Current status of your campaign?

[Walternat0r]

Hey there,

I started a Russian campaign (SS 5.1 H/H) a few days ago, had tried Russians previously on vanilla and after turn 54 called it a day 'cause I had no money, no army, and no allies But this time around it's very different (thankfully).



It's turn 64 now and things are going OK bordering on good. My kingdom spans from Astrakhan and Bulgar in the east along the northern territories to Groningen. I have completely captured Scandinavia and am beginning my long planned assualt of the UK. I'm 5th in the world rankings so far after Egypt, France, Poland and the Byzantines.


(Also check it out, only lost 1 battle so far :D)

The first 20 turns had me blitzing westwards with the majority of my armed forces, taking Pskov, Riga, Helsinki, Visby, Stockholm and Uppsala before the Norwegians and Danes could get there. I cemented an alliance with Lithuania (been outstanding relations since), Kievan Rus (also outstanding) and Poland (constant tribute and they never once loved me :(). I'm also allied with France (v good or better relations), Egypt and the Pope (he hates me though :D). I took a small force eastwards to take Konosha and then in the last 12 turns also Kjatka, Bulgar and Astrakhan.



After the initial rush my expansion has slowed down quite considerably, it took me until turn 40 to remove the Norwegians from the game, during which time the Danes attacked me and it took me until turn 61 to get rid of them. My planned invasion of England was for turn 45 but because of betrayels by these 2 factions (they actually attacked me first) I had them put down.

The HRE was doing rather well until about 12 turns ago when France and Poland allied and conducted a rather epic pincer movement. Now all the HRE owns is Zagreb and that is under almost constant seige from Poland so I don't think it'll be long before it falls.

When I attacked Denmark the Poles decided to stay with them rather than my allies, but didn't attack me and even though the Danes were gone 3 turns ago, there is still no option for me to ally with the Poles so i'm constantly in fear of them attacking as there is no way that I could beat them.

The assualt of the UK has been a plan from the outset of my campaign as I knew that around turn 70 the Mongols would arrive and that there is a 50% chance of them turning up in Russia and steam rolling the hell out of it. For this reason i've kept only skeleton garrisons in my russian towns with maximum taxes so while they are militarily under-developed, then earn me a bit and can be quickly vacated for no real loss. If the Mongols arrive in Baghdad then that's fine as Lithuania have started on the Turks (with mine and Egypts assitance) so that border should be safe. But if the Mongols arrive in Russia i'll be evacuating back to Moscow and Novgorod (or further, depending on the completion of my conquering of the UK). Once there i'm not really sure what i'll do to get my 70 region victory, but I have 260 turns left so it shouldn't be too difficult.

All through the campaign i've only had 1 major army, which has my king Grand Duke Vladimir The Conquerer (treble gold chevron in battle, but only 2 on campaign map :S) and my prince in it (3x gold chevron). It is majority Kazaks and Boyar Sons with Merc Spearmen and Viking Mercenaries for seiges so it's a bit lame but Russian infantry is so poor it's the only viable option. Also, it costs me a fortune just to field this one army (Kazak upkeep = 200, Boyars = 250). Throughout the campaign i've never made more than perhaps 8k florins per turn, with average around 6k so expansion has been neccessarily slow.

Once London has fallen I shall storm northwards and elimate the rest of their settlements and then take out Scotland and Ireland. All the while fingers crossed that Poland don't attack me and having a stupidly large, paranoid army in Hamburg just in case.

An odd thing about this campaign is that there hasn't been a crusade or jihad yet, i'm guessing this is because of certain alliances but I would have thought that by now there would be one. Oh well!

Heh, quite an essay there, but any input about ideas how to deal with Poland, plans beyond the UK and how to start making some damned money would be great!

Cheers for reading Walt

PS; how do you hide your images? Can't figure it out for the life of me!

[Askthepizzaguy]

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[Poncho400]

Walter, how did you deal with the coversion of the Catholic regions in such a short time span? I know one trick is to make an army of priests, but when Catholic priests are always encroaching on your lands, you need some extra priests to stay behind and deal with them.

And you're right. The Russian infantry is pretty crappy. The Boyar sons do okay though. I had about 3 groups of them (whats that, 180 guys?) hold off around 3-4 groups of Danish spearmen. Though in the end, I was lef with about 10 of them.

[Walternat0r]

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Rawr!

About Priests, I always have the max possible and with the great relations with Lithuania they form a barrier basically to other priests. The only time I had a catholic in my homeland was a Polish level 1 priest but I keep my 10-piety bishop in there so he didn't do anything! To be honest there really hasn't been many priests at all of any faction that i've seen. Not even Egyptian Imams and they have a huge empire at the moment. Meh!

I have had a problem with heretics in Scandinavia, I think the av orthodox is about 60% in Eiksurand (horrific spelling), Bergen, Oslo, Hamar, Uppsala, Skara, Stockholm and Lund. The heretic turnover is probably one every 3 turns which is really annoying but I have a priest in each region then a 5-piety free roamer who polices the area basically. Arhus Groningen and Hamburg each have 3 priests so any catholics that go into there tend to just leave straight away as they aren't doing anything.

Update on crusades, after I clicked end turn (turn 66) there was a crusade on Toulouse, which was then immediately cancelled. So that was useful. Still no jihad either and i'm getting worried about the Mongols as I haven't a clue what to do when they arrive really besides running away. Novgorod earns me 4.5k a turn so I really really don't want to lose it but I don't really have any means of defending it.

I've taken Nottingham and London with minimal losses - probably about 100 men from the battles to take them. I did that by attacking small stacks outside the town so they reinforced and were hence butchered to the last man. Reputation has dropped to reliable now because I sacked both Nott and London and my Grand Duke is now Silver-tongued, woot!

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