To answer a few of your points:
Firstly the 'massive scale rush', a lot of the framework for a successful blitz can be read on this thread
here
I love having my threads quoted independently, especially as reference material. I award you a gold star.
Buildings: I build a few on my rushes I have done, mainly churches and some public order buildings. I also knock down a lot of towns and make them castles, easier to control when moving fast.
First priority is any building which will assist the rush itself. If you are to USE ballista (rare) you need to build an artillery range, which is time consuming. Ballista are not mercenary units and therefore not recruitable in your blitz campaign, thus if you need them to rush, you need them immediately.
Next, castles and stables for your MUCH needed heavy cavalry units. You can mercenary all else, and sometimes cavalry too, but merc cavalry is far too expensive unless it's crusader cavalry. You need something you can recruit, too.
Next, if you're gonna do any diplomacy whatsoever, you need a town hall in the proper and efficient location. So build it, quickly.
Next, public order but especially money is your concern. If you need to raise taxes, but public order isn't high enough, build a town hall and kill three birds with one stone. Raise public order, taxes, and diplomats. Converting to a castle also raises public order, improves defense, and allows better recruitment, killing three birds with another stone.
Most of your money will be maxed out spent on units themselves. Any buildings you can afford are wonderful, but you will probably need diplomatic assistance. SELL ALLIANCES, MAPS, TRADE AGREEMENTS, ETC. GET TOP DOLLAR OR DO NOT BOTHER.
Otherwise, I agree with your assessment, Grog. Another gold star.
Promotion: hit rebels/ai with a captain led greater army, frontload spears etc. Autoresolve is fine, the more territory you have, promotions gets easier. I didnt have much success promoting through sieges though. I found the larger the stack used, the higher the loyalty of the promoted captain, although this is just in my experience...
Cannot confirm that, but EXACTLY the required strategy. Another gold star.
I always sack and ransom. You really need the sacking income to fuel the fire of the rush, especially in non-crusade times. No need to exterminate really, I can usually control the most troublesome settlement after a few turns, although in my turks game I had to build a fair few level2 mosques and have a massive Iman chain running across europe...
DO NOT SACK OR RANSOM until you are SURE you have all the allies you need, and you are sure you absolutely need to backstab an ally this turn.
THEN begin the sacking and ransoming, as reputation no longer has any florin or strategic value to you.
But good general idea. One silver star.
Agents: I dont really bother aside from priests and a few passive spies. Massive diplomacy on Rome is a must for a catholic faction because you will need to be in control of the pope to launch crusades. Basically every army should be fighting/seiging or moving between targets, agents get left a long way behind on the first crusade/jihad and your new territory will be building for control/troops for a while. ATPG successfully used multiple tiered alliance diplomacy for an early boost, selling alliance/trade/map/attacks to 5-6 neighbours.
ABSOLUTELY CORRECT. Could not have said it any better. Two gold stars.
Finally yes I will siege one turn/attack next as a rule, some exceptions may be same turn attacks in europe with ballistas, but generally siege engines are too slow to lug around on a blitz unless its local.
Also true, but in the intense local blitz, especially in the middle of Europe, and especially as any Catholic looking to avoid excommunication or to take Rome in a single turn, ballista are necessary. So, mostly agreed. One silver star.
BTW top thread ATPG from what I can download of it, perhaps pare it down into a general campaign overview report and then add dedicated strategy writeups might make it a bit more accessible :beam: My broadband is fairly ninja and is struggling with it, or perhaps photobuckets bandwidth has a headache?
Also true... I would need to throw out tons of photos in order to make it work.
What I plan to do is divide the campaign into different pages so that you don't need to load all 600 photos at once. Maybe 200 a page.
But in order for me to do that, I need a SECOND PAGE. Please post in my thread. Thank you. Bronze stars for everyone who contributes here!