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If you don't have any better immediate targets, go ahead and try the Pope with your Inquisitor. Keep it up long enough, and he'll start gaining negative vices (heresy, atheist, etc.). With enough of those, his piety should hit rock bottom and your Inquisitor will soon succeed.Quote:
Originally Posted by EatYerGreens
Well after playing a few more turns of my HRE/early/expert/GA game I decided that I was unbeatable and called it quits. An interesting thing I did before quitting was attack the Turks just to have the chance to fight them. I made the mistake of not really checking out what their army was composed of, they kicked my @$$!~D They had a bunch of heavy calv, janisary’s and gulam bodyguards (sp? On all of them) I don’t typically cheer for my opponents but loosing to them was a blast. ~:cheers:
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I start another early/expert HRE game and this time I plan on following the GA goals and not conquering as much. Well here goes….
First turn I build watchtowers in every province. I am totally gong to need the builder virtue to boost happiness. I start troop production of everything I can.
Second turn I get the builder virtue and start a keep in Swabia and a few forts.
Third turn I move into position to attack Venice and in the fourth I do!! They run and I get warned by the Pope. Fifth turn I assault the castle and win, Venice is mine!~:cool: And the Pope asks me for an alliance, I accept. 4 forts are built. I get a heir, he’s just ok, 2* and a drunk. I didn’t mention it but my king is the typical starter, 3* often drunk (now also builder).
Sixth turn I get a marriage proposal from the Hungarians to my heir, I accept. I find a great gov. for Venice, 7 feathers after the title!!~:cool: I start construction on 3 more forts.
Turn seven and I complete a few more buildings, town watches, inn, and a bowyer, and get the great builder virtue, and the +1 loyalty is very welcome as many of my generals have only 2 or 3 loyalty. The Hungarians cancel their alliance and choose the Italians. And to round out the year I buy a Byz. Katank from my Inn and send him north, they should do well against all the Danes heirs. My plan is to conquer north and south (stopping at the Pope) so that I only need to defend on the east and west.
Turn eight brings me a new heir a 4* and on nine I marry off a princess to the Polish. I also accept an alliance with the English and Byz. The keep in Swabia is built and I start one in Province and a swordsmith in Swabia.
Turn ten I attack the Danes with my Katank, an archer, spear, and a bunch of UM’s. I also attack the Italians. The Spanish offer a daughter and I accept. This is the most daughter offers I have ever gotten!!:dizzy2:
Turn eleven shows my first major mistake, attacking the Italians. I am paying attention to the years and I still attack them, duh!:furious3: I’m excomed.:embarassed: And my coffers immediately show it as the auto-tax adjusts almost every province down to low or very low just to keep them from rebelling. I also had to move some troops around to keep a few over 100%. I am still attacking the Italians; I figure what the heck, I’m already excomed. The Danes are history!!
12th turn the Pope calls for everyone to crusade against me. But I don’t think anyone can yet. I score 14 GA points, a tie for 1st place with the Almos and I get another heir.
I keep fighting the Italians for a few years. I get the swordsmith but can’t afford to build any. My financial troubles are growing and I am -$1200 in the treasury and my next years projected income is -$200 then on my next turn I conquer Genoa and some $$ and Ransom an heir for $1250!! Not a money solution but it helped. The Italians are off the mainland and I set a ship in the production que in Venice, the Italians were nice enough to build a shipwright there for me~;) .
A few turns later the Hungarians attack Bohemia and are repelled. A few turns later they attack again and take it!:furious3: I didn’t have enough time to refortify. Next turn I take it back but they sacked some of my buildings. Get another Heir.
The best thing to happen to me in the game comes a few turns later as the Italians launch a sea attack into Genoa with their King and I kick the crap out of them and get an $8,552 ransom!!~D The next turn they do the same thing and I get $10,701 in ransom from them!!!~:cool: I am building all the stuff I wanted, farm improvements, a chapter house an armory for my swords and another shipwright in Denmark. The sad thing is that my King dies and I get a crappy one with only one feather.
Next turn Argon and the Sicilians offer daughters, more daughters!!:dizzy2:
Well that’s where I am, a few things I can note are that the English and French are not allied or at war but they both have built up some pretty impressive armies, a “cold war” perhaps? Other than that I really don’t know what is going on in the rest of the world but I plan on crusading soon so I will find out.~:)
I would never have thought doing that. After all, if the first attempt fails, why on earth should anyone expect repeat attempts to do anything?Quote:
Originally Posted by Geezer57
How do people find these little tricks out ayway? Perhaps somebody, somewhere has a persistent streak. ~;)
Pope's piety is about 6 crosses at the mo, so it will take a lot of goes but I now have one inquisitor at 5* (the first one I built keeps releasing people and is still only at 2* as a result) and will try my luck.
By way of a progress report, I've advanced as far as 1198, so points year is fast approaching. I got a ceasefire from the English so hopefully there will be no funny business in Friesland or Saxony, this round.
The Poles were silly enough to take on the Byz by trying to break out of Pomerania into Prussia and have paid for it big-style by getting themselves wiped out to a man. You can tell these re-emergences come with big wads of cash, since Pomerania is only worth 350-odd a year and, not content with the two stacks left after they'd seiged the rebels (former Polish troops!), they proceeded to build a pile of Archers, Slav Warriors and other stuff before their foolhardy expedition.
The Byz are leaving my eastern border alone, for now, so only the Turks are in a real position to hit my homelands points.
I managed to limp along on 500 per year cashflow, get trading posts into Flanders and Lorraine and have just squeezed out another ship, so ports in Genoa (and Tuscany too, now) will link to the Eggies in Tunisia and just about pay for themselves (maint on Gulf of Gabes ship will be about 100pa).
I counted only 9 units of Swabians, spread in various places and, since someone mentioned they are Early-only, I splashed out on a couple more, while time allows.
Although I ought to be gunning for the Pope (kill him to end the war, then let him re-emerge so I can crusade), I decided the French stacks have to be dealt with first. They're not particularly threatening in terms of troop types, due to considerable stuffing with pez, but the numbers could still overwhelm anywhere where I leave too small a garrison. I can't divert forces to deal with the Pope until I knock these out first. I invaded Isle de France but they went to the castle instead of battling. The Papal warning has been issued but I think I will go for excom now, since I'm going to get that, for attacks on Papacy lands, anyway.
So many French went into Paris castle (&ringwall) that it says it will fall in a year. The dilemma is that I used top-quality troops and not enough 'disposable' units are around to incur the siege casualties, yet still hold off a sally. That's the point where I saved and I'm contemplating moving the entire assault force into Anjou, to take on two stacks there and prevent them pulling off the siege-lift, plus cutting off the Isle de France retreat path. That will leave just the French king's RKs, in Brittany, which shouldn't be too hard to tackle, barring 10 years' worth of siege. The whole thing feels like a risky operation because the English are still allied to them and could jump to their aid at any moment, reopening hostilities just in time for points year trouble again. Maybe I moved too soon?
I did finally have enough funds to complete the Horse Breeder in Swabia but forgot I also need the Armourer Workshop to get Feudal Knights from the Royal Estate. If I start now, it will complete in 1204, so I hope FK's are not another early-only unit. Trouble is, the building ost is, again, about half of what I have in the bank. With luck, the latest ship will speed up affordability somewhat.
I'm not sure why, but I pulled out of Isle de France on the following turn. The plan had been to push on into Anjou and just leave a handful of junk troops to take the siege casualty hit. I then realised that, whatever the outcome of a battle in Anjou, the 500+ French in the Castle could sally forth and push out my besiegers, leaving both Champagne and Lorraine weakly defended, with points year fast approaching. Much shuffling of troops would be required if things went wrong in this way and I'd not be able to hold Anjou anyway.
Coincidentally, one English unit appeared to move into IdF but, again my plan to set the two of them at war failed and I'm now at war with the English again, causing the Danish to cancel our treaty. Great. :dunce:
I'm not concerend about excom so I attack IdF again, the following year. Once more, there is no battle and they're back in the castle again. The plan was to inflict casualties and get some valour on my troops but a bloodless victory is supposedly the best kind, so I'll settle for that.
There is still the siege to tackle but I better positioning of redundant units (pex, UMs, unupgraded spears) allows me to put them in IdF while the 2 stacks of 'proper' attack troops head into English held Normandy. This was a nice twist, the intention being to prevent a siege lift and I can escape to Flanders if things go wrong. I didn't properly count their troop numbers but it was a pair of 1/2 or 3/4 stacks and it should have been one 5* general versus another. Pieces have been shuttling between Normandy and Aquitaine lately and I'm not sure if their general escaped, or not, but again there was no field battle and they only had a keep to retreat to. It appears that any excess over the 420 capacity (give or take cav) were 'evaporated' by this non-battle. ~:cool:
Surprisingly, the payoff is even better than that - the French fail to sally and a mere 300 junk troops of mine see most of the 500 trapped French - and their 3* RK general who could have made a mess of my 0* rabble by himself - rediced to a remnant of about equal size, that year. I had no intention of sitting out a siege in Normandy as well, so the big force returns to IdF, in time to see the castle fall, the following year. It had a ringwall, which was lost to damage but it meant the castle, only the second in my domain, was captured intact and the pillage bumped the treasury from its doldrums (~650) back up to 2000 or so. Good thing too, as I was soon in need of replacing some lost troops...
I killed yet another English king in that year. This time they decided Denmark would be a good place to pull off a seaborne attack. As well as the RK unit, they'd brought 40 mounted Serges, some broken infantry (12 FS and 20 Fyrdmen) and the rest were all archers. These fanned out across the field, threatening to get two angles on my position (displaced to the left of the map, with the beach further to the left). My 38 Mounted Serges opened things up by hitting a pair of exposed units in front of me but took too long tackling one unit and I only just turned them about to collect the English MtSg about to charge them in the rear. Mine routed but theirs got caught up against my infantry, which I marched over to where the action was. It was only a short slope but my men were fighting uphill, with their king on the top of it. I had a 43 man spear unit holding posiion but a 100-man unit was on the end of the line, further right and free to move around to rear-charge both his horse units. My single unit of archers engaged two of theirs which were now to my right-rear and held out well and drew fire away from my spearmen.
Their king was captured and I chased archer units in all sorts of directions. Disappointingly, the loss of their king was not enough to provoke a total rout. I think the lack of retreat path for them gives them a morale boost. When I stopped chasing, they kept rallying and resumed firing, so my forces were scattered and exhausted by this time. I gathered everyone together and hunkered down in the trees to sit out the archer fire. More units of theirs, including their infantry emerged from hiding and, even with tree-shelter, losses mounted and units kept wavering. My general had routed at one point, luckily on their end of the field, so he could be rallied.
Strictly speaking, this was a loss but hopes of large ransom plus construction of ballista towers was due to complete that year, so I held out for the time-limit win. It turned out to be 30 mins but seemed like an age. There was a second rout of my men. Some didn't stop but enough held in a second patch of trees to see them run out of arrows and begin to move away as the last seconds ticked out.
It's surprising just how hardy plain archers can be against very tired meleé troops who've suffered over 50% casualties. Not great fighters, by any means, but outnumbering penalties can count for a lot and it's morale which really wins these battles. Even their fragmentary infantry units had been a nuisance - repeatedly running away to draw my men out from the trees to be shot at, only to quickly rally as soon as I called off the chase to return to position. 60 UMs reduced to about 24 (routed off), two units of Viking Landsmen (one the general) each reduced to low teens, one FMAA (+1A) reduced to 24 men, 60 archers reduced to 21, 43 spears down to 13 (+valour) and 100 spears to 40-odd (wavering). Altogether not enough to properly see off what must have been 180-200 archers, sans ammo, if there had been no time limit, perhaps?
Ultimately, the ransom was unpaid, so another English king bit the dust. Only 83 captured but all the rest were 'lost'[*]. Cheesy, I know, but I didn't want the dockyard smashed, which it would have been if I'd let them take this province and I'd fought to get it back.
[*] I think that, if sea invasions are allowed, then sea evacuations should also be allowed, if the assault fails. Whatever boats are required to land troops on the beach, surely they should be there to enable escape?
Everyone lost interest in this now? dgfred, have you gone on holiday, all of a sudden? I'll carry on anyway, just for the heck of it. ~;)
Emperor Heinrich V's mostly peaceful (by which I mean not nearly so many battles to be fought, recently) reign comes to an end, in 1202, after an illness and Ludwig IV takes over.
In the same year, Edmund III, of England lands in Denmark, outnumbering us by 9:5. The broken remnants of the previous fight and some last minute troops moved in were simply not enough. I wasn't exactly expecting them back in such a hurry and decide to abandon it. I sit tight and wait for the points year, fetching another 13 for retaining all my homelands, 3 points for HRE goal and only 1 for conquest. It had been 2 but the loss of Denmark knocked it back again. The crusade points are gone for good now :embarassed: and the Crusade marker still sits in Franconia, awaiting the Pope's acceptance of ceasfire (some chance of that). Annoying that my leader should die when he did, as this recommunicated me and I hadn't got around to polishing him off in time.
I attack Denmark but follishly used my 4*, 8 Acumen Margrave of Tuscany (early RKs), only recently made Imperial Chamberlain, in preference to the 3* Viking Landsmen general who'd just abandoned it. It wasn't until I had committed to proceed and at the pre-battle screen that I appreciated a subtle change in VI.
Namely, the faction leader's RK units are magically updated to the High era type RK's. I went ahead regardless, as I had 2 early RK's in my force and thought that they could cope. The battlefield was awkward, with a pond in the centre and I had to edge my way around it to get at them. The battle looked to be one, with all of his foot troops sliced and diced, or busy routing off the field and just his RKs and a scattering of archer units left. My mounted serges go after the archers and I commit both RK's to attack the King. With remnants of spear units to pin and mounted xbows to shoot his men, it should have been a doddle.
At the last second, I see my gen's RK's run into one foot unit I'd not spotted. Possibly Fyrdmen but basically a bad idea to be running into spears when he was supposed to be charging their general. The pond restricts my maneuvers somewhat but I basically have to trap him between their side of the pond and their escape path. I suspect my gen's unit lost half his men in this contact, as well as the charge order failing to reach the English king's unit. The infantry unit vanishes and, before I know it, my gen and the other RK's are engaging him, along with maybe 4 other unit remnants of mine.
Next thing I know, my general is reported killed. Gah! Some units rout, some merely waver but, luckily, the meleé continues and, a minute or two later, he finally routes - forwards (towards my end of the map). 5 RKs from the second unit give chase and catch him in a patch of woods, so he's captured and it's all over.
Was it worth the loss of that general? Probably not - Tuscany was my best earning province, 900+ and I doubt I'll have a comparable replacement. Heavy casualties too (K:564 C:229 L:583).
There was an upside, in that Edmund III, plus one other Noble, fetched 11,479 in ransom - well over a decade's worth of current cashflow levels, so maybe I got my money's worth for that general after all, with a nice little kickstart to High era tech?
Now here's a nice little dilemma. The pond map was an unexpected complication, forcing time-wasting maneuvres I could have done without and I did basically botch up the battle orders, getting my general into danger when I thought all enemy spears were gone and taking on High era RKs with a pair of early era ones that basically weren't up to the job. If I'd attacked a year or two earlier, it would have been like-for-like.
I have a gamesave from just one year earlier, with that general still alive but restarting from there means I won't have the 11k in the bank. What would you do?
I decide to press on and get busy building, using all that loot but, this time, I'm not going to splurge it all at once. With a new governer and Chamberlain, cashflow was restored to around the 1000pa mark and I'm careful to stagger things like crop improvements, so that I'm not actually spending more than my annual cashflow on improvements and around 10k can be kept in reserve so that, when I think a big spend (Castle, Citadel) is required, I can go right ahead, instead of 'saving up' again.
The English relieve the siege in Denmark, outnumbering me with 1800+ to under 500 of mine. They don't stop there either - pushing into Saxony the following year.
The fall of Paris had given me an Archery Guild and I'd started to crank out some arbalesters for my river crossings, as soon as HIgh started. One was actually on its way to Brandenburg but was only able to reach Franconia in time for this expected attack. It would have been ideal.
The battle was a real thriller. My 3* general was up against a larger force, led by a 6* Urban Militia (valour 8!!!!). I lose all sense of time in long battles but I'd opened with three units of archers and a catapult and enough time passed for them to run out of ammo, be sent off the field, 3 more archers come on and finish most of their ammo too. Their general FINALLY got killed but must have taken a good 5-10 mins for him to die (couldn't catapult him without taking out my own men). That was the turning point and I had to order my chasing FMAA to stop and come back, when their cat (valour 4) started returning fire. It was then just a matter of cycling through their reinforcements.
So the battle is basically won and I was twiddling my thumbs, no further fighting to do, just waiting. I double clicked on an archer unit icon because I thought I'd told it to withdraw but it's 'marching' indicator wasn't showing. The camera pans backwards to the rear end of the field and is pointing slightly up in the air. I click on the ground to pan down but the marker is red, so I'm right at the very edge.
Suddenly, the game quits to the *&^%*&& desktop, for no reason!! :furious3:
I think I've calmed down now but that was the end of the session for the night. I'm going to have to sit through the whole episode all over again - and there's no guarantee things will pan out in exactly the same way this time.
It's not like it was a 6-hour battle against the Horde which went tits-up but this general was a real menace to my entire northern region and I was very pleased to have bumped him off with my badly battered unit remnants and 3* versus 6* was taking a risk, to put it mildly. Chances are, next time, he'll get away. Grrr.
(I have the screenies but they need to be processed and uploaded, which may come later - casualties bar was about 2:1 in my favour).
Well, I'm one that hasn't lost interest in your narrative - please keep up with it (for my own enjoyment, if nothing else!).Quote:
Originally Posted by EatYerGreens
I find on my machine that this happens most often when I've left the machine on for several days without a reboot to freshen it up. Now, if I plan a long MTW session, I shut the machine down for a minute and cold-boot it. Seems to minimize the sudden CTD's.Quote:
Suddenly, the game quits to the *&^%*&& desktop, for no reason!! :furious3:
Many thanks for your continued interest. Like I said, I was going to carry on, regardless. ~;)
With regard to the CTD, still unsure as to the cause. I was getting a lot of these earlier in the year but I tried taking the side-panel off (destop tower case) to get better ventilation, when the summer heat was beginning to take its toll. General PC overheat makes the fans rev up but, when that's not enough, it sets off the CPU-protection cut-out on the motherboard and causes a complete reboot of the machine. Annoying in mid-game but better than a dead PC, I suppose. With the side panel off, these stopped completely.
It's turned colder, of late, so I'd left the side panel on and, only when I was back at the desktop, I realised how fast the fans were running, again. I'm wondering if it was overheating localised to the gfx card but I think it unlikely as I have slot-mounted cooling fan right next to it.
The last time I had a mid-battle CTD/reboot it was again with the enemy king/general captured or dead, the battle mostly won and just tidying up, then I click on a unit icon to do something with it and <<boom>>!
So, the camera being practically off the edge of the map is the only clue I have for this latest one but the common feature seems to be clicking on unit icons. Could be one of those bugs that just doesn't happen often enough to have its cause tracked down.
I'm off to do 'take 2' on this battle. :duel: :charge:
I'm still listening, too. ~:)
I love the incredible level of detail in your narratives.
ajax
I am listening to you.
No chance! Cant wait to see the screenies!~DQuote:
Originally Posted by EatYerGreens
Still reading the thread with enthusiasm, guys. ~:cheers:
It just flows better when we don't interrupt with posts that say little more than "pwned!!" or "OMFG!!"....
I've been here the entire time~;) , lurking closely~:cool: . I too would enjoy
some pics if possible.
I've also started a new HRE campaign/Hard/GA/Early and will let you know if
anything of interest comes up. Right now it is 1100 and the French are
getting on my last nerve, I have to keep a large garrison in Lorraine to keep
them off my back. Usually I knock out the Danes by now but the aggressive
French have not allowed my usual game play. I have keeps already in Switz,
Swabia and a couple more just about finished, one in Saxony. I'll let y'all
know what happens.
I am reading too; please continue!
BTW, there is a known bug with troops getting stuck on the edge of the map while retreating (usually because of trees) but I have never seen it combine with a CTD. I am at a total loss what happened here.
You don't seem the kind of fellow seeking solace and comfort in a re-load EYG. Ban them and take your casualties like a man!
I didn't get any choice about the reload - I'm talking about a crash to desktop before the battle was actually finished, so the result didn't register at all.Quote:
Originally Posted by Matty
Just for the record, I did not make any additional troop moves into the province, now that I knew an attack was coming. Reloading AND adding extra defenders is pure cheese, IMHO.
Of course, in the retake, it gave me a different map - two bridges this time, causing me to change my initial deployment slightly - and they brought a larger number of troops.
Things didn't pan out so well, their Clansmen broke through the 'plug' defence this time, chasing some units off to well behind my main position until they were off the map and my reinforcements were mostly junk troops or ones with under 10 men, so not of much use. I started with 41 spears plugging the other bridge but the AI initially ignored that bridge and I called them over. Lo and behold, some RK's come on in their reinforcements and actually use the second bridge. They were on my side of the field before I spotted the threat. I polish them off with archers, mounted xbows and some half-size units of mounted sergeants but it distracted my attention and, before know it, my man are routing and they are over the bridge in force. We rally but more reinforcements are streaming in and the outnumbering is beginning to tell. My archers are out of ammo, theirs are still firing. My reinforcements waver and begin to rout just at the mere sight of the enemy. Gah!
Now I basically won this battle the first time around, so I feel entirely justified in reloading and doing it again until I get that result. The third time is a single bridge but yet another map (the first one allowed my catapult some height advantage, which wasn't in this one), lukily with a similar bend in the river, to the left of the bridge, giving a patch of ground handy for positioning achers on, so they're almost side-on to the bridge.
The enemy numbers were now more like what they used the first time (interesting that the AI doesn't make exactly the same moves, given identical conditions) and the 'right' result was ultimately achieved.
There was a fun part where they'd stopped attacking and their RK unit halted about 20 yards back, just where the downslope starts. Twenty or so archers stood in front of them and I heard arrow shooting noises but none of my units had an under-fire icon showing, so these were all missing. Seems they were actually waiting for more units to come up behind them and there was a brief charge but it never broke through my spears. In the meantime, my Mounted xbows had arrived and I sat them on the bulge in the riverbank and set them shooting the knights. They only killed about three but, once they turned and ran, being an elite unit, they carried away all the rabble behind them.
Earlier still, there was a point where there was fighting at my end of the bridge but a unit of my FS's had somehow pushed right through their frontline and were now halfway along the bridge, fighting about 5 lots of archers. Hope I took a screenie of that one and may post it later.
Once again, their 5* general got himself killed, so I was satisfied that a result similar to the original battle was achieved.
This did happen again, funnily enough. It showed as 16 archers, with the movement arrow flashing on and off. I was concerened at first, thinking they'd been caught in meleé, or shot up without me realising but it was actually one I'd withdrawn and all 60 were present when back on the strategy map. I may have even done the same click to move camera trick as before but this time it didn't crash, when I realised in time what was happening and I clicked to view something else.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ludens
I guess it's intensely annoying to win a battle but be stuck in a loop like this - hitting the Esc key is counted as a defeat, isn't it? Normally, it should be okay because the unit gets into a routing state before it hits the map edge and, as long as all of a side's units are routing simultaneously, the battle is officially over. It's only when the AI has set the unit to withdraw and it gets stuck that it can happen.
Maybe if you can get enough men close enough (outnumbering penalty on morale has a range to it but you can only get your units so close to the edge, looking like 50 metres to me), or put it under missile fire to tip it over the edge into rout.
Lesson #27 - always keep at least one unit of archers in reserve, with 'fire at will' switched off until you find a worthwhile target.
Thanks for all the notes of appreciation. It's just that the thread suddenly went 'dead', even when I'd finished a post with a question, so I thought people had lost interest. I'm glad to hear otherwise.
By way of an update, much has happened, to the point where I'll have to flick through hundreds of screenies just to remind myself what happened when. (The sheer number of screenies I've taken is the reason why I never get around to posting them - it takes ages to pick one worth showing and I have to process an entire batch before I can upload anything. If I throw any away before I've converted the events into written form, I lose track of the story. This all takes a lot of time, which I'd rather spend playing the game itself).
In brief, the English defeat in Saxony saw them bring yet more troops into Denmark, uncluding their king at one point. Having lost several rulers and having to pay a fortune to get Edmund III back, this time they leave me be, for a change. My first unit of arbalesters (from Guild captured in Paris) only arrived the year after the battle but seemed to have the required deterrent effect. The remaining arbs carried on to the river crossings at Brandenberg and Silesia, as originally planned. Another two went to Burgundy and Provence, so I'm spoilt for river densive places at the moment.
However, not content with adding Denmark to their North Sea trading retinue, they got greedy and ploughed straight into Sweden. I had no agents there but I recalled that the Danish re-emergence army was not far away. Within a couple of turns, Denmark was back in the hands of its rightful owners and my chances to recapture that dockyard for my own North Sea fleet will have to wait for quite some time now. The port was smashed too, so I'll soon find out if they're broke, when it fails to be repaired. The Danes were neutral to me at this point. I have to maintain the large force in Saxony, against possible English sea invasions and also the large armies in Pomerania but the Danes also seemed to think better than to take me on at the river and settled for an alliance very quickly.
Things have been rather dynamic on the other side of the eastern border, with Byzantine and Turkish armies slugging it out. Some lands have changed hands four or five times now but, ultimately, the Turks got hold of everything as far north as Pomerania. My reconnaisance is a bit sketchy but Novgorod were cornered into Finland, initially by the Byz but I think all that is now in Turkish hands too. I have near full stacks facing them in Saxony, Brandenberg, Silesia and Bohemia but I keep a nervous watch on Austria, guarded by just 120 UM's in a fort. For whatever reason, they leave me alone - just looking at their armies tells me I'm going to get trampled if I so much as assist the Byz by lifting a siege or similar. Besides, my provinces are making 400-500 per year, whilst Poland and Hungary are generating 900+ each, not that they are wanting for cash right now. :dizzy2:
Meanwhile, I was unable to get to grips with the pope as I was tied down all along my west, facing the French and English. The French 5* general in Anjou could attack in various directions, so I couldn't adopt the 'hub defence' system properly and had to keep full stacks in every province. They simply had to be taken out. On the plus side, their troops were outdated and maybe 400 of their strength was peasants. I attacked at about 1000:1400+, confortable that this would be more like 1:1. The map starts with having to climb a steep hill, and they defended so far back that none of them showed on the 'radar' until I was up on the plateau. I had gone left and they were lurking in the right, making the most of the corner.
I turned my force to face them, then shuffled into position, such that a spear unit on the left of my main line was tucked into some trees and hidden. I'd brought 2 merc hobilars, 12 men and 7 men, 7 Mounted Sergeants and 1 Gothic Knight, all of which had racked up some valour. The French had a barrel load of archers so the idea was to make a probing attack with these broken horse units, chop up a few, maybe draw them out but basically get maximum mileage out of these horsemen before getting them off the map by being routed, killed or captured. I'd then roll in my reinforcements before engaging fully. I send them to nibble at the end of their archer line closest to the map edge, with remarkable effectiveness. One of the Hobilars at least routed the right way, back to my main line.
I'd only just marched my archers through my infantry line to begin firing back when I suddenly find some (mixed Early and High) RK's coming after them. My archers skirmish back and luckily, the knights crash into an exposed unit of spears, who hold well. The unit which was in the trees is now charged into their side. I don't know if all the knights were killed or not. If they routed, they would have carried away all the lesser troops to their rear. In any case, the Swabian Swords, on the right of my line had been able to charge forward unhindered by the knight meleé and chop up what little infantry they'd brought with them. The results later showed two units had killed over 100 men each but were reduced to less than 10 men themselves. (They're no longer trainable in High, so it's as well I stocked up in time).
My reinforcements had a long walk to reach the action, likely arriving too late to be involved. Even the 9 Teutonic Sergeants, leftover from a loyalist rebellion early in the game made a reappearance. I set them to chase some archers which had moved to a forward position to fire on my flanks. They didn't make contact but the archers found themselves set upon by foot units from 3 other directions instead. The mounted xbows were also fast enough to reach the far rear edge of the map where all the fighting had been but I couldn't find anything for them to fire at. I was expecting about 8 or 9 units or reinforcements to be dealt with but I reckon they never even appeared.
Not a good day for the French and not exactly a fair fight in terms of troop match-ups but, if you've got 8 archer units with you, to not take advantage of this huge slope I had to climb and shoot your attacker to bits before they're anywhere near inflicting any damage on you is a cardinal error. Corner-camping just won't cut it (if anything, the corner was in a slight hollow, so my men had a slight downhill advantage there).
Their 5* general is trapped in the keep, their 1* King has only a 3/4 stack in Brittany and, this time, the English don't lift a finger to raise the siege. Anjou is mine and I leave them to stew in Brittany for the rest of the game.
EDIT: Checked my screenies and the above paragraph has muddled the facts. I'd attacked a few years before, they rereated to the castle, trapping this general in the keep. They lifted the siege the following year (I moved my crack attack troops out and stuck spears, peasants and catapults in for the siege attrition phase, no match for a king and three other RK units, amongst about 1800 attackers) and this battle is one or two years later. END OF EDIT
Actually, the English were a bit preoccupied, further south. The re-emerged Spanish got themselves allied to me at some point. They ignored all my requests but eventually offered a princess, frustratingly just a couple of years after my emperor had done the 'marry the aristos daughter' trick. That was after they'd grabbed Aquitaine from the English. Before long, they'd been beaten back and finally eliminated. I did have plans to take lightly held (English) Normandy, after Anjou, but the English offered a ceasfire now the Danes were on my side and I accepted. They are now embroiled in some heavy fighting with the Almos and I think the Almos have taken Aquitaine themselves. This confines the English southern holdings to Aragon and Toulouse. Good luck to them.
All of this goings on has given me opportunity to rattle through a large number of turns in quick succession, with no battles to fight. I'd promised myself to keep 10,000 in reserve but it all got burnt. Of all things, it was the Children's Crusade which messed things up for me. It affects farm output in 'Germany and France', so basically all of my holdings. I'd literally just completed an extra two 40% farms, with 2 more to follow when this thing sent me from +900 per year, to -250 (in spite of the brand new farm improvements). I had to disband some of my 'trash troops' to get back to breakeven and eat into reserves to get more ships and farms rolled out. Things finally settle down at about 1000pa cashflow but, again, back to below 2000 in the bank. Come to think of it, this crisis was what galvanised me into taking Anjou, which helped bump the income back up.
So infrastructure is improving but far slower than I'd have liked. I did finally get a keep built in Saxony, so a port and shipbuilder should soon follow. Peace with the English at least gives good prospects for trade with just a single ship in the North Sea.
I've started another in Tuscany, which is already trading but a second shipbuilder in the Med is vital to survival if sea combat kicks off - replacing attrition and so forth. This also allows me to leave a small garrison in place once I'm ready - finally - to take on the Pope. Rather than mobilise for thi snow, I want to use the cashflow for infratrustructure, while I still can. Then another Emporer dies in his early 60's, after a short reign beginning at age 47. His replacement isn't even 20 and he'll be a long time excommed if he does anything now. Get the happiness virtues first, I think. ~;)
I finish the session with what might have been a stupid decision. The Turks offer me an alliance but this will declare my long-standing alliance with the Byzantines invalid. I've refused them a few times before but this time I accept, as the alternative seems to be to be crushed by the richest, most teched, largest armies faction in the game. The points for 1225 came in, with me still in the lead but the Turks only 4 points behind. If homelands go, that situation will rapidly reverse.
I'm asking for trouble since the Byz have several stacks in Venice. They could have trampled me at any time they liked but dutifully let me be and now I stab them in the back. ~:eek: I think a little pieve of me still wants to have a battle against them in this campaign, before they get themselves completely wiped out. Oddly enough, I have never gone up against the Byz in any campaign to date, so it would be a shame to miss the opportunity once more. Then again, I may have bitten off more than I can chew. My HRE could collapse at any moment, just as things were getting interesting, so stay tuned....
EDIT Reason:- Factual corrections, after rechecking screenies, posted in subsequent message, plus various spelling errors.
Time for some pics now. I've used URL links in the hope that the images can be viewed at full size and generally help the thread page load quickly, as there is quite a selection here.
Firstly, the Saxony battle which crashed to desktop.... note the numbers ratio and check out the valour level on their UM general!
Saxony Pre-Battle Screen
Early stages of the battle. The jutting riverbank I tried to describe can be seen,to the left of the bridge.
View 1
A slightly different angle. The Enemy general is killed.
View 2
A reverse view, showing the positions of my units. The enemy are in flight and the kills ratio shows 3:2 in my favour. This was the last shot taken before the CTD, so there is no final result screen and the casualty count is unknown.
View 3
Reloaded from last quicksave. I make no troop moves but the English bring more troops this time (I omitted to take a pre-battle screenshot, not expecting what happened next). Note the change in battle map, this time with two bridges. The AI sneaked some RK's over that second bridge... after I'd removed a half-unit of spears to help in the main fight.
Saxony Take 2 - Results view
Reloaded again. Still no troop moves and this time the English bring similar numbers to the first time. Yet another map - one bridge but flatter terrain, giving my missiles less reach across the river. My catapult was placed on my right this time and I may have misjudged the range, as it was unable to target units on the far bank properly. It ended up shooting across the bridge, into the main meleé and missed most of the time, shots hitting the jutting part of the riverbank on my side. It even killed about 5 of my FMAA who were standing idle, yards from the fighting, to the right of my end of the bridge.
Once again, we trap and kill their general...
Saxony Take 3 - View 1
We watch the enemy turn tail and run. Under the min-map speed bar, you can just see my 15 Mounted crossbows (another 22 at extreme left) and 5 dead knights lie on the bridge, part of their last-ditch push. The unit of 16 archers in the icon strip is actually a full unit of 60, stuck whilst withdrawing.
Take 3 View 2
The final results. Nice to see a vanilla archer unit rack up 100 kills, for no losses but, oddly, got no valour boost out of it.
Take 3 - View 3
EDIT: New posting interface has a glitch - 'Insert link' no longer offers a description prompt and manual editing of the URL code entry did not work either.
EDIT 2: The part of the URL code entry inside inverted commas (which I'd meddled with) is the link itself and what looks like a duplicate of it is what you should edit to make the description part. Links to images should now work.
Ahh, so this is how you make link descriptions work!
Current state of the GA points and the Hanseatic league goal is shown, along with its description. It shows all 6 pips lit up for me (in the right hand parchment but not the one on the left) but I don't know why - I have no north sea ports yet but I do have trading posts in the appropriate coastal provinces.
GA Points
State of the Empire, taken a few years back.
The Empire groweth....
Mug-shot of the Emperor, taken a while back. He came to the throne at age 16 and is now Influence 6. The Treasury is low but cashflow is enough to get significant builds started every year. Attacks have abated, so no troops have had to be mobilised for quite some time.
The Inn in Bavaria only ever got us two units of Rus spears which seemed to give deterrent value on the eastern front but otherwise saw no action. Having burnt a hole in the pocket for a century or so, they were disbanded after the cashflow dipped steeply, after the Children's Crusade and replaced with Feudal Sergeants. Peace or neutrality at a border leaves Inns rather empty. The Inn in Tuscany, by contrast, is packed with goodies as soon as it's built, as we are on a war footing with the Pope, over the border. This shot shows one of the two Organ guns we've picked up. Can't wait to try these out, especially as gunpowder has yet to be invented. Arquebusiers were available too but that borders on cheesy and, besides, I like to fight against archer-heavy armies in the rain, when I can...
Herrmann the Gerrmann
Invasion of Anjou, Pre-Battle Screen
In this one, you should be able to make things out from the 'radar-map', where we were allowed to climb the steep slope unopposed, up the left side of the map, then turned to face them, skulking in the upper right corner.
The Scene of the French Knights demise and their General just had to stick his oar (polearm) in.
The final result...
And the winner is....
That Teutonic Sergeants unit has been kicking around since appearing in a Loyalist revolt in Lorraine, in 1096. There were 9 of them after the most recent battle before this and I don't remember how they went down to 8, other than maybe the unit leader died of old age (he had V&Vs on him) or they were at a siege. This is possibly their third blank sheet but they successfully scared off the last of the French archers here. Their grand tally is K:240 C:465 L:31, in 9 battles. Not bad for a 'freebie' unit.
Great stuff EYG,thanks! i want to comment on a few things but dont have the time right now, i will later but thanks for the great update!~:)
Hey EYG, I finally got a few minutes to respond. This will be in no particular order.
FK are available in all time periods. Not sure why thou they are a bit obsolete after a while.
You mentioned “bloodless victory” do you know if it counts as a victory for # of victories to reach another promotion in rank/*’s?
I am sure it’s my video card but I crash to desktop after or during battles about 25% of the time, I totally sympathize with your crash situation. Its one of the reasons I autocalc a lot, but I do fight the ones I think will be fun or critical and re-fight them if I crash.
Have you been producing much siege equipment? It is always a weakness in my armies, just wondering if you use them much?
Having the Byz sitting there in Venice with 3 stacks is a bit scary but I find that they fall asleep after early, I am curious to see what they do, if anything. Maybe they will just sit tight until you have those sweet Goth units and can boot them out.~:cool:
Hats off for the way you seem to be managing your cash. :bow: You seem to be keeping things pretty balanced with troops and infrastructure. The children’s crusade caught me sleeping in my game. I always see it happen but as I am never the HRE I don’t usually take it into consideration until now. It was kind of interesting that there was an event that had a major impact and I was not expecting it, not like the coming of the Mongols.
Nice images, that overall empire one is my fav! ~:cheers:
@eyg Good stuff! It's about keeping me from chewing fingers off from MTW-withdrawal. (comp still in the repair shop :furious3: )
Heh, keep an eye on them throughout the High era, get 'em nicely valoured up and they'll still munch an awful lot of stuff up. Same thing for FMAA.-Quote:
FK are available in all time periods. Not sure why thou they are a bit obsolete after a while.
It's control of the trade not neccacarily trading exclusively. I'd guess if the other northern powers are forced to trade to you (by not having extensive trading links) then you still effectively control the trade.Quote:
Current state of the GA points and the Hanseatic league goal is shown, along with its description. It shows all 6 pips lit up for me (in the right hand parchment but not the one on the left) but I don't know why - I have no north sea ports yet but I do have trading posts in the appropriate coastal provinces.
just my E0.02
Apologies to all and sundry for the lack of updates. I saved at 1229 a few days ago and you know what comes next, heh heh. I think the previous report covers everything up to that save point.
Every now and then I reach a 'crunch' point, where I know something significant needs to be done on the next turn, like a huge battle but I have to leave it until later. Many's the battle I've totally botched up by pressing on but being too tired to concentrate. I wasn't that clear-headed the following day, either, so I let myself get distracted, didn't I? (as my stack of postings in the modding forum will testify) :sneaky:
Fear not, I shall get back to this game soon. I've been having a giggle running my modded game to check for crashes. (Sahara has been enabled and I gave it to the Almos, to have a corner to back into, like Arabia for the Eggies.
Anyway, it ran reliably from early right up to the late 1200's, with me stopping it every so often to tinker with the build/train queues of a faction and then fast-forwarding again. I kept swapping sides and when I got to the Byz, they had cash in the bank, decent castles everywhere but only 20% farms in some places and a disjointed ship network. I soon sorted that out but was delighted to find a nice selection of valoured up spies and assassins for me to do some mishchief with. (Border Forts given Marshal's Palace as a pre-requisite, LOL)
It did finally CTD on me though. It kept clustering its ships (as if in self-defence) but breaking the ship lanes and cutting it's income in half. I picked one ship up to move it and still had the mouse button pressed when it went boom.
I'll save the details of this mod for another thread but I put it together to generally experiment with stuff. I must say the autobuild & autotrain units/agents doesn't do as bad a job as I thought but, in the early years, it runs the treasury down into the low hundreds and some factions go deep into the red building keeps and ignoring the income side. That was partly down to me - as well as adding Sahara, I implemented the way farm upgrades are set out on the tech tree so that you can't advance to the next level of farms until the next size castle is built.
Novgorod got big (but I'd given them land access from Finland into Sweden) until the Horde barged in, naturally. The Horde waxed and waned, currently back down to three provs. The Byz are the richest and most teched but the Hungarians have the biggest military might. They're squeezing France right now. HRE is in pieces. Spain have reconquista'd but are now province swapping with the Almos, who bounced back from Spain's crusade (which I saw come through Byz-held Georgia, Syria, Palestine, then went west - destination Algeria! How the heck did they manage that???) Egypt alive but crushed, as are Poland, Italy and the Pope. England is still going (Flanders/Wessex bridge is closed) but both they and the Danes have been in unbelievable debt... since about 1120. ~:eek:
A one-star general ought to go to up to two stars on their second victory (1,2,4,8,16 etc) but I saw an example of this not happening (HRE campaign) when the other side auto-retreated, or went to the castle. In Shogun, each general has a tally (Fought, won, lost, rank) on their info parchment and they did get due credit for winning a province, even though no battle was fought. The emphasis seems to be the other way around in this game.Quote:
Originally Posted by yesdachi
Re: Feudal Knights.
I haven't actually trained any yet. I know them well, from multiplayer but don't think I've ever used them in a campaign before. The maintainance is rather steep though. I reckon four units would wipe out my entire cashflow, unless I get my fleets growing soon.Quote:
Originally Posted by lugh
Watching this high-speed campaign has whtted the taste buds again, so I hope to have more to report soon.
Could it be that the HRE can´t use mercenaries? I´m currently playing HRE (medium, start in High) and have built the necessary buildings, but the recruit button for the mercs is missing ~:confused:
Yes HRE can have mercs. In the link "Herrmann the Gerrmann" you'll see a pic of my Emperor and there's a mercenary Organ gun in his army.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ciaran
Inns tend to stay empty of mercs if there aren't any active wars going on nearby. If you are neutral or allied to all of your neighbour factions then I think you won't see any for hire.
I've progressed campaigns from Early to High but I've never started a campaign in High or Late. I gather that sometimes you start with more advanced castles and so forth? That may be the cause:-
Inns have a 'merc attraction factor' to them, set at "40" (forty what, I don't know, just a factor for now). Certain buildings have a repulsion factor though
EDIT: factors corrected; items added
Fort.................... -10
Keep................... -10
Castle................. -10
Citadel................ -15
Fortress.............. -15
Constable's Palace. -10
Marshals Palace..... -10
END OF EDIT:
So with a ready-built Citadel in the province, you will not see any mercs at all.
EDIT: It's less likely you'll see any. END OF EDT:
The ideal place is a province, with an enemy faction over the border and no fort structure at all. When I'm in no desperate need for new troop producing centres and a frontline province previously had its fort smashed down, I'll not bother to build a fresh one (in the event of a defeat, my general won't get trapped in the siege) but I will build an inn there instead, which soon turns into a 'candy store' of troop types to choose from. ~D
By the way, when the fort is absent, the troop training icon disappears from the control panel when you select that province but, when an Inn is present, you can see at a glance that mercs are available for hire, because the training icon comes on again.
There are plenty wars going on around: Pope vs Sicily, France against England, me vs the Horde, the Horde vs the Polish, Hungary is fighting someone, too...
The problem isn´t that there are no mercenaries in the recruitment screen, the "recruit" button for mercnaries is missing completely. I find it hard to believe that it´s the era, because I´ve also started a game with the Spanish in Late, and there I could recruit mercs. Not that I desperately need mercs, but still...
Yeah, that is very annoying. Even if its just one peasant or a sign that says EMPTY, I would be happy. It would be nice to know that the Merc purchase screen works. Its always feast or famine with Mercs. I can create a whole army to save myself from the Uber Pope or I can't build ONE unit to save a province (Excuse me guy who corrects my spelling - TERRITORY) from rebellion.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ciaran
In addition to what EYG said regarding merc. attraction.:bow:
Constables palace –10
Marshals palace –10
I believe there is also an area effect; provinces adjacent to provinces with the castles and palaces will also suffer from negative penalties for attracting mercs. Not sure of the % though.
Don't town watch and border fort type buildings also decrease merc attraction? I think I read that somewhere but can't remember where.
Ajax