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[The Steward of Scots]

Just a quick hello, after reading the site for the last few weeks. I just thought I would stop thinking about joining in the forum, and would just go ahead and do it.

First, a thank you to those who run such Forum's, many thanks, and greetings to all members.

I'm a thirty something player, and love the escapism from playing MTW, and previously Shogun. Xmas should hopefully deliver RTW.

Anyway, I'm playing Spanish on Early just now and have reached the point where no-one wants to fight me, so I've got a few hundred Florins tucked in the bank, I'm at 1264, I'm creating Lancers and Gendarmes, so now is the time to go to WAR!!!

Should I take on the BYZ with its large stacks, or take on the Pope by hitting France/HRE etc. Or should I just hit everyone and see who comes out alive?

Thoughts?

[English assassin]

Greetings your stewardship.

You've trashed the almos and Egyptians and are bordering the Byz somewhere around asia minor, right? Take the whole of asia minor, stopping at georgia and constantinople, would be my advice. Nice logical objective and the barbarian in you surely can't resist sacking Constantinople can it?

But then again killing the french can never be wrong.

[The Steward of Scots]

Just checked over my shoulder to make sure you were not lurking behind me English assassin

You are 100% correct I hold most of the Egyptian provinces, shared them with the BYZ as Egypt imploded, and like most, the Almo's were the first to
come under my rulership.

The logic in me says sweep round through the Steppes and deal with the BYZ and Novgrod, and then come in on all Catholic factions on two fronts. However, I know if I send off armies through Egypt, then i will have to watch for the French stabbing me in the back.

This is the longest I've went without being hit from multiple sources. It feels like the lull before the storm. After this I'm going to play Portugal, and I'll hopefully, have won with all Factions on Early (Easy), after that, then time to go to the next level. Not as good as most on the board, but each empire starts with a vision!!!!

[HopAlongBunny]

I second the sweep through Byzantine lands. Natural stop points at Const and Georgia; with naval supremacy you only have 2 points to defend.

After that it gets complicated :p Sweep East and you cannot secure the same easy to defend position until you secure Kiev/Lithuania; in the West there are very few places to get a nice secure border

[MidnitePiper]

Should I take on the BYZ with its large stacks, or take on the Pope by hitting France/HRE etc. Or should I just hit everyone and see who comes out alive?

As a Catholic Ialways champion the Pope whenever I can - lead the charge against Islam, excommunicated folks, and Orthodoxy. By doing so (crusades & conversion, and conquest) my ruler gets lots of extra piety, plenty of extra cash in the form of donations from the Pope, and the Pope doesn't become a problem until I own so much of the Campaign map that I really couldn't care less if I get excommunicated.

If you do push up through Byzantium, you might want to send some agents ahead to scope out the land - the Horde has arrived by now. Find out if you'll be facing Russians, Mongols, Byzantines - a combination of folks or a superpower hidden behind the borders.

[Lacker]

You could also attempt to build up a navy AND an army. I'm a big fan of blitzing the cpu. I build a nice navy that can whisk me anywhere I want to go. Build like 5 stacks of good defensive units then in one year I like to see how much I can take all at once. Keep in mind whoever you send overseas will be stuck there ESPECIALLY since BYZ probably has scores of ships.

A

[The Steward of Scots]

Thanks for the advice folks,

Was about to start a big sweep through the BYZ, built ships for 15 years and have at least three in every region, and then Sicily attack me???? Whats that all about???? Trade fell off the map, and I couldn't get to them. So what could I do, I landed several stack on his holiness, took him out and preceeded down the coast. Took sicily and left him marooned on Crete managed to sue for peace and now the army is poised in Egypt. I've had to 'reform' my stacks as i'll be fighting a few desert battles, so just the odd unit of heavy armour just in case !!!! Now all provinces are set to train men, we have 5000 on the border ready to strike, I've vacated the Papal territories waiting for the pope to return and then - under his banner, I go to war !!!!!

More and more men are being sent to the front and the Pope has returned, I've just got agents all the way up to novgrod, round to Scandanavia. Tonight I have five hours of 'free time' - I'm ready to to go toe to toe with the enemy.

Will let you know if Europe is covered in El Yellow

[Lacker]

Another option against the Sicilians (gotta love my people!)

If you don't have a provincial boarder with them, all you have to do is seperate yourself from them. Pull your ships away from ALL of their provinces (sucks but if trade and transport are kaput anyhow, all those ships are is expensive drift wood) and away from any SIC ships you may find. If you can get to a point that NO units you have are in/near their provinces and you're not sharing a sea zone with any of their ships, after one year of inactivity they go back to being neutral.

That doesn't compensate for the revenge you'll need to wreak on them later, but at least it alleviates the need to take the pope out in the process. I'd pull back, gain neutrality, then land a wrecking ball type stack on one of their biggest provinces and pillage and burn them into submission.

iBuen Fortuna!

A

[HopAlongBunny]

Sounds like you are all set!

With the Byz (esp in desert) I like to skirimish a lot. The Byz units tend to be heavy so letting them chase jinettes or merc HA's causes a lot of fatigue. I once fought an entire attack w/o moving anything but my skirmishers; the Byz would chase one unit at a time to my edge and I could slaughter it. Time-consuming but good results.

Kill'em all