Odd strategic question

[doctrellor]

I know in XL and most likely several other Mods, getting all the provinces is a royal pain in the kahoots...

so, when getting close to that limit, I wanna get rid of another faction.. but destroy them internally...in a "nontraditional" way..

I have 1 or 2 power stacks with high star gens ravage thru thier provinces and just conquer them to raze them to the ground & just move on to severaly weaken them and keep them down...

Current situation: Playing France.. I own France, Denmark, HRE, Venice, Genoese and Wessex...

so I am torching everything in Spain and lo.. The Almos come back..lol.. to a burned scorched landscape...

question: How do you guys "wipe out the competition" when outright taking the lands will just cause the pop to revolt and the computer 'make life HARD for your faction'..:P

[Peasant Phill]

By playing GA goals. You don't have to conquer it all to win that way. Besides its way more fun, battles become a drag ones you defeated the other big empires and you still have to go on just because that's your mission.

[Don Esteban]

I know in XL and most likely several other Mods, getting all the provinces is a royal pain in the kahoots...

so, when getting close to that limit, I wanna get rid of another faction.. but destroy them internally...in a "nontraditional" way..

I have 1 or 2 power stacks with high star gens ravage thru thier provinces and just conquer them to raze them to the ground & just move on to severaly weaken them and keep them down...

Current situation: Playing France.. I own France, Denmark, HRE, Venice, Genoese and Wessex...

so I am torching everything in Spain and lo.. The Almos come back..lol.. to a burned scorched landscape...

question: How do you guys "wipe out the competition" when outright taking the lands will just cause the pop to revolt and the computer 'make life HARD for your faction'..:P

I leave each faction blocked up in 1 province and on the last turn squash the lot of them at once. That way no reappearances, just normal rebellions which are pretty easy to put down. That said it is much harder on XL to conquer everything and I usually don't bother!

[scowie]

How do you guys "wipe out the competition" when outright taking the lands will just cause the pop to revolt and the computer 'make life HARD for your faction'..:P

When taking over new territory, if you are not using your king to do it, it's a good idea to at least put your king close to a newly conquered province, preferably the one bordering it, or even better, move your king into the newly conquered province after the battle. This will help to keep the loyalty as high as possible.

Of course, you need to make sure you're not reducing loyalty in your existing empire too much. As long as the newly acquired province isnt too far from the coast your king will hopefully be able to keep a sea connection to the rest of your empire. And dont shy away from temporarily reducing taxes throughout your empire so that you can keep your king near the newly acquired territory for a few turns.

Another thing to keep in mind is that if you're targetting a poorly defending province and therefore bring a small army to the fight, you may still need to have greater numbers ready to move in the turn after the invasion, just to keep loyalty high enough.

[bamff]

I prefer GA myself as well.

Even then I often find myself acquiring more territory than I really actually want (sometimes it is hard to march away from a province once you have gone to the trouble of beating its previous holders back!).

[Weebeast]

I leave each faction blocked up in 1 province and on the last turn squash the lot of them at once. That way no reappearances, just normal rebellions which are pretty easy to put down. That said it is much harder on XL to conquer everything and I usually don't bother!

Hahaha we, greatminds, think alike. Papacy is the last to go as sometimes it can reemerge outside Italy in addition to Rome,etc ( I gave Papacy crusade access in my install and it uses it well whenever the catholic major powers turn infidel).

[King Kurt]

My preference is to provoke civil war. I keep a check on the rival's influence and when it gets low, hit them hard, taking a couple of provinces etc. It is even better to take a province gained by a crusade or cut the king off from his homelands. The civil war then weakens the faction as a whole and a few rebels about means easy pickings for bribes. I also like leaving a faction in a single province, but sometimes it is difficult to do.

[Don Esteban]

Hahaha we, greatminds, think alike. Papacy is the last to go as sometimes it can reemerge outside Italy in addition to Rome,etc ( I gave Papacy crusade access in my install and it uses it well whenever the catholic major powers turn infidel).

The Papacy is ALWAYS last to go in my games and I savour his utter destruction every single time

[General Dazza]

I prefer GA myself as well.

Even then I often find myself acquiring more territory than I really actually want (sometimes it is hard to march away from a province once you have gone to the trouble of beating its previous holders back!).

On GA - I'm just playing my first GA campaign now. I enjoyed it at first when I was behind in points, and thought it would get harder if I turtled. But I found that as the factions got big they imploded and dropped back.

As a result I found myself facing borders with rebels. Which is fine, but the thing I'm not sure about is this - to get GA points I have to take provinces (I'm not one of the majors who have extra GA objectives), so it makes sense to take and keep provinces, which I've done. Now I'm way ahead cos no other faction gets enough provinces and holds them to challenge me. But I've found that I'm just playing a conquest game.

I can understand how you could role play it more, but conquest is still what you need to do to win.

I think it would be much better if, in a GA game, for all factions conquest was one of about 10 objectives. So rather than just choosing conquest you could choose a range of different paths to victory.

I know this won't happen, but...

[Gimli]

I leave each faction blocked up in 1 province and on the last turn squash the lot of them at once. That way no reappearances, just normal rebellions which are pretty easy to put down. That said it is much harder on XL to conquer everything and I usually don't bother!

I've also found that to be a great strategy! The only minor downside is having to keep a garrison in neighboring provinces... But you would have had to do that in case of a reappearance anyway!

[Don Esteban]

I've also found that to be a great strategy! The only minor downside is having to keep a garrison in neighboring provinces... But you would have had to do that in case of a reappearance anyway!

Sure garrisons are a pain but then you can also minimise this by choosing which provinces to leave them blocked up in. Plus the AI isn't that agressive so you don't need to leave huge forces around.

[Gimli]

Sure garrisons are a pain but then you can also minimise this by choosing which provinces to leave them blocked up in. Plus the AI isn't that agressive so you don't need to leave huge forces around.

Good call. It is also kinda fun to stomp the blocked up factions every now and then and kill off their armies.

[Don Esteban]

Good call. It is also kinda fun to stomp the blocked up factions every now and then and kill off their armies.

It is and sometimes you get some of those very enjoyable battles with only a few units which are quite rare late on in the game.

[Gimli]

It is and sometimes you get some of those very enjoyable battles with only a few units which are quite rare late on in the game.

Yeah, unlike the HORDES AND HORDES of reinforcements that normally happen at that point... ENDLESS battles...