Hostile Takeover

[Daevyll]

I've been doing a little experiment lately. I am trying to see if, using the Agents' abilities to go anywhere on the map, I can carve out an empire using not military might but economic might.

Obviously the main ingredient for this is a faction that is
A) filthily rich
B) reasonably secure in its holdings with little effort

The Egyptians fit the bill perfectly, with rich lands and their neighbours involved in wars with the Spanish and Byzantines.
I chose Early era and Hard difficulty.


First off were economy-boosting buildings and some ships for trade. While in the process I took Cyprus and Crete from the Byzantines for some more income, then made peace shortly after to resume trade with them.

Once I'd got my economy set up in the first 30 years or so, I made a nice profit each turn. With this taken care of I quickly built a mosque and some other Agent buildings and started to produce a few Alims and Emissaries, followed by spies and a few assasins.

The spies had only one job, to keep the other factions busy. So I used them to forment rebellion in whichever faction seemed to strong. If the Turks were about to take Constantiople, suddenly 3 of their rear provinces started to rebel. If Almos had a strong army next to Castille, then they'd inexplicably need it in Portugal instead.

The Alims went far and wide looking for impressionable provinces to spread their faith to, followed closely by my emissaries. Whenever a suitable candidate was found, I'd spend a few years converting the populace and then bribe the occupying army.

In this way I quickly gained four provinces, and a firm foothold in northern europe: Pomerania, Prussia, Sweden and Finland were mine

Building up ship production in Finland, Troop production in Sweden and a decent defensive setup everywhere I soon had my own little 'subsidiary' empire going.

Ship production and trade buildings steadily went on in my southern empire all the while, and my yealy income was becoming monstrous (for the timeperiod anyway).

Having stopped expanding my holdings after my four nothern acquisitions to build them up first for about 30 more years, I now had a 'war chest' well over 150k florins, and I felt it was time for a few more hostile takeover bids >http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Looking around for a juicy candidate, I discovered that Frysia had recently rebelled, and that Flanders had a 'morally flexible' general in charge. However, I did not relish the prospect of sitting between France and England, sooner or later they were bound to attack me if I took FLanders. Frysia on its own was useless for my purposes as well, so I looked on.

I finally found my target further toward the south: Toulouse had been ravished by changing hands several times in the anglo-french wars, and was ready for the taking. I quickly suborned the commander, and was the proud owner of a 320-man army with a 4-star general in a province that had a level 2 castle and gave me access to the atlantic territories. 16 years of building allowed me to link up my three regions by ship, and gave me a _very_ nice view of the map.
Better still, the Almos and Spanish were still at it, as were the Turks and Byzantines. Seems those spies did their job well..

***

This is as far as I've gotten so far, and apart from Crete and Cyprus I have not conquered a single territory by military might. My income is far and away the largest of any faction, and my armies are modern and well equipped, though nearly 100% defensive in nature.

All in all a very fun game so far I must say http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[maroule]

good post
I find that this approach comes naturally in the latter parts of my campaign, when you're insanely rich and too bored to fight to conquer new provinces. So you buy/subvert all available troops.

I haven't tried to do the full bribe campaign but it could be fun, in a slow passive kind of way (the fun part of this game is the balance between combat and the rest).

[Naagi]

Im sortof doing this same thing as the Byzantines. Though ive had a few more skirmishes than you, but still i aquired Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Lithuania, Livonia, Volga-Bulgaria by bribes. Had to take out the Turks, Egyptians, and Sicilians early, and now fighting the English, French, and Spanish due to crusades. Have the Almohads tied up with spies, and think the HRE, Hungarians, and Polish are just to scared to start anything. Just gotta watch my friendly neighbor the Novgorods, who keep running armies around. The pope keeps sending assassins my way but always caught, and Italians are mostly friendly, few assassins here as well. All in all bribing countries is fun, and really gave me a good view of map.

Naagi http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

[desdichado]

hah,

I'd been wondering if this was possible. Keep us updated on how campaign turns out as I'd be interested to know how other factions react when your size/wealth increases and they start to get a little jealous

I do have one question though. I seem to remember that when i last bribed an enemy general and he switched sides it was treated as an act of war as i had effectively taken over his province. Is this right and how do you deal with this. As a catholic factin could lead to being excommed and would then degnerate into a military campaign as all catholics attacked you

Good post though.

[Grifman]

Nice post, good to see someone trying out a different strategy and being successful at it.

Grifman

[Naagi]

Heres a twist i didnt mention in previous post. I had also bribed Khazar, but on the next turn when i would take control of the army, and supposedly the province. My good Spanish allies moved a large army into the province and since we were allies and they had the bigger force there, it gave them control of the province and backed my army out to the neighboring province. Course then they decided to send a crusade my way so i took Khazar back from them and blocked their crusade.

Naagi http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

[Daevyll]

Yes, bribing is considered a hostile action by other factions, however there are ways around it. What I do is usually one of the following:

1- Use spies. Incite a rebellion first, then bribe the rebel army after it has crushed the original owners' force.

2- only bribe regions that are isolated from their faction. Taking Malta from the sicilians is a good example. AS long as you have a strong enough fleet they cannot take Malta back nor can they retaliate on any of your other provinces.

3- only bribe rebels. Depends a bit on the flow of your game, but the huge battles between france, hre, poland and bulgaria have left many wastelands inhabited only by rebels in central europe in my game. They're very receptive to a spot of religious conversion followed by a (remarkably cheap) bribe.

[maroule]

I only bribe rebels for a simple reason : factions are too expensive to buy, much cheaper to attack them

even a few soldiers resisting forever in a castle are incredibly expensive to bribe, better to loose 50 soldiers by assaulting (costs a 100 gold at the most)