Denmark

[rebel8303]

I played Denmark this way:

I rushed started by sending an army to the north taking Olso and Stocholm and another army for Hamburg and Stettin. I managed to take them all and also reach Riga and Helnsiki before the Russians did and capturing Antwerp first. So far so good. I had all the good intentions to obey the Pope as noone wants to have -20% public order in all of his cities. I was stuck between Catholics waiting for an excommunication...

But then Portugal (!) attacked me. That made no sense as Portugal was miles away but there was an army landed outside of Antwerp... I defeated that army but i had not built a fleet large enough to get the war in foreign territory. After a few turns the war was over anyway so I did not care.

I then got allied with French and Milan. Milan got excommunicated and I realised that I was sitting ducks doing nothing for many turns... And then Scotland declared war on me. It did not take long till I waged war upon the English as well and after a well I was the commander of the Baltic. And I could not use that at my advantage because I had not built enough port upgrades in my settlements and I was bankrupt... So I started building naval structure to increase trade income and to be able to support the current and even more armies.

When my fleets crossed the channel I realised that Portugal had expanded towards The western coasts of France and Ireland (So it made some sense why they attacked me earlier in the game). So as they were excommunicated I attacked them and got Dublin, Rennes, Pamblona and Anjers.

And then all hell broke loose. Poland attacked me and after a while their allies HRE attacked me as well. Here I have to mention that a cold war was waging between me and Russians on the Riga region. A great war went on till I conquered all of HRE and some Polish regions founding myself excommunicated. So one by one all the catholic nations declared war on me as Pope had called a crusade on Riga... Only France remained loyal to me but it had just 2 territories and no army at all...

I lost all the western France cities to Milan (my so called allies) and Spain but I managed to repel the invaders in Central Europe and in Riga. In Riga arrived 3 crusades, One from the Papal States, one from Spain and one from Hungary. I had fortified the city quite well so I repelled all the attacks. A fourth crusade arrived by Poland by I had allready defeated it once so it had not soldiers at all. All was nice until Russians declared war on me too... I had war with all the neighbouring nations...

Needless to say that each turn took half or full hour to play, I managed to systematically defeat all of them and arrive victoriously in Jerusalem and complete the campaign with nearly 65 regions under control

[Iavorios]

This is my experience from 3 campains on Vh/H whith Denmark. It will be long, so sorry if don like it. This is about the first 60- 70 turns on normal time scale.
First of all I must say that Denmark's unique army is pointless. The best way is to use armies of 5 (later on CK) FK, 5-6 DFK, 4-5 mercenary spearmen and 3-4 archers (norse, crossbowmen are merks). MTW 2 is a game whith very powerful cav. so spearmen are live savers. You can use your cav against the enemys cav. but is to expensive. It is like WW 2- tanks dont fight tanks- infantry, guns and airplanes did. The only problem of this army is than you can retrain the mercs only in Europe, but this not a big problem. Just take the 60 provinces there call crusade to Jerusalem, hire tons of crusader sergeants and win the game. As long as you stay in Europe you can fight even the mongols (whith mercs mostly). Afcourse some will ask themselves wat is the point of playing Denmark, when there is nothing unique in it? Well i dont know.
The typical denmark's units are worthless. Norse axemen lose from DFK on equal terms and Ombudsiers are even worst. The only thing that is usable is the norse swordsmen. It is slightly weaker than DFK but is cheaper, and upgrades to particial armor. It needs only drill square. O and the other god units is dismounted huskarls. They come from castle and very good early shock infantry. In fact in my game it looks like on auto resolve they are immortal. They take very small loses and kill a lot. Before turn 50 i had a stack whith 6 of them on max. exp. But using them is pointless when you have DFK.
As for the archers, I use them only to harass the horse archers and to put the enemy's siege towers on fire. So 3-4 of the norse archers are more than enough. O and the crossbows have problems whith heavy terrains, so I always tend to use things whith narrow trajectory. The militia is prity standard. The sword staff militia is god, and Norse clerics are simply perfect.
The campaign is a simply thing. I separate my forces on two parts. The king goes for Oslo and Stockholm, and the heir goes for Hamburg, Shtetin Magdeburg(if HRE doesn't beet you for it) Anverp and Bruges. Hamburg is essential. From it you can recruit huskarls and they are crucial. Anverp and Bruges have garnisons of pikemen and whiteout them it simply impossibly early on to take them. This takes less then 20 turns. After this you have few options. Going to Russia and Poland is very stupid thing to do. Eastern Europe is poor, and Poland and Russia have a lot of HA. So if go for them you will be poor, and will have to fight a lot of heavy battles. Battles are fun. Poverty is not. Not to mention than until fighting Poland you will be attacked by the HRE, and is possible to get excomed. Fighting France means fighting and HRE and excomication. So i decide to fight Scotland and England. By the time I attacked Scotland they where in war whith England. There is a big chance on of them to be chance. Even if they are not it is not a problem. By the turn 20- 25 the HRE and France may wait for you to attack them, and to crush you. But if you dont they will begin fighting whit someone else. HRE will have a lot of problems in Italy, And France will have problems EVERYWHEARE. O give them a chance to ruin themselves. By the time you have pope problems the AI's will be to busy fighting eachother. And after you sack Britain you will have enough money to fix the problem. 20 000 will do it.
When you conquer Britain you get very rich. All you have to do is build you economy and wait until France angers the pope. Pay him for crusade and create huge stacks of crusaders to crash anything. Then kill HRE. The important thing is to whatch for the pope, and to use spies. Every attack must take city whithout siege, making it impossibly for the pope to stop you.Bribe the Pope, wait the cease hostylitis misions (better force the enemy to attack you). and use every chance. When you dont expect fightings for the next couple of turns dismiss the crusader mercs. They are to expensive to maintain in peace times. After France and HRE's north go for the money in Italy. By the 40- 50 turn Milan ore Venice will be out of the catolic faith, so a crusade whith 3- 4 full stacks will do the job. When you finish the crusade, use spies and siege weapons to take take the rest out North Italy in 1-2 turns. The point is to make Venice your eastern border. Bi that time it will be a large city. Put the ballista towers, some sword staff militia, 3-4 norse clerics and a good general and this is it. After This you will be rich, whith easily defended borders and will have the chance to do whatever you want. To blitz the rest of the map, or (as I do) to develop and wait for the "World is round". And all this way before the Mongols arrive.

[TeutonicKnight]

Iavorios, I'm not quite sure where to begin. You are confusing me. On one hand you say the Dane specialty units are useless, but then you say they are god. I think I understand what you mean, but I'm not sure you are giving them proper application. Maybe you are facing things differently than I am.

Tactically, you approach the job the same way I do. Work your way along the coasts with only a little movement inland. The Danes major strength is in it's sea power. If you can seize the port provinces, you can really get the sea trade going. That cash flow will keep you alive when you are fighting the very tough HRE or the even harder Poles. In fact, keeping those two Empires from getting to the port provinces will severely weaken them financially.

The Danish axe units are very nice because they are armor-piercing infantry, not because they can replace footknights (which are actually tanking units - high defense, and only moderate attack). They also tend to be a little faster, so they can get to the enemy line easier and with less fatigue. A charge of Huscarls will decimate the enemy spearwall. They can go toe to toe against enemy heavy infantry as well. I love the way Huscarls look when they climb a wall and slaughter the defenders. It's even better when they charge in a mob out of a tower. :)

Norse swordsmen are pretty weak. They are really only good against unarmored units, so I don't bother with them much. While they have a higher defense than dismounted Huscarls, they have the same attack, and it's not armor piercing. If I use them, I try and put them against a spear unit or something fairly lightly armored so the swords can get through. Otherwise, I'm all about the axes.

Norse Archers are great because they are decent second-line infantry as well as archers. Though I hardly ever use them as infantry on offense, I have no qualms about using them as wall defenders. They serve admirably with the inherent defense bonus.

For militia, the Danes get the same units as most Northern Europeans, but instead of pikes, they get Swordstaff Militia. Excellent defenders, and I'd say they are on par with the best pikes. Naturally armored, and decent morale, with a spearwall. These will hold a breach rather well, even against heavy infantry (though they will need some support for that).

The Armored Clergy are an amazing cavalry. These are not the charging cavalry, these are your "get in your face and smash you down" cavalry. No major charge bonus, but a high, armor-piercing, melee attack. These are major general killers, and will have no problem cracking apart heavy infantry.

Obudshaer are the top end infantryman in Europe, in my opinion. They completely replace spearmen as your spearwall. They can kill cavalry and infantry with equal ease, and won't break if supported. They get a bonus against cavalry, are armor piercing, and can form a wall. I've never had anything get past a solid line of these units.

The main weakness I see in the Danish line is the lack of end-game units. They get decent artillery choices, and the basic Arqubusier, but that's it. No high era units. So they might be a little outclassed when fighting a heavy gunpowder army. I guess you'll just have to rely on Danish ferocity to see you through. It's worked for me so far.

I may be a little biased about the Danes, but I think if you bypass their native units you are really selling yourself short.

[mbrasher1]

I agree with TK, Danish units are quite good. They have decent units all around. Great swordsmen, great pike/wall units, good cav from cities and norse archers are excellent for defending cities.

Besides weak gunpowder, the only disadvantage is in fighting Mongols or eastern armies with alot of HAs. No Danish infantry unit gets long range fire, and no pavise xbow. So your guys usually get whipped trudging towards the enemy HAs.

But the Danes are alot of fun. Some of their early units are good enough to last long into the game, getting lots of gold chevrons, extending their useful life.

[Iavorios]

The only typical Denmark unit that is usefully is dismounted huskarl, norse war clerics and the sword staff militia. All the rest are useless. Norse archers are a little better than crossbowmen (as almost everything else). Denmark is fun and easy to play, but i there is nothing unique about them. I personally hoped for a very powerful axe to handed sword units, and some spears. Instead we got a typical catoliks whith powerful FK, DFK and CK. I expected infatry heavy armies, and i got cav heavy instead. Anoing.

[TeutonicKnight]

I agree, they are lacking in spears. You have to use city Spear Militia for a long, long time. Those are weak in the mid game, and tend to die fast. Armor upgrades only helps them so much.

There is a two-handed axeman. That is the Norse Axeman. 17 attack, armor-piercing of course. These guys are wicked evil in a flank attack.

Later on, you are correct in that many ways you are relegated to using stock Catholic faction units. But I still prefer keeping Axemen and Huscarls around. There are more opportunities for their axes to do a lot of damage as the level of armor goes up, and it's just awesome to watch seige towers dropping a horde of screaming viking axe-wielding maniacs on a wall.

[rebel8303]

I found Obudshaer quite useful for killing General units and defending my self in castles. They are something better than swordstuff militia which I think is one of the best units you can have to defend a city. You can't say they are useless. Obudshaers also hold the line against DFK long enough until my cavalry surrounded them after killing 2 generals some siege engines and many archer units