This first post will outline the technicalities of this campaign. The second post will outline a story for immersion.
My Past Experience with BYG V
I've played BYG V extensively as the Turks. In my third campaign as the Turks, by exploiting the Turkomans and the relative advantage of ME Bodyguards, I expanded as far as Urgench and Vienna. I recreated some combination of the Achaemenid and Ottoman empires. Then I experienced a sudden reversal, losing Baia and Kassa and Vienna and Zagreb to a combination of two Novgorodian stacks, two Polish stacks, two Holy Roman stacks, three Venetian stacks, and a Crusade declared on Antioch. I had to slowly withdraw to Adrianople and Constantinople. I couldn't levy enough manpower to create a field army that could retake Rumelia and Greece. I hired mercenaries to retake Antioch, and was relocating them to Constantinople when, midway, the Moors suddenly collapsed and a Portuguese stack took Tunis, and I had to divert the soldiers to Benghazi. My economy which was generating more than two hundred thousand per turn in gross, because of BYG V mechanisms, could barely turn out more than five thousand per turn in profit. My nobles alone were generating between fifty thousand and one hundred thousand in costs.
Then the Novgorodians captured Caffa and Tmutarakan from me, and Astrakhan and Sarkel from the Timurids. I had to raise 8 Turkish Archers and 4 Naffatuns in Sinop, Kutaisi, Tbilisi, and Baku, to bolster the garrisons that until then were only expected to deal with the Cumans and the Timurid remnants. My economy could only break even, and the Russians were advancing on Urgench. I slowly disbanded all my mercenaries, and could only just raise a garrison in Urgench.
The next Crusade came for Jerusalem, and I could only just recapture Jerusalem from the Holy Romans by dismantling enough buildings in my interior to raise several mercenary armies for two turns, one from Adana, one from Nicosia, one from Alexandria, and one from Damascus, but the devastation was too much and now I was in debt. My nobles began to pay off the debt, but I had no more buildings to dismantle for the nextnext Crusade.
The nextnext Crusade came for Jerusalem, and I let it be captured. I gathered all my nobles that were governing the interiors to create a stack of heavy cavalry, and lay siege to Jerusalem until it sallied and was recaptured. I lost Edessa to a rebel halfstack. I retook Edessa by a siege of just three nobles, the governors of Aleppo, Edessa, and Diyarbakir.
I could only repeat this. I could not break the stalemate. I was in the position of the Ottomans in the 1900s, plus Egypt. I gave up.
Understanding the Difficulty of BYG V
In BYG V, expansion is crippling.
Recruitment in BYG V requires both money and manpower. Militia units and agents typically require [1] manpower, whereas elite units typically require [4] manpower. You can disband [1] manpower units to get back [1] manpower, [2] manpower units to get back [0.5] manpower, [3] manpower units to get back [0.75 manpower], and [4] manpower units to get back [1] manpower.
Every 12 turns, you can decide to levy [14], [24], [32], or [40] manpower, which is distributed throughout your settlements. So if you have 7 settlements, and you decide to levy [14] manpower, then each settlements gets [2] manpower. Levying [14] manpower costs 200 per settlement per turn for 12 turns. Levying [24] manpower costs 400 per settlement. Levying [32] manpower costs 800 per settlement. Levying [40] manpower costs 1600 per settlement. Practically speaking, this means you can only work with [14] or [24] manpower every 12 turns.
So, expansion is very difficult as a small faction and almost impossible as a larger faction, and your precious units are actually precious, and missions that give you units are extremely important. Your troops will be mostly militia, and your armies will be extremely varied in composition, while your enemies in BYG V will spam heavy cavalry and heavy infantry, (which is actually good for roleplaying late era Lithuania, b/c Lithuania never fully standardized to the same degree as other European armies.)
BYG V also nerfs player economy in many ways that I won't mention here. But once your settlement count reaches the double digits, you can expect to rack up unexpected costs in the order of tens of thousands and which don't show up in the treasury overview.
Also, only your Faction Leader or your two War Councillors can lead attacks in enemy territory, and you have no merchants.
Read the BYG V manual. It's pretty amazing how difficult it is.
Criticism of BYG V: BYG V overemphasizes battles b/c of how difficult the campaign is. The only way you can survive is to win victory after victory and with minimal casualties.
Allowances: I've decided to use the descr_mercenaries file in vanilla SS 6.4, and not the one in BYG V. I've also decided to use Permanent Watchtowers, which BYG does not recommend.
High Era Strategy: Seize Scandinavia before turn 84, and the British Isles before turn 132.
Late Era Strategy: Guard the river crossings at Hamburg and Southern England.
Endgame Strategy: ???
Overall Strategy: Bribe rebels in Lithuania for extra manpower, and keep Denmark, Norway, Teutonic Order, and Poland alive so that they can get Master Explorer and Theologians Guilds, which I will capture for extra economic and religious benefits.
Cons:
- no friends, only enemies
- get Crusades and Jihads
- religion is isolated, public order in conquered lands is hard to keep
- lands are poor
- troops are mostly militia
- late era
Pros:
- AP troops that frighten_foot and will not rout
- Serpentines