Forum Community Campaign

[granazis]

where is everybody????

[Byg]

End of July to End of October 1221

Allied with Novgorod via marriage of Princess to our Heir.

Hunting with a spy for some Brigands around Hamburg who have been destroying the harvest there.

Began siege of independent Prague with Heir and supporting noble. During siege Poland attacks out of nowhere in heavy fog with a larger army. Took position on hill and on they came through the mist. 1 Noble lost (replay uploaded).

Poland's attack caused Pope to break our alliance yet again (I really want to kill him).

Lost track of Pope with large stack. I think he headed north past Innsbruck, but may have returned to Rome. Rome may now be lightly held.

Might be wise to sack Prague and destroy buildings if we win when they probably sally this month, and then either use it to ally someone, let it rebel or give to pope for yet another alliance.

Chivalric code ended for now.

Side note, Bruges under attack from invading Scots.

Our best Diplomat is headed for french princess to suggest ceasefire, but could also go to a papal city to try for an alliance for Prague.

[granazis]

Began siege of independent Prague with Heir and supporting noble. During siege Poland attacks out of nowhere in heavy fog with a larger army. Took position on hill and on they came through the mist. 1 Noble lost (replay uploaded).

Are we still in position to take Prague??

Poland's attack caused Pope to break our alliance yet again (I really want to kill him).

I have noticed in turn 20 that we are in war with Venice and that the pope choose to brake alliance the Venetian than us. That is a positive sign. I don't know if the relations with pope drop after the polish attacked us.If they didn't drop I think we can achieve ceace fire with Venice and Poland and try Alliance with Pope(without giving any settlement.)

I have problem with the battle replays.
I have done everything that has mentioned but when I load the replay, it loads an old custom battle that is crushed and not even to desktop. Any suggestions??

[Ichon]

The save game names are different? I had problem first few times loading and did not change anything and they finally loaded. It crash alot watching though so I just think its bugged.

[Byg]

I think if we are lucky enough that the next player is as good as ichon in battle then if Prague sallies it will be ours. They do outnumber us though. And if we get it it, it might be best to trade it(not to poland) because Poland clearly wants it and we can't fight Poland as well as our other problems.

[David93]

Ichon can take the turn sure?

[Ichon]

Damn... alot of action! Did not expect so many battles. I played up to the start of the turn but did not move anything as probably BYG should take this turn because somehow we turned to positive income balance. I guess inflation disappeared at some point? I did not see that in anyone's notes but... we went from -16,000 to +2,000 and I don't understand why so I don't want to make any moves. I believe we received 3,000 from Council which helped and we lost significant amounts of armies recently so perhaps that contributed more than I think but a 18,000 swing is huge and it doesn't quite make sense to me.

France laid siege to Bern and the nearest reinforcements were 3 turns away so despite most I could do in the siege defense the castle was lost.

Poland attacked outside Prague and then rebels attacked- I did not feel our army could survive the rebel attack as they had 2 heavy cavalry and 2 Hussites which have devastating firepower and good range. If I had 1 more heavy cavalry I might have been tempted but with mostly levy crossbowmen it did not seem prudent, happily enough the rebels followed the army as it retreated and met defeat, the following turn the rebel garrison sallied and now Prague is ours but hardly anything left of the army. (I was really distracted during this battle... my gf was talking to me and then the phone etc- I know I could do better if tried it again but ohwell, felt lucky to have a victory was so distracted).

Poland has laid siege to Hamburg- given the heavy cavalry and horse crossbows I don't think its a good idea for us to sally unless they refuse to attack, its better to hide behind the walls here.

Venice appears to be readying for an attack on Bologna but is still within their own territory so I suggest we wait for them to advance into our lands.

Chivalric code was reinstated...

I also fought a couple small battles vs rebels with just the general in Hamburg and Cologne.



Anyway- some choices to make about what to do now. Both France and Poland have some vulnerable cities if we can marshal our forces quickly. I believe its best to hit Poland as they are weaker than France and the Heir is already nearby. Destroy a couple of their cities then settle for peace. FL needs to either take Venice and Ancona or try to get peace and move to confront France. Personally since we've given away 1/5 of our lands to the Pope I say we go for Venice and Ancona to make the entire venture worthwhile. Now that we might have positive income we can actually talk about such an attack again.

We could also try to repair relations with the Pope and not antagonize him any further with Venice but the problem becomes any attacks against France or Poland are going to piss him off anyway and those targets are far away from our center of power. At the least we can not let France keep Bern... that is a critical connection between Italy and central Germany.

[Byg]

Those were remarkable victories. How on earth do you manage to lose so few against 2 mounted units?

December already. This "up to 3 turns rule" makes time fly. We need proposals again.

What to do about the Pope?

We gave up so much land repeatedly trying to appease him that it's hard to u-turn now. However, I feel an alliance with the pope is almost worthless because his allies are our enemies and the only reason to give up a settlement now might be because we know we cant defend it otherwise.

I think any attack we make against a papal ally the pope will threaten to excommunicate us again. Is that right?
We have 3 papal crosses and the pope's allies that matter to us are Genoa and Poland. Venice and France would make easier targets in that sense, unless we want to lower our papal standing.

The money situation.

Inflation has probably ended, but the only higher cost we experienced was from supply consumption. That might have been where most of our money was going. Our better fortune could additionally be due to the trade and alliance deal with novgorod, less sieges, the italian settlements starting to pay off and possibly less forage damage - there is a finacial loss for each turn a region suffers complete devastation, so as we just had a harvest at the end of August we may not have been losing anything for a few months. That could alter as those formerly devastated regions will have had a reduced harvest, which may yet cause starvation again before the year ends.

All those victorious generals will have taken supplies from the enemy last month so that saved us quite a bit of money. The heir probably also gave any money he gained from his victories in Prague to the treasury.


I wont take the turns as I don't want to dominate, but I'll take a look at the situation - I could take a single turn to sort some recruitment pool and economy stuff out maybe, but what to do?

Here's the list of currently available men to call up.

Central pooled settlements total = 5
Prague about to become central if Heir remains there

Noble Owned:
Cologne = 1
Metz = 1
Antwerp = 0
Groningen = 0
Hanburg = 1
Bologna = 0
Nuremburg = 6

All above noble settlements can make 1 elite at least and most would go into manpower deficit, the negative affect of that is no further ability to alter tax, delete or build buildings or units for the rest of the year, but we cant afford more than about two elites anyway.

Certainly manpower is not our problem especially as many of our units now consist of very few men and could be added back to the pool. Any settlement they are disbanded in raises the pool according to whether it is under a feudal lord or centrally owned.
So I suggest no manpower increase again next month.

The best tactic for those settlements with more than 0 manpower is to recruit up to but not past 0 and then while on 0 recruit an elite -if there is an urgent need there for units.

The Administrator nr staufen could go there and use the central pool for some spearmen maybe (to defend/attack vs the French invasion nearby) or the heir could use it next turn or maybe Genoa.

Bologna needs the owner in charge, by moving out the FL if we want an elite or some other unit to be recruited there.

Noble's Income is currently balanced vs nobles expenses due to scutage

We currently have 1600 and are due have about 6000 next turn if nothing is spent, but some general is bound to need some supplies.


Bearing everything in mind, of the options Ichon suggested I would go for Venice if possible, but it must be done in a way that takes it fast so the pope does not stop us hzalf way through a siege.

[pavao]

Very good work Ichon!
I suggest take Venice and defend in other settlements.
Also we must do the missions of the pope to raise our influence. This is very important.
Now we may try to raise our treasury and ceasefire with some of France, Poland, Genoa( i don't remember if we are at war).

p.s. Ichon how you put images like this and not in attachment?

[Ichon]

The first battle against Poland I was the most worried but it turned out not too bad. I hid the light cavalry in the forest off to the side of the route the Polish would advance so they could strike the archers in the rear once the spearmen were past and left my general in front off to the left so the Polish cavalry would have to charge nearly the full length of my line taking peasant crossbow bolts the whole way. By the time I had to turn my general and run the Polish cavalry were down by 1/3. Then I ran my general round the end of my line and back up the other side where a few of the general's men were overrun as they didn't turn quickly enough but by the time I turned to confront the pursuers only 30 or so Polish cavalry were left and I had 32 still in my BG- the peasant crossbows kept loosing and the small spearmen unit helped. All the Polish cavalry was gone with 29 BG alive and the mounted sergeants charging from ambush into the rear of the Polish archers for very few losses. Then it was the spearmen sergeants job to hold the line while the BG and some peasant crossbowmen circle to the flanks and rear, by the time that happens the mounted sergeants are almost done chasing down the fleeing archers and can do a charge with the BG. Not all the Polish units broke very quickly and I had to make numerous charges but the battle was won by that point.

The rebels were more difficult- the first battle was easy as they split their army and chased me with mostly eastern spearmen, slav mercenaries, the rebel BG, and 1 unit of Hussites. Since I could deploy on a small rise and the rebel BG was same size as my BG it was easy battle. The 2nd rebel battle was a sally where the Feudal knights vastly outnumbered my BG and the rebels had Hussites, masses of archers/crossbow, and lots of sergeant spearmen. There is a reverse slope away from that gate so I tried to run my army away but the Feudal knights charged too fast and nearly eliminated a peasant crossbow right away, that forced my BG and 1 unit of mounted sergeants to charge and in the melee both lost about half as the trees got in the way from a good charge while the rebel captain was not killed and retreated with about half the Feudal knights still alive. The Hussites now had gotten into range and in a single volley nearly killed the remaining 22 mounted sergeants from the fight with the knights, I tried to charge them with the BG and the Hussites took him from 24 down to 12 in a single volley before he could reach them so I had to retreat. The remaining Feudal knights meanwhile were chasing some other peasant crossbowmen but I had so few cavalry left I didn't bother with them despite they contained the enemy captain and had to lure the Hussites into range of my remaining crossbows that weren't engaged with the rebel spearmen or under massive fire from their archers so when my BG and remaining mounted sergeants charged they wouldn't be charging into a hail of bolts. After killed the Hussites it was mostly just charging as fast as possible to kill the spearmen before the entire army was defeated. That took along time as the captain was still alive and each unit had to be charged from at least 2 angles and sometimes twice to force a route. This took my BG down to 7 men while the remaining mounted sergeants had about 18. The feudal knights in chasing down half the crossbow men had fallen to about 25 but in the last part of the battle the 18 mounted sergeants were killed down to nearly a man while the BG barely managed to kill the final feudal knights.

So if I wasn't distracted I probably would have noticed the early charge of the feudal knights and that the Hussites had moved into range from further away than normal due to the slope... that probably would have let me take at least half the casualties I did and it wouldn't have been such a barely won battle.

I'm fine with attacking Venice- it makes the most sense to me and we have centrally owned settlements nearby to quickly build a force to supplement our diminished army. I don't think we need elites right now in Italy, we have enough BG- better would be just cheap spearmen and archers to keep the Venetians busy while the BG's get the work done.

We can't let France keep Bern and need to move to oppose him- I guess the Heir can reach Bern in 5-6 turns? I say we keep Prague for the additional income as long as possible while adding to our army in Italy and making a small force to help the Heir contend with anything France does.

For now Poland aside form the army laying siege to Hamburg seems to have exhausted its forces near Prague and I wouldn't support giving Prague to them anyway. Better a neutral player who has some money- Hungary, or perhaps France once Bern is retaken.

Pavao- I used photobucket where most of my AAR pictures are stored and instead of using thumbnail link I used the full image link.

The only mission we have right now is contact with Lithuania for 500. The Pope enjoyed that we refrained from fighting with Venice but I don't think we gained any favor despite successfully concluding that mission.

[granazis]

Ichon, these victories are really IMPRESSIVE......
that is what I call GENERAL.

And a proposal
Set the pool to 10(it is to small for the territories we have already)
Lets play a little defencive in the front with the polish. I think what in a few turns if we make some defencive victorious battles. They want bother us.

Definitely re take Burn.!!
And about Venice. I don't know it seems quite difficult.But it will be a very good boost in economy
That about the Pope??
We have only 3 crosses so it seems useless to try an alliance with Pope since Poland and France have war with us.

And the good thing is the positive balance.
Spend it all in military units. Not elite. The problem we have is that we don't have army to oppose if things get harder.

[Byg]

And a proposal
Set the pool to 10(it is to small for the territories we have already)
Lets play a little defencive in the front with the polish. I think what in a few turns if we make some defencive victorious battles. They want bother us.

Definitely re take Burn.!!
And about Venice. I don't know it seems quite difficult.But it will be a very good boost in economy
That about the Pope??
We have only 3 crosses so it seems useless to try an alliance with Pope since Poland and France have war with us.

And the good thing is the positive balance.
Spend it all in military units. Not elite. The problem we have is that we don't have army to oppose if things get harder.

AMEND
Only retake Bern if not at the expense of expansion into italy because italian settlements are a richer prize
set pool to zero again because @ 100 per settlement per turn it might cost us all our profit, which was only 1600, however, if January sees gain 4000 profit per turn then raise the pool to 10.
Don't let the heir become besieged in Prague (we cant afford to lose another heir)

We currently have about 14 units spread around in the pools.
We can instead boost the pool where necessary by disbanding units and then recruiting them again at full strength. No point in having a pool if we don't have money.

[Ichon]

I'm concerned about France in Bern because I don't think they will stay there. Need to send a spy south in that area to see what is going on. Otherwise amended proposal seems good. How do we know which settlements can recruit what? Just look in the recruit tab in the settlement or are there any other restrictions like unit must be disbanded in centralized settlement?

[Byg]

I took another look and I was completely wrong it seems. You can disband any unit in any settlement and it boosts the relevant pool regardless of whether that unit can be made there.

If a unit is disbanded in any centralised settlement then it goes to the central pool, local ones go in the settlement you disband in.

And Population goes back to the exact settlement you disband in, regardless of settlement ownership.

[Judeman266]

I didn't realize BGR-V was that complex.

[Ichon]

I didn't realize BGR-V was that complex.

Yes it is a step up from BGR IV even. BYG has been scheming for over a year now with many reports of BGR IV play to design it. The basic concepts carry over from BGR IV but there are some important changes and additions.

[Ferdiad]

Whats the most significant change then?

[Byg]

The more realistic & fast regional based feudal recruitment system. There you are, I squeezed 3 of the 20 significant changes into one sentence.

[Ferdiad]

Good enough for me.

[Delvecchio1975]

I've read several posts in this thread now, and as soon as I get a lull in activity at work I'm gonna have a DECENT read. I've known about BYG for a long time now, but never got interested because it just seemed too complex ... this community campaign has now brought it to life for me ... I'm just scared of the time I'd invest in it .... let me re-phrase that: I'm scared of my wife.

Looks ******* awesome.