Irish too strong in VI?

[Germanicus75]

Hi guys I've been playing VI 2.01 on and off for a few years now. I've noticed that in almost all games when playing a Saxon or Viking faction (I never play any Celtic faction) the Irish will appear towards the last third or so of the game on the mainland and almost always end up taking the entire isle. It gets a bit predictable after a time.
Is there any way to tame the Irish faction a bit with some tweaking?

Thanks :-)

[moonlapse]

Irish have a good starting positon.But they lack heavly armored units.Therefore they are bound to have problmes when facing Huscarles and that kinda good attacker units.Also,their missile troops sucks,anyone who uses archers have an huge advantage against them.So i think they're just fine.

and,if you would permit,i wanna share an experience.

in my first VI game,I was playing as Irish,taken all of Ireland,i was waiting for right time to strike,launching raiding attacks from time time.Well,finaly,i decided to laucn a full scale invasion,i had two armies wich had high numbers of gallowglasses,a pretty kick ass unit,one was commanded by my king,other was commanded by my heir.anyways.dueing my incasion i made contact with saxons.huge saxon army,they had those Huscarles with em,in big numbers,it was the first time i saw them,and i was really unhappy as i watched them slauhering my elite units one by one,carving their way to my king,and to my suprise,they were able to best him in combat,i was so so sad,he was a good king :/,that army was commanded by the saxon heir.

but my other army had more success,and i was able to beat a good sized armie of theirs,wich was commanded by their king,who was also killed in the battle.

so in one turn,we both lost huge armies,and kings.was a good game.


cheers.

[Germanicus75]

Thanks. I've just played a new campaign though as the Saxons and again faced the Irish towards the endgame. Their armies totally owned mine. I had to use 2 x as many men to have a chance of winning. I don't know why. They didn't have units with much experience. But even their bog-standard infantry were holding their own against my huscarles. They knocked the **** out of my housecarles and mounted nobles. When I put an identical unit - a Gallowglass merc - against an Irish Gallowglass, it got totally owned...

[Antagonist]

It's been a while since I played VI, but from what I recall the Irish units are rather weak ordinarily (particularly morale) but the provinces in Ireland are quite rich, have important resources and, crucially, are isolated. This gives them the chance to build up their infrastructure in relative security, and if left long enough they can develop very high level provinces with large morale and equipment upgrades which make their units very powerful, Gallowglasses especially.

The other thing is that they seem to be have been designed and balanced to be a light faction with few heavy troops, but paradoxically excelling at fighting against heavy units. Their javelin units, in particular, can absolutely murder slow, heavily armoured infantry like Huscarls, and Gallowglasses also have an armour-piercing attack.

I've often gotten the impression that CA deliberately messed around with the balancing in VI to make the strengths and weakness of the factions more distinct then they were in MTW, and I think the Irish are designed to be particularly adept at fighting against heavy infantry. Archers and cavalry would probably effective against them.

As for changing stats, all that entails is modifying the unit_prod file in the main directory. You can do this in Notepad or whatever, but it's difficult to make sense of. There are several editors available with straightforward GUIs that make it much easier though.

Antagonist

[Germanicus75]

Thanks alot Antagonist. I'll try changing my approach to the Irish to the one you recommend :-)

[Henry of Grosmont]

I agree. Once, you have decent cavalry, battles against Irish should be a cakewalk. Their only advantage is a large mass of troops they send. Your Huscarles kick Gallowglasses' butt pretty easy, and if you play as Vikings, it's even easier. Your Berserkers and, especially, Jomsvikings are tireless on the battlefield, and nobody can fight Joms in general.
Good to see, that people are back playing VI

[Antagonist]

^^Actually I must say I got a nasty suprise in my first Viking campaign against the Irish, I concentrated on Britain first and became used to Huscarls and Jomsvikings being pretty much invincible and able to just charge at anything that wasn't on a horse and win. But when I got round to Ireland I found all those javelins and darts (especially the Bonnachts) gave my heavy infantry quite a mauling. I won the day in the end (their low morale was their undoing) but not without losing a lot of heavy infantry, including several heirs. Luckily that was the last big battle of the campaign, but it was still a bit scary. But maybe I'm not as good as you are.

Antagonist

[Germanicus75]

I agree. Once, you have decent cavalry, battles against Irish should be a cakewalk. Their only advantage is a large mass of troops they send. Your Huscarles kick Gallowglasses' butt pretty easy, and if you play as Vikings, it's even easier. Your Berserkers and, especially, Jomsvikings are tireless on the battlefield, and nobody can fight Joms in general.
Good to see, that people are back playing VI

Yeah, I'm enjoying it alot. Just played the Norwegians in the XML mod and took Sweden, all of mainland Britain and was preparing to attack Denmark when my king died of old age and I found out I'd stupidly not ensured any heirs...

I'm still having lots of trouble with valor/morale, trading and retraining - please see the other thread I posted and help out if you can :-)

[Salazar]

What is this XML Mod? I never knew there was a mod for the vi campaign.

[Germanicus75]

Hi Salazar,

See here: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=2988

;-)

[edmont]

Hi guys I've been playing VI 2.01 on and off for a few years now. I've noticed that in almost all games when playing a Saxon or Viking faction (I never play any Celtic faction) the Irish will appear towards the last third or so of the game on the mainland and almost always end up taking the entire isle. It gets a bit predictable after a time.
Is there any way to tame the Irish faction a bit with some tweaking?

Thanks :-)

Any faction which starts separately own to become strong soon,you can attack them first if you play Vikings or change the upkeep price for any too cheap Irish unit