Ireland

[*Atlas*]

Hi there,
A quick question: I was wondering if Ireland was playable in SS in the grand campaign rather than in the smaller britannia campaign in Kingdoms? Also, is ireland fun to play as? The Scots were good fun in vanilla MTW2, and I'd like to play again as a similar infantry based small faction.

Thanks in advance

Mick

[Americanus Supremus]

I know there playable, I dont know much about them though. Sorry. Should be similiar to both the Scots and English.

[*Atlas*]

Cool, thanks for the fast reply. Playable was the main thing I wanted to know. I'll go and get kingdoms now

[Americanus Supremus]

your welcome and enjoy the game and the mod....

[Iscariott]

The irish roster is pretty small, but quite effective. They have light cav, access to welsh longbows, decent medium infantry(sword wielding vikings), later on they get heavy dismounted knights with a fear rating but low numbers.

Several other units, but they play pretty well for a small faction.

[Marine Hoplite]

Like Iscariott said. Small but effective roster. Besides, small does'nt mean ineffective. What happens is that you keep the same units for a long time and end up with very experienced troops. Which I've found to be just as important as troop type if employed well. The Diesi Javelinmen are lethal if used correctly, and the medium cavalry is really more useful than light IMO.

Besides, there's something very satisfying about looking at the map and seeing all of the british isles GREEN!

[Kyias]

The Irish have a small roster with few heavy infantry or cav.

Their bonuses however is that the heavy inf they DO have have 2 HP and tons of armor. In the Irish campaign there is no such thing as having a worthless unit. Every unit from the beginning to the end are all valuable assets to the Irish success.


If you want to play an interesting campaign, try to play politics in the British isles...I found myself married into the English lines and sending fleets around the Sea to raid coastal cities for money (to maintain my armies).

Sacking cities to maintain your armies and to build a crusader army seems so......well Irish

[Madden]

I'm in an Irish campaign right now of about 100 turns.... one thing i've noticed is that autoresove doesn't work in my favor at all, i'm playing on VH/VH and can destroy them on the field of battle but the autoresolve almost always ends up as a loss, even if the blue bar is over 50% in my favor... i've been losing battles to 2-5 heavy english inf with no gen to my 10 unit armies with a 4-5 star gen


just seems weird, but as for the rest it's a great faction to play i'm having way too fun playing diplomacy with the 2 islands rather than the battles

[Okocim]

Maybe the Irish are too busy drinking when not led by a human? Liquid courage eventually backfires.

[Iscariott]

Whats the deal with the super heavy irish infantry anyway? Did ireland really field the most brutal devistating and extremely armored men in the world at the time? heh

[Antagonist]

I haven't played them yet in SS, but IIRC their roster is the one from Kingdoms. What about Mounted Calivermen? I don't know if they've been nerfed or something in SS, but in Kingdoms they're pretty much the best unit in Britannia, particularly against infantry.

Whats the deal with the super heavy irish infantry anyway? Did ireland really field the most brutal devistating and extremely armored men in the world at the time? heh

Irish soldiers were never as heavily armoured as contemporaries in England or contintental Europe after around 1100. Among the "pure" Irish probably only officers and leaders would have worn plate armour at any time, and even the Norman-Irish tended to have less of it, so the plate-armoured infantry (Muire, which means "Marshal") aren't the highlight of their roster in terms of accuracy. They had plenty of heavy weapons (great axes, halberds, 2-h swords etc.), not so much heavy armour.

It would be cool to have a re-made, accurate Irish unit roster one day (probably a job for some kind of Lithuania-mod type project) But then, the same could be said of most factions. In terms of importance they're borderline at best for most of the period I suppose, but they would have some great units. There's good source-evidence support for mounted archers, for example.

Antagonist

[Iscariott]

Yeah, I was fairly 100% certain that was the case, but I thought I'd ask. It's a shame Ulster swordsmen are near garbage.

[*Atlas*]

Wow thanks again everyone who replied, the Irish sound awesome - I enjoy using barbarian style infantry who have a high attack at the cost of low defense. Im gonna finish my vanilla HRE campaign first (the forlorn hope look incredible charging into the midst of an enemies flank). I dunno why, but I get more enjoyment out of having a spear squad pin down an enemy from the from while the shock troops drive into their flanks, rather than using cavalry as a hammer, even though they are better for it (maneuverability). Long story short though and to double check - so the Irish, once securing the British Isles, can then move on into invading Europe and so attack the HRE, the Byzantinians, Turks etc?

[Iscariott]

Or make peace with scotland, and later england, I find having powerful friendly neighbors sometimes more useful than having their territory. Take dublin after england already has its plate full with other wars, then ask for peace.

Basically my best stint as the irish so far involved diplomacy, trade, and expansion through crusade. God's special forces, making the world a greener place one crusade at a time.

[Marine Hoplite]

God's special forces, making the world a greener place one crusade at a time.

LMAO...........I have my new signature quote!

In addition to converting the settlement straight away, I like to stay on the island until I've consolidated the entire british isles.

[reeke]

just started an irish campaign in 5.1 and its been quite good so far. The first thing i did was form a circle of alliances around england, starting with my long lost cousins scotland, then france and denmark.

I took one of the rebel settlements along the french coast, which england obviously thought they should own as they attacked it the turn after i captured it. I was outnumbered but held off two sieges, and noticed how england had pulled 80% of their troops down to the south-east of england and the french coast, so i quickly marched about 1000 men out of dublin and took nottingham and the castle in wales within a couple of turns.

England is now whining for a cease fire... dont think so =D

[Marine Hoplite]

England is now whining for a cease fire... dont think so =D

There's just something poetic about clicking the "SACK" button on London

[Iscariott]

There's just something poetic about clicking the "SACK" button on London

Ever sent a surprise army all the way to constantinople, even though you've never even met a byzantine in the game yet? I call it "how to finance a huge cathedral"

[Gorrrrrn]

Started an irish campaign in SS5.0 which went well, but you have to convert one of your castles to a settlement straight away IMHO to get your economy going. Sit tight to begin with and build the economy. If you build too many troops too quickly you'll bankrupt yourself.

[Obit]

Hehe, you could have made 5 huge cathedrals for the upkeep you spent getting them down there I reckon