Finished your Grand Campaign on vh/vh?

I thought it might be interesting to hear how people are playing their campaigns out. Whether they are adopting a medieval variant of blitzkrieg or a more diplomatically based, slow build-up approach.

So how about posting a summary of your completed campaigns? What strategies are folks utilizing?

Tentative format:

Faction
Number of Turns - or - Number of years (specify if game time was reset)
Outline of overall strategy
How the game actually played out
Favorite units/best tactics
Other thoughts

My most recent completed campaign

Russia
Victory in 111 turns
Time reset to 2 turns per year

Overall strategy:

- Early rush to grab rebel provinces, particularly get Kiev and Moscow/Ryazan.
- Elimination of Poland, then Denmark, then Hungary, then Byzantines. (Played out pretty much according to plan).
- Carefully manage the money (never have much)
- No naval war to speak of
- The Turks left me alone after we formed an early alliance.
- The game was over before the Mongol hordes.

Tactics/Units:

- Early Polish cavalry units are good so I wanted to smash them first.
- The other factions relied mainly on infantry early on, or had poor missile cavalry. Against them therefor tactics were use of missile cavalry, particularly Boyars, to decimate heavy infantry units. If they were using little cavalry I added mercenary crossbowmen. I used mercenary spearmen to mop up. I built probably 2/3 of my empire with these tactics.
- In battle I often took positions set well back to force enemy to move across battlefield, and allow scope for cavalry attacks while they were marching across the map. I found the AI often sends lines of crossbowmen or archers too far in front of their infantry and you can flank them and kill them all with decent cavalry before the spearmen make it to the melee.
- I had trouble against England with this strategy. Their armies would include 4 - 8 Mailed Knights or better and my cavalry did not fare so well. Tried to avoid long campaigning against such foes.
- It is nice to be Orthodox faith and not have to deal with the Pope and Inquisitors

My most recent completed campaign:

France
Played to near victory (47 provinces held... details below!)
Time reset to 1 turn per year

Overall strategy:

- Lead the world in chivalry, culture and religious devotion.
- (as a subplot of the above) Ally with and own the Pope.
- Expand throughout Continental Europe only.
- Enthusiastically Crusade, and turn over any provinces conquered by Crusaders to the Papacy.
- Maintain a small number of Castles devoted to churning out Noble Knights.
- Maintain a large number of towns, but build nothing from the "Brothel" line unless absolutely necessary. I picked Marseille as a suitable spot for producing Spies and Assassins, and with a Cathedral and Docklands it was a pretty good approximation of the real Marseille. :) I built as many culture buildings (Theatres &c.) and religious buildings as possible.
- Use as few Mercenaries as possible.
- Use High (but not Very High) taxation throughout the empire wherever possible.
- I used very few Spies and Assassins, except for one brief aberration (I hadn't realised how badly the use of Assassins is frowned upon - all the other factions do it! :) - and ended up with a fearsomely dreaded leader, because I recruited and trained a bunch of murderous thugs so as to attract the attention of the Assassin's Guild).

This all worked extremely well. I ended up with a very large ruling family, most of whom were well-rounded, talented individuals with few if any negative traits, very useful retainers (thanks to the Theatres I was building) and high Piety (from Crusading, general chivalry - I never sacked or exterminated a single town, released most prisoners, ransomed a few, and never slaughtered them wantonly, and rarely bothered to chase them down once the battle was won). My conquest of Europe proceeded relatively smoothly, although I was in near-constant warfare with my less civilised neighbours throughout. Being allied with Pope-boy helped a lot. Interestingly, the Papal States shifted their capital away from Rome, to Antioch, after I'd Crusaded to Antioch for them and donated them the town.
I'd conquered around 40 or so provinces by the time the Mongols turned up, which was no big deal as I had no possessions in the Holy Land anyway. Soon I had more than 45 provinces and thought I'd end the game, so I asked Popey for a Crusade to Jerusalem. "Go for it!" squealed my tame Pontiff.
Right then... I had a splendid general (he'd already finished two Crusades, and was not only a living saint but the best tactical genius ever to grace France) and a powerful army (full stack of decent units including plenty of Noble Knights) in Hungary, so I joined them up to the Crusade. Everything went swimmingly, until I got to the Aegean, and on two separate turns recruited Mercenary Galleys. I embarked my army onto those 4 Mercenary Galleys, but made the mistake of leaving them at sea instead of disembarking. Attacked by two enemy fleets in succession, the galleys sank and all the troops drowned. "Bugger", I thought, "that'll teach me". So I joined my King, who was up in Poland, and *his* uberarmy, to the Crusade, and marched them down to Byzantium. At which point they were set upon by a fanatical Inquisitor, King-boy Pious Le Pious was burned in the middle of his invincible Crusading force in mid Crusade, and the army fell apart. I concluded that I obviously wasn't meant to finish the game, and stopped at that point. :) Practically the only pyromaniac episode in the game, but at such a bad time... :)

Tactics/Units:

- I used a mix of large numbers of poor-quality missile units supported by small numbers of spearmen and substantial heavy cavalry backup.
- Generally speaking I'd advance the missile infantry in loose formation, defeat the enemy missile troops in the ensuing exchange of arrows, signal for a charge along the whole infantry battleline, and support with devastating cavalry charges from the flanks.
- The programmed opponent, in my humble opinion, expects too much from its missile troops. It will cheerfully try to fight a missile duel regardless of the strengths of the two sides; even if its own skirmishers are getting pwned to the back of beyond and it is taking heavy casualties among its melee units it will try to fight a missile duel until most of its skirmishers are dead or out of ammo. I'm not sure if this is the "passive AI" bug.
- I also frequently had to send cavalry units to hunt and destroy enemy war machines. I usually had a unit or two of light cavalry for this purpose, but heavy cavalry worked just as well in practice.
- Scots Guard *rock*. They're very good missile troops, and then they're solid melee swordsmen in plate armour. They can hold their own against practically any enemy unit.
- Noble Knights *rock*. I was using single or double units (40 or 80 knights) to hunt down and destroy Bandit armies throughout my realm; I found they have a better-than-even chance to defeat an entire Bandit stack.
- I used very few war machines of my own.

I play VH/VH, but have only finished one short campaign (with the Scots) to open the other factions. Since then, I'm sorry to say that I get too bored to finish a long game. Once you get established, have some money and good troops to hand, the enemy AI is just too stupid to give you a game. I still enjoy the starting years, but unless the patch solves some of the AI problems, I doubt I'll be writing my own campaign AAR. Too bad, as this game has so much potential.

However, I like hearing how you guys are role playing. maybe that will help me become more enchanted. i'll give it a try.

Most recently finished game:

Milan, vanilla time settings (have since found 1 turn=1 year is the way to go)

Overall strategy was to unify Italy and then push east towards Constantinople. As things turned out, I ended up supplanting the French throne and nicking the eastern coastline of Iberia.

The start was very tricky. Was against Venice, Sicily and France went on for at least 50 turns, with the Milanese beating back wave after wave and occasionally taking a city, but after I finally crushed the Sicillians I was only fighting on two fronts, and when pease was agreed all round I found myself with a kingdom comprising Italy, Marsaille, Dijon, Bern, Venice, and Ragusa.

I then turned my hand to the sark arts of assassination and spying, and ended up with the master assassins guild in Genoa. Hit upon the strategy of sabotaging enemy cities and pushing them into revolt, before marching in and clearing up the rebels. It worked far too well, to be honest, and I added numerous provinces following this tactic. Short, sharp wars saw a number of other areas added, including the remnants of Spain, and before I knew where I was Constantinople was revolting and I was marching in with a hardened army that had already crushed Hungary.

I ended up with scheming, espionage favouring generals in Italy overseeing legions of highly trained assassins, with the occasional far flung army led by a rare chivalrous Italian who had managed a crusade or two.

I enjoyed the game, but the first half (with the constant invasions and the desperate defences) was certainly more fun than the second half, where I had become too powerful for the AI to offer much of a challenge. I also sped through quite quickly (I was finished by the Black Death) and so missed a lot of the buildings and units at the top end of the tech trees. My new game is slower paced, with more of an eye on still being interested when the New World opens up.

Apologies for the typos... can't find an edit button. :embarassed:

Finished as English, first campaign...

Basic rules:

1. Act ruthlessly as a proper Medieval leader
2. Money, money, money, any way to get them is good. Sack, sell, ransom, put out of business as a rule
3. Fear the strong and plot against them, crush the weak or the disfavored
4. Once anything grabbed, never let out of hand without a bloody fight
5. Never abandon a city/castle on AI pressure without destroying all buildings (except churches, this annoys Pope) and recoup some florins
6. Manipulate the Pope, make him friend, assassinate if he mistakenly escomm's me ~D

Overall strategy:

Blitz against as many rebel settlements as possible in the first phase of the game.

Building priorities: economy, law, military, religion

Provoke catholic neighbors to start wars, attack and take cities/castles when pope turns against them

On crusades, some nice cities along the way await plundering. Why ignore them? ~D Replenish desertions with mercs

Disband mercs as soon as job done

Strategic objectives as English: Dominate seas, reach Mediterranean Sea and rich Italian/Spanish provinces, also rich Egypt provinces

Civil revolts lead to instant siege and extermination

Get Mediterranean islands and use them as raiding bases

Heavy fortify one castle in Middle East and start attrition war with Mongols

When bored, crusade on Jerusalem and win in glory

Strangely enough, for most part of the campaign my reputation was "reliable" and only towards end, when I got really aggressive, it went down

Next campaign, I'll try the "chivalric approach"...

Can people add comments on how many turns or what years they are playing up to?

I have a feeling many people will finish the campaign before gunpowder, the New World, or even the Mongols - if the time is reset.

John Johnston your campaign sounded very frustrating - I can't understand the logic of Inquisitors killing the leader of an army on crusade. I don't think any Pope would support that kind of lunacy. If the developers in a patch do nothing else with the Inquisitor AI, making crusaders immune from inquisition would seem easy and sensible. It should be a strategy to raise your piety.

I have to confess in my campaigns with Catholic countries I have started killing Inquisitors using the trap and execute method. Surround with any 8 (x) units (less needed if there is terrain blocking (I)nquisitor's escape. Then move any unit to share the tile the Inquisitor is on = dead Inquisitor

x x x
x I x
x x x

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Reapz

John Johnston your campaign sounded very frustrating - I can't understand the logic of Inquisitors killing the leader of an army on crusade. I don't think any Pope would support that kind of lunacy. If the developers in a patch do nothing else with the Inquisitor AI, making crusaders immune from inquisition would seem easy and sensible. It should be a strategy to raise your piety.

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I agree entirely. That was pretty much the only problem I had with Inquisitors that campaign - although I've found them pretty annoying elsewhere - but what happened didn't make a lot of sense, and I couldn't really be bothered to raise *another* army and send them on the long overland journey to Jerusalem, not when France was already dominating Europe.

I have found from several campaigns that there's a "tipping point" mid-game - like people said above - beyond which your empire simply has the power to fight and win against the combined forces of all the other nations. The Mongols and Timurids are usually enough to give anyone pause - especially if the player's empire is based in the Holy Land - but with the time set faster than the default it's possible to reach that tipping point before those zany invaders arrive. I've reset the time back to 2 years per turn for my current (HRE) campaign.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by John Johnston

- Scots Guard *rock*. They're very good missile troops, and then they're solid melee swordsmen in plate armour. They can hold their own against practically any enemy unit.

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How do you build those? What building? I just started my French campaign a while back and didn't see those show up in the tech tree. Do I have to meet/conquer the Scots to get them or build them in Scotland?

Thanks a bunch.

Katank

Quote:

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Originally Posted by John Johnston
I have found from several campaigns that there's a "tipping point" mid-game - like people said above - beyond which your empire simply has the power to fight and win against the combined forces of all the other nations. The Mongols and Timurids are usually enough to give anyone pause - especially if the player's empire is based in the Holy Land - but with the time set faster than the default it's possible to reach that tipping point before those zany invaders arrive. I've reset the time back to 2 years per turn for my current (HRE) campaign.

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I agree and that's why I wanted people to post how many turns/years they are at (and whether they changed the timing) when they win, or get to a point where they can't lose. We may be doing the game designers a disservice here because those mid and later game events (mongols/gunpowder/new world etc.) are things that could significantly upset the balance of power for some factions. I think it is likely the designers' plan was for them to unfold in a mid-stage game with the outcome still uncertain.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by katank

How do you build those? What building? I just started my French campaign a while back and didn't see those show up in the tech tree. Do I have to meet/conquer the Scots to get them or build them in Scotland?

Thanks a bunch.

Katank

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You get 'em from a certain level of walls mate.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Reapz

I agree and that's why I wanted people to post how many turns/years they are at (and whether they changed the timing) when they win, or get to a point where they can't lose. We may be doing the game designers a disservice here because those mid and later game events (mongols/gunpowder/new world etc.) are things that could significantly upset the balance of power for some factions. I think it is likely the designers' plan was for them to unfold in a mid-stage game with the outcome still uncertain.

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Yah... I'm afraid I can't say more precisely than "Playing as the French with time set to 1 year per turn, I had reached a dominating position before the arrival of the Mongols".

There's probably two points along the way, I think - one point at which your nation becomes the *most powerful* nation in all (or nearly all) respects, as told you by your advisors - that is, when your nation is "the most populous" and "the wealthiest" and has "the strongest armies" etc., and a second point at which your nation has not only this but is also strong enough to fight and win against every nation you border. Possibly even a third point - the point at which your nation is strong enough to fight and win against every nation you border using only the autoresolve.

My HRE campaign, which is still in its early stages, sees a fourteen-province Reich (already the largest, strongest &c.) fighting against the Danes, Poles, Venetians, Milanese and Sicilians, most of whom have been excommunicated for their troubles. A giant French army (several stacks) is moving to attack, as well. Combined, they're giving me serious trouble. If the computer put up more of a fight in the tactical game, I'd be losing badly; as things are, provided I try reasonably hard I win most of the battles, even with inferior force.

Something I'd like to see would be the computer willing to starve your cities and castles more often, letting the siege go right the way to the end. As things stand the computer almost always sieges for a couple of turns, builds siege equipment, and suffers either a horrendous loss or at best a Pyrrhic victory when trying to take the walls; the only exception is the dreaded "spies have opened your gates" event, and even then the enemy troops seem loathe to charge through those open gates! By contrast, plodding and methodical strategist that I am, I'll often starve enemy cities and wait for the desperate garrison to charge out and have a go at me.

(And yes, Scots Guard come from big cities, are cheap to maintain, and look very cool. Although when I said "can hold their own against almost any enemy unit" I should have said "can hold their own against almost any *infantry* unit".)