England - Brittania campaign strategy

[Arcinatus]

ok well i have had a ton of fun playing as the other Brittania powers, and have turned my sights on the english...

MY GOD THEY START WITH ALOT OF STUFF

i'm sort of confused on what to focus on in the beginning of the campaign...

the cities in ireland are basically impossible to hold due to very low public order and limited reinforcements..

so, my questions are..

how to make sure my economy stays healthy
which faction should i neutralize first? (looking at wales)
how do i keep the irish from uniting their island completly?

o and is there any way to keep the baron's alliance from gaining power or is inevitable?

thanks in advance

[Monsieur Alphonse]

Abandon Ireland and use those forces to attack Wales in the back. You don't have to train a lot of troops in the beginning because you have plenty of them. Move your capital north to a centralized location. Once wales is back under English rule as it should , attack either Ireland or Scotland.

[Insurgent]

Abandon Ireland and use those forces to attack Wales in the back. You don't have to train a lot of troops in the beginning because you have plenty of them. Move your capital north to a centralized location. Once wales is back under English rule as it should , attack either Ireland or Scotland.

Back under English rule? They should be back under our rule!

But yeah, you should stay neutral to the Scots (they are busy fighting Norway usually) and build up armies on the English border to beat the Welsh. If you are playing with the 1.5 official patch, try and kill Llywelyn at Montgomery just in case the Welsh capture one of your settlements and gain reinforcements.

Rebellion is coming on Ireland. Lower Dublin's tax rate and shift your capital closer to increase PO. You may want to increase troop numbers at Ireland to hold off the Irish, then once you defeat the Welsh, send troops to help conquer Ireland from Wales. Beware of the Irish assassins!

When you get the option send Edward on crusade. He should come back later on; when he does build armies in the north, and send him and some other armies up into Scotland to attempt to conquer the Scots/Norwegians. And don't forget to assault the isle of Man.

[Silent Assassin]

In would go for Ireland first as you will have only one enemy, the Irish, consolidate your empire there and then take out the other factions.

If you don;t do that you will have The Baron's alliance, Norway and Scotland on your head.

That is only my opinion but do as you wish my friend

[NobleNick]

Moving this to Strategies & Battle Planning.

[Arcinatus]

ok, so what i'm thinking here...

just abandon ireland all together, and bring my forces home so i can help fight the welsh. then once i'm done with that, i can strengthen my nothern border against scotland an then invade ireland once again.

or instead of taking over wales, get a ceasfire / possibly an alliance with them, then invade scotland.

your thoughts?

[WarriorMusician]

The approach I took with England was to demolish every building in Ireland and use that money to construct roads in every settlement on the main island. I created one full stack army in Ireland with the best of the units in that part of the map and disbanded all of the rest. I then sailed them to Wales. Meanwhile I assembled 2 full stack armies in England with the units I already had and moved them to the English/Welsh border. I don't remember the settlement names right now, but I positioned both my eastern and western (army from Ireland) forces to attack the Welsh King and heir in the same turn. The King is usually in the area of the Welsh capital and his heir is in their northern castle. The important thing is to make sure to kill each royal in battle and in one turn. You'll have the Welsh faction destroyed in the first 3 or 4 turns and be free to continue improving your economy and building up your army. From there you can turn in whatever direction you want without fear of any serious threats to your own territory. I never had the barons' alliance appear because of high public order in all of my territories. Good luck!

[hull19]

Personnaly, I abandon Ireland. I attack Wales from both sides. After, i build my forces and attack Ireland like WarriorMusician. Later, I destroy Scotland and the Normands. Be careful to keep public order high, or you WILL get crap!

[BulSoldier]

I didnt abondon Ireland but just stayed in the cities . Ofcoure first under the sword was wales.But before i attacked them i strethen my economy(roads, farms and harbors). It wasnt hard to crush Wales since they usually have considrably smaller army than England.I managed however to styay neutral to both norway and scotland (with short wars sometime).Inevitable without reinforcements however every irish town fell ( but one of the cities holded more than 10 sieges).By that time you should have very good income and should be able to sustain large armies and fleets.At that point I destroyed every enemy ship (norway and if anyone has any) and blockeded every port. This is good since now noone can attack you behind the lines and making beachlandings somewhere you dont have enough forces.
Then i began conquering the towns on the islands. THen you just continue with systematic conquering of every town in the main island.I never finished this campaning but after you get 3/4 of the main island it wont be hard beating the remaining forces.

[Callawyn]

1) Never abandon Ireland, its WAY too easy to conquer. Once its conquered, it never gets invaded, so you can minimize your garrison, keep 1 general and a few horse to kill the occassional rebel. Its a cash cow. I send 1 boat with a few of my starting units and a general, build whatever I can in Ireland, and set about conquering the place. The Irish are weak and divided, and the AI is stupid.

2) Your main problem at game start is that your army maintenance is way too high compared to your income. Disband a few cogs, but keep one or two to use as ferries. THERE IS NO NEED TO DISBAND ANYTHING ELSE. You have more cavalry than you really need, so make use of the fact that Forts provide free garrison for 2 units. Store up some of your best cav units while the crappy ones are fighting your early battles, then bring them out of the forts as reinforcements as needed. Rush all your troops to the Welsh border, form strong armies and conquer Wales. Be prepared for the fact that each region you take will spawn a fresh army of Welsh (scripted in campaign) as a free reinforcement. Once you own Ireland and Wales, dealing with the Barons and the Scots is cake.

3) You start the game with way more castles than you need. Nottingham, Lancaster, 1 castle in Ireland and, eventually, Stirling Castle is all you'll need. Convert the rest to cities to help your economy (sell ranges/stables and lvl 1 barracks before they fully convert).

4) Don't neglect your economy. You can make significant income from Merchants, make sure every region other than the castles listed above is adding to your max merchant pool. If the AI is silly enough to move any merchants into your territory, Acquire them (Kingdoms makes it much easier to Acquire in friendly regions than in rebel/enemy ones).

[Callawyn]

bleh, double post

[Leckan]

The time I played as the english I stayed in Ireland, though I couldnt do anything but defend on the other fronts I eventually won in Ireland (though it was expensive) and I had a lot of insurgents in my towns ofc! But eventually if you get Ireland you got a safe haven there, since noone is going to attack Ireland, so you can just grab your troops and get out of there and just make a of money from that place Just defend the forts next to wales, and the 1 fort which is at Scotland. Also build ROADS, you should build all roads the first round no matter what the cost, then transport your units to all fronts so they can go and die there and possible give you a settlement You got a lot of spare troops in southeastern england which you can move to Wales and actually take a settlement or two with.

[OdinX]

Well first I'd attack Wales, get them out of the way and just concentrate on the mainland. Ireland is pretty much a lost cause; the best thing I can say is keep the General, Maurice Fitzgerald (I think), in Dublin to prevent the Baron's Alliance from happening, lower all your taxes over in Ireland, and the ditch the settlement in the north since there will be a hoard of Irish ready to attack the settlement. Evacuate your forts and send them all to the castle by Dublin or in Dublin itself, or even better, divide them evenly. After that you should generally be ok.

The first thing to take care of first is your economy by increasing trade, creating markets, wharfs, and ports, improving roads and such, after that concentrate on the offensive. If you neglect your economy, you'll be in the red REAL soon.

[Viking Prince Olaf]

Like OdinX has explained Ireland is A lost cause and I hate to even suggest this but you need to evacuate EVERYONE and ship them over to the mainland to take it back from Scottland and Norway. You can wait for Whales they are not A threat to you right now.Move your capital to A center location like Lancaster to keep from rebeling. If your going to raise A large enough army to take back the mainland you will need to link everywhere with roads to get to the north quicker. Trade is pointless in the central mainland so turn to the southern coast for your income.
Once you've gotten all the chaos you start out with, Attack Whales from both sides and dostroy them in atleast less then 3 turns or it will get ugly.
Scottland is easy to take with 3 full stacks (atleast 3,000 men.) The thing about Norway is you have to kill them before the king arrives. The
secret power about Norway is their islands. Once you take away their islands their left with Wick and after you take Wick you have A castle
to attack Scottland from the north now making them split their forces in half. After you take the mainland you'll be making over 50k easy.
So follow these very simple tasks and taking Ireland will be the easiest thing. O yea and just avoid the Barons alliance.

[damn u obama]

yea Ireland's done for

[damn u obama]

ireland wants you out of their island

[i liek kake]

dont attack scots too soon, cuz they like u

[i liek kake]

kill wales then ireland ten scotland then norway

[i liek kake]

oops forgot about barons alliance, take em out along with wales

[damn u obama]

can you even destroy the barons alliance?