Denmark

[rvg]

A word about Viking Raiders: they RULE! They are cheap to recruit, they come in large numbers (112 men on large unit size) and they get 3(!) armor upgrades.
Raiders with 3 armor upgrades beat fully upgraded Dismounted Feudal Knights into bloody pulp. Raiders are great for taking and defending walls, chopping up *any* melee infantry, they are very easy to retrain and being a low level unit they gain experience like crazy? Dismounted Huscarls? Norse Axemen? Nah, Raiders get a much better bang for the buck. By the time I dismiss my raiders, I am ready to replace them with Obudshaers, Arquebusiers and Serpentines. Pre-gunpowder though, it is all about the raiders. My typical army would have 12 Raiders, 4 Norse Archers, 2 Catapults, and a couple of Generals (or a general + feudal knight/war cleric).

[Sebastian Seth]

I started with these:

1. Marry princess to english heir.

2. Peace with HRE and Poland as long as possible.

General 1: Hamburg -> Maddeburg -> Settin -> Brugges -> Flanders -> Caernavon -> Dublin -> Castle in north of Scottland
General 2: Oslo -> Stockholm -> Riga -> Helsinki -> Castle below Riga -> Kiev

At this point I had strong alliance with the english and option to attack russia whit out excommunication. The economics where good and I used dismounted huscarls and norse archers as core units. Im a firm believer in mercenery forces and usually at some point the original viking army has been switched to all mercenery force.

General 2: Cordoba

I had new family members at the time. One assembling force to attack novogrod in helsinki and few in Aarhus assempling force for reinforcing new russian front. And the general 2 from dumbling/caernavon was in crusading army that just took Cordoba. (Aim of the crusade was antioch but I usually take out quite a few settlements on the way.)

This is point where computer ai did some stupid moves.
- Polish sieged Riga with few units and took the castle below riga.
- French attacked Brugges and took it.
- Scottish Sieged castle in north of edinburgh.
- French attacked the english castle of Caen.

- I retaliated Riga from helsinki and attacked setting from Aarhus.
- English landed near the scottish and I used them as reinforcements to repel the scottish (happened twice).
- I turned my army in Kiev around and attacked polish castle near Krakow and after that the polish kapital Krakow.
- I send another of the new family members to attack Bruges and got it back. After that I took paris and Rhein as well. (France where going strong on english and there was very weak militia defence).
- I send the other family member from Aarhus to attack rest of the polish settlements.

By this time I was exomunicated and in war with France, Poland, Scottland and Portugal. And also had very bad relations with HRE, Spain, Milan and Venice.

I tried to reconciliate with the pope and cease fire with the natios I was in war with but me efforts was not met from the opposite site.

I had quite a few family members at that point (or actually quite little but I tend to build one stack army to every one so they where quite good military power). So I tought I eliminate the catholic factions that cause me trouble and then retry to reconciliate.

- I took out the portugese, french and polish. This lead to war with milan, HRE and spain. I avoided the conflict against spain and stayed on defence there. Against milan I attacked straight away because their army is largely based on italian militia and genoese crossbowmen. Dismounted huscarls, huscarls, norse swordsmen and norse archers are really nice force against them. This maybe because the faction leader was over 10 star general with 8 dread and the huscarles where silver/gold veterans.

I had so much family members that I could actually start war agaisnt ordodox nations. Russians where quite hard since I had to run around eastern europe conquering these small castles but I got them destroyed finaly. I attacked constantinopole from the sea right after that too.

After english king died I had control of edinburg as well. The english back attacked me right after in france and I took everything in brittain as revenge. English got caen but I got it back later on with the forces from london. Killed english in bretagne for good.

Destroyed Factions: France, Portugal, HRE, Poland, Russia, Scottland, England, Milan and Papacy(?).
In war with: Constantinopole, Spain, Hungary, Sicily, Moors, Egypt.

Theres definedly something wrong with the AI and its diplomatics. I only wanted to war against the Islamic and ordodox factions but the AI decided otherwice. Pope is stubbarn as well, when it comes to amount of christians I control and the amount of popes I killed. I should be able to choose next pupet pope.

I didnt want to go to this but they forced me by stupid attacks. None of them got excommunicated.

[Paladin1965]

Just finished a Dane short campaign. Money was a little tight at first, but was not a concern in later turns. Turned the northern factions (Oslo and the like) into my viking factories. Waited for the HRE to turn on me; unfortunately, the Russians and the Poles chose to do so at the same time, but was able to handle it.

[locked_thread]

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[kitbogha]

I was a bit bored the other day and looking through my old saves to see if anything struck me I could finish. I saw a Danes game I had forgetten all about. I can't even remember starting it. However, I loaded it and found I was on turn 102 with 15 provinces spaced between Scandinavia, Britain, Northern Europe (Caen, Antwerp, Bruges, Hamburg etc) and Jerusalem. It was one of the first campaigns I played and I have obviously picked up a few tricks (often through fellow generals on this site).
After a couple of sessions I am now at turn 123 and have 26 settlements. My expansion has been largely at the expense of Sicily and Milan, who had the bad luck to be excommunicated. Also I have taken the opportunity to take almost all the Egyptian provinces, except the one at the bottom of the map (name eludes me) and Jedda which I have an army marching on as I type. An Alliance with the Moors has strengthened my Western flank. My standing with the Pope has shot right up-it was poor at the recommencement of the campaign-due to dealing with the rogue Catholic factions and the Infidels. Due to my perfect relationship with the Holy Father I can now pick my targets. Someone is always getting themselves excommunicated and if not I can pick off Muslim factions from my Middle East bases. Jerusalem is always unruly and costly to pacify so I simply removed my garrison-after stripping it off any buildings of value and left it to rebel. I hold Gaza and Alleppo so can easily and quickly build an army to retake it if required to by the Pope.
The only fly in the ointment is my extended borders in Northern Europe and their vulnerability to attack from France and HRE, who I am allied to but knowing those sneaky continentals I can not rest easy! An excuse for war with France would be welcomed-currently as well as being my allies they have a high standing with the Pope-as it would enable me to convert a few of my castles to cities in Britain, Caen etc and reduce my garrisons along those borders in Northern Europe. Next moves? Consolidate in the Levant, prepare for war with the Moors-I must remember to spam out some priests from Egypt to smooth the way-, advance down the Italian peninsula while the Sicilians and Milan are still on bad terms with The Pope, take Ajaccio and Cagliari in preparation for war with Moors and as launching pad for attacks into Spain. Build up settlement on eastern Scandinavian coast-?Gothenburg-for forays into Russian held lands, maintain good relations with Poland and HRE for the time being.
My impressions of the faction:
1) The faction starts in a decent strategic position with expansion possible on all sides. Alliances with France and HRE can enable expansion across the English channel to North of Scotland, down to Hamburg and across to Bruges and Antwerp taking only rebel strongholds. Then the choice is yours:there's money to be made in Britain and the opportunity I missed to take on a still weak France leaving opportunities to the South and East. I also did not take advantage of the Danes seafaring reputation and launch assaults into the vastnesses of Russia-there are lots of rebel settlements in the Baltic states, which would be an excellent bridgehead both for trade and a war against the Russians.
2) The heavy infantry is the strongest side of the army. Viking raiders (as has been stated here) are a very good, cheap backbone for your army. They have high stats for attack and reasonable stats for defense. I have found much of the roster to be fairly bog standard and unadventurous. I like cavalry and artillery and enjoyed a fine win against the Sicilians just now grinding down their infantry with bombardment from a trebuchet, three bombards and four sets of ribaults then piling into them from both sides with six units of feudal knights and my Generals bodyguard-the routing sicilians were truly a beautiful sight to behold! I am using sword staff militia and norse archers as garrison troops.The troops are reliable but unadventurous.
3) For some reason other factions tend to hold their alliances with you longer than in other games I have played-when I play as England I am forever being stabbed in the back by my "allies".
4) Once you are in the Popes good books, it is easy to move forward and stay popular.

I am enjoying this campaign, even though I can't remember starting it (serious lack of sleep due to new baby the likely cause!)

[TKaz84]

The Danes are very good at storming castle walls-Norse Swordsmen are perfect for this role with their high attack value, large unit size and one-handed weapon. Two-handed weapons cannot be wielded effectively on castle walls. Alternatively, try using Norse Archers for this role. They are basically heavy infantry that can shoot bows too.

Cavalry will be hard to fight using the base Danish units, as they don't get any kind of spear weapon aside from Spear militia until Obudshauers/Swordstaff Militia later in the game. Mercenary Spearmen are your best bet here. Your own heavy cavalry selection is rather limited, but Norse War Clerics (trained in cities with an Abbey) and Huscarls have armor-piercing weapons, making them good choices to use against enemy heavy cavalry.