Britannia Campaign: Wales

[frogbeastegg]

This topic is for the Welsh faction in Kingdoms expansion's Britannia campaign.

[upthehammers]

First impressions on this campaign. This is the first kingdoms campaign I am playing as a kind of trial run. I want to see to see how well the AI handles itself. Playing on M/VH. Found this was the best balance for most realistic (not saying much) diplomacy AI and hardest battle AI from M2TW so…..

The Welsh find themselves in a decent defensive starting position but immediate offensive action is needed and that is where it gets tricky. Two castles and a city equals limited income, coupled with next to no navy means A. The English send what little ships you have to the bottom of the sea and B. The one port you have is quickly blockaded. However, a decent amount of starting cash and decent standing armies are available.

First priority is to take back the Welsh city of Cardiff. Use the forts to minimize city garrisons. Just a few troops in key forts (blocking and delaying any enemy incursions) and minimal city garrisons (which you can get away with in native Welsh settlements) allows you to assemble a good size stack with minimal expenses. Rush to Cardiff and using your King, smash your way in and get your income going.

Note: With the one ship you have, get your diplomat to Ireland and Scotland. Secure trade rights with those two as well as the Norse. You are going to need it. Don’t even bother with the English.


At this point, with a cash boost from Cardiff plus the increased trade income, you have to get smart and a little lucky. The English are going to retaliate. They aren’t at war with the Scots to begin with and the Scots aren’t going to start anything just yet as they are more than busy with the Norse. The English are glad to have the two enemies fighting each other and on the mainland (Britain) the only concern is you, the Welsh. While they will have some resources tied up dealing with the Irish, all standing forces south of Scotland will be looking at you.

So, you have to pick, choose and balance – you need a navy to keep your ports open and you need an army to fend off the English coming to recapture Cardiff and the rest of Wales. Forts are KEY – they will allow you to delay English armies and mass your forces in order to fend off attacks.

Survive the retaliatory attacks and manage to keep your ports open and your next goal should be to take Chester. It is very close to Cardiff and THE command center for the English armies around Wales. Taking Chester will: 1. Give you complete control of The Bristol Channel and more trade. 2. Take away any English muscle in the region. Quality troops will have to come from farther east (Nottingham) or north (Lincoln) 3. Control access to Cardiff and keep it safe. 4. Increased troop production. 5. Open up much of western England to your armies.

Small towns such as Shrewsbury or regions such as Cornwall are now open to your capture. Again, all castle grade troops must now come from farther regions of England giving you time and space to react. And the forts are invaluable at delaying and monitoring their actions. Harass. Delay. Mass and counterstrike. Hold onto Wales and slowly push into western England, up and down the coast.

If possible, get the navy up to a decent size and go on the offensive. Hunt down the English in the Irish Sea and eliminate their presence in those waters. Lock up their ports in Ireland and hope it helps the Irish drive them out. Soon, hopefully, you will be facing an England that has lost Ireland and Wales, is losing the Western Coast of its own island, and faces threats from all directions: the Welsh in the west, the Scottish from the north, and the surprise visits from the Norse along the coast in the north and east.

[upthehammers]

EDIT: Castle southeast of Cardiff is Gloucester not Chester. Chester is two towns north. So north to south - Chester, Shrewsbury, Gloucester

[Accounting Troll]

I fully agree with the need to launch a bold offensive against the English right from the beginning as otherwise they will just send one army after another into Wales. They are richer than the Welsh, so they can better afford the attritional battles in the Welsh hills. They are also the only other faction with strong archers.

The Norwegians, Scottish and Irish don't have any archers that can compete with your Saethwyr archers. Saethwyr have the additional advantage of being able to plant wooden stakes, making a frontal cavalry charge against you suicidal, although stakes don't stop enemy infantry.

Your main advantage is that the English forces are thinly spread and they start off relying on weak militia units to defend their border settlements. This advantage will disappear in time, so you need to act quickly.

Your king, who also happens to be your national hero, starts off in Montgomery, along with a reasonably large army. My preferred strategy is to move the entire garrison, including the catapults, across the border to capture Shrewsbury in the first turn. Your king is the hero of the Welsh people, giving him a command bonus when fighting the English, so you should
make use of him.

Before you launch the attack, make sure that you replace the garrison in Montgomery with the units from the fort to the west of the city, and that your king has recruited all the available mercenary units. You will need the extra men to occupy the neighbouring forts.

During the first few turns, your settlements should be concentrating on producing additional troops, despite the strain it will put on your finances. Caernarvon will be your most important recruiting centre in the early stages as it starts off with the facilities to train a good variety of
units, including Saethwyr archers.

As your army crosses the border, you will see an empty English fort guarding the border crossing. Move one of your weaker units into it. There are many permanant forts scattered across the British Isles, all of which guard potential invasion routes. When you take a settlement, you should always try to take the nearby forts. Even a fort guarded by a weak unit will
delay an invading army, giving you time to move your field armies to where they are needed. Each permanant fort gives a free upkeep for two units, so you lose nothing by occupying them.

Shrewsbury is only guarded by a wooden wall, so your catapults will have little difficulty breaking through, and your army should easily overwhelm the garrison. After the battle, make sure that you occupy the nearby forts before the English do.

After another few turns, you should have recruited enough troops in Wales to be able to mount simultaneous attacks on Chester and Cardiff. Remember to send reinforcements from Montgomery to Shrewsbury so that your king can turn south and attack Gloucester at the same time. Money will be tight at
this point, and you may even be running at a loss, but don't panic. Capturing the settlements will increase your income, while the casualties you endure will reduce your costs.

As you may already know, religion has been replaced with national culture in this campaign. There are no priests, and the purpose of churches is to convert the inhabitants of a region to the culture of their rulers. Most units in the campaign can only be recruited if their culture has sufficient hold over a region. This means that you will be able to recruit English units in the newly conquered territories, but if you hold on to your gains, English culture will fade away and you will only be able to recruit Welsh units instead. Many
of these English units will be a useful addition to your armies, and recruited units will remain with you even after their culture disappears.

You will now find that the English are starting to deploy the forces they have been busily recruiting in their remaining provinces, which will force you onto the defensive until the barons rebel against the crown.

When the Barons Alliance emerges as a faction, they will take some of the pressure off you, and they will probably be receptive to an alliance proposal. Your goal should be to arrange for the war between the king and the barons to be a stalemate, leaving you free to pick off the occasional province. If the barons win, their leader will become the next king of England, and he will be looking for somewhere to expand to.

If the barons are defeated, they will sometime attempt to rebel again by generating a mission in which you are asked to capture an English settlement and hand it over to the barons in return for money and an alliance. They will keep on trying to rebel against the king until both English factions have been wiped out. Remember that if the English are on the ropes, you don't need the barons, and if the English are doing well, the barons are unlikely to get very far without a lot of help.

Keep an eye on the conflict in Ireland, and try to ally with the Irish. If the English conquer all of Ireland, they will be free to land armies on the Welsh coast. If the Irish are victorious, they will less of a threat as they have weak archers and limited heavy infantry. You will eventually need to get control of Dublin, but there is no sense in launching such an expedition until the English threat has been greatly reduced.

The Norwegians are a potential threat, but they are generally more interested in Scotland so try to maintain friendly relations with them, but keep a respectable number of soldiers garrisoned in Wales just in case.

[Remember, your goal is to capture this s]

It looks like there is supposed to be a series of events (The Welsh Uprising) that trigger when you start taking the English settlements that border your starting cities, but I can't seem to get them to happen. Is there something messed up in the campaign_script that is preventing them from triggering?

[IvarrWolfsong]

Just a bit of unit and tactical info...

Obviously, Wales is a Longbow & Spear nation. The fact that your main infantry is made up of spearman makes the Stake ability a little redundant; I almost never use it (more on this later). You also have some agile light cavalry units that work well with the spear bow combo.

This is what I have had the most luck with...

line of longbows then a line of spears then a few axe/sword units. Cavalry is basically a general and a few light cav.

1) longbows kill anything at range especially enemy cav, light cav keeps enemy missiles off balance, spears kill enemy cav that come near your archers. Keep skirmish off and protect your archers manually, pulling them back just before the melee begins.

2) infantry fight a linear battle. you have great spearmen and they will last a good while against swordsmen/axemen. However, they will eventually lose if left fighting on equal terms. This why we will do two fiendishly clever things... 1. we will move our archers to the flanks facing in 2. we will use our nimble, fast cavalry to charge the rear of the engaged enemy (this why I don't use stakes... they prevent a rear charge). We now have them in Ivarr's Magical Welsh Faerie Box of Death (IMWFBoD for short) with our spear inf as the bottom, longbows on the sides and light inf as the top.

3)As the enemies route, make sure you turn fire at will off on the bowmen or they will cause huge friendly fire deaths.

The key here is to paper-rock-scissor your way to regional domination.
DO NOT -
-Get in a fair longbow shootout... sick them light horseys on the enemy bowmen
-Fight knights with your cavalry... use your agility and speed to drag the knights across the longbow field of fire or close to the spearmen for a whole lot of pointy death.
-leave your spearmen alone against axe/sword/bill infantry. either crush them from the rear or shoot them up from the sides or BOTH (in the amazing and astounding IMWFBoD)!
-Forget that your general is uber heavy cav. If you see an oppurtunity to flatten something, do it.

Things can get complicated when the enemy has a lot of siege. I typically try to get some action going off to one side to get the enemy forces strung out while my cav circles to attack the siege in the rear.

[Aetius22]

I have been playing this campaign for a while now. I managed to break the English, using a blietzkrieg strategy with their king in charge.

The problem I have is that the British only made one attempt to recapture their lands. Ever since they have placed large amounts of troops in the forts. I just sidestep them and grap their cities/castles.

I noticed that as long as the major culture in a conquered city is English you will be able to build English Billmen and Mailed Knights depending on buildings available. I haven't conquered a major castle such as Nothingham yet, but I am wondering how many of the English troops I will be able to build (they are more like mercenaries). I thought it was weird that such a major feature wasn't mentioned in the main manual.

[TheLastPrivate]

u get to build english mailed knight, heavy/norma billmen, english spearmen(just like merc ones) and thats what i've seen so far.

Anyone encounter baron's alliance disappearing with the english faction, both going reble at the same time for no truly appearant reason?

[Gallicflair]

The problem I have is that the British only made one attempt to recapture their lands. Ever since they have placed large amounts of troops in the forts. I just sidestep them and grap their cities/castles.

I had this sproblem too. I finished two Brittania campaigns, one as Wales, one as Ireland and through the whole of both campaigns the AI seemed predisposed to sit around with its stacks, often in castles. Infact, thinking upon it, I don't recall the AI actually attacking one of my armies in the open field on any occasion, though I do recall its stacks besieging the miniscule garrisons I ofen left in forts. This was on H/H and VH/VH.

[Aetius22]

Mine was m/m. So you answered my question about higher difficulties. I see this as a huge flaw. Granted if the English had thrown their full might at me I might have lost, but they didn't even make an attempt. Edward returned to find the Baron's Alliance holding London, the AI English then used Edawrd to recapture London, it hasn't made any further moves.

I believe this is a flaw on the AI. Perhaps there will be a future patch to fix these issues.

[Dutch_guy]

Hmm I seem to recall there being several 'types' of AI: every faction is accorded a particular 'personality', which defines how it goes about on the campaign map*. For instance, the Danes would always greatly expand in vanilla MIITW, and the HRE would die off - on average - between 20 - 40 turns.

In my games the English have been rather aggressive. Even landing troops under Edward in Ireland, to take back long lost lands. Finishing off the BA they never did, although they did come close to it on a couple of occasions. (on m/m difficulty)

* at least this was the case in RomeTW.

[aimlesswanderer]

I started a H/H campaign as the Welsh expecting a real struggle, but within 20 turns I had more provinces than the English and their forces were scattered all around the place getting picked off. The only large battle happened when Edward returned with his stack from the Crusade at about turn 27. At turn 30 they are down to 3 provinces along the east including London, and the Baron's Alliance has 2, both of which I have under siege and are about to fall. My forces were extremely strung out, but the AI never managed to get itself organised enough to exploit it....

Rather stupidly, the English finally managed to bribe one of my settlements right next to Wales and cut off from any of theirs, and it went straight to being the Baron's Alliance first province and capital.... derr.

The spearmen and the archers are just about all you need to grind up the English armies, and I haven't even gotten the heaviest spearmen yet, or any better cavalry.

[imperialus]

I'm enjoying the Welsh right now. I decided to try something a little different with regards to tactics. I figured that a kingdoms policy was decided based a great deal on the personality of a given king so I try and assign motivations and goals to each king inspired at least by what their stats seem to suggest.

For example, my first king with the impronouncable name I decided would be a Welsh nationalist as it were. His primary goal was to unite Wales and to do it without outside assistance beyond trade. He accomplished this goal by the time he was 34 so his expansion has stopped after taking 5 territories. I took Lancaster too, It was just too jucy and they'd stripped it's garrison to fight the barons rebellion, and besides his brother was in Chester anyhow.

His brother, if he lives long enough to be king (he's only 2 years younger) is going to try and become the go-to guy for anyone who wants to fight the English. He'll be much more expansionistic but I've decided that he also hates the Irish so he'll probably be going to war with them too.

[The_Baron]

Since playing (and completing) four campaigns as Wales, they've grown to be my favourite civilisation in all of MII:TW (including expansion campaign faction). Solid spearmen, cheap and numerous archers, excellent light cavalry makes this faction reliable and cost effective.

Some things to note:
-Most Welsh armies (spears, some archers and light cav) work best in defensive situations. Try to make enemies attack your armies.
-Mathrafal Horsemen are top-notch units. They're a heavyish-light cav unit that can hold their own against heavier troops, flank and ******* enemy infantry with their charge.
-Put Welsh Axemen behind your battle

[The_Baron]

Since playing (and completing) four campaigns as Wales, they've grown to be my favourite civilisation in all of MII:TW (including expansion campaign faction). Solid spearmen, cheap and numerous archers, excellent light cavalry makes this faction reliable and cost effective.

Some things to note:
-Most Welsh armies (spears, some archers and light cav) work best in defensive situations. Try to make enemies attack your armies.
-Mathrafal Horsemen are top-notch units. They're a heavyish-light cav unit that can hold their own against heavier troops, flank and ******* enemy infantry with their charge.
-Put Welsh Axemen behind your battle-line of spears.

The early campaign in five steps!
1. Make Pembroke into a town, you NEED the income.
2. Minimise garrisons in Montgomery, Pembroke and Caernarvon. Take nonessential units out of forts. Gather these units under your King.
3. Assault Cardiff. You don't have time to waste.
4. Throw a couple of troops on border forts with England.
5. Get the remaining army under your King (hire some mercs if you must) and take Glouchester (again, assault).


You ought to carry on pumpin' troops out of Caernarvon. Take the other two border English towns - Chester and the one south of it. You might want to consider taking Castle Town before Norway tanks it up with two full stacks (as I've seen happen lots). Launceston will look good for a the taking - it can be an excellent pathway into south-western England.

Hope some of that helps!


-Max

[Gaius Terentius Varro]

The early campaign in five steps!
1. Make Pembroke into a town, you NEED the income.

-Max

I disagree, if you turn Pembroke into a town it will be ages before it makes any cash(pop. 1200). Turn it into a castle then build gold mines (+400/turn ) and a port and then straight away convert it into Large Town. You make 3000+ on the mining alone going that direction.
As to my faction leader i keep him safe in my cities, He has high chivalry which stimulates growth and by being the sole builder he picks up nice traits which he will hopefully pass on to his children (this means of course that his brother will have to die heroically sometime in the future).

[Mek Simmur al Ragaski]

When you play the campaign, you might realise that Glouschester has a small garrison, aswell as Chester and Shrewsbury, but you must take Cardiff, Cardiff is one of the cities that the wlesh need to take to make Wales defendable. You will not want to be attacked at both the south and the east, so take cardiff, next i adivse you to take Gloucester and Chester quickly, possibly carlisle too.But keep recruiting men, i made a mistake and stopped recruiting men, and now an unstopable army has attack gloucester. Just carry on from there, ally with Ireland, Scotland, the Normes if possible, and the Barons Alliance (if you can find them)

[Yaropolk]

After the new Kingdoms Patch (v 1.05) fixed the welsh uprising events, this campaign got much easier.

Now you get 6 groups of reinforcements after capturing 3 of the 4 nearby welsh cities. This includes top level units such as Saethwyr archers. You now don't need to hire any mercs or train anything other than more Spears/ Saethwyr after you start.

So basically capture the 4 neighboring cities as above, use forts to keep army costs down, then set your spies to work spying on cities. Most English cities are very poorly defended (1-3 units) and can be easily sieged in 1-2 turns usinng spies or the trick described below. In many cases its just a lone governor defending the city - in this case 2 units of saethwyr with ladders can climb city walls and snipe the governor safely.

Using your spies you can find easy targets to sack for large money. I used two armies - one under the king to grab Shrewsberry (disband the balistas)->Gloucester (castle, open with spy)->Oxford(city, sieged)->London (city, used captain trick below, English King is here) and another under the Prince to grab Chester(city, spy)->Lancaster (castle, siege)->York(siege).

Remember to leaves expensive troops behind in forts for free upkeep. Saethwyr cost 185, but are extremely useful so move them to the front after each turn, and raiders cost 155, but are not very useful. Raiders are good candidates for permanent fort garrisons. Also I did not create any new cavalry beyond the 2 units you start with since they arent very good for sieges.

The two armies met at Nottingham (Fortress) to take out the new King Edward by turn 5 (Playing on VH/VH). This means England is now cut in half (a few provinces up north by Scottland, and 6 or so along the southern coast) and the Prince Edward Templars event will not occur.

In every city that you capture be sure to build the first 2-3 levels of a church right away. It's the only way to convert English culture to Welsh, and you'll have to keep a large garrison around until that happens.

A neat trick to avoid sieges is to find a captain sitting outside of a city and attack him. The governor will come to his aid, and you can destroy both armies in the field and then walk into the undefended city/castle. Be sure to execute all prisoners in this case, as any ransomed soldiers will run back into the city and you'll have to siege it.

[King of Cadwr]

Being welsh..i have played this faction several times to finish, and have always succeeded 'one way or another'.

What i have found out is several things.

Welsh are defensively very strong, have excellent units, and plenty of people who will trade and become your allies, although beware, as the Scots have always attacked me at chester or anywhere more north, the Irish have attacked me from the sea on more than one occasion, and if Norway become too strong they have also attacked me with several stacks from the isle of man.

Get Cardiff with Llewellyn. build up an army from caernarvon and get the forts with one unit of peasants in each on the borders. It is imperative for your survival to expand, and go south.

The more English strongholds you attack with llewelyyn the more militia will appear in wales, with your capital producing spearman and Saethwyr and the 'free' militia' you build up a couple of stacks quickly.

Go South as the Scottish will leave you alone, and the english will be fighting the scottish and Irish, which will drain their resources, also when the baron's alliance turn up they will occupy the northern cities as they are under duress from unrest, hence the barons alliance have to fight the scottish and the english too.

Block English ports, take London, and stop at Nottingham, until you have enough money and a decent army to push up, the barons alliance have always stuck by their alliance with me, up until i try to assasinate their leader by request of the heir, once broken they will normally keep at war with you until they disappear, but you will need to be strong to get into scotland and keep the people happy, so try to stay allied with the Irish and the Barons.

A good tip for when being under seige is to take your Longbow men and to get them to lay stakes in front of gates and holes in walls, every time i do this their general or king will rush in and instantly die, making the attacking force more likely to run.

Another tip is to keep the forts in strategic positions manned, as it will give you time to move armies and make more, as well as upgrading defences if available, i usually stick my most depleted or cheapest unit in a fort, just to give me that time...I found that the scottish will attack forts, then pull out, so i can sneak a unit in, block them off from any escape or help, keep on doing this until the troops become canon fodder units, then attack.

If you tend to put your armies in the forts, it is easier to defend against a large attacking force, again by using the 'stake trick'

Saethwyr are your best unit, i have had a whole stack against a whole stack of infantry and won easily, they devastate in numbers, and once close can run and shoot all day, very capable skirmish and hand to hand.

Navy is inportant to keep blockades away, and later, the landing of enemy troops, if you can get cornwall early its a good idea to get a stack of ships and defend Wales from the English, likewise Dublin, although this will bring the Irish onto you, so keep that until last.

Just my experiences, the beauty of the game is that its never the same twice....

[kooaznboi1088]

I just conquered the whole British Isles as Wales on VH/VH. King Llewelyn was just 55.

My advice to you all is this. Right in the beginning. Go hyperaggressive with all your troops except for one unit which you leave in your cities/castles. Keep on cranking the troops and building roads to transport the troops.

In the very beginning you want to make as many spearmen and longbowmen as possible. And if you can't make spearmen or longbows, normal archers and spear militia will do. Always sack the cities and castles you conquer. And always in the beginning micromanage your troops in battle. Never auto resolve until you the endgame.

Start off by building trade/farms/mines in your towns. And have 2 castles continuously pump out troops. Every time you capture a Town, supplement yourself with some troops. And up the tax rate to as high as possible in order to get the most money. Don't worry about growth, cities grow fast enough. Always leave just around 1 unit behind in garrison as you continuously push forward on your front lines with your generals. SAVE every time before a battle just in case.

You will be using English Billmen and Heavy English Billmen a lot to supplement your lack of heavy infantry. The Axemen that you get is good, but you can't mass produce them like you can with the Billmen. So, needless to say, start conquering English towns. Build roads and markets whenever you can. You should build mines whenever you get the chance. Stay clear of Ports and Farms until mid to end game where you have some money. Wales is very tight on money due to...it being Wales.

Your main source of revenue will come from taxes and sacking enemy towns. The more English towns you sack, the more Billmen you ge to recruit.

A combination of Billmen, Longbows, Heavy Calvery, and Spearmen will answer everything the AI can throw at you. I relied on Billmen and Longbows a lot to win against the Irish and English. By the time the Scots declared war on me, I was already out of Billmen so just relied on Irish/Scottish/Welsh heavy infantry and spearmen to win.

Your Longbows are your main advantage. Also always keep a family member in Nottingham to recruit Robin Hood and his merry men. Those guys are so damn good and will be sorely missed in your Irish and Scottish campaigns if you don't have them.

Well needless to say. Go after England first. Push Push Push. And use their own heavy infantry in combination with your Horsemen and Longbows to win. Chase them into Ireland. Kill them. Now build up 4 full stacks of Billmen/Longbows/Spearmen/Horses and then declare war on the Irish. Send 2 stacks south and 2 north. Continue producing troops at home. I reinforced the assault with 2 more full stacks of men to exterminate the Irish.

Needless to say, you will be using a lot of Kerns, Galloglasses to win. Hobiliars too.

Scotland and Norway should declare war on you soon after you conquer Ireland. No problem. Keep your troop factory cranking. And send your men up to fight Scotland.

William Wallace should appear too. Don't worry. What I did was I isolated him with 3 full stacks of men. Then just killed him in battle.

Norway won't do anything to you even on VH because Scotland should have seriously weakended it by now. Just stay clear of their islands until you finish with Scotland.

Scotland's pikemen are a pain in the ass. You have to do the old hammer and anvil tactic. Which is engage the pikes up front. Hammer them in the back with horses or something else. Your archers should decimate a lot of them, enough for even the Highland nobles to route. Make sure you do not use militia against these Highland Pikemen or Nobles. Use Axemen, Billmen, Heavy horses, archers of all kinds, and heavy spearmen. Use only regular spearmen for their hobiliers.

You should by now be swarming Scotland with 5+ stacks of mercs, Irish, English, Scottish, and Welsh troops.

Laugh and mop up.

Then laugh some more and mop up Norway with stacks of men.

[Sheogorath]

My Welsh campaign has, thus far, been a piece of cake.
The English are utterly slaughtered by the Welsh longbowmen. And nobody else is even trying to attack me. The Barons Allliance weakened England so much that by turn 20 they're down to three provinces. And I've hardly had to do anything.
They, the Scots and the Barons seem to be ignoring me. 'Though the Scots are slowly getting crushed by the Norwegians. Which is really too bad, I was looking forward to fighting pike-heavy armies with longbowmen ;)

The English strategy seems to consist chiefly of 'build lots and lots of catapults and hope the enemy is too stupid to notice a stack of five siege units with no escort".
I expect the Barons havent actually built any units either, but are just snagging towns with their starting units.
Sometimes the AI makes me sad.

But, as has been mentioned, the Welsh longbowmen are your greatest allies. In one battle, with two units of longbowmen, two merc. crossbows and a general I took out an English army of 700 men. Those longbows will EAT cavalry alive, and the ones that get past the shower of arrows will run into the stakes. Or hang around indecisively a dozen yards in front of the stakes because the AI doesnt seem sure about how to handle them and the concept of 'going around' seems to escape it.

I really havent had much experience with Welsh melee units. Their spearmen are decent enough, and the Welsh miltia seem to be a bit better than the average peasant with a pitchfork. Other than that, longbowmen fill pretty much every niche in the Welsh army.

I actually find it quite odd, given their stats, they really shouldnt be that good. The Welsh militia archers actually have a higher missile attack than them, but, somehow, they can beat English longbowmen in one-to-one fights easily.

[part_time_player]

My version is patched to 1.05 but didn't get the uprising event for some reason.
Playing on VH/VH
I took every unit I had on the first turn (leaving settlements empty) and attacked Shrewsbury, Chester and Cardiff Immediately. Built as many units as I could and a couple of buildings. Spare troops from Chester sent south to Shrewsbury and then all initial troops finally combine at Gloucester for a showdown with the English, Full stack vs Full stack resulting in a clear victory and taking Gloucester. Meanwhile troops from Pembroke reinforce Cardiff, Caernarvon reinforces Chester and Montgomery reinforces Shrewsbury. Chester under siege by stack sent from Lancaster but I'm happy the garrison can hold out. Half stack from Shrewsbury and Half stack from Gloucester march on Oxford from two directions, one half meets English army on the way, the other lays siege. Oxford taken, Chester survives siege and all reinforecements I can afford are being channeled towards Oxford. Full stack marches on London whilst half stack defends Oxford. London taken, English have a full army in Nottingham and Another on the south coast in a fort, evrywhere else is very weakly garrisoned. Reinforcements from Wales combine with Oxford Garrison and march south to lay siege to garrisoned English fort. Army in london (led by LLewellyn) marches on Nottingham. Nottingham taken and army to the south destroyed ending any hope of English resisting the Welsh invasion. Barons Alliance appears and takes 3 of the northern provinces leaving Lancaster as the last English Province in north England. Next few turns spent systematically capturing remaining English settlements in the south (up to Chester/Lincoln in the north). Buildings have been concentrating on growing population or income if population is already high. Nottingham produces all the troops i need and has a swordsmith guild as well. I've got loads of money coming in and I've maxed out my free upkeep potential in every city and every fort so there are plenty of troops around should anyone choose to invade. Now building the best army I can field in nottingham ready to march north. Scotland has finished off the Norse and England/Ireland are still at stalemate in Ireland. On about turn 30 which I thought was quite quick by my standards but nicely challenging and fun as well. Looking forward to raining arrows on the Scots...

[Ramses II CP]

One word really: Saethwyr. Build 'em as often as you can, mercenaries, siege equipment, and militia spears can take care of all your other needs. I rather lazily cruised through this campaign with only a few interesting battles in the later stages. The only real difficulty is in getting through the initial debt load without sacking too many of the prime English cash cow cities.

England is easily wiped out. They never properly concentrate their forces to oppose you and as long as you have the greater number of archers their men will come to you resulting in a slaughter.

I allied with the Baron's alliance group after they popped out, but very soon after I wiped out England and... surprise! The Barons become England. Meaning I suddenly lose an ally and wind up at war with them on a border I hadn't guarded well. Fortunately they grabbed England's AI as well and were completely useless.

Scotland fought two good battles against me under William Wallace but then he died in a bridge assault and the Scottish gathered their stacks in the hills and watched while I sacked the rest of their cities.

Norway had about three stacks at Castle Town with no boats and nothing anywhere else. The AI doesn't do well with island factions.

Ireland had the best military through almost the entire game according to the stats. Their top end heavy infantry (Muire?) were incredible in actual battle, marching through Trebuchet cow guts and directly into mercenary cavalier fire without routing. Not that it won them any battles, but it was impressive enough that I want to try an Ireland campaign now. The Irish had all but wiped out the English in Ireland by the time I got around to my invasion, then I let them build up their forces while remaining allied to them until they decided to try to take Prim, the castle I'd taken from the English.

Unfortunately for Ireland those Saethwyr will, with proper fire discipline, absolutely butcher any and everything thrown against them. They're even tough enough to defend the walls. You don't need anything else except some cavalry to chase routers and maybe 3-4 companies of those top end spearmen just in case the gates get busted.

Easy, easy campaign on VH/VH. Saethwyr are dramatically overpowered, not quite as bad as retinue longbowmen in the vanilla English campaign, but close enough.

edit: Forgot to mention that rebel armies pop up often enough to be very annoying. That was the only real use of the free upkeep forts, scattering out enough Saethwyr to deal with the incessant rebellions that damaged my trade income.

[Tai-Pan]

I'm playing Brittannia for the first time. The Welsh are an absolute blast!

The Scots betrayed me though, and that was rough for a bit. I was still fighting the English and must have just wandered too far north because a big Scot stack came down and crushed my northern-most city. I'm doing pretty well now though, and I enjoy being able to recruit Scottish pikes in the cities I take from them. No encounters with the Norse or Irish and currently warring with the Scottish and finishing off the English.

[Myth]

Apart from being more easily acessible, what makes Saethwyr better then Yeomen Archers and Retinue Longbowmen (which the English can get in Kingdoms as well)? Because looking at their stats, Retinue Longbowmen seem superrior.

[Irishguy]

they can place stakes, this thread really made me enthusiastic about MTWII again thanks!

[Tsar Alexsandr]

Well the Saethwyr are Welsh. And the inventors of the longbow, so that is what makes them better... lol.

In all seriousness, retinue longbowmen are for all intents and purposes, better. They have higher defense, and a better hand to hand attack. But a Welsh player can fight England with such speed that England can't make the retinue longbowmen anyhow. Once you push out of Wales and strike at the interior of England, if you keep up the pressure, England will never have the opportunity to create their retinue longbowmen.

Wales has great units if you get the hang of them. Their spears are good, and they have a diverse and useful selection of cavalry. Mixed units tactics is the key.

[Myth]

they can place stakes, this thread really made me enthusiastic about MTWII again thanks!

So can Yeomen/Retinue Longbowmen.

Edit: I did some testing. They are actually better then Retinue Longbowmen, because Saethwyr are 150 people per unit vs 120 per unit for the English variants. They win 1 on 1, even though Retinue bows have more shots.