campaign TOO easy?

[Strike For The South]

Granted I only play sporadically (now not at all) but even back in my heyday I always found the HRE and Italy to be rather hard. HRE because when you are pushing into Greece with a low influence king the generals back home tend to be restless and Italy because the danged pope my how I hate that yellow....

[Martok]

Granted I only play sporadically (now not at all) but even back in my heyday I always found the HRE and Italy to be rather hard. HRE because when you are pushing into Greece with a low influence king the generals back home tend to be restless and Italy because the danged pope my how I hate that yellow....

Indeed, the HRE is just a tough campaign, period -- maybe even more so than the Turks. While I've not played as them very frequently, it's still significant that I can probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I've managed to survive more than 20-25 years as the Germans. They definitely have the cards stacked against them in a lot of ways:

Their starting position virtually guarantees you'll be at war with multiple factions early on, and (not coincidentally) often times excommunicated as well. Their lands aren't particularly wealthy, they have no naval presence to speak of, and most of their good/unique units aren't available til the Late period.

About their only real advantage (if you can call it that) is the fact that, like the Papacy, they can't be destroyed by having their royal family killed off -- one never need worry about your faction dying without an heir. On the other hand, civil wars do tend to be much more of a threat....

[oz_wwjd]

I've had problems with the pope when he went into expansion mode and took over half the map,then he took a liking to my stack of latin Auxiliaries,bribed them and bought over arbalests and swiss guard units as well,then the hungarians took a liking to that province as well,as i wasn't expecting 1: the ai to be that smart 2: the ai to be able to afford to bribe that stack,as I had them under a loyal general,or I thought he was loyal..

[Strike For The South]

Indeed, the HRE is just a tough campaign, period -- maybe even more so than the Turks. While I've not played as them very frequently, it's still significant that I can probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I've managed to survive more than 20-25 years as the Germans. They definitely have the cards stacked against them in a lot of ways:

Their starting position virtually guarantees you'll be at war with multiple factions early on, and (not coincidentally) often times excommunicated as well. Their lands aren't particularly wealthy, they have no naval presence to speak of, and most of their good/unique units aren't available til the Late period.

About their only real advantage (if you can call it that) is the fact that, like the Papacy, they can't be destroyed by having their royal family killed off -- one never need worry about your faction dying without an heir. On the other hand, civil wars do tend to be much more of a threat....

Many a time I have had a great empire only to see it split in half by civil war. If you get one of those you are done for because then the everyone and there cousin jumps on you and for me that usually means losing Swabia which is always where I produce my infantry (love those swordsman!) So yea I have to start over.

[caravel]

Yes indeed, civil wars tend to hit the HRE harder than other factions because the French, Hungarians, Italians and Poles (even the Danes!) will immediately seize great chunks of your territory. In the case of other factions you can often use civil wars to change your stagnant family line and rejuvenate your ailing empire.

It's also bad news if you get excommunicated. This also causes free for all crusades from your treacherous neighbours. The HRE are certainly one of the harder factions.

[Strike For The South]

Well Im glad we're agreed!...This place is so much nicer than the backroom.

[Vantek]

I just realised I've never played HRE! I guess that shuts my mouth on comments on how the campaign is too easy :P I've dominated with Turks in High (I assume that's the most difficult era for them?), but it was just on Hard, though my skill was even weaker back then.

What I do find to be a bit of a problem for unmodded MTW is that while there might be some sufficiently hard factions, most of them are too easy. I want to play ALL of them (especially muslims because of their nice music =P), not just the same five over and over again! I guess this can usually be fixed by self-modding or something like starting stupid wars and inducing huge loyalist revolts, but still.

But then we have mods (which I haven't even tried yet...), so in the end there's no problem =)

Side question, are Aragonese tough (they're playable in VI, right?)? I remember back in vanilla days I used to think they'd rank up there in difficulty if they were playable.

[Knight of the Rose]

As to the main question: Usually the campaign is easy once you've got yourself established. It's getting established in the first place that is the challange.

As to the side question, I find Aragon (vanilla VI) modestly tough. They only start out with one province (except for late), but it is a rich one, and their southern neighbour Spain is usually tied up by the Almohads, while their northern one is battling the English. So while they lack room for easy expansion, they have room for opportunity. Just remember to expand before your multiple sons empty the coffers of the realm.

/KotR

[Martok]

As to the main question: Usually the campaign is easy once you've got yourself established. It's getting established in the first place that is the challange.

Exactly.

As to the side question, I find Aragon (vanilla VI) modestly tough. They only start out with one province (except for late), but it is a rich one, and their southern neighbour Spain is usually tied up by the Almohads, while their northern one is battling the English. So while they lack room for easy expansion, they have room for opportunity. Just remember to expand before your multiple sons empty the coffers of the realm.

/KotR

Agreed. With all your neighbors fighting one another, an Aragonese ruler has to be opportunistic. One thing I usually do as Aragon is to immediately bribe El Cid, thereby acquiring the moderately-wealthy duchy of Valencia in the process as well. It's expensive, but it does help Aragon get a leg up.

[Vantek]

In my opinion, once you've have a few total victories on your record (the first few times it will be new and interesting), the point of getting established becomes actually the best spot where to stop and start a new campaign. Anything past that will just be more of the exact same thing. I have become to think of that point as my final goal in any given campaign.

[caravel]

Yes, I usually play MTW for the series of challenging battles and the challenge of becoming and established faction. After this point the game get's rather predictable and the autocalcing starts, at that stage it's not really worth going on IMHO. This is usually no the 60% victory but maybe 1/3 of the map or thereabouts.

With STW I'd usually play through to about 80% though.