How do you conquer?

[JCeasar_911]

How do you conquer your settlements? My old tactic was to send one army to another faction and take it over settlement by settlement. After each settlement i would retrain my army (right after enslaving the people or exterminating them if i must) and move to another settlement. However, recently ive been using a new tactic. As soon as a settlement was captured i wouldnt waste my time rebuilding my army i would just send it to another settlement immediately and make sure there were some cheap units qued up for a garrison force. I usually play on RTR and so it takes longer to train forces. And as far as blockades go i usually dont go out of my way to blockade and enemy, if i have ships in the region ill blockade a port but if not ill let it be. I would just like to know some of your methods for conquering factions.

[removeduser_426582376423734]

Spies and multiple armies. I'd train up 3-4 armies and lots of spies, send them into cities, and hope they open the gates. Then I'd rush them and then I'd get a few good provinces by the end of the turn.

[Muagan_ra]

I try to avoid sieges. I prefere to lure garrisons out of cities by attacking nearby enemy armies, with the garrison becoming reinforcements - I'm good at systematically decimating cohorts as they rout, I tend to adapt every army to that task.

If you absolutely annihalate them in open ground you can just walk on in.

[zedestroyer]

I use my navy to destroy the enemy navy and then I block the enemy ports.
I send spies to know what´s happening around my lands and when I'm conquering I send my spies to get inf of enemy positions, this is very important to my strategy.

I use two armies, one with field units, lots of cavalry and archers, infantry and two or three Onagers. The other army have siege/reserve units, heavy infantry, Onagers and other units good in sieges, some units to substitute the ones of the field army when they reach a certain level of losses and I have to retrain them, sometimes I have peasants to secure the conquered cities (so that I don´t have to lose time with them). The spies are important to maintain my second army safe and to know where to attack.

I never lose my time retraining my army, I just use two or three training centers (cities) and I´m always training and retraining units in them. In the captured cities I just destroy all training facilities, more money to invest in my Empire and if the city rebels You just have to fight against peasants (the composition of rebel armies depend of the city training facilities, if they did not exist then you only have peasants to fight).

I exterminate the bigger cites (except if I want transform them in a training center), and the others I enslave the ones that do not have good resources and occupy those that have interesting resources (so these can grow faster in population and taxes ).

In sieges I leave the majority of my army in the start position and I deploy three our four groups of 1 Onager + 1, 2 Heavy Infantry + 1 Heavy cavalry around the walls. During the battle I make several breaches on the wall and take out the Enemy machine-gun towers. I then use my small groups of heavy infantry+cavalry to take out the near defend units (if they exist) , attack isolated enemy units, secure the wall (if I need to kill enemy archers on the walls) and I move them to the rear and flanks of the enemy major force (that is near my main force). I use the main force when I have the secondary units ready to attack, so that I attack the enemy major force for all sides and that´s it.

In my current Western Empire Campaign I´m beating the Eastern Roman Empire in sieges with few losses (they have much better archers) and in the campaign map ( they are near bankrupt).

[^Gr8^Xander]

One by one with one army, with some backup armies behind it. (to garrisson captured settlements or reinforcing the main army)

The good thing about doing everything with one army is that your units will get very experienced.

[Dr. Croccer]

I attack in waves, sending one main large army with medium/elite units and a good general or faction leader. I send a few smaller armies behind the larger one. The large main army has to eliminate the large armies of my enemy whilst my smaller armies attack the weakly defended cities who have no hope for reinforcements. I advance slowly, destroying and capturing everything in my path. I build another large army in case my main army (which survives mainly on mercenaries) gets destroyed. And like gr8 alexander said, my main army and the general will get massive valour bonuses and traits if they survive long enough. I once had an army which was only 10% pure Roman and all the others were mercenaries. However, my Roman troops were fully upgraded and were one of my first waves.

[Janezki]

I do like one stack and destroy with it some areas (spain, middle europe, asia minor, egypt, greek, north europe (germania) etc.

And i do many stacks so i am able to fight in any directions

My army is usually 2 generals (F-leader, F-heir), 8-10 soldier, 4 archers, 2-3 artillery and rest of empty boxes i fill with cavalary

But if some faction is so weak i just send my general to buy some mercenaries and destroy them...

[guyyug]

I try and draw other armies out of their cities, I like more control over what happens then just throwing troops through breaches and other walls and hopeing that I don't lose to many men in a small battle of attrition, until I can get control of the streets.

This way, I can take two brids with one stone, wipe an army out ad control a city.

[zedestroyer]

I try and draw other armies out of their cities, I like more control over what happens then just throwing troops through breaches and other walls and hopeing that I don't lose to many men in a small battle of attrition, until I can get control of the streets.

This way, I can take two brids with one stone, wipe an army out ad control a city.

Use my tactic, is very effective. In my Western Empire Campaign I´m loosing less men in sieges than in open field, against the Eastern Empire.
Just divide and conquer:
Train several Onagers and use them to make breaches around the enemy wall, then you can sen your armies to destroy the enemy worts defended areas were you deployed your troops and then use these troops to attack the best defended areas and you will see that it´s not hard (it´s very fun) to smash your enemy in a siege.

[guyyug]

Use my tactic, is very effective. In my Western Empire Campaign I´m loosing less men in sieges than in open field, against the Eastern Empire.
Just divide and conquer:
Train several Onagers and use them to make breaches around the enemy wall, then you can sen your armies to destroy the enemy worts defended areas were you deployed your troops and then use these troops to attack the best defended areas and you will see that it´s not hard (it´s very fun) to smash your enemy in a siege.

I play RTR not vanillia in campagain so don't have acces to onagars and I play the barbarian factions or eastern factions the most in campagain I rather mot get choked into tight places even if I breach several places, and I haven't picked up my copy of BI in some times. So drawing them into the feild of battle is better for me.

[zedestroyer]

I play RTR not vanillia in campagain so don't have acces to onagars and I play the barbarian factions or eastern factions the most in campagain I rather mot get choked into tight places even if I breach several places, and I haven't picked up my copy of BI in some times. So drawing them into the feild of battle is better for me.

Ok, but if you have access to Onagers, use them. They are very effective in sieges and against enemies with better archers and with lots of infantry. Archers are very good against horse archers.
The good thing in my strategy is that I normally kill the enemy unit by unit, because cities in general don´t have large garrisons, so if you attack, the AI divides it´s units throughout the settlement. It´s fun to smash the enemy unit by unit.

[Gleemonex]

When starting a war, I like to build up 3-5 full stacks (usually 3-4 balanced armies and one reserve with onagers and mixed-bag units), place each in its own trireme, and assault the entire front.

With several cities gone in one fell swoop, they don't have the cash to train (or even maintain) large armies, and they can't break out of the sieges because their back-up is also sieged somewhere else.

If I don't have the time/cash to raise a large invasion force, I'll raise one good one and hit-and-run along a coastline, with some lingering devastation for dessert.

Can you tell I like naval superiority? =)

-Glee

[Paul d]

to conquor, send an army to a city until it dies, and then have a diplomat yell at the enemy for demands

also, make ridiculous attacks, like huge naval assaults, and attacking 4 cities at once.

i usually take out an entire faction within 4 turns bybeseiging 4-5 settlements at a time.

[Severous]

My main armies are seldom more than half a stack..often less.

They are active in all directions at the same time advancing on all fronts. Many, nay all, mercenaries are hired. Cheap garrison troops of peasants are often the first builds in newly captured cities so the army can move onward without leaving behind too many troops.

[polarbear297]

when im lazy i act like a barbarian. so due to this fault i just send a pack of one army and just take the settlement with sheer size. NO ONE CAN STOP THE ONSLAUGHT! MUHAHAHAHAHA

[Kamos]

I soak in every mercenary unit to cut back on training time and scrap together a few garrisons consisting of almost entirely infantry and target major enemy armies then take down the weak cities, oddly enough this let me expand very quickly(While playing as faction with good infantry).

[Axeman]

I use elephants attached to armies if I am a faction that can use elephants- not as a weapon- but as a portable ram- it can destroy the gates of any settlement less than reinforced gates*and thats just the regular elephants- not sure about war or armored ones*

in conjunction I also use alot of assasins and spies to destroy thier military production levels

[Ranfalax]

at the moment i just send 1 full stack into the enemy factions land and conquer all the cities 1 by one by knockin down the walls and killing loads of men with onagers then marching me infantry in to finish the enemy off. i reinforce me army with mercenaries as i go

[Axeman]

If I am not using a faction that uses elephants im probably playing aremnia- I gets 2 generals*incase 1 dies* and 8 horse archers+ 4 aremnian heavy spearmen*equivallent of triaria* and 4 armenian legioneers*equivallent of principles* and 2 siege engines and just storm the place.

[Gerin]

I use a under strength stack,usually with stronger units and 1 or 2 generals, and wait for them to sally then take the city during the rout.