England (Late Era)

[Pyres Δt Varanasi]

Hey Guys i am Staring a Campaign with England in the Late Era any tips or strategies i need to know or what to build first ? Also whats the strong point of England Infantry or Missile since i see that English armies have allot of different kinds of Longbowmen .

[Ichon]

Economically England has it easy. Defeat 3-4 Scottish armies and you control nearly the entire isles. Take the rebels and you have a basically untouchable base which the AI can barely threaten and which will immediately make you one of the top ranked factions.

Militarily obviously longbow men are the strong point. Even with only 4-6 longbow per army you can often kill 20-40% of the enemy before much melee fighting. That make the rest of your army take much fewer casualties. You could even stack your armies to have 1/2 longbow but eventually you'll run into an enemy army with numerous heavy cavalry and unless you have excellent terrain or defending in a map corner you are likely to take quite heavy casualties. Probably still win but... as the campaign progresses in the 1300s your enemies will start having higher armor- its not really a problem until end of the 1300s as by this time most of your armies will be high XP but eventually arrows lose some of their power. From the sides and rear they are still effective but only HA can be easily moved to side or rear so your armies while still using longbows will probably start to have more AP polearms and heavy infantry-cavalry.

[meese]

Longbowmen should form the core of your army. I use them with the feudal troops and around three/four units of heavy cavalry. Before gunpowder, the longbowmen rip apart just about everything. Plant stakes, then the heavy swordsmen and dismounted kings men will kill everything on the ground. Once you get yeomen/retinue longbowmen, you could even consider keeping them in melee and flanking with your heavy infantry (if the enemy doesn't have lots of cavalry.

Once you hit gunpowder and heavier armour, I still find the retinue longbowmen do an excellent job. You'll still want to use your heavy swordsmen/dismounted kings men (or billmen if you're out of money), but eventually you'll be swapping over to possibly men at arms but definitely halberdiers. Muskets are...I'd say less effective than longbowmen simply because the enemy will still field lighter units and muskets don't have indirect fire. But they're very very viable, especially if you use just a few of them with longbowmen as well.


So bottom line: England's strengths are its geographic position and its longbowmen. Seriously, don't underestimate these guys I'm currently into the 1500's and I still feel really sad when I don't have at least 6 units with me.

[Pyres Δt Varanasi]

Ok TY Guys , I Manage to Start well i am at turn 22 i manage to capture Edinburgh and Caernavon and that rebel settlement in Ireland which name i cannot pronounce and Scotland is almost finished just like 2 or 3 more major battles and i will own the British Isles . But i have one problem FRANCE they have declare war on me but i don't know where to invade they start with to many territories and also i notice some strange behavior on Norway i see like 2 or 3 ships near my coast do you think im going to be invaded ?

[Basileus Antiochus]

I think Norway always invade the British Isles, so just sink those vessels, as for France, start with Caen, it will give you a base to produce good troops and its close the paris

[Ichon]

Sometimes Norway invades but usually not much of a threat- if you keep a couple navies in the north. Usually they try early then get caught up fighting further east so if you defeat the first invasion you'll rarely ever see them again.

[Kalinin]

I tend to find Norway rarely invades the British Isles as it usually has it's hands full with conquering Scandinavia before it starts wars with Denmark and/or Novgorod and once it's at war it almost certainly won't attack you because AI generally doesn't like fighting lots of wars at the same time.

[Ultra123]

in early campaign dont know about late, the norwegans invaded me twice and a third time with a very small army most likely originally aimed at reinforcing 1st 2 armies, this al withing 10 turns, they succeeded in taking nottingham castle, thanks to the garrison going on walkies to kill rebels leaving 1 unit behind, i then took it back, and held against a second stack from ships.havent seen them since within 6 turns after the defeat of secod army, but i know that they just went to war with denmark (turn 36, a bit late) so maybe they are occupied, or being occupied as the case may seem.

it was a greatly refreshing change, made me surprised, and that invasion saved scotlands ass.. for now....

[The Source]

in one of my English campaigns i didn't get invaded by Norway but i had their heir camp around York for about 25 turns or so, even though they were my 'allies'

[NinjaWJ]

England is really easy. BEtter troops than the scottish especially with longbowmen. You can just straight up just kick their butts. However you should do it early because your can trigger

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

William Wallace

event and it will be a nightmare

[Duck of Death]

Been awhile since I triigered Wallace (Scotland is always already subdued to early), but if you wait and get him it is fun to bribe him... marry your princess to him and have some Wallace offspring in your royal family hehe.

Though the one time I did that, I realized his kids dont get his name That seems wrong since he wasnt a member of the scottish royal family. Or was he? Can that be fixed?

[popovic]

Though the one time I did that, I realized his kids dont get his name That seems wrong since he wasnt a member of the scottish royal family. Or was he? Can that be fixed?

Add the lastname "Wallace" to the English name pool (it should be called name.txt or something like that. Check the modding forum for details).

[Ultra123]

i actually WANT to trigger that event, i find those kind of things extremely fun to play