Denmark

[McDoogle]

I just found a way to get tot eh new world from the begning :P

cheat! press '~' and type 'toggle_fow' and move ur cursor to the corner of the map and keep going and there they are

[Skott]

Well, I'm glad to hear they improved the game's AI. It was one of my biggest complaint about RTW. In some ways it kinda sounds like you wait for the Pope to get mad at someone, or for a nation to attack first, and then you rush in and take as much as you can before the Pope changes his mind and decides to stop things. Then build up and wait for it to happen again. I'm looking forward to playing the game.

I got a email yesterday saying they are shipping the game but delivery got pushed back to December 4th! Dang it! First time I ever pre-ordered a game and I could have gotten it at the stores on launch day most likely. I cant cancel the order neither. Oh, well. Luckily I got enough to do to keep me busy till then. Although if it does go out in today's mail it shouldnt take more than 3-5 business days to get to me via regular mail. With the Holiday that would put it next week. December 4th must be like latest date to expect it. hmmmm...

Anyway guys. Thanks for the replies and good reads. I'll keep reading your experiences.

[lalartu]

I decided to see what would happen if I remained a heathen and told Pope to go * himself so here's how it went:

I had a stalemate on all fronts and had about 20 provinces. year was 1200ish and Danes were the least like nation by pope, constantly abused and always pushed around because Spanish took over France and established themselves as catholic supremacy.

so I got tired of that, took three army fulls of vikings and sent them on Italian peninsula, sacking everything on the way.

having destroyed Venice, I was excommunicated and kept pushing on toward the Rome. I reached Rome with half force and attacked Pope (it's an actual unit with some escort). he summoned a huge force from Rome and kicked my ass. They mostly had quite powerful heavy infantry units and swiss pikemen that took care of my husclar cavalry easy. so learning from my mistake I built up a full norse axemen army, grabbed my best two generals and sent them to sack rome and kill the new pope (he got reelected next turn and was spanish again).
Rome was sacked this time and I kept killing every pope they'd bring up until there were only two cardinals left and the pope was still....spanish.

so I got pissed and took everything I had west into the iberian peninsula. it was a tough campaign and I had my best generals burned on a stake (inquisition), assassinated and two of my kings perished, but eventually I sacked their every city and some of those sacked decided to stay with me with little or no army support needed.
so that sure added to my profits. by then I think I had about 40 provinces and about 4 full armies itching for more.
then comes a mongolian diplomat asking for peace and demanding an outrageous sum of 100k in return. that was the last I heard of mongolia. well not really, they kept asking for peace as I was advancing through egypt and sacking their cities, but i obviously didn't care, my goal was Jerusalem and Antioch.

it's also interesting that as soon as I sacked their cities, they would obviously not join for religous reasons, sothey all turned very rebellious and belonged to no one at all. so in a sense it was sort of a liberation mission.

by the time I reached antioch, my armies were almost completely gone mostly due to 9 star generals that mongols had from the beginning, but also due to their annoying skirmishing tactics. they work well on slow vikings and i didn't bring enough mounted husclars to take care of them. so I thought my campaign failed until I checked the merc units that were for sale in asia minor...and I boughtthe most powerful units in the game. four heavy cavalry units (kwazimirians I think) and two elephant cannons.

now having cavalry would be enough, but these elphant cannons were something different.

imagine having heavy elephants from rtw that can shoot as far as half the screen and kill people with explosive barrage. now that's something you don't mess with. so long story short, those two mammoths stomped their way through two hordes of mongols and reached antioch taking it with minimal losses.

then came the black death...
which is an event that kills off 1/3 of your population/soldiers and generals and causes a general havoc on anyone still trying to fight. so I had to stop and hope the aztec event would trigger, but nothing yet. and sincethere's no actual power threatening my empire anymore, I feel compelled to quit.

now as politics go, it's interesting how easy you get betrayed in the game. I had the warmest relationship with Russia, yet when I accidentally take my unit too close to their border, they eliminate my fleet, blockade my ports and take two of my cities.
whereas Milan which only had one major city left, kept *protecting* one of my cities from the spanish, but as soon as I went ahead conquering the spain, they attacked that same city and took it for themselves...bastards...

the only country that had not betrayed me was the Scots, but that was probably I never gave them a chance

[McDoogle]

You can't destroy the papcy...even if u take rome, they beg another christian kingdom to take them in...so th only way i can see would be to destroy every christian kingdom and then they have no where to go...but it would take too long, so personally i just put up with him, if i am to go to war, i make a big army, march in tak what i want in two turns and then defend till im told to back off. works :P, and just make sure u build churchs all the itme it willhelp u get back with the pope...n build heaps of piests cause if u do more of em will become cardinals, and then u will have control of the church...

my only problem is with all these bloody rebel armies appearing in my provinces, i have to keep a army at home to deal with them all, however im ainly just chase em into germany and then sit my army at the border so they cant be chased back.let them lose men

[AlphaDelta1]

I'm on turn 237 of the Danish campaign. I've taken all of northern France, England, Scandinavia, Germany, Poland and Austria. Well on the way to victory right? Nope..Mongols, mongols, mongols...They've been sieging my eastern settlements for atleast 40 turns..I've defeated more than 20 full stacks of Mongols while defending my settlements. I've yet to face them in the open, I'm pretty sure they'll wipe the floor with any army I send out.

Do they stop coming at some point? I've already failed the campaign.

[lalartu]

they stop coming after about 3 waves of 6 or so stacks.

but then timurids come and timurids are a true pain in the ass. think mongols with some really heavy ass units along with big attitude problems.

I'd advice to just keep to western europe and take england/spain so that you can pretend to have won the long campaign game hehe.

ps there's also always carribeans/south america

[Skott]

Well, after having played a English short campaign to familiarize myself with the game and its working mechanics, not to metion to open up the other nations, I started a Danish short campaign today. Settings are M/H. I started out by sending out two armies to the south and East. I sent my faction leader to Hamburg and my faction heir to Stettin. Instead of rushing in I laid siege to each. Takes longer but I figured it I was less likely to lose troops this way. Which I was right. Hamburg took 5 turns but at the end it folded without a fight. Stettin took 3 turns but they sallied forth. Luckily my mercenary archers whittled them down as my line held them in check. I swung my leader's unit in around behind them and forced them to flee back into Stettin. Which then I followed them in and let the archers whittle them down to the last man.

With Hamburg and Stettin secured I sent out diplomats and spies to uncover the lands and set up trade agreements. Magdeburg was taken by the Poles before I could get to it so I didnt proceed to move south or east since there wasnt anything left to me to take. The HRE and the Poles already got everything that was unclaimed. I then moved onto Stokholm. After capturing it I held my one army there to regroup and resupply.

I managed to bribe a general in Denmark and got some good troops along with him. I figured I'd send him to Oslo to capture it but at the last moment I trained more troops and put him on ship and sent it west. During my exploration of the continent I uncovered Antwerp and Bruges(Brussels? the rebel town just due west of Antwerp). During my earlier expansion and build up I noticed the HRE attacked Antwerp once but was repulsed. I kept a spy in the area to keep a watch on things and when I got a army together to take Oslo I noticed Antwerp had been left alone since the HRE's first attempt to take it. Well, I figure Oslo can wait and sent my army west by ship to take it if possible. Its a gamble but if I can get Antwerp it'll be a good cash cow for my growing empire. If I do it correctly maybe I can get Bruges too before the English or French take it. That would definetely be a coup for my Danes.

I'm on turn 22 and I have Hamburg, Stettin, and Stokholm under my banner. My shipboard army is halfway to Antwerp. I have all of Europe, Moorish Africa, and Turkey revealed on the map and trade relations with everyone except Scotland, Turks, and the Egyptians. The only alliance I have is with the HRE. I figured since they were my predertimed enemy that has to be wiped out I felt they'd be my biggest problem so I allied with them early to keep them off my front door and give me time to build up. As soon as my Stokholm army rebuilds I'll take Oslo and secure my final back door. After that I'll just build up my economy and take what scattered rebel towns are left and go any crusdes that might start up. I'll also watch for the HRE to lose favor with the pope. Hopefully they'll get excommunicated at some point and I can dart in and do a land grab.

All the Catholic nations are on good terms with the pope so I just need to build up and bide my time. Hopefully I can get my victory conditions done before the Mongols show up.



Addendum:

Well, after another session I continued my build up. I did capture Antwerp without a fight and then quick marched on Bruges and took it as well. All seemed well. I made another alliance with the Poles figuring we can all be nice nice together and and at first it was. I built up for a while and then the English decided they wanted war. Mostly it was a sea war at first. At the same time the Pope calls for the first crusade. I got two good half stacks of men in Antwerp and Bruges each so I figure I'll answer the Pope's call. This is where everything starts to go bad.

I didnt want to cross overland through other's territories. I missed the crusades in my English campaign so I didnt know what to expect. I was afraid an army marching through their lands would start wars. I skimmed the manual real quick and I didnt see anything about it. So I elected to go by sea. Apparently this was a big mistake. I took my Faction Leader and his nice full stack army and put them on my best ships. Oh, what a grande fleet of six boats it was too. I figure no one would touch them. The admiral had two stars. On the second turn I was going through the English Channel and desertion started. WTF? They start deserting on the second turn? Then they kept deserting each turn. By the time I entered the Medditerranean Sea I had lost half my beautiful crusader army. Where did they go to out at sea? Jump overboard and drown? About the time I passed Malta my King ups and dies! Just off southern Greece I run into a Egyptian fleet twice the size of mine and none too happy. They hold Antioch so I'm at war with them. They decimate my fleet. Whats left of my crusader army deserts. They preferred drowning I guess to landing somewhere. A few of my ships and the admiral make a wild run back west towards Sicily but The Egyptians chased my fleet down and destroyed what few ships I had left. So ended my grand fleet. ::sniff::

Okay, at this point I said screw the Crusade. Isnt worth the effort or price. I got a mission to blockade the English town of Caen. this works well for me. England and Denmark are at war. I'll take the town and get some freebie men or money for the mission and take the town. I build up a quick decent army and go by boat. I get almost there and then Poland and The HRE both declare war on me. WTF? This isnt good. I decide to forgo the mission and get that army back to Hamburg and Stettin ASAP. The English can wait. I still got good garrisons at Antwerp and Bruges and no English armies in that area. Turns out Poland just marches around killing rebel troops in my lands and The HRE just sits and builds up at Frankfurt. Cool deal. I can go on the offensive and grab HRE lands which i need anyway as a victory condition. Grab some polish territory too.

The Pope dies. An election is called. Turns out my Cardinal is in a tie with another guy for Pontif. I have maintained a good relation with the Vatican. I decided I wanted to experience what its like to have my Cardinal in the big chair so I buy the votes of two other cardinals. Cost me all the money I had to do it too but I won the Pontif seat and my Cardinal was elected Pope. Now I figure I can use this to my advantage somehow (still trying to figure out how). Then the English finally decide to wage war on land and attacks Bruges. Its a big full stack army too. I'm tied up marching on Frankfurt and Magdeburg to come help them. After a long assaulting battle my forces at Bruges wins but barely. The next turn the English attacks again with a half stack army. I send all I can afford to from Antwerp to help break the siege. I manage to rout the English in open fighting near the town. I move whats left of my forces into Bruges hoping I can rebuild their units they are so decimated. No luck. On the next turn a full stack of English troops show up and lay siege to Bruges. Now I know all is lost. During this time I have taken Magdeburg from the Poles. I'm at Frankfurt's gates and laying siege. It has a full force inside too so I cant break away in time to save Bruges.

The next turn I expected the English to pour into Bruges but they pull off somewhere I cant see. WTF? Hooray! Turns out France got excommunicated so the English went south after them. At least thats where I think they went. I cant see because I have no spies in the area to check. Throwing everything I have sieging Frankfurt I assault the place and win! The following turn I make peace with the Poles. Also the crusade ends. Things looking good finally.

Several more turns later and I'm rebuilding my depleted armies and preparing to march south and take more HRE territories. Things are looking up finally. I'm around turn 66 I think and if I can just hold the English at bay I can concentrate on wiping on The HRE since they refuse to a ceasefire. My merchants and assassins are getting their butts kicked. My merchants lose to other merchants all the time and so far not a single assassin of mine has managed to score a kill. I'm really ticked about this. RTW was never this bad with its assassins. Best chance I can get with my assassins is 33%. Most chances are 16%. They just dont have the right stuff to kill anything and I been trying them against every kind of target I can think of. They die each and every time. I dont know if its just my bad luck or what. When I played the English faction their merchants and assassins performed better. Maybe Danes are lousy spies and merchants in this game? Doesnt make sense to me.

To be continued...