Tips on Raiding

[Exarch]

Let me make one thing perfectly clear: a raid is not about taking and holding a region.
a raid is

1.a sudden assault or attack, as upon something to be seized or suppressed: a police raid on a gambling ring. 2.Military. a sudden attack on the enemy, as by air or by a small land force.3.a vigorous, large-scale effort to lure away a competitor's employees, members, etc

source: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/raid


1) make sure your borders are secure-you dont want to be caught with your pants down with your armies half the world away. so you'll want to be conducting your raids in the middle game when you can train decent militia for the free upkeep and settlements and sackings will give decent $$$-like 20-30k from a good sacking.

2) Picking the right man for the job: you want someone with movement bouses in their stats, definately not 'Lazy' or 'too comfortable'.
good stats include 'overseer' and 'fast horse' and 'sacker of cities'etc preferably with command stars and is reasonably young-16-30 should do it and preferably unmarried.
you dont want to leave any widows behind

3) Select troops: armoured cavalry is best supplemented by heavy infantry or spearmen. the whole point of raiding is $$$ and loot so make sure the expenses of maintainin your raiding forces dont engulf your sacking intakes.
mounted archers are also good for hunting down lone generals whilst on raids-you know those 'armies' the AI has around with only one general and a unit of catapaults....

4) Select agents: you'll be journeying deep into enemy territory so it's good to have some spies and merchants along for the ride.
spies to open city gates (remember fast as lightning like the lightning lord beric dondarrion) and merchants to exploit the highly profitable goods.
eg raiding alexandria and cairo (both of which tend to be lightly garissoned) from italy or england/france which brings us to...

5) select targets:
the whole point of raiding is to deny the enemy the resources and the means by which to conduct warfare against you.
in other words, economic warfare, so dont go trying to 'raid' a full stack citadel-too time consuming and too costly.
you want to unchivalrously target weakly defended cities and economic hubs.


the second reason i find useful for raiding is to divert the enemy away from key territories-like on my border.
as the HRE, i had the hungarians (scum) attackign my eastern border almost all the time (the poles being no more since i assassinated their whole royal family) so i loaded up my valiant prince with his 6 command stars and loyal retinue of teutonic and imperial knights and seargeants and raided all along the black sea coast.
It was good, it diverted most of the full stacks away from my settlements cuz they had to recapture their capital. that brings me to...

6) Vae Victus: now that you've taken a settlement immediately sack it or exterminate it. why would you just want to leave the population be? 'em. you travelled all this way to get the most bang out of your buck so squeeze as much $$ as u can fromthe enemy treasury.
then destroy every single building in the settlement and GTFO of there, back on your raiding ship and move onto the next target. you want to cripple the enemy economically and this is the best way to do it.
a good raid can set a faction back 20 turns or so leaving you ahead in the arms race.

Alternatively, you can not exterminate or sack the settlement if it's a huge city, but rather, destroy every single building in the city to lower public order and recoup the cash then piss off and allow the settlement to rebel.... when the enemy comes back to take the settlement he wont find your forces there, he'll find a rebel city with a sizeable rebel garrison leaving him bleeding his resources trying to take back a key moneymaking city while you sail away with your booty, florins and his daughters

7) know when to stop.
a raid is not a suicide mission and by now your general should've gotten many command stars and high loyalty for the attention the arrow in the sky is paying him.
bring him home, bring the men home.
you dont want to pull a dubya d'ye?

Share your tips on raiding!!

[Reynolds]

Good Cities to Raid:


Vienna

Antioch

Novgorod

London

Edinburgh

Paris

Marseille

Any Italian City

Jerusalem

CONSTANTINOPLE (srsly you can make over 30,000 if its well developed)

Edit: Sorry forgot to mention that the OP's tips are really good , ta mate

[Dauntless Commandant]

You forgot Rome! - The greatest thrill is slyly invading Rome with 3 full stacks of units and crucifying the Pope!

[Exarch]

Good Cities to Raid:


Vienna

Antioch

Novgorod

London

Edinburgh

Paris

Marseille

Any Italian City

Jerusalem

CONSTANTINOPLE (srsly you can make over 30,000 if its well developed)

Edit: Sorry forgot to mention that the OP's tips are really good , ta mate

thanks dood
it was a pleasure 'researching' for this thread

@dauntless commander
how secure are your borders?
ready to take on half of crusading europe when u raid rome?

i'll go one better, take rome (and the whole italian peninsula if you're not too far ) then after you've raied a place like antioch, gift it to the pope so he can be the mongol/timurid buffer

[Reynolds]

I would like to contribute once more if i may:

It is handy to include at least one peice of artillery, even just a single lowly catapult or ballista so that you can assault a settlement in the same turn that you begin to seige it.

This brings a few benefits:

It allows you to "raid" more realistically as you can take a settlement, sack it destroy all buildings and leave before any kind of retaliation can be formed. If done from a boat you can literally be gone before the enemy knows what hit them, in keeping with Viking tradition. For example as Denmark you could organise a raid and sack London, Edinburgh, and York in one turn and then get back on the boats and leave in the same turn.

BTW: if you plan on sacking a settlement repeatedly or maybe occupying it later on, do NOT destroy all the buildings and definitely do not exterminate, unless of course it is already a Citadel or Huge City

Lastly when destroying buildings it would be advisable to leave the Guilds and Churches alone, but obviously you don't have to

Happy Hunting

[Exarch]

good stuff
also, sacking a settlement via use of spies rather than trebuchets makes it all the more harder for the enemy to take back the settlement, especially if it's gone rebel (typically large or huge cities that rebel have a sizeable full stack garrison)

[gr33kp1mp777]

what are good factions in Stainless Steel 6.1 (newest) to use for raiding the major cities of the map repeatedly?

I like to have a single city state and raid randomly across the map whats good for it?

[Commander5xl]

Hmm, so how do you recommend a very quick raid, cont siege it just assault it with artillery and break down the walls? also if your planning on raiding alot more people how would you reduce the casualties

[Reynolds]

Reduce the casualties by only attacking poorly defended settlements or by making specialised raiding armies that consist entirely of heavy infantry and 1 artillery peice and 1 general with the night fighter trait, provided you never attack a settlment that has more than 6 or 7 units you will never lose the units as arrows wont kill enough of your infantry and you will simply overwhelm their cavalry and infantry

However the loot from a developed coastal city like Marseille would most likely cover the cost of retraining said army or even training a new stack or two

[Commander5xl]

Is there a trick on how to get your generals to become night fighters?

[Reynolds]

As far as im aware no because most traits are gained by doing said action for example you become a merciless mauler by mercilessly mauling your enemy, but you can't fight at night to gain the night fighter trait if ya get me? However it is relatively common from my own experience, and you probably only need 1 general with the trait

Try getting lots of Man of the Hours with the same army but only accept the captain as a general if he has the night fighter trait

[Exarch]

if your general has like 4 command stars he should get the night fighter trait and then if he continues fighting at night he gets the 'likes the dark' trait which gives him more command stars at nights.

i prefer raiding large settlements to make it worth my while; Egypt's Alexandria and Cairo and highly developed cities and tend to be lightly defended, and they're far away enough (assuming ur a western faction) that you need not fear retribution.

you can even raid constantinople in one turn and gift it to the pope to start a papal-byzantine war thereby weakening 2 rival factions.

EDIT: i want to alos emphasize that the reverse applies to the muslim factions raiding catholic factions; in fact islamic horse archers are excellent for assassinating lone generals

[eregost]

I'd say its better to take a bunch of spies rather than siege equipment. A raiding force has to be small and move quickly and siege equipment would only slow you down. Plus spies can scout ahead to allow you to bybass any defensive armies more easily as well as providing extra LOS to your army and allowing the commanding general to earn traits related to that as well.

[Fremen Jones]

I'd say its better to take a bunch of spies rather than siege equipment. A raiding force has to be small and move quickly and siege equipment would only slow you down. Plus spies can scout ahead to allow you to bybass any defensive armies more easily as well as providing extra LOS to your army and allowing the commanding general to earn traits related to that as well.

Why should that be small?

I'd advice to raise with a bigger army than a smaller army because of the risk that you might get stuck at a place, you get ambushed or you just didn't saw a enemy full stack army near, ..
At least you can use your 'small elite force' assisted by cheaper (militia perhaps) units.
For example if you were about to use 7 heavy infantry, 1 general & 2 heavy cavalry you can fill it up with 10 spear militia (or something like that).

And why 'better' spies?

Spies are a good idea when you have enough spies to GARANTY that you will be able to siege the city the same turn (chance for succes 100%) + that you really want to attack more cities in the same turn ..
I think you should just do what you like. For myself I would have more fun attacking 1 city in 1 turn with siege equipment rather than doing it the easy (spy) way.

[Exarch]

Why should that be small?

I'd advice to raise with a bigger army than a smaller army because of the risk that you might get stuck at a place, you get ambushed or you just didn't saw a enemy full stack army near, ..
At least you can use your 'small elite force' assisted by cheaper (militia perhaps) units.
For example if you were about to use 7 heavy infantry, 1 general & 2 heavy cavalry you can fill it up with 10 spear militia (or something like that).

And why 'better' spies?

Spies are a good idea when you have enough spies to GARANTY that you will be able to siege the city the same turn (chance for succes 100%) + that you really want to attack more cities in the same turn ..
I think you should just do what you like. For myself I would have more fun attacking 1 city in 1 turn with siege equipment rather than doing it the easy (spy) way.

yes, but remember you want to strike hard and fast;
trebuchets and siege engines will slow you down, not to mention havign to wait multiple turns to build siege machines during which time, the enemy will have sent an army to relieve the siege.

i like having a few spies around to scout out the area and even 2 spies who've been in the region for some time can open the doors to a rich city if they're in the same city.

[Bluecheer]

Hello this has been very helpful, Because I''m a newbie to this game and finding new things to do just make this game funner and funner,
any way heres for my question i was wondering is it Bad to do it early on in the game, such as turn 50 And lower, or even yet turn 25 and lower?

[Kayslay]

Does "sacking" destroy any buildings?

[Mithrane]

Does "sacking" destroy any buildings?

That is exactly what "sacking" means, to destroy something in an aggressive fashion, often an attack.

Sacking will destroy a large portion of the city / castle's buildings and a small portion of the populace. The total amount of buildings destroyed and populace killed is used to calculate the total moneys gained from sacking.

[Exarch]

Hello this has been very helpful, Because I''m a newbie to this game and finding new things to do just make this game funner and funner,
any way heres for my question i was wondering is it Bad to do it early on in the game, such as turn 50 And lower, or even yet turn 25 and lower?

i'd say it's very bad to do it early in the game-unless you're playing a migration/ horde game and badly need the $$$ for upkeep;
and that's the key word-army upkeep
a raiding force-a decent raiding force-i'm thinking feudal knights, heavy infantry, spearmen for city walls and city streets-will set you back probably ~10k a turn or so, per army.

wait until mid game so about turn 30 when most ciites are already large sized or huge sized to sack-then it's worth the while and wait.
a decent sacking of say, constantinople will net you ~28,000 if not more, florins.
also, by about midgame you can keep a few spies on the payroll to open city gates...

[Fremen Jones]

yes, but remember you want to strike hard and fast;
trebuchets and siege engines will slow you down, not to mention havign to wait multiple turns to build siege machines during which time, the enemy will have sent an army to relieve the siege.

i like having a few spies around to scout out the area and even 2 spies who've been in the region for some time can open the doors to a rich city if they're in the same city.

The amount of units in your army has no impact in the speed of your army ..