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.

[HopAlongBunny]

Re-train re-group.

You do it all, but regrouping/retraining allows you to preserve and build valour quickly.

Say you have 5 jinettes that all went to valour 3; each has 2 str points_merge to a 10sp unit of val3 and retrain for the rest. If you do this consistently, your units will become better faster.

Re-read the post and think I missed the point :p

If you have time re-equipping old units is cheaper _ no increase in maintenance cost.

[Fagar]

I myself find it very hard to actually finish a campaign.
When it comes down to 2 or 3 superpowers, constant fighting of the fleets and 20 mins to conduct a turn without the battles I get frustrated and tend to start a new campaign.

[Roark]

Ditto that.

The only campaign I regularly finished was the Viking campaign, because the map is so small. But now the Tyberius mod has ruined that campaign for me (ie: new Irish units)... :-(

[chris34au]

I myself find it very hard to actually finish a campaign.
When it comes down to 2 or 3 superpowers, constant fighting of the fleets and 20 mins to conduct a turn without the battles I get frustrated and tend to start a new campaign.

i'm the exact same way. that's one of the reasons that i'm thinking about giving some High era campaigns a shot. it'd be nice to see the late era roll around before a campaign gets boring and predictable.

[caravel]

I've only ever finished the main campaign twice as the Turks and as the Spanish. I've finished the VI campaign a handful of times. In general though I also find that campaign get dull once you've reached a certain point.

One of the best ways to avoid this is to set yourself some self imposed rules and avoid all out blitzing.

[gaijinalways]

I don't mind waiting. I am at 1414 or 1415, so I only have a few more years to go. I enjoy battles, but sometimes the Pope's warnings get annoying (must resist impulse to crush the Pope). It would be interesting though, as it would change the whole map, though I might get excommed.

[Fagar]

i'm the exact same way. that's one of the reasons that i'm thinking about giving some High era campaigns a shot. it'd be nice to see the late era roll around before a campaign gets boring and predictable.

I have been very much the same lately Chris.
The last 3 or 4 campaigns I have played I have started in the High era, for a different flavour and to try and get through to the late and see the units and buildings I very rarely do.

Asai you are correct too. One of the ways to keep it fresh is to have some self imposed goals.
I have plenty of these but of late my favourite has been to actively try and chance the predictability of the map.
It is always the Almo's, Argonese, Byzzies, HRE and English that get wiped out earliest and so I have taken it apon myself to be their protector (and later overseer).
Lifting seiges for them going to war with their pesky rivals and restoring glory to diminishing thrones.
anything I can think of to help those factions prosper and change the usual outcome of the campaign map.

[gaijinalways]

I finished in 1431 or so with a 60% victory. I was surprised as I had kept battering the Hungarians and had some provinces going back and forth. I really enjoyed playing, but suppose I may need to retire soon as I have to start up another uni semester soon, and I will be too busy for this little conquests (work will do that to you).

Surprisingly my war chest had gone back down again to nothing as at one point I decided to ignore the pope and later had to go and wipe him out. He had not resurfaced by the end of the game (after some 20 years or so), so I continued battling the Hungarians throughout central Europe and the Alomonds in Syria.

Thanx for your advice,

GA

[gaijinalways]

I noticed one key thing in this Danish GA campaign was keeping a balance of farming and trade was important.

Why you may ask? Because at the expert level, the AI factions are much more likely to disrupt your trade if they see you becoming too properous. They often might only sink one ship, but if their navy is as widespread as yours, it will disrupt trade for a number of turns (sometimes as long as 35 yearsas in my campaign).

This is when savings are important and you can combat the disruption in trade in a number of ways. I did a combination of increased farming (to bring in other income) as well as quickly of course trying to sink th enemy navy. I was fortunate through most of the game that I had a superior navy. I didn't earlier on, but then no one saw me as much of a threat.

Another option is to attack, and then of course you must hope that they are a faction not protected by the Pope. This can cause you to keep picking new targets for income razers or jut simply grabbing money when you disturb the peace, as I often did at certain stages in the game. Generally I did this when I was provoked or when I saw an opportunity to pick up a province I wanted for border or trade purposes.

One thing I never did was take Scotland or Ireland. I often see Ireland as isolated (I'm not big on picking up the island provinces, sometimes troops get stranded) as well as I didn't see a good reason to pick up rebellious Scotland with its minimal income. I suppose the highlanders would have come in handy in desert battles, but the vikes did okay for me, so I didn't feel I missed out on much by not taking either one.

Speaking of income, one thing I often did was cherry pick provinces based on their trade incomes and locations relative to what I held. One risky thing I did was taking Constanople and Greece later in the game (after the horde had faded, would have been much more daring earlier). I wasn't as close to their locations as I would have liked with the rest of my empire, being 3 to 4 provinces away. Interestingly, I never did get a direct land connection with them (well perhaps briefly when some intervening provinces rebelled for a turn), but the opportunity to take them both was too big to turn down.

Often too, taking away a big income earner is a deal breaker for another faction, as even if you can't always get much income from the province yourself or even later lose it, the other faction may experience hard times and suddenly lose loyalty in some other provinces if you cut one of their main economic bloodlines.

Of course you may take provinces for troop building, but I generally didn't find that was the main reason for me to grab provinces in this campaign. I simply looked at the map, and if the opportunity arose and a province was not too removed from my other provinces and had decent trading items as well as being a coastal province, I took it. The only good provinces I missed out on were on the Italian pennisula and Egypt. For much of the game, the Italians (or at one time the Sicilians) and I were not at war, so I didn't risk losing the trade income as well as being concerned with being stranded on the end of the pennisula below the Pope. Egypt on the other hand, I often wanted to take it, but the right opportunity never presented it (and later I was too busy fighting in the heart of Europe with the Hungarians to bother much with the Alomonds who were very bottled up with trying to crusade to Syria).

All and all, quite the entertaining campaign.