Teutonic Order VH/VH-Savage AI

[Legourou]

Is it just me, or is this campaign tough? SS6.4/RR Disabled/Savage AI

Right off the bat, I probably made my first mistake by not blitzing Lithuania. But I wanted to get rid of the rebels in my land, get some stars on my generals, kill off these expensive crusader units, and get rid of the high cost of my military.

I realize some of these aims could have been achieved by attacking Lithuania, but I didn't expect the Polish to have some good units or for my own units to be disappointing.

I waited a few turns, built up some forces, and took Hrodna and Vilnuis. Denmark would ally with me despite any money I offered them. They refused 2000 coins. Everyone around me eventually allied up and started attacking. Poland took Hrodna and Novgorod took Vilnius, but I was able to retake them both after a bunch of battles.

I probably made my next mistake by going after Denmark first, taking Visby and Revel from them. I went through a good economic period around turn 25-35, when I started turning settlements into Fortresses and Cities, and when I thought I had a good chance, I decided to finish off Lithuania.

As soon as I marched into Lithuania, an unstoppable Polish army started making it's way from Thorn to Palanga. This along with renewed attacks from Lithuania, Russia, and Denmark made the last 10 turns very tough.

It's currently turn 39 and I've won 42 battles and lost 6. I fight a battle every turn. I've recruited every spearman and horseman I could since turn 1. I've been harrying this mostly-polish-knight army every turn, killing more men than I lose with my prussian auxilia, but I can't seem to beat it. Their whole stack includes half of that stack of polish knights and piast nobles, along with many strezcly and their foot knights and dismounted nobles make every battle tough. I'm stuck inside Palanga with near 2 stacks of Polish outside my walls.

My christ knights can kill half of one of their noble units, I've only been able to recruit 1 Ritterbruder unit and my other units cannot counter their heavy troops. My Order sergeants appear to have good armor and good shields, but they melt like butter under the polish cavalry or any cavalry in general. They cost so much (at 300 a turn) to be so useless. Maybe I will wait for them to attack the fortress, but if they wait me out instead, I will fail.

I've stopped my attack on Lithuania to reinforce my position against Poland and I'm in a position to counter attack them at Plock. However their king is nearby and they can easily muster an army to counter my own if need be. I'm holding off Russia and protecting Revel and Riga at the same time. However, the Danish have come, en masse, to retake Visby and it seems Lithuania could, at any point, capture Vilnuis.

What do you think I should have done to have avoided this position? Recruited more peasants? I usually haven't recruited any until recent Poland aggression. Or maybe there are other tactics to kill cavalry? Ballista? Idk. I'm in a pickle.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The vast majority of the units you see of Poland's are heavy cavalry.

[Vissewalde rex de Gerzika]

It actually sounds like you're having a fun campaign, at least its not a total pushover like 80% of the M2 games are. Anyhow, you should try to seek peace with one of your enemies, probably Lithuania, they should be quite weary of war after you have taken the capital and they probably only own 1 or 2 provinces which are weak(knowing how stubborn the AI is in this game you might not be able to get peace even now). Others probably will not want peace because they are too powerful, so you should stick to sitting in your castles/cities(this will remove the Polish cav threat) and trying to make up one more army with which to strike out suddenly and quickly to take a province.

[Legourou]

Oh yes, I've enjoyed this campaign a bunch.

But I ended up solving the situation nicely. My Councillor snuck up to Plocl the next turn, and the other army near Palanga tried to rush back but was 1 square away, pity.

I capured Plock, Denmark captued Visby, and Poland offer "Vassaldom" as a way out. Since they are ridiculously rich, I suckered up 17,000 coins from them. I'll use that to make more troops, build nicer barracks and armories, and start the gravy-train a-rollin'. I guess they really wanted peace? Though how big do you ahve to be to not be offered Vassalge?

Also, the only real-god send of this campaign was Kiev going after Novgorod. They are ripping them a new one. I was really just wondering how everyone else deal with this campaign?

[Vissewalde rex de Gerzika]

Sounds like you have quite some luck there, don't expect Poland to stay your vassals for a long time though, especially if they are bigger than one province they are quite likely to break off.

[Legourou]

I broke it the next turn.

Poland attacked an ally of mine, which made things a bit easier for me. I stopped playing the campaign yesterday, though. I encountered a Russian army that for some reason keeps crashing mid-battle. I can't seem to get around it, so I've taken a break from it.

It's sad, really, I've put a lot of time and effort into this campaign.

Have you played this campaign before? What kind of strategies do you start out with?

[Melooo182]

you should try Really Bad AI 5.7, it might fix the issue that causes your crash

[Vissewalde rex de Gerzika]

you should try Really Bad AI 5.7, it might fix the issue that causes your crash

This, if there are 3 or more armies involved in a single battle the game might crash, the newest RBAI fixes this.

[Legourou]

Well, see, that's the thing: It's just the two armies, so I can't figure out why it's doing it.

Though it seems to crash whenever my Prussian Auxilia are using their javelins, so idk. Sometimes it crashes before the battle starts. Other times it crashed as I was routing the army and running them around. It won't seem to let me finish the battle.

I will try out the RBAI, though and see if it helps.

[Vissewalde rex de Gerzika]

Yes, do that, I think it works fine on already started campaigns.