Teutonic Campaign: Lithuania

[frogbeastegg]

This topic is for the Lithuanian faction in Kingdoms expansion's Teutonic campaign.

[Mithras]

initial attempt seems to show trying to play from a defensive strategy is suicide. The Teutons just muscle there way into your cities through there insanely heavy infantry. Hit there northern territories hard and fast. Avoid fighting them on equal grounds and use your mobility flexibility to wear them down. Cash is in short supply so churn out merchants. The duke is a military genius so should be put to good use form and allience with Novgerod asap and establish trade with Neutral nations .

The Pagan temple system is unique and quite effective, each tier on the temples allow access for military units of either infantry tactical infantry or cavalry, this makes cities more self reliant on troops for their own defence. I can't honestly say the differance Christnization makes becouse I havnt tried it yet Personally I'm temped to avoide it since it seems to reduce the faction flavour but chivilric knights and bigger cities do appeal....

[IvarrWolfsong]

Playing as Lithuania can be very challenging. However, you have some very good assests and as long as you play to them, you can be very successful.

First off, Lithuania is a Horse Archer (and Jav Cav) nation. If you don't like the fun, high speed pace and headaches of HA, Lithuania is a bad choice for you. Expect lots of micro-managing and looooooong battles. Your HAs arent the best in the game (although you do get a plus sized 60 man HA unit) and the Teutonic Knights (TKs) have a huge amount of armor. When going stack for stack, I suggest you bring a snack.

Ok now off to the campaign...

1) You will initially be fighting the TKs and, soon after, Poland. Later on, the Mongols will attack you from the south. So much hate! Surely, you say, some one must love the Lithuanians and their lively folk dances! And some one does... Novgorod (Russia). Get an alliance with them ASAP and try to get trade rights with the Danes, the Mongols, HRE and Poland.

2) The overall strategy that I think works best is to use HA based cavalry armies in the west to harass and stall the TKs while you expand east and north with siege and infantry armies. This allows you to secure your northern border with the sea and your eastern border with your Novgorod brothers while bleeding the Teutons.

This "bleeding" should be done prudently by attacking small forces, releavind sieges, attacking poorly garrisoned towns, etc. Try to kill as many enemies as possible with as few loses as possible so you can concentrate your resources to the east.

Also understand that you will probably lose a settlement or two in the west.

Once you have the TKs eliminated to the east, I suggest trying to get the Danes and the Russians to be at war with each other. I was able to do this by attacking a Danish stack when a Russian army was next to them. My noble ally was now at war with Denmark who they (but not I ) share a border with. The Novgorod hordes can now invade those viking strongholds and leave me alone.

Now you need to focus either on the Mongols to the south, hopefully with the help of the Russians, or get ready for a the main event against the Poles/TKs.

There is no "secret" to taking the TKs castles and cities. Their infantry is more than a match for yours so expect a lot of losses. I usually try to outnumber them if I need to assualt a settlement, and if they have a good force in there, starve them as long as you can.

Thats it for now... as I learn more I will post again.

[derfinsterling]

I wiped out the TK fairly quickly, playing on H/H. I lost only a single settlement to them which I later re-conquered.

The basic strategy is to attack their rear, when they march their armies into your lands. I managed to take their citadel with only a handful of troops since they left it almost vacant. The AI charged out of the fortress on its turn and the spearman and infantry were no match for my archers and horse archers.

You need to move fast on their territory, attacking their castle in the North and taking Königsberg.
In my game, the order managed only to create one full stack and yes, I had nothing to counter with. A couple of battles of attrition later, their numbers had dwindled sufficiently.

I mostly built the places of worship that give you Lettish crossbowmen. They caused the order a lot of headache ;-)

[Slaists]

2) The overall strategy that I think works best is to use HA based cavalry armies in the west to harass and stall the TKs while you expand east and north with siege and infantry armies. This allows you to secure your northern border with the sea and your eastern border with your Novgorod brothers while bleeding the Teutons.

novgorod brothers, huh? that seems quite inaccurate (the way they implemented it in the game). lithuania and novgorod were enemies at the time and lithuania ended up occupying a huge chunk of russian/ukrainian lands for quite a few centuries.

the relationship with bielorussians was more vague. bielorussians comprised demographic majority in the enlarged grand dutchy of lithuania and bielorussian was used as the state language even thogh the rulingh dynasties were ethnically lithuanian.

[IvarrWolfsong]

Read the whole post.

[bigcow]

I'm at turn 50ish for Lut at VH/VH, it has been a blast playing them. Eliminated TKs and just cake walk with my stacks of HAs with gold vets, got a question tho, should I convert to my religion or stay at Pagan? If I click yes to convert, will I be able to change it back to Pagan later on? thx

[Grand Duke Vytautas]

Here's my Lithuanian guide from TWC (link)
Hope you'll find it useful and give me feedback how to improve it
ALL PAGANS UNITE

[613 The Evil]

Hello friends, today I'd like to brag. Hehehe...

Well, very hard settings to both and off I went with the Lithuanians. Off to battle, that is. Because I don't think there were many turns I didn't fight a battle. Perhaps none. That wasn't only my fault though... Hehe. Well as you can imagine, the Teutons were the first victims. Fierce all out war, they were sieging my cities, only to be crashed next turn. I was sieging theirs, but with far more success I think. At the 8th turn, they were history. I had an alliance with the Rus. And the Mongols didn't bother me much. Well Poland looked too strong still, when I defeated the Teutons, so I attacked the Mongols, so I could secure my rear. Next turn after that, the Polish come at me. Oh well... Two fronts. (More actually, long borderlines.) I started expanding to the west too, the Teuton's castles helped. I took Visby too, that island. A few turns later, the Rus and the Danes attack from the north and northwest. These were hard times. Still no battle lost though, Lithuanian army is very flexible and has units for every situation. Some turns later, the Mongols were gone. Now I was pressing hard the Rus, the Danes had a lot of army up north but mostly infantry, piece of cake for my cavalry. Still, the main interest was on the west, where I defeated Poland some turns later. Lots of battles... The Germans attacked me right after Poland was defeated. Some danish armies too came along, but I still didn't lose any battle. The Rus got wiped out later and the Germans followed shortly. No more Danes on the east too... Then I continued hammering them and moving north, later I invaded Sweden etc, I attacked the Norwegians, (I lost 3 naval battles then, because of some bad management of my ships). Then the Danes fell. And soon after, Norway followed. All 74 regions were mine at turn 42! That was quick indeed... Considering that Lithuania starts with 9 regions. I was taking about 1.55 regions per turn. Not bad eh? Hehe. Well there were lots of villages too, no time to develop them, due to the rush. :D Here are 2 screenshots, enough I think. Ask for more if you want. Thanks for bearing with me! :D

[Zim]

Does anyone here know what turn you get the option to Christianize on? I'm on turn 52 and I'm starting to have squalor problems in my larger cities. It'd be nice to be able to upgrade them.

[Mithras]

It's not turn based I think it's population based. Once you have a substantial chunk of Christians you get the offer.

2nd play throught seems to confirm this. If you want to convert simply avoid putting any resistance into the pagan faith, avoid creating priests and don't assasinate any Christian priests.

On the whole I'd have to go against Christianization what you get is a fairly weak dull Catholic faction. The pagans have more spice and flavour to them making them more fun...plus you can build heavy knights, crossbowmen and heavy infantry in a tier 2 city!

[kitbogha]

On the whole I'd have to go against Christianization what you get is a fairly weak dull Catholic faction. The pagans have more spice and flavour to them making them more fun...plus you can build heavy knights, crossbowmen and heavy infantry in a tier 2 city!

I couldn't agree more, I have just had the offer of conversion. It is quite tempting from a tech standpoint (ie gunpowder!) but reduces the factions' individuality. If I had wanted to be some vanilla Catholic faction I would have chosen someone else. It's fun playing as the pagans for a change, although I feel they should have some better troops available as compensation for losing out on the tech advances. Needless to say I turned them down....
I am at turn 60 and have very much enjoyed playing as the Lithuanians. It is satisfyingly difficult to begin with-I scarcely expanded the kingdom at all in the first 20 or so moves, just defended against waves of Teutonics besieging my settlements. I was surprised at how effective this faction can be in that respect, several times I held back substantially bigger and ostensibly better armies with a handful of spear militia units and crossbowmen.
I am currently expanding into Scandinavia, where several cities have fallen to rebels, and South into Mongol lands (they were beginning to get on my wick by periodically demanding small sums of money). Meanwhile I am raising armies to sweep West into the Polish lands (their mistake? allying with my sworn enemies, The Teutonic Order, while I was still a weak persecuted nation, and attacking several of my towns). I never attack someone without just cause, although when I have cause to attack, I make sure it is punitive and relentless.....

[Ozzman1O1]

Get a shrine to diffrent gods in every city,because there nothing without each other. Focus on building casles And upgrade cities quikly, you may judge the pagans on there awful units in the custom battles, but thats nothing(ca has prblems with not including every unit in the custom battles,what are you going to do?)If you wipe out out livion order(tootons of the north..pretty much)You have acsess to unknown lithuanian infantry simialer to fuedels,And with that,wage war on the weak muslims to the south and BOOM,those amazing devil horned extremely heavy infantry are a thing of the past

[kitbogha]

Get a shrine to diffrent gods in every city,because there nothing without each other.

Whoops! I spoke too soon. Now on turn 98 and have upgraded my pagan places of worship and lo and behold have some fairly tasty new troops to work with. I intend to build an army entirely of religious troops, led by my most pious commander-a whim, I know, but what's the point of being King if you can't have these little indulgences. I'm not expecting them to be especially hardcore or anything, but they should prove interesting to command.
I have delayed my invasion of the Poles lands, as the foolish Danes decided to break their alliance with me and attacked Riga. Two turns later they have been cause to regret their rash actions as I destroyed their two armies and took their two Baltic cities. With the increase in funds from these sackings I can start a major arming up in my toehold Scandinavian states (Visby and Uppsala) and can now, at last rebuild my Western armies (devastated by the Black Death) and turn once more to our friends, the Poles.....

[aimlesswanderer]

I finally had a go as the Lithuanians on VH/VH, and was surprised that the evil Teutonic Order was wiped out at turn 5, after I killed all their family. The cavalry went west, and after a few heroic victories the western area was basically stripped of troops. The infantry went north and after a few battles around Riga the last Teuton was killed. I didn't even get a chance to kill a crusading noble. Oh well.

At about turn 30, have 23 provinces and it looks like everyone is going to go to war with me soon. Pity there aren't a few more perks for being pagan, but the temple troops are interesting.

[AndyNgFL]

A few little tips I used on VH/VH mode with very challenging factions like Lithuania :

1) Concentrate in recruiting troops and blitz the Tuetonic Order. I only build roads (for blitz) and temples (for troops). Nothing else. No farms, no upgrading of barracks etc. You can get better buildings/troops when you have extra cash OR after capturing enemy settlements.

2) Disband useless units like peasants (they cant get free upkeep) and catapult (they are slow).

3) Destroy useless buildings like siege, leather tanner, low level barracks in low level settlements.

4) In the beggining, capture rebel settlements (Mstislavl, Homyel, Bialystok) and then SELL them to Novgorod, Poland. They will come and offer trade at around turn 4 and each village can sell to abt 4k. This way you use THIER MONEY to upgrade the settlement for you.

5) Fight with all calvary in an open battle and all infantry if you want to take a city.

6) After each military victory, offer Ransom or Sack thier city.

7) After capturing Arensburg and Pernau, destroy all buildings and sell them to Novgorod. Each can fetch a minimum of 6k. You wont have to face the Catholic Danes in other front.

8) Do not recruit any additional Merchants.

This way, I did not feel the lack of cash at any point of time.

[Flying Pig]

I used nothing but horsemen and never fought a city battle. I achieved this by 1) always moving from the city aturn before the foe attack it and fighting them,and 2) holding every seige until the final turn, when the enemy sally and you can kill them.

[invalidopcode]

Just a few notes.

Playing Lithuania is much more fun and challenging if you stay pagan and do not convert to Christianity. The units are more interesting. And the game is more challening due to the size restrictions on your castles and cities.

The few games I converted I ended up abandoning the game thread and going back to before the choice and stick as pagan.

The only negative with playing these guys is that you need to micro manage every single battle since you are dependent on the HA units. It makes for long games which sometimes get annoying since you know that your stack should win but the auto-resolver does not calculate HA effectiveness correctly. If you are ready for that, these guys are a blast to play.

[Polemists]

Nothing drastically different then the other guys said.

What I will say is if you can do the missions to take out the crusading nobles. Normally they land with a decent force, and join the faction. However quite often this your moment to strike. In my games they always grabbed a whole army from a city and left, grab two armies, set up a ambush, and hurl those javlines. If you win the rewards are pretty nice, and a good way to strike back.

Also while it is hard, if you can get your army near a russian army the Teutonic knights will attack you both unlike other factions. This is usually a win for you. Don't help Russia to much though, in one game I helped them beat back Teutonic order only to find them coming at me later on.

[aimlesswanderer]

I shouldn't have killed the Teutonic Order off so quickly, they weren't around long enough for me to get one of the "kill the noble" missions.