Defensive Expansion

[ILikePortillos]

I'm currently playing a campaign as England, and I've found myself in control of the British Isles, less Scotland and Inverness, and the year is 1121. The funny thing is that I was completely intent on attempting to maintain England as she stood historically, chosing not to expand, but rather to develop, and to bolster my defenses. That all went out the window when the Scots of all people decided they wanted to conquer the islands.

So rather than leaving the Irish and Welsh to themselves as I had planned, I got in there fast and gained control before the Scots could gain a strong foothold. I guess the question I have is, did I really have anything to worry about in the first place? Am I being paranoid thinking the Scots were hawkish, and intent on British control? Or was my move warranted? I figured I'd rather have an English Britain, than be a minor player next to a Scotish behemoth.

At this point, I'm hoping to contain the Scots in the north, expecting that they'll eventually tire of leading their troops to slaughter in English territory, before eventually making a play for western French territories as the 14th Century approaches.

Has anyone else won a campaign with minimal expansion?

[Avatar]

Well, you have to expand eventually, but since you appear to have the Welsh and Irish in your campaign you must be playing a mod, which will affect any advice that people can give.

Turtling does work as a strategy in most cases of course. There are plenty of examples of people sitting in their starting locations for a few hundred turns and then blitzing the map.

[Jianadaren]

Well you need 45 territories to "win", so military expansion is usually necessary.

[Mausolos of Caria]

Even if you only want to make historical expansion at the beginning you could conquer the territory of the Angevin Empire of the Plantagenets:




But as for attacking Scotland and capturing Edinburgh, of course you could have just slaughtered some Scottish armies and the offered a ceasefire, that probably would have worked as well. You could still sell Edinburgh to Scotland or giving it to them to become vassals in exchange.

@ Avatar I think he just means the Welsh and the Irish as rebels, from what he wrote I got that impression

[Ferdiad]

This game ain't EU3 you can't expand successfully with diplomacy, you need to use your Military.

[Alexanderos]

In my games , scotland usually stays like a dumb everytime , sometimes conquers inverness and rarely conquers york too(from the english) and i think that in one of my byzantine or venice campaign i saw them taking all of england and the enligsh started a new kingdom from caen

[ILikePortillos]

Thanks all! Mausolos, you're correct in that I was refering to Wales and Ireland as rebel territories. Sorry for the lack of clarity. And to your point, the map you provided was along the lines of what I hope to accomplish by the mid 14th Century or so. That said, I like the idea of capturing Edinburgh, then selling it back to the Scots in exchange for their vasallage. I don't want them wiped out, I merely want them to be kept "manageable." If any other nation attempted to gain a foothold in Britain by going for Scottish territory, I'd deal with them with a much higher level of contempt. The only snag to that plan is that the Scots have already expanded onto the Continent by taking Antwerp, so they may be less likely to agree to that arrangement given the fact that they have other territory from which to grow. We'll see how it all plays out.

[Mausolos of Caria]

Thanks all! Mausolos, you're correct in that I was refering to Wales and Ireland as rebel territories. Sorry for the lack of clarity. And to your point, the map you provided was along the lines of what I hope to accomplish by the mid 14th Century or so. That said, I like the idea of capturing Edinburgh, then selling it back to the Scots in exchange for their vasallage. I don't want them wiped out, I merely want them to be kept "manageable." If any other nation attempted to gain a foothold in Britain by going for Scottish territory, I'd deal with them with a much higher level of contempt. The only snag to that plan is that the Scots have already expanded onto the Continent by taking Antwerp, so they may be less likely to agree to that arrangement given the fact that they have other territory from which to grow. We'll see how it all plays out.

Yeah sounds like a good plan, you could just conquer Antwerp from them if you are still at war and then give it to France because otherwise they will probably be too weak again But I like it as long as you want to keep Scotland alive