Norway

[Jsm111]

Someone please help me and explaining a battle strategy against Scotland...they are relentless...THEY ARE MAD I TELL YOU...not only that if you go to take an island 9 times out of 10 they will become traitors..wtf??

[Captain Spanky]

It's all in the infantry and light cavalry for early game Norway. I am assuming you are still fairly fresh into your campaign, since I found Scotland pretty tough early on as well. Put your focus into causing a rout rather than killing, leather armoured Viking Raiders or Dismounted Huscarls should be used a plenty, because they scare enemy infantry, Peasant Archers firing fire into the melee and Scouts hitting the flanks should cause a rout. Take as many prisoners as you can, and execute, except only if you need the money.

Its really, IMO, not worth upgrading your barracks in the early game, as Norse Swordsman arent really that useful. However, Norse Archers and Huscarls are pretty useful. As always, if your outnumbered fight defensively on high ground, and launch quick offensives into enemy territory, emphasis there on the word quick.

[Jsm111]

Yeah I pretty much just started Norway and I thought fighting defensively would be the best way to go but,like I said Scotland is just mad crazy in destroying you..and with little funds is what im saying...I can usually take down alot of them I just use my archers to fire into them and when they get ready to charge I use skirmish and make them chase me until they tire out then I just mash them from behind with light calvary..its very affective but my god...I took there castle from them and they just went mad...and they want fight you head on they will make you come out of the castle before they fight you..and where are they getting all these funds to support the massive armies they blast you with?

[Antagonist]

Scotland are pretty tough early on as Norway but I found it more a case of their numbers. The Norway campaign is interesting in that you have more distinct options as to where to go and will face different challenges in early and late game depending on them. For example as Norway I focused solely on moving slowly southwards through Britain, which is a tough early game against Scotland, an easier mid-game as England, Wales and the Barons weakened each other considerably, and then a difficult late game against Ireland, whose late units are difficult to counter as Norway (if the AI actually knew how to use Mounted Calivermen...)

Viking-style raid tactics seem necessary to get money early on, and using your light cavalry effectively. I found it got a lot easier once you deal with the large number of starting Scottish armies, and with William Wallace. Brittannia seems to vary quite a lot between each game (with the ironic exception that England never seem to win)

Antagonist

[Jsm111]

Next Question I have is ranking..(exp.)I'm all about gaining exp..(soldiers I mean)I can't stand fighting a battle and not getting exp..exp makes your soldiers better..more tuned to battle any ideas on how to maintain exp,when you are fighting an aggresive Faction..most of the time its just my Calvary and Knights that get the most as they run down the routing soldiers...

[Captain Spanky]

If you want more experience then use auto-resolve, it typically generates more. However, thats a gamble as an army controlled by a human will always fare better than one controlled by AI.

[Sonny WiFiHr]

Not in siege. Most of times when I auto resolve I had less losses.

[Boz]

Not in siege. Most of times when I auto resolve I had less losses.

Exactly. In siege, when a whole enemy army defends it, the best is put two of your entire armies and auto-battle. With the Danes I've occupied all france in a 5 or 6 turns, only with auto.

[Paul d]

...they are relentless...THEY ARE MAD I TELL YOU...

lol sigged.

[Druzhina]

Scotland are fairly easy to defeat as Norway but only if you strike them quickly. Overdrive your troops and send as many men at them as you can. Send reinforcements from the Isle of Mann to help you out. In my campaign by doing this, I had wiped out the Scots by the time Haakon had arrived. If you leave it too late however, William Wallace will appear with a large army and he's pretty tough. In my campaign as Norway it's the Welsh who are my main threat. They've conquered most of England, and if I'm not careful, I'm next!

P.S send troops to Ireland as early as you can from the Isle of Man before the Irish get too strong.

[razor1952]

vh/vh I found Norway challenging due to very poor economy. Consequently many early battles went down to the wire, with lots of Heroic wins.

As always I try to make them attack me trying always to be on high ground.

I usually set my archers behind my infantry, skirmish off, and at least 1 archer on flame. Infantry in guard mode , except where I can afford a few shock troops like Samis/raiders and use those to charge from the flanks as the scots are charging but before they engage the main troops to try to stop their charge bonus.

Forfulling a mission gave me 4 Huscarl cavalry which make mincemeat of infantry if correctly you corner and flank the enemy. I also use my generals as flankers. Even svenners are quite useful and cheap too.

I guess hammer/anvil type stratgy is what I use most the anvil being the infantry/archers and the anvil being shock troops/cavalry.

[Irishmafia2020]

I am playing with Norway on VH/VH right now, and although they have a great unit roster, I am wondering if victory is possible. I am bogged down in Ireland where I control two territories, and the Irish just declared war on me with a siege. In Scotland I am able to raid profitably, but unable to permanently capture any real territory. I sold whatever territory I captured in Scotland to my allies (Wales and Baron's alliance) and all of that has triggered William Wallace to arrive. Additionally I am at war with England... This would all be tenable except that I am losing almost 5000 a turn, and my King's purse has been reduced to a fraction of what it originally was. I also have no hope of reinforcements. It appears that I will lose my Irish territories, and probably my one Scottish castle as well (that one up north you start out with....) Then the Scots will invade my islands one by one until I am defeated.... My only hope is that my casualities will be high enough to turn my economy around by the time I am reduced to only a couple of provinces... fun game!

[Druzhina]

What you should do Irishmafia is start a new game and attempt to blitz into Scotland and wipe the scots out before Wallace arrives. It'll be very hard to achieve on VH but your best bet for victory. Use Haakon to invade england and overdrive all your other forces into Scotland rather than Ireland.

[Boz]

If all the rebel settlements have been conquered, the best you can do, if your navy is powerful, is ship one general with a few units and raid & conquer some part of the welsh territories, or the rearguard of the irish and english.

[wallece1]

What you have to do is realize that military vise Norway is superior!!

The first faction I played as in Kingdoms was Norway and it was easy.

I gathered all reinforcement possible marched against scotland where I attacked from the east and north. A few herioic victories and carefully placement of the Norwegian army and I slaughtered Scotland and had enough men left to invade england. (Little cool sidenote. During the last battle with scotland I was facing William Wallace and his army and after a long battle The enemy had only 1 man left Braveheart, which was really cool since I lined up my archers in front of him and when he charged alone I fired a huge volley of arrows towards him killing him instantly IT WAS COOL)

After you have taken over the notheren terretories you should defenently make an alliance with the barrons and ireland and wales whle attacking the english

[Theseus1234]

from what ive heard from other threads on this topic, youve got to relive your viking past (raid!)

the ideal situation would be to sail with an army up an down the coast of either ireland or the english mainland and attacking poorly defended cities. then you ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS sack the city then destroy all the buildings you can.
then you leave, let the city rebel, and another faction will take. repeat until you have enough funds to attack cities and gains some profitable ones.

NOTE ON THIS TACTIC: the amount of money gained will vary depending on the settlement. sometimes youll get a great amount, and sometimes barely enough to upkeep your units

[oou420]

shoot some fire arrows at the approaching enemy. spread out your infantry line so you don't need as many units and can still engage all their infantry, and use sami axemen to charge before huscarls/viking raiders. pikes get merced by armour piercing units, so theyre not much of a problem, especially when you flank them with more sami axemen or some cavalry.
theres also alot of forests beside roads around the southern scottish cities, so use those for ambushes
scotland doesn't use much cavalry. use that to slaughter their general while the infantry are fighting.

[schmidy]

I agree this campaing with norway is tough because the scots are nuts, so when I started over I was actually able to obtain an alliance with the scots. I then built up my defences and conquered as many rebel settlements as possible.

After that I noticed that the scots started getting really entangled with england and thats when I launched my assualt!! It helped because the scots were having to fight two different fronts and I was able to keep my units more concentrated thus when a battle took place I usually outnumbered them and then it was easy to encircle the pikemen and beat them down!!

Definitley use Sami Axemen and always look for an opening to take out the scots general if that happens they tend to start folding rather quickly.

[RangersFan]

I just pushed on Scotland as hard as I can til I got to the English border and made an Alliance with England. After that I put all my Focus on Ireland and took those Islands.
Next I had my cities on the Eastern Shore of Ireland and the Isle of Man build me three strong mixed armies to be led by families members so that if need be, I could recruit Mercs along the way.
After that I went to Southern England and carved it up, just sacking and destroyed and moved on til I got to the South Eastern England and setup shop there. From there I worked up the mid and Eastern part til I connected my borders by sending a fourth General down from the North.

Then Wales betrayed me, I took two settelments in Wales just to accupy them while I taken on the broken English Kingdom. Then Stainless Steel came out and I haven't finished it.

[Hieronymos]

I didn't finish my Norwegian campaign, but found wiping out the Scots challenging but fun. I'd hoped, like when playing Scotland, to take all the area rebel settlements first, but the Scots started off with a push against Wick, then Arran. So I turned Arran into a castle, and then drove on and took Inverness, then moved South.

Once your master of Scotland and the Isles, then I'd imagine it's easy to follow Scottish strategies, like pushing South to the Welsh border, Sending an expidition to Ireland, etc.

Those Norse Archers and Huscarls are among the best units in the game.