Kwarezmians, where should i expand to?

[Shabby_Ronin]

well after trying lithuania, i was up to my eyeballs in misfortune and enemies

i'v decided to give kwarezmians a go. should i head southwest and feast on rebels and end up with a front against the turks? i dont wanna get into a big ol' war with the turks and end up with the cumans heading south and attacking me when i am dedicating a majority of my strength in the west...and it looks like a loooong march back to my northeastern borders if there is trouble

any suggestions?

[Serious J]

well after trying lithuania, i was up to my eyeballs in misfortune and enemies

i'v decided to give kwarezmians a go. should i head southwest and feast on rebels and end up with a front against the turks? i dont wanna get into a big ol' war with the turks and end up with the cumans heading south and attacking me when i am dedicating a majority of my strength in the west...and it looks like a loooong march back to my northeastern borders if there is trouble

any suggestions?

I'll start off by saying that I haven't actually tried the Kwazzies yet, but when I do I plan on going down south to take on the Fatamids for their rich cities. North is full of gigantic regions that would be a pain to keep defended properly. I would probably take out the Turks after securing the Fatamid regions so I could hit the Turks from their south and east.

Of course, it depends on what era you play as well, if you choose the late era, then you have to account for the Mongols sitting on your doorstep.

[finsternis]

I am playing the Kwarezm right now and what I did was expand south. The Turks are not bothering me right now (they have their hands busy with the Byzantine and the Knights Templar). Cumans are annoying since they keep sending Pagans priests to your land but I wouldn't pay a lot of attention to them for now (however, it does not hurt to have a army defending your Capital). Remember, they have the same problems you have (huge lands to protect and not a lot of communication between them).

Also remember than there is more land on the Arabic Peninsula. So if you hit the Turks and cannot expand more, just keep moving down.

I think that the Kwarezm are pretty Isolated so you won't fight anyone is a good while (unless you piss them off, of course).

[billydilly]

I'm not playing as the Kwarezm but I sent a couple of spies to check them out. They seem to have taken all the provinces from their starting position and south to Baghdad, pushing the turks westwards. The Cumans have all the regions north of the Kwarezm and east of Kiev. But now the Mongols have arrived and have taken 3 Kwarezm settlements in a few turns, they seem to be heading south.
So whatever you do, remember the mongols are comming

[Mr.Elendig]

Early era, I had some success with going south, taking everything I could till I hit the bottom of the map, then expand against the templars, that had anything between bagdad and the sea. When the mongols came knocking, I gave up some of the setlements in "the old land" and moved south to the rich egyptian lands instead.

[Shabby_Ronin]

can my cavalry make a decent show against the mongols you think?

[Iscariott]

can my cavalry make a decent show against the mongols you think?

Depends. Anything gulam or less will be nearly 100% ineffective. Horses get shot out from under you too quick. Above gulams its as was said by someone else a price game.

[Mr.Elendig]

Your heavy cav can, the problem is affording to fielding enough of them. You are going to take heavy losses against just one stack, not to mention 3 or more. But if you are able to choose the terrain, use hit and run, and actually fund it, you should be able to do good against them in the open field.

[Naked Emperor]

I suggest anywhere but east

[Furiøùs]

haha naked emperor..

[Fenix_120]

go down to Egypt, lots of money and their early units suck.

[Belisarus]

I think it depends a lot on difficuilty you play. based on my own experience with VH/VH level I would recommmend:

1) ally with cumans asap and go south. cumans will get into a war with russians and vikings sooner or latter. and that will consume all their power

2) realize that once Mongols appear you are the first one to be attacked. they will spawn just next to your capital. this facts make the area totally undefendable. so whatever you do you will lose you capital, nearby city an fortress south of this area (do not remember names). the first line of defence can be built on the rivecrossing on the south. to have at least some chance to slow Mongols down requires at least two full stack of your best units and 10star assasin

3) because of mongols you must have some infrastructure build before they arrive. you have three options.
a) go to the W against turks
b) go to the SW against egypt
c) go to the S against rebels around persian gulf

before you are able to attack either egypt or turks they will most probably be already involved in fighting with their neighbours so they are not able to release all their powers againts you. there is definitely a chance to defeat them (but remember you do not have much time because mongols will appear around 1220). I chose the last possibility so I first took area around persian gulf. the disadvantage of this strategy is that the cities you capture generate very little income until you build them.

I have to honestly say that on VH/VH level with south strategy you can not build enough infrastructure to finance a war with mongols. I had to add via console every turn about 1000-1500 of gold to have at least one economy buildings being built every turn. and even then I was saved by their stupid decision to go north with last two remaining stack at the moment I had no units left to defend the rivercrossing

some remarks:
- turks will never accept ceasefire after you get into a war with them while egypt will accept it (at least in my game)
- tu supply the above mentioned line of defence with units you need Baku
- mongols armies with 10star generals can move much further then your armies so once they breach through your defence on terrain bottleneck you have already lost great part of kingdom :-)
- until you get armoured spearman/persian archers/persian horse archers/kwarezmian nobleman heavy cavalry you do not have equal units to mongols. dismounted ghulams are fine but vulnerable to horse archers and heavy cavalry (those units mainly compose mongolian armies)


all in all Kwarezmians are great fun eventhough as it is designed now without cheating you will lose a great part of your empire to mongols before you are able to repel them

[tup]

I went west in the begin, straight towards Baghdad. No need to go south at first, no one grabs these from you. I could also have taken Edessa and... the fortress on the river, west of Baghdad, but I didn't. These two settlements were rebel for quite some time. But I guess it was just that game.
After Baghdad I took Basra and went east, sent another army south to get the two settlements on the peninsula... after rebel bashing that's 18 provinces I think (could have been 20 with the others), hi @ superpower. Astrakhan was also rebel for a long time and a good target, but too vulnerable. I allied with the other muslims, but not with the Cumans. Then I did like nothing.
And waited for the Mongols... I hate giving up settlements, so I fought field battles against them and my 4 stacks or so weren't enough... but I was constantly pumping reinforcements. Problem are the Mongol reinforcements, I had the initial army down to 2 stacks, then another 6 arrived... got those down to 3-4, then 6.1 arrived. But it's totally doable if you have 6 or 7 stacks and keep them together like the Mongols do. And when they end up in a line instead of a big bulk, you strike and can take them out with only facing 2 stacks.
Oh yeah, money wasn't a problem, I did like 30-40k per turn. Got into minus later one because of the expensive cavalry, but as soon as I lost some thousands in battle I made 10-15k again.

[Belisarus]

you do not play on VH/VH TUP right?

[tup]

I do.
And btw, I called a Jihad on a rebel settlement in between, for the trait and the exp. If you do it as soon as possible, maybe you can do two Jihads while rebel bashing... in my new campaign, that has yet to come, I plan on gettong good troops like Persian Spearmen and do that. Good use later on against the Mongols.
I also got the two castles west (Alamut) and east (dunno) of Rayy to Fortress with 12k and 10k pop, but stagnating and without a governour over some time... I'll try to get my high Chiv/Piety generals in one or both of these, could end up in Citadels before the Mongols arrive. And also don't forget to build Cannon Towers in Urgench and Khiva.
That's all I can think of. No auto-resolve battles, of course. The Mongols will only lose half the stack and no general, opposed to the whole stack if you fight manually.
I don't like Assassins, never use those.
In my new campaign I'll maybe also try to get the Cuman fortress to the north for further reinforcements... Alamut was only good for cavalry because of the distance.

[Belisarus]

strange. when I had 4 fullstack armies around 1225 and around 25 provinces (all cities were garrizoned by 3-6 units of spear militia) I was earning around 2000-3000 of gold per turn. I really do not understand how you could do 30K on vh/vh :-)

perhaps I did some mistake. by the way now I have whole Anatolia + part of Syria, some 35 provinces and I earn around 10K per turn. 4 full stack armies in field

[tup]

Hm I have no idea, but that's the way it was. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that it was 6.0, though I doubt it. I mostly focus on Chivalry and Piety for my generals. I think Urgench had a population of 40k and growing with 2% or so. I didn't have my merchants far off, but there are quite some very good resources around, in particular the flask thingy near Damascus and also the other stuff around there. Khwarezm resources are also good, like the ivory one. Don't mess with the other new resource... it's worth less than spices but the AI likes it, so no beef with them. There is a goldmine east of the Sinai... I got like 1000 per turn from that (5-6 skill merchant I think, but only later on, in the begin it's not so much), so look for these too, there some more around. And wine in the Georgian mountains. That's what I can think of regarding that one.
Oh yeah, of course Merchant's and 1-2 Explorer's Guilds. Only 3 Castles, west and east of Rayy and the one in the desert.
I also moved my capital to Rayy, maybe you lose much to corruption?
And yeah I didn't field 4 full stacks, I thought the Mongols would arrive at the east of Urgench, so I just had a full stack infantry at the river crossing, another full stack of Turkomans and I think some Ghulams. So nothing fancy, later on, when I got more of those good spearmen, archers, K. Nobles and heavy horsearchers... 6-7 stacks all in all, but mixed, not only those units of course, I didn't do that much profit.

[billydilly]

Great read! I think I'll put my Byz campaign on hold and start a Kwarezmian campaign :9

[Belisarus]

I do not know. I also moved my capitol to Rayy once I could afford it. Iam also on 6.0. I have as many merchants as I can have. I do not have any yellow/blue/red faces in my cities. only a green ones and almost all taxes on normal.

I had to have 2 stack on my west borders to face stupid turks. I got allied with egypt but turks were attacking everybody around their borders. luckily they did not have enough units to wage war with everybody so I slowly pushed them westwards towards Anatolie.

interesting point - the whole nothern africa (plus italy) including Egypt is now owned by Genoa - strongest faction on my map.

[Shabby_Ronin]

if i just hole up in my towns and castles will they attack them? or just wait me out and make me sally?

i feel confident i can destroy them on my walls if they tried to assault