How can you not get attacked by six factions in 30 turns?

[Polemists]

Yea, I tried playing Denmark and not nearly as many problems, same difficult M/M and i havn't been attacked yet in 30-40 turns.

I guess it's just a matter of who you play.

I like HRE and France I'm just not so keen on having to wipe out England, Milan, Spain, Portugal, HRE, and Venice at the same time.


Also I probably didn't use alliances right as HRE as those seem to delay wars at least a good 5-10 years

[Sir Beane]

Yea, I tried playing Denmark and not nearly as many problems, same difficult M/M and i havn't been attacked yet in 30-40 turns.

I guess it's just a matter of who you play.

I like HRE and France I'm just not so keen on having to wipe out England, Milan, Spain, Portugal, HRE, and Venice at the same time.


Also I probably didn't use alliances right as HRE as those seem to delay wars at least a good 5-10 years

Other good factions to play as to avoid this are England, Scotland, Spain, Portugal, and (if you can take Italy quickly) one of the Italian states.

If you simply must play as France or the HRE but you want a strong starting position then go and take someone elses! Migration games are fun and challenging, and can give you your favourite faction in a really great place.

[Ratwar]

Well, as HRE or France, you're going to get into plenty of wars. Both factions start with a large number of provinces and a large number of bordering Rebels, so you can get ~15 provinces relatively quickly. Once you get to around that level, the AI sees you as a global superpower, and random factions will just try to kill you. This is compounded by since the allies of nations your at war with will trend to hatred, making them more likely to go to war with you in the near future. The only way to really avoid this would be to expand much slower. Besides that there are a number of ways to mitigate the actions (Be nice to the Pope, only really attack one faction at a time since the AI can't conduct a true offensive, dish out cash to other nations, etc.), but they won't truly solve your problem.

[Megas Methuselah]

Make sure you get some strong allies, eh? In my Scottish campaign, I'm sharing borders with England, France, and Denmark. France and Denmark have been allied with me since the beggining through multiple marriages and horrid wars (bella, horrida bella), while England has been battered down into a submissive protectorate.

I have colonies all over the map, but the only place where war ever only breaks out now is in Spain. Even then, things might turn out different, as I'm in good relations with everyone on the Peninsula except for Spain itself, who I recently wiped out accidently.

The point is, expand slowly and make sure your allies will stay as your allies through marriages and gifts. That way, you won't be so god-awfully unpopular.

[Old Geezer]

TheAI can almost always be disuaded from attacking you early in the game if you place a cheap unit at a chokepoint so that it must make several attacks before it can assault a settlement, because the Pope will warn it before the settlement can be taken and the faction will not want to take the reprimand which will lower its Pope standing or cause it to be excommunicated if its standing is low already. If it persists and gets excommunicated, as the HRE often does, then you can get a crusade called against it which is better than getting a bailout of your business by Santa Congress.

[Polemists]

This sounds good in theory but in my past 3 games this is a mixed benefit.

You can only launch a single crusade, and victory nets you 10 k worth of florins, this is great if you only have 2 cities to upgrade, but when playing as italian factions this barely pays for two large cities to upgrade, in fact it dosn't.

So far Milan and HRE both seem to get excommunicated, it has it's benefits, and helped me take out milan in two different campaigns. Yet usually it's financial gains are minor, as if you attack HRE or milan's outlying provinces your once again stuck amongst french or hungarians, who both seem to attack you just as oftne.

[Old Geezer]

What do you mean you can only launch a single crusade? You can capture as many of the excommed's cities as you can on the way to the target city as long as your course does not deviate very much. After completing a crusade you have to wait a while; I am sure it is more than 10 turns but I don't think it is much over 20. The florins that you net come from the Pope's reward which will be higher the more troops that participated and you can sack the city or cities and sell improvements and give or trade cities for cash.