You've got 100 turns to win, who do you choose?

[tallstark]

If you had to pick one faction to pull off a vh/vh victory and you only had 100 turns to do it, could you, and with who?

I am on turn 96 with Poland right now and after just finishing a crusade to Jerusalem I noticed after taking out Denmark, Norway, Hungary and half of Novogord and Venice, along with a couple each from Moors and Egypt from crusades that I am at 38 provinces but there are lots of better players than me and I wasn't actively trying so it got me thinking...

My first two choices would be HRE or Poland, both have access to a quick number of rebel provinces and if they play the religion cards right they can get about 4 crusades boosts with the free big stacks. Not sure if 100 turns is doable or not, but sounds like a new way to keep game fun!

[burninglegionx]

my 3 choices

1st: Byzantine. Just kill anything in your path.

2nd: england. The island rarely gets invaded by outside powers. Take control of the island with one or two stack while rest of the army moves down south with never-ending seige, sack, move.

3rd: HRE. I would put HRE 2nd or even first if it had a different starting pos, but b/c it's surrounded by many factions, you have to have multi-fronts which usually slows me down.

[Handerz]

England - longbows - secret weapon - they just take everything out and those stakes keep the cavalary stacks away from you.

[spanish_emperor]

not really, when im HRE i normally conquer Venice really fast because it is the only way to get a big enough income to defend your territories and fight multiple fronts and it destroys their chances of attacking your territory, especially Vienna.

Second i move my force upwards and in around 3 turns i have already conquered like 4 settlements...like i said it is the only way to survive....defending with the HRE is just suicide, you have to attack and never let the enemy any chance to counterattack.

Normally after that, depending on the situation i either conquer the polish or the danish or Hungary. but i make sure i conquer at least one to be able to survive when i have multiple fronts. Normally i would never kill any faction because i would want them to confront me with a strong force in the future, but here it is a must. If you leave a nation with even only one settlement then its going to haunt you for the rest of your life....conquer ALL their settlements and destroy the faction forever. These steps are essential in allowing the HRE to remain the power base in Europe.
After this it all depends on the situation but thats really my basic starting expansion with HRE...trust me i've done it millions of times, i should know its one of my fav factions HRE will never slow down if you do this must it must be swift action and you must command all battles and WIN.

HRE, ironically as it may seem, is the best option because it forces you to think really hard and know that every battle is important while if your the english, even if your determined, you will feel secured and have the opportunity to loose a battle....desperation beats determination.

I would not go on crusades with the HRE, it just divides your forces and wealth even further...resist temptations. And to tell you the truth, alarming as it might seem, conquering rebel settlements are a waste of time and resources, instead focus on Venice and Poland, skipping rebels and leaving them to france, etc.

They will provide a wall and some time and most importantly Venice will always be better then rebels and you will be ridding yourself of multiple fronts in the future....it always works

hope it wasn't too long but it really is the best way to win and it will surely be beneficial for you

[burninglegionx]

not really, when im HRE i normally conquer Venice really fast because it is the only way to get a big enough income to defend your territories and fight multiple fronts and it destroys their chances of attacking your territory, especially Vienna.

Second i move my force upwards and in around 3 turns i have already conquered like 4 settlements...like i said it is the only way to survive....defending with the HRE is just suicide, you have to attack and never let the enemy any chance to counterattack.

Normally after that, depending on the situation i either conquer the polish or the danish or Hungary. but i make sure i conquer at least one to be able to survive when i have multiple fronts. Normally i would never kill any faction because i would want them to confront me with a strong force in the future, but here it is a must. If you leave a nation with even only one settlement then its going to haunt you for the rest of your life....conquer ALL their settlements and destroy the faction forever. These steps are essential in allowing the HRE to remain the power base in Europe.
After this it all depends on the situation but thats really my basic starting expansion with HRE...trust me i've done it millions of times, i should know its one of my fav factions HRE will never slow down if you do this must it must be swift action and you must command all battles and WIN.

HRE, ironically as it may seem, is the best option because it forces you to think really hard and know that every battle is important while if your the english, even if your determined, you will feel secured and have the opportunity to loose a battle....desperation beats determination.

I would not go on crusades with the HRE, it just divides your forces and wealth even further...resist temptations. And to tell you the truth, alarming as it might seem, conquering rebel settlements are a waste of time and resources, instead focus on Venice and Poland, skipping rebels and leaving them to france, etc.

They will provide a wall and some time and most importantly Venice will always be better then rebels and you will be ridding yourself of multiple fronts in the future....it always works

hope it wasn't too long but it really is the best way to win and it will surely be beneficial for you

the thing is, XAI seem to be a little too offensive to start a multi-fronts. Each enemy faction comes with 3~4 stack and it's a headache (sometimes impossible) to deal with them.

So if i start a war with lets say venice, pope won't let me kill venice off, and if i take over i get excom. then all the christian kingdom wants a piece of my land and comes with 3~4 stacks each... how do you stop that at turn 10~15 i can only get 2~3 fullstack without damaging my economy..

[spanish_emperor]

the thing is, XAI seem to be a little too offensive to start a multi-fronts. Each enemy faction comes with 3~4 stack and it's a headache (sometimes impossible) to deal with them.

So if i start a war with lets say venice, pope won't let me kill venice off, and if i take over i get excom. then all the christian kingdom wants a piece of my land and comes with 3~4 stacks each... how do you stop that at turn 10~15 i can only get 2~3 fullstack without damaging my economy..

i usually take out the pope

Edit: oh and remember, you can't protect everything or other wise you protect nothing

[Caelifer_1991]

Rebel settlements... pfff, late campaign ftw ^^ as HRE in late campaign i attacked france outright, became an ally of hungary incase poland tried anything, and basically left a substantial yet not too large garrisoning force at 2 of my castle settlements in the alps incase venice or milan tried anything... i could of course offord it due to the massive amount of money obtained through rapidly looting all those french territories which are so poorly defended at the start. Later i took milan, then venice, followed by poland, denmark, norway, etc. Worked well for me ^^ This was ofcourse VH/VH.

[Handerz]

Playing as English - I open with two fronts.

First Front - Capture Rebel settlements in England and knock out Scotland, so you do not have to deal with the future campaigns. Alliance with Ireland and they leave you alone - infact I have seen them attacking Norway and Denmark.

Second Front - Start Capturing the Rebel settlements in Normandy, and move across to Bruges and capture ports - as they get good income later on.
Then start building up forces and take out Metz / Paris and other Castle to North of France. Using Normandy Castle and ports, start shipping troops across and sending them down to Paris. By now most likely excommunicated and have HRE attacking me. The French send in large armies which they throw at my walls, but I always counter attack any seiges and quickly whittle down their troops, they are soon bled dry and armies are then sent out to reduce France to a rubble.

HRE meanwhile are fighting on all fronts, which leaves Denmark wide open and the northern part of HRE.

Rest is history in rewriting - unless the Monguls decide to come through HRE and attack me in Paris again!

[y2day]

I don't know I've never tried. I'm a turtle.

But if i had to i would say England, the longbow is unmatched.

[Korlon]

I'm also very much a turtle player, and I definitely do not like blitzing, but if I had to choose, I'd go with HRE. They're one of the most powerful factions at the beginning of the campaign and they're just about at the center of the map with ample opportunity to expand everywhere at once. With good strategy and a whole lot of sacking and gifting to the pope, you can get victory very easily.

[delra]

France.

[Korlon]

To the guy above me, start moving your diplomat towards Rome from turn one. Start tributing and making more diplomats if necessary if you need to have 2 or 3 diplomats at Rome. As long as the Pope has enough money, you have no fear of getting excommunicated. Try to be on good terms with factions that you aren't attacking at the moment.

There's also using a crusade to get 2x the movement as well as the extra crusader mercenaries. Take a family member with 7 other units, go crusading. Go all the way in the direction opposite the crusade and meet up with a city. End the crusade. Select the general's unit card, everybody else should still have the crusade cross but the general shouldn't, attack the city. I don't find this fun so I would never do this sort of quick conquering thing. I would say my own conquering speed is fast enough, even for me.

[Enavic]

For pure chance to win, I would take the Moors. Besides Iberia they don't need to worry about anyone else except occasional sicilian attacks which honestly can be nullified if you can provoke an early war between it and Venice. Start out taking all the rebel settlements in the area, especially down south with all the valuable trade items. Spain and Portugal are likely to declare war with each other if you stay neutral or ally them. This will generally lead to one of the factions getting excommunicated making them open for conquest. After that you can just mop up the rest of the Iberian peninsula. Egypt is easy to ally and you can deal with Sicily easily with your money down south. France is generally spread too thin to pose any real resistance. and with an english or scot/irish alliance the Italian states just crumple. You can get your 69 territories and just siege the last one without having to worry about holding it after.

[stefano89]

I'd choose England... take out the islands, then head to scandinavia and southwards... pretty easy... but I'm a turtler, I dislike playing that way.

[Echad]

Chuck Norris... Wait 'till the 99th turn and then roundhouse kick everyone right before the end! 100% win!

[burninglegionx]

Chuck Norris... Wait 'till the 99th turn and then roundhouse kick everyone right before the end! 100% win!

[llamasboy]

In Vanilla Id say Russia, in SS maybe France or the Horde or the egyptians.

[Volcan]

I would have to say Milan. You get a great economy and amazing milita which can be made constantly. Also, everything is easily defended because of how good these milita are for so long. <3 Milan. Everything can be made from cities!