How am I doing?

[weegee]

Let me paint the picture.

Year: 1158 (Early, Normal)
Faction: Italy
Provinces Added: Serbia, Naples, Papal States, Austria, and Croatia
Treasury: 10k
Yearly Budget: +2.5k (usually gets sucked up by new buildings/units, but I try to maintain my 10k stash)
Infastructure: Excellent. No chance of Rebellion, many top notch buildings, and very modern army (ILI, mounted sergeants, Genoese Sailors, FMAA, etc.) in good size in key areas. Wonderful trade network stretching from Portugal to black sea.
Allies: Poland, France, Turkey. At war with no one.

State of the world:

Turkey and Byz are engaged in a heated war. Turks are knocking on Cons, but it doesn't look like they have the force to take. Byz dominates eastern side of map. I'm allied with Turks and nuetral with Byz because I don't want Byz to be able to free up their border troops with me and use to crush Turkey. Better to have them at war, wearing each other down.

Eggys are holding on and fended off attack with France. They could be in trouble in the next 15-20 years.

France wore Germany down, and then I finished them. France also got a little bit too ambitious and took on Argos, Eggys, and Germans. Things looked very scary for a while as most of western map was blue, but then they extended too much and now they are reeling. To pour salt on the wound, they just got ex'd last turn.

Poland seems to be in command of the North and coming along nicely.

Not sure about the British isles region as I still have some emissaries working their way up there. But I'm sure it's still contention.


Next Steps:

I'm thinking of doing one (maybe two) of three.

1) Finish off France. I share 3 borders with them and I'm pretty sure I can beat them in 2 of the 3, probably all. In Provence, they have 7 Royal Knight Units (no kidding). Looks like that's where they want their last stand to be. Taking these 3 would pretty much wipe them out, leaving them with another 2 or 3 provinces, but Argos and Eggys are sucking up their resources.

Question. Now that they have been Ex'd, can I invade them without fear of Pope, or should I start a crusade. I have a marker available.

2) Sicily was a thorn in my side, but I counter hit them and razed their buildings, and withdrew back to Naples. Now, the royal family camps on Malta as Sicily is a constant rebellion. I can pretty much take the faction out in 2 turns if I need to and it shouldn't hit my trade income too much since I'm only trading with Malta. Again, here, about 6 or 7 Royal Knight units. But I have the ILI to compete and artillery to take care of seige.

3) Start Crusade/Invade Byz. If I do this, I'll probably leave France alone because I don't want to fight a two front war. Byz is starting to turn the tide against Turks, so I'm worried they'll take control and then out money me. But, alot of my trade is with Byz, so there's that too consider and they also have a very impressive army and a big navy (not as big as mine, but will still choke up the shipping lanes).

I'm leaning towards taking out Sicily/Malta to build some experience for troops, and then take on France while I can take advantage of their excommunication.

[bretwalda]

Attack France while they are excommed. Then Sicilians. Then Byz, but only if you really have the resources and you want it bad. They hardly ever get big, especially if the Turks knock on Const. Their troops don't get better in the next era. And they are a nice buffer against Mongols...

[weegee]

Good advice. So Byz gets stuck in the old era while Turks will modernize and eventually overtake?

Good to know. I'll keep my trade up with them and focus west. Let the Byz, Turks and Horde distract each other.

[ajaxfetish]

Definitely go for France first. You can't be sure how long they'll stay exed, so take advantage of it. Go ahead and use your crusade against a close-by, important province, as you'll get some cool bonus troops and end the crusade quickly so you can use them wherever you want. Italian Light Infantry should work great against the royal knights. Take a good chunk of French/rebel lands and then develop them to prepare for later conflicts. You've got plenty of time left and the larger your empire grows the harder it gets to manage and control, so you may not want to explode too quickly, but get a solid chunk of land and then work on its loyalty, economy, and troop production capability before moving on.

If someone else is getting too big and you don't border them you can either try a long range sea invasion or (especially if they're an ally you don't want to lose but you still want to limit) you can harass them with assassins, bishops, inquisitors, spies, etc. to try to weaken them from within.

So mainly, take advantage of the situation with France, Figure out how far you can stretch before it's time to regroup, take some strategically valuable provinces (ie. chokepoints, trading giants, iron deposits, etc.), and bide your time. Feel free to build more crusades, too. It sounds like you'll have plenty of opportunities to use them later if the Byzantines, Turks, Egyptians--and eventually the horde--are the other major players on the map. As long as you stay on the Pope's good side, at least.

[Procrustes]

Definitly take France. The French provinces are very farm-rich, and IDF is generally quite developed. You can make a fortune in trade from Flanders.

Regarding Sicily, both Naples and Sicily are wealthy provinces with good trade, and Malta gives a bonus to your crusader Knights. Consider taking them out once you have disected France.

Regarding Bzy/Turks/Egyptians, I like the GA role-play stuff, so as the Italians I like to crusade towards Constantinople and the holy lands sooner or later. Wait for now... and make sure you start by attacking their fleets.

[weegee]

Well, I took your great advice and mopped up France last night. I didn't realize it at the time, but they actually had many of the British provinces. So I stormed into Provence, Burgundy, and Tyrolia which caused massive chain reaction. The English who had been eliminated, reappeared and took re-control of 3 of their provinces that were being held by the French. So in 2 turns, France lost 6 provinces all together. Now they're down to about 4 with an average army. Time to finish them off.

If I kill of their faction, do their ships disappear from the game?