General VH/VH Tips

[The Unknown General]

Do you guys have tips for VH/VH that apply for most if not all factions? I tried VH/VH as a couple of factions, but found it too difficult.However, H/H doesn't seem to be too challenging and I'm almost done as the British.

[Cheator]

Don't try it? Seriously every time I try to play VH/VH, factions from around the world come to gangbang me
First Portugal - before turn 15 I was at war with Spain, Moors, France, Sicily, Milan, Scotland and England
Byzantium - Venice, Sicily, Pope, Turks and Egypt

And ALL of them keep pumping full stacks at me
If I didn't ragequit I'd probably get swarmed by factions not even in the game too like Japan or India

[Re_Minder]

Tip 1 - high chivalry leader. Always. That improves your reputation and makes backstabs VERY rare.
Tip 2 - ally those you don't plan to attack anytime soon. Ally big/strong ones. Chances are, later you'll be forced to take sides and break some of those alliances anyway, so choose the sides carefully then. Try not to stab or do nasty stuff... I tend to use no assassins at all on VH/VH.
Tip 3 - measure your forces and don't bite what you can't chew. Pick on weak ones, that always works best.
Tip 4 - gift some money from time to time to biggest neighbors and Pope. Don't go mad wasting your treasury, 1k is more than enough.


....man, there are so many tips I don't even know which ones to write. It would help to know the details of why you find VH/VH so hard.

[AJenny58]

....man, there are so many tips I don't even know which ones to write. It would help to know the details of why you find VH/VH so hard.

What I have trouble with on VH/VH is the AI hanging up on me in the first few turns. I feel like from the start I'm stuck in a defensive game and I can't build my economy because I am constantly under siege. Also after I heroically defeat an invading army another seems to spawn put of the corpses of the last making it impossible for me to whittle away the enemy forces enough for a counter attack. And I'm consistently bankrupt. AND diplomacy is a nightmare rather than my friend. I started playing on M/VH just for the more coherent diplomacy.

[Aeratus]

A lot of people only play on VH/VH. I think these are the most important aspects of VH/VH:

1. Blitz the AI settlements as soon as possible. For example, if your playing England in the Britannia campaign, Wales should be destroyed in about 5 turns, and Ireland within 10 turns. If you're playing Denmark in the Teutonic campaign, you should have the Kalmar Union formed within 15 turns.

2. Build economic buildings for long term development. The most important buildings are roads, grain exchange (markets), warehouse, and ports. With a huge economy, you can easily afford 30k in army upkeep to support multiple stacks of elite units. Even 100k+ army upkeep won't be an issue if your economy is large enough.

3. Do a lot of things each turn. So each turn, you should be building or recruiting in just about every settlement if you have the funds to do so. And each turn, you should have army moving on the map.

4. Crush the AI on the battlefield. Aim to achieve heroic victories at least 50-70% of the times on important field battles (depending on your faction's roster), and 80-90% of the times in siege defense.

[John Doe]

On VH, you'd better keep a good global reputation at the start of the campaign, it means releasing prisoners and no sacking/exterminate. Try to get as many alliance and trade rights from your neighbours as you can. AI will still attack you, but it will be less likely that all factions will gang up on you. Ceasefire will still be a pain to get if you share a border with the faction.

And what Aeratus said.

[Renco]

I guess i'm the only one who's going to advocate playing an evil campaign on vh/vh. I've found it doesn't matter how chivalrous your king is, or how diplomatic you are, you will always be at war with everyone, all the time. And I wouldn't have the game any other way.

Currently playing England and from the start I was sacking and executing. The money you get from sacking allows you to build your economy and field at least one decent army. With sufficient dread, brought about by executing prisoners, you should be able to defeat most other stacks without many casualties. Abuse the terrain and you'll soon have an amazing general with an army of veterans strolling about your homelands slaughtering any and all invaders. In my campaign I was dealing with naval invasions from Denmark, Spain, Portugal and Scotland, of all factions, as they managed to take a city on the mainland within the first ten turns of the game. I've never had more fun in the early stage of a campaign where every battle could be your last, and you border poverty each turn. You have to be careful about allocating resources and troop movement, because you can't afford defensive garrisons and if your army is too far away from a besieged city, you will lose it the next turn. And when you can afford additional armies, with good commanders, and you can afford to launch invasions, it's a great feeling. Destroying a faction will never be as satisfying as it is when they've been trying to kill you for the better part of 20-30 turns.

By the late game you'll be steamrolling the entire map no matter what difficulty you're playing on. It's that early stage that is the most fun. Don't give up on it. Instead of trying to prevent war, actively encourage it. You may lose a few campaigns along the way, but when you get to the stage where you start winning, and you will, it really is worth it all. It gets easier with time, just keep trying.

[Re_Minder]

Ok then. I've already given the best tip possible for VH diplomacy - always have high chivalry leaders and heirs, that will improve your reputation greatly (in my current game I was "Immaculate" in like 30 turns) and make allies keep their alliances. Ally almost everyone around you (start with stronger factions) except maybe one or two factions you want to fight against. Diplomatic part will be quite easy then and you won't be "constantly under siege" - you'll rather be able to fight those you want without others interrupting. Oh, and I wouldn't suggest pissing off the Pope below half the rep bar - excommunication hurts most of the time.

About economy... as it was mentioned, roads (1st building you should build in any city except an island one), ports and grain exchanges should be your top priorities. In the first few turns you may lack money to start well - just sell map information, trade right and alliance packages to those around you, that will give you more than enough to make your empire run. Build all merchants in your biggest or most profitable city to build the merchant's guild when it's offered. Find profitable resources for merchants (for Vanilla and some other mods sending merchants to Timbuktu is a sure way to fix all financial problems you may ever have... the resources make a lot of cash).

It is also very important to expand early and fast as you probably will have some rebel cities/a weak neighbor around... so just empty your garrisons leaving some crappy unit to maintain order, drop taxes to low and use starter troops to take over some cities. Yes, you will be VERY vulnerable at this point, but AI is hardly interested in fighting you. By fighting early, not only you will gain some cities, but also thin your (usually quite useless) starter army and thus reduce upkeep. While you're fighting, start filling your garrisons with free upkeep troops (except peasants or Town Militia if possible) or you can make some reinforcements for your fighters. I do, however, suggest taking a short break after taking all easy targets to refill your ranks and prepare for stronger neighbors (one hint though, even if superpowers like HRE start weak, don't pick on them early - the war will be long and painful).

By the way, armies don't appear out of thin air - I tend to play without fog of war, so it's easy to see what comes from where. it's just a matter of picking an enemy who can't stand against you, and with most or all rebel cities around your empire should have at least a couple of small fishes to eat.

[Aeratus]

I guess i'm the only one who's going to advocate playing an evil campaign on vh/vh. I've found it doesn't matter how chivalrous your king is, or how diplomatic you are, you will always be at war with everyone, all the time. And I wouldn't have the game any other way.

I always play evil on VH/VH, at least in terms of diplomacy, i.e. always at war with everyone and always attacking when convenient. I think playing evil is more consistent with blitz strategy where you take any settlement as quickly as possible. Chivalric generals only to raise population.

[The Unknown General]

Besides economy the whole thing that hinders me is the rate the AI builds armies. They build more armies and attack me consistently before I can even retrain my armies.

[13lackGu4rd]

Besides economy the whole thing that hinders me is the rate the AI builds armies. They build more armies and attack me consistently before I can even retrain my armies.

the thing is that these armies generally consist of very crappy troops, unless you're very late in the game(like around the Timurid invasion). battlefield tactics should serve you well here to minimize your losses and to gain overwhelming victories over the AI armies, lots of heroic victories too so captains can become generals with the man of the hour event.

the key is to have a balanced army, generally some form of spear unit to hold the line and absorb the initial charge, some cavalry to perform hammer and anvil strikes and some missile troops to soften the enemy before they reach your lines. later on when you get access to your elite units this might change, as you may want to mix in other heavy infantry units besides spears(pikes, swords, polearms, etc), or even replace the spearsmen altogether, sometimes you'll want pure cavalry armies(with a lot of missile cavalry), etc.

form your line infantry in front, missile units behind(if bow units) or right in front(if crossbow units) of the line and cavalry(and other heavy infantry if you use them) on the flanks. let the lines meet up, after your missile units pepper the enemy before they reach your line, than use your flanking forces to converge on the enemy line from the sides and rear. this is a foolproof method that can turn overwhelming odds(by the AI's calculations) into heroic victories and with very few losses. some specific nations will require(or just prefer) the usage of different tactics but this is generally true, and at least to an extent doable by everyone.

[Aeratus]

Besides economy the whole thing that hinders me is the rate the AI builds armies. They build more armies and attack me consistently before I can even retrain my armies.

How large your army is directly a result of your economy. So once you fix your economy, you can have a huge army. That's why the economy is the most important aspect. Of course, military tactics is also important, but military becomes intuitive after a while. Economy is somewhat less intuitive, so try to see how you can optimize your economy based on the stuff written in this thread.

And how much larger is the AI's army? For example, in the last time I played vanilla on VH/VH with Russia, the Timurids arrived around Antioch with about 10 stacks, including elephants. That's a pretty large army, but I had 60 units of Tsar's guard and 40 Druzhina/Dvor, which is still smaller than the AI's army, but good enough to beat them on the battle field once the AI's lack of battle tactics is factored in.

[PrestigeX]

I play DarthMod -- and the difficulty settings compared to vanilla, are about twice as hard for the AI, and made seriously more difficult because of Cost -- building/recruit costs are far greater.

On Vh/Vh it's a great game because for a large part of the game money is tight. Have to really manage what to build and keep the army economic.

The trick I find is to sack very few cities, only the ones that are far from your capital and likely to be trouble zones -- like Damascus, or bruges, or Edessa - places likely to revolt. They other thing is not to sit back and let enemies siege your settlements for very long (unless they are rubbish places) - try and defeat enemy armies in the field, ransom them - hope to earn money that way.

A lot of the strategy of this Game, depends entirely on battlefield prowress -- if that 10,000 dollar army of yours can fight battle after battle with minimal casualties you'll be economically sound - able to expand, and build up existing settlements. But if you're constantly having to retrain / recruit vast numbers of men in costly wars then progress will slow to a crawl.

Instead of getting say 6 Dfks and 6 Armor Sergeants -- you can do the same job with 8 spear militia (blacksmith upgrade) and 2 dfks, .. instead of all Mailed Knights - split duties with Light Cavs, use your Kings and Faction Heir in battle -
Exploit Crusades / Jihad any time it is advantageous -- even just to get your armies free-upkeep / specialist mercs like Crusader knights or ghazis when you expect another faction to succeed in the Holy War.

[13lackGu4rd]

here are a few general(as in not faction dependent) tips for VH/VH(which I and many others here always play on) aimed at the campaign map(as battles are pretty much the same):

1. rush as many independent settlements you can around your area. the AI is usually expanding very slowly but it does rush some settlements(like Denmark rushing Hamburg, Poland rushing its way to Kiev, various factions rushing Durrazo, etc).

2. traits do matter. pay attention to your family members. Chivalrous governors are the best, as they induce population growth. other traits to keep an eye on are the trade and tax ones. there is a nice guide around here on what triggers each trait thus how to manipulate the traits you will achieve. it's in Nazgul's compilation of guides if I recall correctly.

3. focus on economic buildings(farms are included here as they boost your economy both directly and indirectly) first. without a solid economy you will fall(unless you play blitzkrieg style that is, which is an entirely different beast).

4. keep a solid city:castle ratio, 3:1 or even 4:1 is a good ratio to have. if playing Milan ignore this, as they don't need any castles at all as they produce their best troops from cities.

5. keep your castles in strategic locations and poor regions only. rich regions should be cities so you gain the maximum economic benefits from them, as castles donate very little to your economy.

6. don't build huge military forces just because you can. build only what you need for near future conquests and defenses. remember, military units cost upkeep, which is the main expense you have as soon as the early stage of the game ends. also, if you can focus on high recruitment cost low upkeep costs units, as they're the best to have for the long run.

7. naval trade is the largest source of income, only a handful of land based trade cities can try to match(yet still come short) naval trade cities(Milan, Frankfurt, Zagreb and a few others come to mind, but that's pretty much it). so no matter which faction you play, try to have a solid shoreline pressence(in whichever sea is closest to your position).

that's pretty much it for now, hope these tips help you guys. if you have any more specific questions feel free to ask and I(and others here) will gladly try to answer them.