[TW Guide] MTW: The Poles (Early)

[Garbarsardar]

Author: Morble
Original Thread: Not Available

MTW: The Poles (Early)

The Poles (Early)



Winning with the Poles is all about geography, rebels, and horses. The Poles start with only Silesia and Poland, and on expert, their dominion over these territories is often tenuous. Both the HRE and Hungary begin as immediate neighbors, and therefore each is a threat. The Byzantines, another potential threat, are not far away in Bulgaria.

However, Poland is otherwise pretty much living on the frontiers of civilization, because the rest of the neighboring territories are controlled only by rebels. While the rebel territories are, in general, of not much economic value, Lithuania and Kiev (as well as Khazar and Livonia) present themselves as marvelous trade resource opportunities. But far and away the most important province when starting as the Poles in Early is Moldavia.

The entire region to your north and east is populated by disorganized nomads. Even the People of Novgorod are not much to worry about. Instead of contesting with their factional neighbors to the south and west, the Poles must look to expand across the Russian Steppes. Once the northeast quadrant of the map is Polish red, you will be in a position to dominate the rest of the game.

The order in which you conquer these rebel territories, however, is very important. On expert, you will almost always start with at least one distinguished (2+ stars) rebel general, with good loyalty, in command of one of the neighboring provinces. Bribing him is usually not a good deal, and even getting him to accept on the second or third try is unlikely. Usually this general is in Volhynia, but sometimes he is found in Prussia. Wherever he is, ignore him for the first few turns and build up an army to oppose him.

Do this by building Slav warriors and a watchtower in Poland and a fort in Silesia. Send your emissary to either bribe the sole spearmen in Moldavia or else send him directly to Prussia. Send your princess to court the Holy Roman Emperor, who is usually in Swabia or Bavaria.

You want to exert great care to stay on good terms with the HRE, Hungary, and Byzantium until you have consolidated your position in the north. Send your second princess to the Hungarian king, usually in Serbia or Croatia, and send your third, if need be, to the Byz emperor. Throughout the game, whenever there is a conflict between two of your allies, the AI offers staying allied with the faction farthest away as the “yes” option. Until you have conquered the north, I believe it is better to keep choosing the “no” option to stay allied with HRE, Byz, and Hungary.

You can chose to bribe the Moldavian rebels right away, if their price is not extreme. However, money will be tight throughout the next decade or two, and it is a simple matter to just run them off. Leaving a 100-man garrison behind in Poland, send your king’s stack into Moldavia. The lone rebel spear will hightail it to Wallachia, where they become the concern of the Byz and Hungarians. But gaining Moldavia is important, because only Moldavia can build Avar nobles.

The Polish have a surprising number of cavalry options—as much or more than any other faction. Polish retainers, Lithuanian cavalry, Avar nobles, and Steppe normal and heavy cavalry, as well as the entire array of the standard European builds, are all options when playing the Poles. In Early period, however, Polish retainers and Lithuanian cav are not available, and it will take most of the period to build to feudal knights. But even without these units, you can dominate your battles as long as you can build Avar nobles and Steppe heavy cav.

Polish retainers are cheap to build, if your game lasts until High period or later, because they only require a horse breeder in Poland. Retainers are medium cav units. They don’t have the blazing speed of Alan mercs, nor the extremely high morale of RKs. But they can fight very well indeed. Their armor, defense, and charge are all equal to that of RKs, although their attack is slightly less, and their morale is much less. They cannot win a toe-to-toe slugfest against heavy cav like RKs, boyars, or Kats. But they can smash any light cav unit around, and their charge provides as good a shock from the flanks or rear as any cav unit in the game. They are a bit undertrained and underdefended, though, to be considered a heavy cav unit.

Lithuanian cav, on the other hand, are true medium cav. They can beat up light cav units with relative ease, because they are slightly better armored. But their charge and attack are equivalent to light cav units, and Lithuanians are considerably more troublesome to build. They are only available in High and Late periods, in the provinces of Lithuania, Livonia, and Volhynia, and they require a swordsmith guild, an armorer guild, and a master horse breeder. If you are a fan of the French and English hobilars, you might like the Lithuanians, because they are basically hobies with armor add-ons. I think hobies are superb in the Early game, but by the time I am in High period, I have moved on to heavier cav units. To me, Lithuanian cav is not worth the effort it takes to build them, and I prefer to use heavy and light cav in more sharply divided roles. Lithuanians are not necessarily a bad unit; but I have never found a proper role for them, especially when Steppe cav are plentiful and cheap.

Personally, I forget about the limits of medium cav during a battle, and tend to handle them as if they can perform in a heavy cav role. Well, they can’t, and I am always overestimating their effects—until I am frustrated by seeing them get stuck in a melee and destroyed.

Avar nobles, on the other hand, are a wonderful unit. A 40-man unit, elite, disciplined, with super-heavy armor, Avars can beat RKs, and even feudal knights. Their charge is good, although not quite the best (presumably, all that armor slows them down some), but their defense is as good as it gets. Avars are as heavily armored as Kats, but run nearly twice as fast. Their discipline is such that they will not wheel and attack out of position in the middle of a battle, as most other elite units are wont to do, but will follow your commands faithfully.

Avar nobles require only a horse breeder and an armorer in Moldavia. They are expensive, at 425 F per unit, but you should capture Moldavia and set it to pumping out an Avar noble each turn until the year 1205. Build religious buildings in Moldavia to increase your Avar nobles’ morale, and you have the ultimate battlewagons of the 10th century.

Thus, capturing Moldavia is a must, if only for the ability to build Avar nobles. But there is a geographic imperative, also. Holding Moldavia means that the Byzantines have to go to war with you to enter the Steppes. Their only other route is past the Turks to Khazar. If you hold Moldavia, the Byz will typically concentrate on the Turks, as well as Greece and the Aegean region. Without Moldavia, the Byz can grab many of those easy rebel provinces in the north before you will be able to reach them, and this will really put a crimp in your game. (The Byz may still head north by taking Khazar before you can get there. But since they inevitably war with the Turks directly to their south, they usually cannot hold onto Khazar.)

Overall, the Steppe provinces are not that valuable economically, but they allow you to build Steppe heavy cav. Normal Steppe cav are your basic light cav unit: good speed, reasonable charge, and rather poor melee attack and defense. Moreover, they are dirt cheap, requiring only a horse farmer and 150 F. Steppe cav are nice to have around to chase routers and take captives, which increases your coffers. A unit or two in an army will more than pay for themselves. It’s common to use and abuse Steppe cav by letting them get into melee and get chewed up, because they are so easy to replace. They have 0 morale, so they won’t stay in a melee for long before panicking.

Steppe heavy cav are an elite unit that adds missile capability. Their charge is lousy, but they have superior melee skills, and can stand up to all but the heaviest cav in a fight. Their arrows appear to be midway in power between regular archers and crossbows. In Early period, when you can only build archers as missile foottroops, Steppe HC is an excellent weapon.

3 or 4 Steppe HC can even replace archers in your orders of battle. One of the problems with missile troops is that their effectiveness is decreased when attacking—because of ranging. Steppe HC let you run up the flanks, get well into range, and stay there—regardless of what the enemy does. On defense, instead of lining archers behind your battleline, send 2 SHC up each flank and have them pepper the enemy battleline as it approaches. If this action does not entirely disrupt the enemy formation, then you can run your SHC in to melee with the enemy rear once the two battlelines make contact. SHC charges are too weak to cause any shock damage, but the mere fact that you can sandwich the enemy between two strong melee units, e.g. an armored spearmen and a SHC, is usually enough to cause them to break.

Slav warriors and javelinmen are two other specialty units available to the Poles. I have never been a fan of javelinmen because, while their shots are deadly, their range is terrible. If you use javelinmen, do not set them on skirmish, because their short range will cause them to retreat to safety before they get their shots off. Instead, use normal attack and micromanage each unit. Probably the best way to use them is as a second line. Let them move in to attack after your front line has made contact and initiated melee.

Still, Slav javelinmen have a poor charge, worse attack, and terrible defense. In fact, I lick my chops every time I see a peasant rebellion made up of almost all javelins or jobaggy, because I know they are easier to rout than peasants. I frankly just don’t see the value in javelinmen.

Slav warriors, on the other hand, are worth the money you spend on them. They cost twice as much to build as peasants, but have the same maintenance costs. So, over 50 years, you only spend an average of 1 credit per unit to upgrade from peasants to Slav warriors. (And it is typical for Slav warrior units to hang around as domestic security forces long after their battle usefulness has gone obsolete.)

Slav warriors have a good charge, but virtually no melee skills. However, they are still classifiable as light infantry, and they surpass peasants in every fighting skill. Perhaps more important is the fact that their morale is 0, as compared to –2 for peasants. The upshot is that the 100-man Slav warrior units can serve both as a domestic police force to keep provincial loyalties up, i.e. the equivalent of a peasant garrison, as well as a (weak) fighting unit. In a battle, command them in the same way as you would normally treat peasants. That is, try to grab flank or rear attacks to avoid prolonged melee, avoid making them absorb an enemy charge, and always have them attack the enemy using their charge.

Because the morale of Slav warriors is significantly higher than peasants (and peasants are so easily routed), Slav warriors will typically give you the battle performance that you thought you could get out of a peasant unit—until, that is, the lowly peasants unexpectedly broke and ran, throwing your army and battleplan into disarray. Certainly Slav warriors are not an advanced unit, but if you use them tactically and strategically as if they were peasants on a dose of steroids, you will find they give satisfactory performance.

Thus, until you can build Avar nobles in Moldavia, build Slav warriors there, and in Poland, and in Silesia, when you get those forts built. You will need a location to retrain your RKs after battle, so plan to build a royal court in Poland. Future development can be towards first Polish retainers, then feudal knights. I never actually have the game last past 1205, and it might be nice to be able to immediately bring retainers on-line it such did happen. However, from the Early period, I typically have developed feudal knights in Poland before the High period begins, so Polish retainers become superfluous.

Poland begins with a horse breeder and the ability to build mounted crossbows. At 300 F per unit, mounted crossbows are no great bargain at the very beginning of the game. But they do give you mobile missile capability. Once I can build SHC, I tend to build only a few mounted crossbows, but this is really just a personal preference for a tactical style.

Mounted crossbows give you the best missile firepower available until High period. They are, however, a pure mounted missile unit. They can give chase to routers (use <alt> key to shift them to swords), but if you allow them to melee, they will die. Mounted crossbows do not upgrade in later periods. They are never the fulcrum unit around which a battle might turn, but they do provide decent mobile ranged fire, especially in Early period.

Typically, you will be adding horse archers and spears to your army by bribing rebels after you have forced them into a siege. This only really gets going once you can invade Lithuania and Kiev. Before that, in the totally undeveloped provinces that don’t have a fort, it is typical to simply herd all the rebels northward by invading with overwhelming force. You get the province without losing a man, and you can bribe the rebels later when they are besieged.

Once you have Moldavia, you will want to capture Pomerania. Pomerania only has 160 rebel men, and they will retreat to Prussia if you invade with any kind of force. Usually 1 RK, a mounted missiler and 3 Slav warriors is enough to accomplish this. You can then usually bribe the entire stack in Prussia for less than it would have cost to bribe the rebels in Pomerania.

In the meantime, you should set, and maintain, taxes in all of your provinces at very high. This will reduce loyalty to a very low level in Pomerania and Moldavia and the populace will revolt next turn. Thus begins your seesaw strategy to take over all the northern Steppes.

You simply do not have enough money to conquer the Steppes one by one. The provinces are too poor and too unruly. If you follow the standard conquest pattern of invade, secure, move forward, then you will soon end up with all of your income devoted to peacekeeping garrisons. Instead, you must conquer, then draw back, wait for the revolt, subdue the revolt, repeat as necessary or possible.

There is a balancing act involved here. You receive income from every revolt you put down, in the form of confiscated lands. Thus, you want the province to revolt, with as large a rebellion as you can reasonably handle. When province loyalties are below 100%, there is a chance for an easily-handled peasant revolt. That percentage chance decreases as your provincial loyalty increases toward 100%. The size of the revolt created will be proportionate (often equal) to the number of troops in the province’s garrison. However, the more troops you have in the garrison, the quicker the provincial loyalties rise, and the less chance there is of a rebellion.

So, you must typically attack, then withdraw at least some of your troops. If province loyalty is then below 50%, you stand about a 50% chance of getting a handy, money-bagging peasant rebellion next turn. On the other hand, if you remove all but a single unit to garrison the province, then the rebellion is likely to be only a single unit strong—and a small rebellion does not provide many funds for your treasury.

(Never remove all of your troops; it is too easy to lose the province that way via a factional attack, and rebellions in empty provinces just aren’t dependable enough to be worth the effort. You may sometimes get a very strong rebellion due to the lack of a fort or 100 men in the province. Troops from these kind of rebellions can be anywhere from a bunch of peasants up to feudal knights. If you are a big risk taker, then go ahead and try it. But to me, the risk of getting a rebellion more powerful than I can easily handle, and thereby losing the province and stopping my forward progress, is not worth the few hundred extra florins of profit left after replacing my casualties.)

Ordinary popular rebellions due to low loyalty are easy to defeat. Usually a couple of cav units, a couple of missile units, Slav warriors, and a 2 star general are sufficient for an easy victory. Add to this the fact that you always are the defender against a rebellion. At the start of the game, most peasant rebellions will consist entirely of peasants and/or archers. So, a little cav, and good unit valor, goes a long way for your armies. Encircle the enemy formation, attack from the rear and flank, charge their missilers with impunity, and you can generally spend the rest of the battle chasing routers for cash—as if you were some kind of game show contestant on the Barbarian TV channel.

For much of the first 40 years or so, you will have to balance what you think you can handle on the battlefield with the requirements of your economy. Generally, I allow two provinces at a time to be below 100%. With 6 to 8 extra Slav warriors, the 4 horse archers I bribe from Volhynia, and my princes, I feel comfortable allowing 2 rebellions per turn. Of course, the game doesn’t always cooperate, and sometimes the province goes up to 100% loyalty without ever revolting.

Province loyalty should be between 0 and 50% for your best chances of getting a rebellion. When the rebellion shows up, throw a stack like the one described above at it, and rack up those florins. Then reduce the garrison again and wait for another rebellion. You can sometimes get 3 or 4 rebellions out of an unruly province like Prussia or Lithuania before the locals get used to your rule and settle down. Generally, if I can’t get below 50% loyalty with a 300-man garrison, I give up and move on to the next conquest. At 75% loyalty, for example, you only have an average of 1 chance of a rebellion in the next 4 turns. Keeping your garrison posted there, the province will be over 100% loyalty before those 4 turns are over. On the other hand, if I feel overextended, I add 100-200 Slavs to the vulnerable garrisons, and this pumps the loyalty to over 100%.

You can keep your newly-conquered populace stirred up a couple of extra years by killing everyone at the end of the battle. This will increase your ruler’s dread. Be careful though, because constant use of this option will give your king or governor vices that will demoralize your army and populace. If you get one of these vices, you can counterbalance it by releasing everyone twice in a row, which will increase overall happiness in your population by 10%.

Attack Pomerania once your prince matures to give you 2 RK units for your army. Try to use your RKs sparingly. That is, use them primarily to charge from the rear and to give chase. You won’t be able to repair these units for more than a decade (you need to build a royal palace, a keep, and a royal court). Of course, it is still sensible to charge them right into isolated archers and javelins. You will lose the occasional knight, but dragging the battle out by avoiding any contact against such weak melee units is pointless. For enemy footmen, peck away at them with your mounted missiles, then swamp them with charges from all sides with your Slav warriors. Let your horses, even the horse archers, give chase to routers, rather than having your Slavs exhaust themselves trying to catch the enemy.

Once you have a prince, you should train him whenever you can by leaving your king at home, and using your prince to put down the rebellions. You can often add 1-2 command stars to him this way, as well as getting good virtues. Once you have 2 princes, use the younger prince in these training exercises. The eldest will one day be king and will eventually die, but the younger son, if titled, will just keep going and going and going…

With Moldavia, Volhynia, Pomerania, and Prussia under your belt, you should be looking next at the super-trading provinces of Kiev and Lithuania. Pomerania is a better than average province, with 2 trade resources, but its primary worth is to seal off the north/south passage between Europe and Asia. Combined with Moldavia, these two provinces ensure that the Russians cannot sneak south, nor the HRE, Byz, or Hungarians edge by you to the north. Kiev and Lithuania add another layer to this north/south blockage. These last two, however are also must-have provinces because of their trade resources. Kiev and Lithuania add 6 trade resources between them, and provide your main trade access to both the Baltic and North Seas, as well as the Black and Mediterranean Seas.

Kiev, assuming you built a watchtower in Moldavia so that you can see it, is the much easier target. I generally invade Kiev, then bribe the rebels that get stuck in the fort, because I want to preserve the development it has. The more development Kiev has when you take it, the faster you can start building boats. Even just a fort saves 4 years.

Lithuania is similar, with the added attraction that it has 3 or 4 Lithuanian cavalry units. This is the only time you will be able to obtain Lithuanian cavalry before 1205. Maybe I’m just unlucky, but I have never gotten the commander to accept the bribe up front. What I used to do was get my bribe offer rejected 2 or 3 times, then invade Lithuania with overwhelming force, and cause the rebels to retreat. Now I don’t bother with the bribe at all. I simply attack with overwhelming force, and the Lithuanians run to Livonia. Usually only a couple of spears are left behind, and they want too much for a bribe, so I attack and kill them. Meanwhile, the relatively strong stack of rebels in Livonia prevents the Russians from grabbing that province before I am ready to take it.

Crimea and Khazar are both good provinces, especially Khazar. You will not always be able to take both of these before the Byz capture one of them. Khazar typically has a lot of cav, including Khazar royal cav. Khazar royal cav are reasonably good heavy cav units this early in the game, though no match for Avars. Crimea is a bridge battle from Kiev, so take lots of missiles when you go there.

Also, Pereyslavyl is totally empty, and can be conquered merely by moving a single unit into it. While loyalties stay very low for a long time, I have found Pereyslavyl rarely revolts against a 100-man garrison. This province is usually your first conquered territory that can produce Steppe cav and Steppe HC. (You want Kiev to build boats and trade buildings, not Steppe cav.)

Be aware that subordinating Prussia often takes some doing. It seems that, at least in the Polish Early game, Prussia is significantly more unruly than Lithuania. The province generates standard peasant rebellions of Slav warriors and javelinmen and archers, with an occasional spear or urban militia. Prussian rebellions are not a big problem, but you need to be careful not to push too far north and east too soon.

You do want to move with due haste, though, because the Russians and the Byz will carve up the East between them if they get there first. Generally I capture Chernigov and Smolensk first, saving Livonia for later. The Russians do not have enough force to capture Livonia once the rebels are concentrated there. If they do manage to capture, then they can’t hold onto it, but usually they don’t even try.

The Russians may also hold back from conquering Muscovy. Muscovy is one of the better northern provinces, but be aware that Russia will attack you, allied or not, soon after you cut them off from further expansion. This is bound to happen anyway, once you and/or the Byz push through to Volga-Bulgaria and Livonia, but be prepared for the Russian treachery. Leave either Muscovy or Livonia as rebel territory until you are ready to take on the Russians.

In fact, since Russia is the only fly in your soup at this point, it’s a good idea to try sucker them into a war. Leave a province like Smolensk or Muscovy with a very small garrison, but hold a strong army in reserve in Chernigov, out of sight from Russian eyes. The Russians will often break their alliance to attack this weakly held province, and you can then avail yourself of the opportunity to destroy your former ally without world opprobrium. Once the Russians are gone, you will have totally secured your entire northern and eastern flanks.

Just make sure to keep any province the Russians held, even if they held it for only 1 turn, at 120+ % loyalty forever after. Otherwise the Russians will immediately resurge right smack in the middle of your realm and really muck up your game.

During your initial expansion, you will have to build a number of Slav warriors, if only to find enough 4 quill governors. However, do not go overboard with the training and recruitment. You are going to need substantial money for bribes and buildings, and you don’t want to get bogged down in high annual maintenance costs.

Pay close attention to the rebel generals you are evicting from their homelands. Some games are practically a treasure hunt, with 4 star and 5, even 6 (!) quill commanders in the rebel stacks. A reliable 5+ quill governor for Khazar or Lithuania is worth just about any price you can pay for him.

Sometimes it is better to bribe immediately, sometimes it is better to use overwhelming force to drive the rebels to a province with a fort. Be aware that rebels with no escape that cannot fit into a fort are lost—so it might not be a good idea to push all the rebels into a single corner before bribing. Keep your options open, and tailor them to whatever personnel treasures you might find on the Steppes.

You need to build a royal court in Poland to repair your RKs; you will thus also need to build a royal palace and a keep there. (The palace is a real boon if you build it very early in the game, because it allows you to build more emissaries.) Moldavia also needs a keep to build Alvars. Kiev and Lithuania both need keeps to be able to build boats—and you certainly do want to build boats in both the Black and Baltic Seas. All of these cost 1000 F each. So, try to keep your maintenance expenses down. Build a watchtower and fort (and I recommend a 20% agriculture also) in every new province, but don’t go beyond the above needs until you have secured your position in the north. Slav warriors and converted rebels are more than sufficient to subdue the entire north. Once you are safe, then you can start developing more advanced units.

One exception is to churn out a number (5-10 units) of woodsmen in Lithuania as soon as you get it. Woodsmen get a valor add in Lithuania and are the cheapest unit in the game (I think) at only 75 F. They are soon obsolete, but are a nice addition to your arsenal while you wait for Lithuanian boatbuilding to come online.

Woodsmen should be used much like Ghazi infantry in that they have a supremely vicious charge (equal in shock to that of RKs!), but horrid melee skills. Basically, woodsmen will give you one swing of their axe for King and country, then they want to run for home. So, never use them in the center of your line. Always charge with your Slavs to make contact, then charge from the flanks or rear with your woodsmen.

Woodsmen die in melee like it’s going out of style. Even though they are so cheap that they are easy to replace, your concern is that they will quickly rout if allowed to melee. So, charge them into an otherwise occupied unit, then get them out and away from the melee. Regroup and try the charge again, if need be. Very few units can withstand the shock of a woodsmen charge from the rear.

Another build exception is to build border forts right after your first king dies. Almost certainly, you will not conquer all of the north (on expert level) before your first king dies. Since you have been manipulating provincial loyalties to extract extra funds from confiscated lands for the crown, now is the time those manipulated loyalties could come back to haunt you.

Your first king probably had several traits that added happiness and dread. Your new king has none of these, and loyalties suffer as a result. Probably the best solution to this first transfer of power, and its concomitant drop in loyalty and happiness throughout the land, is to immediately build border forts in every one of your provinces.

You probably built watchtowers as you went along. In fact, my standard build for each province I capture is fort, watchtower, and 20% agriculture. Sometimes, if I am overextended, the watchtower gets built first, because towers add to population happiness. After the first farms are built, I begin to customize the province to its build characteristics. But every province gets the standard 3 first builds, and those builds give building and steward virtues to my king

However, I hold back from building any border forts. Like watchtowers, border forts add to happiness of the populace. They are also a cheap, 1-year build. It is a good idea to have saved the border fort build in all your provinces until the first year of your second king’s reign. The first assassins don’t show up until about 1140 or later anyway, so border forts were not needed earlier than this.

Building a single round of border forts in every one of your provinces will likely eat all your income for the year, but your loyalty issues will be immediately back under control, and your king will earn a builder virtue. Follow this with a round of 40% farms where affordable, and the new king will soon gain the steward virtue and a totally loyal and happy kingdom.

Once this totally loyal and happy kingdom includes every province from Pomerania to Khazar and all points north, it is time to reassess. With the northern expanses secured, it is time to look outward.

While previously you wanted to be allied with your nearest neighbors, now you want to be free to attack them and take their lands. Use your strategic pieces to get a good assessment of the relative strengths of the HRE, Hungary, and the Byz. Usually the HRE are the weakest of the three, but are allied with the Hungarians. The Byz in Early often beat the Turks and Egyptians to remain a strong power in the Bosphorous.

Look for a war going on with one of your 3 neighbors. You want to ally or marry into a faction warring against your neighbors, allowing you to break your old alliance without losing honor. Of course, as part of the game, AI factions become much less likely to ally with a scuzzy human like yourself as the calendar progresses. Probably the only factions you will find that will readily ally with you are world pariahs, or factions tottering on their last legs. It doesn’t matter: The primary purpose of the new alliance is to allow you to break the old one legally.

Once you are no longer allied with one of your neighbors, you can plan for war. Use your strategic pieces to completely scout out the enemy lands and armies. Princesses work well as spies until age 30, whereupon you simply marry them to one of your generals. Emissaries are cheap, but get assassinated in dangerous times. Bishops are your best scouting resource.

Every one of the conquered territories that you have amassed into your empire started as primarily pagan or Orthodox. You should take time out from your military and economic builds to build a church in every province. From these churches, or from 1 or 2 dedicated provinces, build enough bishops to cover every single square on the entire map.

Generally, only the pagan Mongols will risk the wrath of the Pope by assassinating a bishop. Bishops can thus travel anywhere with virtual impunity. They see as much in a province as an emissary does, don’t retire to a nunnery at age 30 like princesses, and, in later periods, they protect your generals from inquisitors. Not to mention their religious function of converting the local population so that they will be more docile once you conquer the province.

Before you start a war, put a bishop in every province owned by your targeted enemy and inspect his troops. If you see mostly peasants and jobaggy, your Slavs and Avars can conquer with ease. But beware if you see more advanced units like feudal sergeants and cav. If your scouting turns up these more advanced units, you must upgrade your military before embarking on any adventures.

In Early period you are quite constricted in your unit choices. You can’t do better than archers for missile foot troops, for example. As a consequence, I typically split the missile units between archers, to support my battleline, and mounted crossbows (and SHC), to harass and disrupt the enemy. Mounted crossbows have the best ranged firepower overall.

You have to choose between armored spearmen and feudal sergeants in a province where you build a spearmaker. Armored spears have the best defensive values, but low morale. Feudal sergeants have a good charge, but weak defense. In general, build armored spears in provinces that have good religious upgrades; build feudal sergeants (if you feel you must) in provinces with good armor upgrades.

Even though I am a fan of feudal sergeants, I don’t think they have much of a place in the Polish army. After all, you already have all those Slav warriors hanging around, and the Slavs have just as good a charge (but less defense) as feudal sergeants do. In general, if you think you want to build feudal sergeants in a province, it is better to build a swordsmith and make FMAAs instead. FMAAs are actually cheaper than feudal sergeants, and are inferior only in the strength of their charge. If you are worried that your opponent has lots of cav, armored spears can fulfill the anti-cav function very well. If you are still worried, consider hiring some Rus spearmen. Rus spearman are the best spears in the Early period, but they only available as mercs, and they are expensive.

As you ready yourself to attack one of your Catholic neighbors, be forewarned that the Pope will censure you quite early (which is entirely different from the censoring you get in Mass on Sundays!). You will get a warning from the Pope because you have a large number of provinces, and your enemy will likely have relatively few. As soon as their number of provinces decreases to half the number of yours, you will receive a warning from the Pope to stop attacking your enemy.

To counter this, plan your attacks in bunches. Invade 4 provinces at once to start the war, and try to invade 3 more on the next turn. By the time the Pope warns you, the faction will likely already be splintered into various rebellions.

If you can attack the HRE and capture Bohemia, this sets you up quite nicely to blast the Hungarians. Also, once you get a warning against fighting with the HRE, you can attack the Hungarians with impunity over the next ten years, because the Pope only makes one warning to you at a time. Depending on the situation in Europe, one of your targets may get excommunicated due to fighting with other Catholic factions. If this happens, the excommed faction is fair game for you, warning or no.

My usual plan of attack against the HRE is to capture Bohemia and Brandenburg. A second wave of attacks will then take the string of provinces from Saxony to Austria. The Pope will give a warning, but it will be too late for the HRE, who will typically be reduced to less than a handful of provinces and will shatter with disloyalty. If the HRE survives at all, it will be as a rump state. They will never again be a world power.

From this position with the conquered HRE provinces, I can then take on the Hungarians, attacking from a semicircle of provinces from Moldavia to Austria. Before attacking the Hungarians, it is a good idea to have secured access to the Aegean Sea. If there is no Hungarian navy, you can then add an attack on Serbia and/or Croatia from the sea. If they do have a navy, at least you will prevent them from communicating and reinforcing by naval transport. You can often split the Hungarians by taking Hungary. Isolate and capture their king to gain yourself a fat ransom. Ransom or no, this short and sweet massed attack should finish off the Hungarians as a major faction.

The wild card in all this is the Byzantines. The Byz may be allied or at war, with Hungary or Egypt, or both, or neither. The Turks may have greatly decreased Byz power, by initial wars or resurgence, or they may have been vanquished forever. If the Italians are strong, they will rule the Mediterranean Sea, but if not, it is usually the Byz flag that flies on the ships plying that body of water.

If you end up in a war with the Byz due to your attacks on Hungary, then so be it. You cannot win most Polish games with the Byz still powerful as a faction.

Byzantine units are quite strong in the Early period. This is a principle reason that you want to remain on very good terms with them in the early years. Now though, your Avar nobles can beat Kataphraktoi, and your FMAAs can beat Byzantine infantry, in toe-to-toe combat. But these units are so closely matched that victory turns on details like terrain, relative exhaustion, and skill of the commanding general.

Provided you don’t want to beat both armies to a bloody pulp in a carnage where the only winner is a few survivors, you must be very careful in your battles with the Byz. Use every terrain advantage, especially altitude. Whenever possible, make the Byz walk to you to make contact, so that they will be slightly more tired than your men. Ship your best generals to command the battles with the Byz.

Ally with the Egyptians and Turks, if they are still around, and build lots of assassins. Just before a crucial battle, send a gaggle of assassins in to attack the Byz generals. Use at least 4 assassins per targeted general. If your assassination plots are successful, the entire stack that general commanded will not fight in that year but will retreat from your invasion.

If you have spies, use them in groups. Use your bishops to find the least loyal province, and then dump 15 or more spies on that province in a single turn. Any rebellion you can foment among the populace decreases the Byz army and helps you, regardless of whether the province is close enough that you can claim it for yourself. Byz generals often have very high loyalty, but send in your emissaries with bribe offers whenever you spot a weak link.

Finally, you can try to assassinate the Byzantine emperor and his heirs. This is a low probability option, though, because the success rate on assassinating a faction leader is very small.

The Polish strategy in Early period, then, is to first capture Moldavia, then follow-up with an invasion of Pomerania. By manipulating the local populace into rebellions in order to gain more funding, work your way through the Steppe provinces until you can lay claim to a solid block of red from Khazar to Pomerania and all points north. Build trade and shipping from both the Baltic and the Black Seas, and strive to link up your two navies in the Mediterranean.

Then turn your attentions on your neighbors to your immediate south. Attack the weakest link first, and do so with overwhelming force at every opportunity. Move swiftly when attacking other Catholics. It is especially important, from a strategic point of view, to crush the Hungarians and give yourself more easily defended borders. Finally, push into the Bosphorous and desert lands, while exploiting opportunities in Iberia and the remainder of Western Europe, to claim your Polish victory.