Raiding tour!

[Kjertesvein]

Yes, a raiding tour!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

No, not that kind

I like to loot their gold, rape thir woman and eat their babies on a regular basis. Raiding from town to town across europe, cause fear among the faithful peasents.
I take note that Aberdeen is an extremly good target latly(historical). Because it got a garrison of 3 town militias, and about 12 lucrative buildings.
So after the dust hits the ground: I, and the Ugly-ass-crew and the spys, would like to move on. To jet another peaceful settlement and change that one to. Again and again. Like a Raiding cycle.
So which citys resembles the peaceful lucrative city of Aberdeen within reach of the safe haven: Sicely and Norway?


Here are some raiding tips I have learned through the years:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Starting a career as Raider is not a quick; sail-land-away.



Experience and Planning is every thing:

• Send out a smuggler boat around the coast within a reasonable range to scout ahead. Look for large citys w/low garrison(2->3 militias). Make sure your targets go at ease with the will of the holy father. Dumfreis, Aberdeen, Southhampton, Luebeck are all easy targets.
• Make sure you leave some of your sea tradeing partners alone, to support your investment. Have a couple of 1000's fl. on book, before you head out on the open sea.
• Create an elite task-force of spys: Trained in the art of... door-opener.

Recruitement- There are two kinds of raiders. Those who travel light with heavy horses. Then there are the Vikings:

• 1 big fleet(1 Dragon boat) to protect the crew.
• 1 High dread general is a requierment. Or as Aneximanes said, " ...command of a brute. Great fun".
• Raiders, Huscarls, Theigns are all-time favorites. Just make it simple and easy to retrain out in the field.
• Flooding the enemy with cavalry is quite easy. Getting tierd of it, is rather easy too.
• Many spys will give you fast travel. Make sure you have enuff.
• Spys are no insurance for long raids. Artillery is a good 2nd option. Make sure you have atleast 2 catapults for Stone walls(BB2.).
• Demanding bounty for your work is also needed. Make sure you have atleast 1 diplomat for each client/Island. As allways, the insurance company aka. the holy father demands his taxes too.
• 2-3 boats to scout and to ship resources; new crew, spys, diplomats etc from the safe haven.

Fate of the people- Nagasaki? or continue your raid-career? ...it's up to you.

• Sack the city, leave the buildings
  
  • ...If you like to visit them later.
• Occupy the city, leave the buildings
  
  • ...If you like to give it to an ally, and recive military access.
• Exterminate the city, destroy the buildings
  
  • ...If you like to leave a clear and final message to the owner.
  • ...If you like to end your raid-career, b/c of no future jobs.
• Occupy the city, destroy the buildings
  
  • ...If you like it to go rebel and a burden for the new owner.

Givng a settlement to a rich faction will make it grow faster, and let you raid it faster again.
In the end, when you experience it all, then you don't need to go home at all.

[Aneximanes]

Go for the big one, Constantinople !!

[Kjertesvein]

They got Vikings too. Lots of them!

[Kjertesvein]

BTW: Here is the How-to-be-a-Viking aka. Raiding-manual

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

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

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!!

[BamaToon]

I do this a lot. I don't like having large empires to micromanage, so I usually take 3 or 4 settlements and only hold those. After that, I will attack and conquer a settlement, sack it, sell all the buildings for cash, and then abandon the city, leaving it to its fate.

It's really fun (and EVIL!) to do this to a rival faction when you're at war. Don't take their land; just ruin their settlements and make them waste time and money rebuilding them. Or even more fun, let them rebel after destroying all buildings, and make the enemy have to retake them by force AND have to rebuild the city.

I've bankrupted many a faction doing this. Just keep doing it until they run out of money and want to sue for peace.

[Aneximanes]

Aye, it's fun stuff!

For rp reasons I always raid with viking - or baltic raiders under the command of a brute. Great fun

[Xtiaan72]

This is a great tactic during Dark Ages especially. When you are fighting on multiple fronts it's much smarter to 'cripple' one of your enemies rather than try to take and hold new territory. Sometimes I find raiding is the best option against rivals that are of a different faith as well. Those cities are a pain to hold anyway and costly!

[BamaToon]

Aye, it's fun stuff!

For rp reasons I always raid with viking - or baltic raiders under the command of a brute. Great fun

I've never played as Norway, so I've never done the Viking raider thing. I did play a game once as Sicily where my only territories were islands, and I would send raiding armies to the mainland to pillage and plunder, then retreat. I held no mainland territory and had a powerful navy, like a pirate kingdom.

The only house rule I had was that I would never destroy Catholic churches (lest I incur the wrath of the Holy Father) and would never raid fellow Catholic enemies unless they attacked me first. Rebel cities, Muslims, and Orthodox nations were fair game at any time.

[Kjertesvein]

So which citys resembles the peaceful lucrative city of Aberdeen within reach of the safe haven: Sicely and Norway?

It would be nice to know all the easy pickings; so you know where to travel. Resources is a though part in DLV

[Xtiaan72]

Everybody is easy pickings cause I'm ruthless!

[missu]

everybody is easy pickings 'cause my tactics are superior!

i'll start a norway campaign right away!

[Tokus*Maximus]

I like a secondary army of Horse coming in and sweeping behind the enemy armies and disrupting them if I'm caught short by their full stacks. I fill the stack with whatever merc horse I can muster. They help mop up a great deal and sometimes have saved my army's bacon a number of times.

Tokoid

[ivanhoex]

i am tired of lit full stacks all around my lands, and i have also to deal with the mongol horde...


time to raid them ugly fellas!

[ivanhoex]

if god wants them to fear the might of sicily, why would you negate him in his wish?

if your attack goes wrong, then god wants you to suffer, if not, its them.
and if they fail, it is probably because they did things that pissed god, so they actually deserved it.
and as god tends to forgive, they are obviously quite an abherrant group of sinners and need purification!!!

(not their people, but their rulers, so you will be freeing them from their decadent masters!)

[BamaToon]

if god wants them to fear the might of sicily, why would you negate him in his wish?

if your attack goes wrong, then god wants you to suffer, if not, its them.
and if they fail, it is probably because they did things that pissed god, so they actually deserved it.
and as god tends to forgive, they are obviously quite an abherrant group of sinners and need purification!!!

(not their people, but their rulers, so you will be freeing them from their decadent masters!)

Hmm. I never thought of it that way.

Maybe it's time to play another Pirate Sicily game...

Kill them all, and let God sort them out!

[Kjertesvein]

Here are some raiding tips I have learned through the years:Starting a career as Raider is not a quick; sail-land-away.



Experience and Planning is every thing:

• Send out a smuggler boat around the coast within a reasonable range to scout ahead. Look for large citys w/low garrison(2->3 militias). Make sure your targets go at ease with the will of the holy father. Dumfreis, Aberdeen, Southhampton, Luebeck are all easy targets.
• Make sure you leave some of your sea tradeing partners alone, to support your investment. Have a couple of 1000's fl. on book, before you head out on the open sea.
• Create an elite task-force of spys: Trained in the art of... door-opener.

Recruitement- There are two kinds of raiders. Those who travel light with heavy horses. Then there are the Vikings:

• 1 big fleet(1 Dragon boat) to protect the crew.
• 1 High dread general is a requierment. Or as Aneximanes said, " ...command of a brute. Great fun".
• Raiders, Huscarls, Theigns are all-time favorites. Just make it simple and easy to retrain out in the field.
• Flooding the enemy with cavalry is quite easy. Getting tierd of it, is rather easy too.
• Many spys will give you fast travel. Make sure you have enuff.
• Spys are no insurance for long raids. Artillery is a good 2nd option. Make sure you have atleast 2 catapults for Stone walls(BB2.).
• Demanding bounty for your work is also needed. Make sure you have atleast 1 diplomat for each client/Island. As allways, the insurance company aka. the holy father demands his taxes too.
• 2-3 boats to scout and to ship resources; new crew, spys, diplomats etc from the safe haven.

Fate of the people- Nagasaki? or continue your raid-career? ...it's up to you.

• Sack the city, leave the buildings
  
  • ...If you like to visit them later.
• Occupy the city, leave the buildings
  
  • ...If you like to give it to an ally, and recive military access.
• Exterminate the city, destroy the buildings
  
  • ...If you like to leave a clear and final message to the owner.
  • ...If you like to end your raid-career, b/c of no future jobs.
• Occupy the city, destroy the buildings
  
  • ...If you like it to go rebel and a burden for the new owner.

In the end, when you experience it all, then you don't need to go home at all.