Boom, in the red, now what do I do?

[kasmersensei]

Well, I brought this on myself a little as my ‘little’ Danish empire ballooned outward from its 2 provinces to a good chunk of the map. Unfortunately, I am at war with almost everyone excepting the Byz, the English, the Polish, and the new Pope. I probably decided to build too much as I have Citadels in several cities, most finished and a number of men. I have been staging a few wars to get plunder and let some soldiers take an ‘early retirement‘.

Anything else I should think about doing?

[Gilrandir]

Well, I brought this on myself a little as my ‘little’ Danish empire ballooned outward from its 2 provinces to a good chunk of the map. Unfortunately, I am at war with almost everyone excepting the Byz, the English, the Polish, and the new Pope. I probably decided to build too much as I have Citadels in several cities, most finished and a number of men. I have been staging a few wars to get plunder and let some soldiers take an ‘early retirement‘.

Anything else I should think about doing?

Attack the Pope. You will get an immediate excom, huge chunks of provinces giong rebel and a headache to deliver troops to all of them to put out rebellions. That is if you are looking for trouble.

[drone]

Attack the Pope. You will get an immediate excom, huge chunks of provinces giong rebel and a headache to deliver troops to all of them to put out rebellions. That is if you are looking for trouble.

I would say prioritize cash flow. Make sure you get trade routes fixed to all your allies, and prioritize mines, merchants, and rich province farming for building. If you aren't doing auto-taxes, check to make sure your tax levels and garrisons are optimized (safely) for the most income. Check your governors' acumen, and rearrange accordingly.

My favorite tactic is what I call the "Danish crusade". Put together a stack of decent but superfluous troops with a half-decent leader. Find a path between a weakly defended enemy coastal province, through the enemy's richest province, back to one of your own provinces. Pick an enemy that you don't plan on taking down soon, but want to strategically weaken. Land the attack and make a beeline to the rich province, raid what you can on the way but don't stop for sieges, then gut the main province and cut your way back out to your lands. If you are lucky, you will get loot, cause rebellions in your wake, set your enemy's tech back, and reduce your troop maintenance costs. If unlucky, well at least you get the last one. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[NikolaTheGreat]

Spam vikings spam spam until looney... and then just invade one enemies at once with your stacks... from sea regions if you fleet attack them by sea destroy them one per one! Focus on the weakier enemy and then take out the strongest enemies in time... Don't build expensive buildings if you have money, use auto save exploit to trigger some events or attacks, keep pope your friend and focus on enemy at time... Vikings and a good general should be enough for winning on auto-resolve even in High era



Build only crucial and cheap things... many farms and mines because you can't rely on trade anymore, try with your fleet destroy enemy fleets so you can have some trade with your allies or neutral which aren't at war with you yet. It depends how your enemies are strong and how exposed are your borders to enemies... move troops from safe regions and focus all sendindg them across sea by sea provinces attacking enemies from sea with stacks of vikings and you're done... some patience and they will fall.. in that case pillaging and racing could be good to take money and make the enemy poorer

[kasmersensei]

Thanks guys for all the replies. I did use some of your advice and am now nearly at the ending this GA journey.

What I did was:

dumped merc units I had except for a few specialty units who I sent into battle.

Targeted built up neighbors, and as advised mostly looked for plunder with a mix of scorched earth tactics if it wasn’t too long to wait them out.

Put a hiatus on new construction except farms and mines.

Disbanded some units with few units if their valor was low.

I quickly started going into the black, and soon reduced my number of troops with battles where I lost a few in each round.

I am currently around 1421 and planning on retraining in Denmark and Sweden where I have silver shields and advanced swords. Still building some larger castle structures for the fun of it as I should finish them by 1453. Still disliked by a number of factions, but they are all small or like the Turks not as powerful as they once were.
Interesting to see the Spanish re-emerged and actually have a good chunk of the map again, though my spy rushing in a number of the provinces they took over keep them busy fighting peasant rebellions.

[kasmersensei]

Nearly done and way on top for GA. The Turks and the Spanish both disappeared at one point, so the English trail me by quite a bit and the Byz have reappeared a number of times, but don't have many points logged up as well. Some 7-8 years to go, decided to roll up the Hungarians who still don't like me, and now my laptop cord has seem to gone 'off'. The battery won't hold a charge now.

Sigh, I was talking about buying a new laptop before this one was starting to labor (it's running on Vista, gasp), but it does run MTW!
MTW on Steam is not available in Japan, so what to do now. I don't have time to run out and look for a used power cord (for a 20 years old Acer, I think I can hardly find a new one). I will try and it give it a try next Monday as I can go and price a used/new laptop at the same time.