Kiev'n Rus on VH/VH

[trojanuke]

Greetings,

I'm getting frustrated playing Kiev'n Rus on VH. I haven't tried to play on hard cuz it's usually too easy. Has anyone noticed that neighbouring factions grow abnormally faster then Kiev even if they have less provinces? In my extensive experience in campaigns I've found fool proof strategies, however in this campaign by the time you grow asap to build a decent sized army to invade a neighbour (all surrounding rebels taken by now) that neighbour ( and all neighbours) are militarily and financially 3 times as powerful as you making the continued push into enemy lands really hard. By 1150 not a single wooden castle has even grown enough to build a "castle", and farms where the first thing i built in them.

Is this just me or is this campaign accually unbalanced. Patch or suggestions?

[Iustinianos]

I played the Kievan Rus campaign as well on vh/vh, 6.1. What I did was grab as many rebel settlements as I could, allied with Novgorod and Poland as they where most likely to invade my country. By the time I was done conquering rebel settlements I noticed that the Cumans where also expanding like a beast. I knew I needed to get more settlements for the money. So I attacked them though it's really hard to blitz the Cumans I managed to besiege four settlements at once. Two turns later I had taken four of their settlements which gave me more money to finance more units and advanced into their other territories.

The annoying thing about fighting on the steppes is 1. the low finances and 2. the long distances, however this also gives you the advantage that the enemy has the same disadvantage as you do. That means that with some proper use of spies you can take their settlements pretty fast. Just don't rush into a war unprepared.

And as for the castle's: in 1125 Smolensk was my first castle, make sure you put a general in there to increase the population faster. Also between 1131 and 1134 I conquered the castles: Bulgar, Ryazan, Yelabuga from the Cumans. The enemy settlements always seem to grow a lot faster then your own, so the best options to get castles would be to either take the ones owned by the enemy or put a general in there to increase the population.

So I don't think the game is unbalanced, playing as the Kievan Rust just needs a lot of patience and a lot of micro-managing

[Blakdust]

Im playing Kiev'n Rus on VH/VH
but 1st turn I moved all my troops through the TO's land then hired
a merc ship an sailed to London took the city an gave all my other provinces to England free of charge an I can tell you theres alot more action an fun there than in there normal territory, its hard to convert an I have stacks coming for me at every angle but im having a ball

[trojanuke]

mulitiple settlements at once sounds really smart thanks, I've done things similar before but never 4 at once. I've hounestly never played a fgaction like this where you have to take so many chances just to get a reasonable foothold. thanks again