Denmark on Expert

[Lacker]

So I decided to play a campaign using Denmark on Expert, starting in early....and it's been a walk in the park. I'm really not trying to gloat or anything but the cpu said that it was a harder setting than the one I had selected so I thought it would be fun to have a quaint little empire get run over by Germany and play the victim for once.

This never happened. I've not had ONE war with Germany and as of last night it was 1292. I invaded Scotland, getting a foothold in the U.K. without war with England. When I did go to war with England it only lasted a few years, because I waited until France basically eradicated all their armies and the provinces were falling to rebels. I was allied with them when all they had was Northubria and I held all the U.K. besides. I had one HUGE lucky break with my war with France. I invaded 3 provinces at once and during one of the battles I killed their heirless king, thus ending our war without excommunication. I then proceeded to just sit, wait, and build a navy; taking provinces held by rebels as a result of civil war or uprisings only and withing 100 years I had all the U.K. and the entire coast line from Flanders to Aquitane, with $40,000 florins to boot. Spain finished moping up the Almohads and ran into Egypt who started pushing them back across N. Africa. With amazing consistency, Spanish civil wars started popping up allowing me to take Navarre, Aragon, Castile, and Granada without losing my alliance to Spain or disrupting my shipping routs. I sent troops into Algeria and Tunisia to help the beseiged Spanish hold Egypt off for maybe 20 years before Spain got it in their head to invade Castile. 3 years later Spain is off the map, Sicily holds the papacy so no excomm there, and I'm at war with Egypt in Granada. I push them back to Cyrencia, abandon Tunisia and Algeria to large rebel forces, then pull my troops back to Morocco. A year later Egypt is neutral, I hold all of Spain and the only land rout into Spain (Morrocco) and am at war with no one. Italy is falling to pieces and so I pick up Tolouse, and Burgandy and Germany is VERY busy with Turkey.

so again not to sound arrogant, but is this all there is? I mean there hasn't been a single crisis in this campaign except Spains cute little attempt at Castile, (which due to the fact that for 20 years my soldiers had been dying in Africa to protect spain from Egypt was an uncommonly painfull stab in the back more than a real threat to my nation) And that ended in no time as my armies rolled up from Morocco, and wiped Spain off the face of the map in 3 years, with enough time to get back to Morocco and face the Egyptians who had just hacked through Tunisia and Algeria. Now, Turkey is the only other real power on the map and they can't get through the Germans. Germany and Italy vascillate back and forth over who gets Middle Europe and who will fight the Turks, and Russia is a lump of rebels fighting the Horde. I'm allied with everyone except Egypt, Turkey and Italy (which this late in the game is uncommon as the CPU turns on you when you become the most powerfull) and I have over $300,000 florins in the bank with an annual income of over $7,000. Maybe I should abandon Spain and just see what happens :)
A

[Kommodus]

It can be more difficult if the breaks go against you instead of always going in your favor. Strong neighbors can decide to attack you when you're least ready for it, instead of remaining peaceful. Defeated factions can re-emerge in rebel-held territories on your border with huge armies and immediately attack you before you can muster enough to oppose them. Exommunications can prove somewhat difficult to deal with, costing you international friendships and the loyalty of your own people. You could find yourself facing many enemies on multiple fronts, just barely holding the line.

Or, none of those things could happen, as you've seen. The AI can cooperate nicely with your plans for conquest. You only have one enemy at a time, defeated factions stay down, and the pope has too many of his own problems to think about you. With this game, you never really know what's going to happen next.

[Lacker]

yeah, but honestly, how often does the CPU decide to let breaks go your way? That's why I posted this, because it's so uncommon I keep thinking maybe my game is broken

A

[Despot of the English]

The HRE is a big lame beast beset by enemies. Maybe it was too weak to attack you?

[katank]

it always is.

several times, I sent my prince off with a giant viking army and had him blaze a path of destruction through the HRE to take Venice.

I managed to raze 2 keeps and a lot of other buildings.

soon, HRE was in full blown civil war and rapidly autoceasefired with me.

I grabbed Saxony and kept it.

also, I held on in Venice despite Italian counter attacks and managed to become the premier naval power in the med due to the captured shipyard.

[ConstableBrew]

I've had this same problem with the danes. Just grabbing up those random rebel provinces and trading with everyone as not one faction is at war with me has grown my income to over 10000 a year. I've got some nice options ahead of me in the future, however. The swiss have removed everything west and north, pushed the HRE east into a thin strip of provinces, butted forces with italy and spain. Egypt has grown all the way into russia now.

[Chimpyang]

I'm fiiding it slightly more difficult in my game. So far I've had to fend off Hungarian attacks, the Hungarians have become the major power, with only my taking of Constantinople stopping them advance heavily into the east. However, one night i decided to screw my bank balance (40k) and went straight for Hungary. Now, this cost me a lot of my men but i managed to blaze a trail through to hungary, pillaging and sacking along the way, thie meant that due to my taking of all the rebel itlaitn provinces, I could cripple the Hungarians permeanently. Suddenly the HRE decided to sdhow up again, right in Switzerland where I only have a token garrison. The HRE have taken most of the former Hungarian lands off me and I'm struggling to contain them. The French arn't helpnig vecause I have never managed to make truce after me taking everyhting apart from Champagne and Toulouse off them. But they're acting as a nice buffer from the HRE.

Any tip's

[Kommodus]

Quote[/b] (Lacker @ July 14 2004,12:27)]yeah, but honestly, how often does the CPU decide to let breaks go your way? That's why I posted this, because it's so uncommon I keep thinking maybe my game is broken

A

Maybe if you played as a different faction, you'd find things would be different. Factions that start small, like Denmark (or even Spain) are easy to defend and rarely become targets early on.

For example, in one of my campaigns as the Byzantines/High/Expert, I found myself attacked by enemies on all sides (even before I became large). Just after I had defeated Turkey, the Hungarians launched an unprovoked attack and the Italians destroyed most of my fleet. Then the Mongols came in from the backside and I found myself conducting a desperate defense of Constantinople itself A few years later the huge Egyptian army was attacking from the south, while I was already locked in a land war with Hungary, Italy, and Germany to the West, and trying to build a navy that could match Italy's That was not an easy situation to get out of.

In my English campaign (Early/Expert), Spain had been eliminated as I fought with the Almohads, taking most of Spain (but leaving Navarre held by rebels). While I was locked in a death-struggle with the French, the Spanish suddenly re-emerged in Navarre with a huge, extremely tough army, and within a few years they attacked the surrounding provinces, which I could not defend. Later, when the Aragonese dynasty was eliminated after attacking me, they re-emerged the very next year in a rebel-held territory with another large and tough army, and attacked me straight away I had few allies and many enemies in that campaign, and suffered from excommunications.

Yes, the breaks can go against you. You just have to try a tougher faction - and remember, starting small doesn't necessarily mean the challege will be greater; often, it's the other way around.

[katank]

well, loyalty is important as is minimization of borders.

@kommodus, how are the French still alive? they should be dead by 1092.

and then Navarre and Aragon by 1100 latest and then go from there.

leaving long vulnerable borders on multiple fronts is a very bad idea.

[RedKnight]

Lacker, if your summary is complete (which I have no reason to doubt), it sounds like you had it easy. But then don't forget, it IS going on 200 years since the beginning of your game. The real challenge for the human player is establishing himself with a solid foundation - after that, it should be downhill, unless you make major mistakes or gross misfortune occurs. (But it's all a learning process - including if you have large armies to maintain and relied on trade for their upkeep.) Indeed nowadays I look for hard starting positions, and quit after I've got a very solid foothold on the map - the rest is a given. Playing around with maximizing economics in those first, hard years, has led me to conclusions like this.

I tried a Denmark High Expert game, and felt incredibly stifled at first due to how they had only one hi-tech province... it's hard to conquer the world with rabble But katank pointed out I really should've used Vikes to the hilt... I assumed they were pretty worthless, since they're cheap. It was the one game I've played where another country was able to build up a sizable navy. Spain took the entire south of the map to Constantinople, while I slowly expanded, due to not having high tech.

Explore, Expand, Exterminate... I love triple X games (and movies)

[Kenseu]

Yes, I've actually found that playing the bigger more powerful nations on expert is a lot harder than playing the smaller ones. I can take Byzantium on Late Era and win playing GA, but I started the HRE on early was was attacked by no less than 9 countries, all before 1150. And I didn't invade a single one That was all unprovoked After a rebellion, I was down to 4 provinces, which gave all my aggresive neighbors a nice fat target. That was actually mt biggest problem. It was sucha diplomatic headache. Since the AI almost never makes peace, and the Danes and the Swedes (which both invaded northern provinces) had about twice as many boats each than I did in the North Sea, and I'm surviving on Friesland Wine trade and Franconian gold (Playing MedMod. It drastically increases gold, silver and copper mine output) but I managed to claw my way back, take the Alpine provinces, and when my Scandanavian neighbohrs decided to rip eachother to shreds, I marched in and picked up some of the pieces. I actually haven't completely taken over a single nation, unless you count the Pope (and that was only for the HRE GA). I've managed to make peace with everyone, ignored them until they stopped being at war, or waited until they got invaded by someone else (as happened to the Hungarians, Argonese, and Danish.). It's been a good life. But now I'm a little worried. I don't want to expand any more, I'm in the mood to just sit back and rake in the GA point, but with the damn papal rebellions and a war with the then second largest power turkey, my army is seriouly reduced. And since Swabian Swordsmen are my main troop, production is a little slow. The French now have a larger army than I do, and even though they're my allies, the prospect of Burgundy just seems to tempting for them, as I found out when clicking end year a few times while trying to find out some economic data.