Strategy advice wanted? (playing Lithuania)

[Neptune7]

This is the first time playing this faction, and I don't know what to do next.. I am on early campaign, turn 20, and have 6 territories. I formed an alliance with Poland, however that may have been a waste since the christians crusade against me. I was planing to take a couple of Novgorad territiories, including their capital, however they are allied with Kievan Rus, and I don't know if BOTH will go to war against me, (if I attack one of them) and I don't want that, Lithuania is kind of weak.
So, I am tossing around these ideas, I don't know if any of these are anygood.
1. Take Novgorod capital and another Novgorad town and hope Kievan Rus doesn't attack me.
2. Form an alliance with the Russians, and head west, and break my alliance with Poland.
2. Form an alliance with the Russians, and head towards Scandinavia, and take on the Vikings.

[Shoryn]

At the beginning of my Lith campaign I was in the same situation although I didn't have crusade called against me. Crusade called against you on turn 20 is going to be pretty harsh to manage, unfortunately...
Which are the 6 regions you have?

[Neptune7]

I don't have a crusade called against me yet. I just know one will happen sometime against Vilnius.
The settlements I have are Vilnius. Riga, Reval, and Pskov to the North of Vilnius..and to the south of Vilnius, Hrodna and Mensk. I didn't bother taking Palanga because I know the Teutonic order shows up their and I didn't want to deal with them. I wanted to take Polotsk but Novgorad beat me to it. There is still the rebel settlement Smolensk to take, however it's too well defended and right in between Kievien Rus and Novgorad..And their is also the rebel castle north of Reval, I probably will take that.

Oh, and I think the 3 different Pagan altars are cool.

[sbroadbent]

I don't have a crusade called against me yet. I just know one will happen sometime against Vilnius.
The settlements I have are Vilnius. Riga, Reval, and Pskov to the North of Vilnius..and to the south of Vilnius, Hrodna and Mensk. I didn't bother taking Palanga because I know the Teutonic order shows up their and I didn't want to deal with them. I wanted to take Polotsk but Novgorad beat me to it. There is still the rebel settlement Smolensk to take, however it's too well defended and right in between Kievien Rus and Novgorad..And their is also the rebel castle north of Reval, I probably will take that.

Oh, and I think the 3 different Pagan altars are cool.

If you're playing in the early era, it'll be a while before the Teutonics show up (somewhere around 1220), which in 6.2 was close to turn 100. I think 6.3 changes to 1tpy, so probably around turn 140.

If Palanga is still available grab and develop it and prepare for the Teutonic emergence.

If you don't want to go with war with the Russians (both Novgorod and Rus), your best bet is to push west. The eastern part of Scandinavia is all rebels, so you can possibly beat the Danes and Norway to it, and establish a foothold there. (I don't know if things are different in 6.3).

Depending on which AI you're playing with, you may be able to build up your relations with one faction over another, and get them to choose your side when you eventually go to war with the other. I'd recommend allying with Kiev and push into Novgorod as far as the Cumans.

[RollingWave]

I don't have a crusade called against me yet. I just know one will happen sometime against Vilnius.
The settlements I have are Vilnius. Riga, Reval, and Pskov to the North of Vilnius..and to the south of Vilnius, Hrodna and Mensk. I didn't bother taking Palanga because I know the Teutonic order shows up their and I didn't want to deal with them. I wanted to take Polotsk but Novgorad beat me to it. There is still the rebel settlement Smolensk to take, however it's too well defended and right in between Kievien Rus and Novgorad..And their is also the rebel castle north of Reval, I probably will take that.

Oh, and I think the 3 different Pagan altars are cool.

let the poster above said, TO appear a long time from the start of the early era, I havn't gotten to that point yet in my current game and Palanga is already a citadal with ballista towers, the Lithuanians also get imbal stakes so defending settlements should rarely be a issue. even if you give them Palanga, they'll still attack you unless you completely migrate out of the area.

While it is possible that Vilnius gets crusaded upon, usually Cairo and other middle east targets happen first, so you don't have to worry too much about that, if they really come very early, then abandon the castle to the first army that show up and then try to retake it.


I also usually push to Scandanavia, because all their province have ports, and several of them are highly profitable once you develope it a bit, and if you take the whole thing all you need is to defend Arhus, very very strategically safe

[newt]

If you break your alliance, you take a huge rep hit and your new allies will have a greater chance to break theirs too. AI allies like to gang up on the player, so attacking Russia probably isn't wise. I would say push into Viking territory. It should still be rebel so early in the game. Plus the more Baltic cities you own, the greater the chance to get Hanseatic league.

[philipjd]

For my Lithuanian campaigns:-
The TO will arrive and attack you in time, the Poles will attack you in time, the Christians will Crusade against you and also the Kievans/Novgorodians will also attack you. Sounds difficult, not really.

Palanga/Vilnius are both fortresses and will be the targets of the TO and the crusades, which is perfect if they are developed (walls and towers) and garrisoned sufficiently enough, that takes care of those (much better than defending cities against multiple stack atacks).

Riga, Revel, Hrodna, Palanga, Mensk, Pskov, Polotsk, Visbi (gotland) are rebel regions that ought to be securable by Lithuania before any attacks with Smolensk and Finland being optional 'maybe's'. This gives you a very solid foundation to consolidate and build up your forces before any major attacks. If Palanga falls quickly enough, then Thorn is also a possibiity which cripples the Poles making them much weaker. You need Hrodna and a town hall to create a diplomat ASAP and build political bridges using your cash to bribe peace from nations.

Early game the combination of Baltic Spear with Lithuanian axe and cavalry makes Lithuania a very tough opponent, with the quick addition of crossbowmen to the mix, nice.

Securing Visbi gives Denmark/Norway a target to aim for which is better for you than them attacking the baltic mainland, and with a decent garrison in Palanga which is easily shipped over to assist the town militia makes it very defensible.

[loony]

I play historically, so:
very beginning grab rebel settlements to the west. Palanga is key, if you can make it to thorn, it is great!
ally poland, get trade rights with everyone, ally with pope, pay some tribute if you must.
with your western border relatively secure - go for Novgorod and Kiev.
Go east all the way until you reach Cumans. Do not go to war with them. Not worth the bother.

At this point - 20 boring turns of building and you should get a crusade on Vilnius. Have a decent army ready there, as well as a supporting one in Palanga.
After you defeat the crusade, go west...

[Massive_attack]

Rebels. Dont fight any wars yet. be greedy with rebel settlements. Then when you want to ruin somebodys day, make that somebody novgorod. Those haters are going to send some hate your way sometime soon. Best take a few settlements (3 or so is good) and go for a ceasefire if they'll accept it. If not, take novgorod, and keep trying. Once you own Novgorod, that faction is just meat for the cuman and later khwarzemian (or if your lucky, mongol) grinder, so leave that alone. Novgorod makes a lovely punching bag for eastern potential foes, and once you own novgorod, and its nearby settlements, thats really all you need. Farther east is just poor towns/large towns and a couple of wooden castles (late era theres one or two stones, but they shouldnt prove too much of a problem).

See about allying Kiev, they usually wont bother you much, and once novgorod is pacified, expect poland to try something if they havent already, I dont like expanding into kievan lands. Opens up a whole payload of potential 2 front war scenarios with so many factions, for some settlements that arent even worth it besides kiev itself.

Honestly I wouldnt lollygag much in the east. ALL the hurt in your campaign is from the west. Lithuania is a beloved crusader vacation area, and in general its one of the main catholic punching bags of the game. Dont ally any catholics unless your just doing it to bide time. They will backstab, and they will go to war. With Lithuania, thats just a fact of life. The only time you get problems in the east is if the novgorodians dont accept a ceasefire after you spank them into submission,or if a cancerous eastern faction gobbles up everything faster than normal (usually takes around 60 turns before you see the K-shah around in the russian steppe, sometimes they make it by turn 50 though.

Long term expansion: annex poland, but stop there. Any further west is bad buisness. Scandanavia is a fun option but you would need a few big beachead settlements fast to really get any invasion over there in swing, so it would require a bit of planning and work.

Taking kiev out in mid-late game becomes a more valid option the later you go, but bear in mind if you go for it you will need to face the horrors of whatever bloated insane superpower exploding out of the east. Khwarz, Cumans (pfft yeah right), mongols, whatever.

Same goes for the remnants of novgorod midgame. Later on finishing them off is wiser if you think you can defend your borders, but you get the same risks about the east.

Taking out hungary is ill advised. puts you into a tough geo-political place.

After you take scandanavia, poland, kiev, or all of the above, then you have real power. I would unleash it eastward and crush whatever horrors are there if they arent knocking on the door yet.



---
Also, for taking out any rebel settlement, at all, ever, all you need is 3-4 units of lithuanian horse archers, a general, and some micromanagement. Any additional troops are totally optional. Essentially what you do is besiege the settlement, wait for them to sally forth to meet you, then in battle, have all your horse archers immediately focus fire on whatever troops are leaving the gate. Be sure to keep skirmish on. Let them pepper the enemy force for a bit, focus on spear troops if you can, and try to get your general to charge enemy militia troops, or disorganized troop blobs that often form out of confusion. Just micromanage the general, and try to avoid letting spear troops or hostile cavalry touch your horse archers.

Once you own the settlement, garrison it with axemen/spearmen and maybe archers. Never leave cavalry as a garrison unless you litterally have nothing else keeping it yours. They are too valuable. I use this logic because as lithuania you dont want armies of infantry early on. Just no, Lithuanian axemen and baltic spears SUCK. They both get less armour than there euro counterparts, and the axemen are like a washed out weak version of viking raiders. No, dont waste those men in battles except as a sort of distraction force for something better to quickly win the battle. I dont rely on lithuanian infantry as long as i can throw them. The early cavalry troops are amazing, and midgame you get some decent troops from upgraded castles or temples in cities. So later on you become totally awesome, its just right now that its not so great. Lithuanian horse archers and crossbows remain excellent all the way through though, neither are the best at what they do but neither need to be. Dont even bother assaulting settlements untill you can get Lithuanian nobles from castles, those are the Lithuanians premier force as ass-kickery.

Latvian crossbowmen are awesome help too, they have br00tal ranged attack, but keep them out of harms way.

[Neptune7]

Thanks everyone for all of your great advice. ...In my currrent campaign novgorad blockaded my port, and started a war with me, so I was forced to fight them. Which went poorly. My King died in battle seiging the Novgorod settlement Polotsk. I had only a half stack and the garrison was weak, however a 3/4 novgorod stack attacked me. The battle odds weren't too bad 9/10, however my units were weak, a couple of peasant infantry, axeman, spearman, skirmersher, and no cavalry besides my general bodyguard. I used my general bodyguard to crash into his approaching archer militias that were setting up to fire on my units, and for some reason he died, which is ridiculous. ..He must have fell off his horse and accidently got trampled upon by other horseman...anyways, my army soon routed, and I am starting the game over again. I will take Palanga this time, and try to get Thorn. I may form an alliance with the Russians and head towards Scandinavia, because it is such a great defensible position once I take it, and it will turn the Lithiuanians into a powerhouse to be feared. I play on Medium/Medium by the way. However I am thinking of increasing my battle diffculty. I think it gives enemy morale bonuses only. Which is OK. I kind of want them to stay and fight it out and not run away. I stay away from the harder campaign difficulties.

[newt]

I stay away from the harder campaign difficulties.

Good idea with this mod because they will be supermen

[Alavaria]

What I did in my AAR campaign so far was pick a fight with Poland... (Novgorod jumped on me despite us being allies). And try to use horsearchers and in particular abuse tricks to get "garrison reinforcement" -> "walk-in settlement" capture.

I haven't gotten a crusade called on me. Funny since I beat up Poland pretty bad (guess someone else is going to have to "call for" the Teutons). Though in the wide open areas, it's hard, one can probably fort up carefully in order to mess with the crusading army pathfinding. Also, I've had Polish armies turn up in my land, so it would probably help to cover at least the river-crossings, and probably other areas (like the mountain passes between you and Hungary). Levy archers are wonderful garrison troops.

• The archer units (Roth-something and Lithuanian) are awesome, they have stakes. It seems the AI doesn't notice stakes, so I suppose if you leave your archers behind said stakes the enemy horsemen will run towards them and die. Not sure of this myself, front was moving too fast to get archers to my cutting edge armies.
• There's also the Perkunas chaps which have a high AP attack. Probably pretty good against heavy infantry (that unlike horsemen, can get through the stakes). They don't replenish very fast, but since they're really cheap (a little more than Peasant Infantry) you can probably spam them from every single Large Town and above >.> (They are also lock_morale, so they'll never rout even if some footknights are slicing them up). They have 8 attack (AP) and 3 defense (no armor or shield, not upgradeable). For a large unit (150, compared to 120 for woodmen) they're only 100/turn. (235 recruit?)
• Lithuanian Cavalry are definitely great, though they don't replenish as much as I might like, they shouldn't take many losses (Long Range horsearchers? Awesome).
• The Lativian Crossbowmen have shield 7, I think they're like Pavise Crossbows, except with a weaker wooden crossbow instead of an arbalest. They are expensive however, 180 for a unit, instead of 120 for archers. Oh and the Lithuanian Skirmishers - they might be useful, since they throw arbalests... (ranged attack of 10).
• Feudal units I mainly recruited the mounted ones that throw javelins for use a castle garrisons.
• Baltic Spearmen are good, but Eastern Spearmen are nice too ^___^ I've considered having a thin (3 deep) line of spears to break a cavalry charge (absent magical stakes) with Perkunas/non-spears behind to chop up horsemen or infantry in a melee.

[RollingWave]

here's my defense against the TO at Palanga suffice to say they're not a problem anymore

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

on VH/VH though, you need to abuse some aspects of the game or you really don't stand a chance as Lithuania... but when you do your pretty much guarnteed to win every siege defense

As for Scandanavia, their roster is extremely infantry heavy, which means they are very very vunerable to your cavalry and horse archer heavy roster, all the viking units basically can't do jack against horse archers and/or cavalries. and once you take their settlements you can build viking raiders your self which makes you much less vunerable to their strength (siege assaults). I basically took them down all the while fighting Novogod and Kiev.

Poland isn't a recommanded target IMHO, beating them just get you into more wars with the HRE and Hungary. while if you finish Scandanvia that whole area is basically scured for good. same goes for the Russians, once you push them back a bit the Mongols should finish them off anyway. so just aim for Novogod itself and after that sit back and watch the Mongol daddies do their thing.

[Alavaria]

Poland isn't a recommanded target IMHO, beating them just get you into more wars with the HRE and Hungary. while if you finish Scandanvia that whole area is basically scured for good. same goes for the Russians, once you push them back a bit the Mongols should finish them off anyway. so just aim for Novogod itself and after that sit back and watch the Mongol daddies do their thing.

TBH, Poland sent priests and even a small army or two into my land, so it was obvious (Gracul AI) that if I tried sending men over the sea they would gang up on me. I would've otherwise (probably still had yummy rebels).

Beating Poland a bit only drew Hungary in. And now the HRE have a stack on my land, obviously looking for war... (I really need to fort up and fort down).

[Tan Zhi Han]

Make alliances with Catholic nations, destroy the Orthodox. Spread paganism, blitzkrieg the first rebel cities all around you. The florins are vital to your success (after 1 turn you will be in the negative).

Once that is done, then you can start playing the diplomacy card and pulling one nation to attack another nation and then take advantage of the situation...

Every game I have played Lithuania has become a huge blob that overtakes the Russians/Polish/Hungarians.

[SplaTt]

When I was playing as Lithuania I've looked into west first instead of east.
First thing I always do is forming and alliance with either Hungary or Germans and going to war with them against Poland. After this it's way easier with new lands to attack in west or east direction.

[Massive_attack]

@ rolling: God DAMN ! Those poor teutonic forces, i think i play as them too much, when i saw that i think i cried a little

[Neptune7]

Well I strarted a new Lithiuanian campaign, and formed alliances with the russians so my eastern border is secure. Grabbed 10 rebel settlements and was building up my finances, and settlements, when a crusade was called on me against Vilunius at turn 38..Which is too early, and not fair in my opinion. I was immediately at War with several catholic factions. Poland flooded my territories with several armies, and attacked two of my settlements at the same time, While a 3/4 stack hungarian crusading army is 2 movement points away of laying seige to vilnius..I only have one kickbut cavalry only stack to fight the invading forces. My settlements have only the miniumun free upkeep units available and that's it. I was in the process of building my income by cutting down my army upkeep size...Terrible timing......

Anyways, I probably should just let the hungarians take vilnius, and divide my army into 2 stacks and get rid of the 2 polish armies laying seige to my 2 settlements. And also the other polish Noncrusading armies in my area. I started a Danish campaign, and playing that now, but I will get back to my frustrating Lithiuanian campaign...

By the way, has anyone figured out a method to turn off crusades yet? I tried one method of setting the crusade start time to 999 but that didn't work..Someone mentioned I should try 99 instead..However I hadn't tried that yet. As anyone had ANY success at turning off crusades? (I like to play the Game without them at times.)..

[RollingWave]

well i have a crusade against me now, but it's fairly late and i'm already build up (wait a few more turns and I woulda had cannon towers doh.)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

the game crashed mid battle due to too many units (lol) but that means i can replay it lol!!!

[ash874]

This is the first time playing this faction, and I don't know what to do next.. I am on early campaign, turn 20, and have 6 territories. I formed an alliance with Poland, however that may have been a waste since the christians crusade against me. I was planing to take a couple of Novgorad territiories, including their capital, however they are allied with Kievan Rus, and I don't know if BOTH will go to war against me, (if I attack one of them) and I don't want that, Lithuania is kind of weak.
So, I am tossing around these ideas, I don't know if any of these are anygood.
1. Take Novgorod capital and another Novgorad town and hope Kievan Rus doesn't attack me.
2. Form an alliance with the Russians, and head west, and break my alliance with Poland.
2. Form an alliance with the Russians, and head towards Scandinavia, and take on the Vikings.

my advice on playing lithuania :
they are actually not very hard to play
make an alliance with germany (they will send a diplomat to you early)
this alliance wil not be broken because germany is in the doghouse from the beggining
by turn 20 you should have about 11 cities without declaring war on anyone
the way to do that is to build all the troops you can and from the begining send 2 armies in a shape of an upside down heart
meaning one to the south east one to the south west and mop all settlements up to the north
i played lithuania start several times and alway managed to get about 11 or 12 without any wars with anyone
having alliances with kiev russia and poland is of no consequence
they will attack you eventually
in the case of russia you should surprise attack them
novgorod and the castle below it are not far from you
without these two the russians enter stagnation and can not fight back
in poland take thorn (before the pols do)
once you make a castle from it than you have a strong defensible position against them
not that you need one
once they attack kiev you can surprise attack them and take all their land

the only real opponent you will have as lithuania in the first 30 turns is amazingly denmark
take visby (mining income) and defend it from them
they wont attack other settlements while you hold on to visby
until this point everything was easy and your forces were consolidated
but how to continue is the problem
fighting denmark and taking scandinavia makes sense economically but you will need 2 spare armies which i dont think you will be able to afford