Where to expand with Denmark?

[Idaeus]

I'm planning on playing a campaign as Denmark, so I would like to ask you what way do you recommend to expand? Ignoring the objectives given by you in the game. If you expand into the HRE you'll soon have enemies all around you. Russia is an option but it could be hard to fight their cavalry based armies in the open plains? And an invasion of england seems rather easy but boring after 3 campaigns as England and 2 as Scotland. Also, I dont want it to be too easy but not too hard... Any suggestions from experienced players?

[Ältester der Motten]

Just don't fight in the open plains with russia then. Blitz their cities! You might position some armies near the less fast reachable cities in the hinterlands, so they won't be able to halt you on your way to them.
Other than that you might try Iberia aswell.

Or try your luck with france, while they are occupied with the HRE/Egland you might try landing on their west coast.

[Ambiorix_thijs]

Yeah, take Brugge and Antwerp first. Greatest Medieval cities in the known world at that time.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

Migrate to the Holy Land, sell Aarhus or let it rebel and fight HA heavy factions with vikings . You will be in the midst of all the fun.

[BeachedWhale09]

I took Antwerp and Brugges. Then I conquered France while expanding eastward somewhat (Hungary and Poland attacked me). The Holy Roman Empire was sending stacks at Hamburg a lot but could never take it. I let them waste men against that while i prepared an invasion of england. That took about 4 turns to take the isles haha. Then i redeployed along the HRE's western flank and started invading while i also took the rebel cities that were once Milan's(HRE took care of these guys). Spain was my ally. After that you can just keep sweeping across Europe and down Italy.

[Kip]

Dominate the North and Baltic Seas. Capture all of Scandinavia, then take the coastal settlements around the Baltic (in modern Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania etc.)

[Joel92]

i took all the coastal areas from iberia all the way to russia and tried to gain naval supremacy so i could start naval invasions all around the mediterranean

[bobfish]

There is nothing wrong with having enemies on all fronts, you just have to make sure you're loved more by the Pope than they are, so the more they attack you, the more likely they are to be excommunicated.

Taking Antwerp and Bruges would be a good start, the expand east and north. Poland can be pain and HRE, but they are far more surrounded than you are.

I'd suggest once you've got a secured number of territories and feel pretty safe in holding them, that you start working towards Italy through the HRE. Keep France and England friendly, Poland too if you can, let everyone else fight it out and concentrate on the factions ahead of you, never trust Milan of Sicily. Remember to send all your priests to non-Catholic territories to gain favor.

[NobleNick]

There is nothing wrong with having enemies on all fronts... I'd suggest once you've got a secured number of territories and feel pretty safe in holding them, that you start working towards Italy through the HRE. Keep France and England friendly, Poland too if you can...

Idaeus, I agree with bobfish.

Your biggest drawback is that you only have one settlement to start. Snap up as many of the rebel towns along the North Atlantic coast of the mainland as you can, to get a base of operations and start an economy. Ally with France (and England and Poland if possible). Get trade rights with everyone.

Once your economy and unit manufacturing buildings are established enough (hopefully no later than turn 25), mow through the HRE. Then Poland or Milan, depending on which one is being most naughty/opportune.

In the early game; when you have spears, Viking Raiders, Scouts, Crossbow Militia and Peasant Crossbowmen, and they do not yet have exceptional cav nor large numbers of Sargeant Spearmen; you should be able to do O.K. against the HRE. If you do not move fast enough: the going will get significantly tougher by the time you hit the armor-plated crossbows of Milan, Venice and Sicily.

I typically deal with the superior Itanian crossbows by bringing vastly superior numbers of ranged units and/or getting a terrain advantage which allows my ranged units to fire downhill on the enemy; or (more often) by bringing all cav forces, and making the enemy chase me until the crossbows are tired and separated from their protecting spears/swords, then pounce with overwhelming numbers of heavy cav on three sides of each crossbow unit to rout them.

THis looks like it would have just the right degree of difficulty and fun, if played on HARD campaign and VH battle difficulty.

[bobfish]

Sicily and Milan seem to have issues with Crossbow units, in that they rely too heavily on them. So if you remember to bring cavalry you should be alright, usually I don't bother with cavalry for awhile, but it can be useful against them. As of course you don't have to destroy their crossbow units.. just keep sending them running whilst the rest of the army does it's job.

Something else to remember is the isolation of scandinavia, as long as they are rebel they will be fairly easy to take, but there is no one else who is going to take them once you secure the land route. So make sure you take all the other rebel provinces first, the ones that other factions might try to get. You might want to use Bruges as a diplomacy tool as well, capture it, and offer it to France or England for an Alliance, cause the damn thing always rebels anyways, more hassle than it's worth.

If you win a Crusade settlement or one of the settlements near Rome, it's good to give it to Pope too, just for that extra credit, an alliance with the Papacy is a must. More dirty tactics with settlements, take one from your enemy and offer it to someone who can't possible get units there to defend it, you get a good boost with the people you gave it to, the faction you took it from will probably retake it, then you take it again and rinse repeat

[Laconian]

my first move as Denmark is to capture Stockholm and Hamburg. Hamburg is the most important as it opens up Germany and Western Europe for you. Then expand eastwards and capture Stettin and Magdeberg followed b capturing Antwerp and Bruges. Meanwhile, convert Arhhus into a castle and place your King with half a stack of norse archers, dismount huscarls, norse swordsman and vikings raider and sail to Britian. There captured York before advancing north and annihalting Scotland. You can usially do all this in around 30 turns.

[Pontifex Maximus]

germany

[Mythlacar]

When I did my mighty denmark campaign (ended up owning the entire map) I Grabbed Hamburg, the two areas north of arhus, and sat back for a few turns, then invaded russia.

After russia was mine, and I owned everything to the east of hamburg and arhus, i went south and took the middle east. Eastern Europe was last in my almighty war

Though, you may want to go east first, as getting attacked in your soft backside by the mongols and timurids REALLY smarts.

[Trajan]

Moved to Battle Planning.

[Samir]

for my danish campaign I went for whole Scandinavia.

I did not go for Hamburg. i leave it to the HRE, its easy enough to block any offensive action from the HRE near Arhus and the HRE basically needs every castle it can get to fight off poland.

Brugges, Antwerp, at least one of them makes a good trading city for your empire, if you can get both you can use one as a bargain in some diplomatic trade which puts in someone into western european action who might have been not bothered by those wars otherwise.

then the baltic. basically great, but difficult to hold, as your strength lies in infantry. Both poland and russia field lots of cavalry and the battles are sometimes really costly for you.

Naval invasions. I sent Viking Raiders to Rennes (I somehow need the Normandy to be able to threat the English), the mediteranian islands like Rhodes and Cyprus or Crete. Rhodes became one of the main military bases for me. I could sent armies within 2 turns to italy, minor asia, the levante and anywhere I felt like.

I also tried to go the viking way down to Kiev. along the Djnepr

As danish I had very few peaceful years. I keep Scandinavia peaceful and try to maintain at least a small trading relation with some nations. Byzantine, Venice, Sicily, Templars, Moors tend to not bother me if I dont bother them. The naval invasions are a good source of income if you keep sacking and dont hold the provinces too long. It also puts the enemy into the situation that they have to retake the rebelled city and rebuild it and that helps the viking way a lot and it weakens the enemy financially as well as militarily.

Also the pope is often on your side as you can swarm priests from the baltic centers (Helsinki, Riga) all the way to Jerusalem through pagan and islamic territories.

[bobfish]

If you do decide to go for England, don't attack their French provinces, leave France to harass them there. Take Ireland and mount your attack from there into Wale, and cut right across. If you let Scotland take a dominating presence in the British Isles, they will be much harder to remove than England (which I don't understand, but they are tough bastards).

I might have to Denmark next.. almost done with my Moors campaign now.

[Idaeus]

Going down through HRE seems interesting and could probably cause some great infantry vs infantry battles. However it seems like it would be quite chaotic.

Controlling the whole of the Baltic Sea has always been the dream of all Scandinavian nations. That does seem interesting. I'm thinking it could be amusing to First take Scandinavia and a province or two into the HRE as buffer zones. Build up my economy and armies for a number of turns before launching a massive invasion on Russia. Once I have what I want of Russia, I could go down and close the gap along the Baltic coast Attacking from both Russian and HRE territories. Thus I would control the whole of the Baltic.

Then I could sit back and grow for a while and make peace with all enemy nations before launching a naval invasion on Scotland, get rid of them and push England off the British isles.

This whole Campaign could probably bring me both Infantry vs Cavalry battles and Infantry vs Infantry battles. For me it would just feel wrong to bring Denmark into the Mediterranean, I want my Danish nation to be a northern nation. Might sound crazy to some of you but for me it matters.

I would love to hear what you think of my idea, but be nice!!

Moved to Battle Planning.

Sorry about that... Wasn't yet quite sure where this was supposed to go.

[bobfish]

Taking Russia will be difficult, you have Turks to the south of you once you get there, what I tend to do if I'm playing in that region is to leave a couple of regions around there for someone else to have, usually Turks or Byz, and ally with them. Then when the Mongols come it's not you they pound, they'll do a good job of softening up the area as well should you decide to move further south later on. Watch out for Egypt too, if they make Turks a vassal then they might come after Russia, they are rich and will have lots of armies. Use Crusades to keep the Islamic states off your borders

You'll need to decide what you want to do about Poland, they can be a big threat and they are being pushed from the south, maybe ally with Hungry against them and crush the Poles between your forces?

You'll have to do an AAR for this you know :p

[Idaeus]

Well I don't think I would want to take the whole of Russia, just the areas around the Baltic and maybe some nearby, easily taken settlements. Then I would probably just weaken Russia a bit before leaving them alone and try to "close the gap" around the Baltic.

What struck me is that maybe it is easier to just grab Sweden and Norway, build up my cities and armies for a few rounds before immediately launching a 2 army invasion on the British isles? Then after conquering England and Scotland I could launch my invasion on Russia.

Would it be possible to somehow get Turkey to invade Russia a few rounds before I launch my invasion? Russia is a big country and it would take long for the Russian armies to march back from turkey to defend their capital. give me some feedback here please?

Lol yeah maybe I'll make an AAR... Haven't done any before but it cant be that hard! People here seem quite nice so it hopefully wouldn't be ripped to pieces.

[bobfish]

You'll definitely want to secure the rebel provinces near you and build up a small financial base before assault any other major factions. If you're only looking to take out the northern provinces of Russia is might be better to assault them before Scotland, as a campaign to take the British Isles and Ireland will be a major resource drain compared to dealing with Russia as you'll end up fighting two factions there, the main thing about Russia is simply only fight them in sieges if possible, where their cavalry has limited use.

You could provoke the Turks into attacking Russia, though it would be hard and probably not worth the effort if you can take the few Russian provinces you want fairly quickly.