V-B's in High Era start

I've just started a campaign as the VB's in the High Era and wanted to share my feedback. I'm playing on Expert difficulty as well, so keep this in mind.

Well, to start off the VB's are in about the worst possible predicament I could imagine. Right next to the ticking time bomb that is the GH arrival, they begin in Volga-Bulgaria with a Castle and good troop production facilities, but little else.

Your starting army is pitiful, barely enough to act as a garrison and certainly not enough to conquer anyone - even the neighbouring Rebels.

Your leader is a 2* General, and is producing heirs like crazy which is nice - you certainly need the troops.

Money is also VERY tight. Your single province brings in about 500 florins on max tax.

A few things are important to note right off the bat:

1. You will never hold off the Horde in Volga Bulgaria, don't even try.
2. Your lack of funds will resrtict both your army size and what you can do in conquered teritories.
3. Ryanzan is to the west and Kazar is to the South. Both are rebel held and could therefore give some decent ransoms. unfortunately, ryanzan is prone to rebellions, and has almost no infrastructure so little or no plunder and almost no value. Kazar is probably quite well garrisoned. It has some infrastructure in place and might be worth the trouble of taking if you can do so, but bear in mid you'll be abandoning it soon when the GH arrives.
4. Your only offensive infantry of note are the Kazanchi's. Good Halbard troops that have a good AP attack so can fight pretty well against other mainstream infantry. They are VERY expensive though and have a whopping 70 florin upkeep.


The situation is dire to say the least. Your only hope is to get out of the way of the GH once it arrives and hope it goes after someone elses holdings. Ok, but where to go? There are two choices - South west into the Cumans in Lesser Kazar, or up into Muscovy - held by the much strionger Russians.

I chose to take Muscovy for a couple of reasons - 1. good income. 2. well developed, will serve as a good base once VB falls to the horde. 3. to get to it from VB you need to fight a river battle so good to defend from once the Horde take VB.

The Russians have much better troops than you - Arbalesters, Halbardiers, Boyars etc. and more of them, plus you'll need to fight a bridge battle to get there.

The key is artillery - lots of it. Build a Siege Engineers Workshop (make Bashkorts while it's building) then build Catapults, you want 5+, preferably more. Once you've built the Siege Engineer Workshop, build an inn so you can make a few Chernye Klobuki and recruit any extra useful troops that become available. You particularly want Siege Engines (especially Organ Guns (you can leave these to garrison Volga Bulgaria and make the mongols really pay to take the stronghold, or take them withyou into muscovy and use them later to defend the bridge) and catapults) and long range archery troops like Arbalesters or Halbard units if they have a good upkeep.

Once you've ammassed a bunch of artillery, some steppe cavalry and a bunch of Bashkorts, take your whole force bar a garrison unit or two into Muscovy, preferably when most of the Russians are away.

Set up all your artilleryclose to your side of the bridge, but out od arrow range from the other side. The enemy will form up on the other side of the river but not be able to reach you with their arrows. They won't corss the bridge, so you can start pounding away with your Artillery. This should net you a bunch of free kills and enable you to weaken key units like Boyars and Halbardiers. once you are out of ammo, withdraw the artillery and bring up more combat tropps then fight your way across the bridge. You can send some troops over any secondary bridges available as well to foce them to split their defenders. From there it's a straight forward battle that you need to win.

One other idea is to walk a junk unit down to the waters edge and just leav them there to become a pin cussion hopefull the Russians will exhaust many or all of their arrows on him leaving them with what amounts to very weak cavalry troops and a couple of key units.

From here is all about reinfocing Muscovy. Take the castle by siege if necessary and then start pouring troops onto it for the inevitable defense.

When the Golden Horde arrive, leave a garrison unit or two in Volga Bulgaria and sell everything there that isn't nailed down except the castle. Force the GH to take it by force if possible than bleed them as much as you can.

I'm currently defending Muscovy from the GH at the moment, an it's very tough, but I'm making them pay dearly for it. I don't think I'll be able to hold out against a determined assault much longer, and will probably ahve to restart the campaign now that I have a clear game plan in mind.