Is it just to hard? (Sylvania, Empire)

[Wolfstraum]

Hi everyone
I am playing on easy/easy but have no chance as Sylvania to even get a foot on the ground. I lose the 3 right village/castle against dwarfs and the one Empire (2-3 FULL Stacks), being left crippled after loosing the 1 town. Even if i would survive, sooner or later they overpower me. The right castle is attacked by a big Stack from another Empire fraction. Losing again because of their better troops. Tried this 4,5 times. No chance so far.

Then i played that Wissenland that attacked me, in the beliving it would be no such a hard fight against what is in the castle at start. But somehow they get a full stack with many god units very fast.

At the moment only Chaos (Sla) and Greenskin are working "ok" for me. And as Orks i lost the Waagh fast, was able to take the city from dwarfs before all Orks are death. Then i lose one of my cities, fought hard to get it back and are now in a defensive.

At all its often a hard fight and i miss a real easy difficult for a casual player who only got the game because of 2 mods. ^^ I would like to play undead and read all guides i could get but.... i having no chance. Have anyone an Idea?

And what Fraction (aside from CHaos) can i play as a new one?

Thanks! (and sorry for my bad English!)

[Cyricist]

The Empire starts can be very random. Sometimes it goes smoothly, other times you get unlucky with random Beastmen attacks or Orc invasions, and potentially lose some cities. I'd say just try again for Empire, really. It's not nearly as hard as Sylvania, usually.

For Sylvania, though, it's hard to know what to say. Some people on this forum will tell you that Sylvania isn't that hard, and they'll advise you to aggressively take cities at the start of the game. I, and this is just my own personal opinion, but I feel those people are wildly out of touch with this version of the mod, and must not have played Sylvania recently. Aggressively taking cities at the start is suicide, plain and simple. The name of the game at the start is "survive". You have to weather 6+ full stacks of elite troops from multiple Empire factions, and then pray to god that a Crusade isn't called against Castle Drakenhof within the next 20 turns or so.

To be quite honest, I would suggest only playing Sylvania if you get lucky on Turn 1, and get one of the random events to pop up. The Necrarchs or the Blood Dragon Knights are what I have in mind. The only campaign as Sylvania that went well for me was when I started one, and immediately got Walach and his Blood Dragon Knights. I used him to help weather the storm at the start, and then made one hell of a wild ride through Empire territory, to get to Blood Keep, so I could retrain his Blood Dragons eventually, since they can only retrain there. From that point, I kept just trying to hold onto Castle Drakenhof in the east, but eventually lost Tempelhof and Waldenhof. I just couldn't defend against the onslaught of the Empire. The way I defended Castle Drakenhof, by the way, was garrisoning it with a ton of cheap skeleton units and a couple Screaming Skull Catapults, and having Count Mannfred leading a stack with his son Prince Marcos and all the Vampire Black Knights / Mounted Skeletons I could afford. Anytime an enemy came to lay siege to Castle Drakenhof, I hit them with my cavalry in the field, which made it much easier to break them.

So the plan in the east was merely to hold Castle Drakenhof, while Walach defended Blood Keep until he could retrain his Blood Dragons in the west, and then plunged headlong into an all-out war to take Nuln and Wissenburg, effectively destroying the Wissenland faction. Once I took those, I snagged the Beastmen Temple in between them, and then took the Dwarven Karak settlement southwest of them. That's how I established my foothold; use a lucky spawn of elite troops (Walach & Blood Dragons) to defeat the early stacks of elite troops, then send him to Blood Keep to use that as my base of operations for assaulting the enemy, while simply doing my best to survive in the east.

Anyway, that's just how my campaign played out, because I got Blood Dragons, and not Necrarchs. If I got Necrarchs, I wouldn't have had to go to Blood Keep to retrain.

TL;DR: I couldn't do well with Sylvania until I got lucky on Turn 1. Even then, it was a struggle.

EDIT: As a side note, this was on Hard/Hard, if that matters.

[Kahvipannu]

Sylvania is hard for starters with current version.

I agree with the turtling, don't go crazy and take your troops too far out of your area of control, you'r going to need them do defend. You can get free "mercenaries" sometimes when out of town, fight at nights if possible (if you press wait button at deployment, you don't have to fight at dark, but get the boost still). Get the green resources north of your capital with your merchants (next to Marienburg, or was that what it was called?), and the blue ones east from you at the mountains. If you can take that settlement, take it, it's super good, but it is very hard to take so don't rush it. The game isn't over until all your settlements are destroyed, you have blood-keep, which is easy to defend if you build big garrison, and a good place to advance your attacks, even if you loose the rest. Sometimes your pushed back at TW, but you can always rise back.

At all its often a hard fight and i miss a real easy difficult for a casual player who only got the game because of 2 mods. ^^ I would like to play undead and read all guides i could get but.... i having no chance. Have anyone an Idea?

And what Fraction (aside from CHaos) can i play as a new one?

Thanks! (and sorry for my bad English!)

Mods usually are made with veteran players in mind, and balanced for harder difficulties. You can choose easier battle/campaign difficulty when you choose your faction, and also activate "Govern all cities", which should make things a lot easier.


You can pause battles, and issue orders while the game is paused, this helps a lot with battles. I would also suggest Empire faction as starters, Averland is propably one of the easiest one becouse they are the richest.

[Ethien]

I know what I'll be playing in my next campaign.

[odyseusz79]

I completed a Hochland campaign not long ago, on VH/VH. I don't recall more than maybe 1-2 scripted battles at the beginning, and even that was against what I would call second-tier opposition (Orcs/Goblins, if I remember correctly, and Beastmen). The Orcs had their shamans, but it was a city battle, so the shamans caused 0 casualties and died in melee. Other than that, you can freely build up/turtle, keep watch on your borders, seize rebel towns etc. Even the Storm of Chaos does not assail you directly. As for your troops, all I have to say is - halberdiers. So, try Hochland!

[Blaksmiff]

Or add some money to the kings purse data>world>maps>camaign>imperial campaign> descr_strat. 10000 should do the job and u can play vh/vh and still will be hard but less innoying Do this ONLY for faction you actually play camaign. If you wanna play different campaign switch for orginal desr_strat. Otherwise in 6th turn u will get a crash.

[Alliance]

Sylvania is Quality and Quantity. A big thing for Sylvania I've found out is Grave Guards and their anti armor trait, it's required to use properly to win first fight. (Drakenhof) For me all of the Dwarves 4 rams were destroyed by Ballista towers, and he had to use Siege Tower/Ladder/Ladder, By putting 3 units to block his 300+ armies on each Ladder the Dwarf army was nearly destroyed.
The remains went to the Siege Tower, and I fell back. I held one unit by one of my towers and it luckily destroyed the Siege Tower WHILE it was docked on the wall, killing a ton of the Stirland Army.



I started to play as Sylvania, the trick is to take all units out of Waldenhof at start and mostly put them into Tempelhof, at Drakenhof you should be attacked by 1 full stack Stirland Army, and 1 full Dwarf army. Don't go on the offensive, for me I'm now on turn 25, and I expanded taking 6 enemy towns in two turns after weathering the attacks.

Also send merchants to Gold Mine over by Marienburg, Amber by Erengrad, or the Spices down by the Border Princes, atleast in my match the Warpstone was making less than 100 per turn with a 3 star merchant! (Warpstone is at Mordheim)

You can get Unlucky and have Thorgrim from Karaz Ankor come and attack you as well.

Does anyone else think that Sylvania's economy needs a boost? In early game he loses 3000 income during the winter months, and with zero trade he falls apart economically very fast. My idea was expand Blood Keep so there is more farming income, and give Waldenhof Stone walls and a larger population, and Tempelhof/waldenhof should both start with markets honestly.

Edit: Almost forgot, if you leave bad armies that are relatively free nearby Mordheim and wait for them to go Rebel you can stall Ostermark until he attacks you. (Only do this AFTER he fights Mordheim, since it almost always has a 20+stack in it.

[GreatSword]

You'll get it man just keep trying different things, VH/VH isnt much different so I would play on that. The single best thing you can do is to take Mordhiem. I wouldnt invade the empire til you defeat the stacked spawns but you can siege Mordhiem in turn 1 and just hold it while you build your towns/armies up. Then when the troops are depleted in Mordhiem, assault it and take it. Alot of cash for you and boosts the economy the surrounding cities too.

[Disturbance]

I defended whislt building up my army, My faction leader had 5 x skeleton spears 5 x skeleton warriors, 3 x crossbow, 2 knights and ended up with a pretty elite army from striking out of drakendorf, then sent him to reclaim what stirland had taken whilst building up a second army. Each battle he would come back to retrain.

Key is take it slow, you may loose a villiage or two, i ended up loosing blood keep and had a damn crusade to fight against my capital but it just made my army stronger.

[Alliance]

I suggest not trying to expand until Stirlands army's are all basically exhausted, and if you kill enough units when he routs anything left will die off as well. That one dwarf army is also tricky. And Stirlands Archers always have the draw on your troops charging, so it's always best in the open for undead to be beyond offensive.

[Ichon]

I can't believe everyone advising to take it slow... apparently it works for some but the hardest fights are almost all in the first 10 turns unless you get unlucky with early Crusade which does nearly make it unplayable though surrendering Drakenhof with only cheap garrison units to end Crusade might work.

The first playthrough I got lucky apparently and had Necarchs on turn 2 or 3 but I actually dismissed them because of the upkeep. Now if I got them I'd keep but you can survive even without them. Just have to know what your strengths are- screaming skulls, grave guards, vampire cavalry, and lots of cheap units. Screaming skulls morale hit is very useful if you time your vampire knights charges with it. The hardest part is the elite cavalry in start which can overwhelm your cavalry and almost any of your units individually. I've played 3 playthru and first time I lost bloodkeep on the 3rd attack but was able to keep it since when I simply recruited everything I could there including most of the 'free' units.

The reason to expand fast is to be able to have Drakenhof continuously recruiting. The first battles for Sylvania come before you have much time to recruit more than 1 round but if you survive that battle you'll need everything running full speed to keep going. You can expand 2 cities very easily by turn 3 when I kept 1 small army moving to expand but pulled everything else back. The Dwarves are not too bad since they can't match speed of vampire knights and if you kill general then use screaming skull catapults on main dwarven line you can get by with less than 500 cheap units and about 1/2 unit vampire cavalry lost.

The hardest battle by far is vs Stirland and almost entirely due the amount of awesome ranged units that army has. Eliminate/reduce effectiveness of those archers and you can win but its extremely bloody battle everytime and usually your army is much reduced after which is why need to be producing continuously from turn 1 and still send a small stack to sack/raze another town for turn 5-6 money. First time I met it in the field on top of a hill SW of Drakenhof with small amount of forest on it and hid my vampire cavalry in some other forest. The forest and numbers lowered the effectiveness of the Stirland cavalry enough they didn't smash through everything right away. Then killing enemy general and protecting the skull catapults proved essential to rout the archers who had moved into range. With archers routed rest of your army can wear down Stirland though you'll have hardly anything left in the end.

I've also found that fast expansion distracts the other nearby armies giving you crucial 2-3 turns to recover from that battle with Stirland. They have more xp'd stacks but it seems more random how those attack unlike the first one which always comes for Drakenhof. When in the 3rd run I got necarchs again I defended Drakenhof and they laid waste to about 1/3 attacking army which helped huge amount and made me change my mind about the cost of their upkeep. I haven't gotten the Dragons on any of my playthru but got Necarchs twice so it appears fairly random. The first battle is probably one of the tougher in any of the CoW campaigns but I remember some very close battles vs Nurgle stacks as Ostland but not having every other faction attacking did make a respite after those battles where with Sylvania there isn't much respite in the first 20 turns or longer depending when Crusade is called.

[Cyricist]

Ichon, man, I think you were the guy who said "expand aggressively!" in the thread I posted about Sylvania like 6+ months ago. I didn't understand it then, and I don't think I understand it now. I mean, what you're saying makes sense, and I'd totally believe you... it's just that every time I've played Sylvania, my experience has been so difficult, expanding would have been absolute suicide.

I don't know if you have the capabilities to stream yourself playing the game, or if you have a youtube channel, but I think at this point, "seeing is believing". I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just saying my experiences have been vastly different. I'd love to see you play your Sylvania campaign, just to see how it's even possible to do the things you're suggesting we try.

EDIT: The issue for me is that, now that I've figured out how to win fights vs Empire troops in the field with Sylvania, it's still a bloody affair. Hard to win without a large amount of casualties. And the large, scripted stacks in the first several turns of the game are only the tip of the iceberg. Once they're dead, you're still alone in a sea of Empire provinces. You're the only enemy some of them even have to deal with. Stirland and Ostermark, for example, are often coming down to mess with you. Sure, they've got some rebel settlements and a scattering of Beastmen settlements to deal with, but if a turn goes by and no Beastmen stacks spawn into the surrounding areas, they're going to divert all of their attention onto you. So it's often just a steady stream of half-stacks of 2/3rd full stacks of Empire troops, with the occasional full stack of elite Empire troops, pouring into the Castle Drakenhof area. The Dwarves are the easiest to fight, I agree, but with two other Empire factions constantly bothering you, and the potential for more... basically, I'm usually reeling on the back foot by the time a Crusade gets called against Drakenhof. I honestly don't see how expanding and taking a couple extra cities would help me deal with every Empire faction making a beeline for my capital.

What I need, more than anything else, is time to build up an army, once the scripted stacks decimate my starting forces. Mannfred and Marcos are great generals, and I use them like crazy. Elec Carolingian and the other two Vampires are decent too. Any units that replenish for free are great. It's just, if I'm trying to use Grave Guard, they're going to take casualties. And having only a half-strength unit of Grave Guard when a stack shows up with Warrior Priests, Witch Hunters, Bright Wizards, Knights of the Raven/Black Guard of Morr... I don't know, man. I just try to get as much cavalry as I can, as quickly as possible, and consistently try to just break the morale of the enemy armies with Screaming Skull Catapults, and well-placed cavalry charges. It's just, like... taking a couple surrounding enemy provinces isn't going to do much to hurt their ability to produce troops, as a large amount of these forces are scripted and spawn in. And taking a couple extra provinces isn't going to give me that much of a boost to my own unit production, is it? I mean, part of the problem is that I just don't have the money to spam stacks of units, even though they're cheap. Especially if I get Necrarchs or Blood Dragons to spawn in early, since those guys are expensive.

[river44]

I have played Sylvania in H/VH and in 40 turns i have taken 15 regions and destroyed Stirland and Averland without any special unit like blood dragons or necrarchs. I have learned some things. Firstly, always try to make 2vs1 battles since at the beginning you have all settlements very close its no very difficult. Build paved roads everywhere to allow your armies to move faster. Blood keep is the exception. try to recruit and upgrade it, if you are lucky maybe you can hold it, i lose it against two spawned empire armies full of elite units.

For first turns wait, recruit lots of cheap units and fight only in two cases: if you have 2 armies vs 1 or 1 elite army vs 1 normal empire/dwarf army. My personal advise is no recruit more than 2/3 elite units (black knigths better) in first turns. since they take some turns to recruit its more useful to recruit A LOT of skeletons and zombies everywhere while you have money. Skeleton warriors have 80 unkeep and zombies 40!!!!!!! and tons of this guys with locked moral are a fearsome enemy. Oh, and dont forget to build blacksmiths, 3 defense points make your horde of skeletons and zombies much more durable.


In battles the cavalry its the most important thing, lock the enemy with tons of skeletons and zombies and after hit them with black knights and grave guards. Vampire black knights are a little overpowered unit, with bonus vs armour and cavalry charge they are good to kill everything, use them to hunt enemy generals after they have fight a bit with your infantry. Dont send firstly black knights, wait or flank the enemy and attack after your infantry charge. Almost all my battles were a intantry rush.

I hope this will help somebody

[Wolfstraum]

Hey everyone,

so first, thanks for the many answers und tips! =)
They helped me a lot for trying and playing other Factions.
Until the last post i tried Sylvania again 3 times and i will not stop with that.

Ah a question at the Side this Money that you became from "kings purse" or so (have every faction)...Are you become less when you have more
towns? Or how is this working?

-----------------------
I have tried some "ways" to stay alive, but only one game was a little better than every game before.

First try, i only wanted to defend the Blood Castle in the west. Was promising, because the "special"
Castle with 10 free upkeep and 6 from a normal bilding means even with a big garnision it will not cost to many.
But...no chance against Wissensland, they defeated the garnision every tim. Its just not enough time, to have
all the troops ready at round 2 or 3. Dont let us speak over the west, there was 4 Stirland and 1 Dwarf Stack *g*.

Second try...all to the east. Yeah this works out best so far. I was unable to defend against the 3 and 4 Stack,
because i deafeted the dwarf and a Stirland Stack before, so my troops...yeah...havent enough troops anymore.
Rebuild oder new build is to slow to have even a 1to1 ratio against stirland. And this with so nice troops like
zombies. Then i lose everything....except for Waldenhof. And Stirland isnt so much
intrested in that i guess. I was able to fight off little troop stacks but iam still very weak, one more "big"
attack and this was it. And Stirland was never not there. 2 or 3 Little attacks on Drakenburg doesn´t work.
When i try this, it will be swarming with 3to7, 1/4 full Stirland Stacks. Nothing i can handle with my troops.
But it is funny as hell to go out of city with some troops, take the free troops you can get in a province, kill
some Stirland Soldiers and run back. (only with hero) Now i know how this enemys in games must feel, who are
only going on your nerves and not are a real threat.

Third try. I tried to take the city in the North with Force. After that i take my popcorn and watched when Stirland
Outnumbers my troops 5 to 1.Was the first game where dwarfes took my city. Fin

-------------------

Its like Cyricist say. It is suicide to try an attack in the first 5+ rounds, at least for me.

And i played this games after i read the Posts von Cyricist und Kahvipannu. So i did all the things like extra
money from merchants and so on.

The Problem is Time, i have not enough time to build up a Army against the Enemy. And even then...when i fight the Enemy Stack i see all the Elite Units. Even if i have some, Stirland have 2 times more and then i have only weak other troops then.

I see at the moment no way to give a real fight as Sylvania. Its just like "try to survive 10 rounds".

If Blood keep is holdable, i guess this could be a way o stay ingame as more as a zombie nation... in an other meaning. I will try this more often in the future.

Sylvania needs a little better start, at least as a option. Or some Skaven that become attention too.
I would likely play them too*g*.
------------

Side Note:

As Hochland was no attack or somthing else. At all, the only thing i do is "build up and care about money".
Its a real god Start for Beginners when it is like this. Just because you have many time, can build up and nobody attacks you.
Great and easy start, if you are new.

As Averland it was not that easy because of some Beast Armies, but like Hochland a good start.

As Chaos Dwarf, if you like Arti, you have real fun. In the South i could take a City now and in the North, after fullfilled a mission where i get 3 cannons extra i go on night Goblin hunt. 3 Armies, 2 1/2 Stacks at all against a half Chaos dwarf Army. I just love the smelling of 1,5K Night goblins, hitted by 4 cannons and one of these dwarf special cannons. Better was only these Dwarfs with the Gun. Alone more than 1k hits. And what came to near. Chaos dwarfs and Black Orks. Yeah .

Try it at Dark Elves, but iam not sure how to play. Money is a problem and this makes everything to a problem as taking a third city would be a problem with only a handfull troops.

..................



So at all... most Races are okay for a start. I guess one thing they schould change is that real low troops schould be easyier to get.
So you get 3 for 1 for the lowest troops. (goblin, zombie, skeletons) for 2/3 price. Or bigger units. Something like that? Or does it make no sense?
btw: Skaven makes sense! =D

Thanks to you all for the help! =)

[Blaksmiff]

Kings purse is a steady, every turn income. Dos not change, however u can rise it up for your self in descr_strat to make game less frustrating. I preffer easy game couse COW is crashing sometimes and cant move any further. So to be not verry dissapointed i play quick camaign with rised up kings purse, when its crash i start next easy one without anger, that i have puted lots of effort to pass hard times for crash in 63th turn for example. This is my way. There is factions like Averland or Reikland u dont have to really rise up kings purse, couse economy is verry good. But Middiheim, Talabecland for example are weak.

[Ichon]

The reason I am talking expanding is because of importance of keeping Drakenhof producing. If you let constant sieges of Drakenhof it stops the production and you can't keep up. Basically only fall back on Drakenhof if Empire is coming with 2+ elite armies. Also I forgot to mention to turn battle timer on- I usually play CoW with it off but it is making sieges really annoying when Empire sends all its infantry forward and they rout but the cavalry just sit outside the castle forever.

You should be able to win the first 2-3 sieges vs Blood castle but then if seems a bit random as what Reikland does is very important. I went and took Nuln and sacked it which help pay for defense of Blood Keep. I've lost Blood Keep in 2 playthru though 2nd time I held it into turn 40s when most beastmen were eliminated and steady stream of stacks were coming from nearby Empire.

I guess for Drakenhof maybe the first 2 battles are most important in how many losses you take and if you allow Stirland to siege Drakenhof and they don't attack same turn you are screwed losing 2-3 turns of production which is about 3-5 units depending which you recruit. After that there is pressure but unless Crusade it is not overwhelming pressure as with good selection of terrain you can win battles. I agree with blacksmith- actually first few turns buildings are probably important as well since you'll have a bit more money than you have recruitment slots but don't spend too much as you'll need it later. The initial Stirland stack is the most annoying to me because of all the ranged units. I have not had any success unless defending in siege or I hide the vampires because their low armor means they will die too quickly out in the open. If you can divide the Stirland army and hide in good positions you can win out in field battle which allows Drakenhof to continue production. My zombies I leave as complete bait because I find them nearly useless in early battles though they work well in siege defense and in bridge battles later.

I've never tried to do a video, maybe eventually I will but I probably have some screenshots in tga folder though I don't know if any show campaign map as I usually only take screen in battles if not doing an AAR. There are 2-3 other at least who have had success so unless we are all lying it is certainly possible. More difficult as Sylvania has less strengths than others. Also- if you haven't done this before, try and keep all your generals in only 1-2 armies as the resurrect ability stacks. So if you have 3 generals you can heal something like 30-40% though that might include ancillary % too. Outnumbering enemy does help keep losses lower as well and 2 general in main stack and 1 in reinforcing stack has worked well for me. I try to hold Blood Keep but Drakenhof and Templehof are only places I spend much money on buildings as they can mutually support. I expand elsewhere but don't keep all those places... the goal is to gain income while I can without losing too many soldiers and develop core regions.

[Cyricist]

The Necromancy trait stacks? I definitely did not know that. Hmmm. Maybe this is all I needed to keep my numbers strong. Thanks for the tip, Ichon.

[VidarUlv]

This is a bit off topic but it's about Sylvania. I haven't played this mod in about a year, and back then I had to change some files so some of my units would get the proper weapon upgrades. Has this been fixed by now?

I think it was mostly skeleton and/or zombies who didn't get past the first weapon level the last time I played.

If it hasn't been fixed, does anyone remember which file and where in the file I must fix it? I can't for the love of The Horned Rat remember how I fixed it the last time around.

[Mr Kriegtooth]

I usually play as Middenheim for the Empire...

Beastmen arent that bad. At least in the version I played, I got Rage of the Dark Gods now though. But theres LOTS of Beastmen for them, but plenty of Beastman and Rebel territory to take. And youre pretty well protected by other Empire forces. Nordland, Hochland, that other one, and Reikland is just south of you and usually has plenty of stacks to help out.

[Mister Normal]

I've always whipped the total war games on vh/vh and the way to do it is always by being as aggressive as possible. at some level, it off-balances, disorientates the ai.

Sylvania I played until about turn 65, whence my dissatisfaction with way the faction generally is (i.e. deeply deeply flawed on so many levels) became so great that I decided to 'mod the mod'. I want to enjoy myself and use more elite units (and indeed make vampires considerably more elite and fewer in number), not merely survive with the most useful units.
Incidentally, this links to why you must be aggressive and especially with Sylvania - the starting position is one of very little initial money and a few pennies as income, a single decent unit's upkeep can make a considerable dent in it. To take an army out of a city ... well that instantly puts you in the red and thus the natural inclination is to sit tight and try and make income. 'turtle' I assume that means. This is a big mistake.
Nuln, for example, nets you at least ~12,000 (cant remember) in destroying useless buildings alone, say 7,000 sacking it, plus more income per turn. plus you get more income as you take casualties.

I got necrarchs about turn 30 but survived happily enough before then.

TIPS:
a good basic army is 4 warriors, 4 spears, 2/3 zombies, 2/3 bows, couple of knights. couple of grave swords as a reserve. send the knights out to eat the eatables (archers, swords) and the zombies out first, let the enemy get caught up on them, flank, etc. this generally works very well, although things like enemy hvy cavalry can complicate things.

anyway, you have a number of juicy targets in turn one. if you wish you can take both nuln and wissen on turn 1 by attacking the single general outside either/each city, ensuring that you kill and execute ALL prisoners, easy city win with no grueling siege. once inside nuln, you can hold it with a 'skeleton crew' haha as it has cannon towers yummy.

if you take the city to the east of waldenhof, garrison with a small force of free units, let enemy armies siege it, break the siege with the bigger force from wald. this tactic works very well here, defence in depth.

wald, that city, temple, drak, mordheim make a nice solid base.

I personally expanded into the SW with a fair amount of ease.

learn to get the most out of the MTW2/RTW game engine - e.g. knight cavalry are very very powerful; when used correctly and judiciously you can wipe whole units of swords/archers etc with 2-3 charges and taking only a couple of casualties yourself.