All Teutonic Players: Teutonic Camp Strategies needed

Okay, so this is what happened. Started playing the Teutonic campaigne, on V Hard and V Hard settings. First of all i noticed that the huge army you start with puts a massive strain on the economy and i was instantly loosing a lot of money. Than i mobalised my troops against the neighboring rebel settlements, quickly conquered them, and managed to redeploy my armies to counter an attack from lithuania. Just as my northern army was bogged down in a battle Novgorod attacked with about two stacks. Novgorod quickly laid seige to two of my northern provices, and i was unable to counter, beacuse Lith wasconstantly bringing troops up north. A couple turns later, and as a result of many hard fought battles (many of which i won with the aid of my English Crusader), my forces were desperatly depleated, i was over 10,000 in debt and Novgorod had taken 5 of my northern settlements. Unable to train new troops, or even train a diplomat, i was fighting form my life against the paegens who seemed to have unlimited armies (i killed 7 generls and defeat outright almost 4 stacks of Lith's armies, and still they came). The coupe de grace came when the Holly Roman Empire declared an alliance with Lith, and within 5 turns i was exterminated.

This was by far the hardest campaigne, (and also the quickest i ever played) The AI was on Crack and pissed, like never before, taken out in about 20 something turns.

So i was wondering if anyone new any real good opening strategis or ways to boost my economy early on? I need some advice, cause this fights not over, and i don't want to loose twice to the AI.

Thx

1. Alliances, what did you do that your parent, hre, attacked you? You should have a fast alliance with them since campaign start with nice relation between hre-order.
2. In novgorod city there quite big army from the start but you have a 5 pikemen in city in lithuania territory so relocate them to this village that russian will attack first and let them attack it.
3. Attack lithuania with forces from polish territory only(mostly magdeburg).

I gambled and put a large part of my army on the ships that you get. Conquered the two provinces that were at sea. Both have larger populations to help support a war effort. I kept a part of that army in Sweden. I then came back and took on the Lithuanians head on. I also took all of the rebel cities that I could in Sweden. This put me in direct conflict with the two Norse factions ,but they did not declare war for a while. By the time the Norwegians attacked me, I had eliminated the Lithuanians. It seems the Danes were attacked by the HRE and lost their capitol by turn ten.

I conquered a couple of small towns which I promptly gave to the Poles. They then went to war against the Mongols and HRE...forgot who started it, but does it matter?

Forget about rebel settlements at start. Unite your armies and attack Lithuania before they attack you. Siege and sack pagan settlements for money. Ransom prisoneers for money. Build merchants at Riga and Konigsberg and use them - lots of high valued resources arround, also seize wondering arround enemy merchants. Build markets at your cities from start. Train Burger pikes and Order militia in your cities and use them in fights, they have no upkeep when stationed in city and are reliable in early game. The game designed the way you must train troops every turn and use them. After you take some Lithuanian developed cities and sack them, you got no money problem anymore.
Make alliance with Poland - this is most important at start as you share borders.

Little tip - Prussian archers are your best friend.

I have been having fun with this too...

I allied with the HRE, Danes and Poland (even the Mongols)...

Took the fight to Lithuania and after taking four of their settlements (with the English Crusader) the money started to even out, at least I could reinforce and build new troops. Things where going well and we had pushed Lithuania back to their capital, but everytime as tryed to take it these 3 stacks of nobles and missile cavalry would turn up. Then Poland broke the alliance and besieged our settlements along their border. I defending the castles but lost the town. At this point Novgorod, a trading partner, started attacking my northern settlements. The loss of trade income and having to fight on three fronts is too draining.

When I besieged the town that the Poles had take from us they offered Vasselship. Fighuring I could use it to get out from under I accepted. But this has put me on the wrong side of the HRE/Polish War because the Poles appear to be losing ground (the Catholic factions' in fight has realy complicated the whole alliance thing).

However at this point Lithuania had taken advantage to take one of their former settlements back (pike are uber anti-cavalry my @$$, the cavalry came through the broken gate and just smashed them out of formation and out of the way) and sent four full stacks to besiege my largest settlements (where do they get the money??). Oh and now a full stack Novgorod army has turned up in the north, nothing like the small stacks that have been harassing my settlements.

Not sure if I can recover at this point...

It is quite refreshing. However I think I will take zaher's advise that the foot archers are the way to go to deal with these seemingly endless missile cavalry armies...

Thx for the suggestions...

Restarted the campaigne and took a lot of your advice... I'm only a couple turns into it, but this is what i did. First turn built econ building in all my provinces, and maxed out the recruitment ques with loads of Burgher Pikemen and Prussian Archers, and some cav, and immediatly launched a mass attack on lithuania with almost all my armies, leaving a small force in the north to try and deter any attack from Novgorod. By turn 5 i already have taken one lithuania settlement one rebel settlement and have four other lithuanian cities and castles under siege, the bulk of their army trapped inside their own castle walls.

True i am already 5000 in debt, and all my castles and cities are poorly defended, but i have the largest armies in the game, and i believe little risk of counter attack by Polnad or Novgorod due to the percieved size of my forces, wich give me the "supreme" power status. Hopefully after i sack the Lith cities ill be able to recoup my monetary losses.

Ill let you guys know how it goes.

The reason the AI throws these huge stacks at you is that it has unlimited money. Seriously... the expansion is coded so that every time the AI hits the red, they get an instant boost of +1,000 florins, and each time they drop below -5,000 they get an instant +10,000 florin boost.

This is CA's way of making up for the AI's shortcomings. Basically, in a scenario such as this, the way to win is to strike at the AI's most developed settlements first. If you must fight an unlimited number of troops, you can at least make sure they're not high quality troops.