Gah VIKINGS!

Ok, I started my first campaign in VI as the Irish. Everything was going pretty well, I united the island and was aiming toward forming a fleet of my own. Then...the vikings came.

12 of their beserkers killed hundreds of my men. Granted, most of my men were mostly Glassgallows and basic spearmen. I was able to repel their first invasion but after a couple more years they landed a much bigger army and my entire royal family died in Ireland's defense! How can I combat this menace?


Also, a basic noobish question: It seems that other nations can land on my places but I don't know how to travel to Scotland for instance. How do I do that?


Finally, how does trade work exactly? I don't know anything about that.

You have to have a line of ships to Scotland or where ever you want to go.

I'm not exactly sure how trade works but I'm pretty sure it's the same as in MTW

For trade to work, you need a provence which has a tradeable resource (right click on the provence and check). You then build a trader building there (and a port) and build a chain of ships linking that provence to other provences. As long as the other provences have ports and the shipping lane isn't blockaded (press V to see - green is clear, red isn't), then the money will roll in. Few provences have tradeable resources so you have to rely upon farms and mines for the most part.

It's usually best to befriend the Vikings as soon as possible to stay out of trouble. They don't usually betray you if they're still stuck outside of Britain so you can build up your defences and look to oust all those other factions from the mainland.

Regarding those pesky beserkers, try and target them with your dartmen, javelineers and those other missile infantry units. Skirmisher troops are a bit tricky to use, but given a clear shot, they should kill a couple of men before the beserkers charge and rout the rest of your army.

Ok sounds good. I might as well ask a couple more questions now that I'm at it.



Does it matter about the number of ships I have lined for the invasion of scotland(and other places)?

What about trade?


I just went through a civil war. But I took pretty good precautions to try and root out dissension among my generals. (some were framed). How exactly do Civils start up and what does choosing the sides essentially mean?

The number of ships isn't important, you just need a chain of them between one provence and another. I can't remember if in VI you require a port to land troops, I think that may be the case (unless you're the Vikings). One ship per sea region should suffice at first, but later on have 2 or more to safeguard the region against other fleets. Also, any ships in the same sea region as your own that belong to a hostile faction will immediately prevent trade and sea landings there.

Regarding civil wars, they spring up for a number of reasons. For the most part, if your King is a bit of an idiot and/or if he is cut off from the rest of your empire, any disloyal general might take it upon themselves to overthrow your monarch. I think unhappy regions can also speed up the chances of a rebellion within the ranks. Be very aware of any member of the royal family or general with a good command rating who has a very low loyalty rating. If they're leading a stack of troops, they might rebel against your leadership. Other regions and generals can then follow. The choosing sides is simple enough: you either side with your current leader, or with the rebels. Pick whichever side is the strongest or will cause the least disruption to your empire. The side you choose becomes the new king/royal family, the other side the rebels, even if that means the King is now a rebel. Sometimes a civil war is a good opportunity to remove a weak royal family line. Some people even engineer their own civil wars for that reason alone. For the main (non-VI) campaign, I instead send the Grand Inquisitors in to burn my weak princes and kings. Or I give them a special mission, with a one way ticket into enemy territory alone. Should they somehow survive, I reward them by sending them back until they learn not to return. :skull:

You need a port in the province that the troops are coming from, but not one in the destination. The Viking faction does not need ports for troop movement, simulating the mobility of the longships. The chain of ships must be unbroken, and an enemy ship in the seas will break the chain. If you are attacking across the water, don't forget that you will not be able to return them if there isn't a port in the invaded province (and it's pretty much guaranteed that an existing one will be destroyed in the fight :no: ). So don't take your king...

For fighting the Vikings, start building Gallowglasses and Kerns, armor-piercing is a must. And try to get as many valour and morale bonuses as possible. You will need to flank and micromanage more, going head to head will just get you a lot of dead troops. Engage with spearmen, send your Kerns around and throw a few volleys into the backs of the armored viking units. The Irish AI always tries that against the armored units, the first time it happened to me was quite the shock. :oops: Also, use the terrain and fatigue to your advantage, your troops are fast and light, make the heavy foot vikings march to you to wear them out.

Berserkers - pelt them with missiles. They have no armour. Your dartmen are the longest range missile troops you have. Start with dartmen and, when the crazies get closer, lob a volley from your Kerns. Then charge as many troops as you can straight at them from all sides.

Huscarles / Royalty - You need armour piercers (Bonnachts and Kerns), Cavalry, Gallowglasses... and prayer. If the Huscarles are a royal unit with a Pride virtue (or just high valour) and a reasonable supporting army, there's a good chance you're screwed. Royal Huscarles need to be pinned by a unit with reasonable morale and impaled with as many javelins as possible whilst being charged from all sides. Easy, huh! :no:

Defend your coastline with multiple curraghs in one sea-space if you can. You might get lucky - they might last long enough for you to replace them with longships. Once you can defend yourself navally, the Vikings are no longer a real threat.

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Originally Posted by Roark

Defend your coastline with multiple curraghs in one sea-space if you can. You might get lucky - they might last long enough for you to replace them with longships. Once you can defend yourself navally, the Vikings are no longer a real threat.

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Well even with some luck you can get caught off-guard. When I played my last Irish VI campaign a long time ago, I had managed to escape the Vikings' attention until my coasts were duly guarded by curraghs which were later partly replaced by longboats. When the Vikings finally attacked I could boast some nice early victories against their longboat onslaught, but it appears that unfortunately the losses encouraged them to rebuild their fleet on an appropriate tech level --- and within a short span of time I had to face those super-boats (forgot their name by now), the 'Jomsvikings-of-the-seas' as I came to call them because of their nigh invincibility. What should I say, a group of two of them (starting with a two-star leader) wreaked havoc on my fleet and quickly destroyed three quarters of it, easily 10 vessels, before I managed to sink just one of them. ARGH! And when I withdrew most of the remaining fleet to fill up the losses, they landed a sizeable army in Ulster: the beginning of the end because my main army had conquered Wales and was now stuck on the mainland.....

Since then, the first thing I strive for in my VI campaigns has been to seek an early alliance with those darn Vikings until they have worn themselves out somewhat. Being a target of the Vikings right from the start usually leads to a quick defeat since your neighbours won't miss the nice opportunity to join the gang-up on you.

I'd agree with the general trend of the advice: the best way to beat the Vikings is never get invaded by them! Ally as soon as possible -- send all your daughters off to Scandinavia as the Vikings seem to spawn princes at an ungodly rate. On the other hand, the endless stream of princes does lead to them being cash-strapped, so if you can block the sea lanes they'll never be able to afford to build more ships.

I have managed to get a 100% victory in VI without ever once fighting the Vikings myself, so it's quite possible :2thumbsup:

BUT if they do go for you, and get through your blockade, then you'll need your AP missiles (bonnachts), AP weapons (gallowglass), all the weapon and morale upgrades you can get, cavalry, and a very canny use of terrain and tactics to win. The Irish certainly are an interesting faction to play and one of my faves in VI. They also need the most micromanagement due to the unique fighting style.

You've got me drooling for a new Irish campaign now :laugh4:

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Originally Posted by macsen rufus

You've got me drooling for a new Irish campaign now :laugh4:

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Me too, as soon as I finish my Scots campaign. Now, how do you beat a large Saxon faction with highlanders? :inquisitive:

Heh, those factions relying on the old style of celtic warfare are pretty fun to play against the more advanced Saxon factions. Although your highlanders can defeat Fyrdmen and spearmen (line 'em up 1-2 ranks deep) if you're up against heavy Huscarles led by a good general, you need a bloody miracle to defeat them! My Welsh faction ended up facing a Mercian force that couldn't even churn out Huscarles yet, but the enemy's massive armies and large number of 7-8* generals made every battle a foregone conclusion. And celtic warriors are better than highlanders! Although truth be told I only faced a couple of battles before playing something else. It's one of those campaigns I've been itching to get back to but never got around to it. Daft thing about the welsh campaign though - I only played it so I could use the Welsh bandits, but the reality is you'll have the campaign sown up before you get to train them. I also started an Irish campaign but lost interest. I love the Gallowglasses, but I find skirmishers a bit hit and miss, though mostly miss.

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Originally Posted by drone

Now, how do you beat a large Saxon faction with highlanders? :inquisitive:

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hmmm....by bribing? or by bringing in a numerically superior force with a really good general and pressing autoresolve? I have to admit that in general I deem VI campaigns much harder than the standard MTW campaigns, at least some of the former, and there are quite a number of situations when it's virtually hopeless to win by a fair fight. like....celts against massed huscarles :sweatdrop: :no:

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Originally Posted by professorspatula

Heh, those factions relying on the old style of celtic warfare are pretty fun to play against the more advanced Saxon factions. Although your highlanders can defeat Fyrdmen and spearmen (line 'em up 1-2 ranks deep) if you're up against heavy Huscarles led by a good general, you need a bloody miracle to defeat them! My Welsh faction ended up facing a Mercian force that couldn't even churn out Huscarles yet, but the enemy's massive armies and large number of 7-8* generals made every battle a foregone conclusion. And celtic warriors are better than highlanders! Although truth be told I only faced a couple of battles before playing something else. It's one of those campaigns I've been itching to get back to but never got around to it. Daft thing about the welsh campaign though - I only played it so I could use the Welsh bandits, but the reality is you'll have the campaign sown up before you get to train them. I also started an Irish campaign but lost interest. I love the Gallowglasses, but I find skirmishers a bit hit and miss, though mostly miss.

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My Welsh Campaign (on Expert) was much more of a success. At the start I almost immediately invaded Mercia and had taken their capital within a few years. This left them without the ability to build Huscarles and I dealt them a death blow pretty handily. This allowed my economy to grow as I gained some rich territories. By this time the Saxons had a decent number of Huscarles, and I waited for the Welsh Longbowmen before attacking.

Here I picked my battles carefully, sometimes attacking and withdrawing with a group of longbowmen, where I would rain down arrows on the Huscarles. Eventually I would build up an entire stack full of Longbowmen, which I intended to use for more hit-and-run attacks. However, the Saxons ran away from every engagement, even when they outnumbered by more than two-to-one! I eventually caught the Saxon king in a pickle, and he was captured and executed without a single battle! The Saxons were destroyed, and after this I quickly lost interest in the campaign.

Vikings, or Huscarle-building factions in general, can be a pain, I agree. But the Irish are well suited to give them some heat. Kerns are surprisingly powerful against armor. You can easily train valor-2 Kerns, and these guys do pack a punch. I was often able to stop Huscarles with Armored Spearmen or some such, then send a regiment or two of Kerns round. These would exhaust their javelins on the Huscarles' backside, and half the regiment was gone. After that, charge in some Gallowglasses (always use Gallows to flank or rear-attack!), problem finished.
This seems like an awful lot to go through just to kill one regiment of Huscarles, but consider: Huscarles are very very expensive, while Kerns, Armored Spearmen and Gallowglasses are quite cheap in comparison. Better yet, you can easily train Gallows and Kerns in many many provinces, while Huscarles are usually only available in the highest-tech provinces. It's a no-brainer to target these provinces first in any wars against the Saxons/Mercians/Northumbrians.
Making the enemy come to you is not always, but often doable. Tire out those heavily armored guys, then they will rout so much easier!
One thing I didn't mention is cavalry. You can and should be producing Mounted Nobles in as many provinces as fulfill the requirements. Aim for them as soon as possible, then spam them. No viking army can last against an army consisting at least half of Mounted Nobles. I managed to defeat numerically superior viking armies with equal or superior generals quite often once I had cavalry-only armies. Just be very careful and micromanage them right.

Unfortunately for me at the moment, the Scots don't get any of that fancy armor piercing bling-bling. Had a couple of battles last night and my teched-up Armored Spearmen held their own against Saxon Huscarles while I flanked with Clansmen and cav. Seems to do the trick. Don't have Mounted Nobles yet, but I've got most of my armies teched up to at least +2 weapons and armor, and lots of high-valor Clansmen. I knew this was coming, so I started preparations several turns back.

The Saxons attacked my fleet the same turn I successfully assassinated a prince, so the feelings were mutual. Luckily for me, I had started a naval war with the Vikings about 10-15 years prior, and had eliminated their fleet. They are now isolated on Domon and Hordaland (started a successful rebellion on Jutland :2thumbsup: ) and shouldn't get in the way. Took care of most of the Saxon fleet in a few turns, and now have a stack behind the lines causing havoc. They have everything south of the Pec Saetan-Elmete-Beornice line, I've got the rest. If I can win some battles, drain enough of their troops and destroy some buildings, hopefully it will start some unrest or at least kill the economy and enable me to break them down. There are going to be some long, bloody fights on that border if I don't.

Well, I got pretty far in the Irish Campaign. BTW I'm doing all this on normal.

I was able to unite Ireland and form an alliance with the Vikings which lasted for a long while. I've yet to be attacked by them.


So soon I formed a large army and decided to go all out on Scotland. What ensued after this can only be related to the trenches of world war 1 in that We fought between two provinces for a very very long time, with it constantly switching masters. Finally, after probably 10,000 deaths, I was able to capture and hold a good bit of the land and ultimately conquered them. I then also conquered the Picts and moved onto the major superpower, Mercia which dominated Southern England. After a reckless war on my part my forces, still containing many Gallowglasses and other weak troops, were no match nad I gave up.

Now, I started a viking campaign and it seemd I was always in constant debt so I had to conquer more land, and to do that I needed troops, and with troops I needed money (hence debt) so the cycle went...

Any advice for either campaign?

Tips for your Irish campaign:

Sounds like you've dominated the North and already had a crack at the Mercians. I would simply consolidate your empire for a while and concentrate on minimising your "frontage" (no. of provinces exposed to potential enemy invasion) and building quality troops. This means valour, armour, and weapon upgrades. With a bit of augmentation, your Gallowglasses (which are excellent assault troops) should be able to go toe-to-toe with the Mercian troops and hurt them badly. Tech up to Mounted Nobles as soon as possible, developing your economic infrastructure at the same time to support their high upkeep. Once you are ready to invade, just sweep down the map at a steady pace, remembering not to overextend yourself, or allow the possibility of rebellion. The Mercians will have some pretty big fortifications, so pack some siege weapons.

Tips for your Viking campaign:

You need to raid, raid, raid from the very beginning. The Vikings' lands are poor in farming resources, so the only real income you'll get initially is from trade (the peaceful route) or from sacking Abbeys and other rich buildings. Don't bother keeping the invaded provinces at first, just get your funds up and think about settling a little later. Make use of your Royals at every opportunity. They are hard men. You don't need big invasion forces, just quality troops like Berserkers and Huscarles. They will put the hurt on anyone.

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Unfortunately for me at the moment, the Scots don't get any of that fancy armor piercing bling-bling. Had a couple of battles last night and my teched-up Armored Spearmen held their own against Saxon Huscarles while I flanked with Clansmen and cav. Seems to do the trick. Don't have Mounted Nobles yet, but I've got most of my armies teched up to at least +2 weapons and armor, and lots of high-valor Clansmen. I knew this was coming, so I started preparations several turns back.

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From my experience the only way to go when you don't have mercs at your disposal. I usually tend to grab every armorpiercing one I can get hold off. Pricey but effective, especially against these Royal Hus.

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Originally Posted by Roark

Tips for your Viking campaign:

You need to raid, raid, raid from the very beginning. The Vikings' lands are poor in farming resources, so the only real income you'll get initially is from trade (the peaceful route) or from sacking Abbeys and other rich buildings. Don't bother keeping the invaded provinces at first, just get your funds up and think about settling a little later. Make use of your Royals at every opportunity. They are hard men. You don't need big invasion forces, just quality troops like Berserkers and Huscarles. They will put the hurt on anyone.

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Very good points, I'd just add that once you resolve to settle and stabilize your economy, take Ireland - it's easy to conquer, easy to defend and also not too poor, giving you a strategically extremely favorable position on the map. from then on, think of it as basically an Irish campaign with naval supremacy and better units.

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Originally Posted by Deus ret.

Very good points, I'd just add that once you resolve to settle and stabilize your economy, take Ireland - it's easy to conquer, easy to defend and also not too poor, giving you a strategically extremely favorable position on the map. from then on, think of it as basically an Irish campaign with naval supremacy and better units.

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That's usually the way I go with the Viking faction as well. You will need two army groups, one to take Ireland and hold it, the other to rampage through everybody else on the main island. You want to take Ireland fairly early (but be careful about your pagan/christian ratio) so you don't end up going against a lot of AP troops the Irish put out. Your other army group should attack/raid/destroy as much as possible, especially through the richer factions to keep them in the hole financially and you rolling in cash. Do not attempt to hold land, at the start of the game this just isn't economically feasible. Build up a war-chest first (and strip everyone else).

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Originally Posted by Gealai

From my experience the only way to go when you don't have mercs at your disposal. I usually tend to grab every armorpiercing one I can get hold off. Pricey but effective, especially against these Royal Hus.

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With teched up highlanders and armored spearmen, I was able to cut through the Saxons pretty easily. I think they were on shaky ground anyway, I took a couple of provinces in their backfield, beat off one large invasion, and both the Welsh and Mercians reappeared. Within two more turns, the Saxons were gone. Now I just have to clean up some uber-rebel stacks (the old Saxons), and take down the armies from the re-emergences, and I should have the win.

Making peace for a while and retraining troops through provinces with armor/weapon/valor/morale bonuses is a definite must before taking on the Huscarl factions. Also, be smart when consolidating units. Drop lower tech units into higher ones to maximize your tech. If you let the computer do this automatically, it always does the reverse. Use men from a lower tech unit to max out your high tech units, then send the depleted company back for a high-tech refit. This keeps valor up in your front line units as well.

Ok couple questions:

How exactly do you put lower tech units into higher ones? This sounds impossible.

How do I retrain units?

How do I increase pagan worshippers? Pagan shrines? Anything else?

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Originally Posted by Derfasciti

Ok couple questions:

How exactly do you put lower tech units into higher ones? This sounds impossible.

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Make sure the auto-cleanup function is off. After a battle, select a stack with a mix of high and low tech units. If you drag a low tech unit and drop it on a high tech unit of the same type, men will be taken out of the low tech unit to bring the high tech unit up to it's max. The men moved should retain their personal valor, but will receive the armor and weapons (and morale???) of their new unit. Depending on the numbers in each unit, you may end up merging them completely, or be left with a smaller unit of the low tech troops. Milk the low tech units of men, then ship them off to a teched up province for retraining.

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How do I retrain units?

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You can retrain a unit that currently resides in the province. Bring up the province's troop purchase screen, then select the stack that has the unit you wish to retrain. Drag that unit's icon from the stack unit display to the training slot in the purchase screen. The unit should disappear from the stack, and the next turn you will have a full unit, with the latest upgrades available from that province. The province must be able to build the unit in question, the cost will be some function of the unit cost and replacement troops needed (+upgrades??). Valor for the replacement troops will be at whatever level the province generates.

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How do I increase pagan worshippers? Pagan shrines? Anything else?

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If your king stays Pagan, eventually conquered territories will convert. Pagan shrines will help speed this along (and give morale bonuses to troops trained in those provinces). If I'm not mistaken, you have to have over half of your provinces at greater than 50% Pagan to retain the Vikings' Pagan status.

So the vikings can convert? How exactly does that work?

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Originally Posted by Derfasciti

So the vikings can convert? How exactly does that work?

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I think it just happens when the majority of their provinces turn christian. If I'm not mistaken, when it happens they lose their pagan buildings and they no longer get the full value of buildings they destroy-loot from a battle. It can hurt their economy if they are still reliant on raiding, and might decrease their aggressiveness. Sending priests to the Viking-held lands is one way to get this going, but the coversion rate can be slow.

I find the vikings quite easy to defeat. The secret with VI is learning the way each faction does things, each one has its own area of specialty and its own weak points.
The Vikings always use infantry-heavy armies making them vulnerable to Skirmishes so use missle troops to harrass them as they approach your main force. They also chase anything, so if your worried about a particular unit just put a some light inf/horse infront of it and slowly lure the unit away then pelt with missles/charge with heavy cav from all directions (if it heads back to the army, charge at it, halt and run away again).

For the main fight, draw out 4 or 5 units of Armoured Spearmen to about 6 ranks deep. Place your general and archers (if you have any) behind and your Celtic Warriors, horse and missles (kerns, irish darts or, preferably, Bonachts) to the flanks. When the enemy are commited to fighting your spears send your celtic warriors into their flanks and your missle troops and horse behind their lines. Let off a few volleys of javalins/darts then send your cavalry charging into their rear. Count to 10, then chase the routers and celebrate victory (although you wont have many spearmen or celtic warriors left).

Vikings turn Xtian when 80% of their population is Xtian -- keep building pagan shrines and take out any missionaries with assassins, and this need never happen to you. You REALLY don't want to lose that pagan raiding bonus...

How much exactly is the pagan bonus for raiding? Anyone know?


Also, I've always been confused about forming troops into ranks and all and I think that's a good bit of why sometimes my troop deaths are like 700 vs their 100 :hide:

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Originally Posted by drone

Make sure the auto-cleanup function is off. After a battle, select a stack with a mix of high and low tech units. If you drag a low tech unit and drop it on a high tech unit of the same type, men will be taken out of the low tech unit to bring the high tech unit up to it's max. The men moved should retain their personal valor, but will receive the armor and weapons (and morale???) of their new unit. Depending on the numbers in each unit, you may end up merging them completely, or be left with a smaller unit of the low tech troops. Milk the low tech units of men, then ship them off to a teched up province for retraining.

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Are you sure? As far as I know each and every single man in a MTW units has his own stats concerning valor, upgrades etc. The army display only shows the average value for the respective unit. If you merge a unit with gold armor upgrade with one without upgrades, the displayed armor upgrade will be red or whatever (depending on the relation of numbers) - although that does not mean that the whole unit now has red armor upgrade, it's rather a mix between some golden armored guys and those which are not armoered at all.

At least I'm pretty sure about this....:book:

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Originally Posted by Derfasciti

How much exactly is the pagan bonus for raiding? Anyone know?

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It's not a numerical bonus, like they get +2 attack or something. It's their ability to leave any coastal province (even without a port), and their ability to pillage buildings before winning a siege - all they have to do is capture the province, not the fortification. This lets them hit a province, win the initial battle, destroy the high-value buildings, grab the gold, and move away before the defender can mobilize enough troops to overwhelm them. They get to bounce around the map, staying one province ahead of you, while you play "whack-a-mole" with a very elusive target.

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Originally Posted by Derfasciti

Also, I've always been confused about forming troops into ranks and all and I think that's a good bit of why sometimes my troop deaths are like 700 vs their 100 :hide:

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Rank bonuses only apply to spearmen and pike troops - other troops can be set as low as one-man deep, and function fine. The one area where every troop type benefits from more ranks is when receiving a charge (especially a cav charge against infantry) - they'll hold better when set deeper. But spear and pike troop types get both defense and attack bonuses when in deeper ranks (and "ordered"). You can tell when they're obtaining the bonus by the unit animations - if the men in the back are performing the "attack animation", they're doing fine.

Also, how do I get that auto-stack option up?