Scotland

[frogbeastegg]

Scotland needs to be unlocked before you can play as them. To do this you can either complete a campaign (on any difficutly, long or short setting) with one of the five starting factions, or you can edit the preferences file. To do this open your Sega/M2TW folder/data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign, find the file called "descr_strat" and open it with wordpad. Now find the section which says

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

Change it so it reads

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

[Ja'chyra]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[McDoogle]

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

[Ja'chyra]

Some more info.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Kekvit Irae]

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

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

[turnip]

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


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

[cambrax]

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

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

[Seamus Fermanagh]

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


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

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

[Mystiq]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Mystiq]

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

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

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

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

[darsalon]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Jammer]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[lalartu]

scots are by far the easiest faction I played with.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Bleda]

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

[McDoogle]

Personally i prefer to make the poms sweat :P

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

[IRPhydeaux]

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

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

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

[Andrew of Newcastle]

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

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

That’s the situation.

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

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

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

[McDoogle]

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

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

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

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

[dismal]

Playing VH/VH as Scots.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Lobosolitario]

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

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

[haggis monster]

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

[Sheogorath]

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

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

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

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

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

I cant wait to establish the Scottish New World ;)

[Fisherking]

Scotland, the Early Years

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

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

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

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

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

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

Build for a strong economy with your now two cities.

End turn one!

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

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

This should be about the end for turn two.

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Gray Beard]

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

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

[Jonathan_Thompson]

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

[llewellyn]

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

[grapedog]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[_Aetius_]

Overview

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

Founding your empire

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

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

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

An economy built upon conquest

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

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

The endless wars of Europe

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

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

Your army

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

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

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

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

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

The Pope

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

Conclusion

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

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

[Harve]

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

[John_Longarrow]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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