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Thread: Campaign start strategies?

  1. #1

    Default Campaign start strategies?

    Hello. I downloaded this mod the other day and I love it. Got my butt kicked twice, first as the irish faction in Munster then as the Llydaw, and I'm only playing on h/m! Sad I know. :p

    I was wondering what strategies you guys use at the start of the campaign. With negative proits each turn for both factions starting out, I tried to queue up economic buildings in the cities and use my starting armies to expand, but my armies eventually get worn down by the much more numerous rebel armies. By this time I'm too far in the hole to rebuild an army before they take me out.

    Am I doing something wrong? :hmmm:

  2. #2

    Default Re: Campaign start strategies?

    Gah! Two more tries with Munster, and twice more I end up thousands in the hole and with my only army destroyed.

  3. #3
    Agraes's Avatar Pillar of Prydein
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    Default Re: Campaign start strategies?

    Just a little thing: at the beginning, avoid conflict as much as you can with rebels. They are in no way the weak rebels of vanilla, but represent well etablished independant kingdoms. You start neutral with them, try to stay it as long as you can. They may even offer you trade rights and then alliances.

    In Ireland, first turns are often more peaceful than in Britain. So take advantage by building up a little your economy, with farms and trade (and roads where they are no roads). Try to obtain trade rights from other factions.

    On the military point, you can eventually disband your fleet or use it aggressively against your ennemies. Try to concentrate your forces into one or two field armies, just let one unit in garrison, and even no unit in regions that are not vulnerable to rebellion or invasion. Disable auto-management of the cities too.

  4. #4

    Default Re: Campaign start strategies?

    I do limit my towns to one unit garrisons and consolidate the rest of my troops into one field army, but the rebels always attack me. I fend off one stack easily, and another, then a third one that vastly outnumbers me and consists of higher quality troops crushes me. Connaght always allies with me, though.

    I read that in this mod the game can turn out very differently every time you play. Maybe I've just been unlucky enough to end up the rebels' punching bag when I played. I'll give another Irish faction a try, and play defensively.

    Thanks for the help.

  5. #5

    Default Re: Campaign start strategies?

    Started an Ui Neill campaignand took things slowly, avoiding conflict with the rebels, and slowly expanding at the expense of Dal Riada's Irish province and one of it's islands(with on garrison, oddly) and Ynis's capital(quite the money maker!). Allied with Connaght, built up, and put together two invasion armies.

    Rebels oddly did nothing this time, sitting a couple large armies in the middle of Connaght's territory, but not attacking them. Meanwhile Munster gobbled up most of the Irish rebel settlements without any trouble at all. Connaght took their side when Munster attacked me, and I'm struggling against both of them and loving every minute of it.

  6. #6

    Default Re: Campaign start strategies?

    Trying to play as Gododdin on V>H/V>H and trust me its just what it says on the tin!!!! I have one field army fighting two enemies for each turn!! Just managed to hold of Raghed and Ebrauc while taking the two rebel settlements in the North East of England.

  7. #7

    Default Re: Campaign start strategies?

    oj121 VH/VH? I think it'll take me a few campaigns to even think about giving that setting a try.I suspect this mod on medium/medium is harder that the regular game on the VH/M setting I've played it on.

  8. #8
    Agraes's Avatar Pillar of Prydein
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    Default Re: Campaign start strategies?

    Well, we designed the mod for VH/VH, or at least H/VH

  9. #9

    Default Re: Campaign start strategies?

    Playing Gododdin on VH/VH and feel I've got past the hardest stage, entering the only-slightly-tricky one. Disband the navy and recruit javelineers for all your cash in the beginning. Choose whether to destroy buildings that are not involved in training to raise a larger army (I kept my buildings). Then put pretty much the entire army into crushing the forces of whatever the name is of the blue faction who lives west and south. Their tough warriors will eventually be wiped out by the javelins in a battle or two. Then take their settlements, there are three settlements really close to eachother in the west, and they are a good target. Then ignore their southern provinces (they'll be a useful buffer against other factions in the south) and sweep north into Pict territory before they become too strong. Take over the northeastern peninsula to finally get solvent through the trade it allows, there should be at least one trading fleet here by this time. It may take a while to get out of the deep red, but your net income should be at least 2000 at this stage, unless you're better at preserving your troops than me, that is! Then get some bowmen from the peninsula, they're cheap and will be extremely useful against the poorly armoured parts of the pict forces. Buy some crossbow mercenaries if you can, they're expensive but will wreak havoc on enemy generals and elite troops. Consider building roads in some of your provinces before killing the income by recruiting a new army.

    The picts and the red faction in the west will constantly lay siege to your settlements, but generals are tough and can move fast and are therefore ideal for chasing off besiegers, so leave no garrison save one damaged unit in each city. I had two generals with the regular army attacking pict cities while three others ran around breaking sieges. This soon increased to six as more settlements meant more generals were offered for adoption, and the area they had to cover grew so they were sorely needed. If the huge rebel army in the east attacks (likely, as your garrisons should be weak), let them have whatever they choose to attack. It's not worth risking the loss of your army to kill them off. Sooner or later they will be destroyed by other factions anyway, and if you battle the rebels, their job will only be easier. Keep them as a buffer.

    You'll probably get invaded from the south well before eliminating the picts. Consider allowing this to happen to keep up the pressure on the picts. Personally I chose to recall my invading army to chase off the southern armies, at the cost of slower expansion in the north. Unsure which is better, but the picts are no longer a great threat to me with only 4 mainland provinces so I decided it's time to make a stand in the south as well.

  10. #10

    Default Re: Campaign start strategies?

    Quote Originally Posted by Agraes
    Well, we designed the mod for VH/VH, or at least H/VH
    I know, but I need to work my way up. I've spent most of my TW playing on the relatively wussy vanilla RTW! It's kind of like the way my drinking has progressed over the years. Start with easily drinkable sweet malt beverages (=RTW), move on to higher quality but still lighter beers like Pilsner Urquell (other mods), and finally move on to strong, dark ales and stouts (ATW). I'm not yet ready for the guiness that is VH/VH, so I'm starting off with the bass ale that is H/M .

    I'm starting to get thirsty...
    Last edited by Zimfan; October 25, 2006 at 09:05 PM.

  11. #11

    Default Re: Campaign start strategies?

    Can anyone give me some clues on how to succeed with Dal Riada? First time I played I got squished by Pictish raids from the north and Goddodin from the east, so I tried again and did a big tour of the north, getting all of Pictland under my control (except for a few rebel provinces), leaving the Picts with most of their holdings in the southeast. Only problem was, when the captured settlements rebelled, they became pictish again rather than rebel. ;_; On top of that, most of them had absolutely no income (I really mean 0 income, based on checking the trade info scroll. No farming income. No sea income. No land trade income, nothing) but I still needed to garrisson them, meaning I lost money quite easily. I managed to take everything of the Picts from their starting Capital eastwards, but by that point Goddodin had made its way west to my territory, and they were spamming me with armies.
    Please, is there any way to actually win with these guys on VH/VH?

  12. #12
    Agraes's Avatar Pillar of Prydein
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    Default Re: Campaign start strategies?

    I gave a try to Dal Riada recently, not for very long. For good income, I think the key is to build roads - if no roads, no trade income possible. And as usual to negociate trade rights as best as possible. Also, just wait you get attacked before launching an offensive, it will avoid things getting worse. I personnaly took southern Pictland first, North is quite poor and if you took South, you won't be threatened a lot by Northern armies. Alcluyd will probably became an ennemy soon, just broke their main armies with your field army as best as you can, and once you took Dun Breatann and eventually Glesgu, no more problems from them. Seek Ynis Manaw alliance eventually.

  13. #13

    Default Re: Campaign start strategies?

    Ahhh, most interesting. Of the three times I've tried Dal Riada, I only ended up going to war with Alcluyd once. What seems to happen every other time I play is that Alcluyd is far too busy getting crushed by Goddodin to bother with me. As for the economy, I start out with 2 diplomats, one to get trade rights from everyone in England/Scotland/Wales, and the other to get trade rights from the Irish Factions. The first thing I generally build once I take a settlement is roads as well. I think Caithness (for example) was giving me something like 6-7 income per turn (on the income scroll- not the number under the name on the campaign map)once I installed roads. It just really doesn't seem right. Even the large Pictish settlement directly west of Caithness only gives out something like 30 or so per turn.
    (Mind you, don't take this as a general complaint against the mod. It's truly brilliant....aside from the odd CTD of course)

  14. #14

    Default Re: Campaign start strategies?

    Well, my Ui Neal campaign is pretty much over at this point. I have all 31 Irish settlements, and the infrastructure to build the highest level units for my invasion of Britain to grab the last nine provinces.

    Almost time to start a new campaign. I think I'll up the difficulty. You said the mod was meant to be played on VH/VH or H/VH. Have you changed the bonuses the comp gets on the harder battle difficulties? In vanilla I tend to raise the campaign difficulty rather than the battle one because of the insane bonuses the ai gets to attack on higher battle difficulties. I figure next campaign I'll be moving on up to H/H or VH/M.

    :hmmm: Choices, choices. Wonder whether I should try a Saxon faction or a British one next...

    Thank you for making this excellent mod! This is by far and away the most fun I've had playing RTW in a long, long time.

  15. #15
    Agraes's Avatar Pillar of Prydein
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    Default Re: Campaign start strategies?

    Depends of what you will better like to play. Irish wars are essentially infantry stuff, where playing English will imply fighting both cavalry and infantry, while British got a powerful cavalry and are very fun to play. Even with the bonus, it's easy to won crushing victories with a cavalry based brythonic army

  16. #16

    Default Re: Campaign start strategies?

    I think I'll give a Briton faction a try on H/H(sowly working my way up to VH/H). My Irish campaign is about over and I've just finally been able to build decent cavalry(with the very highest level stables). As much fun as I've had watching an entire army throw javelins at my foes, I miss the heavy cavalry I used to such great effect in vanilla BI. Hopefully if I do well, I can post a suggested campaign start of my own.

    I read that i one of the other threads that cav charge bonuses have been significantly reduced in 6.2. The very heaviest Irish cav, and a couple of the cav I started with when I played Llydaw had charges bonuses around 20 or so. Is this right or did I miss something when installing the patches?

  17. #17

    Default Re: Campaign start strategies?

    My Kingdom of the North has been destroyed. Gododdin was run out of Scotland!!!
    My Gold Chevron army of King Lot(7*) fought of 4 full stack armies in one turn and simply had not men left to recruit in the cities. Ran to a boat waiting on the coast and took the settlement of Ynis Manw as a safe heavan with the last 500 of his troops and 4 family members. The 6 territories that was being besieged in Scotland by full stacks of Ebrauc Dal Rad and Acl soon fell. Lasted nearly 30 years of constant war until my populace let me down.

    Settled on the island and created peace the launched an attack of Ynis Mon and the old Gwynedd provinces now held by Raghed. Taking over North Wales slowly.(now own 3 provinces there)

  18. #18
    Agraes's Avatar Pillar of Prydein
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    Default Re: Campaign start strategies?

    Sounds like a really nice campaign. A dynasty forced to flee its lands and settle elsewhere
    It happened lot of times in the era

  19. #19

    Default Re: Campaign start strategies?

    I had the best army the Isles. Gold chevron troops. Beating atleast 2 stacks per turn. Damn my crappy populace and barran women!!!! Atleast i managed to get a secure island thats rich and full of opportunity!!!

  20. #20

    Default Re: Campaign start strategies?

    I started a Jute campaign the other day. Put all of my elite and mid level troops in one army with my best general, sent a diplomat to the Saxons to end my alliance with them, and wiped them out in a few turns. Since then the pattern's been conquer enough settlements to make money again, consolidate(queue up buildings in every city, preferably money making one's if they're available), build up a new army that soaks up all of that money I was making per turn, and repeat. I'm just about to wipe out Dumnonia and start expanding north.

    Now if only I get a Dyfed campaign to start successful. Tried last night, got well on my way to taking out Gwynedd, and the rebels sent giant armies after my towns.

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