[TW Guide] MTW: The Irish

[Kscott]

Author: Morble
Original Thread: Not Available

MTW: The Irish

The Irish usually give a quiet game until near the end. This is because you are isolated on Ireland for the beginning of the game. Fortunately, you are blessed with exceedingly rich provinces (counties) throughout the Emerald Isle, and this will allow you to build a winning civilization without having to withstand any number of disruptive invasions.

You start with the two counties of Brega and Laigin. Rebels hold Connaght and Munster, while the Scots are in Ulster. Naturally, your first order of business is to unite all of Ireland under your rule. You will have to go to war with the Scots to do this, but it's a very short war (assuming you win the battle), because there is no direct access between the two factions once the Scots are removed. With no direct contact between the factions, the war will automatically end the next turn.

On expert, you start with very disloyal troops. Expect to have to shuffle and re-stack several times in order to prevent a revolt. Get started building spearmen and gallowglasses in Brega right away. Laigin holds your sole Irish trade good, so you will want to build a port and trader there ASAP.

As soon as you can field a reasonable army, start conquering the rest of Ireland. You will start out with all darters and kerns. I suggest you build 3 spears and 1-2 gallowglasses in order to prosecute your campaign successfully.

Irish arms are probably the most difficult to master of any faction, in no small part because they are so different from anyone else's. I confess I feel I still have some work to do before I feel satisfied with my grasp of Irish tactics.

Almost all of the Irish military is built around the spear, whether thrown or plied in melee. There are no Irish archers, only kerns, dartmen, and bonnachts. All of these units have a defense of -3, the lowest of any units in MTW:VI. (Celtic warriors, Highland clansmen, and Viking thralls also have -3 defense.) In addition, all of the Irish units' base morale is 0. What this means is that your armies are going to be as delicate and fragile as fine Irish lace--and as easily torn.

Irish armies can rarely stand toe-to-toe and slug it out with another faction. If you try this, your army will usually evaporate. In addition, the javelins that your missile troops use have a very short range. You are most certainly used to putting a few units of archers either out in front of your lines, or far in the back at altitude, where the archers can soften up approaching units with their ranged attacks. But you have to think of the Irish as basically devoid of a ranged attack, and if you try to keep Irish missile troops far out of harm's way, they will end up not participating in the battle.

The proper place for Irish javeliners is directly behind your front battle line. If you put them out front as first contact, they will get run down and destroyed. If you put them any farther back, they will be out of range. For similar reasons, it is rare that you can arrange a flank attack on the enemy with your javelin throwers, because they will get caught up in the battle, and they will die like flies in any melee action.

Your main offensive unit is the gallowglass. Gallowglasses have a huge attack, almost as good as berserkers, Sherwood foresters, and Jomsvikings--and only berserkers have a stronger charge than gallowglasses. They are elite troops, but have only 0 defense, moderate armor, no shields, and 0 base morale. This means that they cannot withstand the give and take of regular melee. They need to crash into the enemy flanks or rear with their huge attack and settle the matter immediately.

This leaves spearmen as your main battleline and defensive unit. Unfortunately, as you well know, spearmen are not so hot as either a central battleline or a defensive unit. With every other faction, you work hard to build up your provinces to the point where you don't have to rely on spearmen any more. The Irish can't get away from them, although you can build armored spearman later on (and should, as soon as you can).

Add in the facts that cav units in VI are not very strong, and that the Irish have no special cav builds, and you can see that trying to win battles with an Irish army can be difficult. If you are to compete on the battlefield, you must rely on upgrades in your provinces in order to outfit your troops. This means lots of religion, for the morale, and lots of iron, for the armorer and metalsmiths.

Luckily, you have two iron provinces on Ireland itself (Munster and Ulster). These should be set (once you conquer them) to pumping out spearmen and gallowglasses every turn, whether you need them immediately or not. You must also build at least churches, preferably cathedrals, in each province that you want to dedicate towards building troops.

Note also that you should dedicate all iron-containing provinces, and only iron-containing provinces, to building (armored) spearmen, gallowglasses, or possibly, cav. It is pretty much useless to try and buff up your javelin troops to the point that they can withstand melee. With that -3 defense and 0 armor, they are never going to be of much use in hand-to-hand fighting. In addition, they tend to deplete their ammo rapidly when used at the appropriate range, so they are not likely to be on the field for very long. Build your javelin troops and ships in non-iron provinces. (Although metalsmiths can be useful, if you have a spare iron province.)

The basic battlefield strategy for the Irish is to keep your army together as an entire unit. Put spears in the front and center, put gallowglasses on the outer edges of your battleline (or behind it), put your javeliners directly behind the spears, and put your cav either out on the flanks or behind the central army. You need to keep this basic formation as you march your army forward and try to contact the enemy head on. There is not much you can do to improve your positioning within the army, and any units that get out of position will have their effectiveness suffer.

When contacting the enemy, try to bring your entire army in to close on them simultaneously. You will have to depend on your spears to hold the main line. Let your javeliners approach to directly behind the spears, and then let the javeliners choose their own targets. Javelins are pretty deadly, and if you direct the javelin throwers at a particular enemy unit, they will not take care to avoid hitting your own men--which will then hurt the morale (and lives) of your own troops. Even so, you must expect to take some losses from your own javelins, even when they are set on fire-at-will. Always try to get a flank attack with your gallowglasses. Remember that they have little armor and no defense, so you really want to reserve your gallowglass charges until you can aim them at the flank or rear of an already engaged target.

Bonnachts are a special case in that they heave a single heavy spear instead of javelins or darts. They also have a reasonable charge. You might think of them as equivalent to Aragonese almughavars. However, bonnachts have only 1 spear to throw before their ammo is depleted, and they have the same melee defense of -3 as all your other missile troops. Gallowglasses may seem to die very easily, but bonnachts will apparently expire from even a mere whiff of halitosis off their enemy. Presumably, you would want 2 or 3 bonnachts to run up to an otherwise-engaged enemy heavy infantry or cav unit, heave their spears in, then charge in to deliver the final blow. Practically, it's very hard to get just the right situation where they're both useful and reasonably safe. And I am loathe to spend 2 or 3 units of my total 16 on the field on single shot spear-chuckers. Add to that the fact that they are expensive, plus you need a royal palace to build them, and you can probably guess that I am not a big fan of bonnachts. If I have a royal palace, I get a lot more use out of it by building emissaries and/or royal knights.

So, Irish armies are light infantry forces, with the usual scruffy cav, and very short range missiles in support. You can expect that they will have an exceedingly difficult time against faction armies fielding heavy units, such as the Vikings, Saxons, and Mercians. With such light forces, wearing little armor, you might expect your army to at least be fast. But, while the javeliners are faster than usual, your regular ground troops are no faster than Saxon huscarles--and slower than berserkers.

This means that you really want your battles to last no longer than a Mike Tyson fight, back when Tyson was in his prime. The longer your army stays in contact with the enemy, the more likely it is that you are going to lose the battle. So, you must plan your attacks accordingly. Always try to attack with a large numerical superiority, with the plan that you will substitute out depleted javeliners and worn-down spear companies. If the opponent has a bunch of huscarles, a lot of your men will get killed, so plan ahead.

Note that, since your army is relatively slow and light, your cav will play an important role in your battles. Cav is the one unit you have that can move quickly down the field and clean out troublesome archers. Without cav, you basically have no way to answer their arrows. So, you should get at least one province (preferably with iron, although I usually build cav in Brega first) working right away on building advanced cav. There's a big difference in performance between horsemen, mounted sergeants, and mounted nobles. This difference in performance is even more important for the Irish, who have little access to any other mobile/ranging forces. Having 5-6 cav available against a mobile or ranged opponent is the only way the Irish can protect their big clot of an army, that's slowly trundling down the field, from getting chewed up before they can even make contact. (I keep thinking what would happen if the Irish met the Turks. Any Irish that survived would be giving a hard re-thinking to the idea of relying solely on spears.)

One way to beef up your armies, which is very important for the Irish, is through mercenary troops. You should try to have a number of inns scattered throughout your domain. If you should see Viking troops, heavy horse, huscarles, or any other type of heavy troops quaffing a pint in your inns, snap them up and put them on your payroll. Sure, merc troops are expensive to maintain from year to year, but here you have the luck of the Irish, because the Emerald Isle is so rich, you will not even be able to spend your money fast enough in the beginning of the game.

Unlike the other factions, you will be able to develop your homelands in Ireland while remaining untouched by enemy invasions. So, max the gold and silver mines you have, and max what agriculture you have. Even when not at war with anyone, you will need to keep pumping out new troop units and hiring merc heavies, because you will lose so many troops when you finally do go to war. Take advantage of your economic blessings by building up your economy to the point that you can well afford to maintain a huge army of your light (and cheap, at least) units. Pay the extra doss to get those all important heavy mercenary troops. With the economic advantages you have in Ireland, you should be able to get a full build each turn, maintain the largest army, and still lead the technology race.

Strategically, you must realize that you are one of only two major sea powers on the map. That is to say, you MUST become a sea power. Ireland in VI is a lot like England in the European game. You have no natural land bridges to the other factions. But, to win the game, you are going to have to get off your island and invade England. To do this with any sort of reliability means that you must have more ships plying the coastal waters than any other faction.

This brings up the most important point when playing the Irish: YOU MUST ALLY WITH THE VIKINGS. In fact, I'm not sure the game is winnable with the Irish unless you can get this alliance. The Vikings are the only other major sea power, and will likely stay that way throughout the game. You cannot invade England unless you have access to it, and you will likely be denied that access if you have to fight Viking warships for ocean dominance. So, send a princess or two to the Vikings early in the game and seal that alliance.

Anyone who has played MTW knows how useless most land-based alliances are. Your feckless allied neighbor, and sworn best friend, will sneak attack you the first time, every time, that he sees you move troops away from your mutual borders. But I have never had the Vikings break an alliance.

Granted, there were always plenty of other choice raiding spots all around England where the Vikings could have their fun ransacking and pillaging. Also granted that all the Englishers will despise you and, allied or not, will attack you whenever they think an Irish province is weak. But you don't need any other alliances if you have the Vikings as your friends. Even late in the game, when I have significant development in some of my English provinces, the Vikings always attack another faction's provinces and leave mine alone. Couple this with having a Viking longboat and an Irish warship in each coastal square, thereby providing complete maritime security, and complete access to England, and it should be clear that an alliance with the Vikings is worth more to the Irish than any number of English alliances.

Another benefit of allying with the Vikings becomes apparent during mid-game. You have a chance to invade a province at the same time as the Vikings do. This is very pleasant, because Viking armies are typically small in number (much smaller than yours), and the Viking style of fighting is to just rush ahead and bang heads. If it just so happens that it takes you a little extra time to arrange your army in fighting position, and the Vikings get impatient and decide to rush headlong towards the enemy, well, that's just the way things work out. And since the Viking army will end the turn with fewer numbers of men in the province, you will end up with ownership of the province--without the Vikings burning everything to the ground..

Just because you're allied with the Vikings, though, does not mean you have to volunteer to get involved with any fights that they start. In fact, the AI is rather sloppy with the Vikings, and they often get into trouble in the mid and late game. Just remind yourself that Vikings really like raiding, not settling. Let the Vikings do their thing and vacate the province, whether by choice or by force. If it was rebels that forced them out or that sprang up afterwards, you have found the next province you want to conquer for Ireland. Thanks to your Viking alliance (and constant shipbuilding in Connaght and Laigin), you will almost always have immediate access to attack the newly-rebel province from the sea. Thanks to your constant troopbuilding in Ulster and Munster, and your inns, you will have an invasion army ready to go.

Picking up the pieces after Viking raids is the best method of sinking your claws into England. Snap up each broken, rebellious province that the Vikings leave behind, and you will soon find yourself with beachholds all around England. Better yet, the Vikings tend to raid the richest and most developed provinces, and these will be yours once you subdue the rebels--and all without going to war with any of the other factions.

Naturally, the AI factions will eventually catch on. Around the time you have 5-7 provinces of your empire located in England, expect a sneak attack from multiple factions. Usually the Scots stay neutral, assuming you haven't bothered them since taking Ulster, but any one or more of the other factions is likely to suddenly turn on you.

Perhaps they get tired of chasing Viking raiders around their lands. Maybe they are sick of the Irish perpetually leading the tech parade, while also being the richest. Maybe they think your Irish are just plain getting too darn uppity. Or, perhaps, the English kings got together in some dank skulk and decided the Irish-Viking alliance was an affront they could no longer bear. Whatever the reason, you will be attacked in two or more provinces at once, by two or more factions.

You are more vulnerable to this multi-pronged attack because of the disjointed means you have been using to conquer England. However, because you have continued to build and recruit new troops all along, whether at peace or at war, and because you, by now, have direct sea access to every English province that has even just a tiny beach, you will weather the storm. It may be touch-and-go at first, and you may lose some provinces, but keep piling the troops on and wearing down your opponents. You will probably need to fight every battle, because the AI is poor at handling Irish troops. But, keep resisting. Keep putting troops on the disputed grounds, and then march them out to battle. Although your enemies, by now, will likely have individual units far superior to any of yours, your superior numbers and economy will eventually wear them down in a war of attrition.

It's exciting to see the tide finally turn. At first, you will be handed a number of defeats. But keep fighting; keep killing as many enemies as you can each battle. In a very few years will come the battle when you put your enemy, heavy troops and all, to rout. Then you know it is the beginning of the end. With fewer provinces and less income, your foe will not be able to keep the pace with you. Each unit he loses costs him double or triple what it costs you to replace yet another dead spear unit. Keep building, fighting, and attacking, until your enemies' fingers are worn to the bone. Then grind those bones for your bread: Claim your Irish victory.