Originally Posted by
RodriguesSting
Hungary is a very interesting nation to play as. If you think Catholics have it easy, first off, you are actually thinking of Latins, and second, Hungary will change your mind.
Strategically, they are a quite interesting faction for two reasons: firstly, you have all your ancestral homelands (in that case, Panonia, rather than... wherever Magyars came from) from the get go, 5 whole provinces, which is not small realm. Furthermore, said provinces have an interesting combination of features: they are very wealthy, and very under-developed. Nearly every single of them have gold or silver, and you do get some mines from the get go, which can make for a stupendous income boost. However, all of these provinces are on very low level of development, and have low population, so they will take some time to get where you need them to. That makes for turtling a rather appealing strategy. And sadly, gold and silver can't be used to make weapons and armor, a subject I will touch up later.
And the second reason is, they are surrounded by 6 factions. The Holy Roman Empire, Poland, Venice, Serbia, the Unholy Greek Tyranny, and the Quipchags. And they all are looking forwards taking these resource rich lands. The more pressing neighbor is Poland, of course, as you already start at war with them, and their capital is VERY close to you. For them, you can either crush their standing army by gathering your forces, won't be too difficult, specially if you use well your horse archers, and go for an early conquest spree. But that carries its diplomatic implications of tanking your Reputation, and the risk of getting your ass kicked by the pope. My preferred method is to disband most of my forces (minus the horse archers, you can keep either the nobles or the riders, up to taste), quickly gather a sum of around 8000 gold (quite quickly, and won't even have to stall my development), and buy peace and alliance with them. Said alliance won't last without the occasional bribe and show of force when their army decides to do some "field exercises" right outside your capital, but waging war on a fellow catholic can get out of hand VERY quick.
After solving the issue with the Poles, temporarily or permanently, your most aggressive neighbors will be the Byzantines and the Cumans. Both can also be brought with alliances and the ocasional stern stare by your standing army when they decide frontiers are social constructs, but will overall be much less of a headache than your immediately norther neighbors. That said, keep in mind, all of them, all of the 6, can invade you when you least expect it, so get that one diplomat of yours working overtime and that standing defense army going.
Finally, the units. Not much to say, except they are completely different from the Latins. City militia is mostly the same, except they don't get Crossbow Militia, but rather, Crossbow Levies (so more useful on the field, they offer a better soft performance for their cost than the militia version), and slavic javelinman that can work as a decent, quickly replenishing light infantry. Don't underestimate javelins, I had half a bodyguard unit slaughtered by getting shot by these guys, AFTER charging and killing a good deal of them. They are barely better than spear militia fighting infantry, but at least offer a decent bang for your buck overall and can be a candidate for your standing army core unit. Think only the capital provides them though, but as said, with good replenishment, and you can fill up with mercenary recruitment, will be the exact same unit, although cheaper, and with experience. Mercenaries with conventional recruitment are on a weird spot right now.
Castles, which would usually provide you with your nice cost-effective feudal levy or even early professionals to make your standing army, won't do. For infantry, you get Valach Axemen. They are essentially tribal axemen, somewhat akin to Lithuanians, but... with a pricey upkeep for what they provide you with. Regardless, their offensive stats are just decent enough to assault walls and overpower archers and spearmen, so they have their uses. Then, the Pavise Spearmen. Think something like Serjeants, but coming a bit early. Their replenishment starts at 8 on their pool of 1 though, so don't expect to field large numbers of these until you get a Fortress. Finally, from Fortress Onwards, you get the Light Swordsmen. They are kinda like the Light Serjeants, but a bit... worse. Cheaper though, and will for sure beat the axemen for the spot of assault infantry.
The cavalry though, is interesting. Firstly, at the very start... you don't have a national recruitment. Build a stable outside Tartar regions, it will give you nothing. But the ones that do, will give you nice numbers of Magyar Riders, light cavalry archers that are pretty good shoots, and can do a decent job at melee, specially after their one armor upgrade. Thankfully, you do have your knights, or something close of it, the Magyar Nobles. Not that armored, not packing a devastating charge, but are even better horse archers, fairly survivable thanks to their improved armor and shield, and after running out of arrows, can even work as some medium cavalry. These are the ones you will get from your Small Councils.
Foot archers, don't have much to say. Castles will provide you with Village Archers, levy that can be raised in 1 turn and is cheap but not good for much other than shooting, and barely good at it, and then Vallach Archers, that may look like they have the exact same stats, but their hidden stats may indicate they are slightly better. If worth the increased upkeep though, up to you.
So this is your army, and as you may have noticed, it is not great. Other than your cavalry, you are on a pretty gnarly spot. With Latins, I could make standing armies of Spearmen (with upgraded armor) supported by Archers and some Levy Archers to do most of the killing, alongside Mounted Serjeants or maybe even Knights for the killing blow. You really don't get anything to form an effective line here, be either short of numbers, or defensive stats, and if you are not the kind that likes crossbows, you will probably want to stick to the mounted archers. By using skirmishing, I managed to get some quite impressive victories, targeting commanders and knights with my Nobles while making surgical strikes on their light infantry with the Bodyguard. Keep in mind though, in this mod, cavalry is TERRIBLY weak against archer fire, only shoot if the enemy can't shoot at all. Otherwise, charge and let these quite decent melee horse archers win their pay.