Strategy suggestion

**PotentSchraphlon** · May 12, 2010, 07:36 AM

I'm posting my simple strategy idea here to try and get a discussion on it, maybe get some tips to improve it or even inspire other people. It's a radical but straightforward strategy.

Note that I came up with this plan for playing as Milan, but it could easily work for any faction in a dangerous position and access to the sea. Also, I use the vanilla game so I dont know if it's necessary with certain mods.

The plan is simply to move your entire faction to the british isles (or similar defensible area). set out as soon as possible and give away all but your capital city to your neighbours as soon as you can afford it. Land in Ireland and make that your capital so you can give away your former capital and you have now fully moved your faction to where it will be safe at least for a while.

Pros: move to a safer location to avoid being swamped by enemy attacks, new location will offer new challenges
Cons: weakens your starting position, risk of losing your armies at sea on the way

**Stolet** · May 12, 2010, 07:52 AM

It's a pretty big risk btw, there are a lot of pirates near the British isles. I suppose it's a nice change to the game, although you're leaving behind one of the richest regions in the game, hope you don't regret doing that

**PaleBlueDot** · May 12, 2010, 09:01 AM

I did the same in RTW. You loose some time to develop city early on. Also, you have to make sure no one takes your old cities until you have reached your new destination. If you dont play on very hard it isnt very risky, its not like the Brits will be a huge challenge. But if you instead move south and take italy and the surrounding islands, you should still have a pretty easily defended place (An army defending in the alps is very hard to defeat, especially with your super crossbow militia)
You might have fewer cities, but much richer ones. More enemies = more fun

**PotentSchraphlon** · May 12, 2010, 11:59 AM

When I play normally as Milan I was under attack so much that any wealth I was getting was immediately lost defending against the HRE, France and Sicily trying to take that island. I think it's worth leaving a wealthy region in exchange for having the time to build up at a more comfortable pace. And while I was able to hold off the multiple enemies, it got boring quite soon as I was unable to make any of my own attacks or do anything except try to prepare for the next wave

**Stolet** · May 12, 2010, 01:12 PM

It's a random thing, for example I didn't have much problems on VH with Milan, I got drowned in cash, beat my Italian enemies shortly after they first attacked me, defended against France mostly on bridges, with loads of crossbows and so on. I established some alliances in the beginning so I didn't get attacked by everybody early. Of course, you'll often get situations where it's you against the world, so boating your empire away is a nice chance to settle down and kill the enemy some other day.

**JusTheory** · May 12, 2010, 10:21 PM

That type of exodus would take quite a few terms to accomplish let alone ensure you have enough forces to plug the gap until you develop your new cities. You could use a lot of mercs but their upkeep costs combined with the fact that you can only recruit so many at a time would make it quite a challenge. So in essence you are giving up one set of difficulties for another. I don't see much value in that kind of strategy. The challenge of pulling it off would be quite intriguing though.

**Mangudai87** · May 13, 2010, 11:21 PM

This exodus strategy is a real novel idea but I think the problem of having too many enemies around you can be overcome by using diplomacy instead. Rather than getting bogged down from the start fighting everyone around you it's a good idea to make some quick alliances. As Milan, I would suggest allying with the Pope first as the surest way of solidifying your position. Then ally with some of your neighbors so you don't have to fight all of them at once, marriage alliances and well defended borders being the key to a long term peace. My suggestion would be to ally with the non-Italian factions so you can concentrate on unifying Italy. Once you're in control of Italy you'll be in such an economically sound position with all those rich cities that you won't have to be too worried about much at all. And if anyone else messes with you or betrays you, use your close ties with the Papal States to bring them low. Excommunications, then crusades will isolate, weaken and impoverish them.

**PotentSchraphlon** · May 17, 2010, 07:01 AM

The first time I played as Milan, I tried making alliances with my neighbours but they still betrayed me and I wasn't able to make friends with the pope because for about 50 popes in a row they were all from enemy factions so I was always getting excommunicated. I suppose that was just a freak accident but I felt it better to be safe
Anyway, I've now been playing with this tactic for a good couple of hundred turns now. I took over the british isles pretty easily, starting with london to be my captial. In the end i couldnt bring myself to sell both my starting cities but I sold Milan when the HRE started circling it. In hindsight, the conquered british isles could act as a kind of back up in case my homelands did get attacked, rather than just totally moving there.

**Turtle Hammer** · May 18, 2010, 02:52 PM

I've done something similar, but as the Moors. I put an army (general, dessert cav and some spears) just big enough to Jihad east on boats as soon as I could and basicly kept my head down, then Jihaded against Bagdad as soon as I was confident that my army'd be first there, taking Edessa and mosul enroute. Although you have to skip back west to either take Granada or wipe Spain and Portugal out eventually. The plus side to this is that if somebody else declares a Jihad, you can just join it anyhow since in all likelyhood, the first Jihad's aimed squarely at Bagdad.

The only downside is that you're stepping right into the firing line of the Mongols and Timurids, but you also have the camels.