Sweboz: tips on when to field troops and when not to plus devastation

[Bob69Joe]

Hello.

I played a very short time as Hayastan for about twenty years and never had many visitors so devastation wasn't an issue.
Now I'm trying Sweboz and after two years of leading a raised army I am more than 10000 schekels in debt and
all I accomplished was destroying one Dane-to-be army and taking their settlement at Copenhagen-to-be.
I left the "borderlanders" to the South alone after the joined their two small armies into one and
they've devastated the land to 1200 schekel deficit but I don't have the men to kill them. So I started a new game and
immediately went after those armies before they.could.join and stomped.them both separately, now I suppose.I'll go North to
stomp the Dane-to-be army and only then disband some troops. I want to ask what amount of levy is good to keep raised in case a
band should wander in next season to devastate our wildlife for phat schekels? Sweboz seem able to.raise a host quickly but
I want to optimize schekel gain and disbamd numbers I won't need. Thanks a lot!

[Cryoshakespeare]

In my experience, you can count on there being one raiding army for every garrisoned province that borders you on the map. Invariably my strategy early game involves wiping these armies out first, the garrisoned armies will wait, and the potential for devastation in your home province can be very costly, much more than one measly tribal province like Copenhagen-to-be. So the earliest steps are about border-army stomping.

After that, as the Sweboz, you're in a unique position as a "barbarian" faction - you can raid provinces yourself. You move a FM to a spot in enemy territory, end their turn, then spend the entire next turn sitting in that one spot without moving. After that, you will get... 800 uh.. schekels as you put it. But the real value is here - you split all but one of your FMs off the main army (you should have five in total early as Sweboz iirc) and have them individually occupy the tiles beside the main army. Those FMs will be reinforced by the main army in the case of sudden attack. They will each be looting though, so that's a total of 4000 schekels every two turns! You need to move them after they raid a tile however, and you can't raid the same tile for a good while after (but there's a lot of space in most provinces).

This raiding feature is disabled once you grow to 10 provinces, but I'd argue it can be one of the main sources of income for "barbarian" factions in the early game. Granted, it does tie up your army, and if you're the kind of player that wants to waste no time in blobbing to maximum size, then it might seem too slow. But using it correctly can be an excellent boon for a measured-pace game, and you'll find it solves your problem of going so far into debt (and honestly more than compensates). Just do note that you do actually cause devastation when raiding, so provinces you conquer will still need to recover over time from your own raids. So either raid places you only intend to conquer later on, or just tank the cost and recognize that you gained way more from the raids in all likelihood than you would from the province income anyway

[tentaku]

...... So either raid places you only intend to conquer later on, or just tank the cost and recognize that you gained way more from the raids in all likelihood than you would from the province income anyway

Great point. Too bad computer players can't respond properly to raids right? Like if I raid my allies' territory to borrow some money

[Ivir Baggins]

Great point. Too bad computer players can't respond properly to raids right? Like if I raid my allies' territory to borrow some money

You can also only raid provinces that you're at war with.

[Bob69Joe]

You can also only raid provinces that you're at war with.

So rebels are free game all day, I'll go over to northern Gaul then. Will rebels ever siege my towns?

The debt mechanic is nuts. I would have never noticed how to make money on devastation without coming to the forum. It'd be nice if barbarians had a debt cap, as they aren't taking loans from the Central Bank of Rome just yet.

[Ivir Baggins]

So rebels are free game all day, I'll go over to northern Gaul then. Will rebels ever siege my towns?

The debt mechanic is nuts. I would have never noticed how to make money on devastation without coming to the forum. It'd be nice if barbarians had a debt cap, as they aren't taking loans from the Central Bank of Rome just yet.

On Hard and Very Hard, larger rebel stacks may siege your towns if the garrison's low, but it's not something that happens much without scripting - I've never played Sweboz though, so ain't too sure about their position with regards to that.

[Genghis Skahn]

I've definitely had my capital besieged by rebel rovers as the Swebozes on H or VH difficulty before. Upside is, if that's your only city, then rather than losing the game like a settled faction, you will actually become a horde faction, and with your newfound army can quickly retake whatever you've lost and then some.

[Bob69Joe]

I've definitely had my capital besieged by rebel rovers as the Swebozes on H or VH difficulty before. Upside is, if that's your only city, then rather than losing the game like a settled faction, you will actually become a horde faction, and with your newfound army can quickly retake whatever you've lost and then some.

A friend of mine told it was possible to move the entire family half a continent away and conquer the lands there. Can I take my horde across the waters? It would be a cool time to introduce the Breton to the Saxon.

[Genghis Skahn]

You need ships to move across water, excluding land-crossings.

[Kull]

The debt mechanic is nuts. I would have never noticed how to make money on devastation without coming to the forum.

"Raiding" as a source of income is at the top of page 9 in the v2.3 Player's Guide (in the mods\ebii folder).

It'd be nice if barbarians had a debt cap, as they aren't taking loans from the Central Bank of Rome just yet.

There was no "debt spending" in this era, but the engine does allow it. Which means you can maintain a large army (even though you can't pay your men) and support infrastructure (lack of funds doesn't cause your temples to fall into ruin, for example). Putting a cap on the debt isn't a terrible idea, but we've tweaked the economics to ensure that smaller factions can overcome the hurdle with proper planning and tactics. By definition it should be harder for them to succeed, and debt management is part of that difficulty equation.

[Bob69Joe]

Hello again. I'm not getting how to start the first few years. I see two huge rebel stacks from the West and North and I can get rid of one but then I have half as many men to take on the other and before I can even get to them I start losing 1200 ducats to devastation.

[Ganos Paran]

Try recruiting all the cavalry you can turn 1 (mercs plus regular recruitment) and then make sure when you fight the first stack you have levies out in front and better troops further back, use all the javelins you can then charge in your light infantry maybe with your family members on the flanks to keep moral up. At the same time destroy the opposing cavalry (by surrounding and cycle charging them - never use only frontal charges!). Then hit the rear of the enemy troops and mass rout then (the marker that your timing is right should be that your final casualties are around 10%). This works as long as you have atleast 50% of the enemies numbers and got me through about 3 settlements and 3 rebel stacks using the starting army.

[Bob69Joe]

Sounds like a plan! Thanks!

What exactly is cycling? Do I pull out the horses after they complete their charge then send in a reserve?

Hey, where do Germans get so many horses? Did they introduce Bretons to them, or was that Romans or perhaps Gauls?

[Ganos Paran]

Yup, you just hit them with a charge then pull back and hit them with a different body of cavalry, I usually try to make sure each charge comes from a different direction so while one body of cav is attacking from the front have another go behind and get ready for a rear charge. Also make sure you pay attention to where the enemy bodyguard cav is so they can't charge you in the flanks.