Struggling with Georgia

[Caledonian Rhyfelwyr]

First of all can I say this is an amazing mod, the units look absolutedly beautiful.

My first campaign with the Ayyubids went well, took the Levant and defeated Makuria, but never chased the Crusaders to their new stronghold of Baghdad. I didn't really find it very difficult, though it was extremely fun nonetheless.

But having played as Georgia, I am really struggling. I consolidated the lands around me and as far south as the two Kurdish provinces above Edessa. All was well, I was allied with the ERE, Armenia, and the Abbasids. One province of the Turkish Sultanate got cut off by Armenia taking Sivas, so I besieged and thought great, now I start making headway against the real factions. But then the next turn 3 Kypchak armies storm out the mountain passes, besieging Tblisi and the settlement to the right straight away. Tblisi is taken, but I save the other place. But then they besiege Kutaisi, which I lose. Meanwhile, the Shamkela place or whatever its called (east of Yerevan) rebels, with some of those unbeatable Agulani horsemen. Eventually, I get the Kypchaks out my land by about 1203 AD and fortify the mountain passes. And just when I think I am safe, I realise the Khwarezmids have taken all the Seljuk lands except Tabriz, and have about six full stacks bordering my lands. So now they are besieging my eastern provinces and I don't think I can match them. I can only afford to maintain two full stacks. One is good with some Dismounted Monaspa Archers and a couple of Monaspa lancers I started with, but the other is made mostly of Kypchak mercs with some Khevsur Swordsmen (love those guys) for a backbone.

I've never found a campaign so difficult before. I actually think I might lose if I can't stop the Khwarezmids!

Any tips? Should it be this dificult? I've won with every faction in vanilla, even the Rebels...

[anaztazioch]

You play as Georgia, you have weak economy and strong enemies (Kypchak, ERE, Seljuks) and as game progresses you get even more.
You cannot play expanding south too much. Erzum and maybe Van are your southmost cities, forget about Azerbeijan cities. Get Ani and a weak city west to Kutaisi and you will rule Caucas (reutine giving authority. Higher authority, less corruption and settlements rebelling, armies betraing).
Having those cities you MUST take 1 Steppe settlement (best is the one directly above Tbilisi) to prevent Kypchaks from uniting steppes and gaining strong new unit stacks.

Having secured and enough lands, develop Ani to a trading center, and move your capitol there (the more trade buildings your capitol has, the more money your merchants make). Sugar, Slaves, Silk, Cotton are your targeted resaources (silk is best when you move to Ani).
Dont expand for a bit, develop some HA and atleast have Yerevan a good recruiting place (concentrate on infantry - thats the Georgia strength, use weak cavalry to defend your infantry from enemy shock cavalry).
Once you get some good erevan building disband costly starting units (You need money more than high tier units that will eigther dont be used becosue you will want to save them, or they die from as strong enemy units).

Right no as you play i dont see what you can do to survive aside strugle with whatever you have.

[Son of Mao]

lol I thought this thread was going to be about the war.

[kepper]

Don´t join pleasure it War

[kasrkin]

A bit Cold wasn't it?.Well if we're asking for advice, I can't make any headway with Armenia whatsoever, I conquer The usual two settlements, but I'm kinda afraid of doing south into Syria, Whenever I play Armenia and go south Antioch gets taken from me maybe four or five turns after I've had it, I think they wait till I have a port and then take it.

Anyways anyone got any pointers?

[the_mango55]

You have great and fairly cheap mercenaries available right in your heartland, make use of them as much as possible.

You also have really good foot archers, make these a big part of your army.

[anaztazioch]

foot archers dont do much good vs good armor of Khwarezm shah cavs.

[delra]

Do yourself an early favour and buy Trebizond from Byzantine for starting cash, alliance, map and trade rights. Reload and add some tribute if they aren't feeling your offer is good enough. It will reorient their whole geopolitics to another part of the map and they won't be your competitor at all for most of the game.

[Fenix_120]

My advice would be to watch out for the Kyphacks, as once they "Unite the clans" you are almost guaranteed to be attacked.

[anaztazioch]

Get one Steppe city north of Tbilisi. With starting stacks it shoudlnt be a problem. It saves you from Kypchak uniting, and practicly Kypchak thread is nullified.

[delra]

Having this city DOESNT save you from Kypchaks uniting... Guys, please go and check before you write something.

[zznɟ ǝɥʇ]

You live in the mountains, use them to your advantage. Before you expand far outward or attack any neighbors build a defensible kingdom.

I started up a Georgian campaign recently and I'm very keen on the chokepoints--if you can afford a fort in every pass with only one or two units it really slows the HAs down and you can kill them much easier.

I took Yerevan and the settlement bordering the Caspian first, now I'm moving to fill out the spaces in between.

[NoFrag]

Talking about that war... isn't it over now? I think I heard the negociations led by the French President Nicolas Sarkozy lead to a cease-fire from both side. But after the horrible rout of the Georgian army I guess we can say russia won eh =S.

How did that conflict started anyway? Why would Russia mess with a small country like that?

[the_mango55]

uhhh, wrong thread maybe?

[NoFrag]

uhhh, wrong thread maybe?

nah I'm making a reference to the 2nd post ^^. I think I should've quoted it to avoid confusion. I don't want to hyjack the thread, a short response would be enought hehe. Because we all know that admins are better than china at censorship =P (aka CLOSED !!) when it comes to politics.

[Ahiga]

Maybe he had a Jerusalem diplomat or king named Sarkozy.

But yeah, no politiking in BC.

[delra]

Which is a very good idea BTW.

[iksterminator]

Why are you suprized, it's a very correct way the game develops. Georgia was always a fighting nation with good units, but with poor resources and huge hordes of enemies.
This is going on for centuries now, even today we have the same situation, so play the game, imagine yourself ruler of Georgia (don't mean Saakashvili of course) unite Georgia, receive good authority and thus low corruption, wait untill northern steppes are unified and then prepare for fierce defence against those northern invaders (don't mean Russians of course), don't forget to fortify and block mountain passes (don't mean Roki tunnel ), because last time I forgot, countless hordes invaded and needed all my allies to fight back, but as it appears TW alliances only work when your armies are standing togather, but no other support (don't mean USA for sure ).
So play as Georgia and recreate or change the history, medieval or recent, as you like!

[NoFrag]

Why are you suprized, it's a very correct way the game develops. Georgia was always a fighting nation with good units, but with poor resources and huge hordes of enemies.
This is going on for centuries now, even today we have the same situation, so play the game, imagine yourself ruler of Georgia (don't mean Saakashvili of course) unite Georgia, receive good authority and thus low corruption, wait untill northern steppes are unified and then prepare for fierce defence against those northern invaders (don't mean Russians of course), don't forget to fortify and block mountain passes (don't mean Roki tunnel ), because last time I forgot, countless hordes invaded and needed all my allies to fight back, but as it appears TW alliances only work when your armies are standing togather, but no other support (don't mean USA for sure ).
So play as Georgia and recreate or change the history, medieval or recent, as you like!

Aren't you the ones that started this conflict by invading ossitia? The truth is that the complexities involved are significant. Mikheil Saakashvili’s downright stupidity made it go wrong.

But the moral of this tragic little story is that if you are going to kick sand in the face of someone several times bigger and more powerful than you, then you had better have persuasive muscle and a pretty good strategic plan to back you up.
President Saakashvili, it appears, had neither.



And I'm quoting only a few of the dozen international journals, news network and blogs I've read in the past few days.

[iksterminator]

Aren't you the ones that started this conflict by invading ossitia? The truth is that the complexities involved are significant. Mikheil Saakashvili’s downright stupidity made it go wrong.

But the moral of this tragic little story is that if you are going to kick sand in the face of someone several times bigger and more powerful than you, then you had better have persuasive muscle and a pretty good strategic plan to back you up.
President Saakashvili, it appears, had neither.



And I'm quoting only a few of the dozen international journals, news network and blogs I've read in the past few days.

Let's finish your limited knowledge about the issue here. There is the biggest ever thread on Political Mudpit (look part 7 for more info), so I think it's inapropriate to discuss political side here, but if you read a bit more you will find more new staff about that conflict and will find out that insulted Georgians by your last statement.
But I have no complaints, as you didn't know.
As I mentioned, here is no place for politics, let's just have fun, I'm sick and extremely, very tired of war, may god save you from it.
I agree that Georgia is tough to play, so it's a challenge, the best game is the one with challenge. Usually what I do is harden the game artificially. For example, in vanilla I choose scotland and go on crusade in holy land, resettle there and fight off egypt, turks, mongol hordes and timurid hordes.
In BC, I simply choose Georgia.