Need advice as Denmark

[DICY]

My campaign as Denmark right now is really interesting. The Christian factions are all the most powerful, while the muslim factions (except for the turks) seem to be struggling pretty bad, with a pretty heavy Christian presence in the middle east. The Holy Roman Empire has been completely kicked out of Europe, they're cities going to either myself, France, Milan, Hungary and Poland. However, incredibly the HRE is still a large faction, and is actually getting bigger due to the fact that they have several regions in Spain after a Crusade to Cordoba, and a few cities in the middle East around Cairo and Alexandria (not sure exactly which, my map information isn't current). A lot of the Christian settlements in the Middle East were actually taken by my crusading armies, then I would sell all the buildings and give the city to an ally because I'd never be able to hold it myself. It gives my economy a huge boost and some of the cities are still held by the Christians, throwing the middle east into chaos.

What's incredible is that none of the Christian factions seem to be getting smaller. With the exception of Scotland, who has been completely destroyed (which sucks because I wanted to fight England with them), they have all maintained a pretty decent size. France is huge, as is Venice and Sicily, and I think Poland has stretched all the way up to the city west of Novgorod (don't remember the name).

My Danish Empire is a decent size as well. I have all the settlements you would expect (Stettin, Lubeck, Upsala, Kalmar and Oslo), plus I've taken Hamburg and Frankfurt from the HRE. Several years back (since I'm surrounded by Allies) I took my only army, my best general (who I believe was faction heir), put them all on ships and sent them to England. I was allied with Scotland and neutral with England, England being at war with both Scotland and France. My plan was to attack the English at London because their armies were all north fighting the Scottish. However, on the sail over the last two Scottish cities were taken by the English, and the faction was destroyed. I changed my plans and instead conquered Ireland plus the city southwest of Edinburgh.

Now I'm at a bit of a deadlock with the English. I can't attack them or I'll lose my alliances with Venice, Milan and the Papal States, but they won't attack me because they can't win. I've been assassinating their generals, heirs and kings for years to try and provoke them, with no results. I've tried destroying their churches and killing their priests to lower their favor with the pope, but that doesn't seem to be working. I've tried destroying expensive buildings and public order buildings to incite rebellion, but again this doesn't work. I've even tried marching my armies around in their regions and leaving my one city bordering them empty to get them to attack, but still nothing.

I've tried pretty much everything I can think of, and at this point I'm almost ready to just attack and deal with the consequences, as it will take me only a handful of turns to completely kick them out of the UK (leaving them only with their cities in the middle east). I would assume that after adding 9 cities to my empire I'll be large enough to get my alliances back, but my reputation is already pretty bad.

So, before I attack, does anyone know of anything I could do to provoke the English? I'm hoping maybe there's something I haven't tried yet that will really piss them off enough to come after me. Otherwise I guess I'll just have to stomp them out and the other factions will have to get over it.

[Irishmafia2020]

You should attack the English, take a couple of cities, and sell the lands after you have sacked them. As soon as you make peace again (after about five turns) you can re-sign your alliances with the nations that you have lost diplomatically. Other than that, your best bet for expansion would be to invade Russia as they are orthodox and unlikely to have an allianiance with anyone you care about. Limited warfare actually works in this mod, so your best bet is to fight a series of wars against England rather than try to take them down all at once.

[DICY]

Well the only reason I want to attack England is to keep the lands, I wouldn't want to sell them back. I was thinking I would attack the three cities in the north that are supposed to be Scottish (Edinburgh and the other two, can't remember the names), and then my army could hold off the English counterattack from the south. I think within a matter of a couple of turns I could force the English into a position where they had to accept a ceasefire, and I could get my alliances back.

I would attack Russia, but I've tried quite a few campaigns as Denmark and every single one has fallen apart when I went to war with Russia. I'd like to avoid fighting fighting them until I can afford a few extra armies to hold the settlements I've taken from them, otherwise my forces will be spread extremely thin and I'll be vulnerable to attack from Kiev.

[ciciocle]

Dicy, just attack the damn english...you should't mind about loosing some alliance, unless you want to play a "clean" game. i don't bother about the alliances anymore, i don't need them.

and plus, if you try to assasinate their king or some prince, and your assasin is cought, England will declare war on you and everyone will break their alliance with you. And also your reputation with the Pope will drop. So don't bother, just send an army to England and wipe them out.

[headsh0ts]

I just fortified my position in europe while i traveled the seas and attacked the russians. Simple and not as interesting as attacking the english, but at least you can give other christian factions are change to build up an army worthy your hardy norsemen to battle!