Denmark - Push east or west or south?

[Blom89]

I started a campaign as denmark and pushed east into russia. Ive captured all but 1 russian settlement and a few rebel settlements as well. Ive also allied with HRE and poland.

But now Im worried about the impending mongol invasion and the consequences it might hold for pushing east the way I did.

Im low on cash but I have a decent sized military and im considering invading poland for there resources and cash flow i'll get from there cities. and then eventually hungary as well. basically create an eastern wall and then line the wall with full stacks to fight off the mongols.

poland and hungary are at war right now, so im thinking about allying myself with hungary and then attacking poland from the north while hungary invades poland from the south, and once poland is gone, i'll handle hungary.

im hoping I can keep my alliance with the HRE in tact, because so far they've captured all the rebel settlements just south of my capital and there literally right on my door step. a war with them would be a disaster for me.

[FightInTheShade]

Best bet is to let the Mongols take a settlement or two before engaging them. This will effectively divide their troops.

I've already made the mistake of engaging them in open field and they had 2 reinforcement squads of 600+ each. My single stack was FUBAR as you could imagine.

[Jianadaren]

You might get lucky- the Mongols might attack the Turks.

[Diamond]

I say push west. Poland's cavalry can cause a lot of destruction to Danish troops but France and England are easy to handle because the AI doesn't control those factions well.

[dannyalex]

"All roads lead to Rome"

[crzyrndm]

Stay in the northern regions with the danes, because most of their units get quite a decent bonus for fighting in snow(+2-4 attack) and get a massive 6+ heat effect which kills stamina twice as fast in warmer regions than the average unit(3).
Conquer the british isles, and the russian/french coastline for massive sea trade network that makes a good economy. Get lots of cities able to produce sword staff militia(or spear militia spam, I can't remember how they do against cav in vanilla).
Norse war clerics are your ultimate cav killers and hospitalliers will be your heavy chargers. Dism huscarls are killers due to ap weapon especially if you get swordsmith guild and armour upgraded, and vikings back them up nicely.

[13lackGu4rd]

remake the Viking invasion and take over all of the British Isles, than you invade the shores of the northern sea(Poland, northern HRE, northern France, etc) to get complete control over the northern sea. entrench your position so you can deal with invasions from the south and east and wait for the world is round event and take over the new world too.

[PrestigeX]

Take all the Coastal Settlements in the Baltic -- then head for the British Isles - Danish Infantry in the early period will DESTROY english / scottish forces. And hopefully, this will be before the english can get Longbowmen in any significant quantity.

Eastward -- I usually stop at Moscow & sue for peace with the Russians / fight a few land battles to beat them back. Honestly, the cost involved in the early period to take over Eastern Europe / Russia is too high - I usually prefer to have a big kingdom and strong economy b4 taking out the russians because those long land-distances, and Horse Archer type armies, are a real drain on the upkeep / retraining of units. LAter on Danes can recruit larger numbers of Cavalry and it's a worthwhile expedition.

Easier to focus on Britain with the many settlements close together and infantry-fighting nature of combat there.