Danish Campaign

[el_slapper]

Danes rock. I think that assuming you do unite Scandinavia early, they are the most powerful nation of the game. For one single reason : noone seems to attack them. Have 2-3 ships in every seazone, conquer rebels, & you'll rule without a threat.

[nick_maxell]

Danes rock. I think that assuming you do unite Scandinavia early, they are the most powerful nation of the game. For one single reason : noone seems to attack them. Have 2-3 ships in every seazone, conquer rebels, & you'll rule without a threat.

I usually get attacked by the HRE as soon as the French or Italians start nibbeling them but its a good excuse to grab Saxony - thats assuming the HRE are still not in total rebellion (about half of the time I play the Danes) - they will attack for sure in GA games if you own the baltic coast (their GA goal) - even in non GA games it seems to me the AI is playing along the same strategy for most of the fractions (ie the French ALWAYS crusade for Syria and the English for Palestine first) maybe just my imagination.

As for the Danes - the only annoying thing is that it takes some time to get the cash rolling - but for Sweden the Scandinavian provinces have no good farming income so it usually takes me about 50 yrs to be able to build what I want (when the first good trade routes come online) - raiding early into the baltics and steppes helps to get some money but its hard to hold onto these lands so I usually just move on until the army gets beaten.

One thing I haven t seen mentioned in the thread is the importance to grab some land in the western and eastern Med - it cuts fleet upkeep by half if you can get an island in each and it helps later to build ships locally rather than moving them all the way from the Baltic.

One post mentiones huge AI empires - in my experience they only last for about 20 - 40 years before the break apart again - in my current game as the Danes the Spanish range from southern France to Constantinople but lately have to fight rebellions/reemergences every turn in a couple of provinces so I give them until their current king dies before civil war or the Horde if they come earlier than that (its about 1215)

anyway - gotta run - have a "date" with the French in Flanders



nick

[Ash]

After some failures I finally am having a decent Danish campaign. It did require some patience though. Money was a big problem till I got trade going (pointless it seems to build anything but shipyards and economics the first 50 years or so).

I didn't build much of a traderoute though. In my game the French got real big real fast. They conquered nearly entire western Europe and north Africa except for Italy.

So I had to react. I had 2 Longboats per tile up to Spain which would prove vital for my succes. My fleet was concentrated in the English channal.

Around 1170 I was able to start building some good stuff. I had conquered Scandinavia, Lithuania, Ireland and Saxony before that date. So I was pretty small.
I could've gone the cheap route and pumped out nothing but Vikings in Norway. But I decided to pump out Landsmenn and Huscarls as well (what's the point of playing the Danish if you don't go for the good stuff?).
Didn't bother with archers and I had only a handfull of Mounted Seargants. Did have quite a few RKs though.
Of course it did mean I was running a huge debt so I had to attack quick.

Round 1180 I decided to attack. I did have a large army filled with axe-weilding guys but my army was definitely much smaller then the French in the region.
I went for the Low countries and Nothern France first. The French just kept retreating as soon as they saw me and never put up a fight. It was at sea however that my victory was insured.

Large empire need to stay connected with the King or rebellions will break out. If enemy ships disrupt that connection...well it did and 3 (!) factions the French had previously destroyed reappeared. It was game over for the Frenchies. It also didn't help they kept retreating which put a serious dent on their King's influence.

My tiny Denmark saved the world near 1190. She beat an enemy 5 times her size or something.
I lost a few ships but my fleet is still in tact in the nothern seas. The few battles I did in Nothern France were decided in my favour (no brilliant tactics, just running up the slopes with Landsmenn and Huscarls and flanking with cavalry).

Downside is though I only have a few years left to crank out Vikings. I think I'll just stop then and enjoy what Denmark had accomplished before 1205...:)

[Procrustes]

Cool. BTW, you'll still be able to crank out Vikings after 1205, but not Huscarles. Try to make sure you are teched up enough to make some of the new units that become available after 1205 - like halbs, arbs, CK, CS, and CMAA. (Especially halbs & arbs, imo - you'll need them if you take on the GH.)

[_Aetius_]

The danish army I think anyway, isnt suited to large armies, I think small, flexible task forces are far better than your standard western army.

Even in the 14th and 15th century when the game was in a highly advanced stage, I was launching invasions with only 1200 men tops, preferring to defeat armies and withdraw rather than conquer and rule.

Even when more advanced units are available I prefer fast moving lighter armies with vikings always present, I leave heavier troops on garrison duty and send my hordes of viking raider cavalry, vikings, huscarles and landsmen/carls with archer support to terrorise the surrounding rivals to my kingdom

Also mercenaries play a larger part in danish armies than most other factions I use, when the Mongols turned up and threatened my large possessions in the steppes I hired hundreds of English Byzantine and Italian mercenaries which added what was needed to my Danish armies which frankly dont stand a chance against the Horde.

The Danes are once youve built them up one of the more interesting factions to go and offer a different experience to most other catholic factions.

[Zarax]

Wherever there's a bridge you can vanquish the horde with simple spears and a bit of cavalry.
I vanquished the horde using a mix of steppe cav + heavies, alans, szekely and avar nobles (i was playing with the hungarians), dismounting the light cav into spears and using the heavies to hunt down the mongol warriors while the ranged troops came to take care of horse archers and naphta.
With such teams i managed to inflict 2:1 to 3:1 loss ratio and armies ranging between 1000 and 2000 units.
Beware, outside bridge defences such a tactic is suicidal as without chockepoints dismounted spears cannot cover the front and are easily overwhelmed when stretched.

[weegee]

I'm about to take on the Horde myself. It's going to be interesting how it all plays out. Let me paint the picture:

It's 1220. I (Danes) am at war with Byz, Hungary, and English. The latter have a very strong presence in western France. We are faced off at Saxony/Brandenbrug (me) and Franconia (them). They've tried a couple of times to seize the lands mentioned, but were bloodily repulsed. I tried to take Franconia this last turn, and although putting up a very good fight (outnumbered 3500 to 900, they sent in lots of reinforcements after I hit end turn), my men tired out and I had to withdraw. So, we will probably have a rematch on the next turn.

None of the 3 wish to accept ceasefires, as I'm trying to keep my list of enemies down in anticipation of the Horde.

I am squared off against Byz at Khazar (they own) and I own the 5 surrounding provinces from Kiev to Volga-Bulgaria. Basically, if the Horde appear in Khazar, I'm sure the Byz will withdraw to Crimea or Georgia, thus leaving me to take the full force of invasion. Unless I can make a very quick alliance when they first appear. I'm stacking troops best I can in the 5 provinces, but most of my high tech units are going to fight the English, so mostly Fuedal MAA and Sarges are manning the borders. I'm just starting to move over some Chiv MAA & Sarges and Arbs, heavy steppe Cav, etc. But this will be minimal because I have to spread over 5 borders.

Here are my choices, the way I see it. Let me know if there are others:

1) If Byz stay and fight at Khazar (highly unlikely), either make alliance with Horde or hope that Byz can weaken the first brunt of attack enough for me to compete. It will depend on which way Horde turns to expand, north towards me or south towards Byz and Turks.

2) Scorch Earth Volga, Ryazan, and Pereya and concentrate in Kiev, Chernigov, and Muscovy. Basically cutting border defense from 5 to 3. This will allow me to shorten resupply lines and provide a good foot hold to counter attack from. If I put up enough of a good defensive line, Horde might shift focus to middle east and leave me alone.

3) Leave it on the line, pump out as many units as I can over the next 10 turns, dig in, and fight it out. I like this idea!

[Age]

When playing in a campaign when do you start getting into the battle as I have been pushing the year end button not enough funds?Thanks.

[CherryDanish]

Also mercenaries play a larger part in danish armies than most other factions I use, when the Mongols turned up and threatened my large possessions in the steppes I hired hundreds of English Byzantine and Italian mercenaries which added what was needed to my Danish armies which frankly dont stand a chance against the Horde.

Definately mercenaries are good for adding variety to the Danish army such as adding decent missle troops, missle cav, heavy cav, decent light cav (notice a trend here), and adding decent light troops for desert warefare.

The Danes excel at putting heavy AP units in the line, but it's hard to trap a mobile army if you're on offense. That said, the most success I have ever had with any units against the horde have been the Huscarles and the VGs (OK, VGs are not viking, but are similar to the huscarles and historically based on viking mercenaries). On defense, park huscarles in a wooded treeline and wait for the mongols to charge. If you can manouver another unit to flank the devastation is complete and total. The horde doesn't possess a single unit that can fight effectively in a large wooded area, thier strength lies in the open plains. I've easily built 4-6 valour per huscarle unit in a single fight against the horde during some of my campaigns. My favourite tactic is when the horde withdraws troops I move single units of huscarles into different woods along the withdraw vector the horde uses. Withdrawing horde units get turned into ground beef when they enter the woods I control. The horde will always send in their top general or king into the meat grinder and once he's dead, combined with the horrible one sided casualties they suffer, they route as soon as you look at them funny.