Which faction

[Sir Toma of Spain]

I have been playing VI for a while and i have still not been able to find a faction that i like to play with. I have tried with just about every faction and failed miserably. I f anyone has any suggestions or reccomendations please help

[Ranges]

It really depends on your playing style:
If you like attacking with extremely heavy infantry: Vikings
If you like dancing around with light infantry: Irish
If you like charging downhill with swordsmen: Scots
If you like sniping your foes from long range: Welsh
If you like horse archers & crossbows: Picts

Other than that, well, i can't say really.
What went wrong in your campaings?

[mercian billman]

I would reccomend the Danes. They start small but, that makes them easy to manage and, their in a good position to control the Baltic. Playing the Danes isn't as complex as factions like, the HRE and, Byz in early and, I find that refreshing. Also the ability to build Huscarles in early is just awesome.

[Sir Toma of Spain]

Thanks for the help i'll try those factions soon

[Sir Toma of Spain]

What went wrong in your campaings?

Every time i tried i ran out of money, the only time i succeded was with the spanish

[katank]

try reading the guide forum stuff. I have some tactics posted there for most factions.

blitzing neighbors early on is enough to solve most cash problems.

also see the MTW economics 101 thread for more economy tips.

contrary to popular belief of it being total war, I find total economics to be a good start and building farms and mines, then trade should be your priority over advanced military.

spearmen and archers when used well can keep you sufficiently secure militarily for quite a while.

[Maeda Toshiie]

try reading the guide forum stuff. I have some tactics posted there for most factions.

blitzing neighbors early on is enough to solve most cash problems.

also see the MTW economics 101 thread for more economy tips.

contrary to popular belief of it being total war, I find total economics to be a good start and building farms and mines, then trade should be your priority over advanced military.

spearmen and archers when used well can keep you sufficiently secure militarily for quite a while.

Maybe we should change the name of the game to Total Empire, since the issues involved are more of econs, troop management and general/governor grooming than fighting. My HRE/Early/Expert had most battles on auto-calc (won with heavy casualties) due to laziness (and lack of time) and I have hit the 60% mark by the middle of High. MTW has taken quite a bit off the battlefield onto the strategic map. STW had things much simpler and less management intensive, where you concentrate on fighting battles more.

Regarding spears and archers, dont forget to add the urbies.

[Ar7]

Well since i got VI, finally played a few games and i can say Irish are loads of fun. Gallowglasses with a charge of 8 and armor piercing just eat anything when charging, especially any viking wearing armor. They are way better that scottish clansmen and i just love seeing how 1/4 of an enemy unit dies in the initial charge. They lack any archers though, but make it up with javelins.

I won't go into the original MTW, too many factions and it's too early in the morning now.

[katank]

@MT, I was merely emphasizing the importance of economics.

UMs are invaluable particularly as HRE in forests to counter French cav.

It's quite doable to run through an early scenario using only autocalc to test out new strategies for a faction.

Usually, it's the same if you fight it out, although you can do so with fewer casualties, it may not be that different, particularly on expert.

[Sir Toma of Spain]

try reading the guide forum stuff. I have some tactics posted there for most factions.

blitzing neighbors early on is enough to solve most cash problems.

also see the MTW economics 101 thread for more economy tips.

contrary to popular belief of it being total war, I find total economics to be a good start and building farms and mines, then trade should be your priority over advanced military.

spearmen and archers when used well can keep you sufficiently secure militarily for quite a while.

how do i get to these places

[Maeda Toshiie]

how do i get to these places

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=47

[Sir Toma of Spain]

Thanx for the help

[Maeda Toshiie]

I have graduated to playing expert. Things can get a little tough, especially for the smaller factions like novogordians or aragonese, but are still playable.

1. Do not be afraid to raise taxes to ensure a +ve income. Just make sure the population loyalty is above 100% (for initial provinces) and 120% for captured provinces.

2. For larger factions (or rich ones): HRE, Eggies and Elmos, sitting tight to build up troops (and some infrastructure) is a valid option. All other factions require early attacks (almost all at first turns) and rapid expansion right from the start to create a viable economy. Identify rich provinces and grab them. Take out the main starting troop production facility of the AI factions asap.

3. Initial sum of money should be spent wisely. Either troops to fight, (rarely) for strategic bribes, or some suitable farmland investment or infrasttucture to churn out troops.

4. Do not try to build everything at every province. Have provinces to specialise in different troop training facilities. However, the absolute essential buildings in a province are: border fort, fort and town watch (but not at the start of the game!).

5. Do not get fall into the trap of arms race along borders, unless you have the largest income.

6. Chose good governors! Minimum is 4 feathers. For rich provinces, get those with 6 or more (silver tongue, master of number v/v are very valuable).


I personally dont like to read faction guides (even when playing expert), though general guides are perfectly fine. I prefer to try out and rely on my judgement in the campaign for the challenge of it. Of course you are free to do as you like. However, I like the sense of acomplishment where I won it myself, rather than I did so because I read some guide off the web.

Maybe read a certain faction, one of the easier ones, to try out and go all the way to 100% completion. The experience of playing out the campaign(s) probably teaches you more than what you can read about.

Most important thing is still to enjoy the game!

[katank]

I respect MT's opinion although I would say look at some faction guides for strategies.

many of my blitzing took a while to distill and perfect.

several keys: mercs+initial troops+daring=dead neighboring factions and lands.

navy=economy=power

minimize borders and take advantage of chokepoints on the map while expanding or consolidating. note: unprotected costal provinces should count as quasi border. hence, navy for security and trade

lower your maintenance costs but build troops production and economy.

have only peasants or other cheap garrison troops in rear provinces and missile heavy armies with defensive infantry on borders.

almost never build BG units which are overpriced and undermanned as well as disbanding mercs ASAP if not attacking or assaulting.

your navy and ample warchest from savings with facilities will enable you to build massive armies if troubles brew and rapidly deploy to any region but save you cash in peace time.

[son of spam]

@MT

For more fun, just play medmod on hard. Especially for a faction like the HRE, plenty of personal involvement in battles will be required, or you'll be quickly overrun.

[Maeda Toshiie]

@MT

For more fun, just play medmod on hard. Especially for a faction like the HRE, plenty of personal involvement in battles will be required, or you'll be quickly overrun.

Havent quite squeezed the fun out of Med yet (nor VI). Not much free time to do so either. Will be some time before I try out Medmod (hmm, maybe by then I would be buying RTW).

Another bad thing about playing expert, it is very easy to kill opposing faction's BGs; ie dead kings and heirs == dead factions.

@Katank
I dont mean to say that looking at guides to be bad, just that, like walkthroughs for other games, they often take the kick out of playing. For some of us who started with STW, MTW is easier to catch on. For others, they would need more help to get off the ground.

[son of spam]

Another bad thing about playing expert, it is very easy to kill opposing faction's BGs; ie dead kings and heirs == dead factions.

oh yeah, I didn't think about that before. Usually though I want dead enemy factions .

probably another reason to play on hard tho.

[Blodrast]

oh yeah, I didn't think about that before. Usually though I want dead enemy factions .

probably another reason to play on hard tho.

Some of the time you may not want them dead. This is especially true when killing them would result in a large number of good provinces that you don't have (easy) access to, or can't afford to take them, and they would only make one of your strong enemies even stronger.
Or, maybe (and this is often the case for me), you wanna maintain a certain balance of power in a certain region, and you wanna cripple the faction a bit, but not eradicate it (yet).
Killing it often means that a few years afterwards it will re-emerge, possibly much much stronger than it used to be; if that doesn't bother you, that's fine, but sometimes it may interfere with your plans.

I personally find it fun to try and manipulate various factions into various positions, to the quite limited extent this is possible in MTW (well, but if they have nobody else to attack other than me and X, and I'm invincible, they _will_ attack X).
Then again, I may suffer from several personality disorders

[son of spam]

Some of the time you may not want them dead. This is especially true when killing them would result in a large number of good provinces that you don't have (easy) access to, or can't afford to take them, and they would only make one of your strong enemies even stronger.
Or, maybe (and this is often the case for me), you wanna maintain a certain balance of power in a certain region, and you wanna cripple the faction a bit, but not eradicate it (yet).
Killing it often means that a few years afterwards it will re-emerge, possibly much much stronger than it used to be; if that doesn't bother you, that's fine, but sometimes it may interfere with your plans.

I personally find it fun to try and manipulate various factions into various positions, to the quite limited extent this is possible in MTW (well, but if they have nobody else to attack other than me and X, and I'm invincible, they _will_ attack X).
Then again, I may suffer from several personality disorders

yeah it's true if you are fighting large factions...but since I'm usually trying to eliminate some faction like the danes or the french (as the english) or the poles, it would be handy to kill all their royals in one battle because they bravely keep rallying.

Also since I almost never get around to the endgame anymore (I find it a bit boring when I have more than 30% of the map) so I don't mess around with large AI factions that much. maybe I should just to see what fun can result when the other 70% of the map turns rebel

[katank]

I personally enjoy the enemy royals rallying to be killed by a volley of bolts in the face.

but seriously, with the expert combat bonus, often they kill a few hundred of my fellas and calmly march off the map if I don't have missiles.

[Servius]

I LOVE playing the English, partly because many of the things Katank and MT talked about.

For one, their border is easy to defend, especially with my modded map. I've modded in all the rivers on the strat map and made land links (Wessex/Flanders, Sicily/Naples, etc.) river fights too. I retreat my forces in France back to England (requiring the taking of Flanders for 1 year) and then just hold Wessex. I can hold Wessex against almost ANY size French army with 4 spear, 4 archer, 1 cavalry general. That's a low-cost army (especially because England gets a discount on Archers). I take Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, all the while building up farming and a trading network.

Another cool thing about the English is that they have lots of unique units. Highland Clansman, Gallowglasses, Fyrdmen, Hobilars, Kerns, Longbowmen, Billmen...damn. I know the French get Hobilars, but it's still cool. You can mod in those Irish spearmen guys if you want I guess too.

England's biggest advantage is it's easy defense. You'll have a navy anyway cause you'll need it for a strong economy, and defending Wessex from Flanders is, as I've said, pretty easy and cheap. England also has decent trade goods (Wool) and farmland (save in Scotland). The easy defense and the naturally strong and extensive navy = lots of money.

I agree with MT about specializing troop production too. Mercia builds my spears, Wales builds my archers, Scotland builds my light cav and artillery, Ireland builds my agents, Northumbria builds my men-at-arms and my Crusades, Wessex builds my knights and foot knights (I modded them in for everyone too). Everyone builds ships.

[Daveybaby]

Weird - i always find it strategically advantageous to take flanders in the first few turns and then hold it for the rest of the game, let the french beat themselves to death against it for a bit, then once their army has decimated itself, eliminate their faction completely.

[Maeda Toshiie]

Weird - i always find it strategically advantageous to take flanders in the first few turns and then hold it for the rest of the game, let the french beat themselves to death against it for a bit, then once their army has decimated itself, eliminate their faction completely.

Turn 1: Invade both Flanders (full stack from Wessex) and Brittany with 2 archers and 2 hobilars (from Normandy and Aquitaine). Bribe the longbows fro wales and destroy the french in less than 20 years. The game is a breeze after all that initial excitement. Note that I dont use any mercs at all in this. (And this is possible even at expert.)

[Servius]

yeah, when I first started playing I tried to keep the French provinces, but building up standing armies in each of those three, while at the same time taking the rebel provinces in the Brit Isles often bankrupted me. Eventually I figured it out becaues I got a lot better an managing my economy.

But as an intermediate step, I just looked at the map one day and said "Why the hell am I trying to hold these undefensible provinces?" Then I did what you did: abandoned Aquitaine, Anjou, and Normandy and took Flanders with a combined force from Wessex and those other provinces. I only stopped doing that, giving even Flanders to the French, when the French continued to have viability problems and would still get wiped out. Also, Flanders does not have a river boarder with Lorraine, though it does (at least after modding in all the rivers on the map) with every other neighboring province. That means that I had to keep a full standing army, which for me is:

1 RK Commander
4 Missile
5-6 Spear
2-4 Cav
2-4 Sword

in the event of a German invations from Lorraine. It was still too easy for me, so I made it harder by giving Flanders back to the French too. The other benefit of that is that I only have to keep a bridge army (4 spear, 4 archer, 1 RK commander) in Wessex, which is much cheaper than the full one above.

Most of my fun now comes from building up a few key allies (usually Spain, France, maybe Italy) who are easily assisted by sea and one key enemy (usually Egypt and maybe the Golden Horde), letting the Egyptians take everything from Morocco to east Germany and Moscow, bottling up my allies into their historic lands, and then letting the Egyptians and maybe the Horde fight with them. Such a situation presents lots of opportunities for crusading, raiding rear echelon Egyptian provinces to weaken their war machine, and cooperative fighting with my allies to reclaim their invaded provinces.

I've even gotten to the point where I limit myself to the 60% farm upgrade and the 2nd (4-year) merchant building, and only my home provinces in the Brit Isles, to make it more difficult. Even then I'm usually able to field an attacking army (always led by my king) with lots of crusader and Foot Knight units, a beachhead bunker defending army of mostly longbows and spears, and reserves, plus the bridge defending army in Wessex.

I'm trying to find more ways to make it harder, yet maintain as much historical realism as I can, crusade a lot, and fight cooperative battles with my AI allies. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I've never had a situation where, once I hold all of my faction's current political-map provinces (and sometimes fewer) anyone poses a serious challenge to me. All this is while playing on Expert too.

[katank]

I've eliminated the French by 1091 on expert mode. This means keeping all my continental possessions intact plus all the French lands except for Brittany which was taken in 1095.

This was done only because I wanted to beat the other facitons to Navarre. Consolidation resulted in death of the Aragonese.

Before fighting the Aragonese, I didn't employ any mercs and only bribed Wales.