WRE Strategies

[technishn08]

I've been playing BI for quite a while, and I still dont understand the WRE. I think that the AI has it a lot easier off than the human player whn using the WRE. I was playing as the Franks (with toggle_fow on :wink: ) and i noticed that the WRE always pulls men out of evry cicty and creates several armies with them. They didnt bother my armies or my city, but I couldnt stand seeing how easy it seemed for them! So I saved/quit, and started a games as the WRE, only to find my self int he same old crisis (religion, public order, etc.) Also, My cities started to rebel, and when I play as another faction, only one (two most) of their cities ever actually start the civil war. Of course I know that you could cheat and use a variety of codes to settle things, but where's the fun in that? SO if anyone has any strategies for the WRE that they could share with me, and the community, that would be great.

Thanks

[The strategist]

Don't see what the difficulty is in pulling men off cities to create armies. I do it all the time playing. The AI only actually pulls troops from France and it leaves some behind as garrisons. Usually one or two french cities rebel during this process. Also they do not pull troops right away, and allow religion to be whatever is most stable. If you are efficient enough and plan carefully enough you can accomplish just as much. You forget a few things:

1. You can lower taxes and throw games to keep order
2. You can afford to let a few cities rebel if the armies yo gain from the process are more useful than riotous cities.
3. The worst time in the game to pull armies is the first term when unrest is widespread. After a few turns religion starts to settle down as cities convert one way or the other and unrest fades away as long as you match governor religions when possible and keep the most stable type of temple/church in each city.
4. You can (and should) que up units and building on turn 1 before your cash dissapears.

I actually have a pretty good going as WRE. Admittedly I am about 7,300 denari in debt (a lot to pay off when you are playing as WRE) and all the border cities (Germany, Illaryia, and GB)
have rebeled but I have a huge army in Saxony, another in Africa, and a third in Ireland where I am about to eliminate the Celts (Ireland) and Berbers (Africa) once and for all. I have already eliminated the Saxons. I have also eliminated the Alemanni, Burgundii, and driven out the Franks. I honestly have no clue where they went though, they headed East again after I ambushed and completly destroyed on of their stacks with a small captain-led army (I think they became afraid of what my real armies could do after that) and have not been seen or resettled for quite a while (at least 10 turns.)


Anyways let me give you some advice.

1. Keep religion stable. Only convert regions near halfway point in percent religions with large garrisons (only going to be large enough if full stack.) Otherwise rely on large bunches of characters (including displomats and spies with religion) or one or two really good at conversion (WRE has one in Illaryian regions) converting the populace to small majority of one side BEFORE switching to that side to convert settlements.
2. Let some cities rebel and pull the troops. Remember the part about leaving religion stable? DOES NOT APPLY HERE. If anything you want to make religion whatever you want long-term just before allowing revolt so that the rebels factions will be dealing with riots (and possibly loyalist rebellions) and can do the hard work of converting for you.
3. Improvish settlemnts that are going to rebel (or you are going to let rebel) so that the rebels will be poor and weak. Make sure to disband military buildings as well as economic. If you do this they will only be able to field armies of peasants because building barracks will be too expensive for them due to lack of economic structures (their armies will come form revolts but will only contain peasants) and they will not have the infastructure to get better troops form revolts. If applied properly they will have peasants only (in my WRE game this is the case) and a single generals bodygaurd unit will be able to mop a whole army or city up for free (no retraining needed for bodygaurds as replaced automatically and for free) if properly managed.
4. Exterminate populaces. This includes recaptured cities. You already have way too many people at the start as WRE and if the cities are empty squalor will be low and pupulaces will be booming to refill the cities, both leading to higher public order and as a result higher tax rates or fewer games.
4. Eliminate nonrebel factions however you can. A faction that is eliminated will never trouble you again. This is why I like to let France rebel for amies at the beginnig, as initial troops are enough to wipe out the Alemanni and drive out the Franks. An added bonus here is that if you let the homecities of eliminated factions reble they can act as buffers against horde invasions (this is particularly useful for Tribus Franki and Alemanni to buffer agains Franks coming back and later Hunnic/Vandal/Sarmatian/Roxolanni invasions.) The single most important phrase you can remember is ASSASINATE, ASSASINATE, ASSASINATE. You can wipe out a faction if you kill all their family members and a new leader is not randomly generated (sometimes but not always happens.) Here I am not above saving and reloading if a failed mission seeing as I have no control over the assasin during the mission and if I controlled him he would never fail (I am a very good tactical general even if not a wonderful strategic map player.)

If you manage it all right you can eliminate all the Germanic factions (Franks, Alemanni, Saxons, Burgundii, Lombardi) the Celts, and the Berbers early in the game with armies, fleets, and assasin derived solely from start troops and then the rest of the game just becomes a mop up operation (t oget enough troops you will ahve to let a lot of cities rebel) and a civil war against the Easter Romans (they like to prey on you if your city count falls to a low number and you control Illaryia)

[joorik]

1. Choose one religion (I took christianity) and convert every city to it on the first turn. (might be short of cash for it but atleast try to get iberia and the other ones that have a high tendency to riot).
2. Pull as many troops as you can out of towns that will riot. This means that the army wont join the rebels nor lose men to riots and you have enough troops to reconquer and massacre the towns that join rebels.
3. Extermination is the key. As soon as a town riots massacre it's population. It will gain you much needed coins to support your massive army(that will shrink considerably in the first turns), but most important is that the towns wont rebel again soon, which means that you don't have to build stuff to keep people in there happy but can focus on building ports and farms to support your economy. You also don't need to keep that many troops in massacred areas also, which lowers your army upkeep.
4. After a few turns you should have no rebellions and be able to fight off germanians,alemanni, celts etc. If you can't deal with hordes yet, you shouldn't conquer the last town of tribes that can go to horde. Let them be weak as a buffer instead of having 4 armies to conquer your towns. Also, one thing that I noticed was that when I attacked last town of alemanni and they sent a relied army I killed off all their generals there. After that it showed that alemanni had been defeated and the town itself was a rebel town which meant no hordes. Prolly might have no faction to rebel on you with good use of assassins.
5. Dealing with hordes is best inside towns. Every horde seemed to attack my first town they saw and since they seem to have a crappy morale, little heavy cavalary, many horse archers(useless inside towns) and few infantry they are easily defeated. I defeated an attack from horde armies with my 2 groups of palatina auxilia and 4 generals inside a town with stone walls. Enemy casualties were 1900 men, mine were 50 men from auxilia palatina and a few from generals bodyguards (thats with medium size groups where my infantry has 40 men). I just waited in the centre (didn't have enough troops to defend 3 sides they were attacking from and also AI tends to lose tons of troops before they get to the centre) until they got closer coming from 2 directions. I left my infantry on the centre in tight formation and charged along one city street causing everyone there to flee and die and then charged back to the centre, where my infantry had already lost half of its men. All enemies there fled too and so I just run over them on the city streets. Heroic victory for me
6. If you get on feet make good use of your tehnological superiority - onagers, carriage ballistae. Onagers means that enemy can either sit it out far from you and lose troops or he has to attack which might mean that he has to attack sooner than is good for him. When combined with archers with fire ammo it means that troops attacking will have fairly low morale once they get to your overarmoured infantry - 4 cavalary units charging from one side usually made the enemy flee. With carriage ballistae it is even worse. Those things seemed to kill everything and also they gain experience real fast making them even tougher. My usual army once I got on my feet had 1 heavy onager, 3 archers, 3 cavalary, 2 carriage ballistae, 1 first cohort, 9 cohorts and a general. Thats when my worst enemy was ERE. Had enough cavalary to kill off their cavalary(which meant that as long they didn't have cavalary archers they were doomed to lose a lot of men to my carriage ballistae). Anyway they didn't stand a chance even with 2 armies vs 1 of mine. And that was with hard battle difficulty.

Anyway im quite sure that I left some important bits out as usual, but that should be enough to manage. Also I pulled off quite many heroic victories in the game, but Im quite sure you can win without that also

[hellheaven1987]

For me, I just immediately give up Gaul, Spain and Afica, disband most units and just keep Britain and Italy under my control.

[Quilts]

I manage to get by with unrest in 2-4 provinces (varies from game to game....don't know why) in the 1st turn, with stability from there on in, so I don't loose ANY provinces to rebellion :original:

That first turn is vital. You have to-

1. Destroy virtually everything that doesn't provide stability to your provinces. This will give you enough money to build some things that do provide happiness.....and build ports, for increased income. Only build what you have to to keep the populace content.....until after a few turns when you have 'money to burn WRE style' ie- not alot but enough.

2. Disband alot of troops. If they cost more than they provide in happiness or tax increases and they aren't needed for home/border defence, then disband them.

3. Move your characters to where they are needed, which pretty much means- christians to Italy/Africa, Pagans to the rest, where they are most needed depending on their attributes. Most of them won't get to their target on the first turn, however (funnily enough) most can get to where they need to be on turn 2.

4. Religious conversion is something that I do not attempt in the early game. I keep current dominant religion (building appropriate/destroying innappropriate temples to maintain this.

If you follow these principles you'll find that you lose no provinces to rebellion (in the early game anyway), and you can start to turn your economy around for the good.

I think this method may be far more difficult, and require more micro-management, than some described however it gives me alot more satisfaction that the wholesale slaughter of my own citizens :wink:

Cheers,

Quilts

[joorik]

They are not your citizens if they rebel - SLAY THEM ALL!!!

Anyway, quess it's everyones own choice, but I'd rather lose my troops to slaying rebels and exterminating towns than just disband them.

[technishn08]

They are not your citizens if they rebel - SLAY THEM ALL!!!

Hmmmm.... Thats not a bad idea :hmmm: . I just started a game as the WRE, and if I knew that I could not hold a city, then I just destryoed all of the military buildings, so when it rebelled, it was all peasents and town watch.

[Mesamedasu]

I started a WRE campaign recently, on VH.

First attempt:
I tried to keep all my territory, leading to an unseen 300.000 denarii debt. ERE declared war, uncontrolable rebellion everywhere (the real WRE 'empire' where the rebels, in the end), relentlessly attacking berbers, ... I was screwed.

Second attempt:
- I abandoned everything, except italy, the south of france and Carthage. I figured keeping the sea around Sardinia would be a good thing because of the sea trade.
- I completely destroyed all abandoned cities. I only have to fight peasant rebels now and I received som quick cash in the first turn, which I used to build christian shrines and ports in the cities I kept.
- I've adopted christianity as the only religion. This gave me trouble in Mediolanum and Ravenna, so I let them riot and retook (Is that a word?) them.
- I used the troops from abandoned cities to reconquer and exterminate some of those cities. I just cashed in and left them again, retreating all troops to Italy. I disbanded all foedarati infantry and cavalry (they are too costly) once they got to Italy. When I fight with comitatenses, I use them extensively, they cost less when dead. I can't support them.
- I'm forming an army of pagan generals to destroy enemy armies and to sack cities. They also cost less when dead and they are no good in christian cities. This reminds me, I should examine their retinues and transfer anything usefull to my christian generals.
- I destroyed the allemani, I'm holding off the berbers in Carthage, I'm friendly towards all the rest. I'm still at war with the WRE rebels, but their peasants don't pose a real threat. I plan to sack all their cities as long as it's profitable. ERE leaves me alone for now.

All these measures sum up to a more or less stable 70.000 denarii debt. A gargantuous succes, compared to the first attempt. Still problematic though.

Comments and advice are welcome.

M

[Sylver]

- I'm forming an army of pagan generals to destroy enemy armies and to sack cities. They also cost less when dead and they are no good in christian cities. This reminds me, I should examine their retinues and transfer anything usefull to my christian generals.

You can transfer retinues!?

[joorik]

Well... if you can hold your own and climb out of the debt and start conquering again you shouldn't have a problem. However I would have done things differently even if I wanted to leave all the towns - destroy all buildings and then build christian shrines in all of them. This would have meant that even if the towns revolted they would be christian next time you conquer them meaning that you'd have less problems. Also disbanding troops before walking them to Italy might prove useful because you still have to pay for them during marching. Or maybe not move them anywhere, but use them to exterminate towns that have rebelled and not refit them. That would still result in getting rid of them, but they'd also be useful.

[Mesamedasu]

Well... if you can hold your own and climb out of the debt and start conquering again you shouldn't have a problem.

My plan exactly :-)

However I would have done things differently even if I wanted to leave all the towns - destroy all buildings and then build christian shrines in all of them. This would have meant that even if the towns revolted they would be christian next time you conquer them meaning that you'd have less problems.

Little late for that. I'll keep it in mind if I have to start over.

Also disbanding troops before walking them to Italy might prove useful because you still have to pay for them during marching. Or maybe not move them anywhere, but use them to exterminate towns that have rebelled and not refit them. That would still result in getting rid of them, but they'd also be useful.

I sent them to their doom whenever I could, taking hundreds of hostile peasants with them. They just refuse to die :-) I'll put them under AI control next time. They'll be caught speeding on the highway to eternal doom.
I thought you could only disband troops while on your own territory?

M

[joorik]

You can disband troops everywhere to my knowledge. You can only disband boats in friendly ports.

[John I Tzimisces]

The only time troops cannot be disbanded, I think, is during a siege.

[Mesamedasu]

Disbanding can be done in enemy territory, I've seen it now.

A follow up on my WRE campaign:

The 70.000 debt became a 120.000 debt. There weren't any profitable city sackings for a while.
But now Spain is coming back under my control, slowly. A six pagan generals army slaughtering rebel peasants by the thousands. Laying siege takes a long time though. Stone walls everywhere and no decent infantry around to climb them. No spies either. The peasants won't sally, not even against one general laying siege.
I managed to drop the debt to 80.000 again, also because most cities, being sacked two or even three times, remain under my control now, with a minimum garisson.

Then this rebel city in dacia chose my side. Apparently the rebels planted some military buildings there, because I got units of foederati infantry and cavalry and mercenary veterans and alan horse archers. All with gold armor, silver weapons and two gold chevrons. Now the vandal hordes had just arrived in that region, so I sent my new extremely upgraded troops out to meet their destiny, because I can't afford them. They slaughtered a stack or two. One I did myself, the other was auto-resolved, against a much bigger army with reinforcements, against all odds. Must be my lucky day. So they are stil alive and in the past few turns didn't really affect my financial situation, it seems. They cost about 3000 per turn though.

So I now still control Italy-Sicily-Sardinia, Carthage, Southern Spain, a string of cities from the alpes to belgium and this city in Dacia.
Objectives: Northern Spain, Bretagne and as a result a financial relief. Holding off the vandals with my elite foederati.

M

[joorik]

If I was you I'd capture all towns near sea for trade. Maybe not even bother keeping enough armies around to defend them, but just enough peasants inside so that they wouldn't rebel.

[Mesamedasu]

I'm securing Spain and France right now, just three more peasant infested settlements. I'm moving peasants over there right now. If those regions seem stable, I'll move my pagan general army to Mauretania, so the berbers can stop focussing on Cartaghe. If I conquer it, I've got half a 'mare nostrum'.
Debt down to 45.000. Its starting to look good.

M

[Mesamedasu]

Payed off the debt, got a stable 10 000 income now.
I built a few of those chariot mounted ballistas. They are ridiculously good and they gain experience like taking candy from a baby. One unit, two battles against small rebel armies --> 2 silver chevrons. Another unit --> 4 chevrons in one little battle. I don't know, something very unbalanced in the experience-gaining-proces...

M

[Virridovix]

Low headcount plus high lethality. Those things kill every time they hit and there just aren't that many crew men to give the experience to. That may not be the only answer but it's part of it. The AI could do a better job threatening those ballistas too. The computer trys to avoid them at short range and just ends up taking more damage for longer. In particular, high-morale armored cavalry will sit there and get battered at long range.

[Krusoth_the_Plague]

Salve! Si vales, valeo!

Click here for a parallel thread. In it you will find a brief guide of mine. Here is another thread of interest.

One thing of great note is missing from my suggestions; swap the governors of Rome and Corsica with all due haste. This will prove beneficial to your coffers.

May you conquer unhampered.

[Woger of Wome]

One thing of great note is missing from my suggestions; swap the governors of Rome and Corsica with all due haste. This will prove beneficial to your coffers.

Exactly! Micromanaging your governors and swapping retinues in the first few turns can make a difference of thousands of dinari. I seem to remember that I only left 4-5 governors actually in cities because most of them were so totally crappy, with like -50% to trade and taxes. I focused on Rome and Carthage and after a few turns those cities made huge piles of cash from trade and taxes. Building ports is the key to making money early on, and tax those bastards till they go blue!