I can't seem to play past about turn 30.

[jahjeremy]

It seems like I give up on every one of my SS campaigns in frustration around turn 30. That's when I usually am either really cash strapped, come up against a wall of unstoppable troops that outnumber me, or get hit by multiple factions (or some combination thereof). Anyone else have this problem or anything similar?

What do you do when you hit the wall? Or do you hit one at all? Do you just play through it, massacres of your best troops and lost settlements be damned? It seems like around turn 30 is when the AI generally gets its act together and after fiddling for the last 30 years starts launching half to full stacks of heavily upgraded troops at me (especially infantry).

Like for instance in my current campaign as Teutonic, I'm going along happily rolling Novgorod, and suddenly he shows up with a half stack of uber infantry, most of which have almost 20 defense. Uh, wow, I didn't know that Eastern Europeans had bullet proof vests back then.

Anyways, I'm wondering what to do about this, as I really want to like this mod but just ended up getting frustrated by it. I play on noob difficulty levels, too, none of this VH/VH business.

[Sir_Crashalot]

Hey mate, I have read all three of your recent posts, and thought I'll share some of my experience.

Assuming you are playing SS 6.4 with BYG enabled, I suspect you are trying to do things too fast, and that is why you are in trouble. SS6.4 encourages a slow and steady approach to the game, where you fight one enemy at a time and spend 20-30 turns between wars building up your strength.

Without having seen your game, I suggest that you may be better off not fighting anyone so early, spend 20-30 turns at the beginning just grabbing any rebel settlements, and building up your own army of professional units. Lithuania is a good target to pick on early, and you may even get a crusade on them.

I am currently in turn 105 of my English campaign, and I have only just destroyed France (my first victim), that should give you an idea of the pace you should go at. Over extending in this game is really bad.

Also, don't worry about the lack of generals, you really should only use 1-2 generals to fight wars (due to the war council system), and more generals will cost you money because of the noble income system. Regarding siege battles I suggest not attacking settlements with more than 4-5 units defending it, instead just siege them and hope they are dumb enough to sally out. It makes for a slow game but that is exactly what you want.

If you attach a screen shot or two I may be able to give more details advice, but thats all I got atm, good luck and have fun XD

[Zvornik]

Diplomacy is a most useful weapon