I bet I'm not the only player here who already finds the expert level too easy to play seriously.
By "seriously" I mean playing the game to win, using early rushes, slash & burn, mercenary spamming, ridiculous trade incomes - all the dirty tricks in the book - and ignoring those flavorful princesses, v&v's, diplomacy, and other elements that don't really matter.
I never play it that way, btw. M:TW is such a gripping atmospheric RPG/strategy game that I always have way more fun playing a slow GA game with lots of self-imposed limitations. I want to discuss some recommendations for playing this way and what I've found to be fun and what not.
1. Always march your crusades across Europe! At least the first and second ones. The abusive, and highly unsatisfying, way is to either sail them across the Mediterranean or go on a rampage across North Africa. Do it the real way - pick up some Hungarian cavalry, pillage Byzantium, get harrassed by the Turks, then have your tattered force greeted by a swarm of Egyptian camels in the desert...
2. Expand slowly. Being dominant barely half through the early era is so disappointing. Try to enforce a stable balance of power in Europe, fighting the expansionist powers, holding yourself back, and keeping the small factions in the game.
3. Don't abuse trade. An efficient trade network can make any faction ridiculously rich, even small ones like Sicily. This usually makes money irrelevant for any purpose other than bribing faction armies - too good, too easy. It's hard to set the limit here though, I usually like to get some trade profits eventually.
4. Don't stress your neighbours. The AI is genuinely alarmed by large armies next to their borders and will try to match them. If your neighbours are otherwise kept busy by other threats or ambitions (even just rebels), it's often enough to just leave a peasant garrison next to their border - if they have no designs on you, they'll often leave just a small army across the border in turn. Some factions are not trustworthy though (French and Hungarians come to mind) and I think small factions with nowhere else to expand (e.g. Aragonese or Danes with Scandinavia conquered) cannot be trusted.
My vote for the most fun faction is the Holy Roman Empire - no chokepoints or isolated land-masses to hide behind, lots of neighbours, no super generals for free and some very ambitious GA goals.
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In my current game with HRE I've successfully kept peace with the Danes and Polish by leaving the north undefended while they're busy fighting hordes of rebels (Norway has huge stacks by now, it's insane).
The French came after me early but I threw them back and burnt down Toulouse and Ile de France, then retreated to my home territory - worked out well since they're on a rampage anyway and keeping both my English and Spanish allies busy while I managed to get peace with them.
Meanwhile I'm focused on completing my crusading goals and have already marched two big crusades to the Holy Land, the land route. From there I guess I'll just get a chapter house in Antioch to finish my last two crusades locally.
Back in Europe the Italians turned against me for attacking their friends the Egyptians. I decided to destroy them this time, since it's part of the German GA goals, so I now hold all the Italian mainland territories, while the Byzantines took Corsica and Sardinia.
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I'd love to hear from y'all some tips for playing this kind of "controlled" game and perhaps the story of your best game so far :)
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