Venice vs. HRE, Byzantine Empire AND Sicily

[ReiseReise]

I wish you were a little more specific about what you were facing, but it sounds like you have a few options.

You are not going to make peace, your only option is to defend until the enemy loses most of its army trying to take your cities, and then you have to strike back.

If you are facing a big invasion force, build troops like mad, numbers are more important than quality in defending cities so pump out those italian spear militia. sell unneeded buildings, do whatever it takes. Don't waste money on xbows if you are defending your walls, italian militia or spears will be better value for money in sieges. 5 italian spears (or regular militia in a pinch) and a general can hold a city against almost anything.

You need to go on the offensive at some point, i would recommend Milanese since they are close to you and Milan and Genoa are very rich large cities, you will cripple them if you take these. After 2 or 3 stacks of their troops have been slaughtered at your walls, take at least one of these cities. They will have minimum forces to strike back with and you will gain a few 1000 per turn, which they will lose.

Abandon Durazzo, I find it virtually worthless and more of a liability than an asset, the garrison required to hold it against the Byz usually costs more than the city's income. Use the garrison from Durazzo to bolster your defenses elsewhere.

Try to send a small army behind the Byz lines, I find they usually leave Corinth and Thesalonica with very small garrisons, often just a general. Even if you don't take the cities, you might lure them into attacking you in the mountain passes in the Ragusa/Durazzo area where you can sit atop a mountain and inflict 10:1 losses against them.

Try to fight the HRE in the Alpine passes where you can do the same as mentioned above. Try to take Innsbruck as it is probably their only castle in the area, you will take away their ability to build anything except militia. Even if they have Bern, you will take away half their local troop production.

If fighting defensive battles in the mountains like I said, take as many pavise militia as you can (at least half your army), they will slaughter the enemy on the way up and can stand their ground once the enemy gets to you.

I hope this helps a little, i will try to help you more if you give some specifics (what are your garrisons/field armies like, are you making any money, what is the numbers and unit types in the enemy armies, what turn or year is it) etc.

[Indy1958]

Gentlemen:

Good evening from Canada!!! I hope this finds you and yours well. As for me, I could complain...yadda, yadda, yadda.

For openers, I'm happy to announce that Agnes has been sent to her Maker, courtesy of an Inquisitor, not to mention a second Inquisitor has done away with a heretic before my Cardinal could get to him. I knew these guys were useful for something

What the basic problem was that it was everything all coming at once. Fortunately, the Sicilian heir to the throne moved off. I then took over Naples, much to the disgust of the Sicilians--poor them!!! Things are now a lot better, but I'm now losing favour with His Hatness.

Questions: 1)Why did the Council of Nobles send me to Durazzo in the first place? 2)Would it put me back in the Pope's good graces if I were to negotiate a ceasefire with one of these countries.

Please note that I tried to negotiate a ceasefire with Milan, and they basically told me to go stuff myself. (I hope I can say that on these boards.)

Oh, one more point here. How do any of you guys feel about Zagreb as a strategic point for anyone playing as Venice? I should tell you that the HRE now have their slimy paws on it, and I say this with all humble apologies to anyone playing as the aforesaid HRE.

Live long and prosper, take care and thank you kindly!!!!!

Sincerely yours always,

Indy.

[Gaius Terentius Varro]

Durazzo after Zagreb is my my key stronghold on which wave after wave of byzantine armies get their butts handed to them. The problem is it has a pop of 400 and no walls so I do this:
Capture Durazzo make it into motte and bailey upgrade to wooden castle upgrade to castle turn into large town and whoila in 8 turns you have a large town with 432 population. The thing is you have wooden walls now which are much better for your Xbowmen than the castle and a port and a facility to retrain your spears and free upkeep. Pop 2 caroccio standards in there 4 units crossbows and 4 units spear militia and you can't lose.
I do the same in Zagreb to get the mine early it pays for the upogrades and the Hungarians gonna come knocking real soon with their horse archers.
I am a turtle so i basically keep and develop those 5 cities tills gunpowder with occasional stints in the holy land and keep alliance with the milanese which they tend to keep even on VH. Once my armies are complete i go and take over.

[Crash]

Zagreb - has gold and is very large. If you focus on taking out the Milanese and Sicilians first, it's not as important. If you want to focus on the Byzantines so that you can avoid fighting other Catholics, then Zagreb's size and location are important. The Hungarians will covet Zagreb, so they will ally with the HRE and Byz if you hold it. It might be worth NOT holding Zagreb just to keep them off your back if you need to just focus on Milan or Byz. Sooner or later, thought, you will need to take it if you intend to expand on the continent.

[joe4iz]

A little more info would have been helpful.

What provinces do you hold etc.

I keep a shuttle fleet in the Adriatic Sea to ferry troops from Ragusa over to the Italian Penisula as needed. Keep in good graces with the Pope and grab Florence in the early stages of the game. Most of the time Sicily will attack you soon. As soon as everyone piles on you, Milan will always backstab you.

The reason to stay in good graces with the Pope is at some point a Sicilian army will come thru that area around Rome. I then attack Sicily so as to have the Pope excom them. Then you can take the only Sicilian city and should easily get a crusade for Palermo. Then Ragusa becomes less important as a military hub. I spend all of my money upgrading Palermo.

On VH I have never had Milan NOT attack me after 8-10 turns. I try to take Genoa first to get their cash cow, then Milan after at least a couple of Papal warnings. That allows you to control the mountain passes . The HRE can throw lots of units at you, but even a decent half stack can hold that area.

I sometimes let the Crusades dictate where I can go. But each Crusade to the Holy Land, I try to take one Byzantine province also.

The problem with Venice at the beginning is that you have to garrison so many units as you have a large frontier every where. In both games I played as Venice, the use of spies kicked the Germans out of Bologna.