Sneakiest Strategic Move

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

My sneakiest move, was possibly to prevent a HRE crusade from claiming. I simply denied it access to my provinces. Although they attacked every province they touched, it slowly weakened them, and, since I was Orthodox (Byzantines), my provinces, aided by spies and a complete lack of garrison due to no direct HRE access to them, simply revolted back to me the turn they were lost, providing me with a better army that I actually had prior to the province being taken - although that was not part of my plan, it was a lovely added bonus. In conclusion, although they did break through in the end and get to where they wanted to go, they were severely hampered and, when they reached Rum, their target, they were destroyed by the tiny garrison that was residing there (all they had left was a bunch of cheap and nasty Fanatics)!

[The Unknown Guy]

Why not let them pass? After all, the HRE usually has to fight many enemies at the same time, and a small would-be crusader HRE state in Rum is not a problem: you invade it, kill everyone, and take Rum as your own. You don't get a DoW by the HRE either because you don't share a border. Also: it's easy to reject crusades if you have a Greece/Serbia-Bulgaria European border. Fortify heavily, bring heavy infantry as a defensive wall + reinforcements for when they get tired, Psiloi(pocket mod?)/Trebizond archers, and one or two arbalesters to snipe the general. Those are high profit provinces and can support very well on their own a fairly decent garrison.

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Thanks for the advice, I'll remember that in the future when playing as the Byzantines. Thanks!

[Sir Evil]

My sneakiest move was performed against the Turks while playing as the english. The clock had just moved to the year 1253 and by then I already owned The Isles, France, Aragon and Sicily. The turks got constantinople straight from the bizantines, out of pure luck the bizantines sank the turkish ships at Mamara, so I got a chance and I took it by invading constantinople and greece via Sicily. It was a cleaver move as my forces( billmen, longbowshalberdiers and jinetes) were strong enough to hold against the turks. Constantinople became my capital from there on and besides it helped me stay filthy rich.

You know I think that as far as strategy goes you got to take chances whenever you can, it ussualy turns out all right

[Innocentius]

My sneakiest move ever was playing as the Byzantines in Early. Poor bastards didn't stand a chance

[Innocentius]

Nah, seriosuly though I don't have very many sneaky moves on my account, I'm very much a blunt and repetative player: take that - build up - take that - build up - repeat.
A move I frequently use is simply emptying a few provinces to invade a neighbouring province. My force now gets so large that the enemy retreats. I can then recall most of the army to defend my other provinces and lure the AI to counter-attack my seemingly weak force. This tactic works excellently as long as your troops are superior to the AI's (which they are). Not very sneaky I know, but that's as good as it gets in my case I believe.
A variation of the above tactic that is very useful when fighting a superior enemy (I mostly experience this as the Poles or Huns against the Cumans in XL) is invading a weak perimeter province (in my cases mostly Moldavia), then leavy only a token garrison. Lure the main AI army from it's teched-up base province (Levidia in this case), then just raid that province (by sea if I'm playing as the Huns) and thereafter make for a swift retreat. It's basically the British tactics developed after WWI: destroy the production capability of your enemy.

Come to think of it, the only really sneaky move I can think of was more luck than anything else. In an Hungarian campaign (ages ago, it's in the Pics & history of your empire if anyone's interested) my neighbours, the Turks, had suffered a civil war and suddenly the Sultan and all his sons were isolated in Constantinople (only Rum remained loyal apart from Constantinople). I of course took the bait, got the Sultan as he fled and received plenty of cash.

[Peasant Phill]

My sneakiest moves aren't really that cunning, it's justing basic strategic thinking.

- As the picts I almost immediatly attacked the Scots in their production province with a small force. This force consisted of at least one unit of xbows and one unit of pictish cav (if you want to know my battle tactics look them up in the guide forum).
The Scots had some arcehers, some highlanders and the king. I managed to rout the Scots with almost no casaulties (xbows and feint retreats by my pict horses). After that, Scotland were three seperate provincies without any production capacity. Need I tell you that I was able to capture and ransom the king twice?

- As the English (pre XL) I was attacking some rebel provinces in a race to annex them before the Byzantines (I was allied to them), who were the biggest faction. I had to pacify the 2 provinces I took the year before, so all I could attack with that turn were cav (hobilars and RK). But I tought it would be alright as most of their forces were peasants ( probably around 16 units of them and some spears) and I had some succes before with killing huge numbers of rebel peasants with nothing but hobi's.
It turned out that not only my force invaded but the Byz and the HRE to. And I was the smallest force on the field. I then used my cav (the others had almost none) to herd the peasants in such a way that they would turn their attention to the Germans and byz. It was great fun and in the end I held the province.

Like I said not really sneaky, but still not very honourable.

[doctrellor]

It's basically the British tactics developed after WWI: destroy the production capability of your enemy.

.

I did the same thing as the Volga Bulgars when the Mongols arrived with thier 19 full stacks...

in the province they 'landed on', I destroyed everything, and so they had an empty province, I then had to destroy Volga Bulgar & Lesser Khazar as well... and so forced him to move south, away from me, since there was nothing for him to take

after like 5 years, he is down to 5 stacks, and I took Volga Bulgar back, so I know he is still fighting the Turks/Eggys in Asia Minor

[doctrellor]

My sneakiest move ever was playing as the Byzantines in Early. Poor bastards didn't stand a chance

I know the feeling..

By 1150 I finished taking out the Turks, Armenians & Eggys...so for the next of 50 years, I go after the Almos, Spanish, Portugese and Aragon to conquer Spain. Oh and I also hit the Genoese to take Corsica/Sardinia & Sicily.

SO by 1200, I owned the Med basically...lol, and with 190K in cash, I knew the game was over..lol

[Bregil the Bowman]

An account of mysneakiest move is detailed in this post.


https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...postcount=1036

The short version is this - I left a small unit besieging an even smaller garrison to lure an ally of the garrison into releiving the siege. I then moved huge stacks into both the besieged province and the province from which the relieving force was sent. The result was that the relief force turned tail only to find its retreat cut off. I destroyed two stacks of HRE's finest, including the Emperor himself, without a blow being struck.