This topic is for the Teutonic Order faction in Kingdoms expansion's Teutonic campaign.
Printable View
This topic is for the Teutonic Order faction in Kingdoms expansion's Teutonic campaign.
The Teutons are an interesting faction because they are not a true kingdom in any sense. Thus, they rely on generals with the leader chosen by them and do not have any sons or princesses.
The Teutons rely heavily on heavy infantry and cavalry so war against the eastern factions can be troublesome as the best missile troop they have are the Livonian Auxillaries which come later. Thus you need to rely heavily on Order spearmen, seige weapons, and merc light cavalry to compensate and fight the Lithuanians in siege battles in which their cavalry cannot run away.
The Teutons have a powerful spearmen known as the Order spearmen which make up for this weakeness and should be used as a early backbone. They also do not require any high religion to recruit which is a problem with the Teutons so Priests are needed in order to recruit their best units.
https://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a6...s86/0008-1.jpg
M/VH
https://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a6...s86/0002-1.jpg
The Teutons start off with 4 castles and 4 cities. The two towns to the north do not produce much and will take time to advance thus funds are limited.
The best option would be to refinance the empire by converting some castles into a city. Marienburg and Dunaburg should be left as castles in order to provide some security for the future. Marienburg is your capital and is advanced so it should be left as it is.
You start off at war with the Lithuanians who have only one castle, Palanga, so taking it would cripple the Lithuanian war machine, forcing them to stick with miltia type units until they can get another castle. It is advisable to take your two catapults and Mangonels and available troops from the south to take out Palanga as quickly as possible before moving on. In fact you should wait near the castle until the Lithuanians upgrade it into a stone castle in which you can then take it the next turn.
Visby, an island northwest should also be taken as well as it is a requirement for the Hanseactic League and will provide a good trading outpost.
Later on a crusading Noble will arrive from England and he brings with him levy spearmen, dismounted feudal knights and feudal knights so its best to take him with you on your rampage across Lithuania. He does not need to be the leading general, he simply needs to be a part of your crusading army.
https://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a6...ess86/0096.jpg
THe more victories you win, the more he'll reward you. THe more lands he captures, he'll reward you even more. If you exterminate all pagans in his way, he'll reward you heavily so its best to use him to capture as many Lithuanian lands as possible. The highest he has rewarded me was 13000 and he had exterminated at least 3-4 settlements.
https://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a6...ess86/0201.jpg
Poland and Denmark offered an alliance with me so those borders are secured. It's the HRE and Novogords that you should watch out for and so should keep a decent size garrison in Dunaburg to deter them and in Marienburg.
Early in the game, the Hanseactic League will be looking for a headquarters. The cities Riga, Visby, Novogrod, Danzig, and Hamburg are the cities you must capture in order to build the HQ which will increase your trade globally.
https://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a6...s86/0001-1.jpg
You have Riga and Visby is an island northwest of your position and can be taken easily with a reasonable army. If you control the majority of the cities(At least 3/5), the League will offer you the HQ for 4000.
Due to the war against the Pagans; Denmark, Novogrod, and HRE will have advanced and built up into powerful empires which eventually you will be forced to direct your attention to. The Novogrods field powerful cavalry so a similar solution to the Lithuanians will be required. The HRE and Danish field infantry based armies so conventional arms will suffice but by conquering the Pagan lands, you will have ensured yourself a stable and powerful empire to continue expanding.
Due note: In the game I suffered quite heavy casualties in my battles against Lithuania which resulted in pyrrthic (but crippling for the enemy) victories so it is critical to use everything you got to maintain your momentum against them. Nobles will continue to come to your aid to fight against the pagans so look out for them.
It seems that money is as big as a opponent for the Teutonic Order as the Pagans are. You cannot build past "City," although your castles can be built up to "Citadel." Also, be patient in the beginning because the beginning scenairo seems a bit overwhelming at first.
My approach was an economic one and since i am a turtle a peacefull one.I disbanded every single unit of prussian archers since they are outranged by just about everything. Instead i built an Archery Range in Marienburg and mass produced crossbowmen. I sent all the units of clergymen together with siege machines and all my good infantry to take visby and used them as cannon fodder while taking the town. I think i got one veteran unit of clergymen left from the 8 that started but hey thay have seen Hell... I blocked a street with them then put onagers behind and fired away.
https://img66.imageshack.us/img66/9913/mayhemvu2.jpg
On turn 3 (one turn before visby fell) poland offered alliance so I asked for danzig in exchange for some shiny beads.Turn 5 I got the Hanseatic league headquarters. I kept one general in northern provinces with all the starting cavalry to take that town that you have to take as a mission and keep an eye on the Pagans. Oh and turned Thorn and Windau into cities. I am torn between sending the army that took Visby north to take Åbo (15000 pop = Taxes) or sending them to northern provinces to secure the area. I am getting ready to defend and grow my army untill the lithuanians the poles the danish and the russkies all come knocking on my door. Then I'll let the good Lord sort out the infidels from his own.
OOPS did I just turtle blitz?
What's nice about the Teutonic campaign is that you don't really have a family. You are just supplemented with some nice generals at random times and there seems to be a high ratio of "Man of the Hour" promotions. You really don't have to worry about sending your faction leader out, especially if he doesn't have high leadership/dread, as he is simply another general.
One of your main sources of money will be Crusaders arriving on your shores. Your job is to help them kill countless Pagans and gain respect back whenever they were from (my first was from England and game with half a stack of heavy English units). When playing as the Pagans you get bonuses for killing these guys. basically, the Teutonic Order wants to keep these generals alive in many battles before they go back home, so they donate a lot of money - think 15K or so.
You have to love the Ritterbrothers and their "cause fear" ability. A good charge can cause a chain route that looks like the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.
I keep having serious problems with Lithuania using that strategy, i end up not having enough money or men to handle the divided cities. Second, how do you combine all of those units in your battle hud to where there are 125 spearmen?
I'm still having a hard time keeping my faction afloat. It seems that the upkeep is rediculous - even when I never build new buildings, I'm still down to 0 or negative funds quickly. Should I use small forces of good units against the giant Lith forces that seem to appear in no time, or what?
You seriously can't take any time at start unless you want to become another one of millions of Amricans who suffer from credit card debt.
Financial jokes aside, you need to rush right off the bat and sack those pegans in a two quick finger-snap tempo. You're gonna have to trust the poles in the beginning, and your order spearmen are good enough to take anything lithuanians throw at you, save for that stack with sami axemen and dievas guards. Use the forests and bridges and remember to attack the lithuanian castle on the baltic coast ASAP, and sell all the structures and turn it into a city.
With at least the baltic coast secured you should be somewhat financially secure.
Again, early game for Teutonic order is really challenging if you are on the harder difficulties.
I tried "bumrushing" the Lithuanians but it did not work out exactly as planned.
The plan
I figured that the easiest way to win is to take out your greatest rival as quickly as possible so tried to steamroll the Lithuanians with my original forces. Built dirt roads everywhere to facilitate movement, then built 2 orderspear and 1 knetchen in all castles except Thorn (had no more money left for that). Of course it put me in the red in the next turn, but I figured I would get back quickly by sacking two or three settlements.
So I made three armies, 1 from the north, this was the largest almost a full stack, almost everything you can find up north (left only the militia spears and some archers in the northern cities and 3 pikes in Riga). 2 from the south, each around a half stack. The army of the north marching to Sauilai forcing a "decisive" battle as Napoleon would call it. Both southern army had 1 catapult. One of them marching to Palanga, the other to Hrodna. The idea was to cripple both the Lithuanian military and economy.
The action
Almost everthing went according to plan but I still would not call it a success. I took both Palanga and Hrodna but suffered very high casulties especially at Palanga which was heavily defended. I won only due to my Halbbruder (sp?), that one cav unit killed more than 130, but I practically lost that army. The other southern army was crippled too especially the infantry; what was annoying that it were the 4 xbows defending Hroda that did the damage.
I also got the "decisive" battle at Sauilai that I wished for. That army acted like a magnet: soon 5 or 6 smallish Lithuanian armies were sorrounding it. Since I had no siege arty with that army I had to sit out. Both sides used to the time to reinforce thier armies for the final showdown, so I had a full stack with the best troops I could get there. The battle itself was fairly easy, I was defending a nice hill with reasonable amount of archers, with lots fo light cavs (5 knetchens) and ofc with strong infantry. I suffered some casulties but it was tolerable, howver I lost my OrderMarschall!!! :wall:
One of the smallish Lithuanian stacks sneeked in from behind and charged my GB killing the marchall while I was busy with the other armies!
I was able to replace him with an equally good general but next turn a full stack besieged Sauilai before I could reinforce my army. Soon another 3 or 4 smallish stack joined it. They did not siege so I had to sally. I was reasonably optimistic since I had 5 archers and strong infantry (4 OS and 2 pikes) but somewhat depleated light cavs. The full stack was the usual lithuanian stack with HA, archers, militia but one of the half stacks had 6 tartar lancers. So not just had to worry about the HAs but also had to watch my flank/ rear protecting it vs the lancers. On the top of it I had to attack.
At the end defeated the full stack and other 2 with very heavy casulties. I had only 4 order spears remaining each less than 20 men, 2 pikes less then 20, 3 knetchen together less then 15 men, 1 archer (one single archer) and my GB was down two 5 men all units exhausted or very tired expect the pikes.
Only to find out that there is an other fresh half stack of lithuanians approaching ... :sweatdrop: ... ooops ...
It had 3 medium HA, 2 spearmilitia ,1 axemen and bajorina (sp? basically a knight). I would have lost that battle vs any decent human player. Luckily it was the AI ... It charged my inf head on with its medium HA, defeated them before the others arrived. Then charged my pikes head on (the only "warmed up" units, and the only unit that can take a head on charge) with its bajorina. Killed it with my pikes, my spears were somehow able to hold the militia spears and axemen, then charged the rear of the axemen with all my remaining cavalry. It was enoug to rout it, which routed the nearby militia spearmen wich routed the last spearmen ... :sweatdrop: ~D It was close.
Out of the full stack I had there 3 turns before I had some 70 men left altogether.
While I acheived all the goals I set forth, captured all three settlement, got the "decisive battle" and won it; still on the strategic level I lost the rush. Lost two and half armies out of the starting three, lost the initiative and need both time and money to rebuild my armies.
In the meantime Novgorod attacked Riga which was defended only by 3 pikemen. Luckily I won and they never attacked again.
It was only the arrival of the crusader noble that allows me to keep up the pressure. I pulled the remaning troops from the south and merged them with the noble's army to besiege Kaunas.
Conlusions
All in all, a more patient approach, the kind of Varro did, might work better. If I would start it again I would combine my best troops into a full stack to attack Palangas. Would keep some half stack at Riga to scare away the Novgorodians and take Visby with a half stack. I think it is vital to keep that full stack at Palangas healthy and alive to keep up the pressure (to move up vs Sauilai and then against Kaunas), and expand in the south (towards Hrodna) only when the crusader noble arrives.
Hi everyone :wave:
Here's my position by the start of turn 24 on M/M and Lithuania are destroyed:
https://img134.imageshack.us/img134/821/0006qb8.th.jpg
My strategy is based on having an initial defensive ring made up of Marienburg, Hrodna, Vilnius, Dunaburg and Riga. Buildings are prioritised for these 5 settlements and anything within the defensive ring. Garrisons of at least 10 units man each settlement in the defensive ring. Only Marienburg and Dunaburg were kept as castles.
In order to make the defensive ring I needed to take Vilnius and Hrodna from the Lithuanians. To do this I made 2 armies. The largest led by Hans with the siege equipment and units from Marienburg and Konigsberg sailed down the coast taking Palanga, Siauliai, Kaunus, Panevezys and finally Vilnius. They were reinforced along the way by units from local settlements as well as a wealthy noble arriving on turn 13. The second army consisting of Dietrich with his army and units from Thorn took and held Hrodna.
The defensive ring now complete I continued to build up the 5 settlements whilst the wealthy noble continues on taking the remaining Lithuanian settlements.
My position now looks good for the next stage of my campaign. Finances are steadily growing and after a succesful campaign with the wealthy noble I should get a nice reward in a few turns.
I will post another update once I have played through the middle stages of the campaign.
:charge:
Hello again ~:wave:
Just a quick update:
The remainder of the campaign was plain sailing after the good start I had made.
Novgorod decided to attack me and as they were only allied to Germany (who had previously attacked me) I decided to go on the offensive and destroyed them by turn 34.
I was then attacked by the Mongols who I destroyed by turn 47. Whilst being attacked by the Mongols I was also attacked by Poland. I took the necessary settlements from Poland to achieve my target as well as the key settlements owned by Germany and Denmark.
Victory was achieved on turn 57.
https://img339.imageshack.us/img339/8877/0007hv8.th.jpg
:charge:
HELP!!
I'm playing MTW2: kingdoms in the teutonic campaign. After reading how the German cav are unmatched in the game and everyone here says the order has "omg uber heavy infintry111" I started the campaign.
Now I'm in debt for expensive cav and and cannot retrain, and they drop dead in the moment of impact!!
these guys are really crapy and I doubt that Brit dude and his cav are going to be any better against lithuania, practicaly an all cav nation.
what unit is the best for: _powerful while not expensive_
Help or sugestion would be appreciated
The biggest mistake a new player in m2tw can make (I did, also) is underestimating the upkeep of units. And boyar son your bet against lithuania is always a good mix - livonian auxillaries with order spearmen defense and cavalry support.
Hi all.
The last private is right in my opinion. Balanced upkeep is the key to an effective army. And a unit you don’t use in combat is wasted money. Some of the best units in the Teutonic army is low upkeep (pike men and archers in combination are awesome). I normally play quite defensively and just love pike men.
Pike men are invaluable in city fighting to block the opponents army from flanking and in defence they are unbeatable if positioned correctly and micromanaged patiently at chokepoints.
My armies (field armies) tend to more and more streamline to this.
* Backbone: 3-4 Pike men (at least four rows deep and close together and spearwall and stand ground enabled until impact when I disable stand ground)
* 1 spearmen unit on each flank (at a 45° degree angle back if I anticipate a flanking army)
* Crossbow men just in front of pike men and spears (not more than 2 rows deep so that they can retreat if hand-to-hand units approach. Otherwise they have skirmish disabled)
* 1 Sword units behind each spearmen unit to flank attacking units or protect archers.
* 2-3 Archers behind pikes (skirmish disabled and in loose formation)
* General behind archers (never attack enemy missile cav unsupported)
* 1-2 Heavy Cavalry behind archers or even better hidden in woods. In that case I put my army as far back and to one side as possible so the cavalry will be behind enemy when the army charge and become tangled up with my pikes.
* 2-3 fast cavalry (missile cav or light fast mercenaries) to get behind enemy line and destroy artillery, charge engaged enemy infantry or hunt down cavalry routers.
* 1 clerics just behind pike men to booster morale
* 1 unit or dismounted Ritterbrother to charge through pikes after first impact on them and chatter enemy’s morale.
* I rarely have artillery units unless the army is guarding a bridge (Or have guaranteed high ground). I have one artillery unit in city’s that are attacked frequently since the combination of pike men formations making an alley of pikes with a cannon on the short end is so much fun behind gates.
If fighting mainly missile cav I let the crossbows and archers do their work and envelope enemy with cavalry. In this case Pike men might be 2-3 rows deep if enemy don’t have heavy cav.
If fighting mainly infantry I have the pike men in an as deep formation as possible but still maintaining at least the same overall width as advancing army.
If fighting much artillery my main focus is on killing them first with cav. Regardless of casualties. If they have missile superiority they are less likely to charge and that what I want them to do.
Thats all I can think of.
After the 6th time I've completed this long campaign on vh/vh, I still find this faction very fun and challenge to play, best faction I would recommand in the Teutonic campaign, Nov and Poland are just too easy since I'm a HA lover, but this faction I tend to use different tactics everytime I play and still not tired of it hehe.
I agree this faction does gets a bit hard in the begining due to the high army upkeep, so I usually disband the expensive calvery at the start and just use Knechten+Prussian archer+Order Spear combo, also make sure to say no to the bad general recruit, since that will save you some $ on wage expense, I only recruit the General with at least 3 star or 3 Chivar/dread and good loyolty.
Most of the opening moves have already been covered, I like to be aggresive, so my first moves usually include seige on Palanga, sack it and convert it to city when I have extra $ to spend, combine forces in Marienburg and Thorn, devide them into 2 forces and one lead by the Fac leader go on ship to Visby,seige it then sack it. Move to Abo after and samething, these 2 cities will give you some good $ income plus good amount from sacking them. The other army go center and deal with the Lithuanians, this army should at least have 2 light cal+4-5 OS+4-5 archers, I like to use Prussian archers cuz they shoot faster the crossbow and cheaper, my tactics are simple, archers 1 line in the front, 2 on each flanks facing foward to counter their anoying missle calvs, 1 in middle to back up either side or counter their archer units, spear 2nd line and 1 light calv on each side behind the archers, if you can afford more force thats great, but I found this is enough to deal with them. I let my archers stand still instead of skrimish, then when they charge their calv forwards, time it right or pause the game and charge your spears forward fast, most of the time I catch them and their calvs just die left and right, your spearman can hold almost every units they throw to you even heavy axe men, time to move your 2 light calvs on each flanks outwards, then reverse charge those what ever infantries left over battling your spearmens, feel free to use the Gen Bodyguard as well, then its just time for a chase and capture, make sure turn your archers auto fire off when you chase down their units, so you dont hurt yourself. Recruit more spearman and archers and reinforce, move on. This worked pretty well for me even against their full stacks, Oder Spearman owns in early game.
For the settlement seige war, I like to bring my Mangonel+Catapult sometimes if I see low walls such as large town or minor city. My trick is set all my army back then start the battle, move catapult forward and close until I can see the % damage, somehow I believe it makes better accurcy, as long as I dont move any other units close besides artillery their units usually just sitting docks and wont move forward to defend, so feel free to move as close as you want. Deal with the defence towers with your catapults and make sure you have enough ammo for the wall or gate, then move the Mangonel up close towards the wall, usually you will have enough range to attack the forces idling in their town center and will cause HUGE damge since they all close to each other, sooo funny when you see the Mangonel hits, if you dont have enough range dont worry, use the catapults to destroy the wall and their force will start to move forward to defense the wall then you can just pick them of with the Mangonel as well. After all the Mangonel's ammo gone, if they dont have much range units, move your archers up and rain the arrows as those units just stand there behind the walls, charge all your Spearman/Swordsman in after and Victory is sweet, with very little loss. Later on I use canon+serpentine, same concept.
In my last campaign, I allied with HRE, Poland, they pay well for alliance/trade/map, I then trade my 2 provinces, Olysta and Dunaburg with Denmark, in exchange of Reval and Narva+allience,trade,map. Pretty good deal to me since Olysta is a villige and takes long to develope, Reval is a good $ making city right in the begining with sea trade, I then use Narva as my army recruiting base to conqure Novgorod. Middle to end game are easy as long as you can make decent income, make sure you have Riga well protected, it's your money cow city. Also you can choose to backstab Poland or buy Danzig from them to get Hanseatic League HQ as long as you have Visby and Riga. I made sure I turn down any other guild offer in Visby or Danzig after the Hanseatic League massage. My late game amy will usually include Dism. Ritterbruders, they are the best infantries you can get and looks bad ass. Good on the field battle/city war. Game at this point is basically over, I hope this helps, cheers!
Btw, if you have no family, can you train generals like in RTW-BI? Or to keep the crusading nobles for your own use after their job is done?
No and No. By the way, how dangerous have people found the mongols?
The mongols start with no general's bodyguard (it's true) with negative income from King's purse.Quote:
Originally Posted by Flying Pig
They're always in debt and will not pose any serious threat except for the CPU welfare money they get to make some archers...
terribly difficult in vh-vh.
if the lithuanians do the right moves you certainly become bankrupt,
but hey, sometimes they don't and they pay for their sins heavily.
I am playing VH VH and that's a true challenge. I have lost the 2 cities in the north at the benefits of the Novs and the den... In the meantime. I have taken Dantzig from the pols as an exchange of gift for my alliance. I have got the HQ at the hanseatic league after 10 turns or so. I have used the Charles troops to kick the liths of two regions. I stay surprised that after even I have taken their castle at Palluga. They still got heavy troops. When I have discovered they got an other castle in the east: Lida. After 2 pinches battles and taken this castle. It was a peaceful walk to destroy the liths.
I may recommend to push to Lida asap you have taken palluga, it will make your life easier.
Now I am going to take novegorod and kick out the den fron the baltics.
Just a few things I've noticed in my recent campaign:
1.) There doesn't seem to be a rhyme or reason on which general is promoted Hochmeister. I raised one particular field general (not Grosskomtur) to have extremely good stats/attributes and he was passed over to a much lesser general. Reasons, ideas?
2.) It seems, invariably, that as soon as you eliminate one faction, another will attack you. I've used this assumption as a way to predict my troop movements to thwart possible backstabbing by not raiding the last settlement until I am in position to counter. Usually, it will be a "trusted ally". As you whittle down another faction, you might see suspicious troop movements or a buildup of troops near your border. Get ready, it's coming.
3.) Contrary to popular belief, and what the booklet states, I was able to develop Riga into a Huge City (walls). I have a couple other Large Cities that I am waiting for the populations to increase to see if this is normal. If so, this could dramatically alter our build strategy even though castles and cities are vastly different. I just noticed that after building huge stone walls there was another set of buildings available that I didn't think would exist.
4.) Sacking cities that have buildings not available to the Teutonic Order, such as brothels, allow cities to raise spies. This was nice, and you can get the guilds you couldn't with the castle.
5.) The Mongols are not even worth being allied with. All they do is grab easy rebel provinces and they never help you with the Liths or Novos, even if you pay them to attack. Their generals are nothing spectacular, unlike in vanilla M2:TW.
6.) Burger Pikemen have free upkeep in castles as well as cities that can produce them. Not sure about any other unit having it both ways, but discovered it while upgrading them with a Swordsmith Guild.
All for now.