How's your current campaign going?

[Bachias]

Ok, so basically I thought that people could just shortly tell how their current campaigns are going, and comment on others ITT. Or write something longer, whatever floats your boat.

Oh, and if someone feels that this should go to the AAR subforum, feel free to move it.

I'll start:

Ok, so I'm playing my first LTC 4.1 campaign, and randomly picked Spain to play as. Early game I did the obvious and allied myself with Portugal and drove the Moors out of Iberia. Later, while my armies were deep in the deserts taking Timbuktu and Arguin, Portugal backstabbed me. This gave me the perfect excuse to take Lisbon, which is now my most developed city. Even with only Pamplona under their control to the north, they managed to field 3-4 full stacks of Jinetes, Lusitanian Javelinmen and Almughavars.
In the end, I didn't even get the satisfaction of taking the fortress from them, as their last family member died during the siege.

Ok, so after this I decided to settle for the lands I had since I was making some very nice profit from sea trade and all the mines. I managed to get marriage alliances with both England and Milan, who were at this point the most powerful kingdoms in Europe. England held the british isles, all of modern France and parts of western Germany. Milan had done what they usually do, crush all surrounding nations. At this point they held all of Italy and the surrounding islands, while stretching almost all the way to Denmark to the north, and starting to expand eastward, taking Budapest from Hungary.
But when the greedy Duke turned his armies on Rome itself, as a good little catholic, I could not stand for this anymore. I also didn't want anything even remotely resembling Milan still alive in the late game. I've ALWAYS had to face them. Always.
Me, England and Hungary (they were also quite powerful at this point, perhaps ranking in at #4 overall if the Mongols don't count) decided to take down this heretical and corrupt state once and for all. I, however, decided to be careful. I didn't want to spread myself too thin to be able to effectively defend all of my settlements. I knew that the mighty empire that England had become would probably turn on me sooner, rather than later. Already there was some serious tension around Zaragoza and Pamplona, as there were several armies of englishmen patrolling their side of the border, seemingly waiting for something.

Meanwhile, just west of Italy....
A mighty spanish host filled to the brim with the finest and most well equipped soldiers in the kingdom arrived at Ajaccio. The Milanese garrison would know what it meant to face the finest and bravest men that Iberia could offer! Dismounted Feudal Knights, Pavise Crossbowmen, newly re-equipped veteran Almughavars and Jinetes and mighty Trebuchets cut through stone, metal and flesh alike with ease. Mere moments later, the same army boarded a fleet and made its way south to Cagliari. It fell in a single day.

There would be no rest however, as the English now controlled most of Italy, Hungary had taken the eastern Milanese settlements and Denmark had taken the opportunity to take a large part of northern Europe for itself. There were only a handful of nations left in Europe, but all had grown very powerful. England was still a massive beast compared to the others, and finally besieged the now Milanese Rome, under banners of the holy cross. I had also seen an opportunity there, and quickly sent the veteran army from Cagliari and Ajaccio to "aid" our allies. With the aid of the mighty siege weapons the army brought, they were the first to reach the central plaza of Rome, leaving a frustrated and extremely angry English army behind. I obviously did what any good catholic would, gave Rome back to the Pope. Not only is the Spanish king now a hero to the entire christian world, but the Pope himself if personally indebted to him.
England are very confident in their power, as they finally struck close to Zaragoza, a cowardly attack against a small force of barely a hundred crossbowmen sent to reinforce the garrison of a nearby fort. They didn't stand a chance against over a thousand Yeoman archers and Dismounted Feudal Knights.

Now, Toledo and Pamplona have gone into full production of the finest soldiers I can get. I'll need all the men I can get against the staggering amount of stacks the English have roaming around Europe. Right now, I'm focusing on defense, but should I decide to take the fight to them I will strike into their wealthy italian lands from Ajaccio and Cagliari, and send troops via ship to take their precious british isles. We'll see how well they do if all they have is France. The mere psychological effect of effectively making the englishmen french will make their nation crumble.

[nohopeinfear]

I'll just make mine short and sweet.

I'm England, immediately I built up my armies on my own land and overtook Nottingham, York and then headed North and West to take Wales and Scotland... I quickly took Edinburgh and Inverness before the Pope had any chance to ex-communicate me, I then took the rebel settlement at Wales and built a shipyard to move into Ireland. I now control all of the British isles and destroyed Scotland to boot.

I then used Caen as a stepping stone to move into Southern Europe. I took the rebel settlements surrounding me and turned them into castle strongholds. I built up a massive army and continued South. I surrounded the French settlements but remembering to keep my distance until the time was right to strike.

When I placed my heaviest units at the gates of Paris, Marseille, Dijon and a couple of others I struck and took out all but one of their settlements in one go.

I then got stopped in my tracks by the pesky Pope who told me to cease hostilities with France...

So now I'm just sitting around getting fat and bored waiting for someone to start a war with me

[Frodo52]

Portugal. SS 5.1 VH/VH. 60 turns or so into an Early campaign.

I've conquered Western Africa (except for some holdout Moors in Timbuktu) and most of Iberia except for a couple of holdout Aragonese cities who are slowly being ground down in a war of attrition.

I'm allied with Sicily, Milan, and the Papal states.

Right now, I'm working a Cruscade into Cairo, which should be fun because I forgot to fill up my cruscading army with priests. A full stack of troops can't keep the populace in line. I have no doubt I'll conquer, but I'll probably have to abandon the place as soon as I'm done. Maybe I can sell it to Milan.

[Georgy Zhukov]

Im playing as venice, VH/VH Right now im playing with DLV 5.1 and ive just reestablished the roman empire ive conquered all of western europe, Aisa minor and half of north africa, IM basking in my glory as the the fruits of my empire come to bear

[finsternis]

I'm the Byzantine empire (Stainless Steel mod) and I am trying to play as the "goodie goodie honest" leader (hate it). At the moment, I am at war with Hungary over who knows what. I just finished my campaign in the Levant (failure). I was trying to help the Knights Templar (which I did) against Egypt (however my war with Egypt started with a discussion over who will have the Isle of Crede, I won the discussion but it threw me into a war with them). I had Jerusalem and Acre but the Golden Horde came and drove me out of the Levant (hopefully, the Knights can weaken them until I come back). Then, my prince married a Portuguese princess, however, Portugal was at the edge of destruction by Spain. So, me being the good leader I am, I sent my prince to help Portugal regain their lands. He made a quick stop in Italy because my explorers guild decided that they wanted some settlement that belonged to Sicily (and me trying to make every guild happy, I attacked the settlement with my prince). That threw me into a short war with Sicily and decreased my relations with Hungary (an ally of my and of Sicily). Looks like they chose Sicily over me. Maybe that's why they attacked me. Anyway, after 2 or 3 turns, I gave back the settlements (the guild was already satisfied) and made peace with them and continued my campaign to Portugal. And then, almost at Portugal, the Emperor dies and the princes becomes Emperor, in the middle of the sea. Well, 2 turns later he arrives at Portugal (with a outlander adulteress). He takes control over a city and plans the other attacks from there. While this is happening, all the way on the east, the new prince (the new emperor cousin) is managing a campaign against the Turks (due to a conflict between the Knights and the turks that couldn't be stop and because their border were too close to my capital and I do not like that). So now the Turks are down to like 3 territories. Back at Portugal, 3 of the New Emperor's kids came of age, 2 of them were bastards (which is weird, because he had them before he got the Outlander Adulteress). And now Hungary is at war with me (a weird thing is that when we started the war, our relation was "good").

(Sorry it is so long)

[bottenbreker]

Holy Roman Empire. i have a great economy and i took over the entire holy land. i've taken over North Italy including Rome and destroyed Poland and France is my vasal. now that France is my vassal i'm aiding them in their never ending struggle with the English . i'm creating a fleet to sail to the new world and make some great economic expansions i'm 140 turns in game i believe

[Ältester der Motten]

Kongeriket Danmark, using DLV 4.1 VH/VH
Can't tell wich turn, probably something about 50. :hmmm:

So I ordered all my forces on the mainland to take over Lübeck, Hamburg and Bremen, with the aid of quite a fat bunch of mercenaries.
After that was done I simulatneously took over that little rest of Scandinavia aswell as the mid-european rebel cities, with two exceptions, Magdeburg and Prague, were the Realm was faster (Realm = Empire).
Meanwhile I sent out diplomats to achieve some trade agreements and to set up an alliance with Poland, succesfully.
After that happened I focused on developing my settlements, with few spies guarding the border to the Realm, always on red alert.
After a short while, I decided to send my fleet up to brittania, to see if any free cities were available. While Brittany itself had only one city to offer, Dumfries, Ireland was mostly free with 3 of 5 settlements still in rebel hands, so I conquered these in a blitz, though it was a harder conflict.
In the meanwhile the retarded Realm decided to expand north, so I just blitzmustered three full stuck-armies (luckily Hamburg was quite the cashcow, so I had no serious financial problems) with wich I fastly devastated the Realm's armys and usurped Magdeburg and Frankfurt. In the following peace treaty Prague was appointed a danish city, but with the cost of basically every single florin in the danish treasury.
I then developed further, having no clue what to do with my generals. But luckily the pope called a crusde. Even more luckily that crusade was aimed at Vilnius, so I had no great problems reaching it. I then sent two full-stack armies up there, seeing that Lithuana has grown a considerable might not to be triffed with.
In the same lucky turn the Realmtards got excommunicated, possibly took their chance to muster some armies for war with my money for Prague to attack everything around it, so I took my chance to set up 3 full-stacks, one marching at Wien (Vienna), the other ones at the new capital, Nürnburg (Nuremburg).
But in a dumb move I turned them into crusade armies to receive the experience bonus once Vilnius was usurped (it got usurped two rounds later by... Venetia I think, sadly), so I couldn't attack him.
To my bad the Realm got reconciled, for the old Pope died (wich is not to bad, since my canditate won the elections) in the meanwhile, but after the crusade finally ended I ordered my armies to charge anyway. My armies before Nuremburg that is, Vienna was too well guarded to risk an attack.
So with a little less fine papal relationship I once more crushed the Realm. In teh following peace negotions my lucky arse received BOTH Innsbruck and Bern, for I was now a bit superior to the realm. Of course, this involved a huge loss of florins anyway.
My former real crusader armies were then sent to attack another city of Lithuania (can't remember the name), since I was at war with them now anyway. And ther it stopped.

Also, I find it hilarious how helpful simply appointing crusader armies is to increase your reputation. Mine was upheaved by about three levels.

[Rodrico Stak]

I'm playing Pro Deo et Rege as Konegriet Danmark. Early on, I allied with the Scots, French, Poles, and HRE. After grabbing almost all of Sweden and Denmark, I noticed that France was being crushed by newly excommunicated England. I had the French pay me 600 florins to attack England, and I loaded up a 20 unit stack (almost my entire army in Scandinavia, including settlement defenses) onto my navy and sailed over to Britain, attacking York. The British paid me 10000 florins after I took the city in return for a ceasefire. A few turns later, I had the French pay me another 600 florins to fight England again. I took Nottingham and another settlement, the name of which slips my mind right now (it is west of York, and not on the vanilla campaign map). In the process, I killed the English king and they were reconciled by the Pope. I got a mission not to attack them for 7 turns the next turn. I hoped that the English had gotten the same mission, as my 20 units in Britain were spread thin, and you need a second tier barracks to recruit anything in foreign territory. As it turns out, the English had gotten such a mission, and were excommunicated for using their entire navy in the area (3 cogs) to blockade the port of York, while my 15 ship stack of longboats was nearby. Unfortunately, they then sieged Nottingham and that other settlement, and took them, killing 2 of my generals, one of which was a family member. They then besieged and almost took York, which was saved by a 10 unit relief force I sailed over from Sweden (which achieved a heroic victory for doing so). A 19 unit army followed, and retook Nottingham when the English sent a large force split into 2 stacks total against me (the third being the defense force of Nottingham), fortunately they had around 5 units of siege weapons, so I got a heroic victory for defeating them and took the castle. My reputation began at "reliable", but dropped to "mixed" after I executed the 1000 prisoners taken after the first heroic victory.




The second heroic victory. I'm more proud of the first, but I don't have a shot. I thought that having a picture would make my story better, though.

(the above was taken from my post in the official TW forums, the below is what has happened since)

The English got mad at me taking Nottingham, and sent a 20 unit stack made up of about half archer militia, and the other half longbowmen, levy spearmen, and local militia (town militia) to Nottingham. I won (heroic victory), but the levy spearmen killed almost all of my Huscarls, and about 1/3 of my dismounted huscarls. I tried to ransom the prisoners back, but England declined and the entire 20 unit stack disappeared (all the men were killed, due to fighting and prisoner executions). Unfortunately, they sent 10 units (longbowmen, men at arms, dismounted mailed knights) to siege Nottingham that same turn. When they attacked, I won (heroic victory), but having been unable to retrain any of my units I took significant casualties, and could probably have withstood only one more siege.

That turn, the Pope called a crusade on a Venetian city. I tried to get him to call one on London, but he didn't want to.

Fortunately, I was then able to have one of the two generals in Nottingham step outside and hire some mercenaries. It was a good thing I did, because the a few turns later the English attacked with a 20 unit force (archer militia, 1 men at arms, 1 dismounted mailed knights, longbowmen, levy spearmen). I won in a heroic victory, but 3 of my 4 units of dismounted huscarls were destroyed (only one, the one that survived, had more than 17 men), and a couple of units of Viking Raiders were destroyed also. Fortunately, this last Heroic Victory seemed to use up most of the English soldiers on the British isles (though they still have multiple full stacks in France, which is getting double teamed by England and the HRE).

During this time, the HRE sieged Arhus twice. Both times, a spy opened the gates, but I beat their armies of heavy infantry (men at arms and Swabian Swordsmen) in 2 heroic victories (they didn't seem so heroic to me, though, as I had to retrain nearly my entire defense force both times). They then demanded that I become their vassal, which I refused.

3 turns later, Nottingham finished building a Danish Knights Fief (which allows training of both huscarls and dismounted huscarls), and I could begin to retrain my army (Viking Raiders cannot be trained outside of Scandinavia). Since I figured that there was no way the Pope was going to call a Crusade on London (the one on the Venetian town had not finished yet, and the pope was getting old), I sent 7 units (3 levy spearmen, 2 viking raiders, 2 dismounted huscarls) to attack London.

The date is now 1120something. The starting pope is still in power (he is in his mid 70's), and the last thing I want is for him to die, because then England and the HRE will be reconciled.

[pwijnands]

The Turks, modified Stainless Steel, year 1197 (longest ever campaign for me).

I've almost reached my goal of 70 provinces, I currently have 68. I control the Middle East, Turkey, Greece, the Balkans, parts of North-Africa, southern Italy, Sicily and some Russian steppes. I've destroyed the Knights Templar, the Byzantine Empire, Hungary, the Fatimids (Egypt) and Sicily myself. Other factions that don't exist anymore are Venice, France and Denmark. I have acquired three or four allies (Poland, Norway, Milan and maybe another faction) in this game, although I'm not being very diplomatic this time (I'm very untrustworthy according to my faction description). I'm at war with Aragon, the Papal States, the Holy Roman Empire, Novgorod and Kievan Rus.

I've beaten the Papal States down to Rome (they took over southern Italy and Sicily at one point), same for Kievan Rus. Novgorod is as good as dead as their armies don't stand a chance against my cavalry-only raiding armies in the open field. I haven't fought that much against Aragon yet, just a crusading army and I blockaded all of their ports. My main enemy at the moment is the Holy Roman Empire, the former powerhouse of the campaign map. But their war with me has weakened them greatly and other factions have been starting to take bits of the empire here and there.

I'm thinking of increasing my global standing in the game to a positive one. I'll get rid of Kievan Rus and Aragon at some stage to narrow down my list of enemies. I'll try to get a ceasefire from Novgorod after I've taken a castle I'm sieging at the moment. After I assassinate the current pope I'll get an automatic ceasefire with them, making the HRE my sole enemy. I'll build some more raiding parties to take on HRE armies in the field and then releasing the prisoners (to get my rep up).

One thing I find strange is the lack of Crusades in the game. There have only been 2 so far. One on Cairo that failed after I defeated the crusader armies that went through my lands. The only remaining army from my Polish allies failed to take the city from the Fatimids. The other one was called on Toulouse a few turns ago, which was owned by the excommunicated Aragonese. There's been about 80 or so turns in between the two crusades and the pope never called one on me, even though we are at a state of war and our relations are abysmal. There have been plenty of Jihads though, all were called by my priests on cities that were convienently close to me and in the path of an existing army.

[Roman_Man#3]

Moved to battle planning

[Chosimbaone]

See the thread I just started "how I fell in love with this game's AI" for mine.

[Stildawn]

As england VH/VH

Taken all of the UK, did it quick not to piss off the pope. Now Im gifting 100 bucks per turn to the pope and my priest is now the pope haha. Ive turned everything I own except Nottingham, York and Wales into Cities.

The pope loves me and I get gifts from him all the time haha.

Building up to move on the middle east.... as I try to be all happy with Europe.

[Ambiorix_thijs]

RUSSIA

I took all the normal settlements that should belong to Russia untill i had a vast empire .Much like the Soviet Union territory. I also send my armies across the world to take rich settlemens or good castles to make sure no faction gets to much power. If they do i just go punish them if they attack me.

TUrks, Scots,Byzn, HRE and Venice as my allies. Also i managed to make peace between Byzantines and Turks because they are both my allies and i think the byz fear me to much to make me angry. Tsar-Power

Using my casltetechnic vs the mongols i managed to completely destroy them until they only had one familymember. I gave this one Kiev and immediatley i gave him Toulouse which i had conquered too. i quickly took Kiev back, allied with him and gave him some money. Than i escorted this army to his new home in France. Very nice story. Its going good with them i have no cities close to them. I just have a city and a castle in Spain to make sure i can protect them if needed. I am really curious at who my mongol allies will lay siege first. I am going to help them with everything i got.
The Two great Cavalrynations wil help eachother in the destruction of the Catholique states.

TO bad i cant use them vs the Timurids who just attacked my Turkish allies. The sultan is gratefull that i have put 6 stacks of powerfull infantry and cannons at the invasion points. Now that the Crusaderarmies are destroyed (thx to me , Dvors to the rescue) we can stop the Timurid rampaging armies.
Once this debacle is over i hope that the mongols will have some power in France and attack someone so i can help him there.
I dont care for the victory conditions, i am just living my own personal story and its going great. The polish and Hungarians are sometimes foolish enough to and declare war to me to get some fo their territories back. Man i jut love beating the crap out of them with my Gunpowderarmy ( General-Pikes-Cos musk- Tsar guards- basilisks) or Raiding them with the magnificent combo of tsar guards and Dvors.

I try to help the Islam in their Jihads and help the turks vs invading Crusaders so i can make sure that the pope doesnt get good news.

[miccofl]

I’m currently playing England on a modified DLV 4.03PE, vh/vh; modified in that I set the win conditions to 125 settlements, removed the settlement upgrade conditions but made it so I need 30k pop for a large city and 60k pop for huge. I now have over 90 settlements under my control, holding most of Europe and Africa. The bulk of my generals were groomed to be governors and I only use the royal line for combat; at least I try to for the most part. In retrospect I set the conditions too high as now the game is beginning to bog down and is at times tedious. I just helped my ally Poland take over most of north and central Asia but had to break off the attack when my faction leader died prematurely at age 53 (in DLV you must get your leader crowned king or risk gaining some really nasty traits.) The Mongols are now my vassal. I am now faced with either abandoning the campaign in favor of something new and different or waiting for my young prince to come of age, train him and send him off to conquer and convert Turkey on my way to Jerusalem. One thing I do know, I will never set my victory conditions higher than 85-90 settlements or attempt to rule the map as playing one single faction for so long gets a bit old (at least for me.)

[Kietharr]

Kinda playing two right now, one with the Byzantines (conquered Anatolia, all of the provinces surrounding the black sea, Russia, Balkans, all of Italy, all of Hungary and most of Poland with bits and pieces of the HRE and Denmark), the big fun I had there is I conquered the pope and destroyed the college of cardinals with Assassins, he now has no lands and no army, I don't know where he even spawns anymore, I have not seen him since assassinating the college.

The main campaign I'm playing now is with the Moors. Early on I struck an alliance with Portugal (which didn't last long, but lasted long enough for me to get the Spanish down to two crappy cities using camel spearmen, desert cavalry and arab cavalry in sieges). Portugal tried to ally with spain, made me go to peace but I attacked again and ruined the alliance but conquered all of Iberia excluding the two cities the Portuguese start with.

I've conquered all of Africa except for Egypt and I took Sardinia and Coursica as well. I don't plan on going to war because I wanted to turtle and be an Arab faction conquering the new world for historical inaccuracy's sake but if war comes I expect it to be from France, Sicily, Egypt or Milan. If it's Milan or France I'll play defense to avoid making more enemies, against Sicily I'll hit Palermo and Naples possibly leading up to smacking down Rome just because I dislike the pope in the game. Against Egypt I'll take Cairo, Alexandria, Dongola, and Gaza and leave the rest of the middle east for Egypt and Turkey to squabble over (Byzantium too, which has conquered all of anatolia) which will provide me a great buffer against Mongols and later Timurids.

[Velocitas]

Me, I'm stuck in my campaign: I'm playing as the Kingdom of Portugal (I've got SS 5.1 and Lusted's AI), I have managed to kill the Moors and took all their territories (Cordoba, Granada, Algiers, Fes, Marrakesh, Mellila, Timbuktu, Tunis and other cities). I have Barcelona. I have half of Iberian peninsula. I'm sharing with Spain. I'm the richest faction but not the strongest. I am now in war with Sicily.
There's a crusade on Palermo, so I sent my 6 armies. I have only spearmen militia, Jinetes and some mercenaries. They are outnumbered but they are stronger, what should I do? There is one full stack in Palermo and another one waiting near my armies. They attacked me but I can't win, they're just too strong! What do you do when an army is stronger than yours but with less soldiers than yours?

Sorry for my very bad English.

[Stildawn]

Update.

HRE and Spain stabbed me in the back and attacked, I lost Barcelona to the spainish as all I had down there was a stack of free mailed knights plus a few mercenary archers (free knights I got from missions etc)

HRE came onto Antwerp and laid seige, then the weirdest thing happened, they assualted like usual, and I sat inside my pathetic walls (early on in the game) with my 4 units of town militia.

They had balistia, which went on to punch two holes in my walls either side of the gate, so I abandoned the walls and just blocked the holes, this is where it got weird, after them walking thier army a bit closer and taking out a few towers, they just sat there.... there was two perfect holes in the walls plus they still had two seige towers a ram and some ladders. But they just sat there. So I put the speed to +3 and waited but nothing happened. They had a much larger army but they never attacked the breaches...... The timer ran out and I won with a close victory.... wtf!!!

By that time my other two main armies got across northern france and started to push them back. At this time I didnt realise how much the germans had in their army, and i sent one of my stacks to take frankfurt I think, but I got surrounded by three full stacks, lets just say he isnt coming home lol. But I raised another in england and crossed the channel. Spain wants peace cause my mates the moors started killing them. But how to deal with germany, as they are excommunicated so my mate the pope cant help me out either.

Any ideas???

[Nikodemus]

My England campaign is going jolly good, ever since i stole Antwerp and Bruges right under the danes noses, this campaign has been a walk in the park when you compare it to my first MTW2 campaign with the HRE(sucks being surrounded by people that hates you..)

I have nearly reduced the HRE too a fief, atleast financially since they have one town and three fortresses...all they send my now is town militias; in droves(good exercise for my longbowmen)

My greatest threat is the Mongols, they have nearly taken care of former badboy Hungary and is now knocking on Stettins door....poor Poles( i take one castle from them and they fall like a deck of cards...shame)

In France the cities and Caen are improving constantly, just a minor setback when excommunicated Spain thought that invading Rene would be a fine idea...i kicked them out within 20 turns.

My second greatest threat is that the Papacy has hated me for five popes now, all those Venetian cardinals sure pack a punch...England haven´t had a Cardinal for 150 years and i would gladly accept any tips on getting the guys in funny hats too like me again.

All in all a fun campaign, just a shame that England lacks in anti-cavalry infantry, even the HRE as armored spears...

An even bigger shame is that my stainless steel campaign died because of some supply scripts...my Turks were nearly ready to invade Europe.

[Laconian]

For the cardinal problem, just recruit lots of priests and train them on eretics or if there aren'y any send them to lands where there aren't many Christians and convert the population, That also gets my priests experience.

[Nikodemus]

For the cardinal problem, just recruit lots of priests and train them on eretics or if there aren'y any send them to lands where there aren't many Christians and convert the population, That also gets my priests experience.

but if i send them too "heathen" lands they will just turn heretic...atleast i think that