The Normans
If you know a little about the battle o f Hastings, you know that William the Bastard shipped his army of cavalry, archers and footmen across the English Channel, disembarked, and defeated King Harold Godwinson’s army of resolute infantry, leading to the Norman conquest of the kingdom of England.

If you know a little bit more about history, you know that William’s victory was considerably more hard-fought than textbooks usually make it sound.

And if you know anything about the team who developed Norman Invasion, you know you won’t have things so easy.

The eponymous faction of Norman Invasion, the Normans begin play with lots of troops and lots of money. By game start, Guillaume and co. have already established a beachhead in southeast England, and have several shiploads of soldiers waiting to do your bidding. Since you find yourself in command of a mighty and fearsome military poised to squash the English, backed by the Pope and with a full bank account, you might feel justified in considering that this campaign will be a walkover.

But take a glance at your finances scroll to see what next turn will bring. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

After picking yourself back up off the floor, it will occur to you that the Normans’ military machine, though fearsome indeed, is sustainable for only a few turns. And while you could go to the trouble of disbanding some of the more egregiously expensive troops (such as your Mercenary Flemish Spearmen and Mercenary Frankish Knights), that would simply leave you vulnerable to the English, who have assembled quite the daunting force of their own.

Your options are simple: conquer or die.

The Normans demand an extremely aggressive, expansionistic playstyle. In order to avoid bankruptcy and inescapable debt, the Norman player must quickly crush the English resistance at Hastings and immediately begin conquering English settlements.

This is obviously important for several reasons, but the most relevant one is that the Normans bring with them to England an entirely new philosophy of government called feudalism (represented in NI as “Feudal Law”). All of the other factions in NI espouse “Customary Law”, which represents the traditions and systems of governance that have been practiced for centuries. Feudalism doesn’t tend to respect the niceties of this system, and so whenever the Normans conquer a settlement in Britain, they will experience massive unrest (Feudal Law and Customary Law, together with Marcher Law, discussed below, are essentially the “religions” of NI).

Fortunately, the Normans have some ways to deal with that unhappiness. The most obvious way is to institute a Local Lordship in the region you have conquered. A Local Lordship decreases the settlement’s unrest; it simulates your Norman overlord letting some local Englishman run the show. In the early years of your conquest, this is the option that will make the most sense for almost every settlement you take; try to establish a Feudal Lordship (“converting” the population to Feudal Law), and you’ll most likely be unable to hold the town.

However, Local Lordships cost money, and if you’re in debt you can see that, even with a large military, it will be impossible to hold the towns you do conquer for more than a turn or two. So the name of the game for the Normans is to strike hard, strike fast, and stay financially solvent so you can keep striking hard and fast until the endgame.

But before you do anything else, there’s the small matter of those Englishmen on the hill…

The Hastings Scenario

Uniquely for a RTW-based game, the opening of Norman Invasion contains perhaps the toughest battles you’ll fight in the campaign, involving the most advanced units you and your enemy can recruit.

At game start, Guillaume le Batard and several of his cronies are perched on a peninsula due south of King Harold and his army of fyrdmen and housecarls. It may look as though you could simply ride them all down with your superior numbers, but take a closer look (you have a couple of spies nearby; check out the terrain). Don’t let those peasants scattered through the English stacks fool you; housecarls of any stripe are the most fearsome infantry units in NI, and immediately attacking Harold with Guillaume is likely to result in some other Norman duke finishing the conquest for you – if you make it that far.

Instead, try fighting the English stacks to the left and right of Harold’s main force. You’ll need to do some tinkering with your own stacks (use your navy to facilitate this), but it is possible to set up a scenario whereby two of your own stacks fight two of the English and eliminate them, allowing one of your victorious armies to maneuver around behind Harold to appear as reinforcements when you finally attack him with Guillaume.

The key here is to make sure you never attack an English stack with simply one of your own armies – always maneuver a reinforcing army into position behind or beside it. (Also, make sure that the reinforcements are under AI control when you go into the battle map.) You may want to ensure you are commanding the army with more cavalry, as the AI will not use them as well as you.

And your cavalry are the key to victory in the Hastings scenario. Make no mistake: your infantry, even your armored types, simply can not slug it out with the heavier English troops. The job of your spearmen and axemen is to hold up the English just long enough for your cavalry to get into position and charge them from the flank or rear.

The Normans have several types of horsemen at the outset, all of which can be eventually trained. Light Cavalry can get chopped up in melee, but they have an excellent charge – the most powerful of all your cav. The next step up, Cavalry are heavier and also throw javelins. Your top tier includes the Bodyguard Knights, Knights, and Mercenary Frankish Knights, all of which throw javelins (make sure they’re switched to fire at will) and cause fear in enemy infantry. And concentrated in a couple of your stacks you’ll find the outstanding (and outstandingly expensive) Mercenary Breton Horsemen – axe-wielders from the Continent who are great in the charge and in the scrum, with the ability to pierce armor.

To be successful as the Normans, and especially during these opening battles, you’ll need to master the tactic of the repeated charge. It requires micromanaging, but is the only way to see off all those stubborn enemy Housecarls, Royal Housecarls, Housecarl Guard and Select Fyrd. The theory is simple: Choose a target that is not too far away from your cav – estimate 10-30 yards. Make sure your cav is facing the target and not moving; having to change direction can mess up your charge. Ideally, you want your charging cav to slam straight into the target, either head-on or (preferably) from the flank or rear. If done correctly, the target will take several losses. Let your cav keep fighting for a few seconds, until they start to lose several men or they stop “pushing back” the enemy; then, pull them out, reform them a good distance away, and repeat.

This is the way you’ll kill English generals and the tougher units. It requires a “backstop” unit, often some armored infantry such as your Armoured Spearmen, Armoured Axemen or Foot Knights who can stand up to the beating that the English heavies dish out while your cav does its maneuvering.

This tactic also requires that your cav has the freedom to maneuver – in other words, you’ll probably need to deal with the other, lighter enemy troops before you can successfully take on the Housecarls and such. Fortunately, your cav will definitely be able to handle Peasants and Light Fyrd on its own, even in a head-on charge. Fyrdmen, being tougher, may require more attention, but given the composition of the initial English forces you should be well able to handle the wings of the English armies with your cav, then form up and attack the heavy troops fighting in the center.

The third arm of your military is your archers, and the Normans have an edge here too. Although the English do field some Bowmen, your own Crossbowmen and Mercenary Breton Archers are better and more numerous. Keep them skirmishing to avoid the English; even if their footmen do catch up to your archers, you’ve led them on a tiring chase and they’ll be more vulnerable to a cav charge once you get around to it.

One thing to keep in mind in the first several battles is that Guillaume’s own army is actually quite weak relative to some of the other Norman stacks; it has a decent cavalry element, but the infantry is mostly of the low-tier variety and there are many archers. That’s another good reason to clear out as many possible English reinforcements as you can before you send in Guillaume – unless, of course, you do some rearranging of your troops before hand. Also, be sure that Guillaume does not appear as a reinforcement himself, or you may be crowning a new Duke of Normandy! Your Bodyguard Knights are strong, but in the hands of the AI may not perform the way you’d like; it would be a shame for that shiny Papal banner to get trampled into the mud so early in the conquest.

Early expansion

Once you’ve made some elbow-room for yourself, and killed as many of the English as possible, you’ll want to branch out. There are some likely targets in the immediate area, but two towns are of paramount importance and should be made priorities regardless of what you do: Wintanceaster and Lundenwic.

The reason? Wintanceaster (aka Winchester) is a Historic Capital (note the fancy banner nearby). Conquer it, and you’ll not only help yourself to a town with big, stockaded walls that can’t be rammed down, you’ll be cementing your rule everywhere. Taking such a settlement gives a boost in the loyalty of every settlement you possess. This boost decreases over time, but since settlement loyalty is such a problem for the Normans, this is obviously a great advantage for you. Other Historic Capitals (apart from Rouen on the Continent, your starting capital) are Aberffraw in Wales, Scoine in Scotland, and the Orkney islands. These are pretty far away for now, but their capture is clearly a priority if you’re campaigning in the area.

Wintanceaster also holds the English Witangemot, a building that represents the assembly of nobles and leaders of the English. It’s necessary to crown the English king, but does no good for the Norman faction, so you may as well destroy it.

As for Lundenwic, it’s the coronation place for the Normans themselves. Like Wintanceaster, it’s well built up and protected by a Stockade, but the real advantage of taking it early is that it allows you to construct a Curia Regis – the Norman version of the Witangemot, which is required if you want to see Guillaume graduate from mere Dukedom to glorious Kingship. Build it and keep Guillaume there for a turn, until he gets the trait “Crowned in Lundenwic.”

The Curia Regis isn’t just important for the prestige it accords your faction leader; it helps make your conquest easier overall if your king is crowned. You may notice your generals possess a trait, “Liege not crowned,” which decreases their influence and law in settlements they govern. Once Guillaume (or any other Norman faction leader) is crowned in London, that trait is replaced by “Leige crowned,” and the bad effects go away. You’ll find towns easier to keep under your thumb as a result.

Closer than London and Winchester, though, there are several smaller settlements nearby. Cantwaraburh and Hraefn Geat are both to your east, the latter on a small island. Hrofesceaster is to your north and unwalled, making it a quick conquest, and Selaeseu and Gyldefordare to your west. Note that any surviving English soldiers from Hastings may have retreated to some of these towns, so you may have a bit of a harder time.

Still, that’s no excuse to wait out sieges. As soon as you can assault, do it. Assaults are a bit tricky for you, as your cav won’t be as much of a factor, but it’s still necessary to take those cities ASAP and begin building the Local Lordships that will allow you to hold them – and the all-important Curia Regis in London. Plus, what losses you take now will only decrease your upkeep costs – you want your troops to earn their pay, right?

After a turn or two, when your armies are solidly in control of the southeast corner of England, you’ll see the English have sprouted a few more stacks that are closing in on you from the north and west. (These are the slowpokes who couldn’t keep up with Harold on his epic march from York to Hastings.) There are some tough units here – more Housecarls, Select Fyrd, and the like – but the armies will be isolated and you should have little trouble defeating them on open ground, as long as you bring enough cavalry.

The big question, as you begin to expand, will be where you decide to establish Feudal Lordships. FLs aren’t just about making Englishmen hate you; they allow you to build effective military units and get more money from taxation. Local Lordships are great, but eventually your starting troops will get killed off and you’ll find the low-level Spearmen and Axemen you can train at LLs just don’t cut it.

London can just make it with a FL, if you can hold onto it until Guillaume is crowned and Winchester is taken, but I find it’s easier to establish a Local Lordship there. (At least at first – note that you can tear down one kind of Lordship and replace it with another at any time, so if you find you want to grow London into a troop-training center, and the populace is beginning to warm to your rule, swapping the LL for a FL would be the way to go.) Local Lordships in the early years also allow you to get your expensive armies out into the field, fighting and earning their keep instead of doing garrison duty and draining your coffers.

Since you start with a Feudal Lordship in Pefenesea, it makes sense to establish another one further west. I like Winchester for this purpose: even if you exterminate the population after taking the town, it has the potential to be a good troop-production center, and it’s in a good strategic position.

Speaking of exterminating the populace, that’s a good option for certain towns, even if you plan on making them into relatively pacified Local Lordships. Norman lords actually get positive traits as a result of exterminating, to reflect the terror that they inflict on the population, in the form of law bonuses that disappear over several turns. As a general rule, it’s best not to exterminate any town if you’d be killing much fewer than 1,000 people – it’s usually not necessary in that case, since the population would be so small they’d be unlikely to cause much trouble anyway.

When conquering a town, also scan through the building panel to see if there are any useless buildings there. The recruitment line of buildings for every faction in NI is distinct – so the Normans can’t train anything at an English Muster Field, for example. If you can’t train anything at a building and it isn’t giving you any benefits (to trade, happiness or the like), destroy it. If the AI retakes the town, they’ll have a bit more work to do.

Normandy

All the while you’re fighting epic battles and sticking it to the English peasantry, remember not to neglect your Continental holdings. Rouen, as your starting capital, is the place where any new family members will come of age (eventually, you’ll want to move your capital to London to prevent them having to make a sea voyage to get to the action), and Rouen and Caen are able to act as effective troop-training centers.

Some of your signature troops, in fact, can only be trained on the Continent: Mercenary Breton Horsemen, Mercenary Breton Archers, Mercenary Frankish Axemen, Mercenary Flemish Spearmen – and Sappers. Sappers, as the name implies, are the only unit in NI that can sap under stone walls. Depending on how your conquest proceeds, you may not encounter many stone walls built by your enemies, but when you do it’s nice to know you can bring them crashing down – and let your cavalry pour in through the breach.

The Normans are the only faction in NI that can build siege engines. Your Mangonels are available in Normandy and in Marcher Lordships, but due to the higher city-levels and growth in Normandy, you're most likely to see them on the Continent first. It's definitely worth training a couple of these powerful units and trekking them across the Channel to join your conquering armies. They'll see more use than the Sappers, and are especially useful against Stockades - most notably, the Stockades atop those pesky natural fortresses! Just bash through the walls and rush your troops in.

More important than troops at the early stage is money, and your Continental possessions are a safe place where you can feel free to build up trade and farming to negate your initial loss. Even though you’re losing tens of thousands of shillings in the first few years, it’s still a good idea to spend some of that cash on trade and farm upgrades – they’ll be worth it in the long run, and in fact will help you dig yourself out of that hole. So leave the fancy military buildings until your finances have stabilized and spend the first years focusing on economy.

Throwing your weight around

Once you’ve established yourself and begin earning an actual profit, you can afford to take some time and focus on building, training, and choosing your direction of conquest.

Getting ceasefires/trade rights with the other minor factions (primarily the Welsh and Scots) should be a priority in the early game, if they haven’t approached you already. It’s possible that both factions are taking advantage of your invasion to nibble away at the English themselves – especially the Welsh; the Scots and Norse tend to squabble amongst themselves for awhile. Obviously you want to have as few enemies as possible at a time, but don’t let the Welsh get too big – their horsemen, especially their bodyguard unit, the Teulu, can be as dangerous as your own, and their archers can make life troublesome.

Beyond the immediate vicinity of Hastings, you’ll notice several settlements with a “castle” icon nearby. Mousing over the image will reveal that these represent natural strongholds – particularly well-sited fortified places that are strongly resistant to assault. In game terms, this means your rams will have a much harder time breaching the gates, and the towers of such settlements are incredibly deadly to your troops. Build extra rams before assaulting, and hold back from the towers until you can send some infantry to capture them for yourself.

As you begin to expand beyond southeast England, your starting units will begin to die away, and you’ll be more dependent upon training and building to keep up your momentum. This is the stage of the game when you will be able to experience the tech tree available to the Normans and some of their helpful building options.

Of note in this regard is the Spy Network, a good build for London, which brings a nice law bonus as well as a fast-track to upgrades for spies who spend some time there. Around this time you may consider moving your capital to London, so the law bonus is arguably moot, but the benefit to your agents is certainly useful. Spies are always helpful in your conquest as lookouts for hostile armies, but they’re even more important to you as conversion aids and peacekeepers in your cities.

And as you expand west, you’ll get your first experiences with Marcher Lordships. Sometimes you’ll have the option to build a ML or some other Lordship; sometimes, though, it’s your only option. MLs are available in regions near and within Wales, and north of Northumbria. They provide a law bonus, which is undoubtedly helpful as Marcher Lords are extremely unpopular! Even with the bonus, you may find your ML difficult to control, so don’t be afraid to exterminate upon conquering such regions.

The real advantage of Marcher Lordships is the military expertise they provide. MLs allow you to train high-tech units that even Feudal Lordships don’t allow. If you can manage the loyalty problems that frequently accompany them, you’ll be rewarded with some of your strongest troops - provided you let them grow. Since you're exterminating them to avoid loyalty problems, the population in your MLs will be small and it may be some time before the towns advance, so keep taxes low in these regions.

In your expansion north and west, it’s inevitable that you’ll run into fights with Wales. You may prefer to keep the Welsh bottled up in their mountainous terrain rather than conquering them outright. That’s certainly a viable option – but you do need Aberffraw to win, and as a Historic Capital it will only make things easier for you. To that end, a sweep through North Wales, in which you capture 2 or 3 of their settlements on the way to Aberffraw, is a workable strategy. If you’ve pushed the Welsh behind their mountains, it’s unlikely they’ll emerge as a serious threat after that – just be sure to keep an army relatively close to counter any Celtic uprising.

Less certain is the situation that awaits you in the far north. The Scots and Norse usually have an on-again, off-again war which may not lead to one major power in Scotland. If that’s the case, your job is made easier, as you won’t be facing one strong faction. Also, if that’s the case it’s unlikely that the Scots will have expanded into English territory, meaning you won’t be fighting them for long in order to meet your final victory conditions.

Fighting the Scots is similar to fighting the Welsh, except that you’ll be facing fewer archers and horsemen and will probably have an easier time. The Scots have some sturdy infantry available to them – their Swordsmen, Armoured Spearmen and Nobles in particular – but they like to round out their armies with the cheaper and more numerous Spearmen and Mercenary Rabble, both of which are sitting ducks for a good cavalry charge. The most dangerous Scottish unit is their Royal Horsemen, which are similar to the Welsh Teulu. But since you’re bringing plenty of horsemen of your own (hopefully!), their fear effect won’t be so pronounced.

The only other faction on the Isles in this period is the Norse, and chances are you won’t run up against them at all. If you do, you shouldn’t have too much trouble. The Norse field no cavalry whatsoever, and rely on basic Spearmen for the most part. Given where you’ll likely be fighting them – the mountainous regions of Scotland – you’ll be able to use the terrain to your advantage, tiring out their infantry and sweeping them before you with your cav. Watch out for their Hirdmenn, the axe-wielding bodyguard unit, and their surprisingly sturdy Archers.

The Normans are a uniquely attack-oriented faction. If you play them right, you may never have to defend against a siege, and you may fight very few defensive battles in the early years. “Turtlers” need not apply – but mindless blitzing isn’t the solution either. To carve a new England out of the bones of the old, the Norman player will have to use speed, wits, and guts. It’s a challenging scenario, and can impart a greater appreciation of the daunting task that lay before William the Bastard on that fateful October day.