Sneakiest Strategic Move

I am curious as far as what your sneakiest/boldest strategic move/conquest is...

Example: I am playing the Novos in Early, and after taking out the rest of Russian opposition, except for Kiev (still allied to them... for now)

I decided to conquer the English, which I did...

So 1170

I have Russia/Lituania/Cuman/Volga regions and the UK. My allies are the Danes which took out Scandinavia/HRE. The Kiev took out Hungary/Poland/Bohemia. The Almos took out Spain/France, and the Byz took out the Turks/Eggys...

So I can hit the Almos or take out the Danes

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So what is your sneakist or boldest strategic grab?

Well, I'm generally not a big risk taker, but I do have a few exceptions. Probably the boldest move I've ever done was taking on the HRE very first turn of the game as Poland in VI. I ended up carving out a chunk of HRE territory, splitting it up a little bit with France and Italy.

Mine was more tactical I guess...

Serbs/XL/High/Hard 1207 (two years after the commencement of the game!):

I invaded rebel-held Constantinople only to find that my allies, the Byzantines had invaded too. The Byzantines had a larger force, far superior to mine. Rich bastards.

The Byz sent their Kats, Klibs and Varangian guard (basically, the cream of their army) to fight the rebels. I sat on a hill and watched the battle, while the Byzantine infantry (about 4 units of mixed infantry) camped right behind me. It almost seemed as though the AI was suspiciously keeping an eye on me...

After the Byzantine Elites destroyed the rebels, I turned my army around and assaulted the Byzantine foot soldiers behind me. Total betrayal. With my Carska Garda and Voynuks, it was over pretty quickly.

Then the Byzantine cavalry came back over the horizon for its vengeance, albeit depleted by their battle with the rebels, and forced to meet me on the terrain of my choosing. I killed the Emperor with my Voynuk blades, decimated the Varangians from afar with my Serbian missile cavalry, and came out of it with the greatest city on earth. There was no siege because the Byzantines had annihilated the rebels to a man.

First and last time I've ever betrayed an ally on the battlefield. I just couldn't resist the temptation of Constantinople. I never can.

One I was quite proud of involved a crusade and some rebels.

I had taken a province that was proving difficult to keep happy when I noticed that a crusade was heading towards said province on its way towards somewhere else.

So the turn before it landed I evacuated all my forces, and the results went exactly as I planned. A rebellion appeared with lotsa soldiers that turn. At the same time the crusade arrived and asked me if it was OK for them to move through my province. "Most obliged" I smiled.

So they landed that turn, and were promptly met by the rebels (who now owned the province). The two of them duked it out with the rebels winning but taking losses. A turn later I returned and mopped up the leftovers.

2 birds with 1 stone :smash: :2thumbsup:

Brilliant, General Dazza! It's not the first time I've heard of players using rebels to slow down and/or destroy a Crusade/Jihad, but it's always fun to read about nonetheless. ~:cheers:


One of the boldest (ableit slightly cheesy) moves I made in MTW/VI was in a French campaign from a couple years ago. I immediately blitzed the English's continental holdings on the first turn with what few troops I could scrape together. Normandy & Anjou both fell after hard-fought battles, with the castle in Acquitaine succumbing to starvation a year after that.

While this gambit had left my troops spread ridiculously thin -- I had to fight off several (fortunately weak) counterattacks and invasions from the English & HRE, respectively -- it was worth the risk in the end. With the English removed from the Continent, I was able to secure my newly-expanded kingdom and develop my lands at a (relatively) leisurely pace.

Oh, speaking of Crusades, there's another little trick I like to pull when playing any mediterrenean catholic faction. Build up a massive navy spanning the entire mediterrenean. Eventually, here comes France/England/HRE crusading for the holy land to fulfill their GA goals. They hop my navy with their crusade straight into the holy land.

Now for the mean part. Once they've landed, I pull out my navy from the area, effectively stranding their crusade in the holy land, with no safe haven to retreat to. The enraged muslim armies inevitibly launch a massive counterattack, taking back the province, and destroying the crusade.

I actually pulled this tactic three times against the HRE as Hungary in a span of 14 years. That's how the HRE went from being a world power occupying much of western Europe to being reduced to a meager three provinces after 2 civil wars in three years.:beam:

The most unusual move I have made was some months ago when I decided to start a campaign as the Turks in MTW/VI. Since the Danes usually don't do very much I bribed Sweden and Norway from the rebels, and send some alims there. After that I destroyed all my buildings in my original provinces and send my sultan and first heir (he was a crappy one) on a suicide attack against Egypt.

My second heir was crowned sultan in Norway. I took Denmark at the same time I lost my last homelands, and from then on I basically played the Danes being muslim. This "vacation campaign" was fun for a while, but I quit the campaign in 1150.

In my Turkish campaign (MTW/VI Early, GA, no mods), I took all of the provinces on the map except for Corsica/Sardenia (Italy), Malta (Sicily) and Rhodes/Crete/Cyprus (Byzantium) by about 1300. I broke contact with them and then reestablished trade. I’m clearing between 20k and 30k in florins each turn while I gather up GA points. Every few turns, I crush a reemerging Pope.

I like to look for interesting strategic moves to get out of tricky situations. During a VI campaign as the Irish, I had a strongish army over in North East England, but my main base on mainland England was in Wales. The Mercians and Saxons were strong and a couple of reverses had made me a little weak and money was stretched. It looked bleak for my army in Northumberland as I could not fight my way back to Wales through the Midlands. So I decided to go the long way. I raised all buildings in the province and set off southwards round the coast. Each province I came to I defeated the local forces, raised any buildings if I took the province then moved on. I never stayed in a province, I always kept moving - if the defenders went into the stronghold, I ignored them. The AI was chasing me, but was always a move behind. Eventually I got round to Dornsaete, to link up with my forces in SW England. During this time, the Saxons - my main enemy - had suffered some losses trying to assault my Welsh provinces as well as loosing loads of provinces during my coastal slash and burn trip. Then my assasin killed the Saxon King and his weak hier lasted about a year before falling into civil war. I was then able to bribe some rebels - using the money from the slash and burn fest!! - and my concentrated forces, backed up with some nice ex Saxon Huscarls made short work of the remains of the Saxon empire.
My sweetest move was in my current Teutonic campaign - but I haven't written that up for the Pics and History thread yet, so I do not want to give that one away to spoil the surprise for Martok!!:2thumbsup:

Long time no post...

My sneakiest move has to be from a Sicilian/Early/GA/Hard/unmodded campaign. It was in the mid 13th Century, and I ached at the idea the puny English, with any chance of their glory ended by war with France, now confined to the British Isles, owning said lands. So...I decided that a second Norman Invasion was in store, and prepared five armies which were to attack all at the exact same time. Complete with Bishops, Spies and Assassins to ensure I had security and religious control. Hehe...I had a stand-off with their king during the initial invasion, and his army retreated...only for him and his heirs to be captured and executed because they couldn't pay any ransom or go anywhere else. Therefore, that ended the English, there was little threat from the Pope warning me off (he didn't even have the chance!).

My sneakiest move, was possibly to prevent a HRE crusade from claiming. I simply denied it access to my provinces. Although they attacked every province they touched, it slowly weakened them, and, since I was Orthodox (Byzantines), my provinces, aided by spies and a complete lack of garrison due to no direct HRE access to them, simply revolted back to me the turn they were lost, providing me with a better army that I actually had prior to the province being taken - although that was not part of my plan, it was a lovely added bonus. In conclusion, although they did break through in the end and get to where they wanted to go, they were severely hampered and, when they reached Rum, their target, they were destroyed by the tiny garrison that was residing there (all they had left was a bunch of cheap and nasty Fanatics)!

Why not let them pass? After all, the HRE usually has to fight many enemies at the same time, and a small would-be crusader HRE state in Rum is not a problem: you invade it, kill everyone, and take Rum as your own. You don't get a DoW by the HRE either because you don't share a border. Also: it's easy to reject crusades if you have a Greece/Serbia-Bulgaria European border. Fortify heavily, bring heavy infantry as a defensive wall + reinforcements for when they get tired, Psiloi(pocket mod?)/Trebizond archers, and one or two arbalesters to snipe the general. Those are high profit provinces and can support very well on their own a fairly decent garrison.

Thanks for the advice, I'll remember that in the future when playing as the Byzantines. Thanks!

My sneakiest move was performed against the Turks while playing as the english. The clock had just moved to the year 1253 and by then I already owned The Isles, France, Aragon and Sicily. The turks got constantinople straight from the bizantines, out of pure luck the bizantines sank the turkish ships at Mamara, so I got a chance and I took it by invading constantinople and greece via Sicily. It was a cleaver move as my forces( billmen, longbowshalberdiers and jinetes) were strong enough to hold against the turks. Constantinople became my capital from there on and besides it helped me stay filthy rich.

You know I think that as far as strategy goes you got to take chances whenever you can, it ussualy turns out all right

My sneakiest move ever was playing as the Byzantines in Early. Poor bastards didn't stand a chance:laugh4:

Nah, seriosuly though I don't have very many sneaky moves on my account, I'm very much a blunt and repetative player: take that - build up - take that - build up - repeat.
A move I frequently use is simply emptying a few provinces to invade a neighbouring province. My force now gets so large that the enemy retreats. I can then recall most of the army to defend my other provinces and lure the AI to counter-attack my seemingly weak force. This tactic works excellently as long as your troops are superior to the AI's (which they are). Not very sneaky I know, but that's as good as it gets in my case I believe.
A variation of the above tactic that is very useful when fighting a superior enemy (I mostly experience this as the Poles or Huns against the Cumans in XL) is invading a weak perimeter province (in my cases mostly Moldavia), then leavy only a token garrison. Lure the main AI army from it's teched-up base province (Levidia in this case), then just raid that province (by sea if I'm playing as the Huns) and thereafter make for a swift retreat. It's basically the British tactics developed after WWI: destroy the production capability of your enemy.

Come to think of it, the only really sneaky move I can think of was more luck than anything else. In an Hungarian campaign (ages ago, it's in the Pics & history of your empire if anyone's interested) my neighbours, the Turks, had suffered a civil war and suddenly the Sultan and all his sons were isolated in Constantinople (only Rum remained loyal apart from Constantinople). I of course took the bait, got the Sultan as he fled and received plenty of cash.

My sneakiest moves aren't really that cunning, it's justing basic strategic thinking.

- As the picts I almost immediatly attacked the Scots in their production province with a small force. This force consisted of at least one unit of xbows and one unit of pictish cav (if you want to know my battle tactics look them up in the guide forum).
The Scots had some arcehers, some highlanders and the king. I managed to rout the Scots with almost no casaulties (xbows and feint retreats by my pict horses). After that, Scotland were three seperate provincies without any production capacity. Need I tell you that I was able to capture and ransom the king twice?

- As the English (pre XL) I was attacking some rebel provinces in a race to annex them before the Byzantines (I was allied to them), who were the biggest faction. I had to pacify the 2 provinces I took the year before, so all I could attack with that turn were cav (hobilars and RK). But I tought it would be alright as most of their forces were peasants ( probably around 16 units of them and some spears) and I had some succes before with killing huge numbers of rebel peasants with nothing but hobi's.
It turned out that not only my force invaded but the Byz and the HRE to. And I was the smallest force on the field. I then used my cav (the others had almost none) to herd the peasants in such a way that they would turn their attention to the Germans and byz. It was great fun and in the end I held the province.

Like I said not really sneaky, but still not very honourable.

Well if we're going to talk about dishonorable tactics, then there's one very obvious one. Training grand inquisitors and unleashing them upon every other Catholic's royal line, until you're the only catholic left standing. Then you mop up and take all of the rebellious provinces with, thankfully, no interference from the Pope. Obviously this doesn't work against the HRE, though, due to elections.

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Originally Posted by Innocentius

It's basically the British tactics developed after WWI: destroy the production capability of your enemy.

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I did the same thing as the Volga Bulgars when the Mongols arrived with thier 19 full stacks...:help:

in the province they 'landed on', I destroyed everything, and so they had an empty province, I then had to destroy Volga Bulgar & Lesser Khazar as well... and so forced him to move south, away from me, since there was nothing for him to take:2thumbsup:

after like 5 years, he is down to 5 stacks, and I took Volga Bulgar back, so I know he is still fighting the Turks/Eggys in Asia Minor

In my current Lithuanian campaign, the English got rather fond of Crusading against me, to such a point I moved an army across to Flanders, and razed it. THEN I discovered their Chapter House was in Brittany, with the poor French holding on to Normandy in between. When I saw another Crusade marker emerge, I knew they were going to have another go at me. Rather than face my big stack in Flanders, the Crusade went by sea up to Friesland, which I withdrew from, then I moved my Flanders army through French territory, hit Brittany the next turn (the English withdrew to their castle, but it still caused the Chapter House to be destroyed....) Civil War in English lands followed. I just moved my army back to Flanders, and ignored the rather offended look on the faces of the puny French garrisons cowering in Normandy :laugh4: Not very sneaky, but effective.

More sneakily, I remember a game in Napoleonic TW in which I invaded Switzerland to get access to the Swiss Legions (quite a useful infantry unit), only to have my allies, the Austrians leap in as well with a slightly larger army. This was the second or third time they'd done this to me, and there was no way I was going to let them have Switzerland. So I let them launch their attack, and once the bulk of their infantry was engaged with the Swiss rebels, I let my army follow on behind. Especially a unit of Jaegers behind the Austrian general..... it only took one volley to wipe out his entire unit, at which point the whole Austrian army routed, and I just had to mop up the rebels that were left. :beam: The following war with Austria was made easier as I now had Swiss Legions, and the Austrians had lost their best general...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Innocentius

My sneakiest move ever was playing as the Byzantines in Early. Poor bastards didn't stand a chance:laugh4:

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I know the feeling..:laugh4:

By 1150 I finished taking out the Turks, Armenians & Eggys...so for the next of 50 years, I go after the Almos, Spanish, Portugese and Aragon to conquer Spain. Oh and I also hit the Genoese to take Corsica/Sardinia & Sicily.

SO by 1200, I owned the Med basically...lol, and with 190K in cash, I knew the game was over..lol

An account of mysneakiest move is detailed in this post.


https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...postcount=1036

The short version is this - I left a small unit besieging an even smaller garrison to lure an ally of the garrison into releiving the siege. I then moved huge stacks into both the besieged province and the province from which the relieving force was sent. The result was that the relief force turned tail only to find its retreat cut off. I destroyed two stacks of HRE's finest, including the Emperor himself, without a blow being struck.

My sneakiest is to accept cease fires. I have found the AI usually asks for a cease fire so the can go to war with someone else. I use the next year to rush troops to the front and attack the same nation that requested the cease fire.

Yesterday, playing Vikings, I managed to destroy a l500 large army, which included the pict king and his heir, with 300 Viking Axemen (the 200 bucks 52 upkeep version)

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Originally Posted by The Unknown Guy

Yesterday, playing Vikings, I managed to destroy a l500 large army, which included the pict king and his heir, with 300 Viking Axemen (the 200 bucks 52 upkeep version)

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And what was the sneaky part of this battle?

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Originally Posted by Peasant Phill

And what was the sneaky part of this battle?

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Axes hidden behind the soldiers' backs? :sweatdrop:

On a more serious note, I think that my boldest move was to rush the mercians as the welsh in a VI campaign. It was my third trial in hard, and after two attemps of developping elsewhere while managing to keep some balance between saxons and mercians, and loosing everything, I went berserk.

It did work, it somehow cowed all the other factions...

I enjoy razing with mercs, and I will try to pick times to hit key provinces that are built up for troop making or cash cows (trade/farming) when a AI ally is busy conducting campaigns away from my front line. I always enjoy the Ai's reaction when he realizes he was sucker punched!

When playing the welsh, I couldn't find a way to outwit the mercians or the saxons by developping and extending someplace else. Could the Welsh Bandits be available a wee bit sooner, a good defensive battle against on of those Huscarl-producers could throw them into civil war...