Come and Take me!

[Frankmuddy]

I've found so far that the primary challenge in this game tends to be staving off boredom around the hundreth turn. After my empire gets up to around thirty or so provinces It seems like I spend most of my time shuffling governors around, throwing cleric after impious cleric at the hordes of heretics that start to show up in my somewhat neglected border regions, trying to chase down brigands, and wondering why in all this time no one has bothered to attack me.

Which factions can expect a good, pitched battle? I've tried England on M/M, which I gave up when I realized that there was no possible way that I was going to lose, or even be challenged. I ran a campaign as the Moors, and after taking Iberia through to the Pryenees, most of North Africa, and every Island in the med, it got to be more work just to keep my cities from descending into heresy than it was worth. I'm trying the Russians on VH/VH right now, and hoping that I'll get my rear end handed to me.

[Stlaind]

Personally I find the same happening to me, for instance with RTW I must have started a few dozen long campaigns, amassed 20-30 provinces or taken out all the roman factions (which ever came first) and gotten bored with the campaign.

So I started messing around in custom battles far more.

[pevergreen]

HRE.

VH/VH

It can get hard.

[Czar Alexsandr]

Lol! You picked the right Nation! The Poles and Hungarians hate you! And the Byzantines... no one trusts them right! Very likely you'll have to fight Turks to. And once you beat them.... Mongols! And once you beat them... Timurids! Lol.

But yeah. Tons of poor lands and tons of enemies almost ensures this campaign will be a lot more interesting. Have fun! Serriously.. if this campiagn doesn't challange you.. I dunno what will.

[Frankmuddy]

Oh God! Polish Armies everwhere! Go not gently into that good night, my Kazaks!

[sapi]

HRE.

VH/VH

It can get hard.

worth a try, but if you survive the first 20 turns it becomes as boring as the others (that said, i'm still playing at turn 55 with 65 odd provinces)

[caius britannicus]

Its all about being patient and not rushing the AI. I play Lands to Conquer with Shaba's dip mod. And I take my time. Its been over 40 turns now and I have all of 5 provinces as portugal and at war with the french and moors (along with their allies). I'm facing massive french full stacks of mailed knights and mounted sergants. The moors are a push over but I am taking my time with them as well. They are down to a single city, however they have 3 full stacks of spearmen and desert archers that I will have to deal with. Slow and steady makes the game very enjoyable I find.

Pacify your conquered regions, convert them and replace the armies you have with militia before you move on to your next target. The dip mod is also helpful in keeping alliances which makes the game alot more fun. Spain is my ally and they don't attack and are helping maintain the border with france. I've resolved to never attack my ally (which means they will probably never attack me) forcing me to leave the iberian peninsula divided. If I hadn't done what I just said I would have conquered all of spain, north africa and most of france by now would be banging on the door of england and germany and it just wouldn't be fun.

[caspian]

HRE.

VH/VH

It can get hard.

So true. But the faction who gave me the real challenge was not any of the catholics, it was the Egyptians and Turks. And the arrival of the Golden Horde didn't help out either. Fighting the Horde stacks in the streets with Dismounted Gothic Knights is priceless.

[Bearclaw]

I'm playing as The Turks at turn 150 and things have changed drastically recently. I started off by crushing the Byzantines and Egyptians very quickly and without much difficulty. From there I took all of the steppelands. So very early on, I controlled everything East of Constantinople, and my all-horse archer armies were crushing everything and taking very small losses. I sacked and allowed Sofia, Bran, Durazzo, Ragusa, Zagreb, Novgorod, Riga, Vilnius, Halych, Helsinki, and I think one or two other cities to rebel (basically I made a defensive line of rebel cities all along my border). The Moors attacked me with a ship, so I took all of North Africa in a few turns. By the way, since about the end of my wars with Byzantium and Egypt I had been making profits of 30,000-50,000 every turn and had to produce huge armies of Janissaries in preparation for the Mongols and build everything possible in all of my cities just to keep it under control. I even had a long Crusade called against Constantinople, but crushed all of those armies with ease. It was, by far, the strongest empire I've ever had, and I've been playing since MTW1.

Then, everything changed. The Moors had the southern half of Iberia still, and apparently they're doing quite well even without Africa because Spain and Portugal are on the run and there are 2-4 full stacks sitting on the southern tip of Iberia every turn. I had also taken Palermo, Cagliari and Ajaccio, and my navy (which is fortunately as dominant as the rest of my empire) is struggling to chase off the Milanese and Papal fleets that are trying to land full stacks on them. Sicily has 2 full stacks sitting in the southern tip of Italy as well. These armies are held off only because I have navies blockading the land bridges. The Mongols have also popped, and while it's true that I had Sarkel, Bulgar, Mosul, and Baghdad full of Janissaries and Yerevan half full, the bastards won't siege me. They insist on walking all over my homelands, forcing me to try to shift my forces around to defend cities that they look likely to attack, only to have them turn back towards another city the next turn. Poland (one of the stronger factions at this point) and Hungary have recaptured several rebel cities and reestablished a border with me. I don't have an army up there becasue it was safe for so long, and now my city garrisons are struggling to fight off 5-6 full stacks between the two countries. Also, a new crusade has been called on Constantinople, and I've already spotted 4 armies closing in. Also, my booming economy has faltered under these increased demands, and my extravagant spending has dropped my treasury to 10,000.

I'm holding my borders for the moment, but if one of my enemies breaks through, they'll all break through, and then it's a good possibility that I'll be forced back to just my starting lands, with the Mongols and a few crusader armies in the area. I'm extremely impressed with the ability of several factions which I had beaten off (Moors, Sicily, Hungary, Poland, etc.) to make such a comeback and seriously threaten my possessions. All in all, it's made the game very exciting and enjoyable.

My point is: While sitting back may be a surefire way to get better competition, victory isn't as certain as it may seem.

[General Zhukov]

Sounds fun Bearclaw. Are you using any mods?

[zstajerski]

Good choice, playing as Russia rules, you get the mongol invasion, timurids, really hardcore when played on VH/VH!!!!

[Tiberius maximus]

im playin the danes on h/h and its pretty good so far, milan is still a push over.

and i've been helping the scotts out so that one day they can put up a ggod fight with me, hopefully

[Bearclaw]

No mods, just 1.1.

[TevashSzat]

Turks seem pretty hard since the byzantines start off strong and you are weak financially and when things finally start settling down around turn 60, the mongols will come which should be really fun

[Darkarbiter]

Its all about the mods. M2tw is like vanilla. Big empire not much fun not enough provinces. Play better mods.

[FactionHeir]

Same problems really. Once people start breaking alliances, I feel compelled to crush them to set an example. (not that it does)
And then I end up somewhere around turn 40-60 and bored to death as I control turncount*1.2 provinces and only micromanage my (vast) empire and consider starting a new game.

It seems that the AI can't handle an expanding human player. But sitting back and just managing 2-3 provinces isn't really my thing as this isn't Total Sit-at-home but Total war.