I know this is a brutal mod, and i'm playing it on vh/vh with some house rules that are making it way harder (absolutely no save/reloads, no adoptions,) but I have been trying to take Dublin (im ireland) for the last thirty or so turns, and im finding it nearly impossible.
I have virtually no economy, and have resorted to manipulating other factions to make enough money to raise about three half stacks, with which I've been forcing the english to make a string of pyhrric victories.
It started like this- I thought that the only cities that got garrison via the script were capitals, so I attacked what I thought was a virtually empty dublin with a pitiful army and learned the hard way what those little asterisks mean. I ran away like a little baby, reformed my armies, and marched back on dublin, only to find the city empty again a few turns later. I attacked again, without thinking really, and another army spawned. It should have been ok, but before I could seige and take the city, the first garrison burst out of hiding in the northern woods and attacked.
I wish I had screenshots, otherwise this is just a lot of me talking, but this was a very brutal battle in which I lost a good half of my men, but uttetly annhilated one army and routed, but failed to capture, most of the defenders of the city. With my economy in massive debt, my army rather in shambles, and the city still well defended, I sold england a ceasire for a good 10,000 and brooded for a good ten turns or so.
Of course, in this time england raised another full stack, built a string of forts, and just kindof laughed in my face. But I raised an army, got my economy going, and enciicled dublin in a sort of pincher move.
At around turn 40, all the english generals in ireland were hanging out in a fort that protected dublin from the south- probably having some sort of debased english orgy, and I killed them all. Dublin itself was almost empty- I know how 2 1/2 full stacks, and two of them I moved as close as I could, where they could strike next turn. The 1/2 stack I could only move so far as the bride, and I left them their for bait- which another of those creepy, come from nowehre english full stacks.
With my catapults and maxed out dread king, they stood no chance, and as they charged across the bridge they pretty much routed as soon as as men even looked at them. As this was the last English force of any consquence in England, I really needed to defeat them. And I did so, utterly- yet while almost their entire army flew, my general and king got annhilated by a 'friendly' catapult which I had forgot to turn off. Without any cavarly, a good 1200 men out of 1600 made it out the battlefield, and promplty retreated an insane distnace into dublin. The city went probably about 8 units (after garrison script) to about 18, and this is on huge unit sizes, so sieges are horrible. (I had it on by accident.)
Ah well, I moved my 2 1/2 stacks in, seiged the city, and let the defenders starved for a good three turns. I was just about to begin the assualt when some english boats pulled up. I watched in hour as two almost full stacks of enlish disembarked, and proceded to force me to withdraw the seige. By the next turn, the army in dublin had gone from a half flag to a full one, and their are two near full stacks of english just hanging out, daring me to attack.
Goddam english.