Bit off more than I could chew

[blado]

I'm playing HRE on hard/medium. I decided to attack venice and risk excommunication because I wanted to expand, etc. But of course I got excommunicated and now denmark has decided they want to join in the fun against me now. I have no armies in the north and can't recruit many decent units at the moment because I sent all my armies against Venice. Should I make peace with one of them, or do you think I can take them both? I'll probably post a SS soon.

[delra]

They won't take more than one city (Hamburg?). Easy to win back when you finish Venice off. Just make sure they reconcile you quickly or your generals will start to rebel against your king.

[LuiSius_ScutaRuS]

With the submods included in SS6.1, it will be hard to have enough force to take them now, my suggestion will be to get professional armies and then attack, recruit as many mercenaries as possible and recruit even peasants and/or peasant archers because they are very valuable.

I'm playing with the Order of the knight templar and is hard to have big armies specially at the beginning of the game, another suggestion will be to build your economy first and then attack

[AnayaS]

Make peace with one faction at any cost!

The problem with playing with excommunicated HRE is that there's a lot of factions that can take advantage of your two front war turning it into a three or five front war within a few turns. Since you want to take settlements from Venice and the fact that the north Italian settlements are rich in both economy and defensive positions it is probably best to make peace with Denmark.

[marceror]

And let this be a lesson to you! Don't P*#s off the pope!

[blado]

I can't do anything without pissing him off. Also, if you make war with a country that isn't as favored as you are with the pope, will he still give a mission to make you stop?

[delra]

Yes. But you may risk disregarding it and attacking anyway hoping he won't have balls to excommunicate you. And it usually works.

Best way to wage wars though is to bring trebuchets, besiege and take many cities at once and defend in them against enemy counter attack until mission to stop violence expires (5 turns, 6 turns - it's nothing). This way you:

1. Take cities quickly from a surprised enemy (I admit it's cheap since AI can't plan at all) and they are usually loosely defended.

2. Have time to reorganize and retrain your force.

3. Destroy their armies in far easier defensive siege battles (also cheap since AI is too stupid to fight them properly).

4. Often make enemy counter attack you and thus cause Pope's wrath so they get excommunicated, not you - which usually means a free ride for their cities until you kill their king (so let him flee from battle when you see him, also cheap).

[blado]

Is there a good way to get reconciled after your excomunicated?

[delra]

You get reconciled when the Pope dies or your king dies.
You can kill the Pope (attack Rome) or make your king die (alone charge at pikes? attacking a bigger pirate fleet?).

You can also go to Rome with your diplomat and give them a few thousand bucks for reconciling you.

[Royalark14]

Will you generals rebel against you when you get excomed? Just had that, all it seems to have done is given my king the "excommunicated? HA!" trait and all my other generals the trait "Dislikes the Papacy" or "Hates the Papacy."

[delra]

Possibly. If you leave them in cities. That's why when I do my famous Norwegian Blitz (Hamburg -> Arhus -> Nottingham) I always take all generals with my king and they usually all are on a boat too, rather than in a city.