My Saxon experience, I lost !!!

[YAKOBU]

Hello there ~:wave:

I have just completed my first BI campaign on M/M as Saxons and lost!! ~:mecry:

I started off by taking the 3 coastal settlements down to Samarobriva and then sailed across to take the British Isles. At this point no real problems and income was rising nicely. Next I ventured down to Spain and took all the settlements and this was where my problems began. A couple of the settlements rebelled and I struggled to control the whole of Spain with my finances suffering. Eventually I pulled my troops out of Spain and decided to venture down to Italy again taking all the settlements. The WRE then came back with a vengeance sending 3 and 4 stacks against my settlements in Italy. With settlements moving back and forth between me and the WRE I was also attacked by various hordes. Eventually I hit 476AD without hitting my targets and decided not to continue.

Now I am disappointed to have lost but am glad the AI is now putting up a fight. I rushed through the mid to end-game and auto-resolved a little too much but just wanted to try the full game out.

A few things that contributed to my downfall:

AI used many assassins to take out my generals, I only used a few.
Mercenaries as a permanent part of your army are very expensive.
The AI attacked with 3 of 4 stacks sometimes.
It was easy to spread myself thin and less settlements means that it is hard to have chokepoints and relieve sieges as easy.
The AI constantly blockaded my ports as I used little navy.

Now although I rushed through I am far from a bad player. I have won a few SP and PBEM campaigns on RTW and BI appears to be a little more difficult. Now I have had a try and found the strength of the AI I will go back and try my favourites the Romans. Yes you guessed it, I won't be choosing the WRE. ~:joker:

I hope you are all finding BI a little more challenging than RTW.

:charge:

[CountMRVHS]

Ouch!

It's kind of nice to lose once in awhile, but it's often disappointing to lose for financial reasons.

BI is definitely a more challenging campaign than RTW. I'd say the Parthians in RTW -- possibly the Carthaginians, though I only tried them once -- were the only RTW faction that matched the difficulty of most of the BI factions.

I first tried a M/M Saxon campaign, took over a few nearby rebel settlements, then Britain, then I moved down to take a good chunk of Gaul. By that time things seemed a bit too easy so I quit.... but if I stuck with it, it sounds like things might have gotten harder, based on your experiences.

I got soundly beaten as the Saxons on H/H. As the Alemanni (H/H), I just agreed to become a protectorate of the WRE. I actually haven't played that campaign for about a week; I'll look at it again tonight to see if I have a chance to pull out a victory. My Hun H/H campaign went well and I managed to win that one -- although my finances were constantly in danger; I had to exterminate cities just to stay out of debt. I just started with the Celts and things are looking interesting, but the Romano-British kicked my ass back to Scotland in 2 turns.

Fun! :duel:

CountMRVHS

[YAKOBU]

Hi everyone ~:wave:

Just a quick update, on my 3rd attempt I eventually succeeded.

As usual I allied with as many other barbarians as possible and got trade rights where able. I took the 2 close rebel settlements and in 368AD my leader set off to Rome with 3 levy spears, 1 saxon keel, 3 hunters, 2 saxon sea raiders and 3 mercenaries. Along the way he exterminated and pillaged all the WRE settlements. After 6 years he had exterminated and pillaged the last settlement at the foot of Italy and died in his sleep. The treasury after all this stood at £95,696 and the remainder of his army was disbanded. Then I expanded outwards from my capital and took a further 5 settlements. Building up these settlements quickly whittled away my finances and I found it difficult to keep many troops in the field. I then sent what troops I could afford over to take Londinium and the rest of the British Isles. I think Londinium potentially makes or breaks the Saxon campaign. With this settlement added I was going from breaking even to thousands of profit every turn. Once I had built up another couple of armies I re-took Italy and a couple of other settlements to get the 18 needed for victory.

This game was played on M/M and I didn't use peasants or exchange trade etc for cash. These are standard rules for me which make the game slightly harder.

My summary is brief and I did lose settlements along the way both to the hordes and the romans. My alliances with the barbarians stayed strong throughout the game. My last years were spent auto-resolving battles to speed up the finish and I felt I lost more troops than I would have otherwise lost.

I think now I will start a ERE campaign with a few more iron-man rules.

:charge: