Tactics for when you are too big

[gaijinalways]

This is a continuation of my Expert GA Danish campaign in the year 1391 and I am at an interesting juncture. I guess I have gotten too big as no one will make peace with me. The last remaining Hungarians decided to attack me, so everyone except the Pope, the Alomonds and the Italians are at war with me.

How big am I? Well, I have taken over a wide swath of territory;

1 Mercia, 2 Northumberia, 3 Wessex, 4 Wales, 5 Denmark, 6 Sweden, 7 Finland, 8 Norway, 9 Friesland, 10 Pomerania, 11 Saxony, 12 Prussia, 13 Isle of France, 14 Champagne, 15 Lorraine,
1 6Burgandy, 17 Toulouse, 18 Aquitine, 19 Anjou, 20 Flanders, 21 Edessa, 22 Chengov, 23 Livonia,
24Lithunia, 25 Muscovy, 26 Novgorod, 27 Smolensk, 28 Ryazan, 29 Volga-Bulgaria, 30 Volhynia,
31 Pereyaslavl, 32 Kiev, 33 Crimeria, 34 Khazar, 35 Edessa, 36 Antioch, and 37 Tripoli,
38 Constanople, and 39 Greece.

You will probably notice that I have cherry picked many trading spots in my battle travels. I was at war with a good portion of the board for maybe 35-40 years. My trade captital had dropped to a negative amount at one point, and I was forced to start grabbing more payment from provinces I sacked. There area number of rebel provinces now scattered here and there, primarily provinces I didn't want, but I also that I didn't want to leave my enemies with.

My current capital stands at about 32k, and I notice now that my per turn income has dropped to 1800 a turn as I rushed to arm up in the provinces that the Hungarians threatened (Pomeria, Prussia, Lorraine, Friesland, and Saxony).

The largest factions (by troop size and number of provinces) are the Alomonds (since they reentered), the Sicilians, the Hungarians, and the Italians. The Pope, the French, the HRE, the Polish, the Argonese, the Egyptians, and the Byz are all small (usually holding 3 provinces or less). The Alomonds are not really near me as rebel lands and other factions seperate us. Any provinces I should look at gaining to try and improve my defesive borders. I sometimes have still had to deal with the Pope's warnings, so thus I could not always eliminate factions that I wanted to at times.

I'm going to work briefly tomorrow, and hit the gym, and I need to clean up a bit today or tomorow as my wife will be returning from a school trip to Shanghai, so I probably want to try and finish this campaign off on Saturday and Sunday.

I know I have seen some threads for strategies as your empire gets large, but does anyone have any suggestions for how to proceed?

Thanx in advance for your tips,

GA

[HopAlongBunny]

Unless you are very careful the endgame becomes an enforced "rush" of the remaining provinces.

Expansion eventually all but eliminates trade income; you do not trade with yourself or enemies. Farm income from your empire will partially offset this if you have upgraded farms as you expand. You can trade with Rebel ports if you are not at war with the Rebel faction.

As income declines you need to be more efficient in allocating forces. You might want to disband anything not needed. If your treasury is really hurting it would be worthwhile to simply examine the map and devise a plan for the quickest wind-up of the game...invade/sack/stabilize/next.

Good Luck! :)

[Fagar]

Unfortunately this is generally the case GA.

If your treasury is not large enough to support your ongoing costs once your trade has dried up you are basically limited to maximising any farm income you have and rushing to the end game.

I have always found this very unsatisfying as it seems to cheapen my total victory.

So I always spend a lot of time mid-game building a large and secure treasury through trade and farm land that will last me through to the finish.
Trimming my armies to only what I need to win and only building in key areas, build good quality troops not necessarily huge numbers.
When I finish the game this way I always feel a lot more satisfied with the end result so the extra effort in the middle game is worth it.

[gaijinalways]

It is a real balancing act. A few factions and the rebels are not at war with me at the moment, though there are a few sea areas I don't control right now as the Hungarian fleets control those 3-4 areas. Trade dollars are there, but I have been trying to invest in farming where practical. I am considering retiring some units who are not well armored or teched up and slowly replacing them with my better trained units. Though it's interesting thsat sheer numbers do ward off some attacks, though inviting an attack is sometiems a good way to weaken your enemies (assuming you get a good ratio of casualities in your favor) and well as reduce your costs as units are knocked off (sorry lads, no retirement benefits for you)

I now have to carefully budget between troops and new fleet additions, so the Hungarian navy blockade may remain in the short term. Unless of course I go on another merc raid and strip a lot of the Hungarian economy to support my loyal subjects.

I hope to put off the rush for now and try to make do. I might only need to whack the Italians later, but we'll see.

Thanx for the advice,

GA

[HopAlongBunny]

(sorry lads, no retirement benefits for you)
GA

I notice you did not do the customary Spain/N.Africa expansion loop. Good for you!
Had an English campaign that went much the same way; Elmo's were my best buddies for the entire game Giving up all that rich trade and farmland in Spain makes the game much more challenging

[gaijinalways]

Actually, I cruised through there earlier, the Alomonds didn't like me that much, and my razing tactics didn't make me popular with the locals. Slash, cash out, and run. Or sometimes just whack and move on, couldn't always be bothered to stay and storm the castle.

Another question; is it better to retrain/reequip a unit, or to build a new one? Just wondering as I have some units that were produced earlier, but I'm wondering which would be better to use in coming battles againist the Hungarians.