Sylvania--- WHY SO HARD :(

[Coastyman]

So is anyone else having a hell of a time with the sylvania campaign?

[Ofmanycolors]

Nope, you aren't the only one. I admit it was the first campaign with COW, but I'm not new at TW series. Plus I don't remember what difficulty I was playing on, but I guess it was H/H. I remember got raped by two different factions. It was impossible to win. Especially from the 'good' faction. And I had problems with my finances.
But I think I (and maybe we[emoji14]) were playing it wrong xD

[Ofmanycolors]

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=406339. I saw this link futher on the page. Didn't read it yet, but I think it's helpful

[Coastyman]

Ya i have played TW since Shogun and i CANNOT get a handle on Slyvania. lol damn. And i just found that last night, read it and it was ok. will have to go for round 10.....

[Vette]

This is 1 of the factions I like the most.First I will tell you dont be afraid of restarting campaign,luck is a big factor if you play with Sylvania.For example you could get mages and Blood Dragons which is huge change!Also dont be afraid to experiment with difrent tactics,latest tactic that I used was abandoning Sylvania and moving south crushing Border Princes and snatching land in that general area.The thing is whit Sylvania you just have to survive the start to like turn 20.then you will have no problem scripts will fire and grip on you will be lighter and lighter.You will reclaim your lands in time but in the begining I sugest patiance, watch how others kill eachother while you pick them 1 by 1 from the bottom of the map...
unit sugestion is always the same catapults,black knights,and skelies as anvil,if your economy is very good then build some Grave Guards to speed up process.
Send merchants to NG mines thats like 3k+a turn.
Hope this will help you.

[kelembribor21]

I personally like to play strategy games from the easier to normal difficulties, so i write this from non-hardcore point of view.

This mod and Sylvania faction especially is rather daunting at start , because the elite empire knights, usually cut through your cheap skeletons in 1 charge and overwhelm you.
In the first turns i initially withdrew my armies from Templehof and took Zhufbar instead , I used Drakenhof as main defense from Stirland troops and survived few fights against them and the Dwarves later, and then when i rebuilt my army + occasional event in which you get Blood Dragons or Necarahs.
I focused my expansion on stirland and averland , then fight against chaos and orc Waagh - scripted.

Empire also isnt so strong as it seems they will be beset by beastmen, states can become heretic and war between themselves , orcs and ofcourse Storm of Chaos later, so you can strike them bit later when you get stronger and when you see the right oportunity.

Biggest trouble is great crusade against your capital that is random event and can be troublesome when paired with some nasty spawned armies so if you really have trouble you can always reload to get different event etc, and if you really have trouble with crashing in battles or impossible spawns you can always use auto calculate victory cheat .

[hbk_123]

Wait, how can you have 2 units of wizards?

[Vossie]

He probably made them recruitable.

[AllianceDeath]

Only one stack is really needed, and Blood Keep can easily get you more money around turn 15+ by sacking nearby Wissenland cities, just don't take Nuln or two twenty stack armies will spawn I believe.

[SinerAthin]

He probably made them recruitable.

I tend to make Wizards recruitable in my own Campaigns as well, quite simply because with their 1% chance of spawning, I feel that I often miss out on having them at all. Seeing as I tend to only play each faction only once, I like being able to experience their full roster

[Himster]

So is anyone else having a hell of a time with the sylvania campaign?

Yup, they're one of the hardest factions...... and rightly so, especially at the start of the campaign, they're technically supposed to exist only in hiding, spending a hundred years planning their resurgence. Although with all of the rewrites recently I'm not sure if that's still true.

Wait, how can you have 2 units of wizards?

You get them from your council of nobles when you complete their missions. Once I had a stack with 12 nechrarch units, as it turns out not so useful against chaos knights and blood crushers.

[Conspicuous Cultist]

This is 1 of the factions I like the most.First I will tell you dont be afraid of restarting campaign,luck is a big factor if you play with Sylvania.For example you could get mages and Blood Dragons which is huge change!Also dont be afraid to experiment with difrent tactics,latest tactic that I used was abandoning Sylvania and moving south crushing Border Princes and snatching land in that general area.The thing is whit Sylvania you just have to survive the start to like turn 20.then you will have no problem scripts will fire and grip on you will be lighter and lighter.You will reclaim your lands in time but in the begining I sugest patiance, watch how others kill eachother while you pick them 1 by 1 from the bottom of the map...
unit sugestion is always the same catapults,black knights,and skelies as anvil,if your economy is very good then build some Grave Guards to speed up process.
Send merchants to NG mines thats like 3k+a turn.
Hope this will help you.

I adopted a scorched earth policy with the vampires. I abandon the Blood Keep and capture Nuln, dissolving all of the buildings and sacking the place for major amounts of crowns. In fact, if you capture and abandon enough cities it ends up making a noticable dent in their ability to function (scripted spawns notwithstanding).

That said though, I didn't consider a mass exodus down towards the weak border princes... That's actually pretty viable.

[menawati]

I wrote a guide on Sylvania few years ago - might be of some help, hopefully most of it is still relevant.
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...38#post9539238

Just getting back into CoW again and I do think they were my favourite faction - really really tough early game as it feels like the whole world wants to eliminate you asap (I remember using vampire knights a hell of a lot they were superb). Economy is dodgy too until you get hold of a few big rich Empire cities over in the far west.
Once you get over that difficult start it's loads of fun though, you get to fight loads of different enemies and it's really cool when the chaos wave hits - you just keep choas and empire in balance by picking off targets of each one so they slowly whittle each other down until you are ready to pounce