The Danes
Early, Expert, both GA and Conquest
Have you ever wondered what the short end of the stick looks like? It looks like Denmark in Early.
Your Danes start practically without land, income, troops, buildings, ships or agents. What they do have, right from the start, is a fickle neighbourhood. To make matters worse most of it is Catholic – and your mission is to conquer it because conquest is the name of your game.
Even in GA mode, all you need to do for the first 213 years is hang on to your homeland of Denmark and conquer at least 32 other territories. No Crusades, no Cathedrals, no bling bling. You just have to attack, conquer and consolidate at least one country every six turns; keep the Pope happy; keep your populace happy; invade piss-poor islands with exotic names and build whole new armies there from nothing; train agents; prevent rebellions; ward off enemy assassins and inquisitors; build a huge fleet, and tech up like mad. Oh, and all this on 1 dollar a day.
In the High period (after 1205) Livonia is added to your Homelands. In Late (after 1300) your Kalmar Union must top the German Hanse League in trade income as additional GA goal.
Wat’s more, you can not pull off any opening blitzes, ransom parties, raids or stunts. Those are just not in the cards. On the other hand you can not afford to sit back and count your Vikings or you will be overrun.
In short, the Danish faction is the toughest nut in the pack. Since we like ‘em that way, let’s get cracking.
For starters we have:
- one barely developed country
- almost no income
- almost no troops
- a dynasty prone to all the known vices if you don’t let them fight often
- an environment that is in constant flux for at least 50 years
- one angry neighbour in Lederhosen
- no ability to crusade
- lots of deep water staring back at you
Redeeming factors are:
- lots of deep water staring back at the opposition (i.e. serving as your natural border)
- Vikings "R" Us! You can raise them wherever you go. Alright, so can some of the neighbours; and alright, Norway has the better Vikings because of the provincial bonus. But it’s a start since Vikings are good value for your money in Early and Norway will be yours soon.
- you have only two borders to defend; if you play it well you will have only one border to defend for a couple of years
- the other factions’ emissaries will all come to you (this literally saves expenses)
- rebel Sweden is ideal prey. It is weakly defended and it has an iron deposit, the largest granary around and a huge trading potential
- you will be left alone by your Catholic neighbours as long as you don’t install huge armies in border provinces as your territory is not a GA goal for any faction
Since the attitude of the neighbours as well as territorial changes in the region are different in each new Danish campaign, there is no ideal opening scenario. There are only general rules. In any case your goal should be to raise Denmark to the status of a regular Catholic kingdom by the year 1205.
1. Take care of your income first or you will be bleeding interest by the year 1110.
Trade is your lifeline for the first one hundred years, so Denmark goes to Keep right away, then to Shipwright, after which it starts pumping out bonus Longboats like there is no tomorrow. Send the ships into the Baltic first; you may need them right away against the Polish if you are unlucky. Meanwhile, raise Vikings and one or two Archer units.
2. Ally like mad.
Be nice to every Tom, Dick and Harry who comes along; you will have to make difficult choices between your allies (for instance the French and English) soon enough. And soon afterwards you will have to pick a preferred victim as well, a neighbouring country which you are going to completely take apart and conquer in the most treacherous fashion. Usually this is either the Holy Roman Empire, the Polish Kingdom or the English Kingdom.
In case of distant alliances you should be clear in your preferences and stick to them. Be nice to the Italian signore who always gets there first (namely by sea) because you need his friendship if you want to keep your Mediterranean trading fleet afloat. Be very nice to the Papal emissary; you need the Pope’s backing against your neighbours. Besides, once His Holiness is in the money he will be sending you one-thousand-florin gifts for ‘services rendered to the Church’. Little does He know…
3. As soon as you have your first heir (this should be around 1090) you take Sweden.
There are various ways to go about it, all of them easy. However, if you want the rebel Vikings in Sweden to fight instead of flee to Norway (making that harder to take later on) you should bring either only your Royal Knights or one Viking unit plus one Archer unit. I prefer the latter because it trains a new General (you don’t have any other beside your ruler) which comes in handy in Norway later on.
In any case, the Vikings in Sweden will stay and fight only as long as your combat strength does not exceed theirs. In order to find out, you can consult the Unit Comparison Tool of Clan Berserk. Click on the ‘units’ icon in the overhead menu bar, insert units and compare the combined Combat Ratings.
Once you have taken Sweden, put a Governor with at least 4 Acumen in charge and queue the Watch Tower, Copper mine, 20% farming, Trading Post and Port there. After that, tech up to Metalsmith for your first weapons upgrade. Meanwhile, tech up to Armourer in Denmark. You will these upgrades to sustain your initial campaign of conquest. Always put quality above quantity.
4. Take Norway around 1095.
I don’t think you should wait and buy the Norwegian rebel army later on like some players suggest. Even if you can afford it, which is not sure at all, you will first need to train an Emissary. And in order to do that you need a Royal Palace which requires lots of money and years of construction which can be put to better use. So, attack Norway with whatever you can spare. Opinions differ on what units to bring. It’s up to you, but make it short and painless since you will need a sizeable garrison there for some time.
After you have taken Norway, install a ‘friendly’ governor and queue a feel-good building followed by a Trading Post, Port, Keep and Shipwright.
A word on Vikings
From now on, train your Vikings in Norway for the Valour bonus, retrain them in Sweden to give them the weapons upgrade and/or retrain them in Denmark to give them the armour upgrade. As a result you are the owner of a bunch of nasty choppers and grinders which your rivals can not equal until 1205 when the Chivalric Men-at-arms come along. They are particularly effective against German peasant armies but they will eat Feudal Men-at-arms (who are armoured) as well.
Apart from their anti-armour bonus, the Vikings' strength is in the 'shield wall', which means you should always put them on 'hold formation'. And since they have no rank bonus you can spread them thin, two ranks deep if need be, so they will not be surrounded by an enemy unit.
When defending, let your Vikings hide in woods and jump the enemy armour first. When your Vikings have been decimated, retrain them locally – unless they are reduced to less than 40 men, in which case they would lose a valour point and you had better send them back to Norway for retraining.
5. Further conquest will depend on your environment.
The environment will change constantly in the first fifty years, and it will change differently in each new Danish campaign. However, the rebel territories should always come first. You can try and take some of the Baltic rebel states if the Germans or Polish haven’t beaten you to them. Or you can try and take rebel provinces in the British Isles. Always remember that you can land troops in provinces without ports, but you can not withdraw them from there if things go wrong. Wherever your expansion takes you, always build Trading Posts, Merchants, Ports and (if worthwhile) some agricultural upgrade first.
6. Sooner or later you will have to crush another Catholic faction.
If you are lucky, the Pope will let you fight other Catholics for quite a while. But be careful, you are still too weak to face multiple opponents. The Germans are watching you, so watch them. You wouldn’t be the first Danish player who forgets to do his daily Lederhosen-check and gets an unannounced visit from the Kaiser followed by the ‘bye-bye’ screen with the funny music before 1205.
So, fight one faction at a time. Choose your victim carefully. See if he owns a fleet that can do considerable damage to yours. If you decide to attack, stick with him until you have eliminated his faction if you can. Meanwhile respect all other alliances and neutralities (and never oppose another faction's Crusade unless you are sure you can handle his fleet as well).
Once you have chosen your victim, attack one of his provinces at a time. Start with territories that do not belong to his homeland or GA goals. Bring enough troops to finish it off in two turns: one turn for the battle, one turn for storming the castle – this way you will be safe if the Pope threatens excommunication after two years of hostilities. Offer a ceasefire (or force it) whenever you can. Bow out, smile in every direction. Lie low for a while. Then attack again. In particular, try to induce a civil war in your favourite victim’s camp, resulting in easy pickings. The Germans are always ready to go at each other’s throats should the Kaiser drop his clanger. Keep the other factions divided as best you can. The French and the English will be constantly at it; if one is winning, support the other and vice versa. Oppose a Crusade that belongs to another faction's GA goals whenever you can afford it. Kiss every Italian or Sicilian princess. Stay away from Byzantine uber-fleet concentrations, those guys are trigger-happy.
7. Huscarls top Vikings, barques top longboats.
Huscarls are Vikings with a vengeance, and it is personal. They are elite, armour-piercing and near-impenetrable on 'hold formation'. In Early you can just wind them up, let them loose and watch the show. Later on they still make great bridge-takers or bridge-defenders against spear-heavy enemies and even against Mongol Heavy Cavalry. Keep your Huscarls close to your commanders if you can. As a unit of last resort, Huscarls will never run without putting up a good fight to cover your retreat. Huscarls also make good governors with decent acumen and above average piety and loyalty.
Train your Huscarls in Sweden (with the weapons upgrade) and retrain them in Denmark if possible to give them the armour upgrade as well, or vice versa. Your Huscarls should gradually replace your Vikings and Norway should take over shipbuilding (barques, not longboats) from Denmark which now has other priorities.
8. Endgame
By 1205 you should have made significant inroads into the European mainland and taken the odd island in the Mediterranean, a strip of Barbary Coast (Northern Africa) and/or part of Britain. Your financial worries should be over (at least 200.000 florins in the bank) and tech-wise you should be ready for the conversion of your forces into regular Catholic armies. No more Viking nostalgia, although you may want to maintain some uber-Huscarls as flankers in your Royalty’s armies (something I prefer). So, start churning our those Chivalric Sergeants and Pavised units in readiness for the Horde.
If the Byzantines dominate the Mediterranean by this time, they will not be in the least impressed by the Mongol invasion. Byzantium will fight both you and the Horde at the same time, so don’t be surprised if you have to face the yellow Horde and purple Jedi simultaneously. Don't ever forget that you are not fighting the 'Byz', the 'Almos' or the 'Spanish' - you are fighting a machine, called 'AI', which controls all other factions and may make them act in a coordinated fashion to take you down a peg or two. Consider it an honour if they try.
The rest, as they say, is history.
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