How to garrison my provinces.

**Dayve** · 04-19-2006, 06:09

Playing as England, i own all of France now... They have been eliminated. But what's the best way to garrison my provinces? At the moment i'm just keeping like 1 unit of peasants in the castle there, but this isn't the best idea... The enemy could just march in and take my province and then some buildings will be destroye and when i get it back i'll have to build them all again... But i can't afford to keep a small army in every province... What to do?

**Martok** · 04-19-2006, 07:39

A strategy I often employ is the "Hub-Satellite" tactic:

I usually keep a minimal garrison in most of my provinces just like you're already doing. In addition, though, I also station more powerful armies (at least a full stack) in a few key provinces behind my front lines. Generally, I prefer these "hub" provinces to be fairly centrally located, so that they touch and/or are close to many of my other provinces. This way when one of my outer "satellite" provinces is invaded (and its overpowered garrison presumably forced to retreat to the castle), I can quickly dispatch one of my hub provinces' "rapid deployment" armies to relieve the siege in just 1-2 turns.

In your case, I would probably station strong armies in both Anjou (or Ile de France if it doesn't directly border the HRE), and Wessex (or Mercia, if you haven't conquered the Scots yet and are worried about them). That should give you sufficient ability to defend your lands without having to keep large and expensive garrisons in every single province. [shrug] I should note that this strategy *usually* works well for me; your milage may vary, however.

**Dayve** · 04-19-2006, 13:02

I was thinking of something along those lines myself, i usually do that in RTW. Thanks for the advice.

Another question - I saw a few turns back that the pope (The doddering eld freeloader) called a crusade against my nation for "being hostile toward other christian nations"... IT WAS FRANCE WHO ATTACKED ME! I had no choice but to be hostile... What am i to let them conquer me and not defend myself simply because they are also christian? No chance of that..

Anyway, Spain also called a crusade ending in (i think) Tunisia.. How do i call a crusade? Seems like mucho fun.

**Mithrandir** · 04-19-2006, 14:57

You have to build a chapter house first, then you can create a crusade Icon and send it to a non-christian country, like you would with a regular army.

It looks like a cross and has some religious units in it, order troops, fanatics etc and picks up units along the way in christian countries.

-Mithrandir

**mfberg** · 04-19-2006, 16:00

On the province garrisons - put your back-up armies in the second row for immediate strikes, and garrison with 100 to 200 troops depending on unit size. Peasants are not the best troops for the garrisons, Woodsmen, fanatics, and Celtic warriors are better. If you are playing the 60/100 man units put 2 units of 60 as a garrison rather than one of 100.

Crusades are great, but don't ever lose one. It will tank your Kings influence and in some cases cause a civil war to start.

mfberg

**Dayve** · 04-19-2006, 16:50

Thank you both.

**bretwalda** · 04-19-2006, 18:28

Originally Posted by mfberg

On the province garrisons - put your back-up armies in the second row for immediate strikes, and garrison with 100 to 200 troops depending on unit size. Peasants are not the best troops for the garrisons, Woodsmen, fanatics, and Celtic warriors are better. If you are playing the 60/100 man units put 2 units of 60 as a garrison rather than one of 100.

Crusades are great, but don't ever lose one. It will tank your Kings influence and in some cases cause a civil war to start.

mfberg

Ideally you garrison with such troops that you can give a serious blow to the enemy before you retreat to the castle. That very much depends on the defending terrain.

Don't ever lose a Crusade. Not only that your moving, filled Crusade should not be beaten and killed in a battle but you should never have a territory that produced a (or heaven forbid more that one) crusade marker fall into enemy hands.

I had several markers in Corsica once (nothing else to build there) and the island was taken. Instant huge civil war. Ouch.

Actually I don't think that makes sense or even logical on any level, since you haven't called the crusade thus your reputation cannot suffer. But anyway it is coded that way and we should live with that.