What am I doing wrong?

[fuddha]

"What am I doing wrong??"
or
"An ode to the suffering kings"

suffered and then written by:
fuddha, thy bane



WTF??

In every single game I play there comes a moment when every other faction in the world decides that my empire is to big and should be divided between them. Most recently, I played as the Hungarians in the early on hard. I have struggled and pushed and bled for every single province that can benefit me or shorten my borders. By the year 1150 (not sure, around third GA point counting anyway), I control the Balkan, most of the Byzant, eastern Europe, every HRE territory and northern Italy.
Troughout the whole game, my budget surplus rarely exceeds 1500 florines and I spend it whole in a single turn. I never have enough troops to invade someone, barely enough to defend myself. My only source of revenue is capturing enemy royalty in combat and ransoming them back for their whole treasury. Of course, my trade is nonexistant since it costs me way to much to get a trading province and build it up for trade. If I manage to get a single trading province up to pumping out those barques, the moment I get one, those damned Sicilians destroy it. OMG! You fu**ing morons! I have only 1 stinking barque, leave it alone goddamnit!!! Only way for me to outproduce them is to bring three provinces in Adriatic sea and three more in Black sea pumping 'em out. Do you know how much it costs me to create such a barque factory?? A gazillion bazzilion fifillion florins which I don't have in the first place! And while those provinces are busy producing barques, they can't produce other units which are badly needed as always...
Because of the chronic lack of money, I can't build up my provinces to produce upgraded units. So I end up fighting with hordes of urban militia and vannila spearmen and archers against upgraded and armoured enemies. Of course I control the best place in Europe (Spain comes in second) when it comes to creating units (iron deposits in Franconia, Bohemia, Hungary and Carpathia). But what I don't have is the money to build up the infrastructure needed for those metalsmiths!! Sheesh!
And when I once got to thinking that I can finnaly rest having the Germans and Italians eradicated, secured the border with France and the Pope, I have been on great terms with the Poles from the start, managed to banish Byzant from Constantinople and surrounding lands to Muscovy (just don't ask me how ), and marrying my princessess to France (steamrolled over England and half of Spain) and Egypt (steamrolled over Turks), everybody goes berserk on me! The turn after the French kill the English, they go to war with me with 6 stacks. Luckily I have taken most of my troops from now former Byzant to conquer Denmark, so I have something to slow them down at the right place at the right moment. Which is a one those one in a million shots. Or am I lucky?? Of course not! The Egyptians decide to attack me from the very opposite side of my empire with another 5 stacks! (have I mentioned that I have very few ports and no ships whatsoever???) Right after that the Pope himself decides to join the fun and conquers northern Italy with three stacks. The Sicilians join the fun right after that, eager to throw their three upgraded stacks at me. That fun is topped only by the Byzant coming back from Muscovy with three more stacks! I have 6 stacks at most to defend four long battle lines!! And of course my beloved ally, the Polish, has decided to abandon me when I need their help most. It's just the question of time when will they figure out what's happening to my beautiful empire and dive in for my core provinces!

To summarize: I have a very big empire surrounded by enemies, no units to defend long borders and no money to build them either. I have no emissaries no spys no bihops no nothing! To summarize the summary: I'm completely and utterly screwed!

What do you see as my major errors?
What would you do differently?
How to get out of this mess?

[ichi]

When I first started playing I truly enjoyed the Byzantines, but after 2-3 years of campaigns and multiplayer I believe the Huns to be my favorite faction. As such I've played them several times, and have a few ideas.

Cash flow is a huge problem, maybe only the HRE has it worse. The only way to make more than 1000 florins per turn is to very very carefully manage build queues and to fight with few, but high quality, troops. No mercs, only one or two UM early on. I mostly use HA and the fantastic Szekely (but they're expensive). Early on I use Spears, then Armored Spears, Slav Warriors (best cheapo unit in the game IMO) and a few javs to defend the bridge in Kiev.

My unit strategy is to build up Hungary to make upgraded Szeks, and another armored province to make Feudal Men at Arms. After the early years the combo of Szeks and FMAA is more than a match for the AI troops, and I can get by with relatively small troop numbers (and lower costs).

Building up provinces early on is very hard to do (at least for me anyway) so I focus on only those upgrades necessary for the troop I mentioned, money-makers like farms and mines and trading posts and ports, and ships.

I try to get one province on each coast (Moldavia and Croatia for example) buidling ships. I build farms and mines and TPs first, then time the ports to come online with the first ships.

In order to make it work I can only have one or two items in my queues (not one or two in each province, one or two total) and always keep the unit costs down.

It is essential to be active in diplomacy, make nice with the Poles, Itals, Turks, Eggies, Sicilians, Itals, and HRE (and anybody else for that matter) to reduce conflicts and to max income once the sea trading comes online.

Finally, the whole thing requires careful management of guvs - only 4 acumen guys or better get to be guvs.

What I've found is that by fighting with small numbers of high quality troops I get good Virtues (like Skilled Defender) and command star upgrades.

One cheezy tactic is to use my Szeks to charge Archers, Peasants, anybody who is routing, all to get those in-battle valor boosts.

At some point in most Hun campaigns all of sudden I get ships down to Egypt and over to Genoa, and then the florins flow in. Then I upgrade provinces and prep for the Mongols. Once the Horde has been defeated, take the Steppe and Russia, own the Turks, and once you take the Middle East the Crusades cease to be a problem then its on to Western Europe.

Hope those ideas help. At the point you're at now you may just have to take a chance and disband large numbers of troops, build a navy, and hope you have time to build up your cash.

ichi

[_Aetius_]

Ive always found with the huns, patience is indeed a virtue it sounds like youve gone to far far to quickly, hence the overstretching/lack of infrastructure/crap economy.

The few times ive gone the huns as already pointed out by Ichi money is a problem, i found though that waiting for the inevitable collapse of one of the neighbouring superpowers The holy roman empire or the byzantine empire, provides me with all the conquest i need, as hungary does not have the economy to go to war in long drawn out campaigns unless victory is a certainty.

The huns are not Byzantium they do not have bottomless pits of money they also dont have such a strong empire infact its a crap minor little kingdom about as safe from invasion as the HRE is on expert.

Hungary needs trade without it its dead, the easy target of moldavia can trade but the grain it exports is already in vast supply around the black sea hence trade is tiny, you need a province that can trade goods few or no other province in the area has, or makes alot of money no matter what, Venice is a perfect target Kiev is a lesser target but stil possibly valuable.

Diplomacy is as vital for hungary as any other faction, they simply have to be on good terms with the neighbouring major powers, byzantium is easy but the HRE will attack no matter what, but defencively hungary should easily hold them off, besides the HRE is usually in trouble and civil war can erupt easily so provinces can be plentiful.

Also of course there are greater dangers to factions in the east of the map.

If i were id start again, no harm in learning from experience but if you insist on carrying on, i suggest sacrificing provinces that are either constantly being attacked and will eventually fall anyway or provinces that just arent worth the effort, it wont do your economy much good (but make sure you sack them throughly before allowing your enemies to take them back) and withdraw your forces and consolidate and concentrate, of course dont lose so many provinces that civil war is inevitable but reductions are necessary at this point.

With luck this will pacify some of your weaker enemies into agreeing to ceasefire giving you some respite. Really you need luck, overstretching is almost irreversible when it is to this extent, try and make the governors or your provinces men with high acumen 4 is the minimum you should go for unless theres simply nobody else with good acumen. Very high taxes in all the provinces you can afford to risk rebellion in and simply hope your enemies calm down and that you can consolidate enough that any incursion can be held off, but really i do think civil war is almost inevitable no matter what you do.

Good luck and i suggest you die well

[fuddha]

Thanx for the advice!!
I have started again as huns on hard in early. I'll now dispense my advice for every Hungarian player out there...

I've found out what's was my problem: having long borders. I had a solid amout of troops but I had way too much terittory to guard. Reducing and consolidationg borders does the trick. Only first 10-20 turns MUST be played absolutely agressive. Taking Bohemia, Austria, Venice [watch closely the Italians because they'll take it if you don't carefully balance your forces in Venice with theirs in Tuscany and Milan] and Bulgaria is a priority. After making peace, maybe even alliance, with the nations you took these provinces from, you can turn to the rebel lands. To make sure, they'll take peace, build a fort in each of those provinces and stack them with 240 men. Also give away your princessess. There are usually only 1-3 spearmen and/or peasants in each rebel province and taking them out with a couple of horse archers poses no problem. So, Serbia, Moldavia, Kiev, Lithuania and finnaly Wallachia is the way to go. Anything else is just overkill. Taking Khazar and Crimea proved to be a big mistake, since the Byz or the Turks (whoever survives) will not have a "creative outlet", so the speak. Altough Khazar is a trading powerhouse, it's better to let AI expand to rebel lands instead to your own (BTW Kiev is great for defence since you'll defend on a river if someone invades it from east). Let them in east europe! It doesn't matter. Since you've limited the expansion of Poland it is to be expected that they'll attack you. Not letting them get to that point is crucial. They'll probably depleet their forces on conquering those highly rebellious Pomerania and Prussia. Since you have direct access to each of their provinces except Pomerania, you can attack all their provinces simultaniously. They'll probably retreat with all of their forces to Pomerania. Since you now have only two borders with Poland in Pomerania (instead of six) guarding them and picking them off at your leisure shouldn't pose a problem. Also the Pope will not have the time to excommunicate you if you do the blitzkrieg style. Now it's time to stop. Now you have 17 provinces and only 10 are border ones (8 if you don't count Lithuania and Kiev). Around this time west of the Europe will be in shambles and HRE will probably be reduced to a couple of provinces. Don't take them if you aren't absolutely positive that you can hold them! It's better to have a buffer between you and France. Only Franconia is worth taking, and it should be taken only if it's rebel. Now build up Venice, Kiev and Lithuania for naval trade; Bohemia, Hungary and Carpathia for unit building (iron deposits) and the rest for farming. Soon the Turks or the Egyptians will take out Byzant and then you'll have to move in for Greece and Constantinopole, thus reducing your borders furthermore. It's all about building trade and farms from now on, and watching closely the English-French-HRE war. You'll probably have to intervene and don't let any of the forces be victorious or you're done for.

I've done as described, and I have 13-15 stacks of units total (not counting basic guards), my bank account is around 100,000 florins and I'm getting around 10,000 each turn. I have 23 provinces and I also have at least two barques in every sea province (explaining that income). Now I'm ready to take out anybody that I see fit...

He's got the whole world in his hands...