England rules the waves ... if She has ships
A fine aspect about the Redux campaign is that you have a LOT of turns to play around with(around 500 if I'm not mistaken). I'm a slow and methodical player who uses the sledgehammer technique. I turtle, build up and once ready, I swoop down on my enemy and knock em out in a few turns using a rather small but advanced army. No skirmishing and all that, no sirree! So, when I booted the campaign, I went for little old England. Island, pretty safe from invasions (in the beginning at least), opportunity for rebel-smashing, ... What more could you want as a first time Redux player?
Being the chicken that I am, I opted for a Normal difficulty. I never quite liked giving the AI bonusses ("what do you mean, those peasants whooped my king?!") and while I could overlook the Hard difficulty, the Very Hard was just a bridge too far. Besides, it's my first game and I wanna try out the mod a bit. Thus said, thus done.
England starts off with Normandy, Wessex, Mercia and that's about it. Alrighty, let's build up. A quick glance at the unit roster made me drool. Light infantry, regular infantry, longbows, feudal longbows, four kinds of light cavalry, ... What to pick? I had read that Longbows dominated ranged warfare in Redux, so, 4 feudal longbows coming up! The units were rather small and their upkeep seemed rather low. Some units had an upkeep of 15 florins! My memory fails me a lot of times nowadays, but I do think I remember having to pay a lot more upkeep in the original MTW. Then again, in the original MTW, you made too much money too fast and as such, paying upkeep was a moot point. Besides, the lower the upkeep, the larger the armies of the AI will be and massive battles is what the audience wants! And me too. Héhé.
As for the buildings, I was glad to see that the turns required for the buildings were more sensible. One turn for a low-level fort or blacksmith, that's the spirit! While I'm a patient man, clicking turn after turn just to see a building finished isn't exactly fun either. Reasonable build times are the keyword. Sure, a citadel takes over 12 turns and costs 12000 florins (which is a lot in Redux), but that's normal. It's a huge castle. But in MTW, you had to wait around 10 turns to get a simple castle running. Not fun.
The economy in Redux is much more agrarian-based, so, I went nuts with the farm upgrades. 1 turn for 10% improvement, 2 turns for 20% improvement, ... It might seem pointless at first, but after upgrading my provinces to 100%, my monthly income went from 800 and no armies to 2.3k with 2 full stacks. I'm quoting from memory, so the actual digits might be way off. :)
So, after I got those 4 feudal longbowmen, I noticed a lot of mercenaries were available. Not the kind of units everyone can produce, but real mercenary units like Mercenary Spearmen and such. Even some Norse ones, but those were pricey. So, I went on a shopping spree, got me a nice stack of them with some light infantry of my own mixed in. And I invaded Wales.
The rebels ran away from my glorious army and I started building up Wales. Flushed with victory, I invaded Northumbria. They ran away again. I consolidated, disbanded the mercs and trained two regular stacks. Light infantry, regular infantry, some longbows, ... and Feudal Champions. Five soldiers in a unit. A bandit stack appeared in Mercia and I wanted to see those Champions in action. So, 5 champions versus 60 light spearmen. When I ordered the charge, they crashed into the spearformation and even when taking them head-on (not a smart thing to do when the other guy has a long pointy stick and you don't), they butchered them. Not a single casualty and 50 dead spearmen. I was whooping with joy. Those champions are a treat. There is even a 1-man unit of champions. Must be Chuck Norris.
Anyhow, things were running fine. I raised a third stack in Wessex because France was getting itchy. They grabbed Brittany and Flanders. “Flemish spearmen? WOOP WOOP!”. I'm from Flanders myself, so I beamed with patriotic pride to see my countrymen represented in Redux. Thanks, Axalon! Anyway, I wanted to get Scotland under my heel, but the turn before I launched the invasion, the Frogs attacked! Indeed, a full stack of Frenchies dropped onto the British Peninsula! Quite outrageous. No way they are taking Scotland, even if they were rebels. My land! So, I declared war without blinking and invaded Scotland.
They simply had some Flemish Spearmen, some Frankish spearmen and two Royal Knights. What could go wrong? My combination of Regular Infantry, two longbows, some regular archers and light infantry would make mincemeat out of them. And I had a unit of Feudal Champions too! Piece of cake, right? Wrong. The battle was long and bloody and I just made it out. A full stack was grinded into dust (even the Champions bit the dust too, which shocked me after their first victory) and I had to ship over the other stack in the North just to keep Scotland pacified. Provinces are really harder to keep in line, but that's a plus. No more easy invading with just a few units. :) I also noticed that Longbows really outrange normal archers (which is ... normal) and the rate-of-fire was excellent. Volley after volley after volley. Granted, the Flemish didn't go down that easily, but they were armoured to the teeth. But my Longbowmen really tore the Frenchies a new one. If only they made it out alive ... Running out of ammo and being forced in a desperate counter-attack isn't good for their health. And in the end, it was for naught. The province rebelled and I had to withdraw the second stack.
I could have continued the war, but it was a test run. I decided I would increase difficulty a notch (to Hard) and try my hand at the Germans. Always had a softspot for Swabia and the HRE. So, I'm going to start that one and finish it. I'll suffer more setbacks like the Scotland Incident, but that's alright. Getting smashed by an unknown unit teaches you respect for it ... and the AI who has constructed it. And besides, this time the HRE must build-up it's empire by fighting Rebels, the Poles and the Norse. More time to expand, control and enjoy. So, Germany it is!
Wonderful mod, Axalon. Really stunning. It might seem to onlookers that I'm trying to suck-up, but this mod REALLY is that good. I played Medmod and MTWXL, good mods in their own right, but Redux takes my fancy. No more era-progression, loooooads of turns, lots of big armies duking it out, ... I can't wait to crusade against the Moors or the Saracens. And I haven't even fought the Scourge of the North, the Norse! So many things to do. I'm wishing this week never ends, I need more time with Redux, dang it!
