Current England Campaign

[Barry]

In essence I am a turtler, my current campaign reflects this as I am 30 turns in with York, Canaervon, Nottingham and London under English rule, Caen was sold to France for an Alliance which has so far lasted the full 15 years.

Scotland have taken Dublin and Inverness but have made no attempts to encroach on my land, Dublin is isolated as I have blocked the landbridge with a couple of ships. A crusade has been called and I am tempted to send King Rufus, I have estimated that he will be away until he is 56 but with no upkeep to pay I will be very rich and with no threats to my land peace and prosperity will see out the reign of Rufus.

I am teching up in my towns and cities and ballistas are availiable to me, these will be crucial in disposing of Scotland in one turn and therefore keeping the Pope happy.

[Viking Prince]

Good luck on the turtle campaign! Why send an older noble such as Rufus when you can send a younger noble and then benefit from the chivalry and experience gained for many years?

[SoulBlade]

He is right, your king might die during the crusade and guess what... his whole army will desert!

[HopAlongBunny]

Sounds like you have a plan

Just beware should you sail the crusade past Gibraltar. For part of the trip around Spain you are moving away from the crusade target...leads to desertion and possibly rebellion of your troops.

Better to land on the continent, make a bee-line for Venice, and sail from there.

After Scotland, do you plan to become the "Force of the North" (Denmark, Sweden, Norway) or are you going to enforce your "right" to the throne of France?

[Prussian to the Iron]

Here's what I would do:

-Get together all non-essential generals
-Give them full stacks of troops you need trained
-Put them all on ships at the far north-west corner of the map
-Go on a crusade with all of them the turn before you capture the target city with your true crusading army
-Sail them in that general direction to ensure no desertion (ya right, jump off the ships because you are not getting closer to the holy land, though you are a soldier and wouldnt know where you're truly headed)
-Capture the city
-Enjoy your now uber-stacks of soldiers, and awesome traits for generals!
-dont forget to recruit some of them unhorsed knights or wahtever they're called and some crusader spearmen. they are really good early-mid game.

[Khan]

Good advice for Barry here, England is a fun campaign to play and one of my favourites. England have a very safe starting position which allows for a slower campaign, in the beggining at least. I find that I can upgrade Nottingham to churn out an elite army backed by a strong ecomomy in as little as 40/50 turns. With a campaign strategy you can completely take out factions quite easily and only get stronger.

[Prussian to the Iron]

that is precisely why england isnt that great: it is too easy. take out Scotland, do a quick battle for Ireland, and now you can do basically whatever you want. HRE and Venice are much more fun: enemies all around, no telling who may attack, isolated settlements ready to be taken if not reinforced. really keeps ou on edge with VH/VH.

[Ashen]

In my current England campaign, after wrapping up the conquest of Scotland and Ireland and spamming merchants everywhere, I targeted the Danish next. The computer very rarely, if ever, bothers going for Sweden or Noway, making Denmark the hardest to hold - and with a fort on the land connection to the HRE, not very. Sweden and Norway can turn over quite a bit of money when populated and upgraded - 2-3k a turn, and only need your free upkeep troops to garrison.

It's a lot easier than trying to get a better foothold in France. I sold Caen to France for an Alliance also - One thats held because I gave my other French town to the Pope. Also went on Crusades, so thanks to the French alliance and my masses of Bishops in the college of cardinals, the occasional attack I get from the HRE or Poland towards Denmark get them excommed, keeping things easy at home to concentrade on Antioch, Damascus and Jerusalem.

I much prefer playing Turtle. Feels more real.

[Prussian to the Iron]

you could always role-play: most of your kings turtle, then...BAM! some insane ruler comes into power and starts attacking everyone! then watch as you get smashed into pieces in denmark.

[Khan]

Yeah it is quite easy Prussian. I do like to win and have fun when playing though as opposed to slaving away to gain one settlement.

[Prussian to the Iron]

slaving away to gain 1 settlement? you must either be playing on like Uber-Demon level (unlockable only through making your cursor draw a pentagram on the main menu) or you just aren't good at the game. I want to say suck, but I don't wanna be insensitive.

[Khan]

That would be rather insensitive although it was just an exaggeration.

[Prussian to the Iron]

why do people respond to comments made like 3 weeks ago? how do you even find theese threads???

[Khan]

It was like the 6th one down, activity isn't noted round these parts it seems. And plus, it was rude of me not to respond.

[Prussian to the Iron]

right with all 12 of your posts my feelings would have been hurt had you not responded 3 weeks later.

sorry, i just hate it when people revive threads older than like a week.

[Khan]

Oh I do apologise. Hmm, a mixture of sarcasm and post-count snobbery, I do enjoy a good drama.