My first Total War defeat.

[PSSpyker]

My first defeat in a Total War game. After 1 short 1TPY Lithuanian campaign (which I didnt like) and accidently deleted save from my first 2TPY Lithuanian (H/H) campaign. I decided to start a VH/H campaign with Lithuania. I normally am a Turtler, which apparently is very dangerous for a dreadlord-Grand Duke Lithuanian VH campaign. Here's the timeline from notepad, I usually keep track of events in all my campaigns.

Wall of text!!!!!

Lithuania Timeline
VH/H Submods: Early 2TPY, Savage AI, Meneth's submods pack with LA, LLP, LA and next air crown, and ofcourse those sweet new Lithuanian units

1100 Plans to conquer nearby Hrodna.
1101 Prince Algimantas conquers Hrodna, and sacks it.
1103 Prince Algimantas earns a Heroic Victory against Rebels.
1105 The Grand Duchy of Lithuania and The Kingdom of Poland negotiates an Alliance and Trade Rights.
1106 Morta, The Duke's Wife, died peacefully.
1107 Prince Algimantas conquers Palanga after a long siege.
1107 Prince Algimantas earned a Great Victory against Palangan Rebels.
1108 The Grand Duchy of Lithuania and The Republic of Venice now have a Trade Agreement.
1109 Crusaded called against Cairo.
1111 Rimgaudas earnes his first Victory against Lithuanian Rebels. He is around 16 years here
1112 Rimgaudas defeats an Rebel army. Religious war in the entire empire. My priests cant keep up with those Novgorod unorthodox priests, Polands catholic priests and here and there some heretic.
1113 The Kingdom of Norway attacks undefended Palanga. They sneak attacked from land. They conquered Stettin, but I didnt even know they were south of the baltic sea.
1113 Cairo conquered by Sicilian Forces.
1114 Prince Algimantas stops his campaign against rebel castle in the South of Hrodna to help. Rimgaudas prepares for Battle against both Rebels and Norwegians. Didnt remember the name of that Castle, Minsk was already conquered by Kievan Rus, didnt want war over it and Riga was already taken. The closest rebel town/castle was that castle south of Hrodna, because I though my Polish ally's already taken Stettin, which they did really fast in both other campaigns. Turned out to be a Norwegian castle.
1115 Norwegian forces occupy Palanga.2 Units of Axeman are not enough to stop 4 Viking units and 3 Saxon Huscarls with militia and horse archer support.
1115 Combined Rimgaudas' and Algimantas' forces defeats the Norwegians on both the field and siege. Very odd Norway split their forces in 2, giving me 2 easy victory's instead of one hard battle.
1116 Rimgaudas leads an assault army to defeat an incoming Norwegian force and take the fight to their only Castle on the lands beneath the sea. I figured they conquered Stettin, I had no agents to go and check for sure, but their wern't much other options without pissing off Poland.
1117 An Danish force lands on the shores of Palanga. Prince Algimantas has a smaller force, but equal strength of the Danish. Damn Danish.
1117 Rimgaudas defeats an small army on the field and starts to siege their stronghold, hoping to starve them. The Norway army was slighty bigger, but more profesional, and my horse archers are useless in a Siege, so I was hoping to make them sally and win the field battle because of my HA advantage.
1117 Prince Algimantas attacks the Danish force on the shores of Palanga and defeats the Danish. My economy starts to crumble. (Mainly because of Mercs.)
About 200 vs 500, but they had no cavalry and only 2 units of Levy archers, so I still crushed them with ease.HA against low armoured infantry FTW!!
1118 Grand Duke Butigeidis the Greedy useless basterds. I had NO governer whatsoever, only Greedy ones or bad ungrown children with bad tutors. defends Vilnius against an far bigger and better equipped Novgorod Army. Every man is needed, including young Buyvidas, who dies in battle at age 13. The old duke still kicks ass at age 80, and is one of 3 surviving cavalry. Huge victory, I sallied both my General's units out of the gate, with 2 levy archers and 1 unit of axe militia against an army 3 time my size with most of them early professionals and mercenary's. Only 3 out of 80 cavalry survives, one of them an 80 year old Greedy and Senile man.
1120 Rimgaudas and Prince Algimantas defeats rebels in the mainland.The rebels just keep spawning, usually bigger than the city guards, with were usually 1 levy archer and 1 axe or spear militia Economic is terrible, Pagan religion is losing followers. Grand Duke celebrates his 81th birthday.He just doesn't want to die.
1120 Norwegian forces siege Palanga again, but are defeated on the field, Rimgaudas moves a small army north to Riga, to conquer it and force peace with Novgorod. If I didn't do this, I might had a small chance of actually surviving the campaign for 2 turns extra.
1121 A large Norwegian force siege Palanga for the 3rd time. Didn't see it coming, that family member had like 2095 movement points. Prince Algimantas moves a rather small army to aid the city guard, but it will be a though fight.
1121 Hungarian forces attacks (15 units) undefended Hrodna FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUU. Prince Algimantas dies in combat against the Norwegians FFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUU^2 , but does win the match. Prince Rimgaudas conquers Riga and defeats 3 small Novgorod army's, but his army is near depleted. FFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUU^3.
1122 Grand Duke Butigeidis the Greedy dies of old age (84)FFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUU^4, ok he was more than useless, a pain in the ass, to be exactly, but his bodyguards were more than welcome. . Grand Duke Rimgaudas the Greedy adopts a new general. Small militia forces from Vilnius I couln't afford new units of reinforcments since 1120, and disbanded my mercs a few turns back. led by a captain aids Hrodna in battle, but are defeated. At least the Ruthanian Archers took almost 250 with them. Rimgaudas moves south to attack the far greather Hungurain army. Well, I knew it would be a suicide charge, but I didn't want to quit yet. Ofcourse, Novgorod army stands in the way.
1122 Danish ships near the shores of Palanga, Yes, I was screwed big them, then I can see a new Danish ship with 1/2 stack in it near my shores. Grand Duke Rimgaudas defeats another Novgorod army and diplomat forces peace after 2 crushing defeats and 4 major defeats. New small Norwegian army nears Palanga. I had still 2 depleted units of axeman in Palanga, but without govenour unable to recruit more or retrain them. I had 2 1/2 stacks nearing my twice exterminated city.
1123 Rimgaudas army got defeated on the field by Hungarian forces, Rimgaudas survives along with 2 other units. Well, the withdrawal button must be their for a reason, I just wanted to quit by my own means, instead of defeat because I lost all family members. Norwegians attack Palanga, 6 units vs 2 depleted milita. auto_win defender, because I knew I was going to quit the game.
1123 Algimantas' daugher got an marriage invitation, she was 12 and the guy was 44. I accepted it for fun anyway.
Quit Game!!! YEAHHH, my first defeat!.

No idea what my next campaign will be. No Lithuania atleast. I will try Lithuania in the future again, but then on H/H and start off with a chivalrous king. Roleplaying a Dreadlord as king wasn't succesfull for my international reputation.

Any suggestions which nation I should play next? I like the light infantry and cavalry idea from Lithuania because normally I play nations with uber heavy soldiers like England.

[DeliCiousTZM]

omg you sincerly lost i envy you TT

[Ichon]

That is about normal for a Lithuanian campaign I think though Palanga isn't always the focus. Usually I had Hrodna and Mensk be the targets most often from Novgorod, Kiev, Poland, and Denmark. Norway going so far east and Hungary coming north a bit unusual but Poland must had problems and you didn't need to deal with Kiev or much from Denmark so... about normal. Not sure if I would quit yet in your position if you have 2 stacks left and still controlled Hrodna and could gain Palanga easily and probably Vilnius. Or at least move to Visby/Turku with pagan shaman when seems mainland is lost.

Still- one defeat can sharpen your aggression for next game. Some factions are very difficult to play defensively usually. Lithuania is one... often you end up playing defensively even when trying to be aggressive and just have to hold on until you get a break to capture some larger cities or ransack largest enemy city to gain cash.

[Radzeer]

You lost, but the writeup was pretty good! +rep

[Mega Tortas de Bodemloze]

You lost, but the writeup was pretty good! +rep

^^^Dis^^^...

[Gunodd]

How do you guys do it? Win battle after battle I mean. I've read a bunch of M2TW strategy but I still can't manage. Maybe I don't have enough archers/cav? Too much inf? WHO KNOWS?! I only hope I can one day even begin to aspire to liken your military genius.

[Caesar Clivus]

Maybe I don't have enough archers/cav? Too much inf? WHO KNOWS?!

Depends on the faction you're playing.

[Ichon]

Depends on the faction you're playing.

Most of the factions are workable to win nearly every planned battle. If play on VH without FoW off and can still get some surprise sieges or ambushes its difficult to win 100% battles.

The difference usually is more if its a heroic victory or not. For example Genoa I have played numerous times but in early part of the campaign many of the battles are close victories and hardly ever heroic victories except in siege defenses or when only using BG in siege sally attacks. Battles between full stack armies Genoa just has mostly medium spearmen and some crossbows to work with early and there aren't a huge amount of brilliant strategies to try with them. Winning strategies yeah... however any HA faction should get numerous heroic victories and any faction with access to lots of HC or high armor units can also get lots of heroic victories. The strength of Genoa early is in the rich cities in its starting region so it can support full stack of spearmen where Hungary or Lithuania has to make do with 1/4 stack of HA. CS would be much tougher if it took longer to access its best units or its starting regions were more spread out. As it is reinforcements from each of its coastal regions can reach any other region in 1-2 turns which means even strategically vastly outnumbered it can still be close to parity per battle and has higher portion of strong units than its enemies in early campaign.

Most difficult campaigns I've had were when something was greatly titled against the faction- late era Lithuania fighting Teutons + Novgorod + Kiev + Poland at the same time or Portugal that faces Moorish naval blockade + Castile betrayal + Jihad soon as captures Cordoba or excommunicated Denmark fighting determined large HRE + Poland + England + France + Novgorod + Teutons with mostly infantry armies that can win battles but require retraining frequently.

[WelshDragon]

It's good to lose sometimes... it keeps the fear alive

I got uber-pwned as Crusader States on Late last week... Savage AI, H/H. I usually try to not to blitz the Fatamids early, that seems to be too easy. But they attacked and sent more stacks than I had ever seen before against my 3 stacks. I won the first few battles but I could not defend agains tht e3 pronged attack and my losses caught up with me. It was over before turn 20... and I enjoyed every minute of it.

[teks]

The horses don't need the bows. Any good horse faction gets the heroics. I don't think auto resolve gives the horses much credit.
My greatest source of heroic victories = Byzantine general vrs 2 spear militia, and 2 archers.

Yeah the computer thinks OMG you only lost 5 men your amazing, but really those poor guys never had a prayer.

[nlovertoom]

How do you guys do it? Win battle after battle I mean. I've read a bunch of M2TW strategy but I still can't manage. Maybe I don't have enough archers/cav? Too much inf? WHO KNOWS?! I only hope I can one day even begin to aspire to liken your military genius.

Really?? I win probably 19/20 battles on VH/VH... The AI just gets flanked or attacks piecemeal. I wish there was multiplayer campaign.

[prima legio]

i haven t plaied with lituania but i think that is very hard win a campaign with this faction....for your next campaign i suggest you to try hungary or poland.

[Disregard]

I rarely lose battles, mostly Naval defeats. Probably because of my playstyle... Im very cautious and tend to turtle like mad. I never go on a campaign or attack a settlement mid to late game without sufficient troops and rear guards, I prefer to take my time.

Always have reserves and rear-echelon units to watch any flanks.

edit: Though I tend not to play hard factions like Crusader States or Lith, currently playing Aragon and destroyed everyone in Spain and the Moors are gone. Lost 5 battles out of 60 or so, most likely do to the fact that I have no navy. I have Genoa to back me up with its naval fleet.

[Kameraden]

nice text, +rep for that.

[philipjd]

You can tell whether your nation will 'survive' and that generally means winning, within the first 10-15 turns, I usually move on if it looks like a non-event campaign, so well done for hanging in there and playing to the end - +rep.
Once past the 10-15 turn mark then no matter what the AI brings on it's manageable, and great fun too until the snowball gets too large then tedious.

[DeliCiousTZM]

The golden rule to victory AI abuse.

[Ichon]

The golden rule to victory AI abuse.

Well say the same for any win... take advantage of opponent mistakes/stupidity and use your strengths or cover your weakness.

[Killswitch]

I've lost a couple of Lithuania campaigns on VH becuase of the way i play , role playing , realistic (in my opinion) and i love overwhelming odds for the how long can i last nature of it . I could exploit the AI with other tactics but it doesn't feel realistic to do so and gives me little satisafaction . things that challenge me give me more satisfaction , win lose or draw .
Some Empires just weren't meant to be !!!

[Rokiniz]

i ALWAYS play with Lithuania(best one of all ofc ) but ye, its a very difficult faction, cuz u have lots of enemy's who attack you allmost all the turns , starting from turn 20-25. But if you know how to play the lithuanians, you can conquer all the russia and go west. just u gotta plan forward and keep defending until its time to strike.

[Ichon]

Lithuanian cavalry make winning most field battles in early era with light losses possible but you can still get into messy sieges and Lithuania is undeveloped enough that only Vilnius can produce many of those for awhile so you really have to use the ones you get nearly constantly. Playing BGR or longer assimilation also makes Lithuania more difficult to expand due both to rebellions of newly captured regions and Catholic and Orthodox priests sometimes flooding Lithuanian lands.

Assassin and religious buildings almost necessary for Lithuania over much economic or military for awhile. Luckily pagan religious buildings cheap and quick building plus Vilnius can recruit enough units that Lithuania can't really afford anyway for a long time so neglecting military buildings in captured regions is ok.