English Strategy

[YAKOBU]

Hi everyone http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

I'm near the end of an English campaign and followed the usual starting tactics of wiping out the French, taking Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Lithuania before consolidating. What bothers me is the number of borders I have had early in France, 4 to the east against the HRE and 2 to the west against the Spanish. As I like to keep my borders to a minimum I'm thinking of a new game but taking Spain, Navarre and Aragon early and leaving France. This would give me 2 borders with France if I relinquish my other French holdings and 1 to the north against the Almohads/Egyptians. A lot simpler to manage my borders, has anyone else followind this start with any success??

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[RedKnight]

That's precisely what I did in my last game, Yak. Spain has some fairly rich provinces and is so easy to hold... if you just stay put at Navarre and Aragon, get all of Iberia and then Morocco, you only have to occupy 3 provinces to own 9, including some of the best iron collections on the map. And, of course, you get jinettes, a welcome addition for the English early on (before you can get steppe heavies or turcopoles). You might or might not continue along the African coast, all depending. If you do, you can snap up 5 more provinces on the way to Sinai (including the rich Egypt and built-up Algeria in later epochs), the whole time still maintaining the need for only 3 border countries. Of course, all this is obvious to you... I'm just pointing out what's nice about this plan of attack.

It's also very easy to attack (or defend) Aragon from Valencia (or vice versa), due to the bridge. You know how to make easy (aka cheesy) bridge attacks, yes?

Staying put at Navarre and Aragon until you get seriously built up for another major drive, is a real natural... anybody attacking from Europe will have to fight you in mountains. Or, if you have Aquitaine (as English), that plus Aragon is still just two you need to hold.

I am fairly convinced that the game tries to make you have X number of enemies at any given time, all depending on whether they think they can get an attack in. Thus, since Aragon often has Toulouse, I just let them stay there, unmolested, adding to my X enemies counter (and thus, hopefully, few other countries will feel a need to attack).

The attack on Spain is best done as quickly as reasonable, since over time they will otherwise build up a creditable fleet, which will be a major pain. Often, the Elmoheads are giving them grief, which you can take advantage of (either way). Also of course Portugal often revolts, which can give you a step into Iberia (and secure a port) before the main assault. It's also cute how, if you can get Cordoba and the rest north, you then have just 3 provinces to defend, already. The Castile/Morocco/Granada triangle will be the last big leap before you have it all.

You will likely have to work around an excommunication warning, one way or the other. Since the Spanish will take a lot more fighting than Aragonese (and assuming you don't want to ignore or kill the Pope), you might try for an attack on Aragonese such that you are sure to be able to take and seige both Navarre and Aragon in one (actually, two) turns, so that the Pope's warning is 'wasted' on Aragon, and you can kill Spaniards for fun, the next twelve years.

Do your best to take the iron-bearing province's castles by seige, instead of starving them out. Starving results in castle-size reduction far more often than direct seige... and that's a real setback to the road to gold swords.

***
Ok, I'm sure you knew all this. But I love that plan, so I had to speak up. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/ceasaryes.gif

A messier one, but also good for the few borders, is Russia. With Kiev, Lithuania, and Khazar or Goergia, there's only 3 provinces to hold that vast tract, with quite a few good trading ports, as well as plenty of rivers to attack across. In case anybody's interested, see my May 15 post in this (http://www.totalwar.org/cgi-bin/forum/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=15;t=18264;hl=rivers+and+world) thread to see a nice summary of all river battles. But Russia is much messier due to all the adjacencies, and harder to tackle, early on.

[RollingWave]

Except the problem is if you give up ur french holdings early... how the hell do you muster enough of a force to take spain??? if you wait till after you get some ship going and try to take it from the sea... by then either
1. spain is very power or
2. Spain is dead and the elmos are very power


Either way ur gonna tackle one of the the toughest bastards of the west.... of course if ur in the high age u have some serious advantage but even then... the spanish province are pretty easy to defend in general....

[RedKnight]

it helps a lot if you concentrate on trade first. e.g. consolidate the british isles and take sweden+norway, pumping out ships as fast as you can. the provinces that are crap at first, like Northumbria, Scotland, Finland, and Ireland (maybe even Mercia, depending how you want to play it) can make at least a little dock at first, then be pumping out barqs for years and years, until they're built up enough to start making real soldiers.

yeah, we're talking decades until you're ready to roll. but in the meantime you will have a good fleet which can bring in a lot of trade and take on the Spanish if they have much of a fleet yet, and also you'll be all around Spain, so you can make a marine landings at will. this can make for some grievous assaults to his infrastructure - like taking Cordoba when it only has one unit gaurding it (cause he has all his forces up north to guard from you attacking him from Navarre or whatever). the long delay also gives you time to build up longbows (if High) and other beefy forces. if Spain is left unmolested for many decades though, it will have quite a few ships out. (but the Elmos may well have molested the heck out of it... you will want to hope not, since that would probably mean some of its castles have been reduced.)

it's certainly doable. it's what I did in my last game, which was a Late Expert game. I deliberately told myself I wasn't going to get too overextended, so I went for Spain as my first major conquest, after I took the Nordic countries and the British Isles, then traded and built a while. with the Early game it's a bit tougher at first, due to the way you're spread through France... it can be dicey, not to get into a war with France. if you do, it's nice if you can take Anjou, Ile De France, and Flanders (maybe even Champagne+Lorraine) and not have to worry about Wessex any more. but if wishes could be dreams, we wouldn't need to play, we'd have won already, laugh.

[English assassin]

Red knight is absolutely right about ships. In my latest English campaign, I bribed Wales and Scotland, had a quick war against the french to take Flanders (essential, is there anyone who doesn't do that early?) and a few other provinces just to keep them quiet, and then made peace. (Once the French were suitably small I couldn't see the point killing them, The are a buffer against the HRE and anyway they only come back with loyalist rebellions if you wipe them out).

Oh and I took Sweden, it seemed rude not to.

Then its ships ships ships, get the trade income rolling in, and stack up the troops. After a bit you have some seriously useful forces and you can deploy them almost anywhere you want in one turn over the sea lanes. (In my case, Russia. I wanted to see if their famous Boyars can take on an army of Billmen and Longbowmen. Surprise surprise, they can't.)

[RedKnight]

Hiya Assassin,

tell me, did you lose a lot of bills to Russian arrows, in a battle like that? I've never liked how the bills have no shield. if only they had a shield, they would be so primo.

[English assassin]

He he he, fight on the edge of a wood. Russian battlefields usually have plenty. Long line of longbowmen outside the wood looking all juicy and chargable, long lines of billmen skulking just behind in the wood.

With their unit mix Russians have no options. If they try to stand off, no way will they win the archery duel. Trying to close is even better, because the longbowmen skirmish away into the wood, and the boyars run straight into the billmen. the cav gets a penalty for fighting in woods, and of course the billmen get their bonus against Cav. Ive had the billmen rout boyars on contact once or twice like that.

I like to mix in some gallowglasses too just in case any spearmen show up. They don't see to live long but judging by the way theu go at it I reckon they die happy http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

If anyone does spot the bills its no big deal because the woods give you fair cover from arrows anyway so you can basically stand and take it.

[RedKnight]

omg, why didn't I think of that? what an easy and pretty solution now I'm gonna have to play English AGAIN lol

[katank]

I that to go with Iberia strat, you more or less have to rush into navarre ASAP and also may need to give up Aquitaine which is your only hobilar province right off the bat.

the Spanish are best killed ASAP or they make too much of an army and their jinettes are a credible threat to any light cav or missiles you have.

still find knocking out the French in 3 turn strat to be superior.

also leaves you in stronger position to make an attack on Iberia.

massed fyrdmen and archers backed by longbows can destroy the jinette based armies with ease.

[Blodrast]

I second the opinion to take on Iberia. Lose your continental provinces (Aquitaine, Anjou, Brittany) ? So what ?
They are sucky anyway, can't build anything decent in any of them (and can't build anything in Brittany); You can get hobies easily, only need 2 years for the Horse Farm, right ?
You can easily afford 2 years.
The argument that by losing Brittany you can no longer bring reinforcements from the Isles does not stand. You (had better) have Flanders, or at least some ships that connect the Isles to Spain (and it's faster than bringing them through Brittany anyway).
Besides, Leon and Castile are stinking rich, have good trade, and have good unit-producing buildings anyway.
The French really only have Ile-de-France and Flanders, the rest are crap (well, not crap, but useless in the short term).
Just my opinion. Largely based also on the fact that I played an entire campaign as Spain, and it was reaaaally easy; no problems defending it, no problems expanding, lots of money, great trade (excellent access to both seas), etc. So I'd say go for Iberia http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/ceasaryes.gif

[katank]

well, you have normandy and not brittany.

it's so hard to defend from the french as your lands are intertwined.

it's not 2 but more like 6 as few places have a fort and 6 hobilars is a huge deal in early.

can cost 2 provinces easily.

I like to just kill the French as they are fundamentally incompatible with brits.

also, the continent is your homelands for GA purposes and you also need platagenet claims.

[HopAlongBunny]

That should work well. The only thing I ever work hard to lift from the French is Flanders. With fleets you control the entrance point to England by holding one province; after that Spain is tempting...rich, iron, easily defended-I prefer that to the Northern adventure.

[Copperhead]

One of the most fun games I've had as the English was when i relinquished my French provinces and as soon as possible sent armies to take the rebel provinces in scandinavia before taking out Denmark and then moving on the russians.

[The_Emperor]

To be honest I haven't tried that strategy myself...

But then invading France is so VERY tempting http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Lord Godfrey]

Just finished a hard-late GA campaign as the English. I followed the “can’t attack fellow Catholics unless they are French or excommunicated” theory of MTW and was consolidating after capturing Normandy, Anjou, Brittany, and Flanders. The Russians had the highest point total (how did that happen?) followed by Spain. I was building up an army to attack the Baltic when Spain decided not to listen to the Pope and was excommunicated. They only had a stack or two in Iberia, the bulk of their forces and King were off Crusading in the Middle East. I quickly launched attacks from Aquitaine and by sea on Granada and Morocco. Quickly took care of business and Spain never recovered.

Good territories, iron, and easily defended.

[RedKnight]

Hey you got mucho lcuky there, Lord G... not only were they undefended, they also hadn't been wasted by the Elmohoards.

I'm playing a High Dane Expert game and unfortunately Danes start off real slow, due to how only one province can make any decent troops. (Now, in 1313, I've expanded but have way more money than I can spend.) Meanwhile Spain has ships all over the place, and has pretty much taken over the ENTIRE mideast, from Morocco to Constantinople to Georgia. omg, there's gonna be one huge showdown in this game

[katank]

I too love the south of the map as you can have 4 borders at navarre/aragon/const/georgia.

the rest can all be defended by fleets.

in there, you have 4 iron provinces, lots of good farmland, at least 4 killer trade provinces, 3 gold mines, 1 silver mine, bonused assasins etc.