Struggling newbie needs advice.. :)

[Karl Ironblade]

Hey there, been lurking here for a couple of weeks, and decided to show my face in order to ask for some help.

I've got both Medieval and Shogun (complete with expansions) and I've been having great fun playing them. However, I can't say I'm too good at them. Sure I win the odd battle but I often end up losing the war (take my Saxon game on VI for example where it came down to me and the Irish and I got my backside firmly handed to me. No matter what happens, I keep losing big :/

So, I was wondering if there was any thread on the board that contained tips for people more or less starting out (never really got into the games until recently), or if some of you established players could give some general tips for both campaign mode and battles, so I can possibly do a bit better

Thanks in advance, looking forward to reading your advice

[Shahed]

Hello and Welcome. Nice to see your face.

Try the table of contents for a start.

[Shahed]

If you have any specific questions, I'd love to help you out.

[Asmodeus]

The link to the Table Of Contents

[Papewaio]

First bit of advice is know what style of game you like to play.

If you like charging into the enemy then design an army around that not archers and peasants. If you like watching the enemy hordes die in mass under your arrows as they march up your hill, avoid making units that don't fit that scheme.

Second.

Where possible defend, where not possible attack, attack, attack. My attacking armies have minimal archers (archer here means any missile troop) as archers in attack can be more of a liability to your forces as the manuver around. A dynamic line gives the enemy oppourtunity to get behind your lines and butcher your archers. I do keep one or two units for shooting campers on hills to move them down into the loving arms of my waiting melee specialists. Of course the best archers to make the enemy move in the way you want are mounted. Either defending or attacking the army should have some mounted troops, not to break the enemy but to chase them all the way off the field. A fleeing enemy is a captured enemy, and a broken army commander as well.

So purpose build at least two types of army... one to defend and the other to attack. If you can merge the two all the better. It may however be more cost effective to build specialist armies for seige attacks, seige defences and bridge attacks/defences.

Third point.
Don't put your general in the range of art... one shot and goodbye general... exception of course is a corrupt general you have sent off to regain his valour ie either gain some military star value or die on the field.

Fourth.
Make sure you maximise the loyalty and the economy factors. Having max farms gives you effectively double the amount of profit then having uuimproved provinces if not more... as you do not have to double the garrisons as well... so your gross increases by 80% while your costs stay the same... effectively your net gain can be very sweet.

Five.
Play a strategic style that you enjoy and is effective. Decide from the start how you will play that game. A good start is what is required in most games. The end game also has a certain tempo, but it is made much easier in the end by being awash with cash, loyal provinces, and effective troops that are easy to command with your gaming style.

[Shahed]

Very Nice. That is good advice.

[ShadesWolf]

Welcome

[Papewaio]

As for the end game problem of losing... try playing a complete campaign on easy without fighting battles yourself, just autoresolve.

Focus on the campaign. I'm sure you are winning okay in the battles. The problem is maintaining the factions stability, so learn what increases loyalty and revenue. Focus on the strategic side.

Then play it at normal. See if you can win the campaign from the side of the strategic level.

Once you have a handle on it, go in and lead the battles at a higher difficulty level while using all your strategic tricks.

[Karl Ironblade]

Thanks for all the advice so far (and all the welcomes), I'll take it all on board, and will start looking at the TOC threads soon.

Papewaio's advice was particularly helpful what I have tended to do in my games before now (especially the VI ones I've played recently) is take a lot of ranged troops such as archers in my armies (sometimes as much as 4 or 5 regiments) in order to try and whittle the large Irish melee regiments down a bit (as well as their own missile troops such as Bonnachts and Kerns) before my spearmen and Huscarles engaged. I also found myself taking siege weaponry in standard armies as I felt their fear causing effect (and the thought of seeing several large rocks flying towards yer lines) would scare the enemy enough to cause their more undisciplined units (such as peasants) to run.

As far as the main campaign goes, I've tried the English several times and had the unfortunate problem of running out of heirs when I start going well (and even without a single battle). So, my most recent games have been with the slightly reduced capabilities of the VI campaign's armies, so maybe once I'm able to get a good start in the main campaign I might have some better luck

[Lare]

My style in playing VI campaign, is this:

Early in the game:

1) Try to grow as fast as possible. If there are rebel factions near you, you should obviously try to conquer them before others do. First conquer the land that is beside near other enemies; if there's a land that no one else has access to, you obviously have no rush in conquering it.

If there are no rebels nearby, try to gain some land from some other small country. (I never play the easy/big ones, like Italy, Egypt, ect.) This means you'll have to build military units as fast as you can in the first 5-10 years in the game.

2) When you have gained some land, try to maintain peace with other countries and concentrate on building your economy. Strong economy is the key thing in having a great army. Build units only with one land, that provides you the best units, and build every turn (depends on your finances, of course). I try not to build units, if I gain less than about 1000 gold each turn, unless the units are cheap to maintain (kerns, ect.)

You should probably devote one or two cities in developing mainly military buildings, so you can get access to great units, and build economy with every other city.

Midgame:

3) When you have built a strong economy (you earn about 2500 or more gold per turn), build a big army full of good units, so that you can outnumber some country. This is the stage, where you should grow as one of the biggest countries in the game. If there's not anyone who is really inferior to you, try to pick your opponent from the ones that are already at war against soneone. Obviously it's easier to declare war against the country that already seems to be losing the war.

4) When you're done with this, you're hopefully one of the biggest countries there are. Then you should probably take a break in going war and strenghten your economy, military tech and army.

Endgame:

5) At this point there could be about 3 to 4 big countries left. If you're not the biggest one, wait until the other countries start battling, and choose your opponent well.


In Viking Invasion, the Saxons or Mercians will often grow stronger relatively early in the game. Sometimes you could be forced to go to war against them, if the're about to conquer some smaller country, or otherwise they will grow too strong for you to beat later in the game. The other campaigns are much more balanced in my opinion, so you don't have to worry about that too much, but VI is different. I feel that in VI you're forced to push the expansion to the limits, or else someone will grow way too strong for you.

Those are my basic advices. I don't consider myself as a veteran player, although I play in expert difficulty, using hadr countries, and tend to win the campaigns very often.

Well I will chime in here with a few of my pennies.

I go for one specilist army for sieges and then try to balance my armies. I go with 4 spearmen type and 4 archer types. The rest is cav or sword types. This gives you maximum flexiablity against anyone. As you can't always chose your fights. But if you can there is no reason not to stack your army for it. There is a rock paper scissiors kind of thing to this at the basic unit level. Valor additions can throw that out of wack and so can fatigue.

If your having problems winning the battles then just do battles and stay out of the campaign mode till you can win the fights.

I have noticed that in the viking campaign horses are not as good as in the regular game so you should stick with sword types. And watch out for those zerkers they kick butt on everything.

In a campaign I tend to build in the first couple of kings years to get my economy rolling and build enough units to keep other factions from attacking me. I try to bribe when possible at the start as it gives you troops faster then you could build them. When I switch over to the attack I stage the attacks well I make sure that when I attack I keep a minium front. This is look for a place that you can hit but if he tries to hit back he can only hit you at one place. For example as the english take flanders and keep the sea zones clear and no one can touch you except at flanders allows you to concentrate most of your armies at one spot but you then have several places to attack at once. Liddel Hart calls this the indirect approach.

As the Danish take saxony when you feel able and after you have sweden and norway. Again you can then be attacked at only one point. The alomonds (sp?) have this setup for themselves at the start with Cordona ( I think that is the right name). If you spend time studing the map you can find all kinds of locations like this.

Another thing if you plan to go on an offensive have a goal in mind. Plan where you want to end up. If you go further then well and good but if your getting beat but have your goal then try for peace or just settle back and wait for a bit. One of the worse things is to just start taking territory and find yourself over extented and then an ally decides it is time to hit you. Oh and in this game there are no allies Everyone is a target. It doesn't matter how much you help or stick by a faction they will and do turn on you in a heart beat. So don't count on them.

Also the other persons advice of taking the game in bits is good. This game has several layers and you have to be able to manage each one well. And then there is the luck factor. Like getting no hiers. That one just bites. That can just undo your whole game. So then you have to start another one. But if you break the game down each layer is not really that complicated so master each one then you can put it togeather.

[Kongamato]

My present knowledge of this game is restricted to the battlefield. I am an MP general, and I will give you a rundown of where to go to learn some basic knowledge on how to win battles.

The AI is easy to defeat in battle once you get a feel for how to deploy men and how to move them properly.

I remember when I played my first online games in Shogun. The deployment of men, what men to take, and how to use them all made great sense after a few games. The funny thing was, I had beaten the campaign mode several times before I'm glad you are asking for tips, because I dont think the game itself can teach you that much in terms of battlefield strategy and organization.

Here is what I suggest you do to gain strong knowledge of battlefield tactics.

Step I: Read Skomatth's guide to Multiplayer battles. Tips can be gleaned from this and easily applied to SP. Some parts apply only to Multiplayer though. Here is the link:

Skomatth's guide
This ought to teach you some basics, covering the things you already know and maybe filling in on some things you didnt know.

Step II: Find some replays of online battles. Watch what the players do, and find the reasons for them doing it. STW: MI/WE replays can still be found online. Viking replays will be harder to come by. I know of no replays for VI that can be found yet, so you might just want to go online, play a few games, and watch the skilled ones compete. There is also a good chance that you could recieve a training session with a veteran. A few would be quite eager to help.

You should now have a feel for the way the game works, and the army compositions, deployments, and strategies that are favored by the game. Next, you will need drilling exercises that teach you how to use your mouse and keyboard to make your army carry out these tactics.

Step III:
Go to Tootee's site, Shogun Academy. That site has the proper instructions on the advanced movement and organization of troops. Grouping, facing, turning, and advancing large armies properly is all handled here. Learn the keystrokes and hotkeys you dont already know, and practice them in Custom Battle mode.
Shogun Academy

Now, you should be able to know what to do with the forces you have and how to do it properly after learning strategic basics, advanced tactics, and proper organization skills. It sounds like I just trained you for MP, but remember that strategies and deployments in MP are highly evolved, developed by the sum of the community since Shogun came online. It is unlikely there is any better knowledge than in MP.

If you have any more questions, just ask