Aragon Late/Hard/VI Unmodded

OK, so I've never done this one before, but I thought I'd give it a crack last night. Aragon have 2whole provinces (Aragon and Sicily), and pretty nice starting buildings.

Whoa!! Not easy.

In the first turn, Spain goes straight for rebel-held Valencia (which had a sweet citadel, and I was hoping to bribe the garrison). Furthermore, the pope goes straight for rebel-held Naples with a significant army.

So there go all of my options of not-attacking-larger-neighbours , with the exception of.... Navarre. *tumbleweeds roll past*. Navarre is not great for a burgeoning economy, as it invariably requires a proper front-line garrison in order to discourage attacks.

I'm 10 years into the campaign now, and I don't see how it can end with anything except for my inglorious death at the hands of big, rich neighbouring factions.

For every 1000 florins I earn, my rivals earn 3000. For every 500 troops I have, my rivals have 1000. My 4 star king is matched by 6 star generals in my opponent's ranks.

I've never been much of a fan of the turtle, and I usually find that turtling as a small faction ends up in disaster, as the blitz-factions eventually just get greedy and swamp ya.

I'm no stranger to hard campaigns (Turks High being my favourite), but the mathematics involved in this one, and the lack of differentiated units (with Spain) seem to doom me from the outset.

Has anyone played this campaign successfully? Care to share your tactics/strategy?

Well, I hate to say it, but I fear you may want to look towards the sea and a grand navy. This, at least, will guard your Sicilian holdings. I've personally only won with Aragon in Early. Turtling sounds like the gameplan for a small period, at least, until you get your economy on par with your neighbors. And try to, ah, exploit the current wars between your neighbors. If Byz kicks Hungary's butt and sends some rebel provinces your way, heyhey!

Other than that... I'd wait for an heir who starts with 7 stars and is Crack-Brained and send him with 90% of my force into the heart of your enemies. I did that with Danes one time, and totally rocked the HRE in 3 turns, and kept plowing into France without any reinforcements. Pray for a madman, really.

Honestly, I've never tried such a campaign. The only times I've ever played late campaigns is in mods so I can play as the Mongols.

As for what to do? I'd say, try your very best to turtle until someone creates a grand western empire, and then promptly collapses into civil war as happens so many times. Play defensively and try to utilize one of the 13 rules of war: defend, then attack. Use your native Aragonese terrain to utterly crush the first person to attack you, and hopefully so crush their forces that you can then take to the offensive. Whether this be France, England, Spain, or the Almos, it matters not so long as you properly execute.

Oh, and ignore Navarre, good idea. Worthless province for you right now, it'll only drag you into an unnecessary war as someone tries to march south into Iberia or North into France.

Respect Roark, for choosing such a difficult endeveaur. The aragonese are quite a handful.:bow:

It just might be impossible to win, but I would suggest the following.

If the enemy has 1.000 troops and you have 500, make sure that the machtup is perfect. Say 600 of those 1.000 are spears. Then you train swordsmen. If they're ranged troops, you train horses. You need to balance your troops perfectly to succeed. That heavy cavalry can be taken down in the forrest, or on a good hill.

One tactic to make sure there is a gap between your general and the enemys, is to bring arbalasters, target the general and they'll soon disappear.

You must attack to succed. I would suggest NOT building a navy, as it is a costly long term investment, when you need quick returns.

Defending, especially in rough terrain, is usually much easier than attacking. A swift and bold move on the strategic map will make the enemy withdraw in order to attak you in the next year. Make them come to you. A weakly defended home province will usually not be the target, if you lay siege to a castle. The AI will prioritize lifting that siege instead.

Build only a few archers, 2 or 3, and let them be arbalasters. You need most of your troops to be able to melee when outnumbered.

These are my thoughts, good luck!

/KotR

If I remember correctly you can build Grand Inquisitors in Aragon as from the start of the game.

A bit cheesy but probably one of the few ways you can succeed. Bribing Sardinia is also necessary of GA points. Hard to beat the Italians to it if you want to build a sea lane first but the troops that stand there are enough to beat the few revolts that you are sure to get.

If the Spanish concentrate on the Almos instead of you, and the French concentrate on the English or HRE... you may be open to further expansion in the Mediteranean, but that will certain leave you with years of shipbuilding. That increases revenue, but on harder difficulties, I've noticed maritime powers often strike at their trade-competitors, so to speak.

You may wish to launch north or south, and tip the scale of one of the wars in your favor, that might be enough to plunge one of your neighbors into civil war, and that makes for some easy-er pickings. Just be careful not to overextend yourself.

have just finished a Aragon Late/expert/VI several days ago.In fact it is not really hard to achieve dominion victory.
My strategy is as follow:
(1) Be very aggressive in the early stage of the game
If you do noting, the spanish and french may become very strong after 10-15 turns. this is the worst situation , both of them will attack aragon. so it is nessary to defeat one of them quickly.

(2)attack spanish or french?
Aragon is not a main threat to french/spanish, you can ally with one of them and defeat another without disturb.
since the spanish/french is almost equally strong, i think spanish is a better target.
if you conquer french first, then the spanish, german, england, swiss and italy will become your potential enmey.
but if your target is spanish, your next enmey is french which is at war with many other country.
another advantage:iberian is richer and have iron resource.

(3)how to defeat spanish?
first step: just let the spanish attack Valencia/Navarre. then they army is spread around at least 5 provinces.
ally with french and am;build your army

second step:attack castile with your whole army and defence castile for one or two times
it will be the key battle of the whole campaign,you must destroy the main force of spanish and avoid heavy loss.

third step: after the second step, the spanish's army will be isolated in every province. so you can take them one by one easily. if possible, take valencia first.( this province is rich and protected by a river) ,then leon/navarre should be considerd. in the end cordaba
note: left enough troop at castile is essential.

The problem is that allowing Spain to take Navarre and Valencia almost doubles their troop-training capabilities... Making it 5 units per turn.

...which kinda returns me to my original problem. Aragon can only produce 1 unit per turn on mainland Europe.

I'm not sure how that works, bro.

:inquisitive:

Thanks for the advice, though!

Positioning, methinks. With more territory available to them, they must defend larger borders. And Navarre is often little more than a hovel when taken the first time.

I can see, though, how taking on Castile would split the enemy forces sufficiently. IF, however, you can push them out of Castile the first time. If you do, and pen some in the castle, they will undoubtedly try to lift the siege, putting you on the defense in Castile with your choice of terrain. Make them pay dearly for it, even if you end up having to withdraw (preferably done without much in the way of casualties) you will have cut their forces down a couple of notches. Then it's all about striking where they're weakest, causing some havoc and pillaging the province. Withdraw, defend, strike again.

Playing as the Scots in XL, I did that with the English. I would invade Northumbria, hold long enough for the English to assemble, flee back to Scotland, and they'd rush into the mountains and die. Then I'd strike back. Guerilla warfare. Eventually the amount of troops lost will pay for whatever production capabilities they may have over you, especially if you're killing 500 for the loss of 50, or even 100.

Hmm. I feel like starting as Aragon now... but no, I have to finish my current campaigns first, lol!

the key factor is timing:before spanish can train troops in navarre and valencia,they must attack,siege,and rebulid first. you can attack spanish before they get benfits form their new land.

if spanish can train X troops and you let them take navarre and valencia. then we assume that spanish send 800 troops to attack these provinces. after the siege there, they left 350 in valencia and 200 in navarre.then you attack castile at this time, spanish have to left at least 100 troops in both provinces and the force they have is X-450.

another choice: you take the navarre and valencia
firstly it is hard to take both provinces before spanish. secondly if you can take both, you will loss at least 250 troops( as the spanish), and you have to keep more troops than spanish to prevent rebell (in hard/expert)
if you can train Y troops, then the troop left to attack castile is only Y-550.

X-450 vs Y and X vs Y-550, the gap is 1000.