spies. Every attack must take city whithout siege, making it impossibly for the pope to stop you.Bribe the Pope, wait the cease hostylitis misions (better force the enemy to attack you). and use every chance. When you dont expect fightings for the next couple of turns dismiss the crusader mercs. They are to expensive to maintain in peace times. After France and HRE's north go for the money in Italy. By the 40- 50 turn Milan ore Venice will be out of the catolic faith, so a crusade whith 3- 4 full stacks will do the job. When you finish the crusade, use spies and siege weapons to take take the rest out North Italy in 1-2 turns. The point is to make Venice your eastern border. Bi that time it will be a large city. Put the ballista towers, some sword staff militia, 3-4 norse clerics and a good general and this is it. After This you will be rich, whith easily defended borders and will have the chance to do whatever you want. To blitz the rest of the map, or (as I do) to develop and wait for the "World is round". And all this way before the Mongols arrive.

TeutonicKnight

06-25-2007, 20:27

Iavorios, I'm not quite sure where to begin. You are confusing me. On one hand you say the Dane specialty units are useless, but then you say they are god. I think I understand what you mean, but I'm not sure you are giving them proper application. Maybe you are facing things differently than I am.

Tactically, you approach the job the same way I do. Work your way along the coasts with only a little movement inland. The Danes major strength is in it's sea power. If you can seize the port provinces, you can really get the sea trade going. That cash flow will keep you alive when you are fighting the very tough HRE or the even harder Poles. In fact, keeping those two Empires from getting to the port provinces will severely weaken them financially.

The Danish axe units are very nice because they are armor-piercing infantry, not because they can replace footknights (which are actually tanking units - high defense, and only moderate attack). They also tend to be a little faster, so they can get to the enemy line easier and with less fatigue. A charge of Huscarls will decimate the enemy spearwall. They can go toe to toe against enemy heavy infantry as well. I love the way Huscarls look when they climb a wall and slaughter the defenders. It's even better when they charge in a mob out of a tower. :)

Norse swordsmen are pretty weak. They are really only good against unarmored units, so I don't bother with them much. While they have a higher defense than dismounted Huscarls, they have the same attack, and it's not armor piercing. If I use them, I try and put them against a spear unit or something fairly lightly armored so the swords can get through. Otherwise, I'm all about the axes.

Norse Archers are great because they are decent second-line infantry as well as archers. Though I hardly ever use them as infantry on offense, I have no qualms about using them as wall defenders. They serve admirably with the inherent defense bonus.

For militia, the Danes get the same units as most Northern Europeans, but instead of pikes, they get Swordstaff Militia. Excellent defenders, and I'd say they are on par with the best pikes. Naturally armored, and decent morale, with a spearwall. These will hold a breach rather well, even against heavy infantry (though they will need some support for that).

The Armored Clergy are an amazing cavalry. These are not the charging cavalry, these are your "get in your face and smash you down" cavalry. No major charge bonus, but a high, armor-piercing, melee attack. These are major general killers, and will have no problem cracking apart heavy infantry.

Obudshaer are the top end infantryman in Europe, in my opinion. They completely replace spearmen as your spearwall. They can kill cavalry and infantry with equal ease, and won't break if supported. They get a bonus against cavalry, are armor piercing, and can form a wall. I've never had anything get past a solid line of these units.

The main weakness I see in the Danish line is the lack of end-game units. They get decent artillery choices, and the basic Arqubusier, but that's it. No high era units. So they might be a little outclassed when fighting a heavy gunpowder army. I guess you'll just have to rely on Danish ferocity to see you through. It's worked for me so far.

I may be a little biased about the Danes, but I think if you bypass their native units you are really selling yourself short.

mbrasher1

06-25-2007, 20:45

I agree with TK, Danish units are quite good. They have decent units all around. Great swordsmen, great pike/wall units, good cav from cities and norse archers are excellent for defending cities.

Besides weak gunpowder, the only disadvantage is in fighting Mongols or eastern armies with alot of HAs. No Danish infantry unit gets long range fire, and no pavise xbow. So your guys usually get whipped trudging towards the enemy HAs.

But the Danes are alot of fun. Some of their early units are good enough to last long into the game, getting lots of gold chevrons, extending their useful life.

Iavorios

06-26-2007, 08:26

The only typical Denmark unit that is usefully is dismounted huskarl, norse war clerics and the sword staff militia. All the rest are useless. Norse archers are a little better than crossbowmen (as almost everything else). Denmark is fun and easy to play, but i there is nothing unique about them. I personally hoped for a very powerful axe to handed sword units, and some spears. Instead we got a typical catoliks whith powerful FK, DFK and CK. I expected infatry heavy armies, and i got cav heavy instead. Anoing.

TeutonicKnight

06-26-2007, 16:15

I agree, they are lacking in spears. You have to use city Spear Militia for a long, long time. Those are weak in the mid game, and tend to die fast. Armor upgrades only helps them so much.

There is a two-handed axeman. That is the Norse Axeman. 17 attack, armor-piercing of course. These guys are wicked evil in a flank attack.

Later on, you are correct in that many ways you are relegated to using stock Catholic faction units. But I still prefer keeping Axemen and Huscarls around. There are more opportunities for their axes to do a lot of damage as the level of armor goes up, and it's just awesome to watch seige towers dropping a horde of screaming viking axe-wielding maniacs on a wall.

rebel8303

07-03-2007, 15:01

I found Obudshaer quite useful for killing General units and defending my self in castles. They are something better than swordstuff militia which I think is one of the best units you can have to defend a city. You can't say they are useless. Obudshaers also hold the line against DFK long enough until my cavalry surrounded them after killing 2 generals some siege engines and many archer units

Mangudai

08-01-2007, 04:49

I'm curious that only Ivaros mentioned Russia. Most of Russia is poor, but Novogrod and Riga generate really good cash. I would rank Riga as a higher priority than Oslo. Oslo will wait, nobody else is going for it. Hamburg, Stolkholm, Antwerp, Stettin, then Riga.

I would ally with the Poles first. The Poles are interested in Riga, but if they already have a marriage alliance with you they leave you alone.

Taking Novogrod early will cripple Russia and it will not hurt your relations with the Pope. Novogrod generates lots of trade income. I would not expand into Russia beyond Novogrod because its too poor and you have the wrong kind of units for that environment. Just hold Novogrod.

Eventually it is worthwhile to take Helsinki. It trades with all the other baltic provinces and makes some money. The key to owning Helsinki turn it into a small town with very high taxes, build basic port/trade buildings and nothing else ever! If bandits show up, leave them be. Be a cheapskate landlord.

I will concede that blitzing the British Isles is a stronger strategy with greater economic returns. But... if you've already played an English campaign, maybe a Scottish campaign, maybe a French campaign where you grabbed the British Isles... do you really want to play another British campaign this time with Danish units??? Poverty isn't fun, but neither is a campaign that is so easy it's not even a challenge.:dizzy2:

Iavorios

08-02-2007, 13:24

First of all sorry for the spelling in the last posts. I have no idea what happened, i use spell check every time.
Enyway, i thing that fighting Russia early on is not a god idea. This means fighting not only them, but Poland and Hungary as well, as soon as you take western and southern part of the country. Both are HA heavy, so it is really painful. And as i said it- it's not whorth it.
There is something i don't get. Many people use two handed units, despite the fact they are weaker and harder to get than the DFK. I mean DFK will always perform better than the norse axemen, or the obmbudsier. I don't like it, but it's a fact, unless you mode your game. Just test them on hard difficulty on custom battle. The dismounted huskarls are good, cheap and easy to get, but are weaker. So the only reason to use norse axemen and obmbudsier is to feal more unique game and pure fun, or make the game harder. In both cases you have my respect:shame: .

PuppetMaster

08-05-2007, 20:24

I know what you're saying about Obudashers, it does seem like they are relatively weak in combat against say billmen, armored swordmen, etc., so I try to use maybe 2 or 3 battalions of them MAX in an army, just to mix things up a little and defend the flanks.

However, Norse Axemen have proven to be a menace against enemy troops of all types and have taken minimal losses in combat, so idk whatever. I'm playing on VH/H, so its not like its on easy or medium.

Norse swordsman are fun to use as a heavy infantry type fodder (I know that sounds sort of like an oxymoron, but hear me out). They are powerful enough to crush most other spearmen in the game, but are not as powerful as DFK. Plus, they are cheaper than most Danish infantry if I recall, so I use them to fight and takre a majority of the losses in battle while my DFK and Norse Axemen hang back or flank, where I only use them if the battle goes against my favor. Kind of like what the roman republic did w/ triarii in battles, but my troops have huge beards and axes, lol :2thumbsup:

Mad Mac

08-07-2007, 03:34

Obudashers have proven very effective for me. The thing is, you have to turn spearwall off for fighting infantry. I've tested this with various halberd units. I'm not sure what the difference is, but I've figured out that Halberds in spearwall=dying like flies, while Halberds running around with spearwall and guard wall off=ownage. Weird but true. :inquisitive:

Ramses II CP

08-07-2007, 16:59

The trouble I have with Norse Swordsmen is they have no stamina. They're cheap, and relatively high durability, but if you need to fight two stacks or have them run some distance they get tired quickly, and then they break or get torn up in the fight.

Don't get me wrong, I still find them useful, I just hate to have any part of my army break just because they got tired.

Aemilianus the Younger

09-03-2007, 19:13

I was dealing with the mongols down in jerusalem and they finally got defeated. i ended up allying with the turks.dont ask me how and why, the mongols were going to wipe us both out.
but anyways, after the mongols were destroyed, the very next turn the timurids show up near baghdad and whatnot,
my question is: is it ever possible for the mongols and the timurids to be on the map at the same time?
it seems that every time the mongols are defeated, the timurids show up like the next turn or atleast within five or so.
is this a feature or a bug? or is it just a coincidence?

Autumn

09-27-2007, 14:10

The Danes, like Sicily, are a very replayable faction, mainly due to there “peninsula” starting locations offering protection as well as military launch pads, and a wealth of different opponents to take on (including non-Catholics).

Starting out I usually make the same opening moves; make the Faction Leader (Knud) and Heir (Charles) into roughly equal armies (leaving the peasants behind as a garrison in Arhus) and take Hamburg, Stettin and (controversially…) Madleburg. I know some question Madleburgs worth, having no access to a port, and there being an initial need for income, but I’ve found that keeping it, and Hamburg, as Castles provides a formidable barrier for your capital and northern provinces.

Taking Antwerp and Burges should be the next priority. Personally I find these two to be uncomfortably positioned; 2 turns march from Hamburg and pressed between England and France make them vulnerable to attack, but their money spinning abilities can’t be denied.

After that I take Stockholm and Oslo, having both as cities to make a good economy when they “come of age”.

Try and get alliances with both Poland and HRE. If you’re lucky you can get a marriage alliance with both, giving you a lot of room to breathe (at least for a while). Poland usually goes to war with Russia if you stay friendly with them, taking the attention away from their western borders.

Although it’s been said taking the British Isles is a boring strategy, it usually makes two things happen.

First, it makes France attack Caen and whatever regions they still own on the mainland (usually Rennes and Burges, if you weren’t quick enough to get it yourself). What follows is akin to the Hundred Years War; a grinding battle of attrition which drains them both of coffers. To make things a bit more interesting, try giving the underdog (usually the Brits) regular tribute, Military Access and large Single Payments when you’ve got some cash spare. This keeps the conflict going without dragging yourself into it physically or politically. The Pope may excommunicate one of the two, so make sure you’ve got a force in Burges ready to strike their Gold chevron peasants, maybe even crusading into the conflict. There’s something satisfying about the Pope patting you on the back for ending a war you started and kept going…

Secondly, whilst all this insanity is occurring in the west, you can be safely expanding east into Russia, or, if HRE gets excommunicated, spreading south towards the Alps, all without disturbing your allies or the Papacy.

The Danish roster is quite resfreshing; lots of anti-armour infantry with reasonable spear and archers. They are let down by a lack of top-end cavalry, which can be countered by getting some crusades under your belt and some Templar HQ's. As has already been noted, their tech tree tends to give out before the late period, meaning your star will be rising highest before the advent of gun powder. It's not a serious problem, and can even make for some exciting battles and interesting campaigns (Portugal storming out of Iberia with Muskets being a particularly suprising one).

Well, I hope you've all enjoyed my rambling first post! :laugh4:

Peter

TKaz84

09-28-2007, 00:17

Why expand eastward? Sure with Poland as allies your back is covered, but there are several major disadvantages:

1) Russian provinces are dirt-poor.

2) Russia's cavalry is excellent, and yours isn't.

3) The provinces themselves are huge, which will make traversing them with mainly-infantry armies a daunting task.

4) Mongols.

I would much rather wait for either the Poles or the HRE to be excommunicated, preferably the HRE, since again I want to avoid dealing with eastern cavalry. Sailing over to Inverness before the Scots take it is also a good idea.

Autumn

10-08-2007, 09:14

Sure, Russian cavalry is better. Scottish spears are better. English bows are better. Does this mean you should never attack them?

Northern Russia is laden with forests, something that will put your heavy infantry on equal standing with their cavalry. "Know your enemy and know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster".

Only Moscow and the western/southern provinces are widely dispersed. Russia’s capital and "core" provinces are all fairly bunched, meaning quick attacks will conquer that entire region. Whether you go ahead and take the rest of their lands or not hardly matters then; they will be so economically crippled that retaliation will take the form of "nuisance" raids.

ixidor

10-09-2007, 19:37

I agree with TKaz84, why take Russia? I prefer to ally with Poland and keep the frontier cities with a big garrison (to avoid stupid AI attacks that would break the alliance). Better, mary your princess with the polish heir. Why all this? Because this way you can target:

1) England and Scotland. By conquering the british islands and Scandinavia you will ensure a very profitable trade region
2) HRE. By going south you will soon reach the wealthy cities from Italy
3) Both of them

Then, after destroying HRE, England and Scotland you can take France and Italy too.

Autumn, the Danes' worst foe is arguably a strong cavalry nation. By going east you will have to face 2 of the most powerful cavalry nations of the game (Poland, Russia) AND the always terryfing mongols. And sure, after several, several turns your easth territories will turn to profitable settlements, but why to do that when you have more profitable ones closer to you? And as it was very well mentioned, infantry armies suck to travel in the large Russian territories.

SeekerDK

10-10-2007, 16:51

Hi Guys.

This is my first post, but when i started a M/H Danish campaign (pre: 2x M/M with England and HRE respectively, non completed) and found this thread, I thought I would make it here (and being a Dane my self, of cause helps on that aspect <- yeah, that a language warning). I'm still in the "beginning", but so far it has been a BLAST.

After my hugely unsatisfying english and HRE campaign (bored with being a godlike superpower) i decided to up the ante and go for the harder battles and hacked my way to an early start with Denmark (I hate fighting on my heels, but Medium battle setting was simply ridicules). Very good choice, TBS part also got a bit harder in terms of more units, bigger stacks and thus bigger need for units, upgrades and retrains. Much more satisfying :)

Went heavy on the German rebels and got most of the settlements before the AI and settled in and looking for the rest of Scandinavia. Maann, Stockholm and Oslo was disappointing, hard fights and little spoils, no building and low pop's. Converted Oslo to town as soon as I got it and my only castle was Hamburg (IMHO, unless waging wars on multiple fronts or having a huge and stretched empire, one castle producing 3 units EVERY turn is far enough to cover most needs). Ally with Poland (seems to hold), the princess move for some Italian trade and Tributes and 2 diplomats going east (south east) and West.

Ok, so far so good. No enemies yet and a fair income and territory. HRE attacks, suckers :) I take their capital, whats-its-name, in a few turns, having my main/only unit producer located almost on top of them and pumping out scouts, dis. huscarls and the hugely overpowered Norse Archers (more on them in a later post). And luck shines again, they get Ex-commed and their free game. I take some roaming units and another city (forget city names, sorry*) and HRE should be on their heels now, but nooo, they just keep coming, not that they prove a real problem thou (but makes the game more enjoyable).

After some pope pumping (and unit building) I finally get him to call a crusade on the new HRE capitol (right next to Venice) and I take my 2 best family members and a roughly 25 units and join (2 groups). I fill up with cheap crusade mercs spears and horses (now 2 generals + 34 units). I wreak havoc on my way :) taking 3 cities from HRE in 3 turns (including crusade target - think its Nuremburg, Innsbruck and Bologna). Even thou i leave the 2 non-targets defenseless for the first turn, they weren't reclaimed and as a result I got 36 unit experience "for free", 3 citys which looks like might hold (including Innsbruck castle), popes favor and a massive army waiting in northern Italy (was thinking Milanese next, but open for suggestions).

Meanwhile, back home, my king who lurkers around in what is now Belgium, had some issues with the English, and only with a little luck and a lot of mercs, held against their first attack. Thou I fear that they are just gathering strength for a new attack. After trapping a Scottish ships exit from a bay area, they decided it was time for war and the obvious choice is now to take the whole of Great Brittan and hope the pope doesn't interfere. The alliance with Poland seems to hold thou :) And i haven't heard much from anyone else (thou I do trade with most of them)

So to sum it up for the Danes.
Hard is good
Scandinavia is bad
HRE is a walk-over
Pope is useful
Polish are friendly
Norse Archers RULE!

SeekerDK

10-10-2007, 16:54

*oh yeah.
Anyone know of a highres map of the M2TW world? I could really use the oversight.

SeekerDK

10-11-2007, 12:25

I mean DFK will always perform better than the norse axemen, or the obmbudsier. I don't like it, but it's a fact, unless you mode your game. Just test them on hard difficulty on custom battle. The dismounted huskarls are good, cheap and easy to get, but are weaker. So the only reason to use norse axemen and obmbudsier is to feal more unique game and pure fun, or make the game harder. In both cases you have my respect:shame: .

I'm sorry Iavorios, but I think you a missing a vital point.

First of all, it seems you hugely overestimate the power of the DFK. I agree that they have and incredible talent for staying alive thanks to they wooping 21 defence, but their attack is a measly 13 with no bonuses (AC / AP) and going against anything more armored then a low-end swordsman would be bad tactics unless its defensively. Their a no-brain unit if there ever was one. Thou they are good tanks (disregarding their lack of killing power), perfect meat shields and their high morals let you charge them anything and anywhere without them running away.

So you tested them in a head-on collision with some axemen? It should have been a forgone conclusion. Axemens 17AP attack is fighting DFKs 21 defense (17,5 with AP reduction), while as DFKs meager 13 attack is sufficient to take out the axemens no-shield defense of 11.
Try another custom where you have 2 DFKs vs 1 axe + 1 DFK (or even norse swordsmen). Have the swordsmen charge into battle (preferably engaging both DFKs) and the axemen flank. Since the DFK cant kill anything with more armor then a garden snail, you'll have plenty of time to position you axemen for a full speed flank charge. Bare in mind that axemens charge bonus are second to non and rarely match and they will slaughter through the DFKs like nothing else can.

Its all about tactics.

I personally hoped for a very powerful axe to handed sword units, and some spears. Instead we got a typical catoliks whith powerful FK, DFK and CK. I expected infatry heavy armies, and i got cav heavy instead.

I'm sorry, are we playing the same game? Denmark has 9 different infantry units and only 2 light (Including Viking Raiders, which in my book, can hardly be called "light"). No other faction has more then 8 infantry units and their axemen are only bested by some of the late noble swordsmen. They almost total lack of middle age spearmen are annoying at best, thou combining high attack/AP axes and high defence swordsmen makes up for some of it.

The fact that they late cav's, are par with every other faction, is a general game flaw, in that it bases most late cavs on guildhouses and general building (thus standardizing all factions to FKs, CKs and small variety of noble/religious knights). Thou and interesting note, the Norse War Clerics's AP proficiency is quite unique and actually put them at par with any other highend cav, if fighting heavy armored units and not charging.

Still working on that "Norse Archer" post :juggle2:

SeekerDK

10-17-2007, 14:04

Norse Archer thread :)
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=93479

Iavorios

10-18-2007, 11:38

SeekerDK

10-18-2007, 17:01

Ok. I dont understand why wold someone use heavy infantry for flanking when you have CK or norse war clerics, or even FK. It is possible, but not as effective. In fact in all my battles the cav does the killing. I use DFK to kill spearmen and to fight on the walls only. Using heavy cav is much more fun, more effective and way more easy. Only 4 or 6 units of heavy cav can rout and kill the enemy if it is pin down by the rest of your troops.

Using your cavs to hunt down archers makes more sens to me and cavs only really makes sens if the have enough room for a full lance charge, which is not always the case. From my perspective, Axemen and dismounted Huscarls are still very acceptable choices for flanking units.

I will love to use heavy infantry only when i am certain that they will kill the enemy easily and without constant micromanage. Like the JHI (except in 1.02 ver.)

One might dare to dream :) I agree, that it is less then optimal in multiplayer battles, where you can't pause for micromanagement and sure, it can be a hassle, but also well worth the effort.

O and for the last time- 2 handed units in this game are buged. Norse axemen should be unstoppable unit of man killing psihopats, but they are not.

Well, it was actually the first time I've read it, but I must say i suspected it and totally agree. But even thou the don't live up to their stats, it doesn't make them useless and when used correctly, they're still a darn good unit.
FollowUp: Found a fix for the 2H unit animation bug: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=74094 thou looks like it's made for 1.0 and 1.1, so not sure if it works on 1.3 (will try to find time to test).

rvg

11-28-2007, 18:25

A word about Viking Raiders: they RULE! They are cheap to recruit, they come in large numbers (112 men on large unit size) and they get 3(!) armor upgrades.
Raiders with 3 armor upgrades beat fully upgraded Dismounted Feudal Knights into bloody pulp. Raiders are great for taking and defending walls, chopping up *any* melee infantry, they are very easy to retrain and being a low level unit they gain experience like crazy? Dismounted Huscarls? Norse Axemen? Nah, Raiders get a much better bang for the buck. By the time I dismiss my raiders, I am ready to replace them with Obudshaers, Arquebusiers and Serpentines. Pre-gunpowder though, it is all about the raiders. My typical army would have 12 Raiders, 4 Norse Archers, 2 Catapults, and a couple of Generals (or a general + feudal knight/war cleric).

Sebastian Seth

01-11-2008, 18:19

I started with these:

1. Marry princess to english heir.

2. Peace with HRE and Poland as long as possible.

General 1: Hamburg -> Maddeburg -> Settin -> Brugges -> Flanders -> Caernavon -> Dublin -> Castle in north of Scottland
General 2: Oslo -> Stockholm -> Riga -> Helsinki -> Castle below Riga -> Kiev

At this point I had strong alliance with the english and option to attack russia whit out excommunication. The economics where good and I used dismounted huscarls and norse archers as core units. Im a firm believer in mercenery forces and usually at some point the original viking army has been switched to all mercenery force.

General 2: Cordoba

I had new family members at the time. One assembling force to attack novogrod in helsinki and few in Aarhus assempling force for reinforcing new russian front. And the general 2 from dumbling/caernavon was in crusading army that just took Cordoba. (Aim of the crusade was antioch but I usually take out quite a few settlements on the way.)

This is point where computer ai did some stupid moves.
- Polish sieged Riga with few units and took the castle below riga.
- French attacked Brugges and took it.
- Scottish Sieged castle in north of edinburgh.
- French attacked the english castle of Caen.

- I retaliated Riga from helsinki and attacked setting from Aarhus.
- English landed near the scottish and I used them as reinforcements to repel the scottish (happened twice).
- I turned my army in Kiev around and attacked polish castle near Krakow and after that the polish kapital Krakow.
- I send another of the new family members to attack Bruges and got it back. After that I took paris and Rhein as well. (France where going strong on english and there was very weak militia defence).
- I send the other family member from Aarhus to attack rest of the polish settlements.

By this time I was exomunicated and in war with France, Poland, Scottland and Portugal. And also had very bad relations with HRE, Spain, Milan and Venice.

I tried to reconciliate with the pope and cease fire with the natios I was in war with but me efforts was not met from the opposite site.

I had quite a few family members at that point (or actually quite little but I tend to build one stack army to every one so they where quite good military power). So I tought I eliminate the catholic factions that cause me trouble and then retry to reconciliate.

- I took out the portugese, french and polish. This lead to war with milan, HRE and spain. I avoided the conflict against spain and stayed on defence there. Against milan I attacked straight away because their army is largely based on italian militia and genoese crossbowmen. Dismounted huscarls, huscarls, norse swordsmen and norse archers are really nice force against them. This maybe because the faction leader was over 10 star general with 8 dread and the huscarles where silver/gold veterans.

I had so much family members that I could actually start war agaisnt ordodox nations. Russians where quite hard since I had to run around eastern europe conquering these small castles but I got them destroyed finaly. I attacked constantinopole from the sea right after that too.

After english king died I had control of edinburg as well. The english back attacked me right after in france and I took everything in brittain as revenge. English got caen but I got it back later on with the forces from london. Killed english in bretagne for good.

Destroyed Factions: France, Portugal, HRE, Poland, Russia, Scottland, England, Milan and Papacy(?).
In war with: Constantinopole, Spain, Hungary, Sicily, Moors, Egypt.

Theres definedly something wrong with the AI and its diplomatics. I only wanted to war against the Islamic and ordodox factions but the AI decided otherwice. Pope is stubbarn as well, when it comes to amount of christians I control and the amount of popes I killed. I should be able to choose next pupet pope.

I didnt want to go to this but they forced me by stupid attacks. None of them got excommunicated.

Paladin1965

04-26-2008, 14:12

Just finished a Dane short campaign. Money was a little tight at first, but was not a concern in later turns. Turned the northern factions (Oslo and the like) into my viking factories. Waited for the HRE to turn on me; unfortunately, the Russians and the Poles chose to do so at the same time, but was able to handle it.

locked_thread

05-06-2008, 03:40

edit

kitbogha

06-14-2008, 10:43

I was a bit bored the other day and looking through my old saves to see if anything struck me I could finish. I saw a Danes game I had forgetten all about. I can't even remember starting it. However, I loaded it and found I was on turn 102 with 15 provinces spaced between Scandinavia, Britain, Northern Europe (Caen, Antwerp, Bruges, Hamburg etc) and Jerusalem. It was one of the first campaigns I played and I have obviously picked up a few tricks (often through fellow generals on this site).
After a couple of sessions I am now at turn 123 and have 26 settlements. My expansion has been largely at the expense of Sicily and Milan, who had the bad luck to be excommunicated. Also I have taken the opportunity to take almost all the Egyptian provinces, except the one at the bottom of the map (name eludes me) and Jedda which I have an army marching on as I type. An Alliance with the Moors has strengthened my Western flank. My standing with the Pope has shot right up-it was poor at the recommencement of the campaign-due to dealing with the rogue Catholic factions and the Infidels. Due to my perfect relationship with the Holy Father I can now pick my targets. Someone is always getting themselves excommunicated and if not I can pick off Muslim factions from my Middle East bases. Jerusalem is always unruly and costly to pacify so I simply removed my garrison-after stripping it off any buildings of value and left it to rebel. I hold Gaza and Alleppo so can easily and quickly build an army to retake it if required to by the Pope.
The only fly in the ointment is my extended borders in Northern Europe and their vulnerability to attack from France and HRE, who I am allied to but knowing those sneaky continentals I can not rest easy! An excuse for war with France would be welcomed-currently as well as being my allies they have a high standing with the Pope-as it would enable me to convert a few of my castles to cities in Britain, Caen etc and reduce my garrisons along those borders in Northern Europe. Next moves? Consolidate in the Levant, prepare for war with the Moors-I must remember to spam out some priests from Egypt to smooth the way-, advance down the Italian peninsula while the Sicilians and Milan are still on bad terms with The Pope, take Ajaccio and Cagliari in preparation for war with Moors and as launching pad for attacks into Spain. Build up settlement on eastern Scandinavian coast-?Gothenburg-for forays into Russian held lands, maintain good relations with Poland and HRE for the time being.
My impressions of the faction:
1) The faction starts in a decent strategic position with expansion possible on all sides. Alliances with France and HRE can enable expansion across the English channel to North of Scotland, down to Hamburg and across to Bruges and Antwerp taking only rebel strongholds. Then the choice is yours:there's money to be made in Britain and the opportunity I missed to take on a still weak France leaving opportunities to the South and East. I also did not take advantage of the Danes seafaring reputation and launch assaults into the vastnesses of Russia-there are lots of rebel settlements in the Baltic states, which would be an excellent bridgehead both for trade and a war against the Russians.
2) The heavy infantry is the strongest side of the army. Viking raiders (as has been stated here) are a very good, cheap backbone for your army. They have high stats for attack and reasonable stats for defense. I have found much of the roster to be fairly bog standard and unadventurous. I like cavalry and artillery and enjoyed a fine win against the Sicilians just now grinding down their infantry with bombardment from a trebuchet, three bombards and four sets of ribaults then piling into them from both sides with six units of feudal knights and my Generals bodyguard-the routing sicilians were truly a beautiful sight to behold! I am using sword staff militia and norse archers as garrison troops.The troops are reliable but unadventurous.
3) For some reason other factions tend to hold their alliances with you longer than in other games I have played-when I play as England I am forever being stabbed in the back by my "allies".
4) Once you are in the Popes good books, it is easy to move forward and stay popular.

I am enjoying this campaign, even though I can't remember starting it (serious lack of sleep due to new baby the likely cause!)

TKaz84

06-21-2008, 05:56

The Danes are very good at storming castle walls-Norse Swordsmen are perfect for this role with their high attack value, large unit size and one-handed weapon. Two-handed weapons cannot be wielded effectively on castle walls. Alternatively, try using Norse Archers for this role. They are basically heavy infantry that can shoot bows too.

Cavalry will be hard to fight using the base Danish units, as they don't get any kind of spear weapon aside from Spear militia until Obudshauers/Swordstaff Militia later in the game. Mercenary Spearmen are your best bet here. Your own heavy cavalry selection is rather limited, but Norse War Clerics (trained in cities with an Abbey) and Huscarls have armor-piercing weapons, making them good choices to use against enemy heavy cavalry.

Gbone

02-22-2009, 03:44

Hey -

I'm a long time lurker.

In one campaign (the basic) I went on a destroy-Germany campaign and went south. The only problems that I had was to keep the empire together, and the choice on whether or not I wanted to kill off Milan or Venice. That choice was a bit difficult due to the Papacy frowning on me, which was ironic.

The second I focused on the coastline, namely the cities west of me, with the difficulty being Germany (since I went to Hamburg, that city SW, and the city W of Denmark) and France. I was one step away from crushing England (actually put a large army north of London) when a crusade was called for Tolouse. I got Tolouse and then Milan backstabbed me.

cambovenzi

02-22-2009, 04:06

IceWolf

05-21-2009, 14:17

I started my 2nd campaign, 1st with the Danes. Right away I took Hamburg. I intend to keep it garrisoned as my southern basiton of defense against the HRE. I tryed to marry my princess to a HRE noble but was turned down. I did secure an alliance though. Next I took Oslo, converted it to a city and toook Stockholm as well. I then turned south to Antwerp. I sent one noble and a 3/4 stack on a crusade to Jerusalem. I stopped at the isle of Nicosia to establish a base of operations there. Many of my men had deserted by now. I hired some mercs who also deserted by the time I was able to get a seige in place on the holy city.
I'm going to try to wait out the seige and hope they don't sally as I have only 6 units and no funds to hire mercs. Meanwhile I took my main army and took Inverness from the rebels then sailed south and took London. I plan to move on the rest of the Brtitish Isle settlements to better establish an economy and eliminate England and Scotland from the game. The early army I'm fighting with isn't as good as what I had with the English, I hope it gets better soon.

Lab

IceWolf

05-21-2009, 17:18

Some turns later. It's all falling apart around me. I took Jerusalem, Bruges and London but got my northern army wiped out at Nottingham. Lost 3 generals including the king. Then the HRE stabbed me in the back and took Antwerp and Bruges. Its good that I put a half stack garrison in Hamburg, it's now beaten back 3 assaults by the HRE. Meanwhile the arab savages that populate Jerusalem (10% catholic) kicked me out. To add insult to injury the scots took Inverness. My empire now consists of Oslo, Stockholm, Arturs, Hamburg, Stettin and Nicosia. I packed up a general and a 3/4 stack from Jerusalem and am transporting them back north, hopefully they wont get attacked on the way. Napoleon said that if you're faced with multiple opponents you should strike the strongest first, but even if I succeed against the HRE I'll just be going straight south into Europe and be sopurrrounded by new enemies. No I will hit the weakest-Scotland with the crusading army and a new army I'm trying to build in the homeland-money's tight though. I plan to hit Inverness and Edinburgh simultaneaously and pray I'm not outnumbered then consolidate and go south to fight the English.

Lab

Maltz

05-24-2009, 15:29

I removed the original content because I have found a much better way to start the Danish game on VH/VH. In the old version (sail straight for London, I own 3 cities at turn 18. In this version, I own 6 regions by turn 14.)

Turn 1: Sail 2 generals north with the spy and restart until the spy opens the gate. Buy a unit of crossbowmen merc just outside Oslo. Exploit the AI's dumbness to pick out the defending crossbowmen, and shoot down all the infantry. Very satisfying.

Reason: Oslo can be converted to a large town (3000 pop to start), giving 1500+ income right away.

Turn 3-5: March your 2 generals, spy, and the crossbow merc east to occupy Stockholm. This town is very small and needs a lot of turns to even grow to pop 2000 (I am currenty turn 30 and it still has a pop. of 1500, despite my low-tax benefit!).

In the meantime, build up the Brothel - Inn line in the capital and ship the assassins and spies west to the British Isles. Send another assassin to Caen.

The 2 generals and their army landed on British Isle at turn 10 or so. In my game the AI only had the England King in Nottingham - easy win and one less assassination to do. The next Turn I rushed for London, which was only defended by non-ranged units. My 3 spies there made sure the gate was open.

I declared war on England and attacked them twice. Luckily the Pope didn't give me the cease fire order.

Then I assassinated all Scotish generals. They were trying to "escape" from boat, but my longboat fleet took care of them.

Although I landed the British Isles about 4 turns later than my original game, the VH AI built up their towns significantly better for me to use (free port, mines, etc.)

With this setup I am now in turn 30 with 14 regions.
4 from Arhus - Oslo - Stockholm - Hamburg
7 from British Isles
3 from coastal France to link up with Hamburg.

Economy is great and I only have to worry about France and HRE. France has just been totally wiped out by assassins. Strangey HRE became a vassel of Vernice, but they were doing pretty well still (what the?).

shankly

11-25-2009, 00:05

I'm not at all heavily involved with any of these games, although once upon a time I spent hours with Shogun, MTW, and RTW, but at this point I'm pretty far removed from all of this and am not in touch with the new generation of Total War. However, I'm trying to put together simulations of the Battles of Maldon and Assandun (Ashingdon) as part of an overall presentation on the Danish conquest of England. To this end, I have a few questions for anybody who can help:

1. Are there existent simulations of these battles that I could download without having to go through the messy process of trying to precisely control the battlefield action myself so that it's historically accurate?
2. If not, is there a way to control both sides in a battle so that I can effectively produce these battles in a way that fits with the historical record?
3. Even though MTWII starts from 1080 on, is there a way that I could use it to recreate the battles, since the units (I'm guessing based on the improvements from RTW) look much better and would create a more interesting viewing experience for my audience?

Thanks for any help-this is for a senior-level history course on the Norse world and I'd like to be able to use this as a more interesting way of presenting my subject matter than drawing x's and o's on a chalkboard.

O'Hea

11-25-2009, 09:11

1. I can't say that I know about that.

2. If it's important to control both sides, I'd recommend setting it up as a multiplayer battle, with another person controlling the opposing army.

3. Aesthetically speaking, the early-period troops all have a very Dark Age aesthetic, and the Danes have access to suitably Viking-looking infantry, archers and cavalry. There is also a Saxon faction available in custom battles, and they'd be a good bit more accurate than the (Norman) English faction.

jack95

02-19-2010, 22:10

I had a really good campaign with the Danes. I took all of the rebel settlements around me using practically all of my starting armies and then made peace with my neighbours and built up several biggish armies with the money generated from trade and the cities i had. I then marched south and destroyed the HRE with them and carried on into Italy which practically bankrupted me becauise of all the mercanaries i had to hire but it left me with a massive strip right down the middle.
After this i made an alliance with Scotland and helped them destroy England, taking several of their settlements. Straight after this i betrayed the Scots who were quite weak from the war with the Brits. This left me in a good postion to attack France from two sides which took them out of the game pretty quickly.

I have found that the Danes have a really good economy and have some epic infantry and is probably my favourite faction.

dzidek

04-29-2010, 10:57

Denmark has the best troops for fast early expansion.
Viking Raiders are like Zerg (if someone played Starcraft :P). They destroy every infantry in early period, and fully upgraded fight better then DFK.
There is really no needfor Denmark to use any oher infantry in a field battle. I usually combine them with Norse archers for my foot soldiers regiment, supported by some cavalry i have at the moment available.
This allows to use troops in all the battles so they gain expeirence fast. And almost every castle can retrain them.
The trick with the vikings is they have AP attack and are in number of 75 compared to a normal 60 unit. So they defeat even the JHI or VHI cos they out number them greatly.
Sadly there is little use for other infantry. Huskarls are better then vikings but are only 60, Norse Swordsmen ar just like Norse archers so no need for them. I use swordstaff militia in towns, but thats it.
If i face a cav heavy opponent i take them to the woods where the vikings shine even more.
If i have to fight in the open i just use some Swordstaff militia or some Obudashers instead of some vikings and norse archers.

Normal army: 6-8 viking raiders, 4-6 norse archers, rest flanking troops (cav or 2h axe)
Open field cav battle: 4 viking raiders, 4 norse archers, 6 obudasher, rest flanking cav

Myth

12-13-2010, 13:05

VH/VH huge unit stacks (dzidek you are playing on small?)

I like the Danes, just tried them out yesterday. I love difficult starts with one city. The main disadvantage of the HRE for me is that you get so many family members and cities that it feels more like early midgame than true early game. Anyway here are some things I did well and some I messed up on my first try:

1. Expansion - Get all your units in the heir, go take the castle to the south before the Germans can go there from their capital city. From there, proceed east and take all the cities that are rebel. USE THE SIEGE TRICK IF YOU LACK MOVEMENT SPEED. If you are only one square too short to start sieging, take your general and send him to declare siege and then merge your army with him. Now everyone is siegeing (not sitting there right next to the city but you can't click because you have no movement left). Two things I could have done better (and I will tonight)

- Continue expanding into the Russian rebel provinces. Take every port town that has trade routs in the Baltic sea. Because on VH/VH eventually your standing with the other nations will fall, it is imperative that you establish strong sea trade with your own cities.

- Take the town and castle in Scandianavia ASAP with your faction leader. I waited too long.

2. Establish diplomacy - this is a common trick use don VH/VH. I took my Princess and sailed her off to England. I married her off to Rufus, took the English princess for my own lad, alliance, trade and map info for 2000 florins if i remember correctly. Remember, each additional ally you get makes you more valuable to ally with, so the second alliance you can sell for 2600, the third for about 3000 and the fourth can go to 4500 or more, depending on which countries you have as allies already. My mistakes:

Did not make additional diplomats fast enough. As England the minute you ally with the HRE, France and some Italian faction the Pope already loves you. But as the Danes I could not get my papal rating past 4 stars using this. So the solution is to hire more diplomats, ally with EVERYONE you can and go to the pope ASAP. Get an alliance with him no matter what! You need high papal rating to manipulate the first Crusade!

3. As a Catholic nation you can boom your economy using crusades. As I mentioned before, I did not do this fast enoguh but sooner or later the Pope gets bored and declares one on Jerusalem. ALWAYS send your full stack there. If you can and have the necessary starting army, take your faction leader there as well. Along the way take every turkish settlement you can, loot it, tear every building down and give it to the Pope or let it rebel. Note: In my game the pope managed to hold Iconium, Acre, Antioch and Jerusalem even as I had burned them down. Not sure If the Papal States are hardcoded "immune" to rebellions a-la SPQR from RTW?

So with the crusade you get the benefit of no upkeep for a dozen turns or more + 5 or 6 major towns that are looted and plundered along the way + command stars and chiv for your army.

4. Don't go for racial purity in your family tree: Even though I married my boy on turn 2, my heir did not come of age until the HRE had started attacking me already due to the VH dropping of standing with other nations. As such, it was foolish of me to turn marriage proposals and adoptions. You can affoard to not take in filthy peasants in your royal bloodline as England, France or HRE, but the Danes will suffer greatly if you do this. I also had the unfortunate luck to have my first two children be girls (which sucked badly). Perhaps what you can do is wait until your heir has kids. If the first two are boys you can maybe not take in extras ,but if they are girls you pretty much have to.

5. Development: remember, the land clearance line of buildings give both income AND pop bonus. Build them everywhere ASAP. Denmark and it's surrounding provinces are well populated but have two huts and an outhouse for infrastructure! This puts you behind for the first part of the game, compared to the awesome tech of Byzantium, the Italian cities and their stupidly good buildings, England, France and the mighty mighty HRE. My priorities are:

Roads > Fields > Ports > Traders > City Halls . Later on when you get rich enough you can affoard to bump up the City Halls as they give pop bonus as well. Your cities are surprisintly good when it comes to military. Your militia spears are decent, better than the English, Russian, Polish etc. ones. You have militia crossbows who are always awesome to have for defense. Also, every town with an Abbey has Norse War Clerics and those guys are really good! For the castle line, go for Axemen. Before them, the Dism. Huskarls are great - AP, high attack, medium defense. They will plow trough most things (the truth is I took everything with autocalc, your early armies rarely take more than 50-100 casualties. I waste time leading armies when it matters).

6. Trade - you have the advantage of very rich resources in your territories. Scandinavia and Northern Europe are all littered with them. Make merchants and establish a monopoly! Also, block land access to Scandinavia with one longboat to prevent the greedy AI merchants from taking your stuff. For some reason last night I could not seize enemy assets even with a 30% chance of success!

edit: On units - make use of your dism. Huscarls and Huscarls. Especially your Huscarls. By the time others start showing up on the battlefield with Mailed Knights you have these bad boys. Cavalry with AP = dead enemy Cavalry and a disemboweled enemy general. Always seek the cav fight if you have 3-4 units of Huscarls. On the melee line, untill the enmy starts getting VHI or Dism. EKs your guys rule supreme, because all your infantry has AP. And AP=dead spear infantry and dead DFKs.