Scotland - seafaring or not?

[Snipafist]

I'm putting the finishing touches on my mod and I keep changing my mind on one particular element - should Scotland prefer naval invasions or not? Pros and Cons to each:

Not seafaring:
Pros: keeps forces in the British Isles, will pounce on England when England's back is turned. Harder for English to completely defeat them in one fell swoop.
Cons: If they don't take Ireland (which they don't, in about half the games) they're easy prey for a strong England, as England's economy grows and Scotland's suffers.

Seafaring:
Pros: Tend to expand out into Europe at large and have the potential to be a player in overall European politics and warfare. If given enough time to consolidate their gains, can become wealthy and powerful.
Cons: Forces being sent overseas detract from forces available to fight in the British Isles. If attacked at the right moment, can be easily removed from Scotland altogether while they nance about Bruges, Antwerp and Oslo. Not very historically realistic. In worse instances, the sheer number of boats a faction that prefers naval invasions will construct is a drain on the already-weak Scottish economy.

[Socal_infidel]

I'm putting the finishing touches on my mod and I keep changing my mind on one particular element - should Scotland prefer naval invasions or not? Pros and Cons to each:

Not seafaring:
Pros: keeps forces in the British Isles, will pounce on England when England's back is turned.
Cons: If they don't take Ireland (which they don't, in about half the games) they're easy prey for a strong England.

Seafaring:
Pros: Tend to expand out into Europe at large and have the potential to be a player in overall European politics and warfare. If given enough time to consolidate their gains, can become wealthy and powerful.
Cons: Forces being sent overseas detract from forces available to fight in the British Isles. If attacked at the right moment, can be easily removed from Scotland altogether while they nance about Bruges, Antwerp and Oslo. Not very historically realistic. In worse instances, the sheer number of boats a faction that prefers naval invasions will construct is a drain on the already-weak Scottish economy.

I've always wondered what you were up to, Snipafist! You're quite the regular in the Mod Workshop! Glad to hear you have a mod planned!

Depends on the aim of your mod - attempting realism or not? Also, is there a landbridge for Scotland to Ireland? That might make a difference, too.

Other than that, it's your mod! And the best part if you can always change it if it doesn't work out the way you want!

Cheers! Can't wait to see what you've been up to all this time!

Edit - personally, I have them as not preferring naval invasions and in my mod anyway, they seem to bully on poor England a lot. I think it's due to their Highland Nobles being better than any infantry England can produce in the early era

[Snipafist]

There is a landbridge from Scotland to Ireland, but for whatever reason I simply cannot get the Scottish AI to utilize it half the time. With a moderate-to-small English presence in York, the Scots prefer to keep a full army sitting around the woods outside Edinburgh rather than hopping over to quickly grab Dublin. It confounds me.

Anyways, thanks for your encouragement. I've been hammering this out for some time, and it's an eminently enjoyable experience perfecting a mod that you enjoy (and hopefully others will too).

[Socal_infidel]

There is a landbridge from Scotland to Ireland, but for whatever reason I simply cannot get the Scottish AI to utilize it half the time. With a moderate-to-small English presence in York, the Scots prefer to keep a full army sitting around the woods outside Edinburgh rather than hopping over to quickly grab Dublin. It confounds me.

Anyways, thanks for your encouragement. I've been hammering this out for some time, and it's an eminently enjoyable experience perfecting a mod that you enjoy (and hopefully others will too).

Maybe hook Scotland up with a spy in Ireland at the start? But yeah, the AI is confounding at times.

[Ali_the_English]

Scotland should definately be attempting to expand into Ireland. I think they should be seafaring as they seem to be quite isolated in most games.

[Evolution]

Scotland should start with 2 large armies. this will allow Scotland to take Inverness because once i played England and sent a spy up into Scotland. around about the 5th turn Scotland sent an army into Inverness and lost the battle. when it lost the battle the Scottish king just decided not to play the game anymore.

but when the Mongols invaded the Scottish declared war on me.

in the mod could you please give the Scottish more than one city (they are push overs)

[Snipafist]

Scotland should start with 2 large armies. this will allow Scotland to take Inverness because once i played England and sent a spy up into Scotland. around about the 5th turn Scotland sent an army into Inverness and lost the battle. when it lost the battle the Scottish king just decided not to play the game anymore.

but when the Mongols invaded the Scottish declared war on me.

in the mod could you please give the Scottish more than one city (they are push overs)

My Scottish ALWAYS take Inverness, I've done that much. They've got enough troops after that to take Dublin, but they're very finicky about doing so. It's quite perplexing.

[Garnier]

Put a landbridge between england and france, and then make scotland not seafaring. This way they will fight england, and if they beat england they can expand into france.

[Snipafist]

Put a landbridge between england and france, and then make scotland not seafaring. This way they will fight england, and if they beat england they can expand into france.

Yeah, but it also means if France knocks England off the mainland (a not uncommon occurrence) that France has no problem rushing in to finish off England. That's no good.

[GrnEyedDvl]

I have often thought about this myself as when I am doing testing I generally start as England because thats what the default selection is and I am too damn lazy to click something else.

Two things I have noticed:
If England doesnt take York right away, then the Scots go for it. This is good and I think that the English army that spawns in Nottingham should spawn closer to Caernarvon so that when the AI is playing both that England goes for Caernarvon and Scotland goes for York in the first turn. This would make the numder of settlements on the island controlled by the factions to be 3/2 England/Scotland.

Neither faction goes for Dublin very quickly at all, it sits there for quite a while. Give Dublin to the Scots via descr_strat. This would make it 3/3 after England takes Caernarvon and Scotland takes York, with Inverness still rebel. Scotland will eventually take that, then England will have a war on two sides with France and Scotland. England is pretty easy to play because the Scots are so weak and once they finish them off the island is easy to control, this would make it a little harder. If you want to make it harder still then you give the Scots the seafaring trait and hope they will go after places like Bruges, and also give their generals the HatesEngland trait, and then boost their diplomacy settings with France.

My two cents anyways.