Poland

[Fisherking]

When fighting the Timurids I have found it best to boost the number of Polish Nobles in your stacks for elephant killing to about 8. Generals are worthless in these battles so it is best to just take your tried and true horsemen to the battle.

Place your Shooters in open formation two ranks deep but in a double line. The depth and low density helps killing the units ahead of the elephants.

With the Pns turn off the fire at will before the battle starts but keep them all in a place you can use them to support the archers when the elephants come. Two units will waste a formation of elephants in seconds and still have ammo left over to help later. Send only two Pns at a time to dispatch a unit of elephants. Ammunition is critical and should not be wasted.

Once the elephants are all dead then the Pns become your knights to chase down infantry or help your archers caught in battle. When all the elephants are dead these guys are no better than anyone else and die really nicely.

[King Jan III Sobieski]

Many empires found themselves bowing to the superior power of the Polish Hussaria!

[JoeDreck]

this are my new polish troops.

Miechowici, Polish Hellebardier, Mazowiak

[marrow]

Looks nice, excellent work!
Just checked out king's banner 3, defo on my hit list mate, keep it up. Thanks!

[marrow]

OK, just finished another Polish campaign and decided to share my basic impressions about a reliable strategy. Not fool proof, mind.

Poland is not the easiest faction to start with. One city (Krakow), one castle (Halycz) and a lot of ground between them. Even cavalry will struggle to cover that in less than 3 turns (pray there's no rebels in your path). Keeping your gaff safe will not be possible without roads and these must be built immediately.

Keep Halycz as castle and Krakow as a city. At the end of the campaign Krakow was raking in close to 6000 florins - it's a nice asset.

Your first objective is Iasi, I cannot stress this enough. It is imperative that Hungarian expansion towards the steppes is hemmed first thing, otherwise Hungarians will reach Ryazan sooner than you can say wtf and they are there to stay. With expansion options to the west temporarily unavailable it's vital to expand towards north-east. If possible, trouncing Russia is a bonus, I took Novgorod first and expanded towards Helsinki, Riga, Vilnius, Smolensk and Kiev in no time. That's six provinces in almost as many turns, a lot of dough and a map edge to lean on. I also tried to only push the Russians away and not destroy them entirely - they do tech up reasonably well and soak up initial impact of the Horde , nice!

It is foolish to abandon western affairs altogether though. Taking Thorn is easy and usually rewarded with 2.5k as icing. Trusty old Council, I kept it sweet and got 20 units of Knights Templar in total across 75 turns! But anyway, taking Breslau and Stettin is fairly easy too and will prove lucrative later. I chose not to expand any further for now as my resources were being devoured in the north. Some generals prefer to push further still, but I hate spreading myself thin in the very face of angry Germans. I also chose to make Breslau a castle and Stettin a city. A bit of a gamble that, but Stettin makes good dollar later, and it's within +/- one turn away from Breslau anyway, so easily reinforced. Having fairly strong garrisons is quite important at this stage. HRE is never in a good mood and in my capaign they blatantly backstabbed me even though we had outstanding relations and were allied through marriage. Oh well...

Having conquered I decided to turtle and build up a little, luckily my King was in Breslau at the time and with his +8 chivalry I managed to upgrade it to a fortress very quickly. Then he died and I was stuck at fortress level for a long time. My remaining castles (Halych, Iasi, Vilnius and Smolensk) grew even slower and I only managed to upgrade Iasi to a fortress by turn 80 I think! I would have done something about it, shuffled governors around etc., but I honestly didn't mind.

It has been mentioned many times before but I will not hesitate to bring it up again - Polish army rocks, nothing else to it. Fans of all kinds of cavalry will be like kids in a sweets shop here. To put it in perspective - initial castle unit, the very lowest one, is Strzelcy, one of the finest light cavalry units in the game. They have better stats than western mounted crossbowmen who need the very top archery range and a citadel to build it in... And they wield axes so they have both missile and melee AP attack. Shame their stamina sucks for light cav. Next one up is Polish Nobles, enough has been said about them, a very, very good unit. Then there's Lithuanian cavalry, also very good, Polish retainers, a very tasty alternative to knights; even though I love them, they fade completely in the face of Hussars. Think fast moving feudal knights and you won't be far off. Hussars truly are an excellent unit and would be almost your top number, but this being Poland, it only gets better - next up you get Polish Knights, chivalric knights under a different name, thus, by definition, they will break and destroy pretty much anything the game can throw up. Intrestingly, there's an uber unit for perfectionists - Polish Guard. I don't quite get this unit. It has exactly the same stats as Polish knights, it's only advantage being horse barding and better stamina. There is a slight problem though - to get it you need to cough up almost 10000 for King's Stables. One wonders...

I used pure cav armies for a fair while, but eventually I worked out a bullet proof army composition against European armies. Polish cavalry is very tough but it truly shines in support role. Polish infantry is actually not too bad, and they have a very flexible mix that blends well and is intuitive to use.
Forget Dismounted Polish Nobles, they are rubbish, never used them. They have short spears = no anti-cav bonus and despite their stats they don't do very well. Much better are spearmen, same quality as Italian Spear Militia so rather good. Woodsmen are outrageously cheap and inflict severe morale penalty, as well as severe losses. Feudal knights don't stand a chance pinned by upgraded spearmen and attacked by woodsmen in the back. You also get Lithuanian Archers, a very decent outfit, no great stats but do the job well and lay stakes which can be really useful at times.

Because I was hampered by slow growth I had to make do with surprisingly low-tech units for a while. This army composition is virtually undefeatable by AI, be it HRE, the English, the French, no matter. I chewed up stack after stack with cheapo units and thoroughly enjoyed it. This is it:

3 spearmen
3 Lithuanian Archer
4 Woodsmen
3 Strzelcy
3 Lithuanian Cavalry
1-2 Polish Nobles
1-2 Retainers
1 General

Formation is totally generic, Strzelcy fanned out as scouts in front, spears in line, behind them archers, woodsmen on archers' flanks. Cavalry on the wings in any formation, usually Lithuanian Cavalry outermost on the flanks, then Polish Nobles and any lancers in close support of infatry.

It can be modified with artillery but I liked it sautee. Composition works very well under almost any conditions and two such stacks helped me crush HRE very quickly. I also got Templar House in Breslau so in dire times I replaced generals with them.

Oh, yeah, ze Germans. They will attack you no matter what, invasion can only be delayed, never prevented, with big garrisons. I knew that so I decided to leave a couple of militia units in cities and placed my two stacks within striking distance of Stettin and Breslau. Full HRE stack lingered on my land for a while and besieged Stettin. Because the stack was made up mostly of spears I only allowed 37 men to escape having lost 134 myself. I attacked Prague and Magdeburg immediately, took both, sacked them and proceeded towards Nuremberg and Hamburg. Pope had warned me twice already, but hey... I had wind in me hair and almost 30k in my pocket so I didn't care too much about some geezer a thousand miles away.

I left HRE Bern and Metz, both of them castles. HRE still had Bologna but was broken anyway. Because I had tons of money I had filled the recruitment queues in all castles. The reinforcements couldn't even assemble before I destroyed HRE with my 2 initial stacks so 3 similar stacks (one with artillery) were left behind twiddling their thumbs. Which is where my oldest ally, the Hungarians, kindly lent me a hand in my troubles and blockaded my port in Caffa (which I took because of the Council's nagging). I know the game's diplomacy is bugged, but it was an invitation I could not refuse. I had already been excommunicated anyway. I took Bran, which Hungarians had obviously just upgraded to a citadel judging by the dent in the population. Nice! Budapest fell quickly after, so did Bucharest and Sofia (I watched it turn to citadel 2 turns before I attacked it!! ). Because I play on 0.5 timeframe it was still long before the Mongols arrived, on my third King IIRC.

I randomly checked faction ranking and I was astounded to find that I was eons ahead of everybody in every respect! Second most powerful, Egypt, was touching 16000 on the graph, I was well past 32k. I don't even know what it means but one look at the map confirmed my worst fears - I was unstoppable. I swept across Europe and trampled Denmark, England, Scotland, France, Milan, Venice, finished off Hungarians and HRE and stopped at Pyrenees. Fourth consecutive excomm made me miffed and so I was forced to take Rome and the rest of Italy and Sicily (+ Sardinia & Corsica).

I was tempted to wait for the Mongols, but could not be bothered in the end. I still have it saved should I change my mind.

To summarise - definitely attack Iasi, definitely take Novgorod and the east except perhaps Moscow, Ryazan and Sarkel which are good for Russians to have if you hang around for Mongols. HRE will attack you so be ready. Trust your troops because they're top class if used correctly and will get the job done. Just make sure you have towers/spies on the border and beyond so you can prepare. Better yet, be prepared always; as I said, HRE will absolutely not stop, they will attack you if alive. Once they do you can expand freely again. Once past 20 province mark, you'll be home and dry.

[dzidek]

Hi it's my first post... :)

I've played a lot with this nation. Well i'm Polish :)

There was many posts about Polish units, i would just like to add some things.

Retainers is a dump unit, you get Polish Knights just after and they soon replace them, and Hussars are far more better flankers.
Polish Guard is a tank. Just let them hit whatever is in your way (except pikes :P). The difference between them and PK is simple, they have more stamina, they don't charge without orders and they have a horse in plate armour which adds a lot to charge and missile defence.
The missile units are superb, have notthing to add, well maybe that Lithuanian cavalry comes to late to be usefull. Strzelcy are far more better.

Missile units do suck. Only one good and just for the stakes. U have to use missile cav for the ranged assignments. Well until you have gunpowder. Arqebusiers are sometimes usefull.

As for the foot soldiers. You have some to choose from. But the best DPK are your weapon of choice. HRE has nothing on foot that can counter them, just like Hungary. You could have trouble with the Russian and Danish AP infantry if you are forced to fight them 1:1. Spearmen are your basic infantry, nothing special but they do their job well. Now woodsmen... an AP attack and cheaper then peasants. A perfect auto resolve unit. Use against the hordes if you are on the loosing side.

As for my strategy. As said before you have to be quick. Take breslau just when you get the quest for it. you will be awarded 4x Polish Nobles. Take the units form Cracov to breslau and then with joined Noblews take Prague. After Prague i go north for Magdeburg. With the north force i take Thorn and make it a city. Leave one unit there and the rest runs fast for Stettin, makes a siege and is supproted by the Magdeburg forces. After the battle i make Stettin a city.
In the east i produce 2x PN and 2x Strzelcy. Take the whole army south and occupy Iasi which i turn to a city. If the Hung's or Byze's don't rush it i take Bucarest.
Then i turn East to take Kiev, Wilno, Ryga and eventually Novogrod. I make Kiev a castle despite it's economicall potential. It will be my main defence against the hordes.

I leve the east and concentrate on the west. Where the HRE will start by now to alk around my lands with soldiers meaning they are up to something.
Sacking and pillaging Frankfurt and Norymberg and then giving them to the Pope secures your west border.
Now you have 2 options, well maybe 3. You blitz the danes and secure the Baltic sea or you could go south.
Usually i bleed out the danes in 3-4 turns and then i go south. Hungarians keep the alliance long enough and fight with Byzantines and Venice so they are an easy target.
Once you get Constantinopole it's all straight forward.
Personally i like to invade Britain cos expanding the west border is not much fun for me. Besides i have the Pope there.

[dzidek]

I have just finished my Poland long campaign. It was fun... as always :)

My east border was at Halych, Vilnus, Smolensk and Iasi, the west border was at Hamburg, Magdeburg and Norymberg. All those were castles (i changed Norymberg to a castle). South i went to Constantinopole. I waited for the Mongols and forced them to fight Turks and Egipt so only few stacks that went thorugh Russia i had to fight personally.

After they were gone i pushed through to the Holy Land. I was done before the Timurids arrive.

In the north i conquered Danemark. The HRE was left as a minor noation between me and the French. I've only kept great relations with them and the Pope. In the south was my main battle front so i did not have a constant south border,just used the castles that i gained for troop reproduction.

My patrol army was made out of a general 6x polish noble, 2x strzelcy. I had several of them. They dispatched the rebels quickly and without any trouble.
Border castle garrisons included. 4x lithuanian archers, 2x woodsmen, 4x spearmen, 2x DPK, and some artillery usually ballista or ribault or serpentine which i placed in a central possition to the gate so when the enemies charged the units on the sides i usually rooted them with a quick headshot :)
The main hammer was a all cavalry army with some minor exceptions whene i had to take a castle eraly.
The army was made out of 6x Polish Guard, 4x Polish Nobles, 2x Strzelcy, 2x Lithuanian cavalry, 1-2 General, 4x Hussars. I can defeat any stack with this army, in the singleplayer ofcourse. :)