Challenges of XL

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Originally Posted by Derfasciti

It seems that any Scandanavian county, but especially Norway can be somewhat difficult to play. Expansion into the rest of Scandanvia will be hard but early expansion is pretty necessarry as eventually your military will outweigh any possible income you can make from one or two provinces.

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Ironically, it is exactly for that reason I find the Scandanavian factions easy to play. If you're to survive *and* remain solvent (~;)), you have no choice but to expand immediately. The Norwegians are particularly easy, as you just move through the Scandavian provinces clockwise. After that, you have the choice between expanding southwards into the HRE or putting boats in the water (for trade and/or invasion of Britain). Either way, the strategy for the Scandanavian factions are almost always simple and straightforward.

True, luckily I'm a noobie to XL and can make a mistake like that:laugh4:

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Originally Posted by Martok

With the HRE, that often is the case. :yes: I don't play as the Germans that often, but almost every time I have, I've had to hold on for dear life the first 10-20 years and hope I don't get ganged up on by too many factions at once. :

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That's one of the things I like about HRE. You can't just build up your forces and then steamroll. You have to be respectful and a bit more circumspect. It's one of the few times I've felt I really needed to use diplomacy. Having said that, I haven't played that many campaigns yet - this is just my 3rd - and I've yet to play GA. So I hope to be in this position more often.

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Originally Posted by Martok

On the bottom right of each post is a "QUOTE" tab. All you have to do is click on it. :beam:

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Got it! Thanks Martok! :2thumbsup:

If you're going to play HRE I suggest that you mod them a little and add a few buildings. If not then you're doomed to having hordes of urban militia armies roaming your empire. The German lands are very undeveloped and need some tweaking. A 90% probability of death when computer controlled should tell you all you need to know.

Okay, having made a start at an XL campaign, I now know what King Kurt and Martok are alluding to with regard to the economic factors.

Tech trees have changed, maps have changed, resource locations have changed, and suddenly the internal output of provinces is far more of an issue than their trade potential...all of which adds up to a requirement for quite a different approach to that needed to be successful in VI.

This would really put the pressure on some of the "one province" factions.

One of the best things in XL I find is the computer's improved army composition. I haven't seen an archer overloaded army yet, and the enemy regularly has a good mixture of units. All up it's a much more interesting game.

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Originally Posted by bamff

This would really put the pressure on some of the "one province" factions.

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Actually, I generally find small factions to be a little easier, since the income disparity isn't quite as great. They also tend to start with more trade goods than in the vanilla game, which helps as well. Maybe I've just been lucky -- although the digital citizenry in my less fortunate Bohemian & Portuguese campaigns might dispute that (:blush:) -- but it seems like single-province factions generally do a little better in XL.

Of course, factions, like the Armenians and Irish still have problems surviving, largely due to their horrendous starting positions.

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Originally Posted by General Dazza

One of the best things in XL I find is the computer's improved army composition. I haven't seen an archer overloaded army yet, and the enemy regularly has a good mixture of units. All up it's a much more interesting game.

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Yeah, that's one thing I like about XL as well. It's greatly helped by two things:

1.) No peasants. :2thumbsup:

2.) All factions start with better-developed infrastructure than in vanilla MTW. This generally seems to spur the AI to train the best units available to it. :yes:

I have found it nearly impossible to turtle in XL. No matter which faction I play, I can't get to a position where I can just leave invincible standing armies on my borders and tech up. I always need to be expanding and barely hanging on to my territory just to keep from going in the red financially. XL keeps me from playing too conservatively and "forces" me to have more fun!

My approach in XL - and I am a new boy! - has been a series of "mini turtles" where you take a few provinces, usually destroying a faction in the course of the war, then pause for a few years to regroup, repair a few units and build some new ones before you bite off another chunk - my longest period of inactivity was about 10 years. In vanilla I tended to build to critical mass then just roll over everybody - I don't think you can do that in XL. Bamff's point about single province factions is right to an extent in that I am sure the first few moves are critical, but many of your neighbours are similar size, so it is not like Aragon in vanilla where all your neighbours are bigger. My current campaign is as Teutonic Order - sorry about the delay in write-ups, but I have struggled to find the time!! - who are a 1 province faction. They are building nicely after 3 or 4 bites as detailed above.

When playing as a one province faction I find that you really have to get a second province right away. If I still only have 1 territory, I find that someone invades me by the 3rd or 4th turn.

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Originally Posted by Galagros

When playing as a one province faction I find that you really have to get a second province right away. If I still only have 1 territory, I find that someone invades me by the 3rd or 4th turn.

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Quite correct. This is particularly true for the Serbs and Armenia with whom my principal reason for failure was to turtle in the beginning and see how the surrounding conflicts develop. Well, the first conflict in the surroundings then was me being swallowed up by a larger neighbour....

I found Portugal and Ireland to be easier in that respect; the Irish are separated from any other province by the Irish sea and Portugal doesn't seem to be the first target of either Almos or Castilians. Didn't play any of them for more than 20 turns back then, though, so this assessment might be premature.

Edit: playing Armenia in High is quite different from its position in Early which is not enviable at all, whereas in High the region is more diverse and thus exploitable. At least that was the case in my Armenian campaign where I waited for the Crusaders, Mamluks, Turks and Byz to get into war among themselves and then picked my targets, using my small (due to financial troubles) but rather powerful army. This way I got hold of Antioch without offending the Crusader States with which I eventually divided up the area between Egypt and Constantinople. Despite the horde causing some disorder the situation remained stable for a pretty long time ere they decided to backstab me some time towards the 1290s, prompting me to throw them back to Cyrenaica where they rotted in the desert :laugh4:

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Originally Posted by King Kurt

My approach in XL - and I am a new boy! - has been a series of "mini turtles" where you take a few provinces, usually destroying a faction in the course of the war, then pause for a few years to regroup, repair a few units and build some new ones before you bite off another chunk - my longest period of inactivity was about 10 years.

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I've found the same KK. I find that I need to stop and regroup - mind you I'm playing HRE so my forces are spread widely.

I don't know if this an XL thing, but compared to my previous Russian vanilla game, enemy factions will stand and fight more often. During that campaign I was disappointed when, after a long stand-off and troop 'cold war' with Hungary, when I invaded he refused to fight. Just kept running - even when he had numerical advantage. I grabbed about 6-7 provinces before they had a civil war (served them right for being cowards!).

But in this XL campaign the enemy fights more often. I'm not sure if it's a direct improvement, because I'm playing HRE and generally don't have massive troops numbers on any one border, or because the troop selection of the AI is better and therefore it calculates that it can win more battles....

I'm gonna go give a quick try to the Armenians. I just gave the Irish a try and I REALLY can't imagine anything being harder than that. There's nothing to grab except Whales.

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Originally Posted by Maloncanth

There's nothing to grab except Whales.

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Whoooh there fella - you don't want Greenpeace chasing after you:laugh4:

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Originally Posted by Vladimir

If you're going to play HRE I suggest that you mod them a little and add a few buildings. If not then you're doomed to having hordes of urban militia armies roaming your empire. The German lands are very undeveloped and need some tweaking. A 90% probability of death when computer controlled should tell you all you need to know.

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I don´t know if this is so in XL, but in Vanilla and Pocket Mod games I usually see them browbeating France and England instead, right down to the Pyrenees.

Hmm, I don't know if I can agree that Armenians are harder than the Irish. I just ran a bunch of quick turns on the Armenians on Expert in Early. Just pressing Autoresolve has had me basically destroy the Turks, I can't say they're that hard a side to play. Although you DO have to commit to attacking one or the other muslim side you border and not let up until you've really pounded them into the ground.

I don't find the Irish to be overly difficult, at least not compared to the Armenians, but that could be my inability to fight well against Muslim armies...

Well, I've tried some short games playing a few turns each time and both times as the Irish I simply get overwhelmed by the English. Whereas with the Armenians seem to do okay so long as they don't get overly attached to Lesser Armenia itself. It seems to me that Armenians have a very good chance of becoming settled if they knock out the Turks aggressively early and settle down in Rum/Armenia Proper and thereabouts to build up and eventually fight and beat the Eggies. T

hey are a very difficult faction if you insist on sticking around where they start though, in large part due to Egyptian naval superiority. I'm currently trying a very unorthodox strategy which involves a first turn gambit into Antioch, a second turn gambit that takes Tripoli, and trashing my own port in Lesser Armenia to discourage/trap an Eggy attack by sea. The Eggies have a lot of strategic depth though. I think for Armenia, attacking the Turks first is the best idea.

At the risk of being excommunicated for thread necromancy, my recent tryst with the Hospitaller Knights has been quite fun and they're also a fairly challenging faction in late as their starting position is quite intimidating. I think if a player didn't go for Greece at the start, they'd be a really toughie.

Once you get established though, they become quite easy as your troops vastly outclass everything else in the region. There is just nothing that can stop Hospitaller knights of any kind without gross errors on the player's part.

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Originally Posted by Maloncanth

There is just nothing that can stop Hospitaller knights of any kind without gross errors on the player's part.

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Teutonic knights :2thumbsup:

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Originally Posted by Vladimir

Teutonic knights :2thumbsup:

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Yeah, the closest ones are just two thousand miles away in Livonia. :p

Speaking of Volga Bulgars, when we're talking about the horde that kills you in High, are we talking about this mini-horde here?

https://i150.photobucket.com/albums/...h/00000002.jpg

I was looking for a real challenge. This horde is a bit underwhelming to say the least. :laugh4:

That's certainly....odd. :inquisitive: Is that the only province in which they appeared?

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Originally Posted by Maloncanth

Speaking of Volga Bulgars, when we're talking about the horde that kills you in High, are we talking about this mini-horde here?

https://i150.photobucket.com/albums/...h/00000002.jpg

I was looking for a real challenge. This horde is a bit underwhelming to say the least. :laugh4:

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AHAHAHAHAHA!!! :laugh4:

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Originally Posted by Martok

That's certainly....odd. :inquisitive: Is that the only province in which they appeared?

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Yes. :p

And you're playing XL, right? Did you do any modding on top of it?

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Originally Posted by Martok

And you're playing XL, right? Did you do any modding on top of it?

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Nope, it's just XL. I don't know anything about modding so I don't dare touch any files.

For the record, I played another Volga-Bulgars game and got a much larger horde so this may be an isolated incident. I can't really assess how large the horde is in that game either though. It looked like a fair number of stacks but it also said three provinces were attacked and Volga Bulgaria itself was not one of them. I was honestly expecting both times to just lose the homeland to the first wave. :inquisitive:

Anyhow the second game is probably a total a loss considering I'm at war with practically the whole Steppe so maybe I should count my blessings. :sweatdrop:

Looking for advice on who to play next in XL.

I'm just wrapping up my HRE campaign on expert/early. Only my 3rd campaign as I don't get that much time to play, so it takes a while. Prior to this I've played English and Russians.

I'd like to play a game on high so I can get further along the tech tree before game end. I've read this thread with interest but couldn't see much re who is tough on high.

I'd like a faction that is a real challenge, and preferrably closer to the east so I have a horde infestation to manage. Would be hapy with a one-province faction (nice change from HRE).

So far I'm thinking either Armenians, Serbs, or the Byzzies (are byzzies harder on high than early?).

Thankyou in advance to anyone for their thoughts :bow: .

Well uh, try the Volga Bulgars. They can be a real riot if the horde comes in strength. :laugh4:

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Originally Posted by Maloncanth

Well uh, try the Volga Bulgars. They can be a real riot if the horde comes in strength. :laugh4:

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I like the sound of them, but I thought that it would be like playing my russian campaign again (albeit much harder). I was looking for a different style of campaign.

But they do sound like a challenge :smash: :laugh4:

Thanks Maloncanth! And here's to your 100th post!