Another HRE-Rush

[SirRethcir]

Weeks ago I read, that a guy finished the HRE campaign in 21 turns, or so.
Ah, well, I accepted that challenge.
But I have waited for the offical patch 1.02.

So, played with a clean M2TW installation with patch 1.02, VH/VH:




And an animated GIF. Every single frame shows the situation by the end of that turn.


Destroyed Faction: Denmark, France, Milan, Poland, England (sorry)

[econ21]

Interesting. Do you have any insight into why HRE rushes are so easy? (Or is it easy to rush with any faction?)

In our HRE PBM in the Throne Room, I've been surprised at how well we are doing. I expected it to be much harder from playing HRE in MTW (and from the fact that you are surrounded by powers that will readily attack you).

Comparing it to my solo English games, the economy seems to be much stronger.

But I may not be understanding things well, as my inclination as a lazy SPer is always to turtle rather than rush.

[SirRethcir]

Interesting. Do you have any insight into why HRE rushes are so easy? (Or is it easy to rush with any faction?)

I think it is easy with every faction. The advantage is that you can expand in every direction. In average you must conquer 2 provinces every turn, so a central position is a great advantage.

But I may not be understanding things well, as my inclination as a lazy SPer is always to turtle rather than rush.

Usually I play the good guy, too.

[Fußball]

Usually I play the good guy, too.

Agreed, I find it more fun to play a prolonged game even on short victory conditions, rather than a short game. My .

Tschüß!
Erich

[Shahed]

Excellent. Just for the challenge that was worth it. So tell us more, how did you assualt each settlement ? Mercs ?
I love that animated .gif, saved it straight away.

Econ21 I booted up an HRE game recently, 100K in the bank by turn 10 or so. The economy is great.

[Warluster]

Rushing makes the game boring, why rush in and finish it, when you can take it slow, reach America and get guns?

[Shahed]

He said it in the first post, it was for a challenge, to beat the guy who finished in 21 turns.

[Warluster]

I guess so...

(I need glasses!)

ANyway, it takes me AGES to finish a game, I just can't rush.

Sounds boring though.

ANd also Sir Rethcir, who was the other guy who finished it in 18 turns. ANd looking at those pics you did it in 20 turns.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

Sorry to spoil the fun but the guy (Makkenzie) at the com did it later in 19 turns. He is already planning to do it in 18 maybe 17 turns.

[Sentinel]

Excellent work!

What difficulty did you play this at?

Please don't tell me you played on VH/VH you’ll give me an inferiority complex.

I also found HRE easy to expand in the early game, but did not achieve the lightening rate that you did.

In addition to its central location, it is close to Rome, I found that the popes diplomat turns up at about turn 2 / 3 giving you the opportunity to improve your reputation to “Perfect”, then request a crusade. You can then recruit cheap Mercenaries, with no upkeep costs, to take over the rebel / non-catholic settlement, whilst using none crusading armies to conquer the other catholic faction.

It can be fun to set silly targets, just for the hell of it. I once played an English campaign for about 60 turns just to prove you could get peasants up to gold experience.

Perhaps we should start a “Your most unusual victory conditions” thread.

[Shahed]

LOL ! He said that in his post too. "clean M2TW installation with patch 1.02, VH/VH" ... ok.. ok I'll stop being annyoing now.

How did you assault ?

You must have had to wait one turn to assault in most cases.

[SirRethcir]

Sorry to spoil the fun but the guy (Makkenzie) at the com did it later in 19 turns. He is already planning to do it in 18 maybe 17 turns.

Haha. Greetings to him!

Well to be frankly, that was my first time I saw the victory movie.
And yes I also thought there is enough 'room' for 19 or 18 turns, but that I guess would be more work than fun. I just thought, well, it's a good reason to play through a campaign and see the end movie.
I finished an English short campaign and played a grand HRR campaign. But never came past turn 50. Since then I played just for research. -> trading mechanism and so on

@Sinan
So, I'm quite used to play with low tier units and outnumbered. I guess that's useful.
Go strait to cities/castles and avoid those big armies. And yes the most cities/castles were take after 1 turn. On 2 occasions with spies opening the doors and in the last turns I had some ballistas.
And, all power to the Mercs!

I love that animated .gif, saved it straight away.

Yeah, me too. I could watch it all day long.

[Askthepizzaguy]

I accept your challenge. Results will be posted soon.

[Yun Dog]

LOVE your animated GIF dude - nice work - shows the province progression perfectly

but look at the units your playing with - militias - as you say for the challenge of beating the game quickly

but if someone said to me play 70 custom battles with militias end to end - Id rather have a root canal

the only reason I play at all is to get the top uber units and watch them hack through militias

gw on beating the game in 20 - says more about VH/VH than the millions of posts saying the game is too easy

[Lupiscanis]

I accept your challenge. Results will be posted soon.

The OP is playing 1.2, you are playing 1.0.

[icek]

versions will not make any difference unless someone palying on 1.1

[Askthepizzaguy]

versions will not make any difference unless someone palying on 1.1

I am using 1.0. What would the difference be between 1.1 and 1.0?

[icek]

well, for example english faction need dismounted feudal knights to defeat peasants in one-on-one fight. cavalry is almost unstopable, 2handed units are totally uselless againts them, dismounted knights take severy losses agains they charge and arent better in melee also. ai is agressive, portugal can take all they armies and make a sailing for ireland before 10 turn, france imidiatelly sacks bordeaux and etc.

[gardibolt]

The shield bug makes units with shields much easier to beat than they should be. For instance, fighting the western units with DFKs is much tougher in 1.2 than in 1.0. But with these rushes the AI probably can't build DFKs anyway.

[Ulstan]

CA your game is too easy :D

It needs to be a harder and lengthier process to assimilate new lands into your empire. less fruitful to sack cities, and it looks as though the mercenary pool at the beginning of the game needs to be reduced as well.

[andrewt]

Rushing makes the game boring, why rush in and finish it, when you can take it slow, reach America and get guns?

I only rush a little because I want to play with the uber units. However, I reached America once with the Moors and likely won't do it again. It was just boring pressing end turn repeatedly doing nothing but playing brigand whack-a-mole.

[Bob the Insane]

A question for the OP or anyone that has done this. Would you classify it as easy, or at least no harder than normal game play, or would you say this was actually a bit of a challenge?

From a modding perspective, what feature, if made unavailable, would have hampered your progress the most? (if anything)...

[SirRethcir]

A question for the OP or anyone that has done this. Would you classify it as easy, or at least no harder than normal game play, or would you say this was actually a bit of a challenge?

Well, to meet the deadline of 20 turns is not a piece of cake. But with an 'normal' agressive playstyle you could surely win the campaign in 50 turns.

From a modding perspective, what feature, if made unavailable, would have hampered your progress the most? (if anything)...

Read Ulstan's post!
Mercenaries and city sacking are the key elements.

[John_Longarrow]

Bob,

The things that will slow down a blitzer would be
1) Stronger garrisons in Rebel territory
2) Lower the amount sacking gives
3) Reduced Merc availablitity
4) Increase unrest due to distance from capitol. This would require a larger garrison and more "Happy" buildings to be made before you can afford to move troops out.
5) Make Rebel territories either Pagan or Heritic. Same as 4, but you are limited based on how quickly you can move through religious agents.

4 and 5 slow down a blitz because you run into unrest problems. They won't impact a "Kill everyone else" blitzer, but they will slow down a take and hold blitzer.

[icek]

and most of all teaching cpu to defend theyr cities. now ai do it with standard rtw vanilla routine. they land they armies near city hoping for 2:1 armies battle but good general can do a night battle and first take the almost undefended city and then defeat single army.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Fastest Long Campaign of All Time?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

HRE 45 provinces and Rome.
Version 1.02

Result:

Generals: 18
Battles Won: 60
Battles Lost: 3
Cities: 23
Castles: 23
Provinces held: 46
Year: 1100

Turn: 11

I realized this was possible during my Blitz All Challenge campaign... once I got to 45 provinces by turn 14... I decided to load my save file from turn 8 and go for the gold medal for the HRE Long Campaign as well.

There were some tough battles. Outmaneuvering the Pope, getting excommunicated, finishing a crusade on turn 9, slaughtering nearly all of France on the final turn... it was epic.

AAR will follow.... stay tuned.

[ReiseReise]

Thats amazing atpg. Will you reclaim some part of your former title now or do you have to win Blitz All?

[Askthepizzaguy]

Thats amazing atpg. Will you reclaim some part of your former title now or do you have to win Blitz All?

I did win the Blitz All....

Check it out. That ones even more impressive.

28 turn victory, 106 provinces.

Listen, I am pretty proud of my achievement, but in light of the recent Patriots Bowl loss, I know just how awful it is to hear people gloat.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

(Actually most of the people on this forum were true gentlemen... just a couple of jerks at work... would NOT shut UP about it, even after I've been magnanimous all season towards vanquished foes, saying how well they played and how good their teams were, especially those who almost beat us, and most definitely towards the Giants on game 16... alas maturity is not universal.)

So rather than drop confetti on myself and crank up "We are the Champions"... I am simply going to humbly say, great effort to all who participated in the challenges, and I sincerely hope someone will attempt to dethrone me again. THIS time, it will not be an easy matter. Hold on to your butts, because 106 provinces in 28 turns is roughly 3.9 provinces per turn, and 46 provinces in 11 turns is 4.18 provinces per turn, and much of that was under excommunication.

You guys are going to enjoy the AAR... but it's roughly 600 images now.

Gonna be a while before I can build it.

Oh, what the hell.... enjoy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sogKUx_q7ig

[SirRethcir]

Fastest Long Campaign of All Time?
HRE 45 provinces and Rome.
Version 1.02

Result:

Generals: 18
Battles Won: 60
Battles Lost: 3
Cities: 23
Castles: 23
Provinces held: 46
Year: 1100

Turn: 11

Well, well...
... Have to talk to Schlieffen ... Need a plan ...

[Askthepizzaguy]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Well, well...
... Have to talk to Schlieffen ... Need a plan ...

Would anyone like the save files posted so that you can examine my progress on each turn?

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=99026
My HRE thread (under construction... LOTS of images warning!)