When is 'abandon province' a good idea?

**EatYerGreens** · 07-14-2005, 01:54

First go at MTW with VI installed (VI_201_Patch.exe is still pending)

First go at Expert, prev experience with STW/MTW, mostly on Normal and in need of advice about Byz-specific capabilities but also raises a general discussion.

Byz:Early:Expert

I'm attacked in Trebizond by 1200 Turks, outnumbering me by about 4:1, on turn 10, so I've only cranked out 2 peasants, 2 UMs (which nearly all went elsewhere to boost up loyalty and tax rates) and a measly 2 units of +1 Treb Archers from there, one of which was shipped out. To top it all, I just moved my brand-new 8-star prince into there (instead of the Emperor with his +2 stars when defending) and he will get trapped in a fort+motte which is predicted to fall immediately, if I lose.

At least the game says "the general will choose his best troops to retreat to the castle". I presume that includes himself. This is a real nuisance feature of the game, as it's the general who you want to keep alive and the dross unit types who you want to sit it out in the hope that the attacker's troops die off from disease/arrow towers/boiling oil and stuff....

Fortunately for me, the PC rebooted itself before I could conduct the battle so I get a 'take-two' chance to restore from the gamesave, raise some extra mercs which were available and put up a decent resistance. Their stack has the Sultan's GC, possibly one prince's GC, maybe 4 Horse Archers, 400 spearmen (to only 100 of mine) plus sundry Napthas, ballista, UMs and one lot of pez in the reinforcement queue.

First question is what are my chances with just 2 TrebA's, 1 ByzInf, 1 Spear, 1UM, 80 Szekelys (??? some Merc cav unit, with axes) and 20 Kat'oi against that lot?

This raises the question of what sort of unfavourable battle odds would prompt you to abandon a key development province, so as to counter-attack in greater strength later, knowing that the combined pillage demolition (at least two lots, them and later yourself, IF you manage to get it back) will set your long-term development back severely? I would have thought the valoured TrebArchers are key to the Byz's plan.

Rousing tales of long-odds survival would be of help at this point but if it involves low manpower, high-tech units then save it for later, please. It won't be of help to me at the moment. In my prev go at Byz, I've seen Kat units get badly cut up, but not what it was that killed them. I don't get the feeling of invulnerability that I see others in the forum attribute to them.

**kiwitt** · 07-14-2005, 02:45

I usually decide which provinces will be my home provinces.

For example, If I play

England, I select the island provinces.
Spain, I select the Iberian provinces.

Those are the provinces worth defending, and developing. Should your empire implode, you can fall back onto these to regroup , then expand again.

**ichi** · 07-14-2005, 02:57

First question is what are my chances with just 2 TrebA's, 1 ByzInf, 1 Spear, 1UM, 80 Szekelys (??? some Merc cav unit, with axes) and 20 Kat'oi against that lot?

depends on their morale/valor. Low valor ByzInf will break when flanked, higher valor might hold a while. So what's the generals command rank? Does he have valor adding virtues? What's the terrain? TBH, it looks bad.

I abandon when doing so doesn't create a strategic problem (like letting a large enemy force have a province that would allow them access to my creamy soft interior provinces, and when the troops I would save are more important than the chance to kill lots of enemy (IMO its easier to kill wagonloads when defending). Or when trying to hold is just plain unreasonable.

ichi

**Zarax** · 07-14-2005, 07:20

The merc cav with axes is most likely the Druzhina Cavalry, dismount them and you'll get your odds quite improved with 80 FK on your side.

**Roark** · 07-14-2005, 07:40

Veterans: What's he supposed to do against the 4 units of HA???

**Zarax** · 07-14-2005, 07:45

Originally Posted by Roark

Veterans: What's he supposed to do against the 4 units of HA???

Find some tree cover and wait until they run out of ammo.

Also, as the muslim armies are quite cav heavy it would give him a nice terrain bonus.

**EatYerGreens** · 07-15-2005, 21:15

Originally Posted by Zarax

The merc cav with axes is most likely the Druzhina Cavalry, dismount them and you'll get your odds quite improved with 80 FK on your side.

Yes, I got the names muddled, because both were on offer (at the Inn in Trebizond itself, something else I stood to lose by abandoning the territory, but see the footnote below) and it wasn't 80 Druz, it was 60... It certainly wouldn't have occurred to me to dismount them as I'd have wanted to use them to chase off HA attacks. In addition to them, I had 40 Alan's, which the Byz get in Treb at the start plus 40 merc Faris.

Also, it wasn't 4 HAs in the attacking army, more like 6-8!

You'll all be disappointed to learn that I evaded this particular battle completely, by restoring from the last proper gamesave and making a completely different set of moves, with the somehwat cheaty foreknowledge of what might happen. This time, it was me who initiated the war.

I attacked Rum in force, they refuse to engage, pull out and retreat some to the castle. Annoyingly, none of his facilities get demolished, which is what I hoped to achieve. I move my 1.5 stacks to Armenia but their Sultan has gone north to take Georgia off me. I pull mine out of there but win in Armenia, killing a prince. My token siege force in Rum is told to abandon after the predicted sally with backup but I attack them from Armenia the following turn and win. It's then just a couple of defences of Rum, killing about 750 each time before they stop. Their Sultan is confined in Georgia for a few turns before recapturing Armenia. So it's currently 1:1 but I have the richer province of the two exchanged plus his Royal Palace stayed intact. I haven't built one in Constantinople yet but I get to award Chamberlain of the palace (+2 Acumen) to my Gov of Const. Yummmm.

All the movement and battling kept them from attacking Treb at all, which gave me time to mobilise more troops overall, build maybe a 3/4 stack there with plenty spears to put off their cav, train 4-5 more v1TrebAs, plus Nicaea only had to build a horse farmer to give me HAs of my own, trickling in, without needing to build TownWatch etc as pre-requisite and saving much time. It'll build towards PAs in later years. Anatolia has only got 20% farms and an Inn so far, for yet more mercs but thinly defended.

The Eggy's are allied to the Turks but strangely passive. I have only 2BI and 89 spears in Lesser Armenia but the 4 Ghulams and 1000+ pez in Antioch are staying where they are... for now. The divots...

Trebizond seems to be a natural first target for the Turks - three thinly defended Byz territories can be struck from there, not least the capital itself. Due to troop movements out of it, my garrison there has not grown beyond its state on turn one - 60 archers, 60 VGs and 100 ByzInf. I've no intention of moving the VG's until I've the means to replace them, which won't be for a while yet with my existing building plans.

Besides, in spite of being faction with largest annual income, I'm strapped for cash at the moment, with a mere 3000 in the bank, multiple provinces needing to be developed and maybe 1100-1500 per turn cashflow, if I'm lucky (auto-taxes are ON, for a change). Greece or Crete are candidates for first shipbuilder, since the capital will be preoccupied with troops for a long while yet and the royal palace looks pricey when I need a keep somewhere else first...

I did get to meet all these Turk HAs in the end and they're a real pain in the arse to clear off the battle map, even when the rest of their army has routed off it. My Faris survived one battle completely unscathed but, up against endless HA's they were cut down to about 27, after the second defence of captured Rum. The Druz, unfortunately, got cut down to an 11 and a 12 - which the game refuses to let me merge - after one particular assault.

Footnote about Inns:

I've never properly exploited these in past campaigns, what with costing as much as a fort, I regarded them as either an expensive luxury item for 'just in case' scenarios or just another thing which slows up development in a region.
However, in my false-start as the Byz, I'd had rebellions on Cyprus, then Rhodes. Building a fort risks being trapped and seiged but the temptation to build TownWatch and spear or Archer workshops just means more expense plus temptation to over-garrison to the point of 'uneconomic-ness'. An inn avoids risk of siege entrapment but still allows you to react to announcements of 'XYZ will attack next year'.

Similarly, I like to keep some frontline provinces as 'fighting zones', where I hold back development deliberately, perhaps only improve farms to make it an attractive target. Again the inn allows extra mobilisation where troop moves risk weaking the provinces next door but this time I have to anticipate when attacks are coming as you don't get the advance warning that you do with revolts.