What's your strategy / style?

[Pr0ph3t]

So I'm playing with England, its my favorite faction (I can hear that hissing!) I'll move on to others when I actually complete a campaign I like to play way beyond the turn limit..

In my case I allied with scotland / france / holy rome and rome right away. I own all of england including the dublin isle and from Rennes to Antwerp which I call my frontier.

Most cities have a general and a garrisson of 3 levy spears (free upkeep) and 3 levy archers.
and 2 major armies I think its like turn 50.

I depend on these armies to defend any town under sieges and the little internal garrisons to keep the siege force busy while my army hits them from behind.

Do you guys have major armies everywhere or roughly do the same?

Keep in mind this is SS 6.3 so BGR and RR are integrated.

[Beowulf1990]

My favourite is Norway, but i love England too

As for armies, i usually consider my borders and plant large garrisons in castles clos to the giggest threats. If you spread out over multiple garrisons you can save a lot of money if you use a lot of 'free upkeep' units, which i do. I also have usually at least one big stack of non-free upkeep troops that I keep central.
As for makeup of garrisons, that's usually 3-4 spears and 3 archers, plus any feudal units i'm garrisoning if it's a castle. I usually make sure that a border city is always in rnage of reinforcements and i might up the garrison size a bit.

When it's time for war, i send over the big stack and add a few free-upkeep units (like huscarls) so i have a full stack. I take that stack, point it at the enemy and kill them with it
It's simple really, sometimes i might need a second stack.

[rockman4417]

The way I see it, there's two types of factions.

-First you have the big superpower factions: England, France, HRE. Most all the Eastern factions fit this mold. They're meant to conquer and kill. Expand rapidly. Take over the world.

-Then you have your small trading countries. Aragon, Genoa, all the Italians, even Scotland. They have to tread carefully starting out. It takes time to develop the economy needed to field large armies. Border-wars can be very very bad, as they interrupt valuable trade. They can quickly go bankrupt.

But they also makes tons of gold fast when they're at peace. Keep a small military of mostly militia, focus on trade/tech. Stick to conquering rebels. *Especially rebel islands* as they provide loads of trade income and are the less vulnerable to attack.

Eventually these factions will emerge as superpowers in their own right. With massive economies to boot!!


I prefer to play the second kind usually, as diplomacy plays a much bigger role in your expansion. Conquered lands become bargaining chips, which can be traded for peace, alliances, gold, or other settlements.

Many's the time I sold a hastily captured city to get me by for another 10 turns. Or paid upwards of 30,000 for a ceasefire, simply because carrying on the war would cost more in the end.

Or took an enemy city I couldn't hold and gifted it to my enemy's enemy. To stir up trouble in their lands.

Or continually supplied gold/troops to a certain faction, that I preferred to stay alive. It's all politics.

[Pr0ph3t]

Yeah at a point Genoa took paris so I took it back and gave it to the french to restore stability to the region.

Its fun to apply little mechanics like that it as a new layer to the game

[luciferleigh]

depending on the faction (usually the romans) i will have 2 professional stacks, one for the current prince, another for a second general of my choosing (ISTVAAAANNN!!), they will most likely be working in tandem, either pushing west or east, and will most of the time be followed by a train of interchangable troops for the occasional siege and if they are anywhere near water, they will also be shadowed by a few ships, for quicker transport of artillery and any other lagging reinforments.

The rest of the settlements will be filled with free upkeep troops, with frontier settlements given a few superior troops to deter any enemies, and a few scattered pros about 1-2 turns away from the frontier.

a stack of cavalry will serve as a quick reaction force stationed close to the front to reinforce the front if needed, and also to deal with them pesky rebels.

a network of ships that move my aor units, namely the murtatoi, scholarii, varagnians and flamethrowers back and forth from the capital to the front

and i almost forgot that constantinople is always fully stacked by the best units i can train, any fully chevroned units are sent back to the capital and stationed there for a certain degree of retirement, and the same stack in constantinople is regarded as the emperors army, and whenever he leaves, a back up from both cannakle and adrianople take its place in the queen city, add to that a full stack navy that mostly will stay in the bosphorus and will move with the emperor, this last part is mostly for my rping, but the rest i do with any campaign

[Alavaria]

Tend to only have large armies in settlements if I can't keep it under order otherwise. Problem sometimes is the general with dread is needed, but not his army, however I ain't dumb enough to let an army walk out without a general >.> Leads to odd cases of 16 year olds who just came of age leading my invasion force because the uber-general is the only one who can hold the first settlement we took.

Other than that, it's steal and hold as far as possible. Main thing is to keep supply lines clear and be able to pump out stupidly huge numbers of armor-upgraded militia if needed to stage a vigorous defense.

[SinerAthin]

My favourite faction is Norway.

The first thing I did was conquering the Sweeds and Danes.

I then went on a crusade to the Holy land with just one stack, conquered Jerusalem, and from that, the rest of the middle east. (took an ungodly amount of turns though!)

I then sent a HUGE viking invasion of England. The British were wiped out pretty much instantly, but now I fight against the Scottish.

Damn, William Wallice fighting scores of Vikings just looks so wrong!

[FastHeinz]

I play the Romans and use the all cities strategy. No castle, just cities with merchant guilds. This way I can always reliably produce and maintain the same army from the back to the front line.

Castle units are way overpriced, have low rate of replenishment and gives unreliable AOR units, especially with RR. Cities units are just slightly inferior and can be used en masse. Might as well skip the castle and hire mercs as all cities with merchant guilds you get so much money that you can afford mercs in all fronts.

[E.K]

My favourite faction is England

I tend to go nice and slow, picking up alliances and trade rights with factions I think will help me. I prepare one stack for war by getting the armor and weapen upgrades and getting experience by fighting rebels that appear through out my regions. Then I have another stack which supports the main stack, my second stack contains basic units just incase one of my units from my main stack gets too low on numbers I simply replace it and send the depleted unit back to my nearest castle or city for retraining. I try and make sure I have one citadel or fortress on my frontier just incase. For example caen is my first citadel just incase France attacks or I need a strong position to fall back on if my invasion of france fails. I try and make sure my garrisons are all millitia units that get free upkeep in cities.

[For England Men]

As England I have 3 professional armies the British army (until Britain is taken) , The french army and the crusade army. I try and take all the rebel cities in France and Britain as quickly as possible then I use the French army to fight the French in wars that happen every so often while I use the British army to gradually get rid of the Scottish, by then my crusade army has forged a mini kingdom in egypt.

Once Britain is mine all cities except nottingham. I have angers , caen (castles) , bruges and rennes (cities) on the mainland and at that point I only need one proffessional army that is spread between caen and angers ready for action. in my cities and castles have all the free slots maxed out with 2 spearman 2 archers and merchant cav (if it has merch guild) I have horsebreeders in angers , swordsmen in caen and woodsmen in nottingham so use them for relevant training. I also have one fleet based at Caen ready to intercept any invasion fleet approaching Britain and also transport the army to Britain if it gets invaded.

At this point I am usually happy to sit tight in Britain stay neutral with France (and repel any attacks they do make) and ally with most other catholic factions. Meanwhile my only other forces are conquering Egypt from Gaza in east to Alexandria in west and to Luxor in the south then I fortify gaza castle (with st johns) with this army and have the rest as cities. Then I sit tight in the east go back to Europe and finish off the French.

At that point its a case of wait for the mongols to wreck the east and then mop up your required provinces inc jeruselam to win. Easy as that as England but very enjoyable.

[RollingWave]

The bigger problems with most smaller catholic faction is usually the pope, if you play say.... Poland / Hungary / Castillia / Portugal / Aragon / Sicily etc.. you can expand fast and furious (and/or will need to) anyway because you border on non-catholic areas and can expand without worry (and they can attack you without too much worry too)

If your playing BGR, then it's more about a lack of option then anything else, it's highly risky to carry more than 2 or 3 armies because half the times they'll rebel against you.

[RabidSheepLegion]

I prefer playing defensively. Get my economy going, get alot of major guild houses (HQs if I can), ally with the enemy of my enemies (or soon to be enemies lol) Send spies and assassins out and about to mess with their towns/agents/generals. Blockade all their ports to destroy their trade infrastructure and then when they are weak enough I usually just blitz them. Plus I expand smartly. When I get into mainland Europe, all my bordering towns with the AI shall be towns, (first layer so to speak) and all beyond that into heart of my empire shall be towns (except for the advanced castles of course). When I get a layer or two more after that, the previous "ring" of castles shall be converted to cities to raise my income and the fresh border shall be turned into castles again. I always try to have my "standing" armies (ones for rebels,wandering enemy armies inside my borders) to be no more than 1/4 of my income. I don't want my "professional" armies to put me in the red. I always try to have another general following these "professional" armies as a "supply/reinforcement" wagon (they always have the siege equipment and units I want to keep full numbers (cavalry and infantry) so as after big battles I can just click and merge them to full numbers again) You could always just toggle_fow to see the enemy but where is the fun in that?

[philipjd]

I class myself as a 'defensive' player - I rarely declare war, but react without mercy to those who attack me (unless it's just a navy blockade, then I usually make peace asap).
Usually convert excess castles into cities as soon as I can afford to - for example, when playing the Byzantines I usually get left with Adrianople, Caesarea, Tiblisi, Mosul, Ghaza, Corinth and Serbia or Isparta in the 'core' regions with all others as cities (including the Islands).
Only ever participate in jihads or crusades if it suits my political/military needs.

Cash is king and castles don't make much cash, although GP for GP they produce units that are much more effective than cities - Byzantines being the exception to this (I don't like the Italian factions). Also, castles are much more defendable than cities - handy for when the mongols come stomping

[Amaranth]

I almost always play as England and Late Era (SS 6.2).

In the begining I immediately form two major army using all of my soldiers, I put the King on command of the one and Prince to the other. My first objective is always taking Welsh castle "Caernarvon" which is a rebel settlement. So King goes to take that before Ireland makes a move for it (which they always do, if you're late at the 3rd turn or so Irish forces sieges it before you) and Prince moves to take another rebel settlement Bruges on the northern France shores (which again if you're late HRE sieges it). When they're secured, I give it a rest for like two turns to train more units and retrain the rest of the army. My next target is always Caen, a France castle on Normandy. Now that means declaring the first war in the campaign. I move up my forces to take Caen and defend it against French along with Bruges. By that time I ally myself with HRE. Next target is Rennes, another French Settlement. Now that I have northern France shores under my control I'll spend some turns defending it. Sometimes I also take Angers (French castle) by either siege or via diplomacy later. Then I call a crusade, take Jerusalem and some of the surrounding settlements. Nicosia (castle on Cyprus), Iraklion (city on Crete), Rhodes (small castle on an island close to Aegean shores of Turkey). After I have these I defend my lands and my the lands of my allies. Sometimes I even help a neutral faction. I never let any faction to surpass me on military force. I attack them, take their lands, and return them to their former owners to restore balance. Then I keep doing this until I get bored or that I feel the campaign has come to an end. Instead of going for victory conditions, I focus on diplomacy and family tree and defending what I have.