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Thread: [TW Guide] MTW: The English (High)

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    Default [TW Guide] MTW: The English (High)



    Author: Morble
    Original Thread: Not Available

    The English (High)

    If my memory serves me right, the English starting position has been tweaked a bit in v 2.01. In any event, you begin the game owning Ireland and Brittany, but not Wales or Scotland, and you have a significant number of cav and longbows. Your continental holdings are contiguous, and thanks to your ship, you can transport troops to the mainland, but you cannot return your king to England. There is a level 1 metalsmith in Mercia, but no iron resource, so you cannot upgrade it.

    The initial approach is basically the same here as in the Early Period. You need to take out the French and secure Flanders. Thankfully, the French now have territories in the Mid-East (the French Levant) so when you capture their king, you get a 12,000 florin ransom. This also means you won’t be able to destroy the French, but you will marginalize them to the point they will never cause you further trouble.

    So, as in the Early Period, you should immediately begin preparing for war with the French. Build forts on all empty provinces. Build watchtowers where you already have a castle built. You need feudal sergeants and FMAAs to support your cav and longbows, so these should be your first builds. There is almost always a 5 quill governor on Ireland, and I find that giving him the Irish title brings Irish loyalty above 100% on very low taxes. I build a fort, then peasants and a port, on Ireland to secure that province.

    I build peasants and spearmakers in Mercia, in order to get to billmen. I build feudal sergeants in Wessex, but do not develop it further, because I plan to use it for shipbuilding. I build FMAAs in Anjou, but do not upgrade the province yet. I build militia sergeants and an extra feudal knights in Aquitaine. I also do not upgrade Aquitaine, in the interest of saving money for my military buildup.

    I send my princess to Champagne to scout the only French province I can’t see in Europe, while my emissary goes to bribe the Welsh. A successful bribe (it usually takes two tries) gives you another 3 longbows and a cav company. You will have to pile several hundred men into Wales to get the loyalty up. That’s OK, because you want hide your troop buildup in England from the French as long as you can.

    However, the French will tend to pile a lot of troops on Flanders, and you do not want to allow them the opportunity to attack Wessex, so you will probably have to post 600 or so men in Wessex. This situation won’t last long. You should be ready to attack by 1210 or so, when your prince matures. The French will almost always declare war and sink your ship (man, I hate those godly powers of AI navies) in 1211. So, you should have your army assembled in Wessex by 1210.

    Attack Flanders, Normandy, Ile de France, and Toulouse on the same turn. Send your stack from Brittany into Normandy, your stack from Aquitaine into Toulouse, your stack from Anjou into Ile de France, and your stack from Wessex into Flanders. Meanwhile, continue to build peasants in Northumbria, to ward off the Scots until you can bribe them. Continue to build longbows, feudal knights, and FMAAs. You should also be starting on your master spearmaker in Mercia.

    Boy, are those Frenchies going to be sorry they picked a fight with you. You will likely get at least 3 of the 4 French defender stacks to retreat without a fight. If you had to call off the attack on a province (anywhere but Flanders, you should have enough men there to win the fight, and you really need the province), there will likely be a civil war there on the next turn, and you can then send your emissary to bribe the rebels.

    Once you solidify your new holdings, the game will progress almost exactly like the Aragon-German-Italian scenario in the Early Period game. The Aragonese will attack Toulouse, then the HRE will drop their alliance and attack you, then the Italians will invade Toulouse by sea.

    You must build caravels in Wessex, because the Italians will seek to cut you off from England. Barques are useless at this point. You can’t attack with barques, because they are just too wimpy. All you can do with a barque is hold your breath and see if the new enemy ship that just arrived in the square will sink you or not. You should get a second province started on making caravels as soon as you can.

    You need to be careful when counterattacking the Aragonese, because now they have something like eleventy jillion RK prince units, all of which have very high valor. They will eat your cav for lunch if you try to fight them cav for cav. Instead, take lots of feudal sergeants and longbows. Countercharge the Aragon cav with your sergeants when they try to rush you. Protect your longbows by keeping them behind the spears, and mind your flanks with your cav. You’re likely to lose anyway, the first time you attack them. But since they only have 1 province, the Aragonese will have trouble re-building. Keep invading, and your second or third attack will beat them.

    The Germans have low valor troops, and you can push your way through the HRE with comparative ease. As in the Early period, build an annual small army of longbows, billmen, and feudal sergeants in England, and ship them to the mainland. Add gallowglasses from Ireland and clansmen from Scotland once you can bring these units online. Having a ship posted in the North Sea is invaluable for pushing the flank in Northern Europe, because this allows you to plunk your annual reinforcements down into combat each year.

    The Pope will probably warn you before you get to do much against the Italians. For this reason, it’s usually a good idea to ally with the Sicilians (and possibly the Pope). The Sicilians and Italians usually get into a fuss early, and the enemy of your enemy… Sicilian gains may cause rebellions in Italian lands, so be watching for this, with your emissaries standing ready to hand out a bribe.

    The HRE will certainly have rebellions while you are chipping away at them. Bribe the big stacks of rebels, and overrun the small ones. You will probably not have enough money to develop your lands at all. Just build to spears in most provinces, and train the most advanced troops you can—then send them all to the nearest front.

    Spies are very important, and you can usually build them immediately once you capture Ile de France. Set the province to pump out a spy every turn. You will be making rapid advances once you go to war with virtually all of Christendom, so make as many spies as you can right away. A spy in each of your provinces gives great protection against enemy stealth pieces that are out marauding. A spy placed into a new province, immediately after you have successfully invaded, calms the province down very quickly—thereby allowing you move your invasion stack(s) along to the next victim.

    Finally, make sure you have a few inns scattered around your territory. You don’t have the time to catch your breath and develop your lands, and you can’t afford the money for it either. But buying up mercs is worth the investment, and will keep your wars from bogging down. While you are fighting multiple opponents, you do not want anyone to get a release from the pressure you are putting on them. If one opponent gets the chance to reorganize, they will put together a counterattack against a province that you already stripped to maintain your attack army. As long as they are under constant attack, your enemies will continue to lose large numbers of troops in sieges, and all the rest of their troops will be forced to retreat into the few provinces directly in front of your rampaging army. Try to keep the enemy armies headed up by the same general, and he will soon get a lot of lousy vices, like eager to retreat and good runner, which makes him all the easier to beat on the field the next time you meet.

    Expect the Poles and Hungarians to attack you once you make contact with them (as a result of trouncing the Germans). Also, the Danes cannot be trusted. However, the Danes are probably your only trading partners, since you probably have had to double up your caravels to survive the Italian naval attacks along the western coasts. I put a rather large stack on Saxony, and that usually keeps the Danes quiet until I can spare the time and men to destroy them.

    Finally, Spain will probably attack you once you destroy the Aragonese. The Almohads start with Valencia, and the Spanish may not have conquered it yet—which apparently is all the more reason for the AI, as the Spanish, to attack you instead of the infidels! The Spanish are another horse-heavy faction, so you will typically use much the same army to attack them as you used to fight the Aragonese. The Almohads, like most Muslim factions, are fairly trustworthy, and will not attack you or break their alliance with you—at least not until you finish off the Spanish.

    Some factions, such as the HRE, have to work very hard to avoid a World War scenario where it is them against the rest of the world. But the English have superior arms and, as long as they can control the seas around their territories, they have geographic security, too. The small army you put together each year out of the English Isles has a huge positive effect on your ability to wage multiple wars. As long as you can ship a new army out of England every year, your advances cannot be contained.

    I have found that I rarely build a castle upgrade, or agriculture, or trade, once I am in the middle of a World War. The provinces I conquer will generally have enough development to allow some immediate contribution from them. If nothing else, I build peasants and Slav warriors, in order to shore up the loyalties of the newly-conquered provinces, as I push further into enemy lands.

    On the other hand, you may occasionally see a return to historical normalcy, wherein your Catholic neighbors are not attacking you. When this happens, simply switch your economy over to building economic improvements. You already have the largest economy by this time, switching will simply increase your lead. Not many years will go by before you are attacked once again, and you can then switch back to troop building. The AI seems drawn to attack a human player in much the same way that mosquitoes are drawn to a bug zapper.

    In general, your game strategy is to first conquer the French, then respond to dastardly Catholic attacks by sending your Red Tide out to wash over all of Europe. When the Pope gets too whiny, attack Him and put a puppet in His place. As in Early Period, you will finish the game before He can re-emerge. Once you have conquered the Catholics, you can move on to take out the Almohads. The Mongols will occupy most of the attentions of the Orthodox and other Muslim factions. When you finally come up against land owned by these latter factions, pause and gather your strength, then pounce on as many foreign provinces as you can in the same turn. Your surprise attacks should be enough to force retreats all over the map. This final pounce will allow you to claim all the lands you attacked, and you can thereby claim your English victory.
    Last edited by Sir Adrian; December 07, 2013 at 06:19 AM. Reason: fixed user hyperlink

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