I feel violated (English Campaign)

[Gunodd]

Greetings, everyone. I recently got MW2+Kingdoms off Steam because it was so goddamn cheap. I prefer medieval warfare to gunpowder games like Empire & Napoleon anyway. Thing is, I started a game as England, and everything was fine and dandy. I got Wales, York, Ireland or whatever and then finished off Scotland by taking Edinburgh and Bruges (don't ask my what they were doing there.) Then since I already had Caen and Bruges I figured I'd take Rennes too so I'd have a nice front against France who I planned on later exterminating. This is when it all started going wrong. JUST as I was about to ally with Denmark (which had been my plan all along) those bastard Croissant munchers did. Denmark then refused to ally with me.

Suddenly (OUT OF NOWHERE) the entire Spanish royal family was camped outside Rennes and poised to strike. I didn't have any beef with them, so I tried to ally with them, and made them a great offer which they refused and then attacked me. BIG mistake on their part seeing as their king was clubbed down by a peasant archer. And in the midst of warring with France and Spain, OH HEY the king of Portugal tries to take Caernarvon (WTF?). Goddamn naval invasion. I've repeatedly beaten back French, Spanish and Portuguese armies, and then they'll ask for a ceasefire (I didn't know I could demand outrageous sums of gold until much later) and then they'd amass an army AGAIN and break the ceasefire. The Pope has no issues at all with these dick moves, he still loves France. I've got like 15 priests/cardinals and churches everywhere, I took the region he called a Crusade on, I've done EVERYTHING he's asked of me - and he still has "little good to say about England." Goddamn old fart. The French have like armoured swordsmen and stuff, and I'm stuck with spear militias. The only good units I have are longbowmen. I have to pay tons of gold to keep my front fortified, and I can't disband these troops because I'm constantly under attack. There's so much pressure on me that I can't advance my faction at all like financially and infrastructure and all that.

My ultimate question is - was it a mistake to try and hold the northern shores of France? Should I have stayed in my British isles and kept quiet until I was strong enough to smash any and all resistance?

[Wegen7 die Große]

Wow, sounds like you had a "typical" campaign, basically mods help to fix some of the stupid things that the ai does.
Also in you current campaign, try to retreat back to Britain and build of your forces, if you have a good navy you can keep the Frogs at bay and Spain and Portugal(I don't know if it is random but) they usually attack on and off, I guess it all depends if they feel up to the challenge or something of that sort.
Also get armoured swordsmen as fast as you can, as well as retinue longbowmen

[Gunodd]

Wow, sounds like you had a "typical" campaign, basically mods help to fix some of the stupid things that the ai does.
Also in you current campaign, try to retreat back to Britain and build of your forces, if you have a good navy you can keep the Frogs at bay and Spain and Portugal(I don't know if it is random but) they usually attack on and off, I guess it all depends if they feel up to the challenge or something of that sort.
Also get armoured swordsmen as fast as you can, as well as retinue longbowmen

Roger! I'll sell off Rennes and Bruges to HRE or something and just keep Caen. Caen is easily defended, I killed off 2000 Spaniards and lost like 200-300 men there. Besides, I've already dumped money into Caen. Archicoci-something or whatever, one of the towns the Pope calls crusades on that I captured, I just left undefended when he called a new crusade. By pulling out of Rennes/Bruges and disbanding my crusading army I'd probably save a ton of money. I already have a strong fleet, I had no choice since the Portuguese were harassing me to no end.

Thanks for the advice. +Rep. Also, what mods do you recommend?

[Town Watch]

I played a little bit M2TW yesterday as England VH/VH and I can tell you I kept getting invaded left and right by the Spanish, Portuguese and Danes, Scotland moved it's whole army except some family members into Antwerp but I won against them and forced their fleet back, and took Edinburgh.

In the long term, sitting back in the British isles won't help you financially and thus militarily. You can't support a very big army and being defensive isn't a good strategy. I remember building a big fleet as England, which is kind of useless in this game, compared to just building armies that can conquer stuff. Anyways I managed to luckily sink a full Danish stack on the North Sea, viking raiders and huscarls!

You could try as England to conquer Antwerp and Bruges, and Rennes if you can manage it, that way you won't probably get attacked by Portugal? Antwerp is a lot better city than something like Dublin at least in the start. Then you should keep good relations with HRE and expand into France. Scotland isn't IMO worthwhile to rush in the start because you will kill your papal relations and maybe even get excommunicated. Try to use your princess at start to steal a French general to your family, ally with HRE and Pope.

Later in the game once you have taken whole France, I find it fairly easy to defend from the east, but Spanish and Portuguese are really annoying the crap out of me. Definitely you have to destroy them at one point, because once you do so, you clear your whole western flank of any potential enemies basically. For quick cash don't be afraid to start raiding attacks in Italy or Egypt, sack cities and sell all the buildings and abandon the town if you cant re-train stuff. In this way you get a of money, and the enemy will still lose the province to the rebels once the town revolts, and there will be a strong rebel stack that won't soon be beaten. Do this against Denmark also, you have to repay their earlier viking raids in full!

This is a very powerful strategy, and now when you think about it, it is actually in accordance to Sun Tzu's military advice. Living off the enemies' lands and countryside will deplete their income, you get lots of quick money if you can sneak a good army to the enemy's heartland with closely packed provinces, and you will eventually strategically destroy them. (even the A.I. cant with all its bonuses rebuild it's cities in one turn and recruit super armies if all it's buildings are destroyed!) This is total war!

[Shasqua]

The Portuguese faction heir will always always always always attack either Caernarvon or Dublin. The Spanish do this too. You really need to get a mod; vanilla's horrible.

[ChivalrousKiller]

I usually try to control all of the British Isles in addition to Rennes, Caen, Bruges and Antwerp, before I wait to get stronger, but that is quite difficult sometimes without going to war with either France or Denmark.

I would do that, and then send most troops out of Britain to Rennes and Antwerp, then use Caen as your most important fortress and recruitment center. Then, when you want to expand, try to have strong enough armies for both Angers, Paris and Rennes at the same time. At least during just a few turns.

[sughdian]

archers are cheap to maintain and can easily rout a superior force when placed on your walls

[Town Watch]

I agree that it is of course ridiculous to go Mongol on the French and others as England, I'd like some mod suggestions as well, for better diplomacy if possible

But yeah, ballista/cannon towers are your friends. I defended a fortress with those in my last English game VH/VH against 2 crusading full stacks, all their siege died at start, the other crusader army started in the rear area of the fortress, where there is seemingly impossible to actually move troops to defend. You actually can move troops pretty far behind the inner fortifications and on the walls, I just manned the high walls with my remaining L-bows and watched the ballistae and bodkin devastate the German knights.

[empr guy]

the only way to deal with the AI in vanilla is to kill the faction. leaving a faction you were at war with means A) they will grow large again and send armies at you until they are dead, or B) they send armies before they regained an empire even though either way they have no chance of winning. Although i suppose they have a fair shot if you autoresolve.

[goro]

the ai in very hard does some stupid things and the worst thing is that the whole world is goiing to attack you which sucks..

[ChivalrousKiller]

Yeah, there are some points where everyone turn against you.

As England, this point is often the invasion of inland France. Then you've got Milan, HRE, Denmark, Spain and Portugal knocking on your door at the same time

[goro]

tell that to me.i got 5 sieges in the same turn and killed 15000 men in a turn just by defending my cities.the ai stands for artificial idiocy in this game

[painter]

I don't really see the point in gripping about all the dumb AIs going to war with you in VH strategy difficulty as they are scripted to hate you. If you want something more reasonable, you should play in medium or hard difficulty.

[goro]

very hard would be the ai making smart strategies against you some of your neighbors teaming and attacking you and in general it should be more realistic.I hate these unreal scenarios happening like byzantium attacking palermo because im sicily while turks are sacking konstantinopole.and what this thing about relations?i got a relations report of all european factions having abysmal relations with me just because im defending myself from 3 factions

[Justsomeone777]

I don't really see the point in gripping about all the dumb AIs going to war with you in VH strategy difficulty as they are scripted to hate you. If you want something more reasonable, you should play in medium or hard difficulty.

Actually from what I heard, the AI doesn't change from difficult to difficult. It only gains some growth bonus on settlements and units stats..

[Ishan]

Actually from what I heard, the AI doesn't change from difficult to difficult. It only gains some growth bonus on settlements and units stats..

There are 2 sets of AI campaign AI and Battle AI.
Battle AI gets bonuses like insane morale boost etc with higher difficulty.

While in campaign they are scripted. In custom AIs though several modders have given them AI boosts like increased king's purse etc according to difficulty.

[DMyles]

As the English have your diplomat approach the french princess Constance and marry her to the English faction heir with trade rights/alliance. Have the English princess go marry the Scottish faction heir. Now you have plenty of time to build an economy, get the guilds ect.

[Justsomeone777]

There are 2 sets of AI campaign AI and Battle AI.
Battle AI gets bonuses like insane morale boost etc with higher difficulty.

While in campaign they are scripted. In custom AIs though several modders have given them AI boosts like increased king's purse etc according to difficulty.

Thanks for the clarifications.

[Lannik]

lol at least the papacy didnt expand on your sicilian borders like mine. yeah the freaking pope attacked me tryng to take my towns.... good thing papist guards have crap for morale

[goro]

lol at least the papacy didnt expand on your sicilian borders like mine. yeah the freaking pope attacked me tryng to take my towns.... good thing papist guards have crap for morale

they must have the vh ai scripted to think you are the devil.that would explain a lot