Scotts are weak... and here's why

[Matt_Lane]

Beyond that point I found it hard in my campaign to justify an invasion of mainland europe. Historically, the French have always been good allies to Scotland and so I kept that alliance solid in my campaign to provide some historical credibility.

I think the game provides a great opportunity historically for what could have been. Play fast and loose with the time line and you could side with France in a European campaign, invade Holland and crown yourself King then set up a successful South American colony and buy England.

[Didz]

There is however (well, to me at least) a "realistic" concern about building highlander units all over the place.

Agreed, as a house rule I only trained highlanders in Inverness, which is strictly correct but it meant that Edinburgh was left to construct lowlanders.

Once into England I tended to stick to spearmen and dismounted knights. I even avoided training highland archers becuase it did not seem appropriate.

They're called Highlanders for a reason, and how many sheep shaggers can there be up there, total ?

Actually Highland clans kept cattle not sheep, your getting mixed up with the Welsh.

There were about 75 recognised Highland Clans, but exact population figures were not available until 1755 , when it was assessed as just over 1.2 million. The size of a clan could vary enormously but even a generous estimates of 2,000 warriors per clan only produces 150,000 in total.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I could make believe that Highlanders recruited in Acre or Halych are really strong local peasantfolk taught to fight the MacWallace way... but where's the fun in that

This really highlights the problems arising with the lack of regional troop variations in the game. The only way for armies to partially reflect local ethnic groups is to stick to recruiting mercenaries.

[Kobal2fr]

Actually Highland clans kept cattle not sheep, your getting mixed up with the Welsh.

Bah ! Sheep, cows, poultry, it's all pre-processed food to me anyway

This really highlights the problems arising with the lack of regional troop variations in the game. The only way for armies to partially reflect local ethnic groups is to stick to recruiting mercenaries.

True, but then again this downplays cultural variations in the factions themselves - every Western army in the levant would then be made up of Turcopoles and generic spearmen/DFKs/Xbow militas

I must say faction specific units being available everywhere doesn't bother me all that much as a general rule, and it's pretty much already downplayed by the fact that your best and most developped training centers will be where you started, thus your high level faction specific units will come from there anyway... It's just Highlanders that make me tick, probably because their appearance itself is very marked, while say Viking Raiders are just generic white dudes with axes.

[CMcMahon]

Sorry, but if you're fast as the Scots, you can easily take every rebel region in the British Isles before England even goes for Caernahon (sp.), leaving them with just Nottingham and London, which can be very easily neutralized if you hit Nottingham first.

[Didz]

Depends how distracted England are from their first target of York. They seem to always mess up their first attempt to take the city, so provived you get in before the second and they can't mass the troops to take it off you its not so difficult. Personally I went for Inverness first and let the English have York, but I got to Caenarvon before they did.

Funnily enough I'm have a much harder time playing Turkish at the moment, mainly because of poor trade income.

[Daveybaby]

I found it worked pretty well to blitz york -> nottingham -> london, to force the english out of britain completely, then go back and mop up the other rebel provinces at my leisure.

[Didz]

I don't know....I thought the Blitzkrieg concept came along eight centuries after MTW2.

But yes I suppose it makes sense. The only possible interference would be from the Danes but they tend to be a bit slow off the mark.

[John_Longarrow]

Didz,
I normally take York with my local general and some hired mercs. Works very well. It lets me move the rest of my army down to Caernarvon for a T4 siege. For some reason by that time the English normally have a large stack of peasants heading that way that gets kinda bogged down if you sit in the castle.

Then when the English look like they are going to move on York I march an army near Nottingham. I do this until I've got Caernarvon working just well enough to keep my highlanders and Highland archers resupplied, then its bye bye England.

[alex9337]

In my current campaign as the Scots I control over 60 regions ( I have aready won the game, just going for total domination ) and have even kicked the Mongols behind several times.

The Scots are my favourite faction.

[Marius Dynamite]

If it was an all human controlled campaign then the chances are England would manage to defeat Scotland. However back before history began to be recorded humans have been making deal with other humans for neutral gain. Nowadays we call it diplomacy.

All Scotland would have to do is ask for help from the human player who controls France. If all players are smart enough then the French player will realise that he must defeat England before it captures all of britain and becomes stronger than France, who will likely have more than enough trouble with Germans, Danes, Spanish, Milanese..

The English, of course, could make deals with some of Frances other enemies but at worst France would then make deals with the enemies of the factions England make deals with.

France's problem comes when Scotland has conquered all of Britain and becomes a new England. I suppose this is where diplomacy would need to be used to its full. Each player would realise they have everything to lose if they fight each other and would instead settle on a tribute from Scotland to France and Scotland would instead build for an attack on the Danish who would probably be in a position to invade and take Britain for themselves.

Its times like this I would love to see a multiplayer campaign :'(. Think of the diplomacy which would be involved!

[Heinrich VI]

Its times like this I would love to see a multiplayer campaign :'(. Think of the diplomacy which would be involved!

so true! it brought back memories of epic moo2 and civ2mp games. in these games diplomacy is everything. the most time consuming elements were not huge 1000+ ship battles in moo2 but several players constantly bargaining over disputed border worlds and trying to make the best offer to secure a potential ally against their arch enemy who dared to steal a technology - oh the fun!

[Kobal2fr]

Yeah, well, there's this little board game called, quite accurately, "Diplomacy". In this game, players play nations with conflicting goals but also needing each other to defeat a third party. Say, in your example France + Scotland vs England.

The thing is, the game Diplomacy never was about diplomacy. It's about figuring when's the right time to stab your allies in the back big time for maximum personnal gain .
And about as much mental time is spent each turn computing one's own plans as is spent figuring "ok, but what if he doesn't do what he says he will ? What if they ally against me ? What if he moves this army there and then..."
And so you take preventive measures to ensure that your "ally", no matter wether you have perfectly compatible goals and so on, doesn't do something utterly stupid that incidentally stuffs you big time.
All that to say : I wouldn't bet against England just because two humans playing Scotland and France are allied :)

[Heinrich VI]

yeah diplomacy is great! turns could take quite a while because everybody had to talk to almost everyone in different rooms all over my flat. the amount of treachery always resulted in a great game hrhr!

moo2 and civ2mp tended to be quite similar to diplomacy in this regard. we used to play with up to 6 players at my place in one big room. the different alliances tended to leave for different rooms to held their secret confereces for world/galaxy domination. spying was prohibited though hehe.

i would love to play mtw2 this way....

LAN!LAN! oh if it only had a LAN mp campaign option...

[YankeeDoodle14]

I know that this thread is about the AI, but when human played that Scots can be very effective.

I once played a campaign where first I shipped all of my (Scottish) troops over to Denmark, conquered all of Northern Europe, the French coast, and then shipped men from France to Southern Britain. I then proceeded to take over England from the bottom up.

[rebelscum]

maybe the AI scots do have a good chance of beating the English as
A) England commits to war with France.
B) England has fewer allies.
C) scotland Allies with France/Danes.