how to win the grand campaign

[lucipher the malevol]

Hi guys and girls, well when i start i usally use the "add_money amount" cheat to build all available buildings at that point then use the "add_population settlement amount" to upgrade everything already built then retrain all units that are garrisoned then recruit the troops and while im doing that i send the faction heir and/or any non-governing generals/family members to surrounding rebel settlements to take over them then redo the cheats, builds and recruits, then i send my diplomats to the surrounding factions (depending on who they are)and agree trade rights, map information and also military access then i use
"give_trait <character name> <trait name> <level 1-5>" on any character i choose (if i were you pick important people E.g. cardinal, faction leader and heir) then wage war on anybody i dislike, the campaign begins, hehe.
but has anybody got any different ideas for starting campaigns?:hmmm:

[29 days later]

Try sending armies to your enemies cities rather then diplomats, loot the cities for all there worth. Frankly I don't like the idea of cheating it spoils the game for me, if your nations poor to start of with you get my satisfaction developing that nation then you do by playing an already strong nation.

[malcolm mcdowell]

its always amusing to do that... have full plate armour etc in 1080 and just cream everyone

[Drag529]

i dont like cheating either, it ruins the fun out of the game

[TheOnion]

Just build up your economy, expand, build up economy, expand, build up economy, expand....wash rinse repeat until you control 45 regions and Jerusalem and you win.

Simple.

[vonKrysiak]

Yeah I have a completely opposite type of playing. VH/VH with mods that make building take longer and more costly and I do not expand too fast to give the AI chance to catch up with me. Never though it will be possible to have fun after losing a battle or entire campaign vs the computer ;-)

[nosjo78]

Why do you need to cheat in this game? Its so easy to conquor the world as it is. Try playing without cheating. If your bored try some of the following variants.
1. Diplomacy- Try to conquor the world through diplomacy.
2. Turtling- Buy the world with your vast wealth.
3. Scourge of God- Do like the mongols do, move in take city exterminate, or sack the city and leave with all your army and let it rebel. Just keep going around decimating the world.
4. Small empire- try just to hold the historical empire that your playing. See how far you can go in your game by staying in the confines of the real world borders.
5. Servant of God- Love your Lord and Do exactly what the pope says. Join and win ever crusade, follow the world of the Lord and do as commanded by the Pope.
6. Assasins Creed- Try destroying factions through murder with your assasins. This one is really fun and can be a real pain in this butt.

Those are just a few but it can be fun playing the game differently from time to time.

[mikeb32123]

Or you can go with a style I like, TotalTurtle! You don't go for the "win" technically. You have your starting terrorities, and defend them. General rule is that you cannot expand at all; no taking any other settlements, and if one of yours falls it's lost forever. No expanding through diplomacy. And better yet, no alliances! You "win" if you survive until turns run out

[Kahn]

That sounds like the most boring campaign ever.

Instead of the "Total Turtle" campaign, you should call it the "clicking the end turn button over and over again" campaign.

[mikeb32123]

That sounds like the most boring campaign ever.

Instead of the "Total Turtle" campaign, you should call it the "clicking the end turn button over and over again" campaign.

You'd be surprised. You get nice cities and stuff. But it gets interesting diplomatically, trying to talk enemies into ceasefire when you're relatively weak and have no alliance, and so on. And trying to figure out ways to fight back without taking their towns. Assassins are great, and you can always engage the enemy out on the battlefield, but it can also be useful to call a crusade/jihad in your enemies...if you can't attack them perhaps you can convince some others to attack them? And so on.

[Kahn]

ya know, if I take the time to type out a smartass response to somebody's idea, I'm typically pretty firm in my opinion that their idea is stupid.

You, however, just convinced me in a single paragraph that this might actually be a fun way to play a campaign. You'd have best best units in the game to defend your cities, which would be the most advanced cities in the world. You'd get to make nice-nice with the pope (if you're catholic) and you'd basically give him no reason not to love you, so he'd be in your pocket. You can call crusades all the time to beat back to fools that get up on your business. If you're bloodthirsty, you still get to use assassins to shank some princes. You can take your fleet of priests into territories of other religions and use that as a way to cause unrest and weaken your enemy. This does sound like fun.

I'm actually +reping you. I can't believe it.

[Sokar Rostau]

I ended up playing an Assassin/Spy based campaign when I expanded France too quickly and was facing off Chivalrous Knights with Militias because I hadn't been able to upgrade. I ended up sending waves of Spies and Assassins into enemy cities and forcing them to rebel after destroying all their infrastructure. I took 6 Milanese regions in this way and only actually engaged the Milanese army once before the entire royal family was destroyed.

Assassins and Spies are soooo much more useful (and fun) here than in MTW...