Most fun I've ever had playing HRE

[Goofball]

I read the HRE guide and took Braedonnal's idea to engage in a little Völkerwanderung. I training one batch of units in turn 1, basically spending all my money, training whatever I could in every settlement. In turn two I left a unit of peasants (or spearmen militia) in every city, then moved every other unit I had south and east. I destroyed every non-financial building in my existing settlements as I left.

I got a diplomat to the Pope right away and had him stand by. Whenever it looked like one of my undefended original settlements was about to be sieged or turn rebel, I gifted it to the Pope. Surprisingly, I held on to my last central European settlement until about turn 30.

Along the way south and east, I consolidated my armies into two task forces. The first was aimed at Corinth, and the second was aimed at Sophia. I took Corinth easily, and parked a few units there. Sophia was a little more difficult, as the Huns had already taken it and sent a reinforcing army from the north to try to break my siege. It was a near-fought thing, but I managed to take it. By then, my finances were deeply red, but sacking the city allowed me to at least retrain a few of my units and hire a couple of mercs. Two turns later, I was in the red again.

To make matters worse, Venice sent a large army to siege Corinth. Luckily, my butt-kissing of the Pope paid off. He warned the Venitians off of me, and they broke the siege and went away (for the time being).

I sent a good chunk of my Sophia army south to Constantinople and laid siege to it, even though I was badly outnumbered. This caused the Byz to empty Thessolonica (sp?) of its garrison and send it to the rescue of Const. I took advantage of this situation to send 3 units (all I could afford to have leave and still maintain public order) from Corinth to take Thessolonica.

This is the point where I almost lost everything. I had only a half stack sieging Constantinople. There was a half stack inside, and about a quarter stack that came from Thessolonica to try to break the siege. I won that battle by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin. Then, instead of the "would you like to sack, occupy, or exterminate" screen I was ecpecting, I get the "faction destroyed" message, telling me that the Byz are no more. Then, back on the campaign map, there is a full rebel stack that has spawned in Constantinople. Weirdest thing I have ever seen.

They sallied next turn. I have no idea how, but I won that battle even though I thought I was done for.

At this point, my finances were still negative. After Constantinople, I remained in a break even situation, so at least I wasn't going further into the red. I took a few precious units across the channel and took Nicaea. With the $$ from sacking that city, I built ports/markets wherever I could (the first buildings I had been able to construct all game). Eventually, as the cities grew, I started creeping back into the black financially.

I fought off a few Hungarian attempts at Sophia, and many (they got themselves ex-commed) Venitian attacks, then was in a position to try some further expansion.

I'll write a bit more later, if anybody is interested.

[Carl]

Definetly intrested.

[Steph]

Interesting point of view. Personally I prefer the security of my own land, even though I have cyclic problems at the pope ;)

Stéphane

[TevashSzat]

It is even more fun to use ships to ship your faction to the Levant since you don't have to worry about all of the wars in Egypt and you get some interesting campaigns by being the target of the mongols and timurids

[sapi]

@xdeathfire - true, i've had a lot of fun that way.

It's also an interesting challange to kill the pope on the third turn as someone like milan :P

@the op - keep them coming

[Braedonnal]

I'd love to hear more and I'm glad you are enjoying yourself trying it out. Those turns before you get yourself established are very white knuckle affairs, aren't they? It's an awful lot of fun when your survival is very much in doubt.

Your Venice sounds a bit more aggressive than in my attempts but then again, I took Zagreb to give them something else to think about, like going west into Milan.

Do continue, good sir. I'm interested.

[Goofball]

Kind of short on time today, but I'll try to remember to post some screenies tonight. The Turks and the Egyptians launched MASSIVE Jihads against Constantinople, which was lightly defended (I forgot how Jihads get a movement bonus, so I waited 1 turn too long to reinforce it). The Egyptians won the day, and held Constantinople for 1 turn before I descended on them and the Turkish stack that was still in the region with 3 full Crusade stacks. I slaughtered them both without mercy, including two Egyptian and three Turkish family members. Until then, I had been holding fast after having expanded to the eastern edge of the map, taking everything north of Antioch and south of that line of mountains ththat forms the natural border between Russia and the middle East (can't remember the province name; Tblisi, maybe?).

But I'm pretty much hating the Muslims right now, so I'm building up my forces and plan to take the entire middle east, raping, pillaging and burning as I go.