Playing the Scots Early Era - Getting Annoying

[kannwar]

Hi All,

I am currently playing as the Scots in the early era campaign on Very Hard/Hard. I am finding myself annoyed at the fact that all the other factions have very modern soldiers while i am struggling to field any decent infantry. The only reason i am able to field any feudal units is because of fortresses i have captured from the French. Every victory is now a heroic victory because the only way for me to crush an enemy army is to pin them down with pikes (the only decent infantry Scotland gets in any real numbers) and try to smash them with cavalry charges. This is hard to do when the enemy has cavalry cover (especially because their cavalry is so much better than mine) and no the pikes don't help because the horses simply stay away from them. And when i say pikes, i mean Scots Pike Militia. My cities cannot produce enough of the heavy variety to make a difference.

Then there is the little issue with castles in this game never being ready for upgrade. Why was this done? I have had Nottingham castle since nearly turn 11. It is now past turn 100 and the blasted thing is still not ready for upgrade. And yet the AI factions all have a godly number of fortresses and are able to churn out tonnes of high-powered units to throw at me. I am feeling a bit helpless here. It also doesn't help that my faction has a Deceitful reputation so no one will deal with me. It think i deserve this to be honest but could someone tell me what factors affect reputation so i can keep it in mind next time?

Apart from that any advice would be good. It is getting worrisome when defeating a half stack of Danish infantry is considered a Heroic Victory.

[meese]

Weird...I never got that problem and I played the same - Scotland, VH/VH, Early Era. I'm assuming you've taken over all of England and Ireland in which case I can say what I did was turn everything but Winchester and Nottingham into cities to provide really really good income, even on low taxation everywhere. I actually didn't go to war with France then (because, as you said, they field really quite strong units) and instead went down to fight the former Moors and now something I don't know what they're called I remember I bought Rennes, Toulouse and that other castle next to Toulouse off the French so I could have a kind of forward base.

I don't think Scotland has bad infantry - they do get dismounted feudal knights, and later noble swordsmen which are really good. Their pikes are exceptional against any melee + cavalry and you can always use mercenary longbowmen to combat any archers thrown at you (or just border horses which are good). And the fact that your cities aren't producing enough heavy pike militia just means either you're still too early in the campaign to rely on them completely (in which case either wait or just keep with spear militia which are definitely not bad) or you just don't have enough cities. I always found Scotland was very militia based in that their castle units just take too long to replenish (using RR/RC) and their strength is in pikes anyway, which are predominantly militia. That's why I made so many of my castles, cities. That said, Scotland does seem to have a somewhat weak roster apart from their pikes, but their pikes really do make up for it Especially when you have Highland Nobles flanking/highlanders flanking with axes and dying, but killing the silly armoured enemies.

As for diplomacy, I think you must've mucked it up early on I got a good number of alliances with France, Genoa and Denmark which meant killing of England was easy, Genoa expanded into Spain and helped out there, and Denmark helped against Norway. Reputation..I think using spies/assassins/maybe even bribing worsens it...apparently exterminating population/prisoners as well, and breaking alliances I think.

And yes, I remember when I was fighting Norway, I had 2000 against their 1000, and screen said it was even Ah well, I guess Scotland was just doomed to outnumber them with sharp pointy sticks.

[Staffen]

Hi! As a tactic, catch-with-infantry-and-crush-with-cavalry is pretty solid. I think the problems you're having are caused by your available units not being up to par, the second point of your post.

So, both problems can probably be solved if you gain access to bigger cities and castles. The best way to increase pop growth is to a) lower taxes and b) put high chivalry governors in the settlements you want to develop. Governors in settlements with low taxes gain additional chivalry points, so these two actions have a nice synergy to them.

Putting a general / governor with 4-5 chivalry in a castle can increase pop growth from 0,5% to 3 - 4% instantly.

If you do that from the very beginning, the Scottish units will be up to par until gunpowder units start showing up on the field. Heavy pikes, DFK's, decent (and later with Scots Guard even very good) archers, they've got the works. If you feel you're lacking quality cavalry, adopt more generals and use those.

Also, you should be the supreme lord and master of England, Scotland and Ireland at some point, as well as a decent chunk of Scandinavia, ensuring you of income from relatively if not completely safe cities.

So, try the chivalrous governor thingy, see if it works.

[kannwar]

Thanks both of you for the info. I didn't know having 4-5 chivalry generals increased population so much! Will definitely have to use that as it seems the growth of castles is slower by default in this mod.

I know where i messed up the diplomacy. I started a war with England very early on and i executed prisoners a few too many times as i didn't want to prolong the war by giving the prisoners (in many cases a significant number) right back into enemy hands. However in retrospect i may have had less trouble right now had i stuck to releasing and/or ransoming (which i read has no effect as it is a neutral action). I also managed to get myself excommunicated several times by not listening to those annoying ceasefire missions from the pope. Meese, could you tell me how you conducted your war against England in terms of keeping the pope happy and dealing with captured prisoners as well as any other detail i am missing? I think i had England conquered by the 15th turn but it caused heaps of problems for me later.

Currently i am supreme lord of England, Ireland and most of France. I decided not to migrate to Scandinavia simply because i do not really enjoy fighting there. The last time i launched a campaign in that part of the map it took many frustrating woodland battles of being ambushed and hardly being able to see what is going on so i have tried to stay away from that area. Once i have finished off France i think i am going to invade and conquer Spain because they kindly beached a force near Exeter and attacked. Needless to say they were slaughtered but they need to be dealt with. Any advice for dealing with their factions units in particular? I know they probably have a lot of missile cavalry which could be problematic for my pikes.

Also, does anyone know how the AI decide where to attack after a sea invasion of England? Earlier in the game, the Danes invaded twice and both times went to attack London. The Norwegians went for Nottingham instead. Do these different factions have favorite settlements on Britannia or something? Is it also possible that they won't invade Britannia anymore now that i have a strong presence in Europe? All invasions into Britannia seem to have ceased.

Thankyou all for your help!

[meese]

I guess I was lucky in that they were excommunicated so the pope was no problem for me I can say that I was able to buy Nottingham off them for about 150000 from memory (while they were neutral) and I waited until they went to war with the French and had sent most of their armies off-shore to attack and didn't lose many units (therefore, lost less money to spend buying Toulouse and the castle to its right).

Against Spain and Portugal...they're a pain, as well as the Moors' desert archers/desert cavalry. If you're using RR/RC (the recent one with AoR) you can recruit longbowmen from Winchester and Nottingham and they are really quite good against jinetes and everything else it seems. If not, I'm fairly sure Welsh longbowmen are still fairly cheap compared to most mercenaries, and I remember using them a lot. Oh, and even mercenary crossbows for killing any of the troops they keep in reserve (especially the heavily armoured generals). In fact, in Spain and when expanding anywhere, use mercenaries They're surprisingly useful especially for Scotland who don't have good sword/shield units readily available. I actually don't remember having any pikes at all when I went down there, but again highlanders+spear militia/pike militia will work against their regular swordsmen and in most cases, I prefer having them than dismounted feudal knights because of cost and the fact that I don't mind using them as cavalry fodder . Border horses as always are good for flanking/killing enemy archers (and crossbowmen) and pesky javelineers. So yeah, I guess apart from the jinetes which you can counter with better mercenary archers, fighting spain's pretty similar to anybody else. The only thing you will definitely need to do though is have a good economy because usually on the battlefield, you'll win and you'll want to be able to replenish your losses. Failing that, crusades work!

Funnily enough, now that I've thought about it, Scotland early on, pre-pike, is pretty bland It's just spear militia spam + highlander spam, archers when put up against such units. Or maybe I just like playing that way...

When you get pikes in sufficient numbers though, you'll hopefully have a good economy and thus be able to use pikes + good mercenaries to fill in your archer/swordsmen holes. Highland nobles + pikes works well too, actually. In fact, pikes work well with anything!


Oh, and Staffen, what I've found is that Scotland really doesn't have units quite on par with France's (for example). We don't get armoured sergeants or light men at arms and have to instead make do with lesser quality troops like spear militia and highlanders mixed with a couple of dismounted feudal knights. It's only later when

[Sir Walter]

Increase reputation: allying

Decrease reputation: warring, breaking treaties

There's more than I care to remember but it's on the wiki.

[Staffen]

And if anything, try to force Spain into siege battles and sallies. As far as I've seen, AI Spain seems to focus on light / heavy cavalry and light / ranged infantry. All of them get butchered if you can force them to sally into a semicircle of pikes at whatever gate they're exiting, covered and enforced by mercenary spears and ranged units where needed.

And preferably wait for a time where Spain is at war with both the Moors and Portugal. Spain's forces will be spread thin and with luck you can grab some poorly defended cities early on.

[Sir Walter]

If you're going to go into the Iberian Peninsula then grab Oporto from the Portugese when they're not looking and then take Lisbon later - a very good idea is to have a few innocuous-looking priests, diplomats and/or merchants hanging around in places they've reason to be in but within sight of a strategic place (on Sicily I was at war with the Byzantines and after an incredibly bloody thirty-turn war over Iraklion, Bari and Durazzo I simply sailed up the Aegean with six units and attacked Constantinople which had a grand total of one unit in it at the time as my merchant near Nicaea could see, took it in one turn which for the record gives your general a hell of a trait and went on a rampage back through Greece to Durazzo!)

[Anatorax]

I think I have the same issue. I play as Kiev, I nearly crushed Byzzies and Kwarezm (who destroyed Turks) declared Jihad on Constantinopole. I am at turn 130 and the best unit I can field is Varangian Guard (spearmen, attack 5, defence 13) and Druzhina (cavalry, attack 4, charge 8, defence 12). Meanwhile, Kwarezm throws at me nearly full stacks consisting of Persian spearmen and dismounted ghulams (a6, d16!!!). If not my cavalry and good generals they would just destroy me. Their heavy infantry makes siege defence very hard.

[Sir Walter]

I really think Kievan Varangians should be improved.