Beginner Playing As The Irish

[caravel]

Welcome, Jamie the Shrubber, the .org

I have now captured all of Ireland and have been spending my time building different structures and churning out different fighters. I have trained hundreds of the fighters that have glass in their name (I can't remember it fully) and my battles have all been simple enough to win. Even when I was outnumbered by about 600 to 150 I still won with ease but I think thats because my army is made up heavily of the very strong glass fighters. Now my army is 1400 strong and any rebels I encounter are no match.

The Gallowglass should be the Gall Gael which is the Irish term for those type of warriors (Gallowglass ('Galloglaigh') is the Scottish term). The gallowglasses in the game are strong attackers, when launched into the enemy flank they can be unstoppable, unfortunately their morale is lacking so you'll need a good general and a sound strategy if you you don't want to see the whole lot routing, when they start taking losses. The key is to concentrate on developing your gallowglass units by merging higher valour remnants together to create one elite unit, then sending these out to battle again. It is important to conserve your higher valour gallowglasses and not send them into suicidal attacks where they will take heavy losses. That sort of work is best reserved for the greener units.

Do I just keep building and training as I'm doing in anticipation of major attacks from the east? Is Ireland classed as hard because of the Irish sea and the fact any invasions have to be done by crossing the water? I'll scour this site for tutorials but I just want to know if a total novice like me playing as Ireland is wise? I don't like playing games on easy settings because they end too quickly and there is no challenge.

Thanks for any replies!

Ireland is actually rather easier than some of the other factions, such as the Welsh, Picts and Scots. Ireland can be defended easily if you work on gaining naval superiority. Your boats will prevent invasions from Britain and Scandinavia, so Ireland can be turned into a cash cow allowing you expand into Britain. The Vikings can be paralysed quickly by taking on their ships and sinking them. This stops them raiding and they will soon run out of money. Another good strategy is to deploy your bishops to their provinces to convert their populace to Christianity, this stops their raiding antics, turning them into a normal faction. The British factions that you're going to have to hit first are the two major English ones, that is the Mercians and Saxons. If left to it, one of them will conquer most of Britain. The trick is to keep them weakened and stop them from overdeveloping. Once the Mercians and Saxons start training Huscarles things will get a lot harder.

Aside from your gallowglasses some of your strongest units are the javelin throwers mentioned by macsen rufus. The Bonnachts and Kerns both throw what are basically armour piercing weapons, though the Bonnachts are in larger units, their weapon differs from the kerns. The Bonnachts vs Kerns debate goes on however. Dartmen throw lighter, non armour piercing darts, so they are best used as cheap stand-ins for archers or as garrison units (very low support), they won't do well against armoured units.

You seem to be doing well, try your next campaign on the hard difficulty, but I would advise against going above that, as expert gives an "unfair" morale bonus to the AI (easy gives you, the player, that bonus which is why it's also best avoided).

Well you've inspired me to play a VI/Irish campaign tonight.