'Older' newbe

[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