Poland

[KyodaiSteeleye]

Well I'm playing Poland on H/H at the moment - short campaign.

I remember in MTW that Poland was very hard, especially if you started in the High period, as you had poor provinces and imediately started getting grief from your neighbours. I have to say so far in MTWII, my Poland campaign has been easy. You start surrounded by loads of rebel provinces, which you can nab faster than your neighbours if you get a move on. I imediately expanded north to the Baltic, west to Prague (stopped there as this abutts HRE), and started expanding east - although I was in competition with Hungary here. I made imediate alliances with my neighbours - i even married my princess off the Hungarian heir. But the treatcherous swines attacked me about 2 years after, so it wasn't worth the effort.

Hungary therefore seems to be your first likely enemy - which makes sense as you are in direct competition with them over expansion and Krakow is next door to Budapest, which is a recipe for tension. Russia so far has agreed a trade treaty with me, but is pretty lukewarm. However, i've purposively stopped my eastwards expansion into the far eastern europe until i've dealt with the Hungarian threat - the Russians also seem very slow to expand, which is useful. One thing to note is that the likes of Kiev are pretty cut off from your other castles/cities, so much harder to relieve, which is a good reason to limit your eastwards expansion while you have other problems.

Economy wise - do the usual - lots of trade-enhancing improvements will set you in good stead - plus get some Baltic/Black sea provinces so you can get some sea-trade going.

Units - polish nobles mounted or dismounted. Mounted, I first thought they weren't very good, but after some practise, they are versatile (if expensive) - but they have a different role to usual as they are a hybrid heavy cav/missile cav unit. Therefore, they won't do well against other (fresh) heavy cav in HtH and unweakened infantry, as their charge isn't good, and they'll lose to other missile cavalry in a shoot-out. However, they are good at getting behind the enemy line and killing heavy cav/inf with their javelins. They can then be used in HtH once their javelins are out and the target units are weakened. . Dismounted - well again, they're expensive, and despite their stats, seem to get hammered very easily against mediocre infantry (eg: militias) - besides having better morale, they are also effectively redundant once you can recruit spearmen in your castles.
Strzleky are good missile units - have enough of these to counter other horse archers, or hire some Alan light cavalry to chase them down. Polish retainers are fun - very good charge, but that's about it - so once they have charged home, get them out fast or they'll get munched. Having a merchants guild for some merchant cavalry has been a boon, as they provide some nice dependable medium cavalry. Later in the game Polish knights mtd/dismounted are the usual dependable heavy cav/inf. Lithuanian archers are better foot archers, whilst Lithuanian Cavalry are a good medium horse archer unit.

Infantry-wise woodsmen have been my field-army infantry mainstay, with Spearmen now coming in from my improved castles. Woodsmen are cheap, expendable but nicely effective.

I've found that I need an effective fleet in both the Baltic and Black Sea, as war with Denmark/Hungary is almost inevitable and both have strong fleets.

I was thinking the MTW2 Polish game was rather easy, but now I have Hungary, Venice, Denmark and Russia attacking, it is somewhat more challenging! I have concentrated on slowly taking out Hungary, whilst attempting to thwart Venice and Denmark by stopping their expansion, destroying attacking armies and taking the odd city and letting it rebel, so giving me a buffer. HRE is getting a good kicking and refuses my attempts to help, despite being an ally. Probably the only reason they haven't attacked is that they haven't got the capability any more!

Oh, and unlike others, i like the Polish skins - they look pretty authentic to me - nice n'gritty.