Archived: Turtling as England [RXB1004]

Hi @all,

here some stuff dedicated to the turtling gamer ;-)

PART 1

Campaign: Redux 1004eVI/English/veteran/GA

Campaign character: Slow, building up max available, maxed-out units only, small armies only

Unit restrictions: Only "native" units, nothing of the feudal/royal line;

Garrison: LightBillmen

Spears: SaxonHeavySpearmen, IrishSpearmen

Swords: SaxonWarriors, ClaymoreWarriors, HighlandClansmen

Projectiles: EnglishForesters, Longbowmen, Kerns

Cavalry: IrishHorsemen, ScottishNobles, EnglishKnights, "inherited" RoyalKnights

As soon as Lithuanian provinces are taken:

All region-specific Lithuanian/Slavic units available

Units modded: To stand a chance against Feudal/Royal cavalry units I increased

ScottishNobles and EnglishKnights to 40 men. LithuanianNobles and SlavicCavalry come with

these numbers, so no change there.

NO OTHER UNITS USED

Development:

In the beginning, I only leave a small unit in Normandy; playing "standard", the French normally don´t attack till I´ve got my regions built up and I can keep it - quite different in "veteran"; between 735 and 770 they always attack (tried and retried, to be sure). I left, destroying everything before leaving. For me, it makes no sense to keep a province "at all cost", breaking my economy, interrupting my building schemes, just to keep hordes of Frenchies at bay...
I don´t produce any units except ships (to keep my borders clean), so getting Wales, Northumbria, Scotland and Ireland is done by bribe. I made the maths about this a few times, and economically it makes more sense to build up and bribe than to recruit, battle and recruit again to keep loyalty high enough. Cost of battling is, in the end, about 40% higher. Side-effect is getting a few regional special units without building the infrastructure.
To build up everything possible/necessary on Keep level takes till about 850 at least. On Castle level, there are only left the "master"-buildings and some upgrades not available on keep level. Because this is quite costly, I must have built up my economy to max at this point. FeudalEstate++ only built in Scotland(Nobles) and Wessex(EnglKnights). Chancellery/Treasury everywhere. Office buildings built, but nothing being recruited from them.
After having built up on Castle level every single existing unit is retrained. Only then I start to recruit, valour, morale (except Cathedral), armour maxed out, Weaponsmith on Workshop level.

Region specific recruiting structures I build up to:

Wessex: ArchersGuild, RoyalCourt, MasterHorseBreeder

Wales: ArchersGuild, CountyMilitia

Northumbria: MasterSwordsmith, MasterSpearmaker

Scotland: MasterSwordsmith, RoyalCourt

Ireland: MasterSpearmaker, MasterHorseBreeder

Mercia: All religious/political agents buildings

LargeShipyard is built everywhere

This way, every province produces max. 3 different units maxed out, necessary to cut down building time (which is still horribly long).

Expansion:

I keep it "small and beautiful" ;-)) Not only my Kingdom, but my army as well. Therefor expansion happens earliest about 880 on Castle level.
One of the big problems on "veteran" (NOT on "standard") are the Norse, being much more aggressive and having this tremendous infantry. To keep them small, I spam spies.
As soon as they are weakened by revolts I take Sweden for the money and it´s central scandinavian location, being a doorstep to Lithuanian provinces as well. With the english infrastructure already built up max, here only economy and defence upgrading.

The main expansion problem with this style of playing is that

1st) I give quite some time to my concurrents to expand, some even horribly; at the moment(880), the Byz own a third of the map...

2nd) to get captured provinces to the same level as my home ones is a pain in the ass, taking another 100-150 years depending on the infrastructure still intact after conquering. So units of lithuanian provenience play a role in my game only from about 1000/1100, depending on when I take them.

Besides all that, I use unwanted, but completely maxed Heirs for suicide missions to cut down enemy strength (as told in other threads). Double benefit: No drooling drunkards as Kings, and no need for mass battles (one stack must suffice).

So far my newest news,

greetings to everyone, daigaku

Addition: After a hard day´s work (year 935), I finally wiped out the Norse. Was a hell of planning, bribing and fighting (may all gods bless my Longbowmen!), with their "great morale" boosted right into stratosphere with their "veteran" game bonus.

Byz still going strong, but due their King being cornered in Asia Minor by my fleets, they got quite some rebellions going. Haven´t got the strength yet to go for them (economy breakdown, either them or rebels owning most coastal provinces and me building all those stability structures to keep Scandinavia happy).

Now it will be those Lithuanian provinces. I´ll report.

greetings again, daigaku

Hi,

here we go again ;-)

PART 2

Meanwhile, it´s year 1068, and quite some changes happened.

Owning: British Islands, Scandinavia (except Finland, only province held by Russians), Novgorod, Couronia, Normandy, Aquitania, Navarre, Aragon, Sardinia, Crete, and Egypt.

From Iberia straight through to Cyrenaica completely cleaned-out Rebel country. I was so fed up with interchanging respawns of Moors and Byz that I 1st) assassinated every heir before killing the Kings and 2nd) bribed and raided every single province in Iberia and NorthAfrica down to barrewn land. The trigger was a respawn of Byz, with about 8.000 men on my doorstep in Castile, with some 15.000 more heading for Iberia. I think I just killed the Emperor the year before invading into Navarre with my mere 2.200 men there....
In the beginning (from 935) money was scarce, only when I got some ship into Adriatic Sea and Gulf of Venice decent money started to come in. Building up Couronia and Novgorod to my needs is finished only now, and so I´ve got a chance to go for the Lithuanians and the Lombards, the only threatening powers left. The Lombards owning all of Europe except some aragonese spots (and my few provinces), the Lithuanians all the Steppes and part of Asia Minor.
Herefor I left the infrastructures from Sinai onwards intact(?), so the Rebels have to deal with them.


Attachment 12090Attachment 12091Attachment 12092Attachment 12093


Newly built structures: Found out I can recruit "Italian Nobles" in Sardinia, so RoyalCourt is built there. In Navarre and Aragon the buildings for SpanishHorsemen ( @Cyprian2: Hey, those guys really do their jobs! ;-)) added. Right now I´ll try wether the "CopticNobles" can be recruited by English in Egypt. Because the english provinces "on the Continent" don´t give nice regional or otherwise special troops, I leave them alone and only build economy, stability and safety buildings.

Bribed army dispatched of asap, I want only my reliable troops in my provinces. I just used them as someone might use Mercenary troops, and I don´t know their abilities, so off they´ll go.

For the ones going for "total domination":

Of course, I could have kept all those lands - but, for my style of playing, to which end? Nothing special recruitable there, just some more money to make and spend. So I decided against keeping, and maybe a respawn will happen again, so there is space for something to develop ;-))
As said in other places, I like to keep it "small and beautiful", and with what I´ve achieved now I`m content.

That´s it for the moment,

greetings daigaku



addition: ......ahem......if that´s what happens playing veteran level, I´ll do it always ;-))) 20 years later that´s the situation:


Attachment 12100


Lithuanians wrapped themselves up in civil war, and I disposed of the (obviously) last Lombard King, trying to find out if a 7star assassin is capable to kill a 3star king with 6 skulls...

What might happen now is a massive respawn of one of them, or both. Pope might "explode" his territory, or remaining HRE doing the same. We´ll see.....

greetings again, daigaku

I've enjoyed this overview, @daigaku.

Must confess, I'm an occasional fan of bribery and assassination -- but, whoa, you take it to the next level! Would you say those things are inherently part of your gameplay style? If so, I'd challenge you to try a campaign without using either! (See how diabolical I can sometimes be?)

That said, I love to see a map swamped with rebels. Why? Because it makes for unlimited respawn possibilities. Am I seeing your last pic correctly? Are there really *no* actual factions left on the map? That's a first in my experience. Shouldn't the victory be handed to you by default (i.e. "none of the other kingdoms could hold it together long enough, so victory is yours, chump.")

I like your emphasis on "only native" units. That means exclusively AOR, right? (i.e. none of the generic light/medium/heavy infantry, etc.? Personally, I never use those guys, either). In most of my campaigns, I usually find the best regional units and focus on recruiting those. Also, I agree with your strategy of specializing provinces in different areas. Obviously, any province with iron will become a troop-producing province, but also, some will specializes in espionage, diplomats/stewardship, trade, etc.

Anyway, nice campaign story. There's more to say, but I'll have to do it later as RL encroaches.

Hi @Cyprian2,

first, thanks for the response.

The trick for an effective bribery is to 1st) bribe about the half of province´s armies and 2nd) get in there with enough own men so the remaining boys and girls retreat. Should be left enough enemies so that siege is only one year. Bribe next province, move in, siege again. If those provinces are stuffed (like in my case) with 3.500 - 5.000 men, after two bribed provinces and some 1.000 additional own men you have enough to "cakewalk" straight through. Reaching Egypt, dispose of unloyal bribees and enjoy income ;-))
And no, it´s not my normal style of playing, but after 5th respawn I was so fed up I ended that nuisance for good ;-)) Assasination only makes sense with an assassin beyond level 6, otherwise he is dealt death faster than he can deal it. This 7star guy earned his merits the hard way, fighting off foreign assassins from my precious princesses aso (assassins are far better catching intruders than spies).

Lombard respawn happened heavily, but I got problems with CTDs due to the ships turning up in garrison armies. In the first case, in my russian campaign, it was only one ship in Corsica. CTD only when entering personal battle, autoresolve got me some 400 men killed. Tough bastards, those ships - I think I´d need about 250 maxed-out SlavWarriors to get one down ;-)) In my English/Veteran, CTDs started to happen constantly so I had to stop the game. Started another English/Veteran in 1003VI.

Units: Already in Vanilla I stuck to that. With Redux, thanks to Axalon´s terrific work on different units, it would be a shame to use anything else than native stuff. Hell, I mean, I´ve seen Royal Spearmen crash and done in by SaxonHeavySpears, so who needs them? And my experience with a combination of SaxHeavySpear and Claymores against Cataphract regiment was an eye-opener for me. The problem about all those regionalized units is to find out which you can have and which not. Have spent thousands of Florins to find that out...

Factions left on the last pic: Pope, Saracenes (on Cyprus), HRE (Crimea), and me. Could have wiped them out easily, but wouldn´t have been much fun. And the Germans were buddys from the first years on and never betrayed me. Sentimental bastard I am ;-))

I´ll report more on English/Veteran but it´ll be 1003VI, so a bit different to 1004

greetings, daigaku

A big thanks goes to Daigaku for his previous posts and remarks here on versions 1003-1004.
As Redux has now evolved into later versions, I will close this thread for preservation and any
future reference.

Closed...

- A