Defensive campaigns

[lilo lol]

If you have no objections to downloading a mod, you should download stainless steel 5.1 with all the extra mods the community there supplies. Then play as lithuania on vh/vh and you will have one hell of a campaign.

[Rhyfelwyr]

For the vanilla campaign, the HRE are surrounded by factions of the same religion and even start with a Pope-o-meter penalty. They face two strong factions in Hungary and especially Poland, and will get the inevitable xbow half-stacks from Milan once they expand a bit.

If you resist the urge to do a askthepizzaguy blitz and win after 7 turns, the HRE can come under attack from a variety of factions.

[Askthepizzaguy]

If you resist the urge to do a askthepizzaguy blitz and win after 7 turns, the HRE can come under attack from a variety of factions.

Can't resist acknowledging people who mention my name or quote me.

to you, sir!

[Duke Bart]

Sicily is a pretty good choice for a defensive type campaign. Or at least a campaign where you must choose your battles more carefully.

Since you have very little in the way of rebel settlements (africa, teeny bit of greence.. those two islands) you will share borders with the AI right off the bat pretty much. Since you are catholic the moors can strike at you as well as byz. and to the north, well milan speaks for itself so essentially you will either have to run three seperate campaigns on the defensive (greece, italy and africa) or sacrifice your original settlements in order to have one solid front.

[Ramses II CP]

I like the Turks for a defensive campaign. Let's face it, you'll mostly be fighting boredom if you don't put yourself in the path of a few good crusades, the Mongols, and the Timurids.