Hungary

[frogbeastegg]

Hungary needs to be unlocked before you can play as them. To do this you can either complete a campaign (on any difficutly, long or short setting) with one of the five starting factions, or you can edit the preferences file. To do this open your Sega/M2TW folder/data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign, find the file called "descr_strat" and open it with wordpad. Now find the section which says
campaign imperial_campaign
playable
england
france
hre
spain
venice
end
unlockable
sicily
milan
scotland
byzantium
russia
moors
turks
egypt
denmark
portugal
poland
hungary
end
nonplayable
papal_states
aztecs
mongols
timurids
slave
end

Change it so it reads

campaign imperial_campaign
playable
england
france
hre
spain
venice
sicily
milan
scotland
byzantium
russia
moors
turks
egypt
denmark
portugal
poland
hungary
end
nonplayable
papal_states
aztecs
mongols
timurids
slave
end

[kaasbris]

(I didn't play Hungary till late yet, so it's about early setup. o and I am not an expert of Totalwar, so might be wrong on some points.)

Overview

Hungary is such an interesting country to play with lots of challenges. Its resources are few, soldiers are no so good, to many strong neighbours.

But its military uits are quite unique and to the eastern Russian steppe, there are plenty lands to expand - till Mongol comes.

Diplomacy

There are 4 neihbours: To North Poland, To South Byzantines, To West HRE & Venice. Each have particular interest in Rebel territories surrounding Hungary.

If you capture Rebel province of Sofia, then Byzantine may declare war in near future. Same as Zagreb for Venice.

HRE and Venice seems most aggressive, while Poland and Byzantine are rather peaceful in some extent.

It's possible to make all 4 allies, while Poland is most reliable with marriage, but with enough garrison in bordering cities.

Military Units

Yeah, their armies are weak, but still interesting to play. Most notable units are Hungarian Nobles(ranged knight) and Pavise Crossbow Militia:

Hungary has fine ranged cavalry army which I love. They are excellent on open field - where Hungarian territories are. With enhanced AI, they can keep shoot & run without control.

Among those, Hungarian Noble can be used as typical knights with charge, while Magyar cavalry should avoid melee except extreme cases.

There are also Feudal/Chivalric Knights available.

For foot ranged units, Pavise Crossbow Militia shines with their excellent attack & defence ratings. Also there are Bulgarian Brigands available as mercenary on east Balkans. They have long ranged missles with effective melee ratings and defence - worth buying.

Infantry units are simply doomed. Croat Axemen are notable armor piercing army but with poor defence. Weak spear units like Spearmen/Spearmen Militia/Slav Levies may make bulk of armies.

(I heard that with Assassin guild, Hungary can build special units of Battlefield Assassin with strong attacking capabilities. Anyone can share what theya re about?)

Military Tactics

On open field, ranged cavalry rules! They can early-skirmish against marching enemy, then flank move-skirmish, then with frontal foot soldiers engaged, charge from behind.

Pavise Crossbows will make frontal shooting while spearsmen guards/absorbs enemy arrows. Croat Axemen will be reserved for decisive frontal engage.

However, on siege, ranged cavalry loses its merits, where roads inside castle/towns are too narrow for maneuver for them.

Economy & Building

Except Budapest, regions are poor at resources. Bran/Iasa/Bucharest/Sofia all are poor. Rich Rebel provinces like Zagreb/Kiev tend to lead to hostility - but early capturing seems inevitable for poor Hungary.

Most Balkan regions are not Catholics. Be sure to spread Catholic belief asap with priests and Church.

Early building should be road/church, then military, then finally economy buildings as you don't need economy buildings early on as conquests itself will pay off for another conquests.

Early Strategy

On very early turns, you can capture Iasa and Zagreb with original troops - City Council tend to give mission of capturing Iasa on turn 2. Bucharest is also easy with some additional troops produced.

Around Sofia, there will already be Byzantine armies sieging on it. If they fails, then you have chance to get it.

Kiev has strong Cossack armies, which will cost you dearly. With its distance, you may need careful preparation for early conquest of Kiev/Kaffa. - also it means exposed front on west.

Zagreb is rich with resources, so it's tempting to make it city not castle. But once peace broken with Venice/HRE, it's hard to defend without castle.

Also, Zagreb is good start point for Crusade to Jerusalem. Park to-go-Crusade army near border to Ragusa, then join Crusade next turn, then go to beach to buy ships/crusade units, then set sail for Jerusalem in several turns.

Along the way, you can land en route-rebel province for capture (e.g. Rhodes).

Whatever I do, war seem inevitable. So prepare for it, while trying number of enemy as few as possible. Poland may stay allied if keep bribing, but other than that, Venice/HRE/Byzantines will declare war on no reason.

Simplest way to avoid early war is to keep sizeable army at border.

[Cheetah]

I am in a three way war with Venice, Byzantines and Russia, Poles joined the fun but were beaten back and ask for peace. War is indeed inevitable, you need a sizable army for each of your neighbours.

Allience means nothing, I was allied with all of those four factions before they attacked.

Money is tight, you have some to develop but as soon as you got in war you will be dancing on the edge (unless you can take some rich provinces, unfortunately I let the Venitians to took Zagreb).

Council of nobles gives you sensible missions, they adviced me to take Bucharest, Iasa, Kiev and Kaffa in this order but it will lead to an overextension of your armed forces.

All in all very difficult situation: 2 of my neighbours are top 5 nations (Venice and Byzantines) all of your neighbours will attack you soon as they see that you dont have the troops to defend your cities, you are seriously overextended, bogged down fending of the attacks fo your neighbours ... perhaps sacking of a rich medditerinian town might help, or taking Rhodes but I have a crappy crusader army ... well, we will see ...

[Blademun]

Agressiveness wins wars.

The failure of the last two guides was a lack of aggresiveness. A hungarian Cavalry army can stand up against the most elite european armys, namely the HRE and Spain. (England is special exception) They do lack good infantry, but using infantry with hungary is like using Knights with Scotland...

First, Diplomacy is your friend. Immediately make Alliances with HRE and Poland.

Then Blitz Venice: Zagreb is a must have piece of land, along with Ragusa. Ragusa gives you another fortress. The Venetians start off fairly weak and are easy to beat. Don't worry about Byzantium to the south just yet. There Time will come.

Tactics: Venice fields a infantry army of Milita and archers and a few spears. All but the spears are lunchmeat for Hungary. When the Venetians march their archers out front, smash them. Then let your ranged cavalry pick apart Venice's infantry. Be on hand with a knight or 2 just in case they are also fielding HC.

When your knocking on Venice's doors, they'll ask for peace. They always do, since they are pretty cowardly. Take it and build up your forces, because Byzantium is next. Also, your standing with the pope is probably hurting, so you need to switch to a non-catholic faction for expansion.

With forces in Bern and Ragusa, you can launch a two prong attack against the Byzantiums. They are most likely embroiled in war with Turks at this point. If not, forge a alliance with Turks and ask them to attack with promise that you will too.

Tactics: Fighting Byzantium is tricky, since they are a cavalry army like you. WIth luck, their best units are off fighting the Turks. Worst case, you'll be fighting a army with composistion similar to yours, only heavier. These battles are tough, hard fought, and you'll want to Quicksave before each one.

Now for your strategy:

Plan A, If their northern border is lightly defended:

Take Durrazzo and Sofia using everything you got. Then attack Thessalonica. This cuts Byzantium off fromt Corinth, which happens to be their most important Fortress. The fortress will likely be poorly defended(the ai doesn't believe in putting large garrisons in their castles). Scrap together whatever you can and immediately siege Corinth before they start building a army there.

Plan B, Its not: Take either Durrazzo or Sofia, using both armies, depending on which province is more lightly defended. Use the Sacking money to build a defensive force in either Zagusa or Bern using your best judgement. Take your main stack and march on Thessalonica. Things get hairy after this, you'll be on the defensive, but you'll eventually have the upper hand. Byzantines army is alot more expensive then yours. Taking Thessalonica and Durrazzo/Sofia robbed them of serious income. They will grind down, and then you can go back on the offensive.

_________________________________

Once you've sacked Constantinople, your set. You own the entire Balkan peninsula, and the rich citys of Zagreb, Constantinople, Thessalonica and Budapest. Prepare yourself for invasion from either Poland, Venice or HRE, since alliances never last. Later on you might want to consider turning the castles of Sofia and the other province south of Bern into citys for extra income. Zagusa/Corinth/Bern should all become Citadels.

_________________________________

Last notes: I cannot fathom why the last two guides said that the Hungarian army is weak. It is NOT by any means of the word. The Hungarian army plays similarily to the Mongol army. Your infantry will be mostly archers; Brigands and Xbows. Once you get Pavise Spearman, they are pretty strong too. The Battlefield assasins are a quirky unit thats hard to get. They are like a dismounted bodyguard unit, that can hide in the plain open. Their use is obviously to get behind a enemy formation and cause a rout. You also get Serpentines, which are some of the best field cannons in the game.

Your cavalry will be your heart and soul. I often had entire stacks made up of nothing but Magyars and Hungarian Nobles. They can charge and rout enemy archers, and shoot up just about everything else. They are faster then heavy knights and can out manuever them. Last but not least of Hungarys lineup; Hussars! Aside from making you smile everytime you click on them, they are excellent cav with knight-like power at 2/3 the cost and most importantly, can be trained in citys. With only three castles mostly training nobles/Magyars, it helps that the last component of your army can be trained in citys.

Lastly, Like a mongol army, its takes skill to get the most out of their forces. If you feel your up to that challenge, you will be suprised with what Hungary can do.

[katank]

Totally agree with last poster on how key aggression is in TW games. Rather than sitting around and thinking about taking rebel regions with 8+ units like Kiev, thinking about smashing your neighbors. Nearby factions are weak initially and can hurt you later on while rebels just sit there. There is absolutely no reason to be cash strapped when you are near both Byzantines and Venetians (two of the richest factions around). The only limiting factor is how fast your armies can march.

[PureFodder]

Crazed expansion does seem to be the way forward for Hungary. I'm 15 turns in so far. You can blitz one army through Bucharest (it was a council mission so I picked up 4 free Hungarian Nobles) then Down to the rebels in Sofia. Another army goes to Zagreb then off to steal Ragua off Venice.

As far as diplomacy goes everyone seems to love you. The HRE and Poles seem willing to accept an alliance and will even pay you for the honour. Venice offered trade rights but I had other plans for them. Byzantine offered trade rights and a swap of map info which I accepted. Unfortunately for them this showed that Constantinople had a mere 2 units defending it and I had a powerful (and expensive) army of mainly horse archers sitting in Sofia.

I originally planned to sack Constantinople (gets you a much needed 12k) and run but as it's such a great place and reasonably well developed I'm trying to defend it against a huge Byzantine vengeance force, fortunately mainly made of light infantry and spearmen for my HAs to crush. Forces in Ragua can wander down to grab Durazzo off the Byzantines then move across to take Thesalonica before heading down to Corinth to secure all of Greece. The Byzantine forces, for all their wealth, seem very spread out making it easy to take them down one small army at a time.

Venice are throwing everything they can muster at Zagreb and were being held off by what seems to be utter luck, but now the relief force in marching on Venice. The Poles and HRE seem content to leave me alone despite having almost no defenders in my northern settlements. The Pope is conveniently ignoring my war with Venice too.

Your starting position gives you little in the way of developed or rich settlements, but does give you a nice 11000 florins to buy a big army and go conquering. Masses of HAs will easily make up for the fact that your initial infantry will be made of spear militia.

[Csatadi]

Economy is not so good, CA forgot the Hungarian resources: gold, silver, wine and grain.
My tactic was also aggressive. I used Hungarian Nobles first of all. They are quite powerful almost like mailed knights in melee and nice archery skill.
Hungary has a nice starting position, you can fight rebels and Byzantines without risking excommunication.
I think the key is to conquer Constantinople. I did it as possible. With catholics I fought only with excommunicated ones. There were always enough opponents.
Infantry is no problem when you can build dismounted feudal knights. In later game I almost forgot using HAs, only knights. After crusading I got hospitaller knighs almost everywhere and I built their houses.
Nice event if you have max level CITIES you can build there hussars! They are lance and sword cavalry 13/15. Just think on Constantinople, Northern Italy and Budapest first of all...
Poland and hre were good allies to a point.
I won in the 116th turn.
Battle assassins - ehm, it is only a childish idea from CA.

You can try my Magyar mod if interested, see my sig.

[Zasz1234]

I am past 100 turns in my Hungary game and I love this faction.

Off the bat I got alliances with Papacy, Schicily, Poland, HRE, and Venice. I decided that I would deal with the Byzantines first to give my empire a solid set of borders so I wouldn't be surrounded all the time.

I took Sophia and Bucharest while Venice got Zagreb. Pretty soon thereafter I went to war with the Byzantines. The Hungarian selection early on is much like the eastern factions: Horse archers all the way. You gotta attack the Byz early before they get their HA's going and you have a huge horse archer war. The only problem with my entirely horse archer armies (Magyars at first then switching more and more to Hungarian nobles until that is all I used) is that sieges suck and you just have to wait to starve them out.

After I took Constantinople The damn Venetians allid with the Byz which made me automatic peace with them spoiling my siege of Thessalonica that had only 1 turn left:idea2: . So I redeclared with the Byz and lost my alliance with Venitians. After Thessalonica I got scared seeing a bunch of Byzantine armies across the strait looking mean, but the Turks declared war on them and from there out it was a done deal for the Byz in Europe. I took Corinth and Durazzo (both Byz) and then Venice declares war on me joined shortly thereater by HRE with whom I had a marriage alliance.

After a few bloody battles for the venetians I took Zagreb and pushed them back to Venice itself and destroyed the venetians as a faction. I took Balogna which was still HRE and after sacking it and selling all the buildings gave to the Pope to atone for my sackings of good Catholic cities. After this I unfortunately got entangled in Central European politics. The Sicilians attacked me and I crusaded against their Capital in Milan. The HRE decided they wanted a peace of the action and besieged Budapest while the Sicilians tried to retake Milan. I won both battles but the Battle for Budapest was a close one, I lost a family member but luckily the siege tower got burned so I managed to hold off their armoured sergeants with just spear militia and peasants:2thumbsup: .

That's where I am at right now, I also grabbed Rhodes and Venice's isle somewhere in their. I had planned to move on to Cyprus and then the holy land or mayvbe finish off the Byz but it looks like I will be at war in Italy for a while. two more HRE stacks are on their way, but I just got 3 basilisks for a council mission so it looks like the Germans will get acquainted with a little Hungarian firepower.

I found the key with Hungary to be proper use of Horse Archers until you get the bigger firepower and manpower of the upper tier castle units. plus Hussars are awesome and cost less than Chivalric knights!

[Harve]

Im playing Hungary and so far its going very well on M /M (yeah im not that good a player). I was put off a bit by the poor region but so far on turn 12 (i think, between 10 and 15 anyway) i have fought the rebels only, made allies with Polnd and HRE. I have taken Bucharest and Iasa with ease (i took them both on turn 4 and 5 instead of using the starter armies i reduced the garrisons of the 2 starter cities. I then outnumbered the rebels on both cities 5-2 i think so i suffered very few casualties. The Iasa one was also a council mission so i got 4 Hungarian Nobles). I then gathered the 2 armies together and left them in the open while recruting where i could. i also converted to villages which soon became small towns.

After a couple of turns i had 2/3 of a full stack, consisting mainly of peasant archers and those basic horse archers (forgot what they were called) I managed to find Kiev first and then i was a little shocked to see a nearly 1/2 stack army there consisting of Kazaks and some wierd archers and spear miltia. I was lucky to find that my spy opened the gate and i attacked straight away. I only had 2 units of spear militia and that was where things went a little wrong. There were loads and loads of missiles being fired but they just weren't hitting much. My spear miltia died an then i charged my very weak cav archers at the remaining army. A lot of casualties and i didn't win by much.:wall:

I spent another couple of turns recruting (ive realised that its a long way to Kiev ffrom Iasa and Bucherest. I changed my capital and now b...b...b... (damn i forgot the name, its the western starter city) isn't producing units, justa fair lot of money. I now have 2 1/3 stacks one trying to find Kaffa which i think is on the North Coast of the Black Sea (is it?) and the other crusading to Vilnius :charge: .

Im a bit worried about my allies (HRE and Poland), they are allied too and seem to be getting ready to attack that western starter city. I wouldn't mind if i inhabited the top right corner though because there is only Russia and maybe Poland and the Turks to worry about.

Also my finances are good; better than Sicily when i played them but not as good as with Scotland. I can almos afford to build something cheap and recruit something cheap in 3-4/5 of my cities but thats probably because i only have 1 castle. I can tell by turn 20 or so it will get hard though, i think i will be ganged up on

[Callahan9119]

i dont understand saying they have bad armies, the army roster is great, no musketeers or adventuros but who cares, you can make chiv knights cheaper with the hungarian knights, and anything past chiv knights is overkill and battlefiled assassins rule

tke all rebel surrounding areas and mass produce units, send merchant to the gold mine to the south, make diplomat and ally/trade with all christians, if you can get money from them try. build mass everything peasants etc from all new buildings. venice will get in trouble for being saucy, take the 2 provinces to your south when they get in trouble with pope, fight byz hard and take constantinople

secure, build and expand frontier, while keeping pope happy, i usually send tons of priests into turkey to make cardinals

if you siege and sack byz cities you get good money, without attacking early and sacking, money is hard to come by, you can quickly be surrouned and end up bankrupt...find the super commander in the early game and fight him with a huge army, he is nasty if you happen to have him get you when u arent prepared

[Harve]

By not taking Zagreb and only going as South-West as Bucharest i have not even seen Venice etc by turn 25 i think. Despite the poor area i put taxes up and believe it or not i have built farms (squalor isn't as bad as RTW) to bump up population

[Odin]

By not taking Zagreb and only going as South-West as Bucharest i have not even seen Venice etc by turn 25 i think. Despite the poor area i put taxes up and believe it or not i have built farms (squalor isn't as bad as RTW) to bump up population

If your playing Vanilla then your going to see the HRE or Poland at some point. I love playing Hungary its a good faction with a great location but vanilla forces you to war with catholic neibhors.

So yeah, if you dont take Zagreb the Venitians will leave you be and are probably at war with the Byxantines, but watch your northern frontier.

[SadCat]

"Lastly, Like a mongol army, its takes skill to get the most out of their forces. If you feel your up to that challenge, you will be suprised with what Hungary can do." I am but don't have the skill yet. Working on getting that skill. I am using 1.2. I have jest made "largest land mass", with no money and HRE holds my leash. HRE comes down about every 15 turns and makes me their toy. Poland has keep our treaty forever. I am most thankful for that. I have been moving south and have jest gotten a good border there. Every time the Pope calls a crusade I join to get the boost in power to take a city. Hope to start west and north next. I need some growth time then will hit HRE. Oh how I hate my masters. SadCat :book:

[Dead Knight of the Living]

Up front I'd like to say that Hungary in M2TW is my favorite faction of all the TW games. I played them once in MTW and didn't care much for them, but the campaigns I've done with them in M2TW have been great. I lost the first three because I couldn't get my economy going. It was all like many of you have said; I wasn't aggressive enough.

In my current campaign I took Iasi and Zagreb within the first few turns. Taking Zagreb provoked Venice and I sent a bunch of Hungarian Nobles and Magyar Cav after them. I took Venice after two battles in which I skunked a full stack Venetian Army and one approximately 3/4 stack (a little less than 3/4).

I put that army on the bridge to Venice. This was good for me because Milan attacked the very next turn.

Two things came next: One: I moved on Ragusa and.. Two: Milan threw itself at Venice. I'll start with Ragusa first, but keep in mind the events at Ragusa and Venice were going on almost simultaneously.

(By the way, at this point I'm allied with almost everyone accept Milan and Venice) But I digress.

Back to Ragusa. It took me about 6 turns to put together another army to go after Ragusa. I noticed a Sicilian Army had come ashore at Ragusa as well. I figured they'd attack the city and then I could go after them. They didn't do it. Instead a message came saying Venice and Sicily had allied (dirty scumbags).

So I attacked Ragusa. First I had to tangle with another almost full stacked Venetian Army. I had the high ground and massacred them. Then I took the city with not a few losses. And as you all probably have anticipated, Sicily besieged my army in Ragusa. They took it the very next turn losing over 900 men to do the job. THey had just under 400 left.

Fortunately I had begun building a relief force a few turns prior which I'll talk about later. For now, I'll go back to Venice.

The Milanese Doge having graduated from Dummazz University "Sin" Laude decided to throw three full stack armies at my army defending the bridge over the course of maybe 6 to 8 turns. I gave them a great wall of China demonstration and sent all three armies packing.

I ransomed the first two armies and the dummies actually paid me. THe third they refused. So I followed the bloody trail the cowards left for me to Milan and I besieged and Sacked it. Two turns later I :smash: Genoa. WIth Milan thoroughly :whip: for now let's return to Ragusa.

With the money from my Italian Campaign I suddenly found myself with two armies to spare for my Sicilian friends in Ragusa. I brought the :skull: to Ragusa with me and he was pissed off. I :smash: the Sicilians in Ragusa and banned :thumbsdown: the Sicilians and Venetians from the Balkans for good.

That was basically my start and now the money pours in liberally. My next challenge would be the HRE and Byzantium. HRE decided to blockade Ragusa. I think it was a fluke. I believe they fought a naval battle with the Sicilians, lost the battle and could move nowhere but to my port. I don't know. It didn't seem like a logical move to me. Either way I went to war with HRE.

I took Bologna from them within two turns of war being declared. I'm now besieging Vienna and the fortress north of Milan (name escapes me, but it's right across the Alps). They, however, are besieging Budapest. I'm not worried though. The garrison of Vienna is negligible. I'll take that next turn, exterminate, and relieve Budapest. I definitely have the upper hand on HRE right now. I've actually tried to make peace with them because I'd rather just focus on the Byzantines. They ain't trying to hear it though.

WIth the HRE situation in hand I move on to the Hungarian situation with Byzantium. What happened here is I started flooding their lands with priests and put about four spies each in Bucharest (which I failed to take early somehow), Sofia and the city south of Ragusa (name escapes me). I forced Bucharest into Rebellion and then I conquered it.

After this happened I somehow was at war with Byzantium. I don't know how that happened. They didn't besiege any of my cities or blockade any of my ports. Perhaps it was one of my assassination attempts or sabotage attempts. I never saw a message saying we were at war. Guess I deleted it without reading it.

Anyway, I took the city south of Ragusa. Sofia will be besieged the next turn and I'm working on driving Thessalonica into Rebellion with priests, spies and assassins.

So far, all is going well. It's 1270's or 1280's and no Mongols yet. Poland owns the whole map east of Iasi and north of Arab/Persian lands. I guess they're holding the line or the Mongols are invading the lands of the Prophet. I don't know because I have no spies or map info for that whole area.



For those who say the Hungarian Army is weak I'll put my Hungarian Nobles against any units you choose any day of the weak. They may not be the most brutally strong units, but they are very flexible in their capabilities. Their arrows reduce enemy morale and when even Dismounted Feudal or Chivalric Knights attack my weak azzed Spear Levys I route them with a well placed Hungarian Noble Charge.

I love the Hungarian Army. My only regret is I haven't tussled with the Mongols yet.

[Harve]

Poland are annoying; they expand too fast and taking one or two of their many cities by turn 30 doesn't really seem to weaken them

[Thurak]

As others pointed out: to ally with HRE and Poland is a very good idea. In my game I have alliances with both nations, the HRE even declared war against Venice when they tried to take Zagreb from me. :laugh4:

Although Kiev is tempting to take I would stop your eastern armiy at Iasi. So Poland has enough to conquer in the east and is likely far too busy to betray you. And you have a nice eastern border if they decide otherwise.

What worked for me pretty well was trading Vienna from the HRE asap. It cost me 6000 + 1000 for 10 turns, but as I am happily allied with them I had to trade it early... later it would not have been possible. So I have a very nice northern border.

With those two borders to most likely busy allies one should be able to take all those regions south of Zagreb and Sofia from Venice and Byzanz. And then the world is yours :yes:

[Doug-Thompson]

First Hungarian Campaign here.

1. The province of Vienna has splendid mines: 1,150 florins per turn after upgrades. They start off under control of the HRE.

2. Hungarian Noble missile cavalry are superb.

3. Diplomatically, I've practically ignored every faction but Poland and the Pope. I'm allied to both and give each of those factions 100 florins a turn if I can afford it. I also offered the Pope an alliance, trade rights and map information right off the bat. I attack only factions that the Pope despises. I've been as far up as "perfect" in relations with the papal states at least twice and have topped out the pope-o-meter a couple of times.

It's very easy for the Hungarians to preserve good relations with the Pope early in the game because there are so many heathens to convert in Kiev and other eastern provinces.

4. I got the Pope to declare a Crusade against the excommunicated Milanese. The flood of Crusader troops left over made Hungary the master of North Italy: Venice, Bologna, Milan and Genoa. The Holy Roman Empire declared war on me and lived to regret it. They were excommunicated briefly and also declared war on Poland, allowing me to offer the "attack faction" gift to Poland at no cost. All this allowed me to conquer Vienna and beat the stuffing out of the HRE with my missile cavalry armies.

Milanese crippled the Venitians. I crippled Milanese and the Holy Roman Empire. Poland is my close ally and I've won the race to Vilenus (sp?) and Kiev, leaving Poland relatively weak. I'm surrounded by weaklings and have a Crusade "headed" for Antioch that I expect to make it to Constantinople. The whole thing could fall apart next turn, but I expect to conquer what's left of the HRE, or large chunks of it, expand all the way to the Baltic and basically cut all the rest of Europe in half before having to face the Mongols.

[John_Longarrow]

7 Rules for survival and prosperity for the Hungarian Empire
1) Make friends and ally with all of your neighbors, except your target(s).

2) Don't start wars. You want your reputation to stay high, thus reducing your chances of being backstabbed.

3) Freely use your troops to support allied combat, but only if said fighting gets you into a war. This is a unique loop hole in the diplomacy system that can help you stay very good in relations while getting into a fight with the loser in an existing war. This is normally done by moving one of your units next to an allies force and then waiting for a fight to start.

4) Bribe everyone, especially the Pope, liberally. You should set a good 5% of your economy to the side for "Diplomatic grease". It saves money in the long run by reducing the size of the army you need to have.

5) When you take over Constantinople, make sure you have a small fleet ready to block both crossings. At this point you are going to lock off Asia minor from Europe, thus turning reducing spy, army, merchant, and diplomat traffic.

6) Train up a few very good Merchants early. Use them to aquire the masses of merchants to be found in northern Italy. They can be worth more than a sacked city when several are hunting.

7) Merchant guilds are a vital part of your economic strategy. They increase your income and allow you to produce merchant cav, a useful tool in reducing rebel forces on your lands. As such, build up your trading infrastructure as quickly as you can in one city first. Use this city to produce better merchants.

NOTE: Merchant cav is not very good but it is cavalry, has good defence, is cheap to raise, and IS HOUSED FOR NO COST IN CITIES WITH MERCHANTS GUILDS. This can save you 1k-2k per turn in troop costs when you are working out your garrisons.

These seven rules of aquisition should allow you to aquire enough of the surrounding lands to ensure your eventual success.

This should be used with one of the other guides that advocates rapid expansion. For Hungary, it is "grow or die". The trick is to keep your neighbors from pruning you before you grow large enough to take them out.

Construction
In your castles, you will find that you have little need of the entire stable series. Your base castle produces both your light and heavy horse archers. The stables don't give you access to better cav, just more access to the cav you already have. From what I've seen they are not needed.

In castles you can build the entire archery range series, but I've found little use for foot archers out of castles. You already have better archers in your horse troops than either of the bows you can produce. Your cities will also turn out much better crossbows than what you will eventually be able to produce in castles.

This leave two paths that you should be building in your castles; the barracks and the armorers. By all means do both. By up armoring in you castles and by choosing one (or more) to do the "Create and disband" trick with DFKs, you should be able to get a swordsman guild pretty quickly. This will allow you to turn out your missile cav, heavy cav, swordsmen and (once you get to them) pavise spearmen from castles while your cities produce standard spears and crossbows.

[Odin]

In the spirit of John Longarrows fine post, some of my own essentials with Hungary (perhaps the best faction in the game).

1. To the south of Budapest is a small army without a general, take Lazlo your king from Budapest and drop him in here and move west. You have a spy, you can use him as an advance scout his vision should reveal Zagreb. Zagreb should be priority one, a fine city with good economics.

2. Bran, you have your faction heir garrisoned there, along with a cardinal near by and Istavan ( a general) with an army to the north. Take the faction heir and move the entire Bran garrison south east beyond the Carpathians, there you find bucarest, siege it ASAP. Take istavan and his army and occupy Bran.

3. after bucarest it is absolutely crucial for you to take your faction heir (with no units) and move south east, then to the west slightly. Nurture the movement points because you want to get him in position to take Sofia castle within the next turn. Hire some mercs for the job, spend the cash because Sofia is the lynch pin for future campaigns east towards the Byzantines.

4. Hungary gets Hungarian nobles and it’s a fine horse archer unit. While im not thrilled with their melee, that isn’t what thier primary duty should be. There missle cavalry and can melee with an archer unit or a town milita. Keep them away from heavy units, unless you can achieve a flank. Croat Axeman are okay… I don’t know Im spoiled from a Danish campaign and your not going to get anything like their infantry here. Until you tech up your castles stick with horse archer heavy armies with some cheap spear units. Eventually you’ll get some good foot men, for now croat axemen are okay.

5. Alliances. Well this is based on play style, but 9 out of 10 times a polish princess appears to the north of Budapest on the second turn. Did you build a diplomat? If not you have a princess, use her to gain an alliance. Poland has taken this deal from me on VH,VH almost everytime. Alliance, trade rights, maps, polish princess marries my faction heir, and i demand 4000 cash.

6. alliances part II. Now this gets tricky, if your going to play a house rule tradtional catholic game, ally with the HRE and venice. If not well Venice should be your first target (they want zagreb anyway) Scroll to ragusa, its proabably lightly defended, and you proably saw an army pass south when you were seiging zagreb. If that army isnt garrisoned at Ragusa, chances are Venice is preparing to DOW the Byzantines, time it right and the city of venice is wide open, and wealthy. The HRE might be a nice option too, but they bring a lot of force to bare. Still as Doug said in his post, vienna is a nice addition to your holdings

7. alliances part III. traditional player that dosent attack catholics? make an alliance with HRE and Venice they should say yes and dont be bashful about demanding cash, if your offer is generous, ask for 2k, very generous, 4k adjust down if rejected.

8. Merchants: no doubt you have a merchant or two now, where did you send them? there is a gold mine south of zagreb, textiles on a little isthmous just east of venice and near milan (however they always get bumped by armies), and silk at constantanople. The silk you will compete with milan for, but want a lucrative trade commodity with little competion to start thats close by? Have a look south of Kiev, and in the crimea, there are slaves there and you will most likely be the first to get there, not as lucrative as others but you can train up your merchants fast when they arent being threatened by others.

9. Priests: you can rush produce them and get 3 cardinals in no time because to your east and south east is virtually non catholic. Want to control the pope with your cardinal? prime the byzantines for your eventual assault? your location is your strength here place one near Isia castle, one near constantanople, one near sofia and one down near corinth castle. You ought to get bishops fast and help control the college.

10. Location! no doubt you see your primed for expansion east or south east, or should venice, or the HRE get excommed (which happens often) you can expand there. Really this is the hidden jewel of Hungary, its location. You dont have far to march for crusades either btw, and you will notice that once you get to the holly land the available troops improve dramatically.

All in all Hungary is a fine faction with lots of options, you can blitz with them, turtle, be pious, be a dread master what ever you want. Your location and relative weak starting position afffords you potential challenges as well which is nice. Sure you can take Denmark, england or russia and have a 1 front war and be secure, but that eliminates risk, and with hungary you get a bit of it.

[PuppetMaster]

Hungary was VERY difficult for me to get cooking on for some reason, but they do have pretty good troops and open access to some rich cities. Here's what I did:

1. Took Vienna from HRE (as you can tell, I basically said to hell with diplomacy with the Germans lol)

2. Moved south and took Sofia, Bucharest, and took Zagreb from Venice (yet another malevolent move on my part, hurray for a 2 front war!)

3. turtled a little

4. Crusaded, took Iconium with Istvan and some pretty good troops.

5. Pincer attacked Constantinople wth Istvan from east heading towards Smyrna/Nicea and some other guy and a big army from west towards Thessalonica.

6. Constantinople falls, Byzantines exiled to Nicosia (a good summer resort with beautiful beaches so i hear)

7. Slammed Corinth and Durazzo, attacked Venice itself and then went to Bologna (owned by the Krauts).

8. Summoned an army of knights, nobles, and cave trolls afrom my provinces and launched a crusade on milan, which turned out to be very successful.

----I am now fighting in Northern Europe, with an invasion of France on the horizon...

[Mangudai]

I love playing the Hungarians. I'm on about turn 40. I have wiped out the Byz, almost wiped out Venice, and seized Vienna from the HRE. I'm number one on most rankings.

My startup was similar to what Odin described so I wont reiterate all of it, just the most important part. Get a marriage alliance with Poland right off the bat. Get one with HRE as well. AI faction personas are sort of random, I think their reliability is set randomly whenever you start a new campaign. So they might be perfect allies the whole game, or they might turn out to be backstabbers.

My greatest Coup was the first crusade. The pope always orders a crusade on jerusalem around turn 10. My crusaders captured Constantinople and Nicea, then abandoned the crusade. My crusade was filled with crap troops, mostly pilgrims with some balkan/slavic mercs and some crap militia. But a full stack of crap was enough to take constantinople from the half stack of crap that was garrisoned there. I also sent a regular army of HA's and a good general beside the crusade to secure and hold the area.

My method of handling Venice was a mixed success. I took Zargosa early, then left it weakly garrisoned. Venice took it from me, and the war began on political terms that favored me. I took it back quickly, however I did not crush Venice right away because I was busy with Byzantium. Consequently I have had to fight lots of full Venisian stacks on the field, but the harder they come, the harder they fall.

The Poles beat me to Kiev but I took Iesu and the Crimea early with a small task force. These are poor provinces but worthwhile if you only garrison one unit and don't build them up. The Crimea is a nice place to recruit merchants because it has two slave resources which you can use to level up and nobody will bother you.

[Doug-Thompson]

Opening with the Hungarians:

It's vital to take Sofia and Zagreb ASAP. You will also probably get a mission to take Iasi. Leave Bucharest for later.

Sofia is vital because it is a castle right on your frontier with the Byzantine Empire. It gives you good castle units right on the front and denies the same advantage to the Byz. The AI Byz routinely go after it right off the bat, too.

You will almost certainly get into a war with Byzantium for taking Sofia. This is not a bad thing, because the nearest Byz castle is in Corinth. You won't be facing good Byz missile cavalry. You'll be fighting low-value militia units from Constantinople and Thessolonica. Even a little missile cavalry tactic experience will allow a Hungarian player to dominate these armies. Taking Thessolonica will make you a major power and taking Constantinople will make you the leading nation in the game.

Zagreb is vital because of its mining income, and because it is a great place to start from for seizing Venice when the opportunity comes up.

========

I always ally with Poland and the Papal states ASAP, and give them 100 florins a turn, as I've mentioned before. I do whatever the Pope tells me (joining Crusades and so forth.) I don't ally with anybody else, and attack nearby Catholic factions that are either excommunicated or have very low standing with the pope.

========

Like Spain, Hungary has the enormous advantage of being able to expand freely against non-Catholic factions. Recuiting priests in these lands allows them to gain piety relatively quickly because of all the conversions. You also have to recruit a lot of priests — meaning that their numbers and piety will let you get the college of cardinals packed with Hungarians by turn 50 or so.

[Nosoup4u]

Just to re-iterate what previous posters have said in early / mid Hungary is one of the most powerful civs to play. Go almost exclusively cav with Magyars and Nobles, use the terrain to your advantage, remember height is huge for non crossbow missile, and none of your early opponents can touch you. I have fought HRE, BYZ, Venice, and Poland all at the same time and it was a peice of cake. Battles got repetitive as they are long (use all missiles, flank charge stragglers until whole mass breaks) but the kill count for hungary in early games has to be 30 to 1.

I think the dominance of hungary missile cav is why I think the poles are so bad. After running the hungarian cav polish nobles just seem like a big let down.

[Caliburn]

Hungary is a very interesting faction. It seems that their best units are available from turn 1: the Magyar are strong enough for Early period, and the Nobles are overkill before heavier knights start appearing. Militia Spear/cheapo Archer core with 3-6 Magyar Cavalry can take on almost everything the AI throws at you early on, and will work OK when you have to siege enemy towns. One thing, though: tackling with the Polish with their anti-cavalry Nobles and anti-armour-melee-mounted crossbows is usually a bad idea.

The infantry isn't half that bad, even though fielding infantry-based field armies has limited application in the campaign game. Spearmen-pavise crossbow-heavy missile cavalry combination is very good for the field battles. The spearmen become available a bit late for the Hungarians, and most factions will get some decent sword unit to tackle with the spearmen around the same time.

Sieges are problematic, of course, but Battlefield Assassins can be useful in sieges, as the unit size in the narrow streets isn't such an important factor.

Early on you don't even need the money that much, fielding 2-3 field armies of one general and 3-5 Magyar Cavalry will suffice for long enough to get a couple of money-churning provinces. Another bonus of having rich neighbours like Venice and Byzantium: Capturing their armies and ransoming them back can create an ok extra income. If you manage to win battles with minimum casualties (usually easy with generals and missile cavalry), the armies seldom need to be reinforced.

The starting position has its good and bad sides. It's easy to defend with missile cavalry, and as a core it has a decent castle. Attacking the Byzantines shouldn't be too hard, although their castles will slow down the progress quite a bit.

Moving towards the North-West, against the Venetians and the HRE, means that you'll probably get to conquer towns before taking on castles. It's always good to take Venice from the Venetians, because that's where their money is, and their militia units are good. Getting reinforcements from your core regions takes time, so your prime units will get depleted. Taking towns is also nessessary, because you need the money, and the HRE will likely send a militia army from Vienna to Budapest pretty soon.

I wouldn't tackle the Polish before I had spears and pavise crossbows to handle their Polish Nobles and mounted crossbows. They can be killed with an all-cavalry stack too, but I'm usually too lazy and enjoy using crossbows. They'll probably attack at some point, but having a decent force to defend your core regions usually is enough to keep them from running you over.

[porkchop]

I wanted to post this so that it might help someone new to the game. Maybe it will even help some of those that have played for a while.

First and foremost, I think it should be said that I am playing a campaign in M/H. That could be vital info.

I read something on here a while back about playing as all-cavalry armies so I decided to give it a shot (especially after having played as the Turks a lot in MTW). I was playing as the Byz at the time and just felt overwhelmed after a while in that campaign. I then tried it again as the Hungarians a week or so ago and enjoyed a good amount of success for a while, but then again, felt overwhelmed and ceased the campaign.

My latest campaign is far and away my most successful. I'm currently on turn 140 and have annihilated the Venetians, the Byzantines, and several jihads sent my way. The Mongols have settled in Antioch, and I'm sure I'll have to deal with them soon.

Bottom line for the campaign is this; All-cavalry armies are almost unstoppable. And when I say "all-cavalry" I mean armies made up predominantly of missile cavalry. I've played the entire 140-turn game with 2 cavalry armies that I started with. Okay, to be fair...I started with one, and created the other at about turn 40 or so. Both contain about 8 Hungarian Nobles/Magyar units along with a general or two. I'm serious. I've literally maintained these armies for the entire course of the game. I've been unbeatable. Western armies simply cannot match up with me, as they tend to employ more spears/artillery to go along with their heavy cav.

The key to my success has been to use my cavalry to encircle my enemy. Once encircled, the enemy army tends to drop like flies. Moral takes a huge hit, especially when you send your rear archery units against the opposing general and inflict casualties. It's pretty much a domino effect from there on out.

I've fought against the Venetians, Byz, Poles, Russians, French, Rebels, Egyptians, Turks, and Moors and have DOMINATED the field in almost every engagement. I've inflicted 7/1 casualty ratios routinely on my opponents by encirclement and taking the high ground, even against artillery.

On sieging cities: I've found that your best offense is your offense. Take out opposing field armies first, then go for the cities and wait out sieges if need be. I had a real tough time early on in this campaign because the BYZ field armies were heavy archery cav. That surprised me a bit, as in previous campaigns they tended to be more mixed. In the end, I prevailed, and then the sieges were cake since the Byz had blown their wad early on. They really had nothing left in the treasury after their initial cav blitz.

I'm probably telling the regs nothing new here, but for any newbs....listen. Field cav archer armies when you play as teams that can recruit them and you'll do well. Use foot units to garrison/help in sieges, but put your money on the horse. Encircle and make it a point to isolate the opposing general. Once he begins to break (or if sufficient damage is done in your opinion), target other units simultaneously to force routes.

[dzidek]

I don't know why Hungary is so unpopular.
Their army is so much better the HRE for instance or even my native Polish army.
Their position is difficult but you have room to expand and some really weak opponents early like f.ex. Venice.

As for the units. Croat axemen destroy every early spear unit the enemy can field, and if you flan cavalry with them they will massacre it.
Your hungarian nobles are superior to the polish ones. They fire bows so can outshot them easily and fight with them HtH on equal terms.
Royal Banderium, you won't ever need anything else in the heavy cavalry department.
Heavy infantry is expensive but in terms of quality you have it all.
Bows.. on foot quite weak, but on horse excellent.
City garrison? Standard stuff. But you get Pavise Crossbows that are really good.