Attack Tactics

[jrexchandler]

Hello,

Right now I'm playing as the English and it's about 1129. I have all of the English provinces (except Ireland), Normandy, Anjou, Aquitane, Navarre, and Aragon on the Continent. And Sweden (which is a financial powerhouse after you've built up it's trade :) ).

My question is, I want to get rid of the French. I can either:

1. Build up large armies in my provinces, then move them into all available French provinces (Flanders, Britany, Ile de France, etc) in the same year leaving only Champagne.

2. Attack them one or two at a time, in a 'top down' fashion starting with Flanders.

Here's my thoughts:

If I go with number 2, I will have to defend French invasions, worry about the Pope, and it will take longer. But, I will have more time to manage the taxes, titles, armies, etc. and it will be more realistic.

If I go with number 1, it will eliminate the French in about 3 turns. I won't have to defend counter-attacks, and the Pope won't get angry. But the downside is that I will have several titles to give out all at once, I'll have to keep large forces spread out in the new provinces to manage the loyalty, managing the finances for all of these new lands at once will be difficult, AND fighting 4 or 5 real time battles will take a very long time and towards the end I will probably make some bad decisions. Also, this doesn't seem very realistic. France cannot be completely destroyed in 3 years.

My question to y'all is, what approach do you usually use?

I would appreciate any advice or suggestions.

Thanks and have a Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukkah, Rockin' Ramadan, or Krazy Kwanzaa

Rex

[JoeBax]

I would try this only if everyone else nearby is allied so that nobody will attack any provences that you leave behind with only a small force to defend them.

Also keep in mind that those provinces might have some nicely defendable castles that he can retreat to and you will have to crush them.

You do have to worry about the pope, seeing that you can not conquer france in one year. After the first year he will tell you to withdraw and if you instead crush the castles he will ex-communicate you. This means that your loyalties are going to drop and there is a large potential of catholic rebellions in your provinces. Catholic rebellions are usually large, well armored forces.

I wiped out the english and french while playing the danes and got excommunicated, iceland and some of my russian provinces rebelled and had to be quelled. Then the pope got ousted and my excommunication went away and I was able to raise tax rates again.

But if being 1192 he has no castles or forts then maybe you can crush him fast like you outlined.

[rocketjedi]

i like to mount up a big army of say 10,000 men.then take 1 provence at a time leaving the most suitable general to stay and make sure no rebelions start up.when my armies are starting to wear thin i stop advancing and concentrate on making lots of florins, upgrading the land and mines first and trade last.once your provences are making as much money as thay can start building your troops up to go on another blitzrieg to expand your empire http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif

[svnguyen]

Having one large army is a waste. Make as many armies as possible and take all provinces in 1 turn which there is no way to defend because the defense will be pulled too thin.

The only reason to amass a 10k army is if there's a bottleneck and the defense has put all it's units in 1 province. Then you can either hit around it all at once by sea or if it's landlocked then by all means hit the big defense with your 10k army.

[Exile]

I'd go with # 1 to keep the pope happy. Provided your troops are enough to beat the French in all three provs at once (remember they may withdraw from 2 provs leaving all their troops in the last) beat them in the first turn and sack their keeps in the next and the Pope will not excommunicate you.

Getting excommunicated is a pain and is best avoided IMO.

[SmokWawelski]

Well, I also think that building such a large army is a waist of money and pointless exercise. Not only you have to wait and pay upkeep until you gather your forces, but you are killing the realism of medieval warfare.

On the side I wonder how can you afford such large armies, when on hard or expert levels the money is really scarce and keep 10 000 people around will ruin you over time…


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

[Kensai Achilles]

to answer your question, I'd choose the first option for income purpose as well as crippling france economy. those provinces are moderate to rich so if they are rebellious just give out the titles to high dread govs temporarily... then high accumen if any.

since u also ask for another approach:
I'm playing english now at expert, i'm a big fan of aggressive expansion, its 1105 and france is no more, and i'm going to take rich spain.

during early start I could careless about being excommed cuz it doesn't matter anyway (AI can't build crusades yet) and I'd choose dread for governors in early expansion mode, rich flanders and such has accumen priority.

to get the troops needed, instead of battling the rebels in UK area, I prefer bribing them and keep at least one teritory hostile (in my case include longbows, feudal knights, italian infantries, highlanders). to get the florins I'd ask for ransom... pretty tough for AI to stop these ranks in this early stage.

[HopAlongBunny]

Both ought to work just fine.

The quick crippling strike has advantages...faster its over the easier it is to deal with unforseen rebellions, backstabs, disasters...etc.

Slow approach...just make a pile of assassins http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif DO check to see that the Pope does not have the hard to kill v&v

[ZIM!]

at this point I usually surrender and turn the game off

[gabrielvilleda]

Hmm... I bet Zim is French? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

Anyways I would go for the all three at once attack, but you better set aside some time for yourself because the battles will probably last 45 minutes up to an hour each. I hate pausing in between battles because then I get rusty.

[TheViking]

If your going to invade france and your goal is to wipe them out. Do it as quickly as possible

[SlipJ]

2TheViking: i disagree with you. it'll be better to leave them 1 worst province, to avoid rebelions of reappearing nation

[TheViking]

you may disagree if you want. if the france will reappear its only to fight them off again, then the chance that they will reappear aint so big.

if he have that many units so he can invade all the france territorys he have the men to keep order in them. That will make the France reappear in other territorys. Trust me, I wiped out Spain once and they reappeard in Khazar.

[wtom]

There is one more expansion strategy that I often use in current game as Danes, it allows you to have as many alliances as possible and don't break no one of them for very long time. Here is it: you have to have access to many coastal provinces by sea and about 500 men as ambulance, wait for rebellions in any province and when this province becomes no man's, bribe one half of rebells and when they begin to blink move your ambulance to there also. Fight out remaining rebells and the new province is your and nobody is offended. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif
Of course I use also other strategies, but this one is very helpful.

[Exile]

of course spies can help in acheiving this and and allow you to select the best territories http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif One problem with this strategy is you don't want your empire a bunch of disconnected provs or it can be a real pain when war comes and the garrison requirements are high (to discourage ambitious neighbors), draining a lot of the money you make from the new prov. So I usually have my spies move to the best adjacent prov, then my new acquisitions are together and can be reinforced from each other by land if needed.

[FoundationII]

I would strike one at the time with 1 big army and move around in the enemy territory avoiding their forces as much as possible (you destroy their economy and have huge profits of pillage without losing a lot of troops) You won't be excommunicated because the French get their provinces back and keep his forces (altaugh he won't be able to (re)build a large military) if you got some profits engage their forces. That should be a final blow so if they have their troops spread out attack them all at once (you will most probably be able to have more troops than the enemy because of the raiding, if not raid some more)

[FoundationII]

Another of my favourite tactics is building loads of spies emmisaries (if the ennemy is muslim or orthodox bishops) and let him suffer rebellions and low taxes, when a rebel army beats a garrison I bribe the rebel army.
The best thing in this strategy is that you can do it against an ally or a neutral country without declaring war.
Your forces can be used elsewhere.

[The Ravener]

HAving used the English many times for agressive expansion campaigns I have found some strategies to be much more effective than others. Conquering France quickly and efficiently is key to establishing yourself as a solid continental force to be reconned with. In almost every instance I have eliminated France within the first 10 years of the campaign. The key is to: build spearmakers in England to get the fyrdman unit (superior to spearmen) while moving troops produnced there to mercia (to avoid having the french forces move to flanders to counter the percieved troops you would normally move to wessex). Simultaneously, you should be gunning for for building spearmen in both anjou and normandy in preparation for your war. By the year 1099 you should have 500 troops in each provence for an assault (note: hobliars in Aquitane are usuful but not as efficient as spearmen so save your florins...get the spearmen). Once you have approximately 400-500 troops ready to stage in wessex/mercia (and these can include peasants and archers from your starting garrisons) in addition to your Monarch...move to wessex and then assault flanders (in this instance I usually do not drop to personal combat mode as the french almost universally withdraw). At the same time move your forces into brest/champagne/Ile de france...ignore touloise. You may or may not command the battles personally. Some folks will cry foul if you auto calc them, but it really comes down to preference. If you look at the enemies troop composition and feel that your personal touch will reduce your casualties then do so. In most instances you're going to attack flanders first (you need to in order to stage the attack into champagne...but the pope will rarely scold you for this first provence) then the following year, while the french try to spread their defenses, lay into them. The tricky part is to limit your losses so that after your assault you can storm the castles the same year the pope tells you to back off. Yes, the casualties from this will be excessive but you want to avoid the excomm (as your own people will be harder to handle and you really want to avoid having upstarts like aragon backstabbing you...). Leaving Touloise (sp?) is ok since the french will be knee deep in confusion for a number of years and not likely to attack you providing you keep adequate garrisons. Note that while I find that very fast and early wars against france work for me...you can easily stretch the time table out another 5-10 years if you have trepidations about using so few men, or want to eradicate them in 1-2 turns. Crusades against you if you should pick the short straw and get ecommunicated are not a worry, as someone mentioned previously, as other factions will not have had the time and resources to mount crusades by this time anyway. Anyway, with france gone you can turn your attention towards wales/scotland and ireland at your leisure. I think someone also made a point about Sweden earlier...and a good one it is. If you find a way to spare the florins...bribe sweden asap. Developing that province is an excellent way to both boost your income and help build your naval forces. Not to mention blocking the Danes from expanding. Lastly, it is probably in your best interests to be allied to aragon and the HRE before attacking france http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif . On many occasions I've actually had the HRE take champagne and toulouise after my initial assault...annoying but helpful.

[mercian billman]

During my english campaigns I used alot of mercenaries to defeat France. I would recomend that you bribe the Welsh, and then the Scots. This will give you immediate acess to longbowman, and a two star emissary. Of course the Scottish are harder to bribe than the welsh, but I wouldn't attack them as you will lose troops you need for France. Scottland, and Ireland can wait.

After Flanders I move down to Champaigne, and my Garrisons in Anjou, and Aquitine attack Ill de France, and Toulose(I leave behind one unit of Peasents to garrison Anjou, and Aquitine.) If France is at war with the HRE, I let them take Lorraine, and finnish of the remaining French in Brittany.

[Etym]

I play mostly Britain, too. I go for the full sweep of France about 15 years after game-start. This gives me time to build Inns for mercenaries, and to get Billmen in a High Period game. Even if you can't do the whole job in time to beat excommunication, you should have enough troops left to discourage Crusaders if you fight skillfully, and execute all the French you capture in battle. Ideally, you will have enough units to storm all the castles before the Pope loses patience. It helps to get at least one artillery unit (probably mercenaries) in each invading army. You save a lot of assault troops when you knock down a gate or a wall, and you avoid a castle downgrade from letting it surrender. And the Ravener is right, spears are the key. With enough spearmen, your battle armies work like a lawnmower. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif