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[ysorian]

Spies are such a pain in the arse, it takes forever for them to be hired and then depending on what they are hired as, then u get the options as to what they can do... although the pope thing i was talkin about he was originally a spy, hired by a foreign country to be a cleric and he eventually became pope. funny

[Fubb]

Hm....if only i could get rid of all my merchants and make everyman a Marshall and go to war with everyone though my man power would be gone! honestly i'd be nothing if it weren't for caputigin Ulster, cause the highlands man power comes back waaay to slowly to fight a war...now i have all of York, ill invade Wessex next, then East Anglia, then Wales, then Lothian, and all of England will be mine, THEN i'll invade Normandy!

I won't turn on my Irish brothers though...Think ill invade Cork, give it to Leinster, then after acquiring suitable estates, I'll also give Ulster to Ireland and make ireland my best bud. We'll chill together and down a few brewskies

[Japo]

I'm playing now, it looks good. I took Pamplona, I wanted to focus on developing but I was at war with Leon and they refused my white peace offer so I conquered it whole. The war unrest will go away soon right? Now I'm cool with everyone, I have a trade agreement with Cordoba, and "Spain" (Catalonia) is scared to death of me, she will sign anything, not that I have any use for that? She's at war with Cordoba and Burgundy, poor bastards, they won't last, can you think of a way for me to profit from this without getting in too much trouble and decreasing my power?

"Italy" (Lombardy, WTF there was no such kingdom at that time right?) conquered a couple of French provinces and turned the remains into her vassal LOL.

I guess a lot of people have figured this out, but the first thing I'm spending my one marshal's experience in is the pick that makes him learn faster. Doing some math it turns out that the extra experience has completely paid out the 3 points expense before level 7, and after that you're getting twice as much experience for free.

What can you say about fighting units? I could train only peasants and spearmen during this war. I was disappointed because in my experience the latter don't turn out to be better than peasants overall, despite the huge cost difference; but I still keep a couple of spearmen companies around to own the knights.

[ianfreddie07]

I play as Muscovy today, and I must say it's been a blast. Kinda better experience compared to playing as York or East Anglia. All my marshals have the same squads: 5 companies of Men-at-Arms, 2 companies of Boyars and 2 companies of Steppe Cavalry.

[Japo]

Catalonia convinced me to join her war against Lombardy, because that allowed me to snatch territories. Lombardy has many more soldiers and at first they set for my capital, but when I garrisoned it a little they chose to attack Catalonia instead. To be honest the Catalonian resistance against several major powers was heroic, and they held out very long. Finally they have been annexed by Cordoba.

From Lombardy I have taken all the French provinces (more like Gaulish ones LOL, France is now one province thanks to Germany), Corsica, Sardinia and one in Italy. They're closing on my ridiculously few troops, if they don't accept a white peace (keeping what I easily conquered) I'll let them keep one of the provinces.

Now I'm a major kingdom and the little ones love/fear me (I have married my two princes), but the most powerful ones hate me. I wanted to be on good terms with Cordoba but now they hate me, Germany has threatened war several times without declaring it. I want to develop and raise my power so I can fight later on my own terms.

In this game territories can change hands way too easily. All these wars have been fought in very little time and everyone is still using peasants only!

I also like the Healer marshal skill, negating more than two thirds of your casualties is like cheating. And then leadership and dread.

[Fubb]

I united Scotland as the highlands and am the 3rd most powerful kingdom militarily im trying to be friends with Germany cause it's my only major threat

[Japo]

This game is crazy, I got into a war with Cordoba, then Italy who's allied declared war too. Since I was fighting Italy, who was at war with Germany, the latter then started to like me, also the emperor was replaced by his heir, and before I had to increase my armies maybe he saw me oversized and little protected and ripe for conquest? I foolishly took the occasion to sign an alliance with Germany, but that only got me into more stupid wars and I haven't been able to choose the time.

I liked to lead the battles myself but now there are so many I always automate them. Now Pamplona is the largest and most powerful empire, but I'm again stuck in wars against the next challenger (Lotharingia, who was modest until she owned Germany, who now "finds my power frightening") and her allies.

But I've done many things wrong. I didn't see the purpose of alliances is getting you free war declarations more than protecting yourself. And I really have to re-design the development of most towns, I just noticed some buildings can be upgraded LOL, and I'll have to disband some buildings so I have room for others (tell me how stupid is it that you have a limited number of "slots" for buildings in a town?!).

[Japo]

Man this game is addicting. :/ I got tired of the chaos and started over with Normandy. My first king was a genius diplomat and even though I was a worthless one-province country he got trade agreements with the major cash pots. I've been developing the provinces right from the start and choosing carefully whom to mess with, now I have all the resources and I'm the first power.

My empire is coastal, I like to travel by sea because it's faster. Though the "strategist" marshal skill (march 50% faster) is great when you have to traverse long distances on land. All my marshals take first fast learner, then healer, dread, leadership, siege engineer, and strategist.

I've been using normans and longbowmen. I tried knights and when automated they're good in the open but they get slaughtered in assaults, so they're no good. Now that I can I'm replacing the normans with templars.

I finally understood that your relations with other nations depend entirely on what you do to them and to their friends and enemies. When I was attacking one of the Moorish kingdoms to get salt, their ally and my top trading partner Egypt, who was the top power besides me, turned to hate me and finally declared war. I got what I wanted from the Moors, turned them into my vassals, then forgetting all common sense I conquered Holy Land (it took forever going there and back). Since it's so freaking far I would have had to leave a marshal there to quell loyalist rebellions, so I adopted the population.

[Fubb]

As scotland right now, I own Northern Ireland, Scotland, England, and the south-western tip of france that borders with Spain. Im one of the most powerful kingdoms right now, and at the moment, my current plans are to gain closer ties with Germany, Expand into Normandy, and try to take over as much as france I can (everyone is at war with France) and then move to Denmark and try and get some Teuintonic knights, by taking over one of their territories! Byzantine, my good friend and trade partner, is getting eaten away by it's neighbours, so I keep sending them gol din a hope the war turns around, but right now they are only 'stemming the tide' so to speak, I may have to prepare my army and send it floating over to the holy land to help them!

Only problem with that is that I will then have no armies at home to deal with the loyalist rebels that keep revolting in southern england! Sigh, all in the day of the king I suppose.

[Japo]

I don't like Templars so much any longer... Their squads number 20 men only, which means that they have to be refilled very often as soon as they lose a couple of men, and that's insanely expensive. Normans are pretty decent and their squads number 40 and are four times cheaper, I think I'll turn back to them.

I'm not playing lately, let's see if I'll continue it some day... The only thing left was taking over the whole world though. :P This is my current empire, I've coloured it red (more or less, colours weren't flat to start with):



I just started to give it some land continuity, as I said I preferred to conquer coastal provinces so far. Last thing, I was making the most of a small period of peace to adopt my provinces, now that I have a half decent book production, so I'm hindered by fewer rebellions during the next war.

I still haven't got the hang of relations, I just declared war on (and annexed) the Highlands and Ulster even though I had never considered them relevant because their provinces had no resources, only because I thought it wouldn't be a bad thing befriending York who was at war with them, and after first praising my intervention now York hates me (and they control the Pope...) :/