The Irish

[Cheetah]

summary

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

Very easy with Ireland i find. Important and relatively easy to secure ireland, start off with with the rebel lands, then attack ulster. The scots will forget the war as soon as ulster falls.

Next get a fleet going and at the same time get an alliance going with the vikings.

I usually pick on the Welsh. Take Cornwall and try to invade the welsh coastal provinces. When you are secure proceed and take the rest.

After this i try to broach alliances with one of the saxon kingdoms but not Northumbria. I usually invade those buggers from the sea and you can quickly secure the area with minimal casualties. Do it in good numbers and use your skirmishers because they are handy in pelting those troublesome Huscarls. But usually Northumbria suffers from internal troubles and viking attacks and her armies are usually poor anyway

With that area secure, i try to turn on the most powerful saxom kingdom which is usually mercia and all the while i am building up my fleet and keeping mainly skirmishers in ireland in case of the pesky vikings.

Try to hold an alliance with the saxons. Try to build inns and get good solid infantry if you can. Also keep those bonnachts and gallowglasses coming.

Try to take a hilly province from the mercians. With flat land there are very tricky. But with a hill or broken ground, your warriors stand a much better chance( when looking for mercenaries try to get an archer units because as you know the irish don't have any.

I'll post some more info later on as i've got an exam tomorrow and revision calls

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

Right where were we. Ok, after you have dismissed the mercians from the british isles, turn your attention on the saxons. By this point they may have a good bunch of those damn huscarls but not to worry, those units are the only real danger so it is important to get alot of cavalry going and bring some mercenary horse. So build those inns.

The battles with the saxons can last a while but use your Javelins who can pelt the hell out those Fyrdmen and Huscarls. Use your infantry especially gallowglasses to hurt and halt the saxons, then use your cavalry to sweep around and hit the flanks. The south of England has a lot of woodland areas so conceal your lighter cavalry in those areas and try to use them once the saxon army is engaged.
Once you have beaten the saxons, turn your attention to securing the south. Leave the East Anglia parts because of rebellion level. They can be mopped up later.

Next on your list should be the scots, picts or Northumbrians depending on who is there in the north of England. If it is the latter you can simply overwhelm them. There armies generally are poor, so a quick and decisive strike should finish them quickly.

At this point i would advise on a break and build those buildings up and prepare for the final push northwards. I'd advise to keep some medium armies on the major coastal provinces as those vikings like nothing more than a good raid, so keep those boats coming into the seas. Get those rich provinces of the midlands and the southern parts of England stable and built up and your economy should be booming

Post more later
BKB

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

For the third part it is the invasion of the north parts of britain. Usually i find this might include a war with the vikings but eliminate the others first. Get rid of the scots, she will be weaker than the picts. I usually overwhelm the scots with superior numbers and it is easy to defeat them. The highlanders might put up a fight but use your good attack units like the gallowglass and bonnachts backed up by any good mercenary units with some cavalry.

The picts are tricky. Those mounted crossbows and beserkers are tough. I find bringing naval attacks on the pict coastal provinces as a way of securing yourself in the pict lands. Try to get a decisive(i actually prefer attacking them) battle with them with good armoured units and use you skirmishers to pelt those light units such as celtic warriors to diminish their numbers.Any cav units you have should be moving round and swiping those crossbows and driving those mounted crossbows out of the fighting and then wipe them out later after you have crushed the main infantry force.

[Oleander Ardens]

I will try to add some small tips for the Irish to the good overview of the Blind King - to make sure that ich dien also the good cause...


Always try to fight in the worst possible climate when you attack. Rain is your friend, Snow your love.

Why Rain? 1)The Irish have no archers, thus they won't suffer in bad friendly weather. Especially since most of them carry no armor..

Why else? 2) Their Javs and darts will be equally deadly while the other ranged troops suffer. Make them pay for sitting in the rain


Why Snow? 3) The top infantry like Husaclers will suffer and tire while your Kerns with their stamina can pick them off.


Why Trees? 4) They can also be a great help, especially in good (or bad for you) weather on defense. You can hide from Arrows and Cav and let the Gallows play their game.


Why a good deal of cav? 5) As your infantry is mostly fast and very vulnerable to cavalry and missles it is always good to have more cavalry than the enemy to be able to protect your guys from the only ones which can really hurt them...


Cheers

OA

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Strategically speaking, do what you can to make good units.

There. That was simple. ~:p

What I meant was: don't skimp on the morale and valor boosting buildings available. Irish troops have low morale, and any means of improving it is a plus. Your troops will last longer, retreat less, and fight more effectively. It will also make it easier to use what looks like crap troops for more than just skirmishing - flanking!!!

[Spartiate]

As Alexander just mentioned build all the morale and valour bonus buildings plus all armour upgrades.Put an Irish prince in charge of the army as the Irish frequently get at least 3 star generals in the royal family.Then simply train Bonnachts and NEVER leave them on skirmish as they retreat without ever throwing those heavy-spears whenever an opponent charges at them.Those heavy spears will decimate even the huscarles if they get off 2 volleys before closing for hand to hand.The morale and valour upgrades mean they won't run at the sight of the huscarles.

[TWNoob]

I just picked up MTW and it seems pretty cool until I try to play it. I cant even get past the first part where you start out playing the Irish and its set to easy. The Saxons beat me every time no matter what I do. I can take out every other faction but by the time it is just the Saxons left, they are so powerful that I have no hope of winning. I tried going after them first but by the time I can build ships and have an army ready, they are still to powerful.

Can some one help?

[peacedude]

The strength of the Irsish is javelins and Gallowglases so pin the saxon Huscarles(i assume thats the main unit your having trouble with) with someone prbly spearmen and fire away with javelins they are very powerful against armor then charge with your gallowglasses to finish them off

[CountMRVHS]

You do know that you don't need to play the factions in order, right?

Forgive me, but from your post it sounds almost like you think you need to play the Irish in order to play the Mercians, then the Northumbrians, and so on...

But peacedude's advice is right on. Irish troops take some getting used to; the best thing is to take some Armoured Spearmen to "hold" the enemy, then move your javelin units or gallowglasses around to the back and attack from the rear.

Not all the javelin units are good against armor. Kerns and Bonnachts have AP javs, but Irish Dartmen do not. To make up for this, the Dartmen have slightly better range I think.

[bamff]

Hi TWNoob, peacedude is quite right - but I would add that I think you also need numerical superiority.

I saw it from the other side of the fence, where my Saxons got shredded by the Irish projectile guys. Granted we were massively outnumbered (2,500 to 600).

The AI did exactly what peacedude suggested - surrounded and pinned my dudes and pelted them to pieces. Gallowglasses are a hell of a lot quicker than Huscarles, so no matter how many times we tried to hack our way out, we were surrounded again. My guys killed 1700 odd Irish (including their general very early on) and still got overwhelmed.

[Empirate]

With the Irish, my biggest successes (like beating viking armies who were numerically superior to mine) came from using cavalry. It was already mentioned, but it cannot be stressed enough: Build up all the way to Mounted Nobles, then use these to break those landsmen and huscarls while pinning with other troops (armored spearmen are very durable even against armor-piercing units like huscarls). I never got much use out of those javelins. It was not that they were not effective - they were. But they carried too little ammo. I would use up the ammo of two to three regiments of javelineers before I had damaged a huscarle regiment enough that it would run, or be made short work of by other troops. And after using up their ammo, kerns and the like are not much use anymore, you can only really withdraw them from the field. Once Bonnachts became available, it was much different though: These guys can hold a line, they can do a lot of damage in melee (especially coming from an iron province with some church upgrades), and on top of that they can do nasty things with javelins. Even though their ammo is even more limited (a single throw per man!), this works a lot like the pila of Rome:TW. Give the enemy one volley, charge. Bring another regiment of Bonnachts around the flank, volley, charge. Every regiment of Huscarls will break before that! And since only about half your men will hurl a javelin in each volley, you can repeat this maneuver using the exact same two units. Even when all the Bonnachts' javelins are gone, they remain formidable fighters.

Summary: Build Bonnachts, build as much cavalry as possible, build some armored spear for holding the line. That's what you need to beat any army a VI enemy can throw at you. You don't need numerical superiority this way!