Which Lands to Conquer faction should be my first visual thread?

[Askthepizzaguy]

Finally installed Lands to Conquer. Fans of my England, Egypt, and Russia (vanilla) threads know how much I love to blitz. Fortunately, lands to conquer is much harder, and I cannot really exploit the Crusade/Jihad function due to the lower pillage amount, higher unrest and religious penalties, among other concerns.

I have proven with my Russia campaign that I don't actually need such crutches to do an impressive blitz of the campaign map. So, with the LTC mod, I can now post harder blitz campaigns.

Which Lands to Conquer faction should be my first visual thread?

Scotland
England
France
Spain
Portugal
Moors
Denmark
Holy Roman Empire
Milan
Venice
Sicily
Russia
Poland
Hungary
Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine)
Turks
Egypt

[Askthepizzaguy]

I've already stormed through the 100 years war as a warm-up. Difficulty: VH/VH

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Year: 1346 AD.

England is fighting a bitter war on two fronts against the Scots and the French. Not willing to turn my back on the Scots, I decide to eliminate them first, using the English channel as a temporary defense against the French. I recruit a small navy to patrol the waters, and I fill Bordeaux with defensive troops such as archers and heavy spearmen to hold off and distract the French. I then charge toward Edinburgh with three full stacks of England's finest, with cannon in tow. Scotland falls before the might of England's northern army.



1359 AD: I invade France from Southwest England by ship, pushing through their relatively undefended towns and pillaging my way towards Paris.

Bordeaux survives all assaults upon it, and sends a stack Northeast into central France.

My troops in Scotland sail directly to Northern France. A total of 6 full stacks of troops annihilates northern France to meet victory conditions. I crave more French blood.



1377 AD: France is destroyed, as well as Burgundy and Pamplona. The entire map is mine, and fell easily. The hundred years war? Not quite. Not even close. Try 40 years.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/2d4q7n

Download a zipped folder with all of my saved files for this campaign (1 save/turn).
(Quick download. C'mon, a quick peek won't kill ya!)

[Si GeeNa]

Do Sicily in Grand Campaign. I'm getting plastered by Byzie and Moors. It's fun.

[Lusted]

I'd suggest Sicily, Byzantines, HRE or possibly Turks. Oh, and i hope you found LTC VH to be tougher than vanilla VH.

[Askthepizzaguy]

So far, yes.

What is really holding me back is the public order/religious penalty.

Were it not for that, even with the limited pillaging florins I could still steamroll the map in short order. Now, I can't simply mow through opposing religion territories and sack everything, and of course it's not very likely that enough factions would be excommunicated that a crusade could wipe most of them out.

So, it's back to Russian-style tactics, and more realistic gameplay.

Don't count me out yet. The difficulty rating isn't high enough to make blitzing impossible, like The Long Road mod.

I also tried the Long Road, and it looks like it takes substantial effort merely to expand your kingdom into the surrounding rebel territories. I kid you not, rebel York has better troops than the entire starting English faction.

Give me time, though... once I build my faction to the point where I can field about three stacks of troops, I will own this game once again.

Excellent work on the game, Lusted. You certainly have put your talent to good use here. This game is indeed tougher to chew.

[Lusted]

Glad you're enjoying it, i didn't do what the TLR mod does as that goes a bit too far towards hindering expansion. I want fun, not 20 turns of building up just to beat 1 rebel stack.

And yes the religious unrest is a right pain in the ass now, adds in a lovely dynamic to the Reconquista campaign.