The Archduke and Chevalier Pay the Danegeld

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Grot, Banzai, Suboptimal, Alhambram, keep out, under pain of being MURDERED BY VIKINGS



all others welcome :D 

Archduke, I have some thoughts that I'll post up later. Looking forward to our partnership!

[TheArchduke]

Same here. I did some test/trial runs with all three powers. I will post them this evening with some comments and analysis.

[TheArchduke]

Preshow analysis and games:

How to snowball by conquering cities near the frontlines to buy more units that you do not have to ship everything by hand over.

Sweden, without a longship to block the city, I lost a berserker for an early conquest:

   

Norway 1st try. Berserkers embarked are made of paper. Will die in 2 archer shots.
How not do it:

   

Turn 8 Norway Scotland Conquest:

   

Turn 9 Norway York Conquest:

   

Best I could do without sacrificing units.

So Denmark 1st try:

   

[TheArchduke]

How did I get those danish troops over? By doing 2 a time and using the longboat to cover berserkers, something you need to do as Norway.

So Turn 4 conquest followed by:

   

Turn 11 try to conquer 2 cities at once after Tamworth. Which means Norway could snatch York.

   

Another try. Turn 2 getting there.

   

Turn 3 conquest.

   

Sometimes the AI leaves the pikeman outside getting that city down from 40 to 27. Turn 5, Tamworth is being striked and York is done, possible snatching it from Norway, if they do not focus it or block with longships.

   

[TheArchduke]

Anyway, I post my thoughts on stuff quickly, I think I will wait for your analysis of economics.

- Berserkers must be guarded by longships on sea at all times, if possible.
- Embolon is useless, but the +10 against ranged is important, so left upgrades for longships.
- Supply lines by Utrecht are a problem. The army in place is strong enough to take it, so it might be an idea to take Stettin (Wolin)
- Trade is important for points as well as sweet, sweet money for unit buys. Building is possible but takes ages. Better to build districts for more trade and points.
- Norway will beat us to a GA probably and can pillage more, so the more we conquer quickly, the less they can pillage. Our lone longboat needs to pillage turn 2-3. Vinland is at best a 2nd place for us, but it should be important.
- We can build some longboats with +100% as they can actually get to England in a decent timeframe.
- Dogpile cities with 3 berserkers is easily done and we do not need to wait for rams (exceptions: Franks and Cordoba)
- If we can manage to settle Ireland ahead of Norway, we will win the race for money and raiding easily as our supply lines are much shorter.
- Less pillaging of Holy Sites, as we want more money and points until we convert
- Buy traders immeaditly upon starting.

Anyway, let´s see what you think about this. If I can I will do another trial danish run.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I played a test game of Norway and Denmark each. I didn't take pictures, but probably could load saves and update this. Maybe I'll do that! 

Turn 4 is the earliest I managed the conquest of Thetford, too. I didn't split my army, but flung everything north at York and then Scotland - but with Norway on the map Scotland is probably out. Splitting and going for York and Wales at the same time is probably doable. 

My efforts to send units across the sea before taking Utrecht failed - the city really massacres any troops moving by boat, and I didn't cover them with longships like you did. However, despite all that I was able to sweep around Britain and conquer the whole island by turn 20, bootstrapping with purchased beserkers and a couple of longboats to keep up momentum. 3 'zerkers and 1 boat are enough to smash down a city in 2-3 turns, then it's just a matter of healing, which can be done via promotions or pillaging. 

After Britain, though, Francia is just a wretched slog. Endless waves of Frankish knights outclass any units you can field, and you just have to wade through 'em. I was able to take Rouen and Utrecht amphibiously, but my efforts to push deeper inland failed at first. Huscarls, archers, and catapults I wasn't impressed with - it seems the only useful units are rams, ships, and beserkers. Those are more than enough to get the job done. 

Production-wise, I'm with you, the best use seems to be cash-rushing military units using the oodles of gold our traders make. I prioritized harbors and traders in all my cities, and was able to buy all the muscle I needed through the game. In addition, building up faith and storing it until Theocracy seems like the right play. I was able to spawn in 10 knights right away when I unlocked the government and used those to push myself over the hump in Francia. By turn 60 I had managed to totally eradicate Charlemagne from the map, but I lost a lot of units doing it. It was not an elegant job by any means. 

Okay, so grand strategy, then, I think is right to rush Britain and use cash to snowball our conquest from there. Sweden is mostly cut off and will be a non-factor, and Norway, thankfully, starts with limited land power and has no easy access. I think we have the toughest opponents ahead of us, but we're in the best position to fight them. In the short term, we have 3 nearby targets: Mercia, Utrecht, and what I was thinking as Danzig, not sure what the game calls it. (Edit: Wolin). 

Mercia can be rushed turn 1 and captured by turn 4, and is a necessary stepping stone to England. Definitely we should fling our starting army and navy this way.

But then, Utrecht or Wolin?

Wolin is near Sweden, and is a relatively weak commercial state. It's easily accessible from Denmark, and can be got with just a couple of berserkers and a longboat. It turned into one of my best production cities in the game, much more useful than the useless Copenhagen (which never built anything useful). This one will be on Sweden's hitlist, for sure, but it'd be a real nice feather in our cap, and doesn't need to be defended from Charlemagne. 

Utrecht makes the logistics in the north sea impossible before Knarrs unlocks ocean travel, since it can murder any unit attempting to sail by. Approach by land is difficult from the east, as Frisian swamps and well-placed Frankish encampments make it a tough slog to get your units into place. Taking it also exposes you to endless assaults from Charlemagne trying to get it back. It's near Norway, but Norway would have to send hefty units down here to get it, and we can always see it coming nad intervene.

Given this, I think our best bet is to throw everything at England on turn 1, and support that conquest with cash purchases as we can. We use the homeland units, plus maybe a little built of hand-built support, to rush Wolin, and grab that before Sweden gets any ideas. Then we can shift back west and approach Utrecht by sea, hopefully with support from England, around turn 20. We take those and the British isles, and then we can evaluate how to invade Francia. 

Build-wise, I found builders totally unnecessary. I captured a few in England, used them to repair my pillaging, and that was more than enough. Gold trumps everything else in this mode. Traders are a better investment. 
Settlers are nice enough for Ireland, but I ignored them. Not sure if that was the right play, but Ireland seemed useless and I needed more warm bodies for the Frankish meatgrinder.
Pillaging provides great income. We'll be competing with Norway for this mostly, but I would also expect a few Swedes to place a hand in. We should focus on gold resources, but around turn 30 or 40 we'll want to convert and use the faith to purchase a proper army to conquer Francia. Population points will eventually trump pillaging points, I think. 
I got 1 great admiral during the game, and got 500 points for him. It might be good to ensure we get at least one, to keep Norway from hogging all the Vinland points. But it'll be tough.
Great Generals were mostly useless, with their passive buffs removed.

We're in the best position by far to conquer, so I think that should be our main thrust. Grab Mercia and Wolin to start, then seize England and Utrecht in step 2. Phase 3 is the general assault on Francia.

[TheArchduke]

Rush Britain.
Use Homearmy and support buys to rush Wolin.
Snatch York before Norway can get it, do not bother about Scotland.
Settle Ireland (imo imperative to further deny Norway bases south)
Then use the Wolin Army to take down Utrecht, take Normandy and then pillage and plunder South France or Granada.

Francia is a problem. I think we need to have a serious army and upgraded berserks as well. Any units that are not berserkers seem superflous, we do not want to engage in a slugging match but get in and out. Archers are an absolute hobby beyond the eureka by having 2.

I will try to prepare another test playthrough for the current ideas.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

We'll want 2 Huscarls to get the Vikings eureka, and 2 archers, but yeah, once we've got our longboats out (I found more than 4 or 5 superfluous, mostly), beserkers seem the way to go. Not sure about the knights vs. beserkers question, though. We should be in position to attack Francia by turn 25, on this timeline, which gives us 35 turrns to try and reach the Pyrenees.

I'll do a test run of my own, following this outline, see where I can improve the timeline.

Do you want to be turnplayer? You're a better tactician than me, I think it'd be best.

[TheArchduke]

Hmm, initial questions:

Thetford is doable turn 3! without any pillaging. But delaying it one turn means we can triplepillage it. Worth it? I fear so.

Wolin is a problem, not doable with 2 berserkers and 1 archer or even 2 archers, need a longboat buy and a berserker could possibly die.

Battlecry promoted berserks can York (Eoforwic). Wolin is difficult. Planning those early moves out is VERY difficult. If Wolin or York let their Pikeman wander out of the city it means defense of the city is down from 48 to 27! which means Longships offer substantial support. With a bit of patience and luck, the following timeline is possible:

Turn 3 Thetford
Turn 7 York
Turn 7 Wolin

We should be able to seriously hamper both swedish and norwegian expansion in that case, if Norway is wise they will cockblock York heavily with Longships.

This timeline was also achieved without substantial pillaging, minimal pillaging of farms, which means less points. Wolin however is very nice to have, but I got lucky with an evacuated Pikeman there. Apuole is a turn 6 strike for Sweden, if they know what they do.

York even blocked by 2 longships is difficult as well, I only managed both by lossing 1 berserker each on York and Wolin. Not sure if this is worth it.

At least with Wolin I think it is, but York, hmmm...

   

If I pillage and try not to loose a berserker we are looking at turn 8 for both, with a possible 9 if something goes awry.

The Wolin strikeforce can merge with more buys and 2-3 longships for Utrecht, the english strikeforce takes Wales, buys a settler and goes for Cornwall. We should be there at turn 12.

As soon as Wolin is done we should get 2-3 longships going, berserkers are buy only imo and then harbour shipping what do you think?

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Hmm, initial questions:

Thetford is doable turn 3! without any pillaging. But delaying it one turn means we can triplepillage it. Worth it? I fear so.

I think it's worth it to delay a turn here, UNLESS taking it 1 turn earlier also gets us York and Wales 1 turn earlier. If so, then the early capture speeds up our snowball by that much and we're golden. If it doesn't speed up those two captures, then I think we're better off taking the pillaging points - to say nothing of the extra gold from pillaging! In fact, that's 300 gold we're looking at from the triple pillage, on top of the pillaging rewards - I think that's totally worth it. We should do the slow turn 4 capture. 

Wolin is a problem, not doable with 2 berserkers and 1 archer or even 2 archers, need a longboat buy and a berserker could possibly die.

Battlecry promoted berserks can York (Eoforwic). Wolin is difficult. Planning those early moves out is VERY difficult. If Wolin or York let their Pikeman wander out of the city it means defense of the city is down from 48 to 27! which means Longships offer substantial support. With a bit of patience and luck, the following timeline is possible:

Turn 3 Thetford
Turn 7 York
Turn 7 Wolin

We should be able to seriously hamper both swedish and norwegian expansion in that case, if Norway is wise they will cockblock York heavily with Longships.

This timeline was also achieved without substantial pillaging, minimal pillaging of farms, which means less points. Wolin however is very nice to have, but I got lucky with an evacuated Pikeman there. Apuole is a turn 6 strike for Sweden, if they know what they do.

York even blocked by 2 longships is difficult as well, I only managed both by lossing 1 berserker each on York and Wolin. Not sure if this is worth it.

Wolin is well-worth a beserker - it's the only city-state in reach to our east. If we lose one taking it, then the main delay is at Utrecht - but the extra gold from Wolin will make replacing the beserker much easier, and then later, we'll be coming out ahead. If we prioritize it from turn 1 with our homeguard and a bit of purchasing, we can beat Sweden there almost certainly. That limits Sweden to the Latvian city-state and whatever pillaging they can manage behind Norway and ourselves. They'll have to work really hard to settle Russia and then conquer the eastern Romans. 

As for York, I don't think we want to lose a berserker, UNLESS we trade one to make sure we get the city instead of Norway. Losing a unit in England is a heavier blow, because that slows down Wales and Wessex (there's no way we get Scotland ahead of Norway). Norway has +2 longships, so they can surprise us with how much force they bring to bear. But longships are terrible city attackers, so we should have a bit of wriggle room. The main thing is to avoid weakening cities to the point where 3 longship attacks could take it - I have a spreadsheet to help with this planning. Norway COULD use amphibious beserkers, but those are slow and we should see them coming a turn or two out. As long as we make sure that only beserkers can take a city, we should avoid sniping. 

At least with Wolin I think it is, but York, hmmm...



If I pillage and try not to loose a berserker we are looking at turn 8 for both, with a possible 9 if something goes awry.

The Wolin strikeforce can merge with more buys and 2-3 longships for Utrecht, the english strikeforce takes Wales, buys a settler and goes for Cornwall. We should be there at turn 12.

As soon as Wolin is done we should get 2-3 longships going, berserkers are buy only imo and then harbour shipping what do you think?

Turn 8 or 9 is a great timeline, I think. That should be plenty fast, especially since we get pillaging and avoid losses, all good things. Buy a settler in Wales and settle a cock-blocking city in Ireland - it doesn't even have to be a good city, just something near the center that blocks all other city locations. That way we can save investment on settlers and deny Norway a forward base, at least until they get down to Spain. The city-states on the northern coast are a bit vulnerable, but there's not a lot we can do about that - we can't be everywhere at once. Having a good force of longships to try and take these cities, and certainly pillage our way into the Med, is worth doing, though, especially since we get +100% towards them. Need to make use of our extra military card somehow, right?

Harbor shipping is a good plan - the gold is as good as production and lets us buy units all around the map, but hte GA points represent a potential 1000 point swing to us - norway loses 500 and we gain 500 if we snag one GA and activate Vinland.