Possible killer strategy?

[econ21]

Last night I may have stumbled on a very effective strategy - I am sure some others already use it. Most people have learned the hard way how disasterous it is if your king is isolated from his kingdom - loyalty drops catastrophically and there are often mass rebellions. Well, the strategy is simply use this against large AI factions - use your path of invasion to encircle the enemy king in an enclave, out of communication with his kingdom.

Simply cutting an enemy kingdom in two may have similar effects, but the larger the part you leave away from the enemy king, the greater the damage.

It may be best to simply contain the enemy king if he has princes outside the encirclement - otherwise when he dies, the kingdom will be in communication again.

I stumbled on this idea last night after I encircled a province with the Byzantine Emperor. IIRC, the collapse of his Empire into civil war seemed to come when I had forced him to retreat into his castle, but I was not watching closely enough to be sure if this - rather than simple encirclement - was necessary.

Not sure to what extent other people use WW2 type encirclement strategies - I originally used them to stop high command generals escaping or to isolate enemy kingdom's armies so as to destroy them piecemeal. But the effects on loyalty may be even more beneficial.

[Cazbol]

I enthusiastically use the strategy of encircelment to capture large retreating armies. Through that method I discovered what a catastrophy it can be for the enemy to have the king surrounded. Seemingly though you can contact your isolated provinces through your allies' provinces. It would at least seem so in my current campaing. Playing the HRE I had all of western Europe while the Byzantines had all of the eastern part except Finland (under Novgorod) and the Polish provinces. Poland formed a buffer between us holding Silesia, Poland, Vory....., Moldavia and Kiev. I finished taking Spain just before 1231, so I figured the Mongols and the Byzantines could kill each other for years to come while I took North-Africa. When the Mongols come, the Byzantines surrender Volga-Bularia, Khazar and Georgia to them without a fight and then make an alliance with them. The only province bordering the Mongols that wasn't under the Byzantines was Kiev, so the Mongols attack the Poles and make it all the way to my borders, thus cutting the Byzantine empire in two halfs. The Byzantine emperor sits helpless in Crimea, bording nothing but Mongols and even with the Mongol navy (yes, Mongol navy) in the Black Sea. This situation does not seem to affect happiness in the Byzantine provinces to any significant effect.

[The_Emperor]

As Cazbol has said, King isolation does not always seem to have the same effect to the AI it does on us...

However cutting off large armies is a fun tactic of mine, I like to invade multiple provinces if possible and force the large army in the main target province, to be captured when it gets routed (or better yet tries to flee the province without fighting). Providingt he provinces next door are owned by me or someone else, capture is a certainty.

And then you can get that big fat ransom if the AI bothers to pay up... and if it doesn't want to pay up, well you know what happens http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[katar]

Quote[/b] ]And then you can get that big fat ransom if the AI bothers to pay up... and if it doesn't want to pay up, well you know what happens

makes me happy either way man http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[Nowake]

You can be sure that many of us used it - I use the past because I don't play MTW anymore.

[Jazzman]

i didnt really plan it but just used this very effectively in VI campaign. playing irish i was doing ok but low on funds and Mercia had much stronger army and funds it was gonna be tough to beat them. but their king aethelwulf ventures up north to battle the northumbs and i cut him off by attacking from my welsh provinces. the next year, civil war breaks out among mercia and they cant send help to their king, so i attack and capture him and they pay me 11,000 ransom for the dolt (if he was my king ida let him roast). So now i got all this dough and mercia is severely weakened by fighting their civil war and being drained of funds. i may be able to dominate pretty soon. a quick turnaround of fortune. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Mount Suribachi]

Simon Appleton - Remember when you inherited that Almo empire off me in the PBEM game where half the provinces had revolts or faction re-emergence? That was caused by getting my King trapped in a castle which triggered he-uge drops in province loyalty across the board the next turn (his last). Even though I broke the siege, the next turn all these provinced exploded in revolt, the King died and you had a ton of rebellions to put down. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mecry.gif

I learnt a valuable MTW lesson that day

[Oaty]

Quote[/b] ]As Cazbol has said, King isolation does not always seem to have the same effect to the AI it does on us...

1 key thing should be noted here, it does seem highly likely that a small empire is near immune to isolation from the king. I do remember my first campaign as the Almahods getting about 40 percent of the map only to find out the Byzantines owned about 50 percent of the map. Nothing like being a complete newby and running into the Byzantine empire on both fronts. 1 thing I remeber from that though is when I finally scouted out the Byzantines empire there were nearly 1000 men in just about every province in the western half even with no threat from enemies and in the east they were weakly garrisoned so this leads me to belive that since there empire was huge with only ships to cover most of the Mediteranean that the king taking 7 or 8 turns to get to a province in a large empire is drastic whereas if the Byzantines weres smaller they would not need such a garrison.

I do think the A.I. gets a boost when isolated but this bonus is weakened as they get bigger wich in my opinion makes the game better because who wants to see a small empire go to crap before you even get a chance to smash them.

[econ21]

OK, I have just consciously tried to implement the strategy and there are some practical problems.

Firstly, it is not that easy to isolate the King - the AI seems to often withdraw him to the greater part of the kingdom. It may be a strategy to use opportunistically, when the AI king has exposed himself rather than something to try to always implement.

Secondly, simply cutting a kingdom in half is not always devastating to the AI's loyalty. This may be because the AI has large garrisons or because it can trace influence across allied faction provinces or because it cheats or whatever. However, I suspect besieging its king is devastating (as it can be to humans, as Mount Suribachi notes&#33http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif.

Thirdly, strategic encirclement can VERY costly in terms of the men required to garrison your gains. You have to garrison a line of provinces around or between the enemy. The AI can concentrate its forces from adjoining provinces to try to break the line at any point. Last night, the AI launched just such a breakout attempt with 5000 men against my 1000 This makes the game very fun but maybe inefficient in terms of the size of army required to implement it. It does have one benefit - you can bleed the enemy by fighting defensive battles (holding your line of encirclement) rather than the trickier offensive ones.

[The Storyteller]

I have used this strategy before quite effectively, though not exactly to inspire revolts. I was playing the English, Early Period, and had wiped out the Aragonese, the Danes and the French, and controlled part of the Germans' original territories. The Spanish were growing at an alarming rate. They had wiped out the Almohads, Egyptians and Turks. After a brief pause, they wiped out the Byzantine Empire, and were then involved in a struggle with the People of Novgorod. At that time, they controlled everything from Narrave to Constantinople.

I was in quite a strong position then, and I was tempted to let the two slug it out while I took over the weakly defended HRE and Italians. However, those two powers were already quite weak. I decided that if I left them alone, they would do nothing except weaken each other, which suited me just fine. I decided that I would have to launch a fast and fierce attack on the Spanish to at least curb their power.

I stripped my provinces of men and sent three massive armies. The first landed in some province (I forget the name) that separates mainland Spain from Almohad territory. I believe it cuts right across the Iberian Peninsular. The second landed in the province East of Egypt, effectively cutting off the HUGE Spanish armies in the East fighting the People of Novgorod. The third was the only army that actually moved. It fought the small Spanish armies in their original homeland and, of course, won every battle.

From that moment on, the Spniash were in trouble. I had confined the Spanish King on the Iberian Peninsula. All the Spanish territories were lightly defended because they were fighting an aggressive war with the people of Novgorod. I had split the massive empire into three segments using only two armies, and was merrily rampaging up and down their homeland using only one army.

A whole bunch of their provinces rebelled, especially the freshly conquered ones with a different religion. In the end, their king died of old age. As luck would have it, the areas with massive armies had all been freshly conquered, and the provinces were mostly devoid of buildings because of the pillage damage done. So the king ended up being crowned somewhere near Egypt, which still kept him away from his main force

In the end, I conquered all the lightly defended provinces. The constant rebellions whittled down his forces. Then the rebels in Egypt suddenly decided to attack. They surrounded him and killed him. His kingdom fell apart as he had no heirs. I hurriedly bribed whatever rebels I could in order to gain provinces without warfare...

Now they've remerged, and while they still have enormous armies, their lands are much reduced.

So, in conclusion, its possible to isolate the enemy king... just pick your place carefully. You can do it with just one army sometimes.

[alby]

interesting theory but i suspect very difficult to pull off unless you get very lucky

i play each game as it develops, taking oppertunities when they present themselves. all i make sure of is that i build a large fleet as soon as poissible, for financial and tactical reasons

on the thought of killing the enemy king, well maybe sometimes its better to leave him alive with a bad rep rather than have a decent hier replace him, newy the secret to success imho is flexibility and knowing the strenghts and weaknesses of yyour troops

[MizuKokami]

as far as createing civil wars, i tend to notice the enemy kings suffer greatly from them as soon as you manage to take 5 or 6 provinces from them anyway. then you get men to bribe and fight.