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Thread: [TW Guide] MTW: The Saxons

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    Default [TW Guide] MTW: The Saxons



    Author: Morble
    Original Thread: Not Available

    MTW: The SaxonsPlaying an English ethnic group in MTW:VI is not easy. For most of the game, your units suck, while the Vikings can cakewalk through your lands, seemingly at will. You have to pay special attention to iron deposits to get the fighting upgrades from improved blacksmiths. Your economy is pretty woeful, too, since agricultural is just starting to be developed. The Saxons are no exception to this overview.

    Another issue for concern, at least on expert where I play, is that apparently morale/rout stats have been tweaked, and the AIs appear to have slightly better attack and defense for equivalent units. So, in melee combat against an equal enemy unit with equal valor, your unit will take more casualties and will rout before the AI's unit. In actuality, this seems to make for a better, more realistic game. Real generals have to be extremely concerned with the numbers of men they are losing, and real units don't continue fighting with 80%+ casualties. But "realistic game" usually means "tough to win", and expert MTW:VI is no exception.

    As the Saxons, you start with only 4 provinces, of which only West Seaxe is developed. At least Somersaete and Dornsaete have basic farms, while Defnas only has forest clearing. The best news is that Somersaete and Defnas both have iron deposits.

    On the bad side, your nobles are neither very inspired nor loyal, and they are not very skilled either. Typically, you won't find a sum total of 4 shields + quills on any of your outer province unit captains. Also typically, the fyrdmen unit in West Seaxe will have 4 quills.

    I usually give the fyrdmen captain the title to West Seaxe and move my king to Dornsaete. In a few years, your prince will reach majority, and you can put him in Somersaete. In the meantime, hope for a 4 quill build in West Seaxe with at least 2 shields. Good luck--they are not too common.

    Since you have potentially rich farmlands, and already have a cathedral in Defnas, you could conceivably strive for early economic dominance. With this approach, you would concentrate on building farms, trade, boats, and cathedrals, then look to translate that into powerful armies later. However, the Viking menace means your economic marvel of a kingdom is likely to end up serving merely as a pre-medieval savings account for "visitors" from the Norselands.

    AI Vikings will initially cruise the east side of Britain, looking for the most poorly defended provinces. Usually, Northumbria gets hit first, but Northumbria just as usually gets a ceasefire or alliance with the Vikings, probably by marrying off a princess. The Vikings will then start cruising farther south and north--and will soon appear off your coastlines.

    Viking units are very tough, and will exact close to 3:1 casualties no matter what you do. If you hope to beat them, you have to overwhelm them with swarm tactics. But you can't swarm with a single company of fyrdmen. So, as the Saxons, I usually set to work on developing my army first.

    I build fyrdmen in West Seaxe, with a couple of archers thrown in, while I try to get a royal palace built. If any good administrators show up, they get titles, and are shuffled off to govern their respective provinces. In the meantime, I beeline for armored, metalsmithed spearmen in Defnas and Somersaete. I go for fyrdmen in Dornsaete. Fyrdmen are actually better fighting units because spearmen have such low morale. So, I try not to build spears until I actually have the armorer and metalsmith in place--usually, though, I need the bodies, and end up having to build unbuffed spears.

    With a royal palace, you can build emissaries, royal bodyguards, and huscarles. Huscarles are awesome melee units, and a special build for Saxons. But you desperately need the RBs and emissaries, too, because you can't repair your prince units without a palace, and you can't strip titles from inept governors without an emissary. So, a royal palace is a must have, and West Seaxe is the logical place to build it.

    As noted, most times you can't wait for all the buffs before you have to start building spears. This isn't really a problem, though, because you can refit them later if you desire, or just merge them into buffed units. But it's important to have a formidable force showing in each of your provinces, or you'll get squashed early.

    Remember, the Vikings are looking for poorly-defended provinces. In addition, beware the Mercians. I have never had the Welsh attack me early (one good reason for this, perhaps, is because their king is isolated in Cerniu, and I keep enough stand-off troops in Defnas to match his army there) but the Mercians are another kettle of fish. The Mercians start out with more than double the men that the Saxons have, and can build more units faster than the Saxons, because of the advantage in number of provinces. The Mercians are aggressive and want to rule all of England. Watch their build-ups on your borders carefully and try to match them, or else you will be snowplowed by them, usually in conjunction with an untimely Viking invasion.

    How you play the strip of 4 rebel provinces to your south and east will have great effect on your game, and will likely determine whether you win or not. The rebels start out with poorly developed lands, but significantly better units than the Saxons. Spread over the 4 rebel provinces are 2 huscarles, 1 mounted nobles, 3 archers, 1 spear, 2 fyrdmen, and 1 peasant. Thus, you cannot attack them immediately because they are too strong. But they grow slowly, due to the lack of development, and you can overtake their numbers if you concentrate on military growth.

    The rebels also become targets for the Vikings, usually around 20 years into the game. If you have been building your defensive armies, the rebel lands will look the most enticing to the Vikings for invasion, after they settle matters with the Northumbrians. They will usually invade from East Engle and move west, then move back towards the east, pillaging as they go. They may even take a side trip into Mercian lands.

    The time to attack the rebels is after they have been weakened by fighting the Vikings, and the Viking expedition has either moved on or been destroyed. Usually the Vikings will actually conquer and try to hold a province. Just as usually, the Mercians will attack there and grab the province for themselves.

    You need to time your rebel conquest campaign so that you move in to Suth and East Seaxe just after the Vikings have passed through. You need a lot of men for this operation. If you denude your home provinces of armed defense, you invite attacks from both Mercia and the Vikings (who can easily reach your lands). Even the Welsh might attack, if Somersaete and/or Defnas look weak.

    You seriously do not want Viking invaders traipsing through your lands. Vikings are ferocious and will typically exact 3:1 casualties, often sending your wimpy troops rapidly to rout, causing a defeat, and lowering the already-shaky loyalty and morale across your entire kingdom. As the Saxons, you will usually already be having difficulties keeping your generals loyal. 2 or 3 defeats at the hands of vastly superior Viking invaders can put your kingdom into a tailspin.

    So, you need to have enough military forces to attack both East and Suth Seaxe (Seaxes?) while still maintaining at least 300 men, preferably 500, in each of your provinces. Plus, you need to win the two invasion battles. If you are not ready for the invasions when the opportunity presents itself, Mercia will likely grab the lands, and you will have very tough sledding the rest of the game. If you lose the invasion battles, your loyalties will drop and you will likely get a civil war. If you let the Vikings slip behind your lines, by first beating your too-small victorious army in either East or Suth Seaxe, then invading Dornsaete, you are going to have to concentrate your forces on killing off the Vikings, and hope that your neighbors don't invade. At the same time, you will be strapped for cash, because of all the troops you are maintaining. It's a difficult situation, but pretty darn realistic, if you ask me.

    The good news is that Cantware has an inn that almost always survives and you can recruit mercs there, especially if no big wars are raging during your move on the rebels. Usually, after successfully conquering East Seaxe and Suth Seaxe, you will not have enough men to move into both Cantware and East Engle at the same time. So, slice off some troops from both Essex and Sussex to invade Canterbury, er, well, you know the old names. This means the Vikings and the Mercians will fight it out over East Engle. With your limited resources, I don't think you can avoid losing the chance at an early grab at East Engle--the possible counterattacks are too strong.

    Tactically, you will have to use swarming techniques against both the Vikings and the rebels, each of whom have superior fighters. This means hitting a single enemy unit from front, rear, and one or both flanks at the same time. Even then, a berserkers or huscarles may singlehandedly put 3 or more of your fyrdmen companies to rout.

    The two main tactical approaches, ignoring terrain advantages, are to use either a very wide battle line that can easily fold around the enemy flanks, or to use a shorter battle line with reserves supporting the center. The wide battle line will often work well on both flanks, but your center will tend to get chewed up and rout away on you. Routing appears to be even more important than in the original MTW, and sometimes a single routing unit can panic your whole army. So, if your center collapses, not only will the enemy have the strategic advantage of cutting your army into halves, and flanking both halves, but your men in each half are much more likely to panic, throwing down their arms and running off the battlefield like so many lambs pursued by wolves (and with similar casualty counts!).

    The supported center is a safer tactic. When you see your center troops starting to drop below 50% in numbers, rush your reserves into the fray, and try to retreat your battered companies back to where they can reform into deeper formations. By the time they get reformed and get to add a bar or so of rest to their stats, your former reserve troops will either have pretty much won the day, or be so beat up that they now need a rest. In the latter case, you can rush your reformed troops back to the melee, and perform the switch again. The AI rarely holds foot troops in reserve, so, if you can survive the initial melee contact, you will usually win.

    The downside to the supported center tactic is that you rarely have enough men to outflank your enemy. If you managed to arrange your attack at 2:1 or 3:1 numerical advantage, then you can roll the flanks and support the center at the same time. But the AI counts the number of men it can see on its borders and actively tries to avoid this type of situation. So, you will often end up fighting superior quality enemies at no strong numerical advantage. Ouch. Obviously, you must use any terrain advantage you can get, such as making the enemy fight uphill at you, or fighting enemy cav in the woods.

    The vast majority of your army will be spears and fyrdmen. Fyrdmen have moderate morale, but spears do not. So, you must be especially careful of your spear companies. In fact, you must treat them as if they were made of glass. Usually, a supported spear unit (one who has a friendly unit covering its flanks or rear) will not rout until it loses about 2/3 of its original number. But this is not a hard and fast rule, and their support might move away from them, causing an immediate drop in morale. If one unit routs, any unit on the field with similar casualties will almost always also rout, and in the space of a few seconds, your whole army can be running for the hills. This is another advantage for the supported center in that the condensed line and the support to the rear helps keep your army on the field longer.

    Non-foot troops, i.e., missile and cav companies, can make a real difference in battles. Usually it is best to start the battle with your archers in front, to get their best range, with your foot troops slightly behind them. As the enemy closes, either your foots can move forward, or the archers can retreat in skirmish mode. It is best to let your archers pick their own targets, in which case they will retreat when threatened by any and all enemy ground units. If you designate a target for them, they will only retreat if that specific target closes on them, but not if another enemy unit makes contact with them. Sometimes you want to shoot at a specific unit early, then let the archers pick their shots during the battle. To go from designated-target mode to fire-at-will mode, just hit halt for the company. (This also saves on casualties to your men in melee. Archers will continue to fire on a designated target regardless of who is in the way. When in fire-at-will mode, they aim more carefully to avoid hitting their own men.)

    A well timed cav charge, just like in real life, can turn an entire battle. You will likely not have much cav in VI. Historically, cav was rare and very expensive. You might want to switch either Dafnes or Somersaete over to making cav once the armorer and metalsmith are in place. In the meantime, the royal palace can pump out RBs pretty cheaply, at the cost of not being able to build huscarles. Of course, RBs have only half the number of regular cav units...

    You might well consider all cav in VI to be the equivalent of a weakling medium cav company. The specialization process in the later European game has not happened yet. Consequently, all of your cav is not too fast, and not too strong, but they're faster and stronger than anything else you can get.

    Cav is too rare, weak, and costly, in VI to use it as a main assault force. You must contact the main enemy force with your foot troops. Send your cav to either screen your flanks, or to offensively threaten the enemy rear. Offensively, most foot troops are spear carriers, and cav thus has limited opportunities. You are looking to perform a charge, in wedge formation, into the rear of an enemy unit that is already tied down by one or more of your units, and is already depleted of 1/3 or more of its number. (Don't wedge charge with your king or general, because he will then lead the charge--and likely be the first casualty. For a king's or general's unit, use close formation.) If you spot such an opportunity, and can get in and out without another enemy unit closing on you, then take it immediately. The cav charge will usually be enough to rout the depleted enemy unit, and sometimes you can set the whole enemy army to rout due to the shared drop in morale caused by a single unit routing.

    Absolutely do not allow your cav to melee! VI cav is generally weak, and if you let them melee for any length of time, your beautiful, proud cav company will be crow food by the end of the battle. If your cav charge did not rout the enemy unit, pull out and try another charge. Don't stand there and try to slug it out with foot troops, or you'll lose them. Often, it is difficult to disengage cav, because one or more horsemen will want to trade swings at an enemy soldier, so the cav unit gets disorganized and won't form up for another charge. "Sticky" cav like this is a big problem, and you will likely lose them if you can't disengage and/or can't bring in another foot unit or two to distract the enemy. Since the charge was from the enemy rear, though, it's unlikely you will be able to easily shift one of your foot companies to the rear to engage the enemy and disengage your cav.

    So, beware. If your cav gets stuck in melee after a charge, it's a good indicator that you charged too soon. Wait until the enemy is about 40% depleted before you charge them. Ideally, you want the first big casualties that the enemy unit takes from the charge to topple their morale and send them running. To your advantage, there is an extra morale and defense penalty whenever a unit receives a cav charge, but these penalties only last a very few seconds. (You can see this clearly in the replays, when you can access the enemy unit state of mind.) If the enemy unit did not rout almost immediately from your charge, you are highly unlikely to make them rout by meleeing with them with your cav. Withdraw and try again, if you can. Better yet, wait a little longer next time.

    Cav can also be used to draw off enemy companies from the main battle. This works especially well when the enemy has placed his strongest troops on his flanks. Ideally, you want to have enemy companies chase you toward their rear, diagonally away from the battle. Unless you want to micromanage this "distractor" cav unit through a chase for the entire battle, draw the enemy off until you judge they cannot reasonably get back to the main battle before it is decided, then set up a looping series of waypoints that will allow your cav to sprint in a semicircular path back to the rear of the battle. With good timing, you will get back to the battle at just about the right time to wedge charge the rear of some enemy unit(s). In that case, the diverted enemy company now quickmarching its way back to the battle will likely not get back in position before the whole issue is decided. If it then doesn't join the general rout, the diverted enemy company will have to meet your main battle force all by itself, and will not stand for long on its own.

    For the sake of completeness, cav can also be used in the role of chasing and killing routing enemies. However, it's best not to get distracted by this until the battle is conclusively decided--because you generally need your cav to decide the issue, and chasing routers takes your cav out of the main action. True, some routing units will recover and reform, but they never reform as strongly as they began the battle, and they are thus much easier to rout a second, or even third, time. If you feel you absolutely have to chase ordinary routers, use one of your foot companies. Routers will continue to rout as long as an enemy is close to them and chasing them, even if the chasers are far inferior in numbers. If you don't feel you can spare a foot company to chase routers just yet, then you very likely can't spare your cav, either. Let the enemy unit reform if it will, and concentrate your forces on winning the main battle. If you get the enemy main force to rout, then the reformed, previously routed, enemy units will almost certainly join the general footrace without putting up any further fight. Possible exceptions to this rule are chasing a king, general, or (possibly) artillery unit from the field. Running a king or commanding general off the field affects the entire enemy army, so it's worth taking a cav unit offline to provide an "escort". Otherwise, concentrate on winning the main battle, and the routers will almost always solve the "chase or not chase" problem for you all by themselves.

    Finally, cav can be used to rip up enemy rear lines, especially the long strings of archers that the AI likes to line up back there. But, be careful. Again, VI cav is weak, and a company of archers is far from defenseless against even a company of royal bodyguards. Two companies of archers will beat your single company of RBs to a bloody pulp. If you're going to poach archers in the rear lines, send at least 2 cav units to work in concert. Charge a single enemy archer company from both front and rear simultaneously to get the desired effect. For strung-out archer companies, close (or even loose) formation is preferable to wedge.

    So, somewhere between the years 815 and 825, you have beaten the rebels, expanded your desmesne to 7 provinces, and managed to stave/ward off attacks on your lands by greedy neighbors and rapacious Vikings. Time to assess your new situation.

    With the rebels gone, the Vikings will be looking for new victims. You will need to build up your defenses quickly, especially men in arms, to encourage the Viking perception that easier pickings lie elsewhere, outside your borders. You are now surrounded by Mercia and the Welsh, and will have to go to war with them if you are to expand further. Mercia, on the other hand, is also hemmed in, and very much wants to expand. Expect a build-up along your northern and eastern borders. Eventually, the Mercians will attack you.

    The Welsh are much less aggressively expansionist, although they will take an opportunity if it is presented to them. With the Welsh king isolated in Cerniu, it might appear that the Welsh are an easy target. But the only other Welsh province accessible to you is Guent, and you will have to cross a 2-bridged river to battle there. In this river battle, you will be met by scads of Welsh archers, who will repel all but the most forceful attempt at crossing. So, while the Welsh king can be taken fairly easily in Cerniu, further progress is likely to be very costly. If you move a lot of troops out of Defnas and Somersaete to attack the Welsh, you will likely be invaded by Vikings. If you lose a lot of men--correction, you WILL lose a lot of men--invading Guent, then the depleted forces trying to hold down Guent, Somersaete, and West Seaxe will invite a Mercian invasion. If you go to war with the Welsh, you will almost certainly end up fighting both the Welsh and the Mercians, while the Vikings stand ready and able to invade absolutely any province of yours that is low on defensive manpower.

    Thus, while Cerniu is a tempting target, I believe it is best to forego the temptation of warring with the Welsh, and concentrate on building up to the big showdown with Mercia. To your advantage, the Mercians are not particularly popular, and almost everyone, including the Welsh, is willing to ally with you. Absent a raiding party, and with no direct contact with them, the Vikings will remain officially neutral towards you. You might want to think twice about allying with the Mercians, since you know you will eventually have to fight them. On the other hand, I have twice sneak-attacked my Mercian allies, and every single other faction chose to remain allied with my Saxons, while breaking their alliance with Mercia. (As I said, Mercians aren't too popular.)

    Your biggest problem, as you gear up to the big Mercian showdown, will be Viking raiders. Basically, you are not going to have enough money to build everything you need, as fast as you need it, while training all the men you need. Expect a Viking invasion of 5-8 units at some time during this interregnum, most likely in your newly-acquired eastern provinces.

    There is no easy way around this: you have got to kill these invaders, or they will march their way through your lands and gut your economy. At the same time, remember that, because Viking units are so strong, the invasion force is effectively 3 times the size the number of men would seem to indicate. Also, Viking invaders will move to a new province nearly every turn, so if you denude a neighboring province to concentrate your forces in the occupied province, the Viking force won't be there when you are ready to do battle, but will be busy raping the province you just left vulnerable.

    If you have enough men to leave a strong force behind in defense, then by all means, attack. But, you have to be reconciled to the likelihood that a fresh Viking raiding party will win the first round or two of any battles with them, because they are just too strong for your wimpy Saxon units.

    Vikings don't replenish very fast, so the loss of manpower is much more important to them than to you. For this reason, "soak-off" attacks, wherein you attack and expect to lose, but to also expect to kill a significant number of Vikings in the process, are a viable strategy. The drawback, however, is that each soak-off battle counts as much as any other battlefield defeat in affecting the morale and loyalty of your generals. If you've been conscientiously developing your lands so that your king has the magnificent builder v&v, this will help a lot. But expect to have lots of company leaders with 3, 2, or even 1, or 0 shields, scattered throughout your realm, as these disloyal armchair generals get together over a pint of cider and discuss how much better a job they could do if they were the king. Imbeciles! Ungrateful curs!

    When you have loyalty problems, pay careful attention to stacking. Try to keep your stacks captained by 5-, or at least 4-, shield generals. If you absolutely have to, because he's the most loyal guy in the province, you can put a 3-shielder in charge of a stack temporarily. But it is far better to shuffle your guys around to different provinces, putting the only faintly loyal captains under the command of a more dependable general.

    In this situation, you need to be mindful of bribes. Remember that only the entire stack can be bribed. So, if you have a guy with only 3 or 4 shields, with a susceptibility to bribery v&v, putting a large army under his command can often keep the AI from affording his services. The downside is that a large army is a large problem if it revolts.

    Ideally, if you have a "problem child" general, e.g., 6 stars, but only 2 shields, you would move him off the stack and just leave his company isolated in the province while a more loyal general kept day-to-day control of the army. In any battle, the battle commander will be the highest ranked general, regardless of where he was stacked within the province. If you use the soak-off technique to whittle down the Vikings, though, you will have a lot of low loyalty unit leaders, and you must expect to do some juggling to keep it all under control.

    As much as possible, give titles to your most valued, low loyalty generals, and marry your princesses to them. In a pinch, it's better to have the extra shield on a top general than to have the acumen needed for most efficient provincial governance. As soon as the royal palace is built in West Seaxe, my first build there is always an emissary. If a governor's loyalty keeps dropping, or he picks up some insurmountable v&v, just strip him and let someone else take a shot at the governorship. (Another reason why the royal palace build is invaluable.)

    Princes can't be bribed, so you can often get away with a 3 shield prince topping your smallish stack. If the prince drops to less than 3 shields, though, be very suspicious and stack him by himself as soon as you can. Usually you can find a 3 shield captain around in a nearby province to take over command of the stack, and this substitution will also increase the cost of bribing the stack.

    In battles with Vikings, try to use the swarm tactics describe above. Most importantly, keep at them, even if you keep losing battles. Be careful to leave as big a defense force in neighboring provinces as you can possibly allow, because, if you let the Vikings cruise your countryside, they will set your development back 20 years or more. If the Vikings get loose in your home territories, then, before you can recover the manpower and training capabilities lost to their pillaging, the Mercians will eat you for lunch.

    One alternative, if the Vikings initiate their invasion in East Seaxe (as they often do) is to just let that province go. Throw as many men as you can into Cantware, West Seaxe, and Suth Seaxe, while training full out in all your provinces. You will probably have to stop building during this time, and any cash left over should go to purchasing useful mercs in Cantware. The Mercians will often get covetous of East Seaxe and attack the Vikings there. If the Mercians win, they will have had some troop depletion, and you will have major forces poised on their borders. If the Mercians also fight the Vikings in East Engle, then Mercia will probably be overextended, and this is likely your best chance to go to war with them.

    A second alternative is to try and meet the Vikings at sea. The rebels often build a port in Cantware prior to your invasion of the province there, and you may (possibly) get time to upgrade your fortifications there, build a boatbuilder, then build boats. But I have never found I had enough time to do all this building, and your crappy little boats have only 1 attack, 0 defense, 2 movement. To have even a 50:50 chance of sinking a Viking longboat with the same valor, your simple boat MUST attack first. Even then, it's only a 50:50 chance, and if you get sunk, you will have wasted all that money and effort that could have been spent on building fighting units. Still, if you beat the Vikings and close off their attack route, you'll have a calmer time of it on land.

    Eventually, though, it all comes down to war with the Mercians. While it is conceivable that you can take an ocean route to victory, conquering Ireland and some of the northern factions, in truth, you are almost certainly going to have to fight the Mercians if you are going to win the game. On the upside, if you conquer Mercia, you pretty much HAVE won the game, and you will only be a few provinces short of claiming a majority victory. Northumbria and Wales will likely be weak compared to your power, which would now stretch from your homelands through former Mercia, and their economies will be vastly outclassed by your holdings. Build a while, and then go after one or both of them.

    The Welsh are fairly easy after conquering Mercia, because now you have a land route into Guent, the Welsh king is still isolated and ripe for ransoming, and Pouis is usually poorly defended due to past squabbles between the Mercians, Welsh, and rebels. So, the rest is pretty straightforward: build up your superior resources into an unbeatable economy, build-up an unbeatable force in your border provinces, then invade and conquer. But first, you have to conquer Mercia, and that is far from a simple or easy task.

    Mercia starts in 793 with double the men available to the Saxons, more provinces, and better development. Without the depletion due to Viking raids, and warring with neighbors, Mercia could simply outbuild the Saxons, then roll in and claim the lands. In fact, that's the mainline strategy when playing the Mercians.

    In the meantime, you, as the Saxons, have also had your depletions due to the Vikings and your war with the rebels. You are going to be very strapped for cash, because you won't be able to build your economy to support the level of manpower you need to prosecute the war with Mercia. Somehow you have got to take out enough time in your home provinces to develop your agriculture there. Cathedrals are also very useful, since they pay for themselves in 10 years, and give 208 annual profit each for every year thereafter. (I've never seemed to have enough time for cathedrals, but it's a good build for the less aggro player.)

    The more passive approach is to quietly build your strength while trying to stay out of all conflicts, and all the while hoping that the Mercians spend their efforts on less fortunate neighbors. Eventually you will build a number of attack armies, and an economy sufficient to support them. On the other hand, you have to hope the Mercians don't actually win any permanent territories in their wars with their neighbors, or it's likely you will never catch up to them. I prefer a more active strategy.

    By the time you have beaten off the Vikings and subdued the rebels, you will have a major portion of your forces already aligned along your borders with Mercia. Now you need to upgrade your forces and build efficient support units for your planned simutaneous attacks into all of the neighboring Mercian provinces.

    As a rule of thumb, 1 ordinary huscarles company is worth 3 buffed spear companies (and costs 3 times as much, too!) For battle effectiveness, I prefer the speed and numbers of a buffed mounted sergeants company over that of an ordinary RB company. So, I will switch one of my iron-containing provinces to building mounted sergeants, while I have the royal palace build Saxon huscarles. I'll dedicate one of the former rebel provinces to building archers, and the other provinces will build as many fyrdmen and spears as I can. The buffed spears (armored, as soon as you can get them) or fyrdmen from my other iron province are intended to be an elite cadre that will form the reserves of my supported-center battle tactics. The idea is that fresh elite troops can come crashing in on tired enemy units and rout them.

    Huscarles are unquestionably your best troops, and may also fill in as reserves, or, if you have enough of them, as a central anchor for the main battle line. They are also good for anchoring one or both flanks, providing a solid forcepoint that is not easily turned or routed.

    During this building period, release all your mercs, even the artillery (which, by the way, is a lot faster and easier to hire than to build, and nearly always available). If you have sufficient strength posted in all your provinces, such that the Vikings are leaving you alone, be sure to leave those forces posted there. But, otherwise, you are trying to build combined-arms armies to simultaneously invade Hwicce, Middle Seaxe, Middle Engle, and, probably, East Engle.

    For each idealized invasion army, you want at least 2 cav units, so they can work in tandem in the enemy rear, 2 to 4 archer units, to soften up enemy defenses and blunt any enemy counterattack with their concentrated fire, and at least 1-2 huscarles, for their sheer concentrated power on offense or defense. For the rest of your initial 16 units, you will want at least 2 buffed elite spears or fyrdmen.

    Note that I said "idealized". The fact is that you are unlikely to feel comfortable with the inevitable Mercian build-up on your borders, and will probably feel forced to begin attacking before you can build a complete set of your idealized armies. One ploy that might help is to hide your troop buildup in Suth Seaxe, Cantware, and Dornsaete. However, it's probable that those dastardly Mercians will continue to increase their troops on your borders regardless of what you do, and you will feel compelled to reinforce your border provinces.

    The root of the problem is that, in 50 years or so, your superior farmlands will allow you to outbuild the Mercians. Just now, though, they can build and support more troops than you can, and they have already thought of the idea that Saxony addresses would look sooo much better if they had Mercian zip codes on them. Saxony and Mercia both recognize that they are the two biggest kids on the block, and neither can rule the country while the other hangs around. If you don't bring the fight to Mercia, they will bring the fight to you.

    So, strike first, if you can, even if it means you have to attack before you can build your ideal attacking forces. Try to keep tabs on new developments in and around Mercia through emissaries, bishops, and princesses. (I've never had enough time for many spies and assassins in VI, and they always seem to get caught, anyway.) When you see the Mercians get involved in a big operation, either an attack or defense, that is the best time to move, even if your armies aren't as well-developed as you'd like.

    On expert, even Mercians can outfight you man-to-man, so you must take numerically superior troops into each province you invade. Try to invade all border provinces simultaneously. The AI moves troops around a lot, so you are almost guaranteed a loss in one province, but you are also likely to get an uncontested victory (abandoned province) in one or more of the other provinces.

    Now, here's the trick. Mercia probably has superior troops numbers to you when you go to war with them. And, if they concentrate those troops, they can undoubtedly win back each province one by one, as you struggle to keep enough men posted in each captured province to maintain loyalty, taxes, and control. As the Mercians win back each province, their economy will re-surge, and you will eventually end up back at your starting geographical position, at war with a nation with superior manufacturing capacity, superior fighting ability, and superior troop numbers. If you let this happen, well, stick a fork in you, you're done. Because the Mercians will attrite your troops until they have slowly ground your entire kingdom into powder.

    I am not a fan of scorched earth tactics. My psychology is such that, when I conquer a province, I want it to be mine, now and forever after. But this is one case where scorched earth is what you have to do.

    With a little luck and lots of good generalship, you may have won 3 out of the 4 provinces you invaded. Again, if you're lucky, and you picked just the right time to invade, you might have gotten 2 abandoned provinces. Mercian army remnants are holed up in the fort in the third province, while, hopefully, enough Mercians got killed defending the fourth province that the Mercian army there must be reinforced before they can attack you. Thus, you have a very brief window in which to turn a few temporary military victories into the lasting conquest and unification of England.

    You must assault and destroy the besieged remnant army in that third province on the very next turn (I hope you brought your merc artillery along!). At the same time, you must burn and destroy everything in the conquered provinces that were abandoned. If you are superconfident that you will never need them, you can even burn the basic farms. However, I've always left the basic farms intact. (They add a not insignificant income to the province, but they take 16 years to re-build. If you ever plan to permanently re-occupy and use those provinces, you'll almost certainly wish you had their basic farms intact.) Everything else must go.

    Scorching the conquered lands does two things. One, it fills your coffers, which likely have been limping along due to the maintenance costs of your armies. Two, it slashes the Mercian economy almost in half.

    When the Mercians reinforce and attack you in the scorched provinces, you simply abandon them and return to your original borders. Mercia only had 7 or 8 provinces when you attacked, but now 3 of them are virtually useless, providing little income and no troops. The Mercian army will likely follow you to attack you on your own lands, but, by abandoning the scorched provinces, you will have reinforced your defensive armies that you had standing their ground at your borders. And, with the funds you got from your raiding and destruction foray, you will have been able to create a full build of both buildings and troops in every province on the next turn. (Choose your builds wisely to get maximum lasting advantage.) The newly built troops from this full build also get moved to reinforce your border armies.

    Now you have almost double the production capacity of Mercia, while it will take them at least a decade, probably two, just to get back to where they were. Most likely, they won't be able to hang around that long, since they are surrounded by hungry neighbors. But even if they do manage to somehow get back to where they were before your Saxons attacked and scorched their grounds, your economy will by then be far ahead of that point, thanks to the pumped-up overdrive provided by your scorched earth raid on their lands.

    In most cases, you will remain at peace with all other factions even though you are at war with Mercia. All that really remains, then, is for you to withstand the Mercian counterattack on your borders, and then eventually re-invade the Mercian provinces, either simultaneously or piecemeal. Keep building more units and shipping them to the front, and simply overpower the Mercian forces until they are dead. After that, as previously noted, it is mostly a matter of mopping up, militarily leaning on your smaller, weaker neighbors until they are forced to join your rule. Claim your Saxon victory.
    Last edited by Sir Adrian; December 07, 2013 at 06:52 AM. Reason: fixed user hyperlink

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