Playing as England

[airborne guy]

I just started a campaign as England, late era, who should I attack first, Scotland or Ireland?

[Kazuhiro]

Scotland. Ireland take only when you have time, and use your veteran armies from the scottish battles. Then, invade bruges/antwerp/gronigen and make northern europe your nuke testing site

[King Siegfried]

Ireland's a sitting duck. Devote all your energies to taking Scotland, then take Ireland.

When you're done, launch a crusade on Jerusalem and establish your very own Kingdom of Jerusalem!

[Sokar Rostau]

You need to take out Scotland as soon as you can because you don't want to be fighting William Wallace, you either want him to bankrupt his country or not spawn at all. Usually I will defend York while preparing a naval invasion of northern Scotland. When my navy is in place, off the coast of northern Scotland, I will march on Edinburgh which results in either them sending an army to meet me in the field or me laying siege to Edinburgh and Inverness on the same Turn. Taking Inverness is the key to breaking the Scottish back, after that it's just a matter of mopping up the last of their pro's and dealing with militia.

Ireland is usually content to just sit on Ireland and do nothing for hundreds of Turns but they sometimes get delusions of grandeur and attack Caernarvon, Exeter and Rennes. I even had one game where AI Ireland took all of France west of, and including, Paris down to Pamplona while helping Scotland wear down England.

Both Norway and HRE want Groeningen so I don't bother with it until later. I play England more than any other faction and am fairly certain that I have only had to fight for Antwerp twice, all the other times I was able to buy it from the HRE for about 10k Florins and a promise to help them against France. Bruges is one of the toughest Rebel settlements on the map (especially in Early Era, but that doesn't matter here). A good, albeit risky, tactic is to let France and/or HRE attack it a few times to weaken the garrison, or you could just lay siege and wait for the sally. Regardless of the how, you need to take Bruges as soon as you reasonably can. If you're going to fight for Antwerp, take it before Bruges because Caen is too far away for reliable reinforcements.

[Halbard]

Ireland is usually content to just sit on Ireland and do nothing for hundreds of Turns but they sometimes get delusions of grandeur and attack Caernarvon, Exeter and Rennes. I even had one game where AI Ireland took all of France west of, and including, Paris down to Pamplona while helping Scotland wear down England.

in dozens of SS games, i never saw ireland leaving the island, unless i was playing ireland meself xD

[XICenturionIX]

I have also witness Ireland possessing a little more ambition than it usually does.

In one game as Venice, I received a message that informed me that the Kingdom of France was destroyed. Typically, that either means the HRE AI are having one of their better campaigns, or one of the Iberian kingdoms are expanding. About fifty turns later, I see a full stack Irish army moving in from the western part of the Alps, marching on Genoa. To me, this was very odd, so I began sending spies to the west to find out exactly what is going on. I come to find out that France is almost completely occupied by Ireland, and Brittania; Caen being the only English stronghold left, and it was under siege by two fully stacked Irish armies. Never had I seen that previously before, and I have never seen it since.

Anyway, in an English campaign, early or late, I always take out Scotland before I move my veteran armies to the Ireland.

[Tyrenia]

Ha! I've never ever seen an AI Ireland get further off Ireland than Caenarvon or Exeter. Very amusing.

I started an English campaign today, and in spite of my earlier advice, I attacked Scotland first. I attacked on turn 5 and they were gone by turn 11. I never realised Blitzing was so fun!

[JorisofHolland]

Scots are definetly the most dangerous, but also keep an eye on Ireland to ensure you don't loose Dublin.

[Tacitursa]

I ussualy take both at the same time.

Create 2 full stacks from all your starting troops and a few mercanaries or recruits and send your faction leader upto edinburgh take it and leave your army inside, make sure it has alot of longbowmen.

Scotland will attack with there remaining troops so just defend and waste all there armies from the walls with your longbows.

While thats happening you should send your second stack with your Heir to wipe out ireland, Retrain in Galway or re-recruit your losses then send your heir to Iverness.

Scotlands army should be completely wiped out at this point including wallace. You can either take aberdeen or recruit a diplomat from edinburgh and make it your vassal.

Just make sure the army you send upto to scotland is mainly light infantry and bowmen with a few spears. And your army in ireland should be mainly spears and cavalry if your two armies have that consistancy you should completely destroy both factions quite easy

[Tyrenia]

I agree that the Scots are more dangerous, but personally, I would take Ireland first, then use the extra cash to crush Scotland more quickly.

[Kawee]

I prefer to blitz at first, then wait for a while. Blitzing the whole way can make the game too easy sometimes, especially if you know what you're doing.

BUt lets say, as England, you're the ruler of all of Great Britain, waiting for a while is not a bad idea. You wait till an obvious strong empire is established then take the game to them. It's much more challenging and satisfying I find.

But then again, most people can't stay idle for more than 2 turns.

[Sokar Rostau]

If you think doing that to Scotland was fun, you should try what I did to Norway in my current England campaign not long ago. Around Turn 140ish I was at peace with everyone and allied to HRE and Norway as the three bad boys of Christendom (never more than one of us in the Papal good books at one time). To put it into perspective, England controlled about 25 settlements with one Citadel, HRE about 20 settlements with three Citadels and Norway controlled all of Scandinavia and a bit of Poland with 6 or 7 Citadels so while it was the smallest of our group, it was the most advanced.

After decades of being in a strong alliance, Norway got greedy and attacked HRE, taking about 4 settlements off them. I decided to try something I'd never done before - a mass invasion. I set up five fleets each carrying a single stack and a land-based stack headed for Groenigen. By the time my invasion was ready HRE had taken back all but Stettin (and Poland had just taken back Thorn for the third time... and lost it again a couple of Turns later) and were advancing on Arhus. It took three or four turns to get my troops into place and then I invaded Norway, laying siege to five settlements at once (I miscalculated and had a fleet stop at Roskild touching the shore but too far away to disembark the troops. The next Turn I had five of their settlements, three Turns later, after another naval landing, I had another three. A few Turns after that I had driven them out of Scandinavia altogether, leaving them with Stettin and Thorn. Then I decided to let them fight HRE and Poland. Last night the King of Norway died in Thorn, during one of the very infrequent times when neither HRE or Polish troops were in the area) and the Kingdom of Norway ceased to exist. This was some of the toughest fighting I have had to do in a long time, and included one of the biggest and most difficult battles I've ever had, mainly because Norway was fielding Citadel troops while I mainly had Fortress troops, Militia and Merc's. The only real problem I had was losing an entire stack of Fortress troops in a Naval battle on my way to Visby - my total combat losses of more than four full stacks was pretty much expected.

Maybe that's how people do things normally, but it was a new way of doing things for me because I am usually conservative, taking no more than about 3 border settlements from one Faction at a time, but Norway's armies were simply too strong for me to have the luxury of laying siege to settlements one by one (there were 6-7 full stacks in Scandinavia alone, and at least 2-3 in Europe, most from Citadels).

[King Siegfried]

Hey Sokar,

I've blitzkrieg'ed a few factions before, but not quite on that level. Usually I target their key settlements (such as their citadels or huge cities) and cripple their financial and military capabilities. Then I have a firm stronghold in their own land, and they're at a disadvantage already. Granted, this may make invasions way easier than some players like, but I think a king looking for true domination would do as I do. And it works, so..!

[KittySN]

Hey Sokar,

I've blitzkrieg'ed a few factions before, but not quite on that level. Usually I target their key settlements (such as their citadels or huge cities) and cripple their financial and military capabilities. Then I have a firm stronghold in their own land, and they're at a disadvantage already. Granted, this may make invasions way easier than some players like, but I think a king looking for true domination would do as I do. And it works, so..!

Ditto, though more military disabling for me. It's what I'm about to do to Denmark...

[JorisofHolland]

Military disabling is the only effective one, as the AI gets tons of money. Especially if you try to disable it.